Consuelo remained in a state of strange stupor. What amazed her most,
what the testimony of her senses could hardly persuade her of, was not
the magnanimous conduct of Albert, nor his heroic sentiments, but the
wonderful facility with which he himself solved the terrible problem of
fate he had made himself. Was it, then, so easy for Consuelo to be
happy? Was her love for Leverani lawful? She thought she had dreamed
what she had heard. It was already permitted her to yield to her love of
the stranger. The austere Invisibles permitted Albert to consent on
account of his greatness of soul, his courage, and virtue. Albert
himself justified and defended her against Trenck's censure. Finally,
Albert and the Invisibles, far from condemning their mutual passion,
abandoned them to themselves, to their invincible sympathy. All this was
without effort, without regret or remorse, without a tear from any one.
Consuelo, quivering with emotion rather than cold, returned to the vast
vaulted room, and rekindled the fire which Albert and Trenck had sought
to put out. She looked at the prints of their wet feet on the floor.
This satisfied her of the reality of their presence, and Consuelo needed
the evidence to satisfy herself. Stooping in the hearthside, like a
dreamy Cinderella, protected ever by the fireside spirits, she sank into
intense meditation. So facile a triumph over fate had not seemed
possible to her. Yet no fear could prevail against the wonderful
serenity of Albert. Consuelo could least of all doubt this--Albert did
not suffer. Her love did not offend his justice. He fulfilled, with a
kind of enthusiastic joy, the greatest sacrifice it is in the power of
man to offer to God. She did not ask if to be thus detached from human
weakness could be reconciled with human affections. Did not this
peculiarity betoken a new phase of madness? After the exaggeration of
sorrow produced by memory and isolated sentiment, did he not feel, as it
were a kind of paralysis of heart in relation to the past? Could he be
cured so soon of his love? and was this love so unimportant a matter
that a simple act of will, a simple decision of mind, could thus efface
every trace of it? Though admiring this triumph of philosophy, Consuelo
could not but feel humiliated at seeing thus destroyed, by a single
breath, the long passion of which she had ever been so justly proud. She
passed in review the least words he had uttered, and the expression of
his face, as he spoke, was yet before her eyes. It was an expression
with which Consuelo was unacquainted. Albert was also as much changed in
externals as in mind. To tell the truth, he was a new man: and had not
the sound of his voice, his features, and the reality of his
conversation satisfied her, Consuelo might have thought that she saw in
his place that _Sosia_, that fanciful Trismegistus, whom the doctor
persisted in substituting for him. The modification which quiet and
health had conferred on Albert seemed to confirm Supperville's error. He
had ceased to be so painfully emaciated, and seemed to have grown, so
expanded did his hitherto thin and feeble form seem to have become. He
had another bearing. He moved with more activity, his step was firmer,
and his dress as elegant and careful as it had been negligent and
despised. His very trifling habits now amazed Consuelo. In other days he
would not have dreamed of fire. He would have been sorry that his friend
Trenck was wet, but would not have dreamed, so foreign to him were all
external things, of gathering up the scattered brands. He would not have
shaken his hat before he put it on, and would have let the rain run
unremarked through his long hair. Now he wore a sword, though of yore he
would never have consented to do so, or even play with it. Now it did
not annoy him; he saw its blade glitter in the blaze, and did not recall
the blood his ancestors had shed. The expiation imposed on John Ziska,
in his person, was a painful dream, which blessed slumber had entirely
effaced. Perhaps he had forgotten it when he forgot the other memories
of his life and love, which seemed to have been, yet not to be, those of
his own life.
Something strange and unnatural took place in Consuelo's mind, which was
like chagrin, regret, and wounded pride. She repeated to herself the
supposition Trenck had made in relation to a new passion, and this idea
seemed probable. A new love alone could grant him toleration and pity.
His last words, as he led his friend away, _story_ and _romance_, were a
confirmation of this doubt. Were they not an explanation of the intense
joy which seemed to animate him?
