The Countess von Rudolstadt

by George Sand

  Consuelo quaked from head to toe. Fortunately, in all kinds of danger, she maintained a presence of mind that had always saved her as though by miracle. She remembered that Frederick often told lies to get at the truth and was known to drag confessions out of people mainly by catching them off guard. She kept up her defenses, put a smile on her pale face and replied, “That’s a strange accusation, and I don’t know what one can say to fanciful questions.”

  “Now you’ve found your tongue again,” the king continued. “It’s plain to see you’re lying! Didn’t you go to the palace last night? Answer yes or no!”

  “Well then, no!” she said with courage, preferring the shame of being caught in a lie to trying to clear herself by the cowardly surrender of someone else’s secret.

  “You didn’t leave the palace at three this morning, all alone?”

  “No,” said Consuelo. Having noticed a faint shadow of irresolution cross his face, she felt her strength returning. Now she had the upper hand in the king’s little game of catching the other off guard.

  “That’s three times you’ve dared say no!” fumed king, his eyes blazing.

  “And I’ll dare make it four, if Your Majesty requires,” replied Consuelo, determined to stand firm through the storm.

  “Oh, I know that a woman will hold to a lie under torture the same way the early Christian martyrs held to what they believed to be the truth. Who on earth can flatter himself on getting a straight answer out of a woman? Listen here, Mademoiselle, up till now I’ve had respect for you, for I considered you a solitary exception to the vices of your sex, neither scheming nor treacherous nor brazen. Your character inspired in me a trust that went as far as affection. . . .”

  “And now, Sire. . . .”

  “Don’t interrupt. Now I’ve formed my opinion, and you’ll feel the effects. But listen carefully. If you are so unfortunate as to have meddled in some little palace intrigues, opening your ears to certain untoward secrets and doing certain dangerous favors, I won’t be fooled for long, let there be no illusions about that; and you’ll be driven out of here as shamefully as you were received with distinction and kindness.”

  “Sire,” said Consuelo unabashed, “as it is my dearest and most abiding wish to leave Prussia, I’m grateful to be ordered out, whatever the pretext for my dismissal or the harshness of your rebuke.”

  “Ah! So that’s how you take it!” Frederick roared, beside himself with rage. “How dare you speak to me that way!”

  He raised his walking stick as though he meant to strike Consuelo, but the air of serene contempt with which she awaited this outrage made him come to his senses. He threw the stick across the room and entreated her, “Look here, forget any rights you may have to Captain Kreutz’s gratitude, and speak to the king with proper respect. Push me too far, and I may punish you like an unruly child.”

  “Sire, I know that children are thrashed in your august family, and I’ve heard that Your Majesty once tried to avoid such treatment by running away. A zingara like me will find that easier than Crown Prince Frederick. If Your Majesty doesn’t let me go within twenty-four hours, I’ll personally put his mind at ease about my schemes by slipping out of Prussia without a passport. It’s fine with me if I have to take off on foot and jump moats like deserters and smugglers.”

  “You’re crazy!” said Frederick, shrugging his shoulders and striding across the room to hide his exasperation and remorse. “You’ll get out of here, all right—nothing could please me more—but there’ll be no scandal and no rush. I won’t have you leaving me like this, displeased with me, with yourself as well. Where the devil did you get that sassy tongue? And what the devil is making me go so easy on you?”

  “No doubt some quite unnecessary scruple of generosity. Your Majesty feels obliged to me because of a favor that I would have done for the least of his subjects with the same zeal. May Your Majesty consider his debt repaid a thousand times over and let me go as soon as possible. My freedom will be reward enough, and that’s all I ask.”

  “What’s this? There’s still more? Will nothing make you change your tune?” asked the king, stunned by the girl’s brazen single-mindedness. “This is not courage, but hatred!”

  “And if it were,” replied Consuelo, “would Your Majesty care one whit?”

