CHAPTER XIII.
I PROMISE NOT TO LAUGH.
I take it that generally when middle age looks back on the emotions of youth and its temptations, it is to smile at the wildness of the first and to marvel at the victories of the second. That is not my mood when I recall the relation between the Countess and myself. For sometimes, while passion becomes less fierce, aspiration grows less exalted. The man who calls most, if not all, things vanity, will yield to desires which some high-strung ideal in the boy would rout. At forty the feelings are not so strong as at twenty, but neither are the ambitions, the dreams, the conception of self. It is easier to resist, but it may not seem so well worth while. Thus it is with me. I wonder not at the beginning or progress of my first love, but at the manner of its end, asking myself incredulously what motive or what notion had power to hold back the flood of youth, seeking almost in vain to re-discover the spring that moved me then. Yet, though I can not feel it again, I know dimly what it was, that high, strange, noble, ludicrous ideal of my office which so laid hold on me as to scatter passion's forces and wrest me from the arms of her I loved. I can not now so think of my kingship, so magnify its claim, or conceive that it matters so greatly to the world how I hold it or what manner of man I show myself. I come to the conclusion (though it may seem to border on paradox) that in a like case I could not, or should not, do now what I did then. I suppose that it is some such process as this, a weakening of emotion parallel with a lowering of ideal, that makes us, as we grow older, think ourselves so much wiser and know ourselves to be so little better.
I had charged Wetter to say nothing to the Countess, but he disobeyed me. He had been to her and told her all that passed between us. I knew this the moment I entered her room. Her agitated nervous air showed me that she had been informed of the withdrawal of my gift, was aware that the Embassy was no longer hers to give to Wetter or another, and was wondering helplessly what the meaning of the change might be. To her, as to Wetter, the death of Hammerfeldt must have seemed the removal of an impediment; only through the curious processes of my own mind did it raise an obstacle insurmountable. She had liked the Prince, but feared him; she imagined my feelings to have been the same, and perhaps in his lifetime they were. Then should not I, who had been brought to defy him living, more readily disregard him dead?
But against her knowledge of me and her quick wit no preconception could hold out long. She was by me in a moment, asking:
"What has happened? What's wrong, Angustin?"
I had pictured myself describing to her what I felt, making her understand, sympathize, and, even while she grieved, approve. The notion was so strong in me that I did not doubt of finding words for it—words eloquent of its force and dignity. But before her simple impulsive question I was dumb. A wave of shyness swept over me not even to her could I divulge my thoughts, not even from her risk the smile of ridicule or the blankness of non-apprehension. I became wretchedly certain that I should be only absurd and priggish, that she would not believe me, would see only excuse and hypocrisy in what I said. It was so difficult also not to seem to accuse her, to charge her with grasping at what I had freely offered, with having, as the phrase runs, designs on me, with wishing to take power where she had been impelled to bestow love. She pressed me with more questions, but still I found no answer.
"I can't do it," I was reduced to stammering. "I can't do it. He's not the man. I must find another."
"Of the Prince's party?" she asked quickly.
"I don't know. I must find somebody; I must find somebody for myself."
I had sat down, and she was standing opposite to me.
"Find somebody for yourself?" she repeated slowly. "For yourself? What do you mean by that, Augustin?"
"I must choose a man for myself."
"You mean—you mean without my help?"
I returned no answer, but sat looking at her with a dreary appealing gaze. She was silent for a few moments; then she said suddenly:
"You haven't offered to kiss me."
I rose and kissed her on the lips; she stood still and did not kiss me.
"Thank you," she said. "I asked you to kiss me, and you've kissed me. Thank you." She paused and added, "Have I grown so much older in a day?"
"It is not that. It's"
"It is that," she said. She turned away and seated herself on the sofa, where she sat with her eyes fixed on the ground. Then she gave a short laugh. "I knew it would come," she said, "but this is—is rather sudden."
I ran to her and threw myself on my knees by her. I lifted my arm and put it round her neck and drew her face down to mine.
"No, no, no," I whispered passionately. "It's not that."
