Читать книгу Frederick the Great and His Family - L. Muhlbach - Страница 26

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The Princess Amelia was alone in her room. She was stretched upon a sofa, lost in deep thought; her eyes were raised to heaven, and her lips trembled; from time to time they murmured a word of complaint or of entreaty.

Amelia was ill. She had been ill since that unhappy day in which she intentionally destroyed her beauty to save herself from a hated marriage.[Footnote: See “Berlin and Sans-Souci.”] Her eyes had never recovered their glance or early fire; they were always inflamed and veiled by tears. Her voice had lost its metallic ring and youthful freshness; it sounded from her aching and hollow chest like sighs from a lonely grave.

Severe pain from time to time tortured her whole body, and contracted her limbs with agonizing cramps. She had the appearance of a woman of sixty years of age, who was tottering to the grave.

In this crushed and trembling body dwelt a strong, powerful, healthy soul; this shrunken, contracted bosom was animated by a youthful, ardent, passionate heart. This heart had consecrated itself to the love of its early years with an obstinate and feverish power.

In wild defiance against her fate, Amelia had sworn never to yield, never to break faith; to bear all, to suffer all for her love, and to press onward with unshaken resignation but never-failing courage through the storms and agonies of a desolate, misunderstood, and wretched existence. She was a martyr to her birth and her love; she accepted this martyrdom with defiant self-reliance and joyful resignation.

Years had passed since she had seen Trenck, but she loved him still! She knew he had not guarded the faith they had mutually sworn with the constancy that she had religiously maintained; but she loved him still! She had solemnly sworn to her brother to give up the foolish and fantastic wish of becoming the wife of Trenck; but she loved him still! She might not live for him, but she would suffer for him; she could not give him her hand, but she could consecrate thought and soul to him. In imagination she was his, only his; he had a holy, an imperishable right to her. Had she not sworn, in the presence of God, to be his through life down to the borders of the grave? Truly, no priest had blessed them; God had been their priest, and had united them. There had been no mortal witness to their solemn oaths, but the pure stars were present—with their sparkling, loving eyes they had looked down and listened to the vows she had exchanged with Trenck. She was therefore his—his eternally! He had a sacred claim upon her constancy, her love, her forbearance, and her forgiveness. If Trenck had wandered from his faith, she dared not follow his example; she must be ever ready to listen to his call, and give him the aid he required.

Amelia’s love was her religion, her life’s strength, her life’s object; it was a talisman to protect and give strength in time of need. She would have died without it; she lived and struggled with her grief only for his sake.

This was a wretched, joyless existence—a never-ending martyrdom, a never-ceasing contest. Amelia stood alone and unloved in her family, feared and avoided by all the merry, thoughtless, pleasure seeking circle. In her sad presence they shuddered involuntarily and felt chilled, as by a blast from the grave. She was an object of distrust and weariness to her companions and servants, an object of love and frank affection to no one.

Mademoiselle Ernestine von Haak had alone remained true to her; but she had married, and gone far away with her husband. Princess Amelia was now alone; there was no one to whom she could express her sorrow and her fears; no one who understood her suppressed agony, or who spoke one word of consolation or sympathy to her broken heart.

She was alone in the world, and the consciousness of this steeled her strength, and made an impenetrable shield for her wearied soul. She gave herself up entirety to her thoughts and dreams. She lived a strange, enchanted, double life and twofold existence. Outwardly, she was old, crushed, ill; her interior life was young, fresh, glowing, and energetic, endowed with unshaken power, and tempered in the fire of her great grief. Amelia lay upon the divan and looked dreamily toward heaven. A strange and unaccountable presentiment was upon her; she trembled with mysterious forebodings. She had always felt thus when any new misfortunes were about to befall Trenck. It seemed as if her soul was bound to his, and by means of an electric current she felt the blow in the same moment that it fell upon him.

The princess believed in these presentiments. She had faith in dreams and prophecies, as do all those unhappy beings to whom fate has denied real happiness, and who seek wildly in fantastic visions for compensation. She loved, therefore, to look into the future through fortune-tellers and dark oracles, and thus prepare herself for the sad events which lay before her. The day before, the renowned astrologer Pfannenstein had warned her of approaching peril; he declared that a cloud of tears was in the act of bursting upon her! Princess Amelia believed in his words, and waited with a bold, resolved spirit for the breaking of the cloud, whose gray veil she already felt to be round about her.

