When Fabrizio left the archiepiscopal palace he hurried off to Marietta’s
dwelling. In the distance he heard Giletti’s rough voice. He had sent
out for wine, and was carousing with his friends the prompter and the
candle snuffer. The _mamaccia_, who performed the functions of a mother
to Marietta, was the only person who answered his signal.
“Things have happened while you have been away,” she cried. “Two or three
of our actors have been accused of having held an orgy in honour of the
great Napoleon’s birthday, and our unlucky company has been given the
name of Jacobin. So we have been ordered to clear out of the dominion of
Parma, and, _Evriva Napoleone_! But the Prime Minister is supposed to
have paid our reckoning. Giletti certainly has money in his pocket. I
don’t know how much, but I have seen him with a handful of crown pieces.
The manager has given Marietta five crowns for her travelling expenses
to Mantua and Venice, and one for mine. She is still very much in love
with you, but she is afraid of Giletti. Three days ago, at her last
performance, he really would have killed her. He boxed her ears soundly
twice over, and, what is abominable, he tore her blue shawl. If you would
give her a blue shawl it would be very good-natured of you, and we would
say we had won it in the lottery. The drum master of the carabineers is
holding a competition to-morrow—you will see the hour advertised at every
street corner. Come and see us then. If Giletti goes to the match, and
we can hope he will stay away for any time, I will be at the window, and
will beckon you to come up. Try to bring us something very pretty. And
Marietta dotes upon you.”
As he descended the winding stairs that led from the vile garret,
Fabrizio’s soul was filled with compunction. “I am not a bit altered,” he
thought. “All those fine resolutions I made on the shores of the lake,
when I looked at life with so much philosophy, have flown away. I was not
in my normal condition then. It was all a dream, which disappears when I
have to face stern realities. This would be the moment for action,” he
went on, as he re-entered the Sanseverina Palace about eleven o’clock at
night. But in vain did he search his heart for that noble sincerity which
had seemed so easy of attainment during the night he had spent on the
shores of Como. “I shall displease the person I love best in the world.
If I speak, I shall look like an inferior play-actor. I really never am
worth anything, except in certain moments of excitement.”
“The count is wonderfully good to me,” said he to the duchess, after he
had given her an account of his visit to the archbishop. “I value his
kindness all the more highly because I fancy I notice that he does not
particularly care about me. Therefore I must be all the more correct
in my behaviour to him. I know he has excavations at Sanguigna in
which he still delights—judging, at least, by his expedition the day
before yesterday, galloping twelve leagues to spend two hours with his
workmen. He is afraid that if they find fragments of statuary in the
antique temple, the foundations of which he has just laid bare, they may
steal them. I should like to offer to go and spend thirty-six hours at
Sanguigna. I am to see the archbishop to-morrow, about five o’clock. I
could start in the evening, and take advantage of the cool hours of the
night for my ride.”
The duchess made no answer at first. Presently she said to him in a very
tender voice: “It looks as if you were seeking pretexts for getting away
from me; you are hardly back from Belgirate, and you find out a reason
for starting off again.”
“Here’s a fine opportunity for me,” thought Fabrizio. “But I was a little
mad when I was sitting by the lake. In my passion for truthfulness I
overlooked the fact that my compliment winds up with an impertinence.
I should have to say, ‘I regard you with the most devoted friendship,
etc., but my heart is not capable of real love.’ Is not that tantamount
to saying: ‘I see you are in love with me. But pray take care! I can not
return it to you in kind.’ If the duchess has any passion for me, she
will be vexed at my having guessed it. If her feeling for me is one of
mere friendship she will be disgusted by my impudence, and such offences
are never forgiven.”
While he was weighing these important considerations Fabrizio was
walking, quite unconsciously, up and down the room, looking grave and
proud, like a man who sees misfortune hovering within ten paces of him.
The duchess gazed at him with admiration. This was not the child she had
known from his birth, the nephew ever ready to obey her commands. This
was a serious man—a man whose love would be an exquisite possession. She
rose from the ottoman on which she had been sitting, and threw herself
passionately into his arms.
“Are you bent on leaving me?” she cried.
“No,” said he, looking like a Roman emperor, “but I want to behave well.”
The phrase was susceptible of several interpretations. Fabrizio had not
courage to go farther, and run the risk of wounding the adorable woman
before him. He was too young, too easily moved. His mind did not suggest
any well-turned expression which might convey his meaning. In a fit of
passion, which was natural enough, and in spite of his reason, he clasped
the charming creature in his arms and rained kisses upon her. Just at
that moment the count’s carriage was heard in the courtyard, and almost
instantly he entered the room. He looked quite affected.
“You inspire very strange devotions,” said he to Fabrizio, who was almost
stunned by the phrase. “This evening the archbishop was received in
audience by the prince, as he is regularly every Thursday. The prince has
just informed me that the archbishop, who seemed greatly agitated, began
by making a very prosy speech, evidently learned by heart, of which the
prince could make nothing at all. Landriani ended by saying that it was
important for the sake of the Church in Parma that Monsignore Fabrizio
del Dongo should be appointed his chief grand vicar, and afterward, as
soon as he had reached his five-and-twentieth year, his coadjutor, _and
his ultimate successor_.
