On leaving the Archbishop's Palace, Fabrizio hastened to see little
Marietta; he could hear from the street the loud voice of Giletti who
had sent out for wine and was regaling himself with his friends the
prompter and the candle-snuffers. The _mammaccia_, who played the part
of mother, came alone in answer to his signal.
"A lot has happened since you were here," she cried; "two or three of
our actors are accused of having celebrated the great Napoleon's _festa_
with an orgy, and our poor company, which they say is Jacobin, has been
ordered to leave the States of Parma, and _evviva Napoleone_! But the
Minister has had a finger in that pie, they say. One thing certain is
that Giletti has got money, I don't know how much, but I've seen him
with a fistful of scudi. Marietta has had five scudi from our manager to
pay for the journey to Mantua and Venice, and I have had one. She is
still in love with you, but Giletti frightens her; three days ago, at
the last performance we gave, he absolutely wanted to kill her; he dealt
her two proper blows, and, what was abominable of him, tore her blue
shawl. If you would care to give her a blue shawl, you would be a very
good boy, and we can say that we won it in a lottery. The drum-major of
the _carabinieri_ is giving an assault-at-arms to-morrow, you will find
the hour posted up at all the street-corners. Come and see us; if he has
gone to the assault, and we have any reason to hope that he will stay
away for some time, I shall be at the window, and I shall give you a
signal to come up. Try to bring us something really nice, and Marietta
will be madly in love with you."
As he made his way down the winding staircase of this foul rookery,
Fabrizio was filled with compunction. "I have not altered in the least,"
he said to himself; "all the fine resolutions I made on the shore of our
lake, when I looked at life with so philosophic an eye, have gone to the
winds. My mind has lost its normal balance; the whole thing was a dream,
and vanishes before the stern reality. Now would be the time for action,"
he told himself as he entered the _palazzo_ Sanseverina about eleven
o'clock that evening. But it was in vain that he sought in his heart for
the courage to speak with that sublime sincerity which had seemed to him
so easy, the night he spent by the shore of the Lake of Como. "I am
going to vex the person whom I love best in the world; if I speak, I
shall simply seem to be jesting in the worst of taste; I am not worth
anything, really, except in certain moments of exaltation.
"The Conte has behaved admirably towards me," he said to the Duchessa,
after he had given her an account of his visit to the Archbishop's
Palace; "I appreciate his conduct all the more, in that I think I am
right in saying that personally I have made only a very moderate
impression on him: my behaviour towards him ought therefore to be
strictly correct. He has his excavations at Sanguigna, about which he is
still madly keen, if one is to judge, that is, by his expedition the day
before yesterday: he went twelve leagues at a gallop in order to spend a
couple of hours with his workmen. If they find fragments of statues in
the ancient temple, the foundations of which he has just laid bare, he
is afraid of their being stolen; I should like to propose to him that I
should go and spend a night or two at Sanguigna. To-morrow, about five,
I have to see the Archbishop again; I can start in the evening and take
advantage of the cool night air for the journey."
_SANGUIGNA_
The Duchessa did not at first reply.
"One would think you were seeking excuses for staying away from me," she
said to him at length with extreme affection: "No sooner do you come
back from Belgirate than you find a reason for going off again."
"Here is a fine opportunity for speaking," thought Fabrizio. "But by the
lake I was a trifle mad; I did not realise, in my enthusiasm for
sincerity, that my compliment ended in an impertinence. It was a
question of saying: 'I love you with the most devoted friendship, etc.,
etc., but my heart is not susceptible to love.' Is not that as much as
to say: 'I see that you are in love with me: but take care, I cannot pay
you back in the same coin.' If it is love that she feels, the Duchessa
may be annoyed at its being guessed, and she will be revolted by my
impudence if all that she feels for me is friendship pure and
simple . . . and that is one of the offences people never forgive."
While he weighed these important thoughts in his mind, Fabrizio, quite
unconsciously, was pacing up and down the drawing-room with the grave
air, full of dignity, of a man who sees disaster staring him in the
face.
The Duchessa gazed at him with admiration; this was no longer the child
she had seen come into the world, this was no longer the nephew always
ready to obey her; this was a serious man, a man whom it would be
delicious to make fall in love with her. She rose from the ottoman on
which she was sitting, and, flinging herself into his arms in a
transport of emotion:
"So you want to run away from me?" she asked him.
"No," he replied with the air of a Roman Emperor, "but I want to act
wisely."
This speech was capable of several interpretations; Fabrizio did not
feel that he had the courage to go any farther and to run the risk of
wounding this adorable woman. He was too young, too susceptible to
sudden emotion; his brain could not supply him with any elegant turn of
speech to give expression to what he wished to say. By a natural
transport, and in defiance of all reason, he took this charming woman in
his arms and smothered her in kisses. At that moment the Conte's
carriage could be heard coming into the courtyard, and almost
immediately the Conte himself entered the room; he seemed greatly moved.
"You inspire very singular passions," he said to Fabrizio, who stood
still, almost dumbfoundered by this remark.
"The Archbishop had this evening the audience which His Serene Highness
grants him every Thursday; the Prince has just been telling me that the
Archbishop, who seemed greatly troubled, began with a set speech,
learned by heart, and extremely clever, of which at first the Prince
could understand nothing at all. Landriani ended by declaring that it
was important for the Church in Parma that _Monsignor_ Fabrizio del Dongo
should be appointed his First Vicar General, and, in addition, as soon
as he should have completed his twenty-fourth year, his Coadjutor _with
eventual succession_.
