Chapter IX: Part 9

“You, then, consider it a happiness,” said Ganganelli, slowly letting himself down upon the grass-bank. “Yes, yes, such are you good human beings! wherever there is a little bit of show, a little bit of outward splendor, you immediately conclude that there is great happiness. This proves that you see only the outward form, paying no regard to what is concealed under that form, and which is often very bitter. Believe me, Lorenzo, in these times there is no very great happiness in being pope and the so-called father of Christendom. The princes have become very troublesome and disobedient children; they are no longer willing to recognize our paternal authority, and if the holy father does not manifest a complaisant friendliness toward these refractory princely children, and wink at their independence, they will renounce the whole connection and quit the paternal mansion. We should then, indeed, be the holy father of Christendom, but no longer have any children under the paternal authority! For having so expressed myself, I shall never be pardoned by the cardinals and princes of the Church; it has made them my deadly enemies, and yet it is with these principles alone that I have succeeded in bringing the refractory Portuguese court again under my parental control!

“But here in this pleasant place let us dismiss such unpleasant thoughts,” the pope more cheerfully continued, after a pause. “Here I will forget that I am pope; here I will never be anything more than brother Clement of the Franciscan convent, nor shall the cares and troubles of the pope, nor his holiness or infallibility, accompany him to this dear quiet place. Here I will only be a man, and forgetting my cramping highness and my forced splendor, will here right humanly enjoy the sun and this soft green grass, and in deep draughts inhale this sweet balsamic air. Ah, how happy one may yet be if he can for a moment escape from the envelope of dignity by which he is kept a chrysalis, and freely exercise the butterfly wings of manhood! And hear me for once, brother Lorenzo, so very human has your pope here become, that he feels a right fresh human appetite. If all here is as it used to be at the convent, then must you have something to appease my hunger.”

Brother Lorenzo nodded with a sly smile. Stepping to the side of the grassy bank, and slipping aside a small door concealed by the grass, he disclosed a walled excavation, filled with fruits and pastry.

“I see you have forgotten nothing!” joyfully exclaimed Ganganelli, taking some of the fragrant fruit which Lorenzo tendered him. “Ah, you make me very happy, Lorenzo.”

Saying this, he threw his arm around Lorenzo’s neck, and silently pressed him to his bosom.

Brother Lorenzo was equally silent, but he no longer laughed; his usually cheerful face assumed a wonderfully clear and pleased expression, and two large tears rolled down over his cheek--but they were tears of joy.

A DEATH-SENTENCE

An approaching bustling, a vehement calling and screaming, disturbed the two old men. It was Lorenzo who was called, and he quickly glided through the bushes to look after the cause of this disturbance. But soon he returned with a melancholy face and depressed mien.

“Brother Clement,” said he, “it is already all over with our enjoyment, which has been so great for me that I forgot to remind you that the pope cannot neglect the hour in which he gives audience. That hour has now come, and your anteroom is already filled with princes and prelates.”

“And yet you speak of the great happiness of being pope,” said Ganganelli, rising with a sigh from the grassy bank. “I am not allowed an hour for recreation, and yet people think--but no,” said Ganganelli, interrupting himself and laughing, “we should not be ungrateful, and it would be ungrateful for me now to complain. If I have not had an hour for recreation, well, I have had half an hour, and even that is much!”

And, beckoning to brother Lorenzo to follow him, the pope crept through the bushes that separated the place from the more frequented part of the garden.

As he then walked up the grand alley, his face and his whole form assumed a very different appearance. The mild friendliness had vanished from his features, pride and dignity were now expressed by them, and his tall, erect form had in it something noble and imposing; it was no longer the stooping form of age, but only that of a somewhat elderly hero. The brother Clement had been transformed into the prince of the Church, who was about to receive his vassals.

They now saw a tall, manly form hastening down the alley directly toward the pope.

“Who is it?” asked Ganganelli, half turning toward Lorenzo, who was following him.

“It is Juan Angelo Braschi, the former treasurer, to whom you yesterday sent the cardinal’s hat.”

“Ah, the beautiful Braschi,” sadly murmured Ganganelli. “The beloved of the favorite of my nephew, of the Cardinal Rezzonico. Ah, how bad the world is!”

In fact, he whom Ganganelli called the “beautiful” Braschi, well deserved that epithet. No nobler or more plastic beauty was to be seen; no face that more reminded one of the divine beauty of ancient sculpture, no form that could be called a better counterfeit of the Belvedere Apollo. And it was this beauty which liberal Nature had imparted to him as its noblest gift, which helped Juan Angelo Braschi, the son of a poor nobleman of Cesara, to his good fortune, his highest offices and dignities. Not for his merits, but solely for his beauty, did the women bestow upon him their love; and as among these women there were some who exercised an important influence upon powerful cardinals, Braschi had quickly mounted from step to step, crowding aside those who had nothing but their merits and services to speak for them.

With a free and noble demeanor, Braschi now approached the pope, who remained standing at some distance awaiting him, with a calm and proud self-possession. Braschi dropped upon one knee, and pressing the hem of the pope’s garment in his lips, said:

“Pardon me, most holy father, that I have ventured to seek you here. But my lively gratitude would not be longer restrained. It impelled me toward you with the wings of the wind. I must be the first to fall at your feet to stammer out to you my inexpressible thanks.”

Proudly nodding his head the pope motioned him to rise.

