This serious conversation was held on the day following Fabrizio's
return to the _palazzo_ Sanseverina; the Duchessa was still, overcome by
the joy that radiated from Fabrizio's every action. "So," she said to
herself, "that little saint has deceived me! She has not been able to
hold out against her lover for three months even."
The certainty of a happy ending had given that pusillanimous creature,
the young Prince, the courage to love; he knew something of the
preparations for flight that were being made at the _palazzo_
Sanseverina; and his French valet, who had little belief in the virtue
of great ladies, gave him courage with respect to the Duchessa. Ernesto
V allowed himself to take a step for which he was severely reproved by
the Princess and all the sensible people at court; to the populace it
appeared to set the seal on the astonishing favour which the Duchessa
enjoyed. The Prince went to see her in her _palazzo_.
"You are leaving," he said to her in a serious tone which the Duchessa
thought odious; "you are leaving, you are going to play me false and
violate your oath! And yet, if I had delayed ten minutes in granting you
Fabrizio's pardon, he would have been dead. And you leave me in this
wretched state! When but for your oath I should never have had the
courage to love you as I do! Have you no sense of honour, then?"
"Think for a little, Prince. In the whole of your life has there been a
period equal in happiness to the four months that have just gone by?
Your glory as Sovereign, and, I venture to think, your happiness as a
man, have never risen to such a pitch. This is the compact that I
propose; if you deign to consent to it, I shall not be your mistress for
a fleeting instant, and by virtue of an oath extorted by fear, but I
shall consecrate every moment of my life to procuring your happiness, I
shall be always what I have been for the last four months, and perhaps
love will come to crown friendship. I would not swear to the contrary."
"Very well," said the Prince, delighted, "take on another part, be
something more still, reign at once over my heart and over my States, be
my Prime Minister; I offer you such a marriage as is permitted by the
regrettable conventions of my rank; we have an example close at hand:
the King of Naples has recently married the Duchessa di Partana. I offer
you all that I have to offer, a marriage of the same sort. I am going to
add a distressing political consideration to shew you that I am no
longer a mere boy, and that I have thought of everything. I lay no
stress on the condition which I impose on myself of being the last
Sovereign of my race, the sorrow of seeing in my lifetime the Great
Powers dispose of my succession; I bless these very genuine drawbacks,
since they offer me additional means of proving to you my esteem and my
passion."
The Duchessa did not hesitate for an instant; the Prince bored her, and
the Conte seemed to her perfectly suitable; there was only one man in
the world who could be preferred to him. Besides, she ruled the Conte,
and the Prince, dominated by the exigencies of his rank, would more or
less rule her. Then, too, he might become unfaithful to her, and take
mistresses; the difference of age would seem, in a very few years, to
give him the right to do so.
_THE DUCHESSA_
From the first moment, the prospect of boredom had settled the whole
question; however, the Duchessa, who wished to be as charming as
possible, asked leave to reflect.
It would take too long to recount here the almost loving turns of speech
and the infinitely graceful terms in which she managed to clothe her
refusal. The Prince flew into a rage; he saw all his happiness escaping.
What was to become of him when the Duchessa had left his court? Besides,
what a humiliation to be refused! "And what will my French valet say
when I tell him of my defeat?"
The Duchessa knew how to calm the Prince, and to bring the discussion
back gradually to her actual terms.
"If Your Highness deigns to consent not to press for the fulfilment of a
fatal promise, and one that is horrible in my eyes, as making me incur
my own contempt, I shall spend my life at his court, and that court will
always be what it has been this winter; every moment of my time will be
devoted to contributing to his happiness as a man, and to his glory as a
Sovereign. If he insists on binding me by my oath, he will be destroying
the rest of my life, and will at once see me leave his States, never to
return. The day on which I shall have lost my honour will be also the
last day on which I shall set eyes on you."
But the Prince was obstinate, like all pusillanimous creatures; moreover
his pride as a man and a Sovereign was irritated by the refusal of his
hand; he thought of all the difficulties which he would have had to
overcome to make this marriage be accepted, difficulties which,
nevertheless, he was determined to conquer.
For the next three hours, the same arguments were repeated on either
side, often interspersed with very sharp words. The Prince exclaimed:
"Do you then wish me to believe, Signora, that you are lacking in
honour? If I had hesitated so long on the day when General Fabio Conti
was giving Fabrizio poison, you would at present be occupied in erecting
a tomb to him in one of the churches of Parma."
