Noble Girl

Since all these occasions whose history I have set down occurred I have lived a very quiet life at a cottage which I have taken in the country. The average passions and goals of guys in my setting seem to me boring and also unappealing. I have little fancy for the try of culture, and none for the jostle of national politics. Lady Burlesdon absolutely despairs of me; my neighbors believe me an indolent, fanciful, unsociable other. Yet I am a boy; and also in some cases I have a fancy-- the superstitious would call it a presentiment-- that my part in life is not yet completely played; that, somehow and also some day, I will blend once again in wonderful events, I shall again rotate policies in a hectic brain, match my wits versus my enemies', brace my muscles to eliminate a good battle as well as strike stout impacts. Such is the cells of my ideas as, with gun or rod in hand, I roam via the timbers or alongside the stream. Whether the fancy will certainly be met, I can not inform-- still much less whether the scene that, led by memory, I lay for my new exploits will be real one-- for I love to see myself once more in the crowded streets of Strelsau, or beneath the frowning keep of the Castle of Zenda.
Hence led, my broodings leave the future, and transform back on the past. Forms climb before me in lengthy selection-- the wild initial revel with the King, the thrill with my brave tea-table, the night in the moat, the pursuit in the forest: my friends as well as my adversaries, the people who discovered to like as well as honour me, the hopeless males who tried to kill me. And, from in the middle of these last, comes one that alone of every one of them yet goes on planet, though where I recognize not, yet strategies (as I do not question) wickedness, yet transforms ladies's hearts to gentleness as well as men's to fear and dislike. Where is young Rupert of Hentzau-- the boy who came so nigh to beating me? When his name enters into my head, I feel my hand hold and the blood move quicker via my blood vessels: as well as the hint of Fate-- the presentiment-- appears to expand stronger as well as extra guaranteed, and to whisper insistently in my ear that I have yet a hand to play with young Rupert; consequently I exercise myself in arms, and also look for to delay the day when the vigour of young people must leave me.
One break comes every year in my peaceful life. Then I most likely to Dresden, and there I am met by my bosom friend and also friend, Fritz von Tarlenheim. Last time, his appealing other half Helga came, and a lusty crowing child with her. As well as for a week Fritz and also I are together, as well as I hear every one of what befalls in Strelsau; and also in the evenings, as we walk as well as smoke with each other, we talk of Sapt, and of the King, and typically of young Rupert; and, as the hours expand tiny, at last we speak of Flavia. For every single year Fritz carries with him to Dresden a little box; in it lies a red rose, and also round the stalk of the rose is a slip of paper with words created: "Rudolf-- Flavia-- always." And so on I return by him. That message, and the wearing of the rings, are all that now bind me and also the Queen of Ruritania. For-- nobler, as I hold her, for the act-- she has adhered to where her responsibility to her country and also her Residence led her, and also is the other half of the King, unifying his subjects to him by the love they bear to her, giving solitude days to thousands by her self-sacrifice. There are moments when I attempt not consider it, yet there are others when I rise in spirit to where she ever stays; after that I can give thanks to God that I like the noblest lady in the world, the most thoughtful and beautiful, and that there was absolutely nothing in my love that made her autumn short in her high duty.
Shall I see her face once more-- the light face as well as the marvelous hair? Of that I know absolutely nothing; Fate has no tip, my hear

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