“It is well,” said he, “and you have lent your gratitude an abundance of words. It is true you were only treasurer, and I have permitted you to take a great step in making you a cardinal. But remember, my lord cardinal, that I have promoted you only because I wished to take from you the office of treasurer, as I need a man for that post whose honesty no one could call in question!”

Thus speaking he passed on with a ceremonious salutation, leaving the new cardinal rooted to the earth with terror, his beautiful brow distorted with rage.

“He shall expiate that,” muttered Braschi, gnashing his teeth, as the pope slowly pursued his way. “By the Eternal, the proud Franciscan shall expiate that! Ah, the day will come when he will fully remember these words!”

Meantime, Ganganelli wandered calmly on, followed by his faithful Lorenzo, with a smile of joy at this dismissal and humiliation of the proud and handsome Cardinal Braschi.

The pope suddenly stopped, and turning to Lorenzo said:

“What a strange thought has passed through my head! I have made this miserable coxcomb Braschi a cardinal because he was not honest enough for a treasurer, but in doing so I have paved the way for him to the papal throne! Would it not be strange, Lorenzo, if I have thus myself provided my successor? His dishonesty and intriguing disposition has made him a cardinal. Why can it not also make him a pope? The world is indeed so strange!”(*)

(*) Juan Angelo Braschi, whom Pope Clement XIV. made a
cardinal, was in fact Ganganelli’s successor, and took
possession of the papal chair as Pius VI. He was chosen
after a very stormy conclave and indeed the different
parties voted for him on the ground that he belonged to no
party, and because they thought he was so very much occupied
with his own beauty that he would think of nothing else,
and, while occupied with the care of his face, would leave
the cares of state to others.

“What dreams those are,” murmured Lorenzo, shrugging his shoulders; “the idea that a Braschi could be the successor of the noble Ganganelli!”

Many cardinals and princes of the Church, many noblemen and foreign ambassadors, were assembled in the pope’s audience-room, and as Ganganelli entered, they all received him with joyful acclamations, and humbly fell upon their knees before the head of the church, the vicegerent of God, who, with solemn majesty, bestowed upon them his blessing, and then condescendingly conversed with them. That was a ceremony to which the pope was obliged to subject himself once a week, and which he reckoned as not one of the least of the troubles attendant upon his exalted position. Hence he was well pleased when this hour was over, and he at length was relieved of the presence of all these eulogistic and flattering gentlemen.

Only Cardinal Bernis had remained behind, and to him Ganganelli, giving him his hand, and drawing a deep breath, said:

“What a mass of false and hypocritical phrases we have again been obliged to swallow! These cardinals have the impudence to speak to me of their love and veneration; they do not hesitate so to lie with the same lips which to-day have already pronounced blessings and pious words of edification! But let us forget these hypocrites. Business is over, and it is kind of you to come and chat with me for one little hour. You know I love you very much, my good friend Bernis, although you do pay homage to the heathen divinities, and, as a real renegade, have constituted yourself a priest of the muses.”

“Ah, you speak of my youthful sins,” said the cardinal, smiling. “They are long since past, and sleep with my youthful happiness.”

“That must be a wide bed which enables them all to find place side by side,” responded Ganganelli, laughing, and holding up his forefinger threateningly to the cardinal.

“But what is that you are drawing from your breast-pocket with such an important air?”

“A letter from the Marquise de Pompadour, holy father,” seriously replied the cardinal--“a letter in which I am commanded to communicate to you, the father of Christendom, the acquiescence of France in your proposed abolition of the order of the Jesuits. Here is a private letter addressed to me by the marquise, and here the official letter signed by King Louis, which is destined for your holiness.”

The pope took the papers, and while he was reading them his face turned deadly pale, and a dark cloud gathered upon his brow.

“France also acquiesces,” said he, when he had finished the reading. “How is it, then--were you not yourself against the abolition of the order, and were you not in accordance with the Spanish ambassador, your friend of many years?”

“This friendship of many years is to-day destroyed by a fish, and drives us a helpless wreck upon the wildly-rolling waves,” said the cardinal, shrugging his shoulders.

Ganganelli paid no attention to him. Serious and thoughtful, he walked up and down the room, while his heavenward-directed eye seemed to address a great and all-important question to the Being there above, which received no answer.

“I clearly see how it will be,” finally murmured the pope, as if talking to himself. “I shall complete the work I have begun--it is God Himself who has opened the way for it, but this way will at the same time lead me to my grave.”

“What dark thoughts are these?” said Bernis, approaching him. “This bold and high-hearted resolution will not bring you death, but fame and immortality.”

“It will at least lead me to immortality,” said the pope, with a faint smile. “The dead are all immortal. But think not so little of me as to suppose I would now timidly shrink from doing that which I have once recognized as right and necessary. Only there are necessities of a very painful and dreadful kind. Such a necessity is war. And is it not a war that I commence, and does it not involve the destruction of all those thousands who call themselves the followers of Loyola, and belong to the Society of Jesus? Ah, believe me, this Society of Jesus is a hydra, and we shall never succeed in entirely extirpating it. I may now separate my own head from my body; but a day will come when the head of this hydra will have grown again, and when it will rise from the dead with renewed vitality, while I shall be mouldering in my grave. Say not, therefore, that I know not how to destroy them, and if you do say it, at least add that I lacked not the will, but that I gave for it my own life.”

