August, on the Baltic. The grey billows curl against the rocks with high, rounded crests of thick foam. The sky above is one wide cupola, through which drift great mountain-ranges of grey-white clouds. They come up slowly, filling the firmament with their changing, shadowy masses, like chains of rocks and Alps floating on the air, and slowly drift away again. The sea has a narrow beach, with many crumbling cliffs; quite close at hand loom sombre green pine-woods. With the gloom of the pine-woods for a background, as it were half out of the cliffs rises old Altseeborgen. It is a weather-beaten castle, at which the writhing waves seem to gnaw; its three tall, uneven towers soar round and massive into the sky. The broad road to the castle slants up from the woods terrace-wise and leads to the esplanade at the back, where the main entrance is. Round the castle the wide granite terraces are cut into stairs, with their rugged balustrades, whose freestone is worn away by the salt air. These terraces enjoy a more extensive view of the sea as they rise higher, higher; and, seen from the topmost terrace, the sea lies against the beach, to right and left, in one great, strangely mobile expanse, a living element. Across the sea the south-winds blow upon the castle; the pine-woods shelter it to some extent from the northernly gales.

From the tallest tower an imposing standard flaps gaily in the air: two yellow stripes and a white stripe between, with the dark patch of the crenellated fortress which forms the arms of Gothland. It floats there on the sunless morning like a smile in the sky; it swells and falls limp again and then again lets itself be blown high up by the wind, which comes swinging lustily over the water.

A young man and a girl are walking on the beach; they talk, smile, look at each other. She is taller than he, with a very fair complexion; under her little sailor-hat a few of her auburn tresses, tangled by the wind, blow across her face; she keeps on smoothing them away. She wears a simple blue serge skirt and a white blouse, with a broad leather belt around her waist. Her dainty little feet, in their black-silk stockings and yellow-leather shoes, are constantly uncovered by the wind. She carelessly swings a pair of gloves in her hand.

The young man wears a light check summer suit and a straw hat. He is short and slender; his black eyes have a look of gentle melancholy. He appears to be telling the girl by his side a tale of travel; she listens, with her smile.

Round about them, in spite of the wind, the atmosphere is full of peace. Walking along the beach, they go by the castle, pass round behind it and look up. From one of the windows somebody gaily waves a hand and calls out something. They try to hear, with their hands to their ears, but they shrug their shoulders: the wind has blown the words away. They wave their hands again and walk on.

They do not go far, however, always along the beach. Yonder lies the fishing-village, lie a couple of small villas, almost cottages. One of them seems just to have been taken by a large family, for the holiday-month no doubt; a hum of voices issues from it, children chase one another along the beach; a tiny girl, in running, bumps against the young man.

"Hullo there!" he says, pleasantly, with a laugh.

Laughing they walk on.

The children run along. A fisherman comes with his nets, grins cheerily and mutters a greeting. A fat lady in the verandah has been watching the young people inquisitively; she sees the fisherman touch his cap and beckons to him:

"Who are that lady and gentleman?"

The fisherman points cheerily to Altseeborgen:

"From the castle."

"But who are they?" asks the lady, alarmed.

"Well, the gentleman is the Prince of Liparia and the young lady is an Austrian princess," says the fisherman, as if it could not well be anybody else.

The lady looks in dismay after the princely pair and then in despair at her running children. The young couple are just turning back in their walk; they are now laughing even more gaily than before and are hastening a little towards the castle, as though they had delayed too long. The lady, still pale, does not dare to offer excuses, but makes a low bow; she receives a pleasant greeting in return.

2

The royal family of Gothland were in the habit of spending the whole summer at Altseeborgen. The beach was particularly well-suited for laying out a watering-place around the fishing-village, but King Siegfried would never hear of this: the beach and the village were royal domains; a few modest villas were all that he had granted permission to build. Generally these were visited in the summer by two or three middle-class families with their children. Altseeborgen should never become a modern bathing-place, however excellent the fashionable world might consider it as a means of summer display, lying as it did in the immediate neighbourhood of the royal castle.

But the Gothlandic family made a point of guarding the freedom of their summer lives. They lived there for four months, without palace-etiquette, in the greatest simplicity. They formed a numerous family; and there were always many visitors. The king attended to state-affairs in homely fashion at the castle. His grandchildren would run into his room while he was discussing important business with the prime minister, who came down to Altseeborgen on certain days. He just patted their flaxen curls and sent them away to play, with a caress. Staying at the castle were the Crown-prince Gunther and the Crown-princess Sofie, a German princess—Duke and Duchess of Wendeholm—with their four children, a girl and three boys. Next to the duke came Prince Herman; next to him Princess Wanda, twenty years of age; next to her, the younger princes, Olaf and Christofel. In addition there were always two old princesses, sisters of the king, widows of German princes. From all the courts of Europe, which were as one great family, different members came from time to time to stay, bringing with them their respective nuances of a different nationality, something exotic in voice and manner, so far as all this was not merged in their cosmopolitanism.

Othomar had been three months at sea with Herman; they had touched shore in India, China, Japan and America. They had travelled incognito, so as to escape all official receptions, and Othomar had borne no other title than that of Prince Czykirski. The voyage had done Othomar much good: he was even feeling so well that he had written to the Empress Elizabeth that he would like to stay some time longer in the family-circle at Altseeborgen, but that he would afterwards undertake his long-contemplated journey to the European courts.