"The last clause alarmed me, I must admit," said the Conte: "it is going
a little too fast, and I was afraid of an outburst from the Prince; but
he looked at me with a smile, and said to me in French: 'Ce sont là de
vos coups, monsieur!'
_THE AUDIENCE_
"'I can take my oath, before God and before Your Highness,' I exclaimed
with all the unction possible, 'that I knew absolutely nothing about the
words _eventual succession_.' Then I told him the truth, what in fact we
were discussing together here a few hours ago; I added, impulsively,
that, so far as the future was concerned, I should regard myself as most
bounteously rewarded with His Highness's favour if he would deign to
allow me a minor Bishopric to begin with. The Prince must have believed
me, for he thought fit to be gracious; he said to me with the greatest
possible simplicity: 'This is an official matter between the Archbishop
and myself; you do not come into it at all; the worthy man delivered me
a kind of report, of great length and tedious to a degree, at the end of
which he came to an official proposal; I answered him very coldly that
the person in question was extremely young, and, moreover, a very recent
arrival at my court, that I should almost be giving the impression that
I was honouring a bill of exchange drawn upon me by the Emperor, in
giving the prospect of so high a dignity to the son of one of the
principal officers of his Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom. The Archbishop
protested that no recommendation of that sort had been made. That was a
pretty stupid thing to say to _me_. I was surprised to hear it come from a
man of his experience; but he always loses his head when he speaks to
me, and this evening he was more troubled than ever, which gave me the
idea that he was passionately anxious to secure the appointment. I told
him that I knew better than he that there had been no recommendation
from any high quarter in favour of this del Dongo, that nobody at my
court denied his capacity, that they did not speak at all too badly of
his morals, but that I was afraid of his being liable to enthusiasm, and
that I had made it a rule never to promote to considerable positions
fools of that sort, with whom a Prince can never be sure of anything.
Then,' His Highness went on, 'I had to submit to a fresh tirade almost
as long as the first; the Archbishop sang me the praises of the
enthusiasm of the _Casa di Dio_. Clumsy fellow, I said to myself, you
are going astray, you are endangering an appointment which was almost
confirmed; you ought to have cut your speech short and thanked me
effusively. Not a bit of it; he continued his homily with a ridiculous
intrepidity; I had to think of a reply which would not be too
unfavourable to young del Dongo; I found one, and by no means a bad one,
as you shall judge for yourself. Monsignore, I said to him, Pius VII was
a great Pope and a great saint: among all the Sovereigns, he alone dared
to say _No_ to the tyrant who saw Europe at his feet: very well, he was
liable to enthusiasm, which led him, when he was Bishop of Imola, to
write that famous Pastoral of the _Citizen-Cardinal_ Chiaramonti, in
support of the Cisalpine Republic.
"'My poor Archbishop was left stupefied, and, to complete his
stupefaction, I said to him with a very serious air: Good-bye,
Monsignore, I shall take twenty-four hours to consider your proposal.
The poor man added various supplications, by no means well expressed and
distinctly inopportune after the word _Good-bye_ had been uttered by me.
Now, Conte Mosca della Rovere, I charge you to inform the Duchessa that
I have no wish to delay for twenty-four hours a decision which may be
agreeable to her; sit down there and write the Archbishop the letter of
approval which will bring the whole matter to an end.' I wrote the
letter, he signed it, and said to me: 'Take it, immediately, to the
Duchessa.' Here, Signora, is the letter, and it is this that has given
me an excuse for taking the pleasure of seeing you again this evening."
The Duchessa read the letter with rapture. While the Conte was telling
his long story, Fabrizio had had time to collect himself: he shewed no
sign of astonishment at the incident, he took the whole thing like a
true nobleman who naturally has always supposed himself entitled to
these extraordinary advancements, these strokes of fortune which would
unhinge a plebeian mind; he spoke of his gratitude, but in polished
terms, and ended by saying to the Conte:
_TITULAR AND COADJUTOR_
"A good courtier ought to flatter the ruling passion; yesterday you
expressed the fear that your workmen at Sanguigna might steal any
fragments of ancient sculpture they brought to light; I am extremely
fond of excavation, myself; with your kind permission, I will go to
superintend the workmen. To-morrow evening, after suitably expressing my
thanks at the Palace and to the Archbishop, I shall start for
Sanguigna."
"But can you guess," the Duchessa asked the Conte, "what can have given
rise to this sudden passion on our good Archbishop's part for Fabrizio?"
"I have no need to guess; the Grand Vicar whose nephew I made a captain
said to me yesterday: 'Father Landriani starts from this absolute
principle, that the titular is superior to the coadjutor, and is beside
himself with joy at the prospect of having a del Dongo under his orders,
and of having done him a service.' Everything that can draw attention to
Fabrizio's noble birth adds to his secret happiness: that he should have
a man like that as his aide-de-camp! In the second place, Monsignor
Fabrizio has taken his fancy, he does not feel in the least shy before
him; finally, he has been nourishing for the last ten years a very
vigorous hatred of the Bishop of Piacenza, who openly boasts of his
claim to succeed him in the see of Parma, and is moreover the son of a
miller. It is with a view to this eventual succession that the Bishop of
Piacenza has formed very close relations with the Marchesa Raversi, and
now their intimacy is making the Archbishop tremble for the success of
his favourite scheme, to have a del Dongo on his staff and to give him
orders."
