The Youth of the Great Elector Part 21

"Oh, my beloved young master," entreated Marwitz, "let not your heart be merely touched by them, but be inspired and sanctified. Embrace a high n.o.ble decision. Conquer yourself, and--"

With uplifted hand the Electoral Prince beckoned him to be silent, and with rapid step and head sunk he paced up and down the apartment. Then all at once he stopped, and, quickly raising his head, asked, "Where is Leuchtmar? Why did he not come with you?"

"I know not, Prince--he told me he could not dare to appear in your presence; he--"

"Ah! that is true," said the Prince mournfully; "we have not seen each other since--I beg of you, Marwitz, to go and fetch Leuchtmar to me."

The baron made haste to execute the Prince's mandate. Frederick William looked after him until the door closed behind him. Then his large, moist eyes were slowly upraised to heaven, and his trembling lips murmured: "Oh, how young I am yet, and how much I have still to learn! Help me, my G.o.d, that I may have the needed strength!"

Again the door opened, and Marwitz entered, followed by Leuchtmar, who remained standing at the door. The Electoral Prince looked at him with questioning glances, and ever brighter became his brow, ever more cheerful his aspect. And all at once he spread out his arms, and in a tone of most heartfelt love, most tender pleading, called out, "My beloved teacher!

come to my arms!"

Leuchtmar sprang forward with a cry of joy. The Prince tenderly fell on his neck and pressed him closely to his breast.

"Oh," he murmured softly, "my friend, I have suffered much, and still suffer. Forgive me on account of my pain!"

And he leaned his head on Leuchtmar's shoulder and wept bitterly. A long pause ensued. No one of the three could interrupt it, for speech remained locked upon the trembling lips of all, and only their tears, their sighs spoke. Then the door slowly opened, and the private secretary, Muller, appeared upon the threshold. For a moment he stood still, and looked with quivering lips upon the Prince, who was just slowly extricating himself from Leuchtmar's embrace, then he stepped resolutely forward.

"Your highness," he said, "forgive me for venturing to intrude my presence here, without having been summoned. But old Dietrich dared not take the step which I do now, and so the responsibility rests upon myself alone."

"And what is it?" asked the Prince. "What brings you to me, my dear, true friend?"

"He calls me his dear, true friend!" rejoiced Muller.

"All is right again, then--all is in order! We are not dismissed--we are not sent home!"

"You may be, after all, my old friend," said the Electoral Prince, with a feeble smile. "But what would you say to me? What sort of responsibility have you taken upon yourself?"

"Prince, I have taken upon myself the responsibility of admitting into your cabinet the veiled lady who has just come, and of requesting you to grant her the audience for which she has been besieging Dietrich with tears and lamentations. Dietrich, however, would not hear to it, and the lady continually called for Eberhard to come--Eberhard must lead her to the Prince. But, as Dietrich says, this is not Eberhard's week of service, so that he can not enter here. I was attracted to the antechamber by the loud conversation, and now the lady turned upon me, and pleaded so touchingly and so eloquently, that I could not refuse to grant her request. Your highness, I have conducted the lady into your cabinet, and she awaits you there."

"But, Muller," cried Baron Leuchtmar despairingly, "what have you done?

How could you be so inconsiderate?"

The old man drew himself up, and his mild eye grew angry. "Inconsiderate!

I was not at all inconsiderate, Baron Leuchtmar. On the contrary, I thought it would be unworthy of a n.o.ble Prince to allow a woman to plead in vain, and I thought, moreover, that Hercules would never have become a hero if he had not had the valor to meet the women who greeted him at the crossing of the roads."

"You have done right, Muller," said Frederick William, with a faint smile; "it will be seen whether Hercules was perhaps my forefather. I shall speak to the lady. Wait for me here."

He crossed the apartment hastily, and entered his cabinet. In the center of the room stood a veiled female form. The Prince, however, recognized her, although her face could not be seen, for he knew her by her pretty coquettish costume to be the Princess Ludovicka's French chambermaid, and he stepped quickly up to her.

"I thought that it was you, Alice," he said softly, "and I have therefore come to tell you to--"

With sudden movement she tore back her veil, and before the pale, beautiful countenance thereby revealed the Prince stepped back, as pale as death.

"You yourself?" he murmured. "You, Ludovicka?"

"Yes, I, Ludovicka! I come here in my maid's dress," said she, in a voice trembling with pain and emotion. "I come to you, my beloved, to ask you whether you will desert me, leaving me in despair, affliction, and heart-sickness? O Frederick, Frederick! how fearfully have I suffered this night!"

"And I?" murmured he softly. "Have I not suffered too?"

