Berlin and Sans-Souci Part 20

THE FIRST RENDEZVOUS.

The night was dark and still; so dark in the garden of Monbijou, that the keenest eye could not detect the forms of the two men who slipped stealthily among the trees; so still, that the slightest contact of their clothing with the motionless leaves, and the slightest footstep in the sand could be heard. But, happily, there was none to listen; unchallenged and unseen, the two m.u.f.fled figures entered the avenue, at the end of which stood the little palace, the summer residence of the queen-mother. Here they rested for a moment, and cast a searching glance at the building, which stood also dark and silent before them.

"No light in the windows of the queen-mother," whispered one; "all asleep."

"Yes, all asleep, we have nothing to fear; let us go onward." The last speaker made a few hasty steps forward, but his companion seized him hastily by the arm, and held him hack.

"You forget, my young Hotspur, that we must wait for the signal.

Still! still! do not stamp so impatiently with your feet; you need not shake yourself like a young lion. He who goes upon such adventures must, above all things, be self-possessed, cautious, and cool. Believe me, I have had a long range of experience, and in this species of love adventure I think I might possibly rival the famous King Charles the Second, of England."

"But here there is no question of love adventure, Baron Pollnitz,"

said his companion impatiently, almost fiercely.

"Not of love adventure, Baron Trenck! well, may I dare to ask what is the question?"

"A true--an eternal love!"

"Ah! a true, an eternal love," repeated Pollnitz, with a dry, mocking laugh. "All honor to this true love, which, with all the reasons for its justification, and all the pathos of its heavenly source, glides stealthily to the royal palace, and hides itself under the shadow of the silent night. My good young sentimentalist, remember I am not a novice like yourself; I am an old fogy, and call things by their right names. Every pa.s.sion is a true and eternal love, and every loved one is an angel of virtue, beauty, and purity, until we weary of the adventure, and seek a new distraction."

"You are a hopeless infidel," said Trenck, angrily; "truly he who has changed his faith as often as you have, has no religion--not even the religion of love. But look! a light is shown, and the window is opened; that is the signal."

"You are right, that is the signal. Let us go," whispered Pollnitz; and he stepped hastily after the young officer.

And now they stood before the window on the ground floor, where the light had been seen for a moment. The window was half open.

"We have arrived," said Trenck, breathing heavily; "now, dear Pollnitz, farewell; it cannot certainly be your intention to go farther. The princess commissioned you to accompany me to the castle, but she did not intend you should enter with me. You must understand this. You boast that you are rich in experience, and will therefore readily comprehend that the presence of a third party is abhorrent to lovers. I know that you are too amiable to make your friends wretched. Farewell, Baron Pollnitz."

Trenck was in the act of springing into the window, but the strong arm of the master of ceremonies held him back.

"Let me enter first," said he, "and give me a little a.s.sistance.

Your sophistical exposition of the words of our princess is entirely thrown away. She said to me, 'At eleven o'clock I will expect you and the Baron von Trenck in my room.' That is certainly explicit--as it appears to me, and needs no explanation. Lend me your arm."

With a heavy sigh, Trenck gave the required a.s.sistance, and then sprang lightly into the room.

"Give me your hand, and follow cautiously," said Pollnitz. "I know every step of the way, and can guard you against all possible accidents. I have tried this path often in former years, particularly when Peter the Great and his wife, with twenty ladies of her suite, occupied this wing of the castle."

"Hus.h.!.+" said Trenck; "we have reached the top--onward, silently.

"Give me your hand, I will lead you."

Carefully, silently, and on tip-toe, they pa.s.sed through the dark corridor, and reached the door, through which a light s.h.i.+mmered.

They tapped lightly upon the door, which was immediately opened. The confidential chambermaid of the princess came forward to meet them, and nodded to them silently to follow her; they pa.s.sed through several rooms; at last she paused, and said, earnestly: "This is the boudoir of the princess; enter--you are expected."