Thus speaking, the pope slightly nodded an adieu to the cardinal, and withdrew into his study, the door of which he carefully closed after him.

There was he long heard to walk the room with measured steps. Then all was still. No one ventured to disturb him. Hours passed. Lorenzo, with a fearful presentiment, knelt before the door. He laid his ear to the keyhole and tried to listen. All was still within, nothing stirred. At length he ventured to call the pope’s name--at first low and tremulously, then louder and more anxiously, and as no answer was received, he at last ventured to open the door.

At his writing-table sat the pope; his face deadly pale, with staring eyes and great drops of perspiration on his forehead. Immovable sat he there, his right hand, which held a pen, resting on a parchment lying upon the table before him.

Like an image of wax, so stiff, so motionless was he, that Lorenzo, shuddering, made the sign of the cross upon his brow. Then, noiselessly advancing, he timidly and anxiously touched the pope’s shoulder. Ganganelli shuddered, and a slight trembling pervaded his members; he then drew a long breath, and, casting a dull glance at his faithful friend, said:

“Lorenzo, let my coffin be ordered, and pray for my soul. I have just now signed my own death-sentence. See, there it lies. I have signed the decree abolishing the order of the Jesuits! I must therefore die, Lorenzo. It is all over and past with our shady place and our recreations. My murderers are already prowling around me, for I tell you I have myself signed my death-sentence!”

THE FESTIVAL OF CARDINAL BERNIS

And this day of the festival had finally come. With what joyful impatience, with what anxious desire, had Natalie looked forward to it--how had she importuned her friend, Count Paulo, with questions about Cardinal Bernis, about the people she would meet there, about the manners and usages with which she would have to conform!

“I am anxious and fearful,” said she, with amiable modesty; “they will find occasion to laugh at me, and you will be compelled to blush for me, Paulo. But you must tell these wise men and great ladies that it is my very first appearance in society, and that they must have consideration for the awkwardness and ineptitude of a poor child who knows nothing of the world, its forms, or its laws.”

“For you no excuse will be necessary,” responded Paulo, pressing the delicate tips of her fingers to his lips. “Only be quite yourself, perfectly true and open, inoffensive and cheerful! Forget that you are in an assemblage; imagine yourself to be in our garden, under the trees and among the flowers, and speak to people as you speak to your trees and flowers.”

“But will the people give me as true and cordial answers as my trees and flowers?” asked Natalie, thoughtfully.

“They will say to you more beautiful and more flattering things,” said Paulo, smiling. “But now, Natalie, it is time to be thinking of your toilet. See, the sun is already sinking behind the pines, and the sky begins to redden! The time to go will soon arrive, and your first triumph awaits you!”

“Oh, it will not have long to wait,” said Natalie, laughing, and, light and graceful as a gazelle, she tripped to the house.

Count Paulo gazed after her with a melancholy rapture. “And I am to leave this angel,” thought he, “to lose the brightest and noblest jewel of my life, and drive myself out of paradise. And wherefore all this? Perhaps to chase a phantom that will never become a reality, to follow a chimera which may be only a meteor that dances before me and dissolves into mist when I think to reach it? No, no, the world is not worth so much that one should sell himself and his soul’s happiness for its splendor and its greatness. Natalie herself shall decide. Loves she me, and is she satisfied with the quiet circumscribed existence that I can henceforth only offer her, then away, ye vain dreams and ye proud desires for greatness; then shall I be, if not the greatest, certainly the happiest of human beings!”

It was a wonderfully brilliant festival that Cardinal Bernis had to-day prepared for his guests--a festival hitherto unequalled in Rome. The walls were decorated with garlands and festoons of flowers, the flaming candelabras among which found their reflection in the tall Venetian mirrors that rose in their golden frames from the floor to the ceilings; and in the corners of the rooms were niches, here furnished with orange-trees, and there with heavy silk curtains, behind which were grottoes adorned with shells, in the midst of which were fountains where splashed waters rendered fragrant by oil of roses and other essences. And ever-new surprises, new grottoes and groves in those rich halls offered themselves to the eyes of the beholders. Now one suddenly found himself in a quiet boudoir lighted only by a solitary lamp, where the most artistic engravings and the rarest drawings were spread out upon a table; then again one entered a hall sparkling with a thousand lights and resounding with music, where the gayly-dressed crowd undulated in mazy waves; then again grottoes opened here and there, or one stepped out through the open doors into the garden where one could enjoy the balsamic coolness of the evening in walks brilliantly lighted with colored lamps, or listen to the music of performers concealed in the shrubbery, or, again, fleeing from the throng and the lights, seek a resting-place upon some grassy bank or under some myrtle-bush, whether for solitary musing or for encircling in sweet and silent familiarity the waist of some chosen fair one who understanding the stolen glance, had strayed here unnoticed.

But the central point of the festival was the monstrous gigantic hall which the cardinal had caused to be erected in the centre of the garden expressly for this occasion. The walls of muslin and flowers were held together by more than a hundred gilded pillars, the girandoles attached to each of which diffused a sea of light. Silken carpets covered the floor, and the _plafond_ of this gigantic hall was formed by the thousand-starred arch of heaven. Here, also, niches and grottoes were everywhere to be found; in them one could, in the midst of the constantly moving and noisy crowd, enjoy quiet and repose.

