Consuelo, p.25
Consuelo, page 25
She felt her heart sink in her bosom when at nightfall she saw the old canoness, followed by Hans, take an immense bunch of keys, and make the circuit of all the buildings and all the courts, closing the least openings, and examining the smallest recesses into which an evildoer could have crept; as if no one could sleep in security within those formidable walls, until the water of the torrent, which was restrained behind a neighboring parapet, had rushed roaring into the trenches of the château, while in addition the gates were locked and the drawbridge raised. Consuelo had so often slept, in her distant wanderings by the roadside, with no covering save her mother's torn cloak thrown over her for shelter! She had so often welcomed the dawn upon the snowy flagstones of Venice, washed by the waves, without having a moment's fear for her modesty, the only riches she cared to preserve! "Alas!" said she, "how unhappy are these people in having so many things to take care of! Security is the aim of their pursuits by day and night, and so carefully do they seek it, that they have no time to find or enjoy it." Like Amelia, therefore, she already pined in her gloomy prison—that dark and somber Castle of the Giants, where the sun himself seemed afraid to penetrate. But while the young baroness only thought of fêtes, of dresses, and whispering suitors, Consuelo dreamed of wandering beside her native wave-washed shores—a thicket or a fisher-boat for her palace, the boundless heavens for her covering, and the starry firmament to gaze on!
Forced by the cold of the climate and the closing of the castle gates to change the Venetian custom which she had retained, of watching during a part of the night and rising late in the morning, she at last succeeded, after many hours of sleeplessness, agitation, and melancholy dreams, in submitting to the savage law of the cloister, and recompensed herself by undertaking, alone, several morning walks in the neighboring mountain. The gates were opened and the bridges lowered at the first dawn of day, and while Amelia, secretly occupied in reading novels during a part of the night, slept until awakened by the first breakfast bell, Porporina sallied forth to breathe the fresh air and brush the early dew from the herbage of the forest. One morning as she descended softly on tiptoe, in order to awaken no one, she mistook the direction she ought to take among the numberless staircases and interminable corridors of the château, with which she was hardly yet acquainted. Lost in a labyrinth of galleries and passages, she traversed a sort of vestibule, which she did not recognize, imagining she should find an exit to the garden by that way. But she merely reached the entrance of a little chapel built in a beautiful but antique style, and dimly lighted from above by a circular window of stained glass in the vaulted ceiling, which threw a feeble light upon the center of the pavement, and left the extremities of the building in mysterious gloom. The sun was still below the horizon, and the morning gray and foggy. At first Consuelo thought herself in the chapel of the château, where she had heard mass the preceding Monday. She knew that the chapel opened upon the gardens; but before crossing it to go out, she wished to honor the sanctuary of prayer, and knelt upon the first step of the altar. But, as it often happens to artists to be preoccupied with outward objects in spite of their attempts to ascend into the sphere of abstract ideas, her prayer could not absorb her sufficiently to prevent her casting a glance of curiosity around her; and she soon perceived that she was not in the chapel, but in a place to which she had not before penetrated. It was neither the same shrine nor the same ornaments. Although this unknown chapel was very small, she could hardly as yet distinguish objects around her; but what struck Consuelo most was a marble statue kneeling before the altar, in that cold and severe attitude in which all figures on tombs were formerly represented. She concluded that she was in a place reserved for the sepulchers of some distinguished ancestors, and, having become somewhat fearful and superstitious since her residence in Bohemia, she shortened her prayer and rose to retire.
But at that moment when she cast a last timid look at the figure which was kneeling ten paces from her, she distinctly saw the statue unclasp its hands of stone, and slowly make the sign of the cross, as it uttered a deep sigh.
Consuelo almost fell backward, and yet she could not withdraw her haggard eyes from that terrible statue. What confirmed her in the belief that it was a figure of stone was that it did not appear to hear the cry of terror which escaped from her, and that it replaced its two large white hands one upon the other, without seeming to have the least connection with the outer world.
