The unexpected appearance of this charming young person drove every
serious thought away. Fabrizio lived on at Bologna with a sense of the
deepest delight and security. His artless propensity to find happiness
in anything which filled his life, betrayed itself in his letters to the
duchess, and to such a point as to annoy her.
Fabrizio hardly noticed it; only he noted in abbreviated signs on the
dial plate of his watch, “When I write to the duchess I must never
say ‘when I was a prelate, when I was a churchman’—it vexes her.” He
had bought a pair of ponies, with which he was very much pleased, and
harnessed them to a hired chaise whenever little Marietta had a fancy to
go and see one of the delightful spots in the neighbourhood of Bologna.
Almost every evening he drove her to the Reno Cascade. On the way back
he would stop at the house of the good-natured Crescentini, who rather
believed himself to be Marietta’s father.
“Faith,” said Fabrizio to himself, “if this be the _café_ life which
struck me as being so absurd for any serious man to lead, I did wrong
to turn up my nose at it.” He forgot that he never went near a _café_
except to read the Constitutionnel, and that as he was utterly unknown
to any one in Bologna, the pleasures of vanity had nothing to do with
his present state of felicity. When he was not with little Marietta, he
was to be seen at the observatory, where he was attending a course of
astronomy. The professor had taken a great fancy to him, and Fabrizio
would lend him his horses on a Sunday, so that he and his wife might go
and ruffle it in the Corso of the Montagnola.
He had a horror of making any one unhappy, however unworthy the person
might be. Marietta would not hear of his seeing the _mamaccia_, but one
day, when she was in church, he went up to the old woman’s room. She
flushed with anger when she saw him enter. “I must play the Del Dongo
here,” said Fabrizio to himself. “How much does Marietta earn a month
when she has an engagement?” he called out, with very much the same air
as that with which a self-respecting young Parisian takes his seat in the
_balcon_ at the Opéra Bouffe.
“Fifty crowns.”
“You lie, as usual. Tell me the truth, or, by God, you’ll not get a
centime.”
“Well, she was earning twenty-two crowns in our company at Parma, when we
were so unlucky as to meet you. I earned twelve crowns, and we each gave
Giletti, our protector, a third of our earnings; on that Giletti made
Marietta a present almost every month—something like two crowns——”
“You lie again; you only earned four crowns. But if you are good to
Marietta, I will engage you as if I were an _impresario_. You shall have
twelve crowns for yourself every month, and twenty-two for her, but if I
see her eyes red once I shall go bankrupt.”
“You’re mighty proud of yourself! Well, let me tell you, your fine
generosity is ruining us,” rejoined the old woman furiously. “We are
losing _l’avviamento_ [our custom]. When we have the crushing misfortune
of losing your Excellency’s protection, no comedy company will know
anything about us. They will all be full, we shall find no engagement,
and, thanks to you, we shall die of hunger.”
“Go to the devil!” said Fabrizio, departing.
“I will not go to the devil, you ungodly wretch! But I will go straight
to the police, and they shall know from me that you are a monsignore who
has cast away his cassock, and that Giuseppe Bossi is no more your name
than it’s mine.”
Fabrizio had already descended several steps; he turned and came back.
“In the first place, the police probably know my real name better than
you do. But, if you venture to denounce me, if you dare to do anything so
infamous,” he said very seriously, “Ludovico will talk to you, and it
will not be six knife thrusts that you will have in your old carcass, but
four times six, and you will spend six months in hospital, and without
tobacco.”
The hag turned pale, rushed at Fabrizio’s hand, and tried to kiss it.
“I accept what you are ready to do for me and Marietta thankfully; you
looked so good-natured that I took you for a simpleton. And consider this
well; other people might make the same mistake. I would advise you to
look more like a great gentleman, as a rule.” Then she added, with the
most admirable impudence, “You will think over this piece of good advice,
and, as winter is not far off, you will make Marietta and me each a
present of a good coat of that fine English stuff in the big shop on the
Piazza San Petronio.”
The pretty Marietta’s love offered Fabrizio all the charms of the most
tender friendship, and this made him think of the happiness of the same
description he might have found in the company of the duchess.
“But is it not a very comical thing,” said he to himself, “that I am not
capable of that exclusive and passionate preoccupation which men call
love? Amid all my chance _liaisons_, at Novara or at Naples, did I ever
meet a woman whose presence I preferred, even in the earliest days, to
a ride on a good-looking horse that I had never mounted before? Can it
be,” he added, “that what is called ‘love’ is yet another lie? I love,
of course, just as I am hungry at six o’clock in the evening. Can it be
that this somewhat vulgar propensity is what these liars have lifted
into the love of Othello and the love of Tancred? Or must I believe that
my organization is different from that of other men. What if no passion
should ever touch my heart? That would be a strange fate!”
At Naples, especially toward the close of his residence there, Fabrizio
had met women who, proud of their rank, their beauty, and the worldly
position of the adorers they had sacrificed to him, had tried to govern
him. At the very first inkling of their plans Fabrizio had broken with
them in the promptest and most scandalous manner. “Now,” said he,
“if I ever allow myself to be carried away by the pleasure, no doubt
a very keen one, of being on good terms with that pretty woman known
as the Duchess Sanseverina, I am exactly like the blundering Frenchman
who killed the hen that laid the golden eggs. To the duchess I owe the
only happiness with which a tender feeling has ever inspired me. My
affection for her is my life; and besides, apart from her what am I? A
miserable exile condemned to a hand-to-mouth existence, in a ruinous
castle near Novara. I remember that when the great autumn rains came
I used to be obliged to fasten an umbrella over the head of my bed,
for fear of accidents. I used to ride the agent’s horses, and he just
allowed it out of respect for my blue blood (and my muscular strength).
