CHAPTER III.

The wedding festival of the princess Ulrica.

Truly this perfidious friend had, for one day, guarded the secret of the young lovers from discovery; but, the poison, which Pollnitz in his worldly cunning prepared for them, had entered into their hearts.  For some days they met under strong restraint; only by stolen glances and sighs, by a momentary pressure of the hand, or a few slightly murmured words, could they give expression to their rapture and their passion.  The presence of another held their hearts and lips in bondage.

Pollnitz knew full well that there was no surer means to induce a young girl to grant her lover an interview than to force them to meet before strange witnesses, to bring every word and look into captivity, to condemn them to silence and seeming indifference.  The glowing heart bounds against these iron bands; it longs to cast off the yoke of silence, and to breathe unfettered as the wanton air.  Princess Amelia had borne two days of this martyrdom, and her courage failed.  She was resolved to grant him a private interview as soon as he dared ask for it.  She wished to see this handsome face, now clouded by melancholy, illuminated by the sunshine of happiness; those sad eyes “should look up clear, and the sorrowful lips should smile; she would make her lover happy!” She thought only of this; it was her only wish.

There were many sad hours of pain and anguish, sad hours in which she saw her danger, and wished to escape.  In her despair and agony she was almost ready to cast herself at the feet of her mother, to confess all, and seek this sure protection against her own girlish weakness; but the voice of love in her heart held her back from this step; she closed her eyes to the abyss which was before her and pressed panting onward to the brink.  If Amelia had had a friend, a sister whom she could love and trust, she might have been saved; but her rank made a true friend impossible; being a princess, she was isolated.  Her only friend and sister had alienated her heart, through the intrigues by which she had won the crown of Sweden.

Perhaps these costly and magnificent wedding festivities which would have been prepared for her, had she not refused a husband worthy of her birth, aroused her anger, and in her rage and her despair she entered upon dangerous paths, and fell into the cruel snares of Pollnitz.  She said to herself:  “Yes, all this honor and glory was my own, but my weak heart and my perfidious sister wrenched them from my grasp.  Fate offered me a way of escape, but my sister cast me into the abyss in which I now stand; upon her rests the responsibility.  Upon her head be my tears, my despair, my misery, and my shame.  Ulrica prevented me from being a queen; well, then, I will be simply a young girl, who loves and who offers up all to her beloved, her pride, her rank, and the unstained greatness of her ancestors.  For Ulrica be honor, pomp, and power; for me the mystery of love, and a girl’s silent happiness.  Who can say which of us is most to be envied?”