"I beg you to think me a voluntary prisoner, on parole."
"Ah, thus I understood it. I have never had charge of persons who were here in any other way, though I have often seen my prisoners on parole weep and torment themselves, as if they regretted having bound themselves. God knows they were well attended to here. But under such circumstances their liberty was always restored to them, for no one is retained here by force. Madame, supper is ready."
The last observation of the tomato-colored major-domo at once restored all Consuelo's appetite, and the supper was so good that she highly complimented her attendant. The latter was much flattered at being appreciated, and Consuelo saw that she had won his esteem. He was not a whit more confiding, or less circumspect, on that account. He was both shrewd and cunning. Consuelo soon saw into his character, for she appreciated the mixture of kindness and address with which he anticipated her questions, so as to avoid annoyance, and arrange his replies. She therefore learned from him all she did not desire to know, without in reality learning anything. "His masters were rich, powerful, and very generous personages. They were, however, very strict, especially in all that related to discretion. The pavilion was a dependence on a beautiful residence, sometimes inhabited by its owners, and sometimes confided to faithful, well-paid, and discreet servants. The country was rich, fertile, and well governed, and the people were not wont to complain of their lords. Did they do so, they would not get on very well with Matteus, who consulted his master's interests, and who never talked foolishly." Consuelo was so annoyed at his wise insinuations and officious instructions, that directly after supper she said, with a smile—
"I am afraid, Master Matteus, I am myself indiscreet in enjoying the pleasure of your conversation so long. I need nothing more tonight, and wish you good evening."
"Will madame do me the honor to ring when she needs anything? I live at the back of the house, under the rock, in a kind of hermitage around which I cultivate magnificent water-melons. I would be pleased if madame would encourage me by a glance; but I am especially forbid ever to open that gate to madame."
"I understand, Master Matteus. I am to confine myself to the garden, not being subjected to your caprices, but to the will of my hosts. I will obey."
"There is especial reason, madame, why you should, as the difficulty of opening the heavy gate is very great. There is a spring in the lock which might injure madame's hands, if she were not informed of it."
"My promise is a better security than all your bolts, Matteus. You may rest assured on that point."
Many days rolled by, without Consuelo seeing anything of her hosts, and without her eyes falling on the features of any individual; Matteus yet wearing his mask, which, perhaps, was more agreeable than his face.
The worthy servitor attended on her with a zeal and punctuality for which she could not be too thankful. He annoyed her terribly, however, by his conversation, which she was forced to submit to, for he refused positively and stoically every present she offered him, and she had no other way to exhibit her gratitude than by suffering him to gossip. He was passionately fond of the use of his tongue, a thing especially remarkable, from the fact that his very employment required the most absolute reserve, which he never laid aside. He possessed the art of touching on many subjects, without ever referring to forbidden matters. Consuelo was informed how much the kitchen-garden of the castle produced every year—the quantity of carrots, of asparagus,&c.—how many fawns were dropped in the park, the history of the swans in the lake, the number of pheasants, and the details of harvest. Not one word was said to enable her to understand in what country she was, if the owners of the castle were absent or present, if she was ever to see them, or was to remain for an indefinite time in the pavilion. In a word, nothing that really interested her, ever escaped from the prudent though busy lips of Matteus. She fancied she would have violated all propriety, had she come even within ear-shot of the gardener or servant-girl, who, moreover, came early in the morning and disappeared almost immediately after she got up. She restricted herself to looking from time to time across the park, without seeing any one, and watching the outlines of the castle, which was illuminated with a few lights, which, by-the-bye, were soon extinguished.
She soon relapsed into a state of deep melancholy, which, she had vigorously striven against at Spandau. These feelings attacked her in this rich abode, where she had all the luxuries of life around her. Can any one of the blessings of life really be enjoyed alone? Prolonged solitude wearies us of the most beautiful objects, and fills the strongest mind with terror. Consuelo soon found the hospitality of the Invisibles as annoying as it was strange, and intense disgust took possession of all her faculties. Her noble piano seemed to sound too loudly through the vast and echoing rooms, and she became afraid of the sound of her own voice. When she ventured to sing, if she were surprised by twilight, she thought she heard the echoes reply angrily to her, and fancied she saw flitting around the silk-hung walls and silent tapestry, uneasy shadows, which faded away when she sought to watch them, and hid themselves behind the hangings, whence they mocked, imitated, and made faces at her. All this was but the effect of the evening breeze, rustling amid the leaves, or the vibration of her own voice around her. Her imagination, weary of questioning the mute witnesses of herennui—the statues, pictures, and Japan vases, filled with flowers, and the gorgeous mirrors—became the victim of a strange terror, like the anticipation of some unknown misfortune. She remembered the strange power attributed to the Invisibles by the vulgar, the apprehensions with which Cagliostro had filled her mind, the appearance ofla balayeusein the palace at Berlin, and the wonderful promises of Saint Germain in relation to the resurrection of Albert. She said all these unexplained matters were perhaps the consequence of the secret action of the Invisibles in society, and on her particular fate. She had no faith in their supernatural power, but she saw they used every means to acquire influence over the minds of men, by attacking the imagination through promises and menaces, terror or seductions. She was then under the influence of some formidable revelation or cruel mystification, and, like a cowardly child, was afraid at being so timid.
At Spandau she had aroused her will against external perils and real suffering: she had triumphed, by means of courage, over all, and there resignation seemed natural to her. The gloomy appearance of the fortress harmonized with the solemn meditations of solitude, while in her new prison all seemed formed for a life of poetical enjoyment or peaceful friendship. The eternal silence, the absence of all sympathy, destroyed the harmony, like a monstrous violation of common sense. One might have compared it to the delicious retreat of two lovers, or an accomplished family, become, from a loved hearthside, suddenly hated and deserted, on account of some painful rupture or sudden catastrophe. The many inscriptions which decorated it, and which were placed on every ornament, she did not laugh at now as mere puerilities. They were mingled encouragements and menaces, conditional eulogiums corrected by humiliating accusations. She could no longer look around her, without discovering some new sentence she had not hitherto remarked, and which seemed to keep her from breathing freely in this sanctuary of suspicious and vigilant justice. Her soul had retreated within itself since the crisis of her escape and instantaneous love for the stranger. The lethargic state which she had, beyond doubt, been intentionally thrown into, to conceal the locality of her abode, had produced a secret languor and a nervous excitability resulting from it. She therefore felt herself becoming both uneasy and careless, now terrified at nothing, and then indifferent about everything.
One evening she fancied that she heard the almost imperceptible sound of a distant orchestra. She went on the terrace, and saw the castle appearing beyond the foliage in a blaze of light. A symphony, lofty and clear, distinctly reached her. The contrast between a festival and her isolation touched her deeply; more so than she was willing to own. So long a time had elapsed since she had exchanged a word with rational or intelligent beings, for the first time in her life she was anxious to join in a concert or ball, and wished, like Cinderella, that some fairy would waft her through the air into one of the windows of the enchanted palace, even if she were to remain there invisible, merely to look on persons animated by pleasure.
