Title:      The Charterhouse of Parma (1839)
Author:     Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle)
            Translated from the French by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff
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Date first posted:          March 2003
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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      The Charterhouse of Parma (1839)
Author:     Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle)
            Translated from the French by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff





TRANSLATOR'S DEDICATION

To MADAME C-------- R--------

In whom alone survives the spirit of the Sanseverina, to resist
tyranny, to unmask intrigue, to encourage ambition, this story of her
countrywoman is, in the language of her adopted country, dedicated by

C. K. S.-M.
Pisa, December, 1924.



TO THE READER

It was in the winter of 1830 and three hundred leagues from Paris that
this tale was written; thus it contains no allusion to the events of
1839.

Many years before 1830, at the time when our Armies were overrunning
Europe, chance put me in possession of a billeting order on the house
of a Canon: this was at Padua, a charming town in Italy; my stay being
prolonged, we became friends.

Passing through Padua again towards the end of 1830, I hastened to the
house of the good Canon: he himself was dead, that I knew, but I
wished to see once again the room in which we had passed so many
pleasant evenings, evenings on which I had often looked back since. I
found there the Canon's nephew and his wife who welcomed me like an
old friend. Several people came in, and we did not break up until a
very late hour; the nephew sent out to the Caffè Pedrocchi for an
excellent _zabaione_. What more than anything kept us up was the story
of the Duchessa Sanseverina, to which someone made an allusion, and
which the nephew was good enough to relate from beginning to end, in
my honour.

"In the place to which I am going," I told my friends, "I am not
likely to find evenings like this, and, to while away the long hours
of darkness, I shall make a novel out of your story."

"In that case," said the nephew, "let me give you my uncle's journal,
which, under the heading _Parma_, mentions several of the intrigues of
that court, in the days when the Duchessa's word was law there; but,
have a care! this story is anything but moral, and now that you pride
yourselves in France on your gospel purity, it may win you the
reputation of an _assassin_."

I publish this tale without any alteration from the manuscript of
1830, a course which may have two drawbacks:

The first for the reader: the characters being Italians will perhaps
interest him less, hearts in that country differing considerably from
hearts in France: the Italians are sincere, honest folk and, not
taking offence, say what is in their minds; it is only when the mood
seizes them that they shew any vanity; which then becomes passion, and
goes by the name of _puntiglio_. Lastly, poverty is not, with them, a
subject for ridicule.

The second drawback concerns the author.

I confess that I have been so bold as to leave my characters with
their natural asperities; but, on the other hand--this I proclaim
aloud--I heap the most moral censure upon many of their actions. To
what purpose should I give them the exalted morality and other graces
of French characters, who love money above all things, and sin
scarcely ever from motives of hatred or love? The Italians in this
tale are almost the opposite. Besides, it seems to me that, whenever
one takes a stride of two hundred leagues from South to North, the
change of scene that occurs is tantamount to a fresh tale. The Canon's
charming niece had known and indeed had been greatly devoted to the
Duchessa Sanseverina, and begs me to alter nothing in her adventures,
which are reprehensible.

23rd January, 1839.





THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA

VOLUME ONE

CHAPTER ONE

On the 15th of May, 1796, General Bonaparte made his entry into Milan
at the head of that young army which had shortly before crossed the
Bridge of Lodi and taught the world that after all these centuries
Caesar and Alexander had a successor. The miracles of gallantry and
genius of which Italy was a witness in the space of a few months
aroused a slumbering people; only a week before the arrival of the
French, the Milanese still regarded them as a mere rabble of brigands,
accustomed invariably to flee before the troops of His Imperial and
Royal Majesty; so much at least was reported to them three times
weekly by a little news-sheet no bigger than one's hand, and printed
on soiled paper.

In the Middle Ages the Republicans of Lombardy had given proof of a
valour equal to that of the French, and deserved to see their city
rased to the ground by the German Emperors. Since they had become
_loyal subjects_, their great occupation was the printing of sonnets
upon handkerchiefs of rose-coloured taffeta whenever the marriage
occurred of a young lady belonging to some rich or noble family. Two
or three years after that great event in her life, the young lady in
question used to engage a devoted admirer: sometimes the name of the
_cicisbeo_ chosen by the husband's family occupied an honourable place
in the marriage contract. It was a far cry from these effeminate ways
to the profound emotions aroused by the unexpected arrival of the
French army. Presently there sprang up a new and passionate way of
life. A whole people discovered, on the 15th of May, 1796, that
everything which until then it had respected was supremely ridiculous,
if not actually hateful. The departure of the last Austrian regiment
marked the collapse of the old ideas: to risk one's life became the
fashion. People saw that in order to be really happy after centuries
of cloying sensations, it was necessary to love one's country with a
real love and to seek out heroic actions. They had been plunged in the
darkest night by the continuation of the jealous despotism of Charles
V and Philip II; they overturned these monarchs' statues and
immediately found themselves flooded with daylight. For the last
half-century, as the _Encyclopaedia_ and Voltaire gained ground in
France, the monks had been dinning into the ears of the good people of
Milan that to learn to read, or for that matter to learn anything at
all was a great waste of labour, and that by paying one's exact tithe
to one's parish priest and faithfully reporting to him all one's
little misdeeds, one was practically certain of having a good place in
Paradise. To complete the debilitation of this people once so
formidable and so rational, Austria had sold them, on easy terms, the
privilege of not having to furnish any recruits to her army.

In 1796, the Milanese army was composed of four and twenty
rapscallions dressed in scarlet, who guarded the town with the
assistance of four magnificent regiments of Hungarian Grenadiers.
Freedom of morals was extreme, but passion very rare; otherwise, apart
from the inconvenience of having to repeat everything to one's parish
priest, on pain of ruin even in this world, the good people of Milan
were still subjected to certain little monarchical interferences which
could not fail to be vexatious. For instance, the Archduke, who
resided at Milan and governed in the name of the Emperor, his
cousin, had had the lucrative idea of trading in corn. In
consequence, an order prohibiting the peasants from selling their
grain until His Highness had filled his granaries.

In May, 1796, three days after the entry of the French, a young
painter in miniature, slightly mad, named Gros, afterwards famous, who
had come with the army, overhearing in the great Caffè dei Servi
(which was then in fashion) an account of the exploits of the
Archduke, who moreover was extremely stout, picked up the list of ices
which was printed on a sheet of coarse yellow paper. On the back of
this he drew the fat Archduke; a French soldier was stabbing him with
his bayonet in the stomach, and instead of blood there gushed out an
incredible quantity of corn. What we call a lampoon or caricature was
unknown in this land of crafty 'despotism. The drawing, left by Gros
on the table of the Caffè dei Servi, seemed a miracle fallen from
heaven; it was engraved and printed during the night, and next day
twenty thousand copies of it were sold.

The same day, there were posted up notices of a forced loan of six
millions, levied to supply the needs of the French army which, having
just won six battles and conquered a score of provinces, wanted
nothing now but shoes, breeches, jackets and caps.

The mass of prosperity and pleasure which burst into Lombardy in the
wake of these French ragamuffins was so great that only the priests
and a few nobles were conscious of the burden of this levy of six
millions, shortly to be followed by a number of others. These French
soldiers laughed and sang all day long; they were all under
twenty-five years of age, and their Commander in Chief, who had
reached twenty-seven, was reckoned the oldest man in his army. This
gaiety, this youthfulness, this irresponsibility furnished a jocular
reply to the furious preachings of the monks, who, for six months, had
been announcing from the pulpit that the French were monsters,
obliged, upon pain of death, to burn down everything and to cut off
everyone's head. With this object, each of their regiments marched
with a guillotine at its head.

In the country districts one saw at the cottage doors the French
soldier engaged in dandling the housewife's baby in his arms, and
almost every evening some drummer, scraping a fiddle, would improvise
a ball. Our country dances proving a great deal too skilful and
complicated for the soldiers, who for that matter barely knew them
themselves, to be able to teach them to the women of the country, it
was the latter who shewed the young Frenchmen the _Monferrina_,
_Salterello_ and other Italian dances.

The officers had been lodged, as far as possible, with the wealthy
inhabitants; they had every need of comfort. A certain lieutenant,
for instance, named Robert, received a billeting order on the
_palazzo_ of the Marchesa del Dongo. This officer, a young conscript
not over-burdened with scruples, possessed as his whole worldly
wealth, when he entered this _palazzo_, a scudo of six francs which he
had received at Piacenza. After the crossing of the Bridge of Lodi he
had taken from a fine Austrian officer, killed by a ball, a
magnificent pair of nankeen pantaloons, quite new, and never did any
garment come more opportunely. His officer's epaulettes were of wool,
and the cloth of his tunic was stitched to the lining of the sleeves
so that its scraps might hold together; but there was something even
more distressing; the soles of his shoes were made out of pieces of
soldiers' caps, likewise picked up on the field of battle, somewhere
beyond the Bridge of Lodi. These makeshift soles were tied on over his
shoes with pieces of string which were plainly visible, so that when
the major-domo appeared at the door of Lieutenant Robert's room
bringing him an invitation to dine with the Signora Marchesa, the
officer was thrown into the utmost confusion. He and his orderly spent
the two hours that divided him from this fatal dinner in trying to
patch up the tunic a little and in dyeing black, with ink, those
wretched strings round his shoes. At last the dread moment arrived.
"Never in my life did I feel more ill at ease," Lieutenant Robert told
me; "the ladies expected that I would terrify them, and I was
trembling far more than they were. I looked down at my shoes and did
not know how to walk gracefully. The Marchesa del Dongo," he went on,
"was then in the full bloom of her beauty: you have seen her for
yourself, with those lovely eyes of an angelic sweetness, and the
dusky gold of her hair which made such a perfect frame for the oval of
that charming face. I had in my room a _Herodias_ by Leonardo da
Vinci, which might have been her portrait. Mercifully, I was so
overcome by her supernatural beauty that I forgot all about my
clothes. For the last two years I had been seeing nothing that was not
ugly and wretched, in the mountains behind Genoa: I ventured to say a
few words to her to express my delight.

"But I had too much sense to waste any time upon compliments. As I
was turning my phrases I saw, in a dining-room built entirely of
marble, a dozen flunkeys and footmen dressed in what seemed to me then
the height of magnificence. Just imagine, the rascals had not only
good shoes on their feet, but silver buckles as well. I could see them
all, out of the corner of my eye, staring stupidly at my coat and
perhaps at my shoes also, which cut me to the heart. I could have
frightened all these fellows with a word; but how was I to put them in
their place without running the risk of offending the ladies? For the
Marchesa, to fortify her own courage a little, as she has told me a
hundred times since, had sent to fetch from the convent where she was
still at school Gina del Dongo, her husband's sister, who was
afterwards that charming Contessa Pietranera: no one, in prosperity,
surpassed her in gaiety and sweetness of temper, just as no one
surpassed her in courage and serenity of soul when fortune turned
against her.

"Gina, who at that time might have been thirteen but looked more like
eighteen, a lively, downright girl, as you know, was in such fear of
bursting out laughing at the sight of my costume that she dared not
eat; the Marchesa, on the other hand, loaded me with constrained
civilities; she could see quite well the movements of impatience in my
eyes. In a word, I cut a sorry figure, I chewed the bread of scorn, a
thing which is said to be impossible for a Frenchman. At length, a
heaven-sent idea shone in my mind: I set to work to tell the ladies of
my poverty and of what we had suffered for the last two years in the
mountains behind Genoa where we were kept by idiotic old Generals.
There, I told them, we were paid in _assignats_ which were not legal
tender in the country, and given three ounces of bread daily. I had
not been speaking for two minutes before there were tears in the good
Marchesa's eyes, and Gina had grown serious.

"'What, Lieutenant,' she broke in, 'three ounces of bread!'

"'Yes, Signorina; but to make up for that the issue ran short three
days in the week, and as the peasants on whom we were billeted were
even worse off than ourselves, we used to hand on some of our bread to
them.'

"On leaving the table, I offered the Marchesa my arm as far as the
door of the drawing-room, then hurried back and gave the servant who
had waited upon me at dinner that solitary scudo of six francs upon
the spending of which I had built so many castles in the air.

"A week later," Robert went on, "when it was satisfactorily
established that the French were not guillotining anyone, the
Marchese del Dongo returned from his castle of Grianta on the Lake of
Como, to which he had gallantly retired on the approach of the army,
abandoning to the fortunes of war his young and beautiful wife and
his sister. The hatred that this Marchese felt for us was equal to his
fear, that is to say immeasurable: his fat face, pale and pious, was
an amusing spectacle when he was being polite to me. On the day after
his return to Milan, I received three ells of cloth and two hundred
francs out of the levy of six millions; I renewed my wardrobe, and
became cavalier to the ladies, for the season of balls was beginning."

Lieutenant Robert's story was more or less that of all the French
troops; instead of laughing at the wretched plight of these poor
soldiers, people were sorry for them and came to love them.

This period of unlooked-for happiness and wild excitement lasted but
two short years; the frenzy had been so excessive and so general
that it would be impossible for me to give any idea of it, were it not
for this historical and profound reflexion: these people had been
living in a state of boredom for the last hundred years.

The thirst for pleasure natural in southern countries had prevailed in
former times at the court of the Visconti and Sforza, those famous
Dukes of Milan. But from the year 1524, when the Spaniards conquered
the Milanese, and conquered them as taciturn, suspicious, arrogant
masters, always in dread of revolt, gaiety had fled. The subject
race, adopting the manners of their masters, thought more of avenging
the least insult by a dagger-blow than of enjoying the fleeting hour.

This frenzied joy, this gaiety, this thirst for pleasure, this
tendency to forget every sad or even reasonable feeling, were carried
to such a pitch, between the 15th of May, 1796, when the French
entered Milan, and April, 1799, when they were driven out again after
the battle of Cassano, that instances have been cited of old
millionaire merchants, old money-lenders, old scriveners who, during
this interval, quite forgot to pull long faces and to amass money.

At the most it would have been possible to point to a few families
belonging to the higher ranks of the nobility, who had retired to
their palaces in the country, as though in a sullen revolt against the
prevailing high spirits and the expansion of every heart. It is true
that these noble and wealthy families had been given a distressing
prominence in the allocation of the forced loans exacted for the
French army.

The Marchese del Dongo, irritated by the spectacle of so much gaiety,
had been one of the first to return to his magnificent castle of
Grianta, on the farther side of Como, whither his ladies took with
them Lieutenant Robert. This castle, standing in a position which is
perhaps unique in the world, on a plateau one hundred and fifty feet
above that sublime lake, a great part of which it commands, had been
originally a fortress. The del Dongo family had constructed it in the
fifteenth century, as was everywhere attested by marble tablets
charged with their arms; one could still see the drawbridges and deep
moats, though the latter, it must be admitted, had been drained of
their water; but with its walls eighty feet in height and six in
thickness, this castle was safe from assault, and it was for this
reason that it was dear to the timorous Marchese. Surrounded by some
twenty-five or thirty retainers whom he supposed to be devoted to his
person, presumably because he never opened his mouth except to curse
them, he was less tormented by fear than at Milan.

This fear was not altogether groundless: he was in most active
correspondence with a spy posted by Austria on the Swiss frontier
three leagues from Grianta, to contrive the escape of the prisoners
taken on the field of battle; conduct which might have been viewed in
a serious light by the French Generals.

The Marchese had left his young wife at Milan; she looked after the
affairs of the family there, and was responsible for providing the
sums levied on the _casa del Dongo_ (as they say in Italy) ; she
sought to have these reduced, which obliged her to visit those of the
nobility who had accepted public office, and even some highly
influential persons who were not of noble birth. A great event now
occurred in this family. The Marchese had arranged the marriage of his
young sister Gina with a personage of great wealth and the very
highest birth; but he powdered his hair; in virtue of which, Ghia
received him with shouts of laughter, and presently took the rash step
of marrying the Conte Pietranera. He was, it is true, a very fine
gentleman, of the most personable appearance, but ruined for
generations past in estate, and to complete the disgrace of the match,
a fervent supporter of the new ideas. Pietranera was a sub-lieutenant
in the Italian Legion; this was the last straw for the Marchese.

After these two years of folly and happiness, the Directory in Paris,
giving itself the ate of a sovereign firmly enthroned, began to shew
a mortal hatred of everything that was not commonplace. The
incompetent Generals whom it imposed on the Army of Italy lost a
succession of battles on those same plains of Verona, which had
witnessed two years before the prodigies of Arcole and Lonato. The
Austrians again drew near to Milan; Lieutenant Robert, who had been
promoted to the command of a battalion and had been wounded at the
battle of Cassano, came to lodge for the last time in the house of his
friend the Marchesa del Dongo. Their parting was a sad one; Robert set
forth with Conte Pietranera, who followed the French in their
retirement on Novi. The young Contessa, to whom her brother refused to
pay her marriage portion, followed the army, riding in a cart.

Then began that period of reaction and a return to the old ideas,
which the Milanese call _i tredici mesi_ (the thirteen months),
because as it turned out their destiny willed that this return to
stupidity should endure for thirteen months only, until Marengo.
Everyone who was old, bigoted, morose, reappeared at the head of
affairs, and resumed the leadership of society; presently the people
who had remained faithful to the sound doctrines published a report
in the villages that Napoleon had been hanged by the Mamelukes in
Egypt, as he so richly deserved.

Among these men who had retired to sulk on their estates and came back
now athirst for vengeance, the Marchese del Dongo distinguished
himself by his rabidity; the extravagance of his sentiments carried
him naturally to the head of his party. These gentlemen, quite worthy
people when they were not in a state of panic, but who were always
trembling, succeeded in getting round the Austrian General: a good
enough man at heart, he let himself be persuaded that severity was the
best policy, and ordered the arrest of one hundred and fifty patriots:
quite the best man to be found in Italy at the time.

They were speedily deported to the Bocche di Cattaro, and, flung into
subterranean caves, the moisture and above all the want of bread did
prompt justice to each and all of these rascals.

The Marchese del Dongo had an exalted position, and, as he combined
with a host of other fine qualities a sordid avarice, he would boast
publicly that he never sent a scudo to his sister, the Contessa
Pietranera: still madly in love, she refused to leave her husband,
and was starving by his side in France. The good Marchesa was in
despair; finally she managed to abstract a few small diamonds from
her jewel case, which her husband took from her every evening to stow
away under his bed, in an iron coffer: the Marchesa had brought him a
dowry of 800,000 francs, and received 80 francs monthly for her
personal expenses. During the thirteen months in which the French were
absent from Milan, this most timid of women found various pretexts and
never went out of mourning.

We must confess that, following the example of many grave authors, we
have begun the history of our hero a year before his birth. This
essential personage is none other than Fabrizio Valserra, Marchesino
del Dongo, as the style is at Milan. [Footnote: By the local custom,
borrowed from Germany, this title is given to every son of a Marchese;
_Contino_ to the son of a Conte, _Contessina_ to the daughter of a
Conte, etc.]


He had taken the trouble to be born just when the French were driven
out, and found himself, by the accident of birth, the second son of
that Marchese del Dongo who was so great a gentleman, and with whose
fat, pasty face, false smile and unbounded hatred for the new ideas
the reader is already acquainted. The whole of the family fortune was
already settled upon the elder son, Ascanio del Dongo, the worthy
image of his father. He was eight years old and Fabrizio two when all
of a sudden that General Bonaparte, whom everyone of good family
understood to have been hanged long ago, came down from the Mont
Saint-Bernard. He entered Milan: that moment is still unique in
history; imagine a whole populace madly in love. A few days later,
Napoleon won the battle of Marengo. The rest needs no telling. The
frenzy of the Milanese reached its climax; but this time it was
mingled with ideas of vengeance: these good people had been taught to
hate. Presently they saw arrive in their midst all that remained of
the patriots deported to the Bocche di Cattaro; their return was
celebrated with a national festa. Their pale faces, their great
startled eyes, their shrunken limbs were in strange contrast to the
joy that broke out on every side. Their arrival was the signal for
departure for the families most deeply compromised. The Marchese del
Dongo was one of the first to flee to his castle of Grianta. The heads
of the great families were filled with hatred and fear; but their
wives, their daughters, remembered the joys of the former French
occupation, and thought with regret of Milan and those gay balls,
which, immediately after Marengo, were organised afresh at the _casa
Tanzi_. A few days after the victory, the French General responsible
for maintaining order in Lombardy discovered that all the farmers on
the noblemen's estates, all the old wives in the villages, so far from
still thinking of this astonishing victory at Marengo, which had
altered the destinies of Italy and recaptured thirteen fortified
positions in a single day, had their minds occupied only by a prophecy
of San Giovila, the principal Patron Saint of Brescia. According to
this inspired utterance, the prosperity of France and of Napoleon was
to cease just thirteen weeks after Marengo. What does to some extent
excuse the Marchese del Dongo and all the nobles sulking on their
estates is that literally and without any affectation they believed in
the prophecy. Not one of these gentlemen had read as many as four
volumes in his life; quite openly they were making their preparations
to return to Milan at the end of the thirteen weeks; but time, as it
went on, recorded fresh successes for the cause of France. Returning
to Paris, Napoleon, by wise decrees, saved the country from revolution
at home as he had saved it from its foreign enemies at Marengo. Then
the Lombard nobles, in the safe shelter of their castles, discovered
that at first they had misinterpreted the prophecy of the holy
patron of Brescia; it was a question not of thirteen weeks, but of
thirteen months. The thirteen months went by, and the prosperity of
France seemed to increase daily.

