"Vain curiosity alone could impel me to wish to know you in any other manner. I hope this puerile sentiment never will take possession of me."
"This is not a matter of curiosity, but of distrust. Your reasoning will be founded on the logic and prudence of the world. A man is responsible for his actions—his name is either a warrant or a warning, his reputation either sustains or contradicts his actions. Remember, you can never compare the conduct of any one of us with the precepts of the order. You must believe in us as in saints, without being aware whether we are hypocrites or not. You may see injustice emanate from our decisions—even perfidy and apparent cruelty. You can no more control our conduct than our intentions. Are you firm enough to walk with your eyes closed on the bank of an abyss?"
"In the practical observance of Catholicism, I have done so from my very childhood," said Consuelo, after a moment's reflection. "I have opened my heart, and abandoned the charge of my conscience to a priest, whose features were hid by the grating of the confessional, of whose name and tenor of life I was ignorant. I saw in him only the priest. The man was nothing. I was the servant of Christ, and did not care for the minister. Think you this is at all different?"
"Lift up your hand, then, if you are resolved to persist."
"Listen," said Consuelo. "Your answer will determine my life; but permit me to question you for the first and last time."
"You see! Already you hesitate, and look for guaranties elsewhere than in impulse, and the anxiety of your heart to possess the idea of which we speak. Yet go on; your question, perhaps, may give us information in relation to your disposition."
"My question is simply this: Is Albert initiated in your secrets?"
"Yes."
"Without any restriction?"
"Without any restriction."
"And toils with you?"
"Say rather that we toil with him. He is one of the lights of our council, perhaps the purest and most divine."
"Why did you not tell me this before? I would not have hesitated a moment. Lead me whithersoever you will. Dispose of my life. I am yours, and I swear it."
"Then lift up your hand. On what do you swear?"
"On Christ, the image of whom I see here."
"What is Christ?"
"The divineidearevealed to man."
"And is this divine idea revealed in all the evangelists?"
"I think not, but it is all contained in the spirit of the evangelists."
"We are satisfied with your answers, and receive the oath you have taken. Now we will teach you your duties to God and us. Learn then, in the first place, the three words which are the secret of our mysteries, and which to many who are affiliated with us, are revealed with much precaution and delay. You do not require a long apprenticeship, yet some thought is needed to make you comprehend all their significance. These words are,Liberty, Fraternity, andEquality.This is the mysterious and profound formula of the creed of the Invisibles."
"They contain all the mystery?"
"They seem to contain none; but examine the condition of society, and you will see, that to men used to be governed by despotism, inequality, and antagonism, it is either an education, a conversion, or a whole revelation that enables them thoroughly to comprehend the social necessity and moral obligation of this triple precept—liberty, equality, fraternity.The small number of enlightened minds, of pure hearts, which protest naturally against the disorder and injustice of tyranny, at once appreciate the secret doctrine. Their progress is rapid, for it is only necessary to teach them the modes of application which we have discovered. To the greater number, to men of the world, to courtiers and nobles, imagine with what care and precaution the sacred formula of theimmortal workmust be given. It must be surrounded with symbols and concealment. It is necessary to explain to them that we speak only of fictitious liberty, and restraint on the exercise of individual thought—of relative equality, extended merely to the members of our association, and practicable only in secret and benevolent meetings—of a romantic fraternity, agreed to between a certain number of persons, and restricted to fugitive services, a few good works, and to mutual aid. To these slaves of habit and prejudice, our mysteries are but the statutes of heroic orders, revived from ancient chivalry, and impeaching the constituted authorities in no manner, bringing no relief to the miseries of the people. They reach only the insignificant grades, the degrees of frivolous science or common-place precedence. For them there is a series of whimsical initiations, which gratify their curiosity, without elevating their minds."
"Of what use are they?" asked Consuelo, who listened attentively.
"To protect and countenance those who comprehend and know," said the initiator. "This will be explained to you. Europe (Germany and France especially) is filled with secret societies, subterranean laboratories, in which is being prepared a great revolution, the crater of which is France or Germany. The key to it is in our hands: we seek to retain the direction of all associations, without the knowledge of a majority of the members, and unknown to the separate organizations. Though as yet our object be not attained, we have established a position everywhere, and the most eminent of the affiliated of those societies are our friends, and assist our efforts. We will introduce you into these sacred sanctuaries, into these profane temples, for corruption and frivolity also have erected their cities, in some of which vice and virtue toil to the same end—reformation, without the evil being aware of its association with the good. Such is the universal law of conspiracies. You will be aware of the secret of the freemasons, a great brotherhood, who, under various forms, and with various ideas, toil to organise the practice and to diffuse the idea of equality. You will receive the degree of all rites, though women are admitted only by adoption, and do not share all the secrets of the doctrines. We will treat you as a man—we will give you the insignia, documents, and all the formula required for the relations we wish you to establish with the lodges, and for the negotiations we wish to carry on with them. Your profession, your wandering life, your talent, the influence of your sex, youth, and beauty, your virtues, your courage, and your propriety fit you for your part, and are sufficient vouchers for you. Your past life, the least details of which we know, suffice to assure us. You have voluntarily undergone more than mysteriescouldinvent, and you have passed them more strongly and victoriously than do their adepts the vain simulacra intended to test their constancy. Moreover, the wife and pupil of Albert of Rudolstadt is our daughter, sister, and equal. Like Albert, we profess to believe in the divine equality of man and woman; forced, however, to confess, from the unfortunate results of the education of your sex, from its social position and habits, the existence of a dangerous volatility and capricious instinct, we cannot carry out this idea in all its extent. We can confide only in a small number of women. Some secrets we will confide to you alone.
"The other secret societies of Europe will be also opened to you by the talisman with which we will invest you. In order that in whatever country you may be, you may aid us and our cause, you will even enter, if it be necessary, into the impure society of the masses, and penetrate the retreats and become the associate of the vicious, the debauched, and the abandoned. To them you will carry reform, and the idea of a pure and better understoodequality.You will be as unsullied by such a mission, by witnessing the depravity of the high-born and noble, as you have been by the freedom of intercourse which reigns behind the scenes. You will be a sister of charity to the depraved and abandoned. We will also give you the means of destroying the habits which you cannot correct. You will act chiefly on females, and your genius and fame will open the doors of palaces to you. Trenck's love, and our protection, have already unfolded to you the heart of a great princess. You will come in contact with much more illustrious persons in the execution of the duties of your mission, and will use your influence to make them our auxiliaries. The methods to be pursued successfully will be imparted to you in secret communications, and the special education you will receive from us. In every court and in every city of Europe which you may enter, we will provide you friends, brothers, associates, to aid and protect you in the dangers attendant on your mission. Large sums will be confided to you, to aid the unfortunate of our brethren wherever you may meet them, and those who make thesignals of distress, thus invoking the assistance of our order. You will establish secret societies among women, founded on the principles of our own, but adapted in manners and usage to different countries and classes. You will toil to effect as far as possible the cordial assimilation of the noble lady and thebourgeoise—the rich and the tradeswoman—the virtuous matron and theartisteadventuress.Tolerationandbenevolencewill be the formula modified from our more austere rule ofequalityandfraternity, to adapt it to society. You perceive, then, that from the very outset your mission will be glorious to your fame, as well as gentle in its character; yet it is not without danger. We are powerful, but treason may destroy our enterprise, and bury you amid its ruins. Spandau may not be the last of your prisons, nor the passion of Frederick II. the only trial you will be called on to brave. You must be prepared for dangers and difficulties, and consecrated in advance to martyrdom and persecution."
"I am," answered Consuelo, with firmness, at the conclusion of this long charge.