"Yes, his eyes gleamed," thought Consuelo, "as I never saw them before.
His smile had an expression of intoxication of triumph. He smiled, he
almost laughed. There was even irony in his tone when he said, "You will
smile at your praise." Doubt is gone; he loves, yet not me. He does not
object, he does not oppose my infidelity; he urges me on, and rejoices
at it. He does not blush for me, but gives me up to a weakness of which
I alone am ashamed, and the disgrace of which will fall on me alone. Oh,
heaven! I alone was not guilty. Albert has been yet more so. Alas! why
did I discover the secret of a generosity I would have admired so much,
even though I did not avail myself of it. I see clearly now that there
is a sanctity in plighted faith. God only, who changes our hearts, can
loose us. Then, perhaps, beings united by their oaths may give and
receive the sacrifice of their faiths. When mutual inconstancy alone
presides over divorce, something terrible occurs, and there is, as it
were, a complicity of parricide between the two. They have coldly
stifled in their bosoms the love which united them."
Consuelo early in the morning regained the wood. She had passed the
whole night in the tower, absorbed by countless dark and sad thoughts.
She had no difficulty in finding the road homewards, though she had gone
over it in the dark, and her anxiety made it seem shorter than it really
was. She descended the hill, and retraced her steps up the rivulet, till
she came to the grating, which she passed, walking along its horizontal
bars above the water. She was no longer afraid or agitated. It did not
matter whether she was seen or not, for she had determined to tell her
confessor everything. Besides, the sentiments of her past life so
occupied her, that present things had but a secondary interest. Leverani
scarcely seemed to exist for her. The human heart is so constituted,
that young love needs dangers and obstacles. Old love revives when we
cannot awaken it in the heart of another.
On this occasion the invisible guardians of Consuelo seemed all asleep,
and her nocturnal walk had been observed by no one. She found a new
letter of the stranger on her piano, as tenderly respectful as the one
of the previous evening had been bold and passionate. He complained that
she had been afraid of him, and reproached her for having shut herself
up in her apartments from fear, as if she entertained doubt as to the
humility of his veneration. He humbly asked to be permitted to see her
in the garden at twilight, and promised not to speak to her, not to show
himself, if she demanded it. "Let it be an alienation of heart, or an
error of judgment," added he, "Albert renounces you, tranquilly, and
apparently even coldly. Duty speaks to him more loudly than love. In a
few days the Invisibles will announce their resolution, and give you the
signal of liberty. You can then remain here, to become initiated in
their mysteries; and if you persist in this generous intention, I will
abide by my oath, not to show myself to you. If you have made this
promise only from compassion, if you wish to release yourself, speak,
and I will break my engagements, and fly with you. I am not Albert; I
have more love than virtue. Choose."
"Yes, that is certain," said Consuelo, letting the letter fall on the
strings of the piano. "This man loves me, and Albert does not. It is
possible that he never loved me, and that my image has been a mere
creation of his delirium. Yet this love seemed to me sublime. Would to
God it yet were sufficiently so, to enable me to conquer mine by a
painful and sublime sacrifice! This would be far better for us than the
separation of two adulterous hearts. Better, too, were it that Leverani
should be abandoned by me, with pain and grief, than received as a
necessity of my isolation, in a season of anger, indignation, shame, and
painful intoxication of passion."
She wrote to Leverani, in reply, the following brief words:--
"I am too proud and too sincere to deceive you. I know what Albert
thinks, and what he has resolved on. I have overheard his confessions to
a mutual friend. He leaves me without regret, and virtue alone does not
triumph in his love. I will not follow his example. I loved you, and
abandon you without loving another. I owe this sacrifice to my dignity
and conscience. I hope you will not come near my house. If you yield to
a blind passion, if you wrest any new confession from me, you will
repent it. You would perhaps be indebted for my confidence to the just
anger of a broken heart, and to the terror of a crushed soul. This would
be my punishment and your own. If you persist, Leverani, you do not feel
the love I have thought you did."
