VI
And suddenly the Angel of Death passed by and the brilliant season waned. In the Archduchess’ bed-chamber, watching the antics of priests and doctors, he sat there unmoved. Propped high, by many bolsters, in a vast blue canopied bed, the Archduchess lay staring laconically at a diminutive model of a flight of steps, leading to what appeared to be intended, perhaps, as a hall of Attent, off which opened quite a lot of little doors, most of which bore the word: “Engaged.” A doll, with a ruddy face, in charge, smiled indolently as she sat feigning knitting, suggesting vague “fleshly thoughts,” whenever he looked up, in the Archduchess’ spiritual adviser.
And the mind of the sinking woman, as her thoughts wandered, appeared to be tinged with “matter” too: “I recollect the first time I heard the Blue-Danube played!” she broke out: “it was at Schonnbrunn—schönes Schonnbrunn—My cousin Ludwig of Bavaria came—I wore—the Emperor said——”
“If your royal highness would swallow this!” Dr Cuncliffe Babcock started forward with a glass.
“Trinquons, trinquons et vive l’amour! Schneider sang that——”
“If your royal highness——”
“Ah my dear Vienna. Where’s Teddywegs?”
At the Archduchess’ little escritoire at the foot of the bed, her Dreaminess was making ready a few private telegrams, breaking without undue harshness the melancholy news: “Poor Lizzie has ceased articulating,” she did not think she could improve on it, and indeed had written it several times in her most temperamental hand, when the Archduchess had started suddenly cackling about Vienna.
“Ssssh, Lizzie—I never can write when people talk!”
“I want Teddywegs.”