She let me kiss her now many times, and presently returned my kisses. Her breath caught in gasps, and she clutched my hand imploringly.
"You do love me?" she murmured.
"Yes, yes."
"Then why—why? Why do you do this?" She drew back, looking in my face in a bewildered way. Then a sudden brightness came into her eyes. "Is it for me? Are you thinking of me?"
"No," said I in stubborn honesty, "I was not thinking of you."
"Don't!" she cried, for she did not believe me. "What do I care? I cared once; I don't care now."
"It wasn't because of you," I repeated obstinately.
"Then tell me, tell me! Because I believe you still love me."
I made shift to tell her, but my stumbling words belittled the great conception: I could not find the phrases that alone might convey the truth to her; but I held on, trying to say something of what I meant.
"I never tried to interfere," she broke in once.
"I made you interfere, I myself," was my lame answer; and the rest I said was as lame.
"I don't understand," she murmured forlornly and petulantly. "Oh, I suppose I see what you mean in a way; but I don't believe it. I don't see why you should feel like that about it. Do men feel like that? Women don't."
"I can't help it," I pleaded, pressing her hand. She drew it away gently.
"And what will it mean?" she asked. "Am I never to see you?"
"Often, often, I hope, but"
"I'm not to talk to you about—about important things, things we both care about?"
I felt the absurdity of such a position. The abstract made concrete is so often made absurd.
"Then you won't come often; you won't care about coming." Something in her thoughts made her flush suddenly. She met my eyes and took courage. "You asked a good deal of me," she said.
I made no answer; she understood my silence. She rose, leaving me on my knees. I threw myself on the sofa and she went to the hearthrug. She knew that what I had asked of her I asked no more. There was a long silence between us. At last she spoke in a very low voice.
"It's only a little sooner than it must have been," she said. "And I—I suppose I must be glad that it's come home to me now instead of—later. I daresay you'll be glad of that too, Augustin."
"How are we to live, how are we to meet, what are we to be to one another?" she broke out the next moment. "We can't go on as if nothing had happened."
"I don't know."
"You don't know! Yet you're hard as iron about it. Oh, I daresay you're right; you must be. It's only a little sooner."
She turned her back to me, and stood looking down into the fire. I was trying to answer her question, to realize how it would be between us, how, having lived in the real, we must now dwell in the unreal with one another. I was wondering how I could meet her and not show that I loved her, how I could love her and yet be true to my idol, the conception that governed me. Suddenly she spoke, without turning or lifting her head.
"Whom shall you send to Paris?"
"I don't know. I haven't settled
"Wetter mentioned somebody else—besides himself?"
"Only Max," said I, with a dreary laugh.
"Hadn't you better send Max? That is, if you think him fit for it."
I thought that she was relieving her petulance by a bitter jest; but a moment later she said again, still without turning round:
"Send Max."
I rose and walked slowly to where she stood. Hearing my movement, she faced me.
"Send Max," she said again, holding out her hands toward me, clasped together. "I—I can't stay here like—in the way you say. And you? How could you do it?"
"You would go with him?" I exclaimed.
"Of course."
"For five years?"
"When I come back," she said, "you will be twenty-five. You will be married to Elsa. I shall be thirty-four. There will be no difficulty about how we are to treat one another when I come back, Augustin."
"My God!" I murmured, looking in her eyes. As I looked they filled with tears.
"My dear, my dear," she said, raising her arms and setting her hands on my shoulders, "I have never forgotten that I was a fool. Yes, once, for a few moments yesterday. I shall remember at Paris what a fool I was, and I shan't forget it when I come back. Only I wish it didn't break one's heart to be a fool."
"I won't let you go; I won't send him. I can't."
"Will it be better to have it happen here gradually before my eyes every day? I should kill myself. I couldn't bear it. I should see you finding out, changing, forgetting, laughing. Oh, what a miserable woman I am!" She turned away suddenly and flung herself into an armchair.
"Why did you do it?" she cried. "Why did you?"
"I loved you."
