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Page 31
They approached, stopped at her door! It is he, oh, surely it is he!
Darting to the door, she tore it open.
No! It was her father, only her father!
With a troubled cry, she sank into the chair beside the door. Her father
went to her; she did not see the sorrowful, almost pitying look he fixed
upon her. She had covered her face with her hands and groaned aloud.
Schulmeister stood before her with a gloomy brow, silent and motionless.
At last, after a long pause, Leonore slowly removed her hands from her face
and raised her head.
"Are we rich now?" she asked in a whisper, as though she feared lest even
the walls should hear her question.
"Yes," he exclaimed joyfully, "yes, we are rich."
Drawing his pocketbook from his coat, he opened it and poured out its
contents, shaking the various papers with their array of high numbers into
Leonore's lap.
"Look, my daughter, my beloved child! Look at these wonderful papers. Ten
banknotes, each one fifty thousand francs. That is half a million, my
Leonore! Look at these papers. Yet no, they are no papers, each is a magic
spell, with which you can make a palace rise out of nothing. See this thin
scrap of paper; a spark would suffice to transform it to ashes, yet you
need only carry it to the nearest banker's to see it changed into a heap of
gold, or glitter as a _parure_ of the costliest diamonds. If you desire it,
these papers will transmute themselves into a magnificent castle, into
liveried servants, into superb carriages. Oh, I already see you standing as
the proud mistress of a stately castle, in your ancestral hall, with
vassals bowing before you, and counts and princes suing for your hand. For
these magic papers will give you everything, everything; not luxury alone,
but honor, rank, and dignity, the love and esteem of men. Take them, for
the whole ten papers shall be yours. I wish to see you rich and happy,
therefore I defied disgrace and mortal peril. Come, my child, let us set
out this very hour to buy with these papers, far away from here, in an
Eden-like region, a castle which shall be adorned with all that luxury and
art can offer. Come, my Leonore, come. We have accomplished our work of
darkness, now day is dawning, now our star is rising. Come, come! Alas, the
days are so short, let us hasten, hasten to enjoy them!"
Leonore slowly shook her head. "_He_ must return," she said solemnly.
"First I must see him again, have him tell me that he will go with me to
that distant region. What would all the treasures of the earth avail, if I
did not have him! What would I care for castles, diamonds, and carriages if
he were not with me! I am expecting him--he may be here at any moment. So
tell me, father--describe quickly how everything has happened. I have not
seen you for three days; I do not know what has occurred, for, strangely,
nothing has reached the public."
"The emperor enjoined the most inviolable silence upon us all," said
Schulmeister gloomily. "The whole affair has been treated and concealed as
the most profound secret. The emperor does not wish to have anything known
about it; no one must deem it possible that people have dared to seek to
take his life, to attempt to capture him. I never saw him in such a fury
as when I first told him the plan of the conspirators. His eyes flashed
lightnings, he stamped his feet, clenched his little hands into fists, and
stretched them threateningly toward the invisible conspirators. He vowed to
kill them all, to take vengeance on them all for the unprecedented crime."
"And has he fulfilled the vow?"
"He has. He has punished the conspirators, so far as lay in his power. But
some of them, for instance Baron von Moudenfels, do not belong to the
number of his subjects, but are Austrians. The emperor did not have the
sentence which he pronounced upon his own subjects executed upon them; he
could not at this time, for you know that negotiations for peace have been
opened, and the treaty will be signed immediately. So the emperor did not
wish to constitute himself a judge of Austrian subjects; it is a delicate
attention to the Austrian emperor, and the latter will know how to thank
him for it and to punish the criminals with all the rigor of the law.
Therefore Baron von Moudenfels and Count von Kotte have merely been held as
prisoners, and were compelled to witness the execution to-day."
"What execution?" asked Leonore in horror.
"Colonel Lejeune, Captain de Guesniard, and two sous-lieutenants were shot
this morning on the meadow at Sch�nbrunn,"[E] said Schulmeister in a low
tone.
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