Chapter XXXIV

"Minutely informed of all that had passed at the Giants' Castle, I had no sooner resolved to make Albert travel, and determined on the road that he should adopt, than I hurried to place myself on his route. This was the epoch of the travels of which I spoke to you just now, and Marcus accompanied me in many of them. The governor and servants who were with him had never known me, and I was not afraid to see them. So anxious was I to meet my son, that I had much difficulty to restrain myself as I travelled behind him, for some hours, until he reached Venice, where he was to make his first halt. I was resolved, though, not to show myself to him without a kind of mysterious solemnity, for my object was not only the gratification of the maternal instinct which impelled me to his arms, but a more serious purpose, really a mother's duty. I wished to wrest Albert from the narrow superstitions in which it had been sought to enwrap him. I wished to take possession of his imagination, of his confidence, of his mind, and whole soul. I thought him a fervent Catholic, and at that time he was, in appearance. He practised regularly all the external obligations of the Roman creed. The persons who had informed Albert of these details, were ignorant of what passed in my son's heart. His father and aunt were scarcely better informed. They found nothing but a savage strictness to shelter, and blamed merely his too strict and rigid manner of interpreting the bible. They did not understand that in his rigid logic and loyal candor my noble child, devoted to the practice of true _Christianity_, had already become a passionate and incorrigible heretic. I was rather afraid of the Jesuit tutor who was with him. I was afraid that I could not approach him without being observed and annoyed by a fanatical Argus. I soon learned that the base Abbé ***** did not even attend to his health, and that Albert, neglected by the valets, of whom he was unwilling to require anything, lived almost alone and uncontrolled in the cities he had visited. I observed his motions with great anxiety. Lodging at Venice in the same hotel with him, I frequently met him, alone and musing, on the stairway, in the galleries, and on _quais._ Ah! you cannot imagine how my heart beat at his approach--how my bosom heaved, and what torrents of tears escaped from my terrified yet delighted eyes! To me he seemed so handsome, so noble, and alas! so sad, for he was all on earth that I was permitted to love. I followed him with precaution. Night came, and he entered the church of Saints John and Paul, an austere basilica filled with tombs, and with which you are doubtless acquainted. Albert knelt in a corner. I glided near him and placed myself behind a tomb. The church was deserted, and the darkness became every moment more intense. Albert was motionless as a statue. He seemed rather to be enwrapped in reverie than prayer. The lamp of the sanctuary but feebly lighted up his features. He was pale and I was terrified. His fixed eye, his half-open lips, an indescribable air of desperation in his features, crushed my heart. I trembled like the oscillating flame of a lamp. It seemed to me, if I revealed myself to him then, he would fall dead. I remembered what Marcus had said to me of his nervous susceptibility, and of the danger to such organizations of abrupt emotions. I left, to avoid yielding to my love. I went to wait for him under the portico. I had put over my dress, which was itself simple and dark, a brown cloak, the hood of which concealed my face, and made me resemble a native of the country. When he came out I involuntarily went towards him; thinking me a beggar, he took a piece, of gold from his pocket and handed it to me. Oh! with what pride and gratitude did I receive this gold. Look! Consuelo: it is a Venetian sequin, and I always wear it in my bosom like a precious jewel or relic. It has never left me since the day the hand of my child sanctified it. I could not repress my transport. I seized his hand and bore it to my lips. He withdrew in terror, for it was bedewed with my tears. 'What are you about, woman?' said he, in a voice the pure and deep tone of which echoed in the very bottom of my heart. 'Why thank me for so small a gift? Doubtless you are very unfortunate, and I have given you very little. How much will relieve you from suffering permanently? Speak! I wish to console you; I hope I can.' He then, without looking at it, gave me all the gold he had in his hands.

"'You have given me enough, young man,' said I; 'I am satisfied.'

"'Why, then, do you weep?' said he, observing the sobs which stifled my voice. 'Do you suffer from a sorrow to which riches cannot administer?'

"'No,' said I; 'but from gratification and joy.'

"'Joy!--are these, then, tears of joy? and can they be had for a piece of gold? Oh! human misery! Woman, take all, I beg you, but do not weep for joy! Think of your fellows, so poor, so numerous, so degraded and miserable, and remember, I cannot aid them all.'

