While Fabrice was gone a-hunting after love adventures in a small
village close by Parma, the Fiscal General, Rassi, unaware that he was
so near, continued to treat his case as though he had been a Liberal.
The witnesses for the defense he pretended that he could not find, or
rather that he had frightened them off; and finally, after nearly a year
of such sharp practice, and about two months after Fabrice's last return
to Bologna, on a certain Friday, the Marquise Raversi, intoxicated with
joy, stated publicly in her salon that on the following day "the
sentence which had just been passed upon that little Del Dongo would be
presented to the Prince for signature, and would be approved by him."
Shortly afterwards the Duchess learned these remarks of her enemy.
"The Count must be very poorly served by his agents," she said to
herself: "only this morning he was sure that sentence could not be
passed inside of a week: perhaps he would not be sorry to have my young
Grand Vicar removed from Parma some day. But," she added, "we shall see
him come back, and he shall be our Archbishop." The Duchess rang.
"Summon all the servants to the waiting-room," she said to her
valet-de-chambre, "even the cooks; go and obtain from the officer in
command the requisite permit for four post-horses; and see that in less
than half an hour these horses are attached to my landau." All her women
were soon busied in packing the trunks: the Duchess hastily donned a
traveling dress, without once sending word to the Count; the idea of
amusing herself at his expense filled her with joy.
"My friend," she said to the assembled servants, "is about to suffer
condemnation by default for having had the audacity to defend his life
against a madman; it was Giletti who meant to kill him. You have all
been able to see how gentle and inoffensive Fabrice's character is.
Justly incensed at this atrocious injury, I am starting for Florence. I
shall leave ten years' wages for each of you; if you are unhappy, write
to me; and so long as I have a sequin, there shall be something
for you."
The Duchess felt exactly as she spoke, and at her last words the
servants burst into tears; she herself had moist eyes. She added in a
voice of emotion:--"Pray to God for me and for Monsigneur Fabrice del
Dongo, first Grand Vicar of this Diocese, who will be condemned
to-morrow morning to the galleys, or what would be less stupid, to the
penalty of death."
The tears of the servants redoubled, and little by little changed into
cries which were very nearly seditious. The Duchess entered her carriage
and drove directly to the palace of the Prince. In spite of the untimely
hour, she solicited an audience, through General Fontana, acting
aide-de-camp. She was nowise in full court toilette, a fact which threw
that aide-de-camp into a profound stupor.
The Prince, for his part, was by no means surprised, still less annoyed,
at this request for an audience. "We are going to see tears shed by
lovely eyes," said he, rubbing his hands; "she is coming to ask for
grace; at last that proud beauty has to humble herself! Really she has
been too insupportable with her little independent airs! Those eloquent
eyes always seemed to be saying to me, at the least thing which annoyed
her, 'Naples or Milan would be an abode offering very different
attractions from those of your small town of Parma.' True enough, I do
not reign over Naples or Milan; but all the same, this fine lady has
come to ask me something which depends exclusively upon me, and which
she is burning to obtain. I always thought the coming of that nephew
would give me some hold upon her."
While the Prince was smiling over his thoughts, and giving himself up to
all these agreeable anticipations, he was striding up and down his
cabinet, at the door of which General Fontana still remained standing,
erect and stiff as a soldier at carry-arms. Seeing the Prince's flashing
eye and recalling the Duchess's traveling dress, he prepared for a
dissolution of the monarchy. His confusion knew no bounds when he heard
the Prince's order: "Beg Madame the Duchess to wait a small quarter of
an hour." The general-aide-de-camp executed a right-about-face, like a
soldier on parade; the Prince still smiled. "Fontana is not accustomed,"
he said to himself, "to see our proud Duchess kept waiting. The
astonished face with which he has gone to tell her 'to wait that small
quarter of an hour' will pave the way for those touching tears which
this cabinet is about to witness." This small quarter of an hour was
delicious to the Prince; he paced the floor with a firm and measured
step, he _reigned_. "The important thing now is to say nothing which is
not perfectly in keeping. It will not do to forget that she is one of
the highest ladies of my court. How would Louis XIV. have spoken to the
princesses his daughters when he had occasion to be displeased with
them?" and his eyes sought the portrait of the great king.
