The arrival of our hero threw Clelia into despair: the poor girl, pious
and sincere with herself, could not avoid the reflexion that there would
never be any happiness for her apart from Fabrizio; but she had made a
vow to the Madonna, at the time when her father was nearly poisoned,
that she would offer him the sacrifice of marrying the Marchese
Crescenzi. She had made the vow that she would never see Fabrizio, and
already she was a prey to the most fearful remorse over the admission
she had been led to make in the letter she had written Fabrizio on the
eve of his escape. How is one to depict what occurred in that sorrowful
heart when, occupied in a melancholy way with watching her birds flit to
and fro, and raising her eyes from habit, and with affection, towards
the window from which formerly Fabrizio used to look at her, she saw him
there once again, greeting her with tender respect.
She imagined it to be a vision which Heaven had allowed for her
punishment; then the atrocious reality became apparent to her reason.
"They have caught him again," she said to herself, "and he is lost!" She
remembered the things that had been said in the fortress after the
escape; the humblest of the gaolers regarded themselves as mortally
insulted. Clelia looked at Fabrizio, and in spite of herself that look
portrayed in full the passion that had thrown her into despair.
"Do you suppose," she seemed to be saying to Fabrizio, "that I shall
find happiness in that sumptuous palace which they are making ready for
me? My father repeats to me till I am weary that you are as poor as
ourselves; but, great God, with what joy would I share that poverty!
But, alas, we must never see one another again!"
Clelia had not the strength to make use of the alphabets: as she looked
at Fabrizio she felt faint and sank upon a chair that stood beside the
window. Her head rested upon the ledge of this window, and as she had
been anxious to see him until the last moment, her face was turned
towards Fabrizio, who had a perfect view of it. When, after a few
moments, she opened her eyes again, her first glance was at Fabrizio:
she saw tears in his eyes, but those tears were the effect of extreme
happiness; he saw that absence had by no means made him forgotten. The
two poor young things remained for some time as though spell-bound by
the sight of each other. Fabrizio ventured to sing, as if he were
accompanying himself on the guitar, a few improvised lines which said:
"_It is to see you again_ that I have returned to prison; _they are
going to try me_."
These words seemed to awaken all Clelia's dormant virtue: she rose
swiftly, and hid her eyes; and, by the most vivid gestures, sought to
express to him that she must never see him again; she had promised this
to the Madonna, and had looked at him just now in a moment of
forgetfulness. Fabrizio venturing once more to express his love, Clelia
fled from the room indignant, and swearing to herself that never would
she see him again, for such were the precise words of her vow to the
Madonna: "_My eyes shall never see him again._" She had written them on
a little slip of paper which her uncle Don Cesare had allowed her to
burn upon the altar at the moment of the oblation, while he was saying
mass.
_HONOUR_
But, oaths or no oaths, Fabrizio's presence in the Torre Farnese had
restored to Clelia all her old habits and activities. Normally she
passed all her days in solitude, in her room. No sooner had she
recovered from the unforeseen disturbance in which the sight of Fabrizio
had plunged her, than she began to wander through the _palazzo_, and, so
to speak, to renew her acquaintance with all her humble friends. A very
loquacious old woman, employed in the kitchen, said to her with an air
of mystery: "This time, Signor Fabrizio will not leave the citadel."
"He will not make the mistake of going over the walls again," said
Clelia, "but he will leave by the door if he is acquitted."
"I say, and I can assure Your Excellency that he will go out of the
citadel feet first."
Clelia turned extremely pale, a change which was remarked by the old
woman and stopped the flow of her eloquence. She said to herself that
she had been guilty of an imprudence in speaking thus before the
governor's daughter, whose duty it would be to tell everybody that
Fabrizio had died a natural death. As she went up to her room, Clelia
met the prison doctor, an honest sort of man but timid, who told her
with a terrified air that Fabrizio was seriously ill. Clelia could
hardly keep on her feet; she sought everywhere for her uncle, the good
Don Cesare, and at length found him in the chapel, where he was praying
fervently: from his face he appeared upset. The dinner bell rang. At
table, not a word was exchanged between the brothers; only, towards the
end of the meal, the General addressed a few very harsh words to his
brother. The latter looked at the servants, who left the room.
"General," said Don Cesare to the governor, "I have the honour to inform
you that I am leaving the citadel: I give you my resignation."