The moon was not yet up. In spite of the clearness of the sky, the shade beneath the trees was so dense, that Consuelo, had she been surrounded by invisible watchers, might have glided by. A violent temptation took possession of her, and all the specious reasons which curiosity suggests, when it seeks to assail our conscience, presented themselves to her mind. Had they treated her with confidence by dragging her insensible to this prison, which, though gilded, was severe? Had they the right to exact blind submission from her which they had not deigned to ask for? Besides, might they not seek to tempt and attract her by the simulation of a festival—all this might be, for all that related to the Invisibles was strange. Perhaps, in seeking to leave the enclosure she would find an open gate, or a boat which passed through some arch in the wall of the park. At this last fancy, the most gratuitous of all, she descended into the garden, resolved to tempt her fate. She had not gone more than fifty paces, when she heard in the air a sound similar to that produced by the wings of a gigantic bird, as it rises rapidly to the clouds. At the same time, she saw around her a vivid blue blaze, which after a few minutes was extinguished, to be reproduced with a sharp report. Consuelo then saw this was neither lightning nor a meteor, but the commencement of a display of fireworks at the castle. This entertainment promised her, from the top of the terrace a magnificent display, and like a child, anxious to shake off theennuiof a long punishment, she returned in haste to the pavilion.
By the blaze of these factitious lights, sometimes red and then blue, which filled the garden, she twice saw a black man standing erect and near her. She had scarcely time to look at him, when the luminous bomb falling with a shower of stars, left all more dark than ever, after the light which had dazzled her eyes. Consuelo then became terrified, and ran in a direction entirely opposite to that in which the spectre had appeared, but when the light returned, saw herself again within a few feet of him. At the third blaze, she had gained the door of the pavilion, but again found him before her and barring her passage. Seized with irrepressible terror, she cried aloud, and nearly swooned. She would have fallen backward from the steps, had not her mysterious visitor passed his arm around her waist. Scarcely had he touched her brow with his lips, than she became aware it was the stranger—theChevalier—the one whom she loved, and by whom she was beloved.
The joy at finding him, like an angel of consolation in this insupportable solitude, silenced every fear that a moment before had filled her mind, though she entertained no hope of escape through him. She returned his embrace with passion, and as he tried to get loose from her arms to replace his black mask, which had fallen, she cried, "Do not leave me—do not desert me!" Her voice was supplicatory and her caresses irresistible. The stranger fell at her feet, concealing his face in the folds of her dress, which he kissed. He remained some time in a state half-way between pleasure and despair; then, taking up his mask, and placing a letter into Consuelo's hands, he hurried into the house, and disappeared, without her having been able to distinguish his features.
She followed him, and by the aid of a tiny lamp, which Matteus lighted every evening, at the foot of the stairway, she hoped to find him. Before she had gone more than a few steps, however, she saw no trace of him. She looked in vain through all the house, but saw nothing, and, but for the letter she had in her hands, would have thought all that had happened a dream.
At last, she determined to return to her boudoir and read the letter, the writing of which now seemed rather counterfeited intentionally than changed by pain. It was as follows:
"I can neither see nor speak to you, but I am not forbidden to write. Will you permit me? Will you dare to reply to the stranger? Had I this happiness, I might find your letters, and place mine in a book you could leave every evening on the bench near the water. I love you passionately—madly—wildly: I am conquered—my power is crushed. My activity, my zeal, my enthusiasm for the work to which I am devoted, all, even the feeling of duty, is gone, unless you love me. Bound by oath to strange and terrible duties, by the gift and abandonment of my will, I float between the idea of infamy and suicide: I cannot think you really love me, and that, at the present moment, distrust and fear have not effaced your passion for me. Could it be otherwise? I am to you but a shadow, only the dream of a night—the illusion of a moment. Well, to win your love, I am ready, twenty times a day, to sacrifice my honor, to betray my word, and sully my conscience by perjury. If you contrived to escape from this prison, I would follow you to the end of the world, were I to expiate, by a life of shame and remorse, the intoxication of your presence, though only for a day, and to hear you say once, though but once, 'I love you.' Yet, if you refuse to unite yourself to the Invisibles, if the oaths which soon are to be exacted from you prove repugnant, it will be forbidden me ever to see you. I will not obey, for I cannot—no, I have suffered enough—I have toiled, sufficiently toiled, in the service of man. If you be not the recompense of my labor, I will have nothing more to do with it. I destroy myself by returning to earth, its laws, its habits. Take pity, take pity on me. Tell me not that you do not love me. I cannot support the blow—I will not, cannot believe it. If I did, I must die."
Consuelo read the note amid the noise of guns, bombs, and fireworks, the explosion of which she did not hear. Engrossed by what she read, she experienced, without being aware of it, the impression produced on sensitive minds by the detonation of powder, and in general, by all violent noises. This principally influences the imagination, when it does not act physically on a weak, unhealthy body, by producing painful tremors. It exalts, on the other hand, the mind and senses of brave and well-constituted persons. It awakens even in the minds of some women, intrepid instincts, ideas of strife, and vague regrets that they are not men. In fine, there is a well-marked accent which makes us find an amount of quasi-musical enjoyment in the voice of the rushing torrent, in the roar of the breaking wave, in the roll of thunder; this accent of anger, wrath, menace and pride—this voice of power, so to say, is found in the roar of artillery, in the whistling of balls, and in the countless convulsions of the atmosphere which imitate the shock of battle in artificial fire-works.
Consuelo perhaps experienced the effects of this, while she read what may really be called the firstbillet-douxshe had ever received. She felt herself courageous, bold, and almost rash. A kind of intoxication made her feel this declaration of love more warm and persuasive than all Albert's words, precisely as she felt the kiss of Albert more soft and gentle than Anzoleto's. She then began to write without hesitation, and while the rockets shook the echoes of the park, while the odor of saltpetre stifled the perfume of flowers, and Bengalese fires illuminated thefaçadeof the house, unnoticed by her, Consuelo wrote in reply:
"Yes, I love you—I have said so; and even if I repent and blush at it, I never can efface from the strange, and incomprehensible book of my fate, the page I wrote myself and which is in your hands. It was the expression of a guilty impulse—mad, perhaps, but intensely true, and ardently felt. Had you been the humblest of men, I would yet have placed my ideal in you. Had I degraded myself by contemptuous and cruel conduct, I would yet have experienced by contact with your heart, an intoxication I had never known, and which appeared to me to be holy as angels are pure. You see I repeat to you what I wrote in relation to the confession I made to Beppo. We do nothing but repeat to each other what we are. I think we are keenly and truly satisfied of this mutual conviction. Why and how could we be deceived? We do not, and perhaps never will, know each other, and cannot explain the first causes of this love, any more than we can foresee its mysterious ends. Listen: I abandon myself to your word, to your honor, and do not combat the sentiments you inspire. Do not let me deceive myself. I ask of you but one thing—not to feign to love me—never to see me if you do not love me—to abandon me to my fate, whatsoe'er it be, with no apprehension that I should accuse or curse you for the rapid illusions of happiness you have conferred on me. It seems to me what I ask is easy. There are moments in which I am afraid, I confess, on account of my blind confidence in you. But as soon as you appear in my presence, or when I look at your writing, which is carefully disguised, as if you were anxious to deprive me of any visible and external index; in fine, when I hear the sound even of your steps, all my fears pass away, and I cannot refrain from thinking that you are my better angel. Why hide you thus? what fearful secret is hidden by your mask and your silence? Must I fear and reject you, when I learn your name or see your face? If you are absolutely unknown to me as you have written, why yield such blind obedience to the strange law of the Invisibles, even when, as to-day, you are ready to shake off your bonds and follow me to the end of the world? And if I exacted it, and fled with you, would you take off your mask and keep no secrets from me? 'To know you,' you say, 'it is necessary for me to promise'—what? For me to bind myself to the Invisibles? To do what? Alas! must I with closed eyes, mute, and without conscience, with my mind in darkness,give upand abandon my will as you did, knowing your fate? To determine me to these unheard-of acts of devotion, would you not make a slight infraction of the regulations of your order? I see distinctly that you belong to one of those mysterious orders known here assecret societies, and which it is said are numerous in Germany; unless this be merely a political plot against——, as is said in Berlin. Let this be as it may, if I be left at liberty to refuse when I am told what is required of me, I will take the most terrible oaths never to make any revelations. Can I do more, without being unworthy of the love of a man who overcomes his scruples, and the fidelity of his oath so far as to be unwilling for me to hear that word I have pronounced myself, in violation of the prudence and modesty of my sex—'I love you.'"
