"I was in my room writing a letter, sire."
"Ah, a letter. You were no doubt writing to that beautiful barmaid at the hotel of the Black Raven at Amsterdam, who declined the attentions of the servant of the brothers Zoller."
This reference to the journey to Amsterdam showed Deesen that the king was not very angry. He dared, therefore, to raise his eyes to those of the king, and to look pleadingly at him.
"Sit down." said the king, pointing to the writing-table. "I called you because I wished to dictate a letter for you to write. Sit down and take a pen."
Deesen seated himself at the table, and the king began walking up and down as before, his hands and book behind him.
"Are you ready?" asked the king.
"I am ready, sire," returned Deesen, dipping his pen into the ink.
"Write then," commanded the king, as he placed himself immediately in front of Deesen--"write, then, first the heading: 'My beloved--'"
Deesen started, and glanced inquiringly at the king. Frederick looked earnestly at him, and repeated, "'My beloved--'"
Deesen uttered a sigh, and wrote.
"Have you written that?" asked the king.
"Yes, sire, I have it--'My beloved.'"
"Well, then, proceed. 'My beloved, that old bear, the king--' Write,"
said the king, interrupting himself as he saw that Deesen grew pale and trembled, and could scarcely hold the pen--"write without hesitation, or expect a severe punishment."
"Will your majesty have the kindness to dictate? I am ready to write every thing," said Deesen, as he wiped his brow.
"Now then, quickly," ordered the king, and he dictated--"'That old bear, the king, counts every hour against me that I spend so charmingly with you. That my absence may be shorter in the future, and less observed by the old scold, I wish you to rent a room near here in the suburbs of Brandenburg, where we can meet more conveniently than in the city. I remain yours until death.'"
"'DEESEN.'"
"Have you finished?" asked the king.
"Yes, sire, I have finished," groaned Deesen.
"Then fold the letter and seal it, and write the address 'To the unmarried Maria Siegert, Yunker Street, Potsdam.'"
"Mercy, sire, mercy!" cried Deseen, springing up and throwing himself at the feet of the king. "I see that your majesty knows all--that I have been betrayed."
"You have betrayed yourself, for to-day is the tenth time that I have called for you when you were absent. Now send your letter off, and see that your Siegert gets a room here. If, however, you are again absent when I call, I will send your beautiful Maria to Spandau, and dismiss you. Go, now, and dispatch your letter."
Deesen hurried off, and the king looked smilingly after him for a moment, and was on the point of returning to his reading, when his attention was attracted by the approach of a carriage.
"Ah," he murmured anxiously, "I fear that I shall be disturbed again by some cousin, who has come to rob me of my time by hypocritical professions of love."
He looked anxiously toward the door. It was soon opened, and a servant announced Prince Henry.
The king's countenance cleared, and he advanced to meet his brother with a bright smile. But his greeting was not returned, and the prince did not appear to see the extended hand of the king. A heavy cloud lay upon his brow--his cheeks were colorless and his lips compressed, as if he wished to suppress the angry and indignant words which his flashing eyes expressed.
"Ah, my brother," said the king, sadly, "it seems that you have come to announce a misfortune."
"No," said the prince, "I only came, your majesty, to recall a conversation which I held with you ten years ago in this same room, on this very spot."
"Ten years ago?" said the king. "That was at the time of your marriage, Henry."
"Yes, the conversation I refer to concerned my marriage, sire. You had pursued me so long with that subject, that I had at length concluded to submit to the yoke which was to free me from those unworthy and humiliating persecutions."
"I think that you could select more fitting expressions, my brother,"
said the king, with flashing eyes. "You forget that you are speaking to your king."
"But I remember that I am speaking to my brother, whose duty is to hear the complaints which I have to utter against the king."
"Speak," said the king, after a slight pause. "Your brother will hear you."
"I come to remind you of that hour," said the prince, solemnly, "in which I gave my consent to be married. As I did so, sire, I said to you that I should hold you responsible for this marriage which was made for political purposes and not from love--that I would call you to account before the throne of God, and there ask you by what right you robbed me of my liberty, by what right you laid a chain upon my hand and heart which love could not help me to bear. I said further, sire--if the weight of this chain should become too heavy, and this unnatural connection of a marriage without love should drive me to despair, that upon your head would rest the curse of my misery, and that you would be answerable for my destroyed existence, for my perished hopes."
"And I," said the king, "I took this responsibility upon me. As your king and your elder brother, I reminded you of your duty to give the state a family--sons who would be an example of courage and honor to the men, and daughters who would be a pattern of virtue and propriety to the women. In view of these duties, I demanded of you to be married."
