CHAPTER XXVIII.

"Your highness will readily conclude," continued the physician, "that I was very willing on this account to delay my journey, as I had thereby an opportunity of seeing Mr Ewson in his glory. As soon as the morning drew on, he came into my room, and was so good as to invite me to his bowl of punch, although he regretted that he could only give me that contemptible drink which, in this country, bore the honoured name of a far different liquor. It was only in England where good punch could be drunk, and if ever I came to see him in his own country, he would convince me that he knew how to prepare, in its best fashion, that divine panacea.

"Not long afterwards, the two other guests whom he had invited, made their appearance. The _Amtmann_ was, like Ewson, a little figure, but round as a ball, happy and contented, with a red snub nose, and large sparkling eyes. Dr Green, on the contrary, was a tall, powerful, and middle-aged man, with a countenance strikingly national, carelessly, yet fashionably dressed, spectacles on his nose, and a round white hat on his head.

"'Give me sack, that mine eyes may be red,' cried this hero, (marching up to the innkeeper, whom he seized by the breast, shaking him heartily,) 'Speak, thou rascally Cambyses, where are the princesses? There is here a base odour of coffee and Bremen cigars, but no fumigation yet floats on the air from the ambrosial drink of the gods.'

"'Have mercy, oh champion! Away with thy hands--relax thy potent grasp,' answered the host, coughing; 'otherwise, in thine ire, thou might'st crush my ribs like an eggshell."

"'Not till thy duties are fulfilled,' replied Dr Green; 'not before the sweet vapour of punch, ambrosial punch, delights our nostrils. Why are thy functions thus delayed? Not till then shall I let thee go, thou most unrighteous host!'

"Now, however, Ewson darted out ferociously against the Doctor, crying, 'Green, thou brute, thou rascal!--Green shalt thou be, beneath the eyes,--nay, thou shalt be green and yellow with grief, if thou dost not immediately desist from thy shameful deeds.'

"Accordingly, I expected a violent quarrel, and prepared myself for departure; but I was for once mistaken. 'In contempt, then, of his cowardly impotence, I shall desist,' said the Doctor, 'and wait patiently for the divine drink which thou, Ewson, shalt prepare for us.'

"With these words he let go the innkeeper, (who instantly ran out of the room,) seated himself, with the demeanour of a Cato, at the table, lighted his pipe, which was ready filled, and blew out great volumes of smoke.

"'Is not all this as if one were at the play?' said the good-humoured _Amtmann_, addressing himself to me. 'The Doctor, who generally never reads a German book, borrowed from us a volume of Schlegel's Shakespeare, and since that time he has, according to his own expression, never ceased playing old well-known tunes upon a strange instrument. You must have observed, that even the innkeeper speaks in measured verse, the Doctor having drilled him for that purpose.'

"He was interrupted by the appearance of the landlord with his punch-bowl, ready filled with liquor, smoking hot; and although Green and Ewson both swore that it was scarcely drinkable, yet they did not fail to swallow glass after glass with the greatest expedition.

"We kept up a tolerable conversation. Green, however, remained very silent, only now and then falling in with most comical contradictions of what other people had said. Thus, for example, the _Amtmann_ spoke of the theatre at Berlin, and I assured him that the tragedy hero played admirably. 'That I cannot admit,' said Dr Green. 'Do you not think if the actor had performed six times better, that he might have been tolerable?' Of necessity I could not but answer in the affirmative, but was of opinion, that to play six times better would cost him a deal of unnecessary trouble, as he had already played the part of Lear (in which I had already seen him) most movingly. 'This,' said Green, 'quite passes the bounds of my perceptions. The man, indeed, gives us all that he has to give. Can he help it, if he is by nature and destiny inclined to be stupid? However, in his own way, he has brought the art to tolerable perfection; therefore one must bear with him.'

"The _Amtmann_ sat between the two originals, exerting his own particular talent, which was, like that of a demon, to excite them to all sorts of folly; and thus the night wore on, till the powerful ambrosia began to operate.

"At last Ewson became extravagantly merry. With a hoarse, croaking voice, he sung divers national songs, of which I did not understand a word; but if the words were like the music, they must have been every way detestable. Moreover, he threw his periwig and coat through the window into the court, and began to dance a hornpipe, with such unutterable grimaces, and in a style so supernaturally grotesque, that I had almost split my sides with laughing.