But he was beginning to think I had stayed there too long. My father
allowed me twelve hundred francs a year, and thought himself damned
because he was supporting a Jacobin. My poor mother and my sisters went
without gowns so as to enable me to make some trifling presents to my
mistresses. This kind of generosity used to wring my heart, and besides,
my state of penury was beginning to be suspected, and the young noblemen
in the neighbourhood would soon have been pitying me. Sooner or later
some coxcomb would have betrayed his scorn for a poor and unsuccessful
Jacobin, for in their eyes I was nothing else. I should have bestowed or
received some hearty sword thrust, which would have brought me to the
fortress of Fenestrella or forced me to take refuge in Switzerland once
more—still with my twelve hundred francs a year. To the duchess I owe the
happiness of having escaped all these ills, and further, she it is who
feels for me those transports of affection which I ought to feel for her.
“Instead of the ridiculous and shabby existence which would have turned
me into that sorry animal, a fool, I have spent four years in a great
city, and with an excellent carriage, which has prevented me from feeling
envy, and other low provincial sentiments. This aunt, in her extreme
kindness, is always scolding me because I do not draw enough money from
her banker. Shall I spoil this admirable position forever? Shall I lose
the only friend I have in the world? All I have to do is to tell her a
lie, and say to a charming woman, who probably has not her equal in the
world, and for whom I have the most passionate regard, ‘I love you.’ This
from me, who do not know what real love means! She would spend whole days
reproaching me with the absence of those transports which I have never
known. Now, Marietta, who can not see into my heart, and who takes a
caress for an outburst of passion, thinks me madly in love with her, and
believes herself the happiest of living women.
“As a matter of fact, the only slight acquaintance that I have ever had
with that tender absorption which is, I believe, denominated _love_,
was for that young girl Aniken, at the inn at Zonders, near the Belgian
frontier.”
It is with much regret that we must here relate one of Fabrizio’s worst
actions. In the midst of his tranquil life, a foolish sting to his vanity
took possession of the heart which love could not vanquish, and carried
him quite off his feet. Living in Bologna at the same time as himself,
was the celebrated Fausta F⸺, undoubtedly one of the first singers of
our time, and perhaps the most capricious woman ever seen. The gifted
Venetian poet Burati had written a famous satirical sonnet concerning
her, which, at that time, was in the mouth of every one, from princes to
the lowest urchins in the street:—
“To will and not to will, to adore and detest in one and the same day,
to find no happiness save in inconstancy, to scorn that which the world
adores, so long as the world adores it—Fausta has all these faults and
many more. Wherefore, never cast your eyes upon the serpent; if once thou
seest her, oh, imprudent man, all her caprices are forgotten. If thou
hast the happiness of hearing her, thou forgettest even thyself, and
love, at that moment, makes of thee what Circe once made the comrades of
Ulysses.”
Just at that moment this miracle of beauty was so fascinated by the huge
whiskers and overweening insolence of the young Count M⸺ that even his
abominable jealousy did not revolt her. Fabrizio saw the count in the
streets of Bologna, and was nettled by the air of superiority with which
he swaggered along the pavements, and graciously condescended to show off
his charms before the public. The young man was very rich, believed he
might venture anything, and as his _prepotenzi_ had earned him several
threats, he hardly ever appeared unaccompanied by eight or ten _buli_ (a
sort of ruffian) who wore his liveries, and came from his property near
Brescia.
Once or twice, when he had chanced to hear the Fausta sing, Fabrizio had
crossed glances with the doughty count. He was astonished by the angelic
sweetness of her voice; he had never dreamed of anything like it. It gave
him sensations of supreme delight, a fine contrast to the placidity of
his existence. “Can this, at last, be love?” said he to himself. Full of
curiosity to feel the passion, and amused, too, by the idea of braving
the count, who looked far more threatening than any drum-major, our hero
committed the childish folly of appearing much too frequently in front of
the Palazzo Tanari, in which the count had installed the Fausta.
One day, toward nightfall, Fabrizio, who was trying to make Fausta look
at him, was greeted by shrieks of laughter, evidently intentional, from
the count’s _buli_, who were standing round the door of the palace. He
hurried home, armed himself well, and returned.
Fausta, hidden behind her sun-blinds, was expecting this return, and
noted it down to his credit. The count, who was jealous of everybody on
earth, became especially jealous of Signor Giuseppe Bossi, and indulged
in all sorts of absurd threats, whereupon our hero sent him a letter
every morning containing nothing but these words: “Signor Giuseppe Bossi
destroys vermin, and lives at the Pellegrino, in the Via Larga, No. 79.”
Count M⸺, inured to the respect ensured him everywhere by his great
fortune, his blue blood, and the bravery of his thirty serving-men,
refused to understand the language of the little note.
Fabrizio wrote more notes to the Fausta. M⸺ set spies upon his rival,
who was not, perhaps, unpleasing to the lady. He first of all learned his
real name, and that, for the moment, at all events, he did not dare to
show his face in Parma. A few days later Count M⸺, with his _buli_, his
splendid horses, and Fausta, all departed to Parma.
Fabrizio, warming to the game, followed them next morning. In vain did
the faithful Ludovico remonstrate pathetically with him. Fabrizio would
not listen, and Ludovico, who was a brave man himself, admired him for
it. Besides, this journey would bring him nearer his own pretty mistress
at Casal-Maggiore. By Ludovico’s care, eight or ten old soldiers who had
served in Napoleon’s regiments, entered Signor Giuseppe Bossi’s service,
nominally as servants.