We pass lightly over ten years of progress and happiness, from 1800 to
1810. Fabrizio spent the first part of this decade at the castle of
Grianta, giving and receiving an abundance of fisticuffs among the
little _contadini_ of the village, and learning nothing, not even how
to read. Later on, he was sent to the Jesuit College at Milan. The
Marchese, his father, insisted on his being shewn the Latin tongue,
not on any account in the works of those ancient writers who are
always talking about Republics, but in a magnificent volume adorned
with more than a hundred engravings, a masterpiece of
seventeenth-century art; this was the Lathi genealogy of the Valserra,
Marchesi del Dongo, published in 1650 by Fabrizio del Dongo,
Archbishop of Parma. The fortunes of the Valserra being pre-eminently
military, the engravings represented any number of battles, and
everywhere one saw some hero of the name dealing mighty blows with his
sword. This book greatly delighted the young Fabrizio. His mother,
who adored him, obtained permission, from time to time, to pay him a
visit at Milan; but as her husband never offered her any money for
these journeys, it was her sister-in-law, the charming Contessa
Pietranera, who lent her what she required. After the return of the
French, the Contessa had become one of the most brilliant ladies at
the court of Prince Eugène, the Viceroy of Italy.

When Fabrizio had made his First Communion, she obtained leave from
the Marchese, still in voluntary exile, to invite him out, now and
again, from his college. She found him unusual, thoughtful, very
serious, but a nice-looking boy and not at all out of place in the
drawing-room of a lady of fashion; otherwise, as ignorant as one could
wish, and barely able to write. The Contessa, who carried her
impulsive character into everything, promised her protection to the
head of the establishment provided that her nephew Fabrizio made
astounding progress and carried off a number of prizes at the end of
the year. So that he should be in a position to deserve them, she used
to send for bun every Saturday evening, and often did not restore him
to his masters until the following Wednesday or Thursday. The Jesuits,
although tenderly cherished by the Prince Viceroy, were expelled
from Italy by the laws of the Kingdom, and the Superior of the
College, an able man, was conscious of all that might be made out of
his relations with a woman all-powerful at court. He never thought of
complaining of the absences of Fabrizio, who, more ignorant than ever,
at the end of the year was awarded five first prizes. This being so,
the Contessa, escorted by her husband, now the General commanding one
of the Divisions of the Guard, and by five or six of the most
important personages at the viceregal court, came to attend the
prize-giving at the Jesuit College. The Superior was complimented by
his chiefs.

The Contessa took her nephew with her to all those brilliant
festivities which marked the too brief reign of the sociable Prince
Eugène. She had on her own authority created him an officer of
hussars, and Fabrizio, now twelve years old, wore that uniform. One
day the Contessa, enchanted by his handsome figure, besought the
Prince to give him a post as page, a request which implied that the
del Dongo family was coming round. Next day she had need of all her
credit to secure the Viceroy's kind consent not to remember this
request, which lacked only the consent of the prospective page's
father, and this consent would have been emphatically refused. After
this act of folly, which made the sullen Marchese shudder, he found
an excuse to recall young Fabrizio to Grianta. The Contessa had a
supreme contempt for her brother, she regarded him as a melancholy
fool, and one who would be troublesome if ever it lay in his power.
But she was madly fond of Fabrizio, and, after ten years of silence,
wrote to the Marchese reclaiming her nephew; her letter was left
unanswered.

On his return to this formidable palace, built by the most bellicose
of his ancestors, Fabrizio knew nothing in the world except how to
drill and how to sit on a horse. Conte Pietranera, as fond of the boy
as was his wife, used often to put him on a horse and take him with
him on parade.

On reaching the castle of Grianta, Fabrizio, his eyes still red with
the tears that he had shed on leaving his aunt's fine rooms, found
only the passionate caresses of his mother and sisters. The Marchese
was closeted in his study with his elder son, the Marchesino Ascanio;
there they composed letters in cipher which had the honour to be
forwarded to Vienna; father and son appeared in public only at
meal-times. The Marchese used ostentatiously to repeat that he was
teaching his natural successor to keep, by double entry, the accounts
of the produce of each of his estates. As a matter of fact, the
Marchese was too jealous of his own power ever to speak of these
matters to a son, the necessary inheritor of all these entailed
properties. He employed him to cipher despatches of fifteen or twenty
pages which two or throe times weekly he had conveyed into
Switzerland, where they were put on the road for Vienna. The Marchese
claimed to inform his rightful Sovereign of the internal condition of
the Kingdom of Italy, of which he himself knew nothing, and his
letters were invariably most successful, for the following reason: the
Marchese would have a count taken on the high road, by some trusted
agent, of the number of men in a certain French or Italian regiment
that was changing its station, and in reporting the fact to the court
of Vienna would take care to reduce by at least a quarter the number
of the troops on the march. These letters, in other respects absurd,
had the merit of contradicting others of greater accuracy, and gave
pleasure. And so, a short time before Fabrizio's arrival at the
castle, the Marchese had received the star of a famous order: it was
the fifth to adorn his Chamberlain's coat. As a matter of fact, he
suffered from the chagrin of not daring to sport this garment outside
his study; but he never allowed himself to dictate a despatch without
first putting on the gold-laced coat, studded with all his orders. He
would have felt himself to be wanting in respect had he acted
otherwise.

The Marchesa was amazed by her son's graces. But she had kept up the
habit of writing two or three times every year to General Comte
d'A----, which was the title now borne by Lieutenant Robert. The
Marchesa had a horror of lying to the people to whom she was attached;
she examined her son and was appalled by his ignorance.

"If he appears to me to have learned little," she said to herself, "to
me who know nothing, Robert, who is so clever, would find that his
education had been entirely neglected; and in these days one must have
merit." Another peculiarity, which astonished her almost as much, was
that Fabrizio had taken seriously all the religious teaching that had
been instilled into him by the Jesuits. Although very pious herself,
the fanaticism of this child made her shudder; "If the Marchese has
the sense to discover this way of influencing him, he will take my
son's affection from me." She wept copiously, and her passion for
Fabrizio was thereby increased.

Life in this castle, peopled by thirty or forty servants, was
extremely dull; accordingly Fabrizio spent all his days in pursuit of
game or exploring the lake in a boat. Soon he was on intimate terms
with the coachmen and grooms; these were all hot supporters of the
French, and laughed openly at the pious valets, attached to the person
of the Marchese or to that of his elder son. The great theme for wit
at the expense of these solemn personages was that, in imitation of
their masters, they powdered their heads.




CHAPTER TWO

_... Alors que Vesper vient embrunir nos yeux, Tout épris d'avenir, je
contemple les deux, En qui Dieu nous escrit, par notes non obscures,
Les sorts et les destins de toutes créatures. Car lui, du fond des
deux regardant un humain, Parfois mû de pitié, lui montre le chemin;
Par les astres du ciel qui sont ses caractères, Les choses nous prédit
et bonnes et contraires; Mais les hommes chargés de terre et de
trépas, Méprisent tel écrit, et ne le lisent pas_.

RONSARD.

The Marchese professed a vigorous hatred of enlightenment: "It is
ideas," he used to say, "that have ruined Italy"; he did not know
quite how to reconcile this holy horror of instruction with his desire
to see his son Fabrizio perfect the education so brilliantly begun
with the Jesuits. In order to incur the least possible risk, he
charged the good Priore Blanès, parish priest of Grianta, with the
task of continuing Fabrizio's Latin studies. For this it was necessary
that the priest should himself know that language; whereas it was to
him an object of scorn; his knowledge in the matter being confined to
the recitation, by heart, of the prayers in his missal, the meaning of
which he could interpret more or less to his flock. But this priest
was nevertheless highly respected and indeed feared throughout the
district; he had always said that it was by no means in thirteen
weeks, nor even in thirteen months that they would see the fulfilment
of the famous prophecy of San Giovila, the Patron Saint of Brescia. He
added, when he was speaking to friends whom he could trust, that this
number _thirteen_ was to be interpreted in a fashion which would
astonish many people, if it were permitted to say all that one knew
(1813).

The fact was that the Priore Blanès, a man whose honesty and virtue
were primitive, and a man of parts as well, spent all his nights up in
his belfry; he was mad on astrology. After using up all his days in
calculating the conjunctions and positions of the stars, he would
devote the greater part of his nights to following their course in the
sky. Such was his poverty, he had no other instrument than a long
telescope with pasteboard tubes. One may imagine the contempt that
was felt for the study of languages by a man who spent his time
discovering the precise dates of the fall of empires and the
revolutions that change the face of the world. "What more do I know
about a horse," he asked Fabrizio, "when I am told that in Latin it is
called equus?"

The _contadini_ looked upon Priore Blanès with awe as a great
magician: for his part, by dint of the fear that his nightly stations
in the belfry inspired, he restrained them from stealing. His clerical
brethren in the surrounding parishes, intensely jealous of his
influence, detested him; the Marchese del Dongo merely despised him,
because he reasoned too much for a man of such humble station.
Fabrizio adored him: to gratify him he sometimes spent whole evenings
in doing enormous sums of addition or multiplication. Then he would go
up to the belfry: this was a great favour and one that Priore Blanès
had never granted to anyone; but he liked the boy for his simplicity.
"If you do not turn out a hypocrite," he would say to him, "you will
perhaps be a man."

Two or three times in a year, Fabrizio, intrepid and passionate in
his pleasures, came within an inch of drowning himself in the lake.
He was the leader of all the great expeditions made by the young
_contadini_ of Grianta and Cadenabbia. These boys had procured a
number of little keys, and on very dark nights would try to open the
padlocks of the chains that fastened the boats to some big stone or to
a tree growing by the water's edge. It should be explained that on the
Lake of Como the fishermen in the pursuit of their calling put out
night-lines at a great distance from the shore. The upper end of the
line is attached to a plank kept afloat by a cork keel, and a supple
hazel twig, fastened to this plank, supports a little bell which rings
whenever a fish, caught on the line, gives a tug to the float.

The great object of these nocturnal expeditions, of which Fabrizio was
commander in chief, was to go out and visit the night-lines before the
fishermen had heard the warning note of the little bells. They used to
choose stormy weather, and for these hazardous exploits would embark
in the early morning, an hour before dawn. As they climbed into the
boat, these boys imagined themselves to be plunging into the greatest
dangers; this was the finer aspect of their behaviour; and, following
the example of their fathers, would devoutly repeat a _Hail, Mary_.
Now it frequently happened that at the moment of starting, and
immediately after the _Hail, Mary_, Fabrizio was struck by a
foreboding. This was the fruit which he had gathered from the
astronomical studies of his friend Priore Blanès, in whose predictions
he had no faith whatsoever. According to his youthful imagination,
this foreboding announced to him infallibly the success or failure of
the expedition; and, as he had a stronger will than any of his
companions, in course of time the whole band had so formed the habit
of having forebodings that if, at the moment of embarking, one of them
caught sight of a priest on the shore, or if someone saw a crow fly
past on his left, they would hasten to replace the padlock on the
chain of the boat, and each would go off to his bed. Thus Priore
Blanès had not imparted his somewhat difficult science to Fabrizio;
but, unconsciously, had infected him with an unbounded confidence in
the signs by which the future can be foretold.

The Marchese felt that any accident to his ciphered correspondence
might put him at the mercy of his sister; and so every year, at the
feast of Sant'Angela, which was Contessa Pietranera's name-day,
Fabrizio was given leave to go and spend a week at Milan. He lived
through the year looking hopefully forward or sadly back to this week.
On this great occasion, to carry out this politic mission, the
Marchese handed over to his son four scudi, and, in accordance with
his custom, gave nothing to his wife, who took the boy. But one of the
cooks, six lackeys and a coachman with a pair of horses started for
Como the day before, and every day at Milan the Marchesa found a
carriage at her disposal and a dinner of twelve covers.

The sullen sort of life that was led by the Marchese del Dongo was
certainly by no means entertaining, but it had this advantage that it
permanently enriched the families who were kind enough to sacrifice
themselves to it. The Marchese, who had an income of more than two
hundred thousand lire, did not spend a quarter of that sum; he was
living on hope. Throughout the thirteen years from 1800 to 1813, he
constantly and firmly believed that Napoleon would be overthrown
within six months. One may judge of his rapture when, at the
beginning of 1813, he learned of the disasters of the Beresima! The
taking of Paris and the fall of Napoleon almost made him lose his
head; he then allowed himself to make the most outrageous remarks to
his wife and sister. Finally, after fourteen years of waiting, he had
that unspeakable joy of seeing the Austrain troops re-enter Milan. In
obedience to orders issued from Vienna, the Austrian General received
the Marchese del Dongo with a consideration akin to respect; they
hastened to offer him one of the highest posts in the government; and
he accepted it as the payment of a debt. His elder son obtained a
lieutenancy in one of the smartest regiments of the Monarchy, but the
younger repeatedly declined to accept a cadetship which was offered
him. This triumph, in which the Marchese exulted with a rare
insolence, lasted but a few months, and was followed by a humiliating
reverse. Never had he had any talent for business, and fourteen years
spent in the country among his footmen, his lawyer and his doctor,
added to the crustiness of old age which had overtaken him, had left
him totally incapable of conducting business in any form. Now it is
not possible, in an Austrian country, to keep an important place
without having the kind of talent that is required by the slow and
complicated, but highly reasonable administration of that venerable
Monarchy. The blunders made by the Marchese del Dongo scandalised the
staff of his office, and even obstructed the course of public
business. His ultra-monarchist utterances irritated the populace which
the authorities sought to lull into a heedless slumber. One fine day
he learned that His Majesty had been graciously pleased to accept the
resignation which he had submitted of his post in the administration,
and at the same time conferred on him the place of _Second Grand
Major-domo Major_ of the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom. The Marchese was
furious at the atrocious injustice of which he had been made a victim;
he printed an open letter to a friend, he who so inveighed against the
liberty of the press. Finally, he wrote to the Emperor that his
Ministers were playing him false, and were no better than Jacobins.
These things accomplished, he went sadly back to his castle of
Grianta. He had one consolation. After the fall of Napoleon, certain
powerful personages at Milan planned an assault in the streets on
Conte Prina, a former Minister of the King of Italy, and a man of the
highest merit. Conte Pietranera risked his own life to save that of
the Minister, who was killed by blows from umbrellas after five hours
of agony. A priest, the Marchese del Bongo's confessor, could have
saved Prina by opening the wicket of the church of San Giovanni, in
front of which the unfortunate Minister was dragged, and indeed left
for a moment in the gutter, in the middle of the street; but he
refused with derision to open his wicket, and, six months afterwards,
the Marchese was happily able to secure for him a fine advancement.

He execrated Conte Pietranera, his brother-in-law, who, not having an
income of 50 louis, had the audacity to be quite content, made a point
of showing himself loyal to what he had loved all his life, and had
the insolence to preach that spirit of justice without regard for
persons, which the Marchese called an infamous piece of Jacobinism.
The Conte had refused to take service in Austria; this refusal was
remembered against him, and, a few months after the death of Prina, the
same persons who had hired the assassins contrived that General
Pietranera should be flung into prison. Whereupon the Contessa, his
wife, procured a passport and sent for posthorses to go to Vienna to
tell the Emperor the truth. Prina's assassins took fright, and one of
them, a cousin of Signora Pietranera, came to her at midnight, an hour
before she was to start for Vienna, with the order for her husband's
release. Next day, the Austrian General sent for Conte Pietranera,
received him with every possible mark of distinction, and assured him
that his pension as a retired officer would be issued to him without
delay and on the most liberal scale. The gallant General Bubna, a man
of sound judgement and warm heart, seemed quite ashamed of the
assassination of Prina and the Conte's imprisonment.

After this brief storm, allayed by the Contessa's firmness of
character, the couple lived, for better or worse, on the retired pay
for which, thanks to General Bubna's recommendation, they were not
long kept waiting.

Fortunately, it so happened that, for the last five or six years, the
Contessa had been on the most friendly terms with a very rich young
man, who was also an intimate friend of the Conte, and never failed to
place at their disposal the finest team of English horses to be seen
in Milan at the time, his box in the theatre _alla Scala_ and his
villa in the country. But the Conte had a sense of his own valour, he
was full of generous impulses, he was easily carried away, and at such
times allowed himself to make imprudent speeches. One day when he was
out shooting with some young men, one of them, who had served under
other flags than his, began to belittle the courage of the soldiers of
the Cisalpine Republic. The Conte struck him, a fight at once
followed, and the Conte, who was without support among all these young
men, was killed. This species of duel gave rise to a great deal of
talk, and the persons who had been engaged in it took the precaution
of going for a tour in Switzerland.

That absurd form of courage which is called resignation, the courage
of a fool who allows himself to be hanged without a word of protest,
was not at all in keeping with the Contessa's character. Furious at
the death of her husband, she would have liked Limercati, the rich
young man, her intimate friend, to be seized also by the desire to
travel in Switzerland, and there to shoot or otherwise assault the
murderer of Conte Pietranera.

Limercati thought this plan the last word in absurdity, and the
Contessa discovered that in herself contempt for him had killed her
affection. She multiplied her attentions to Limercati; she sought to
rekindle his love, and then to leave him stranded and so make him
desperate. To render this plan of vengeance intelligible to French
readers, I should explain that at Milan, in a land widely remote from
our own, people are still made desperate by love. The Contessa, who,
in her widow's weeds, easily eclipsed any of her rivals, flirted with
all the young men of rank and fashion, and one of these, Conte N----,
who, from the first, had said that he felt Limercati's good qualities
to be rather heavy, rather starched for so spirited a woman, fell
madly in love with her. She wrote to Limercati:

"Will you for once act like a man of spirit? Please to consider that
you have never known me.

"I am, with a trace of contempt perhaps, your most humble servant,

"GiNA PIETRANERA."

After reading this missive, Limercati set off for one of his country
seats, his love rose to a climax, he became quite mad and spoke of
blowing out his brains, an unheard-of thing in countries where hell is
believed in. Within twenty-four hours of his arrival in the country,
he had written to the Contessa offering her his hand and his rent-roll
of 200,000 francs. She sent him back his letter, with its seal
unbroken, by Conte N----'s groom. Whereupon Limercati spent three
years on his estates, returning every other month to Milan, but
without ever having the courage to remain there, and boring all his
friends with his passionate love for the Contessa and his detailed
accounts of the favours she had formerly bestowed otì him. At first,
he used to add that with Conte N---- she was ruining herself, and that
such a connexion was degrading to her.

The fact of the matter was that the Contessa had no sort of love for
Conte N----, and she told him as much when she had made quite sure of
Limercati's despair. The Conte, who was no novice, besought her upon
no account to divulge the sad truth which she had confided to him. "If
you will be so extremely indulgent," he added, "as to continue to
receive me with all the outward distinctions accorded to a reigning
lover, I may perhaps be able to find a suitable position."

After this heroic declaration the Contessa declined to avail herself
any longer either of Conte N----'s horses or of his box. But for the
last fifteen years she had been accustomed to the most fashionable
style of living; she had now to solve that difficult, or rather
impossible, problem: how to live in Milan on a pension of 1,500
francs. She left her _palazzo_, took a pair of rooms on a fifth floor,
dismissed all her servants, including even her own maid whose place
she filled with a poor old woman to do the housework. This sacrifice
was as a matter of fact less heroic and less painful than it appears
to us; at Milan poverty is not a thing to laugh at, and therefore does
not present itself to trembling souls as the worst of evils. After
some months of this noble poverty, besieged by incessant letters
from Limercati, and indeed from Conte N----, who also wished to marry
her, it came to pass that the Marchese del Dongo, miserly as a rule to
the last degree, bethought himself that his enemies might find a cause
for triumph in his sister's plight. What! A del Dongo reduced to
living upon the pension which the court of Vienna, of which he had so
many grounds for complaint, grants to the widows of its Generals!

He wrote to inform her that an apartment and an allowance worthy of
his sister awaited her at the castle of Grianta.

The Contessa's volatile mind embraced with enthusiasm the idea of this
new mode of life; it was twenty years since she had lived in that
venerable castle that rose majestically from among its old chestnuts
planted in the days of the Sforza. "There," she told herself, "I
shall find repose, and, at my age, is not that in itself happiness?"
(Having reached one-and-thirty, she imagined that the time had come
for her to retire.) "On that sublime lake by which I was born, there
awaits me at last a happy and peaceful existence."

