CHAPTER L

THE terrified canoness dared not venture a word in reply. There was something so resolute in Albert's air and demeanor that his good aunt quailed before it, and obeyed him with an alacrity quite surprising in her. The physician finding his authority despised, and not caring, as he afterward affirmed, to encounter a madman, wisely determined to withdraw. The chaplain betook himself to his prayers, and Albert, assisted by his aunt and two of the domestics, remained the whole day with his patient, without relaxing his attentions for an instant. After some hours of quiet, the paroxysm returned with an intensity almost greater than that of the preceding night. It was, however, of shorter duration, and when it yielded to the effect of powerful remedies, Albert desired the canoness to retire to rest, and to send him another female domestic to assist him while the two others took some repose.

"Will you not also take some rest?" asked Wenceslawa, trembling.

"No, my dear aunt," he replied, "I require none."

"Alas! my child," said she, "you will kill yourself, then," and she added as she left the room, emboldened by the abstraction of the count, "This stranger costs us dear."

He consented however to take some food, in order to keep up his strength. He eat standing in the corridor, his eye fixed upon the door, and as soon as he had finished his hasty repast, he threw down the napkin, and re-entered the room. He had closed the communication between the chamber of Consuelo and that of Amelia, and only allowed the attendants to gain access by the gallery. Amelia wished to be admitted to tend her suffering companion; but she went so awkwardly about it, and, dreading the return of convulsions, displayed such terror at every feverish movement, that Albert became irritated, and begged her not to trouble herself further but retire to her own apartment.

"To my apartment!" exclaimed Amelia; "impossible! do you imagine I could sleep with these frightful cries of agony ringing in my ears?"

Albert shrugged his shoulders, and replied that there were many other apartments in the castle, of which she might select the best, until the invalid could be removed to one where her proximity should annoy no one.

Amelia, irritated and displeased, followed the advice. To witness the delicate care which Albert displayed toward her rival was more painful than all. "O, aunt!" she exclaimed, throwing herself into the arms of the canoness, when the latter had brought her to sleep in her own bedroom, where she had a bed prepared for her beside her own, "we did not know Albert. He now shows how he can love."

For many days Consuelo hovered between life and death; but Albert combated her malady with such perseverance and skill as finally to conquer it. He bore her through this rude trial in safety; and as soon as she was out of danger, he caused her to be removed to an apartment in a turret of the castle, where the sun shone for the longest time, and where the view was more extensive and varied than from any of the other windows. The chamber, furnished after an antique fashion, was more in unison with the serious tastes of Consuelo than the one they had first prepared for her, and she had long evinced a desire to occupy it. Here she was free from the importunities of her companion, and in spite of the continual presence of a nurse, who was engaged each morning and evening, she could enjoy the hours of convalescence agreeably with her preserver. They always conversed in Spanish, and the tender and delicate manifestation of Albert's love was so much the sweeter to Consuelo in that language, which recalled her country, her childhood, and her mother. Imbued with the liveliest gratitude, weakened by sufferings in which Albert alone had effectively aided and consoled her, she submitted to that gentle lassitude which is the result of severe indisposition. Her recollections of the past returned by degrees, but not with equal distinctness. For example, if she recalled with undisguised satisfaction the support and devotion of Albert, during the principal events of their acquaintance, she saw his mental estrangement, and his somewhat gloomy passion, as through a thick cloud. There were even hours, during the half consciousness of sleep, or after composing draughts, when she imagined that she had dreamed many of the things that could give cause for distrust or fear of her generous friend. She was so much accustomed to his presence and his attentions, that if he absented himself at prayer or at meals, she felt nervous and agitated until his return. She fancied that her medicines, when prepared and administered by any other hand than his, had an effect the contrary of that which was intended. She would then observe with a tranquil smile, so affecting on a lovely countenance half-veiled by the shadow of death; "I now believe, Albert, that you are an enchanter; for if you order but a single drop of water, it produces in me the same salutary calmness and strength which exist in yourself."

Albert was happy for the first time in his life; and as if his soul was strong in joy as it had been in grief, he deemed himself, at this period of intoxicating delight, the most fortunate man on earth. This chamber where he constantly saw his beloved one had become his world. At night, after he was supposed to have retired, and every one was thought asleep in the house, he returned with stealthy steps; and while the nurse in charge slept soundly, he glided behind the bed of his dear Consuelo, and watched her sleeping, pale and drooping like a flower after the storm. He settled himself in a large arm-chair, which he took care to leave there when he went away, and thus passed the night, sleeping so lightly that at the least movement of Consuelo, he awoke and bent toward her to catch her faint words; or his ready hand received hers when, a prey to some unhappy dream, she was restless and disquieted. If the nurse chanced to awake, Albert declared he had just come in, and she rested satisfied that he merely visited his patient once or twice during the night, while in reality he did not waste half an hour in his own chamber. Consuelo shared his feeling, and although discovering the presence of her guardian much more frequently than that of the nurse, she was still so weak as to be easily deceived as to the number and duration of his visits. Often when, after midnight, she found him watching over her, and besought him to retire and take a few hours repose, he would evade her desire by saying that it was now near daybreak, and that he had just risen. These innocent deceptions excited no suspicion in the mind of Consuelo of the fatigue to which her lover was subjecting himself; and to them it was owing that she seldom suffered from the absence of Albert. This fatigue, strange as it may appear, was unperceived by the young count himself; so true is it that love imparts strength to the weakest. He possessed, however, a powerful organization; and he was animated, besides, by a love as ardent and devoted as ever fired a human breast.