With a hasty movement, Trenck opened the door--this door which separated him from his first love, his only hope of happiness. He entered that dimly-lighted room, toward which his weary, longing eyes had been often turned almost hopelessly. His heart beat stormily, his breathing was irregular, he thought he might die of rapture; he feared that in the wild agitation of the moment he might utter a cry, indicative as much of suffering as of joy.

There, upon the divan, sat the Princess Amelia. The hanging lamp lighted her face, which was fair and colorless. She tried to rise and advance to meet him, but she had no power; she extended both her hands, and murmured a few unintelligible words.

Frederick von Trenck's heart read her meaning; he rushed forward and covered her hands with his kisses and his tears; he fell upon his knees, and murmured words of rapture, of glowing thanks, of blessed joy--words which filled the trembling heart of Amelia with delight.

All this fell upon the cold but listening ears of the master of ceremonies, and seemed to him as sounding bra.s.s and the tinkling cymbal. He hid discreetly and modestly withdrawn to the back part of the room; but he looked on like a worldling, with a mocking smile at the rapture of the two lovers. He soon found, however, that the role which he was condemned to play had its ridiculous and humiliating aspect, and he resolved to bear it no longer. He came forward, and with his usual cool impertinence he approached the princess, who greeted him with a crimson blush and a silent bow.

"Pardon me, your royal highness, if I dare to ask you to decide a question which has arisen between my friend Trenck and myself. He did not wish to allow me to accompany him farther than the castle window. I declared that I was authorized by your royal highness to enter with him this holiest of holies. Perhaps, however, I was in error, and have carried my zeal in your service too far. I pray you, therefore, to decide. Shall I go or stay?"

The princess had by this time entirely recovered her composure.

"Remain," said she, with a ravis.h.i.+ng smile, and giving her hand to the baron. "You were our confidant from the beginning, and I desire you to be wholly so. I wish you to be fully convinced that our love, though compelled for a while to seek darkness and obscurity, need not shun the eye of a friend. And who knows if we may not one day need your testimony? I do not deceive myself. I know that this night my good and evil genius are struggling over my future--that misfortune and shame have already perhaps stretched their wings over my head; but I will not yield to them without a struggle. It may be that one day I shall require your aid. Remain, therefore."

Pollnitz bowed silently. The princess fixed her glance upon her lover, who, with a clouded brow and sad mien, stood near. She understood him, and a smile played upon her full, red lip.

"Remain, Von Pollnitz, but allow us to step for a moment upon the balcony. It is a wondrous night. What we two have to say to each other, only heaven, with its s.h.i.+ning stars, dare hear; I believe they only can understand our speech."

"I thank you! oh, I thank you!" whispered Trenck, pressing the hand of Amelia to his lips.

"Your royal highness, then, graciously allowed me to come here,"

said Pollnitz, with a complaining voice, "in order to give me up entirely to my own thoughts, and force me to play the part of a Trappist. I shall, if I understand rightly my privileges, like the lion in the fairy tale, guard the door of that paradise in which my young friend revels in his first sunny dream of bliss. Your royal highness must confess that this is cruel work; but I am ready to undertake it, and place myself, like the angel with the flaming sword, before the door, ready to slay any serpent who dares undertake to enter this elysium."

The princess pointed to a table upon which game, fruit, and Spanish wine had been placed. "You will find there distraction and perhaps consolation, and I hope you will avail yourself of it. Farewell, baron; we place ourselves under your protection; guard us well." She opened the door and stepped with her lover upon the balcony.

Pollnitz looked after them contemptuously. "Poor child! she is afraid of herself; she requires a duenna, and that she should have chosen exactly me for that purpose was a wonderful idea. Alas! my case is indeed pitiful; I am selected to play the part of a duenna.

No one remembers that I have ears to hear and teeth to bite. I am supposed to see, nothing more. But what shall I see, what can I see in this dark night, which the G.o.d of love has so clouded over in compa.s.sion to this innocent and tender pair of doves? This was a rich, a truly romantic and girlish idea to grant her lover a rendezvous, it is true, under G.o.d's free heaven, but upon a balcony of three feet in length, with no seat to repose upon after the powerful emotions of a burning declaration of love. Well, for my part I find it more comfortable to rest upon this divan and enjoy my evening meal, while these two dreamers commune with the night-birds and the stars."