Leverani did persist. He continued to write, and was eloquent,
persuasive, and sincere in his humility.
"You make an appeal to my pride," said he, "yet I exhibit no pride to
you. If in my arms you regretted an absent person, I would suffer, but
would not be offended. I would ask you, as I lay at your feet and
watered them with tears, to forget him and trust yourself to me alone.
Howsoever you love me, how little soever it may be, I will be grateful
as if for an immense blessing."
Such was the substance of a series of ardent and timid, submissive and
persevering letters.
Consuelo felt her pride give way before the penetrating charm of a true
love. Insensibly she grew used to the idea that none had loved her
before, not even the Count of Rudolstadt. Repulsing, then, the voluntary
outrage she had fancied was made on the sanctity of her recollections,
she feared lest by exhibiting it, she might become an obstacle to the
happiness Albert promised himself from a new love. She resolved, then,
to submit quietly to the decree of a separation, which he seemed
determined to enforce the Invisibles to make, and abstained from writing
his name in her letters to the stranger, whom she bade be equally
prudent.
In other matters their letters were full of prudence and delicacy.
Consuelo, in separating herself from Albert, and in receiving into her
soul the idea of another affection, was unwilling to yield to a blind
intoxication. She forbade the Chevalier to see her, or violate his oath
of silence until it had been removed by the Invisibles. She declared
that freely and voluntarily she wished to adhere to the mysterious
association which inspired her with respect and confidence. She was
determined to be initiated in their doctrines, and to defend herself
from every personal engagement, until, by something of virtue, she had
acquired the right to think of her own happiness. She had not power to
tell him that she did not love him; but was able to say that she would
not love him without reflection.
Leverani appeared to submit, and Consuelo studied attentively many
volumes which Matteus had given her one day from the Prince, saying that
his highness and the court had left the castle, but that she would soon
have news of him. She was satisfied with this message, and asked Matteus
no questions. She read the history of the mysteries of antiquity, of
Christianity, and of the different sects and secret societies derived
from each. This was a very learned manuscript compilation, made in the
library of the order of the Invisibles, by some learned and
conscientious adept. This serious and laborious study at first occupied
not a little of her attention and even of her imagination. The picture
of the tests of the ancient Egyptian temples gave rise to many terrible
and poetic dreams. The story of the persecution of sects, during the
middle ages, and during the period of revival, excited her heart more
than ever; and this history of enthusiasm prepared her soul for the
religious fanaticism of a speedy initiation. For fifteen days she had no
information from home, and lived in seclusion, surrounded by the
mysterious care of the Chevalier, but firm in her resolution not to see
him, and not to inspire him with too much hope.
The summer heat began to be felt, and Consuelo, being absorbed by her
studies, could rest and breathe freely only in the cool of the evening.
Gradually, she had resumed her slow and dreamy walks in the garden and
enclosures. She thought herself alone, yet vague emotions made her often
fancy that the stranger was not far from her. Those beautiful nights,
the glorious shades, the solitude, the languishing murmur of the running
water amid the flowers, the perfume of plants, the passionate song of
the nightingale, followed by yet more voluptuous silence--the moon
casting its broad, oblique light beneath the transparent shadows of the
sweet nurseries, the setting of Hesperus behind the horizon's roseate
clouds--all these classical but eternal emotions, ever fresh and mighty
with youth and love, immersed the soul of Consuelo in dangerous
reveries. Her thin shadow on the silvery garden walks, the flight of a
bird aroused by her step, the rustling of a leaf agitated by the wind,
sufficed to increase her pace. These slight terrors were scarcely
dissipated when they were replaced by an indefinable regret, and the
palpitations of expectation were more powerful than all the suggestions
of her will.
