The Daughter of an Empress Part 51

From that day had a new and marvellous life commenced for Natalie. She felt herself surrounded by a dreamy, magic, fantastic, supernatural life; it seemed as if some invisible genius hovered over her, listening to all her thoughts, realizing all her wishes! And Joseph Ribas was the merry, always-cheerful, always-serious Kobold of this invisible deity!

"My lord is not satisfied with the modest furnis.h.i.+ng of your villa,"

said he to Natalie, on the first day. "He begs to be allowed to adorn your chamber with a splendor suited to your rank and your future greatness!"

"And in what is my future greatness to consist?" asked the young maiden, with curiosity.

"That will be made known to you at the proper time," mysteriously replied Joseph Ribas.

"Who will tell me?"

"He, the count."

"I shall therefore see him!" she joyfully exclaimed.

"Perhaps! Will you, however, first allow me to have your room properly furnished?"

"This villa belongs to your lord," said Natalie. "It is for him, as lord and master, to do as he pleases in it."

And satisfied, Ribas hastened away, to return in a few hours with more than fifty workmen and artists, in order to commence the improvements.

Until now the villa had been finished and furnished with simple elegance. One missed nothing necessary for comfort or convenience, for pleasantness or taste. But it was still only the elegant and fas.h.i.+onable residence of a private person. Now, as by the stroke of a magic wand, this villa in a few days was converted into the splendid palace of some sultan or caliph. There were heavy Turkish carpets on the floors, velvet curtains with gold embroidery at the windows and on the walls, the richest and most comfortable divans and arm-chairs, covered with gold-embroidered stuffs; vases ornamented with the most costly precious stones, n.o.ble bronze statues, beautiful paintings, and between them the rarest ornaments, glistening with jewels, which modern times have designated by the name of ribs; there were delicate little trifles of inestimable value, and with refined taste and judgment every thing was sought out which luxury and convenience could demand. With childish astonishment and ecstasy, Natalie wandered through these rooms, which she hardly recognized in their splendid ornamentation, and stood before these treasures of trifles which she hardly dared to touch.

"This lord must be either a magician or a nabob," thoughtfully remarked Marianne; "it must have required millions to effect all this."

Natalie asked neither whether he was a magician, a millionaire, or a nabob; she only thought she was to see him, and be allowed to thank him--nothing further.

"Will he come now?" she constantly asked of the humble and slavishly devoted Joseph Ribas; "will he come now that his house is prepared for his reception?"

"It is adorned only for you, princess," humbly replied Ribas. "The count, my master, wishes for nothing but to see you in a habitation worthy of you!"

But what was this luxury, what cared she for these treasures the value of which she was incapable of estimating, and which were indifferent to her? She who had no conception of wealth or of money?--she, who knew not that there was poverty in the world, and who, raised in an Eden separated from the world, had no idea that hunger had ever made its appearance within it--she knew only the sorrows of the happy, the deprivations of the rich; she had never had either to struggle against real misfortune or to experience real want and deprivation.

Now, indeed, a deeper sorrow had entered into her life; she had lost her beloved paternal friend, Count Paulo; and Carlo, also, had been torn from her! That was certainly a more profound sorrow, and she had wept much for both of them,--but yet that was no real misfortune. She had never yet lost the whole substance of her life; for those two, however much she might always have loved them, had nevertheless, not entirely filled out her life; they had been a part of her happiness, but not that happiness itself.

And she awaited happiness! She awaited it with ecstasy and devotion, with feverish hope and glowing desire! She knew not and asked not in what this happiness was to consist, and yet her heart yearned for it; she called for this unknown and nameless happiness with a throbbing bosom and tremulously whispering lips!

She was so much alone, she had so much time for dreaming, and intoxicating herself with fantastic imaginations! She was surrounded by a fabulous world, and she was the fairy of that world! But out of that fabulous world she sometimes longed to be, out of the ideal into the real; she yearned for truth and actuality. Then she would call Joseph Ribas to her side and bid him relate to her of that unknown lord, his master.

He told her of his battles and his heroic deeds, of his wonderful acts of bravery, and the young maiden tremblingly and shudderingly listened to him. She feared this man, who had shed streams of blood, and whose enemies with their dying lips had lauded as the greatest of heroes! And Joseph Ribas smiled when he saw her turn pale and tremble, and he would speak to her of his generosity and humanity, of his knighthood and virtue; he related to her how, on one occasion, at the risk of his life he had protected and saved a persecuted young maiden; how on another he had taken pity on a helpless old man, and singly had defended him against a host of bloodthirsty enemies. He also spoke to her of the sorrow of his master on account of the ingrat.i.tude and deceptions he had experienced, and Natalie's eyes filled with tears as, with reproachful glances, she asked of Heaven how it could have permitted the virtue of this n.o.ble unknown hero to be so severely tried, and the baseness of mankind to trouble him.

