“No, my Prince!  It was proper that the eyes of the people should have greeted you alone, and that the boy, whom they had seen go off at the side of his tutor, should now appear to them again as a bold and independent young man, who relies upon his own powers only, and has no longer any tutor at his side, but his own sense of duty and his conscience.  But why so sad, Prince Frederick William?  Your journey was verily a triumphal procession; like a Roman imperator you entered your father’s city, and now do I find you here, solitary, with troubled countenance, with tears upon your cheeks?”

“With tears upon my cheeks?” repeated the Prince; “with imprecations, with wrath, and sorrow in my heart.  Oh, friend, why were you not with me?  You would have saved me perhaps from the bitterness of the last hour.  You would have stood by me, would have encouraged me!”

“My God, what has happened then?”

“It has happened that I was received as if I were some criminal returning after a course of sin!” cried Frederick William, with indignant pain.  “It has happened that they have treated me as if I were a rioter and inciter of rebellion, who had come hither with criminal designs, at the head of a mob, and as a captain of robbers, who had attacked his Sovereign in his stronghold.  It has happened that they allowed me to sue for pardon upon my knees without lifting me up—­that they have treated me like an abandoned villain, from whom they expected each hour to witness some new out-break.”

“But consider, my Prince, that you had reason to expect that your reception would be ungracious, and that it was your father from whom these trials would come to you.”

“No, not from my father, but from him—­that evil spirit who, with his cold smile and mocking composure, stood at my father’s side!  He has poisoned my father’s heart with jealousy and hate, he has filled it with mistrust toward his only son, and sowed discord, that he may himself reap a harvest from the hatred!  And he was witness of my humiliation, and I saw how he looked down upon me with scornful superiority as I knelt before my father and pleaded in vain for one word of love from his lips!  But he had withered this word upon his lips, and only for him were words of tenderness and veneration there!  Only for him acknowledgments, confidence, and love!  As he stood there with cold and haughty face at the side of my poor father, who, stooping and insignificant, cowered below him—­oh, so far below him in his easychair—­I felt it in every nerve of my heart, in every fiber of my brain, that he and he alone is ruling lord here, the commander and Sovereign; and that he who will not bow and cringe before him, will by him be hurled into the dust and trodden upon!  They all bow before him—­all!  He is like a magician, who by the magnetic glances of his eyes subjects to his will all who approach him, and makes the stoutest hearts soft and pliant, so