Count Orloff lay in a comfortable, careless position upon his divan, leisurely smoking his long Turkish pipe. Before him stood Joseph Ribas, laughingly relating in his own comic manner the occurrences of the preceding night.
“You are a wonderful man,” said Orloff, when Joseph had finished. “You have honestly earned your epaulets, and to-day you will for the first time appear at my dinner-table as a Russian officer. Ah, I prophesy a great future for you. You have the requisite skill and address to make your fortune. You are shrewd, daring, and you recoil from no means, finding them all good and useful when they forward your aims. With such principles one may go far in this world, and Russia in fact offers you the best opportunity for bringing all these fine talents into use.”
“And, moreover, I commenced my Russian career with a good omen,” said Joseph. “I have placed a murder at the head of my Russian deeds! That is a promising commencement, is it not, Sir Count? You must know that better than any one.”
“Indeed yes, I must best know that,” said the count, laughing, and continually stroking his long black beard. “By a fair and well-timed murder one can always make his fortune in Russia. A well-timed and well-executed murder is with us often rewarded with a barony and the title of count. Indeed, sometimes with the highest and tenderest imperial favor and grace. Ah, a murder at the right moment is an excellent thing, only one must be quite sure of himself, and not fail of hitting the right man. An unsuccessful murder is a very bad, and, indeed, a very dangerous thing. I would have nothing to do with one, and never have had any thing to do with one. Whatever I have undertaken I have always boldly and successfully accomplished. The good Emperor Peter III. knew that, and consequently trembled when I, with Passeb and Bariatinsky, entered his chamber. The good emperor! He did not tremble long, it was soon finished. Yes, yes, that was a deed done at the right time, and therefore has the great Catharine been so grateful to us, and honoured us above all the illustrious grandees of her empire.” (*)
“My little opening murder has, indeed, less significance,” sighed Joseph Ribas. “What was it but to help a humble musician to the blessedness and harmony of the spheres!”
“But that musician was your brother!”
Ribas shrugged his shoulders. “That is, he was so considered; but in reality I believe he was only a half-brother. My mother, of blessed memory, had many little adventures, and I think Carlo’s birth was somewhat connected with them. Nor am I sure that it was not a necessary work to kill him, as it was surely my duty to avenge my father’s injured honor, which is all I have done! Upon these grounds has a good, honest priest this day given me absolution, and I now stand before you pure and sinless as a maiden! We can therefore begin anew, your excellency. Have you still any commands for me?”
“You now have a very noble and sublime part to play,” said Orloff, laughing. “You must now appear as the benefactor of our Russian princess, and as the mediating forerunner of my own person!”
“That will be indeed a charming role,” said Ribas, rubbing his hands with delight. “I shall admirably acquit myself as benefactor and mediator. But give me some details, Sir Count!”
“You shall have them,” said Orloff, “from the mouth of Stephano.—Stephano!”
The person called immediately appeared at the door of a side-room.
“Stephano,” said Orloff, “now to work, friend. The courier who arrived to-day has brought us good news and full powers. Count Paul Rasczinsky is sent to Siberia for high-treason—his property is confiscated and falls to the state. I have an unlimited power, signed by the empress herself, to seize and sell his possessions here in the name of the empress. Take with you some attorney and officers and go to his villa. But, first of all, help our little Joseph Ribas to his uniform and epaulets, that he may be properly costumed for a rescuer and benefactor. And now, away with you! Instruct him well, Stephano. Ah, I should like to be present at this delightful comedy!”
And Count Orloff broke out into a hearty laugh.
“This whole affair is very entertaining and romantic,” he said to himself, as soon as he was alone. “I am truly very thankful to Catharine for intrusting it to me. I love the adventurous and romantic. Indeed, whom else could she have chosen for this business? I should like to know who would dare to enter the lists with me, the Russian Hercules, and who would be so bold as to contend with me for this prize?”
Thus speaking, he rose from the divan and stepped to the great Venetian mirror, before which he long remained attentively viewing himself.
“Ahem! this tender Empress Catharine knows how to judge of manly beauty,” murmured he, with a self-satisfied smile, “and I cannot blame her for so often giving me the preference over my brother Gregory. Besides, I shall first appear before this little Princess Natalie in my antique dress. Catharine has often told me I was enchanting in my antique costume. Well, we will also let this enchantment work a little here. But first we must think of what is nearest to us. This Corilla has rendered us a service, and we must be grateful. They say she loves diamonds. I shall therefore send her these diamonds which her eleve Joseph Ribas last night made the property of the Russian crown. And with them I will send a little billet, written with my own hand. Who knows but that this will give her more pleasure than the sparkling brilliants!”
