by George Sand
“ ‘But Cinnabar disappeared when Count Albert died,’ said yet another. ‘Nobody’s seen him around anywhere since. He must have gone and died in some corner, and the Cinnabar we saw up there is a ghost, just like the vampire that looks like Count Albert. What an abominable sight! It’ll always be there in front of my eyes. Lord God, have mercy on us, and mercy on the soul of the baron who’s died without the sacraments because of the spirit’s malice.’
“ ‘Alas, I kept telling him he’d come to a bad end,’ said Hanz in a piteous tone, picking up shreds of the baron’s clothing with hands stained with his blood. ‘He always wanted to hunt in this thrice accursed place! He’d taken it into his head that every critter in the forest took cover here because there was never anybody in these parts, but God knows, the only game that’s ever been on this infernal mountain was the gallows bird still hanging from that oak when I was a boy. Accursed Hussite! Tree of perdition! Devoured by heaven’s fire, but as long as there’s a single root left in the earth, those evil Hussites will come back here for revenge on the Catholics. Come on, come on, hurry up with the stretcher and let’s get moving! It’s not safe here. Ah, the canoness, poor mistress, what’s to become of her? Who’ll dare be the first to go to her and say as on other days, “Here’s the baron back from the hunt.” She’ll say, “Serve lunch at once.” Ah, yes, lunch! It’ll be a long time before anyone in the castle has any appetite. Too many bad things happen in this family, and I know where that’s coming from, I do.”
“While the body was being placed on the stretcher, Hanz, pressed with questions, replied, shaking his head, ‘In that family everybody was a devout believer and died a Christian death until the day when Countess Wanda, God have mercy on her soul, died without confession. Since then they’ve all had to go the same way. Count Albert didn’t die in a state of grace, no matter what was said to him, and his worthy father was punished for it; he gave up the ghost without knowing what he was doing, so that’s another one who went without the sacraments, and I bet the canoness too will go without having had the time to think of it. Fortunately for her, that saintly woman is always in a state of grace!’
“Albert didn’t miss a single one of these distressing words, a crude expression of real grief and a terrifying reflection of the fanatical horror that people felt for both of us at Riesenburg. In a long daze he watched from afar as the lugubrious cortege wended its way over the trails through the ravine and dared not follow, even though he felt that in the natural order of things he should have been the first to bring his elderly aunt this sad news and comfort her in her mortal sorrow. But there’s no doubt that had he suddenly appeared before her eyes, she would have dropped dead or gone mad. This he understood, and he withdrew in despair to his cave where Zdenko, who had seen nothing of the worst accident of that fateful morning, was busy washing Cinnabar’s wound; but it was too late. Cinnabar, seeing his master’s return, moaned in distress; despite a broken back, he crawled to Albert and died at his feet, with his last caress. Four days later Albert returned from Riesenburg, pale and overwhelmed by these new blows. For several days he didn’t speak a word or shed a tear. At last he wept on my bosom.
“ ‘I am cursed among men,’ he told me, ‘and it seems as though God wants to shut me out of this world where I shouldn’t have loved a single soul. I can’t ever reappear there without causing terror, death, or madness. It’s all over; I mustn’t see ever again the people who looked after me as a child. Their ideas about the eternal separation of the soul and body are so absolute, so horrifying that they’d rather believe me forever chained in the grave than be exposed to seeing my sinister face again. What a strange and dreadful notion of life! The dead become objects of hatred for those who cherished them the most, and if their ghost appears, they think it’s been belched out of hell rather than sent down from heaven. Oh, poor uncle! and noble father! You were heretics in my eyes as I was in yours; and yet, if you appeared to me, if I were so fortunate as to see once again your images destroyed by death, I’d get down on my knees and reach out my arms to them; I’d believe they had come away from the bosom of God where souls go to be refreshed and forms recast. I wouldn’t say to you your abominable formulas of rejection and malediction, ungodly exorcisms born of fear and abandonment; on the contrary, I’d call out to you; I’d want to contemplate you lovingly and keep you around as salutary influences. Oh, mother, it’s all over; I’ve got to be dead for them! Let them die by me or without me!’
