Chapter XXX

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.