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We had many good things for tea, and even Krak was thawed into amiability; she told me that I had behaved very well in the cathedral, and that I should see the fireworks from the window presently. It was winter and soon dark. The fireworks began at seven; I remember them very well.
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.
If Krak had cut her arm off, its perpetual absence might have made Victoria remember the fault which was paid for by amputation; the moral effect of rapid knuckles disappeared with the comfort that came from sucking them.
At last the door opened with a creak, and Stepan Arkadyevitch's spot-and-tan pointer Krak flew out, running round and round and turning over in the air. Stepan Arkadyevitch himself followed with a gun in his hand and a cigar in his mouth. "Good dog, good dog, Krak!" he cried encouragingly to the dog, who put his paws up on his chest, catching at his game bag.
When we had gone to bed, again we met, I creeping into her room, and rousing her to ask whether in truth a new age had come and the yoke of Krak been broken from off our backs. Victoria sat up in bed and discussed the problem gravely. For me she was sanguine, for herself less so; for, said she, they go on worrying the girls for ever so long.
They congratulated the world on its Ruler, the kingdom on its King, themselves on my account, me on theirs. To Krak I was her achievement; to my mother the vindication of the support she had given to Krak, and the refutation of my own grumblings and rebellion. How could I not be reminded of my coronation day?
I was polite to Krak, but I lodged a protest with my mother and confided a passionate repudiation of any treaty to Victoria's sympathetic ear. Victoria was all for me; my mother was stern for a moment, and then, smiling faintly, told me to try to sleep. After several months I took a decided and rapid turn toward recovery.
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