Once she was more disturbed than usual by the rustling of the leaves and
the uncertain sounds of the night. She fancied some one walked not far
from her, and when she sat down she thought the sound came nearer her.
Agitation aroused her still more, as she felt herself powerless to
resist an interview in those beautiful places and beneath that
magnificent sky. The breath of the breeze seemed to burn her cheek. She
fled to the house and shut herself up in her room. The candles were not
yet lighted. She placed herself behind a _jalousie_, and anxiously
wished to see him by whom she could not be seen. She saw a man appear,
and advance slowly beneath her windows. He approached silently and
without a gesture, and submissively appeared satisfied in gazing on the
walls within which she dwelt. This man was the Chevalier, at least
Consuelo in her anxiety thought so, and fancied that she recognised his
bearing and gait. Strange and painful doubts and fears, however, soon
took possession of her mind. This silent muser recalled Albert to her
mind as much as he did Leverani. They were of the same stature, now that
Albert was invigorated with health, and could walk at ease without his
head hanging on his bosom, or resting on his hand, in an unhealthy or
sad manner. Consuelo could scarcely distinguish him from the Chevalier.
She had seen the latter for a moment by daylight walking before her and
wrapped up in the folds of his cloak. She had seen Albert for a few
moments in the deserted tower, and thought him entirely different from
what she had seen him before. Now that she saw by starlight either the
one or the other, she was about to resolve all her doubts; but the
object passed beneath some shadow, and like a shadow flitted away. At
length it entirely disappeared, and Consuelo was divided between joy and
fear, charging herself with want of courage in not having called
Albert's name at all hazards, and asked for an explanation.
This repentance became more keen as the object withdrew, and as the
persuasion that it was Albert broke on her. Led away by this habit of
devotion, which had, so far as he was concerned, always occupied the
place of love, she thought if he thus wandered around her it was in the
timid hope of talking with her. It was not the first time he had sought
to do so. She had said so to Trenck one evening, when perhaps he had
passed Leverani in the dark. Consuelo determined to bring about this
necessary explanation. Her conscience required that she should clear up
all doubts in relation to the true disposition of a husband, whether it
was generous or volatile. She went down to the garden, and ran after the
mysterious visitor, trembling yet courageous; but she searched through
the whole of the enclosure without finding him.
At length she saw, on the verge of a thicket, a man standing close to
the water. Was this the person she sought for? She called him by the
name of Albert, and he trembled and passed his hands over his face. When
he removed them, the black mask was there.
"Albert! is it you?" said Consuelo. "You alone I look for."
A stifled exclamation of surprise from the person to whom she spoke
betrayed some indescribable emotion of joy or grief. He appeared to wish
to get away; but Consuelo fancied she recognised Albert's voice, and
rushing forward caught him by the cloak, which, parting at his shoulder,
exhibited on the bosom of the stranger a silver cross. Consuelo knew it
but too well: it was that of her mother--the same she had given to the
Chevalier during her journey with him, as a pledge of gratitude and
sympathy.
"Leverani!" said she; "you again! Since it is you, adieu! Why do you
disobey me?"
He threw himself at her feet, folded her in his arms, and embraced her
so ardently, yet respectfully, that Consuelo could not resist.
"If you love me, and would have me love you, leave me," said she. "I
will see and hear you before the Invisibles. Your mask terrifies me, and
your silence freezes my heart!"
Leverani placed his hand on his mask. He was about to tear it away and
to speak. Consuelo, like the curious Psyche, had not courage to turn
away her eyes.
All at once, however, the black veil of the messengers of the secret
tribunal fell over her brow. The hand of the unknown which had seized
hers was silently detached.
Consuelo felt herself led away rapidly, but without violence or apparent
anger. She was lifted from the ground, and then felt the spring of the
planks of a boat beneath her feet. She floated down a stream a long time
without any one speaking to her, and when restored to light found
herself in the subterranean cave where she had before appeared at the
bar of the Invisibles.