Part III
DELIVERANCE
As, in addition to this, he looked at everything from a critical, almost skeptical, point of view, insisting on getting to the bottom of every quetion, he did not make the mistakes of most young men in his position -the mistakes of thinking the attentions paid him homage to his own talent. Perfectly frank with himself, he recognized that they were paid to his title and fortune.
What do these people really know of me? he often asked himself, on coming home from some court festival to the solittude of his magnificient palace.
Nothing and yet they scarcely wait for my mouth to open to applaud my speech! But if all the words I spoke this evening were written down and submitted to a man of sense, his honest verdict,would have to be ; "well, perhaps this fellow isn't exactly a fool, but the certainlyis mighty little over mediocrity. Yet the wordls persist in treating me as if I were somebody! but it is not me-louis- thet they are really concerned with, but only prnce von Hockstein," etc.
Louis was actually jealous of the prince. The latter seemed to hm an enemy, bent on thwarting and overshadowing his real self, and the noble ambition awoke in him to amount to something, in himself, apart from his rank and fortune.
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