“If,” said Fabrizio to himself, “when I commit this folly of going after
the Fausta, I only hold no communication with the Minister of Police,
Count Mosca, nor with the duchess, I risk no one but myself. Later on I
will tell my aunt that I did it all in search of love, that beautiful
thing that I have never been able to discover. The fact is that I do
think about Fausta, even when I don’t see her; but is it the memory of
her voice that I love, or is it her person?”
As he had given up all thoughts of the Church as a career, Fabrizio had
grown moustaches and whiskers almost as tremendous as those of Count M⸺,
and these somewhat disguised him. He established his headquarters, not
at Parma—that would have been too imprudent—but in a village hard by, on
the road to Sacca, where his aunt’s country house was situated. Advised
by Ludovico, he gave himself out in the village as the valet of a very
eccentric English nobleman who spent a hundred thousand francs a year on
sport, and who was shortly to arrive from the Lake of Como, where he was
detained by the trout-fishing.
Fortunately the pretty little palace which Count M⸺ had hired for the
fair Fausta stood at the southernmost end of the town of Parma, and just
on the Sacca road, and Fausta’s windows looked on to the fine avenues of
tall trees which stretch away below the high tower of the citadel.
Fabrizio was not known in that lonely quarter of the town. He did not
fail to have Count M⸺ followed, and one day, when he had just left
the exquisite singer’s house, Fabrizio was bold enough to appear in
the street in broad daylight. He was well armed, indeed, and mounted
on an excellent horse. Musicians, such as are constantly found in the
Italian streets, and who occasionally are very good indeed, ranged
themselves with their instruments under the Fausta’s windows, and, after
some introductory chords, sang, very fairly, a cantata in her honour.
Fausta appeared at the window, and her attention was easily caught by a
very courteous young gentleman, who first of all saluted her, and then
began to bombard her with most significant glances. In spite of the
exaggeratedly English dress Fabrizio had donned, she soon recognised the
sender of the passionate letters which had brought about her departure
from Bologna. “This is a strange being,” said she to herself. “I fancy I
am going to fall in love with him. I have a hundred louis in my pocket. I
can very well afford to break with the terrible count. He really has no
intelligence, and there is nothing novel about him; the only thing that
rather entertains me is the frightful appearance of his followers.”
The next morning Fabrizio, having heard that the Fausta went to mass
every day about eleven o’clock, in that very church of San Giovanni which
contained the tomb of his great-uncle, the Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo,
ventured to follow her there. It must be said that Ludovico had provided
him with a fine English wig of the brightest red hair. _À propos_ to
the colour of these locks—that of the flame which devoured his heart—he
wrote a sonnet which delighted the Fausta. An unknown hand had laid it
carefully on her piano. This manœuvring went on for quite a week, but
Fabrizio felt that in spite of all his various efforts, he was making no
real progress.
Fausta refused to receive him. He had overdone his eccentricity, and
she has since acknowledged that she was afraid of him. Fabrizio still
retained a faint hope of arriving at the sensation which is known as
love, but in the meanwhile, he was very often sorely bored.
“Sir, let us take ourselves off,” said Ludovico to him over and over
again. “You are not the least in love; your coolness and reasonableness
are quite hopeless, and besides, you make no progress whatsoever. Let us
decamp, for very shame.”
In the first flush of disgust, Fabrizio was on the very point of
departing. Then he heard that the Fausta was to sing at the Duchess
Sanseverina’s house. “Perhaps that sublime voice will really set my heart
on fire at last,” thought he, and he actually dared to introduce himself,
in disguise, into his aunt’s palace, where every one knew him.
The emotion of the duchess may be imagined, when, quite toward the end
of the concert, she noticed a man in a chasseur’s livery standing near
the door of the great drawing-room; something in his appearance stirred
her memory. She sought Count Mosca, and it was not until then that he
informed her of Fabrizio’s extraordinary and really incomprehensible
folly. He took the matter very well—this love for somebody who was not
the duchess was very agreeable to him—and the count, who, politics apart,
was a man of perfect honour, acted on the maxim that his own happiness
depended entirely on that of the duchess. “I will save him from himself,”
said he to his friend. “Imagine our enemies’ delight if he were arrested
in this very palace! So I have posted a hundred men of my own in the
house, and it was on this account that I asked you to give me the keys of
the great water-tank. He gives himself out as being desperately in love
with the Fausta, and hitherto he has not been able to carry her off from
Count M⸺, who gives the giddy creature all the luxuries of a queen.”
The liveliest sorrow was painted on the features of the duchess.
Fabrizio was nothing more than a libertine, then—incapable of any tender
or serious feeling! “And not to see us! That is what I shall never be
able to forgive him,” she said at last. “And I, who am writing to him
every day, to Bologna——”
“I give him great credit for his self-restraint,” said the count. “He
does not desire to compromise us by his freak, and it will be very
amusing to hear his account of it later.”
The Fausta was too giddy-pated to be able to hold her tongue about
anything which occupied her thoughts. The morning after the concert,
during which she had sung all her airs at the tall young man dressed as
a chasseur, she referred, in conversation with the count, to an unknown
and attentive individual. “Where do you see him?” inquired the count in
a fury. “In the streets, in church,” replied the Fausta, in confusion.
She immediately tried to repair her imprudence, or at all events to
remove any idea which could recall Fabrizio’s person. She launched
into an endless description of a tall red-haired young man with blue
eyes, some very rich and clumsy Englishman, doubtless, or else some
prince. At this word the count, the definiteness of whose impressions
was their only virtue, jumped to the conclusion—a delightful one for
his vanity—that his rival was none other than the hereditary Prince of
Parma. This poor melancholy youth, watched over by five or six governors,
sub-governors, tutors, etc., who never allowed him to go out without
holding a preliminary council, was in the habit of casting strange looks
at every decent-looking woman whom he was allowed to approach. At the
duchess’s concert he had been seated, as his rank demanded, in front of
all the other auditors, in a separate arm-chair, and three paces from the
fair Fausta, and had gazed at her in a manner which had caused excessive
vexation to the count. This delightful piece of wild vanity, the idea of
having a prince for his rival, entertained Fausta vastly, and she amused
herself by strengthening it with a hundred details, imparted in the most
apparently artless fashion.