"Not at Parma, certainly, in this land of poisoners."
"Very well then, go, Signora Duchessa," retorted the Prince angrily,
"and you will take with you my contempt."
As he was leaving, the Duchessa said to him in a whisper:
"Very well, be here at ten o'clock this evening, in the strictest
incognito, and you shall have your fool's bargain. You will then have
seen me for the last time, and I would have devoted my life to making
you as happy as an Absolute Prince can be in this age of Jacobins. And
think what your court will be when I am no longer here to extricate it
by force from its innate dulness and mischief."
"For your part, you refuse the crown of Parma, and more than the crown,
for you would not have been the ordinary Princess, married for political
reasons and without being loved; my heart is all yours, and you would
have seen yourself for ever the absolute mistress of my actions as of my
government."
"Yes, but the Princess your mother would have the right to look down
upon me as a vile intriguer."
"What then; I should banish the Princess with a pension."
There were still three quarters of an hour of cutting retorts. The
Prince, who had a delicate nature, could not make up his mind either to
enjoy his rights, or to let the Duchessa go. He had been told that after
the first moment has been obtained, no matter how, women come back.
Driven from the house by the indignant Duchessa, he had the temerity to
return, trembling all over and extremely unhappy, at three minutes to
ten. At half past ten the Duchessa stepped into her carriage and started
for Bologna. She wrote to the Conte as soon as she was outside the
Prince's States:
_THE AMBASSADOR_
"The sacrifice has been made. Do not ask me to be merry for a month. I
shall not see Fabrizio again; I await you at Bologna, and when you
please I will be the Contessa Mosca. I ask you one thing only, do not
ever force me to appear again in the land I am leaving, and remember
always that instead of an income of 150,000 lire, you are going to have
thirty or forty thousand at the very most. All the fools have been
watching you with gaping mouths, and for the future you will be
respected only so long as you demean yourself to understand all their
petty ideas. _Tu l'as voulu, George Dandin!_"
A week later their marriage was celebrated at Perugia, in a church in
which the Conte's ancestors were buried. The Prince was in despair. The
Duchessa had received from him three or four couriers, and had not
failed to return his letters to him, in fresh envelopes, with their
seals unbroken. Ernesto V had bestowed a magnificent pension on the
Conte, and had given the Grand Cordon of his order to Fabrizio.
"That is what pleased me most in his farewells. We parted," said the
Conte to the new Contessa Mosca della Rovere, "the best friends in the
world; he gave me a Spanish Grand Cordon, and diamonds which are worth
quite as much as the Grand Cordon. He told me that he would make me a
Duca, but he wished to keep that in reserve, as a way of bringing you
back to his States. And so I am charged to inform you, a fine mission
for a husband, that if you deign to return to Parma, be it only for a
month, I shall be made Duca, with whatever title you may select, and you
shall have a fine estate."
This the Duchessa refused with an expression of horror.
After the scene that had occurred at the ball at court, which seemed
fairly decisive, Clelia seemed to retain no memory of the love which she
had for a moment reciprocated; the most violent remorse had seized hold
of that virtuous and Christian soul. All this Fabrizio understood quite
well, and in spite of all the hopes that he sought to entertain, a
sombre misery took possession similarly of his soul. This time, however,
his misery did not send him into retreat, as on the occasion of Clelia's
marriage.
The Conte had requested _his nephew_ to keep him exactly informed of all
that went on at court, and Fabrizio, who was beginning to realise all
that he owed to him, had promised himself that he would carry out this
mission faithfully.
Like everyone in the town and at court, Fabrizio had no doubt that the
Conte intended to return to the Ministry, and with more power than he
had ever had before. The Conte's forecasts were not long in taking
effect: in less than six weeks after his departure, Rassi was Prime
Minister, Fabio Conti Minister of War, and the prisons, which the Conte
had nearly emptied, began to fill again. The Prince, in summoning these
men to power, thought that he was avenging himself on the Duchessa; he
was madly in love and above all hated Conte Mosca as a rival.
Fabrizio had plenty to do; Monsignor Landriani, now seventy-two years
old, had declined into a state of great languor, and as he now hardly
ever left his Palace, it fell to his Coadjutor to take his place in
almost all his functions.
