Chapter VI. - A WOMAN'S HEART.

The Princess Amelia lay the whole of the following night, with wide- open eyes and loudly-heating heart, pale and breathless upon her couch. No soft slumber soothed her feverish-glowing brow; no sweet dream of hope dissipated the frightful pictures drawn by her tortured fantasy.

„What is it?“ said she, again and again--“what is it that the king will ask of me? what new mysterious horror rises up threateningly before me, and casts a shadow upon my future?“

She brought every word, every act of the previous day in review before her mind. Suddenly she recalled the sad and sympathetic glance of her maid of honor; the light insinuations, the half- uttered words which seemed to convey a hidden meaning.

„Ernestine knows something that she will not tell me,“ cried Amelia. At this thought her brow was covered with cold perspiration, and her limbs shivered as if with ague. She reached out her hand to ring for Fraulein von Haak; then suddenly withdrew it, ashamed of her own impatience. „Why should I wish to know that which I cannot change? I know that a misfortune threatens me. I will meet it with a clear brow and a bold heart.“

Amelia lay motionless till the morning. When she rose from her bed, her features wore an expression of inexorable resolve. Her eyes flashed as boldly, as daringly as her royal brother Frederick's when upon the battle-field. She dressed herself carefully and tastefully, advanced to meet her ladies with a gracious greeting, and chattered calmly and cheerfully with them on indifferent subjects. At last she was left alone with Fraulein von Haak. She stepped in front of her, and looked in her eyes long and searchingly.

„I read it in your face, Ernestine, but I entreat you do not make it known in words unless my knowledge of the facts would diminish my danger.“

Ernestine shook her head sadly. „No,“ said she, „your royal highness has no power over the misfortune that threatens you. You are a princess, and must be obedient to the will of the king.“

„Good!“ said Amelia, „we will see if my brother has power to subdue my will. Now, Ernestine, leave me; I am expecting the king.“

Scarcely had her maid withdrawn, when the door of the anteroom was opened, and the king was announced. The princess advanced to meet him smilingly, but, as the king embraced her and pressed a kiss upon her brow, she shuddered and looked up at him searchingly. She read nothing in his face but the most heart-felt kindliness and love.

„If he makes me miserable, it is at least not his intention to do so,“ thought she.--“Now, my brother, we are alone,“ said the princess, taking a place near the king upon the divan. „And now allow me to make known my request at once--remember you have promised to grant it.“

The king looked with a piercing glance at the sweet face now trembling with excitement and impatience. „Amelia,“ said he, „have you no tender word of greeting, of warm home-love to say to me? Do you not know that five years have passed since we have seen each other alone, and enjoyed that loving and confidential intercourse which becomes brothers and sisters?“

„I know,“ said Amelia sadly, „these five years are written on my countenance, and if they have not left wrinkles on my brow, they have pierced my heart with many sorrows, and left their shadows there! Look at me, my brother--am I the same sister Amelia?“

„No,“ said the king, „no! You are pallid--your cheeks are hollow. But it is strange--I see this now for the first time. You have been an image of youth, beauty, and grace up to this hour. The fatigue of yesterday has exhausted you--that is all.“

„No, my brother, you find me pallid and hollow-eyed today, because you see me without rouge. I have to-day for the first time laid aside the mask of rosy youth, and the smiling indifference of manner with which I conceal my face and my heart from the world. You shall see me to-day as I really am; you shall know what I have suffered. Perhaps then you will be more willing to fulfil my request? Listen, my brother, I--“

The king laid his hand softly upon her shoulder. „Stop, Amelia; since I look upon you, I fear you will ask me something not in my power to grant.“

„You have given me your promise, sire.“

„I will not withdraw it; but I ask you to hear my prayer before you speak. Perhaps it may exert an influence--may modify your request. I allow myself, therefore, in consideration of your own interest, solely to beg that I may speak first.“

„You are king, sire, and have only to command,“ said Amelia, coldly.

The king fixed a clear and piercing glance for one moment upon his sister, then stood up, and, assuming an earnest and thoughtful mien, he said: „I stand now before you, princess, not as a king, but as the ambassador of a king. Princess Amelia, through me the King of Denmark asks your hand; he wishes to wed you, and I have given my consent. Your approval alone is wanting, and I think you will not refuse it.“

The princess listened with silent and intrepid composure; not a muscle of her face trembled; her features did not lose for one moment their expression of quiet resolve.

„Have you finished, sire?“ said she, indifferently.

„I have finished, and I await your reply.“

„Before I answer, allow me to make known my own request. Perhaps what I may say may modify your wishes. You will, at least, know if it is proper for me to accept the hand of the King of Denmark. Does your majesty allow me to speak?“

„Speak,“ said the king, seating himself near her.

