Chapter II. - THE TEMPTER.
As Mademoiselle von Marwitz left the room, Pollnitz took a sealed note from his pocket and handed it hastily to the princess. She concealed it in the pocket of her dress, and continued to gaze indifferently upon a painting of Watteau, which hung upon the wall.
„Not one word! Still! Not one word!“ whispered Pollnitz. „You are resolved to drive my young friend to despair. You will not grant him one gracious word?“
The princess turned away her blushing face, drew a note from her bosom, and, without a glance or word in reply, she handed it to the master of ceremonies, ashamed and confused, as a young girl always is, when she enters upon her first love romance, or commits her first imprudence.
Pollnitz kissed her hand with a lover's rapture. „He will be the most blessed of mortals,“ said he, „and yet this is so small a favor! It lies in the power of your royal highness to grant him heavenly felicity. You can fulfil one wish which his trembling lips have never dared to speak; which only God and the eyes of one faithful friend have seen written in his heart.“
„What is this wish?“ said the princess, in so low and trembling a whisper, that Pollnitz rather guessed than heard her words.
„I believe that he would pay with his life for the happiness of sitting one hour at your feet and gazing upon you.“
„Well, you have prepared for him this opportunity; you have so adroitly arranged your plans, that I cannot avoid meeting him.“
„Ah, princess, how despondent would he be, if he could hear these cold and cruel words! I must comfort him by this appearance of favor if I cannot obtain for him a real happiness. Your royal highness is very cold, very stern toward my poor friend. My God! he asks only of your grace, that which the humblest of your brother's subjects dare demand of him--an audience--that is all.“
Amelia fixed her burning eyes upon Pollnitz. „Apage, Satanas!“ she whispered, with a weary smile.
„You do me too much honor,“ said Pollnitz. „Unhappily I am not the devil, who is, without doubt, next to God, the most powerful ruler of this earth. I am convinced that three-fourths of our race belong to him. I am, alas! but a poor, weak mortal, and my words have not the power to move the heart of your highness to pity.“
„My God! Pollnitz, why all this eloquence and intercession?“ cried Amelia. „Do I not allow him to write to me all that he thinks and feels? Am I not traitress enough to read all his letters, and pardon him for his love? What more can he dare hope for? Is it not enough that he loves a princess, and tells her so? Not enough--“
She ceased suddenly; her eyes, which shrank from meeting the bold, reproachful, and ironical glance of the baron, had wandered restlessly about the room and fell now upon the picture of Watteau; upon the loving, happy pair, who were tenderly embracing under the oaks in the centre of that enchanting landscape. This group, upon which the eye of the princess accidentally rested, was an eloquent and decisive answer to her question--an answer made to the eyes, if not the ears of Amelia--and her heart trembled.
Pollnitz had followed her glances, and understood her blushes and her confusion. He stepped to the picture and pointed to the tender lovers.
„Gracious princess, demand of these blessed ones, if a man who loves passionately has nothing more to implore of his mistress than the permission to write her letters?“
Amelia trembled. She fixed her eyes with an expression of absolute terror upon Pollnitz, who with his fox smile and immovable composure gazed steadily in her face. He had no pity for her girlish confusion, for her modest and maidenly alarm. With gay, mocking, and frivolous jests, he resolved to overcome her fears. He painted in glowing colors the anguish and despair of her young lover; he assured her that she could grant him a meeting in her rooms without danger from curious eyes or ears. Did not the room of the princess open upon this little dark corridor, in which no guard was ever placed, and from which a small, neglected stairway led to the lower stage of the castle? This stairway opened into an unoccupied room, the low windows of which looked out upon the garden of Monbijou. Nothing, then, was necessary but to withdraw the bar from these windows during the day; they could then be noiselessly opened by night, and the room of the princess safely reached.
