Her head sank upon her breast, and she was lost in sad and melancholy dreams; a few cold tears dropping slowly upon her cheeks aroused her; with a rash movement, she raised her head, and shook the tears from her eyes; then looked again in the glass. "Why does not the prince love me?" whispered she again to herself with trembling lips. "I see it, I know it! It is written in unmistakable lines in this poor face. I know why he loves me not. These great blue eyes have no fire, no soul; this mouth has no magical, alluring smile. Yes, alas! yes, that is a lovely form; but the soul fails!—a fine nature, but the power of intellect is wanting. My Father, my heavenly Father, I sleep; my soul lies dead and stiffened in the coffin with my secret sorrows; the prince could awaken it with his kisses, could breathe a new life into it by a glance."
The princess raised her arms imploringly on high, and her trembling lips whispered, "Pygmalion, why come you not to awaken thy Galatea? Why will you not change this marble statue into a woman of flesh and blood, with heart and soul? These lips are ready to smile, to utter a cry of rapture and delight, and behind the veil of my eyes lies a soul, which one touch of thine will arouse! O Frederick! Frederick! why do you torture me? Do you not know that your wife worships, loves, adores you; that you are her salvation, her god? Oh, I know these are unholy, sinful words! what then? I am a sinner! I am ready to give my soul in exchange for thee, Frederick. Why do you not hear me?—why have not my sighs, my tears the power to bring you to my side?"
The poor, young wife sank powerless into her chair, and covering her face with her hands, wept bitterly. Gay voices and loud laughter, sounding from beneath her window, aroused her from this trance of grief.
"That is Madame Brandt and the Duke of Brunswick," said Elizabeth, hastening to the window, and peeping from behind the curtains into the garden. Yes, there stood the duke in lively conversation with Jordan Kaiserling Chazot, and the newly-arrived Bielfeld; but the ladies were nowhere to be seen, and the princess concluded they were already in the ante-room, and that the prince would soon join her.
"He must not see that I have wept; no one must see that." She breathed upon her handkerchief, and pressed its damp folds upon her eyes. "No, I will smile and be gay like Madame Brandt and Morien. I will laugh and jest, and no one shall guess that my heart is bleeding and dying with inexplicable grief. Yes, gay will I be, and smiling; so only can I please my husband." She gave a sad, heart-breaking laugh, which was echoed loudly and joyously in the ante-room.
CHAPTER XII.
THE POEM.
The ladies of the court, and those who were guests at the palace of Rheinsberg, were assembled, and waiting in the ante-room, as the princess royal had supposed. A few of them had withdrawn to one of the windows with Madame von Katch, the first lady of honor, and were conversing in low voices, while Madame von Brandt and Madame von Morien held an earnest but low-toned conversation in another part of the room.
Madame von Morien listened anxiously to her friend, arid the varying emotions of her soul were clearly mirrored on her speaking countenance. At one moment a happy smile overspread her lovely features, but the next a cloud lay on that pure, fair brow, and darkened those black and glorious eyes.