“This idea alarmed me, I confess,” said the count. “It is somewhat
precipitate, and I was afraid it might throw the prince into a fit of
ill-humour. But he looked at me and laughed, and said to me in French,
‘_Ce sont là vos coups, monsieur!_’
“‘I will take my oath before God and your Highness,’ I cried with the
utmost possible fervour, ‘that I was utterly ignorant of the idea of the
“future succession.”’ Then I went on to tell the real truth, as we talked
it over here a few hours since, and I added impulsively that I should
have considered his Highness had conferred an overwhelming favour on me
if he had ultimately granted you a modest bishopric to begin with. The
prince must have believed me, for it pleased him to be gracious. He said
to me in the simplest possible way: ‘This is an official affair between
me and the archbishop. You have nothing whatever to do with it. The old
gentleman has sent me in a very long and tolerably tiresome report, which
he winds up with a formal proposal. I replied that the individual was
still very young, and more especially a very new arrival at my court;
that I should almost look as if I were honouring a letter of credit drawn
on me by the Emperor if I bestowed the reversion of so high a dignity on
the son of one of the great officials of his Lombardo-Venetian kingdom.
The archbishop protested there had been no pressure of any such kind. It
was a pretty piece of folly to say that to me. It surprised me in a man
who is generally so intelligent. But he always loses his head completely
when he talks to me, and to-night he was more nervous than ever, which
led me to think he passionately desired what he asked for. I told him
that nobody knew better than myself that there had been no attempt in
high quarters to put forward Del Dongo, that nobody about my court denied
his powers, that his reputation for virtue was a fair one, but that I
feared he was capable of _enthusiasm_, and that I had made a vow I
would never place madmen of that kind, on whom rulers never can rely, in
any exalted position. Then,’ his Highness continued, ‘I had to endure
a pathetic appeal nearly as long as the first. The archbishop sang the
praises of enthusiasm for God’s house. “Bungler,” said I to myself, “you
are risking the appointment you were very near getting! You should have
cut it short, and thanked me fervently.” Not a bit, he went on pouring
out his homily with a bravery that was ridiculous. I cast about for an
answer that would not be too unfavourable to young Del Dongo’s cause. I
found it, and a fairly apposite one, as you will perceive.
“‘“Monsignore,” I said, ”Pius VII was a great Pope, and a great saint.
He was the only one of all the sovereigns who dared to say _No_ to
the tyrant at whose feet Europe grovelled. Well, he was capable of
enthusiasm, and this led him, when he was Bishop of Imola, into writing
that famous pastoral of the Citizen-Cardinal Chiaramonti, in support of
the Cisalpine Republic.”
“‘My poor archbishop was struck dumb, and to complete his stupefaction
I said to him, very gravely: “Farewell, monsignore; I will take
four-and-twenty hours to think over your proposal.” The poor man added
a few more entreaties, which were both ill-expressed and, considering I
had bidden him “Farewell,” somewhat inopportune. Now, Count Mosca della
Rovere, I desire you will inform the duchess that I will not delay for
four-and-twenty hours a matter which may give her pleasure. Sit you down
here, and write the archbishop the note of approval which will close the
whole business.’ I wrote the note, he signed it, and he said, ‘Take it
to the duchess instantly.’ Here, madam, is the note, and to it I owe the
happiness of seeing you again to-night.”
The duchess perused the paper with delight. While the count had been
telling his long story Fabrizio had had time to collect himself. He did
not appear astonished by the incident. He took it like a true aristocrat,
who had always believed in his own right to that extraordinary
advancement, those lucky chances which might very well throw a common
man off his balance. He expressed his gratitude, but in measured
language, and ended by saying to the count:
“A good courtier should flatter the ruling passion. Yesterday you
expressed your fear that your workmen at Sanguigna might steal the
fragments of antique statuary they may unearth. I delight in excavations.
If you will give me leave, I will go and look after those workmen.
To-morrow evening, after I have paid the necessary visits, to return
thanks, at the palace, and to the archbishop, I will start for Sanguigna.”
“But can you imagine,” said the duchess, “any reason for the good
archbishop’s sudden devotion to Fabrizio?”
“There is no need of any imagination. The grand vicar whose brother
is a captain said to me, yesterday, Father Landriani argues on this
unvarying principle, that the holder of the title is superior to the
coadjutor, and he is beside himself with delight at having a Del Dongo
at his orders, and under an obligation conferred by himself. Everything
that draws attention to Fabrizio’s high birth increases his private
satisfaction—that is the man he has under him. In the second place, he
likes Monsignore Fabrizio. He does not feel shy in his presence. And,
finally, for the last ten years he has been nursing a hearty hatred of
the Bishop of Piacenza, who openly avows his expectation of succeeding
him at Parma, and who is, besides, the son of a miller. It is with an eye
to this future succession that the Bishop of Piacenza has entered into
close relations with the Marchesa Raversi, and this intimacy makes our
archbishop tremble for his pet plan—that of seeing a Del Dongo on his
staff, and of issuing his orders to him.”
