"How I love to come here and dream a little," says the young man. "This is a beautiful place. And sometimes one sees strange people, the old courtiers of the King come walking as they used to walk."
Presently an aged man in Court attire appears with a tall, gilded stick in his hand. "The King gave me this," says he in a quavering voice. And then an aged dame appears. They will not explain themselves to the young man, for he cannot understand. How can youth understand those who are old?
The two old courtiers are bent and stiff. But they dance in the late dusk a minuet again. You fear all the time their stiffness and age will prevent them, but they dance it, not for the young man, but for themselves and for their King. How poignant it was, how terrible! Like ghosts at Ekaterinburg.
End of Project Gutenberg's Europe—Whither Bound?, by Stephen Graham