CHAPTER XCVIII

IN the course of the day Consuelo saw a strange group defile past her window and proceed toward the public square. They were robust, weatherbeaten men, with long mustachios, naked legs, and leather sandals secured like the buskins of the ancients with thongs; they wore a sort of pointed caps, had their belts garnished with numerous pistols, and each held in his hand a long Albanian musket, while over their uncovered neck and arms was thrown a red cloak, which completed their costume.

"Is this a masquerade?" exclaimed Consuelo to the canon who had called to pay her a visit. "We are not now in the carnival that I know of."

"Look well those men," replied the canon; "it will be long ere we see the like again, if it please God to protect the reign of Maria Theresa. See how the people look at them, with a curiosity mingled with terror and disgust. Vienna saw them hasten to her assistance in her hour of anguish, and she received them more joyfully then than she does today, ashamed and terror-stricken as she is to have been indebted to them for her safety."

"Are these the Slavonian bandits of whom I heard so much in Bohemia, and who committed so many outrages there?" said Consuelo.

"They are no other," replied the canon; "they are the residue of those hordes of Croatian serfs and robbers whom the celebrated Baron Francis Trenck, cousin to your friend Baron Frederick Trenck, manumitted with incredible ability and daring, in order to enter them as regular troops in the service of the empress. Behold him! this redoubtable hero—this Trenck with the burned throat, as the soldiers call him—this famous partisan chief—the most cunning, intrepid, and necessary during the sad and bloody years gone by; the greatest romancer, the greatest robber certainly of his age, but at the same time one of the bravest, most vigorous, most active, and incredibly daring men of modern times. Behold him, Trenck, the Pandour, with his famished wolves, a savage and bloody herd, of which he is the savage shepherd!"

Baron Francis Trenck was even taller than his cousin of Prussia, and was nearly six feet six inches in height. His scarlet mantle, which was secured round his neck by a ruby clasp, was open at the breast, and displayed to view a whole museum of Turkish weapons, studded with precious stones, disposed around his person. Pistols, curved scimitars, and cutlasses—nothing was wanting to give him the appearance of the most determined and expeditious of man-slayers. His cap was adorned, instead of a plume of feathers, with a miniature scythe, with four blades falling in front. His face was frightful. Having descended into a cellar, during the pillage of a Bohemian town, in search of a quantity of concealed treasure, he incautiously approached the candle too near some barrels he thought contained the promised gold, but instead of gold the barrels contained powder, and the consequence of his mistake was an explosion which destroyed a portion of the vault and buried him in the ruins. When he was at last dug out he was almost expiring. His body was severely scorched, and his face seamed with deep and indelible wounds. "No person," say the annals of the time, "could look on him without shuddering."

"This is then that monster, that enemy of the human race!" exclaimed the horror-stricken Consuelo, turning away her eyes. "Bohemia will long remember his passage; cities burned and plundered—children and old men cut to pieces—women outraged—the country pillaged—the harvest rooted up—flocks destroyed, when they could not be carried away—everywhere ruin, murder, desolation and flames! Alas! unhappy Bohemia, the theater of so many sufferings, the scene of such dreadful tragedies!"

"Yes, unfortunate Bohemia!" replied the canon. "Ever the victim of man's fury—ever the arena of his strife! Francis Trenck renewed in that unhappy kingdom all the frightful excesses of John Ziska. Like him unconquered, he never gave quarter, and the terror of his name was so great that his outposts have taken cities even when far in advance, and while the main body were struggling with other enemies. It might be said of him, as it was of Attila, that the grass never grew where his horse had left its footmarks. The conquered will curse him to the fourth generation."

Baron Francis Trenck gradually disappeared in the distance, but Consuelo and the canon could long distinguish his richly caparisoned horses led by gigantic Croatian hussars.

