The Countess von Rudolstadt

by George Sand

  “Oh yes, I felt some violent jerks. But you told me it was nothing.”

  “I hadn’t seen that the chevalier had split open the back of his hand on a harness buckle.”

  “Always for me! Tell me, Karl, has the chevalier left?”

  “Not yet, Signora, but his horse is being saddled, and I’ve just packed his bag. You’ve got nothing to fear now, he says, and the person who is to take his place with you has already arrived. I hope that we’ll see him again soon; I’d be awfully sad otherwise. Yet he won’t be pinned down, and to all my questions he always says, Perhaps!”

  “Karl, where is the chevalier?”

  “I’ve got no idea, Signora. His room is over here. Do you want me to tell him for you that . . . ?”

  “No, don’t say a thing, I’ll write something. No . . . tell him I want to thank him . . . see him for an instant, just to press his hand. . . . Go on, hurry up, I’m afraid he may be already gone.”

  Karl left, and Consuelo immediately regretted having entrusted him with this message. She told herself that if the chevalier had never remained in her proximity during this journey except when absolutely necessary, it was probably not without having promised as much to the strange, dreadful Invisibles. She made up her mind to write to him, but scarcely had she traced a few words and rubbed them out when a slight noise made her look up. There in front of her eyes was sliding open a woodwork panel that formed a secret communicating door between the little room where she had already done some writing and a nearby room, no doubt the chevalier’s. Yet the panel only opened wide enough to let through a gloved hand that seemed to beckon for Consuelo’s. She sprang up and seized that hand, saying “The other hand, the wounded one!”

  The stranger remained out of sight behind the panel and stretched forth his right hand. Consuelo took it, hurriedly undid the bandage and saw the wound which was indeed deep. She kissed it with her lips and wrapped it in her handkerchief, then drew from her breast the little filigree cross that she superstitiously cherished and put it in the beautiful hand that looked all the whiter against the crimson blood.

  “Here,” she said, “this is the most precious thing I have in the world, my mother’s legacy, my good-luck charm from which I’ve never been separated. Never have I loved anyone so much that I’d trust him with this treasure. Keep it until I find you once again.”

  The stranger drew Consuelo’s hand back behind the woodwork that kept him hidden and covered it with kisses and tears. Then, hearing Karl coming with her message, he pushed it away and hurriedly shut the panel. Consuelo heard a bolt slip. She listened in vain, hoping to catch the sound of the stranger’s voice. He was talking very quietly, or he had gone away.

  Karl returned a few seconds later.

  “He’s left, Signora,” he said gloomily. “He left without wanting to bid you farewell, and he filled my pockets with I don’t know how many ducats, for any unexpected needs you may have on the way, or so he said, given that the ordinary expenses are covered by the . . . covered by God or the devil, no matter! Now there’s a little man in black who only unclenches his teeth to give orders in a high, crisp voice. I don’t cotton to him at all. He’s the one replacing the chevalier, and I’ll have the honor of his company up on the driver’s seat, which won’t make for much lively conversation. The poor chevalier! I pray that he’ll be returned to us!”

  “But do we have to follow this little man in black?”

  “Indeed we do, Signora. The chevalier made me swear that I’d obey this one as I do him. Well, Signora, here’s your dinner. Don’t turn up your nose; it looks good. We’ll leave when it gets dark, only stopping where it may please . . . God or the devil, as I just said.”

  Consuelo, sad and bewildered, stopped listening to Karl’s chatter. She was not the least bit worried about her travels or her new guide. Nothing mattered, now that the dear stranger had abandoned her. Sunk in misery, she made perfunctory attempts to please Karl by nibbling here and there. Yet, as she felt more like crying than eating, she asked for a cup of coffee to give herself at least a little strength and bodily courage. It was brought to her.

  “Well, Signora,” said Karl, “the little gentleman insisted on making the coffee himself so that it would be really good. I’ve got the feeling he used to be a manservant or a butler and, after all, he’s not as devilish as he looks. He’s basically good-natured, I think, though he doesn’t like to gab. He gave me some schnapps aged at least a hundred years, the best I’ve ever drunk. If you wanted a little taste, it might do you more good than this coffee, no matter how delicious. . . .”