Consuelo placed this letter in a book she left at the indicated place in the garden. She then went slowly away, and was long concealed in the foliage, hoping to see the Chevalier come, and fearing to leave this avowal of her sentiments there, lest it should fall into other hands. As hours rolled by without any one coming, and she remembered these words of the stranger's letter, "I will come for your answer during your sleep," she thought it best to conform in all respects to his advice, and returned to her room, where, after many agitated reveries, successively painful and delicious, she went to sleep amid the uncertain music of the ball, thefanfareswhich were sounded during the supper, and the distant sound of carriage wheels which announced, at dawn, the departure of the many guests from the castle.
At nine, precisely, the recluse entered the hall where she ate, and where her meals were served with scrupulous exactness, and with care worthy of the place. Matteus stood erect behind her chair, in his usual phlegmatic manner. Consuelo had been to the garden. The Chevalier had taken her letter, for it was not in the book. Consuelo had hoped to find another letter from him, and she already began to complain of lukewarmness in his correspondence. She felt uneasy, excited, and annoyed by the torpid life it seemed she was compelled to lead. She then determined to run some risk to see if she could not hasten the course of events which were slowly preparing around her. On that day Matteus was moody and silent.
"Master Matteus," said she, with forced gaiety, "I see through your mask, that your eyes are downcast and your face pale. You did not sleep last night."
"Madame laughs at me," said Matteus, with bitterness. "As madame, however, has no mask, it is easy to see that she attributes the fatigue and sleeplessness with which she herself has suffered, to me.
"Your mirrors told me that before I saw you, Master Matteus: I know I am getting ugly, and will be yet more changed, ifennuicontinues to consume me."
"Does madame suffer fromennui?" said he, in the same tone he would have said, "Did madame ring?"
"Yes, Matteus, terribly; and I can no longer bear this seclusion. As no one has either visited or written to me, I presume I am forgotten here; and since you are the only person who does not neglect me, I think I am at liberty to say as much to you."
"I cannot permit myself to judge of madame's condition," said Matteus; "but it seems to me that within a short time, madame has received both a letter and a visit."
"Who told you so, Master Matteus?" said Consuelo, blushing.
"I would tell," said he, in a tone ironically humble, "if I were not afraid of offending madame and annoying her with my conversation."
"Were you my servant, I do not know what airs of grandeur I might assume with you; but as now I have no other attendant but myself, you seem rather my guardian than my major-domo, and I will trouble you to talk as you are wont. You have too much good sense to be tedious."
"As madame isennuyée, she may just now be hard to please. There was a great entertainment last night at the castle."
"I know it. I saw the fire-works and heard the music."
"And a person who, since the arrival of madame, has been closely watched, took advantage of the disorder and noise to enter the private park, in violation of the strictest orders. A sad affair resulted from it. I fear, however, I would distress you by telling you."
"I think distress preferable toennuiand anxiety. What was it, Matteus?"
"I saw this morning the youngest and most amiable, handsome and intelligent of all my masters taken to prison—I mean the Chevalier Leverani."
"Leverani? His name is Leverani?" said Consuelo, with emotion. "Taken to prison? The Chevalier? Tell me, for God's sake, who is this Leverani?"
"I have described him distinctly enough to madame. I know not whether she knows more or less than I do. One thing is certain—he has been taken to the great tower for having written to madame, and having refused to communicate her reply to his highness."
"The great tower!—his highness! What you tell me, Matteus, is serious. Am I in the power of a sovereign prince, who treats me as a state prisoner, and who punishes any of his subjects who exhibit sympathy towards me? Am I mystified by some noble with strange ideas, who seeks to terrify me into a recognition of gratitude for services rendered?"
"It is not forbidden me to tell madame that she is in the house of a rich prince, who is a man of mind and a philosopher."
"And chief of the Council of the Invisibles?"
"I do not know what madame means by that," said Matteus, with indifference. "In the list of his highness's titles and dignities, there is nothing of the kind recorded."
"Will I not be permitted to see the prince, to cast myself at his feet and ask the pardon of this Chevalier Leverani, who I am willing to swear is innocent of all indiscretion?"
"I think your wishes will be difficult of attainment. Yet I have access to his highness every evening, for a short time, to give an account of madame's occupations and health. If madame will write, perhaps I can induce him to read the letter, without its passing through the hands of the secretaries."
"Master Matteus, you are kindness personified; and I am sure you must have the confidence of the prince. Yes, certainly, I will write since you are generous enough to feel an interest in the Chevalier."
"It is true I feel a greater interest in him than in any other, for he saved my life at the risk of his own. He attended and dressed my wounds, and replaced the property I had lost. He passed nights watching me, as if he had been my servant, and I his master. He saved a niece of mine from degradation, and by his good advice and kind words made her an honest woman. How much good he has done in this country, and they say in all Europe. He is the best young man that exists, and his highness loves him as if he were his son."
"Yet his highness sends him to prison for a trifling fault?"
"Madame does not know that in his highness's eyes no fault is trifling which is indiscreet."
"He is then an absolute prince?"
"Admirably just, yet terribly severe."
"How, then, can I interest his mind and the decisions of his council?"
"I know not, madame is well aware. Many secret things are done in this castle, especially when the prince comes to pass a few weeks here, which does not often happen. A poor servant like myself, who dared to pry into them, would not be be long tolerated; and as I am the oldest of the household, madame must see I am neither curious nor gossiping—else——"
"I understand, Master Matteus; but would it be indiscreet to ask if the imprisonment to which the Chevalier is subjected is rigorous?"
"It must be, madame; yet I know of nothing that passes in the tower and dungeon. I have seen many go in, and none come out. I know not whether there be outlets in the forest, but there are none in the park."
"You terrify me. Can it be possible that I have been the cause of the Chevalier's misfortunes? Tell me, is the prince of a cold or violent disposition? Are his decrees dictated by passing indignation, or by calm and durable reflection?"
"It is not proper I should enter into these details," said the old man.
"Well, at least, talk to me of the Chevalier. Is he a man to ask and obtain pardon? or does he envelope himself in haughty silence?"
"He is tender and mild, and full of submission and respect to his highness. If madame has confided any secret to him, however, she may be at ease. He would suffer himself to be tortured, rather than give up the secrets of another, even to a confessor."
"Well, I will reveal to his highness the secret he thinks important enough to kindle his rage against an unfortunate man. Oh! my good Matteus, can you not take my letter at once?"
"It is impossible, madame, before night."
"Well, I will write now, for some unforeseen opportunity may present itself."
Consuelo went into her closet and wrote to the anonymous prince requesting an interview, and she promised to reply sincerely to all the questions he might ask.
