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Sequel to the Fourth Story of the Snow Queen

My first impression of Frederic

We were returning from our honeymoon through Europe. Still the feeling that we missed ourland, our servants, our royal bedchamber with its lily-beds and glass ceiling the Moon peepedthrough... was overwhelming.All the folks we met... Gerda and Kaj in Odense, and a third boy their age named Hans Christianwho swore for us someday hed write Gerdas tale (would he?) , Frederics fellow students backin Vienna, some French aristocrats at an inn near our homeland who we offered asylum at ourpalace on their flight from the Revolution...

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Frederic when he showed up

It was our fear of the Revolution, not our nostalgia, that kept us awake from then.When we arrived at last by fall, I was still intrigued. All foreign newspapers that I read spoke of

changes shattering Europe: refugees, wars on France, et cetera (Muninn was also feeling down,because her mate Huginn had died in my absence).

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One of our guards in uniform

The storming, the commoners uprising, it all happened by surprise- one evening without amoon. I rose from my white bed like a jack-in-the-box.Skirmish in the courtyard: the guards in silver lace versus the revolutionaries. It was clearthat my own troops were to lose for lack of military discipline. Some entered and ran upstairs

towards our bedchamber, and so did the wounded and defeated guards in silver lace. Alieutenant opened then shut the door. One of his men, in his thirties, collapsed before myspouses feet.I can hear the revolutionaries out there, waiting to get in:-Down with Princess-Elector Lieselotte!-Come on!-Were not serfs anymore! At daybreak a new age will dawn!Theres nothing to do. What does it mean to read all newspapers there are abroad, to dress insilk and velvet and satin, not to suffer in a lifetime, if...?So I take the bayonet from the fallen guards rifle. Then I approach my darling and, coaxing withsweet words laced with warning, he gives in. The bayonet faces Frederics right side. I thrust.The blade pierces brocade, linen, skin, flesh, then glides smoothly through his ribs and still is

pushed even deeper by the hand that once caressed it and waved a fan in their tete-a-tete.Some frothy blood springs from his lips and stains my gown, proving his pulmonary artery hasbeen severed.Then his heart stops, then his spine receives the point, then his flesh turns hard and pale. Iwould rather like that my sweetheart died before taking my own life. Guns are fired and I feel asort of heat in my right thigh and in my right side.Rushing to the dressing table, I pick up a vial of lily perfume and drink it all in one draught. Incase the effect should be too slow, I shatter the neck of the vial and thrust it into the back of myneck with one last effort.Then it all turns dark and quiet as day breaks.