United States or Tuvalu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It would not go easily into words, but, as I sought to frame it, that other speech came back to me the speech of the Prince's enemy. Wetter had said, "You're king at last." What else had Hammerfeldt meant to say? Nothing else. That was his message also. From both it came, the same reminder, the same exhortation. The living man and the dead joined their voices in this brief appeal.
I smiled drearily as I imagined his incredulous indignation. No; everybody was against me, saints and sages, Geoffrey and Hammerfeldt, women and men; even the fools gave no countenance to my folly. William Adolphus thought that I might gradually ! At five o'clock I sent for Wetter. He came with remarkable promptness.
Hammerfeldt was and had always been so large a figure and a presence so important in my life; I could only whisper to myself, "He's dying; it's his breathing; he can't get his breath." We went in by the back door as we had arranged, and gained the study. "Quick!" whispered Wetter. "Remember you were in here. Don't make any excuses about delay. Or put it on me; say I hesitated to rouse you."
"Even just now, Cæsar." I heard a little laugh behind the screen. "Hammerfeldt hates it," said I. "Oh, then that settles it. You'll be against us, of course!" "Why of course?" "You always do as the Prince tells you, don't you?" "Unless somebody more powerful forbids me." "Who is more powerful except Cæsar himself?" I made no answer, but I rose and, crossing the rug, stood by her.
The death of Prince von Hammerfeldt furnished the subject of a picture exhibited at Forstadt with great success a few years ago.
To be told they gossiped of her influence seemed to have no terror for her; her regret was that the talk should be all untrue and she in fact impotent. She stirred me to declare that power was hers and I her servant. It seemed to me that to accept her leading was to secure perennial inspiration and a boundless reward. Was Hammerfeldt my schoolmaster?
Victoria had been for meeting the foreign representatives by renouncing her succession; my mother would not hear of that, but was for defying the protests. Nothing, she had declared, could really come of them. Hammerfeldt overbore her with his knowledge and experience, leaving her defeated, but only half convinced, sullen, and disappointed.
I was too much given to introspection and self-appraisement not to be aware that my experiences had given me a lift toward manhood; my shyness was smothered, though not killed, by a kind of mechanical ease born of practice. After greeting Hammerfeldt I received the welcome of the company with a composed courtesy of which the Prince's approval was very manifest.
"There were ephors, too," he reminded me, and we laughed. Hammerfeldt was our ephor. There was a banquet that night. I sat at the head of the table, with my mother opposite and Hammerfeldt at her right hand. The Prince gave my health after dinner, and passed on to a warm and eloquent eulogy on those who had trained me.
I had an appointment for that evening with Hammerfeldt, but found a note in which he excused himself from coming. He had taken a chill, and was confined to his bed. The business could wait, he said, but went on to remark that no time should be lost in considering the question of the Paris Embassy.
Word Of The Day