After a short pause, Amelia said, in an earnest, solemn voice: „Sire, I pray for pardon for the Baron Frederick von Trenck.“ Yielding to an involuntary agitation, she glided from the divan upon her knees, and raising her clasped hands entreatingly toward her brother, she repeated: „Sire, I pray for pardon for Baron Frederick von Trenck!“

The king sprang up, dashed back the hands of his sister violently, and rushed hastily backward and forward in the room.

Amelia, ashamed of her own humility, rose quickly from her knees, and, as if to convince herself of her own daring and resolution, she stepped immediately in front of the king, and said, in a loud, firm voice for the third time: „Sire, I pray for pardon for Baron Frederick von Trenck. He is wretched because he is banished from his home; he is in despair because he receives no justice from the courts of law, it being well known that he has no protector to demand his rights. He is poor and almost hopeless because the courts have refused him the inheritance of his cousin, the captain of the pandours whose enemies have accused him since his death, only while they lusted for his millions. His vast estate has been confiscated, under the pretence that it was unlawfully acquired. But these accusations have not been established; and yet, now that he is dead, they refuse to give up this fortune to the rightful heir, Frederick von Trenck. Sire, I pray that you will regard the interests of your subject. Be graciously pleased to grant him the favor of your intercession. Help him, by one powerful word, to obtain possession of his rights. Ah, sire, you see well how modest, how faint-hearted I have become. I ask no longer for happiness! I beg for gold, and I think, sire, we owe him this pitiful reparation for a life's happiness trodden under foot.“

Frederick by a mighty effort succeeded in overcoming his rage. He was outwardly as calm as his sister; but both concealed under this cool, indifferent exterior a strong energy, an unfaltering purpose. They were quiet because they were inflexible.

„And this is the favor you demand of me?“ said the king.

„The favor you have promised to grant,“ said Amelia.

„And if I do this, will you fulfil my wish? Will you become the wife of the King of Denmark? Ah, you are silent. Now, then, listen. Consent to become Queen of Denmark, and on the day in which you pass the boundary of Prussia and enter your own realm as queen, on that day I will recall Trenck to Berlin, and all shall be forgotten. Trenck shall again enter my guard, and my ambassador at Vienna shall appear for him in court. Decide, now, Amelia--will you be Queen of Denmark?“

„Ah, sire, you offer me a cruel alternative. You wish me to purchase a favor which you had already freely and unconditionally granted.“

„You forget, my sister, that I entreat where I have the right to command. It will be easy to obey when through your obedience you can make another happy. Once more, then, will you accept my proposition?“

Amelia did not answer immediately. She fixed her eyes steadily upon the king's face; their glances met firmly, quietly. Each read in the eyes of the other inexorable resolve.

„Sire, I cannot accept your proposition; I cannot become the wife of the King of Denmark.“

The king shrank back, and a dark cloud settled upon his brow. He pressed his hand nervously upon the arm-chair near which he stood, and forced himself to appear calm. „And why can you not become the wife of the King of Denmark?“

„Because I have sworn solemnly, calling upon God to witness, that I will never become the wife of any other man than him whom I love-- because I consider myself bound to God and to my conscience to fulfil this oath. As I cannot be the wife of Trenck, I will remain unmarried.“

And now the king was crimson with rage, and his eyes flashed fiercely. „The wife of Trenck!“ cried he; „the wife of a traitor! Ah, you think still of him, and in spite of your vow--in spite of your solemn oath--you still entertain the hope of this unworthy alliance!“

„Sire, remember on what conditions my oath was given. You promised me Trenck should be free, and I swore to give him up--never even to write to him. Fate did not accept my oath. Trenck fled before you had time to fulfil your word, and I was thus released from my vow; and yet I have never written to him--have heard nothing from him. No one knows better than yourself that I have not heard from him.“

„So five years have gone by without his writing to you, and yet you have the hardihood to-day to call his name!“

„I have the courage, sire, because I know well Trenck has never ceased to love me. That I have received no letters from him does not prove that he has not written; it only proves that I am surrounded by watchful spies, who do not allow his letters to reach me.“

„Ah,“ said the king, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, „you are of the opinion that I have suppressed these letters?“

„Yes, I am of that opinion.“

„You deceive yourself, then, Amelia. I have not surrounded you with spies; I have intercepted no letters. You look at me incredulously. I declare to you that I speak the truth. Now you can comprehend, my sister, that your heart has deceived you--you have squandered your love upon a wretched object who has forgotten you.“

