"How does your highness propose to do so?" asked the professor.
The prince did not answer.
"Doesn't your highness know? Then you must think it over. But you must keep very calm, will you not, very calm...."
And he stroked Othomar's hand with a gentle, regular motion, as though anointing it with balsam.
"For your highness must never again give way to nervous attacks. Your highness must study how to prevent them. I am giving your highness much to think about," continued Barzia, with a smile. "I am doing this because I want to let your highness think of other things than of what you are thinking. I want to clear your brain for you. Are you tired and do you want to go to sleep, or shall I go on talking?"
"Yes, go on," whispered the prince.
"There are days of great grief in store for the Imperial," the doctor resumed, gently. "Your highness must think of those days without permitting yourself to be overcome by the grief of them.... The little prince will probably not recover, highness. Will you think of that ... and think of your parents, their poor majesties? There are days like these for a nation, or for a single family, in which grief seems to pile itself up. For does not this day, this night seem to mark the end of your race, my prince?... Lie still, lie still, don't move: let me talk on, like a garrulous old man.... Does your highness know that the emperor to-day, for the first time in his whole life, cried, sobbed? His younger son is dying. Between this boy and the father is a first-born son, who is very, very ill.... Is not all this the end?"
"Yet, if God wills it so," whispered Othomar.
"It is our duty to be resigned," said Barzia. "But does God will it so?"
"Who can tell?..."