"But, Amelia, what are you doing?" said Blucher, withdrawing his
hands in confusion. "Why, you are weeping!"
"Oh, they are tears of joy," she said, nodding to him with a
blissful smile--"tears which I am weeping for my glorious, dear
Blucher!"
"Oh, you are too good," said Blucher, whose face suddenly grew
gloomy. "I am nothing but an old, pensioned soldier--a rusty sword
flung into a corner. I am an invalid whom they believe to be
childish, because he thinks he might still be useful, and the
fatherland might need him. But I tell you, Amelia, if I ever should
become childish it would be on account of the course pursued toward
me; why, I am dismissed from the service; I am refused any thing to
do; I am desired to be idle, and the king has given me this accursed
estate of Kunzendorf, not as a reward, nor from love, but to get rid
of me, and because he is afraid of the French. When he gave it to me
last spring, he wrote that I ought to set out for Kunzendorf
immediately, and live and remain there, as it behooved every
nobleman, in the midst of my peasants. But his real object was to
send me into exile; he did not wish me to remain in Berlin!"
"Well, he had to comply with the urgent recommendations of his
ministers," said Madame von Blucher, smiling. "You know very well
that all the ministers of the king, with the sole exception of
Hardenberg, are friends of the French, and think that Prussia would
be lost if she should not faithfully stand by France.
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