"We are sure of it, and we apprehend nothing from the feebleness of your character but your proneness to despair. From the first moment we must warn you against the chief point of dissatisfaction attached to your mission. The first grades of secret societies, and of masonry in particular, are, as it were, insignificant to us, and serve only to enable us to test the instincts and dispositions of the postulants. The great majority never pass the first grades, where, as I have said, vain ceremonies amuse their frivolous curiosity. To the first grade none are admitted but those from whom much is expected, yet they too are kept for a time comparatively in the dark, and after being thoroughly tested and examined, are allowed to pass the ordeal. Even then the order is but a nursery whence are chosen the most efficient of its members, to be initiated into yet higher grades, who alone possess the power of imparting most important revelations, and you will commence your career with them. The secrets of a master impose high duties, and there terminate the charm of curiosity, the intoxication of mystery, the illusion of hope. The master can learn nothing more, amid enthusiasm and emotion, of the law which transforms the neophyte into an apostle, the novice into a priestess. He must practise by instructing others, and by seeking to recruit, among the poor in heart and feeble in mind, Levites for the sanctuary of our most holy order. There, poor Consuelo, will you learn the bitterness of deceived illusions and the difficult labors of perseverance. You will see, among very many applicants, curious and eager after truth, few serious, sincere, and firm minds—few worthy in heart of receiving, and capable of comprehending. Among hundreds of people some of them using the symbols of equality and affecting the jargon, you will scarcely find one penetrated with their importance, and bold in their interpretation. It will be needful for you to talk to them in enigmas, and play the sad game of deceiving them as to our doctrine. Of this kind are the majority of the princes we enroll under our banner, who are decked with masonic titles that merely amuse their foolish pride, and serve only to guarantee the freedom of motion and police toleration. Some, however, are, and have been, sincere.
"Frederick, called the Great, and certainly capable of being so, was a freemason before he was a king, for at that time liberty spoke to his heart, and equality to his reason. Yet we committed his initiation to shrewd and prudent men, who did not deliver to him the secrets of our doctrine. At the present moment Frederick suspects, watches and persecutes another masonic body, established in Berlin, side by side with the lodge over which he presides, and other secret societies, at the head of which his brother Henry has eagerly placed himself. Yet neither Prince Henry nor the Abbess of Quedlimburg will ever rise higher than the second degree. We know princes, Consuelo, and are aware that neither they nor their courtiers can be fully relied on. The brother and sister of Frederick suffer from his tyranny, therefore they curse it. They would willingly conspire against him to benefit themselves.
"Notwithstanding the eminent qualities of the prince and princess, we will never place the reins of our enterprise in their hands. It is true they conspire: yet they are ignorant how terrible is the work to which they lend the aid of their name, fortune and credit. They imagine that they toil merely to diminish the authority of their master, and paralyse the efforts of his ambition. The Princess Amelia carries her zeal to a kind of republican enthusiasm, and she is not the only crowned head agitated now by a dream of ancient grandeur. All the petty princes of Germany learned the Telemachus of Fenelon by heart during their youth, and now feed on Montesquieu, Voltaire and Helvetius. They do not proceed farther than a certain ideal of aristocratic government, regularly balanced, in which, of course, they would have the best places. You may judge of their logic and good faith by what you have observed of the strange contrast between the actions and maxims, deeds and words, of Frederick. They are all copies more or less defaced, more or littleoutré, of this model of philosophical tyrants. But as they are not absolute, their conduct is less shocking, and might deceive you as to the use they would make of it. We do not suffer ourselves to be deceived. We suffer these victims ofennui, these dangerous friends, to sit on symbolical thrones. They imagine themselves to be pontiffs, and fancy they have the key of the sacred mystery, as of yore the chief of the holy empire persuaded himself that he was fictitiously elected chief of the secret tribunal, and commanded the terrible army of the Free Judges; yet we are masters of their power and of every intention of their life; and while they believe themselves our generals, they are our lieutenants; and never, until the fatal day written in the book of fate for their fall, will they know that they have themselves contributed to their own ruin.
"Such is the dark side of our enterprise. One must modify certain laws of a quiet conscience when the heart is open to holy fanaticism. Will you have courage, young priestess of the pure heart and sincere voice, to do so?"
"After all you have told me," said Consuelo, after a moment's silence, "I cannot withdraw. A single scruple might launch me into a series of reveries and terrors which would lead me into difficulty. I have received your stern instructions and feel that I no longer belong to myself. Alas! yes, I own that I will often suffer from the duty I have imposed on myself; for I bitterly regret, even now, that I was forced to tell Frederick a falsehood to save the life of a friend in danger. Let me blush for the last time, as souls pure from all fraud do, and mourn over the decay of the loss of my innocence. I cannot restrain this sorrow, but I will not dwell on cowardly and useless remorse. I can be no longer the harmless, careless girl I was. I have ceased already to be so, since I am forced to conspire against tyrants, or inform on the liberators of humanity. I have touched the tree of science; its fruits are bitter, yet I will not cast them from me. Knowledge is a misfortune; but to refuse to act is a crime, when weknowwhat is to be done."
"Your reply is bold," said the initiator. "We are satisfied with you. To-morrow evening we will proceed with your initiation. Prepare yourself during the day for a new baptism, by meditation and prayer, and by confession, even if your mind be unoccupied by all personal interests."
At dawn, Consuelo was awakened by the sounds of the horn and the barking of dogs. When Matteus came to bring her breakfast, he told her there had been a greatbattueof deer and wild boar in the forest. "More than a hundred guests," he said, "had assembled at the castle, to participate in this lordly amusement." Consuelo understood that a large number of her sons, affiliated with the order, had assembled under the pretext of the chase, in this castle, which was the principal rendezvous of the most important of the meetings of the Invisibles. She was not a little shocked that perhaps all these men would be witnesses of her initiation, and asked if it could really be so interesting an affair to the order as to attract so great a crowd of its members. She made an effort to meditate, for the purpose of abiding by the directions of the initiator: her attention, however, was distracted by an internal emotion, and by vague fears, byfanfares, the gallop of horses, and the baying of bloodhounds through the woods all day long. Was thisbattuereal or imaginary? Was Albert converted so completely to all the habits of ordinary life, as to participate in such a sport, and shed the blood of innocent beasts? Would not Leverani leave this pleasure party, and, taking advantage of the disorder, molest the neophyte in the privacy of her retreat?
Consuelo saw nothing that passed out of doors, and Leverani did not come. Matteus, too much occupied, beyond doubt, at the castle to think of her, brought her no dinner. Was this, as Supperville said, a fast carefully imposed, a fast intended to weaken the mental powers of the adept?
Towards night, when she returned to the library, whence she had gone an hour before to take the air, she shrank with terror at the sight of a man, red and masked, sitting in her chair. Soon, however, she regained her presence of mind, for she recognized the frail old man who was her spiritual father. "My child," said he, rising and coming to meet her, "have you nothing to say to me? Have I yet your confidence?"
"You have, sir," said Consuelo, making him sit on the chair, and taking a folding chair in the embrasure of the window; "I have long wished to speak to you."
Then she told faithfully all that had passed between her, Albert, and the stranger, since their last interview. She concealed none of the involuntary emotions she had experienced.