Only one of these niches was inaccessible, as it appears, to the company, and yet it was precisely this which excited the curiosity of all, and which all, whispering, approached, anxious to get a peep behind the closed thick silken curtains, before which two richly gallooned servants of the cardinal walked back and forth with solemn earnestness, but respectfully requesting every one to comply with the cardinal’s wishes and not approach the mysterious drapery, but await his own time for the solution of the enigma! A few steps led up to this closed and covered niche; these steps were strewed with roses, that was plainly seen; but, to what did these steps lead, and what was thus carefully concealed?

A precious surprise, certainly, for it was the forte of the cardinal to prepare surprises for the agreeable entertainment of his guests. The ladies and gentlemen, the cardinals and princes of the Church, crowded around him begging for an explanation of the mystery, a disclosure of the secret.

“I am myself uninitiated,” said Cardinal Bernis, laughing; “some divinity may have taken a seat there, or perhaps it is a sphinx which will from thence give us the solution of her enigma. But let us see what belated guests are now coming to us.”

And the cardinal with zealous precipitation approached the principal entrance to the hall, the _portieres_ of which had just been drawn aside, and behind was seen Natalie at the hand of Paulo.

As if blinded by the sudden flood of light, she stood for a moment still, a purple glow flushing her delicate cheeks, and clinging to Paulo’s arms, she whispered: “Protect me, Paulo, I am so frightened by this crowd!”

Just at that moment the doorkeeper cried with a loud voice: “Princess Natalie Tartaroff and Count Paulo!”

At the sound of these strange names all glanced toward the door, and all flaming, curious, prying eyes were fixed with astonishment and admiration upon the young maiden.

But Natalie did not remark it. She glanced at Paulo with a glad smile, and a proud happiness beamed from her features. She had, then, a name; she was no longer an abandoned, nameless orphan. At length the enigma of her birth was solved, and what she had so often prayed for, Count Paulo had vouchsafed her as a surprise to-day.

He had at the same time announced her name to herself and the world, and she not only had a name, but she was a princess; she took a rank in the company, and Count Paulo and Carlo had no reason to be ashamed of her. But where was Carlo? At the thought of him this feeling of effervescing pride vanished from the young maiden’s heart; she even forgot that she was a princess, to remember only that Carlo, her music-teacher, had promised her to be present at this festival, and to wonder that she could not discover him in this gay and confused assemblage.

She did not remark that, since her appearance, a deep stillness had supervened in the hall, that all eyes were upon her, that people secretly whispered to each other, and gave utterance to murmured expressions of astonishment and delight; she saw not how the beauties here and there turned pale and indignantly bit their proud lips; she saw not how the eyes of the men glowed and flashed, and what eagerly lusting glances the cardinals and princes of the Church cast upon her.

She was so unconstrained, this charming child, she knew not how handsome she was. But she was to-day of a wonderfully touching beauty. Like a white and delicate lily stood she there in the heavy white satin robe that enveloped her graceful form, and the brilliants that adorned her hair, neck, and arms, shone and sparkled like sun-lighted dew-drops in the calyx of the flower. So beautiful was she that even Cardinal Bernis stood speechless and as if blinded before her, finding no expression for his joyful surprise and astonishment.

“Oh,” at length he smilingly said, with a low bow, “I shall have to quarrel with Count Paulo! He promised us the presence of a mortal woman, and now he leads into our circle a divinity who must look down upon us poor human beings with a smile of contempt.”

Natalie smiled. “I know,” said she, with her clear, sweet, childish voice--“I know that Cardinal Bernis is a poet, and therefore it will not be very difficult for him to change a young maiden into a divinity. Nor is this the first time he has done so! I remember a lovely poem of his, the complaint of a shepherd, who considers the object of his love a divinity because she is so beautiful, and at last she proves to be no divinity, but on the contrary a regular little quarrelsome wrangler, who has nothing beautiful about her but her hands and face. Take care, cardinal, that it does not prove with you and me as with the shepherd in your charming poem!”

She said that with such childish ingenuousness, and in so cheerful and jesting a tone, that the cardinal listened to her as if intoxicated, and with unconcealed admiration he looked into that delicate, childishly pure face, over which no trace of sorrow nor any sign of care had ever yet passed.

Without answering, he took her arm, and, beckoning Count Paulo to his side, led the princess to the circle of ladies.

Behind those closed curtains that still concealed the mysterious niche it had meanwhile become stirring. Busy servants hastened hither and thither, lighting the lamps and arranging the festoons and draperies. It seems they had here erected a little stage, and the large wall-picture that formed the background of this stage bore the appearance of a decoration. A side curtain, serving as a partition, formed a second room, which seemed destined for a sort of greenroom, in the centre of which was a large and well-lighted mirror, and before it stood a young woman regarding herself with the greatest attention, here plucking at her dress and there arranging her train or an ornament. She was evidently the one who was to appear upon the stage; her costume betrayed it. It was not the fashionable costume of the day, such as was worn by the distinguished ladies of Roman society; it was an ideal Greek dress that seemed to have been made for the purpose of displaying and rendering yet more voluptuous and enticing the great beauty of the wearer.

She was very beautiful, this woman, with her sparkling black eyes and dark shining hair, which had been gathered into a Grecian knot behind--beautiful, with the laurel-wreath resting upon her high forehead--beautiful, in the transparent Grecian robe which only so far concealed the luxuriant forms of her full figure as to allow them to be divined--beautiful, with those full, round, and entirely uncovered arms, with their jewelled bracelets--beautiful, with her graceful neck, her fully exposed, naked shoulders, and her voluptuously swelling bosom.