  “Karl, my good man, go drink whatever you wish, and leave me alone,” said Consuelo, gulping down her coffee, hardly giving a thought to its quality.

  She had no sooner got up from the table than she felt overcome by an extraordinary sluggishness of mind. When Karl came to tell her the carriage was waiting, he found her dozing in her chair.

  “Give me your arm,” she said. “I can’t hold myself up. I must have a fever.”

  She was so knocked out that the carriage, her new guide, and the concierge of the house, who wouldn’t accept any reimbursement from Karl on her behalf, swam before her eyes. As soon as they got moving, she went sound asleep. The carriage had been arranged and decorated with cushions like a bed. From that moment on Consuelo was conscious of nothing. She did not know how long they traveled; she did not even notice whether it was day or night, whether they stopped or went on without a break. Once or twice she caught sight of Karl at the door and understood neither what he was asking her nor why he was alarmed. It seemed to her that the little man was taking her pulse and making her drink a refreshing potion while saying, “It’s nothing. Madame is just fine.”

  Yet she felt a vague malaise, an insurmountable weariness. Her eyelids were so heavy that she could not see beyond them, and her mind was not clear enough for her to understand what objects were meeting her gaze. The more she slept, the more she wanted to sleep. It did not even occur to her to wonder if she was ill, and she could only repeat to Karl the last words she had said to him, “Leave me alone, good Karl.”

  Finally, she felt a bit freer in body and mind. Taking a look around, she understood that she was lying in an excellent bed, between four huge white satin curtains with gold fringe. The little man in charge of the voyage, who wore a black mask like the chevalier’s, was making her sniff from a phial that seemed to clear her mind and take her out of her fog into the light of day.

  “Are you a physician, sir?” she finally asked, with a bit of effort.

  “Yes, Countess, I am,” he replied in a voice that did not seem altogether unfamiliar to her.

  “Have I been ill?”

  “Just a bit under the weather. You must be feeling much better?”

  “I’m feeling fine, and I thank you for your care.”

  “Please accept my respects. Your Ladyship will not be seeing me again unless I am summoned for reasons of illness.”

  “Have I arrived at the end of my journey?”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “Am I free or a prisoner?”

  “You are free, Countess, everywhere within the bounds of your abode.”

  “I see, I’m in a big, beautiful prison,” said Consuelo looking at her large, bright room, the walls upholstered with white silk half-damask with a gold leaf motif and trimmed with magnificently sculpted, gilded woodwork. “Shall I be able to see Karl?”

  “I don’t know, Madame, I am not the master here. I am going now; you no longer need my services; and I have been forbidden to indulge in the pleasure of conversing with you.”

  The man in black left, and Consuelo, still weak and listless, tried to get up. The only garment at hand was a long gown of white wool, of a wonderfully soft texture, that looked rather like the tunic of a Roman lady. She picked it up, and out fell a note in gold lettering, “Behold the spotless robe of the neophytes. If thy soul is impure, this noble adornment of innocence will be for thee the blazing tunic of De�
�anira.”

  Consuelo, accustomed to enjoying a peaceful conscience (perhaps even too peaceful), smiled and put on the beautiful gown with naïve pleasure. She picked up the note to read it again and found it childishly emphatic. Then she went up to a sumptuous white marble dressing table with a huge mirror framed with exquisitely tasteful gilded scrollwork. But her eye was caught by an inscription placed in the ornament over this mirror, “If thy soul is as pure as my crystal, thou wilt see thyself eternally young and beautiful; yet if vice hath tarnished thy heart, thou shouldst fear finding in me a grim reflection of thy inner ugliness.”

  “Neither beauty nor blame have been my lot,” Consuelo thought to herself. “So this mirror lies in any case.”