When she was done, the old man was silent long enough to trouble and annoy Consuelo. Persuaded by her, at last, to judge her conduct and sentiments, he said, "Your conduct is irreproachable: what, though, can I say of your sentiments? That sudden, insurmountable, violent affection called love, is a consequence of the good and bad instincts which God has permitted to penetrate or placed in our souls for our perfection or punishment. Bad human laws—which always oppose, in all things, the will of nature and the designs of Providence—often make an inspiration of God a crime, and curse the sentiment he has blessed, while they sanction infamous unions and base instincts. It is for us legislators—excepted from common-place laws, hidden constructors of a new society—to distinguish as much as possible legitimate and true love from a vain and guilty passion, that we may pronounce in the name of a purer and more generous law than that of the world, on the fate you merit. Will you be willing to commit it to our decision? Will you grant us the power to bind and loose?"
"You inspire me with absolute confidence; I have told you so, and I now repeat it."
"Well, Consuelo, we will discuss and deliberate on this question of the life and death of your love and that of Albert."
"And shall I not have a right to listen to the appeal of my conscience?"
"Yes, to enlighten us; when I have heard all, I will be your advocate. You must, however, relieve me of the seal of the confessional."
"What! you would not be the only confidant of my innocent sentiments, my agonies, my sufferings?"
"If you drew up a petition for divorce, and presented it to the tribunal, would you have no public complaints to make? This suffering will be spared to you. You have no complaints to make of any one? Is it not more pleasant to avow love than hatred?"
"Is it enough to feel a new passion, to have the right to abjure an old one?"
"You did not love Albert."
"It seems I did not: yet, I would not swear so."
"You would have no doubt, had you loved him. Besides, the question you ask carries a reply in itself. The new love, from the necessity of things, excludes the old."
"Do not decide too quickly on that, my father," said Consuelo, with a sad smile. "Although I love Albert differently from the other, I do not love him less than I used to do; who knows if I do not love him more? I feel ready to sacrifice this unknown man to him, though the thought of the latter deprives me of sleep, and makes my heart beat at the very moment I speak to you."
"Is it not the pride of duty, rather a self-devotion than love for Albert, which makes you thus prefer him?"
"I do not think so."
"Are you sure? Remember, here you are far from the world, sheltered from its opinions, and protected from its laws. Should we give you a new rule of life and new ideas of duty, would you persist in preferring the happiness of a man you do not love to one whom you do?"
"Have I ever told you that I do not love Albert?" said Consuelo, eagerly.
"I can answer this question only by another, my daughter—can two loves exist at once?"
"Yes; two different loves. One may love a brother and a husband."
"Yet not a husband and a lover. The rights of a brother and lover are different. Those of a husband and lover are identical; unless, indeed, the husband consent to become a brother. In that case, the law of marriage would be violated in its most mysterious, intimate, and sacred relation. It would be a divorce, except that it would not be public. Reply to me, Consuelo: I am an old man, on the brink of the tomb, and you are a child. I am here as your parent and confessor. I cannot offend your modesty by this delicate question, to which I hope you will reply boldly. In the enthusiastic friendship which Albert inspired, was there not always a secret and insurmountable terror at the idea of his caresses?"
"There was," said Consuelo, with a blush. "Usually this idea was not mingled with that of his love, to which it seemed strange: when it did arise, however, a deathly chill passed through my veins."
"And the breath of the man you call Leverani inspired you with new life?"
"That, too, is true. Should not such instincts be stifled by our will?"
"Why? Has God suggested them for nothing? Has he authorised you to abjure your sex, and to pronounce in marriage either the vestal vow or the more degrading asseveration of slavery. The passiveness of slavery has something like the coldness and degradation of prostitution. Did God intend any being should be so degraded? Woe to the children sprung from such unions! God inflicts some disgrace on them; their organization is either incomplete, or they are delirious or stupid. They do not belong altogether to humanity, not having been begotten according to that law of humanity which requires reciprocity of ardor and a community of feeling between man and woman. Where that reciprocity is not, there is no equality; where equality is crushed, there is no real union. Be sure, then, that God, far from commanding your sex to make such sacrifices, forbids and refuses them the right to make them. Such a suicide is base, and far more cowardly than the renunciation of life. The vow of continence is inhuman and anti-social, but continence with love is monstrous. Deflect, Consuelo, and if you persist in thus annihilating yourself, think on the part you assign your husband, should he adopt it without understanding your submission. Unless he be deceived, I can assure you he will never receive you: deceived, however, by your devotion, intoxicated by your generosity, would he not seem to you either strangely selfish or egotistical? Would you not degrade him in your eyes, as you really would in the presence of God, by thus ensnaring his candor and making it almost impossible for him not to succumb? Where would his grandeur and delicacy be, did he not read the pallor of your lips and the tears in your eyes? Can you flatter yourself that hatred would not enter your heart in spite of yourself, mingled with shame and regret at not having been understood or comprehended? No: woman, you have no right to deceive the love in your bosom; you would rather have a right to suppress it. Whatever cynics and philosophers say in relation to the passive condition of the feminine sex in the order of nature, what always will distinguish man from brutes, will be discernment in love and the right to choose. Vanity and cupidity makes the majority of marriagessworn prostitution, as the old Lollards called it. Devotion and generosity alone can guide the heart to such results. Virgin, it has been my duty to instruct you in delicate matters, which the purity of your life prevented you from foreseeing or analysing. When a mother marries her daughter, she reveals to her a portion of what she has hitherto concealed, with more or less prudence and wisdom. You had no mother when you pronounced, with an enthusiasm which was rather fanatical than human, an oath to belong to a man whom you loved in an incomplete manner. A mother—given you to-day to assist and enlighten you in your new relations at the hour of the divorce or definitive sanction of this strange marriage—this mother, Consuelo, is myself; for I am not a man but a woman."
"You a woman!" said Consuelo, looking with surprise at the thin and blue, but delicate and really feminine hand which during this discourse had taken possession of hers.
"This pale and broken old man," said the strange confessor, "this suffering old being (whose stifled voice no longer indicated her sex) is a woman overpowered by grief, disease, and anxiety rather than by age. I am not more than sixty, Consuelo, though in this dress, which I wear only as an Invisible, I seem an ill-tempered octogenarian. In other particulars, as in this, I am but a ruin; yet I was a tall, healthy-looking, beautiful and an imposing woman. At thirty I was already bent, and trembling as you see me. Would you know, my child, the cause of this decay? It was a misfortune, from which I wish to preserve you—an incomplete love, an unfortunate attachment, a terrible effort of courage and resignation, which for ten years bound me to a man I esteemed, but could not love. A man would not have been able to tell you what are the sacred rights and true duties of a woman in love. They made their laws and ideas without consulting us. I have, however, often enlightened the minds of my associates in this particular, and they have had the courage and nerve to hear me. Believe me, I was aware if they did not place themselves in direct contact with you, they would not have the key to your heart, and would perhaps condemn you to complete degradation, to endless suffering, whilst your virtue looked for happiness. Now, open your heart to me, Consuelo. Do you love Leverani?"
"Alas! I love him. The fact is but too true," said Consuelo, placing the hand of the mysterious sybil on her lip. "His presence terrifies me more than Albert's did. This terror, however, is mixed with strange pleasures. His arms are a magnet which attracts me to him; and when his lips press my brow, I am transported to another world, where I live and breathe differently from here."
"Well, Consuelo, you must love this man, and forget Albert. Now I pronounce the divorce: it is my duty and my right to do so."
"Whatsoever you may say, I cannot submit to this sentence until I have seen Albert—until he has spoken to and renounced me without regret—until he relieves me from my promise without contempt."
"Either you do not know Albert, or you fear him. I know him, and have a stronger claim on him than on yourself, and can speak in his name. We are alone, Consuelo, and I can open my heart to you, that not being forbidden. Although I belong to the supreme council of the Invisibles, their nearest disciples shall never know me. My situation and yours are, however, peculiar. Look at my withered face, and see if my features are not familiar to you."
