Majesty Part 22

"Valerie!" she called.

The girl did not hear. The d.u.c.h.ess came nearer:

"Valerie!" she repeated. "Could I talk to you for a moment, alone?"

The archd.u.c.h.ess raised her pale little face. She seemed not to hear, not to understand.

"My G.o.d!" whispered the d.u.c.h.ess to Wanda. "Does she know?"

"What?" asked Wanda.

But a footman also came through the hall; he carried a silver tray with letters. There were a couple of letters for the d.u.c.h.ess; he presented them to her first; then one to Valerie. In spite of her blurred eyes, the archd.u.c.h.ess seemed to see the letter; she s.n.a.t.c.hed at it greedily.

The man withdrew.

"O ... G.o.d!..." she stammered at last.

She pulled the letter from the envelope, half-tearing it in her eagerness, and read with crazy eyes. Sofie and Wanda looked at her in dismay.

"O ... G.o.d!" screamed the archd.u.c.h.ess in agony. "It's true ... it's true ... it's true! ... Oh!..."

She rose, trembling, looked about her with wild eyes and threw herself madly into the d.u.c.h.ess' arms. A loud sob burst from her throat, as though a pistol-shot had gone through her heart.

"He writes it to me himself!" she cried out. "Himself! It's true what the paper says.... Oh!..."

And she broke down, with her head on Sofie's shoulder. Sofie led her back into the hall; Valerie allowed herself to be dragged along like a child. Wanda followed, crying, wringing her hands, without knowing why.

From the boats, which were now very far away, the young princes waved once more; little Princess Elizabeth even tried to call out something; she could not understand why Wanda and Valerie were such m.u.f.fs as not to wave back.

The sun sank on the horizon; the glowing clouds were all masked in little frothy, gold-rose mists with s.h.i.+ning edges; but evening fell, the sky grew dark: one by one the little pink clouds melted away; still one last cloud, as though with two wings formed of the last rays of the setting sun, flickered up softly, as if to fly, and then suddenly sank, with broken wings, into the violet dusk. The first stars twinkled, brightly visible.

4

Next morning, very early, at half-past five, the Archd.u.c.h.ess Valerie climbed down the terraces of Altseeborgen. She had merely told her maid that she would be back in time for breakfast, which the family took together. Resolutely, as though impulsively, she descended terrace after terrace. She met n.o.body but a couple of servants and sentries. She walked along the bottom terrace to the sea; there was a little square harbour, cut out of the granite, where the rowing- and sailing-boats lay moored in a boat-house. She chose a long, narrow gig and unhooked it from its iron chain. She took her seat adroitly and grasped the sculls: a few short strokes took her clear of the little harbour and out to sea.

A south-westerly wind was blowing over the sea. The water was strangely grey, as though it were mirroring in its oval the uncertain sky above: a dull-white sky in which hung dirty shreds of clouds blown asunder. The horizon was not visible; light mists floated over it, blotting out the division between sea and sky with smeared tints. The wind blew up strongly.

Valerie removed her little sailor-hat; and her hair blew across her face. She had intended to row to the fis.h.i.+ng-village, but she at once felt that it was beyond her strength to work up against the wind. So she let herself go with the wind. For a moment she thought of the weather, the wind, the sky; then she cast aside all thought. She pulled st.u.r.dily at the sculls.

Though the sea was comparatively calm, the boat was constantly swinging over the smooth back of a wave and then sinking down again. Splashes of spray flew up. When Valerie, after a little while, looked round, she was a trifle startled to see Altseeborgen receding so far from her. She hesitated once more, but soon let herself go again....

On leaving the castle, she had had no thought, only an impulse to act.

Now, with her very action, thought rose up again within her, as though roused from its lethargy by the wind. Valerie's eyes stared before her, wide and burning, without tears.

It was true, it was real. This was the wheel continually revolving in her thoughts. It was true, it was real. It was in the papers which Herman had been skimming through for hours; Sofie had told her; his own letter informed her of it.

She no longer had that letter, it was destroyed. But every word was still branded on her imagination.

It was his letter, written in his own words, in his style. How she had once wors.h.i.+pped his every word! But these words, were they indeed his?

Did he write like that? Could she picture to herself that he would ever speak thus to her?

He would not like to make her unhappy by loving her against the wish of her parents, her imperial relations. It was true, of course, that he was not her equal in birth. His house was of old n.o.bility, but nothing more.

