"I am ready I announce me to the prince!"
"That is unnecessary, countess. The prince's nerves are so sensitive, that the slightest noise does not escape him. He heard the rolling of your carriage-wheels, and knows that you are here. He is expecting you, and has commanded that you come unannounced. Have the goodness to enter; you will be alone with the prince." He raised the curtain, and the countess looked back once more.
"Is there any hope?" said she, to her companion.
"None! The physician says he must die to-day!"
The countess opened the door so noiselessly, that not the slightest sound betrayed her presence. She sank upon a chair near the entrance, and fixed her tearful eyes with inexpressible agony upon the pale form, which lay upon the bed, near the open door, leading into the garden.
What!--this wan, emaciated figure, that countenance of deadly pallor, those fallen cheeks, those bloodless lips, the hollow temples, thinly shaded by the lifeless, colorless hair--was that Augustus William?--the lover of her youth, the worshipped dream-picture of her whole life, the never-effaced ideal of her faithful heart?
As she looked upon him, the sweetly-painful, sad, and yet glorious past, seemed to fill her soul. She felt that her heart was young, and beat, even now, as ardently for him who lay dying before her, as in the early time, when they stood side by side in the fulness of youth, beauty, and strength--when they stood side by side for the last time.
At that time, she died! Youth, happiness, heart were buried; but now, as she looked upon him, the coffin unclosed, the shroud fell back, and the immortal spirits greeted each other with the love of the olden time.
And now, Laura wept no more. Enthusiasm, inspiration were written upon her face. She felt no earthly pain; the heavenly peace of the resurrection morning filled her soul. She arose and approached the prince. He did not see her; his eyes were closed. Perhaps he slumbered; perhaps the king of terrors had already pressed his first bewildering kiss upon the pale brow. Laura bent over and looked upon him. Her long, dark ringlets fell around his face like a mourning veil. She listened to his light breathing, and, bowing lower, kissed the poor, wan lips.
He opened his eyes very quietly, without surprise. Peacefully, joyfully he looked up at her. And Laura--she asked no longer if that wasted form could be the lover of her youth. In his eyes she found the long-lost treasure--the love, the youth, the soul of the glorious past.
Slowly the prince raised his arms, and drew her toward him. She sank down, and laid her head by his cold cheek. Her hot breath wafted him a new life-current, and seemed to call back his soul from the spirit-world.
For a long time no word was spoken. How could they speak, in this first consecrated moment? They felt so much, that language failed. They lay heart to heart, and only God understood their hollow sighs, their unspoken prayers, their suppressed tears. Only God was with them! God sent through the open doors the fresh fragrance of the flowers; He sent the winds, His messengers, through the tall trees, and their wild, melancholy voices were like a solemn organ, accompanying love's last hymn. In the distant thickets the nightingale raised her melancholy notes, for love's last greeting. Thus eternal Nature greets the dying sons of men.
God was with His children. Their thoughts were prayers; their eyes, which at first were fixed upon each other, now turned pleadingly to heaven.
"I shall soon be there!" said Prince Augustus--"soon! I shall live a true life, and this struggle with death will soon be over. For sixteen years I have been slowly dying, day by day, hour by hour. Laura, it has been sixteen years, has it not?"
She bowed silently.
"No," said he, gazing earnestly upon her; "it was but yesterday. I know now that it was but yesterday. You are just the same--unchanged, my Laura. This is the same angel-face which I have carried in my heart.
Nothing is changed, and I thank God for it. It would have been a great grief to look upon you and find a strange face by my side. This is my Laura, my own Laura, who left me sixteen years ago. And now, look at me steadily; see what life has made of me; see how it has mastered me--tortured me to death with a thousand wounds! I call no man my murderer, but I die of these wounds. Oh, Laura! why did you forsake me? Why did you not leave this miserable, hypocritical, weary world of civilization, and follow me to the New World, where the happiness of a true life awaited us?"
"I dared not," said she; "God demanded this offering of me, and because I loved you boundlessly I was strong to submit. God also knows what it cost me, and how these many years I have struggled with my heart, and tried to learn to forget."
"Struggle no longer, Laura, I am dying; when I am dead you dare not forget me."
She embraced him with soft tenderness.
"No, no," whispered she, "God is merciful! He will not rob me of the only consolation of my joyless, solitary life. I had only this. To think he lives, he breathes the same air, he looks up into the same heavens--the same quiet stars greet him and me. And a day will come in which millions of men will shout and call him their king; and when I look upon his handsome face, and see him in the midst of his people, surrounded by pomp and splendor, I dare say to myself, That is my work.
I loved him more than I loved myself, therefore he wears a crown--I had the courage not only to die for him, but to live without him, and therefore is he a king. Oh, my beloved, say not that you are dying!"
