"To speak with her on matters of great importance," muttered Rietz, after he had left the room. "As if we did not all very well know what he has to say to this beautiful young lady; as if his love for her were not a public secret, well known to the queen, his wife, to the entire court, and to dear Madame Rietz, my wife! Very well, I will first ride to young Alexander, then I will speed to Schönhausen, and finally I will hie me to Madame Rietz in Charlottenburg, to make my report. My dear wife is so generous, and I can dispose of so much money! Life is so pleasant when one has money. And it is all the same who a man is and what he is! If he always has money, a goodly supply in his purse, he is a distinguished man, and is respected by all. Therefore the main thing is to become rich, for the world belongs to the rich; and I am quite willing that the world should belong to me. Oh, I will make the best use of my time; and those who suppose they can fool me by their flattery, and that I can be induced to intercede for them with the king, out of pure goodness of heart, will discover that they have calculated without their host. Money is the word, gentlemen! Pay up, and the influence of the mighty chamberlain shall be exerted in your behalf; but nothing gratis! Death only is gratis! No, I am wrong," said he, laughing derisively, as he gazed at a company of grenadiers, who were marching up the avenue toward the palace, where they were to be stationed as a guard of honor to the royal corpse. "The funeral costs a great deal of money." The grenadiers passed on; and the subdued roll of the drums, which were draped in mourning, died away in the distance, while the winds wafted over from Potsdam the sounds of the tolling bells which proclaimed the king's death to the awakening city. Rietz hurried off to send the son of the king to his mother in Charlottenburg, and then to ride to Schönhausen and deliver a loving greeting to Frederick William's new flame. It was still silent and desolate in the chamber of the dead at Sans-Souci. Strützki had once stepped softly out of the room to get some twigs from the elder-tree which stood on the terrace, to keep the flies from the face of the dead king. And now the two lackeys were standing on either side of the chair, fanning away the miserable insects that had dared to light on this countenance since the hand of the artist Death had chiselled it into marble. Nothing was heard but the rustle of the twigs and the humming of the flies, ever returning, as if to mock man's vain efforts to drive them from what was justly their own. The doors were softly opened, and the two princes glided in, and noiselessly approached the arm-chair in which Frederick lay, as if fearful of awakening him.