In the gloomy hour of midnight came the destroying angel, sent by the Lady Bela. He glided in; he blew open, with his gasping breath, the locks and bolts on the doors of the bed-room, and fell with immense weight on the sleeping knight, pressing him down with such suffocating force, that he thought, when he woke, a mill-stone had been rolled upon his neck. In this painful situation, while he fancied the last moment of his life was come, he fortunately thought of the rose which stood in the flower-pot by his bed, pressed it to his heart, and said: "Fade away with me, fair rose, and perish on my lifeless bosom, as a proof that my last thought was bestowed on thy lovely possessor." At once his heart became lighter, the heavy nightmare could not resist the magic power of the flower, his oppressive weight did not now exceed that of so much down; the dislike of the perfume soon drove him out of the chamber altogether, and the narcotic quality of the scent again lulled the knight into a refreshing slumber. At sunrise he rose fresh and cheerful, and rode to the place of election to ascertain what impression his simile had made on the minds of the electors, and to observe the course that the affair might take this time; intending, at all events, if any opposing gale should arise, and threaten to run aground the wavering boat of his hopes and wishes, at once to seize on the helm and steer directly against it.
This time, however, there was no danger. The solemn electoral senate had during the night so thoroughly ruminated on, and digested Wladomir's parable, that it was actually infused into their very heart and mind. A brisk knight, who perceived these favourable crises, and who in affairs of the heart sympathised with the tender Wladomir, endeavoured either to deprive the latter of the honour of placing the lady on the Bohemian throne, or at any rate to share it with him. He stepped forward, drew his sword, proclaimed with a loud voice, Libussa, Duchess of Bohemia, and desired every one who had the same opinion to draw the sword like him and defend his choice. At once several hundred swords glittered on the place of election, a loud cry of joy announced the new sovereign, and on all sides resounded the shout of the people: "Let Libussa be our duchess!" A deputation was appointed, with Prince Wladomir and the sword-drawer at the head of it, to announce to the lady her elevation to the ducal rank. With the modest blush which gives to female charms the highest expression of grace, she accepted the sovereignty over the people, and every heart was subjugated by the magic of her pleasing aspect. The people paid her homage with the greatest delight, and although the two sisters envied her, and employed their secret arts to avenge themselves both on her and their country, for the slight that had been offered them, endeavouring by the leaven of calumny and malicious interpretation of all their sister's deeds and actions, to bring about in the nation a shameful ferment, and to undermine the peace and happiness of her mild virgin dominion; yet Libussa knew how to meet these unsisterly attempts with prudence, and to annihilate all the hostile plans and spells of the unnatural pair, till at last they were tired of exercising upon her their inefficient powers.
The sighing Wladomir waited in the meanwhile with the most ardent longing for the development of his fate. More than once he ventured to foresee the end in the lovely eyes of his sovereign, but Libussa had imposed a deep silence on the inclinations of her heart, and it is always a precarious proceeding to require from a mistress a verbal declaration without a previous intercourse with the eyes and their significant glances. The one favourable sign which still kept his hopes alive was the imperishable rose, which, though a year had elapsed, blossomed as freshly now as on the evening when he received it from the hand of the fair Libussa. A flower from a maiden's hand, a nosegay, a ribbon, or a lock of hair, is certainly more valuable than a tooth dropped out, but nevertheless all these pretty things are but doubtful pledges of love, unless some more certain expressions gives them a determined signification. Wladomir, therefore quietly played the part of a sighing swain in the court of his idol, and waited to see what time and circumstances might produce in his favour. The boisterous knight Mizisla, on the other hand, carried on his plan with far more spirit, and did all he could to make himself conspicuous on every occasion. On the day of homage he was the first vassal who made the oath of allegiance to the new princess; he followed her as inseparably as the moon follows the earth, that by unasked-for services he might show his devotion to her person, and on solemn occasions and in processions he made his sword flash in her eyes, that she might not forget what good service it had done her.
Nevertheless, following the way of the world, Libussa seemed very near to have forgotten the furtherers of her good fortune; since, when an obelisk once stands upright, we think no more of the levers and instruments that raised it—at least so did the candidates for her heart interpret the lady's coldness. Both, however, were wrong; the noble sovereign was neither insensible nor ungrateful; but her heart was no more so completely in her power, that she could do with it whatever she pleased. Love had already decided in favour of the slim hunter. The first impression which the sight of him had made on her heart was still so strong, that no second one could efface it. Three years had passed, and the colours of imagination with which the graceful youth had been sketched, were neither rubbed out, nor had they become faint, and thus her love was proved to be perfect. For the love of the fair sex is of such a nature and quality, that if it will stand the test of three moons, it will generally last three times three, and longer, according to the evidence and example of our own times. When the heroic sons of Germany swam over distant seas, to fight out the domestic squabble of the wilful daughter of Britannia with her mother country, they tore themselves from the arms of their fair ones, with mutual protestations of truth and fidelity; but before they had passed the last buoy of the Weser, the greater part of them were forgotten by their Chloes. The fickle damsels, tired of having their hearts unoccupied, filled up the gap with new intrigues; but the faithful ones, who had had constancy enough to endure the Weser ordeal, and who, when the owners of their hearts were on the other side of the black buoy, had been guilty of no infidelity—these, they say, have kept their vow inviolate, until the return of their heroes into their German father-land, and now merit from the hands of love the reward of their constancy.
It was therefore less remarkable, that, under the circumstances, the Lady Libussa could refuse the hand of the blooming knights who solicited her heart, than that the fair Queen of Ithaca let a whole host of suitors sigh after her in vain, while her heart had only the grey-bearded Ulysses in reserve. Nevertheless, rank and high birth so very much overbalanced the attachment the lady felt for the beloved of her heart, that any thing more than a Platonic passion—that empty shade, which neither warms nor nourishes—was not to be hoped. Although, in those remote times, people cared as little about writing out genealogies, according to parchment and pedigree, as they did about arranging classes of beetles according to their wings and feelers, or flowers according to their stamens, pistils, calyx, and nectary, they knew, nevertheless, that the delicious grape alone associates with the stately elm, and not the weed that creeps along the hedge. A mésalliance caused by a difference of rank an inch wide, did not then, certainly, excite so much pedantic noise as in our classic days; but, however, a difference a yard wide, especially if rivals stood in the interval, and perceived the distance of the two ends, was observable enough. All this, and more than this, the lady maturely weighed in her prudent mind, and therefore she did not give a hearing to the deceitful prattler,