Consuelo, page 85
"Even if your supposition be correct," replied Consuelo, "why use this mystery? why assume this masked countenance?"
"You know the suspicious nature of the Austrian police. Perhaps he does not stand well at the court; perhaps he may have political reasons for concealing himself, or perhaps again his countenance is not unknown to Trenck. Who knows whether he may not have encountered him during the wars in Bohemia? Whether he may not have threatened him, dared him, or perhaps forced him to let go his hold of some poor innocent? Count Albert may have secretly performed deeds of exalted courage and humanity when he was supposed to be asleep in his grotto at Schreckenstein, and if he had done such he certainly would be the last to relate them, since by your admission he is the most humble and modest of men. He acted wisely therefore in not openly chastising the Pandour; for if the empress punish the Pandour today for having devastated her dear Bohemia, she will not on that account be the more disposed to overlook any past act of resistance to his authority on the part of a Bohemian.
"All that you say is very just, Joseph, and gives room for deep thought. A thousand anxieties beset me. Albert may have been recognized and arrested, and that too without the public knowing any more about it than about the fall of Trenck down the stairs. Alas! perhaps even now he is in the prisons of the arsenal beside Trenck's dungeon, and it is on my account he incurs this misfortune!"
"Comfort yourself, Consuelo, I cannot believe that that is the case. Count Albert has left Vienna, and you will shortly receive a letter from him dated from Riesenburg."
"Do you think so, Joseph?"
"I do. But if I must tell you all, I believe that the tenor of this letter will be very different from what you expect. I am convinced that far from exacting from your generous friendship the sacrifice of your artistic career, that he has already renounced the idea of this marriage, and is about to restore you your liberty. If he be intelligent, noble, and just, as you say he is, he would hesitate to tear you from the theater which you love so passionately. Nay, never deny it! I have seen it, and he also must have seen and felt it, in witnessing Zenobia. He will therefore reject a sacrifice which is beyond your strength, and I should esteem him but little were he not to do so."
"But read his last letter! See, here it is, Joseph! Does he not say he would love me as dearly in the theater as in the world or in a convent? Does he not propose in marrying me to leave me free?"
"Saying and doing, thinking and being, are two different things. In the dream of passion all seems possible, but when realities strike our vision we return with terror to our former ideas. Never will I believe that a man of rank could bear to see his wife exposed to the caprices and outrages of the audience of a theater. In venturing behind the scenes for the first time certainly in his life, the count must have witnessed in Trenck's conduct toward you a melancholy specimen of the miseries and dangers of a theatrical career. He has fled in despair it is true, but at the same time cured of his passion, and freed from his chimeras. Pardon me that I thus address you, my dear sister Consuelo, but I feel constrained to do so; for it were well for you that you never saw Count Albert more. You will one day feel the truth of this, though your eyes now swim with tears. Be just toward your betrothed instead of feeling humiliated at his change of sentiment. When he said he was not averse to the theater, he had formed an ideal picture of it which the first inspection completely dissipated. He then became aware that he should cause you misery in taking you from it, or consummate his own in following you."
"You are right, Joseph. I feel that you are; but suffer me to weep. It is not the humiliation of being forsaken and disdained that oppresses my heart: it is my regret for the image of ideal love and its power which I had formed just as Albert had done with respect to my theatrical career. He has now seen that I can no longer be worthy of him (in the opinion of men at least), in following such a profession, and I, on my part, am forced to admit that love is not strong enough to overcome all prejudices."
"Be just, Consuelo, and do not ask more than you have been able to grant. You did not love well enough to give up your art without hesitation or regret; do not therefore take it ill if Count Albert be unable to break with the world without some degree of terror or aversion."
"But whatever might have been my secret pain (and I may confess it), I was resolved for his sake to sacrifice every thing; while he——"
"Reflect that the passion was on his side, not on yours. He asked with ardor—you consented with effort. He must have been aware that you were about to sacrifice yourself for him; and he felt that he was not only at liberty to free you from a love which you had not sought or desired, but that he was conscientiously bound to do so."
This reasoning convinced Consuelo of Albert's wisdom and generosity. She feared in giving herself up to grief to yield to the suggestions of wounded pride, and, accepting Joseph's hypothesis as correct, she succeeded in calming herself. But by a well-known contradiction of the human heart, she no sooner saw herself at liberty to follow her inclination for the theater without hindrance or remorse, than she felt terrified at her solitary position in the midst of such corruption, and at the prospect of the toils and struggles which lay before her. The theater is a feverish arena, in comparison with which all the emotions of life appear tame and lifeless; but when the actor retires from its precincts, broken down with fatigue, he feels a sensation of terror at having undergone such a fiery trial, and his longing to return is checked by fear. The rope-dancer, I imagine, is no bad type of this perilous and intoxicating life. He experiences a terrible pleasure on those lines and cords where he performs feats apparently beyond human power; but when he was descended, he shudders at the idea of again mounting the giddy height and facing at once death and triumph—that two-faced specter that ever hovers above his head.