Two days after this, at an early hour in the morning, Fabrizio was
directing the work of excavation at Sanguigna, opposite Colorno (which
is the Versailles of the Princes of Parma); these excavations extended
over the plain close to the high road which runs from Parma to the bridge
of Casalmaggiore, the first town on Austrian territory. The workmen were
intersecting the plain with a long trench, eight feet deep and as narrow
as possible: they were engaged in seeking, along the old Roman Way, for
the ruins of a second temple which, according to local reports, had
still been in existence in the middle ages. Despite the Prince's orders,
many of the _contadini_ looked with misgivings on these long ditches
running across their property. Whatever one might say to them, they
imagined that a search was being made for treasure, and Fabrizio's
presence was especially desirable with a view to preventing any little
unrest. He was by no means bored, he followed the work with keen
interest; from time to time they turned up some medal, and he saw to it
that the workmen did not have time to arrange among themselves to make
off with it.
The day was fine, the time about six o'clock in the morning: he had
borrowed an old gun, single-barrelled; he shot several larks; one of
them, wounded, was falling upon the high road. Fabrizio, as he went
after it, caught sight, in the distance, of a carriage that was coming
from Parma and making for the frontier at Casalmaggiore. He had just
reloaded his gun when, the carriage which was extremely dilapidated
coming towards him at a snail's pace, he recognised little Marietta; she
had, on either side of her, the big bully Giletti and the old woman whom
she passed off as her mother.
Giletti imagined that Fabrizio had posted himself there in the middle of
the road, and with a gun in his hand, to insult him, and perhaps even to
carry off his little Marietta. Like a man of valour, he jumped down from
the carriage; he had in his left hand a large and very rusty pistol, and
held in his right a sheathed sword, which he used when the limitations
of the company obliged them to cast him for the part of some Marchese.
_GILETTI_
"Ha! Brigand!" he shouted, "I am very glad to find you here, a league
from the frontier; I'll settle your account for you, right away; you're
not protected here by your violet stockings."
Fabrizio was engaged in smiling at little Marietta, and barely heeding
the jealous shouts of Giletti, when suddenly he saw within three feet of
his chest the muzzle of the rusty pistol; he was just in time to aim a
blow at it, using his gun as a club: the pistol went off, but did not
hit anyone.
"Stop, will you, you ----," cried Giletti to the _vetturino_; at the
same time he was quick enough to spring to the muzzle of his adversary's
gun and to hold it so that it pointed away from his body; Fabrizio and
he pulled at the gun, each with his whole strength. Giletti, who was a
great deal the more vigorous of the two, placing one hand in front of
the other, kept creeping forward towards the lock, and was on the point
of snatching away the gun when Fabrizio, to prevent him from making use
of it, fired. He had indeed seen, first, that the muzzle of the gun was
more than three inches above Giletti's shoulder: still, the detonation
occurred close to the man's ear. He was somewhat startled at first, but
at once recovered himself:
"Oh, so you want to blow my head off, you scum! Just let me settle your
reckoning." Giletti flung away the scabbard of his Marchese's sword, and
fell upon Fabrizio with admirable swiftness. Our hero had no weapon, and
gave himself up for lost.
He made for the carriage, which had stopped some ten yards beyond
Giletti; he passed to the left of it, and, grasping the spring of the
carriage in his hand, made a quick turn which brought him level with the
door on the right hand side, which stood open. Giletti, who had started
off on his long legs and had not thought of checking himself by catching
hold of the spring, went on for several paces in the same direction
before he could stop. As Fabrizio passed by the open door, he heard
Marietta whisper to him:
"Take care of yourself; he will kill you. Here!"
As he spoke, Fabrizio saw fall from the door a sort of big hunting
knife, he stooped to pick it up, but as he did so was wounded in the
shoulder by a blow from Giletti's sword. Fabrizio, on rising to his
feet, found himself within six inches of Giletti, who struck him a
furious blow in the face with the hilt of his sword; this blow was
delivered with so much force that it completely took away Fabrizio's
senses. At that moment, he was on the point of being killed. Fortunately
for him, Giletti was still too near to be able to give him a thrust with
the point. Fabrizio, when he came to himself, took to flight, and ran as
fast as his legs would carry him; as he ran, he flung away the sheath of
the hunting knife, and then, turning smartly round, found himself three
paces ahead of Giletti, who was in pursuit. Giletti rushed on, Fabrizio
struck at him with the point of his knife; Giletti was in time to beat
up the knife a little with his sword, but he received the point of the
blade full in the left cheek. He passed close by Fabrizio who felt his
thigh pierced: it was Giletti's knife, which he had found time to open.
Fabrizio sprang to the right; he turned round, and at last the two
adversaries found themselves at a proper fighting distance.
Giletti swore like a lost soul: "Ah! I shall slit your throat for you,
you rascally priest," he kept on repeating every moment. Fabrizio was
quite out of breath and could not speak: the blow on his face from the
sword-hilt was causing him a great deal of pain, and his nose was
bleeding abundantly. He parried a number of strokes with his hunting
knife, and made a number of passes without knowing quite what he was
doing. He had a vague feeling that he was at a public display. This idea
had been suggested to him by the presence of the workmen, who, to the
number of twenty-five or thirty, formed a circle round the combatants,
but at a most respectful distance; for at every moment they saw them
start to run, and spring upon one another.