"Yes, yes, yes. That's the absurdity, the horrible absurdity. And I loved you, and I love you. Isn't it funny?" She laughed hysterically. "How funny we shall think it soon! When I come back from Paris! No, before then! We shall laugh about it!" She broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands.
"I shall never laugh about it," I said.
"Shan't you?" she asked, looking up and gazing intently at me. Then she rose and came toward me. "No, I don't think you will. Don't, dear. But I don't think you will. You won't laugh about it, will you? You won't laugh, Cæsar?"
I bent low and kissed her hand. I should have broken down had I tried to speak. As I raised my head from her hand, she kissed my brow. Then she wiped her eyes, saying:
"You'll send Max to Paris? You promised me this Embassy. You shall be good and great and independent, and all you say you mean to be and must be afterward. But you promised me this Embassy. Well, I ask your promise of you. I ask it for Max."
"You would go away from me?"
"Yes. I want to grow old away from you. I ask the Embassy for Max."
I stood silent, wretched, undecided. She came near to me again.
"Don't refuse me, dear," she said in a low unsteady voice. "I don't ask much of you; just to let me go, and not to laugh. I shall never ask anything again of you. I have given you so much, and I would have given you anything you asked. Don't refuse me."
"It breaks my heart."
"Poor heart, poor heart!" she whispered softly, with a sad mocking smile. "It will mend, Cæsar."
"You—you mean it?"
"With all my heart and soul."
"Then so be it."
She came to me and held out her arms. I clasped her in mine, and we kissed one another. Then both of us sat down again, and there was silence. Only once she spoke.
"How soon shall we go?" she asked.
"In about three weeks or a month, I suppose," I answered.
We were sitting silent when we heard a step on the stairs. "Hark!" she said. "It's Max's step." She rose quickly and turned the lamp lower, then seated herself in shadow. "May I tell him about it now?" she asked.
"Yes—if it must be so."
"Yes, it must." She kissed her hand to me, saying, "Good-bye." The door opened, and Max von Sempach came in. Before he could greet me she began:
"Max, what do you think brings the King here to-day?"
Max professed himself at a loss.
"He's come about you," she said. "We've been talking about you."
"Have you? What about me?" he asked, going up to her. She rose and laid her hand on his arm.
"The King is going to give our side a turn," she said with a marvellous composure and even an appearance of gaiety.
"What?" cried Max. "Are you going to send Wetter to Paris, sire?"
"No," said I. "Not Wetter. He doesn't want it now, and anyhow he's not fit for it."
"He doesn't want it! Oh, but he does!"
"Max, you mustn't contradict the King. But one of our people is to have it. Guess who it is!"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know who it is if it's not Wetter."
"It's you," she said. "Isn't it, sire?"
"If he likes it," said I. "Do you like it?"
"Like it!" he exclaimed. "Oh, but I can't believe it! Something of the sort has been the dream of my life."
"It is yours if you will have it," said I.
"And the dream of your life will come true," she said. "Fancy that! I didn't know it ever happened." And she glanced at me.
"Yes, the dream of his life shall come true," said I. "You're very fit for it, and I'm very glad to give it to one of your side."
"The King belongs to no party," said she. She paused and added, "And to no person. He stands apart and alone."
I hardly heeded Max's profuse thanks and honest open exultation.
"It's too good to be true," said he.
This has always seemed to me a strange little scene between us three. The accepted conventions of emotion required that it should raise in me and in her a feeling of remorse; for Max was so honest, so simple, so exclusively given over to gratitude. So far as I recollect, however, I had no such feeling, and I do not think that the Countess differed from me in this respect. I was envious of him, not because he took her with him (for he did not take her love), but simply because he had got something he liked, was very pleased, and in a good temper with the world and himself. The dream of his life, as he declared impetuously, was fulfilled. The dream of ours was shattered. How were we to reproach ourselves on his account? It would have been the Quixotry of conscience.
"I daresay you won't like it so much as you think," said I, with a childish desire to make him a little less comfortable.
