The Countess von Rudolstadt

by George Sand

  The orator, who acted as the intermediary between the leaders of the Invisibles and the disciples, removed his mask as well and congratulated the happy spouses. It was the Duke of ***, the rich prince who had devoted his fortune, mind, and enthusiastic zeal to the Invisibles. He was their host, and for a long while his residence had welcomed Wanda and Albert, hidden from profane eyes. It was also the headquarters for the order’s tribunal, even though it had several other venues, and rather numerous gatherings took place there only once a year, for a few days of summer, except in extraordinary cases. Initiated into all the leaders’ secrets, the duke acted for and with them, although he never betrayed their incognito. Taking upon himself alone all the dangers of the enterprise, he was their interpreter and visible means of contact with the members of the association.

  After the bride and groom had exchanged sweet expressions of joy and affection with their brothers, they all went back to their places, and the duke, acting as the orator once again, said these words to the couple crowned with flowers and kneeling at the altar, “My dear, beloved children, in the name of the true God, all power, love, and intelligence; and after him, in the name of the three virtues that are God’s reflection in the human soul: action, charity, and justice, which in practice are translated by our formula: liberty, fraternity, equality; finally, in the name of the Tribunal of the Invisibles that has devoted itself to the triple duty of zeal, faith, and study, in other words, to the triple pursuit of political, moral, and divine truths: Albert Podiebrad, Consuelo Porporina, I pronounce the ratification and confirmation of the marriage that you previously contracted before God and family, and even before a priest of the Christian religion, at the Castle of the Giants, on *** of the year 175*. This marriage, valid in the eyes of men, was not valid in the eyes of God. Three things were lacking: 1st the absolute commitment of the wife to live with a husband who seemed on the point of death; 2nd the sanction of a moral and religious authority recognized and accepted by the husband; 3rd the consent of a person here present, whose name I am not permitted to say, but who is a close blood relation to one of the spouses. If these three conditions are now fulfilled, and if neither one of you has any complaints or objections, join hands and stand to take heaven as your witness to the liberty of your act and the holiness of your love.”

  Wanda, retaining her incognito in front of the brothers of the order, took the hands of her two children. The three of them stood up, all moved by the same impulse of love and enthusiasm, as though they were one.

  The wedding formulas were spoken, and the simple, touching rites of the new religion were fulfilled in a meditative, fervent spirit. This pledging of mutual love was not an isolated act amid indifferent spectators, strangers to the spiritual bond being contracted. They were all called to sanction this religious consecration of two beings bound to them by a common faith. They raised their arms over the bride and groom to bless them, then all joined hands to form a vibrant circle, a chain of fraternal love and religious fellowship around them, while promising to help and protect them, to defend their honor and their lives, to sustain their needs if need be, to do everything to redeem them if they ever faltered along virtue’s arduous path, to preserve them as much as possible from persecution and the world’s seductions, in every occasion and at every juncture; finally, to give them a love so holy, cordial, and earnest as though they were all joined by name and blood. Handsome Trenck uttered this formula for all the others simply and eloquently, then turned to the groom and added, “Albert, it is the profane and criminal custom of the old world, from which we secretly withdraw so to bring it round to us one day, for the husband to impose fidelity on his wife in the name of a humiliating, despotic authority. If she succumbs, he must kill his rival; he even has the right to kill his wife, which is called washing in blood the stain on one’s honor. Also, in the old world, in its blindness and corruption, every man is the natural enemy of this happiness and honor, so ferociously guarded. Friends, even brothers, assume the right to rob a friend and brother of his companion’s love; or at least they give themselves the cruel and cowardly pleasure of stirring up his jealousy, rendering his surveillance ridiculous and sowing mistrust and mischief between him and the object of his love. Here, as you know, we have a better understanding of friendship, honor and family pride. We are brothers before God, and he among us who would cast a bold, disloyal glance at his brother’s wife has, in our eyes, already committed the crime of incest in his heart.”

  All the brothers, carried away by emotion, drew their swords and swore to turn these arms against themselves rather than to break the vow that they had just uttered in the words of Trenck.

  But the sibyl, in the throes of one of those inspired transports that gave her such a hold on their imagination and often modified the opinions and judgments of the leaders themselves, broke the circle and sprang into the center. Her words, always brisk and fiery, enthralled their assemblies; her great stature, the ample gowns floating over her gaunt body, her majestic though unsteady bearing, the convulsive tremor of her head with its ever present veil, and yet a sort of grace that revealed her past beauty, this charm so powerful in a woman that it lingers on even once it has disappeared and still moves the soul even though it can no longer arouse the senses; finally, even her feeble voice that suddenly, with the intensity of her feeling, burst forth in strange, strident tones; all this contributed to her mystery, almost frightening at first, and soon invested with persuasive power and irresistible fascination.

  Everyone fell silent to hear the inspired one speak. Consuelo was as moved as they were, and perhaps more so, knowing as she did the secret of that strange life. She wondered, with an involuntary shudder of horror, if this specter who had escaped the tomb was really part of this world and if, after having issued her oracle, she would not vanish into thin air with the flame of the tripod that gave her a bluish, transparent cast.