“Albert didn’t leave his native land until he was sure that the canoness had withstood this last blow. That old woman, as ill and tough as I am myself, also knows how to live out of a sense of duty. Respectable in her convictions and her adversity, she counts with resignation the bitter days that God wills her to endure. Yet in her pain she maintains a certain stiff pride that outlives feeling. She recently said to a person who relayed her words to us, ‘If not for reasons of duty, we’d still have to put up with life out of respect for decorum.’ That remark is a portrait of the canoness, inside and out.
“From then on Albert no longer gave any thought to leaving us, and his courage seemed to grow with his trials. He even seemed to have conquered his love for you, and throwing himself into a life given wholly to philosophy, he was apparently concerned with nothing but religion, ethics, and revolutionary action. He devoted himself to the most serious tasks, and his vast intelligence took a turn as serene and magnificent as his grieving heart had grown excessive and feverish far away from us. This bizarre man whose delirium had dismayed the souls of Catholics became a torch of wisdom for minds of a higher order. He was initiated into the Invisibles’ most intimate secrets and took rank among the leaders and fathers of the new church, who received with love and gratitude all the enlightenment he gave them. The reforms that he proposed were agreed upon, and in the exercise of a militant faith he regained hope as well as the equanimity that makes heroes and martyrs.
“He so carefully concealed from us his struggles and suffering that we assumed that he had overcome his love for you. But one day the letters from the disciples, which could no longer be kept hidden from him, brought into our sanctuary a cruel, albeit uncertain report. A few people in Berlin took you for the mistress of the Prussian king, and appearances did nothing to dispel the notion; Albert said nothing and went pale.
“ ‘My beloved friend,’ he said to me after a few moments of silence, ‘this time you’ll let me go without fear; a duty of love is calling me to Berlin, and my place is near the woman I love, who accepted my protection. I’m not assuming any rights over her. If she is drunk on the dismal happiness being ascribed to her, I won’t use any authority to make her give it up, but if, as I am sure, she is beset with snares and dangers, I’ll know how to save her from them.’
“ ‘Stop, Albert,’ I said. ‘You ought to fear the power of this fatal passion that has already done you so much harm. The suffering that it will cause you is the sole suffering beyond your strength. I can see that you are living only for virtue and love. If that love dies in your heart, will virtue be enough for you?’
“ ‘And why should my love die?’ asked Albert excitedly. ‘You think she may have already ceased to be worthy of it?’
“ ‘And what if that were the case, Albert?’
“He smiled, with those colorless lips and shining eyes that he has when in the grip of strong and painful enthusiasm.
“ ‘If that were the case,’ he replied, ‘I would go on loving her; for the past is not a fading dream in me, and you know that I’ve often confused it with the present to the point of not being able to tell one from the other. Well, I’d do the same thing again; I’d love in the past the angelic figure, the poetic soul that suddenly lit up my gloomy life and set it afire. And I wouldn’t see that the past is behind me, I’d keep its burning trace in my bosom; the one gone astray, the fallen angel would still inspire in me such tenderness and solicitude that I’d devote my life to consoling her for her fall and preserving her from the scorn of cruel me
n.’
“Albert left for Berlin with several of our friends, ostensibly to talk to his protectress, Princess Amalia, about Trenck, then in prison at Glatz, as well as some Masonic business in which she has been initiated. You saw him presiding over a lodge of Rosicrucians, and at that time he was unaware that Cagliostro, having learned his secrets in spite of us, had used that occasion to unsettle your mind by arranging for you to see Albert on the sly as though he were a ghost. Merely for having let profane eyes catch a glimpse of Masonic mysteries, scheming Cagliostro would have deserved to be forever excluded from them. But we didn’t know about this for some time, and you must remember how terrified he was leading you to the Temple. Treachery of this sort is severely punished by the disciples, and by exploiting the mysteries of his order for the so-called wonders of his wizardry the magician was perhaps risking his life, at least his great reputation as a necromancer, for we would have unmasked him and immediately cast him out.
