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Title: The Countess of Rudolstadt

Author: George Sand

Translator: Fayette Robinson

Release date: June 8, 2020 [eBook #62338]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues and Dagny Soapfan at
        Free Literature (Images generously made available by The
        Internet Archive.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COUNTESS OF RUDOLSTADT ***




Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues and Dagny Soapfan at
Free Literature (Images generously made available by The
Internet Archive.)







THE COUNTESS OF

RUDOLSTADT

A SEQUEL TO "CONSUELO."

By GEORGE SAND,

AUTHOR OF "CONSUELO," ETC., ETC.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH

By FAYETTE ROBINSON

LONDON:

WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED,

PATERNOSTER SQUARE




THE COUNTESS OF RUDOLSTADT




TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
EPILOGUE




CHAPTER I


The Italian Opera-house at Berlin had been built early in the reign of
Frederick the Great, and was then one of the most beautiful in Europe.
There was no charge for admission--all the actors being paid by the
king. To be admitted, however, it was necessary to have a ticket, every
box having its regular occupant. The princes and princesses of the royal
family, the diplomatic corps, the illustrious travellers, the academy,
the generals, the royal household, the _employés_ and friends of the
king, monopolized the house. No one could complain of this, for theatre
and actors, all belonged to the king. There was open to the people of
the good city of Berlin, a small portion of the _parterre_, the greater
part of which was filled up by the military, each company and regiment
having a right to send a certain number of men. Instead of the joyous,
impressionable and sensitive Parisian public, the artists had a pit full
of heroes six feet high, as Voltaire called them, the greater number of
whom brought their wives on their backs. The aggregate was brutal
enough, strongly perfumed with tobacco and brandy, knowing nothing of
music, and neither admiring, hissing, nor applauding except in obedience
to orders. In consequence of the perpetual motion, however, there was a
great deal of noise.

Just behind these gentlemen there were two rows of boxes, the spectators
in which neither saw nor heard. They were obliged, though, to be
constantly present at the representations his majesty was graciously
willing to provide for them. The king was present at every performance.
In this way he contrived to maintain a military supervision of the many
members of his family, and to control the swarms of courtiers around
him. This habit he had inherited from his father, who, in a miserable
frame building, occupied by wretched German buffoons, used to while away
every winter evening, regardless of rain. The king used to sleep through
the performance and the showers. This domestic tyranny, Frederick had
undergone, suffering under it all the while; and when he became himself
the possessor of power, rigidly enforced it, as well as many more
despotic and cruel customs, the excellence of which he recognised as
soon as he became the only person in the kingdom not obliged to submit
to them.

No one dared to complain. The house was majestic and all the operatic
appointments luxurious. The king almost always overlooked the orchestra,
keeping his lorgnette in battery on the stage, and setting the example
of perpetual applause.

All know how Voltaire, during the early years of his installation at
Berlin, applauded the courtly splendor of the northern Solomon.
Disdained by Louis XV, neglected by Madame de Pompadour, who had been
his protectress, persecuted by the Jesuits, and hissed at the Theatre
Français, in a moment of disappointed pride, he came to look for
honors, a reward, and appointment of chamberlain and _grand cordon_, and
the intimacy of a great king, by far more complimentary to him than the
rest of his new acquisitions. Like a spoiled child, the great Voltaire
pouted at all France and fancied he could mortify his countrymen. At
that time, intoxicated by his newly-acquired glory, he wrote to his
friends that Berlin was a more pleasant place than Versailles, that the
opera of _Phaeton_ was the most magnificent spectacle imaginable, and
that the _prima donna_ had the finest voice in all Europe.

At the time that we resume the thread of our story (and we will set our
readers' minds at rest by saying that a year had passed since we saw
Consuelo), winter displayed all its rigor at Berlin, and the great king
had began to exhibit himself in his true aspect. Voltaire had begun to
see his illusion in relation to Berlin. He sat in his box, between
D'Argens and La Mettrie, not even pretending to love music, to which he
was no more awake than he was to true poetry. His health was bad, and he
regretted sadly the thankless crowds of Paris, the excitability, the
obstinacy of which had been so bitter to him, and the contact with which
had so overpowered him, that he determined never to expose himself to it
again, although he continued to think and toil ceaselessly for it.

On this occasion the spectacle was excellent. It was the middle of the
carnival; all the royal family, even those members who had moved into
other parts of Germany, was collected in Berlin. The _Titus_ of
Metastasio and Hasse was being performed, and the two leading members of
the Italian troupe, Porporina and Porporino, were cast in the principal
parts.

If our readers will make a slight exertion of memory they will recall
that these two dramatic personages were not husband and wife as their
names might seem to indicate. The first was Signor Uberti, an excellent
contralto. The second was the zingarella Consuelo, like the first a
pupil of the Professor Porpora, who, according to the Italian custom in
vogue at that time, had permitted them to assume his glorious name.

It must be confessed, that Porporina did not sing in Prussia with the
power she had in other places exhibited. While the limpid contralto of
the male singer swelled without any indication of delay, and protected
by the consciousness of success and power--that too fortified by the
possession of an invariable salary of fifteen thousand livres for two
months' labor--the poor zingarella, more romantic and perhaps more
disinterested, and certainly less used to the northern ices and a public
of Prussian corporals was under the influence of an excitement and sang
with that perfect and conscious method which affords criticism no hold,
but which is altogether insufficient to excite enthusiasm.

The fervor of the dramatic artist and of the audience, cannot dispense
with each other. Now, under the glorious reign of Frederick, there was
no enthusiasm at Berlin. Regularity, obedience, and what in the
eighteenth century--at Frederick's court especially--was known as
_Reason_, were the only virtues recognized in this atmosphere, measured
and weighed in the hand of the king. In every assembly over which he
presided, no one hissed or sighed, without his permission. Amid all the
crowd, there was but one spectator able to give vent to his impressions,
and that was the king. He constituted the public; and though a good
musician and fond of music, all his tastes were subjected to so cold a
logic, that when his opera-glass was attached to every gesture, the
vocal inflections of the singer's voice, far from being stimulated, were
entirely paralyzed.

The singer was forced to submit to this painful fascination. The
slightest inspiration, the slightest portion of enthusiasm, would
probably have offended both the king and court, while artistic and
difficult passages, executed with irreproachable mechanism, delighted
the king, the court, and Voltaire. Voltaire said, as all know, "Italian
music is far better than French, because it is more ornate, and _a
difficulty overcome is something at least._" This was Voltaire's idea of
art. He might have answered, had he been asked if he liked music, as a
certain fop of our own days did--"It does not exactly annoy me."

All went off perfectly well, and the finale was being reached. The king
was satisfied, and turned to his chapel-master from time to time, to
express his approbation by a nod. He was preparing even to applaud
Porporina, at the conclusion of the cavatina which he always did in
person and judiciously, when, by some strange caprice, Porporina, in the
midst of a brilliant rondeau, which she had never failed, stopped short,
turned her haggard eyes towards a corner of the hall, clasped her hands,
and crying "Oh my God!" fell at full length on the stage. Porporino bore
her behind the stage, and a tempest of questions, thoughts,
commentaries, swept through the house. In the interim the king spoke to
the tenor, amid the noise which drowned his voice, "Well, what is this?"
said he, in a brief, imperious tone. "Conciolini, hasten to find out."
After a few seconds the latter returned, and bowing respectfully before
the top of the railing on which the king leaned his elbow, replied,
"Sire, the Signora Porporina is senseless, and they are afraid she will
he unable to continue the opera."

"Ah!" said he, shrugging his shoulders. "Give her a glass of water. Get
her some essence, and finish as soon as possible."

The tenor, who had no disposition to offend the king and expose himself
to his bad humor in public, went again behind the scenes quietly, and
the king began to talk quickly to the leader of the orchestra and
musicians; the public being much more interested in what the king said
and did than in poor Porporina, made rare efforts to catch the words
that fell from the monarch's lips.

The Baron von Poelnitz, grand chamberlain and director of amusements,
soon came to tell the king of Consuelo's condition. In Berlin nothing
passed off with the solemnity imposed by an independent and powerful
public. The king was everything, and the spectacle was his and for him.
No one was surprised to see him thus become the principal actor of this
unforeseen interlude.

"Well, let us see, baron," said he, loud enough to be heard by a part of
the orchestra; "will this soon be over? Have you no doctor behind there?
You should have one always."

"Sire, the doctor is there. He is unwilling to bleed the lady, lest he
should weaken and prevent her from playing her part. He will be forced
to do so, though, unless she recovers from her fainting fit."

"Then she is sick, and not feigning?"

"Sire, to me she seems very sick."

"Then let down the curtain, and we will go. But wait; let Porporino sing
something to console us, so that we may be enabled to go home without a
catastrophe."

Porporino obeyed, and sang two pieces deliciously. The king applauded,
the public followed his example, and the performance was over. A minute
afterwards, the court and people were going out, the king stood on the
stage, and caused himself to be led to the dressing-room of the _prima
donna._

The public does not sympathize with an actress, taken sick on the stage,
as it should. Adored as the idol may be, there is so much selfishness
among the _dilettani_, that they are much annoyed at the loss of
pleasure, than by the suffering and anguish of the victim. Some
_sensible_ women deplored, as was then said, the catastrophe of the
evening--

"Poor thing! She had a cold, and when she came to make her trill, found
it out, and became sick, rather than fail."

"I think she did not pretend," said a much more sensible woman; "people
do not fall so hard, when they are not really sick."

"Ah, who knows?" said the first; "a great actress falls just as she
pleases, and is not afraid of hurting herself. They do it so well."

"What possessed Porpora to make such a scene?" said, in another part of
the room, whence the _la mode_ was going out, La Mettrie to the Marquis
D'Argens. "Has her lover beaten her?"

"Do not speak thus of a virtuous and charming girl," said the marquis.
"She has no lover. If she had, she has not been abused by him, unless,
indeed, he be the basest off men."

"Excuse me, marquis. I forgot that I was speaking to the champion of all
actresses. By the by, how is Mademoiselle Cochois?"

* * * * * * * *

"Poor thing!" just at that moment said the Princess Amelia of Prussia,
the king's sister, and canoness of Quedlimburgh, to her usual confidant,
the beautiful Countess Von Kleist, as she was returning to the palace.
"Did you observe my brother's agitation?"

"No, madame," said Madame de Maupertuis, gouvernante of the princess, an
excellent but simple and absent-minded person; "I did not."

"Eh? I did not speak to you," said the princess, with the brusque and
decided tone which sometimes made her so like Frederick. "Do you ever
see anything? Look you here. Count those stars for a while. I have
something to say to Von Kleist I do not wish you to hear."

Madame de Maupertuis closed her ears conscientiously, and the princess,
leaning towards the countess, who sat opposite to her, said:

"Say what you please, it seems to me that for the first time, perhaps
for fifteen or twenty years since I have been capable of observation,
the king is in love."

"So your royal highness said last year about Barberini; yet his majesty
never dreamed of her."

"Never? You are mistaken, my child. The young Chancellor Coccei married
her, and my brother thought so much of the matter that he was in a rage
more violent than any he had ever known before for three days."

"Your highness knows that his majesty cannot bear unequal matches."

"Yes; love matches are called unequal. That is a great phrase; just as
empty as all those are which rule the world and enslave individuals."
The princess uttered a deep sigh, and, as was her wont, rapidly changing
her humor, said, with irony and impatience to her gouvernante,
"Maupertuis, you are listening to us, and not counting the stars, as I
bade you. What is the use of being the wife of a great philosopher, if
you listen to the chattering of two such madcaps as we are?--Yes, I
say," said she, again speaking to her favorite, "the king did love that
Barberini. I have good reason to know that, after the performance, he
used, with Jordon and Chazols, to take his tea frequently in her room,
and that she went more than once to sup at _Sans Souci_, which, until
her time, was never the fashion at Potsdam. Do you wish me to speak more
plainly? She lived there for weeks, and, it may be, for months. You see
I know what is going on well enough, and that my brother's mysterious
airs do not impose on me."

"Since your royal highness is so well informed, I need not say that for
state reasons, the king sometimes wishes persons to think he is not so
austere as he is represented, though, in fact--"

"Though in fact my brother never really loved any woman, not even his
wife. Well, I have no faith in this virtue, or rather in this coldness.
He has always been a hypocrite. You cannot make me think La Barberini
always remained in his palace merely to seem to be his mistress. She is
beautiful as an angel, intellectual as a devil, educated, and speaks, I
know not how many languages."

"She is virtuous; she adores her husband."

"And her husband adores her the more because their marriage was unequal.
Will you answer me, Von Kleist? I suspect you, my noble widow, of being
in love with some page or bachelor?"

"Would your highness like to see such an unequal union as that of a king
and an actress?"

"Ah, with Porporina, the thing would not be so terrible. There is on the
stage, as at court, a perfect hierarchy. You know that is a whim and
disease of the human heart. A singer must have more self-respect than a
dancing-girl, and Porporina, they say, has more accomplishments and
knows more languages even than La Barberini. My brother has a passion
for speaking tongues he does not understand. Music, too, he seems very
fond of, you see, and that is another point of contact with the _prima
donna._ She too, goes to Potsdam and has the rooms in the new _Sans
Souci_ the Barberini used to occupy, and sings at the king's private
concerts. Is not this enough to make my conjectures probable?"

"Your highness seeks in vain to discover any weakness in our great
prince. All passes too openly and aboveboard for love to have anything
to do with it."

"Love! Certainly not. He knows nothing about that. There is, however, a
certain charm--a kind of intrigue; everybody, you must confess, says
that."

"No one says so, madame. All say that to relax his mind, the king laughs
at the chatter and listens to the songs of a pretty actress. After a
quarter of an hour thus passed, he says, 'Enough for to-day. If I want
you to-morrow, I will send for you.'"

"This is not gallant. If that is the way he courted Coccei's wife, I am
not amazed that she did not listen to him. Do they say whether this
Porporina is as stern as she was?"

"They say she is modest, well-behaved, timid, and sad."

"Well, that is the best way to please the king. Perhaps she is shrewd.
If it were possible, and one could trust her--"

"Trust no one, madame, not even Madame de Maupertuis, who is now so fast
asleep, I beg you."

"Let her snore away. Awake or asleep she is always the same. But, Von
Kleist, I would wish to know this Porporina, and see if anything can be
done with her. I regret that I refused, when the king proposed to
accompany her to my rooms, to receive her. You know I had a prejudice
against her."

"An unjust one. It was impossible--"

"Ah, God's will be done. Chagrin and fear have had such influence over
me for the last year, that all secondary cares are effaced. I wish to
see that girl. Who knows if she may not win from the king what we have
vainly asked for? That idea has been in my mind for some days, and I
have thought of nothing else. Seeing Frederick thus excited and uneasy
about her, I was confirmed in the idea that I would find in her a gate
of safety."

"Be careful, your highness. There is great danger."

"That is what you always say. I am more distrustful, yet more prudent
than you. We must think of this matter. Now, my dear gouvernante wake
up! We are at the palace."




CHAPTER II


While the young and beautiful abbess[1] thus gave vent to her thoughts,
the king, without knocking, entered Porporina's dressing-room, just as
she was regaining her consciousness.

"Well, signora," said he, in a kind and even polite tone, "how are you
now? Are you subject to such accidents? In your profession it is most
inconvenient. Has anything put you out? Are you too ill to speak?--Tell
me, you, sir," said he to the doctor, "if she be very ill."

"Yes, sire," said the medical man, "the pulse is scarcely perceptible.
There is much irregularity in the circulation, the functions of life
appear to be suspended. Her skin is icy."

"That is true," said the king, taking the hand of the young girl in his.
"The eye is fixed, and the mouth discolored. Give her some of Hoffman's
drops. D--n! I was afraid this was only a little extra scene. This girl
is sick, and is neither malicious nor depraved. That is true. Porporino,
no one has put her out this evening? Eh? No one has complained of her?"

"Sire," said Porporino, "she is not an actress, but an angel."

"Indeed! Are you in love with her?"

"No, sire; I respect her greatly, and look on her as my sister."

"Thank you two, and God, who has given up the condemnation of comedians,
my theatre has become a school of virtue. Ah, she now revives!
Porporina, do you not know me?"

"No, sir," said she, looking at the king, who rubbed the palms of her
hands in a terrified manner.

"She has perhaps a rush of blood to the head. Have you ever observed
that she was epileptic?"

"Oh, sire, never! This would be terrible," said Porporino, wounded at
the rude manner in which the king spoke of so interesting a person.

"Wait; do not bleed her," said the king, who saw the doctor open his
lancet. "I do not like to see blood spilled anywhere but on the
battle-field. You people are not soldiers, but assassins. Let her alone.
Give her air. Porporino, do not suffer them to bleed her. That, you see,
may kill her. These people suspect nothing. I confide her to you. Take
her home in your carriage, Poelnitz. You do not answer me. She is the
greatest singer we have seen, and we will not find another soon.
_Apropos_--What will you sing to me to-morrow, Conciolini?"

The king went down the stairway with the tenor, speaking of other
things, and sate soon after at the table with Voltaire, La Mettrie,
D'Argens, Algarotti, and General Quintus Icilius.

Frederick was stern, violent, and an intense egotist. In other respects,
he was generous and good, ever tender and affectionate at times. Every
one knows the terrible, yet seductive and multiple-faced character of
this man, the organization of whom was so complicated and full of
contrasts--like all other powerful natures, especially when they are
invested with supreme power, and an agitated career develops their
senses.

While eating, jesting, and chatting with graceful bitterness and coarse
wit, amid dear friends he did not love, and men of mind he did not
admire, Frederick became at once meditative, and after a few moments
arose, saying to his friends, "Talk away, I shall hear you." He then
went into the next room, took his hat and sword, bade a page follow him,
and passed into the dark galleries and mysterious passages of his old
palace, his guests yet fancying him near and measuring their words--not
daring to think he did not hear them. Besides, they (and for good cause)
so distrusted each other, that, whenever they chanced to be in Prussia,
they ever saw soaring over them the fearful and malicious phantom of
Frederick.

La Mettrie, a physician rarely consulted and a reader scarcely listened
to by the king, was the only person present who feared, and was feared,
by no one. He was esteemed altogether inoffensive, and had discovered
the means of keeping any one from hurting him. This consisted in
committing so many mad, foolish, and impertinent acts in the king's
presence, that no informer could charge him with aught he had not done
face to face with Frederick. He seemed to take the philosophic equality
the king professed, as a fixed fact (for seven or eight persons were
honored by this familiarity.) At this period, though he had reigned
eighteen years, Frederick had not entirely abandoned the popular
familiarity of the Prince Royal and hardy philosopher of Remunsberg.
Those who knew him, had not forborne to confide in him. Voltaire, the
most spoiled and the newest, began to be alarmed, and to see the tyrant
appear beneath the good prince--a Dionysius in Marcus Aurelius. La
Mettrie, however, whether from innate candor or deep calculation,
treated the king carelessly, or affected to do so. He took off his
cravat and wig in the royal rooms, sometimes he took off even his shoes,
lolled on the sofas, and had his little chat with him, pottered about
the small esteem he had for earthly greatness, of royalty as of
religion, and other prejudices in which a breach had been made by the
_Reason_ of the day. In a word, he was a true cynic, and did so much to
justify disgrace and dismissal, that it was impossible to see how he
maintained himself, when so many others had been dismissed for trifling
peccadillos.

The reason is, that in the minds of moody, distrustful persons like
Frederick, an insidious word reported by espionage, an appearance of
hypocrisy, or a slight doubt, make more impression than a thousand
imprudences. Frederick looked on La Mettrie as a madman, and often
seemed petrified by surprise at his conduct, saying, "That creature is
scandalously impudent." He would, however, say to himself, "But he is
sincere, and has no two opinions about me. He cannot treat me behind my
back worse than he does to my face. The others who are at my feet, what
do they not say and think when my back is turned, and when they leave
the table? La Mettrie is, then, the most honest man I have, and I must
put up with him, because no one else does." Thenceforth, all was
decided. La Mettrie could not make the king angry, and contrived to
please him with what would have disgusted in another. While Voltaire at
first forced himself into a system of adulation which it was impossible
to maintain, and which began to fatigue and disgust himself strangely,
the cynic La Mettrie went on amusing himself as frankly with Frederick
as with any stranger, and never felt inclined to reverse or overturn an
idol to which he had never made either sacrifice or promise. The
consequence was, that, when the king began to weary sadly of Voltaire,
he was highly amused by La Mettrie, whom he could not dispense with,
simply because he never seemed to wish to amuse him.

The Marquis d'Argens, a chamberlain, with 6,000 francs (the first
chamberlain, Voltaire, had 20,000f.) was a volatile thinker, a rapid and
superficial writer; a very impersonation of the Frenchman of his
day,--kind, blundering, gay, and, at the same time, brave and
effeminate, intelligent, generous and satirical. He was a man between
two eras, for he had the romance of youth and the skepticism of age.
Having passed all his youth with actresses, successively deceiving and
deceived, and always in love with the last one, he had married
Mademoiselle Cochois, first lady of the French theatre at Berlin, a very
ugly but sensible woman, whom he took a pleasure in instructing.
Frederick was ignorant of this secret marriage, and d'Argens took care
not to tell any one who could betray him of it. Voltaire was in his
confidence. D'Argens really was attached to the king, who was not fonder
of him than he was of others. Frederick had no faith in the sincerity of
any one, and poor d'Argens was sometimes the accomplice and sometimes
the butt of his cruelest jests.

All know that the colonel, dubbed by Frederick, Quintus Icilius, was a
Frenchman, named Guilhard, an excellent and decided tactician. He was,
like such characters in general, a robber and a courtier, in the full
sense of the terms.

To avoid fatiguing our readers with a gallery of portraits of historical
personages, we will say nothing of Algarotti. It will suffice to
indicate the opinions of the guests of Frederick, during his absence;
and we will say that, instead of feeling relieved of a burden by his
absence, they felt very uncomfortable, and could not speak a word
without looking at the half opened door through which the king had
passed, and whence he probably watched them.

La Mettrie was the only exception. Remarking that the service of the
table was neglected after the king's departure, he said--"On my word, I
think the master of this house very neglectful in leaving us no servants
or wine, and I will complain to him of the fact, if he be in that room."

He arose, and without any fear of being indiscreet, went into the next
room. He returned, saying, "Nobody there. That is odd. He is just the
man to go out and drill his regiment by torchlight, to promote his
digestion. He is odd enough."

"Not so. You are the odd one," said Quintus Icilius, who could not
accustom himself to La Mettrie's strange manners.

"Then the king is gone out," said Voltaire, beginning to breathe more
freely.

"Yes, the king has gone out," said the Baron Von Poelnitz, who just came
in. "I met him in the back court, with no escort but a single page. He
had put on his famous incognito, the coat the color of the wall. I did
not recognise him."

We must say a word of the third chamberlain, Von Poelnitz, or the reader
will not understand how any one but La Mettrie could speak so
slightingly of the king. The age of Poelnitz was about as problematical
as his salary and duties. He was a Prussian baron; and was that _roué_
of the regency who had been so conspicuous a member of the court of
Madame la Palatine, the mother of the Duke of Orleans, the headlong
gamester, the debts of whom the King of Prussia refused to pay. He was a
cynical libertine, a spy, a scamp, a courtier, fed, chained, and
contemned. His master scolded and paid him badly, but could not do
without him, because an absolute king must always have some one at hand
to do his dirty work, revenging himself for the necessity of such an
attendant in the humiliation of his victim. Poelnitz was, moreover, at
this time, the director of the Royal Theatre, and, as it were, a supreme
attendant of Frederick's pleasures. He was a perpetual courtier. Having
been the page of the last king, he added the refined vices of the
regency to the cynical grossness of William, and the impertinence and
severity of the military and philosophical sternness of Frederick the
Great. His favor with the latter was a kind of chronic disgrace, which
he took care not to shake off. Besides always playing the part of master
of the dirty work, he really was not afraid of being injured by any one
in his master's good opinion.

"Ah, baron, you should have followed the king, and told us afterwards
whither he went. We would have made him swear on his return, if we had
been able to tell him whither he went, and that we saw his acts and
gestures."

"We might do better than that," said Poelnitz, laughing. "We might have
been able to postpone that till to-morrow, and accounted for it by the
fact of having consulted the sorcerer."

"What sorcerer?" asked Voltaire.

"The famous Count de St. Germain, who has been here since morning."

"Indeed! I wish to find out if he be a charlatan or a fool."

"That is hard to say. He plays his game so well that no one can tell."

"Fools do not act thus," said Algarotti.

"Tell me about Frederick," said La Mettrie. "I wish to pique his
curiosity by some good story, so that he may treat us some day to a
supper with Saint Germain, who may indulge us with an account of his
adventures before the deluge. That will be amusing. Let us think! Where
can the king be just now? Baron, you know, for you are too curious not
to have followed him."

"Do you wish me to say?" said Poelnitz.

"I hope, sir," said Quintus, flushing with anger, "that you will reply
to none of M. de la Mettrie's strange questions. If his majesty----"

"Bah! my dear friend," said La Mettrie, "there is no majesty between ten
at night and two in the morning. Frederick has made it statute law, and
I am familiar with all its clauses. There is no king at the supper
table. Do you not see the poor king is wearied, and, bad servant as you
are, you will not aid him for a few hours of the night to forget the
weight of greatness."

"I do not wish to know," said Quintus, rising and leaving the table.

"As you please," said Poelnitz. "Let all who do, open their ears and
hear."

"Mine are wide open," said La Mettrie.

"Yes, and so are mine," said Algarotti, laughing.

"Gentlemen," said the baron, "his majesty is at the house of La
Porporina."

"You play the game well," said La Mettrie; and he made a Latin quotation
I do not translate because I do not understand Latin.

Quintus Icilius became pale, and left the room. Algarotti recited an
Italian sonnet, which was understood scarcely better; and Voltaire
improvised four verses, comparing Frederick with Julius Cesar. After
this the three philosophers looked at each other and smiled. Poelnitz
then said seriously, "I pledge you my honor, gentlemen, that the king is
at Porporina's house."

"Can you tell us nothing else?" asked D'Argens, whom all this
displeased; for he was not a man to betray others to increase his own
credit.

Poelnitz answered, without troubling himself, "The devil, marquis! When
the king tells us you are gone to the house of Mademoiselle Cochois, we
are not scandalized. Why should you be, because he has gone to
Porporina's?"

"It should, on the other hand, please you," said Algarotti; "and if it
be true, I will tell it at Rome."

"And his holiness, who is fond of gossip, will be witty on the matter,"
said Voltaire.

"About what will his holiness be witty?" said the king, entering the
dining-room unexpectedly.

"About the amours of Frederick the Great and the Venetian La Porporina,"
said La Mettrie, boldly.

The king grew pale, and cast a terrible glance at his guests, all of
whom grew white as sheets, except La Mettrie, who said,--

"Well, what of it? M. de Saint Germain predicted this evening, at the
opera, that at the time when Saturn was passing between Regulus and the
Virgin, his majesty, with a single page----"

"Who on earth is this Count of St. Germain?" said the king, seating
himself calmly as possible, and holding out his glass to La Mettrie to
be filled with champagne.

They then talked of St Germain, and the storm passed off without an
explosion. At first the impertinence of Poelnitz, who had betrayed him,
and the audacity of La Mettrie, who had dared to taunt him, filled the
king with rage. While, however, the latter was speaking a single phrase,
Frederick remembered that he had advised Poelnitz to gossip on a certain
matter and induce others also to do so. He then restrained himself with
that facility which was so peculiar to him, and nothing was said of the
king's nocturnal visit. La Mettrie, had he thought of it, would have
returned to the charge; but his volatile mind readily followed the new
thread of conversation. Frederick in this way often restrained La
Mettrie, whom he treated as we would treat a child on the point of
breaking a mirror or springing out of a window, to distract the
attention of whom a toy is shown. Each one made his commentary about the
famous Count of St Germain. Each had an anecdote. Poelnitz pretended to
have seen him twenty years before in France. He added--

"I saw him this morning, and in all the time that has passed he does not
seem to have grown older than those I saw yesterday. I remember once, in
France, hearing him say of the passion of Jesus Christ, with
inconceivable seriousness--'I said that he could not but have trouble
with those wicked Jews. I told him what would happen, but he would not
hear me. His zeal made him despise all dangers. His tragical death,
however, distressed me as I had never been before, and I cannot think of
it without tears.' As he spoke, this queer count wept so naturally, that
I could scarcely refrain from following his example."

"You are," said the king, "so good a Christian, that it does not amaze
me." Poelnitz had changed his religion three or four times to obtain
benefices and places with which, for joke's sake, the king had tempted
him.

"Your anecdote," said D'Argens, "is but a fancy sketch. I have heard
many better.--What makes this Count de Saint Germain an interesting and
remarkable personage, in my opinion, is the number of new and ingenious
claims, by which he unravels the doubtful points of the obscurer history
of States. Question him about any subject or epoch of history, and you
will be surprised to hear him unfold or invent an infinity of probable
and interesting things, which throw a new light on what has been
doubtful and mysterious."

"If what he says is probable," observed Algarotti, "he must be
wonderfully learned, and gifted with a prodigious memory."

"He is something better than that," said the king; "mere erudition does
not suffice to explain history. This man must have a mighty mind, and
great knowledge of humanity. The only questions are whether this noble
organization has been distorted by the desire of playing a whimsical
part, and a disposition to attribute to himself eternal life and a
knowledge of matters that happened before the birth of any that live, or
whether deep study and meditation has not deranged his brain, and struck
him with monomania?"

"I can at least assure your majesty of the good faith and modesty of our
man. It is with great difficulty that he can be made to talk of the
wonderful things he fancies he has seen. He is aware that he is treated
as a dreamer and charlatan, and this seems to trouble him much. Now he
refuses to explain his supernatural power."

"Well, sire, are you not anxious to see and hear him?" said La Mettrie.
"I own I am."

"How so?" said the king. "Why be curious about that? The spectacle of
folly is always sad."

"If it be folly, I own it. But what if it is not?"

"Listen, gentlemen," said Frederick. "This skeptic--this atheist
pure--has faith in the wonderful, and believes in the eternal life of M.
de Saint Germain! You need not be surprised; for La Mettrie believes in
death, thunder and ghosts."

"I own that the latter is a weakness; but that my dread of death, and
all that can inflict it, is but reason and wisdom. What the devil should
one be anxious about, if not of safety and life?"

"Hurra for Panurge!" said Voltaire.

"I will return to Saint Germain," said La Mettrie; "Pontagruel must
invite him to sup with us to-morrow."

"I will take care not to do so," said the king. "You are mad enough now,
my poor friend; and were he once to put foot in my house, the
superstitious imaginations which hang around us would, in a moment, fill
Europe with countless strange tales. Ah! dear Voltaire, if the days of
reason did but come--that is a prayer we should make every morning and
evening."

"Reason!--reason," said La Mettrie, "is kind and beneficial, when it
serves to excuse and legitimate my passions and vices--my
appetites--call them as you please. When it becomes annoying, I wish to
kick it out of doors. Damn!--I wish to know no reason which will make me
pretend to be brave, when I am not; to be a stoic, when I suffer; and
submissive, when I am in a rage. Away with such reason! I'll have none
of it; for it is a monster and chimera of the imagination of those
triflers of antiquity whom you all admire so much and know not why. I
hope its reign may never come! I like absolute power of no kind; and if
I were to be forced not to believe in God, which now is my state of
mind, I am sure I would go straight to mass."

"You, it is well known," said D'Argens, "are capable of anything--even
in believing in the philosopher's stone of the Count of Saint Germain."

"Why not? It would be pleasant, and I need such a thing."

"Well! that is true," said Poelnitz, putting his hand in his vast and
empty pockets. "The sooner its reign comes the better. I pray for it
every morning and night."

"Bah!" said Frederick, who always turned a deaf ear to every
insinuation. "Monsieur de Saint Germain knows, then, the secret of
making gold--you did not say that?"

"Then let me invite him to supper to-morrow," said La Mettrie; "for I
have an idea, Royal Gargantua, his secret would do you no harm. You have
great necessities, and a most capacious stomach, as a king and a
reformer."

"Be silent, Panurge!" said Frederick. "We know all about your count, who
is an impudent impostor, and a person I intend to place under close
surveillance. We are assured, with his fine secrets he takes more money
out of the country than he leaves in it. Eh, gentlemen; do you not
remember the great magician, Cagliostro, whom I made march out of
Berlin, in double quick time, about six months since?"

"And who robbed me of a hundred crowns! May the devil sue him for them,
say I."

"And who would have also had a hundred more, if Poelnitz could have
raised them," said D'Argens.

"You drove him away; yet he played you a good trick, notwithstanding."

"What?"

"Ah! you do not know. Then I have a good story to tell you."

"The greatest merit of a story is brevity," said the king.

"Mine is very short. On the day when your Pantagruelic[2] majesty
ordered the sublime Cagliostro to pack up his alembics, spectres, and
devils, it is well known that he left Berlin in his carriage, _propria
personâ_, at twelve exactly, passed, at the same time, through each of
the gates--at least, twenty thousand persons will swear to that. The
guards at every gate saw the same hat, wig, carriage and horses, and you
cannot convince them that on that day there were not at least six
Cagliostros in the field."

All but Frederick thought the story amusing. Frederick alone did not
laugh. He was in earnest about reason, and the superstition which amused
Voltaire so much, filled him with indignation. "Bah!" said he, shrugging
his shoulders; "that is the way with the people, Voltaire, at a time
when you cast on the world the light of your torch. You have been
exiled, persecuted, and imposed on in every way; yet as soon as
Cagliostro comes, the people are fascinated--whenever he comes he has a
triumphal march."

"Do you know," said La Mettrie, "that the noblest ladies have as much
faith in Cagliostro as the merest street-walkers? I heard that story
from one of the most beautiful of your court."

"I will bet it was that Von Kleist," said the king.

"_You named her yourself_," said La Mettrie.

"Listen how he speaks to the king," said Quintus Icilius, who had just
come.

"Bah! the Von Kleist is mad," said Frederick. "She is a visionary, and
has implicit faith in horoscopes and sorcery. She needs a good lesson,
and had best take care. She makes the women mad, and even reduced her
husband to such a state of mind that he used to sacrifice black rams to
the devil, to discover the treasures buried in the Brandebourg sands."

"All that is fashionable now in your house, my dear Pantagruel," said La
Mettrie. "I do not see how women can submit to your exacting goddess,
Reason. Women were made to amuse themselves and us. When they become
wise, we must be fools. Madam Von Kleist is charming, with all those
wild ghost-stories. With them she amuses _Soror Amalia._"

"What does that _Soror Amalia_ mean?" asked Frederick, with amazement.

"Eh! your charming sister, the Abbess of Quedlimburg, who, we all know,
devotes herself to magic."

"Be silent, Panurge!" said the king, in a voice of thunder, throwing his
snuff-box on the table.


[Footnote 1: It is well known Frederick used to give abbeys,
canonicates, and episcopates to his officers, favorites, and relations,
even when they were Protestants. The Princess Amelia, having refused to
marry, had been made Abbess of Quedlimburgh, a prebend, with an income
of a hundred thousand livres. She was addressed as the Catholic
canonesses were.]

[Footnote 2: It is scarcely necessary to say that Pantagruel and
Gargantua are two of the creations of the very great and very French
Rabelais.--TRANSLATOR.]




CHAPTER III


There was a moment of silence, during which the clock struck twelve.[3]
Ordinarily, Voltaire was able to restore the tone of conversation, when
a cloud passed over Trajan's brow, and to efface the bad impression of
the other guests. On this evening, however, Voltaire was sad and
suffering, and felt all the effects of the king's Prussian spleen. On
that very morning La Mettrie had told him of the fatal remark of
Frederick, which replaced a feigned friendship by a real animosity,
which each of these great men felt for each other. Though he said
nothing, he thought--

"He may throw the skin[4] of La Mettrie away when he chooses. Let him be
ill tempered and suffer as he will, but I have the cholic, and all his
flatteries will not cure it."

Frederick was thus forced to resume his philosophical serenity without
assistance.

He said, "Since we are talking of Cagliostro and the hour for ghosts and
stories has come, I will tell you one which will show how hard it is to
have faith in sorcerers. My story is true; for I have it from the person
to whom it happened last year. The accident at the theatre this evening
recalls it to my mind, and that accident may have some connection with
it."

"Is the story terrible?" asked La Mettrie.

"Perhaps," said Frederick.

"Then I will shut the door; for I cannot listen to ghost-stories with a
door gaping."

La Mettrie shut the door, and the king spoke as follows:

"Cagliostro, as you know, had the trick of showing credulous people
pictures, or rather magic mirrors, on which he caused the absent to
appear. He pretended to be able to reveal the most secret occupations of
their lives in this manner. Jealous women went to consult him about the
infidelities of their husbands, and some lovers and husbands have
learned a great deal about their ladies' capers. The magic mirror has,
they say, betrayed mysteries of iniquity. Be that as it may, the
opera-singers all met one night and offered him a good supper and
admirable music, provided he would perform some of his feats. He
consented, and appointed a day to meet Porporino, Conciolini, the
Signora Asttha and Porporina, and show them heaven or hell, as they
pleased.

"The Barberini family were also there. Giovanna Barberini asked to see
the late Doge of Venice, and as Cagliostro gets up ghosts in very good
style, she was very much frightened, and rushed completely overpowered
from the cabinet, in which Cagliostro had placed her, _tête-à-tête_
with the doge. I suspect the Barberini, who is very fond of a joke, of
having pretended fear, to laugh at the Italian actors, who from the very
nature of their profession are not expected to be at all courageous, and
who positively refused to submit to this test. La Porporina, with the
calm expression which, as you know is so peculiar to her, told
Cagliostro she would have faith in his science, if he would show her the
person of whom she then thought, but whom it was not necessary for her
to name, for if he was a sorcerer, he must be able to read her soul as
he would read a book.

"'What you ask is not a trifle,' said our count, 'yet, I think I can
satisfy you, provided that you swear by all that is holy and terrible,
not to speak to the person I shall evoke, to make no motion nor gesture,
to utter no sound, while the apparition stands before you.'

"Porporina promised to do so, and went boldly into the dark closet.

"I need not tell you, gentlemen, that this young woman is one of the
most intellectual and correct persons to be met with. She is well
educated, thinks well about all matters, and I have reason to know no
narrow or restricted idea makes any impression upon her.

"She remained in the ghost-room long enough to make her companions very
uneasy. All was silent as possible and finally she came out very pale,
and with tears streaming from her eyes. She immediately said to her
companions, 'If Cagliostro be a sorcerer, he is a deceiving one. Have
faith in nothing that he shows you. She would say no more. Conciolini,
however, told me a few days after, at one of my concerts, of this
wonderful entertainment. I promised myself to question Porporina about
it, the first time she sang at _Sans Souci._ I had much difficulty in
making her speak of it, but thus she told me:

"'Cagliostro has beyond a doubt the strange power of producing spectres
so like truth that it is impossible for the calmest minds to be unmoved
by them. He is no magician and his affectation of reading my thoughts
was based on some knowledge, I know not how acquired, of my past life.
His knowledge, however, is incomplete, and I would not advise you, sire,
to make him your Minister of Police, for he would perpetrate strange
mistakes. Thus, when I asked him to show me the absent person I wished
to see, I thought of my music-master, Porpora, who is now at Vienna.
Instead of him, I saw in the magic-room a very dear friend I lost during
the current year.'"

"_Peste!_" said D'Argens, "that is more wonderful even than the
apparition of a living person."

"Wait a moment, gentlemen. Cagliostro, badly informed, had no doubt but
what he had shown was the phantom of a living person, and, when it had
disappeared, asked Porporina if what she had seen was satisfactory. 'In
the first place, monsieur,' said she, 'I wish to understand it. Will you
explain?' 'That surpasses my power. Be assured that your friend is well,
and usefully employed.' To this the signora replied, 'Alas! sir, you
have done me much wrong; you showed me a person of whom I did not think,
and who is, you say, now living. I closed his eyes six months ago.'
Thus, gentlemen, in deceiving others, sorcerers deceive themselves, and
thus their plans are foiled, by something which is wanting in their
secret police. To a certain point they penetrate into family mysteries
and secret intimacies. All human histories are more or less alike, and
as people inclined to the wonderful are not close examiners, they fall
twenty times out of thirty. Ten times, however, out of thirty, they are
wrong. They care nothing about that, though they are very loud about
those of their revelations which succeed. This is the case, too, with
horoscopes, in which they predict a series of common-place events, which
must happen to everybody, such as voyages, diseases, the loss of a
friend, an inheritance, a meeting, an interesting letter, and the
thousand other casualties of human life. Look at the catastrophes and
domestic chagrins, to which the revelations of a Cagliostro expose weak
and passionate minds. The husband who confides in them, kills an
innocent wife; a mother goes mad with grief at the death of an absent
son. This pretended magic art causes countless other disasters. All this
is infamous; and none can say that I was wrong in exiling from my states
this Cagliostro, who guesses so exactly, and has such a perfect
understanding with the dead and buried."

"All this is very fine," said La Mettrie, "but does not explain how your
majesty's Porporina saw the dead alive. If she is gifted with as much
firmness and reason as your majesty says, the fact goes to disprove your
majesty's argument. The sorcerer, it is true, was mistaken, in producing
a dead rather than a living man. It, however, makes it the more certain
that he controls both life and death. In that respect, he is greater
than your majesty, which, if it does not displease your majesty, has
killed many men, but never resuscitated a single one."

"Then, Mr. Wiseacre, we are to believe in the devil," said the king,
laughing at the comic glances of La Mettrie at Quintus Icilius, as often
as the former pronounced the phrase, "your majesty."

"Why should we not believe in Papa Satan? He has been so slandered, and
has so much sense," said La Mettrie.

"Burn the Manichean," said Voltaire, placing a candle close to the
doctor's wig.

"To conclude, most noble Fritz, I have gotten you into a tight place;
your Porporina is either foolish or credulous, and saw her dead man, or
she was philosophical, and saw nothing. She was frightened, however."

"Not so; she was distressed," said the king, "as all naturally would be,
at the sight of a portrait which would exactly recall a person loved,
but know we shall see no more. But if I must tell you all, I will say,
that she subsequently was afraid, and that her moral power after this
test, was not in so sound a state as it was previously. Thenceforth she
has been liable to a dark melancholy, which is always the proof of
weakness or disorder of our faculties. Her mind was touched, I am
confident, though she denies it. No one can safely contend with
falsehood. The attack she had this evening is a consequence of that, and
I pledge myself there is in her mind some dread of the magic power
attributed to M. de Saint Germain. I have heard, that since she returned
home, she has done nothing but weep."

"Of all that part of the story I am utterly incredulous," said La
Mettrie. "You have been to see her, and since that time her tears are
dried."

"You are very curious, Panurge, to know the object of my visit. You,
D'Argens, though you say little, seem to think a great deal. You, too,
Voltaire, seem to think no less, though you do not open your lips."

"Should not one naturally enough be curious about all that Frederick the
Great chooses to do?" replied Voltaire, who thus strained his
complaisance in order to get the king to talk. "Perhaps certain men have
no right to conceal anything, when their most indifferent word becomes a
precept, and their most trilling action an example."

"My dear friend, you really gratify me. Who would not be pleased at the
praise of Voltaire? All this, however, did not keep you from laughing at
me during the half hour I was absent. Well, during that time you cannot
suppose I could go to the opera, where Porporina lives, and recite a
long madrigal, and return on foot, for on foot I was."

"Bah, sire, the opera is hard by, and you have gained a battle in the
same time."

"You are mistaken. A much longer time is necessary," said the king,
coldly; "ask Quintus Icilus. The marquis is so perfectly familiar with
actresses, that he can tell you more than an hour is necessary to
conquer them."

"Ah, sire, that is as the case may be."

"Yes, that is as the case may be: for your sake, though, I hope M'lle
Cochois has given you more trouble. However, gentlemen, I did not see La
Porporina during the night, having only spoken to her servant, and asked
about her."

"You, sire!" said La Mettrie.

"I went to take her a _flacon_, the good effects of which I have
personally tested, when I have had attacks of pain in the stomach, which
sometimes destroyed my consciousness. Well, you say nothing. You are all
amazed. You wish to praise my paternal and royal benevolence, but dare
not do so, because you think me ridiculous."

"Sire, if you are in love, like other mortals, I have no objection,"
said La Mettrie, "and see no occasion either for praise or blame."

"Well, my good Panurge, if I must speak plainly, I am not at all in
love. I am a simple man, it is true, and have not the honor to be King
of France; consequently, the style of manners which are proper enough
for a great monarch, like Louis XV., would be unbecoming to myself, a
petty Marquis of Brandebourg. In managing my business, I have much
besides to attend to, and have not time to slumber in the bowers of
Cytherea."

"Then I do not understand your anxiety about this little opera-singer,"
said La Mettrie; "and I shall not be able to know what to think unless
this results from mere musical enthusiasm."

"This being the case--know, my friends, that I am neither the lover, nor
wish to be, of Porporina--yet that I am much attached to her, because in
a matter too tedious to be told now, and before she knew me, she saved
my life. It was a strange affair, and I will tell you of it on some
other occasion. The night is now too far gone, and M. de Voltaire is
going to sleep. Let it suffice to know that if I am here, and not
elsewhere, as some good people wish, it is attributable to her. You know
now, that seeing her dangerously indisposed, I may go to see whether she
be dead or alive, and take a _flacon_ of _sthas_ to her, without your
having any reason to think me a Duke de Richelieu or De Lauzun. Well,
gentlemen adieu. Eight days ago I took off my boots, and in six more
must resume them. I pray God to take you in his holy charge, as we say
at the end of a letter."

* * * * * * * *

Just as the great clock of the palace struck twelve, the young and
worldly Abbess of Quedlimburgh was about to get into her bed of
rose-satin. Her first _femme de chambre_ placed her slippers on the
ermine carpet. The attendant suddenly began to tremble, and uttered a
cry. Some one tapped at the door of the princess's chamber.

"Well, are you mad?" said the fair Amelia, half opening her curtain.
"Why look around and utter such a cry?"

"Has not your royal highness heard some one knock?"

"Well, go and see who it is."

"Ah, madame, what living person would dare to knock at the door of your
royal highness, when it is known that you are in bed?"

"No living person, you say? Then it is some one dead. Listen! some one
knocks again. Go, for you make me impatient."

The _femme de chambre_, more dead than alive, went to the door, and
asked "Who is there?"

"It is I, Baroness Von Kleist," replied a well known voice. "If the
princess be not yet asleep, say I have something very important to
communicate to her."

"Well, be quick," said the princess. "Let her in, and leave us."

As soon as the abbess and her favorite were alone, the latter sate at
the foot of her mistress's bed, and said, "Your royal highness was not
mistaken. The king is desperately in love with Porporina, but he is not
yet her lover. The young woman, therefore, has just now the most
unlimited influence over him."

"How came you during the last hour to find out all this?"

"Because, when I was undressing to go to bed, I made my _femme de
chambre_ talk to me, and learned from her that she had a sister in the
service of Porporina. Immediately I began to question her, and picked
out, as it were, with a needle's point, the fact that my woman had left
her sister's house just as the king visited Porporina."

"Are you sure of that?"

"My woman had seen the king distinctly as I see you. He even spoke to
her, taking her for her sister, who was in another room, attending to
her sick mistress, if the illness of the latter was not pretence. The
king inquired after Porporina's health with the greatest anxiety, and
stamped his feet with much chagrin when he learned that she continued to
weep. He did not ask to see her, lest he should annoy her, and having
left a very precious _flacon_ for her, and said if she remained unwell,
he would come at eleven o'clock on the next night."

"Well, I hope all this may be so, yet I scarcely dare believe my ears.
Does your woman know the king's face?"

"Every one knows a monarch who is always on horseback. Besides, a page
had preceded the king five minutes, to see if there was any one at her
house. During that time, the king, cloaked and wrapped up, waited, as he
is wont to do, at the end of the street."

"Then, Von Kleist, the secret of this mystery and solicitude is love, or
I am mistaken. And have you come, in spite of the cold, to tell me this!
My dear friend, how good you are."

"You may add, in spite of ghosts. Do you know that for several days
there has been a panic in the palace? My _chasseur_ trembled like an
idiot as he accompanied me through the passages."

"What is the matter? Is the white lady come again?"

"Yes. _The woman with the broom._"[5]

"My dear Von Kleist, we are not playing the trick now. Our phantoms are
far away. God grant they may return!"

"I thought at first that perhaps the king wished to play the ghost, for
now he has a good cause to desire all curious servants out of the
passages. What astonished me very much, however, was the fact that the
ghost does not appear near his rooms, nor on the road to Porporina's.
The spirits hover around your highness; and as I have nothing to do with
the matter, I will say I am not a little afraid."

"What are you talking of, my dear. How can you, who I know so much, have
any faith in spectres?"

"That is the reason why. It is said when they are counterfeited they
become offended, and do all they can to punish one."

"Then they have been a long time about punishing us, for they have left
its unmolested more than a year. Bah! think no more of that, for we know
well enough what we must think of these souls in trouble. Beyond doubt
it was some page or subaltern, who comes in the night to ask the prayers
of my prettiest woman,--the old one, therefore, of whom nothing is
asked, is fearfully terrified. At first she did not wish to let you in.
Why should we talk of that, though, Von Kleist? We know the king's
secret, and must use it. How can we?"

"We must win this Porporina before she becomes spoiled by favor."

"Certainly. We must spare neither presents, promises, nor flattery. You
must go to her house to-morrow, and ask for music and Porpora's
autographs for me. She must have much unpublished music by the Italian
master. Promise that I will in return give her the manuscripts of
Sebastian Bach. I have many of them. We will commence by exchanges. Then
I will ask her to come and teach me the execution of her music. Let me
get her once into my house, and I will endeavor to secure and control
her."

"I will go to-morrow morning, madame."

"Good night, Von Kleist. Come, kiss me. You are my only friend. Go to
bed; and if you meet _the woman with the broom_ in the passage, look
closely, and see if there be no spurs on her heels."


[Footnote 3: The opera began earlier in Frederick's time than it does in
Europe at the present day. The king sate down to supper at ten o'clock.]

[Footnote 4: It is well known that Voltaire was deeply wounded by
Frederick saying, "I keep him because I need him. In a year I will have
other things to do, and will get rid of him. I squeeze the orange, and
throw away the skin."]

[Footnote 5: "La Balayeuse."]




CHAPTER IV


On the next day, Porporina awoke from a deep slumber, completely
overpowered, and found on her bed two things which her maid had just
placed there. One was a _flacon_ of rock crystal, with a gold stopper,
on which was engraved an "F." with a royal crown. The second was a
sealed package. The servant, on being questioned, said that the king had
come in person on the previous day to bring the _flacon._ When she heard
the circumstances of a visit which was so _naïve_ and respectful,
Porporina was much moved.

"Strange man!" thought she. "How can so much mildness in private life be
reconciled with public sternness and despotism?" She fell at once into a
reverie, and gradually forgetting the king and thinking of herself,
retraced confusedly the events of the previous evening. She began to
weep.

"What is the matter, signora?" said the maid, who was a kind soul, and
an indifferently diffuse talker. "Are you going to cry again, as you did
when you went to bed. This is enough to break one's heart; and the king,
who was at the door when he heard you, shook his head two or three
times, as if he was much distressed. Yet, signora, many would envy you.
The king does not court everybody. They say he courts no one, yet it is
very certain that he is in love with you."

"In love? What do you say?" said Porporina, shuddering. "Never say such
an improper and absurd thing again. The king in love with me? Great
God!"

"Well, signora, suppose he were?"

"God grant he may not be! He, however, neither is nor will be. What roll
is this, Catharine?"

"A servant brought it early in the morning."

"Whose servant?"

"A person picked up in the streets. At last, though, he told me he had
been employed by the servants of a certain Count of St. Germain, who
came hither yesterday."

"Why did you ask the question?"

"Because I wanted to know, signora."

"That is frank, certainly. Now go."

As soon as Porporina was alone, she opened the roll, which she found
contained a parchment, covered with strange and unintelligible
characters. She had heard much of the Count of Saint Germain, but did
not know him. She examined the manuscript carefully, and as she could
not understand it, and could not perceive why a person with whom she had
never had any acquaintance, should send her an enigma to unravel, she
fancied that he was mad. As she examined this document more closely, a
separate note fell out, and she read: "The Princess Amelia of Prussia
takes much interest in divination and in horoscopes. Give her this
parchment, and you will be certain to secure her protection and
friendship." To these lines there was no signature, the hand was
unknown, and the roll bore no address. She was amazed that the Count of
Saint Germain, to reach the Princess Amelia, had come to her, who had
never met her; and thinking that her servant had made some mistake,
began to fold it up, for the purpose of returning it. When she took up
the sheet of coarse paper, which had been around it, she observed there
was music printed on the other side. An old recollection recurred to
her; to look at one corner of the sheet for a mark, which had been
agreed on--to recognise the deep pencil lines--to see that the music was
a part of a piece which she had given away, as a token of remembrance,
eighteen months before--was but the work of an instant. The emotion
which she experienced at the remembrance of an absent and suffering
friend, made her forget her own sorrows. She was only anxious to know
what was to be done with the manuscript, and why she had been charged
with transmitting it to the princess. Was the object to secure for her
that personage's favor and protection? For that Porporina had neither
the want nor the desire. Was it for the purpose of establishing a
communication between the princess and the prisoner, which might be
useful to the latter? She hesitated. In her doubt she recollected the
proverb, "beware;" she then remembered that there were both good and bad
proverbs, some of which came to the aid of prudent selfishness and
others to bold devotion. She got up at once, saying to herself:

"_When in doubt, act_, provided that you do not compromise yourself, and
have reason to hope that you can be useful to your friend and
fellow-being."

Scarcely had she finished her toilette, which required some time, for
she was much enfeebled by the attack of the previous evening, (and while
tying up her beautiful dark hair,) she thought how she could best convey
the parchment to the princess, when a servant in an embroidered livery
came to ask if she was alone, and if she was willing to receive an
unknown lady, who wished to visit her. The young singer had often
repined at the manner in which at that time _artistes_ were subjected to
the great: she felt at first disposed to refuse the visit, and to say
that the singers of the theatre were with her. She remembered, though,
that this answer might offend the prudery of some ladies, but would have
the effect of making others more anxious to trespass on her. She,
therefore, consented to receive the visit, and the fair Von Kleist was
soon introduced.

This lady was thoroughly used to society, and had determined to please
the singer, and make her forget all differences of rank. She was ill at
ease, however, because she had heard that Porporina was very haughty,
and Von Kleist had also excellent reasons to wish, for her own sake, to
penetrate her most hidden thoughts. Though young and inoffensive, there
was, at this moment, in the court-lady's mind and countenance, something
false and forced, which did not escape Porporina's attention. Curiosity
approximates so closely to perfidy, that it destroys the beauty of the
most perfect features.

Porporina knew the face of her visitor perfectly well; and her first
movement when she saw a person who appeared every evening in the box of
the Princess Amelia, was to ask, under the pretext of necromancy, of
which she knew she was fond, an interview with the princess. Not daring,
however, to confide in a person who had the reputation of being both
imprudent and disposed to intrigues, she determined to let her lead the
conversation, and began to bring to bear on her the quiet penetration of
the defensive, which is so superior to the attacks of curiosity.

At last, the ice was broken; and the lady having presented the
princess's request for music; the singer, concealing her satisfaction at
this happy chance, went to get many unedited arrangements. Then, with an
appearance as if suddenly inspired, she said, "I will be delighted,
madame, to place all my treasures at her highness's disposal; and would
feel honored were she to consent to receive me."

"And do you, indeed," said Madame Von Kleist, "wish to speak to her
royal highness?"

"Yes, madame," said Porporina. "I would throw myself at her feet, and
ask a favor which I am sure she would not refuse me. She is, they say, a
great musician, and must protect artists. I have also heard that she is
good as she is beautiful. I hope, then, if she deign to hear me, that
she will aid me in obtaining from his majesty the recall of my master,
who having been invited to Berlin, with the king's consent, was, when he
reached the frontier, driven away, in consequence of a defect in his
passport. Since then, in spite of the king's promises and assurances, I
have been unable to bring this affair to an end. I dare no longer annoy
the king with a request in which he takes but little interest, I am
sure, for he always forgets it. But, if the princess would deign to say
a word to the officers to whom such matters belong, I will have the
happiness of being again with my adoptive father, the only friend I have
in the world."

"What you say amazes me greatly," remarked Von Kleist. "What! the
beautiful Porporina, whom I thought exerted an all-powerful influence
over the king's mind, is obliged, forced, to obtain elsewhere a favor
which seems so simple. Suffer me to conclude from these circumstances,
that his majesty expects to find in your adoptive father, too vigilant a
surveillance, or some counsel which will be of too much influence
against his wishes."

"I strive in vain, madame, to understand what you honor me by saying,"
said Porporina, with a gravity which entirely disconcerted the baroness.

"Then, apparently, I have mistaken the extreme benevolence and limitless
admiration which the king professes for the greatest of living singers."

"Does it become the dignity of the Baroness von Kleist to ridicule a
poor _artiste_, like myself, without any influence, and perfectly
inoffensive?"

"I ridicule!--who would think of ridiculing so angelic a being as you
are? You are ignorant, signora, of your merit, and your candor fills me
with surprise and admiration. Listen to me: I am sure that you will make
a conquest of the princess. She always acts from the impulse of the
moment, and it is only necessary for you to meet her, to take as perfect
possession of her with your person as you have with your mind."

"It has, on the contrary, been said that her royal highness has always
been severe in relation to me; and that, unfortunately, my poor face
displeased her, and also, that she was much dissatisfied with my method
of singing."

"Who on earth can have told you such falsehoods?"

"If any have been told, the king is guilty," said the young girl, with
a slight tone of malice.

"It was a snare--a test of your modesty and gentleness," said the
baroness, "as though I intend to prove to you that being a simple
mortal, I have no right to be false, like a mighty and ill-tempered
king, I wish to take you at once to the princess, that you may give her
the music in person."

"And do you think, madame, that she will receive me kindly?"

"Will you trust me?"

"Yet, if you be mistaken, on whom will the humiliation fall?"

"On me alone: I authorise you to say everywhere, that I am proud of the
princess's friendship, and that she entertains both esteem and deference
for me."

"I will go with you, madame," said Consuelo, ringing for her mantle and
muff. "My toilette is very simple, but you have entirely surprised me."

"You are perfectly charming, and will find the princess in a yet more
simple toilette.--Come."

Porporina put the mysterious roll in her pocket, filled the carriage of
the baroness with music, and followed her resolutely.

"For a man who risked his life for me," thought she, "I might run the
risk of waiting in vain in the antechamber of a princess."

Having been introduced into a dressing-room she waited for five minutes,
during which the abbess and her confidant exchanged these few words in
the next room.

"Madame, I have brought her. She is there."

"So soon? You are an admirable ambassadress. How must I receive her?
What sort of person is she?"

"Reserved, prudent, or simple. She is either intensely artful, or
strangely simple."

"Oh! we will see," said the princess, the eyes of whom glittered with
the influence of a mind used to penetration and distrust. "Let her come
in."

During her short stay in the dressing-room, Porporina saw the strangest
array of furniture which ever decorated the boudoir of a beautiful
princess: spheres, compasses, astrolabes, astrological charts, vials
filled with nameless mixtures and deaths-heads--in fine, all the
materials of sorcery. "My friend is not mistaken," said she, "and the
public knows all about the secrets of the king's sister. She does not
even seem to conceal them, as she suffers me to see all this
apparatus.--Well--courage!"

The Abbess of Quedlimburgh was then twenty-eight or thirty years of age.
She had been beautiful as an angel, and yet was when seen by candlelight
at a distance. When she was close to her, however, Porporina was amazed
to find her face wrinkled and covered with blotches. Her blue eyes,
which had been beautiful as possible, now had a red rim around them,
like those of a person who had been weeping, and had an evil glare and
deep transparency, not calculated to inspire confidence. She had been
adored by her family and by all the court, and for a long time had been
the most affable, the most joyous and benevolent king's daughter ever
described in the romances of royal personages, of the old patrician
literature. During the few last years, however, her character had
changed as much as her person had. She had attacks of ill-humor, and
even something worse, which made her like Frederick in his worst point
of view; without seeking to resemble him, and even while in secret she
criticised him severely, she was irresistibly led to contract all the
faults she censured in him, and to become an imperious and absolute
mistress, a skeptical, bitter, learned and disdainful person. Yet, amid
these fearful characteristics, which every day look fatal possession of
her, there was yet seen to pierce a native kindness, a correct mind, a
courageous soul, and passionate heart. What then was passing in the mind
of this unfortunate princess? A terrible cause of suffering devoured
her, which she was yet forced to conceal in her heart, and which she hid
from the eyes of the curious, malicious, or careless world, under the
disguise of a stoical and joyous bearing. By means, therefore, of
dissimulation and constraint, she had unfolded in herself two different
beings, one which she dared reveal to scarcely any one, and the other
which she exhibited with a kind of hatred and despair. All observed that
in conversation she was become more keen and animated: this uneasy and
forced gaiety, though, was painful to the observer, and its icy and
chilling effect cannot be described. Successively excited, almost to
puerility, and stern even to cruelty, she astonished both others and
herself. Torrents of tears extinguished the fire of her anger, and then
a savage irony, an impious disdain, snatched her from those moments of
salutary depression, she was permitted neither to feel nor to know.

The first thing that Porporina observed, when she met her, was this kind
of duality. The princess had two aspects and two faces: the one was
caressing, the other menacing: two voices, one soft and harmonious,
which seemed to have been vouchsafed her by heaven that she might sing
like an angel, and the other hoarse and stern, apparently coming from a
burning heart, animated by some devilish inspiration. Our heroine,
surprised at so strange a being, divided between fear and sympathy,
asked herself if an evil genius was about to take possession of her.

The princess, too, found Porporina a far more formidable person than she
had imagined. She had hoped that, without her theatrical garb and the
paint which makes women so very ugly, whatever people please to say
about it, she would justify what the Baroness von Kleist had said--that
she was rather ugly than beautiful. Her clear dark complexion, so
uniform and pure; her powerful and dark eyes; her fresh mouth; her suple
form; her natural and easy movements--the array of all the qualities of
an honest, kind and calm being, or, at least, of one possessed of that
internal power conferred by justice and true wisdom, filled the uneasy
Amelia with a species of respect, and even of shame, as if she knew
herself in the presence of a person of unimpeachable loyalty.

Her efforts to hide how ill at ease she was were remarked by the young
girl, who, as we may conceive, was amazed to see so great a princess
intimidated before her. She began, then, to revive the failing
conversation, to open a piece of the music into which she had placed the
cabalistic letter, and arranged it so that the great sheet covered with
large characters, should meet the princess's eye. As soon as the effect
was produced, she pretended to wish to withdraw the sheet, just as if
she had been surprised at its being there. The abbess took possession of
it immediately, however, saying--

"What is the meaning of this signora? For Heaven's sake, whence had you
it?"

"If I must own all to your highness," said Porporina, significantly, "it
is an astrological calculation I have been intending to present, when it
shall be your highness's wish to question me about a matter to which I
am not entirely a stranger."

The princess fixed her burning eyes on the singer, glanced at the magic
characters, ran to the embrasure of a window, and, having examined the
scroll for a time, uttered a loud cry, and fell almost suffocated into
the arms of the Baroness von Kleist, who, when she saw her tremble, had
hurried to her.

"Leave the room, signora," said the favorite, precipitately. "Go into
that cabinet, and say nothing. Call no one. Do you understand?"

"No, no; she must not go!" said the princess, faintly. "Let her come
hither--here, near me. Ah! my friend," said she, "how great a service
you have rendered me!"

Clasping Porporina in her thin white arms, which were animated with a
convulsive power, the princess pressed her to her heart, and covered her
cheeks with eager burning kisses, which flushed her cheek and terrified
her heart.

"Certainly people become mad in this country," thought she. "I have
often feared this would be the case with me, and I see more important
personages than I am run the same risk. There is madness in the air!"

"The princess at last loosened her neck to clasp her favorite's, crying
and weeping, and shouting in the strongest voice;--

"Saved! saved!--my friends!--my kind friends! Trenck has escaped from
the fortress of Glatz! He escapes! He is yet--yet at liberty!"

The poor princess had an attack of convulsive laughter, interrupted by
sobs, terrible to see and hear.

"Madame! for heaven's sake!" said the baroness, "restrain your joy! Take
care lest you be heard!"

Taking up the pretended magic scroll, which was nothing but a letter in
cypher from Trenck, she aided her mistress in reading it, in spite of a
thousand interruptions of forced and feverish laughter.



Transcriber's Note:

Chapter V of the French edition begins here. The translator combined
Chapters IV and V with the chapter heading for Chapter V omitted.




"To reduce--thanks to the means which my incomparable mistress has
provided for me--the subalterns of the garrison; to effect an
understanding with a prisoner as fond of liberty as I am; to give a
violent blow to one keeper, a kick to another, and a sword cut to a
third; to leap over the rampart, throwing my friend, who did not run as
fast as I did, before me (he sprained his ankle as he fell); to pick him
up and run thus for fifteen minutes; to cross the Weiss, the water
coming up to my waist, through a fog so thick that no one could see
beyond his nose; to start from the other bank and travel all night--such
a terrible night! to get lost; to go in the snow all around a mountain,
without having an idea where I was; to hear the clock of the castle of
Glatz strike four--that is to say, to lose time and trouble and see the
city walls at dawn; to resume courage to enter a peasant's hut and, with
a pistol at his head, get possession of two horses and ride rapidly
away;--to regain liberty by a thousand _ruses_, a thousand terrors and
sufferings--and then to find oneself without money or clothing, and
almost without bread, in an intensely cold and a foreign country: but to
see oneself free, after having been doomed to a terrible and fearful
captivity; to think of one's adorable mistress; to say that this news
will fill her with joy; to make a thousand bold and daring plans to see
her--is to be happier than Frederick of Prussia--to be the happiest of
men--the elect of Providence!"

Such was the tenor of the letter of Frederick von Trenck to the Princess
Amelia; and the ease with which Madame von Kleist read it proved to
Porporina, who was much surprised and moved, that this correspondence in
cypher was very familiar to them. There was a postscript to this
effect:--

"The person who will give you this letter is as trustworthy as the
others were not. You may confide in her without reserve, and give her
all your letters for me. The Count de Saint Germain can contrive a means
to enable her to send them, though it is altogether unnecessary that the
said count, in whom I have not the fullest confidence, should ever hear
of you. He will think me in love with Porporina, though such is not the
case, for I have not entertained for her anything but an affectionate
and pure friendship. Let no cloud, then, darken the beautiful brow of
_the divinity I adore._ For her alone do I breathe, and I would rather
die than deceive her."

While the Baroness von Kleist deciphered aloud this postscript, weighing
each word, the Princess Amelia examined the features of Porporina
carefully, for the purpose of discovering an expression of grief,
humiliation, or mortification. The angelic serenity of this creature
perfectly reassured her, and she began to overwhelm her with caresses,
saying--

"And I suspected you, my poor child. You do not know how jealous I have
been of you, and how I have hated and cursed you. I hoped to find you an
ugly and bad actress, for the very reason that I was afraid you would be
too beautiful and good. This was the reason that my brother, fearing
that I would be acquainted with you, though he pretended to wish to
bring you to my concerts, took care to let me hear a report that at
Vienna you had been Trenck's mistress. He was well aware that in that
manner he would best contrive to alienate me from you. I believed all
this, while you devoted yourself to the greatest dangers to bring me
this happy news. You do not love the king? Ah! you are frightened: he is
the most perverse and cruel of men."

"Ah! madame!--madame!" said the Baroness von Kleist, terrified at the
abandoned and mad volubility with which the princess spoke before
Porporina, "to what dangers you would now expose yourself, were not the
signora an angel of courage and devotion!"

"That is true. I am mad! I think I have lost my head! Shut the doors,
Von Kleist, and see if any one in the antechamber has heard me. As for
her," said the princess, pointing to Porporina, "look and see if it be
possible to suspect such a face as hers? No, no; I am not so imprudent
as I seem to be, dear Porporina. Do not think I speak frankly because I
am crazed, and will repent when I am calm. I have an infallible
instinct, you see. My eyes are infallible, and have never deceived me.
This is a family peculiarity; and though my brother the king is vain of
it, he possesses it in no higher degree than I do. No; you will not
deceive me. I know you will not deceive a woman who is devoured by an
unfortunate passion, and has suffered what people can form no idea of."

"Oh, madame, never!" said Porporina, and she knelt before her, as if to
call God to witness her oath. "Neither you nor Trenck, who saved my
life, nor any one else."

"He saved your life? Ah! I am sure he has done as much for many others,
he is so brave, good, and handsome. You did not look very closely at
him, otherwise you would have fallen in love. Is not this the case? You
will tell me how you met him, and how he saved your life. Not now,
however. I cannot listen, but must speak to you, for my heart is
overflowing. Long since it has been drying up in my bosom. I wish to
speak--I must speak--let me alone, Von Kleist--my joy must find an
utterance or my heart will burst. Shut the doors, however, and watch.
Take care of me--pity me, my poor friends, for I am very happy!" The
princess wept.

"You must know," said she, after the lapse of a few minutes, her voice
being half-stifled by tears, with an agitation which nothing could calm,
"that from the first time I saw I was pleased with him. He was then
eighteen years of age and beautiful as an angel. He was so well
educated, so frank and so brave. They washed to marry me to the king of
Sweden. Ah! yes; and my sister Ulrica wept with mortification when she
saw I was about to become a queen, while she was unmarried. 'My dear
sister,' said I, 'we can arrange matters. The great men who rule over
Sweden, wish a Catholic queen, and I will make no abjuration. They wish
a good queen, indolent, calm, and careless of all politics. Now, were I
queen, I would reign. I shall express my opinion decidedly on these
points to the ambassadors, and you will see that to-morrow they will
write to their prince that I am not such a queen as Sweden needs.' I
acted as I said I would, and my sister is queen of Sweden. Ah!
Porporina, you think you are an actress. You do not know, however, what
it is to play a part all one's life, morning, day, evening, and often by
night. All who surround us, are busy in watching and spying us out, in
guessing at and in betraying us. I have been forced to seem sad and
mortified, when by my exertions my sister sprang into the throne of
Sweden. I have been forced to seem to detest Trenck, to think him
ridiculous, and to laugh at him. Yet all the time, I loved and adored
him. I was his mistress, and was as much stifled with happiness as I am
now--far more so, alas!--Trenck, however, had not my strength and
courage. He was not of a princely house, and did not know how to feign
and lie as I did. The king discovered all; and following the royal rule,
pretended to see nothing. He persecuted Trenck, however, and the
handsome page became the victim of his hatred and fury. He overwhelmed
him by severity and hardship. He kept him in arrest seven days out of
every eight. On the eighth day, however, he was in my arms, for nothing
terrified or alarmed him. How could I not adore so much courage? Well,
the king confided a foreign mission to him, and when he had discharged
it with rare skill, my brother was base enough to accuse him of having
sold basely to his cousin, the Pandour, who is in the service of Maria
Theresa, plans of our fortifications and warlike plans. This was a means
not only to bear him from me into endless captivity, but to disgrace and
murder him by chagrin, despair, and rage, amid the horrors of a dungeon.
See whether I can esteem or honor my brother. He is a great man, they
say, but I tell you he is a monster. Take care, my child, how you love
him, for he will crush your heart as he would snap a twig. You must,
however, pretend--seem to do so. In such an atmosphere as that in which
you live, you must breathe in secret. I seem to adore my brother--I am
his best-beloved sister--all know or think they know. He is very
attentive to me, gathering fruit for me from the espaliers of _Sans
Souci_, depriving himself, and he loves nothing else, to gratify me.
Before he gives them to the page to bring, he counts them lest the lad
should eat a portion on the way. What a delicate attention! It is
_naïveté_ worthy of Henry IV. or King René. He, however, murders my
lover in an underground dungeon, and seeks to dishonor him in my eyes as
a punishment for having loved me. What a great heart! what a kind
brother! How we love each other!"

As she spoke, the princess grew pale, her voice became feeble, her eyes
became fixed and ready to start from their orbits, and she became livid
and motionless, She was unconscious. Porporina was much terrified, and
aided the baroness to unlace and put her to bed, where she gradually
recovered her senses, continuing the while to murmur unintelligible
words. "The attack will soon pass away, thank heaven," said the favorite
to the singer. "When she can control herself I will call her women. You,
my dear, must go into the music-room, and sing to the walls, or rather
to the antechamber's ears. The king will certainly know that you are
here, and you must seem to be occupied by music alone. The princess will
be sick, and thus will hide her joy. Neither she nor you must seem to be
aware of the escape of Trenck. It is certain that the king is now aware
of it, and will be in a terrible bad humor, suspecting every one. Be
careful, then. You as well as I will be lost, if he discover that you
gave that letter to the princess. Women as well as men are sent to
fortresses in Prussia. There they are intentionally forgotten, and die
as men do. You are now on your guard, adieu. Sing, and go without noise
and without mystery. Eight days, at least, will pass before we see you,
lest there be any suspicions. Rely on the gratitude of the princess. She
is nobly liberal, and knows how to reward those who have served her."

"Alas!" madame, said Porporina, "think you that promises or menaces are
heeded by me? I pity you for having entertained such an idea."

Crushed with fatigue after the violent emotions she had undergone, and
not yet recovered from the illness of the day before, Porporina sat down
to the instrument, and was beginning to sing, when a door was opened
behind her so softly that she did not perceive it. Suddenly, she saw in
the glass before her the figure of the king. She trembled, and wished to
leave, but the king placed one of his dry fingers on her shoulder,
forced her to sit still and continue. With much repugnance and
indisposition, she continued. She never felt less disposed to sing, and
on no occasion had the appearance of Frederick seemed so icy and
repugnant to musical inspiration.

When she had finished the piece, he said it was admirably sung. She had,
however, remarked that he had gone on tiptoe and listened at his
sister's chamber door. "I observe, with distress," added he, "that your
beautiful voice is much changed this morning. You should have rested,
instead of yielding to the strange whim of Amelia, and coming hither,
after all, not to be listened to."

"Her royal highness became suddenly indisposed," said Porporina,
terrified at the dark and thoughtful air of the king. "They told me to
sing, to distract her attention."

"I assure you it is labor lost," said Frederick, drily. "She chats in
there with the Baroness von Kleist, just as if nothing was the matter.
As that is the case, we may also chat together without attending to
them. The illness of the princess is not great. I think your sex are
easily cured of diseases of this kind. You were thought dead, yesterday,
and none certainly suspected that you would have been here this morning
to divert and amuse my sister. Will you be kind enough to tell me why
you came so unexpectedly to this place?"

Porporina was amazed at this question, and asked heaven to inspire her.

"Sire," said she, boldly as she could, "I can scarcely do so. I was
asked this morning for this music. I thought it my duty to bring it in
person. I expected to place the books in the antechamber and return as
soon as I could. The Baroness von Kleist saw me, and mentioned the fact
to her royal highness, who apparently wished to see me closely. I was
forced to come in. Her highness deigned to question me about the style
of various musical compositions: then feeling indisposed, she bade me
sing this while she went to bed. Now, I think I may be permitted to go
to rehearsal."

"It is not time yet." said the king. "I do not see why your feet should
step to run away when I wish to speak with you."

"The reason is, that when with your majesty, I always feel as if I were
not in my sphere."

"You have no common sense."

"That is yet another reason."

"You will remain," said he, forcing her to sit down to the piano, and
placing himself in front of her. He then began to examine her, with an
air half inquisitorial and half paternal.

"Is what you have said true?"

Porporina overcame the horror she entertained for falsehood. She had
often said that for her own sake she would be sincere with this terrible
man, but that she would not hesitate to tell an untruth if the safety of
others were concerned. Unexpectedly she had reached this crisis, when
her master's kindness might change into fury. She would willingly have
run the risk of the latter, rather than be false. The fate of Trenck and
the princess, however, depended on her presence of mind and
determination. She called the arts of her profession to her aid, and
with a malicious smile met the eagle eye of the king, which, at that
moment glared like a vulture's.

"Well," said the king, "why do you not answer me?"

"Why does your majesty seek to terrify me by doubting what I have said?"

"You are not at all afraid. On the contrary, I find your glance today
hardy indeed."

"Sire, we fear only the things we hate. Why do you wish me to fear you?"

Frederick erected all the scales of his crocodile armor, to avoid being
moved by this reply, the most coquettish he had ever obtained from
Porporina. He at once changed his intention: a great art it is to do so,
and far more difficult than people usually think.

"Why did you faint yesterday at the theatre?"

"Sire, it is of the least possible interest to your majesty. It is my
own secret."

"What had you at breakfast this morning, which makes you so unconcerned
in your language?"

"I had recourse to a certain flacon, which filled me with confidence in
the kindness and justice of him who brought it."

"Ah! you considered that a declaration," said the king in the most icy
manner and with a smile of cynical disdain.

"Thank God! I did not," said the young girl, with an expression of
sincere sorrow.

"Why thank God?"

"Because I know your majesty makes none but declarations of war even to
women."

"You are neither the Czarina, nor Maria Theresa: what war can I wage on
you?"

"That of the lion on the wasp."

"What wasp induces you to quote such a fable? The wasp killed the lion
by stinging him to death."

"It was certainly a poor, bad-tempered lion, and consequently weak. I
should not have thought of that apologue."

"But the wasp was angry and fond of stinging. Perhaps the apologue is
_apropos?_"

"Does your majesty think so?"

"Yes."

"Sire, you say what is not true."

Frederick took the young girl's wrist and pressed it convulsively, until
he had nearly crushed it. This strange act was caused both by anger and
love. Porporina did not change her countenance, and the king said, as he
looked at her red and swollen hand:

"You are a woman of courage."

"Not so, sire: but I do not, like those around you, pretend to be a
coward."

"What mean you?"

"That to avoid death, people often kill themselves. Were I in your
place, I would not wish to be so terrible."

"With whom are you in love?" said the king, again changing the subject.

"With no one, sire."

"Then, why have you nervous attacks?"

"That has nothing to do with the fate of Prussia, and for that reason
the king need ask no questions."

"Think you it is the king who speaks?"

"I cannot forget."

"Yet you must make up your mind to do so. You did not save the king's
life, signorina."

"I have not yet seen the Baron von Kreutz."

"Is that a reproach? It is unjust. Not the king but the Baron von Kreutz
enquired after your health, yesterday."

"The distinction, baron, is too subtle for me."

"Well, try and learn. Look: when I put my hat on my head thus, a little
to the left, I am a captain; when I place it thus, to the right, I am
king. You will, as the case may be, appear either Porporina or
Consuelo."

"I understand, sire. That, however, is impossible. Your majesty may be
double, if you please, be triple, or hundred fold, I can be but one."

"That is not true. You would not speak to me at the theatre, among your
companions, as you do here."

"Do not be too sure, sire."

"Ah! the devil is in you to-day."

"The reason is, that your majesty's hat is neither to the left nor to
the right. I do not know to whom I speak."

The king, overcome by the attraction, which at this moment especially he
felt towards Porporina, placed his hat so extremely on his left side,
that his face became really comic in its expression. He wished to play
the simple mortal and the king, in an hour of relaxation, as well as
possible. Suddenly, however, he remembered that he had come, not for
amusement, but to discover the secrets of the Abbess of Quedlimburgh,
and took off his hat with an air of deep chagrin. The smile died on his
lips, his brow became dark, and he rose up, saying to the young girl,
"Remain here, I will come for you." He then went into the Princess's
room, who waited tremblingly for him. The Baroness von Kleist, seeing
that he was talking with Porporina, had not dared to leave the bed of
the Princess. She had made vain efforts to hear this conversation, but
in consequence of the size of the room, had not heard a single word. She
was more dead than alive.

Porporina also trembled at what was about to take place. Ordinarily
grave and respectful to the king, she had done violence to her habits
for the purpose of amusing him, and adopted the most coquettish
frankness in her replies to the dangerous questions she had asked.
Frederick, however, was not the man to give up his point, and the
efforts of the young girl gave way before the despot's determination.
She recommended the Princess Amelia to God's mercy, for she was well
aware that the king forced her to remain to confront her explanations
with those he was listening to in the next room. She had the less doubt
from the careful manner with which he closed the door after he had
passed it. For a quarter of an hour, she was in the most painful
excitement, troubled with fever, terrified at the intrigue with which
she was enwrapped, and dissatisfied with the part she had been forced to
play, recalling at the time with terror the insinuations she began to
hear from all quarters, at the possibility of the king's love, which she
compared with the agitation the king had displayed by his strange
manners.




CHAPTER VI


But oh, my God! can the shrewdest dominican who ever discharged the
functions of grand inquisitor, contend with the wit of three women, when
love, fear and friendship inspire them equally. In vain did Frederick
adopt every manner, by caressing amiability, and by provoking sneers, by
unexpected questions, by feigned indifference, and oblique threats. He
detected nothing. The explanation of the presence of Consuelo in the
apartments of the princess was absolutely in accordance, as Madame von
Kleist and the abbess accounted for it, with that so fortunately
improvised by Porporina. It was the most natural and probable. Trusting
to chance is the best thing one can do. Chance is mute, and cannot
contradict you.

Weary of war, the king yielded, or changed his tactics. He said at
once--

"But I have forgotten, Porporina is in there. My dear sister, since you
are better, let her come in. Her chat will amuse you."

"I wish to sleep," said the princess, who feared some snare.

"Well, wish her good bye, and dismiss her yourself." As he spoke, the
king preceded the baroness, opened the door, and called Porporina.
Instead, however, of bidding her adieu, he brought about a dissertation
on German and Italian music. When that subject was exhausted, he said
suddenly--

"Ah, Signora Porporina, I forgot to tell you something which certainly
will please you. Your friend, the Baron von Trenck, is no longer a
prisoner."

"What Trenck, sire?" asked the young girl, with an artfully imitative
candor. "I know two, and both are prisoners."

"Ah! Trenck, the Pandour, will die at Spelberg. Trenck, the Prussian,
has gotten possession of the key of the fields."

"Well, sire," said Porporina, "for my part, I thank your majesty for
this just and generous act."

"Thank you for the compliment, signora! What think you of the matter, my
dear sister."

"Of whom are you talking now?" said the princess. "I was going to sleep,
and did not hear you."

"I speak of your _protegé_, the handsome Trenck, who escaped over the
walls of Glatz."

"Ah, he was right," said Amelia, with great coolness.

"He was wrong," said the king. "An examination of his case was about to
be made, and he might perhaps have been able to prove himself innocent
of the charges which rest on him. His flight is a confession of his
crime."

"If that be so," said Amelia, "I give him up." She maintained her
calmness.

"Porporina would persist in his defence," said Frederick. "I see it in
her eyes."

"The reason is, that I cannot believe in his guilt," said she.

"Especially when the traitor is a handsome young fellow. Do you know,
sister, that the signora is very intimate with Trenck?"

"I wish her joy," said Amelia, coldly. "If he be a dishonored man, I
advise her to forget him. Now I wish you good day, signora, for I am
much fatigued. I hope you will, in the course of a few days, come to see
me again, to read this music. It seems to me very beautiful."

"You have then resumed your taste for music?" said the king. "I thought
you had entirely abandoned it."

"I am anxious to resume it, and I hope, brother, that you will aid me in
doing so. I am told you have made great progress, and now you will
instruct me."

"We will now take them together from the signora. I will bring her."

"Well. That will be very pleasant to me."

The baroness took Porporina into the ante-chamber, and the latter soon
found herself alone in one of the long corridors, without knowing
whither to direct her steps to get out of the palace, for she did not
remember how she had gotten into it.

The household of the king was as economical as possible, if we do not
use a harsher word, and very few servants were to be met with in the
palace. Porporina met no one from whom she could inquire, and wandered
at hazard through the vast pile.

Reflecting on what had passed, overpowered by fatigue, and having fasted
since the previous day, and feeling much debilitated--as often happens
on such occasions--an unhealthy excitement sustained her physical
powers. Wandering at hazard, and more rapidly than if she had been well,
pursued by a personal idea, which, since the previous day had clung
around her, she completely forgot where she was, went astray, crossed
the galleries, the courts, retraced her steps, went up and down
staircases, met various persons, forgot to ask her way, and at last
found herself at the door of a vast hall, filled with divers confused
objects, at the threshold of which a grave and polished person bowed to
her with much courtesy, and invited her to enter.

Porporina recognised the learned academician, Stoss, keeper of the
cabinet of curiosities and of the castle library. He had often come to
ask her to try precious manuscripts of Protestant music, of the early
days of the Reformation, treasures of caligraphy, with which he had
enriched the royal collection. When he learned that she sought to leave
the castle, he offered at once to accompany her home, but begged her to
glance around the room which contained the treasures committed to his
charge, of which he was very proud. She could not refuse, and at once
took his arm.

Easily amused, as all artists are, she soon took more interest than she
had felt disposed to, and her attention was entirely absorbed by an
article pointed out by the learned professor.

"This drum, which at first does not seem at all peculiar, and which, I
am inclined to think, is an apocryphal monument, now enjoys the greatest
celebrity. It is certain that the sonorous portion of this instrument is
the human skin, as you may observe by the appearance of the marks of the
nipples. This trophy, which was taken from Prague, by his majesty, at
the termination of the late glorious war, is, they say, the skin of John
Ziska, of the Cup, the famous chief of the great rebellion of the
Hussites in the fifteenth century. It is said that he bequeathed this
relic to his brothers in arms, promising that victory would be where it
was. The Bohemians say, the sound of this terrible drum put their
enemies to flight, that it evoked the shadows of their dead chiefs to
fight for the holy cause, and a thousand other prodigies.
Notwithstanding, however, the illumination of the brilliant age of
reason in which we live, condemns all such superstitions to contempt. M.
d'Enfant, preacher to her majesty the queen mother, and author of an
admirable history of the Hussites, affirms that John Ziska was buried
with his skin, and consequently--It seems to me, signora, that you grow
pale. Do you feel indisposed, or does the sight of this strange object
offend you? This Ziska was a great criminal, and a ferocious rebel."

"Possibly, sir," said Porporina. "I have lived in Bohemia, and have
heard he was a very great man. His memory is yet as much revered as was
Louis XIV. in France. He is looked on as the savior of his country."

"Alas! that country was badly saved," said M. Stoss, with a smile, "and
were I even now to beat on the sonorous breast of its liberator, I could
not evoke even his spirit, shamefully captive in the palace of the
conqueror of his sons." As he spoke thus pedantically, the admirable
Herr Stoss tapped the drum with his lingers, and the instrument produced
a harsh, sinister sound, like that of those instruments when they are
beaten in the dead march. The wise keeper was suddenly interrupted in
this profane amusement by a piercing cry of Porporina, who cast herself
in his arms, and placed her face on his shoulder, like a child terrified
at some strange object.

The grave Herr Stoss looked around to discover the cause of this sudden
terror, and saw at the door of the room a person for whom he entertained
no sentiment but disdain. He would have waved his hand for the person to
withdraw, but it had passed away before Porporina, who held on to him,
allowed him liberty of motion.

"Indeed, signora," said he, leading her to a chair, in which she sank,
trembling and overpowered, "I cannot understand what is the matter with
you. I have seen nothing which should cause such emotion as you seem to
feel."

"You have seen nothing? You have seen no one?" said Porporina, with a
voice overpowered with excitement. "There, at that door, did you not see
a man pause and look at me with terrible expression?"

"I saw distinctly enough a man who often wanders in the castle, and who
would willingly assume the frightful air you speak of. I own, however,
that he alarms me but very slightly, for I am not one of his dupes."

"You saw him? Ah, sir! then he was really there! I did not dream! My
God! what may that mean!"

"That by virtue of the special protection of our amiable and august
princess, who rather laughs at his folly than believes in it, he has
come into the castle, and gone to the apartments of her royal highness."

"But who is he? What is his name?"

"Are you ignorant of it? Why, then, were you afraid?"

"For heaven's sake tell me who he is?"

"But----That is Trismagistus, the sorcerer of the Princess Amelia! He is
one of those charlatans whose business it is to predict the future,
reveal hidden treasures, make gold, and who have a thousand other
talents which, previous to the glorious reign of Frederick the Great,
were much the fashion. You have heard it said, signora, that the Abbess
of Quedlimburgh had a passion for them?"

"Yes, yes, monsieur. I know that from curiosity she studies magic."

"Oh, certainly. How can we suppose that a princess so enlightened and
educated can be really interested in such extravagances?"

"But, sir, do you know this man?"

"Oh, for a long time. During the last four years, we have seen him here
every six or eight months. As he is very peaceable, and is never
involved in intrigues, his majesty, who is unwilling to deprive his
dearest sister of any innocent amusement, tolerates his presence in the
city, and even permits him free ingress into the palace. He does not
abuse it, and does not exercise his pretended science in this country
for any person but her highness. M. de Golowin protects and is
responsible for him. That is all I can say about him. Why, signora, have
you so much interest in him?"

"All this does not at all interest me; and that you may not think me
mad, I must tell you that man bears a striking resemblance to a person
who was and is dear to me. I may be in error, however. Death does not
sunder the bonds of affection, sir. Do you not think so?"

"The sentiment you express, Signora Porporina, is noble, and worthy of a
person of your merit. You are, however, very much excited, and can
scarcely maintain yourself on your feet. Permit me to accompany you
home."

When she got home, Porporina went to bed, and remained for several days
tormented by fever and great nervous excitement. At the expiration of
that time she received a note from Madame von Kleist, who asked her to
come at eight in the evening to her, when there was to be music. The
music was a mere pretext to get her again into the palace. They went by
dark passages to the princess's rooms, and they found her in a charming
dress, though her apartment was scarcely lighted, and all the persons
who belonged to her service had been dismissed, under the pretext of
indisposition. She received Porporina with a thousand caresses, and,
passing her arm familiarly through hers, led her to a pretty circular
room, lighted up with fifty lights, in which a delicious supper was
tastefully served. The French _rococo_ at that time had not been
introduced into the Prussian court. There was at that time an
affectation of deep contempt for the court of France, and all sought to
imitate the traditions of Louis XIV., for whom Frederick, who secretly
aped him, professed the most boundless admiration. The Princess Amelia,
however, was dressed in the latest fashion, and though more chastely
dressed than Madame de Pompadour, was not less brilliantly. The Baroness
von Kleist was also dressed as brilliantly as possible, though the table
was set with only three covers, and was without a single servant!

"You are amazed at our little _fête_," said the princess, laughing.
"Well, you will be yet more so, when you know that we three will sup
together and will serve ourselves, as Von Kleist and I have already
prepared everything. We set the table, lit the candles, and never were
so amused. For the first time in my life, I dressed my hair and made my
toilet, and it was never done better, at least in my opinion. We are
going to amuse ourselves incognito. The king sleeps at Potsdam, the
queen is at Charlottembourg, my sisters are with the queen mother at
Montbijou, my brothers are I know not where, and none but ourselves are
in the palace. I voted myself sick, and resolved to make use of the
opportunity to live a little, and _fête_ you two (the only persons whom
I can trust) on the escape of Trenck. We will, then, drink champagne to
his health, and one of us must get tipsy. The others can keep the
secret. Ah! the philosophic suppers of Frederick will be eclipsed by the
splendor of this one!"

They sat down, and the princess appeared under a new aspect to the
Porporina. She was good, kind, natural, joyous, beautiful as an angel,
and, in a word, adorable as she had been in the first days of her youth.
She seemed to float in pure, generous, disinterested bliss. Her lover
was flying from her, she knew not if she would ever see him, yet this
radiant being rejoiced at his flight.