In that, however, the handsome Count Orloff was mistaken. The poetess Corilla therein resembled to a hair the prima-donnas and heroines of the stage of the present day. She attached a great value to diamonds, and knowing that Russia was very rich in gold and diamonds, she always had an especially bewitching smile for Russian grandees. Had Count Orloff come in person to bring the diamonds, she would undoubtedly have more admired him, apparently been more pleased with his presence than with his costly gift; but, as he was not there, there was no necessity for dissimulation.
She read Count Orloff’s billet with a satisfied smile; but soon laid it aside for the delight of examining the jewels.
“How that shines, and how that sparkles,” said the exhilarated poetess; “not even a lover’s eyes flash so brightly, nor is his smile so proud, so full of rich certainty, as the sparkling of these gems! They are enchanters, and a word from me can change these solitaires and rosettes into a beautiful villa, or into a fragrant park with silent arbors, intoxicating odors, and sweetly-singing birds. All that is promised me by these stones—a lover’s promises do not express half so much. And only to think that it is Carlo, my former lover, to whom I am indebted for these diamonds! From love to him I wished to destroy Natalie, and that wish procured me the favor of the Russian count, and consequently these brilliants. Poor Carlo! these diamonds outlast you. How bright and beautiful were your glances that are now extinguished by death—but this cruel, inexorable death has no power over diamonds! It cannot strangle these as thou wert strangled, poor Carlo! I shall remember thee this evening, Carlo, and hope the thought of thee may inspire me for a right beautiful improvisation on death! I shall take pains to bring to mind thy beautiful form overflowed with blood. Yes, it will inspire in me a very effective improvisation, and I will at the same time make a selection from my dear poets of some striking rhymes upon death and the grave. And when I have the rhymes, the thoughts and words will come of themselves. Rhymes, rhymes, these are the main things with poets!”
And while the improvisatrice was thus speaking to herself, she had mechanically adorned her person with the brilliants, attaching the beautiful collar to her neck, the long pendants to her ears, and placing the splendid diadem upon her brow.
She looked exceedingly beautiful in these ornaments, and consequently rejoiced that her friend Cardinal Francesco Albani came at this precise moment.
“He will be ravished?” said she, with a smile, advancing to meet him with the proud and imposing dignity of a queen.
“You are beautiful as a goddess!” exclaimed the cardinal, “and whoever sees you thus has seen the protecting divinity of ancient Rome, the sublime Juno, queen of heaven!”
“Were I Juno, would you consent to be my Vulcan?” roguishly asked Corilla.
“No,” said Albani, laughing; “the noble Juno was not exactly true to her Vulcan, and I require a faithful love! Would you be that, Corilla?”
“We shall see,” said she, changing the arrangement of the diadem before the glass—“we shall see, my worthy friend. But forget not the conditions—first the laurel-crown!”
“You shall have it!” triumphantly responded the cardinal.
“Are you certain of that?” asked Corilla, with flashing eyes and glowing cheeks.
Cardinal Francesco Albani smiled mysteriously.
“Pope Ganganelli is ill,” said he, “and it is thought he will die!”
Groaning, supported by his faithful Lorenzo’s arm, Pope Ganganelli slowly moved through the walks of his garden. Some months had passed since the suppression of the order of the Jesuits—how had these few months changed poor Clement! Where was the peace and cheerfulness of his face, where was the sublime expression of his features, the firm and noble carriage of his body—where was it all?
Trembling, shattered, with distorted features, and with dull, half-closed eyes, crawled he about with groans, his brow wrinkled, his lips compressed by pain and inward sorrow.
No one dared to remain with him; he spoke to no one. But Lorenzo was yet sometimes able to drive away the clouds from his brow, and to recall a faint smile to his thin pale lips.
He had also to-day succeeded in this, and for the first time in several weeks had Ganganelli, yielding to his prayers, consented to a walk in the garden of the Quirinal.
“This air refreshes me,” said the pope, breathing more freely; “it seems as if it communicated to my lungs a renewed vital power and caused the blood to flow more rapidly in my veins. Lorenzo, this is a singularly fortunate day for me, and I will make the most of it. Come, we will repair to our Franciscan Place!”
“That is an admirable idea,” said Lorenzo, delighted. “If your holiness can reach it, you will recover your health, and all will again be well.”
Ganganelli sighed, and glanced toward heaven with a sad smile.
“Health!” said he. “Ah, Lorenzo, that word reminds me of a lost paradise. The avenging angel has driven me from it, and I shall never see it again.”
“Say not so!” begged Lorenzo, secretly wiping a tear from his cheek. “No, say not so, you will certainly recover!”
