"Four nights from this you will find the window which you know open, and the door which leads to the small stair, only closed. Come at the hour of eleven, and you will receive a compensation for the scarf you have lost this evening. Hush—no word; look not around, move onward indifferently; turn not your head. Farewell! in four days—at eleven—go!"
"I had to prepare a coat of mail for him, in order that he might be invulnerable," whispered Amelia tremblingly; exhausted and remorseful, she sank back upon the tabouret. "The beautiful Kleist shall not ravish my beloved from me. He loves me—me alone; and he shall no longer complain of my cruelty. I dare not be cruel! I dare not make him unhappy, for she might comfort him. He shall love nothing but me, only me! If Louise von Kleist pursues him with her arts, I will murder her—that is all!"
CHAPTER V.
A SHAME-FACED KING.
The king laid his flute aside, and walked restlessly and sullenly about his room. His brow was clouded, and he had in vain sought distraction in his faithful friend, the flute. Its soft, melodious voice brought no relief; the cloud was in his heart, and made him the slave of melancholy. Perhaps it was the pain of separation from his sister which oppressed his spirit.
The evening before, the princess had taken leave of the Berliners at the opera-house, that is, she had shown herself to them for the last time. While the prima donna was singing her most enchanting melodies, the travelling carriage of Ulrica drove to the door. The king wished to spare himself the agony of a formal parting, and had ordered that she should enter her carriage at the close of the opera, and depart, without saying farewell.
The people knew this. They were utterly indifferent to the beautiful opera of "Rodelinda," and fixed their eyes steadily upon the king's loge. They thus took a silent and affectionate leave of their young princess, who appeared before them for the last time, in all the splendor of her youth and beauty, and the dignity of her proud and royal bearing. An unwonted silence reigned throughout the house; all eyes were turned to the box where the princess sat between the two queens. Suddenly the door was thrown open, and the young Prince Ferdinand rushed, with open arms, to his sister.
"My dear, dear Ulrica!" he cried, weeping and sobbing painfully, "must it then be so? Do I indeed see you for the last time?" With childish eagerness he embraced his sister, and leaned his head upon her bosom. The princess could no longer control herself; she mingled her tears with those of her brother, and drawing him softly out of view, she whispered weeping and trembling words of tenderness; she implored him not to forget her, and promised to love him always.
The queen-mother stood near. She had forgotten that she was a queen, and remembered only that she was a mother about to lose her child forever; the thought of royal dignity and courtly etiquette was for some moments banished from her proud heart; she saw her children heart-broken and weeping before her, and she wept with them. [Footnote: Schneider's "History of the Opera and the Royal Opera- House.">[
The people saw this. Never had the most gracious smile, the most condescending word of her majesty, won their hearts so completely as these tears of the mother. Every mother felt for this woman, who, though a queen, suffered a mother's anguish; and every maiden wept with this young girl, who, although entering upon a splendid future, shed hot tears over the happy past and the beloved home. When the men saw their wives and children weeping, and the prince not ashamed of his tears, they also wept, from sympathy and love to the royal house. In place of the gay jest and merry laughter wont to prevail between the acts, scarcely suppressed sobs were the only sounds to be heard. The glorious singer Salimberri was unapplauded. The Barbarina danced, but the accustomed bravos were hushed.