_A DUEL_
The fight seemed to be slackening a little; the strokes no longer
followed one another with the same rapidity, when Fabrizio said to
himself: "To judge by the pain which I feel in my face, he must have
disfigured me." In a spasm of rage at this idea, he leaped upon his
enemy with the point of his hunting knife forwards. This point entered
Giletti's chest on the right side and passed out near his left shoulder;
at the same moment Giletti's sword passed right to the hilt through the
upper part of Fabrizio's arm, but the blade glided under the skin and
the wound was not serious.
Giletti had fallen; as Fabrizio advanced towards him, looking down at
his left hand which was clasping a knife, that hand opened mechanically
and let the weapon slip to the ground.
"The rascal is dead," said Fabrizio to himself. He looked at Giletti's
face: blood was pouring from his mouth. Fabrizio ran to the carriage.
"Have you a mirror?" he cried to Marietta. Marietta stared at him,
deadly pale, and made no answer. The old woman with great coolness
opened a green workbag and handed Fabrizio a little mirror with a
handle, no bigger than his hand. Fabrizio as he looked at himself felt
his face carefully: "My eyes are all right," he said to himself, "that
is something, at any rate." He examined his teeth; they were not broken
at all. "Then how is it that I am in such pain?" he asked himself,
half-aloud.
The old woman answered him:
"It is because the top of your cheek has been crushed between the hilt
of Giletti's sword and the bone we keep there. Your cheek is horribly
swollen and blue: put leeches on it instantly, and it will be all
right."
"Ah! Leeches, instantly!" said Fabrizio with a laugh, and recovered all
his coolness. He saw that the workmen had gathered round Giletti, and
were gazing at him, without venturing to touch him.
"Look after that man there!" he called to them; "take his coat off." He
was going to say more, but, on raising his eyes, saw five or six men at
a distance of three hundred yards on the high road, who were advancing
on foot and at a measured pace towards the scene of action.
"They are police," he thought, "and, as there has been a man killed,
they will arrest me, and I shall have the honour of making a solemn
entry into the city of Parma. What a story for the Raversi's friends at
court who detest my aunt!"
Immediately, with the rapidity of a flash of lightning, he flung to the
open-mouthed workmen all the money that he had in his pockets and leaped
into the carriage.
"Stop the police from pursuing me!" he cried to his men, "and your
fortunes are all made; tell them that I am innocent, that this man
_attacked me and wanted to kill me_."
"And you," he said to the _vetturino_, "make your horses gallop; you shall
have four golden napoleons if you cross the Po before these people
behind can overtake me."
"Right you are," said the man; "but there's nothing to be afraid of:
those men back there are on foot, and my little horses have only to trot
to leave them properly in the lurch." So saying, he put the animals into
a gallop.
_PRECAUTIONS_
Our hero was shocked to hear the word "afraid" used by the driver: the
fact being that really he had been extremely afraid after the blow from
the sword-hilt which had struck him in the face.
"We may run into people on horseback coming towards us," said the
prudent _vetturino_, thinking of the four napoleons, "and the men who
are following us may call out to them to stop us. . . ." Which meant, in
other words: "Reload your weapons."
"Oh, how brave you are, my little Abate!" cried Marietta as she embraced
Fabrizio. The old woman was looking out through the window of the
carriage; presently she drew in her head.
"No one is following you, sir," she said to Fabrizio with great
coolness; "and there is no one on the road in front of you. You know how
particular the officials of the Austrian police are: if they see you
arrive like this at a gallop, along the embankment by the Po, they will
arrest you, no doubt about it."
Fabrizio looked out of the window.
"Trot," he said to the driver. "What passport have you?" he asked the
old woman.
"Three, instead of one," she replied, "and they cost us four francs
apiece; a dreadful thing, isn't it, for poor dramatic artists who are
kept travelling all the year round! Here is the passport of Signor
Giletti, dramatic artist: that will be you; here are our two passports,
Marietta's and mine. But Giletti had all our money in his pocket; what
is to become of us?"
"What had he?" Fabrizio asked.
"Forty good scudi of five francs," said the old woman.
"You mean six, and some small change," said Marietta with a smile: "I
won't have my little Abate cheated."
"Isn't it only natural, sir," replied the old woman with great coolness,
"that I should try to tap you for thirty-four scudi? What are
thirty-four scudi to you, and we--we have lost our protector. Who is
there now to find us lodgings, to beat down prices with the _vetturini_
when we are on the road, and to put the fear of God into everyone?
Giletti was not beautiful, but he was most useful; and if the little
girl there hadn't been a fool, and fallen in love with you from the
first, Giletti would never have noticed anything, and you would have
given us good money. I can assure you that we are very poor."
Fabrizio was touched; he took out his purse and gave several napoleons
to the old woman.
"You see," he said to her, "I have only fifteen left, so it is no use
your trying to pull my leg any more."
Little Marietta flung her arms round his neck, and the old woman kissed
his hands. The carriage was moving all this time at a slow trot. When
they saw in the distance the yellow barriers striped with black which
indicated the beginning of Austrian territory, the old woman said to
Fabrizio:
"You would do best to cross the frontier on foot with Giletti's passport
in your pocket; as for us, we shall stop for a minute, on the excuse of
making ourselves tidy. And besides, the _dogana_ will want to look at
our things. If you will take my advice, you will go through
Casalmaggiore at a careless stroll; even go into the _caffè_ and drink
a glass of brandy, once you are past the village, put your best foot
foremost. The police are as sharp as the devil in an Austrian country;
they will pretty soon know there has been a man killed; you are
travelling with a passport which is not yours, that is more than enough
to get you two years in prison. Make for the Po on your right after you
leave the town, hire a boat and get away to Ravenna or Ferrara; get
clear of the Austrian States as quickly as ever you can. With a couple
of louis you should be able to buy another passport from some
_doganiere_; it would be fatal to use this one; don't forget that you
have killed the man."