"What you see," said the canon, "is but an insignificant sample of his riches. Mules and chariots, laden with arms, pictures, precious stones, and ingots of gold and silver, cover the roads which lead to his Slavonian estates. It is there that he buries treasures which might serve to ransom kings. He is served on gold plate which he took from the King of Prussia at Soraw, where the King of Prussia himself narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by him. Some say he only got off by fifteen minutes; others say that he was actually in Trenck's hands, and that he purchased his liberty dearly. But, patience! the Pandour, perhaps, will not long enjoy such glory and riches. It is said that he is threatened with a criminal charge, and that the most frightful accusations are impending over him; that the empress is terribly afraid of him, and that such of his Croatians as have not, according to their usual practice, taken French leave, are about to be incorporated with the regular troops, and disciplined in the Prussian fashion. As for himself, I augur badly of the compliments and recompenses that await him at court."

"But general report attributes to them the honor of having saved the Austrian throne."

"And doubtless they have. From the frontiers of Turkey to those of France, they have spread terror everywhere around, and have taken places the most strongly fortified and won battles at every odds. Always in the van of the army, and ever first at the escalade or in the breach, they have extorted admiration from our greatest generals. The French fled before them in every direction, and the great Frederick himself, it is said, grew pale like any other mortal when he heard their war-cry. Neither rapid torrents, nor pathless forests, nor treacherous morasses, nor steep and shelving rocks, nor showering balls, nor crackling flames, arrested their progress by night or day, in winter or in summer. Yes, most certainly they have saved Maria Theresa's throne more effectually than all the antiquated military tactics of our generals, or all the schemes of our most accomplished diplomatists."

"In that case, their crimes will be unpunished, their thefts glorified."

"Perhaps, on the contrary, they will be too severely punished."

"But a monarch would not thus requite men who had rendered such services?"

"Pardon me," exclaimed the canon, with caustic irony; "when the monarch has no more need of them——"

"But were they not suffered to commit these excesses, which they practiced in the territories of the empire, or on those of the allies?"

"Doubtless, every thing was permitted to them, because they were indispensable."

"And now?"

"And now, as they are so no longer, they are reproached with the very misdeeds which were formerly winked at."

"And the high-minded Maria Theresa?"

"Oh! they have profaned churches!"

"I understand. Trenck is lost, reverend canon."

"Hush! Speak low," replied he.

"Have you seen the Pandours?" exclaimed Joseph, running in, quite out of breath.

"With very little satisfaction," replied Consuelo.

"And did you not recollect them?"

"I see them now for the first time."

"No, it is not the first time. We met those men in the Böehmer Wald."

"Thank God, not that I recollect."

"Do you not remember a chalet where we passed the night, and where our slumbers were disturbed by some strange, fierce-looking men demanding admittance."

Consuelo did in fact remember the circumstance, but as she was very drowsy, she had not paid much attention to the men, whom both she and Joseph had taken for contrabandists.

"Well," said he, "these pretended contrabandists, who did not observe our presence, and who left the chalet before daylight, carrying bags and heavy packages, were no other than Pandours. It was the arms, the faces, the mustaches, and the cloaks, which I have just seen pass, and Providence spared us, without our knowing it, from the worst encounter we could possibly have met with."

"Without any doubt," observed the canon, to whom Joseph had often related all the details of their journey, "these worthy fellows had disbanded themselves of their own free will, as they usually do when their pockets are lined, and they were regaining their homes by a long circuit, rather than carry their booty through the heart of the empire where they might have been subjected to a reckoning. But be assured they would not reach home without molestation. They rob and assassinate each other by the way, and it is only the strongest who regain their forests and their caverns, loaded with the booty of their slaughtered companions."

