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Read Ebook: Quicksands by Streckfuss Adolf Wister A L Annis Lee Translator
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Ebook has 1346 lines and 109250 words, and 27 pages
"We suspected it from the first," said the philosophers. "The lack of virility is apparent."
"You can see the woman's carelessness in regard to details in every fold of the drapery!" said the artists.
The Princess Pourquoi listened. Presently she faced the crowd.
"It is my work," she said simply. Then she summoned her lackeys and ordered her carriage, and disappeared before artists or philosophers could find any knot-holes to crawl through.
Their Majesties, the royal parents, were greatly pleased when they heard of this scene. Perhaps this condemnation of her statue would bring their daughter to her senses.
It was very fortunate that just at this time there came rumors of the advent of the Fairy Prince. From Bobitania, a kingdom leagues away, he was reported to be approaching, presumably to woo the Princess Pourquoi. The King and the Queen chuckled in secret together the day a messenger arrived to announce the advent of his Royal Highness, Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst, Heir-Apparent to the throne of Bobitania. This was a very great principality, indeed. Surely the Princess would for once act like other people, and would, for the sake of all that was to be gained, profess herself satisfied in regard to her questions.
The royal household was ordered into its very best clothing. The King and the Queen, the Prince and the Princesses, shimmered in velvet and jewels. The pages were resplendent in yellow and silver. The philosophers were profound in rich black. The woolly white dogs of the ladies-in-waiting were combed and tied with the colors of Bobitania, crimson and black. Everywhere, in jewels, in flower devices, among the hangings on the wall, were displayed the arms of Bobitania, a crimson star on a dusky background.
After the ceremonies of greeting were over, when Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor had bent before the King and the Queen on their throne, and had had presented to him all the royal offspring, the Princess Pourquoi was requested to show his Highness the garden of flowers, that his eyes might be refreshed after his long journey. So side by side they walked, talking together, between long rows of stately chrysanthemums, white, yellow, and red, she very erect in her brocaded gown, whose deep blue folds swept the grass, he all smiles and obeisance, in a slashed suit of scarlet and black. The waiting-women, by two and two, came on behind.
As they paced the garden, the peacocks retreated slowly, a statelier procession than they. They passed a fountain where a single workman was busy sculpturing a figure from a block of gray granite. His face was shaded by a cap, but the splendid action of strong arms and muscular shoulders was visible. The Princess paused, and the waiting-women turned, pretending to be busy with the box of the hedges or the pink-tipped daisies at their feet. The face of Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor grew uneasy, for he felt that the hour for his questioning had come. But the Princess was not thinking of him, for her eyes were following the workman's fingers.
"Why blue jean for one man's arm and velvet with pearls for another?" she said half to herself. "Why hunger for that man, and for me surfeit?"
"Most gracious Princess," answered Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor, secure in his reply, "the earth with all upon it is glad to lie as dirt beneath the feet of the most beautiful lady in the world."
He fell upon one knee and kissed her hand. She looked down intently into his narrow, upraised face.
"Queen among princesses," he begged, "question me and accept my answer. From far Bobitania I have come to woo, and if I fail, I die. What is the question I must answer?"
"You have answered," said the Princess. "Rise."
The hand of the workman had paused, uplifted, with a sculptor's hammer in its grasp. There was a queer little smile upon his face below the shadow of the cap.
The waiting-women paced in silence behind the Princess back to the presence of the King.
"Most august Sovereign," said the Prince, bending his knee in the royal presence, "I have come to place my kingdom at your daughter's feet. Deign to ask her if I have found favor in her eyes."
"What say you, my daughter?" asked the King, his delight shining through his face. "Is it not a noble prince and a fair offer?"
"My Lord and Father," said the Princess Pourquoi, bending in courtesy, then standing erect, more haughty than before, "it is no prince, but a man with a lackey's soul. He may come to reign, but a king he can never be. As for my hand, he may not again touch it. I go to make it clean."
Then she turned and walked, in a great silence, between the parted lines of frightened people, out of the audience-chamber and away.
How Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst went away in great anger, how the royal apologies were presented in vain, how the Princess Pourquoi was imprisoned for three days in her chamber with no books to read and was held in deep disgrace by all the court, is a long story, and one that would take much time to tell. But the Princess only smiled serenely, presented her duty to her parents, saying that she was deeply grieved if her necessary words had hurt them, and, the first day she was free, went walking in the royal garden alone.
The artisan was there at the fountain, working at the same stone figure. The Princess stood in silence and watched him. At her approach he had taken off his cap and had laid it on the grass. Yellow autumn leaves fell on his blue blouse and on her crimson velvet robe.
"Do you like to work?" asked the Princess Pourquoi timidly.