  She gazed into the mirror without fear and did not find herself ugly. The beautiful flowing gown and her long, streaming black hair made her look like a priestess of antiquity, but she was struck by her extreme pallor. Her eyes were less clear and sparkling than usual. “Have I become ugly,” she immediately thought, “or is the mirror accusing me of something?”

  She opened a drawer of the dressing table and found, among countless tokens of studied elegance and luxury, various items with mottos and maxims that were both naïve and pedantic: a jar of rouge with these words engraved on the cover, “Fashion and falsehood! Paint doth not restore to cheeks the freshness of innocence nor erase the ravages of debauchery”; exquisite perfume, with this motto on the phial, “A faithless soul, indiscreet lips are like open phials whose precious essence hath spilled out or been corrupted”; and finally some white silk ribbons bearing these words woven in gold, “Sacred bands for a spotless brow; the cord, the torture of slaves, for a head laden with infamy.”

  Consuelo lifted her hair and complaisantly tied it up, in antique fashion, with these ribbons. Then she studied with curiosity the strange enchanted palace to which her romantic destiny had led her. She walked through the various rooms of her sumptuous, huge apartment. A library, a music room full of perfect instruments, numerous scores, and precious manuscripts, a delightful boudoir, a little gallery adorned with superb paintings and charming statues. It was worthy of a queen for its riches, of an artist for its taste, of a nun for its chastity. Dazzled by this lavish and refined hospitality, Consuelo decided that she would wait until her mind was better rested to study in detail all the symbols hidden in the choice of books, objets d’art, and paintings in this sanctuary. The desire to know where on earth this marvelous residence was located made her turn her attention to the outside. She approached a window, but before raising the taffeta blind, she found another maxim, “If the thought of evil is in thy heart, thou art not worthy to contemplate nature’s divine spectacle. If virtue dwelleth in thy soul, behold and bless the God who openeth the door of earthly paradise before thee.” She quickly opened the window to see if the landscape matched these proud promises. It was indeed an earthly paradise, and Consuelo thought she was dreaming. The garden, laid out in English fashion, a very rare thing at the time, yet with studied German elegance in its details, offered pleasant vistas, magnificent patches of shade, fresh lawns, the wild abandon of nature and, at the same time, the exquisite tidiness, the many sweet flowers, the fine sand, the crystal waters of a garden maintained with intelligence and love. Over these beautiful trees rose the high walls of a narrow valley sown or rather carpeted with flowers and crisscrossed with clear, lovely streams, a sublime horizon of blue mountains of various heights and imposing peaks. The landscape was unfamiliar to Consuelo. As far as her eyes could reach, she found nothing indicating any particular place in Germany, where there are so many beautiful sites and noble mountains. Only the more advanced flowering and the warmer climate than in Prussia attested that she had come a bit south. “O my good canon, where are you?” Consuelo thought to herself, contemplating the clumps of white lilacs, the hedges of roses, and the earth strewn with narcissus, hyacinths, and violets. “O Frederick of Prussia, bless you for having taught me through long privations and cruel trials how to savor as I ought the delights of such a refuge! And you, almighty invisible, keep me forever in this sweet captivity; I consent with all my soul . . . especially if the chevalier. . . .” Consuelo did not finish putting words to her desire. Since having emerged from her lethargy, she still had not thought about the stranger. This burning memory rose up and made her reflect on the meaning of the threatening words inscribed on all the walls and furniture of the magic palace, even on the adornments that she had ingenuously donned.