At midnight Matteus brought her this answer—
"If you would speak to the prince, your request is absurd. You will not see and never will know his name. If you wish to appear before the Council of the Invisibles, you will be heard. Reflect calmly on your resolution, which will decide on your life and that of another."
She had to wait twenty four hours after the receipt of this letter. Matteus said he would rather have his hand cut off than ask to see the prince after midnight. At breakfast, on the next day, he appeared more talkative than on the evening before, and Consuelo thought she observed that the imprisonment of the Chevalier had embittered him against the prince so much as to make him indiscreet, probably for the first time in his life. When she had made him talk for an hour, she discovered that no greater progress had been made in gleaning information than on the previous day. Whether he had played with her simplicity, to learn her thoughts and opinions, or whether he knew nothing in relation to the Invisibles, and the participation of his masters in their acts, he saw that Consuelo floated in a strange confusion of contradictory notions. In relation to all that concerned the social condition of the prince, Matteus maintained the rigid silence which had been imposed on him. He shrugged his shoulders, it is true, when he spoke of this strange order, the necessity of which he confessed he did not see. He did not comprehend why he should use a mask when he attended to persons, who came one after another, at greater or less intervals—and for a greater or shorter stay at the pavilion.He could not refrainfrom saying that his master had strange fancies, and was devoted to the strangest enterprises. In his house, however, all curiosity as well as all indiscretion was paralyzed by the fear of terrible punishment, in relation to which he would say nothing. In fact, Consuelo learned nothing, except that strange things took place at the castle, that they rarely slept at night, and that all the servants had seen ghosts. Matteus himself, and he was no coward, had seen in the winter, at times when the prince was away, and the castle unoccupied by its owners, figures wandering about the park which made him shudder, for they came and went none knew whither or whence. But this threw little light on Consuelo's situation. She had to wait until night, before she could send a new petition—which ran as follows:
"Whatever be the consequence to me, I ask humbly, to be brought before the tribunal of the Invisibles."
The day seemed endless; she sought to overcome her impatience and uneasiness, by singing all she had composed in prison, in relation to the grief andennuiof solitude, and she concluded this rehearsal with the sublime air of Almireno in theRinaldaof Haëndel.
Lascia ch 'lo nianga,La dura sorte,E ch lo sospiriLa liberta.
Scarcely had she concluded, when a violin with an extraordinary vibration repeated outside, the admirable musical phrase she had just sung, with an expression full of pain, and sorrowful as her own. Consuelo went to the window but saw no one, and the phrase lost itself in the distance. It seemed to her that this wonderful instrument and instrumentation could be Count Albert's alone. She soon dismissed this idea, as calculated to lead her back to a train of painful and dangerous illusions which had already caused her too much suffering. She had never heard Albert play any modern music, and none but an insane person would insist on evoking a spectre every time the sound of a violin was heard. This idea distressed Consuelo, and threw her into such a succession of sad reveries, that she aroused herself only at nine o'clock, when she remembered that Matteus had brought her neither dinner nor supper, and that she had fasted since morning. This circumstance made her fear that, like the Chevalier, Matteus had been made a victim to the interest he expressed for her. The walls certainly had eyes and ears. Matteus had perhaps said too much, and murmured a little against the disappearance of Leverani. "Was it not probable," she asked herself, "that he had shared the Chevalier's fate?"
This new anxiety kept Consuelo from being aware of the inconveniences of hunger. Matteus did not appear; she ventured to ring. No one came. She felt faint and hungry, and much afraid.
Leaning on the window-sill, with her head in her hands, she recalled to her mind, which was already disturbed by the want of food, the strange incidents of her life; and asked herself whether the recollection of reality or a dream made her aware that a cold hand was placed on her head, and that a low voice said, "Your demand is granted; follow me!"
Consuelo had not yet thought of lighting her rooms, but had been able clearly to recognise objects in the twilight, and tried to distinguish the person who thus spoke to her. She found herself suddenly enwrapped in intense darkness, as if the atmosphere had become compact and the sky a mass of lead. She put her hand to her brow, which the air seemed not to touch, and felt on it a hood which was at once as light and impenetrable as that which Cagliostro had previously thrown over her head. Led by an invisible hand, she descended the stairway of the house, but soon discovered there were more steps than she had been aware of, and that for half an hour she went through caverns.
Fatigue, hunger, emotion, and terror, gradually made her steps more, and more feeble; and feeling every moment as if she was about to fall, she was on the point of imploring aid. A certain pride, however, made her ashamed of abandoning her resolution, and induced her to act courageously. She soon reached the end of her journey, and was made to sit down. Just then she heard a melancholy bell, like the sound of a tom-tom, striking twelve slowly, and at the last stroke the hood was removed from her brow, which was covered with perspiration.
She was at first dazzled by the blaze of many lights immediately in front of her, arranged in cruciform on the wall. As soon as her eyes became used to this transition, she saw that she was in a vast Gothic hall, the vault of which, divided by hanging arches, resembled a deep dungeon or a subterranean chapel. At the foot of this room she saw seven persons, wrapped in red mantles, with their faces covered by livid white masks, making them look like corpses. They sat behind a long black marble table. Before them, at a table of less length was an eighth spectre, clad in black, and masked with white, also seated. On each side of the lateral walls stood a score of men, each of whom was wrapped and veiled with black. Consuelo looked around, and saw behind her other phantoms in black. At each of the two doors there were two others with drawn swords.
Under other circumstances Consuelo would perhaps have said that this melancholy spectacle was but a game—one of those tests to which candidates were subjected in the masonic lodges at Berlin. The freemasons, however, never constituted themselves into a court, and did not attribute to their body the right to drag persons who were not initiated, before their lodges. She was therefore disposed, from all that had preceded this scene, to think it serious and even terrible. She discovered that she trembled visibly, and but for five minutes of intense silence which pervaded the whole assembly, would not have been able to regain her presence of mind and prepare to reply.
The eighth judge at last arose, and made a sign to the two ushers who stood with drawn swords on each side of Consuelo, to bring her to the foot of the tribunal, where she stood erect, in an attitude of calmness and courage, not a little affected.
"Who are you, and what do you ask?" said the man in black rising.
Consuelo for a few moments was stupefied, but regained courage, and said—
"I am Consuelo—a singer by profession—known also as La Zingarella and La Porporina."
"Have you no other name?" said the examiner.
Consuelo hesitated, and then said—
"Icanclaim another; yet I am bound in honor never to do so."
"Do you expect to conceal anything from the tribunal? Think you that you are in the presence of ignorant judges! Why are you here, if you seek to abuse us by idle pretences? Name yourself. Tell us who you are or depart."
"You know who I am, and are also aware that my silence is a duty, and you encourage me to maintain it."
One of the red cloaks leaned forward and made a sign to one of the black, and in a moment all the latter left the room, with the exception of the examiner, who kept his seat and spoke thus:
"Countess of Rudolstadt," said he, "now that the examination is become secret, and that you are in the presence of your judges alone, will you deny that you are lawfully married to Count Albert Podiebrad, called de Rudolstadt, by virtue of the claims of his family?"
"Before I answer that question, I wish to know what authority disposes of all things around me, and what law obliges me to recognise it?"
"What law would you invoke—human or divine? The law of society places you in dependence on Frederick II., King of Prussia, Elector of Brandebourg, from the estates of whom we rescued you, thus saving you from indefinite captivity and yet more terrible dangers as you well know."
