It was suddenly lively in the garden. Cecil, Paulo’s old servant,
approached from the house, with a lantern in his hand.
He comes down the alley with hasty steps, and with an anxious
countenance approaches his master.
“What is it, Cecil?”
“Two letters, sir, that have just arrived. One comes from the hotel
of the Russian legation, and the other from that of the Lord-Cardinal
Bernis.”
Paulo shuddered slightly, and his hand involuntarily grasped after the
first letter, but he suddenly constrained himself, and his glance fell
upon Natalie, whose eyes were fixed with curiosity upon the two letters.
“We will first see what the good Cardinal Bernis writes us!” said
Count Paulo, placing the Russian letter in his pocket with apparent
indifference.
“Bernis?” asked Natalie. “Is not that the French Cardinal, who is at
the same time a poet, and whom the pope, the great Ganganelli, so dearly
loves?”
“The same,” said Paulo, “and besides, the same Cardinal Bernis whom
I had months ago promised to allow the pleasure of making your
acquaintance! He already knows you, Natalie, although he has never yet
seen your fair face; he knows you from what I have told him.”
“Oh, let us quickly see what the good cardinal writes!” exclaimed
Natalie, clapping her hands with the impatience of a child.
Count Paulo smilingly broke the seal and read the letter.
“You are in truth a witch,” said he; “you must have some genius in your
service, who listens to every wish you express, in order to fulfil it
without delay! This letter contains an invitation from the cardinal. He
gives a great entertainment to-morrow, and begs of me that I will bring
you to it. The improvisatrice Corilla will also be there!”
“Oh, then I shall see her!” exclaimed the delighted young maiden. “At
length I shall see a poetess! For we shall go to this entertainment,
shall we not, Paulo?”
The count thoughtfully cast down his eyes, and his hand involuntarily
sought the letter in his pocket. An expression of deep care and anxiety
was visible on his features, and Cecil seemed to divine the thoughts of
his master, for he also looked anxious, and a deep sigh escaped from his
breast.--Natalie perceived nothing of all this! She was wholly occupied
by the thought of seeing Corilla, the great improvisatrice, of whom
Carlo, Natalie’s music-teacher, had told her so much, and whose fame was
sounded by children and adults in all the streets of Rome.
“We go to this festival, do we not, Paulo?” repeated she, as the count
still continued silent.
Recovering from his abstraction, he said: “Yes, we will go! It is time
that my Natalie was introduced into this circle of influential Romans,
that she may gain friends among people of importance, who may watch over
and protect her when I no longer can!”
“You will, then, leave me?” cried the young maiden, turning pale and
anxiously grasping the count’s arm. “No, Paulo, you cannot do that!
Would you leave me because I, a foolish child, desired to go to this
festival, and was no longer contented with our dear and beautiful
solitude? That was wrong in me, Paulo, as I now plainly see, and I
desire it no longer! Oh, we will prepare other pleasures for ourselves
here in our delightful paradise. You have often called me a poetess,
and I will now believe I am, and no longer wish to see another. I will
suffice for myself! Come, I will immediately sing you a song, a festival
song, my friend!”
And taking her guitar, Natalie struck some joyous accords; but Count
Paulo lightly laid his hands upon the strings so as to silence them, and
drawing the tips of her fingers to his lips, with a slight shaking of
his head, he said: “Not now, my charming poetess, I am not worthy of
hearing you.”
“And it is late,” added Cecil, coming as it were to the aid of his
master.
The count rose. “Yes, you are right--it is late,” said he, “and I must
not longer keep Natalie from her slumber. Come, my sweet child, you must
retire; you must sleep, that your brow may beam with blooming freshness
to-morrow!”
Natalie made no answer; with a light sigh she mechanically took the
count’s offered arm.
Cecil preceded them with the lantern in his hand. Thus they proceeded up
the alley leading to the villa, all three silent and thoughtful. The sky
had become obscured, a black cloud intercepted the light of the moon,
and Natalie’s charmed garden was suddenly wrapped in gloom.