As she spoke the sibyl took off her mask and false hair, and revealed to Consuelo a female head, old and marked with suffering, it is true, but with incomparable beauty of outline, and a sublime expression of goodness, sadness, and power. These three so different habits of mind, and which are rarely united in the same person, were marked on the broad brow, in the maternal smile, the profound glance of the sibyl. The shape of her head and the lower part of her face announced great natural power, but the ravages of disease were too visible, and a kind of nervousness made her head tremble in a manner that recalled a dying Niobe, or rather Mary at the foot of the cross. Grey hair, fine and glossy as floss silk, was parted across her brow, and, bound in small folds around her temple, strangely completed her noble and striking appearance. At this epoch all women wore powder, with their curls gathered up behind, exhibiting their full foreheads. The sibyl had her hair braided in a less careful manner, to facilitate her disguise, not being aware that she adopted the one most in harmony with the cast and expression of her face. Consuelo looked for a long time at her with respect and admiration. At length, however, under the influence of great surprise, she cried out, seizing the sibyl's hands—
"My God! How much you resemble him!"
"Yes, I do resemble Albert; or, rather, he resembles me very much," replied she. "Have you never seen my portrait?"
Seeing Consuelo make an effort of memory, she said, to assist her—
"A portrait which was as much like me as it is possible for art to resemble nature, and of which I am now a mere shadow. A full portrait of a woman in young, fresh, and brilliant beauty, with a corsage of gold brocade covered with flowers and gems, a purple cloak, and black hair with knots of pearls and ribbons to keep the tresses from the shoulders. Thus was I dressed forty years ago on my wedding-day. I was beautiful, but could not long remain so, for death had made my heart its own."
"The portrait of which you speak," said Consuelo, "is at the Giants' Castle, in Albert's room. It is the portrait of his mother, whom he did not remember distinctly, but whom he yet adored, and in his ecstasies fancied he yet saw and heard. Can, you be a near relation to the noble Wanda, of Prachalitz, and consequently——"
"IamWanda of Prachalitz!" said the sibyl regaining something of the firmness of her voice and attitude. "I am Albert's mother! I am the widow of Christian of Rudolstadt—the descendant of John Ziska deCalice, and the mother-in-law of Consuelo! I wish to be merely her adoptive mother, for she does not love Albert, and he must not be happy at the expense of his wife."
"His mother! His mother!" said Consuelo, falling at Wanda's knees. "Are you not a spectre? Were you not mourned for at the Giants' Castle as if you were dead?"
"Twenty years ago, Wanda of Prachalitz, Countess of Rudolstadt, was buried in the chapel of the Giants' Castle, beneath the pavement; and Albert, subject to similar cataleptic crises, was attacked by the same disease, and buried there last year, a victim of the same mistake. The son would never have left this frightful tomb, if the mother, attentive to the dangers which menaced him, had not watched his agony unseen, and taken care to disinter him. His mother saved him, full of life, from the worms of the sepulchre, to which he had been abandoned. His mother wrested him from the yoke of the world in which he had lived too long, and in which he could not exist, to bear him to an impenetrable asylum in which he has recovered, if not the health of his body, at least that of his soul. This is a strange story, Consuelo, which you must hear, in order to understand, concerning Albert, his strange life, his pretended death, and his wonderful resurrection! The Invisibles will not initiate you until midnight. Listen to me, and may the emotions arising from this strange story prepare you for those excitements which yet await you!"
"Rich, young, and of illustrious birth, I was married at the age of twenty to Count Christian, who was already more than forty. He might have been my father, and inspired me with affection and respect, but not with love. I had been brought up in ignorance of what that sentiment is to a woman. My parents were austere Lutherans, but were obliged to practise the obligations of their faith as obscurely as possible. Their habits and ideas were excessively rigid, and had great power on the mind. Their hatred of the stranger, their mental revolt against the religious and political tyranny of Austria, their fanatical attachment to the old liberties of the country, had passed into my mind, and these passions sufficed my youth. I suspected the existence of no other, and my mother, who had never known aught but duty, would have fancied she committed a crime, had she suffered me to have the least presentiment of any other. The Emperor Charles, father of Maria Theresa, long persecuted my family on account of heresy, and placed our fortune, our liberty, and almost our life, up to the highest bidder. I mightransommy parents by marrying a Catholic noble devoted to the empire, and I sacrificed myself with a kind of enthusiastic pride. Among those pointed out to me I chose Count Christian, because his mild, conciliatory, and apparently meek character made me entertain a hope of secretly converting him to the ideas of my family. Gladly did my parents receive and bless me for my devotion. Misfortune, though we may understand its extent, and be aware of its injustice, is not a means by which the soul can be developed. I very soon saw that the wise and calm Christian hid, under his benevolent mildness, an invincible obstinacy, and a deep attachment to the customs of his class and the prejudices of those around him—a kind of scornful hatred of all opposition to established ideas. His sister, Wenceslawa—tender, vigilant, generous but yet most alive to petty religious bigotry and pride of rank—was at once a pleasant and disagreeable companion for me. She was kindly but overpoweringly tyrannical to me; and her friendship, though devoted, was irritating to the last degree. I deeply suffered the want of sympathetic friends, the absence of the intellectual beings I could love. A contact with my companions destroyed me, and the atmosphere I breathed in seemed to dry up my heart. You know the story of the youth of Albert—his repressed enthusiasm, his misunderstood religion, and his evangelical ideas treated as heretical and mad. My life was the prelude to his; and you have sometimes at the Giants' Castle heard exclamations of terror and grief at the unfortunate resemblance, both in a moral and physical point of view, of the mother and son.
"The absence of love was the greatest evil of my life, and from it all others are derived. I loved Christian with deep friendship, but nothing could inspire me with enthusiasm, and an enthusiastic affection would have been necessary to repress the profound alienation of our natures. The stern and religious education I had received would not permit me to separate intelligence from love. I devoured myself. My health gave way; a strange excitement took possession of my nervous system. I had hallucinations and ecstasies called attacks of madness, which were carefully concealed instead of being cured. They sought to amuse and took me into society, as if balls, spectacles, and fetes, could replace sympathy, love, and confidence. At Vienna I became so ill that I was brought back to the Giants' Castle. I preferred this sad abode, the exorcisms of the chaplain, and the cruel friendship of the Canoness Wenceslawa, to the court of our tyrants.
"The death of my five children, one after the other, inflicted the last blow on me. It appeared that heaven had cursed my marriage. I longed anxiously for death, and expected nothing from life. I strove not to love Albert, my youngest son, being persuaded that he too was condemned like the others, and that my care would not suffice to save him.
"One final misfortune completely extinguished my faculties. I loved and was loved, and the austerity of my religion forced me to stifle even the self-knowledge of this terrible feeling. The medical man who attended me in my frequent and painful crises, was apparently not younger and not so handsome as Christian. I was not moved by the graces of his person, but by the profound sympathy of our souls, the conformity of ideas, or rather religious and philosophical instincts, and an incredible similarity of character. Marcus, I can mention only his first name, had the same energy, the same activity, the same patriotism, I had. Of him, as well as of me, might be said what Shakespeare makes Brutus assert. He was not one of those who hear injustice with an unmoved brow. The misery and degradation of the poor, serfdom, despotic laws and monstrous abuses, all the impious rights of conquest aroused tempests of indignation in his mind. What torrents of tears have we shed together over the wrongs of our country and of the human race, every where oppressed and deceived—in one place degraded by ignorance, in another decimated by avarice, and in a third, violated and degraded by the ravages of war—vile and unfortunate over all the world! Marcus, who was better informed than I was, conceived the idea of a remedy for all these evils, and often spoke to me of a strange and mysterious plan to organise an universal conspiracy against despotism and intolerance. I listened to his plans as mere things of romance. I hoped for nothing more. I was too ill and too utterly crushed to entertain hopes of the future. He loved me ardently; I saw and felt it. I partook of his passion, and yet during five years of apparent friendship and chaste intimacy, we never spoke of the lamentable secret that united us. He did not usually live in the Boehmer-wald—at least he often left it on pretence of visiting patients who were at a distance, but in fact to organise that conspiracy of which he constantly spoke to me, though without convincing me that it would be successful. As often as I saw him, I felt myself more excited by his genius, his courage and perseverance. Whenever he returned, he found me more debilitated, more completely a prey to an internal fire, and more devasted by physical suffering.
