Majesty Part 23

"What are we really looking for here?" asked Othomar, helplessly.

"Perhaps she has thrown herself into the sea!" answered the young prince.

And for the first time of his life, he felt afraid of those depths, which meant death. Unconsciously they went on, on, on....

"Let's go back," said Othomar.

Nevertheless they continued to go on; they could not give in....

Then a scream sounded over the water: they started, but at first saw nothing.

"Did you hear?" asked Christofel, turning pale, thinking of ghostly legends of the sea.

"A sea-mew, I expect," said Othomar, listening, however.

The scream was repeated.

"There, don't you see something?" asked Christofel, pointing.

He pointed to a long streak that came surging over the water.

Othomar shook his head:

"No, that's impossible!" he said. "It's a fisher-lad."

"No, no, it's a rowing-boat!" cried Christofel.

They said nothing more, they ran along. The streak became plainer: a gig; the scream rang out again, piercingly.

"My G.o.d!... Valerie!" shouted Othomar.

She called back a few words; he only partly understood them. She was rowing not far from the sh.o.r.e towards the castle. Othomar took off his coat, his shoes, his socks, turned up his trousers, his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves.

"Take those with you," he cried to Christofel, "and go back to the castle, tell them...."

He ran on his bare feet over the rocks and into the sea, flung himself into the water, swam out to the boat. It was very difficult for him to climb into the little gig without capsizing it. It lurched madly to right and left; however, with a single, quick, light movement, Othomar managed to jump in.

"I give up...." said Valerie, faintly.

She let go the sculls; he seized them and rowed on. For an instant she fell against him, but then sat up straight, so as not to hamper him.

5

The young archd.u.c.h.ess did not appear at luncheon; she was asleep. Not long before dinner--it was raining and the queen was taking tea in the hall with the princesses, the aunts, the children--she appeared. She looked rather pale; her face was a little drawn, her eyes strangely wide and burning. She was wearing a simple summer costume of some soft, pale-lilac material, with two white ribbons tied round her waist; the colour went well with her strange hair, which now looked brown and then again seemed auburn. The queen held out her hand to Valerie, shook her head and said:

"You naughty girl! How you frightened us!"

Valerie kissed the queen on the forehead:

"Forgive me, aunt. The wind was so strong, I could hardly make way against it. I oughtn't to have gone. But I felt a need ... for movement."

The queen looked at her anxiously:

"How are you feeling now?"

"Oh, very well, aunt! Rather stiff; and a little headache. It's nothing.

Only my hands are terribly blistered: just look...."

And she laughed.

The old aunts asked for copious details of what had happened: it was difficult to make them understand. Wanda sat down between the two of them, told them the story; their sharp c.o.c.katoo-profiles kept on wagging up and down at Wanda, in astonishment. The aunts pressed their hands to their hearts and looked at Valerie with terror in their eyes; she smiled to them pleasantly. When Countess von Altenburg appeared, the aunts took the old mistress of the household between them and in their turn told her the story, screeching it into the countess' poor old ears. King Siegfried entered; he went up to Valerie, who rose, took her head in his hands, looked at her and shook his grey head; nevertheless he smiled.

Then he looked at his sisters; he was always amused at them; they were still in the middle of their story to the countess and kept on taking the words out of each other's mouths.

"Come, it was not so dreadful as all that!" said the king, interrupting them. "It's very nice to go rowing like that, once in a way, and an excellent remedy for a sick-headache. You ought to try it, Elsa, when you have one of yours."

The old princess looked at him with a sugary smile; she never knew whether her brother meant a remark of this kind or not. She shook her stately head slowly from side to side:

"No, _lieber Siegfried_, that is more than we can do. _Unsere liebe Erzherzogin_ is still a young thing!..."

Othomar, Gunther and Herman entered: they had been playing billiards; the young princes followed them. Valerie gave a little s.h.i.+ver, rose and went up to Othomar:

"I thank you, Xara," she said. "I thank you a thousand, thousand times!"