  “Good heavens! What do you mean, you wretched little girl?” asked the king, sounding earnestly pained. “You don’t understand what you’re saying, poor child. It takes a perverse soul to be insensitive to the hatred of its own kind.”

  “Does Frederick the Great consider Porporina a being of his own kind?”

  “Intelligence and virtue alone raise certain individuals above others. You’re a singer of genius. Your conscience ought to tell you if you’re a worthy person. . . . But it’s saying just the opposite right now, for your soul is brimming with bitterness and resentment.”

  “And if that were so, wouldn’t the great Frederick have to take some of the blame for kindling these evil passions in a habitually peaceful, generous soul?”

  “Come now, are you angry?” asked Frederick, reaching for the girl’s hand. But he stopped himself, held back by that awkwardness that a streak of contempt and distaste for women had developed in him.

  Consuelo had exaggerated her spite so as to drive back into the king’s heart some tender feelings that were about to explode in the heat of the moment. Once she saw how bashful he was and realized that he was waiting for her to make a move, she lost all fear. Hers was an odd fate, for the only woman who could hold Frederick in her sway with some emotion resembling love was perhaps the only woman in his entire kingdom who loathed the idea of encouraging these feelings. True, Consuelo’s pride and revulsion may have been the main reason why the king felt drawn to her. The despot found her rebellious soul as tempting as the conquest of a new province. Without realizing it or wanting to make such frivolous exploits a point of honor, he felt admiration and instinctive affinity for a hardy nature that he, in some respects, considered akin to his own.

  “Now then,” said he, suddenly shoving into his vest pocket the hand that he had advanced toward Consuelo, “stop telling me that I don’t mind being hated, for you might make me think it’s true, and I’d find that odious!”

  “Yet you want to be feared.”

  “No, I want to be respected.”

  “So it’s by means of a good flogging that your corporals inspire your soldiers with respect for your name.”

  “What’s this? What are you talking about? What business is this of yours?”

  “I’m giving clear, simple answers to Your Majesty’s questions.”

  “You think I owe you an apology for a moment of temper provoked by your folly?”

  “On the contrary! If you could break over my head the stick that rules Prussia, I’d beg Your Majesty to pick it back up.”

  “Nonsense! Given that this walking stick was a present from Voltaire, if I were to caress your shoulders with it a bit, you might become even wittier and mischievous. Look here, I’m very fond of this stick, but it’s clear to me that you require amends.”

  With these words the king picked up his stick and tried to snap it in two. Even when he put it over his knee, the stick bent but would not break.

  “You see,” said the king, throwing it into the fire, “this stick is not, as you maintain, the symbol of my power. It’s that of faithful Prussia, bending to my will without ever being broken. You’ll do well to do the same, Porporina.”

  “And what is Your Majesty’s will with regard to me? What a fine matter for exercising authority and troubling a great man’s serenity!”

  “It is my will that you give up the idea of leaving Berlin. Does that offend you?”

  Frederick’s keen, almost passionate look sufficiently explained the kind of amends he had in mind. Terror washed over Consuelo once again. She played dumb and said, “I’ll never resign myself to that. It’s too clear that I’d pay dearly the honor of amusing Your Majesty every now and then wi
th my trills. Everyone here is subject to suspicion. The most insignificant, obscure creatures aren’t safe from accusation, and I can’t live this way.”

  “You’re unhappy with your pay,” the king continued. “It will be increased.”

  “No, Sire. My pay is satisfactory. I’m not greedy, as Your Majesty knows.”

  “True. It’s only fair to say that you don’t love money. One doesn’t know, moreover, what you love!”

  “Freedom, Sire.”

  “Who is interfering with your freedom? You’re trying to pick a fight with me for no good reason. You just want to leave. That much is clear.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Yes? Your mind is made up?”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “To hell with you then!”

