TITAN.
[SEVENTEENTH JUBILEE.]
Princely Nuptial-territion.[[1]]—Illumination of Lilar.
77. CYCLE.
What a universal joy of the people could now ring and roar, for a space of eight days, from one frontier of the land to the other! For so long was the public sorrow suspended; the bells sounded for something better than a march to the grave; music was again allowed to all musical clocks and people; all theatres would have been opened, had there been one there, or had the court been shut up, which was a continual play-house; and now one could walk and visit and promulgate decrees in high places, without the black border. By and by, when this refreshing interlude was over, during which one enjoyed orchestra, punch, and cakes, they were to go back again with the more zest to weeping and tragedies.
On the morning of the tedious procession of carriages going forth to form the escort, the Prince rode out beforehand over the limits, with Bouverot and Albano,—all three as being the only people in the land who were independent and uninterested in the festival. Poor Luigi! I have already very distinctly stated, in the first volume of "Titan," that the princely bridegroom who to-day mounts the bridal bed can only be a father of his country, not father of a family. Under the heaven of his princely throne, as on the first row of the chess-field, all is to be made and regenerated,—officers, even the queen of chess, but not the Schach[[2]] himself. It were to be wished, since the circumstance makes the festival shade into the ridiculous, that the bridegroom could only, by way of shaming many old families that laugh at him,—old so often, even in the heraldic and medical sense at once,—show them some dozen of the princes ranged around the nuptial altar, whom he has seated in Calabria, Wales, Asturia, in Dauphiny,—all Europe was a Dauphiny to him,—in short, in so many active[[3]] hereditary lands,—that is, the heirs, not heirlooms, of foreign princes. Could he do that, then would he look more contentedly into this day's congratulations, because some dozen fulfilments would be already standing by, and awaiting his nod. But as the Marchioness of Exeter can transform the bed of the Marquis in London, which costs three thousand pounds, into a throne, so must the Princess also do with hers, without being able, like her, to reverse the transformation.
I will therefore introduce and lead him out on the dancing-floor of to-day's joy, not at all as bridegroom, but, in every instance,—just as we speak of the crown without the crowned head,—merely as Bridegroom's-coat, so as not to make him ridiculous. Albano rode along with a breast full of indignation, scorn, and pity beside this victim of dark state policy, and simply could not comprehend how it was that Luigi did not send the German gentleman, that hired axe and uprooter of his family tree, with one kick far behind him howling. Good youth! a prince more easily sets himself free from men whom he loves, than from such as he has full long hated; for his fear is stronger than his love.
The great-hearted, never narrow-chested, always broad-breasted youth found to-day, in his solemn, painful frame of mind, everything tragical, noble and ignoble, greater than it was. He showed, indeed, only a fiery eye and animated countenance, because he was too young and modest to make a display of personal grief; but beneath the eye, which was fixed on the spot of blue in the heavens where his dark clouds were this day to break away or fall upon him, stood the glistening tear-drop. The coming evening, into which he had so often looked as into a hell, and full as often as into a heaven, stood now, as a confused medium between the two, so near,—ah, hard by him! A throng of kindred feelings attended him to the (in his opinion unhappy) bride of—his father and this prince.