The Lost Manuscript: A Novel

The Chamberlain bowed dismayed before his master, who so graciously pronounced his banishment from Court. He hastened to the Hereditary Prince and related the bad tidings.

"It is exile!" he exclaimed, beside himself.

"Make your preparations speedily," replied the Hereditary Prince quietly. "I am prepared to go at once."

The Hereditary Prince went to his father.

"I will do what you command, and make every effort to please you. If you, as a father, consider this residence in a distant place useful, I feel that you understand better than I what will be beneficial for my future. But," he continued, with hesitation, "I cannot go from here without making a request which I have much at heart."

"Speak, Benno," said the Sovereign, graciously.

"I beg of you to permit the Professor and his wife to depart as quickly as possible from the neighborhood of the Court."

"Why so?" asked the Sovereign sharply.

"Their residence here is hurtful to Mrs. Werner. Her reputation is endangered by the unusual position in which she is placed. I owe him and her great gratitude; their happiness is a matter of concern to me, and I am tormented by the thought that their stay in our parts threatens to disturb the peace of their life."

"And why does your gratitude fear a disturbance of the happiness that is so dear to you?" asked the Sovereign.

"It is said that the Pavillion is a fateful residence for an honorable woman," replied the Hereditary Prince, decidedly.

"If what you call honor is endangered by her dwelling there, then that virtue is easily lost," said the Sovereign, bitterly.

"It is not the dwelling alone," continued the Hereditary Prince; "the ladies of the Court have been quite reserved in their conduct toward her; she is ill spoken of: gossip and calumny are busy in fabricating a false representation of her innocent life."

"I hear with astonishment," said the Sovereign, "the lively interest you take in the stranger; yet, if I am rightly informed, you yourself during this time have shown her little chivalrous attention."

"I have not done so," exclaimed the Hereditary Prince, "because I have felt myself bound to avoid, at least so far as I was concerned, any conduct that might injure her. I saw the jeering looks of our gentlemen when she arrived; I heard their derogatory words about the new beauty who was shut up in that house, and my heart beat with shame and anger. Therefore I have painfully controlled myself; I have feigned indifference before those about me, and I have been cold in my demeanor towards her; but, my father, it has been a hard task to me, and I have felt deep and bitter anxiety in the past few weeks; for the happiest hours of my life at college were passed in her society."

The Sovereign had turned away; he now showed his son a smiling countenance.

"So that was the reason of your reserve. I had forgotten that you had reached the age of tender susceptibility and were inclined to expend more emotion and sentiment on your relations to women than is good for you. Yet I could envy you this. Unfortunately, life does not long retain its sensitive feelings." He approached the Prince, and continued, good-humoredly: "I do not deny, Benno, that in your interest I regarded the arrival of our visitors differently. For a prince of your nature there is perhaps nothing so fraught with culture as the tender feeling for a woman who makes no demands on the external life of her friend, and yet gives him all the charm of an intimate union of soul. Love affairs with ladies of the Court or with assuming intrigants would be dangerous for you; you must be on your guard that the woman to whom you devote yourself will not trifle with you and selfishly make use of you for her own ends. From all that I knew, your connection with the lady in the Pavilion was just what would be advantageous for your future life. From reasons of which I have full appreciation, you have avoided accepting this idyllic relation. You yourself have not chosen what I, with the best intentions, prepared for you; it seems to me, therefore, that you have lost the right in this affair to express any wishes whatever."

"Father," exclaimed the Hereditary Prince, horrified, and wringing his hands, "your saying this to me is indeed unkind. I had a dark foreboding that the invitation to them had some secret object in view. I have struggled with this suspicion, and blamed myself for it; now I am dismayed with the thought that I myself am the innocent cause of this misfortune to these good people. Your words give me the right to repeat my request: let them go as soon as possible, or you will make your son miserable."

"I perceive an entirely new phase of your character," replied the Sovereign; "and I am thankful to you for the insight that you have at last accorded me into your silent nature. You are either a fantastical dreamer, or you have a talent for diplomacy that I have never attributed to you."

"I have never been other than candid to you," exclaimed the Hereditary Prince.