CHAPTER XXXV
IF the ingenious and imaginative Anne Radcliffe had found herself in the place of the candid and unskillful narrator of this veracious history, she would not have allowed so good an opportunity to escape, of leading you, fair reader, through corridors, trap-doors, spiral staircases, and subterranean passages, for half a dozen flowery and attractive volumes, to reveal to you only at the seventh, all the arcana of her skillful labors. But the strong-minded reader, whom it is our duty to please, would not probably lend herself so willingly, at the present period, to the innocent stratagem of the romancer. Besides, as it might be difficult to make her believe them, we will tell her as soon as possible the solution of all our enigmas. And to explain two of them at once, we will confess that Consuelo, after some moments of cool observation, recognized in the animated statue before her eyes, the old Count Christian, who was mentally reciting his morning prayers in his oratory, and in the sigh of compunction which unwittingly escaped from him, the same unearthly sigh which she thought she had heard close beside her, on the evening when she sang the hymn to Our Lady of Consolation.
A little ashamed of her terror, Consuelo remained rooted to her place by respect, and by the fear of disturbing so fervent a prayer. Nothing could be more solemn or more touching than to see that old man, prostrate upon the stone pavement, offering his heart to God at the opening of the day, and plunged in a sort of celestial ecstasy which appeared to close his senses to all perception of the outward world. His noble features did not betray any emotion of grief. A gentle breeze penetrating by the door which Consuelo had left open, agitated the semi-circle of silvery hair which still remained upon the back part of his head, and his broad forehead, bald to the very summit, had the yellow and polished appearance of old marble. Clothed in an old-fashioned dressing-gown of white woolen stuff, which somewhat resembled a monk's frock, and which fell in large, stiff, heavy folds about his attenuated person, he had all the appearance of a monumental statue; and after he had resumed his immovable position, Consuelo was obliged to look at him a second time, in order not to fall again into her former illusion.
After having contemplated him for some time with attention, placing herself a little on one side to see him better, she asked herself, as if involuntarily, while still lost in admiration and emotion, if the kind of prayer which this old man addressed to God was efficacious for the restoration of his unhappy son, and if a soul so passively submissive to the letter of his religious tenets, and to the rough decrees of destiny, had ever possessed the warmth, the intelligence, and the zeal which Albert required from a father's love. Albert too had a mystic soul; he also had led a devout and contemplative life; but from all that Amelia had related to Consuelo, and from what she had remarked with her own eyes during the few days she had passed at the château, Albert had never found the counsel, the guide, the friend, who could direct his imagination, diminish the vehemence of his feelings, and soften the burning sternness of his virtue. She guessed that he must feel isolated, and look upon himself as a stranger in the midst of this family so determined not to contradict him, but to grieve for him in silence either as a heretic or a madman. She felt so herself from the kind of impatience she experienced at that wearying and interminable prayer addressed to Heaven, as if to transfer to it entirely the care which they themselves ought to have employed in searching for the fugitive, in finding him, in persuading him, and bringing him home. For it must have required a fearful amount of despair and grief, to withdraw so affectionate and good a young man from the bosom of his relatives, to bury him in a complete forgetfulness of self, and to deprive him even of the recollection of the uneasiness and anxiety he might occasion to those who were dearest to him.