“Yes, recover!” replied the pope. “For death is a recovery, and in the end perhaps the most real.”
They silently walked on, and making a path through the bushes, they at length arrived at the place, with the construction of which Lorenzo had some months before surprised the pope, and which Ganganelli had since named the “Franciscan Place.”
“So,” joyfully exclaimed Lorenzo, while the exhausted pope glided down upon the grass-bank—“so, brother Clement, now let us be cheerful! You know that here we have nothing more to do with the pope. You have yourself declared that here you would be brother Clement, and nothing more; now brother Clement was always a healthy man, full of juvenile spirits and strength.”
“Ah, my friend,” responded Ganganelli, “I fear the pope has secretly followed brother Clement even to this place, and even here no longer leaves him free! No, no, it is no longer brother Clement who sits groaning here, it is the vicegerent of God, the father of Christendom, the holy and blessed pope! And if you knew, Lorenzo, what this vicegerent of God has to suffer and bear, how his blood like streams of fire runs through his veins, carbonizing his entrails and parching the roof of his mouth, so that the tongue fast cleaves to it, and he has no longer the power to complain of his misery! And such a crushed earth-worm this miserable, infatuated people call the vicegerent of God, before whom they bow in the dust! Ah, foolish children, are you not yourselves disgusted with your masquerade, and do you not blush for this jest?”
“See you not,” said Lorenzo, with forced cheerfulness, “that since you are here you have, against your will, again become brother Clement, and inveigh against God’s vicegerent who holds his splendid court in the Vatican and Quirinal! Yes, yes that was what brother Clement used to do in the Franciscan convent; he was always scolding about the pope.”
“And yet he let men befool him and make a pope of him,” said Ganganelli. “Ah, Lorenzo, they were indeed good purposes that decided me, and good and holy resolutions were in me when I bore this crown of St. Peter for the first time. Ah, I was then so young, not in years, but in hopes and illusions. I was so enthusiastic for the good and noble, and I wished to serve it, to honor and glorify it in the name of God!”
“And in the end you have done so!” solemnly responded Lorenzo.
“I have wished to do so!” sighed Ganganelli, “but there it has ended. I have been hemmed in everywhere; wherever I wished to press through, I have always found a wall before me—a wall of prejudices, of ancient customs, once received as indifferent, and at this wall my cardinals and officials held watch, taking care that my will should be broken against it, and not be able to speak through, in order to let in a little freedom, a little fresh air, into our walled realm! They have curbed and weakened my will, until nothing more of it subsists, and of my holiest resolutions they have made a scarecrow before which foreign kings and princes cry murder, and prophesy the downfall of their kingdoms if I adhere to my innovations. Ah, the princes, the princes! I tell you, Lorenzo, it is the princes who have undermined the happiness of the world with their ideas of absolute power; they are the robbers of all mankind; for freedom, which is the common property of all men, that have they, like regular lawless highwaymen, appropriated for themselves alone. They plundered the luck-pennies of all mankind, and coined them into money adorned with their likenesses, and now all mankind run after this money, thinking: ‘If I gain that, then shall I have recovered my part of human happiness which once belonged to all in common!’ It has come to this, Lorenzo, through the rapacity of princes, and yet they still tremble upon their thrones, and fear that the people may one day awake from their stupid slumber, all rising as one man, and cry in the paling faces of their robbers: ‘Give back what you have taken from us—we will have what is ours; we require freedom and human right; we will no longer remain slaves to tremble before a bugbear; we will be free children of God, and have no one to fear but the God above us and the consciences within our own breasts!’ Come down, therefore, from your usurped thrones, become once more human—labor, enjoy, complain, and rejoice, as other men do; live not upon the sweat of your subjects, but nourish yourselves by your own efforts, that justice may prevail in the world, and humanity regain its rights!”
And Ganganelli’s eyes flashed, his sunken cheeks were feverishly flushed, while he was thus speaking. Lorenzo observed it with anxious eyes; and when the pope made a momentary pause, he said: “You are again altogether the good and brave brother Clement, but even he should think about sparing himself!”
“And to what end should he spare himself?” excitedly exclaimed Ganganelli; “Death sits within me and laughs to scorn all my efforts, burying himself deeper and deeper in my inward life. You must know, Lorenzo, that my cause of sorrow is precisely this, that I now live in vain, and that I cannot finish what I began! I wished to make my people happy and free; that was what alarmed all these princes, that was an unheard-of innovation, and they have all put their heads together and whispered to each other, ‘He will betray to mankind that they have rights of which we have robbed them. He wishes to give back to mankind his inherited portion of the booty! But what will then become of us? Will not our slaves rise up against us, demanding their human rights? We cannot suffer such innovations, for they involve our destruction!’ Thus have they cried, and in their anxiety they have decided upon my death! Then they threw me in a crumb exactly suited to my dreams of improving the happiness of the people; they all consented that I should relieve mankind from that dangerous tapeworm, Jesuitism, and with secret laughter thought, ‘It will be the death of him!’ And they were right, these sly princes, it will be the death of me! I have abolished the order of Jesuits—in consequence of which I shall die—but the Jesuits will live, and live forever!”
