All serious thoughts were forgotten on the unexpected appearance of this
charming person. Fabrizio settled himself to live at Bologna in a joy
and security that were profound. This artless tendency to take delight
in everything that entered into his life shewed through in the letters
which he wrote to the Duchessa; to such an extent that she began to take
offence. Fabrizio paid little attention; he wrote, however, in abridged
symbols on the face of his watch: "When I write to the D., must never
say _When I was prelate, when I was in the Church_: that annoys her." He
had bought a pair of ponies with which he was greatly pleased: he used
to harness them to a hired carriage whenever little Marietta wished to
pay a visit to any of the enchanting spots in the neighbourhood of
Bologna; almost every evening he drove her to the _Cascata del Reno_. On
their way back, he would call on the friendly Crescentini, who regarded
himself as to some extent Marietta's father.
"Upon my soul, if this is the _caffè_ life which seemed to me so
ridiculous for a man of any worth, I did wrong to reject it," Fabrizio
said to himself. He forgot that he never went near a _caffè_ except to
read the _Constitutionnel_, and that, since he was a complete stranger
to everyone in Bologna, the gratification of vanity did not enter at all
into his present happiness. When he was not with little Marietta, he was
to be seen at the Observatory, where he was taking a course in
astronomy; the Professor had formed a great affection for him, and
Fabrizio used to lend him his ponies on Sundays, to cut a figure with
his wife on the _Corso della Montagnola_.
_THE MAMMACCIA_
He loathed the idea of harming any living creature, however undeserving
that creature might be. Marietta was resolutely opposed to his seeing
the old woman, but one day, when she was at church, he went up to visit
the _Mammaccia_, who flushed with anger when she saw him enter the room.
"This is a case where one plays the del Dongo," he said to himself.
"How much does Marietta earn in a month when she is working?" he cried,
with the air with which a self-respecting young man, in Paris, enters
the balcony at the Bouffes.
"Fifty scudi."
"You are lying, as usual; tell the truth, or, by God, you shall not have
a centesimo!"
"Very well, she was getting twenty-two scudi in our company at Parma,
when we had the bad luck to meet you; I was getting twelve scudi, and we
used to give Giletti, our protector, a third of what each of us earned.
Out of which, every month almost, Giletti would make Marietta a present;
the present might be worth a couple of scudi."
"You're lying still; you never had more than four scudi. But if you are
good to Marietta, I will engage you as though I were an _impresario_;
every month you shall have twelve scudi for yourself and twenty-two for
her; but if I see her with red eyes, I make you bankrupt."
"You're very stiff and proud; very well, your fine generosity will be
the ruin of us," replied the old woman in a furious tone; "we lose our
_avviamento_" (our connexion). "When we have the enormous misfortune to
be deprived of Your Excellency's protection, we shall no longer be known
in any of the companies, they will all be filled up; we shall not find
any engagement, and, all through you, we shall starve to death."
"Go to the devil," said Fabrizio as he left the room.
"I shall not go to the devil, you impious wretch! But I will go straight
away to the police office, where they shall learn from me that you are a
Monsignore who has flung his cassock to the winds, and that you are no
more Giuseppe Bossi than I am." Fabrizio had already gone some way down
the stairs. He returned.
"In the first place, the police know better than you what my real name
may be; but if you take it into your head to denounce me, if you do
anything so infamous," he said to her with great seriousness, "Lodovico,
shall talk to you, and it is not six slashes with the knife that your
old carcass shall get, but two dozen, and you will be six months in
hospital, and no tobacco."
The old woman turned pale, and dashed at Fabrizio's hand, which she
tried to kiss.
"I accept with gratitude the provision that you are making for Marietta
and me. You look so good that I took you for a fool; and, you bear in
mind, others besides myself may make the same error; I advise you always
to adopt a more noblemanly air." Then she added with an admirable
impudence: "You will reflect upon this good advice, and, as the winter
is not far off, you will make Marietta and me a present of two good
jackets of that fine English stuff which they sell at the big shop in
the Piazza San Petronio."
The love of the pretty Marietta offered Fabrizio all the charms of the
most delightful friendship, which set him dreaming of the happiness of
the same order which he might have been finding in the Duchessa's
company.
"But is it not a very pleasant thing," he asked himself at times, "that
I am not susceptible to that exclusive and passionate preoccupation
which they call love? Among the intimacies into which chance has brought
me at Novara or at Naples, have I ever met a woman whose company, even
in the first few days, was to my mind preferable to riding a good horse
that I did not know? What they call love," he went on, "can that be just
another lie? I feel myself in love, no doubt, as I feel a good appetite
at six o'clock! Can it be out of this slightly vulgar propensity that
those liars have fashioned the love of Othello, the love of Tancred? Or
am I indeed to suppose that I am constructed differently from other men?
That my soul should be lacking in one passion, why should that be? It
would be a singular destiny!"
_THE DUCHESSA_
At Naples, especially in the latter part of his time there, Fabrizio had
met women who, proud of their rank, their beauty and the position held
in society by the adorers whom they had sacrificed to him, had attempted
to lead him. On discovering their intention, Fabrizio had broken with
them in the most summary and open fashion. "Well," he said to himself,
"if I ever allow myself to be carried away by the pleasure, which no
doubt is extremely keen, of being on friendly terms with that charming
woman who is known as the Duchessa Sanseverina, I shall be exactly like
that stupid Frenchman who killed the goose that was laying the golden
eggs. It is to the Duchessa that I owe the sole happiness which has ever
come to me from sentiments of affection: my friendship for her is my
life, and besides, without her, what am I? A poor exile reduced to
living from hand to mouth in a tumble-down country house outside Novara.
