The joy at finding him, like an angel of consolation in this
insupportable solitude, silenced every fear that a moment before had
filled her mind, though she entertained no hope of escape through him.
She returned his embrace with passion, and as he tried to get loose from
her arms to replace his black mask, which had fallen, she cried, "Do not
leave me--do not desert me!" Her voice was supplicatory and her caresses
irresistible. The stranger fell at her feet, concealing his face in the
folds of her dress, which he kissed. He remained some time in a state
half-way between pleasure and despair; then, taking up his mask, and
placing a letter into Consuelo's hands, he hurried into the house, and
disappeared, without her having been able to distinguish his features.
She followed him, and by the aid of a tiny lamp, which Matteus lighted
every evening, at the foot of the stairway, she hoped to find him.
Before she had gone more than a few steps, however, she saw no trace of
him. She looked in vain through all the house, but saw nothing, and, but
for the letter she had in her hands, would have thought all that had
happened a dream.
At last, she determined to return to her boudoir and read the letter,
the writing of which now seemed rather counterfeited intentionally than
changed by pain. It was as follows:
"I can neither see nor speak to you, but I am not forbidden to write.
Will you permit me? Will you dare to reply to the stranger? Had I this
happiness, I might find your letters, and place mine in a book you could
leave every evening on the bench near the water. I love you
passionately--madly--wildly: I am conquered--my power is crushed. My
activity, my zeal, my enthusiasm for the work to which I am devoted,
all, even the feeling of duty, is gone, unless you love me. Bound by
oath to strange and terrible duties, by the gift and abandonment of my
will, I float between the idea of infamy and suicide: I cannot think you
really love me, and that, at the present moment, distrust and fear have
not effaced your passion for me. Could it be otherwise? I am to you but
a shadow, only the dream of a night--the illusion of a moment. Well, to
win your love, I am ready, twenty times a day, to sacrifice my honor, to
betray my word, and sully my conscience by perjury. If you contrived to
escape from this prison, I would follow you to the end of the world,
were I to expiate, by a life of shame and remorse, the intoxication of
your presence, though only for a day, and to hear you say once, though
but once, 'I love you.' Yet, if you refuse to unite yourself to the
Invisibles, if the oaths which soon are to be exacted from you prove
repugnant, it will be forbidden me ever to see you. I will not obey, for
I cannot--no, I have suffered enough--I have toiled, sufficiently
toiled, in the service of man. If you be not the recompense of my labor,
I will have nothing more to do with it. I destroy myself by returning to
earth, its laws, its habits. Take pity, take pity on me. Tell me not
that you do not love me. I cannot support the blow--I will not, cannot
believe it. If I did, I must die."
Consuelo read the note amid the noise of guns, bombs, and fireworks, the
explosion of which she did not hear. Engrossed by what she read, she
experienced, without being aware of it, the impression produced on
sensitive minds by the detonation of powder, and in general, by all
violent noises. This principally influences the imagination, when it
does not act physically on a weak, unhealthy body, by producing painful
tremors. It exalts, on the other hand, the mind and senses of brave and
well-constituted persons. It awakens even in the minds of some women,
intrepid instincts, ideas of strife, and vague regrets that they are not
men. In fine, there is a well-marked accent which makes us find an
amount of quasi-musical enjoyment in the voice of the rushing torrent,
in the roar of the breaking wave, in the roll of thunder; this accent of
anger, wrath, menace and pride--this voice of power, so to say, is found
in the roar of artillery, in the whistling of balls, and in the
countless convulsions of the atmosphere which imitate the shock of
battle in artificial fire-works.