"The Doctor, meanwhile, remained obstinately solemn, but it was obvious that the strangest visions were passing through his brain. He looked upon the punch-bowl as a bass fiddle, and would not give over playing upon it with the spoon, to accompany Ewson's songs, though the innkeeper earnestly entreated of him to desist.

"As for the _Amtmann_, he had always become more and more quiet; at last he tottered away into a corner of the room, where he took a chair, and began to weep bitterly. I understood a signal of the innkeeper, and inquired of this dignitary the cause of his deep sorrow. 'Alas! alas!' said he, 'the Prince Eugene was a great, very great general, and yet even he, that heroic prince, was under the necessity to die!' Thereupon he wept more vehemently, so that the tears ran down his cheeks.

"I endeavoured as well as I could to console him for the loss of this brave hero of the last century, but in vain.

"Dr Green, meanwhile, had seized a great pair of snuffers, and with all his might drove and laboured with them towards the open window. He had nothing less in view than to clip the moon, which he had mistaken for a candle.

"Ewson, meanwhile, danced and yelled as if he were possessed by a thousand devils, till at last the under-waiter came, with a great lantern, notwithstanding the clear moonlight shone into the apartment, and cried out, 'Here I am, gentlemen. Now you can march.'

"The Doctor arose, lighted his pipe, (which he had laid aside while the enjoyments of the punch-bowl lasted,) and now placed himself right opposite to the waiter, blowing great clouds into his face.

"'Welcome, friend,' cried he; 'Art thou Peter Quince, who bearest about moonshine, and dog, and thorn-bush? 'Tis I that have trimmed your light for you, you lubber, and therefore you shine so brightly!

"'Good night then! Much have I quaffed of the contemptible juice here denominated ambrosial punch. Good night, mine honest host--Good night, mine Pylades!'

"Ewson swore that he would instantly break the head of any one who should offer to go home, but no one heeded him. On the contrary, the waiter took the Doctor under one arm, and the _Amtmann_, still weeping for Prince Eugene, under the other; and thus they reeled along through the streets, towards the _Amthaus_.

"With considerable difficulty, we carried the delirious Ewson to his own room, where he raged and blew for half the night on his flute, so that I could not possibly obtain any rest; nor did I recover from the influences of the mad evening, until I found myself once more in my travelling carriage."

The physician's story was (more, perhaps, from the _naive_ quaintness of his delivery, than the _materiel_ of his narrative,) interrupted frequently by peals of laughter, louder and longer than are usually to be heard in a court circle. The Prince himself appeared particularly delighted.

"There is only one figure," said his highness, "which, in the punch-bowl scene, you have kept too much in the back-ground, and that is your own--for I am fully persuaded, that you must have been the means of leading the Doctor and Ewson to a thousand extravagancies, and that you were, in truth, the exciting principle of mischief, for which you would have us take the poor devil of an _Amtmann_."

"I assure your highness," said the Doctor, "that the club was, on the contrary, so rounded and complete in itself, that every addition would have been both discordant and superfluous. The three originals were tuned up, and adapted, one to the other, each on his proper key, so as to produce a most perfect trio. The host added thereto what we musicians call a _septime_."

In this manner the conversations and the readings were kept up till the hour when the Prince's family retired to their private apartments, after which the numerous assembly all separated in the greatest good humour.

* * * * *

I now found myself, day after day, moving happily and cheerfully in a world entirely new. But the more that I learned to accommodate myself to the quiet pleasant mode of life in the town, and at the court, the less I thought of the past, or troubled myself with reflections that my situation here was held by a very frail tenure. A place was gradually opened for me, which I could hold with honour and credit. The Prince seemed to take particular pleasure in my society, and from various hints, I could very easily perceive that he thought of retaining me permanently at his court.

It was not to be denied, that to many individuals the restraint imposed by the constant presence of the sovereign, and the necessity of accommodating one's pursuits and opinions to those which prevailed at court, might have been very disagreeable. But here I possessed the peculiar advantage of having been already accustomed to the formal restrained life of the convent; so that I suffered less than any other stranger would have done.