"That is it, then," Ribas would often say; "he diffuses happiness everywhere around him, while he himself has it not! He makes glad and cheerful faces wherever he appears, and his own is the only serious and sad brow. Mankind have made him hopeless, and for himself he no longer believes in happiness!"

Ah, how then did the heart of this innocent child tremble, and how she longed to find some means for restoring his belief in happiness.

"But why does he not come to those who love him?" asked she. "Why does he decline the thanks of those whose hearts are truly devoted to him?

Ah, in our humid eyes and joy-beaming faces he would recognize the truthfulness of our feelings! Why, then, comes he not?"

"I will tell you," said Ribas, with a smile; "he hates women, because the only one he ever loved was false to him, and now his love is changed to ardent hatred of all women!"

"I shall therefore never see him!" sighed the girl, hanging her head with the sadness of disappointment.

This expectation, this constantly increasing impatience, rendered her inaccessible to any other feeling, any other thought. He of whom she did not know even the name, was sent by Paulo, and therefore had she believed and confided in him from the first. Now had she already forgotten that she had confided in him on Paulo's account; she believed in him on his own account, and Paulo had retreated into the background.

Occasionally also the b.l.o.o.d.y image of poor Carlo presented itself to her mind, and she secretly reproached herself for having mourned him for so short a time, for having so soon forgotten that faithful, self-sacrificing friend.

But even these reproaches were soon silenced when with a throbbing bosom she thought of this new friend, who like a divinity hovered over her at an infinite and unattainable distance, and whose mysteriously active nearness replaced both of those friends she had lost, and for whom she could no longer mourn.

HE!

"It is now high time!" said Joseph Ribas, one day, as, coming from Natalie, he entered the boudoir of Count Alexis Orloff. "Now, your excellency, the right moment has come! You must show yourself, or this curious child will consume herself with a longing that has changed her blood to fire! She thinks of nothing but you; with open eyes she dreams of you, and without the least suspicion that any one is listening to her, she speaks to you, ah, with what modest tenderness and with what humble devotion! I tell you, your excellency, you are highly blessed.

There is no child more innocent, no woman more glowing with love. And she knows it not; no, she has not the least suspicion that she already loves you with enthusiasm, and thirsts for your kisses as the rose for the morning dew! She knows nothing of her love!"

"She shall learn something of it!" said Orloff, laughing. "It will be a pleasant task to enlighten this little unknowing one as to her own feelings. And I flatter myself I understand how to do that."

"Endeavor, above all things, your excellency, to realize the ideal she bears in her heart. She expects to see nothing less than an Apollo, whose radiant beauty will annihilate her as Jupiter did Semele!"

"Well, in that, I hope she has not deceived herself," responded Orloff, with a self-satisfied glance into the mirror. "If I am not Jupiter, yet they call me Hercules, and he, you know, was the son of Jupiter, and, indeed, his handsomest son!"

"And be you not only a Hercules, but a Zephyr and Apollo, at the same time. Make her tremble before your heroic character, and at the same time win her confidence in your humble, modest love--then is she yours.

You must cautiously and noiselessly spread your nets, you must not wound her delicate sensitiveness by a word or look, or she will flee from you like a frightened gazelle!"

"Oh, should she wish to flee, my arms are strong enough to hold her!"

"Yet is it better to hold her so fast by her own enthusiasm, that she shall not wish to flee," said Ribas. "You must entirely intoxicate her with your humble and respectful love--then is she yours!"

"Does she know I am coming?" thoughtfully asked Orloff.

"No, she knows nothing of it. She sits in the garden and sighs, occasionally grasping the golden guitar that lies on her arm, and asks of the flowers: 'What is the name of my unknown friend? In what star does he dwell, and how shall I invoke him?'"

"I will, then, surprise her!" said Orloff. "Let her antic.i.p.ate my coming, but do not promise it. It begins to grow dark. Where is she, evenings?"

"Always in the garden. There she sighs and dreams of you!"

"Persuade her to go into the house, and let it be well lighted up!

I would appear to her in the full splendor of the lights! Ha, you ragam.u.f.fins, you hounds, bring me my oriental costume, the richest, handsomest; hasten, or I will throttle you!"

And Count Orloff hurried into his toilet-chamber, to the trembling slaves who there awaited him.

With a sly smile Joseph Ribas returned to the villa. As he had previously said, he found Natalie dreaming in the garden, the guitar upon her arm.

"You ought to go into the house this evening," said he, "the air is damp and cold, and may injure you."

"Of what consequence would that be?" she sadly responded. "Who would ask whether I was ill nor not? Who would weep for my death?"

"He!"