United States or Nicaragua ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then the prince thought of the pale, dark face which had been so dear to him, and with a motion of torture, he tried to put the memory from him. He knew, none so well, Hartmut's intense pride, and this pride was dragged in the dirt day after day in the degrading position which he occupied.
Hartmut Rojanow already wore the laurel wreath, and that was enough, surely, to obliterate the past. It should and must be enough; and it was this thought which blazed from Hartmut's eyes as he looked toward the ambassador's box last night. But could he look thus into his father's eyes? Despite all his defiance he feared those eyes, and them alone, in all the world.
But it was night, a cold, icy winter night, upon which no gleam of a new day could have fallen. Hartmut's eyes rested on the distant shimmer, but he heeded not its light; all was dark and gloomy within him this night.
So saying Egon sprang quickly up the stairs, and hastened to his friend's apartments, which were on the first floor, not far from his own, and which were furnished with all the old-time magnificence of a princely house. A lamp was burning on the table in Hartmut's little study, and he himself, looking weary and dejected, was lying full length upon a couch.
"My son, my only child! Do you not know your own mother?" "My mother is dead," he answered, half aloud. The stranger laughed bitterly, shrilly, and her laugh seemed but an echo of the hard, joyless sounds which had come from Hartmut's lips a few moments since. "So that's how it is. They would even say I was dead and not leave you the memory of a mother. It is not true, Hartmut.
"It stands at the beginning of your poem, which by the way was sent me the other day by some mysterious hand, without name." "And which you read notwithstanding?" he interrupted triumphantly. "Yes, and burned." "Burned?" The old savage expression came over Hartmut's face, that intense angered look which had evoked from Egon's lips the expression, "You look like a demon, Hartmut."
Hartmut's face was deadly pale, and on it there lay a strange, unearthly quiet; the fiery light was gone from those speaking eyes, and his hair lay wet and heavy upon his forehead. The storm had whirled his hat from his head, but he did not notice it, neither did he know that a heavy shower had drenched him to the skin.
It is destiny which is beckoning us to-day, and we must follow after. A feeble word cannot separate us." At this moment a lightning flash parted the heavy, distant clouds, and cast a long, narrow, dazzling light over the great forest, and gleamed across Hartmut's face and figure where he stood. Surely he was his mother's son now.
"He is a sadly injured, deeply embittered man, and could have no unbiased judgment; but you, Hartmut's friend, who stood so near him, should shield him from such an imputation!" Egon looked with astonishment at the excited woman. "That evidently seems an easy matter to you," he said slowly. "I could not do it.
Hartmut's handsome features were still disfigured with passion and anger, when, with compressed lips, he finally left the tower room. He knew and felt but one thing, that he must have revenge, revenge at any price. It was late when the guests arose from the table.
Word Of The Day