Very early on the next morning but one, Fabrizio was overlooking
the workers on the excavations at Sanguigna, opposite Colorno (the
Versailles of the Parmese princes). These excavations stretched across
the plain close to the high-road leading from Parma to the bridge of
Casal-Maggiore, the nearest Austrian town. The workmen were cutting a
long ditch along the plain. It was eight feet deep, and as narrow as
might be. The object was to find, alongside the old Roman road, the ruins
of a second temple, which, according to local tradition, had been still
standing in the middle ages. Notwithstanding the prince’s authority, many
peasants looked with a jealous eye on the long trenches cut across their
land. In spite of everything they were told, they fancied search was
being made for some treasure, and Fabrizio’s presence was particularly
valuable as a check on any little outbreak on their part. He was not at
all bored. He watched the work with passionate interest. Now and then
some medal was turned up, and he was resolved he would not give the
labourers time to agree among themselves to pilfer it.
It was about six o’clock in the morning of a lovely day. He had borrowed
an old single-barrelled gun. He shot at a few larks. One of them fell
wounded on the high-road. Fabrizio, when he followed it, saw a carriage
in the distance, coming from Parma, and travelling toward Casal-Maggiore.
He had just reloaded his gun when the vehicle, a very shabby one, came
slowly up to him, and in it he recognised little Marietta. With her were
the ungainly Giletti and the old woman she passed off as her mother.
Giletti took it into his head that Fabrizio had set himself thus in the
middle of the road, gun in hand, with the idea of insulting him, and
perhaps of carrying off little Marietta. Like a bold fellow, he jumped
out of the carriage instantly. In his left hand he grasped a large and
very rusty pistol, and in his right a sword, still in its scabbard, which
he was in the habit of wearing when necessity obliged the manager of his
company to allot him some nobleman’s part in a play.
“Ha, villain,” he cried, “I’m heartily glad to catch you here, only a
league from the frontier! I’ll soon settle your business for you; your
violet stockings won’t protect you here.”
Fabrizio had been making signs to little Marietta, and scarcely paying
any attention to Giletti’s jealous shrieks. Suddenly he saw the muzzle of
the rusty pistol within three feet of his own chest. He had only time to
strike at the pistol with his gun, using it as if it had been a stick;
the pistol went off, but nobody was wounded.
“Stop, you fool!” shrieked Giletti to the _vetturino_, skilfully
contriving at the same time to spring at the barrel of his adversary’s
gun and hold it away from his own body. He and Fabrizio each tugged at
the gun with all his strength. Giletti, who was much the stronger of the
two, kept slipping one hand over the other toward the lock, and had very
nearly got possession of the weapon when Fabrizio, to prevent his using
it, touched the trigger. He had previously noticed that the muzzle was
over three inches above Giletti’s shoulder. The shot went off close to
the man’s ear; he was a little startled, but pulled himself together in a
moment.
“Oho! you’d like to blow my brains out, you scoundrel! I’ll soon settle
you!”
Giletti threw away the scabbard of his sword, and fell upon Fabrizio with
the most astonishing swiftness. Fabrizio, who was unarmed, gave himself
up for lost.
He bolted toward the carriage, which had stopped some paces behind
Giletti, and, turning to the left, he caught hold of the springs, ran
quickly round it, and past the right-hand door, which was open. Giletti,
tearing along on his long legs, and not having thought of catching at
the carriage springs, ran several steps in his original direction before
he could stop himself. Just as Fabrizio ran past the open door he heard
Marietta say in an undertone: “Look out for yourself; he’ll kill you!
Here!” and at the same moment he saw a great hunting-knife fall out of
the carriage. He bent down to pick it up, but just at that moment a
sword thrust from Giletti touched him on the shoulder. When Fabrizio
stood up he found himself within six inches of Giletti, who gave him a
furious blow in the face with the pommel of his sword. So violent was
this blow that Fabrizio was quite dazed, and at that moment he was very
near being killed. Fortunately for him, Giletti was still too close to
be able to thrust at him. When Fabrizio recovered his wits he took to
flight at the top of his speed. As he ran he threw away the sheath of the
hunting-knife, and then, turning sharp round, he found himself within
three paces of Giletti, who was tearing after him. Giletti was running
as fast as he could go; Fabrizio made a thrust at him, and though
Giletti had time to strike up the hunting-knife a little, he received the
thrust full in his cheek. He passed close to Fabrizio, who felt himself
wounded in the thigh; this was by Giletti’s knife, which he had found
time to open. Fabrizio made a spring to the right, turned round, and at
last the adversaries found themselves within reasonable fighting distance.
Giletti was swearing furiously. “Ah, I’ll cut your throat for you, you
scoundrel of a priest!” he cried over and over again. Fabrizio was quite
out of breath, and could not speak; the blow on his face with the pommel
of the sword hurt him dreadfully, and his nose was pouring blood. He
parried various blows with his hunting-knife, and delivered several
thrusts without well knowing what he was about. He had a sort of vague
idea that he was performing in a public assault-at-arms. This idea had
been suggested to him by the presence of his workmen, who, to the number
of five-and-twenty or thirty, had formed a ring round them, but at a very
respectful distance, for both of the combatants kept running hither and
thither, and then rushing upon each other.
The fight seemed to be growing less fierce, the thrusts rather less
rapidly exchanged, when Fabrizio said to himself, “Judging by the way my
face hurts me he must have disfigured me.” Stung to fury by the thought,
he rushed at his enemy, holding the hunting-knife in front of him. The
point entered Giletti’s chest on the right, and passed out near his
left shoulder. At the same moment the whole length of Giletti’s sword
ran through the upper part of Fabrizio’s arm, but as the sword slipped
beneath the skin the wound was quite a trifling one.
