How is it with yourself? Are you influential? Does Frederick love you as warmly as he did a year ago? Do you hope to reach the goal of your ambition and become all- powerful?"
"I have ceased to be ambitious," sighed Fredersdorf. "I no longer thirst to be the king of a king. My only desire is to be independent of courts and kings--in short, to be my own master. Perhaps I may succeed in this; if not, be ruined, as many others have been. If I cannot tear my chains apart, I will perish under them! As for my influence over the king, it is sufficient to say, that for six months I have loved a woman to distraction, who returns my passion with ardor, and I cannot marry her because the king, notwithstanding my prayers and agony, will not consent."
"He is right," said Pollnitz, earnestly, as he stretched himself out comfortably on the sofa; "he is a fool who thinks of yielding up his manly freedom to any woman."
"You say that, baron? you, who gave up king and court, and went to Nurnberg, in order that you might marry!"
"Aha! how adroitly you have played the knife out of my hands, and have yourself become the questioner! Well. it is but just that you also should have your curiosity satisfied. Demand of me now and I will answer frankly."
"You are not married, baron?"
"Not in the least; and I have sworn that the goddess Fortuna alone shall be my beloved. I will have no mortal wife."
"The report, then, is untrue that you have again changed your religion, and become Protestant?"
"No, this time rumor has spoken the truth. The Nurnberger patrician would accept no hand offered by a Catholic; so I took off the glove of my Catholicism and drew on my Protestant one. My God! to a man of the world, his outside faith is nothing more than an article of the toilet. Do you not know that it is bon ton for princes when they visit strange courts to wear the orders and uniforms of their entertainers? So it is my rule of etiquette to adopt the religion which the circumstances in which I find myself seem to make suitable and profitable. My situation in Nurnberg demanded that I should become a Protestant, and I became one."
"And for all that the marriage did not take place?"
"No, it was broken off through the obstinacy of my bride, who refused to live in good fellowship and equality with me, and gave me only the use of her income, and no right in her property. Can you conceive of such folly? She imagined I would give myself in marriage, and make a baroness of an indifferently pretty burgher maiden; yes, a baroness of the realm, and expect no other compensation for it than a wife to bore me! She wished to wed my rank, and found it offensive that I should marry, not only her fair self, but her millions! The contest over this point broke off the contract, and I am glad of it. From my whole soul I regret and am ashamed of having ever thought of marriage. The king, therefore, has reason to be pleased with me."
"You are thinking, then, seriously of remaining at court?"
"Do you not find that natural, Fredersdorf? I have lived fifty years at this court, and accustomed myself to its stupidity, its nothingness, and its ceremony, as a man may accustom himself to a hard tent-bed, and find it at last more luxurious than a couch of eider-down. Besides, I have just lost a million in Nurnberg, and I must find a compensation; the means at least to close my life worthily as a cavalier. I must, therefore, again bow my free neck, and enter service. You must aid me, and this day obtain for me an audience of the king. I hope your influence will reach that far. The rest must be my own affair."
"We will see what can be done. I have joyful news for the king to- day. Perhaps it will make him gay and complaisant, and he will grant you an audience."
"And this news which you have for him?"
"The Barbarina has arrived!"
"What! the celebrated dancer?"
"The same. We have seized and forcibly carried her off from the republic of Venice and from Lord McKenzie; and Baron Swartz has brought her as prisoner to Berlin!"
Pollnitz half raised himself from the sofa, and, seizing the arm of the private secretary, he looked him joyfully in the face. "I have conceived a plan," said he, "a heavenly plan! My friend, the sun of power and splendor is rising for us, and your ambition, which has been weary and ready to die, will now revive, and raise its head proudly on high! That which I have long
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