“During that short and mysterious stay in Berlin, Albert was able to fathom your thoughts and deeds well enough to feel reassured about your situation. He kept a close eye on you without your knowing it and came back apparently calm but more ardently in love with you than ever. For several months he traveled abroad, actively serving our cause. But having been alerted that a few schemers, perhaps spies for the Prussian king, were in Berlin trying to foment a particular conspiracy that would put the existence of Freemasonry in danger and probably prove fatal to Prince Heinrich and his sister the Abbess of Quedlinburg, Albert dashed to Berlin to warn them about the absurdity of such an undertaking and the trap he thought it concealed. That’s when you saw him, and despite your horror at his apparition, you were so brave afterwards and expressed to his friends such devotion and respect for his memory that he regained hope that you loved him. He was then determined to have you learn by a series of mysterious revelations that he was truly alive. He was very often near you, and even hidden in your rooms, during your stormy exchanges with the king, without your knowing it. Meanwhile, the conspirators were bristling at the obstacles that Albert and his friends were putting in the way of their culpable or senseless designs. When the sweeper appeared, the ghost that all conspirators parade through palace hallways to create disorder and fear, Frederick II became suspicious. A new Masonic lodge was formed, with Prince Heinrich at its head, and from the very beginning it took issue with the doctrines of the lodge over which the king himself presided. This struck Frederick as a significant act of revolt. Perhaps this new lodge was in fact a clumsy mask for certain conspirators or an attempt to compromise some prominent people. Fortunately, they protected themselves against that, and the king, ostensibly furious to find only lowly culprits, but secretly satisfied not to have to scourge members of his own family, at least wanted to make an example. My son, the most innocent of all, was arrested and moved to Spandau, almost at the same time as you, whose innocence was no less established, but you were both guilty of refusing to save yourselves at anyone else’s expense, and you paid for all the others. You spent several months in prison not far from Albert’s cell, and you must have heard the passionate accents of his violin, the same way he heard those of your voice. Prompt and reliable means of escape were at his disposal, but he refused to make use of them before having ensured your own escape. The golden key is stronger than all the bolts of the royal prisons, and Prussian jailers, disgruntled soldiers, or disgraced officers for the most part, are eminently corruptible. Albert escaped at the same time as you, but you didn’t see him, and for reasons that you’ll learn later on, Liverani was charged with bringing you here. Now you know the rest. Albert loves you more than ever, but he loves you more than himself, and seeing you happy with another man will make him a thousand times less unhappy than it would to have you with him if you couldn’t fully share his happiness. The moral and philosophical laws, the religious authority under which both of you now find yourselves allow his sacrifice and render your choice free and respectable. So choose, daughter, but remember that Albert’s mother begs you on bended knee not to do any harm to her son’s sublime simplicity; don’t make for his sake a sacrifice that will embitter his life. He’ll suffer if you leave him, but it will kill him to have your pity without your love. The time has come for a decision. I mustn’t know what it is. Go to your room; there you’ll find two very different kinds of attire. The one you choose will decide my son’s fate.”
“And which one will mean my divorce from him?” asked Consuelo, trembling from head to toe.
“I was told to tell you that, but I won’t. I want to know if you’ll guess.”
With these words Countess Wanda replaced her mask, pressed Consuelo to her heart, and quickly left.
Chapter XXXVII
The two outfits that the neophyte found laid out in her room were a splendid wedding gown and a mourning dress with all the distinctive signs of widowhood. For a few seconds she hesitated. As to the choice of husband, her mind was made up, but which of these two costumes would bear witness to her intention? After brief reflection she donned the bride’s white gown, veil, flowers, and pearls. Its design was chaste and extremely elegant. Consuelo was soon ready, but when she looked at herself in the mirror framed with threatening maxims, she no longer felt like smiling as she had the first time. Her face was deathly pale, and there was fear in her heart. No matter what she decided, she felt that there would be reason for regret or remorse, that a soul would be crushed by her desertion, and her own was frightfully torn ahead of time. Seeing her cheeks and lips as white as her veil and bouquet of orange blossoms, she feared equally for Albert and Liverani the sight of such violent emotion and was tempted to put on some rouge, but she immediately discarded the notion. “While my face may be telling a lie,” she thought to herself, “will my heart be able to do the same?”