Giletti had fallen. Just as Fabrizio went toward him, with his eye on his
left hand, which held the knife, that hand unclosed mechanically, and the
weapon dropped from its grasp.
“The rascal is dead,” said Fabrizio to himself. He looked at the face;
the blood was pouring from Giletti’s mouth.
Fabrizio ran to the carriage. “Have you a looking-glass?” he cried to
Marietta. Marietta, very pale, was staring at him, and did not answer.
The old woman, with the greatest coolness, opened a green workbag and
handed Fabrizio a small mirror about the size of a man’s hand, with a
handle to it. Fabrizio felt his face all over as he peered into the
glass. “My eyes are all right,” said he. “That’s a great thing.” Then he
looked at his teeth; they were not broken. “Then why does it hurt me so?”
he murmured.
The old woman replied: “Because the top of your cheek has been crushed
between Giletti’s sword and the bone we all have there. It’s all blue and
horribly swelled. Put on leeches at once, and it will be nothing at all.”
“Ah, leeches at once,” said Fabrizio, laughing, and he recovered all his
self-possession. He saw the workmen gathering round Giletti, looking at
him without daring to touch him.
“Why don’t you help the man?” he shouted. “Take his coat off him!” He
would have proceeded, but raising his eyes he saw, some three hundred
paces off, five or six men advancing along the high-road, with slow and
measured step, toward the spot on which he stood.
“Those are gendarmes,” thought he to himself, “and as there’s a man
dead they will arrest me, and I shall have the pleasure of making my
solemn entry into the city of Parma with them! What a nice story for the
courtiers who are the Raversi’s friends and hate my aunt!” Instantly, and
as quick as lightning, he threw all the money he had in his pockets to
the astonished workmen, and jumped into the carriage.
“Prevent those gendarmes from following me,” he shouted to the men, “and
I will make your fortunes. Tell them I am innocent, that the man attacked
me and would have killed me. And you,” he added to the _vetturino_, “make
your horses gallop! You shall have four gold napoleons if you get across
the Po before those fellows can reach me.”
“All right,” said the _vetturino_; “don’t be in a fright! Those men
yonder are on foot, and if my little horses only trot they will be left
far behind.” As he spoke he shook them up into a gallop.
Our hero was much offended by the coachman’s use of the word fright. He
really had been in a horrible fright after receiving the blow from the
sword pommel in his face.
“We may meet people on horseback coming this way,” said the _vetturino_,
thinking of his four napoleons, “and the men who are following us may
shout to them to stop us.” This meant “Reload your weapons.”
“Ah, how brave you are, my little abbé!” cried Marietta, and she kissed
Fabrizio. The old woman had thrust her head out of the window; presently
she drew it in again.
“Nobody is following you, sir,” she said to Fabrizio very coolly, “and
there is nobody on the road in front of you. You know how precise the
Austrian police officials are; if they see you come galloping up to the
embankment beside the Po you may be perfectly certain they will stop you.”
Fabrizio put his head out of the window. “You can trot now,” said he to
the coachman. Then, turning to the old woman, “What passport have you?”
“Three instead of one,” replied she, “and each of them cost us four
francs. Isn’t that cruel for poor play-actors, travelling all the year
round? Here is a passport for Signor Giletti, a dramatic artist—that
shall be you—and here are Mariettina’s and mine. But Giletti had all our
money in his pocket. What is to become of us?”
“How much had he?” said Fabrizio.
“Forty good crowns of five francs each,” said the old woman.
“That is to say, six crowns and some small change,” laughed Marietta. “I
won’t have my little abbé imposed upon.”
“Is it not quite natural, sir,” returned the old woman with the greatest
calmness, “that I should try to do you out of four-and-thirty crowns?
What are thirty-four crowns to you? And as for us, we’ve lost our
protector. Who is to look after our lodgings now, and bargain with the
_vetturino_ when we travel, and keep everything in order? Giletti was
not a beauty, but he was useful, and if this child here had not been a
fool and fallen in love with you at first sight, Giletti would never have
noticed anything, and you would have given us good silver crowns. I can
assure you we are very poor.”
Fabrizio was touched. He took out his purse and gave the old woman
several gold pieces.
“You see,” he said, “that I have only fifteen left, so it will be useless
to try and get any more out of me.”
Little Marietta threw her arms round his neck and the old woman kissed
his hands. The carriage was still trotting slowly forward, when the
yellow barriers, striped with black, which marked the Austrian frontier,
appeared in sight. The old woman addressed Fabrizio.
“You would do well to pass on foot with Giletti’s passport in your
pocket. We will stop a few minutes, on the pretext of making ourselves
look tidy. And besides, the customs officers will open our baggage.
If you will take my advice, you had better walk lazily through
Casal-Maggiore; even turn into the _café_ and drink a glass of brandy.
Once you are out of the village make off. The police on Austrian
territory are devilishly sharp; they will soon find out that a man has
been killed. You are travelling with a passport which does not belong to
you; for less than that you might get two years in prison. When you leave
the town turn to the right, and get to the banks of the Po. Hire a boat,
and take refuge at Ravenna or Ferrara. Get out of the Austrian states as
quickly as ever you can. Two louis will buy you another passport from
some custom-house officer; this one would be the ruin of you. Remember
you’ve killed the man!”