One circumstance, however, was exceedingly irksome to me. I perceived that, although the Prince always distinguished me by the most unequivocal tokens of his favour, yet the Princess invariably remained, in her manner towards me, cold, haughty, and reserved. Nay, my presence seemed often to disquiet her in an extraordinary degree, and it seemed to cost her a great effort to bestow on me now and then, for form's sake, a few words of ordinary politeness.

With the ladies, however, by whom she was surrounded, I had better fortune. My appearance seemed to have made on them a favourable impression; and as I was often with them, I succeeded at last in acquiring the arts of gallantry, that is to say, of accommodating myself to the notions of the ladies, whoever they were, among whom I happened to be thrown, and of talking on subjects, in themselves trifling and contemptible, as if they were of some importance.

Is not this oftentimes a key to the female heart? It is not difficult to possess one's self of the ideas that usually prevail there, and if these ideas, commonly not very deep nor sublime, are repeated and embellished by the eloquence of a handsome lover, is not this far better than downright flattery? It sounds, indeed, to female ears, like a hymn of self-adoration. The beauty, hearing her own slender ideas thus improved, is as delighted as if she beheld herself (dressed with elegance and splendour) in a mirror.

I was satisfied that my transformation was complete. Who could now have recognised in me the monk Medardus? The only dangerous place for me now was the church, where I could scarcely avoid mechanically betraying the force of old habits.

Among the constant hangers-on of the court, the physician was almost the only one, except myself, who seemed to have any decided character of his own. He was, therefore, partial to me, and approved highly the boldness of my expressions, by which I had strangely succeeded in banishing from the Prince's parties, the pleasures of the pharo-table.

It thus happened that we were often together, and spoke now of literature and the arts--now of the goings on of those that were around us. For the Princess, the physician had, like myself, a high veneration; and assured me, that it was only through her influence that the Prince was restrained from many other follies. It was this only that could charm away that kind of restless _ennui_ by which he was tormented; and it seemed often as if she were obliged to treat him as a child, and put into his hands some harmless plaything.

I did not lose this opportunity of lamenting that I seemed to be out of favour with the Princess, without being able to explain to myself any cause for it.

The Doctor immediately rose, and, as we happened to be in his room, brought a small miniature picture from his writing-desk, desiring me to examine it with great care. I did so--but how was I confounded when I perceived that the features of the male figure whom it represented were precisely my own! It was only the old fashion of hair-dressing and of garb in the portrait, and the luxuriant whiskers (Belcampo's chef-d'oeuvre) on my part, that presented any difference.

Without hesitation I imparted my astonishment to the physician. "Well, sir," said he, "it is neither more nor less than this resemblance which now terrifies and disquiets the Princess as often as you come into her presence; for your appearance never fails to bring to her mind the recollection of a tremendous adventure, which formerly happened at this court, and which I knew not whether I ought to relate.

"My precursor in the duties of physician, who has been some years dead, and of whom I was a pupil, entrusted me with the particulars of that event, and at the same time gave me this picture, which represents a former favourite in the Prince's family, known here by the name of Francesco. You perceive, by the way, that the miniature itself is a masterpiece of art.

"It is one of the numerous works of that celebrated foreign painter who was then at our court, and became a principal actor in the tragedy to which I have alluded."

On contemplating the picture, my mind was overpowered by confused and stupifying apprehensions, which I vainly endeavoured to arrange into some definite shape. This only was certain, that some mystery, in which I was myself involved, would now be cleared up; and I entreated the physician to wave his scruples, and acquaint me with the adventure to which he had alluded, as it probably might account to me for the extraordinary likeness between my features and those of Francesco.

"Truly," said the physician, "I cannot wonder at your curiosity being thus awakened; and though I speak very unwillingly of these circumstances, on which, to this day, there lies a veil of mystery which I have never been able to lift up, yet you shall now hear all that I know of the matter. Many years have now passed since that occurrence, and the principal actors have retired altogether from the stage; yet the mere recollection of them is here so hazardous, that I must beg of you not to repeat to any one what I may now communicate."

Of course I promised secrecy, and the physician went on as follows:--

"It happened just at the time of our Prince's marriage, that his brother the Duke of Neuenburg returned from his travels in the society of a man whom he called Francesco, though it was known that he was not an Italian, but by birth a German. They brought with him also a painter, said to have acquired, as an artist, the highest celebrity.