"_Bravo! Bravissimo!_ So that I shall be suspect! . . . And your reason,
if you please?"
"My conscience."
"Go on, you're only a frock! You know nothing about honour."
"Fabrizio is dead," thought Clelia; "they have poisoned him at dinner,
or it is arranged for to-morrow." She ran to the aviary, resolved to
sing, accompanying herself on the piano. "I shall go to confession," she
said to herself, "and I shall be forgiven for having broken my vow to
save a man's life." What was her consternation when, on reaching the
aviary, she saw that the screens had been replaced by planks fastened to
the iron bars. In desperation she tried to give the prisoner a warning
in a few words shouted rather than sung. There was no response of any
sort: a deathly silence already reigned in the Torre Farnese. "It is all
over," she said to herself. Beside herself, she went downstairs, then
returned to equip herself with the little money she had and some small
diamond earrings; she took also, on her way out, the bread that remained
from dinner, which had been placed in a sideboard. "If he still lives,
my duty is to save him." She advanced with a haughty air to the little
door of the tower; this door stood open, and eight soldiers had just
been posted in the pillared room on the ground floor. She faced these
soldiers boldly; Clelia counted on speaking to the serjeant who would be
in charge of them: this man was absent. Clelia rushed on to the little
iron staircase which wound in a spiral round one of the pillars; the
soldiers looked at her with great stupefaction but, evidently on account
of her lace shawl and her hat, dared not say anything to her. On the
first landing there was no one; but, when she reached the second, at the
entrance to the corridor which, as the reader may remember, was closed
by three barred gates and led to Fabrizio's cell, she found a turnkey
who was a stranger to her, and said to her with a terrified air:
_THE TORRE FARNESE_
"He has not dined yet."
"I know that," said Clelia haughtily. The man dared not stop her. Twenty
paces farther, Clelia found sitting upon the first of the six wooden
steps which led to Fabrizio's cell, another turnkey, elderly and very
cross, who said to her firmly:
"Signorina, have you an order from the governor?"
"Do you mean to say that you do not know me?"
Clelia, at that moment, was animated by a supernatural force, she was
beside herself. "I am going to save my husband," she said to herself.
While the old turnkey was exclaiming: "But my duty does not allow
me. . . ." Clelia hastened up the six steps; she hurled herself against
the door: an enormous key was in the lock; she required all her strength
to make it turn. At that moment, the old turnkey, who was half intoxicated,
seized the hem of her gown, she went quickly into the room, shut the
door behind her, tearing her gown, and, as the turnkey was pushing the
door to follow her, closed it with a bolt which lay to her hand. She
looked into the cell and saw Fabrizio seated at a small table upon which
his dinner was laid. She dashed at the table, overturned it, and,
seizing Fabrizio by the arm, said to him:
"_Hai mangiato?_"
This use of the singular form delighted Fabrizio. In her confusion,
Clelia forgot for the first time her feminine reserve, and let her love
appear.
Fabrizio had been going to begin the fatal meal; he took her in his arms
and covered her with kisses. "This dinner was poisoned," was his
thought: "if I tell her that I have not touched it, religion regains its
hold, and Clelia flies. If, on the other hand, she regards me as a dying
man, I shall obtain from her a promise not to leave me. She wishes to
find some way of breaking off her abominable marriage and here chance
offers us one: the gaolers will collect, they will break down the door,
and then there will be such a scandal that perhaps the Marchese
Crescenzi will fight shy, and the marriage be broken off."
During the moment of silence occupied by these reflexions Fabrizio felt
that already Clelia was seeking to free herself from his embrace.
"I feel no pain as yet," he said to her, "but presently it will
prostrate me at your feet; help me to die."
"O my only friend!" was her answer, "I will die with thee." She clasped
him in her arms with a convulsive movement.
She was so beautiful, half unclad and in this state of intense passion,
that Fabrizio could not resist an almost unconscious impulse. No
resistance was offered him.
In the enthusiasm of passion and generous instincts which follows an
extreme happiness, he said to her fatuously:
"I must not allow an unworthy falsehood to soil the first moments of our
happiness: but for your courage, I should now be only a corpse, or
writhing in atrocious pain, but I was going to begin my dinner when you
came in, and I have not touched these dishes at all."
