She had to wait twenty four hours after the receipt of this letter.
Matteus said he would rather have his hand cut off than ask to see the
prince after midnight. At breakfast, on the next day, he appeared more
talkative than on the evening before, and Consuelo thought she observed
that the imprisonment of the Chevalier had embittered him against the
prince so much as to make him indiscreet, probably for the first time in
his life. When she had made him talk for an hour, she discovered that no
greater progress had been made in gleaning information than on the
previous day. Whether he had played with her simplicity, to learn her
thoughts and opinions, or whether he knew nothing in relation to the
Invisibles, and the participation of his masters in their acts, he saw
that Consuelo floated in a strange confusion of contradictory notions.
In relation to all that concerned the social condition of the prince,
Matteus maintained the rigid silence which had been imposed on him. He
shrugged his shoulders, it is true, when he spoke of this strange order,
the necessity of which he confessed he did not see. He did not
comprehend why he should use a mask when he attended to persons, who
came one after another, at greater or less intervals--and for a greater
or shorter stay at the pavilion. _He could not refrain_ from saying that
his master had strange fancies, and was devoted to the strangest
enterprises. In his house, however, all curiosity as well as all
indiscretion was paralyzed by the fear of terrible punishment, in
relation to which he would say nothing. In fact, Consuelo learned
nothing, except that strange things took place at the castle, that they
rarely slept at night, and that all the servants had seen ghosts.
Matteus himself, and he was no coward, had seen in the winter, at times
when the prince was away, and the castle unoccupied by its owners,
figures wandering about the park which made him shudder, for they came
and went none knew whither or whence. But this threw little light on
Consuelo's situation. She had to wait until night, before she could send
a new petition--which ran as follows:
"Whatever be the consequence to me, I ask humbly, to be brought before
the tribunal of the Invisibles."
The day seemed endless; she sought to overcome her impatience and
uneasiness, by singing all she had composed in prison, in relation to
the grief and _ennui_ of solitude, and she concluded this rehearsal with
the sublime air of Almireno in the _Rinalda_ of Haëndel.
Lascia ch 'lo nianga,
La dura sorte,
E ch lo sospiri
La liberta.
Scarcely had she concluded, when a violin with an extraordinary
vibration repeated outside, the admirable musical phrase she had just
sung, with an expression full of pain, and sorrowful as her own.
Consuelo went to the window but saw no one, and the phrase lost itself
in the distance. It seemed to her that this wonderful instrument and
instrumentation could be Count Albert's alone. She soon dismissed this
idea, as calculated to lead her back to a train of painful and dangerous
illusions which had already caused her too much suffering. She had never
heard Albert play any modern music, and none but an insane person would
insist on evoking a spectre every time the sound of a violin was heard.
This idea distressed Consuelo, and threw her into such a succession of
sad reveries, that she aroused herself only at nine o'clock, when she
remembered that Matteus had brought her neither dinner nor supper, and
that she had fasted since morning. This circumstance made her fear that,
like the Chevalier, Matteus had been made a victim to the interest he
expressed for her. The walls certainly had eyes and ears. Matteus had
perhaps said too much, and murmured a little against the disappearance
of Leverani. "Was it not probable," she asked herself, "that he had
shared the Chevalier's fate?"
This new anxiety kept Consuelo from being aware of the inconveniences of
hunger. Matteus did not appear; she ventured to ring. No one came. She
felt faint and hungry, and much afraid.
Leaning on the window-sill, with her head in her hands, she recalled to
her mind, which was already disturbed by the want of food, the strange
incidents of her life; and asked herself whether the recollection of
reality or a dream made her aware that a cold hand was placed on her
head, and that a low voice said, "Your demand is granted; follow me!"
Consuelo had not yet thought of lighting her rooms, but had been able
clearly to recognise objects in the twilight, and tried to distinguish
the person who thus spoke to her. She found herself suddenly enwrapped
in intense darkness, as if the atmosphere had become compact and the sky
a mass of lead. She put her hand to her brow, which the air seemed not
to touch, and felt on it a hood which was at once as light and
impenetrable as that which Cagliostro had previously thrown over her
head. Led by an invisible hand, she descended the stairway of the house,
but soon discovered there were more steps than she had been aware of,
and that for half an hour she went through caverns.
