The queen sat at the piano, practising one of Reichardt's new songs which her singing-teacher, the royal concert-master and composer, Himmel, had just brought to her. The queen wore a most brilliant costume, which, however, seemed calculated less for her silent cabinet and for the music-teacher than for a great gala-day and an aristocratic assembly at court. A white satin dress, inter-woven with golden flowers, and closely fitting, according to the fashion of that period, surrounded her noble figure. Her splendid white arms were bare, and her wrists were adorned with two bracelets of gold and precious stones. Her neck and shoulders, showing the noble lines and forms of a Venus of Melos, were uncovered like her arms, and adorned only with jewelry. Her hair, surrounding a forehead of classical beauty in waving masses, was fastened behind in a Grecian knot holding the golden diadem, set with diamonds, which arose on the queen's head. [Footnote: A portrait, representing the queen precisely in this costume, may be seen at the royal palace in Berlin.] A gentle blush mantled her cheeks, and a smile of melancholy and tenderness trembled on her purple lips. She had her hands on the keys, and her eyes were fixed on the music-book before her; but she had suddenly ceased singing in the middle of the piece, and her voice had died away in a long sigh.
Mr. Himmel, the concert-master, stood behind her; he was a man more than forty years of age, with a broad, full face, beaming with health, and a tall and slender form which would have been more fitting for the head of an Apollo than for this head, which reminded the beholder of a buffalo rather than of a god.
When the queen paused, a joyful smile overspread his features, which had hitherto been gloomy and ill at ease. "Your majesty pauses?" he asked, hastily. "Well, I wish your majesty joy of it. That Mr. Reichardt, of Halle, is too sentimental and arrogant a composer, and never should I have dared to lay these new pieces of his before your majesty if you had not asked me to bring you every thing written by Reichardt. Well, you have seen it now; it displeases your majesty, and I am glad of it, for--"
"For," said the queen, gently interrupting him, "for the great composer Himmel is again jealous of the great composer Reichardt. Is it not so?"
She raised her dark-blue eyes at this question to Himmel's face, and he saw to his dismay that there were tears in those eyes.
"What!" he asked in terror, "your majesty has wept?"
She nodded in the affirmative, smiling gently. "Yes," she said, after a pause, "I have wept, and hence I could not continue singing.
Do not scold me, do not be angry with me, my dear and stern teacher.
This song has moved me profoundly; it is so simple and yet so touching, that it must have come out of the depths of a truly noble heart."
Mr. Himmel replied only with a low sigh and an almost inaudible murmur, which the queen, however, understood very well.
"Perhaps," she said, trying gently to heal the jealous pangs of the composer, "perhaps I was so deeply moved by the words rather than by the music; these words are so beautiful that it seems to me Goethe never wrote any thing more beautiful."
And bending over the music-book, she read in an undertone:
"Wer nie sein Brod mit Thranen ass, Wer nie die kummervollen Nachte Auf seinem Bette einsam sass, Der kennt euch nicht, Ihr himmlischen Machte!"
[Footnote:
"He who never ate his bread with tears, He who never, through nights of affliction, Sat on his lonely bed, He does not know you, powers of heaven!"]
"Say yourself, Mr. Himmel, is not that beautiful and touching?" she asked, looking up again to her teacher.
"Beautiful and touching for those who have wept much and suffered much," said Himmel, harshly; "but I cannot conceive why these words should touch your majesty, whose whole life has hitherto illuminated the world like an uninterrupted sunny spring morning."
"Hitherto," repeated the queen, musingly, "yes, hitherto, indeed, my life was a sunny spring morning, but who is able to fathom what clouds may soon appear on the horizon, and how cloudy and gloomy the evening may be? This song reechoes in my soul like a melancholy foreboding, and clings to its wings as if it wanted to paralyze their flight. 'He who never ate his bread with tears,' ah, how mournful it sounds, and what a long story of suffering is contained in these few words!"
The queen paused, and two tears, glistening more beautifully than the diamonds of her golden diadem, slowly ran down her cheeks.
Concert-master Himmel was not courageous enough to interrupt the silence of the queen, or, may be, he had not listened very attentively to her words, and his thoughts perhaps were fixed on matters of an entirely different character, for his air was absent and gloomy; his eyes glanced around the room, but returned continually to the lovely form of the queen.
Suddenly Louisa seemed to arouse herself violently from her gloomy meditation, and after hastily wiping the tears from her eyes she forced herself to smile.
"It is not good to give way to melancholy forebodings," she said, "particularly in the presence of a stern teacher. We must improve our time in a more useful manner, for time is a very precious thing; and if I had not judiciously profited by my short leisure to-day, I should not have had a single hour to spare for my teacher, for there will be a reception in the palace to-night, and I must previously give audience to several visitors. I have, therefore, made my evening toilet in the afternoon, and thereby gained time to take my dear singing-lesson. But now let us study, so that your pupil may redound to your honor."
"Oh, your majesty," ejaculated Himmel, "my honor and my happiness!"
