The Princess Priscilla's FortnightVon Arnim, Elizabeth
General
The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight
Von Arnim, Elizabeth
Germans -- England -- Fiction; Princesses -- Fiction
These facts, stripped of the redundances with which I have
garnished them, were told Fritzing on the day after his arrival
at Baker's Farm by Mrs. Pearce the younger, old Mr. Pearce's
daughter-in-law, a dreary woman with a rent in her apron, who
brought in the bacon for Fritzing's solitary breakfast and the chop
for his solitary luncheon. She also brought in a junket so liquid
that the innocent Fritzing told her politely that he always drank
his milk out of a glass when he did drink milk, but that, as he
never did drink milk, she need not trouble to bring him any.
"Sir," said Mrs. Pearce in her slow sad voice, after a glance at his
face in search of sarcasm, "'tisn't milk. 'Tis a junket that hasn't
junked."
"Indeed?" said Fritzing, bland because ignorant.
Mrs. Pearce fidgeted a little, wrestling perhaps with her conscience,
before she added defiantly, "It wouldn't."
"Indeed?" said Fritzing once more; and he looked at the junket through
his spectacles with that air of extreme and intelligent interest with
which persons who wish to please look at other people's babies.
He was desirous of being on good terms with Symford, and had been very
pleasant all the morning to Mrs. Pearce. That mood in which, shaken
himself to his foundations by anxiety, he had shaken his fist to
Annalise, was gone as completely as yesterday's wet mist. The golden
sunshine of October lay beautifully among the gentle hills and seemed
to lie as well in Fritzing's heart. He had gone through so much for so
many weeks that merely to be free from worries for the moment filled
him with thankfulness. So may he feel who has lived through days of
bodily torture in that first hour when his pain has gone: beaten,
crushed, and cowed by suffering, he melts with gratitude because he is
being left alone, he gasps with a relief so utter that it is almost
abject praise of the Cruelty that has for a little loosened its hold.
In this abjectly thankful mood was Fritzing when he found his worst
agonies were done. What was to come after he really for the moment did
not care. It was sufficient to exist untormented and to let his soul
stretch itself in the privacy and peace of Baker's. He and his
Princess had made a great and noble effort towards the realization of
dreams that he felt were lofty, and the gods so far had been with
them. All that first morning in Symford he had an oddly restful,
unburdened feeling, as of having been born again and born aged
twenty-five; and those persons who used to be twenty-five themselves
will perhaps agree that this must have been rather nice. He did not
stir from the parlour lest the Princess should come down and want him,
and he spent the waiting hours getting information from Mrs. Pearce
and informing her mind in his turn with just that amount of knowledge
about himself and his niece that he wished Symford to possess. With
impressive earnestness he told her his name was Neumann, repeating it
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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