"Shall the lady return to her home at Bielstein to be saved?" asked the Sovereign mockingly.

"No," replied the Hereditary Prince, in a low tone.

"Your demand scarcely deserves an answer," continued the father. "The strangers have been called here for a certain time. The husband is not in my service. I am neither in a position to send them away, as they have given me no reason for dissatisfaction, nor to keep them here against their will."

"Forgive me, my father," exclaimed the Hereditary Prince. "You have yourself, by the gracious attention which you daily show to the wife, by your civil gifts and frequent visits, occasioned the Court to think that you take a special personal interest in her."

"Is the Court so busy in reporting to you what I, through the unbecoming conduct of others, have thought fit to do?" asked the Sovereign.

"Little is reported to me of what those about us say, and be assured that I do not lend a ready ear to their conjectures; but it is inevitable that I sometimes must hear what occupies them all and makes them all indignant. They venture to maintain even, that every one who does not show her attention is in disgrace with you; and they think that they show special firmness of character and respectability in refusing to be civil to her. You, as well as she, are threatened with calumny. Forgive me, my father, for being thus frank. You yourself have by your favor brought the lady into this dangerous position, and therefore it lies with you to deliver her from it."

"The Court always becomes virtuous when its master selects for distinction a lady who does not belong to their circle; and you will soon learn the value of such strict morals," replied the Sovereign. "It must be a strong sentiment, Benno, which drives your timid nature to the utmost limits of the freedom of speech that is allowable from a son to a father."

The pale face of the Hereditary Prince colored.

"Yes, my father," he cried, "hear what to every other ear will remain a secret; I love that lady with fervent and devoted heart. I would with pleasure make the greatest sacrifice in my power for her. I have felt the power that the beauty and innocence of a woman can exercise on a man. More than once have I strengthened myself by contact with her pure spirit. I was happy when near her, and unhappy when I could not look into her eyes. For a whole year I have thought in secret of her, and in this sorrowful feeling I have grown to be a man. That I have now courage to speak thus to you, I owe to the influence which she has exercised upon me. I know, my father, how unhappy such a passion makes one; I know the misery of being for ever deprived of the woman one loves. The thought of the peace of her pure soul alone has sustained me in hours of bitterness. Now you know all. I have confided my secret to you and I beg of you, my Sovereign and father, to receive this confidence with indulgence. If you have hitherto cared for my welfare, now is the time when you can show me the highest proof of our sincerity. Honor the woman who is loved by your unhappy son."

The countenance of the Sovereign had changed while his son was speaking, and the latter was terrified at its menacing expression.

"Seek, for your tale, the ear of some knight-errant who eagerly drinks the water into which a tear of his lady-love has dropped."

"Yes, I seek your knightly help, my liege and Sovereign," cried the Hereditary Prince, beside himself. "I conjure you, do not let me implore you in vain. I call upon you, as the head of our illustrious house, and as a member of the order whose device we both wear, to do a service to me and for her. Do not refuse her your support in her danger."

"We are not attending a mediæval ceremony," replied the Sovereign, coldly, "and your speech does not accord with the tone of practical life. I have not desired your confidence-you have thrust it upon me in too bold a manner. Do not wonder that your father is angry with your presumptuous speech, and that your Sovereign dismisses you with displeasure."

The Hereditary Prince turned pale and stepped back.

"The anger of my father and the displeasure of my Sovereign are misfortunes which I feel deeply; but still more fearful to me is the thought, that here at Court an injury is done to an innocent person-an injury in which I must have a share. However heavily your anger may fall upon me, yet I must tell you that you have exposed the lady to misrepresentation, and as long as I stand before you I will repeat it, and not desist from my request to remove her from here, for the sake of her honor and ours."

"As your words flutter ceaselessly about the same empty phantom," replied the Sovereign, "it is time to put an end to this conversation. You will depart at once, and leave it to time to enable me to forget, if I ever can do so, what I have heard from you to-day. Till then you may reflect in solitude on your folly, in wishing to play the part of guardian to strangers who are quite in a position to take care of themselves."

The Hereditary Prince bowed.