It was then that the Castle of the Giants, and even the Stone of Terror, that nightmare of her dreams, appeared to the exiled Consuelo as a sort of lost Paradise, the abode of peace and the revered asylum of piety and virtue. She fastened the cypress branch—that last message from the grotto—to her mother's crucifix, and, thus mingling these emblems of catholicism and heresy, her heart rose to the conception of one only eternal and unalloyed religion. It was then that she found comfort for her personal sufferings, and faith in the providence of God toward Albert, and toward all that crowd of mortals, good and bad, whom henceforth she must encounter alone and unaided.
CHAPTER CI
ONE morning Porpora summoned her earlier than usual into his apartment. He had a joyous air, and held an enormous letter in one hand and his spectacles in the other. Consuelo shook and trembled through her whole frame, thinking it was at last the answer from Riesenburg. But she was soon undeceived; it was a letter from Hubert, the Porporino. This celebrated singer announced to his master that all the proposed conditions for Consuelo's engagement had been accepted, and he sent the contract, signed by Baron Poëlnitz director of the theater royal at Berlin, and only requiring Consuelo's signature and his own to complete it. To this was added a kind and even respectful letter from the baron himself, who engaged Porpora to take the direction of the King of Prussia's chapel, with the permission at the same time to bring out as many new operas and fugues as he pleased. Porporino expressed his joy at the prospect of being so soon able to sing along with a sister in Porpora, and warmly invited the maestro to quit Vienna for Sans Souci, the delightful abode of Frederick the Great.
This letter was a source of joy and at the same time of perplexity to Porpora. Fortune it would seem was about to smile upon him at last, and kingly favor, then so necessary for the success of artists, awaited him alike at Berlin, whither Frederick invited him, and at Vienna, where Maria Theresa made him such brilliant promises. In either case Consuelo must be the instrument of his victory—at Berlin in impressing the public with a favorable idea of his productions, at Vienna in marrying Joseph Haydn.
The moment was now come to place his fate in the hands of his adopted child. He gave her the option of marriage or departure, but at the same time was much less urgent in pressing on her acceptance the hand and heart of Beppo than he had been the evening before. He was somewhat tired of Vienna, and the idea of being appreciated and feasted by the enemy seemed to him a sort of vengeance, the effect of which he highly exaggerated it is true upon Austria. In short, Consuelo having said nothing about Albert, and having apparently renounced the idea of a union with him, he much preferred that she should not marry at all. Consuelo soon put an end to his uncertainty on the score of Joseph Haydn, by telling him that for many reasons she could never marry him. In the first place he had never asked her, being engaged to his benefactor's daughter, Anna Keller.
"In that case," said Porpora, "we need no longer hesitate. Here is your engagement for Berlin drawn out. Sign it, and let us set out; for there are no longer any hopes here, unless you submit to the empress' mania for matrimony. This is the price of her protection, and any refusal would sink us to the lowest point in her esteem."
"My dear master," replied Consuelo, with more firmness than she had hitherto shown toward Porpora, "I am ready to obey you as soon as I can satisfy my conscience on one important point. Certain relations of affection and esteem, not lightly to be broken, connect me with the lord of Rudolstadt. I shall not conceal from you, that, notwithstanding your incredulity, your raillery, and your reproaches, I have kept myself, during the three months I have been here, free from every engagement opposed to this marriage. But, after a decisive letter which I wrote six weeks ago, and which went through your hands, certain events have taken place which lead me to believe that the family of Rudolstadt have given me up. Each day that passes adds to my conviction that I am freed from my engagement, and at liberty to devote myself to you. You see that I accept this destiny without hesitation or regret; neverthelees, after what I have written, I could not feel satisfied without a reply. I expect it every day; it cannot be long now. Permit me, therefore, to defer the Berlin engagement until after I receive——"
"Ah! my poor child," said Porpora, who, at his pupil's first words had leveled his batteries, which were already prepared, "you will have long to wait! The reply that you expect I have received a month ago."
"And you have never shown it to me?" exclaimed Consuelo. "You have left me in this state of uncertainty? Master, you are very strange! How can I confide in you, if you deceive me thus?"
"In what have I deceived you? The letter was addressed to me, and I was enjoined not to show it to you until after I saw you cured of your foolish love, and disposed to listen to the voice of reason and the dictates of propriety."
"Are those the terms that were made use of?" exclaimed Consuelo, reddening; "it is impossible that Count Albert or Count Christian could thus have designated a friendship so calm, reserved, and proud as mine!"
"Terms are nothing," said Porpora; "people of the world always speak in polite language; but the purport of it was that the old count was not at all anxious to have a daughter-in-law picked up behind the scenes, and that when he knew that you had appeared here on the stage, he forced his son to give up the idea of such a degrading connection. The good Albert listened to reason, and set you at liberty. I see with pleasure that you are not annoyed. Then everything is for the best, and hey for Prussia!"
"Master, show me the letter," said Consuelo, "and I shall sign the contract immediately after."