"He left me with a sigh. I did not dare to follow, for fear of betraying myself. He had left his gold on the pavement, where he let it fall in his hurry to get rid of me. I picked it up, and placed it in the poor-box, to fulfil his noble charity. On the next day I saw him again, and having watched him go into St. Mark's, determined to be more calm and resolved. We were again alone, in the half obscurity of the church. He mused long, and all at once I heard him murmur in a deep tone as he arose--

"'O, Christ! they crucify thee every day of their lives!'

"'Yes,' said I, reading half of his thoughts, 'the Pharisees and the doctors of the laws.'

"He trembled and was silent for a moment. He then said, in a low tone, and without turning--

"'My mother's voice again!'

"Consuelo, I was near fainting, when I saw that Albert yet maintained in his heart the instinct of filial divination. The fear, however, of troubling his reason, which was already so excited, made me pause again. I went to the porch to wait for him, but when I saw him pass I did not approach him. He perceived me, however, and shrunk back with a movement of terror.

"'Signora,' said he, with hesitation, 'why do you beg to-day? Is it, then, really a profession, as the pitiless rich say? Have you no family? Can you be of use to no one, instead of wandering through the churches at night like a spectre? What I gave yesterday would certainly have kept you from want to-day. Would you take possession of what belongs to your brethren?'

"'I do not beg,' I said; 'I placed your alms in the poor-box, with the exception of one sequin I kept for love of you.'

"'Who, then, are you?' said he, taking hold of my arm. 'Your voice reaches the very depth of my heart. It seems to me that I know you. Show me your face. But no, I do not wish to see it. It terrifies me!'

"'Oh, Albert!' said I, forgetting myself and all prudence; 'so you also fear me.'

"He trembled from head to foot, and murmured with an expression of terror and religious respect--

"'Yes--it is my mother! My mother's voice!'

"'I do not know your mother,' said I, terrified at my imprudence. 'I know your name only because it is so familiar to every pauper. Why do I terrify you? Is your mother dead?'

"'They say so; but I know better,' said he. 'She lives.'

"'Where?'

"'In my heart!--in my mind!--continually and eternally! I have dreamed of her voice and features a hundred--a thousand times!'

"I was terrified and charmed at his mysterious love of me. I saw in him, however, unmistakable signs of craziness. To soothe him I overcame my emotion.

"'Albert,' I said, 'I knew your mother. I was her friend. I was requested by her to speak to you some day, when you were old enough to comprehend what I had to say. I am not what I appear to be. I followed you yesterday and also to-day for the purpose only of speaking to you. Listen to me, therefore, calmly, and do not suffer yourself to be disturbed by vain fancies. Will you go with me beneath those colonades, which now are deserted, and talk with me? Are you sufficiently calm and collected for that?'

"'Were you the friend of my mother?' said he. 'Were you requested to speak to me? Ah! yes! Speak!--speak! You see I was not mistaken. An inward voice informed me of all. I saw that something of her existed in you. No--I am not superstitious. I am not mad. My heart is only much more alive and accessible than others, in relation to certain things which they neither understand nor comprehend. This you would know, had you known my mother. Speak to me, then, of her. Speak to me, with her mind--with her intellect.'

"Having thus but very imperfectly succeeded in soothing his emotion, I took him beneath the arcades, and questioned him about his childhood, his recollections, the principles which had been instilled in him, and the ideas he had formed of his mother's opinions. The questions I put satisfied him that I was well informed of his family affairs, and capable of understanding the impulses of his heart. How enthusiastically proud was I, my daughter, to see the deep and ardent love Albert entertained for me, the faith he had in my piety and virtue, and his horror of the _pious_ hatred the Catholics of Riesenberg had for my memory! I rejoiced in the purity of his soul, the grandeur of his religious and patriotic sentiment, and in the many sublime ideas which a Catholic education had not been able to stifle in him. How great, however, was the grief, the precocious and incurable sadness which already crushed his young heart. The same kind of sorrows, that had so soon crushed him has broken my heart. Albert fancied himself a Catholic. He did not dare to place himself in open revolt against the Catholic Church, and felt a necessity of believing in the established church. Better informed and more thoughtful than his age suggested (he was only twenty), he had reflected much on the long and sad histories of heresies, and could not make up his mind to find fault with certain doctrines. Forced also to think that the innovators, so libelled by ecclesiastical historians, had gone far astray, he floated in a sea of uncertainty, sometimes condemning revolt, and anon finding fault with tyranny. He could decide on nothing, except that good men, in their attempts at reform, had gone astray, and that others had sullied the sanctuary they sought to defend.