"Has my most Sovereign liege any commands for me?" he asked, with trembling lips.

The Sovereign replied sullenly:

"It only remains to you how to excite the ill-will of the strangers against your father."

"Your Highness knows that such conduct would not become me."

The Sovereign waved his hand, and his son departed with a silent bow.

Immediately upon quitting the apartment of the father, the Prince ordered his carriage, and then hastened to his sister. The Princess looked anxiously into his disturbed countenance.

"You are going away?" she exclaimed.

"Farewell!" he said, holding out his hand to her. "I am going into the country to build a new castle for us in case we should wish to change the scene of action."

"When do you return, Benno?"

The Hereditary Prince shrugged his shoulders.

"When the Sovereign commands. My task is now to become something of an architect and farmer; this is a useful occupation. Farewell, Sidonie. If chance should bring you together with Mrs. Werner, I would be greatly indebted to you if you would not attend to the gossip of the Court, but remember that she is a worthy lady, and that I owe her a great debt of gratitude."

"Are you dissatisfied with me, my brother?" asked the Princess, anxiously.

"Make reparation for it, Siddy, as best you can. Farewell!"

Prince Victor accompanied him to the carriage. The Hereditary Prince clasped his hand, and looked significantly towards the Pavilion. Victor nodded. "That's my opinion too," he said. "Before I go back to my garrison I will visit you in the land of cat-tails. I expect to find you as a brother hermit, with a long beard and a cap made of tree-bark. Farewell, Knight Toggenburg, and learn there that the best philosophy on earth is to consider every day as lost on which one cannot do some foolish trick. If one does not do this business one's self, others will take the trouble off one's hands. It is always more pleasant to be the hammer than the anvil."

The Sovereign was gloomy and silent at dinner; only short remarks fell from his lips, and sometimes a bitter jest, from which one remarked that he was striving for composure; the Court understood that this unpleasant mood was connected with the departure of the Hereditary Prince, and every one took care not to irritate him. The Professor alone was able to draw a smile from him, when he good-humoredly told about the enchanted castle, Solitude. After dinner the Sovereign conversed with one of his aides-de-camp as well as the Professor. The latter turned to the High Steward; and although he usually avoided the reserved politeness of the man, he on this occasion asked him some indifferent questions. The High Steward answered civilly that the Marshal, who was close by, could give him the best information, and he changed his place. Immediately afterwards the Sovereign walked straight through the company to the High Steward, and drew him into the recess of the window, and began:

"You accompanied me on my first journey to Italy, and, if I am not mistaken, partook a little of my fondness for antiquities. Our collection is being newly arranged and a catalogue fully prepared."

The High Steward expressed his acknowledgment of this princely liberality.

"Professor Werner is very active," continued the Sovereign; "it is delightful to see how well he understands to arrange the specimens."

The High Steward remained silent.

"Your Excellency will remember how when in Italy we were much amused at the enthusiasm of collectors who, luring strangers into their cabinets, wildly gesticulated and rhapsodized over some illegible inscription. Like most other men, our guest is also afflicted with a hobby. He suspected that an old manuscript lay concealed in a house in our principality; therefore he married the daughter of the proprietor; and as, in spite of that, he did not find the treasure, he is now secretly seeking this phantasm in the old garrets of the palace. Has he never spoken to you of it?"

"I have as yet had no occasion to seek his confidence," replied the High Steward.

"Then you have missed something," continued the Sovereign; "in his way he speaks well and readily about it; it will amuse you to examine more closely this species of folly. Come presently with him into my study."

The High Steward bowed; and on the breaking up of the party, informed the Professor that the Sovereign wished to speak to him.

The gentlemen entered the Sovereign's apartment, in order to afford him an hour of entertainment.

"I have told his Excellency," the Sovereign began, "that you have a special object of interest which you pursue like a sportsman. How about the manuscript?"

The Professor related his new discovery of the two chests.

"The next hunting-ground which I hope to try will be the garrets and rooms in the summer castle of the Princess; if these yield me no booty, I would hardly know of any place that has not been searched."

