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Updated: May 1, 2025
But to-day, with Princess Heinrich frowning, heaven at a discount, and everybody rather ashamed of themselves, was it likely that I should desire to upset her again? Victoria was quite of this optimistic opinion. Our interview was interrupted by the arrival of Bederhof, who came to take my final commands with regard to the marriage arrangements.
I did not always know whether Bederhof was so superlatively dull as to believe a thing, or merely so permissibly dull as to consider that he ought to pretend to believe it. Perhaps he had come himself not to know the difference between the two attitudes; certain ecclesiastics would furnish an illustration of what I mean. Princess Heinrich's was quite another complexion of mind.
The trail of business and arrangement was over it; it was defaced by an intolerable propriety, ungraced by a scrap of uncertainty; its stages had been marked, numbered, and catalogued beforehand. Bederhof knew the wedding-day to within a fortnight, the settlement to within a shilling, the addresses of congratulation to a syllable. To this knowledge we were all privy.
Why, we are all here, all except Hammerfeldt, who looks down from heaven, and Coralie who is coming presently to sing us the wedding-song. Even Victoria's Baron is here, and Victoria's sobs of terror are in my ears again. Bederhof and his fellows are behind me. The real and the unreal, the dummies and the men, they are all here, each in his place in the tableau.
In reply to my questions Bederhof admitted that he could not at present fix the final event within a fortnight or so; he did not, however, consider this trifling uncertainty material. "No more do I, my dear Baron," said I. "Here," said he, "is the picture of your Majesty which Princess Heinrich has just sent to Bartenstein."
Once or twice Elsa glanced at me, timidly but by no means uncheerfully. Behind the cover of the chair-back I unfastened my box and got out my necklace. Then I waited for Elsa's next look. It seemed entirely in keeping with the occasion that I, as well as Bederhof, should have my present for her, my ornament, my toy. "Their Majesties' carriage will be drawn by four gray horses," said Bederhof.
Presently my mother came in; the privy council round Bederhof grew more engrossed. The Chancellor was delighted; one could almost see the flags and hear the cannon as his descriptive periods rolled out. Princess Heinrich sat listening with a rather bitter smile, but she did not cut him short. I leaned over the back of her chair.
"You're as well up in the arrangements as Bederhof himself." "I have cause. Whence come you, sire?" "From paying a visit to the Countess von Sempach." He burst into a laugh, but the look in his eyes forbade me to be offended. "That's very whimsical too," he observed. "There's a smack of repetition about this. Is fate hard-up for new effects?" "There's variety enough here for me.
I resigned myself to the necessity of a speedy return to Forstadt. Already Bederhof was in despair at my absence, and excuses failed me. I could not tell him that to return to Forstadt was to begin the preparations for execution; a point at which hesitation must be forgiven in the condemned. But before I went I had a talk with Wetter.
"Pretty well," said I. "To understand people is both useful and interesting; and to a man in my position it has the further attraction of being difficult." "And you think Bederhof is too strong for me?" "He is stupid and respectable. My dear Wetter, what chance have you?" "There's a river in this town. Shall I jump in?" "Heavens, no! You'd set it all a-hissing and a-boiling."
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