The amusing part of the matter was that the Prince did not even think of
asking himself whether he would show clemency to Fabrice, and how far
such clemency would go. Finally, at the end of twenty minutes, the
faithful Fontana presented himself anew at the door, but without
uttering a word. "The Duchess Sanseverina may enter," cried the Prince
with a theatrical air. "The tears are about to commence," he told
himself, and as if to be prepared for such a spectacle, he drew out his
handkerchief.
Never had the Duchess appeared so gay and charming; she did not look
twenty-five. The poor aide-de-camp, seeing that her light and rapid
footstep barely seemed to skim the carpet, was on the point of losing
his reason once for all.
"I must crave many pardons of your Most Serene Highness," said the
Duchess in her soft tones of careless gayety: "I have taken the liberty
of presenting myself in a toilette which is not altogether appropriate;
but your Highness has so accustomed me to his favors that I have
ventured to hope that he would accord me this additional grace."
The Duchess spoke quite slowly, so as to give herself time to enjoy the
expression of the Prince. It was delicious, on account of his profound
astonishment, and that remnant of grand airs which the pose of his head
and arms still betrayed. The Prince had remained as if struck by a
thunderbolt; from time to time, he exclaimed, in his high-pitched voice,
shrill and perturbed, as though articulating with difficulty: _"How is
this? how is this?"_ After concluding her compliment, the Duchess, as
though from respect, afforded him ample time to reply; then she added:--
"I venture to hope that your Most Serene Highness will deign to pardon
the incongruity of my costume:" but as she spoke, her mocking eyes
flashed with so bright a gleam that the Prince could not meet them. He
looked at the ceiling, a sign with him of the most extreme
embarrassment.
"How is this? how is this?" he said to himself again; then by good luck,
he found a phrase: "Madame la Duchesse, pray be seated," and he himself
pushed forward a chair, with fairly good grace. The Duchess was by no
means insensible to this attention, and she moderated the petulance of
her glance.
"How is this? how is this?" still repeated the Prince inwardly, shifting
so uneasily in his chair that one would have said that he could not find
a secure position.
"I am going to take advantage of the freshness of the night to travel
post," resumed the Duchess, "and as my absence may be of some duration,
I was unwilling to leave the territory of your Most Serene Highness
without expressing my thanks for all the favors which for five years
your Highness has deigned to show me." At these words the Prince at last
understood; he turned pale. It was as man of the world that he felt it
most keenly, on finding himself mistaken in his predictions. Then he
assumed a grand air, in every way worthy of the portrait of Louis XIV.,
which was before his eyes. "Admirable," said the Duchess to herself,
"there is a man."
"And what is the motive of this sudden departure?" asked the Prince, in
a fairly firm tone.
"I have contemplated leaving, for some time," replied the Duchess, "and
a slight insult which has been shown to _Monsignor_ del Dongo, who is to
be condemned to-morrow to death or to the galleys makes me hasten my
departure."
"And to what city are you going?"
"To Naples, I think." As she arose, she added, "It only remains for me
to take leave of your Most Serene Highness, and to thank him very humbly
for all his _earlier_ kindnesses." She, on her part, spoke with so firm
an air that the Prince saw clearly that in a few seconds all would be
finished. He knew that if a triumphant departure was once effected, all
compromise would be impossible. She was not the woman to retrace her
steps. He hastened after her.
"But you know very well, Madame la Duchesse," he said, taking her hand,
"that I have always regarded you with a friendship to which it needed
only a word from you to give another name. But a murder has been
committed; there is no way of denying that. I have intrusted the conduct
of the case to my best judges ..."