I remember how, during the heavy autumn rains, I used to be obliged, at
night, for fear of accidents, to fix up an umbrella over the tester of
my bed. I rode the agent's horses, which he was good enough to allow out
of respect for my blue blood (for my influence, that is), but he was
beginning to find my stay there a trifle long; my father had made me an
allowance of twelve hundred francs, and thought himself damned for
having given bread to a Jacobin. My poor mother and sisters let
themselves go without new clothes to keep me in a position to make a few
little presents to my mistresses. This way of being generous pierced me
to the heart. And besides, people were beginning to suspect my poverty,
and the young noblemen of the district would have been feeling sorry for
me next. Sooner or later some prig would have let me see his contempt
for a poor Jacobin whose plans had come to grief, for in those people's
eyes I was nothing more than that. I should have given or received some
doughty thrust with a sword which would have carried me off to the
fortress of Fenestrelle, or else I should have been obliged to take
refuge again in Switzerland, still on my allowance of twelve hundred
francs. I have the good fortune to be indebted to the Duchessa for the
absence of all these evils; besides, it is she who feels for me the
transports of affection which I ought to be feeling for her.
"Instead of that ridiculous, pettifogging existence which would have
made me a sad dog, a fool, for the last four years I have been living in
a big town, and have an excellent carriage, which things have preserved
me from feelings of envy and all the base sentiments of a provincial
life. This too indulgent aunt is always scolding me because I do not
draw enough money from the banker. Do I wish to ruin for all time so
admirable a position? Do I wish to lose the one friend that I have in
the world? All I need do is to utter a _falsehood_; all I need do is to
say to a charming woman, a woman who is perhaps without a counterpart in
the world, and for whom I feel the most passionate friendship: '_I love
you_,' I who do not know what it is to love amorously. She would spend
the day finding fault with me for the absence of these transports which
are unknown to me. Marietta, on the other hand, who does not see into my
heart, and takes a caress for a transport of the soul, thinks me madly
in love and looks upon herself as the most fortunate of women.
"As a matter of fact, the only slight acquaintance I have ever had with
that tender obsession which is called, I believe, _love_, was with that
young Aniken in the inn at Zonders, near the Belgian frontier."
_FAUSTA_
It is with regret that we have to record here one of Fabrizio's worst
actions; in the midst of this tranquil life, a wretched _pique_ of
vanity took possession of this heart rebellious to love and led it far
astray. Simultaneously with himself there happened to be at Bologna the
famous Fausta F----, unquestionably one of the finest singers of the day
and perhaps the most capricious woman that was ever seen. The excellent
poet Burati, of Venice, had composed the famous satirical sonnet about
her, which at that time was to be heard on the lips alike of princes and
of the meanest street Arabs:
"To wish and not to wish, to adore and on the same day to detest, to
find contentment only in inconstancy, to scorn what the world worships,
while the world worships it: Fausta has these defects and many more.
Look not therefore upon that serpent. If thou seest her, imprudent man,
thou forgettest her caprices. Hast thou the happiness to hear her voice,
thou dost forget thyself, and love makes of thee, in a moment, what
Circe in days of yore made of the companions of Ulysses."
For the moment, this miracle of beauty had come under the spell of the
enormous whiskers and haughty insolence of the young Conte M-----, to
such an extent as not to be revolted by his abominable jealousy.
Fabrizio saw this Conte in the streets of Bologna and was shocked by the
air of superiority with which he took up the pavement and deigned to
display his graces to the public. This young man was extremely rich,
imagined that everything was permitted him, and, as his _prepotenze_ had
brought him threats of punishment, never appeared in public save with
the escort of nine or ten _buli_ (a sort of cut-throat) clad in his
livery, whom he had brought from his estates in the environs of Brescia.
Fabrizio's eye had met once or twice that of this terrible Conte, when
chance led him to hear Fausta sing. He was astonished by the angelic
sweetness of her voice: he had never imagined anything like it; he was
indebted to it for sensations of supreme happiness, which made a
pleasing contrast to the _placidity_ of his life at the time. Could this
at last be love? he asked himself. Thoroughly curious to taste that
sentiment, and amused moreover by the thought of braving Conte M----,
whose expression was more terrifying than that of any drum-major, our
hero let himself fall into the childish habit of passing a great deal
too often in front of the _palazzo_ Tanari, which Conte M---- had taken
for Fausta.
One day, as night was beginning to fall, Fabrizio, seeking to catch
Fausta's eye, was greeted by peals of laughter of the most pointed kind
proceeding from the Conte's _buli_, who were assembled by the door of
the _palazzo_ Tanari. He hastened home, armed himself well, and again
passed before the _palazzo_. Fausta, concealed behind her shutters, was
awaiting his return, and gave him due credit for it. M----, jealous of
the whole world, became specially jealous of Signor Giuseppe Bossi, and
indulged in ridiculous utterances; whereupon every morning our hero had
delivered at his door a letter which contained only these words:
"Signor Giuseppe Bossi destroys troublesome insects and is staying at
the Pellegrino, Via Larga, No. 79."
Conte M----, accustomed to the respect which was everywhere assured him
by his enormous fortune, his blue blood and the physical courage of his
thirty servants, declined altogether to understand the language of this
little missive.
Fabrizio wrote others of the sort to Fausta; M---- posted spies round
this rival, who perhaps was not unattractive; first of all, he learned
his true name, and later that, for the present, he could not shew his
face at Parma. A few days after this, Conte M----, his _buli_, his
magnificent horses and Fausta set off together for Parma.