„Sire!“ cried Amelia, with flaming eyes, „no abuse of the man I love!“

„You love him still!“ said the king, white with passion, and no longer able to control his rage--“you love him still! You have wept and bewailed him, while he has shamefully betrayed and mocked at you. Yes, look on me, if you will, with those scornful, rebellious glances--it is as I say! You must and shall know all! I have spared you until now; I trusted in your own noble heart! I thought that, driven by a storm of passion, it had, like a proud river, for one moment overstepped its bounds; then quietly, calmly resumed that course which nature and fate had marked out for it. I see now that I have been deceived in you, as you have been deceived in Trenck! I tell you he has betrayed you! He, formerly a Prussian officer, at the luxurious and debauched court of Petersburg, has not only betrayed you, but his king. At the table of his mistress, the wife of Bestuchef, he has shown your picture and boasted that you gave it to him. The Duke of Goltz, my ambassador at the Russian court, informed me of this; and look you, I did not slay him! I did not demand of the Empress Anne that the Prussian deserter should be delivered up. I remembered that you had once loved him, and that I had promised you to be lenient. But I have had him closely watched. I know all his deeds; I am acquainted with all his intrigues and artifices. I know he has had a love-affair with the young Countess Narischkin--that he continued his attentions long after her marriage with General Bondurow. Can you believe, my sister, that he remembered the modest, innocent oaths of love and constancy he had exchanged with you while enjoying himself in the presence of this handsome and voluptuous young woman? Do you believe that he recalled them when he arranged a plan of flight with his beloved, and sought a safe asylum beyond the borders of Russia? Do you believe that he thought of you when he received from this ill-regulated woman her diamonds and all the gold she possessed, in order to smooth the way to their escape?“

„Mercy, mercy!“ stammered Amelia, pale and trembling, and sinking upon a seat. „Cease, my brother; do you not see that your words are killing me? Have pity upon me!“

„No! no mercy!“ said the king; „you must and you shall know all, in order that you may be cured of this unholy malady, this shameful love. You shall know that Trenck not only sells the secrets of politics, but the secrets of love. Every thing is merchandise with him, even his own heart. He not only loved the beautiful Bondurow but he loved her diamonds. This young woman died of the small-pox, a few days before the plan of flight could be fully arranged. Trenck, however, became her heir; he refused to give back the brilliants and the eight thousand rubles which she had placed in his hands.“

„Oh my God, my God! grant that I die!“ cried the Princess Amelia.

„But the death of his beloved,“ said the king (without regarding the wild exclamations of the princess)--“this death was so greatly to his advantage, that he soon consoled himself with the love of the attractive Bestuchef--this proud and intriguing woman who now, through the weakness of her husband, rules over Russia, and threatens by her plots and intrigues to complicate the history and peace of Europe. She is neither young nor beautiful; she is forty years of age, and you cannot believe that Trenck at four-and-twenty burns with love for her. But she adores him; she loves him with that mad, bacchantic ardor which the Roman empress Julia felt for the gladiators, whose magnificent proportions she admired at the circus. She loved him and confessed it; and his heart, unsubdued by the ancient charms, yielded to the magic power of her jewels and her gold. He became the adorer of Bestuchef; he worked diligently in the cabinet of the chancellor, and appeared to be the best of Russian patriots, and seemed ready to kiss the knout with the same devotion with which he kissed the slipper of the chancellor's wife. At this time I resolved to try his patriotism, and commissioned my ambassador to see if his patriotic ardor could not be cooled by gold. Well, my sister, for two thousand ducats, Trenck copied the design of the fortress of Cronstadt, which the chancellor had just received from his engineer.“

„That is impossible!“ said Amelia, whose tears had now ceased to flow, and who listened to her brother with distended but quiet eyes.

„Impossible!“ said Frederick. „Oh my sister, gold has a magic power to which nothing is impossible! I wished to unmask the traitor Trenck, and expose him in his true colors to the chancellor. I ordered Goltz to hand him the copy of the fortress, drawn by Trenck and signed with his name, and to tell him how he obtained it. The chancellor was beside himself with rage, and swore to take a right Russian revenge upon the traitor--he declared he should die under the knout.“

Amelia uttered a wild cry, and clasped her hands over her convulsed face.

The king laughed, bitterly. „Compose yourself--we triumphed too early; we had forgotten the woman! In his rage the chancellor disclosed every thing to her, and uttered the most furious curses and resolves against Trenck. She found means to warn him, and, when the police came in the night to arrest him, he was not at home--he had taken refuge in the house of his friend the English ambassador, Lord Hyndforth.“ [Footnote: Trenck's Memoirs.]

„Ah! he was saved, then?“ whispered Amelia.

