Majesty Part 33

Because the days had pa.s.sed without her having yet spoken to the emperor, she hoped anew; she hoped that Othomar would be his old self again and no longer seek his own degradation. But it was as though she hoped in spite of everything; for, each time that she now saw Othomar, she found him duller and more exhausted, more helpless beneath the certainty of his weakness. Professor Barzia, who treated the prince personally and twice a day gave him his cold-water douche in the palace, seemed to be least uneasy about Othomar's physical weakness. The prince was not robust, but the professor divined in his delicate const.i.tution the presence of the element that had sprung from the first rough, sensual strength of the Czyrkiski race: the Slavonic element, which had become enervated through its Latin admixtures, but had lingered on; a secret toughness, an indestructible factor of unsuspected firmness, which lay deep down, like a foundation, and upon which much seemed to be built that was very slender and fragile. What had once been rude strength the professor believed he had discovered in a certain toughness; what had been cruelty and l.u.s.t, in a certain enervation, which had hitherto been held in check by self-restraint and a spontaneous sense of duty, but which now suddenly revealed itself in this excessive la.s.situde. Barzia distinctly perceived in Othomar the scion of his ancestors; and he considered that, though the rich physical vigour of the original sovereign blood had become refined, as if it were now flowing more thinly through feebler veins, yet that blood was not so impoverished that the delicacy of this future emperor need be ascribed to racial exhaustion. Possibly Barzia's sudden affection for the prince tinged this physiological diagnosis with excessive optimism; at any rate, the professor had not the least fear of this fragility, or even of this nervous weakness. What he did fear was lest those mental qualities which had so suddenly endeared the prince to him should not be able to maintain themselves during this period of fatigue and exhaustion.

Spontaneous, unreflected, uncalculated he knew those virtues to be in the prince, as it were a treasure unknown to himself: would they be lost, now, in these mournful days, or would they remain, perhaps develop, become more and more refined, make up to Othomar in moral strength for what he lacked in physical strength and in this way cure him? For the professor knew it: these qualities alone could effect a cure....

Othomar himself thought neither of his virtues nor of his blood: he thought of his future and thought of it with an hourly-increasing dread.

When the empress asked Barzia whether this rest would be good for the prince and whether distraction would not be better, the professor declared that the prince had had plenty of distraction lately. He must first get over his fatigue, get over it entirely; it mattered less with what the prince kept his brain occupied for the moment....

But Barzia did not mean this altogether and would doubtless have been very far from meaning it at all, had he known of what the prince was thinking, or been fully able to judge his utter lack of mental elasticity.

And the days pa.s.sed by. Othomar did not mention his resolution to the empress again, desiring to give her as little pain as possible; neither did the empress allude to it: she hoped on.

But in Othomar's meditations it revolved incessantly, like a wheel: he was able to do nothing for his people and yet he loved them; he did not know how to govern them, he would abdicate his rights and his t.i.tle of crown-prince: Berengar should become Duke of Xara....

The small prince came and paid his brother a short visit every morning; he always wore his little uniform, looking like a st.u.r.dy little general in miniature, and Othomar watched him with a smile.

Was there no wish to rule in the boy's medieval little brain, was there no jealousy in his pa.s.sionate little heart? Othomar remembered the history of Liparia, in the cruel times of their early middle-ages, that terrible drama--they still showed at St. Ladislas the chamber where it had been enacted--that second son stabbing his elder brother in his l.u.s.t for the crown and hurling the corpse from an oriel window into the Zanthos, which flowed beneath the fortress. What had the boy inherited of this rivalry? And, though this rivalry had been wholly refined into less salient feelings, would not an immense happiness enter Berengar's small princely soul if he were to learn that he might be crown-prince now and that one day he would be ... emperor? But what would the boy think of him, Othomar, for giving away all this magnificence of his own free will? Would he despise him, while yet feeling grateful to him, or would he cherish mistrust, suspecting a lurking mystery behind all this greatness, which Othomar cast from him?...

At such times Othomar would draw the little fellow to him with silent compa.s.sion, but would take pleasure in feeling the firm muscles of his st.u.r.dy little arms and listening to his short, crisp little speeches.

Then Berengar rode away and Djalo was allowed to run with him through the park: in an hour he would bring the dog back to Othomar and talk with great importance of his lessons, which were just beginning.

And, when Berengar had gone, Othomar lay thinking about him in his long hours of reverie, already looked upon his brother as actually crown-prince, erased his own name from the list of future sovereigns, thought of what he would do when he was cured and had shaken off the last remnant of his purple, remembered his uncle Xaverius, who was the abbot of a monastery, and pictured himself studying, compiling works on history and sociology....

