and suddenly the angel of death passed by and the brilliant season waned. in the archduchess’ bed-chamber, watching the antics of priests and doctors, he sat there unmoved. propped high, by many bolsters, in a vast blue canopied bed, the archduchess lay staring laconically at a diminutive model of a flight of steps, leading to what appeared to be intended, perhaps, as a hall of attent, off which opened quite a lot of little doors, most of which bore the word: “engaged.” a doll, with a ruddy face, in charge, smiled indolently as she sat feigning knitting, suggesting vague “fleshly thoughts,” whenever he looked up, in the archduchess’ spiritual adviser.
and the mind of the sinking woman, as her thoughts wandered, appeared to be tinged with “matter” too: “i recollect the first time i heard the blue-danube played!” she broke out: “it was at 114 schonnbrunn—sch?nes schonnbrunn—my cousin ludwig of bavaria came—i wore—the emperor said——”
“if your royal highness would swallow this!” dr cuncliffe babcock started forward with a glass.
“trinquons, trinquons et vive l’amour! schneider sang that——”
“if your royal highness——”
“ah my dear vienna. where’s teddywegs?”
at the archduchess’ little escritoire at the foot of the bed, her dreaminess was making ready a few private telegrams, breaking without undue harshness the melancholy news: “poor lizzie has ceased articulating,” she did not think she could improve on it, and indeed had written it several times in her most temperamental hand, when the archduchess had started suddenly cackling about vienna.
“ssssh, lizzie—i never can write when people talk!”
“i want teddywegs.”
“the countess yvorra took him for a run round the courtyard.” 115
“i think i must undertake a convenience next for dogs.... it is disgraceful they have not got one already, poor creatures,” the archduchess crooned accepting the proffered glass.
“yes, yes, dear,” the queen exclaimed rising and crossing to the window.
the bitter odour of the oleander flowers outside oppressed the breathless air and filled the room as with a faint funereal music. so still a day. tending the drooping sun-saturated flowers, a gardener with long ivory arms alone seemed animate.
“pull up your skirt, marquise! pull it up.... it’s dragging, a little, in the water.”
“judica me, deus,” in imperious tones, the priest by the bedside besought: “et discerne causam meum de gente non sancta. parce, domine! parce populo tuo—! ne in aeternum irascaris nobis.”
“a whale! a whale!”
“sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus speravit anima mea in domino.”
“elsie?” a look of wondrous happiness overspread the archduchess’ face—she was wading—wading again among 116 the irises and rushes; wading, her hand in princess elsie’s hand, through a glittering golden sea, towards the wide horizon.
the plangent cry of a peacock, rose disquietingly from the garden.
“i’m nothing but nerves, doctor,” her dreaminess lamented, fidgeting with the crucifix that dangled at her neck upon a chain. ultra feminine, she disliked that another—even in extremis—should absorb all the limelight.
“a change of scene, ma’am, would be probably beneficial,” dr cuncliffe babcock replied, eyeing askance the countess of tolga who unobtrusively entered:
“the couturiers attend your pleasure, ma’am,” in impassive undertones she said: “to fit your mourning.”
“oh tell them the queen is too tired to try on now,” her dreaminess answered repairing in agitation towards a glass.
“they would come here, ma’am,” the countess said, pointing persuasively to the little anteroom of the archduchess, where two nuns of the flaming-hood were industriously telling their beads. 117
“——i don’t know why, but this glass refuses to flatter me!”
“benedicamus domino! ostende nobis domine misericordiam tuam. et salutare tuum da nobis!”
“well just a toque,” the queen sadly assented.
“indulgentiam absolutionem et remissionem peccatorum nostrorum tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors dominus.”
“guess who is at the ritz, ma’am, this week!” the countess demurely murmured.
“who is at the ritz this week, i can’t,” the queen replied.
“nobody!”
“why how so?”
“the ambassadress of england, it seems has alarmed the world away. i gather they mean to prosecute!”
the archduchess sighed.
“i want mauve sweet-peas,” she listlessly said.
“her spirit soars; her thoughts are in the champs-elysées,” the countess exclaimed, withdrawing noiselessly to warn the milliners. 118
“or in the garden,” the queen reflected, returning to the window. and she was standing there, her eyes fixed half wistfully upon the long ivory arms of the kneeling gardener, when the angel of death (who had sat unmoved throughout the day) arose.
it was decided to fix a period of mourning of fourteen days for the late archduchess.