These sad thoughts were interrupted by a light knock upon the door, and her maid entered and announced that the master of ceremonies, Baron Pollnitz, craved an audience.

Amelia shuddered, but roused herself quickly. “Let him enter!” she said, hastily. The short moment of expectation seemed an eternity of anguish. She pressed her hands upon her heart, to still its stormy beatings; she looked with staring, wide-opened eyes toward the door through which Pollnitz must enter, and she shuddered as she looked upon the ever-smiling, immovable face of the courtier, who now entered her boudoir, with Mademoiselle von Marwitz at his side.

“Do you know, Pollnitz,” said she, in a rough, imperious tone—“do you know I believe your face is not flesh and blood, but hewn from stone; or, at least, one day it was petrified? Perhaps the fatal hour struck one day, just as you were laughing over some of your villainies, and your smile was turned to stone as a judgment. I shall know this look as long as I live; it is ever most clearly marked upon your visage, when you have some misfortune to announce.”

“Then this stony smile must have but little expression to-day, for I do not come as a messenger of evil tidings; but if your royal highness will allow me to say so, as a sort of postillon d’amour.”

Amelia shrank back for a moment, gave one glance toward Mademoiselle von Marwitz, whom she knew full well to be the watchful spy of her mother, and whose daily duty it was to relate to the queen-mother every thing which took place in the apartment of the princess. She knew that every word and look of Pollnitz was examined with the strictest attention.

Pollnitz, however, spoke on with cool self-possession:

“You look astonished, princess; it perhaps appears to you that this impassive face is little suited to the role of postillon d’amour, and yet that is my position, and I ask your highness’s permission to make known my errand.”

“I refuse your request,” said Amelia, roughly; “I have nothing to do with Love, and find his godship as old and dull as the messenger he has sent me. Go back, then, to your blind god, and tell him that my ears are deaf to his love greeting, and the screeching of the raven is more melodious than the tenderest words a Pollnitz can utter.”

The princess said this in her most repulsive tone. She was accustomed to shield herself in this rude manner from all approach or contact, and, indeed, she attained her object. She was feared and avoided. Her witty bon mots and stinging jests were repeated and merrily laughed over, but the world knew that she scattered her sarcasms far and wide, in order to secure her isolation; to banish every one from her presence, so that none might hear her sighs, or read her sad history in her countenance.

“And yet, princess, I must still implore a hearing,” said he, with imperturbable good-humor; “if my voice is rough as the raven’s, your royal highness must feed me with sugar, and it will become soft and tender as an innocent maiden’s.”

“I think a few ducats would be better for your case,” said Amelia; “a Pollnitz is not to be won with sweets, but for gold he would follow the devil to the lower regions.”

“You are right, princess; I do not wish to go to heaven, but be low; there I am certain to find the best and most interesting society. The genial people are all born devils, and your highness has ever confessed that I am genial. Then let it be so! I will accept the ducats which your royal highness think good for me, and now allow me to discharge my duty. I come as the messenger of Prince Henry: He sends his heart-felt greetings to his royal sister, and begs that she will do him the honor to attend fete at Rheinsberg, which will take place in eight days.”

“Has the master of ceremonies of the king become the fourrier of Prince Henry?” said Amelia.

“No, princess; I occasionally and accidentally perform the function of a fourrier. This invitation was not my principal object to-day.”

“I knew it,” said Amelia, ironically. “My brother Henry does not love me well enough to invite me to this fete, if he had not some other object to attain. Well, what does Prince Henry wish?”

“A small favor, your royal highness; he wishes, on the birthday of his wife, to have Voltaire’s ‘Rome Sauvee’ given by the French tragedians. Some years since your highness had a great triumph in this piece. The prince remembers that Voltaire prepared the role of Aurelia especially for you, with changes and additions, and he entreats you, through me, the temporary Directeur des spectacles de Rheinsberg, to lend him this role for the use of his performer.”

“Why does not my brother rather entreat me to take this part myself?” said Amelia, in cruel mockery over herself. “It appears to me I could look the part of Aurelia, and my soft, flute-like voice would make a powerful impression upon the public. It is cruel of Prince Henry to demand this role of me; it might be inferred that he thought I had become old and ugly.”

“Not so, your highness; the tragedy is to be performed on this occasion by public actors, and not by amateurs.”

“You are right,” said Amelia, suddenly becoming grave; “at that time we were amateurs, lovers of the drama; our dreams are over—we live in realities now.”