She was, in her appearance, a Greek, only her face was not Grecian. It was wanting in the noble forms, the still cheerfulness and repose of Grecian beauty, modest even in its voluptuousness. It was only the face of a sensual and passionate Roman woman, and no Lais would have ventured such a smile as played upon the dark-red lips of this Roman woman, or such glowing glances as she shot like arrows from her dark eyes.

Standing before the glass, she viewed herself, her lips murmuring low words, occasionally turning her eyes from the mirror to the little table standing near it, upon which lay several open books.

What murmured she, and what read she in those books? Singular! she was uttering single, isolated, unconnected words, which had nothing in common with each other but the sound of melody; they were rhymes, but without connection or sense, without inward mental correlation.

“So,” she now said to herself, with a satisfied smile, “I am now perfectly armed and prepared. All these rhymes ready for use, and I have not to fear embarrassment in repeating any of them. Ah, they shall admire me, these good Romans. I will animate and inflame them, and excite all my enamored cardinals to such an ecstasy that they must finally prevail upon the silly, obstinate old pope against his own will to fulfil my only desire. I will attain my end, even if I am compelled to pawn my honor and my salvation for it! Bah! honor; what can honor be to a woman? Beauty is our honor, further nothing! And fair, it seems to me, I yet am! And if I am fair,” she more glowingly continued, after a pause, “how comes it that Carlo has ceased to love me? Ah, the false one, to betray and desert me when I love him most!”

A dark flush of anger now overspread her cheeks, and threateningly raising her hands, with compressed lips she continued: “And to desert me for another woman--me, the pride and delight of all Rome; me, whom all the princes and cardinals worship! Ah, while thousands lie at my feet, imploring for a glance or a smile, this little, unknown singer dares to scorn me and deride my love!”

“And why should he not dare it?” asked a voice behind her, and the face of a young man became visible.

“Carlo!” she cried, hastening to meet him with outspread arms.

He almost ungently checked her. “You forget,” said he, “that this little, insignificant, and unknown singer loves you no longer, Corilla! Grant, then, henceforth to the thousands who languish at your feet a few of your enticing smiles and glowing glances--I have nothing against it, and am not at all jealous!”

“But you should be!” cried she, stamping her feet with rage. “I tell you I will not suffer you to leave me; I will be loved by you, and no one shall you dare to look at, and no one shall you dare to love, but me alone.”

Carlo broke out into a scornful laugh, and then seriously and proudly said: “I am a Neapolitan, and with us men do not allow themselves to be constrained to love, and no woman there dares utter the command, ‘Thou shalt love me!’--I will not, Signora Corilla!”

“You will not!” screamed she, gnashing her teeth. “Then woe to you and to her!”

“I fear no serpents!” said Carlo, laughing, “and if an adder attempts to sting me, I tread it under foot!”

“But fear at least for her you love!” she threateningly said. “Oh, you think I shall not be able to discover this secret love of yours, and not spy out this new divinity to whom you have consecrated your heart? Tremble therefore now, for I know her! I know the garden in which she lives, and there is a place in the wall just opposite her favorite seat; whoever knows that place and possesses a steady hand and a sharp dagger will know how to hurl it so as to pierce her bosom.”

Carlo felt a deadly terror, he felt his heart stand still, but he collected himself and said, with a contemptuous smile: “Cardinal Francesco Albani indeed possesses among his _bravi_ many such skilful hands, and surely it will not require many of your highly-prized glances to induce him to favor you with the loan of one of them.”

The signora slightly bit her lips. “You mock me,” she almost sadly said, “and yet you should remember that it is only love that makes me so savage and fills my heart with a thirst for vengeance! Carlo, I so warmly love you!”

And the beautiful, glowing woman humbly and imploringly bent before her beloved.

The latter laughingly said: “How well you know how to say that--with what variations and modulations! I yesterday heard you say the same to Cardinal Albani; to be sure, it sounded a little different, but not less warm and glowing!”

“You know why I do that!” said she. “He is an enamored fool, whom I would win with tender words that I may make him my instrument. You know the object for which I strive, and which I must attain at any price! Ah, Carlo, when once they have crowned me in the capitol, then, I am sure, you will be compelled to love me again!”

“Never again!” he harshly and roughly said.

“Is that your last word?” shrieked she, with flashing eyes and the wild rage of a tigress.

“It is my last word!”

She flew to him like a mad person, seized his hands and fixedly stared him in the face.

“Ungrateful!” said she, gnashing her teeth. “Is it thus you reward my love, is this your return for all I have done for you? Can you forget that it was I who withdrew you from poverty and baseness? What were you but a poor, unnoticed singer in the streets, on whom people bestowed scanty alms? Was it not I who rescued you from that shame, and clothed you and gave you a home? Was it not I who gave you a name and procured you consideration and respect by making you my singer and companion, and allowing you to play upon the harp at my improvisations? How has not all Rome admired you when you sang the canzones I wrote for you, thereby procuring you honor and respectability, and making you a popular man from a low beggar? Go, you cannot leave me, for you are my creature, my property!”

He wildly thrust her aside, and his eyes flashed with indignation. “Signora,” said he, his lips tremulous with rage, “you have rent the last band that bound me to you, and in twitting me of your benefits you have annihilated them! We now have nothing in common with each other, except perhaps mutual hatred, and that, I hope, will have a longer duration than our love!”