"Ah! how happy I am between you," said she to her confidants, who formed
with herself the most perfect trio of profane coquetry ever concealed
from the eyes of man. "I am as free as Trenck. I feel as good as he is
and always was. It seemed to me that the fortress of Glatz pressed on my
soul at night, and swept over me like a nightmare. I was cold in my
eider-bed when I thought of him on the damp pavement of the dark prison.
I did not live. I could enjoy nothing. Ah! dear Porporina! imagine my
horror, when I said, 'All this he suffers for me! My fatal love has cast
him into a living tomb!' This idea changed my food into poison, like the
gall of the harpies. Pour me out some champagne. Ah! it seems to me like
ambrosia! The lights are smiling! the flowers smell sweetly! the dishes
are delicate, and Von Kleist and yourself are beautiful as angels! Yes:
I see, I hear, I breathe! I have been restored to life, from the statue,
the carcass I was! Here, drink with me to the health of Trenck! and then
to the health of the friend who escaped with him! Afterwards, we will
drink to the kind keepers who let him fly! and then to my brother
Frederick, who could not help it! No bitter thought shall trouble us
this holiday. I have no animosity against anyone. I think I love the
king. Here! 'To the health of the king!' Porporina! '_Vive le Roi!_'"

What chiefly enhanced the pleasure which the poor princess conferred on
her two friends was the simplicity of her manners to the party. When her
turn came, she left the table and changed the plates, carved for
herself, and served her companions with the most infantine gaiety.

"Ah! if I was not born to a life of equality," said she "love, at least,
has taught me what it is; and the misfortune of my position has made me
appreciate the folly of the prejudices of rank and birth. My sisters are
not like me. My sister of Anspach would place her head on the block,
rather than bow it to a non-reigning highness. My sister of Bareith, who
talks logic and philosophy with M. de Voltaire, would scratch out the
eyes of any duchess who had an inch more silk in her train than herself.
The reason is, you see, they never loved. They will pass their lives in
the pneumatic machine they call their rank. They will die embalmed in
majesty like mummies. They will not have known great griefs, as I have;
but, in all their lives of etiquette and gala, they will never have had
a quarter of an hour of freedom such as I enjoy now! You must, my dears,
make the _fête_ complete, and _tutoy_ each other. I wish to be Amelia!
not your highness! Plain Amelia! Ah! Von Kleist, you look as if you were
about to refuse me! The unhealthy air of the court has spoiled you. You,
Porporina, though an actress, seem a child of nature!"

"Yes, dear Amelia, I will do all I can to oblige you," said Porporina,
laughing.

"Oh, heaven! did you but know how I love to be _tutoyed_ and hear myself
called Amelia! 'Amelia!' How well _he_ pronounced that name! It seemed
to me then to be the most beautiful name in the world, the softest ever
woman bore; at least, when he pronounced it."

Gradually, the princess carried her joy to such an excess, that she
forgot herself, and attended only to her guests. In this strife for
equality, she became so happy and kind that she divested herself of the
stern egotism which had been developed by passion and suffering. She
ceased entirely to speak of herself, nor seemed even to claim merit for
simplicity and amiability. She questioned the Baroness Von Kleist about
her family, her situation and sentiments, more closely than she had done
since she had been absorbed by her own sorrows. She was anxious to know
the artist's life, to hear of the emotions of the theatre, the ideas and
affections of Porporina. She inspired confidence into others from the
abundance of her own heart, and took exquisite delight in reading their
souls, and most in seeing in those beings, so unlike herself, a similar
essence--as meritorious in the eyes of God, as richly gifted by nature,
as important on earth as she had ever thought she was, in relation to
others.

The ingenuous answers and sympathetic expansion of Porporina, filled her
with respect mingled with surprise.

"You seem to me an angel! You!--an actress!--you speak and think more
nobly than any crowned head I know! Listen to me! I have conceived an
affection for you almost amounting to devotion. You must grant me your
heart, Porporina. You must open to me your heart. Tell me of your
life--your birth, your education, your amours, your misfortunes--of your
very errors. They must certainly be noble ones, like those which I bear,
not on my conscience, but in the sanctuary of my heart. It is eleven
o'clock, and we have the night before us. Our orgie is nearly over, for
we only gossip, and I see the second bottle of champagne will be
neglected. Will you tell me your story, as I have asked you to do? It
seems to me that the knowledge of your heart will be new and unknown to
me, and will instruct me in the true duties of life better than all the
reflections I have ever made. I feel myself capable of hearing and of
listening to you. Will you satisfy me?"

"With all my heart, madame," said Porporina.

"Why, 'madame?' whom do you call 'madame?'" said the princess, gaily,
interrupting her.

"I mean, my dear Amelia," said Porporina, "that I would do so willingly,
if there were not in the history of my life an important and almost
formidable secret, on which so much hangs, that no desire, no prompting
of my heart, can induce me to reveal!"

"Well, my dear child, I know your secret! and if I did not speak of it
at the commencement of the supper, it was in consequence of a feeling of
discretion, which my friendship for you now enables me to dispense
with."

"You know my secret!" said Porporina, petrified with surprise. "Pardon
me, madame; but that seems impossible!"

"You still continue to address me as highness. Can you doubt?"

"Excuse me, Amelia. But you cannot know my secret, unless you have
really an understanding with Cagliostro, as is said."

"I have heard your adventure with Cagliostro spoken of, and I am dying
with curiosity to learn its details. Curiosity, however, does not
influence me this evening, but friendship, as I have sincerely told you.
To encourage you, I will say, frankly, that since this morning have I
learned that Consuelo Porporina may, if she pleases, legally assume the
title of Countess of Rudolstadt!"

"In heaven's name, madame! who could tell you?"

"My dear Rudolstadt, you do not know that my sister, the Margravine of
Bareith, is here?"

"Yes."

"With her is her physician, Supperville."

"I see he has broken his word--his oath! He has said----?"

"Calm yourself. He has spoken only to me. I do not see, however, why you
should be afraid to make known a matter which is so honorable to your
character and can hurt no one. The Rudolstadts are extinct, with the
exception of an old canoness, who ere long will rejoin her brothers in
the tomb. We have, it is true, princes of Rudolstadt in Saxony, who are
your near relations, being cousins german, and who are proud of their
name. If my brother were to sustain you, they would not dare to protest:
unless you prefer to be called Porporina, which is more glorious and
more pleasant to the ear."

"That is really my intention," said the singer. "I wish, however, to
know how Supperville came to tell you this. When I know it, and when my
conscience is no longer bound by my oath, I promise to tell you the
details."

"Thus it is," said the princess:--"One of my women was sick, and I sent
to ask Supperville, who was, I learned, in the palace, to come to see
her. Supperville is a man of mind, and I knew him when he resided here.
This made me talk to him. Chance directed the conversation to music, the
opera, and, consequently, to yourself. I spoke of you so highly, that,
whether to please me or from conviction, he surpassed even me, and
extolled you to the clouds. I was pleased, and observed a kind of
affectation, which made me entertain a presentiment of some romantic
interest in you, and a grandeur of soul superior even to what I had
presumed. I urged him strongly, and he seemed to like to be besought, I
must say, in justification. Finally, after having made me promise not to
betray him, he told me of your marriage on the death bed of the Count of
Rudolstadt, and of your generous renunciation of every right and
advantage accruing from it. You see, my dear, you may now tell me the
rest, for I promised never to betray you."

"This being the case," said Consuelo, after a moment of silence, "though
the story will awaken the most painful emotions, especially since my
sojourn at Berlin, I will repay the interest of your highness--I mean,
my dear Amelia--with confidence."




CHAPTER VII[6]


"I was born in I know not what part of Spain, and I know not exactly in
what year. I must be, however, twenty-three or four years old. I do not
know my father's name, and am inclined to think that my mother was as
uncertain about her parents as I am. She was called at Venice La
Zingara, and I was called La Zingarella. My mother had given me the
Christian name of Maria del Consuelo--in French, "Our Lady of
Consolation."[7] My childhood was wandering and miserable. We travelled
on foot, living by our songs. I have a vague recollection that, in a
forest of Bohemia, we received hospitality at a castle, where the son of
the lord, a handsome youth named Albert, overwhelmed me with attention
and kindness, and gave my mother a guitar. This was the Giants' Castle,
to be the mistress of which I was one day to refuse; and the young lord
was Albert, Count of Rudolstadt, whose wife I became.

"At the age of ten, I began to sing in the streets. One day, as I sang a
little piece in Saint Mark's-place at Venice, Maestro Porpora, who was
at a _café_, struck with the accuracy of my voice, and the natural
manner my mother had transmitted to me, called me to him, questioned me,
followed me to my garret, gave me some little pecuniary aid, and
promised to have me admitted into the _Scoula dei Mendicanti_, one of
the free musical schools, of which there are so many in Italy, and
whence come eminent artists of both sexes, for the best _maestri_ have
the direction of them. I made rapid progress, and Maestro Porpora
conceived a friendship for me which soon exposed me to the jealousy and
ill-feeling of my companions. Their unjust spite at my rags soon taught
me the habit of patience and reserve.

"I do not remember the first day I saw him; but it is certain that at
the age of seven or eight years, I already loved--loved a young man, an
orphan, friendless, and, like myself, learning music by protection and
charity, and living in the streets. Our friendship, or our love, (for it
was the same thing), was a chaste and delicious sentiment. We passed
together in innocent wanderings all the time not devoted to study. My
mother, after having vainly opposed it, sanctioned our intimacy by an
oath she made us take to marry as soon as we should be able to support a
family.

"At the age of eighteen or nineteen, I was far advanced in singing.
Count Zustiniani, a noble Venetian, owner of the Theatre of Saint
Samuel, heard me sing at church, and engaged me to replace La Corilla,
the _prima donna_--a beautiful and robust woman, who had been his
mistress, and who had been unfaithful to him. This Zustiniani was the
protector of my lover Anzoleto, who was engaged with me to sing the
chief male parts. Our _début_ was brilliant. He had a magnificent
voice, extraordinary ease, and an attractive exterior. All the fine
ladies protected him. He was idle, however, and his professor was
neither as skillful nor as zealous as mine. His success was less
brilliant. He was grieved at first, afterwards he was angry, and at last
he became jealous, and I lost his love."

"Is it possible?" said the Princess Amelia, "for such a cause? He was,
then, very vile."

"Alas! no, madame, but he was vain and an _artiste_. He won the
protection of Corilla, the dismissed and furious _artiste_, who took
possession of his heart, and made him rapidly lacerate and tear mine.
One evening, the Maestro Porpora, who had always opposed our sentiments,
because he maintains that a woman, to be a great _artiste_, must be a
stranger to every passion and every preoccupation of the heart, unfolded
Anzoleto's treason to me. On the evening of the next day, Count
Zustiniani made a declaration of love, which I was far from expecting,
and which wounded me deeply. Anzoleto pretended to be jealous, and to
say that I was corrupted. He wished to break with me. I left my house in
the night: I went to seek my maestro, who is a man prompt to act, and
who had used me to act decidedly, he gave me letters, a small sum of
money, and a guide-book: he put me in a gondola, accompanied me to the
mainland, and, at dawn, I set out alone for Bohemia."

"For Bohemia!" said the Baroness Von Kleist, whom the virtue of Porpora
filled with surprise.

"Yes, madame," said the young girl, "in our artistic language, we have
the phrase, to travel in Bohemia,"[8] which expresses that one runs
through all the risks of poverty, labor, and not unfrequently crime,
like the Zingari, whom you call in French _Bohemians_. I set out, not
for this symbolical Bohemia, for which fate seemed to destine me, like
many others; but for the chivalric country of the Tcheques, the land of
Huss and Ziska, for the Boehmer-wald, for the Giants' Castle, where I
was generously received by the family of Rudolstadt."

"Why did you go thither?" said the princess, who listened attentively.
"Would any one remember to have seen a child?"

"No, no, I did not remember it myself until long after, when Count
Albert by chance discovered, and aided me in discovering the key to this
adventure. My master, Porpora, in Germany, had been very intimate with
the good Count Christian, the head of the house. The young Baroness
Amelia, his niece, wished a governess, that is to say, a companion, who
should teach her music and entertain her, in the dull life she led at
Riesenberg. Her noble and kind relations received me like a friend, and
almost like a relation. I taught nothing, in spite of my disposition, to
my beautiful and capricious pupil, and----"

"Count Albert fell in love with you? That must have happened."

"Alas! madame, I would not speak with such volubility of so grave and
painful a thing. Count Albert was considered to be mad; and united a
sublime soul with an enthusiastic genius, strange whims and a diseased
imagination, which was entirely inexplicable."

"Supperville, though he neither believed nor could make me understand
it, has told me all that. Supernatural power was attributed to this
young man, such as second sight, the power of making himself invisible...
His family told the most unheard of things. . . All this, however,
is impossible, and I hope you place no faith in it."

"Excuse me, madame, the suffering and distress of pronouncing on matters
which surpass my capacity. I have seen strange things, and, at times,
Count Albert has seemed to me a being superior to humanity. Then, again,
he has appeared an unfortunate creature, deprived, by the very excess of
his virtue, of the light of reason; never, however, did I see him like
common men. When in delirium, and when calm, when enthusiastic and when
depressed, he was always the best, the most just, the most enlightened,
and the most poetically exalted of men. In a word, I would not know what
to think, for I am the involuntary, though it may be the innocent cause,
of his death."

"Well, dear countess, dry your beautiful eyes, take courage, and
continue. I hear you without profane volatility, I vow."

"When he first loved me, I did not even suspect it. He never spoke to
me; he did not even seem to see me. I think he was first aware of my
presence, when he heard me sing. I must tell you he was a very great
musician, and played the violin better than you would suspect any one in
the world capable of doing. I think, however, I was the only person who
ever heard him at Riesenberg; for his family were not aware that he
possessed this great talent. His love, then, had its origin in a burst
of enthusiasm, and in sympathy for music. His cousin, the Baroness
Amelia, who had been betrothed to him for two years, and whom he did not
love, became offended with me, though she did not love him. This, she
exhibited with more frankness than wickedness: for, amid all her
obstinacy, there existed something of greatness of soul. She became
weary of Albert's coldness, of the sadness that pervaded the castle, and
one fine morning left us, taking away, so to say, her father, Baron
Frederick, Count Christian's brother, an excellent man, though of
restricted mind, indolent and pure-hearted, a perfect slave to his
daughter, and passionately devoted to the chase."

"You say nothing about the invisibility of Count Albert, of his
disappearance for fifteen or twenty days, after which he reappeared
suddenly, believing, or pretending to think that he had not left the
house, and being either unwilling or unable to say where he had hid
himself during the time he had been searched for everywhere."

"Since Dr. Supperville has told you this apparently wonderful fact, I
will explain it; I alone can do so, for this has always been a secret,
between Albert and myself. Near the Giants' Castle, there is a mountain
known as the Stone of Terror,[9] an old subterranean work, which dates
from the days of the Hussites. Albert, after studying a series of
philosophical characters, yielded to an enthusiasm, extending almost to
mysticism, and became a Hussite, or rather Taborite. Descended on the
mother's side from George Podiebrad, he had preserved and developed in
himself the sentiments of patriotic independence and of evangelical
equality, which the preaching of John Huss and the victories of John
Ziska instilled into the Bohemians."

"How she speaks of history and philosophy," said the princess, with an
expressive glance to the Baroness Von Kleist. "Who would think an
actress would understand those things as well as I who have passed a
lifetime in study? Have I not told you, Von Kleist, that there was among
those persons whom the opinions of courts dooms to the lowest class of
society, intelligences equal, if not superior, to those formed with so
much care and expense amid the highest grades?"

"Alas! madame," said Porporina, "I am very ignorant, and I never read
anything before I came to Riesenberg; while there, however, I heard so
much said of things of this kind, that thought itself forced me to
understand all that passed in Albert's mind, so that finally I had some
idea of it myself."

"Yes; but my dear, you became foolish; and, something of a mystic
myself, I admire the campaigns of John Ziska, and the republican genius
of Bohemia, if you please; however, I have ideas as utterly republican
as yourself; for love has revealed to me a truth altogether
contradictory to what pedants told me, in relation to the rights of the
people, and the merits of individuals. I do not participate in your
admiration of Taborite fanaticism, and their delirium of Christian
equality. This is absurd, not to be realized, results in ferocious
excesses, and overturns thrones. If it be necessary, I will aid
you--make Spartan, Athenian, Roman republics--make republics like that
of old Venice--I can submit to that. These sanguinary and filthy
Taborites suit me no better than the Vandals of burning memory, the
odious Anabaptists of Munster, and the Picords of old Germany."

"I have heard Count Albert say, that all this is not precisely the same
thing," said Consuelo, with great modesty. "I will not, however, venture
to discuss with your highness, matters, perhaps, you have studied
closely. You have here historians and _savans_, who devote themselves to
these grave matters, and you can form a better opinion of their wisdom
than I can. Yet, had I the academy to instruct me, I do not think my
sympathies would ever change. But let me resume my story."

"Yes, I interrupted you by pedantic reflections, and I pray you excuse
me. Go on. Count Albert, enthusiastic in relation to the exploits of his
ancestors, (that is easily understood, and very pardonable,) in love
with you, (and that is most legitimate and natural,) would not admit
that you were not his equal in the eye of God and man. He was right; but
this was no reason why he should desert his father's house, and leave
all who loved him in despair."

"This is not the point I wished to reach," said Consuelo. "He had been
dreaming and meditating for a long time in the cavern of the Hussites,
at Schreckenstein, and he was especially delighted in doing so from the
fact that, besides himself, no one but a poor mad peasant was aware of
these subterraneous abodes. Thither he used to go when any domestic
chagrin, or any violent emotion overcame his will. He was aware of the
approach of these attacks, and to hide his madness from his kindred,
went to the Schreckenstein, by a secret passage, the entrance to which
he had discovered in a cistern near his rooms, amid a _parterre_ of
flowers. When once in this cavern, he forgot the lapse of time, of days,
and weeks. Attended by Zdenko, the visionary and poetic peasant, the
excitement of whom was not a little like his own, he had no idea of ever
returning to the upper world, or of seeing his parents again, until the
attack began to pass away. Unfortunately, these attacks became every
time more violent, and lasted longer. Once, he was so long absent, that
all thought him dead, and I undertook to discover the place of his
retreat. I reached it, with much difficulty and danger. I went down this
cistern, which was amid the garden, and from which, one night, I had
seen Zdenko come. Not knowing the way through this abyss, I was near
losing my life. At last, I found Albert, and succeeded in dispersing the
torpor in which he had been plunged. I restored him to his parents, and
made him swear he never would return again to the fatal cavern, he
yielded to me, but said, this was to sentence him to death. His
prediction was but too well fulfilled."

"How so? Thus you restored him to life."

"No, madame; not unless I could love him, and never be a cause of
trouble to him."

"What, did you not love him? Yet you descended in that abyss; you risked
your life under-ground?"

"The mad Zdenko, not comprehending my design, and, like a faithful dog,
jealous of his master's safety, was near murdering me. A torrent came
near sweeping me away. Albert at first, not knowing me, almost made me
share his folly; for terror and emotion make all hallucinations
contagious. . . . At last, he was attacked by a new fit of delirium, as
he bore me from the cave, and had very nearly closed the outlet. . . I
exposed myself to all that, without loving Albert."

"Then you made a vow to Maria del Consuelo to rescue him?"

"Something like it, in fact," said Consuelo, with a sad smile; "an
emotion of tender pity to his family, of deep sympathy to him, perhaps
a romantic attraction, a sincere friendship, certainly, but not an
appearance of love. At least, nothing like the blind, intoxicating and
delicious passion I had entertained for the ungrateful Anzoleto, in
which, I think, my heart was prematurely exhausted. What shall I say,
madame? After that terrible expedition, I had a brain fever, and was at
the very point of death. Albert, who was somewhat skilled in physic,
saved my life. My slow recovery and his assiduous cares placed us on the
footing of the closest intimacy. His reason returned entirely, and his
father blessed and treated me as a beloved daughter. An old lame aunt,
the Countess Wenceslawa, an angel of tenderness, and a patrician full of
prejudices, even consented to receive me. Albert besought my love. Count
Christian, too, pleaded for his son. I was moved, I was terrified. I
loved Albert as one loves virtue, truth, and the beautiful; I was yet
afraid of him; I dreaded becoming a countess, and of making a match, the
result of which would be to raise against him and his family all the
nobility of the country, and which would cause me to be accused of
sordid views and base intrigues. Yet, must I own it, that was, perhaps,
my only crime. . . . I regretted my profession, my liberty, my old
teacher, and the exciting arena of the theatre, where, for a moment, I
had appeared to glitter, and where I would disappear like a meteor. The
burning stage on which my love had been crushed, my misfortune
consummated, which I thought I could hate and despise forever, and yet,
on which I dreamed every night I was either applauded or hissed. This
must seem strange and unaccountable to you; but when one has been
educated for the theatre, when one has toiled all life long for such
combats and such victories, the idea of returning to them no more, is as
terrible, as would be to you, Madame Amelia, that of being a princess on
the stage, as I am twice a week."

"You are mistaken, my dear. You are mad. If from a princess I could
become an artist, I would marry Trenck, and be happy. You to marry
Rudolstadt would not from an actress become a countess or princess. I
see you did not love him. That was not your fault. We cannot love those
whom we please."

"Madame, that is an aphorism of which I would willingly convince myself,
and in solving it, I have passed my life; could I do so my conscience
would be at ease. Yet I have not been able to accomplish it."

"Let me see," said the princess, "this is a grave matter, and, as an
abbess, I should be able to decide on it. You think, then, that love can
choose and reason?"

"It should. A noble heart should subject its inclination; I do not say
to that worldly reason, which is folly and falsehood, but to the noble
discernment, which is only the love of the beautiful, and a passion for
truth. You, madame, are proof of what I advance, and your example
condemns me. Born to fill a throne, you have immolated false greatness
on the altar of true passion, to the possession of a heart worthy of
your own. I, also, born to occupy a throne, (on the stage,) had neither
courage nor generosity to sacrifice the glitter of that false glory to
the calm and sublime affection offered to me. I was ready to do so from
devotion, but could not without grief and terror. Albert, who saw the
struggle, would not accept my faith as an offering. He wished
enthusiasm, equal joys, and a heart devoid of sorrow. I could not
deceive him. Is it possible to deceive one in such matters? I asked
time, and he granted it. I promised to do all I could to love like him.
I was sincere, but wished I had not been forced by my conscience to make
this formidable engagement."

"Strange girl! I will bet that you loved the _other!_"

"Oh my God! I thought I did not love him. One morning I waited on the
mountain for Albert, and heard a voice in the ravine. I recognised a
song which I had formerly studied with Anzoleto, and I recognised that
penetrating voice I had loved so much, and that Venetian accent which
was so dear to me. I looked down, and saw a cavalier pass. It was
Anzoleto, madame."

"Alas! What was he doing in Bohemia?"

"I have since learned that he had broken his engagement, and fled from
Venice, to avoid the persecution of Count Zustiniani. Having soon become
tired of the quarrelsome love of the despotic Corilla, with whom he had
appeared at St. Samuel's again, and had the greatest success, he had
obtained the favors of a certain Clorinda, the second singer, my old
schoolfellow, who had become Zustiniani's mistress. Like a man of the
world, that is to say, like a frivolous libertine, the count avenged
himself by taking up again with Corilla, without discharging Anzoleto.
Amid this double intrigue, Anzoleto, being ridiculed by his rival,
became mortified and angry, and one fine summer night, by an adroit
kick, upset the gondola in which Zustiniani and his mistress were taking
the fresh air. They only were upset, and had a cold bath. The waters of
Venice are nowhere deep. Anzoleto, thinking this pleasantry would take
him to the _Leads_, fled to Prague, and passed the Giants' Castle.

"He passed on, and I rejoined Albert to make a pilgrimage to the cavern
of the Schreckenstein, which he desired once more to see with me. I was
melancholy and unhappy. I there suffered under the most lugubrious
emotions. The dark place, the Hussite bones, of which Albert had built
an altar by the mysterious fountain, the admirable and touching tone of
his violin--I know not what terrors--darkness, and the superstitions
which here took possession of him, and which I could scarcely shake from
my own mind----"

"Say all. He fancied he was John Ziska--that he was endowed with eternal
life--the memory of the events of past centuries--in fine, he was as mad
as the Count de St. Germain is."

"Yes, madame, since you know all; his convictions made such an
impression on me, that instead of curing him, I almost participated in
it."

"Can your mind, then, notwithstanding your courageous heart, be weak?"

"I do not pretend to a strong mind. Whence could I have derived this
power? The only real education I have was derived from Albert. How is it
possible for me not to have felt his influence, and partaken of his
illusions? He had so much, and so many, truths in his soul, that I could
not discern error and separate it from truth. In this cavern I felt that
my reason was deserting me. What most terrified me was the fact that I
did not meet Zdenko, as I had expected. For several months he had not
been seen. As he persisted in being angry with me, Albert had exiled him
from his presence, after a violent discussion, beyond doubt, for he
seemed to regret it. Perhaps he thought that when he left him Zdenko had
killed himself. At all events, he spoke of him in enigmatical terms, and
with mysterious concealments, which terrified me. I fancied, (may God
forgive me the idea!) that in an access of fury Albert, being unable to
make the unfortunate man renounce his intention of destroying me, had
murdered him."

"Why, then, did Zdenko hate you?"

"This was one of the consequences of his madness. He said that he had
dreamed that I killed his master, and afterwards danced over his tomb.
Oh! madame, this sad prediction has been fulfilled. My love killed
Albert, and eight days after I made my _début_ in one of the gayest
_buffo_ operas in Berlin. I was compelled to do so, I know; and my heart
was filled with grief. The sad fate of Albert was accomplished as Zdenko
had foretold."

"My God! your story is so diabolical that I begin to forget where I am,
and lose my senses as I listen to you. But, go on; all this may be
explained, certainly?"

"No, madame. The fantastic world which Albert and Zdenko bore in their
souls has never been explained to me; and, like myself, you must be
satisfied merely with a knowledge of the results."

"Then the count at least did not kill the poor buffoon?"

"Zdenko to him was not a buffoon, but a friend and companion of
misfortune, a devoted servant. He was grieved at his conduct, but, thank
God! never dreamed of immolating him to me. Yet I was so foolish and so
guilty as to think this murder had been completed. A grave recently
opened in the cavern, and which Albert confessed contained the dearest
thing he had ever known, until he met me, at that time when he accused
himself of I know not what crime, chilled me to the heart. I felt
certain that Zdenko was buried there, and fled from the grotto crying
and weeping like a child!"

"You had reason to do so," said the Baroness Von Kleist, "and I am sure
such things would have terrified me to death. A lover like Albert would
not have suited me at all. The good Baron Von Kleist believed in, and
used to make sacrifices to the devil. That made me a coward, and had I
not been divorced, I think I would have gone mad."

"You have much consolation left you. I think you were divorced a little
too late," said the princess; "but do not interrupt the Countess of
Rudolstadt."

"When I returned to the castle with Albert, who had not dreamed of
defending himself from my suspicions, whom think you I found there?"

"Anzoleto!"

"He presented himself as my brother, and waited for me. I do not know
how he had learned _en route_ that I was living there, and was to marry
Albert. But it was talked of in the country long before anything was
determined. Whether from mortification, a remnant of love, or the love
of evil, he had suddenly returned with the intention of breaking off
this marriage. He did all he could to succeed, using prayers, tears,
persuasion, and threats. Apparently I was unmoved, but in my coward
heart I was troubled, and I felt I was no longer mistress of myself. By
means of the falsehood by which he had obtained admission, and which I
did not dare to contradict, though I had never spoken to Albert of this
brother, he remained all day at the castle. The old count made us at
night sing Venetian airs. These melodies of my adopted country awoke all
the recollections of my infancy, of my fine dreams, pure love, and past
happiness. I felt that I yet loved, but not the person I should, and had
promised to love. Anzoleto conjured me in a low tone to receive him at
night in my room, and threatened to come at any hazard or danger to him
or to me. I had ever been a sister to him, and under the purest
professions he concealed his plan. He would submit to my decision; he
was going at dawn, but wished to bid me farewell. I fancied that he
wished to make trouble and slander in the castle, that he proposed to
make a terrible scene with Albert, and that I would be disgraced. I took
a desperate resolution and executed it. At midnight I packed up in a
small bundle all the clothing I required--I wrote a note for
Albert--took what money I had, and (_par parenthèse_) forgot half of
it. I left my room, mounted the hired horse Anzoleto had ridden, paid
his guide to aid me, crossed the draw-bridge, and went to the
neighboring city. I had never been on horseback before, and galloped
four leagues. I then sent back the guide, and, pretending that I would
await Anzoleto on the road to Prague, gave him false intelligence as to
where my _brother_ would find me. I set out for Vienna, and at dawn was
alone, on foot, without resources, in an unknown country, and walking
rapidly as possible, to escape from two passions, apparently each
equally unfortunate. I must, however, say that after a few hours the
phantom of the perfidious Anzoleto was effaced from my mind, never to
return, while the pure image of my Albert, like an ægis and promise of
the future, cheered me amid the dangers of my route."

"Why did you go to Vienna rather than Venice?"

"My maestro had gone thither, having been brought by our ambassador to
replenish his broken fortune, and recover his ancient fame, which had
begun to grow pale before the success of luckier innovators. Luckily, I
met an excellent youth, already a musician of talent, who, in passing
through the Boehmer-wald, had heard of me, and had determined to ask my
recommendation and good offices in his behalf, with Porpora. We went
together to Vienna on foot--suffered much from fatigue, but were always
gay, always friends and brothers. I became especially fond of him,
because he did not dream of making love to me, and it did not enter into
my mind that he would do so. I disguised myself as a boy, and played the
part so well that all kinds of pleasant mistakes occurred. One, however,
came near being unfortunate to both of us. I will pass the others in
silence--not to shorten my story--and will mention this only because I
know it will interest your highness more than the rest of my narrative."


[Footnote 6: The adventures of Consuelo having passed from the reader's
mind, the author has thought it best to make a "resume" of them. Persons
whose memory will recall a long romance, will find this chapter
wearisome, and they may therefore skip it.]

[Footnote 7: Notre Dame de la Consolation.]

[Footnote 8: To run Bohemia.]

[Footnote 9: Gormanice, Schreckenstein.]




CHAPTER VIII


"I fancy you are about to speak of _him_" said the princess, moving the
lights, to get a better view of the speaker, and placing her elbows on
the table.

"While going down the Moldau, on the Bavarian frontier, we were seized
by the recruiting parties of the king, your brother, and were flattered
with the smiling hope of becoming, both Haydn and myself, fifer and
drummer in the glorious armies of his Majesty."

"You, a drummer!" said the princess with surprise. "Ah! had Von Kleist
seen you thus I venture to swear she would have lost her senses. My
brother would have made you his page; and heaven knows what ravage you
would have made in the hearts of our Court ladies. But what is it you
say of Haydn? I know the name, and have recently received music of his,
and, I remember, excellent music. He is not the lad you speak of?"

"Excuse me. He is about twenty years old, and does not seem fifteen. He
was my travelling companion, and was a sincere and faithful friend. On
the edge of a little wood, where our captors halted to breakfast, we
escaped. They pursued us, and we ran like hares, until we had the good
fortune to overtake a travelling carriage, in which was the handsome and
noble Frederick Von Trenck and the _ci-devant_ conqueror, Count Hoditz
de Roswald."

"The husband of my aunt, the Margravine of Culmbach?" said the princess.
"Another love match, Von Kleist. By the by, that is the only honest and
prudent thing my aunt ever did in her life. What kind of a man is this
Count Hoditz?"

Consuelo was about to give a minute account of the lord of Roswald, but
the princess interrupted her by countless questions about Trenck, the
dress he wore, and the minutest details. When Consuelo told her how
Trenck had hurried to her defence, how he came near being shot, and had
put the brigands to flight, and rescued an unfortunate deserter who was
borne in the wagon with his hands and feet bound, she had to begin again
to repeat the most trifling words and detail the merest circumstances.
The joy and emotion of the princess were intense when she heard that
Trenck and Count Hoditz, having taken the two travellers into their
coach, the baron had taken no notice of Consuelo, but seemed wrapped in
the examination of a portrait he concealed in his bosom--that he sighed,
and talked to the count of a mysterious love for an exalted person, who
was the origin of the happiness and despair of his life.

When Consuelo was permitted to continue, she said that Count Hoditz,
having discovered her sex at Passau, sought to presume on the protection
he had granted her, and that she had fled with Haydn and resumed her
adventurous travels in a boat which went down the Danube.

At last she told how, playing on the pipe, while Haydn played the
violin, they paid for their dinners by making music for the peasants to
dance, and at length reached a pleasant priory still disguised, and
represented herself as a wandering musician, a Zingara, called Bertoni.

"The prior," said she, "was passionately fond of music, and was besides
a man of heart and mind. He conceived for us, for myself especially, a
great friendship, and wished even to adopt me, promising me an excellent
benefice, if I would but take the minor orders. I began to be tired of
manhood, and the _tonsure_ was no more to my taste than the drum. A
strange adventure forced me to prolong my abode with my excellent host.
A woman travelling by post, was seized with the pains of labor, and gave
birth to a daughter, which she abandoned and I persuaded the good canon
to adopt it in my place. She was called Angela, from her father's name
Anzoleto, and the mother, Corilla, went to Vienna to procure an
engagement at the Court Theatre. She did so, and with greater success
than I had. The Prince Von Kaunitz presented her to the Empress Maria
Theresa as a respectable widow, and I was rejected, as being accused and
suspected of being the mistress of Joseph Haydn, who received lessons
from Porpora, and lived in the same house with us."

Consuelo described her interview with the great Empress. The princess
was anxious to hear of this wonderful woman, the virtue of whom no one
at Berlin believed in, and who was said to have as lovers the Prince Von
Kaunitz, Doctor Von Switzer and Metastasio.

Consuelo told at length of her reconciliation on account of Angela, with
La Corilla, of her _début_ in the principal parts at the Imperial
Theatre, on account of the remorse and a generous impulse of her
impetuous rival. She then told of the friendship that existed at Vienna
between Trenck and herself at the abode of the Ambassador of Venice; and
told how she had arranged a method of communicating with him, if the
persecution of the King of Prussia made it necessary. She spoke of the
piece of music, the sheets of which were to serve as a wrapper and
signature to the letters he might send her, as occasion required, for
her whom he loved: and told how she had recently been informed, by one
of the sheets, of the importance of the cabalistic scroll she had given
to the princess. It may be imagined these explanations occupied more
time than the rest of the story.

Porporina having told of her departure with the maestro from Venice, and
how, in the uniform of a company, and as the Baron Von Kreutz, she had
met the King of Prussia at the wonderful Castle of Roswald, she was
obliged also to mention the important service she had rendered the
monarch before she knew him.

"That I was very curious to know," said the Baroness Von Kleist.
"Poelnitz, who loves to talk, told me that his majesty at supper said
that his friendship for the beautiful Porporina had more serious causes
than a mere love affair."

"What I did was very simple. I used the ascendancy I had over an
unfortunate fanatic to keep him from murdering the king. Karl, the poor
Bohemian giant, whom Trenck had rescued from the recruiting party when
he liberated me, had entered the service of Count Hoditz. He had known
the king, and wished to be revenged for the death of his wife and child,
who died of want and sorrow, just after his second arrest. Fortunately,
he had not forgotten that I had been a party to his rescue, and had
contributed something to his wife's assistance. He let me persuade and
take the gun from him. The king, who was concealed hard by, as he
afterwards told me, heard all, and, lest the assassin should have a
return of fury, took a different road from the one he had intended. The
king was on horseback, with no one but Bruddenbrock. It is, then, very
possible that a good shot like Karl, whom I had thrice seen shoot a
pigeon from the top of a mast, during the entertainment given by Count
Hoditz, would not have missed."

"God knows," said the princess in a dreamy manner, "what changes this
misfortune would have effected in European politics, and in individual
destinies. Now, dear Rudolstadt, I think I know the rest of your story,
until the death of Count Albert. At Prague you met his uncle, the baron,
who took you to the Giant's Castle, to see him die of phthisis, and to
marry him just before he breathed his last. You had not made up your
mind to love him?"

"Alas! madame, I loved him too late, and have been cruelly punished for
hesitation, and passion for the stage. Forced by my master, Porpora, to
appear at Vienna, deceived in relation to Albert's indisposition, for
his last letters had been intercepted, I suffered myself to be led
astray by the glitter of the stage; and, in conclusion, while waiting
for an engagement at Berlin, appeared with perfect madness at Vienna."

"And with glory" said the princess. "We know that."

"Miserable and fatal glory," said Consuelo. "One thing your highness
does not know; it is that Albert came secretly to Vienna and saw me
play. Following every step like a mysterious shadow, he heard me say,
behind the scenes to Joseph Haydn, that I could not abandon my art
without serious regret, yet I loved Albert. I swear before God, that
within my heart, I knew that it was more impossible to renounce him than
my profession, and wrote to him to say so. Porpora, who looked on this
love as a chimera and madness, had intercepted and burned my letters. I
found Albert in a rapid consumption; I gave him my hand, but could not
restore him to life. I saw him lying in state, clad as a noble of yore,
beautiful in the embrace of death, with his brow pure as that of the
pardoning angel--but I could not follow him to the grave. I left him in
the lighted chapel of the Giants' Castle, watched over by Zdenko, the
poor mad prophet, who gave me his hand with a smile, and rejoiced at the
tranquil slumber of his friend. He, at least, more pious and respectful
than I, placed him in the tomb of his fathers, without being aware that
he would never again leave that bed of repose. I was hurried away by
Porpora, a devoted, yet stern friend, with a paternal yet inflexible
heart, who shouted to me over the very tomb of my husband--'On Saturday
next, you will make your _début_ in _Les Virtuoses Ridicules._'"

"Strange, indeed, are the vicissitudes of an artist's life," said the
princess, wiping away a tear. Porporina, as she concluded her story,
sobbed aloud. "You do not tell me, my dear Consuelo, the greatest honor
of your life, and which, when Supperville mentioned, filled me with
admiration. Not to distress the old canoness, and not to forfeit your
romantic disinterestedness, you abandoned your title, your dower, and
your name. You requested Supperville and Porpora, the only witnesses of
your marriage, to keep it a secret, and came hither poor as before, and
remained a Zingarella."

"And an artiste," said Consuelo, "that is to say independent, virgin and
dead to all sentiment of love, such as Porpora always represented the
ideal type of the muses. My terrible master carried his point, and at
last I consented to what he struggled for. I do not think that I am
happier, nor that I am better. Since I love no longer, and feel no
longer capable of loving, I feel no longer the fire and inspiration of
the stage. This icy atmosphere, and this courtly air precipitates me
into the deepest distress. The absence of Porpora, the despair in which
I am, and the will of the king, who prolongs my engagement, contrary to
my wishes. May I not confess this, madame, to you?"

"I might have guessed it, poor thing--all thought you proud of the kind
of preference with which the king honors you; but like myself, you are
his slave and prisoner,--in the same condition as his family favorites,
soldiers, pages and puppies. Alas! for the glitter of royalty, the
glories of the princely crown; how nauseous are they, to those whose
life is exhausted in furnishing them with rays of light. But, dear
Consuelo, you have yet other things to tell me, which are not those that
interest me least. I expect from your sincerity, that you will tell me
on what terms you are with my brother, and I will induce you to do so by
my own frankness. Thinking that you were his mistress, and flattering
myself that you could obtain Trenck's pardon from him, I sought you out,
to place the matter in your hands. Now, thank heaven! we have no need of
that, and I shall be pleased to love you for yourself. I think you can
tell me all without compromising yourself, especially as the affairs of
my brother do not seem far advanced from me."

"The manner in which you speak of this matter, madame, makes me
shudder," replied Consuelo, growing pale. "Eight days ago I heard it
whispered around me, that the king, our master, entertained a serious
passion for me, his sad and trembling subject. Up to that time I had
never conceived anything possible between him and me, but a pleasant
conversation, benevolent on his side, and respectful on mine, he
exhibits a friendship and gratitude which was too great for the simple
part I had played at Roswald. There is a gulf, though, between that and
love, which I hope he will never pass."

"I think differently. He is impetuous, talkative and familiar with you;
he talks to you as to a boy, and passes your hand to his brow and to his
lips. He effects in the presence of his friends--and for some days this
has been the case--to be less in love with you than he is. This all
proves that he is likely to become so. I know it, and warn you, that ere
long you will be called on to decide. What will you do? If you resist,
you are lost; if you yield that will still be the case. If this be so,
what will you do?"

"Neither, madame. Like his recruits, I will desert."

"That is not easy, and I do not wish you to do so, having become very
fond of you; and I think I would put the recruiters on your tracks
rather than you should escape. Well, we will find a way. The case is
grave, and demands consideration. Tell me all that has passed since
Albert's death."

"Some strange and inexplicable things amid a monotonous and moody life.
I will tell you what they are, and your highness perhaps will aid me in
understanding them."

"I will try, on condition that you will call me Amelia, as you did just
now. It is not yet midnight, and I do not wish to be _highnessed_ until
day."

Porporina resumed her story thus:

"I have already told to Madame Von Kleist, when she first did me the
honor of coming to my house, that I was separated from Porpora on the
frontier of Prussia, as I was coming from Bohemia. Even now, I am
ignorant, whether his passport was not regular, or if the king had
caused us to be preceded by one of those orders, the rapidity of which
is a prodigy, to exclude Porpora from his territories. This idea,
perhaps wrong, at first suggested itself to me, for I remembered the
brusque lightness and scowling sincerity with which the maestro defended
Trenck, and blamed the king, when Frederick, at supper at Count
Hoditz's, where he had represented himself as the Baron Von Kreutz, and
told us himself of Trenck's _treason_ and confinement at Glatz."

"Indeed! then the Maestro Porpora displeased the king in talking of
Trenck?"

"The king never mentioned it to me, and I feared to remind him of it. It
is certain, that in spite of my prayers, and his majesty's promises,
Porpora has not been recalled."

"And he never will be," said Amelia, "for the king forgets nothing, and
never pardons frankness when it wounds his self-love. The Solomon of the
north hates and persecutes whoever doubts the infallibility of his
opinions; his arrest is but a gross feint, and an odious pretext to get
rid of an enemy. Weep, then, if you wish, my dear, for you will never
see Porpora at Berlin."

"In spite of my chagrin at his absence, I do not wish, madame, to see
him here, and I will take no steps to induce the king to pardon him. I
received a letter from him this morning, in which he announces that an
opera of his had been received at the imperial theatre at Vienna. After
a thousand disappointments he has attained his purpose, and his pieces
are about to be studied: I prefer, therefore, to go to him, than to
bring him hither. I am afraid, though, I shall not be at more liberty to
go hence, than I was to come."

"What say you?"

"At the frontier, when I saw that my master was forced to return I
wished to accompany him and give up my engagement at Berlin. I was so
indignant at the brutality and apparent bad faith of such a reception,
that to pay the penalty I would have lived by the sweat of my brow
rather than enter a country so despotically ruled. At the first
exhibition of my intentions I was ordered by the officer to get into the
post-chaise, which was ready in the twinkling of an eye; and as I saw
myself surrounded by soldiers determined to use constraint, I embraced
my master with tears, and resolved to suffer myself to be taken to
Berlin, which, crushed with grief and fatigue, I reached at midnight. I
was set down near the palace, not far from the opera in a handsome house
belonging to the king, in which I was absolutely alone. I found servants
at my orders, and supper all ready. I have learned that Von Poelnitz had
been directed to prepare every thing for my arrival. I was scarcely
installed when the Baron Von Kreutz sent to know if I was visible. I
hastened to receive him, being anxious to complain of Porpora's
treatment, and to ask reparation. I pretended not to know that Frederick
II. was the Baron Von Kreutz. I appeared to be ignorant of it. The
deserter, Karl, in confiding his plan to murder him, to me, had not
mentioned his name, but had spoken of him as a superior Prussian
officer, and I had learned who it was from the lips of Count Hoditz,
after the king had left Roswald. He came in with a smiling and affable
air, which I had not seen during his incognito. Under his false name,
and in a foreign country, he had been much annoyed. At Berlin he seemed
to have regained all the majesty of his character--that is, the
benevolent kindness and generous mildness which sometimes decks his
omnipotence. He came to me with his hand extended, and asked if I
remembered to have met him.

"'Yes, baron,' said I, 'and I remember that you offered and promised me
your good offices at Berlin, should I need them.' I then told him with
vivacity what had taken place on the frontier, and asked if he could not
forward to the king, his illustrious master, a demand for reparation for
the outrage and the constraint to which I had been subjected.

"'Reparation?' said the king, smiling maliciously, 'that all! Would
Signor Porpora call the King of Prussia out? Signorina Porporina,
perhaps, would require him to kneel to her.'

"This jeer increased my ill-humor. 'Your majesty may add irony to what I
have already suffered, but I had rather thank than fear you.'

"The king shook his arm rudely. 'Ah!' said he, 'you play a sharp game.'
As he spoke he fixed his penetrating eyes on mine: 'I thought you simple
and full of honesty; yet you know me at Roswald.'"

"'No, sire, I did not know you then. Would that I did not know you now.'

"'I cannot say so much,' said he, mildly, 'for had it not been for you,
I would have remained in some ditch at Roswald. Victories furnish no
ægis against assassination, and I will never forget that if the fate of
Prussia yet be in my hands, I owe it to a kind heart, opposed to all
plots. Your ill temper, then, dear Porporina, will not make me
ungrateful. Be calm, I beg you, and tell me what you complain of, for,
as yet, I know nothing about it.'

"Whether the king really knew nothing, or the police had discovered
something informal in the passport of Porpora, I know not. He listened
with great attention to my story, and told me afterwards, with the
calmness of a judge, who is unwilling to speak unadvisedly, 'I will
examine all this, and tell you about it. I shall be much surprised, if,
without good cause, my officers have annoyed a traveller. There must be
some mistake; I will find out, and if any one has exceeded his orders he
shall be punished.'

"'Sire, that is not what I ask; I wish Porpora recalled.'

"'I promise you he shall be. Now be less sombre, and tell me frankly how
you discovered my incognito.'

"I then spoke freely with the king, and found him so kind and amiable,
so agreeable, that I forgot all the prejudices I entertained against
him. I admired his brilliant and judicious mind, his easy and benevolent
manners, which I had not remarked in Maria Theresa, and finally the
delicacy of his sentiments about all things on which his conversation
touched. 'Hear me,' said he, taking up his hat to go, 'I have a piece of
friendly advice to give you on this, the very day of your arrival here.
It is, not to speak of the service you have rendered me, nor of this
visit. Though it be very honorable and natural that I should hasten to
thank you, the fact would give rise to a very false idea of the friendly
relations I wish to maintain with you. All would think you anxious of
that position, known in court language as the king's favorite. Some
would distrust, and others be jealous of you. The least inconvenience
would be to attract to you all who had petitions, the channel of which
they would expect you to be. As you would certainly have the good sense
not to play this part, you would be the complete object of their
enmity.'

"'I promise your majesty to act as you have ordered me.'

"'I give you no orders, Consuelo,' said he, 'but rely on your prudence
and correctness. At the first glance I saw you had a pure and noble
soul, and because I wished to make you the fine pearl of my department
of the arts, I ordered from the remotest part of Siberia that a carriage
should be provided for you as soon as you came to my frontier. It was
not my fault that you were placed in a kind of travelling prison, and
separated from your protector. Until he be restored to you I will
replace him, if you find me worthy of the confidence and attachment you
bore him.'

"I own, my dear Amelia, that I was keenly sensible of this paternal
language and delicate attention. Something of pride, perhaps, mingled
with it, and tears came to my eyes when the king, as he left me gave me
his hand. I had to kiss it, as doubtless duty required; but as I am
making a confession, I will say at the time I felt terrified and
paralyzed. It seemed to me that his majesty flattered and cajoled my
self-esteem, to prevent my telling what had passed at Roswald, as likely
to produce in some minds an impression injurious to his policy. It also
occurred to me that he was afraid of being ridiculed for feeling
grateful for my services. At once, too, I recalled the terrible military
_régime_ of Prussia, of which Trenck had minutely informed me--the
ferocity of the recruiters--the misfortunes of Karl--the captivity of
the noble Trenck, which I attributed to his having rescued the poor
soldier--the cries of another soldier I had seen beaten that morning, as
I passed through a village--and all that despotism which was the force
and glory of Frederick the Great. I could not hate him personally--but
I saw in him an absolute master, the natural enemy of those pure minds
which do not see the necessity of inhuman laws, and cannot penetrate the
secrets of empires."




CHAPTER IX


"Thenceforth," continued Porporina, "I never saw the king at home. He
sometimes sent for me to come to _Sans Souci_, where I even passed
several days with my companions, Porporino or Conceolini; and here I
used to play the piano at his little concerts, and accompany the violin
of Braun or Benda, or the flute of Quantz, and sometimes the king
himself."

"It is less pleasant to accompany him than any of the others," said the
Princess of Prussia. "I know, by experience, that whenever my dear
brother plays a false note, or loses the time, he does not fail to scold
all the _concertanti._"

"That is true," said Porporina, "and his skilful master, Quantz,
himself, has not always been able to avoid his injustice. His majesty,
however, when thus led astray, soon repairs the injury by acts of
deference and delicate praise, which pour balm on wounded self-love.
Thus, by a kind word, by an exclamation of admiration, he causes his
severity and his anger to be excused, even by artists, who are the most
susceptible people in the world."

"But could you, after you knew of him, suffer yourself to be fascinated
by this basilisk?"

I will own, madame, that often, without knowing it, I felt the influence
of his ascendancy. As trickery has ever been foreign to me, I may always
be the dupe, and only ascertain the meaning of disingennousness too
late. I also saw the king very frequently on the stage and sometimes
even, when the performance was over, in my dressing-room. He was always
paternal in his conduct towards me. I was never alone with him more than
two or three times in the gardens of _Sans Souci_, and I must confess
that then I had found out his hour of walking, and went thither
expressly to meet him. He then called or came courteously to me, and I
took advantage of the opportunity to speak to him of Porpora, and renew
my request. I always received the same promises, but never reaped any
advantage. Subsequently I changed my tactics, and asked leave to return
to Vienna. He heard my prayer, sometimes with affectionate reproaches,
sometimes with icy coldness, and often with yet greater ill-humor. The
last attempt was not more fortunate than the others, and even when the
king said, drily--'Go, signora; you are free,' I could obtain no
settlement of accounts, nor permission to travel. This is the state of
affairs, and I see no resource but in flight, should my situation here
become too grievous to be borne. Alas! madame, I have often been wounded
by Maria Theresa's small taste for music, but never suspected that a
king, almost fanatic for the art, was more to be feared than an empress
without any ear.

"I have told you briefly all my relations with his majesty. I never had
occasion to fear or even to suspect that your highness would think he
loved me. Nevertheless, I was proud, sometimes, when I thought that,
thanks to my musical talent and the romantic incident which led to my
preserving his life, the king seemed to have a friendship for me. He
often told me so with the greatest grace, and most perfect simplicity;
he seemed to love to talk with me with such perfect _bonhommie_, that I
became used, I know not how, to love him with perfect friendship. The
word is, perchance, _bizarre_, and a little misplaced in my mouth; but
the sentiment of affectionate respect and timid confidence which the
presence, glance, eye, words and tone of the royal basilisk, as you call
him, inspired me with, is strange as it is sincere. We are here to make
a full confession, and we have agreed that I shall shrink from nothing:
well, I protest that I am afraid of the king, and almost have a horror
of him, when I do not see him, yet breathe the rarified air of his
empire. When I see him, however, I am charmed, and am ready to give him
every proof of devotion, which a timid, but affectionate girl, can give
to a rigid, yet kind father."

"You frighten me," said the princess. "Good God! what if you were to
suffer yourself to be controlled and cajoled so as to destroy our
cause?"

"Ah! madame, have no apprehensions about that. When the affairs of my
friends or of any other persons arc concerned, I am able to defy the
king, and others even more shrewd than he, if there be such, and yet
fall into no snare."

"I believe you. You exercise over me by your frankness the same
influence which Frederick exerts over you. Well, do not be excited for I
do not compare you together. Resume your story, and tell me of
Cagliostro. I have heard that at one of his magic representations, he
recalled to you one who had long been dead. I suppose that person was
Albert?"

"I am ready to satisfy you, my noble Amelia; but, if I consent to reveal
to you a painful story, which I would willingly forget, I have the right
to address a few questions to you, according to the arrangement we have
made."

"I am ready to answer you."

"Well, madame; do you think the dead can leave the tomb, or, at least,
that a reflection of their forms animated by the appearance of life, may
be evoked, at the will of sorcerers, and so take possession of our
fancy, that it may be reproduced before our eyes and take possession of
our reason?"

"The question is very complicated, and all that I can say is, that I do
not believe in the impossible. I do not think that a resurrection of the
dead can be produced by magic. As far as our poor foolish imagination is
concerned, I think it capable of everything."

"Your highness--excuse me--your highness has no faith in magic yet. . .
But the question is indiscreet beyond doubt."

"Go on--yet I have devoted myself to magic; that is well known. Well, my
dear girl, let me explain this inconsistency, which appears so strange
both in place and time. After being aware of the nature of the scroll
sent by Saint Germain, which, to tell the truth, was but a letter sent
to me by Trenck, you can understand that necromancy is a pretext for
many other things. To reveal to you, however, all that it conceals from
the vulgar eye, all that it hides from courtly espionage and legal
oppression, would be but the affair of an instant. Be patient, for I
have resolved to initiate you into all my secrets. You are far more
deserving of this confidence than my dear Von Kleist, who is timid and
superstitious. Yes, I tell you this angel of goodness, this tender
heart, has no common sense. She has faith in the devil, in sorcerers,
ghosts, and presages, just as if she did not have in her hands and under
her very eyes, the mysterious clues of the great work. She is, like the
alchemists of the past, who created patiently and wisely, all kinds of
monsters, but who then became afraid of their own handicraft, so that
they became the slaves of demons, originated in their own alembic."

"Perhaps I may not be braver than the Baroness Von Kleist," said
Porporina, "and I confess I am under the influence, if not under the
power of Cagliostro. Imagine, that after having promised to show me the
person of whom I thought, the name of whom he pretended to read in my
eyes, he showed me another. Besides, he showed me as living, whom he did
not know to be dead. Notwithstanding this double error, he resusicated
the husband I had lost, and that will ever be to me a painful and
inexpressible enigma."

"He showed you some phantom, and fancy filled up the details."

"I can assure you that my fancy was in no respect interested. I expected
to see in a mirror some representation of Maestro Porpora, for I had
spoken often of him at supper, and while deploring his absence, had seen
that Cagliostro paid no little attention to my words. To make his task
more easy, I chose in my mind the face of Porpora, as the subject of the
apparition, and I expected him certainly, not having as yet considered
the test as serious. Finally at perhaps the only moment in my life in
which I did not think of the Count, he appeared. Cagliostro asked me
when I went into the magic closet, if I would consent to have my eyes
bandaged and follow him, holding on to his hand. As he was a man of good
reputation, I did not hesitate; but made it a condition, that he would
not leave me for an instant. 'I was going,' said he, 'to address you a
request, not to leave me a moment, and not to let go my hand, without
regard to what may happen, or what emotion you may feel.' I promised
him; but a simple affirmative did not suffice, he made me solemnly swear
that I would make no gesture nor exclamation, but remain mute and silent
during the whole of the experiment. He then put on his glove, and having
covered my head with a hood of black velvet, which fell over my
shoulders, he made me walk about five minutes without my being able to
hear any door opened or shut. The hood kept me from being aware of any
change in the atmosphere, therefore I could not know whether I had gone
out of the room or not, for he made me make such frequent turns, that I
had no appreciation of the direction."

At last he paused; and, with one hand removed the hood, so lightly that
I was not even aware of it. My respiration having become more free, he
informed me that I might look around. I found myself, however, in such
intense darkness that I could ascertain nothing. After a short time, I
saw a luminous star, which at first trembled, and soon became brilliant
before me. At first, it seemed most remote, but, when at its brightest,
appeared very near me. It was produced, I think, of a light, which
became more and more intense, and which was behind a transparency.
Cagliostro made me approach the star, which was an orifice pierced in
the wall. On the other side of that wall I saw a chamber, magnificently
decorated and filled with lights regularly arranged. This room, in its
character and ornaments, had every air of a place dedicated to magical
operations. I had not time, however, to examine it, my attention being
absorbed by a person who sat before a table. He was alone, and hid his
face with his hands, as if immersed in deep meditation. I could not see
his features, and his person was disguised by a costume in which I had
hitherto seen no one. As far as I was able to remark it, it was a robe
or cloak of white satin, faced with purple, fastened over the breast
with hieroglyphic gems, on which I observed a rose, a triangle, a cross,
a death's-head, and many rich ribbons of various kinds. All that I could
see was that it was not Porpora. After one or two minutes, this
mysterious personage, which I began to fancy a statue, slowly moved its
hands, and I saw the face of Count Albert distinctly, not as it had last
met my gaze, covered with the shadows of death, but animated amid its
pallor, and full of soul in its serenity; such, in fine, as I had seen
it in its most beautiful seasons of calm and confidence. I was on the
point of uttering a cry, and by an involuntary movement, crushing the
crystal which separated him from me. A violent pressure of Cagliostro's
hand, reminded me of my oath, and impressed me with I know not what
vague terror. Just then a door opened at the extremity of the room in
which I saw Albert; and many unknown persons, dressed as he was, joined
him, each bearing a sword. After having made strange gestures, as if
they had been playing a pantomime, they spoke to him in a very solemn
tone words I could not comprehend. He arose and went towards them, and
replied in words equally strange, and which were unintelligible to me,
though now I know German nearly as well as my mother tongue. This
dialogue was like that which we hear in dreams, and the strangeness of
the scene, the miracle of the apparition, had so much of this character,
that I really doubted whether I dreamed or not. Cagliostro, however,
forced me to be motionless, and I recognised the voice of Albert so
perfectly that I could not doubt the reality of what I saw. At last,
completely carried away by the scene, I was about to forget my oath and
speak to him, when the hood again was placed over my head and all became
dark. 'If you make the least noise,' said Cagliostro, 'neither you nor I
will see the light again.' I had strength enough to follow him, and walk
for a long time amid the zig-zags of an unknown space. Finally, when he
took away the hood again, I found myself in his laboratory which was
dimly lighted as it had been at the commencement of this adventure.
Cagliostro was very pale, and still trembled, for, as I walked with him,
I became aware of a convulsive agitation of his arm, and that he hurried
me along as if he was under the influence of great terror. The first
thing he said was to reproach me bitterly about my want of loyalty, and
the terrible dangers to which I had exposed him by wishing to violate my
promises. 'I should have remembered,' said he, 'that women are not bound
by their word of honor, and that one should forbear to accede to their
rash and vain curiosity.' His tone was very angry.

"Hitherto I had participated in the terror of my guide. I had been so
amazed at Albert's being alive, that I had not enquired if this was
possible. I had even forgotten that death had bereft me of this dear and
precious friend. The emotion of the magician recalled to me, that all
this was very strange, and that I had seen only a spectre. My reason,
however, repudiated what was impossible, and the bitterness of the
reproaches of Cagliostro caused a kind of ill-humor, which protected me
from weakness. 'You feign to have faith in your own falsehood,' said I,
with vivacity; 'ah! your game is very cruel. Yes; you sport with all
that is most holy, even with death itself.'

"'Soul without faith, and without power,' said he angrily, but in a most
imposing manner. 'You believe in death, as the vulgar do, and yet you
had a great master--one who said: "_We do not die. Nothing dies;--there
is nothing dies._" You accuse me of falsehood, and seem to forget that
the only thing which is untrue here, is the name of death in your
impious mouth.' I confess that this strange reply overturned all my
thoughts, and for a moment overcame the resistance of my troubled mind.
How came this man to be aware of my relations with Albert, and even the
secrets of his doctrine? Did he believe as Albert did, or did he make
use of this as a means to acquire an ascendancy over me?

"I was confused and alarmed. Soon, however, I said that this gross
manner of interpreting Albert's faith, could not be mine, and that God,
not the impostor Cagliostro, can evoke death, or recall life. Finally,
convinced that I was the dupe of an inexplicable illusion, the
explanation of which, however, I might some day find, I arose, praising
coldly the _savoir-faire_ of the sorcerer, and asked him for an
explanation of the whimsical conversation his phantoms had together. In
relation to that he replied, that it was impossible to satisfy me, and
that I should be satisfied with seeing the person calm, and carefully
occupied. 'You will ask me in vain,' added he, 'what are his thoughts
and actions in life. I am ignorant even of his name. When you desired,
and asked to see it, there was formed between you two a mysterious
communication, which my power was capable of making able to bring you
together. All science goes no farther.'

"'Your science,' said I, 'does not reach that far even; I thought of
Porpora, and you did not present him to me.'

"'Of that I know nothing,' said he, in a tone serious and terrible. 'I
do not wish to know. I have seen nothing, either in your mind, or in the
magic mirror. My mind would not support such a spectacle, and I must
maintain all my senses to exercise my power. The laws of science are
infallible, and consequently, though not aware of it yourself, you must
have thought of some one else than Porpora, since you did not see the
latter.'"

"Such is the talk of madmen of that kind," said the princess, shrugging
her shoulders. "Each one has his peculiar mode; though all, by means of
a captious reasoning, which may be called the method of madness, so
contrive by disturbing the ideas of others, that they are never cut
short, or disturbed themselves."

"He certainly disturbed mine," said Consnelo, "and I was no longer able
to analyse them. The apparition of Albert, true or false, made me more
distinctly aware that I had lost him forever, and I shed tears.

"'Consuelo;' said the magician in a solemn tone, and offering me his
hand, (you may imagine that my real name, hitherto unknown to all, was
an additional surprise, when I heard him speak it,) 'you have great
errors to repair, and I trust you will neglect nothing to regain your
peace of mind.' I had not power to reply. I sought in vain to hide my
tears from my companions, who waited impatiently for me in the next
room. I was more impatient yet to withdraw, and as soon as I was alone,
after having given a free course to my grief, I passed the night in
reflections and commentaries on the scenes of this fatal evening. The
more I sought to understand it, the more I became lost in a labyrinth of
uncertainty; and I must own that my ideas were often worse than an
implicit obedience to the oracles of magic would have been. Worn out by
fruitless suffering, I resolved to suspend my judgment until there
should be light. Since then, however, I have been impressionable,
subject to the vapors, sick at heart, and deeply sad. I was not more
sensibly aware of the death of my friend than I had been; the remorse
which his generous pardon had lulled to rest, again began to torment me.
By constantly exercising my profession, I grew weary of the frivolous
intoxication of success; besides, in this country, where the mind of man
seems sombre as the climate----"

"And the government?" said the abbess.

"In this government, where I felt overcome and chilled, I saw that I
would not make the progress I dreamed of."

"What do you wish to do? We have never heard anything that approached
you, and I do not think there is a more perfect singer in the world. I
tell you what I think, and this is not a compliment _à la Frederick._"

"Even if your highness be not mistaken, a matter of which I am
ignorant," said Consuelo, with a smile, ("for except La Romanina and La
Tesi, I have heard no other singer than myself,) I think there is always
something to be attempted, and something more than has been done to be
accomplished. Well, this ideal, which I have borne in myself, I might
have been able to approach in a life of action, strife, and bold
enterprise, of mutual sympathy, and in a word, of enthusiasm. The chilly
regularity which reigns here, the military discipline, which extends
even to the theatre, the calm and constant benevolence of a public,
which minds its own business while it listens to us, the high protection
of the king, which guarantees to us successes decreed in advance, the
absence of rivalry and novelty in the artists themselves, and in the
performances--above all, the idea of indefinite captivity, this every
day and icy labor-life, sadly glorious yet compulsory, which we lead in
Prussia, has deprived me even of the desire of perfecting myself. There
are days when I feel myself so utterly without energy, and so void of
that touchy self-love which aids the artist's conscience, that I would
pay for the excitement of a hiss. Alas! let me be deficient at my entry,
or fail towards the end of the performance, I always receive the same
applause. Applause, when I do not deserve it, gives me no pleasure, and
it afflicts me sometimes when I really do deserve it, because they are
officially measured out and ordered, and I feel that I deserve voluntary
praise. All this may seem puerile to you, noble Amelia; but you ask to
know the profundity of an actor's life, and I conceal nothing from you."

"You explain all this so naturally, that I feel as if I had experienced
it myself. To do you good I would hiss you when you do not sing well,
and throw you a crown of roses when you are thereby aroused."

"Alas! kind princess, neither would please the king. The king is
unwilling that his actors should be offended, because applause and
hisses follow close together. My _ennui_ has on that account no remedy,
in spite of your generous friendship. United to this languor is regret
at having preferred a life so false and void of emotion, to one of love
and devotion. Especially, since the adventure with Cagliostro, a black
melancholy took possession of my breast. No night passes that I do not
dream of Albert, and fancy him offended or irritated with me, busied, or
speaking an incomprehensible language--a prey to ideas altogether
foreign to our love--as when I saw him in the magic scene. I awake,
covered with cold perspiration, and weep when I think that in the new
life into which death has ushered him, his moody and disconsolate heart
cares neither for my grief, nor for my disdain. At all events, I killed
him, and it is in the power of no man, even one who had made an
agreement with the powers of light and darkness, to restore him to me. I
can, therefore, repair nothing in the useless and solitary life I lead,
and I have no other wish but to die."




CHAPTER X


"Have you then formed no new friendships?" said the Princess Amelia.
"Among so many people of mind and talent, whom my brother boasts of
having attracted to him from every corner of the world, is there no one
worthy of esteem?"

"Certainly, madame, there are many, and were I not inclined to
retirement, I would find many kind friends. Mademoiselle Cochois, for
instance----"

"The Marquise D'Argens, you mean."

"I did not know that was her name."

"You are discreet--you are right. She is an admirable person."

"Extremely so; and very kind, though vain of the care and attentions of
the marquis, and rather inclined to look down on other artists."

"She would feel much humiliated if she knew whom you are. The name of
Rudolstadt is one of the noblest of Saxony, while the D'Argens are but
country gentlemen of Provence or Languedoc. What kind of person is
Madame Coccei? Do you know her?"

"As Signora Barberini has not danced at the opera since her marriage,
and passes the greater portion of her time in the country, I have rarely
seen her. Of all the actresses, she is the one I like the most, and have
been often invited by her and her husband to visit them on their estate.
The king gave me to understand, however, that this would greatly
displease him, and I was forced to give it up, though it deprived me of
much pleasure. I do not know why he acted thus."

"I will tell you. The king made love to Signora Barberini, who preferred
the son of the grand chancellor and his majesty fears you will follow a
bad example. But have you no friends among the men?"

"I like Francis Benda, his majesty's first violin, very much. There is
much to unite us. He led a gipsy life in his youth, as I did. He has,
like myself, very little fondness for the greatness of this world, and
has preferred liberty to wealth. He has often told me that he fled from
the Court of Saxony, to enjoy the wandering, joyous, and miserable life
of the artists of the high road. The world is not aware that there are
on the road, and on the street, artists of great merit. An old blind
Jew, amid mountains and valleys, had educated Benda. His name was
Lœbel, and Benda always spoke of him with admiration, though the old
man died on a truss of straw, or perhaps in a ditch. Before he devoted
his attention to the violin, Francis Benda had a superb voice, and was a
professional singer. Sorrow and trouble destroyed his voice. In pure
air, and leading a wandering life, he acquired a new talent; his genius
found a new outlet, and from this wandering conservatory emerged the
magnificent artist, whose presence the King of Prussia does not disdain
in his private concerts. George Benda, his youngest brother, is also
full of talent, and is, by turns, either an epicurean or a misanthrope.
His strange mind is not always amiable, but he is always interesting. I
think he will not be able _to get in line_, like his other brothers, who
now bear with resignation the golden chain of royal favoritism. He,
whether because he is younger, or because his nature is indomitable,
always talks of flying. He is so terribly afflicted here with _ennui_,
that it is a pleasure to me to sympathize with him."

"Do you not fear that this communion of _ennui_ will lead to a more
tender sentiment? This would not be the first time that love sprang from
_ennui_."

"I neither fear nor hope it," said Consuelo. "I feel that it will never
be the case. I have told you, my dear Amelia, that something strange is
going on within my mind. Since Albert's death, I think of, and can love,
no one but him. I think that this is the first time that love sprang
from death, and yet this has happened to me. I cannot console myself for
not having made one worthy of happiness happy, and this tenacious regret
has become a fixed idea--a kind of passion--a folly, perhaps."

"It looks like it," said the princess. "It is at least a disease, yet it
is a sorrow which I experience and understand, for if I love an absent
person, whom I never shall see, it is really as if I loved one who is
dead. But, tell me, is not Prince Henry, my brother, an amiable
gentleman?"

"Certainly he is."

"Very fond of the beautiful--a real artist's soul--a hero in war--a
figure which, without being beautiful, pleases and strikes--a proud and
independent soul--an enemy to despotism--the rebellious and menacing
slave of my tyrant brother--and certainly the best of the family. Have I
not described him?"

"I listen to this as a jest."

"And do you not wish to look on it as serious?"

"No, madame."

"You are hard to please, my dear. What do you charge him with?"

"A great defect, or, at least, an invincible obstacle to my loving him.
He is a prince."

"Thank you for the compliment. Then you fainted for nothing at the play
a few days since. They say that the king, early in the performance,
became jealous at the manner that he looked at you, and placed him in
arrest. This, they affirm, made you sick."

"I did not even know that the prince had been arrested, and am certain I
am not the cause of it. The reason of my accident is very different.
Madame, fancy that amid the music I sang--rather mechanically, it is
true, as often is the case here--my eyes wandered over the house,
particularly over the first row of boxes. Suddenly, in that occupied by
M. Golowkin, I saw a pale face, which leaned slightly forward, as if it
would examine me. This face was Albert's, I will swear to it, madame,
for I knew it. I cannot tell whether it was an illusion, but, if so, it
was terrible and complete!"

"Poor thing! It is certain that you have strange fancies."

"Oh! that is not all. Last week, when I had given you the letter of
Trenck, and was retiring. I became lost, and strayed to the museum,
where I met Stoss, with whom I paused to talk. Well, there I saw again
Albert's face, again menacing, as on the day before it had been
indefinite--as I always saw it in my dreams, angry or threatening."

"Did Stoss also see it?"

"Very well; and he told me it was a certain Trismegistus, whom your
highness sometimes consults as a necromancer."

"Good heavens!" said the Baroness Von Kleist, growing pale, "I was sure
he was a real sorcerer. I could never look at him without fear. Though
he has a handsome face and a noble air, there is something diabolical in
his countenance, and I am sure, like Proteus, he can assume any form he
pleases, to terrify us. Besides, he scolds and frowns, as all people of
his sort do. I remember once when he calculated my horoscope, he charged
me with having asked for a divorce from the Baron Von Kleist because the
latter was ruined. This he thought a great offence. I wished to defend
myself, and as he assumed a very high tone, I began to get angry. He
said that I would marry again, and that my second husband would die, in
consequence of my fault, far more miserably than the first had done, and
that I would suffer severely, not only from my own conscience, but in
public opinion. As he spoke, his face became so terrible, that I fancied
that I saw Von Kleist again, and shrieking aloud, I took refuge in her
highness's room."

"Yes, it was a strange scene," said the princess, who, from time to time
resumed, as if in spite of herself, her dry mocking tone. "I laughed as
if I was mad."

"There was no reason why you should," said Consuelo, naïvely. "Who,
however, is this Trismegistus, since your highness has no faith in
magic?"

"I told you that some day I would tell you what sorcery is. Do not be so
eager. For the present be satisfied with the knowledge that this
Trismegistus is a man whom I esteem very highly, and who can be of much
use to us three, and to many others."

"I would like to see him again," said Consuelo, "and though I tremble to
think of it, I would like really to know whether he resembled the Count
of Rudolstadt as much as I have imagined."

"If he resembles Rudolstadt, say you? Well, you recall a circumstance to
me which I had forgotten, and which will, perhaps, explain all this
great mystery. Wait--let me think for a moment--yes, now I know. Listen
to me, and learn to distrust all that seems supernatural. Cagliostro
showed you Trismegistus, for they know each other, and were here at the
same time last year. You saw this Trismegistus at the theatre in Count
Golowkin's box, for he lives in his house, and they study chemistry and
alchemy together. You saw Trismegistus in the palace a few days ago, for
not long after you left me, I saw him, and he gave me all the details of
his escape."

"Because he wished to boast of having contributed to it," said the
baroness, "and to induce your highness to repay certain sums, which I am
sure were not paid out for that purpose. Your highness may say what you
please, but I am sure that man is a swindler."

"Yet that, Von Kleist, does not keep him from being a great sorcerer.
How can you reconcile respect for his science with contempt for his
person?"

"Ah! madame, there is no incongruity. We fear, yet detest sorcerers.
That is exactly the way we think of the devil."

"Yet, if one wishes to see the devil, one must go to the magician. Is
that your logic, my fair Von Kleist?"

"But, madame," said Consuelo, who had listened to this strange
conversation, "how comes it that you know this man is like the count?"

"I forgot to tell you, and I learned the fact by mere chance. This
morning, when Supperville told me your story, and that of Count Albert,
his words made me curious to know if he was handsome, and if his face
was like his strange imagination. Supperville, for some time, seemed
lost in thought, and finally told me. 'Madame, I can give you an exact
idea; you have among your playthings a creature, terribly like poor
Rudolstadt, if he were only more pale, thin, and differently dressed. I
mean your sorcerer, Trismegistus. That is the explanation of the affair,
my dear widow; and about that there is no more mystery than there really
is in Cagliostro, Trismegistus, Saint Germain & Co."

"You lift a burden off my breast," said Porporina, "and a black veil
from my heart. It seems to me that I am born again, and awake from a
painful sleep. Thanks are due to you for this explanation. I am not mad,
then; I have no visions, and will not be afraid of myself. See what the
human heart is," added she, after a moment of reverie. "I regret my fear
and weakness. In my extravagance, I persuaded myself that Albert was not
dead, and that one day, after having, by terrible apparitions, made me
expiate the wrong I had committed, he would return, without a cloud, and
without resentment. Now, I know that Albert sleeps in the tomb of his
ancestors, and that he will not recover. That death will not relax its
prey, is a terrible certainty."

"Could you entertain any doubt? Well! there is some happiness in being
mad: for my own part, I had not hoped Trenck would leave the Silesian
dungeons yet; it was possible, and has occurred."

"Were I to tell you, my beautiful Amelia, all the fancies to which my
poor soul abandoned itself, you would see that in spite of the
improbability, they were not impossible. Lethargy, for instance, Albert
was liable to it. But I will not call back those conjectures. They
injure me too much, now that the form I took for Albert is that of a
chevalier of industry."

"Trismegistus is not what he is supposed to be. One thing, however, is
certain, and that is, he is not Count Rudolstadt. Many years ago I knew
him, and apparently, at least, he is a diviner. Besides, he is not so
like Count Rudolstadt as you fancy. Supperville is too skillful a
physician to bury a man in a lethargy. He, too, does not believe in
ghosts, and has observed differences you did not."

"I would be so pleased to see Trismegistus again," said Consuelo in a
tone of deep reverie.

"You will not, perhaps, see him soon," said the princess, very coldly.
"He has gone to Warsaw, having left the very day you saw him in the
palace. He never remains more than two days at Berlin. He will, however,
certainly return during the ear----"

"But, if it should be Albert?" said Consuelo.

The princess shrugged her shoulders.

"Beyond all doubt," said she, "fate condemns me to have as friends
either male or female fools. One of you fancies my sorcerer her husband,
the Canon Von Kleist, and the other her deceased husband, the Count of
Rudolstadt. It is well that I have a strong head, otherwise I would
fancy he was Trenck, and no one knows what would happen. Trismegistus is
a poor sorcerer not to take advantage of all these mistakes. Porporina,
my beautiful, do not look at me with an expression of such
consternation. Resume your presence of mind. How can you fancy that if
Count Albert has recovered from lethargy so strange a thing would have
been known? Have you, too, kept up no correspondence with the family?"

"None," said Consuelo. "The Canoness Wenceslawa has written twice in one
year to inform me of two pieces of bad news, the death of her eldest
brother Christian, my husband's father, who ended his long career
without any knowledge of his misfortune, and the death of Baron
Frederick, brother of the count and canoness, who was killed while
hunting, by rolling down a ravine in the fatal Schreckenstein. I replied
as I should have done to the canoness, and did not dare to offer her my
consolations. From her letters I gathered that her heart was divided
between kindness and pride. She called me her dear child and generous
friend, but did not seem to desire the succor or aid of my affection, at
all."

"Then, you suppose that Albert, who has been resuscitated, lives quietly
and unknown at the Giants' Castle, without sending you any note, and
without any one outside of the castle being aware of the fact?"

"No, madame, I do not; for that would be entirely impossible, and I am
foolish in wishing to think so," said Consuelo, concealing her face,
which was covered with tears, with her hands.

As the night advanced, the princess seemed to resume the evil traits of
her character. The mocking and frivolous tone in which she spoke of
things which were so dear to Consuelo, terribly afflicted her.

"Come, do not make yourself unhappy," said Amelia, brusquely. "This is a
pretty pleasure party: you have told us stories sufficient to call the
devil from home. Von Kleist has trembled and grown pale all the time,
and I think she will die of terror. I, too, who wished to be gay and
happy, suffer at witnessing your distress." The princess spoke the
latter part of this sentence with the kind diapason of her voice.
Consuelo looked up, and saw a tear roll down her cheek, while an
ironical sneer was on her lips. She kissed the hand which the abbess
reached out to her, and internally compassionated her for not being able
to act kindly during the four consequent hours.

"Mysterious as the Giants' Castle may be," added the princess "stern as
is the pride of the canoness, and discreet as her servants are, be sure
nothing can pass without acquiring a certain kind of publicity. It was
in vain that they attempted to hide Count Albert's whimsicality, for the
whole province soon discovered it, and it was long ago talked of at the
little court of Bareith, when Supperville was sent for to attend your
poor husband. There is now in this family another mystery, to conceal
which every effort is made, but which is altogether ineffectual against
the malice of the public. This is the flight of the young Baroness
Amelia, who was carried off by a handsome adventurer, shortly after her
cousin's death."

"I, madame, was long ignorant of it. I may, however, tell you that
everything is not discovered in this world, for up to this time no one
has been able to tell the name and rank of the man who carried her away.
Neither have they been able to discover the place of her retreat."

"That is what Supperville told me. Well, cold Bohemia is the very land
for mysterious adventures. That, however, is no reason why Count Albert
should----"

"For heaven's sake, madame, no more of that. I beg you will excuse me
for having told you so long a story--and when your highness shall order
me to retire?"

"Two o'clock in the morning," said the baroness, as the palace clock,
sounding sadly, rang on her car.

"Then we must separate, my dear friends, said the princess rising, for
my sister D'Anspach, will come at seven o'clock to wake me, to hear the
capers of her dear Margrave, who has just returned from Paris, and is
desperately in love with M'lle Clairon. Porporina, after all, you
tragedy queens are the only monarchs _de facto_, while we are _de jure._
On that account you are the better off. There is no crowned head you
cannot bear away from us when you please, and some day I would not be
surprised to see M'lle Hippolyte Clairon, who is a girl of sense, become
Margravine D'Anspach, in partnership with my sister, who is a fool. Give
me my _pelisse_, Von Kleist; I will go with you as far as the gallery."

"And will your highness return alone?" said Madame Kleist, who seemed
very much troubled.

"Alone and without any fear of the devil and his imps, who for several
nights have held a plenary court in the castle. Come, come, Consuelo,
and we will see how fearfully terrified Von Kleist will be, as she
crosses the gallery."

The princess took a light, and went first, dragging the baroness, who
really was very timid. Consuelo followed them, a little terrified,
though she knew not why.

"I assure you, madame, that this is the unlucky hour, and that it is
dangerous to cross this part of the castle at such a time. Why not wait
for half an hour longer? At half after two there is no danger."

"What is this about?" said Consuelo, increasing her pace, so as to speak
to Madame Von Kleist.

"Do you not know?" said the princess. "The white lady, who sweeps the
staircase and corridors of the palace whenever a member of the royal
family is about to die, has revisited the castle during the last few
nights. It appears that here she makes her apparitions. My life is
menaced. On that account you see me so tranquil. My sister-in-law, the
Queen of Prussia (the feeblest creature who ever wore a crown,) does not
sleep here, I am told, but goes every night to Charlottembourg; as she
has an infinite respect for _la balayeuse_, as well as the
queen's-mother, who need have no apprehensions about the matter. These
ladies have taken care to forbid any one to watch the phantom, or to
derange her noble occupations. Thus the palace is swept by authority,
and by Lucifer himself; that, though, is no reason why he should not be
very uncivil."

Just then a great cat, which had come from the dark part of the gallery,
passed snarling and growling by Madame Von Kleist, who made a loud cry,
and sought to hurry to the princess's room. The latter restrained her
forcibly, filling the whole room with her loud shouts of laughter,
which, by the bye, were harsh and coarse, still more stern than the wind
which whistled through the depths of the vast room. The cold made
Consuelo tremble; perhaps, too, she was to a degree under the influence
of fear. The terrified air of Madame Von Kleist seemed to exhibit a real
danger, and the wild gaiety of the princess did not seem to evince any
real and sincere security.

"I wonder at the incredulity of your royal highness," said the Baroness
Von Kleist, with a voice full of emotion. "Had you as I have done, seen
and heard the white lady, on the eve of the death of the late king----"

"Alas!" said Amelia, in a satanic tone, "I am very sure that it does not
now come to announce the death of my royal brother, and I am very glad
that it has not come for me. The demon knows well enough that to make me
happy, one or the other of us must die."

"Ah! madame, do not talk thus, at such a time," said the Baroness Von
Kleist, the teeth of whom were so locked that she could scarcely speak.
"Now, for heaven's sake, pause and hear! Do you not tremble?"

The princess paused with a decisive air, and the rustling of her silk
robe, which was heavy and thick almost as pasteboard, not being
sufficient to drown the distant noise, our three heroines, who had
nearly reached the stairway, at the bottom of the gallery, heard
distinctly the harsh noise of a broom, which sounded on the stone steps,
and seemed to approach them step by step, as if a servant was anxiously
striving to conclude his work.

The princess paused for a moment, and then said in a resolute tone:

"As there is nothing supernatural in all this, I wish to ascertain
whether or not some somnambulist, valet, or crazy page, be not at the
bottom of all this mystery. Put down your veil, Porporina, for you must
not be seen in my company. You, Von Kleist, can be frightened, if you
please. I give you fair notice, that I care nothing about you. Come, my
brave Rudolstadt, you have had far more dangerous adventures; follow me
if you love me."

Amelia walked boldly towards the stairway, Consuelo followed her, and
the princess would not suffer her to take the torch from her. Madame Von
Kleist, who feared both to remain alone and to accompany them, hung
behind, holding on to Porporina's cloak.

They no longer heard the devil's broom, and the princess reached the
stairway, over which she reached her light, to enable her to distinguish
the better what was going on below. Whether she was less calm than she
wished to seem, or that she saw some terrible object, her hand trembled,
and the torch of crimson and crystal fell down the echoing spiral.
Madame Von Kleist at once forgot both the princess and the prima donna,
and fled away until, in spite of the darkness, she came to her
mistress's rooms, where she sought a refuge, while the latter,
participating in this strange excitement, went in the same direction
with Consuelo, slowly at first, but with a perpetually increasing pace;
other steps were heard behind them, and the latter were not Consuelo's,
for the opera-singer walked by her side, with not less resolution,
though probably with less bravado. The strange steps which every moment
drew near to them, sounded amid the darkness like those of an old woman
with clogs, and rang on the pavement; while the broom continued to grate
harshly on the wall, now to the right and then to the left. This ghost
walk seemed very long to Consuelo. If anything can really overcome the
courage of truly courageous and pure minds, it is a danger that can he
neither comprehended nor understood. She did not boast of an useless
audacity, and did not look back once. The princess said, once or twice
in the darkness, she looked back, but in vain; no one could either prove
or disprove the fact. Consuelo only knew that she had not slackened her
pace, that she had not spoken a word to her on the way, and that when
she went into her room, she came near shutting the door in her face, so
anxious was she to protect herself. Amelia, however, would acknowledge
no such weakness, and soon recovered sufficient presence of mind to
laugh at Madame Von Kleist, who was almost in convulsions, and
reproached her most timidly for her cowardice. The good nature of
Consuelo, who sympathised with the patient's distress, induced the
princess to become more good-natured. She deigned to observe that Madame
Von Kleist was incapable of understanding her, and that she lay on a
sofa with her face buried in the pillows. The clock struck three before
the poor lady had completely resumed her presence of mind, and even then
she displayed her terror by tears. Amelia was weary of her game of "not
a princess," and did not seem anxious to undress herself without aid. It
may be, too, she was under the influence of some presentiment. She
resolved then to keep the baroness with her until day.

"We two will be able to hide the affair, if my brother should hear of
it. You, Porporina, will have, however, more difficulty in explaining
your presence, and I would not on any account that you should be seen to
leave my room. You must, therefore, go alone, and go now, for people get
up very early in this palace. Be calm, Von Kleist, and if you can say a
word of good sense, tell us how you came hither, and in what corner you
left your _chasseur_, so that Porporina may be enabled to go home."

Fear makes the human heart intensely selfish, and the baroness,
delighted at not being required to confront the terrors of the gallery,
and utterly careless about the apprehensions Consuelo might entertain in
having to pass through it alone, regained all her intelligence, and was
able to say how she should go, and what signal she should make to find
out the faithful servant who waited at the palace gate, in a sheltered
and lonely spot where she had placed him.

With this information, and now sure that she would not lose herself in
the palace, Consuelo bade adieu to the princess, who did not seem the
least disposed to accompany her down the gallery. She, therefore, set
out alone, feeling her way, and reached the terrible stairway without
difficulty. A hanging lantern which was below, aided her somewhat, and
she reached the floor without any adventure, or even terror. On this
occasion she had called her will to her aid, and felt that she was
fulfilling an obligation to the unfortunate Amelia. This sufficed to
give her strength.

She left the palace by the little mysterious door, the key of which the
baroness had given her, and which opened into the back court. When she
was out, she proceeded along the wall to find the _chasseur._ As soon as
she had uttered the signal which had been agreed on, a shadow left the
wall, and a man wrapped in a large cloak bowed before her, offering her
his arm with the most silent respect.




CHAPTER XI


Consuelo remembered that Madame Von Kleist, the better to hide her
visits to the Princess Amelia, often came on foot to the palace, with a
thick black hood and a cloak of the same color, and leaning on the arm
of a servant. In this manner she was not observed, and might pass for
one of those persons in distress who will not beg, but in this manner
receive aid from the liberality of princes. In spite of all precaution,
however, the secret was become transparent, and if the king was not
angry, it was because he looked on it as one of those affairs which it
was better to tolerate than to talk of. He was well aware the ladies
talked more of Trenck than of magic; and although he had an almost equal
objection to these two subjects of conversation, he kindly consented to
close his eyes, and was rather glad that his sister was kind enough to
adopt a mystery which relieved him of any responsibility. He was willing
to pretend that he was deceived, and seemed unwilling to approve of the
love and folly of his sister. His severity, then, fell on the
unfortunate Trenck, and he accused him of fanciful crimes, lest the
public should suspect the true cause of his disgrace.

Porporina, thinking that the servant of the Baroness Von Kleist would
aid her in maintaining her _incognito_, and would give her his arm as he
would his mistress, did not hesitate to accept his services, and leaned
on him so as to be able to walk securely on the ice-covered pavement.
She had scarcely walked three steps, however, when the man said, in a
careless tone--

"Well, countess, how did you leave your fantastic Amelia?"

In spite of the cold and wind, Consuelo felt the blood rush to her face.
Apparently, the servant took her for his mistress, and thus revealed a
revolting intimacy. Porporina, disguised, withdrew her arm from that of
the man, and said--

"You are mistaken."

"I am not in the habit of making mistakes," said the man with the cloak,
in the same easy manner. "The public may not know that the divine
Porporina is Countess of Rudolstadt, but the Count de St Germain is
better informed."

"Who are you?" said Consuelo, completely overcome with surprise. "Are
you not of the household of the Countess Von Kleist?"

"I belong only to myself, and am the servant only of the truth," said
the stranger. "I have mentioned my name, but I see Madame de Rudolstadt
is ignorant of it."

"Can you then be the Count of Saint Germain?"

"Who else could call you by a name the public does not know is yours?
This the second time, countess, you would have been lost but for me.
Deign to take my arm. I know the way to your house perfectly well; and,
as an honest man, promise to escort you thither safe and sound."

"I thank you, count, for your kindness," said Consuelo, and her
curiosity was too much excited to refuse the offer of this interesting
and strange man. "Will you tell me why you speak thus to me?"

"Because I wish to win your confidence, by proving to you that I am
worthy of it. I have long been aware of your marriage with Albert, and I
have preserved the fact an inviolable secret. I will do so as long as
you wish."

"I see that my wishes about this have been but slightly respected by M.
de Supperville," said Consuelo, who attributed the count's information
to the doctor.

"Do not find fault with poor Supperville," said the count. "He told no
one except the princess Amelia, the favor of whom he wished to win. I
did not learn it from him."

"Who told you, then, sir?"

"Count Albert, of Rudolstadt, himself. I am well aware that you are
about to tell me that he died during the conclusion of the marriage
ceremony. I will, however, tell you that he is not dead, that no one,
that nothing dies, and that we may still have communion with those the
vulgar call dead, if we know their language and the secret of their
lives."

"Since you know so much, sir, you must be aware that I do not easily
believe in such assertions; and that they trouble me much by keeping
constantly before me the idea of a misfortune for which I know there is
no remedy, in spite of the deceitful promises of magic."

"You are right to be on your guard against magicians and impostors. I am
aware that Cagliostro terrified you by some apparition. He yielded to
the vain pride of exhibiting his power to you, without reflecting on the
repose of your soul, and the sublimity of his mission. Cagliostro,
however, is not an impostor, but a vain man, and on that account is
often looked on as an impostor."

"The same charge, count, is made against you. Yet, as it is added that
you are a superior man, I feel myself justified in owning the prejudices
which keep me from conferring my esteem on you."

"Thus you speak nobly, as Consuelo should," said Saint Germain, calmly,
"and I am glad that you have thus appealed to my sincerity. I will be
frank with you and without concealment for we are at your door, and the
cold and the late hour keep me from retaining you any longer. If you
wish to know things of the greatest importance, on which your whole
happiness depends, suffer me to speak freely to you some day."

"If your lordship will come by day to see me, I will expect you at any
hour you please."

"I must see you to-morrow, and you will then see Frederick, whom I am
not willing on any account to meet, for I have no respect for him."

"Of what Frederick do you speak, count?"

"Oh! not of our friend Frederick Von Trenck, whom we contrived to rescue
from his hands, but of that King of Prussia who makes love to you.
Listen: to-morrow there will be a great fancy ball at the opera. Take
any disguise you please, and I will be able to recognise you, and make
myself known. In this crowd we may be isolated and secure. Under any
other circumstances, my acquaintance with you will attract great
misfortune on persons who are dear to us. We will then meet to-morrow,
countess----"

As he spoke, the Count de Saint Germain bowed respectfully to Consuelo
and disappeared, leaving her petrified with surprise at the very door of
her house.