Consuelo perhaps experienced the effects of this, while she read what
may really be called the first _billet-doux_ she had ever received. She
felt herself courageous, bold, and almost rash. A kind of intoxication
made her feel this declaration of love more warm and persuasive than all
Albert's words, precisely as she felt the kiss of Albert more soft and
gentle than Anzoleto's. She then began to write without hesitation, and
while the rockets shook the echoes of the park, while the odor of
saltpetre stifled the perfume of flowers, and Bengalese fires
illuminated the _façade_ of the house, unnoticed by her, Consuelo wrote
in reply:
"Yes, I love you--I have said so; and even if I repent and blush at it,
I never can efface from the strange, and incomprehensible book of my
fate, the page I wrote myself and which is in your hands. It was the
expression of a guilty impulse--mad, perhaps, but intensely true, and
ardently felt. Had you been the humblest of men, I would yet have placed
my ideal in you. Had I degraded myself by contemptuous and cruel
conduct, I would yet have experienced by contact with your heart, an
intoxication I had never known, and which appeared to me to be holy as
angels are pure. You see I repeat to you what I wrote in relation to the
confession I made to Beppo. We do nothing but repeat to each other what
we are. I think we are keenly and truly satisfied of this mutual
conviction. Why and how could we be deceived? We do not, and perhaps
never will, know each other, and cannot explain the first causes of this
love, any more than we can foresee its mysterious ends. Listen: I
abandon myself to your word, to your honor, and do not combat the
sentiments you inspire. Do not let me deceive myself. I ask of you but
one thing--not to feign to love me--never to see me if you do not love
me--to abandon me to my fate, whatsoe'er it be, with no apprehension
that I should accuse or curse you for the rapid illusions of happiness
you have conferred on me. It seems to me what I ask is easy. There are
moments in which I am afraid, I confess, on account of my blind
confidence in you. But as soon as you appear in my presence, or when I
look at your writing, which is carefully disguised, as if you were
anxious to deprive me of any visible and external index; in fine, when
I hear the sound even of your steps, all my fears pass away, and I
cannot refrain from thinking that you are my better angel. Why hide you
thus? what fearful secret is hidden by your mask and your silence? Must
I fear and reject you, when I learn your name or see your face? If you
are absolutely unknown to me as you have written, why yield such blind
obedience to the strange law of the Invisibles, even when, as to-day,
you are ready to shake off your bonds and follow me to the end of the
world? And if I exacted it, and fled with you, would you take off your
mask and keep no secrets from me? 'To know you,' you say, 'it is
necessary for me to promise'--what? For me to bind myself to the
Invisibles? To do what? Alas! must I with closed eyes, mute, and without
conscience, with my mind in darkness, _give up_ and abandon my will as
you did, knowing your fate? To determine me to these unheard-of acts of
devotion, would you not make a slight infraction of the regulations of
your order? I see distinctly that you belong to one of those mysterious
orders known here as _secret societies_, and which it is said are
numerous in Germany; unless this be merely a political plot against----,
as is said in Berlin. Let this be as it may, if I be left at liberty to
refuse when I am told what is required of me, I will take the most
terrible oaths never to make any revelations. Can I do more, without
being unworthy of the love of a man who overcomes his scruples, and the
fidelity of his oath so far as to be unwilling for me to hear that word
I have pronounced myself, in violation of the prudence and modesty of my
sex--'_I love you._'"
Consuelo placed this letter in a book she left at the indicated place in
the garden. She then went slowly away, and was long concealed in the
foliage, hoping to see the Chevalier come, and fearing to leave this
avowal of her sentiments there, lest it should fall into other hands. As
hours rolled by without any one coming, and she remembered these words
of the stranger's letter, "I will come for your answer during your
sleep," she thought it best to conform in all respects to his advice,
and returned to her room, where, after many agitated reveries,
successively painful and delicious, she went to sleep amid the uncertain
music of the ball, the _fanfares_ which were sounded during the supper,
and the distant sound of carriage wheels which announced, at dawn, the
departure of the many guests from the castle.
At nine, precisely, the recluse entered the hall where she ate, and
where her meals were served with scrupulous exactness, and with care
worthy of the place. Matteus stood erect behind her chair, in his usual
phlegmatic manner. Consuelo had been to the garden. The Chevalier had
taken her letter, for it was not in the book. Consuelo had hoped to find
another letter from him, and she already began to complain of
lukewarmness in his correspondence. She felt uneasy, excited, and
annoyed by the torpid life it seemed she was compelled to lead. She then
determined to run some risk to see if she could not hasten the course of
events which were slowly preparing around her. On that day Matteus was
moody and silent.
"Master Matteus," said she, with forced gaiety, "I see through your
mask, that your eyes are downcast and your face pale. You did not sleep
last night."
"Madame laughs at me," said Matteus, with bitterness. "As madame,
however, has no mask, it is easy to see that she attributes the fatigue
and sleeplessness with which she herself has suffered, to me.
"Your mirrors told me that before I saw you, Master Matteus: I know I am
getting ugly, and will be yet more changed, if _ennui_ continues to
consume me."
"Does madame suffer from _ennui?_" said he, in the same tone he would
have said, "Did madame ring?"
"Yes, Matteus, terribly; and I can no longer bear this seclusion. As no
one has either visited or written to me, I presume I am forgotten here;
and since you are the only person who does not neglect me, I think I am
at liberty to say as much to you."
"I cannot permit myself to judge of madame's condition," said Matteus;
"but it seems to me that within a short time, madame has received both a
letter and a visit."
"Who told you so, Master Matteus?" said Consuelo, blushing.
"I would tell," said he, in a tone ironically humble, "if I were not
afraid of offending madame and annoying her with my conversation."
"Were you my servant, I do not know what airs of grandeur I might assume
with you; but as now I have no other attendant but myself, you seem
rather my guardian than my major-domo, and I will trouble you to talk as
you are wont. You have too much good sense to be tedious."