“Is your family,” said she to the count, “as old as that of the Farnese,
to which this young man belongs?”
“As old! What do you mean? There are no bastards in my family.”[5]
It so fell out that Count M⸺ never could get a clear view of his
pretended rival, and this confirmed his flattering conviction that he
had a prince for his antagonist. As a matter of fact, Fabrizio, when the
necessities of his enterprise did not summon him to Parma, spent his time
in the woods near Sacca, and on the banks of the Po. Count M⸺ had grown
more haughty than ever, but far more prudent, too, since he had believed
himself to be disputing Fausta’s affections with a prince. He besought
her very earnestly to behave with the utmost reserve in everything she
did.
After casting himself at her feet, like a jealous and passionate lover,
he told her very plainly that his honour demanded that she should not be
duped by the young prince.
“Excuse me,” she replied. “I should not be his dupe if I loved him. I
have never yet seen a prince at my feet.”
“If you yield,” he responded, with a haughty look, “I may not, perhaps,
be able to avenge myself on the prince, but vengeance I will have, you
may be certain,” and he went out, banging the doors behind him. Had
Fabrizio made his appearance at that moment, he would have won his cause.
“If you value your life,” said Count M⸺ to her that evening, as he took
leave of her after the play, “see to it that I never find out that
the young prince has entered your house. I can do nothing to him, but
s’death, madam, do not force me to remember that I can do anything I
please to you!”
“Ah, my little Fabrizio,” exclaimed the Fausta, “if I only knew where to
lay my hand on you!”
Wounded vanity may drive a wealthy young man, who has been surrounded
by flatterers since his birth, into many things. The very real passion
with which the Fausta had inspired Count M⸺ burned up again furiously.
The dangerous prospect of a struggle with the only son of the sovereign
in whose country he was sojourning did not daunt him, and at the same
time he was not clever enough to make any attempt to get a sight of the
prince, or at least have him followed. As he could discover no other
method of attack, M⸺ ventured on the idea of making him look ridiculous.
“I shall be banished forever from the dominion of Parma,” said he. “Well,
what matter?”
If he had made any attempt to reconnoitre the enemy’s position, Count M⸺
would have discovered that the poor young prince never went out of doors
except in the company of three or four old men, the tiresome guardians
of official etiquette, and that the only pleasure of his own choice in
which he was allowed to indulge, was his taste for mineralogy. Both in
the daytime, and at night, the little Palazzo occupied by Fausta, and to
which the best company in Parma crowded, was surrounded by watchers. M⸺
was kept informed, hour by hour, of what she was doing, and especially of
what was done by those about her. One point, at least, was praiseworthy,
in the precautions taken by the jealous man—the lady, whimsical as she
was, had no suspicion, at first, of the increasing watchfulness about
her. All Count M⸺’s agents reported that a very young man, wearing a wig
of red hair, constantly appeared under the Fausta’s windows, but every
time in some fresh disguise. “Clearly that is the young prince,” said M⸺
to himself; “otherwise why should he disguise himself? Egad, I am not the
man to make way for him! But for the usurpations of the Venetian republic
I should now be a reigning prince like him.”
On San Stefano’s Day the spies’ reports grew more gloomy; they seemed
to indicate that the Fausta was beginning to respond to her unknown
admirer’s attentions. “I might depart instantly, and take the woman with
me,” said M⸺ to himself, “but I fled from Bologna before Del Dongo. Here
I should flee before a prince, and what would the young man say? He might
think he had contrived to frighten me, and on my soul, my family is as
good as his!”
M⸺ was beside himself with rage, and to crown his misery, his great
object was to prevent his jealousy from making him look ridiculous in the
eyes of Fausta, with whose jeering disposition he was well acquainted.
Therefore, on San Stefano’s Day, after having spent an hour with her, and
received a welcome which seemed to him the very acme of falsehood, he
left her, toward eleven o’clock, when she was dressing to go and hear
mass at the Church of San Giovanni. Count M⸺ returned to his rooms, put
on the shabby black dress of a young theological student, and hurried
off to San Giovanni. He chose out a place behind one of the tombs which
adorned the third chapel on the right. Under the arm of a cardinal, who
was represented kneeling on this tomb, he could see everything that went
on in the church. The statue blocked the light within the chapel, and
concealed him very sufficiently. Soon he saw Fausta enter, looking more
beautiful than ever. She was in full dress, and twenty admirers of the
highest rank attended her. Smiles and delight shone on her lips and in
her eyes. “Clearly,” thought the unhappy man, “she is expecting to meet
the man she loves, and whom, thanks to me, she has perhaps not been able
to see for a long time.”
Suddenly the liveliest expression of happiness shone in Fausta’s eyes.
“My rival is here,” said M⸺ to himself, and the fury of his wounded
vanity knew no bounds. “What am I doing here, acting as counter-weight to
a young prince who puts on disguises?” But, hard as he tried, he could
not discover the rival whom his hungry glance sought on every side. Every
instant the Fausta, after looking all round the church, would fix her
eyes, heavy with love and happiness, on the dark corner in which M⸺ stood
concealed. In a passionate heart, love is apt to exaggerate the very
slightest things, and deduce consequences of the most ridiculous nature.