I cannot say whether she was mistaken, but one thing certain is that
this passionate soul, which had just refused so lightly the offer of
two vast fortunes, brought happiness to the castle of Grianta. Her two
nieces were wild with joy. "You have renewed the dear days of my
youth," the Marchesa told her, as she took her in her arms; "before
you came, I was a hundred." The Contessa set out to revisit, with
Fabrizio, all those enchanting spots in the neighbourhood of Grianta,
which travellers have made so famous: the Villa Melzi on the other
shore of the lake, opposite the castle, and commanding a fine view of
it; higher up, the sacred wood of the Sfrondata, and the bold
promontory which divides the two arms of the lake, that of Como, so
voluptuous, and the other, which runs towards Lecco, grimly severe:
sublime and charming views which the most famous site in the world,
the Bay of Naples, may equal, but does not surpass. It was with
ecstasy that the Contessa recaptured the memories of her earliest
childhood and compared them with her present sensations. "The Lake
of Como," she said to herself, "is not surrounded, like the Lake of
Geneva, by wide tracts of land enclosed and cultivated according to
the most approved methods, which suggest money and speculation. Here,
on every side, I see hills of irregular height covered with clumps of
trees that have grown there at random, which the hand of man has never
yet spoiled and forced to _yield a return_. Standing among these
admirably shaped hills which run down to the lake at such curious
angles, I can preserve all the illusions of Tasso's and Ariosto's
descriptions. All is noble and tender, everything speaks of love,
nothing recalls the ugliness of civilisation. The villages halfway
up their sides are hidden in tall trees, and above the tree-tops rises
the charming architecture of their picturesque belfries. If some
little field fifty yards across comes here and there to interrupt the
clumps of chestnuts and wild cherries, the satisfied eye sees growing
on it plants more vigorous and happier than elsewhere. Beyond these
hills, the crests of which offer one hermitages in all of which one
would like to dwell, the astonished eye perceives the peaks of the
Alps, always covered in snow, and their stern austerity recalls to one
so much of the sorrows of life as is necessary to enhance one's
immediate pleasure. The imagination is touched by the distant sound of
the bell of some little village hidden among the trees: these sounds,
borne across the waters which soften their tone, assume a tinge of
gentle melancholy and resignation, and seem to be saying to man: 'Life
is fleeting: do not therefore show yourself so obdurate towards the
happiness that is offered you, make haste to enjoy it.' " The language
of these enchanting spots, which have not their like in the world,
restored to the Contessa the heart of a girl of sixteen. She could not
conceive how she could have spent all these years without revisiting
the lake. "Is it then to the threshold of old age," she asked herself,
"that our happiness takes flight?" She bought a boat which Fabrizio,
the Marchesa and she decorated with their own hands, having no money
to spend on anything, in the midst of this most luxurious
establishment; since his disgrace the Marchese del Dongo had doubled
his aristocratic state. For example, in order to reclaim ten yards of
land from the lake, near the famous plane avenue, in the direction of
Cadenabbia, he had an embankment built the estimate for which ran to
80,000 francs. At the end of this embankment there rose, from the
plans of the famous Marchese Gagnola, a chapel built entirely of huge
blocks of granite, and in this chapel Marchesi, the sculptor then in
fashion at Milan, built him a tomb on which a number of bas-reliefs
were intended to represent the gallant deeds of his ancestors.

Fabrizio's elder brother, the Marchesino Ascanio, sought to join the
ladies in their excursions; but his aunt flung water over his powdered
hair, and found some fresh dart every day with which to puncture his
solemnity. At length he delivered from the sight of his fat, pasty
face the merry troop who did not venture to laugh in his presence.
They supposed him to be the spy of the Marchese, his father, and care
had to be taken in handling that stern despot, always in a furious
temper since his enforced retirement.

Ascanio swore to be avenged on Fabrizio.

There was a storm in which they were all in danger; although they
were infinitely short of money, they paid the two boatmen generously
not to say anything to the Marchese, who already was showing great ill
humour at their taking his two daughters with them. They encountered a
second storm; the storms on this lake are terrible and unexpected:
gusts of wind sweep out suddenly from the two mountain gorges which
run down into it on opposite sides and join battle on the water. The
Contessa wished to land in the midst of the hurricane and pealing
thunder; she insisted that, if she were to climb to a rock that stood
up by itself in the middle of the lake and was the size of a small
room, she would enjoy a curious spectacle; she would see herself
assailed on all sides by raging waves; but in jumping out of the boat
she fell into the water. Fabrizio dived in after her to save her, and
both were carried away for some distance. No doubt it is not a
pleasant thing to feel oneself drowning; but the spirit of boredom,
taken by surprise, was banished from the feudal castle. The Contessa
conceived a passionate enthusiasm for the primitive nature of the
Priore Blanès and for his astrology. The little money that remained
to her after the purchase of the boat had been spent on buying a
spy-glass, and almost every evening, with her nieces and Fabrizio, she
would take her stand on the platform of one of the Gothic towers of
the castle. Fabrizio was the learned one of the party, and they spent
many hours there very pleasantly, out of reach of the spies.

It must be admitted that there were days on which the Contessa did not
utter a word to anyone; she would be seen strolling under the tall
chestnuts lost in sombre meditations; she was too clever a woman not
to feel at times the tedium of having no one with whom to exchange
ideas. But next day she would be laughing as before: it was the
lamentations of her sister-in-law, the Marchesa, that produced these
sombre impressions on a mind naturally so active.

"Are we to spend all the youth that is left to us in this gloomy
castle?" the Marchesa used to exclaim.

Before the Contessa came, she had not had the courage even to feel
these regrets.

Such was their life during the winter of 1814 and 1815. On two
occasions, in spite of her poverty, the Contessa went to spend a few
days at Milan; she was anxious to see a sublime ballet by Vigano,
given at the Scala, and the Marchese raised no objections to his
wife's accompanying her sister-in-law. They went to draw the arrears
of the little pension, and it was the penniless widow of the Cisalpine
General who lent a few sequins to the millionaire Marchesa del Dongo.
These parties were delightful; they invited old friends to dinner, and
consoled themselves by laughing at everything, just like children.
This Italian gaiety, full of surprise and brio, made them forget the
atmosphere of sombre gloom which the stern faces of the Marchese and
his elder son spread around them at Grianta. Fabrizio, though barely
sixteen, represented the head of the house admirably.

On the 7th of March, 1815, the ladies had been back for two days after
a charming little excursion to Milan; they were strolling under the
fine avenue of plane trees, then recently extended to the very edge of
the lake. A boat appeared, coming from the direction of Como, and
made strange signals. One of the Marchese's agents leaped out upon the
bank: Napoleon had just landed from the Gulf of Juan. Europe was kind
enough to be surprised at this event, which did not at all surprise
the Marchese del Dongo; he wrote his Sovereign a letter full of the
most cordial effusion; he offered him his talents and several millions
of money, and informed him once again that his Ministers were Jacobins
and in league with the ringleaders in Paris.

On the 8th of March, at six o'clock in the morning, the Marchese,
wearing all his orders, was making his elder son dictate to him the
draft of a third political despatch; he was solemnly occupied in
transcribing this in his fine and careful hand, upon paper that bore
the Sovereign's effigy as a watermark. At the same moment, Fabrizio
was knocking at Contessa Pietranera's door.

"I am off," he informed her, "I am going to join the Emperor who is
also King of Italy; he was such a good friend to your husband! I shall
travel through Switzerland. Last night, at Menaggio, my friend Vasi,
the dealer in barometers, gave me his passport; now you must give me a
few napoleons, for I have only a couple on me; but if necessary I
shall go on foot."

The Contessa wept with joy and grief. "Great Heavens! What can have
put that idea into your head?" she cried, seizing Fabrizio's hands in
her own.

She rose and went to fetch from the linen-cupboard, where it was
carefully hidden, a little purse embroidered with pearls; it was all
that she possessed in the world.

"Take it," she said to Fabrizio; "but, in heaven's name, do not let
yourself be killed. What will your poor mother and I have left, if you
are taken from us? As for Napoleon's succeeding, that, my poor boy,
is impossible; our gentlemen will certainly manage to destroy him. Did
you not hear, a week ago, at Milan the story of the twenty-three plots
to assassinate him, all so carefully planned, from which it was only
by a miracle that he escaped? And at that time he was all-powerful.
And you have seen that it is not the will to destroy him that is
lacking in our enemies; France ceased to count after he left it."

It was in a tone of the keenest emotion that the Contessa spoke to
Fabrizio of the fate in store for Napoleon. "In allowing you to go
to join him, I am sacrificing to him the dearest thing I have in the
world," she said. Fabrizio's eyes grew moist, he shed tears as he
embraced the Contessa, but his determination to be off was never for a
moment shaken. He explained with effusion to this beloved friend all
the reasons that had led to his decision, reasons which we take the
liberty of finding highly attractive.

"Yesterday evening, it wanted seven minutes to six, we were strolling,
you remember, by the shore of the lake along the plane avenue, below
the _casa Sommariva_, and we were facing the south. It was there that
I first noticed, in the distance, the boat that was coming from
Como, bearing such great tidings. As I looked at this boat without
thinking of the Emperor, and only envying the lot of those who are
free to travel, suddenly I felt myself seized by a profound emotion.
The boat touched ground, the agent said something in a low tone to my
father, who changed colour, and took us aside to announce the
_terrible news_. I turned towards the lake with no other object but to
hide the tears of joy that were flooding my eyes. Suddenly, at an
immense height in the sky and on my right-hand side, I saw an eagle,
the bird of Napoleon; he flew majestically past making for
Switzerland, and consequently for Paris. 'And I too,' I said to
myself at that moment, 'will fly across Switzerland with the speed
of an eagle, and will go to offer that great man a very little thing,
but the only thing, after all, that I have to offer him, the support
of my feeble arm. He wished to give us a country, and he loved my
uncle.' At that instant, while I was gazing at the eagle, in some
strange way my tears ceased to flow; and the proof that this idea came
from above is that at the same moment, without any discussion, I made
up my mind to go, and saw how the journey might be made. In the
twinkling of an eye all the sorrows that, as you know, are poisoning
my life, especially on Sundays, seemed to be swept away by a breath
from heaven. I saw that mighty figure of Italy raise herself from the
mire in which the Germans keep her plunged; [Footnote: The speaker is
carried away by passion; he is rendering in prose some lines of the
famous Monti.] she stretched out her mangled arms still half loaded
with chains towards her King and Liberator. 'And I,' I said to myself,
'a son as yet unknown to fame of that unhappy Mother, I shall go forth
to die or to conquer with that man marked out by destiny, who sought
to cleanse us from the scorn that is heaped upon us by even the most
enslaved and the vilest among the inhabitants of Europe.'

"You know," he added in a low tone drawing nearer to' the Contessa,
and fastening upon her a pair of eyes from which fire darted, "you
know that young chestnut which my mother, in the winter in which I was
born, planted with her own hands beside the big spring in our forest,
two leagues from here; before doing anything else I wanted to visit
it. 'The spring is not far advanced,' I said to myself, 'very well,
if my tree is in leaf, that shall be a sign for me. I also must emerge
from the state of torpor in which I am languishing in this cold and
dreary castle.' Do you not feel that these old blackened walls, the
symbols now as they were once the instruments of despotism, are a
perfect image of the dreariness of winter? They are to me what winter
is to my tree.

"Would you believe it, Gina? Yesterday evening at half past seven I
came to my chestnut; it had leaves, pretty little leaves that were
quite big already! I kissed them, carefully so as not to hurt them. I
turned the soil reverently round the dear tree. At once filled with a
fresh enthusiasm, I crossed the mountain; I came to Menaggio: I needed
a passport to enter Switzerland. The time had flown, it was already
one o'clock in the morning when I found myself at Vasi's door. I
thought that I should have to knock for a long time to arouse him, but
he was sitting up with three of his friends. At the first word I
uttered: 'You are going to join Napoleon,' he cried; and he fell on
my neck. The others too embraced me with rapture. 'Why am I
married?' I heard one of them say."

Signora Pietranera had grown pensive. She felt that she must offer a
few objections. If Fabrizio had had the slightest experience of life,
he would have seen quite well that the Contessa herself did not
believe in the sound reasons which she hastened to urge on him. But,
failing experience, he had resolution; he did not condescend even to
hear what those reasons were. The Contessa presently came down to
making him promise that at least he would inform his mother of his
intention.

"She will tell my sisters, and those women will betray me without
knowing it!" cried Fabrizio with a sort of heroic grandeur.

"You should speak more respectfully," said the Contessa, smiling
through her tears, "of the sex that will make your fortune; for you
will never appeal to men, you have too much fire for prosaic souls."

The Marchesa dissolved in tears on learning her son's strange plan;
she could not feel its heroism, and did everything in her power to
keep him at home. When she was convinced that nothing in the world,
except the walls of a prison, could prevent him from starting, she
handed over to him the little money that she possessed; then she
remembered that she had also, the day before, received nine or ten
small diamonds, worth perhaps ten thousand francs, which the Marchese
had entrusted to her to take to Milan to be set. Fabrizio's sisters
came ulto their mother's room while the Contessa was sewing these
diamonds into our hero's travelling coat; he handed the poor women
back their humble napoleons. His sisters were so enthusiastic over
his plan, they kissed him with so clamorous a joy that he took in his
hand the diamonds that had still to be concealed and was for starting
off there and then.

"You will betray me without knowing it," he said to his sisters.
"Since I have all this money, there is no need to take clothes; one
can get them anywhere." He embraced these dear ones and set off at
once without even going back to his own room. He walked so fast,
afraid of being followed by men on horseback, that before night he had
entered Lugano. He was now, thank heaven, in a Swiss town, and had no
longer any fear of being waylaid on the lonely road by constables
in his father's pay. From this haven, he wrote him a fine letter, a
boyish weakness which gave strength and substance to the Marchese's
anger. Fabrizio took the post, crossed the Saint-Gothard; his progress
was rapid, and he entered France by Pontarlier. The Emperor was in
Paris. There Fabrizio's troubles began; he had started out with the
firm intention of speaking to the Emperor: it had never occurred to
him that this might be a difficult matter. At Milan, ten times daily
he used to see Prince Eugène, and could have spoken to him had he
wished. In Paris, every morning he went to the courtyard of the
Tuileries to watch the reviews held by Napoleon; but never was he able
to come near the Emperor. Our hero imagined all the French to be
profoundly disturbed, as he himself was, by the extreme peril in which
their country lay. At table in the hotel in which he was staying, he
made no mystery about his plans; he found several young men with
charming manners, even more enthusiastic than himself, who, in a very
few days, did not fail to rob him of all the money that he possessed.
Fortunately, out of pure modesty, he had said nothing of the diamonds
given him by his mother. On the morning when, after an orgy overnight,
he found that he had been decidedly robbed, he bought a fine pair of
horses, engaged as servant an old soldier, one of the dealer's grooms,
and, filled with contempt for the young men of Paris with their fine
speeches, set out to join the army. He knew nothing except that it
was concentrated near Maubeuge. No sooner had he reached the frontier
than he felt that it would be absurd for him to stay in a house,
toasting himself before a good fire, when there were soldiers in
bivouac outside. In spite of the remonstrances of his servant, who was
not lacking in common sense, he rashly made his way to the bivouacs on
the extreme frontier, on the road into Belgium. No sooner had he
reached the first battalion that was resting by the side of the road
than the soldiers began to stare at the sight of this young civilian
in whose appearance there was nothing that suggested uniform. Night
was falling, a cold wind blew. Fabrizio went up to a fire and offered
to pay for hospitality. The soldiers looked at one another amazed
more than anything at the idea of payment, and willingly made room for
him by the fire. His servant constructed a shelter for him. But, an
hour later, the _adjudant_ of the regiment happening to pass near the
bivouac, the soldiers went to report to him the arrival of this
stranger speaking bad French. The _adjudant_ questioned Fabrizio, who
spoke to him of his enthusiasm for the Emperor in an accent which
aroused grave suspicion; whereupon this under-officer requested our
hero to go with him to the Colonel, whose headquarters were in a
neighbouring farm. Fabrizio's servant came up with the two horses. The
sight of them seemed to make so forcible an impression upon the
_adjudant_ that immediately he changed his mind and began to
interrogate the servant also. The latter, an old soldier, guessing
his questioner's plan of campaign from the first, spoke of the
powerful protection which his master enjoyed, adding that certainly
they would not _bone_ his fine horses. At once a soldier called by the
_adjudant_ put his hand on the servant's collar; another soldier took
charge of the horses, and, with an air of severity, the _adjudant_
ordered Fabrizio to follow him and not to answer back.

After making him cover a good league on foot, in the darkness rendered
apparently more intense by the fires of the bivouacs which lighted the
horizon on every side, the adjutant handed Fabrizio over to an officer
of _gendarmerie_ who, with a grave air, asked for his papers. Fabrizio
showed his passport, which described him as a dealer in barometers
travelling with his wares.

"What fools they are!" cried the officer; "this really is too much."

He put a number of questions to our hero, who spoke of the Emperor and
of Liberty in terms of the keenest enthusiasm; whereupon the officer
of _gendarmerie_ went off in peals of laughter.

"Gad! You're no good at telling a tale!" he cried. "It is a bit too
much of a good thing their daring to send us young mugs like you!" And
despite all the protestations of Fabrizio, who was dying to explain
that he was not really a dealer in barometers, the officer sent him to
the prison of B----, a small town in the neighbourhood, where our hero
arrived at about three o'clock in the morning, beside himself with
rage and half dead with exhaustion.

Fabrizio, astonished at first, then furious, understanding absolutely
nothing of what was happening to him, spent thirty-three long days in
this wretched prison; he wrote letter after letter to the town
commandant, and it was the gaoler's wife, a handsome Fleming of
six-and-thirty, who undertook to deliver them. But as she had no wish
to see so nice-looking a boy shot, and as moreover he paid well, she
put all these letters without fail in the fire. Late in the evening,
she would deign to come in and listen to the prisoner's complaints;
she had told her husband that the young greenhorn had money, after
which the prudent gaoler allowed her a free hand. She availed herself
of this licence and received several gold napoleons in return, for the
_adjudant_ had taken only the horses, and the officer of _gendarmerie_
had confiscated nothing at all. One afternoon in the month of June,
Fabrizio heard a violent cannonade at some distance. So they were
fighting at last! His heart leaped with impatience. He heard also a
great deal of noise in the town; as a matter of fact a big movement of
troops was being effected; three divisions were passing through B----.
When, about eleven o'clock, the gaoler's wife came in to share his
griefs, Fabrizio was even more friendly than usual; then, seizing hold
of her hands:

"Get me out of here; I swear on my honour to return to prison as soon
as they have stopped fighting."

"Stuff and nonsense! Have you the _quibus_?" He seemed worried; he did
not understand the word _quibus_. The gaoler's wife, noticing his
dismay, decided that he must be in low water, and instead of talking
in gold napoleons as she had intended talked now only in francs.

"Listen," she said to him, "if you can put down a hundred francs, I
will place a double napoleon on each eye of the corporal who comes to
change the guard during the night. He won't be able to see you
breaking out of prison, and if his regiment is to march to-morrow he
will accept."

The bargain was soon struck. The gaoler's wife even consented to hide
Fabrizio in her own room, from which he could more easily make his
escape in the morning.

Next day, before dawn, the woman, who was quite moved, said to
Fabrizio:

"My dear boy, you are still far too young for that dirty trade; take
my advice, don't go back to it."

"What!" stammered Fabrizio, "is it a crime then to wish to defend
one's country?"

"Enough said. Always remember that I saved your life; your case was
clear, you would have been shot. But don't say a word to anyone, or
you will lose my husband and me our job; and whatever you do, don't go
about repeating that silly tale about being a gentleman from Milan
disguised as a dealer in barometers, it's too stupid. Listen to me
now, I'm going to give you the uniform of a hussar who died the other
day in the prison; open your mouth as little as you possibly can; but
if a serjeant or an officer asks you questions so that you have to
answer, say that you've been lying ill in the house of a peasant who
took you in out of charity when you were shivering with fever in a
ditch by the roadside. If that does not satisfy them, you can add that
you are going back to your regiment. They may perhaps arrest you
because of your accent; then say that you were born in Piedmont, that
you're a conscript who was left in France last year, and all that sort
of thing."

For the first time, after thirty-three days of blind fury, Fabrizio
grasped the clue to all that had happened. They took him for a spy. He
argued with the gaoler's wife, who, that morning, was most
affectionate; and finally, while armed with a needle she was taking in
the hussar's uniform to fit him, he told his whole story in so many
words to the astonished woman. For an instant she believed him; he had
so innocent an air, and looked so nice dressed as a hussar.

"Since you have such a desire to fight," she said to him at length
half convinced, "what you ought to have done as soon as you reached
Paris was to enlist in a regiment. If you had paid for a serjeant's
drink, the whole thing would have been settled." The gaoler's wife
added much good advice for the future, and finally, at the first
streak of dawn, let Fabrizio out of the house, after making him swear
a hundred times over that he would never mention her name, whatever
happened. As soon as Fabrizio had left the little town, marching
boldly with the hussar's sabre under his arm, he was seized by a
scruple. "Here I am," he said to himself, "with the clothes and the
marching orders of a hussar who died in prison, where he was sent,
they say, for stealing a cow and some silver plate! I have, so to
speak, inherited his identity ... and without wishing it or
expecting it in any way! Beware of prison! The omen is clear, I shall
have much to suffer from prisons!"

Not an hour had passed since Fabrizio's parting from his benefactress
when the rain began to fall with such violence that the new hussar was
barely able to get along, hampered by a pair of heavy boots which had
not been made for him. Meeting a peasant mounted upon a sorry horse,
he bought the animal, explaining by signs what he wanted; the gaoler's
wife had recommended him to speak as little as possible, in view of
his accent.

That day the army, which had just won the battle of Ligny, was
marching straight on Brussels. It was the eve of the battle of
Waterloo. Towards midday, the rain still continuing to fall in
torrents, Fabrizio heard the sound of the guns; this joy made him
completely oblivious of the fearful moments of despair in which so
unjust an imprisonment had plunged him. He rode on until late at
night, and, as he was beginning to have a little common sense, went to
seek shelter in a peasant's house a long way from the road. This
peasant wept and pretended that everything had been taken from him;
Fabrizio gave him a crown, and he found some . barley. "My horse is no
beauty," Fabrizio said to himself, "but that makes no difference, he
may easily take the fancy of some _adjutant_," and he went to lie down
in the stable by its side. An hour before dawn Fabrizio was on the
road, and, by copious endearments, succeeded in making his horse trot.
About five o'clock, he heard the cannonade: it was the preliminaries
of Waterloo.




CHAPTER THREE

Fabrizio soon came upon some _vivandières_, and the extreme gratitude
that he felt for the gaoler's wife of B---- impelled him to address
them; he asked one of them where he would find the 4th Hussar
Regiment, to which he belonged.