"During one of his absences I had terrible convulsions, to which the ignorant and vain Doctor Wetzelius, whom you know, and who attended me during my absence, gave the name ofmalignant fever.After these crises, I fell into so complete a state ofannihilationthat it was taken for death. My pulse ceased to beat, my respiration was not perceptible. Yet I retained my consciousness. I heard the prayers of the chaplain, and the lamentations of the family. I heard the agonising cry of poor Albert, my only child, and could not move. I could not even see him. My eyes had been closed, and it was impossible for me to open them. I asked myself if this could be death, and if the soul, having lost all means of action on the body in death, preserved a recollection of earthly sorrows, and was aware of the terrors of the tomb. I heard terrible things around my death-bed: the chaplain, seeking to calm the deep and sincere grief of the canoness, told her God should be thanked for all things, and it was a blessing to any husband to be freed from my continual agony, and the storms of a guilty mind. He did not use terms quite so harsh, but that was the sense. I heard him afterwards seek to console Christian with the same arguments, yet more softened in expression, but to me the sense was identical and cruel. I heard distinctly, I understood thoroughly. It was, they thought, God's will that I should not bring up my child, and that in his youth he would be removed from contact with the poison of heresy. Thus they talked to my husband when he wept and clasped Albert to his bosom, saying—'Poor child! what will become of you without your mother?' The chaplain's reply was, 'You will bring him up in a godly manner.'
"Finally, after three days of mute and silent despair, I was borne to the tomb, without having the power of motion, yet without for an instant having any doubt of the terrible death about to be inflicted on me. I was covered with diamonds—I was dressed in my wedding robe—the magnificent costume you saw in my portrait. A chaplet of flowers was placed on my head, a gold crucifix on my bosom, and I was placed in a white marble cenotaph, cut in the pavement of the chapel. I felt neither cold, nor the want of air. I existed in the mind alone.
"An hour after, Marcus came. His consternation deprived him of all thought; he prostrated himself on my grave, and they had to tear him away. At night he returned, bringing a lever and chisel with him. A strange suspicion had passed through his mind. He knew my lethargic crises. He had never seen them so long or so complete. From a few brief attacks which he had observed, he was satisfied of the possibility of a terrible error. He had no confidence in the science of Wetzelius. I heard him walking above my head, and I knew his step. The noise of the lever, as it lifted up the pavement, made my heart quiver, but I could not utter a cry, or make a sound. When he lifted up the veil which covered my face, I was so exhausted by the efforts I made to call him, that I seemed dead forever. He hesitated for a long time; he examined my extinct breath, my heart, and my icy hands. I had all the rigidity of a corpse. I heard him murmur, in an agonising tone—'All, then, is over! No hope! Dead—dead! Oh, Wanda!' Again there was a terrible silence. Had he fainted? Did he abandon me, forgetting, in the tremor inspired by the sight of one he loved, to shut up my sepulchre?
"Marcus, while in moody meditation, formed a scheme melancholy as his grief, and strange as his character. He wished to wrest my body from the outrage of destruction. He wished to bear it away secretly, to embalm and enclose it in a metallic case, keeping it ever with him. He asked himself if he would be bold enough to do so, and suddenly, in a kind of fanatic transport, exclaimed, that he would. He took me in his arms, and, without knowing if his strength would enable him to bear me to his house, which was more than a mile distant, he laid me down on the pavement, and with the terrible calmness which is often found in persons who are delirious, replaced the stones. Then he wrapped me up, covered me entirely with his cloak, and left the castle, which then was not shut so carefully as it now is, because at that time the bands of malefactors, made desperate by war, had not shown themselves in the environs. I was become so thin, that he had not a very heavy burden. Marcus crossed the woods, and chose the least frequented paths. He twice placed me on the rocks, being overcome with grief and terror, rather than with fatigue. He has told me since, more than once, that he was horrified at this violation of a grave, and that he was tempted to carry me back. At last he reached his home, going noiselessly into his garden, and put me, unseen by any one, into an isolated building, which was his study. There the joy of feeling myself saved, the first feeling of pleasure I had experienced in ten years, loosened my tongue, and I was able to make a faint exclamation.
"A new emotion violently succeeded the depression. I was suddenly gifted with excessive powers, and uttered cries and groans. The servant and gardener of Marcus came, thinking that he was being murdered. He had the presence of mind to meet them, saying that a lady had come to his house, to give birth secretly to a child, and that he would kill any one who saw her, and discharge any one who was so unfortunate as to mention the circumstance. This feint succeeded. I was dangerously ill in the study for three days. Marcus, who was shut up with me, attended to me with a zeal and intelligence which were worthy of his will. When I was cured, and could collect my ideas, I threw myself in alarm into his arms, remembering only that we must separate. 'Oh, Marcus!' said I, 'why did you not suffer me to die here in your arms? If you love me, kill me, for to return to my family is worse than death!'
"'Madame,' said he firmly, 'I have sworn before God that you never shall return there. You belong to me alone. You will not leave me; if so, it will cause my death.' This terrible resolution at once terrified and charmed me. I was too much enfeebled to be able to comprehend its meaning for a long time. I listened to him, with the timid submission and compliance of a child. I suffered him to cure and attend to me, becoming gradually used to the idea of never returning to Riesenberg, and never contradicting the belief of my death. To convince me, Marcus made use of a lofty eloquence, he told me, with such a husband I could not live, and had no right to undergo certain death. He swore that he had the means of hiding me for a long time, and even forever, from all who would know me. He promised to watch over my son, and to enable me to see him in secret. He gave me, even, certain assurances of these strange possibilities, and I suffered myself to be convinced. I lived with him, and was no longer the Countess of Rudolstadt.
"One night, just as we were about to part, they came for Marcus, saying that Albert was dangerously ill. Maternal love, which misfortune seemed to have suppressed, awoke in my bosom. I wished to go to Riesenberg with Marcus, and no human power could dissuade me from it. I went in his carriage, and in a long veil waited anxiously at some distance from the house, while he went to see my son, and promised me an account of his state. He soon returned, and assured me that my child was in no danger, and wished me to go to his house, to enable him to pass the night with Albert. I could not do so. I wished to wait for him, hidden behind the walls of the castle, while he returned to watch my son. Scarcely was I alone, than a thousand troubles devoured my heart. I fancied that Marcus concealed Albert's true situation from me, and perhaps that he would die without receiving my last farewell. Under the influence of this unhappy persuasion, I rushed into the portico of the castle. A servant I met in the court let his light fall, and fled when he saw me. My veil hid my face, but the apparition of a woman at midnight was sufficient to awake the superstitious fears of these credulous servants. No one suspected that I was the shadow of the unfortunate and impious Countess Wanda. An unexpected chance enabled me to reach the room of my son without meeting any one, and it happened that Wenceslawa had just left to procure some remedy Marcus had ordered. My husband, as was his wont, had gone to the oratory to pray, instead of trying to avert the danger. I took my child in my arms; I pressed him to my bosom. He was not afraid of me, for he had not understood what was meant by my death. At that moment the chaplain appeared at the door. Marcus thought that all was lost. With a rare presence of mind, however, he stood without moving, and appeared not to see me. The chaplain pronounced, in a broken voice, a few words of an exorcism, and fell half dead, after having made a single step towards me. I then made up my mind to fly through another door, and in the dark reached the place where Marcus had left me. I was reassured; I had seen Albert restored, and the heat of fever was no longer on his lips. The fainting and terror of the chaplain were attributed to a vision. He maintained that he had seen me with Marcus, clasping my child to my bosom. Marcus had seen no one. Albert had gone to sleep. On the next day he asked for me, and on the following nights, satisfied that I did not sleep the eternal slumber, as they had attempted to persuade him, he fancied that he saw me yet, and called me again and again. Thenceforth, throughout his whole youth, Albert was closely watched, and the superstitious family of Riesenberg made many prayers to conjure the unfortunate assiduities of my phantom around his cradle.
