“As soon as you arrive in Berlin, go to the castle, call the page of the princess, and box him soundly for his villany. Go!”
The king stood sunk in deep thought in the window-niche, long after Pollnitz had left the room; he appeared to forget that his ministers were waiting for him; he thought of his sister Amelia’s long, sad life, of her constancy and resignation, and a profound and painful pity filled his heart.
“Surely I dare at length grant her the poor consolation of having brought about his release,” said he to himself. “She has been so long and so terribly punished for this unhappy passion, that I will give her the consolation of plucking a few scentless blossoms from the grave of her heart. Let her turn to the fireman of the empress, and may my pious aunt be warmed up by his representations and prayers! I will not interfere; and if Maria Theresa intercedes for Trenck, I will not remember that he is a rebellious subject and a traitor, worthy of death. I will remember that Amelia has suffered inexpressibly for his sake, that her life is lonely and desolate—a horrible night, in which one feeble ray of sunshine may surely be allowed to fall. Poor Amelia! she loves him still!”
As Frederick stepped from the window and passed into the other room, he murmured to himself:
“There is something beautiful in a great, rich human heart. Better to die of grief and disappointment than to be made insensible by scorn and disdain—to be turned to stone!”
CHAPTER VIII. THE CLOUDS GATHER.
While the king lived alone and quiet in Sans-Souci, and occupied himself with his studies and his government, the gayeties and festivities continued uninterrupted in Rheinsberg. It seemed that Prince Henry had no other thought, no other desire than to prepare new pleasures, new amusements for his wife. His life had been given up for so many years to earnest cares, that he now sought to indemnify himself by an eager pursuit after pleasure. Fete succeeded fete, and all of the most elegant and accomplished persons in Berlin, all those who had any claim to youth, beauty, and amiability, were invariably welcome at the palace of the prince.
It was late in the autumn, and Prince Henry had determined to conclude the long succession of wood and garden parties by a singular and fantastic entertainment. Before they returned to the saloons, the winter-quarters of pleasure, they wished to bid farewell to Nature. The nymphs of the wood and the spring, the hamadryads of the forests, the fauns and satyrs should reign once more in the woods before they placed the sceptre in the hands of winter. The guests of Rheinsberg should once more enjoy the careless gayety of a happy day, before they returned to the winter saloons, on whose threshold Etiquette awaited them, with her forced smile, her robes of ceremony and her orders and titles.
The ladies and gentlemen had been transformed, therefore, into gods and goddesses, nymphs, and hamadryads, fauns, satyrs, and wood-spirits. The horn of Diana resounded once more in the wood, through which the enchanting huntress passed, accompanied by Endymion, who was pursued by Actaeon. There was Apollo and the charming Daphne; Echo and the vain Narcissus; and, on the bank of the lake, which gleamed in the midst of the forest, the water-nymphs danced in a fairy-circle with the tritons.