A look of amusement crept into the man's keen, dark eyes, and his lips quivered with a suppressed smile.
"Yes, your Highness," he answered, making an inclination of his head. And he went on working.
"Why?" asked the Princess Pourquoi.
"Gracious Lady and Princess," replied the artisan, "I do not know."
The Princess stared at his deft fingers and the quivering muscles of his arms. Then she strolled away to pick a late white rose, and presently wandered back, as if forgetful where her feet were going.
"I have seen you before," she remarked absent-mindedly.
He bent again, and murmured something respectful that she could not hear. The chance given him to continue the subject he did not improve.
"Once," continued the Princess, "in a hovel among other hovels at the foot of the hill. Through the open door of the sick-room where I stood, I saw you sitting at a poor man's table, sharing his black bread and muddy ale. Why were you there?"
"He was my friend," said the artisan. "His hut was then my home."
"Why do you wear a workingman's blouse and carve in stone?" demanded the Princess abruptly.
"Madame and Princess," replied the man, "it is the work that I have chosen," and he went on chipping away fine flakes of stone.
The lady walked away again, this time following a wayward peacock across the grass. The workingman paused to look after her, with the sunshine falling on her brown hair. Then he picked up a chisel that he had dropped, and, in doing so, bent to kiss the grass where her feet had rested, for she had trodden very close.
When the Princess came back the next time, she spoke with the quiet air of one who is greeting an old friend.
"You criticised my statue," she remarked. "You called it crude."
"Whoever reported my poor opinion to the Princess," said the man, "had evidently heard but part of what I said."
The Princess showed no curiosity as to the rest.
"Why were the others so unjust?" she demanded. "They praised my work when they thought it was a man's. They turned upon it and called it bad when they knew a girl had done it, and did not yet know that it was a princess. What can one do when it is all so unfair?"
The artisan answered not a word, but went on chipping, chipping, bending all his energy to the curve of a finger. The Princess watched with eyes in which all the blue of the autumn sky and all the shining of the autumn sun seemed centred. When the young man at length looked at her, her head was thrown back, and her face wore the look of one who feels her blood to be royal.
"Do you know," she asked sternly, though the expression of her eyes was of one who pleads, "what fate is reserved for the man who answers even one of my questions satisfactorily."
"Gracious Lady and Princess," he said humbly, "I have answered nothing, for I did not know. My mind, too, has questioned ceaselessly into the injustice of many things. I only"--
Refusing to walk at her side, he followed at a little distance, stepping unsurely, as one would walk in a dream. The lackeys looked at him and sneered as he went. His Majesty the King and her Majesty the Queen looked down in impatience from the throne when they saw the Princess Pourquoi leading in a peasant clad in blue jean.
"Some injury to redress!" muttered his Majesty. "Always a new grievance! I never have time to sleep or think."
The Princess swept across the audience-chamber with the air of one whom nature, not circumstance alone, had made a queen. She bent before her royal parents, then laid her hand upon that of the artisan.
"Your Majesties will remember," she said, "the decree made regarding me when I was fifteen years old. This man alone has answered one question of mine to my satisfaction. I come to beg"--and her face wore a frightened look, yet shone with a sudden gleam of mischief--"I come to beg that he incur the penalty."
Her Majesty fainted and was carried from the room. His Majesty turned purple, and the calves of his legs swelled with rage. The ladies-in-waiting hid their faces behind their hands and whispered, "Shameless!" The philosophers shook their heads and muttered, "The Curse!" As soon as the King could find his voice he thundered: "Away with him to the donjon keep! Let the executioner come and do his duty! Cut off the head of the impostor who would steal my daughter's hand!"
"He is no impostor," said the Princess scornfully. "Whatever his birth may be, his soul is royal."
The men-at-arms came forward to seize him, but the Princess flung herself between him and them. He put her gently aside, and stepped forward to defy them all, but his eyes rested all the while on her with a look that made great throbbings in her wrists. The clash of arms in the chamber was interrupted by the sound of commotion outside. Shouts of "Make way!" were heard. Then there were cries of: "A messenger, a messenger from his Grace of Bobitania!" Free way was left in the crowded hall for a man in a travel-stained riding-costume, who entered and hurried toward the throne.
"May it please your Grace," he panted, "his Majesty the King of Bobitania desires to make known that the Heir-Apparent to the throne, who disappeared many weeks ago, has not been discovered. News has just reached Bobitania that his valet, who stole much of the Prince's clothing after his disappearance, has been here representing himself to be the Prince. Let it therefore be known that the person who of late called himself Prince Ludwig Jerome Victor Christian Ernst of Bobitania is an impostor, being the son of a liberated serf, and the grandson of a swineherd."
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