"There is in this realm of treason a permanent conspiracy against
reason," said Porporina, as she went to sleep. "Scarcely have I escaped
from one of the dangers which menace me, than another presents itself.
The Princess Amelia had explained the other enigmas to me, and I felt at
ease; just now, however, we met, or at least, heard, the strange
_balayeuse_, who beyond all doubt, passes as calmly through this castle
of incredulity as she did two hundred years ago. I get rid of the terror
caused by Cagliostro, and lo and behold! another magician appears, who
seems yet better acquainted with my business. I can conceive that these
magicians may keep an account of all that concerns the life of kings,
and powerful or illustrious personages; but, that I, a poor, humble, and
prudent girl, cannot hide from them any act of my life, is indeed
annoying. Well, I will follow the advice of the princess. Let us hope
that the future may explain this prodigy, and, till then, let us not
judge of it. The strangest thing yet, would be, if the king, in
pursuance of the count's prediction, should come to see me. It would be
merely the third visit he has paid me. The count cannot be his
confederate. They bid us especially distrust those who speak ill of
their masters. I will try not to forget that proverb."

On the next day, at one exactly, a carriage, without either crest or
livery, came into the court-yard of the house, inhabited by the singer,
and the king, who two hours before, had sent her word to be alone, and
to expect him, came in with his hat on the left ear, a smile on his
lips, and a little basket on his arm.

"Captain Von Kreutz brings you fruits from his garden," said he. "People
who are malicious say, all these were gathered at _Sans Souci_, and were
intended for the king's dessert. The king, however, does not think of
you. Nevertheless, the little baron has come to pass a few hours with
his friend."

This salutation, pleasant as it was, instead of placing Consuelo at
ease, troubled her strangely. She had, contrary to her inclination, been
forced to become a conspirator. By receiving the confidences of the
princess, she could not face with frankness, the examination of the
royal inquisitor. Henceforth, it had become impossible to soothe, to
flatter him, and divert his attention by adroit excitements. Consuelo
felt that the _rôle_ did not suit her, that she would play it badly,
especially if it was true that Frederick had a taste for her, or if any
one thought to debase majesty by connecting it by means of the word
love, with an actress. Uneasy and troubled, Consuelo coldly thanked the
king for his great kindness, when, at once, his countenance changed, and
became morose as it had been the reverse.

"What is the matter?" said he: "are you in an ill humor? are you sick?
Why do you call me _sire?_ Does my visit disturb any love affair?"

"No, sire," said the young girl, resuming her calmness and frankness. "I
have neither love affair nor love."

"Very well. If that were the case, it would not matter. I only wish you,
however, to own it."

"Own it! The captain certainly means that I should confide it to him?"

"Explain the difference."

"The captain understands."

"As you will. To distinguish, however, is not to reply. If you be in
love, I would like to know it."

"I do not see why----"

"You do not understand? Then look me in the face--you look very wild
to-day."

"Captain, it seems to me that you are the king. They say that when he
questions a criminal, he reads in the white of his eyes what he wishes
to ascertain. Believe me, such fancies become no one else; and, even if
he were to come to treat me so, I would bid him mind his own business."

"That is to say, you would say, 'away with you, sire.'"

"Why not? The king should be either on horseback, or on his throne; and
if he were to return to me, I would be right not to put up with such
behavior."

"You would be right, yet you do not answer me. You will not make me a
confidant of your amours."

"I have often told you, baron, I have no amours----"

"Yes, in ridicule; because I asked you the question in the same manner.
If, however, I speak seriously----"

"My answer would be the same."

"Do you know that you are a strange person?"

"Why?"

"Because, you are the only woman in the theatre who is not either over
head and ears in love, or busied with gallantry."

"You have a bad opinion of actresses, captain."

"Not so. I have known some very prudent ones; but they always aspired to
great matches. No one knows what you think."

"I think I must sing this evening."

"Then you live from day to day."

"At present, I cannot act otherwise."

"It was not always so?"

"No, sir."

"You have loved?"

"Yes, sir."

"Really?"

"Yes, sir."

"What has become of your lover?"

"Dead."

"But you are consoled?"

"No."

"But you will be?"

"I fear not."

"That is odd. Then you do not wish to marry?"

"I never will."

"And will never love?"

"Never."

"Not even a friend?"

"Not as women understand the phrase."

"Bah! If you were to go to Paris, and Louis XV., that gallant
knight----"

"I do not like kings, captain; and, least of all, gallant kings."

"Ah! I understand. You like pages best. A young cavalier like Trenck,
for instance."

"I never thought of his face."

"Yet, you have maintained an acquaintance with him."

"If that be the case, my acquaintance has been pure and honest."

"You confess the fact, then?"

"I have not said so," replied Consuelo, who was afraid, by so simple a
confession, of compromising the princess.

"Do you deny it, then?"

"Were it the case, I would have no reasons to deny it. Why, however,
does Captain Von Kreutz thus question me? What is all this to him?"

"Apparently, the king is interested in the matter," said Frederick,
taking his hat off abruptly, and placing it on the head of a statue of
a nymph in white marble which stood on a tablet.

"If the king honored me by a visit," said Consuelo, "it would, I think,
be to hear music, (she overcame the terror which took possession of
her,) and I would sing the _Ariana Abandonata_ to him."

"The king is not to be led astray. When he asks a question, he wishes to
be answered clearly and distinctly. What were you doing last night in
the king's palace? You see, the king has a right to act as a master at
your house, since you go to his at improper hours, and without his
permission."

Consuelo trembled from head to foot. Luckily, however, in danger of
every kind, she had a presence of mind which always saved her
miraculously. She remembered that the king often said what was false, to
discover what was true, and that he loved to acquire secrets by surprise
rather than by any other means. "That is a strange charge," said she,
"and I do not know what I can say to it."

"You are not so laconic as you were just now," said the king. "One can
see distinctly that you say what is untrue. You have not been at the
palace? Answer me, yes or no."

"I say no," said Consuelo, boldly preferring the mortification of being
convicted of falsehood, to that of betraying the secret of another.

"Not three hours ago, you left the palace alone."

"Not so," said Consuelo, who regained her presence of mind, by
discovering in the king's face an almost imperceptible expression of
irresolution, and who seemed to enjoy his surprise.

"You have dared to say No, thrice to me," said the king, offended and
enraged.

"I dare say so yet a fourth time, if your majesty wills it." She had
resolved to meet the storm face to face.

"Oh! I know that a woman will stick to a lie, amid agony and torture,
firmly as the first Christians did, when they believed in the truth. Who
will dare flatter himself that he will be able to wrest a sincere reply
from a woman. Hitherto I have respected you, because I fancied you a
solitary exception from the vices of your sex. I thought you neither
bold, impudent, nor an intriguer. I had conceived almost a friendship
for you."

"And now, sire----"

"Do not interrupt me. Now, I have an opinion, the consequences of which
you will feel. If you have had the folly to participate in the petty
palace cabals, to receive misplaced confidences, and render certain
dangerous services, you must not expect to deceive me for a long time,
for I will dismiss you with as much contempt as I received you with
distinction and kindness."

"Sire," said Consuelo, boldly, "as the most sincere and earnest of my
wishes is to leave Prussia, without the slightest care for the cause of
my dismissal, I will receive an order to depart with gratitude."

"Ah! that is your game," said Frederick, in a rage. "You dare to speak
thus!" He lifted his cane as he spoke, precisely as if he would strike
Consuelo. The air of calm contempt with which she looked at him seemed
to recall him to himself, and he regained his presence of mind. He threw
his cane away, and said, with an excited voice: "Listen to me; forget
the claim you have to the gratitude of Captain Kreutz, and speak to the
king with proper respect. If you excite me, I am capable of punishing
you as I would a disobedient child."

"Sire, I know that in your family children have been beaten; and I have
heard that on that account your majesty once ran away. That would be as
easy an example for a Zingara, like myself, to follow, as it was for
Frederick, the Prince Royal, to set. If your majesty does not put me out
of Prussia in twenty-four hours, I will do so on my own authority, if I
leave the kingdom on foot, without a passport, and overleap the ditches
as deserters and smugglers do."

"You are mad," said the king, shrugging his shoulders, and striding
across the room, to conceal his ill-temper and mortification. "I am
delighted for you to go, but it must be without scandal or
precipitation. I am unwilling for you to leave me thus--dissatisfied
with me and with yourself. Whence, in the devil's name, did you get the
impudence you are so richly endowed with? What the devil makes me use
you kindly as I do?"

"You are kind from a feeling of generosity, which your majesty can lay
aside without any scruples. Your majesty fancies yourself under
obligations to me for a service I would, with the same zeal, have
rendered to the humblest of the subjects of Prussia. Let your majesty,
then, think all between us adjusted, and I will esteem the obligation a
thousand times discharged, if I am permitted to go at once. My liberty
will be a sufficient reward--I ask no other."

"Again?" said the king, completely amazed at the hardy obstinacy of the
young girl. "You use the same language--you will not change your
tone--ah! this does not result from courage but from hatred."

"If it were so, would your majesty care at all about it?"

"For heaven's sake, what do you say, my poor child?" said the king, with
a naïve accent. "You do not know what you say. None but a perverse soul
can be insensible to the hatred of its fellows."

"Does Frederick the Great look on Porporina as a fellow being?"

"Virtue and mind alone exalt one being above another. You have genius in
your art. Your conscience must tell you if you be sincere. It does not
know, for your heart is full of venom and resentment."

"If this is the case, has the heart of Frederick no reproaches to make
itself for having enkindled these evil passions in a mind
constitutionally calm and generous?"

"Come, you are angry," said the king, attempting to take the young
girl's hand. He however, withdrew it, under the influence of that
_gaucherie_, which contempt and aversion to women had made him contract.
Consuelo, who had exaggerated her ill-temper to repress in the king's
mind a return of tenderness, which, in spite of all his ill-humor,
seemed ready to break forth, saw how timid he was, and lost all fear
when she saw him thus make advances. It was a singular thing that the
only woman capable of exerting this kind of influence over Frederick,
and it amounted almost to love, was possibly the only one in his kingdom
who would on no account have encouraged him. It is true, that Consuelo's
pride, and repugnance to him, were, perhaps, her chief attractions in
the king's mind. Her rebellious heart tempted the despot as much as the
conquest of a province did, and without being proud of such frivolous
exploits, he felt a kind of admiration and instinctive sympathy for a
character which seemed to bear some resemblance to his own. "Listen,"
said he, putting in his pocket the hand he had extended towards
Consuelo, "tell me no more that I do not care about being hated. You
will make me think I am hated, and that thought would be odious."

"Yet you wish to be feared?"

"Not so; but to be respected."

"Do your corporals win respect by their canes?"

"What do you know about it? What are you talking of? What are you
meddling with?"

"I answer your majesty clearly and distinctly."

"You wish me to ask you to excuse a moment of passion, caused by your
madness."

"Not so. If you were capable of breaking the cane sceptre which rules
Prussia, I would ask your majesty to pick up this stick."

"Bah! When I shall have slightly caressed your shoulders with this, (for
it is a cane given to me by Voltaire). You have twice as much sense.
Listen! I am fond of this cane, but I know I owe you a reparation."

As he spoke, the king took up the cane, and was about to break it. It
was in vain, however, that he pressed it to his knee; the bamboo bent,
but would not break.

"See," said the king, throwing it into the fire, "the cane is not, as
you said, the image of my sceptre. It is like to faithful Prussia, which
bends to my will, but which will not be broken by it. Act thus,
Porporina, and it will be well for you."

"What, then, is your majesty's wish in relation to me? I am, indeed, a
strange person to trouble the equanimity of so great a character?"

"It is my will that you give up your intention of leaving Berlin. Do you
think this offensive?"

The eager and almost passionate glance of Frederick explained this
reparation. Consuelo felt her terrors revive. She said--

"I will not consent. I see I would have to pay too dearly for the honor
of sometimes amusing your majesty by my voice. All here are objects of
suspicion. The lowest and most obscure are liable to be accused. I
cannot live thus."

"Are you dissatisfied with your salary?" said Frederick. "It will be
increased."

"No, sire. I am not avaricious: your majesty is aware of that."

"True. You do not worship money--I must do you that justice. No one
knows what you love!"

"I love liberty, sire."

"And who interferes with that? You seek to make a quarrel, and have no
excuse for doing so. You wish to go--that is plain."

"Yes, sire."

"Yes! Are you resolved?"

"Yes, sire."

"Then, go to the devil!"

The king took up his hat and cane, which, having rolled off the
andirons, had not burnt, and turning his back, went to the door. As he
was about to open it, however, he turned to Consuelo, and his face was
so very sad, so paternally distressed, so different, in fact, from the
terrible royal brow, or the bitter skeptic sneer, that the poor girl was
sad and repentant. Having while with Porpora grown used to these
domestic storms, made her forget that in Frederick's feelings towards
her there was something stern and selfish which had never existed in the
heart of her adopted father, which was chastely and generously ardent.
She turned away to hide a fugitive tear, but the eye of the lynx was not
more acute than that of the king. Returning and shaking his cane over
Consuelo again, yet with as much tenderness as if she had been one of
his own children, he said--

"Detestable creature! You have not the least affection for me!"

This he uttered with much emotion, and in a caressing manner.

"You are much mistaken, baron," said the kind Consuelo, who was
fascinated by this half comedy which had so completely atoned for the
brutal rage that preceded it. "I like Captain Von Kreutz as much as I
dislike the King of Prussia."

"Because you do not understand--because you do not comprehend the King
of Prussia. Do not let us talk of him. A day will come when you shall
have lived in this country long enough to know its characters and
necessities--when you will do justice to the man who forces it to be
ruled as it should be. In the interim, be kinder to the poor baron, who
is desperately weary of the court and courtiers, and who seeks here
something of calm and repose, from association with a pure and candid
mind. I was enabled to enjoy it but one hour, yet you had made me
quarrel. I will come again, if you will promise to receive me better. I
will bring Mopsula to amuse you; and if you are good-natured, I will
make you a present of a little white greyhound she now suckles. You must
take great care if it. Ah, I forgot! I have brought you verses of my
own, which you must make an accompaniment for, and which my sister
Amelia will like to sing."

The king went away kindly enough, after having once or twice turned back
to speak familiarly to and caress Consuelo in many whimsical ways. He
could talk of trifles when he pleased, though usually his phraseology
was concise, energetic, and full of sense. No man had more of what may
be called depth in his conversation; and nothing was rarer at that time
than seriousness in familial intercourse. With Consuelo, especially, he
wished to appear good-natured, and succeeded in seeming to be, much to
her surprise. When he was gone she was, as usual, sorry that she had not
succeeded in disgusting him with her, and thus terminating his dangerous
visits. The king, too, was half dissatisfied with himself. He loved
Consuelo as well as it was his nature, and wished really to inspire her
with admiration and a reality of the attachment his false friends
pretended to feel. He would have given much (and he did not like to
give) to have been once in his life loved, freely and frankly. But he
felt that it was difficult to reconcile this with the authority he was
unwilling to part with. Like a cat who sports with a mouse that is
anxious to flee, he did not know whether to let her loose or to strangle
her.

"She goes too far, and this cannot end well," said he, as he got into
his carriage. "I shall be forced to make her commit some fault, that
discipline may subdue her fiery courage. Yet I had rather dazzle and
govern her by the influence I exert over so many others. I must succeed,
if I am prudent, and the trouble both irritates and excites me. We will
see. One thing is sure, she must not go now, to boast that she has told
me the truth with impunity. No: when she goes, she must either be
crushed or conquered."

And then the king, who, as may well be believed, had many other things
on his mind, opened a book to avoid losing five minutes in careless
thought, and got out of his carriage without remembering the state of
mind in which he entered it.

Porporina, weary and unhappy, was anxious much longer about the danger
of her situation. She blamed herself much with not having insisted on
going, and with having tacitly consented to remain. She was roused from
her meditation, however, by the reception of money and letters which
Madame Von Kleist sent through her to the Count de Saint Germain.

All this was for Trenck, and Consuelo became responsible for it. She was
also to play the part of his mistress, as a means of concealing the
secret of the Abbess of Quedlimburgh. Thus she saw herself in a
dangerous and annoying position, especially as she did not feel greatly
at ease in relation to the fidelity of the mysterious beings with whom
she was associated, and who seemed determined to involve themselves in
her own secrets. She then began to prepare a disguise for the opera
ball, a rendezvous for which she had made with the Count de St. Germain.
All this time, she said to herself she stood on the brink of an abyss.




CHAPTER XII


Immediately after the opera, the theatre was laid with a floor, lighted
up and decorated as usual, and the great ball, known in Berlin as the
_redoute_, opened at midnight exactly. The company was tolerably mixed,
for the princess and perhaps the princesses of the blood-royal mingled
with the actors and actresses of all the theatres. Porporina entered
alone, in the disguise of a nun, a costume which enabled her to hide her
neck and shoulders with a veil, and her person with a very thick and
ample dress. She felt that it was absolutely necessary for her to be
completely concealed, to avoid the comments to which her being with
Saint Germain would expose her. She was not sorry to have an opportunity
of testing the penetration of the latter, who had boasted that he could
discover her in any disguise whatever. She had therefore made, without
aid, and without confiding in a servant, this simple and easy dress. She
had gone out alone, dressed in a long pelisse, which she did not lay
aside until she found herself in the centre of the crowd. She had not
made the tour of the room before a circumstance happened that disturbed
her. A mask of her own height, and which seemed to be of her sex, clad
in a nun's robes, exactly like hers, met her frequently, and laughed at
their identity.

"My dear sister," said this nun, "I would wish to know which of us is
the shadow of the other. As it seems, though, you are lighter and more
diaphonous than I, be pleased to touch my hand, that I may know if you
be my twin sister or my shadow."

Consuelo repelled these attacks, and sought to go to her dressing-room,
and either change her costume or make some alteration which might
prevent a mistake. She feared that the count, in spite of all her
precautions, had obtained some inkling of her disguise, and might test
her _sosia_ of the secrets he had referred to on the previous evening.
She had not time, though, to do so, for a monk was already in pursuit,
and took possession of her arm without consulting her. "You cannot avoid
me, my dear sister," said he, "for I am your father confessor, and am
about to tell you your sins. You are the Princess Amelia."

"You are a novice, brother," said Consuelo, disguising her voice, as is
the wont at _bals masqués._ "You know little of your penitents."

"Oh! you need not counterfeit your voice, sister. I do not know whether
you wear the costume of your order or not, but you are Abbess of
Quedlimburgh, and may as well own it to your brother Henry."

Consuelo recognized, indeed, the voice of the prince, who had often
spoken to her, and who had a kind of lisp which was peculiar. To be
satisfied that her _sosia_ was the princess, she continued to refuse to
acknowledge that she was what Prince Henry fancied her. The prince
added, "I saw your costume in the hands of the person who made it, and
as princes can have no secrets, found out for whom it was intended.
Come, let us waste no time in gossiping. You cannot deceive me, my dear
sister, for I do not attach myself to your side for the purpose of
deceiving you. I have something serious to say to you. Come a little
aside with me."

Consuelo suffered the prince to take her aside, having resolved to show
her face rather than thus acquire a knowledge of any family secret. The
first word he spoke to her, when they had gained the box, however, was
of such a character as to fix her attention, and give her a right to
hear what he said.

"Beware how you confide too readily to Poporina," said the prince to his
pretended sister. "I tell you this, not because I doubt either her
discretion or nobleness of heart. The most important persons of _the
order_ pledge themselves for her, and even if you continue to jeer me
about the nature of my sentiments towards her, I will own that I
sympathise with you in relation to her. Both those persons and myself,
however, are of opinion, that you should not compromise yourself with
her, until you are sure of her good disposition. An enterprise which
would take possession in advance of so ardent a disposition as yours,
and a mind justly irritated, as my own, might at first terrify a timid
girl, a stranger beyond doubt to all philosophy and all politics. The
reasons which have influenced you are not of that character which would
produce an impression on a girl in such a different sphere. Confide her
initiation, then, to Trismegistus or to Saint Germain."

"But has not Trismegistus gone?" said Consuelo, who was too complete an
actress not to be able to counterfeit the hoarse and changeable voice of
the Princess Amelia.

"If he has gone, you must be more aware of the fact than I am, for he
has relations with no one but yourself. I do not know him. The Count
Saint Germain appears the most skillful operator, and the person most
familiar with the science which occupies us. He has done his best to
attach this singer to us, and to rescue her from the dangers which
menace her."

"Is she really in danger?" asked Consuelo.

"She will be, if she persists in rejecting the suit of the _marquis._"

"What marquis?" asked Consuelo with astonishment.

"You are out of your wits, sister; I speak of the _Grand Lama_, FRITZ."

"Yes, the Marquis of Brandebourg," said Porporina, seeing that he
referred to the king. "Are you sure, though, that he thinks of her?"

"I will not say he loves her, but he is jealous of her. Besides, you
must he aware, by making her your confidant, you compromise her. Well, I
know nothing of this, nor will I. For heaven's sake be prudent, and let
not _our friends_ fancy that you are actuated by any other sentiment
than that of political liberty. We have determined to adopt your
Countess de Rudolstadt. When she is initiated, and bound by oaths,
promises and threats, you will expose yourself to no danger with her.
Until then, I implore you, do not see her, and do not talk to her of our
affairs. Besides, remain no longer in this hall, where you are out of
place, and to which the _Grand Lama_ will certainly know you came. Let
me take you to the door, for I can go no farther. I am thought to be
under arrest at Potsdam; and some eyes pierce even an iron mask."

Just then some one knocked at the door of the box, and as the prince did
not open it at first, repeated the tap. "That is a very impertinent
person who insists on coming into a box in which there is a lady," said
the prince, showing his bearded mask at the window of the box. A red
domino, with ruddy face, the appearance of which was terrible, appeared
and said with a strange gesture, "_It rains._" This news made a great
impression on the prince. "Should I go or stay?" said he to the red
mask.

"You must find a nun exactly like this, who is amid the crowd. I will
take care of this lady," added he, speaking to Consuelo, and going into
the box, which the prince opened anxiously. The prince left without
saying another word to Consuelo.

"Why," said the new comer to Porporina, as he took a seat in the back of
the box, "did you take a disguise exactly like the princess's? Thus you
might expose yourself to a fatal mistake. I see neither your prudence
nor your devotion."

"If my costume be like that of another person," said Consuelo, now fully
on her guard, "I do not know it."

"I fancied this was a carnival joke arranged between you. Since chance
alone has brought it about, let us abandon the matter, and talk no more
of the princess."

"But, if any one be in danger, it does not appear to be the part of
those who talk of devotion, to stand with folded arms."

"The person who has just left us, will, beyond doubt, watch over this
august madcap. Certainly, you cannot be ignorant that the thing
interests others than ourselves, for the person has also made love to
you."

"You are mistaken, sir. I know that person no more than I do you.
Moreover, your language is that neither of a friend nor of one who
jests. Permit me to return to the hall."

"Suffer me, in the first place, to ask you for a pocket book you are
instructed to give me."

"Not so--I have nothing of the kind."

"Very well. That is the language you should use. It is thrown away on
me, however, for I am the Count de Saint Germain."

"That makes no difference."

"If I were to take off my mask, you would not know me, never having seen
my features except in the dark. Here, however, is my letter of credit."

The red domino gave Consuelo a sheet of music, on which was written a
testimonial she could not mistake. She gave him the pocket book, not
without trembling, and took care to add, "Take notice of what I have
said, I am charged with no message for you; I alone send these letters
and funds to the person you know of."

"Then you are Trenck's mistress?"

Terrified at the painful falsehood required from her, Consuelo was
silent.

"Tell me, madame," said the red domino; "the baron does not deny that he
receives letters and aid from a person who loves him. Are you his
mistress?"

"I am that person," said Consuelo, "and I am as much wounded as I am
surprised at your questions. Cannot I be the baron's friend, without
exposing myself to the brutal expressions and outrageous suspicions you
dare to use to me?"

"The state of things is too important for us to stop at words. Listen:
you charge me with a task which endangers and exposes me to troubles of
more than one kind. Perhaps there may be some political plot, and with
that I will have naught to do. I have given my word to the friends of
Trenck, to aid him in a love matter. Let us understand; I did not
promise to aid his _friendship._ The latter phrase is too vague, and
makes me uneasy. I know you incapable of falsehood; and if you do not
tell me positively that Trenck is your lover, and enable me to tell
Albert of Rudolstadt----"

"For heaven's sake, sir, do not torture me thus. Albert is dead."

"As men think, I know he is dead; but to you and me he continues alive."

"If you mean in a religious and symbolic sense, it is true; but, if in a
material point of view----"

"Let us not argue the matter. A veil covers your mind; but it will soon
be lifted. What it concerns me now to know, is your position in relation
to Trenck. If he is your lover, I will take charge of this commission,
on which it is probable that his life depends, for he is without means.
If you refuse to answer, I cannot be your messenger."

"Well," said Consuelo, "he is my lover. Take the pocket-book, and hasten
to send it to him."

"That will do," said M. de St. Germain, taking the package; "noble and
generous girl, let me confess my admiration and respect. This is merely
a test to which I wished to subject your devotion and abnegation. Go: I
know that from a generous sentiment you have told what was untrue, and
that you are holily faithful to your husband. I am aware that the
Princess Amelia, while she makes use of me, disdains to grant me her
confidence, and toils to divest herself, of the tyranny of the Grand
Lama, all the time that she plays the part of the dignified princess.
She maintains her own part and does not disdain to expose you, a poor
helpless girl, (as the public say,) to an eternal misfortune; yes, to
the greatest of sorrows, that of impeding the brilliant resurrection of
your husband, and detaining him in the torment of doubt and despair.
Fortunately, between the soul of Albert and yourself a chain of
invisible bands extends, uniting the spirit that toils on earth and in
sunlight, with that which struggles in the unknown world, in the shadow
of mystery, and far from vulgar humanity."

This strange language astonished Consuelo, though she had made up her
mind not to put any faith in the captious declamations of pretended
prophets. "Explain yourself, count," said she, in a tone of studious
calmness and coldness. "I know that Albert's earthly career has not
finished on earth, and that his soul has not been crushed by the breath
of death. The connection, however, between him and me is covered by a
veil which my own death alone can remove, even if God please to permit
us to enjoy a vague memory of our previous existence. This is a
mysterious point, and it is in the power of no one to assist the
celestial influence which, in a new life, unites those who in another
sphere have loved. What would you have me believe by saying that certain
sympathies watch over me for the purpose of bringing this union about?"

"I can speak of myself only, having known," said M. de St. Germain,
"Albert from all time, as well when I served in the Hussite war, against
Sigismond, as later in the war of thirty years, when----"

"I know that you claim to be able to recall all your anterior life, and
Albert, also, had that unfortunate impression. Thank God, I never
suspected his sincerity, but this faith was so linked to a kind of mad
exaltation, that I never believed in the reality of this exceptional,
and perhaps inadmissible power. Excuse me from listening to your strange
fancies on this matter. I know that many people, excited by frivolous
curiosities, would now wish to be in my place, and would receive, with a
smile of encouragement and feigned credulity, the wonderful stories you
tell so admirably. I cannot act, except when it is my duty, and am not
amused at what you call your reveries. They recall to my mind those
which terrified and alarmed me so much in the Count of Rudolstadt. Keep
them for persons who participate in them. On no account would I deceive
you by pretending to believe; even if those reveries recalled no sorrow,
I would not laugh at you. Be pleased, then, to answer my questions,
without seeking to lead my judgment astray by words of vague and
indefinite meaning. To assist you in becoming frank, I will tell you
that I am aware you have vague and mysterious views about me. You are to
initiate me in I know not what fearful secret, and persons of high rank
expect you to impart to me the first principles of I know not what
occult science."

"Persons of high rank, countess, sometimes make great mistakes," said
St. Germain, with great calmness. "I thank you for the frankness with
which you have spoken to me, and will not touch on matters which you
will not understand. I will only say, then, there is an occult science
in which I take an interest, and in which I am aided by superior lights.
There is nothing supernatural in it, for it is purely and simply that of
the human heart--or, if you like the term better--a deeper acquaintance
with human life in the most secret springs of its action and resources.
To prove to you that I am not a vain boaster, I will tell you what has
passed in your life, since you left Count Rudolstadt; that is, if you
will permit me?"

"I do--for on that point I am sure you cannot deceive me."

"Well, you love, for the first time in your life; you love completely
and truly. Well, the person you thus love with tears of repentance--for
you did not love him a year ago--this person, the absence of whom is
bitter to you, and whose disappearance has discolored your life and
disenchanted your future, is not Baron Von Trenck, for whom you
entertained no feeling but gratitude and great sympathy; neither is it
Joseph Haydn, who is but a young brother in Apollo; nor is it King
Frederick, who both frightens and terrifies you; it is not the handsome
Anzoleto, whom you can no longer esteem--but the one you saw on the bed
of death, with all the ornaments which the pride of nobles place even on
the tomb of the dead--Albert of Rudolstadt."

Consuelo for an instant was astonished at this revelation of her secret
thoughts, by a man whom she did not know. Remembering that she had
unveiled her life, and exposed her most utter secrets on the previous
night to the Princess Amelia, and knowing from what Prince Henry had
said, that the princess had mysterious affiliation with that society, a
principal member of which the Count de St. Germain was, she ceased to be
surprised, and told the latter that there was nothing strange in his
being acquainted with matters she had owned to an indiscreet friend.

"You speak of the Abbess of Quedlimburg. Well, will you believe in my
word of honor?" said the count.

"I have no reason to doubt it," said Porporina.

"I pledge it to you," said the count, "that the princess has not spoken
a word to me of you, for I have not been able to exchange a word either
with her or with Madame Von Kleist."

"Yet, sir, you have communicated with her at least indirectly."

"As far as I am concerned, my communication has gone no farther than
sending Trenck's letters, and receiving hers by a third party. You see
her confidence in me does not go very far, since she thinks I am
ignorant of the interest I take in our fugitive. She is only foolish, as
all tyrannical persons become, when they are oppressed. The servants of
truth have expected much from her, and have granted her their
protection. Heaven grant they may never repent of it."

"You judge an interesting and unfortunate princess harshly, sir count,
and perhaps know no great deal of her affairs. I am ignorant of them."

"Do not tell a useless falsehood, Consuelo. You supped with her last
night, and I can describe all the details to you." The count then told
her of every circumstance, even what the princess and Madame Von Kleist
said, the dresses they wore, the very bill of fare, their meeting the
_balayeuse_, etc. Neither did he pause there, but also told our heroine
of the king's visit, what had been said, of his shaking the cane over
her head, the threats and repentance of Consuelo, even their gestures
and the expression of their faces, as clearly as if he had been present.
He concluded, "My honest and generous child, you did very wrong to
suffer yourself to be won by this return to friendship and kindness on
the part of the king. You will repent of it. The royal tiger will make
you feel his nails, unless you accept a more honest and respectable
protection--one true, paternal, and all-powerful, which will not be
restrained by the narrow limits of the Marquisate of Brandebourg, but
will hover over the whole surface of the globe, and would accompany you
to the deserts of the new world."

"I know of no being but God, who can extend such a protection, and will
care for so insignificant a being as I am. If I be in danger here, in
Him do I put my trust. I would have no confidence in any other care the
means and motives of which I would be ignorant."

"Distrust ill becomes great souls," said the count. "Because Madame de
Rudolstadt is one of those thus gifted, she has a right to the
protection of God's true servants. For that reason is protection offered
to you. The means are immense, and differ both in power and right from
those possessed by kings and princes, as much as God in his sublimity
differs from the most glorious despots. If you love and confide in
divine justice, you are bound to recognise its action in good and
intelligent men, who, here below, are the ministers of his will, and
protectors of his supreme law. To redress crime, to protect the weak, to
repress tyranny, to encourage and reward virtue, to preserve the sacred
deposit of honor, has from all time been the mission of an illustrious
phalanx of venerable men, who, from the beginning of time, have been
perpetuated to our days. Look at the gross and inhuman laws which rule
nations, look at human prejudice and error, see everywhere the monstrous
traces of barbarism. How can you conceive that in a land so badly ruled
by perfidious governments, all learning and true principles can be
repressed? Such is the case, and we are able to find spotless lilies,
pure flowers, hearts like your own, like Albert's, expanding and
blooming amid the filth of earth. Think you they can preserve their
perfume, avoid the unclean bite of reptiles, and resist the storm, if
they be not sustained and preserved by friendly hands? Think you that
Albert, that sublime man, stranger to all vulgar baseness, so superior
to humanity that the uninitiated thought him mad, exhausted all his
greatness and faith on himself? Think you he was an isolated fact in the
universe, and contributed nothing to the hearth of sympathy and hope?
You yourself--think you that you would have been what you are, had not
the divine efflatus been received from Albert? How, separated from him,
cast in a sphere unworthy of you, exposed to every peril, every danger,
everything calculated to lead you astray, an actress, the confidante of
an imprudent and enamored princess, the reputed mistress of a debauched,
icy, and selfish monarch, do you expect to maintain the spotless purity
of your primitive candor, if the mysterious wings of the archangels be
not extended over you? Take care, Consuelo; not in yourself alone will
you find the strength you need. The prudence of which you boast will be
easily foiled by the ruses of the spirits of darkness, which wander
around your virginial pillow. Learn, then, to respect the holy army, the
invisible soldiery, armed with faith, which already forms a rampart
around you. You are asked for neither engagements nor services; you are
ordered only to be docile and confident when you are aware of the
unexpected effects of their benevolent adoption. I have told you enough.
You will reflect maturely on my words, and when the time shall come, you
will see wonders accomplished around you. Then remember that all is
possible to those who believe and work together, to those who are equal
and free; yes, nothing is impossible to them who recognise merit--and if
yours were so elevated as to deserve this great reward, know that they
could resuscitate Albert, and restore him to you."

Having thus spoken, in a tone which seemed animated by conviction and
enthusiasm, the red domino left Consuelo without waiting for a reply. He
bowed to her before he left the box, where she remained for some
momeuts, motionless and a prey to strange reveries.




CHAPTER XIII


Being now anxious to retire, Consuelo left the box, and in one of the
corridors met two masks. One of them said, in a low tone--

"Do not trust the Count de St. Germain."

She fancied that she recognised the voice of Uberto Porporino, her
brother artist, and took him by the sleeve of his domino. She said--

"Who is this count? I do not know him."

The mask did not seem to disguise his voice, which Consuelo at once
recognised as that of young Benda, the melancholy violinist. He took her
other hand, and said, "Distrust adventures and adventurers."

They then passed hastily, as if they were anxious to ask and answer no
questions.

Consuelo was surprised that she had been so easily recognised,
notwithstanding her care to disguise herself. Consequently she hurried
to go. She soon saw that she was watched, and followed by a mask, the
form and bearing of which seemed to denote Von Poelnitz, the director of
the royal theatres, and chamberlain to the king. She had not the least
doubt when he spoke to her, great soever as was his care to change his
voice and tone. He made some idle remarks, to which she did not reply,
for she saw distinctly that he wished to make her talk. She succeeded in
getting rid of him, and went through the ball-room, so as to be able to
give him the slip, in case he should persist in following her. There was
a great crowd, and she had much difficulty in finding the entrance. Just
at that moment she looked around, to be sure that she was not followed,
and was surprised to see Poelnitz talking in the most friendly manner
possible with the red domino, whom she supposed to be the Count de St.
Germain. She was not aware that Poelnitz had known him in France, and
feared some treason on the part of the _adventurer_--not for herself,
but for the princess--the secret of whom she had involuntarily betrayed
to a suspicious character.

When she awoke the next morning, she found a coronet of white roses
hanging above her head, to the crucifix which had belonged to her
mother, and with which she had never parted. She at the same time
observed that the cypress bough, which, since the evening of a certain
triumph at Vienna, when it had been thrown on the stage, had never
ceased to adorn the crucifix, had disappeared. She looked in every
direction for it in vain. It seemed that in substituting for it the
fresh and smiling crown, this sad emblem had intentionally been removed.
Her servant could not tell her how or when the substitution had been
made. She said she had not left the house on the previous evening, and
had admitted no one. She had not observed it when she prepared her
mistress's bed, and had not noticed if the crown was there or not. In a
word, she was so naïvely amazed at the matter, that it was difficult to
suspect her sincerity. This girl had a very unselfish heart, of which
Consuelo had received more than one proof. Her only fault was a great
love of gossip, and making her mistress the confidant of all her
chatterings. She did not on this occasion fail to weary her with a long
story of the most tedious details, though she could give her no
information. She did nothing but comment on the mysterious gallantry of
the chaplet. Consuelo, ere long, was so wearied, that she besought her
not to chatter any more, but to be quiet. When she was alone, she
examined the coronet with the greatest care. The flowers were fresh, as
if they had been gathered an instant before, and as full of perfume as
if it was not mid-winter. Consuelo sighed when she thought such
beautiful roses were at such a season scarcely to be found in any other
place than in a royal residence, and that her maid, perhaps, had good
reasons for not attributing them to the politeness of the king.

"He did not know," said she, "how fond I was of my cypress. Why did he
take it away? It matters not what hand has committed this profanation,
but may it be cursed!" As Porporina cast the chaplet from her, with an
expression of great sadness, she saw a slip of white parchment fall from
it, which she picked up, and on which she read these words, in an
unknown hand:--

"Every noble action merits a recompense, and the only one worthy of
great souls is the homage of hearts that sympathise. Let the cypress
disappear from your bedside, my generous sister, and let these flowers
rest on your brow, if but for a moment. It is your bridal crown--it is
the pledge of your eternal marriage with virtue, and of your admission
into the communion of the true believers."

Consuelo examined these characters with great surprise for a long time,
and her imagination sought in vain to discover some similarity to Count
Albert's writing. In spite of the distrust she entertained of the kind
of initiation to which she was invited--in spite of the revulsion
inspired by the promises of magic, which then was very popular in all
Germany and all philosophical Europe--in spite of the advice her friends
had given her, to be on her guard--the last words of the red domino, and
the expressions of the anonymous note, excited her imagination almost to
the point of downright curiosity, which may rather be called poetic
anxiety. Without knowing why she obeyed the affectionate injunction of
her unknown friends, she placed the coronet on her dishevelled hair, and
fixed her eyes on a glass, as if she expected to see behind her the
unknown apparition.

She was roused from her reverie by a short, distinct ring at the door,
and a servant came to tell her that the Baron Von Buddenbrock had a word
to say to her. This _word_ was pronounced with all the arrogance an
aide-de-camp always assumes when he is no longer under his master's
eyes.

"Signorina," said he, when she had gone into the saloon, "you must go
with me to the king at once. Make haste--the king awaits you."

"I will not wait on the king in slippers and in a _robe-de-chambre_,"
said La Porporina.

"I give you five minutes to dress," said Buddenbrock, taking his watch
from his pocket and pointing to the door of her chamber.

Consuelo was frightened, but having made up her mind to assume all the
dangers and misfortunes which might menace the princess and Trenck,
dressed in less time that had been given her, and went in company with
Buddenbrock, apparently perfectly calm. The aide had seen the king in a
rage, and though he did not know why, when he received an order to bring
the criminal, felt all the royal rage pass into his own heart. When he
found Consuelo so calm, he remembered that his master had a great
passion for this girl. He said that perhaps she might come out the
victor in the contest which was about to begin, and be angry at his
harsh conduct. He therefore thought it best to resume his humility,
remembering he could play the tyrant when her disgrace was certain. He
offered her his hand with an awkward and strange courtesy, to help her
in the carriage he had brought, and looking shrewdly and sharply at her,
as he sat on the front seat opposite her, with his hat in his hand,
said:

"This, signorina, is a magnificent winter's day."

"Certainly, baron," said Consuelo, in a mocking tone. "It is a fine time
to go beyond the walls."

As she spoke thus, Consuelo thought, with truly stoic calmness, that she
was about to pass the rest of the day _en route_ to some fortress.
Buddenbrock, who could not conceive of such heroism, fancied that she
menaced him, in case she triumphed over the stormy trials which awaited
her, with disgrace and imprisonment. He became pale; he attempted to be
agreeable, but could not, and remained thoughtful and discountenanced,
asking himself anxiously what he had done to displease Porporina.

Consuelo was introduced into a cabinet, the rose-colored furniture of
which she had time to see was scratched by the puppies that ran in and
out of it, covered with snuff, and very dirty. The king was not there,
but she heard his voice in the next room, and when he was in a bad humor
his voice was a terrible one. "I tell you I will make an example of this
rabble, which long has been gnawing the bowels of Prussia. I will purge
them!" said he, as he walked with his creaking boots up and down, in the
greatest agitation.

"Your majesty will do reason and Prussia a great service," said the
person to whom he spoke, "but it is no reason why a woman----"

"Yes, Voltaire, it is a reason. You do not know that the worst intrigues
and most infernal machinations originate in their brains?"

"A woman, sire! a woman!"

"Well, why repeat that again? You are fond of women, and have the
misfortune to live under the control of a petticoat, and cannot treat
them like soldiers and slaves when they interfere in serious matters."

"Your majesty cannot think there is anything serious in this affair? You
must use soporifics, and the pump-workers of miracles and adepts of
magic."

"You do not know what you are talking about, M. de Voltaire. What if I
told you poor La Mettrie had been poisoned?"

"So will any one be who eats more than his stomach can contain and
digest. Every indigestion is poison."

"I tell you his gourmandise alone did not kill him. They gave him a
_pâté_, made of an eagle, and told him it was pheasant."

"Well, the Prussian eagle is a deadly bird, but it uses lightning, not
poison."

"Well, spare me your metaphors. I will bet a hundred to one it was
poison. La Mettrie had faith in their extravagances, poor devil, and
told to anyone who would listen, half serious half in jest, that they
had shown him ghosts and devils. They crazed his incredulous and
volatile mind. As, however, after being Trenck's friend, he had
abandoned him, they punished him in their own way, I will now punish
them, and in a way they will not forget. As for those who, under the
cover of their infamous tricks, plot and deceive the vigilance of the
laws----"

Here the king pushed to the door, which had not been entirely shut, and
Consuelo heard no more. After waiting for a quarter of an hour in much
anxiety, she saw Frederick appear. Rage had made him look frightfully
old and ugly, he shut all the doors carefully, without looking at or
speaking to her, and when he again approached, there was something so
perfectly diabolical in his expression that she thought at first he was
about to strangle her. She knew that in his moments of rage, all the
savage instincts of his father returned to him, and that he did not
hesitate to bruise and kick the legs of his public functionaries with
his heavy boots, when he was in a bad humor. La Mettrie used to laugh at
these outrages, and used to assure him that the exercise was good for
the gout, with which the king was prematurely attacked.

La Mettrie would never again either make the king laugh, or laugh at
him. Young, active, fat, and hearty, he had died two days before from
excesses at the table; and I know not what dark fancy suggested to the
king the idea of attributing his death, now to the machinations of the
Jesuits, and then again to the fashionable sorcerers. The king himself,
though not aware of it, was under the influence of the vague and puerile
terror of the occult sciences, with which all Germany was then inspired.

"Listen to me," said he to Consuelo, with a piercing glance. "You are
unmasked. You are lost, and there is but one way to save yourself--that
is, to make a full, free and unreserved confession."

As Consuelo did not reply, he said--

"Down, wretch, down on your knees!"--(he pointed to the floor)--"you
cannot make such a confession standing! Your brow should be in the dust.
On your knees, or I will not hear you!"

"As I have nothing to tell you," said Consuelo, in an icy tone, "you
have nothing to hear. As for kneeling, you can never make me do so."

The king at first felt inclined to knock Consuelo down and trample on
her. She looked mechanically towards Frederick's hands, which were
extended towards her, and fancied she saw his nails grow longer, as
those of cats do when about to spring on their prey. The royal claws,
however, were soon contracted; amid all his littlenesses, having too
much grandeur of soul not to admire courage in others.

"Unfortunate girl," said he, with an expression of pity, "they have
succeeded in making a fanatic of you. Listen to me. Time is precious.
You yet may ransom your life. In five minutes it will he too late. Use
them well, and decide on telling me all, or prepare to die."

"I am prepared," said Consuelo, indignant at the menace, which she
thought he would not execute, and used only to frighten her.

"Be silent and think," said the king, placing himself at his desk, and
opening a book, with an affectation of calmness, which did not hide a
deep and painful emotion.

Consuelo, while she remembered that the Baron Von Buddenbrock had aped
the king grotesquely, by giving her, with watch in hand, five minutes to
dress herself, she took advantage of the time to reflect on the line of
conduct she should pursue. She saw that what she should most avoid was
the shrewd and penetrating cross-examination with which the king would
entrap her, as in a web. Who can flatter and trick a criminal judge like
Frederick? She was in danger of falling into the snare, and ruining the
princess instead of saving her. She then took the generous resolution of
not seeking to justify herself, but of asking of what she was accused,
and irritating the judge, so that he award an unreasonable and unjust
sentence, _ab irato._ Ten minutes passed thus, without the king's
looking up from his book. Perhaps he wished to give her time to change
her mind. Perhaps he had been absorbed by his book.

"Have you determined?" said he, at last, putting down his book crossing
his legs, and leaning his elbows on the table.

"I have nothing to determine on, being under the power of violence and
injustice; I have only to submit."

"Do you charge me with violence and injustice?"

"If not yourself, it is the absolute power you exercise, which corrupts
your soul, and leads your justice astray."

"Very well. Then you establish yourself as a judge of my conduct, and
forget you have but a few moments left to save yourself from death."

"You have no right to take my life, for I am not your subject. If you
violate the law of nations, so much the worse for you. For my own part,
I had rather die than live one day longer under your laws."

"You confess your hatred frankly," said the king, who appeared to
penetrate Consuelo's design, and who was about to foil it by putting on
an air of _sang-froid_ and contempt. "I see that you have been to a good
school, and the _rôle_ of Spartan virgin, which you play so well, is a
great evidence against your accomplices. It reveals their conduct more
completely than you think. You are not acquainted with the law of
nations and of men. Any sovereign can destroy all in his states who
conspire against him."

"I a conspirator!" said Consuelo, carried away by the feeling of
conscious truth, and too indignant to vindicate herself. She shrugged
her shoulders, turned her back on the king, and without knowing what she
was doing, seemed about to go away.

"Where are you going?" said the king, struck by her air of candor.

"To the prison!--to the scaffold!--to any place you please!--provided
you do not make me listen to this absurd accusation!"

"You are very angry," said the king, with a sardonic laugh. "Do you wish
to know why? You come here with the intention of playing the Roman
before me, and your comedy has been cut down into a mere interlude.
Nothing is so mortifying, especially to an actress, as not to be able to
play her part effectively."

Consuelo, scorning to reply, folded her arms and looked so fixedly at
the king that he was disconcerted. To stifle the rage which burned
within him, he was forced to break silence, and resume his bitter
mockery, hoping that in this way he would irritate the accused, and that
to defend herself she would lose her reserve and distrust.

"Yes," said he, as if in reply to the silent language of her proud face.
"I know well enough you have been made to think I was in love with you,
and that you could brave me with impunity. All this would be very
amusing, were it not that persons on whom I place a higher estimate were
not the cause of the affair. Vain of playing a great part, you forgot
that subaltern confidants are always sacrificed by those who employ
them. I cannot, therefore, punish them, for they are too near to me for
it to be possible to chastise them, except by the contemplation of your
suffering. It is for you to see if you can undergo this misfortune for
persons who have betrayed your interests, and have on your ambitious and
indiscreet zeal thrown all the suffering."

"Sire," said Consuelo, "I do not know what you mean. The manner,
however, in which you speak of confidants, makes me shudder for you!"

"Why!"

"Because you make me think that when you were the first victim of
tyranny, you would have surrendered Major Katt to a paternal
inquisition."

The king became pale as death. All are aware that after an attempted
flight to England, when young, he had witnessed the decapitation of his
confidant. When in prison, he had been taken and held by force at a
window, and made to see his friend's blood run on the scaffold. This
horrible scene, of which he was innocent as possible, made a terrible
impression on him. It is the fate of princes to follow the example of
despotism, even when they have suffered most by it. The mind of
Frederick from misfortune became moody; and after a youth passed in
prison and chains, he ascended the throne imbued with the principles and
prejudices of absolute authority. No reproach could be so severe as that
which Consuelo addressed to him, when she thus recalled his early
misfortunes, and made him aware of his present injustice. His very heart
was grieved, but the effect it worked was as little beneficial to his
hardened soul as the punishment of Katt had been in other days. He rose
and said, "You may retire," at the same time ringing the bell, and
during the few seconds which intervened before his call was answered,
opened his book again, and pretended to be interested by it. A nervous
tremor shook his hand, however, and made the leaves rustle as he turned
them.

A valet entered. The king waved his hand, and Consuelo went into another
room. One of the king's leverets, that had watched Consuelo, and had not
ceased to wag its tail and gambol around her, as if to challenge a
caress, followed her. The king, who had a paternal feeling only for
these animals, was obliged to call Mopsula back, just as she was passing
the door with Consuelo. The king had the mania, not altogether
irrational perhaps, of attributing to these animals an instinctive
perception of the feelings of those who approached them. He became
suspicious of persons whom he saw his dogs dislike, and liked those whom
they fawned on willingly. In spite of his mental agitation, the marked
sympathy of Mopsula had not escaped him; and when the pet returned to
him with an expression of sadness, he knocked, on the table and said to
himself as he thought of Consuelo, "Yet she was not badly disposed to
me."

"Has your majesty asked for me?" said Buddenbrock, as he appeared at
another door.

"No," said the king, who was offended at the anxiety with which the
courtier came to pounce on his prey. "Go away. I will ring for you."

Mortified at being treated like a valet, Buddenbrock left; and during
the few moments the king passed in meditation, Consuelo was retained in
the Gobelin-hall. At length the bell was heard, and the aide-de-camp did
not because of his mortification delay to hasten to the king. The king
appeared somewhat softened and communicative.

"Buddenbrock," said he, "that girl is an admirable character. At Rome
she would have deserved a triumph--a car with eight horses, and a
chaplet of oak leaves. Have a post-chaise prepared, take her yourself
out of the city, and send her under a good escort to Spandau, to be
confined as a state prisoner--not with the largest allowance of liberty.
Do you understand?"

"Yes, sire."

"One minute. Get into the carriage with her to pass through the city,
and frighten her by your conversation. It will be well to make her think
she is to be delivered to the executioner, and flogged as people were in
my father's time. Remember, however, while you talk thus, you must not
disturb a hair of her head; and put on your glove when you give her your
hand. Go: and learn, when you admire her stoical devotion, how you
should act to those who honor you with their confidence. It will do you
no harm."




CHAPTER XIV


Consuelo was taken to her house in the same carriage which had brought
her to the palace. Two sentinels were placed at each door of her house;
and the Baron of Buddenbrock, watch in hand, imitating the rigid
punctuality of his master, gave her one hour to make her preparations,
telling her at the same time that her packages would be examined by the
officers of the fortress to which she was about to be sent. When she
entered her room, all was in the most picturesque disorder. During her
conference with the king, officers of the secret police had come, in
obedience to order, to open every lock and take possession of all her
papers. Consuelo had except her music, nothing of consequence, and was
much distressed in thinking that perhaps she would never see her
favorite authors again--and they were the only fortune she had amassed.
She cared much less for various jewels given her by some of the most
exalted personages of Vienna and Berlin, as a kind of pay for her
services at their concerts. They were taken from her under the pretence
that perhaps the rings were poisoned or had seditious emblems. The king
never heard of them, nor did Consuelo ever see them. The subordinate
officers of Frederick had no scruples in relation to such peculations,
for they were badly paid, and knew the king would rather shut his eyes
to their conduct than increase their pay.

Consuelo looked first for her crucifix, and thinking that they had
neglected it on account of its small value, took it down and put it in
her pocket. She saw the chaplet of roses lying withered on the floor.
When she took it up, she perceived with terror that the band of
parchment which contained the mysterious encouragement was not there.

This was the only proof possible of her complicity in the pretended
conspiracy; but to what commentaries might this be the index? While
looking anxiously around for it, she put her hand in her pocket and
found it there, where she had placed it mechanically when Buddenbrock
had called her an hour before.

Made at ease in relation to this, and being well aware that nothing
which could compromise her would be found among her papers, she hastened
to collect all she might need during an absence the duration of which
she knew would be altogether indefinite. She had no one to help her, her
servant having been arrested as a witness; and amid her dresses which
had been pulled out of the drawers and thrown at random about the room,
she had great difficulty in finding what she needed. Suddenly she heard
some sonorous object fall on the floor. It was a large nail which was
passed through a letter.

The style was laconic. "Do you wish to escape? Show yourself at the
window, and in ten minutes you will be in safety."

The first idea of Consuelo was to go to the window. She paused, however,
for she fancied that her flight, in case she effected it, would be
considered as proof of guilt, and that this would be considered a
confession that she had accomplices.

"Princess Amelia!" thought she, "if it be true that you have betrayed
me, so will I not you! I will discharge my debt to Trenck. He saved my
life; and if it be necessary, I will lose mine for him!"

Revived by this generous idea, she completed her preparations with much
presence of mind, and was ready when Buddenbrock came for her to go. On
this occasion she thought him more hypocritical and disagreeable than
ever. Being both servile and arrogant, Buddenbrock was jealous of his
master's sympathies, just as old dogs snap at all who visit the house.
He had been mortified at the lesson the king had given him when he
received orders to make Consuelo suffer from her situation, and asked
for nothing better than to be avenged.

"I am much grieved, signora," said he, "at having to execute such
rigorous orders. For a long time nothing like it has been witnessed in
Berlin. No; it has not occurred since the time of Frederick William, the
august father of the present king. It was a cruel example of the
severity of the law, and of the power of our princes. I will remember it
as long as I live. Then neither age nor sex were respected when an error
was to be punished. I remember a very pretty girl, well-born and
amiable, who, for having received the visit of an august person,
contrary to the king's wish, was flogged by an executioner, and driven
from the city."

"I know that story, sir," said Consuelo, with mingled fear and
indignation. "The young girl was prudent and pure. Her only offence was,
that she used to practise music with the present king, then prince
royal. Has the king suffered so little from the catastrophes to which he
has subjected others, that he now dares attempt to frighten me by so
infamous a threat?"

"I think not, signora. His majesty does nothing but what is great and
just, and you must know whether or not your innocence shelters you from
his anger. I would think so if I could, but just now I saw the king more
irritated than he ever was. He said that he was wrong in attempting to
reign by mildness, and that in his father's days no woman had dared to
act as you had. From some other words of his majesty, I am afraid some
degrading punishment--I cannot conjecture what--awaits you. But my duty
is painful; we are now at the gates of the city, and if I find there
that the king has given any orders contrary to those I received to
conduct you to Spandau, I will withdraw, my rank not permitting me to be
present."

Buddenbrock, seeing the effect he had produced, and that Consuelo was
almost ready to faint, stopped. She, at that moment, almost regretted
her devotion, and could not in her heart refrain from appealing to her
unknown protectors. But as she looked with a haggard eye at Buddenbrock,
she saw in his face the hesitating expression of falsehood, and began to
grow calm. Her heart yet beat as if it would burst her breast, when a
police officer presented himself at the gate, to exchange a few words
with Buddenbrock. During this conversation, one of the grenadiers who
had come on horseback with the carriage, came to the other door, and
said, in a low tone, "Be calm, signorina, blood will be shed rather than
that you should be injured." In her trouble, Consuelo did not
distinguish the features of her unknown friend, who at once withdrew.
The carriage proceeded at a gallop towards the fortress, and, in about
an hour, Porporina was incarcerated in due form, or rather with the
prevailing want of form, in the castle of Spandau.

This citadel, at that time considered impregnable, is situated in the
bay formed by the confluence of the Havel and the Spree. The day had
become dark and gloomy, and Consuelo having completed the sacrifice,
experienced that apathetic exhaustion which follows energy and
enthusiasm. She therefore suffered herself to be taken to the gloomy
abode intended for her, without even looking around. She was exhausted;
and though it was noon only, threw herself, dressed as she was, on the
bed, and went fast asleep. In addition to the fatigue, she experienced,
was added that kind of delicious security, the fruits of which a good
conscience always receives. Though the bed was hard, she slept
profoundly as possible.

She had been for some time in a kind of half-slumber, when she heard
midnight struck by the castle clock. The impression of sound is so keen
to musical ears that she was awakened at once. When she left her bed,
she understood that she was in prison, and she was forced to pass the
whole night in thought, as she had slept all day. She was surprised at
not suffering with cold, and was especially pleased at not feeling that
physical inconvenience which paralyses thought. The wind bellowed
outside in the most mournful manner, the rain beat on the window, and
Consuelo could see through the narrow window nothing but the iron
grating painted on the dark ground of a starless sky.

The poor captive passed the first hour of this new and unknown
punishment, with her mind perfectly lucid, and with thoughts full of
logic, reason, and philosophy. Gradually, however, this tension fatigued
her brain, and the night became lugubrious. Her positive reflections
changed into vague and strange reveries. Fantastic images, painful
memories, terrible apprehensions assailed her, and she found herself in
a state neither of sleeping nor watching, yet where all her ideas
assumed some form and seemed to float amid the darkness of her cell.
Sometimes she fancied herself on the stage, and mentally sang a part
that fatigued her, and the representation of which haunted her, without
her being able to get rid of it: sometimes she saw herself in the hands
of the executioner, with bare shoulders, amid a stupid and curious
crowd, lacerated by the rod, while the king, with angry air, looked down
from the balcony, and Anzoleto stood laughing in one corner. At last,
she felt a kind of torpor, and saw nothing but the spectre of Albert in
a cenotaph, making vain efforts to rise and come to her aid. Then, this
image was effaced, and she fancied herself asleep in the grotto of
Schreckenstein, while the sublime and sad notes of the violin uttered in
the depths of the cavern Albert's eloquent and lacerating prayer.
Consuelo, in fact, was but half asleep, and the sound of the instrument
flattered her ear, and restored quiet to her soul. The phrases, however,
were so united, though weakened by distance, and the modulations were so
distinct, that she really fancied she heard them, and was not astonished
at the fact. It seemed that this fantastic performance lasted more than
an hour, and that it lost in the air its insensible gradations. Consuelo
then sunk again to sleep and day began to dawn when she opened her eyes.

The first care she had was to look around her room, which she had not
even looked at on the previous evening, so absorbed was she by the
sensations of physical life. She was in a cell, perfectly naked, but
clean, and warmed by a brick stove, which was lighted on the outside,
and which shed no light in the room, though it maintained an equable
temperature. One single arched window lighted the room, which yet was
not too dark: the walls were white-washed and rather high.

Three knocks were heard at the door, and the keeper said aloud,
"_Prisoner, number three_, get up and dress: in a quarter of an hour
your room will be visited."

Consuelo hastened to obey, and to remake her bed before the return of
the keeper, who in a very respectful manner brought her bread and water
for the day. He had the air and bearing of an old major-domo, and placed
the frugal prison-allowance on the table, with as much care and
propriety as if it had been the most carefully prepared repast.

Consuelo looked at this man, who was old, and whose fine and gentle
physiognomy at first had nothing repulsive in it. He had been selected
to wait on the women, on account of his manners, his good behavior, and
his discretion, beyond all trial. His name was Swartz, and he informed
Consuelo of the fact.

"I live below you," said he, "and if you be sick call to me through the
window."

"Have you not a wife?" said Consuelo.

"Certainly," said he, "and if you really need her, she will wait on you.
It is, however, forbidden to have anything to say with female prisoners,
except in special cases--the surgeon must say when. I have also a son
who will share with me the honor of serving you."

"I have no need of so many servants, and if you please, Swartz, I will
be satisfied with your wife and yourself."

"I know that ladies are satisfied with my age and appearance. You need
not fear my son more than you do me, for he is a lad full of piety,
gentleness, and firmness."

"You will not require that last quality with me. I came hither almost
voluntarily, and have no wish to escape. As long as I am served decently
and properly, as people seem disposed, I will submit to the prison
rules, rigorous as they may be."

As she spoke thus, Consuelo, who had eaten nothing during the past
twenty-four hours, and who had suffered all night with hunger, began to
break the loaf and to eat it with a good appetite.

She then observed that her resignation made an impression on the old
keeper, and both amazed and annoyed him.

"Your ladyship, then, has no aversion to this coarse food?" said he,
awkwardly.

"I will not deny, that for the sake of my health in future, I wish for
something more substantial: if, however, I must be satisfied with this,
I will not be greatly put out."

"Yet you are used to live well? You have a good table at home, I
suppose?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Then," said Swartz, "why do you not have a comfortable one prepared for
you here?"

"Is that permitted?"

"Certainly," said Swartz, whose eyes glittered at the idea of this
business, for he had feared to find a person too poor or too sober to
ask it. "If your ladyship has been shrewd enough to conceal any money on
your person, I am not prohibited from furnishing food to you. My wife is
a very good cook, and we have a very comfortable table service."

"That is very kind," said Consuelo, who discovered Swartz' cupidity with
more disgust than satisfaction. "The question, however, is to know if I
really have money. They searched me when I came hither, and I know they
left me a crucifix, to which I attached much interest, but I cannot say
whether they have left me my purse."

"Has not your ladyship observed it?"

"No; does that surprise you?"

"But your ladyship certainly knows what was in the purse."

"Nearly." As she spoke, Consuelo examined her pockets, but did not find
a farthing. She said, in a gay tone, "They have left me nothing that I
can find: I must be satisfied with prison fare. Do not be mistaken as to
that fact."

"Well, madame," said Swartz, not without a visible effort over himself,
"I will show you that my family is honest. Your purse is in my pocket;
here it is," and he showed Porporina her purse, which he immediately put
in his pocket.

"Much good may it do you," said Porporina, amazed at his impudence.

"Wait awhile," said the avaricious keeper. "My wife searched you. She
was ordered to let the prisoners have no money, lest they should use it
to corrupt their keepers. When the latter are incorruptible, the
precaution is useless. She thought, therefore, her duty did not require
her to give your money to the major. As, however, she must obey the
letter of the order, your purse cannot be returned directly to your
hands."

"Keep it, then," said Consuelo, "since such is your pleasure."

"To be sure I will, and you will thank me for doing so. I am the
depository of your money, and will use it for your wants. I will bring
you such dishes as you wish; I will keep your stove hot, and even
furnish you with a better bed and bed-linen. I will keep a regular
account, and pay myself discreetly from your fund."

"So be it," said Consuelo. "I see one can make terms with heaven, and I
appreciate the honesty of Herr Swartz as I should. When this sum, which
is not large, shall be exhausted, will you not furnish me with the means
of procuring more?"

"I do not say so. That would be to violate my duty, a thing I will never
do; but your ladyship will never suffer, if you will tell me who at
Berlin or elsewhere is the depository of your funds. I will send my
accounts to that person, in order that they may be regularly paid. My
orders do not forbid that."

"Very well: you have contrived a way to correct that order, which is a
very agreeable thing, as it permits you to treat us well, and prohibits
us from having anything to say about it. When my ducats are gone, I will
contrive to satisfy you. First of all, bring me some chocolate; give me
for dinner a chicken and vegetables; get some books for me during the
day, and at night give me a light."

"The chocolate your ladyship will have in five minutes; dinner will be
prepared at once. I will give you also some good soup, little delicacies
which ladies do not disdain, and coffee, which is very salutary to
combat the damp air of our residence. The books and light are
inadmissible: I would be dismissed at once, and my conscience does not
permit me to violate my orders."

"But, other than prison food is equally prohibited."

"Not so. We are permitted to treat ladies, and especially your ladyship,
humanely, in all that relates to health and comfort."

"_Ennui_ is equally injurious to the health."

"Your ladyship is mistaken. Good food and mental repose make all here
fat. I might mention a lady who came hither as thin as you, and who,
after being a prisoner twenty years, was discharged, weighing one
hundred and twenty pounds."

"Thank you, sir, I do not wish such immense _embonpoint._ I hope you
will not refuse me books and a light."

"I humbly ask your ladyship's pardon; but I cannot violate my duty.
Besides, your ladyship will not suffer from _ennui_; you will have a
piano and music here."

"Indeed! And to whom will I be indebted for this consolation? To you?"

"No, signora: to his majesty: and I have an order from the governor to
have the above-mentioned articles placed in your room."

Consuelo was delighted at being allowed the means of _making music_, and
asked nothing more. She took her chocolate gaily, while Swartz put her
furniture in order, that is to say, a miserable bed, two straw chairs,
and a pine table. "Your ladyship will need a _commode_," said he, with
the kind air assumed by persons who wish to overpower others with care
and attention, in exchange for their money: "then a better bed, a
carpet, a chest of drawers, an arm-chair, and a toilette."

"I will take the commode and toilette," said Consuelo, who sought to
take care of her means. "The rest I will not ask you for. I am not
particular, and beg you to give me only what I ask for."

Swartz shook his head with astonishment, almost with contempt; he did
not reply, however, and when he had rejoined his worthy wife, said:

"She is not a bad person, I mean the new prisoner, but she is poor; we
will not make much from her."

"How much do you wish her to spend?" said the wife, shrugging her
shoulders. "She is not a great lady, but an actress, they tell me."

"An actress!" said Swartz. "Well, I am glad for our son Gotlieb's sake."

"Fie on you," said Vrau Swartz, with a frown. "Do you wish to make him a
rope-dancer?"

"You do not understand, wife. He will be a preacher. I will never give
it up, for he is of the wood of which they are made, and has studied. As
he must preach, and as he has as yet shown no great eloquence, this
actress will give him lessons in declamation."

"That is not a bad idea, if she will not charge her lessons against our
bills."

"Be easy, then; she has no sense," said Swartz, snickering and rubbing
his hands.




CHAPTER XV


During the day the piano came. It was the same one Consuelo had hired at
Berlin. She was very glad not to be obliged to run the risk of a new
acquaintance with another less agreeable and less sure instrument. The
king, too, who was used to enquire into the minutest details, had
ascertained when he gave the orders to send the instrument to the
prison, that it did not belong to the prima donna, but was hired, and
had caused the owner to be told that he would be responsible for its
return, but that the rent must be paid by the prima donna. The owner had
then said, that he had no resource to reach a person in prison,
especially if the person should die. Poelnitz, who was charged with this
mission, replied with a laugh, "My dear sir, you would not quarrel with
the king on such a matter; and besides, it would be of no use. Your
instrument is now under execution, and is, perhaps, at this moment in
Spandau."

The manuscripts and arrangements of Porporina were also brought; and, as
she was astonished at so much amenity in the prison _régime_, the
commandant major of the place came to visit her, and to explain that she
would be required to perform her duty as first singer of the opera.

"Such," said he, "is his majesty's will. Whenever the opera-bill hears
your name, an escorted coach will take you to the theatre, and return
with you to the fortress immediately after the representation. These
arrangements will be effected with the greatest exactness, and with the
respect due to you. I trust, mademoiselle, that you will not force us,
by any attempt to escape, to double the rigor of your captivity.
Agreeably to the king's orders, you have been placed in a room with a
fire, and you will be allowed to walk on the ramparts as often as you
please. In a word, we are responsible, not only for your person, but for
your health and voice. The only inconvenience you will be subjected to,
will be solitary confinement, without permission to see any one, either
within or without the fortress. As we have but few ladies here, a single
keeper suffices for the whole building they occupy, and you will not be
forced to be tended on by coarse people. The good countenance and good
manners of Swartz must have made you easy in that point of view. _Ennui_
will be the only inconvenience you will be subjected to, and I fancy
that at your age and in the brilliant sphere in which you were----"

"Be assured, major," said Consuelo, with dignity; "I never suffer from
_ennui_ when I have any occupation. I only require a small
favor--writing materials and light--that I may attend to my music in the
evenings."

"That is altogether impossible, and I am in despair at being forced to
refuse the request of so spirited a lady. I can only, by way of
palliative, give you permission to sing at any hour of the day or night.
Yours is the only occupied chamber in this isolated tower. The quarters
of Swartz are below, it is true, but he is too polite to complain of so
magnificent a voice. For my part, I regret being too distant to hear
it."

This dialogue, which was in the presence of Master Swartz, was
terminated by low bows, and the old officer retired, with a conviction,
derived from the prisoner's composure, that she had been consigned to
his charge on account of some infraction of theatrical discipline, and
for a few weeks at most. Consuelo herself did not know whether she was
accused of complicity in a political conspiracy, or only of having
served Frederick Von Trenck, or of being the prudent confidant of the
Princess Amelia.

For two or three days the captive was more uncomfortable, sad, and
_ennuyée_ than she chose to own. The length of the night at that
season, fourteen hours, was particularly disagreeable, even while she
hoped to be able to induce Swartz to give her pen, ink, and paper. Ere
long, however, she saw that this obsequious personage was inflexible. He
did not at all resemble the majority of people of his class, who love to
persecute those committed to their custody. He was even pious, in his
way, thinking perhaps that he served God and earned salvation so long as
he persisted in discharging the duties of his situation, which he could
not neglect. It is true the indulgences granted were few, and related to
the articles in which there was more chance of profit with the prisoners
than danger of losing his place.

"She is very simple to think that to earn a few groschen I would run the
risk of losing my place," said he to his wife, who was the Egeria of
these consultations. "Take care," he exclaimed, "not to grant her a
single meal when her purse is empty!-----Do not be alarmed. She has
saved something, and has told me that Signor Porporino, a singer of the
theatre, has it in keeping."

"It is a bad chance," said the woman; "read again the code of Prussian
law in relation to actresses; it forbids all suits on their part. Take
care, then, that Porporino does not quote the law and retain the money
when you present your accounts."

"But as her engagement at the theatre is not broken by imprisonment,
since she must continue her duty, I will make seizure of the theatrical
treasury."

"Who knows if she will get her salary? The king knows the law better
than any one else, and if he invoke it."

"You think of everything, wife!" cried Swartz. "I will be on my guard.
No money--no fire, no food, and regulation furniture. The letter of the
orders!"

Thus the Swartz decided on Consuelo's fate. When she became satisfied
that the honest keeper was incorruptible in relation to lights, she made
up her mind, and so arranged her day, as to suffer least from the length
of the night. She would not sing by day, reserving that occupation for
the night. She also refrained, as far as possible, from thinking of
music and occupying her mind with musical recollections and inspirations
before the hours of darkness. On the contrary, she devoted the whole day
to reflections suggested by her position, to the past, and to dreamy
anticipations of the future. In this way, for the time, she succeeded in
dividing her time into two parts, one philosophical, and the other
musical, and saw at once, that with perseverance she could, to a certain
degree, contrive to subject to the will of that capricious and fiery
courser, fancy, the whimsical muse of the imagination. By living
soberly, in spite of the prescriptions and insinuations of Swartz, by
taking much exercise, even when she took no pleasure in it, on the
ramparts, she was enabled to be calm at evening, and employ very
agreeably those hours of darkness, which prisoners, by wishing to seek
sleep to escape _ennui_, fill with phantoms and agitation. Finally, by
appropriating only six hours to sleep, she was sure of being able to
sleep quietly every night, never permitting an excess of repose to
prevail over the tranquillity of the next night.

After eight days, she had become so used to prison, that it seemed she
had never lived in any other manner. Her evenings, at first so much
feared, became the most agreeable part of the day, and darkness, far
from terrifying, revealed to her treasures of musical conception, which
she had felt for a long time, though unable to evolve in the excitement
of her profession. When she saw that improvisation and the exercise of
memory would suffice to fill her evenings, she devoted a few hours of
the day to note her inspirations, and to study her authors with more
care than she had been able to do amid a thousand emotions, or beneath
the eye of an impatient, and systematic teacher.

To write music she first made use of a pin, with which she pricked notes
between the lines, and afterwards with little pieces of wood, stripped
from the furniture, and which she charred against the stove when it was
hottest. As this occupied much time, and she had a very small quantity
of ruled paper, she saw it would be best to exercise the powerful memory
with which she was gifted, and trust the numerous compositions she made
every evening to it. Practice enabled her to do this so thoroughly, that
she could pass from one to the other of these unwritten compositions
without confusion.

Yet, as her room was very warm, thanks to the fuel which Swartz kindly
added to the allowance, and as the rampart on which she walked was
perpetually swept by an icy wind, she could not avoid several days'
cold, which deprived her of the pleasure of singing at the Berlin
theatre. The surgeon of the fortress, who had been ordered to see her
twice a week, and to give an account of her health to Von Poelnitz,
wrote that her voice was gone exactly on the day when the baron, with
the king's consent, was about to suffer her to appear before the public
again. Her egress was thus postponed, without her feeling any chagrin at
it. She did not wish to breathe the air of liberty until she had become
so used to her prison as to be able to return to it without regret.

She consequently did not nurse the cold with so much care as an actress
usually displays for that precious organ, her throat, and thus
experienced a phenomenon known to the whole world. Fever produces in
every one's brain a more or less painful illusion. Some think that the
angles, formed by the sides of the wall, draw near to them, until they
seem finally to press and crush their frames. They see the angles
gradually diverge and leave them free, return again, and resume the same
alternative of annoyance and relief. Others take their bed for a wave,
which raises and depresses them between the ceiling and the floor. The
writer of this veracious history, is made aware of fever by the presence
of a vast black shadow, which spreads upon a brilliant surface, in which
she is placed. This spot of shade, swimming in an imaginary sun, is
perpetually expanding and contracting. It dilates so as to cover the
whole brilliant surface, and again contracts so as to be a mere thread,
after which it extends again, to be successively attenuated and
thickened. This vision would not be at all unpleasant for the dreamer,
if he did not imagine, from some unhealthy sensation, difficult to be
understood, that he was himself the obscure reflection of some unknown
object, floating without repose in an arena embraced by the fires of an
invisible sun. So great is this, that when the imaginary shadow
contracts, his own being seems to diminish and elongate, so as to become
the shadow of a hair; and when it expands, to be the reflection of a
mountain overhanging a valley. In the reverie, however, there is neither
mountain nor valley. There is nothing but the reflection of an opaque
body making on the sun's reflection, which the black ball of a cat's eye
makes in the transparent iris, and this hallucination, unaccompanied by
sleep, becomes intensely painful.

We may mention another person, who, in a fever, sees a floor giving way
every moment. Another, who fancies himself a globe, floating in space; a
third, who takes the space between his bed and the floor for a
precipice--while a fourth is always dragged to the left. Every reader
may find observations and phenomena from his own experience; but this
will not advance the question, nor will it explain better than we can,
how every person during his life, or, at least, during a long series of
years, has at night a dream which is his, and not another's, and
undergoes at every attack of fever a certain hallucination, which always
presents the same character and the same kind of anguish. This question
is a physiological one, and I think the medical men will find some
instruction--I do not say about the actual disease which reveals itself
by other and more evident symptoms, but of some latent malady,
originating in the weak point of the patient's organization, and which
it is dangerous to provoke by certain reactives.

This question is not original with the author, who begs his reader's
pardon for having introduced it.

Of our heroine, we must say that the hallucination caused by fever
presented a musical character, and affected the auditory nerves. She
resumed then the reverie she had when awake, or at least half awake, on
her first night in the prison. She fancied that she heard the plaintive
tone and the eloquent _phrases_ of Albert's violin--now strong and
distinct, now weak, as if they came from the distance of the horizon.
There was in these imaginary sounds something painfully strange. When
the vibration seemed to approach, Consuelo felt a feeling of terror.
When it was fully displayed, it was with a power which completely
overwhelmed. Then the sound became feeble, and she felt some
consolation, for the fatigue of listening with constant attention to a
song which became lost in space, made her soon feel feeble, during which
she could hear nothing. The constant return of the harmonious tremor
filled her with fear, trembling, and terror, as if the sweep of some
fantastic bow had embraced all air, and unchained the storm around.




CHAPTER XVI


Consuelo soon recovered, and was able again to sing at night, and sleep
calmly as before.

One day, the twelfth of her incarceration, she received a note from Von
Poelnitz, which informed her that on the next night she would leave the
fortress.

"I have obtained from the king," said he, "permission to go for you, in
one of his own carriages. If you promise me not to escape through the
windows, I hope I will even be able to dispense with the escort, and
reproduce you at the theatre without all that melancholy _cortège._
Believe me, you have no more devoted friend than I am; and I deplore the
rigorous treatment, perhaps unjust, which you undergo."

Porporina was somewhat amazed at the sudden friendship and delicate
attention of the baron. In his intercourse with the _prima donna_, Von
Poelnitz, who was _ex-roué_, with no respect for virtue, had been very
cold and abrupt in his demeanor at first; subsequently, he had spoken of
her regular conduct and of her reserved manners with the most
disobliging irony. Nearly everybody knew the old chamberlain was a royal
spy; but Consuelo was not initiated in the secrets of the court, and was
not aware that any one could discharge such a disagreeable duty without
losing the advantage of position in society. A vague, instinctive
aversion, however, told Consuelo that Poelnitz had contributed more to
her misfortune than he had alleviated it. She therefore watched every
word that was uttered when she was alone with him on the next evening,
as the coach bore them rapidly to Berlin.

"Well, my poor recluse," said he, "you are in a terrible condition. Are
the veteran servitors who guard you very stern? They would never permit
me to go inside the citadel, under the pretext that I had no permit.
They kept me on that account freezing for a quarter of an hour at the
gate while I was waiting for you. Well, wrap yourself closely in this
fur I brought to preserve your voice, and tell me what has happened.
What on earth passed at that last carnival ball? Everyone asks a
question which none can answer. Many innocent persons like myself have
disappeared as if by enchantment. The Count de Saint Germain, who I
think is one of your friends, has disappeared. A certain Trismegistus,
who it is said was in hiding at the house of one Golowkin, and whom
perhaps you know, for they say you are familiar as any one with all that
devil's brood----"

"Have those persons been arrested?"

"Or have they taken flight. There are two versions in the town."

"If these persons know no more than I do, why, they are persecuted. They
had better have waited boldly for their persecution."

"The new moon may change the monarch's humor. I advise you to sing well
to-night. That is your best chance, and will have more effect on him
than fine words. How the deuce could you be so imprudent as to suffer
yourself to be sent to Spandau? The king would never, for such trifles
as you are accused of, have inflicted so uncourteous a sentence upon a
lady. You must have answered him arrogantly, with your cap on your ear
and your hand on your sword-hilt. What had you done that was wrong? Let
me see--what was it? I will undertake to arrange matters; and if you
follow my advice, you will not return to that damp swamp, but will sleep
to-night in a pretty room at Berlin. Come, tell me. They say you supped
in the palace with the Princess Amelia, and that one fine night you
amused yourself by playing the ghost and the _balayeuse_ in the
corridors, for the purpose of scaring the queen's ladies of honor. It
seems that several of these ladies have miscarried, and the most
virtuous are likely to give birth to children with brooms on their
noses. They say you had your fortune told by Madame Von Kleist's
astrologer, and that Saint Germain revealed to you all the secrets of
Philip the Fair. Are you simple enough to think that the king means
anything else than to laugh with his sister at these follies? The king,
besides, has a weakness almost equal to child's play for the abbess. As
for the fortune-tellers, he only wishes to know whether they ring their
changes for money, in which case they must leave the country and all is
done. You see clearly, then, that you take advantage of your position,
and that had you answered some unimportant questions quietly, you would
not have passed the carnival at Spandau in such a sad manner."

Consuelo let the old courtier chatter away, without interruption; and
when he pressed her to reply, persisted in saying that she did not know
what he was talking of. She saw that some snare lurked beneath all this
frivolity.

Von Poelnitz then changed his tactics.

"This is well," said he. "You distrust me. I am not displeased. On the
contrary, I value your prudence highly. Since you are of this
disposition, signora, I will speak plainly. I perceive that you may be
trusted, and that our secret is in good hands. Know, then, Signora
Porporina, that I am more your friend than you imagine. I am one of you.
I am of the party of Prince Henry."

"Prince Henry has a party, then?" said Porporina, who was anxious to
learn the intrigue in which she was said to be involved.

"Do not pretend ignorance," said the baron. "It is a party at present
much persecuted, but far from being desperate. The Grand Lama, or, if
you like the title better, the Marquis, does not sit so firmly on his
throne that he cannot be shaken out of it. Prussia is a good war-horse,
but must not be pushed too far."

"Then you are a conspirator, Baron Von Poelnitz! I never suspected you."

"Who does not conspire now? The tyrant is surrounded by servants who are
apparently faithful. They have however, sworn his ruin."

"You are very wrong, baron, to confide this to me."

"If I do so, it is because I am authorized by the prince and princess."

"Of what princess do you speak?"

"Of one you know. I do not think the others conspire, unless, perhaps,
the Margravine of Bareith does; for she is offended at her position, and
angry with the king, since he scolded her about her understanding with
the Cardinal de Fleury. That is an old story; but a woman's anger is of
long duration, and the Margravine Guillemette[10] is not the
common-place person she seems."

"I never had the honor of hearing her say a word."

"But you saw her at the rooms of the Abbess of Quedlimburgh."

"I was never but once at the rooms of the Princess Amelia, and the only
member of the family I saw was the king."

"It matters not. Prince Henry had ordered me to say----"

"Really, baron!" said Consuelo, contemptuously, "has the prince
instructed you to say anything?"

"You shall see that I do not jest. You must know that his affairs are
not ruined, as people assert. None of his friends have betrayed him.
Saint Germain is now in France, attempting to unite our conspiracy with
that which is about to replace Charles Edward on the throne of England.
Trismegistus alone has been arrested, but he will escape, and the prince
is sure of his discretion. He conjures you not to suffer yourself to be
terrified by the threats of the Marquis. Especially he enjoins you to
confide in none who pretend to be his friends and wish to speak to you.
On that account just now you were subjected to an ordeal, which you
sustained satisfactorily. I will say to our hero, to our brave prince,
that you are one of the best champions of his cause."

Consuelo could no longer restrain her laughter. The baron, mortified at
her contempt, asked the reason. She could only say----

"Ah, baron, you are sublime, and admirable!" and again her laughter
became irrepressible.

"When this nervous attack is over," said the chamberlain, "be pleased to
tell me what you mean to do. Would you betray the prince? Do you think
the princess would have betrayed you to the king? Would you think
yourself freed from your oaths? Take care, signora, or you may soon have
reason to repent. Silesia ere long will be restored to Maria Theresa,
who has not abandoned our plans, and who henceforth will be our best
ally. Russia and France will certainly offer Prince Henry their hands.
Madame de Pompadour has not forgotten the contempt of Frederick. A
powerful coalition this, and a few years of strife may easily hurl from
the throne the proud monarch who now maintains it by a thread. With the
good will of the new monarch, you may reach a lofty position. The least,
then, that can happen from all this is, that the Elector of Saxony may
lose the Polish crown, and King Henry reign at Warsaw. Then----"

"Then, baron, there exists, in your opinion, a conspiracy which, to
satisfy Prince Henry, is about to enkindle another European war! and
that prince, to gratify his ambition, would not shrink from the shame of
surrendering his country to a foreign rule! I can scarcely think such
things possible. If you unfortunately speak the truth, I am much
humiliated at the idea of being considered your accomplice. Let us be
done with this comedy, I beg of you. For a quarter of an hour you have
manœuvred very shrewdly to make me own crimes of which I am innocent. I
have listened to ascertain what was the pretext for my being kept in
prison. It remains still for me to find out why I have received the
bitter hatred so basely exhibited against me. If you wish, I will try to
vindicate myself. Until I do, I have nothing to reply to all you have
said, except that you surprise me much, and that I sympathise with none
of those schemes."

"Then, signora, if that be all you know, I am amazed at the volatility
of the prince, who bade me speak plainly to you, before he was assured
of your adhesion to his schemes."

"I repeat, baron, that I am utterly ignorant of the prince's plans; but
I am sure that you never had any authority to speak to me one word about
them. Excuse me for thus contradicting you. I respect your age, but
cannot but contemn the terrible _rôle_ you have undertaken to play with
me."

"I am never offended at the absurd suspicions of women," said Von
Poelnitz, who could not now avow his falsehoods. "The time will come
when you will do me justice. In the trouble of persecution, and with the
bitter ideas created by a prison, it is not strange that you should not
at once see clearly and distinctly. In conspiracies we must expect such
blunders, especially from women. I pity and pardon you. It is possible,
too, that in all this you are only the devoted friend of Baron Von
Trenck, and a princess's confidant. These secrets are of too delicate a
nature for me to be willing to speak of. On them, Prince Henry himself
closes his eyes, though he is aware that all that has led his sister to
join the conspiracy is the hope of Trenck's restoration."

"I am also ignorant of that, baron, and think, were you sincerely
devoted to the august princess, you would not talk so strangely about
her."

The noise of the wheels on the pavement terminated this conversation,
much to the satisfaction of the baron, who was sadly perplexed for an
expedient to extricate himself from the position he had assumed. They
were going into the city. The singer was escorted to the stage and to
her dressing-room, by two sentinels, who never lost sight of her.
Although esteemed by her associates, she was coldly received, as none
were bold enough to protest against this external testimonial of
disgrace and royal disfavor. They were sad and constrained, acting as if
afraid of contagion. Consuelo, attributing this to compassion, thought
that in their faces she read the sentence of a long captivity. She
sought to show them that she was not afraid, and appeared on the stage
with bold confidence.

The arrest of Porporina had been much talked of, and the audience,
composed of persons devoted by conviction or position to the royal will,
put their hands in their pockets as if to restrain the wish and habit of
applauding the singer. Every one looked at the king, who glanced
curiously over the crowd, and seemed to command the most absolute
silence. Suddenly a crown of flowers, thrown no one knew whence, fell at
the feet of Consuelo, and many voices said, simultaneously and loud
enough to be heard in every part of the house, "_It is the king--the
royal pardon!_" This assertion passed rapidly as lightning from mouth to
mouth, and fancying they paid Frederick a compliment, such a torrent of
applause broke forth as Berlin had never before resounded with. For some
minutes Porporina, amazed and confounded, would not commence her part.
The king, amazed, looked at the spectators with a terrible expression,
which was taken as a signal of consent and approbation. Buddenbrock,
himself, who was not far off, asking young Benda what it all meant, was
told the crown came from the king, and at once began to applaud with the
most comical bad grace. Porporina thought she was dreaming, and the king
scratched his head to know if he was awake.

Whatever might have been the cause and result of this triumph, Consuelo
felt its salutary effect. She surpassed herself, and was applauded with
the same transport, through all the first act. During the interval,
however, the mistake became gradually corrected, and there was but one
part of the audience, the most obscure and least likely to be influenced
by courtiers, which refrained from giving tokens of approbation.
Finally, between the second and third acts, the corridor-orators
informed every one, that the king was very much dissatisfied with the
stupid applause of the public, that a cabal had been created by
Porporina's unheard-of audacity, and that any one who was observed to
participate in it, would certainly regret it. During the third act, in
spite of the wonders performed by the prima donna, the silence was so
great that a fly's wings might have been heard to move at the conclusion
of every song, while the other actors received all the benefit of the
reaction.

Porporina was soon undeceived in relation to her triumph. "My poor
friend," said Conciolini, when behind the scenes he presented her the
chaplet, "how I pity you for having such dangerous friends! They will
ruin you."

Between the acts, Porporino came to her dressing-room, and said, in a
low tone, "I bade you distrust M. de Saint Germain, but it was too late.
Every party has its traitors. Do not, however, be less faithful to
friendship and obedient to the voice of conscience. You are protected by
a more powerful arm than the one which oppresses you."

"What mean you?" said Porporina, "are you of those----"

"I say, God will protect you," said Porporino, who seemed afraid that he
would be overheard, and he pointed to the partition which divided the
dressing-rooms of the actors. The partitions were ten feet high, but
left, between the top and the ceiling, a space sufficiently wide to
suffer sound to pass freely from one to the other. "I foresaw," said he,
giving her a purse filled with money, "that you would need this, and
therefore have brought it."

"I thank you," said Porporina. "If the keeper, who sells me food at a
dear price, come to ask payment, as I have here enough to satisfy him
for a long time, do not give it him. He is an usurer."

"Very well," said the good and kind Porporino, "I will bid you good-bye,
for I would but aggravate your position, if I seemed to have any secret
with you."

He glided away, and Consuelo was visited by Madame Coccei (La
Barberini,) who boldly showed much interest and affection. The Marquise
d'Argens, (La Cochois,) joined them, and exhibited a much more eager
manner, playing the queen who protects misfortune. Consuelo was not very
much pleased at _her_ bearing, and asked her not to compromise her
husband's favor by remaining long with her.

* * * * * * * *

The king said to Von Poelnitz, "Well, have you questioned her? Could you
make her talk?"

"No more than if she were dumb."

"Did you say I would pardon her, if she would tell me what she knew of
_La Balayeuse_, and what St. Germain said?"

"She cares no more about it, than about what happened forty years ago."

"Did you frighten her, by talking of a long captivity?"

"Not yet; your majesty bade me act mildly----"

"Frighten her as you go back."

"I will try. It will be in vain, however."

"She is, then, a saint, a martyr."

"She is a fanatic, possessed by a demon--a devil in petticoats."

"Then, woe to her. I give her up. The Italian opera season ends in a few
days. Arrange matters so that I shall not hear of this girl till next
year."

"A year! Your majesty will not stick to that."

"More firmly than your head sticks to your shoulders."


[Footnote 10: Sophia Wilhelmina. She used the signature of "Sister
Guillemette," in her correspondence with Voltaire.]




CHAPTER XVII


Von Poelnitz hated Porporina sufficiently to take this opportunity to
avenge himself. He, however, did not, his conduct being cowardly in the
extreme; he had not sufficient strength of mind to injure any but those
who yielded to him. As soon as he was alone, he became timid, and one
might say, experienced an involuntary respect for those whom he could
not deceive. He had been even known to detach himself from those who
flattered his vices, and to follow, like a whipped hound, those who
trampled on him. Was this a feeling of weakness, or the memory of a less
degraded youth? It would be pleasant to think, that in the most degraded
souls, something appeals to our better instincts, which yet remain,
though oppressed and existing in suffering and remorse alone. Von
Poelnitz had long attached himself to Prince Henry, and feigning to
participate in his sorrows, had induced him to complain of the king's
bad treatment: these conversations he repeated to Frederick, filling
them with venom, as a means of increasing the anger of the latter.
Poelnitz did this dirty work for the very pleasure of mischief; for, in
fact he did not hate the prince, being incapable of the passion. He
hated no one but the king, who dishonored him every day, without making
him rich. Poelnitz loved trickery for its own sake. To deceive, was a
flattering triumph in his eyes. He felt, besides, a real pleasure in
speaking and causing others to speak ill of the king, and when he
repeated all these slanders to the king, he had an interval of pleasure
at being able to play his master the same trick, by concealing the
pleasure he took in laughing at him, betraying and revealing his vicious
and ridiculous points to his enemies. Both parties, therefore, he
considered his dupes, and this life of intrigue in which he fomented
hatred, without knowing precisely why, had a secret attraction.

The consequence, however, was, that Henry discovered, that as often as
he suffered his ill-humor to appear before the complaisant baron, in the
course of a few hours he found the king more offended and outrageous
than ever. If he complained before Von Poelnitz of having been
twenty-four hours in arrest, on the next day he had twice the
confinement awarded him. This prince, as frank as brave, as confiding as
Frederick was suspicious, finally arrived at a correct appreciation of
the character of the miserable baron. Instead of managing him prudently,
he had overpowered him with indignation. Since that time, Poelnitz
humbled himself to the ground and never had offended him. He seemed,
even, in the depth of his heart, to love him as much as he was capable
of loving any one. He warmed with admiration when he spoke of him, and
these testimonials of respect appeared so strange that all were
astonished at such an incomprehensible whim in such a man.