"It became necessary to enlighten his mind, to combat the excesses of both armies, to teach him to embrace boldly the defence of the innovators, while he deplored their errors--to exhort him to abandon the party of cunning, violence, and timidity, while he recognised the excellence of a certain mission in remote time. I had no difficulty in enlightening him. He had already foreseen, divined, and resolved on all before I spoke to him. His instincts had fulfilled all wished. When he understood me, a grief more overwhelming than uncertainty took possession of his soul. The truth was unknown in the world. The law of God enlightened no sanctuary, no people, no caste. No school practised Christian virtue, nor sought to elevate and demonstrate it. Protestants as well as Catholics had abandoned the divine ways. The law of the stronger existed everywhere, and Christ was crucified every day on altars erected by men. This sad though interesting conversation consumed the whole night. The clocks slowly struck the hours without Albert's thinking of counting them. I felt alarmed at his power of intellectual tension, as it made me aware of his great passion for strife and capacity for sorrow. I admired the manly pride and the lacerated expression of my noble and unfortunate child. I felt myself reproduced in him. I fancied that I read the story of my past life, and in him resumed the history of the long tortures of my own heart and brain. I saw in his broad brow, which was lighted up by the moon, the useless external and the moral beauty of my own lonely and unappreciated youth. I wept at the same time for him and for myself. His tears were long and painful. I did not dare to unfold to him the secrets of our conspiracy. I feared that at first he would not understand them, and that he would reject them as vain and idle. Uneasy at seeing him walking up and down for so long a time, I promised to show him a place of safety, if he would consent to wait, and prepare himself for certain revelations. I gently excited his imagination by the hope of a new confidence, and took him to an hotel, where we both supped. I did not give him the promised confidence for some days, fearing an over excitement of his mental faculties.

"Just as he was about to quit me, it struck him to ask me who I was. 'I cannot tell you,' said I; 'my name is assumed, and I have reasons to conceal it. Speak of me to no one.'

"He asked no other question, and seemed satisfied with my answer. His delicate reserve, however, was accompanied by another sentiment, strange as his character and sombre as his mental habits. He told me long afterwards that he had always taken me for the soul of his mother, appearing under a real form, with circumstances the vulgar could not understand, and which were really supernatural. Thus, in spite of all I could do, Albert would recognise me. He preferred rather to invent a fantastic world than to doubt my presence, and I could not deceive the victorious instinct of his heart. All my efforts to repress his excitement had no other effect than to fix him in a kind of calm delirium, which had no confidant nor opposer, not even in myself, its object. He submitted religiously to the will of the spectre, which forbade itself to be known or named, yet he would believe himself under its influence.

"From this terrible tranquillity--which Albert henceforth bore in all the wanderings of his imagination, from the sombre and stoical courage which made him always gaze, without growing pale, at the prodigies begotten by his imagination--I fell, for a long time, into an unhappy error. I was not aware of the strange idea he had formed relative to my apparition. I thought that he looked on me as a mysterious friend of his dead mother and of his own youth. I was amazed, it is true, at the little curiosity he exhibited, and the small surprise he displayed at my constant care. This blind respect, this delicate submission, this absence of uneasiness about the realities of life, appeared so perfectly in consonance with his retired, dreaming, and meditative character, that I did not think proper to account for or examine into its secret causes. While thus toiling to fortify his mind against the excess of his enthusiasm, I aided, ignorantly, in the development of that kind of madness which was at once so sublime and deplorable, and to which he was so long a victim.