Their easy life in each other's company had done much to bring the cousins closer together. Herman had learnt to see in Othomar, beneath his stiffness and lack of ease, a young crown-prince who was afraid of his future, but who possessed much reasonableness and was willing to learn to acquiesce in life and to fortify himself for his coming yoke of empire. He understood Othomar and felt sorry for him. He himself took a vital pleasure in life: merely to breathe was an enjoyment; his existence as a second son, with only his naval duties, which he loved by heredity, as a descendant of the old sea-kings might well love them, opened before him a prospect of nothing but continued, cloudless freedom from care; that he was a king's son gave him nothing but satisfaction and delight; and he appreciated his high estate with jovial pleasure, skimming the cream from a chalice out of which Othomar in due time would drink gall and wormwood. If at first he compared Othomar with his brother, the Duke of Wendeholm—a crown-prince too, of Gothland he—Herman now compared them no longer; his judgement had become more reasonable: he understood that no comparison was possible. Liparia was a tremendous, almost despotic empire; the people, especially in the south, always very fickle, always kept in check by force, on account of their childish uncertainty as to what, in their capriciousness, they would do next. The Gothlanders, on the other hand, calmly liberal in temperament, devoid of noisy vehemence, ranged themselves peacefully, with their long-established, ample constitution, round King Siegfried, whom they called the father of his country. That Gunther was not afraid of having to wear the crown one day, was this a reason why Othomar should be without his fear? Did Othomar not possess the gentler qualities, which are valued in the narrow circle of intimate surroundings and arouse esteem among a few sympathetic natures, rather than that fiercer brilliancy of character, which makes its possessor stand out in clear relief in high places and awakens admiration in the multitude? Was this boy, with his soul full of scruples, his nostalgia after justice, his yearning for love, his easily wounded sensitiveness, was he the son of his ancestors, the descendant of Berengar the Strong, Wenceslas the Cruel, son of the warlike Xaveria, or was he not rather the child of his gentle mother alone?

It was not in Herman's way to reflect much and long on all this, but it came to him suddenly, abruptly, like a new view that is opened out in a brighter light. And what had been antipathy in him became compassion, friendship and astonishment at the disposition of the universe, which knew not what else to do with a soul like Othomar's but to crush it beneath a crown.

The simple family-life at Altseeborgen worked on Othomar like a cure. He felt himself reviving amid natural surroundings, his humanity developing wide and untrammelled. Accustomed as he was to the ceremonial life of the Imperial, with its court-etiquette strictly maintained by the Emperor Oscar, he was at first surprised, but soon delighted by the almost homely simplicity of his Gothlandic relations. In former years, it is true, he had paid an occasional brief visit to Altseeborgen, but had never stayed long enough to be able to count himself, as now, quite one of themselves.

Othomar was at this moment the only visitor from abroad, except the Archduchess ValÉrie, a niece of the Emperor of Austria. Did the young people suspect anything, or not? Were their names coupled together by the younger princes and princesses? Not so, to all outward seeming: only once or twice had Princess Sofie or Princess Wanda found it necessary to hush her young brothers with a glance. And yet it was with a serious intention that the Queen of Gothland, in concert with the Emperor of Liparia and ValÉrie's parents—the Archduke Albrecht and the Archduchess of Eudoxie, who lived at Sigismundingen Castle—had brought the young people together. The Emperor Oscar would certainly have preferred one of the young Russian grand-duchesses, a niece of the Czar, for his daughter-in-law; but the difference in religion remained an insurmountable obstacle; and the emperor, despite his preference, had no objection to the Austrian alliance.

Perhaps Othomar and ValÉrie divined this intention, but the secret caused no constraint between them; they were both so accustomed to hearing the names of well-known princes or princesses connected with theirs and even to seeing them mentioned in the papers: announcements of betrothals which were immediately contradicted; they had even jested together about the number of times that public opinion had married them to this one or to that, each time to somebody else; sometimes even the news came as a surprise to themselves, which they found in the newspapers and laughed at. They paid no heed therefore to the rare mischievous remarks of Prince Olaf or Prince Christofel, sturdy lads of seventeen and fifteen, who thought it great fun to tease. And all this time Queen Olga, so sensible and reasonable, brought not the least influence to bear upon them. She had invited them together, but she did nothing more. Perhaps she observed silently how they behaved towards each other and wrote just one letter on the subject to her sister, but she kept quite outside the meshes which were weaving between their two crowned lives. Yet it was difficult for her to stand aloof. She was fond of ValÉrie and thought that this marriage would be in every way good. But added to that came urgent letters from Sigismundingen and even from Vienna, where they wished for nothing more eagerly than to see the young archduchess Duchess of Xara. For this, apart from the natural inclination of the Austrian court to set store by a renewed alliance with Liparia, there were other reasons of a more intimate character.

3

The sun had appeared through the clouds in the afternoon and made the grey of the sky and the water turn blue with the hazy blueness of a northern summer. The sea glowed and put on scales of gold; the weather-beaten castle stood blistering its broad granite pile in the sun, as an old man does his back. The striped canvas awning was lowered on the top terrace, which led into the great hall through three glass doors. Rugs lay scattered over the ground. Princess Sofie and the Archduchess ValÉrie sat in great wickerwork chairs, painting in water-colours. From the hall sounded, monotonously, the soft exercises of Princess Elizabeth, the crown-princess' eldest daughter, who was practising. Princess Wanda sat on the ground, romping a trifle boisterously with her youngest two nephews, Erik and Karl. On a long wicker chair lay Prince Herman, with both legs up; next to him was a little table heaped with newspapers and periodicals, some of which had fallen to the ground; a great tumbler of sherry-cobbler stood on the wicker ledge of his chair; the blue smoke rose from a cigarette between his fingers.

Sofie and ValÉrie compared their sketches and laughed. They looked at the sky, which was bisected by the awning: the clouds, woolly white, surged one above the other; the sea was dazzling with its golden scales, like a giant cuirass.

"What are you two painting there?" asked Herman, who was turning the pages of an illustrated paper.

"Clouds," replied ValÉrie, "nothing but clouds. I have persuaded Sofie to make studies of clouds with me. Presently, if you're not too lazy, you must come and look at my album." She gave a little laugh. "It contains nothing but clouds!"

"By Jove!" drawled Herman. "How very odd!..."

"Yes," said Sofie, dreamily, "clouds are very nice, but you never know how to catch them: they change every instant."

"Erik," said Herman, "just ask Aunt ValÉrie to lend me her album."

"No, no," cried Wanda, "go and fetch it yourself, lazybones!..."

But Erik wanted to go; and there came a great struggle. Wanda hugged the little fellow tight in her arms; Karl joined in: there was a general romp and Wanda, laughing, fell sideways to the ground.

"But, Wanda!" said Sofie, reprovingly.

ValÉrie stood up and went to Herman:

"With all this, you're not seeing my clouds, you lazy boy. I suppose I must take pity on you. Look...."

Herman now suddenly drew himself up and took the album:

"How funny!" he said. "Yellow and white and violet and pink. All sunsets!"

"And sunrises. I dare say I see more of them than you do!"

"The things you see in clouds, ValÉrie! It's astonishing. How one person differs from another! I should never take it into my head to go and sketch clouds. You ought to come for a cruise with me one day; then you could make whole collections of clouds."