At these words the Duchess drew herself up to her full height: All
semblance of respect, or even of urbanity, disappeared in a flash. The
outraged woman was clearly revealed, the outraged woman addressing
herself to the one whom she knows to be of bad faith. It was with an
expression of keenest anger and even of contempt that she said to the
Prince, dwelling upon every word:--
"I am leaving forever the States of your Most Serene Highness, in order
that I shall never again hear mentioned the Fiscal Rassi, or the other
infamous assassins who have condemned my nephew and so many others to
death. If your Most Serene Highness does not wish to mingle a tinge of
bitterness with the last moments which I am to pass with a prince who is
both polite and entertaining when he is not misled, I beg him very
humbly not to recall the thought of those infamous judges who sell
themselves for a thousand crowns or a decoration."
The admirable accent, and above all the tone of sincerity, with which
these words were uttered, made the Prince tremble; for an instant he
feared to see his dignity compromised by a still more direct accusation.
On the whole, however, his sensations quickly culminated in one of
pleasure. He admired the Duchess, and at this moment her entire person
attained a sublime beauty.
"Heavens! how beautiful she is," the Prince said to himself: "one may
well overlook something in so unique a woman, one whose like perhaps is
not to be found in all Italy.--Well, with a little diplomacy it might
not be altogether impossible to make her mine.--There is a wide
difference between such a being and that doll of a Marquise Balbi;
besides, the latter steals at least three hundred thousand francs a year
from my poor subjects.--But did I understand her aright?" he thought all
of a sudden: "she said, 'condemned my nephew and so many others.'" His
anger came to the surface, and it was with a haughtiness worthy of
supreme rank that the Prince said, "And what must be done to keep Madame
from leaving?"
"Something of which you are not capable," replied the Duchess, with an
accent of the bitterest irony and the most thinly disguised contempt.
The Prince was beside himself, but thanks to his long practice of the
profession of absolute sovereign, he found the strength to resist his
first impulse. "That woman must be mine," he said to himself. "I owe
myself at least that; then I must let her perish under my contempt. If
she leaves this room, I shall never see her again." But, intoxicated as
he was at this moment with wrath and hatred, how was he to find words
which would at once satisfy what was due to himself and induce the
Duchess not to desert his court on the instant? "A gesture," he thought,
"is something which can neither be repeated nor turned into ridicule,"
and he went and placed himself between the Duchess and the door of his
cabinet. Just then he heard a slight tapping at this door.
"Who is this jackanapes?" he cried, at the top of his lungs, "who is
this jackanapes who comes here, thrusting his idiotic presence upon me?"
Poor General Fontana showed his face, pale and in evident discomfiture,
and with the air of a man at his last gasp, indistinctly pronounced
these words:--"His Excellency Count Mosca solicits the honor of being
admitted."
"Let him enter," said the Prince in a loud voice; and as Mosca made his
salutation, greeted him with:--
"Well, sir, here is Madame the Duchess Sanseverina, who declares that
she is on the point of leaving Parma to go and settle at Naples, and has
made me saucy speeches into the bargain."
"How is this?" said Mosca, turning pale.
"What, then you knew nothing of this project of departure?"
"Not the first word. At six o'clock I left Madame joyous and contented."
This speech produced an incredible effect upon the Prince. First he
glanced at Mosca, whose growing pallor proved that he spoke the truth
and was in no way the accomplice of the Duchess's sudden freak. "In that
case," he said to himself, "I am losing her forever. Pleasure and
vengeance, everything is escaping me at once. At Naples she will make
epigrams with her nephew Fabrice, about the great wrath of the little
Prince of Parma." He looked at the Duchess; anger and the most violent
contempt were struggling in her heart; her eyes were fixed at that
moment upon Count Mosca, and the fine lines of that lovely mouth
expressed the most bitter disdain. The entire expression of her face
seemed to say, "Vile courtier!" "So," thought the Prince, after having
examined her, "I have lost even this means of calling her back to our
country. If she leaves the room at this moment, she is lost to me. And
the Lord only knows what she will say in Naples of my judges, and with
that wit and divine power of persuasion with which heaven has endowed
her, she will make the whole world believe her. I shall owe her the
reputation of being a ridiculous tyrant, who gets up in the middle of
the night to look under his bed!"
