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The Daughter of an Empress

Page 411

With Carlo's death, Natalie had lost her last friend; with the stolen

money and diamonds, Marianne was robbed of her last pecuniary means. But

Natalie paid no attention to Marianne's lamentations. What cared she for

poverty and destitution--what knew she of these outward treasures, of

this wealth consisting in gold and jewels? Natalie knew only that she

had been robbed of a noble, spiritual possession--that they had murdered

the friend who had consecrated himself to her with such true and devoted

love, and, weeping over his body, she dedicated to him the tribute of a

tear of the purest gratitude, of saddest lamentation.

But so imperfect is the world that it often leaves no time for

mourning--that in the midst of our sorrow it causes us to hear the

prosaic voices of reality and necessity, compelling us to dry our eyes

and turning our thoughts from painfully-sweet remembrances of a lost

happiness to the realities of practical life.

Natalie's delicately-sensitive soul was to experience this rough contact

of reality, and, with an internal shudder, must she bend under the rough

hand of the present.

Pale, breathless, trembling, rushed Marianne into the room where

Natalie, in solitary mourning, was weeping for her lost friend.

"We are ruined, hopelessly ruined!" screamed Marianne. "They will drive

us from our last possession, they will turn us out of our house! All the

misfortunes of the whole world break over and crush us!"

The young maiden looked at her with a calm, clear glance.

"Then let them crush us," she quietly said. "It is better to be crushed

at once than to be slowly and lingeringly wasted!"

"But you hear me not, princess," shrieked Marianne, wringing her hands.

"They will drive us from here, I tell you; they will expel you from your

house!"

"And who will do that?" asked the young maiden, proudly rising with

flashing eyes. "Who dares threaten me in my own house?"

"Without are soldiers and bailiffs and the officers of the Russian

embassy. They have made a forcible entrance, and with force they will

expel you from the house. They are already sealing the doors and seizing

everything in the house."

A dark purple glow for a moment overspread Natalie's cheeks, and her

glance was flame. "I will see," said she, "who has the robber-like

boldness to dispute my possession of my own property!"

With proud steps and elevated head she strode through the room to the

door opening upon the corridor.

The bailiffs and soldiers, who had been placed there, respectfully stood

aside. Natalie paid no attention to them, but immediately advanced to

the officer who, with a loud voice, was just then commanding them to

seal all the doors and see that nothing was taken from the rooms.

"I wish to know," said Natalie, with her clear, silver-toned voice--"I

wish to know by what right people here force their way into my house,

and what excuse you have for this shameless conduct?"

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