The Countess of Rudolstadt / A Sequel to "Consuelo"

by George Sand

She followed him, and by the aid of a tiny lamp, which Matteus lighted every evening, at the foot of the stairway, she hoped to find him. Before she had gone more than a few steps, however, she saw no trace of him. She looked in vain through all the house, but saw nothing, and, but for the letter she had in her hands, would have thought all that had happened a dream.

At last, she determined to return to her boudoir and read the letter, the writing of which now seemed rather counterfeited intentionally than changed by pain. It was as follows:

"I can neither see nor speak to you, but I am not forbidden to write. Will you permit me? Will you dare to reply to the stranger? Had I this happiness, I might find your letters, and place mine in a book you could leave every evening on the bench near the water. I love you passionately—madly—wildly: I am conquered—my power is crushed. My activity, my zeal, my enthusiasm for the work to which I am devoted, all, even the feeling of duty, is gone, unless you love me. Bound by oath to strange and terrible duties, by the gift and abandonment of my will, I float between the idea of infamy and suicide: I cannot think you really love me, and that, at the present moment, distrust and fear have not effaced your passion for me. Could it be otherwise? I am to you but a shadow, only the dream of a night—the illusion of a moment. Well, to win your love, I am ready, twenty times a day, to sacrifice my honor, to betray my word, and sully my conscience by perjury. If you contrived to escape from this prison, I would follow you to the end of the world, were I to expiate, by a life of shame and remorse, the intoxication of your presence, though only for a day, and to hear you say once, though but once, 'I love you.' Yet, if you refuse to unite yourself to the Invisibles, if the oaths which soon are to be exacted from you prove repugnant, it will be forbidden me ever to see you. I will not obey, for I cannot—no, I have suffered enough—I have toiled, sufficiently toiled, in the service of man. If you be not the recompense of my labor, I will have nothing more to do with it. I destroy myself by returning to earth, its laws, its habits. Take pity, take pity on me. Tell me not that you do not love me. I cannot support the blow—I will not, cannot believe it. If I did, I must die."

Consuelo read the note amid the noise of guns, bombs, and fireworks, the explosion of which she did not hear. Engrossed by what she read, she experienced, without being aware of it, the impression produced on sensitive minds by the detonation of powder, and in general, by all violent noises. This principally influences the imagination, when it does not act physically on a weak, unhealthy body, by producing painful tremors. It exalts, on the other hand, the mind and senses of brave and well-constituted persons. It awakens even in the minds of some women, intrepid instincts, ideas of strife, and vague regrets that they are not men. In fine, there is a well-marked accent which makes us find an amount of quasi-musical enjoyment in the voice of the rushing torrent, in the roar of the breaking wave, in the roll of thunder; this accent of anger, wrath, menace and pride—this voice of power, so to say, is found in the roar of artillery, in the whistling of balls, and in the countless convulsions of the atmosphere which imitate the shock of battle in artificial fire-works.

Consuelo perhaps experienced the effects of this, while she read what may really be called the first billet-doux she had ever received. She felt herself courageous, bold, and almost rash. A kind of intoxication made her feel this declaration of love more warm and persuasive than all Albert's words, precisely as she felt the kiss of Albert more soft and gentle than Anzoleto's. She then began to write without hesitation, and while the rockets shook the echoes of the park, while the odor of saltpetre stifled the perfume of flowers, and Bengalese fires illuminated the façade of the house, unnoticed by her, Consuelo wrote in reply:

"Yes, I love you—I have said so; and even if I repent and blush at it, I never can efface from the strange, and incomprehensible book of my fate, the page I wrote myself and which is in your hands. It was the expression of a guilty impulse—mad, perhaps, but intensely true, and ardently felt. Had you been the humblest of men, I would yet have placed my ideal in you. Had I degraded myself by contemptuous and cruel conduct, I would yet have experienced by contact with your heart, an intoxication I had never known, and which appeared to me to be holy as angels are pure. You see I repeat to you what I wrote in relation to the confession I made to Beppo. We do nothing but repeat to each other what we are. I think we are keenly and truly satisfied of this mutual conviction. Why and how could we be deceived? We do not, and perhaps never will, know each other, and cannot explain the first causes of this love, any more than we can foresee its mysterious ends. Listen: I abandon myself to your word, to your honor, and do not combat the sentiments you inspire. Do not let me deceive myself. I ask of you but one thing—not to feign to love me—never to see me if you do not love me—to abandon me to my fate, whatsoe'er it be, with no apprehension that I should accuse or curse you for the rapid illusions of happiness you have conferred on me. It seems to me what I ask is easy. There are moments in which I am afraid, I confess, on account of my blind confidence in you. But as soon as you appear in my presence, or when I look at your writing, which is carefully disguised, as if you were anxious to deprive me of any visible and external index; in fine, when I hear the sound even of your steps, all my fears pass away, and I cannot refrain from thinking that you are my better angel. Why hide you thus? what fearful secret is hidden by your mask and your silence? Must I fear and reject you, when I learn your name or see your face? If you are absolutely unknown to me as you have written, why yield such blind obedience to the strange law of the Invisibles, even when, as to-day, you are ready to shake off your bonds and follow me to the end of the world? And if I exacted it, and fled with you, would you take off your mask and keep no secrets from me? 'To know you,' you say, 'it is necessary for me to promise'—what? For me to bind myself to the Invisibles? To do what? Alas! must I with closed eyes, mute, and without conscience, with my mind in darkness, give up and abandon my will as you did, knowing your fate? To determine me to these unheard-of acts of devotion, would you not make a slight infraction of the regulations of your order? I see distinctly that you belong to one of those mysterious orders known here as secret societies, and which it is said are numerous in Germany; unless this be merely a political plot against——, as is said in Berlin. Let this be as it may, if I be left at liberty to refuse when I am told what is required of me, I will take the most terrible oaths never to make any revelations. Can I do more, without being unworthy of the love of a man who overcomes his scruples, and the fidelity of his oath so far as to be unwilling for me to hear that word I have pronounced myself, in violation of the prudence and modesty of my sex—'I love you.'"

Consuelo placed this letter in a book she left at the indicated place in the garden. She then went slowly away, and was long concealed in the foliage, hoping to see the Chevalier come, and fearing to leave this avowal of her sentiments there, lest it should fall into other hands. As hours rolled by without any one coming, and she remembered these words of the stranger's letter, "I will come for your answer during your sleep," she thought it best to conform in all respects to his advice, and returned to her room, where, after many agitated reveries, successively painful and delicious, she went to sleep amid the uncertain music of the ball, the fanfares which were sounded during the supper, and the distant sound of carriage wheels which announced, at dawn, the departure of the many guests from the castle.

At nine, precisely, the recluse entered the hall where she ate, and where her meals were served with scrupulous exactness, and with care worthy of the place. Matteus stood erect behind her chair, in his usual phlegmatic manner. Consuelo had been to the garden. The Chevalier had taken her letter, for it was not in the book. Consuelo had hoped to find another letter from him, and she already began to complain of lukewarmness in his correspondence. She felt uneasy, excited, and annoyed by the torpid life it seemed she was compelled to lead. She then determined to run some risk to see if she could not hasten the course of events which were slowly preparing around her. On that day Matteus was moody and silent.

"Master Matteus," said she, with forced gaiety, "I see through your mask, that your eyes are downcast and your face pale. You did not sleep last night."

"Madame laughs at me," said Matteus, with bitterness. "As madame, however, has no mask, it is easy to see that she attributes the fatigue and sleeplessness with which she herself has suffered, to me.