"Gradually, after many conversations, of which there were neither confidants nor witnesses, I explained to him the doctrines of which our order is the depository and the secret diffuser. I initiated him into our plan of general reform. At Rome, in the caverns appropriated to our mysteries, Marcus introduced and had him admitted to the first grades of masonry, reserving to himself the right of revealing to him the meaning of the strange and fantastic signs, the interpretation of which is so easily changed and adapted to the courage and intelligence of the candidates. For six years, I accompanied my son in all his journeys, always leaving cities a day after, and coming to them when he had fixed himself. I took care always to reside at some distance from him, and did not suffer either his tutor or valets to see me; he taking care also to change them frequently, and to keep them always at a distance. I once asked him if he was not surprised to find me everywhere?

"'Oh, no,' said he, 'I am well aware that you will always follow me.'

"When I sought to explain to him the motive of this confidence, he said:

"'My mother bade you restore me to life; and you know, did you now desert me, I would die.'

"He always spoke in an exaggerated and inspired manner, and I too, from talking with him, acquired the same style. Marcus often reproached me--I likewise reproached myself--with having fed the internal flame which consumed Albert. Marcus wished to give him more positive instruction, and to use a more palpable logic to him; at other times, however, I was satisfied, that but for the manner in which I counselled him, this flame would have consumed him more rapidly and certainly. My other children had exhibited the same disposition to enthusiasm. Their souls had been repressed, and they had toiled to stifle them--like torches, the brilliancy of which was dangerous. They yielded, because they had no power to resist. But for my breath, which revived and gave air to the sacred spark, Albert, too, had gone to join his brethren; as I, but for Marcus, would have died without having truly lived. I also sought to distract his soul by a constant aspiration after the ideal. I advised him, I forced him to rigid study, and he obeyed me strictly and conscientiously. He studied the natural sciences, the languages of the different countries through which he travelled; he read a great deal, cultivated the arts even, and, without any master, devoted himself to music. All this was a mere amusement, a repose to his vast and powerful mind. A stranger to all the intoxications of his age, opposed to the world and all its vanities, he lived in perfect seclusion, and obstinately resisted the tutor, persisting in refusing to enter any saloon or be introduced at any court. With difficulty would he consent to see, at two or three capitals, the oldest and most affectionate friends of his father. When with them, he was grave and dignified as possible, giving no one reason to complain; but he was intimate only with a few adepts of our order, to whom Marcus especially introduced him. He requested us not to ask him to enlist with the _propaganda_, until he became aware that the gift of suasion had arisen in his heart, and he often declared frankly that he had it not, because as yet he did not entertain implicit faith in our means. He passed from grade to grade, like a docile pupil, yet he examined everything with a severe logic and scrupulous truth, reserving always as he told me, the right to propose reforms and ameliorations to us, when he should feel sufficiently enlightened to yield to personal inspiration. Until then, he wished to be humble, patient, and submissive to the established forms of our secret society. Plunged in study and meditation, he made his tutor respect the nervousness of his character and the coldness of his behavior. The abbé then learned to look on him as a sad pedant, and to have as little as possible to do with him, in order to have more liberty to participate in the intrigues of his order. Albert lived long in France and England without him: he was often a hundred leagues from him, and only met him when my son wished to visit another country; often they did not travel together. At such times I could see Albert as often as I pleased, and his devoted tenderness paid me five-fold for the care I took of him. My health became better, as often happens to constitutions thoroughly shaken: I became so used to sickness, that I did not even suffer from it. Fatigue, late hours, long conversations, harassing journeys, instead of oppressing, maintained a slow and tedious fever, which had now become my normal state. Feeble and trembling as you see me, there are no journeys and no fatigue that I cannot bear better than you, in the very flower of your youth. Agitation has become my element, and I find rest as I hurry on, precisely as professional couriers have learned to sleep while their horses are at the gallop.

"The experience of what a powerful and energetic mind, though in a diseased body, can accomplish, made me have more confidence in the power of Albert. I became used to see him sometimes weary and crushed, and again animated and excited, as I was. Often we bore together the same physical pain, the result of the same moral emotion. Never, perhaps, was our intimacy more gentle and close, than when the same fever burned in our veins, and the same excitement confounded our feeble sighs, now many times has it seemed that we were one being! How many times have we broken silence merely to address to each other the same words! How often, agitated and crushed in different manners, have we, by a clasp of the hand, communicated languor or agitation to each other! How much good and evil have we known together! Oh, my son! my only passion! flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone! what tempests have we passed through, covered by the same celestial ægis! what devastation have we escaped by clinging to each other, and by pronouncing the same formula of safety, love, truth, and justice!