  “Hide from me the glint of these swords!” exclaimed Wanda all aquiver. “These are unholy oaths, sworn on instruments of hatred and murder. I know well that the old world was wont to gird the flank of every man reputed to be free, as a mark of independence and pride; I know well that, among the old world ideas that you’ve preserved despite yourselves, the sword is the symbol of honor, that you believe you’re undertaking sacred commitments when you swear by the sword like the citizens of ancient Rome. But here that is to profane an august oath. Swear instead by this tripod’s flame, the symbol of life, light, and divine love. But do you still need emblems and visible signs? Are you still idolaters? And the figures adorning this temple, do they represent for you something other than ideas? Ah, swear instead by your own feelings, by your better instincts, by your own hearts; and if you dare not swear by the living God, by the true, eternal, and sacred religion, swear by holy Humanity, by the glorious impulses of your courage, by this young woman’s chastity and her husband’s love. Swear by Consuelo’s genius and beauty that your desires and even your thoughts will never profane this sacred ark of marriage, this invisible, mystical altar on which the hands of the angels are engraving and recording the oath of love. . . .

  “Do you really know what love is?” added the sibyl, after having drawn into herself an instant. With every passing moment her voice was clearer and more penetrating. “If you knew, oh you venerable leaders of our order and ministers of our worship, you would never have anyone utter before you this formula of eternal commitment that God alone can ratify, which, consecrated by man, is a sort of profanation of the most divine of all mysteries. What strength can you impart to a commitment that by itself is a miracle? Yes, it is a miracle when two wills abandon themselves to each other and become one, for every soul is eternally free by divine right. And yet, when two souls give and bind themselves by love one to the other, their mutual possession becomes as sacred, as much a matter of divine right as individual liberty. You can see that it’s a miracle, and one that God keeps forever a mystery, like life and death. You’re going to ask this man and this woman if
they want to belong to each other exclusively in this life, and their fervor is such that they’ll reply, “Not just in this life, but for all eternity.” God, by the miracle of love, inspires them with far more faith, strength, and virtue than you could or would dare ask of them. Away then with sacrilegious oaths and crude laws! Leave them their ideal, and don’t fasten them down to reality with the chains of law. Let God take care of making the miracle last. Prepare souls for this miracle to happen in them, mold them to the ideal of love; exhort, instruct, praise, and demonstrate the glory of fidelity, without which there is no inner strength or sublime love. But don’t interfere, like Catholic priests, like judges back in the old world, in the oath’s fulfillment. For, I’m telling you once again, man can neither guarantee nor ensure that a miracle will last forever. What do you know about the Eternal One’s secrets? Have we already entered that temple of the future, that celestial realm where man, we are told, will converse with God in the sacred grove as a friend with his friend? Has the law of indissoluble marriage issued forth from the mouth of the Lord? Have his designs in this regard been proclaimed on earth? And you yourselves, oh children of man, have you promulgated this law with one accord? Have the pontiffs of Rome, who claim to be infallible, never dissolved a marriage? On the pretext that certain commitments were null and void, these pontiffs have consecrated veritable divorces whose scandal has gone down in history. Plus, following the example of the teachings of Moses and all the ancient religions, some Christian societies and reformed sects, the Greek church as well, have frankly inaugurated the law of divorce in our modern world. So what happens to the sanctity and efficacy of an oath made to God when it is a matter of record that man will be able to release us from it one day? Ah, don’t touch love by profaning marriage! You would only succeed in extinguishing love in pure hearts! Consecrate marriage by exhortations, prayers, public displays that give it respect, by poignant ceremonies; you must do so if you are our priests, which is to say, our friends, guides, counselors, consolers, and beacons. Prepare souls for the sanctity of a sacrament; and just as the father seeks to establish his children in conditions of comfort, dignity, and security, so should you, our spiritual fathers, work hard to establish your sons and daughters in conditions that favor the development of true love, virtue, and sublime fidelity. And when you have put them through religious ordeals to see that in their pursuit of each other there is neither cupidity nor vanity, frivolous intoxication nor sensual blindness devoid of idealism; when you are sure that they understand the grandeur of their feelings, the sanctity of their duties and the freedom of their choice, then let them give themselves to each other and alienate one to the other their inalienable liberty. Let their families, friends, and the great family of the faithful intervene with you to ratify this union that the solemnity of the sacrament must make worthy of respect. But heed my words: Let the sacrament be a religious permission, a paternal and social authorization, an encouragement and exhortation to the commitment’s perpetuity, and never a commandment, an obligation, a law with threats and punishments, imposed slavery, with scandal, prison, and chains in the case of infractions. Otherwise you’ll never see the miracle happen wholly and lastingly on earth. Providence, eternally fruitful, God, tireless giver of grace, will always bring before you young couples, fervent and naïve, ready to make sincere commitments in time and eternity. But your antireligious laws and antihuman sacraments will always destroy in them the work of grace. The inequality of conjugal rights according to one’s sex, an impiety consecrated by the laws of society, the difference between their duties in public opinion, the false distinctions of conjugal honor, and all the absurd notions born of prejudice in the wake of wicked institutions will always snuff out faith and chill the couple’s enthusiasm; and the most sincere, the most inclined to fidelity will be the first to lose heart, to have qualms about the length of their commitment and grow disenchanted with each other. Indeed, it goes against the will of nature and the cry of conscience to renounce one’s liberty whenever man gets involved, for he brings in the yoke of ignorance and brutality; it is in accord with the wish of noble hearts and necessary to the religious instincts of strong wills when it is God giving us the means to struggle against all the pitfalls that man has set up around marriage, so as to make it the tomb of love, happiness, and virtue, to turn it into sworn prostitution, as our forefathers the Lollards used to say, whom you know well and often invoke! Render unto God what is God’s, and take from Caesar that which is not Caesar’s!