"I come now to call you to account for this marriage," exclaimed the prince, solemnly. "I have come to tell you that my heart is torn with pain and misery; that I am the most wretched of men, and that you have made me so--you, who forced me into this marriage, although you knew the shame and despair of a marriage without love. You had already taken a heavy responsibility upon yourself by your own marriage; and if you were compelled to endure it so long as my father lived, you should have relieved yourself from it so soon as you were free; that is, so soon as you were king. But you preferred to continue in this unnatural connection, or rather you put the chains from your hands, and let them drag at your feet. Not to outrage the world by your divorce, you gave it the bad example of a wretched marriage. You made yourself free, and you made a slave of your poor wife, who has been a martyr to your humors and cruelty. You profaned the institution of marriage. You gave a bad and dangerous example to your subjects, and it has done its work. Look around in your land, sire. Everywhere you will see unhappy women who have been deserted by their husbands, and miserable men who have been dishonored by their faithless wives. Look at your own family. Our sister of Baireuth died of grief, and of the humiliation she endured from the mistress of her husband. Our brother, Augustus William, died solitary and alone. He withdrew in his grief to Oranienburg, and his wife remained in Berlin. She was not with him when he died; strangers received his last breath--strangers closed his eyes. Our sister of Anspach quarrelled with her husband, until finally she submitted, and made a friend of his mistress. And I, sire, I also stand before you with the brand of shame upon my brow. I also have been betrayed and deceived, and all this is your work. If the king mocks at the sacred duties of marriage, how can he expect that his family and subjects should respect them? It is the fashion in your land for husbands and wives to deceive one another, and it is you who have set this fashion."
"I have allowed you to finish, Henry," said the king, when the prince was at length silent. "I have allowed you to finish, but I have not heard your angry and unjust reproaches, I have only heard that my brother is unhappy, and it is, I know, natural for the unhappy to seek the source of their sorrows in others and not in themselves. I forgive all that you have said against me; but if you hold me responsible for the miserable consequences of the war, which kept the men at a distance for years and loosened family ties, that shows plainly that your judgment is unreliable, and that you cannot discriminate with justice. I did not commence this war heedlessly; I undertook it as a heavy burden.
It has made an old man of me; it has eaten up my life before my time.
I see all the evil results, and I consider it my sacred duty to bind up the wounds which it has inflicted on my country. I work for this object day and night; I give all of my energies to this effort; I have sacrificed to it all my personal inclinations. But I must be contented to bind up the wounds. I cannot make want disappear; I cannot immediately change sorrow into gladness."
"Ah, sire, you seek to avoid the subject, and to speak of the general unhappiness instead of my special grief. I call you to account, because you forced me to take a wife that I did not know--a wife who has made me the most miserable of men--a wife who has outraged my honor, and betrayed my heart. You gave me a wife who has robbed me of all I held dear on earth--of the wife I loved, and of the friend I trusted."
"Poor brother," said the king, gently, "you are enduring the torments from which I also suffered, before my heart became hardened as it now is. Yes, it is a fearful pain to be forced to despise the friend that you trusted--to be betrayed by those we have loved. I have passed through that grief. The man suffered deeply in me before his existence was merged in that of the king."
"Sire," said the prince, suddenly, "I have come to you to demand justice and punishment. You have occasioned the misery of my house, it is therefore your duty to alleviate it, as far as in you lies. I accuse my wife, the Princess Wilhelmina, of infidelity and treachery. I accuse Count Kalkreuth, who dares to love my wife, of being a traitor to your royal family. I demand your consent to my divorce from the princess, and to the punishment of the traitor. That is the satisfaction which I demand of your majesty for the ruin which you have wrought in my life."
"You wish to make me answerable for the capriciousness of woman and the faithlessness of man," asked the king, with a sad smile. "You do that because I, in performing my duty as a king, forced you to marry. It is true you did not love your intended wife, because you did not know her, but you learned to love her. That proves that I did not make a bad choice; your present pain is a justification for me. You are unhappy because you love the wife I gave you with your whole heart. For the capriciousness of women you cannot hold me responsible, and I did not select the friend who has so wickedly betrayed you. You demand of me that I should punish both. Have you considered, my brother, that in punishing them I should make your disgrace and misery public to the world? Do not imagine, Henry, that men pity us for our griefs; when they seem most deeply to sympathize with us they feel an inward pleasure, especially if it is a prince who suffers. It pleases men that fate, which has given us an exceptional position, does not spare us the ordinary sorrows of humanity."
"I understand, then, that you refuse my request," said the prince. "You will not consent to my divorce, you will not punish the traitor?"
"No, I do not refuse your request, but I beg you will take three days to consider what I have said to you. At the end of that time, should you come to me, and make the same demand, I will give my consent; that is, I will have you publicly separated from your wife, I will have Count Kalkreuth punished, and will thus give the world the right to laugh at the hero of Freiburg."
"Very well, sire," said the prince, thoughtfully, "I will remind you of your promise. I beg you will now dismiss me, for you see I am a very man and no philosopher, unworthy to be a guest at Sans-Souci."
He bowed to the king, who tenderly pressed his hand and silently left the room.
Frederick looked after him with an expression of unutterable pity.
"Three days will be long enough to deaden his pain, and then he will be more reasonable and form other resolutions."
CHAPTER XIII. A HUSBAND'S REVENGE.