And Carlo turned toward the door. Corilla rushed after him with an exclamation of terror.

“You will leave me now!” cried she, with anguish, “now, in this hour when you are so indispensable to me? now, when I am to celebrate a new triumph before this notable assembly? when all eyes are expectantly turned to the curtain behind which I am to appear? No, no, Carlo, from compassion remain with me only one hour, only this evening!”

Carlo smiled contemptuously. “I will remain,” said he, “for I have promised _her_ that she shall hear you!”

“She has therefore come?” cried Corilla, with an outburst of joy.

“She is now here,” he laconically said.

Corilla no longer listened to him, she walked back and forth with a triumphant mien, a cruel, malicious smile playing upon her lips.

At this moment there was a slight knock at the door, which was opened, and a man who appeared upon the threshold glanced into the room with a grinning laugh.

Corilla gave him a sign, and at the same time pointed at Carlo, who, having his back toward her, seemed to have no suspicion of what was occurring behind him. But he saw it, nevertheless, in the tall mirror that stood in the middle of the room; he saw Corilla make signs of intelligence with that man who was in the livery of Cardinal Francesco Albani; he saw the man make answer with his fingers, and then draw forth a dagger, which he threateningly swung over his head.

Oh, Carlo had very well understood what that man said, as he also did that language of the fingers, this much-used language of the Romans and Neapolitans.

The man had said: “She is here, that beautiful lady! She can no longer escape us!”

“You will strike her?” had Corilla asked.

The man had swung the dagger over his head and held up two fingers of his right hand. That signified: “In two hours she will be dead.”

“Good! you shall be satisfied with me,” had been Corilla’s answer.

The door was again closed. Corilla turned smiling to Carlo, her former rancor seemed to have vanished; she was in high spirits.

“Carlo,” said she, “how good you are not to leave me! Let us now begin. I feel myself glowing with inspiration. Ah, I shall enrapture these good Romans, I think!”

“How long will this improvisation last?” Carlo gruffly asked.

“Well, one or two hours, according to the delight we give our public.”

“If this farce continues longer than an hour and a half, I shall throw down my harp and go away,” said Carlo, in a tone of severity. “I swear it to you by the spirit of my mother! Remember it; I shall show you the time every quarter of an hour.”

“You are a tyrant,” said she, laughing. “But I suppose I must submit. Give, therefore, the signal that we are ready.”

THE IMPROVISATRICE

All the guests of the cardinal were assembled in the gigantic hall, and all eyes were anxiously bent upon the mysterious curtain, which still remained closed.

Now resounded a little bell, and Cardinal Bernis smilingly turned to Natalie, who sat by his side.

“I think this mystery is about to be unveiled,” said he.

“And I am quite anxious about it,” said the young maiden, gracefully laying her hand upon her heart. “My heart beats as violently as if a mystery were about to be unveiled in my own breast. Do you believe in presentiments, Sir Cardinal?”

Bernis had not time to answer her. Just at that moment the curtain drew up, a general “Ah!” of admiration was heard, and, suddenly carried away by their feelings, the whole audience broke into extravagant and long-enduring applause, crying and shouting, “_Evviva Corilla! l’improvisatrice Corilla!_”

And in fact it was an admirable picture which was there presented to the audience. Those flower-strewed steps led up to an altar, upon the centre of which, between wreaths of flowers, shot up two dark-red flames. Against that altar leaned, exalted and august as a Grecian priestess, the improvisatrice Corilla. Her eyes raised to the heavens, her features lighted up with a rosy glow by the red flames, her half-raised right arm resting upon an urn, while her left arm was stretched upward toward heaven, she thus resembled an inspired priestess, just receiving a message from on high, listening with ecstasy, with suppressed breath and parted lips, to the voice of the Deity, and forgetting the world in a blissful intoxication, she seemed about to take her flight to the empyrean!

And while Corilla, as if absorbed in spiritual contemplation, continued to stand immovable there, began the low notes of a harp, which, gradually becoming fuller and stronger, at length resounded in powerfully rushing and exultant tones. From Corilla all eyes were now turned upon Carlo, who, in the light dress of a Greek youth, his harp upon his arm, was leaning against a pomegranate tree placed in the background of the stage, and with his pale, serious face, with his noble, manly features, formed a beautiful contrast to the inspired and love-beaming priestess Corilla.

Natalie, feeling something like a slight puncture in her heart, involuntarily carried her hand to her bosom. It was a strange, a wonderful feeling, which stirred within her, partly partaking of joy at seeing and hearing her friend Carlo, as people were murmuring praises of his beauty, and of his great skill upon the harp, and partly a feeling of painful emotion. She knew not why, but as her glance met his, it quickly turned toward Corilla, and quite sadly she said to herself: “She is much handsomer than I!”

Carlo now opened his lips, and to a beautifully simple melody he sweetly sang an introductory song, as it were to prepare the audience for the coming solemnity. Having finished this, two lovely _amourettes_ came forward, with silver vases in their hands, and hastened down the steps to the audience, politely requesting them to furnish themes for the great improvisatrice Corilla.

Then, returning to the altar, they threw into the urn the small scraps of paper on which the guests has proposed themes. The harp again resounded, and with a solemn earnestness, her face and glance still directed upward, Corilla drew one of the little strips of paper from the urn. Accident, or perhaps her own dexterity, had favored her.