The hour for the performance, which was now approaching, distracted Consuelo's attention from Trenck and his cruel Pandours, and she hastened to the theater. Here she had no dressing-room. Madame Tesi had hitherto lent her hers; but on this occasion, enraged at her success and now her sworn enemy, she had carried off the key, and the prima donna of the evening was totally at a loss how to act. These pretty treacheries are usual at theaters; they serve to annoy and harass a rival whose power is feared. She loses time in looking for an apartment; she fears she will not succeed in finding one. The hour approaches; her companions say to her in passing: "What! not dressed yet? They are going to begin!" At last, after much running to and fro, and many angry threats, she obtains an apartment where nothing she requires is at hand. The dress-makers have been bribed, and the costume is not ready, or does not fit. The tire-women are at the service of any one but the unfortunate victim. The bell rings, and the call-boy (butta fuori) bawls along the corridors: "Signore e signori, si va cominciar," terrible words which the débutante hears with affright, for she is not ready. In her haste she tears her sleeves, breaks her laces, puts on her mantle outside in, while her diadem totters and threatens to fall with the first step she makes upon the stage. Nervous, palpitating, indignant, her eyes full of tears, she must appear with a celestial smile upon her lips; her voice must be pure and fresh, when her throat is choking and her bosom ready to burst. Oh! all those crowns of flowers which rain upon the stage at the moment of her triumph are mingled with countless thorns!

Happily for Consuelo, she met Corilla, who said, taking her hand:

"Come to my room. Tesi flattered herself she could play you the same trick she practiced on me when I made my first appearance. But I will come to your assistance, were it only to enrage her! it is a Roland for her Oliver! At the rate you are getting on in public estimation, Porporina, I dread to see you outstrip me wherever I am so unfortunate as to be brought into contact with you. Then you will no doubt forget my conduct toward you here, and remember only the injury I have done you."

"The injury you have done me, Corilla?" said Consuelo, entering her rival's dressing-room and commencing her toilet behind a screen, while the German dressing-maids divided their attention between the two ladies, who could converse together in Venetian without being understood. "Really, I do not know what injury you have done me; I cannot recollect any."

"The proof that you bear a grudge against me is, that you speak to me as if you were a duchess, and look down upon me with contempt."

"Indeed," replied Consuelo, in a gentle voice, and endeavoring to overcome her repugnance to speak familiarly to a woman with whom she had so little in common. "I really cannot remember to what you allude."

"Is that true?" rejoined the other. "Have you so completely forgotten poor Zoto?"

"I was at liberty to forget him, and I did so," replied Consuelo, as she fastened her buskin with that courage and vivacity which a trying situation sometimes confers, and she warbled a brilliant roulade, to keep herself in voice.

Corilla replied by a similar one for the same purpose; then interrupting herself to address her soubrette: "What the plague! mademoiselle," said she; "you squeeze too tight. Do you take me for a Nuremburg doll? These Germans," continued she, in Venetian, "do not know what shoulders are. They would make us as square as their own dowagers, if we would suffer them. Porporina, do not let them muffle you up to the ears as they did the last time; it was ridiculous."

"As to that, my dear, it is the imperial order. These ladies are aware of it, and I do not care about such a trifle."

"A trifle! Our shoulders a trifle——"

"I do not say that with reference to you, whose shape is faultless; but as for myself——"

"Hypocrite!" said Corilla, sighing, "your are ten years younger than I am, and my shoulders will soon have nothing to recommend them but their former reputation."

"It is you who are the hypocrite," replied Consuelo, excessively wearied and annoyed with this species of conversation, and to put a stop to it she began, while arranging her hair, to repeat scales and exercises for the voice.

"Be silent!" exclaimed Corilla, suddenly, who listened in spite of herself; "you plunge a thousand daggers in my heart. Ah! I would gladly give you up all my admirers; I would be sure to find others; but your voice and manner, those I cannot compete with. Be silent, I say; I am half inclined to strangle you."

Consuelo, who saw that Corilla was but half in jest, and that this mocking flattery concealed real suffering, took it as it was intended. But after an instant's pause the latter resumed:

"How do you execute that ornament?"

"Would you like to have it? I will give it up to you," replied Consuelo, with admirable good nature. "Come, I will teach it to you; put it into your part this evening, and I shall find another."

"Yes, one still better, and I shall gain nothing by it."

"Very well, I shall not sing it at all. Porpora does not care about such things, and it will be one reproach less. Hold! here it is." And she drew from her pocket a line of music written on a scrap of folded paper, and handed it over the screen to Corilla. The latter hastened to study it, and with Consuelo's assistance succeeded in learning it, the toilet going on as before.

