One day--Fabrice had been a captive nearly three months, had had
absolutely no communication with the outside world, and yet was not
unhappy--Grillo had remained hanging about the cell until a late hour of
the morning. Fabrice could think of no way of getting rid of him, and
was on pins and needles; half-past twelve had struck when at last he was
enabled to open the little trap in the hateful shutter.
Clélia was standing at the window of the aviary in an expectant
attitude, an expression of profound despair on her contracted features.
As soon as she saw Fabrice she signaled to him that all was lost; then,
hurrying to her piano, and adapting her words to the accompaniment of a
recitative from a favorite opera, in accents tremulous with her emotion
and the fear of being overheard by the sentry beneath, she sang:--
"Ah, do I see you still alive? Praise God for his infinite mercy!
Barbone, the wretch whose insolence you chastised the day of your
arrival here, disappeared some time ago and for a few days was not seen
about the citadel. He returned day before yesterday, and since then I
have reason to fear he has a design of poisoning you. He has been seen
prowling about the kitchen of the palace where your meals are prepared.
I can assert nothing positively, but it is my maid's belief that his
skulking there bodes you no good. I was frightened this morning, not
seeing you at the usual time; I thought you must be dead. Until you hear
more from me, do not touch the food they give you; I will try to manage
to convey a little chocolate to you. In any case, if you have a cord, or
can make one from your linen, let it down from your window among the
orange-trees this evening at nine o'clock. I will attach a stronger cord
to it, and with its aid you can draw up the bread and chocolate I will
have in readiness."
Fabrice had carefully preserved the bit of charcoal he had found in the
stove; taking advantage of Clélia's more softened mood, he formed on the
palm of his hand a number of letters in succession, which taken together
made up these words:--
"I love you, and life is dear to me only when I can see you. Above all
else, send me paper and a pencil."
As Fabrice had hoped and expected, the extreme terror visible in the
young girl's face operated to prevent her from terminating the interview
on receipt of this audacious message; she only testified her displeasure
by her looks. Fabrice had the prudence to add:--"The wind blows so hard
to-day that I couldn't catch quite all you said; and then, too, the
sound of the piano drowns your voice. You were saying something about
poison, weren't you--what was it?"
At these words the young girl's terror returned in all its violence; she
hurriedly set to work to describe with ink a number of large capital
letters on the leaves she tore from one of her books, and Fabrice was
delighted to see her at last adopt the method of correspondence that he
had been vainly advocating for the last three months. But this system,
although an improvement on the signals, was less desirable than a
regular exchange of letters, so Fabrice constantly feigned to be unable
to decipher the words of which she exhibited the component letters.
A summons from her father obliged her to leave the aviary. She was in
great alarm lest he might come to look for her there; his suspicious
nature would have been likely to scent danger in the proximity of his
daughter's window to the prisoner's. It had occurred to Clélia a short
time before, while so anxiously awaiting Fabrice's appearance, that
pebbles might be made factors in their correspondence, by wrapping the
paper on which the message was written round them and throwing them up
so they should fall within the open upper portion of the screen. The
device would have worked well unless Fabrice's keeper chanced to be in
the room at the time.
Our prisoner proceeded to tear one of his shirts into narrow strips,
forming a sort of ribbon. Shortly after nine o'clock that evening he
heard a tapping on the boxes of the orange-trees under his window; he
cautiously lowered his ribbon, and on drawing it up again found attached
to its free end a long cord by means of which he hauled up a supply of
chocolate, and, to his inexpressible satisfaction, a package of
note-paper and a pencil. He dropped the cord again, but to no purpose;
perhaps the sentries on their rounds had approached the orange-trees.
But his delight was sufficient for one evening. He sat down and wrote a
long letter to Clélia; scarcely was it ended when he fastened it to the
cord and let it down. For more than three hours he waited in vain for
some one to come and take it; two or three times he drew it up and made
alterations in it. "If Clélia does not get my letter to-night," he said
to himself, "while those ideas of poison are troubling her brain, it is
more than likely that to-morrow she will refuse to receive it."
The fact was that Clélia had been obliged to drive to the city with her
father. Fabrice knew how matters stood when he heard the General's
carriage enter the court about half-past twelve; he knew it was the
General's carriage by the horses' step. What was his delight when,
shortly after hearing the jingle of the General's spurs as he crossed
the esplanade, and the rattle of muskets as the sentries presented arms,
he felt a gentle tug at the cord, the end of which he had kept wrapped
around his wrist! Something heavy was made fast to the cord; two little
jerks notified him to haul up. He had some difficulty in landing the
object over a cornice that projected under his window.
The article that he had secured at expense of so much trouble proved to
be a carafe of water wrapped in a shawl. The poor young man, who had
been living for so long a time in such complete solitude, covered the
shawl with rapturous kisses. But words are inadequate to express his
emotion when, after so many days of vain waiting, he discovered a scrap
of paper pinned to the shawl.
"Drink no water but this; satisfy your hunger with chocolate," said this
precious missive. "To-morrow I will try to get some bread to you; I will
mark the crust at top and bottom with little crosses made with ink. It
is a frightful thing to say, but you must know it:--I believe others are
implicated in Barbone's design to poison you. Could you not have
understood that the subject you spoke of in your letter in pencil is
displeasing to me? I should not think of writing to you were it not for
the great peril that is hanging over us. I have seen the Duchess; she is
well, as is the Count, but she is very thin. Write no more on that
subject which you know of: would you wish to make me angry?"
