's merit. A theme
so delightful to Paulina could not be unseasonable at any time; and never did
her thoughts revert to him more fondly than at this moment, when she so much
needed his protecting arm. Yet, the Emperor, she was aware, must have some more
special motive for enlarging upon this topic than his general favour to
Maximilian. What this could be, in a case so closely connecting the parties to
the correspondence on both sides with Klosterheim, a little interested her
curiosity. And, on looking more narrowly at the accompanying documents, in one
which had been most pointedly referred to by the Emperor she found some
disclosures on the subject of her lover's early misfortunes which, whilst they
filled her with horror and astonishment, elevated the natural pretensions of
Maximilian in point of birth and descent more nearly to a level with the
splendour of his self-created distinctions; and thus crowned him, who already
lived in her apprehension as the very model of a hero, with the only advantages
that he had ever been supposed to want - the interest which attaches to
unmerited misfortunes, and the splendour of an illustrious descent.
    As she thus sat, absorbed in the story of her lover's early misfortunes, a
murmuring sound of talking attracted her ear, apparently issuing from the
closet. Hastily throwing open the door, she found that a thin wooden partition,
veined with numerous chinks, was the sole separation between the closet and an
adjoining bed-room. The words were startling, incoherent, and at times raving.
Evidently they proceeded from some patient stretched on a bed of sickness, and
dealing with a sort of horrors in his distempered fancy worse, it was to be
hoped, than any which the records of his own remembrance could bring before him.
Sometimes he spoke in the character of one who chases a deer in a forest;
sometimes he was close upon the haunches of his game; sometimes it seemed on the
point of escaping him. Then the nature of the game changed utterly, and became
something human; and a companion was suddenly at his side. With him he
quarrelled fiercely about their share in the pursuit and capture. »Oh, my lord,
you must not deny it. Look, look! your hands are bloodier than mine. Fie! fie!
is there no running water in the forest? - So young as he is, and so noble! -
Stand off! he will cover us all with his blood! - Oh, what a groan was that! It
will have broke somebody's heart-strings, I think!