The fact is, Von Poelnitz, finding the prince more generous and a
thousand times more tolerant than Frederick, would have preferred him as
a master; having a vague presentiment or rather a guess, as the king
had, that a mysterious conspiracy was spun around the prince, the
threads of which he wished to hold, so that he might know whether
success was so certain that he might join it. It was then for his own
interests that he sought to ingratiate himself with Consuelo, and
ascertain its secrets. Had she revealed the little she knew, he would
not have disclosed it to the king, unless Frederick had given him a
great deal of money. Frederick was too economical, however, to purchase
the services of great scoundrels.

Poelnitz had ascertained something of this mystery from the Count de
Saint Germain. He had spoken so positively, so boldly of the king, that
this skillful adventurer had not sufficiently distrusted him. Let us
say, _en passant_, that in this adventurer's character there was
something of enthusiasm and folly: that though he was a charlatan and
even Jesuitical in many respects, there was a foundation for the entire
man, a fanatical conviction which presented singular contrasts, and
induced him to perpetrate many errors.

In conveying Consuelo back to the fortress, having somewhat familiarized
himself with the contempt she had exhibited, he conducted himself with
great _naïveté_ towards her. He confessed to her, voluntarily, that he
was ignorant of everything, that all he had said about the plans of the
prince, in relation to foreign powers, was but a gratuitous commentary
on the whimsical conduct and secret association of the prince and his
sister with suspicious characters.

"This commentary does no honor to your lordship's sincerity," said
Consuelo, "and, perhaps, should not be boasted of."

"The commentary is not my own," said Poelnitz, quietly. "It is conceived
by a royal master, with a diseased and unhealthy brain, if there ever
was one, whenever any suspicion takes possession of him. To consider
suppositions as certainties, is a mode of conduct so firmly established
by the custom of courts and diplomatists, that it is pretence in you to
scandalise it. I, too, learned it from kings. They are the persons who
have educated me, and my vices come from the father and the son, the two
Prussian monarchs I have the honor to have served. To state falsehood,
to discover the truth--Frederick never acts otherwise, and is considered
a great man. See what it is to be popular. Yet I am treated as a
criminal because I have his errors; what a prejudice!"

Von Poelnitz insinuatingly endeavored, as well as he could, to ascertain
from Consuelo what had passed between herself, the abbess, Von Trenek,
the adventurers Cagliostro, Trismegistus, Saint Germain, and a number of
very important persons, who, it was said, were involved in the affair.
He told her, naïvely enough, that if the matter had any consistency, he
would not hesitate to join in it. Consuelo at last saw that he spoke
sincerely. As she knew nothing, however, there was no merit in
persisting in her denial.

When the fortress gates closed on Consuelo and her pretended secret, he
reflected on the course he ought to adopt in relation to her, and, in
conclusion, hoping if she returned to Berlin that she would suffer her
secret to be discovered, determined to vindicate her. The first sentence
he said to the king on the next day Frederick interrupted.

"What has she revealed?" said he.

"Nothing, sire."

"Then do not disturb me. I forbade you to speak of her. Never utter her
name again before me."

This was said in such a tone that reply was impossible. Frederick
certainly suffered when he thought of Porporina, for there was in his
heart and conscience a tender point which quivered, as when a pin is
driven into the flesh. To shake off this painful sensation he determined
to forget the matter, and had no difficulty in doing so. Eight days had
not elapsed, when, thanks to his strong character and the servile
conduct of those around him, he forgot that Consuelo had ever existed.
She was at Spandau. The theatrical season was over, and her piano had
been taken from her. The king had given orders to that effect on the
evening when, thinking to gratify him, the audience had applauded her
even in his presence. Prince Henry was placed under an indefinite
arrest. The Abbess of Quedlimburg was very sick. The king was cruel
enough to make her think Trenck had been retaken, and was again in
prison. Trismegistus and Saint Germain had really disappeared, and _la
balayeuse_ no longer haunted the palace. What her apparition presaged
really seemed confirmed. The youngest of the prince's brothers died of
premature disease.

Added to these domestic troubles was the final dispute between Voltaire
and the king. Almost all biographers have declared that Voltaire had the
best of it. When we look closely at the documents, we find recorded
circumstances which do honor to neither, though the most contemptible
part was played by Frederick. Colder, more implacable, more selfish than
Voltaire, Frederick was capable neither of envy nor hatred, and these
bitter passions stripped Voltaire of a dignity the king knew how to
assume. Among the bitter disputes which added, drop by drop, to the
explosion, was one in which Consuelo was not named, but which prolonged
the sentence of wilful oblivion pronounced on her. D'Argens was reading
one evening the Parisian newspapers, in the presence of Voltaire. They
mentioned the affair of M'lle Clairon, who was interrupted in her part
by a spectator, who shouted out "_louder._" Called on to make an apology
to the public, she cried out, in royal phraseology, "_et vous plus
bas._"[11] The result was, she was sent to the _Bastille_ for having
acted with as much pride as firmness. The newspapers said that this
circumstance would not deprive the public of the pleasure of seeing
M'lle Clairon, because during her incarceration she would be brought
under an escort from the Bastille, to play the parts of _Phédre_ or
_Chimene_, after which she would be returned to prison until her
sentence had expired, which it was hoped and presumed would not be long.

Voltaire was very intimate with Clairon, because she had greatly
contributed to the success of his dramatic works. He was indignant at
the circumstance, and forgetting that a perfectly analogous circumstance
was passing under his eyes, said--"This does little honor to France. The
fool! to interrupt an actress in such a brutal manner--and such an
actress as M'lle Clairon--stupid public! She make an apology--a lady--a
charming woman! Brutes! Barbarians! The Bastile? In God's name, marquis,
are you not amazed? A woman in the Bastile at this age--for a _bon mot_,
full of mind, _apropos_, and taste! France, too!"

"Certainly," said the king, "La Clairon was playing _Electra_ and
_Semiramis_; and the public, unwilling to lose a single word, should
find favor with M. de Voltaire."

At another time, this remark of the king would have been flattering to
Voltaire; but it was now uttered with such irony, that the philosopher
was surprised, and it reminded him of the blunder he had committed. He
had wit enough to repair it, but would not. The king's ill-temper
excited him, and he replied: "No, sire: Madame Clairon would have
disgraced my tragedy had she obeyed; and I cannot think the world has a
police-system brutal enough to bury beauty, genius, and weakness in a
dungeon."

This reply, added to others, and especially the brutal ridicule, cynical
laughter, &c., reported to the king by the officious Poelnitz,
super-induced the rupture with which all are acquainted, and supplied
Voltaire with the means of making the most piquant complaints, most
comical imprecations, and most bitter reproaches. Consuelo was more than
ever forgotten, while Clairon left the Bastile in triumph. Deprived of
her piano, the poor girl appealed to her courage, and continued to sing
and compose at night. She succeeded, and did not fail to discover that
her beautiful voice was improved by this most difficult practice. The
fear of lunacy made her very circumspect. She was enabled to attend to
herself alone, and a constant exercise of memory and mind was required.
Her manner became more serious, and nearer perfection. Her compositions
became more simple, and, at Spandau, she was the author of airs of
wonderful beauty and grand sadness. Before long, however, she became
aware of the injury which the loss of her piano did to her health and
calmness. Knowing the necessity of ceaseless occupation, and unwilling
to repose after exciting and stormy production and execution, by more
tranquil study and research, she became aware that fever was gradually
kindling in her veins, and she was plunged in grief. Her active
character, which was happy and full of affectionate expansion, was not
formed for isolation and the absence of sympathy. She would, in a few
weeks have been sacrificed to this cruel _régime_, had not Providence
sent her a friend whom she certainly did not expect to meet.


[Footnote 11: Royalty in Europe always uses the plural. The meaning of
the phrase is, "And you SPEAK not so loudly!"]




CHAPTER XVIII


Beneath the cell, which our recluse occupied, a large smoky room (a
thick and mournful vault, which received no other light than that of the
fire in a vast chimney, continually filled with iron pots, boiling and
hissing) contained the Swartz family. While the wife made the greatest
possible number of dinners out of the smallest number of comestibles,
the husband sat before a table, blackened with ink and oil, and, by the
light of a lamp which burned constantly in this dark sanctuary, wrote
out immense bills containing the most fabulous items imaginable. The
miserable dinners were for the large number of prisoners whom Swartz had
contrived to number among his boarders; the bills were to be presented
to their relations or bankers without being always submitted to the
recipients of this luxurious alimentation. While the speculative couple
were devoting themselves with all their power to toil, two more
peaceable personages, in the chimney-corner, sat by in silence, perfect
strangers to the advantage and profit of what was going on. The first
was a poor starved cat, thin and famished, whose whole existence seemed
wasted in sucking its paws. The second was a young man, or rather a lad,
if possible uglier than the cat, who wasted his life in reading a book,
if possible, more greasy than his mother's pots, and whose eternal
reveries seemed to partake more of tranquil idiocy than the meditation
of a sentient being. The cat had been christened Belzebub, as an
antithesis to the name conferred by Herr and Vrau Swartz on the lad, who
was called Gottlieb.

Gottlieb, intended for the church, until he was fifteen had made rapid
progress in Protestant Theology. For four years, however, he had been
inert and invalid, hanging over the hearth side, unwilling to see the
sun, and unable to continue his studies. A rapid and irregular growth
had reduced him to a state of languor and indolence. His long, thin legs
scarcely sufficed to support his unnatural and ungainly height. His arms
were so feeble, and his hands so clumsy, that he could touch nothing
without breaking it. His avaricious mother had, therefore, forbidden him
to interfere at all, and he was ready enough to obey her. His face was
coarse and beardless, terminated by a high forehead, and was altogether
not unlike a ripe pear. His features were irregular as his figure. His
eyes seemed decidedly astray, so cross and diverging were they. His
thick lips had a stupid smile; his nose was shapeless, his complexion
colorless, his ears flat, and sticking close to his head. A few coarse,
wiry hairs covered his head, which was more like a turnip than the poll
of a Christian: this, at least, was the poetical comparison of his good
mother.

In spite of his natural disadvantages, in spite of the shame and
disappointment with which Vrau Swartz regarded him, Gottlieb, her only
son, an inoffensive and patient invalid, was yet the pride and joy of
the authors of his existence. They flattered themselves, when he became
less ugly, that some day he would be a handsome man. They had expected,
from his studious childhood, that his success in life would be
brilliant. Notwithstanding the precarious state to which he was reduced,
they hoped he would recover strength, power, intelligence, and beauty,
as soon as his growth had stopped. It is, besides, needless to remark,
that maternal love becomes used to anything, and is satisfied with
little. Vrau Swartz, though she abused, adored him, and had she not seen
him all day long planted like a _pillar of salt_ (such were her words)
at the corner of the fireplace, would have been unable to mix her sauces
or remember the items of her bills. Old Swartz, who, like many men, had
more self-love than tenderness in his paternal regard, persisted in
jewing and robbing his prisoners, in the hope that some day Gottlieb
would be a minister and a famous preacher. This was his fixed idea,
because, before he became rich, the young man had always displayed great
facility of expression. For four years, however, he had not said one
single sensible thing, and if he ever united two or three sentences
together, he spoke them to his cat Belzebub. In fine, Gottlieb was said
by the physicians to be an idiot, and his parents, alone thought that he
could be cured.

Gottlieb, however, once shook off his apathy, and told his parents that
he wished to learn a trade, to amuse himself, and make his tiresome
hours profitable. They yielded to this innocent desire, though it
scarcely conformed with the dignity attached to a preacher of the
reformed church to work with his hands. The mind of Gottlieb appeared,
however, so sunk in repose, that it was deemed prudent to permit him to
acquire the art of making shoes in a cobbler's stall. His father would
have wished him to study a more elegant profession. In vain did they
exhibit to him every branch of industry; he had a decided predilection
for the craft of Saint Crispin, and said that he was satisfied
Providence called him to embrace it. As this wish became a fixed idea,
and as the very fear of being interfered with threw him into an intense
melancholy, he was suffered to pass a month in the shop of a master
workman, whence he came one day with all the tools of the trade, and
installed himself in the chimney-corner, saying that he knew enough, and
had no need of further instruction. This was not probable; and his
parents, hoping that his experience had disgusted him, and that he
probably would resume the study of theology, neither reproached nor
laughed at him on his return. A new era in Gottlieb's life then began,
which was entirely delighted by the prospect of the manufacture of an
imaginary pair of shoes. Three or four hours a-day, he took his last and
worked at a shoe, which no one over wore, for it was never finished.
Every day it was stitched, stretched beaten, pointed, and took all
possible shapes, except that of a shoe. The artisan was, however,
delighted with his work, and was attentive, careful, patient, and
content, so that he utterly disregarded all criticism. At first, his
parents were afraid of this monomania, but gradually became used to it,
and the great shoe and the volume of sermons and prayers alternated in
his hands. Nothing more was required of him than to go from time to time
with his father through the galleries and courts, to get fresh air.
These promenades gave Swartz a great deal of annoyance, because the
children of the other keepers of the prison ran after Gottlieb,
imitating his idle and negligent gait, and shouting out "Shoes! shoes!
_Cobbler_, make me a pair of shoes! Take my measure--who wants shoes?"
For fear of getting him into difficulty with this rabble, Swartz dragged
him along, and the shoemaker was not at all troubled nor distressed at
being thus hurried from his work.

In the early part of her imprisonment, Consuelo had been humbly
requested by Swartz to get into conversation with Gottlieb, and try to
awaken in him the memory of and taste for that eloquence with which he
had been endowed in his childhood. While he owned the unhealthy state
and the apathy of his heir, Swartz, faithful to the law of nature, so
well defined by La Fontaine--


"Nos petits sont mignons,
Beaux, bienfaits, et jolis sur touts leurs compagnons."


had not described very faithfully the attractions of poor Gottlieb. Had
they done so, Consuelo, it is probable, would not have refused to
receive in her cell a young man of nineteen, five feet eight inches
high, who made the mouth of all the recruiters of the country water, but
who, unfortunately for his health, but fortunately for his independence,
was weak in the arms and legs, so as to be unfit for a soldier. The
prisoner thought that the society of a _child_ of that age and stature
was not exactly proper, and refused positively to receive him. This was
an insult the female Swartz made her atone for, by adding a pint of
water every day to her _bouillon._

On her way to the esplanade, where she was permitted to walk every day,
Consuelo was forced to pass the filthy home of the Swartz, and also to
go through it under the escort, and with the permission of her keeper,
who ever insisted on persuasion, (the article of _ceaseless
complaisance_ being highly charged in his bills.) It happened, then,
that in passing through this kitchen, one door of which opened on the
esplanade, Consuelo observed Gottlieb. A child's head on a giant's
frame, badly formed too, at first disgusted her; but, gradually, she
learned to pity him; questioned him kindly, and tried to make him talk.
Ere long, she discovered that his mind was paralysed either by disease
or extreme timidity. He would not accompany her to the rampart, until
his parents forced him to do so, and replied to her questions only by
monosyllables. In talking to him, therefore, she was afraid of
aggravating the _ennui_ she fancied he suffered from, and would not
either speak or talk to him. She had told his father she saw not the
slightest disposition for the oratorical art in him.

Consuelo had been searched a second time by Madame Swartz, on the day
when she had met Porporino and sang to the Berlinese public. She
contrived, however, to deceive the vigilance of the female Cerberus. The
hour was late, and the old woman was out of humor at being disturbed in
her first slumber. While Gottlieb slept in one room, or rather in a
closet which opened into the kitchen, and the jailer went up stairs to
open her cell, Consuelo had approached the fire, which was smothered by
the ashes, and while pretending to caress Belzebub, managed to save her
funds from the hands of the searcher, so as to be no longer fully at her
control. While Madame Swartz was lighting her lamp and putting on her
spectacles, Consuelo observed in the chimney-corner, where Gottlieb
habitually sat, a recess in the wall about the elevation of her arm, and
in this mysterious recess lay his library and tools. This hole,
blackened by soot and smoke, contained all Gottlieb's wealth and riches.
By an adroit movement, Consuelo slipped her purse into the recess, and
then suffered herself to be patiently examined by the old vixen, who
persisted for a long time in passing her oily fingers over all the folds
of her dress, and who was surprised and angry at finding nothing. The
_sang froid_ of Consuelo, who after all, was not very anxious to succeed
in her enterprise, at last satisfied the jailer that she had nothing
hidden; and, as soon as the examination was over, she contrived to
recover her purse, and keep it in her hand under her cloak until she
reached her cell. There she set about concealing it, being well aware
that when she was taking her walk, her cell was searched regularly. She
could do nothing better than keep her little fortune always about her,
sewed up in a girdle, the female Swartz having no right to search her
except when she had left the prison.

By and by, the first sum which had been found on the person of the
prisoner, when she reached the fortress, was exhausted, thanks to the
ingenious bills of Swartz. When he had given her a few very meagre meals
and a round bill, being, as usual, too timid to speak of business, and
ask a person condemned to poverty for money, in consonance with
information had from her, on the day of her incarceration, in relation
to the money in Porporino's hands, Swartz went to Berlin, and presented
his bill to the contralto. Porporino, in obedience to Cousuelo's
directions, refused to pay the bill until the prisoner directed it, and
bade the creditor ask his prisoner, whom he knew to have a comfortable
sum of money, to pay it.

Swartz returned, pale and in despair, asserting that he was ruined. He
looked on himself as robbed, although the hundred ducats he first found
on the prisoner would have paid him four-fold for all she had consumed
during two entire months. The old woman bore this pretended loss with
the philosophy of a stronger head and more persevering mind.

"We are robbed," said she, "of a surety; but you never relied on this
prisoner certainly? I told you what would happen. An actress--bah! those
sort of people never save anything. An actor as her banker!--what would
you expect? We have lost two hundred ducats--we will make this loss up
on others, however, who have means. This will teach you to go headlong
and offer your services to the first comer. I am not sorry, Swartz, you
have had this lesson. I will now do myself the pleasure of putting her
on dry bread, and that, too, rather stale, for being so careless as not
to put a single 'Frederick' in her pocket to pay the searcher, and for
treating Gottlieb as a fool, because he would not make love to her."

Thus scolding and shrugging her shoulders, the old woman seating herself
near the chimney by Gottlieb, said--"What do you think of all this, my
clever fellow?"

She talked merely to hear herself, being well aware that Gottlieb paid
no more attention than the cat Belzebub did to her words.

"My shoe is almost done, mother; I will soon begin a new pair."

"Yes," said the old woman, with an expression of pity; "work so, and you
will make a pair a-day. Go on, my boy; you will be very rich. My God! my
God!" she continued, opening her pots, and with an expression of pitiful
resignation, just as if the maternal instinct had endowed her with any
of the feelings of humanity.

Consuelo, seeing her dinner did not come, was well aware what had
happened, though she could scarcely think a hundred ducats had been
absorbed in such a short time. She had previously marked out a plan of
conduct, in regard to the jailer: not having as yet received a penny
from the King of Prussia, (that was the way Voltaire was paid.) She was
well aware that the money she had gained by charming the ears of some
less avaricious persons would not last her long, if her incarceration
were prolonged and Swartz did not modify his claims. She wished to force
him to reduce his demands, and for two or three days contented herself
with the bread and water he brought, without remarking the change in her
diet. The stove also, began to be neglected, and Consuelo suffered with
cold, without complaining of it. The weather, fortunately, was not very
severe. It was April, when in Prussia the weather is not as mild as it
is in France, but when the genial season commences.

Before entering into a parley with her avaricious tyrant, she set about
disposing her money in a place of safety. She could not hope that she
would not be subjected to an examination and an arbitrary seizure of her
funds, as soon as she should own her resources. Necessity makes us
shrewd, if it does not do more. Consuelo had nothing with which she
could cut either wood or stone. On the next day as she examined with the
minute patience of a prisoner, every corner of her cell, she observed a
brick which did not seem to be as well jointed as the others. She
scratched it with her nails, took out the mortar, which she saw was not
lime, but a friable substance, which she supposed to be dried bread. She
took out the brick, and found behind it a recess carefully formed in the
depth of the wall. She was not surprised to find in it many things which
to a prisoner were real luxuries; a package of pencils, a penknife, a
flint, tinder, and parcels of that thin waxlight, twisted in rolls, and
called _care_-nots. These things were not at all injured, the wall being
dry, and besides, they could not have been there long before she took
possession of the cell. With them she placed her purse, her filagree
crucifix, which Swartz looked greedily at, saying it would be such a
pretty thing for Gottlieb. She then replaced the brick and cemented it
with her loaf, which she soiled a little by rubbing it on the floor, to
make it appear the color of mortar.

Having become tranquil for a time, in relation to the occupation of her
evenings and her means of existence, she waited with not a little
eagerness for the domiciliary visit of Swartz, and felt proud and happy
as if she had discovered a new world.

Swartz soon became tired of having no speculation. If he must work, said
he, it was better to do it for a small sum than for nothing, and he
broke the silence by asking prisoner _No. 3_ if she had nothing to
order? Then Consuelo resolved to tell him that she had no money, but
would receive funds every week by a means which it was impossible for
him to discover.

"If you should do so," said she, "it would make it impossible for me to
receive anything, and you must say whether you prefer the letter of your
orders, to your interests."

After a long discussion, and after having for some days examined the
clothes, floor, furniture, and bed, Swartz began to think that Consuelo
received the means of existence from some superior officer of the
fortress. Corruption existed in every grade of the prison officials, and
subalterns never contradicted their more powerful associates.

"Let us take what God sends us," said Swartz, with a sigh, and he
consented to settle every week with Porporina. She did not dispute about
the disbursement of her funds, but regulated the accounts, so as not to
pay more than twice the value of each article, a plan which Vrau Swartz
thought very mean, but which did not prevent her from earning it.




CHAPTER XIX


To any one fond of reading the history of prisoners, the simplicity of
this concealment, which escaped the examination of the keepers anxious
to discover it, will not seem at all wonderful. The secret of Consuelo
was never discovered; and when she looked for her treasures, on her
return from walking, she found them untouched. Her first care was to put
her bed before her window, as soon as it was night, to light her lamp
and commence writing. We will suffer her to speak for herself. We are
owners of the manuscript which was for a long time after her death in
the possession of the canon *****. We translate from the Italian:--


Journal of Consuelo, otherwise Poporina, a Prisoner at Spandau,
April, 175--


"April 2.--I have never written anything but music; and though I speak
several tongues with facility, I am ignorant whether I can express
myself in a correct style in any. It never has seemed proper that I
should expound what fills my heart otherwise than in the divine art
which I profess, words and phrases appear so cold to me, compared with
what I could express in song. I can count the letters, or rather notes,
I have hastily written, without knowing how, in the three or four most
decisive instances of my life. This is, then, the first time in the
course of my life that I find it necessary to trace in words what has
happened to me. It is a pleasure for me to attempt it. Illustrious and
venerated Porpora! amiable and dear Haydn! excellent and kind canon
*****! you, my only friends--except, perhaps, you, noble and unfortunate
Trenck--it is of you that I think as I write; it is to you that I
recount my reverses and trials. It seems to me that I speak to you, that
I am with you, and that in my sad solitude I escape annihilation by
initiating you into the secret of my existence. It may be I shall die
here of _ennui_ and want, though as yet neither my health nor spirits
are materially changed. I am ignorant, however, of the evils reserved
for me in the future; and if I die, at least a trace of my agony, a
description of it, will remain in your hands. This will be the heritage
of the prisoner who will succeed me in this cell, and who in the recess
in the wall will find these sheets, as I found myself the paper and
pencil with which I write. How I thank my mother, who could not write,
for having caused me to be taught! It is a great consolation in prison
to be able to write. My sad song could not pierce the walls, nor could
it reach you. Some day this manuscript may; and who knows but I may send
it soon. I have always trusted in Providence.

"April 3.--I will write briefly, and will not indulge in long
reflections. This small supply of paper, fine as silk, will not last
always, and my imprisonment perhaps will not soon end. I will tell you
something every night, before I go to sleep. I must also be economical
of my waxlights. I cannot write by day, lest I should be surprised. I
will not tell you why I have been sent here, for I do not know myself,
and perhaps by guessing at the cause, I might compromise persons who
have nothing to do with me. I will not either complain of the authors of
my misfortune. It seems to me that I would lose the power of sustaining
myself, if I were to complain or become angry at them. I wish here to
speak only of those whom I love, and of him I have loved.

"I sing for two hours every evening, and it seems to me that I improve.
What will be the use of this? The roofs of my dungeon reply, they do not
understand--but God does; and when I have composed some canticle which I
sing in the fervor of my heart, I experience a celestial calm, and sink
to sleep almost happily. I fancy that heaven replies to me, and that a
mysterious voice sings while I sleep a strain far more beautiful than
mine, which in the morning I attempt to remember and repeat. Now that I
have pencils and a small supply of ruled paper, I will write out my
compositions. Some day, my friends, it may be that you will attempt
them, and that I shall not have altogether vanished from your memory.

"April 4.--This morning the 'red-throat' came into my room, and remained
there more than a quarter of an hour. For a fortnight I have invited him
to do me this honor, and at last he decided on it. He dwells in an old
ivy which clings to the wall near my window, and which my keepers spare,
because it gives a green shelter to their door, which is a few feet
below. The little bird for some time looked at me in a curious and
suspicious manner. Attracted by the crumbs of bread which I rolled up to
resemble little worms, hoping to entice him by what appeared living
prey, he came lightly, as if he were wafted by the wind, to my bars; but
as soon as he became aware of the deceit, he went away with a
reproachful air, and I heard a chattering which sounded very like a
complaint. And these rude iron bars, so close and black, across which we
made our acquaintance! they are so like a cage that he was afraid of
them. To-day, when I was not thinking of him, he determined to cross
them, and perched himself on the back of a chair. To avoid frightening
him, I did not stir, and he looked around with an air of terror. He
seemed like a traveller who has discovered an unknown land, and who
examines it, that he may impart to his compatriots an idea of its
curiosities. I astonished him most, and as long as I did not move he was
much amazed. With his large round eye, and his turned-up nose, he has an
impudent, saucy look, which is quite amusing. At last, to bring about a
conversation I coughed, and he flew away with great alarm. In his hurry
he could not find the window, and for some time he flew around as if he
were out of his senses; but he soon became calm, when he saw I had no
disposition to pursue him, and alighted on the stove. He seemed
agreeably surprised at its warmth, and returned thither frequently to
warm his feet. He then ventured to touch the bread-worms on the table,
and, after scattering them contemptuously about, being beyond doubt
pressed by hunger, he ate them. Just then, Swartz, the keeper, came in,
and my visitor flew in terror from the window. I hope he will return,
for he scarcely left me during the day, and looked constantly at me, as
if he said he had not a bad opinion of me or of my bread.

"This is a long story about a red-throat. I did not think myself such a
child. Does prison life have a tendency to produce idiocy; or is there a
mystery and affection between all things that breathe under heaven? I
had my piano here for a few days. I could practise, study, compose,
sing. None of these things, however, pleased me so much as the visit of
this little bird!--of this being!--yes, it is a living thing! and
therefore was it that my heart beat when I saw him near me. Yet my
keeper, too, is a living thing, one of my own species; his wife, his son
(whom I have seen several times), the sentinels who walk day and night
on the rampart, are better organised beings, my natural friends and
brothers before God--yet their aspect is rather painful. The keeper
produces the effect of a wicket on me; his wife is like a chain; and his
son, a stone fastened to the wall. In the soldiers, I see nothing but
muskets pointed at me. They seem to have nothing human about them. They
are machines, instruments of torture and death. Were it not for the fear
of impiety, I would hate them. Oh! red-throat, I love you! I do not
merely say so, but feel it. Let any one who can explain this kind of
love.

"April 5.--Another event. This note I received this morning. It was
scarcely legible, and was written on a piece of paper much soiled:--

"'Sister--Since the spirit visits you, I am sure you are a saint. I am
your friend and servant. Dispose as you please of your brother.'

"Who is this friend thus improvised? It is impossible to guess. I found
the note on my window this morning, as I opened it to say good morning
to my bird. Can he have brought it? I am tempted to think the bird wrote
it, so well does he know and seem to love me. He never goes near the
kitchen below, the windows of which give vent to a greasy smell, which
reaches even me, and which is not the least disagreeable condition of my
place of incarceration. I do not wish to change it, however, since my
bird has adopted it. He has too much taste to become intimate with the
vulgar turnkey, his ill-tempered wife, and ugly son.[12] He yields his
confidence especially to me. He breakfasted here with an appetite, and
when I walked on the esplanade, hovered around me. He chattered away, as
if to please me, and attract my attention. Gottlieb was at the door, and
looked at me as I passed, giggling and staring. This creature is always
accompanied by a horrid red cat, which looks at my bird with an
expression yet more horrible than his master's. This makes me shudder. I
hate the animal as much as I do Vrau Swartz, the searcher.

"April 6th.--Another note this morning. It is strange. The same crooked,
angular, blotted writing, and the same sheet of dirty paper. My friend
is not an hidalgo, but he is gentle and enthusiastic. 'Dear
sister--chosen spirit, marked by the finger of God--you distrust me, and
are unwilling to speak to me. Can I aid you in nothing? My life is
yours. Command the services of your brother.'--I look at the sentinel,
who is a brutish soldier, and employs himself in knitting as he walks up
and down, with his gun on his shoulder. He looks at me, and apparently
had rather send a ball than a note to me. Let me look in any direction I
please, I see nothing but stern gray walls beset with nettles,
surrounded by ditches, and they, too, shut in by another fortification,
the use and the very name of which I am ignorant of, but which hides the
water from me. On the summit of this other work I see another sentinel,
or at least his cap and gun, and hear from time to time the savage cry,
'Keep off!' Could I but see the water, the boats, or catch a glimpse of
the landscape! I can hear the sound of the oars, the fisherman's song,
and when the wind blows thence, the rushing of the waters at the place
of meeting of the two rivers. But whence come the mysterious notes, and
this devotion of which I can make nothing? My bird knows, perhaps, but
he will not tell me.

"April 7th.--As I looked carefully about me during my walk on the
rampart, I discovered a narrow opening in the flank of the tower I
inhabit, about ten feet above my window, and almost hidden by the ivy
branches which grow over it. 'So little light,' I said, sadly, to
myself, 'cannot illumine the habitation of aught human.' I wished to
learn for what it was intended, and attempted to induce Gottlieb to go
on the rampart with me, by flattering his passion or rather monomania
for shoemaking. I asked him if he could make me a pair of slippers, and
for the first time he approached me without being made to do so, and he
replied to me without difficulty. He talks as strangely as he looks, and
I begin to think he is not an idiot but a madman.

"'Shoes for thee!' he said, and he is familiar withal. 'It is written
"the latches of whose shoes I am unworthy to unloose."'

"I saw his mother three paces from the door, and ready to join in the
conversation. At that time I had neither leisure nor opportunity to
comprehend his humility and veneration, and I asked if the story above
me was occupied, but scarcely hoping to obtain a distinct answer.

"'It is not,' said Gottlieb, 'but merely contains a stairway to the
platform.'

"'And is the platform isolated? Does it communicate with nothing?'

"'Why ask me? You know.'

"'I neither know, nor care to know, Gottlieb. I ask the question merely
to ascertain if you have as much sense as they say.'

"'Ah! I have sense--much sense,' said the poor lad, in a grave and sad
tone, which contrasted strangely with the comical air of his words.

"'Then you can tell me,' continued I, '(for time is precious,) how this
court is constructed?'

"'Ask your bird,' he said, with a strange smile. 'He knows, for he flies
and goes everywhere; but I know nothing, for I go nowhere.'

"'What! not even to the top of the tower in which you live? Do you not
know what is behind that wall?'

"'Perhaps I have been there, but I paid no attention to it. I look at no
one and nobody.'

"'Yet you see the bird. You know that?'

"'Ah! the bird is a thing of a different kind. All look at angels. That
is no reason why I should look at the walls.'

"'What you say is very profound, Gottlieb. Can you explain it to me?'

"'Ask the red-throat. I tell you he knows everything. He can go
anywhere, but never goes except among his equals. That is why he comes
to see you.'

"'Thank you, Gottlieb. Do you take me for a bird?'

"'The red-throat is not a bird.'

"'What then?'

"'An angel, as you know.'

"'Then so am I.'

"'You have said it.'

"'You are gallant, Gottlieb.'

"'_Gallant!_' said he, looking anxiously at me. 'What is the meaning of
that?'

"'Do you not know?'

"'No.'

"'How know you that the red-throat comes into my room?'

"'I have seen and heard so from him.'

"'Then he has spoken to you?'

"'Sometimes,' said Gottlieb with a sigh, 'but very seldom. Yesterday he
said, "No, I will never go into that hellish kitchen." The angels have
nothing to say to evil spirits."'

"'Are you an evil spirit, Gottlieb?'

"'No, no; not I, but----' Here Gottlieb put his fingers on his thick
lips with a mysterious air.

"'But who?'

"'He did not reply, but he pointed to his cat stealthily, as if he was
afraid of being heard.

"'That is the reason, then, why you call him by that terrible name,
Belzebub?'

"'Sh--! That is his name, and he knows it well enough. He has been
called so ever since the world began. He will not always bear that
name.'

"'Certainly not; he will die.'

"'He will not die--not he--he cannot; and he is sorry for it, for he
does not know when he will be pardoned.'

"Here we were interrupted by the coming of Madame Swartz, who was amazed
at seeing Gottlieb talk so freely with me. She asked me if I was pleased
with him.

"'Very much so, I assure you. Gottlieb is very interesting, and I will
be glad to talk with him.'

"'Ah, signora, you will do us a great service, for the poor lad has no
one to talk with, and to us he never opens his mouth. Are you stupid,
and a fool, my poor child? You talk well enough with the signorina whom
you do not know, while with your parents----'

"Gottlieb suddenly turned on his heel and disappeared in the kitchen,
apparently not having even heard his mother's voice.

"'He always does so,' said Madame Swartz; 'when his father speaks to
him, or when I do, twenty-nine times out of thirty, he never opens his
lips. What did he say to you, signorina? Of what on earth could he
converse so long?'

"'I will confess to you that I did not understand him,' said I. 'To do
so, it is necessary to know to what his ideas relate. Let me talk to him
from time to time freely, and when I am sure, I will tell you what he
thinks of.'

"'But, signorina, his mind is not disturbed.'

"'I think not;' and there I told a falsehood, for which I beg God to
pardon me. My first idea was to spare the poor woman, who, malicious as
she is, is yet a mother, and who, fortunately, is not aware of her
child's madness. This is always very strange. Gottlieb, who exhibited
his folly very naïvely to me, must be silent with his parents. When I
thought of it, I fancied that perhaps I might extract from him some
information in relation to the other prisoners, and discover, perhaps,
from his answers, who was the author of my anonymous notes. I wish,
then, to make him my friend, especially as he seems to sympathise with
the red-throat, who sympathises with me. There is much poetry in the
diseased mind of this poor lad. To him the bird is an angel, and the cat
a being who never can be pardoned. What means all this? In these German
heads, even in the mildest of them, there is a luxury of imagination
which I cannot but admire.'

"The consequence of all this is, that the female Swartz is much
satisfied with my kindness, and that I am on the best possible terms
with her. The chattering of Gottlieb will amuse me. Now that I know him,
he inspires me with no dislike. A madman in this country, where even
people of high talent are not a little awry, cannot be so very bad.

"April 8th.--Third note on my window. 'Dear sister, that platform is
isolated, but the staircase to it connects with another block in which a
lady prisoner is confined. Her name is a mystery, but if you question
the red-throat, you can find out who she is. This is what you wished
poor Gottlieb to tell you. He could not.'

"Who is then the friend who knows, sees, and hears all I do and say? I
cannot tell. Is he invisible? All this seems so strange that it really
amuses me. It seems to me, that, as in my childhood, I live amid a fairy
tale, and that my bird will really speak to me. If I must say of my
charming pet, that he needs speech alone, he certainly needs that, and
thus I will never understand his language. He is now used to me; he
comes to and goes from my room as if he felt himself at home. If I move
or walk, he does not fly farther than my arm's-length and then returns
immediately to me. If he loved bread a great deal, he would be fonder of
me, for I cannot deceive myself as to the nature of his attachment.
Hunger, and perhaps a desire to warm at my stove, are his great
attractions. Could I but catch a fly, (for they are rare,) I am sure I
could get hold of him: he already has learned to look closely at the
food I offer him, and were the temptation stronger, he would cast aside
all ceremony. I now remember having heard Albert say, that to tame the
wildest animals, if they had any mind, nothing more than a few hours'
patience is necessary. He had met a Zingara, who pretended to be a
sorceress, and who never remained a whole day in any forest without the
birds lighting on her. She said she had some charm, and pretended, like
Appolonius of Tyana, the history of whom Albert had related to me, to
receive revelations about strange things from them. Albert assured me
that all her secret was the patience with which she had studied their
instincts, and a certain affinity of character which exists between
individuals of our own and other species. At Venice a great many birds
are domesticated, and I can understand the reason, which is, that that
beautiful city being separated from _terra firma_, is not unlike a
prison. In the education of nightingales they excel. Pigeons are
protected by a special law, and are almost venerated by the population:
they live undisturbed in old buildings, and are so tame, that, in the
street, it is necessary to be careful to avoid treading on them. When I
was a girl, I was very intimate with a young person who dealt in them,
and if the wildest bird was given him for a single hour, he tamed it as
completely as if it had been brought up in a cage. I amuse myself by
trying similar experiments on my red-throat, which grows every minute
more used to me. When I am out, he follows me and calls after me; when I
go to the window, he hurries to me. Would he, could he love me! I feel
that I love him; but he does not avoid nor fly from me; that is all. The
child in the cradle doubtless has no other love for its nurse. What
tenderness! Alas! I think we love tenderly only those who can return our
love. Ingratitude and devotion, indifference and passion, are the
universal symbols of the hymen of all; yet I suffered you, Albert, who
loved me so deeply, to die; I am now reduced to love a red-throat, and
complain that I did not deserve my fate. You think, my friends, perhaps,
that I should not dare to jest on such a subject! No; my mind is perhaps
disturbed by solitude; my heart, deprived of affection, wastes itself
away, and this paper is covered with tears.

"I had promised not to squander this precious paper; yet I am covering
it up with puerilities I find great consolation in, and cannot refrain
from doing so. It has rained all day and I have not seen Gottlieb. I
have not been out; I have been occupied wholly with the red-throat, and
this child's play has had the effect of making me very sad. When the
smart shrewd bird sought to leave me and began to peck at the glass, I
yielded to him. I opened the window from a feeling of respect for that
holy liberty which men are not afraid to take from their fellows. I was
wounded at this momentary abandonment, and felt as if he owed me
something for the great care I had taken of him. I really think I am
becoming mad, and that, ere long, I shall fully understand all
Gottlieb's fancies.

"April 9th.--What have I learned?--or rather, what have I fancied that I
learned? for I know nothing now, although my imagination is busy.

"Now I have discovered the author of the mysterious notes. It is the
last person I would ever have imagined; but that is not what surprises
me; it matters not, I will tell you all.

"At dawn I opened my window, which is formed of a large square of glass,
that I might lose nothing of the small portion of daylight, which is
partially excluded by that abominable grating. The very ivy also
threatens to plunge me into darkness, but I dare not pluck one leaf, for
it lives and is free in its natural existence. To distort, to mutilate
it, would require much courage. It feels the influence of April; it
hurries to grow; it extends and fixes its tendrils on every side; its
roots are sealed to the stone, yet it ascends and looks for air and
light. Human thought does the same thing. Now I understand why once
there were holy plants--sacred birds. The red-throat has come and has
lighted on my shoulder without any hesitation. He then immediately began
to look around, to examine everything, to touch everything. Poor thing!
it finds so little here to amuse itself. It is free, however; it may
inhabit the fields, yet it prefers a prison, the old ivy and my cell.
Does it love me? No! It is warm in my room and likes my crumbs. I am now
distressed at having tamed it so thoroughly. What if it should go into
the kitchen and become the prey of that abominable cat; my care for it
would have brought about its terrible death! to be lacerated and
devoured by that fearful beast. But what is the condition of our feeble
sex, the hearts of whom are pure and defenceless? Are we not tortured
and destroyed by pitiless beings, who, as they slowly kill us, make us
feel their claws and cruel teeth?

"The sun rose clear, and my cell was almost rose color, bright as my
room in the _Corte Minelli_, when the sun of Venice ****. We must not
think, however, of that sun. It will never rise for me. May you, my dear
friends, salute smiling Italy for me, the vast skies _é il firmamento
lucido_--which I never will see again.

"I have asked leave to go out; they have permitted me to do so, though
the hour was earlier than usual. I call this going out; a platform
thirty feet long, bordered by a swamp, and shut in by huge walls. Yet
the place is not without beauty; at least I think so now, that I have
seen it under all its aspects. At night it is beautiful, because it is
sad. I am sure there are many persons innocent as I am, here, who are
much worse treated. There are dungeons whence people never come, which
the light of day never penetrates, and on which the moon, the friend of
the wretched, never shines. Ah! I am wrong to complain. My God! had I
portion of the power of earth, how I would love to make people happy!

"Gottlieb came shuffling rapidly towards me, smiling too, as well as his
stony lips permit him. They did not disturb him, but left him alone with
me. A miracle happened. He began at once to talk like a reasonable
being.

"'I did not write to you, last night,' said he, 'and you found no note
on your window. The reason was, I did not see you yesterday, and you
asked for nothing.'

"'What mean you, Gottlieb? Did you write to me?'

"'Who else could! You did not guess it was I? I will not write to you
now, for since you let me talk to you, it is useless. I did not wish to
trouble, but to serve you.'

"'Kind Gottlieb! Then you pity me? You take an interest in me?'

"'Yes; since I found out that you were a spirit of light.'

"'I am nothing more than you are, Gottlieb. You are mistaken!'

"'I am not mistaken; I have heard you sing!'

"'You like music, then?'

"'I like yours. It is pleasant to God and to my heart!'

"'Your heart is pious, your soul is pure, I see!'

"'I strive to make them so! The angels will aid me, and I will overcome
the powers of darkness which weigh on my poor body, but which have no
influence on my soul!'

"Gradually, Gottlieb began to speak with enthusiasm, never ceasing,
however, to be noble and true to poetical symbolism.

"In fine, what shall I say? This idiot, this madman, reached the tone of
true eloquence, when he spoke of God's mercy, of human misery, of the
future justice of Providence, of evangelical virtues, of the duties of a
true believer, of arts, of music, and poetry. As yet, I have not been
able to understand in what religion he vested his ideas and fervent
exultation, for he seems to be neither catholic nor protestant, and
though he told me he believed in the true religion, he told me nothing
except that, unknown to his parents, he belonged to a peculiar sect: I
am too ignorant to know what. I will study by-and-bye the mystery,
singularly strong and beautiful, singularly sad and afflicted soul; for,
in fact, Gottlieb is mad, as in poetry Zdenko was, and as Albert was in
his lofty virtue. The madness of Gottlieb reappeared after he had spoken
for some time with great animation; his enthusiasm became too strong for
him, and then he began to talk in a manner that distressed me, about the
bird, the demon-cat, and his mother, who, he said, had allied herself to
the evil spirit in him. Finally, he said his father had been changed
into stone by a glance of the devil-cat, Belzebub. I was enabled to calm
him by leading his attention away from his moody fancies, and asked him
about the other prisoners. I had now no personal interest in these
details, because the notes, instead of being thrown from the top of the
tower into my window, were pushed up by Gottlieb, from below, by means
of I know not what simple apparatus. Gottlieb obeyed my inquiries with
singular docility, had already ascertained what I wished to know. He
told me that the prisoner in the building back of me, was young and
beautiful, and that he had seen her. I paid no attention to what he
said, until he mentioned her name, which really made me shiver. The
prisoner's name was Amelia.

"Amelia! What an ocean of anxiety; what a world of memories did that
name arouse in me! I have known two Amelias, each of whom hurled my fate
into an abyss of ruin, by their confessions. Was the Princess, or the
young Baroness of Rudolstadt, the prisoner? Certainly neither the one or
the other. Gottlieb, who seems to have no curiosity, and who never takes
a step, nor asks a question, unless urged to do so, could tell me
nothing more. He saw the prisoner as he sees everything, through a
cloud. She must be young and beautiful, for his mother says so; but
Gottlieb told me that he did not know. He only knew from having seen her
at a window, that she is not a _good spirit and angel._ Her family name
is concealed. She is rich and pays the jailer much money; but she is,
like myself, in solitary confinement; she is often sick; she never goes
out. I could discover nothing more. Gottlieb has only to listen to his
parents' chatter to find out all, for they pay no attention to him. He
has promised to listen and find out how long Amelia has been here. Her
other name the Swartzes seem to be ignorant of. Were the abbess here,
would they not know it? Would the king imprison his sister? Princesses
are here treated even worse than others. The young baroness! Why should
she be here? Why has Frederick deprived her of liberty? Well! a perfect
prison curiosity has beset me, and my anxiety, wakened by her name,
results from an idle and diseased imagination. It matters not; I will
have a mountain on my heart until I discover who is my fellow-prisoner,
bearing that name, which has ever been so important to me."

"May 1.--For many days I have been unable to write. In the interval much
has happened that I am anxious to record.

"In the first place, I have been sick. From time to time since I have
been here, I have felt the symptoms of a brain fever, similar to that
severe attack I had at the Giants' Castle, after going into the cavern
in search of Albert. I had painfully disturbed nights, interrupted with
dreams, during which I cannot say whether I sleep or am awake. At those
times I seem to hear the terrible violin playing old Bohemian airs,
chants, and war-songs. This does me much injury; yet when this fancy
begins to take possession of me, I cannot but listen and hearken to the
faint sounds which the breeze bears to me from the distance. Sometimes I
fancy that the violin is played by a person who glides over the surface
of the water, that sleeps around the castle; then, that it comes from
the walls above, or rises from some dungeon. My heart and mind are
crushed, yet when night comes, instead of looking for amusement with my
pen and pencil, I throw myself on my bed, and seek again to resume that
kind of half sleep which brings me my musical dream, or rather reverie,
for there is something real about it. A real violin certainly is played
by some prisoner; but what and how does it play? It is too far distant
for me to hear aught but broken sounds. My diseased imagination invents
the rest, I am sure. Now I can no longer doubt that Albert is dead, and
I must look on it as a misfortune that has befallen me. It is apparently
a part of our nature to hope against hope, and not to submit to the
rigor of fate.

"Three nights ago I was sound asleep, and was awakened by a noise in my
room. I opened my eyes, but the night was so dark that I could
distinguish nothing. I heard distinctly some one walking with stealthy
step by my bed. I thought Vrau Swartz had come to inquire into my
condition, and I spoke to her. I had no answer, however, but a deep
sigh. The person went out on tiptoe, and I distinctly heard the door
closed and bolted. I was overpowered and went to sleep, without paying
any great attention to the circumstance. The next day I had so confused
a recollection of it, that I was not sure whether I had dreamed or not.
Last night I had a more violent fever than hitherto; yet I prefer that
to my uneasy slumbers and disjointed dreams. I slept soundly, and
dreamed, but did not hear the sad violin. As often as I awoke, I became
aware of the difference between sleeping and waking. In these intervals
the breathing of a person not far from me reached my ear. It seemed to
me that I could almost distinguish some one on my chair, and I was not
afraid, for I thought Madame Swartz had come to give me my drink. I did
not awake her; but when I fancied she roused herself, I thanked her for
her kindness and asked the hour. The person then left; and I heard a
stifled sob, so painful and distressing that the sweat even now comes to
my brow whenever I think of it. I do not know why it made this
impression. It seemed to me that I was thought very ill, perhaps dying,
and was pitied. I was not sick enough to feel myself in danger, and I
was not sorry to die with so little pain amid a life in which I had so
little to regret. At seven o'clock, when the old woman came to my room,
I was not asleep, and as I had been for some hours perfectly lucid, I
have a distinct remembrance of this strange visit. I asked her to
explain it. She merely shook her head, however, and said she did not
know what I meant, and that as she kept the keys under her pillow while
she slept, it was certain that I had a dream or was deceived. I had been
so far from delirium that about noon I felt well enough to take air, and
went on the esplanade, accompanied by my bird, which seemed to
congratulate me on my recovery. The weather was pleasant. It had begun
to grow warm, and the wind from the fields was pure and genial. Gottlieb
hurried to me. I found him much changed and much uglier than usual.
There was yet an expression of angelic kindness, and even of pure
intelligence, in the chaos of his face, whenever it was lighted up. His
eyes were so red and bloodshot that I asked if he was sick.

"'Yes,' said he, 'I have wept much.'

"'What distresses you, my poor Gottlieb?'

"'At midnight, my mother came from the cell, and said to my father, "No.
3 is very sick to-night. She has the fever sadly. We must send for the
doctor. I would not like to have her die on our hands." My mother
thought I was asleep, but I determined not to be so, until I found out
what she said. I knew you had the fever, and when I heard it was
dangerous I could not help weeping, until sleep overcame me. I think,
however, I wept in my sleep, for when I awoke this morning, my eyes were
like fire, and my pillow was wet.'"

"I was much moved at the attachment of poor Gottlieb, and I thanked him,
shaking his great black paw, which smells of leather and wax a league
off. The idea then occurred to me, that in his simple zeal the poor lad
might have paid me the visit. I asked him if he had not got up and come
to listen at the door. He assured me that he had not stirred, and I am
fully satisfied that he had not. The place in which he sleeps is so
situated that in my room I can hear his sighs through a fissure in the
wall, perhaps through the hollow in which I keep my journal and money.
Who knows but this opening communicates secretly with that near the
chimney in which Gottlieb keeps his treasures--his books and his tools.
In this particular he and I are alike, for each of us, like rats or
bats, has a nest in the wall in which we bury our riches. I was about to
make some interrogations, when I saw a personage leave Swartz's house
and come toward me. I had not as yet seen him here, and his appearance
filled me with terror, though I was far from being sure that I was not
mistaken about him.

"'Who is that man?' said I to Gottlieb, in a low tone.

"'No great things,' said he. 'He is the new adjutant. Look how Belzebub
bows his back, and rubs against his legs. They know each other well.'

"'What is his name?'

"Gottlieb was about to answer, when the adjutant said, with a mild voice
and good-humored smile, pointing to the kitchen--

"'Young man, your father wants you.'

"This was only a pretext to be alone with me, and Gottlieb left. I was
alone, and found myself face to face with whom--friend Beppo, think you?
With the very recruiter whom we met so unfortunately in the
Boehmer-wald, two years ago. It was Mayer. I could not mistake him, for,
except that he had become fat, he was unchanged. He was the same man,
with his pleasant manners, his simple bearing, his false face, his
perfidious good humor, and his _broum, broum_, as if he was imitating
the trumpet. From the band, he had been promoted to the department of
finding food for powder, and as a recompense for his good service in
that position, had been made a garrison officer, or rather a military
jailer, for which he was as well calculated as he was for his old
position of travelling turnkey, which he had discharged so well.

"'Mademoiselle, (he spoke French), I am your humble servant. You have a
very pleasant place to walk in--air, room, and a fine view, I
congratulate you, for you have an easy time in prison. The weather is
magnificent, and it is a real pleasure to be at Spandau, when the sun is
so bright. _Broum, broum._'

"These insolent jests so disgusted me, that I did not speak. He was not
disconcerted and said--

"'I ask your pardon for speaking to you in a tongue which perhaps you do
not understand. I forgot that you are an Italian--an Italian singer--a
superb voice, they say. I have a passion for music, and therefore wish
to make your time as pleasant as my order will permit. Ah! where the
devil did I have the honor of seeing you? I know your face
perfectly--perfectly.'

"'At the Berlin Theatre, probably, for I sang there during the winter
which has just passed.'

"'No; I was in Silesia. I was sub-adjutant at Glatz. Luckily, that devil
Trenck made his escape while I was away, on duty, near the frontiers of
Saxony. Otherwise I would not have been promoted, or been here, which,
in consequence of its proximity to Berlin, I like very much. The life of
a garrison officer, madame, is very melancholy. You may imagine how
_ennuyé_ one is when in a lonely country, and far from any large town,
especially when one loves music as I do. Where had I the honor to meet
you?'

"'I do not remember, sir, ever to have had that honor.'

"'I must have seen you on some stage in Italy or Vienna. You have
travelled a great deal. How many theatres have you belonged to?'

"As I did not reply, he continued, insolently, 'It matters not; I will
perhaps remember. What did I say? Ah! you, too, suffer from _ennui._'

"'Not so, sir.'

"'But are you not in close confinement? Is not your name Porporina?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'Just so, prisoner No. 3. Well, do you not wish for amusement--for
company?'

"'Not at all, sir,' said I, thinking he intended to offer me his.

"'As you please. It is a pity. There is another prisoner here, extremely
well-bred--a charming woman, who, I am sure, would be delighted to make
your acquaintance.'

"'May I ask her name, sir?'

"'Her name is Amelia.'

"'Amelia what?'

"'Amelia--_broum--broum_; on my word I do not know. You are curious, I
see. Ah! that is a regular prison-fever.'

"I was sorry that I had repelled the advances of Mayer, for after having
despaired of making the acquaintance of this mysterious Amelia, and
having abandoned the idea, I felt myself attracted by a feeling of pity
towards her. I tried then to be more pleasant to this disagreeable man,
and he soon offered to put me in connection with No. 2. Thus he called
Amelia.

"'If this infraction of my arrest will not compromise you, sir, and if I
can be useful to this lady, who, they say, is ill from sadness and
_ennui_----'

"'_Broum--broum._ You take things literally, you do. You are kind. That
old scamp Swartz has made you afraid of his orders. What are they but
chimeras--good for door-keepers and wicket masters. We officers,
though,' (and as he spoke Mayer expanded himself, as if he had not been
long used to such an honorary title,) 'shut our eyes to such honorable
infractions of discipline. The king himself, were he in our place, would
do so. Now, signorina, when you wish to obtain any favor, go to no one
but myself, and I promise that you shall not be contradicted uselessly.
I am naturally humane and indulgent; God made me so; besides, I love
music. If once in a while you will be kind enough to sing for me, I will
hear you here, and you can do any thing you please with me.'

"'I will never abuse your kindness, Herr Mayer.'

"'Mayer!' said the adjutant, interrupting at once the _broum, broum_
which was on his lips. 'Why do you call me Mayer? Where the devil did
you pick up that name?'

"'I forgot, and beg your pardon, adjutant. I had a singing-master of
that name, and have been thinking of him all day.'

"'A singing-master? That was not me. There are many Mayers in Germany. I
am called Nauteuil, and am of French extraction.'

"'Well, sir, how shall I announce myself to that lady? She does not know
me, and will refuse my visit, as just now I refused her acquaintance.
People become so ill-tempered when they live alone.'

"'Ah, whoever she may be, the lady will be delighted to talk with you, I
am sure. Will you write her anything?'

"'I have nothing to write with.'

"'Ah, that is impossible. Have you no money?'

"'If I had, old Swartz is incorruptible. Besides, I do not know how to
bribe him.'

"'Well, I will take you this very evening to see No. 2--that is, when
you have sung something for me.'

"I was terrified at the idea of Mayer--or Nauteuil, as he now pleases to
call himself--introducing himself into my room, and I was about to
reply, when he made me understand his intentions more perfectly. He had
either not intended to visit me, or he read in my countenance an utter
distate to his company. 'I will listen to you,' said he, 'on the
platform which overlooks the tower in which you live. Sound ascends, and
I will hear you there well enough. Then I will have the doors opened,
and a woman shall escort you, I will not see you. In fact, it would not
do for me to seem to tempt you to an act of disobedience, though, after
all, in such a matter--_broum, broum_--there is a very easy way to get
out of any difficulty. It is only necessary to shoot prisoner No. 3 with
a pistol, and say that she was surprised, _flagrante delicto_,
attempting to escape. Ah! the idea is strange, is it not? In prison
strange ideas come into one's head. Adieu, signorina Porporina, till
this evening.'

"I was lost in mazes of reflection on the conduct of this wretch, and,
in spite of myself, became terribly afraid of him. I could not think so
base and contemptible a soul loved music so much as to do what he did
for the mere pleasure of hearing me. I supposed that the prisoner was
the Abbess of Quedlimburgh, and that, in obedience to the king's order,
an interview between her and myself was brought about, that we might be
watched, and some state secret, she was supposed to have confided to me,
be discovered. Under this impression I was as much afraid of the
interview as I had previously desired it, for I am absolutely ignorant
how much of this conspiracy, of which I am charged with being an
accomplice, is true or false.

"Thinking that it was my duty to brave all things to extend some
assistance to a companion in misfortune, whoever she might be, I began
to sing at the appointed time, to gratify the ears of the post-adjutant.
I sang badly enough, the audience inspiring me with no admiration.
Besides, I felt he listened to me merely for form's sake, and that
perhaps he did not hear me at all. When the clock struck eleven, I was
seized with the most puerile terror. I fancied that the adjutant had
received orders to get rid of me, and that he was about to kill me, as
he said, just as if he looked on the manner as a jest, when I stopped
outside of my cell. When the door opened, I trembled in every limb. An
old woman, very dirty and ugly, (far more so than Vrau Swartz,) bade me
follow, and preceded me up a narrow and steep staircase, built in the
hollow of the wall. When we reached the top, I found myself on the
platform, twenty feet above where I walk by day, and eighty or a hundred
above the fosse which surrounds all that portion of the esplanade. The
terrible old woman bade me wait there for a time, and went I know not
whither. My uneasiness was removed, and I was so glad to find myself in
the pure air, and so far up as to be able to see the country around,
that I was not uneasy at the solitude in which I was left. The silent
waters around the citadel, and on which its dark shadows fall, the trees
and fields, which I saw far in the distance, the immense sky, and even
the bats, whirling in space, all seemed, oh, God! grand and majestic,
for I had passed two months in prison, counting the few stars which
crossed the window of my cell. I could not enjoy this long. A noise
forced me to look around, and all my terrors revived when I beheld Mayer
near me.

"'Signora,' said he, 'I am sorry to tell you that you cannot see No. 2,
at least at present. She seems to be a very capricious person. Yesterday
she exhibited the greatest desire to have company, and just now she made
me this answer:--"Is prisoner No. 3 the person who sings in the tower,
and whom I hear every evening? Ah, I know her voice, and it is needless
for you to tell me her name. I had rather never see a living soul again,
than that unfortunate creature. She is the cause of all my troubles, and
I pray to God the expiation required from her may be as strictly exacted
as I am made to atone for the imprudent friendship I have felt for her."
This, signora, is the lady's opinion about you. It is only necessary to
know whether it is merited or not, and that concerns only your own
conscience. I have nothing to say about it, and am ready to take you
back to your cell when you think proper.'

"'Do so at once, sir,' said I, deeply mortified at being accused of
treachery before so miserable a wretch, and feeling the deepest
indignation against the one of the Amelias who had testified so much
ingratitude and bitterness.

"'I am not anxious that you should go,' said the new adjutant. 'You seem
to like to look at the moon. Do so as long as you please. It costs
nothing, and does no one any harm.'

"I was imprudent enough to take a little advantage of his kindness. I
could not make up my mind to leave the beautiful spectacle of which I
was, perhaps, to be deprived so soon, at once. Besides, I could not
resist the idea that Mayer was a bad servant, but too much honored by
being permitted to wait on me. He took advantage of my position, and
became bold enough to seek to talk to me. 'Do you know, signorina,' said
he, 'that you sing devilish well? I heard nothing better in Italy. Yet I
have been to the greatest theatre, and passed the principal artists in
review. Where did you make your first appearance? You have travelled
much?' As I pretended not to understand his questions, he added, boldly,
'Sometimes you travelled on foot, in male attire?'

"This question made me tremble, and I hastened to reply in the negative.
He said, 'Ah! you will not own it, but I never forget; and I recall to
my memory a strange adventure which you have not forgotten.'

"'I do not know what you wish to say,' said I moving from the wall, and
commencing to retreat to my cell.

"'A moment--a moment!' said Mayer.--'Your key is in my pocket, and you
cannot go back without me. Let me say a word or two to you.'

"'Not a word, sir: I wish to return to my room, and am sorry that I left
it.'

"'_Pardieu!_ you are behaving strangely: you act as if I was ignorant of
your adventures. Did you think I was simple enough not to know when I
found you in the Boehmer-wald, with a little dark-haired lad, not badly
made? Pshaw! I took the lad for the army of the King of Prussia. The
girl was not for him; though they say you pleased him, and were sent
here because you boasted of it. Well, fortune is capricious, and it is
useless to contend with her. You have fallen from a high position, but I
beg you not to be proud, and to be satisfied with what chances. I am
only a garrison officer, but have more power here than a king, whom no
one knows and no one fears, because he is too far away to be obeyed. You
see that I have power enough to pass anywhere and to soften your
captivity. Do not be ungrateful, and you will see the protection of an
adjutant at Spandau is as useful as that of a king at Berlin. Do you
understand? Do not fly me--do not make an outcry--for that would be
absurd--indeed, it would be pure folly for I might say anything I
pleased, and no one would believe you. I do not wish to scare you, for
my disposition is good. Think of this till I see you again: and
remember, I can immure you in a dungeon, or grant you amusements--starve
you to death, or give you means of escape, without being suspected.' As
I did not reply, and was completely terror-stricken at the idea of being
unable to avoid such outrages, and such cruel humiliation as he dared to
subject me to, this odious man added, without doubt fancying that I
hesitated, 'Why not decide at once? Are twenty-four hours necessary to
decide on the only step which it is proper for you to take, and to
return the love of a brave man, yet young, and rich enough to provide in
some other country a more pleasant abode than this prison?'

"As he spoke thus, the ignoble recruiter approached me, and acted as if
he would oppose my passage. He attempted to lay hold of my hands. I ran
to the parapet of the tower, being determined to spring over, rather
than suffer myself to be soiled by his caresses. At this moment,
however, a strange circumstance attracted my attention, and I pointed it
out to the adjutant as a means of enabling myself to escape. It secured
my safety; but, alas! came near costing the life of a person, perhaps
more valuable than mine.

"On the opposite rampart, on the other side of the ditch, a figure which
seemed gigantic, ran or rather leaped down the esplanade, with a
rapidity and adroitness which seemed prodigious. Having reached the
extremity of the rampart, the ends of which are flanked by towers, the
phantom ascended the roof of one of them, which was on a level with the
balustrade, and mounting the steep cone with cat-like activity, seemed
to lose itself in the air.

"'What the devil is that?' said the adjutant, forgetting the gallant in
the jailer. 'May the devil take me, if a prisoner is not escaping.' The
sentinel, too, is asleep. 'Sentinel,' cried he, with the voice of a
Stentor, 'look out!' Running towards a turret, in which is hung an alarm
bell, he rang it with the power of a professor of the devil's music. I
never heard anything more melancholy than this infernal tocsin, the
sharp clangor of which disturbed the deep silence of night. It was the
savage cry of violence and brutality, disturbing the aspirations of the
harmony of the water and the breeze. In an instant, all was in motion in
the prison. I heard the clangor of the guns in the sentinels' arms, as
they cocked and fired at any object of which they caught a glimpse. The
esplanade was lighted with a red blaze, which paled the azure
reflections of the moon. Swartz had lighted up a bonfire. Signals were
made from one rampart to another, and the echoes repeated them in a
plaintive and decreasing tone. The alarm gun soon mingled its terrible
and solemn note in this diabolical symphony. Heavy steps sounded on the
pavements. I saw nothing, but heard all these noises, and my heart was
filled with terror. Mayer had left me hastily, but I did not even
rejoice at being delivered from him. I reproached myself bitterly with
having pointed out to him, I knew not why, some unfortunate prisoner who
was seeking to escape. Frozen with terror, I waited the conclusion of
the affair, shuddering at every shot that was fired, and waiting to hear
the cries of the fugitive announce some new disaster to me.

"All this did not last an hour; and, thank heaven, the fugitive was
neither seen nor hit. To be sure of it, I rejoined the Swartzes on the
esplanade. They were so excited that they expressed no surprise at
seeing me outside my cell at midnight. It may be they had an
understanding with Mayer that I was to be at liberty on that night.
Swartz, having run about like a madman, and satisfied himself that none
of his ward had escaped, began to grow tranquil. His wife and he,
however, were struck with consternation, as if the escape of a prisoner
seemed a public and private calamity, and an outrageous violation of
justice. The other keepers, the soldiers who came and went, exchanged
words with them expressive of the same despair and terror. To them the
blackest of all crimes seems an attempt to escape. God of mercy! how
terrible did these mercenaries, devoted to the barbarous business of
depriving their fellows of precious liberty, seem to me. Suddenly,
however, it seemed that supreme equity had resolved to inflict a severe
punishment on my keepers. Vrau Swartz had gone into the lodge for a few
moments, and came out soon after, shouting:

"'Gottlieb! Gottlieb!--pause--do not fire--do not kill my son! It is
he--it is he, certainly!'

"In spite of the agitation of the old couple, I learned that Gottlieb
was neither in his bed, nor in any part of the house, and that in his
sleep he had, perhaps, resumed his old habit of walking over the roofs
of the houses. Gottlieb was a somnambulist.

"As soon as this report was circulated through the citadel, the
excitement passed away. Every keeper had time to make his rounds, and
ascertain that no prisoner had disappeared, and each returned in good
spirits to his post. The officers weire enchanted at the _dénoûement_;
the soldiers laughed at the alarm; and Madame Swartz was beside herself,
and her husband ran everywhere, exploring the fosse, fearing that the
fusilade and cannon shots had awakened Gottlieb amid his dangerous walk.
I went with him. It would, perhaps, have been a good time to attempt to
escape myself; for it seemed to me that the doors were open, and the
soldiers' attention averted. I put this idea aside, however, being
occupied only with the hope of finding the poor invalid who had
exhibited so much affection for me.

"Swartz, who never loses his presence of mind, seeing the day was
breaking begged me to go to my room, since it was contrary to his orders
to leave me at liberty at improper hours. He went with me to close the
door, but the first thing he saw was Gottlieb, peaceably asleep in my
chair. He had luckily been able to take refuge there before the alarm
had been communicated to the whole garrison, or his sleep had been so
profound and his foot so agile that he had escaped all dangers. I
advised his father not to awaken him suddenly, and promised to watch
over him until Vrau Swartz was informed of the happy news.

"When I was alone with Gottlieb, I placed my hand gently on his
shoulder, and, speaking in a low voice, sought to awaken him. I had
heard that somnambulists could place themselves in communication with
persons whom they liked, and answer them distinctly. My attempt was
wonderfully successful; 'Gottlieb,' said I, 'where have you been
to-night?'

"'To-night--is it night? I thought I saw the morning sun shining on the
roofs.'

"'You have then been there?'

"'Certainly: that blessed angel, the red-throat, came to the window and
called me. I followed him, and we have been high up, very high up, near
the stars, and almost to the angels' home. As we went up, we met
Belzebub, who sought to catch us. He cannot fly, however, because God
has sentenced him to a long penitence, and he sees the birds and angels
fly without being able to reach them.'

"'Yet, after having been among the clouds, you came back?'

"'The red-throat said, "Go see your sick sister," and I came back to
your cell with him.'"

"'Then, you can come into my cell?'

"'Certainly: I have, since you have been sick, frequently come to watch
you. The red-throat steals the keys from my mother's bed, and Belzebub
cannot help it; for when an angel, by hovering over him, has charmed
him, he cannot wake.'

"'Who taught you so much about angels and devils?'

"'My master,' said the somnambulist, with a childish look, full of the
most innocent enthusiasm.

"'Who is your master?' said I.

"'God first--and then--the sublime shoemaker.'

"'What is the name of the sublime shoemaker?'

"'Ah! it is a great name. I cannot tell you, for my mother, you see,
does not know him. She does not know that I have two books in the hole
by the chimney. One I do not read, and the other I have devoured for
four years. This is my heavenly food, my spiritual life, the book of
truth, the safety and light of the soul.'

"'Who wrote this book?'

"'He did. The shoemaker of Corlitz, Jacob Boehm.'

"We were here interrupted by the arrival of Vrau Swartz, whom I could
scarcely keep from throwing herself on her son and kissing him. This
woman adores her first-born, and therefore may her sins be remitted. She
spoke, but Gottlieb did not hear her; and I alone was able to persuade
him to go to bed, where, I was told, he slept quietly. He knew nothing
of what had happened, although his strange disease and the alarm are yet
talked of at Spandau.

"I was then in my cell, after having enjoyed a few hours of painful and
agitated half liberty. On such terms I do not wish to go out again. Yet
I might, perchance, have escaped. I will think of nothing else, now that
I am in the power of a wretch who menaces me with dangers worse than
death and worse than eternal torment. I will now think seriously of it,
and who knows but that I may succeed? Oh! God, protect me!"

"May 5.--Since the occurrence of the events I have described, I have
lived calmly, and have learned to think my days of repose days of
happiness, and to thank God for them, as in prosperity we thank him for
years which roll by without disaster. It is indisputable that, to leave
the apathy of ordinary life aside, it is necessary to have known
misfortune. I reproach myself with having suffered so many of my
childhood's days to pass by unmarked, without returning thanks to the
Providence which bestowed them on me. I did not say then that I was
undeserving, and therefore it is beyond a doubt, that I merit the evils
which oppress me.

"I have not seen the odious recruiting officer since. He is now more
feared by me than he was on the banks of the Moldau, when I took him for
a child-devouring ogre. Now I look on him as a yet more odious and
abominable persecutor: when I think of the revolting pretence of the
wretch, of the power he exerts around me, of the ease with which he can
come at night to my cell, without those servile Swartzes having even a
wish to protect me from him, I feel ready to die in despair. I look at
the pitiless bars which prevent me from throwing myself from the window.
I cannot procure poison, and have no weapon to open his heart. Yet I
have something to fill me with hope and confidence, and will not suffer
myself to be intimidated. In the first place, Swartz does not love the
adjutant, who would have a monopoly of air, sunlight, bread, and other
items of prison food. Besides, the Swartzes, especially the woman, begin
to conceive a liking for me on account of poor Gottlieb, and the
healthful influence which they say I exert on his mind. Were I menaced,
they would not perhaps come to my aid; but were this seriously the case,
they would perhaps enable me to appeal to the commandant. He, the only
time I saw him, appeared mild and humane. Gottlieb besides, would be
glad to do me a favor, and without making any explanation I have already
concerted matters with him. He is ready to take a letter which I have
prepared. I hesitate, however, to ask for aid before I am really in
danger; for if my enemy cease to torment me, he might treat as a jest a
declaration I was prudish enough to treat as serious. Let that be as it
may, I sleep with but one eye, and am training my physical powers for a
fearful contest if it should be necessary. I move my furniture, I pull
against the iron bars of the window, and harden my hands by knocking
against the walls. Anyone who saw me thus engaged, would think me mad or
desperate. I practise, however, with the greatest _sang froid_, and have
learned that my physical power is far greater than I had supposed. In
the security of ordinary life, we do not inquire into, but disregard,
our means of defence. As I feel strong, I become brave, and my
confidence in God increases with my efforts to protect myself. I often
remember the beautiful verses Porpora told me he read on the walls of a
dungeon of the inquisition at Venice."


'Di che mi fido, mi guarda Iddio!
Di che non mi fido mi guardero Io.'


"More fortunate than the wretch who traced the words of that sad prayer,
I can at least confide in the chastity and devotion of poor Gottlieb.
His attacks of somnambulism have not reappeared; his mother, too watches
him carefully. During the day, he talks to me in my room, for since I
saw Mayer I have not seen the esplanade.

"Gottlieb has explained his religious ideas to me. They are beautiful,
though often whimsical, and I wish to read Boehm's book--for he is a
disciple of his, certainly--to know what he has added from his own mind
to the theological cordwainer. He lent me this precious book, and at my
own peril and risk I became immersed in it. I can not understand how
this book disturbed the balance of the simple mind which looked at the
symbols of a mystic--himself sometimes mad--as literal. I do not flatter
myself that I can thoroughly understand and explain them; but I think I
catch a glimpse of lofty religious divination, and the inspiration of
generous poetry. What struck me most is his theory about the devil: 'In
the battle with Lucifer, God did not destroy him. See you not the
reason, blind man? God fought against God, one portion of divinity
striving against the other. I remember that Albert explained, almost in
the same way, the earthly and transitory reign of the spirit of evil,
and that the chaplain of Riesenberg listened to him with horror, and
treated his idea as pure _manicheism._ Albert said that Christianity was
a purer and more complete manicheism than his faith; that it was more
superstitious, as it recognised the perpetuity of the principle of evil,
while his system recognised the restoration of the spirit of evil, that
is to say its conversion and reconciliation. In Albert's opinion, evil
was but error, and the divine light some day would dissipate it. I own,
my friends, even though I seem heretical, that the idea of its being
Satan's doom everlastingly to excite evil, to love it, and to close his
eyes to the truth, seems, and always has seemed impious to me."

"Boehm seems to me to look for a millenium--that is to say, he is a
believer in the resurrection of the just, and thinks they will sojourn
with him in a new world, formed from the dissolution of this, during a
thousand years of cloudless happiness and wisdom. Then there will be the
complete union of souls with God, and the recompense of eternity, far
more complete than those of the millenium. I often remember having heard
Count Albert explain this symbol, as he told the stormy history of old
Bohemia, and of his beloved Taborites, who were embued with faith
renewed from the early days of Christianity. Albert had a less material
faith in all this, and did not pronounce on the duration of the
resurrection, or the precise age of the future world. He had, however, a
presentiment and a prophetic view of the speedy dissolution of human
society, which was to give place to an era of sublime renovation. Albert
did not doubt that his soul, on leaving the temporary prison of death,
would begin here below a series of existences, and would contemplate
this providential reward, and see those days which are at once so
terrible and so magnificent, and which have been promised to the human
race. This noble faith seemed monstrous to all orthodox persons at
Riesenberg, and took possession of me after having at first seemed
strange. Yet it is a faith of all nations and all days. In spite of the
efforts of the Roman Church to stifle it--or rather, in spite of its
being unable to purify itself of the material and superstitious, I see
it has filled many really pious souls with enthusiasm. They tell me it
was the faith of great saints. I yield myself to it therefore without
restraint and without fear, being sure any idea adopted by Albert must
be a grand one. It also smiles on me, and sheds celestial poetry on the
idea of death and the sufferings which beyond doubt are coming to a
close. Jacob Boehm pleases me. His disciple who sits in the dirty
kitchen, busy with sublime reveries and heavenly visions, while his
parents become petrified, trade, and grow brutal, seems in character
pure and touching to me, with this book which he knows by heart, but
does not understand, although he has commenced to model his life after
his master's. Infirm in body and mind--ingenuous, candid, and with
angelic morals, poor Gottlieb, destined beyond doubt to be crushed by
falling from some rampart, in your imaginary flight across the skies, or
to sink under premature disease--you will have passed from earth like an
unknown saint, like an exiled angel, ignorant of evil, without having
known happiness, without even having felt the sun that warms the earth,
so wrapped were you in the contemplation of the mystic sun which burns
in your mind. I, who alone have discovered the secret of your
meditations--I, who also comprehend the ideal beautiful, and had power
to search for and realize it, will die in the flower of my youth,
without having acted or lived. In the nucleus of these walls which shut
in and devour us, are poor little plants which the wind crushes and the
sun never shines on. They dry up without flourishing or fructifying; yet
they seem to revive. But they are the seeds which the wind brings to the
same places, and which seek to live on the wreck of the old. Thus
captives vegetate!--thus prisons are peopled!

"Is it not strange that I am here, with an ecstatic being of an order
inferior to Albert, but, like him, attached to a secret religion, to a
faith which is ridiculed, contemned, and despised! Gottlieb tells me
there are many other Boehmists in this country, that many cordwainers
openly confess his faith, and that the foundation of his doctrine is
implanted for all time in the popular mind, by many unknown philosophers
who of old excited Bohemia, and who now nurse a secret fire throughout
Germany. I remember the ardent Hussite cordwainers, whose bold
declarations and daring deeds in John Ziska's time, Albert mentioned to
me. The very name of Jacob Boehm attests this glorious origin. I cannot
tell what passes in the contemplative brain of patient Germany, my
brilliant and dissipated life making such an examination impossible.
Were Gottlieb and Zdenko, however, the last disciples of the mysterious
religion which Albert preserved as a precious talisman, I am still sure
that faith is mine, inasmuch as it proclaims the future equality of all
men and the coming manifestation of the justice and goodness of God on
earth! Ah, yes! I must believe in this kingdom, which God declared to
man through Christ! I must hope for the overturning of these iniquitous
monarchies, of those impure societies, that when I see myself here, I
may not lose faith in Providence!"

* * * * * * * *

"I have no news of No. 2. If Mayer has not told me an infamous
falsehood, Amelia of Prussia is the person who accuses me of treachery.
May God forgive her for doubting one who has not doubted her, in spite
of her accusations on my account. I will not attempt to see her. By
seeking to defend myself, I might yet more involve her, as I have, I
know not how, already."

* * * * * * * *

"My red-throat is still my faithful companion. Seeing Gottlieb without
his cat in my cell, it became familiar with him, and the poor lad became
mad with joy and pride. He calls it 'lord,' and will not _tutoy_ it.
With the most profound respect, and with the most religious trembling,
he offers it food. In vain do I attempt to persuade him it is but a
common bird, for I cannot remove the idea that some heavenly being has
adopted this form. I try to amuse him by giving him some idea of music,
and indeed I am sure he has a highly musical mind. His parents are
delighted with my care, and have offered to put a spinet in one of their
rooms, where I can teach him and study myself. This proposition, which
would have delighted me a short time since, I cannot accept. I do not
even dare to sing in my room, for fear of attracting the brutal
adjutant, ex-trumpeter, whom may God assail!

"May 10.--For a long time I had asked myself what had become of my
unknown friends, those wonderful protectors of whom the Count of Saint
Germain spoke, and who apparently have interfered only to hasten evils
with which the royal benevolence menaced me. If I mistake not the
punishment of conspirators, they have all been dispersed and oppressed;
or they have abandoned me, thought I, when I refused to escape from the
clutches of Buddenbrock, on the day I was taken from Spandau to Berlin.
Well, they are come again, and have made Gottlieb their messenger. Rash
men! may they not heap on that innocent lad the same evils to which they
have subjected me!

"This morning Gottlieb gave me furtively the following note:--

"'We seek to release you. The time draws near. A new danger, however,
menaces you, which will delay our enterprise. Place no confidence in any
one who seeks to induce you to fly, before we give you certain
information and precise details. A snare is laid for you. Be on your
guard, and be determined.

"'Your brothers,

"'THE INVISIBLES.'

"This note fell at Gottlieb's feet, as he was passing through one of the
prison courts. He firmly believes that it fell from heaven, and that the
red-throat has something to do with it. As I made him talk without
opposing his ideas too much, I learned strange things, which perhaps
have a foundation of truth. I asked him if he knew who the 'Invisibles'
were.

"'No one knows, although all pretend to.'

"'How! have you heard of them?'

"'When I was apprenticed to the master cordwainer, I heard much of them
in the city.'

"'They talk of them? Do the people know about them?'

"'I heard of them then, and of all the things I heard, few are worthy of
being remembered:--A poor workman in our shop hurt his hand so severely
that they were about to cut it off. He was the only support of a large
family that he loved, and for whom he worked. He came one day with his
hand bound up, and looked sadly at us as we worked saying, "You are
fortunate in having your hands free. I think I will soon have to go to
the hospital, and my old mother must beg to keep my little brothers and
sisters from starving." A collection was proposed, but we were all poor,
and I, though my parents were rich, had so little money that we could
not help our fellow-workman. All having emptied their pockets, attempted
to suggest something to get Franz out of his difficulties. None would do
anything; he had knocked at many doors and had been driven away. The
king, they say, is very rich, his father having left him much money; but
he uses it in enlisting his soldiers. It was war time, too, and our king
was away. All were afraid of want, and the poor suffered terribly, so
that Franz could not find sufficient aid from kind hearts. The lad never
received a shilling. Just then, a young man in the shop said, "I know
what I should do, if I were in your place. But perhaps you are afraid? I
am afraid of nothing," said Franz. "What must I do? Ask aid from the
Invisibles." Franz appeared to understand the matter, for he shook his
head with an air of dislike, and said nothing. Some young men asked what
they meant; and the response on all sides was, "You do not know the
Invisibles? any one may know that, you children! The Invisibles are
people who are never seen, but who act. They do all things, both good
and bad. No one knows where they live, yet they are everywhere. It is
said they are found in the four quarters of the globe. They murder many
travellers, yet assist others in their contests with brigands, according
as the travellers seem to them to deserve punishment or protection. They
are the instigators of all revolutions, go to all courts, direct all
affairs, decide on war and peace, liberate prisoners, assist the
unfortunate, punish criminals, make kings to tremble on their thrones!
They are the cause of all that is good and bad on earth. Sometimes it is
said they err, but their intention is good; and, besides, who can say
that a great misfortune to-day may not be a great happiness to-morrow?'"

"'We heard all this with great astonishment and admiration,' said
Gottlieb, and I heard enough to be able to tell you all laboring men,
and the poor and ignorant, think of the Invisibles. Some said they were
wicked people, devoted to the devil, who endows them with his power, who
gives them the gift of secret science, the power to tempt men by the
attraction of riches and honor, the faculty of knowing the future, of
making gold, of resuscitating the dead, of curing the sick, of making
the old young, of keeping the living from death, for they have
discovered the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. Others say
they are religious and beneficent men, who have united their fortunes to
assist those in need, and who hold communion to redress crime and reward
virtue. In our shop every one made his remark. "It is the old order of
the Templars," said one. "They are now called Free-Masons" said another.
"No," said a third, "they are Herrnhuters of Zinzindorf, or Moravians,
the old brothers of the Union, the ancient orphans of Mount Tabor: old
Bohemia is always erect, and secretly menaces the other powers of
Europe. It wishes to make the world republican.'"

"'Others said they were only a handful of sorcerers, pupils and
followers of Paracelsus, Boehm, Swedenborg, and now of Schœffer _the
lemonade-man_, (that is a good guess,) who, by miracles and infernal
machinations, wish to govern the world and destroy empires. The majority
came to the conclusion that it was the old tribunal of the Free-Judges,
which never was dissolved in Germany, and which, after having acted in
the dark for many centuries, began to revive and make its iron arm, its
sword of fire, and its golden balance to be felt.

"'Franz was unwilling to address them, for it is said those who accept
their benefits are bound through life to them, to the peril of their
soul and the danger of their kindred. Necessity, however, triumphed over
fear. One of our comrades, the one who had given him the advice, and who
was suspected of being affiliated with the Invisibles, though he denied
it, told him in secret how to make the signal of distress. What this was
we never knew. Some said that it was a cabalistic mark written over his
door in blood: others that he went at midnight to a mound between two
roads, and that a black cavalier came to him as he stood at the foot of
a cross. Some say that he merely wrote a letter which he placed in the
hollow of an old weeping willow at the gate of the cemetery. It is
certain that he received aid; that his family waited until he was well
and did not beg; that he was treated by a skillful surgeon, who cured
him. Of the Invisibles he said nothing, except that he would bless them
as long as he lived.'

"'But what do you, Gottlieb, who know more than the men in your shop,
think of the Invisibles? are they sectarians, charlatans, or impostors?'

"Here Gottlieb, who had spoken very reasonably, fell into his habitual
wanderings, and I could gather nothing but that they were beings really
invisible, impalpable, and, like God and his angels, unappreciable to
our senses, except when, to communicate with men, they assumed finite
forms."

"'It is evident to me,' said he, 'that the end of the world draws near.
Manifest signs declare it. The Antichrist is born, and they say he is
now in Prussia: his name is Voltaire. I do not know this Voltaire, and
the Antichrist may be some one else, for he is to bear a name commencing
with a W., and not a V. This name, too, will be German. While waiting
for the miracles which are about to be accomplished, God, who apparently
mingles in nothing, who is _eternal silence_, creates among us beings of
a nature superior to our own, both for good and evil--angels and
demons--hidden powers. The latter are to test the just, the former to
ensure their triumph. The contest between the great powers has already
begun. The king of evil, the father of ignorance and crime, defends
himself in vain. The archangels have bent the bow of science and of
truth, and their arrows have pierced the corslet of Satan. Satan roars
and struggles, but soon will abandon falsehood, lose his venom, and,
instead of the impure blood of reptiles, will feel the dew of pardon
circulate through his veins. This is the clear and certain explanation
of all that is incomprehensible and terrible in the world. Good and evil
contend in higher regions which are unattainable to men. Victory and
defeat soar above us, without its being possible for us to fix them.
Frederick of Prussia attributed to the power of his arms success which
fate alone granted him, as it exalted or depressed according to its
hidden purpose. Yes; I say it is clear that men are ignorant of what
occurs on earth. They see impiety arm itself against fate, and _vice
versa._ They suffer oppression, misery, and all the scourges of discord,
without their prayers being heard, without the intervention of the
miracles of any religion. They now understand nothing, they complain
they know not why. They walk blindfolded on the brink of a precipice. To
this the Invisibles impel them, though none know if their mission be of
God or the Devil, as at the commencement of Christianity, Simon, the
magician, seemed to many a being divine and powerful as Christ. I tell
you all prodigies are of God, for Satan can achieve none without
permission being granted him, and that among those called Invisibles,
some act by direct light from the Holy Spirit, while to others the light
comes through a cloud, and they do good, fatally thinking that they do
evil.'

"'This is a very abstract explanation, dear Gottlieb. Is it Jacob
Boehm's or your own?"

"'His, if it be your pleasure to understand him so--mine, if his
inspiration did not suggest it to me.'

"'Well, Gottlieb, I am no wiser after all than I was, for I do not know
if the Invisibles be good or bad angels to me.

"May 12.--Miracles really begin, and my fate seems to be in the hands of
the Invisibles. I will, like Gottlieb, ask if they be of God or of
Satan? To-day Gottlieb was called by the sentinel on duty over the
esplanade, and his post is on the little bastion at its end. This
sentinel, Gottlieb says, is an invisible spirit. The proof is, that
Gottlieb knows all the soldiers, and talks readily with them, when they
amuse themselves by ordering a pair of shoes, and then he appeared to
him of superhuman stature and undefinable expression.-- 'Gottlieb,' said
he, speaking in a low tone, 'Porporina must be delivered in the course
of three nights. This may be, if you can take the keys of her cell from
under your mother's pillow, and bring them hither to the extremity of
the esplanade. I will take charge of the rest. Tell her to be ready, and
remember, if you be deficient in prudence and zeal, you and I are both
lost.'

"This is the state of things. The news has made me ill with emotion. I
had a fever all night, and again heard the fantastic violin. To escape
from this prison, to escape from the terrors with which Mayer inspires
me--Ah! to do that, I am ready to risk my life. What, though, will
result to Gottlieb and the sentinel from my flight? The latter, though
he devotes himself so generously, I do not know. His unknown
accomplices, too, are about to assume a new burden in me. I tremble, I
hesitate, I am entirely undecided. I write to you without thinking to
prepare for my flight. No, I will not escape--at least until I am
certain of the fate of my friends and protectors. Gottlieb is resolved
on all. When I ask him if he is not afraid, he tells me that he would
suffer martyrdom gladly for me. When I add that perhaps he will regret
seeing me no more, he says that is his affair, and that I do not know
what he means to do. All this, too, seems to him an order of heaven, and
he obeys the unknown power which impels him, without reflection. I read
the notes of the Invisibles with care, and I am afraid the information
of the sentinel is the snare of which I should be afraid. I have yet
forty-eight hours before me. If Mayer comes again, I will risk all. If
he continues to forget me, and I have no better assurance than the
warning of this stranger, I will remain.

"May 13.--I trust myself to fate, to Providence, which has sent me
unhoped-for aid. I go, and rely on the powerful arm which covers me with
its ægis. As I walked this morning on the esplanade, hoping to receive
some new explanation from the spirits that hover around me, I looked at
the bastion, where the sentinel is. I saw two, one on guard, with his
arms shouldered, and another going and coming, as if he looked for
something. The height of the latter attracted my attention, for it
seemed to me that he was not a stranger to me. I could only look
stealthily at him, for at every turn of the walk I had to turn my back.
Finally, as I was walking towards him, he approached me, and though the
glacis was higher than where I stood, I knew him at once. I had nearly
cried aloud. It was Karl, the Bohemian, the deserter, who was saved from
Mayer, in the Boehmer-wald, whom I afterwards saw at Roswald, in
Moravia, at Count Hoditz's, and who sacrificed to me a terrible revenge.
He is devoted to me, body and soul, and his stern face, broad nose, red
brow, with eyes of tin, to-day seemed as beautiful to me as the angel
Gabriel.

"'That is he,' said Gottlieb, in a low tone; 'he is an emissary of the
Invisibles. He is your liberator, and will take you hence to-morrow
night.' My heart beat so violently that I could scarcely contain myself;
tears of joy escaped from my eyes. To conceal my emotion from the other
sentinel I approached the parapet which was farthest from the bastion,
and pretended to look at the grass in the fosse. I saw Karl and Gottlieb
exchange words, which I conld not entirely interpret. After a short time
Gottlieb came to me, and said, placidly: '_He_ will soon come down. _He_
will come to our house and drink a bottle of wine. Pretend not to see
him. My father is gone out. While my mother goes to the canteen for
wine, you will come to the kitchen, as if you were about to go back, and
then you can speak to him for a moment.'

"When Karl had spoken for a short time to Madame Swartz, who does not
disdain the entertainment of the veterans of the citadel _at their own
expense_, I saw Gottlieb on the threshold. I went in, and was alone with
Karl. Gottlieb had gone with his mother to the canteen. Poor child! it
seems that friendship has at once revealed to him the cunning and
pretence required in real life. He does intentionally a thousand awkward
things--lets the bottle fall, makes his mother angry, and delays her
long enough for me to have some conversation with my saviour.

"'Signora,' said Karl, 'here I am, and here, too, are you. I was taken
by the recruiters. Such was my fate. The king, however, recognised and
pardoned me, perhaps for your sake. He also permitted me to go away, and
promised me money, which, by-the-bye, he did not give me. I went to a
famous sorcerer, to find out how I could best serve you. The sorcerer
sent me to Prince Henry, and Prince Henry sent me to Spandau. Around us
are powerful people, whom I do not know, but who toil for us. They spare
neither money nor exertions, I assure you. Now all is ready. To-morrow
evening the doors will be open before you. All who could prevent our
escape have been won. All except the Swartzes are in our interests.
To-morrow they will sleep more soundly than usual, and when they awake
you will be far away. We will take Gottlieb, who is anxious to go, with
us. I will go with you, and will risk nothing, for all has been
foreseen. Be ready, signora. And now go to the esplanade, in order that
the old woman may not find us here.' I uttered my gratitude to Karl in
tears alone, and hurried away to hide my emotion from the inquisitorial
glance of Vrau Swartz.

"My friends, it may be I will see you again. I shall be able to clasp
you in my arms; I shall escape from that terrible Mayer, and see the
expanse of heaven, the green fields, Venice, Italy--sing again, and find
people to sympathise with me. This prison has revived my heart, and
renewed my soul, which was becoming stifled by indifference. I will
live, will love, be pious, and be good.