"Marcus took me back before day. We postponed our departure for a week, and when the health of my son was completely established we left Bohemia. Always concealed in my places of abode, always veiled in my journeys, bearing a fictitious name, and for a long time having no other confidant than Marcus, I passed many years with him in a foreign country. He maintained a constant correspondence with a friend, who kept him informed of all that passed at Riesenberg, and who gave him ample details of the health, character, and education of my son. The deplorable condition of my health was a full excuse for my living in retirement and seeing no one. I passed for the sister of Marcus, and lived long in Italy, in an isolated villa, while during a portion of the time Marcus travelled and toiled for the accomplishment of his vast plans.
"I was not Marcus's mistress: I remained under the influence of my scruples, and I needed ten years' meditation to conceive the right of a human being to repudiate the yoke of laws, without pity and without intelligence, such as rule human society. Being thought dead, and being unwilling to endanger the liberty I had so dearly purchased, I could not invoke any civil or religious power to break my marriage with Christian, and I would not have been willing to arouse again his sorrow, which had long been lulled to sleep. He was not aware how unhappy I had been with him; he thought I had gone for my own happiness, for the peace of my family, and for the health of my son, into the deep and never-ending repose of the tomb. Thus situated, I looked on myself as sentenced to eternal fidelity to him. At a later day, when by the care of Marcus the disciples of the new faith were reunited and constituted secretly into a religious church, when I had so changed my opinions as to accept the new communion, and had so far modified my ideas as to be able to enter this new church which had the power to pronounce my divorce and consecrate my union, it was too late. Marcus, wearied by my obstinacy, had felt the necessity of another love, to which I had attempted to persuade him. He had married, and I was the friend of his wife; yet he was not happy. This woman had not mind enough, nor a sufficient intelligence, to satisfy such a man as Marcus. He had been unable to make her comprehend his plans or to initiate her in his schemes. She died, after some years, without having guessed that Marcus had always loved me. I nursed her on her death-bed; I closed her eyes without having any reproach to make against her, without rejoicing at the disappearance of this obstacle to my long and cruel passion. Youth was gone; I was crushed; my life was too sad, and had been too austere, to change it when age had begun to whiten my hairs. I at last began to enter the calm of old age, and I felt deeply all that is august and holy in this phase of female life. Yes; our old age, like our whole life, when we understand it, is much more serious than that of men.Theymay forget the course of years—they may love and become parents at a more advanced period than we can, for nature prescribes a term after which there seems to be something monstrous and impious in the idea of seeking to awaken love, and infringing, by ridiculous delirium, on the brilliant privileges of the generation which already succeeds and effaces us. The lessons and examples which it also expects from us at this solemn time, ask for a life of contemplation and meditation which the agitation of love would disturb without any benefit. Youth can inspire itself with its own ardor, and find important revelations. Mature age has no commerce with God, other than in the calm serenity which is granted to it as a final benefit. God himself aids it gently, and by an irresistible transformation, to enter into this path. He takes care to appease our passions, and to change them into peaceable friendship. He deprives us of the prestige of beauty, also removing all dangerous temptations from us. Nothing, then, is so easy as to grow old, whatever we may say and think of those women of diseased mind, whom we see float through the world in a kind of obstinate madness, to conceal from each other and from themselves the decay of their charms and the close of their missionas women.Yes; age deprives us of our sex, and excuses us from the terrible labors of maternity, and we will not recognise that this moment exalts to a kind of angelic state. You, however, my dear child, are far from this terrible yet desirable term, as the ship is from the port after a tempest, so that all my reflections are lost on you. Let them serve, therefore, merely to enable you to comprehend my history. I remained, what I had always been, the sister of Marcus, and the repressed emotions, the subdued wishes which had tortured my youth, gave, at least, to the friendship of matured age a character of force and enthusiastic confidence not to be met with in vulgar friendships.
"As yet I have told you nothing of the mental cares and the serious occupations which during the last fifteen years kept us from being absorbed by our suffering, and which since then have given us no reason to regret them. You know their nature, their object, and result; all that was explained to you last night. You will to-night learn much from the Invisibles. I can only tell you that Marcus sits among them, and that he himself formed their secret council with the aid of a virtuous prince, the whole of whose fortune is devoted to the grand mysterious enterprise with which you are already acquainted. To it I also have consecrated all my power for fifteen years. After an absence of twelve years, I was too much changed and too entirely forgotten not to be able to return to Germany. The strange life required by certain duties of our order also favored my incognito. To me was confided, not the absolute propagandism which is better suited to your brilliant life, but such secret missions as befitted my prudence. I have made long journeys, of which I will tell you by-and-bye. Since then I have lived here totally unknown, performing the apparently insignificant duties of superintending a portion of the prince's household, while in fact I was devoting myself to our secret task, maintaining in the name of the council a vast correspondence with our most important associates, receiving them here, and often with Marcus alone, when the other supreme chiefs are absent, exercising a marked influence on those of their decisions which appeared to appeal to the delicate views and the particular qualities of the female mind. Apart from the philosophical questions which exist and exert an influence here, and in relation to which I have by the maturity of my mind taken an active part, there are often matters of sentiment to be discussed and decided. You may fancy, from your temptations elsewhere, circumstances often occur where individual passions—love, hatred, and jealousy—come into contact. By means of my son, and even in person, though under disguises not unusual to women in courts, as a witch orilluminatus, I have had much to do with the Princess Amelia, with the interesting and unfortunate Princess of Culmbach, and with the young Margravine of Bareith, Frederick's sister. Women must be won rather by the heart than by the mind. I have toiled nobly, I must say, to attach them to us, and I have succeeded. This phase of my life, however, I do not wish to speak of to you. In your future enterprises you will find traces of me, and will continue what I have begun. I wish to speak to you of Albert, and to tell you all that part of his existence of which you are ignorant. Attend to me for a brief time. You will understand how, in the terrible and strange life I have led, I became alive to tender emotions and maternal joys."
