The next morning early Mark was sent for to the Prince. He was shown into the dressing-room, but the Prince was already dressed. He was seated in an easy-chair reading a small closely-printed sheet of paper, upon which the word "Wien" was conspicuous to the boy. The Prince bade the little schoolmaster be seated on a fauteuil near him, and looked so kindly that he felt quite at his ease. "Well! little one," said the Prince, "how findest thou thyself? Hast thou found any friends yet in this place?" "The Signorina has been very kind to me, Highness," said the boy. "Ah!" said the Prince, smiling, "thou hast found that out already. That is not so bad. I thought you two would be friends. What has the Signorina told thee?" "She has told me of the actors who are so clever and so strange. She says that they are all in love with her." "That is not unlikely. And what else?" "She has told me of the Princess and of her servente." "Indeed!" said the Prince, with the slightest possible appearance of increased interest; "what does she say of the Princess?" "She says that she is a bad woman, and that she hates her." "Ah! the Signorina appears to have "She says that the servente is the devil himself! But she does not mean the real devil. She says that the servente is a much more real devil than he! Is not that horrible, Highness?" The Prince looked at Mark for two or three moments, with a kindly but strange far-reaching look, which struck the boy, though he did not in the least understand it. "I did well, little one," he said at last, "when I sent for thee." There was a pause. The Prince seemed to have forgotten the presence of the boy, who already was sufficiently of a courtier to hold his tongue. At last the Prince spoke. "And the children," he said; "thou hast seen them?" "Yes," said Mark, with a little shy smile, "I did badly there. I insulted the gracious FrÄulein by calling her 'Princess,' which she said only the little Princes should do; and I told her I was come to teach her and her little brother, and that I should do it in my own way or not at all." The Prince looked as though he feared that this unexpected amusement would be almost too delightful. "Well, little one," he said, "thou hast begun well. Better than this none could have done. Only be careful that thou art not spoilt. Care nothing for what thou hearest here. Continue to hate and fear the devil; for, whether he be thy own devil or the servente, he is more powerful There was another pause. This aspect of the necessary suffering the poor had to undergo was so new to Mark that he required some time to grasp it. The visits of noble ladies to his village had not been so frequent as to cause the malign effects to be deeply felt. * * * * * Acting upon this advice so far as he understood it, Mark pursued the same system of education with the little Highnesses as he had followed with the village children; that is, he set them to read such things as he was told they ought to learn, and encouraged them to do so by promising to relate his histories and tales if they were good. It is surprising how much the same human nature remains after generations of Every one in the palace, indeed, took to Had they ill-treated or wronged him, he would not have felt it so much; but kindness and security on their part, seemed It is difficult to realise the effect which sarcasm and irony have upon such natures as his. They look upon life with such a single eye. It is so beautiful and solemn to them. Truth is so true; they are so much in earnest that they cannot understand the complex feeling that finds relief in sarcasm and allegory, that tolerates the frivolous and the vain, as an ironic reading of the lesson of life. The actors were particularly kind to him, though their grotesque attempts to amuse him mostly added to his misery. They were extremely anxious that he should appear upon the stage, and indeed the boy's beauty and simplicity would have made an excellent foil. "Herr Tutor," said old Carricchio the arlecchino to him one day, with mock gravity, "we are about to perform a comedy—what is called a masqued comedy, not because we wear masques, for we don't, but because of our dresses. It consists of music, dancing, love-making, joking, and buffoonery; you will see what a trifle it is all about. The scene is in the garden of a country-house—during what in Italy we call the Villeggiatura, that is the month we spend in the country during the vintage. A lady's fan is found by an ill-natured person in a curious place; all the rest agree not to see the fan, not to acknowledge that it is a fan. It is all left to us at the moment, all except the songs and the music, and you know how delightful those are. If you would take a part, and keep your No one, indeed, was kinder to Mark, or seemed more to delight in his society than the old arlecchino, and the two made a most curious sight, seated together on one of the terraces on a sunny afternoon. Nothing could be more diverse in appearance than this strangely assorted pair. Carricchio was tall, with long limbs, and large aquiline features. He wore a set smile upon his large expressive mouth, which seemed born of no sense of enjoyment, but of an infinite insight, and of a mocking friendliness. He seldom wore anything but the dress of his part; but he wrapped himself mostly in a long cloak, lined with fur, for even the northern sunshine seemed chilly to Why the old man listened so patiently to these childish stories no one could tell; perhaps he did not hear them. He himself said that the presence of Mark had the effect of music upon his jaded and worn sense. But, indeed, there was beneath "The Maestro has been talking to me this morning," he said one day. "He says that life is a wretched masque, a miserable apology for existence by the side of art; what do you say to that?" "I do not know what it means," said Mark; "I neither know life nor art, how can I tell?" "That is true, but you know more than you think. The Maestro means that life is imperfect, struggling, a failure, ugly most often; art is perfect, complete, beautiful, and full of force and power. But I tell Mark tried to understand this, but failed, and was therefore silent. Indeed it is not certain whether Carricchio himself understood what he was saying. He seemed to have some suspicion of this, for he did not go on talking, but was silent for some time. These silences were common between the two. At last he said: "I think where the Maestro is wrong is in making the two quarrel. They cannot quarrel. There is no art without life, and "I never saw a puppet-play," said Mark. "Well, you have seen us," said Carricchio; "we are much the same. We move ourselves—they are moved by wires; but we do just the same things—we are life and we are art, in the burletta we are both. I often think which is which—which is the imposture and which is the masque. Then I think that somewhere there must be a higher art that surpasses the realism of life—a divine art which is not life but fashions life. "When I look at you, little one," Carricchio went on, "I feel almost as I do when the violins break in upon the jar and fret of the wittiest dialogue. Jest and Carricchio paused; but as Mark said nothing, he went on again. "The other life is gay, lively, bright, "The silence of heaven!" said Mark, with open eyes. "The silence of heaven! What, then, are its words?" "Ah! that," said the old clown, smiling, but with a sad slowness in his speech, "is beyond me to tell. I can hear its silence, but not its voice." |