Maria hovered about, after the lackeys had departed with the chest. Did her Excellency wish for this or that? Should she accompany her Ladyship's Grace to La Favorite? Calmly the Landhofmeisterin bade her precede her, she would follow in a few moments. She heard Maria locking the wardrobes in the chamber below, listened to her giving orders for the redding up of the apartments, exactly as she had heard the maid finish her preparations for departure a hundred times before starting for Urach or Freudenthal.
'Beloved, the coaches await us; shall we begin our journey?' The Landhofmeisterin started. Yes; that was how Eberhard Ludwig had summoned her in the old, happy days. Her nerves had tricked her, it was only an echo of long ago. Could everything, indeed, be ended? Was she leaving Ludwigsburg for ever? Ah, no, no! how absurd! Of course Serenissimus would recall her directly this blustering King had gone back to his drill at Berlin! And yet——
She moved slowly round her rooms. Fifteen years since Frisoni had conducted her to her pavilion! She recalled how she and Eberhard Ludwig had laughed at the little Italian's ruse, when he led them up and down corridors and stairs in order to reach her apartments from his Highness's rooms. The memory of their mirth was torture to her. Once more she took the key from her bosom and, passing through the statue gallery, she gained the hiding-place behind the arras. She listened, but there was no sound; she pressed the secret spring of the tapestry door and entered the writing-closet. Slowly she walked round the room; she had not come to rob the bureau this time, nor to upbraid her lover, nor to tempt him once again. No; she had come to bid farewell, to look her last upon the familiar scene. One of the Duke's gauntleted hunting-gloves lay on the floor; she stooped and lifted it and put it to her lips. Then the full sense of her loneliness came to her, and she sobbed aloud. She hurried away, and her last vision of that well-known room was blurred by her tears.
One parting look round her own apartments, and she passed out on to the roofed terrace which led from the Corps de Logis to the West Pavilion. Here her own face met her on sculptured vaulting and ornamented wall. Her face, young, smiling, voluptuous, surrounded by the emblems of music held by Cupids. Love, music, and herself. What a mockery it seemed to her, this open homage, this enduring monument of a dead passion!
With steady tread she paced down the flight of stone steps to the second terrace. Again a statue with her features met her eye. Frisoni had designed the pedestal. She remembered how she had laughed at the Italian for drawing a figure of Time with huge wings and holding giant sickle-blades in his oversized hands. She had called it awkward and ill-conceived, and the Italian had told her that Time was an awkward giant; that he crushed strength and glory sometimes, and left weakness and shame to live. She had hardly noted the answer then, but it came back to her now. She looked at the sickle-blades and shuddered, knowing that Time had mown her down at last.
All day the Landhofmeisterin busied herself with her books, with playing upon the spinet, and singing her favourite songs. She was a prey to fearful unrest. Night fell, the hunters had returned, and yet his Highness sent no word to her he had called 'Life of my Life.' Perchance he was much occupied. The Prussian King was an exacting guest, she told herself; framing excuses, reasons, all the pitiful resources of a woman's heart, to explain away her beloved's coldness. The fact that the courtiers held aloof from her caused her no pain, only bitter anger, yet even for these she elaborated reasons of absence. How often had she wearied of these people's importunities, how often longed to be left in peace, and yet now she would have given vast sums could she have seen her antechamber full again. She knew that Friedrich Wilhelm's visit would terminate on the morning following the wild-boar sticking in the Kernen forest. Would he go, this rough, virtue-loving despot? She remembered how he had tarried four whole weeks at Dresden when he had paid a visit to Augustus the Strong some years before. And this in spite of his disapproval of the reigning favourite, the Countess Orzelska, and the many lesser stars of that licentious court. Good Heavens! would he stay four weeks at Ludwigsburg? She smiled; even in her despair there was something humorous in her being which no sadness could dull, and she found her own dismay at the honoured guest's possible procrastination a trifle comic.
Eberhard Ludwig must come back to her—he must; she repeated it over and over again. The night brought her no rest; always the same hammering thought, the torturing, nagging possibilities, the tangle of recollections. Sometimes she slipped away for a few moments into a restless sleep, but her dreams were as terrible as her waking thoughts. She was journeying in her coach to Stetten, the horses galloped fast—ever faster!—Eberhard Ludwig was at her side, then, with a gesture of anger, he flung himself out of the carriage. She was alone, and the horses were rushing onwards. A giant figure, of pitiless face, stood in their way—a being with huge, gnarled hands which held enormous sickle-blades. The horses were mown down, now the blades were descending over her. 'Great God! Mercy! he is cutting out my heart!' she awoke screaming.
Then the strain of agonised thought began once more to whirl in her mind. Eberhard Ludwig must come back—he must. She fell asleep, and again the Dream Demon took hold of her. Now she was in Duke Christopher's Grotto in Stuttgart. The mob was nearing her, and her feet always slipped back on the slimy steps—she would never gain the first gallery. A shadowy figure with bleeding hands barred her way—the White Lady—the murderess. 'Back to the world to take your punishment!' the ghost whispered, and oh, horror! she pushed her back with those terrible, bleeding hands—back, down the slippery, slimy steps towards the crowd.
Eberhard Ludwig led the mob, and the Prussian King was with him. 'Beloved of my life, heart of my soul!' the Duke said, and clasped her to him; but his arms had become sickle-blades and they cut her to the heart, while Friedrich Wilhelm laughed and waved a cudgel. It hit her on the brow, blow after blow. 'Wanton, wanton, witch and wanton!' the King bawled at each stroke. She was dreaming; she knew it, she must awake; but the Dream Demon had not done with her. Now she was with Würben, now with Madame de Ruth, now at Güstrow, now at Urach in the Golden Hall, but always the glistening sickle-blades followed her. Würben cut at her with them; Madame de Ruth, Monsieur Gabriel, every one had got these searing blades, and always Eberhard Ludwig stood watching, watching, and he did not save her!
