"Ah! conditions!" exclaimed the emperor.

"Your majesty," said the count, "all we who take part in this great work are Italians, and we desire to see Italy free and happy. We wish to regard the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom in the north of our peninsula as blood of our blood, and flesh of our flesh; we are therefore willing to restore Lombardy into the hands of your majesty and to the house of Hapsburg, but not to Austria."

"How will you make the distinction?" asked the emperor, with a shade of annoyance.

"I believe," replied the count, "this distinction is the greatest proof we could give of the reverence in which we hold your imperial majesty.

It would not become me," he continued, "nor am I called upon, to give your majesty any views upon the government of those states which form the Austrian empire; I must, however, remark, that according to my perceptions--and I think I have history on my side--throughout the whole of Austria there is but one common bond of union, the emperor and the army."

The emperor bowed a somewhat reluctant a.s.sent.

"The truth of this, so far as Italy is concerned, is incontestable,"

continued the count. "No one in Lombardy and Venice, nor indeed, throughout the whole country, has the smallest objection to the rule of the house of Hapsburg; but what hurt the national feeling, what alienated the well disposed, was the German rule, which we were made to feel in your majesty's Italian states: the rule was a foreign one, and it felt to the people like a foreign occupation. If your majesty will permit your Italian subjects to be Italian, all repugnance will vanish."

The emperor was silent, appearing not entirely to understand.

"Allow me, your majesty," said the count, "to disclose to you the picture, which stands in dazzling clearness before my mental gaze. When my poor country fell under the h.e.l.lish power which now oppresses it, I thought out for it a united organization, somewhat similar to the great confederation which unites Germany. In the south the kingdom of the two Sicilies, in the heart the patrimony of St. Peter, and in the north, up to its natural boundaries, rescued Sardinia, the smaller dukedoms and the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. At the head of this confederation, for the developing of inst.i.tutions for trade and commerce and for the welfare and cultivation of these states, bound together by a common spirit of nationality, stands the Holy Father, the head of Christendom, your imperial majesty occupying the place of his powerful earthly protector; and if the arms of Austria conquer in Germany, as I pray they may, we shall behold the Roman emperor, from Sicily to the northern sea, the honoured and beloved protector of right, and the umpire of Europe."

The count bowed, and was silent. He had latterly spoken with more excitement, and his sparkling eyes seemed to see, in dazzling completeness, the picture he had just sketched out for the emperor.

Francis Joseph had listened with kindling eyes; and Klindworth had stolen quick glances, now at the emperor now at the count, whilst he stood perfectly still without appearing to-take any interest in the conversation.

"What you have disclosed to me, my dear Count Rivero, interests me in the highest degree," said the emperor, "and I rejoice that your communications have been made at the present moment. Your plans coincide with the wishes I must always bear in my heart, as the heir of my ancestors and the head of my house."

"Your majesty graciously consents," asked the count, "to accept our services, and to grant us your protection?"

"I do," said the emperor.

The count hesitated a moment, then fixed his clear eyes on the emperor.

"And the home government of your majesty's Italian states?"

"I pledge my word," said the emperor.

The count bowed.

"And you, my dear count, what _role_ shall you play in the great drama?"

"I shall remain here for the present to watch the course of events, in order to give the signal at the right moment. I am at your majesty's disposal."

"Your information has been of great service to me," said the emperor, "and," turning to Klindworth, "you have perhaps saved me from a dangerous error. I believe, my dear states-chancellor, that indecision is over. And now," he cried, with animation, "let us set to work with all our might. I feel courage and strength, and I trust the old proverb may again prove true: 'Austria est imperatura orbi universo!'"

"'Ad majorem Dei gloriam!'" added the count in a low voice.

The emperor bent his head, and called out to the count just as, retiring with Klindworth, he had reached the door:

"Auf Wiedersehen!"[7]

He then seated himself at his writing-table and hastily wrote two notes, sealing them with his ring; then summoning the gentleman-in-waiting, he desired him to call his equerry.

Prince Liechtenstein entered.

"My dear prince," said the emperor cheerfully, "let these two notes be given at once to Crenneville and Mensdorff."

The prince took the notes, and left the room in silence.

