"Very early yesterday morning."
"Were you with him?" The Count's voice was sharper.
"No, your Excellency; no one was with him. The Count went out alone."
There was an oppressive silence. The father had comprehended. He turned his back to the servant, and stood mute and motionless for a while. "Take me to him," he ordered at last.
The man led the way down-stairs and through a long corridor, then opened a door. "Here, your Excellency!"
They had laid the dead in his own room, where he was to remain until the magnificent preparations for his burial should be completed. Here there was no pomp of mourning. He lay there peacefully, a cross clasped in his folded hands, a larger crucifix at the head of the bed, where two wax candles were burning--that was all.
The servant retired. Count Hans kneeled beside the body, and tried to pray. But this Catholic gentleman, who until a few years previously had ardently supported every ultramontane measure of the reigning family, now discovered, for the first time, that he no longer knew his Pater Noster by heart. He could not even pray for the dead. He was possessed by a kind of indignation against himself, and for the first time he felt utterly dissatisfied with his entire life. His eyes were riveted upon the face of his dead son. "Why, why did this have to be?--just this?"
His thoughts refused to dwell upon the horrible catastrophe; they turned away, wandering hither and thither; yesterday's hunting breakfast occurred to him; he thought of his witty speech and of the laughter it had provoked, laughter which even the host's frown could not suppress. The sound of his own voice rang in his ears: "Yes, gentlemen, let us drink to the marriage of the Golden Calf to the Chimera."
Then he recalled Lato upon his first steeple-chase, on horseback, in a scarlet coat, still lanky and awkward, but handsome as a picture, glowing with enjoyment, his hunting-whip lifted for a stroke.
His eyes were dry, his tongue was parched, a fever was burning in his veins, and at each breath he seemed to be lifting some ponderous weight. A feeling like the consciousness of a horrible crime oppressed him; he shivered, and suddenly dreaded being left there alone with the corpse, beside which he could neither weep nor pray.