Before Consuelo had put on her robe, Corilla thrust aside the screen, and impatiently advanced to embrace her in gratitude for her gift. It was not gratitude alone however which prompted this demonstration; mingled with it was a treacherous wish to see if she could not detect some fault in her rival's figure. But Consuelo's waist was slender as a reed, and her chaste and noble outline needed no assistance from art. She guessed Corilla's intention, and smiled: "You may examine my person, and search my heart," thought she, "and find out nothing false in either of them."

"Zingarella," exclaimed Corilla, resuming, in spite of herself, her hostile air and sharp voice; "do you love this Anzoleto any longer?"

"No longer," replied Consuelo smiling.

"And he—did he not love you well?"

"He did not," continued Consuelo, with the same firmness and sincerity.

"Ah! then it was just as he told me," cried Corilla, fixing her clear, blue eyes on her rival's countenance, as if she hoped to detect there some hidden pang.

Consuelo was ignorant of finesse, but she had that openness and candor, which are far more powerful weapons when used to combat with trickery and cunning. She felt the blow, and calmly resisted it. She no longer loved Anzoleto, and felt no pang of wounded self-love. She therefore yielded this triumph to Corilla's vanity.

"He told you the truth," she replied; "he loves me not."

"But did you never love him?" replied the other, more astonished than pleased at this confession. Consuelo felt that here there could be no concealment. She determined that Corilla should be satisfied.

"Yes," said she, "I loved him dearly."

"And are you not ashamed to own it? Have you no pride, my poor girl?"

"Yes, enough to cure myself."

"That is to say you were philosopher enough to console yourself by encouraging another admirer. Tell me now, Porporina, who it was. It could not be that little Haydn, who is both friendless and penniless."

"That would be no reason for my not loving him. But I have consoled myself with no one in the manner you are pleased to imagine."

"Ah! I know you have pretensions. But say nothing about them here, my dear, if you would not be ridiculous."

"Therefore I shall not mention them unless I am questioned, and I do not allow every one to take that liberty; if I have suffered you to do so, Corilla, do not, unless you be an enemy, abuse the privilege."

"You are a mask!" exclaimed Corilla. "You have both wit and talent, although you pretend to be so frank. Ah! you are clever, zingarella. You will make the men believe what you please."

"I shall make them believe nothing, nor shall I suffer them to interfere in my affairs so far as to question me."

"It is the better way. They always abuse our confidence, and only extort it to load us with reproach. Ah! I admire you, zingarella. You so young, to triumph over love—the passion, of all others, the most fatal to our repose, our beauty, and our fortune. It fills me with respect! I know it by dear-bought experience; if I could have been cold, I should not have suffered so much. But look you, I am a poor creature; I was born unhappy. Ever, in the midst of my highest success, I have been guilty of some folly that spoiled every thing; I have fallen in love with some poor devil, and then adieu fortune! I might have married Zustiniani once. He adorned me, but I could not bear him. This miserable Anzoleto pleased me, and for him I sacrificed every thing. Come, you will give me your advice—will you not? You will be my friend? You will preserve me from the weaknesses, both of my heart and head. And to make a beginning, I must confess that latterly I have a feeling of preference for a man on whom fortune lowers, and who may soon prove more dangerous than useful at court. One who has millions, but who may be ruined in a twinkling. Yes, I must throw him off before he drags me down the precipice. Ah! speak of the devil—here he is! I hear him, and I feel a pang of jealousy shoot to my heart. Close your screen, Porporina, and do not stir; I would not have him know you are here."

Consuelo did as she was told: she had no wish to be seen by Corilla's admirers. A masculine voice echoed along the corridor, there was a knock, as a matter of form, and then the door was opened without the visitor waiting for a reply.

"Dreadful profession!" thought Consuelo; "no, the intoxication of the stage shall never seduce me; all behind it is too impure."

And she concealed herself in a corner, horrified at the company in which she found herself, indignant and even terrified at the manner in which Corilla had addressed her, and, for the first time in her life, brought in contact with scenes of which she could previously have formed no idea.