‘Richmond! my son! Richie! Harry Richmond!
Richmond Roy!’
That was what the statue gave forth.
My head was like a ringing pan. I knew it was
my father, but my father with death and strangeness,
earth, metal, about him; and his voice was like a
human cry contending with earth and metal-mine was
stifled. I saw him descend. I dismounted.
We met at the ropes and embraced. All his figure
was stiff, smooth, cold. My arms slid on him.
Each time he spoke I thought it an unnatural thing:
I myself had not spoken once.
After glancing by hazard at the empty saddle of the
bronze horse, I called to mind more clearly the appalling
circumstance which had stupefied the whole crowd.
They had heard a statue speak—had seen a
figure of bronze walk. For them it was the ancestor
of their prince; it was the famous dead old warrior
of a hundred and seventy years ago set thus in motion.
Imagine the behaviour of people round a slain tiger
that does not compel them to fly, and may yet stretch
out a dreadful paw! Much so they pressed for
a nearer sight of its walnut visage, and shrank in
the act. Perhaps I shared some of their sensations.
I cannot tell: my sensations were tranced.
There was no warmth to revive me in the gauntlet I
clasped. I looked up at the sky, thinking that
it had fallen dark.
MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS
The people broke away from us like furrowed water
as we advanced on each side of the ropes toward the
margravine’s carriage.
I became a perfectly mechanical creature: incapable,
of observing, just capable of taking an impression
here and there; and in such cases the impressions
that come are stamped on hot wax; they keep the scene
fresh; they partly pervert it as well. Temple’s
version is, I am sure, the truer historical picture.
He, however, could never repeat it twice exactly alike,
whereas I failed not to render image for image in clear
succession as they had struck me at the time.
I could perceive that the figure of the Prince Albrecht,
in its stiff condition, was debarred from vaulting,
or striding, or stooping, so that the ropes were a
barrier between us. I saw the little Princess
Ottilia eyeing us with an absorbed comprehensive air
quite unlike the manner of a child. Dots of heads,
curious faces, peering and starting eyes, met my vision.
I heard sharp talk in German, and a rider flung his
arm, as if he wished to crash the universe, and flew
off. The margravine seemed to me more an implacable
parrot than a noble lady. I thought to myself:
This is my father, and I am not overjoyed or grateful.
In the same way, I felt that the daylight was bronze,
and I did not wonder at it: nay, I reasoned on
the probability of a composition of sun and mould
producing that colour. The truth was, the powers
of my heart and will were frozen; I thought and felt
at random. And I crave excuses for dwelling on
such trifling phenomena of the sensations, which have
been useful to me by helping me to realize the scene,
even as at the time they obscured it.