"Yet this is a deep enigma of the human heart:--I am terrified and
almost mad at the idea of leaving this cell, in which I have passed
three months, perpetually seeking to be calm and resigned. This
esplanade, over which I have walked with so many melancholy reveries;
old walls, which seem so high, so cold, and so calm, as the moonlight
shines on them: and this vast ditch, the water of which is so
beautifully green, and the countless flowers which the spring has strewn
on its banks. And my red-throat! Gottlieb says it will go with us, but
it is now asleep in the ivy, and will not be aware of our departure.
Dear creature! may you console and amuse the person who succeeds me in
this cell. May she love you as I have done.

"Well, I am about to go to sleep that I may be stronger and calmer
tomorrow. I seal up this manuscript, which I am anxious to carry away.
By means of Gottlieb I have procured a new supply of paper, pencil, and
light, which I will hide away, that other prisoners may experience as
much pleasure from them as I have."

* * * * * * * *

Here Consuelo's journal finished. We will now resume the story of her
adventures. It is needful to inform the reader that Karl had not
boasted, without reason, that he was aided and employed by powerful
persons. The invisible persons who toiled for the deliverance of our
heroine, had been profuse in their expenditures of gold. Many turnkeys,
eight or ten veterans, and even an officer, had been enlisted to stand
aside--to see nothing--and to look no farther for the fugitives than
mere form required. On the evening fixed for the escape, Karl had supped
with Swartz, and pretending to be drunk, had asked them to drink with
him. Mother Swartz was as fond of strong liquor as most cooks are. Her
husband had no aversion to brandy, when other people paid for it. A
narcotic drug stealthily introduced into their libations, assisted the
effect of the strong brew. The good couple got to bed, not without
trouble, and snored so loudly, that Gottlieb, who attributed everything
to supernatural influences, thought them enchanted when he attempted to
take possession of the keys. Karl had returned to the bastion, where he
was a sentinel, and Consuelo went with Gottlieb to that place and
ascended the rope ladder the deserter threw her. Gottlieb, who, in spite
of every remonstrance, insisted on escaping with them, became a great
difficulty in the way. He who in his somnambulism passed like a cat over
the roofs, could not now walk over three feet of ground. Sustained by
the conviction that he was assisted by an envoy of heaven, he was afraid
of nothing, and had Karl said so, would have thrown himself from the top
of the parapet. His blind confidence added to the dangers of their
situation. He climbed at hazard, scorning to see or make any
calculation. After having made Consuelo shudder twenty times, and twenty
times she thought him lost, he reached the platform of the bastion, and
thence our three fugitives passed through the corridors of that part of
the citadel in which the officers, initiated in their plot, were posted.
They advanced without any obstacle, and all at once found themselves
_vis-à-vis_ with the adjutant Mayer, _alias_ the ex-recruiter. Consuelo
thought all was lost. Karl, however, kept her from running away. "Do not
be afraid, signora," said he; "we have bought him over!"

"Wait a moment," said Nauteuil, hastily: "the adjutant, Weber, has taken
it into his head to sup with our old fool of a lieutenant. They are in
the room you will have to cross. We must contrive to get rid of them.
Karl, go back to your post, for your absence may be perceived. I will
come for you when it is time. Madame will go to my quarters and Gottlieb
will accompany me. I will say he is a somnambulist, and my two scamps
will follow him. When the room is empty, I will lock the door, and take
care they do not come back again."

Gottlieb, who was not aware that he was a somnambulist, stared wildly.
Karl, however, bade him obey, and he submitted blindly. Consuelo had an
insurmountable objection to entering Mayer's room. But Karl said, in a
low tone--"Why fear that man? He has too large a bribe to betray you.
His advice is good. I will return to the bastion. Too much haste would
destroy us!"

"Too much _sang-froid_ and coolness might also do so," thought Consuelo.
But she yielded to Karl's advice. She carried a weapon about her. As she
crossed the kitchen of the Swartzes she had taken possession of a
carving-knife, the hilt of which gave her not a little confidence. She
had given Karl her money and papers, keeping on her person nothing but
her crucifix, which she looked on almost as an amulet.

For greater security, Mayer shut her up in his room and left with
Gottlieb. After ten minutes, which to Consuelo appeared an age, Nauteuil
came for her, and she observed with terror, that he closed the door and
put the key in his pocket.

"Signora," said he, in Italian, "you have yet a half hour to wait. The
jackanapes are drunk, and will not quit the table until the clock
strikes one. Then the keeper, who has charge of the room, will put them
out of doors."

"What have you done with Gottlieb, sir?"

"Your friend, Gottlieb, is in safety behind a bundle of fagots, where he
can sleep soundly. He will not leave it until he is able to follow you."

"Karl will be informed of all?"

"Unless I wish to have him hung," said the adjutant, with a diabolical
expression, as Consuelo thought. "I do not wish to leave him behind us.
Are you satisfied, signora?"

"I cannot prove my gratitude now, sir," said Consuelo, with a coldness,
in which he sought in vain to conceal disdain; "but I hope ere long to
discharge all my obligations to you honorably."

"_Pardieu!_ you can discharge them at once," (Consuelo shrunk back with
horror.) "By exhibiting something of friendship to me," added Mayer,
with a tone of brutal and coarse cajolery. "You see, were I not
passionately fond of music, and were you not a pretty woman, I would not
violate my duty by thus enabling you to escape. Do you think I have been
led to this by avarice?--Bah! I am rich enough to do without all this,
and Prince Henry is not powerful enough to save me from the rope or
solitary confinement, if I should be discovered. All this requires some
consolation. Well, do not be proud; you know I love you; my heart is
susceptible, but you need not on that account abuse my tenderness. You
are not bigoted or religious; not you. You are an actress, and I venture
to say, you have succeeded by having granted your favors to the
managers. _Pardieu!_ if, as they say, you sang before Marie Theresa, you
know Prince Kaunitz and his boudoir. Now you have a less splendid room,
but your liberty is in my hands, and that is a more precious boon than
an empress's favor."

"Is this a threat, sir?" said Consuelo, pale with indignation and
disgust.

"No; but it is a prayer, signora."

"I hope you don't make it a condition?"

"Not so. No, no! by no means," said Mayer with impudent irony,
approaching Consuelo with open arms as he spoke.

Consuelo was terrified, and fled to the extremity of the room. Mayer
followed her. She saw that if she sacrificed honor to humanity she was
lost; and suddenly, inspired by the wild ferocity of Spanish women, as
Mayer embraced her, she gave him about three inches of the knife she had
concealed. Mayer was rather fat and the wound was not dangerous; but
when he saw the blood, for he was as cowardly as he was sensual, he
thought he was dead, and came near fainting, falling on his face on the
bed. He cried out, "I am murdered! I am dead!" Consuelo thought she had
killed him, and was also near fainting. After a few moments of silent
terror, she ventured to approach him and took the key of the room, which
he had let fall. No sooner had she possession of it than she felt her
courage revive. She went into the galleries and found all the doors open
before her. She went down a staircase, which led she knew not whither.
She could scarcely support herself, as she heard the alarm clock, and
not long after the roll of the drums. She also heard the gun which had
echoed through the night when Gottlieb's somnambulism had caused an
alarm. She sank on her knees at the last steps, and clasping her hands,
invoked God to aid Gottlieb and the generous Karl. Separated from them,
after having permitted them to expose their lives for her, she felt
herself powerless and hopeless. Heavy and hasty steps sounded on her
ears, the light of torches dazzled her eyes, and she could not say
whether this was reality or the effect of delirium. She hid herself in a
corner and lost all consciousness.


[Footnote 12: Consuelo here gave some details we have already mentioned
about the Swartz family. All that was mere repetition to the reader has
been suppressed.]




CHAPTER XX


When Consuelo recovered from her unconscious state, she was delighted,
although unaware of where she was, or how she had come thither. She was
asleep in the open air, but without feeling any inconvenience from the
cold of the night, and casting her eyes toward heaven, she saw the stars
shining in the clear sky. To this enchanting prospect succeeded ere long
a sensation of rapid but pleasant motion. The sound of the oars as they
fell in the water at regular intervals, made her understand that she was
in a boat, and was passing over the lake. A gentle heat penetrated her
limbs, and in the placidity of the silent waters, where the breeze
agitated numerous aquatic plants, something pleasant recalled the waters
of Venice during the spring. Consuelo lifted up her languid head, looked
around her and saw two rowers, one at each extremity of the boat. She
looked at the citadel, and saw it in the distance, dark as a mountain of
stone in the transparency of the water and sky. She said at once to
herself that she was safe, remembered her friends, and pronounced Karl's
name with anxiety. "Here I am, signora; not a word; be silent as
possible," said Karl, who sat in front of her and rowed away. Consuelo
fancied that the other oarsman was Gottlieb, and completely exhausted,
she resumed her former attitude. Some one threw over her a soft and warm
cloak: she threw it aside, however, that she might contemplate the
starry sky which was unfolded above her.

As she felt her strength and the elasticity of her power, which had been
paralysed by a violent nervous movement, return, she recovered her
senses, and the remembrance of Mayer presented itself horribly to her.
She made an effort to arouse herself again, and saw that her head rested
on the knees of a third person, whom as yet she had not seen, or whom
she had taken for a bale of goods, so completely was he wrapped up and
buried in the boat.

Consuelo was terrified when she recalled the imprudent confidence Karl
had exhibited to Mayer, and when she fancied the adjutant might be near
her. The care he seemed to take appeared to aggravate the suspicions of
the fugitive. She was confused at having reposed on that man's bosom,
and almost reproached herself for having enjoyed under his protection a
few moments of healthful and ineffable oblivion.

Fortunately the boat touched the shore just then, and Consuelo hastened
to take Karl's hand and to step on shore. The shock, however, of the
boat touching the shore, made her tremble, and almost fall into the arms
of this mysterious person. She then saw him rise, and discovered that he
wore a black mask. He was at least a head taller than Mayer, and though
wrapped in a large cloak, had the appearance of being tall and thin.
These circumstances completely assured the fugitive, and she accepted
the arm which was silently offered her. She then walked about fifty
paces on the strand, followed by Karl and another individual, who by
signs had enjoined on her not to say a single word. The country was
silent and deserted, and not the slightest sound was heard in the
citadel. Behind the thicket was a coach with four horses, into which the
stranger went with Consuelo. Karl got on the box, and the third
individual disappeared without Consuelo having noticed him. She yielded
to the silent anxiety of her liberators, and ere long the carriage,
which was excellent and admirably built, rolled on with the rapidity of
lightning. The noise of the wheels, and the rapidity of conveyance, did
not at all contribute to conversation. Consuelo was intimidated, she was
even terrified at a _tête-à-tête_ with the stranger. When she saw that
there was no danger, she thought it her duty to express her gratitude
and joy. She obtained no answer, however. He sat in front of her as a
token of respect; he took her hand and clasped it in his, but said
nothing. He then sank into the recess of the carriage, and Consuelo, who
had begun the conversation, dared say nothing, and did not venture to
persist on his silent refusal. She was very anxious to know what
generous friend had secured her safety, yet she experienced for him, she
knew not why, an instinctive sentiment of respect, mingled with fear,
and her imagination attributed to this strange travelling-companion all
the romance which the state of the case might have induced her to
expect. At last the idea occurred to her that he was some subaltern
agent of the Invisibles, and perhaps a faithful servant, who was afraid
of violating his duty by speaking alone to her at night.

After having travelled for about two hours with great rapidity, the
coach stopped in a dark wood, the relay not having come. The stranger
went a few steps away, either to see if the horses were coming, or to
conceal his uneasiness. Consuelo also left the carriage and walked down
the road with Karl, of whom she had a thousand questions to ask.

"Thank God, signora," said her faithful attendant, "that you are alive."

"And that you, too, are alive."

"Now that you are safe, why should I not?"

"Where is Gottlieb?"

"I expect he is now in bed at Spandau."

"Heavens! Gottlieb left behind? He will then suffer for us."

"He will suffer neither for himself nor for any one else. The alarm
having been given, I know not by whom, I hurried at all risks to find
you, seeing that the time was come to risk all for all. I met the
adjutant Nauteuil, that is to say, Mayer, the recruiting officer, very
pale."

"You met him? Was he up and able to walk?"

"Why not?"

"He was wounded then?"

"Ah, yes. He told me he had hurt himself by falling, in the dark, on a
stack of arms. I did not pay much attention to him, and asked where you
were. He knew nothing, and seemed out of his mind. I almost thought he
had intended to betray us, for the clock which sounded, the tone of
which I know perfectly, is the one that hangs over his quarters. He
seems to have changed his mind, for the creature knows much money is to
be made by your escape. He then aided me in turning aside the attention
of the garrison, by telling all he met that Gottlieb had another attack
of somnambulism, and had caused another false alarm. In fact, as if
Gottlieb wished to make good his words, we found him asleep in a corner,
in the strange way in which he often does by day. Never mind where he
is. One might have thought the agitation of his flight made him sleep,
or he may by mistake have drank a few drops of the liquor I poured out
so plentifully to his parents. What I know is, that they shut him up in
the first room they came to, to keep him from walking on the glacis, and
I thought it best to leave him there. No one can accuse him of anything,
and my escape will be a sufficient explanation of your own. The Swartzes
were too sound asleep to hear the bell, and no one has been to your room
to ascertain whether it was open or shut. The alarm will not be serious
until to-morrow. Nauteuil assisted me in dissipating it, and I set out
to look for you, pretending the while to go to my dormitory. I was
fortunate in finding you about three paces from the door we had to pass
through. The keepers there were all bribed. At first I was afraid you
were dead; but living or not, I would not leave you there. I took you
without difficulty to the boat, which waited for you outside of the
ditch. Then a very disagreeable thing happened, which I will tell you on
some other occasion. You have had emotion enough to-day, and what I am
thinking of might give you much trouble----"

"No, no, Karl, I wish to know all. I can hear all."

"Ah, I know you, signora. You will blame me. I remember Roswald, where
you prevented me from----"

"Karl, your silence would distress me cruelly. Speak, I beseech you. I
wish you to do so."

"Well, signora, it is a misfortune; but if it be a sin, it rests on me
alone. As I was passing beneath a low arch in the boat with you and as I
was going very slowly and had come to the end of it, I was seized by
three men, who took me by the throat, and sprang into the boat. I must
tell you that the person who travels with us, and is one of us, was
imprudent enough to give two-thirds of the sum to Nauteuil, as we passed
the postern. Nauteuil, thinking, beyond doubt, that he should be
satisfied and could get the rest by betraying us, had posted himself
with two good-for-nothing fellows of the sort to seize us. That is the
reason beyond doubt, why they sought to murder us. Your friend, however,
signora, is a lion in combat, peaceable as he seems I will remember him
for many a day. By two twists of his arms he threw the first into the
water; the second became afraid and leaped back on the bridge, looking
on the result of my contest with the adjutant. I did not manage as well
as his lordship, whose name I do not know. It lasted half a minute, and
the affair does me no credit, for Nauteuil, who usually is as strong as
a bull, appeared stiff and enfeebled, as if the wound of which he spoke
annoyed him. At last, feeling him let go, I just dipped his feet in the
water. His lordship then said, 'Do not kill him, it is useless.' I had
recognised him, however, and was aware how well he could swim. Besides,
I had fell his gripe, and had some old accounts to settle with him, and
I could not refrain from giving him a blow on the head with my fist.
Never again will he give or take another. May God have mercy on his soul
and mine! He went down in the water like a flounder, and did not rise
again, any more than if he had been marble. The other fellow whom his
lordship had sent on a similar excursion, had made a dive, and had
already reached the bank, where his companion, the most prudent of the
three, helped him out. This was not easy, the bank at that place being
so narrow that there was not a good footing, and the two went into the
water together. While they were thus contending together, and swearing,
as they enjoyed their swimming party, I rowed away, and soon came to a
place where a second oarsman, a fisherman by trade, had promised to be
in waiting and help me by a stroke or two to cross the pond. It was very
well, signora, that I took it into my head to play the sailor on the
gentle waters of Roswald. I did not know, when I rehearsed the part
before you, that I would one day for your sake participate in a naval
battle not so magnificent but much more serious. All this passed over my
mind as I was on the water, and I could not help laughing like a
fool--disagreeably, too. I did not make any noise, at least I did not
hear myself, but my teeth chattered. I had an iron hand on my throat,
and the sweat, cold as ice, ran over my brow. I then saw that a man is
not killed like a fly. He was not the first one, however, for I have
been a soldier, and at war one fights. Instead of that, in a corner
there, behind a wall, it looked like a premeditated murder. Yet it was a
legitimate case of self-defence. You remember, signora, without you I
would have done it, but I do not know if I would not have repented
afterwards. One thing is sure, I had an awful laughing fit on the pool;
and now I cannot help it, for it was so strange to stick the fellow in
the ditch, like a twig planted in a vase, after I had crushed his head
with my fist. Mercy! how ugly he was! I see him now!"

Consuelo, fearing the effect of this terrible emotion on Karl, overcame
her own feelings, and attempted to soothe and calm him. Karl by nature
was calm and mild, as a Bohemian serf naturally is. The tragical life
into which fate had thrown him was not made for him. He accomplished
acts of energy and revenge, yet suffered the horror of remorse. Consuelo
diverted him from his moody thoughts, perhaps to change her own. She
also had armed herself on that night to slay. She had struck a blow, and
had shed the blood of an impure victim. An upright and pious mind cannot
approach the thought or conceive the resolution of homicide, without
cursing and deploring the circumstances which place honor and life under
the safeguard of the poniard. Consuelo was terror-stricken, and did not
dare to say that her liberty was worth the price she had paid for it. It
had cost the life of a man--a guilty one, it is true.

"Poor Karl," said she, "we have played the executioner to-night. It is
terrible! but console yourself with the idea that we have neither
foreseen nor determined on what fate exacted. Tell me about the nobleman
who has toiled so generously to rescue me. Do you know him?"

"Not at all, signora. I never saw him before, and do not even know his
name."

"Whither does he take us?"

"I do not know, signora. He forbade me to ask; and I was ordered to say
that if on the route you made any attempt to ascertain where you are,
and whither you are going, he would be forced to leave you. It is
certain that he wishes us well, and I have made up my mind to be treated
like a child."

"Have you seen his face?"

"I saw it by the light of a lantern, just when I put you into the boat.
His face is handsome--I never saw one more so. One might think him a
king."

"Is that all? Is he young?"

"About thirty years old."

"What is his language?"

"Free Bohemian--the true tongue of a Christian. He only spoke three or
four words to me. What a pleasure it was to hear the dear old tongue,
had he not said 'Do not kill him, it is useless.' Ah! he was mistaken.
It was necessary!"

"What did he say, when you adopted that terrible alternative?"

"I think, may God pardon me! that he did not see it. He threw himself on
the bottom of the boat, where you lay as if you were dead; apparently
fearing some injury might befall you, he covered you with his body; and
when we were on the open water and safe, he lifted you up, wrapped you
in a cloak he had brought apparently for the purpose, and pressed you
against his heart as a mother would press a child. He seems very fond of
you, signora, and you must know him."

"Perhaps I do; but I have not been able to see his face."

"It is strange that he conceals himself from you. Nothing astonishes me
in those people, however."

"What people?"

"Those called the Knights--the Black Masks--the Invisibles. I scarcely
know more than you do about them, signora, though for two months they
have led me by a thread any where they pleased."

The sound of hoofs on the ground was heard; and in two minutes they were
harnessed again, and another postilion, who did not belong to the royal
service appeared, and exchanged a few words with the stranger. The
latter gave his hand to Consuelo, who returned to the carriage with him.
He sat as far from her as possible; but did not interrupt the solemn
silence of the night by a single word, and only looked from time to time
at his watch. It was not near day, though the sound of the quail in the
briar was heard, and also the watchdog's distant bark. The night was
magnificent, and the constellation of the Great Bear appeared reversed
on the horizon. The sound of wheels stifled the harmonious voices of the
country, and they turned their backs to the great northern stars.
Consuelo saw she was going southward; and as Karl sat on the box he
attempted to shake off the spectre of Mayer, which he fancied he saw
floating through the alleys of the forest, at the foot of the crosses,
or under the tall pines. He did not, consequently, observe the direction
in which his good or bad stars led him.




CHAPTER XXI


Porporina, fancying that he had determined not to exchange a word with
her, thought she could not do better than respect the strange vow which,
like the old knight-errants, he seemed to be resolved to keep. To get
rid of the sombre images and sad reflections suggested by Karl's story,
she attempted to penetrate the unknown future which opened before her,
and gradually sunk into a reverie full of charms. A few rare persons
have the power of commanding their ideas in a state of contemplative
idleness. Consuelo had often, during her three months' confinement at
Spandau, had occasion to exert this faculty, which is granted less
frequently to the happy in this world than to those who earn their
living by toil, persecution, and danger. All must recognise this mystery
as providential, without which the serenity of many unfortunate
creatures would appear impossible to those who have not known
misfortune.

Our fugitive was indeed in a condition strange enough to lay the
foundations of many castles in the air. The mystery which surrounded her
like a cloud, the fatality which led her into a fantastic world, the
kind of paternal love which surrounded her with miracles, were quite
sufficient to charm an imagination instinct with poetry as hers was. She
recalled those words of holy writ, which in her imprisonment she had set
to music:--"I shall send one of my angels to thee, and he shall bear
thee in his hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. I walk in
darkness, yet I walk without fear, for the Lord is with me." Thenceforth
those words acquired a more distinct and divine signification. At a time
when there is no faith in direct revelation, and in the sensible
manifestation of the divinity, the protection and manifestations of
heaven are translated by the affections, assistance, and devotion of our
fellow-creatures. There is something so delicious in the abandonment of
our conduct to those we love, and so to say, in feeling ourselves
sustained by others. This happiness is so exquisite, that it would soon
corrupt us, if we did not resist the disposition to abuse it. It is the
happiness of a child, the golden dreams of whom are troubled, as it
slumbers on its mother's bosom, by none of the apprehensions of human
life.

These thoughts, which presented themselves like dreams to Consuelo on
the occasion of her sudden escape from such a painful condition, wrapped
her in such voluptuous calm, that sleep at last came to drown her
sensations, in that kind of repose of body and mind which may be called
pleasant and delicious annihilation. She had entirely forgotten the
presence of her mute travelling companion, and awoke, finding herself
near him, with her head leaning on his shoulder. At first she did not
move, dreaming that she was travelling with her mother, and that the arm
which sustained her was the Zingara's. When completely aroused, she was
confused at her inadvertence. The arm of the stranger, however, was
become a magic chain. Secretly she made vain attempts to get loose. The
stranger seemed to sleep also, and had received his companion
mechanically in his arms, as she sank in them overcome by fatigue and
the motion of the coach. He had clasped his hands around Consuelo, as if
to preserve her from falling while he slept. His sleep had not relaxed
the force of his clasped hands, and it would have been necessary to have
waked him to extricate herself. This Consuelo did not dare to do. She
hoped he would voluntarily release her, and that she might return to her
place without seeming to have remarked the delicate circumstances of
their situation.

The stranger slept soundly, and Consuelo, whom the calmness of his
breathing, and the immobility of his repose, had restored to confidence,
went to sleep herself, being completely overcome by the exhaustion which
succeeds violent agitation. When she awoke again, the head of her
companion was pressed to hers, his mask was off, their faces touched,
and their breathing was intermingled. She made a brisk effort to
withdraw, without thinking to look at the features of the stranger,
which would indeed have been difficult in the darkness. The stranger
pressed Consuelo to his bosom, the heat of which was communicated to her
own, and deprived her of the power and wish to remove. There was nothing
violent or brutal in the embrace of this man. Chastity was neither
offended nor sullied by his caresses, and Consuelo, as if a charm had
been thrown around her, forgetting her prudence, and one might also say,
the virginal coldness which she had never been tempted to part with,
even in the arms of the fiery Anzoleto, returned the eager and
enthusiastic kiss of the stranger.

As all about this mysterious being seemed strange and unusual, the
involuntary transport of Consuelo seemed neither to surprise, to
embolden, nor to intoxicate him. He yet pressed her closely to his
bosom, and though he did so with unusual power, she did not feel the
pain such an embrace usually inflicts on a delicate being. Neither was
she sensible of the shame so great a forgetfulness of her habitual
modesty would usually have created. No idea came to disturb the
ineffable security of this moment of mutual and miraculous love. It was
the first of her life. She was aware of the instinct, or rather it was
revealed to her, and the charm was so complete, so divine, that it
seemed impossible for it to be changed. He passed the extremity of his
fingers, which were softer than the leaf of a flower, over the lids of
Consuelo, and at once she sank to sleep again, as if by enchantment. On
this occasion he remained awake, but apparently as calm as if the arrows
of temptation never had entered his bosom. He bore Consuelo, she knew
not whither, as an archangel might bear on his wings a seraph, amazed at
the Godhead's radiation.

Dawn, and the freshness of morning, roused Consuelo from this kind of
lethargy. She found herself alone in the carriage, and doubted if she
had not dreamed that she loved. She sought to let down one of the
blinds; they were, however, fastened by an external spring, the secret
of which she did not know. She could receive air through them, and see
flit by her, in broken and confused lines, the white and green margin of
the road, but could make no observation nor discovery as to the route.
There was something absolute and despotical in the protection extended
over her. It was like a forcible carrying away, and she began to be
afraid.

The stranger had disappeared, and the poor sinner became aware of all
the anguish of shame, stupor and astonishment. Few theatre-girls (thus
singers and dancers were then called) would have been thus annoyed by a
kiss given in the dark to a very discreet stranger, especially after
having been assured by Karl, as Porporina had been that her companion
was of admirable figure and form. This act of folly was so repugnant to
the manner and ideas of the prudent and good Consuelo, that she was
greatly mortified by it. She asked pardon of Albert's manes, and blushed
deeply at having in heart been unfaithful to his memory in so forward
and thoughtless a manner. The tragical events of the night, and joy at
her escape, she thought must have made her delirious. "Besides, how
could I fancy that I entertained any love for a man who never spoke to
me, and the face of whom I never saw. It is like one of the shameless
adventures of masked balls, the possibility of which in another woman I
could never conceive. What contempt this man must have conceived for me!
If he did not take advantage of my error, it was because I was under the
safeguard of his honor, or else an oath binds him to higher duties.
Perhaps even he disdains me. Perhaps he guessed or saw that my conduct
was the consequence of fever or delirium!"

In vain did Consuelo thus reproach herself; she could not resist a
better feeling, which was more intense than all the pricks of
conscience. She regretted having lost a companion whom she knew she had
neither the right nor power to blame. He was impressed on her mind as a
superior being, invested with magical, perhaps infernal power, which
also was resistless. She was afraid, yet regretted that they had
separated so suddenly.

The carriage went slowly, and Karl came to open the blind, "If you
incline to walk a little, signora, the chevalier will be pleased. The
road is very bad, and as we are in the woods, it seems there is no
danger."

Consuelo leaned on Karl's shoulder, and sprang out on the sand without
allowing him time to let down the steps. She was anxious to see her
travelling companion, her improvised lover. She saw him, ere long, about
thirty paces from her, with his back turned and wearing the vast grey
cloak which he seemed determined to wear by day as well as by night. His
bearing and the small portion of his head and extremities which were
visible, announced a person of high distinction, and one anxious, by a
studious toilette, to enhance the advantages of his person. The hilt of
his sword, on which the rays of the morning sun shone, glittered on his
side like a star, and the perfume of the powder, which well-bred people
were then very fond of, left behind him in the morning air the trace of
a man perfectly _comme il faut._

"Alas!" thought Consuelo, "he is, perhaps, some fool, or contraband
lord, or haughty noble: whoever he be, he turns his back on me, and is
right."

"Why do you call him the _Chevalier?_" asked she of Karl, continuing her
reflections aloud.

"Because I heard the drivers call him so."

"The _Chevalier_ of what?"

"That is all. Why, signora, do you wish to find out? Since he wishes to
be unknown, it seems to me that he renders you sufficient service at the
risk of his own life, to insure your suppression of curiosity. For my
part I would travel ten years without asking whither he wished to take
me; he is so brave, so good, so gay."

"So gay! That man so gay?"

"Certainly. He is so delighted at having aided you, that he cannot be
silent. He asked a thousand questions about Spandau, yourself, Gottlieb,
myself, and the King of Prussia. I told him all I knew, all that had
happened, and even of Roswald: it does a man so much good to talk
Bohemian to one who understands you, instead of speaking to those
Prussians, who know no tongue but their own."

"He is a Bohemian, then?"

"I ventured to ask that question, and he answered briefly and rather
dryly. I was wrong to question him, instead of answering his questions."

"Is he always masked?"

"Only when he is with you. Ah! he is a strange person, and evidently
seeks to tease you."

Karl's good humor and confidence, however, did not altogether reassure
Consuelo. She saw that he united, to much bravery and determination, an
honesty and simplicity of heart, which could easily be abused. Had he
not relied on Mayer's good faith? Had he not even put her in that
scoundrel's room? Now he yielded blindly to a stranger, and was
conveying Consuelo away, so that she would be exposed to the most
dangerous influences. She remembered the note of the Invisibles: "A
snare is set for you--a new danger menaces you. Distrust any one who
shall attempt to induce you to fly before we give you certain
information," &c. No note had come to confirm that, and Consuelo,
delighted at having met Karl, thought this worthy servant sufficiently
authorised to serve her. Was not the stranger a traitor? whither was she
so mysteriously taken? Consuelo had no friend who at all resembled the
fine figure of the Chevalier, except Frederick Von Trenck. Karl knew the
baron perfectly, and he was not her travelling companion. The Count de
Saint Germain and Cagliostro were not so tall. While she looked at the
stranger in search of something which would identify him, Consuelo came
to the conclusion that she had never in her life seen any one with so
much grace and ease. Albert alone had as much majesty; but his slow step
and habitual despondency had not that air of strength, that activity and
chivalric power, which characterised the stranger.

The woods became light and the horses began to trot, to catch up with
the travellers who had preceded them. The Chevalier, without turning
round, reached out his arm and shook his handkerchief which was whiter
than snow. Karl understood the signal and put Consuelo in the carriage,
saying, "Apropos, signora, in the boxes under the seats you will find
linen, apparel, and all that you need to dress and eat when you please.
There are books there, also. It seems that the carriage is a hotel on
wheels, and that you will not leave it soon."

"Karl," said Consuelo, "I beg of you to ask the Chevalier if I will be
free as soon as I shall have passed the frontier, to thank him and to go
whithersoever I please."

"Signora, I cannot dare to say so unkind a thing to so polite a man."

"I require you to do so. You will give me his answer at the next relay
since he will not speak to me."

The stranger said the lady was perfectly free, and that her wishes were
orders. He said that her safety and that of her guide, as well as of
Karl, demanded that she should oppose no difficulty to the selection of
her route and her asylum. Karl added, with an air of _naïf_ reproof,
that this distrust seemed to mortify the Chevalier very much, and that
he had become sad and melancholy.

The whole day passed without any incident. Shut up in the carriage as
close as if she were a prisoner of state, Consuelo could form no idea
about the direction she travelled. She changed her clothes with great
satisfaction, for she saw with disgust several drops of Mayer's black
blood on her dress. She sought to read, but her mind was too busy. She
determined to sleep as soon as possible, hoping in this manner to forget
the sooner the mortification of her last adventure. _He_ evidently had
not forgotten it, and his respectful delicacy made Consuelo yet more
ridiculous and guilty in her own opinion. At the same time she was
distressed at the inconvenience and fatigue which he bore in a seat too
narrow for two persons, side by side with a great soldier disguised as a
servant, _comme il faut_ certainly, but whose tedious and dull
conversation must necessarily be annoying to him. Besides, he was
exposed to the fresh air of the night, and was deprived of sleep. This
courage might be presumption. Did he think himself irresistible? Did he
think that Consuelo, recovered from the first surprise, would not resist
his by far too paternal familiarity?

The poor girl said all this to console her downcast pride. It is very
certain that she desired to see the Chevalier, and feared above all
things his disdain at the triumphs of an excess of virtue which would
have rendered them strangers to each other forever.

About midnight they halted in a ravine. The weather was bad, and the
noise of the wind in the foliage was like running water. "Signora," said
Karl, opening the door, "we are now come to the most inconvenient
portion of our journey. We must pass the frontier. With money and
boldness it is possible to do anything. Yet it would not be prudent to
attempt to do so on the highroad, and under the eyes of the police. I am
no one, and risk nothing. I will drive the carriage slowly with a single
horse, as if I took a new purchase of my master to a neighboring estate.
You will take a cross-road with the Chevalier, and may find the pathway
difficult. Can you walk a league over a bad road?"

Consuelo having said yes, the Chevalier gave her his arm. "If you reach
the place of rendezvous before me, signora," said Karl, "you will wait
for me, and will not be afraid."

"I am afraid of nothing," said Consuelo with a tone of mingled
tenderness and pride, "for this gentleman protects me. But, Karl, do you
run no risk?"

Karl shrugged his shoulders, and kissed Consuelo's hand. He then began
to fix his horse, and our heroine set out across the country with her
silent protector.




CHAPTER XXII


The weather became worse and worse. The wind began to blow more
violently, and our two fugitives walked for about half an hour,
sometimes across the briars, and then across the tall grass. At last the
rain became violent. Consuelo, as yet, had not said a word to her
companion, but seeing him uneasy about her, and looking for a shelter,
she said, "Do not be afraid on my account, Monsieur. I am strong, and
only suffer from seeing you exposed to such fatigue and care for a
person who is nothing to you, and for whom you do not care."

The stranger made a gesture of joy at the sight of a ruined house, in
one corner of which he contrived to shelter his companion from the
torrents of rain. The roof had been taken away and the space sheltered
by the masonry was so small, that unless he stood close to Consuelo, the
stranger was forced to receive all the rain. He, however, respected her
condition, and went so far away as to banish all fear. Consuelo,
however, would not consent to accept his self-denial. She called him,
and seeing that he would not come, left her shelter, and said, in a tone
she sought to make joyous, "Every one has his turn, Chevalier. I now
will soak for a time. If you will not share with me, take a shelter
yourself."

The Chevalier wished to lead Consuelo back to the place about which this
amicable contest occurred. She resisted, however, and said, "No, I will
not yield. I see that I offended you to-day, by expressing a wish to
leave you at the frontier. I will atone for my offence at the expense of
a severe cold even."

The Chevalier yielded, and sheltered himself. Consuelo, seeing that she
owed him reparation, came to his side, though she was humbled at the
idea of having to make advances to him. She had rather seem volatile
than ungrateful, and, as an expiation of her fault, resolved to be
submissive. The stranger understood this so well, that he stood as far
from her as the small space they occupied would permit, and it was only
two or three feet square. Leaning against the wall, he pretended to look
away, lest he should annoy and trouble her by his anxiety. Consuelo was
amazed that a man sentenced to silence, and who inflicted this
punishment to a degree on himself, should divine and understand her so
well. Every moment augmented her esteem for him, and this strange
feeling made her heart beat so, that it was with great difficulty that
she could breathe the air this man, who so strangely sympathised with
her, inhaled.

After a quarter of an hour the storm became so lulled that the two
travellers could resume their journey. The paths were thoroughly wet,
and had become almost impassable for a woman. The Chevalier for some
moments suffered Consuelo to slip, and almost fall. Suddenly, as if
weary of seeing her fatigue herself, he took her in his arms, and
supported her as easily as if she had been a child. She reproached him
for doing so, it is true, but her reproaches never amounted to
resistance. Consuelo felt fascinated and overpowered. She was
transported by the cavalier through the wind and the storm, and he was
not unlike the spirit of night, crossing ravines and thickets with as
rapid and certain a step as if he had been immaterial. Then they came to
the ford of a small stream, where the stranger took Consuelo in his
arms, raising her up as the water became deep.

Unfortunately the torrents of rain had been so rapid, that the course of
the rivulet was swollen, and it became a torrent, rolling in foam, and
roaring turbulently. It was already up to the knight's belt, and in his
efforts to sustain Consuelo, she feared that his feet, which were in the
slimy mire of the bed of the streamlet, would slip. She became alarmed
for his sake, and said, "For heaven's sake let me go; let me go--I can
swim!"

Just then a violent blast of wind threw down one of the trees on the
bank, towards which our travellers went, and this brought down an
avalanche of stones and mud, which for a moment made a natural dike
against the torrent. The tree had luckily fallen across the river, and
the stranger was beginning to breathe, when the water, making a passage
for itself, rushed into one headlong, mad current, against which it was
impossible for him to contend any longer. He paused, and Consuelo sought
to get out of his arms. "Leave me," said she; "I do not wish to be the
cause of your death. I am strong, and bold also. Let me struggle for
myself!"

The Chevalier, however, pressed her the closer to his heart. One might
have fancied that he intended to die with her. She was afraid of his
black mask--of this man, silent as the water-spirits of the old German
ballads, who wished to drag her below with him. For more than a quarter
of an hour the stranger contended with the fury of the wind and storm
with a coolness and obstinacy which were really frightful, sustaining
Consuelo above the water, and not advancing more than a single step in
four or five minutes. He contemplated his situation calmly. It was as
difficult for him to advance as to withdraw, for if he did the water
might sweep him away. At last he reached the bank, and walked on,
without permitting Consuelo to put her foot on the ground. He did not
even pause to take breath, until he heard Karl, who was waiting
anxiously for him, whistle. He then gave his precious burden into the
arms of the deserter, and almost overpowered, sank on the ground. He was
able only to sigh, not breathe, and it seemed as though his breast would
burst. "Oh! my God, Karl!" said Consuelo, bending over him, "he will
die! Listen to the death-rattle! Take off that mask, which suffocates
him!"

Karl was about to obey, but the stranger by a painful effort, lifted up
his icy hands, and seized that of the deserter. "True!" said Karl, "my
oath, signora. I swore to him that even were he to die in your presence,
I would not touch his mask. Hurry to the carriage, signora, and bring me
the flask of brandy which is on the seat; a few drops will relieve him.
Consuelo sought to go, but the Chevalier restrained her. If he were
about to die, he wished to expire at her feet.

"That is right," said Karl, who, notwithstanding his rude manners,
understood all love's mysteries, for he had loved himself. "You can
attend to him better than I can. I will go for the flask. Listen,
signora," he continued, in a low tone; "I believe if you loved him, and
were kind enough to say so, that he will not die; otherwise I cannot
promise."

Karl went away smiling. He did not share Consuelo's terror. He saw that
the suffocating sensation of the Chevalier was becoming allayed.
Consuelo was terror-stricken, and fancying she witnessed the death agony
of this generous man, folded him in her arms, and covered his broad
brow--the only part of his face the mask did not cover--with kisses.

"I conjure you," said she, "remove that mask. I will not look at you. Do
so, and you will be able to breathe."

The stranger took Consuelo's two hands and placed them on his panting
bosom, as much to feel their sweet warmth as to allay her anxiety to aid
by unmasking him. At that moment all the young woman's soul was in that
chaste embrace. She remembered what Karl had said, in a half growling
and half softened mood.

"Do not die," said she; "do not die. Do you not see that I love you?"

Scarcely had she uttered these words than they seemed to have fallen
from her in a dream. They had escaped her lips in spite of herself. The
Chevalier had heard them. He made an effort to rise. He fell on his
knees, and embraced those of Consuelo, who, in her agitation shed tears.

Karl returned with the flask. The Chevalier refused the favorite
specific of the deserter, and leaning on him reached the coach, where
Consuelo sat by him. She was much troubled at the cold, which could not
but be communicated to him by his damp clothes.

"Do not be afraid, signora," said Karl, "the Chevalier has not had time
to grow cold. I will wrap him up in his cloak, which I took care to put
in the carriage when I saw the rain coming. I was sure he would be damp.
When one has become wet, and puts on dry apparel over all, heat is
preserved for a long time. It is as if you were in a warm bath, and it
is not at all unhealthy."

"You, Karl, do the same thing; and take my mantle, for you have also got
wet."

"I? Ah! my skin is thicker than yours. Put your mantle on the Chevalier;
pack him up well; and if I kill the poor horse, I will hurry on to the
next relay."

For an hour Consuelo kept her arms around the stranger; and her head
resting on his bosom, filled him with life far sooner than all the
receipts and prescriptions of Karl. She sometimes felt his brow, and
warmed it with her breath, in order that the perspiration which hung on
it might not be chilled. When the carriage paused, he clasped her to his
breast with a power that showed he was in all the plenitude of life and
health. He then let down the steps hastily, and disappeared.

Consuelo found herself beneath a kind of shed, face to face with an old
servant, half peasant in his appearance, who bore a dark lantern, and
led her by a pathway, bordered by a hedge, to an ordinary-looking house,
a kind of summer retreat, the door of which he shut, after having
ushered her in. Seeing a second door open, she went into a little room,
which was very clean, and simply divided into two parts. One was a
well-warmed chamber, with a good bed all prepared; and in the other was
a light and comfortable supper. She noticed with sorrow that there was
but one cover, and when Karl came to offer to serve her, she did not
dare to tell him the only thing she wished was the company of her friend
and protector.

"Eat and sleep yourself, Karl," said she, "I need nothing. You must be
more fatigued than I am."

"I am no more fatigued than if I had done nothing but say my prayers by
the hearthside with my poor wife, to whom may the Lord grant peace! How
happy was I when I saw myself outside of Prussia; though to tell the
truth, I do not know if I am in Saxony, Bohemia, Poland, or in China, as
we used to say at Roswald, Count Hoditz's place."

"How is it possible, Karl, that you could sit on the box of the
carriage, and not know a single place you passed through?"

"Because I never travelled this route before, signora; and I cannot read
what is written on the bridges and signboards. Besides, we did not stop
in any city or village, and always found our relays in the forest, or in
the courtyard of some private house. There is also another reason,
signora--I promised the Chevalier not to tell you."

"You should have mentioned that reason first, Karl, and I would not
object. But tell me, does the Chevalier seem sick?"

"Not all, signora. He goes and comes about the house, which does not
seem to do any great business, for I see no other face than that of the
silent old gardener."

"Go and offer to help him, Karl. I can dispense with you."

"Why, he has already refused my services, and bade me attend to you."

"Well, mind your own affairs, then, my friend, and dream of liberty."

Consuelo went to bed about dawn, and when she had dressed, she saw by
her watch that it was two o'clock. The day seemed clear and brilliant.
She attempted to open the blinds, but in both rooms they were shut by a
secret spring, like those of the post-chaise in which she had travelled.
She sought to go out, but the doors were fastened on the outside. She
went to the window, and saw a portion of a moderate orchard. Nothing
announced the vicinity of a city or a travelled road. The silence of the
house was complete. On the outside nothing was heard but the hum of
insects, the cooing of pigeons on the roof, and from time to time the
plaintive creaking of the wheelbarrow, where her eye could not reach.
She listened mechanically to these agreeable sounds, for her ear had
long been deprived of the sounds of rustic life. Consuelo was yet a
prisoner, and the anxiety with which she was concealed gave her a great
deal of unhappiness. She resigned herself for the time to a captivity
the aspect of which was so gentle; and she was not so afraid of the love
of the Chevalier as of Mayer.

Though Karl had told her to ring for him as soon as she was up, she was
unwilling to disturb him, thinking he needed a longer sleep than she
did. She was also afraid to awaken her other companion, whose fatigue
must have been excessive. She then went into the room next to her
chamber, and instead of the meal which she left on the previous evening,
there was a collection of books and writing materials.

The books did not tempt her. She was far too much agitated to use them.
But amid all her perplexity, she was delighted at being able to retrace
the events of the previous night. Gradually the idea suggested itself,
as she was yet kept in solitary confinement, to continue her journal,
and she wrote the following preamble on a loose sheet:--

"Dear Beppo--For you alone I resume the story of my strange adventures.
Accustomed to speak to you with the expansion of heart inspired by the
conformity of ages and ideas, I can confide to you emotions my other
friends would not understand, and would perhaps judge more severely.
This commencement will tell you that I do not feel myself free from
error. I have erred in my own opinion, but as yet I cannot appreciate
the consequences.

"Joseph, before I tell you bow I escaped from Spandau, (which indeed
appears trifling compared with what now occupies me), I must tell you...
How can I? I do not know myself. Have I dreamed? I know that my
heart burns and my brain quivers as if it would rush from me and take
possession of another frame. I will tell you the story simply; for the
whole truth, my friend, is contained in the simple phrase--_I love!_

"I love a stranger! a man, the sound of whose voice I have never heard!
You will say this is folly. You are right; for love is but systematic
folly. Listen, Joseph, and do not doubt that my happiness surpasses all
the illusions of my first love, and that my ecstacy is too intoxicating
to permit me to be ashamed at having so madly assented and foolishly
placed my love, that I know not if I will be loved in return. Ah! I am
loved! I feel it so well! Be certain that I am not mistaken; that now I
love truly--I may say, madly! Why not? Does not love come from God? It
does not depend on us to kindle it in our hearts, as we light a torch at
the altar. All my efforts to love Albert, (whose name I now tremble to
write,) were not sufficient to enkindle that ardent and pure flame.
Since I lost him I loved his memory better than I ever did his person.
Who knows how I could love him, were he restored to me again?"

Scarcely had Consuelo written these last words than she effaced them,
not so much that they might not be read, as to shake off a feeling of
horror at having ever suffered them to enter her mind. She was greatly
excited, and the truth of the inspiration of love betrayed itself in
spite of her wishes, in all her inmost thoughts. In vain she wished to
continue to write, that she might more fully explain to herself the
mystery of her heart. She found nothing that could more distinctly
render its delicate shades than the words, "Who knows how I could love
him, were he restored to me?"

Consuelo could be false. She had fancied that she loved the memory of a
dead man with real love; but she now felt life overflowing in her heart,
and a real passion take the place of an imaginary one.

She sought to read again all that she had written, and thus to recover
from her disorder of mind. But it was in vain. Despairing of being able
to enjoy calm enough to control herself, and aware that the effort would
give her a fever, she crushed the sheet she had written in her hands,
and threw it on the table until she might be able to burn it. Trembling
like a criminal, with her face in a blaze, she paid attention to
nothing, except that she loved, and that henceforth she could not doubt
it. Some one knocked at the door of her room, and she went to admit
Karl. His face was heated, his eyes haggard, and his jaws hanging. She
thought him over-fatigued; but from his answers, soon saw that he had
drank, in honor of his safe arrival, too much of his host's wine. This
was Karl's only defect. One dram made him as confident as possible;
another made him terrible.

He talked of the Chevalier, who seemed the only subject on his mind. He
was so good, so kind. He made Karl sit down, instead of waiting at the
table. He had insisted on his sharing his meal, and had poured out the
best wine for him, ringing his glass with him, and holding up his head,
as if he were a true Sclave.

"What a pity he is an Italian! He deserves to be a real Bohemian; for he
carries wine as well as I do," said Karl.

"That is not saying much," said Consuelo, who was not highly charmed at
the Chevalier measuring cups with a soldier. She soon, however,
reproached herself for having thought Karl inferior to her and her
friends, after the services he had done her. Besides, it was certainly
to make him talk of her that the stranger had associated with her
servant. Karl's conversation soon showed her that she was not mistaken.

"Oh! signora," added he simply, "this good young man is mad with love
for you, and would commit even crime and incur disgrace to serve you."

"I will excuse him," said Consuelo, whom these expressions greatly
displeased. Karl did not understand. She then said, "Can you explain why
I am shut up here?"

"Ah! signora, did I know, I would have my tongue cut out rather than
tell. I promised the Chevalier to answer none of your questions."

"Thank you. Then you love the Chevalier better than you do me?"

"Not so. I said not so, but since he satisfied me that he is in your
interests, I must serve you in spite of yourself."

"How so?"

"I do not know; but I am sure it is so. He has ordered me, signora, to
shut you up, to watch you, to keep you a prisoner until we come to----"

"Then we do not stay here?"

"We go at night. We will not travel by day, to save you from fatigue,
and for other reasons I know nothing of."

"And you are to be my jailer?"

"I swore so on the bible, signora."

"Well, this Chevalier is a strange person. I am helpless then; but for a
jailer I like you better than I did Herr Swartz."

"I will treat you better," said Karl kindly. "Now I will get your
dinner."

"I want none, Karl."

"That is not possible. You must dine--and well, too. Such are my orders.
You know what Swartz said about orders."

"Take him as your model, and you will not make me eat. He was only
anxious I should pay."

"That was his business; but with me things are different. That concern
is the chevalier's. He is not mean, for he scatters gold by handsful. He
must be rich, or his fortune will not last."

Consuelo asked for a light, and went into the next room to burn what she
had written, but during her absence it had disappeared.




CHAPTER XXIII


A few moments afterwards Karl returned with a letter, the writing of
which was unknown to Consuelo. It ran as follows:--

"I leave you, perhaps never to see you again. I relinquish three days I
might pass with you--three days, the like of which I shall perhaps never
see again. I renounce them voluntarily. I should do so. You will one day
appreciate the sacrifice I make, and its purity.

"Yes, I love you--I love you madly, though I know no more of you than
you do of me. Do not thank me for what I have done. I obeyed supreme
instructions, and accomplished the orders with which I am charged.
Attribute to me nothing but the love I entertain for you, which I can
prove in no other manner than by leaving you. This love is as ardent as
it has been respectful. It will be durable as it has been sudden and
unexpected. I have scarcely seen your face; I know nothing of your life;
yet I felt that my soul belonged to you, and that I can never resume it.
Had your past conduct been as sullied as your present seems pure, you
would not to me be less respectable and dear. I leave you, with my heart
agitated with pride, joy, and bitterness. You love me! How could I
support the idea of losing you, if the terrible will which disposes of
both of us, so ordained it? I know not. At this moment, in spite of my
terror, I cannot be unhappy. I am too much intoxicated with your love
and mine to suffer. Were I to seek in vain for you during my whole life,
I would not complain because I have seen you and received a kiss from
you, condemning me to eternal sorrow. Neither can I lose the hope of
meeting you some day; even though it were for a single moment, and
though I had no other evidence of your love than the kiss so purely
given and returned, I would feel myself a thousand times happier than I
ever was before I knew you.

"And now, dear girl, poor, troubled being, recall, without shame and
without terror, the brief and heavenly moments in which you felt my love
transfused into your heart. You have said love comes to us from God, and
we cannot ourselves stifle or enkindle it. Were I unworthy of you the
sudden inspiration which forced you to return my embrace would not be
less heavenly. The Providence that protects you, would not consent that
the treasure of my love should fall on a vain and false heart. Were I
ungrateful, as far as you are concerned, it would only be a noble mind
led astray, a precious inspiration lost. I adore you; and whatever you
may be in other respects, you had nothing to do with the illusion, when
you fancied that I loved you. You were not profaned by the beating of my
heart--by the support of my arm--by the touch of my lips. Our mutual
confidence, and blind faith, have at once exalted us to that sublime
_abandon_ justified by long attachment. Why regret you? I am well aware
there is something terrible in that fatality which impels us to each
other. It is the will of God. Do you see it? We cannot be mistaken. You
bear away with you my terrible secret. Keep it wholly to
yourself--confide it to no one. _Beppo_, perhaps, will not comprehend
it. Whoever that friend may be, I alone venerate your folly and respect
your weakness, for this folly and weakness are mine. Adieu! This may be
an eternal adieu, yet, as the world says, I am free, and so too are you.
I love you alone, and know you do not love another. Our fate is not our
own. I am bound by eternal vows, and so too will you be ere long. At
least you will be in the power of the Invisibles, and from them there is
no appeal. Adieu, then. . . . My bosom is torn, but God will give me
power to accomplish my sacrifice, and even a more rigorous one yet, if
such there be. Great God! have pity on me."

This unsigned letter was in a painful and counterfeited hand.

"Karl," said Consuelo, pale and trembling; "did the Chevalier give you
this?"

"Yes, signora."

"And wrote it himself?"

"Yes, signora; and not without pain. His right hand was wounded."

"Wounded, Karl? Severely?"

"Perhaps. The cut was deep, though he did not seem to mind it."

"Where was it?"

"Last night, when we were changing the horses, just before we came to
the frontier, the leading-horse wished to go before the postilion had
mounted the saddle-beast. You were in the carriage alone; the postilion
and I were four or five paces off. The Chevalier held the horse with
immense power, and with a lion's courage, for he was very restive."

"Ah! yes, I felt violent shocks, but you told me it was nothing."

"I did not know the Chevalier was hurt. He had injured his hand with a
buckle of the harness."

"And for me? But, tell me, Karl, has the Chevalier gone?"

"Not yet. His horse is now being saddled, and I am come to pack his
portmanteau. He says that you have nothing to fear, for the person who
is to replace him has arrived. I hope we will see him soon, for I would
be sorry for any accident to happen. He, however, would promise nothing,
and to all my questions answered '_Perhaps._'"

"Where is the Chevalier, Karl?"

"I do not know, signora, his room is there. Do you wish me to say from
you----"

"No; I will write. No; tell him I would see him an instant, to thank him
and press his hand. Be quick; I fear he has gone already."

Karl left, and Consuelo soon regretted having sent the message. She said
to herself that the stranger had never come near her, except in a case
of absolute necessity, and had doubtless an affiliation with the strange
and whimsical Invisibles. She resolved to write to him; but she had
scarcely written and effaced a few words, when a slight noise made her
look up. She saw a panel of the woodwork slide, and discovered there was
thus a communication between the room in which she had written and the
Chevalier's chamber. The panel was only opened wide enough for a gloved
hand to be passed, and which seemed to beckon to Consuelo. She rushed
forward, saying, "The other hand--the wounded hand." The stranger then
withdrew behind the panel so that she could not see him. He then passed
out his right hand, of which Consuelo took possession, and untying the
ligature, saw that the cut was severe and deep. She pressed her lips on
the linen and taking from her bosom the filagré cross, put it in the
blood-stained hand. "Here," said she, "is the most precious thing I
possess on earth. It is all I have, and never has been separated from
me. I never loved any one before well enough to confide to them this
treasure. Keep it till we meet----"

The stranger drew the hand of Consuelo behind the wood-work which
concealed him, and covered it with kisses. Then, when he heard Karl's
steps coming to deliver his message, he pushed it back, and shut the
paneling. Consuelo heard the sound of a bolt: she listened in vain,
expecting to catch the sound of the stranger's voice. He either spoke in
a low tone or had gone.

A few minutes afterwards, Karl returned to Consuelo. "He has gone," said
he, sadly, "without saying farewell, but filling my pockets with I know
not how many ducats, for the unexpected expenses of our voyage, our
regular ones being provided for, as he said--at the expense of the
powers above or below, it matters not. There is a little man in black
there, who never opens his mouth, except to give orders in a clear dry
tone, and who does not please me at all. He replaces the Chevalier, and
I will have the honor of his company on the box, a circumstance which
does not promise me a very merry conversation. Poor chevalier! may he be
restored to us."

"But are we obliged to go with the little man in black?"

"We could not be more under compulsion, signora. The Chevalier made me
swear I would obey the stranger as himself. Well, signora, here is your
dinner. You must not slight it, for it looks well. We will start at
night, then: henceforth, we may stop only where we please--whether at
the behest of the powers above or below, I know not."

Consuelo, downcast and terrified, paid no attention to Karl's gossip.
She was uneasy about nothing relating to her voyage or her new guide.
All became indifferent from the moment the dear stranger left. A prey to
profound sadness, she sought mechanically to please Karl, by tasting
some of his dishes. Being, however, more anxious to weep than to eat,
she asked for a cup of coffee to give her some physical strength and
courage. The coffee was brought her. "See, signora, the little man would
prepare it himself, to be sure that it was excellent, he looks like an
old valet-de-chambre or steward, and, after all, is not so black as he
seems. I think he is not such a bad man, though he does not like to
talk. He gave me some brandy, at least a hundred years old, the best I
ever tasted. If you try a little, you will find it much better than this
coffee."

"Drink, Karl, anything you please, and do not disturb me," said
Consuelo, swallowing the coffee, the quality of which she scarcely
observed.

Scarcely had she left the table when she felt her head become extremely
heavy. When Karl came to say the carriage was ready, he found her asleep
in the chair. "Give me your arm," she said, "I cannot sustain myself. I
think I have a fever."

She was so crushed, that she saw only confusedly the carriage, her new
guide, and the keeper of the house, whom Karl could induce to accept of
nothing. As soon as she was _en route_, she fell asleep. The carriage
had been filled up with cushions, like a bed, and thenceforward Consuelo
was aware of nothing. She did not know the length of her journey or even
the hour of the day or night, whether she travelled uninterruptedly or
not. Once or twice she saw Karl at the door, and could comprehend
neither his questions nor his terror. It seemed to her that the little
man felt her pulse, and made her swallow a refreshing drink, saying,
"This is nothing; madame is doing very well." She was indisposed and
overcome, and could not keep her heavy eyelids open, nor was her mind
sufficiently active to enable her to observe what passed around her. The
more she slept, the more she seemed to wish to. She did not even seek to
ask if she was sick or not, and she could only say to Karl again what
she had finished with before. "Let me alone, good Karl."

Finally, she felt both body and mind a little more free, and looking
around, saw that she slept in an excellent bed, between four vast
curtains of white satin, with gold fringes. The little man, masked as
the Chevalier had been, made her inhale the perfume of a _flacon,_ which
seemed to dissipate the clouds over her brain, and replaced the mystery
which had enwrapped her with noonday clearness.

"Are you a physician, sir?" said she, with an effort.

"Yes, countess, I have that honor," said he, with a voice which did not
seem entirely unknown to her.

"Have I been sick?"

"Somewhat indisposed: you are now much better."

"I feel so, and thank you for your care."

"I am glad, and will not appear again before your ladyship, unless you
require my services."

"Am I, then, at the conclusion of my journey?"

"Yes, madame."

"Am I free, or am I a prisoner?"

"You are free, madame, in the area reserved for your habitation."

"I understand. I am in a large and comfortable prison," said Consuelo,
looking around her broad bright room, hung with white lustre, with gold
rays, supported by magnificently carved and sculptured wood-work. "Can I
see Karl?"

"I do not know, madame, for this house is not mine. I go: you need my
services no longer. I am forbidden to indulge in the luxury of
conversing with you."

He left, and Consuelo, yet feeble and listless, attempted to get up. The
only dress she found was a long white woollen robe, of a wonderfully
soft texture, not unlike the tunic of a Roman lady. She took it up, and
observed fall from it the following note, in letters of gold: "_This is
the neophyte's spotless robe. If your mind be sullied, this robe of
noble innocence will be the devouring tunic of Dejanera._"

Consuelo, accustomed to a quiet conscience, (perhaps too quiet,) smiled,
and put on the robe with innocent pleasure. She picked up the letter to
read it again, and found it puerilely emphatic. She then went to a rich
toilette--a table of white marble sustaining a mirror, in a golden
frame, of excellent taste. Her attention was attracted by an inscription
on the upper ornament of the mirror. It was: "_If your soul be as pure
as yon crystal, you will see yourself in it always--young and beautiful.
But if vice has withered your heart, be fearful of reading in me the
stern reflection of moral deformity._"

"I have never been either beautiful or vicious," thought Consuelo.
"Therefore the mirror in either case must be false."

She looked in it without fear, and did not think herself ugly. The
flowing white robe, and her long, floating dark hair, made her look like
a priestess of antiquity. Her pallor was extreme, and her eyes were less
pure and brilliant than usual. "Can I be growing ugly?" said she, "or
does the mirror censure me?"

She opened a drawer of the toilette, and found, amid various articles of
luxury, many of them accompanied with devices and sentences, which were
at once simple and pedantic. There was a pot of rouge with the following
words on the cover: "_Fashion and falsehood. Paint does not restore the
freshness of innocence to the cheek, and does not efface the ravages of
disorder._" There were exquisite perfumes with this device: "_A soul
without faith and an indiscreet lip are like open flacons, the precious
contents of which are exhaled and corrupted._" There were also white
ribands with these words woven in the silk: "_To a pure brow, the sacred
fillets; to a head charged with infamy, the servile punishment of the
cord._"

Consuelo did up her hair, tying it complacently in the ancient manner,
with the fillets. Then she examined with curiosity the strange abode to
which her romantic fate had brought her. She passed through the various
rooms of the suite intended for her,--a library, a music-room, filled
with admirable instruments, and many and precious musical compositions.
She had a delicious boudoir, and a gallery filled with superb and
charming pictures and statues. In magnificence her rooms were worthy of
a queen, in taste of an artist, and in chastity of a nun. Consuelo,
surprised at this sumptuous and delicate hospitality, reserved the
detailed examination of the symbols expressed by the books and works of
art, until she should be more composed. A desire to know in what part of
the world her miraculous home was, made her desert the interior for the
exterior. She approached a window, but before she lifted up the silken
curtain before it, read: "_If the thought of evil be in your heart, you
are unworthy of contemplating the divine spectacle of nature; if your
heart be the home of virtue, look up and bless God, who opens to you the
door of a terrestrial paradise._" She opened the window, anxious to see
if the landscape corresponded with the proud promises of the
inscription. It was an earthly paradise, and Consuelo fancied that she
dreamed. The garden, planted in the English manner--a rare thing at that
time--but with all the minutiæ of German taste, offered pleasant
vistas, magnificent shades, fresh lawns, and the expanses of natural
scenery; at the same time that exquisite neatness, sweet and fresh
flowers, white sand, and crystal waters, betokened that it was carefully
attended to. Above the fine trees, the lofty barriers of a vale covered,
or rather draped, with flowers, and divided by clear and limpid brooks,
arose a sublime horizon of blue mountains, with broken sides and
towering brows. In the whole area of her view, Consuelo saw nothing to
tell her in what part of Germany was this imposing spectacle. She did
not know where she was. The season, however, seemed advanced, and the
herbage older than in Prussia, which satisfied her that she had made
some progress to the south.

"Dear canon, where are you?" thought Consuelo, as she looked at the
thickets of white lilac and hedges of roses, and the ground, strewn with
narcissi, hyacinths, and violets. "Oh! Frederick of Prussia, I thank you
for having taught me, by long privations and cruel _ennui_, to enjoy, as
I should do, the pleasures of such a refuge. And you, all-powerful
Invisibles, keep me ever in this captivity. I consent to it with all my
heart, especially if the Chevalier--"

Consuelo did not utter her wish. She had not thought of the stranger
since she had shaken off her lethargy. This burning wish awoke in her,
and made her reflect on the menacing sentences inscribed on all the
walls and furniture of the magic palace, and even on the apparel in
which she was so strangely decked.




CHAPTER XXIV


More than anything else, Consuelo was anxious for, and in need of,
liberty, after having passed so many days in slavery. She was then
delighted at being able to wander amid a vast space, which the efforts
of art and the effect of long avenues made appear yet vaster. After
walking about two hours, she felt herself becoming sad by the solitude
and silence which reigned in these beautiful spots. She had already gone
several times around it, without seeing even a human foot-print on the
fine and well-raked sand. Lofty walls, masked by immense vegetation,
prevented her from passing into unknown paths. She already had become
acquainted with those she had passed. In some places the wall was
interrupted by large fosses, filled with water, which allowed the eyes
to lose themselves in extensive lawns, which were bounded by wooded
mountains, or by the entrance into mysterious and charming alleys,
ending in thick glades. From her window, Consuelo saw all nature open to
her, but when she came down-stairs, she found herself shut in on every
side, and all the inside luxury could not extinguish the sensations of
again feeling herself a prisoner. She looked around for the enchanted
palace in which she had awaked. The house was a small one, in the
Italian style, luxuriantly furnished and elegantly decorated. Its site
was a pointed rock, picturesque as possible, but which was a natural
enclosure to all the garden, and was as impenetrable an obstacle to a
prospect as the high walks and heavy glacis of Spandau.

"My fortress," said Consuelo, "is beautiful, but it is evident that I am
not on that account less the prisoner."

She was about to rest herself on the terrace of the house, which was
adorned with flowers, and surmounted by a fountain. It was a delicious
place, and as it commanded only a view of the interior of the garden, a
few eminences in the park, and high mountains, the cliffs of which
towered above the trees, the prospect was beautiful and enlivening.
Consuelo, instinctively terrified at the care taken to establish her,
perhaps for a long time, in her new prison, would have given all the
catalpas and flowers, all the garden beds, for some quiet country nook,
with a modest cot, rough roads, and a district amid which she was free
to wander, and which she could explore at will. Between her residence
and the lofty mountains in the distance, there were no intermediate
plains to explore. Nothing met her eye but the indistinct dentillated
horizon, already lost in the mist of the setting sun. The nightingales
sang admirably, but not a human voice announced the presence of a single
habitant. Consuelo became aware that her house, at the verge of a large
park, or perhaps unexplored forest, was but a dependence of some vast
manor. What she now saw of the park inspired her with no wish to extend
her acquaintance with it. She saw nothing but flocks of sheep and goats
feeding on the flanks of the hills, with as much security as if the
approach of a mortal had been unknown to them. At last the evening
breeze agitated the poplar-wood which enclosed one of the sides of the
garden, and Consuelo saw, by the last light of day, the white towers and
sharp roofs of a large castle, half-hidden behind a hill, at perhaps the
distance of a quarter of a league. Notwithstanding her wish to think no
more of the chevalier, Consuelo persuaded herself that he must be there,
and her eyes were anxiously fixed on the imaginary castle perhaps, which
it seemed she was prohibited to approach, and which the veil of twilight
gradually hid.

When night had come, Consuelo saw the reflection of lights from the
lower story of her house pass beneath the neighboring shrubbery, and she
hastily descended, with the expectation of seeing some human, face
around her dwelling. She had not this pleasure. The servant she found
busy in lighting the lamps and fixing the table, was like the doctor,
clothed in the uniform of the Invisibles. He was an old servant, in a
coarse white wig, resembling wool, and clad in a full suit of
tomato-colored material.

"I humbly beg your pardon, madame," said he, with a broken voice, "for
appearing before you thus; but such are my orders and the necessity of
them are not matter of thought for me. I am subject to your commands,
madame, and my masters'. I am steward of this pavilion, director of the
garden, and _maitre d'hôtel._ They told me that madame, having
travelled a great deal, was used to wait on herself, and would not
require the services of a female. It would be difficult, madame, to
procure one, as I have none, and all those at the castle are forbidden
to come hither. A servant woman will arrive shortly to assist me, and a
gardener's lad, from time to time, will water the flowers and keep the
walks in order. About this I have a very humble observation to make.
This is, that any other servant than myself, with whom madame is
suspected of having spoken, or have made any sign, will at once be
dismissed--a great misfortune to them, for the service is good, and
obedience is well rewarded. Madame, I am sure, is too generous and too
just to tempt these poor people."

"Rest assured, Matteus," said Consuelo, "I will never be rich enough to
reward them, and I am not the person to lead any one to neglect their
duty."

"Besides," said Matteus, as if he were talking to himself, "I will never
lose sight of them."

"Precaution in that respect is useless. I have too great an obligation
to repay to the persons who brought me hither, and to those who have
received me to attempt to do anything to deceive them."

"Ah! is madame here of her own accord?" asked Matteus, whose curiosity
seemed deprived of nothing but the power of expression.

"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 her
_ennui_--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 of _la balayeuse_
in 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 the _ennui_ of 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--the
_Chevalier_--the one whom she loved, and by whom she was beloved.




CHAPTER XXV


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 first _billet-doux_ she 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 the _façade_ of 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 up_ and 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 as _secret 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, the _fanfares_ which 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, if _ennui_ continues to
consume me."

"Does madame suffer from _ennui?_" 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 is _ennuyée_, 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 to _ennui_ and 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."




CHAPTER XXVI


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 refrain_ from 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 and _ennui_ of solitude, and she concluded this rehearsal with
the sublime air of Almireno in the _Rinalda_ of Haëndel.


Lascia ch 'lo nianga,
La dura sorte,
E ch lo sospiri
La 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--

"I _can_ claim 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 phrase
_foolish 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.




CHAPTER XXVII


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 the _bon vivant_ doctor, 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
the _paté_, 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--a _savant_, 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 whom _fêtes_ are 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 from _ennui_ at 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.




CHAPTER XXVIII


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.

Her destiny required her to do nothing more. She did not pretend to
claim a knowledge of the world of philosophy. She felt the warmth of the
secret revelations which have been granted to poetic souls when in love.
In this disposition she looked for several days over books, without
reading anything. She could give an account of nothing; more than one
page, however, in which she had read but one line, was bedewed with
tears, and she often hurried to her piano, to _improvise_ songs, the
tenderness and grandeur of which were the burning and spontaneous
expression of her generous emotion.

A whole week rolled over her, in a solitude which Matteus' association
did not trouble. She had resolved not to address the least question to
him, and perhaps he had been scolded for his indiscretion, for he was
now as silent as he had been prolix heretofore. The red-throat came to
see Consuelo every day, but without Gottlieb. It seemed this tiny being
(Consuelo was half inclined to think it enchanted) came at regular hours
to amuse her, and returned punctually at noon to its other friend. In
fact, there was nothing wonderful about it. Animals at liberty have
certain customs, and make a regular disposition of their time, with more
foresight and intelligence than domestic animals. One day Consuelo
observed that it appeared constrained and impatient, and that it did not
fly so gracefully as usual. Instead of perching on her fingers, it
thought of nothing but pecking with its nails and bill at an irritating
impediment. Consuelo approached him, and saw a black thread hanging from
its wing. The poor creature had been taken in a snare, she thought, and
had escaped only by its address, bearing off with it a portion of its
chain. She had no difficulty in removing it, yet had not a little in
taking off a piece of silken thread, adroitly fastened on the back, and
which held under the left wing a silken bag of some very thin material.
In this bag she found a letter, written in almost imperceptible
characters, on such thin paper that she feared to break it by a breath.
At the first glance she saw it was a message from the dear unknown. It
contained but these few words:--

"A great task has been confided to me, in the hope that the pleasure of
doing it well would calm the uneasiness of my passion. Nothing, not even
the exercise of my charity, can distract the soul of which you are the
mistress. I accomplished my task in less time than you would think
possible. I am back again, and love you more than ever. Our sky is
growing brighter. I do not know what has passed between you and _them_,
but they seem more favorable, and my love is no longer treated as a
crime, but merely as a mischance--a misfortune. Ah! they do not know me!
They know not that I cannot be unhappy with your love. But you do. Tell
it to the red-throat of Spandau. It is the same. I brought it here in my
bosom. May he repay me for all my trouble by bringing me a message from
you. Gottlieb will deliver it faithfully to me, without looking at it."

Mysterious and romantic circumstances enflame the fire of love. Consuelo
experienced the most violent temptation to reply. The fear of
displeasing the Invisibles, the scruple of not violating her promises,
had but little influence on her, we must own. When she thought that she
might be discovered, and cause a new exile of the Chevalier, she had
courage enough to resist. She released the red-throat, without one word
in reply, but not without tears at the sorrow and disappointment her
lover would experience at her having acted with such severity.

She sought to resume her studies, but neither study nor music appeared
to dissipate the agitation which had boiled in her bosom, since she knew
the Chevalier was near her. She could not refrain from hoping that he
would disobey the Invisibles, and that she would see him some evening
glide beneath the flowery bushes of the garden. She was unwilling to
encourage him, however, to show himself. All the evening she was shut
up, looking, with a beating heart, through the window, yet determined
not to reply to his call. She did not see him appear, and exhibited as
much grief and surprise as if she had relied on a temerity which she
would have blamed, and which would have awakened all her terrors. All
the little mysterious dramas of young and burning love were formed in
her bosom in the course of a few hours. It was a new phase of emotions,
unknown hitherto to her. She had often, at evening, waited for Anzoleto
on the canals of Venice, or on the terraces of the _Corte Minelli_; yet
when she did so, she thought over her morning's lesson, and repeated the
rosary-prayers, to while away the time, without fear, trembling, or
sorrow. This childish love was so closely united to friendship, that it
bore no relation to what she now experienced for Leverani. On the next
day she waited anxiously for the red-throat, which did not come. Had he
been seized _en route_ by some stern Argus? Might not the fatigue of the
silken girdle and heavy burden have prevented him from coming? His
instinct, however, would teach him that Consuelo had on the evening
before released him, and he would perhaps return to her, to receive the
same service.

Consuelo wept all day long. She, who had no tears for great misfortunes,
who had not shed one while she was a prisoner at Spandau, felt crushed
and burned up by the sufferings of her love, and sought in vain for the
strength which had sustained her in all the other evils of life.

One evening she forced herself to play on the piano, and while doing so,
two black figures appeared at the door of the music room, without her
having heard them ascend. She could not repress a cry of terror at the
apparition of these spectres, but one of them, in a voice gentler than
before, said, "Follow us." She got up in silence to obey them. They gave
her a silken bandage, saying, "Cover your eyes, and swear that you will
do so honestly. Swear also that if this bandage fall, or become
deranged, that you will close your eyes until we bid you open them."

Consuelo said--"I swear."

"Your oath is accepted," said the guide. Consuelo was led, as before,
into the cavern. Presently she was told to halt, and an unknown voice
said:

"Remove the bandage yourself. Henceforth none will watch you, and you
will have no guardian but your own word."

Consuelo found herself in an arched room, lighted by a single lamp
hanging from the roof. A single judge, in a red cloak and livid mask,
sat in an old arm-chair, by the side of a table. He was bowed with age,
and a few grey locks escaped from his hood. His voice was broken and
trembling. The aspect of age changed into respectful deference the fear
Consuelo could not repress when she met one of the Invisibles.

"Listen to me," said he, as he bade her seat herself on a stool at some
distance. "You are now before your confessor. I am the oldest of the
council, and the quiet of my whole life has made my mind as chaste as
that of the purest of Catholic priests. I do not lie. If you wish to
reject me, however, you are at liberty to do so."

"I receive you," said Consuelo, "with this understanding, that my
confession does not implicate that of another!"

"Vain scruple," said the old man. "A scholar does not reveal to a
schoolmaster the fault of his comrade, yet a son hurries to tell a
father where a brother has erred, because he is aware that the parent
represses and corrects the fault, without chastising it. Such, at least,
should be the law of every family which seeks to practise this idea.
Have you any confidence?"

This question, which sounded not a little arbitrary in the mouth of a
stranger, was uttered with such gentleness, and in such a sympathetic
tone, that Consuelo, led astray, and moved, replied unhesitatingly, "I
have entire confidence."

"Listen then," said the old man. "When you first appeared before us, you
made use of the following expression, which we have remembered and
weighed:--'It is a strange moral torture for a woman to confess herself
before eight men.' Your modesty has been considered. You will confess
yourself to me alone, and I will not betray your confidence. I have
received full power, (and I am the highest of the council,) to direct
you in an affair of a delicate nature, and which has not an indirect
connection with your initiation. Will you answer me freely? Will you
open your whole heart to me?"

"I will."

"I will not inquire into the past. You have been told that the past does
not belong to us. But you have been warned to purify your soul from the
moment which marked the commencement of your adoption. You must think of
the difficulties and the consequences of this adoption. You are not
accountable to me alone, but other things are at stake. Reply then."

"I am ready."

"One of my children loves you. During the last eight days, have you
acknowledged or repelled his love?"

"I have repelled it in every manner."

"I know it. The least of your actions are known to us. I ask the secrets
of your heart, not of your conduct."

Consuelo felt her cheeks glow and was silent.

"You think my question cruel. You must reply to it, notwithstanding. I
wish to guess at nothing. I must know and record."

"Well, I do love," said Consuelo, yielding to the necessity of truth.
Scarcely had she pronounced this word, than she shed tears. She had
abandoned the virginity of her soul.

"Why do you weep?" said the confessor mildly. "Is it from shame or from
repentance?"

"I do not know. I think it is not from repentance. I love too well for
that."

"Whom do you love?"

"You know--not I."

"But if I do not? His name?"

"Leverani."

"That is the name of no one. It is common to all our members who choose
to bear it. It is a false name, such as most of our brethren assume in
their travels."

"I know him by no other name, and did not learn it from him."

"His age?"

"I did not ask him."

"His face?"

"I never saw it."

"How would you know him?"

"It seems to me I would recognise him by touching his hand."

"If your fate were based on such a test, and you failed?"

"It would be horrible."

"Shudder then at your imprudence, unfortunate child; you love madly."

"I know it."

"Do you not combat it in your heart?"

"I cannot."

"Wish you to do so?"

"I do not even wish to."

"Your heart is then free from all other affections?"

"Entirely."

"Are you a widow?"

"I think I am."

"And were you not?"

"I would combat my love, and I _would_ do my duty."

"With sorrow? with grief?"

"With despair, perhaps; yet I would do it."

"You did not then love your husband."

"I loved him as a brother. I did all I could to love him."

"And could not?"

"Now that I know what love is, I say No."

"Do not then suffer from remorse. Love cannot be forced. Do you think
you love this Leverani? seriously? religiously? ardently?"

"So do I feel in my heart. Unless indeed he be unworthy."

"He is not unworthy."

"Indeed, my father!" said Consuelo, carried away by gratitude, and
seeking to kneel before the old man.

"He is as worthy of intense love as Albert himself. You must, however,
renounce him."

"It is I then who am unworthy?" said Consuelo sadly.

"You will be worthy, but you are not free. Albert of Rudolstadt is not
dead."

"My God! pardon me," murmured Consuelo, falling on her knees, and hiding
her face in her hands.

The confessor and penitent maintained a long and painful silence. Ere
long Consuelo, remembering what Supperville had said, was struck with
horror. This old man, whose appearance had filled her with veneration,
could he lend himself to such an infernal plot? Did he betray the
sensibility of the unfortunate Consuelo, and cast her into the arms of a
base impostor? She looked up, pale with terror, with dry eyes and
quivering lips. She attempted to pierce the impenetrable and
unimpressionable mask, which, it may be, concealed the criminal's
pallor, or the hellish sneer of a villain.

"Albert lives?" said she. "Are you very sure? Do you know there is a man
like him, whom even I fancied was him?"

"I know all that absurd story," said the old man. "I know all
Supperville's mad fancies, and all he has done to exculpate himself from
the blunder he committed in suffering a man who was merely in a state of
lethargy, to be buried. Two words will destroy all that scaffolding of
madness. The first is, that Supperville was declared unworthy of the
secondary degrees of the secret societies, the supreme direction of
which is in our hands, and his wounded vanity and diseased curiosity
could not bear this degradation. The second is, that Count Albert never
thought or intended to resume his place and rank in the world. He could
not do so without giving rise to scandalous discussions in relation to
his identity, which he could not bear. He perhaps did not understand his
true duties in thus deciding. He would have been able to make a better
use of his fortune than his heirs. He thus deprived himself of one way
of doing good, which Providence had granted him. Enough, though, remain.
The voice of love was more powerful in inducing him to do this, than
conscience. He remembered that you did not love him, for the very reason
that he was rich and noble. He wished to abandon forever both name and
rank. He did so, and we consented. He will never pretend to be your
husband, for such he became from your pity and compassion. He will have
courage to renounce you. We have no greater power over him you call
Leverani, and over yourself, than persuasion. If you wish to fly
together, we cannot help it. We have neither dungeons nor constraint--we
neither have any corporeal penalties, though a faithful servitor,
somewhat credulous, may have told you so; but we hate all means of
tyranny: your lot is in your hands. Think again, poor Consuelo, and may
heaven direct you."

Consuelo had listened to this discourse in a profound state of stupor.
When the old man was done, she arose and said with energy:

"I need no thought. My choice is made. Albert is here! Lead me to him."

"Albert is not here. He could not be a witness of this strife. He is
even ignorant of what you now undergo."

"Dear Albert," said Consuelo lifting her hands to heaven, "I will
conquer." Then kneeling before the old man, she said, "Father, absolve
me, and aid me never to see this Leverani again! I do not wish; I will
not love hm!"

The old man placed his trembling hands above Consuelo's head. When he
removed them she could not arise. She had repressed her tears in her
bosom; and, crushed by a contest beyond her power, she was forced to use
the confessor's arm as she left the oratory.




CHAPTER XXIX


At noon on the next day the red-throat came to tap with its bill and
claws at Consuelo's window. Just as she was about to open it, she
observed a black thread crossed over its yellow breast, and an
involuntary effort induced her to place her hand on the sash. She
withdrew it at once, however.

"Away," said she, "messenger of misfortune! away, poor innocent bearer
of letters which are guilty and criminal! I shall not, perhaps, have
courage to reply to a last farewell. Perhaps I should not suffer him to
know that I regret and mourn for him."

She took refuge in the music-room, to escape from the tempting bird,
which, used to a better reception hovered about, and angrily tapped at
the window-sill. She sat at her piano to drown the cries and reproaches
of her favorite, who had followed her to the window of the room, and she
felt something like the anguish of a mother when she will not hear the
cries and complaints of a penitent child. It was not because of the
red-throat that Consuelo now suffered. The note under the bird's wing
spoke most appealingly. This was the voice Which, to our romantic
recluse, seemed to lament at not being heard.

She did not yield. It is, however, in the nature of love to become angry
and return to the assault, becoming more imperious and triumphant after
every victory. Without metaphor may it be said, that to resist is to
supply him with new arms. About three o'clock Matteus came in with a
basket of flowers, which he brought his prisoner every day, (he loved
her kind and gentle deportment), and as usual she unbound them to
arrange them herself in the beautiful vase on the _console._ This was
one of her prison pleasures. On this occasion, however, she was less
awake to it, and attended to it mechanically, as if to kill time. In
untying a bundle of narcissi which was in the centre of the package of
perfumes, a letter without any direction fell out. In vain did she seek
to persuade herself that it came from the tribunal of the Invisibles.
Would Matteus in such a case have been its bearer? Unfortunately Matteus
was not by to give any explanations. It was necessary to ring for him.
Five minutes would be necessary ere he could return, and it might be
ten. Consuelo had exhibited too much courage towards the red-throat to
be able to resist the bouquet. The letter was being read when Matteus
returned. Consuelo had reached the postscript:--

"Do not question Matteus; for he is ignorant of the disobedience I make
him commit."

Matteus was merely asked to wind up the clock, which had stopped.

The Chevalier's letter was more passionate, more impetuous, than the
others. In its delirium it was even imperious. We will not copy it.
Love-letters are powerless, except to the persons to whom they are
directed. In themselves they are all alike. All who are in love find, in
the object of their attraction, an irresistible power and incomparable
novelty. No one fancies he is loved as another is, or in the same
manner. All fancy themselves most loved of any who live. Where this
strange blindness, this proud fascination, does not exist, there is no
passion. Passion had seized on the calm, quiet, and noble mind of
Consuelo.

The Chevalier's note disturbed all her ideas. He implored an interview,
and urged the necessity of using the few moments which remained. He
feigned to believe Consuelo had loved Albert, and that she yet loved
him. He pretended to be willing to submit to her decree, and in the
interim asked only a moment of pity, a tear of regret. This "_last_
appearance" of a great _artiste_ is always followed by many others.

Consuelo, though sad, was yet devoured by a secret joy, burning and
involuntary, at the idea of an interview. She felt her forehead blush
and her bosom palpitate, for she knew that in spite of herself she had
committed adultery. She saw that her resolution and her will did not
protect her from an inconceivable influence, and that if the Chevalier
resolved to break his vow, by speaking to her and showing his features,
as he seemed determined to do, she would not be able to prevent this
violation of the laws of the invisible tribunal. She had but one
refuge--to implore the tribunal's aid. But could she accuse and betray
Leverani? Would the worthy old man who had revealed Albert's existence,
and paternally received her confessions on the previous evening, receive
this also under the seal of confession. He would pity the Chevalier's
madness, and would condemn him only in the silence of his heart.
Consuelo wrote that she wished to see him at nine in the evening of that
day, and enjoined him on his honor, his repose and peace of mind to meet
her. This was the hour at which the stranger said he would come. But by
whom could she send this letter? Matteus would not go a foot out of the
enclosure before midnight; such were his orders, he had been severely
reprimanded for not having always punctually obeyed his orders in
relation to the prisoner. Henceforth he would be inflexible.

The hour drew near, and Consuelo, though she sought in every way to
avoid the fatal test, had not thought of any means of resisting it.
Compulsory female virtue will ever be but a mere name unless half of the
stain of its violation rests on the man! Every plan of defence becomes a
mere subterfuge: every immolation of personal happiness fails, when
opposed to the fear of reducing the object of affection to despair.
Consuelo resolved on one resource, a suggestion of the heroism and
weakness which divided her heart. She began to look for the mysterious
opening of the cavern which was in the house, resolving to hurry through
it, and at any risk to present herself before the Invisibles. She had
fancied, gratuitously enough, that their place of meeting was accessible
when she had once discovered the mouth of the passage, and that they met
every night at the same place. She was not aware that on that day they
were all absent, and that Leverani alone had returned, after having
pretended to accompany them on their mysterious excursion.

All her efforts to discover the secret door or trap were useless. She
had not now as at Spandau, the _sang froid_, the perseverance necessary
to discover the smallest fissure in the wall, the least protruding
stone. Her hands trembled as she examined the paneling and hangings, and
her sight became disturbed. Every moment she seemed to hear the sound of
the step of the Chevalier on the garden walks, or on the marble portico.

All at once, she fancied she heard them beneath her, as if they ascended
some secret stairway or approached to some invisible door, or as if,
like familiar spirits, they were about to rush through the wall before
her. She let her light fall, and fled into the garden. The rivulet
caused her to cease her flight. She listened to footsteps, which she
fancied she heard behind her. She then became somewhat amazed, and got
into the boat which the gardener had for bringing sand and turf from the
forest. Consuelo fancied that when she loosed it she would gain the
opposite bank; but the current was very rapid, and passed out of the
enclosure through a grated arch. Borne off by the current, the boat in a
few moments would have knocked against the grating. To avoid the shock,
she put forth her hands--for a native of Venice and a child of its
people could not be at any difficulty in relation to such a manœuvre.
By a strange chance, however, the grating yielded to her hands, and
swang open, in obedience to the impulse the boat received from the
current. "Alas!" thought Consuelo, "they never shut this passage,
perhaps: I am but a prisoner on parole, and yet I fly and violate my
word. I do so, however, only to seek protection from my hosts, not to
abandon and betray them!"

She sprang on shore at a turn of the current whither the boat had been
driven, and rushed into a thick hedge. Consuelo could not proceed
rapidly through the undergrowth. The alley wound about, and the fugitive
every moment knocked against the trees, and frequently fell on the turf.
Yet she felt a return of hope to her soul: she thought it impossible for
Leverani to discover her.

After having wandered a long time at hazard, she found herself at the
foot of a hill, strewn with rocks, the varied outline of which was
painted on a grey and clouded sky. A storm-wind of some power, had
arisen, and the rain began to fall. Consuelo, not daring to return, for
fear that Leverani had followed, and might look for her on the banks of
the stream, ventured on the rude hill-side path. She thought that when
she had reached the top, she would discover the lights of the castle and
ascertain her position. When she had arrived, however, in the darkness,
the lightning, which began to illumine the heavens, showed her the ruin
of a vast building, which seemed the imposing and melancholy monument of
another age.

The rain forced Consuelo to seek shelter, and with difficulty she found
it. The towers were roofless, and flocks of ger-falcons and tiercelets
were terrified at her approach, and uttered a sharp and acute cry, which
sounded like that of the spirits of evil inhabiting some old ruin.

Amid the stones and ivy, Consuelo went through the chapel, which, by the
lightning, exhibited the outline of its dislocated mouldings, and went
into the court-yard which was overgrown with short smooth grass. She
avoided by chance a deep well, the presence of which on the surface was
only indicated by superb capillary plants, and a rose-tree which were in
undisturbed possession of the interior. The mass of ruined buildings
around this courtyard presented the strangest aspect. At every flash,
the eye could scarcely take in these pale and downcast spectres; all
these incoherent forms of ruin, vast stacks of chimneys, the summits of
which were blackened by fires long extinct forever, and springing from
amid walls which were bare and terribly high; broken stairways, showing
their helices, into the void, as if to enable witches to go to their
aerial dance; whole trees installed and in possession of rooms, on the
walls of which frescoes were yet visible; stone benches in the deep
window recesses, desertedness within and without these mysterious
retreats, refuges of lovers in times of peace and the sentinels' station
during war; finally, loop-holes, festooned with coquettish garlands,
isolated spires, piercing the skies like obelisks, and doors completely
crushed by the falling ruins. It was a fearful and poetical spot, and
Consuelo felt herself under the influence of a kind of terror, as if her
presence had profaned a space reserved for the funeral conferences and
silent reveries of the dead. In a calm night, and when less agitated,
she would not, perhaps, have so pitied the rigor of time and the fates
which so violently destroy palace and fortress, leaving their ruins on
the grass by the side of those of the hut. The sadness which is inspired
by the ruins of these formidable abodes rise not identical in the
imagination of the artist and the patrician. At this moment of terror
and fear, however, and on this stormy night, Consuelo, unsustained by
the enthusiasm which had impelled her in more serious undertakings, felt
herself again become a child of the people, and trembled at the idea of
seeing again appear the phantoms of night, especially the old lords, the
stern occupants of them, while alive, and, after death, their
threatening and menacing possessors. The thunder lifted up its voice;
the wind made the bricks crumble and the cement fall from the dismantled
pile, while the long branches of the ivy twined like serpents around the
embrasures of the towers. Consuelo, who was looking for a shelter from
the fierce tempest, went beneath the vault of a stairway which seemed in
better preservation than the others. It was that of a vast feudal tower,
the most ancient and solid of the edifice. After about twenty steps, she
came to a broad octagonal hall which occupied all the interior of the
tower. The opposite stairway having been made, as is the case with all
constructions of this kind, in the thickness (eighteen or twenty feet)
of the wall. The vault of this hall was like the interior of a hive.
There were now neither doors nor windows, but the openings were so
narrow that the wind easily lost its power in passing through them.
Consuelo resolved to wait in this place until the tempest was over, and
approaching a window, stood for more than an hour, contemplating the
grand spectacle of a sky in flames, and listening to the terrible voices
of the storm.

The wind at last lulled, the clouds became dissipated, and Consuelo
thought she would go. On her return, however, she was amazed to find a
more permanent light than that of day occupy the interior of the room.
This clearness, after a season of, as it were, tremulous light,
increased and filled the vault, and a light crackling sound was heard in
the hearth. Consuelo looked and saw beneath the half-arch of this old
hall, an enormous recess open before her, and a wood-fire which seemed
to have kindled itself and burned out alone. She approached, and saw
half-burned branches and all that indicated a fire having been kept up,
and abandoned without precaution.

Terrified at this circumstance, which informed her of the presence of a
host, Consuelo, who saw no trace of furniture here, hurried towards the
stairway, and was about to descend, when she heard voices and the sound
of feet on the pavement below. Her fantastic terrors then became real
apprehensions. This damp and devastated tower could only be inhabited by
some gamekeeper, perhaps as savage as his abode--it may be, drunk and
brutal--and probably by no means so honest and respectful as the good
Matteus. The steps rapidly approached, and Consuelo hurried up the
stairway, to avoid being met by those who might come. After having gone
about twenty steps, she found herself on the second floor, from the one
where they would be apt to come, since, being roofless, it was
uninhabitable. Fortunately the rain had ceased, and she saw a few stars
through the climbing shrubs, which had covered the top of the tower,
about ten _toises_ above her head. A ray of light from below soon began
to trace shadows on the walls of the ruin, and Consuelo, approaching
stealthily, looked through a crevice into the room she had just left.
Two men were in the hall: one walking and stamping his feet to warm
them, and the other leaning down in the fireplace, attempting to
rekindle the fire which began to burn. At first, she did not see that
their apparel betokened exalted rank; but the light of the fire being
revived, he who heaped it up with the point of his sword, got up to lean
the weapon against a salient stone. Consuelo saw long black hair, at the
appearance of which she trembled, and a brow which had nearly wrung a
cry of terror and tenderness from her. He spoke, and she had no doubt
the person she saw was Albert of Rudolstadt.