  The king grabbed his cap and his stick, untouched by the fire since it had rolled on the andirons, turned his back, and marched toward the door. As he was about to open it, he looked back at Consuelo with such an ingenuously sad face, so stricken with paternal grief, so different, in a word, from the monarch’s terrifying brow or the skeptical philosopher’s bitter smile that the poor child’s heart filled with remorse. Having grown so inured to domestic storms like this with Porpora, she forgot that Frederick had fierce, personal feelings for her that had never entered the chaste, generous, and fervent soul of her adoptive father. She turned away to hide a furtive tear, but the king was sharp-eyed as a lynx. He retraced his steps and raised his stick again, but so tenderly this time, as if he were about to play with a child of his loins. “You detestable creature!” he said in a sweet, loving voice, “you don’t have an ounce of affection for me!”

  “You’re very wrong, Baron,” she replied, fascinated by this half comedy which was so cleverly making amends for the Frederick’s real fit of brutal anger. “My fondness for Captain Kreutz equals my aversion to the King of Prussia.”

  “That’s because you do not, cannot understand the King of Prussia,” said Frederick. “So let’s not talk about him. One day, after you’ve lived in this land long enough to understand its character and needs, you’ll be fairer to the man who is doing his best to rule it properly. In the meantime, be a bit nicer to this poor baron who is so thoroughly bored with the court and courtiers, who came here for a few moments of peace and happiness with a pure soul and candid spirit. I was free for only an hour, and you’ve done nothing but quarrel with me the whole time. As long as you’re a better hostess, I’ll come back another time and bring along my greyhound Mopsule to amuse you. You behave yourself, and I’ll give you a pretty white greyhound she’s nursing right now. You’ll have to take such good care of it! Ah, I almost forgot! Here’s some poetry I’ve written, stanzas about music. You can set them to a melody, and my sister Amalia will enjoy singing them.”

  After several false starts, lots of gracious chatter, and frivolous cajoleries for the object of his benevolence, the king took a leisurely leave. He could prattle on when he wanted to, even though he was usually pithy, brisk, and very sensible. No one’s conversation had more so-called substance, and nothing was rarer in that period than his serious, solid tone in small talk. Yet with Consuelo he had aimed to be pleasant and easy-going, and he succeeded well enough in seeming that way that she was occasionally filled with naïve wonderment. Once he had gone, she regretted as usual not having succeeded in giving him a distaste for her and the whim of these dangerous visits as well. The king, for his part, went away half annoyed with himself. He loved Consuelo in his own fashion and would have liked really to inspire her with the affection and admiration feigned by his false, witty friends. He might have given a lot, he who scarcely liked to give, to know once in his life the pleasure of being loved sincerely, without ulterior motives. Yet he realized that this was not easy to reconcile with the authority he did not want to relinquish. Like a glutted cat playing with a mouse ready to bolt, he could not decide whether he wanted to tame her or twist her neck. “She’s going too far, and this will come to a bad end,” he thought to himself, climbing into his carriage. “If she keeps on being so difficult, I’ll have to see that she commit some offense and send her to a fortress for a while. That regime ought to take the edge off that proud courage. Yet I’d prefer to dazzle the girl and hold her in my sway as I do so many others. With a bit more time and patience, I’m sure to get the better of her. What a pesky, intriguing little chore this is! Let’s just see! For sure, she mustn’t leave right now, for then she’d go around bragging that she got away with telling me off. No, no! She leaves me nice and docile, or else broken. . . .” At which point the king, who had many other things to think about, as one can believe, opened a book so as not to waste five minutes on idle daydreams; and by the time he stepped out of his carriage, he could not quite remember what had been on his mind climbing in.

  Porporina, quivering with worry, gave a bit more thought to the dangers of her situation. She upbraided herself for yielding and tacitly agreeing to give up the idea of leaving, but these meditations were interrupted by the delivery of money and letters from Mme von Kleist which Consuelo was to pass along to Saint-Germain, who would get them to Trenck. In addition to this responsibility, Consuelo might also have to play the role of the fugitive’s mistress in order to cover up Princess Amalia’s secret. She found herself involved in a nasty, dangerous situation, all the more because she did not really trust the mysterious agents with whom she had been put in contact and who seemed to want to meddle in her own secrets as well. She got busy with her disguise for the ball at the Opera, where she was to meet Saint-Germain, all the while thinking with resigned terror that she was on the brink of an abyss.

