The Prisoner of Zenda - The Original Classic Edition. Hope Anthony

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      THE PRISONER OF ZENDA

       by Anthony Hope

       Contents

       CHAPTER TITLES CHAPTER 1

       CHAPTER 2

       CHAPTER 3

       CHAPTER 4

       CHAPTER 5

       CHAPTER 6

       CHAPTER 7

       CHAPTER 8

       CHAPTER 9

       CHAPTER 10

       CHAPTER 11

       CHAPTER 12

       CHAPTER 13

       CHAPTER 14

       CHAPTER 15

       CHAPTER 16

       CHAPTER 17

       CHAPTER 18

       CHAPTER 19

       CHAPTER 20

       CHAPTER 21

       CHAPTER 22

       Chapter Titles

       1 The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs

       2 Concerning the Colour of Men's Hair

       3 A Merry Evening with a Distant Relative

       4 The King Keeps his Appointment

       5 The Adventures of an Understudy

       6 The Secret of a Cellar

       7 His Majesty Sleeps in Strelsau

       8 A Fair Cousin and a Dark Brother

       9 A New Use for a Tea-Table

       10 A Great Chance for a Villain

       11 Hunting a Very Big Boar

       12 I Receive a Visitor and Bait a Hook

       13 An Improvement on Jacob's Ladder

       14 A Night Outside the Castle

       1

       15 I Talk with a Tempter

       16 A Desperate Plan

       17 Young Rupert's Midnight Diversions

       18 The Forcing of the Trap

       19 Face to Face in the Forest

       20 The Prisoner and the King

       21 If Love Were All!

       22 Present, Past--and Future?

       CHAPTER 1

       The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs

       "I wonder when in the world you're going to do anything, Rudolf ?" said my brother's wife.

       "My dear Rose," I answered, laying down my egg-spoon, "why in the world should I do anything? My position is a comfortable one. I have an income nearly sufficient for my wants (no one's income is ever quite sufficient, you know), I enjoy an enviable social position: I am brother to Lord Burlesdon, and brother-in-law to that charming lady, his countess. Behold, it is enough!"

       "You are nine-and-twenty," she observed, "and you've done nothing but--" "Knock about? It is true. Our family doesn't need to do things."

       This remark of mine rather annoyed Rose, for everybody knows (and therefore there can be no harm in referring to the fact) that, pretty and accomplished as she herself is, her family is hardly of the same standing as the Rassendylls. Besides her attractions, she possessed a large fortune, and my brother Robert was wise enough not to mind about her ancestry. Ancestry is, in fact, a matter concerning which the next observation of Rose's has some truth.

       "Good families are generally worse than any others," she said. Upon this I stroked my hair: I knew quite well what she meant. "I'm so glad Robert's is black!" she cried.

       At this moment Robert (who rises at seven and works before breakfast) came in. He glanced at his wife: her cheek was slightly flushed; he patted it caressingly.

       "What's the matter, my dear?" he asked.

       "She objects to my doing nothing and having red hair," said I, in an injured tone. "Oh! of course he can't help his hair," admitted Rose.

       "It generally crops out once in a generation," said my brother. "So does the nose. Rudolf has got them both."

       "I wish they didn't crop out," said Rose, still flushed.

       "I rather like them myself," said I, and, rising, I bowed to the portrait of Countess Amelia. My brother's wife uttered an exclamation of impatience.

       "I wish you'd take that picture away, Robert," said she.

       "My dear!" he cried.

       2

       "Good heavens!" I added.

       "Then it might be forgotten," she continued.

       "Hardly--with Rudolf about," said Robert, shaking his head. "Why should it be forgotten?" I asked.

       "Rudolf !" exclaimed my brother's wife, blushing very prettily.

       I laughed, and went on with my egg. At least I had shelved the question of what (if anything) I ought to do. And, by way of closing the discussion--and also, I must admit, of exasperating my strict little sister-in-law a trifle more--I observed:

       "I rather like being an Elphberg myself."

       When I read a story, I skip the explanations; yet the moment I begin to write one, I find that I must have an explanation. For it is manifest that I must explain why my sister-in-law was vexed with my nose and hair, and why I ventured to call myself an Elphberg. For eminent as, I must protest, the Rassendylls have been for many generations, yet participation in their blood of course does not,

       at first sight, justify the boast of a connection with the grander stock of the Elphbergs or a claim to be one of that Royal House. For

       what relationship is there between Ruritania and Burlesdon, between the Palace at Strelsau or the Castle of Zenda and Number 305

       Park Lane, W.?

       Well then--and I must premise that I am going, perforce, to rake up the very scandal which my dear Lady Burlesdon wishes forgotten--in the year 1733, George II. sitting then on the throne, peace reigning for the moment, and the King and the Prince of Wales being not yet at loggerheads, there came on a visit to the English Court a certain prince, who was afterwards known to history as Rudolf the Third of Ruritania. The prince was a tall, handsome young fellow, marked (maybe marred, it is not for me to say) by a somewhat unusually long, sharp and straight nose, and a mass of dark-red hair--in fact, the nose and the hair which have stamped the Elphbergs СКАЧАТЬ