At about the same time Cecil was hastening through the streets of Rome, often looking back to see if any one was following him, and viewing with suspicious eyes every one he met. He finally stopped before the backdoor of a palace, and, after having satisfied himself that he had not been followed, he lightly knocked three times at the door. Upon its being opened, a grim, bearded Russian face presented itself.
Cecil drew a ring from his bosom and showed it to the porter.
“Quick! conduct me to his excellency,” said he.
The Russian nodded his recognition of the token, and beckoned Cecil to follow him. After a short reflection, Cecil entered and the door was closed.
Guided by his conductor through a labyrinth of rooms and corridors, Cecil finally succeeded in reaching a little boudoir, whose heavily-curtained windows hardly admitted a ray of dim twilight.
The conductor, bidding Cecil to wait here, left him alone.
In a few moments a concealed door was opened, and a man of a tall, proud form entered.
“At length!” he said, on perceiving Cecil. “I had begun to doubt your coming.”
“I waited until I could bring you decisive intelligence, your excellency,” said Cecil.
“And you bring it today?” quickly asked the unknown.
“In an hour we leave Rome for St. Petersburg!”
Uttering a loud cry of joy, the stranger walked the room in visible commotion. Cecil followed him with timid, anxious glances, and, as he still kept silence, Cecil said:
“Your excellency, I have truly performed what you required of me. I have persuaded the count to make the journey, notwithstanding his opposition to it, and, as you commanded, his ward remains behind in Rome, alone and unprotected.”
“Ah, you praise your acts because you desire your reward,” said his excellency, contemptuously opening his writing-desk, and drawing forth a well-filled purse. “You there have your pay, good man!”
Cecil indignantly rejected the money. “I am no Judas, who betrays his master for money,” said he. “Please remember, your excellency, for what I promised to fulfil your excellency’s commands, and what reward you promised me!”
“Ah, I now remember! You required my promise that no harm should befall the count!”
“Only on that condition did I promise my assistance,” said Cecil. “When your emissary sought me and called me to you, I only followed him, as you well know, most noble count, because you gave me to understand that my master’s life and safety were concerned. I came to you. Allow me, your excellency to repeat your own words. You said: ‘Cecil, you have been represented to me as a true friend of your master. Fidelity is so rare a virtue, that it deserves reward. I will reward you by saving your life. Quickly leave this traitorous count, and break off all connection with him, else you are lost. I am secretly sent here in order to capture the count and his criminal ward, and take them to St. Petersburg. What there awaits the count may easily be imagined.’ Thus speaking, your excellency then showed me the command for the count’s arrest, signed by the empress. Upon which I asked: ‘Is there no means of saving the count?’ ‘There is one,’ said you. ‘Persuade the count to return immediately to St. Petersburg, leaving his ward behind him here, and I swear to you, in the name of the empress, that no harm shall come to him.’”
“Well,” impatiently cried the count, “what is the use of repeating all that, as I know it already?”
“Only because your excellency seems to forget that what I did was not done for your miserable gold, but for a totally different reward—the safety of a man whom I love as my own son.”
“You have my word—no harm shall come to him.”
“I doubt not your excellency’s word,” firmly and decidedly responded Cecil, “your word is all-powerful, and when you let your commanding voice be heard, all Russia trembles and bows before you. But here your voice resounds only between these walls, and nobody hears it but I alone. Give me an evidence of your word—a safety-pass, signed by your own hand, for my master, and then destroy the order for his arrest which you now hold!”
“Ah, it seems you would prescribe conditions?” said the count, proudly.
“Certainly I will,” said Cecil. “I have complied with your conditions, and now it is your turn, Sir Count, to comply with mine, for you knew them before!”
A dark glow of anger showed itself in the count’s face, and, passionately starting up, he approached Cecil, raising his arm threateningly against him.
“Sir Count,” said Cecil, stepping back, “you mistake! I am no Russian serf, I am a free man, and no one has a right so to threaten me!”
The count had already let his arm fall, seeming suddenly to have changed his mind, and in a more friendly manner he said:
“You are right, Cecil, and what you desire shall be done.”
Taking a large sealed paper from a drawer in his writing-desk, he handed it to Cecil.
“That is the order for the arrest; destroy it yourself!” said he.
Taking the paper, Cecil read it with attention. “It is, as you say, the order for the arrest. It is destroyed!”
With a satisfied smile, he tore the paper into a thousand pieces, and placed these in his bosom.
The count had stepped to the table and hastily written a few lines upon another piece of paper. This he handed to Cecil. “I hope you are now satisfied,” said he.
Cecil took the paper and read it.
“This is a safety-pass in due form,” said he—“a valid instruction to all boundary guards and officials to let us pass without molestation. Your excellency, we are quits. I complied with your wish, as you now have with mine, and my dear master is saved!”
“It being understood that you start immediately,” said the count.
“The post-horses are already ordered, and we shall set out as soon as I return home. Farewell, therefore, Sir Count; I thank you for enabling me to save the man whom I most loved. I thank you!”
