The man's manner changed. This must be some great lady if she could pay him in gold when he would have let her in for a few groschen. Well, these travellers often had strange fancies; and if it pleased her to pay so much for so small a thing!—He took the money and moved aside.
'Go in, go in, lady! Shall I come round with you? I have heard tell all about the old days here: I can show you where Duke Eberhard Ludwig lived, and where the Duke Karl died. I will go fetch the castle keys.' She shuddered.
'No! no! I do not wish to see; I will only walk in the garden. Do not disturb yourself,' she said hastily, and passed on. The gatekeeper followed her a few steps: 'You can see the gardens of La Favorite, if you wish; you need only walk straight from the north terraces and you will come to La Favorite,' he called after her. How strange it was to be thus directed by a newcomer, told the way, shown what she had planned and devised yard by yard. She nodded to the man. 'I thank you, I shall find my way,' she answered.
And now she was free to wander in the past, free to suffer the exquisite pain of memory. She walked slowly on. How the trees had grown! And the little lilacs she had planted—they were tall bushes now. The paths were grass-grown, the water in the basin of the fountain on the south side was covered with weeds and thick green slime, the large stone vases which stood round the basin were moss-covered. The lichen hid the medallions on the vases, the medallions which bore her sculptured portrait. There were the clumps of rose peonies she had planted—in bud too—she would never see them flower again. On, through the gardens to the courtyard where grass grew between the paving-stones. The palace windows were closed and shuttered. No sound broke the stillness of this deserted dwelling-place. The thought came to her that only herself, a ghost of past glories, and perhaps the sinister spectre of the White Lady, moved about the dead palace. She passed on. The door of the main entrance on the ground floor of the Corps de Logis stood ajar. Strange that it should be so in this shut house. She entered; no, it could not matter even if the doors had stood wide open, for the hall was entirely empty—not a chair or table for a thief to drag away! And the well-remembered staircase, leading to Eberhard Ludwig's apartments, was boarded up with rough deal planks.
The air struck chill and tomblike in the entrance-hall, yet the Grävenitz lingered. Yes; there from the ceiling her own face looked down at her in two bas-reliefs. In one the face was smiling with half-open, voluptuous lips, and the eyes, a little drooping, told of some delicious thrill of passion. Opposite this was the figure of Time, winged and frowning, with huge scythe-blades in his mighty hands. She shuddered; those relentless blades had indeed mown down the little day of her love's triumph. What devil had prompted the Italian Frisoni to illustrate this terrible truth upon the very palace built to honour her?
Across the entrance-hall she saw another bas-relief, again her face, but serious this time, looking fixedly, gravely upwards—the expression of one who aspires, of one who would compel Destiny. Facing this was a medallion bearing a ducal crown in the centre, the scroll-work round this medallion was made of giant thorns, and a peering, mocking satyr's face peeped out from the thorn wreath.
Had the Italian dared to mock her thus? And in the old days she had not noted the insolent meaning underlying the beautiful designs! How she would have revenged herself upon the artist!
She turned away. After all, the man had spoken truly in his sculptured allegory: Time, and Change, and Death are more mighty than Love, than Joy, than Power. She mused on, and unconsciously her wanderings, led by old custom's memory, brought her to the vaulted arcade beside the door of the east pavilion where she had dwelt. Here, too, her own face met her in the bas-reliefs. Graceful designs of musical instruments, emblems of her taste, and everywhere laughing Cupids held wreathed flowers, viole d'amore, harps and lutes around the mistress-musician's voluptuous face.
The carven stone held for ever the memory of Eberhard Ludwig's homage in the beauteous picturing of Love, Laughter, Music—all that she had wielded with such potency to charm; and she knew that the sneering artist-architect had hidden everywhere the figure of Time the Avenger; sometimes she had called him the Consoler, but she knew him better now as the Eternally Pitiless, waiting to reap his harvest—the flowers reaped with the wheat.
Suddenly the full message came to her: 'All things wither, but the remembrance of the sinful light of love is bitter pain, whereas the memory of the pure woman is sweet with children's tears.' She had read the words in some book, they smote her now. In an agony of weeping she leaned her head against the stone picture of Music, Love, and Laughter, and her own young face. 'O God! O God! have I not atoned by pain?' she moaned.