Fabrizio dwelt upon these appalling images to conjure away the
indignation which he could already read in Clelia's eyes. She looked at
him for some moments, while two violent and conflicting sentiments
fought within her, then flung herself into his arms. They heard a great
noise in the corridor, the three iron doors were violently opened and
shut, voices shouted.
"Ah! If I had arms!" cried Fabrizio; "they made me give them up before
they would let me in. No doubt they are coming to kill me. Farewell, my
Clelia, I bless my death since it has been the cause of my happiness."
Clelia embraced him and gave him a little dagger with an ivory handle,
the blade of which was scarcely longer than that of a pen-knife.
"Do not let yourself be killed," she said to him, "and defend yourself
to the last moment; if my uncle the Priore hears the noise, he is a man
of courage and virtue, he will save you." So saying she rushed to the
door.
"If you are not killed," she said with exaltation, holding the bolt of
the door in her hand and turning her head towards him, "let yourself die
of hunger rather than touch anything. Carry this bread always on you."
The noise came nearer, Fabrizio seized her round the body, stepped into
her place by the door, and, opening it with fury, dashed down the six
steps of the wooden staircase. He had in his hand the little dagger with
the ivory handle, and was on the point of piercing with it the waistcoat
of General Fontana, Aide-de-Camp to the Prince, who recoiled with great
alacrity, crying in a panic: "But I am coming to save you, Signor del
Dongo."
Fabrizio went up the six steps, called into the cell: "Fontana has come
to save me"; then, returning to the General, on the wooden steps,
discussed matters coldly with him. He begged him at great length to
pardon him a movement of anger. "They wished to poison me; the dinner
that is there on my table is poisoned; I had the sense not to touch it,
but I may admit to you that this procedure has given me a shock. When I
heard you on the stair, I thought that they were coming to finish me off
with their dirks. Signor Generale, I request you to order that no one
shall enter my cell: they would remove the poison, and our good Prince
must know all."
The General, very pale and completely taken aback, passed on the orders
suggested by Fabrizio to the picked body of gaolers who were following
him: these men, greatly dismayed at finding the poison discovered,
hastened downstairs; they went first, ostensibly so as not to delay the
Prince's Aide-de-Camp on the narrow staircase, actually in order to
escape themselves and vanish. To the great surprise of General Fontana,
Fabrizio kept him for fully a quarter of an hour on the little iron
staircase which ran round the pillar of the ground floor; he wished to
give Clelia time to hide on the floor above.
It was the Duchessa who, after various wild attempts, had managed to get
General Fontana sent to the citadel; it was only by chance that she
succeeded. On leaving Conte Mosca, as alarmed as she was herself, she
had hastened to the Palace. The Princess, who had a marked repugnance
for energy, which seemed to her vulgar, thought her mad and did not
appear at all disposed to attempt any unusual measures on her behalf.
The Duchessa, out of her senses, was weeping hot tears, she could do
nothing but repeat, every moment:
"But, Ma'am, in a quarter of an hour Fabrizio will be dead, poisoned."
Seeing the Princess remain perfectly composed, the Duchessa became mad
with grief. She completely overlooked the moral reflexion which would
not have escaped a woman brought up in one of those Northern religions
which allow self-examination: "I was the first to use poison, and I am
perishing by poison." In Italy reflexions of that sort, in moments of
passion, appear in the poorest of taste, as a pun would seem in Paris in
similar circumstances.
_THE CAVALIERE D'ONORE_
The Duchessa, in desperation, risked going into the drawing-room where
she found the Marchese Crescenzi, who was in waiting that day. On her
return to Parma he had thanked her effusively for the place of
_Cavaliere d'onore_, to which, but for her, he would never have had any
claim. Protestations of unbounded devotion had not been lacking on his
part. The Duchessa appealed to him in these words:
"Rassi is going to have Fabrizio, who is in the citadel, poisoned. Take
in your pocket some chocolate and a bottle of water which I shall give
you. Go up to the citadel, and save my life by saying to General Fabio
Conti that you will break off your marriage with his daughter if he does
not allow you to give the water and the chocolate to Fabrizio with your
own hands."