Cecil was approaching the door, when he suddenly stopped, and his face took a sad expression. “I have deceived my dear master, in order to save him,” said he, “and in order to redeem the promise I made to his father on his death-bed, swearing that I would watch over and protect the son at the risk of my heart’s blood. But if the son knew what I have done, he would call me a betrayer and curse me, for he holds his ward dearer than his own life! He leaves the princess in the belief that it is necessary for her safety, and repairs to Russia, to return with increased wealth. Sir Count, what is to become of Natalie?”
“That,” low and mysteriously replied the count, “that can be decided only by the will of her who has sent me. Until that decision no hair of her head can be touched, and the princess will follow me to Russia, only with her own free will! But you must know that the empress hates no one more than her own son. How, then, if she should be disposed to pass him over, and select another as her successor?”
“Oh, would to God that I rightly understand you!” exclaimed Cecil.
“We shall, one day, perfectly understand each other,” said the count, with a significant smile. “Now, hasten to redeem your word, and leave Rome with your master!”
As soon as Cecil left the room, the count’s face assumed a knavishly malicious expression. With a loud laugh he threw himself upon the silken divan.
“Thus are all these so-called good men real blockheads, stupid fools, who believe every word spoken to them with a friendly mien! This honest man really believes that his highly-prized master is now saved, because he bears in his bosom the fragments of the order for his arrest. Worthy dunce; as if there were no duplicate, and as if every promise were countersigned by the Divinity himself! Go home with your count—my word shall be fulfilled. No hair of his head shall be touched, but his proud back shall be curled, and in the mines of Siberia he may learn to bow before a higher power!”
Thus speaking, the count pulled a bell whose silken cord hung over the divan, and, as no one instantly appeared, he pulled it again, this time more violently. But yet some minutes passed, and still the bell was unanswered. The count gnashed his teeth with rage, and muttered vehement curses.
At length the door opened, and with an imploring face a servant appeared upon the threshold.
“Miserable hound, where were you?” cried the count to him.
The servant fell upon his knees and crept like a dog to his master’s feet.
“Excellency, we had, as your grace commanded, so long as the gentleman was with you, withdrawn from the anteroom and waited in the corridor, where the bell could not be heard,” stammered the servant.
“I will teach you wretches to keep me waiting,” exclaimed the count, and seizing the knout that lay upon the table before him, he laid it with merciless rage upon the poor servant, until his own arm sank powerless, and he felt himself exhausted with fatigue.
“Now, go, you hound!” said he, replacing the knout upon the table; and the flagellated serf, rising respectfully, with his hand wiped away the blood which ran in streams from his wounds.
“Now go and send my officers to me!” cried the count. The servant staggered out to obey the command, and soon the persons thus ordered made their appearance and remained standing in silence at the door.
The count lay stretched out upon the divan, playing with the knout, whose leathern thongs were still dripping with his servant’s blood.
“Let a courier take horse immediately, and give him the order countersigned by her imperial majesty for the arrest of Count Paulo Rasczinsky. The courier will follow him with it to the Russian frontier, and then by virtue of this order arrest him at the next station and send him to St. Petersburg in chains! This is the command for the courier; he will answer with his head for its execution!”
One of the officers bowed, and went to dispatch the courier.
“Is our reconnoitrer returned?” asked the count of the two who remained.
“He is.”
“What news brings he? Does he know the cause of the murderous attack at the festival of the French cardinal? Yet why do I ask you? Make yourselves scarce, and let him come to speak for himself!”
The officers were no sooner gone, than a wild-looking, bearded churl made his appearance upon the threshold of the door and greeted the count with a grinning laugh.
“What know you of the murderous attack?” asked the count, in Italian.
“A friend of mine was charged with the affair,” said the bravo. “He is in the pay of the most holy Cardinal Albani. We served long together under the same chief, and I know him intimately. He carries the most skilful dagger in all Rome, and it is the greatest wonder that he missed on this occasion.”
“Was it done by order of the cardinal?”
“No! The lord cardinal had lent this bravo to the celebrated improvisatrice Corilla—the order came from her.”
“It is well!” said the count. “Do you know all the bravi in Rome?”
“All, your excellency. They are all my good friends.”
“Well, now listen to what I have to say to you. You must hold the life of the Princess Tartaroff as sacred as your own! Know that she is no moment unwatched; that wherever she appears she is surrounded by secret protectors. Whoever touches her is lost—my arm will reach him! Say that to your friends, and tell them that the Russian count keeps his word. Four thousand sequins are yours in four weeks, if until then the princess meets with no accident. Away with you, and forget not my words!”
“Ah, these words, your excellency, are worth four thousand sequins, and these one does not so easily forget!” said the bandit, leaving the room.
Again the count rang, and ordered his private secretary, Stephano, to be called.