Fabrizio carefully reread Giletti’s passport as he walked toward the
bridge of boats at Casal-Maggiore. Our hero was seriously alarmed; he
had a vivid recollection of all Count Mosca had told him concerning the
risk he would run if he re-entered Austrian territory, and only two paces
in front of him he saw the fateful bridge which was to admit him to
those dominions, the capital of which, in his eyes, was the Spielberg.
But what else was he to do? By an express convention between the two
states the duchy of Modena, which bounds the dominion of Parma on the
south, returned all fugitives who passed over its borders. The Parmese
frontier running up into the mountain country near Genoa was too distant;
his misadventure would be known at Parma before he could reach those
mountains. Nothing remained to him, therefore, except the Austrian states
on the left bank of the Po. Thirty-six hours or two days would probably
elapse before there could be time to write to the Austrian authorities
and request his arrest. On the whole, Fabrizio thought it wiser to burn
his own passport, which he lighted at the end of his cigar. He would be
safer on Austrian ground as a vagabond than as Fabrizio del Dongo, and
there was the possibility of his being searched.
Apart from his very natural repugnance to the idea of staking his life
on the unhappy Giletti’s passport, the document itself presented some
material difficulties. Fabrizio’s stature did not, at the most, exceed
five foot five, instead of the five foot ten described in the passport.
He was nearly twenty-four, and looked younger. Giletti was thirty-nine.
We will confess that our hero spent a full half-hour walking up and down
an embankment on the river, close by the bridge of boats, before he
could make up his mind to go down upon it. “What advice should I give
to another man in my place?” said he to himself at last. “Clearly, to
go across. It is dangerous to stay in Parma. A gendarme may be sent in
pursuit of the man who has killed another, even against his own will.”
Fabrizio turned out his pockets, tore up all his papers, and kept
literally nothing except his handkerchief and his cigar case. It was
important to shorten, by every possible means, the examination he would
have to undergo. He thought of a terrible difficulty which might be made,
and to which he could find no good answer. He was going to call himself
Giletti, and all his linen was marked F. D.
Fabrizio, as will be observed, was one of those unhappy beings who are
tortured by their own imaginations, a somewhat common weakness among
intelligent people in Italy. A French soldier of equal or even inferior
courage would have set about crossing the bridge at once, without
thinking of any difficulty beforehand, and he would have done it with
perfect composure, whereas Fabrizio was very far from being composed
when, at the far end of the bridge, a little man dressed in gray said to
him, “Go into the police office and show your passport.”
The office had dirty walls, studded with nails on which the officials’
pipes and greasy hats were hung. The big deal writing-table at which they
sat was covered with ink stains and wine stains. Two or three big green
leather registers also showed stains of every shade of colour, and the
edges of the pages were blackened by dirty hands. On these registers,
which were piled one upon the other, lay three splendid laurel wreaths,
which had been used the night before, in honour of one of the Emperor’s
fête days.
Fabrizio was struck by all these details; they sent a pang through his
heart. This was the price he paid for the splendid luxury and freshness
of his beautiful rooms in the Palazzo Sanseverina. He was obliged to
enter the dirty office and stand there like an inferior. He was soon to
be cross-questioned.
The official who stretched out a yellow hand to receive his passport was
a short, dark man, with a brass jewel in his neckcloth. “Here’s a common
man, in a bad temper,” said Fabrizio to himself. He seemed very much
surprised when he read the passport, and the perusal lasted quite five
minutes.
“You’ve had an accident,” said he to the stranger, looking at his cheek.
“The _vetturino_ upset us over the river embankment.” Then silence fell
again, and the official cast strange glances at the traveller.
“I have it,” said Fabrizio to himself; “he’s going to tell me that he’s
sorry to have to give me an unpleasant piece of news, and that I am
arrested.”
All sorts of wild notions crowded on to our hero’s brain. His logic at
that moment was of the weakest description. He thought, for instance, of
bolting through the office door, which was standing open. “I would get
rid of my coat, I would jump into the Po, and I have no doubt I could
swim across. Anything is better than the Spielberg.”
While he weighed his chances of succeeding in this prank, the police
officer was looking hard at him; their two faces were a study. The
presence of danger inspires a sensible man with genius, raising him,
so to speak, above himself. In the case of the man of imagination, it
inspires him with romances, which may indeed be bold, but which are
frequently absurd.
Our hero’s look of indignation under the scrutinizing glance of this
police officer with the brass jewellery was something worth seeing. “If
I were to kill him,” said Fabrizio to himself, “I should be sentenced to
twenty years at the galleys or to death. That would be far less awful
than the Spielberg, with a chain weighing a hundred and twenty pounds
on each foot, and eight ounces of bread for my daily food. And it would
last twenty years, so that I should be forty-four before I came out.”
Fabrizio’s logical mind overlooked the fact that as he had burned his
own passport, there was nothing to acquaint the police officer with the
detail of his being the rebel Fabrizio del Dongo.
Our hero was tolerably frightened, as my readers perceive. His alarm
would have been far greater if he had been aware of the thoughts passing
in the official’s mind. The man was a friend of Giletti’s; his surprise
at seeing his passport in the hands of another person may therefore
be imagined. His first impulse had been to arrest the stranger. Then
he reflected that very likely Giletti had sold the passport to the
good-looking young fellow, who had probably just got into some scrape
at Parma. “If I arrest him,” said he to himself, “Giletti will get into
trouble. It will easily be discovered that he has sold his passport.
