Читать книгу The Rocklitz - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 8

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Major General de Haverbeck, after parading and reviewing the troops, returned to the military depôt of the Life Guards in the Neustadt and took from his pocket the last number of the Gazette; his disinterested glance was arrested by the mention of a trial for witchcraft which had been in some way concerning the public mind, and a notice that the accused woman had died under torture in the Koenigsberg. Haverbeck had always had a peculiar detestation of the dark outline, the sombre bulk of the huge State prison; he reflected with distaste on a woman dying there in the inner, dark torture chamber. He impatiently turned over the news-letter. As he did so he saw an announcement of the approaching marriage of the Johann Georg IV, Elector of Saxony, Arch Marshal of the Empire, with Her Highness Ermuthe Louise of Saxe-Eisenach, widow of the late Margrave of Anspach. It stated that His Highness's proxy, the Duke of Croy, had already left Dresden to marry and bring home the bride. Haverbeck folded the Gazette into the pocket of his uniform and went directly to the Residenzschloss.

The clean handsome streets were pleasant in the warm morning air, the waters of the Elbe blue beneath the bluer sky. On many balconies were flowers, on many roofs and towers were flags; there was an atmosphere of gaiety and lightness abroad, not only because of the summer, but because there was lately a young ruler returned to his capital; after the necessary and dutiful period of mourning for a prince who had been respected but was not popular, the people were pleased with their new Elector—because of his youth, his comely appearance, his apparent good nature, his spirits and gallantry he was approved; he was reputed to be both enterprising and lively and his subjects cared very little that he was also obstinate and ignorant.

Haverbeck found the Residenzschloss busy with animated activity, the state rooms were being hastily replenished in the way of furniture and fitments, tapestries and pictures being brought out of attics and presses. Whereas the late Elector had been a careful man indifferent to all forms of display, the present prince was magnificent in his tastes and wishful to make on every possible occasion a show of splendour; on every lip Haverbeck heard confirmation of the marriage arranged between the Elector and the Margravine of Anspach; he also heard that His Highness was leaving that evening for Arnsdorf.

Haverbeck was baffled. Why should the Elector go to the house of the Neitschütz, and expose himself to the reproaches, the seduction, the despair of Magdalena Sibylla? He was good-natured, tolerant and easy. Why then should he desire to go and gloat over the spectacle of the miserable downfallen House of Neitschütz? Why expose and emphasize, as it were, his own dishonour? For Haverbeck knew of his oaths and promises to Madelon, and of the contract that existed between them.

Probably, thought the soldier, he is struggling with Stürm, who has put this announcement and arranged this marriage without his consent—his visit to Arnsdorf will be in the nature of a flight, an escape; perhaps he will marry her, secretly, and flout them all. I wonder if he has so much courage...If he has it is odd that he should be persuaded to this public promise to another woman which will cause infinite scandal, possibly a war.

Haverbeck knew that he missed the key to the situation—some important, vital fact that would make all clear...convinced that he was wasting time and always detesting inaction, he decided to demand an audience with the Elector under the excuse of desiring an answer to his memorial on the army, which had been sent him some months ago on the death of the former Prince. He waited, therefore, until the departure of the Marquis de Rébénec, the French Resident who had been closeted with the Elector, then sent in his name with a petition to be received.

He met with an instant refusal.

This rebuff made Haverbeck more determined. He took up his place near to the Elector's closet-door, and waited there, patient as a sentinel.

"If I can see him, it will tell me much—for he is but a wilful and uncontrolled boy."

A graceful clock in silver-porcelain that stood on an ormolu cabinet between the blue velvet curtains of the tall windows had marked off half an hour more of the day before the Elector appeared; he was flushed and dishevelled, his cravat carelessly knotted, his thick fair hair ruffled, his eyes oddly swollen, as if he lacked sleep or had been weeping; he recognized instantly and with flaming annoyance Haverbeck, and paused with a harsh demand—as to his business?

Haverbeck, coolly studying him, stated this with extreme respect, taking as many words as possible that he might have the longer for his careful consideration of the Elector.

Johann Georg answered with rude hostility:

"What is all this to me? I have not read your memorial, General de Haverbeck. I have received no such complaint from other of my officers."

"Yet the facts are very well known, Sir," replied the young General patiently, "for I have written of them in all my letters—I have even cited particular examples, and I have foretold what must occur in the army of your Highness if the defaulters are not more rigorously punished."

