Victoria Read Online Free PDF

staying at the chamberlain’s, which way is that?”
    “I’ll take you there, if I may.”
    They started walking.
    “Is Otto at home?” he asked by way of saying something.
    “Yes, he’s home,” she replied shortly.
    Some men came out of a gate carrying a piano between them, blocking the sidewalk. Victoria swerved to the left, bringing her entire body into contact with her companion. Johannes looked at her.
    “Pardon me,” she said.
    A wave of delight flowed through him at this touch, he felt her breath directly on his cheek for a moment.
    “I see you’re wearing a ring,” he said. He smiled, assuming an indifferent air. “May I congratulate you?”
    What would she answer? He didn’t look at her, holding his breath.
    “And you?” she replied, “haven’t you got a ring? Oh, you haven’t. Actually, someone did tell me . . . One hears so much about you these days, it’s all in the papers.”
    “I’ve written a few poems,” he said. “But I don’t suppose you have seen them.”
    “Wasn’t there a whole book? I seem to—”
    “Oh yes, there was also a little book.”
    They came to a square. Though expected at the chamberlain’s, she was in no hurry and sat down on a bench. He stood in front of her.
    Suddenly she held out her hand to him and said, “You sit down too.”
    Only after he had sat down did she let go of his hand.
    Now or never! he thought. He tried once more to affect a light-hearted, nonchalant tone, smiling and looking at nothing in particular. Good.
    “So you’re engaged and won’t even tell me, is that it? With me being your neighbor back home and all.”
    She thought it over. “That isn’t exactly what I wanted to talk to you about today,” she replied.
    Turning serious all of a sudden, he said in a low voice, “Oh well, I think I understand anyway.”
    Pause.
    “I knew all along, of course,” he resumed, “that it was hopeless for me . . . well, that I wouldn’t be the one who . . . I was simply the miller’s son, and you . . . Obviously, that’s the way it is. I don’t even understand how I dare sit here beside you right now and hint at such a thing. Because I ought to stand up before you, or I should be lying over there, on my knees. That would be the correct thing. But I feel as though . . . And all these years I’ve been away have also left their mark. I seem to be bolder now. After all, I know I’m not a child anymore, and I also know that you can’t throw me in prison, even if you wanted to. That’s why I dare say this. But you mustn’t be angry with me for it, or I’d rather keep silent.”
    “No, speak out. Say whatever you like.”
    “May I? Whatever I like? But then your ring couldn’t forbid me anything either.”
    “No,” she said softly, “it forbids you nothing. No.”
    “What? But how am I to take it, then? Well, God bless you, Victoria, unless I’m mistaken?” He jumped up and leaned forward to take a good look at her face. “I mean, doesn’t the ring mean anything?”
    “Sit down again.”
    He sat down.
    “Oh, you should know how I’ve been thinking of you; good heavens, has there ever been a thought of someone else in my heart! Of all the people I’ve seen or known about, you were the only person in the world for me. I couldn’t think in any other way: Victoria is the most beautiful and the most magnificent of all, and I know her! Lady Victoria, I always thought. Not that I wasn’t perfectly aware that nobody could be further away from you than I was, but I knew of you—which was anything but a small thing for me—and that you lived in a certain place and perhaps remembered me once in a while. You didn’t, of course; but many an evening I’ve sat on my chair thinking that perhaps you remembered me once in a while. And then, let me tell you, Lady Victoria, it was as though the heavens were opened to me, and I wrote poems to you and spent what money I had on flowers for you, to take home and put in a glass. All my poems are for