A cold shudder ran through her delicate frame.
“A feeling of anxiety has come over me!” she whispered, clinging close
to the count’s side.
“Poor child!” said the count. “Are you already oppressed with fear?”
“What if the wall should give way, and bad people should intrude into
our garden! Ah, Marianne says that misfortune lurks everywhere in the
world, lying in ambush for those who think themselves safe, destroying
their happiness, and making them wholly miserable; and people only laugh
and rejoice that another man’s hopes have been wrecked! Ah, and I
have felt so secure in my happiness! If misfortune should now actually
come--if these walls should prove not high enough to keep it off! Ah,
Paulo, protect me from lurking misfortune!”
They had now arrived at the door of the villa. Paulo pressed the
trembling young maiden with paternal tenderness to his breast, and,
lightly touching her forehead with his lips, he said: “Good-night, my
love! Sleep gently, and be not anxious! So long as I live, misfortune
shall never approach you! Rest assured of that!”
Thus speaking, he led her into the house, where Marianne was waiting to
accompany her to her chamber.
Natalie silently followed her, but before entering her room she once
more turned, and, pressing her fingers to her lips, wafted kisses in the
air toward her friend.
“Good-night, Paulo!”
“Good-night, Natalie!”
The door closed behind her, and the smile instantly vanished from
Paulo’s lips. With impetuous haste, beckoning Cecil to follow him, he
strode through the corridor leading to his own apartments.
When he had arrived there, and Cecil had closed the door behind him, the
count with a deep sigh threw himself upon a chair, whilst Cecil silently
busied himself in lighting the wax-candles and placing them upon the
table beside his master.
“Will not your grace now read the other letter?” he timidly asked, as
Count Paulo still remained buried in his silent reflections.
“Oh, this unblessed letter!” exclaimed the count, with a shudder. “I
tell you, Cecil, I feel that it contains misfortune. It has lain with
a heavy weight like a nightmare upon my breast and I yet felt not the
strength in me to draw it forth and read it in Natalie’s presence!”
“That was well!” said Cecil, “and it was for that reason that I told you
in advance that the letter was from Russia, that you might be on your
guard. But now, Sir Count, we are alone, and now you can read it!”
“Yes, away with this childish fear!” cried the count, with resolution.
“I will be a man, Cecil, and whatever this letter may contain, I will
bear it like a man!”
Drawing forth the letter, he broke the seal with a trembling hand, and
threw the cover across the room. Then unfolding the letter, he
read. Behind him stood Cecil, involuntarily trembling with anxious
expectation.
The letter fell from the count’s hands, and a deadly paleness spread
over his face, which bore the expression of utter despair.
“Oh, my prophetic soul!” he sighed.
“Your presentiment is then fulfilled!” anxiously asked Cecil.
“Yes, it is fulfilled! My property is sequestrated; they refuse to send
me the money I required; they command my immediate return to Russia, as
my _conge_ has expired and my respite is at an end!”
“And you are lost, my lord, if you do not obey this command!” said
Cecil.
“And Natalie?” reproachfully asked the count. “Can I, dare I leave her?”
“She is much safer without than with you! They may not yet suspect who
she is! It is very possible that it in reality only is because your
leave of absence has expired, as the laws of Russia require that every
absentee should return to his country once in every four years. Fulfil,
therefore, this hard duty. Pretend to suppose that your recall is for
no other reason than the renewal of your passport, and the giving you
an opportunity to pay your homage to the empress. Appear innocent and
unconcerned, and all may yet go well!”
“No,” gloomily replied the count, “nothing will go well any more! The
whole future stands before me in clear and distinct traits--a future
full of shame and horror! Oh, would it not be better to flee from that
future and seek in some remote and hidden valley a place where, perhaps,
misfortune cannot reach, nor destruction overtake us!”