The king looked at her in amazement. „Yes, he was saved. The next day, Madame Bestuchef found means to convince her credulous husband that Trenck was the victim of an intrigue, and entirely innocent of the charge brought against him. Trenck remained, therefore, the friend of the house, and Madame Bestuchef had the audacity to publicly insult my ambassador. Trenck now announced himself as a raging adversary of Prussia. He inflamed the heart of his powerful mistress with hate, and they swore the destruction of Prussia. Both were zealously engaged in changing the chancellor, my private and confidential friend, into an enemy; and Trenck, the Russian patriot, entered the service of the house of Austria, to intrigue against me and my realm. [Footnote: Trenck himself writes on this subject: „I would at that time have changed my fatherland into a howling wilderness, if the opportunity had offered. I do not deny that from this moment I did everything that was possible, in Russia, to promote the views of the imperial ambassador, Duke Vernis, who knew how to nourish the fire already kindled, and to make use of my services.“] Bestuchef, however, withstood these intrigues, and in his distrust he watched over and threatened his faithless wife and faithless friend. Trenck would have been lost, without doubt, if a lucky accident had not again rescued him. His cousin the pandour died in Vienna, and, as Trenck believed that he had left him a fortune of some millions, he tore his tender ties asunder, and hastened to Vienna to receive this rich inheritance, which, to his astonishment, he found to consist not in millions, but in law processes. This, Amelia, is the history of Trenck during these five years in which you have received no news from him. Can you still say that he has never forgotten you? that you are bound to be faithful to him? You see I do not speak to you as a king, but as a friend, and that I look at all these unhappy circumstances from your standpoint. Treat me, then, as a friend, and answer me sincerely. Do you still feel bound by your oath? Do you not know that he is a faithless traitor, and that he has forgotten you?“

The princess had listened to the king with a bowed head and downcast eyes. Now she looked up; the fire of inspiration beamed in her eye, a melancholy smile played upon her lips.

„Sire,“ said she, „I took my vow without conditions, and I will keep it faithfully till my death. Suppose, even, that a part of what you have said is true, Trenck is young; you cannot expect that his ardent and passionate heart should be buried under the ashes of the vase of tears in which our love, in its beauty and bloom, crumbled to dust. But his heart, however unstable it may appear, turns ever back faithfully to that fountain, and he seeks to purify and sanctify the wild and stormy present by the remembrance of the beautiful and innocent past. You say that Trenck forgot me in his prosperity: well, then, sire, in his misfortune he has remembered me. In his misfortune he has forgotten the faithless, cold, and treacherous letter which I wrote to him, and which he received in the prison of Glatz. In his wretchedness, he has written to me, and called upon me for aid. It shall not, be said that I did not hear his voice--that I was not joyfully ready to serve him!“

„And he has dared to write to you!“ said the king, with trembling lips and scornful eye. „Who was bold enough to hand you this letter?“

„Oh, sire, you will not surely demand that I shall betray my friends! Moreover, if I named the messenger who brought me this letter, it would answer no purpose; you would arrest and punish him, and to-morrow I should find another to serve me as well. Unhappy love finds pity, protection, and friends everywhere. Sire, I repeat my request--pardon for Baron Trenck!“

„And I,“ cried the king, in a loud, stern voice, „I ask if you accept my proposition--if you will become the wife of the King of Denmark--and, mark well, princess, this is the answer to your prayer.“

„Sire, may God take pity on me! Punish me with your utmost scorn--I cannot break my oath! You can force me to leave my vows unfulfilled- -not to become the wife of the man I love--but you cannot force me to perjure myself. I should indeed be foresworn if I stepped before the altar with another man, and promised a love and faith which my heart knows not, and can never know.“

The king uttered a shrill cry of rage; maledictions hung upon his lips, but he held them back, and forcing himself to appear composed, he folded his arms, and walked hastily backward and forward through the room.

The princess gazed at him in breathless silence, and with loudly- beating heart she prayed to God for mercy and help; she felt that this hour would decide the fate of her whole life. Suddenly the king stood before her. His countenance was now perfectly composed.

„Princess Amelia,“ said he, „I give you four weeks' respite. Consider well what I have said to you. Take counsel with your conscience, your understanding, and your honor. In four weeks I will come again to you, and ask if you are resolved to fulfil my request, and become the wife of the King of Denmark. Until that time, I will know how to restrain the Danish ambassador. If you dare still to oppose my will, I will yet fulfil my promise, and grant you the favor you ask of me. I will make proposals to Trenck to return to Prussia, and the inducements I offer shall be so splendid that he will not resist them. Let me once have him here, and it shall be my affair to hold fast to him.“

He bowed to the princess and left the room. Amelia watched him silently, breathlessly, till he disappeared, then heaved a deep sigh and called loudly for her maid.

„Ernestine! Ernestine!“ said she, with trembling lips, „find me a faithful messenger whom I can send immediately to Vienna. I must warn Trenck! Danger threatens him! No matter what my brother's ambassador may offer him, with what glittering promises he may allure him, Trenck dare not listen to them, dare not accept them! He must never return to Prussia--he is lost if he does so!“

Frederick returned slowly and silently to his apartment. As he thought over the agitating scene he had just passed through, he murmured lightly, „Oh, woman's heart! thou art like the restless, raging sea, and pearls and monsters lie in thy depths!“