Then, by an adroit movement, and as if striving to work off his
agitation by striding up and down, the Prince placed himself anew before
the door of his cabinet. The count was on his right, pale, unnerved, and
trembling so that he had to lean for support upon the back of the chair
which the Duchess had occupied at the beginning of the audience, and
which the Prince, in a moment of wrath, had hurled to a distance. The
Count was really in love. "If the Duchess goes away, I shall follow
her," he told himself; "but will she tolerate my company? that is the
question."
On the left of the Prince stood the Duchess, her arms crossed and
pressed against her breast, looking at him with superb intolerance; a
complete and profound pallor had succeeded the glowing colors which just
before had animated those exquisite features.
The Prince, in contrast with both the others, had a high color and an
uneasy air; his left hand played in a nervous fashion with the cross
attached to the grand cordon of his order, which he wore beneath his
coat; with his right hand he caressed his chin.
"What is to be done?" he said to the Count, not altogether realizing
what he was doing himself, but yielding to his habit of consulting the
latter about everything.
"Indeed, Most Serene Highness, I know nothing about it," answered the
Count, with the air of a man who is rendering up his final sigh; he
could hardly utter the words of his response. His tone of voice gave the
Prince the first consolation which his wounded pride had found during
the interview, and this slight satisfaction helped him to a phrase which
was comforting to his self-esteem:--
"Well," said he, "I am the most reasonable of all three; I am quite
ready to leave my position in the world entirely out of consideration.
_I am going to speak as a friend_," and he added with a charming smile
of condescension, a fine imitation of the happy times of Louis XIV, "_as
a friend speaking to friends:_ Madame la Duchesse," he continued, "what
are we to do to make you forget your untimely resolution?"
"Really, I am at a loss to say," replied the Duchess, with a deep sigh,
"really, I am at a loss to say: I have such a horror of Parma!" There
was no attempt at epigram in this speech; one could see that she spoke
in all sincerity.
The Count turned sharply away from her; his courtier's soul was
scandalized. Then he cast a supplicating glance at the Prince. With much
dignity and self-possession the latter allowed a moment to pass; then,
addressing himself to the Count, "I see," said he, "that your charming
friend is altogether beside herself. It is perfectly simple, she
_adores_ her nephew;" and turning towards the Duchess, he added with the
most gallant glance, and at the same time with the air which one assumes
in borrowing a phrase from a comedy: _"What must we do to find favor in
these lovely eyes?"_
The Duchess had had time to reflect: She answered in a firm, slow tone,
as if she were dictating her ultimatum:--
"His Highness might write me a gracious letter, such as he knows so well
how to write: he might say to me, that being by no means convinced of
the guilt of Fabrice del Dongo, First Grand Vicar of the Archbishop, he
will refuse to sign the sentence when they come to present it to him,
and that this unjust procedure shall have no consequence in the future."
"How is that? Unjust!" cried the Prince, coloring to the whites of his
eyes, and with renewed anger.
"That is not all," replied the Duchess with truly Roman pride, "_this
very evening_--and," she interposed, glancing at the clock, "it is
already a quarter past eleven--this very evening, his Most Serene
Highness will send word to the Marquise Raversi that he advises her to
go into the country to recuperate from the fatigues which she must have
suffered from a certain trial which she was discussing in her salon
early in the evening." The Prince strode up and down his cabinet, like a
madman. "Did one ever see such a woman?" he exclaimed. "She is lacking
in respect for me."