Part 58 (2/2)
”No, Your Majesty,” replied Irma, eagerly, ”Hippocrates is a thoroughly n.o.ble man; somewhat of a pedant, indeed, but too good and too wise to do anything like that.”
The king soon left and, after he had gone, Walpurga said:
”Now, Countess, you might open every vein in my body and I couldn't repeat one word of what you've been saying. I don't understand a word of it.”
”Yes, Walpurga,” said Irma, ”the king's a very learned man, and we have just been talking about a book which was read yesterday.”
Walpurga was satisfied.
”I had expected to meet the queen here,” said Irma, after a while, pa.s.sing her hand over her face, as if to change its expression.
”The queen isn't coming to-day,” replied Walpurga. ”She sent word that she isn't very well. At other times, she never misses being here when we bathe the child, and there's nothing more beautiful either, than such a child in its bath, or right after the bath. It's like a newborn babe, and splashes and shouts and crows. Won't you stop and see it for once? It's a real treat.”
Irma declined and soon afterward left the room. Silent and alone, the queen lay in her room. Her heart still trembled with fear of the consequences of what she had done; no, of what had happened without her having really desired it. A dagger had been forced into her hand, as if by invisible fate. She could not, dared not use it; and yet suspicion filled her soul. Suspicion! The word suddenly seemed as if she had never heard it before, just as she had in truth never felt what it meant. Purity and innocence no longer exist. Every joyful word, every cheerful expression, every smile is equivocal. Every harmless remark has a new meaning. It were better to die than cherish suspicion. The blessed gift of fancy which enables its possessor faithfully to realize to himself, and sympathize with, the actions and thoughts of others, now became a consuming flame. Specters appeared before her waking eyes and would not be laid. If the dread truth were only determined. One can take his position against a manifest wrong, but against suspicion there is none. It renders one weak and unsteady; nothing is fixed; the very earth under one's feet seems to tremble.
The queen was not ill. She could easily enough have gone to the apartments of her son; but she could not have looked into his face and smiled--for her heart was filled with a bitter thought against the father.
She arose quickly, and was about to send for the king. She would tell him all. She wished him to release her from the torment of suspicion.
She would believe him. She would only ask him honestly to acknowledge whether he was still true and at one with her. ”At heart he's frank and truthful,” said she to herself, and love for her husband welled up from the depths of her heart. Still, if he but swerved from himself, he has already been untrue: and would he acknowledge it? Can one expect a man to answer on his conscience, when he has already denied that conscience? And if he were to acknowledge the horrible fact, she would still bear it in silence. Anything was better than this suspicion that poisoned her heart and hardened her soul. Could it be that evil, nay, the mere suspicion of evil, destroys everything that lies within its reach?
She sat down again; she could not ask the king.
”Be it so,” said she at last; ”I must overcome this temptation, and the spirit of truth will lend me strength.”
She thought for a moment of making Gunther her confidant. He was her fatherly friend. ”But no,” she exclaimed to herself, ”I am not weak. I will not seek help from others. If I must learn the terrible truth, I will do it by myself; and if it is a delusion, I mean to conquer it unaided.”
At table and in the social circle, the queen's behavior toward the king and Irma was more loving than ever. When she looked at her friend, she felt as if she ought to ask forgiveness for having, even for a moment, thought basely of her; but when she was alone she felt her soul carried away toward him and her. She longed to know what they were thinking of, what they were doing or saying.--They were speaking of her, smiling at and ridiculing her. Who knows? perhaps wis.h.i.+ng her dead.
She, indeed, wished that she were dead.
CHAPTER X.
”I'm going to the theater this evening,” said Baum to Walpurga, in the afternoon of the 22d of January. ”They're going to play a great piece.
What a pity you can't go, too.”
”I've seen enough of masquerading,” replied Walpurga. ”I shall stay with my child. He's the only one in the whole court who can't disguise himself.”
Every seat in the court theater was occupied long before the beginning of the play, and the lively talking among the audience seemed like the roar of the sea. Many wondered at the words on the play-bill:
”_In Commemoration of Lessing's Birthday_ EMILIA GALOTTI BY ROYAL COMMAND.”
They spoke in hints, but understood each other perfectly. Was the performance intended to refute certain rumors? Would the court attend, and who would form the suite?
<script>