She was of the blood royal and imperial. He was grateful to her for stooping to him and wis.h.i.+ng to raise him to her level. But it was not right to do this. The traditions of mankind should be inviolate: it was not right, especially for them, the great ones of the earth, to act against tradition. They should be grateful for the love which had brought happiness to their souls, but they must not expect more. It was not the wish of Vienna that they should love each other. Would he ever be able to make her entirely happy, would she, if they were married and retired with their love to a foreign country, never look back with yearning and feel homesick for the splendour from which he had dragged her down? For, if they married, he would be still less her equal than he was before, thanks to his emperor's disfavour. No, no, it could not be.

They must part. They were not born for each other. For a short moment they had shared the glorious illusion that they were indeed born for each other; that was all. He would be grateful to her for that memory all his life long.

With a breaking heart he took leave of her: farewell, farewell! It was all over: his proud career, his life, his all. He begged her to forgive him. He knew that he was too weak to love her against the will of his sovereign. And for that he begged her to forgive him. She would hear a woman's name mentioned in connection with his own: for this also he begged her pardon. He did not love that woman, but she was willing to console him in his grief....

The wind had suddenly increased in violence, with heavy, regular blasts.

The sky was dark overhead. The waves rolled more wildly against the boat and swung it up on their backs as it were on the backs of sleek sea-monsters. The spray had wetted Valerie. She looked round.

Altseeborgen lay very far away, scarcely within sight; she could just see the flag defined against the sky like a tiny ribbon.

"I must be mad," she thought. "Where am I going to?... I must turn back...."

But it was difficult to bring the boat round. Each time the wind beat it off again and drove it farther. Despair came upon Valerie, body and soul, moral and physical despair.

"Well, let it be," she thought.

She let the sculls drop, drifted farther away, away. And why not? Why should she not let herself drift away? Without him, without him ... she could not live! Her happiness was ruined; what was life without happiness? For she wanted happiness, it was essential to her....

She sat half-huddled in the boat. The sculls flapped against the sides.

A wave broke over her. Her eyes stared burning before her, into the distance.

A second wave broke; her feet were wet through. She slowly drew herself up, looked at the angry sea, at the lowering sky. Then she grasped the sculls again, with a sigh of pain:

"Come on!" she thought.

She rose higher and sank lower. But with a frantic effort she made the boat turn:

"It _shall!_" she bit out between her teeth. She kept the boat's head to the wind and began to row. It _shall_. She wrinkled her forehead, gnashed her jaws, grated her teeth together. She felt her muscles straining. And she rowed on, up against the wind. With her whole body she struggled up against the stiff breeze. It _shall_. It _must_. And she grew accustomed to the exertion; she rowed on mechanically. So much accustomed did she grow to it that she began to sob as she rowed....

O G.o.d, how she had loved him, with all her soul! Why? Could she tell?

Oh, if he had only been a little stronger, she would have been so too!

What mattered to them the disfavour of her uncle the emperor, so long as they loved each other? What the fury of their parents, so long as they loved each other? What did they care for all Europe, so long as they cared for each other? Nothing, nothing at all.... If he had only dared to grasp happiness for them, when it fluttered before them, as it flutters only once before mortal men! But he had not dared, he felt himself too weak to risk that grasp, he acknowledged it himself.... And now ... now it was over, over, over....

As she sobbed she rowed on. Her arms seemed to swell, to burst asunder.

A few thick drops of rain fell. What was she really rowing on for? The sea meant death, release from life, oblivion, the extinction of scorching pain. Then why did she row on?

"O G.o.d, I don't know!" she answered herself aloud. "But I must! I must!..."

And with successive jerks of her strong imperial body she worked herself back, towards life....

But at Altseeborgen they were in great alarm. It was three hours since Valerie had left the castle. The maid was unable to say more than that her highness had a.s.sured her she would be back to breakfast. The sentries had seen her go down the terraces, but had paid no further heed to the direction which her highness had taken. They thought it was towards the woods, but they were not sure....

Every minute the alarm increased; no suspicion was uttered, but they all read it in one another's eyes. King Siegfried ordered that they should themselves set out and search quietly, so as to attract no attention among the household and the people of the village. There could be no question of her having lost her way: the pine-woods were not extensive and Valerie knew Altseeborgen well. And there was nothing besides the woods, the beach and the village.

The king and the crown-prince themselves went into the woods, with an equerry. Herman and his younger brother Olaf went into the village, to the left; Othomar and Christofel along the sea, to the right. The queen remained behind with the princesses, in palpitating uncertainty. For all their efforts to bear up and to eat their breakfasts, a sort of rumour had already spread through the castle.

Othomar had gone with Christofel along the rocky sh.o.r.e; the rain began to come down, in hard, thick drops.