"Why didn't you propose that earlier?" said ValÉrie, jestingly. "Then I might have joined you and Xara."

"But where is Othomar?" said Herman.

ValÉrie said that she did not know....

Herman sipped his sherry-cobbler. Wanda wanted a taste, but Herman refused and told her to ring for a glass for herself. Wanda insisted; he seized her by the wrists.

"But Wanda!" Sofie repeated, reprovingly, languidly, drawing her hand over her forehead and laying down her brush.

Wanda laughed gaily:

"But Wanda!" she mimicked.

And they all laughed at Sofie, including Sofie herself:

"Did I speak like that?" she asked, with her languid voice. "I don't know: I get so sleepy here, so lazy...."

They were all making fun of Sofie, when voices sounded from the hall, shrill, old voices. It was the two dowagers, with Othomar; the old ladies were talking in a courtly, mincing way to the young prince, who brought them chairs. The aunts had had a siesta after lunch; they now made their reappearance, with tapestrywork in large reticules. All greeted them with great respect, beneath which lurked a spark of mischief.

"Pardon, lieber Herzog," murmured old Princess Elsa, the older of the two, "I would rather have that little chair...."

Princess Marianne also wanted a small, straight chair; the old ladies thanked Othomar with an obeisance for his gallantry, sat down stiffly and began their embroidery: great coats-of-arms for chair-backs. They were very stately, with clear-cut but wrinkled faces, grey tours and black lace caps; they wore crackling watered-silk gowns, of old-fashioned cut. Now and then they exchanged a quick, sharp word, with a sudden crackling movement of their sharp cockatoo-profiles; they gazed thoughtfully for a moment out to sea, as though they were bound to see something important arriving out of the distance; then they resumed their work. Their old-fashioned, stately, tight-laced, shrivelled figures formed a strange contrast with the easiness of the young people in their simple serge summer suits: they made Princess Wanda's tangled hair and rumpled blouse look perfectly disreputable.

A third old lady came sailing up; she seemed as though she were related to the two dowagers, but was actually Countess von Altenburg, who used to be mistress of the household to Princess Elsa. Behind her were two footmen, carrying trays with coffee and pastry, the old princesses' goÛter. The countess made a stately curtsey before the young princes.

"The territory is occupied," whispered Herman to ValÉrie.

They had all sat down again and among themselves were teasing Othomar with his three Fates, as they called them, unheard by the aunts or the countess, who was rather deaf. A noisy babel of tongues ensued: the aunts spoke German and screamed, to make themselves heard, something about the calmness of the sea into the poor old ears of the countess, who poured out the coffee and nodded that she understood. The younger princes talked English for the most part; Herman sometimes spoke a word or two of Liparian to Othomar; and the children, who had gone to play on a lower terrace, chattered noisily in Gothlandic and French indifferently.

The footmen had brought out afternoon tea and placed it before Princess Sofie, when a lady-in-waiting appeared. She bowed to the young crown-princess and said, in Gothlandic:

"Her majesty requests your royal highness to come to her in the small drawing-room."

"Mamma has sent for me," said Princess Sofie, in English, rising from her chair. "Wanda, will you pour out the tea? Children, will you go upstairs and get dressed? Wanda, tell them again, will you?"

The crown-princess went through the hall, a great, round, dome-shaped apartment, full of stags' antlers, elks' heads, hunting-trophies, and then up a staircase. In the queen's anteroom the footman opened the door for her. Queen Olga was sitting alone; she was some years older than her sister, the Empress of Liparia, taller and more heavily built; her features, however, had much in common with Elizabeth's, but were more filled out.

"Sofie," she at once began, in German, "I have had a letter from Sigismundingen...."

The Duchess of Wendeholm had sat down:

"Anything to do with ValÉrie?" she asked, in alarm.

"Yes," the queen said, with a reflective glance. "Poor child!..."

"But what is it, Mamma?"

"There, read for yourself...."

The queen handed the letter to her daughter-in-law, who read it hurriedly. The letter was from the Archduchess Eudoxie, ValÉrie's mother, written with a feverish, excited hand, and said, in phrases which tried to seem indifferent but which betrayed a great satisfaction, that Prince Leopold of Lohe-Obkowitz was at Nice with Estelle Desvaux, the well-known actress, that he was proposing to resign his titular rights in favour of his younger brother and that he would then marry his mistress. The letter requested the queen or the crown-princess to tell this to ValÉrie, in the hope that it would not prove too great a shock to her. Further, the letter ended with violent attacks upon Prince Leopold, who had caused such a scandal, but at the same time with manifest expressions of delight that now perhaps ValÉrie would no longer dream of becoming the lady of a domain measuring six yards square! The archduke added a postscript to say that this was not a vague report but a certainty and that Prince Leopold himself had told it to their own relations at Nice, who had written to Sigismundingen.

"Has ValÉrie ever spoken to you about Prince Lohe?" asked the queen.

"Only once in a way, mamma," replied the Duchess of Wendeholm, handing back the letter. "But we all know well enough that this news will be a great blow to her. Is she not in the least prepared for it?"

"Probably not: you see, we had none of us heard or read anything about it! Shall I tell her? Poor child!..."

"Shall I do so, mamma? As I told you, ValÉrie has spoken to me...."

"Very well, you do it...."

The duchess reflected, looked at the clock:

"It is so late now: I'll tell her after dinner; we are none of us dressed yet.... What do you think?"

"Very well then, after dinner...."

The crown-princess went out: it was time to hurry and dress. At seven o'clock a loud, long bell sounded. They assembled in the hall; the dining-room looked out with its large bow-windows upon the pine-forest. It was a long table: King Siegfried, a hale old sovereign with a full, grey beard; Queen Olga; the Crown-prince Gunther, tall, fair, two-and-thirty; Princess Sofie and her children; Othomar, sitting between his aunt and ValÉrie; Herman and Wanda; Olaf and Christofel; the two dowagers with Countess von Altenburg; equerries, ladies-in-waiting, chamberlains, Princess Elizabeth's governess, the little princes' tutors....

The conversation was cheerful and unconstrained. The ladies wore simple evening-frocks; the king was in dress-clothes, the younger princes and equerries in dinner-jackets. The young princesses wore light summer dresses of white serge or pink mousseline-de-laine; they had stuck a flower or two from the conservatory into their waist-bands.