The resolution they had taken of never opposing him, and of feigning calmness while overcome with terror, seemed to Consuelo's lofty and well-regulated mind a species of culpable negligence or gross error. There was in such a course a sort of pride and selfishness which a narrow faith inspires in those persons who consent to wear the badge of intolerance, and who believe in only one path by which they can attain to heaven, and that path rigidly marked out by the finger of the priest. "Heavenly Father," said Consuelo, with fervent devotion, "can this lofty soul, so warm, so charitable, so free from human passions, be less precious in thy sight than the patient and slothful spirits which submit to the injustice of the world, and see without indignation justice and truth forgotten upon the earth? Was that young man possessed by the evil one, who in his childhood gave all his toys and ornaments to the children of the poor, and who, at the first awakening of his reflective powers, wished to deprive himself of all his wealth, in order to solace human miseries? And are they, these kind and benevolent lords who weep for misfortune with barren tears, and comfort it with trifling gifts—are they wise in thinking that they are to attain to heaven by prayers and acts of submission to the emperor and the pope, rather than by righteous works and great sacrifices? No, Albert is not mad; a voice cries to me from the inmost recesses of my heart, that he is the fairest type of the just man and of the saint that has issued from the hands of nature. And if painful dreams and strange illusions have obscured the clearness of his vision—if, in short, he has become deranged as they think, it is their blind contradiction, it is the absence of sympathy, it is the loneliness of his heart, which has brought about this deplorable result. I have seen the cell in which Tasso was confined as mad, and felt that he was perhaps only exasperated by injustice. In the saloons of Venice I have heard those great saints of Christendom, whose histories have haunted my dreams in childhood, and wrung tears from my aching heart, treated as madmen; their miracles called juggleries, and their revelations frenzied dreams. But by what right do these people, this pious old man, this timid canoness, who believe in the miracles of the saints and the genius of the poets, pronounce upon their child this sentence of shame and reprobation, which should be borne only by the diseased and the wicked. Mad! no, madness is horrible and repulsive! It is a punishment from God for great crimes, and can a man become mad by the very consequence of his virtue? I thought that it was enough to suffer under the weight of undeserved evil, in order to have a claim upon the respect as well as on the pity of men. And if I myself had gone mad, if I had blasphemed on that terrible day when I saw Anzoleto at another's feet, would I, therefore, have lost all title to the counsels, to the encouragements, to the spiritual cares of my Christian brethren? Would they have driven me forth or left me wandering upon the highways, saying: "There is no remedy for her; let us give her alms, and not speak to her; for since she has suffered so much she can understand nothing?' Well! it is thus that they treat this unfortunate Count Albert! They feed him, they clothe him, they take care of him, and, in a word, bestow upon him the alms of a childish solicitude. But they do not speak to him; they are silent when he questions them; they droop their heads or turn them away when he strives to persuade them. They let him fly, when the horror of solitude drives him into solitude still more profound, and wait till he returns, praying to God to watch over him and bring him back safe and well, as if the ocean were between him and the objects of his affection. And yet they think he is not far off; they make me sing to awaken him, as if he were buried in a lethargic sleep in the thickness of some wall, or in the hollow and aged trunk of some neighboring tree. And yet they have never even thought of exploring all the secrets of this old building, they have never dug into the bowels of this excavated soil! Ah! if I were Albert's father or his aunt, I would not have left one stone upon another until I had found him; not a tree of the forest should have remained standing until they had restored him to me."
Lost in her reflections, Consuelo departed noiselessly from Count Christian's oratory, and found, without knowing how, an exit from the castle leading toward the open country. She wandered through the forest paths, and sought out the rudest and most difficult, guided by a romantic hope of discovering Albert. No common attraction, no shadow of imprudent fancy carried her onward in this venturous design.
Albert filled her imagination, and occupied her waking dreams, it is true; but in her eyes it was not a handsome young man, enthusiastically attracted toward her, whom she was seeking in those desert places, in the hope of seeing and enjoying an interview with him unobserved by spectators; it was a noble and unfortunate being whom she imagined she could save, or at least calm by the purity of her zeal. She would in the same manner have sought out a venerable hermit, who required her care and assistance, or a lost child, in order to restore him to his mother. She was a child herself, and yet she enjoyed as it were a foretaste of maternal love in her simple faith, ardent charity, and exalted courage. She dreamed of and undertook this pilgrimage, as Joan of Arc had dreamed of and undertaken the deliverance of her country. It did not even occur to her that the resolution she had taken could be a subject for ridicule or blame; she could not conceive how it happened that Amelia, bound to him by the ties of blood, and in the commencement by the stronger bonds of love, should not have formed the same project and succeeded in carrying it out.
