第12章 CHAPTER II IN WHICH THE PRINCE PLAYS HAROUN-AL-RAS

Nothing at least could be worse than to go on as he was going.

In the inn at Beckstein he remarked, immediately upon his entrance, an intelligent young gentleman dining, with a book in front of him. He had his own place laid close to the reader, and with a proper apology, broke ground by asking what he read.

`I am perusing,' answered the young gentleman, `the last work of the Herr Doctor Hohenstockwitz, cousin and librarian of your Prince here in Grünewald -- a man of great erudition and some lambencies of wit.'

`I am acquainted,' said Otto, `with the Herr Doctor, though not yet with his work.'

`Two privileges that I must envy you,' replied the young man politely:

`an honour in hand, a pleasure in the bush.'

`The Herr Doctor is a man much respected, I believe, for his attainments?' asked the Prince.

`He is, sir, a remarkable instance of the force of intellect,' replied the reader. `Who of our young men know anything of his cousin, all reigning Prince although he be? Who but has heard of Doctor Gotthold?

But intellectual merit, alone of all distinctions, has its base in nature.'

`I have the gratification of addressing a student -- perhaps an author?' Otto suggested.

The young man somewhat flushed. `I have some claim to both distinctions, sir, as you suppose,' said he; `there is my card. I am the licentiate Roederer, author of several works on the theory and practice of politics.'

`You immensely interest me,' said the Prince; `the more so as I gather that here in Grünewald we are on the brink of revolution.

Pray, since these have been your special studies, would you augur hopefully of such a movement?'

`I perceive,' said the young author, with a certain vinegary twitch, `that you are unacquainted with my opuscula. I am a convinced authoritarian.

I share none of those illusory, Utopian fancies with which empirics blind themselves and exasperate the ignorant. The day of these ideas is, believe me, past, or at least passing.'

`When I look about me --' began Otto.

`When you look about you,' interrupted the licentiate, `you behold the ignorant. But in the laboratory of opinion, beside the studious lamp, we begin already to discard these figments. We begin to return to nature's order, to what I might call, if I were to borrow from the language of therapeutics, the expectant treatment of abuses. You will not misunderstand me,' he continued:

`a country in the condition in which we find Grünewald, a prince such as your Prince Otto, we must explicitly condemn; they are behind the age.

But I would look for a remedy not to brute convulsions, but to the natural supervenience of a more able sovereign. I should amuse you, perhaps,' added the licentiate, with a smile, `I think I should amuse you if I were to explain my notion of a prince. We who have studied in the closet, no longer, in this age, propose ourselves for active service. The paths, we have perceived, are incompatible. I would not have a student on the throne, though I would have one near by for an adviser. I would set forward as prince a man of a good, medium understanding, lively rather than deep; a man of courtly manner, possessed of the double art to ingratiate and to command; receptive, accommodating, seductive. I have been observing you since your first entrance.

Well, sir, were I a subject of Grünewald I should pray heaven to set upon the seat of government just such another as yourself.'

`The devil you would!' exclaimed the Prince.

The licentiate Roederer laughed most heartily. `I thought I should astonish you,' he said. `These are not the ideas of the masses.'

`They are not, I can assure you,' Otto said.

`Or rather,' distinguished the licentiate, `not to-day. The time will come, however, when these ideas shall prevail.'

`You will permit me, sir, to doubt it,' said Otto.

`Modesty is always admirable,' chuckled the theorist. `But yet I assure you, a man like you, with such a man as, say, Doctor Gotthold at your elbow, would be, for all practical issues, my ideal ruler.'

At this rate the hours sped pleasantly for Otto. But the licentiate unfortunately slept that night at Beckstein, where he was, being dainty in the saddle and given to half stages. And to find a convoy to Mittwalden, and thus mitigate the company of his own thoughts, the Prince had to make favour with a certain party of wood-merchants from various states of the empire, who had been drinking together somewhat noisily at the far end of the apartment.

The night had already fallen when they took the saddle. The merchants were very loud and mirthful; each had a face like a nor'west moon; and they played pranks with each others' horses, and mingled songs and choruses, and alternately remembered and forgot the companion of their ride. Otto thus combined society and solitude, hearkening now to their chattering and empty talk, now to the voices of the encircling forest. The starlit dark, the faint wood airs, the clank of the horse-shoes making broken music, accorded together and attuned his mind. And he was still in a most equal temper when the party reached the top of that long hill that overlooks Mittwalden.