Byron.
Freudenthal was full of ghosts for the Grävenitz: Madame de Ruth, her dead friend; Zollern, who had bade her farewell for ever; and Eberhard Ludwig, the unfaithful lover of her vanished youth. She walked in the gardens, listening involuntarily for the voice which had so often called 'Philomèle beloved' from the orchard gate. There was no consolation on earth for her, she knew that; all she had loved, all she had achieved, her power, her great honours, were dead things. The forced inaction of her future tortured her. How would she pass the long dreary hours of the rest of her life? True, the Jewish community of Freudenthal had greeted her with enthusiasm; they were faithful, these despised Israelites. For a moment it had warmed her heart back to a little interest in living. She busied herself with the affairs of the village, but she was used to a press of work, of governing, of vital interests; how could these minor matters occupy her for long?
She tried to read, but though her eyes followed the lines her thoughts flashed away to Ludwigsburg. She struck a few chords on the spinet; unconsciously her fingers glided into a melody Eberhard Ludwig had loved, and only a sob broke from her lips when she would have sung. Ghosts at Freudenthal? She was the ghost herself; she was the shadow of bygone days—the poor, yearning, broken-hearted ghost.
They came and told her that Serenissimus had returned from Berlin, and that he had been greeted by the news of the Erbprinz's serious illness. Prince Friedrich had fallen ill of a nervous fever, they said. Ah, yes! she told herself she had caused it; in her morbid sadness she took the blame of every untoward occurrence upon her shoulders. She had caused Friedrich Ludwig to fall ill, for great emotions must perforce shatter so frail a being as he was, and she had tortured him, tempted him.
One day two travelling coaches rolled into Freudenthal—the Sittmann tribe arrived. It was but ill received by the Grävenitz. Why had they come? she asked. Her sister informed her that Serenissimus had broken up the court of Ludwigsburg; he was to reside henceforth at Stuttgart. Had she not heard? Oh, yes! His Highness was reconciled with the Duchess, and it was disagreeable for former members of the Ludwigsburg court nowadays. This latter was said in a whiny tone of reproach.
'Get you gone to your own apartments, my sister and my sister's brats! If stay you must at Freudenthal, then stay, but leave me now,' the Grävenitz said; and though she was no longer the all-powerful Landhofmeisterin, still there was that about her which made the parasites shrink back. But they had done enough, had they not? in telling her thus roughly that the woman she had loathed and despised with all jealousy's venom during twenty years, had triumphed over her at last.
The Grävenitz stood before one of the most galling of life's lessons, she had to bow to the inexorable commonplace. Her whole being was agonised; she was breasting the dark waters of despair, she was living a tragedy, but everyday life had to go on as usual: the necessary routine of it, the dressing, the eating, the lying down to rest at night. She heard the village children singing on their way home from school, and the harvesters driving merrily to the fields. Sometimes she would cry out in protest against Nature, against the unalterable, indifferent working of the universe: the smiling sun, the peace of summer evenings. All things went their way heedless of her tragedy.
Summer blossomed gloriously; then the long, weary days grew shorter, and autumn brought endless nights to the stricken woman. Once, twice she had written to Serenissimus, but no answer came to her.
The Erbprinz still battled with death. Eberhard Ludwig and Johanna Elizabetha watched together at his bedside, and the Erbprincessin sat stonily silent in the darkened room whose gloom seemed deepened by the poor girl's overshadowed mind.
Then in October came the news that Death had conquered; the Erbprinz had passed away, and the Erbprincessin, half-mad already, had fallen into such despair that her clouded soul grew utterly black, and she raved in hopeless insanity. Truly God's hand was heavy upon Wirtemberg.