The echo of approaching footsteps was now heard, and, sinking with fatigue, he directed Lorenzo to go and meet the intruder, and by no means to let any one penetrate to him.
Returning alone, Lorenzo handed the pope a letter.
“The courier whom you sent out some days since has returned,” said he. “This is his dispatch.”
Taking the letter, with a sad smile, the pope weighed it in his hand. “How light is this little sheet,” said he, “and yet how heavy are its contents! Do you know what this letter contains, Lorenzo?”
“How can I? A poor cloister brother is not all-knowing!”
“This letter,” said the pope, with solemnity, “Brings me life or death. It is the answer of the learned physician, Professor Brunelli, of Bologna!”
“You have written to him?” asked Lorenzo, turning pale.
“I wrote him, particularly describing my condition and sufferings; in God’s name I conjured him to tell me the truth, and Brunelli is a man of honor; he will do it! Am I right, therefore, in saying that the contents of this letter are very heavy?”
Lorenzo trembled, and, grasping the pope’s hand, he hastily and anxiously said: “No, read it not. Of what use will it be to learn its contents? It is tempting God to endeavor to learn the future in advance! Let me destroy this fatal letter!”
And, while his faithful servant respectfully stood back, Ganganelli broke the seal.
A pause ensued—a long, excruciating pause! Lorenzo, kneeling, prayed—Pope Ganganelli read the letter of the physician of Bologna. His face had assumed a mortal pallor; while reading, his lips trembled, and tear-drops rolled slowly down over his sunken cheeks.
Falling from his hand, the letter rustled to the earth; with hanging head and folded hands sat the pope. Lorenzo was still upon his knees praying. Ganganelli suddenly raised his head, his eyes were turned heavenward, a cheerful, God-given peace beamed from his eyes, and with a clear, exulting voice, he said: “Lord, Thy will be done! I resign myself to Thy holy keeping.”
“The letter, then, brings good news?” asked Lorenzo, misled by the joyfulness of the pope. “There is, then, no ground for the presentiments of death, and the learned doctor says you will live?”
“The life eternal, Lorenzo!” said Ganganelli. “This letter confirms my suppositions! Brunelli is a man of honor, and he has told me the truth. Lorenzo, would you know what signifies this consuming fire, this weariness and relaxation of my limbs? It is the effect of Acqua Tofana!”
“Oh, my God,” shrieked Lorenzo, “you are poisoned!”
“Irretrievably,” calmly responded the pope; “Brunelli says it, and I feel in my burning entrails that he speaks the truth.”
“And are there no remedies?” lamented Lorenzo, wringing his hands. “No means at least of prolonging your life?”
“There is such a means; and Brunelli recommends it. The application of the greatest possible heat, the production of a continual perspiration, which may a little retard the progress of the evil, and perhaps prolong my life for a few weeks!
“Lorenzo, it is my duty to struggle every day with death. I have yet much to complete before I die, yet much labor before I go to my eternal rest, and, as far as I can, I must bring to an end what I have commenced for the welfare of my people! Come, Lorenzo, let us return to the Vatican; set pans of coals in my room, procure me furs and a glowing hot sun! I would yet live some weeks!”
With feverish impetuosity Ganganelli grasped Lorenzo’s arm and drew him away. Then, suddenly stopping, he turned toward his favorite place.
“Lorenzo,” he said in a low tone, and with deep sadness, “it was yet very pleasant in the Franciscan cloister. Why did we not remain there? Only see, my friend, how beautifully the sun glitters there among the pines, and how delightfully this air fans us! Ah, Lorenzo, this world is so beautiful, so very beautiful! Why must I leave it so soon?”
Lorenzo made no answer; he could not speak for tears.
Ganganelli cast a long and silent glance around him, greeting with his eyes the trees and flowers, the green earth and the blue sky.
“Farewell, farewell, thou beautiful Nature!” he whispered low. “We take our leave of each other. I shall never again see these trees or this grassy seat. But you, Lorenzo, will I establish as the guardian of this place, and when you sometimes sit here in the still evening hour, then will you think of me! Now come, we must away. Feel you not this cool and gentle air? Oh, how refreshingly it fans and cools, but I dare not enjoy it—not I! This cooling cuts off a day from my life!”