ValÉrie talked merrily; Herman once more teased her about her cloud-sketches, but Othomar said that he admired them very much. Queen Olga and Princess Sofie exchanged a glance and were quieter than the others. The king also looked very thoughtfully at the young people. After dinner the family dispersed; the crown-prince and Herman went for a row on the sea, with the younger princes and the children, in two boats. Wanda and ValÉrie, their arms wound around each other's waists, strolled up and down along the front-terrace; the awning was already drawn up for the night. The sea was still blue, the sky pearl-grey and no longer so bright; above the horizon the sun still burnt ragged rents in the widely scattered clouds.

The girls strolled about, laughed, looked at the two little boats on the sea and waved to them. Very far away, a steamer passed, finely outlined, with a dirty little ribbon of smoke. The young princes shouted, "Hurrah! Hurrah!" and hoisted their little flag.

"Do look at those papers of Herman's!" said ValÉrie. "Aunt Olga hates that untidiness...."

She pointed to all the magazines and newspapers which the servants had forgotten to clear away. They lay over the long wicker chair, on the table and on the ground.

"Shall I ring to have them cleared away?" asked Wanda.

"Oh, never mind!" said ValÉrie.

She herself picked up one or two papers, folded them, put them together; Wanda again waved to the boats with her handkerchief.

"My God!" she suddenly heard ValÉrie murmur, faintly.

She looked round: the young archduchess had turned pale and sunk into a chair. She had dropped the papers again; one of them she held tight, crushing it convulsively; she looked down at it with eyes vacant with terror:

"It's not true," she stammered. "They always lie.... They lie!"

"What is it, ValÉrie?" cried Wanda, frightened.

At this moment the Duchess of Wendeholm came out through the hall:

"ValÉrie!" she called.

The girl did not hear. The duchess came nearer:

"ValÉrie!" she repeated. "Could I talk to you for a moment, alone?"

The archduchess raised her pale little face. She seemed not to hear, not to understand.

"My God!" whispered the duchess to Wanda. "Does she know?"

"What?" asked Wanda.

But a footman also came through the hall; he carried a silver tray with letters. There were a couple of letters for the duchess; he presented them to her first; then one to ValÉrie. In spite of her blurred eyes, the archduchess seemed to see the letter; she snatched at it greedily. The man withdrew.

"O ... God!..." she stammered at last.

She pulled the letter from the envelope, half-tearing it in her eagerness, and read with crazy eyes. Sofie and Wanda looked at her in dismay.

"O ... God!" screamed the archduchess in agony. "It's true ... it's true ... it's true! ... Oh!..."

She rose, trembling, looked about her with wild eyes and threw herself madly into the duchess' arms. A loud sob burst from her throat, as though a pistol-shot had gone through her heart.

"He writes it to me himself!" she cried out. "Himself! It's true what the paper says.... Oh!..."

And she broke down, with her head on Sofie's shoulder. Sofie led her back into the hall; ValÉrie allowed herself to be dragged along like a child. Wanda followed, crying, wringing her hands, without knowing why. From the boats, which were now very far away, the young princes waved once more; little Princess Elizabeth even tried to call out something; she could not understand why Wanda and ValÉrie were such muffs as not to wave back.

The sun sank on the horizon; the glowing clouds were all masked in little frothy, gold-rose mists with shining edges; but evening fell, the sky grew dark: one by one the little pink clouds melted away; still one last cloud, as though with two wings formed of the last rays of the setting sun, flickered up softly, as if to fly, and then suddenly sank, with broken wings, into the violet dusk. The first stars twinkled, brightly visible.

4

Next morning, very early, at half-past five, the Archduchess ValÉrie climbed down the terraces of Altseeborgen. She had merely told her maid that she would be back in time for breakfast, which the family took together. Resolutely, as though impulsively, she descended terrace after terrace. She met nobody but a couple of servants and sentries. She walked along the bottom terrace to the sea; there was a little square harbour, cut out of the granite, where the rowing- and sailing-boats lay moored in a boat-house. She chose a long, narrow gig and unhooked it from its iron chain. She took her seat adroitly and grasped the sculls: a few short strokes took her clear of the little harbour and out to sea.

A south-westerly wind was blowing over the sea. The water was strangely grey, as though it were mirroring in its oval the uncertain sky above: a dull-white sky in which hung dirty shreds of clouds blown asunder. The horizon was not visible; light mists floated over it, blotting out the division between sea and sky with smeared tints. The wind blew up strongly.

ValÉrie removed her little sailor-hat; and her hair blew across her face. She had intended to row to the fishing-village, but she at once felt that it was beyond her strength to work up against the wind. So she let herself go with the wind. For a moment she thought of the weather, the wind, the sky; then she cast aside all thought. She pulled sturdily at the sculls.

Though the sea was comparatively calm, the boat was constantly swinging over the smooth back of a wave and then sinking down again. Splashes of spray flew up. When ValÉrie, after a little while, looked round, she was a trifle startled to see Altseeborgen receding so far from her. She hesitated once more, but soon let herself go again....

On leaving the castle, she had had no thought, only an impulse to act. Now, with her very action, thought rose up again within her, as though roused from its lethargy by the wind. ValÉrie's eyes stared before her, wide and burning, without tears.

It was true, it was real. This was the wheel continually revolving in her thoughts. It was true, it was real. It was in the papers which Herman had been skimming through for hours; Sofie had told her; his own letter informed her of it.

She no longer had that letter, it was destroyed. But every word was still branded on her imagination.

It was his letter, written in his own words, in his style. How she had once worshipped his every word! But these words, were they indeed his? Did he write like that? Could she picture to herself that he would ever speak thus to her?

He would not like to make her unhappy by loving her against the wish of her parents, her imperial relations. It was true, of course, that he was not her equal in birth. His house was of old nobility, but nothing more. She was of the blood royal and imperial. He was grateful to her for stooping to him and wishing to raise him to her level. But it was not right to do this. The traditions of mankind should be inviolate: it was not right, especially for them, the great ones of the earth, to act against tradition. They should be grateful for the love which had brought happiness to their souls, but they must not expect more. It was not the wish of Vienna that they should love each other. Would he ever be able to make her entirely happy, would she, if they were married and retired with their love to a foreign country, never look back with yearning and feel homesick for the splendour from which he had dragged her down? For, if they married, he would be still less her equal than he was before, thanks to his emperor's disfavour. No, no, it could not be. They must part. They were not born for each other. For a short moment they had shared the glorious illusion that they were indeed born for each other; that was all. He would be grateful to her for that memory all his life long.