Thus, poor M⸺ ended by persuading himself that the Fausta had caught
sight of him, and that, having perceived his mortal jealousy, in spite
of his desperate efforts to conceal it, she was seeking, by her tender
glances, at once to reproach and to console him.
The cardinal’s tomb, behind which he had taken up his post of
observation, was raised some four or five feet above the marble pavement
of San Giovanni. When, toward one o’clock, the fashionable mass was
brought to a close, most of the congregation departed, and the Fausta
dismissed the city beaux on the pretext that she desired to perform her
devotions. She remained kneeling on her chair, and her eyes, which had
grown softer and more brilliant than ever, rested on M⸺. Now that only
a few persons remained in the church, she did not take the trouble of
looking all round it before allowing them to dwell with delight on the
cardinal’s statue. “What delicacy!” said Count M⸺, who thought she was
gazing at him. At last the Fausta rose and went quickly out of church,
after having made some curious motions with her hands.
M⸺, drunk with love, and almost wholly cured of his foolish jealousy, was
leaving his place to fly to his mistress’s palace and overwhelm her with
his gratitude, when, as he passed in front of the cardinal’s tomb, he
noticed a young man all in black. This fatal being had remained kneeling
close against the epitaph on the tomb in such a position that the lover’s
jealous eyes had passed over his head, and so failed to catch sight of
him.
The young man rose, moved quickly away, and was instantly surrounded by
seven or eight rather awkward and odd-looking fellows, who seemed to
belong to him. M⸺ rushed after him, but, without any too evident effort,
the clumsy men, who seemed to be protecting his rival, checked his
progress in the little procession necessitated by the wooden screen round
the entrance door. When, at last, he got out into the street behind them,
he had only time to see the door of a sorry-looking carriage, which, by
an odd contrast, was drawn by two excellent horses, swiftly closed, and
in a moment it was out of sight.
He went home, choking with fury. He was soon joined by his spies, who
coolly informed him that on that day the mysterious lover, disguised as
a priest, had knelt very devoutly close up against a tomb standing at
the entrance of a dark chapel in the Church of San Giovanni; that the
Fausta had remained in the church until it was almost empty, and that
she had then swiftly exchanged certain signs with the unknown person,
making something like crosses with her hands. M⸺ rushed to the faithless
woman’s house. For the first time she could not conceal her confusion.
With all the lying simplicity of a passionate woman, she related that
she had gone to San Giovanni as usual, but had not seen her persecutor
there. On these words M⸺, beside himself, told her she was the vilest
of creatures, related all he had seen himself, and, as the more bitterly
he accused her, the more boldly she lied to him, he drew his dagger and
would have fallen upon her. With the most perfect calmness the Fausta
said:
“Well, everything you complain of is perfectly true, but I have tried to
hide it from you, so as to prevent your boldness from carrying you into
mad plans of vengeance which may be the ruin of us both. Let me tell you,
once for all, I take this man who persecutes me with his attentions to
be one who will find no obstacle to his will, in this country, at all
events.” Then, having skilfully reminded M⸺ that, after all, he had no
rights over her, the Fausta ended by saying that she should probably not
go again to the Church of San Giovanni. M⸺ was desperately in love; it
was possible that a touch of coquetry might have mingled with prudence in
the young woman’s heart. He felt himself disarmed. He thought of leaving
Parma; the young prince, powerful as he was, would not be able to follow
him, or, if he followed him, he would be no more than his equal. Then his
pride reminded him once more that such a departure would always look like
flight, and Count M⸺ forbade himself to think of it again.
“He has not an idea of my little Fabrizio’s existence,” thought the
delighted singer. “And now we shall be able to laugh at him most
thoroughly.”
Fabrizio had no suspicion of his own good fortune. The next morning, when
he saw the fair lady’s windows all carefully closed, and could not catch
sight of her anywhere, the joke began to strike him as lasting rather
too long. His conscience began to prick him. “Into what a position am I
putting poor Count Mosca, the Minister of Police? He will be taken for
my accomplice, and my coming to this country will be the ruin of his
fortunes. But if I give up a plan I have followed for so long, what will
the duchess say when I tell her of my attempts at love-making?”
One night when, feeling sorely inclined to give up the game, he thus
reasoned with himself, as he prowled up and down under the great trees
which divide the palace in which Fausta was living from the citadel, he
became aware that he was being followed by a spy of exceedingly small
stature. In vain did he walk through several streets in his endeavour to
get away from him. He could not shake off the tiny form which seemed to
dog his steps. Losing patience at last, he moved quickly into a lonely
street, running along the river, in which his servants were lying in
wait. At a signal from him they sprang upon the poor little spy, who
threw himself at their feet. It turned out to be Bettina, the Fausta’s
waiting-woman. After three days of boredom and retirement she had
disguised herself in man’s attire, to escape Count M⸺’s dagger—which
both she and her mistress greatly dreaded—and had undertaken to come
and tell Fabrizio that he was passionately loved and intensely longed
for, but that any reappearance at the Church of San Giovanni was quite
impossible. “It was high time,” thought Fabrizio to himself. “Well done,
my obstinacy!”
The little waiting-woman was exceedingly pretty, a fact which soon weaned
Fabrizio from his communings with morality. She informed him that the
public promenade and all the streets through which he had passed that
evening, were carefully, though secretly, guarded by spies in the count’s
pay. They had hired rooms on the ground floor and on the first floor,
and, hidden behind the window shutters, they watched everything that
went on in the streets, even those which seemed the loneliest, and heard
everything that was said.
“If the spies had recognised my voice,” said little Bettina, “I should
have been stabbed without mercy as soon as I got home, and my poor
mistress with me, perhaps.” Fabrizio thought her terror increased her
charms.