And with the haste of a youth, Ganganelli ran down the alley. Bathed with perspiration, breathless with heat, he arrived at the palace.
“Now give me furs, bring pans of coals, Lorenzo, shut all the doors and windows. Procure me a heat that will shut out death—!”
But death nevertheless came; the furs and coverings, the steaming coal-pans with which the pope surrounded himself, the glowing atmosphere he day and night inhaled, and which quite prostrated his friends and servants, all that could only keep off death for some few weeks, not drive it away. More dreadful yet than this blasting heat with which Ganganelli surrounded himself, yet more horrible, was the fire that consumed his entrails and burned in his blood.
Finally, withered and consumed by these external and internal fires, the pope greeted Death as a deliverer, and sank into his arms with a smile.
But no sooner had he respired his last breath, no sooner had the death-rattle ceased in this throat, and no sooner had death extinguished the light in his eyes, than the cold corpse exhibited a most horrible change.
The thin white hair fell off as if blown away by a breath of air, the loosened teeth fell from their sockets, the formerly quietly smiling visage became horribly distorted, the nose sank in and the eyes fell out, the muscles of all his limbs became relaxed as if by a magic stroke, and the rapidly putrefying members fell from each other.
The pope’s two physicians, standing near the bed, looked with terror upon the frightful spectacle.
“He was, then, right,” murmured the physician Barbi, folding his hands, “he was poisoned. These are the effects of the Acqua Tofana!”
Salicetti, the second physician, shrugged his shoulders with a contemptuous smile. “Think as you will,” said he, “for my part I shall prove to the world that Pope Clement XIV. died a natural death.”
Thus saying, Salicetti left the chamber of death with a proud step, betaking himself to his own room, to commence his history of Ganganelli’s last illness, in which, despite the arsenic found in the stomach of the corpse and despite the fact that all Rome was convinced of the poisoning of the pope, and named his murderer with loud curses, he endeavored to prove that Ganganelli died of a long-concealed scrofula!
And while Ganganelli breathed out his last sigh, resounded the bells of St. Peter’s, thundered the cannon of Castle Angelo, and the curious people thronged around the Vatican, where the conclave was in solemn session for the choice of a new pope. Thousands stared up to the palace, thousands prayed upon their knees, until at length the doors of the balcony, behind which the conclave was in session, were opened, and the papal master of ceremonies made his appearance upon it.
At a given signal the bells became silent, the cannon ceased to thunder, and breathlessly listened the crowd.
The master of ceremonies advanced to the front of the balcony. A pause—a silent, dreadful pause! His voice then resounded over the great square, and the listeners heard these words: “Habemus pontificem maximum Pium VI.!” (We have Pope Pius VI.)
And the bells rang anew, the cannon thundered, drums beat, and trumpets sounded; upon the balcony appeared the new pope, Juan Angelo Braschi, Pius VI., bestowing his blessing upon the kneeling people.
As they now had a new pope, nothing remained to be done for the deceased pope but to bury him; and they buried him.
In solemn procession, followed by all the cardinals and high church officials, surrounded by the Swiss guards, the tolling of the bells and the dull rolling of the muffled drums, the solemn hymns of the priests, moved the funeral cortege from the Vatican to St. Peter’s church. In the usual open coffin lay the corpse of the deceased pope, that the people might see him for the last time. As they passed the bridge of St. Angelo, when the coffin had reached the middle of the bridge, arose a shriek of terror from thousands of throats! A leg had become severed from the body and hung out of the coffin, swinging in a fold of the winding-sheet. Cardinal Albani, who walked near the coffin, was touched on the shoulder by the loosely swinging limb, and turned pale, but he yet had the courage to push it back into the coffin. The people loudly murmured, and shudderingly whispered to each other: “The dead man has touched his murderer. They have poisoned him, our good pope! His members fall apart. That is the effect of Acqua Tofana.” (*)
The infernal work had therefore proved successful, the vengeance was complete—Ganganelli was no more, and upon the papal throne sat Braschi, the friend of the Jesuits and of Cardinal Albani, to whom he had promised the crowning of the improvisatrice Corilla.
And as this cost nothing to the miserly Pope Pius, he this time found no inconvenience in keeping his sacred promise, though not so promptly as Corilla and the passionate cardinal desired.
Not until 1776, almost two years after Braschi had mounted the papal throne, took place the crowning of the improvisatrice in the capitol at Rome.
She had therefore attained the object of her wishes. She had finally reached it by bribery and intrigue, by hypocritical tenderness, by the resignation of her maiden modesty and womanly honor, and by all the arts of coquetry.