“Sappho’s lament before throwing herself from the rocks”--that was the theme proposed.

Corilla’s face immediately took an expression of sadness; her eyes flashed with an unnatural fire; her previously raised arm fell powerless by her side; her head, like a broken rose, sank upon her breast; her other hand convulsively grasped the urn, and in this position she in fact resembled an abandoned mourner, weeping over the ashes of her lost happiness. She was now the repudiated and forsaken one who, ready to resign her life, was brooding upon thoughts of death. And while her face took this expression, and she, staring upon the earth before her, seemed to be meditating upon irremediable fate, thought Corilla: “This is a charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso rhyme will here be the most appropriate!”

Again she directed her gaze, with a gloomy expression, toward the heavens, and with a violently heaving bosom, with feverishly flitting breath, she began the lament of Sappho. Now like rattling thunder, now like the gentle breathings of the flute, rolled this sweet and picturesque language of Italy from her lips--like music sounded those full, artistic rhymes, of which but few of the hearers had the least suspicion that they came from Tasso. To improvise in the Italian language is an easy and a grateful task! What wonder, then, that Corilla acquitted herself so charmingly? The audience paid no attention to the thoughts expressed; they asked not after the quintessence; they were satisfied with the agreeable sound, without inquiring into the sense of her words; it was their melody which was admired. They listened not for the thought, but only for the rhyme, and with ecstatic smiles and admiring glances they nodded to each other when, thanks to the studies which Corilla had made in Tasso, Marino, and Ariosto, she seemed of herself to find rhymes for the most difficult words.

An immense storm of applause resounded when she ended; and as if awakening from an intoxicating ecstasy, Corilla glanced around with an expression of astonishment on her features; she looked around as if she knew not whence she came, and in what strange surroundings she now found herself.

After a short pause, which Carlo filled out with his harp, she again put her hand into the urn and drew out a new theme; again the inspiration seemed to pass over her, and the holy Whitsuntide of her muse to be renewed. Constantly more and more stormily resounded the plaudits of her hearers; it was like a continued thunder of enthusiasm, a real salvo of joy. It animated Corilla to new improvisations; she again and again recurred to the urn, drawing forth new themes, and seemed to be absolutely inexhaustible.

“It is now enough,” whispered Carlo, just as she had drawn forth a new theme. “You have but a quarter of an hour left!”

“Only this theme yet,” she begged in a low tone. “It is a very happy one, it will win for me the hearts of all these cardinals and gentlemen!”

“Yet a quarter of an hour, and then your time is up,” said he. “Remember my oath, I shall keep my word!”

An inexplicable anxiety, a tormenting uneasiness, came over him; he had hardly strength and recollection sufficient to enable him to accompany Corilla, who was discussing in verse the question, “Which Rome was the happiest, ancient or modern?”

Carlo’s eyes, fixed and motionless, rested upon Natalie; it fearfully alarmed him not to be near her, not to be able to watch every one of her steps, every one of her motions; it seemed to him as if he saw that savage man with his naked dagger lurking near her! And she, was she not pale as a lily; seemed she not, in that white robe, to be already the bride of death?

“I must hasten to her, I must protect her or die!” thought he, and, with a threatening glance at Corilla, he showed her the hour. Corilla read in the expression of his face that he was in earnest with his threat, and as if her inspiration lent wings to her words, she spoke on as in a storm of inward agitation, and with words of fire she decided that modern Rome was the happiest, as she had the holy father of Christendom, her pope, and his cardinals!

The applause, the general delight, was now unbounded; cardinals were to be seen weeping with enthusiasm and joy; others with heartfelt emotion were showering words of blessing upon the improvisatrice, and all pressed toward the tribune in order to accompany her down the steps and in among the company.

A sudden thought of rescue had like a flash of lightning arisen in Carlo’s soul.

“Natalie must first be completely separated from this society, and then I will seek this man and render him incapable of mischief!” thought he.

By main strength he made himself a path through the crowd surrounding Corilla, and now stood near Cardinal Bernis, at whose side still remained Natalie and Count Paulo.

“You have struck the lyre like an Apollo,” exclaimed the cardinal to the singer.

Carlo bowed with a smile, and hastily said: “And are you ignorant, your eminence, that a much greater poetess and improvisatrice than our Corilla is in your society?”

The cardinal smilingly threatened him with his finger. “Poor Carlo, has it already come to this?” said he. “You are jealous of our delight in Corilla, and would lessen her fame, that you may make her more your own!”

“I speak the truth,” said Carlo; “a poetess is among us whom the muses themselves have consecrated, an improvisatrice, not of human composition, but by the grace of God, to whom the angels whisper the rhymes, and the muses the ideas!”

“And who, then, is this divinely-gifted artist, this consecrated daughter of the muses?” wonderingly asked the cardinal.

Carlo indicated Natalie, and bowed to the ground before her.

“Princess Tartaroff?” asked the cardinal, with astonishment.

“That she is a princess, I know not,” said Carlo, “but I am quite certain she is a poetess!”

What was it that at this moment stirred the soul of the young maiden? She now felt a pride, a blessed joy, and yet she had previously felt so sad at Corilla’s triumph! It seemed as if enthusiasm raised its wings in her, as if the word, the right word, pressed to her lips, as if she must utter in song her rejoicings and lamentings for her simultaneously felt pleasures and pains! A pure and genuine child of Nature, she felt herself the natural impulse to pour out in words, tones, and even in tears, what agitated her soul, and to which she was unable to give a name.