"We were in Poland, on the frontiers of Turkey, and Albert, having passed through all the initiations of masonry, and the superior grades of the society which forms the link of the chain next to our own, was about to go to that part of Germany where we are, in order that he might be introduced to the secret bench of the Invisibles. Count Christian just then sent for him. This was a thunderbolt to me. My son, in spite of all the care I had taken to keep him from forgetting my family, loved it only as a tender recollection of the past. He did not understand the possibility of living any longer with it. It did not enter, however, into our minds to resist this order, dictated with cold dignity, and with confidence in paternal authority, as it is interpreted in the Catholic and noble families of our country. Albert prepared to leave me--he knew not for how long a time, yet without fancying that he would not see me shortly, and unite with Marcus the ties of our association. Albert had a small idea of time, and still less an appreciation of the material events of life.

"'Do we part?' said he, when he saw me weep. 'We cannot. Often as I have called on you from the depths of my heart, you have come. I will call you again.'

"'Albert--Albert--I cannot accompany you where you go now.'

"He grew pale and clung to me like a terrified child. The time was come to reveal my secret. 'I am not the soul of your mother,' said I, after a brief preamble, 'but _your mother!_"

"'Why do you say that?' said he, with a strange smile. 'Think you I did not know it? Are we not alike? Have I not seen your portrait at the Giants' Castle? Have I forgotten you? Besides, have I not always seen and known you?'

"'And you were not surprised to see me alive, when all thought me buried at the Giants' Castle?'

"'No,' said he, 'I was not surprised. I was too happy. God has miraculous power, and men need not be amazed at it.'

"The strange child had more difficulty in understanding the terrible realities of my story, than the miracle he had fancied. He had believed in my resurrection, as in that of Christ. He had fancied my doctrines about the transmission of life to be literal, and believed in it to the fullest sense. That is to say, he was not amazed to see me preserve the certainty of my identity, after having laid aside one body to deck me with another. I am not certain, even, if I satisfied him that my life had not been interrupted by my fainting, and that my mortal envelope had not remained in the tomb. He listened to me with a wondering and yet excited physiognomy, as if he had heard me speak other words than those I had uttered. Something inexplicable at that moment passed in his mind. A terrible link yet retained Albert on the brink of the abyss. Real life could not animate him, until he had passed through that crisis from which I had been so miraculously rescued--this apparent death, which in him was to be the last effort of eternity, struggling against the hold of time. My heart seemed ready to burst as I left him. A painful presentiment vaguely informed me that he was about to enter that phase which might almost be called climacteric, which had so violently shaken my own existence, and that the time was not far distant when Albert would either be annihilated or renewed. I had observed that he had a tendency to catalepsy. He had under my observation accesses of slumber--long, deep, and terrible. His respiration was weak, his pulse so feeble that I never ceased to write or say to Marcus, 'Let us never bury Albert, or else let us never be afraid to open his tomb.' Unfortunately for us, Marcus could not go to the Giants' Castle, being excluded from the territories of the Empire. He had been deeply compromised by an insurrection at Prague; to which, indeed, his influence had not been foreign. He had by flight only escaped from the stern Austrian laws. A prey to uneasiness, I came hither. Albert had promised to write to me every day, and I resolved also, as soon as I failed to receive a letter, to go to Bohemia, and appear at Riesenberg in spite of all difficulties.

"The grief he felt at our separation was not less than mine. He did not understand what was going on. He did not seem to believe me. When, however, he had gone beneath that roof, the very air of which appears to be a poison to the burning hearts of the descendants of Ziska, he received a terrible shock. He hurried to the room I had always occupied. He called me, and not seeing me come, became persuaded that I had died again, and would not be restored to him during the present life. Thus, at least, he explained to me what passed at that fatal moment, when his reason was shaken so violently that it did not recover for years. He looked at my picture for a long time. After all, a portrait is but an imperfect resemblance, and the peculiar sentiment the artist seizes and preserves is always inferior to that entertained by those who love us ardently; no likeness can please them; they are alternately afflicted and offended. Albert, when he compared this representation of my youth and beauty, did not recognise his dear old mother in the grey hair which seemed so venerable, and the paleness which appealed to his heart. He hurried in terror from the portrait, and met his relations, sombre, silent and afraid. He went to my tomb, and was attacked with vertigo and terror. To him the idea of death appeared monstrous; yet to console him his father had said I was there, and that he must kneel and pray for the repose of my soul.