Fabrizio, becoming excited, followed them next day. In vain did the good
Lodovico utter pathetic remonstrances: Fabrizio turned a deaf ear, and
Lodovico, who was himself extremely brave, admired him for it; besides,
this removal brought him nearer to the pretty mistress he had left at
Casalmaggiore. Through Lodovico's efforts, nine or ten old soldiers of
Napoleon's regiments re-enlisted under Signor Giuseppe Bossi, in the
capacity of servants. "Provided," Fabrizio told himself, when committing
the folly of going after Fausta, "that I have no communication either
with the Minister of Police, Conte Mosca, or with the Duchessa, I expose
only myself to risk. I shall explain later on to my aunt that I was
going in search of love, that beautiful thing which I have never
encountered. The fact is that I think of Fausta even when I am not
looking at her. But is it the memory of her voice that I love, or her
person?" Having ceased to think of an ecclesiastical career, Fabrizio
had grown a pair of moustaches and whiskers almost as terrible as those
of Conte M----, and these disguised him to some extent. He set up his
headquarters not at Parma--that would have been too imprudent--but in a
neighbouring village, in the woods, on the road to Sacca, where his aunt
had her country house. Following Lodovico's advice, he gave himself out
in this village as the valet of a great English nobleman of original
tastes, who spent a hundred thousand francs a year on providing himself
with the pleasures of the chase, and would arrive shortly from the Lake
of Como, where he was detained by the trout-fishing. Fortunately for
him, the charming little _palazzo_ which Conte M---- had taken for the
fair Fausta was situated at the southern extremity of the city of Parma,
precisely on the road to Sacca, and Fausta's windows looked out over the
fine avenues of tall trees which extend beneath the high tower of the
citadel. Fabrizio was completely unknown in this little frequented
quarter; he did not fail to have Conte M---- followed, and one day when
that gentleman had just emerged from the admirable singer's door, he had
the audacity to appear in the street in broad daylight; it must be
admitted that he was mounted upon an excellent horse, and well armed. A
party of musicians, of the sort that frequent the streets in Italy and
are sometimes excellent, came and planted their viols under Fausta's
window; after playing a prelude they sang, and quite well too, a cantata
composed in her honour. Fausta came to the window and had no difficulty
in distinguishing a young man of extremely polite manners, who, stopping
his horse in the middle of the street, bowed to her first of all, then
began to direct at her a gaze that could have but one meaning. In spite
of the exaggeratedly English costume adopted by Fabrizio, she soon
recognised the author of the passionate letters that had brought about
her departure from Bologna. "That is a curious creature," she said to
herself; "it seems to me that I am going to fall in love with him. I
have a hundred louis in hand, I can quite well give that terrible Conte
M---- the slip; if it comes to that, he has no spirit, he never does
anything unexpected, and is only slightly amusing because of the
bloodthirsty appearance of his escort."
On the following day Fabrizio, having learned that every morning at
eleven o'clock Fausta went to hear mass in the centre of the town, in
that same church of San Giovanni which contained the tomb of his
great-uncle, Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo, made bold to follow her
there. To tell the truth, Lodovico had procured him a fine English wig
with hair of the most becoming red. Inspired by the colour of his wig,
which was that of the flames that were devouring his heart, he composed
a sonnet which Fausta thought charming; an unseen hand had taken care to
place it upon her piano. This little war lasted for quite a week; but
Fabrizio found that, in spite of the steps he was taking in every
direction, he was making no real progress; Fausta refused to see him. He
strained the effect of singularity; she admitted afterwards that she was
afraid of him. Fabrizio was kept going now only by a faint hope of
coming to feel what is known as _love_, but frequently he felt bored.
"Let us leave this place, Signore," Lodovico used to urge him; "you are
not in the least in love: I can see that you have the most desperate
coolness and commonsense. Besides, you are making no headway; if only
for shame, let us clear out." Fabrizio was ready to go at the first
moment of ill-humour, when he heard that Fausta was to sing at the
Duchessa Sanseverina's. "Perhaps that sublime voice will succeed in
softening my heart," he said to himself; and he actually ventured to
penetrate in disguise into that _palazzo_ where he was known to every
eye. We may imagine the Duchessa's emotion, when right at the end of the
concert, she noticed a man in the full livery of a _chasseur_, standing
by the door of the big drawing-room: that pose reminded her of someone.
She went to look for Conte Mosca, who only then informed her of the
signal and truly incredible folly of Fabrizio. He took it extremely
well. This love for another than the Duchessa pleased him greatly; the
Conte, a perfect _galantuomo_, apart from politics, acted upon the maxim
that he could himself find happiness only so long as the Duchessa was
happy. "I shall save him from himself," he said to his mistress; "judge
of our enemies' joy if he were arrested in this _palazzo_! Also I have
more than a hundred men with me here, and that is why I made them ask
you for the keys of the great reservoir. He gives out that he is madly
in love with Fausta, and up to the present has failed to get her away
from Conte M----, who lets the foolish woman live the life of a queen."
The Duchessa's features betrayed the keenest grief; so Fabrizio was
nothing more than a libertine, utterly incapable of any tender and
serious feeling. "And not to come and see us! That is what I shall never
be able to forgive him!" she said at length; "and I writing to him every
day to Bologna!"
"I greatly admire his restraint," replied the Conte; "he does not wish
to compromise us by his escapade, and it will be amusing to hear him
tell us about it."
