The Goose Girl

"There is, however, one favor I should like to ask," said the prince.

"Can I grant it?"

"Easily. I wish to leave a sum of money in trust, to be paid to one Gretchen Schwarz, who lives in the Krumerweg. She is ambitious to become a singer. Let nothing stand between her and her desires."

"Granted."

The heart of the king, at the sound of that dear name, suddenly expanded and stifled him. The stiffness went out of his shoulders.

"Ah, this little world of ours, the mistakes and futile schemes we make upon it!" The chancellor dallied with his quill pen. "It was a cynical move of fate that your majesty should see the goose-girl first."

"Enough!" cried the king vehemently. "Let us have no more retrospection, if you please. Moreover, I shall be obliged to you if you will summon at once the carriage which is to take us to the frontier. The situation has been amicably and satisfactorily explained. I see no reason why we should be detained any longer."

"Nor I," added Prince Ludwig. "I am rather weary of these tatters. I should even like a bath."

The three of them were immediately attracted by a singular noise outside in the corridor. The door swung in violently, crashing against the wall and shivering into atoms the Venetian mirror. The king, the prince, and the chancellor were instantly upon their feet. The king clutched the back of his chair with a grip of iron: Gretchen? Her highness? What was Gretchen doing here? Ah, could he have flown! He muttered a curse at the chancellor for the delay. But happily Gretchen did not see him.

The duke came in first, and he waited till the others were inside; then he shut the door with lesser violence and rushed over to the chancellor.

"Herbeck, you villain!"

The chancellor stared at the Gipsy, at Von Arnsberg, at Grumbach.

"Herbeck, you black scoundrel!" cried the duke. "Can you realize how difficult it is not to take you by the throat and strangle you here and now?"

"He is mad!" said Herbeck, bracing himself against the desk.

"Yes. I am mad, but it is the sane madness of a terribly wronged man. Come here, you Gipsy!" The duke seized Herbeck's hand and pressed it down fiercely on the desk. "Look at that and tell me if it is not the hand of a Judas!"

"That is the hand, Highness," said the Gipsy, without hesitation.

The duke flung the hand aside. As he did so something snapped in Herbeck's brain, though at that instant he was not conscious of it.

"It was you, you! It was your hand that wrecked my life, yours! Ah, is there such villainy? Are such men born and do they live? My wife dead, my own heart broken, Arnsberg ruined and disgraced! And these two children: which is mine?"