The princess was silent. By no look or smile, no contraction of the brow or expression of displeasure, did she show her emotion, but she listened to these vile and dangerous words; she let the poison of the tempter enter her heart; she had neither the strength nor will to reject his counsel, or banish him from her presence; she had only the power to be silent, and to conceal from Pollnitz that her better self was overcome.
„I shall soon reach the goal,“ said Pollnitz, clapping his hands merrily after leaving the princess. „Yes, yes! the heart of the little Princess Amelia is subdued, and her love is like a ripe fruit-ready to be plucked by the first eager hand. And this, my proud and cruel King Frederick, will be my revenge. I will return shame for shame. If the good people in the streets rejoice to hear the humiliation and shame put upon the Baron von Pollnitz, cried aloud at the corners, I think they will enjoy no less the scandal about the little Princess Amelia. This will not, to be sure, be trumpeted through the streets; but the voice of Slander is powerful, and her lightest whispers are eagerly received.“
Pollnitz gave himself up for a while to these wicked and cruel thoughts, and he looked like a demon rejoicing in the anguish of his victims. He soon smoothed his brow, however, and assumed his accustomed gay and unembarrassed manner.
„But before I revenge myself, I must be paid,“ said he, with an internal chuckle. „I shall be the chosen confidant in this adventure, and my name is not Pollnitz if I do not realize a large profit. Oh, King Frederick, King Frederick! I think the little Amelia will pay but small attention to your command and your menace. She will lend the poor Pollnitz gold; yes, gold, much gold! and I--I will pay her by my silence.“
Giving himself up to these happy thoughts, the master of ceremonies sought the young lieutenant, in order to hand him the letter of the princess.
„The fortress is ready to surrender,“ cried he; „advance and storm it, and you will enter the open door of the heart as conqueror. I have prepared the way for you to see the princess every day: make use of your opportunities like a brave, handsome, young, and loving cavalier. I predict you will soon be a general, or a prince, or something great and envied.“
„A general, a prince, or a high traitor, who must lay his head upon the block and expiate his guilt with his life,“ said Trench thoughtfully. „Let it be so. In order to become this high traitor, I must first be the happiest, the most enviable of men. I shall not think that too dearly paid for by my heart's blood. Oh, Amelia, Amelia! I love thee boundlessly; thou art my happiness, my salvation, my hope; thou--“
„Enough, enough!“ said Pollnitz, laughing and placing his hands upon his ears. „These are well-known, well-used, and much-abused phrases, which have been repeated in all languages since the time of Adam, and which after all are only lovely and fantastic lies. Act, my young friend, but say nothing; you know that walls have ears. The table upon which you write your letters, and the portfolio in which you place the letters of the princess, to be guarded to all eternity, both have prying eyes. Prudence, prudence! burn the letters of the princess, and write your own with sympathetic ink or in cipher, so that no man can read them, and none but God and the devil may know your dangerous secret.“
Trenck did not hear one word of this; he was too happy, too impassioned, too young, to listen to the words of warning and caution of the old roue. He read again and again, and with ever- increasing rapture, the letter of the princess; he pressed it to his throbbing heart and glowing lips, and fixed his loving eyes upon those characters which her hand had written and her heart had dictated.
Pollnitz looked at him with a subdued smile, and enjoyed his raptures, even as the fox enjoys the graceful flappings of the wings, the gentle movements of the dove, when he knows that she cannot escape him, and grants her a few moments of happiness before he springs upon and strangles her. „I wager that you know that letter by heart,“ said he, as he slowly lighted a match in order to kindle his cigar; „am I not right? do you not know it by heart?“
„Every word is written in letters of flame upon my heart.“
With a sudden movement, the baron snatched the paper from the young man and held it in the flames,
„Stop! stop!“ cried Frederick von Trenck, and he tried to tear the letter from him.
Pollnitz kept him off with one arm and waved the burning paper over his head.
„My God! what have you done?“ cried the young man.