"Minutely informed of all that had passed at the Giants' Castle, I had no sooner resolved to make Albert travel, and determined on the road that he should adopt, than I hurried to place myself on his route. This was the epoch of the travels of which I spoke to you just now, and Marcus accompanied me in many of them. The governor and servants who were with him had never known me, and I was not afraid to see them. So anxious was I to meet my son, that I had much difficulty to restrain myself as I travelled behind him, for some hours, until he reached Venice, where he was to make his first halt. I was resolved, though, not to show myself to him without a kind of mysterious solemnity, for my object was not only the gratification of the maternal instinct which impelled me to his arms, but a more serious purpose, really a mother's duty. I wished to wrest Albert from the narrow superstitions in which it had been sought to enwrap him. I wished to take possession of his imagination, of his confidence, of his mind, and whole soul. I thought him a fervent Catholic, and at that time he was, in appearance. He practised regularly all the external obligations of the Roman creed. The persons who had informed Albert of these details, were ignorant of what passed in my son's heart. His father and aunt were scarcely better informed. They found nothing but a savage strictness to shelter, and blamed merely his too strict and rigid manner of interpreting the bible. They did not understand that in his rigid logic and loyal candor my noble child, devoted to the practice of trueChristianity, had already become a passionate and incorrigible heretic. I was rather afraid of the Jesuit tutor who was with him. I was afraid that I could not approach him without being observed and annoyed by a fanatical Argus. I soon learned that the base Abbé ***** did not even attend to his health, and that Albert, neglected by the valets, of whom he was unwilling to require anything, lived almost alone and uncontrolled in the cities he had visited. I observed his motions with great anxiety. Lodging at Venice in the same hotel with him, I frequently met him, alone and musing, on the stairway, in the galleries, and onquais.Ah! you cannot imagine how my heart beat at his approach—how my bosom heaved, and what torrents of tears escaped from my terrified yet delighted eyes! To me he seemed so handsome, so noble, and alas! so sad, for he was all on earth that I was permitted to love. I followed him with precaution. Night came, and he entered the church of Saints John and Paul, an austere basilica filled with tombs, and with which you are doubtless acquainted. Albert knelt in a corner. I glided near him and placed myself behind a tomb. The church was deserted, and the darkness became every moment more intense. Albert was motionless as a statue. He seemed rather to be enwrapped in reverie than prayer. The lamp of the sanctuary but feebly lighted up his features. He was pale and I was terrified. His fixed eye, his half-open lips, an indescribable air of desperation in his features, crushed my heart. I trembled like the oscillating flame of a lamp. It seemed to me, if I revealed myself to him then, he would fall dead. I remembered what Marcus had said to me of his nervous susceptibility, and of the danger to such organizations of abrupt emotions. I left, to avoid yielding to my love. I went to wait for him under the portico. I had put over my dress, which was itself simple and dark, a brown cloak, the hood of which concealed my face, and made me resemble a native of the country. When he came out I involuntarily went towards him; thinking me a beggar, he took a piece, of gold from his pocket and handed it to me. Oh! with what pride and gratitude did I receive this gold. Look! Consuelo: it is a Venetian sequin, and I always wear it in my bosom like a precious jewel or relic. It has never left me since the day the hand of my child sanctified it. I could not repress my transport. I seized his hand and bore it to my lips. He withdrew in terror, for it was bedewed with my tears. 'What are you about, woman?' said he, in a voice the pure and deep tone of which echoed in the very bottom of my heart. 'Why thank me for so small a gift? Doubtless you are very unfortunate, and I have given you very little. How much will relieve you from suffering permanently? Speak! I wish to console you; I hope I can.' He then, without looking at it, gave me all the gold he had in his hands.
"'You have given me enough, young man,' said I; 'I am satisfied.'
"'Why, then, do you weep?' said he, observing the sobs which stifled my voice. 'Do you suffer from a sorrow to which riches cannot administer?'
"'No,' said I; 'but from gratification and joy.'
"'Joy!—are these, then, tears of joy? and can they be had for a piece of gold? Oh! human misery! Woman, take all, I beg you, but do not weep for joy! Think of your fellows, so poor, so numerous, so degraded and miserable, and remember, I cannot aid them all.'
"He left me with a sigh. I did not dare to follow, for fear of betraying myself. He had left his gold on the pavement, where he let it fall in his hurry to get rid of me. I picked it up, and placed it in the poor-box, to fulfil his noble charity. On the next day I saw him again, and having watched him go into St. Mark's, determined to be more calm and resolved. We were again alone, in the half obscurity of the church. He mused long, and all at once I heard him murmur in a deep tone as he arose—
"'O, Christ! they crucify thee every day of their lives!'
"'Yes,' said I, reading half of his thoughts, 'the Pharisees and the doctors of the laws.'
"He trembled and was silent for a moment. He then said, in a low tone, and without turning—
"'My mother's voice again!'
"Consuelo, I was near fainting, when I saw that Albert yet maintained in his heart the instinct of filial divination. The fear, however, of troubling his reason, which was already so excited, made me pause again. I went to the porch to wait for him, but when I saw him pass I did not approach him. He perceived me, however, and shrunk back with a movement of terror.
"'Signora,' said he, with hesitation, 'why do you beg to-day? Is it, then, really a profession, as the pitiless rich say? Have you no family? Can you be of use to no one, instead of wandering through the churches at night like a spectre? What I gave yesterday would certainly have kept you from want to-day. Would you take possession of what belongs to your brethren?'
"'I do not beg,' I said; 'I placed your alms in the poor-box, with the exception of one sequin I kept for love of you.'
"'Who, then, are you?' said he, taking hold of my arm. 'Your voice reaches the very depth of my heart. It seems to me that I know you. Show me your face. But no, I do not wish to see it. It terrifies me!'
"'Oh, Albert!' said I, forgetting myself and all prudence; 'so you also fear me.'
"He trembled from head to foot, and murmured with an expression of terror and religious respect—
"'Yes—it is my mother! My mother's voice!'
"'I do not know your mother,' said I, terrified at my imprudence. 'I know your name only because it is so familiar to every pauper. Why do I terrify you? Is your mother dead?'
"'They say so; but I know better,' said he. 'She lives.'
"'Where?'
"'In my heart!—in my mind!—continually and eternally! I have dreamed of her voice and features a hundred—a thousand times!'
"I was terrified and charmed at his mysterious love of me. I saw in him, however, unmistakable signs of craziness. To soothe him I overcame my emotion.
"'Albert,' I said, 'I knew your mother. I was her friend. I was requested by her to speak to you some day, when you were old enough to comprehend what I had to say. I am not what I appear to be. I followed you yesterday and also to-day for the purpose only of speaking to you. Listen to me, therefore, calmly, and do not suffer yourself to be disturbed by vain fancies. Will you go with me beneath those colonades, which now are deserted, and talk with me? Are you sufficiently calm and collected for that?'
"'Were you the friend of my mother?' said he. 'Were you requested to speak to me? Ah! yes! Speak!—speak! You see I was not mistaken. An inward voice informed me of all. I saw that something of her existed in you. No—I am not superstitious. I am not mad. My heart is only much more alive and accessible than others, in relation to certain things which they neither understand nor comprehend. This you would know, had you known my mother. Speak to me, then, of her. Speak to me, with her mind—with her intellect.'
"Having thus but very imperfectly succeeded in soothing his emotion, I took him beneath the arcades, and questioned him about his childhood, his recollections, the principles which had been instilled in him, and the ideas he had formed of his mother's opinions. The questions I put satisfied him that I was well informed of his family affairs, and capable of understanding the impulses of his heart. How enthusiastically proud was I, my daughter, to see the deep and ardent love Albert entertained for me, the faith he had in my piety and virtue, and his horror of thepioushatred the Catholics of Riesenberg had for my memory! I rejoiced in the purity of his soul, the grandeur of his religious and patriotic sentiment, and in the many sublime ideas which a Catholic education had not been able to stifle in him. How great, however, was the grief, the precocious and incurable sadness which already crushed his young heart. The same kind of sorrows, that had so soon crushed him has broken my heart. Albert fancied himself a Catholic. He did not dare to place himself in open revolt against the Catholic Church, and felt a necessity of believing in the established church. Better informed and more thoughtful than his age suggested (he was only twenty), he had reflected much on the long and sad histories of heresies, and could not make up his mind to find fault with certain doctrines. Forced also to think that the innovators, so libelled by ecclesiastical historians, had gone far astray, he floated in a sea of uncertainty, sometimes condemning revolt, and anon finding fault with tyranny. He could decide on nothing, except that good men, in their attempts at reform, had gone astray, and that others had sullied the sanctuary they sought to defend.