"I know," said Consuelo, kneeling, "that eternal gratitude binds me to you. I invoke only the law of God, and beseech you to define to me that of gratitude. Does it enjoin me to bless and to devote myself to you from the depth of my heart? I will do so. But if it enjoins me to obey you, in violation of the decrees of my conscience, should I not reject? Decide you for me."
"May you in the world act and think as you speak? The circumstances which subject you to our control escape ordinary reason. We are above all human law, and this you will recognise by our power. The prejudices of fortune, rank, and birth, fear of public opinion, engagements even contracted with the sentiments and sanction of the world, have to us no significance, no value. When removed from men, and armed with the light of God's justice, we weigh in the hollow of our hand the sands of your frivolous and timid life. Explain yourself without subterfuge before us, the living law of all. We will not hear you till we know how you appear here. Does the Zingarella Consuelo or the Countess of Rudolstadt appear before us?"
"The Countess of Rudolstadt having renounced all her social rights, has nothing to ask here. The Zingarella Consuelo—"
"Pause and weigh well the words you are about to utter. Were your husband living, would you have a right to withdraw your faith, to abjure your name, to reject his fortune—in a word, to become a Zingarella again, merely to gratify your pride of family and caste?"
"Certainly not."
"And think you death has broken all bonds forever? Do you owe to Albert's memory neither respect, love, nor fidelity?"
Consuelo blushed and became troubled. The idea that, like Cagliostro and the Count Saint Germain, they were about to talk of Albert's resurrection, filled her with such terror that she could not reply.
"Wife of Albert Podiebrad," said the examiner, "your silence accuses you. Albert to you is dead, and in your eyes the marriage was but an incident in your adventurous life, without consequence and without obligation. Zingara, you may go. We are interested in your fate only on account of your union with one of the best of men. You are unworthy of our love, having been unworthy of his. We do not regret the liberty we gave you, for the reparation of the wrongs inflicted by despotism is one of our duties and pleasures. Our protection will go no further. To-morrow you will quit the asylum we provided for you, with the hope that you would leave it purified and sanctified. You will return to the world, to the chimera of glory, to the intoxication of foolish passions. God have mercy on you! for we abandon you forever."
For some moments Consuelo was terrified by the decree. A few days sooner, she would have accepted it without a word; but the phrasefoolish passion, which had been pronounced, recalled to her mind the mad love she had conceived for the stranger, and which she had hugged to her heart almost without examination and scrutiny.
She was humbled in her own eyes, and the sentence of the Invisibles appeared to her, to a certain extent, to be deserved. The sternness of their words filled her with mingled respect and terror, and she thought no more of contending against the right they claimed to condemn her as a dependant of their authority. It is seldom that, great as our natural pride may be, or irreproachable as may be our life, we do not feel the influence of a grave charge made unexpectedly against us, and instead of contesting it, look into our hearts to see whether we deserve censure or not. Consuelo did not feel free from reproach, and the theatrical effect displayed around her, made her situation painful and strange. But she soon remembered that she had not appeared before the tribunal without being prepared to submit to its rigor. She had come thither resolved to submit to admonition or any punishment necessary to procure the exculpation or pardon of the Chevalier. Laying aside, then, all her self-love, she submitted to their reproaches, and for some minutes thought what she should say.
"It is possible," said she, "that I merit this stern censure, for I am far from being satisfied with myself. When I came hither, I had formed an idea of the Invisibles which I wish to express. The little I have learned from popular rumor of your order, and the boon of liberty you have restored to me, have led me to think that you were men perfect in virtue as you were powerful in society. If you be what I have believed you, why repel me so sternly, without pointing out the road for me to avoid error and become worthy of your protection? I know that on account of Albert of Rudolstadt, who as you say was one of the most excellent of men, his widow was entitled to some consideration. But even were I not the widow of Albert, or had I always been unworthy of him, the Zingara Consuelo, a woman without name, family, or country, has some claims on your paternal solicitude. Allow that I have been a great sinner, are you not like the kingdom of heaven, where the repentance of a guilty one gives greater joy than the constancy of hundreds of the elect? In fine, if the law which unites you be a divine law, you violate it when you repel me. You had undertaken, you said, to purify and sanctify me. Try to elevate my soul to the dignity of your own. Prove to me that you are holy, by appearing patient and merciful, and I will accept you as my masters and models."
There was a moment of silence, and they seemed to consult together. At last one of them spoke.
"Consuelo, you came hither full of pride, why do you not retire thus? We had the right to censure, because you came to question us. We have no right to chain your conscience and take possession of your life, unless you abandoned both to us freely. Can we ask you for this sacrifice? You do not know us. The tribunal, the holiness of which you invoke, is perhaps the most perverse, or at least the most audacious, which ever acted in the dark against the principles which rule the world. What know you of it? Were we to reveal to you the profound science of an entirely new virtue, would you have courage to consecrate yourself to so long and arduous a study without being aware of its object? Could we have confidence in the perseverance of a neophyte so badly prepared as yourself? Perhaps we might have weighty secrets to confide to you, and we would depend for their security only on your generous instincts. We know you well enough to confide in your discretion. We do not seek discreet confidants, for we have no want of them. To advance God's law we need fervent disciples, free from all prejudices, from all egotism, from all frivolous passions and worldly desires. Look into yourself and see if you can make these sacrifices. Can you control your actions and regulate your life in obedience to your instincts, and on the principles we will give you to develop? Woman, artist, girl, dare you reply that you can associate yourself with stern men to toil in the work of ages?"
"What you say is serious indeed," said Consuelo, "and I scarcely understand it. Will you give me time to think? Do not repel me from your bosom until I shall have questioned my heart. I know not if it be worthy of the light you can shed on it. But what sincere heart is unworthy of the truth? In what can I be useful to you? I am terrified at my impotence. To have protected me as you have done, you must have seen there was something in me. Something, too, says to me, that I should not leave you without having sought to prove my gratitude. Do not banish me then. Try to instruct me."
"We will grant you eight days more to reflect," replied the judge in the red robe, who had previously spoken. "But you must, in the first place, bind yourself on your honor, to make no attempt to discover where you are, and who are the persons you see here. You must promise not to pass beyond the enclosure, even should you see the gates open, and the spectres of your dearest friends calling on you. You must ask no questions of the persons who serve you, nor of any one who may come clandestinely to you."
"So be it," said Consuelo eagerly. "I promise as you desire, to see no one without your authority, and ask pardon humbly."
"You have no pardon to ask—no questions to propound. All the necessities both of your body and soul have been foreseen for the whole time you remain here. If you regret any friend, any relation, any servants, you are free to go. Solitude, or such association as we determine on, will be your lot here."
"I ask nothing for myself. I have heard, however, that one of your friends, disciples, or servants, (for I know not his rank) suffers a severe punishment on my account. I am here to accuse myself of the offence imputed to him, and on that account I asked to appear before you."
"Do you offer to make a detailed and sincere confession?"
"If such be required to secure his acquittal; though to a woman it is a severe moral torture to confess herself to eight men."
"Spare yourself this humiliation. We would have no assurance that you are sincere, inasmuch as we have no right over you. All you have said and thought during the last hour to us will be as a dream. Remember that hereafter we have the right to sound the secrets of your heart. Keep it always so pure, that you can unveil it without suffering and without shame."
"Your generosity is delicate and paternal. But I am not the only person interested. Another expiates my offence. Can I not justify him?"
