Library / Literature & Fiction
Long Live the King!
- Pages
- about 402
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 7.4 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
The Crown Prince sat in the royal box and swung his legs. This was
hardly princely, but the royal legs did not quite reach the floor from
the high crimson-velvet seat of his chair.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto was bored. His royal robes, consisting of
a pair of blue serge trousers, a short Eton jacket, and a stiff, rolling
collar of white linen, irked him.
He had been brought to the Opera House under a misapprehension. His
aunt, the Archduchess Annunciata, had strongly advocated “The Flying
Dutchman,” and his English governess, Miss Braithwaite, had read him
some inspiring literature about it. So here he was, and the Flying
Dutchman was not ghostly at all, nor did it fly. It was, from the
royal box, only too plainly a ship which had length and height, without
thickness. And instead of flying, after dreary aeons of singing, it was
moved off on creaky rollers by men whose shadows were thrown grotesquely
on the sea backing.
The orchestra, assisted by a bass solo and intermittent thunder in the
wings, was making a deafening din. One of the shadows on the sea backing
took out its handkerchief and wiped its nose.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto looked across at the other royal box, and
caught his Cousin Hedwig’s eye. She also had seen the handkerchief;
she took out her own scrap of linen, and mimicked the shadow. Then, Her
Royal Highness the Archduchess Annunciata being occupied with the storm,
she winked across at Prince Ferdinand William Otto.
In the opposite box were his two cousins, the Princesses Hedwig and
Hilda, attended by Hedwig’s lady in waiting. When a princess of the
Court becomes seventeen, she drops governesses and takes to ladies in
waiting. Hedwig was eighteen. The Crown Prince liked Hedwig better than
Hilda.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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