"'Repose?' said Albert, without reflection, 'Repose of the soul! My mother's soul was not formed for such annihilation; neither was mine. We will neither of us rest in the grave. Never--never! This Catholic cavern, these sealed sepulchres, this desertion of life, this divorce of heaven and earth, body and soul, horrifies me!'"

By similar conversation Albert began to fill the timid and simple heart of his father with terror. His words were reported to the chaplain to be explained. This feeble man saw nothing in it but the outbreak of a soul doomed to eternal damnation. The superstitions fear which was diffused in the minds of all around Albert, the efforts of the family to lead him to return to the Catholic faith, tortured him, and his excitement assumed the unhealthy character you have seen in him. His ideas became confounded; and although he had seen evidences of my existence, he forgot that he had known me alive, and I seemed ever a fugitive spectre ready to abandon him. His fancy evoked this spectre, and inspired him with incoherent speeches and painful cries. When he became more calm, his reason was, as it were, veiled in a cloud. He had forgotten recent things, and was satisfied he had been dreaming for eight years, or rather those eight years of happiness and life seemed to be the creation of an hour of slumber.

"Receiving no letter, I was about to hurry to him. Marcus retained me. He said the post-office department intercepted our letters, or that the Rudolstadts suppressed them. My son was represented by his family, calm, well and happy. You know how sedulously his situation was concealed, and with what success, for a long time.

"In his travels Albert had known young Trenck, and was bound to him by the warmest friendship. Trenck, loved by the Princess of Prussia and persecuted by Frederick, wrote to my son of his joys and misfortunes. He requested him to come to Dresden to give him the benefit of his aid and arm. Albert made this journey, and no sooner had he left Riesenberg than he regained memory and mind. Trenck met my son amid the neophytes of the Invisibles. There they were made members of a chivalric fraternity. Having learned from Marcus of their intended interview, I hurried to Dresden, followed him to Prussia, where he introduced himself into the Royal Palace in disguise, to serve Trenck's love and fulfil a mission confided to him by the Invisibles. Marcus thought this activity and the knowledge of a useful and generous _rôle_ might rescue Albert from his dangerous melancholy. He was right, for while among us Albert again became attached to life. Marcus, on his return, wished to bring and keep him for some time here, amid the real chiefs of the order. He was convinced that by breathing the true vital atmosphere of a superior soul, Albert would recover the lucidness of his mind. On the route he met the impostor Cagliostro, and was imprudently initiated by the rose-crosses in some of their mysteries. Albert, who long had received the _rose-cross_, now passed that grade and presided over their mysteries as Grand-Master. He then saw what, as yet, he had but a presentiment of. He saw the various elements of which masonic associations are composed, and distinguished the error, folly, emptiness and vanity which filled these sanctuaries, already a prey to the vices of the century. Cagliostro, by means of his police, which was ever watchful for the petty secrets of the world, which he feigned were the revelations of a familiar demon, by means of his captious eloquence, which parodied the great revolutionary inspirations, by the surprising tricks which enabled him to evoke shadows, and by his intrigues, horrified the noble adept. The credulity of the world, the low superstition of a large number of freemasons, the shameless cupidity excited by promises of the philosopher's stone, and so many other miseries of the age we live in had kindled a fire in his heart. Amid his retreat and study he had not distinctly understood the human race. He was not prepared to contend with all its bad instincts. He could not suffer such misery. He wished all charlatans and sorcerers to be unmasked and expelled shamelessly from our temples. He was aware that the degrading association of Cagliostro must be submitted to, because it was too late to get rid of him, and because his anger might deprive them of many estimable friends, and that, flattered by their protection and an appearance of confidence, he might do real service to a cause with which he was in fact unacquainted.