Fatigue, hunger, emotion, and terror, gradually made her steps more, and
more feeble; and feeling every moment as if she was about to fall, she
was on the point of imploring aid. A certain pride, however, made her
ashamed of abandoning her resolution, and induced her to act
courageously. She soon reached the end of her journey, and was made to
sit down. Just then she heard a melancholy bell, like the sound of a
tom-tom, striking twelve slowly, and at the last stroke the hood was
removed from her brow, which was covered with perspiration.
She was at first dazzled by the blaze of many lights immediately in
front of her, arranged in cruciform on the wall. As soon as her eyes
became used to this transition, she saw that she was in a vast Gothic
hall, the vault of which, divided by hanging arches, resembled a deep
dungeon or a subterranean chapel. At the foot of this room she saw seven
persons, wrapped in red mantles, with their faces covered by livid white
masks, making them look like corpses. They sat behind a long black
marble table. Before them, at a table of less length was an eighth
spectre, clad in black, and masked with white, also seated. On each side
of the lateral walls stood a score of men, each of whom was wrapped and
veiled with black. Consuelo looked around, and saw behind her other
phantoms in black. At each of the two doors there were two others with
drawn swords.
Under other circumstances Consuelo would perhaps have said that this
melancholy spectacle was but a game--one of those tests to which
candidates were subjected in the masonic lodges at Berlin. The
freemasons, however, never constituted themselves into a court, and did
not attribute to their body the right to drag persons who were not
initiated, before their lodges. She was therefore disposed, from all
that had preceded this scene, to think it serious and even terrible. She
discovered that she trembled visibly, and but for five minutes of
intense silence which pervaded the whole assembly, would not have been
able to regain her presence of mind and prepare to reply.
The eighth judge at last arose, and made a sign to the two ushers who
stood with drawn swords on each side of Consuelo, to bring her to the
foot of the tribunal, where she stood erect, in an attitude of calmness
and courage, not a little affected.
"Who are you, and what do you ask?" said the man in black rising.
Consuelo for a few moments was stupefied, but regained courage, and
said--
"I am Consuelo--a singer by profession--known also as La Zingarella and
La Porporina."
"Have you no other name?" said the examiner.
Consuelo hesitated, and then said--
"I _can_ claim another; yet I am bound in honor never to do so."
"Do you expect to conceal anything from the tribunal? Think you that you
are in the presence of ignorant judges! Why are you here, if you seek to
abuse us by idle pretences? Name yourself. Tell us who you are or
depart."
"You know who I am, and are also aware that my silence is a duty, and
you encourage me to maintain it."
One of the red cloaks leaned forward and made a sign to one of the
black, and in a moment all the latter left the room, with the exception
of the examiner, who kept his seat and spoke thus:
"Countess of Rudolstadt," said he, "now that the examination is become
secret, and that you are in the presence of your judges alone, will you
deny that you are lawfully married to Count Albert Podiebrad, called de
Rudolstadt, by virtue of the claims of his family?"
"Before I answer that question, I wish to know what authority disposes
of all things around me, and what law obliges me to recognise it?"
"What law would you invoke--human or divine? The law of society places
you in dependence on Frederick II., King of Prussia, Elector of
Brandebourg, from the estates of whom we rescued you, thus saving you
from indefinite captivity and yet more terrible dangers as you well
know."
"I know," said Consuelo, kneeling, "that eternal gratitude binds me to
you. I invoke only the law of God, and beseech you to define to me that
of gratitude. Does it enjoin me to bless and to devote myself to you
from the depth of my heart? I will do so. But if it enjoins me to obey
you, in violation of the decrees of my conscience, should I not reject?
Decide you for me."
