DOI Artikel:
Lee, Vernon: Prince Alberic an the Snake Lady: to H. H. the Ranee Brooke of Saràwak$nElektronische Ressource
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26393#0344
340 Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady
gala wing overlooking the grotto. His maps and books had not
followed him beyond the higher story with the view of the
Twelfth Caesar. And now they had taken away from him his
Virgil, his inkstand and paper, and left him only a book of
Hours.
Balthasar Maria and his councillors felt intolerably baffled.
There remained nothing further to do ; for if Prince Alberic
were publicly beheaded, or privately poisoned, or merely left to die
of want and sadness, it was obvious that Prince Alberic could no
longer conclude the marriage with the drysalter Princess, and that
no money to finish the grotto and the chapel, or to carry on
Court expenses, would be forthcoming.
It was a burning day of August, a Friday, thirteenth of that
month, and after a long prevalence of enervating sirocco, when
the old duke determined to make one last appeal to the obedience
of his grandson. The sun, setting among ominous clouds, sent a
lurid orange beam into Prince Alberic’s prison chamber, at the
moment that his ducal grandfather, accompanied by the Jester,
the Dwarf and the Jesuit, appeared on its threshold after prodigious
clanking of keys and clattering of bolts. The unhappy youth
rose as they entered, and making a profound bow, motioned his
grandparent to the only chair in the place.
Balthasar Maria had never visited him before in this, his worst
place of confinement; and the bareness of the room, the dust and
cobwebs, the excessive hardness of the chair, affected his sensitive
heart, and, joined with irritation at his grandson’s obstinacy and
utter depression about the marriage, the grotto and the chapel,
actually caused this magnanimous sovereign to burst into tears
and bitter lamentations.
“ It would indeed melt the heart of a stone,” remarked the
Jester sternly, while his two companions attempted to soothe the
weeping
gala wing overlooking the grotto. His maps and books had not
followed him beyond the higher story with the view of the
Twelfth Caesar. And now they had taken away from him his
Virgil, his inkstand and paper, and left him only a book of
Hours.
Balthasar Maria and his councillors felt intolerably baffled.
There remained nothing further to do ; for if Prince Alberic
were publicly beheaded, or privately poisoned, or merely left to die
of want and sadness, it was obvious that Prince Alberic could no
longer conclude the marriage with the drysalter Princess, and that
no money to finish the grotto and the chapel, or to carry on
Court expenses, would be forthcoming.
It was a burning day of August, a Friday, thirteenth of that
month, and after a long prevalence of enervating sirocco, when
the old duke determined to make one last appeal to the obedience
of his grandson. The sun, setting among ominous clouds, sent a
lurid orange beam into Prince Alberic’s prison chamber, at the
moment that his ducal grandfather, accompanied by the Jester,
the Dwarf and the Jesuit, appeared on its threshold after prodigious
clanking of keys and clattering of bolts. The unhappy youth
rose as they entered, and making a profound bow, motioned his
grandparent to the only chair in the place.
Balthasar Maria had never visited him before in this, his worst
place of confinement; and the bareness of the room, the dust and
cobwebs, the excessive hardness of the chair, affected his sensitive
heart, and, joined with irritation at his grandson’s obstinacy and
utter depression about the marriage, the grotto and the chapel,
actually caused this magnanimous sovereign to burst into tears
and bitter lamentations.
“ It would indeed melt the heart of a stone,” remarked the
Jester sternly, while his two companions attempted to soothe the
weeping