“Mademoiselle von Marwitz, have the goodness to bring the manuscript my brother wishes; it is partly written by Voltaire’s own hand. You will find it in the bureau in my dressing-room.”

Mademoiselle Marwitz withdrew to get the manuscript; as she left the room, she looked back suspiciously at Pollnitz and, as if by accident, left the door open which led to the dressing-room.

Mademoiselle Marwitz had scarcely disappeared, before Pollnitz sprang forward, with youthful agility, and closed the door.

“Princess, this commission of Prince Henry’s was only a pretext. I took this order from the princess’s maitre d’hotel in order to approach your highness unnoticed, and to get rid of the watchful eyes of your Marwitz. Now listen well; Weingarten, the Austrian secretary of Legation, was with me to-day.”

“Ah, Weingarten,” murmured the princess, tremblingly; “he gave you a letter for me; quick, quick, give it to me.”

“No, he gave me no letter; it appears that he, who formerly sent letters, is no longer in the condition to do so.”

“He is dead!” cried Amelia with horror, and sank back as if struck by lightning.

“No, princess, he is not dead, but in great danger. It appears that Weingarten is in great need of money; for a hundred louis d’or, which I promised him, he confided to me that Trenck’s enemies had excited the suspicions of the king against him, and declared that Trenck had designs against the life of Frederick.”

“The miserable liars and slanderers!” cried Amelia, contemptuously.

“The king, as it appears, believes in these charges; he has written to his resident minister to demand of the senate of Dantzic the delivery of Trenck.”

“Trenck is not in Dantzic, but in Vienna.”

“He is in Dantzic—or, rather, he was there.”

“And now?”

“Now,” said Pollnitz, solemnly, “he is on the way to Konigsberg; from that point he will be transported to some other fortress; first, however, he will be brought to Berlin.”

The unhappy princess uttered a shriek, which sounded like a wild death-cry. “He is, then, a prisoner?”

“Yes; but, on his way to prison, so long as he does not cross the threshold of the fortress, it is possible to deliver him. Weingarten, who, it appears to me, is much devoted to your highness, has drawn for me the plan of the route, Trenck is to take. Here it is.” He handed the princess a small piece of paper, which she seized with trembling hands, and read hastily.

“He comes through Coslin,” said she, joyfully; “that gives a chance of safety in Coslin! The Duke of Wurtemberg, the friend of my youthful days, is in Coslin; he will assist me. Pollnitz, quick, quick, find me a courier who will carry a letter to the duke for me without delay.”

“That will be difficult, if not impossible,” said Pollnitz, thoughtfully.

Amelia sprang from her seat; her eyes had the old fire, her features their youthful expression and elasticity.

The power and ardor of her soul overcame the weakness of her body; it found energy and strength.

“Well, then,” said she, decisively, and even her voice was firm and soft, “I will go myself; and woe to him who dares withhold me! I have been ordered to take sea-baths. I will go this hour to Coslin for that purpose! but no, no, I cannot travel so rashly. Pollnitz, you must find me a courier.”

“I will try,” said Pollnitz. “One can buy all the glories of this world for gold; and, I think, your highness will not regard a few louis d’or, more or less.”

“Find me a messenger, and I will pay every hour of his journey with a gold piece.”

“I will send my own servant, in half an hour he shall be ready.”

“God be thanked! it will then, be possible to save him. Let me write this letter at once, and hasten your messenger. Let him fly as if he had wings—as if the wild winds of heaven bore him onward. The sooner he brings me the answer of the duke, the greater shall be his reward. Oh, I will reward him as if I were a rich queen, and not a poor, forsaken, sorrowful princess.”

“Write, princess, write,” cried Pollnitz, eagerly: “but not have the goodness to give me the hundred louis d’or before Mademoiselle Marwitz returns. I promised them to Weingarten for his news; you can add to them the ducats you were graciously pleased to bestow upon me.”

Amelia did not reply; she stepped to the table and wrote a few lines, which she handed to Pollnitz.

“Take this,” said she, almost contemptuously; “it is a draft upon my banker, Orguelin. I thank you for allowing your services to be paid for; it relieves me from all call to gratitude. Serve me faithfully in future, and you shall ever find my hand open and my purse full. And now give me time to write to the duke, and—”

“Princess, I hear Mademoiselle Marwitz returning!”

Amelia left the writing-table hastily, and advanced to the door through which Mademoiselle Marwitz must enter.