_FEAR_
As he approached, on foot, the bridge of boats at Casalmaggiore,
Fabrizio carefully reread Giletti's passport. Our hero was in great
fear, he recalled vividly all that Conte Mosca had said to him about the
danger involved in his entering Austrian territory; well, two hundred
yards ahead of him he saw the terrible bridge which was about to give
him access to that country, the capital of which, in his eyes, was the
Spielberg. But what else was he to do? The Duchy of Modena, which
marches with the State of Parma on the South, returned its fugitives in
compliance with a special convention, the frontier of the State which
extends over the mountains in the direction of Genoa was too far off;
his misadventure would be known at Parma long before he could reach
those mountains; there remained therefore nothing but the Austrian
States on the left bank of the Po. Before there was time to write to the
Austrian authorities asking them to arrest him, thirty-six hours, or
even two days must elapse. All these considerations duly weighed,
Fabrizio set a light with his cigar to his own passport; it was better
for him, on Austrian soil, to be a vagabond than to be Fabrizio del
Dongo, and it was possible that they might search him.
Quite apart from the very natural repugnance which he felt towards
entrusting his life to the passport of the unfortunate Giletti, this
document presented material difficulties. Fabrizio's height was, at the
most, five feet five inches, and not five feet ten inches as was stated
on the passport. He was not quite twenty-four, and looked younger.
Giletti had been thirty-nine. We must confess that our hero paced for a
good half-hour along a flood-barrier of the Po near the bridge of boats
before making up his mind to go down on to it. "What should I advise
anyone else to do in my place?" he asked himself finally. "Obviously, to
cross: there is danger in remaining in the State of Parma; a constable
may be sent in pursuit of the man who has killed another man, even in
self-defence." Fabrizio went through his pocket, tore up all his papers,
and kept literally nothing but his handkerchief and his cigar-case; it
was important for him to curtail the examination which he would have to
undergo. He thought of a terrible objection which might be raised, and
to which he could find no satisfactory answer: he was going to say that
his name was Giletti, and all his linen was marked F. D.
As we have seen, Fabrizio was one of those unfortunates who are
tormented by their imagination; it is a characteristic fault of men of
intelligence in Italy. A French soldier of equal or even inferior
courage would have gone straight to the bridge and have crossed it
without more ado, without thinking beforehand of any possible
difficulties; but also he would have carried with him all his coolness,
and Fabrizio was far from feeling cool when, at the end of the bridge, a
little man, dressed in grey, said to him: "Go into the police office and
shew your passport."
This office had dirty walls studded with nails from which hung the pipes
and the soiled hats of the officials. The big deal table behind which
they were installed was spotted all over with stains of ink and wine;
two or three fat registers bound in raw hide bore stains of all colours,
and the margins of the pages were black with finger-marks. On top of the
registers which were piled one on another lay three magnificent wreaths
of laurel which had done duty a couple of days before for one of the
Emperor's festivals.
_THE PASSPORT_
Fabrizio was impressed by all these details; they gave him a tightening
of the heart; this was the price he must pay for the magnificent luxury,
so cool and clean, that caught the eye in his charming rooms in the
_palazzo_ Sanseverina. He was obliged to enter this dirty office and to
appear there as an inferior; he was about to undergo an examination.
The official who stretched out a yellow hand to take his passport was
small and dark. He wore a brass pin in his necktie. "This is an
ill-tempered fellow," thought Fabrizio. The gentleman seemed excessively
surprised as he read the passport, and his perusal of it lasted fully
five minutes.
"You have met with an accident," he said to the stranger, looking at his
cheek.
"The _vetturino_ flung us out over the embankment."
Then the silence was resumed, and the official cast sour glances at the
traveller.
"I see it now," Fabrizio said to himself, "he is going to inform me that
he is sorry to have bad news to give me, and that I am under arrest."
All sorts of wild ideas surged simultaneously into our hero's brain,
which at this moment was not very logical. For instance, he thought of
escaping by a door in the office which stood open. "I get rid of my
coat, I jump into the Po, and no doubt I shall be able to swim across
it. Anything is better than the Spielberg." The police official was
staring fixedly at him, while he calculated the chances of success of
this dash for safety; they furnished two interesting types of the human
countenance. The presence of danger gives a touch of genius to the
reasoning man, places him, so to speak, above his own level: in the
imaginative man it inspires romances, bold, it is true, but frequently
absurd.
You ought to have seen the indignant air of our hero under the searching
eye of this police official, adorned with his brass jewelry. "If I were
to kill him," thought Fabrizio, "I should be convicted of murder and
sentenced to twenty years in the galleys, or to death, which is a great
deal less terrible than the Spielberg with a chain weighing a hundred
and twenty pounds on each foot and nothing but eight ounces of bread to
live on; and that lasts for twenty years; so that I should not get out
until I was forty-four." Fabrizio's logic overlooked the fact that, as
he had burned his own passport, there was nothing to indicate to the
police official that he was the rebel, Fabrizio del Dongo.