Fausta was too great a fool to be able to keep quiet about what was on
her mind; the day after the concert, every melody in which her eyes had
addressed to that tall young man dressed as a _chasseur_, she spoke to
Conte M---- of an unknown admirer. "Where do you see him?" asked the
Conte in a fury. "In the streets, in church," replied Fausta, at a loss
for words. At once she sought to atone for her imprudence, or at least
to eliminate from it anything that could suggest Fabrizio: she dashed
into an endless description of a tall young man with red hair; he had
blue eyes; no doubt he was some Englishman, very rich and very awkward,
or some prince. At this word Conte M----, who did not shine in the
accuracy of his perceptions, conceived the idea, deliciously flattering
to his vanity, that this rival was none other than the Crown Prince of
Parma. This poor melancholy young man, guarded by five or six governors,
under-governors, preceptors, etc., etc., who never allowed him out of
doors until they had first held council together, used to cast strange
glances at all the passable women whom he was permitted to approach. At
the Duchessa's concert, his rank had placed him in front of all the rest
of the audience in an isolated armchair within three yards of the fair
Fausta, and his stare had been supremely shocking to Conte M----. This
hallucination of an exquisite vanity, that he had a Prince for a rival,
greatly amused Fausta, who took delight in confirming it with a hundred
details artlessly supplied.
"Your race," she asked the Conte, "is surely as old as that of the
Farnese, to which this young man belongs?"
"What do you mean? As old? I have no bastardy in my family, thank
you."[11]
As luck would have it, Conte M---- never had an opportunity of studying
this pretended rival at his leisure, which confirmed him in the
flattering idea of his having a Prince for antagonist. The fact was that
whenever the interests of his enterprise did not summon Fabrizio to
Parma, he remained in the woods round Sacca and on the bank of the Po.
Conte M---- was indeed more proud, but was also more prudent since he
had imagined himself to be on the way to disputing the heart of Fausta
with a Prince; he begged her very seriously to observe the greatest
restraint in all her doings. After flinging himself on his knees like a
jealous and impassioned lover, he declared to her in so many words that
his honour was involved in her not being made the dupe of the young
Prince.
"Excuse me, I should not be his dupe if I cared for him; I must say, I
have never yet seen a Prince at my feet."
"If you yield," he went on with a haughty stare, "I may not perhaps be
able to avenge myself on the Prince but I will, most assuredly, be
avenged"; and he went out, slamming the doors behind him. Had Fabrizio
presented himself at that moment, he would have won his cause.
"If you value your life," her lover said to her that evening as he bade
her good night after the performance, "see that it never comes to my
ears that the young Prince has been inside your house. I can do nothing
to him, curse him, but do not make me remember that I can do everything
to you!"
"Ah, my little Fabrizio," cried Fausta, "if I only knew where to find
you!"
Wounded vanity may carry a young man far who is rich and from his cradle
has always been surrounded by flatterers. The very genuine passion that
Conte M---- felt for Fausta revived with furious intensity; it was in no
way checked by the dangerous prospect of his coming into conflict with
the only son of the Sovereign in whose dominions he happened to be
staying; at the same time he had not the courage to try to see this
Prince, or at least to have him followed. Not being able to attack him
in any other way, M---- dared to consider making him ridiculous. "I
shall be banished for ever from the States of Parma," he said to
himself; "Pshaw! What does that matter?" Had he sought to reconnoitre
the enemy's position, he would have learned that the poor young Prince
never went out of doors without being followed by three or four old men,
tiresome guardians of etiquette, and that the one pleasure of his choice
that was permitted him in the world was mineralogy. By day, as by night,
the little _palazzo_ occupied by Fausta, to which the best society of
Parma went in crowds, was surrounded by watchers; M---- knew, hour by
hour, what she was doing, and, more important still, what others were
doing round about her. There is this to be said in praise of the
precautions taken by her jealous lover: this eminently capricious woman
had at first no idea of the multiplication of his vigilance. The reports
of all his agents informed Conte M---- that a very young man, wearing a
wig of red hair, appeared very often beneath Fausta's windows, but
always in a different disguise. "Evidently, it is the young Prince,"
thought M---- "otherwise, why the disguise? And, by gad, a man like me
is not made to give way to him. But for the usurpations of the Venetian
Republic, I should be a Sovereign Prince myself."
On the feast of Santo Stefano, the reports of the spies took on a more
sombre hue; they seemed to indicate that Fausta was beginning to respond
to the stranger's advances. "I can go away this instant, and take the
woman with me!" M---- said to himself; "but no! At Bologna I fled from
del Dongo; here I should be fleeing before a Prince. But what could the
young man say? He might think that he had succeeded in making me afraid.
And, by God, I come of as good a family as he." M----- was furious, but,
to crown his misery, he made a particular point of not letting himself
appear in the eyes of Fausta, whom he knew to be of a mocking spirit, in
the ridiculous character of a jealous lover. On Santo Stefano's day,
then, after having spent an hour with her and been welcomed by her with
an ardour which seemed to him the height of insincerity, he left her,
shortly before eleven o'clock, getting ready to go and hear mass in the
church of San Giovanni. Conte M---- returned home, put on the shabby
black coat of a young student of theology, and hastened to San Giovanni;
he chose a place behind one of the tombs that adorn the third chapel on
the right; he could see everything that went on in the church beneath
the arm of a cardinal who is represented as kneeling upon his tomb; this
statue kept the light from the back of the chapel and gave him
sufficient concealment. Presently he saw Fausta arrive, more beautiful
than ever. She was in full array, and a score of admirers, drawn from
the highest ranks of society, furnished her with an escort. Joyous
smiles broke from her eyes and lips. "It is evident," thought the
jealous wretch, "that she counts upon meeting here the man she loves,
whom for a long time, perhaps, thanks to me, she has been prevented from
seeing." Suddenly, the keen look of happiness in her eyes seemed to
double in intensity; "My rival is here," muttered M----, and the fury of
his outraged vanity knew no bounds. "What sort of figure do I cut here,
serving as pendant to a young Prince in disguise?" But despite every
effort on his part, he could never succeed in identifying this rival,
for whom his famished gaze kept seeking in every direction.
