"He writes it to me himself!" she cried out. "Himself! It's true what the paper says.... Oh!..."
And she broke down, with her head on Sofie's shoulder. Sofie led her back into the hall; Valérie allowed herself to be dragged along like a child. Wanda followed, crying, wringing her hands, without knowing why. From the boats, which were now very far away, the young princes waved once more; little Princess Elizabeth even tried to call out something; she could not understand why Wanda and Valérie were such muffs as not to wave back.
The sun sank on the horizon; the glowing clouds were all masked in little frothy, gold-rose mists with shining edges; but evening fell, the sky grew dark: one by one the little pink clouds melted away; still one last cloud, as though with two wings formed of the last rays of the setting sun, flickered up softly, as if to fly, and then suddenly sank, with broken wings, into the violet dusk. The first stars twinkled, brightly visible.
4
Next morning, very early, at half-past five, the Archduchess Valérie climbed down the terraces of Altseeborgen. She had merely told her maid that she would be back in time for breakfast, which the family took together. Resolutely, as though impulsively, she descended terrace after terrace. She met nobody but a couple of servants and sentries. She walked along the bottom terrace to the sea; there was a little square harbour, cut out of the granite, where the rowing- and sailing-boats lay moored in a boat-house. She chose a long, narrow gig and unhooked it from its iron chain. She took her seat adroitly and grasped the sculls: a few short strokes took her clear of the little harbour and out to sea.
A south-westerly wind was blowing over the sea. The water was strangely grey, as though it were mirroring in its oval the uncertain sky above: a dull-white sky in which hung dirty shreds of clouds blown asunder. The horizon was not visible; light mists floated over it, blotting out the division between sea and sky with smeared tints. The wind blew up strongly.
Valérie removed her little sailor-hat; and her hair blew across her face. She had intended to row to the fishing-village, but she at once felt that it was beyond her strength to work up against the wind. So she let herself go with the wind. For a moment she thought of the weather, the wind, the sky; then she cast aside all thought. She pulled sturdily at the sculls.
Though the sea was comparatively calm, the boat was constantly swinging over the smooth back of a wave and then sinking down again. Splashes of spray flew up. When Valérie, after a little while, looked round, she was a trifle startled to see Altseeborgen receding so far from her. She hesitated once more, but soon let herself go again....
On leaving the castle, she had had no thought, only an impulse to act. Now, with her very action, thought rose up again within her, as though roused from its lethargy by the wind. Valérie's eyes stared before her, wide and burning, without tears.
It was true, it was real. This was the wheel continually revolving in her thoughts. It was true, it was real. It was in the papers which Herman had been skimming through for hours; Sofie had told her; his own letter informed her of it.