"It became necessary to enlighten his mind, to combat the excesses of both armies, to teach him to embrace boldly the defence of the innovators, while he deplored their errors—to exhort him to abandon the party of cunning, violence, and timidity, while he recognised the excellence of a certain mission in remote time. I had no difficulty in enlightening him. He had already foreseen, divined, and resolved on all before I spoke to him. His instincts had fulfilled all wished. When he understood me, a grief more overwhelming than uncertainty took possession of his soul. The truth was unknown in the world. The law of God enlightened no sanctuary, no people, no caste. No school practised Christian virtue, nor sought to elevate and demonstrate it. Protestants as well as Catholics had abandoned the divine ways. The law of the stronger existed everywhere, and Christ was crucified every day on altars erected by men. This sad though interesting conversation consumed the whole night. The clocks slowly struck the hours without Albert's thinking of counting them. I felt alarmed at his power of intellectual tension, as it made me aware of his great passion for strife and capacity for sorrow. I admired the manly pride and the lacerated expression of my noble and unfortunate child. I felt myself reproduced in him. I fancied that I read the story of my past life, and in him resumed the history of the long tortures of my own heart and brain. I saw in his broad brow, which was lighted up by the moon, the useless external and the moral beauty of my own lonely and unappreciated youth. I wept at the same time for him and for myself. His tears were long and painful. I did not dare to unfold to him the secrets of our conspiracy. I feared that at first he would not understand them, and that he would reject them as vain and idle. Uneasy at seeing him walking up and down for so long a time, I promised to show him a place of safety, if he would consent to wait, and prepare himself for certain revelations. I gently excited his imagination by the hope of a new confidence, and took him to an hotel, where we both supped. I did not give him the promised confidence for some days, fearing an over excitement of his mental faculties.
"Just as he was about to quit me, it struck him to ask me who I was. 'I cannot tell you,' said I; 'my name is assumed, and I have reasons to conceal it. Speak of me to no one.'
"He asked no other question, and seemed satisfied with my answer. His delicate reserve, however, was accompanied by another sentiment, strange as his character and sombre as his mental habits. He told me long afterwards that he had always taken me for the soul of his mother, appearing under a real form, with circumstances the vulgar could not understand, and which were really supernatural. Thus, in spite of all I could do, Albert would recognise me. He preferred rather to invent a fantastic world than to doubt my presence, and I could not deceive the victorious instinct of his heart. All my efforts to repress his excitement had no other effect than to fix him in a kind of calm delirium, which had no confidant nor opposer, not even in myself, its object. He submitted religiously to the will of the spectre, which forbade itself to be known or named, yet he would believe himself under its influence.
"From this terrible tranquillity—which Albert henceforth bore in all the wanderings of his imagination, from the sombre and stoical courage which made him always gaze, without growing pale, at the prodigies begotten by his imagination—I fell, for a long time, into an unhappy error. I was not aware of the strange idea he had formed relative to my apparition. I thought that he looked on me as a mysterious friend of his dead mother and of his own youth. I was amazed, it is true, at the little curiosity he exhibited, and the small surprise he displayed at my constant care. This blind respect, this delicate submission, this absence of uneasiness about the realities of life, appeared so perfectly in consonance with his retired, dreaming, and meditative character, that I did not think proper to account for or examine into its secret causes. While thus toiling to fortify his mind against the excess of his enthusiasm, I aided, ignorantly, in the development of that kind of madness which was at once so sublime and deplorable, and to which he was so long a victim.
"Gradually, after many conversations, of which there were neither confidants nor witnesses, I explained to him the doctrines of which our order is the depository and the secret diffuser. I initiated him into our plan of general reform. At Rome, in the caverns appropriated to our mysteries, Marcus introduced and had him admitted to the first grades of masonry, reserving to himself the right of revealing to him the meaning of the strange and fantastic signs, the interpretation of which is so easily changed and adapted to the courage and intelligence of the candidates. For six years, I accompanied my son in all his journeys, always leaving cities a day after, and coming to them when he had fixed himself. I took care always to reside at some distance from him, and did not suffer either his tutor or valets to see me; he taking care also to change them frequently, and to keep them always at a distance. I once asked him if he was not surprised to find me everywhere?
"'Oh, no,' said he, 'I am well aware that you will always follow me.'
"When I sought to explain to him the motive of this confidence, he said:
"'My mother bade you restore me to life; and you know, did you now desert me, I would die.'
"He always spoke in an exaggerated and inspired manner, and I too, from talking with him, acquired the same style. Marcus often reproached me—I likewise reproached myself—with having fed the internal flame which consumed Albert. Marcus wished to give him more positive instruction, and to use a more palpable logic to him; at other times, however, I was satisfied, that but for the manner in which I counselled him, this flame would have consumed him more rapidly and certainly. My other children had exhibited the same disposition to enthusiasm. Their souls had been repressed, and they had toiled to stifle them—like torches, the brilliancy of which was dangerous. They yielded, because they had no power to resist. But for my breath, which revived and gave air to the sacred spark, Albert, too, had gone to join his brethren; as I, but for Marcus, would have died without having truly lived. I also sought to distract his soul by a constant aspiration after the ideal. I advised him, I forced him to rigid study, and he obeyed me strictly and conscientiously. He studied the natural sciences, the languages of the different countries through which he travelled; he read a great deal, cultivated the arts even, and, without any master, devoted himself to music. All this was a mere amusement, a repose to his vast and powerful mind. A stranger to all the intoxications of his age, opposed to the world and all its vanities, he lived in perfect seclusion, and obstinately resisted the tutor, persisting in refusing to enter any saloon or be introduced at any court. With difficulty would he consent to see, at two or three capitals, the oldest and most affectionate friends of his father. When with them, he was grave and dignified as possible, giving no one reason to complain; but he was intimate only with a few adepts of our order, to whom Marcus especially introduced him. He requested us not to ask him to enlist with thepropaganda, until he became aware that the gift of suasion had arisen in his heart, and he often declared frankly that he had it not, because as yet he did not entertain implicit faith in our means. He passed from grade to grade, like a docile pupil, yet he examined everything with a severe logic and scrupulous truth, reserving always as he told me, the right to propose reforms and ameliorations to us, when he should feel sufficiently enlightened to yield to personal inspiration. Until then, he wished to be humble, patient, and submissive to the established forms of our secret society. Plunged in study and meditation, he made his tutor respect the nervousness of his character and the coldness of his behavior. The abbé then learned to look on him as a sad pedant, and to have as little as possible to do with him, in order to have more liberty to participate in the intrigues of his order. Albert lived long in France and England without him: he was often a hundred leagues from him, and only met him when my son wished to visit another country; often they did not travel together. At such times I could see Albert as often as I pleased, and his devoted tenderness paid me five-fold for the care I took of him. My health became better, as often happens to constitutions thoroughly shaken: I became so used to sickness, that I did not even suffer from it. Fatigue, late hours, long conversations, harassing journeys, instead of oppressing, maintained a slow and tedious fever, which had now become my normal state. Feeble and trembling as you see me, there are no journeys and no fatigue that I cannot bear better than you, in the very flower of your youth. Agitation has become my element, and I find rest as I hurry on, precisely as professional couriers have learned to sleep while their horses are at the gallop.