"The letter? the letter?—why do you wish to see it? It would only vex you. There are certain follies which we must forgive in others as well as in ourselves. Forget all that!"
"We cannot forget by a mere act of the will," replied Consuelo; "reflection assists us, and points out motives. If I am repelled by the Rudolstadts with disdain, I shall easily be consoled. If I am restored to liberty with expressions of esteem and affection, I shall still be consoled, but in another manner and at less cost. Show me the letter then. What can you be afraid of, since, in either case, I shall obey you?"
"Well, I will show it to you," said the malicious professor opening his secretary, and pretending to search in it for the letter. He opened all his drawers, shook out all his papers, but this letter, which had never existed, was nowhere to be found. He feigned impatience, while Consuelo really felt it. She began herself to rummage, and he allowed her to do so. Porpora then endeavored to recollect the wording of it, and improvised on the instant a polite and decided version. Consuelo could not suspect her master of such systematic and prolonged dissimulation. We must state, for the honor of the old professor, that he dissembled very badly; but the candid and unsuspecting Consuelo was easily persuaded; she at last concluded that in a moment of abstraction Porpora had lighted his pipe with the letter; and, after having returned to her chamber to utter a short but fervent prayer, and vow eternal friendship on the cypress to Count Albert, even if his conduct toward her had been such as the letter stated, she returned tranquilly to sign an engagement for two months at Berlin, to commence from the end of the current month. This was more than sufficient time to arrange for their departure. When Porpora saw the freshly written signature upon the paper, he embraced his pupil, and saluted her solemnly as an artist.
"Today is your confirmation," said he, "and were it in my power to make you utter vows, I should dictate an eternal renunciation of love and marriage; for now you are priestess of harmony, and she who devotes herself to Apollo should remain, like the muses themselves, a vestal virgin."
"I feel that I ought not to vow celibacy," said Consuelo, "though at this moment it seems to me that nothing would be easier than to make such vow and keep it; but I might change my mind, and then I should regret a promise which I would be unable to break."
"You are the slave of your word, then? Yes, you differ in that respect from the rest of mankind; and I believe, did you make a solemn promise, you would religiously hold by it."
"I believe I have already given proof of that, my dear master; for, since the day of my birth, I have always been under the dominion of some vow. My mother taught me, both by precept and example, that kind of religion which she carried even to fanaticism. When we were traveling together, she was accustomed to say to me as we approached the large cities: 'My little Consuelo, if I am successful here, I take you to witness that I make a vow to go with bare feet and pray for two hours at the chapel which has the greatest reputation for the sanctity in the country.' And when she had been what she called successful, poor soul! that is to say, when she had earned a few crowns by her songs, we never failed to accomplish our pilgrimage, whatever might be the weather, and at whatever distance was the chapel in repute. That species of devotion was not indeed very enlightened nor very sublime, but nevertheless I look upon those vows as sacred; and when my mother, on her death-bed, made me swear to follow her injunctions, she knew well she could die tranquil, in the full confidence that I should keep my oath. At a later period I promised Count Albert not to think of any other but him, and to employ all my strength to love him as he wished. I have not failed in my promise, and if he did not now himself free me, I should have remained faithful to him all my life."
"Leave your Count Albert alone if you please, you must think no more of him; and since it appears that you must be under the dominion of some vow, tell me by what one you are going to bind yourself to me."
"Oh! master, trust to my reason, to my character, to my devotion toward you! do not ask me for oaths, for they are a frightful yoke to impose upon one's self. The fear of breaking them takes away the pleasure one has in thinking and acting well."
"I shall not be content with such excuses," returned Porpora, with a half severe, half jesting tone; "I see that you have made oaths to everybody except me. And since from mere good nature, without any feeling of love, you bound yourself by such weighty promises to Count Albert of Rudolstadt, who was a perfect stranger to you, I shall think it very strange if, on a day like this—a happy and memorable day, in which you are restored to liberty and wedded to your noble profession—you refuse to make the smallest vow for your old teacher and your best friend."
"Oh, yes! my best friend, my benefactor, my support, and my father!" cried Consuelo with emotion, throwing herself into Porpora's arms—Porpora, who was so chary in showing tenderness, that only twice or thrice in his whole life had he displayed his fatherly affection without concealment or reserve. "Yes, I can truly make, without terror or hesitation, the vow to devote myself to your happiness and your glory, while I breathe the breath of life."
"My happiness is your glory, Consuelo, as you well know," said Porpora, pressing her to his heart. "I cannot conceive of any other. I am not one of those old German burghers, who dream of no other felicity than that of having their little girl by their side to fill their pipe or knead their cake. I am not an invalid, I require neither slippers nor potion, thank God, and when I am reduced to that state I will not consent that you devote your days to me, as you even now do with too much zeal. No, it is not devotion which I ask of you, that you know well; what I demand is, that you shall be with heart and soul an artist. Do you promise me that you will be one, that you will combat that lauguor, that irresolution, that sort of disgust which you experienced at the commencement of your career?"
