How great an idea he had had of Albano he now for the first time saw, by his astonishment at what was the most natural thing in the world. Never does the heart hate more bitterly than when it is compelled at length to hate, without respecting, the object which it had formerly been compelled to respect amidst its very hatred; just as, on the same ground, the bad man is much more deeply and selfishly provoked by another's hypocrisy than the good man. Roquairol fancied now he had leave to make a real foe of the proud friend; he became, instead of a German ruin, an Italian one, full of scorpions. The Princess was the hot climate which makes the scorpions for the first time really poisonous. She related to him how Albano had so long sought to win her, and to decoy her over his deep-laid mines, merely in order, at their explosion, to have the enjoyment of coldness and contempt, and how indifferently he had spoken of the Captain, without condescending so much as to hate him.
The Princess allowed the Captain to mount up one step after another on her throne, till not another remained except her own person. She offered him even the last step on condition of avenging her. He said he would avenge her and himself, for Albano had solemnly in Tartarus resigned the Countess to him. Thus did both seem to hide their real love under the mask of revenge; the Princess hers for the Captain, he his for Linda.
She brought closer and closer before his eye a plan which he did not discern, however much she stimulated him by the remark that Albano was and would be a greater favorite with women than one had hitherto thought; that even her excellent, discreet sister Idoine, if one might judge by her silent questions in letters, and other signs, had almost lost through him both of the things which she had restored to him by his sick-bed,—health and peace; and that he must never hope to see or even to make the Countess inconstant.
At last she said, slowly, the fearful words, "Roquairol, you have his voice, and she has by night no eye." "Heaven and hell!" he exclaimed, turning alternately red and pale, and looking at once into heaven and hell, whose doors sprang open before him. "Va!"[[124]] he added, quickly, without having yet fathomed the black depth of this white-foaming sea. The Princess embraced him ardently, he her still more so. "In a poetic fiction," said he, "thy thought would easily have come to me, but in actual life I have no cunning!" "O knave!" said she. As soon and as long as he might venture, he said Thou, because he knew the heart, especially woman's. Soon after, when they had been still more frank towards each other, said she: "If she remains innocent with you, then you have offended no one, and no one has lost; if not, then either she was not so, or she deserved the proof and punishment of being deluded." "Yes, that is divine,—that fits into the magnificent Tragedian, just before the end," said he, but would not explain himself on the subject.
Now was an object and centre supplied to the wild circles of his action. He coldly dissected Albano's love-letters into great and little characters, merely in order to copy them faithfully; hence it was that Albano once found at Rabette's his handwriting without his thoughts. He inquired of Rabette about all Albano's lesser relations, in order to elaborate his parts, even to the smallest particular, and even so he read all Italian tourists, in order to speak freely with Linda about every beautiful spot, where he, as the sham-Albano, had enjoyed with her Hesperian life. It tickled him that he could thus, with the flame in his breast, and with the cold ice-light in his head, now for once lay out and considerately manage, in real life, all theatrical preparations and complications, just as he had once done for the stage.
He saw Albano, whose haughty treatment he had experienced, come from his journey; he saw the blooming goddess walk in Lilar; he heard, through the spies of the Princess, of their engagement; high heaved his dead sea in heavy waves, and sought to drag down its victims from their flight, even from heaven. Immediately after the tragedy which he proposed to enact with Linda, his own was to come in the Prince's garden, which he from time to time promised and postponed; he had to wait and spy long till a time should appear into which so many teeth of a double machinery might catch at once.
At length the time appeared, and he wrote the above-exhibited letter to Linda. All was reckoned upon and settled, and every assistance of accident woven in with the plan. His tragedy had long been committed to memory by his acquaintances, although never rehearsed, because he, as he said, meant to surprise his fellow-players themselves with his part in the very midst of the play. The pleasure which he always had in bidding farewell,—because here the emotion refreshed him at once by its shortness and by its strength,—he now gave himself with as many as loved him. From Rabette he parted with so tempestuous a tenderness that she said to him, with alarm, "Charles, I hope this does not signify anything evil?" "All is evil in me, just now," said he.
Through the intercession of the Princess the most important spectators were invited for the next day to his tragedy, even Gaspard and Julienne, together with the court. The mystery took. Even from the Princess his part was concealed. Only his father, who would have been glad to follow the court, he struck off the list by putting him into a great rage, for he knew of no other way of keeping him back than by this thorn-hedge. His mother and Rabette he had conjured by their welfare, by his welfare, not to be spectators of his play.
A new wind of fortune had come to help him raise his flying-machine, through the singular brother of the Knight, who heard with such joy of the Iron Mask of his tragic mask, that he came to him with the proposal of introducing to him a new and wonderful player. "All the parts are taken up," said the poet. "Make a chorus between the acts, and give it to one," said the Spaniard. Roquairol asked after the player's name. The Spaniard led him to his hotel. No sooner had they entered, than a voice from within his chamber called, in a guttural, animal's voice, "Back again so soon, my master?" They found within nothing but a black jay. "Post the bird on the stage, let him be the Chorus; let him repeat in half-song,[[125]] mezza voce, only two or three lines; the effect will be felt," said the Spaniard.
Roquairol was astonished at the long recitations of the jay. The Spaniard begged him to dictate a still longer one, that he might with his own ears hear him drill it into the bird. Roquairol gave him, "In life dwells deception, not on the stage." The Spaniard gave out, at first, merely a word to be repeated, then another, repeated it three times, then said, snapping his fingers by way of incitement to the creature, "Allons diablesse!" and the animal stuttered out, in a deep, hollow tone, the whole line. Roquairol found in this comic bestial-mask something frightful, and accepted the proposal to compose some lines of a chorus and assign them to the bird, on one unique condition, namely, that the Spaniard would, the evening previous, draw away his nephew Albano from Pestitz, under some pretext or other, and then appear with him in the Prince's garden. The Spaniard said, "Sir Captain, I need no pretext; I have a true reason. I am to travel with him to meet his friend Schoppe, who will come to-morrow evening; he, too, will be one of your spectators."