"That does not concern you. If there be one among us guilty, he will exculpate himself, not by vain assertions and allegations, but by acts of courage, devotion, and virtue. If his soul has quailed, we will lift him up, and aid him to overcome himself. You speak of severe punishment. We inflict none but moral penalties. Whoever he be, he is our equal—our brother. Here there are neither masters nor servants, subjects nor princes. False rumors have deceived you, no doubt. Go in peace and sin no more."
At this last word the examiner rang a bell, and the men in black masks and with naked swords returned. Replacing the hood on Consuelo's head, they returned her to the house she had left, by the route they had brought her from it.
Porporina, according to the benevolent language of the Invisibles, having no longer any reason to be seriously uneasy about the Chevalier, and thinking that Matteus had not seen very clearly into the affair, felt, when she left the mysterious council chamber, greatly relieved. All that had been said to her floated in her imagination like rays behind a cloud, and anxiety and her will no longer sustaining her, she soon experienced great feebleness in walking. She felt extremely faint and hungry, and the impenetrable hood stifled her. She paused frequently, and was forced to take the arm of her guides in order to reach her room. She sank from debility, and a few minutes after felt revived by a flagon which was offered her, and by the air which circulated freely through the room. Then she observed that her guides had gone in haste, that Matteus was preparing to serve a most tempting supper, and that the little masked doctor, who had put her in a lethargic sleep when she was brought hither, was feeling her pulse and attending to her. She easily recognised him by his wig, and she was certain she had heard his voice, before, though she could not say where.
"Doctor," said she, with a smile, "I think the best thing you can do is to give me supper soon. Nothing but hunger ails me. But I beg you on this occasion to omit the coffee you prepare so well. I am afraid I am not able to bear it now."
"The coffee I prepare," said the doctor, "is an admirable anodyne. Be calm, countess; my prescription is not of that character. Will you now confide in me, and suffer me to sup with you. It is the pleasure of his highness that I do not leave you until you be completely restored, and I think in half an hour refreshment will have done so."
"If such be his highness's pleasure, and your own, doctor, I will have the honor of your company to supper," said Consuelo, suffering Matteus to roll her arm-chair up to the table.
"My company will not be useless," said the doctor, beginning to demolish a superb pheasant, and carving it in an expert manner.
"Were I not here, you would indulge the extreme hunger which follows a long fast, and might injure yourself. I who apprehend no such inconvenience to result to myself, will put the pheasant on my plate, giving you the nice pieces."
The voice of the gastronomical doctor attracted Consuelo's attention, in spite of herself. Great was her surprise, when taking off his mask, he placed it on the table, saying—"Away with this piece of puerility, which keeps me from breathing, and enjoying what I eat." Consuelo shrank back when she recalled, in thebon vivantdoctor, the one whom she had seen at her bed-side—Supperville, the physician of the Margravine of Bareith. She had subsequently seen him at a distance at Berlin, without having courage to approach or speak to him. At that time the contrast of his gluttonous appetite, with the emotion and distress she experienced, recalled to her the dryness of his ideas and conversation, amid the consternation and grief of all the family, and she could scarcely restrain her disgust. Supperville, absorbed by the perfume of the pheasant, appeared to pay no attention to her trouble.
Matteus completed the ridiculousness of the situation, by placing himself, with a quick exclamation, before the doctor. The circumspect servant for five minutes had waited on the table without seeing that his face was bare, and it was only when he took the mask for the cover of thepaté, that he cried out, with terror: "Mercy, doctor! you have let your mask fall on the table!"
"Devil take the artificial face," said he. "Eating with it is impossible. Put it in that corner, and give it to me when I go out."
"As you please, doctor," said Matteus, with a terrified air. "I wash my hands of it. Your lordship is aware that every evening I am required to give an account of all that passes here. It will be in vain for me to say your mask fell off by mistake, for I cannot deny that madame saw what was beneath it."
"Very well, my fine fellow," said the doctor, without being disconcerted, "make your report."
"And you will remark, Master Matteus," said Consuelo, "that I did not in any manner provoke the doctor to this disobedience, and that it is not my fault that I have seen him."
"Be calm, countess," said Supperville, with a full mouth. "The prince is not so black as he seems, and I am not afraid of him. I will say, that since he authorised me to sup with you, he permitted me to remove every obstacle to mastication and deglutition. Besides, I have the honor to be too well known to you, for my voice not to have betrayed me long ago. I therefore divest myself of a vain form which the prince, at the very outset, will be glad of."
"Very well, doctor," said Matteus. "I am glad that you, and not I committed this act." The doctor shrugged his shoulders, laughed at the timid old man, and when Matteus had retired, to change the service, drew his chair a little closer, and said in a low tone to Consuelo:
"Dear signora, I am not such a gourmand as I seem," (Supperville, being considerably filled, spoke somewhat at his ease,) "and my object, when I came to sup with you, was to inform you of matters which concern you greatly."
"Whence, and by whose authority do you seek to speak thus to me?" said Consuelo, who remembered her promise to the Invisibles.
"On my own account, and to please myself," replied Supperville; "do not then be uneasy. I am no spy, and speak, careless who may repeat the words that come from my heart."
For a moment, Consuelo thought it was her duty to make the doctor be silent, and be no accomplice of his treason, but she fancied that a man sufficiently devoted to the Invisibles to undertake to half poison people, to secrete them in out-of-the-way castles, would not act as he did without authority. "This is a snare set for me," said she to herself. "The ordeal begins. Let me watch the attack."
"In the first place, then, I must tell you in whose house, and where you are."
"Are we come to that point?" said Consuelo, "Thank you, doctor—I neither asked nor wished to know."
"Ta, ta, ta!" said Supperville. "You have already fallen into the romantic ways into which it pleases the prince to drag his friends. Do not indulge in these toys; the least that can result from them to you, is to increase, when you have yourself gone mad, the number of fools and maniacs in this court. I have no intention to break the promise I gave the prince, to tell you either his name or where you are. About that you should not care, for it would be a mere gratification of your curiosity, and that is not the disease I wish to cure in you, for you are troubled with an excess of confidence. You may then learn without disobeying, or without the risk of displeasing him, (I am interested in not betraying you,) that you are in the house of the best and most absurd of old men—a man of mind, a philosopher, with a soul courageous and tender almost as a hero's or a madman's. He is a dreamer, treating the ideal as a reality, and life as a romance—asavant, who, from the study and the acquisition of the quintessence of ideas, has, like Don Quixote after his books of knight-errantry, fancied inns were castles, galley-slaves innocent victims, and wind-mills monsters. He is a saint, if we look at his intentions; a madman, if we think of the results. He has contrived, among other things, a perpetual net of conspiracies, permanent and universal, to paralyze the action of all the wicked of the world; 1. To combat and oppose tyranny in governments. 2. To reform the immorality or barbarism of the laws which govern society. 3. To infuse in the hearts of all men of courage and devotion, the enthusiasm of his propaganda, and the zeal of his doctrines—nothing less—and yet he seeks and expects to realize it! Were he seconded by some sincere and reasonable men, the little good he does might bear fruit. Unfortunately, however, he is surrounded by a clique of intriguers and ambitious impostors, who pretend to share his faith and serve him, but who really make use of his credit to procure good places in all the courts of Europe, and waste the greater part of the money he destines to carry out his plans. Such is the man, and the people around him. You can judge in what hands you are, and the generous protectors who rescued you from the claws of Frederick are not likely to expose you to a greater danger by exalting you to the clouds, merely to let you fall yet lower. You are now warned. Distrust their promises, their fine words, their tragedy, and the tricks of Cagliostro, Saint Germain, and company."