  Chapter XII

  As soon as the opera was over, the auditorium was leveled, lit up, and decorated according to custom, and the great masked ball known in Berlin as the redoute got under way at the stroke of midnight. It was quite a mixed crowd, for blue-blooded princes and perhaps even princesses found themselves mingled with all the local actors and actresses. Porporina slipped in alone disguised as a nun, her neck and shoulders hidden by the wimple, her body enveloped in the folds of the habit. She felt the need to make herself unrecognizable to circumvent any comments about her rendezvous with Saint-Germain. She was also eager to test the perspicacity of the man who had vaunted his ability to identify her no matter what her disguise. So all alone, and without even telling her maid, she had arranged this simple, easy costume. She arrived at the ball wrapped in a long fur-lined cloak that only came off once she was in the midst of the throng. Before she had even made her way around the ballroom, something worrisome caught her eye. Not just once but several times a masked figure that was about Consuelo’s size, ostensibly of her sex, and dressed in the exact same habit danced up to her and joked about their identities.

  “Dear sister,” said this nun, “which one of us, I’d like to know, is the other’s shade? And since you look lighter and airier than I, let me touch your hand to see if you’re my twin or my ghost.”

  Consuelo repelled these attacks and tried to get to her dressing room to change her costume or some part of it so as to prevent confusion. She was afraid that if the Count de Saint-Germain, despite all her precautions, had had some revelation about her disguise, he might speak to her double and fill that one’s ears with the secrets he had announced to her the evening before. But she was in no position to carry out that plan. Already a Capuchin monk had begun following her, then willy-nilly seized her arm.

  “You won’t escape me, sister,” he said in a low voice. “I’m your father confessor, and I’m going to tell you your sins. You’re Princess Amalia.”

  “And you’re a novice, brother,” said Consuelo, disguising her voice as one usually does at masked balls. “You don’t know your penitents at all well.”

  “Oh, it’s no good trying to change your voice, sister. I don’t know if that is the habit of your order, but you’re the Abbess of Quedlinburg. That you can admit to me, your brother Heinrich.”

  As the prince had often spoke
n to her, Consuelo recognized his strikingly guttural voice. To make sure that her double was in fact the princess, she said no once again, at which point the prince added, “I saw your costume at the tailor’s. Since there are no secrets for princes, I found yours out. Come on, let’s not waste time in idle chatter. You can’t mean to tease me, dear sister, and I’m not following you just to be a pest. I’ve got some serious things to tell you. Come on over here.”

  Consuelo, who had made up her mind to show him her face rather than to learn family secrets by taking advantage of his mistake, let the prince lead her away. Yet once they were alone in a box and he began talking, she reluctantly pricked up her ears and felt entitled to hear him out.

  “Beware of going too fast with Porporina,” said the prince to his supposed sister. “It’s not that I doubt her discretion or noble heart. The most important people in the order vouch for her; and even at the risk of your ragging me again about my feelings for her, I’ll repeat that I share your sympathy for this lovely person. But neither they nor I think that you should take any chances with her before we’re sure of her frame of mind. An undertaking that seizes upon a fiery imagination such as yours or a mind as righteously indignant as mine can at first terrify a shy girl who has probably never had anything to do with philosophy or politics. The reasons that moved you are not those that will make an impression on a woman from such a different sphere. Let Trismegistus or Saint-Germain take care of this initiation.”

  “But hasn’t Trismegistus already left?” asked Consuelo, too fine an actress not to be able to imitate Princess Amalia’s hoarse, unsteady voice.

  “You ought to know that better than I, since he deals only with you. I don’t know the man. But Saint-Germain strikes me as the cleverest, the most extraordinarily adept practitioner of the science that interests us. He’s undertaken to win over the beautiful singer and keep her out of danger.”