"I know nothing of it," replied the Elector sullenly, staring at Haverbeck as if he scarcely heard what that gentleman said, yet was intensely concerned with his personality.

Haverbeck felt this; he was aware that the Elector was looking at him with a hostility, with a passionate interest, that he had never discovered before. He knew that Johann Georg had never liked him, but there had been a certain indifference mingled with his dislike; now there was active antagonism.

He continued to talk about the state of the army, he mentioned that there was neither artillery disposable nor remounts for the cavalry, nor regular pay, nor rations for the soldiers, that order and discipline were impossible and defeat almost unavoidable; in brief, that the Saxon troops had been the most disgraceful among those assisting the Emperor in Hungary.

"This state of affairs," he added, "has been supported or even connived at by the court."

"Let Stürm attend to this," said the Elector, quickly, heavily. Haverbeck replied:

"Your Highness knows perfectly well that Stürm has no interest in the army—nor has Marshal Pollnitz, his creature."

"What interest have you," demanded Johann Georg, harshly, "in making these complaints to me? You take an intolerable tone, General de Haverbeck!"

"I find myself, your Highness, in an intolerable position. You ask what interest I have.—None. I speak to you for your own service. You lose by these basenesses and confusion—not I. It is open to me to leave a service in which I find but little satisfaction or honour. For my own particular part I certainly shall not care much longer to force myself to live with people who are nearly always intoxicated, given up to their vices and their corruption, and where I expose myself to the risk of losing for life both my reputation and my honour."

The Elector sighed heavily with vexation.

"Why do you force all this on me, now, General de Haverbeck?" he demanded. "I have many concerns on my shoulders."

"But hardly one more important than this," replied the young General, coolly. "However, as your Highness does not wish to hear me, I do not wish to speak."

"Take your complaint," said the Elector, "to Field Marshal von Pollnitz, who is the Chief of my army."

Haverbeck smiled. Pollnitz was old, feeble, corrupt, and an unscrupulous tool of Count Stürm. Such a recommendation was almost an insult. He stepped back and it was more as if he dismissed the Elector than the Elector dismissed him.

As Johann Georg, hesitant, angry, distracted, turned away Haverbeck asked clearly:

"Does Your Highness go to Arnsdorf this evening?"

Johann Georg flung round and flashed fury at him; he was as surprised as maddened by the question.

"This insolence will be remembered, General de Haverbeck," he declared hotly.

"I am answered, Your Highness," replied Haverbeck, indifferent to the menace, absorbed in his own peculiar problem. He had not yet obtained the key to the situation. Johann Georg was agitated, infuriated, seemed absorbed in some inner tumult, torn with emotion, not in the least like a boy lost in his first love—as Count Stürm had described him—not in the least like a man going to his mistress with the intention of a secret marriage neither elated, nor enthusiastic, nor triumphant, nor complacently acquiescing in the designs of another; rather, Haverbeck read him, as a man in a mood of hatred, full of malice and tumult, and that was odd indeed in one of such renown for good nature and easy ways.

"What has occurred? Something at which I cannot guess or glimpse," thought Haverbeck, with his handsome dark face clouded and his black brows gathered in a frown.

He left the Residenzschloss hastily. It occurred to him that he might discover something from Madelon's brothers. He sent a messenger to the young officers' several lodgings to enquire of them. By this means he discovered that both Clement and Casimir had gone early that morning to Arnsdorf. Haverbeck thought this definitely indicated that the visit of the Elector was expected and that all the members of the House of Neitschütz were to be gathered together to meet him and force him into a certain course of action—the secret marriage, no doubt.

"They intend to put this through in spite of Stürm, or possibly they do not know of the contract with the Margravine of Anspach; they may have left Dresden before the Gazette was out."

All these circumstances fitted well enough together into a coherent whole. But what of the demeanour of the young Elector? Why was he so perturbed—appeared to be so wretched, breathing hate instead of love? Haverbeck recalled, with a smile at the recollection, a youthful vow never to enter the Château of Arnsdorf again; he had not since that time received such treatment from the members of the House of Neitschütz as should make him wish to rescind that resolution. Whether or no they were expecting the Elector at Arnsdorf, Haverbeck knew that he would be an unwelcome guest, and he hesitated for a moment, considering how difficult it would be to endure the fantastic rudeness of the harsh and bitter old man, and the flippant insolence of the foolish and vicious young men.