She knelt down against her bed. Hiding her face in the draperies around it, she remained absorbed in pained meditation until the clock tolled midnight. She immediately got up and saw an Invisible with a black mask standing behind her. Some vague instinct made her think it was Marcus. She was not wrong, yet he did not make himself known to her and simply said in a sad, gentle voice, “Madame, everything is ready. Please take this cloak and follow me.”
Consuelo followed the Invisible to the far end of the garden where the stream disappeared under the leafy arches of the grounds. There was an open gondola, entirely black, just like those in Venice, and she recognized the gigantic rower in the prow as Karl. Catching sight of her, he made the sign of the cross, which was his way of expressing the greatest possible joy.
“May I speak to him?” Consuelo asked her guide.
“You may say a few words to him aloud,” he replied.
“Well, dear Karl, my liberator and friend,” said Consuelo, moved to see a familiar face after having been shut away for so long among mysterious beings, “can I hope that nothing is troubling your pleasure in seeing me again?”
“Nothing, Signora!” Karl replied in a steady voice. “Nothing, except for the memory of her, who is no longer of this world, whom I always think I’m seeing right next to you. Take heart and be of good cheer, kind mistress and good sister! Here we are as we were the night of our escape from Spandau!”
“This too is a day of deliverance, brother!” said Marcus. “Let’s go; ply the oar with your skill and might, now matched by the prudence of your tongue and the strength of your soul. This does indeed resemble an escape, Madame,” he added, turning to Consuelo, “but the chief liberator is not the same. . . .”
With these words Marcus gave her his hand to help her sit down on the cushioned seat. He felt her quiver at the thought of Liverani and asked her to cover her face for just a few seconds. Consuelo obeyed, and the gondola, propelled by the deserter’s robust arm, glided swiftly over the dark, still waters.
At the end of a journey whose length could scarcely be gauged by pensive Consuelo, she heard voices and instruments in the distance; the boat slowed down and rocked a bit as it ran
aground without coming to a full stop. The hood slowly slipped off, and at the sight of the enchanting spectacle that lay before her eyes the neophyte felt that she was passing from one dream to another. The boat was skimming alongside a smooth bank bordered with flowers and fresh grasses. The rushing stream had become the broad, still waters of a vast basin that seemed all aflame, reflecting columns of light writhing like blazing serpents or bursting into showers of sparks as the gondola moved along at a slow, even pace. Wonderful music filled the resonant air and gave the impression of floating over the shrubs of roses and sweet-smelling jasmine. Once Consuelo’s eyes had grown used to the sudden brightness, she trained them on the illuminated façade of the palace that rose up nearby and plunged into the reflecting pool with magical splendor. The elegant edifice silhouetted against the starry sky, the harmonious voices, the concert of fine instruments, the open windows with their crimson curtains blazing with light and in front of them, richly attired men and women strolling about, glittering with embroidery, diamonds, gold and pearls, their powdered heads casting an effect of whiteness, something effeminate and fantastic, over social gatherings in that period—this whole princely gala, plus the beauty of a warm, clear night that sent whiffs of sweet-smelling, fresh air into the splendid rooms, thrilled Consuelo and made her feel rather drunk. A child of the people, yet the queen of patrician festivities, she could not witness a spectacle of this sort, after so many days of captivity, solitude, and somber musings, without feeling a burst of energy, a need to sing, a singular shiver at the approach of an audience. So she stood up in the gondola which was drawing nearer and nearer to the castle, and suddenly uplifted by Handel’s chorus.
See, the conqu’ring hero comes!
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums.
Sports prepare, the laurel bring,