The Marchesa Crescenzi, crushed by remorse, and frightened by her
spiritual director, had found an excellent way of withdrawing herself
from Fabrizio's gaze. Taking as an excuse the last months of a first
confinement, she had given herself as a prison her own _palazzo_; but
this _palazzo_ had an immense garden. Fabrizio managed to find a way
into it, and placed on the path which Clelia most affected flowers tied
up in nosegays, and arranged in such a way as to form a language, like
the flowers which she had sent up to him every evening in the last days
of his imprisonment in the Torre Farnese.
_THE COURT_
The Marchesa was greatly annoyed by this overture; the motions of her
soul were swayed at one time by remorse, at another by passion. For
several months she did not allow herself to go down once to the garden
of her _palazzo_; she had scruples even about looking at it from the
windows.
Fabrizio began to think that she was parted from him for ever, and
despair began to seize hold of his soul also. The world in which he was
obliged to live disgusted him unspeakably, and had he not been convinced
in his heart that the Conte could not find peace of mind apart from his
Ministry, he would have gone into retreat in his small apartment in the
Archbishop's Palace. It would have been pleasant for him to live
entirely in his thoughts and never more to hear the human voice save in
the exercise of his functions.
"But," he said to himself, "in the interest of the Conte and Contessa
Mosca, there is no one to take my place."
The Prince continued to treat him with a distinction which placed him in
the highest rank at that court, and this favour he owed in great measure
to himself. The extreme reserve which, in Fabrizio, sprang from an
indifference bordering on disgust for all the affections or petty
passions that fill the lives of men, had pricked the young Prince's
vanity; he often remarked that Fabrizio had as much character as his
aunt. The Prince's candid nature had in part perceived a truth: namely
that no one approached him with the same feelings in his heart as
Fabrizio. What could not escape the notice even of the common herd of
courtiers was that the consideration won by Fabrizio was not that given
to a mere Coadjutor, but actually exceeded the respect which the
Sovereign shewed to the Archbishop. Fabrizio wrote to the Conte that if
ever the Prince had enough intelligence to perceive the mess into which
the Ministers, Rassi, Fabio Conti, Zurla and others of like capacity had
thrown his affairs, he, Fabrizio, would be the natural channel through
which he would take action without unduly compromising his self-esteem.
"But for the memory of those fatal words, _that boy_," he told Contessa
Mosca, "applied by a man of talent to an august personage, the august
personage would already have cried: 'Return at once and rid me of these
rascals!' At this very moment, if the wife of the man of talent deigned
to make an advance, of however little significance, the Conte would be
recalled with joy: but he will return through a far nobler door, if he
is willing to wait until the fruit is ripe. Meanwhile everyone is bored
to death at the Princess's drawing-rooms, they have nothing to amuse
them but the absurdity of Rassi, who, now that he is a Conte, has become
a maniac for nobility. Strict orders have just been issued that anyone
who cannot produce eight quarterings of nobility _must no longer dare_
to present himself at the Princess's evenings (these are the exact words
of the proclamation). All the men who already possess the right to enter
the great gallery in the mornings, and to remain in the Sovereign's
presence when he passes on his way to mass, are to continue to enjoy
that privilege; but newcomers will have to shew proof of their eight
quarterings. Which has given rise to the saying that it is clear that
Rassi gives no quarter."
It may be imagined that such letters were not entrusted to the post.
Contessa Mosca replied from Naples: "We have a concert every Thursday,
and a _conversazione_ on Sundays; there is no room to move in our rooms.
The Conte is enchanted with his excavations, he devotes a thousand
francs a month to them, and has just brought some labourers down from
the mountains of the Abruzzi, who cost him only three and twenty soldi a
day. You must really come and see us. This is the twentieth time and
more, you ungrateful man, that I have given you this invitation."
_THE PULPIT_
Fabrizio had no thought of obeying the summons: the letter which he
wrote every day to the Conte or Contessa seemed in itself an almost
insupportable burden. The reader will forgive him when he learns that a
whole year passed in this way, without his being able to address a
single word to the Marchesa. All his attempts to establish some
correspondence with her had been repulsed with horror. The habitual
silence which, in his boredom with life, Fabrizio preserved everywhere,
except in the exercise of his functions and at court, added to the
spotless purity of his morals, made him the object of a veneration so
extraordinary that he finally decided to pay heed to his aunt's advice.