"I shall be delighted if you soon attain your object," said the Sovereign, looking at the High Steward. "I assume that the discovery of this manuscript will be of great importance for your own professional career. Of course you will consent to publish the same."

"It would be the noblest task that could fall to my lot," replied the Professor, "always supposing that your Highness would graciously entrust the work to me."

"You shall undertake the work, and no other," replied the Sovereign, laughing, "so far as I have the right to decide it. So the invisible book will be really of great importance to learning?"

"The greatest importance. The contents of it will be of the highest value to every scholar. I think it would also interest your Highness," said the Professor, innocently, "for the Roman Tacitus is in a certain sense a Court historian; the main point of his narrative is the characters of the Emperors who, in the first century of our era, decided the fate of the old world. It is indeed, on the whole, a sorrowful picture."

"Did he belong to the hostile party?" inquired the Sovereign.

"He is the great narrator of the peculiar deformity of character found in the sovereigns of the ancient world; we have to thank him for a series of psychological studies of a malady that then developed itself on the throne."

"That is new to me," replied the Sovereign, fidgeting on his chair.

"Your Highness will, I am convinced, view the various forms of this mental malady with the greatest sympathy, and will find in other periods of the past-nay, even in the earlier civilization of our own people-many remarkable parallel cases."

"Do you speak of a special malady that only befalls rulers?" asked the Sovereign; "physicians will be grateful to you for this discovery."

"In fact," answered the Professor, eagerly, "the fearful importance of this phenomenon is far too little estimated; no other has exercised such an immeasurable influence on the fate of nations. The destruction by pestilence and war is small in comparison with the fatal devastation of nations which has been occasioned by this special misfortune of the rulers. For this malady, which raged long after Tacitus among the Roman emperors, is not an ailing that is confined to ancient Rome-it is undoubtedly as old as the despotisms of the human race; even later it has been the lot of numerous rulers in Christian states; it has produced deformed and grotesque characters in every period; it has been for thousands of years the worm enclosed in the brain, consuming the marrow of the head, destroying the judgment and corroding the moral feelings, until at last nothing remained but the hollow glitter of life. Sometimes it became madness which could be proved by medical men, but in numerous other cases the capacity for practical life did not cease and the secret mischief was carefully concealed. There were periods when only occasional firmly-established minds preserved their full healthy vigor; and again other centuries when the heads that wore a diadem inhaled a fresh atmosphere from the people. I am convinced that he whose vocation it is to investigate accurately the conditions of later times will, in the course of his studies, discover the same malady under a milder form. My life lies far from these observations, but the Roman state undoubtedly shows the strangest forms of the malady; for there were the widest relations, and such a powerful development of human nature both in virtue and vice as has seldom since been found in history."

"It seems to be a particular pleasure to the learned gentlemen to bring to light these sufferings of former rulers," said the Sovereign.

"They are certainly instructive for all times," continued the Professor, confidently, "for by fearful example they impress upon one the truth that the higher a man's position is, the greater is the necessity of barriers to restrain the arbitrariness of his nature. Your Highness's independent judgment and rich experience will enable you to discern, more distinctly than any one in my sphere of life, that the phenomena of this malady always show themselves where the ruling powers have less to fear and to honor than other mortals. What preserves a man in ordinary situations is that he feels himself at every moment of his life under strict and incessant control; his friends, the law, and the interest of others surround him on all sides, they demand imperiously that he should conform his thoughts and will by rules which secure the welfare of others. At all times the power of these fetters is less effective on the ruler; he can easily cast off what confines him, an ungracious movement of the hand frightens the monitor forever from his side. From morning to evening he is surrounded by persons who accommodate themselves to him; no friend reminds him of his duty, no law punishes him. Hundreds of examples teach us that former rulers, even amidst great outward success, suffered from inward ravages, where they were not guarded by a strong public opinion, or incessantly constrained by the powerful participation of the people in the state. We cannot but think of the gigantic power of a general and conqueror whose successes and victories brought devastation and excessive sin into his own life; he became a fearful sham, a liar to himself and a liar to the world before he was overthrown, and long before he died. To investigate similar cases is, as I said, not my vocation."

