“Sire, my every thought is a prayer for you at this moment.”

They entered the oblong saloon.

“This is the room which separates me from my friends,” said the king.  “This side of the house I will dwell; that side is for the use of my friends, above all others, dear marquis, for you.  In this saloon we will meet together, and here will be my symposium.  Now I will show you my own room, then the others.”

In the reception-room, which was adorned with taste and splendor, Frederick remained but a few moments; he scarcely allowed his artistic friend a fleeting glance at the superb pictures which hung upon the walls, and for the selection of which he had sent the merchant, Gotzkowsky, several times to Italy; he gave him no time to look upon the statues and vases of the Poniatowsken Gallery, for which four hundred thousand thalers had been paid, but hurried him along.

“You must first see my work-room,” said Frederick; “afterward we will examine the rest.”

He opened the door and conducted the marquis into the round library which had no other adorning than that of books; they stood arrayed in lofty cases around this temple of intellect, of art, and science, and even the door through which they had entered, and which the king had lightly pressed back, had now entirely disappeared behind the books, with which it was cunningly covered on the inside.

“You see,” said Frederick, “he who enters into this magic circle is confined for life.  He cannot get out, and I will have it so.  With this day begins a new existence for me, D’Argens.  When I crossed the threshold, the past fell from me like an over-ripe fruit.”

Frederick’s face was sad, his eye clouded; with a light sigh he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the marquis and looked at him long and silently.

“I wish to tell you a secret,” said he at last.  “I believe my heart died yesterday, and I confess to you the death-struggle was hard.  Now it is past, but the place where my heart once beat is sore, and bleeds yet from a thousand wounds.  They will heal at last, and then I shall be a hard and hardened man.  We will speak no more of it.”

“No, sire, we shall not say that you will ever be hardened,” cried D’Argens, deeply moved.  “You dare not slander your heart and say that it is dead.  It beats, and will ever beat for your friends, for the whole world, for all that is great, and glorious, and exalted.”

“Only no longer for love,” said the king; “that is a withered rose which I have cast from me.  The roses of love are not in harmony with thrones or crowns; they grow too high and climb over, or their soft rosy leaves are crushed.  I owe it to my people to keep myself free from all chains and make my reign glorious.  I will never give them occasion to say that I have been an idle and self-indulgent savant.  I dedicate to Prussia my strength and my life.  But here, friend, here in my cloister, which, like the Convent of the Carmelites, shall never be desecrated by a woman’s foot; here we will, from time to time, forget all the pomps and glories of the world, and all its vanities.  Here, upon my Weinberg, I will not be a king, but a friend and a philosopher.”