Explore "A Crown of Straw" by Allen Upward on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THE next morning, after breakfast, Maximilian and Auguste Bernal were alone together in the small room which constituted the royal cabinet. It was furnished plainly, with little of that esthetic display which showed itself in the King's other apartments, and the walls were lined with volumes of a heavy and forbidding appearance; the presence of which, Maximilian was accustomed to say, exercised a sobering influence upon his mind, and disposed him to deal with serious business.
On this occasion he seemed to be suffering under the reaction from last night's exciting ordeal, and talked in a wild strain to which even Auguste, used as he was to all his companion's varied moods, hardly knew how to reply.