The Marchese turned pale, and his features, so far from shewing any
animation at these words, presented a picture of the dullest
embarrassment; he could not believe in the possibility of so shocking a
crime in a town as moral as Parma, and one over which so great a Prince
reigned, and so forth; these platitudes, moreover, he uttered slowly. In
a word, the Duchessa found an honest man, but the weakest imaginable,
and one who could not make up his mind to act. After a score of similar
phrases interrupted by cries of impatience from Signora Sanseverina, he
hit upon an excellent idea: the oath which he had given as _Cavaliere
d'onore_ forbade him to take part in any action against the Government.
Who can conceive the anxiety and despair of the Duchessa, who felt that
time was flying?
"But, at least, see the governor; tell him that I shall pursue
Fabrizio's murderers to hell itself!"
Despair increased the Duchessa's natural eloquence, but all this fire
only made the Marchese more alarmed and doubled his irresolution; at the
end of an hour he was less disposed to act than at the first moment.
This unhappy woman, who had reached the utmost limits of despair and
knew well that the governor would refuse nothing to so rich a
son-in-law, went so far as to fling herself at his feet; at this the
Marchese's pusillanimity seemed to increase still further; he himself,
at the sight of this strange spectacle, was afraid of being compromised
unawares; but a singular thing happened: the Marchese, a good man at
heart, was touched by the tears and by the posture, at his feet, of so
beautiful and, above all, so influential a woman.
"I myself, noble and rich as I am," he said to himself, "will perhaps
one day be at the feet of some Republican!" The Marchese burst into
tears, and finally it was agreed that the Duchessa, in her capacity as
Grand Mistress, should present him to the Princess, who would give him
permission to convey to Fabrizio a little hamper, of the contents of
which he would declare himself to know nothing.
The previous evening, before the Duchessa knew of Fabrizio's act of
folly in going to the citadel, they had played at court a _commedia
dell'arte_, and the Prince, who always reserved for himself the lover's
part to be played with the Duchessa, had been so passionate in speaking
to her of his affection that he would have been absurd, if, in Italy, an
impassioned man or a Prince could ever be thought so.
The Prince, extremely shy, but always intensely serious in matters of
love, met, in one of the corridors of the Castle, the Duchessa who was
carrying off the Marchese Crescenzi, in great distress, to the Princess.
He was so surprised and dazzled by the beauty, full of emotion, which
her despair gave the Grand Mistress, that for the first time in his life
he shewed character. With a more than imperious gesture he dismissed the
Marchese, and began to make a declaration of love, according to all the
rules, to the Duchessa. The Prince had doubtless prepared this speech
long beforehand, for there were things in it that were quite reasonable.
_ERNESTO V_
"Since the conventions of my rank forbid me to give myself the supreme
happiness of marrying you, I will swear to you upon the Blessed
Sacrament never to marry without your permission in writing. I am well
aware," he added, "that I am making you forfeit the hand of a Prime
Minister, a clever and extremely amiable man; but after all he is
fifty-six, and I am not yet two-and-twenty. I should consider myself to
be insulting you, and to deserve your refusal if I spoke to you of the
advantages that there are apart from love; but everyone who takes an
interest in money at my court speaks with admiration of the proof of his
love which the Conte gives you, in leaving you the custodian of all that
he possesses. I shall be only too happy to copy him in that respect. You
will make a better use of my fortune than I, and you shall have the
entire disposal of the annual sum which my Ministers hand over to the
Intendant General of my Crown; so that it will be you, Signora Duchessa,
who will decide upon the sums which I may spend each month." The
Duchessa found all these details very long; Fabrizio's dangers pierced
her heart.
"Then you do not know, Prince," she cried, "that at this moment they are
poisoning Fabrizio in your citadel! Save him! I accept everything."
The arrangement of this speech was perfect in its clumsiness. At the
mere mention of poison all the ease, all the good faith which this poor,
moral Prince was putting into the conversation vanished in the twinkling
of an eye; the Duchessa did not notice her tactlessness until it was too
late to remedy it, and her despair was intensified, a thing she had
believed to be impossible. "If I had not spoken of poison," she said to
herself, "he would grant me Fabrizio's freedom. . . . O my dear
Fabrizio," she added, "so it is fated that it is I who must pierce your
heart by my foolishness!"