"Draw near, my friend," said he to his companion, "and warm yourself at
the only fireplace of this old castle. A bad state of things, Von
Trenck; but you have, in your wanderings, found matter worse."

"Sometimes," answered the lover of the Princess Amelia, "I have found
nothing at all. This place is really more comfortable than it seems, and
I will be glad to make more of it. Ah! count, you then come sometimes to
muse in these ruins and _watch your arms_[13] in this haunted tower."

"I often come for better reasons. I cannot now tell you why, but will
hereafter."

"I can guess then. From the top of this tower you can look into a
certain park and over a certain pavilion."

"No, Trenck; the house you speak of is behind those woods and that hill,
and cannot be seen from here."

"But you can go thither from this place in a few moments, and can again
take refuge here if troublesome people watch you. Well, now, acknowledge
that just as I met you in the room, you were----"

"I can acknowledge nothing, dear Trenck, and you promised not to
question me."

"True, I should think of nothing except of rejoicing at having found you
in this immense park, or rather forest, where I had lost my way, and but
for you must have thrown myself into some picturesque ravine, or been
drowned in some limpid stream. Are we far from the castle?"

"More than a quarter of a league."

"The old castle does not please me as well as the new one, I confess,
and can see well enough why they yield it up to the bats. I am glad,
however, I find myself alone with you at such a mournful time and hour.
It reminds me of our first meeting amid the ruins of an abbey in
Silesia--my initiation--the oaths I took with my hands in yours, for
then you were my judge, my examiner, my master, but now are my brother
and my friend. Dear Albert! what strange and miserable vicissitudes have
passed over our heads since that day! Both dead to our families, our
countries, our loves, perhaps. What will become of us? and what
henceforth will be our life among men?"

"Yours may yet be surrounded by _éclat_ and intoxication. The dominions
of the tyrant who hates you, thank God, do not cover all the soil of
Europe."

"But my mistress, Albert? Will she be always faithful to me--eternally
but uselessly faithful?"

"You should not desire it, my friend; but it is certain that her passion
will be durable as her sorrow."

"Speak to me of her, Albert, you are more blest than myself, for you are
able to see and hear her."

"I can do so no more, dear Trenck. Do not deceive yourself in that
matter. The fantastic name and strange character of the person called
Trismegistus, with whom I was confounded, and which protected me so long
in my brief and mysterious visits to Berlin, have lost their _prestige_;
my friends will be discreet, and my dupes (for to aid our cause, and
your love, it became necessary to make such) will be more shrewd in
future. Frederick scented a conspiracy, and I cannot return to Prussia.
My efforts will be paralysed by his distrust, and the prison of Spandau
will never open again to let me pass."

"Poor Albert! You must have suffered as much in prison as I did. Perhaps
more?"

"No, I was near her, and heard her voice. I toiled for her delivery. I
regret neither that I endured the horror of a dungeon, nor that I
despaired for her life. If I have suffered on my own account, I did not
perceive it. She has escaped, and will be happy."

"By your means, Albert! Tell me that she will be happy with and through
you only, or I esteem her no more. I withdraw from her my respect and my
admiration."

"Do not speak thus, Trenck. To do so is to outrage nature, love, and
heaven. Our wives are as free of obligation to us as our mistresses. To
bind them in the chains of duty agreeable only to our own feelings, is a
crime and a profanation."

"I know it; and without arrogating to myself your lofty feelings, I am
aware, had Amelia withdrawn her promise instead of renewing it, I feel I
would not on that account cease to love and thank her for the days of
happiness she has conferred on me; but it is permitted to me to be more
anxious on your account than on my own, and to hate all who do not love
you. You smile, Albert, for you do not comprehend my love, nor do I
understand your courage. If it be true that she you love has become a
victim (before her weeds should have been laid aside) of one of _our
brothers_, were he the most deserving of them and the most fascinating
man in the world, I could never pardon her. If you can do so, you are
more than mortal."

"Trenck, Trenck, you know not what you say. You do not understand, and I
cannot explain. Do not judge that admirable woman yet. By-and-bye, you
will know her."

"Why not justify her to my mind? Why this mystery? We are alone here.
Your confessions will not compromise her, and I am aware of no oath
which binds you to hide from me things that we all suspect. She loves
you not? What is her excuse?"

"She never loved me."

"That is her offence. She did not understand you."

"She could not, and I was unable to reveal myself to her. Besides, I was
sick and mad. No one loves a madman. They are to be pitied and feared."

"Albert, you were never a madman. I never saw you crazed. The wisdom and
power of your mind dazzled me."

"You saw me firm and self-possessed while in action. You never saw me in
the agony of repose, or in the tortures of discouragement."

"You know, then, what it is to feel so. I did not think so."

"The reason is, you do not see all the dangers, obstacles, and vices of
our enterprise. You have never sounded the abyss into which I plunged
all my soul, and cast all my existence. You have looked at its chivalric
and generous side; you have seen but easy looks and smiling hopes."

"The reason, count, is that I am less great, less enthusiastic than
yourself. You drained the cup of zeal to the very dregs; and when its
bitterness suffocated you, suspicions of man and heaven arose."

"Yes; and I have suffered cruelly on that account."

"And do you doubt yet--do you still suffer?"

"Now I hope, believe, and act. I am strong and happy. Do you not see joy
enkindle my brow? Do you not see my very heart is intoxicated?"

"Yet you have been betrayed by your mistress? What do I say? by your
wife."

"She was never either one or the other. She owes me no duty. God has
vouchsafed her his love--the most celestial of his boons--as her reward
for having pitied me for a moment on my death-bed. Shall I still hold
her to a promise wrested from her generous compassion and sublime
charity? Should I do so, I would then say, 'Woman, I am your master. You
are mine by law, by your own imprudence and error. You shall tolerate my
embraces, because once on our parting day you kissed my icy brow. You
shall place your hand in mine forever, walk my way, bear my yoke, crush
the young love in your bosom, trample down irrepressible desires, and
consume in sorrow, in my profane arms, on my selfish and cowardly
heart.' Oh! Trenck, think you I could be happy did I act thus? Would not
my life be a bitterer torment than her own? The suffering of the slave
would be the master's curse. Great God! what being is so degraded, so
brutal, as to become proud and intoxicated with a love which is not
mutual, with a fidelity against which the heart of the victim revolts? I
thank heaven that such I am not and cannot be. I was going this evening
to see Consuelo, and tell her all this, and restore her to liberty. I
did not meet her in the garden where she usually walks, and then this
storm came and stripped me of the hope of seeing her. I did not wish to
visit her rooms. I would then have used my rights as a husband. The
quivering of her terror, the very pallor of her despair, would have done
me an injury I cannot bear."

"And have you not also met in the dark Leverani's black mask?"

"Who is Leverani?"

"Are you ignorant of your master's name?"

"Leverani is an assumed name. Do you not know this man, my happy rival?"

"No; but you ask this in a strange manner. Albert, I think I understand
you. You pardon your unfortunate wife. You abandon her, as you should
do. You should, however, chastise her base seducer."

"Are you sure he is base?"

"What! the man to whom the care of her rescue, and the keeping of her
person during a long and dangerous journey was confided--the man who
should protect and respect her, who should not speak to her or show her
his face--a man invested with the power and blind confidence of the
Invisibles--your brother in arms and oath, as I am? Ah! had that woman
been confided to me, I would not have dreamed of the base treachery of
winning her love."

"Once more, Trenck, you know not what you say. Only three of us know
this Leverani and his crime. In a few days you will cease to blame this
happy mortal, to whom God in his goodness has vouchsafed Consuelo's
love."

"Strange and sublime man! do you not hate him?"

"I cannot do so."

"You will not interfere with his happiness?"

"I toil ardently to secure it, and there is nothing strange or sublime
in this. You will ere long smile at the praises you give me."

"What! do you not even suffer?"

"I am the happiest of men."

"Then you either love her little or love her much. Such heroism is not
in human nature. It is almost monstrous, and I cannot admire what I
cannot comprehend. Listen, count. You laugh at me and I am very simple.
I have guessed all, though. You love another woman, and thank Providence
for having delivered you from all obligation to Consuelo, by making her
unfaithful."

"I must than, open my heart, baron, to you, for you force me to do so.
Listen: this is my story--a whole romance. But it is cold here, and this
brush fire is insufficient to warm these old walls, which, I am afraid,
remind you of those of Glatz. It has become clear, and we can find our
way to the castle. Since you go at dawn, I will not detain you up
longer. As we walk I will tell you a strange story."

The two friends resumed their hats, after having shaken off the rain.
Trampling on the brands, to put them out, they left the tower arm in
arm. Their voices soon became lost in the distance, and the echoes of
the old mansion soon ceased to repeat the feeble noise of their steps on
the damp grass of the court.


[Footnote 13: "Faire la veillée des armes." The watch of a knight's
armor on the night before he was dubbed.]




CHAPTER XXX


Consuelo remained in a state of strange stupor. What amazed her most,
what the testimony of her senses could hardly persuade her of, was not
the magnanimous conduct of Albert, nor his heroic sentiments, but the
wonderful facility with which he himself solved the terrible problem of
fate he had made himself. Was it, then, so easy for Consuelo to be
happy? Was her love for Leverani lawful? She thought she had dreamed
what she had heard. It was already permitted her to yield to her love of
the stranger. The austere Invisibles permitted Albert to consent on
account of his greatness of soul, his courage, and virtue. Albert
himself justified and defended her against Trenck's censure. Finally,
Albert and the Invisibles, far from condemning their mutual passion,
abandoned them to themselves, to their invincible sympathy. All this was
without effort, without regret or remorse, without a tear from any one.
Consuelo, quivering with emotion rather than cold, returned to the vast
vaulted room, and rekindled the fire which Albert and Trenck had sought
to put out. She looked at the prints of their wet feet on the floor.
This satisfied her of the reality of their presence, and Consuelo needed
the evidence to satisfy herself. Stooping in the hearthside, like a
dreamy Cinderella, protected ever by the fireside spirits, she sank into
intense meditation. So facile a triumph over fate had not seemed
possible to her. Yet no fear could prevail against the wonderful
serenity of Albert. Consuelo could least of all doubt this--Albert did
not suffer. Her love did not offend his justice. He fulfilled, with a
kind of enthusiastic joy, the greatest sacrifice it is in the power of
man to offer to God. She did not ask if to be thus detached from human
weakness could be reconciled with human affections. Did not this
peculiarity betoken a new phase of madness? After the exaggeration of
sorrow produced by memory and isolated sentiment, did he not feel, as it
were a kind of paralysis of heart in relation to the past? Could he be
cured so soon of his love? and was this love so unimportant a matter
that a simple act of will, a simple decision of mind, could thus efface
every trace of it? Though admiring this triumph of philosophy, Consuelo
could not but feel humiliated at seeing thus destroyed, by a single
breath, the long passion of which she had ever been so justly proud. She
passed in review the least words he had uttered, and the expression of
his face, as he spoke, was yet before her eyes. It was an expression
with which Consuelo was unacquainted. Albert was also as much changed in
externals as in mind. To tell the truth, he was a new man: and had not
the sound of his voice, his features, and the reality of his
conversation satisfied her, Consuelo might have thought that she saw in
his place that _Sosia_, that fanciful Trismegistus, whom the doctor
persisted in substituting for him. The modification which quiet and
health had conferred on Albert seemed to confirm Supperville's error. He
had ceased to be so painfully emaciated, and seemed to have grown, so
expanded did his hitherto thin and feeble form seem to have become. He
had another bearing. He moved with more activity, his step was firmer,
and his dress as elegant and careful as it had been negligent and
despised. His very trifling habits now amazed Consuelo. In other days he
would not have dreamed of fire. He would have been sorry that his friend
Trenck was wet, but would not have dreamed, so foreign to him were all
external things, of gathering up the scattered brands. He would not have
shaken his hat before he put it on, and would have let the rain run
unremarked through his long hair. Now he wore a sword, though of yore he
would never have consented to do so, or even play with it. Now it did
not annoy him; he saw its blade glitter in the blaze, and did not recall
the blood his ancestors had shed. The expiation imposed on John Ziska,
in his person, was a painful dream, which blessed slumber had entirely
effaced. Perhaps he had forgotten it when he forgot the other memories
of his life and love, which seemed to have been, yet not to be, those of
his own life.

Something strange and unnatural took place in Consuelo's mind, which was
like chagrin, regret, and wounded pride. She repeated to herself the
supposition Trenck had made in relation to a new passion, and this idea
seemed probable. A new love alone could grant him toleration and pity.
His last words, as he led his friend away, _story_ and _romance_, were a
confirmation of this doubt. Were they not an explanation of the intense
joy which seemed to animate him?

"Yes, his eyes gleamed," thought Consuelo, "as I never saw them before.
His smile had an expression of intoxication of triumph. He smiled, he
almost laughed. There was even irony in his tone when he said, "You will
smile at your praise." Doubt is gone; he loves, yet not me. He does not
object, he does not oppose my infidelity; he urges me on, and rejoices
at it. He does not blush for me, but gives me up to a weakness of which
I alone am ashamed, and the disgrace of which will fall on me alone. Oh,
heaven! I alone was not guilty. Albert has been yet more so. Alas! why
did I discover the secret of a generosity I would have admired so much,
even though I did not avail myself of it. I see clearly now that there
is a sanctity in plighted faith. God only, who changes our hearts, can
loose us. Then, perhaps, beings united by their oaths may give and
receive the sacrifice of their faiths. When mutual inconstancy alone
presides over divorce, something terrible occurs, and there is, as it
were, a complicity of parricide between the two. They have coldly
stifled in their bosoms the love which united them."

Consuelo early in the morning regained the wood. She had passed the
whole night in the tower, absorbed by countless dark and sad thoughts.
She had no difficulty in finding the road homewards, though she had gone
over it in the dark, and her anxiety made it seem shorter than it really
was. She descended the hill, and retraced her steps up the rivulet, till
she came to the grating, which she passed, walking along its horizontal
bars above the water. She was no longer afraid or agitated. It did not
matter whether she was seen or not, for she had determined to tell her
confessor everything. Besides, the sentiments of her past life so
occupied her, that present things had but a secondary interest. Leverani
scarcely seemed to exist for her. The human heart is so constituted,
that young love needs dangers and obstacles. Old love revives when we
cannot awaken it in the heart of another.

On this occasion the invisible guardians of Consuelo seemed all asleep,
and her nocturnal walk had been observed by no one. She found a new
letter of the stranger on her piano, as tenderly respectful as the one
of the previous evening had been bold and passionate. He complained that
she had been afraid of him, and reproached her for having shut herself
up in her apartments from fear, as if she entertained doubt as to the
humility of his veneration. He humbly asked to be permitted to see her
in the garden at twilight, and promised not to speak to her, not to show
himself, if she demanded it. "Let it be an alienation of heart, or an
error of judgment," added he, "Albert renounces you, tranquilly, and
apparently even coldly. Duty speaks to him more loudly than love. In a
few days the Invisibles will announce their resolution, and give you the
signal of liberty. You can then remain here, to become initiated in
their mysteries; and if you persist in this generous intention, I will
abide by my oath, not to show myself to you. If you have made this
promise only from compassion, if you wish to release yourself, speak,
and I will break my engagements, and fly with you. I am not Albert; I
have more love than virtue. Choose."

"Yes, that is certain," said Consuelo, letting the letter fall on the
strings of the piano. "This man loves me, and Albert does not. It is
possible that he never loved me, and that my image has been a mere
creation of his delirium. Yet this love seemed to me sublime. Would to
God it yet were sufficiently so, to enable me to conquer mine by a
painful and sublime sacrifice! This would be far better for us than the
separation of two adulterous hearts. Better, too, were it that Leverani
should be abandoned by me, with pain and grief, than received as a
necessity of my isolation, in a season of anger, indignation, shame, and
painful intoxication of passion."

She wrote to Leverani, in reply, the following brief words:--

"I am too proud and too sincere to deceive you. I know what Albert
thinks, and what he has resolved on. I have overheard his confessions to
a mutual friend. He leaves me without regret, and virtue alone does not
triumph in his love. I will not follow his example. I loved you, and
abandon you without loving another. I owe this sacrifice to my dignity
and conscience. I hope you will not come near my house. If you yield to
a blind passion, if you wrest any new confession from me, you will
repent it. You would perhaps be indebted for my confidence to the just
anger of a broken heart, and to the terror of a crushed soul. This would
be my punishment and your own. If you persist, Leverani, you do not feel
the love I have thought you did."

Leverani did persist. He continued to write, and was eloquent,
persuasive, and sincere in his humility.

"You make an appeal to my pride," said he, "yet I exhibit no pride to
you. If in my arms you regretted an absent person, I would suffer, but
would not be offended. I would ask you, as I lay at your feet and
watered them with tears, to forget him and trust yourself to me alone.
Howsoever you love me, how little soever it may be, I will be grateful
as if for an immense blessing."

Such was the substance of a series of ardent and timid, submissive and
persevering letters.

Consuelo felt her pride give way before the penetrating charm of a true
love. Insensibly she grew used to the idea that none had loved her
before, not even the Count of Rudolstadt. Repulsing, then, the voluntary
outrage she had fancied was made on the sanctity of her recollections,
she feared lest by exhibiting it, she might become an obstacle to the
happiness Albert promised himself from a new love. She resolved, then,
to submit quietly to the decree of a separation, which he seemed
determined to enforce the Invisibles to make, and abstained from writing
his name in her letters to the stranger, whom she bade be equally
prudent.

In other matters their letters were full of prudence and delicacy.
Consuelo, in separating herself from Albert, and in receiving into her
soul the idea of another affection, was unwilling to yield to a blind
intoxication. She forbade the Chevalier to see her, or violate his oath
of silence until it had been removed by the Invisibles. She declared
that freely and voluntarily she wished to adhere to the mysterious
association which inspired her with respect and confidence. She was
determined to be initiated in their doctrines, and to defend herself
from every personal engagement, until, by something of virtue, she had
acquired the right to think of her own happiness. She had not power to
tell him that she did not love him; but was able to say that she would
not love him without reflection.

Leverani appeared to submit, and Consuelo studied attentively many
volumes which Matteus had given her one day from the Prince, saying that
his highness and the court had left the castle, but that she would soon
have news of him. She was satisfied with this message, and asked Matteus
no questions. She read the history of the mysteries of antiquity, of
Christianity, and of the different sects and secret societies derived
from each. This was a very learned manuscript compilation, made in the
library of the order of the Invisibles, by some learned and
conscientious adept. This serious and laborious study at first occupied
not a little of her attention and even of her imagination. The picture
of the tests of the ancient Egyptian temples gave rise to many terrible
and poetic dreams. The story of the persecution of sects, during the
middle ages, and during the period of revival, excited her heart more
than ever; and this history of enthusiasm prepared her soul for the
religious fanaticism of a speedy initiation. For fifteen days she had no
information from home, and lived in seclusion, surrounded by the
mysterious care of the Chevalier, but firm in her resolution not to see
him, and not to inspire him with too much hope.

The summer heat began to be felt, and Consuelo, being absorbed by her
studies, could rest and breathe freely only in the cool of the evening.
Gradually, she had resumed her slow and dreamy walks in the garden and
enclosures. She thought herself alone, yet vague emotions made her often
fancy that the stranger was not far from her. Those beautiful nights,
the glorious shades, the solitude, the languishing murmur of the running
water amid the flowers, the perfume of plants, the passionate song of
the nightingale, followed by yet more voluptuous silence--the moon
casting its broad, oblique light beneath the transparent shadows of the
sweet nurseries, the setting of Hesperus behind the horizon's roseate
clouds--all these classical but eternal emotions, ever fresh and mighty
with youth and love, immersed the soul of Consuelo in dangerous
reveries. Her thin shadow on the silvery garden walks, the flight of a
bird aroused by her step, the rustling of a leaf agitated by the wind,
sufficed to increase her pace. These slight terrors were scarcely
dissipated when they were replaced by an indefinable regret, and the
palpitations of expectation were more powerful than all the suggestions
of her will.

Once she was more disturbed than usual by the rustling of the leaves and
the uncertain sounds of the night. She fancied some one walked not far
from her, and when she sat down she thought the sound came nearer her.
Agitation aroused her still more, as she felt herself powerless to
resist an interview in those beautiful places and beneath that
magnificent sky. The breath of the breeze seemed to burn her cheek. She
fled to the house and shut herself up in her room. The candles were not
yet lighted. She placed herself behind a _jalousie_, and anxiously
wished to see him by whom she could not be seen. She saw a man appear,
and advance slowly beneath her windows. He approached silently and
without a gesture, and submissively appeared satisfied in gazing on the
walls within which she dwelt. This man was the Chevalier, at least
Consuelo in her anxiety thought so, and fancied that she recognised his
bearing and gait. Strange and painful doubts and fears, however, soon
took possession of her mind. This silent muser recalled Albert to her
mind as much as he did Leverani. They were of the same stature, now that
Albert was invigorated with health, and could walk at ease without his
head hanging on his bosom, or resting on his hand, in an unhealthy or
sad manner. Consuelo could scarcely distinguish him from the Chevalier.
She had seen the latter for a moment by daylight walking before her and
wrapped up in the folds of his cloak. She had seen Albert for a few
moments in the deserted tower, and thought him entirely different from
what she had seen him before. Now that she saw by starlight either the
one or the other, she was about to resolve all her doubts; but the
object passed beneath some shadow, and like a shadow flitted away. At
length it entirely disappeared, and Consuelo was divided between joy and
fear, charging herself with want of courage in not having called
Albert's name at all hazards, and asked for an explanation.

This repentance became more keen as the object withdrew, and as the
persuasion that it was Albert broke on her. Led away by this habit of
devotion, which had, so far as he was concerned, always occupied the
place of love, she thought if he thus wandered around her it was in the
timid hope of talking with her. It was not the first time he had sought
to do so. She had said so to Trenck one evening, when perhaps he had
passed Leverani in the dark. Consuelo determined to bring about this
necessary explanation. Her conscience required that she should clear up
all doubts in relation to the true disposition of a husband, whether it
was generous or volatile. She went down to the garden, and ran after the
mysterious visitor, trembling yet courageous; but she searched through
the whole of the enclosure without finding him.

At length she saw, on the verge of a thicket, a man standing close to
the water. Was this the person she sought for? She called him by the
name of Albert, and he trembled and passed his hands over his face. When
he removed them, the black mask was there.

"Albert! is it you?" said Consuelo. "You alone I look for."

A stifled exclamation of surprise from the person to whom she spoke
betrayed some indescribable emotion of joy or grief. He appeared to wish
to get away; but Consuelo fancied she recognised Albert's voice, and
rushing forward caught him by the cloak, which, parting at his shoulder,
exhibited on the bosom of the stranger a silver cross. Consuelo knew it
but too well: it was that of her mother--the same she had given to the
Chevalier during her journey with him, as a pledge of gratitude and
sympathy.

"Leverani!" said she; "you again! Since it is you, adieu! Why do you
disobey me?"

He threw himself at her feet, folded her in his arms, and embraced her
so ardently, yet respectfully, that Consuelo could not resist.

"If you love me, and would have me love you, leave me," said she. "I
will see and hear you before the Invisibles. Your mask terrifies me, and
your silence freezes my heart!"

Leverani placed his hand on his mask. He was about to tear it away and
to speak. Consuelo, like the curious Psyche, had not courage to turn
away her eyes.

All at once, however, the black veil of the messengers of the secret
tribunal fell over her brow. The hand of the unknown which had seized
hers was silently detached.

Consuelo felt herself led away rapidly, but without violence or apparent
anger. She was lifted from the ground, and then felt the spring of the
planks of a boat beneath her feet. She floated down a stream a long time
without any one speaking to her, and when restored to light found
herself in the subterranean cave where she had before appeared at the
bar of the Invisibles.




CHAPTER XXXI


The seven were there, as when she had first seen them, mute, masked, and
impenetrable as phantoms. The eighth, who had then spoken to Consuelo,
and seemed to be the interpreter of the council and initiator of adepts,
thus spoke to her:--

"Consuelo, you have passed through the tests to which we have subjected
you with satisfaction. We can grant you our confidence, and are about to
prove it."

"Listen!" said Consuelo. "You think me free from reproach; yet I am not.
I have disobeyed you. I left the retreat you assigned me."

"From curiosity?"

"No."

"Will you tell us what you learned?"

"What I have learned is purely personal. Among you is a confessor, to
whom I can and will reveal all."

The old man rose and said--

"I know all. This girl's fault is trivial. She knows nothing that you
wish her to be ignorant of. The confidence of her thoughts is between
her and me. In the interim, use the present moment to reveal to her what
she should know. I will vouch for her in all things."

The initiator then said, after he had looked towards the tribunal, and
received a token of assent--

"Listen to me! I speak in the name of all you see. It is their spirit,
and, so to say, their breath, which inspires me. I am about to expound
their doctrine to you.

"The distinctive character of the religions of antiquity is, that they
have two faces--one exterior and public, the other inward and secret;
the one is the spirit, the other the form or letter. Behind the material
or grosser symbol is the profound sense, the sublime idea. Egypt and
India, the great types of ancient religions, mothers of true doctrines,
offer this duality of aspect in the highest degree. This is the
necessary and fatal sign of the infancy of societies, and of the
miseries attached to the development of the genius of man. You have
recently learned in what consisted the great mysteries of Eleusis and
Memphis, and now you know why divine science, political and social,
concentrated with the triple religions, military and industrial, in the
hands of the hierophants, did not descend to the lowest grades of the
ancient societies. The Christian idea, surrounded in the word of its
revealer by transparent and pure symbols, was granted to the world to
communicate to the popular mind a knowledge of truth and the light of
faith. Theocracy, though the inevitable abuse of religions established
in times of trouble and danger, soon came to veil doctrine again, and in
doing so changed it. Idolatry reappeared with the mysteries, and the
painful expansion of Christianity; the hierophants of Apostolic Rome
lost by divine punishment the divine light, and fell into the darkness
into which they sought to plunge men. The development of the human mind
then worked in a course altogether different to the past. The temple no
longer was, as of yore, the sanctuary of truth; superstition and
ignorance, the gross symbol, the dead letter, sat on altars and thrones.
The spirit at last descended to minds which had been very degraded. Poor
monks, obscure doctors, humble penitents, virtuous apostles of the
primitive church made the secret and persecuted religion the asylum of
the unknown truth. They sought to declare to the people the religion of
equality, and in the name of Saint John preached a new religion--that is
to say, a more free interpretation, and, at the same time, a bolder and
purer one than that of the Christian revelation. You know the history of
their labors, of their combats, and martyrdoms; you know the sufferings
of nations, their ardent inspirations, their lamentable decay, and proud
revival; and that amid efforts successively terrible and sublime, their
heroic perseverance put darkness to flight and discovered the path to
God. The time is near when the veil of the temple will be removed
forever, and when the masses will fill the sanctuaries of the sacred
arch. Then symbols will disappear, and access to truth will not be
guarded by the dragons of religious despotism. All will be able to
approach God with all the power of their souls. No one will say to his
brother, 'Be ignorant, and bow down;' but on the other hand, 'Open thine
eyes and receive the light.' Any man, on the contrary, will be able to
ask aid from his neighbor's eye, heart, and arm, to penetrate the arcana
of sacred science. That day has not yet come, and we are able to see
merely the glimmer of its dawn trembling on the horizon. The duration of
the secret religion is endless, the task of mystery is not yet
fulfilled. We are as yet shut up in the temple, busy in forging arms to
push aside the enemies who interpose between nations and ourselves, and
must yet keep our doors closed and our words secret, that the holy ark
may not be wrested from us after it has been saved with such trouble,
and kept for the common good of mankind.

"You are now received into the new temple: this temple, however, is yet
a fortress, which, for centuries, has held out for liberty without being
able to gain it. War is around us. We wish to be liberators, though as
yet we are but combatants. You are come to share a fraternal communion,
the standard of safety, the toil for liberty, and, perhaps, too, to die
with us in the breach. This is the destiny you have selected, and,
perhaps, will die without having seen the gage of victory float above
your head. Yet, in the name of St. John, do you call men to the crusade.
We yet invoke a symbol; we are the heirs of the Johannites of old; the
unknown, mysterious, and persevering preservers of Wickliffe, of Huss,
and of Luther: like them, we wish to enfranchise the human race; but,
like them, are not free ourselves; and walk, perhaps, to the sacrifice.

"The strife, however, has changed ground, and the nature of its arms. We
yet brave the dark rigor of laws; we expose ourselves yet to
proscription, misery, and death--for the ways of tyranny are
unchangeable. We no longer invoke material revolt, the bloody cause of
the cross and sword: our warfare is intellectual as our mission. We
appeal to the mind. Not with the armed hand can government be overturned
or built up; sustained, as they now are by physical force. We wage a
slower, more mute, and profound warfare--we attack the heart. We destroy
the very foundations, by destroying the blind faith and idolatrous
respect they inspire.

"We cause to penetrate everywhere, even into courts, and the troubled
and fascinated minds of princes and kings, what as yet none dare call
the poison of philosophy: we destroy all mere prestige. We throw from
the summit of our fortress the burning shot of ardent truth and
implacable reason against every throne. Doubt not but that we will
conquer. In how many days--in how many years, we know not. Yet our
undertaking is so old, has been conducted with such faith, and stifled
with such little success, that it cannot fail. It has become immortal in
its nature as the deathless boons it has sought to conquer. Our
ancestors began, and each generation dreamed of its completion. Did we
not entertain some hope of it ourselves, our zeal would become exhausted
and less efficacious: but if the spirit of doubt and irony which now
rules the world should prove to us, by its cold calculation and
overpowering logic, that we pursue a dream not to be realized until
centuries have passed, our conviction in the holiness of our cause would
not be shaken, and though we toiled with more effort and grief, we would
toil, at least, for men yet to be born. Between us and the men of past
and future generations, is a religious tie, so strict and firm that we
have almost stifled the selfish and personal portion of human nature.
This the vulgar will not understand; yet there is in the pride of
nobility something not unlike the old hereditary religious enthusiasm.
The great sacrifice much to glory, to make themselves worthy of their
ancestors, and to bequeath something to posterity. We, architects of the
true temple, have made many sacrifices to virtue, to continue the work
of our masters and to make laborious apprentices. In spirit and in heart
we live at once in the past, the present, and the future. Our
predecessors and successors are as much _we_ as ourselves are. We
believe in the transmission of life, of sentiments, and of generous
instincts in the soul, as nobles believe in the purity of blood in their
veins. We go farther; we believe in the transmission of life,
individuality, soul, and the very body; we feel ourselves fatally and
providentially called to continue the work of which we have already
dreamed, have always pursued, and advanced from century to century.
There are some amongst us who have carried the contemplation of the past
so far as almost to have lost sight of the present. This is the sublime
fever, the ecstacy of saints and prophets, for we have both, and,
perhaps, also our mad and visionary men. Whatever, though, may be the
wanderings or the sublimity of their transport, we respect their
inspiration, and among us Albert the _seer_ and the ecstatic has found
brothers filled with sorrow for his sorrow, and admiration for his
enthusiasm. We also believe in the sincerity of the Count of St.
Germain, who by others is thought an impostor or a madman. Though his
ideas of a period inaccessible to human memory, have a character calmer,
more precise and perhaps more inconceivable than Albert's ecstasies,
they, too, have a character of good faith and lucidness at which it is
impossible for us to laugh. We have among us many other
enthusiasts--mystics, poets, men of the people, philosophers, artists,
and ardent sectarians, grouped beneath the banner of different chiefs.
We have Boehmists, Theosophists, Moravians, Hernhuters, Quakers, even
Pantheists, Pythagoreans, Xerophagists, Illuminati, Johannites,
Templars, Millenarians, Joachimites, &c. All these old sects, though not
developed as they were at the period of their closing are yet existing,
and, to a great degree, not modified. Our object is to reproduce at one
era all the forms which the genius of innovation has assumed
successively in past centuries, relative to religious and philosophical
thought. We therefore gather our agents from these various groups,
without requiring identity or precepts, which in our time would be
impossible. It is enough that they are ardent for reformation, to admit
them into our ranks. All our science of organization consists in
selecting actors only from those who have minds superior to scholastic
disputes, to whom the passion for truth, the search after justice, and
the instinct of moral beauty are more powerful than family habits and
sectarian rivalry. In other respects, it is not so difficult as it is
imagined, to make the most dissimilar things work in concert, for their
dissimilarity is more apparent than real. In fact, all heretics (and I
use this word with respect) agree in one principal point, that of the
destruction of mental and physical tyranny, or, at least, a protest
against them. The antagonisms which have hitherto prevented the fusion
of all these generous but useless rivalries, are derived from self-love
and jealousy, the inherent vices of the condition of man, and a fatal
counterpoise to progress. In managing these susceptibilities, by
permitting every communion to preserve its teachers, its conductors, and
its rights, it is possible to constitute, if not a society, at least an
army, and I have told you we are an army marching to the conquest of a
promised land, of an ideal society. At the point where human society now
stands, there are so many shades of individual character, so many
gradations in the conception of the true, so many varied aspects and
ingenious manifestations of the nature of man, that it is absolutely
necessary to leave to each the conditions of his moral life and power of
action.

"Our work is great--our task is immense. We do not wish to found merely
an universal empire, or a new order, on equitable bases, but we desire
to establish a religion. We are well aware that the one is impossible
without the other. We have, therefore, two modes of action: one
material--to undermine and subvert the old world by criticism, by
ridicule, by the Voltairian philosophy, and by all that is connected
with it. The formidable union of all the bold minds and strong passions
hurries our march in that direction. Our other mode of action is
entirely spiritual; it has to do with religion, and with the future. The
_elite_ of intelligences and of virtues assist us in our incessant
labors. The ground-work of the Invisibles is a concilium which the
persecution of the official world prevents from being publicly
assembled, but which ceaselessly deliberates, and, under the same
inspiration, toils in every part of the world. Mysterious communications
bring forth the grain as it ripens, and seed, too, for the field of
humanity, as we cut it from the grass. In this subterranean toil you may
participate, and we will tell you how, when you shall have accepted our
offers."

"I do accept," said Consuelo, firmly, and lifting up her hands, as if to
swear.

"Do not promise hastily, woman with generous instincts and enterprising
soul. You have not, perhaps, all the virtues such a mission requires.
You have passed through the world--you have already tasted the ideas of
prudence, of what is called propriety, discretion, and good conduct----"

"I do not flatter myself that I have," said Consuelo, smiling, with
modesty and pride.

"Well, you have learned, at least, to doubt, to discuss, to rail, to
suspect."

"To doubt, it may be. Remove suspicion, which was not a part of my
nature, and which has caused me much suffering, and I will bless you.
Above all, remove all doubt of myself, for that feeling makes me
powerless."

"We can remove doubt only by developing our principles. To give you
material guaranties of our sincerity and power, is impossible; on that
point we will do no more than we have hitherto. Let the services we have
rendered you suffice: we will always aid you when an occasion occurs,
but will not initiate you into the mysteries of our thought and action,
except in the particular matter we confide to you. You will not know us,
you will never see our faces. You will never know our names, unless some
great interest force us to infringe and violate the law which makes us
unknown and invisible to our disciples. Can you submit, and yield
yourself blindly to men, who to you never will be anything but abstract
beings, living ideas, aiders, and mysterious advisers."

"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 divine _idea_ revealed 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_, and _Equality._ 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 the _immortal work_ must 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 mysteries _could_ invent, 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 understood _equality._ 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 the _signals 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 the
_bourgeoise_--the rich and the tradeswoman--the virtuous matron and the
_artiste_ adventuress. _Toleration_ and _benevolence_ will be the
formula modified from our more austere rule of _equality_ and
_fraternity_, 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 little
_outré_, 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 of _ennui_, 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 we _know_ what 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."




CHAPTER XXXII


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 great _battue_ of 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, by _fanfares_, the gallop of horses, and the baying of
bloodhounds through the woods all day long. Was this _battue_ real 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
marriages _sworn 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----"

"I _am_ Wanda 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 de
_Calice_, 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!"




CHAPTER XXXIII


"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 might _ransom_ my 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 of _malignant fever._ After these
crises, I fell into so complete a state of _annihilation_ that 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. _They_ may 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 mission
_as 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 or _illuminatus_, 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."




CHAPTER XXXIV


"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 true _Christianity_, 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 on _quais._ 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 the _pious_ hatred 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 the _propaganda_,
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.

"The experience of what a powerful and energetic mind, though in a
diseased body, can accomplish, made me have more confidence in the power
of Albert. I became used to see him sometimes weary and crushed, and
again animated and excited, as I was. Often we bore together the same
physical pain, the result of the same moral emotion. Never, perhaps, was
our intimacy more gentle and close, than when the same fever burned in
our veins, and the same excitement confounded our feeble sighs, now many
times has it seemed that we were one being! How many times have we
broken silence merely to address to each other the same words! How
often, agitated and crushed in different manners, have we, by a clasp of
the hand, communicated languor or agitation to each other! How much good
and evil have we known together! Oh, my son! my only passion! flesh of
my flesh, and bone of my bone! what tempests have we passed through,
covered by the same celestial ægis! what devastation have we escaped by
clinging to each other, and by pronouncing the same formula of safety,
love, truth, and justice!

"We were in Poland, on the frontiers of Turkey, and Albert, having
passed through all the initiations of masonry, and the superior grades
of the society which forms the link of the chain next to our own, was
about to go to that part of Germany where we are, in order that he might
be introduced to the secret bench of the Invisibles. Count Christian
just then sent for him. This was a thunderbolt to me. My son, in spite
of all the care I had taken to keep him from forgetting my family, loved
it only as a tender recollection of the past. He did not understand the
possibility of living any longer with it. It did not enter, however,
into our minds to resist this order, dictated with cold dignity, and
with confidence in paternal authority, as it is interpreted in the
Catholic and noble families of our country. Albert prepared to leave
me--he knew not for how long a time, yet without fancying that he would
not see me shortly, and unite with Marcus the ties of our association.
Albert had a small idea of time, and still less an appreciation of the
material events of life.

"'Do we part?' said he, when he saw me weep. 'We cannot. Often as I have
called on you from the depths of my heart, you have come. I will call
you again.'

"'Albert--Albert--I cannot accompany you where you go now.'

"He grew pale and clung to me like a terrified child. The time was come
to reveal my secret. 'I am not the soul of your mother,' said I, after a
brief preamble, 'but _your mother!_"

"'Why do you say that?' said he, with a strange smile. 'Think you I did
not know it? Are we not alike? Have I not seen your portrait at the
Giants' Castle? Have I forgotten you? Besides, have I not always seen
and known you?'

"'And you were not surprised to see me alive, when all thought me buried
at the Giants' Castle?'

"'No,' said he, 'I was not surprised. I was too happy. God has
miraculous power, and men need not be amazed at it.'

"The strange child had more difficulty in understanding the terrible
realities of my story, than the miracle he had fancied. He had believed
in my resurrection, as in that of Christ. He had fancied my doctrines
about the transmission of life to be literal, and believed in it to the
fullest sense. That is to say, he was not amazed to see me preserve the
certainty of my identity, after having laid aside one body to deck me
with another. I am not certain, even, if I satisfied him that my life
had not been interrupted by my fainting, and that my mortal envelope had
not remained in the tomb. He listened to me with a wondering and yet
excited physiognomy, as if he had heard me speak other words than those
I had uttered. Something inexplicable at that moment passed in his mind.
A terrible link yet retained Albert on the brink of the abyss. Real life
could not animate him, until he had passed through that crisis from
which I had been so miraculously rescued--this apparent death, which in
him was to be the last effort of eternity, struggling against the hold
of time. My heart seemed ready to burst as I left him. A painful
presentiment vaguely informed me that he was about to enter that phase
which might almost be called climacteric, which had so violently shaken
my own existence, and that the time was not far distant when Albert
would either be annihilated or renewed. I had observed that he had a
tendency to catalepsy. He had under my observation accesses of
slumber--long, deep, and terrible. His respiration was weak, his pulse
so feeble that I never ceased to write or say to Marcus, 'Let us never
bury Albert, or else let us never be afraid to open his tomb.'
Unfortunately for us, Marcus could not go to the Giants' Castle, being
excluded from the territories of the Empire. He had been deeply
compromised by an insurrection at Prague; to which, indeed, his
influence had not been foreign. He had by flight only escaped from the
stern Austrian laws. A prey to uneasiness, I came hither. Albert had
promised to write to me every day, and I resolved also, as soon as I
failed to receive a letter, to go to Bohemia, and appear at Riesenberg
in spite of all difficulties.

"The grief he felt at our separation was not less than mine. He did not
understand what was going on. He did not seem to believe me. When,
however, he had gone beneath that roof, the very air of which appears to
be a poison to the burning hearts of the descendants of Ziska, he
received a terrible shock. He hurried to the room I had always occupied.
He called me, and not seeing me come, became persuaded that I had died
again, and would not be restored to him during the present life. Thus,
at least, he explained to me what passed at that fatal moment, when his
reason was shaken so violently that it did not recover for years. He
looked at my picture for a long time. After all, a portrait is but an
imperfect resemblance, and the peculiar sentiment the artist seizes and
preserves is always inferior to that entertained by those who love us
ardently; no likeness can please them; they are alternately afflicted
and offended. Albert, when he compared this representation of my youth
and beauty, did not recognise his dear old mother in the grey hair which
seemed so venerable, and the paleness which appealed to his heart. He
hurried in terror from the portrait, and met his relations, sombre,
silent and afraid. He went to my tomb, and was attacked with vertigo and
terror. To him the idea of death appeared monstrous; yet to console him
his father had said I was there, and that he must kneel and pray for the
repose of my soul.

"'Repose?' said Albert, without reflection, 'Repose of the soul! My
mother's soul was not formed for such annihilation; neither was mine. We
will neither of us rest in the grave. Never--never! This Catholic
cavern, these sealed sepulchres, this desertion of life, this divorce of
heaven and earth, body and soul, horrifies me!'"

By similar conversation Albert began to fill the timid and simple heart
of his father with terror. His words were reported to the chaplain to be
explained. This feeble man saw nothing in it but the outbreak of a soul
doomed to eternal damnation. The superstitions fear which was diffused
in the minds of all around Albert, the efforts of the family to lead him
to return to the Catholic faith, tortured him, and his excitement
assumed the unhealthy character you have seen in him. His ideas became
confounded; and although he had seen evidences of my existence, he
forgot that he had known me alive, and I seemed ever a fugitive spectre
ready to abandon him. His fancy evoked this spectre, and inspired him
with incoherent speeches and painful cries. When he became more calm,
his reason was, as it were, veiled in a cloud. He had forgotten recent
things, and was satisfied he had been dreaming for eight years, or
rather those eight years of happiness and life seemed to be the creation
of an hour of slumber.

"Receiving no letter, I was about to hurry to him. Marcus retained me.
He said the post-office department intercepted our letters, or that the
Rudolstadts suppressed them. My son was represented by his family, calm,
well and happy. You know how sedulously his situation was concealed, and
with what success, for a long time.

"In his travels Albert had known young Trenck, and was bound to him by
the warmest friendship. Trenck, loved by the Princess of Prussia and
persecuted by Frederick, wrote to my son of his joys and misfortunes. He
requested him to come to Dresden to give him the benefit of his aid and
arm. Albert made this journey, and no sooner had he left Riesenberg than
he regained memory and mind. Trenck met my son amid the neophytes of the
Invisibles. There they were made members of a chivalric fraternity.
Having learned from Marcus of their intended interview, I hurried to
Dresden, followed him to Prussia, where he introduced himself into the
Royal Palace in disguise, to serve Trenck's love and fulfil a mission
confided to him by the Invisibles. Marcus thought this activity and the
knowledge of a useful and generous _rôle_ might rescue Albert from his
dangerous melancholy. He was right, for while among us Albert again
became attached to life. Marcus, on his return, wished to bring and keep
him for some time here, amid the real chiefs of the order. He was
convinced that by breathing the true vital atmosphere of a superior
soul, Albert would recover the lucidness of his mind. On the route he
met the impostor Cagliostro, and was imprudently initiated by the
rose-crosses in some of their mysteries. Albert, who long had received
the _rose-cross_, now passed that grade and presided over their
mysteries as Grand-Master. He then saw what, as yet, he had but a
presentiment of. He saw the various elements of which masonic
associations are composed, and distinguished the error, folly, emptiness
and vanity which filled these sanctuaries, already a prey to the vices
of the century. Cagliostro, by means of his police, which was ever
watchful for the petty secrets of the world, which he feigned were the
revelations of a familiar demon, by means of his captious eloquence,
which parodied the great revolutionary inspirations, by the surprising
tricks which enabled him to evoke shadows, and by his intrigues,
horrified the noble adept. The credulity of the world, the low
superstition of a large number of freemasons, the shameless cupidity
excited by promises of the philosopher's stone, and so many other
miseries of the age we live in had kindled a fire in his heart. Amid his
retreat and study he had not distinctly understood the human race. He
was not prepared to contend with all its bad instincts. He could not
suffer such misery. He wished all charlatans and sorcerers to be
unmasked and expelled shamelessly from our temples. He was aware that
the degrading association of Cagliostro must be submitted to, because it
was too late to get rid of him, and because his anger might deprive them
of many estimable friends, and that, flattered by their protection and
an appearance of confidence, he might do real service to a cause with
which he was in fact unacquainted.

"Albert became indignant, and uttered the anathema of a firm and ardent
mind, against our enterprise. He foretold that we would fail, because we
had mixed too much alloy with the golden chain. He left us, saying, that
he would reflect on the things the necessity of which we strove to make
him understand, in relation to the terrible necessities of conspiracies,
and that he would come to ask for baptism when his poignant doubts were
relieved. Alas! we did not know the character of his reflections at
Riesenberg. He did not tell us; perhaps when their bitterness was
passed, he did not remember them. He passed a year there, in alternate
calm and madness, exuberant power and painful decay. He wrote sometimes,
without mentioning his sorrows and troubles. He bitterly opposed our
political course. He wished us thenceforth not to seek to work in the
shade and deceive men, to make them swallow the cup of regeneration.
'Cast aside your black masks,' said he; 'leave your caverns, efface from
the front of your temple the word _mystery_, which you borrowed from the
Roman church, and which ill befits the coming age. Do you not see you
are imitators of the Jesuits? No, I cannot toil with you. It is to look
for life amid carcases. Show yourself by daylight. Do not lose a
precious moment for the organization of your army. Rely on its
enthusiasm, on the sympathy of the people, and the outbursts of generous
instincts. An army, even, becomes corrupted in repose, and a _ruse_,
employed for concealment also deprives us of the power and activity
required for the strife. Albert was right in theory, but the time was
not come to put it in action. That time, perhaps, is yet far distant.

"You at last came to Riesenberg, and found him in the greatest distress.
You know, or rather you do not know, what influence you exerted on him.
You made him forget all but yourself--you gave him, as it were, a new
life and death.

"When he fancied that all between you and him was over, all his power
abandoned him, and he suffered himself to waste away. Until then, I was
not aware of the true nature and intensity of his suffering. The
correspondent of Marcus said, the Giants' Castle became more and more
closed to profane eyes, that Albert never left it, and passed with the
majority of persons as a monomaniac; that the poor, nevertheless, loved
and blessed him, and that some persons of superior mind having seen him,
on their departure did homage to his eloquence, his lofty wisdom and his
vast ideas. At last I heard that Supperville had been sent for, and I
hurried to Riesenberg, in spite of Marcus's protests. Being prepared to
risk all, Marcus seeing me resolved, determined to accompany me. We
reached the walls of the castle in the disguise of beggars. For
twenty-seven years I had not been seen--Marcus had been away ten. They
gave us alms and drove us away. We met a friend and unexpected savior in
poor Zdenko. He treated us as brothers, because he knew how dear we were
to Albert. We knew how to talk to him in the language that pleased his
enthusiasm, and revealed to him the secrets of the mortal grief of his
friend. Zdenko was not the only madman by whom our life has been
menaced. Oppressed and downcast, he came as we did to the gate of the
castle, to ask news of Albert, and, like us, he was repelled with vain
words which were most distressing to our anguish. By a strange
coincidence with the visions of Albert, Zdenko said he had known me; I
had appeared to him in his dreams and ecstasies, and without being able
to account for it, abandoned his will fully to me. 'Woman,' said he, 'I
do not know your name, but you are the good angel of my Podiebrad. I
have often seen him draw your face on paper, and heard him describe your
voice, look, and manner, when he was well, when heaven opened before
him, and he saw around his bed persons who are, as men say, no more.'
Far from opposing Zdenko, I encouraged him; I flattered his illusion,
and induced him to receive us in the Cavern of Tears.

"When I saw this underground abode, and learned that my son had lived
weeks there, aye, even months, unknown to the whole world, I saw how sad
must be his thoughts. I saw a tomb to which Zdenko seemed to pay a kind
of worship, and not without great difficulty could I learn its
destination. It was the greatest secret of Albert and Zdenko, and their
chief mystery. 'Alas!' said the madman, 'there we buried Wanda of
Prachalitz, the mother of my Albert. She would not remain in that chapel
where they had fastened her down in stone. Her bones trembled and shook,
and those (he pointed to the ossuary of the Taborites, near the spring
in the cavern) reproached us for not placing hers with them. We went to
that sacred tomb, which we brought hither, and every day covered it with
flowers and kisses.' Terrified at this circumstance, the consequences of
which might lead to the discovery of our secret, Marcus questioned
Zdenko, and ascertained that the coffin had been brought hither without
being opened. Albert, however, had been sick, and so far astray that he
could not remember my being alive, and persisted in treating me as dead.
Was not this through a dream of Zdenko? I could not believe my ears.
'Oh! my friend,' said I to Marcus, 'if the light of reason be thus
extinguished forever, may God grant him the boon of death!'

"Having thus possessed myself of all Zdenko's secrets, we knew that he
could pass through the underground galleries and unknown passages into
the Giants' Castle. We followed him one night, and waited at the
entrance of the cistern until he had glided into the house. He returned
laughing and singing, to tell us that Albert was cured and asleep, and
that they had dressed him in his robes and coronet. I fell as if I were
stricken by lightning, for I knew that Albert was dead. Thenceforth, I
was insensible, and I found myself, when I awoke, in a burning fever. I
lay on bear skins and dry leaves in the underground room Albert had
inhabited in the Schreckenstein. Zdenko and Marcus watched me
alternately. The one said, with an air of pride, that his Podiebrad was
cured, and soon would come to see me: the other, pale and sad, observed,
'Perhaps all is not lost; let us not abandon the hope of such a miracle
as rescued you from the grave.' I did not understand any longer: I was
delirious, and wished to run, cry, and shout. I could not, however, and
the desolate Marcus, seeing me in such a state, had neither time nor
disposition to attend to anything serious. All his mind and thoughts
were occupied by an anxiety which was most terrible. At last, one night,
the third of my attack, I became calm, and regained my strength. I tried
to collect my ideas, and arose; I was alone in the cave which was dimly
lighted by a solitary sepulchral lamp. I wished to go out--where were
Marcus and Zdenko? Memory returned; I uttered a cry, which the icy
vaults echoed back so lugubriously, that cold perspiration streamed down
my brow, which was damp as the dew of the grave. Again I fancied that I
was buried alive. What had passed? What was going on? I fell on my
knees, and wrung my hands in despair. I called furiously on Albert. At
last, I heard slow and irregular steps, as if persons with a burden,
approach. A dog barked, and having preceded them, scratched at the door.
It was opened, and I saw Zdenko and Marcus bearing the stiff, discolored
body of Albert, for to all appearance he was dead. His dog Cynabre
followed and licked his hands, which hung loosely by his side. Zdenko
sang sadly an improvised song, 'Come, sleep on the bosom of your mother,
poor friend, who have been so long without repose. Sleep until dawn,
when we will awaken you to see the sun rise.'

"I rushed to my son.

"'He is not dead,' said I. 'O Marcus, you have saved him!--have you not?
He is not dead? Will he recover?'

"'Madame,' said he, 'do not flatter yourself,'--and he spake with a
strange firmness. 'I know not what may be the result. Take courage,
however, whatever may betide. Help me, and forget yourself.'

"I need not tell you what care we took to restore Albert. Thank Heaven
there was a stove in the room, at which we warmed him.

"'See,' said I to Marcus, 'his hands are warm.'

"'Marble may be heated,' was his unpromising reply. 'That is not life.
His heart is inert as a stone.'

"Terrible hours rolled by in this expectation and despair. Marcus knelt
with his ear close to my son's heart. His face betokened sad distress
when he found there was not the slightest index of life. Exhausted and
trembling, I dared not say one word or ask one question. I examined
Marcus's terrible brow. I was at one time afraid to look at him, as I
fancied I had read the first sentence.

"Zdenko played with Cynabre in a corner, and continued to sing. He
sometimes paused to tell us that we annoyed Albert; that we must let him
sleep; that he had seen him so for weeks together; and that he would
awaken of himself. Marcus suffered greatly from this assurance, in which
he could not confide. I had faith in it, and was inspired by it. The
madman had a celestial inspiration, an angelic certainty of the truth.
At length I saw an involuntary movement in Marcus's iron face. His
corrugated brow distended, his hand trembled, as he prepared himself for
a new act of courage. He sighed deeply, withdrew his ear, and placed his
hand over my son's heart, which perhaps beat. He tried to speak, but
restrained himself, for fear, it may be, of the chimerical joy it would
inspire me with, leaned forward again, and suddenly rising and stepping
back, fell prostrate, as if he were dying.

"'No more hope?' said I, tearing my hair.

"'Wanda,' said Marcus in a stifled voice, 'your son is alive!'

"Exhausted by the effort of his attention and solicitude, my stoical
friend lay overpowered by the side of Zdenko!"




CHAPTER XXXV


Overcome by the emotion of such recollections, the Countess Wanda, after
a brief silence, resumed her story.

"We passed several days in the cavern, and my son recovered strength and
activity with wonderful rapidity. Marcus, surprised at discovering the
trace of no organic injury, or great change in the vital system, was
alarmed at his profound silence and his apparent or real indifference to
our transports. Albert had completely lost his memory. Wrapped in deep
study, he in vain made silent efforts to understand what was passing
around him. I was not so impatient as Marcus to see him regain the
poignant recollection of his love, for I knew well that sorrow was the
only cause of his disease, and of the catastrophe which had resulted
from it. Marcus himself said that the effacing of the past alone would
be the means of his regaining strength. His body recovered quickly at
the expense of his mind, which was giving way rapidly beneath the
melancholy effort of his thoughts.

"'He lives, and certainly will live,' said he; 'but will not his mind be
obscured? Let us leave this cavern as soon as possible; air, sunlight,
and exercise will doubtless awaken him from his mental slumber. Let us,
above all things, abandon the false and impassive life which has killed
him: let us leave this family and its society, which crushes his natural
impulses. We will take him among persons who will sympathise with him,
and in company with them his soul will recover its vigor.'

"Could I hesitate? Wandering leisurely towards evening around the
Schreckenstein, where I pretended to ask charity, I learned that Count
Christian had relapsed into a kind of dotage. He had not known of his
son's return, and the prospect of his father's death would certainly
have killed Albert. Was it, then, necessary to restore him to his old
aunt, to the insane chaplain and brutal uncle, who had made his life and
his mental death so painful and sad?

"'Let us fly with him,' said I to Marcus. 'Let him not witness his
father's agony, nor that terrible spectacle of Catholic idolatry which
ever surrounds the bed of death. My heart breaks when I think that my
husband--who did not understand me, but whose simple virtues I venerate,
and whom I have as religiously respected since I left him as I did
before--will pass away without exchanging a mutual pardon. Since that
must be the case--since the reappearance of myself and my child would be
either useless or injurious to him, let us go. Do not let us restore to
that sepulchral palace what we have wrested from death, and to whom hope
and life now unfold a magnificent career. Ah! let us implicitly obey the
impulse which brought us hither. Let us rescue Albert from the
prison-house of false duties, created by rank and riches. Those duties
to him will always be crimes; and if he persists in discharging them,
for the purpose of gratifying the relations whom death and age rapidly
claim, he will himself probably be the first to die. I know what I
suffered from the slavery of thought, in that mortal and incessant
contradiction between the soul and positive life--between principles,
instincts, and compulsory habits. I see he has travelled the same path,
and imbibed the same poisons. Let us take him away then, and if he
choose to contradict us at some future day, can he not do so? If his
father's life be prolonged, and if his mental health permit, will it not
always be possible for him to return and console the declining years of
Count Christian by his presence and his love?'

"'That will be difficult,' said Marcus. 'I see in the future terrible
obstacles, if Albert should wish to annul his divorce from society, the
world, and his family.'

"'Why should Albert do so? His family will perhaps become extinct,
before he regains the use of his memory: and whatever name, honors, or
wealth he may attain in the world, I know what he will think as soon as
he returns to his senses. Heaven grant that day may borne soon. Our most
important task is to place him in such a position that his cure may be
possible.'

"We left the cavern by night, as soon as Albert was able to sustain
himself. At a short distance from the castle we placed him on horseback,
and reached the frontier, which is at this place very near, as you know,
and where he found more suitable means of transportation. The numerous
affiliations of our order with the masonic fraternity procured for us
the means of travelling all through Germany, without being recognised or
subjected to the scrutiny of the police. Bohemia, in consequence of the
recent events at Prague, was the only country where we were in danger.
There the surveillance of the Austrian authorities was very rigid."

"And what became of Zdenko?" asked the young Countess of Rudolstadt.

"Zdenko nearly ruined us by his obstinate refusal to permit us to go,
or, at least, to part with Albert, whom he would not suffer to leave
him, and would not follow. He persisted in thinking Albert could live
nowhere but in the sad Schreckenstein. 'Nowhere else,' said he, 'is my
Podiebrad calm. In other places they torment, and will not let him
sleep. They seek to make him deny our fathers at Mount Tabor, and induce
him to lead a base and disgraceful life. This exasperates him. Leave him
here; I will take good care of him, as I have often done. I will not
disturb his meditations, and when he wishes to be silent I will walk
without making any noise, and keep Cynabre's muzzle within my hands for
two whole hours, to keep him from annoying Podiebrad by licking his
fingers. When he is weary I will sing him the songs he loves, for he
loves my verses, and is the only person who can understand them. Leave
him here. I know what suits him better than you, and when you see him
again, he will be playing the violin, or planting the cypress branches,
which I will cut in the forest, around the grave of his beloved mother.
I will feed him well; I know all the cabins, and no one ever refuses
bread, milk, or fruits to good old Zdenko. The poor peasants of the
Boehmer-wald, though they do not know it, have long fed their noble
master, the rich Podiebrad. Albert does not like feasts, where people
eat flesh, but prefers a life of innocence and simplicity. He does not
wish to see the sun, but prefers the moonbeams, glancing through the
woods in savage places where our good friends, the Zingari, camp at
night. They are the children of the Lord, and know neither laws nor
riches.'

"I listened to Zdenko with attention, because his innocent words
revealed to me the details of the life Albert led with him during his
frequent absences in the cavern. 'Do not fear,' said he, 'that I shall
ever reveal to his enemies the secret of his abode. They are so false
and foolish, that they now say, "our child is dead, our friend is dead,
and our master is dead." They would not believe he was alive, even if
they were to see him. Besides, do I not reply when, they ask me if I
have seen Count Albert, "he is certainly dead." As I laughed when I said
this, they thought me mad. I spoke thus to mock them, because they
think, or seem to think him dead. When the people of the castle pretend
to follow, do I not make a thousand windings to throw them out? All the
devices of the hare and partridge are known to me. I know, like them,
how to hide in a furrow, to disappear under the brush, to make a false
track, to jump over a torrent, to hide myself while they pass by, and,
like a will-o'-wisp, to lead them astray in the ponds and morasses. They
call me Zdenko the _fool._ I am more knave, though, than any of them.
There was never but one girl, a good, sweet girl, who could get the
better of Zdenko. She knew the magic words to soothe his wrath. She had
talismans to overcome all perils and dangers. Her name was Consuelo.'

"When Zdenko pronounced your name, Albert shuddered lightly, and looked
away. He immediately, however, let his head fall on his breast, and his
memory was not aroused.

"I tried in vain to soothe this devoted and blind guardian by promising
to restore Albert to Schreckenstein, if he would accompany him to the
place whither we proposed to take him. I did not succeed however; and
when at last, half by persuasion and half by force, we induced him to
suffer my son to leave the cavern, he followed us with tears in his
eyes, and singing sadly, as far as the mines of Cuttemberg. When he
reached this celebrated spot, where Ziska won his great victory over
Sigismund, Zdenko recognised the rocks which marked the frontier, for no
one had explored all the paths of the country more closely than he had
done in his vagabond career. There he paused and said, stamping on the
ground, 'Zdenko will never leave the country where his father's bones
rest. Not long ago, I was exiled and banished by my Podiebrad, for
having menaced the girl he loved, and I passed weeks and months on a
foreign soil. I returned afterwards to my dear forests to see Albert
sleep, for a voice in a dream whispered to me that his anger had passed.
Now, when he does not curse me, you steal him from me. If you do so to
take him to Consuelo, I consent. As for leaving my country now, and
speaking the tongue of my enemies again, as for giving them my hand, and
leaving Schreckenstein deserted and abandoned, I will not. This is too
much. The voices, too, in my dreams have forbid this. Zdenko must live
and die in the land of the Sclaves. He must live and die singing Sclavic
glory and misfortune in the language of his fathers. Adieu! and go. Had
not Albert forbade me to shed human blood, you would not thus take him
from me. He would curse me, though, if I lifted my hand on you, and I
would rather never see than offend him. Do you hear, oh! Podiebrad,'
said he, kissing my son's hand, while the latter looked at and heard but
did not understand him. 'I obey you and go. When you return you will
find the fire kindled, your books in order, your bed made with new
leaves, and your mother's tomb strewed with evergreen leaves. If it be
in the season of flowers, there will be flowers on the bones of our
martyrs near the spring. Adieu, Cynabre.' As he spoke thus with a broken
voice, Zdenko rushed over the rocky ledge which inclined towards
Bohemia, and disappeared like a stag at dawn.

"I will not describe, dear Consuelo, our anxiety during the first weeks
Albert passed with us. Hidden in the house you now inhabit, he returned
gradually to the kind of life we sought to awake in him with care and
precaution. The first word he spoke was called forth by musical emotion.
Marcus understood that Albert's life was knit to his love of you, and
resolved not to awaken the memory of that love until he should be fit to
inspire in return the same passion. He then inquired minutely after you,
and in a short time ascertained the least details of your past and
present life. Thanks to the wise organization of our order, and the
relations established with other secret societies, a number of neophytes
and adepts, whose functions consist in the scrupulous examination of
persons and things that interest us, nothing can escape our
investigations. The world has no secrets for us. We know how to
penetrate the arcana of politics and the intrigues of courts. Your pure
life, your blameless character, were not difficult to be seen. The Baron
Von Trenck, as soon as he saw that the man you had loved was his friend
Albert, spoke kindly of you. The Count of Saint Germain, one of those
men who apparently are absent-minded as possible, yet who in fact is
most discriminating, this strange visionary, this superior being, who
seems to live only in the past, while nothing that is present escapes
him, furnished us with the most complete information in relation to you.
This was of such a character that henceforth I looked on you as my own
child.

"When we were sufficiently well informed to act with certainty we sent
for skillful musicians who came beneath the window where we now sit.
Albert was where you are, and leaned against the curtain watching the
sunset. Marcus held one of his hands and I the other. Amid a symphony
composed expressly for the four instruments, in which we had inserted
several of the Bohemian airs Albert sings with such religion and
enthusiasm, we made them play the hymn to the Virgin with which you once
so delighted him--


Consuelo de mi alma.


"At that moment, Albert, who hitherto had exhibited a faint emotion at
our old Bohemian songs, threw himself in my arms, and shedding tears,
said--'My mother!'

"Marcus put an end to the music, being satisfied with the effect he had
produced. He did not wish to push the first experiment too far. Albert
had seen and recognised me, and had found power to love. A long time yet
passed before his mind recovered its freedom. He had however, no access
of fever. When his mental powers were overtasked, he relapsed into
melancholy silence. His face, though, insensibly assumed a less sad
expression, and by degrees we combatted this taciturn disposition. We
were at last delighted to see this demand for intellectual repose
disappear, and he continued to think, except at his regular hours for
sleep, when he was quiet as other men are. Albert regained a
consciousness of life and love for you and me, for charity and
enthusiasm towards his fellows, and for virtue, faith and the duty of
winning its triumphs. He continued to love you without bitterness and
without regret for all that he had suffered. Notwithstanding, however,
his efforts to reassure us, and to exhibit his courage and self-denial,
we saw that his passion had lost nothing of its intensity. He had merely
acquired more moral power and strength to bear it. We did not seek to
oppose him. Far otherwise. Marcus and I strove to endow him with hope,
and we resolved to inform you of the existence of him for whom you were
mourning, if not in your dress, in your heart. Albert, with generous
resignation, forbade us to do so, refraining from all disposition to
make a sacrifice of your happiness to your sense of duty.

"His health seemed completely restored, and others than I aided him to
combat his unfortunate passion. Marcus and some of the chiefs of our
order initiated him in the mysteries of our enterprise. He experienced a
serious and melancholy joy in those daring hopes, and, above all, in the
long philosophical discussions, in which, if he did not meet with entire
similarity of opinions between him and his noble friends, he at least
felt himself in contact with every profound and ardent idea of truth.
This aspiration towards the ideal, long repressed and restrained by the
narrow terrors of his family, had, at last, free room to expand, and
this expansion, seconded by noble sympathies, excited even by frank and
genial contradiction, was the vital air in which he could breathe and
act, though a victim to secret suffering. The mind of Albert is
essentially metaphysical: nothing smiles on him in the frivolous life
where egotism seeks its food. He is born for the contemplation of high
truths and the exercise of the most austere virtues. At the same time,
by a perfection of moral beauty which is rare among men, he is gifted
with a soul essentially tender and affectionate. Charity is not enough,
he must love; and this passion extends to all, though he feels the
necessity of concentrating it on some individuals. In devotion he is a
fanatic, yet his virtue is not savage. Love intoxicates, friendship
sways him, and his life is a fruitful and inexhaustible field, divided
between the abstract being he reveres passionately, under the name of
humanity, and the persons he loves. In fine, his sublime heart is a
hearth of love; all noble passions exist there without rivalry, and if
God could be represented under a finite and perishable form, I would
dare assert that the soul of my son is an image of that universal soul
we call the divinity.

"On that account, a weak human being, infinite in its inspiration
limited and without resources, he had been unable to live with his
parents. Had he not loved them ardently, he would have been able to live
apart from them, healthy and calm, differing from them, but indulging
their harmless blindness. This would, however, have required a certain
coldness, of which he was incapable as I. He could not live isolated in
his mind and heart. He had besought their aid, and appealed in despair
for a community of ideas between him and the beings who were so dear to
him. Therefore was it that, shut up in the iron wall of their Catholic
obstinacy, their social prejudices and their hatred to a religion of
equality, he had broken to pieces as he sighed on their bosoms; he had
dried up like a plant without dew, calling on heaven for rain to endow
him with an existence like those he loved. Weary of suffering alone,
loving alone, weeping and praying alone, he thought he regained life in
you; and when you participated in his ideas, he was calm and reasonable.
Yet you did not reciprocate his sentiments, and your separation could
not but plunge him into an isolation both deeper and more
insurmountable. His faith was perpetually denied and contradicted, and
became a torture too great for human power. Vertigo took possession of
him: unable to mingle the sublime essence of his own soul in others like
it, he died.

"So soon as he found hearts capable of comprehending and seconding him,
we were amazed at his moderation in discussion, his tolerance,
confidence, and modesty. We had apprehended, from the past, that he
would be stern, self-willed, and exhibit the strong manner of talking,
which, though proper enough in a mind convinced and enthusiastic, would
be dangerous to his progress and detrimental to such an enterprise as
ours. He surprised us by his candor, and charmed us by his behavior. He
who made us better by speaking and talking to us, persuaded himself that
he received what he really gave us. He soon became the object of
boundless veneration, and you must not be surprised that so many persons
toiled for your rescue, for his happiness had become the common object
of all who had approached him, though merely for an instant."




CHAPTER XXXVI


"The cruel destiny of our race, however, was not fulfilled. Albert was
yet to suffer, his heart was yet to bleed for his family, which was
doomed to crush him, while it was innocent of his sufferings. As soon as
he was strong enough to hear the news, we had not concealed from him the
death of his father, which took place soon after his own, (I must use
this phrase to describe that strange event.) Albert had wept for his
father with deep regret: and the certainty that he had not left life to
enter on the nonentity of the paradise or the hell of the Catholic,
inspired him with the hope of a better and more ample life for one who
had been so pure and worthy of reward. He was much more grieved at the
state in which his relatives, Baron Frederick and Wenceslawa, were. He
blamed himself for being happy away from them, and resolved to visit
them and inform them of the secret of his cure and wonderful
resurrection, and to make them as happy as possible. He was not aware of
the disappearance of Amelia, which happened while he was ill, and it had
been carefully hidden from him, as likely to make him unhappy. We had
not thought it right to inform him of it, for we were unable to shelter
my niece from the shame of her deplorable error. When about to seize her
seducer, we were anticipated by the Saxon Rudolstadts. They had caused
Amelia to be arrested in Prussia, where she expected a refuge, and had
placed her in the power of Frederick, who did them the honor to shut up
the poor girl at Spandau. She passed almost a year in strict
confinement, seeing no one, and having reason to think herself happy at
her error being concealed by the jailer monarch."

"Madame," said Consuelo, "is she there yet?"

"We are about to release her. Albert and Leverani could not rescue her
when they did you, for she was much more closely watched; her imprudent
attempts to escape, her revolts and temper, having aggravated her
confinement. We have other means than those which won your safety. Our
adepts are everywhere, and some even seek for courtly favor, to be able
to serve us thus! We have obtained for Amelia the patronage of the young
Margravine of Bareith, sister of the King of Prussia, who has requested
and obtained her liberty, promising to take charge of her and be
responsible for her conduct in future. In a few days the young baroness
will be under the protection of the Princess Wilhelmina, whose heart is
as good as her tongue is censorious, and who will be as kind to her as
she was to the Princess Culmbach, another unfortunate creature, withered
in the eyes of the world as Amelia was, and who like her was a victim of
royal prisons.

"Albert was ignorant, then, of the misfortune of his cousin, when he
resolved to visit his uncle and aunt at the Giants' Castle. He could not
account for the inertia of Baron Frederick, who was able to live, to
hunt, and drink, after so many and so great misfortunes, and for the
passive character of Wenceslawa, who, while she sought to discover
Amelia, took care not to give any _éclât_ to what had happened. We
opposed Albert's plan as much as possible, but he persisted in it,
unknown to us. He set out one night, leaving us a letter, which promised
us a prompt return. His absence was not long, in fact, but it was
pregnant with sorrows.

"In disguise he entered Bohemia, and found Zdenko alone in the cavern of
the Schreckenstein. He wished thence to write to his kindred and prepare
them for the excitement of his return. He was aware that Amelia was the
most courageous, as well as the most frivolous of the family, and to her
he wished to send his first letter. As he wrote it, and while Zdenko was
out on the mountain, he heard the report of a gun, and a painful cry of
agony. He rushed out, and the first thing he saw was Zdenko, bearing
Cynabre in his arms. To hurry to his poor old dog, without thinking of
concealing his face, was the first act of Albert. As he bore the poor
animal, with a death wound, towards the place known as the 'Monk's
Cave,' he saw an old huntsman hurrying towards him, rapidly as age would
permit, to seize his prey. This was Baron Frederick, who, while hunting
at the dawn of day, had taken Cynabre for some wild beast. He had seen
him through the undergrowth, and as his eye and hand were yet sure, had
wounded him. He had put two balls in his side. All at once he saw
Albert, and fancying that a spectre stood before him, paused in terror.
No longer fearing a real danger, he shrank back to the very verge of a
mountain path, and fell into a ravine, where he was crushed by the
rocks. He died immediately, at the very place where for centuries had
stood the fatal oak of Schreckenstein, known as the _Hussite_, in other
days the witness and accomplice of terrible catastrophes.

"Albert saw the baron fall, and left Zdenko, to descend into the ravine.
He then perceived the servants of his uncle, seeking to lift him up, and
filling the air with lamentations, for he gave no sign of life. Albert
hearing these words--'Our poor master is dead; alas! what will our lady
the canoness say?' forgot himself, and shouted and cried aloud.

"As soon as they saw him, a panic took possession of the credulous
servants. They abandoned the body of their master, and were about to
fly, when old Hans, the most superstitious of all, bade them halt, and
said, making the sign of the cross, 'My friends, it is not our Albert
that stands before us; it is the spirit of the Schreckenstein, who has
taken his form to destroy us all if we be cowards. I saw him distinctly,
and he it was who made our master the baron fall. He would carry his
body away and devour it, for he is a vampire. Be brave, my children; be
brave. They say the devil is a coward. I shall shoot at him in the mean
time. Father,' (he spoke to the chaplain) 'go over the exorcism.' As he
spoke Hans made the sign of the cross again and again, lifted up his
gun, and fired at Albert, while the other servants crowded around the
baron's body. Fortunately Hans was too much terrified and too much
afraid to fire accurately. He acted in a kind of delirium. The ball
hissed by Albert's head, but Hans was the best shot in all the country,
and had he been cool would infallibly have killed my son. Albert stood
irresolute. 'Be brave, lads: be brave.' said Hans, loading his gun.
'Fire at once. You will not kill him, for he is ball-proof, but you will
make him retreat, and we will be able to carry away the Baron
Frederick's body.'

"Albert, seeing all the guns directed at him, rushed into the thicket,
and unseen descended the declivity of the mountain, and soon by personal
observation became assured of the reality of the dreadful scene. The
crushed and broken body of his unfortunate uncle lay on the bloody
stones. His skull was crushed, and old Hans, in the most lamentable
tone, said to the crowd--'Gather up his brains, and leave nothing on the
rocks, for the vampire's dog will come to lap them up. Yes, yes, there
was a dog--a dog I would have sworn was Cynabre.'

"'He, though, disappeared after Count Albert's death,' said another,
'and no one has seen him since. He died in some corner or other, and the
dog we saw is a shadow, as also was the vampire that assumed Count
Albert's form. Horrible! It will always be before my eyes. Lord God have
mercy on us, and the soul of the baron, who died unconfessed, in
consequence of the evil spirit's malice.'

"'Alas! I told him some misfortune would befall him,' said Hans, as he
gathered up the shreds of the baron's garments in his hands, which were
stained with the nobleman's blood. 'He would hunt in this
thrice-accursed place. He thought, because no one ever came hither, all
the game of the forest crowded into it. God knows there never was any
other game here than what, when I was a lad, I saw hanging from the
branches of that oak. Accursed Hussite! tree of perdition. The fire of
heaven has devoured it, but while one root remains in the soil, the
Hussites will come hither to avenge themselves on the Catholics. Well,
get the litter ready, and let us go, for here we are not safe. Ah!
Madame Canoness! poor mistress! what will become of you? Who will dare
first to appear before you, and say as we used to--"The baron has come
back from hunting." Will she say--"Have dinner at once!" Dinner!--a long
time will pass before anyone in the castle will be hungry. Well, this
family is too unhappy. I can account for it, though.'

"While the body of the baron was placed on a litter, Hans, annoyed by
questions, replied, and, as he did so, he shook his head--'In this
family all were pious and died like Christians, until the day when the
Countess Wanda, on whom may God have mercy, died unconfessed. Count
Albert did not die in a state of grace, and his worthy father suffered
for it. He died unconscious, and here is another who has passed away
without the sacraments. I bet, not even the canoness will have time to
prepare herself. Fortunately for this holy family, she is always in a
state of grace.'

"Albert heard every word of all this sad conversation, the expression of
true grief in common-place words, and a terrible reflection of the
fanatical horror which both of us excited at Riesenberg. In stupor and
amazement, he saw the sad _cortège_ defile in the distance down the
paths of the ravine, and did not dare to follow it, though he was aware
that properly he should have been the first to bear the sad news to his
old aunt and aid her in her mortal grief. He was sure, though, had he
done so, his apparition would either have killed or crazed her. He
therefore withdrew in despair to the cavern, where Zdenko, who was
ignorant of the most unfortunate accident of the day, was busy in
washing Cynabre's wound. It was too late, however. Cynabre, when he saw
his master return, uttered a cry of pain; in spite of his broken ribs,
he crawled up to him, and died at his feet, after receiving his last
caresses. Four days afterwards Albert rejoined us; he was pale and
overcome by this last shock. He remained many days sad and overcome with
these new sufferings. At last, his tears fell on his bosom. 'I am
accursed among men,' said he, 'and it seems that God seeks to exclude me
from the world, where I should have loved no one. I cannot return to it,
without being the vehicle of terror, death, or madness. All is over. I
will never be able again to see those who took care of my childhood.
These ideas, in relation to the eternal separation of the body and soul,
are so absolute and terrible, that they would prefer to think me chained
forever to the tomb, to seeing my unfortunate countenance. This is a
strange and terrible phase of life. The dead become objects of hatred to
those who loved them most; and if their shadows appear, they seem sent
forth by hell, instead of being angels from heaven. My poor uncle! my
noble father! you to me seemed heretical, as I did to you; yet did you
appear, were I fortunate enough to see your forms as death seized them,
I would welcome them on my knees, I would think they came from the bosom
of God, where souls are _retempered_ and bodies formed anew. I would
utter no horrible formula of dismissal and malediction, no impious
exorcisms of fear and aversion. I would call on you, I would gaze on you
with love, and retain you with me as things sent to aid me. Oh! mother!
all is over. I must to them be dead whether they be living or dead to
me.'

"Albert had not left the country until he was assured the canoness had
survived this last shock of misfortune. This old woman, as
ill-restrained as I am, lives by sorrow alone. Venerated for her
convictions and her sorrows, she counts, resignedly, the bitter days God
yet requires her to live. In her sorrow, however, she yet maintains a
degree of pride which has survived all her affections. She said not long
ago, to a person who wrote to us: 'If we did not fear death from a sense
of duty, we would yet have to do so for propriety's sake.' This remark
explains all the character of Wenceslawa.

"Thenceforth Albert abandoned all idea of leaving us, and his courage
seemed to increase at every trial. He seemed even to have overcome his
love, and plunged into philosophy and religion, and was buried in ethics
and revolutionary action. He gave himself up to serious labors; and his
vast mind in this manner assumed a development which was as serene and
magnificent as it had been feverish and fitful when away from us. This
strange man, whose delirium had terrified Catholics, became a light of
wisdom to beings of a superior order. He was initiated into the most
mysterious secrets of the Invisibles, and assumed a rank among the
chiefs of the new church. He gave them advice, which they received with
love and gratitude. The reforms he proposed were consented to, and in
the practice of a militant creed he regained hope and a serenity of soul
which makes heroes and martyrs.

"We thought he had overcome his love of you, so careful was he to
conceal his struggles and sufferings. One day, however, the
correspondence of our adepts, which it was impossible to conceal,
brought to our sanctuary a sad piece of information. In spite of the
doubt surrounding the report, at Berlin you were looked upon as the
king's mistress, and appearances did not contradict the supposition.
Albert said nothing, and became pale.

"'My beloved mother,' said he, after being silent a few moments, 'on
this occasion you will suffer me to leave you, without fear. My love
calls me to Berlin: my place is by the side of her who has accepted my
love, and whom I love. I pretend to no right over her. If she be
intoxicated by the sad honor attributed to her, I will use no authority
to make her renounce it; but if she be, as I suspect, surrounded by
snares and dangers, I will save her.'

"'Pause, Albert,' said I, 'and dread the influence of that fatal passion
which has already injured you so deeply. The evil which will result from
it is beyond your influence. I see that now you exist merely in the
power of your virtue and your love. If this love perish, will virtue
suffice?'

"'And why should it perish?' said he, enthusiastically. 'Do you think
she has ceased to be worthy of me?'

"'If she be, Albert, what would you do?'

"With a smile on his pale lips, and a proud glance, such as were always
enkindled by his sad and enthusiastic ideas--

"'If so, I would continue to love her; for to me the past is not a dream
that is effaced, and you know I have often so confounded it with the
present as to be unable to distinguish it. So would I do again. I would
love that angelic face, that poetic soul by which my life was so
suddenly enlightened and warmed. I would not believe that the past is
behind me, but would keep its burning light within my bosom. The fallen
angel would yet inspire me with so much tenderness and love, that my
life would be devoted to consoling her and sheltering her from the
contempt of a cruel world.'

"Albert went to Berlin with many of his friends, and made a pretext to
the Princess Amelia, his protector, of talking to her about Trenck, who
was then a prisoner at Glatz, for a masonic business which he was
engaged in. You saw him preside at a lodge at the Rose Cross; and he did
not know that Cagliostro, in spite of our efforts, had learned his
secrets and made use of them as a means of disturbing your reason. For
the mere fact of having suffered any person uninitiated even to glance
at a masonic mystery, Cagliostro deserved to be expelled as a trickster.
It was not known, however, for a long time; and you must be aware
yourself of the terror he displayed while conducting you to the temple.
The penalty due to this kind of treason is severely administered by the
adepts; and the magician, by making the mysteries of the order subject
to his pretended miracles, perhaps risked his life, as he certainly did
his necromantic reputation, for he would without doubt have been
unmasked had he been discovered.

"During his short and mysterious stay at Berlin, Albert ascertained
enough of your conduct and ideas to be at ease about you. Though you
knew it not, he watched you closely, and returned apparently calm, but
more in love with you than ever.

"During several months he travelled in foreign lands, and by his
activity served our cause well. Having been informed that several
plotters, perhaps spies of the King of Prussia, were attempting to set
on foot at Berlin a conspiracy which endangered masonry, and perhaps
would be fatal to Prince Henry and the Abbess of Quedlimburg, Albert
hurried thither to warn the Prince and Princess of the absurdity of such
an attempt, and to put them on their guard against the plot which seemed
imminent. Then you saw him, and though terrified at his apparition,
showed so much courage, and spoke to his friends with so much devotion
and respect for his memory, that the hope of being loved by you revived.
He then determined that you should be told the truth by means of a
system of mysterious revelations. He has often been near you, concealed
even in your room during your stormy conversations with the King, though
you were not aware of it. In the meantime the conspirators became angry
at the obstacles he put in the way of their mad or guilty design.
Frederick II. had suspicions. The appearance of _la balayeuse_, the
spectre all conspirators parade in the palace gallery, aroused his
vigilance. The creation of a masonic lodge, at the head of which Prince
Henry placed himself, and which professed views different from that over
which the King presided, appeared a definite revolt. It may be added,
that the creation of this new lodge was a maladroit mask of certain
conspirators, or perhaps an attempt to compromise certain illustrious
personages. Fortunately they rescued themselves; and the King,
apparently enraged at the arrest of none but a few obscure criminals,
yet really delighted at not having to punish his own family, resolved to
make an example. My son, the most innocent of all, was arrested and sent
to Spandau about the time that you, equally innocent, were. You both
refused to save yourselves at the expense of others, and atoned for
others' errors. You passed several months in prison not far from
Albert's cell, and heard his violin, as he heard your voice. He had
prompt and speedy means of escape, but he would not use them until he
was sure of your safety. The key of gold is more powerful than all the
bolts of a royal prison; and the Prussian jailers, the majority of whom
are discontented soldiers, or officers in disgrace, are easily to be
corrupted. Albert escaped when you did, but you did not see him; and for
reasons you will hear at another time, Leverani was ordered to bring you
hither. Now you know the rest. Albert loves you more than ever; he loves
you far better than he loves himself, and would be yet more distressed
if you were happy with another, than he would be if you should not
return his love. The moral and philosophical laws under which you have
placed yourselves, the religious authority you recognise, renders your
decision perfectly voluntary. Choose then, my daughter, but remember
that Albert's mother, on her knees, begs you not to injure the sublime
candor of her son, by making a sacrifice which will embitter his life.
Your desertion will make him suffer, but your pity, without your love,
will kill him. The time is come for you to decide, and I cannot be
ignorant of your decision. Go into your room, where you will find two
different dresses: the one you select will determine his fate."

"And which will signify my wish for a divorce?" said Consuelo trembling.

"I was ordered to tell you, but will not do so. I wish to know if you
will guess."

The Countess Wanda having thus spoken, clasped Consuelo to her heart and
left the room.




CHAPTER XXXVII


The two robes, which the neophyte found in her room, were a brilliant
wedding dress, and a mourning garb with all the tokens of widowhood. She
hesitated for a short time. Her resolution as to the choice of a husband
was taken; but which of the two dresses would exactly exhibit her
intention? After a short time she put on the white dress, the veil and
flowers of a bride. The _tout ensemble_ was as elegant as possible.
Consuelo was soon ready; but when she looked at the terrible sentences
on the mirror, she could not smile as she used to. Her face was
exceedingly pale, and terror was in her heart. Let her make either
choice, she was aware she would be distressed and terrified. She felt
she must crush one heart, and her own felt in advance all the terror of
the wound she was about to inflict. She saw that her cheeks and lips
were as pale as her veil and wreath of orange flowers. She feared to
expose both Albert and Leverani to violent suffering, and felt tempted
to use rouge, but she at once abandoned the idea. She said, "If the
countenance deceives, my heart may also."

She knelt by her bedside, and hiding her face in the coverings, was
absorbed in meditation until the clock struck _midnight_. She arose at
once, and saw an Invisible, with a black mask, behind her. I do not know
what instinct made her think this was Marcus. She was not mistaken; yet
he did not make himself known to her, but said, in a gentle and mild
voice, "Madame, all is ready: will you put on this cloak and follow me?"
Consuelo accompanied the Invisible to the place where the rivulet lost
itself beneath the green arch of the park. There she found a gondola,
open and black, like those of Venice, and in the gigantic oarsman at the
bow she recognised Karl, who, when he saw her, made the sign of the
cross. This was his way of exhibiting the greatest imaginable joy.

"Can I speak to him?" asked Consuelo of her guide.

"You may speak a few words aloud."

"Dear Karl, my liberator and friend," said Consuelo, excited at seeing
a well-known face, after so long a seclusion amid mysterious beings,
"may I hope that nothing interferes with your pleasure at seeing me
again?"

"Nothing, signora," said Karl, calmly, "nothing but the memory of her
who no longer belongs to the world, yet whom I think I always see by
you. Courage and content, my dear mistress, become us. We are now just
as we were when we escaped from Spandau."

"This, too, brother, is a day of delivery. Oh! thanks to the vigor and
skill with which you are endowed, and which equal the prudence of your
speech and the power of your mind."

"This, madame," said he to Consuelo, "is like a flight. The chief
liberator, though, is not the same."

As he spoke Marcus gave her his hand, to assist her in reaching a bench,
covered with cushions. He felt that it trembled slightly at the
recollection of Leverani, and begged her to cover her face for but a few
moments. Consuelo did so, and the gondola, wafted on by the robust arm
of the deserter, slid silently over the dark and silent stream.

After an hour, the lapse of which was scarcely appreciated by the
pensive Consuelo, she heard the sound of instruments, and the boat
slackened its speed, without absolutely stopping, from time to time
touching the shore. The hood fell slowly off, and the neophyte thought
she passed from one dream to another, as she looked on the fairy scene
that opened before her. The boat passed along a flowery bank, strewn
with flowers and fresh grass. The water of the rivulet was collected in
a large basin, as it were, and reflected the colonnades of lights which
whirled around like fiery serpents, or burst into myriads of sparks on
the slow and gentle wake of the gondola. Charming music floated through
the air, and seemed to pass over perfumed roses and jessamines.

When the eyes of Consuelo had become accustomed to this sudden
clearness, she was able to fix them on the brilliant façade of a
palace, which arose at a short distance, and which reflected in the
mirror of the basin with magical splendor. In this elegant edifice,
which was painted on the starry sky, Consuelo saw through the open
windows men and women, clad in embroidery, diamonds, gold, and pearls,
moving slowly to and fro, and uniting with the general aspect of
entertainments of that day something effeminate and fantastic. This
princely festival, united with the effect of a warm night, which flung
its beauty and perfume even amid the splendid halls, filled Consuelo
with eager motion and a species of intoxication. She, a child of the
people, but a queen of patrician amusements, could not witness a
spectacle of this kind, after so long a period of solitude and sombre
reveries, without experiencing a kind of enthusiasm, a _necessity to
sing_, a strange agitation as she drew near the public. She then stood
up in the boat, which gradually approached the castle. Suddenly, excited
by that chorus of Handel, in which he sings "the glory of Jehovah, the
conqueror of Judea," she forgot all else, and joined that enthusiastic
chorus with her voice.

A new shock of the gondola, which, as it passed along the banks of the
stream, sometimes struck a branch or a tuft of grass, made her tremble.
Forced to take hold of the first hand which was stretched forth to
sustain her, she became aware that there was a fourth person in the
boat, a masked Invisible, who certainly was not there when she entered.

A vast gray cloak, with long folds, put on in a peculiar manner, and an
indescribable something in the mask, through which the features seemed
to speak--more than all, however, a pressure of the hand, apparently
unwilling to let go her own, told Consuelo that the man she loved, the
Chevalier Leverani, as he had appeared to her for the first time on the
lake around Spandau, stood by her. Then the music, the illumination, the
enchanted palace, the intoxication of the festival, and even the
approach of the solemn moment which was to decide her fate--all but the
present emotion was effaced from Consuelo's mind. Agitated and overcome
by a superhuman power, she sank quivering on the cushions by Leverani's
side. The other stranger, Marcus, was at the bow, and turned his back to
them. Fasting, the story of the Countess Wanda, the expectation of a
terrible _dénoûement_, the surprise of the festival, had crushed all
Consuelo's power. She was now aware of nothing but that the hand of
Leverani clasped her own, that his arm encircled her form, as if to keep
her from leaving, and of the divine ecstacy which the presence of one so
well beloved diffuses through the mind. Consuelo remained for a few
minutes in this situation, no longer seeing the sparkling palace, which
had again been lost in the night, feeling nothing but the burning breath
of her lover, and the beatings of her own heart.

"Madame," said Marcus, turning suddenly towards her, "do you not know
the air now sung? and will you not pause to hear that magnificent
tenor?"

"Whatsoever be the air, whatsoever be the voice," said Consuelo, "let us
pause or continue as you please."

The bark was almost at the palace. Forms might be seen in the embrasures
of the windows, and even those in the depths of the rooms. They seemed
no longer spectres floating in a dream, but real personages; nobles,
ladies, servants, artists, and many who were not unknown to Consuelo.
She made no effort of memory, however, to recall their names, nor the
palaces and the theatres where she had seen them. To her, the world had,
all at once, become insignificant as a magic lantern, and as completely
devoid of interest. The only being in the universe who seemed alive was
the one who furtively clasped her hand amid the folds of her dress.

"Do you not know that magnificent voice," said Marcus again, "which now
sings a Venetian air?" He was surprised at her total want of emotion. He
came near her, and sat by her side to ask the question.

"I beg your pardon," said Consuelo, who had made an effort to hear him;
"I did not understand you. I know the air and voice. I composed the
first long ago. It is not only bad, but badly sung."

"What, then, is the name of the singer to whom you are so severe? I
think him admirable."