With a breaking heart he took leave of her: farewell, farewell! It was all over: his proud career, his life, his all. He begged her to forgive him. He knew that he was too weak to love her against the will of his sovereign. And for that he begged her to forgive him. She would hear a woman's name mentioned in connection with his own: for this also he begged her pardon. He did not love that woman, but she was willing to console him in his grief....

The wind had suddenly increased in violence, with heavy, regular blasts. The sky was dark overhead. The waves rolled more wildly against the boat and swung it up on their backs as it were on the backs of sleek sea-monsters. The spray had wetted ValÉrie. She looked round. Altseeborgen lay very far away, scarcely within sight; she could just see the flag defined against the sky like a tiny ribbon.

"I must be mad," she thought. "Where am I going to?... I must turn back...."

But it was difficult to bring the boat round. Each time the wind beat it off again and drove it farther. Despair came upon ValÉrie, body and soul, moral and physical despair.

"Well, let it be," she thought.

She let the sculls drop, drifted farther away, away. And why not? Why should she not let herself drift away? Without him, without him ... she could not live! Her happiness was ruined; what was life without happiness? For she wanted happiness, it was essential to her....

She sat half-huddled in the boat. The sculls flapped against the sides. A wave broke over her. Her eyes stared burning before her, into the distance.

A second wave broke; her feet were wet through. She slowly drew herself up, looked at the angry sea, at the lowering sky. Then she grasped the sculls again, with a sigh of pain:

"Come on!" she thought.

She rose higher and sank lower. But with a frantic effort she made the boat turn:

"It shall!" she bit out between her teeth. She kept the boat's head to the wind and began to row. It shall. She wrinkled her forehead, gnashed her jaws, grated her teeth together. She felt her muscles straining. And she rowed on, up against the wind. With her whole body she struggled up against the stiff breeze. It shall. It must. And she grew accustomed to the exertion; she rowed on mechanically. So much accustomed did she grow to it that she began to sob as she rowed....

O God, how she had loved him, with all her soul! Why? Could she tell? Oh, if he had only been a little stronger, she would have been so too! What mattered to them the disfavour of her uncle the emperor, so long as they loved each other? What the fury of their parents, so long as they loved each other? What did they care for all Europe, so long as they cared for each other? Nothing, nothing at all.... If he had only dared to grasp happiness for them, when it fluttered before them, as it flutters only once before mortal men! But he had not dared, he felt himself too weak to risk that grasp, he acknowledged it himself.... And now ... now it was over, over, over....

As she sobbed she rowed on. Her arms seemed to swell, to burst asunder. A few thick drops of rain fell. What was she really rowing on for? The sea meant death, release from life, oblivion, the extinction of scorching pain. Then why did she row on?

"O God, I don't know!" she answered herself aloud. "But I must! I must!..."

And with successive jerks of her strong imperial body she worked herself back, towards life....

But at Altseeborgen they were in great alarm. It was three hours since ValÉrie had left the castle. The maid was unable to say more than that her highness had assured her she would be back to breakfast. The sentries had seen her go down the terraces, but had paid no further heed to the direction which her highness had taken. They thought it was towards the woods, but they were not sure....

Every minute the alarm increased; no suspicion was uttered, but they all read it in one another's eyes. King Siegfried ordered that they should themselves set out and search quietly, so as to attract no attention among the household and the people of the village. There could be no question of her having lost her way: the pine-woods were not extensive and ValÉrie knew Altseeborgen well. And there was nothing besides the woods, the beach and the village.

The king and the crown-prince themselves went into the woods, with an equerry. Herman and his younger brother Olaf went into the village, to the left; Othomar and Christofel along the sea, to the right. The queen remained behind with the princesses, in palpitating uncertainty. For all their efforts to bear up and to eat their breakfasts, a sort of rumour had already spread through the castle.

Othomar had gone with Christofel along the rocky shore; the rain began to come down, in hard, thick drops.

"What are we really looking for here?" asked Othomar, helplessly.

"Perhaps she has thrown herself into the sea!" answered the young prince.

And for the first time of his life, he felt afraid of those depths, which meant death. Unconsciously they went on, on, on....

"Let's go back," said Othomar.

Nevertheless they continued to go on; they could not give in....

Then a scream sounded over the water: they started, but at first saw nothing.

"Did you hear?" asked Christofel, turning pale, thinking of ghostly legends of the sea.

"A sea-mew, I expect," said Othomar, listening, however.

The scream was repeated.

"There, don't you see something?" asked Christofel, pointing.

He pointed to a long streak that came surging over the water.

Othomar shook his head:

"No, that's impossible!" he said. "It's a fisher-lad."

"No, no, it's a rowing-boat!" cried Christofel.

They said nothing more, they ran along. The streak became plainer: a gig; the scream rang out again, piercingly.

"My God!... ValÉrie!" shouted Othomar.

She called back a few words; he only partly understood them. She was rowing not far from the shore towards the castle. Othomar took off his coat, his shoes, his socks, turned up his trousers, his shirt-sleeves.

"Take those with you," he cried to Christofel, "and go back to the castle, tell them...."

He ran on his bare feet over the rocks and into the sea, flung himself into the water, swam out to the boat. It was very difficult for him to climb into the little gig without capsizing it. It lurched madly to right and left; however, with a single, quick, light movement, Othomar managed to jump in.

"I give up...." said ValÉrie, faintly.

She let go the sculls; he seized them and rowed on. For an instant she fell against him, but then sat up straight, so as not to hamper him.

5

The young archduchess did not appear at luncheon; she was asleep. Not long before dinner—it was raining and the queen was taking tea in the hall with the princesses, the aunts, the children—she appeared. She looked rather pale; her face was a little drawn, her eyes strangely wide and burning. She was wearing a simple summer costume of some soft, pale-lilac material, with two white ribbons tied round her waist; the colour went well with her strange hair, which now looked brown and then again seemed auburn. The queen held out her hand to ValÉrie, shook her head and said:

"You naughty girl! How you frightened us!"

