But Othomar, groping vaguely with his hand for a support, fell up against her; she caught him in her arm, against her bosom, mortally frightened, and saw that he had swooned. A thin sweat stood on his forehead; his eyes closed beneath their weary lids, as though they were dying away; his mouth was open without breathing.
The duchess was violently alarmed; she was mortally frightened lest anything serious should happen to the Duke of Xara, alone with her in the castle; she suddenly felt that the future of Liparia was entrusted to the support of her arms; she already saw the prince lying dead, herself disgraced at the Imperial.... All this flashed across her brain at the first moment. But she looked at him long; and a gentle expression overspread her face: pride, that the Duke of Xara lay there half-fainting on her shoulder, and sudden passion, containing much motherliness and pity, blended into a strange feeling in her soul. She softly smoothed back his hair, wiped his perspiring forehead with her handkerchief.... And the strange sensation became still stranger within her, intenser in its two constituent parts: intenser in pride, intenser in compassionate love, that of a mistress and mother in one. Then, with a smile, she pressed the handkerchief, lightly moistened with the imperial sweat, to her trembling lips. The soft aroma of the moisture seemed to intoxicate her with a fragrance of virile youth.... She thought of the letters and photographs in the silver casket with the turquoises. A deep melancholy, because of life, smarted through her soul; yet more of her memories seemed to fly away like dust. Then, refusing to yield any longer to this melancholy, she bent her head and, serious now, giving herself to the present, which revived her with new happiness, she pressed her lips, trembling still more than before, on Othomar's mouth. For a moment she lingered there; her eyes closed; then she gave her kiss.
They opened their eyes together, looked at each other. Earnestly sombre, almost tragically, she flashed her glance into his. He said nothing, remained gazing at her, still half in her arms. The colour came mantling back to his cheeks. Their eyes imbibed one another. He felt the unknown opening before him, he felt himself being initiated into the world of knowledge which he suspected in her and did not know of himself. But he felt no joy because of it; her eyes continued sombre. Then he merely took her hand, just pressed it in a solitary caress and said, his eyes still gazing into her deep, quiet, dark glances of passion, his features still rigid with surprise:
"I was feeling a little giddy, I fear, just now? Please forgive me, duchess...."
She too continued to look at him, at first sombrely, then in smiling humility. Her pride soared to its climax with one beat of its wings: the mouth of her future emperor was still sealed with her kiss! Her love touched her inner life as a wafting breeze skims over a lake, rippling its surface into utter silver with a single fresh gust and stirring it to its very depths; she worshipped him because of his youthful majesty, which so graciously accepted her kiss without further acknowledgment, because of his imperial candour, his boyish voice, his boyish eyes, the pressure of his hand: the only thing he had given her; and she experienced all this as a very strange, proud pleasure: the delight of assimilating that candid youth, that maiden manhood, as a magic potion that should restore her own youth to her.
7
They dined late that evening, as they had waited for Herman and the others. The conversation at table turned upon the condition of the lowlands, upon the peasants, who had lost their all. The duchess was silent; the conversation did not interest her, but her silence was smiling and tranquil.
That evening Othomar again studied the map with Ducardi, under the lace-covered lamp. The evening had turned cold, the terrace-doors were closed. The duchess did not feel inclined for billiards, but sat talking softly with Dutri in the second drawing-room. She looked superb, serene as a statue, in her dress of old lace, pale-yellow, her white bosom rising evenly with her regular breathing; a single diamond star gleamed in her front hair.
Othomar pointed with the pencil across the map:
"Then we can go like this, along this road.... Look, General Ducardi; look here, Colonel von Fest: this is where I drove this afternoon with the duchess; and here, I believe, is where Zanti lives. Did you know that?"