“Stephano,” said the count to him, “the first step is taken toward the accomplishment of our object. The work must succeed; I have pledged my word for it to the empress, and who can say that Alexis Orloff ever failed to redeem his word? This princess is mine! Count Paulo Rasczinsky is just now leaving Rome, and she has no one to protect her!”
“But it is not yet to be said that she is already yours!” said Stephano, shrugging his shoulders. “As you will not employ force, your excellency, you must have recourse to stratagem. I have hit upon a plan, of which I think you will approve. They describe this so-called little princess as exceedingly innocent and confiding. Let us take advantage of her confiding innocence—that will be best! Now hear my plan.”
Stephano inclined himself closer to the ear of the count, and whispered long and earnestly; it seemed as if he feared that even the walls might listen to him and betray his plans; he whispered so low that even the count had some trouble in understanding him.
“You are right,” said the count, when Stephano had ended; “your plan must and will succeed. First of all, we must find some one who will incline her in our favor, and render her confiding.”
“Oh, for that we have our good Russian gold,” said Stephano, laughing.
“And besides,” continued the count, “our incognito is at an end. All Rome may now learn that I am here! Ah, Stephano, what a happy time awaits me! This Natalie is beautiful as an angel!”
“God grant that you may not fall in love with her!” sighed Stephano. “You are always very generous when you are in love.”
Two things principally occupied the Romans during the next weeks and months, offering them rich material for conversation. In talking of these they had forgotten all other events; they spoke no more of the giant fish which had destroyed the friendship of France and Spain; they no longer entertained each other with anecdotes in connection with the festival of Cardinal Bernis, at which the entree of that fish upon his long silver platter was hailed with shouts and vivats—yes, even that Russian princess, who had momentarily shown herself on the horizon of society, all these were quickly forgotten, and people now interested themselves only about the extirpation of the order of the Jesuits, which Pope Clement had now really effected, and of the arrival of the Russian ambassador-extraordinary, the famous Alexis Orloff, whose visit to Rome seemed the more important and significant as they well knew in what near and confidential relations his brother, Count Gregory Orloff, stood with the Empress Catharine, and what participation Alexis Orloff had in the sudden death of the Emperor Peter III.
The order of the Jesuits, then, no longer existed; the pious fathers of the order of Jesus were stricken out of the book of history; a word of power had annihilated them! With loud complaints and lamentations they filled the streets of the holy city, and if the prayer of humility and resignation resounded from their lips, yet there were very different prayers in their hearts, prayers of anger and rage, of hatred and revenge! They were seen wringing their hands and loudly lamenting, as they hastened to their friends and protectors, and besieged the doors of the foreign embassies. With them wept the poor and suffering people to whom the pious fathers had proved themselves benefactors. For, since they knew that their existence was threatened, they had assiduously devoted themselves to works of charity and mercy, and to strengthening, especially in Rome, their reputation for piety, benevolence, and generosity. Prodigious sums were by them distributed among the poor; more than five hundred respectable impoverished Romans, who had been accused of political offences, were secretly supported by them. In this way the Jesuits, against whom the cry of denunciation had been raised for years in all Europe, had nevertheless succeeded, at least in the holy city, in gaining for themselves a very considerable party, and thus securing protection and support in the time of misfortune and persecution. But while the people wept with them, and many cardinals and princes of the Church secretly pitied them, the ambassadors of the great European powers alone remained insensible to their lamentations. No one of them opened the doors of their palaces to them, no one afforded them protection or consolation; and although it was known that cardinal Bernis, in spite of the horror which had for years been felt of this order in France, was personally favorable to them, and had long delayed the consent of the court of France to their abolition, yet even Bernis now avoided any manifestation of kindness for them, lest his former friend, the Spanish ambassador, might think he so far humiliated himself as to favor the Jesuits for the sake of recovering the friendship and good opinion of the Duke of Grimaldi. But Grimaldi himself now no longer dared to protect the Jesuits, however friendly he might be to them, and however much they were favored by Elizabeth Farnese, the Spanish queen-mother. King Charles, her son, had finally ventured to defy her authority, and in an autograph letter had commanded the Duke of Grimaldi to receive no more Jesuits in his palace. And while, as we have said, the whole diplomacy had declared against the order of the holy fathers of Jesus, it must have been the more striking that this Russian Count Orloff had compassion upon them, and lent a willing ear to the complaints of the unfortunate members of the order.
This Russian count gave the good Romans much material for reflection and head-shaking; the women were occupied with his herculean beauty, and the men with his wild, daring, and reckless conduct. They called him a barbarian, a Russian bear, but could not help being interested in him, and eagerly repeating the little anecdotes freely circulated respecting him.
