Prince Otto | Page 8

a good name to live by; he should have got a wife and a
blessing on his marriage; and his works, as the Word says, should begin
to follow him.'
'Ah, well, the Prince is married,' cried Fritz, with a coarse burst of
laughter.
'That seems to entertain you, sir,' said Otto.
'Ay,' said the young boor. 'Did you not know that? I thought all Europe

knew it!' And he added a pantomime of a nature to explain his
accusation to the dullest.
'Ah, sir,' said Mr. Gottesheim, 'it is very plain that you are not from
hereabouts! But the truth is, that the whole princely family and Court
are rips and rascals, not one to mend another. They live, sir, in idleness
and - what most commonly follows it - corruption. The Princess has a
lover - a Baron, as he calls himself, from East Prussia; and the Prince is
so little of a man, sir, that he holds the candle. Nor is that the worst of it,
for this foreigner and his paramour are suffered to transact the State
affairs, while the Prince takes the salary and leaves all things to go to
wrack. There will follow upon this some manifest judgment which,
though I am old, I may survive to see.'
'Good man, you are in the wrong about Gondremark,' said Fritz,
showing a greatly increased animation; 'but for all the rest, you speak
the God's truth like a good patriot. As for the Prince, if he would take
and strangle his wife, I would forgive him yet.'
'Nay, Fritz,' said the old man, 'that would be to add iniquity to evil. For
you perceive, sir,' he continued, once more addressing himself to the
unfortunate Prince, 'this Otto has himself to thank for these disorders.
He has his young wife and his principality, and he has sworn to cherish
both.'
'Sworn at the altar!' echoed Fritz. 'But put your faith in princes!'
'Well, sir, he leaves them both to an adventurer from East Prussia,'
pursued the farmer: 'leaves the girl to be seduced and to go on from bad
to worse, till her name's become a tap-room by-word, and she not yet
twenty; leaves the country to be overtaxed, and bullied with armaments,
and jockied into war - '
'War!' cried Otto.
'So they say, sir; those that watch their ongoings, say to war,'
asseverated Killian. 'Well, sir, that is very sad; it is a sad thing for this
poor, wicked girl to go down to hell with people's curses; it's a sad
thing for a tight little happy country to be misconducted; but whoever
may complain, I humbly conceive, sir, that this Otto cannot. What he
has worked for, that he has got; and may God have pity on his soul, for
a great and a silly sinner's!'
'He has broke his oath; then he is a perjurer. He takes the money and
leaves the work; why, then plainly he's a thief. A cuckold he was before,

and a fool by birth. Better me that!' cried Fritz, and snapped his fingers.
'And now, sir, you will see a little,' continued the farmer, 'why we think
so poorly of this Prince Otto. There's such a thing as a man being pious
and honest in the private way; and there is such a thing, sir, as a public
virtue; but when a man has neither, the Lord lighten him! Even this
Gondremark, that Fritz here thinks so much of - '
'Ay,' interrupted Fritz, 'Gondremark's the man for me. I would we had
his like in Gerolstein.'
'He is a bad man,' said the old farmer, shaking his head; 'and there was
never good begun by the breach of God's commandments. But so far I
will go with you; he is a man that works for what he has.'
'I tell you he's the hope of Grunewald,' cried Fritz. 'He doesn't suit some
of your high-and-dry, old, ancient ideas; but he's a downright modern
man - a man of the new lights and the progress of the age. He does
some things wrong; so they all do; but he has the people's interests next
his heart; and you mark me - you, sir, who are a Liberal, and the enemy
of all their governments, you please to mark my words - the day will
come in Grunewald, when they take out that yellow-headed skulk of a
Prince and that dough-faced Messalina of a Princess, march 'em back
foremost over the borders, and proclaim the Baron Gondremark first
President. I've heard them say it in a speech. I was at a meeting once at
Brandenau, and the Mittwalden delegates spoke up for fifteen thousand.
Fifteen thousand, all brigaded, and each man with a medal round his
neck to rally by. That's