"Nothing, signora," said Karl, calmly, "nothing but the memory of her who no longer belongs to the world, yet whom I think I always see by you. Courage and content, my dear mistress, become us. We are now just as we were when we escaped from Spandau."
"This, too, brother, is a day of delivery. Oh! thanks to the vigor and skill with which you are endowed, and which equal the prudence of your speech and the power of your mind."
"This, madame," said he to Consuelo, "is like a flight. The chief liberator, though, is not the same."
As he spoke Marcus gave her his hand, to assist her in reaching a bench, covered with cushions. He felt that it trembled slightly at the recollection of Leverani, and begged her to cover her face for but a few moments. Consuelo did so, and the gondola, wafted on by the robust arm of the deserter, slid silently over the dark and silent stream.
After an hour, the lapse of which was scarcely appreciated by the pensive Consuelo, she heard the sound of instruments, and the boat slackened its speed, without absolutely stopping, from time to time touching the shore. The hood fell slowly off, and the neophyte thought she passed from one dream to another, as she looked on the fairy scene that opened before her. The boat passed along a flowery bank, strewn with flowers and fresh grass. The water of the rivulet was collected in a large basin, as it were, and reflected the colonnades of lights which whirled around like fiery serpents, or burst into myriads of sparks on the slow and gentle wake of the gondola. Charming music floated through the air, and seemed to pass over perfumed roses and jessamines.
When the eyes of Consuelo had become accustomed to this sudden clearness, she was able to fix them on the brilliant façade of a palace, which arose at a short distance, and which reflected in the mirror of the basin with magical splendor. In this elegant edifice, which was painted on the starry sky, Consuelo saw through the open windows men and women, clad in embroidery, diamonds, gold, and pearls, moving slowly to and fro, and uniting with the general aspect of entertainments of that day something effeminate and fantastic. This princely festival, united with the effect of a warm night, which flung its beauty and perfume even amid the splendid halls, filled Consuelo with eager motion and a species of intoxication. She, a child of the people, but a queen of patrician amusements, could not witness a spectacle of this kind, after so long a period of solitude and sombre reveries, without experiencing a kind of enthusiasm, a necessity to sing, a strange agitation as she drew near the public. She then stood up in the boat, which gradually approached the castle. Suddenly, excited by that chorus of Handel, in which he sings "the glory of Jehovah, the conqueror of Judea," she forgot all else, and joined that enthusiastic chorus with her voice.
A new shock of the gondola, which, as it passed along the banks of the stream, sometimes struck a branch or a tuft of grass, made her tremble. Forced to take hold of the first hand which was stretched forth to sustain her, she became aware that there was a fourth person in the boat, a masked Invisible, who certainly was not there when she entered.
A vast gray cloak, with long folds, put on in a peculiar manner, and an indescribable something in the mask, through which the features seemed to speak—more than all, however, a pressure of the hand, apparently unwilling to let go her own, told Consuelo that the man she loved, the Chevalier Leverani, as he had appeared to her for the first time on the lake around Spandau, stood by her. Then the music, the illumination, the enchanted palace, the intoxication of the festival, and even the approach of the solemn moment which was to decide her fate—all but the present emotion was effaced from Consuelo's mind. Agitated and overcome by a superhuman power, she sank quivering on the cushions by Leverani's side. The other stranger, Marcus, was at the bow, and turned his back to them. Fasting, the story of the Countess Wanda, the expectation of a terrible dénoûement, the surprise of the festival, had crushed all Consuelo's power. She was now aware of nothing but that the hand of Leverani clasped her own, that his arm encircled her form, as if to keep her from leaving, and of the divine ecstacy which the presence of one so well beloved diffuses through the mind. Consuelo remained for a few minutes in this situation, no longer seeing the sparkling palace, which had again been lost in the night, feeling nothing but the burning breath of her lover, and the beatings of her own heart.
"Madame," said Marcus, turning suddenly towards her, "do you not know the air now sung? and will you not pause to hear that magnificent tenor?"
"Whatsoever be the air, whatsoever be the voice," said Consuelo, "let us pause or continue as you please."