  Chapter XXIV

  Consuelo felt above all a desire and need for freedom, quite natural after so many days of slavery. So she took extreme pleasure rushing out into a vast space that looked much vaster still through the labors of art and ingenious layout of the shrubs and paths. Yet, after a two-hour walk she felt saddened by the solitude and silence that reigned over this beautiful place. She had already gone around the garden several times without seeing even the trace of a human foot on the fine, freshly raked sand. Rather high walls masked with dense vegetation prevented her from wandering off on unfamiliar paths. She already knew by heart all the ones that wove back and forth under her feet. In a few spots the wall gave way to broad moats brimming with water, and the eye could play over lovely lawns sloping up into woods or the starting points of the mysterious, charming paths that meandered off into the brush and disappeared. From her window Consuelo had the whole of nature before her eyes. Down on the ground she found herself boxed in and blocked wherever she turned, and all the exquisite things within could not overcome her feeling of being held captive. She looked around for the enchanted palace where she had awakened. It was a tiny Italianate building, luxuriously decorated inside, elegantly done outside, sitting at the foot of a steep cliff. While its effect was picturesque, the cliff formed a better natural enclosure for that whole end of the garden and a more impenetrable obstacle for the eyes than the highest walls and the thickest fortifications at Spandau. “My fortress is beautiful,” Consuelo said to herself, “but that only makes it more secure, as I can see.”

  She went to take a rest on the house terrace which was decorated with vases of flowers and a little fountain. It was a delightful spot. From there one could see nothing but the interior of a garden, with a few glimpses of the grounds of some fine estate and high mountains whose blue crests loomed over the trees, which only made the view all the more fresh and charming. Yet Consuelo, instinctively frightened by the care being taken to get her settled, perhaps for a long time, in a yet another prison, would have given all the blooming catalpas and brilliantly colored flower beds for a bit of real countryside with a little thatch-roofed cottage, bumpy roads, and the free and open look of land that one could get to know and explore. From the terrace she could not see anything in the middle ground between the high green walls that rose up all around her and the vague jagged lines of the horizon already obscured in the haze of the setting sun. The song of the nightingales was admirable, but there was no sound of a human voice announcing any neighbors. Consuelo could see that her little abode on the edge of some grand grounds and what might be a huge forest was simply a lodge belonging to a much larger estate. What she could see of the grounds only made her want to see more. Herds of elk and roe deer were ambling about, grazing on the hillsides with such confidence as though a mortal’s approach would have been an unknown experience to them. These were the sole creatures that met her eye. Finally, the evening breeze parted a curtain of poplars on one side of the garden, and in the twilight Consuelo caught a glimpse of the white turrets and pointed roofs of a rather imposing castle half concealed behind a wooded hillock about a quarter of a league away. In spite of her great desire not to dwell on the chevalier any longer, Consuelo convinced herself that he had to be there, and her eyes fastened eagerly on the castle, perhaps imaginary, whose approach seemed to her forbidden. Little by little the veils of night came over the castle, and it disappeared in the distance.

  When it was altogether dark, Consuelo saw the reflection of the lights from th
e lower floor of her lodge on the shrubs nearby, and she raced down, hoping to see at last a human face in her house. This pleasure was not afforded her. The servant whom she found busy lighting candles and serving supper was, like the doctor, wearing a black mask, which seemed to be the uniform of the Invisibles. He was old, with a wig as smooth and stiff as brass, and properly attired in a livery the color of a love apple.

  “I humbly beg Madame’s pardon,” he said in a cracked voice, “to appear before her with such a face. I’m following orders, and it is not my place to understand why this is necessary. I hope that Madame will have the grace to get used to it and not be afraid of me. I am at Madame’s service. My name is Matteus. I’m at one and the same time the keeper of this lodge, the director of the garden, the butler, and the valet. I’ve been told that Madame, having traveled a good deal, was somewhat used to looking after herself; that, for example, she might not require the services of a maid. It would be difficult for me to find a maid for Madame, seeing that I don’t have a wife and this lodge being off-limits to all the maids at the castle. Even so, a maid will come in here every morning to help me clean, and from time to time a garden boy will come water the flowers and attend to the paths. In this regard I have a most humble observation for Madame: any servant, except for me, to whom Madame is even suspected of saying a word or making a sign will be dismissed on the spot, which would be most unfortunate for that person, since this is a good household and obedience is well compensated. Madame is too generous and fair-minded, no doubt, to wish to expose these poor folks. . . .”

  “Put your mind at rest, Monsieur Matteus,” replied Consuelo. “I wouldn’t be rich enough to compensate their loss, and I’m not the kind of person to make anyone stray from his duty.”