Our hero was sufficiently alarmed, as we have seen; he would have been a
great deal more so could he have read the thoughts that were disturbing
the official's mind. This man was a friend of Giletti; one may judge of
his surprise when he saw his friend's passport in the hands of a
stranger; his first impulse was to have that stranger arrested, then he
reflected that Giletti might easily have sold his passport to this fine
young man who apparently had just been doing something disgraceful at
Parma. "If I arrest him," he said to himself, "Giletti will get into
trouble; they will at once discover that he has sold his passport; on
the other hand, what will my chiefs say if it is proved that I, a friend
of Giletti, put a _visa_ on his passport when it was carried by someone
else." The official got up with a yawn and said to Fabrizio: "Wait a
minute, sir"; then, adopting a professional formula, added: "A
difficulty has arisen." On which Fabrizio murmured: "What is going to
arise is my escape."
As a matter of fact, the official went out of the office, leaving the
door open; and the passport was left lying on the deal table. "The
danger is obvious," thought Fabrizio; "I shall take my passport and walk
slowly back across the bridge; I shall tell the constable, if he
questions me, that I forgot to have my passport examined by the
commissary of police in the last village in the State of Parma."
Fabrizio had already taken the passport in his hand when, to his
unspeakable astonishment, he heard the clerk with the brass jewelry say:
"Upon my soul, I can't do any more work; the heat is stifling; I am
going to the _caffè_ to have half a glass. Go into the office when you
have finished your pipe, there's a passport to be stamped; the party is
in there."
Fabrizio, who was stealing out on tiptoe, found himself face to face
with a handsome young man who was saying to himself, or rather humming:
"Well, let us see this passport; I'll put my scrawl on it."
"Where does the gentleman wish to go?"
"To Mantua, Venice and Ferrara."
"Ferrara it is," said the official, whistling; he took up a die, stamped
the _visa_ in blue ink on the passport, rapidly wrote in the words:
"Mantua, Venice and Ferrara," in the space left blank by the stamp, then
waved his hand several times in the air, signed, and dipped his pen in
the ink to make his flourish, which he executed slowly and with infinite
pains. Fabrizio followed every movement of his pen; the clerk studied
his flourish with satisfaction, adding five or six finishing touches,
then handed the passport back to Fabrizio, saying in a careless tone: "A
good journey, sir!"
Fabrizio made off at a pace the alacrity of which he was endeavouring to
conceal, when he felt himself caught by the left arm: instinctively his
hand went to the hilt of his dagger, and if he had not observed that he
was surrounded by houses he might perhaps have done something rash. The
man who was touching his left arm, seeing that he appeared quite
startled, said by way of apology:
"But I called the gentleman three times, and got no answer; has the
gentleman anything to declare before the customs?"
"I have nothing on me but my handkerchief; I am going to a place quite
near here, to shoot with one of my family."
He would have been greatly embarrassed had he been asked to name this
relative. What with the great heat and his various emotions, Fabrizio
was as wet as if he had fallen into the Po. "I am not lacking in courage
to face actors, but clerks with brass jewelry send me out of my mind; I
shall make a humorous sonnet out of that to amuse the Duchessa."
Entering Casalmaggiore, Fabrizio at once turned to the right along a
mean street which leads down to the Po. "I am in great need," he said to
himself, "of the succour of Bacchus and Ceres," and he entered a shop
outside which there hung a grey clout fastened to a stick; on the clout
was inscribed the word _Trattoria_. A meagre piece of bed-linen
supported on two slender wooden hoops and hanging down to within three
feet of the ground sheltered the doorway of the _Trattoria_ from the
vertical rays of the sun. There, a half-undressed and extremely pretty
woman received our hero with respect, which gave him the keenest
pleasure; he hastened to inform her that he was dying of hunger. While
the woman was preparing his breakfast, there entered a man of about
thirty; he had given no greeting on coming in; suddenly he rose from the
bench on which he had flung himself down with a familiar air, and said
to Fabrizio: "_Eccellenza, la riverisco_! (Excellency, your servant!)"
Fabrizio was in the highest spirits at the moment, and, instead of
forming sinister plans, replied with a laugh: "And how the devil do you
know my Excellency?"
_THE TRATTORIA_
"What! Doesn't Your Excellency remember Lodovico, one of the Signora
Duchessa Sanseverina's coachmen? At Sacca, the place in the country
where we used to go every year, I always took fever; I asked the Signora
for a pension, and retired from service. Now I am rich; instead of the
pension of twelve scudi a year, which was the most I was entitled to
expect, the Signora told me that, to give me the leisure to compose
sonnets, for I am a poet in the _lingua volgare_, she would allow me
twenty-four scudi and the Signor Conte told me that if ever I was in
difficulties I had only to come and tell him. I have had the honour to
drive Monsignore for a stage, when he went to make his retreat, like a
good Christian, in the Certosa of Velleja."
Fabrizio studied the man's face and began to recognise him. He had been
one of the smartest coachmen in the Sanseverina establishment; now that
he was what he called rich his entire clothing consisted of a coarse
shirt, in holes, and a pair of cloth breeches, dyed black at some time
in the past, which barely came down to his knees; a pair of shoes and a
villainous hat completed his equipment. In addition to this, he had not
shaved for a fortnight. As he ate his omelette Fabrizio engaged in
conversation with him, absolutely as between equals; he thought he
detected that Lodovico was in love with their hostess. He finished his
meal rapidly, then said in a low voice to Lodovico: "I want a word with
you."
"Your Excellency can speak openly before her, she is a really good
woman," said Lodovico with a tender air.