But this triumph of hers was not to be untroubled. The nobili shouted for her, and the cardinals and princes of the Church, but the people accompanied her to the capitol with hissing and howling. Poems came fluttering down on all sides; the first that fell upon Corilla’s head, Cardinal Albani eagerly seized and unfolded for the purpose of reading it aloud. But after the first few lines his voice was silenced—it was an abusive poem, full of mockery and scorn.
But nevertheless she was crowned. She still stood upon the capitol, with the laurel-crown upon her brow, cheered by her respectable protectors and friends. But the people joined not in those cheers, and, as the exulting shouts ceased, there swelled up to the laurel-crowned poetess, from thousands of voices, a thundering laugh of scorn, and this scornful laugh, this hissing and howling of the people, accompanied her upon her return from the capitol, following her through the streets to her own door. The people had judged her!
Corilla was no poetess by the grace of God, and only by the grace of man had she been crowned as queen of poesy!
Mortified, crushed, and enraged, she fled from Rome to Florence. She knew how to flatter the great and win princes. She was a princess-poetess, and the people rejected her!
But the laurel was hers. She was sought and esteemed, the princes admired her, and Catharine of Russia fulfilled the promise Orloff had made the improvisatrice in the name of the empress. Corilla received a pension from Russia. Russia has always promptly and liberally paid those who have sold themselves and rendered services to her. Russia is very rich, and can always send so many thousands of her best and noblest to work in the mines of Siberia, that she can never lack means for paying her spies and agents.
With Carlo’s death, Natalie had lost her last friend; with the stolen money and diamonds, Marianne was robbed of her last pecuniary means. But Natalie paid no attention to Marianne’s lamentations. What cared she for poverty and destitution—what knew she of these outward treasures, of this wealth consisting in gold and jewels? Natalie knew only that she had been robbed of a noble, spiritual possession—that they had murdered the friend who had consecrated himself to her with such true and devoted love, and, weeping over his body, she dedicated to him the tribute of a tear of the purest gratitude, of saddest lamentation.
But so imperfect is the world that it often leaves no time for mourning—that in the midst of our sorrow it causes us to hear the prosaic voices of reality and necessity, compelling us to dry our eyes and turning our thoughts from painfully-sweet remembrances of a lost happiness to the realities of practical life.
Natalie’s delicately-sensitive soul was to experience this rough contact of reality, and, with an internal shudder, must she bend under the rough hand of the present.
Pale, breathless, trembling, rushed Marianne into the room where Natalie, in solitary mourning, was weeping for her lost friend.
“We are ruined, hopelessly ruined!” screamed Marianne. “They will drive us from our last possession, they will turn us out of our house! All the misfortunes of the whole world break over and crush us!”
The young maiden looked at her with a calm, clear glance.
“Then let them crush us,” she quietly said. “It is better to be crushed at once than to be slowly and lingeringly wasted!”
“But you hear me not, princess,” shrieked Marianne, wringing her hands. “They will drive us from here, I tell you; they will expel you from your house!”
“And who will do that?” asked the young maiden, proudly rising with flashing eyes. “Who dares threaten me in my own house?”
“Without are soldiers and bailiffs and the officers of the Russian embassy. They have made a forcible entrance, and with force they will expel you from the house. They are already sealing the doors and seizing everything in the house.”
A dark purple glow for a moment overspread Natalie’s cheeks, and her glance was flame. “I will see,” said she, “who has the robber-like boldness to dispute my possession of my own property!”
With proud steps and elevated head she strode through the room to the door opening upon the corridor.
The bailiffs and soldiers, who had been placed there, respectfully stood aside. Natalie paid no attention to them, but immediately advanced to the officer who, with a loud voice, was just then commanding them to seal all the doors and see that nothing was taken from the rooms.
“I wish to know,” said Natalie, with her clear, silver-toned voice—“I wish to know by what right people here force their way into my house, and what excuse you have for this shameless conduct?”
The officer, who was no other than Stephano, bowed to her with a slightly ironical smile.
“Justice needs no excuse,” said he. “On the part and by command of her illustrious majesty, the great Empress Catharine, I lay an attachment upon this house and all it contains. It is from this hour the sacred possession of her Russian majesty.”
“It is the exclusive property of the Count Paulo!” proudly responded Natalie.
“It was the property of Count Paul Rasczinsky,” said Stephano. “But convicted traitors have no property. This criminal count has been convicted of high-treason. The mercy of the empress has indeed changed the sentence of death into one of eternal banishment to Siberia, but she has been pleased to approve the confiscation of all he possessed. In virtue of this approval, and by permission of the holy Roman government, I attach this house and its contents!”