They smilingly told that he had been the first who had had the courage to defy the powerful republic of Venice, which, for recruiting sailors for his fleet in their territories for the war against the Turks, wished to banish him from proud and beautiful Venice. But Alexis Orloff had laughed at the senate of the republic when they sent him the order to leave. He had ordered the two hundred soldiers, who formed his retinue, to arm themselves, and, if necessary, to repel force with force; but to the senate he had answered that he would leave the city as soon as he pleased, not before! But, as it seemed that he was not pleased to leave the city, he remained there, and now the angry and indignant senate sent him the peremptory command to leave Venice with his soldiers in twenty-four hours. A deputation of the senate came in solemn procession to communicate to the Russian count this command of the Council of Three. Alexis Orloff received them, lying upon his divan, and to their solemn address he laughingly answered: “I receive commands from no one but my empress! It remains as before, that I shall go when I please, and not earlier!”
The senators departed with bitter murmurs and severe threats. Count Alexis Orloff remained, and the cowardly senate, trembling with fear of this young Russian empire, had silently pocketed the humiliation of seeing this over-bearing Russian within their walls for several weeks longer. This evidence of the haughty insolence of Count Orloff was related among the Romans with undisguised pleasure, and they thanked him for having thus humiliated and insulted the proud and imperious republic. But they suspiciously shook their heads when they learned that he seemed disposed to display his pride and arrogance in Rome! They told of a soiree of the Marchesa di Paduli which Alexis Orloff had attended. As they there begged of him to give some proof of the very superior strength which had acquired for him the name of “the Russian Hercules,” he had taken one of the hardest apples from a silver plateau that stood upon the table and playfully crushed it with two fingers of his left hand. But a fragment of this hard apple had hit the eye of the Duke of Gloucester, who was standing near, and seriously injured it. The sympathies of the whole company were excited for the English prince, and he was immediately surrounded by a pitying and lamenting crowd. Count Orloff alone had nothing to say to him, and not the slightest excuse to make. He smilingly rocked himself upon his chair, and hummed a Russian popular song in praise of his empress.
And was it not also an insult for Alexis Orloff now to show himself a friend to the Jesuits, whom the decree of God’s vicegerent had outlawed and proscribed? Was it not an insult that he loudly and publicly promised to these persecuted Jesuits a kind reception and efficient protection in Russia, and invited them to found new communities and new cloisters there?
But Alexis Orloff cared little for the dissatisfaction of the Romans, He said to his confidant Stephano: “There is no greater pleasure than to set at defiance all the world, and to oppose all these things which the stupid people would impose upon us as laws. The friend and favorite of the Empress Catharine has no occasion for complying with such miserable laws; wherever I set my foot, there the earth belongs to me, and I will forcibly maintain my pretensions whenever they are disputed! In Russia I am the serf of the empress, in revenge for which I will, at least abroad, treat all the world as my serfs. This gives me pleasure, and wherefore is the world here but to be enjoyed?”
“A little also for labor,” said Stephano, with a sly smile.
“For that I have my slaves, for that I have also you!” responded Orloff, laughing. “There is only one labor for me here in Rome, and that is to create as much disturbance as possible in the city; to set the people at odds with the government, so that they may have their hands full, and find no time for observing our nice game with our little princess, or to interfere with it. We must have freedom of action, that is the most important. Hence we must protect these pious Jesuits, and offer support to the enemies of this too-enterprising pope, by which means we shall ultimately attain our own ends, and that is enough for us!”
“We have not yet advanced a step with our Princess Natalie,” said Stephano, shrugging his shoulders; “that, it seems, is an impregnable fortress!”
“It must, however, yield to us,” laughingly responded Alexis Orloff, “and she shall yet acknowledge us as conquerors. We are undermining, Stephano, and when the building crushes her in its crashing fall, will she first discover that she has long been in danger. And what said you—that we have not yet advanced a step? And yet Rasczinsky is gone, and we have known how to keep Cardinal Bernis, who would have interested himself for the little one, so very much occupied with the affair of the Jesuits, that he has yet had no time to think of the princess. Ah, these Jesuits are very useful people. We strew them like snuff in the faces of these diplomatists, and, while they are yet rubbing their weak eyes and crying out with pain, we shall quietly draw our little fish into our net, and take her home without opposition!”
“And if the fish will not go into the net?”
“It must go in!” impatiently cried Orloff. “Bah! have I at the right time succeeded in towing our emperor, God bless him! into eternity, and shall I doubt in the fulness of time of enclosing this beautiful child in my arms! Look at me, Stephano—what is wanting for it in me? Are not all these beautiful women of Rome enraptured with the Russian Hercules? How, then, can it be that a woman of my own country can withstand me? The preliminaries are the main thing, and if we only had some one to prepare her for my appearance, all would then go well. And such a one we will find, thanks to our rubles! But enough of politics for the present, Stephano. Call my valet. It is time for my toilet, and that is a very important affair.”
Corilla was alone. Uneasy, full of stormy thoughts, she impetuously walked back and forth, occasionally uttering single passionate exclamations, then again thoughtfully staring at vacancy before her. She was a full-blooded, warm Italian woman, that will neither love nor hate with the whole soul, and nourishes both feelings in her bosom with equal strength and with equal warmth. But, in her, hatred exhaled as quickly as love; it was to her only the champagne-foam of life, which she sipped for the purpose of a slight intoxication—as in her intoxication only did she feel herself a poetess, and in a condition for improvisation.