All through the service Fausta, after letting her eyes wander over the
whole church, would end by bringing her gaze to rest, charged with love
and happiness, on the dim corner in which M---- was concealed. In an
impassioned heart, love is liable to exaggerate the slightest shades of
meaning, it draws from them the most ridiculous conclusions; did not
poor M---- end by persuading himself that Fausta had seen him, that,
having in spite of his efforts perceived his deadly jealousy, she wished
to reproach him with it and at the same time to console him for it with
these tender glances?
The tomb of the cardinal, behind which M---- had taken his post of
observation, was raised four or five feet above the marble floor of San
Giovanni. The fashionable mass ending about one o'clock, the majority of
the faithful left the church, and Fausta dismissed the _beaux_ of the
town, on a pretext of devotion; as she remained kneeling on her chair,
her eyes, which had grown more tender and more brilliant, were fixed on
M----; since there were now only a few people left in the building, she
no longer put her eyes to the trouble of ranging over the whole of it
before coming joyfully to rest on the cardinal's statue. "What
delicacy!" thought Conte M----, imagining that he was the object of her
gaze. At length Fausta rose and quickly left the church after first
making some odd movements with her hands.
M----, blind with love and almost entirely relieved of his mad jealousy,
had left his post to fly to his mistress's _palazzo_ and thank her a
thousand, thousand times, when, as he passed in front of the cardinal's
tomb, he noticed a young man all in black: this funereal being had
remained until then on his knees, close against the epitaph on the tomb,
in such a position that the eyes of the jealous lover, in their search
for him, must pass over his head and miss him altogether.
This young man rose, moved briskly away, and was immediately surrounded
by seven or eight persons, somewhat clumsy in their gait, of a singular
appearance, who seemed to belong to him. M----- hurried after him, but,
without any marked sign of obstruction, was stopped in the narrow
passage formed by the wooden drum of the door, by these clumsy men who
were protecting his rival; and when finally, at the tail of their
procession, he reached the street, he was in time only to see someone
shut the door of a carriage of humble aspect, which, by an odd contrast,
was drawn by a pair of excellent horses, and in a moment had passed out
of sight.
He returned home panting with fury; presently there arrived his
watchers, who reported impassively that that morning the mysterious
lover, disguised as a priest, had been kneeling in an attitude of great
devotion against a tomb which stood in the entrance of a dark chapel in
the church of San Giovanni. Fausta had remained in the church until it
was almost empty, and had then rapidly exchanged certain signs with the
stranger; with her hands she had seemed to be making a series of
crosses. M---- hastened to the faithless one's house; for the first time
she could not conceal her uneasiness; she told him, with the artless
mendacity of a passionate woman that, as usual, she had gone to San
Giovanni, but that she had seen no sign there of that man who was
persecuting her. On hearing these words, M----, beside himself with
rage, railed at her as at the vilest of creatures, told her everything
that he had seen himself, and, the boldness of her lies increasing with
the force of his accusations, took his dagger and flung himself upon
her. With great coolness Fausta said to him:
"Very well, everything you complain of is the absolute truth, but I have
tried to keep it from you so that you should not go rushing desperately
into mad plans of vengeance which may ruin us both; for, let me tell you
once for all, as far as I can make out, the man who is persecuting me
with his attentions is one who is accustomed not to meet with any
opposition to his wishes, in this country at any rate." Having very
skilfully reminded M---- that, after all, he had no legal authority over
her, Fausta ended by saying that probably she would not go again to the
church of San Giovanni. M---- was desperately in love; a trace of
coquetry had perhaps combined itself with prudence in the young woman's
heart; he felt himself disarmed. He thought of leaving Parma; the young
Prince, however powerful he might be, could not follow him, or if he did
follow him would cease to be anything more than his equal. But pride
represented to him afresh that this departure must inevitably have the
appearance of a flight, and Conte M---- forbade himself to think of it.
"He has no suspicion that my little Fabrizio is here," the singer said
to herself, delighted, "and now we can make a fool of him in the most
priceless fashion!"
Fabrizio had no inkling of his good fortune; finding next day that the
singer's windows were carefully shuttered, and not seeing her anywhere,
he began to feel that the joke was lasting rather too long. He felt some
remorse. "In what sort of position am I putting that poor Conte Mosca,
and he the Minister of Police! They will think he is my accomplice, I
shall have come to this place to ruin his career! But if I abandon a
project I have been following for so long, what will the Duchessa say
when I tell her of my essays in love?"
One evening when, on the point of giving up everything, he was
moralising thus to himself, as he strolled under the tall trees which
divided Fausta's _palazzo_ from the citadel, he observed that he was
being followed by a spy of diminutive stature; in vain did he attempt to
shake him off by turning down various streets, this microscopic being
seemed always to cling to his heels. Growing impatient, he dashed into a
lonely street running along the bank of the Parma, where his men were
ambushed; on a signal from him they leaped out upon the poor little spy,
who flung himself at their feet; it was Bettina, Fausta's maid; after
three days of boredom and seclusion, disguised as a man to escape the
dagger of Conte M----, of whom her mistress and she were in great dread,
she had undertaken to come out and tell Fabrizio to see someone loved
him passionately and was burning to see him, but that the said person
could not appear any more in the church of San Giovanni. "The time has
come," Fabrizio said to himself, "hurrah for persistence!"
The little maid was exceedingly pretty, a fact which took Fabrizio's
mind from his moralisings. She told him that the avenue and all the
streets through which he had passed that evening were being jealously
watched, though quite unobtrusively, by M----'s spies. They had taken
rooms on the ground floors or on the first storeys of the houses; hidden
behind the shutters and keeping absolutely silent, they observed
everything that went on in the apparently quite deserted street, and
heard all that was said.
"If those spies had recognised my voice," said little Bettina, "I should
have been stabbed without mercy as soon as I got back to the house, and
my poor mistress with me, perhaps."
