The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Countess of Rudolstadt, by George Sand.

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 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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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.

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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.

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."

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

"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.'

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

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!"

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

"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."

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."

"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."

"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.

"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—

"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?"

"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 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.

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.

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

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.

"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.

"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?"

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:

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

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

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

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

"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."

"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.

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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——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?"

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

"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?"

"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!"

"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!"

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

"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——"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.'"

"'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.'

"'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 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."

"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."

"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——"

"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——"

"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?"

"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?"

"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!"

"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."

"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——"

"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.

"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—

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—

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"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 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.

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

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—

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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——"

"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?"

"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 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."

"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—

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

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:

"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?"

"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, 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."

"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."

"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.

"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!"

"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?"

"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."

"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.

"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."

"Then," said Swartz, "why do you not have a comfortable one prepared for you here?"

"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."

"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.

"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."

"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."

"Not so. We are permitted to treat ladies, and especially your ladyship, humanely, in all that relates to health and comfort."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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——"

"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.

"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."

"Who does not conspire now? The tyrant is surrounded by servants who are apparently faithful. They have however, sworn his ruin."

"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 was never but once at the rooms of the Princess Amelia, and the only member of the family I saw was the king."

"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."

"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?"

"Did you say I would pardon her, if she would tell me what she knew of La Balayeuse, and what St. Germain said?"

"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."

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.

"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.

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.

"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.

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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."'

"'No, no; not I, but——' Here Gottlieb put his fingers on his thick lips with a mysterious air.

"'He did not reply, but he pointed to his cat stealthily, as if he was afraid of being heard.

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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.

"'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.

"'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.'

"Gottlieb was about to answer, when the adjutant said, with a mild voice and good-humored smile, pointing to the kitchen—

"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 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.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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?'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'The red-throat said, "Go see your sick sister," and I came back to your cell with him.'"

"'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.'

"'My master,' said the somnambulist, with a childish look, full of the most innocent enthusiasm.

"'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.'

"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."

"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!

"'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.

"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.

"'When I was apprenticed to the master cordwainer, I heard much of them in the city.'

"'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."

"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."

"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."

"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.

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.

"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."

"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——"

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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!"

"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."

"It is strange that he conceals himself from you. Nothing astonishes me in those people, however."

"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.

"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."

"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."

"I ventured to ask that question, and he answered briefly and rather dryly. I was wrong to question him, instead of answering his questions."

"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."

"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.

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."

"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."

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."

"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."

"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——"

"We go at night. We will not travel by day, to save you from fatigue, and for other reasons I know nothing of."

"Well, this Chevalier is a strange person. I am helpless then; but for a jailer I like you better than I did Herr Swartz."

"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."

"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."

"I did not know the Chevalier was hurt. He had injured his hand with a buckle of the harness."

"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.'"

"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."

"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.

"Yes, countess, I have that honor," said he, with a voice which did not seem entirely unknown to her.

"I am glad, and will not appear again before your ladyship, unless you require my services."

"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.

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"Madame does not know that in his highness's eyes no fault is trifling which is indiscreet."

"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?"

"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?"

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.

"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.

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.

"I am Consuelo—a singer by profession—known also as La Zingarella and La Porporina."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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?"

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"One of my children loves you. During the last eight days, have you acknowledged or repelled his love?"

"I know it. The least of your actions are known to us. I ask the secrets of your heart, not of your conduct."

"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?"

"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."

"Do not then suffer from remorse. Love cannot be forced. Do you think you love this Leverani? seriously? religiously? ardently?"

"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."

"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:

"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."

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——"

"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?"

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.

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."

"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.

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."

"What I have learned is purely personal. Among you is a confessor, to whom I can and will reveal all."

"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."

"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.

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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?"

"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?"

"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?"

"I can answer this question only by another, my daughter—can two loves exist at once?"

"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."

"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—

"Yes, I do resemble Albert; or, rather, he resembles me very much," replied she. "Have you never seen my portrait?"

"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.

"'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?'

"'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—

"'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—

"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—

"'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?'

"'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?

"'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.'

"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.'

"'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.

"'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.

"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."

"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—

"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."

"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?'

"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."

"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.

"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.

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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:

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—

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—

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—

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.

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."

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?"

"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."

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.

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."

"No; I am presumptuous enough to fear nothing. I am under the power of a miracle."

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:

[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."

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."

"Do not pretend. Anzoleto loves you. You were his mistress at Venice, and yet are——"

"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.'

"'I thank you, Karl, for your vigilance and fidelity. Never before was I awakened with such insolence.'

"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.'

"'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.

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?'

"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—

"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?'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"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.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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?'

"'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?'

"'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?'

"'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.'

"'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.

"'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."'

"'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.'

"'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 who dares assert that the divine essence—beauty, goodness, and power—is not to be found on earth, is Satan.'

"'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.'

"'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.'

"'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——'

"'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.

"'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]

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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