"You would do just as well not to be in such a hurry, young soldier,"
said the _cantinière_, touched by Fabrizio's pallor and glowing eyes.
"Your wrist is not strong enough yet for the sabre-thrusts they'll be
giving to-day. If you had a musket, I don't say, maybe you could let
off your round as well as any of them."

This advice displeased Fabrizio; but however much he urged on his
horse, he could go no faster than the _cantinière_ in her cart.
Every now and then the sound of the guns seemed to come nearer and
prevented them from hearing each other speak, for Fabrizio was so
beside himself with enthusiasm and delight that he had renewed the
conversation. Every word uttered by the _cantinière_ intensified his
happiness by making him understand it. With the exception of his
real name and his escape from prison, he ended by confiding everything
to this woman who seemed such a good soul. She was greatly surprised
and understood nothing at all of what this handsome young soldier was
telling her.

"I see what it is," she exclaimed at length with an air of triumph.
"You're a young gentleman who has fallen in love with the wife of some
captain in the 4th Hussars. Your mistress will have made you a present
of the uniform you're wearing, and you're going after her. As sure as
God's in heaven, you've never been a soldier; but, like the brave
boy you are, seeing your regiment's under fire, you want to be there
too, and not let them think you a chicken."

Fabrizio agreed with everything; it was his only way of procuring good
advice. "I know nothing of the ways of these French people," he said
to himself, "and if I am not guided by someone I shall find myself
being put in prison again, and they'll steal my horse."

"First of all, my boy," said the _cantinière_, who was becoming more
and more of a friend to him, "confess that you're not one-and-twenty:
at the very most you might be seventeen."

This was the truth, and Fabrizio admitted as much with good grace.

"Then, you aren't even a conscript; it's simply because of Madame's
pretty face that you're going to get your bones broken. Plague it, she
can't be particular. If you've still got some of the _yellow-boys_ she
sent you, you must first of all buy yourself another horse; look how
your screw pricks up his ears when the guns sound at all near; that's
a peasant's horse, and will be the death of you as soon as you reach
the line. That white smoke you see over there above the hedge, that's
the infantry firing, my boy. So prepare for a fine fright when you
hear the bullets whistling over you. You'll do as well to eat a bit
while there's still time."

Fabrizio followed this advice and, presenting a napoleon to the
_vivandière_, asked her to accept payment.

"It makes one weep to see him!" cried the woman; "the poor child
doesn't even know how to spend his money! It would be no more than you
deserve if I pocketed your napoleon and put Cocotte into a trot;
damned if your screw could catch me up. What would you do, stupid, if
you saw me go off? Bear in mind, when the _brute_ growls, never to
show your gold. Here," she went on, "here's 18 francs, 50 centimes,
and your breakfast costs you 30 sous. Now, we shall soon have some
horses for sale. If the beast is a small one, you'll give ten francs,
and, in any case, never more than twenty, not if it was the horse of
the Four Sons of Aymon."

The meal finished, the _vivandière_, who was still haranguing, was
interrupted by a woman who had come across the fields and passed them
on the road.

"Hallo there, hi!" this woman shouted. "Hallo, Margot! Your 6th Light
are over there on the right."

"I must leave you, my boy," said the _vivandière_ to our hero; "but
really and truly I pity you; I've taken quite a fancy to you, upon my
word I have. You don't know a thing about anything, you're going to
get a wipe in the eye, as sure as God's in heaven! Come along to the
6th Light with me."

"I quite understand that I know nothing," Fabrizio told her, "but I
want to fight, and I'm determined to go over there towards that white
smoke."

"Look how your horse is twitching his ears! As soon as he gets over
there, even if he's no strength left, he'll take the bit in his teeth
and start galloping, and heaven only knows where he'll land you. Will
you listen to me now? As soon as you get to the troops, pick up a
musket and a cartridge pouch, get down among the men and copy what you
see them do, exactly the same: But, good heavens, I'll bet you don't
even know how to open a cartridge."

Fabrizio, stung to the quick, admitted nevertheless to his new friend
that she had guessed aright.

"Poor boy! He'll be killed straight away; sure as God! It won't take
long. You've got to come with me, absolutely," went on the
_cantinière_ in a tone of authority.

"But I want to fight."

"You shall fight too; why, the 6th Light are famous fighters, and
there's fighting enough to-day for everyone."

"But shall we come soon to the regiment?"

"In a quarter of an hour at the most."

"With this honest woman's recommendation," Fabrizio told himself, "my
ignorance of everything won't make them take me for a spy, and I shall
have a chance of fighting." At this moment the noise of the guns
redoubled, each explosion coming straight on top of the last. "It's
like a Rosary," said Fabrizio.

"We're beginning to hear the infantry fire now," said the
_vivandière_, whipping up her little horse, which seemed quite excited
by the firing.

The _cantinière_ turned to the right and took a side road that ran
through the fields; there was a foot of mud in it; the little cart
seemed about to be stuck fast: Fabrizio pushed the wheel. His horse
fell twice; presently the road, though with less water on it, was
nothing more than a bridle path through the grass. Fabrizio had not
gone five hundred yards when his nag stopped short: it was a corpse,
lying across the path, which terrified horse and rider alike.

Fabrizio's face, pale enough by nature, assumed a markedly green
tinge; the _cantinière_, after looking at the dead man, said, as
though speaking to herself: "That's not one of our Division." Then,
raising her eyes to our hero, she burst out laughing.

"Aha, my boy! There's a titbit for you!" Fabrizio sat frozen. What
struck him most of all was the dirtiness of the feet of this corpse
which had already been stripped of its shoes and left with nothing but
an old pair of trousers all clotted with blood.

"Come nearer," the _cantinière_ ordered him, "get off your horse,
you'll have to get accustomed to them; look," she cried, "he's stopped
one in the head."

A bullet, entering on one side of the nose, had gone out at the
opposite temple, and disfigured the corpse in a hideous fashion. It
lay with one eye still open.

"Get off your horse then, lad," said the _cantinière_, "and give him a
shake of the hand to see if he'll return it."

Without hesitation, although ready to yield up his soul with disgust,
Fabrizio flung himself from his horse and took the hand of the corpse
which he shook vigorously; then he stood still as though paralysed. He
felt that he had not the strength to mount again. What horrified him
more than anything was that open eye.

"The _vivandière_ will think me a coward," he said to himself
bitterly. But he felt the impossibility of making any movement; he
would have fallen. It was a frightful moment; Fabrizio was on the
point of being physically sick. The _vivandière_ noticed this, jumped
lightly down from her little carriage, and held out to him, without
saying a word, a glass of brandy which he swallowed at a gulp; he was
able to mount his screw, and continued on his way without speaking.
The _vivandière_ looked at him now and again from the corner of her
eye.

"You shall fight to-morrow, my boy," she said at length; "to-day
you're going to stop with me. You can see now that you've got to learn
the business before you can become a soldier."

"On the contrary, I want to start fighting at once," exclaimed our
hero with a sombre air which seemed to the vivandière to augur well.
The noise of the guns grew twice as loud and seemed to be coming
nearer. The explosions began to form a continuous bass; there was no
interval between one and the next, and above this running bass,
which suggested the roar of a torrent in the distance, they could make
out quite plainly the rattle of musketry.

At this point the road dived down into a clump of trees. The
_vivandière_ saw three or four soldiers of our army who were coming
towards her as fast as their legs would carry them; she jumped nimbly
down from her cart and ran into cover fifteen or twenty paces from the
road. She hid herself in a hole which had been left where a big tree
had recently been uprooted. "Now," thought Fabrizio, "we shall see
whether I am a coward!" He stopped by the side of the little cart
which the woman had abandoned, and drew his sabre. The soldiers paid
no attention to him and passed at a run along the wood, to the left of
the road.

"They're ours," said the _vivandière_ calmly, as she came back, quite
breathless, to her little cart.... "If your horse was capable of
galloping, I should say: push ahead as far as the end of the wood, and
see if there's anyone on the plain." Fabrizio did not wait to be told
twice, he tore off a branch from a poplar, stripped it and started to
lash his horse with all his might; the animal broke into a gallop for
a moment, then fell back into its regular slow trot. The _vivandière_
had put her horse into a gallop. "Stop, will you, stop!" she called
after Fabrizio. Presently both were clear of the wood. Coming to the
edge of the plain, they heard a terrifying din, guns and muskets
thundered on every side, right, left, behind them. And as the clump
of trees from which they emerged grew on a mound rising nine or ten
feet above the plain, they could see fairly well a corner of the
battle; but still there was no one to be seen in the meadow beyond the
wood. This meadow was bordered, half a mile away, by a long row of
willows, very bushy; above the willows appeared a white smoke which
now and again rose eddying into the sky.

"If I only knew where the regiment was," said the cantinière, in some
embarrassment. "It won't do to go straight ahead over this big field.
By the way," she said to Fabrizio, "if you see one of the enemy, stick
him with the point of your sabre, don't play about with the blade."

At this moment, the cantinière caught sight of the four soldiers whom
we mentioned a little way back; they were coming out of the wood on to
the plain to the left of the road. One of them was on horseback.

"There you are," she said to Fabrizio. "Hallo there!" she called to
the mounted man, "come over here and have a glass of brandy." The
soldiers approached.

"Where are the 6th Light?" she shouted.

"Over there, five minutes away, across that canal that runs along by
the willows; why, Colonel Macon has just been killed."

"Will you take five francs for your horse, you?"

"Five francs! That's not a bad one, _ma_! An officer's horse I can
sell in ten minutes for five napoleons."

"Give me one of your napoleons," said the _vivandière_ to Fabrizio.
Then going up to the mounted soldier: "Get off, quickly," she said to
him, "here's your napoleon."

The soldier dismounted, Fabrizio sprang gaily on to the saddle, the
_vivandière_ unstrapped the little portmanteau which was on his old
horse.

"Come and help me, all of you!" she said to the soldiers, "is that the
way you leave a lady to do the work?"

But no sooner had the captured horse felt the weight of the
portmanteau than he began to rear, and Fabrizio, who was an excellent
horseman, had to use all his strength to hold him.

"A good sign!" said the _vivandière_, "the gentleman is not accustomed
to being tickled by portmanteaus."

"A general's horse," cried the man who had sold it, "a horse that's
worth ten napoleons if it's worth a Hard."

"Here are twenty francs," said Fabrizio, who could not contain himself
for joy at feeling between his legs a horse that could really move.

At that moment a shot struck the line of willows, through which it
passed obliquely, and Fabrizio had the curious spectacle of all those
little branches flying this way and that as though mown down by a
stroke of the scythe.

"Look, there's the _brute_ advancing," the soldier said to him as he
took the twenty francs. It was now about two o'clock.

Fabrizio was still under the spell of this strange spectacle when a
party of generals, followed by a score of hussars, passed at a gallop
across one corner of the huge field on the edge of which he had
halted: his horse neighed, reared several times in succession, then
began violently tugging the bridle that was holding him. "All right,
then," Fabrizio said to himself.

The horse, left to his own devices, dashed off hell for leather to
join the escort that was following the generals.

Fabrizio counted four gold-laced hats. A quarter of an hour later,
from a few words said by one hussar to the next, Fabrizio gathered
that one of these generals was the famous Marshal Ney. His happiness
knew no bounds; only he had no way of telling which of the four
generals was Marshal Ney; he would have given everything in the world
to know, but he remembered that he had been told not to speak. The
escort halted, having to cross a wide ditch left full of water by the
rain overnight; it was fringed with tall trees and formed the
left-hand boundary of the field at the entrance to which Fabrizio had
bought the horse. Almost all the hussars had dismounted; the bank of
the ditch was steep and very slippery and the water lay quite three or
four feet below the level of the field. Fabrizio, distracted with joy,
was thinking more of Marshal Ney and of glory than of his horse,
which, being highly excited, jumped into the canal, thus splashing the
water up to a considerable height. One of the generals was soaked to
the skin by the sheet of water, and cried with an oath: "Damn the
f---- brute!" Fabrizio felt deeply hurt by this insult. "Can I ask him
to apologise?" he wondered. Meanwhile, to prove that he was not so
clumsy after all, he set his horse to climb the opposite bank of the
ditch; but it rose straight up and was five or six feet high. He had
to abandon the attempt; then he rode up stream, his horse being up to
its head in water, and at last found a sort of drinking-place. By this
gentle slope he was easily able to reach the field on the other side
of the canal. He was the first man of the escort to appear there; he
started to trot proudly down the bank; below him, in the canal, the
hussars were splashing about, somewhat embarrassed by their position,
for in many places the water was five feet deep. Two or three horses
took fright and began to swim, making an appalling mess. A serjeant
noticed the manœuvre that this youngster, who looked so very unlike a
soldier, had just carried out.

"Up here! There is a watering-place on the left!" he shouted, and in
time they all crossed.

On reaching the farther bank, Fabrizio had found the generals there
by themselves; the noise of the guns seemed to him to have doubled;
and it was all he could do to hear the general whom he had given such
a good soaking and who now shouted in his ear:

"Where did you get that horse?"

Fabrizio was so much upset that he answered in Italian:

"_L'ho comprato poco fa_." (I bought it just now.)

"What's that you say?" cried the general.

But the din at that moment became so terrific that Fabrizio could not
answer him. We must admit that our hero was very little of a hero at
that moment. However, fear came to him only as a secondary
consideration; he was principally shocked by the noise, which hurt his
ears. The escort broke into a gallop; they crossed a large batch of
tilled land which lay beyond the canal. And this field was strewn with
dead.

"Red-coats! red-coats!" the hussars of the escort exclaimed joyfully,
and at first Fabrizio did not understand; then he noticed that as a
matter of fact almost all these bodies wore red uniforms. One detail
made him shudder with horror; he observed that many of these
unfortunate red-coats were still alive; they were calling out,
evidently asking for help, and no one stopped to give it them. Our
hero, being most humane, took every possible care that his horse
should not tread upon any of the red-coats. The escort halted;
Fabrizio, who was not paying sufficient attention to his military
duty, galloped on, his eyes fixed on a wounded wretch in front of him.

"Will you halt, you young fool!" the serjeant shouted after him.
Fabrizio discovered that he was twenty paces on the generals' right
front, and precisely in the direction in which they were gazing
through their glasses. As he came back to take his place behind the
other hussars, who had halted a few paces in rear of them, he noticed
the biggest of these generals, who was speaking to his neighbour, a
general also, in a tone of authority and almost of reprimand; he was
swearing. Fabrizio could not contain his curiosity; and, in spite of
the warning not to speak, given him by his friend the gaoler's wife,
he composed a short sentence in good French, quite correct, and said
to his neighbour:

"Who is that general who is chewing up the one next to him?"

"Gad, it's the Marshal!"

"What Marshal?"

"Marshal Ney, you fool! I say, where have you been serving?"

Fabrizio, although highly susceptible, had no thought of resenting
this insult; he was studying, lost in childish admiration, the
famous Prince de la Moskowa, the "Bravest of the Brave."

Suddenly they all moved off at full gallop. A few minutes later
Fabrizio saw, twenty paces ahead of him, a ploughed field the surface
of which was moving in a singular fashion. The furrows were full of
water and the soil, very damp, which formed the ridges between these
furrows kept flying off in little black lumps three or four feet into
the air. Fabrizio noticed as he passed this curious effect; then his
thoughts turned to dreaming of the Marshal and his glory. He heard a
sharp cry close to him; two hussars fell struck by shot; and, when he
looked back at them, they were already twenty paces behind the escort.
What seemed to him horrible was a horse streaming with blood that was
struggling on the ploughed land, its hooves caught in its own
entrails; it was trying to follow the others: its blood ran down into
the mire.

"Ah! So I am under fire at last!" he said to himself. "I have seen
shots fired!" he repeated with a sense of satisfaction. "Now I am a
real soldier." At that moment, the escort began to go hell for
leather, and our hero realised that it was shot from the guns that was
making the earth fly up all round him. He looked vainly in the
direction from which the balls were coming, he saw the white smoke of
the battery at an enormous distance, and, in the thick of the steady
and continuous rumble produced by the artillery fire, he seemed to
hear shots discharged much closer at hand: he could not understand in
the least what was happening.

At that moment, the generals and their escort dropped into a little
road filled with water which ran five feet below the level of the
fields.

The Marshal halted and looked again through his glasses. Fabrizio,
this time, could examine him at his leisure. He found him to be very
fair, with a big red face. "We don't have any faces like that in
Italy," he said to himself. "With my pale cheeks and chestnut hair, I
shall never look like that," he added despondently. To him these words
implied: "I shall never be a hero." He looked at the hussars; with a
solitary exception, all of them had yellow moustaches. If Fabrizio was
studying the hussars of the escort, they were all studying him as
well. Their stare made him blush, and, to get rid of his
embarrassment, he turned his head towards the enemy. They consisted of
widely extended lines of men in red, but, what greatly surprised him,
these men seemed to be quite minute. Their long files, which were
regiments or divisions, appeared no taller than hedges. A line of red
cavalry were trotting in the direction of the sunken road along which
the Marshal and his escort had begun to move at a walk, splashing
through the mud. The smoke made it impossible to distinguish anything
in the direction in which they were advancing; now and then one saw
men moving at a gallop against this background of white smoke.

Suddenly, from the direction of the enemy, Fabrizio saw four men
approaching hell for leather. "Ah! We are attacked," he said to
himself; then he saw two of these men speak to the Marshal. One of the
generals on the latter's staff set off at a gallop towards the enemy,
followed by two hussars of the escort and by the four men who had just
come up. After a little canal which they all crossed, Fabrizio found
himself riding beside a serjeant who seemed a good-natured fellow. "I
must speak to this one," he said to himself, "then perhaps they'll
stop staring at me." He thought for a long time.

"Sir, this is the first time that I have been present at a battle," he
said at length to the serjeant. "But is this a real battle?"

"Something like. But who are you?"

"I am the brother of a captain's wife."

"And what is he called, your captain?"

Our hero was terribly embarrassed; he had never anticipated this
question. Fortunately, the Marshal and his escort broke into a gallop.
"What French name shall I say?" he wondered. At last he remembered
the name of the innkeeper with whom he had lodged in Paris; he brought
his horse up to the serjeant's, and shouted to him at the top of his
voice:

"Captain Meunier!" The other, not hearing properly in the roar of the
guns, replied: "Oh, Captain Teulier? Well, he's been killed."
"Splendid," thought Fabrizio. "Captain Teulier; I must look sad."

"Good God!" he cried; and assumed a piteous mien. They had left the
sunken road and were crossing a small meadow, they were going hell for
leather, shots were coming over again, the Marshal headed for a
division of cavalry. The escort found themselves surrounded by dead
and wounded men; but this sight had already ceased to make any
impression on our hero; he had other things to think of.

While the escort was halted, he caught sight of the little cart of a
_cantinière_, and his affection for this honourable corps sweeping
aside every other consideration, set off at a gallop to join her.

"Stay where you are, curse you," the serjeant shouted after him.

"What can he do to me here?" thought Fabrizio, and he continued to
gallop towards the cantinière. When he put spurs to his horse, he had
had some hope that it might be his good _cantinière_ of the morning;
the horse and the little cart bore a strong resemblance, but their
owner was quite different, and our hero thought her appearance most
forbidding. As he came up to her, Fabrizio heard her say: "And he was
such a fine-looking man, too!" A very ugly sight awaited the new
recruit; they were sawing off a cuirassier's leg at the thigh, a
handsome young fellow of five feet ten. Fabrizio shut his eyes and
drank four glasses of brandy straight off.

"How you do go for it, you boozer!" cried the _cantinière_. The
brandy gave him an idea: "I must buy the goodwill of my comrades, the
hussars of the escort."

"Give me the rest of the bottle," he said to the _vivandière_.

"What do you mean," was her answer, "what's left there costs ten
francs, on a day like this."

As he rejoined the escort at a gallop :

"Ah! You're bringing us a drop of drink," cried the serjeant. "That
was why you deserted, was it? Hand it over."

The bottle went round, the last man to take it flung it in the air
after drinking. "Thank you, chum!" he cried to Fabrizio. All eyes
were fastened on him kindly. This friendly gaze lifted a hundredweight
from Fabrizio's heart; it was one of those hearts of too delicate
tissue which require the friendship of those around it. So at last he
had ceased to be looked at askance by his comrades; there was a bond
between them! Fabrizio breathed a deep sigh of relief, then in a bold
voice said to the serjeant:

"And if Captain Teulier has been killed, where shall I find my
sister?" He fancied himself a little Machiavelli to be saying Teulier
so naturally instead of Meunier.

"That's what you'll find out to-night," was the serjeant's reply.

The escort moved on again and made for some divisions of infantry.
Fabrizio felt quite drunk; he had taken too much brandy, he was
rolling slightly in his saddle: he remembered most opportunely a
favourite saying of his mother's coachman: "When you've been lifting
your elbow, look straight between your horse's ears, and do what the
man next you does." The Marshal stopped for some time beside a number
of cavalry units which he ordered to charge; but for an hour or two
our hero was barely conscious of what was going on round about him. He
was feeling extremely tired, and when his horse galloped he fell back
on the saddle like a lump of lead.

Suddenly the serjeant called out to his men: "Don't you see the
Emperor, curse you!" Whereupon the escort shouted: "_Vive
l'Empereur_!" at the top of their voices. It may be imagined that our
hero stared till his eyes started out of his head, but all he saw was
some generals galloping, also followed by an escort. The long
floating plumes of horsehair which the dragoons of the bodyguard wore
on their helmets prevented him from distinguishing their faces. "So I
have missed seeing the Emperor on a field of battle, all because of
those cursed glasses of brandy!" This reflexion brought him back to
his senses.