If he left Dresden at once he could reach Arnsdorf some hours before the Elector. It was a last chance to obtain something that he had persistently wanted all his life, and he was not a man to lightly forgo a desire.

He was mounting at his door when an old man stepped from a hired carriage and hurried through the passing crowd to his side.

"Ah, Steffan!" Haverbeck was surprised. "I am sorry you were not here earlier; I am leaving Dresden for a while."

The old Italian's sallow face quivered with disappointment, even with apprehension.

"Monseigneur, I have come to entreat you to return with me, and immediately."

"Impossible," smiled Haverbeck, mounting. "Tomorrow, my dear Maestro, tomorrow."

"But, Angelique," pleaded the old man, anxiously, "is ill—she has caught some fever, and the doctors do not think favourably of her condition. She has asked for you with the greatest impatience. You must consider, Monseigneur, that it is a great many days since you have come to see her."

"I cannot come now, Steffani; I am sorry; give her all kind greetings and say I will come tomorrow."

"Monseigneur, she is ill, she is really ill, and nothing will console her but a visit from you. She suffers, poor child."

"I will come tomorrow," repeated Haverbeck, pleasantly. "Give her all my regrets and say I will bring her tomorrow that lace headdress she has been always wanting."

"And where are you going?" asked the old man, sorrowfully; he lingered with regret by the fine horse and handsome rider.

"To Arnsdorf."

"Oh, to Arnsdorf!"

"You are surprised, my dear Steffani, I confess I am surprised myself; nevertheless I must go immediately. I rely on you to look after Angelique."

He saluted and rode away down the crowded street.

The old Italian stood forlorn, jostled by the passers-by. He was struck, he was dismayed, he was discomfited that Haverbeck should return to Arnsdorf. He connected it in his mind with the approaching marriage of the Elector, of which everyone was talking, and he thought, in his simple fashion, that if the Elector married the Margravine of Anspach then Haverbeck could marry Madelon von Neitschütz. And Angelique...with the air of one who has received a cutting rebuff the old man crept into the hired coach and ordered the men to take him back to the house on the Bächnitz road from which he had started on his eager errand of love.

While this humble coach rattled through the narrow crowded streets, while Haverbeck rode swiftly the great post-road out of Dresden towards Arnsdorf, Johann Georg was closed in an inner cabinet, where he had retired, contrary to all ceremony and all obligation, immediately after his interview with Haverbeck, leaving those in attendance on him doubtful as to his mood or his intention.

After impetuously locking the door he flung off his coat, tore off his neck-cloth, and tossed himself on to a yellow-striped sophy that stood beneath the high-set window. His meeting with Haverbeck had reduced him again to those depths of agony from which he had with difficulty dragged himself. He had been maddened by the sight of the handsome stately soldier, so trim, so elegant, so master of himself—her favoured lover, no doubt! the man before she had paraded his—Johann Georg's—pitiful boyish weaknesses, his silly raving letters—a man in everything different from himself—a man indeed, a man of action and experience, where he was but a boy and a fool who knew nothing, whom everyone had kept ignorant and dependent, who had become the victim of a hard, designing woman, and her villainous brothers and father.

The young Elector's long passion for Magdalena Sibylla had kept him largely in a world of fancy and far from any gross surfeiting delights. His disposition was soft and romantic; he had indulged many a daydream and many a fairy flight of fancy and rapture. Now all this inner world had been ruthlessly destroyed; he was not only outraged and shocked, but desperately lonely. He lamented an infinite devastation...

Count Stürm, knowing with whom he dealt, had not risked any chivalrous reaction in favour of Magdalena Sibylla. That morning he had taken the young Elector to the house of Fani von Ilten and, in the presence of that woman and Madame de Rosny, the humiliated youth had learned from the poisoned accents of vice how ridiculous is virtue. He had heard honour coldly derided, love and all its attendant generosities put to scorn; he had been shown that he had wandered in the Eden of a simpleton.

Madame de Rosny, respectful, deferential, simpering, had put before him a sordid picture of the establishment of Major General von Neitschütz.

She had described to him very clearly all the shifts, intrigues, manoeuvres, of which he had been the victim. She had told him how Madelon had been expressly trained to entrap him, how from a child she had been taught to regard him as her fool, take her advantage and her profit out of his boyish passion, how she had laughed at him—Oh, Madame de Rosny could recall very exact occasions with full detail—how she had laughed at him and preferred always Delphicus de Haverbeck, with his dark good looks and his manly ways, even as a boy—his superior in intelligence and education.