“Count M⸺,” she added, “is furious, and my mistress knows he is capable
of anything.… She bade me tell you that she wishes she were with you, and
a hundred leagues from here.”
Then she told the story of all that had happened on San Stefano’s Day and
of the fury of the count, who had not missed one of the loving glances
and signs which the Fausta, who had been quite beside herself with
passion that day, had bestowed on Fabrizio. The count had unsheathed his
dagger, had caught hold of Fausta by the hair, and but for her presence
of mind would certainly have killed her.
Fabrizio conducted the pretty waiting-maid to a lodging he had hard by.
He told her that he was the son of a great Turinese nobleman who chanced
to be at Parma at that moment, and that therefore he was obliged to act
with the greatest caution. Bettina answered laughingly that he was a
much greater man than he chose to appear. It was some time before our
hero contrived to understand that the charming girl took him for no less
a person than the hereditary prince himself. The Fausta was beginning
to take alarm, and also to care for Fabrizio. She had resolved not to
tell her waiting-maid his real name, and had spoken of him to her as
“the prince.” Fabrizio ended by confessing to the pretty girl that she
had guessed aright. “But if my name is noised abroad,” he added, “in
spite of my great passion for your mistress, of which I have given her
so many proofs, I shall not be able to see her any more; and my father’s
ministers, those spiteful wretches whom I shall one day send about their
business, will not fail to give her instant orders to clear out of the
country which she has hitherto embellished by her presence.”
Toward morning, Fabrizio and the fair waiting-maid laid several plans
for meeting, so as to enable him to get to Fausta. He sent for Ludovico
and another of his men, a very cunning fellow, who arrived at an
understanding with Bettina, while he was writing the most exaggerated
letter to Fausta. Tragic exaggeration quite fitted in with the situation,
and Fabrizio used it without stint. It was not till daybreak that he
parted with the pretty waiting-maid, who was highly delighted with the
treatment she had received at the hands of the young prince.
A hundred times over they had agreed that now the Fausta had entered
into communication with her lover, he was not to appear under the
windows of the little palace until she was able to admit him, when he
would be duly warned. But Fabrizio, who was now in love with Bettina and
believed himself near success with Fausta, could not stay quietly in his
village two leagues from Parma. Toward midnight on the morrow, he came
on horseback, with a sufficient train of servants, and sang, under the
Fausta’s windows, an air then fashionable, to which he had put words of
his own. “Is not this a common practice among lovers?” said he to himself.
Now that the Fausta had given him to understand that she desired a
meeting, this long pursuit seemed very wearisome to Fabrizio. “No, this
is not love,” said he to himself as he sang, not particularly well, under
the windows of the little palace. “Bettina seems to me a hundred times
more attractive than Fausta, and it is she whom I should best like to see
at this moment.” He was returning to his village, feeling rather bored,
when, about five hundred paces from Fausta’s palace, he was sprung upon
by some fifteen or twenty men. Four of them seized his horse’s bridle,
two others took hold of his arms. Ludovico and Fabrizio’s bravi were
attacked, but contrived to escape, and several pistols were fired. The
whole affair was over in an instant. Then, as though by magic, and in
the twinkling of an eye, fifty men, bearing lighted torches, appeared in
the street, every man well armed. Fabrizio, in spite of the people who
were holding him, had jumped off his horse, and struggled fiercely to
get free. He even wounded one of the men, who was holding his arms in a
vice-like grasp, but he was very much astonished to hear the fellow say,
in the most respectful tone:
“Your Highness will give me a good pension for this wound, and that will
be far better for me than to fall into the crime of high treason by
drawing my sword against my prince.”
“Now here comes the chastisement of my folly,” thought Fabrizio. “I shall
have damned myself for a sin which did not even strike me as attractive.”
Hardly had the attempted scuffle come to an end, when several lackeys,
dressed in magnificent liveries, brought forward a sedan-chair, gilt and
painted in a most extraordinary manner. It was one of those grotesque
conveyances used by masks during carnival time. Six men, dagger in hand,
requested “his Highness” to get in, saying the cold night air might
hurt his voice. The most respectful forms of address were used, and
the title “prince” was constantly repeated, and almost shouted aloud.
The procession began to move on. Fabrizio counted more than fifty men
carrying lighted torches down the street. It was about one o’clock in the
morning, all the world was looking out of window, there was a certain
solemnity about the whole affair. “I was afraid Count M⸺ might treat me
to dagger thrusts,” said Fabrizio to himself, “but he contents himself
with making game of me. I should not have accused him of so much taste.
But does he really believe he has to do with the prince? If he knows I am
only Fabrizio, I must beware of the stiletto.”
The fifty torch-bearers and the twenty armed men, having made a long
halt under the Fausta’s windows, paraded up and down in front of the
finest palaces in the city. From time to time the major-domos who walked
by the side of the sedan-chair inquired whether “his Highness” had any
orders to give them. Fabrizio did not lose his head. He could see by
the torch-light that Ludovico and his men were following the procession
as closely as they could. Fabrizio argued to himself: “Ludovico has
only eight or ten men; he does not dare to attack.” From within his
sedan-chair Fabrizio saw plainly enough that the people charged with the
execution of this doubtful joke were armed to the teeth. He affected to
laugh with the major-domos in attendance on him. After more than two
hours of this triumphal march he perceived that they were about to cross
the street in which the Palazzo Sanseverina stood. Just as they passed
by the street leading to the palace he suddenly opened the door in the
front of the chair, jumped over one of the staves, overthrew one of
the footmen, who thrust his torch into his face, with a dagger thrust,
received one himself in the shoulder, a second footman singed his beard
with his lighted torch, and finally, Fabrizio reached Ludovico, to whom
he shouted, “Kill! kill every one who carries a torch!” Ludovico hacked
with his sword, and saved him from two men who were trying to pursue
him. Fabrizio rushed up to the entrance of the Palazzo Sanseverina. The
porter, in his curiosity, had opened the little door three feet high, set
in the large one, and was staring in astonishment at the great train of
torches. Fabrizio bounded through the tiny door, slammed it behind him,
ran to the garden, and escaped by another door opening on to a deserted
street. An hour later he was beyond the city walls; when day broke he was
over the frontier into the state of Modena, and in perfect safety; by the
evening he was back in Bologna. “Here’s a pretty expedition!” said he to
himself. “I have not even succeeded in getting speech with my flame.”