"No," said the Sovereign, in a faint voice.

"The distant time," began the High Steward, "of which you speak, was a sad epoch for the people as well as the rulers. If I am not mistaken a feeling of decay was general, and the admired writers were of little value; at least it appears to me that Apuleius and Lucan were frivolous and deplorably vulgar men."

The Professor looked surprised at the courtier.

"In my youth such authors were much read," he continued. "I do not blame the better ones of that period, when they turned away with disgust at such doings, and withdrew into the most retired private life, or into the Theban wilderness. Therefore when you speak of a malady of the Roman emperors, I might retort that it was only the result of the monstrous malady of the people; although I see quite well that during this corruption individuals accomplished a great advance in the human race, the freeing the people from the exclusiveness of nationality to the unity of culture, and the new ideal which was brought upon earth by Christianity."

"Undoubtedly the form of the state, and the style of culture which each individual emperor found, were decisive for his life. Every one is, in this sense, the child of his own time, and when it is a question of judging the measure of his guilt, it is fitting to weigh cautiously such considerations. But what I had the honor of pointing out to his Highness as the special merit of Tacitus, is only the masterly way with which he describes the peculiar symptoms and course of the Cæsarean insanity."

"They were all mad," interrupted the Sovereign, with a hoarse voice.

"Pardon, gracious Sir," rejoined the Professor, innocently. "Augustus became a better man on the throne, and almost a century after the time of Tacitus there were good and moderate rulers. But something of the curse which unlimited power exercises on the soul may be discovered in most of the Roman emperors. In the better ones it was like a malady which seldom showed itself, but was restrained by good sense or a good disposition. Many of them indeed were utterly corrupted, and in them the malady developed in definite gradation, the law of which one can easily understand."

"Then you also know how these people were at heart!" said the Sovereign, looking shyly at the Professor.

The High Steward retreated towards a window.

"It is not difficult in general to follow the course of the malady," replied the Professor, engrossed with his subject. "The first accession to power has an elevating tendency. The highest earthly vocation raises even narrow-minded men like Claudius; depraved villians like Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, showed a certain nobleness at first. There is an eager desire to please, and strenuous exertion to establish themselves by graciousness; a fear of influential persons or of the opposition of the masses compels a certain moderation. But arbitrary power has made men slaves, and the slavish feeling shows itself in an abject veneration which puts the emperor on a pinnacle above other men; he is treated as if specially favored by the gods, nay, as if his soul was an emanation of godly power. Amid this adoration by all, and the security of power, egotism soon increases. The accidental demands of an unrestrained will become reckless, the soul gradually loses the power of distinguishing between good and evil; his personal wishes appear to the ruler henceforth as the necessity of the state, and every whim of the moment must be satisfied. Distrust of all who are independent leads to senseless suspicion; he who will not be pliant is set aside as an enemy, and he who adapts himself with suppleness is sure to exercise a mastery over his master. Family bonds are severed, the nearest relations are watched as secret enemies, the deceptive show of hearty confidence is maintained, but suddenly some evil deed breaks through the veil that hypocrisy has drawn over a hollow existence."

The Sovereign slowly drew back his chair from the fire into the dark.

"The idea of the Roman state at last entirely vanishes from the soul, only personal dependence is required; true devotion to the state becomes a crime. This helplessness, and the cessation of the power of judging of the worth-nay, even of the attachment of men-betoken an advance of the malady by which all sense of accountability is impaired. Now the elements of which the character is formed become more contracted and onesided, the will more frivolous and paltry. A childish weakness becomes perceptible; pleasure in miserable trifles and empty jokes, together with knavish tricks which destroy without aim; it becomes enjoyment not only to torment and see the torments of others, but also an irresistible pleasure to drag all that is venerated down to a common level. It is very remarkable how, in consequence of this decay of thought, an unquiet and destructive sensuality takes the place of all. Its dark power becomes overmastering, and instead of the honorable old age which gives dignity even to the weak, we are disgusted by the repugnant picture of decrepit debauchees, like Tiberius and Claudius. The last powers of life are destroyed by shameless and refined profligacy."