re it? I do not, sir,
and I hope to turn my picture into reality. You and yours once, ages
ago, made your picture reality; now it is the turn of us others: your
reality has lasted long enough...."

Othomar, haughtily, tried to say something in opposition; the old man,
however, suddenly turned to him and, gently though roughly, said, his
penetrating, fanatical voice which made Othomar shudder:

"For you, sir, I feel pity! I do not hate you, although you may think I
do. I hate nobody. The older I have grown, the less I have learned to
hate, the more softness has entered into me. See here: I hear something
in your voice and see something in your eyes that ... that attracts me,
sir. I tell you this straight out. It is very foolish of me, perhaps, to
talk like this to my future emperor. But it is so: something in you
attracts me. And I feel pity for you. Do you know why? Because the time
will come!"

He suddenly pointed upwards, with a strange impressiveness, and
continued:

"The hour will come. Perhaps it is very near. If it does not come in
your father's reign, it will come in your reign or your son's. But come
it will! And therefore I feel pity for you. For you will not have enough
love for your people. Not enough love to say to them, 'I am as all of
you and nothing more. I will possess no more than any of you, for I do
not want abundance while you suffer need. I will not rule over you, for
I am only a human being like yourselves and no more human than you.' Are
you more human? If you were more, then you would be entitled to rule,
yes, then, then ... See here, young man: you will never have so much
love for your people as to do all this, oh, and more still and more! You
will govern and possess abundance and wage war. But the time will come!
Therefore I have pity for you ... although I oughtn't to!"

Othomar had turned pale; even Herman gave a little shudder. It was more
because of the oracular voice of the man who was prophesying the doom of
their sovereignty than because of his words. But Herman shook off his
shudder and, angrily, haughtily:

"I cannot say that you are polite to your _guests_, Mr. Zanti," he said.
"I do not speak of his imperial highness...."

Zanti looked at Othomar:

"Forgive me," he said. "I spoke like that for your sake. Your eyes are
like my daughter's. That's why I spoke as I did."

Herman burst out laughing:

"A valid reason, no doubt, Mr. Zanti."

Othomar, however, signed to him to