"Are the two persons you have mentioned ready here?" asked Consuelo, not a little troubled, and oscillating between the danger of being played upon by the doctor, and the probability of his assertions.
"I know nothing of the matter," said he. "All is passing in mystery. There are two castles, a visible one and a palpable one, where people who are well known come, and to whomfêtesare given, and where a princely life is exhibited in all frivolity and harmlessness. This castle conceals the other, which is a little subterrean world, exceedingly well masqued. In this invisible castle are all the crude dreamers of his highness—innovators, reformers, inventors, sorcerers, prophets, and alchemists: all the architects of the teeming new society, as they say, ready to swallow up to-morrow, or the day after, all that is of the old, are the mysterious guests he receives, fosters, and consults, without any one above ground being aware that he consults them, or, at least, without any profane mortal being able to explain the noise in the caverns, except by the presence of meteoric lights, and ghosts from the passages below. I imagine now, that the aforesaid charlatans may be a hundred leagues hence, for, in their way, they are great travellers, or in very comfortable rooms, with trap-doors in the floor, not so far away. It is said this old castle was once a rendezvous for the Free-Judges, and that ever since, on account of certain hereditary traditions, the ancestors of our prince have amused themselves by terrible plots, which, as far as I know, never had any result. This is the custom of the country, and the most illustrious brains are not those which are least given to such things. I am not initiated in the wonders of the invisible castle. From time to time I pass a few days here, when my mistress, Princess Sophia of Prussia, Margravine of Bareith, gives me leave to breathe a mouthful of fresh air outside of her domain. Now, I suffer terribly fromennuiat the delicious court of Bareith, and as I have a kind of attachment to the prince of whom we speak, and am not sorry sometimes to play a trick on the great Frederick, whom I detest, I do the above-mentioned prince some service, and, above all, amuse myself. As I get orders from him alone, these services are very innocent. The affair of your escape from Spandau, and transportation hither like a poor sleeping bird, was not at all repugnant to me. I knew you would be well treated, and fancied you would amuse yourself. If, on the contrary, you be tormented, if the councillors of his highness seek to take possession of you, and make you aid their evil views——"
"I fear nothing of the kind," said Consuelo, very much amazed at the doctor's explanations. "I will be able to protect myself from their machinations, if they injure my sense of propriety and offend my conscience."
"And are you sure, countess?" said Supperville. "Listen to me. Confide, and presume on nothing. Very reasonable and honest people have left here, signed and sealed for evil. All means are good in the eyes of the intriguers who have the prince in charge, and he is so easily dazzled that he has sent to perdition many souls at the time he fancied he was saving them. You must know these intriguers are very shrewd, that they have terrible secrets, to convince, to persuade, to intoxicate the senses, and impress the imagination. First, is a retinue of tricks and incomprehensible means. Then old stories, systems, and prestiges aid them. They show you spectres, and trifle with the lucidity of your mind; they will besiege you with smiling or dazzling phantasmagoria, and make you superstitious or mad, perhaps, as I have the honor to tell you, and then——"
"What can they expect from me? What am I in the world, for them to catch in their nets?"
"Ah! does not the Countess of Rudolstadt suspect?"
"She has no idea."
"You remember Cagliostro showed you the spectre of your husband, living and acting?"
"How do you know that, if you are not initiated in the secrets of the subterranean world, of which you speak?"
"You told the Princess Amelia, who likes gossiping, as all curious people do. You know, too, that she is very intimate with the spectre of the Count of Rudolstadt?"
"A certain Trismegistus, I am told."
"Yes, I have seen the man; and, at the first glance, he really does resemble Count Albert in a strange manner. He might even be made more so, by dressing his head like Count Albert's, making his face pale, and imitating the air and manners of the deceased. Do you understand now?"
"Less than ever. Why impose this man as Count Albert on me?"
"You are simple and true! Count Albert died, leaving a vast fortune, which is about to pass from the hands of the old Canoness Wenceslawa to those of the young baroness Amelia, Albert's cousin, unless you claim your life estate as dowager. This, in the first place, they will seek to induce you to do."
"True," replied Consuelo, "you make me understand certain words——"
"That is nothing. This life estate, a part of which might be contested, would not satisfy the appetite of the Chevaliers of Industry who seek to take possession of you. You have no child: you need a husband. Well, Count Albert is not dead. He was in a lethargy and buried alive. The devil cured him of that, and Cagliostro gave him a potion; Saint Germain took him away. After a lapse of two years he returns, tells his adventures, throws himself at your feet, consummates his marriage with you, goes to the Giants' Castle, is recognised by the canoness and certain old servants, not very sharp-sighted, calls for an examination and pays the witnesses well. He goes to Vienna with his faithful wife to demand his rights from the empress. A little scandal does not hurt affairs of this kind. Handsome women take an interest in a handsome man, the victim of a sad accident and an old fool of a doctor. The Prince Von Kaunitz, who does not dislike artists, protects you. Your cause triumphs; you return victorious to Riesenberg, and put your cousin Amelia out of doors. You are rich and powerful; you associate with the people here, and with charlatans to reform society, and to change the appearance of the world. All this is very agreeable, and costs nothing, except deceiving you a little, and your taking, in place of an illustrious husband, a handsome adventurer, a man of mind, and a wonderful story-teller. Do you see now? Think! It was my duty as a physician, as a friend of Rudolstadt, as a man of honor, to tell you this. They depended on me to establish, when it became necessary, the identity of Albert and Trismegistus. I saw the former die, however, with eyes not fanciful, but lighted by science. I remarked certain differences between the two men, and knew the adventurer at Berlin long ago. Therefore I cannot lend myself to the imposition. Not I. Neither will you, I am sure, though every exertion be made to induce you to think Albert grew two inches and recovered his health while in the tomb. I hear Matteus returning: he is a good creature, and suspects nothing. I am going now, having told my story. I leave the castle in an hour, having no other business."
After having thus spoken, with remarkable volubility, the doctor put on his mask, and having bowed profoundly to Consuelo, left her to finish her supper alone, if she thought proper. She was not disposed to do so, being completely overpowered by what she had heard, and retired to her room. She enjoyed there a portion of the repose she needed, after the painful perplexities and vague anguish of doubt and uneasiness.
On the next day Consuelo felt overcome both in body and mind. The cynical revelations of Supperville, following so closely on the paternal encouragements of the Invisibles, produced the same effect as if she had, after a pleasant warmth, been dipped in iced-water. She had been lifted to heaven, to sink again to earth, She was almost angry with the doctor for having undeceived her; for in her dreams she had already seen, clad with dazzling majesty, the august tribunal which opened its arms to her as a home, as a refuge against the dangers of earth and the mistakes of youth.