They went down into a road filled with water, the horses wished to
drink.

"So that was the Emperor who went past then?" he asked the man next to
him.

"Why, surely, the one with no braid on his coat. How is it you didn't
see him?" his comrade answered kindly. Fabrizio felt a strong desire
to gallop after the Emperor's escort and embody himself in it. What a
joy to go really to war in the train of that hero! It was for that
that he had come to France. "I am quite at liberty to do it," he said
to himself, "for after all I have no other reason for being where I am
but the will of my horse, which started galloping after these
generals."

What made Fabrizio decide to stay where he was was that the hussars,
his new comrades, seemed so friendly towards him; he began to
imagine himself the intimate friend of all the troopers with whom he
had been galloping for the last few hours. He saw arise between them
and himself that noble friendship of the heroes of Tasso and Ariosto.
If he were to attach himself to the Emperor's escort, there would be
fresh acquaintances to be made, perhaps they would look at him
askance, for these other horsemen were dragoons, and he was wearing
the hussar uniform like all the rest that were following the Marshal.
The way in which they now looked at him set our hero on a pinnacle of
happiness; he would have done anything in the world for his comrades;
his mind and soul were in the clouds. Everything seemed to have
assumed a new aspect now that he was among friends; he was dying to
ask them various questions. "But I am still a little drunk," he said
to himself, "I must bear in mind what the gaoler's wife told me." He
noticed on leaving the sunken road that the escort was no longer with
Marshal Ney; the general whom they were following was tall and thin,
with a dry face and an awe-inspiring eye.

This general was none other than Comte d'A----, the Lieutenant Robert
of the 15th of May, 1796. How delighted he would have been to meet
Fabrizio del Dongo!

It was already some time since Fabrizio had noticed the earth flying
off in black crumbs on being struck by shot; they came in rear of a
regiment of cuirassiers, he could hear distinctly the rattle of the
grapeshot against their breastplates, and saw several men fall.

The sun was now very low and had begun to set when the escort,
emerging from a sunken road, mounted a little bank three or four feet
high to enter a ploughed field. Fabrizio heard an odd little sound
quite close to him: he turned his head, four men had fallen with their
horses; the general himself had been unseated, but picked himself up,
covered in blood. Fabrizio looked at the hussars who were lying on the
ground: three of them were still making convulsive movements, the
fourth cried: "Pull me out!" The serjeant and two or three men had
dismounted to assist the general, who, leaning upon his aide-de-camp,
was attempting to walk a few. steps; he was trying to get away from
his horse, which lay on the ground struggling and kicking out madly.

The serjeant came up to Fabrizio. At that moment our hero heard a
voice say behind him and quite close to his ear: "This is the only one
that can still gallop." He felt himself seized by the feet; they were
taken out of the stirrups at the same time as someone caught him
underneath the arms; he was lifted over his horse's tail and then
allowed to slip to the ground, where he landed sitting.

The aide-de-camp took Fabrizio's horse by the bridle; the general,
with the help of the serjeant, mounted and rode off at a gallop; he
was quickly followed by the six men who were left of the escort.
Fabrizio rose up in a fury, and began to run after them shouting:
"_Ladri! Ladri_!" (Thieves! Thieves!) It was an amusing experience to
run after horse-stealers across a battlefield.

The escort and the general, Comte d'A----, disappeared presently
behind a row of willows. Fabrizio, blind with rage, also arrived at
this line of willows; he found himself brought to a halt by a canal of
considerable depth which he crossed. Then, on reaching the other
side, he began swearing again as he saw once more, but far away in the
distance, the general and his escort vanishing among the trees.
"Thieves! Thieves!" he cried, in French this time. In desperation, not
so much at the loss of his horse as at the treachery to himself, he
let himself sink down on the side of the ditch, tired out and dying of
hunger. If his fine horse had been taken from him by the enemy, he
would have thought no more about it; but to see himself betrayed and
robbed by that serjeant whom he liked so much and by those hussars
whom he regarded as brothers! That was what broke his heart. He could
find no consolation for so great an infamy, and, leaning his back
against a willow, began to shed hot tears. He abandoned one by one all
those beautiful dreams of a chivalrous and sublime friendship, like
that of the heroes of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_. To see death come to
one was nothing, surrounded by heroic and tender hearts, by noble
friends who clasp one by the hand as one yields one's dying breath!
But to retain one's enthusiasm surrounded by a pack of vile
scoundrels! Like all angry men Fabrizio exaggerated. After a quarter
of an hour of this melting mood, he noticed that the guns were
beginning to range on the row of trees in the shade of which he sat
meditating. He rose and tried to find his bearings. He scanned those
fields bounded by a wide canal and the row of pollard willows: he
thought he knew where he was. He saw a body of infantry crossing the
ditch and marching over the fields, a quarter of a league in front of
him. "I was just falling asleep," he said to himself; "I must see that
I'm not taken prisoner." And he put his best foot foremost. As he
advanced, his mind was set at rest; he recognized the uniforms, the
regiments by which he had been afraid of being cut off were French. He
made a right incline so as to join them.

After the moral anguish of having been so shamefully betrayed and
robbed, there came another which, at every moment, made itself felt
more keenly; he was dying of hunger. It was therefore with infinite
joy that after having walked, or rather run, for ten minutes, he saw
that the column of infantry, which also had been moving very rapidly,
was halting to take up a position. A few minutes later, he was among
the nearest of the soldiers.

"Friends, could you sell me a mouthful of bread?" "I say, here's a
fellow who thinks we're bakers!" This harsh utterance and the general
guffaw that followed it had a crushing effect on Fabrizio. So war was
no longer that noble and universal uplifting of souls athirst for
glory which he had imagined it to be from Napoleon's proclamations!
He sat down, or rather let himself fall on the grass; he turned very
pale. The soldier who had spoken to him, and who had stopped ten paces
off to clean the lock of his musket with his handkerchief, came nearer
and flung him a lump of bread; then, seeing that he did not pick it
up, broke off a piece which he put in our hero's mouth. Fabrizio
opened his eyes, and ate the bread without having the strength to
speak. When at length he looked round for the soldier to pay him, he
found himself alone; the men nearest to him were a hundred yards off
and were marching. Mechanically he rose and followed them. He entered
a wood; he was dropping with exhaustion, and already had begun to look
round for a comfortable resting-place; but what was his delight on
recognising first of all the horse, then the cart, and finally the
cantinière of that morning! She ran to him and was frightened by his
appearance.

"Still going, my boy," she said to him; "you're wounded then? And
where's your fine horse?" So saying she led him towards the cart, upon
which she made him climb, supporting him under the arms. No sooner
was he in the cart than our hero, utterly worn out, fell fast asleep.




CHAPTER FOUR

Nothing could awaken him, neither the muskets fired close to the cart
nor the trot of the horse which the _cantinière_ was flogging with all
her might. The regiment, attacked unexpectedly by swarms of Prussisn
cavalry, after imagining all day that they were winning the battle,
was beating a retreat or rather fleeing in the direction of France.

The colonel, a handsome young man, well turned out, who had succeeded
Macon, was sabred; the battalion commander who took his place, an old
man with white hair, ordered the regiment to halt. "Damn you," he
cried to his men, "in the days of the Republic we waited till we were
forced by the enemy before running away. Defend every inch of ground,
and get yourselves killed!" he shouted, and swore at them. "It is the
soil of the Fatherland that these Prussians want to invade now!"

The little cart halted; Fabrizio awoke with a start. The sun had set
some time back; he was quite astonished to see that it was almost
night. The troops were running in all directions in a confusion which
greatly surprised our hero; they looked shame-faced, he thought.

"What is happening?" he asked the _cantinière_.

"Nothing at all. Only that we're in the soup, my boy; it's the
Prussian cavalry mowing us down, that's all. The idiot of a general
thought at first they were our men. Come, quick, help me to mend
Cocotte's trace; it's broken."

Several shots were fired ten yards off. Our hero, cool and composed,
said to himself: "But really, I haven't fought at all, the whole day;
I have only escorted a general.--I must go and fight," he said to the
_cantinière_.

"Keep calm, you shall fight, and more than you want! We're done for."

"Aubry, my lad," she called out to a passing corporal, "keep an eye on
the little cart now and then."

"Are you going to fight?" Fabrizio asked Aubry.

"Oh, no, I'm putting my pumps on to go to a dance!"

"I shall follow you."

"I tell you, he's all right, the little hussar," cried the
_cantinière_. "The young gentleman has a stout heart." Corporal
Aubry marched on without saying a word. Eight or nine soldiers ran up
and joined him; he led them behind a big oak surrounded by brambles.
On reaching it he posted them along the edge of the wood, still
without uttering a word, on a widely extended front, each man being at
least ten paces from the next.

"Now then, you men," said the corporal, opening his mouth for the
first time, "don't fire till I give the order: remember you've only
got three rounds each."

"Why, what is happening?" Fabrizio wondered. At length, when he found
himself alone with the corporal, he said to him : "I have no musket."

"Will you hold your tongue? Go forward there: fifty paces in front of
the wood you'll find one of the poor fellows of the Regiment who've
been sabred; you will take his cartridge-pouch and his musket. Don't
strip a wounded man, though; take the pouch and musket from one who's
properly dead, and hurry up or you'll be shot in the back by our
fellows." Fabrizio set off at a run and returned the next minute with
a musket and a pouch.

"Load your musket and stick yourself behind this tree, and whatever
you do don't fire till you get the order from me.... Great God in
heaven!" the corporal broke off, "he doesn't even know how to load!"
He helped Fabrizio to do this while going on with his instructions.
"If one of the enemy's cavalry gallops at you to cut you down, dodge
round your tree and don't fire till he's within three paces: wait till
your bayonet's practically touching his uniform.

"Throw that great sabre away," cried the corporal. "Good God, do you
want it to trip you up? Fine sort of soldiers they're sending us these
days!" As he spoke he himself took hold of the sabre which he flung
angrily away.

"You there, wipe the flint of your musket with your handkerchief.
Have you never fired a musket?"

"I am a hunter."

"Thank God for that!" went on the corporal with a loud sigh. "Whatever
you do, don't fire till I give the order." And he moved away.

Fabrizio was supremely happy. "Now I'm going to do some real
fighting," he said to himself, "and kill one of the enemy. This
morning they were sending cannonballs over, and I did nothing but
expose myself and risk getting killed; that's a fool's game." He gazed
all round him with extreme curiosity. Presently he heard seven or
eight shots fired quite close at hand. But receiving no order to fire
he stood quietly behind his tree. It was almost night; he felt he was
in a look-out, bear-shooting, on the mountain of Tramezzina, above
Grianta. A hunter's idea came to him: he took a cartridge from his
pouch and removed the ball. "If I see him," he said, "it won't do to
miss him," and he slipped this second ball into the barrel of his
musket. He heard shots fired close to his tree; at the same moment he
saw a horseman in blue pass in front of him at a gallop, going from
right to left. "It is more than three paces," he said to himself, "but
at that range I am certain of my mark." He kept the trooper carefully
sighted with his musket and finally pressed the trigger: the trooper
fell with his horse. Our hero imagined he was stalking game: he ran
joyfully out to collect his bag. He was actually touching the man, who
appeared to him to be dying, when, with incredible speed, two Prussian
troopers charged down on him to sabre him. Fabrizio dashed back as
fast as he could go to the wood; to gain speed he flung his musket
away. The Prussian troopers were not more than three paces from him
when he reached another plantation of young oaks, as thick as his arm
and quite upright, which fringed the wood. These little oaks delayed
the horsemen for a moment, but they passed them and continued their
pursuit of Fabrizio along a clearing. Once again they were just
overtaking him when he slipped in among seven or eight big trees. At
that moment his face was almost scorched by the flame of five or six
musket shots fired from in front of him. He ducked his head; when he
raised it again he found himself face to face with the corporal.

"Did you kill your man?" Corporal Aubry asked him.

"Yes; but I've lost my musket."

"It's not muskets we're short of. You're not a bad b------; though you
do look as green as a cabbage you've won the day all right, and these
men here have just missed the two who were chasing you and coming
straight at them. I didn't see them myself. What we've got to do now
is to get away at the double; the Regiment must be half a mile off,
and there's a bit of a field to cross, too, where we may find
ourselves surrounded."

As he spoke, the corporal marched off at a brisk pace at the head of
his ten men. Two hundred yards farther on, as they entered the little
field he had mentioned, they came upon a wounded general who was being
carried by his aide-de-camp and an orderly.

"Give me four of your men," he said to the corporal in a faint voice,
"I've got to be carried to the ambulance; my leg is shattered."

"Go and f---- yourself!" replied the corporal, "you and all your
generals. You've all of you betrayed the Emperor to-day."

"What," said the general, furious, "you dispute my orders. Do you
know that I am General Comte B----, commanding your Division," and so
on. He waxed rhetorical. The aide-de-camp flung himself on the men.
The corporal gave him a thrust in the arm with his bayonet, then made
off with his party at the double. "I wish they were all in your boat,"
he repeated with an oath; "I'd shatter their arms and legs for them. A
pack of puppies! All of them bought by the Bourbons, to betray the
Emperor!" Fabrizio listened with a thrill of horror to this frightful
accusation.

About ten o'clock that night the little party overtook their regiment
on the outskirts of a large village which divided the road into
several very narrow streets; but Fabrizio noticed that Corporal
Aubry avoided speaking to any of the officers. "We can't get on," he
called to his men. All these streets were blocked with infantry,
cavalry, and, worst of all, by the limbers and wagons of the
artillery. The corporal tried three of these streets in turn; after
advancing twenty yards he was obliged to halt. Everyone was swearing
and losing his temper.

"Some traitor in command here, too!" cried the corporal: "if the enemy
has the sense to surround the village, we shall all be caught like
rats in a trap. Follow me, you." Fabrizio looked round; there were
only six men left with the corporal. Through a big gate which stood
open they came into a huge courtyard; from this courtyard they passed
into a stable, the back door of which let them into a garden. They
lost their way for a moment and wandered blindly about. But finally,
going through a hedge, they found themselves in a huge field of
buckwheat. In less than half an hour, guided by the shouts and
confused noises, they had regained the high road on the other side of
the village. The ditches on either side of this road were filled with
muskets that had been thrown away; Fabrizio selected one: but the
road, although very broad, was so blocked with stragglers and
transport that in the next half-hour the corporal and Fabrizio had not
advanced more than five hundred yards at the most; they were told that
this road led to Charleroi. As the village clock struck eleven:

"Let us cut across the fields again," said the corporal. The little
party was reduced now to three men, the corporal and Fabrizio. When
they had gone a quarter of a league from the high road: "I'm done,"
said one of the soldiers.

"Me, too!" said another.

"That's good news! We're all in the same boat," said the corporal;
"but do what I tell you and you'll get through all right." His eye
fell on five or six trees marking the line of a little ditch in the
middle of an immense cornfield. "Make for the trees!" he told his men;
"lie down," he added when they had reached the trees, "and not a
sound, remember. But before you go to sleep, who's got any bread?"

"I have," said one of the men.

"Give it here," said the corporal in a tone of authority. He divided
the bread into five pieces and took the smallest himself.

"A quarter of an hour before dawn," he said as he ate it, "you'll have
the enemy's cavalry on your backs. You've got to see you're not
sabred. A man by himself is done for with cavalry after him on these
big plains, but five can get away; keep in close touch with me, don't
fire till they're at close range, and to-morrow evening I'll undertake
to get you to Charleroi." The corporal roused his men an hour before
daybreak and made them recharge their muskets. The noise on the high
road still continued; it had gone on all night: it was like the sound
of a torrent heard from a long way off.

"They're like a flock of sheep running away," said Fabrizio with a
guileless air to the corporal.

"Will you shut your mouth, you young fool!" said the corporal, greatly
indignant. And the three soldiers who with Fabrizio composed his whole
force scowled angrily at our hero as though he had uttered blasphemy.
He had insulted the nation.

"That is where their strength lies!" thought our hero. "I noticed it
before with the Viceroy at Milan; they are not running away, oh, no!
With these Frenchmen you must never speak the truth if it shocks their
vanity. But as for their savage scowls, they don't trouble me, and I
must let them understand as much." They kept on their way, always at
an interval of five hundred yards from the torrent of fugitives that
covered the high road. A league farther on, the corporal and his party
crossed a road running into the high road in which a number of
soldiers were lying. Fabrizio purchased a fairly good horse which cost
him forty francs, and among all the sabres that had been thrown down
everywhere made a careful choice of one that was long and straight.
"Since I'm told I've got to stick them," he thought, "this is the
best." Thus equipped, he put his horse into a gallop and soon overtook
the corporal who had gone on ahead. He sat up in his stirrups, took
hold with his left hand of the scabbard of his straight sabre, and
said to the four Frenchmen:

"Those people going along the high road look like a flock of sheep ...
they are running like frightened sheep. ..."

In spite of his dwelling upon the word _sheep_, his companions had
completely forgotten that it had annoyed them an hour earlier. Here we
see one of the contrasts between the Italian character and the French;
the Frenchman is no doubt the happier of the two; he glides lightly
over the events of life and bears no malice afterwards.

We shall not attempt to conceal the fact that Fabrizio was highly
pleased with himself after using the word _sheep_. They marched on,
talking about nothing in particular. After covering two leagues
more, the corporal, still greatly astonished to see no sign of the
enemy's cavalry, said to Fabrizio:

"You are our cavalry; gallop over to that farm on the little hill; ask
the farmer if he will _sell_ us breakfast: mind you tell him there are
only five of us. If he hesitates, put down five francs of your money
in advance; but don't be frightened, we'll take the dollar back from
him after we've eaten."

Fabrizio looked at the corporal; he saw in his face an imperturbable
gravity and really an air of moral superiority; he obeyed. Everything
fell out as the commander in chief had anticipated; only, Fabrizio
insisted on their not taking back by force the five francs he had
given to the farmer.

"The money is mine," he said to his friends; "I'm not paying for you,
I'm paying for the oats he's given my horse."

Fabrizio's French accent was so bad that his companions thought they
detected in his words a note of superiority; they were keenly annoyed,
and from that moment a duel began to take shape in their minds for the
end of the day. They found him very different from themselves, which
shocked them; Fabrizio, on the contrary, was beginning to feel a warm
friendship towards them.

They had marched without saying a word for a couple of hours when the
corporal, looking across at the high road, exclaimed in a transport of
joy: "There's the Regiment!" They were soon on the road; but, alas,
round the eagle were mustered not more than two hundred men.
Fabrizio's eye soon caught sight of the _vivandière_: she was going on
foot, her eyes were red and every now and again she burst into tears.
Fabrizio looked in vain for the little cart and Cocotte.

"Stripped, ruined, robbed!" cried the _vivandière_, in answer to our
hero's inquiring glance. He, without a word, got down from his horse,
took hold of the bridle and said to the _vivandière_: "Mount!" She did
not have to be told twice.

"Shorten the stirrups for me," was her only remark.

As soon as she was comfortably in the saddle she began to tell
Fabrizio all the disasters of the night. After a narrative of endless
length but eagerly drunk in by our hero who, to tell the truth,
understood nothing at all of what she said but had a tender feeling
for the _vivandière_, she went on:

"And to think that they were Frenchmen who robbed me, beat me,
destroyed me...."

"What! It wasn't the enemy?" said Fabrizio with an air of innocence
which made his grave, pale face look charming.

"What a fool you are, you poor boy!" said the _vivandière_, smiling
through her tears; "but you're very nice, for all that."

"And such as he is, he brought down his Prussian properly," said
Corporal Aubry, who, in the general confusion round them, happened to
be on the other side of the horse on which the cantinière was sitting.
"But he's proud," the corporal went on.... Fabrizio made an
impulsive movement. "And what's your name?" asked the corporal; "for
if there's a report going in I should like to mention you."

"I'm called Vasi," replied Fabrizio, with a curious expression on
his face. "Boulot, I mean," he added, quickly correcting himself.

Boulot was the name of the late possessor of the marching orders which
the gaoler's wife at B---- had given him; on his way from B---- he had
studied them carefully, for he was beginning to think a little and was
no longer so easily surprised. In addition to the marching orders of
Trooper Boulot, he had stowed away in a safe place the precious
Italian passport according to which he was entitled to the noble
appellation of Vasi, dealer in barometers. When the corporal had
charged him with being proud, it had been on the tip of his tongue to
retort: "I proud! I, Fabrizio Volterra, Marchesino del Dongo, who
consent to go by the name of a Vasi, dealer in barometers!"

While he was making these reflexions and saying to himself: "I must
not forget that I am called B'oulot, or look out for the prison fate
threatens me with," the corporal and the _cantinière_ had been
exchanging a few words with regard to him.

"Don't say I'm inquisitive," said the _cantinière_, ceasing to address
him in the second person singular, "it's for your good I ask you these
questions. Who are you, now, really?"

Fabrizio did not reply at first. He was considering that never again
would he find more devoted friends to ask for advice, and he was in
urgent need of advice from someone. "We are coming into a fortified
place, the governor will want to know who I am, and ware prison if I
let him see by my answers that I know nobody in the 4th Hussar
Regiment, whose uniform I am wearing!" In his capacity as an Austrian
subject, Fabrizio knew all about the importance to be attached to a
passport. Various members of his family, although noble and devout,
although supporters of the winning side, had been in trouble a score
of times over their passports; he was therefore not in the least put
out by the question which the _cantinière_ had addressed to him. But
as, before answering, he had to think of the French words which
would express his meaning most clearly, the _cantinière_, pricked by a
keen curiosity, added, to induce him to speak: "Corporal Aubry and I
are going to give you some good advice."