He lost no time about writing letters of excuse to the count and to the
duchess, prudent missives which, though they described his emotions,
furnished no clew that any enemy could lay hold of. “I was in love with
love,” he wrote to the duchess. “I have done everything in the world to
make its acquaintance. But nature, it appears, has refused me a heart
capable of love and melancholy; I can not rise above vulgar enjoyment,
etc.” The stir this adventure made in Parma can not be described. The
mystery of it whetted the general curiosity. Numbers of people had seen
the torches and the sedan-chair, but who was the man who had been carried
off and treated with such formal ceremony? No well-known personage was
missing from the city on the following day.
The humble folk living in the street in which the prisoner made his
escape declared they had seen a corpse. But when broad daylight came,
and the inhabitants ventured to emerge from their houses, the only trace
of the struggle they could discover was the quantity of blood which
stained the paving stones. More than twenty thousand sightseers visited
the street during the day. The dwellers in Italian towns are accustomed
to see strange sights, but the _how_ and _why_ is always clearly known
to them. What annoyed the Parmese about this incident, was that even a
whole month after, when the torch-light procession had ceased to be the
only subject of general conversation, no one, thanks to Count Mosca’s
prudence, had been able to discover the name of the rival who would fain
have carried the Fausta off from Count M⸺. This jealous and vindictive
lover had taken to flight as soon as the procession had set forth on its
way. By the count’s orders, the Fausta was shut up in the citadel. The
duchess was vastly entertained by a little piece of injustice in which
the count was forced to indulge, to check the curiosity of the prince,
who might otherwise have tried to discover Fabrizio’s name.
A learned man had just arrived at Parma from the north, with the
intention of writing a history of the middle ages. He was searching
for manuscripts in various libraries, and the count had given him all
possible facilities. But this learned man, who was still very young, was
of an irascible temper. He fancied, for instance, that every soul in
Parma desired to turn him into ridicule. It is true that the street boys
did occasionally run after him, attracted by the waving locks of pale red
hair which he proudly displayed. This learned gentleman believed that his
innkeeper charged him abnormal prices for everything, and he would never
pay for the most trifling article without looking up its price in Mrs.
Starke’s Travels, a book which has reached its twentieth edition, because
it gives the prudent Englishman the price of a turkey, an apple, a glass
of milk, and so forth.
On the very evening of the day on which Fabrizio had taken his
involuntary part in the torch-light procession, the red-haired _savant_
fell into a rage at his inn, and pulled a pair of pocket pistols out of
his pocket to take vengeance on a _camérier_ who had asked him two sous
for an inferior peach. He was immediately arrested, for it is a great
crime, in Parma, to carry pocket pistols.
As this irascible gentleman was tall and thin, it occurred to the count,
next morning, to pass him off on the prince as the foolhardy being who
had endeavoured to carry off the Fausta, and on whom a trick had been
played by her lover. In Parma the punishment for carrying pocket pistols
is three years at the galleys, but the penalty is never exacted. After
a fortnight in prison, during which he saw nobody but a lawyer, who
filled him with the deepest terror of the abominable laws directed by
the cowardice of the people in power against the bearers of concealed
weapons, he was visited by a second lawyer, who told him the story of
the mock procession in which Count M⸺ had forced a rival, whose identity
had not been discovered, to bear a part. “The police do not want to
confess to the prince that they can not find out who this rival is. Say
that you desired to find favour in the Fausta’s eyes, that fifty rascals
laid hands on you while you were singing beneath her windows, and that
you were carried about in a sedan-chair for an hour by people who only
spoke to you in a most respectful manner. There is nothing humiliating
about this avowal, and one word is all that is asked of you. The instant
you say it, and get the police out of this difficulty, you will be put
into a post-chaise, taken to the frontier, and allowed to depart in
peace.”
For a whole month the learned man held out. Two or three times over,
the prince was on the point of having him brought before the Minister
of the Interior, and himself presiding at the examination. But he had
forgotten all about it before the historian, wearied out, made up his
mind to confess everything, and was conducted to the frontier. The prince
remained convinced that Count M⸺’s rival possessed a mass of red hair.
Three days after the procession, while Fabrizio, with his faithful
Ludovico, in his hiding-place at Bologna, was plotting means of
discovering Count M⸺, he learned that the count was in hiding, too, in
a mountain village on the road to Florence, and that only three of his
_buli_ were with him. Next day, as he was returning from a ride, the
count was seized by eight masked men, who informed him they were police
agents from Parma. He was conducted, after his eyes had been bandaged,
to an inn some two leagues farther up in the mountains, where he was
received with every attention, and found a liberal supper ready. The best
Italian and Spanish wines were served.
“Pray, am I a state prisoner?” inquired the count.
“Not the least in the world,” was the polite response of Ludovico, who
wore a mask. “You have insulted a private individual by venturing to have
him carried about in a sedan-chair. To-morrow morning he means to fight a
duel with you. If you kill him, you will be provided with money and good
horses, and there will be relays ready for you all the way to Genoa.”