"Very well, my friends," said Fabrizio without hesitation, "I am in
trouble, and have need of your help. First of all, there is nothing
political about my case; I have simply and solely killed a man who
wanted to murder me because I spoke to his mistress."
"Poor young man!" said the landlady.
"Your Excellency can count on me!" cried the coachman, his eyes ablaze
with the most passionate devotion; "where does His Excellency wish to
go?"
"To Ferrara. I have a passport, but I should prefer not to speak to the
police, who may have received information of what has happened."
"When did you despatch this fellow?"
"This morning, at six o'clock."
"Your Excellency has no blood on his clothes, has he?" asked the
landlady.
"I was thinking of that," put in the coachman, "and besides, the cloth
of that coat is too fine; you don't see many like that in the country
round here, it would make people stare at us; I shall go and buy some
clothes from the Jew. Your Excellency is about my figure, only thinner."
"For pity's sake, don't go on calling me Excellency, it may attract
attention."
"Very good, Excellency," replied the coachman, as he left the tavern.
"Here, here," Fabrizio called after him, "and what about the money! Come
back!"
"What do you mean--money!" said the landlady; "he has sixty-seven scudi
which are entirely at your service. I myself," she went on, lowering her
voice, "have forty scudi which I offer you with the best will in the
world; one doesn't always have money on one when these accidents
happen."
On account of the heat, Fabrizio had taken off his coat on entering the
_Trattoria_.
"You have a waistcoat on you which might land us in trouble if anyone
came in: that fine _English cloth_ would attract attention." She gave our
fugitive a stuff waistcoat, dyed black, which belonged to her husband. A
tall young man came into the tavern by an inner door; he was dressed
with a certain style.
_THE LANDLADY_
"This is my husband," said the landlady. "Pietro-Antonio," she said to
her husband, "this gentleman is a friend of Lodovico; he met with an
accident this morning, across the river, and he wants to get away to
Ferrara."
"Oh, we'll get him there," said the husband with an air of great
gentility; "we have Carlo-Giuseppe's boat."
Owing to another weakness in our hero which we shall confess as
naturally as we have related his fear in the police office at the end of
the bridge, there were tears in his eyes; he was profoundly moved by the
perfect devotion which he found among these _contadini_; he thought also
of this characteristic generosity of his aunt; he would have liked to be
able to make these people's fortune. Lodovico returned, carrying a
packet.
"So that's finished," the husband said to him in a friendly tone.
"It's not that," replied Lodovico in evident alarm, "people are
beginning to talk about you, they noticed that you hesitated before
turning down our _vicolo_ and leaving the big street, like a man who was
trying to hide."
"Go up quick to the bedroom," said the husband.
This room, which was very large and fine, had grey cloth instead of
glass in its two windows; it contained four beds, each six feet wide and
five feet high.
"Be quick! Be quick!" said Lodovico, "there is a swaggering fool of a
constable who has just been posted here and began trying to make love to
the pretty lady downstairs; and I've told him that when he goes
travelling about the country he may find himself stopping a bullet. If
the dog hears any mention of Your Excellency, he'll want to do us a bad
turn, he will try to arrest you here, so as to get Teodolinda's
_Trattoria_ a bad name.
"What's this?" Lodovico went on, seeing Fabrizio's shirt all stained
with blood and his wounds bandaged with handkerchiefs, "so the _porco_
shewed fight, did he? That's a hundred times more than you need to get
yourself arrested, and I haven't bought you any shirt." Without ceremony
he opened the husband's wardrobe and gave one of his shirts to Fabrizio,
who was soon attired like a prosperous countryman. Lodovico took down a
net that was hanging on the wall, placed Fabrizio's clothes in the
basket in which the fish are put, went downstairs at a run and hastened
out of the house by a back door; Fabrizio followed him.
"Teodolinda," he called out as he passed by the bar, "hide what I've
left upstairs, we are going to wait among the willows, and you,
Pietro-Antonio, send us a boat quickly, we'll pay well for it."
Lodovico led Fabrizio across more than a score of ditches. There were
planks, very long and very elastic, which served as bridges across the
wider of these ditches; Lodovico took up these planks after crossing by
them. On coming to the last canal he took up the plank with haste. "Now
we can stop and breathe," he said; "that dog of a constable will have to
go two leagues and more to reach Your Excellency. Why, you're quite
pale," he said to Fabrizio; "I haven't forgotten the little bottle of
brandy."
"It comes in most useful; the wound in my thigh is beginning to hurt me;
and besides, I was in a fine fright in the police office by the bridge."
"I can well believe it," said Lodovico; "with a shirt covered in blood,
as yours was, I can't conceive how you ever even dared to set foot in
such a place. As for your wounds, I know what to do; I am going to put
you in a cool place where you can sleep for an hour; the boat will come
for us there, if there is any way of getting a boat; if not, when you
have rested a little, we shall go on two short leagues, and I shall take
you to a mill where I shall take a boat myself. Your Excellency knows
far more than I do: the Signora will be in despair when she hears of the
accident; they will tell her that you are mortally wounded, perhaps even
that you killed the other man by foul play. The Marchesa Raversi will
not fail to circulate all the evil reports that can hurt the Signora.
Your Excellency might write."
_THE PO_
"And how should I get the letter delivered?"
"The boys at the mill where we are going earn twelve soldi a day; in a
day and a half they can be at Parma, say four francs for the journey,
two francs for the wear and tear of their shoe-leather: if the errand
was being done for a poor man like me, that would be six francs; as it
is in the service of a Signore, I shall give them twelve."