"If you love me truly, Laura, you will not wish me to live. Indeed I have long been dying. For sixteen years I have felt the death-worm in my heart--it gnaws and gnaws. I have tried to crush it--I wished to live, because I had promised you to bear my burden. I wished to prove myself a man. I gave the love which you laid at my feet, bathed in our tears and our blood, to my fatherland. I was told that I must marry, to promote the interest of my country, and I did so. I laid a mask over my face, and a mask over my heart. I wished to play my part in the drama of life to the end; I wished to honor my royal birth to which fate had condemned me. But it appears I was a bad actor. I was cast out from my service, my gay uniform and royal star torn from my breast. I, a prince, was sent home a humiliated, degraded, ragged beggar. I crept with my misery and my shame into this corner, and no one followed me. No one showed a spark of love for the poor, spurned cast-away. Love would have enabled me to overcome all, to defy the world, and to oppose its slanders boldly. I was left alone to bear my shame and my despair--wholly alone. I have a wife, I have children, and I am alone; they live far away from me, and at the moment of my death they will smile and be happy. I am the heir of a throne, but a poor beggar; I asked only of fate a little love, but I asked in vain. Fate had no pity--only when I am dead will I be a prince again; then they will heap honors upon my dead body. Oh, Laura! how it burns in my heart--how terrible is this hell-fire of shame! It eats up the marrow of my bones and devours my brain. Oh, my head, my head! how terrible is this pain!"
With a loud sob he sank back on the pillow; his eyes closed, great drops of sweat stood on his brow, and the breath seemed struggling in his breast.
Laura bowed over him, she wiped away the death-sweat with her hair, and hot tears fell on the poor wan face. These tears aroused him--he opened his eyes.
"I have got something to say," whispered he; "I feel that I shall soon be well. When the world says of me, 'He is dead,' I shall have just awaked from death. There above begins the true life; what is here so called is only a pitiful prologue. We live here only that we may learn to wish for death. Oh, my Laura! I shall soon live, love, and be happy."
"Oh, take me with you, my beloved," cried Laura, kneeling before him, dissolved in tears. "Leave me not alone--it is so sad, so solitary in this cold world! Take me with you, my beloved!"
He heard her not! Death had already touched him with the point of his dark wings, and spread his mantle over him. His spirit struggled with the exhausted body and panted to escape. He no longer heard when Laura called, but he still lived: his eyes were wide open and he spoke again. But they were single, disconnected words, which belonged to the dreamland and the forms of the invisible world which his almost disembodied spirit now looked upon.
Once he said, in a loud voice, and this time he looked with full consciousness upon Laura, "I close my life--a life of sorrow.
Winterfeldt has shortened my days, but I die content in knowing that so bad, so dangerous a man is no longer in the army." [Footnote: The prince's own words. He died the 12th of June, 1758, at thirty-six years of age. As his adjutant, Von Hagen, brought the news of his death to the king, Frederick asked, "Of what disease did my brother die?"
"Grief and shame shortened his life," said the officer. Frederick turned his back on him without a reply, and Von Hagen was never promoted.
The king erected a monument to Winterfeldt, Ziethen, and Schwerin, but he left it to his brother Henry to erect one to the Prince of Prussia.
This was done in Reinenz, where a lofty pyramid was built in honor of the heroes of the Seven Years' War. The names of all the generals, and all the battles they had gained were engraven upon it, and it was crowned by a bust of Augustus William, the great-grandfather of the present King of Prussia.
The king erected a statue to Winterfeldt, and forgot his brother, and now Prince Henry forgot to place Winterfeldt's name among the heroes of the war. When the monument was completed, the prince made a speech, which was full of enthusiastic praise of his beloved brother, so early numbered with the dead. Prince Henry betrayed by insinuation the strifes and difficulties which always reigned between the king and himself; he did not allude to the king during his speech, and did not class him among the heroes of the Seven Years' War.
In speaking of the necessity of a monument in memory of his best beloved brother, Augustus William, he alluded to the statue of Winterfeldt, and added: "L'abus des richesses et du pouvoir eleve des statues de marbre et de bronze a ceux qui n'etaient pas dignes de passer a la posterite sous l'embleme de l'honneur."--Rouille's "Vie du Prince Henry."
Recently a signal honor has been shown to Prince Augustus William, his statue has the principal place on the monument erected in honor of Frederick the Great in Berlin.--Rouille.]
His mind wandered, and he thought he was on the battle-field, and called out, loudly:
"Forward! forward to the death!"
Then all was still but the song of the birds and the sighing winds.
Laura knelt and prayed. When she turned her glance from the cloudless heavens upon her beloved, his countenance was changed. There was a glory about it, and his great, wide-opened eyes flashed with inspiration; he raised his dying head and greeted the trees and flowers with his last glance.
"How beautiful is the world when one is about to die," said he, with a sweet smile. "Farewell, world! Farewell, Laura! Come, take me in your arms--let me die in the arms of love! Hate has its reign in this world, but love goes down with us into the cold grave.
Farewell!--farewell!--farewell!"
His head fell upon Laura's shoulder; one last gasp, one last shudder, and the heir of a throne, the future ruler of millions, was nothing but a corpse.
The trees whispered gayly--no cloud shadowed the blue heavens; the birds sang, the flowers bloomed, and yet in that eventful moment a prince was born, a pardoned soul was wafted to the skies.
Love pressed the last kiss upon the poor, wan lips; love closed the weary eyes; love wept over him; love prayed for his soul.
"Hate has her reign in this poor world, love goes down with us into the dark tomb."
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I. THE KING AND HIS OLD AND NEW ENEMIES.
Three years, three long, terrible years had passed since the beginning of this fearful war; since King Frederick of Prussia had stood alone, without any ally but distant England, opposed by all Europe.