"Pardon me, your highness," said the youth, bowing, "if I enter without permission. Doubtless your highness did not hear me knock, and I found no one in your anteroom to announce me."
The prince turned around, and reached out his hand, saying, with a laugh: "No, no, you found nobody. I have discharged old Dame Etiquette from my service, and you see before you not his imperial highness, the Archduke Joseph, crown prince of Austria, but a young soldier, brimful of happiness, master of nothing but his own sword, with which he means to carve out his fortunes on the battlefield. Oh, Dominick! I have dropped the rosary, and taken up the sabre; and I mean to twist such a forest of laurels about my head, that it will be impossible for me ever to wear a night-cap again, were it even sent me as a present from the pope himself."
"Do not talk so loud, your highness; you will frighten the proprieties out of their wits."
Joseph laughed. "Dominick Kaunitz" said he, "you are the son of your respected father, no doubt of it; for you behave prettily before the bare walls themselves. But fear not, son of the mighty minister, MY walls are dumb, and nobody is near to tell tales. We are alone, for I have dismissed all my attendants; and here I may give loud vent to my hallelujahs, which I now proceed to do by singing you a song which I learned not long ago from an invalid soldier in the street."
And the prince began, in a sonorous bass voice, to sing:
"Oh! the young cannon is my bride! Her orange-wreath is twined with bay,
And on the blood-red battle-field We'll celebrate our wedding-day.
Trara! trara! No priest is there To bless the rites, No—"
Here young Kaunitz, all etiquette despising, put his hands before the mouth of the prince; and, while the latter strove, in spite of him, to go on with his song, he said, in low but anxious tones:
"For Heavens sake, your highness, listen to me. You plunge yourself wantonly into danger. Do you suppose that your powerful voice does not resound through the corridors of the palace?"
"Well, if it is heard, Dominick, what of it? I bid farewell to my enemies, and this is my 'Hosanna.' You ought to be ashamed of yourself to stop me. My tormentors, you think, have heard the beginning of my song; well, the devil take it, but they shall have the end!"
Once more the archduke began to sing; but Dominick caught his arm. "Do you wish," said he, "to have the empress revoke her permission?"