"The Prince has such a veneration for you," she wrote to him, "that you
must be on the look-out for disgrace; he will lavish on you signs of
indifference, and the atrocious contempt of the courtiers will follow on
the heels of his. These petty despots, however honest they may be,
change like the fashions, and for the same reason: boredom. You will
find no strength to resist the Sovereign's caprices except in preaching.
You improvise so well in verse! Try to speak for half an hour on
religion; you will utter heresies at first; but hire a learned and
discreet theologian to help you with your sermons, and warn you of your
mistakes, you can put them right the day after."
The kind of misery which a crossed love brings to the soul has this
effect, that everything which requires attention and action becomes an
atrocious burden. But Fabrizio told himself that his influence with the
people, if he acquired any, might one day be of use to his aunt, and
also to the Conte, his veneration for whom increased daily, as his
public life taught him to realise the dishonesty of mankind. He decided
to preach, and his success, prepared for him by his thinness and his
worn coat, was without precedent. People found in his utterances a
fragrance of profound sadness, which, combined with his charming
appearance and the stories of the high favour that he enjoyed at court,
captivated every woman's heart. They invented the legend that he had
been one of the most gallant captains in Napoleon's army. Soon this
absurd rumour had passed beyond the stage of doubt. Seats were reserved
in the churches in which he was to preach; the poor used to take their
places there as a speculation from five o'clock in the morning.
His success was such that Fabrizio finally conceived the idea, which
altered his whole nature, that, were it only from simple curiosity, the
Marchesa Crescenzi might very well come one day to listen to one of his
sermons. Suddenly the enraptured public became aware that his talent had
increased twofold. He allowed himself, when he was moved, to use imagery
the boldness of which would have made the most practised orators
shudder; at times, forgetting himself completely, he gave way to moments
of passionate inspiration, and his whole audience melted in tears. But
it was in vain that his _aggrottato_ eye sought among all the faces
turned towards the pulpit that one face the presence of which would have
been so great an event for him.
"But if ever I do have that happiness," he said to himself, "either I
shall be taken ill, or I shall stop short altogether." To obviate the
latter misfortune, he had composed a sort of prayer, tender and
impassioned, which he always placed in the pulpit, on a footstool; his
plan was to begin reading this piece, should the Marchesa's presence
ever place him at a loss for a word.
He learned one day, through those of the Marchesa's servants who were in
his pay, that orders had been given to prepare for the following evening
the box of the _casa_ Crescenzi at the principal theatre. It was a year
since the Marchesa had appeared at any public spectacle, and it was a
tenor who was creating a furore and filling the house every evening that
was making her depart from her habit. Fabrizio's first impulse was an
intense joy. "At last I can look at her for a whole evening! They say
she is very pale." And he sought to imagine what that charming face
could be like, with its colours half obliterated by the war that had
been waged in her soul.
His friend Lodovico, in consternation at what he called his master's
madness, found, with great difficulty, a box on the fourth tier, almost
opposite the Marchesa's. An idea suggested itself to Fabrizio; "I hope
to put it into her head to come to a sermon, and I shall choose a church
that is quite small, so as to be able to see her properly." As a rule,
Fabrizio preached at three o'clock. On the morning of the day on which
the Marchesa was to go to the theatre, he gave out that, as he would be
detained all day at the Palace by professional duties, he would preach
as a special exception at half past eight in the evening, in the little
church of Santa Maria della Visitazione, situated precisely opposite one
of the wings of the _palazzo_ Crescenzi. Lodovico, on his behalf,
presented an enormous quantity of candles to the nuns of the Visitation,
with the request that they would illuminate their church during the day.
He had a whole company of Grenadier Guards, a sentry was posted, with
fixed bayonet, outside each chapel, to prevent pilfering.
The sermon was announced for half past eight only, and by two o'clock
the church was completely filled; one may imagine the din that there was
in the quiet street over which towered the noble structure of the
_palazzo_ Crescenzi. Fabrizio had published the announcement that, in
honour of Our Lady of Pity, he would preach on the pity which a generous
soul ought to feel for one in misfortune, even when he is guilty.