5

These were autumn days. The sunny blue of the sky was often clouded with grey; in the morning the winds blew from the north, blew over the sea till it became the colour of steel; then the sun broke through and shone very warmly for a couple of hours, with an occasional cold blast, suddenly and treacherously rus.h.i.+ng round the corners of the streets; then, at four or half-past four o'clock, the sun was extinguished and the pale sky was left exhaling its icy chillness on the open harbour, between the white palaces, in the streets and squares.

It was a treacherous time of year: the empress and Berengar had caught cold driving in an open carriage; they both kept their rooms and Othomar in his turn went to visit them; the empress was coughing, the little prince had a temperature; there was never so much illness about as now, the doctors declared. And a melancholy continued to brood through the halls of the Imperial, through the whole town, where the imperial family were no longer seen at the opera and at parties. Never had the daily dinners at the Imperial been so short, with so few guests; and it made an insurmountably sad impression not to see the empress seated next to the emperor, delicate, distinguished, august, but in her stead the Princess Thera, who seemed quite incapable of bringing a smile to Oscar's grim and peevish features.

Othomar did not even know that those about the empress were anxious on her behalf: she always received him with all the cheerfulness that she could muster, in spite of the pain on her chest; the doctors told him nothing, no one gave him the bulletins, every one tried to spare him; and besides there was really less anxiety in the Imperial than in the town and throughout the country. But the little prince received Othomar with less meekness than did the empress; and every day there were silent rages, sulking displays against the doctors for keeping him in bed.

Once, when the crown-prince came to see Berengar, the doctors were with him; the fever had increased, but the little prince wanted to get out of bed; he was naughty, used ugly names, had even struck the good-natured, big-headed doctor and pummelled him with his little clenched fist.

"As soon as you're better, Berengar," said Othomar, after first reproving him, "I shall make you a present."

"What of?" asked the boy, eagerly. "But I am better now!"

"No, no, you must do what the doctors tell you and not vex them."

"And what will you give me then?"

Othomar looked at him long and firmly.

"What shall I have then?" repeated the child.

"I mustn't tell you yet, Berengar; it's really rather big for you still."

"What is it then? A horse?"

"No, it's not as big as a horse, but heavier. Don't ask any more about it and also don't try and guess what it is, but be obedient: then you'll get better and then you shall have it."

"Heavier than a horse and not so big!..." Berengar pondered, with glowing cheeks.

With his head bowed on his breast, dragging his footsteps, Othomar returned to his room. He stayed there for hours, sitting silently, gloomily, in the same att.i.tude; as usual, he did not appear at dinner and hardly ate what Andro brought him. Then he went to lie down on his couch, took up a book to read, but put it down again and raised himself up, as though with a sudden impulse:

"Why not now?" he thought. "Why keep on postponing it?..."

Night fell, but the upper corridors of the palace were not yet lighted; dragging his fatigue through this dusky shadow, Othomar went to the emperor's anterooms. The chamberlain announced him.

Oscar sat at his writing-table, pen in hand.

"Am I disturbing you, papa? Or can I speak to you?"

"No, you're not disturbing me.... Have you been to see mamma?"

"Yes, this afternoon; she was pretty well, but Berengar's temperature was higher."

The emperor glanced up at him:

"Worse than this morning?"

"I don't know: he was rather feverish."

The emperor rose:

"Do you want to talk to me?"

"Yes, papa."

"Wait a moment, then. I've not been to Berengar yet to-day."

He went out, leaving the door ajar.

Othomar remained alone. He sat down. He looked round the great work-room, which he knew so well from their morning consultations with the chancellor. Lately, however, he had not attended these. He thought over what he should say; meanwhile his eyes wandered around; they fell upon the great mirror with its gilt arabesques; something seemed strange to him. Then he rose and walked up to the gla.s.s:

"I was under the impression there was a flaw near the top of it," he thought. "I can't well be mistaken. Has it been renewed?"

He was still standing by the looking-gla.s.s, when Oscar returned:

"Berengar is not at all well; the fever is increasing," he said; and the tone of his voice hesitated. "Mamma is with him...."

Absorbed as he was in his own meditations, it did not strike Othomar that the little prince must have become worse for the empress, who was herself ill, to go to him.

"And about what did you want to speak to me?" asked the emperor, as the prince remained silent.

"About Berengar, papa."

"About Berengar?"