“I must at any rate be in love,” said she, “else I should lose my poetic fame. With cool blood and a tranquil mind there is no improvising and poetizing. With me all must be stirring and flaming, every nerve of my being must glow and tremble, the blood must flash like fire through my veins, and the most glowing wishes and ardent longings, be it love or be it hate, must be stirring within me in order to poetize successfully. And this cannot be comprehended by delicate and discreet people; this low Roman populace even venture to call me a coquette, only because I constantly need a new glow, and because I constantly seek new emotions and new inspirations for my muse.”
Love, then, for the improvisatrice Corilla, was nothing more than a strong wine with which she refreshed and strengthened her fatigued poetic powers for renewed exertions; it was in a manner the tow which she threw upon the expiring fire of her fantasy, to make it flash up in clear and bright flames.
It was only in this way that she loved Carlo, and wept for him, except that in this case her love had been of a longer duration, because it was he who gave up and left her! That was what made her hatred so glowing, that was what made her seek the life of the woman for whom Carlo had deserted her.
“This is a new situation,” said she, “which I am called to live through and to feel. But a poetess must have experienced all feelings, or she could not describe them. For my part, I do not believe in the revelations of genius—I believe only in experiences. One can describe only what one has felt and experienced. Whoever may attempt to describe the flavor of an orange, must first have tasted it!”
That this attempt to murder Natalie had failed, was to her a matter of little moment. She had experienced the emotion of it, and just the same would it have been a matter of indifference to her had the dagger pierced Natalie’s breast—she was sufficiently a child of the South to consider a murder as only a venial sin, for which the priest could grant absolution.
There was only one thing which exclusively occupied Corilla, following and tormenting her day and night, and that was her poetic fame. She desired that her name should stand high in the world, glorified by all Europe, and for this purpose she desired above all things to be crowned as a poetess in the capitol of the holy city; for this fame she would willingly have given many years of her life.
That was the aim of all her efforts, and how much would she not have borne, ventured, and suffered for its attainment! How many intrigues were planned, how much cunning and dissimulation, flattery, and hypocrisy, had been employed for that purpose, and all, all as yet in vain!
Therefore it was that Corilla now wept, and with occasional outbreaks of passionate exclamations violently paced her room. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes flashed—she was very beautiful in this state of excitement. That she must have acknowledged to herself as her glance accidentally encountered her own face in the glass.
With a smile of satisfaction she remained standing before the mirror, and almost angrily she said:
“Ah, why am I now alone, why does no one see me in my beautiful glow? My face might now produce some effect, and gain me friends! Why, then, am I now alone?”
But it seems that Corilla had only to express a wish in order to see it suddenly fulfilled; for the door was at that moment opened, and a servant announced Count Alexis Orloff.
Corilla smiled with delight, and let that smile remain upon her lips, as she very well knew it was becoming to her, and that she had conquered many hearts with it; but secretly her heart throbbed with fear, and timidly she asked herself, “What can that Russian count want of me?”
But with a cheerful face she advanced to receive him; she seemed not to remark that a dark cloud lay upon his brow, and that his features bore an almost threatening expression.
“He is a barbarian,” thought she, “and barbarians must be treated differently from other men. I must flatter this lion, in order to fetter him!”
“It is a serious matter that brings me to you, signora,” said Alexis, gloomily.
“A serious matter?” she cheerfully asked. “Ah, then I pity you, count. It is difficult to speak with me of serious matters!”
“You rather do them!” said Alexis, carelessly throwing himself upon a divan. “You would not play with such serious things as, for instance, a dagger, and therefore you hurl it from you, altogether indifferent whether you thereby quite accidentally pierce the heart of another.”
“I do not understand you, count,” said Corilla, without embarrassment, but at the same time she looked at him with such a charming and enticing expression, that Alexis involuntarily smiled.
“I will make myself intelligible to you,” said he, in a milder tone. “You must understand, that I know you, Corilla. That assassin who followed the Princess Tartaroff at the festival of Cardinal Bernis, was employed by you, Signora Maddalena Morelli Fernandez, called Corilla!”
“And what if it were true, Signor Alexis Orloff, called the handsome Northern Hercules?” asked she, roguishly imitating his grave seriousness. “If it were really true, what further?”
Alexis looked in her face with an expression of astonishment. “You are wonderfully bold!” said he.
“None but slaves are without courage!” responded she. “Freedom is the mother of boldness!”
“You do not, then, deny the hiring of that bravo?”
“I only deny your right to inquire,” said she.
“I have a right to it,” he responded with vehemence. “This Princess Tartaroff is a subject of the Empress of Russia, my mistress, who watches over and protects all her subjects with maternal tenderness.”