“How?” reproachfully asked Cecil. “Is it Count Paulo who speaks thus?
Is it the pupil whom I taught to defy misfortune and rise superior to
disaster with courageous self-confidence? Is it the son of my heart
for whom I have left all, sacrificed all, for whom I have offered up my
fatherland, my freedom, and my independence; whom I shall love until my
last breath? Paulo, pluck up a good heart, my son! You have proposed
to yourself a great end, which was only to be reached by thorny and
dangerous paths; will you now stop at the first cross-road and return
upon your steps, instead of pressing forward sword in hand! No, no, I
know you better, my son; this momentary hesitation will pass away, and
you will again be great and strong for the struggle and the victory!”
With a faint smile Count Paulo gave him his hand. “You know not, my
friend, how great is the sacrifice you demand of me!” said he, in a
subdued tone. “I must leave Natalie. I must never see her more, never
more draw consolation from her glance, nor hope from her charming smile!
Oh, Cecil, you have not idea of what Natalie is to me; you know not that
I--”
“I know,” interposed Cecil, solemnly, “I know that you have sworn upon
the holy book to protect her with your life from every injury; I know
that you have sworn never to give rest to yourself until you have
reinstated her in her inherited rights, and that, until then, she shall
be sacred to you, sacred as a sister, sacred as a daughter whose honor
you will protect and defend against every outrage, against even every
sinful thought. That have you sworn, and I know you will hold your word
sacred and keep your oath!”
Count Paulo dropped his head upon his breast and sighed deeply.
“I must therefore leave her!” said he.
“Your own welfare demands it.”
“But how is she to live during our absence? Our money will not suffice
to the end. Alas! we had so surely calculated on this remittance from my
estates, and now it fails us!”
“We will sell that costly ornament of brilliants which you had destined
as a present for Natalie on her seventeenth birthday.”
“Ah,” sighed the count, “you have a means for the removal of every
obstacle. I must therefore go!”
“And I go with you,” said Cecil. “I would, if it must be so, be able to
die for you!”
“They will destroy all three of us!” said the count. “Believe me, the
knife is already sharpened for our throats! Believe also, Cecil, that
I tremble not from fear of death. But I fear for Natalie! Ah, I already
seem to see the approach of her murderers, to see them seize her with
their bloody hands, and I shall not be there to protect her!”
While Count Paulo thus spoke, with a sad, foreboding soul, those two
mysterious men, who had so threateningly watched and listened to Natalie
and her friend, still remained under the wall.
The one still held the dagger in his hand, and was unquietly walking
back and forth near his companion, who had calmly thrown himself upon
the ground.
“You did wrong to hinder me, Beppo,” he angrily said. “It would have
been best to have finished them at once. The occasion could not have
been more favorable--the solitary garden, the nightly stillness and
obscurity. Ah, one blow would have done the business!”
“Well, and what if the gentleman who sat near her had seized you before
the blow was struck? How then?” asked the other. “You are yet but a
novice and a bungler, friend Giuseppo. You yet lack discretion, the
tranquil glance, the sure hand! You always suffer yourself to become
excited, which is unartistic and even dangerous. We went out today only
to obtain information; we were only to discover and observe the signora,
and perhaps to watch for an opportunity. But to fall upon her in this
garden would have been the extreme of stupidity, for we had all
the servants and the hounds against us, and it is one of the first
principles of our profession to put others in danger, but never to incur
it themselves.”
“Wherefore, then, have we come here?” cried Giuseppo, with vehemence.
“To see her and know her, that we may surely recognize her again when
the right hour comes. And that hour will come--I will answer for it.
Did not the signora tell us that this lady would probably attend the
festival of Cardinal Bernis?”
“She said so.”
“Well, and we have come here that we might see and know her in advance.
She is very beautiful, and a truly respectable person, Giuseppo. I am
pleased with the idea of this festival of the French cardinal. I think
it will afford much business in our line.”