ValÉrie kissed the queen on the forehead:

"Forgive me, aunt. The wind was so strong, I could hardly make way against it. I oughtn't to have gone. But I felt a need ... for movement."

The queen looked at her anxiously:

"How are you feeling now?"

"Oh, very well, aunt! Rather stiff; and a little headache. It's nothing. Only my hands are terribly blistered: just look...."

And she laughed.

The old aunts asked for copious details of what had happened: it was difficult to make them understand. Wanda sat down between the two of them, told them the story; their sharp cockatoo-profiles kept on wagging up and down at Wanda, in astonishment. The aunts pressed their hands to their hearts and looked at ValÉrie with terror in their eyes; she smiled to them pleasantly. When Countess von Altenburg appeared, the aunts took the old mistress of the household between them and in their turn told her the story, screeching it into the countess' poor old ears. King Siegfried entered; he went up to ValÉrie, who rose, took her head in his hands, looked at her and shook his grey head; nevertheless he smiled. Then he looked at his sisters; he was always amused at them; they were still in the middle of their story to the countess and kept on taking the words out of each other's mouths.

"Come, it was not so dreadful as all that!" said the king, interrupting them. "It's very nice to go rowing like that, once in a way, and an excellent remedy for a sick-headache. You ought to try it, Elsa, when you have one of yours."

The old princess looked at him with a sugary smile; she never knew whether her brother meant a remark of this kind or not. She shook her stately head slowly from side to side:

"No, lieber Siegfried, that is more than we can do. Unsere liebe Erzherzogin is still a young thing!..."

Othomar, Gunther and Herman entered: they had been playing billiards; the young princes followed them. ValÉrie gave a little shiver, rose and went up to Othomar:

"I thank you, Xara," she said. "I thank you a thousand, thousand times!"

"But what for?" replied Othomar, simply. "I did no more than row you a bit of the way back. There was no danger. For, if you had been too tired to go on rowing, you could always have jumped into the sea and swum ashore. You're a strong swimmer. You would only have lost the boat."

She looked at him:

"That's true," she said. "But I never thought of it. I was ... bewildered perhaps. I should not have done that; I had a fixed idea that I had to row back. If I hadn't been able to keep on rowing, I should certainly.... Don't refuse my thanks, I beg of you: accept them."

She put out her hand; he pressed it. He looked up at her with quiet surprise and failed to understand her. He did not doubt but that she had that morning left the castle with the intention of committing suicide. Had she felt remorse on the water, or had she not dared? Did she want to live on and did she therefore turn back? Was she so shallow that she had already recovered from the great grief which had crushed her the night before? Did she realize that life rolls with indifferent chariot-wheels over everything, whether joy or pain, that is part of ourselves and that it is best to care for nothing and also to feel nothing? What of all this applied to her? He was unable to fathom it. And once more he saw himself standing perplexed before the question of love! What was this feeling worth, if it weighed so little in a woman's heart? How much did it weigh with him for Alexa? What was it then?... Or was it something ... something quite different?

At dinner ValÉrie talked as usual and he continued not to understand her. It irritated him, his want of penetration of the human heart: how could he develop it? A future ruler ought to be able to see things at a glance.... And suddenly, perhaps merely because of his desire for human knowledge, the thought arose within him that she was concealing her emotions, that perhaps she was still suffering intensely, but that she was pretending and bearing up: was she not a princess of the blood? They all learnt that, they of the blood, to pretend, to bear up! It was bred in their bones. He looked at her askance, as he sat next to her: she was quietly talking across him to the queen. He did not know whether he had guessed right and he still hesitated between the two thoughts: was she bearing up, or was she shallow? But, yet he was happy at being able to hesitate about her and to refute that first suspicion of shallowness by his second thought. He was happy in this, not solely because of ValÉrie, that she should be better than he had thought at first; he was happy especially for the general conclusion which he was able to draw: that a person is mostly better, thinks more deeply, cherishes nobler feelings than he allows to appear in the everyday commonplaces of life, which compel him to occupy himself with momentary trifles and phrases. A delicate satisfaction took possession of him that he had thought this out so, a contentment that he had discovered something beautiful in life: a beautiful secret. Everybody knew it perhaps, but nobody let it be perceived. Oh yes, people were good; the world was good, in its essence! Only a strange mystery compelled it to seem different, a strange tyranny of the universal order of things.

He glanced around the long table. Every face wore a look of kindness and sympathy. He was attached to his uncle so calm, gentle and strong, with the seeming dogged silence of his Norse character, with his tranquil smile and now and then a little gleam of fun, aimed especially at the old aunts, but also at the children and even at the equerries, the ladies-in-waiting. He knew that his uncle was a thinker, a philosopher; he would have liked to have a long discussion with him on points of philosophy. He was fond also of his aunt, a first-rate queen: what a lot she did for her country, what a number of charities she called into existence; a first-rate mother: how sensibly she performed her difficult task, the bringing up of royal children! She was more beloved in her country than was his mother, whom yet he adored, in hers; she had more tact, less fear, less haughtiness also towards the crowd. It should perhaps have been the other way about: his mother queen here, her sister empress yonder....

And the crown-prince, with his simple manliness; Herman, with his joviality; the younger brothers, with their vigorous, boyish chaff: how fond he was of them! Sofie, Wanda, the children: how he liked them all! He even liked the aunts and the devoted old mistress of the household. Oh, the world was good, people were good! And ValÉrie was not indifferent, but suffered in quiet silence, as a princess of the blood must suffer, with unclouded eyes and a smile!

After dinner Queen Olga took Othomar's arm:

"Come with me for a moment," she said.

The rain had ceased; a footman opened the French windows. Behind the dining-room lay a long terrace looking upon the woods. The queen put her arm in Othomar's and began to walk up and down with him:

"And so you are going to leave us?" she asked.

He looked at her with a smile:

"You know I am, aunt; with much regret. I shall often long for Altseeborgen, for all of you. I feel so much at home in your circle. But yet I am anxious to see mamma again: it's nearly four months since I saw her last."

"And are you feeling better?"

"How could I but feel better, aunt? The voyage with Herman made me ever so much stronger; and living here with you has been a delightful after-cure. A delightful holiday."

"But your holiday will soon be over. Will you now be able to play your part again?"

He smiled, while his sad eyes expressed calm resignation:

"Certainly, aunt. Life can't be always holidays. I should think I had had my fill of them, doing nothing for six weeks except lie on the sand, or in the woods, or in that most comfortable wicker chair of Herman's!"