Cardinal Bernis had first turned imploringly to Count Paulo, praying for his permission to invite the young princess to surprise and delight the company with some of her improvisations. Others, overhearing this, mingled in the conversation, and added their requests to those of the cardinal; and, the feeling becoming general, the requests for an improvisation became universal and pressing; people, momentarily forgetting the great and celebrated improvisatrice Corilla, with a feverish curiosity turned to the new and unknown star. Corilla stood almost alone--only Cardinal Albani remaining by her side; but his tender words were not competent to appease the violent storm of jealousy that raged in her soul.

The solicitations of the curious Romans became constantly more urgent, and Count Paulo, unable longer to resist them, finally consented to leave the decision to his ward, the young princess herself.

And Natalie? She was so real and ingenuous a child of Nature that she felt no timidity in the presence of this crowd; she was so full of faith and confidence, so full of trust and human love. She thought: “Why should I not give a little pleasure to these good people who approach me with such warm sympathies? And why should I tremble before them? Did not Paulo tell me that I should feel as if I were in my garden, and it was only my trees and flowers that were looking at me with human faces? Well, then, I will so think and feel, and speak only to my dear trees and flowers!”

Beckoning Carlo with a charming smile, guided by his hand, she hastily ascended the steps. And as they saw her there upon the stage, this delicate, lovely maiden--as they looked upon her spiritual maiden beauty, with the childlike expression of her noble features, with eyes that beamed with pleasure and inspiration--there arose such a storm of applause that Natalie slightly trembled, and with a sweet smile she said to Carlo: “The people here are much more boisterous than the zephyrs in our garden, but they are not so melodious, and it almost saddens the heart!”

Cardinal Bernis now approached with the silver vase. On this occasion he had taken it upon himself to collect the themes, and with a respectful bow he handed them to the princess. With a gracious smile she took one of the papers and unfolded it. The subject was, “Longing for home.”

That was a theme well calculated to inspire Natalie, and to reawaken in her all her longings, sorrows, loves, and remembrances. She suddenly felt something like a cold shudder in her heart, and glancing around with a feeling of solitude and desertion, she saw nothing but curious faces and strange, staring eyes! She, also, was repudiated and homeless, and an excessive longing for the distant unknown home of her childhood now took possession of her.

Perhaps Carlo had read her thoughts upon her brow; low and plaintive melodies poured from his harp, as it were the rustling murmurs of far-off remembrances, the sighing and sobbing of a yearning heart. And Natalie, carried away by these tones, forgetful of all around her, mindful only of the happiness of her childhood and of the lady she had so dearly loved, began to sing.

Of what she said and what she sang she was unconscious. She stood there as if elevated by inward inspiration; her eyes flashed as she stared into the far distance, and the images she saw there caused her to smile and weep at the same time; all the glow, all the childlike purity of her soul, came in words from her lips in a stream of inspiration, of painful ecstasy!

She saw nothing, heard nothing! She saw not the ladies weeping with emotion, not the rapturous glances of the men; she had entirely forgotten all those strange, unknown people; and when the constantly increasing storm of applause finally reminded her of them, it was all over with her inspiration--the words died upon her lips, and with a sad smile she hastened to the conclusion.

And now arose a shout and an outbreak of rapture which caused Natalie to tremble with anxious timidity. She cast a searching glance around her; it seemed to her that Paulo must come to her relief, that he must rescue and redeem her from the enthusiastic and flattering men who surrounded her. She saw him not! Where was Paulo, where was Carlo? These inquisitive lord cardinals had formed a circle around her, she seemed to herself a prisoner; it alarmed her to thus find herself the central point of all these attractions.

Not far from her stood Corilla, with glowing cheeks and anger-flashing eyes.

“I will avenge this affront or die!” thought she, as, grasping Albani’s hand with convulsive violence, she whispered to him: “Free me from this woman, and I will realize all your wishes.”

Francesco Albani smiled. “Then you are mine, Corilla, and no power on earth shall take you from me. That child is dead. See, see how she makes herself a path through the crowd--ah, it is too sultry for her here in the hall, she approaches the garden door, she slips out. Ah, give me your hand, Corilla. Yet a few moments and the fairest woman on earth is mine!”

Light as a gazelle, timid and trembling, Natalie had fled the crowd, and now, stepping out into the garden, she breathed easier, it seeming to her that she had escaped a danger.

“This night air will cool and refresh me, and I shall soon succeed in finding Paulo,” thought she, constantly wandering farther and farther into the garden. But the brightness of the illuminated alleys annoyed her. A more obscure and secluded path opening, Natalie entered it. Ah, she needed solitude and stillness, and what knew she, this simple, harmless child of Nature--what knew she whether it was proper and seemly for a young woman thus alone to venture into these dark walks? She knew not that she incurred any risk, or that one needed protection among people!

Even farther resounded the noise of the festival--the clang of the music sounded fainter and fainter. Natalie wandered farther and farther, happy because alone!

Alone? What, then, was it that noiselessly and cautiously haunted her steps, following every movement she made, constantly nearing her the farther she found herself, as she supposed, from all other living beings? What was it inaudibly creeping through the bushes, even its dark shadow imperceptible, that followed her like a ghost?