"Now," cried the emperor, as he stood up and raised his sparkling eyes, "indecision is past. G.o.d protect Austria!"

CHAPTER IX.

HELENA.

The sun shone cheerfully one afternoon upon the quiet Pfarrhaus at Blechow. The roses bloomed gaily in the box-edged beds of the well-cultivated garden, where the ma.s.ses of luxuriant white blossom were beginning to turn to fruit.

The doors of the large entrance-hall stood wide open, and its floor was covered with sand, scattered over with short fir branches.

In the princ.i.p.al dwelling-room of the Pfarrhaus, where the simple arrangements proved the excellent taste which prevailed, and where the snowy window-curtains bore witness to the cleanliness and order of the household, there sat, around the coffee-table covered with a cloth of dazzling whiteness, the Pastor Berger, his daughter, and the candidate, Behrmann.

Helena Berger was busily preparing the brown beverage of the Levant, the fragrant aroma of which filled the room, in a pretty white china apparatus; and no lady, in a drawing-room of the highest fashion, could have performed all the complicated little arrangements with greater natural grace.

Pastor Berger sat opposite to her, in his large, comfortable arm-chair, dressed as usual in clerical black, which according to the good old custom he never laid aside for less professional clothes, even in his own home. The only indulgence he allowed himself was the small black velvet cap which he wore on his head, considering it the sign of household comfort.

The young candidate sat between them; he too was dressed in black, with a white neck-tie, but the cut of his clothes was different, and although the colouring was the same, the general effect of his dress was quite unlike his uncle's.

The pastor leant back comfortably in the depths of his arm-chair, his hands folded one over the other, whilst he spoke, as was frequently the case since his last visit to Hanover, of his interview with the king.

"There is," he said in a voice of emotion, "something glorious about the Lord's Anointed. He can give happiness with a word, and how willing is our own king to do so! He does not regard his subjects simply in the light of tax-payers; to him they are fellow-creatures, with feelings and with beating hearts, and wherever his royal heart meets with a fellow man, he is ready with human sympathy to join in his sorrow or his joy. How different it is in a Republic!" he continued; "there the law reigns, the dead letter, a cold majority, a chance. And in a great monarchy the sovereign stands on an unapproachable, solitary height; but here, in our beautiful, fertile, quiet Hanover, we know our king (though he from his eminence can take in everything with his clear gaze,) feels for us each individually, with his human heart."

Helena had finished preparing the coffee, and she brought her father his large cup, with the inscription, "dem lieben Vater," traced in wreaths of roses.

The old gentleman took a small sip, and his countenance a.s.sumed an expression of great satisfaction at the result of his daughter's skill.

"I must beg for a little water in my cup," said the candidate in a quiet persuasive voice, "I cannot take strong coffee."

"Just like the present generation! how fond they are of water!" cried the pastor testily: "coffee must be strong if it is to rejoice your heart and to do you good. Water is certainly a good gift of G.o.d, but it has its proper place; now they pour it even into n.o.ble wine; and this is why we hear so many watery words. I hope, my dear Hermann, your sermon next Sunday will not be diluted with water, for our peasants here are accustomed to the strong unembellished Word, which, as our great Reformer said, 'should resound to the alarm of the hypocrite, and the joy of the righteous.'"

Helena had in the meantime prepared her father's large meerschaum pipe, cutting up the rolled tobacco with which she filled it on a metal plate, and bringing it to him with a lighted match.

"Of course you do not dream of smoking the time-honoured pipe?" said the pastor to his nephew, looking with great content at his own well-coloured bowl, the companion of several years, and watching the first clouds of smoke as they rose in the air, "but there are some excellent cigars, which the president brought from Hamburg."

"Thank you," said the candidate, declining, "I do not smoke at all."

"Not at all?" cried the astonished pastor; "really that surpa.s.ses the water! Well," he continued rather severely, "every time has its own customs, and I don't think they improve. Have you yet received your appointment as adjunct?" he asked.

"No," replied the candidate, "they promised to send it after me as soon as possible. I did not wish to wait for it, as I was desirous of at once entering on the scene of my future labours, and also of being admitted without delay into the family of my beloved relations."