"But what for?" replied Othomar, simply. "I did no more than row you a bit of the way back. There was no danger. For, if you had been too tired to go on rowing, you could always have jumped into the sea and swum ash.o.r.e. You're a strong swimmer. You would only have lost the boat."

She looked at him:

"That's true," she said. "But I never thought of it. I was ...

bewildered perhaps. I should not have done that; I had a fixed idea that I had to row back. If I hadn't been able to keep on rowing, I should certainly.... Don't refuse my thanks, I beg of you: accept them."

She put out her hand; he pressed it. He looked up at her with quiet surprise and failed to understand her. He did not doubt but that she had that morning left the castle with the intention of committing suicide.

Had she felt remorse on the water, or had she not dared? Did she want to live on and did she therefore turn back? Was she so shallow that she had already recovered from the great grief which had crushed her the night before? Did she realize that life rolls with indifferent chariot-wheels over everything, whether joy or pain, that is part of ourselves and that it is best to care for nothing and also to feel nothing? What of all this applied to her? He was unable to fathom it. And once more he saw himself standing perplexed before the question of love! What was this feeling worth, if it weighed so little in a woman's heart? How much did it weigh with him for Alexa? What was it then?... Or was it something ... something quite different?

At dinner Valerie talked as usual and he continued not to understand her. It irritated him, his want of penetration of the human heart: how could he develop it? A future ruler ought to be able to see things at a glance.... And suddenly, perhaps merely because of his desire for human knowledge, the thought arose within him that she was concealing her emotions, that perhaps she was still suffering intensely, but that she was pretending and bearing up: was she not a princess of the blood? They all learnt that, they of the blood, to pretend, to bear up! It was bred in their bones. He looked at her askance, as he sat next to her: she was quietly talking across him to the queen. He did not know whether he had guessed right and he still hesitated between the two thoughts: was she bearing up, or was she shallow? But, yet he was happy at being able to hesitate about her and to refute that first suspicion of shallowness by his second thought. He was happy in this, not solely because of Valerie, that she should be better than he had thought at first; he was happy especially for the general conclusion which he was able to draw: that a person is mostly better, thinks more deeply, cherishes n.o.bler feelings than he allows to appear in the everyday commonplaces of life, which compel him to occupy himself with momentary trifles and phrases. A delicate satisfaction took possession of him that he had thought this out so, a contentment that he had discovered something beautiful in life: a beautiful secret. Everybody knew it perhaps, but n.o.body let it be perceived. Oh yes, people were good; the world was good, in its essence! Only a strange mystery compelled it to seem different, a strange tyranny of the universal order of things.

He glanced around the long table. Every face wore a look of kindness and sympathy. He was attached to his uncle so calm, gentle and strong, with the seeming dogged silence of his Norse character, with his tranquil smile and now and then a little gleam of fun, aimed especially at the old aunts, but also at the children and even at the equerries, the ladies-in-waiting. He knew that his uncle was a thinker, a philosopher; he would have liked to have a long discussion with him on points of philosophy. He was fond also of his aunt, a first-rate queen: what a lot she did for her country, what a number of charities she called into existence; a first-rate mother: how sensibly she performed her difficult task, the bringing up of royal children! She was more beloved in her country than was his mother, whom yet he adored, in hers; she had more tact, less fear, less haughtiness also towards the crowd. It should perhaps have been the other way about: his mother queen here, her sister empress yonder....

And the crown-prince, with his simple manliness; Herman, with his joviality; the younger brothers, with their vigorous, boyish chaff: how fond he was of them! Sofie, Wanda, the children: how he liked them all!

He even liked the aunts and the devoted old mistress of the household.

Oh, the world was good, people were good! And Valerie was not indifferent, but suffered in quiet silence, as a princess of the blood must suffer, with unclouded eyes and a smile!

After dinner Queen Olga took Othomar's arm:

"Come with me for a moment," she said.

The rain had ceased; a footman opened the French windows. Behind the dining-room lay a long terrace looking upon the woods. The queen put her arm in Othomar's and began to walk up and down with him: