From that day had a new and marvellous life commenced for Natalie. She
felt herself surrounded by a dreamy, magic, fantastic, supernatural
life; it seemed as if some invisible genius hovered over her, listening
to all her thoughts, realizing all her wishes! And Joseph Ribas was the
merry, always-cheerful, always-serious Kobold of this invisible deity!
“My lord is not satisfied with the modest furnishing of your villa,”
said he to Natalie, on the first day. “He begs to be allowed to adorn
your chamber with a splendor suited to your rank and your future
greatness!”
“And in what is my future greatness to consist?” asked the young maiden,
with curiosity.
“That will be made known to you at the proper time,” mysteriously
replied Joseph Ribas.
“Who will tell me?”
“He, the count.”
“I shall therefore see him!” she joyfully exclaimed.
“Perhaps! Will you, however, first allow me to have your room properly
furnished?”
“This villa belongs to your lord,” said Natalie. “It is for him, as lord
and master, to do as he pleases in it.”
And satisfied, Ribas hastened away, to return in a few hours with more
than fifty workmen and artists, in order to commence the improvements.
Until now the villa had been finished and furnished with simple
elegance. One missed nothing necessary for comfort or convenience, for
pleasantness or taste. But it was still only the elegant and fashionable
residence of a private person. Now, as by the stroke of a magic wand,
this villa in a few days was converted into the splendid palace of some
sultan or caliph. There were heavy Turkish carpets on the floors, velvet
curtains with gold embroidery at the windows and on the walls, the
richest and most comfortable divans and arm-chairs, covered with
gold-embroidered stuffs; vases ornamented with the most costly precious
stones, noble bronze statues, beautiful paintings, and between them
the rarest ornaments, glistening with jewels, which modern times have
designated by the name of ribs; there were delicate little trifles of
inestimable value, and with refined taste and judgment every thing was
sought out which luxury and convenience could demand. With childish
astonishment and ecstasy, Natalie wandered through these rooms, which
she hardly recognized in their splendid ornamentation, and stood before
these treasures of trifles which she hardly dared to touch.
“This lord must be either a magician or a nabob,” thoughtfully remarked
Marianne; “it must have required millions to effect all this.”
Natalie asked neither whether he was a magician, a millionaire, or a
nabob; she only thought she was to see him, and be allowed to thank
him--nothing further.
“Will he come now?” she constantly asked of the humble and slavishly
devoted Joseph Ribas; “will he come now that his house is prepared for
his reception?”
“It is adorned only for you, princess,” humbly replied Ribas. “The
count, my master, wishes for nothing but to see you in a habitation
worthy of you!”
But what was this luxury, what cared she for these treasures the value
of which she was incapable of estimating, and which were indifferent to
her? She who had no conception of wealth or of money?--she, who knew
not that there was poverty in the world, and who, raised in an Eden
separated from the world, had no idea that hunger had ever made its
appearance within it--she knew only the sorrows of the happy, the
deprivations of the rich; she had never had either to struggle against
real misfortune or to experience real want and deprivation.
Now, indeed, a deeper sorrow had entered into her life; she had lost
her beloved paternal friend, Count Paulo; and Carlo, also, had been torn
from her! That was certainly a more profound sorrow, and she had wept
much for both of them,--but yet that was no real misfortune. She had
never yet lost the whole substance of her life; for those two, however
much she might always have loved them, had nevertheless, not entirely
filled out her life; they had been a part of her happiness, but not that
happiness itself.
And she awaited happiness! She awaited it with ecstasy and devotion,
with feverish hope and glowing desire! She knew not and asked not in
what this happiness was to consist, and yet her heart yearned for it;
she called for this unknown and nameless happiness with a throbbing
bosom and tremulously whispering lips!
She was so much alone, she had so much time for dreaming, and
intoxicating herself with fantastic imaginations! She was surrounded by
a fabulous world, and she was the fairy of that world! But out of that
fabulous world she sometimes longed to be, out of the ideal into the
real; she yearned for truth and actuality. Then she would call Joseph
Ribas to her side and bid him relate to her of that unknown lord, his
master.
He told her of his battles and his heroic deeds, of his wonderful acts
of bravery, and the young maiden tremblingly and shudderingly listened
to him. She feared this man, who had shed streams of blood, and whose
enemies with their dying lips had lauded as the greatest of heroes! And
Joseph Ribas smiled when he saw her turn pale and tremble, and he would
speak to her of his generosity and humanity, of his knighthood and
virtue; he related to her how, on one occasion, at the risk of his life
he had protected and saved a persecuted young maiden; how on another
he had taken pity on a helpless old man, and singly had defended him
against a host of bloodthirsty enemies. He also spoke to her of the
sorrow of his master on account of the ingratitude and deceptions he had
experienced, and Natalie’s eyes filled with tears as, with reproachful
glances, she asked of Heaven how it could have permitted the virtue of
this noble unknown hero to be so severely tried, and the baseness of
mankind to trouble him.
“That is it, then,” Ribas would often say; “he diffuses happiness
everywhere around him, while he himself has it not! He makes glad and
cheerful faces wherever he appears, and his own is the only serious and
sad brow. Mankind have made him hopeless, and for himself he no longer
believes in happiness!”
Ah, how then did the heart of this innocent child tremble, and how she
longed to find some means for restoring his belief in happiness.
“But why does he not come to those who love him?” asked she. “Why does
he decline the thanks of those whose hearts are truly devoted to him?
Ah, in our humid eyes and joy-beaming faces he would recognize the
truthfulness of our feelings! Why, then, comes he not?”
“I will tell you,” said Ribas, with a smile; “he hates women, because
the only one he ever loved was false to him, and now his love is changed
to ardent hatred of all women!”
“I shall therefore never see him!” sighed the girl, hanging her head
with the sadness of disappointment.
This expectation, this constantly increasing impatience, rendered her
inaccessible to any other feeling, any other thought. He of whom she
did not know even the name, was sent by Paulo, and therefore had
she believed and confided in him from the first. Now had she already
forgotten that she had confided in him on Paulo’s account; she believed
in him on his own account, and Paulo had retreated into the background.
Occasionally also the bloody image of poor Carlo presented itself to her
mind, and she secretly reproached herself for having mourned him for
so short a time, for having so soon forgotten that faithful,
self-sacrificing friend.
But even these reproaches were soon silenced when with a throbbing bosom
she thought of this new friend, who like a divinity hovered over her
at an infinite and unattainable distance, and whose mysteriously active
nearness replaced both of those friends she had lost, and for whom she
could no longer mourn.