It took the Duchessa all her time and all her coquetry to get the Prince
back to his talk of passionate love; but even then he remained deeply
offended. It was his mind alone that spoke; his heart had been frozen by
the idea first of all of poison, and then by the other idea, as
displeasing as the first was terrible: "They administer poison in my
States, and without telling me! So Rassi wishes to dishonour me in the
eyes of Europe! And God knows what I shall read next month in the Paris
newspapers!"
Suddenly the heart of this shy young man was silent, his mind arrived at
an idea.
"Dear Duchessa! You know whether I am attached to you. Your terrible
ideas about poison are unfounded, I prefer to think; still, they give me
food for thought, they make me almost forget for an instant the passion
that I feel for you, which is the only passion that I have ever felt in
all my life. I know that I am not attractive; I am only a boy,
hopelessly in love; still, put me to the test."
The Prince grew quite animated in using this language.
"Save Fabrizio, and I accept everything! No doubt I am carried away by
the foolish fears of a mother's heart; but send this moment to fetch
Fabrizio from the citadel, that I may see him. If he is still alive,
send him from the Palace to the town prison, where he can remain for
months on end, if Your Highness requires, until his trial."
The Duchessa saw with despair that the Prince, instead of granting with
a word so simple a request, had turned sombre; he was very red, he
looked at the Duchessa, then lowered his eyes, and his cheeks grew pale.
The idea of poison put forward at the wrong moment, had suggested to him
an idea worthy of his father or of Philip II; but he dared not express
it in words.
"Listen, Signora," he said at length, as though forcing himself to
speak, and in a tone that was by no means gracious, "you look down on me
as a child and, what is more, a creature without graces: very well, I am
going to say something which is horrible, but which has just been
suggested to me by the deep and true passion that I feel for you. If I
believed for one moment in this poison, I should have taken action
already, as in duty bound; but I see in your request only a passionate
fancy, and one of which, I beg leave to state, I do not see all the
consequences. You desire that I should act without consulting my
Ministers, I who have been reigning for barely three months! You ask of
me a great exception to my ordinary mode of action, which I regard as
highly reasonable. It is you, Signora, who are here and now the Absolute
Sovereign, you give me reason to hope in a matter which is everything to
me; but, in an hour's time, when this imaginary poison, when this
nightmare has vanished, my presence will become an annoyance to you, I
shall forfeit your favour, Signora. Very well, I require an oath: swear
to me, Signora, that if Fabrizio is restored to you safe and sound I
shall obtain from you, in three months from now, all that my love can
desire; you will assure the happiness of my entire life by placing at my
disposal an hour of your own, and you will be wholly mine."
At that moment, the Castle clock struck two. "Ah! It is too late,
perhaps," thought the Duchessa.
"I swear it," she cried, with a wild look in her eyes.
At once the Prince became another man; he ran to the far end of the
gallery, where the Aide-de-Camp's room was.
"General Fontana, dash off to the citadel this instant, go up as quickly
as possible to the room in which they have put Signor del Dongo, and
bring him to me; I must speak to him within twenty minutes, fifteen if
possible."
"Ah, General," cried the Duchessa, who had followed the Prince, "one
minute may decide my life. A report which is doubtless false makes me
fear poison for Fabrizio: shout to him, as soon as you are within
earshot, not to eat. If he has touched his dinner, make him swallow an
emetic, tell him that it is I who wish it, employ force if necessary;
tell him that I am following close behind you, and I shall be obliged to
you all my life."
"Signora Duchessa, my horse is saddled, I am generally considered a
pretty good horseman, and I shall ride hell for leather; I shall be at
the citadel eight minutes before you."
"And I, Signora Duchessa," cried the Prince, "I ask of you four of those
eight minutes."
The Aide-de-Camp had vanished, he was a man who had no other merit than
that of his horsemanship. No sooner had he shut the door than the young
Prince, who seemed to have acquired some character, seized the
Duchessa's hand.
"Condescend, Signora," he said to her with passion, "to come with me to
the chapel." The Duchessa, at a loss for the first time in her life,
followed him without uttering a word. The Prince and she passed rapidly
down the whole length of the great gallery of the Palace, the chapel
being at the other end. On entering the chapel, the Prince fell on his
knees, almost as much before the Duchessa as before the altar.
"Repeat the oath," he said with passion: "if you had been fair, if the
wretched fact of my being a Prince had not been against me, you would
have granted me out of pity for my love what you now owe me because you
have sworn it."