But, on the other hand, what will my superiors say if they find out that
I, who am a friend of Giletti’s, have countersigned his passport when
presented by another person!” The officer stood up with a yawn, and said
to Fabrizio, “Wait here, sir!” Then, as was natural to a policeman, he
added, “There is a difficulty.” Fabrizio said within himself, “What there
is going to be, is my flight.”
The official, indeed, had left the office, leaving the door open, and the
passport was still lying on the deal table. “There’s no doubt about my
danger,” thought Fabrizio to himself. “I will take up my passport, and
walk quietly back across the bridge. If the gendarme questions me I will
tell him I have forgotten to get it countersigned by the police officer
at the last village in the dominion of Parma.” The passport was actually
in Fabrizio’s hand when, to his inexpressible astonishment, he heard the
clerk with the brass jewellery say:
“Upon my soul! I am done up; I’m choking with heat; I am going to get a
cup of coffee at the _café_. When you’ve finished your pipe just go into
the office; there’s a passport to be signed. The traveller is waiting.”
Fabrizio, who was just stepping out on tiptoe, found himself face to face
with a good-looking young fellow, who was humming a tune, and heard him
say, “Very good. We’ll see to their passport. I’ll oblige them with my
flourish.”
“Where do you wish to go, sir?”
“To Mantua, Venice, and Ferrara.”
“Ferrara let it be,” answered the official, whistling; he took up a
stamp, printed the _visa_ upon the passport in blue ink, and rapidly
inserted the words “Mantua, Venice, and Ferrara” in the blank space left
by the stamp. Then he waved his hand in the air several times, signed his
name, and dipped his pen in the ink again to make his flourish, a feat he
performed slowly and with infinite care. Fabrizio watched every motion of
his pen. The clerk looked complacently at his flourish, added five or six
dots, and then returned the passport to Fabrizio, saying indifferently,
“A pleasant journey to you, sir.”
Fabrizio was departing with a rapidity which he was attempting to conceal
when he felt himself stopped by a touch on his left arm. Instinctively
his hand sought the handle of his dagger, and if he had not seen houses
all round him he might have been guilty of a blunder. The man who had
touched his left arm, seeing his startled look, said apologetically:
“But I spoke to you three times, sir, and you did not answer. Have you
anything to declare at the custom-house?”
“I’ve nothing on me but my handkerchief; I am going to shoot with one of
my relations, quite close by.”
He would have been sorely puzzled if he had been asked to mention that
relation’s name.
Thanks to the great heat and his own emotions, Fabrizio was dripping as
if he had fallen into the Po. “I am brave enough when I have to do with
play-actors, but custom-house clerks with brass jewellery drive me beside
myself. I’ll write the duchess a comic sonnet on that subject.”
Fabrizio entered the town of Casal-Maggiore and immediately turned to the
right, down a shabby street leading to the Po. “I am in sore need,” said
he to himself, “of the assistance of Bacchus and Ceres,” and he entered a
shop, over the door of which a gray cloth hung from a pole. On this cloth
was inscribed the word _Trattoria_. A ragged bed sheet, supported by two
thin wooden hoops and hanging within three feet of the ground, sheltered
the door of the _trattoria_ from the direct blaze of the sun. Within it
a half-naked and very pretty woman received our hero respectfully, a
fact which gave him the keenest satisfaction. He lost no time in telling
her that he was starving with hunger. While the woman was preparing his
breakfast a man of about thirty years of age came into the room. On his
first entrance he made no sign of greeting, but suddenly he rose from
the bench on which he had cast himself with an easy gesture, and said to
Fabrizio:
“_Eccellenza! la riverisco!_” (I salute your Excellency!) Fabrizio felt
exceedingly cheerful at that moment, and instead of at once expecting
something gloomy he answered with a laugh:
“And how the devil do you know my Excellency?”
“What! doesn’t your Excellency recollect Ludovico, one of the Duchess
Sanseverina’s coachmen? At Sacca, the country house where we went every
year, I always got fever, so I asked my mistress to give me a pension,
and I retired. I am rich now, for instead of the pension of twelve
crowns a year, which was the very most I could have expected, my mistress
told me that to give me leisure to write sonnets (for I am a poet in the
vulgar tongue) she would allow me four-and-twenty crowns; and the signor
count told me that if ever I was in need I had only to come and tell
him. I had the honour of driving monsignore for a stage when he went to
make his retreat, like a good churchman, at the Carthusian monastery at
Velleia.”
Fabrizio looked at the man, and began to recall him a little. He had been
one of the smartest coachmen at the Casa Sanseverina; now that he was
rich, as he affirmed, his only garments were a coarse, tattered shirt and
a pair of canvas nether garments, which hardly reached his knees, and had
once been dyed black. A pair of shoes and a very bad hat completed his
costume; and further, he had not been shaved for a fortnight. Fabrizio,
as he ate his omelet, chatted with him on absolutely equal terms. He
thought he perceived that Ludovico was his hostess’s lover. He soon
despatched his meal, and then said to Ludovico in an undertone, “I have a
word for you.”
“Your Excellency can speak freely before her; she is a really good
woman,” said Ludovico, with a tender glance.
“Well, then, my friends,” said Fabrizio at once, “I am in trouble, and
I want your help. To begin with, there is nothing political about my
business. I have simply killed a man who tried to murder me because I was
speaking to his mistress.”