“That good, tender empress!” exclaimed Corilla, with an ambiguous smile. “But in order properly to watch and preserve all her children and subjects, she should keep them in her own country. Take this Princess Tartaroff with you to Russia, and then she will be safe from our Italian daggers. Take her with you; that will be the best way!”
“You, then, very heartily hate this poor little princess?” asked Alexis, laughing.
“Yes,” said she, after a short reflection, “I hate her. And would you know why, signor? Not for her beauty, not for her youth, but for her talents! And she has great talents! Ah, there was a time when I hated her, although I knew her not. But now, now it is different. I now not only hate, but fear her! For she can rival me, not only in love, but in fame! Ah, you should have seen her on that evening! She was like a swan to look at, and her song was like the dying strains of the swan. And all shouted applause, and all the women wept; indeed, I myself wept, not from emotion, but with rage, with bitterness, for they had forgotten me—forgotten, for this new poetess; they overwhelmed her with flatteries, leaving me alone and unnoticed! And yet you ask me if I hate her!”
Quite involuntarily had she suffered herself to be carried away by her own vehemence, her inward glowing rage. With secret pleasure Count Orloff read in her features that this was no comedy which she thus improvised, but was truth and reality.
“If you so think and feel,” said he, “then we may soon understand each other, signora. A real hatred is of as much value as a real love; indeed, often of much greater. One can more safely confide in hatred, as it is more enduring. I will therefore confide in you, signora, if you will swear to me to betray no word of what I shall tell you.”
“I swear it!” was Corilla’s response.
“Listen, then! This Princess Tartaroff is an imposter; no princely blood flows in her veins, and if she gives herself out to be a princess, it is because she therewith connects plans of high-treason. More I need not say to you, except that my illustrious empress has charged me to bring this fraudulent princess to her at St. Petersburg, that she may there receive her punishment! This I have sworn to do, and must redeem my promise to transport her from here, without exciting attention, and without subjecting her to any personal injury. Do you now comprehend why I come?”
“I comprehend,” said Corilla. “An empress would avenge herself, and therefore a poor poetess must forego her own little private revenge! But how, if I should not believe a word of this long story; if I should consider it a fable invented by you to assure the safety of your princess?”
“That you may be compelled to believe it, listen further to me.”
And Alexis Orloff spoke long and zealously to her, affording her a glance into his most secret intrigues, into his finely-matured plans, while Corilla followed him with intense expectation and warmly-glowing cheeks.
“I comprehend it all, all!” said she, when Alexis had finally ended; “it is a deep and at the same time an infernal plan—a plan which must excite the envy and respect of Satan himself!”
“And yourself?” laughingly asked Alexis.
“Oh, I,” said she—“I belong, perhaps, to the family of devils, and therefore take pleasure in aiding you! You need a negotiator who has a wide conscience and an eloquent tongue! I can furnish you with such a one. Ah, that will make a droll story. Said you not that the singer Carlo watched this golden treasure like a dragon? Well, it shall be his brother who shall contend with this dragon. His own brother—will not that be pleasant, count?”
“And are you sure of him?” asked Count Orloff. “How if his brother should win him from us?”
“Have no anxiety; this Carlo Ribas is so virtuous that he hates no one so much as his brother Joseph, merely because he passed some years in the galleys for forgery. He is now free, and has secretly come here. As he was aware that I knew his brother, he came to beg me for my countenance and support. I will send him to you.”
“And you will also not forget my request, that you will in all societies speak of the great love which the Empress Catharine cherishes for her near relation, the Princess Tartaroff?”
“I will not forget it. In your hands, count, I lay my revenge—you will free me from this rival?”
“That will I,” said he, with an inhuman laugh. “And when the work is completed, and you have faithfully stood by me, then, signora, you may be sure of the gratitude of the empress. Catharine is the exalted protectress of the muses, and in the fulness of her grace she will not forget the poetess Corilla. You may expect an imperial reward.”
“And I shall gratefully receive it,” said Corilla, with a smile. “A poetess is always poor and in want of assistance. The muses lavish upon their votaries all joys but those of wealth.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Corilla, when the count had left her, “I shall in the end obtain all I desire. I shall not only be crowned with fame, but blessed with wealth, which is a blessing almost equal to that of fame! Money has already founded many a reputation, but not always has fame attracted money to itself! I shall be rich as well as famous!”
“That you already are!” exclaimed the Cardinal Francesco Albani, who unremarked had just entered the room.
“I am not,” said she, with vehemence, “for they refuse me the prize of fame! Have you been with the pope, your eminence, and what did he say?”
“I come directly from him.”
“Well, and what says he?”
“What he always says to me—no!”
Corilla stamped her feet violently, and her eyes flashed lightnings.
“How beautiful you are now!” tenderly remarked the cardinal, throwing an arm around her.
She rudely thrust him back. “Touch me not,” said she, “you do not deserve my love. You are a weakling, as all men are. You can only coo like a pigeon, but when it comes to action, then sinks your arm, and you are powerless. Ah, the woman whom you profess to love begs of you a trifling service, the performance of which is of the highest importance to her, the greatest favor, and you will not fulfil her request while yet swearing you love her! Go! you are a cold-hearted man, and wholly undeserving of Corilla’s love!”