"If I see Fabrizio again not poisoned, if he is alive in a week from
now, if His Highness will appoint him Coadjutor with eventual succession
to Archbishop Landriani, my honour, my womanly dignity, everything shall
be trampled under foot, and I will give myself to His Highness."
"But, _dear friend_," said the Prince with a blend of timid anxiety and
affection which was quite pleasing, "I am afraid of some ambush which I
do not understand, and which might destroy my happiness; that would kill
me. If the Archbishop opposes me with one of those ecclesiastical
reasons which keep things dragging on for year after year, what will
become of me? You see that I am behaving towards you with entire good
faith; are you going to be a little Jesuit with me?"
"No: in good faith, if Fabrizio is saved, if, so far as lies in your
power, you make him Coadjutor and a future Archbishop, I dishonour
myself and I am yours."
"Your Highness undertakes to write _approved_ on the margin of a request
which His Grace the Archbishop will present to you in a week from now."
"I will sign you a blank sheet; reign over me and over my States," cried
the Prince, colouring with happiness and really beside himself. He
demanded a second oath. He was so deeply moved that he forgot the
shyness that came so naturally to him, and, in this Palace chapel in
which they were alone, murmured in an undertone to the Duchessa things
which, uttered three days earlier, would have altered the opinion that
she held of him. But in her the despair which Fabrizio's danger had
caused her had given place to horror at the promise which had been wrung
from her.
The Duchessa was completely upset by what she had just done. If she did
not yet feel all the fearful bitterness of the word she had given, it
was because her attention was occupied in wondering whether General
Fontana would be able to reach the citadel in time.
To free herself from the madly amorous speeches of this boy, and to
change the topic of conversation, she praised a famous picture by the
Parmigianino, which hung over the high altar of the chapel.
"Be so good as to permit me to send it to you," said the Prince.
"I accept," replied the Duchessa; "but allow me to go and meet
Fabrizio."
With a distracted air she told her coachman to put his horses into a
gallop. On the bridge over the moat of the citadel she met General
Fontana and Fabrizio, who were coming out on foot.
"Have you eaten?"
"No, by a miracle."
The Duchessa flung her arms round Fabrizio's neck and fell in a faint
which lasted for an hour, and gave fears first for her life and
afterwards for her reason.
The governor Fabio Conti had turned white with rage at the sight of
General Fontana: he had been so slow in obeying the Prince's orders that
the Aide-de-Camp, who supposed that the Duchessa was going to occupy the
position of reigning mistress, had ended by losing his temper. The
governor reckoned upon making Fabrizio's illness last for two or three
days, and "now," he said to himself, "the General, a man from the court,
will find that insolent fellow writhing in the agony which is my revenge
for his escape."
Fabio Conti, lost in thought, stopped in the guard-room on the ground
floor of the Torre Farnese, from which he hastily dismissed the
soldiers: he did not wish to have any witnesses of the scene which was
about to be played. Five minutes later he was petrified with
astonishment on hearing Fabrizio's voice, on seeing him, alive and
alert, giving General Fontana an account of his imprisonment. He
vanished.
Fabrizio shewed himself a perfect "gentleman" in his interview with the
Prince. For one thing, he did not wish to assume the air of a boy who
takes fright at nothing. The Prince asked him kindly how he felt: "Like
a man, Serene Highness, who is dying of hunger, having fortunately
neither broken my fast nor dined." After having had the honour to thank
the Prince, he requested permission to visit the Archbishop before
surrendering himself at the town prison. The Prince had turned
prodigiously pale, when his boyish head had been penetrated by the idea
that this poison was not altogether a chimaera of the Duchessa's
imagination. Absorbed in this cruel thought, he did not at first reply
to the request to see the Archbishop which Fabrizio addressed to him;
then he felt himself obliged to atone for his distraction by a profusion
of graciousness.
"Go out alone, Signore, walk through the streets of my capital
unguarded. About ten or eleven o'clock you will return to prison, where
I hope that you will not long remain."
On the morrow of this great day, the most remarkable of his life, the
Prince fancied himself a little Napoleon; he had read that great
man had been kindly treated by several of the beauties of his court.
Once established as a Napoleon in love, he remembered that he had been
one also under fire. His heart was still quite enraptured by the
firmness of his conduct with the Duchessa. The consciousness of having
done something difficult made him another man altogether for a
fortnight; he became susceptible to generous considerations; he had some
character.