“What may this ruffian’s name be?” quoth the count in a rage.
“His name is Bombace. You will have the choice of weapons, and good
seconds, thoroughly loyal men; but one or the other of you must die.”
“It’s a murder, then!” cried Count M⸺ in alarm.
“God forbid! It is simply a duel to the death, with a young man whom you
carried about the streets of Parma in the middle of the night, and who
would be dishonoured if you lived on. The earth is not large enough for
both of you. Therefore do your best to kill him. You will have swords,
pistols, rapiers—all the weapons it has been possible to collect within a
few hours, for time is precious; the Bolognese police are very diligent,
as you know, and there must be no interference with this duel, for the
sake of the honour of this young man, whom you have turned into ridicule.”
“But if the young man is a prince?”
“He is a private individual, like yourself, and indeed a much less rich
man than you. But he is resolved to fight to the death, and he will force
you to fight, I warn you.”
“I am not afraid of anything on earth,” exclaimed Count M⸺.
“That is what your adversary most earnestly desires,” replied Ludovico.
“Make yourself ready to defend your life to-morrow, very early in the
morning; to be attacked by a man who has good reason to be furious with
you, and who will not spare you. I tell you again, you will have the
choice of weapons, and now, make your will!”
About six o’clock the next morning, Count M⸺’s breakfast was served. Then
one of the doors of the room in which he had been kept was opened, and
he was requested to enter the courtyard of a country inn. This court was
surrounded with tolerably high hedges and walls, and all the entrances
had been carefully closed.
On a table in one corner, which the count was requested to approach,
stood several bottles of wine and brandy, two pistols, two rapiers, two
swords, paper, and ink. About a score of peasants were at the windows of
the tavern, which looked on to the yard. The count besought their pity.
“These people want to murder me,” he cried; “save my life!”
“You are deceived, or else you desire to deceive,” shouted Fabrizio, who
was standing in the opposite corner of the courtyard, beside a table
covered with weapons. He had taken off his coat, and his face was hidden
under one of those wire masks used in fencing-rooms.
“I advise you,” added Fabrizio, “to put on the wire mask you will find
beside you, and then advance either with a rapier or with pistols. As you
were told yesterday morning, you have the choice of weapons.” The count
made endless difficulties, and seemed very unwilling to fight. Fabrizio,
on his side, was afraid the police would arrive, although they were up in
the mountains, and five full leagues from Bologna. He ended by hurling
such frightful insults at his rival, that he had the satisfaction of
goading Count M⸺ into fury. He snatched up a rapier, and advanced upon
Fabrizio. The beginning of the fight was somewhat slack.
After a few minutes it was interrupted by a great noise. Our hero had
been quite conscious that he was undertaking an enterprise which might be
made a subject of reproach, or at all events of slanderous imputations
upon him, all through his life. He had sent Ludovico into the fields
to beat up witnesses. Ludovico gave money to some strangers who were
working in a neighbouring wood, and they hurried up, shouting, under the
impression that they were expected to kill an enemy of the man who had
paid them. When they reached the inn, Ludovico begged them to watch with
all their eyes, and see whether either of the young men did anything
treacherous, or took any unfair advantage of the other.
The fight, which had been checked for a moment by the peasants’ shouts,
again hung fire. Once more Fabrizio rained insults on the count’s
self-conceit. “Signor Conte,” he cried, “when you are insolent, you must
be brave as well. I know that is a hard matter for you; you would far
rather pay other people to be brave.” The count, stung to fresh fury,
yelled out that he had been a constant frequenter of the fencing school
at Naples, kept by the famous Battistino, and that he would soon chastise
his opponent’s impudence. Now that Count M⸺’s fury had revived, he fought
with tolerable resolution, but this did not prevent Fabrizio from giving
him a fine sword thrust in the chest, which kept him several months in
bed. As Ludovico bent over the count to put a temporary bandage on his
wound, he whispered in his ear, “If you dare to let the police know of
this duel, I will have you stabbed in your bed.”
Fabrizio fled to Florence. As he had remained in hiding at Bologna, it
was not till he reached Florence that he received all the duchess’s
reproachful letters. She could not forgive him for coming to her concert,
and not attempting to obtain speech of her. Fabrizio was delighted with
Count Mosca’s letters; they breathed frank friendship and the noblest
feelings. He guessed that the count had written to Bologna to dispel the
suspicions of him which the duel might have caused. The police behaved
with perfect justice. It reported that two strangers, only one of whom,
the wounded man, was recognised (Count M⸺), had fought with rapiers in
the presence of more than thirty peasants, joined, toward the end of
the fight, by the village priest, who had unsuccessfully endeavoured to
separate the combatants. As the name of Giuseppe Bossi had never been
mentioned, Fabrizio ventured, before two months were out, to return
to Bologna, more convinced than ever that he was fated never to make
acquaintance with the noble and intellectual side of love. This he did
himself the pleasure of explaining to the duchess, in very lengthy terms.
He was very tired of his lonely life, and passionately longed to go back
to the delightful evenings he had spent with his aunt and the count. He
had not tasted the delights of good company since he had parted from them.
“I have brought so much worry upon myself on account of the love I had
hoped to enjoy, and of the Fausta,” wrote he to the duchess, “that now,
if her fancy still turned my way, I would not ride twenty leagues to
claim the fulfilment of her bond. Therefore, have no fear, as you say you
have, that I may go to Paris, where I see she is appearing with the most
brilliant success. I would ride any possible number of leagues to spend
an evening with you and with the count, who is always so good to his
friends.”
[5] Pietro Luigi, the first sovereign of the Farnese family, so famous
for his virtues, was, as is well known, the natural son of Pope Paul III.