"Ah! you have not lost it?" said Consuelo, in a low tone to Leverani.
This remark was called forth by his pressing against the palm of her
hand the little filagree cross, which, for the first time in her life,
she parted with during her escape from Spandau.

"You do not know the name of that singer?" said Marcus, carefully
watching Consuelo's countenance.

"Excuse me, sir," said she, rather impatiently, "his name is Anzoleto.
Ah! that is a bad G; he has lost that note."

"Do you not wish to see his face? You are perhaps mistaken. You can see
him distinctly from here: at least, I do. He is a very handsome man."

"Why should I see him?" said Consuelo, with some ill temper. "I am sure
he is unchanged."

Marcus took her hand gently, and Leverani seconding him, induced her to
stand up and look through the open window. Consuelo would possibly have
resisted either, but yielded to both. She glanced at the stage, the
handsome Venetian who was at that time the object of attraction to a
hundred female eyes, languishing, ardent, and burning for him. "He has
got fat," said Consuelo, sitting down and avoiding the fingers of
Leverani, who wished to regain possession of the little cross which she
had again recovered.

"Is that the only recollection you bestow on an old friend?" said
Marcus, who continued to watch her with a lynx's eyes.

"He is but a fellow artist," said Consuelo. "Such are not always
friends."

"Would you not like to speak to him? We may go into the palace and send
for him."

"If it be a _test_," said she, with some malice, for she began to
observe how determined Marcus was, "I am ready, and will obey you. If,
however, you wish to oblige me, let us have done with the affair."

"Must I stop here, brother?" said Karl, making a military salute with
his oar.

"On, brother, fast," said Marcus; and in a few moments the boat passed
over the basin, and lost itself in the undergrowth. The obscurity became
intense: the torch in the gondola alone shed its light on the foliage.
From time to time, amid the thicket, the sparkling of the lights in the
palace were visible. The sounds of the orchestra died away. The bark, as
it skirted along the bank, covered the oars with flowers, and the dark
cloak of Consuelo was covered with their perfumed petals. She began to
look into her own heart, and to combat the ineffable inffuence of
passion and right. She had withdrawn her hand from Leverani, and her
heart began to break as the veil or intoxication shrank before the light
of reason and reflection.

"Hear you, madam," said Marcus, "do you not hear the applause of the
audience? Yes; there are exclamations and clapping of hands. They are
delighted: Anzoleto has been very successful at the palace."

"They know nothing about it," said Consuelo, taking a magnolia flower
which Leverani had gathered in the passage, and thrown at her feet. She
clasped this flower convulsively in her hands and hid it in her bosom,
as the last relic of a passion about to be crushed or sanctified
forever.




CHAPTER XXXVIII


The gondola stopped finally at the outlet from the gardens and the park.
The place was picturesque, and the stream lost itself amid antique
rocks, and was no longer navigable. Consuelo had a very short time to
consider the grand, moonlighted landscape. She was yet in the vast area
of the palace grounds; but art here had only striven to preserve nature
in its primitive beauty--the old trees, strewn by chance in the dark
glades, the happy accidents of the landscape, the rugged hills, the
unequal cascades, the herds of bounding and timid stags.

A new person now arrested Consuelo's attention: this was Gottlieb, who
sat idly on a sedan chair, in the attitude of calm and reverie. He
trembled as he recognised his prison friend; but, at a sign from Marcus,
did not speak.

"You then forbid the poor child to shake hands with me?" said Consuelo,
in a half whisper to her guide.

"When you have been initiated, you will be free in all your actions,"
said he. "Now be satisfied with seeing how much Gottlieb's health has
been improved and how his physical power has been revived."

"Can I not, at least, know," said the neophyte, "whether he suffered
persecution on my account, after my escape from Spandau? Excuse my
impatience. This idea has never ceased to torment me, until the day when
I saw him on the grounds of the house I live in."

"He has really suffered," said Marcus, "yet not for a long time. As soon
as he knew you to be rescued, he boasted of having contributed to it;
and his somnambulist revelations had nearly proved fatal to some of us.
They wished to confine him in a madhouse, as much to punish him as to
prevent him from aiding other prisoners to escape. He then fled; and as
we had our eye upon him, he was brought hither, where we have attended
both to his body and mind. We will return him to his country and his
family when we have given him power, and prudence necessary to enable
him to toil in our task, which now has become his own, for he is one of
our purest and most useful adepts. The chair, however, is ready, madame:
will you get into it? I will not leave you, though I confide you to the
faithful arms of Karl and Gottlieb."

Consuelo sat quietly in the sedan, which was closed on every side, and
which received air only from a few openings in the top. She saw, then,
nothing that passed around her. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of the
stars, and therefore thought she was in the open air. At other times she
saw the transparent medium intercepted; she knew not whether by trees or
by solid edifices. The persons who bore her sedan walked rapidly, and in
the most profound silence. She sometimes attempted to discover, as their
footsteps sounded on the sand, whether three or four persons accompanied
her. Often she fancied that she discovered the step of Leverani on the
right of the chair; this, however, might be an illusion, which she
sought to avoid thinking of.

When the sedan paused, Consuelo could not refrain from a sentiment of
terror, when she saw herself under the gateway of an old feudal mansion.
The moon shed a full light on the court, which was surrounded with
crumbling ruins, and filled with persons clad in white, who went and
came, some alone and some clinging together, like fitful spectres. This
dark arcade exhibited a blue, transparent fantastic picture. The
wandering and silent shadows, speaking in a low tone, their noiseless
motion over the grass, the appearance of the ruins, which Consuelo
recognised as those she had seen before, and where she had seen Albert,
made such an impression on her that she felt an almost superstitious
awe. She looked instinctively for Leverani, who was with Marcus; but the
darkness was so great that she could not distinguish which of the two
offered her his hand. On this occasion her heart chilled with a sudden
sadness, an indescribable fear, which rendered her almost senseless.

Her hood was so arranged, and her cloak so put on, that she could see
every one without being recognised. Some one told her in a low voice not
to speak a single word, no matter what she might see. She was then taken
to the extremity of the court, where a strange spectacle met her glance.

A bell with a faint and melancholy sound collected the spectres in the
round chapel, where Consuelo had at one time sought a shelter from the
tempest. This chapel was now lighted with tapers, arranged in systematic
order. The altar seemed to have been, recently built, was covered with a
pall, and strewn with strange symbols. The emblems of Christianity were
mingled with those of Judaism, Egyptian relics, and cabalistic tokens.
In the centre of the choir, the area of which had been reconstructed
with balustrades and symbolic columns, was seen a coffin encircled by
tapers and covered with cross bones, surmounted by a death's head, in
which burned a blood-colored light. Near to this cenotaph a young man
was led. Consuelo could not see his features, as a large _bandeau_
covered half of his face. He seemed crushed by fatigue and emotion, and
he had one arm and one leg bare. His arms were tied behind his back, his
white robe was spotted with blood, and a ligature on his arm seemed to
indicate that he had been bled. Two shadows with burning torches hovered
around him, and on his breast were showers of sparks and clouds of
smoke. Then there began, between him and those who presided over the
ceremony, and who bore various unique insignia, a strange dialogue,
which put Consuelo in mind of those Cagliostro had made her listen to at
Berlin, between Albert and various unknown persons. Then spectres, armed
with swords, whom she heard called the _terrible brothers_ placed the
candidate on the floor, and, putting the points of their swords on his
heart, while many others clashed their weapons, began an angry contest;
some pretending to prevent the admission of a new brother, treating him
as perverse, unworthy, and a traitor; while others pretended to fight
for him, in the name of truth and right. This strange scene had the
effect of a painful dream on Consuelo. This contest, these menaces, this
magic worship, the sobs of the young men as they hung around the coffin,
were so well feigned, that a spectator who had not been initiated would
have been terrified. When the sponsors of the candidate had triumphed in
the argument and the combat, he was lifted up and a dagger placed in his
hand. He was ordered to advance and strike at any one who should oppose
his entry into the temple.

Consuelo saw no more. At the moment when the candidate, with an uplifted
arm, and in a kind of delirium, went towards a low door, the two guards
who had not loosed Consuelo, now bore her rapidly away from so terrible
a spectacle, and placing the hood over her head, took her through a
multitude of windings and detours, to a place where all was silent as
possible. There she was restored to light, and she saw herself in the
octagonal room where she had overheard the conversation of Trenck and
Albert. Every opening now was carefully veiled and shut; the walls and
floor were hung with black, and tapers burned in a fashion and
arrangement different from that in the chapel. An altar like Mount
Calvary, surmounted with three crosses, marked the great fireplace. A
tomb on which was placed a hammer and nails, a lance and crown of
thorns, was in the centre of the room. Persons clad in black and in
masks, knelt or sat on a carpet covered with silver tears. They neither
wept nor sighed. Their attitude was that of austere meditation, or mute
and silent grief.

The guides of Consuelo made her come to the very side of the coffin, and
the men who guarded it having risen and stood at the foot, one of them
said--

"Consuelo, you are come to witness the ceremony of a masonic initiation.
You have seen an unknown worship, mysterious emblems, funereal images,
initiating pontiffs, and a coffin. What do you learn from this
scene--from the terrible tests to which the candidate has been
subjected, from what has been said to him, and from the manifestations
of respect and love around an illustrious tomb?"

"I do not know whether I understood correctly or not," said Consuelo.
"This scene troubled me and seemed barbarous. I pitied the recipient,
whose courage and virtue were subjected to practical proofs, as if
physical courage was a guarantee for moral fortitude. I condemn what I
have seen, and deplore the cruel sports of dark fanaticism, or the
puerile experiences of an idolatrous creed. I heard obscure enigmas
proposed, and the explanations given to the candidate seemed gathered
from a gross or distrustful catechism. Yet this bloody tomb, this
immolated victim--this ancient myth of Hiram, the divine architect, who
was assassinated by his envious and covetous workmen--this sacred word,
lost for centuries, and promised to the candidate as the magic key to
open the temple to him--all this seems a symbol without grandeur and
interest. Why is the fable so badly constructed and so doubtful in its
application?"

"What mean you by that? Have you heard the story you speak of, as a
fable?"

"I have heard it--long before I read the books I was directed to study
during my seclusion--in this manner. Hiram, master-workman of Solomon's
Temple, divided his workmen into classes. They had different duties and
rewards. Three of the lower grade resolved to obtain the reward reserved
to the higher class, and to wrest from Hiram the pass-word, the secret
sign which enabled him to distinguish master-workmen from journeymen at
pay-day. They watched for him while in the temple alone: and each
posting himself at an outlet of the holy place, menaced, struck, and
cruelly murdered him, without having been able to discover the sign
which was to make them equal to him and his associates--the faithful
adepts of the Temple. The friends of Hiram wept over his unhappy lot,
and paid almost divine honors to his memory."

"And now, how do you explain that myth?"

"I thought of it before I came hither, and I understand it thus:--Hiram
represents the cold intelligence and governmental skill of the old
societies, the basis of which were the inequalities of condition and the
influence of caste. This Egyptian fable suited the mysterious religion
of the Hierophants well enough. The three ambitious men were
Indignation, Revolt, and Vengeance. These are, probably, the three
inferior grades of the sacerdotal order, who attempted to assume their
rights by violence. The murder of Hiram conveys the idea of Despotism
powerless and impotent. He died bearing in his breast the secret of
subduing man by blindness and superstition."

"Is this the way you really interpret this myth?"

"I have learned from your books, that this was brought from the East by
the Templars, and that they used it in their initiations. They must
therefore have interpreted it nearly thus. But when they baptised Hiram,
Theocracy--and the assassins, Impiety, Anarchy, and Ferocity--the
Templars who wished to subject society to a kind of monastic despotism,
deplored over Impotence, as represented by the murder of Hiram. The word
of their empire--which was lost, and has since been found--was that of
_association_, or cunning, like the ancient city or temple of Osiris.
For that reason I am surprised at yet seeing this fable used in your
initiations to the work of universal deliverance. I should consider it
as only a test of mind and courage."

"Well, we, who did not invent the form of masonry, and who really use
them as mere ordeals--we, who are more than masters and companions in
this symbolical science, since, having passed through all the masonic
grades, we have reached the point where we are no longer masons, as the
vulgar understand the order--we adjure you to explain the myth of Hiram,
as you understand it, that in relation to your zeal and intellect we may
form an opinion which will either stop you here at the door of the true
temple, or which will open the door of the sanctuary to you."

"You ask me for _Hiram's word_, the last word. That will not open the
gates of the temple to me, for its translation is Tyranny and Falsehood.
But I know the true words, the names of the three gates of the divine
edifice, through which Hiram's murderers entered, for the purpose of
forcing the chief to bury himself beneath the wrecks of his own
work--they are _Liberty, Fraternity, Equality._"

"Consuelo, your interpretation, whether correct or not, reveals to us
all your heart. You are, then, excused from the necessity of ever
kneeling before Hiram's tomb; neither will you pass through the grade
where the neophyte prostrates himself before the tomb of Jacques Molay,
the Grand Master and victim of the temple, of the military works and
prelate soldiers of the middle ages. You will triumph in this second
test as you did in the first. You will discern the false traces of
fanatical barbarity, which are now needed as a guarantee to minds which
are imbued with the principles of inequality. Remember that in
free-masonry, the first grades only aspire to the construction of a
profane temple, an association protected by caste. You know better, and
you are about to go directly to the universal temple, intended to
receive all men associated in one worship and love. Here you must make
your last station; you must worship Christ, and recognise him as the
only true God."

"You say this to try me." said Consuelo firmly. "You have, however,
deigned to open my eyes to lofty truths, by teaching me to read your
secret books. Christ is a divine man, whom we revere as the greatest
philosopher and saint of antiquity. We adore him as much as it is
permitted us to adore the greatest of the masters and martyrs. We may
well call him the saviour of men, because he taught those of his day
truths they did not comprehend, but which introduced man into a new
phase of light and holiness. We may kneel over his ashes to thank God
for having created such a prophet--such an example. We however adore God
in him, and commit no idolatry. We distinguish between the divinity of
revelation and revelation itself. I consent to pay to the emblem of a
punishment for ever sublime and illustrious, the homage of pious
gratitude and filial enthusiasm. I do not think, however, the last word
of revelation was understood and proclaimed by men in Jesus' time, for
it has never yet been officially made known on earth. I expect, from the
wisdom and faith of his disciples, from the continuation of his work for
seventeen centuries, a more practical truth, a more complete application
of holy writ to the doctrines of fraternity. I wait for the development
of the gospel. I expect something more than equality before God. I wait
for and expect it before men."

"Your words are bold, and your doctrines full. Have you thought of them
while alone? Have you foreseen the evils your new faith has piled upon
your head? Do you know that we are as one to a hundred in the most
civilised countries in Europe? Do you know that at the time we live,
between those who pay to Jesus, the sublime revealer, an insulting and
base veneration, and those almost as numerous who deny even his mission,
between these idolaters and atheists, we have no place under the sun,
except amid persecutions and jests, the hatred and contempt of the human
race? Do you know that in France, at the present moment, Rousseau and
Voltaire are almost equally proscribed; yet one is decidedly religious
and the other a skeptic? Do you know--and this is far more
terrible--that while in exile they mutually proscribe each other? Do you
know you are about to return to a world, where all will conspire to
shake your faith and break your ideas? Know that you will have to
exercise your mission amid suffering, danger, doubt, and deception?"

"I am resolved," said Consuelo, looking down, and placing her hand on
her heart. "May God aid me!"

"Well, daughter," said Marcus, who yet held Consuelo's hand, "you are
about to be subjected by us to moral sufferings--not to test your truth,
for we are satisfied with it, but to fortify it. Not in the calm of
repose--not amid the pleasures of the world, but amid grief and tears
does faith expand. Have you courage to hear painful emotions, and
perhaps to withstand great terror?"

"If it be needful, and if my soul profit by it, I will submit to your
pleasure," said Consuelo, with some distress.

"The Invisibles at once began to move the pall and lights from the
coffin, which was moved into one of the deep embrasures of the window,
and several adepts with iron bars lifted up a round stone in the centre
of the pavement of the hall. Consuelo then saw a circular opening large
enough to permit one person to pass. The sides, which were of granite,
blackened and stained by time, proved that it was as old as any portion
of the architecture of the tower. Marcus then, leading Consuelo to the
brink, asked her thrice, in a solemn tone, if she was bold enough to
descend into the passages of the feudal tower."

"Hear me, my fathers or brothers, for I know not how to speak to you,"
said Consuelo.

"Call them brothers," said Marcus. "You are here among the
Invisibles--your equals, if you persevere for an hour. You will now bid
them adieu, to meet them at the expiration of that time, in the presence
of the supreme chiefs--of those whose voice is never heard, whose face
is never seen, and whom you will call fathers. They are the sovereign
pontiffs, the spiritual chiefs and temporal lords of our sanctuary. We
will appear before them and you with bare faces, if you have decided to
rejoin us at the gate of the sanctuary, having passed that dark and
terrible path opening beneath your feet, down which you must walk alone,
without any guide but your courage and perseverance."

"I will do so," said the trembling neophyte, "if you desire it. But is
this test, which you declare so trying, inevitable? Oh, my brothers, you
certainly do not wish to sport with the reason of a woman, already too
severely tried, from mere affectation and vanity. To-day you have
subjected me to a long fast; and though emotion for several hours
relieves us from hunger, I feel myself physically weakened. I know not
whether or not I shall succumb to the labors to which you subject me. I
care not, I protest to you, if my body suffers and becomes feeble; but
would you not fancy mere physical weakness to be cowardice? Tell me you
will pardon me for being endowed with a woman's nerve, if, when I regain
my consciousness, I show that I have the heart of a man?"

"Poor child," said Marcus, "I would rather hear you own your weakness
than seek to dazzle us by intemperate boldness. We will, if you choose,
give you a single guide to aid and assist you in your pilgrimage.
Brother," said he to Leverani, who had stood at the door during this
conversation, with his eyes fixed on Consuelo, "take your sister's hand,
and lead her to the general rendezvous."

"And will not you, brother," said Consuelo, "also go with me?"

"That is impossible. You can have but one guide; and the one I have
pointed out is the only one I am permitted to give you?"

"I shall have courage enough," said Consuelo wrapping herself in her
cloak. "I will go alone."

"Do you refuse the aid of a brother and a friend?"

"I refuse neither his sympathy nor his friendship; but I will go alone."

"Go then, my noble girl, and do not be afraid. She who descended alone
the Fountain of Tears--who braved so much danger to discover the secret
cavern of Schreckenstein, will be able to pass easily through the
recesses of our pyramid. Go, then, as the heroes of antiquity went to
seek for initiation amid sacred mysteries. Brothers, give her the
cup--that precious relic a descendant of Ziska gave us, in which we
consecrate the august sacrament of fraternal communion."

Leverani took from the altar a rudely carved cup of wood, and having
filled it, gave it to Consuelo with a piece of bread.

"Sister," said Marcus, "not only pure and generous wine, with white
bread, do we offer you to restore your power, but the body and blood of
the divine man as he understood it himself; that is to say, the
celestial and also earthly sign of fraternal equality. Our fathers, the
martyrs of the Taborite church, fancied that the intervention of impious
and sacrilegious priests were not so effective as the pure hands of a
woman or a child in the consecration of the sacrament. Commune then with
us here until you sit at the banquet of the temple, where the great
mystery of the supper will be more explicitly revealed to you. Take this
cup, and first drink of it. If, when you do so, you have faith, a few
drops will be a mighty tonic to your body, and your fervent soul will
support you through your trial on its wings of flame. Consuelo having
first drank of the cup, returned it to Leverani, who, after tasting it,
handed it around to the other brethren. Marcus having swallowed the last
drops, blessed Consuelo, and requested the assembly to pray for her. He
then presented the neophyte with a silver lamp, and assisted her in
placing her feet on the bars of a ladder.

"I need not," said he, "tell you that no danger menaces your life; but
remember that you will never reach the door of the temple if you look
but once behind as you proceed. You will have several pauses to make at
different places, when you must examine all that terrifies you--but do
not pause long. As a door opens before you, pass it, and you will never
return. This is, as you know, the rigid requirement of the old
initiations. You must also, in obedience to the rules of the old rites,
diligently nurse the flame of your lamp. Go, my child, and may this idea
give you superhuman power, that what you now are condemned to suffer is
necessary to the development of your heart and mind in virtue and true
faith."

When Marcus had ceased speaking, Consuelo carefully descended the
stairs. When she was at the foot, the ladder was withdrawn, and she
heard the heavy stones close over the entrance above her.




CHAPTER XXXIX


At first Consuelo, having passed from a room where a hundred torches
burned, to a room lighted by a solitary lamp, saw nothing but a kind of
mystic light around her, which her eyes could not penetrate. Gradually,
however, they became used to darkness; and as she perceived nothing
between her and the walls of a room of an octagonal form, like the one
she left, she ventured to examine the characters on the wall. This was a
solitary and long inscription, arranged in many circular lines around
the room, which had no outlet. As she saw this, Consuelo asked herself,
not how she could get out of the room, but for what purpose it could
have been made. Thoughts of evil which she endeavored to repress,
obtruded themselves upon her mind, and they were confirmed by the
inscriptions she read, as lamp in hand she slowly walked around the
room.

"Look at the beauty of these walls, cut in the rock, twenty-four feet
thick, and which have stood for a thousand years uninjured by war, or
the efforts of time. This model of architectural masonry was built by
the hand of slaves, doubtless to contain the treasures of some mighty
lord. Yes, to bury in the depths of the rock, in the bowels of the
earth, the treasures of hatred and vengeance. Here twenty generations of
men have suffered, wept and blasphemed. Some were innocent--some were
heroic--all were victims or martyrs: prisoners of war--serfs who had
revolted, or who were too much crushed by taxes to be able to pay
more--religious innovators, sublime heretics, unfortunate men, conquered
warriors, fanatics, saints, and criminals--men educated in the ferocity
of camps to rapine and war, who had in return been subjected to horrible
reprisals--such are the catacombs of feudality and military or religious
despotism. Such are the abodes that the powerful made for their victims,
to stifle their cries, and conceal their existence from the light of
day. Here there is no air to breathe, no ray of light, no stone to rest
the head--nothing but an iron ring fastened in the wall to hold the
chain, and keep them from selecting their resting-place on the damp and
icy floor. Here air, light and food are at the disposal of the guards
posted in the upper room, where they pleased to open the door for a
moment and throw in a morsel of bread to hundreds of victims chained and
heaped together on the day after a battle. Often they wounded or
murdered each other, and often, yet more horrible, one alone remained,
stifled in suffering and despair, amid the loathsome carcases of his
companions, and sometimes attacked by the worms before death, and
sinking in putrefaction before life had become extinct. Behold! O
neophyte, the source of human grandeur, which you perhaps have looked on
with envy and admiration. Crushed skulls, human bones, dried and
withered tears, blood-spots, are the translations of the coats of arms,
if you have such bequeathed you by nobility. This is what should be
quartered on the escutcheons of the princes you have served, or aspire
to serve, if you be a man of the people. Yes, this is the foundation of
noble titles, of the hereditary glory and riches of the world. Thus has
been built up a caste, which all other classes of men yet venerate and
preserve. Thus have men contrived to elevate themselves from father to
son above their fellows."

Having passed thrice around the room, and read this inscription,
Consuelo, filled with grief and terror, placed the lamp on the floor, to
rest herself. The lonely place was as silent as the grave, and terrible
thoughts arose in her mind. Her eager fancy evoked dark visions. She
thought she saw livid shadows, covered with hideous wounds, flitting
around the hall, and crawling on the floor beside her. She thought she
heard their painful sighs, and the rattling of their chains. She evolved
the past in her mind, as she had imagined it in the middle ages, and as
it continued during the religious wars. She fancied she heard, in the
guard-room above, the heavy tread of iron-shod men, the rattling of
their pikes, their coarse laughter, their mad songs, their threats and
oaths when the victims complaints reached them and interrupted their
terrible sleep; for those jailors had slept over their prison, over that
unhealthy abyss, whence the miasmata of the tombs, and of hell, were
exhaled.

Pale, her eyes staring, her hair erect with terror, Consuelo saw and
heard nothing. When she had recalled her own existence, and strove to
shake off the chill which had seized her, she saw that a stone had been
removed, and that another passage was opened for her. She approached,
and saw a narrow and stiff stairway, which she descended with great
difficulty, and which ended in another cavern, darker and smaller than
the first. When she touched the floor, which was soft, and yielded under
her feet, Consuelo put down her lamp, to see if she did not sink in mud.
She saw naught hut a fine dust, smaller than the finest sand, containing
here and there a broken rib, a piece of a thigh bone, fragments of a
skull, a jaw, with teeth yet solid and white, exhibiting youth and power
crushed by a violent death. A few skeletons, almost entire, had been
taken from the dust, and were placed against the wall. One had been
perfectly preserved, and was chained around the waist, as if the
prisoner had been condemned to die without being able to lie down. The
body, instead of inclining forward, was stiffened and drawn back, with
an expression of utter disdain. The ligaments of the body and limbs were
ossified. The head was thrown back, and seemed to look at the roof; the
teeth, contracted by a last effort, smiled terribly with some outbreak
of fanaticism. Above the body the name and story of the prisoner were
written, in large red letters, on the wall. He was an obscure martyr of
religious persecution, and the last victim immolated in this place. At
his feet knelt a skeleton; the head, detached from the vertebræ, lay on
the pavement, but the stiffened arms yet embraced the knees of the
martyr: this was his wife. The inscription bore, among other details,
the following--

"N----died here with his wife, his three brothers, and his two children,
because they would not renounce Lutheranism, and maintained, even amid
tortures, a denial of the infallibility of the pope. He died erect,
without being able to see his family suffering at his feet, on the ashes
of his friends and fathers."

Opposite this inscription was thus written--

"Neophyte, the light earth on which you tread is twenty feet deep. It is
neither sand nor clay, but the ashes of man. This was the ossuary of the
castle. Here were thrown those who died in the grave above, when there
was no room. It is all that remains of twenty generations of victims.
Blessed and rare are the nobles who can reckon among their ancestors
twenty generations of murderers and executioners!"

Consuelo was less terrified at these funereal ensignia than she had been
in the jail at the phantoms of her own mind; there is something so grave
and solemn in the very appearance of death, though the weakness of fear
and the lacerations of pity obscure the enthusiasm and serenity of
strong and believing souls. In the presence of these relics, the noble
adept of Albert's religion felt respect and charity rather than terror
and consternation. She knelt before the martyr's remains, and feeling
her moral strength failing, cried, as she kissed the lacerated hand,
"Oh, it is not the august spectacle of a glorious destruction which
fills us with horror and pity, but the idea of life disputing with the
torments of agony. It is the thought of what passes in these broken
hearts that fills the souls of those who live with bitterness and
terror. You, unfortunate victim, dead, and with your head turned to
heaven, are not to be feared, for you have not failed. Your heart has
exhaled itself in a transport which fills me with exultation."

Consuelo rose slowly, and with a degree of calmness unloosed the veil
which covered the dead bones by her side. A narrow and low door opened
before her. She took her lamp, and forbearing to look back, entered a
corridor which descended rapidly. On her right and left she saw cells,
the appearance of which was entirely sepulchral. These dungeons were too
low for one to stand erect, and scarcely long enough for a person to
sleep in them. They appeared the work of Cyclops, so massive and so
strong was their masonry. They seemed to be intended for dens of wild
and savage animals. Consuelo, however, would not be deceived. She had
seen the arenæ veronia; she was aware that the tigers and bears kept
for the amusements of the circus, for the combats of the gladiators,
were a thousand times better furnished. Besides she read over the iron
gates that these impenetrable dungeons were appropriated to conquered
princes, to brave captains, to the prisoners who were most important
from rank and intelligence. Care to prevent their escape exhibited the
love and respect with which they had inspired their partisans. There had
been stifled the voices of the lions whose roaring had filled the world
with terror.

Their power and will had been crushed against an angle in the wall.
Their herculian breasts had been burst in aspirations for air at an
imperceptible window, cut through a wall twenty-four feet. Their eagle
glance was exhausted in seeking for light amid darkness. There were
buried alive persons whom they dared not kill by day. Illustrious men,
noble hearts, there suffered from the use, and possibly the abuse, of
power.

Having wandered for some time amid the dark and damp galleries, Consuelo
heard a sound of running water, which reminded her of the terrible
cavern of Riesenberg. She was, however, too much occupied by the
misfortunes and crimes of humanity, to think of herself. She was forced
for a time to pause and go around a cistern on the level of the ground,
lighted by a torch she read on a sign-board these words:

"There they drowned them."

Consuelo looked down to see the interior of the well. The water of the
rivulet, over which an hour before she had glided so peacefully, fell
down into a frightful gulf, and whirled angrily round, as if it was
anxious to take possession of a victim. The red light of the resinous
torch made the water blood-colored.

At last Consuelo came to a massive door, which she sought in vain to
open. She asked if, as in the initiations in the pyramids, she was about
to be lifted in the air by invisible chains, while some cavern suddenly
opened and put out her lamp. Another terror seized her, for as she
walked down the gallery, she saw that she was not alone, though the
person who accompanied her trod so lightly that she heard no noise. She
fancied that she heard the rustling of a silk dress near her own, and
that, when she had passed the well, the light of the torch reflected two
trembling shadows on the wall instead of one. Who, then, was the
terrible companion she was forbidden to look back on, under the penalty
of losing the fruit of all her labors, and never being able to cross the
threshold of the temple? Was it some terrible spectre, the appearance of
which would have frozen her courage, and disturbed her reason? She saw
his shadow no more, but she imagined she heard his respiration near her.
She waited to see the terrible door reopen. The two or three minutes
which elapsed during this expectation, seemed an age. The mute acophyte
terrified her. She was afraid that he wished to test her by speaking,
and forcing her by some _ruse_ to look back. Her heart beat violently.
At last she saw that an inscription above the door was yet to be read:

"This is your last trial, and it is the most cruel. If your courage be
exhausted, strike thrice on the left of the door. If not, strike thrice
on the right. Remember, the glory of your initiation will be in
proportion to your efforts."

Consuelo did not hesitate, but went to the right. One of the doors
opened as if of itself, and she went into a vast room, lighted with many
lamps. She was alone, and at first could not distinguish the strange
objects around her. They were machines of wood, iron, and bronze, the
use of which she knew not. Strange arms were displayed on the table, or
hung on the wall. For one moment she fancied herself in some museum of
weapons, for she saw muskets, cannons, culverins, and a perfect array of
the weapons on which those now used are improvements. Care had been
taken to collect all the instruments men use in immolating each other.
When the neophyte had passed once or twice through the room, she saw
others of a more refined character and some more barbarous--collars,
wheels, saws, pulleys, hooks--a perfect gallery of instruments of
torture--and, above all, a scroll supported by maces, hooks, dentated
knives, and other torturing irons. The scroll read--

"They are all precious.--They have been used."

Consuelo felt her strength give way. A cold perspiration rolled down her
hair, and her heart ceased to beat. Incapable of shaking off the feeling
of horror and the terrible visions that crowded around her, she examined
all that stood before her with that stupid curiosity which, when we are
terrified, takes possession of us. Instead of closing her eyes, she
looked at a kind of bronze bell, the cap of which was immense, and
rested on a large body without limbs, yet which reached as low as the
knees. It was not unlike a colossal statue, coarsely carved, intended
for a tomb. Gradually, Consuelo overcame her torpor, and comprehended
that the victim was to be placed beneath this bell. Its weight was so
vast that it was impossible to lift it up. The internal body was so
immense that motion was impossible. There was no intention of stifling
the person put within, for the vizor of the helmet was open at the face,
and all the circumference was pierced with little holes, in some of
which stilettoes were yet pierced. By means of these cruel wounds they
sought to torment the victim so as to wrest from him charges against his
relations or friends, or confessions of political or religious
faith.[14] On the top of the casque was carved, in the Spanish
language--

"Viva la Santa Inquisicion!"

Beneath was a prayer, which seemed dictated by savage compassion, but
which perhaps emanated from the hand of the poor mechanic ordered to
make the instrument of torture--

"Holy mother of God, have mercy on the sinner!"

A lock of hair, torn out by torture, and which doubtless had been
stained with blood, was below this inscription. It had, perhaps, come
through one of the orifices which had been enlarged by the daggers. The
hairs were grey.

All at once Consuelo saw nothing, and ceased to suffer. Without being
informed by any sentiment of physical suffering, she was about to fall
cold and stiff on the pavement, as a statue thrown from its pedestal,
but, as her head was coming in contact with the infernal machine, she
was caught in the arms of a man. This was Leverani.


[Footnote 14: Any one may see an instrument of this kind, and also a
hundred others no less ingeniously constructed, in the arsenal of
Venice. Consuelo never saw it, for the interior of the prisons of the
Inquisition and the PIOMBE of the ducal palace were never open to the
people until the occupation of the city by troops of the French
Republic.]




CHAPTER XL


When she revived, Consuelo sat on a purple carpet, covering steps of
white marble leading into an elegant portico in the Corinthian style.
Two men in masks, whom she concluded by the color of their cloaks to be
Leverani and Marcus, sustained, and seemed anxious to restore her. About
forty other persons cloaked and masked, the same she had seen around the
image of the tomb of Christ, stood in two ranks, and chanted in chorus a
solemn hymn, in an unknown language, wearing crowns of roses and palms,
and green boughs. The pillars were adorned with festoons of garlands,
like triumphal arches, before the closed door of the temple, and above
Consuelo. The moon, brilliant and in mid-heaven, illumined the whole
white facade; and outside the sanctuary, old yews, cypresses, and pines
formed an immense thicket, like a sacred wood, beneath which a
mysterious stream, glancing in the silver light of the moon, murmured.

"My sister," said Marcus, aiding Consuelo to rise, "you have passed
every test in triumph. Blush not at having failed in a physical point of
view, under the pain of grief. Your generous heart was overcome by
indignation and pity, at palpable evidences of the crimes and sufferings
of man. If you had reached this place unassisted, we would have had less
respect for you than now, when we have brought you hither overcome and
insensible. You have seen the sacred places of a lordly castle--not of
one celebrated above all others by the crimes of which it has been the
theatre, but like others whose ruins cover all Europe--terrible wrecks
of the vast net with which feudal power enwrapped, during so many
centuries, the whole civilised world, and oppressed men with the crime
of its awful domination and with the horrors of civil war. These hideous
abodes, these savage fortresses, have necessarily served as theatres for
all the crimes humanity witnessed before it was enlightened by means of
the religious wars--by the toil of sects struggling to emancipate man,
and by the martyrdom of the elect to establish the idea of truth.

"Pass through Germany, France, Italy, England, Spain, and the Slavonic
countries, and you will not enter a valley or ascend a mountain, without
seeing above you the ruin of some imposing tower or castle, or, at
least, finding in the grass beneath your feet the vestiges of some
fortification. These are the bloody traces of the right of conquest of
the people by the patricians. If you explore these ruins--if you look
into the soil which has devoured them and which seeks constantly to make
them disappear, you will find everywhere traces of what you have found
here--a jail, a well for the dead, narrow and dark dungeons for
prisoners of importance, a place for silent murder, and on the summit of
some huge tower, or in the depth of some dungeon, stocks for rebellious
serfs or mutinous soldiers, a gallows for deserters and a stake for
heretics. How many have perished in boiling pitch! how many have
disappeared beneath the wave! how many have been buried alive! The walls
of castles, the waters of rivers and rocky caverns, could they speak,
would unfold myriads of crimes. The number is too great for history to
enumerate in detail.

"Not the nobles alone, not the patrician races only, have made the soil
red with innocent blood. Kings and princes and priests, thrones and
churches, were the great causes of the iniquities and the living sources
of destruction. Persevering yet melancholy attention has collected in
our manor a portion of the instruments of torture used by the strong
against the weak. A description of their uses would not be credible; the
virtues could scarcely comprehend them; thought refuses to register
them. During many centuries these terrible apparatus were used in royal
palaces, in the citadels of petty princes, but above all, in the
dungeons of the Holy Office. They are yet used there, though but rarely.
The Inquisition yet exists: and in France, the most civilised country of
the world, the provincial parliament even now burns witches.

"Besides, is royal tyranny now overthrown? Do kings and princes no
longer ravage the earth? Does not war desolate opulent cities, as well
as the pauper's hut, at the merest whim of a petty prince? Serfdom yet
exists in half of Europe. Are not troops yet subjected to the lash and
cane? The handsomest and bravest soldiers of the world, those of
Prussia, are taught their duty like animals, by beating. Are not the
Russian serfs often unmercifully knouted? If the fortresses of old
barons are dismantled, and turned into harmless abodes, are not those of
kings yet erect? Are they not frequently places where the innocent are
confined? Were not you, my sister, the purest and mildest of women, a
prisoner at Spandau?

"We knew you were generous, and relied on your character of justice and
charity. Seeing you destined, like many who are here, to return to the
world, to approach the persons of sovereigns, as you were particularly
liable to their influence, it was our duty to put you on your guard
against the intoxication of that brilliant and dangerous life. It was
our duty to spare you no instructions, not even that of a terrible kind.
We appealed to your mind by the solitude to which we doomed you, by the
books we gave you. We spoke to your heart by paternal advice, now
tender, and now stern. We addressed your vision by experiences of more
painful significance than those of the old mysteries. Now if you persist
in receiving your initiation, you may present yourself before the
incorruptible paternal judges, who now are ready to crown you here, or
give you leave to quit us forever."

As he concluded, Marcus pointed to the open door of the temple, above
which were written the three words--_Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_--in
letters of fire.

Consuelo was physically crushed and weakened to such a degree, that she
existed in her mind alone. Standing at the base of a column, she leant
on Leverani, but without seeing or thinking of him. However, she had not
lost one word said by the initiator. Speechless, pale as a spectre, and
with her eyes fixed, she had that wild expression which follows nervous
crises. A deep enthusiasm filled her bosom, the feeble respiration of
which Leverani could not distinguish. Her black eyes, which fatigue and
suffering had caused to sink, glared brightly. A slight compression of
her brow evinced deep resolution. Her beauty, which had always seemed
gentle and soft, now appeared fearful. Leverani became as pale as the
jessamine leaf which the night wind made to quiver on his mistress's
brow. She arose, with more power than might have been expected; but at
once her knees gave way, and she was almost borne up the steps by him,
without the restraint of the arm, which had moved to the neighborhood of
her heart, to which it had been pressed, disturbing the current of her
thoughts for an instant. He placed between his own hand and Consuelo's,
the silver cross, as a token to inform her who he was, and which, like a
talisman, had given him such influence over her. Consuelo appeared
neither to recognise the token, nor the hand that presented it. Her own
was contracted by suffering. It was a mere mechanical pressure, as when
on the brink of an abyss we seize a branch to sustain ourselves. The
heart's blood did not reach her icy hand.

"Marcus," said Leverani, in a low tone, as the former passed him to
knock at the door of the temple, "do not leave us; I fear the test has
been too great."

"She loves you," said Marcus.

"Yes--but perhaps she will die!" said Leverani, with a shudder.

Marcus struck thrice at the door, which opened and shut as soon as he
had passed in with Consuelo and Leverani. The other brethren remained on
the portico, until they should be introduced for the initiation. For
between the initiation and the final proofs there was always a sacred
conversation between the principals and the candidates. The interior of
the temple used for these initiations was magnificently adorned, and
decorated between the pillars with statues of the greatest friends of
humanity. That of Jesus Christ stood in the centre of the amphitheatre,
between those of Pythagoras and Plato; Apollonius of Thyana was next to
Saint John; Abeilard by Saint Bernard; and John Huss and Jerome of
Prague, with Saint Catharine and Joan of Arc. Consuelo did not pause to
attend to external objects. Wrapped in meditation, she saw with surprise
the same judges who had profoundly sounded her heart. She no longer felt
any trouble, but waited, with apparent calmness, for their sentence.

The eighth person, who sat below the seven judges, and who seemed always
to speak for them, addressing Marcus, said--"Brother, whom bring you
here? What is her name?"

"Consuelo Porporina," said Marcus.

"That is not what you are asked, my brother," said Consuelo; "do you not
see me here as a bride, not as a widow? Announce the Countess Albert of
Rudolstadt."

"My daughter," said the orator, "I speak to you in the name of the
council. You are known no longer by that name; your marriage has been
dissolved."

"By what right? by what authority?" said Consuelo quickly, with sudden
emotion. "I recognise no theocratic power. You have yourself told me
that you recognised no rights but those I gave you freely, and bade me
submit merely to paternal authority. Such yours will not be, if it
rescind my marriage without my own or my husband's consent. This right
neither he nor I have given you."

"You are mistaken, daughter, for Albert has given us the right to decide
on both your fate and his own. You yourself did the same, when you
opened your heart, and confessed your love of another."

"I confessed nothing, and I deny the avowal you have sought to wrest
from me."

"Bring in the sibyl," said the orator to Marcus.

A tall woman, dressed in white, with her face hid beneath her veil,
entered and sat in the middle of the half circle formed by the judges.
By her nervous tremor Consuelo recognised Wanda.

"Speak, priestess of truth," said the orator; "speak, interpreter and
revealer of the greatest secrets, the most delicate movements of the
heart. Is this woman the wife of Albert of Rudolstadt?"

"She is his faithful and respectable wife," said Wanda; "but you must
pronounce his divorce. You see by whom she is brought hither. You see
that of the children, one who holds her hand, is the man she loves, and
to whom she must belong, by the imperscrutable right of love."

Consuelo turned with surprise towards Leverani, and looked at her hand,
which lay passive and deathlike in his. She seemed to be under the
influence of a dream, and to attempt to awaken. She loosed herself with
energy from his embrace, and looking into the hollow of her hand, saw
the impression of her mother's cross.

"This is, then, the man I love," said she, with a melancholy smile and
holy ingenuousness. "Yes, I loved him, tenderly and sadly; yet it was a
dream. I fancied Albert was no more, and you told me this man was worthy
of my respect and my confidence. But I have seen Albert. I fancied that
I understood from his language that he no longer wished to be my
husband, and did not blame me for loving this stranger, whose words and
letters filled me with enthusiastic affection. They told me, however,
that Albert yet loved me, and relinquished all claim, from an exertion
of love and generosity. Why did Albert fancy I would be less magnanimous
than himself? What have I done that was criminal, that should induce him
to think me capable of crushing his heart by arrogating purely selfish
pleasure to myself? No, I will never defile myself by such a crime. If
Albert deems me unworthy of him, because I have loved another--if he
shrinks from effacing that love, and does not seek to inspire me with a
greater, I will submit to his decree--I will accept the sentence of
divorce, against which both my heart and conscience revolt; but I will
never be either the wife or mistress of another. Adieu, Leverani--or
whosoever you be--to whom, in a moment of mad delirium, with fills me
with remorse, I confided my mother's cross. Restore me that token, that
there may exist between us nothing but the memory of mutual esteem, and
the feeling that, without bitterness and without regret, we have done
our duty."

"We recognise no such morality, you know," said the sibyl. "We will
accept no such sacrifice. We wish to consecrate and purify that love the
world has profaned, the free choice of the heart, and the holy and
voluntary union of beings loving each other. We have the right to
instruct the conscience of our children, to redress errors, to join
sympathies, and tear apart the bonds of old society. You can not
determine to sacrifice yourself--you cannot stifle the love in your
bosom, or deny the truth of your confession."

"What say you of liberty? what say you of love and happiness?" said
Consuelo, advancing a step towards the judges, with an outbreak of
enthusiasm and a sublime radiation of countenance. "Have you not
subjected me to ordeals which have made my cheek pale and my heart
tremble? What kind of a base senseless being do you think me? Fancy you
that I am capable of seeking personal satisfaction after what I have
seen, learned, and know to be the life of men in their earthly affairs?
No! neither love, marriage, liberty, happiness, or glory are anything
for me, if it be at the expense of the humblest of my fellows. Is it not
proved that every earthly pleasure is obtained at the expense of the
suffering of another? Is there not something better to do than to
satisfy ourselves? Albert thinks so, and I have the right to follow his
example. Let me avoid the false and criminal illusion of happiness. Give
me toil, fatigue, grief, and enthusiasm. I understand no longer the
existence of joy, otherwise than in suffering. I have a thirst for
martyrdom, since you have exhibited to me the trophies of punishment.
Shame to those who understand their duty, and who yet seek to share
earthly happiness and repose. I now know my duty. Oh, Leverani! if you
love me after all the ordeals I have gone through, you are mad--you are
but a child, unworthy of the name of man--certainly unworthy of my
sacrificing Albert's heroic love to you. And you, Albert, if you be
here--if you hear me--you should not refuse to call me sister, to offer
me your hand, and teach me to walk in the rude pathway that leads me to
God."

The enthusiasm of Consuelo had reached the acme, and words did not
suffice to express it. A kind of vertigo seized her; and, as happened to
the Pythonesses, in the paroxysms of their divine crises, when they
uttered cries and strange madness, she manifested her emotion in the
manner which was most natural to her. She began to sing in a brilliant
voice, and with an enthusiasm at least equal to that she had experienced
when she sang the same air in Venice, on the first occasion of her
appearance in public, when Marcello and Porpora were present.


"I cieli immensi narrono
Del grande Iddio la gloria!"


This melody rushed to her lips, because it was perhaps the most _naïve_
and powerful expression ever given to religious enthusiasm. Consuelo,
however, was not calm enough to repress and manage her voice, and after
the first two lines her intonation became a sob, and, bursting into
tears, she fell on her knees.

The invisibles were electrified by her fervor, and sprang to their feet
to hear this true inspiration with becoming respect. They descended from
their places and approached her; while Wanda, taking her in her arms,
placed her in those of Leverani, and said--"Look at him, and know that
God permits you to reconcile virtue, happiness, and duty."

Consuelo for an instant was silent, as if she had been wafted to another
world. At length she looked on Leverani, whose mask Marcus tore away.
She uttered a piercing cry, and nearly died on his bosom as she
recognised Albert. Leverani and Albert were one and the same person.




CHAPTER XLI


At this juncture the doors of the temple swung open with a metallic
sound, and the Invisibles entered, two and two. The magic notes of the
harmonica,[15] an instrument newly invented, the vibration of which was
an unknown wonder to Consuelo, was heard in the air, and seemed to
descend from the dome, which was open to the moon and the night wind. A
shower of flowers fell slowly over the happy couple amid this solemn
strain. Wanda stood by a tripod of gold, whence her right hand threw
brilliant flames and clouds of perfume, while in the left she held the
two ends of a chain of flowers and symbolic leaves she had cast around
the two lovers. The invisible chiefs, their faces being covered with
their long red drapery, with chaplets of the oak and accacia around
their brows, stood up to receive the brothers as they passed by them,
with a bow of veneration. The chiefs had the majesty of the old Druids,
but their hands, unstained by blood, were opened to bless alone, and
religious respect replaced the terror of old creeds. As the initiated
appeared before the venerable tribune, they took off their masks, to
salute the unknown with a bare brow. The latter were known to them only
by acts of clemency and justice, paternal love and wisdom. Faithful to
the religion of an oath, they did not seek to penetrate the mysterious
veils. Certainly, though themselves unaware, the adepts knew these magi
of a new religion, for they mingled with them in society, and, in the
very bosom of their assemblies, were the best friends and confidants of
the major portion of them--perhaps of each individual. In the practice
of their religion the priest was always veiled, like the oracle of
ancient days.

Happy childhood of innocent creeds, quasi fabulous dawn of sacred
conspiracies, enwrapped in the night of ages, and decked with poetical
uncertainty! though the space of scarcely one century separates us from
these Invisibles, their existence to the historian is enigmatical.
Thirty years after the _illuminati_ assumed those powers of which the
vulgar were ignorant, and finding their resources in the inventive
genius of the chiefs, and in the tradition of the secret societies of
mystic Germany, terrified the world by the most formidable and vast
political conspiracy that ever existed. For a moment it shook the throne
of every dynasty, and finally succumbed, bequeathing to the French
revolution an electric current of sublime enthusiasm, ardent faith, and
terrible fanaticism. Half a century before those days marked out by
fate, and while the gallant monarchy of Louis XV., the philosophical
despotism of Frederick II., the skeptic and mocking loyalty of Voltaire,
the ambition and diplomacy of Maria Theresa, and the heretical
toleration of Gangarelli, seemed to promise to the world a season of
decrepitude, antagonism, chaos, and dissolution, the French revolution
fermented and germinated in the dark. It existed in minds which were
_believing_ almost to fanaticism, under the form of one dream of
universal revolution. While debauchery, hypocrisy, and incredulity ruled
the world, a sublime faith, a magnificent revelation of the future,
profound systems of organization, perhaps wiser than our Fourierism and
Saint-Simonism, already realised in some rare groups the ideal
conception of a future society diametrically opposed to what covers and
hides their actions in history.

Such a contrast is one of the most prominent features of the eighteenth
century, which was too full of ideas, and of intellectual labor of all
kinds, for its synthesis to be made even yet, with clearness and profit,
by the historians and philosophers of our own days. The reason is, there
is a mass of contradictory documents, uninterpreted facts, not perceived
at first, sources of information disturbed by the tumult of the century,
and which must be purified before a solid bottom can be found. Many
energetic laborers have remained obscure, bearing to the tomb the secret
of their mission--so many dazzling glories absorbed the attention of
their contemporaries, so many brilliant feats even now absorbed the
retrospective attention of critics. Gradually, however, light will
emanate from chaos; and if our century sum up its own deeds, it will
also chronicle those of its predecessor--that vast logogriph, those
brilliant nebulæ, where there is so much cowardice combined with
grandeur, ignorance with knowledge, light with error, incredulity with
faith, pedantry with mocking frivolity, superstition with lofty reason.
This period of a hundred years saw the reigns of Madame de Maintenon and
Madame de Pompadour, Peter the Great, Catharine II., Maria Theresa and
Dubarry, Voltaire and Swedenborg, Kant and Mesmer, Rousseau and Dubois,
Schroeffer and Diderot, Fenelon and Law, Zinzendorf and Liebnitz,
Frederick II. and Robespierre, Louis XIV. and Philip Egalité, Marie
Antoinette and Charlotte Corday, Weishaupt, Babœf and Napoleon--a
terrible laboratory, where so many heterogeneous forms have been cast
into the crucible, that they vomited forth, in their monstrous
ebullition, a torrent of smoke, amid which we yet walk, enveloped in
darkness and confused images.

Consuelo and Albert, as well as the Invisible chiefs and the adepts,
were yet farther than we are from understanding it; they had no very
lucid idea of the result of the changes and the turmoil into which they
were anxious to precipitate themselves, with the enthusiastic hope of
completely regenerating society. They fancied themselves on the eve of
an evangelical republic, as the disciples of Jesus fancied he was about
to establish an earthly power. The Taborites of Bohemia fancied
themselves on the eve of a paradisiac condition; and the French
Convention thought their armies about to commence a march of
propagandism over the globe. Without this mad confidence, where would be
great devotion? and without great folly, where would be great results?
But for the Utopia of the divine revealer Jesus, where would be the idea
of human fraternity? But for the contagious ecstacies of Joan of Arc,
would we now be Frenchmen? But for the noble chimeras of the eighteenth
century, would we have the first notions of equality? This mysterious
revolution which the sects of the past had dreamed of, and which the
mystic conspirators of the last century had vaguely foretold, fifty
years before, as an era of renovation, Voltaire, the calm philosophical
head of his day, and Frederick II., the great realiser of logical and
cold power, did not anticipate. The most ardent and the wisest were far
from reading the future. Jean Jacques Rousseau would have repudiated his
own book, had he seen the mountain in a dream, with the guillotine
glaring above it. Albert of Rudolstadt would have become again the
lethargic madman of the Giants' Castle if the bloody glories, followed
by Napoleon's despotism, and the restoration of the ancient _régime_,
followed by the sway of the vilest material interests, had been revealed
to him; or he fancied that he toiled to overthrow, at once and for ever,
scaffolds and prisons, castles and convents, banks and citadels.

These noble children dreamed, and maintained their dream with all the
power of their souls. They no more belonged to their century than did
the shrewd politicians and wise philosophers. Their ideas of the future
were not more lucid than those of the latter. They had no idea of that
great unknown thing which each of us decks with the attributes of our
own power, which deceives us all while it confirms us. Our children see
it clad in a thousand dyes, and each keeps a shred for his own imperial
toga. Fortunately, every century sees it more majestic, because each
produces more persons to toil for its triumph. As for the men who would
tear off the purple and cover it with eternal mourning, they are
powerless, because they do not comprehend it. Slaves to the actual and
present, they are ignorant that the immortal has no age, and that he who
does not fancy it as it may be to-morrow, does not see it as it should
be to-day.

At that moment Albert--enjoying completely restored health, and joyous
in the possession of Consuelo's undivided affection--felt so supremely
elated that there was some danger of his reason reeling from excess of
happiness.

Consuelo stood at last before him, like the Galatea of that artist,
beloved by the gods, waking at once to life and love. Mute and
collected, her face beaming with a celestial glory, she seemed, for the
first time in her life, completely and unmistakably beautiful, because
for the first time she really loved. A sublime serenity shone on her
brow, and her large eyes became moist with that voluptuousness of the
soul, of which that of the body is but a reflection. She was thus
beautiful merely because she did not know what was passing in her heart
and over her face. Albert existed for her alone, or rather she did not
exist except in him; and he alone seemed worthy of entire respect and
boundless admiration. He was transformed, and, as it were, wrapped in
supernatural admiration when he saw her. She discovered in the depth of
his glance all the solemn grandeur of the bitter troubles he had
undergone, though they had left no trace of physical suffering. There
was on his brow the placidity of a resuscitated martyr, who sees the
earth made red by his blood, and a heaven of infinite rewards open to
him. Never did an inspired artist create a nobler ideal of a hero or a
saint, in the grandest days of ancient or Christian art.

All the Invisibles, filled with admiration, paused, after having formed
a circle around them, and for some moments abandoned themselves to the
contemplation of this pair, so pure in the eyes of God, and so chaste
before man. More than twenty vigorous male voices sang, to a measure of
ancient lore and style--"O Hymen! O Hymene!" The music was Porpora's,
the words having been sent to him with orders for an epithalamium on the
occasion of an illustrious marriage. He had been well paid, without
being aware to whom he was under obligations. As Mozart, just before he
died, was to receive the sublimest inspiration for a requiem
mysteriously required, old Porpora regained all his youthful genius to
write an epithalamium the poetic mystery of which had aroused his
imagination. In the very first passage, Consuelo remembered her old
master's style, and looking around, she sought for her adopted father
among the choristers. Among those who were its interpreters, Consuelo
recognised many friends--Frederick Von Trenck, Porporino, Young Benda,
Count Golowkin, Schubert, the Chevalier D'Eon, (whom she had met at
Berlin, but of whose sex she, like all Europe, was ignorant,) the Count
St. Germain, the Chancellor Coccei, (husband of Barberini,) the
bookseller Nicolai, Gottlieb, (whose voice predominated above all the
others,) and Marcus, whom a gesture of Wanda pointed out to her, and
whom, from some instinctive sympathy, she had recognised in her guide,
and who discharged the functions of putative father or sponsor. All the
Invisibles had opened and thrown back on their shoulders their long
melancholy robes, and a neat white costume, which was elegant and
simple, relieved by a chain of gold, to which hung the insignia of the
order, gave to the whole scene the appearance of a festival. Their masks
hung around their wrists, ready to be replaced at the slightest signal
of the watcher, who was on the dome of the edifice.

The orator who communicated between the adepts and chief of the order,
unmasked, and came to wish the couple happiness. This was the Duke of
****, who had consecrated his enthusiasm and immense fortune to the
undertaking of the Invisibles. He was owner of their place of meeting,
and at his house Wanda and Albert had frequent interviews, unseen by any
profane eyes. This house was also the head-quarters of the operations of
the chief of the order, though there were other places at which there
were smaller gatherings. Initiated into all the secrets of the order,
the duke acted with and for them. He did not betray their incognito, but
assumed all the dangers of the enterprise, being himself their visible
means of contact with the members of the association.

When Albert and Consuelo had exchanged the gentle evidence of joy and
affection with their brethren, all took their places, and the duke
having resumed his functions of brother orator, thus spoke, as with
crowns of flowers they knelt before the altar:--

"Very dear and beloved children--In the name of the true God--all power,
love, and intelligence; and after him, in the name of the three virtues
which reflect divinity in the human soul, Activity, Charity, and
Justice, translated in effect by our formula, _Liberty, Fraternity,_ and
_Equality_; finally, in the name of the tribunal of the Invisibles,
devoted to the triple duty of zeal, faith, and study--that is, to the
triple search of the three divine moral and political virtues--Albert
Podiebrad, Consuelo Porporina, I pronounce the ratification and
confirmation of the marriage already contracted before God and your
kindred, and before a priest of the Christian religion, at the Giants'
Castle, 175--. Three things however were wanting: first, the absolute
wish of the wife to live with the husband, seemingly _in extremis_;
second, the sanction of a moral and religious society received and
acknowledged by the husband; third, the consent of a person here
present, the name of whom I am not permitted to mention, but who is
closely bound to one of the party by the ties of blood. If now these
three conditions be fulfilled, and neither of you have aught to object,
join your hands, and, rising, call on heaven to testify to the liberty
of your act and the holiness of your love."

Wanda, who continued unknown among the brothers of the order, took the
hands of the two children. An impulse of tenderness and enthusiasm made
all three rise, as if they had been but one.

The formulæ of marriage were pronounced, and the simple and touching
rite of the new church performed quietly but fervently. This engagement
of mutual love was not an isolated part amid indifferent strangers who
were careless of what passed. Those present were called to sanction the
religious consecration of two beings bound together by one faith. They
extended their arms over the couple and blessed them; then, taking hold
of each other's hands, they made a living circle, a chain of paternal
love, swearing to protect and defend their honor and life, to preserve
them as much as possible from seduction and persecution, on all
occasions and under all circumstances: in fine, to love them purely,
cordially, and seriously, as if they were united to them by name and
blood. The handsome Trenck pronounced this formula for all the others,
in elegant and simple terms. He then added, as he spoke to the husband--

"Albert, the profane and guilty law of old society, from which we
separate ourselves, some day to lead it back to us, wills that the
husband impose fidelity on his wife by humiliation and despotic
authority. If she fail, he must kill his rival; he has even the right to
kill his wife; and this is called washing out the stain of his honor in
blood. In the blind and corrupt world, every man is the enemy of
happiness thus savagely and sternly guarded. The friend, the brother
even, arrogates to himself a right to wrest honor and happiness from his
friend or brother; or, at least, a base pleasure is experienced in
exciting his jealousy and sowing distrust and trouble between him and
the object of his love. Here, you know that we have a better
understanding of honor and family pride. We are brothers in the sight of
God; and any one who would look impurely on the wife of his brother has
in his heart already committed the crime of incest."

All the brothers, moved and excited, then drew their swords, and were
about to swear to use their weapons on themselves, rather than violate
the oath they had just sworn at Trenck's dictation.

The sibyl--agitated by one of those enthusiastic impulses which gave her
so much influence over their imaginations, and which often modified the
opinions and decisions of the chiefs themselves--broke the circle, and
rushed into the midst. Her language, always energetic and burning; her
tall form, her floating drapery, her thin frame trembling yet majestic,
the convulsive tremor of her ever veiled head, and withal, a grace which
at once betokened the former existence of beauty which moves the mind
when it ceases to appeal to the senses;--in fine, even her broken voice,
which at once assumed a strange expression, had conspired to make her a
mysterious being, and invested her with persuasive power and
irresistible prestige.

All were silent to hear the voice of her inspiration. Consuelo was
perhaps more moved than others, because she was aware of her singular
story. She asked herself, shuddering with strange emotion, if this
spectre, escaped from the tomb, really belonged to the world, and if,
after having spoken, she would not disappear in the air, like the flame
on the tripod, which made her appear so blue and transparent.

"Hide from the light these affirmations," said Wanda, with a shudder.
"They are impious oaths when what is invoked is an instrument of hatred
and murder. I know the old world attached the sword to the side of all
reputed free, as a mark of independence and virtue. I well know that, in
obedience to the ideas you have here preserved in spite of yourselves,
the sword is the symbol of honor--that you deem you make holy
engagements when, like citizens of old Rome, you swear on the sword. But
here you would profane a solemn vow. Swear, rather, by this flame and
tripod--the symbol of life, light, and divine love. Do you yet need
emblems and visible signs? Are you yet idolators? Do the figures around
this temple represent aught but ideas? O! swear rather by your own
sentiments, by your better instincts, by your own heart; and if you dare
not swear by the living God, the true, eternal, and holy religion, swear
by pure humanity, by the glorious promptings of your courage, by the
chastity of this young woman and her husband's love--swear by the genius
and beauty of Consuelo, that your desire, that even your thoughts will
never profane this holy arc of matrimony, this invisible and mystic
altar on which the hand of an angel engraves the vow of love.

"Do you know what love is?" said the sibyl, after having paused for an
instant, in a voice which every moment became more clear and
penetrating. "If you did, oh! you venerable chiefs of our order and
priests of our worship, you would never suffer that formula, which God
alone can ratify, to be pronounced before you; and which, consecrated by
men, is a kind of profanation of the divinest of mysteries. What power
can you give to an engagement which in its very nature is miraculous?
Yes, the confounding of two wills in one is in itself a miracle, for
every heart is in itself free by virtue of a divine right. Yet when two
souls yield and become bound to each other, their mutual possession
becomes sacred, and as much a divine right as individual liberty. You
see this is a miracle--that God reserves its mystery to himself, as he
does that of life and death. You are about to ask this man and woman if
during their lives they will belong respectively to each other. Their
fervor is such that they will reply, 'Not only for life, but forever.'
God then inspires them, by the miracle of love, with more faith, power,
virtue, than you can or dare to ask. Away, then, with sacrilegious oaths
and gross laws. Leave them their ideal, and do not bind them to reality
by chains of gold. Leave the care of the continuation of the miracle to
God. Prepare their souls for its accomplishment; form the ideal of love
in them; exhort, instruct; extol and demonstrate the glory of fidelity,
without which there is no moral honor, no sublime love. Do not come
between, however, like Catholic priests, like magistrates, to interfere
by the imposition of an oath. I tell you again, men cannot make
themselves responsible, or be guardians of the perpetuity of a miracle.
What know you of the secrets of the Eternal? Have we already penetrated
the temple of the future, in that celestial world where, beneath sacred
groves, man will converse with God as one friend does with another? Has
a law for indissoluble marriage emanated from the mouth of God? Have his
designs been proclaimed on earth? Have you, children of men, promulgated
this law unanimously? Have the Roman pontiffs never dissolved marriage?
They call themselves infallible! Under the pretext of the nullity of
certain engagements, have they not pronounced real divorces, the scandal
of which history has preserved in its records? The Christian societies,
the reformed sects, the Greek church, following the example of the
Mosaic dispensation, and all ancient religions, frankly introduced
divorce into modern law. What then becomes of the holiness and efficacy
of a vow to God, when it is maintained that man can release us from it?
Touch not love by the profanation of marriage. You cannot stifle it in
pure hearts. Consecrate the conjugal tie by exhortations, by prayers, by
a publicity which will make it respectable, by touching ceremonies. You
should do so, if you be our priests--that is to say, our aids, our
guides, our advisers, our consolers, our lights. Prepare souls for the
sanctity of a sacrament; and, as a father of a family seeks to establish
his children in positions of prosperity, dignity, and security, occupy
yourselves--our spiritual fathers--assiduously in fixing your sons and
daughters in circumstances favorable to the development of true love,
virtue, and sublime fidelity. When you shall have analysed them by
religious ordeals, and ascertained that in their mutual attraction there
is neither cupidity, vanity, nor frivolous intoxication, nor that
sensual blindness that is without ideality--when you have convinced
yourselves that they appreciate the grandeur of their sentiments, the
holiness of their duty, and the liberty of their choice, then permit
them to endow each other with their own inalienable liberty. Let their
families, their friends, and the vast family of the faithful, unite to
ratify this sacrament. Attend to my words! Let the sacrament be a
religious permission, a paternal and social permission, an
encouragement, an exhortation to perpetuate the engagement. Let it not
be a command, an obligation, a law, with menaces and punishments--a
forced slavery, with scandal, prisons and chains if it be violated; for
in this way you would reverse the whole miracle in all its entirety
accomplished on earth. Eternally fruitful providence--God, the
indefatigable dispenser of grace, always will conduct before you young,
fervent, and innocent couples, ready to bind themselves for time and
eternity. Your anti-religious law and your inhuman sacrament will always
abrogate the effect of grace in them. The inequality of conjugal rights
between the sexes--impiety made venerable by social laws--the difference
of duty in public opinion--all the absurd prejudices following in the
wake of bad institutions, will ever extinguish the faith and enthusiasm
of husband and wife. Those who are most sincere, who are most inclined
to fidelity, will be the first to grow sad, and become terrified at the
duration of the engagement, and thus disenchant each other. The
abjuration of individual liberty is in effect contrary to the will of
nature and the dictates of conscience when men participate in it, for
they oppress it with the yoke of ignorance and brutality. It is in
conformity with the will of generous hearts, and necessary to the
religious instincts of strong minds, when God gives us the means to
contend against the various snares man has placed around marriage, so as
to make it the tomb of love, happiness, and virtue, and a "sworn
prostitution," as our fathers the Lollards, whom you know and often
invoke, called it. Give to God what is God's, and take from Cæsar what
is not his."

"And you, my children," said she, turning towards Albert and Consuelo,
"you, who have sworn to reverence the conjugal tie, did not, perhaps,
know the true meaning of what you did. You obeyed a generous impulse,
and replied with enthusiasm to the appeal of honor. That is worthy of
you, disciples of a victorious faith! You have performed more than an
act of individual virtue--you have consecrated a principle without which
there can be neither chastity nor conjugal fidelity.

"O love! sublime flame--so powerful and so fragile, so sudden and so
fugitive! light from heaven, seemingly passing through our existence, to
die before we do, for fear of consuming and annihilating us, we feel you
are a vivifying fire, emanating from God himself, and that whoever would
fix it in his bosom and retain it to his last hour, always ardent,
always in its pristine vigor, would be the happiest and noblest of men.
Thus the disciples of the ideal will always seek to prepare sanctuaries
for you in their bosoms, that you may not hasten to return to heaven.
But alas! you whom we have made it a virtue to honor, have declined to
be renewed at the dictate of our institutions, and have remained free as
the bird of the air, capricious as the flame on the altar. You seem to
laugh at our oaths, our contracts and our will. You fly from us in spite
of all we have invented to fix you in your manners. You no longer
inhabit the harem, guarded by the vigilant sentinels which Christian
society places between the sentence of the magistrate and the yoke of
public opinions. Whence, then, comes your inconstancy and your
ingratitude? Oh! mysterious influence! oh, love! cruelly symbolised
under the form of an infant and blind god! what tenderness and what
contempt inspire human hearts you enkindle with your blaze; and whom you
desert, leaving them to wither amid the anguish of repentance, and, more
frightful yet, of disgust! Why is it that man kneels to you in every
portion of the globe--that you are exalted and deified--that divine
poets call you the soul of the world--that barbarous nations sacrifice
human victims to you, precipitating wives on the fire at the husband's
funeral--that young hearts call you in their gentlest dreams, and that
old men curse life when you abandon them to the horror of solitude?
Whence comes that adoration--sometimes sublime, sometimes
fanatical--which has been decreed you from the golden infancy of
humanity to our age of iron, if you be but a chimera, the dream of a
moment of intoxication, an error of the imagination, excited by the
delirium of the sense. Ah! it is not a vulgar instinct, a mere animal
want. You are not the blind child of Paganism, but the true son of God,
and very essence of the divinity. You have not yet revealed yourself to
us, except through the mist of errors; and you would not make your abode
among us, because you were unwilling to be profaned. You will return to
us, as in the days of the fabulous Astrea, as in the visions of poets,
to fix your abode in our terrestrial paradise, when we shall, by our
sublime virtues, have merited the presence of such a guest. How blessed
then will this abode be to man! and then it will be well to have been
born."

"We will then be brothers and sisters, and unions, freely contracted,
will be maintained by your own power. When, in place of this terrible
contest, whose continuance is impossible--conjugal fidelity being forced
to resist infamous attempts at debauch, hypocritical seduction or mad
violence, hypocritical friendship and wise corruption--every husband
will find around him chaste sisters, himself the jealous and delicate
guardian of the happiness of a sister confided to him as a companion;
while every wife will find in other men so many brothers of her husband,
proud of her happiness and protectors of her peace; then the faithful
wife will no longer be the fragile flower that hides herself to maintain
the treasures of her chastity, often a deserted victim, wasting in
solitude and tears, unable to revive in her husband's mind the flame she
has preserved in purity in her own. The brother then will not be forced
to avenge his sister, and slay him she loves and regrets, in obedience
to the dictates of false honor. The mother will not tremble for her
daughter, nor the child blush for its parent. The husband then will be
neither suspicious nor despotic; and, on her part, the wife will escape
the bitterness of the victim and the rancor of the slave; atrocious
suffering and abominable injustice will cease to sully the peace of the
domestic hearth. It may be some day, that the priest and the magistrate,
relying with reason on the permanent miracle of love, will consecrate in
God's name indissoluble unions, with as much wisdom and justice as they
now ignorantly display impiety and folly.

"But these glorious days are not yet come. Here, in this mysterious
temple, where we are now united in obedience to the evangelists, three
or four in the name of the Lord, we can only dream of divinest joys. It
is an oracle which then escapes from their bosoms. Eternity is the ideal
of love, as it is of faith. The human soul never comes nearer to the
apex of its power and lucidity than in the enthusiasm of a great love.
The _always_ of lovers is an eternal revelation, a divine manifestation,
casting its sovereign light and blessed warmth over every instant of
their union. Woe to whoever profanes this sacred formula! He falls from
grace to sin--extinguishes the faith, power and light in his heart."

"Albert," said Consuelo, "I receive your promise, and adjure you to
accept mine. I feel myself under the power of a miracle, and the
_always_ of our brief lives does not resemble the eternity for which I
give myself to you."

"Sublime and rash Consuelo," said Wanda, with a smile of enthusiasm,
which seemed to pass through her veil, "ask God for eternity with him
you love, as a recompense of your fidelity to him in this brief life."

"Ah! yes," said Albert, lifting his wife's hand, clasped in his own, to
heaven, "that is our end, hope, and reward--to love truly in this phase
of existence, to meet and unite in others. Ah! I feel that this is not
the first day of our union--that we have already loved, and loved in
other lives. Such bliss is not the work of chance. The hand of God
reunites us, like two parts of one being inseparable in eternity."

After the celebration of the marriage, though the night was far
advanced, they proceeded to the final initiation of Consuelo in the
order of the Invisibles, and, then, the members of the tribunal having
dispersed amid the shadows of the holy wood, soon reassembled at the
castle of fraternal communion. The prince (_Brother Orator_) presided,
and took care to explain to Consuelo the deep and touching symbols. The
repast was served by faithful domestics, affiliated with a certain grade
of the order. Karl introduced Matteus to Consuelo, and she then saw bare
his gentle and expressive face; she observed with admiration that these
respectable servants were not treated as inferiors by their brothers of
the other grades. No personal distinction separated them from the higher
grades of the order, of whatever rank. The _brother servitors_, as they
were called, discharged willingly the duty of waiters and butlers. It
was for them to make all arrangements for the festivity, as being best
prepared to do so; and this duty they considered a kind of religious
observance--a sort of eucharistic festival. They were then no more
degraded than the Levites of a temple who preside over the details of
sacrifice. When they arranged the table, they sat at it themselves, not
at peculiar isolated places, but in chairs retained among the others for
them. All seemed anxious to be civil to them, and to fill their cups and
plates. As at masonic banquets, the cup was never raised to the lip
without invoking some noble idea, some generous sentiment, some august
patronage. The cadenced noises, the puerile conduct of the freemasons,
the mallet, the jargon of the toasts, and the vocabulary of tools, were
excluded from this grave yet costly entertainment. The servitors were
respectful without constraint, and modest without baseness. Karl sat
during one of the services between Albert and Consuelo. The latter saw
with emotion that besides his sobriety and good behavior, he had made
progress in healthy religious notions, by means of the admirable
education of sentiment.

"Ah, my friend," said she to her husband, when the deserter had changed
his place, and her husband drew near to her, "this is the slave beaten
by the Prussian corporals, the savage woodman of Boehmer-wald, and the
would-be murderer of Frederick the Great. Enlightenment and charity have
in a few days converted into a sensible, pious, and just man, a bandit,
whom the precocious justice of nations pushed to murder, and would have
corrected with the lash and gallows."

"Noble sister," said the Prince, who had placed himself on Consuelo's
right, "you gave at Roswald, to this mind crazed by despair, great
lessons on religion and prudence. He was gifted with instinct. His
education has since been rapid and easy; and when we've essayed to teach
him, his reply was, 'So the signora said.' Be sure the rudest men may be
enlightened more easily than is thought. To improve their condition--to
inoculate them with self-respect by esteeming and encouraging them,
requires but sincere charity and human dignity. You see that as yet they
have been initiated merely in the inferior degrees. The reason is, we
consult the extent of their minds and progress in virtue when we admit
them into our mysteries. Old Matteus has taken two degrees more than
Karl; and if he does not pass those he now occupies, it is because his
mind and heart can go no farther. No baseness of extraction, no humility
of condition, will ever stop them. You see here Gottlieb the cobbler,
son of the jailer at Spandau, admitted to a grade equal to your own,
though in my house, from habit and inclination, he discharges his
subordinate functions. His imagination, fondness for study and
enthusiasm for virtue--in a word, the incomparable beauty of soul
inhabiting that distorted body, renders him almost fit to be treated, in
the interior of the temple, as a brother and as an equal. We had
scarcely any ideas and virtues to impart to him. On the contrary, mind
and heart were too teeming, and it became necessary to repress them and
soothe his excitement, treating at the same time the moral and physical
causes which would have led him to folly. The immorality of those among
whom he lived, and the perversity of the official world, would have
irritated without corrupting him. We alone, armed with the mind of James
Boehm and the true explanation of his sacred symbols, were able to
undeceive and convince him, and to direct his poetic fancy without
chilling his zeal and faith. Remark how the cure of his mind has reacted
on his body, and that he has regained health as if by magic. His strange
face is already transformed."

After the repast they resumed their cloaks, and walked along the gentle
slope of the hill, which was shaded by the sacred wood. The ruins of the
old castle, reserved for ordeals, was above it; and gradually Consuelo
remembered the path she had passed so rapidly over, on a night of storm,
not long before. The plenteous stream--which ran from a cavern rudely
cut in the rock, and once reserved for superstitious devotion--murmured
amid the undergrowth towards the valley, where it formed the brook the
prisoner in the pavilion knew so well. Alleys covered by nature with
fine sand, crossed under the luxuriant shade where the various groups
met and talked together. High barriers, but which did not intercept the
river, shut in the enclosure, the kiosque of which might be considered
the study. This was a favorite retreat of the duke, and was forbidden to
the idle and indiscreet. The servitors also walked in groups around the
barriers, watching to prevent the approach of any _profane_ being. Of
this there was no great danger. The duke seemed merely occupied with
masonic mysteries; as was the case, in a manner. Free masonry was then
tolerated by the law and protected by the princes who were, or thought
themselves, initiated in it. No one suspected the importance of the
superior grades; which, after many degrees, ended in the tribunal of the
Invisibles.

Besides, at this moment the ostensible festival which lighted up the
façade of the palace too completely absorbed the attention of the
numerous guests of the prince, for any to think of leaving his brilliant
halls and the new gardens, for the rocks and ruins of the old park. The
young Margravine of Bareith, an intimate friend of the duke, presided
over the honors of the entertainment. To avoid appearing, he had feigned
sick, and after the banquet of the Invisibles supped with his numerous
guests in the palace. As she saw the glare of the lights in the
distance, Consuelo, who leaned on Albert's arm, remembered Anzoleto and
accused herself innocently in presence of her husband, who charged her
with having become too ironical and stern to the companion of her
childhood. "Yes, it was a guilty idea, but then I was most unhappy. I
had resolved to sacrifice myself to Count Albert, and the malicious and
cruel Invisibles again cast me into the arms of the dangerous Leverani.
Wrath was in my heart; gladly I met him from whom I was to separate in
despair, and Marcus wished to soothe my sorrow by a glance at the
handsome Anzoleto. Ah! I never expected to be so indifferent to him. I
fancied I was about to be doomed to sing with him, and could have hated
him for thus depriving me of my last dream of happiness. Now, my friend,
I could see him without bitterness and treat him kindly; happiness makes
us so merciful. May I be useful to him some day, and inspire him with,
a serious love of art, if not virtue."

"Why despair? Let us wait for him in the scene of want and misery. Now,
amid his triumphs, he would be deaf to the voice of reason. Let him lose
his voice and his beauty, and we will take possession of his soul."

"Do you take charge of this conversion, Albert?"

"Not without you, my Consuelo."

"Then you do not fear the past?"

"No; I am presumptuous enough to fear nothing. I am under the power of a
miracle."

"I, too, Albert, cannot doubt myself."

Day began to break, and the pure morning air to exhale a thousand
exquisite perfumes. It was the most delicious period of the summer; the
birds singing amid the trees and flying from hill to valley. Groups
formed every moment around the couple and far from being importunate,
added to the pleasure of their fraternal friendship, to their pure
happiness. All the Invisibles present were introduced to Consuelo as
members of her family. They were the most eminent in virtue, talent, and
intelligence in the order. Some were illustrious, and others obscure in
the world, but were known in the temple by their labors. The noble and
the peasant mingled together in close intimacy. Consuelo had to learn
their true names, and the more poetical titles of their fraternal
association. They were Vesper, Ellops, Peon, Hyas, Euryalus,
Bellerophon, etc. Never had she around her so many pure and noble souls,
so many interesting characters. The stories told of their conversion,
the dangers they had run, and what they had done, charmed her as poems,
the tenor of which she could not have reconciled with actual life, they
appeared so touching and moving. There was, however, no portion of the
common-place gallantry, and not the slightest approach to dangerous
familiarity. Lofty language, inspired by equality and fraternity, was
realised in its purest phase. The beautiful golden dawn rising over
their souls as over the world, was, as it were, a dream in the existence
of Consuelo and Albert. Enlaced in each other's arms, they did not think
of leaving their beloved brethren. A moral intoxication, gentle and
bland as the morning air, filled their souls. Love had expanded their
hearts too amply to make them tremble. Trenck told them the dangers of
his captivity and escape in Glatz. Like Consuelo and Haydn in the
Boehmer-wald, he had crossed Poland, but in the midst of cold, covered
with rags, with a wounded companion--the _amiable_ SHELLES, whom his
memoirs make known to us as an affectionate friend. To earn his bread,
he had played on the violin, and, like Consuelo on the Danube, had been
a minstrel. He then spoke in a low tone of the Princess Amelia, his love
and hope. Poor Trenck! the terrible storm which overhung him, neither he
nor his happy friends foresaw. He was doomed to pass from the
midsummer's night's dream to a life of combat, deception, and suffering.

Porporino sang beneath the cypress-trees an admirable hymn composed by
Albert, to the memory of the martyrs of their cause. Young Benda
accompanied him on the violin; Albert took the instrument and delighted
his hearers with a few notes; Consuelo could not sing, but wept with joy
and enthusiasm; Count Saint Germain told of conversations with John Huss
and Jerome of Prague, with such warmth, eloquence, and probability, that
it was impossible not to have faith in him. In such seasons of emotion
and delight, reason does not prohibit poetry. The Chevalier d'Eon
described with refined taste the miseries and absurdities of the great
tyrants of Europe, the vices of courts, and the weakness of the
scaffolding of the social system that enthusiasm fancied so easy to
break. Count Golowkin described the great soul and strange
contradictions of his friend, Jean Jacques Rousseau.

This philosophical noble (they will to-day call him eccentric) had a
very beautiful daughter, whom he educated according to his ideas, and
who was at once Emile and Sophie, now as handsome a boy, then as
charming a girl as possible. He wished to have her initiated, and for
Consuelo to instruct her. The illustrious Zinzendorf explained the
evangelical constitution of his colony of Moravian Hernhuters.--He
consulted Albert with deference about many particulars, and wisdom
seemed to speak by Albert's mouth. He was inspired by the presence and
smile of his mistress. To Consuelo he seemed divine. All advantages to
her seemed to deck him. He was a philosopher, an artist, a martyr, who
had survived the ordeal; grave as a sage of the Portico, beautiful as an
angel, joyous and innocent as a child or happy lover--perfect, in fine,
as the one we love always is.

Consuelo, when she knocked at the door of the temple, had expected to
die of fatigue and emotion. Now she felt herself aroused and animated as
when, on the shore of the Adriatic, she used to sport in the sands in
full health beneath a bright sun moderated by the evening breeze. It
seemed that life in all its power, happiness in all its intensity, had
taken possession of her, and that she breathed them at every pore. Why
cannot the sun be stopped in the sky over certain valleys, where we feel
all the plentitude of being, and where the dreams of imagination seem
realised, or about to be?

The sky at last became purple and gold, and a silver bell warned the
Invisibles that night withdrew its protecting cloak. They sang a hymn to
the rising sun, emblematical to them of the day they dreamed of, and
prepared for the world. All then made them adieux, promising to meet,
some at Paris, others at London, Madrid, Vienna, Petersburg, Dresden,
and Berlin. All promised on a year from that day to meet again at the
door of the blessed temple, either with neophytes or with brethren now
absent. They then folded their cloaks to conceal their elegant costumes,
and silently dispersed by the shadowy walks of the park.

Albert and Consuelo, guided by Marcus, went down the ravine to the
stream. Karl received them in his closed gondola, and took them to the
door of the pavilion. There they paused for a moment to contemplate the
majesty of the orb of day which rose in the sky. Until now, Consuelo,
when she replied to Albert had called him by his true name; when,
however, she was awakened from the musing in which she seemed delighted
to lose herself, as she pressed her burning cheek on his shoulder, she
could only say:

_"Oh Leverani!"_

[Footnote 15: The harmonica, when first invented, created such a
sensation in Germany, that poetical imaginations fancied they heard in
it supernatural voices, evoked by the consecrators of certain mysteries.
This instrument, which, before it became popular, was thought to be
magical, was elevated by the adepts of German theosophy, to the same
honor with the lyre among the ancients, and many other instruments among
the primitive people of Himalaya. They made it one of the hieroglyphic
figures of their mysterious iconography. They represented it under the
form of a fantastic chimera. The neophytes of secret societies, hearing
it for the first time after the rude shocks of their terrible ordeals,
were so much impressed by it that many of them fell into ecstacies. They
fancied they heard the song of invisibile powers, for both the
instrument and the performer were concealed from them most carefully.
There are extremely curious stories told of the employment of the
harmonica in the reception of adepts of illuminatism.]




EPILOGUE


Had we been able to procure faithful documents in relation to Albert and
Consuelo after their marriage, like those which have guided us up to
this point, we might, doubtless, have written a long history, telling of
all their adventures and journeys. But, most persevering readers, we
cannot satisfy you; and of you, weary reader, we only ask a few moments
of patience. Let neither of you reproach nor praise us. The truth is,
that the materials by means of which we have so far been able to connect
the items of this story, entirely disappear from the dates of the
romantic night which blessed and consecrated the union of the two great
characters of our story amid the Invisibles. Whether the engagements
contracted by them in the temple prevented them from yielding to
friendship in their letters; or that their friends, being affiliated in
the same mysteries, in the days of persecution thought it proper to
destroy their correspondence, we cannot say; but henceforth we see them
through the maze of a cloud, under the veil of the temple or the mask of
adepts. Without examining the traces of their existence which we find in
manuscripts, it would often have been difficult to follow them;
contradictory evidence shows both to have been at the same time at two
different geographical points, or following different objects. However,
we can easily understand the possibility of their voluntarily creating
such errors, from the fact that they were secretly devoted to the plans
of the Invisibles, and often were forced, amid a thousand perils, to
avoid the inquisitorial policy of governments. In relation to the
existence of this one soul, with two persons, called Consuelo and
Albert, we cannot say whether love fulfilled all its promises, or if
fate contradicted those which it had seemed to make during the
intoxication of what they called "_The Midsummer Night's Dream._" They
were not, however, ungrateful to Providence, which had conferred this
rapid happiness, in all its plentitude, and which, amid reverses,
continued the miracle of love Wanda had announced. Amid misery,
suffering and persecution, they always remembered that happy life, which
seemed to them a celestial union, and, as it were, a bargain made with
the divinity, for the enjoyment of a better existence after many toils,
ordeals, and sacrifices.

In other respects, all becomes so mysterious to us that we have been
quite unable to discover in what part of Germany this enchanted
residence was, in which, protected by the tumult of the chase and
festivals, a prince unknown in documents became a rallying point and a
principal mover of the social and philosophical conspiracy of the
Invisibles. This prince had received a symbolical name, which, after a
thousand efforts to discover the cypher used by the adepts, we presume
to be Christopher, or Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth. The temple where
Consuelo was married and initiated was particularly called _Saint
Graal_, and the chiefs of the tribunal _Templists._ These were
Romanesque emblems, renewed from the old legends of the age of gold and
chivalry. All the world knows that in these charming fictions, Saint
Graal was hidden in a mysterious sanctuary, amid a grotto unknown to
men. There the _Templists_, illustrious saints of primitive
Christianity, devoted even in this world to immortality, kept the
precious cup which Jesus had used in the consecration of the Eucharist,
when he kept the passover with his disciples. This cup doubtless
contained the celestial grace, represented sometimes by blood and then
by the tears of Christ; a divine ichor or eucharistic substance, the
mystic influence of which was inexplicable, but which it was sufficient
merely to see, to be transformed, both morally and physically, so as to
be forever sheltered from death and sin. The pious paladins, who, after
terrible macerations and exploits sufficient to make the earth tremble,
devoted themselves to the career of _knight-errantry_, had the idea of
reaching _Saint Graal_ at the end of their peregrinations. They looked
for it amid the ices of the north, on the shores of Armorica, and in the
depths of the forests of Germany. To realise this sublime conquest, it
was necessary to confront danger, equal to those of the Hesperides--to
overcome monsters, elements, barbarous people, hunger, thirst, and even
death. Some of these Christian Argonauts discovered, it is said, the
sanctuary, and were regenerated by the divine cup; they never, however,
betrayed the terrible secret. Their triumph was known by the power of
their invincible arm, by the transfiguration of all their existence:
few, however, survived this glorious initiation. They disappeared from
among men as Jesus did after his resurrection, and passed from earth to
heaven without undergoing the bitter transition of death.

This magical symbol was, in fact, well adapted to the object of the
Invisibles. For many years, the new Templists hoped to make Saint Graal
accessible to all mankind. Albert toiled constantly to diffuse the true
ideas of his doctrine. He reached the highest grades of the order, for
we find the list of his titles showing that he had time enough to reach
them. Now all know that eighty-one months are needed to pass through the
twenty-three degrees of masonry, and we think it certain that a much
longer time was required for the higher grades of Saint Graal. The
number of masonic degrees are now a mystery to no one; yet it will not
be out of place here to recount a few, as they paint the enthusiastic
genius and smiling fancy which presided over their first creation:

"Apprentice and Master Mason, Secret and Perfect Master, Provost and
Judge, English and Irish Master, Master in Israel, Master Elect of the
Nine and Fifteen, Elect of the Unknown, Grand Master Architect, Royal
Arch, Grand Scotch Master of the Sublime or Master Masons, Knight of the
Sword, Prince of Jerusalem, Knight of Orient and Occident, Rose-Cross of
France, Heredom and Kilwinning, Grand Pontiff or Sublime Scot, Architect
of the Sacred Roof, Pontiff of Jerusalem, Sovereign Prince of Masonry
and Master _ad vitam_, Naochite, Prince of Libon, Chief of the
Tabernacle and Knight of the Iron Serpent, Trinitarian Scot or
Prince of Mercy, Grand Commander of the Temple, Knight of the
Gun, Patriarch of the Crusades, Grand Master of Light, Knight
Kadosch, Knight of the White Eagle and of the Black Eagle, Knight
of the Phœnix and Knight of the Argonauts, Knight of the Golden Fleece,
Grand-Inspector-Inquisitor-Commander-Sublime, Prince of the Royal Secret
and Sublime Master of the Luminous King," &c.[16]

These titles, or at least the majority of them, we find connected with
the name of Albert Podiebrad, in the most illegible rolls of the
freemasons. There are also many less known; such as Knight of St John,
Sublime Johannite, Master of the New Apocalypse, Doctor of the Gospel,
and Elect of the Holy Ghost, Templist, Areopagite, Magus, and Man of the
People, Man-Pontiff, Man-King, and New-man, &c.[17] We have been
surprised here to find some titles which seemed anticipated from the
illuminatism of Weishaupt: this peculiarity, however, was explained at a
later day, and will not, when this story is concluded, need any
explanation to our readers.

Amid this labyrinth of obscure facts--which, however, are profound, and
connected with the labor, success, and apparent extinction of the
Invisibles--we can with difficulty follow the adventurous story of the
young couple. Yet by supplying what we need by a prudent imagination,
the following is nearly the abridged commentary of the chief events of
their lives. The fancy of the reader will supply the deficiency of the
text, and following our experience, we doubt not that the best
_dénoûements_ are those for which the reader and not the narrator will
be responsible.[18]

Probably, after leaving _Saint Graal_, Consuelo went to the little court
of Bareith, where the Margravine, sister of Frederick, had palaces,
gardens, kiosques, and cascades, in the same style as those of Count
Hoditz at Roswald, though less sumptuous and less expensive. This
intellectual princess had been married without a dower to a very poor
prince; and not long before she had worn robes with trains of reasonable
length, and had pages whose doublets were not threadbare, her gardens,
or rather her garden, to speak without metaphor, was situated amid a
beautiful country, and she indulged in the Italian Opera in an antique
temple _à la Pompadour._ The margravine was fond of philosophy--that is
to say, she was a disciple of Voltaire. The young hereditary margrave,
her husband, was the zealous head of a masonic lodge. I am not sure
whether Albert was connected with him, or whether his incognito was
observed by the secresy of the brothers, or whether he remained away
from this court and joined his wife afterwards. Certainly Consuelo had
some secret mission there. Perhaps, also, for the purpose of preventing
attention from being attracted to her husband, she did not live publicly
with him for some time. Their loves, then, had all the attraction of
mystery; and if the publicity of their union, consecrated by the
fraternal sanction of the Templists, seemed gentle and edifying to them,
the secrecy they maintained in a hypocritical and licentious world, at
first, was a necessary _ægis_ and kind of mute protestation in which
they found their enthusiasm and power.

Many male and female Italian singers at that time delighted the little
court of Bareith. Corilla and Anzoleto appeared there, and the vain
prima donna again became enamored of the traitor she had previously
devoted to all the furies of hell. Anzoleto, however, while he cajoled
the tigress, sought with a secret and mysterious reserve to find favor
with Consuelo, whose talent, enhanced by such profound revelations, now
eclipsed all rivalry. Ambition had become the dominant passion of the
young tenor; love had been stifled by mortification, and voluptuousness
by satiety. He then loved neither the chaste Consuelo nor the passionate
Corilla, but kept terms with both, ready to attach himself to either of
the two, who would serve his purpose, and make him advantageously known.
Consuelo treated him kindly, and neither spared good advice nor such
instructions as would enable him to exhibit his talent. She never,
though, felt uneasy when she was with him, and the completeness of her
pardon exhibited how completely she had mastered her passion. Anzoleto
was not re-installed, and having listened with emotion to the advice of
his friend, lost all patience when he lost all hope, and his deep
mortification and sorrow, in spite of himself, became evident in his
words.

