"Papa," he said, gently, "I have had my moments of discouragement. I shall perhaps have them again. But forget ... what we were discussing just before Berengar's death. I have given up all thought of abdicating...."
The emperor drew a deep breath.
"I am religious, papa, and I have faith," continued the prince. "Perhaps an almost superstitious faith. I plainly see, in what has happened, the hand of God...."
He passed his hand over his forehead, with a meditative gaze:
"The hand of God," he repeated. "I had a presentiment that one of us would die within this year. I thought that I myself should be the one to die. That is perhaps why, papa, I did not see how monstrous it was of me to take the resolution which I did. I was not thinking of myself, who was bound to die in any event; I thought only of Berengar. But now he is dead and I am alive; and I shall now think of myself. For I feel that I do not belong to myself. And I feel that it is this that should support us through life: this feeling that we do belong not to ourselves but to others. I have always loved our people and I have wished to help them vaguely, in the abstract; I threw out my hands, without knowing why, and when I did not make good, it drove me to despair...."
He suddenly stopped and looked timidly at his father, as though he had gone too far in delivering his thoughts. But Oscar sat calmly listening to him; and he continued:
"And I now know that this despair is not right, because with this despair we keep ourselves for ourselves and cannot give ourselves to others. You see—" he rose and smiled—"I cannot manage to cure myself of my philosophy, but I hope now that it will tend to strengthen me instead of enervating me, as it now flows from quite a different principle."
The emperor gave a little shrug of the shoulders:
"Every one must work out his own theory of life, Othomar. I can only give you this advice: do not be carried away by enthusiasm and keep your point of view high. Do not analyse yourself out of all existence, for such abnegation does not last and inevitably harks back to the old rights. I do not reflect so much as you do; I am more spontaneous and impulsive. But I will not condemn you for being different: you can't help it. Perhaps you belong to this age more than I do. I only wish to look at the result of your reflections; and this result is that you're giving yourself back to ordinary life and to the interests of your country. And this rejoices me, Othomar. Nor do I wish to look too far into the future; I dare say that later too you will not have my ideas, I dare say that later you will reign with a brand-new constitution, with an elected upper house. I expect you will encounter much opposition from the authoritative party among the nobles.... But, as I say, I do not wish to go into that too far and I am content to rejoice at your moral convalescence. And I am very grateful to you for the advice you gave us just now. It was quite simple, but we should never have thought of it by ourselves. We are too conservative for that. I think now that what you propose will be the best thing to be done and that it can't be done otherwise...."
He held out his hand; Othomar grasped it.