He threw himself upon the seat, seized his knife and fork, and indulged himself in the grouse and truffles which had been prepared for him.

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE BALCONY.

Without, upon the balcony, stood the two lovers. With their arms clasped around each other, they gazed up at the dark heavens--too deeply moved for utterance. They spoke to each other in the exalted language of lovers (understood only by the angels), whose words are blushes, sighs, glances, and tender pressures of the hand.

In the beginning this was their only language. Both shrank from interrupting this sweet communion of souls by earthly material speech. Suddenly their glances fell from heaven earthward. They sought another heaven, and other and dearer stars. Their eyes, accustomed to the darkness, met; their blushes and their happy smiles, though not seen, were understood and felt, and at the same moment they softly called each other's names.

This was their first language, soon succeeded by pa.s.sionate and glowing protestations on his part; by blus.h.i.+ng, trembling confessions on hers. They spoke and looked like all the millions of lovers who have found themselves alone in this old world of ours.

The same old story, yet ever new.

The conduct, hopes, and fears of these young lovers could not be judged by common rules. Theirs was a love which could not hope for happiness or continuance; for which there was no perfumed oasis, no blooming myrtle-wreath to crown its dark and stormy path. They might be sure that the farther they advanced, the more trackless and arid would be the desert opening before them. Tears and robes of mourning would const.i.tute their festal adorning.

"Why has Destiny placed you so high above me that I cannot hope to reach you? can never climb the ladder which leads to heaven and to happiness?" said Trenck, as he knelt before the princess.

She played thoughtfully with his long dark hair, and a burning tear rolled slowly over her cheek and fell upon his brow. That was her only answer.

Trenck shuddered. He dashed the tear from his face with trembling horror. "Oh, Amelia! you weep; you have no word of consolation, of encouragement, of hope for me?"

"No word, my friend; I have no hope, no consolation. I know that a dark and stormy future awaits us. I know that this cloudy night, under whose shadow we for the first time join our hands will endure forever; that for us the sun will never s.h.i.+ne. I know that the moment our glances first met, my protecting angel veiled her face and, weeping, left me. I know that it would have been wiser and better to give your heart, with its treasures, to a poor beggar-girl on the street, than to consecrate it to the sister of a king--to the poor Princess Amelia."

"Stop, stop!" cried Trenck, still on his knees, and bowing his head almost to the earth. "Your words pierce my heart like poisoned daggers, and yet I feel that they are truth itself. Yes, I was indeed a bold traitor, in that I dared to raise my eyes to you; I was a blasphemer, in that I, the unconsecrated, forced myself into the holy temple of your heart; upon its altar the vestal flame of your pure and innocent thoughts burned clearly, until my hot and stormy sighs brought unrest and wild disorder. But I repent. There is yet time. You are bound to me by no vow, no solemn oath. Oh, Amelia! lay this scarcely-opened flower of our first young love by the withered violet-wreaths of your childhood, with which even now you sometimes play and smile upon in quiet and peaceful hours; to which you whisper: 'You were once beautiful and fragrant; you made me happy--but that is past.' Oh, Amelia! yet is there time; give me up; spurn me from you. Call your servants and point me out to them as a madman, who has dared to glide into your room; whose pa.s.sion has made him blind and wild. Give me over to justice and to the scaffold. Only save yourself from my love, which is so cowardly, so egotistic, so hard-hearted; it has no strength in itself to choose banishment or death. Oh, Amelia! cast me away from your presence; trample me under your feet. I will die without one reproach, without one complaint. I will think that my death was necessary to save you from shame, from the torture of a long and dreary existence. All this is still in your power. I have no claim upon you; you are not mine; you have listened to my oaths, but you have not replied to them; you are free. Spurn me, then, you are bound by no vow."