Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
The only thing to be considered now is, what shall be the nature of his errand there? We shall at once deliberate as to what will be best!" Long did he pace the floor of his cabinet with bowed head and arms crossed upon his chest; then all of a sudden he whistled for his valet, and ordered him to look for Master Gabriel Nietzel, and to bring him in at once.
After a long pause his eye fell quite accidentally on the spot where Gabriel Nietzel stood, and he started as if in sudden terror. "Why, you still here?" he asked. "You dare to brave me? To terrify me with your dull, pale face? Have you grown deaf, Mr. Court Painter? Did you not hear me dismiss you?" "I heard, but your honor knows that I can not go.
In the middle of the room, beside the splendid porphyry vase standing there upon its gilded pedestal, leaned the tall, athletic form of Count Schwarzenberg, casting a long, dark shadow upon the shining surface of the inlaid floor. Gabriel Nietzel saw all this, and yet he felt as if he were dreaming, and that all would vanish so soon as he should venture to move or step forward.
"Sir Count, you well know that I can not do so," groaned Gabriel Nietzel. "You well know that I am a poor, ruined man, entirely in your power. I beseech you, have mercy upon me! Restore to me my wife and child, and I will do all that you require of me. Give me back my wife, and I swear to you that I will do here what I was to have done on the journey.
I shall have you arrested on the spot, inform the Electress of what a deceiver you are, have the three thousand ducats forthwith taken away again, and keep you in prison until the suit is made out against you; then you shall be hung conformably with law and usage." "Mercy, your excellency, mercy!" gasped Nietzel. "I am writing even now!"
"I know nothing of Gabriel Nietzel!" cried the count, "I only know that you have called my father a murderer and " "And, I did wrong in this, for certainly the murderous deed miscarried! I live! And he was forced to die. Do you know of what your father died?" "Of grief, and the humiliations which you prepared for him!" "No, he died of remorse. A stroke, they say, put an end to his life.
I have so much money that we can buy a house in Venice, on the Ghetto; and we shall, too, and I will live there with you, and will become a Jew, and take another name, for my own name horrifies me. I will not, can not hear it again!" "Why not?" asked she earnestly. "It is a fine name the name of a painter, an artist. Why would you never again hear your own name, Gabriel Nietzel?"
"What have I to do with your wife and child?" asked Count Schwarzenberg angrily. "Have you handed them over to me? Am I the chief of an asylum for deserted women and children?" "My wife, Sir Count, give me back my wife!" cried Gabriel Nietzel, sinking down upon his knees. "I know nothing about her, I have never seen her," said the count. "You do know about her, your excellency!
But you shall prove to me by deeds that you are in earnest about making amends for your crime against me, the world, the laws, and the Church. Only when you have done the right thing shall you again obtain your beloved and your child, and may depart unhindered from this country. Mark that, Master Nietzel; and now come. Follow me to my picture gallery."
"We shall see," said the count, with a slight nod of his head. "And now that we have understood one another, and you have somewhat recovered your reason, now for the last time I tell you, you are dismissed!" Gabriel Nietzel bowed low, and strode through the apartment toward the door of entrance, reverentially going backward that he might not turn his back upon the high-born, all-powerful count.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking