CHAPTER XXXII

"ALBERT'S history will be concluded in a few words, my dear Porporina, because, unless I repeat what you have already heard, I have not much more to tell you. The conduct of my cousin during the eighteen months which I have passed here, has been a continual repetition of the extravagancies of which I have informed you. Only Albert's pretended recollection of what he had been, and what he had seen, in past ages, assumed an appearance of frightful reality, when he began to manifest a peculiar and truly wonderful faculty of which you may have heard, but in which I did not believe until I saw the proofs he gave of it. This faculty is called, I am told, in other countries, the second sight; and those who possess it are objects of great veneration among superstitious people. As for me, who know not what to think of it, and will not undertake to give you a reasonable explanation, it only adds an additional motive to deter me from becoming the wife of a man who could see all my actions, even if I were a hundred leagues off, and who could almost read my thoughts. Such a wife ought to be at least a saint, and how could she be one with a man who seems to have made a compact with Satan?"

"You have the happy privilege of being able to jest on every subject," said Consuelo; "I wonder at the cheerfulness with which you speak of things which make my hair stand on end. In what does this second sight consist?"

"Albert sees and hears what no one else can see and hear. When a person whom he loves is coming, although no one expects him, Albert announces his approach, and goes to meet him an hour beforehand. In the same way also he retires and shuts himself up in his chamber, when he feels that any one whom he dislikes is about to visit us.

"One day when he was walking with my father in a by-path on the mountains, he suddenly stopped and made a wide circuit through rocks and brushwood, in order not to pass near a certain place, which nevertheless presented nothing peculiar in its appearance. They returned by the same path a few moments after, and Albert again took the same precaution. My father, who observed this movement, pretended to have lost something, and endeavored to draw him to the foot of a cedar which appeared to be the object of his repugnance. Not only did Albert avoid approaching it, but he affected even not to walk upon the shadow which the tree cast over the path; and while my father passed and repassed under it, he manifested extraordinary uneasiness and anguish. At last, my father having stopped altogether at the foot of the tree, Albert uttered a cry and hastily called him back. But he refused for a long time to explain himself respecting this fancy, and it was only when overcome by the prayers of the whole family, that he declared that the tree marked the place of a burial, and that a great crime had been committed on this spot. The chaplain thought that if Albert knew of any murder which had formerly been committed in that place, it was his duty to inform him of it, in order to give Christian burial to the abandoned bones.

"'Take care what you do,' said Albert, with an air at the same time sad and ironical, which he often assumes. 'The man, woman, and child whom you will find there were Hussites, and it was the drunkard Wenceslas who had their throats cut by his soldiers one night when he was concealed in our woods, and was afraid of being observed and betrayed by them.'

"Nothing more was said to my cousin respecting this circumstance. But my uncle, who wished to know if it was an inspiration, or merely a caprice on his part, caused a search to be made during the night at the place which my father pointed out. They found the skeletons of a man, a woman, and a child. The man was covered with one of those enormous wooden shields which the Hussites carried, and which are easily recognized by the chalice engraved upon them, with this device in Latin around it: 'O Death, how bitter is thy coming to the wicked; but refreshing to him whose actions have been just, and directed with reference to thee!'3

"The bones were transferred to a more retired spot in the forest, and when, several days after, Albert passed the foot of the cedar a second time, my father remarked that he manifested no repugnance at walking on the place, which nevertheless had been again covered with stones and sand, and in which nothing appeared changed. He did not even remember the emotion he experienced on that occasion, and had some difficulty in recalling it to his mind on its being mentioned.

"'You must be mistaken,' said he to my father, 'and I must have been warned in some other place. I am certain there is nothing here, for I feel no cold, nor pain, nor shivering!'

