ssons; he saw his masters, relieving one
another: languages, history, political economy, international law,
strategy; it had all heaped itself upon his young brain, piled itself
up, built itself up like a tower. By way of change, his military
education--drilling, riding, fencing--conducted by General Ducardi, who
praised him or grumbled at him, or growled at the sergeants who
instructed him. He had never been able to learn mathematics, had never
understood a word of algebra; in many subjects he had always remained
weak: natural philosophy and chemistry, for instance. For a time he had
taken great pleasure in the study of mineralogy and zoology and botany;
and afterwards he had shown some enthusiasm for astronomy. Then came the
university and his legal studies....

He remembered his little vanities as a child and as a boy, when in his
ninth year he had become a lieutenant in the throne-guards; when later
he had received the Garter from the Queen of England and the Black Eagle
from the German Emperor and the Golden Fleece from the Queen-regent of
Spain. With such minor vanity there had always been mingled a certain
dread of possible obligations which the Garter or the Eagle might imply:
obligations which hovered vaguely before his eyes, which he dared not
define and still less ask about of Ducardi, of his father. Gradually
these threatening obligations had become so heavy and now, now they were
the weights that bore upon his chest....

The weights.... But he did not stir, feeling strangely calm. Then he
thought of Von Fest, of the duchess.... Yesterday, her kiss.... He had
lain swooning on her shoulder and she had kissed him and long watched
him with passionate looks. And all those stories of the equerries....

Then it came as with a fierce wave foaming over his absolute
calmness....

Why had that man hated him, tried to murder him, tried to slay him like
a beast?... Pride welled up in him, pride and despair. The man had
touched him, soiled him with his breath, him, the crown-prince, the Duke
of Xara! He gnashed his teeth with rage. That was a thing which Berengar
I. would never have suffered! Off with his head! Off with his head!...
Oh, that populace which did not know, which did not feel, which pressed
up against him, seething and foaming against the throne, which terrified
his mother, however haughtily she might look beyond it into the
distance, with her imperial composure!...

How he hated it, hated it, with all