Under these circumstances, it appears that Amelia of Rudolstadt came to
Bareith with the Princess of Culmbach, daughter of the Countess Von
Hoditz. If we may believe some exaggerating and indiscreet witnesses,
some strange scenes took place between Consuelo, Amelia, Corilla, and
Anzoleto. When she saw the handsome tenor appear unexpectedly on the
boards of the opera of Bareith, the young baroness fainted. No one
observed the coincidence, but the lynx-eyed Corilla discovered on the
brow of Anzoleto a peculiar expression of gratified vanity. He missed
his _point_; the court, disturbed by the accident, did not applaud the
singer, and instead of growling between his teeth, as was his fashion on
such occasions, there was an unequivocal smile of triumph on his face.

"See," said Corilla, in an angry voice to Consuelo, as she went behind
the scenes, "he loves neither you nor me, but that little fool who has
been playing her part in the boxes. Do you know her? who is she?"

"I do not know," said Consuelo, who had observed nothing: "I can assure
you, however, neither you, nor she, nor I, occupy him."

"Who then does?"

"Himself _al solito_," said Consuelo with a smile.

The story goes on to say that on the next day Consuelo was sent for to
come to a retired wood to talk with Amelia. "I know all," said the
latter, angrily, before she permitted Consuelo to open her mouth; "he
loves you, unfortunate scourge of my life--you, who have robbed me of
Albert's love and his."

"_His_, madame? I do not know----"

"Do not pretend. Anzoleto loves you. You were his mistress at Venice,
and yet are----"

"It is either a base slander, or a suspicion unworthy of you."

"It is the truth. I assure you; he confessed it to me last night."

"Last night! What do you say, madame?" said Consuelo, blushing with
shame and chagrin.

Amelia shed tears; and when the kind Consuelo had succeeded in calming
her jealousy, she obtained in spite of her diffidence, the confession of
this unfortunate passion. Amelia had heard Anzoleto sing at Prague, and
became intoxicated with his beauty and success. Being ignorant of music,
she took him for one of the first musicians in the world. At Prague he
was decidedly popular. She sent for him as her singing-master, and while
her father the old Baron Frederick, paralysed by inactivity, slept in
his chair dreaming of wild boars, she yielded to a seducer. _Ennui_ and
vanity ruined her. Anzoleto, flattered by this illustrious conquest, and
wishing to make the scandal public in order to secure popularity,
persuaded her that she might become the greatest singer of the age, that
an artist's life was a paradise on earth, and that she could not do
better than fly with him, and make her _début_ at the Haymarket Theatre
in Handel's operas.

Amelia at first viewed with horror the idea of deserting her old father,
but when Anzoleto was about to leave Prague, feigning a despair he did
not feel, she yielded to his solicitations, and fled with him.

The intoxication of her love for Anzoleto was but of brief duration. His
insolence and coarse manners, when he no longer played the part of
seducer, recalled her to her senses; and it was not without a feeling of
pleasure mingled with remorse at her conduct, that, three months after
her escape, she was arrested at Hamburg, and brought back to Prussia,
where, at the instance of her Saxon kin, she was incarcerated in the
fortress of Spandau. Her punishment was both long and severe, and in a
measure rendered her mind callous to the agony she would otherwise have
felt at hearing of her father's death. At last her freedom was granted,
and it was not till then that she heard of all the misfortunes which had
afflicted her family. She did not dare to return to the canoness, and
feeling utterly incapable of leading a life of retirement and repose,
she implored the protection of the Margravine of Bareith; and the
Princess of Culmbach, who was then at Dresden, assumed the
responsibility of taking her to her kinswoman. In this frivolous yet
philosophical court she found that amiable toleration of vice which then
was the only virtue. Here she again met with Anzoleto, and again
submitted to the ascendancy which he seemed to have acquired over the
fair sex, and which the chaste Consuelo found so difficult to resist. At
first she avoided him, but gradually became again fascinated, and made
an appointment to meet him one evening in the garden, and once more
yielded to his solicitations.

She confessed to Consuelo that she yet loved him, and related all her
faults to her old singing mistress with a mixture of feminine modesty
and philosophical coolness.

It seems certain that Consuelo by her earnest appeals found the way to
her heart, and that she made up her mind to return to the Giants'
Castle, and to shake off her dangerous passion in solitude, by soothing
her old aunt in her decline.

After this adventure Consuelo could remain at Bareith no longer. The
haughty jealousy of Corilla, who was always imprudent, yet at the same
time kind-hearted, induced the prima donna sometimes to find fault, and
then to humble herself. Anzoleto, who had fancied that he could avenge
for her disdain by casting himself at Amelia's feet, never pardoned her
for having removed the young baroness from danger. He did her a thousand
unkind offices, contriving to make her miss the cue on the stage,
preventing her from taking up the key in a _duo_, and by a
self-sufficient air attempting to make the unwary audience think she was
in error. If he had a stage effect to perform with her, he went to her
right instead of her left hand, and tried to make her stumble amid the
properties. All these ill-natured tricks failed, in consequence of
Consuelo's calmness. She was, however, less stoical when he began to
calumniate her, and when she knew that there were persons, who could not
believe in the chastity of an actress, to listen to him. Hence
libertines of every age were rude towards her, refusing to believe in
her innocence; and she had to bear with Anzoleto's defamation,
influenced as he was by mortification and revenge.

This base and narrow-minded persecution was the commencement of a long
martyrdom which the unfortunate prima donna submitted to during all her
theatrical career. As often as she met Anzoleto, he annoyed her in a
thousand ways. Corilla, too, from envy and ill-feeling, gave her
trouble. Of her two rivals, the female was the least in the way, and
most capable of a kind emotion. Whatever may be said of the misconduct
and jealous vanity of actresses, Consuelo discovered that when her male
companions were influenced by the same vices, they became even more
degraded, and less worthy of their relative position. Arrogant and
dissipated nobles, managers and people of the press, depraved by such
connection, fine ladies, curious and whimsical patronesses, ready to
deceive, yet offended at finding in an actress more virtue than they
could themselves boast of--in fact, and most unjust of all, the public
rose _en masse_ against the wife of Leverani, and subjected her to
perpetual mortification. Persevering and faithful in her profession as
she was in love, she never yielded, but pursued the tenor of her way,
always increasing in musical knowledge, and her virtuous conduct
remaining unaltered. Sometimes she failed in the thorny path of success,
yet often won a just triumph. She became the priestess of a purer art
than even Porpora himself was acquainted with; and found immense
resources in her religious faith, and vast consolation in her ardent and
devoted love to her husband.

The career of her husband, though a parallel to her own, for he
accompanied her in her wanderings, is enwrapped in much mystery. It may
be presumed that he was not sentenced to be the slave of her fortune and
the book-keeper of her receipts and disbursements. Consuelo's profession
was not very lucrative. At that time the public did not reward artists
with as much munificence as it does now. Then they were remunerated by
the presents they received from princes and nobles, and women who knew
how to take advantage of their position had already begun to amass large
fortunes. Chastity and disinterestedness are, however, the greatest
enemies an actress can have. Consuelo was successful, respected, and
excited enthusiasm in some, when those who were about her did not
interfere with her position before the true public. She owed no triumph
to gallantry, however, and infamy never crowned her with diamonds or
gems. Her laurels were spotless, and were not thrown on the stage by
interested hands. After ten years of toil and labor, she was no richer
than when she began her career. She had made no speculations, for she
neither could nor would do so. She had not even saved the fruit of her
labors, to get which she often had much trouble, but had expended it in
charity, or for the purposes of secret but active propagandism, for
which her own means had not always sufficed. The central power of the
Invisibles had often provided for her.

What may have been the real success of the ardent and tireless
pilgrimage of Albert and Consuelo, in France, Spain, England and Italy,
there is nothing to tell the world; and I think we must look twenty
years later, and then use induction, to form an idea of the result of
the secret labors of the societies of the Invisibles. Had they a greater
effect in France than in the bosom of that Germany where they were
produced? The French Revolution loudly says Yes. Yet the European
conspiracy of Illuminism, and the gigantic conceptions of Weishaupt,
prove that the divine dream of Saint Graal did not cease to agitate the
German mind for thirty years, in spite of the dispersion and defection
of the chief adepts.

Old newspapers tell us that Porporina sang with great success in
Pergolese's operas at Paris, in the oratorios and operas of Handel at
London, with Farinelli at Madrid, with La Faustina at Dresden, and with
Mergotti at Venice. At Rome and Naples she sang the church music of
Porpora and other great masters, with triumphant applause.

Every item of Albert's career is lost. A few notes to Trenck or Wanda
prove this mysterious personage to have been full of faith, confidence,
and activity, and enjoying in the highest degree lucidity of mind. At a
certain epoch all documentary information fails. We have heard the
following story told, in a coterie of persons almost all of whom are now
dead, relative to Consuelo's last appearance on the stage.

"It was about 1760, at Vienna. The actress was then about thirty years
old, and it was said was handsomer than she had been in her youth. A
pure life, moral and calm habits, and physical prudence, had preserved
all the grace of her beauty and talent. Handsome children accompanied
her, but no one knew their father, though common report said that she
had a husband, and was irrevocably faithful to him. Porpora having gone
several times to Italy, was with her, and was producing a new opera at
the Imperial Theatre. The last twenty years of the maestro's works are
so completely unknown, that we have in vain sought to discover the name
of his last productions. We only know Porporina had the principal part,
that she was most successful, and wrung tears from the whole court. The
empress was satisfied. On the night after this triumph, Porporina
received from an invisible messenger news that filled her with terror
and consternation. At seven in the morning--that is to say, just at the
hour when the empress was awakened by the faithful valet known as the
sweeper[19] of her majesty, (for his duty consisted in opening the
blinds, making the fire, and cleaning the room, while the empress was
awaking,) Porporina, by eloquence or gold, passed through every avenue
of the palace, and reached the door of the royal bed-chamber."

"'My friend,' said she to the servant, 'I must throw myself at the
empress's feet. The life of an honest man is in danger. A great crime
will be committed in a few days, if I do not see her majesty at once. I
know that you cannot be bribed, but also know you to be generous and
magnanimous. Everybody says so. You have obtained favors which the
greatest courtiers dared not ask.'

"'Kind heaven! my dear mistress! I will do anything for you,' said the
servant, clasping his hands and letting his duster fall.

"'Karl!' said Consuelo. 'Thank God I am saved! Albert has a protecting
angel in the palace!'

"'Albert! Albert!' said Karl. 'Is he in danger? Go In, madame, if I
should lose my place. God knows I shall be sorry; for I am enabled to do
some good and serve our holy cause better than I could do anywhere else.
Listen! The empress is a good soul, when she is not a queen. Go in: you
will be thought to have preceded me. Let those scoundrels bear the
burden of it, for they do not deserve to serve a queen. They speak
lies."

"Consuelo went in; and when the empress opened her eyes, she saw her
kneeling at the foot of the bed.

"'Who is that?' said Maria Theresa, as, gathering the counterpane over
her shoulders, she rose up as proud and as haughty in her night-dress,
and on her bed, as if she sat on her throne, decked with the Imperial
crown on her brow, and the sword by her side.

"'Madame,' said Consuelo, 'I am your humble subject, an unfortunate
mother, a despairing wife, who begs on her knees her husband's life and
liberty.'

"Just then Karl came in, pretending to be very angry.

"'Wretch,' said he, 'who bade you come hither?'

"'I thank you, Karl, for your vigilance and fidelity. Never before was I
awakened with such insolence.'

"'Let not your majesty say a word, and I will kill this woman at once.'

"Karl knew the empress. He was aware that she liked to be merciful
before others, and that she always played the great queen and the great
woman before even her valets.

"'You are too zealous,' said she, with a majestic smile. 'Go, and let
this poor weeping woman speak. I am not in danger in the company of my
subjects. What is the matter, madame? But, are you not the beautiful
Porporina? You will spoil your voice, if you weep thus.'

"'Madame,' said Consuelo, 'ten years ago I was married in the Catholic
Church. I have never once disgraced myself. I have legitimate children,
whom I have educated virtuously. I dare to say----'

"'Virtuously I know you have, but not religiously. You are chaste, they
tell me, but you never go to church. Tell me, however, what has befallen
you?'

"'My husband, from whom I have never been separated, is now in Prague,
and I know not by what infamous means he has been arrested in that city
on the charge of usurping a name and title not his own, of attempting to
appropriate an estate to which he had no claim--in fine, of being a
swindler, a spy, and an impostor. Perhaps even now he has been sentenced
to perpetual imprisonment, or to death.'

"'Prague? and an impostor?' said the empress. 'There is a story of that
kind in the reports of the secret police. What is your husband's name?
for you actresses do not bear them.'

"'Leverani.'

"'That is it! My child, I am sorry that you are married to such a
wretch. This Leverani is in fact a swindler and a madman, who, taking
advantage of a perfect resemblance, attempts to personate the Count of
Rudolstadt, who died ten years ago. The fact is proved. He introduced
himself into the home of the old Canoness of Rudolstadt, and dared to
say he was her nephew, he would have succeeded in getting possession of
her inheritance, if just then the old lady had not been relieved of him
by friends of the family. He was arrested and very properly. I can
conceive your mortification, but do not know how I can help it. If it be
shown that this man is mad, and I hope he is, he will be placed in an
hospital, where you will be able to see and attend him. If, however, he
be a scamp, as I fear, he must be severely treated, to keep him from
annoying the true heiress of Rudolstadt, the young Baroness Amelia, who
I think, after all her past errors, is about to be married to one of my
officers. I hope, _mademoiselle_, that you are ignorant of your
husband's conduct, and are mistaken in relation to his character,
otherwise I would be offended at your request. I pity you too much to
humiliate you, however. You may retire.'

"Consuelo saw she had nothing to expect, and that in seeking to
establish the identity of Albert and Leverani she would injure his
position. She arose and walked towards the door, pale as if she was
about to faint. Maria Theresa, however, who followed her with an anxious
eye, took pity on her, and called her back.

"'You are much to be pitied,' said she, in a less dry tone. 'All this is
not your fault, I am sure. Be at ease and be calm. The affair will be
conscientiously investigated; and if your husband does not ruin himself,
I will have him treated as a kind of madman. If you can communicate with
him, have this understood. That is my advice.'

"'I will follow it, and thank your majesty, without whose protection I
am quite powerless. My husband is imprisoned at Prague, and I am engaged
at the Imperial Theatre at Vienna. If your majesty will but give me
leave of absence and an order to see my husband, who is in strict
confinement----'

"'You ask a great deal. I do not know whether Kaunitz will give you
leave of absence, or if your place at the theatre can be supplied. We
will see all about it in a few days.'

"'A few days!' said Consuelo, boldly. 'Then, perhaps, he will be no
more. I must go now!--now!'

"'That is enough,' said the empress. 'Your urgency would injure you in
the minds of judges less calm than I. Go, _mademoiselle._'

"Consuelo went to the old Canon ***, and entrusted her children to his
charge, at the same time saying she was about to leave for she knew not
how long a time.

"'If you go for a long time,' said he, 'so much the worse for me. As for
the children, they will give me no trouble, for they are perfectly well
brought up, and will be company to Angela, who begins to be subject to
_ennui._'

"The good canon did not attempt to ascertain her secret. As, however,
his quiet easy mind could not conceive a sorrow without a remedy, he
attempted to console her. Finding that he did not succeed in inspiring
her with hope, he sought at least to make her easy about her children.

"'Dear Bertoni,' said he, kindly, and striving in spite of his tears to
smile, 'remember, if you do not come back, your children are mine. I
take charge of their education. I will marry the girl, and that will
diminish Angela's portion a little, and make her more industrious. The
boys, I warn you, I will make musicians.'

"'Joseph Haydn will share that burden with you,' said Consuelo, 'and old
Porpora will yet be able to give them some lessons. My children are
docile and seem intellectual; so that their physical existence does not
trouble me. They will be able to support themselves honestly. You must
replace my love and advice.'

"'I promise to do so,' said the canon. 'I hope to live long enough to
see them established. I am not very fat, and I can yet walk steadily. I
am not more than sixty, although Bridget insists that I should make my
will. Then have courage, my daughter, and take care of your health. Come
back soon, for God takes care of the pure-hearted.'

"Consuelo, without any trouble about her leave of absence, had horses
put to her carriage. Just as she was about to set out, Porpora came to
know whither she was going. She had been unwilling to see him, knowing
as she did that he would seek to prevent her departure. He was afraid,
notwithstanding her promises, that she would not be back in time for the
opera next day."

"'Who the devil dreams of going to the country in the winter time,' said
he, with a nervous tremor caused as much by fear as old age. 'If you
take cold you will endanger my success. I do not understand you. We
succeeded yesterday, and you travel to-day.'

"This conversation made Consuelo lose a quarter of an hour, and enabled
the directors to inform the authorities of her intention. She was in
consequence forced to submit to a picket of Hulans, who immediately
surrounded the house and stood sentinels at her door. She was soon
seized with fever caused by this sudden check on her liberty, and
frantically paced the room while she replied to the questions of Porpora
and the directors. She did not sleep that night, but passed it in
prayer. In the morning she was calm, and went to the rehearsal as she
was desired. Her voice was never more melodious, but she was so mentally
abstracted that Porpora became alarmed.

"'Cursed marriage! Cursed lovers' folly!' murmured he to the orchestra,
striking the keys of his instrument as if he would break it. Porpora was
unchanged, and would have willingly said, 'Perish all lovers and
husbands in the world, so that my opera succeeds.'

"At night Consuelo made her toilet as usual, and went on the stage. She
placed herself in proper attitude, and she moved her lips, but the voice
was gone--she could not speak!

"The audience was amazed. The court had heard something vague about her
attempt at flight, and pronounced it an unpardonable whim. There were
cries, hisses, and applause at every effort she made. Still she was
inaudible. She stood erect not thinking of the loss of her voice, nor
feeling humiliated by the indignation of her tyrants, but resigned and
proud as a martyr condemned to an unjust punishment; while she thanked
God for having so afflicted her, that she could leave the stage and join
her husband.

"It was proposed to the empress that the rebellious artist should be
imprisoned, there to recover her voice and good temper. Her majesty was
angry for a moment, and the courtiers thought to ingratiate themselves
with her by advising cruelty; but the empress did not like unnecessary
severity, though she could connive at remunerative crime.

"'Kaunitz,' said she, 'permit the poor woman to leave, and say nothing
more about it. If her loss of voice is feigned, her duty seems to
require it. Few actresses would sacrifice professional success at the
altar of conjugal affection and duty.'

"Consuelo thus authorised set out. She was unwell, without being
apparently aware of it."

Here again we lose the thread of events. The cause of Albert may have
been public or secret. It is probable that it was analogous to the suit
which Trenck made and lost, after so many years' dispute. Who in France
would not know the details of this affair, had not Trenck himself
published and spread his complaints abroad for thirty years? Albert left
no documents. We must then turn to Trenck's story, he too being one of
our heroes. It is probable his troubles may throw some light on those of
Albert and Consuelo.

About a month after the meeting at St. Graal, of which in his memoirs
Trenck says nothing, he was recaptured and imprisoned at Magdenbourg,
where he passed ten years of his life, loaded with eighty pounds of
irons. The stone to which he was bound bears the inscription "Here lies
Trenck." All know his terrible fate, and the sufferings he underwent, as
also his wonderful attempts at escape, and his incredible energy, which
never left him, but which his chivalric imprudence counteracted. His
sister was subjected to the cruelty of paying for the erection of a
dungeon for him, because she afforded him a refuge in his flight.
Trenck's works of art in prison, the wonderful engravings he made with
the point of a nail on the tin cups, which are allegories or verses of
great beauty, are also well known.[20] In fine, from his secret
relations with the princess Amelia--the despair in which she wasted
away, and her care to disfigure her face by means of a corrosive fluid,
which almost destroyed her sight--the deplorable state of health to
which she reduced herself to avoid marriage--the remarkable change
effected on her character--the ten years of agony, which made him a
martyr, and her an old woman, ugly and malicious, instead of the angelic
creature she was, and would have been had she been happy[21]--the
misfortunes of the lovers are historical; but they are generally
forgotten when the character of Frederick the Great is written. These
crimes, committed with such refined cruelty, are indelible spots on the
character of that monarch.

At length Trenck was released, as is known, by the intervention of Maria
Theresa, who claimed him as her subject. This was accomplished by the
influence of Karl, her majesty's valet. In relation to the curious
intrigues of this magnanimous man with his sovereign, some of the
strangest, most touching and pathetic pages of the memoirs of the age
have been written.

During the first part of the captivity of Trenck, his cousin, the famous
Pandour, a victim of truer though not less hateful accusations, died it
is said at Spielberg of poison. As soon as Trenck was free, the Prussian
came to ask for his cousin's vast estate; but Maria Theresa had no idea
of yielding it. She had taken advantage of the exploits of Pandour, and
profited by his death. Like Frederick and other crowned tyrants, while
the power of position dazzled the masses, she paid no attention to the
secret offences for which God will call her to account at the day of
judgment, and which will at least weigh as heavy as her official
virtues.

The avarice of the empress was exceeded by her agents, the ignoble
persons she had made curators of Pandour's estate, and the prevaricating
magistrates who decided on the rights of the heir. Each had a share of
the spoil, but the empress secured the largest. It was in vain that,
years after, she sent to prison and the galleys all her accomplices in
this fraud, as she never made complete restoration to Trenck. Nothing
describes the character of the empress better than that portion of
Trenck's book, in which he speaks of his interviews with her. Without
divesting himself of the loyalty which was then a kind of patrician
religion, he makes us feel how very avaricious and hypocritical this
deceitful woman was. He exhibits an union of contrasts, a character at
once base and sublime, innocent and false, like all those naturally pure
hearts which become captivated by the corruption of absolute power--that
great river of evil, on the breakers of which the noblest impulses of
the human heart have been dashed to pieces. Resolved to thwart him, she
yet afterwards deigned to console and encourage him, and promise him
protection against his infamous judges;--and, finally, pretending not to
have been able to discover the truth she sought, she bestowed on him the
rank of major, and offered the hand of an ugly old woman who was both
devout and gallant. On the refusal of Trenck, the royal _matrimomaniac_
told him he was a presumptuous madman, that she had no means of
gratifying his ambition, and coldly turned her back upon him. The
reasons assigned for the confiscation of his estate varied under
circumstances. One court said that Pandour, undergoing an infamous
sentence, could make no will. Another, that if there were a will, the
claimant, as a Prussian, could not benefit by it; and that the debts of
the deceased absorbed everything. Incident after incident was got up;
but after much disputing Trenck never received justice.[22]

There was no need of artifice to defraud Albert, and his spoliation was
effected without much procrastination. It was only necessary to treat
him as if he were dead, and prohibit him from being resuscitated at an
inappropriate time. We know that when he was arrested, the Canoness
Wenceslawa had died at Prague, whither she had come to be treated for
acute ophthalmia. Albert, having heard that she was _in extremis_, could
not resist the promptings of his heart to go and close the eyes of his
relation. He left Consuelo on the Austrian frontier, and went to Prague.
This was the first time he had been in Germany since his marriage. He
flattered himself that the lapse of ten years and certain changes of
attire would prevent him from being recognised; yet he approached his
aunt with much mystery. He wished to have her blessing, and atone by his
last kindness for the grief to which his desertion had subjected her.
The canoness was almost blind, but was struck by the sound of his voice.
She did not analyse her feelings, but at once abandoned herself to the
instinctive tenderness which had survived her memory and mental
activity. She clasped him in her withered arms, and called him her
beloved Albert--her darling child. Old Hans was dead; but the Baroness
Amelia and a woman from the Boehmer-wald, who had been a servant of the
canoness, and who had nursed Albert when he was sick, were astonished
and terrified at the resemblance of the pretended doctor and the count.
It does not appear that Amelia positively recognised him, and we will
not consider her an accomplice in the violent prosecution commenced
against him. We do not know who set the detachment of half-magistrates
half-spies to work, by whose aid the court of Vienna governed its
conquered subjects. But one thing is certain, that the countess had
scarcely breathed her last in her nephew's arms, ere Albert was arrested
and examined as to what had brought him to the death-bed of the old
lady. They wished to see his diploma; but he had none, and his name of
Leverani was considered criminal, several people having known him as
Trismegistus. He was consequently accused of being a quack and conjuror,
although no one could prove that he had ever received money for his
cures. He was confronted with Amelia: hence his ruin. Irritated and
mortified by the investigations to which he was subjected, he confessed
frankly to his cousin that he was Albert of Rudolstadt. Amelia certainly
recognised him, and fainted from terror. The conversation had been
overheard. The matter then took another turn. They wished to treat him
as an impostor; but in order to produce one of those endless suits which
ruin both parties, functionaries of the kind that had ruined Trenck,
sought to compromise him by making him say he was Albert of Rudolstadt.
There was a long investigation; and Supperville being sent for, said
there was no doubt Albert had died at the Giants' Castle. The exhumation
of the body was ordered; and a skeleton, which might have been placed
there only the day before, was found, his cousin was induced to contend
with him as with an adventurer who wished to rob her. She was not
suffered to see him. The complaints of the captive and the ardent
demands of his wife were stifled by a prison-bar and torture. Perhaps
they were sick, and dying in different dungeons. Albert could no longer
regain honor and liberty except by proclaiming the truth. It was in vain
that he promised to renounce the estate, and at once to bestow it on his
cousin. Interested parties sought to prolong the controversy, and they
succeeded, either because the empress was deceived, or because she
desired the confiscation of the estate. Amelia herself was attacked, the
scandal of her previous misfortune being revived. It was insinuated that
she was not a devotee, and they threatened to send her to a convent, in
case she did not abandon her claim. Eventually she was forced to
restrict it to her father's fortune, which was much reduced by the
enormous expenses of litigation. The castle and estates of Riesenberg
were confiscated to the state, after the lawyers, judges, and managers
of the affair had appropriated two-thirds of its value. On the
termination of the suit, which lasted five or six years, Albert was
exiled from the Austrian states as a dangerous alien. Thenceforth, it is
almost certain, the couple led an obscure life. They took their youngest
children with them. Haydn and the canon kindly refused to give up the
elder ones, who were being educated under the eyes and at the expense of
these faithful friends. Consuelo had lost her voice for ever. It is but
too certain that captivity, idleness, and sorrow at his wife's
sufferings, had again shaken Albert's reason. It does not appear,
however, that their love was less pure, or their conduct towards each
other less tender. The Invisibles disappeared under persecution; their
plans having failed, principally on account of the charlatans who had
speculated on the new ideas and the love of the marvellous. Persecuted
again as a freemason, in intolerant and despotic countries, Albert took
refuge either in France or England. Perhaps he continued his
propagandism, but this must have been among the people; and if his toil
had any fruit, it had no eclat.

Here there is a void which our imagination cannot fill. One authentic
document, which is very minute, shows us that in 1774 the couple were
wandering in the Bohemian forests.

This letter we will copy as it came to us. It will be all we can say
farther of Albert and Consuelo, whose subsequent career is utterly
unknown.


[Footnote 16: Many of these grades are of different creations and of
different rites. Some are of a date posterior to the age of which we
write. We commit the rectification of them to the learned Tilers. There
are, in some rites, more than one hundred degrees.]

[Footnote 17: Every effort has been made to translate this masonic (?)
jargon into something like English; with what success none but the
Invisibles can tell.]

[Footnote 18: By means of such indications, the story of John Kreysoder
seems to us to be the most wonderful of the romances of Hoffman. The
author having died before the end of his work, the poem is ended by the
Imagination in a thousand forms, the one more fantastic than the other.
Thus a noble river, as it approaches its mouth, is ramified into a
thousand passes, which work their way amid the golden sands of the sea
shore.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 19: The French word is frotteur, and its meaning is strictly
"rubber" or "polisher."]

[Footnote 20: Many are yet preserved in private museums in Germany.]

[Footnote 21: See the character of the Abbess of Quidlemburg, in
Thibault, and the strange stories he tells of her.]

[Footnote 22: See note at the end of the book.]




LETTER OF PHILO[23]

TO IGNATIUS JOSEPH MARLIENOWIEZ, PROFESSOR OF PHYSIC
AT LEMBERG.


"Borne away, as by a whirlpool, like the satellites of a star king we
followed Spartacus[24] through rugged pathways, and under the dark
shadows of the Boehmer-wald. Why were you not there, my friend? You
would have neglected to pick up pebbles in the torrents, and to examine
the bones and veins of our mysterious mother Earth. The ardent words of
our master gave us wings. We crossed ravines and mountain tops, without
counting our steps, without looking down on the abyss above which we
stood, and without watching in the distance for the place where we
should rest at night. Spartacus had never seemed greater, or more
completely impregnated with sublime truth. The beauties of nature
exerted on his mind all the influence of a great poem; but in the glow
of his imagination, his spirit of wise analysis and ingenious
combination never left him. He explained the sky and stars, the earth
and seas, with the same clearness that presides over his dissertations
on the lesser subjects of this world. As though his soul became greater,
when alone and at liberty with the elect of his disciples, beneath the
azure of the starry skies, or looking on the dawn that announced the
rising sun, he broke through the limits of time and space to embrace in
one glance all humanity, both in its general view and in its details, to
penetrate the fragile destiny of empires and the imposing future of
nations. You in the flesh understand this, young man; you have heard on
the mountain this youth, with a wisdom surpassing his years, and who
seems to have lived amongst men since the beginning of the world.

"When we came to the frontier, we made a salutation to the land which
had witnessed the exploits of the great Ziska, and bowed yet lower to
the caves which had been sepulchres to the martyrs of our old national
liberty. There we resolved to separate, for the purpose of examining
every point at once. Cato[25] went to the north-west, Celsus[26] to the
south-east, Ajax[27] went from the west to the east, and our rendezvous
was Pilsen.

"Spartacus kept me with him, and resolved to rely on chance and a
certain divine inspiration which was to direct us. I was a little amazed
at his absence of calculation and thought, which seemed altogether
contradictory to his methodical habit. 'Philo,' said he, when we were
alone, 'I think men like us are ministers of Providence. Do not imagine,
however, that I deem Providence inert and disdainful, for by it we live
and think. I have observed that you are more favored than I am. Your
designs almost always succeed. Forward, then, and I will follow you. I
have faith in your second sight, in that mysterious clearness invoked
naïvely by our ancestors, the Illuminati, the pious fanatics of the
past.' It really seems that the master has prophesied truly. Before the
second day we found what we looked for, and thus I became the instrument
of fate.

"We had reached the end of the wood, and there were two forks of the
road before us. One went into the lowlands, and the other went along the
sides of the mountain.

"'Whither shall we go?' said Spartacus, seating himself on a rock. 'I
can see from here cultivated fields, meadows, and humble huts. They told
us he was poor, and he must therefore live with people of the same
class. Let us inquire after him, among the humble shepherds of the
valley.'

"'Not so, master,' said I, pointing to the road on my right. 'I see
there the towers and crumbling walls of an old mansion. They told us he
was a poet, and he must therefore love ruins and solitude.'

"'Well, then,' said Spartacus, with a smile, 'I see Hesper rising, white
as a pearl, in the yet roseate sky, above the ruins of the old domain.
We are shepherds looking for a prophet, and the wonderful star hurries
before us.'

"We soon reached the ruins. It was an imposing structure, built at
different epochs. The ruins of the days of the emperor, Karl, however,
lay side by side with those of feudality. Not time, but the hands of man
had worked this destruction. It was broad day when we ascended a
dried-up ditch, and reached a rusted and motionless portcullis. The
first object we saw amid the ruins, as we came into the court-yard, was
an old man covered with rags, and more like a being of the past than of
the present day. His beard, like ivory grown yellow from age, fell on
his breast, and his golden hair glittered like a lake lighted up by the
sun. Spartacus trembled, and, approaching him hastily, asked the name of
the castle. The old man did not seem to fear us. He looked at us with
his glassy eyes, but seemed unable to see us. We asked his name. He made
no reply, his face merely expressing a dreamy indifference. His Socratic
features, however, did not express the degradation of idiotcy. There was
in his stern features an indescribable kind of beauty, originating in a
pure and serene mind. Spartacus put a piece of silver into his hand; but
having held it near his eyes, he let it fall as if he did not know the
use of it.

"'Is it possible,' said I to my master, 'that an old man so totally
deprived of his senses can be thus abandoned by his fellow-men, and left
to ramble amid mountains, far away from the abodes of men without a
guide, without even a dog to lead him?'

"'Let us take him to a resting-place,' said Spartacus.

"As we set about lifting him up, however, to see whether he could stand,
he placed his finger on his lips, indicating that he wished us not to
disturb him, and pointed with the other hand to the extremity of the
court. Our glances went thither, but we saw no one. Shortly after we
heard the sound of a violin, which was played with great precision and
accuracy. I never heard an artist handle the bow with a more vast or
graceful sweep; the chords of his instrument, as it were, sympathising
with those of his soul, and conveying to the heart an expression at once
pious and heroic. We both fell into a delightful reverie, and said to
ourselves there was something grand and mysterious in such sounds. The
eyes of the old man wandered vaguely though dazzling and ecstatic, and a
smile of beatitude hung on his withered lips, proving conclusively that
he was neither deaf nor insensible.

"After a short melody all was hushed, and we soon saw a man of ripe age
come from a chapel near us. His appearance filled us with emotion and
respect. The beauty of his austere face and his noble proportions
contrasted strongly with the deformed limbs and savage appearance of the
old man. The violin player came directly to us, with his instrument
under his arm, and the bow in a leathern girdle. Large pantaloons of
coarse stuff, shoes like the buskins of a former day, and a shirt of
sheepskin, similar to the Dalmatian peasant dress, made him look like a
shepherd or laborer. His white and delicate hands, however, did not
bespeak a man who had been devoted to rude or agricultural labor; and
the cleanliness of his dress and his proud deportment seemed to protest
against his misery, and to refuse to submit to its consequences. My
master was struck with the appearance of this man. He clasped me by the
hand, and I felt his tremble.

"'It is the person,' said he. 'I know his face from having seen it in my
dreams.'

"The violin player came towards us without embarrassment or surprise. He
returned our salute with charming dignity, and, approaching the old man,
said--

"'Come Zdenko: I am going. Lean on your friend.'

"The old man made an effort to rise; but his friend lifted him up, and
bending so as to serve as a staff, he guided his trembling steps. In
this filial care and patience in a strong, noble, and agile man, to
another in rags, there was if possible something more touching than in a
young mother shortening her step to suit that of her child. I saw my
master's eyes fill with tears, and I felt a sympathy with that man of
genius and probable fame, in his strong excitement at the scene before
him, fancying myself lost in the mysteries of the past.

"We were seeking some pretext to address him, when his thoughts
evidently recurring to us, he said, with a beautiful simplicity and
confidence:--

"'You saw me kiss this marble, and this old man throw himself on these
tombs. Think not that these are acts of idolatry. We kiss the robe of a
saint, as we wear on the heart a token of love and friendship. The
bodies of our deceased friends are like worn-out garments, which we
would not trample on, but preserve with respect and lose with regret. My
beloved father and kindred, I know are not here. The inscriptions which
say "Here rest the Rudolstadts," are false. They are all ascended to
heaven, though they live and act in the world in obedience to the
ordinance of God. Under these marbles there are only bones. Their souls
have forsaken the mortal, and have put on the immortal. Blessed be the
ashes of our ancestors! Blessed be their dust and the ivy with which
they are crowned! Above all--blessed be God! who has said, "Arise and
return to my fruitful soul, where nothing dies!--where all is renewed
and purified!'"

"'Leverani, Ziska, or Trismegistus, do I find you at the tombs of your
ancestors?' said Spartacus, animated by a celestial certainty.

"'I am neither Leverani, Trismegistus, nor Ziska,' said the stranger.
'Spectres haunted my ignorant youth; but divine light has absorbed them,
and I have forgotten the names of my ancestors. I have no name but that
of "man," and am not different from others of my species.'

"'Your words are profound, but indicate distrust,' said the master.
'Confide in this sign. Do you not remember it?'

"Spartacus here made the higher masonic sign.

"'I have forgotten that language. I do not despise it; but it has become
useless. Insult me not, brother, by thinking I distrust you. Is not your
name also "man." Mankind have never injured me; or if they did, I have
forgotten it. The injury they did me then was trifling, compared with
the good they can do each other, and for which I thank them in advance.'

"'Is it possible then, oh, good man! that you esteem time as nothing in
your estimate of life?'

"'Time does not exist. If men meditated on the divine essence more, they
would like me, forget centuries and ages. What matters it, to one who
participates so much in God's nature as to be eternal--to one who will
live for ever? Time, to such an one, is a nonentity. The controlling
power alone may hasten or delay, but will not pause.'

"'You mean, that man should forget to reckon time--that life runs
perpetually and abundantly from the bosom of God. Are these your
assertions?'

"'You rightly comprehend my meaning, young man. I have, however, a still
better explanation of this great mystery.'

"'Mystery! I have come from afar to inquire and learn from you of the
mysterious.'

"'Listen, then,' said the stranger, beckoning the old man to a seat on a
tomb. 'This place inspires me in a peculiar manner, for on this spot
rest the last rays of the setting sun and his earliest morning fires.
Here, then, I could wish to exalt your soul to a knowledge of sublime
truths.

"We quivered with a joyful emotion at the idea of having, after two
years of search, discovered this Magus of our religion--this great
philosopher and organiser, who was able to extricate us from our mental
labyrinth. The stranger, however, seizing his violin, began to play it
with such warmth of feeling that the ruins resounded as with the echoes
of the human voice. His strain was religiously enthusiastic, while at
the same time it had an air of antique simplicity.

"Nothing in these unknown songs bespoke languor or reverie. They were
like the songs of war, and made us fancy we saw triumphant armies, with
banners, and palms, and all the insignia of a new religion. I saw, as it
were, the vastness of all nations united under one bright banner. There
was no disorder in their ranks, no impetuous outbreaks; but they
portrayed human activity in all its splendor, victory in all its
clemency, faith in all its sublime expansion.

"'This is magnificent,' said I to myself, when I had heard three or four
of his magnificent strains. 'It is the true _Te Deum_--Humanity, revived
and refreshed, giving thanks to the God of all religions--to the Light
of all men!'

"'You understand me, my child,' said the musician, wiping the
perspiration and tears from his face. 'You see Time has but one voice to
proclaim truth. Look at the old man. He, by understanding this mystery,
has become at least twenty years younger.'

"We looked at the old man. He was erect, and walked with ease, while he
kept time to the music as he paced, like a mere youth. There had
certainly been a miracle worked on him through the instrumentality of
music. He came down the hill without caring for assistance; and when his
step became slow, the musician said--

"'Zdenko, do you wish me to play again to you the "March of Procopious
the Great," or the "Benediction of the Standard of the Orebites?'"

"The old man signified however, that he still had sufficient strength,
as if he feared to exhaust the heavenly aid and inspiration of his
friend.

"We went towards the hamlet we had seen on our right hand on going to
the ruins. On the way Spartacus questioned the musician.

"'You have played,' said he, 'incomparable melodies to us, and by your
brilliant prelude I understand that you meant to prepare our senses for
the enthusiasm with which you are inspired, and wish to exalt yourself,
as the pythonesses and the prophets did, and so pronounce your oracles
as if by the power of God. Now, then, speak. The air is calm, the path
is smooth, and the moon shines out in all her beauty. All nature is
silent, apparently to listen to you; and our hearts call aloud for your
revelations. Vain science and haughty reason will become humbled in us,
beneath your burning language. Speak!--the time is come.'

"The philosopher, however, would not comply with the request; but said--

"'What can I say that I have not already expressed in beautiful
language? Is it my fault that you did not understand me? You think I
spoke to your senses, yet it was my soul addressed you--nay, the souls
of all the human family spoke in mine. I was indeed inspired, but now
the power is gone, and I need repose. Had I then transfused to you all
that I could have wished, you also would now require rest.'

"It was impossible for Spartacus to ascertain anything more that
evening. When we had come to the first cottage, the stranger said:--

"'Friends, follow me no farther; but come to me to-morrow. Knock at the
first door and you will be well received everywhere here, if you know
the language of the country.'

"It was useless to exhibit the little money we had. The peasants of
Bohemia are worthy of ancient days. We were received with calm
politeness, and ere long we were treated with affectionate cordiality,
being able to speak Slavonic with ease, the peasants distrusting those
who speak German.

"We soon ascertained that we were at the Giants' Castle, and at the foot
of the Giants' Mountain. From the name, we fancied we were transported
by magic to the great northern chain of the Carpathian Mountains. We
were told that one of the ancestors of the Podiebrad had thus named his
castle to discharge a vow he had made in the Riesenberg; and that
Podiebrad's descendants, after the Thirty Years' War, had assumed the
patronymic of Rudolstadt. At that time, persecution Germanized
everything--names, cities, and individuals. These traditions are yet
alive in the hearts of the peasantry of Bohemia. The mysterious
Trismegistus, then, whom we looked for, is really the same Albert
Podiebrad who was buried alive, rescued from the tomb in a mysterious
manner, who disappeared for a long time, and who, after twenty years,
was confined as an impostor and freemason and Rose Cross--the famous
Count of Rudolstadt, whose lawsuit was so hushed up, and whose identity
was never established. Rely then, my friend, on the inspiration of our
master. You trembled when you thought we put faith in vague revelations,
and searched for one who, like so many of the modern Illuminati, might
be either an impudent swindler or a ridiculous adventurer. The master
had judged correctly. By a few traits in his deportment, and some of his
fugitive writings that we had seen, he was convinced that this strange
personage was a man of intelligence and truth--a sincere guardian of the
sacred fire and holy traditions of the older Illuminism--an adept of the
ancient secret--a doctor of the new interpretation. We have found him,
and now we have become enlightened in the history of freemasonry and the
famous Invisibles, of whose toils and even existence we were before in
doubt; and we can now understand the new mysteries, the meaning of which
was lost or wrapped in doubtful hieroglyphics which the persecuted and
degraded adepts could not now explain. We have found the man, and now
can return with that sacred fire which at one time transformed a statue
of clay into a thinking being--a rival for the stern and stupid gods of
the ancients. Our master is the Prometheus. Trismegistus had the fire of
truth in his bosom, and we have caught a sufficiency from him to enable
us to initiate you into a new life.

"The stories of our kind hosts kept us long sitting beside the rustic
hearth. They did not care for the legal judgments and attestations that
declared Albert of Rudolstadt, in consequence of an attack of catalepsy,
deprived of his name and rights. Their love of his character--their
hatred of the foreign spoilers, the Austrians, who, having condemned and
persecuted the legitimate heir, now bereft him of his lands and castle,
which they shamefully squandered--the hammer of the ruthless demolisher,
who would destroy his seigniorial abode, and sell at any price its
invaluable contents, and who sought to sully and deface what they could
not carry away; for these reasons the peasantry of the Boehmer-wald
preferred a truly miraculous truth to the odious sophistry of the
conquerors. Twenty-five years had passed since the disappearance of
Albert Podiebrad, yet no one here will believe in his death, though all
the newspapers have published it, in confirmation of an unjust judgment;
while all the aristocracy of Vienna laughed contemptuously at the madman
who supposed himself resuscitated from death. Albert of Rudolstadt has
now been a week on these mountains--the home of his fathers; and every
day finds him in prayer and praise at their tombs. All who remember his
features beneath his grey hairs prostrate themselves before him as their
true master and ancient friend. There is something to admire in their
acknowledgment of this persecuted man, and much of the beautiful in the
love they bear towards him.

"In a corrupt world like this, nothing can be thought of to give you an
idea of the pure morals and noble sentiments we have met with here.
Spartacus has a profound respect for the peasantry; and the trifling
persecution we first experienced, from their detestation of tyranny, has
confirmed our confidence in their fidelity amid misfortune, and in their
grateful remembrance of the past.

"At dawn we wished to leave the hut in search of the violin player; but
we were surprised to find ourselves surrounded by a number of men, armed
with flails and scythes, the chief of whom said--

"'You must forgive us if we retain you here. We have come together for
that purpose; but you may be free again this evening.'

"Finding us astonished at this, he said--

"'If you are honest men, you have no need to be alarmed; but if you be
scamps, spies, whom our people cannot understand, sent hither to rob us
of our Podiebrad, you shall not leave us until he is far away, and safe
from your attempts to find him.'

"We saw that during the night these honest people distrusted us, though
they had been so kind and open-hearted at first that we could not but
admire them. The master felt sadly distressed at the idea of losing the
hierophant we had come so far to see. He ventured to write to
Trismegistus, in the masonic character, and to tell him his name and
position, in order if possible to relieve the people of their
suspicions. A few moments after this letter had been taken to a
neighboring hut, we saw a woman before whom the peasants opened their
rudely ordered phalanx. We heard them murmur, 'La Zingara! La Zingara
Consolacione!' She soon entered the hut, and, closing the doors, began
in the signs and formulas of freemasonry to question us strictly. We
were surprised to find a woman initiated in the mystic signs; but her
imposing air and scrutinising look inspired us with respect,
notwithstanding her gipsy garb, which she wore with an ease evidently
acquired by habit.

"As she was very clean, and her manners calm and dignified, we fancied
her queen of the camp; but when she told us that she was the wife of
Trismegistus, we looked at her with ease and respect. She is no longer
young, being apparently about forty, but broken down by fatigue. She is
yet beautiful, however; and her tall and elegant figure has still that
noble air and chaste dignity which command admiration. We were deeply
impressed by her angelic countenance, and her sweet musical voice moved
our hearts as with heavenly melody. Whoever this woman may be, thought
we, whether the wife of the philosopher or a generous adventurer
attached to him from an ardent passion, it is impossible to say; but we
could not imagine that any other than a pure unsullied prompting could
influence such a being. We were astonished to find our sage entramelled
with the chains of common men; but we soon discovered that in the ranks
of the truly noble--the intelligent, the wise, and the good--he had
found a companion after his own heart--one also that could brave with
him the storms of life.

"'Excuse my fears and doubts,' said she, after many questions. 'We have
been persecuted and have suffered much; but, thank God, my husband has
forgotten his misfortunes. He is now safe, and nothing can annoy or
afflict him. Heaven, however, has made me a sentinel to protect him from
the approach of his persecutors. Hence my distrust and anxiety. Your
manners and language satisfy me more than do the signs which we have
exchanged, for our mystery has been abused by false preachers and
designing brethren. Prudence forbids us to trust any one; but heaven
protests against impiety or lack of charity. The family of the faithful
is depressed, and we have no longer a temple in which we can hold
communion. Our adepts have lost the true significance of the mysteries.
The letter of our law has killed its spirit; and the divine art has been
mistaken and defiled by man. What matters it?--are there not yet some
faithful? In a few sanctuaries the word of life may yet be safe. Yes, it
will yet find an utterance, and be diffused through the world; the
temple will yet be reconstructed by the pure light of faith, aided by
the widow's mite.'

"'Precisely,' said the master. 'That is what we look for, and what is
preached in our sanctuaries, but which few can understand. We have
reflected upon it, and, after years of toil and meditation have fancied
that we have discovered its true meaning. Therefore are we come to ask
your husband's sanction of our faith, or a correction of our errors. Let
us speak with him, that he may hear and understand us.'

"'That I cannot promise,' said the Zingara; 'nor can he. Trismegistus is
not always inspired, though he now lives under the influence of poetic
meditations. Music is its habitual manifestation. Metaphorical ideas
rarely exalt him above mere sentiment. At present he can say nothing
that would be satisfactory to you. I alone can at all times understand
his language; but to those who do not know him, he is mysterious. I may
tell you this--To men guided by icy reason, Trismegistus is a madman;
and while the poetic peasant humbly offers the sublime gifts of
hospitality to the wise one who has touched and delighted him, the
coarser mind casts his boon of pity on the vagabond who displays his
genius in the city. I have taught our children to accept those gifts
only for the benefit of the aged and infirm beggar, who may not be
gifted sufficiently to influence the hearts of the charitable. We have
no need of alms: we do not beg, for in so doing we would degrade
ourselves. We gain our living honestly, and by no other means shall our
children live. Providence has enabled us to impart our enthusiasm and
art to those capable of comprehending their beauties, and in exchange we
receive the religious hospitality of the poor, and share his frugal
meal. Thus do we earn our food and clothing. At the doors of our
wealthier brethren, we only stop that they may hear our song; we seek no
reward. Only those who have nothing to barter should be classed as
paupers, and on them we bestow charity. These are our ideas of
independence, which we realize by using the talents bestowed on us by
heaven in such a way as gives honor to the donor and credit to
ourselves. We have made friends everywhere among the lower classes of
society, and these, our brothers and sisters, would not degrade
themselves by seeking to deprive us of our probity and honor. Every day
we make new disciples; and when no longer able to take care of our
children, they will have an opportunity of repaying their obligations to
us. Trismegistus now to you will seem crazed by his enthusiasm, as once
he really was by sorrow. Watch him, however, and you will find your
error; for it is the blindness of society and its many perverse social
institutions that make its men of genius and invention often seem
insane. Now come with us, and perhaps Trismegistus will be able to talk
with you on other subjects besides that of music. You must not, however,
request him; for he will do so voluntarily, if we find him at the proper
time, and when old ideas are revived. We will go in an hour. Our
presence here may bring new dangers on his head; and in no other place
need we so much fear recognition, after so many years of exile. We will
go to Vienna by way of the Boehmer-wald and the Danube. I have travelled
in that direction before now, and I will gladly do so again. We will
visit our two children, whom friends in comfortable circumstances
insisted on taking care of and instructing. All, you are aware, are not
artists--we must individually walk in the way pointed out by our
Creator.'

"Such were the explanations of this strange woman, who, though often
pressed by our questions and interrupted by our objections, told us of
the life she had adopted in pursuance of her husband's ideas and tastes.
We gladly accepted her invitation to accompany her, and when we were
ready the rural guard opened its ranks to let us pass.

"'My children,' said the Zingara, in her full and harmonious voice,
'your friend awaits you under the trees. It is the most pleasant hour of
the day, and we will have matins and music. Have confidence in in these
two friends,' said she, pointing to us in her majestic and naturally
theatrical air. 'They are not spies, but well-wishers.'

"The peasants followed us singing. On the way the Zingara told us that
her family purposed to leave the village that very day.

"'Do not tell him so,' she said, 'for it would cost him many tears. We
are not safe here, however, as some old enemy might pass, and recognise
Albert of Rudolstadt under the Bohemian dress.'

"We came to the centre of the hamlet, which was used as a bleach green,
and encircled by immense beach trees, beneath whose boughs were humble
cots and capricious pathways traced by the footsteps of cattle. The
place appeared enchanted as the early rays of the sun fell on the
emerald carpet of its meadows. Silvery dews hung over the brows of the
mountains. Everything had a fresh and healthy appearance; even the
grey-bearded peasants, the ivy-coated trees, and the old moss-covered
cottages. In an open space, where a sparkling rivulet ran, dividing and
multiplying its many crystal branches, we saw Trismegistus with his
children, two beautiful girls and a lad of fifteen, handsome as the
Endymion of the sculptor and poet.

"'This is Wanda,' said the Zingara, showing us the elder girl, 'and the
younger is named Winceslawa. Our son has been called Zdenko, after his
father's best friend. Old Zdenko has a marked preference for him. You
see he has Winceslawa between his legs and the other girl on his knee,
he is not thinking of them, however, but is gazing at Zdenko as if he
could never be satisfied.'

"We looked at the old man, whose cheeks were wet with tears; and his
thin, bony face, though marked by many a wrinkle, yet looked on the last
scion of the Rudolstadts with an expression of beatitude and ecstacy as
he held him by the hand. I could have wished myself able to paint this
group, with Trismegistus in the foreground, as he sadly tuned his violin
and arranged his bow.

"'Is it you, my friends?' says he, as he returned our respectful salute
with cordiality. 'My wife has brought you? She was right, as I have good
things to say to you, and will be happy if you hear me.'

"He played more mysteriously than on the previous evening; such at least
was our impression; but the music no doubt was more delicious from
association, as his little audience thrilled with enthusiasm on hearing
the old ballads of their country and its sacred hymns of freedom.
Emotion was differently marked on their manly brows. Some, like Zdenko,
delighted in the vision of the past and seemed to impregnate themselves
with its poetry, as a transplanted flower in its strange home receives
with joy a few drops of moisture. Others were transported by religious
fanaticisms, when they remembered their present sorrows, and with closed
fists they menaced their visionary enemies, and appealed to heaven for
outraged virtue and dignity. There were sobs and groans, blended with
wild applause and delirious cries.

"'My friends,' said Albert, 'you see these simple men. They completely
comprehend my meaning; and do not, as you did yesterday, ask the meaning
of my prophecies.'

"'You spoke of them only of the past,' said Spartacus, who was anxious
that he should continue his eloquent strain.

"'The past! the past!--the present!--what vain follies are these?' said
Trismegistus, with a smile. 'Man has them all in his heart, and of them
his life is compounded. Since, however, you insist on words to
illustrate my ideas, listen to my son, who will repeat a canticle, the
music of which was composed by his mother, and the verses by myself.'

"The handsome youth advanced calmly yet modestly into the circle. It was
evident that his mother, without knowing it, was over anxious about her
son's personal appearance, and that his beauty might be the more
conspicuous, she had dressed him out superbly in comparison with the
rest of her family. He took off his cap, bowed to his hearers, and
kissed his hand, which salutation was returned by the company. After a
prelude on the guitar from his mother, by which the lad became
enraptured, so congenial was it to his soul, he sang in the Sclavic
language a long ballad to the goddess of Poverty.

"Conceive the effect of a ballad in that mild and gentle tongue which
seems formed for youthful lips alone. It was a melody that touched the
heart, and brought forth tears, pure as crystal from our eyes. It was
sung in a seraphic voice, with exquisite purity, and an incomparable
musical accent; and all this from the son of Trismegistus, and the pupil
and son of Zingara, from one of the best and most gifted children of the
earth. If you can represent to yourself a large group of masculine
faces, honest and picturesque, in such a landscape as Ruysdäel
loved--the unseen torrent, which yet flung from the ravine a murmur that
mingled with the distant bell of the mountain sheep--then you will have
some idea of the poetic joy in which we were immersed.

"'Now, my lads,' said Albert Podiebrad, 'we must to work. Go you to the
fields, and I with my family will seek inspiration in the woods.'

"'You will come back again at night,' said the peasants.

"The Zingara made them a kind gesture, which they mistook for a promise.
The two youngest daughters, who as yet knew nothing of danger, cried out
with infantine joy, 'Yes, yes;' and the peasants dispersed. Zdenko sat
on the steps of the cottage, and saw with satisfaction the people fill a
large bag, which the boy held, with a dinner for the family. The Zingara
then bade us follow, and away we went with the itinerant musicians.

"We had to ascend the ravine. My master and I each took in our arms one
of the girls, and we had thus an opportunity to speak to Trismegistus,
who did not before seem aware of our presence.

"'You think me a dreamer,' said he. 'I am sorry to leave my friends and
the old man behind me. To-morrow they will search the forest for me.
Consuelo, however, will have it so, as she fancies we would be in danger
were we to remain here any longer. I cannot think that any one now fears
or envies us. But her will has always been mine, and to-night we will
not return to the hamlet. If you be my friends in reality, you will
return thither and tell them so. We did not say adieu, for we did not
wish to vex them. As for Zdenko, you need only say to-morrow, he never
thinks of any longer time; all time, all life to him, is in the word
to-morrow. He has divested his mind of the received ideas of time, and
his eyes are now open to the mystery of eternity, in which he seems
always absorbed, and at any time prepared to put off the mortal coil in
exchange for the glorious immortal. Zdenko is a sage, and the wisest I
ever knew.'

"Our journeying had an effect on this family which is worthy of remark.
The children lost their bashfulness before us, and listened most
attentively to the oracles that Trismegistus propounded, which were
replete with heavenly wisdom, and highly calculated to exalt their ideas
above the things of this life, while at the same time they forcibly
dwelt on the necessity of humility. The noble boy, who watched his
father attentively, and noted down every word that he said, would have
been much offended, had any one said that his beloved parent was insane.
Trismegistus rarely spoke, and we observed that neither his wife nor his
children expected him to do so, except when urgently necessary. They
respected his reveries, and La Zingara continually watched him, as if
she was afraid of him suffering in those silent moods. She had studied
the oddities of his character, and did not consider them as foolish. I
would not think it right to use the word 'folly,' in reference to such a
man as Trismegistus. When I first saw him, I thoroughly understood the
veneration of his peasant friends, who are philosophers and theologians
without being aware of it, resembling in this respect the eastern
nations, who make gods to themselves, objects of adoration, as if it
were by instinct. They know that, when not harassed by ridicule, his
abstraction becomes a faculty divinely poetical. I do not know what
would become of him, did not his friends encircle him with their love
and protection. Their conduct towards him is an attractive example of
the respect and solicitude which is due to the invalid, or by the strong
to the weak, in every instance where heaven in its wisdom may punish or
chastise."

"The family walked with such ease and activity that we soon found
ourselves comparatively exhausted. Even the youngest children, when not
in the arms of some of the party, seemed to get over the ground with as
much ease as do the finny tribe in their natural element. La Zingara, in
her anxiety for her son, would not allow him to burthen himself with any
of the little ones, alleging that he was too young for such labor, and
that it might injure his voice, which had not reached its climax. She
took the gentle and confiding little creatures on her own shoulders, and
carried them with the same ease that she would her guitar. Physical
power is a blessing conferred more on the poor artisan or travel-toiled
wanderer than on the easy and luxuriant.

"We were very much fatigued when through many rugged paths we reached a
place called the Schreckenstein, which is most romantic in its
appearance. As we drew near, we observed that Consuelo looked with
anxiety at her husband, and kept close to his side, as if she feared
some danger was near, or an outburst of violent emotion; but nothing
seemed to disturb him, as he sat himself on a large stone, from which he
had a complete view of the arid hills around. In the aspect of this
place there is something terrible. The rocks are in disorder, and by
their falling the trees underneath are frequently crushed. They seem to
have but slight root in the ground, and the shepherds avoid the spot,
leaving it to the wild boar, the wolf, and the chamois. Albert dreamed
for a long time on this spot. He then looked at the children who played
at his feet, and at his wife, who sought to read his emotion on his
brow. He arose suddenly, knelt before her, and bidding his children
follow his example, said--

"'Kneel to your mother--a consolation vouchsafed to the unfortunate--the
peace promised of God to the pure of heart.'

"The children knelt around the Zingara, and wept as they covered her
with kisses. She, too, wept, as she pressed them to her bosom; and bade
them turn around and do the same homage to their father. Spartacus and I
also knelt with them.

"When Consuelo had spoken, Spartacus paid his homage to Trismegistus,
and besought him to grant him light, telling him all he had suffered,
studied, and thought; and then knelt as if enchanted at the Zingara's
feet. I hardly dare to tell what passed in my mind. The Zingara was
certainly old enough to be my mother, yet I cannot describe the charm
that radiated from her brow. In spite of my respect for her husband, and
the horror with which the mere idea of forgetting it would have filled
me, I felt my whole soul enthralled by an enthusiasm with which neither
the splendor of youth nor the prestige of luxury have ever inspired me.
May I meet with one like her, to whom I can devote my life! I can
scarcely hope so, however; and now that I never shall have her, there is
a despair in my heart, as if it had been announced that I could love no
one else.

"La Zingara did not even notice me. She looked at Spartacus, and was
struck with his ardent and sincere language. Trismegistus also was
touched, and clasped the master's hand, making him sit on the rock
behind him.

"'Young man,' said he, 'you have awakened all the ideas of my life. I
fancied I heard myself speaking as I was wont when of your age, and
asked men of your experience for the knowledge of virtue. I had resolved
to tell you nothing. I distrusted not your mind and honesty, but the
purity of the flame in your bosom. I did not feel able to describe in a
tongue I once spoke, the ideas I have accustomed myself to express by
poetry, art, and sentiment; but your faith has triumphed, has
accomplished a miracle, and I feel that I must speak. Yes,' added he,
after having gazed at Spartacus in silence for a moment, which to me
seemed a century, 'yes, now I know you. I have seen you, and with you I
have loved and toiled, in some phase of my anterior life. Your name
among men was great, but I do not remember it. I only remember your
look, your glance, your soul, from which mine has detached itself, not
without a great effort. Now, I am better able to read the future than
the past, and future centuries often appear to me as clear as the
present time. Be assured you will be great, and accomplish great things.
You will, however, be blamed, accused, censured, and calumniated. My
idea, however, will sustain you, under a thousand forms, until it shall
inflict the last blow on social and religious despotism. Yes, you are
right in looking into society for your rule of life. You obey your
destiny, or rather your inspiration. This cheers me. This I felt when I
heard you, and this you contrived to communicate to me, which proves the
reality of your mission. Toil, then, act and labor. Heaven has made you
the organ of destruction. Destroy and discuss. Faith is as necessary for
the destruction as for the erection of edifices. I left a path into
which you have voluntarily entered, for I thought it bad. If it were, it
was the result of accident. I have spoken to the poor, to the weak, to
the oppressed, under the form of art and poetry, which they
instinctively understand and love. It is possible that I have been too
distrustful of the kindly feelings which yet animate men of power and
learning. For a long time I have not known them, having been disgusted
with their impious skepticism and yet more impious superstition. I left
them with disgust, to look for the pure of heart. Obey--obey the breath
of the spirit!--continue to aggrandize our work. Gather up the arms we
have yet on the battle-field! Do not leave them perchance, to strengthen
the force of the enemy, or thus we may be conquered.'

"Then Spartacus and the divine old man began a conversation which I will
never forget. In the course of it, Rudolstadt, who had at first been
unwilling to speak, except in music, as Orpheus did of yore--this
artist, who had for a long time abandoned logic and reason for the
sentiment of the soul--this man whom popular judges had stigmatised as
mad--without effort, as if by inspiration, at once became the most
reasonable of philosophers, and in his precepts he illuminated the part
of true knowledge and wisdom. Spartacus exhibited all the ardor of his
soul. One was a complete man, with every faculty in unison; the other a
neophyte, abounding in enthusiasm. I remembered a gospel analogy of this
scene--Jesus, with Moses and the prophets, on the mountain.

"'Yes,' said Spartacus, 'I feel that I have a mission. I have been in
contact with those who rule the world, and have become aware of their
ignorance and hard-heartedness. How beautiful is life! How beautiful are
nature and humanity! I wept when I saw myself and my brethren, created
by the divine hand for nobler uses, enslaved by such wretches. After
having cried like a woman, I said to myself, "What prevents me from
loosing their fetters and setting them free?" After a period of solitary
reflection, however, I concluded that _to live_ is not to _be free._ Man
was not made to live alone. He cannot live without a purpose; and I
said--I am yet a slave--let me deliver my brothers. I found noble hearts
who associated with me, and they called me SPARTACUS.'"

"'I was right when I said you would destroy,' said the old man.
'Spartacus was a revolted slave. That matters not. Again, organise to
destroy. Let a secret society be formed to crush the power of existing
iniquity. If, however, you would have that body strong and efficacious,
infuse in it as many living, eternal truths as possible, that it may
first level the fabric of error, to raise on its ruins the structure of
charity, love, and gospel faith. To destroy, it must exist; all life
being positive.'

"'I understand your meaning. You would restrict my mission; but, be it
little or great, I accept it.'

"'All in the counsels of God is great. Let this one idea be to you a
rule of conduct--"Nothing is lost!" The divine equilibrium is
mathematical; and in the crucible of the great chemist every atom is
exactly computed.'

"'Since you approve of my designs, show me the way to put them into
action. How must I influence men? Must their imagination be appealed to?
Must I take advantage of their weakness and inclination for the
wonderful? You have seen how much good can be done by holding forth the
wonderful.'

"'Yes; but I have also seen the evil. If you be wise, you will adapt
your action to the age in which we live.'

"'Teach me, then, the doctrine--teach me how to act with certainty.'

"'You ask for the rule of method and certainty from one who has been
accused of folly and persecuted under that pretext. You have made a
wrong choice in an adviser; for instruction, you must go to the
philosophers and sages.'

"'I would rather appeal to you; I already know the value of their
science.'

"'Well, since you insist, I will inform you that method is identical
with _the doctrine_, because it is synonymous with the supreme truth
revealed in it. All is reduced to a knowledge of _the doctrine._'

"Spartacus reflected, and after a moment's silence said--

"'I wish to learn from you the supreme formula of _the doctrine._'

"'You will hear it, not from me, however, but from Pythagoras, the echo
of all sages. "O DIVINE TETRAID!" That is the formula which, under all
images, symbols, and emblems, humanity has proclaimed, by the voices of
many religions, when it could be seized on by no spiritual means,
without incarnation, without idolatry--as it was when first given as a
boon to mankind.'

"'Speak--speak! To make yourself understood, recall some of these
emblems, that you may speak in the stern language of the absolute.'

"'I cannot, as you wish, separate these two things--absolute religion,
and religion in its manifestation. Nature in our epoch exhibits them
together. We judge the past, and without living in it, find the
confirmation of our ideas. I wish to make myself understood.'

"'Speak!--but first speak of God. Does the formula apply to God, the
infinite essence? It would be criminal, did it not apply to that whence
it emanates. Have you reflected on the nature of God?'

"'Certainly; and I feel you have his spirit, the spirit of truth, in
your heart.'

"'Well what is God!'

"'The absolute being. "I am that I am," is the inspired answer given by
the greatest of books, the Bible.'

"'But do you know nothing more of his nature? Has the great book
revealed no more to man?'

"'Christians say God is triune--the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.'

"'What say the traditions of the old secret societies to which you
belong?'

"'The same. Has not this circumstance struck you? Official and
triumphant religion, as well as the faith that is proscribed, agree
exactly in relation to the nature of God. I might mention creeds which
existed earlier than Christianity, in whose theology you would find the
same truth. India, Egypt, Greece, have known God in three persons. We
will come to this again, however. From God, let us pass to man. What is
man?'

"'After one difficult question, you ask another, which is not less so.
The Oracle of Delphi has declared that all wisdom lay in this--"Man,
know thyself!"'

"'The oracle was right. From nature, well understood, all wisdom
emanates. So, too, does all morality, all organization, all true
politics. Let me ask again, what is man?'

"'An emanation from God----'

"'Certainly, for God is the only absolute being. However, I trust that
you are not like some philosophers I met in England, France, and even in
Germany, at the court of Frederick--that you do not resemble Locke, who
is so popular through the praise of Voltaire--that you are not like
Helvetius nor La Mettrie, whose boldness of naturalism so delighted the
court of Berlin--that you do not, like them, say that man has no
essential superiority over animals, trees, and stones. God, doubtless,
inspires all nature as he does man; but there is order in his theodicy.
There are distinctions in his conceptions, and consequently in the works
which are the realisation of his thoughts. Read that great book called
Genesis--that book which, though the people do not understand, they
truly enough call sacred--you will see that it was by divine light
establishing a difference between creatures, that his work was
consummated:--"Let there be light, and there was light." You will also
see that every creature having a name is a species:--"_Creavit cuncta
juxta genus suam et secundum speciem suam._" What, then, is the peculiar
form of man?'

"'I understand you. You wish to assign man a form like God.'

"'The divine trinity is found in all God's works; all reflect the divine
nature, though in a special manner--in a word, each after its kind.'

"'The nature of man I will now explain to you. Ages will elapse, ere
philosophers, divided as they now are, will agree in their
interpretation of it. One, infinitely greater though less famous, did so
correctly long ago. While the school of Descartes confines itself to
pure reason, making man a natural machine, an instrument of logic--while
Locke and his school make man merely a sensitive plant--while others
that I might mention, absorb themselves in sentiment, making man a
_double egotism_--if he loves, expanding him twice, thrice, or more if
he has relatives; he, the greatest of all, began by affirming that man
was all in one and indivisible. This philosopher was Leibnitz. He was
wise, and did not participate in the contempt our age entertains for
antiquity and Christianity. He dared to say there were pearls in the
dung of the middle age. Pearls, indeed, there were. Truth is eternal,
and all the philosophers have received it. With him then, I say, yet
with an affirmation stronger than his, that man, like God, is a Trinity.
This Trinity, in human language, is called Sensation, Sentiment,
Knowledge. The unity of these three things forms the divine _Tetraid._
Thence all history emanates; thence emanates all politics. There you
must recruit yourselves, as from an ever-living spring.'

"'You have passed abysses which my mind, less rapid than your own, could
not pass,' said Spartacus. 'How, from the psychological explanation you
have given me, can a method and rule of certainty be derived? This is my
first question.'

"'Easily,' said Albert. 'Human nature being known, it must be cultivated
according to its essence, if you understood that the matchless book,
whence the gospels themselves are taken--I mean _Genesis_, attributed to
Moses--was taken by him from the temples of Memphis, you would know that
human _dissolution_, by him called the deluge, meant only the separation
of the faculties of human nature, which thus emanated from unity, and
thence from their connection with divine unity or intelligence, love and
activity, have been eternally associated. Then you would see that every
organizer must imitate Noah, the _regenerator_; what the holy writ calls
the generations of Noah, their order and their harmony, will guide you.
Thus you will find at once in metaphysical truth a certain method to
cultivate human nature in every one, and a light to illumine you in
relation to the true organization of associations. I will tell you,
however, that I do not think the time for organization has come; there
is yet too much to be destroyed.

"'I advise you rather to attend to method than to doctrine. The time for
dissolution draws near; nay, it is here. Yes, the time is come when the
three faculties will be disunited, and their separation destroy the
social, religious, and political body. What will happen? Sensation will
produce its false prophets, and they will laud sensation. Sentiment will
produce false prophets, and they will praise sentiment. Knowledge will
produce false prophets, and they will extol mind. The latter will be
proud men, who resemble Satan; the second will be fanatics, ready to
walk towards virtue, without judgment, or with rule; the others will be
what Homer says became companions of Ulysses, when under the influence
of Circe's ring. Follow neither of their three roads, which, taken
separately, conduct, the first to the abyss of materialism, the second
to mysticism, and the third to atheism. There is no sure road to virtue.
This accords with complete human nature, and to human nature developed
under all its aspects. Do not leave this pathway; and to keep it, ever
think on doctrine and its sublime formula.'

"'You teach me things of which I have had a faint conception; yet
to-morrow I will not have you to guide me in the theoretic knowledge of
virtue, and thence to its practice.'

"'You will have other certain guides--above all, _Genesis._ Attempt to
seize its meaning; do not think it an historical book, a chronological
monument. There is nothing more foolish than opinion, which yet has
influence everywhere with _savans_ and _pupils_, and in every Christian
communion. Read the gospels and Genesis; understand the first by the
second, after having tested it by your heart. Strange is the chance.
Like Genesis, the Gospels are believed and misinterpreted. These are
important matters; yet there are others. Gather up all the _fragments_
of Pythagoras. Study, too, the relics of the holy Theosophist, whose
name I in the temple bore. Believe not, my friends, that I would
voluntarily have dared to assume the venerable name of Trismegistus. The
Invisibles bade me do so. The works of Hermes, now despised, and thought
to be the invention of some Christian of the second or third century,
contain the old Egyptian lore; yet the pedants condemn them. A day will
come in which they will be explained, and then be thought more valuable
than all Plato left behind him. Read Trismegistus and Plato, and those
who subsequently have thought of the great Republic. Among these, I
especially advise you to study the great work of Campanella. He suffered
terribly for having dreamed, as you do, of human organization, founded
on the true and real.

"'When I talk of written things,' said Trismegistus, 'think not, in
idolatry, as the Catholics do, I make an incarnation of life in death.
As I spoke of books yesterday, to-day I will speak of other relics of
the past. Books--monuments, are the traces of life by which existence
may be maintained. Life, however, is here; and the everlasting Trinity
is better impressed on ourselves than in the writings of Plato or
Hermes.'

"Though I did not mean to do so, by chance I diverted the conversation.
'Master,' said I, 'you have just said the Trinity is more deeply
impressed on the face of the stars. What would you express by that?
Indeed, as the Bible says, I see God's story uttered by the stars, but I
see in these stars no evidence of what you call Trinity.' He replied:

"'Physical science is not yet adequately advanced; you have not studied
them in their present state. Have you heard of the discoveries in
electricity? Certainly you have, for all who are educated have attended
to them. Well, have you not observed that the philosophers who so
contemned and despised the divine Trinity, have in this point of view
recognised it? Have they not said there was no electricity without heat
and light? In this they see that Trinity they will not acknowledge in
God.'

"He then began to talk of nature, and said we should refer all its
phenomena to one uniform rule. 'Life is one. There is in life one
action. The only question to ascertain is, how we live in obedience to
one universal law, without being absorbed in that law?'

"For my own sake, I would gladly have heard him elucidate this great
theme. Spartacus, though, for some time had appeared less attentive to
what he said. The reason of this was not that he did not attend to them.
The old man's mind, however, would not always last; he sought,
therefore, to improve it by bringing him back to the subjects he loved
the best.

"Rudolstadt observed his impatience. 'You no longer follow the train of
my ideas,' said he. 'Does the science of nature, as I understand it,
seem inapproachable? You are in error if you think so. I estimate the
labor of learned men as lightly as you do, when they become empirics. If
they act thus, they will build up no science, but merely a glossary.
Others beside myself are of this opinion. I became in France acquainted
with a philosopher I loved deeply, Diderot, who often blamed the
collection of scientific matter without any _idea_. Such is the work of
a stone-cutter. Yet no trace of the mason or architect is apparent.
Sooner or later, then, doctrine will come in contact with the natural
science. These are our materials. Think you, now, the naturalist really
understands nature without a perception of the living God who fills it?
Can they see or know it? They call light and sound matter, when matter
is light and sound.'

"'Think not,' said Spartacus, 'I reject what you say about nature. Not
so. I see there can be no true knowledge, except from the appreciation
of the godly unity, and the likeness of all phenomena. But you point out
the paths to us, and I tremble at the idea of your silence. Enable me to
make some progress in one of those paths.'

"'In which?' said Albert.

"'I think of humanity and the future.'

"'I see you wish,' said Albert, with a smile, 'that I should give you my
Utopia.'

"'That was what I desired to ask you,' said Spartacus. 'I wished the new
Utopia you bear in your brain and bosom. We know the society of the
Invisibles searched for and dreamed of its bases. That labor has matured
in you. Let us take advantage of it. Give us your republic, and, as far
as it seems realisable to us, we will put it in practice. The sparks
from your fire will enliven the universe.'

"'You ask me for my dreams,' said Rudolstadt. 'I will attempt to lift up
a portion of the veil which so often hides the future from me. Perchance
it may be for the last time, yet I will seek to do so, believing that
with you the golden dream of poesy will not be entirely lost.'

"Trismegistus then became divinely enthusiastic. His eyes glittered like
stars, and his voice overcame us as the hurricane would. He spoke to us
for more than four hours, and his words were pure as some hymn of the
poetic, artistic, and pious work of all ages. He composed a poem
sublimely majestic; he explained to us all the religions of the past,
all the mysteries of the temples, the poems and laws, all the efforts
and objects of men of the olden time. In those things, which to us had
ever appeared dead or condemned, he discovered the essence of life; and
from the very obscurity of fables caused the essence of life to emanate,
and the light of truth to beam forth, he translated the old myths--he
fixed, by his clear and shrewd demonstration, all the ties and points of
union of religions. He pointed out to us what humanity truly demanded,
however its requisitions might be understood or interpreted by the
people. He convinced us of the unity of life in man, of doctrine in
religion, and, from the dispersed materials of the old and new world,
formed the basis of that which was to come. Finally, he dispersed those
doubts of eternity which long had annoyed our studies. He explained the
lapses of history, which had so alarmed us--he unfolded the countless
bandages enwrapping the mummy of science; and when, in a flash, we had
received what he exhibited with the quickness of electricity--when we
saw all he had seen--when the past, parent of the present, stood before
us, like the luminous one of the Apocalypse, he paused, and said, with a
smile, 'Now that the past and present stand before you, need I explain
the future to you? Does not the Holy Spirit shine before you? See you
not that all man has fancied and wished, sublime as it may be, in the
future is certain, for the simple reason that truth, in spite of the
wish of our faculties to know and own, is simple and positive. We all,
in heart and in hope, possess it. In us it lives, and is. It exists from
all time in humanity, in the germ before fecundation.'

"He spoke again, and his poem about the future was as magnificent as
that of the past. I will not attempt to embody it in language, for, to
transmit the words of inspiration, one must himself be inspired. To
explain what Trismegistus told us in two or three hours, would require
years of thought from me. What Socrates did consumed his life, and
Jesus' labors have occupied seventeen centuries. You see that,
unfortunate and unworthy as I am, I must tremble at the task before me.
But I do not abandon it. The master will not write this out as I would.
He is a man of action, and has already condensed what Trismegistus told
him, as fully as if those subjects had been studied by himself. As if by
an electric touch, he has appropriated all the soul of the philosopher
communicated to him. It is his; it is his own, and, as a politician, he
will use it. He will be the verbatim and spiritual translator, instead
of the lifeless and obscure renderer I am. Ere my work is done, his
school will know the letter. Yes, ere two years have passed, the
strange, wild words uttered on this mountain, will have taken root in
the hearts of many adepts, and the vast world of secret societies, now
moving in night, will unite under one doctrine, receive a new law, and
resume activity by initiation into the word of life. We give you this
monument, establishing Spartacus's foresight, sanctioning all the truth
that he has yet attained, and filling his vista with all the power of
faith and inspiration.

"As Trismegistus spoke, and I listened eagerly, fearing to lose one of
those notes which acted on me like a holy hymn, Spartacus, controlling
his excitement, with a burning eye but firm hand, and with a mind more
eager than his ear, wrote on his tablets characters and signs, as if the
conception of this doctrine had been communicated under geometrical
forms. That very night he returned to those notes, which to me meant
nothing. I was surprised to see him write down and accurately organize
the conclusions of the poet-philosopher. All was simplified and summed
up, as if magically, in the alemble of our master's poetical mind.[28]

"He was not satisfied. Trismegistus's inspiration abandoned him. The
brightness left his eyes, and his frame seemed to shrink within itself.
Consuelo, by a sign, bade us say no more. Spartacus, however, was ardent
in the pursuit of truth, and did not see her. He continued his
questions.

"'You have,' said he, 'talked of God's earthly kingdom,'--and as he
spoke he shook Albert's icy hand. 'Jesus, however, has said, "My kingdom
is not of earth." For seventeen centuries man has vainly hoped for the
fulfilment of his promise. I have not been, by meditation on eternity,
as exalted as you have been. To you time enfolds, as it does to God, the
idea of perpetual action--all the phases of which, at all times, accord
with your exalted feelings. But I live nearer the earth, and count
centuries and years. I wish to study while I live. Explain to me, oh,
prophet! what I must do in this phase of life--what your words will
effect--what they have already effected. I would not live in it vainly.'

"'What matters it to you what I know? None live in vain, and nothing is
lost. None of us are useless. Let me look from the detail, saddening the
heart, and contracting the mind. I am wearied even at the thought.'

"'You, gifted with the power of revelation, should not be exhausted,'
said Spartacus, with energy. 'If you look away from human misery, you
are not the real and complete man of whom was said, "_Homo sum et nihil
humani, a me alienum puto._" You do not love men, and are not a brother,
if their sufferings at every hour of eternity do not disturb you--if you
do not search for a remedy in the unfolding of your ideal. Unhappy
artist, who does not feel a consuming fire in this terrible and pleasant
inquiry?'

"'What, then, do you wish?' said the poet, who now was excited and
almost angry. 'Are you so far vain as to think you alone toil and that I
alone can impart inspiration? I am no magician. I despise false
prophets, and long have striven against them. My predictions are
demonstrations, my visions are elevated perceptions. The poet is not a
sorcerer; he dreams with positiveness, while the other invents wildly. I
realise your activity, for I can judge of your capacity. I believe in
the sublimity of your dreams, because I feel capable of producing them,
and because humanity is vast and powerful enough to expand a hundred
times all the conceptions of one of its members.'

"'Then,' said Spartacus, 'I ask from you the fate of humanity, in the
name of that sympathy that perhaps fills my bosom more completely than
your own. An enchanted veil hides its sorrows from you, while every hour
of my life I touch and shudder at them. I am anxious to soothe them,
and, like the doctor by the bed-side of death, would rather kill by
imprudence, than suffer to die by neglect. You see I will be a dangerous
being, perhaps even monstrous, unless you change me into a saint.
Tremble at the idea of my death, unless you give the enthusiast a
remedy. Humanity dreams, sings, and beseeches in you. With me it
suffers, bewails, and laments. You have expanded your future, though, in
the distance before me. You may say what you please, yet it will require
toil, labor, and sweat to gather something of your remedy for my
bleeding wounds. Generations and language may pass away, inert and
lifeless; I, the incarnation of suffering humanity--I, the cry of
distress, and the longing for salvation--wish to know whether I shall do
good or injury. You have not looked so far from wrong as to be unaware
of its existence. Whither must we go first? what must I do to-morrow?
Must I oppose the enemies of virtue by mildness or violence? Remember
your idolised Taborites saw before the gates of the terrestrial paradise
a sea of blood and tears. I do not think you a magician, but in your
symbols I see a mighty logic and perfect lucidity. If you can foretell
with certainty things far away, you can more certainly lift up the veil
of the horizon of my sight.'

"Albert appeared to suffer deeply. Perspiration fell from his forehead,
and he looked at Spartacus, now with terror, and then with enthusiasm; a
fearful contest oppressed him. His wife in alarm clasped him in her
arms, and silently reproached the master by her glances--instinct,
however, with respect as well as fear. Never was I more impressed with
Spartacus's capacity. He was overpowered with his fanaticism of virtue
and truth, the tortures of the prophet striving with inspiration, the
distress of Consuelo, the terror of the children, and upbraidings of his
own heart. I too trembled, and thought him cruel. I feared that the
poet's soul would be crushed by a last effort, and the tears in his
wife's eyes fell deeply and hotly on my heart. All at once Trismegistus
arose, and putting aside both Spartacus and Consuelo, made a gesture to
his children to go. He seemed transformed. His eyes, from an invisible
book, vast as the universe, and written in characters of light on the
arch of heaven, seemed to read.

"He then said aloud--

"'Am I not human? Why should I not say what nature demands and therefore
will have. I am a man, and therefore I have a right to express the will
of the human family, and to declare their intention. One who witnesses
the gathering of the clouds can predict the lightning and the storm. I
know what is in my heart, and what it will bring forth. I am a man, and
I live in an age when the voice of Europe murmurs trumpet-tongued.
Friends, these are not dreams. I swear by the name of human nature they
are dreams merely in relation to the present formation of our moral and
social systems. Which of the two, spirit or matter, will take the lead?
The gospel says, the spirit bloweth where it pleaseth. The spirit will
do so, and will alter the face of the universe. It is said in
Genesis--"When all was dark and chaotic, the Spirit blew on the waters."
Now, creation is eternal. Let us create, or, in other words, obey the
Spirit. I see darkness and chaos. Why should we remain in darkness?
"_Veni, Creator Spiritus._"'

"He paused, and then began again.

"'Can Louis XV. contend with you, Spartacus? Frederick, the pupil of
Voltaire, is less powerful than his master; and were I to compare Maria
Theresa to my Consuelo, it would be almost blasphemous.'

"He again paused for a short time; and resumed--

"'Come, Zdenko, my child, descendant of the Podiebrad, bearing the name
of my second self and dearest friend, prepare to aid us. You are a new
man, and must choose for yourself. Which side will you take,--that of
your parents, or in the ranks of the tyrants of the earth? The power of
a new generation is in you. Which will you subscribe to, slavery or
liberty? Son of Consuelo, child of the Zingara, godson of the Sclave, I
trust your choice will be with the advocates of liberty, not in the
ranks of the enslavers, else I will renounce you. Though I am a
descendant of the proud ones who sit on thrones, I have long since
despised the bauble, and you, my son, must follow in my footsteps.'

"He continued--

"'He who dares assert that the divine essence--beauty, goodness, and
power--is not to be found on earth, is Satan.'

"Again he added--

"'He who dares assert that man's likeness to his Creator, in sensation,
sentiment, and knowledge, is not, as the Bible says, to be realised on
earth, is Cain.'

"Here he was silent for a time, and added--

"'Your mind, Spartacus, by its strength of purpose in the good cause,
has delighted me. Feeble are enthroned kings. They fancy themselves
mighty, because the slaves of the earth kneel to them; but they see not
what threatens. Their destruction has already begun. To promulgate our
doctrines is to overthrow kings, nobles, armies, and to silence the
profane priests who pander to the tyrants. Neither their courtiers, nor
mistresses, nor their church's influence will protect them. Hurry, then,
to France, my friend, where the work of destruction will soon begin. If
you would share in the good work, do not delay. France is the
pre-ordained of nations. Join the friends of humanity. Throughout France
the words of Isaiah are now being shouted--"Arise! and be enlightened,
for the light is come, and the glory of the Eternal has descended on
thee, and the nations will come to thy light!" Thus the Taborites sang
of Tabor, and France is the Tabor of our era.'

"For a time he was silent, and his face was kindled with joy. He
continued--

"'I am happy! Glory to God! Glory to God on high! as the gospel says;
and peace and good-will on earth! Thus sing the angels; and, feeling as
they do, I would sing like them. What has happened? I am yet with you,
my friends! I am yet with thee, my Eve!--my Consuelo! These are my
children--souls of my soul! We are not, however, on the mountains of
Bohemia, nor amid the ruins of the castle of my fathers. I seem to
breathe, see, feel, and taste of eternity. It is said: How beautiful is
Nature--life--humanity--these which tyrants have perverted.
Tyrants!--There are none! Men are equal; and human nature is understood,
appreciated, and sanctified. Men are free--they are equals--they are
brothers. There is no longer any other definition of man. He masters no
slaves. Hear you that cry--_Vive la République?_ Hear you that crowd
proclaiming liberty, equality, and fraternity? That formula in our
mysteries was uttered in a low voice, and communicated only to adepts of
the higher grades. There is no secret now. The sacraments are for all.
Our Hussite ancestors said----'

"All at once he began to weep.

"'I know the doctrine is not far enough advanced. Too few wear it in
their hearts, and understand it. Horror!--war!--such a war everywhere!'

"He wept long. We did not know what visions passed before his eyes; but
we thought he again saw the Hussite contest. All his faculties seemed
disturbed, and his soul was troubled like as Christ's on Calvary.

"The sight of his trouble distressed me. Spartacus was firm as one who
consults an oracle. 'Lord! Lord!' said the prophet in agony, 'have mercy
on us! We are in thy power. Do with us according to thy will.'

"Trismegistus reached out his hands to grasp those of his wife and son,
as if he had suddenly become blind. The girls rushed in terror to his
bosom, and silently clung there. Consuelo was alarmed; and Zdenko looked
anxiously at his mother. Spartacus saw them not. Was the poet's vision
yet before his eyes? At length he approached the group, and Consuelo
warned him not to excite Albert, whose eyes were open and fixed, as if
he slept a mesmeric sleep, or saw slowly fade away the dreams which
agitated him. After fifteen minutes his eyes relaxed their rigidity,
when he drew his wife and Zdenko to his heart. Ho embraced them for some
time; and afterwards rose up, expressing himself willing to resume his
travels.

"'The sun is very hot,' said Consuelo. 'Had you not rather sleep beneath
these trees?'

"'The sun is pleasant,' he said, with a sweet smile; 'and unless you
fear it more than usual, it will do me good.'

"Each took up his burden, the father a large bag, and the son the
musical instruments, while Consuelo led her daughters by the hand.

"'We suffer thus in the cause of truth,' said Consuelo to Spartacus.

"'Do you not fear that this excitement will injure your husband?' said
I. 'Let me go farther with you. I may be able to render you some
assistance.'

"'I thank you for your kindness,' she said; 'but do not follow us. I
apprehend nothing but a few sad hours. There was danger in the sad
recollections connected with this spot, from which you have preserved
him by occupying his mind. He wished to come hither, but did not
remember the way. I thank you, then, for your many kindnesses, and wish
you every facility for performing God's will.'

"To prolong their stay, I sought to caress the children; but their
mother took them away, and I felt when she was gone as if deserted by
all I held dear on earth.

"Trismegistus did not bid us adieu. He seemed to have forgotten us; and
Consuelo did not arouse him. He walked firmly down the hill; and his
face was expressively calm and even cheerful as he assisted his daughter
to spring over the bushes and rocks.

"The young and handsome Zdenko followed with the Zingara and youngest
child. We looked long after them, as they threaded their way on the
gold-colored forest-path without a guide. At length they were hidden
from our sight. When about to disappear, we saw the Zingara place
Winceslawa on her shoulders, and hasten to join her husband. She was
strong and active as a true Zingara, and as poetical as the goddess of
Poverty.

* * * * * * * *

"We, too, are on the road. We walk on our journey of life, the end of
which is not death, as is grossly said by materialists, but true life.

"We consoled the people of the hamlet as well as we could, and left old
Zdenko to abide his _to-morrow._

"We shortly after joined our friends at Pilsen, whence I write this
letter; and am about to go on other business. You, too, must also
prepare for the restless journey, for action without feebleness. We
advance, my friend, to success or martyrdom!"[29]


[Footnote 23: Probably the famous Baron Knigge known as Philo, in the
Order of the Illuminati.]

[Footnote 24: This is well known to have been the assumed name of Adam
Weishaupt. Is he really referred to? All induces us to think so.]

[Footnote 25: Certainly Zavier Zwack, who was Autic Councillor, and
exiled as one of the chiefs of the Illuminati.]

[Footnote 26: Bader, who was the medical attendant of the
electress-dowager, an Illuminatus.]

[Footnote 27: Massenhousen, a councillor at Munich, and an Illuminatus.]

[Footnote 28: Weishaupt, it is known, and he was eminently an organizer,
used material signs to explain his system, and sent to some of his
pupils an explanation of his whole system, expressed by squares and
circles on a small piece of paper.]

[Footnote 29: This letter was written to Martinowicz a great savant and
member of the Illuminati. He, with several other Hungarian nobles, his
accomplices in conspiracy, was beheaded in Buda, in 1795.]




Note--See note 22.--We will recall to the reader, that we may no longer
have occasion to return to the subject, the rest of Trenck's story. He
grew old in poverty, and busied himself in the publication of
newspapers, of remarkable energy for the times. He married a woman he
loved, became the father of many children, was persecuted for his
opinions, his writings, and doubtless for his affiliation with secret
societies. He took refuge in France when he was very old, and during the
early days of the revolution was received with enthusiam and confidence.
Destined, however, to be the victim of unhappy mistakes, he was arrested
as a foreign agent during the Reign of Terror, and taken to the
scaffold. He met his fate with great firmness. He had previously seen
himself described in a drama, retracing the incidents of his life and
imprisonment. He had enthusiastically welcomed French liberty, and on
the fatal car, said, "This, too, is a comedy!"

For sixty years he had seen the Princess Amelia but once. When he heard
of tho death of Frederick the Great, he hurried to Berlin. The lovers
were terrified at the appearance of each other, shed tears, and vowed a
new affection. The abbess bade him send for his wife, took the
responsibility of his fortune, and wished to take one of his daughters
as reader or lady-in-waiting. Before many days, however, had passed, she
was dead. The memoirs of Trenck, written with the passion of youth and
prolixity of age, are one of the most noble and touching items of the
records of the last century.





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