“Who is in the antechamber?” asked the count, casting a long, last glance upon the Venus, and then covering her again with the green stuff that hung at the corner of the frame.

“Most gracious excellency, both entrance halls are crammed quite full of men of every rank and calling, for this is the hour for public audience.”

“Are many uniforms present?”

“If you please, your excellency, very many.  Besides General von Klitzing and Colonel Conrad von Burgsdorf, the Colonels von Rochow and von Kracht are there.”

“These four gentlemen must be admitted to me,” ordered the count.  “The other people had better go, for I have no time to-day to grant audiences.  Well, why do you stand there loitering?  Why do you not go?”

“Most gracious sir,” entreated the lackey, “there are so many distinguished gentlemen there, who have already come so often in vain, and to whom I have promised an audience to-day, in accordance with your excellency’s express command.”

“Who, for example?”

“For example, your excellency, the councilors of the cities of Berlin and Cologne, then the states of the duchy of Cleves, and—­”

“Enough, enough!  I see well that these lords have paid you to put me in mind of them, and I shall therefore have the complaisance to do honor to your intercession.”

“Alas! most gracious lord, I swear to your grace, that nobody has paid me, that—­”

“Silence!  I know you all!” cried the count contemptuously.  “I know that every audience day brings as much money to you lackeys as it prepares discomfort and weariness for me.  Pocket your money quietly, honest Balthazar; you are no worse than all the rest of the servant brood and therefore I despise you no more than the rest.  Go, conduct hither the military gentlemen named through the corridor, and meanwhile I shall take a walk through the audience chamber and you collect your pay.”

The gold-bedizened lackey left the cabinet with reverential and submissive air.  But outside, he remained standing before the closed door, and boldly lifting up his head, with wholly altered face, hurled a look of hatred and defiance at the door.

“No worse than all the rest of the servant brood!” he muttered, raising his fist in a threatening manner—­“no worse than yourself, you should have said, proud lord.  You receive bribes as well as we, take money wherever you can get it, lend upon pledges, and practice usury like any Jew!  Ah! we know you, haughty count, the whole Mark of Brandenburg knows and detests you, and it is a sin and shame that we must bow down before the Catholic alien, the foreigner, the imperialist, the priest-ridden slave, and it is a dreadful misfortune that the Elector himself bows down before him, and acts as if Schwarzenberg were lord here, and he a mere servant.  Well,” he comforted himself, letting his fist drop, “I can not alter it, and father says what we can not alter we had better submit to, and profit by a little, if we can.  I will now guide these gentlemen bullies to the count’s cabinet.”