She walked forward rapidly; no obstacle deterred her. The silence of that vast forest no longer affected her mind with sadness or fear. She saw the track of wolves upon the sand, and felt no uneasiness lest she should meet the famished pack. It seemed to her that she was urged on by a divine hand which rendered her invulnerable. She knew Tasso by heart from having sung his verses every night upon the lagunes, and imagined that she was walking under the protection of his talisman, as did the generous Ubaldo to the discovery of Rinaldo, through the snares of the enchanted forest. She threaded her way through the rocks and brushwood with a firm and elastic step, her brow glowing with a secret pride, and her cheeks tinged with a delicate carnation. Never had she seemed lovelier upon the stage in her heroic characters, and yet she thought no more of the stage at this moment than she had thought of herself when she entered the theater.
From time to time she stopped, thoughtful and reflective. "And if I should meet him suddenly," thought she, "what could I say to convince and tranquilize him? I know nothing of those mysterious and profound subjects which agitate him. I merely guess their nature, through the veil of poetry which my excited imagination, unused to their contemplation, has raised around them. I ought to possess more than mere zeal and charity, I ought to have science and eloquence, to find words worthy to be listened to by a man so much my superior—by a madman so wise when compared with all the reasonable beings among whom I have lived. I will go on; God will inspire me when the moment comes; for as to myself, I might search forever, and should only lose myself more and more in the darkness of my ignorance. Ah! if I had read numberless books of religion and history, like Count Christian and Canoness Wenceslawa! If I knew by heart all the prayers of the Church, I should, no doubt, be able to apply some one of them appropriately to his unfortunate situation; but all my acquirements of this nature are limited to a few phrases of the catechism, imperfectly understood, and consequently imperfectly remembered, and I know not how to pray except through the medium of an anthem or a hymn. However sensitive he may be to music, I fear I shall not be able to persuade this learned theologian by a cadence or a sweet strain. No matter; it seems to me there is more power in my persuaded and resolute heart, than in all the doctrines studied by his parents, who are indeed both good and kind, but at the same time cold and wavering as the fogs and snows of their native mountains."
CHAPTER XXXVI
AFTER many turnings and windings through the inextricable mazes of the forest, which extended over a rough and hilly tract of country, Consuelo found herself on an elevation covered over with a confused heap of rocks and ruins, very difficult to be distinguished from each other, so destructive had been the hand of man, jealous of that of time. It now presented nothing but the appearance of a mountain of ruins, but had been formerly the site of a village, burned by order of the redoubtable blind man, the celebrated Calixtin chief John Ziska, from whom Albert believed himself to have descended, and perhaps was so in reality.
This ferocious and indefatigable captain having commanded his troops, one dark and dismal night, to attack the Fortress of the Giants, then guarded for the emperor by the Saxons, overheard his soldiers murmur, and one among them not far from him, say—"This cursed blind man supposes that all can do without light as well as he." Thereupon Ziska, turning to one of the four devoted disciples who accompanied him everywhere, guiding his horse and chariot and giving him a precise account of the position and movements of the enemy, said to him, with that extraordinary accuracy of memory, or principle of second sight, which in him supplied the place of vision: "There is a village near this, is there not?" "Yes, father," replied the Taborite guide, "to your right, upon a hill in front of the fortress." Ziska then summoned the discontented soldier whose murmurs had reached his ear: "My child," said he to him, "you complain of the darkness; go immediately and set fire to the village upon the hill to my right, and by the light of the flames we can march and fight." This terrible order was executed. The burning village lighted the march and attack of the Taborites. The Castle of the Giants was carried in two hours, and Ziska took possession of it.