"As madame is _ennuyée_, she may just now be hard to please. There was
a great entertainment last night at the castle."
"I know it. I saw the fire-works and heard the music."
"And a person who, since the arrival of madame, has been closely
watched, took advantage of the disorder and noise to enter the private
park, in violation of the strictest orders. A sad affair resulted from
it. I fear, however, I would distress you by telling you."
"I think distress preferable to _ennui_ and anxiety. What was it,
Matteus?"
"I saw this morning the youngest and most amiable, handsome and
intelligent of all my masters taken to prison--I mean the Chevalier
Leverani."
"Leverani? His name is Leverani?" said Consuelo, with emotion. "Taken to
prison? The Chevalier? Tell me, for God's sake, who is this Leverani?"
"I have described him distinctly enough to madame. I know not whether
she knows more or less than I do. One thing is certain--he has been
taken to the great tower for having written to madame, and having
refused to communicate her reply to his highness."
"The great tower!--his highness! What you tell me, Matteus, is serious.
Am I in the power of a sovereign prince, who treats me as a state
prisoner, and who punishes any of his subjects who exhibit sympathy
towards me? Am I mystified by some noble with strange ideas, who seeks
to terrify me into a recognition of gratitude for services rendered?"
"It is not forbidden me to tell madame that she is in the house of a
rich prince, who is a man of mind and a philosopher."
"And chief of the Council of the Invisibles?"
"I do not know what madame means by that," said Matteus, with
indifference. "In the list of his highness's titles and dignities, there
is nothing of the kind recorded."
"Will I not be permitted to see the prince, to cast myself at his feet
and ask the pardon of this Chevalier Leverani, who I am willing to swear
is innocent of all indiscretion?"
"I think your wishes will be difficult of attainment. Yet I have access
to his highness every evening, for a short time, to give an account of
madame's occupations and health. If madame will write, perhaps I can
induce him to read the letter, without its passing through the hands of
the secretaries."
"Master Matteus, you are kindness personified; and I am sure you must
have the confidence of the prince. Yes, certainly, I will write since
you are generous enough to feel an interest in the Chevalier."
"It is true I feel a greater interest in him than in any other, for he
saved my life at the risk of his own. He attended and dressed my wounds,
and replaced the property I had lost. He passed nights watching me, as
if he had been my servant, and I his master. He saved a niece of mine
from degradation, and by his good advice and kind words made her an
honest woman. How much good he has done in this country, and they say in
all Europe. He is the best young man that exists, and his highness loves
him as if he were his son."
"Yet his highness sends him to prison for a trifling fault?"
"Madame does not know that in his highness's eyes no fault is trifling
which is indiscreet."
"He is then an absolute prince?"
"Admirably just, yet terribly severe."
"How, then, can I interest his mind and the decisions of his council?"
"I know not, madame is well aware. Many secret things are done in this
castle, especially when the prince comes to pass a few weeks here, which
does not often happen. A poor servant like myself, who dared to pry into
them, would not be be long tolerated; and as I am the oldest of the
household, madame must see I am neither curious nor gossiping--else----"
"I understand, Master Matteus; but would it be indiscreet to ask if the
imprisonment to which the Chevalier is subjected is rigorous?"
"It must be, madame; yet I know of nothing that passes in the tower and
dungeon. I have seen many go in, and none come out. I know not whether
there be outlets in the forest, but there are none in the park."
"You terrify me. Can it be possible that I have been the cause of the
Chevalier's misfortunes? Tell me, is the prince of a cold or violent
disposition? Are his decrees dictated by passing indignation, or by calm
and durable reflection?"
"It is not proper I should enter into these details," said the old man.
"Well, at least, talk to me of the Chevalier. Is he a man to ask and
obtain pardon? or does he envelope himself in haughty silence?"
"He is tender and mild, and full of submission and respect to his
highness. If madame has confided any secret to him, however, she may be
at ease. He would suffer himself to be tortured, rather than give up the
secrets of another, even to a confessor."
"Well, I will reveal to his highness the secret he thinks important
enough to kindle his rage against an unfortunate man. Oh! my good
Matteus, can you not take my letter at once?"
"It is impossible, madame, before night."
"Well, I will write now, for some unforeseen opportunity may present
itself."
Consuelo went into her closet and wrote to the anonymous prince
requesting an interview, and she promised to reply sincerely to all the
questions he might ask.
At midnight Matteus brought her this answer--
"If you would speak to the prince, your request is absurd. You will not
see and never will know his name. If you wish to appear before the
Council of the Invisibles, you will be heard. Reflect calmly on your
resolution, which will decide on your life and that of another."