He began this day by burning the patent of Conte made out in favour of
Rassi, which had been lying on his desk for a month. He degraded General
Fabio Conti, and called upon Colonel Lange, his successor, for the truth
as to the poison. Lange, a gallant Polish officer, intimidated the
gaolers, and reported that there had been a design to poison Signor del
Dongo's breakfast; but too many people would have had to be taken into
confidence. Arrangements to deal with his dinner were more successful;
and, but for the arrival of General Fontana, Signor del Dongo was a dead
man. The Prince was dismayed; but, as he was really in love, it was a
consolation for him to be able to say to himself: "It appears that I
really did save Signor del Dongo's life, and the Duchessa will never
dare fail to keep the word she has given me." Another idea struck him:
"My business is a great deal more difficult than I thought; everyone is
agreed that the Duchessa is a woman of infinite cleverness, here my
policy and my heart go together. It would be divine for me if she would
consent to be my Prime Minister."
That evening, the Prince was so infuriated by the horrors that he had
discovered that he would not take part in the play.
"I should be more than happy," he said to the Duchessa, "if you would
reign over my States as you reign over my heart. To begin with, I am
going to tell you how I have spent my day." He then told her everything,
very exactly: the burning of Conte Rassi's patent, the appointment of
Lange, his report on the poisoning, and so forth. "I find that I have
very little experience for ruling. The Conte humiliates me by his jokes.
He makes jokes even at the Council; and, in society, he says things the
truth of which you are going to disprove; he says that I am a boy whom
he leads wherever he chooses. Though one is a Prince, Signora, one is
none the less a man, and these things annoy one. In order to give an air
of improbability to the stories which Signor Mosca may repeat, they have
made me summon to the Ministry that dangerous scoundrel Rassi, and now
there is that General Conti who believes him to be still so powerful
that he dare not admit that it was he or the Raversi who ordered him to
destroy your nephew; I have a good mind simply to send General Fabio
Conti before the court; the judges will see whether he is guilty of
attempted poisoning."
"But, Prince, have you judges?"
"What!" said the Prince in astonishment.
"You have certain learned counsel who walk the streets with a solemn
air; apart from that they always give the judgment that will please the
dominant party at your court."
While the young Prince, now scandalised, uttered expressions which
shewed his candour far more than his sagacity, the Duchessa was saying
to herself:
"Does it really suit me to let Conti be disgraced? No, certainly not;
for then his daughter's marriage with that honest simpleton the Marchese
Crescenzi becomes impossible."
On this topic there was an endless discussion between the Duchessa and
the Prince. The Prince was dazed with admiration. In consideration of
the marriage of Clelia Conti to the Marchese Crescenzi, but on that
express condition, which he laid down in an angry scene with the
ex-governor, the Prince pardoned his attempt to poison; but, on the
Duchessa's advice, banished him until the date of his daughter's
marriage. The Duchessa imagined that it was no longer love that she felt
for Fabrizio, but she was still passionately anxious for the marriage of
Clelia Conti to the Marchese; there lay in that the vague hope that
gradually she might see Fabrizio's preoccupation disappear.
The Prince, rapturously happy, wished that same evening publicly to
disgrace the Minister Rassi. The Duchessa said to him with a laugh:
"Do you know a saying of Napoleon? A man placed in an exalted position,
with the eyes of the whole world on him, ought never to allow himself to
make violent movements. But this evening it is too late, let us leave
business till to-morrow."
She wished to give herself time to consult the Conte, to whom she
repeated very accurately the whole of the evening's conversation,
suppressing however the frequent allusions to a promise which was
poisoning her life. The Duchessa hoped to make herself so indispensable
that she would be able to obtain an indefinite adjournment by saying to
the Prince: "If you have the barbarity to insist upon subjecting me to
that humiliation, which I will never forgive you, I leave your States
the day after."
Consulted by the Duchessa as to the fate of Rassi, the Conte shewed
himself most philosophic. General Fabio Conti and he went for a tour of
Piedmont.
A singular difficulty arose in the trial of Fabrizio: the judges wished
to acquit him by acclamation, and at the first sitting of the court. The
Conte was obliged to use threats to enforce that the trial should last
for at least a week, and the judges take the trouble to hear all the
witnesses. "These fellows are always the same," he said to himself.
