Meanwhile, her high spirits, her artless bluntness, the quaint superstitions of the mountain child, gained her the goodwill and approval of the king and queen, of Dr. Gunther, the court physician, of the whole royal household, and, above all, of the lady-in-waiting, Countess Irma Wildenort.
II.--The Love Affairs of a King
Countess Irma's letters to Emmy, her only convent friend, contained little of idle gossip and of things that had happened. They had no continuity. They were introspective, and took the form of a diary taken up at odd moments and left again to be continued, sometimes the following day, sometimes after a week. They revealed intellectual development far in advance of her years, and clear perception of character.
"The queen lives in an exclusive world of sentiment and would like to raise everybody to her exalted mood--liana-like, in the morning-glow and evening-glow of sentiment, never in white daylight. She is most gracious towards me, but we feel it instinctively--there is something in her and in me that does not harmonise....
"Here all of them think me boundlessly naïve, because I have the courage to think for myself....
"The king loves reserve, but also gay freeness. The queen is too serious--eternal organ sound; but you cannot dance to an organ, and we are young and love to dance.
"A peasant woman from the mountains is nurse to the crown prince. I was with her at the king's request. I stood by the cot when the king arrived. He said to me gently: 'It is true, an angel stands by the child's cradle.' He laid his hand upon mine, which rested on the rail of the cot. The king went. And just imagine what occurred. The nurse, a fresh, merry person with blue eyes, buxom and massive, a perfect peasant beauty, to whom I showed friendliness, so as to cheer her up and save her from feeling homesick, the nurse tells me in bald words: 'You are an adulteress! You have exchanged loving glances with the king!'
"Emmy! How you were right in telling me that I idealise the people, and that they are as corrupt as the great world, and, moreover, without the curb of culture.
"No! she is a good, intelligent woman. She begged my pardon for her impertinence; I remain friendly towards her. Yes, I will."
Irma's devotion to her king had something of hero-worship. And the king, who loved his wife sincerely, but was, and wanted to be, of a heroic nature, and who was averse to all that savoured of self-torment and sentimentality, was attracted by Countess Irma's intellectual freedom and esprit. He felt in her a kindred spirit. Her company was stimulating; it could not affect the even tenour of his conjugal love. But the queen, in her sentimental exultation, sought ever for new "documents" to demonstrate the depth of her affection. And now she wanted to give the supreme proof by renouncing her Lutheran faith to enter into a yet closer union with her Catholic husband. To the king this sacrifice seemed not only sentimentally weak, but politically unwise. He received the confidence coldly, and begged her to reconsider the matter. He sent Dr. Gunther, who, in spite of his democratic tendencies, was held in high esteem by the king, and had great influence over the queen, to exercise his persuasive powers--with no result.
Where wisdom and experience had failed, the voice of Nature, speaking out of Walpurga's childish chatter, succeeded. Walpurga told the queen of her father--how one day on the lake, on hearing the choral singing of the peasants, he had said: "Now I know how the Almighty feels up there in Heaven! All the Churches, ours, and the Lutheran, and the Jewish, and the Turkish, they are all voices in the song. Each sings as he knows, and yet it sounds well together up there." The queen was radiant next day, when she informed her spouse that she had the courage of her own inconsistency and that she had resolved to do his will. The sacrifice was received with coolness. Was it that her noble act was construed as further evidence of weakness?
The king had left town for some distant watering-place, and had requested Irma to write to him at times. Knowing her love of flowers, he had given orders for a fresh bouquet to be placed every day in her room, and, perhaps to conceal the favour, in the rooms of two other ladies of the court. Irma considered both the thought and the expedient unworthy of her hero, and resolved not to write to him. She spent much of her time at the studio of a professor of the academy, who not only modelled a bust of her for a figure of Victory to be placed on the new arsenal, but gave her instruction in his art. In spite of this new occupation, she found herself in a state of feverish excitement, which became almost unbearable when the queen showed her a passage in a letter just received from the king. "Please make Countess Irma send me regular reports about our son. Remember me to the dear fourth leaf of our clover-leaf."
She was indignant at this unworthy attempt at forcing her to write. Was Walpurga right after all? Were lovers' glances to be exchanged over the child's cradle? She longed for solitude and peace. On the way to her room she had to stop to think where she was. A gallop might cool her feverish head. She ordered her horse to be saddled, but had scarcely changed into her riding-habit when a letter was handed to her, which was unsealed with trembling fingers. It was a simply worded invitation from her father, who wished to see her again after her long absence at court. Here was salvation, balm for her aching heart! She gave a few orders, then hurried to the queen's apartments to obtain leave of absence; and, accompanied by her maid, sped to her paternal home the same evening as fast as the horses would carry her.
The days passed quickly at the manor house, where Irma, for the first time, gained an insight into the noble mind and firm character of her father. In his many soothing talks Count Eberhard told her of his regrets at having been forced by circumstances--her mother's death before Irma had reached the age of three, and his inability to give her a proper education in his mountain retreat--to send her first to her aunt, then to the convent, and thus neglecting his duties as father. A word from him would have decided her to remain under his roof, but the old philosopher held that each intelligent being must work out its own destiny, and would not influence her decision. His slighting remarks about the monarchic system, about the impossibility of the king, with all his noble intentions, being able to see the world as it is, since everybody approaches him in pleasing costume, struck the final jarring note and destroyed the complete understanding between father and daughter. A half jocular joint letter from the king and his entourage, in which the signatories expressed in exaggerated terms their longing for her presence at court, decided her to return.
The carriage having been sent to the valley in advance, Count Eberhard walked down with Irma, until they came to the apple-tree which he had planted on the day of his daughter's birth. He stopped, and picked up a fallen apple. "Let us part here," he said. "Take this fruit from your native soil. The apple has left the tree because it has ripened; because the tree cannot give any more to it. So man leaves home and family. But man is more than the fruit of a tree. Come, my child, I hold your dear head; don't weep--or weep! May you never weep for yourself, and only for others! Remain faithful to yourself! I would give you all my thoughts; remember but the one: Yield only to such pleasures as will be pleasure in recollection. Take this kiss. You kiss passionately. May you never give a kiss that does not leave your soul as pure and full as it is now. Farewell!"
III.--Walpurga Returns Home
Twelve months had passed since Walpurga's arrival at court. Her trunks were now packed; she had given a last kiss to the boy prince; and now she asked her Hanseï, who had brought a carriage from the village to take her home, to wait in the corridor while she took leave from Countess Irma. She found Irma still in her bed, very pale, with her hair in loose strains on the pillow.