It cost Clélia an effort to write the last sentence but one of the above
note. It was in everybody's mouth in court circles that Mme. Sanseverina
was manifesting a great deal of friendly interest in Count Baldi, that
extremely handsome man and quondam friend of the Marquise Raversi. The
one thing certain was that he and the Marquise had separated, and he was
alleged to have behaved most shamefully toward the lady who for six
years had been to him a mother and given him his standing in society.
The next morning, long before the sun was up, Grillo entered Fabrice's
cell, laid down what seemed to be a pretty heavy package, and vanished
without saying a word. The package contained a good-sized loaf of bread,
plentifully ornamented with, little crosses made with a pen. Fabrice
covered them with kisses. Why? Because he was in love. Beside the loaf
lay a rouleau incased in many thicknesses of paper; it contained six
thousand francs in sequins. Finally, Fabrice discovered a handsome
brand-new prayer-book: these words, in a writing he was beginning to be
acquainted with, were written on the fly-leaf:--
"_Poison!_ Beware the water, the wine, everything; confine yourself to
chocolate. Give the untasted dinner to the dog; it will not do to show
distrust; the enemy would have recourse to other methods. For God's
sake, be cautious! no rashness!"
Fabrice made haste to remove the telltale writing which might have
compromised Clélia, and to tear out a number of leaves from the
prayer-book, with which he made several alphabets; each letter was
neatly formed with powdered charcoal moistened with wine. The alphabets
were quite dry when at a quarter to twelve Clélia appeared at the window
of the aviary. "The main thing now is to persuade her to use them," said
Fabrice to himself. But as it happened, fortunately, she had much to say
to the young prisoner in regard to the plan to poison him (a dog
belonging to one of the kitchen-maids had died after eating a dish
cooked for Fabrice), so that Clélia not only made no objection to the
use of the alphabets, but had herself prepared one in the highest style
of art with ink. Under this method, which did not work altogether
smoothly at the beginning, the conversation lasted an hour and a half,
which was as long as Clélia dared remain in the aviary. Two or three
times, when Fabrice trespassed on forbidden ground and alluded to
matters that were taboo, she made no answer and walked away to feed
her birds.
Fabrice requested that when she sent him his supply of water at evening
she would accompany it with one of her alphabets, which, being traced in
ink, were legible at a greater distance. He did not fail to write her a
good long letter, and was careful to put in it no soft nonsense--at
least, of a nature to offend.
The next day, in their alphabetical conversation, Clélia had no reproach
to make him. She informed him that there was less to be apprehended from
the poisoners. Barbone had been waylaid and nearly murdered by the
lovers of the Governor's scullery-maids; he would scarcely venture to
show his face in the kitchens again. She owned up to stealing a
counter-poison from her father; she sent it to him with directions how
to use it, but the main thing was to reject at once all food that seemed
to have an unnatural taste.
Clélia had subjected Don Cesare to a rigorous examination, without
succeeding in discovering whence came the six thousand francs received
by Fabrice. In any case, it was a good sign: it showed that the severity
of his confinement was relaxing.
The poison episode had a very favorable effect on our hero's amatory
enterprise: still, he could never extort anything at all resembling a
confession of love; but he had the felicity of living on terms of
intimacy with Clélia. Every morning, and often at evening also, there
was a long conversation with the alphabets; every evening at nine
o'clock Clélia received a lengthy letter, and sometimes accorded it a
few brief words of answer; she sent him the daily paper and an
occasional new book; finally, the rugged Grillo had been so far tamed as
to keep Fabrice supplied with bread and wine, which were handed him
daily by Clélia's maid. This led honest Grillo to conclude that the
Governor was not of the same mind as those who had engaged Barbone to
poison the young Monsignor; at which he rejoiced exceedingly, as did his
comrades, for there was a saying current in the prison--"You have only
to look Monsignor del Dongo in the face; he is certain to give
you money."
Fabrice was very pale; lack of exercise was injuring his health: but for
all that he had never been so happy. The tone of the conversation
between Clélia and him was familiar and often gay. The only moments of
the girl's life not beset with dark forebodings and remorse were those
spent in conversing with him. She was so thoughtless as to remark
one day:--
"I admire your delicacy: because I am the Governor's daughter you have
nothing to say to me of the pleasures of freedom!"
"That's because I am not so absurd as to have aspirations in that
direction," replied Fabrice. "How often could I hope to see you if I
were living in Parma, a free man again? And life would not be worth
living if I could not tell you all my thoughts--no, not that exactly:
you take precious good care I don't tell you _all_ my thoughts! But in
spite of your cruel tyranny, to live without seeing you daily would be a
far worse punishment than captivity; in all my life I was never so
happy! Isn't it strange to think happiness was awaiting me in a prison?"
"There is a good deal to be said on that point," rejoined Clélia, with
an air that all at once became very serious, almost threatening.
"What!" exclaimed Fabrice, in alarm, "am I in danger of losing the small
place I have won in your heart, my sole joy in this world?"
"Yes," she replied. "Although your reputation in society is that of a
gentleman and gallant man, I have reason to believe you are not acting
ingenuously toward me. But I don't wish to discuss this matter to-day."
This strange exordium cast an element of embarrassment into the
conversation, and tears were often in the eyes of both.
Copyrighted by George H. Richmond and Company.