Madame de Rosny could recall how the girl had talked of her plans to rule Saxony when she was the Electress, and to keep her cousin Delphicus about her court.

Fani von Ilten, too, had her share to add. She could remember how the two young officers—Casimir and Clement—had boasted in their cups with their women over the gambling table of their sister's influence over the Elector, of the imbecile she had made of him; how she led him like a tame bear and fed him when she would with honey, and when she would, muzzled him, and used the whip; how when she was firmly on the electoral throne she had declared she would dispense all the benefits of the country to her hungry and starving relations. Who could hope to climb who had not a wife, or daughter, or sister to dispose of? The House of Neitschütz need not trouble about merit—they would rise to great eminence on the pretty shoulders of Madelon...

The wretched youth listened sullen, maddened—one world dissolved, another re-formed before his inner gaze. Nauseated with his own folly, he believed that these people had revealed to him things as they were...It seemed to him that honour, and truth, and love were indeed matters for children and fairy-tale...Every woman was a harlot and every man a pander, and nothing so stupid as the innocence that made you the prey of knaves.

Now, secretly locked into his inner closet, he threw his head upon his arms and wept.

For he had loved her.

Not only with a pure and delicate passion, but with kindness, with affection, with gratitude. She was, as she had boasted, in all his superior, and he had been humble before her. He could recall how she had helped him, inspired and stimulated him—with his lessons, with his fencing, with his horses! How much he had learnt from her, and all the while she was laughing, exposing him—his stupidity, his weaknesses and his clumsiness—to that other man, that dark handsome young soldier who had smiled at him just now and told him of the miserable state of his own army, who had despised his troops to his face.

His powerful shoulders heaved with heavy sobs.

How coldly pitying Stürm's dull gaze had been, how blighting had been the vindictive looks of those raddled old harlots; why had he gone there to expose himself to such a humiliation?

He had gone because he wanted to hear himself, because he could scarcely believe what his minister had told him. He had gone out of a frightful fascination to learn with his own ears of the vileness of the world.

He had learnt.

What had they said?

"Women are like that, sir, to catch a prince, to catch any man worth while."

What had they said?

There had even been an incantation of drugs, of witchcraft, of waxen images being melted before a slow fire, of potions mixed with drink...Perhaps Madelon had done that—perhaps she tad enchained him by such filthy means.

He sat up, shuddering.

Surely it was not natural, the passion, the need he felt for her even now—even after this?

He put his hand to his painful and swollen eyes and saw his fingers wet with tears.

"They have made me weep, and I have disgraced myself."

The youth struggled with his agony, and snatched at the thought of revenge. He was master, at least, and he could lower them as they had lowered him. He knew now that they were down in the dust and he could put his foot on them. Ruined, broken, starving—all of them, and he their master! He must keep that before him—the fact that he was their master.

He dragged himself to his feet, the long struggling sobs discomposing him, and went into a small inner toilet closet, where a silver tap was placed above a white alabaster basin in the form of a shell. Johann Georg turned on the water violently.

He took the napkins that lay on the shelf beneath, dipped them in the water and bathed his hot face.

He would be a resolute prince. He would re-form his army and be strong in the circle of the Empire, but not with Delphicus de Haverbeck's help. He would be his own general, his own field-marshal, his own leader. He dashed the cold water over his smarting eyes, his red face, his thick neck, his bright, thick hair. His cravat and his waistcoat were wetted.

"My God, that they should have made me weep! I can remember when she made me weep before, and I was a child then."

He bit his swollen lip to force back the sobs, he held the soaking cloths to his eyes.

When he took them away and saw the drops running down on to his hands he remembered a day, oh, years and years ago!—they had played together by a fountain, and so the drops had splashed on to him then—wetting her, wetting him. They had been happy and Haverbeck had watched them.

He leant his heavy handsome head against the wall and felt nauseated to the soul; the wet napkin dripped in his fingers. He put it again to his forehead, to his eyes, and thrust it into his mouth to stifle his sobs.

"My God! I'll be revenged for this—My God! I'll make them pay!"

He thought of a way to punish them, to satisfy his own cheated senses, to outrage Haverbeck. He, too, would show that he could play the filthy game in which everybody was engaged, from which he, as a fool, as a boy, had hitherto been maliciously excluded; he would treat honour, love and women as they had revealed to him these should be treated.

He choked into the wet napkin, cursing his awful tears.

"Damn them for this, making me weep!"