Natalie no longer heard him. Almost unconscious lay she in Marianne’s arms. Paulo was lost, sentenced to death, imprisoned, and banished for life—that was all she had heard and comprehended—this terrible news had confused and benumbed her senses.
“Sir!” implored Marianne, pressing Natalie to her bosom, “you will at least have some mercy upon this young maiden; you will not thrust us out upon the streets; you will grant us a quiet residence in this house until we can collect our effects and secure what is indisputably ours!”
“Every thing in this house is the indisputable property of the empress!” roughly responded Stephano.
“But not ourselves, I hope!” excitedly exclaimed Marianne. “This imperial power does not extend over our persons?”
Stephano roughly replied: “The door stands open, go! But go directly, or I shall be compelled to arrest you for opposing the execution of the laws, and stirring up sedition!”
“Yes, let us go,” cried Natalie, who had recovered her consciousness—“let us go, Marianne. Let us not remain a moment longer in a house belonging to that barbarous Russian empress who has condemned the noble Count Paulo as a criminal, and, robber-like, taken forcible possession of his property!”
And, following the first impulse of her noble pride, the young maiden took Marianne by the hand and drew her away.
“They, at least, shall not forcibly eject us,” said she; “no, no, we will go of our own free will, self-banished!”
“But where shall we go?” cried Marianne, wringing her hands.
“Where God wills!” solemnly responded the young maiden.
“And upon what shall we live?” wailed Marianne. “We are now totally destitute and helpless. How shall we live?”
“We will work!” said Natalie, firmly. A peculiar calm had come over her. Misfortune had awakened a new quality in her nature, sorrow had struck a new string in her being; she was no longer the delicate, gentle, suffering, unresisting child; she felt in herself a firm resolution, a bold courage, an almost joyful daring, and an invincible calmness.
“Work! You will work, princess?” whispered Marianne.
“I will learn it!” said she, and with a constantly quickened step they approached the outlet of the garden.
The gate which led out into the street was wide open; soldiers in Russian uniform had been stationed before it, keeping back with their carbines the curious Romans who crowded around in great numbers, glad of an opportunity to get a peep into the so-long-closed charmed garden.
“See, there she comes, the garden fairy!” cried they all, as Natalie neared the gate.
“How beautiful she is, how beautiful!” they loudly exclaimed.
“That is a real fairy, a divinity!”
Natalie heard none of these expressions of admiration—she had but one object, one thought. She wished to leave the garden; she wished to go forth; she had no regrets, no complaints, for this lost paradise; she only wished to get out of it, even if it was to go to her death.
But the soldiers stationed at the gate opposed her progress.
Natalie regarded them with terror and amazement.
“They cannot, at least, oppose my voluntary resignation of my property,” said she. “Away with these muskets and sabres! I would pass out!”
And the young maiden boldly advanced a step. But those weapons stretched before her like a wall, and Natalie was now overcome by anguish and despair; the inconsolable feeling of her total abandonment, of her miserable isolation. Tears burst from her eyes, her pride was broken, she was again the trembling young girl, no longer the heroic woman; she wept, and in tremulous tone, with folded hands, she implored of these rough soldiers a little mercy, a little compassion.
They understood not her language, they had no sympathy; but the crowd were touched by the tears of the beautiful girl and by the sad lamentations of her companion. They screamed, they howled, they insulted the soldiers, they swore to liberate the two women by force, if the soldiers any longer refused them a passage. Dumb, unshaken, immovable, like a wall stood the soldiers with their weapons stretched forth.
Through the hissing and tumult a loud and commanding voice was suddenly heard to ask, “What is going on here? What means this disturbance?” An officer made his way through the crowd, and approached the garden gate. The soldiers respectfully gave way, and he stepped into the garden.
“Oh, sir,” said Natalie, turning to him her tearful face, “if you are an honorable man, have compassion for an abandoned and unprotected maiden, and command these soldiers, who seem to obey you, to let me and my companion go forth unhindered.”
The Russian officer, Joseph Ribas, bowed low and respectfully to her. “If it is the Princess Tartaroff whom I have the honor of addressing,” said he, “I must in the name of my illustrious lord, beg your pardon for what has improperly occurred here; at his command I come to set it all right!”
Thus speaking, he returned to the soldiers, and in a low tone exchanged some words with their leader. The latter bowed respectfully, and at his signal the soldiers shut the gate and retired into the street.
“Am I to be detained here as a prisoner?” exclaimed Natalie. “Am I not allowed to leave this garden?”
“Your grace, preliminarily, can still consider this garden as your own property,” he respectfully responded. “I am commanded to watch that no one dare to disturb you here, and for this purpose my lord respectfully requests that you will have the goodness to permit me to remain in your house as the guardian of your safety.”