"May you in the world act and think as you speak? The circumstances
which subject you to our control escape ordinary reason. We are above
all human law, and this you will recognise by our power. The prejudices
of fortune, rank, and birth, fear of public opinion, engagements even
contracted with the sentiments and sanction of the world, have to us no
significance, no value. When removed from men, and armed with the light
of God's justice, we weigh in the hollow of our hand the sands of your
frivolous and timid life. Explain yourself without subterfuge before us,
the living law of all. We will not hear you till we know how you appear
here. Does the Zingarella Consuelo or the Countess of Rudolstadt appear
before us?"
"The Countess of Rudolstadt having renounced all her social rights, has
nothing to ask here. The Zingarella Consuelo--"
"Pause and weigh well the words you are about to utter. Were your
husband living, would you have a right to withdraw your faith, to abjure
your name, to reject his fortune--in a word, to become a Zingarella
again, merely to gratify your pride of family and caste?"
"Certainly not."
"And think you death has broken all bonds forever? Do you owe to
Albert's memory neither respect, love, nor fidelity?"
Consuelo blushed and became troubled. The idea that, like Cagliostro and
the Count Saint Germain, they were about to talk of Albert's
resurrection, filled her with such terror that she could not reply.
"Wife of Albert Podiebrad," said the examiner, "your silence accuses
you. Albert to you is dead, and in your eyes the marriage was but an
incident in your adventurous life, without consequence and without
obligation. Zingara, you may go. We are interested in your fate only on
account of your union with one of the best of men. You are unworthy of
our love, having been unworthy of his. We do not regret the liberty we
gave you, for the reparation of the wrongs inflicted by despotism is one
of our duties and pleasures. Our protection will go no further.
To-morrow you will quit the asylum we provided for you, with the hope
that you would leave it purified and sanctified. You will return to the
world, to the chimera of glory, to the intoxication of foolish passions.
God have mercy on you! for we abandon you forever."
For some moments Consuelo was terrified by the decree. A few days
sooner, she would have accepted it without a word; but the phrase
_foolish passion_, which had been pronounced, recalled to her mind the
mad love she had conceived for the stranger, and which she had hugged to
her heart almost without examination and scrutiny.
She was humbled in her own eyes, and the sentence of the Invisibles
appeared to her, to a certain extent, to be deserved. The sternness of
their words filled her with mingled respect and terror, and she thought
no more of contending against the right they claimed to condemn her as a
dependant of their authority. It is seldom that, great as our natural
pride may be, or irreproachable as may be our life, we do not feel the
influence of a grave charge made unexpectedly against us, and instead of
contesting it, look into our hearts to see whether we deserve censure or
not. Consuelo did not feel free from reproach, and the theatrical effect
displayed around her, made her situation painful and strange. But she
soon remembered that she had not appeared before the tribunal without
being prepared to submit to its rigor. She had come thither resolved to
submit to admonition or any punishment necessary to procure the
exculpation or pardon of the Chevalier. Laying aside, then, all her
self-love, she submitted to their reproaches, and for some minutes
thought what she should say.
"It is possible," said she, "that I merit this stern censure, for I am
far from being satisfied with myself. When I came hither, I had formed
an idea of the Invisibles which I wish to express. The little I have
learned from popular rumor of your order, and the boon of liberty you
have restored to me, have led me to think that you were men perfect in
virtue as you were powerful in society. If you be what I have believed
you, why repel me so sternly, without pointing out the road for me to
avoid error and become worthy of your protection? I know that on account
of Albert of Rudolstadt, who as you say was one of the most excellent of
men, his widow was entitled to some consideration. But even were I not
the widow of Albert, or had I always been unworthy of him, the Zingara
Consuelo, a woman without name, family, or country, has some claims on
your paternal solicitude. Allow that I have been a great sinner, are you
not like the kingdom of heaven, where the repentance of a guilty one
gives greater joy than the constancy of hundreds of the elect? In fine,
if the law which unites you be a divine law, you violate it when you
repel me. You had undertaken, you said, to purify and sanctify me. Try
to elevate my soul to the dignity of your own. Prove to me that you are
holy, by appearing patient and merciful, and I will accept you as my
masters and models."
