Fiction > Book editions > London, 1888 - Prince Otto

82 PRINCE OTTO
throne, however, and in the hands of a man hke
Gondremark, she may become the authoress of
serious pubhc evils.
Gondremark, the true ruler of this unfor-
tunate country, is a more complex study. His
position in Grltnewald, to which he is a foreigner,
is eminently false ; and that he should maintain
it as he does, a very miracle of impudence and
dexterity. His speech, his face, his policy, are
all double : heads and tails. Which of the two
extremes may be his actual design he were a
bold man who should offer to decide. Yet I
will hazard the guess that he follows both ex-
perimentally, and awaits, at the hand of destiny,
one of those directing hints of which she is so
lavish to the wise.
On the one hand, as Maire de Palais to
the incompetent Otto, and using the love-sick
Princess for a tool and mouthpiece, he pur-
sues a policy of arbitrary power and territorial
aggrandisement. He has called out the whole
capable male population of the state to military
service ; he has bought cannon ; he has tempted
away promising officers from foreign armies ;
and he now begins, in his international relations,
to assume the swaggering port and the vague
threatful language of a bully. The idea of
extending Grtinewald may appear absurd, but
the little state is advantageously placed, its