"Oh, yes, I shall! And you'll like it, won't you?" He turned to his wife affectionately. "As if I should let you take it if I didn't like it," she answered, smiling. "Think how I shall show off before all my good countrywomen in Paris!"
"I don't know how to thank your Majesty," said Max.
"I don't want any thanks. I haven't done it for thanks. I thought you the best man."
"No, no," he murmured. "I like to think it's partly friendship for my wife and me. Everybody will say so."
I looked up with a little start.
"I suppose they will," said I.
"Yes, you'll be handsomely abused."
"That'll be rather funny," I remarked almost unconsciously, as I looked across to the Countess, smiling.
"I mean—you don't mind my saying?" asked Max; and when I nodded, he went on, "They'll point out that you're turning to our side the moment that the Prince is dead. Yes, it will make a good deal of talk; they'll call it the beginning of a new era."
"Perhaps they'll be right," said she in a low voice.
I rose to my feet. I recognised the truth in what Max said, and it seemed to add a touch of irony that the situation had lacked. Hammerfeldt himself, if he looked down from heaven (as Victoria picturesquely suggested), would be amused at the interpretation put on my action; it would suit his humour well to see the great sacrifice that I had made at the shrine of his teaching twisted into a repudiation of his views and a prompt defiance of the authority which he in life had exercised. His partisans would be furious with me, they would say I flouted his memory. That would be strange to hear when the figure of the Countess was still fresh before my eyes, and the sound of her sobs rang yet in my ears. I shrugged my shoulders.
"There are harder things to bear than a little abuse and a little gossip. I can't help it if they don't understand the grounds of my action."
"It's so soon after the Prince's death," said Max.
"The thing could not be delayed; it had to be done at once," said I.
I moved toward her to take my leave. She was standing close by her husband's side; her face was still in shadow.
"We shall have so much to do before we go," she said, "that we can hope to see very little more of your Majesty."
"Yes," broke in Max, "we must go down and arrange everything on the estate; we're going to be away for so long."
"Oh, but I shall hope to see you again. You must come and say good-bye to me. Now I must leave you."
"Good-bye, and again thank you," she said.
She came with me to the door, and down the stairs. Max walked in front, and went on to open the door and see that my carriage was in readiness. For an instant I clasped her hand.
"I shan't see you again," she whispered. "Good-bye."
I left her standing on the lowest step, her head proudly erect and a smile on her lips. It was as she said, I did not see her again; for they went to the country the next day, and when Max came to take a formal leave of me she excused herself on the score of indisposition.
To complete the picture I ought to describe the wrath of those who had formed Hammerfeldt's entourage, the gleeful satisfaction of the opposing party, the articles in the journals, the speculations, guesses, and assertions as to my reasons, temper, intention, and expressions. I should paint also my mother's mingled annoyance and relief, vexation that I favoured the Liberals, and joy that the Countess von Sempach went to Paris; Victoria's absolute bewilderment and ineffectual divings and fishings for anything that might throw light on so mysterious a matter; William Adolphus' intense self-complacency in my following of his advice, accompanied by a patronizing rebuke for my having thought it necessary to "do it so abruptly." All these good people, as they acted their little parts and filled their corners of the stage, had their own ideas of the meaning of the play and their own estimate of the importance of the characters. They all fitted into their places in my conception of it, so that not one was superfluous; all were needed, and all worked in unconsciousness to heighten the irony, to point the comedy, and to frame the tragedy in its most effective, most incongruous setting. For in this real life the stage-manager takes no pains to have all things in harmony nor to lead us through gradual and well-attempered emotions to the climax of exalted feeling, nor to banish from our sight all that jars and clashes with the pathos of the piece. Rather he works by contrasts, by strange juxtapositions, by surprises, careless how many of the audience follow his mind, not heeding dissatisfaction or pleasure, recking nothing whether we applaud or damn his play.
Well, here was I, Augustin, twenty years of age, and determined to reign alone. And my Countess was gone to Paris. Did you look down from heaven, old Hammerfeldt? Victoria thought you did. Well, then, was not the boy's work absurdly, extravagantly, bravely done?