The day after his acquittal, Fabrizio del Dongo at last took possession
of the place of Grand Vicar to the worthy Archbishop Landriani. On the
same day the Prince signed the dispatches necessary to obtain Fabrizio's
nomination as Coadjutor with eventual succession, and less than two
months afterwards he was installed in that office.
_THE VOW_
Everyone complimented the Duchessa on her nephew's air of gravity; the
fact was that he was in despair. The day after his deliverance, followed
by the dismissal and banishment of General Fabio Conti and the
Duchessa's arrival in high favour, Clelia had taken refuge with Contessa
Contarini, her aunt, a woman of great wealth and great age, occupied
exclusively in looking after her health. Clelia could, had she wished,
have seen Fabrizio; but anyone acquainted with her previous commitments
who had seen her behaviour now might well have thought that with her
lover's danger her love for him also had ceased. Not only did Fabrizio
pass as often as he decently could before the _palazzo_ Contarini, he
had also succeeded, after endless trouble, in taking a little apartment
opposite the windows of its first floor. On one occasion Clelia, having
gone to the window without thinking, to see a procession pass, drew back
at once, as though terror-stricken; she had caught sight of Fabrizio,
dressed in black, but as a workman in very humble circumstances, looking
at her from one of the windows of this rookery, which had panes of oiled
paper, like his cell in the Torre Farnese. Fabrizio would fain have been
able to persuade himself that Clelia was shunning him in consequence of
her father's disgrace, which current report put down to the Duchessa?
but he knew only too well another cause for this aloofness, and nothing
could distract him from his melancholy.
He had been left unmoved by his acquittal, his installation in a fine
office, the first that he had had to fill in his life, by his fine
position in society, and finally by the assiduous court that was paid to
him by all the ecclesiastics and all the devout laity in the diocese.
The charming apartment that he occupied in the _palazzo_ Sanseverina was
no longer adequate. Greatly to her delight, the Duchessa was obliged to
give up to him all the second floor of her _palazzo_ and two fine rooms
on the first, which were always filled with people awaiting their turn
to pay their respects to the young Coadjutor. The clause securing his
eventual succession had created a surprising effect in the country;
people now ascribed to Fabrizio as virtues all those firm qualities in
his character which before had so greatly scandalised the poor, foolish
courtiers.
It was a great lesson in philosophy to Fabrizio to find himself
perfectly insensible of all these honours, and far more unhappy in this
magnificent apartment, with ten flunkeys wearing his livery, than he had
been in his wooden cell in the Torre Farnese, surrounded by hideous
gaolers, and always in fear for his life. His mother and sister, the
Duchessa V----, who came to Parma to see him in his glory, were struck
by his profound melancholy. The Marchesa del Dongo, now the least
romantic of women, was so greatly alarmed by it that she imagined that
they must, in the Torre Farnese, have given him some slow poison.
Despite her extreme discretion, she felt it her duty to speak of so
extraordinary a melancholy, and Fabrizio replied only by tears.
A swarm of advantages, due to his brilliant position, produced no other
effect on him than to make him ill-tempered. His brother, that vain soul
gangrened by the vilest selfishness, wrote him what was almost an
official letter of congratulation, and in this letter was enclosed a
draft for fifty thousand francs, in order that he might, said the new
Marchese, purchase horses and a carriage worthy of his name. Fabrizio
sent this money to his younger sister, who was poorly married.
_THE GENEALOGY_
Conte Mosca had ordered a fine translation to be made, in Italian, of
the genealogy of the family Valserra del Dongo, originally published in
Latin by Fabrizio, Archbishop of Parma. He had it splendidly printed,
with the Latin text on alternate pages; the engravings had been
reproduced by superb lithographs made in Paris. The Duchessa had asked
that a fine portrait of Fabrizio should be placed opposite that of the
old Archbishop. This translation was published as being the work of
Fabrizio during his first imprisonment. But all the spirit was crushed
out of our hero; even the vanity so natural to mankind; he did not deign
to read a single page of this work which was attributed to himself. His
social position made it incumbent upon him to present a magnificently
bound copy to the Prince, who felt that he owed him some compensation
for the cruel death to which he had come so near, and accorded him the
grand entry into his bedchamber, a favour which confers the rank of
_Excellency_.