From a drove of wild bees, swimming hither
and thither in quest of the final sweets of the year, came a low
murmurous hum, such as a man sometimes fancies he hears while
standing alone in the vast auditorium of a cathedral.
The king, from where he sat, could see the ivy-clad towers of
the archbishop's palace, where, in and about the narrow windows,
gray and white doves fluttered and plumed themselves. The garden
sloped gently downward till it merged into a beautiful lake
called the Werter See, which, stretching out several miles to
the west, in the heart of the thick-wooded hills, trembled like
a thin sheet of silver.
Toward the south, far away, lay the dim, uneven blue line of the
Thalian Alps, which separated the kingdom that was from the
duchy that is, and the duke from his desires. More than once the
king leveled his gaze in that direction, as if to fathom what
lay behind those lordly rugged hills.
There was in the air the delicate odor of the deciduous leaves
which, every little while, the king inhaled, his eyes half-
closed and his nostrils distended. Save for these brief moments,
however, there rested on his countenance an expression of
disenchantment which came of the knowledge of a part ill-played,
an expression which described a consciousness of his unfitness
and inutility, of lethargy and weariness and distaste.
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