“Ah, you are come at last,” said she, as the door opened. “I was about to seek you. I feared you could not find the paper.”

“It was very difficult to find amongst such a mass of letters and papers,” said Mademoiselle Marwitz, whose suspicious glance was now wandering round the room. “I succeeded, however, at last; here is the manuscript, your highness.”

The princess took it and examined it carefully. “Ah, I thought so,” she said. “A monologue which Voltaire wrote for me, is missing. I gave it to the king, and I sec he has not returned it. I think my memory is the only faculty which retains its power. It is my misfortune that I cannot forget! I will test it to-day and try to write this monologue from memory. I must be alone, however. I pray you, mademoiselle, to go into the saloon with Pollnitz; he can entertain you with the Chronique Scandaleuse of our most virtuous court, while I am writing.—And now,” said she, when she found herself alone, “may God give me power to reach the heart of the duke, and win him to my purpose!”

With a firm hand she wrote:

“Because you are happy, duke, you will have pity for the wretched. For a few days past, you have had your young and lovely wife at your side, and experienced the pure bliss of a happy union; you will therefore comprehend the despair of those who love as fondly, and can never be united. And now, I would remind you of a day on which it was in my power to obtain for you a great favor from my brother the king. At that time you promised me to return this service tenfold, should it ever be in your power, and you made me promise, if I should ever need assistance, to turn to you alone! My hour has come! I need your help; not for myself! God and death alone can help me. I demand your aid for a man who is chained with me to the galleys. You know him—have mercy upon him! Perhaps he will arrive at your court in the same hour with my letter. Duke, will you be the jailer of the wretched and the powerless, who is imprisoned only because I am the daughter of a king? Are your officers constables? will you allow them to cast into an eternal prison him for whom I have wept night and day for many long years?”

“Oh, my God! My God! you have given wings to the birds of the air; you have given to the horse his fiery speed; you have declared that man is the king of creation; you have marked upon his brow the seal of freedom, and this is his holiest possession. Oh, friend, will you consent that a noble gentleman, who has nothing left but his freedom, shall be unjustly deprived of it! Duke, I call upon you! Be a providence for my unhappy friend, and set him at liberty. And through my whole life long I will bless and honor you! AMELIA.”

“If he does not listen to this outcry of my soul,” she whispered, as she folded and sealed the letter—“if he has the cruelty to let me plead in vain, then in my death-hour I will curse him, and charge him with being the murderer of my last hope!”

The princess called Pollnitz, and, with an expressive glance, she handed him the letter.

“Truly, my memory has not failed me,” she said to Mademoiselle Marwitz, who entered behind Pollnitz, and whose sharp eyes were fixed upon the letter in the baron’s hand. “I have been able to write the whole monologue. Give this paper to my brother, Pollnitz; I have added a few friendly lines, and excused myself for declining the invitation. I cannot see this drama.”

“Well, it seems to me I have made a lucrative affair of this,” said Pollnitz to himself, as he left the princess. “I promised Weingarten only fifty louis d’or, so fifty remain over for myself, without counting the ducats which the princess intends for me. Besides, I shall be no such fool as to give my servant, who steals from me every day, the reward the princess has set apart for him; and if I give him outside work to do, it is my opportunity; he is my slave, and the reward is properly mine.”

“Listen, John!” Said Pollnitz to his servant, as he entered his apartment. Poor John was, at the same time, body-servant, jockey, and coachman. “Listen; do you know exactly how much you have loaned me?”

“To a copper, your excellency,” said John, joyfully. Poor John thought that the hour of settlement had come. “Your excellency owes me fifty-three thalers, four groschen, and five pennies.”

“Common soul,” cried Pollnitz, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, “to be able to keep in remembrance such pitiful things as groschen and coppers. Well, I have a most pressing and important commission for you. You must saddle your horse immediately, and hasten to deliver this letter to the Duke of Wurtemberg. You must ride night and day and not rest till you arrive and deliver this packet into the duke’s own hands. I will then allow you a day’s rest for yourself and horse; your return must be equally rapid. If you are here again in eight days, I will reward you royally.”

“That is to say, your excellency—” said John, in breathless expectation.

“That is to say, I will pay you half the sum I owe you, if you are here in eight days; if you are absent longer, you will get only a third.”

“And if I return a day earlier?” Said John, sighing.

“I will give you a few extra thalers as a reward,” said Pollnitz.