„I have made a sacrifice to the god of silence,“ said he solemnly; „I have burnt this paper lest it might be used to light the scaffold upon which you may one day burn as a high traitor. Thank me, young man. I have perhaps saved you from discovery and from death.“
„Not one word! Still! Not one word!“ whispered Pollnitz. „You are resolved to drive my young friend to despair. You will not grant him one gracious word?“
The princess turned away her blushing face, drew a note from her bosom, and, without a glance or word in reply, she handed it to the master of ceremonies, ashamed and confused, as a young girl always is, when she enters upon her first love romance, or commits her first imprudence.
Pollnitz kissed her hand with a lover's rapture. „He will be the most blessed of mortals,“ said he, „and yet this is so small a favor! It lies in the power of your royal highness to grant him heavenly felicity. You can fulfil one wish which his trembling lips have never dared to speak; which only God and the eyes of one faithful friend have seen written in his heart.“
„What is this wish?“ said the princess, in so low and trembling a whisper, that Pollnitz rather guessed than heard her words.
„I believe that he would pay with his life for the happiness of sitting one hour at your feet and gazing upon you.“
„Well, you have prepared for him this opportunity; you have so adroitly arranged your plans, that I cannot avoid meeting him.“
„Ah, princess, how despondent would he be, if he could hear these cold and cruel words! I must comfort him by this appearance of favor if I cannot obtain for him a real happiness. Your royal highness is very cold, very stern toward my poor friend. My God! he asks only of your grace, that which the humblest of your brother's subjects dare demand of him--an audience--that is all.“
Amelia fixed her burning eyes upon Pollnitz. „Apage, Satanas!“ she whispered, with a weary smile.
„You do me too much honor,“ said Pollnitz. „Unhappily I am not the devil, who is, without doubt, next to God, the most powerful ruler of this earth. I am convinced that three-fourths of our race belong to him. I am, alas! but a poor, weak mortal, and my words have not the power to move the heart of your highness to pity.“
„My God! Pollnitz, why all this eloquence and intercession?“ cried Amelia. „Do I not allow him to write to me all that he thinks and feels? Am I not traitress enough to read all his letters, and pardon him for his love? What more can he dare hope for? Is it not enough that he loves a princess, and tells her so? Not enough--“
She ceased suddenly; her eyes, which shrank from meeting the bold, reproachful, and ironical glance of the baron, had wandered restlessly about the room and fell now upon the picture of Watteau; upon the loving, happy pair, who were tenderly embracing under the oaks in the centre of that enchanting landscape. This group, upon which the eye of the princess accidentally rested, was an eloquent and decisive answer to her question--an answer made to the eyes, if not the ears of Amelia--and her heart trembled.
Pollnitz had followed her glances, and understood her blushes and her confusion. He stepped to the picture and pointed to the tender lovers.
„Gracious princess, demand of these blessed ones, if a man who loves passionately has nothing more to implore of his mistress than the permission to write her letters?“
Amelia trembled. She fixed her eyes with an expression of absolute terror upon Pollnitz, who with his fox smile and immovable composure gazed steadily in her face. He had no pity for her girlish confusion, for her modest and maidenly alarm. With gay, mocking, and frivolous jests, he resolved to overcome her fears. He painted in glowing colors the anguish and despair of her young lover; he assured her that she could grant him a meeting in her rooms without danger from curious eyes or ears. Did not the room of the princess open upon this little dark corridor, in which no guard was ever placed, and from which a small, neglected stairway led to the lower stage of the castle? This stairway opened into an unoccupied room, the low windows of which looked out upon the garden of Monbijou. Nothing, then, was necessary but to withdraw the bar from these windows during the day; they could then be noiselessly opened by night, and the room of the princess safely reached.
The princess was silent. By no look or smile, no contraction of the brow or expression of displeasure, did she show her emotion, but she listened to these vile and dangerous words; she let the poison of the tempter enter her heart; she had neither the strength nor will to reject his counsel, or banish him from her presence; she had only the power to be silent, and to conceal from Pollnitz that her better self was overcome.