"Have you done nothing besides?" she said, playfully.

"How do you mean?"

"Saved ValÉrie's life, for instance?"

He gave a slight movement of gentle impatience: "But, aunt, I didn't really. I suppose the papers will go and say I did, but there was really no saving in the matter. ValÉrie knows how to swim and she was close to the shore."

"I've had a letter from papa, Othomar."

"From papa?"

"Yes.... Have you never thought of ... ValÉrie?"

He reflected for a second:

"Perhaps," he laughed.

"Do you feel no affection for her?"

"Certainly, aunt.... I thought papa preferred the Grand-duchess Xenia?"

The queen shrugged her shoulders:

"There's the question of her religion, you know. And papa would be just as glad of an Austrian alliance.... How do you propose to make the journey? And when do you start?"

"Ducardi and the others will be here this week. Towards the end of the week. First to Copenhagen, London, Brussels, Berlin and then to Vienna."

"And to Sigismundingen."

"Yes, Sigismundingen, if papa wishes."

"But what do you wish, Othomar?"

He looked at her gently, smiling, shrugged his shoulders:

"But, aunt, what wish have I in the matter?"

"Could you grow fond of ValÉrie?"

"I think so, aunt; I think she is very sweet and very capable and thorough."

"Yes, that she certainly is, Othomar! Would you not speak to her before you go?"

"Aunt...."

"Why shouldn't you?"

"Aunt, I can't do that. I am only staying a few days longer, and ..."

"Well?"

"ValÉrie has had a great sorrow. She cannot but still be suffering under it. Think, aunt, it was yesterday. Good God, yesterday!... And to-day she was so calm, so natural.... But it must be so, mustn't it? She must still be suffering very severely. She went on the sea this morning, in this weather: we don't know, do we, aunt, but we all think the same thing! Perhaps we are quite mistaken. Things are often different from what they seem. But, however that may be, she is certainly in distress. And so I can't ask her, now...."

"It's a pity, as you're here together. A thing of this sort is often settled at a distance. If it was arranged here, you would perhaps not need to make the journey."

"But, aunt, papa was so bent upon it!"

"That's true; but then nothing was yet decided."

"No, aunt, let me make the journey. For in any case it's impossible to arrange things here. If papa himself asked me, I should tell him ... that it was impossible."

"Papa does ask you, Othomar, in his letter to me."

He seized her hands:

"Aunt, in that case, write to him and say that it's impossible, at this moment ... oh, impossible, impossible! Let us spare her, aunt. If she becomes my wife, she will still become so while she loves another. Will that not be terrible enough for her, when it is decided months hence? Therefore let us spare her now. You feel that too, as a woman, don't you? There are no affairs of state that make it necessary for my marriage to take place in such a hurry."

"Yet papa wishes you to marry as soon as possible. He wants a grandson...."

He made no reply; a look of suffering passed over his face. The queen perceived it:

"But you're right," she replied, giving way. "It would be too cruel. ValÉrie, I may tell you, is bearing up wonderfully. That's how a future Empress of Liparia ought to be...."

He still made no reply and walked silently beside her; her arm lay in his; she felt his arm tremble:

"Come," she said, gently, "let us go in; walking up and down like this is fatiguing...."

6

Ducardi, Dutri, Leoni and Thesbia arrived at Altseeborgen; they were to accompany Othomar on his official journey through Europe.

It was one of the last days, in the morning, when Othomar was walking with Herman towards the woods. The sun was shining, the woods were fragrant, the foot slid over the smooth pine-needles. The princes sat down on the ground, near a great pool of water; around them rose the straight pine-trunks, with their knotty peaks of side-branches; the sky faded into the distance with blue chinks showing between the projecting foliage of needles.

Herman leant against a tree-trunk; Othomar stretched himself flat on his back, with his hands beneath his head:

"It will soon be over now," he said, softly.

Herman made no reply, but mechanically swept the pine-needles together with his hand. Nor did Othomar speak again; he swallowed his last moments of relaxation and repose in careful draughts, each draught a pure joy that would never return. In the woods a stillness reigned as of death, as though the earth were uninhabited; the melancholy of things that are coming to an end hung about the trees.

Suddenly Othomar took Herman's hand and pressed it:

"Thank you," he said.

"What for?" asked Herman.

"For the pleasure we have had together. Mamma was right: I did not know you, Herman...."

"Nor I you, dear fellow."

"It has been a pleasant time. How delightfully we travelled together, like two tourists! How grand and glorious India was, don't you think? And Japan, how curious! I never cared much for hunting; but, when I was with you, I understood it and felt the excitement of it: I shall never forget our tiger-hunt! The eyes of the brute, the danger facing you: it's invigorating. At a moment like that, you feel yourself becoming primitive, like the first man. The look of one of those tigers drives away a lot of your hesitation. That's another danger, which mamma is always so afraid of: oh, how enervating it is; it eats up all your energy!... And the nights on the Indian Ocean, on board our Viking. That great wide circle around you, all those stars over your head. How often we sat looking at them, with our legs on the bulwarks!... Perhaps it's a mistake to sit dreaming so long, but it rests one so, it rests one so! I shall never forget it, never...."

"Well, old chap, we must do it again."

"No, one never does anything again. What's done is done. Nothing returns, not a single moment of our lives. Later on it is always different...."

He looked round about him, as though some one might be listening; then he whispered:

"Herman, I have something to tell you."

"What is it?"

"Something to confide to you. But first tell me: that time with the tiger, you didn't think me a great coward, did you?"

"No, certainly not!"

"Well, I'm a coward for all that. I'm frightened, always frightened. The doctors don't know it, because I never tell them. But I always am...."

"But of what, my dear chap?"

"Of something inside myself. Look here, Herman, I'm so afraid ... that I shall not be able to stick it out. That at a given moment of my life I shall be too weak. That suddenly I shall not be able to act and then, then ..."

He shuddered; they look at each other.

"It won't do," he continued, mechanically, as though strengthened by Herman's glance. "I shall fight against it, against that dread of mine.... Do you believe in presentiments?"

"Yes, inversely: mine always turn out the opposite!"

"Then I hope that my presentiment won't come true either."

"But what is it?"

"That within the year ... one of us ... at Lipara ... will be dead."