"The Duke of Neuenburg was one of the handsomest men that have ever lived; and, on this account alone, would have outshone our sovereign, even if he had not also excelled him both in vivacity and energy of mind.

"On the young and newly-married Princess, therefore, who was then very lively, and for whose disposition her consort was not very well suited, the Duke made an extraordinary impression. Without the slightest shade of criminal intentions, of any premeditated crime, the parties were gradually and almost unconsciously involved in an attachment, at first more distinguishable to by-standers than to themselves, and from which they would, on _timely_ reflection, have fled with terror.

"It was the stranger Francesco alone, who, both in talents and in personal beauty, could be compared to the Duke; and as the Duke interested our reigning Princess, so Francesco completely acquired the affections of her elder sister, who was then an inmate of our court.

"Francesco soon became aware of his good fortune, and did not fail to lay the craftiest plans for profiting by the advantages then put within his power. Meanwhile, although our sovereign was perfectly convinced of his wife's virtue, yet the overstrained attentions of his brother, and the satisfaction with which they were received, gave him considerable vexation, and Francesco alone, who was become a great favourite, was able at certain times to keep him in good humour. On this man he wished to confer some distinguished situation; but the foreigner was contented with the advantages derived from the system of favouritism, and the affection of the Princess's unmarried sister.

"Such was the situation of affairs for some time. No particular event occurred to disturb the family; but it was easy to perceive that some among them were in no enviable state of mind. At this very juncture, by the invitation probably of the Duke, there appeared with great splendour at our court a certain Italian Countess, to whom, it was said, that, in the course of his travels, he had at one time been greatly attached, and who had even been spoken of as his betrothed bride.

"Be this as it may, she is said to have been wonderfully beautiful, to have concentrated in her person and manners the very _belle ideal_ of grace and elegance. Indeed these attributes speak for themselves in her portrait, which you may see in the gallery. Her presence at first greatly enlivened the court, where a kind of languor had begun to predominate. She outshone every lady, even the Royal Princesses not excepted.

"Francesco, however, after the arrival of this Italian beauty, became most unfavourably changed. It seemed as if he were preyed upon by some inward grief, which wore away the fresh bloom that had been formerly on his features. Moreover, he became peevish, reserved, and melancholy. He neglected even the society of his noble mistress, to whom he had before shewn such obsequious attention.

"After some time, too, the Duke became morose and meditative, seemingly carried away by some new passion, which he was unable to resist. But, above all, it was on Francesco's mistress, the unmarried Princess, that the strange lady's arrival had the most painful influence. Being naturally inclined to enthusiasm, and to feel in extremes, it seemed to her, that with the loss of Francesco's love, all the hopes and joys of this life were, for her, withered for ever.

"Amid these dark clouds of disappointment and melancholy, by which all were more or less affected, the Duke was the first to recover an outward show of cheerfulness. That his attentions formerly to the reigning Princess had been perfectly innocent, there can be no doubt; but these were now changed for a vehement revival of his old attachment to the Italian Countess, so that he lay once more under the same fetters, which, but a short time before he came hither, he had successfully broken!

"The more that the Duke gave himself to this passion, the more remarkable for gloom and discontent was the behaviour of Francesco, who now scarcely ever made his appearance at court, but wandered about through the country alone, and was often for weeks together absent from the _residenz_.

"On the other hand, the painter, who, as I have mentioned before, had also accompanied the Duke from Italy, and who at first had been so shy and reserved, that he was almost invisible, now made his appearance very frequently in society, and laboured with great success and industry in a large room, which the Italian Countess had fitted up for him in her house, and where he took many portraits of her and of others, with matchless fidelity and strength of expression.

"To the reigning Princess, meanwhile, he seemed to cherish a decided aversion. He absolutely refused to paint her portrait, while, at the same time, of her unmarried sister he took a most perfect likeness, without her having allowed him a single sitting. Many other strange stories are told of this painter's capricious and unaccountable conduct, which I do not think it necessary to detail. Suffice it to say, that though for the most part employed sedulously in his own profession, he seemed to be utterly careless of what others said or thought of his productions. One day, however, when the Duke had made some remarks which did not suit with the stranger's particular humour, an irreconcilable and violent quarrel took place betwixt them; and the artist only requested, that, before retiring from the court, he might be allowed to bestow some finishing touches on a favourite picture of the Italian lady, which he was then painting for his patron. This being agreed to, by two or three masterly strokes of his pencil, he converted in a few seconds the countenance which had been so beautiful, into the most hideous monster of deformity, on which no one could bear to look. Then, with the words, 'Now art thou for ever lost,' he slowly and solemnly left the apartment.