"Albert became indignant, and uttered the anathema of a firm and ardent mind, against our enterprise. He foretold that we would fail, because we had mixed too much alloy with the golden chain. He left us, saying, that he would reflect on the things the necessity of which we strove to make him understand, in relation to the terrible necessities of conspiracies, and that he would come to ask for baptism when his poignant doubts were relieved. Alas! we did not know the character of his reflections at Riesenberg. He did not tell us; perhaps when their bitterness was passed, he did not remember them. He passed a year there, in alternate calm and madness, exuberant power and painful decay. He wrote sometimes, without mentioning his sorrows and troubles. He bitterly opposed our political course. He wished us thenceforth not to seek to work in the shade and deceive men, to make them swallow the cup of regeneration. 'Cast aside your black masks,' said he; 'leave your caverns, efface from the front of your temple the word _mystery_, which you borrowed from the Roman church, and which ill befits the coming age. Do you not see you are imitators of the Jesuits? No, I cannot toil with you. It is to look for life amid carcases. Show yourself by daylight. Do not lose a precious moment for the organization of your army. Rely on its enthusiasm, on the sympathy of the people, and the outbursts of generous instincts. An army, even, becomes corrupted in repose, and a _ruse_, employed for concealment also deprives us of the power and activity required for the strife. Albert was right in theory, but the time was not come to put it in action. That time, perhaps, is yet far distant.

"You at last came to Riesenberg, and found him in the greatest distress. You know, or rather you do not know, what influence you exerted on him. You made him forget all but yourself--you gave him, as it were, a new life and death.

"When he fancied that all between you and him was over, all his power abandoned him, and he suffered himself to waste away. Until then, I was not aware of the true nature and intensity of his suffering. The correspondent of Marcus said, the Giants' Castle became more and more closed to profane eyes, that Albert never left it, and passed with the majority of persons as a monomaniac; that the poor, nevertheless, loved and blessed him, and that some persons of superior mind having seen him, on their departure did homage to his eloquence, his lofty wisdom and his vast ideas. At last I heard that Supperville had been sent for, and I hurried to Riesenberg, in spite of Marcus's protests. Being prepared to risk all, Marcus seeing me resolved, determined to accompany me. We reached the walls of the castle in the disguise of beggars. For twenty-seven years I had not been seen--Marcus had been away ten. They gave us alms and drove us away. We met a friend and unexpected savior in poor Zdenko. He treated us as brothers, because he knew how dear we were to Albert. We knew how to talk to him in the language that pleased his enthusiasm, and revealed to him the secrets of the mortal grief of his friend. Zdenko was not the only madman by whom our life has been menaced. Oppressed and downcast, he came as we did to the gate of the castle, to ask news of Albert, and, like us, he was repelled with vain words which were most distressing to our anguish. By a strange coincidence with the visions of Albert, Zdenko said he had known me; I had appeared to him in his dreams and ecstasies, and without being able to account for it, abandoned his will fully to me. 'Woman,' said he, 'I do not know your name, but you are the good angel of my Podiebrad. I have often seen him draw your face on paper, and heard him describe your voice, look, and manner, when he was well, when heaven opened before him, and he saw around his bed persons who are, as men say, no more.' Far from opposing Zdenko, I encouraged him; I flattered his illusion, and induced him to receive us in the Cavern of Tears.

"When I saw this underground abode, and learned that my son had lived weeks there, aye, even months, unknown to the whole world, I saw how sad must be his thoughts. I saw a tomb to which Zdenko seemed to pay a kind of worship, and not without great difficulty could I learn its destination. It was the greatest secret of Albert and Zdenko, and their chief mystery. 'Alas!' said the madman, 'there we buried Wanda of Prachalitz, the mother of my Albert. She would not remain in that chapel where they had fastened her down in stone. Her bones trembled and shook, and those (he pointed to the ossuary of the Taborites, near the spring in the cavern) reproached us for not placing hers with them. We went to that sacred tomb, which we brought hither, and every day covered it with flowers and kisses.' Terrified at this circumstance, the consequences of which might lead to the discovery of our secret, Marcus questioned Zdenko, and ascertained that the coffin had been brought hither without being opened. Albert, however, had been sick, and so far astray that he could not remember my being alive, and persisted in treating me as dead. Was not this through a dream of Zdenko? I could not believe my ears. 'Oh! my friend,' said I to Marcus, 'if the light of reason be thus extinguished forever, may God grant him the boon of death!'

