“No, my dear sister, we cannot permit you to do so,” said the chamberlain, shrugging his shoulders. “If it concerned you alone, you could dispose of yourself as you thought fit. But behind you stands your family—your family, which has been brought down in the world by all sorts of misfortunes, and is far from occupying the position to which it is entitled, and to which I, above all things, wish to see it restored, for I acknowledge that I am ambitious, my dear sister, and I desire to achieve eminence. I am now on the highway to success, and I do not intend that you shall arrest, but rather that you shall promote, my progress. If you reject the king’s addresses, of course the whole family will fall into disfavor, and that would not be agreeable, either to myself or to my dear uncle, the master of ceremonies of the widowed queen. He wishes to become the king’s master of ceremonies, and I wish to become a cabinet minister. Apart from this, the family coffers are sadly in need of replenishment. Our ancestral castle is in a crumbling condition, the forests have been cut down, the land is badly cultivated, and the farmhouses and stables must be rebuilt, for they are only miserable ruins, in which the half-starved cattle find no protection from the weather; and it is your mission to restore the old family Von Voss to its former splendor.”
“By my dishonor, by my criminality!” sighed Julia von Voss. “Oh, my mother, my dear mother, why did you leave me, and fly to heaven from all this degradation! If you were here, you would protect me, and not suffer me to be so cruelly tempted.”
“You remind me of our dear mother at the right time, Julie. Do you remember what she told you on her deathbed?”
“Yes, my brother, I do,” she replied, in a low voice. “She said: ‘You will not be an orphan, for you have your brother to take care of and protect you. I transfer all my rights to him; for the future, he will be the head of the family, and you must love, honor, and obey him as such.’”
“‘I transfer all my rights to him; for the future, he will be the head of the family, and you must love, honor, and obey him as such,’” repeated her brother, in an elevated voice. “Do not forget this, my sister. I, as the head of the family, demand of you that you become the benefactress of your family, of your queen, and of your whole country. A grand and holy task devolves upon you. You are to liberate the land, the queen, and the king himself, from the domination of sin and indecorum. In a word, you are to displace this Rietz and her abominable husband, and inaugurate the reign of virtue and morality in this court. Truly, this is a noble mission, and one well worthy of my beautiful sister.”
“It will not succeed,” said the maid of honor. “The king will never consent to banish this hateful Rietz.”
“The greater would be the honor, if you succeeded in liberating the king from this scandalous woman, the queen from this serpent, and the country from these vampires. Ah, the whole royal family, yes, all Prussia, would bless you, if you could overthrow this Rietz and her self-styled husband!”
“Yes,” said Julie, in a low voice, “it would be a sublime consummation; but I should have to purchase it with my own degradation. And that I will not—cannot do. Brother, my dear brother, be merciful, and do not demand of me what is impossible and horrible. The daughter of my mother can never become a king’s mistress!”
“And who said that you should? Truly, I would be the last to require that of you. No, not the mistress, but the wife of the king. You shall become his wedded wife; and your rightful marriage shall be blessed by a minister of the Reformed Church!”
“But that is impossible!” exclaimed the maid of honor, whose eyes sparkled with joy, against her will, “that cannot be. The queen lives, and she is the king’s wedded wife.”