"This happened when the Italian Princess was already become the betrothed bride of the Duke, and the marriage was appointed to take place in a few days. As to the painter's strange conduct, less notice was taken of it, as he was, by prevalent report, liable frequently to madness. He returned, as it was said, to his own small and confined apartments, where he sat staring at a great piece of stretched canvass, without, as the by-standers believed, making any progress, though he himself said that he was engaged on magnificent works. So he completely forgot his attendance at court, and was himself forgotten.

"The marriage of the Duke with the Italian lady, was solemnly celebrated in the palace. The reigning Princess had, of course, accommodated herself to circumstances, and if she really loved her brother-in-law, had renounced a passion which was without legitimate object, and which never could have been gratified.

"Her unmarried sister once more seemed in high spirits, for her lover, Francesco, now re-appeared at court, more blooming and joyous than ever.

"The Duke, with his consent, was to inhabit a wing of the palace, which our Sovereign had ordered to be prepared for them. The Prince was, indeed, at that time, quite in his element. He was never visible, without a crowd of architects, painters, and upholsterers around him, turning over great books, and spreading out on the table plans, sketches, and outlines, which he partly devised himself; and which, among them all, turned out sufficiently incommodious and absurd.

"Neither the Duke nor his bride was allowed to see any of these arrangements, till on the eve of their marriage-day, when they were led by the Prince, in a long solemn procession, into the rooms, which were really decorated with great splendour; and on the evening of that day, the festivities were concluded by a ball, given in the great banquet _salle_, which was made to resemble a blooming garden.

"The nuptials were regularly solemnized on the following day; and all was conducted as usual on such occasions; till about midnight, when, from the Duke's wing of the house, there was heard a strange disturbance, of which the noise became always louder and louder, till it reached our Sovereign's ears, who, in great alarm, started from his bed.

"Having dressed himself hastily, and attended by his guards, he reached the distant corridor of his brother's apartments, just as the servants were lifting up the dead body of the Duke, who had been found murdered, and lying at the door of the bridal chamber!

"I make the narrative as short as possible. It is easier to conceive than describe the horror of the sovereign, the affliction of his consort, and the whole court.

"Of course, the first inquiries of the Prince were, how and by whom the murder had been committed? Watches were placed in all the corridors. How, therefore, was it possible, that an assassin could have got admittance, or how could he escape if he had once got in? All the private passages were searched, but in vain!

"The page who usually waited on the Duke, related that he had assisted his master to undress, who was for a long while agitated by fearful and undefinable apprehensions, and had walked up and down, greatly disquieted, in his dressing-room, then, carrying a large wax candle, he had accompanied him to the anti-room of the bridal chamber. The Duke had there taken the light out of his hand, and sent him away.

"Scarcely was he out of the anti-room, when he heard a hollow stifled cry, the noise of a heavy fall, and the rattling of the overthrown candlestick. He then ran directly back, and, by the gleam of a lamp, which still burned, beheld the Duke stretched, dying or dead, before the door of the bridal chamber, and near him he saw lying a small bloody stiletto. Thereupon he directly gave the alarm.

"On the other hand, the Italian Duchess gave a totally different, and quite inexplicable account. She said, that directly after her maids had left her, the Duke had hastily come into her room without a light, and had directly put out the other lights, so that the apartment was left in darkness. He had remained with her a good half-hour, and had then risen and departed. According to her statement, it must have been only a few minutes after this that the murder was perpetrated.

"In short, people wore themselves out with conjectures as to who could have been the murderer, while not a single trace of him was to be obtained. But at this juncture, there stepped forward a certain waiting-maid of the Princess's unmarried sister, who had been accidentally and privately a witness of the scene between the Duke and the painter, when the portrait was destroyed. After hearing her opinion and evidence, no one doubted that the painter was the man who had found his way secretly into the palace, and become the murderer.

"Orders were of course given to arrest this man; but ere the waiting-maid's evidence was given, he had found time to escape, and not the slightest tidings of him were to be found.