"No," she cried, "you have not suffered as I did, for you love me not as I love you--you love me not more than your life, your honor, your fatherland! You will abandon and forsake me, because it is France that has offered us aid! Oh, you are a cold, heartless man, as all men are, and yet I love you so much and can not live without you! Frederick William, you will not go with me to France--well then, I will go with you, wherever you will. I cleave to you--I will stay with you! Let shame and ignominy be my fate, let my mother curse me, let all the world despise me and call me your mistress, I will stay with you, for I love you and can not live without you!"

Pa.s.sionately she extended her arms to him, love flaming in her glances.

But a darker shadow flitted across the Prince's face, and he shrank back.

"G.o.d forbid, Ludovicka," he said, "that misery and shame should ever come to you through me, that your mother should curse you for my sake! We are both yet children, Ludovicka. I felt right painfully last night that the first duty of children is to obey and reverence their parents. Let us do our duty, Ludovicka!"

"That is," replied she with swelling rage--"that is to say, you give me up? They have overcome your opposition, they have brought you back to obedience, to subjection?"

"No other than myself has done it, Ludovicka."

"You? You give me up? Voluntarily? And yet you swore that you loved me and me alone of all the world?"

"And I swore truly, Ludovicka. I love you boundlessly!"

"And yet you will forsake me?"

"Yet I must do so, beloved! I must forsake you, but G.o.d alone, who has witnessed my tortures this past night, knows what I suffer. My father is solitary, my fatherland calls to me, and the first thing that I sacrifice on its altar is my love for you. I can not marry you, Ludovicka, and G.o.d forbid that I should accept your love without marriage!"

"Words, nothing but words!" cried she indignantly. "You would palliate your unfaithfulness, represent your fickleness of mind as magnanimity! But I hear only one thing in your words--you give me up, you renounce your love?"

"Yes!" he cried with a loud scream of pain--"yes, I renounce my love!"

"Vengeance upon you for it!" cried she, in flaming wrath. "I, Ludovicka Hollandine, cry vengeance upon you, for you break my heart!"

"And you will have no compa.s.sion? You will not see what I suffer?

Ludovicka, look! Look in my eyes, they wept out last night the pains of a whole life--see what I suffer! Ludovicka, on my knees I beseech you, if you really love me, then have pity upon me--for the sake of my agony forgive me what you suffer!"

And beside himself with emotion, he fell upon his knees, lifting up to her his clasped hands and his face that was bathed in tears.

But now it was she who shrank back. "No," said she harshly and severely, "no, no compa.s.sion, no forgiveness! I do not love you, I have never loved you, for you are a foolish boy, and know nothing of the glow of pa.s.sion!

You are a child! Go away and act like a child, and be an obedient son!

Love rejects you! love turns from you!" And waving him off with both hands, the Princess turned and walked to the door. Frederick William, still upon his knees, heard her quickly retreating steps, but did not rise. Ludovicka had already stretched out her hand to open the door; but she turned round once more, and in tones of mingled love and grief cried, "Frederick, will you let me go?"

He did not answer, his head sank lower, and a painful groan forced itself from his breast. She opened the door--he heard it--he saw the streak of light that crossed the room through the open door, it vanished--the door had closed. Then was wrung from the Prince's breast a shriek of agony such as only issues from the lips of man under the pressure of earth's sharpest pangs.

The three gentlemen were yet a.s.sembled in the Prince's drawing room, conversing and imparting to one another their fears and hopes. All at once the door of the cabinet opened and the Electoral Prince entered. Pale as death, but with firm, determined features, he stepped up to the three gentlemen, who looked at him with tender, anxious glances.

"Marwitz," he said, "you can this very day set out on your return to Berlin, for your mission is fulfilled. Say to my father that as an obedient son I submit to his wishes, and shall forthwith depart for Berlin."

The three gentlemen only answered him by a single cry of joy, and, animated by one feeling, one inspiration, sank upon their knees and prayed aloud, "Bless, O G.o.d! bless the Prince, who has conquered himself!"

"What is going on here?" asked a loud manly voice behind them. "What means this? Three gentlemen on their knees, and my young cousin looking on like the Knight St. George!"

"And so he is, Prince of Orange," cried Baron Leuchtmar, rising and advancing to meet the Prince, who had come in unannounced, as was his wont at the house of his cousin. "Yes, he is a Knight St. George, who has conquered the dragon. You know, Prince Henry, how sweetly they have enticed him, with what magic chains they have been encircling him. You know the Media Nocte and"--added he softly--"the Princess Ludovicka."

"Well, and what more now?" asked the Prince, with eager interest. "Not much, cousin," said Frederick William, with a melancholy smile. "I must bid you farewell. I owe it to my parents, to my honor, and my country, forthwith to leave The Hague!"[19]