to think for myself....

"The king loves reserve, but also gay freeness. The queen is too
serious--eternal organ sound; but you cannot dance to an organ, and we
are young and love to dance.

"A peasant woman from the mountains is nurse to the crown prince. I was
with her at the king's request. I stood by the cot when the king
arrived. He said to me gently: 'It is true, an angel stands by the
child's cradle.' He laid his hand upon mine, which rested on the rail of
the cot. The king went. And just imagine what occurred. The nurse, a
fresh, merry person with blue eyes, buxom and massive, a perfect peasant
beauty, to whom I showed friendliness, so as to cheer her up and save
her from feeling homesick, the nurse tells me in bald words: 'You are an
adulteress! You have exchanged loving glances with the king!'

"Emmy! How you were right in telling me that I idealise the people, and
that they are as corrupt as the great world, and, moreover, without the
curb of culture.

"No! she is a good, intelligent woman. She begged my pardon for her
impertinence; I remain friendly towards her. Yes, I will."

Irma's devotion to her king had something of hero-worship. And the king,
who loved his wife sincerely, but was, and wanted to be, of a heroic
nature, and who was averse to all that savoured of self-torment and
sentimentality, was attracted by Countess Irma's intellectual freedom
and _esprit_. He felt in her a kindred spirit. Her company was
stimulating; it could not affect the even tenour of his conjugal love.
But the queen, in her sentimental exultation, sought ever for new