This terror rendered her charming in Fabrizio's eyes.
"Conte M----," she went on, "is furious, and the Signora knows that he
will stick at nothing. . . . She told me to say to you that she would
like to be a hundred leagues away from here with you."
Then she gave an account of the scene on St. Stephen's day, and of the
fury of M----, who had missed none of the glances and signs of affection
which Fausta, madly in love that day with Fabrizio, had directed towards
him. The Conte had drawn his dagger, had seized Fausta by the hair, and,
but for her presence of mind, she must have perished.
Fabrizio made the pretty Bettina come up to a little apartment which he
had near there. He told her that he came from Turin, and was the son of
an important personage who happened at that moment to be in Parma, which
meant that he had to be most careful in his movements. Bettina replied
with a smile that he was a far grander gentleman than he chose to
appear. It took our hero some little time to realise that the charming
girl took him for no less a personage than the Crown Prince himself.
Fausta was beginning to be frightened, and to love Fabrizio; she had
taken the precaution of not mentioning his name to her maid, but of
speaking to her always of the Prince. Finally Fabrizio admitted to the
pretty girl that she had guessed aright: "But if my name gets out," he
added, "in spite of the great passion of which I have furnished your
mistress with so many proofs, I shall be obliged to cease to see her,
and at once my father's Ministers, those rascally jokers whom I shall
bring down from their high places some day, will not fail to send her an
order to quit the country which up to now she has been adorning with her
presence."
Towards morning, Fabrizio arranged with the little lady's maid a number
of plans by which he might gain admission to Fausta's house. He summoned
Lodovico and another of his retainers, a man of great cunning, who came
to an understanding with Bettina while he himself wrote the most
extravagant letter to Fausta; the situation allowed all the
exaggerations of tragedy, and Fabrizio did not miss the opportunity. It
was not until day was breaking that he parted from the little lady's
maid, whom he left highly satisfied with the ways of the young Prince.
It had been repeated a hundred times over that, Fausta having now come
to an understanding with her lover, the latter was no longer to pass to
and fro beneath the windows of the little _palazzo_ except when he could
be admitted there, and that then a signal would be given. But Fabrizio,
in love with Bettina, and believing himself to have come almost to the
point with Fausta, could not confine himself to his village two leagues
outside Parma. The following evening, about midnight, he came on
horseback and with a good escort to sing under Fausta's windows an air
then in fashion, the words of which he altered. "Is not this the way in
which our friends the lovers behave?" he asked himself.
Now that Fausta had shewn a desire to meet him, all this pursuit seemed
to Fabrizio very tedious. "No, I am not really in love in the least," he
assured himself as he sang (none too well) beneath the windows of the
little _palazzo_; "Bettina seems to me a hundred times preferable to
Fausta, and it is by her that I should like to be received at this
moment." Fabrizio, distinctly bored, was returning to his village when,
five hundred yards from Fausta's _palazzo_, fifteen or twenty men flung
themselves upon him; four of them seized his horse by the bridle, two
others took hold of his arms. Lodovico and Fabrizio's _bravi_ were
attacked, but managed to escape; they fired several shots with their
pistols. All this was the affair of an instant: fifty lighted torches
appeared in the street in the twinkling of an eye, as though by magic.
All these men were well armed. Fabrizio had jumped down from his horse
in spite of the men who were holding him; he tried to clear a space
round him; he even wounded one of the men who was gripping his arms in
hands like a pair of vices; but he was greatly surprised to hear this
man say to him, in the most respectful tone:
"Your Highness will give me a good pension for this wound, which will be
better for me than falling into the crime of high treason by drawing my
sword against my Prince."
"So this is the punishment I get for my folly," thought Fabrizio; "I
shall have damned myself for a sin which did not seem to me in the least
attractive."
Scarcely had this little attempt at a battle finished, when a number of
lackeys in full livery appeared with a sedan-chair gilded and painted in
an odd fashion. It was one of those grotesque chairs used by masked
revellers at carnival time. Six men, with daggers in their hands,
requested His Highness to get into it, telling him that the cold night
air might be injurious to his voice: they affected the most reverential
forms, the title "Prince" being every moment repeated and almost
shouted. The procession began to move on. Fabrizio counted in the street
more than fifty men carrying lighted torches. It might be about one
o'clock in the morning; all the populace was gazing out of the windows,
the whole thing went off with a certain gravity. "I was afraid of
dagger-thrusts on Conte M----'s part," Fabrizio said to himself; "he
contents himself with making a fool of me; I had not suspected him of
such good taste. But does he really think that he has the Prince to deal
with? If he knows that I am only Fabrizio, ware the dirk!"
These fifty men carrying torches and the twenty armed men, after
stopping for a long interval under Fausta's windows, proceeded to parade
before the finest _palazzi_ in the town. A pair of _maggiordomi_ posted
one on either side of the sedan-chair, asked His Highness from time to
time whether he had any order to give them. Fabrizio took care not to
lose his head; by the light which the torches cast he saw that Lodovico
and his men were following the procession as closely as possible.
Fabrizio said to himself: "Lodovico has only nine or ten men, and dares
not attack." From the interior of his sedan-chair he could see quite
plainly that the men responsible for carrying out this practical joke
were armed to the teeth. He made a show of talking and laughing with the
_maggiordomi_ who were looking after him. After more than two hours of
this triumphal march, he saw that they were about to pass the end of the
street in which the _palazzo_ Sanseverina stood.