When they had reached the resting-place in a clump of alders and
willows, very leafy and very cool, Lodovico went to a house more than an
hour's journey away in search of ink and paper. "Great heavens, how
comfortable I am here," cried Fabrizio. "Fortune, farewell! I shall
never be an Archbishop!"
On his return, Lodovico found him fast asleep and did not like to arouse
him. The boat did not arrive until the sun had almost set; as soon as
Lodovico saw it appear in the distance he called Fabrizio, who wrote a
couple of letters.
"Your Excellency knows far more than I do," said Lodovico with a
troubled air, "and I am very much afraid of displeasing him seriously,
whatever he may say, if I add a certain remark."
"I am not such a fool as you think me," replied Fabrizio, "and, whatever
you may say, you will always be in my eyes a faithful servant of my
aunt, and a man who has done everything in the world to get me out of a
very awkward scrape."
Many more protestations still were required before Lodovico could be
prevailed upon to speak, and when, at last he had made up his mind, he
began with a preamble which lasted for quite five minutes. Fabrizio grew
impatient, then said to himself: "After all, whose fault is it? It is
due to our vanity, which this man has very well observed from his seat
on the box." Lodovico's devotion at last impelled him to run the risk of
speaking plainly.
"What would not the Marchesa Raversi give to the messenger you are going
to send to Parma to have these two letters? They are in your
handwriting, and consequently furnish legal evidence against you. Your
Excellency will take me for an inquisitive and indiscreet fellow; in the
second place, he will perhaps feel ashamed of setting before the eyes of
the Signora Duchessa the wretched handwriting of a coachman like myself;
but after all, the thought of your safety opens my mouth, although you
may think me impertinent. Could not Your Excellency dictate those two
letters to me? Then I am the only person compromised, and that very
little; I can say, at a pinch, that you appeared to me in the middle of
a field with an inkhorn in one hand and a pistol in the other, and that
you ordered me to write."
"Give me your hand, my dear Lodovico," cried Fabrizio, "and to prove to
you that I wish to have no secret from a friend like yourself, copy
these two letters just as they are." Lodovico fully appreciated this
mark of confidence, and was extremely grateful for it, but after writing
a few lines, as he saw the boat coming rapidly downstream:
"The letters will be finished sooner," he said to Fabrizio, "if Your
Excellency will take the trouble to dictate them to me." The letters
written, Fabrizio wrote an A and a B on the closing lines, and on a
little scrap of paper which he afterwards crumpled up, put in French:
"_Croyez A et B_." The messenger would be told to hide this scrap of
paper in his clothing.
The boat having come within hailing distance, Lodovico called to the
boatmen by names which were not theirs; they made no reply, and put into
the bank a thousand yards lower down, looking all round them to make
sure that they had not been seen by some _doganiere_.
"I am at your orders," said Lodovico to Fabrizio; "would you like me to
take these letters myself to Parma? Or would you prefer me to accompany
you to Ferrara?"
"To accompany me to Ferrara is a service which I was hardly daring to
ask of you. I shall have to land, and try to enter the town without
shewing my passport. I may tell you that I feel the greatest repugnance
towards travelling under the name of Giletti, and I can think of no one
but yourself who would be able to buy me another passport."
"Why didn't you speak at Casalmaggiore? I know a spy there who would
have sold me an excellent passport, and not dear, for forty or fifty
francs."
One of the two boatmen, whose home was on the right bank of the Po, and
who consequently had no need of a foreign passport to go to Parma,
undertook to deliver the letters. Lodovico, who knew how to handle the
oars, set to work to propel the boat with the other man.
"We shall find on the lower reaches of the Po," he said, "several armed
vessels belonging to the police, and I shall manage to avoid them." Ten
times at least they were obliged to hide among little islets flush with
the water, covered with willows. Three times they set foot on shore in
order to let the boat drift past the police vessels empty. Lodovico took
advantage of these long intervals of leisure to recite to Fabrizio
several of his sonnets. The sentiments were true enough, but were so to
speak blunted by his expression of them, and were not worth the trouble
of putting them on paper; the curious thing was that this ex-coachman
had passions and points of view that were vivid and picturesque; he
became cold and commonplace as soon as he began to write. "It is the
opposite of what we see in society," thought Fabrizio; "people know
nowadays how to express everything gracefully, but their hearts have
nothing to say." He realised that the greatest pleasure he could give to
this faithful servant would be to correct the mistakes in spelling in
his sonnets.
"They laugh at me when I lend them my copy-book," said Lodovico; "but if
Your Excellency would deign to dictate to me the spelling of the words
letter by letter, the envious fellows wouldn't have anything left to
say: spelling doesn't make genius." It was not until the third night of
his journey that Fabrizio was able to land in complete safety in a
thicket of alders, a league above Pontelagoscuro. All the next day he
remained hidden in a hempfield, while Lodovico went ahead to Ferrara; he
there took some humble lodgings in the house of a poor Jew, who at once
realised that there was money to be earned if one knew how to keep one's
mouth shut. That evening, as the light began to fail, Fabrizio entered
Ferrara riding upon a pony; he had every need of this support, for he
had been touched by the sun on the river; the knife-wound that he had in
his thigh, and the sword-thrust that Giletti had given him in the
shoulder, at the beginning of their duel, were inflamed and had brought
on a fever.