Part 11 (1/2)
She encircled his neck with her soft, white arms, and leaned her head with a happy smile upon his shoulder. Thus they reposed in each other's arms, silent in their unutterable delight, solemnly moved in the profound consciousness of their eternal and imperishable love.
Suddenly they were interrupted in their blissful dream by a low cry, and when they quickly turned around in a somewhat startled manner, they beheld the Countess von Voss, mistress of ceremonies, standing in the open door, and gloomily gazing upon them.
The king could not help laughing.
”Do you see now, my dear countess?” he said. ”My wife and I see each other without any previous interruption as often as we want to do so, and that is precisely as it ought to be in a Christian family. But you are a charming mistress of ceremonies, and hereafter we will call you Dame d'Etiquette. [Footnote: The king's own words.--Vide Eylert, part ii., p. 98.] Moreover, I will comply with your wishes as much as I can.”
He kindly nodded to her, and the mistress of ceremonies, well aware of the meaning of this nod, withdrew with a sigh, closing the door as she went out.
The queen looked up to her husband with a smile.
”Was it again some quarrel about etiquette?” she asked.
”Yes, and a quarrel of the worst kind,” replied the king, quickly. ”The mistress of ceremonies demands that I should always be announced to you before entering your room, Louisa.”
”Oh, you are always announced here,” she exclaimed, tenderly; ”my heart always indicates your approach--and that herald is altogether sufficient, and it pleases me much better than the stern countenance of our worthy mistress of ceremonies.”
”It is the herald of my happiness,” said the king, fervently, laying his arm upon his wife's shoulder, and gently drawing her to his heart.
”Do you know what I am thinking of just now?” asked the queen, after a short pause. ”I believe the mistress of ceremonies will get up a large number of new rules, and lecture me considerably about the duties of a queen in regard to the laws of etiquette.”
”I believe you are right,” said the king, smiling.
”But I don't believe she is right!” exclaimed the queen, and, closely nestling in her husband's arms, she added: ”Tell me, my lord and king, inasmuch as this is the first time that you come to me as a king, have I not the right to ask a few favors of you, and to pray you to grant my requests?”
”Yes, you have that right, my charming queen,” said the king, merrily; ”and I pledge you my word that your wishes shall be fulfilled, whatever they may be.”
”Well, then,” said the queen, joyfully, ”there are four wishes that I should like you to grant. Come, sit down here by my side, on this small sofa, put your arm around my waist, and, that I may feel that I am resting under your protection, let me lean my head upon your shoulder, like the ivy supporting itself on the trunk of the strong oak. And now listen to my wishes. In the first place, I want you to allow me to be a wife and mother in my own house, without any restraint whatever, and to fulfil my sacred duties as such without fear and without regard to etiquette. Do you grant this wish?”
”Most cordially and joyfully, in spite of all mistresses of ceremonies!”
replied the king.
The queen nodded gently and smiled. ”Secondly,” she continued, ”I beg you, my beloved husband, on your own part, not to permit etiquette to do violence to your feelings toward me, and always to call me, even in the presence of others, your 'wife,' and not 'her majesty the queen.' Will you grant that, too, my dearest friend?”
The king bent over her and kissed her beautiful hair.
”Louisa,” he whispered, ”you know how to read my heart, and, generous as you always are, you pray me to grant what is only my own dearest wish.
Yes, Louisa, we will always call each other by those most honorable of our t.i.tles, 'husband and wife.' And now, your third wish, my dear wife?”
”Ah, I have some fears about this third wish of mine,” sighed the queen, looking up to her husband with a sweet smile. ”I am afraid you cannot grant it, and the mistress of ceremonies, perhaps, was right when she told me etiquette would prevent you from complying with it.”
”Ah, the worthy mistress of ceremonies has lectured you also today already?” asked the king, laughing.
The queen nodded. ”She has communicated to me several important sections from the 'book of ceremonies,'” she sighed. ”But all that shall not deter me from mentioning my third wish to you. I ask you, my Frederick, to request the king to permit my husband to live as plainly and modestly as heretofore. Let the king give his state festivals in the large royal palace of his ancestors--let him receive in those vast and gorgeous halls the homage of his subjects, and the visits of foreign princes, and let the queen a.s.sist him on such occasions. But these duties of royalty once attended to, may we not be permitted, like all others, to go home, and in the midst of our dear little family circle repose after the fatiguing pomp and splendor of the festivities? Let us not give up our beloved home for the large royal palace! Do not ask me to leave a house in which I have pa.s.sed the happiest and finest days of my life. See, here in these dear old rooms of mine, every thing reminds me of you, and whenever I am walking through them, the whole secret history of our love and happiness stands again before my eyes. Here, in this room, we saw each other for the first time after my arrival in Berlin, alone and without witnesses. Here you imprinted the first kiss upon your wife's lips, and, like a heavenly smile, it penetrated deep into my soul, and it has remained in my heart like a little guardian angel of our love.
Since that day, even in the fullest tide of happiness, I always feel so devout and grateful to G.o.d; and whenever you kiss me, the little angel in my heart is praying for you, and whenever I am praying, he kisses you.”
”Oh, Louisa, you are my angel--my guardian angel!” exclaimed the king, enthusiastically.
The queen apparently did not notice this interruption--she was entirely absorbed in her recollections. ”On this sofa here,” she said, ”we were often seated in fervent embrace like to-day and when every thing around us was silent, our hearts spoke only the louder to each other, and often have I heard here from your lips the most sublime and sacred revelations of your n.o.ble, pure, and manly soul. In my adjoining cabinet, you were once standing at the window, gloomy and downcast; a cloud was covering your brow, and I knew you had heard again sorrowful tidings in your father's palace. But no complaint ever dropped from your lips, for you always were a good and dutiful son, and even to me you never alluded to your father's failings. I knew what you were suffering, but I knew also that at that hour I had the power to dispel all the clouds from your brow, and to make your eyes radiant with joy and happiness. Softly approaching you, I laid my arm around your neck, and my head on your breast, and thereupon I whispered three words which only G.o.d and my husband's ears were to hear. And you heard them, and you uttered a loud cry of joy, and before I knew how it happened, I saw you on your knees before me, kissing my feet and the hem of my garment, and applying a name to me that sounded like heavenly music, and made my heart overflow with ecstasy and suffused my cheeks with a deep blush. And I don't know again how it happened, but I felt that I was kneeling by your side, and we were lifting up our folded hands to heaven, thanking G.o.d for the great bliss He had vouchsafed to us, and praying Him to bless our child, unknown to us as yet, but already so dearly beloved. Oh, and last, my own Frederick, do you remember that other hour in my bedroom? You were sitting at my bedside, with folded hands, praying, and yet, during your prayer, gazing upon me, while I was writhing with pain, and yet so supremely happy in my agony, for I knew that Nature at that hour was about to consecrate me for my most exalted and sacred vocation, and that G.o.d would bless our love with a visible pledge of our happiness. The momentous hour was at hand--a film covered my eyes, and I could only see the Holy Virgin surrounded by angels, on Guido Reni's splendid painting, opposite my bed. Suddenly a dazzling flash seemed to penetrate the darkness surrounding me, and through the silence of the room there resounded a voice that I had never heard before--the voice of my child.
And at the sound of that voice I saw the angels descending from the painting and approaching my bedside in order to kiss me, and the Mother of G.o.d bent over me with a heavenly smile, exclaiming: 'Blessed is the wife who is a mother!' My consciousness left me--I believe my ineffable happiness made me faint.”