Herman stared at him fixedly. For all his manliness and his muscular strength, there lay deep down within him a certain heritage of the superstition that comes murmuring from the sea as with voices of distant prophecy, a superstition lulled by the beautiful legends of their Gothlandic sea, which, syren-like, sings strange, mystic fairy-tales. Perhaps he had never until this moment felt that some of it flowed in his rich blood; and he tried to shake it off as nonsense:

"But Othomar, do be rational!" he said.

"I can do nothing to prevent it, Herman. I don't think about it, but I feel little sharp stings, like thoughts suddenly springing up. And lately ... oh, lately, it has been worse; it has become a dream, a nightmare! I was walking through the shopping-streets of Lipara and from all the shops came black people and they measured out bales of black crape, with yard-measures, till the streets were filled with it and the crape lay in the town as though in clouds and surged over the town like a mass of black muslin. It made everything dark: the sun could not shine through it and everything lay in shadow. The people did not seem to recognize me and, when I asked what all that crape was for, they whispered in my ears, 'Hush, hush, it's ... it's for the Imperial!' ... O Herman, then I woke and I was damp with perspiration and it was as though I still heard it echoing after me: 'For the Imperial, it's for the Imperial!'"

Herman got up; he was a little nervous:

"Come," said he, "shall we go?... Dreams: don't pay any attention to dreams, Othomar!"

Othomar also rose:

"No, I oughtn't to pay attention to them," he repeated, in a strange tone. "I never used to."

"Othomar," Herman began, decidedly, as though he wished to say something.

"Don't talk to me for a minute; let me be for a moment," Othomar interrupted, quickly, anxiously.

They walked through the woods in silence. Othomar looked about him, strangely, looked at the ground. Herman compressed his lips tightly and puckered up his forehead: he was annoyed. But he said nothing. In a few minutes Othomar's strange glances grew calmer and quieted down into their usual gentle melancholy.

Then he gave a little sigh, as if he were catching his breath:

"Don't be angry," he said, putting his arm through Herman's.

His voice had resumed its usual tone.

"Perhaps it's as well that I have told you; now perhaps it will leave me. So don't be angry, Herman.... I promise you I shan't talk like that again and I shall do my best also not to think like that any more. But, when I have anything on my mind, I must tell it to somebody. And surely that's much better than for ever keeping silent about it! And then, you see, soon I shall have no more time to think of such things: to-morrow we shall be at Copenhagen and then life will resume its normal course. How can I have talked so queerly? How did I take it into my head? Even I can't remember. It seems very silly now, even to myself."

He gave a little laugh and then, earnestly:

"After all, I'm glad that we have had a talk by ourselves, that I have been able to thank you. We're friends now, aren't we?"

"Yes, of course we're friends," replied Herman, laughing in the midst of his annoyance. "But all the same I shall never know you thoroughly!"

"Don't say that just because of a single presentiment, which I think foolish myself. What else is there in me that's puzzling?..."

"No, there's nothing else!" Herman assented. "You're a good chap. I don't know how it has come about, but I like you very much...."

They left the woods; the sea lay before them. Like life itself, it lay before them, with all the mystery of its depths, wherein a multiple soul seemed to move, rounding wave upon wave. Nameless and innumerable were its changes of colour, its moods of incessant movement; and it spewed a foam of passion on its fiercely towering crests. But this passion was merely its superficial manifestation, the exuberance of its endless vitality: from its depths there murmured, in the inimitable melodies of its millions of voices, the mystery of its soul, as it were a glory which the sky above alone knew.

7

"TO HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF XARA,
"OSBORNE HOUSE, ISLE OF WIGHT.
"IMPERIAL,
"LIPARA,
"—September, 18—.
"DEAR SON,

"It was a great pleasure to receive your letter, telling us of the cordial welcome which you met with first at Copenhagen and now in England. We must however express our surprise at what Aunt Olga wrote to us and our regret that you did not act according to our wishes; the Emperor of Austria and the Archduke Albrecht express the same regret in their letters to us. We presume that we did not express ourselves definitely enough in our letter to Aunt Olga: otherwise we cannot imagine why she did not urge you more strongly to ask the Archduchess ValÉrie for an interview and to speak to her of the important matter which we all at this moment have so much at heart. You would then have been able to announce your engagement sous cachet at the courts which you are now visiting; and the betrothal could have been celebrated, at the conclusion of journey, at Sigismundingen. Whereas now you have probably placed yourself in a false position towards our friends Their Majesties of Denmark and of England, as all the newspapers are speaking of a possible betrothal to the Archduchess ValÉrie and the press is already so kind as to discuss the pros and cons of this alliance in a loud voice. Your journey, however, would have had to take place in any case, as it had already been so long announced—your illness intervened to postpone it—and as it is therefore nothing more than an act of courtesy towards our friends.

"Once again, your neglect to act in accordance with our wishes causes us great regret. We perceive in you, Othomar, a certain tendency towards bourgeois hypersensitiveness, which we hope you will learn to master with all the strength you possess. Few of us have in this life escaped a sorrow such as Prince von Lohe-Obkowitz has caused your future bride, but it remains an entirely personal and subordinate feeling and should not be allowed to interfere in the least with affairs of such great political importance as the marriage of a future emperor of Liparia. The archduchess will doubtless, when she is older, learn to look at this in the same light; and we hope that she will very soon realize that her affection for Prince Lohe could never have brought her happiness, as it would have caused a rupture with his imperial majesty her uncle and with all her relations.

"Master yourself, Othomar, we ask and urge. You sometimes have ideas and entertain proposals which are not those of a ruler. We have noticed this more than once or twice: among other occasions, when you visited Zanti at Vaza. We did not like to reproach you with this at the time, as we were otherwise very well pleased with you. Your dearest wish will no doubt be that we shall always remain so.

"We hope therefore to see you three weeks hence at Sigismundingen, where the Archduchess ValÉrie will by then have returned from Altseeborgen to meet you and where we shall also meet the Emperor of Austria.

"It is our fervent hope that the long voyage with Herman will have done you much good and that your wedding will take place at Altara as soon as possible. This glad prospect affords us a pleasant diversion from our difficulties with the army bill, which is encountering such stubborn opposition in the house of deputies, though we hope for all that to succeed in carrying it, as it is essential that our army should be increased.

"We cordially embrace you.

"OSCAR."