There was a moment of silence, and they seemed to consult together. At
last one of them spoke.
"Consuelo, you came hither full of pride, why do you not retire thus? We
had the right to censure, because you came to question us. We have no
right to chain your conscience and take possession of your life, unless
you abandoned both to us freely. Can we ask you for this sacrifice? You
do not know us. The tribunal, the holiness of which you invoke, is
perhaps the most perverse, or at least the most audacious, which ever
acted in the dark against the principles which rule the world. What know
you of it? Were we to reveal to you the profound science of an entirely
new virtue, would you have courage to consecrate yourself to so long and
arduous a study without being aware of its object? Could we have
confidence in the perseverance of a neophyte so badly prepared as
yourself? Perhaps we might have weighty secrets to confide to you, and
we would depend for their security only on your generous instincts. We
know you well enough to confide in your discretion. We do not seek
discreet confidants, for we have no want of them. To advance God's law
we need fervent disciples, free from all prejudices, from all egotism,
from all frivolous passions and worldly desires. Look into yourself and
see if you can make these sacrifices. Can you control your actions and
regulate your life in obedience to your instincts, and on the principles
we will give you to develop? Woman, artist, girl, dare you reply that
you can associate yourself with stern men to toil in the work of ages?"
"What you say is serious indeed," said Consuelo, "and I scarcely
understand it. Will you give me time to think? Do not repel me from your
bosom until I shall have questioned my heart. I know not if it be worthy
of the light you can shed on it. But what sincere heart is unworthy of
the truth? In what can I be useful to you? I am terrified at my
impotence. To have protected me as you have done, you must have seen
there was something in me. Something, too, says to me, that I should not
leave you without having sought to prove my gratitude. Do not banish me
then. Try to instruct me."
"We will grant you eight days more to reflect," replied the judge in the
red robe, who had previously spoken. "But you must, in the first place,
bind yourself on your honor, to make no attempt to discover where you
are, and who are the persons you see here. You must promise not to pass
beyond the enclosure, even should you see the gates open, and the
spectres of your dearest friends calling on you. You must ask no
questions of the persons who serve you, nor of any one who may come
clandestinely to you."
"So be it," said Consuelo eagerly. "I promise as you desire, to see no
one without your authority, and ask pardon humbly."
"You have no pardon to ask--no questions to propound. All the
necessities both of your body and soul have been foreseen for the whole
time you remain here. If you regret any friend, any relation, any
servants, you are free to go. Solitude, or such association as we
determine on, will be your lot here."
"I ask nothing for myself. I have heard, however, that one of your
friends, disciples, or servants, (for I know not his rank) suffers a
severe punishment on my account. I am here to accuse myself of the
offence imputed to him, and on that account I asked to appear before
you."
"Do you offer to make a detailed and sincere confession?"
"If such be required to secure his acquittal; though to a woman it is a
severe moral torture to confess herself to eight men."
"Spare yourself this humiliation. We would have no assurance that you
are sincere, inasmuch as we have no right over you. All you have said
and thought during the last hour to us will be as a dream. Remember that
hereafter we have the right to sound the secrets of your heart. Keep it
always so pure, that you can unveil it without suffering and without
shame."
"Your generosity is delicate and paternal. But I am not the only person
interested. Another expiates my offence. Can I not justify him?"
"That does not concern you. If there be one among us guilty, he will
exculpate himself, not by vain assertions and allegations, but by acts
of courage, devotion, and virtue. If his soul has quailed, we will lift
him up, and aid him to overcome himself. You speak of severe punishment.
We inflict none but moral penalties. Whoever he be, he is our equal--our
brother. Here there are neither masters nor servants, subjects nor
princes. False rumors have deceived you, no doubt. Go in peace and sin
no more."
At this last word the examiner rang a bell, and the men in black masks
and with naked swords returned. Replacing the hood on Consuelo's head,
they returned her to the house she had left, by the route they had
brought her from it.