Nevertheless, the doctor seemed to merit the gratitude of Consuelo, who recognised it without being able to sympathise with him. Was not his conduct that of a sincere, brave, and disinterested man? Consuelo, however, found him too skeptical, too much of a materialist, and too much inclined to contemn good intentions and ridicule good characters. In spite of what he had said of the imprudent and dangerous credulity of the prince, she formed an exalted idea of the noble old man, who was ardent for good, and implicit in his belief of human perfectibility. She recalled to mind the conversation she had in the subterranean hall, which seemed full of calm authority and austere wisdom. Charity and kindness appeared beneath the mask of affected sternness, ready to burst forth at the first impulse of Consuelo's heart. Would swindlers, avaricious men, and charlatans have thus acted and spoken to her? The bold enterprise of reforming the world, which seemed so ridiculous to Supperville, was the eternal wish, the romantic hope with which Albert had inspired his wife, and with which she had found something sympathetic in the diseased but generous head of Gottlieb. Was not this Supperville to be hated, then, for having sought to tear away, at the same time, her faith in God and her confidence in the Invisibles.
Consuelo, more given to poetry of the soul, than to the dry contemplation of the sad realities of life, contended against the words of Supperville, and attempted to disprove them. Had he not indulged in gratuitous suppositions, had he not owned that he was not initiated in the subterranean world, and seemed ignorant even of the name and existence of the Invisibles? Trismegistus might be a Chevalier d'Industrie, yet the Princess Amelia affirmed the contrary, and the friendship of Golowken, the best and wisest of the grandees Consuelo had met at Berlin, spoke in his favor. If Cagliostro and St. Germain were both impostors, it did not render it impossible for them to be imposed on by a wonderful likeness. Though the three were condemned, it did not follow they were a part of the council of the Invisibles; and that body of venerable men might reject their advice as soon as Consuelo had established that Trismegistus was not Albert. Would it not be time to withdraw her confidence after this decisive test, should they persist in seeking to impose on her so grossly? Consuelo resolved, at that point, to tempt fate, and learn more of the Invisibles, to whom she was indebted for liberty, and whose paternal reproaches had reached her heart. She determined on this; and while awaiting the issue of the affair, resolved to consider what Supperville had told her as a test to which he had been authorised to subject her, or as a means of giving vent to his spleen against rivals who had more influence with, or were better treated by the prince than himself.
One hypothesis tormented Consuelo more than all others. Was it absolutely impossible for Albert to be alive? Supperville had not observed the phenomena which had preceded, by two years, his final illness. He even refused to believe them, persisting in thinking that the frequent absences of Albert in the cavern were consecrated to gallant rendezvous with Consuelo. She alone, with Zdenko, was in the secret of these lethargic crises. The vanity of the doctor would not permit him to own that he was mistaken in declaring him dead. Now that Consuelo was aware of the existence and material power of the Council of the Invisibles, she dared conjecture that means had been found to rescue Albert from the horrors of a premature burial, and that for secret purposes he had been received among them. All the revelations of Supperville, in relation to the mysteries and whimsicalities of the castle, and the prince aided the confirmation of this supposition. The resemblance of the adventurer, known as Trismegistus, might complicate the marvellous part of the circumstance, but could not destroy its possibility. This idea took such complete possession of Consuelo that she relapsed into profound melancholy. Were Albert alive, she would not hesitate to rejoin him as soon as she was permitted, and would devote herself eternally to him. She was now more than ever aware how much she would suffer from a devotion in which there was no element of love. The Chevalier appeared to her as a cause of deep regret, and her conscience a source of future remorse. Were she forced to renounce him, the new love would, like all love which was opposed, become a passion. Consuelo did not ask herself with hypocritical resignation, why her dear Albert would leave the tomb where he was so comfortable. She said it was in her destiny to sacrifice herself to this man, perhaps after he was dead, and she wished to fulfil this fate: yet she suffered strangely, and lamented the Chevalier, her most ardent, and her involuntary love.
She was roused from her meditations by a faint noise and the fluttering of a wing on her shoulder. She uttered an exclamation of surprise and joy at seeing a pretty red-throat enter the room and come kindly to her. After a hesitation of a few minutes, the bird took a flight from her hand.
"Is it you, my poor friend, my faithful companion?" said Consuelo, with tears of childish joy. "Can it be possible that you have sought for and found me? No, that cannot be. Pretty, confiding creature, you are like my friend, yet are not he. You belong to some gardener, and have escaped from the enclosure where you pass your time amid the flowers. Come to me, consoler of the prisoner. Since the instinct of your race impels you to associate with the solitary captive, I will bestow on you the love I felt for another of your race."
Consuelo toyed half an hour with the little captive, when she heard without a kind of whistle, which made the intelligent creature tremble. It dropped the food she had given it, made its great eyes glisten and expand, and flew through the window in obedience to an incontestable authority. Consuelo looked after it, and saw it lose itself amid the foliage. While looking at it, she saw in the depth of the garden, on the other side of the stream which bounded it, a person easy to be recognised, notwithstanding the distance. Gottlieb was walking along the bank, apparently happy, and attempting to leap and bound. Forgetting for a moment the order of the Invisibles, Consuelo sought, by waving her handkerchief, to attract his attention; but he was absorbed by the thought of regaining his bird. He looked up among the trees as he whistled, and went on without having seen Consuelo.
"Thank God, and the Invisibles too! in spite of Supperville," said she. "The poor lad appears happier and in better health. His guardian angel, the red-throat, is with him. This appears the presage of a smiling fate to me also. Come, let me not doubt our protectors any more. Distrust withers the heart."
She sought how she could occupy her time in a useful manner, to anticipate the new moral education announced to her; and for the first time since she had been at ****, she went into the library, which she had as yet only looked at in a cursory manner, and resolved to examine seriously the selection of books at her disposal. They were not numerous, but were extremely curious, and probably rare, if not unique. There was a collection of the writings of the most remarkable philosophers of all ages and nations, abridged so as to contain only the very essence of their doctrines, and translated into languages Consuelo could read. Many, never having been published, were in manuscript, particularly the heretical writers of the middle ages, precious spoils of the past, fragments and even complete copies of which had escaped the search of the Inquisition and the later violations of the old castles of the German heretics, during the Thirty Years' War. Consuelo could not appreciate the value of these philosophical treasures, collected by some ardent and persevering bibliographer. The originals would have interested her, on account of their characters and vignettes. She had, however, only a translation, made carefully by some modern calligrapher. She looked first for the faithful translations of Wickliffe, John Huss, and the renowned Christian philosophers who attached themselves in other days, though at different eras, to those fathers of the new religion.
She had not read them, but they were familiar to her from her long conversations with Albert. As she turned over the leaves in a cursory manner, she became better and better acquainted with them. Consuelo had an eminently philosophical mind. Had she not lived amid the reasoning and clear-sighted world of her day, she would easily have become superstitious and fanatical. As it was, she understood the enthusiastic discourses of Gottlieb better than Voltaire's philosophy, then studied so ardently by the women of Europe. This intelligent and simple girl was courageous and tender, but had not a mind formed for subtle reasoning. She was educated by the heart, rather than the head. Seizing the revelations of sentiment by prompt assimilation, she was capable of being instructed philosophically. She was wonderfully so for her age, sex, and position, from the instruction of the eloquent and loved Albert. Artistic organizations acquire more in the emotions of an address or lecture, than in the cold and patient study of books. Such was Consuelo. She could scarcely read a page attentively, yet, if a great thought, glowingly expressed, struck her, she repeated it like a musical phrase, and the sense, however profound it might be, entered her mind like a divine ray. She existed on this idea, and applied it to all her emotions. This was to her a real power, and lasted her through life. To her it was not a vain sentence, but a rule of conduct, an armor for combat. Why analyse and study the book whence she had got it? The whole book was in her breast as soon as the inspiration, seized her.