"My aunt was inclined to attribute this power of divination to the special favor of Providence; but Albert is so melancholy, so tormented, so unhappy, that one can hardly think Providence would have bestowed on him so fatal a gift. If I believed in the devil, I should much sooner embrace the supposition of our chaplain, who charges all Albert's hallucinations to his account. My uncle Christian, who is a more sensible man, and firmer in his religious belief than any of the rest of us, explains many of these things very reasonably. He believes that, notwithstanding the pains taken by the Jesuits during and after the Thirty Years' War, to burn all the heretical writings in Bohemia, and particularly those which were found at the Castle of the Giants, notwithstanding the minute searches made by the chaplain in every corner after the death of my aunt Wanda, some historical documents of the time of the Hussites must have remained concealed in a secret place unknown to every body, and Albert must have found them. He thinks that the reading of those dangerous papers has vividly impressed his diseased imagination, and that he attributes to a supernatural recollection of previous existences upon earth, the impression which he then received of many details now unknown, but minutely detailed in these manuscripts. The stories he relates to us can thus be naturally explained, as well as his otherwise inexplicable disappearances for days and whole weeks; for it is as well to inform you that these have been repeated several times, and it is impossible to suppose they can be accomplished out of the château. Every time he has so disappeared it has been impossible to discover him, and we are certain that no peasant has ever given him refuge or nourishment. We know to a certainty that he has fits of lethargy which keep him confined to his chamber whole days. Whenever the door is broken open and much noise made around him, he falls into convulsions. Therefore they take good care not to do this, but leave him to his trance. At such moments extraordinary things certainly take place in his mind; but no sound, no outward agitation betrays them, and we are only informed of them afterward by his conversations. When he recovers from this state, he appears relieved and restored to reason; but by degrees the agitation returns and goes on increasing, until it overpowers him. It would seem that he foresees the duration of these crises; for when they are about to be long, he goes to a distance, or conceals himself in some lurking-place, which, it is supposed, must be a grotto of the mountain, or a subterranean chamber in the château, known to him alone. Hitherto no one has been able to discover it, and any attempt to do so is the more difficult, as we cannot watch him, and he is made dangerously ill if any one follows him, observes him, or even questions him. It has been therefore thought best to leave him entirely free, since we have come to regard these absences, which were at the commencement so terrifying, as favorable crises in his malady. When they occur, my aunt suffers the most acute anxiety, and my uncle prays, but nobody stirs; and as to myself, I can assure you I am growing very insensible on the subject. Anxiety has been succeeded by ennui and disgust, and I would rather die than marry this maniac. I admit his noble qualities; but though it may seem to you that I ought to disregard his phantasies, since they are the effect of his malady, I confess that they irritate me, and are a thorn in my life and that of my family."

"That seems to me somewhat unjust, dear baroness," said Consuelo. "That you have a repugnance to becoming Count Albert's wife I can now understand very well but that you should lose your interest in him, I confess I do not understand at all."

"It is because I cannot drive from my mind the idea that there is something voluntary in the poor man's madness. It is certain that he has great force of character and that on a thousand occasions he has considerable control over himself. He can put off the attacks of his malady at will. I have seen him master them with much power, when those around him did not seem inclined to consider them in a serious light. On the contrary, whenever he sees us disposed to credulity and fear, he appears to wish to produce an effect on us by his extravagancies, and to abuse our weakness toward him. This is why I feel annoyed, and frequently long for his patron Beelzebub to come for him at once, that we may be freed from his presence."

"These are very severe witticisms," said Consuelo, "respecting so unhappy a being, and one whose mental malady seems to me more poetical and marvelous than repulsive."

"As you please, dear Porporina," returned Amelia. "Admire these sorceries as much as you will, if you can believe in them. As for me, I look upon such things in the same light as our chaplain, who recommends his soul to God, and does not take any pains to understand them. I take refuge in the arms of reason, and excuse myself from explaining what I am sure must be capable of a very natural explanation, though at present unknown to us. The only thing certain in my cousin's miserable lot is, that his reason has entirely disappeared, and that imagination has whirled him to such a distance from earth that all his sight and sense are gone. And since I must speak plainly, and use the word which my poor uncle Christian was obliged to utter with tears, at the knees of the Empress Maria-Theresa, who is not to be satisfied with half answers or half explanations—in one word, Albert of Rudolstadt is MAD; or insane, if you consider that epithet more polite."

