on awaking. He sent for the members of his cabinet at four o’clock in the morning, and worked with them until eight, dictating dispatches and lengthy administrative documents, which bore witness to the vigor of his mind. At eight o’clock he desired that his friends should pay him a visit, and conversed with them as gayly and wittily as in the long-gone-by days of unbroken health. He laughed and jested about his own weakness and decrepitude so amiably, that Count Lucchesini could not refrain from giving utterance to his delight, and hailing the king as a convalescent. “My dear count,” said Frederick, shrugging his shoulders, “you are right; I will soon be well, but in another sense than the one you mean. You take the last flare of the lamp for a steady flame. My dear count, darkness will soon convince you that you are wrong. But I will profit by this transient light, and will persuade myself that I am well. Gentlemen, with your leave I will avail myself of the bright sunshine and take a ride. Order Condé to be saddled.”
“But, sire!” cried Lucchesini, in dismay.
A glance from Frederick silenced the count.
“Sir,” said he, severely, “while I still live, I must be addressed with no ‘buts.’ ”
The count bowed in silence, and followed the other two gentlemen who were leaving the room. Frederick followed his favorite with a look of lively sympathy, and, as Lucchesini was about to cross the threshold, called him back. The count turned quickly, and walked back to the king.
Frederick raised his hand and pointed to the window through which the sunshine and green foliage of the trees could be seen.
“Look how beautiful that is, Lucchesini! Do you not consider this a fine summer day?”
“Yes, sire, a very fine summer day; but it is to be hoped we shall have many more such; and if your majesty would be quiet for the next few days, you would, with increased strength, be better able to enjoy them.”
“And yet I will carry out my intention, you obstinate fellow,” exclaimed the king, smiling. “But I tell you I will never recover, and I have a question to ask. If you had lived together with intimate friends for long years, and were compelled to take your departure and leave them, would you not desire to bid them adieu, and say to them, ‘Farewell! I thank you!’ Or would you leave your friends like a thief in the night, without a word of greeting?”
“No, sire, that I would certainly not do,” replied Lucchesini. “I would throw my arms around my friend’s neck, and take leave of him with tears and kisses.”
“Now, you see,” said Frederick, gently, “the trees of my garden are also my friends, and I wish to take leave of them. Be still, not a word! I am old, and the young must yield to the old. I have no fear of death. In order to understand life rightly, one must see men entering and leaving the world. [15] It is all only a change, and the sun shines at the same time on many cradles and many graves. Do not look at me so sadly, but believe me when I say that I am perfectly willing to leave the stage of life.”
And, raising his head, the king declaimed in a loud, firm voice:
“Oui, finissons sans trouble et mourons sans regrets,
En laissant l’univers comblé de nos bienfaits.
Ainsi l’astre du jour au bout de sa carrière,
Repand sur l’horizon une douce lumière,
Et ses derniers rayons qu’il darde dans les airs
Sont ses derniers soupirs qu’il donne à l’univers.”
He extended his hand to the count with a smile, and, when the latter bowed down to kiss it, a tear fell from his eyes on Frederick’s cold, bony hand.
The king felt this warm tear, and shook his head gently. “You are a strange man, and a very extravagant one. The idea of throwing away brilliants on an old man’s hand! It would be far better to keep them for handsome young people. Now you may go, and I hope to find you well when I return from my ride.”
Having intimated to the count, by a gesture of the hand, that he might withdraw, he turned slowly to his greyhound, Alkmene, which lay on a chair near the sofa, regarding the king with sleepy eyes.
“You are also growing old and weak, Alkmene,” said the king, in a low voice; “and your days will not be much longer in the land. We must both be up and doing if we wish to enjoy another ray of sunshine. Come, Alkmene, let us go and take an airing! Come!”
The greyhound sprang down from the chair and followed the king, who walked slowly to his chamber to prepare himself for the ride.
A quarter of an hour later the king, assisted by his two valets, walked slowly through his apartments to the door which opened on the so-called Green Stairway, and at which his favorite horse, Condé, stood awaiting him. The equerry and the chamberlain of the day stood on either side of the door, and at a short distance two servants held the horses of these gentlemen.
The king’s quick glance took in this scene at once, and he shook his head with displeasure. “No foolishness, no pomp!” said he, imperiously. “My servants alone will accompany me.”
The two gentlemen looked sadly at each other, but they dared make no opposition, and extended their hands to assist the king in mounting.
But it was a difficult and sorrowful task to seat the king on his horse. Deference prevented them from lifting him up, and the king’s feebleness prevented him from mounting unaided. At last chairs and cushions were brought and piled up, until they formed a gradual ascent to the saddle-back, up which the two servants led the king, and succeeded in placing him on his horse. Condé, as if conscious that perfect quiet was necessary to the successful carrying out of this experiment, remained immovable.
But now that he was seated on the back of his favorite horse, Condé threw his head high in the air and neighed loudly, as if to proclaim his joy at being once more together with the king.
Alkmene did not seem to relish being behind Condé in manifesting joy, for she barked loudly and sprang gayly around the horse and rider, who had now taken the reins in his hand and started the sagacious animal by a slight pressure of the thigh.
The king rode slowly down the green stairway, that is, a succession of green terraces forming a gentle declivity in the direction of Sans-Souci. As the grooms were on the point of following him the chamberlain stepped up to them.
“Take care to keep as near the king as possible, in order that you may be at hand if any thing should happen to his majesty.”
“His majesty’s carriage shall be held in readiness at the Obelisk,” said the equerry, in a low voice. “If any thing should happen to the king, bring him there, and one of you must ride in full gallop to the physician Sello!”
The two grooms now hurried on after the king, who had put spurs to his horse and was galloping down the avenue.
It was a beautiful day; a shower which had fallen the night before had made the air pure and fragrant, and washed the grass till it looked as soft and smooth as velvet. The king slackened his speed. He looked sadly around at the natural beauties which surrounded him, at the foliage of the trees, and up at the blue sky, which seemed to smile down upon him in cloudless serenity. “I will soon soar up to thee, and view thy glories and wonders! But I will first take leave of the glories of earth!”
He slowly lowered his eyes and looked again at the earth, and inhaled its delicious atmosphere in deep draughts, feasted his eyes on nature, and listened to the music of the murmuring springs and plashing cascades, and of the birds singing in the dense foliage.
He rode on through the solitary park, a solitary king, no one near him; the two lackeys behind in the distance, the greyhound bounding before him; but above him his God and his renown, and within him the recollections of the long years which had been!
The friends who had wandered with him through these avenues, where were they? All dead and gone, and he would soon follow them!
He