„I shall soon reach the goal,“ said Pollnitz, clapping his hands merrily after leaving the princess. „Yes, yes! the heart of the little Princess Amelia is subdued, and her love is like a ripe fruit-ready to be plucked by the first eager hand. And this, my proud and cruel King Frederick, will be my revenge. I will return shame for shame. If the good people in the streets rejoice to hear the humiliation and shame put upon the Baron von Pollnitz, cried aloud at the corners, I think they will enjoy no less the scandal about the little Princess Amelia. This will not, to be sure, be trumpeted through the streets; but the voice of Slander is powerful, and her lightest whispers are eagerly received.“
Pollnitz gave himself up for a while to these wicked and cruel thoughts, and he looked like a demon rejoicing in the anguish of his victims. He soon smoothed his brow, however, and assumed his accustomed gay and unembarrassed manner.
„But before I revenge myself, I must be paid,“ said he, with an internal chuckle. „I shall be the chosen confidant in this adventure, and my name is not Pollnitz if I do not realize a large profit. Oh, King Frederick, King Frederick! I think the little Amelia will pay but small attention to your command and your menace. She will lend the poor Pollnitz gold; yes, gold, much gold! and I--I will pay her by my silence.“
Giving himself up to these happy thoughts, the master of ceremonies sought the young lieutenant, in order to hand him the letter of the princess.
„The fortress is ready to surrender,“ cried he; „advance and storm it, and you will enter the open door of the heart as conqueror. I have prepared the way for you to see the princess every day: make use of your opportunities like a brave, handsome, young, and loving cavalier. I predict you will soon be a general, or a prince, or something great and envied.“
„A general, a prince, or a high traitor, who must lay his head upon the block and expiate his guilt with his life,“ said Trench thoughtfully. „Let it be so. In order to become this high traitor, I must first be the happiest, the most enviable of men. I shall not think that too dearly paid for by my heart's blood. Oh, Amelia, Amelia! I love thee boundlessly; thou art my happiness, my salvation, my hope; thou--“
„Enough, enough!“ said Pollnitz, laughing and placing his hands upon his ears. „These are well-known, well-used, and much-abused phrases, which have been repeated in all languages since the time of Adam, and which after all are only lovely and fantastic lies. Act, my young friend, but say nothing; you know that walls have ears. The table upon which you write your letters, and the portfolio in which you place the letters of the princess, to be guarded to all eternity, both have prying eyes. Prudence, prudence! burn the letters of the princess, and write your own with sympathetic ink or in cipher, so that no man can read them, and none but God and the devil may know your dangerous secret.“
Trenck did not hear one word of this; he was too happy, too impassioned, too young, to listen to the words of warning and caution of the old roue. He read again and again, and with ever- increasing rapture, the letter of the princess; he pressed it to his throbbing heart and glowing lips, and fixed his loving eyes upon those characters which her hand had written and her heart had dictated.
Pollnitz looked at him with a subdued smile, and enjoyed his raptures, even as the fox enjoys the graceful flappings of the wings, the gentle movements of the dove, when he knows that she cannot escape him, and grants her a few moments of happiness before he springs upon and strangles her. „I wager that you know that letter by heart,“ said he, as he slowly lighted a match in order to kindle his cigar; „am I not right? do you not know it by heart?“
„Every word is written in letters of flame upon my heart.“
With a sudden movement, the baron snatched the paper from the young man and held it in the flames,
„Stop! stop!“ cried Frederick von Trenck, and he tried to tear the letter from him.
Pollnitz kept him off with one arm and waved the burning paper over his head.
„My God! what have you done?“ cried the young man.
„I have made a sacrifice to the god of silence,“ said he solemnly; „I have burnt this paper lest it might be used to light the scaffold upon which you may one day burn as a high traitor. Thank me, young man. I have perhaps saved you from discovery and from death.“
Dieses Kapitel ist Teil des Buches Berlin and Sans-Souci; or, Frederick the Great and his friends. Book II.