“And who is this generous man?” asked Natalie.
“He is a man who has made a solemn vow to protect innocence everywhere, when he finds it threatened!” solemnly responded Joseph Ribas. “He is a man who is ready to shed his blood for the Princess Tartaroff, who is surrounded by enemies and dangers; a man,” he continued, in a lower tone, “who knows and loves your friend and guardian, Count Paulo, and will soon bring you secret and sure news from him!”
“He knows Count Paulo!” joyfully exclaimed Natalie. “Oh, then all is well. I may safely confide in whoever knows and loves Count Paulo, for he must bear in his bosom a noble heart!”
And turning to Joseph Ribas with a charming smile, she said, “Sir, lead me now where you will. We will both gladly follow you!”
“Let us, first of all, go into the villa, and send away those troublesome people!” said the Russian officer, preceding the two women to the house.
The bailiffs and soldiers were still there, occupied with sealing the doors and closets. Joseph Ribas approached them with angry glances, and, turning to Stephano, said, “Sir, I shall call you to account for this over-hasty and illegal proceeding!”
“I am in my right!” morosely answered Stephano. “Here is the command to attach this villa. It has fallen to the Russian crown as the property of the traitor Rasczinsky.”
“There is only the one error to be corrected,” said Joseph Ribas, “that this villa was not the property of Count Rasczinsky, as he some months ago sold it to his friend, my master. And as, so far as I know, the illustrious count, my master, never was a traitor, you will please to respect his property!”
“You will have first to authenticate your assertions!” responded Stephano, with a rude laugh.
“Here is the documental authentication!” said Joseph Ribas, handing a paper to Stephano. The latter, after attentively reading the documents, bowed reverentially, and said: “Sir, it appears that I was certainly mistaken. This deed of gift is en regle, and is undersigned by his grace the Russian ambassador. You will pardon me, as I only acted according to my orders.”
Joseph Ribas answered Stephano’s reverential bow with a haughty nod. “Go,” said he, “take off the seals in the quickest possible time, and then away with you!”
But as Stephano was about retiring with his people, Joseph Ribas beckoned him back again.
“You have, therefore, recognized this deed of gift?” asked he, and as Stephano assented, he continued: “You therefore cannot deny that my master is the undisputed possessor of this villa, and can do with it according to his pleasure?”
“I do not deny it at all!” growled Stephano.
Joseph Ribas then drew forth another paper, which he also handed Stephano. “You will also recognize this deed of gift to be regular and legal! It is likewise undersigned and authenticated by our ambassador.”
Stephano, having attentively read it, almost indignantly said:
“It is all right. But the count is crazy, to give away so fine a property!”
And still grumbling, he departed with his people.
Clinging to Marianne’s side, Natalie had observed the whole proceeding with silent wonder; and, with the astonishment of innocence and inexperience, she comprehended nothing of the whole scene, nor was a suspicion awakened in her childishly pure soul.
“He is, then, really going?” she asked, as Stephano was slowly moving off.
“Yes, he is going,” said Joseph Ribas, “and will never venture to disturb you again. Henceforth you will be in undisputed possession of your property. My lord has made this villa and garden forever yours by a regular legal deed of gift.”
“And who is your lord?” asked Natalie. “Tell me his name—tell me where I may find him, that I may return him my thanks?”
“Yes, conduct us to him,” said the weeping Marianne. “Let me clasp his feet and implore his further protection for my poor helpless princess.”
“My lord desires no thanks,” proudly responded Ribas. “He does good for his own sake, and protects innocence because that is the duty of every knight and nobleman.”
“At least tell me his name, that I may pray for him,” sobbed Marianne.
“Yes, his name,” said Natalie, with a charming smile. “Ah, how I shall love that name!”
“His name is his own secret,” said Ribas. “The world, indeed, knows and blesses him, calling him the bravest of the brave. But it is his command that you shall never be informed of it. He desires nothing, no thanks, no acknowledgments—he wishes only to secure your peace and happiness, and thus redeem the solemn vow he made to his friend, Count Paulo Rasczinsky, to guard and preserve you as a father, and to watch over you as your tutelar genius!”
“Thanks, thanks, my God!” cried Marianne, with her arms raised toward heaven. “Thou sendest us help in our need, Thou hast mercy on suffering innocence, and sendest her a saviour in her greatest distress!”
The young maiden said nothing. Her radiant glance was directed heavenward, and, folding her hands over her bosom, with a happy, grateful smile she murmured:
“I am therefore no longer alone, I have a friend who watches over and protects me. Whoever he may be, he is sent by Count Paulo. Whatever may be his name, I shall be forever grateful to him!”