“But your excellency will, besides this, give me money for the journey,” said John, timidly.

“Miserable, shameless beggar!” Cried Pollnitz; “always demanding more than one is willing to accord you. Learn from your noble master that there is nothing more pitiful, more sordid than gold, and that those only are truly noble, who serve others for honor’s sake, and give no thought to reward.”

“But, your grace, I have already the honor to have lent you all my money. I have not even a groschen to buy food for myself and horse on our journey.”

“As for your money, sir, it is, under all circumstances, much safer with me than with you. You would surely spend it foolishly, while I will keep it together. Besides this, there is no other way to make servants faithful and submissive but to bind them to you by the miserable bond of selfishness. You would have left me a hundred times, if you had not been tied down by your own pitiful interests. You know well that if you leave me without my permission, the law allows me to punish you, by giving the money I owe you to the poor. But enough of foolish talking! Make ready for the journey; in half an hour you must leave Berlin behind you. I will give you a few thalers to buy food. Now, hasten! Remember, if you remain away longer than eight days, I will give you only a third of the money I am keeping for you.”

This terrible threat had its effect upon poor John.

In eight days Pollnitz sought the princess, and with a triumphant glance, slipped a letter into her hand, which read thus:

“I thank you, princess, that you have remembered me, and given me an opportunity to aid the unhappy. You are right. God made man to be free. I am no jailer, and my officers are not constables. They have, indeed, the duty to conduct the unhappy man who has been for three days the guest of my house, farther on toward the fortress, but his feet and his hands shall be free, and if he takes a lesson from the bird in velocity, and from the wild horse in speed, his present escape will cost him less than his flight from Glatz. My officers cannot be always on the watch, and God’s world is large; it is impossible to guard every point. My soldiers accompany him to the brook Coslin. I commend the officer who will be discharged for neglect of duty to your highness. FERDINAND.”

“He will have my help and my eternal gratitude,” whispered Amelia; she then pressed the letter of the duke passionately to her lips. “Oh, my God! I feel to-day what I have never before thought possible, that one can be happy without happiness. If fate will be merciful, and not thwart the noble purpose of Duke Ferdinand, from this time onward I will never murmur—never complain. I will demand nothing of the future; never more to see him, never more to hear from him, only that he may be free and happy.”

In the joy of her heart she not only fulfilled her promise to give the messenger a gold piece for every hour of his journey, but she added a costly diamond pin for Pollnitz, which the experienced baron, even while receiving it from the trembling hand of the princess, valued at fifty louis d’or.

The baron returned with a well-filled purse and a diamond pin to his dwelling, and with imposing solemnity he called John into his boudoir.

“John,” said he, “I am content with you. You have promptly fulfilled my commands. You returned the seventh day, and have earned the extra thalers. As for your money, how much do I owe you?”

“Fifty-three thalers, four groschen, and five pennies.”

“And the half of this is—”

“Twenty-seven thalers, fourteen groschen, two and a half pennies,” said John, with a loudly beating heart and an expectant smile. He saw that the purse was well filled, and that his master was taking out the gold pieces.

“I will give you, including your extra guldens, twenty-eight thalers, fourteen groschen, two and a half pennies.” said Pollnitz, laying some gold pieces on the table. “Here are six louis d’or, or thirty-six thalers in gold to reckon up; the fractions you claim are beneath my dignity. Take them, John, they are yours.”

John uttered a cry of rapture, and sprang forward with outstretched hands to seize his gold. He had succeeded in gathering up three louis d’or, when the powerful hand of the baron seized him and held him back.

“John,” said he, “I read in your wild, disordered countenance that you are a spendthrift, and this gold, which you have earned honestly, will soon be wasted in boundless follies. It is my duty, as your conscientious master and friend, to prevent this. I cannot allow you to take all of this money—only one-half; only three louis d’or. I will put the other three with the sum which I still hold, and take care of it for you.”

With an appearance of firm principle and piety, he grasped the three louis d’or upon which the sighing John fixed his tearful eyes.

“And now, what is the amount,” said Pollnitz, gravely, “which you have placed in my hands for safe-keeping?”

“Thirty-two thalers, fourteen groschen, and five pennies,” said John; “and then the fractions from the three louis d’ors makes a thaler and eight groschen.”

“Pitiful miser! You dare to reckon fractions against your master, who, in his magnanimity, has just presented, you with gold! This is a meanness which merits exemplary punishment.”