Disguised with all possible care, Fabrizio reached his box in the
theatre at the moment when the doors were opened, and when there were
still no lights. The performance began about eight o'clock, and a few
minutes later he had that joy which no mind can conceive that has not
also felt it, he saw the door of the Crescenzi box open; a little later
the Marchesa appeared; he had not had so clear a view of her since the
day on which she had given him her fan. Fabrizio thought that he would
suffocate with joy; he was conscious of emotions so extraordinary that
he said to himself: "Perhaps I am going to die! What a charming way of
ending this sad life! Perhaps I am going to collapse in this box; the
faithful gathered at the Visitation will wait for me in vain, and
to-morrow they will learn that their future Archbishop forgot himself in
a box at the Opera, and, what is more, disguised as a servant and
wearing livery! Farewell my whole reputation! And what does my
reputation mean to me?"
However, about a quarter to nine, Fabrizio collected himself with an
effort; he left his box on the fourth tier and had the greatest
difficulty in reaching, on foot, the place where he was to doff his
livery and put on a more suitable costume. It was not until nearly nine
o'clock that he arrived at the Visitation, in such a state of pallor and
weakness that the rumour went round the church that the Signor
Coadiutore would not be able to preach that evening. One may imagine the
attention that was lavished on him by the Sisters at the grille of their
inner parlour, to which he had retired. These ladies talked incessantly;
Fabrizio asked to be left alone for a few moments, then hastened to the
pulpit. One of his assistants had informed him, about three o'clock,
that the Church of the Visitation was packed to the doors, but with
people of the lowest class, attracted apparently by the spectacle of the
illumination. On entering the pulpit, Fabrizio was agreeably surprised
to find all the chairs occupied by young men of fashion, and by people
of the highest distinction.
A few words of excuse began his sermon, and were received with
suppressed cries of admiration. Next came the impassioned description of
the unfortunate wretch whom one must pity, to honour worthily the
_Madonna della Pietà_, who, herself, had so greatly suffered when on
earth. The orator was greatly moved; there were moments when he could
barely pronounce his words so as to be heard in every part of this small
church. In the eyes of all the women, and of a good many of the men, he
had himself the air of the wretch whom one ought to pity, so extreme was
his pallor. A few minutes after the words of apology with which he had
begun his discourse, it was noticed that he was not in his normal state;
it was felt that his melancholy, this evening, was more profound and
more tender than usual. Once he was seen to have tears in his eyes; in a
moment there rose through the congregation a general sob, so loud that
the sermon was completely interrupted.
This first interruption was followed by a dozen others; his listeners
uttered cries of admiration, there were outbursts of tears; one heard at
every moment such exclamations as: "_Ah! Santa Madonna_!" "_Ah! Gran
Dio_!" The emotion was so general and so irrepressible in this select
public, that no one was ashamed of uttering these cries, and the people
who were carried away by them did not seem to their neighbours to be in
the least absurd.
During the rest which it is customary to take in the middle of the
sermon, Fabrizio was informed that there was absolutely no one left in
the theatre; one lady only was still to be seen in her box, the Marchesa
Crescenza. During this brief interval, a great clamour was suddenly
heard proceeding from the church; it was the faithful who were voting a
statue to the Signor Coadiutore. His success in the second part of the
discourse was so wild and worldly, the bursts of Christian contrition
gave place so completely to cries of admiration that were altogether
profane, that he felt it his duty to address, on leaving the pulpit, a
sort of reprimand to his hearers. Whereupon they all left at once with a
movement that was singularly formal; and, on reaching the street, all
began to applaud with frenzy, and to shout: "_Evviva del Dongo_!"
Fabrizio hastily consulted his watch, and ran to a little barred window
which lighted the narrow passage from the organ gallery to the interior
of the convent. Out of politeness to the unprecedented and incredible
crowd which filled the street, the porter of the _palazzo_ Crescenzi had
placed a dozen torches in those iron sconces which one sees projecting
from the outer walls of _palazzo_ built in the middle ages. After some
minutes, and long before the shouting had ceased, the event for which
Fabrizio was waiting with such anxiety occurred, the Marchesa's
carriage, returning from the theatre, appeared in the street; the
coachman was obliged to stop, and it was only at a crawling pace, and by
dint of shouts, that the carriage was able to reach the door.
