Part 15 (1/2)
With pa.s.sionate energy he stretched out both his arms toward him.
”Away with you, you son of Baal! Fly, fly, before I unmask you! You are not what you appear. You are no true devil!”
”How! you deny me, your lord and master?” cried the intruder, raising his hand covered with a crimson glove, against the priest.
”You have long called for me. You have robbed these, my children, of their gold in order to propitiate me, and now that I am come, you will not confess me before men! Perhaps you fear that these pious believers will no longer lavish their attentions and their gold upon you, and suffer you to lead them by the nose. Go, go! you are not my high priest. I listened to your entreaties, and I came, but only to prove to my children that you are a deceiver, and to free them from your yoke. Away, you blasphemer of G.o.d and of the devil! Neither G.o.d nor the devil accepts your service; away with you!” Saying this, he seized the astrologer with a powerful arm, and dragged him toward the altar.
But Pfannenschmidt was not the man to submit to such indignities.
With a wild cry of rage, he rushed upon his adversary; and now began a scene which neither words nor colors could portray. The pious wors.h.i.+ppers raised themselves from their knees and stared for a moment at this curious spectacle; and then, according as they believed in the devil or the priest, sprang forward to take part in the contest.
In the midst of this wild tumult the policemen appeared, to arrest those who were present, in the name of the king; to break up the a.s.sembly, and put an end to the noise and tumult.
Louise, meanwhile, laughing boisterously, observed this whole scene from the cabinet; she saw the police seize the raging astrologer, who uttered curses, loud and deep, against the unbelieving king, who dared to treat the pious and prayerful as culprits, and to arrest the servant and priest of the Lord. Louise saw these counts and barons, these officers and secretaries, who had been the brave adherents of the astrologer, slipping away with shame and confusion of face. She saw her own husband mocked and ridiculed by the police, who handed him an order from the king, written by the royal hand, commanding him to consider himself as under arrest in his own house.
As Louise heard this order read, her laughter was hushed and her brow was clouded.
”Truly,” said she, ”that is a degree of consideration which looks like malice in the king. To make my husband a prisoner in his own house is to punish me fearfully, by condemning me steadily to his hateful society. My G.o.d, how cruel, how wicked is the king! My husband is a prisoner here! that is to banish my beautiful, my beloved Salimberri from my presence. Oh, when shall we meet again, my love, my adorer?”
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
THE TWO SISTERS.
”I have triumphed! I have reached the goal!” said Princess Ulrica, with a proud smile, as she laid her hymn-book aside, and removed from her head her long white veil. ”This important step is taken; yet one more grand ceremony, and I will be the Princess Royal of Sweden--after that, a queen! They have not succeeded in setting me aside. Amelia will not be married before me, thus bringing upon me the contempt and ridicule of the mocking world. All my plans have succeeded. In place of shrouding my head in the funereal veil of an abbess, to which my brother had condemned me, I shall soon wear the festive myrtle-wreath, and ere long a crown will adorn my brow.”
Ulrica threw herself upon the divan, in order to indulge quietly in these proud and happy dreams of the future, when the door was hastily thrown open, and the Princess Amelia, with a pale and angry face, entered the room. She cast one of those glances of flame, with which she, in common with the king, was wont to crush her adversaries, upon the splendid toilet of her sister, and a wild and scornful laugh burst from her lips.
”I have not, then, been deceived.” she cried; ”it is not a fairy tale to which I have listened. You come from the chapel?”
”I come from the chapel? yes,” said Ulrica, meeting the angry glance of her sister with a firm and steady look. Resolved to breast the coming storm with proud composure, she folded her arms across her bosom, as if she would protect herself from Amelia's flas.h.i.+ng eyes.
”I come from the chapel--what further?”
”What further?” cried Amelia, stamping fiercely on the floor. ”Ah, you will play the harmless and the innocent! What took you to the chapel?”
Ulrica looked up steadily and smilingly; then said, in a quiet and indifferent tone: ”I have taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the Lutheran form of wors.h.i.+p.”
Amelia shuddered as if she felt the sting of a poisonous serpent.
”That signifies that you are an apostate; that signifies that you have shamefully outwitted and betrayed me; that means--”
”That signifies,” said Ulrica, interrupting her, ”that I am a less pious Christian than you are; that you, my n.o.ble young sister, are a more innocent and unselfish maiden than the Princess Ulrica.”
”Words, words! base, hypocritical words!” cried Amelia. ”You first inspired me with the thought which led to my childish and contradictory behavior, and which for some days made me the jest of the court. You are a false friend, a faithless sister! I stood in your path, and you put me aside. I understand now your perfidious counsels, your smooth, deceitful encouragement to my opposition against the proposition of the Swedish amba.s.sador. I, forsooth, must be childish, coa.r.s.e, and rude, in order that your gentle and girlish grace, your amiable courtesy, might s.h.i.+ne with added l.u.s.tre. I was your foil, which made the jewel of your beauty resplendent. Oh! it is shameful to be so misused, so outwitted by my sister!”
With streaming eyes, Amelia sank upon a chair, and hid her face with her trembling little hands.
”Foolish child!” said Ulrica, ”you accuse me fiercely, but you know that you came to me and implored me to find a means whereby you would be relieved from this hateful marriage with the Prince Royal of Sweden.”
”You should have reasoned with me, you should have encouraged me to give up my foolish opposition. You should have reminded me that I was a princess, and therefore condemned to have no heart.”