The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain - All 169 Tales in One Edition. Mark Twain

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Conrad was speechless. Constance hesitated a moment, and then, misinterpreting his silence, a wild gladness flamed in her eyes, and she flung her arms about his neck and said:

      “You relent! you relent! You can love me — you will love me! Oh, say you will, my own, my worshipped Conrad!”

      Conrad groaned aloud. A sickly pallor overspread his countenance, and he trembled like an aspen. Presently, in desperation, he thrust the poor girl from him, and cried:

      “You know not what you ask! It is forever and ever impossible!” And then he fled like a criminal and left the princess stupefied with amazement. A minute afterward she was crying and sobbing there, and Conrad was crying and sobbing in his chamber. Both were in despair. Both saw ruin staring them in the face.

      By and by Constance rose slowly to her feet and moved away, saying:

      “To think that he was despising my love at the very moment that I thought it was melting his cruel heart! I hate him! He spurned me — did this man — he spurned me from him like a dog!”

      CHAPTER IV. THE AWFUL REVELATION.

      Time passed on. A settled sadness rested once more upon the countenance of the good Duke’s daughter. She and Conrad were seen together no more now. The Duke grieved at this. But as the weeks wore away, Conrad’s color came back to his cheeks and his old-time vivacity to his eye, and he administered the government with a clear and steadily ripening wisdom.

      Presently a strange whisper began to be heard about the palace. It grew louder; it spread farther. The gossips of the city got hold of it. It swept the dukedom. And this is what the whisper said:

      “The Lady Constance hath given birth to a child!”

      When the lord of Klugenstein heard it, he swung his plumed helmet thrice around his head and shouted:

      “Long live Duke Conrad! — for lo, his crown is sure, from this day forward! Detzin has done his errand well, and the good scoundrel shall be rewarded!”

      And he spread the tidings far and wide, and for eight-and-forty hours no soul in all the barony but did dance and sing, carouse and illuminate, to celebrate the great event, and all at proud and happy old Klugenstein’s expense.

      CHAPTER V. THE FRIGHTFUL CATASTROPHE.

      The trial was at hand. All the great lords and barons of Brandenburgh were assembled in the Hall of Justice in the ducal palace. No space was left unoccupied where there was room for a spectator to stand or sit. Conrad, clad in purple and ermine, sat in the premier’s chair, and on either side sat the great judges of the realm. The old Duke had sternly commanded that the trial of his daughter should proceed, without favor, and then had taken to his bed brokenhearted. His days were numbered. Poor Conrad had begged, as for his very life, that he might be spared the misery of sitting in judgment upon his cousin’s crime, but it did not avail.

      The saddest heart in all that great assemblage was in Conrad’s breast.

      The gladdest was in his father’s. For, unknown to his daughter “Conrad,” the old Baron Klugenstein was come, and was among the crowd of nobles, triumphant in the swelling fortunes of his house.

      After the heralds had made due proclamation and the other preliminaries had followed, the venerable Lord Chief justice said:

      “Prisoner, stand forth!”

      The unhappy princess rose and stood unveiled before the vast multitude. The Lord Chief Justice continued:

      “Most noble lady, before the great judges of this realm it hath been charged and proven that out of holy wedlock your Grace hath given birth unto a child; and by our ancient law the penalty is death, excepting in one sole contingency, whereof his Grace the acting Duke, our good Lord Conrad, will advertise you in his solemn sentence now; wherefore, give heed.”

      Conrad stretched forth the reluctant sceptre, and in the selfsame moment the womanly heart beneath his robe yearned pityingly toward the doomed prisoner, and the tears came into his eyes. He opened his lips to speak, but the Lord Chief Justice said quickly:

      “Not there, your Grace, not there! It is not lawful to pronounce judgment upon any of the ducal line SAVE FROM THE DUCAL THRONE!”

      A shudder went to the heart of poor Conrad, and a tremor shook the iron frame of his old father likewise. CONRAD HAD NOT BEEN CROWNED — dared he profane the throne? He hesitated and turned pale with fear. But it must be done. Wondering eyes were already upon him. They would be suspicious eyes if he hesitated longer. He ascended the throne. Presently he stretched forth the sceptre again, and said:

      “Prisoner, in the name of our sovereign lord, Ulrich, Duke of Brandenburgh, I proceed to the solemn duty that hath devolved upon me. Give heed to my words. By the ancient law of the land, except you produce the partner of your guilt and deliver him up to the executioner, you must surely die. Embrace this opportunity — save yourself while yet you may. Name the father of your child!”

      A solemn hush fell upon the great court — a silence so profound that men could hear their own hearts beat. Then the princess slowly turned, with eyes gleaming with hate, and pointing her finger straight at Conrad, said:

      “Thou art the man!”

      An appalling conviction of his helpless, hopeless peril struck a chill to Conrad’s heart like the chill of death itself. What power on earth could save him! To disprove the charge, he must reveal that he was a woman; and for an uncrowned woman to sit in the ducal chair was death! At one and the same moment, he and his grim old father swooned and fell to, the ground.

      [The remainder of this thrilling and eventful story will NOT be found in this or any other publication, either now or at any future time.]

      The truth is, I have got my hero (or heroine) into such a particularly close place, that I do not see how I am ever going to get him (or her) out of it again — and therefore I will wash my hands of the whole business, and leave that person to get out the best way that offers — or else stay there. I thought it was going to be easy enough to straighten out that little difficulty, but it looks different now.

      [If Harper’s Weekly or the New York Tribune desire to copy these initial

      chapters into the reading columns of their valuable journals, just as

      they do the opening chapters of Ledger and New York Weekly novels, they

      are at liberty to do so at the usual rates, provided they “trust.”]

      SKETCHES NEW AND OLD

      MY WATCH

       Table of Contents

      AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE — [Written about 1870.]

      My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the СКАЧАТЬ