‘Richmond! my son!  Richie!  Harry Richmond!  Richmond Roy!’

That was what the statue gave forth.

My head was like a ringing pan.  I knew it was my father, but my father with death and strangeness, earth, metal, about him; and his voice was like a human cry contending with earth and metal-mine was stifled.  I saw him descend.  I dismounted.  We met at the ropes and embraced.  All his figure was stiff, smooth, cold.  My arms slid on him.  Each time he spoke I thought it an unnatural thing:  I myself had not spoken once.

After glancing by hazard at the empty saddle of the bronze horse, I called to mind more clearly the appalling circumstance which had stupefied the whole crowd.  They had heard a statue speak—­had seen a figure of bronze walk.  For them it was the ancestor of their prince; it was the famous dead old warrior of a hundred and seventy years ago set thus in motion.  Imagine the behaviour of people round a slain tiger that does not compel them to fly, and may yet stretch out a dreadful paw!  Much so they pressed for a nearer sight of its walnut visage, and shrank in the act.  Perhaps I shared some of their sensations.  I cannot tell:  my sensations were tranced.  There was no warmth to revive me in the gauntlet I clasped.  I looked up at the sky, thinking that it had fallen dark.

CHAPTER XVII

MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS

The people broke away from us like furrowed water as we advanced on each side of the ropes toward the margravine’s carriage.

I became a perfectly mechanical creature:  incapable, of observing, just capable of taking an impression here and there; and in such cases the impressions that come are stamped on hot wax; they keep the scene fresh; they partly pervert it as well.  Temple’s version is, I am sure, the truer historical picture.  He, however, could never repeat it twice exactly alike, whereas I failed not to render image for image in clear succession as they had struck me at the time.  I could perceive that the figure of the Prince Albrecht, in its stiff condition, was debarred from vaulting, or striding, or stooping, so that the ropes were a barrier between us.  I saw the little Princess Ottilia eyeing us with an absorbed comprehensive air quite unlike the manner of a child.  Dots of heads, curious faces, peering and starting eyes, met my vision.  I heard sharp talk in German, and a rider flung his arm, as if he wished to crash the universe, and flew off.  The margravine seemed to me more an implacable parrot than a noble lady.  I thought to myself:  This is my father, and I am not overjoyed or grateful.  In the same way, I felt that the daylight was bronze, and I did not wonder at it:  nay, I reasoned on the probability of a composition of sun and mould producing that colour.  The truth was, the powers of my heart and will were frozen; I thought and felt at random.  And I crave excuses for dwelling on such trifling phenomena of the sensations, which have been useful to me by helping me to realize the scene, even as at the time they obscured it.