Consuelo only answered by a deep sigh. At that instant Amelia seemed to her to be a very hateful person, and to have a heart of iron. She tried to excuse her in her own eyes, by reflecting upon what she must have suffered during eighteen months of a life so sad, and filled with such painful emotions. Then returning to her own misfortune, "Ah!" thought she, "why cannot I place Anzoleto's fault to the score of madness? If he had fallen into delirium in the midst of the intoxications and deceptions of his first appearance on the stage, I feel that I would not have loved him any less; I should only require to know that his unfaithfulness and ingratitude proceeded from insanity, to adore him as before and fly to his assistance."

Several days passed without Albert's giving, either by his manner or his conversation, the least confirmation of his cousin's assertions respecting the derangement of his mind; but one day the chaplain having unintentionally contradicted him, he began to utter some incoherent sentences, and then, as if he were himself sensible of it, rushed hastily out of the saloon and ran to shut himself up in his chamber. They thought he would remain there a long time; but an hour afterward, he re-entered, pale and languishing, dragged himself from chair to chair, moved around Consuelo without seeming to pay any more attention to her than on other days, and ended by seeking refuge in the deep embrasure of a window, where he leaned his head on his hands, and remained perfectly motionless.

It was the hour of Amelia's music lesson, and she expressed a wish to take it, in order, as she said in a low voice to Consuelo, to drive away that gloomy figure which destroyed all her gaiety, and diffused a sepulchral odor through the apartment.

"I think," replied Consuelo, "that we had better go up to your apartment; your spinet will do for the accompaniment. If it be true that Count Albert does not like music, why augment his sufferings, and consequently those of his family?"

Amelia yielded to this last consideration, and they ascended together to her apartment, the door of which they left open, because they found it a little smoky. Amelia, as usual, wished to go on in her own way, with showy and brilliant cavatinas, but Consuelo, who began to show herself strict, made her try several simple and serious airs, taken from the religious songs of Palestrina. The young baroness yawned, became impatient, and declared that the music was barbarous, and would send her to sleep.

"That is because you do not understand it," said Consuelo. "Let me sing some passages, to show you that it is admirably written for a voice, besides being sublime and lofty in its character."

She seated herself at the spinet, and began to sing. It was the first time she had awakened the echoes of the old château, and she found the bare and lofty walls so admirably adapted for sound, that she gave herself up entirely to the pleasure which she experienced. Her voice, long mute, since the last evening when she sang at San Samuel—that evening when she fainted, broken down by fatigue and sorrow—instead of being impaired by so much suffering and agitation, was more beautiful, more marvelous, more thrilling than ever. Amelia was at the same time transported and affrighted. She was at length beginning to understand that she did not know any thing, and that perhaps she never could learn any thing, when the pale and pensive figure of Albert suddenly appeared, in the middle of the apartment, in front of the two young girls, and remained motionless and apparently deeply moved until the end of the piece. It was only then that Consuelo perceived him, and was somewhat terrified. But Albert, falling on his knees, and raising toward her his large dark eyes, swimming in tears, exclaimed in Spanish, without the least German accent, "O Consuelo! Consuelo! I have at last found thee!"

"Consuelo?" cried the astonished girl, expressing herself in the same language. "Why, señor, do you call me by that name?"

"I call you Consolation," replied Albert, still speaking in Spanish, "because a consolation has been promised to my desolate life, and because you are that consolation which God at last grants to my solitary and gloomy existence."

"I did not think," said Amelia, with suppressed rage, "that music could have produced so prodigious an effect on my dear cousin. Nina's voice is formed to accomplish wonders, I confess; but I may remark to both of you, that it would be more polite toward me, and more according to general etiquette, to use a language which I can understand."

Albert appeared not to have heard a word of what his betrothed had said. He remained on his knees, looking at Consuelo with indescribable surprise and transport, and repeating in a tender voice, "Consuelo! Consuelo!"

"But what is it he calls you?" said Amelia, somewhat pettishly, to her companion.

"He is asking me for a Spanish air, which I do not know," said Consuelo, much agitated; "but I think we had better stop, for music seems to affect him deeply today." And she rose to retire.

"Consuelo!" repeated Albert, in Spanish, "if you leave me, my life is at an end, and I will never return to earth again!" Saying this, he fell at her feet in a swoon, and the two young girls, terrified, called the servants to carry him to his apartment, and endeavor to restore him to consciousness.