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Updated: June 9, 2025
That put him back where he belonged, and Annunciata did a little thinking, while Nikky went on, in his troubled way, running his fingers through his hair until he looked rather like an uneasy but ardent-eyed porcupine. He acknowledged that these meetings had meant much to him, everything to him, he would confess, but he had never dared to hope.
With the trepidation of a canary who finds his cage door open, and, hopping to the threshold, surveys the world before venturing to explore it, Prince Ferdinand William Otto rose to his feet, tiptoed past the Archduchess Annunciata, who did not move, and looked around him from the doorway. The Chancellor slept. In the royal dressing-room behind the box a lady in waiting was sitting and crocheting.
Then his eyes turned to Annunciata and rested there. It was as if he saw her, not as the embittered woman of late years, but as the child of the woman he had loved. "A good friend, and a good daughter," he said clearly. "Few men die so fortunate, and fewer sovereigns." His hand moved from Mettlich's head, and rested on the photograph. The elder Sister leaned forward and touched his wrist.
The Countess would take the cue, would enlarge on the precautions for safety, on the uselessness of fear, on the popularity of the Crown Prince. And Annunciata, for a time at least, would relax. In her new remorse she made frequent visits to the sickroom, passing, a long, thin figure, clad in black, through lines of bowing gentlemen, to stand by the bed and wring her hands.
This Annunciata, the most celebrated singer of her day, loses her voice, loses her beauty, a fever deprives her of both; and not till her death does Antonio learn that he, and not another, was the person really beloved. Meanwhile, in his travels, Antonio meets with a blind girl, whom he does or does not love, on whom at least he poetises, and whose forehead, because she was blind, he had kissed.
After the lapse of a few months a splendid monument was erected on which might be read this inscription in letters of gold: Privy Councilor, President of Committees, Knight of the Orders of St. Stephen, St. Maurice, and the Annunciata. The great Patriot, the True Christian, the Exemplary Husband, the Father of the Poor, Guardian of the Orphan, Supporter of Schools, a Pillar of the Church.
The greenhouses at the summer palace had been sacked for flowers and plants. The corridor from the great salon to the dining-hall; always a dreary passage, had suddenly become a fairy path of early-spring bloom. Even Annunciata, hung now with ropes of pearls, her hair dressed high for a tiara of diamonds, her cameos exchanged for pearls, looked royal.
Hedwig stood silent, and allowed her to have her way without protest. Had submitted, too, to a diamond pin in her hair, and a string of her mother's pearls. "There," said Annunciata, standing off and surveying her, "you look less like a baby." She did, indeed?
Although she was still in waiting, the Archduchess was making few demands on her. A very fever of preparation was on Annunciata.
"He is mine," said the Crown Prince fondly. "He is the cleverest dog. He can do all sorts of things." "Put him out." "But he is mine," protested Ferdinand William Otto. "He is a gift. That gentleman there, in the corduroy jacket " "Put him out," said the Archduchess Annunciata. There was nothing else to do. The Crown Prince did not cry. He was much too proud.
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