"Having thus possessed myself of all Zdenko's secrets, we knew that he could pass through the underground galleries and unknown passages into the Giants' Castle. We followed him one night, and waited at the entrance of the cistern until he had glided into the house. He returned laughing and singing, to tell us that Albert was cured and asleep, and that they had dressed him in his robes and coronet. I fell as if I were stricken by lightning, for I knew that Albert was dead. Thenceforth, I was insensible, and I found myself, when I awoke, in a burning fever. I lay on bear skins and dry leaves in the underground room Albert had inhabited in the Schreckenstein. Zdenko and Marcus watched me alternately. The one said, with an air of pride, that his Podiebrad was cured, and soon would come to see me: the other, pale and sad, observed, 'Perhaps all is not lost; let us not abandon the hope of such a miracle as rescued you from the grave.' I did not understand any longer: I was delirious, and wished to run, cry, and shout. I could not, however, and the desolate Marcus, seeing me in such a state, had neither time nor disposition to attend to anything serious. All his mind and thoughts were occupied by an anxiety which was most terrible. At last, one night, the third of my attack, I became calm, and regained my strength. I tried to collect my ideas, and arose; I was alone in the cave which was dimly lighted by a solitary sepulchral lamp. I wished to go out--where were Marcus and Zdenko? Memory returned; I uttered a cry, which the icy vaults echoed back so lugubriously, that cold perspiration streamed down my brow, which was damp as the dew of the grave. Again I fancied that I was buried alive. What had passed? What was going on? I fell on my knees, and wrung my hands in despair. I called furiously on Albert. At last, I heard slow and irregular steps, as if persons with a burden, approach. A dog barked, and having preceded them, scratched at the door. It was opened, and I saw Zdenko and Marcus bearing the stiff, discolored body of Albert, for to all appearance he was dead. His dog Cynabre followed and licked his hands, which hung loosely by his side. Zdenko sang sadly an improvised song, 'Come, sleep on the bosom of your mother, poor friend, who have been so long without repose. Sleep until dawn, when we will awaken you to see the sun rise.'

"I rushed to my son.

"'He is not dead,' said I. 'O Marcus, you have saved him!--have you not? He is not dead? Will he recover?'

"'Madame,' said he, 'do not flatter yourself,'--and he spake with a strange firmness. 'I know not what may be the result. Take courage, however, whatever may betide. Help me, and forget yourself.'

"I need not tell you what care we took to restore Albert. Thank Heaven there was a stove in the room, at which we warmed him.

"'See,' said I to Marcus, 'his hands are warm.'

"'Marble may be heated,' was his unpromising reply. 'That is not life. His heart is inert as a stone.'

"Terrible hours rolled by in this expectation and despair. Marcus knelt with his ear close to my son's heart. His face betokened sad distress when he found there was not the slightest index of life. Exhausted and trembling, I dared not say one word or ask one question. I examined Marcus's terrible brow. I was at one time afraid to look at him, as I fancied I had read the first sentence.

"Zdenko played with Cynabre in a corner, and continued to sing. He sometimes paused to tell us that we annoyed Albert; that we must let him sleep; that he had seen him so for weeks together; and that he would awaken of himself. Marcus suffered greatly from this assurance, in which he could not confide. I had faith in it, and was inspired by it. The madman had a celestial inspiration, an angelic certainty of the truth. At length I saw an involuntary movement in Marcus's iron face. His corrugated brow distended, his hand trembled, as he prepared himself for a new act of courage. He sighed deeply, withdrew his ear, and placed his hand over my son's heart, which perhaps beat. He tried to speak, but restrained himself, for fear, it may be, of the chimerical joy it would inspire me with, leaned forward again, and suddenly rising and stepping back, fell prostrate, as if he were dying.

"'No more hope?' said I, tearing my hair.

"'Wanda,' said Marcus in a stifled voice, 'your son is alive!'

"Exhausted by the effort of his attention and solicitude, my stoical friend lay overpowered by the side of Zdenko!"