The wild sweet frenzy of the bells was dying down. Distant refrains of sturdy German carols came from the military quarters and the barracks. The bells stopped, wavered, broke out again, grew faint, and were still. And it seemed to the man standing in the chill silence of the snowy garden as though he heard the Spirit of France and the Spirit of Germany communing in the depths of this Christmas Night.
It was the voice of France that wept:
"Alas! miserable that I am, what hast thou done to me? Why have thy fierce hordes rolled down upon me from the strange Pagan lands in the inclement East? Was it my fame, or my wealth, or my beauty that tempted thy Hunnish warriors, the yellow-haired footmen, with hard, blue-eyed faces and huge hairy limbs, and the uncouth, fierce tanned horsemen, who ride as though they were one with their beasts? Woe is met for my white breasts that were kissed by the conquering Roman! must I yield them again to be bruised by the ravishing Frank? A curse on thee! thou treacherous, deep-flowing, swift river, that hast again proved no barrier to the Prussian invader! I am fallen a prey to the Confederation set up by the Corsican upon the Rhine. Oh! hard as the nether millstone! Wilt thou unpitying, behold Famine devour my beauty? See, the white limbs that show through my tattered garment are fleshless! No man who looks upon me would desire me more! For what hast thou dug a pit about me and set up thy terrible war engines? Was I not willing to make terms with thee, as the conqueror?"
It was the Voice of Germany that answered:
"O Gaulish Queen! thou wert willing, but not for the conquered is it to appoint the sum of the ransom, or hold parley with the victors regarding the price of blood! Hearest thou, O fallen one? I withdraw my triumphant legions when it pleases me. This is a land where the wine and the women are luscious. When we have drunken deep enough, we shall load ourselves with spoil and treasure and go. Yet ere I withdraw, I shall have known thee as a lover, whose desire is kindled the fiercer because of thy hate. Death shall be the priest who celebrates our espousals. He shall unite us with a ring of steel and fire. Then I depart, leaving thee to the enemies of thine own household, who shall wreak thee greater ruin than thy foes. But a child shall be born of thy long resistance and my fierce triumph and our brief mingling, who shall be called Peace! Hearest thou, O France?"
He listened, standing on the hard-frozen, white-powdered garden path between the swept-up snow mounds. There was no answer. He returned, stamping the snow from his clogged spurs, to the house.
The door stood open as he had left it. The even tread of the sentries came from the Rue de Provence. He had heard the guard being changed at the entrance gates and beyond the wall at the bottom of the garden. Those without were vigilant if those within were not. He remembered, noting the absence of the usual Chancery attendant from the hall bench, that he had given permission to the servants, without distinction, to make merry upon this night. He could hear no clinking of glasses and bottles belowstairs. Perhaps sleep had overtaken them as it had the revelers in the dining-room. He softly opened the double doors of that apartment. A stench combined of stale tobacco, spilled wine, and alcoholic humanity offended his nose, and he withdrew it. But not before he had ascertained that with the exception of Abeken, who had left early, and Count Hatzfeldt, who must have been taken home—the Staff slept there.
He looked into the drawing-room. The fire lay in gray ashes between the fire dogs. On the table lay the signed Treaty with Bavaria. He picked it up and rolled it, looking at the mantelshelf, where the bat-winged bronze demon brooded over the ormolu clock.
The room, whose hearth was cold, whose windows, closely shuttered, bolted and blinded, had the curtains drawn close over them, was lighted by a yellow ray shining through the glass door opening into the conservatory. He crossed to this door and looked through. Commendably sober, the two officers of the guard of Green Jaegers who were quartered here sat chatting in whispers and smoking by the stove. Between them on an upturned tub bottom stood a little, twinkling, taper-lit Christmas tree.
"Von Uslar! Bleichröder!..."