Free! A wonderful word that, whether you use it of a child, a man, a state, a world, an universe! That evening we seemed free. In after-days I received from old Hammerfeldt (a great statesman, as history will one day allow) some lectures on the little pregnant, powerful, empty word. He had some right to speak of freedom; he had seen it fought for by Napoleon, praised by Talleyrand, bought by Castlereagh, interpreted by Metternich. Should he not then know what it was, its value, its potency, and its sweetness, why men died for it, and delicate women who loved them cheered them on? Once also in later years a beautiful woman cried to me, with white arms outstretched, that to be free was life, was all in all, the heart's one satisfaction. Her I pressed, seeking to know wherein lay the attraction and allurement that fired her to such extravagance. And I told her what the Prince had said to me half-way through his pinch of snuff.
"'Sire,' said he, 'to become free—what is it? It is to change your master.'"
The lady let her arms fall to her side, reflected a moment, smiled, and said:
"The Prince was no fool, sire."
As the result of this day that I have described, I had become free. I had changed my master.
We did not, however, pay any more visits to the Countess.
CHAPTER III.
SOME SECRET OPINIONS.
Even such results as might be looked for on Prince von Hammerfeldt's theory of the meaning of freedom were in my case arrested and postponed by a very serious illness which attacked me on the threshold of my eleventh year. We had gone to Schloss Artenberg, according to our custom in the summer; it was holiday-time; Krak was away, the talked-of tutor had not arrived. The immediate fruit of this temporary emancipation was that I got my feet very wet with dabbling about the river, and, being under no sterner control than Victoria's, lingered long in this condition. Next day I was kept in bed, and Victoria was in sore disgrace. To be brief, the mischief attacked my lungs. Soon I was seriously ill; a number of grave, black-coated gentlemen came and went about the bed on which I lay for several weeks. Of this time I have many curious impressions; most of them centre round my mother. She slept in my room, and I believe hardly ever left me. I used to wake from uneasy sleep and look across to her bed; always in a few moments she also awoke, came and gave me what I needed or asked for, and then would throw a dressing-gown round her and walk softly to and fro on bare feet, with her long fair hair hanging about her shoulders. Her face looked different in those days; yet it was not soft as I have seen mothers' faces when their sons lay sick or dead, but rather excited, urgent, defiant; the lips were set close, and the eyes gleamed. She did not supplicate God, she fought fate, or, if God and fate be one, then it was God whom she fought; and her battle was untiring. I knew from her face that I might die, but, so far as I can recall my mood, I was more curious about the effect of such an event on her and on Victoria than concerning its import to myself. I asked her once what would happen if I died; would Victoria be queen? She forbade me to ask the question, but I pressed it, and she answered hastily, "Yes, yes, but you won't die, Augustin; you shan't die." I was not allowed to see very much of Victoria, but a day or two afterward she sat with me alone for a little while, and I told her she would be queen if I died.
"No. Mother would kill me," she said with absolute conviction, in no resentment or fear, but in a simple certitude.
"Why? Because you didn't bring me in when I got wet?"
"Yes—if you died of it," nodded Victoria.
"I don't believe it," I said boldly. "Why shouldn't she like you to be queen?"
"She'd hate it," said Victoria.
"She doesn't hate me being king."
"You're a boy."
I wondered dimly then, and I have wondered since (hardly with more knowledge), what truth or whether any lay behind my sister's words; she believed that, apart from any unjust blame for my misfortune, her mother would not willingly see her queen. Yet why not? I have a son, and would be glad to lay down my burden and kiss his hand as he sat on the throne. Are all fathers such as I? Nay, and are all mothers such as mine? I know not; and if there be any position that opens a man's mind to the Socratic wisdom of knowing his own ignorance it is that in which my life has been spent. But it can hardly be that the curious veiled opposition which from about this time began to exist between my mother and my sister was altogether singular. It was a feeling not inconsistent with duty, with punctilious observance, not even with love; but there was in it a sort of jealousy, of assertion and counter-assertion. It seemed to me, as I became older, to have roots deeper than any accidental occurrence or environment, and, so far, I came near to the difficult analysis, to spring from the relation of one woman who was slowly but surely being forced to lay down what she had prized most in her womanhood and another who, slowly but surely, also became aware that hers was the prize in her turn, and thrust forward a tentative hand to grasp it. If I am at all right in this notion, then it is plain that feelings slight and faint, although not non-existent in ordinary homes, might be intensified in such a family as ours, and that a new and great impulse would have been imparted to them by such an artificial accentuation of the inevitable as must have resulted had I died, and my sister been called to the first place. Among men the cause for such an antagonism is far less powerful; advancing years take less from us and often bring what, to older eyes, is a good recompense for lost youth, and seems to youth itself more precious than any of its own possessions. Our empire, never so brilliant as a woman's in its prime, is of stuff more durable and less shaken by the wind of Time's fluttering garment as he passes by.
My confessor came to see me sometimes. He was an eminent divine, nominated to his post by Hammerfeldt in reward, I believe, for some political usefulness. I do not think he saw far into a child's heart, or perhaps I was not like most children. He was always comforting me, telling me not to be afraid, that God was merciful, Christ full of love, and the saints praying for me. Now I was not in the least afraid; I was very curious about death—I had never seen it—but I was, as I have said, more curious about the world I should leave behind. I wanted to know what would be done when I was dead, and where I was to be buried. Would they fire the guns and parade the troops? I did not rise to the conception of myself, not knowing anything of what they did. I thought I should be there somehow, looking on from heaven; and I think that I rather enjoyed the prospect. A child is very self-centred; I had no doubt that I should be the object of much attention in heaven on that day at least. I hinted something of what was passing in my mind to the confessor. He did not appear to follow the drift of my thoughts. He told me again that I had been a good boy, and that now, if I prayed and was sorry for my faults, I should be happy and should please God. This did not touch the point that engaged my attention. I tried whether my mother could help me, and I was surprised when the tears started into her eyes, and she bade me, almost roughly, to be quiet. However, when Victoria came we talked it all over. Victoria cried a little, but she was quite clear as to her own position in the procession, and we had rather an animated dispute about it. She said also that some one in heaven would hold me, and we differed again as to the celestial personage in whose lap I was to sit. I am afraid that here our imaginations were assisted by the picture of the Holy Family in the chapel of the Schloss.
Not the least tiresome incident of this time was that Krak felt it her duty to display affection. I do not mean to assert that Krak was not and had not been all along fond of me, but in ordinary seasons to feel affection was with Krak no reason at all for displaying it. I do more justice to Krak now; then I did not appreciate the change in her demeanour.