She asked, trembling, how long the answer would tarry? "Six, eight, eleven days after the nuptials at most!" said he, reckoning. Yes, good Augusti! "Ah! we are all suffering, indeed," said she, and added, confidentially, and out of a weeping breast: "But is he well?" "He is diligent," was the reply.
So he brought her, burdened with two secrets, and for the present consenting to an interim-separation, back to her mother; but she bestowed only upon the Lector the reward of a friendly look. He desired, meantime,—after his Carthusian manner,—no other reward than the most good-natured silence toward the Minister on the subject of his interference, since the latter might hold his deserts in this connection much greater than they were.
The eight days' improvement and abstinence was announced to the Minister. He believed, however,—keeping in reserve a mistrust towards his lady,—that he could carry the war farther into the enemy's country with his own weapons; nevertheless, he contented himself, at the same time, with the new respite and Liana's disincarceration, for the sake of driving his daughter before him to his beloved at the nuptial festival, blooming and healthy as a sparkling pea-hen.
Roquairol at this moment came back, and ushered into the house a cloud or two full of beautiful, bright morning redness. He delivered to his father tidings and greetings from the Princess. To Liana he brought the echo of that beloved voice, which had once said to her heaven: "Let it be!"—ah! the last melody among the discords of the unharmonious time! He guessed easily—for he learned little from his mother, who neglected him, and nothing from her daughter—how all stood. When he was actually on the point of slipping Albano's letter to her, in the twilight of evening, into her work-bag, and she said, with an ah! of love, "No, it is against my word,—but at some future time, Charles!"—then he saw, as he expressed it, "with crying indignation, his sister, in Charon's open boat, sailing into the Tartarus of all sorrows." About his friend he thought less than of his sister. The friendly, flattering Minister—he presented, as a proof of it, a valuable saddle to the Captain—informed him of Rabette's visit, and gave hints about betrothment and the like. Charles said, boldly: "He postponed every thought of his own happiness, so long as his dear sister saw none before her." By way of drawing the old gentleman again into more interest for Liana, he suggested to him a romantic invention for the marriage festival, which Froulay did not dream of, when he already stood quite close to it; namely, Idoine (the sister of the bride) was strikingly like Liana. The Princess loved her inexpressibly, but saw her only seldom, because on account of her strong character, which once refused a royal marriage, she lived in a village built and governed by herself, in a courtly exile from court. He now proposed to his father the poetic question, whether, on the illumination night, Liana might not for a few minutes, in the dream-temple, which was entirely suited to this beautiful illusion, delight the Princess with the image of her beloved sister.
Whether it was that love toward the Princess made the Minister bolder, or he was intoxicated by the desire of brilliantly introducing Liana to her office of court-lady; suffice it, he found in the idea good sense. If anything supplied tobacco for the calumet of the ex parte peace which he had made with his son, it was this theatrical part. He hastened immediately to the Prince and the Princess with the prayer for his permission and her sympathy; and then, when he had secured both, he hastened on to his Orestes, Bouverot, and said: "Il m'est venu une idée tres singulière qui peut-être l'est trop; cependant le prince l'a approuvée," etc.,—and finally—for he must not forget her either—to Liana.
The Captain had already sought to persuade her beforehand. The mother opposed the dramatic imitation from self-respect, and Liana from humility; such a representation seemed to her a piece of presumption. But at last she gave in, simply because the sisterly love of the Princess had seemed to her so great and unattainable, just as if she did not cherish a similar sentiment in her own heart; thus she always regarded only the image in the mirror, not herself, as beautiful; just as the astronomer thinks the same evening, with its red splendors and night shadows, more sublime and enchanting, when he finds it in the moon, than when he stands in the midst of it on the earth. Perhaps, too, there entered another element of secret sweetness into Liana's love for the Prince's bride, namely, a step-daughter's affection; because she should once have been the bride of the Knight Gaspard. Women regard relationship more than we; hence, too, their ancestral pride is always several ancestors older than ours.
Thus, then, did she make ready her oppressed heart for the light plays of the shining festival, which the coming Cycles are to present on the New-Year's holiday, as it were, of a new Jubilee.
END OF VOL. I.
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