"I have no doubt you are," replied Fabrizio. "My name is Vasi and I
come from Genoa; my sister, who is famous for her beauty, is married
to a captain. As I am only seventeen, she made me come to her to let
me see something of France, and form my character a little; not
finding her in Paris, and knowing that she was with this army, I came
on here. I've searched for her everywhere and haven't found her. The
soldiers, who were puzzled by my accent, had me arrested. I had money
then, I gave some to the _gendarme_, who let me have some marching
orders and a uniform, and said to me: 'Get away with you, and swear
you'll never mention my name.' "

"What was he called?" asked the _cantinière_.

"I've given my word," said Fabrizio.

"He's right," put in the corporal, "the _gendarme_ is a sweep, but our
friend ought not to give his name. And what is the other one called,
this captain, your sister's husband? If we knew his name, we could
try to find him."

"Teulier, Captain in the 4th Hussars," replied our hero.

"And, so," said the corporal, with a certain subtlety, "from your
foreign accent the soldiers took you for a spy?"

"That's the abominable word!" cried Fabrizio, his eyes blazing. "I
who love the Emperor so and the French people! And it was that insult
that annoyed me more than anything."

"There's no insult about it; that's where you're wrong; the soldiers'
mistake was quite natural," replied Corporal Aubry gravely.

And he went on to explain in the most pedantic manner that in the army
one must belong to some corps and wear a uniform, failing which it was
quite simple that people should take one for a spy. "The enemy sends
us any number of them; everybody's a traitor in this war." The scales
fell from Fabrizio's eyes; he realised for the first time that he had
been in the wrong in everything that had happened to him during the
last two months.

"But make the boy tell us the whole story," said the _cantinière_, her
curiosity more and more excited. Fabrizio obeyed. When he had
finished:

"It comes to this," said the _cantinière_, speaking in a serious tone
to the corporal, "this child is not a soldier at all; we're going to
have a bloody war now that we've been beaten and betrayed. Why should
he go and get his bones broken free, gratis and for nothing?"

"Especially," put in the corporal, "as he doesn't even know how to
load his musket, neither by numbers, nor in his own time. It was I put
in the shot that brought down the Prussian."

"Besides, he lets everyone see the colour of his money," added the
_cantinière_; "he will be robbed of all he has as soon as he hasn't
got us to look after him."

"The first cavalry non-com he comes across," said the corporal, "will
take it from him to pay for his drink, and perhaps they'll enlist him
for the enemy; they're all traitors. The first man he meets will
order him to follow, and he'll follow him; he would do better to join
our Regiment."

"No, please, if you don't mind, Corporal!" Fabrizio exclaimed with
animation; "I am more comfortable on a horse. And, besides, I don't
know how to load a musket, and you have seen that I can manage a
horse."

Fabrizio was extremely proud of this little speech. We need not report
the long discussion that followed between the corporal and the
_cantinière_ as to his future destiny. Fabrizio noticed that in
discussing him these people repeated three or four times all the
circumstances of his story: the soldiers' suspicions, the _gendarme_
selling him marching orders and a uniform, the accident by which, the
day before, he had found himself forming part of the Marshal's escort,
the glimpse of the Emperor as he galloped past, the horse that had
been _scoffed_ from him, and so on indefinitely.

With feminine curiosity the _cantinière_ kept harking back incessantly
to the way in which he had been dispossessed of the good horse which
she had made him buy.

"You felt yourself seized by the feet, they lifted you gently over
your horse's tail, and sat you down on the ground!" "Why repeat so
often," Fabrizio said to himself, "what all three of us know perfectly
well?" He had not yet discovered that this is how, in France, the
lower orders proceed in quest of ideas.

"How much money have you?" the _cantinière_ asked him suddenly.
Fabrizio had no hesitation in answering. He was sure of the nobility
of the woman's nature; that is the fine side of France.

"Altogether, I may have got left thirty napoleons in gold, and eight
or nine five-franc pieces."

"In that case, you have a clear field!" exclaimed the _cantinière_.
"Get right away from this rout of an army; clear out, take the first
road with ruts on it that you come to on the right; keep your horse
moving and your back to the army. At the first opportunity, buy some
civilian clothes. When you've gone nine or ten leagues and there are
no more soldiers in sight, take the mail-coach, and go and rest for a
week and eat beefsteaks in some nice town. Never let anyone know that
you've been in the army, or the police will take you up as a deserter;
and, nice as you are, my boy, you're not quite clever enough yet to
stand up to the police. As soon as you've got civilian clothes on your
back, tear up your marching orders into a thousand pieces and go
back to your real name: say that you're Vasi. And where ought he to
say he comes from?" she asked the corporal.

"From Cambrai on the Scheldt: it's a good town and quite small, if you
know what I mean. There's a cathedral there, and Fénelon."

"That's right," said the _cantinière_. "Never let on to anyone that
you've been in battle, don't breathe a word about B------, or the
_gendarme_ who sold you the marching orders. When you're ready to go
back to Paris, make first for Versailles, and pass the Paris barrier
from that side in a leisurely way, on foot, as if you were taking a
stroll. Sew up your napoleons inside your breeches, and remember, when
you have to pay for anything, shew only the exact sum that you want to
spend. What makes me sad is that they'll take you and rob you and
strip you of everything you have. And whatever will you do without
money, you that don't know how to look after yourself ..." and so on.

The good woman went on talking for some time still; the corporal
indicated his support by nodding his head, not being able to get a
word in himself. Suddenly the crowd that was packing the road first of
all doubled its pace, then, in the twinkling of an eye, crossed the
little ditch that bounded the road on the left and fled helter-skelter
across country. Cries of "The Cossacks! The Cossacks!" rose from every
side.

"Take back your horse!" the _cantinière_ shouted.

"God forbid!" said Fabrizio. "Gallop! Away with you! I give him to
you. Do you want someting to buy another cart with? Half of what I
have is yours."

'Take back your horse, I tell you!" cried the _cantinière_ angrily;
and she prepared to dismount. Fabrizio drew his sabre. "Hold on
tight!" she shouted to her, and gave two or three strokes with the
flat of his sabre to the horse, which broke into a gallop and followed
the fugitives.

Our hero stood looking at the road; a moment ago, two or three
thousand people had been jostling along it, packed together like
peasants at the tail of a procession. After the shout of: "Cossacks!"
he saw not a soul on it; the fugitives had cast away shakoes, muskets,
sabres, everything. Fabrizio, quite bewildered, climbed up into a
field on the right of the road and twenty or thirty feet above it; he
scanned the line of the road in both directions, and the plain, but
saw no trace of the Cossacks. "Funny people, these French!" he said to
himself. "Since I have got to go to the right," he thought, "I may as
well start off at once; it is possible that these people have a reason
for running away that I don't know." He picked up a musket, saw that
it was charged, shook up the powder in the priming, cleaned the flint,
then chose a cartridge-pouch that was well filled and looked round him
again in all directions; he was absolutely alone in the middle of this
plain which just now had been so crowded with people. In the far
distance he could see the fugitives, who were beginning to disappear
behind the trees, and were still running. "That's a very odd thing,"
he said to himself, and remembering the tactics employed by the
corporal the night before, he went and sat down in the middle of a
field of corn. He did not go farther because he was anxious to see
again his good friends the _cantinière_ and Corporal Aubry.

In this cornfield, he made the discovery that he had no more than
eighteen napoleons, instead of thirty as he had supposed; but he still
had some small diamonds which he had stowed away in the lining of the
hussar's boots, before dawn, in the gaoler's wife's room at B----. He
concealed his napoleons as best he could, pondering deeply the while
on the sudden disappearance of the others. "Is that a bad omen for
me?" he asked himself. What distressed him most was that he had not
asked Corporal Aubry the question: "Have I really taken part in a
battle?" It seemed to him that he had, and his happiness would have
known no bounds could he have been certain of this.

"But even if I have," he said to himself, "I took part in it bearing
the name of a prisoner, I had a prisoner's marching orders in my
pocket, and, worse still, his coat on my backl That is the fatal
threat to my future: what would the Priore Blanès say to it? And that
wretched Boulot died in prison. It is all of the most sinister
augury; fate will lead me to prison." Fabrizio would have given
anything in the world to know whether Trooper Boulot had really been
guilty; when he searched his memory, he seemed to recollect that the
gaoler's wife had told him that the hussar had been taken up not only
for the theft of silver plate but also for stealing a cow from a
peasant and nearly beating the peasant to death: Fabrizio had no doubt
that he himself would be sent to prison some day for a crime which
would bear some relation to that of Trooper Boulot. He thought of his
friend the _parroco_ Blanès: what would he not have given for an
opportunity of consulting him! Then he remembered that he had not
written to his aunt since leaving Paris. "Poor Gina!" he said to
himself. And tears stood in his eyes, when suddenly he heard a slight
sound quite close to him: a soldier was feeding three horses on the
standing corn; he had taken the bits out of their mouths and they
seemed half dead with hunger; he was holding them by the snaffle.
Fabrizio got up like a partridge; the soldier seemed frightened. Our
hero noticed this, and yielded to the pleasure of playing the hussar
for a moment.

"One of those horses belongs to me, f---- you, but I don't mind giving
you five francs for the trouble you've taken in bringing it here."

"What are you playing at?" said the soldier. Fabrizio took aim at him
from a distance of six paces.

"Let go the horse, or I'll blow your head off."

The soldier had his musket slung on his back; he reached over his
shoulder to seize it.

"If you move an inch, you're a dead man!" cried Fabrizio, rushing upon
him.

"All right, give me the five francs and take one of the horses," said
the embarrassed soldier, after casting a rueful glance at the high
road, on which there was absolutely no one to be seen. Fabrizio,
keeping his musket raised in his left hand, with the right flung him
three five-franc pieces.

"Dismount, or you're a dead man. Bridle the black, and go farther off
with the other two. ... If you move, I fire."

The soldier looked savage but obeyed. Fabrizio went up to the horse
and passed the rein over his left arm, without losing sight of the
soldier, who was moving slowly away; when our hero saw that he had
gone fifty paces, he jumped nimbly on to the horse. He had barely
mounted and was feeling with his foot for the off stirrup when he
heard a bullet whistle past close to his head: it was the soldier who
had fired at him. Fabrizio; beside himself with rage, started
galloping after the soldier who ran off as fast as his legs could
carry him, and presently Fabrizio saw him mount one of his two horses
and gallop away. "Good, he's out of range now," he said to himself.
The horse he had just bought was a magnificent animal, but seemed
half starved. Fabrizio returned to the high road, where there was
still not a living soul; he crossed it and put his horse into a trot
to reach a little fold in the ground on the left, where he hoped to
find the _cantinière_; but when he was at the top of the little rise
he could see nothing save, more than a league away, a few scattered
troops. "It is written that I shall not see her again," he said to
himself with a sigh, "the good, brave woman!" He came to a farm which
he had seen in the distance on the right of the road. Without
dismounting, and after paying for it in advance, he made the farmer
produce some oats for his poor horse, which was so famished that it
began to gnaw the manger. An hour later, Fabrizio was trotting along
the high road, still in the hope of meeting the _cantinière_, or at
any rate Corporal Aubry. Moving all the time and keeping a look-out
all round him, he came to a marshy river crossed by a fairly narrow
wooden bridge. Between him and the bridge, on the right of the road,
was a solitary house bearing the sign of the White Horse. "There I
shall get some dinner," thought Fabrizio. A cavalry officer with his
arm in a sling was guarding the approach to the bridge; he was on
horseback and looked very melancholy; ten paces away from him, three
dismounted troopers were filling their pipes.

"There are some people," Fabrizio said to himself, "who look to me
very much as though they would like to buy my horse for even less than
he cost me." The wounded officer and the three men on foot watched him
approach and seemed to be waiting for him. "It would be better not to
cross by this bridge, but to follow the river bank to the right; that
was the way the _cantinière_ advised me to take to get clear of
difficulties.... Yes," thought our hero, "but if I take to my heels
now, to-morrow I shall be thoroughly ashamed of myself; besides, my
horse has good legs, the officer's is probably tired; if he tries to
make me dismount I shall gallop." Reasoning thus with himself,
Fabrizio pulled up his horse and moved forward at the slowest possible
pace.

"Advance, you, hussar!" the officer called to him with an air of
authority.

Fabrizio went on a few paces and then halted.

"Do you want to take my horse?" he shouted.

"Not in the least; advance."

Fabrizio examined the officer; he had a white moustache, and looked
the best fellow in the world; the handkerchief that held up his left
arm was drenched with blood, and his right hand also was bound up in a
piece of bloodstained linen. "It is the men on foot who are going to
snatch my bridle," thought Fabrizio; but, on looking at them from
nearer, he saw that they too were wounded.

"On your honour as a soldier," said the officer, who wore the
epaulettes of a colonel, "stay here on picket, and tell all the
dragoons, chasseurs and hussars that you see that Colonel Le Baron is
in the inn over there, and that I order them to come and report to
me." The old colonel had the air of a man broken by suffering; with
his first words he had made a conquest of our hero, who replied with
great good sense:

"I am very young, sir, to make them listen to me; I ought to have a
written order from you."

"He is right," said the colonel, studying him closely; "make out the
order, La Rose, you've got the use of your right hand."

Without saying a word, La Rose took from his pocket a little parchment
book, wrote a few lines, and, tearing out a leaf, handed it to
Fabrizio; the colonel repeated the order to him, adding that after two
hours on duty he would be relieved, as was right and proper, by one of
the three wounded troopers he had with him. So saying he went into the
inn with his men. Fabrizio watched them go and sat without moving at
the end of his wooden bridge, so deeply impressed had he been by the
sombre, silent grief of these three persons. "One would think they
were under a spell," he said to himself. At length he unfolded the
paper and read the order, which ran as follows :

"Colonel Le Baron, 6th Dragoons, Commanding the 2nd Brigade of the 1st
Cavalry Division of the XIV Corps, orders all cavalrymen, dragoons,
chasseurs and hussars, on no account to cross the bridge, and to
report to him at the White Horse Inn, by the bridge, which is his
headquarters.

"Headquarters, by the bridge of La Sainte, June 19, 1815. "For
Colonel Le Baron, wounded in the right arm, and by his orders,

"LA ROSE, _Serjeant_."

Fabrizio had been on guard at the bridge for barely half an hour when
he saw six chasseurs approaching him mounted, and three on foot; he
communicated the colonel's order to them. "We're coming back," said
four of the mounted men, and crossed the bridge at a fast trot.
Fabrizio then spoke to the other two. During the discussion, which
grew heated, the three men on foot crossed the bridge. Finally, one of
the two mounted troopers who had stayed behind asked to see the order
again, and carried it off, with:

"I am taking it to the others, who will come back without fail; wait
for them here." And off he went at a gallop; his companion followed
him. All this had happened in the twinkling of an eye.

Fabrizio was furious, and called to one of the wounded soldiers, who
appeared at a window of the White Horse.

This soldier, on whose arm Fabrizio saw the stripes of a cavalry
serjeant, came down and shouted to him: "Draw your sabre, man, you're
on picket." Fabrizio obeyed, then said: "They've carried off. the
order."

"They're out of hand after yesterday's affair," replied the other in a
melancholy tone. "I'll let you have one of my pistols; if they force
past you again, fire it in the air; I shall come, or the colonel
himself will appear."

Fabrizio had not failed to observe the serjeant's start of surprise on
hearing of the theft of the order. He realised that it was a personal
insult to himself, and promised himself that he would not allow such a
trick to be played on him again.

Armed with the sergeant's horse-pistol, Fabrizio had proudly resumed
his guard when he saw coming towards him seven hussars, mounted. He
had taken up a position that barred the bridge; he read them the
colonel's order, which seemed greatly to annoy them; the most
venturesome of them tried to pass. Fabrizio, following the wise
counsel of his friend the _vivandière_, who, the morning before, had
told him that he must thrust and not slash, lowered the point of his
long, straight sabre and made as though to stab with it the man who
was trying to pass him.

"Oh, so he wants to kill us, the baby!" cried the hussars, "as if we
hadn't been killed quite enough yesterday!" They all drew their sabres
at once and fell on Fabrizio: he gave himself up for dead; but he
thought of the serjeant's surprise, and was not anxious to earn his
contempt again. Drawing back on to his bridge, he tried to reach them
with his sabre-point. He looked so absurd when he tried to wield this
huge, straight heavy-dragoon sabre, a great deal too heavy for him,
that the hussars soon saw with what sort of soldier they had to deal;
they then endeavoured not to wound him but to slash his clothing. In
this way Fabrizio received three or four slight sabre-cuts on his
arms. For his own part, still faithful to the _cantinière's_ precept,
he kept thrusting the point of his sabre at them with all his might.
As ill luck would have it, one of these thrusts wounded a hussar in
the hand: highly indignant at being touched by so raw a recruit, he
replied with a downward thrust which caught Fabrizio in the upper part
of the thigh. What made this blow effective was that our hero's horse,
so far from avoiding the fray, seemed to take pleasure in it and to be
flinging himself on the assailants. These, seeing Fabrizio's blood
streaming along his right arm, were afraid that they might have
carried the game too far, and, pushing him against the left-hand
parapet of the bridge, crossed at a gallop. As soon as Fabrizio had a
moment to himself he fired his pistol in the air to warn the colonel.

Four mounted hussars and two on foot, of the same regiment as the
others, were coming towards the bridge and were still two hundred
yards away from it when the pistol went off. They had been paying
close attention to what was happening on the bridge, and, imagining
that Fabrizio had fired at their comrades, the four mounted men
galloped upon him with raised sabres: it was a regular cavalry charge.
Colonel Le Baron, summoned by the pistol-shot, opened the door of
the inn and rushed on to the bridge just as the galloping hussars
reached it, and himself gave them the order to halt.

'There's no colonel here now!" cried one of them, and pressed on his
horse. The colonel in exasperation broke off the reprimand he was
giving them, and with his wounded right hand seized the rein of this
horse on the off side.

"Halt! You bad soldier," he said to the hussar; "I know you, you're in
Captain Henriot's squadron."

"Very well, then! The captain can give me the order himself! Captain
Henriot was killed yesterday," he added with a snigger, "and you can
go and f---- yourself!"

So saying, he tried to force a passage, and pushed the old colonel,
who fell in a sitting position on the roadway of the bridge. Fabrizio,
who was a couple of yards farther along upon the bridge, but facing
the inn, pressed his horse, and, while the breast-piece of the
assailant's harness threw down the old colonel, who never let go the
off rein, Fabrizio, indignant, bore down upon the hussar with a
driving thrust. Fortunately the hussar's horse, feeling itself pulled
towards the ground by the rein which the colonel still held, made a
movement sideways, with the result that the long blade of Fabrizio's
heavy-cavalry sabre slid along the hussar's jacket, and the whole
length of it passed beneath his eyes. Furious, the hussar turned round
and, using all his strength, dealt Fabrizio a blow which cut his
sleeve and went deep into his arm: our hero fell.

One of the dismounted hussars, seeing the two defenders of the bridge
on the ground, seized the opportunity, jumped on to Fabrizio's horse
and tried to make off with it by starting at a gallop across the
bridge.

The serjeant, as he hurried from the inn, had seen his colonel fall,
and supposed him to be seriously wounded. He ran after Fabrizio's
horse and plunged the point of his sabre into the thief's entrails; he
fell. The hussars, seeing no one now on the bridge but the serjeant,
who was on foot, crossed at a gallop and rapidly disappeared. The one
on foot bolted into the fields.

The serjeant came up to the wounded men. Fabrizio was already on his
feet; he was not in great pain, but was bleeding profusely. The
colonel got up more slowy; he was quite stunned by his fall, but had
received no injury. "I feel nothing," he said to the serjeant,
"except the old wound in my hand."

The hussar whom the serjeant had wounded was dying.

"The devil take him!" exclaimed the colonel. "But," he said to the
serjeant and the two troopers who came running out, "look after this
young man whose life I have risked, most improperly. I shall stay on
the bridge myself and try to stop these madmen. Take the young man to
the inn and tie up his arm. Use one of my shirts."




CHAPTER FIVE

The whole of this adventure had not lasted a minute. Fabrizio's
wounds were nothing; they tied up his arm with bandages torn from the
colonel's shirt. They wanted to make up a bed for him upstairs in the
inn.

"But while I am tucked up here on the first floor," said Fabrizio to
the serjeant, "my horse, who is down in the stable, will get bored
with being left alone and will go off with another master."

"Not bad for a conscript!" said the serjeant. And they deposited
Fabrizio on a litter of clean straw in the same stall as his horse.

Then, as he was feeling very weak, the serjeant brought him a bowl of
mulled wine and talked to him for a little. Several compliments
included in this conversation carried our hero to the seventh heaven.

Fabrizio did not wake until dawn on the following day; the horses were
neighing continuously and making a frightful din; the stable was
filled with smoke. At first Fabrizio could make nothing of all this
noise, and did not even know where he was: finally, half stifled by
the smoke, it occurred to him that the house was on fire; in the
twinkling of an eye he was out of the stable and in the saddle. He
raised his head; smoke was belching violently from the two windows
over the stable; and the roof was covered by a black smoke which rose
curling into the air. A hundred fugitives had arrived during the
night at the White Horse; they were all shouting and swearing. The
five or six whom Fabrizio could see close at hand seemed to him to be
completely drunk; one of them tried to stop him and called out to him:
"Where are you taking my horse?"