As they turned the corner, he quickly opened the door in the front of
the chair, jumped out over one of the carrying poles, felled with a blow
from his dagger one of the flunkeys who thrust a torch into his face; he
received a stab in the shoulder from a dirk; a second flunkey singed his
beard with his lighted torch, and finally Fabrizio reached Lodovico to
whom he shouted: "Kill! Kill everyone carrying a torch!" Lodovico used
his sword, and delivered Fabrizio from two men who had started in
pursuit of him. He arrived, running, at the door of the _palazzo_
Sanseverina; out of curiosity the porter had opened the little door,
three feet high, that was cut in the big door, and was gazing in
bewilderment at this great mass of torches. Fabrizio sprang inside and
shut this miniature door behind him; he ran to the garden and escaped by
a gate which opened on to an unfrequented street. An hour later, he was
out of the town; at daybreak he crossed the frontier of the States of
Modena, and was safe. That evening he entered Bologna. "Here is a fine
expedition," he said to himself; "I never even managed to speak to my
charmer." He made haste to write letters of apology to the Conte and the
Duchessa, prudent letters which, while describing all that was going on
in his heart, could not give away any information to an enemy. "I was in
love with love," he said to the Duchessa, "I have done everything in the
world to acquire knowledge of it; but it appears that nature has refused
me a heart to love, and to be melancholy; I cannot raise myself above
the level of vulgar pleasure," and so forth.
It would be impossible to give any idea of the stir that this escapade
caused in Parma. The mystery of it excited curiosity: innumerable people
had seen the torches and the sedan-chair. But who was the man they were
carrying away, to whom every mark of respect was paid? No one of note
was missing from the town next day.
The humble folk who lived in the street from which the prisoner had made
his escape did indeed say that they had seen a corpse; but in daylight,
when they ventured out of their houses, they found no other traces of
the fray than quantities of blood spilled on the pavement. More than
twenty thousand sightseers came to visit the street that day. Italian
towns are accustomed to singular spectacles, but the _why_ and the
_wherefore_ of these are always known. What shocked Parma about this
occurrence was that even a month afterwards, when people had ceased to
speak of nothing but the torchlight procession, nobody, thanks to the
prudence of Conte Mosca, had been able to guess the name of the rival
who had sought to carry off Fausta, from Conte M----. This jealous and
vindictive lover had taken flight at the beginning of the parade. By the
Conte's order. Fausta was sent to the citadel. The Duchessa laughed
heartily over a little act of injustice which the Conte was obliged to
commit to put a stop to the curiosity of the Prince, who otherwise might
have succeeded in hitting upon the name of Fabrizio.
There was to be seen at Parma a scholar, arrived there from the North to
write a History of the Middle Ages; he was in search of manuscripts in
the libraries, and the Conte had given him every possible facility. But
this scholar, who was still quite young, shewed a violent temper; he
believed, for one thing, that everybody in Parma was trying to make a
fool of him. It was true that the boys in the streets sometimes followed
him on account of an immense shock of bright red hair which he displayed
with pride. This scholar imagined that at his inn they were asking
exaggerated prices for everything, and he never paid for the smallest
trifle without first looking up its price in the _Travels_ of a certain
Mrs. Starke, a book which has gone into its twentieth edition because it
indicates to the prudent Englishman the price of a turkey, an apple, a
glass of milk, and so forth.
The scholar with the fiery crest, on the evening of the very day on
which Fabrizio made this forced excursion, flew into a rage at his inn,
and drew from his pocket a brace of small pistols to avenge himself on
the _cameriere_ who demanded two soldi for an indifferent peach. He was
arrested, for to carry pocket pistols is a serious crime!
As this irascible scholar was long and lean, the Conte conceived the
idea, next morning, of making him pass in the Prince's eyes as the rash
fellow who, having tried to steal away Fausta from Conte M----, had
afterwards been hoaxed. The carrying of pocket pistols is punishable at
Parma with three years in the galleys; but this punishment is never
enforced. After a fortnight in prison, during which time the scholar had
seen no one but a lawyer who had put in him a terrible fright by his
account of the atrocious laws aimed by the pusillanimity of those in
power against the bearers of hidden arms, another lawyer visited the
prison and told him of the expedition inflicted by Conte M---- on a
rival who had not yet been identified. "The police do not wish to admit
to the Prince that they have not been able to find out who this rival
is. Confess that you were seeking to find favour with Fausta; that fifty
brigands carried you off while you were singing beneath her window; that
for an hour they took you about the town in a sedan-chair without saying
anything to you that was not perfectly proper. There is nothing
humiliating about this confession, you are asked to say only one word.
As soon as, by saying it, you have relieved the police from their
difficulty, you will be put into a post-chaise and driven to the
frontier, where they will bid you good-bye."
The scholar held out for a month; two or three times the Prince was on
the point of having him brought to the Ministry of the Interior, and of
being present in person at his examination. But at last he gave no more
thought to the matter when the scholar, losing patience, decided to
confess everything, and was conveyed to the frontier. The Prince
remained convinced that Conte M----'s rival had a forest of red hair.
Three days after the escapade, while Fabrizio, who was in hiding at
Bologna, was planning with the faithful Lodovico the best way to catch
Conte M----, he learned that he too was hiding in a village in the
mountains on the road to Florence. The Conte had only two or three of
his _buli_ with him; next day, just as he was coming home from his ride,
he was seized by eight men in masks who gave him to understand that they
were _sbirri_ from Parma. They conducted him, after bandaging his eyes,
to an inn two leagues farther up the mountains, where he found himself
treated with the utmost possible respect, and an abundant supper
awaiting him. He was served with the best wines of Italy and Spain.
"Am I a State prisoner then?" asked the Conte.
"Nothing of the sort," the masked Lodovico answered him, most politely.
"You have given offence to a private citizen by taking upon yourself to
have him carried about in a sedan-chair; to-morrow morning he wishes to
fight a duel with you. If you kill him, you will find a pair of good
horses, money, and relays prepared for you along the road to Genoa."
