The Lost Prince | Page 8

had taught him everything, and he had learned a
great deal. Loristan had the power of making all things interesting to
fascination. To Marco it seemed that he knew everything in the world.

They were not rich enough to buy many books, but Loristan knew the
treasures of all great cities, the resources of the smallest towns.
Together he and his boy walked through the endless galleries filled
with the wonders of the world, the pictures before which through
centuries an unbroken procession of almost worshiping eyes had passed
uplifted. Because his father made the pictures seem the glowing,
burning work of still-living men whom the centuries could not turn to
dust, because he could tell the stories of their living and laboring to
triumph, stories of what they felt and suffered and were, the boy
became as familiar with the old masters--Italian, German, French,
Dutch, English, Spanish--as he was with most of the countries they had
lived in. They were not merely old masters to him, but men who were
great, men who seemed to him to have wielded beautiful swords and
held high, splendid lights. His father could not go often with him, but
he always took him for the first time to the galleries, museums, libraries,
and historical places which were richest in treasures of art, beauty, or
story. Then, having seen them once through his eyes, Marco went again
and again alone, and so grew intimate with the wonders of the world.
He knew that he was gratifying a wish of his father's when he tried to
train himself to observe all things and forget nothing. These palaces of
marvels were his school-rooms, and his strange but rich education was
the most interesting part of his life. In time, he knew exactly the places
where the great Rembrandts, Vandykes, Rubens, Raphaels, Tintorettos,
or Frans Hals hung; he knew whether this masterpiece or that was in
Vienna, in Paris, in Venice, or Munich, or Rome. He knew stories of
splendid crown jewels, of old armor, of ancient crafts, and of Roman
relics dug up from beneath the foundations of old German cities. Any
boy wandering to amuse himself through museums and palaces on
``free days'' could see what he saw, but boys living fuller and less
lonely lives would have been less likely to concentrate their entire
minds on what they looked at, and also less likely to store away facts
with the determination to be able to recall at any moment the mental
shelf on which they were laid. Having no playmates and nothing to
play with, he began when he was a very little fellow to make a sort of
game out of his rambles through picture-galleries, and the places which,
whether they called themselves museums or not, were storehouses or
relics of antiquity. There were always the blessed ``free days,'' when he

could climb any marble steps, and enter any great portal without paying
an entrance fee. Once inside, there were plenty of plainly and poorly
dressed people to be seen, but there were not often boys as young as
himself who were not attended by older companions. Quiet and orderly
as he was, he often found himself stared at. The game he had created
for himself was as simple as it was absorbing. It was to try how much
he could remember and clearly describe to his father when they sat
together at night and talked of what he had seen. These night talks
filled his happiest hours. He never felt lonely then, and when his father
sat and watched him with a certain curious and deep attention in his
dark, reflective eyes, the boy was utterly comforted and content.
Sometimes he brought back rough and crude sketches of objects he
wished to ask questions about, and Loristan could always relate to him
the full, rich story of the thing he wanted to know. They were stories
made so splendid and full of color in the telling that Marco could not
forget them.

III
THE LEGEND OF THE LOST PRINCE
As he walked through the streets, he was thinking of one of these
stories. It was one he had heard first when he was very young, and it
had so seized upon his imagination that he had asked often for it. It was,
indeed, a part of the long-past history of Samavia, and he had loved it
for that reason. Lazarus had often told it to him, sometimes adding
much detail, but he had always liked best his father's version, which
seemed a thrilling and living thing. On their journey from Russia,
during an hour when they had been forced to wait in a cold wayside
station and had found the time long, Loristan had discussed it with him.
He always found some such