“Poor young fellow!” quoth the hostess.
“Your Excellency may reckon on me,” cried the coachman, with eyes that
shone with the most fervent devotion. “Where does your Excellency desire
to go?”
“To Ferrara. I have a passport, but I would rather not face the
gendarmes, who may know something of what has happened.”
“When did you put the fellow out of the way?”
“At six o’clock this morning.”
“Is there no blood on your Excellency’s clothes?” said the hostess.
“I was thinking of that,” replied the coachman; “and besides, the cloth
is too fine. Such stuff as that is not often seen in our country. It
would attract attention. I will go and buy clothes from the Jew. Your
Excellency is about my height, only thinner.”
“For mercy’s sake, don’t call me your Excellency! That will attract
attention.”
“Yes, your Excellency,” replied the coachman, as he went out of the shop.
“Halloo! halloo!” shouted Fabrizio. “What about the money? Come back!”
“Don’t talk of money,” said the hostess. “He has sixty-seven crowns,
which are very much at your service, and I,” she added, dropping her
voice, “have forty, which I offer you with all my heart. One does not
always happen to have money about one when such accidents as these occur.”
When Fabrizio had entered the _trattoria_ he had taken off his coat on
account of the heat.
“If any one should come in, that waistcoat of yours might get us into
difficulties; that fine English cloth would be remarked.”
She gave the fugitive one of her husband’s waistcoats, made of canvas
dyed black. A tall young man entered the shop through an inner door;
there was a touch of elegance about his dress.
“This is my husband,” said the hostess.—“Pietro Antonio,” said she to her
husband, “this gentleman is a friend of Ludovico’s. He had an accident
this morning on the other side of the river; he wants to escape to
Ferrara.”
“Oh, we’ll get him through,” said the husband very civilly. “We have
Carlo Giuseppe’s boat.”
Another weakness of our hero’s character, which we will confess as
frankly as we have related his fright in the police office at the end of
the bridge, now caused his eyes to brim with tears.
The absolute devotion he had met with among these peasants moved him
deeply. He thought, too, of his aunt’s characteristic kind-heartedness.
He would have liked to have been able to make all these people’s
fortunes. Ludovico now came back, carrying a bundle.
“Good-bye to this other fellow,” said the husband in the most friendly
fashion.
“That’s not it at all,” replied Ludovico, in a very anxious voice.
“People are beginning to talk about you. It was noticed when you left the
main street and turned down our _vicolo_ that you hesitated, like a man
who wanted to hide himself.”
“Get up quickly to the room above,” said the husband. This room was a
very large and handsome one. The two windows were filled with gray linen
instead of glass. It contained four beds, each about six feet wide and
five feet high.
“And quick! and quick!” said Ludovico. “There’s a conceited fool of a
gendarme lately arrived here who wanted to make love to the pretty woman
below stairs, and I warned him that when next he went out patrolling on
the roads he would very likely meet a bullet. If that dog hears your
Excellency mentioned, he’ll want to play us a trick; he’ll try to get you
arrested here, so as to bring disrepute on Theodolinda’s _trattoria_.
What!” Ludovico went on, when he saw Fabrizio’s shirt all stained with
blood and his wounds tied up with handkerchiefs; “so the _porco_ defended
himself! This is enough to get us arrested a hundred times over. I didn’t
buy a shirt.” Unceremoniously he opened the husband’s cupboard, and
handed over one of his shirts to Fabrizio, who was soon dressed as a rich
middle-class countryman. Ludovico unhooked a net which was hanging on the
wall, put Fabrizio’s clothes into the basket for holding the fish, ran
down the stairs, and went swiftly out by a back door, Fabrizio following
him.
“Theodolinda,” he called out, as he hurried past the shop, “hide what
we’ve left upstairs. We’ll go and wait in the willows, and you, Pietro
Antonio, make haste and send us a boat. It will be well paid for.”
Ludovico led Fabrizio over more than twenty ditches; the widest of these
were bridged by very long and very elastic wooden boards. Ludovico pulled
these planks over as fast as they crossed them. When they reached the
last cutting he pulled the plank away eagerly. “Now we can breathe,” he
said. “That dog of a policeman will have to go more than two leagues
round before he can reach your Excellency. But you’ve turned white!” said
he to Fabrizio. “I’ve not forgotten to bring a little bottle of brandy.”
“I shall be very glad of it; the wound in my thigh is beginning to hurt,
and besides, I was in a horrible fright while I was in the police office
at the end of the bridge.”
“I should think so indeed,” said Ludovico. “With a bloody shirt like
yours, I don’t understand how you ever dared to go into such a place. As
for the wounds, I know all about that sort of thing. I’ll take you to
a nice cool place where you can sleep for an hour; the boat will come
to fetch us there, if there’s a boat to be had. If not, when you’re a
little rested we’ll go on two short leagues farther, and I’ll take you
to a mill where I can get a boat myself. Your Excellency knows a great
deal more than I do; my mistress will be in despair when she hears of the
accident. She will be told you are mortally wounded, or perhaps that you
have killed the other treacherously. The Marchesa Raversi will not fail
to put about every kind of spiteful report to distress my mistress. Your
Excellency might write.”
“And how shall I send my letter?”