"What is the name of this fire-eater?" asked the Conte with irritation.
"He is called _Bombace_. You will have the choice of weapons and good
seconds, thoroughly loyal, but it is essential that one of you die!"
"Why, it is murder, then!" said the Conte; growing frightened.
"Please God, no! It is simply a duel to the death with the young man
whom you have had carried about the streets of Parma in the middle of
the night, and whose honour would be tarnished if you remained alive.
One or other of you is superfluous on this earth, therefore try to kill
him; you shall have swords, pistols, sabres, all the weapons that can be
procured at a few hours' notice, for we have to make haste; the police
at Bologna are most diligent, as you perhaps know, and they must on no
account interfere with this duel which is necessary to the honour of the
young man whom you have made to look foolish."
"But if this young man is a Prince. . . ."
"He is a private citizen like yourself, and indeed a great deal less
wealthy than you, but he wishes to fight to the death, and he will force
you to fight, I warn you."
"Nothing in the world frightens me!" cried M----.
"That is just what your adversary most passionately desires," replied
Lodovico. "To-morrow, at dawn, prepare to defend your life; it will be
attacked by a man who has good reason to be extremely angry, and will
not let you off lightly; I repeat that you will have the choice of
weapons; and remember to make your will."
Next morning, about six o'clock, breakfast was brought to Conte M----, a
door was then opened in the room in which he was confined, and he was
made to step into the courtyard of a country inn; this courtyard was
surrounded by hedges and walls of a certain height, and its doors had
been carefully closed.
In a corner, upon a table which the Conte was requested to approach, he
found several bottles of wine and brandy, two pistols, two swords, two
sabres, paper and ink; a score of _contadini_ stood in the windows of
the inn which overlooked the courtyard. The Conte implored their pity.
"They want to murder me," he cried, "save my life!"
"You deceive yourself, or you wish to deceive others," called out
Fabrizio, who was at the opposite corner of the courtyard, beside a table
strewn with weapons. He was in his shirtsleeves, and his face was
concealed by one of those wire masks which one finds in fencing-rooms.
"I require you," Fabrizio went on, "to put on the wire mask which is
lying beside you, then to advance towards me with a sword or with
pistols; as you were told yesterday evening, you have the choice of
weapons."
Conte M---- raised endless difficulties, and seemed most reluctant to
fight; Fabrizio, for his part, was afraid of the arrival of the police,
although they were in the mountains quite five leagues from Bologna. He
ended by hurling at his rival the most atrocious insults; at last he had
the good fortune to enrage Conte M----, who seized a sword and advanced
upon him. The fight began quietly enough.
After a few minutes, it was interrupted by a great tumult. Our hero had
been quite aware that he was involving himself in an action which, for
the rest of his life, might be a subject of reproach or at least of
slanderous imputations. He had sent Lodovico into the country to procure
witnesses. Lodovico gave money to some strangers who were working in a
neighbouring wood; they ran to the inn shouting, thinking that the game
was to kill an enemy of the man who had paid them. When they reached the
inn, Lodovico asked them to keep their eyes open and to notice whether
either of the two young men who were fighting acted treacherously and
took an unfair advantage over the other.
The fight, which had been interrupted for the time being by the cries of
murder uttered by the _contadini_, was slow in beginning again. Fabrizio
offered fresh insults to the fatuity of the Conte. "Signor Conte," he
shouted to him, "when one is insolent, one ought to be brave also. I
feel that the conditions are hard on you; you prefer to pay people who
are brave." The Conte, once more stung to action, began to shout to him
that he had for years frequented the fencing-school of the famous
Battistini at Naples, and that he was going to punish his insolence.
Conte M----'s anger having at length reappeared, he fought with a
certain determination, which did not however prevent Fabrizio from
giving him a very pretty thrust in the chest with his sword, which kept
him in bed for several months. Lodovico, while giving first aid to the
wounded man, whispered in his ear: "If you report this duel to the
police, I will have you stabbed in your bed."
Fabrizio withdrew to Florence; as he had remained in hiding at Bologna,
it was only at Florence that he received all the Duchessa's letters of
reproach; she could not forgive his having come to her concert and made
no attempt to speak to her. Fabrizio was delighted by Conte Mosca's
letters; they breathed a sincere friendship and the most noble
sentiments. He gathered that the Conte had written to Bologna, in such a
way as to clear him of any suspicion which might attach to him as a
result of the duel. The police behaved with perfect justice: they
reported that two strangers, of whom one only, the wounded man, was
known to them (namely Conte M----), had fought with swords, in front of
more than thirty _contadini_, among whom there had arrived towards the
end of the fight the curate of the village, who had made vain efforts to
separate the combatants. As the name of Giuseppe Bossi had never been
mentioned, less than two months afterwards Fabrizio returned to Bologna,
more convinced than ever that his destiny condemned him never to know
the noble and intellectual side of love. So much he gave himself the
pleasure of explaining at great length to the Duchessa; he was
thoroughly tired of his solitary life and now felt a passionate desire
to return to those charming evenings which he used to pass with the
Conte and his aunt. Since then he had never tasted the delights of good
society.
"I am so bored with the thought of the love which I sought to give
myself, and of Fausta," he wrote to the Duchessa, "that now, even if her
fancy were still to favour me, I would not go twenty leagues to hold her
to her promise; so have no fear, as you tell me you have, of my going to
Paris, where I see that she has now made her appearance and has created
a _furore_. I would travel all the leagues in the world to spend an
evening with you and with that Conte who is so good to his friends."
[Footnote 11: Pier-Luigi, the first sovereign of the Farnese family, so
renowned for his virtues, was, as is generally known, a natural son of
His Holiness Pope Paul III.]