“But,” despairingly exclaimed the cardinal, “you require of me a service that it is not in my power to perform. Ask something else, Corilla—ask a human life, and you shall have it! But I cannot give what is not mine. You demand a laurel-crown, which only the pope has the power to bestow, and he has sworn that you shall not have it so long as he lives!”
“Will he, then, live eternally?” cried Corilla, beside herself with rage.
The cardinal gave her an astonished and interrogating glance. But his features suddenly assumed a wild and malicious expression, and violently grasping Corilla’s hand, he murmured:
“You are right! ‘Will he, then, live forever?’ Bah! even popes are mortal men. And if we should choose for his successor a man better disposed toward you then—Corilla,” said the cardinal, interrupting himself, and in spite of her resistance pressing her to his bosom—“Corilla, swear once more to me that you will be mine, and only mine, as soon as I procure your coronation in the capitol! Swear it once more!”
She gave him such a sweet, enticing, and voluptuous smile that the cardinal trembled with desire and joy.
“When you in the capitol adorn Corilla with the laurel-crown, then will she willingly lay her myrtle crown at your feet,” said she, with a charming expression of maiden modesty.
The cardinal again pressed her passionately to his bosom.
“You shall have the laurel-crown, and your myrtle crown is mine!” he excitedly exclaimed. “You will soon see whether Francesco is a cold-hearted man! Farewell, Corilla!”
And with a hasty salute he left the room. The astonished Corilla dismissed him with a smile.
“If it is to succeed at all, it can be only through him,” said she. “Poor Francesco, he will bring me a full laurel-crown! And what can I give him in return? An exfoliated myrtle crown, that is all! No heart with it!”
Cardinal Francesco Albani, meantime, hastened through the streets with the sprightliness of youth. He noticed neither the respectful salutations and knee-bendings of those he passed, nor their visible shuddering and alarm when under the cardinal’s hat they recognized the fierce and inhuman Francesco Albani.
He stopped before the palace of Cardinal Juan Angelo Braschi. The equipage of the new cardinal was drawn up before his door.
“Ah,” gleefully remarked Albani, “he is therefore yet at home, and I shall meet with him!”
Hastily entering the palace, and pushing past the servant who would have preceded him, he entered the cardinal’s cabinet unannounced.
“Be not troubled, your eminence,” said Albani, with a smile, “I will not detain you long. I know your habits, and know that Signora Malveda usually expects you at this hour, because Cardinal Rezzonico is not then with her! But I have something important to say to you. You know I am a man who, without forms and circumlocutions, always comes directly to the point. I do so now. You desire to be the successor of Ganganelli?”
Braschi turned pale, and timidly cast down his eyes.
“Why are you shocked?” cried Albani. “Every cardinal hopes and wishes to become the father of Christendom—that is natural; I should also wish it for myself, but I know that that cannot be. I have permitted these lord cardinals who, in the conclave, invoke the Holy Spirit, to look too much into my cards. I was not so prudent as you, Braschi, and therefore you are much the more likely to become God’s vicegerent! Would you not like to be pope, if Ganganelli should happen to die? And how high would you hold my voice—how much would it be worth to you?”
“More than all I possess, infinitely more!” said the shrewd Braschi. “Were I sure of your voice, I might then have a definite hope of becoming pope; for your voice carries many others with it. How, then, can you expect me to estimate what is inestimable?”
“Would you give me twenty thousand?” asked Albani.
“Threefold that sum if I possessed it, but I have nothing! I am a very poor cardinal, as you well know. My whole property consists of six thousand scudi, and that trifling sum I dare not offer you.”
“Borrow, then, of Signora Malveda!” said Albani. “Cardinal Rezzonico is rich and liberal. Let us speak directly to the point. You would be pope, and I am willing to forward your views. How much will you pay?”
“If Signora Malveda will lend me four thousand scudi, I should then have ten thousand to offer you!”
“Well, so be it. Ten thousand scudi will do, if you will add to it a trifling favor.”
“Name it,” said Braschi.
“You know that Ganganelli opposes the crowning of our famous improvisatrice, Corilla, in the capitol. This is an injustice which Ganganelli’s successor will have to repair. Will you do it?”
Braschi gave the cardinal a sly glance. “Ah,” said he, “Signora Corilla seems to be less liberal than Signora Malveda? She will allow you no discount of her future laurel-crown, is it not so? I know nothing worse than an ambitious woman. Listen, Albani; it seems that we must be mutually useful to each other; I need your voice to become pope, and you need mine to become a favored lover. Very well, give me your voice, and in return, I promise you a laurel-crown for Signora Corilla, and eight thousand scudi for yourself!”