  “And you, my sons,” she said returning to the center of the group, “you who have just sworn to do no harm to the marriage bond, you may not have understood that this oath means. You’ve obeyed a generous impulse and enthusiastically responded to the appeal to honor. That is worthy of you, disciples of a triumphant faith. But now I must tell you that in so doing you’ve gone beyond individual virtue and consecrated a principle without which there can never be any possibility of conjugal chastity or fidelity. So enter into the spirit of the oath and recognize that there will never be any true individual virtue until everyone stands together in this regard.

  “Oh love, oh flame sublime! so mighty and so frail, so sudden and so fleeting! A bolt out of the heavens, it seems that you have to flash through our lives and burn out in us before we ourselves die, for fear of consuming and destroying us! We all feel that you are the vital fire emanating from God himself and that he among us who could keep you burning bright and whole in his breast up to the hour of death would be the happiest and greatest of men. That is why disciples of the ideal will always seek to make you pleasing sanctuaries in their souls so that you won’t hasten to abandon them for home. But alas! you of whom we’ve made a virtue, one of the foundations of our human societies, so as to honor you as we would desire, you’ve nonetheless refused to let yourself be chained as our institutions would have it, and you’ve remained free as a bird in the sky, capricious as a flame on the altar. You seem to laugh at our oaths, our contracts, even our willpower. You fly from us, despite everything we’ve invented to fix you in our ways and habits. You dwell neither in the harem over which vigilant sentries keep watch nor in the Christian family amidst the priest’s threats, the judge’s verdicts and opinion’s yoke. Why are you so fickle, so ungrateful, oh mysterious charm, oh love cruelly symbolized as a god both infant and blind? What tenderness and scorn do these human souls inspire in you by turns? First you set them all ablaze with your fire, then you forsake nearly every one, leaving them to perish in the throes of regret, repentance or disgust, even more dreadful. Why do people all over the face of our globe invoke you on their knees, exalt and defy you? Why do divine poets sing of you as the world’s soul, and barbarians make human sacrifices to you by throwing widows onto their husbands’ funeral pyres? Why do young hearts call out to you in their sweetest dreams, and old people curse life when you abandon them to the horrors of solitude? Why this cult by turns sublime or fanatic that has been rendered you since the golden days of Humanity’s youth up though our age of iron, if you’re nothing but a chimera, a drunken moment’s dream, the delusion of an imagination excited by sensual delirium?—Oh, that is so because you’re not a vulgar instinct, a simple animal need! No, you’re not the blind infant of paganism, you are the son of the true God and the very element of Divinity! But thus far you’ve revealed yourself to us only through the clouds of our errors, and you’ve refused to dwell among us because you won’t be profaned. You’ll return, as in the mythic age of Astraea and the poets’ visions, and make your home in our earthly paradise when by sublime virtues we’ve made ourselves worthy of a guest such as you. Oh, then life on this earth will be sweet, and it will be good to be born here! Then we’ll all be sisters and brothers, and marriages will be freely consented and freely maintained just through the strength we draw from you. Then, instead of the dreadful, impossible struggle that conjugal fidelity now has to conduct against the ungodly endeavors of debauchery, hypocritical seduction, unbridled violence, treacherous friendship, and s
ophisticated depravity, every husband will find himself surrounded by nothing but chaste sisters, jealous and discerning guardians of the happiness of a sister they’ve given him to be his companion, while every wife will find in other men her husband’s brothers, happy and proud of his happiness, born protectors of his repose and dignity! Then the faithful wife will no longer be the lonely flower hiding herself away to preserve her honor’s fragile treasure, the often forsaken victim pining away alone with her tears, unable to revive in her beloved’s heart the flame that she has kept pure in her own. Then the brother will no longer be forced to avenge his sister and kill the man she loves, for whom she yearns, in order to give her back a semblance of false honor; then the mother will no longer tremble for her daughter, and the daughter will no longer be ashamed of her mother; then, above all, the husband will no longer be suspicious or despotic; and the wife will renounce the victim’s bitterness or the slave’s rancor. Atrocious suffering, abominable injustice will no longer blight the pleasant, peaceful sanctuary of the home. It will be possible for love to endure, and then who knows! perhaps one day priests and judges, rightly counting on the permanent miracle of love, will be able to consecrate indissoluble unions in the name of God himself with as much wisdom and justice as they unwittingly do today with impiety and madness.