The Marchesa had been touched by the sublime music, as is the way with
sorrowing hearts, but far more by the complete solitude in which she
sat, when she learned the reason for it. In the middle of the second
act, and while the tenor was on the stage, even the people in the pit
had suddenly abandoned their seats to go and tempt fortune by trying to
force their way into the Church of the Visitation. The Marchesa, finding
herself stopped by the crowd outside her door, burst into tears. "I had
not made a bad choice," she said to herself.
_ANNETTA MARINI_
But precisely on account of this momentary weakening, she firmly
resisted the pressure put upon her by the Marchese and the friends of
the family, who could not conceive her not going to see so astonishing a
preacher.
"Really," they said, "he beats even the best tenor in Italy!" "If I see
him, I am lost!" the Marchesa said to herself.
It was in vain that Fabrizio, whose talent seemed more brilliant every
day, preached several times more in the same little church, opposite the
_palazzo_ Crescenzi, never did he catch sight of Clelia, who indeed took
offence finally at this affectation of coming to disturb her quiet
street, after he had already driven her from her own garden.
In letting his eye run over the faces of the women who listened to him,
Fabrizio had noticed some time back a little face of dark complexion,
very pretty, and with eyes that darted fire. As a rule these magnificent
eyes were drowned in tears at the ninth or tenth sentence in the sermon.
When Fabrizio was obliged to say things at some length, which were
tedious to himself, he would very readily let his eyes rest on that
head, the youthfulness of which pleased him. He learned that this young
person was called Annetta Marini, the only daughter and heiress of the
richest cloth merchant in Parma, who had died a few months before.
Presently the name of this Annetta Marini, the cloth merchant's daughter,
was on every tongue; she had fallen desperately in love with Fabrizio.
When the famous sermons began, her marriage had been arranged with
Giacomo Rassi, eldest son of the Minister of Justice, who was by no
means unattractive to her; but she had barely listened twice to
Monsignor Fabrizio before she declared that she no longer wished to
marry; and, since she was asked the reason for so singular a change of
mind, she replied that it was not fitting for an honourable girl to
marry one man when she had fallen madly in love with another. Her family
sought to discover, at first without success, who this other might be.
But the burning tears which Annetta shed at the sermon put them on the
way to the truth; her mother and uncles having asked her if she loved
Monsignor Fabrizio, she replied boldly that, since the truth had been
discovered, she would not demean herself with a lie; she added that,
having no hope of marrying the man whom she adored, she wished at least
no longer to have her eyes offended by the ridiculous figure of Contino
Rassi. This speech in ridicule of the son of a man who was pursued by
the envy of the entire middle class became in a couple of days the talk
of the whole town. Annetta Marini's reply was thought charming, and
everyone repeated it. People spoke of it at the _palazzo_ Crescenzi as
everywhere else.
_HAYEZ_
Clelia took good care not to open her mouth on such a topic in her own
drawing-room: but she plied her maid with questions, and, the following
Sunday, after hearing mass in the chapel of her _palazzo_, bade her maid
come with her in her carriage and went in search of a second mass at
Signorina Marini's parish church. She found assembled there all the
gallants of the town, drawn by the same attraction; these gentlemen were
standing by the door. Presently, from the great stir which they made,
the Marchesa gathered that this Signorina Marini was entering the
church; she found herself excellently placed to see her, and, for all
her piety, paid little attention to the mass, Clelia found in this
middle class beauty a little air of decision which, to her mind, would
have suited, if anyone, a woman who had been married for a good many
years. Otherwise, she was admirably built on her small scale, and her
eyes, as they say in Lombardy, seemed to make conversation with the
things at which she looked. The Marchesa escaped before the end of mass.
The following day the friends of the Crescenzi household, who came
regularly to spend the evening there, related a fresh absurdity on the
part of Annetta Marini. Since her mother, afraid of her doing something
foolish, left only a little money at her disposal. Annetta had gone and
offered a magnificent diamond ring, a gift from her father, to the
famous Hayez, then at Parma decorating the drawing-rooms of the
_palazzo_ Crescenzi, and had asked him to paint the portrait of Signor
del Dongo; but she wished that in this portrait he should simply be
dressed in black, and not in the priestly habit. Well, the previous
evening, Annetta's mother had been greatly surprised, and even more
shocked to find in her daughter's room a magnificent portrait of
Fabrizio del Dongo, set in the finest frame that had been gilded in
Parma in the last twenty years.