“Ah, you would haggle!” contemptuously exclaimed Albani. “You would be a very niggardly vicegerent of God! But as Corilla is well worth two thousand scudi, I am content. Give me eight thousand scudi and the promise to crown Corilla!”
“As soon as I am pope, I will do both. My sacred word for it! Shall I strengthen my promise by swearing upon the Bible?”
Cardinal Albani gave the questioner a glance of astonishment, and then broke out with a loud and scornful laugh.
“You forget that you are speaking to one of your kind! Of what use would such a holy farce be to us who have no faith in its binding power? No, no, we priests know each other. Such buffoonery amounts to nothing. One written word is worth a thousand sworn oaths! Let us have a contract prepared—that is better. We will both sign it!”
“Just as you please!” said Braschi, with a smile, stepping to his writing desk and rapidly throwing some lines upon paper, which he signed after it had been carefully read by Albani.
“At length the business is finished,” said Albani. “Now, Cardinal Braschi, go to your signora, and surprise her with the news that she holds in her arms a pope in spe. Pope Clement will soon need a successor; he must be very ill, the poor pope!”
So speaking, he took leave of the future pope with a friendly nod, and departed with as much haste as he had come.
“And now to these pious Jesuit fathers!” said he, stepping out upon the grass. “It was very prudent in me that I went on foot to Corilla to-day. Our cursed equipages betray every thing; they are the greatest chatterboxes! How astonished these good Romans would be to see a cardinal’s carriage before these houses of the condemned! No, no, strengthen yourselves for another effort, my reverend legs! Only yet this walk, and then you will have rest.”
And the cardinal trudged stoutly on until he reached the Jesuit college. There he stopped and looked cautiously around him.
“This unfortunate saintly dress is also a hindrance,” murmured he. “Like the sign over the shop-door it proclaims to all the world: ‘I am a cardinal. Here indulgences, dispensations, and God’s blessings are to be sold! Who will buy, who will buy?’ I dare not now enter this scouted and repudiated sacred house. I might be remarked, suspected, and betrayed. Corilla, dear, beautiful woman, it costs me much pains and many efforts to conquer you; will your possession repay me?”
The cardinal patiently waited in the shadow of a taxus-bush until the street become for a moment empty and solitary. Then he hastened to a side-door of the building, and, sure of being unobserved, entered.
A deep and quiet silence pervaded these long and deserted cloister-passages. It seemed as if a death-veil lay upon the whole building—as if it were depopulated, desolated. Nowhere the least trace of that busy, stirring life, usually prevailing in these corridors—no longer those bands of scholars that formerly peopled these passages—the doors of the great school-room open, the benches unoccupied, the lecturer’s chair, from which the pious fathers formerly with such subtle wisdom explained and defended their dangerous doctrines, these also are desolate. The reign of the Jesuits was over; Ganganelli had thrust them from the throne, and they cursed him as their murderer! He had suppressed their sacred order, he had commanded them to lay aside their peculiar costume and adopt that of other monkish orders, or the usual dress of abbes. But from their property he had not been able to expel them in this college Il Jesu—within their cloisters his power had not been able to penetrate. There they remained, what they had been, the holy fathers of Jesus, the pious defenders of craft and Christian deception, the cunning advocates of regicide, the proud servants of the only salvation-dispensing Church!—there, with rage in their hearts, they meditated plans of vengeance against this criminal pope who had condemned them to a living death; who, like a wicked magician, had changed their sacred college into an open grave! He had killed them, and he, should he nevertheless live?
With these fatal questions did the holy fathers occupy themselves, reflecting upon them in their gloomy leisure, and in low whisperings consulting with their prior. And in such secret consultation did Cardinal Francesco Albani find the prior with his confidant in the refectorium.
“Do not let me disturb you,” he said laughing; “I see by your faces you are engaged in conversation upon the subject in which I yesterday took a part. That is very well—we can resume it where we yesterday broke off, and again knot the threads which I yesterday so violently rent. With which knot shall we begin?”
The eyes of the pious Jesuit father flashed with joy. Francesco Albani was inclined to favor their plans and wishes; they saw that in his cunning smile, in his return to them.
“We were speaking of the sacred and important duty you will have to perform to-morrow, your eminence,” said the prior, with a winning smile.
“Ah, yes, I remember,” said the cardinal, with apparent indifference. “We spoke of the to-morrow’s communion of his holiness the pope.”
“And of the fact that you, your eminence, would to-morrow have to discharge the important duty of pouring the sacred wine into the golden chalice of the vicegerent of God,” said the prior.
“Yes, yes, I now remember it all,” said Albani, with a smile. “You spoke to me of a wonderful flask of wine, which, by means of the golden tube, you would gladly help to the honor of being drunk by his holiness from the communion chalice.”
“It is so precious a wine that only the vicegerent of God is worthy of wetting his lips with it. It must touch the lips of no other mortal!”
“I know such a wine,” said Albani; “it thrives best in the region of Naples,(*) and whoever drinks of it becomes a partaker of eternal blessedness.”