When Fabrizio had gone a quarter of a league, he turned his head.
There was no one following him; the building was in flames. Fabrizio
caught sight of the bridge; he remembered his wound, and felt his arm
compressed by bandages and very hot. "And the old colonel, what has
become of him? He gave his shirt to tie up my arm." Our hero was this
morning the coolest man in the world; the amount of blood he had shed
had liberated him from all the romantic element in his character.

"To the right!" he said to himself, "and no time to lose." He began
quietly following the course of the river which, after passing under
the bridge, ran to the right of the road. He remembered the good
_cantinière's_ advice. "What friendship!" he said to himself, "what
an open nature!"

After riding for an hour he felt very weak. "Oho! Am I going to
faint?" he wondered. "If I faint, someone will steal my horse, and my
clothes, perhaps, and my money and jewels with them." He had no longer
the strength to hold the reins, and was trying to keep his balance in
the saddle when a peasant who was digging in a field by the side of
the high road noticed his pallor and came up to offer him a glass of
beer and some bread.

"When I saw you look so pale, I thought you must be one of the wounded
from the great battle," the peasant told him. Never did help come more
opportunely. As Fabrizio was munching the piece of bread his eyes
began to hurt him when he looked straight ahead. When he felt a little
better he thanked the man. "And where am I?" he asked. The peasant
told him that three quarters of a league farther on he would come to
the township of Zonders, where he would be very well looked after.
Fabrizio reached the town, not knowing quite what he was doing and
thinking only at every step of not falling off his horse. He saw a big
door standing open; he entered. It was the Woolcomb Inn. At once there
ran out to him the good lady of the house, an enormous woman; she
called for help in a voice that throbbed with pity. Two girls came and
helped Fabrizio to dismount; no sooner had his feet touched the ground
than he fainted completely. A surgeon was fetched, who bled him. For
the rest of that day and the days that followed Fabrizio scarcely knew
what was being done to him; he slept almost without interruption.

The sabre wound in his thigh threatened to form a serious abscess.
When his mind was clear again, he asked them to look after his horse,
and kept on repeating that he would pay them well, which shocked the
good hostess and her daughters. For a fortnight he was admirably
looked after and he was beginning to be himself again when he noticed
one evening that his hostesses seemed greatly upset. Presently a
German officer came into his room: in answering his questions they
used a language which Fabrizio did not understand, but he could see
that they were speaking about him; he pretended to be asleep. A little
later, when he thought that the officer must have gone, he called his
hostesses.

"That officer came to put my name on a list, and make me a prisoner,
didn't he?" The landlady assented with tears in her eyes.

"Very well, there is money in my dolman!" he cried, sitting up in bed;
"buy me some civilian clothes and tonight I shall go away on my horse.
You have already saved my life once by taking me in just as I was
going to drop down dead in the street; save it again by giving me the
means of going back to my mother."

At this point the landlady's daughters began to dissolve in tears;
they trembled for Fabrizio; and, as they barely understood French,
they came to his bedside to question him. They talked with their
mother in Flemish; but at every moment pitying eyes were turned on our
hero; he thought he could make out that his escape might compromise
them seriously, but that they would gladly incur the risk. A Jew in
the town supplied a complete outfit, but when he brought it to the inn
about ten o'clock that night, the girls saw, on comparing it with
Fabrizio's dolman, that it would require an endless amount of
alteration. At once they set to work; there was no time to lose.
Fabrizio showed them where several napoleons were hidden in his
uniform, and begged his hostesses to stitch them into the new
garments. With these had come a fine pair of new boots. Fabrizio had
no hesitation in asking these kind girls to slit open the hussar's
boots at the place which he shewed them, and they hid the little
diamonds in the lining of the new pair.

One curious result of his loss of blood and the weakness that followed
from it was that Fabrizio had almost completely forgotten his
French; he used Italian to address his hostesses, who themselves spoke
a Flemish dialect, so that their conversation had to be conducted
almost entirely in signs. When the girls, who for that matter were
entirely disinterested, saw the diamonds, their enthusiasm for
Fabrizio knew no bounds; they imagined him to be a prince in disguise.
Aniken, the younger and less sophisticated, kissed him without
ceremony. Fabrizio, for his part, found them charming, and towards
midnight, when the surgeon had allowed him a little wine in view of
the journey he had to take, he felt almost inclined not to go. "Where
could I be better off than here?" he asked himself. However, about two
o'clock in the morning, he rose and dressed. As he was leaving the
room, his good hostess informed him that his horse had been taken by
the officer who had come to search the house that afternoon.

"Ah! The swine!" cried Fabrizio with an oath, "robbing a wounded man!"
He was not enough of a philosopher, this young Italian, to bear in
mind the price at which he himself had acquired the horse.

Aniken told him with tears that they had hired a horse for him. She
would have liked him not to go. Their farewells were tender. Two big
lads, cousins of the good landlady, helped Fabrizio into the saddle:
during the journey they supported him on his horse, while a third, who
walked a few hundred yards in advance of the little convoy, searched
the roads for any suspicious patrol. After going for a couple of
hours, they stopped at the house of a cousin of the landlady of the
Woolcomb. In spite of anything that Fabrizio might say, the young men
who accompanied him refused absolutely to leave him; they claimed that
they knew better than anyone the hidden paths through the woods.

"But to-morrow morning, when my flight becomes known, and they don't
see you anywhere in the town, your absence will make things awkward
for you," said Fabrizio.

They proceeded on their way. Fortunately, when day broke at last, the
plain was covered by a thick fog. About eight o'clock in the morning
they came in sight of a little town. One of the young men went on
ahead to see if the post-horses there had been stolen. The postmaster
had had time to make them vanish and to raise a team of wretched
screws with which he had filled his stables. Grooms were sent to find
a pair of horses in the marshes where they were hidden, and three
hours later Fabrizio climbed into a little cabriolet which was quite
dilapidated but had harnessed to it a pair of good post-horses. He had
regained his strength. The moment of parting with the young men, his
hostess's cousins, was pathetic in the extreme; on no account,
whatever friendly pretext Fabrizio might find, would they consent to
take any money.

"In your condition, sir, you need it more than we do," was the
invariable reply of these worthy young fellows. Finally they set off
with letters in which Fabrizio, somewhat emboldened by the agitation
of the journey, had tried to convey to his hostesses all that he felt
for them. Fabrizio wrote with tears in his eyes, and there was
certainly love in the letter addressed to little Aniken.

In the rest of the journey there was nothing out of the common. He
reached Amiens in great pain from the cut he had received in his
thigh; it had not occurred to the country doctor to lance the wound,
and in spite of the bleedings an abscess had formed. During the
fortnight that Fabrizio spent in the inn at Amiens, kept by an
obsequious and avaricious family, the Allies were invading France, and
Fabrizio became another man, so many and profound were his reflexions
on the things that had happened to him. He had remained a child upon
one point only: what he had seen, was it a battle; and, if so, was
that battle Waterloo? For the first time in his life he found pleasure
in reading; he was always hoping to find in the newspapers, or in the
published accounts of the battle, some description which would enable
him to identify the ground he had covered with Marshal Ney's escort,
and afterwards with the other general. During his stay at Amiens he
wrote almost every day to his good friends at the Woolcomb. As soon as
his wound was healed, he came to Paris. He found at his former hotel a
score of letters from his mother and aunt, who implored him to return
home as soon as possible. The last letter from Contessa Pietranera had
a certain enigmatic tone which made him extremely uneasy; this letter
destroyed all his tender fancies. His was a character to which a
single word was enough to make him readily anticipate the greatest
misfortunes; his imagination then stepped in and depicted these
misfortunes to him with the most horrible details.

"Take care never to sign the letters you write to tell us what you are
doing," the Contessa warned him. "On your return you must on no
account come straight to the Lake of Como. Stop at Lugano, on Swiss
soil." He was to arrive in this little town under the name of Cavi; he
would find at the principal inn the Contessa's footman, who would tell
him what to do. His aunt ended her letter as follows: "Take every
possible precaution to keep your mad escapade secret, and above all do
not carry on you any printed or written document; in Switzerland you
will be surrounded by the friends of Santa Margherita. [Footnote:
Silvio Pellico has given this name a European notoriety: it is that of
the street in Milan in which the police headquarters and prisons are
situated.] If I have enough money," the Contessa told him, "I shall
send someone to Geneva, to the Hôtel des Balances, and you shall have
particulars which I cannot put in writing but which you ought to know
before coming here. But, in heaven's name, not a day longer in Paris;
you will be recognised there by our spies." Fabrizio's imagination set
to work to construct the wildest hypotheses, and he was incapable of
any other pleasure save that of trying to guess what the strange
information could be that his aunt had to give him. Twice on his
passage through France he was arrested, but managed to get away; he
was indebted, for these unpleasantnesses, to his Italian passport and
to that strange description of him as a dealer in barometers, which
hardly seemed to tally with his youthful face and the arm which he
carried in a sling.

Finally, at Geneva, he found a man in the Contessa's service, who
gave him a message from her to the effect that he, Fabrizio, had been
reported to the police at Milan as having gone abroad to convey to
Napoleon certain proposals drafted by a vast conspiracy organised in
the former Kingdom of Italy. If this had not been the object of his
journey, the report went on, why should he have gone under an
assumed name? His mother was endeavouring to establish the truth, as
follows:

1st, that he had never gone beyond Switzerland.

2ndly, that he had left the castle suddenly after a quarrel with his
elder brother.

On hearing this story Fabrizio felt a thrill of pride. "I am supposed
to have been a sort of ambassador to Napoleon," he said to himself; "I
should have had the honour of speaking to that great man: would to
God I had!" He recalled that his ancestor seven generations back, a
grandson of him who came to Milan in the train of the Sforza, had had
the honour of having his head cut off by the Duke's enemies, who
surprised him as he was on his way to Switzerland to convey certain
proposals to the Free Cantons and to raise troops there. He saw in his
mind's eye the print that illustrated this exploit in the genealogy
of the family. Fabrizio, questioning the servant, found him shocked by
a detail which finally he allowed to escape him, despite the express
order, several times repeated to him by the Contessa, not to reveal
it. It was Ascanio, his elder brother, who had reported him to the
Milan police. This cruel news almost drove our hero out of his mind.
>From Geneva, in order to go to Italy, one must pass through Lausanne;
he insisted on setting off at once on foot, and thus covering ten to
twelve leagues, although the mail from Geneva to Lausanne was
starting in two hours' time. Before leaving Geneva he picked a quarrel
in one of the melancholy cafés of the place with a young man who, he
said, stared at him in a singular fashion. Which was perfectly true:
the young Genevan, phlegmatic, rational and interested only in money,
thought him mad; Fabrizio oh coming in had glared furiously in all
directions, then had upset the cup of coffee that was brought to him
over his breeches. In this quarrel Fabrizio's first movement was quite
of the sixteenth century: instead of proposing a duel to the young
Genevan, he drew his dagger and rushed upon him to stab him with it.
In this moment of passion, Fabrizio forgot everything he had ever
learned of the laws of honour and reverted to instinct, or, more
properly speaking, to the memories of his eariest childhood.

The confidential agent whom he found at Lugano increased his fury by
furnishing him with fresh details. As Fabrizio was beloved at Grianta,
no one there had mentioned his name, and, but for his brother's kind
intervention, everyone would have pretended to believe that he was at
Milan, and the attention of the police in that city would not have
been drawn to his absence.

"I expect the _doganieri_ have a description of you," his aunt's envoy
hinted, "and if we keep to the main road, when you come to the
frontier of the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, you will be arrested."

Fabrizio and his party were familiar with every footpath over the
mountain that divides Lugano from the Lake of Como; they disguised
themselves as hunters, that is to say as poachers, and as they were
three in number and had a fairly resolute bearing, the _doganieri_
whom they passed gave them a greeting and nothing more. Fabrizio
arranged things so as not to arrive at the castle until nearly
midnight; at that hour his father and all the powdered footmen had
long been in bed. He climbed down without difficulty into the deep
moat and entered the castle by the window of a cellar: it was there
that his mother and aunt were waiting for him; presently his sisters
came running in. Transports of affection alternated with tears for
some time, and they had scarcely begun to talk reasonably when the
first light of dawn came to warn these people who thought themselves
so unfortunate that time was flying.

"I hope your brother won't have any suspicion of your being here,"
Signora Pietranera said to him; "I have scarcely spoken to him since
that fine escapade of his, and his vanity has done me the honour of
taking offence. This evening, at supper, I condescended to say a few
words to him; I had to find some excuse to hide my frantic joy, which
might have made him suspicious. Then, when I noticed that he was quite
proud of this sham reconciliation, I took advantage of his happiness
to make him drink a great deal too much, and I am certain he will
never have thought of taking any steps to carry on his profession of
spying."

"We shall have to hide our hussar in your room," said the Marchesa;
"he can't leave at once; we haven't sufficient command of ourselves
at present to make plans, and we shall have to think out the best way
of putting those terrible Milan police off the track."

This plan was adopted; but the Marchese and his elder son noticed,
next day, that the Marchesa was constantly in her sister-in-law's
room. We shall not stop to depict the transports of affection and joy
which continued, all that day, to convulse these happy creatures.
Italian hearts are, far more than ours in France, tormented by the
suspicions and wild ideas which a burning imagination presents to
them, but on the other hand their joys are far more intense and more
lasting. On the day in question the Contessa and Marchesa were
literally out of their minds; Fabrizio was obliged to begin all his
stories over again; finally they decided to go away and conceal
their general joy at Milan, so difficult did it appear to be to keep
it hidden any longer from the scrutiny of the Marchese and his son
Ascanio.

They took the ordinary boat of the household to go to Como; to have
acted otherwise would have aroused endless suspicions. But on arriving
at the harbour of Como the Marchesa remembered that she had left
behind at Grianta papers of the greatest importance: she hastened to
send the boatmen back for them, and so these men could give no account
of how the two ladies were spending their time at Como. No sooner had
they arrived in the town than they selected haphazard one of the
carriages that ply for hire near that tall mediaeval tower which rises
above the Milan gate. They started off at once, without giving the
coachman time to speak to anyone. A quarter of a league from the town
they found a young sportsman of their acquaintance who, out of
courtesy to them as they had no man with them, kindly consented to act
as their escort as far as the gates of Milan, whither he was bound for
the shooting. All went well, and the ladies were conversing in the
most joyous way with the young traveller when, at a bend which the
road makes to pass the charming hill and wood of San Giovanni, three
constables in plain clothes sprang at the horses' heads. "Ah! My
husband has betrayed us," cried the Marchesa, and fainted away. A
serjeant who had remained a little way behind came staggering up to
the carriage and said, in a voice that reeked of the _trattoria_:

"I am sorry, sir, but I must do my duty and arrest you, General Fabio
Conti."

Fabrizio thought that the serjeant was making a joke at his expense
when he addressed him as "General." "You shall pay for this!" he said
to himself. He examined the men in plain clothes and watched for a
favourable moment to jump down from the carriage and dash across the
fields.

The Contessa smiled--a smile of despair, I fancy--then said to the
serjeant:

"But, my dear serjeant, is it this boy of sixteen that you take for
General Conti?"

"Aren't you the General's daughter?" asked the serjeant.

"Look at my father," said the Contessa, pointing to Fabrizio. The
constables went into fits of laughter.

"Show me your passports and don't argue the point," said the serjeant,
stung by the general mirth.

"These ladies never take passports to go to Milan," said the coachman
with a calm and philosophical air: "they are coming from their
castle of Grianta. This lady is the Signora Contessa Pietranera; the
other is the Signora Marchesa del Dongo."

The serjeant, completely disconcerted, went forward to the horses'
heads and there took counsel with his men. The conference had lasted
for fully five minutes when the Contessa asked if the gentlemen
would kindly allow the carriage to be moved forward a few yards and
stopped in the shade; the heat was overpowering, though it was only
eleven o'clock in the morning. Fabrizio, who was looking out most
attentively in all directions, seeking a way of escape, saw coming out
of a little path through the fields and on to the high road a girl of
fourteen or fifteen, who was crying timidly into her handkerchief. She
came forward walking between two constables in uniform, and, three
paces behind her, also between constables, stalked a tall, lean man
who assumed an air of dignity, like a Prefect following a procession.

"Where did you find them?" asked the serjeant, for the moment
completely drunk.

"Running away across the fields, with not a sign of a passport about
them."

The serjeant appeared to lose his head altogether; he had before him
five prisoners, instead of the two that he was expected to have. He
went a little way off, leaving only one man to guard the male prisoner
who put on the air of majesty, and another to keep the horses from
moving.

"Wait," said the Contessa to Fabrizio, who had already jumped out of
the carriage. "Everything will be settled in a minute."

They heard a constable exclaim: "What does it matter! If they have no
passports, they're fair game whoever they are." The serjeant seemed
not quite so certain; the name of Contessa Pietranera made him a
little uneasy: he had known the General, and had not heard of his
death. "The General is not the man to let it pass, if I arrest his
wife without good reason," he said to himself.

During this deliberation, which was prolonged, the Contessa had
entered into conversation with the girl, who was standing on the road,
and in the dust by the side of the carriage; she had been struck by
her beauty.

"The sun will be bad for you, Signorina. This gallant soldier," she
went on, addressing the constable who was posted at the horses' heads,
"will surely allow you to get into the carriage."

Fabrizio, who was wandering round the vehicle, came up to help the
girl to get in. Her foot was already on the step, her arm supported by
Fabrizio, when the imposing man, who was six yards behind the
carriage, called out in a voice magnified by the desire to preserve
his dignity:

"Stay in the road; don't get into a carriage that does not belong to
you!"

Fabrizio had not heard this order; the girl, instead of climbing into
the carriage, tried to get down again, and, as Fabrizio continued to
hold her up, fell into his arms. He smiled; she blushed a deep
crimson; they stood for a moment looking at one another after the girl
had disengaged herself from his arms.

"She would be a charming prison companion," Fabrizio said to himself.
"What profound thought lies behind that brow! She would know how to
love."

The serjeant came up to them with an air of authority: "Which of these
ladies is named Clelia Conti?"

"I am," said the girl.

"And I," cried the elderly man, "am General Fabio Conti, Chamberlain
to H.S.H. the Prince of Parma; I consider it most irregular that a man
in my position should be hunted down like a thief."

"The day before yesterday, when you embarked at the harbour of Como,
did you not tell the police inspector who asked for your passport to
go away? Very well, his orders to-day are that you are not to go
away."

"I had already pushed off my boat, I was in a hurry, there was a storm
threatening, a man not in uniform shouted to me from the quay to put
back into harbour, I told him my name and went on."

"And this morning you escaped from Como."

"A man like myself does not take a passport when he goes from Milan to
visit the lake. This morning, at Como, I was told that I should be
arrested at the gate. I left the town on foot with my daughter; I
hoped to find on the road some carriage that would take me to Milan,
where the first thing I shall do will certainly be to call on the
General commanding the Province and lodge a complaint."

A heavy weight seemed to have been lifted from the serjeant's mind.

"Very well, General, you are under arrest and I shall take you to
Milan. And you, who are you?" he said to Fabrizio.

"My son," replied the Contessa; "Ascanio, son of the Divisional
General Pietranera."

"Without a passport, Signora Contessa?" said the serjeant, in a much
gentler tone.

"At his age, he has never had one; he never travels alone, he is
always with me."

During this colloquy General Conti was standing more and more on his
dignity with the constables.

"Not so much talk," said one of them; "you are under arrest, that's
enough!"

"You will be glad to hear," said the serjeant, "that we allow you to
hire a horse from some contadino; otherwise, never mind all the dust
and the heat and the Chamberlain of Parma, you would have to put your
best foot foremost to keep pace with our horses."

The General began to swear.

"Will you kindly be quiet!" the constable repeated. "Where is your
general's uniform? Anybody can come along and say he's a general."

The General grew more and more angry. Meanwhile things were looking
much brighter in the carriage.

The Contessa kept the constables running about as if they had been her
servants. She had given a scudo to one of them to go and fetch wine,
and, what was better still, cold water from a cottage that was visible
two hundred yards away. She had found time to calm Fabrizio, who was
determined, at all costs, to make a dash for the wood that covered the
hill. "I have a good brace of pistols," he said. She obtained the
infuriated General's permission for his daughter to get into the
carriage. On this occasion the General, who loved to talk about
himself and his family, told the ladies that his daughter was only
twelve years old, having been born in 1803, on the 27th of October,
but that, such was her intelligence, everyone took her to be fourteen
or fifteen.

"A thoroughly common man," the Contessa's eyes signalled to the
Marchesa. Thanks to the Contessa, everything was settled, after a
colloquy that lasted an hour. A constable, who discovered that he had
some business to do in the neighbouring village, lent his horse to
General Conti, after the Contessa had said to him: "You shall have
ten francs." The serjeant went off by himself with the General; the
other constables stayed behind under a tree, accompanied by four
huge bottles of wine, almost small demi-johns, which the one who had
been sent to the cottage had brought back, with the help of a
_contadino_, Clelia Conti was authorised by the proud Chamberlain to
accept, for the return journey to Milan, a seat in the ladies'
carriage, and no one dreamed of arresting the son of the gallant
General Pietranera. After the first few minutes had been devoted to an
exchange of courtesies and to remarks on the little incident that had
just occurred, Clelia Conti observed the note of enthusiasm with which
so beautiful a lady as the Contessa spoke to Fabrizio; certainly, she
was not his mother. The girl's attention was caught most of all by
repeated allusions to something heroic, bold, dangerous to the last
degree, which he had recently done; but for all her cleverness little
Clelia could not discover what this was. She gazed with astonishment
at this young hero, whose eyes seemed to be blazing still with all the
fire of action. For his part, he was somewhat embarrassed by the
remarkable beauty of this girl of twelve, and her steady gaze made him
blush.