When, during the first warm rays of the sun, Consuelo was able to bear removal to the half-open window, Albert seated himself behind her, and sought in the course of the clouds and in the purple tints of the sunbeams, to divine the thoughts with which the aspect of the skies inspired his silent friend. Sometimes he silently took a corner of the veil with which she covered her head, and which a warm wind floated over the back of the sofa, and bending forward his forehead as if to rest, pressed it to his lips. One day Consuelo, drawing it forward to cover her chest, was surprised to find it warm and moist; and turning more quickly than she had done since her illness, perceived some extraordinary emotion on the countenance of her friend. His cheeks were flushed, a feverish fire shone in his eyes, while his breast heaved with violent palpitations. Albert quickly recovered himself, but not before he had perceived terror depicted on the countenance of Consuelo. This deeply afflicted him. He would rather have witnessed there an emotion of contempt, or even of severity, than a lingering feeling of fear and distrust. He resolved to keep so careful a watch over himself that no trace of his aberration of mind should be visible to her who had cured him of it, almost at the price of her own life.

He succeeded, thanks to a superhuman power, and one which no ordinary man could have exercised. Accustomed to repress his emotions, and to enjoy the full scope of his desires, when not incapacitated by his mysterious disease, he restrained himself to an extent that he did not get credit for. His friends were ignorant of the frequency and force of the attack which he had every day to overcome, until, overwhelmed by despair, he fled to his secret cavern—a conqueror even in defeat, since he still maintained sufficient circumspection to hide from all eyes the spectacle of his fall. Albert's madness was of the most unhappy and yet elevated stamp. He knew his madness and felt its approach, until it had completely laid hold of and overpowered him. Yet he preserved in the midst of his attacks the vague and confused remembrance of an external world, in which he did not wish to reappear while he felt his relations with it not perfectly established. This memory of an actual and real life we all retain, when in the dreams of a painful sleep we are transported into another life—a life of fiction and indefinable visions. We occasionally struggle against these fantasies and terrors of the night, assuring ourselves that they are merely the effects of nightmare, and making efforts to awake; but on such occasions a hostile power appears to seize upon us at every effort, and to plunge us again into a horrible lethargy, where terrible spectacles, ever growing more gloomy, close around us, and where griefs the most poignant assail and torture us.

In alternations of being which bore a striking analogy to the state we have described, passed the miserable life of this powerful intellect, so totally misunderstood by all around him, and whom an active yet delicate and discriminating tenderness alone could have saved from his own distresses. This tenderness had at last been manifested. Consuelo was, of a truth, the pure and heavenly soul which seemed formed to find access to that somber and gloomy spirit, hitherto closed to all sympathy. There was something sweet and touching in the solicitude which a romantic enthusiasm had first aroused in the young girl, and in the respectful friendship which gratitude inspired in her since her illness, and which God doubtless knew to be peculiarly fitted for Albert's restoration. It is highly probable, that if Consuelo, forgetful of the past, had shared the ardor of his passion, transports so new to him, and joy so sudden, would have had the most fatal effects. The discreet and chastened friendship which she felt for him was calculated to have a slower but a more certain effect upon his health. It was a restraint as well as a benefit, and if there was a sort of intoxication in the renewed heart of the young count, there was mingled with it an idea of duty and of sacrifice, which gave other employment and another object to his will, than those which had hitherto consumed him. He therefore experienced, at the same time, the happiness of being loved as he had never been before, the grief of not being so with the ardor he himself felt, and the fear of losing his happiness if he did not appear contented with it. This threefold effect of his love soon filled his soul so completely as to leave no room for the reveries toward which his inaction and solitude had so long compelled him to turn. He was delivered from them as by the power of enchantment; for they faded from his memory and the image of her whom he loved kept his enemies at a distance, and seemed placed between them and himself like a celestial buckler.

That repose of spirit and calmness of feeling, which were so necessary to the re-establishment of the young patient, were hereafter therefore no more than very slightly and very rarely troubled by the secret agitations of her physician. Like the hero in the fable, Consuelo had descended into Tartarus to draw her friend thence, and had brought after her horror and frenzy. In his turn, he applied himself to deliver her from the inauspicious guests who had followed her, and he succeeded by means of delicate attentions and passionate respect. They began a new life together, resting on each other, not daring to look forward, and not feeling courage to plunge back in thought into the abyss they had passed through. The future was a new abyss, not less mysterious and terrible, which they did not venture to fathom. But they calmly enjoyed the present, like a season of grace which was granted them by Heaven.