"I dreamed last night," said he to Pollnitz, laughing, "that I created princes, dukes, and barons in Breslau; help me to make my dream a reality by naming to me some of the most prominent families."
Pollnitz selected the names, and Prince von Pless, Duke Hockburg, and many others rose up proudly from this creative process of the king.
Silesia belonged, at this moment, unconditionally to Prussia. The king could now return to Berlin and devote himself to study, to friendship, and his family. The first act of that great drama called the Seven Years' War was now finished. The king should now, between the acts, give himself up to the arts and sciences, and strengthen himself for that deep tragedy of which he was resolved to be the hero. Berlin received her king with shouts of joy, and greeted him as a demigod. He was no longer, in the eyes of the imperious Austrians, the little Margrave of Brandenburg, who must hold the wash-basin for the emperor; he was a proud, self-sustaining king, no longer receiving commands from Austria, but giving laws to the proud daughter of the Caesars.
The queen-mother and the young princesses met the king at the outer gates. The queen Elizabeth Christine, her eyes veiled with rapturous tears, received her husband tremblingly. Alas! he had for her only a silent greeting, a cold, ceremonious bow. But she saw him once more; she could lose her whole soul in those melting eyes, in which she was ever reading the most enchanting magical fairy tales. In these days of ceremony he could not refuse her a place by his side; to sit near him at table, and at the concerts with which the royal chapel and the newly-arrived Italian singers would celebrate the return of the king. Graun had composed a piece of music in honor of this occasion, and not only the Italian singer, Laura Farinelli, but a scholar of Graun and Quantz, a German singer, Anna Prickerin, would then be heard for the first time. This would be for Anna an eventful and decisive day; she stood on the brink of a new existence—an existence made glorious by renown, honor, and distinction.
It was nothing to her that her father lay agonizing upon his death-bed; it was nothing to her that her brother William had left his home three days before, and no one knew what had become of him. She asked no questions about father or brother; she sorrowed not for the mother lately dead and buried. She had but one thought, one desire, one aim—to be a celebrated singer, to obtain the hand of a man whom she neither loved nor esteemed, but who was a baron and an influential lord of the court. The object of Anna's life was to become the wife of the baron, not for love. She wished to hide her ignoble birth under the glitter of his proud name; it was better to be the wife of a poor baron than the daughter of a tailor, even though he should be the court tailor, and a millionnaire.
The king had been in Berlin but two days, and Pollnitz had already made a visit to his beautiful Anna. Never had he been so demonstrative and so tender; never before had he been seriously occupied with the thought of making her his wife; never had he looked upon it as possible. The example of Count Rhedern gave him courage; what the king had granted to the daughter of the merchant, he could not refuse to the daughter of the court tailor, more particularly when the latter, by her own gifts and talents, had opened the doors of the palace for herself; when by the power of her siren voice she had made the barriers tremble and fall which separated the tailor's daughter from the court circle. If the lovely Anna became a celebrated singer, if she succeeded in winning the applause of the king, she would be ennobled; and no one could reproach the baron for making the beautiful prima donna his wife. If, therefore, she pleased the king, Pollnitz was resolved to confess himself her knight, and to marry her as soon as possible—yes, as soon as possible, for his creditors followed him, persecuted him at every step, even threatened him with judgment and a prison. Pollnitz reminded the king that he had promised, after his return from Silesia, to assist him. Frederick replied that he had not yet seen a battle-field, and was at the beginning and not the end of a war, for which he would require more gold than his treasuries contained; "wait patiently, also," he said, "for the promised day, for only then can I fulfil my promise." It was, therefore, a necessity with Pollnitz to find some way of escape from this terrible labyrinth; and with an anxiously-beating heart he stood on the evening of the concert behind the king's chair, to watch every movement and every word, and above all to notice the effect produced by the voice of his Anna.
The king was uncommonly gay and gracious; these two days in his beloved Berlin, after weeks of fatigue and weariness in Silesia, had filled his heart with gladness. He had given almost a lover's greeting to his books and his flute, and his library seemed to him a sanctified home; with joy he exchanged his sword for a pen, and instead of drawing plans of battle, he wrote verses or witty letters to Voltaire, whom he still honored, and in a certain sense admired, although the six days which Voltaire had spent in Rheinsberg, just before the Silesian campaign, had somewhat diminished his admiration for the French author. After Frederick's first meeting with Voltaire at the castle of Moyland, he said of him, "He is as eloquent as Cicero, as charming as Plinius, and as wise as Agrippa; he combines in himself all the virtues and all the talents of the three greatest men of the ancients." He now called the author of the "Henriade" a FOOL; it excited and troubled his spirit to see that this great author was mean and contemptible in character, cold and cunning in heart. He had loved Voltaire as a friend, and now he confessed with pain that Voltaire's friendship was a possession which must be cemented with gold, if you did not wish to lose it. The king who, a few months before, had compared him to Cicero, Plinius, and Agrippa, now said to Jordan, "The miser, Voltaire, has still an unsatisfied longing for gold, and asks still thirteen hundred dollars! Every one of the six days which he spent with me cost me five hundred and fifty dollars! I call that paying dear for a fool! Never before was a court fool so generously rewarded."
To-day Frederick was expecting a new enjoyment; to-day, for the first time, he was to hear the new Italian singer. This court concert promised him, therefore, a special enjoyment, and he awaited it with youthful impatience.
At last Graun gave the signal for the introduction; Frederick had no ear for this simple, beautiful, and touching music; and the masterly solo of Quantz upon the flute drew from him a single bravo; he thought only of the singers, and at last the chorus began.
The heart of Pollnitz beat loud and quick as he glanced at Anna, who stood proud and grave, in costly French toilet, far removed from the Farinelli. Anna examined the court circles quietly, and looked as unembarrassed as if she had been long accustomed to such society.