The prince lay staring at them. A deadly calm seemed to make him feel nothing, care about nothing. In his own mind he reviewed the whole historical period from Berengar to Xaveria. He knew the dates; the scenes passed cloudily before his eyes as though tapestries were being unrolled, kaleidoscopically, with the faded colours of old artwork. He saw himself again, a small boy, in the Imperial, in an austere room, diligently learning his lessons; he saw his masters, relieving one another: languages, history, political economy, international law, strategy; it had all heaped itself upon his young brain, piled itself up, built itself up like a tower. By way of change, his military education--drilling, riding, fencing--conducted by General Ducardi, who praised him or grumbled at him, or growled at the sergeants who instructed him. He had never been able to learn mathematics, had never understood a word of algebra; in many subjects he had always remained weak: natural philosophy and chemistry, for instance. For a time he had taken great pleasure in the study of mineralogy and zoology and botany; and afterwards he had shown some enthusiasm for astronomy. Then came the university and his legal studies.... He remembered his little vanities as a child and as a boy, when in his ninth year he had become a lieutenant in the throne-guards; when later he had received the Garter from the Queen of England and the Black Eagle from the German Emperor and the Golden Fleece from the Queen-regent of Spain. With such minor vanity there had always been mingled a certain dread of possible obligations which the Garter or the Eagle might imply: obligations which hovered vaguely before his eyes, which he dared not define and still less ask about of Ducardi, of his father. Gradually these threatening obligations had become so heavy and now, now they were the weights that bore upon his chest.... The weights.... But he did not stir, feeling strangely calm. Then he thought of Von Fest, of the duchess.... Yesterday, her kiss.... He had lain swooning on her shoulder and she had kissed him and long watched him with passionate looks. And all those stories of the equerries.... Then it came as with a fierce wave foaming over his absolute calmness.... Why had that man hated him, tried to murder him, tried to slay him like a beast?... Pride welled up in him, pride and despair. The man had touched him, soiled him with his breath, him, the crown-prince, the Duke of Xara! He gnashed his teeth with rage. That was a thing which Berengar I. would never have suffered! Off with his head! Off with his head!... Oh, that populace which did not know, which did not feel, which pressed up against him, seething and foaming against the throne, which terrified his mother, however haughtily she might look beyond it into the distance, with her imperial composure!...