"Are many uniforms present?"
"If you please, your excellency, very many. Besides General von Klitzing and Colonel Conrad von Burgsdorf, the Colonels von Rochow and von Kracht are there."
"These four gentlemen must be admitted to me," ordered the count. "The other people had better go, for I have no time to-day to grant audiences. Well, why do you stand there loitering? Why do you not go?"
"Most gracious sir," entreated the lackey, "there are so many distinguished gentlemen there, who have already come so often in vain, and to whom I have promised an audience to-day, in accordance with your excellency's express command."
"Who, for example?"
"For example, your excellency, the councilors of the cities of Berlin and
Cologne, then the states of the duchy of Cleves, and—"
"Enough, enough! I see well that these lords have paid you to put me in mind of them, and I shall therefore have the complaisance to do honor to your intercession."
"Alas! most gracious lord, I swear to your grace, that nobody has paid me, that—"
"Silence! I know you all!" cried the count contemptuously. "I know that every audience day brings as much money to you lackeys as it prepares discomfort and weariness for me. Pocket your money quietly, honest Balthazar; you are no worse than all the rest of the servant brood and therefore I despise you no more than the rest. Go, conduct hither the military gentlemen named through the corridor, and meanwhile I shall take a walk through the audience chamber and you collect your pay."
The gold-bedizened lackey left the cabinet with reverential and submissive air. But outside, he remained standing before the closed door, and boldly lifting up his head, with wholly altered face, hurled a look of hatred and defiance at the door.