“The men at the mill to which we are going earn twelve sous a day; they
can get to Parma in a day and a half—that means four francs for the
journey, and two francs for the wear and tear of their shoes. If the
message was carried for a poor man like myself it would cost six francs;
as it will be done for a nobleman, I will give twelve.”
When they reached the resting-place, in a thicket of alder and willow
trees, very cool and shady, Ludovico went on an hour’s distance to fetch
paper and ink. “Heavens! how comfortable I am here!” exclaimed Fabrizio;
“fortune, farewell! I shall never be an archbishop.”
When Ludovico returned he found him sound asleep, and would not wake
him. The boat did not come till near sunset. As soon as Ludovico saw it
appearing in the distance, he roused Fabrizio, who wrote two letters.
“Your Excellency is very much wiser than I am,” said Ludovico, with a
look of distress, “and I am afraid you will be displeased with me at the
bottom of your heart, whatever you may say, if I add a certain thing.”
“I am not such an idiot as you think,” said Fabrizio. “And whatever you
may say to me, I shall always look upon you as a faithful servant of my
aunt’s, and a man who has done everything in the world to help me out of
a very terrible difficulty.”
A good many further protestations were necessary before Ludovico could
be induced to speak, and when he finally made up his mind he began with
a preface which lasted quite five minutes. Fabrizio grew impatient, and
then he thought: “Whose fault is this? The fault of our vanity, which
this man has seen very clearly from his coach-box?” At last Ludovico’s
devotion induced him to run the risk of speaking frankly.
“What would not the Marchesa Raversi give the runner you are going to
send to Parma for those two letters? They are written by your own hand,
and therefore can be used as evidence against you. Your Excellency will
take me for an indiscreet and curious person, and besides, you will be
ashamed, perhaps, to let the duchess see a poor coachman’s handwriting.
But for the sake of your safety, I am forced to speak, even if you do
think it an impertinence. Could not your Excellency dictate those two
letters to me? Then I should be the only person compromised, and very
little compromised at that, for I could always say that you made your
appearance in front of me in a field, with an inkhorn in one hand and a
pistol in the other, and ordered me to write.”
“Give me your hand, my dear Ludovico,” cried Fabrizio; “and to convince
you I have no desire to keep anything secret from such a friend, you
shall copy these two letters just as they are.” Ludovico realized the
full extent of this mark of confidence, and was very much touched by it,
but at the end of a few lines, seeing the boat coming rapidly toward them—
“These letters will be finished more quickly,” said he to Fabrizio, “if
your Excellency would take the trouble of dictating them to me.” As soon
as the letters were finished, Fabrizio wrote an A and a B on the bottom
line, and on a little scrap of paper which he afterward crumpled up, he
wrote in French, “_Croyez A et B._” The messenger was to hide this scrap
of paper in his clothes.
When the boat was within hailing distance, Ludovico shouted to the
boatmen, using names which were not their own. They did not reply, but
approached the bank about a thousand yards lower down, looking about on
every side, lest any custom-house officer should have caught sight of
them.
“I am at your orders,” said Ludovico to Fabrizio. “Would you wish me to
take the letters to Parma myself? Would you like me to go with you to
Ferrara?”
“To come with me to Ferrara is a service which I did not venture to ask
of you. I shall have to land and try to get into the town without showing
my passport. I don’t mind telling you that I have the greatest repugnance
to the idea of travelling under Giletti’s name, and nobody that I can
think of, except yourself, can procure me another passport.”
“Why did you not speak of that at Casal-Maggiore? I know a spy there who
would have sold us an excellent passport, and not dear either, for forty
or fifty francs.”
One of the two boatmen, who had been born on the right bank of the Po,
and consequently needed no passport to get him to Parma, undertook to
deliver the letters. Ludovico, who knew how to handle an oar, pledged
himself to manage the boat with the other man’s assistance.
“Lower down the river,” he said, “we shall meet several armed
police-boats, and I know how to keep out of their way.” A dozen times
they had to hide themselves in the midst of low islets covered with
willows; three times they landed, to let the empty boat pass in front
of the police boats. Ludovico took advantage of these long spells
of idleness to recite several of his sonnets to Fabrizio. They were
good enough as regarded feeling, but this was weakened by the form
of expression, and none of them were worth writing down. The curious
thing was that the ex-coachman’s passions and conception were lively
and picturesque, but the moment he began to write he grew cold and
commonplace. “The very opposite,” said Fabrizio to himself, “of what we
see in the world. There everything is gracefully expressed, but the heart
has nothing to do with it.” He discovered that the greatest pleasure
he could do to his faithful servant was to correct the spelling of his
sonnets.
“When I lend my manuscript to anybody I get laughed at,” said Ludovico.
“But if your Excellency would condescend to dictate the spelling of the
words to me, letter by letter, envious people would have to hold their
tongues. Spelling is not genius.”
It was not till the evening of the second day that Fabrizio was
able to land, in perfect safety, in an alder copse a league from
Ponte-Lago-Oscuro. All the day long he lay hid in a hemp field, and
Ludovico went on to Ferrara, where he hired a little lodging in the house
of a needy Jew, who at once realized that there was money to be earned if
he would hold his tongue. In the evening, as the darkness was falling,
Fabrizio rode into Ferrara on a pony. He was in urgent need of care. The
heat on the river had made him ill; the knife thrust in his thigh and the
sword thrust Giletti had given him in the shoulder, at the beginning of
their fight, had both become inflamed, and made him feverish.