A league outside Milan Fabrizio announced that he was going to see his
uncle, and took leave of the ladies.

"If I ever get out of my difficulties," he said to Clelia, "I shall
pay a visit to the beautiful pictures at Parma, and then will you
deign to remember the name: Fabrizio del Dongo?"

"Good!" said the Contessa, "that is how you keep your identity secret.
Signorina, deign to remember that this scape-grace is my son, and is
called Pietranera, and not del Dongo."

That evening, at a late hour, Fabrizio entered Milan by the Porta
Renza, which leads to a fashionable gathering-place. The despatch of
their two servants to Switzerland had exhausted the very modest
savings of the Marchesa and her sister-in-law; fortunately, Fabrizio
had still some napoleons left, and one of the diamonds, which they
decided to sell.

The ladies were highly popular, and knew everyone in the town. The
most important personages in the Austrian and religious party went to
speak on behalf of Fabrizio to Barone Binder, the Chief of Police.
These gentlemen could not conceive, they said, how anyone could take
seriously the escapade of a boy of sixteen who left the paternal
roof after a dispute with an elder brother.

"My business is to take everything seriously," replied Barone Binder
gently; a wise and solemn man, he was then engaged in forming the
Milan police, and had undertaken to prevent a revolution like that of
1746, which drove the Austrians from Genoa. This Milan police, since
rendered so famous by the adventures of Silvio Pellico and M.
Andryane, was not exactly cruel; it carried out, reasonably and
without pity, harsh laws. The Emperor Francis II wished these
over-bold Italian imaginations to be struck by terror.

"Give me, day by day," repeated Barone Binder to Fabrizio's
protectors, "a _certified_ account of what the young Marchesino del
Dongo has been doing; let us follow him from the moment of his
departure on the 8th of March to his arrival last night in this city,
where he is hidden in one of the rooms of his mother's apartment, and
I am prepared to treat him as the most well-disposed and most
frolicsome young man in town. If you cannot furnish me with the young
man's itinerary during all the days following his departure from
Grianta, however exalted his birth may be, however great the respect I
owe to the friends of his family, obviously it is my duty to order his
arrest. Am I not bound to keep him in prison until he-has furnished me
with proofs that he did not go to convey a message to Napoleon from
such disaffected persons as may exist in Lombardy among the subjects
of His Imperial and Royal Majesty? Note farther, gentlemen, that if
young del Dongo succeeds in justifying himself on this point, he will
still be liable to be charged with having gone abroad without a
passport properly issued to himself, and also with assuming a false
name and deliberately making use of a passport issued to a common
workman, that is to say to a person of a class greatly inferior to
that to which he himself belongs."

This declaration, cruelly reasonable, was accompanied by all the marks
of deference and respect which the Chief of Police owed to the high
position of the Marchesa del Dongo and of the important personages who
were intervening on her behalf.

The Marchesa was in despair when Barone Binder's reply was
communicated to her.

"Fabrizio will be arrested," she sobbed, "and once he is in prison,
God knows when he will get out! His father will disown him!"

Signora Pietranera and her sister-in-law took counsel with two or
three ultimate friends, and, in spite of anything these might say, the
Marchesa was absolutely determined to send her son away that very
night.

"But you can see quite well," the Contessa pointed out to her, "that
Barone Binder knows that your son is here; he is not a bad man."

"No; but he is anxious to please the Emperor Francis."

"But, if he thought it would lead to his promotion to put Fabrizio in
prison, the boy would be there now; it is showing an insulting
defiance of the Barone to send him away."

"But his admission to us that he knows where Fabrizio is, is as much
as to say: 'Send him away!' No, I shan't feel alive until I can no
longer say to myself: 'In a quarter of an hour my son may be within.
prison walls.' Whatever Barone Binder's ambition may be," the Marchesa
went on, "he thinks it useful to his personal standing in this country
to make certain concessions to oblige a man of my husband's rank, and
I see a proof of this in the singular frankness with which he admits
that he knows where to lay hands on my son. Besides, the Barone has
been so kind as to let us know the two offences with which Fabrizio is
charged, at the instigation of his unworthy brother; he explains that
each of these offences means prison: is not that as much as to say
that if we prefer exile it is for us to choose?"

"If you choose exile," the Contessa kept on repeating, "we shall never
set eyes on him again as long as we live." Fabrizio, who was present
at the whole conversation, with an old friend of the Marchesa, now a
counsellor on the tribunal set up by Austria, was strongly inclined to
take the key of the street and go; and, as a matter of fact, that same
evening he left the _palazzo_, hidden in the carriage that was taking
his mother and aunt to the Scala theatre. The coachman, whom they,
distrusted, went as usual to wait in an _osteria_, and while the
footmen, on whom they could rely, were looking after the horses,
Fabrizio, disguised as a _contadino_, slipped out of the carriage and
escaped from the town. Next morning he crossed the frontier with equal
ease, and a few hours later had established himself on a property
which his mother owned in Piedmont, near Novara, to be precise, at
Romagnano, where Bayard was killed.

It may be imagined how much attention the ladies, on reaching their
box in the Scala, paid to the performance. They had gone there solely
to be able to consult certain of their friends who belonged to the
Liberal party and whose appearance at the _palazzo_ del Dongo might
have been misconstrued by the police. In the box it was decided to
make a fresh appeal to Barone Binder. There was no question of
offering a sum of money to this magistrate who was a perfectly honest
man; moreover, the ladies were extremely poor; they had forced
Fabrizio to take with him all the money that remained from the sale
of the diamond.

It was of the utmost importance that they should be kept constantly
informed of the Barone's latest decisions. The Contessa's friends
reminded her of a certain Canon Borda, a most charming young man who
at one time had tried to make advances to her, in a somewhat violent
manner; finding himself unsuccessful he had reported her friendship
for Limercati to General Pietranera, whereupon he had been dismissed
from the house as a rascal. Now, at present this Canon was in the
habit of going every evening to play tarocchi with Baronessa Binder,
and was naturally the intimate friend of her husband. The Contessa
made up her mind to take the horribly unpleasant step of going to see
this Canon; and the following morning, at an early hour, before he had
left the house, she sent in her name.

When the Canon's one and only servant announced: "Contessa
Pietranera," his master was so overcome as to be incapable of
speech; he made no attempt to repair the disorder of a very scanty
attire.

"Shew her in, and leave us," he said in faint accents. The Contessa
entered the room; Borda fell on his knees.

"It is in this position that an unhappy madman ought to receive your
orders," he said to the Contessa, who, that morning, in a plain
costume that was almost a disguise, was irresistibly attractive. Her
intense grief at Fabrizio's exile, the violence that she was doing to
her own feelings in coming to the house of a man who had behaved
treacherously towards her, all combined to give an incredible
brilliance to her eyes. "It is in this position that I wish to
recieve your orders," cried the Canon, "for it is obvious that you
have some service to ask of me, otherwise you would not have honoured
with your presence the poor dwelling of an unhappy madman; once
before, carried away by love and jealousy, he behaved towards you like
a scoundrel, as soon as he saw that he could not win your favour."

The words were sincere, and all the more handsome in that the Canon
now enjoyed a position of great power; the Contessa was moved to
tears by them; humiliation and fear had frozen her spirit; now in a
moment affection and a gleam of hope took their place. From a most
unhappy state she passed in a flash almost to happiness.

"Kiss my hand," she said, as she held it out to the Canon, "and rise."
(She used the second person singular, which in Italy, it must be
remembered, indicates a sincere and open friendship just as much as a
more tender sentiment.) "I have come to ask your favour for my nephew
Fabrizio. This is the whole truth of the story without the slightest
concealment, as one tells it to an old friend. At the age of sixteen
and a half he has done an intensely stupid thing. We were at the
castle of Grianta on the Lake of Como. One evening at seven o'clock we
learned by a boat from Como of the Emperor's landing on the shore of
the Gulf of Juan. Next morning Fabrizio went off to France, after
borrowing the passport of one of his plebeian friends, a dealer in
barometers, named Vasi. As he does not exactly resemble a dealer in
barometers, he had hardly gone ten leagues into France when he was
arrested on sight; his outbursts of enthusiasm in bad French seemed
suspicious. After a time he escaped and managed to reach Geneva; we
sent to meet him at Lugano...."

"That is to say, Geneva," put in the Canon with a smile.

The Contessa finished her story.

"I will do everything for you that is humanly possible," replied the
Canon effusively; "I place myself entirely at your disposal. I will
even do imprudent things," he added. "Tell me, what am I to do as soon
as this poor parlour is deprived of this heavenly apparition which
marks an epoch in the history of my life?"

"You must go to Barone Binder and tell him that you have loved
Fabrizio ever since he was born, that you saw him in his cradle when
you used to come to our house, and that accordingly, in the name of
the friendship he has shown for you, you beg him to employ all his
spies to discover whether, before his departure for Switzerland,
Fabrizio was in any sort of communication whatsoever with any of the
Liberals whom he has under supervision. If the Barone's information
is of any value, he is bound to see that there is nothing more in this
than a piece of boyish folly. You know that I used to have, in my
beautiful apartment in the _palazzo_ Dugnani, prints of the battles
won by Napoleon: it was by spelling out the legends engraved beneath
them that my nephew learned to read. When he was five years old, my
poor husband used to explain these battles to him; we put my husband's
helmet on his head, the boy strutted about trailing his big sabre.
Very well, one fine day he learns that my husband's god, the
Emperor, has returned to France, he starts out to join him, like a
fool, but does not succeed in reaching him. Ask your Barone with
what penalty he proposes to punish this moment of folly?"

"I was forgetting one thing," said the Canon, "you shall see that I am
not altogether unworthy of the pardon that you grant me. Here," he
said, looking on the table among his papers, "here is the accusation
by that infamous _collo-torto_" (that is, hypocrite), "see, signed
_Ascanio Vdiserra del_ DONGO, which gave rise to the whole trouble; I
found it yesterday at the police headquarters, and went to the Scala
in the hope of finding someone who was in the habit of going to your
box, through whom I might be able to communicate it to you. A copy of
this document reached Vienna long ago. There is the enemy that we
have to fight." The Canon read the accusation through with the
Contessa, and it was agreed that in the course of the day he would let
her have a copy by the hand of some trustworthy person. It was with
joy in her heart that the Contessa returned to the _palazzo_ del
Dongo.

"No one could possibly be more of a gentleman than that reformed
rake," she told the Marchesa. "This evening at the Scala, at a quarter
to eleven by the theatre clock, we are to send everyone away from our
box, put out the candles, and shut our door, and at eleven the Canon
himself will come and tell us what he has managed to do. We decided
that this would be the least compromising course for him."

This Canon was a man of spirit; he was careful to keep the
appointment; he shewed when he came a complete good nature and an
unreserved openness of heart such as are scarcely to be found except
in countries where vanity does not predominate over every other
sentiment. His denunciation of the Contessa to her husband, General
Pietranera, was one of the great sorrows of his life, and he had now
found a means of getting rid of that remorse.

That morning, when the Contessa had left his room, "So she's in love
with her nephew, is she," he had said to himself bitterly, for he was
by no means cured. "With her pride, to have come to me! ... After that
poor Pietranera died, she repulsed with horror my offers of service,
though they were most polite and admirably presented by Colonel
Scotti, her old lover. The beautiful Pietranera reduced to living on
fifteen hundred francs!" the Canon went on, striding vigorously up
and down the room. "And then to go and live in the castle of Grianta,
with an abominable _seccatore_ like that Marchese del Dongo! ... I can
see it all now! After all, that young Fabrizio is full of charm, tall,
well built, always with a smile on his face ... and, better still, a
deliciously voluptuous expression in his eye ... a Correggio face,"
the Canon added bitterly.

"The difference in age ... not too great ... Fabrizio born after
the French came, about '98, I fancy; the Contessa might be
twenty-seven or twenty-eight: no one could be better looking, more
adorable. In this country rich in beauties, she defeats them all, the
Marini, the Gherardi, the Ruga, the Aresi, the Pietragrua, she is far
and away above any of them. They were living happily together, hidden
away by that beautiful Lake of Como, when the young man took it into
his head to join Napoleon.... There are still souls in Italy! In
spite of everything! Dear country! No," went on this heart inflamed by
jealousy, "impossible to explain in any other way her resigning
herself to vegetating in the country, with the disgusting spectacle,
day after day, at every meal, of that horrible face of the Marchese
del Dongo, as well as that unspeakable pasty physiognomy of the
Marchesino Ascanio, who is going to be worse than his father! Well, I
shall serve her faithfully. At least I shall have the pleasure of
seeing her otherwise than through an opera-glass."

Canon Borda explained the whole case very clearly to the ladies. At
heart, Binder was as well disposed as they could wish; he was
delighted that Fabrizio should have taken the key of the street before
any orders could arrive from Vienna; for Barone Binder had no power to
make any decision, he awaited orders in this case as in every other.
He sent every day to Vienna an exact copy of all the information that
reached him; then he waited.

It was necessary that, in his exile at Romagnano, Fabrizio

(1) Should hear mass daily without fail, take as his confessor a man
of spirit, devoted to the cause of the Monarchy, and should confess to
him, at the tribunal of penitence, only the most irreproachable
sentiments.

(2) Should consort with no one who bore any reputation for
intelligence, and, were the need to arise, must speak of rebellion
with horror as a thing that no circumstances could justify.

(3) Must never let himself be seen in the _caffè_, must never read any
newspaper other than the official _Gazette_ of Turin and Milan; in
general he should shew a distaste for reading, and never open any book
printed later than 1720, with the possible exception of the novels of
Walter Scott.

(4) "Finally" (the Canon added with a touch of malice), "it is most
important that he should pay court openly to one of the pretty women
of the district, of the noble class, of course; this will shew that he
has not the dark and dissatisfied mind of an embryo conspirator."

Before going to bed, the Contessa and the Marchesa each wrote Fabrizio
an endless letter, in which they explained to him with a charming
anxiety all the advice that had been given them by Borda.

' Fabrizio had no wish to be a conspirator: he loved Napoleon, and,
in his capacity as a young noble, believed that he had been created to
be happier than his neighbour, and thought the middle classes absurd.
Never had he opened a book since leaving school, where he had read
only texts arranged by the Jesuits. He established himself at some
distance from Romagnano, in a magnificent _palazzo_, one of the
masterpieces of the famous architect Sanmicheli; but for thirty years
it had been uninhabited, so that the rain came into every room and not
one of the windows would shut. He took possession of the agent's
horses, which he rode without ceremony at all hours of the day; he
never spoke, and he thought about things. The recommendation to take
a mistress from an _ultra_ family appealed to him, and he obeyed it to
the letter. He chose as his confessor a young priest given to intrigue
who wished to become a bishop (like the confessor of the Spielberg
[Footnote: See the curious Memoirs of M. Andryane, as entertaining as
a novel, and as lasting as Tacitus.]

but he went three leagues on foot and wrapped himself in a
mystery which he imagined to be impenetrable, in order to read the
_Constitutionnel_, which he thought sublime. "It is as fine as Alfieri
and Dante!" he used often to exclaim. Fabrizio had this in common with
the young men of France, that he was far more seriously taken up with
his horse and his newspaper than with his politically _sound_
mistress. But there was no room as yet for _imitation of others_ in
this simple and sturdy nature, and he made no friends in the society
of the large country town of Romagnano; his simplicity passed as
arrogance: no one knew what to make of his character. "_He is a
younger son who feels himself wronged because he is not the eldest_,"
was the _parroco's_ comment.




CHAPTER SIX

Let us admit frankly that Canon Borda's jealousy was not altogether
unfounded: on his return from France, Fabrizio appeared to the eyes
of Contessa Pietranera like a handsome stranger whom she had known
well in days gone by. If he had spoken to her of love she would have
loved him; had she not already conceived, for his conduct and his
person, a passionate and, one might say, unbounded admiration? But
Fabrizio embraced her with such an effusion of innocent gratitude and
good-fellowship that she would have been horrified with herself had
she sought for any other sentiment in this almost filial friendship.
"After all," she said to herself, "some of my friends who knew me six
years ago, at Prince Eugene's court, may still find me good-looking
and even young, but for him I am a respectable woman--and, if the
truth must be told without any regard for my vanity, a woman of a
certain age." The Contessa was under an illusion as to the period of
life at which she had arrived, but it was not the illusion of common
women. "Besides, at his age," she went on, "boys are apt to exaggerate
the ravages of time. A man with more experience of life . .."

The Contessa, who was pacing the floor of her drawing-room, stopped
before a mirror, then smiled. It must be explained that, some months
since, the heart of Signora Pietranera had been attacked in a serious
fashion, and by a singular personage. Shortly after Fabrizio's
departure for France, the Contessa who, without altogether admitting
it to herself, was already beginning to take a great interest in him,
had fallen into a profound melancholy. All her occupations seemed to
her to lack pleasure, and, if one may use the word, savour; she told
herself that Napoleon, wishing to secure the attachment of his Italian
peoples, would take Fabrizio as his aide-de-camp. "He is lost to me!"
she exclaimed, weeping, "I shall never see him again; he will write to
me, but what shall I be to him in ten years' time?"

It was in this frame of mind that she made an expedition to Milan; she
hoped to find there some more immediate news of Napoleon, and, for all
she knew, incidentally news of Fabrizio. Without admitting it to
herself, this active soul was beginning to be very weary of the
monotonous life she was leading in the country. "It is a postponement
of death," she said to herself, "it is not life." Every day to see
those powdered heads, her brother, her nephew Ascanio, their footmen!
What would her excursions on the lake be without Fabrizio? Her sole
consolation was based on the ties of friendship that bound her to
the Marchesa. But for some time now this intimacy with Fabrizio's
mother, a woman older than herself and with no hope left in life, had
begun to be less attractive to her.

Such was the singular position in which Signora Pietranera was placed:
with Fabrizio away, she had little hope for the future. Her heart was
in need of consolation and novelty. On arriving in Milan she conceived
a passion for the fashionable opera; she would go and shut herself up
alone for hours on end, at the Scala, in the box of her old friend
General Scotti. The men whom she tried to meet in order to obtain news
of Napoleon and his army seemed to her vulgar and coarse. Going home,
she would improvise on her piano until three o'clock in the morning.
One evening, at the Scala, in the box of one of her friends to which
she had gone in search of news from France, she made the acquaintance
of Conte Mosca, a Minister from Parma; he was an agreeable man who
spoke of France and Napoleon in a way that gave her fresh reasons for
hope or fear. She returned to the same box the following evening; this
intelligent man. reappeared and throughout the whole performance she
talked to him with enjoyment. Since Fabrizio's departure she had not
found any evening so lively. This man who amused her, Conte Mosca
della Rovere Sorezana, was at that time Minister of Police and Finance
to that famous Prince of Parma, Ernesto IV, so notorious for his
severities, which the Liberals of Milan called cruelties. Mosca might
have been forty or forty-five; he had strongly marked features, with
no trace of self-importance, and a simple and light-hearted manner
which was greatly in his favour; he would have looked very well
indeed, if a whim on the part of his Prince had not obliged him to
wear powder on his hair as a proof of his soundness in politics. As
people have little fear of wounding one another's vanity, they quickly
arrive in Italy at a tone of intimacy, and make personal observations.
The antidote to this practice is not to see the other person again if
one's feelings have been hurt.

"Tell me, Conte, why do you powder your hair?" Signora Pietranera
asked him at their third meeting. "Powder! A man like you, attractive,
still young, who fought on our side in Spain!"

"Because, in the said Spain, I stole nothing, and one must live. I was
athirst for glory; a flattering word from the French General, Gouvion
Saint-Cyr, who commanded us, was everything to me then. When
Napoleon fell, it so happened that while I was eating up my patrimony
in his service, my father, a man of imagination, who pictured me as a
general already, had been building me a _palazzo_ at Parma. In 1813 I
found that my whole worldly wealth consisted of a huge _palazzo_, half
finished, and a pension."

"A pension: 3,500 francs, like my husband's?"

"Conte Pietranera commanded a Division. My pension, as a humble
squadron commander, has never been more than 800 francs, and even that
has been paid to me only since I became Minister of Finance."

As there was nobody else in the box but the lady of extremely
liberal views to whom it belonged, the conversation continued with the
same frankness. Conte Mosca, when questioned, spoke of his life at
Parma. "In Spain, under General Saint-Cyr, I faced the enemy's fire to
win a cross and a little glory besides, now I dress myself up like an
actor in a farce to win a great social position and a few thousand
francs a year. Once I had started on this sort of political
chessboard, stung by the insolence of my superiors, I determined to
occupy one of the foremost posts; I have reached it. But the happiest
days of my life will always be those which, now and again, I manage to
spend at Milan; here, it seems to me, there still survives the spirit
of your Army of Italy."

The frankness, the _disinvoltura_ with which this Minister of so
dreaded a Prince spoke pricked the Contessa's curiosity; from his
title she had expected to find a pedant filled with self-importance;
what she saw was a man who was ashamed of the gravity of his position.
Mosca had promised to let her have all the news from France that he
could collect; this was a grave indiscretion at Milan, during the
month that preceded Waterloo; the question for Italy at that time was
to be or not to be; everyone at Milan was in a fever, a fever of hope
or fear. Amid this universal disturbance, the Contessa started to
make inquiries about a man who spoke thus lightly of so coveted a
position, and one which, moreover, was his sole means of livelihood.

Certain curious information of an interesting oddity was reported to
Signora Pietranera. "Conte Mosca della Rovere Sorezana," she was told,
"is on the point of becoming Prime Minister and declared favourite of
Ranuccio-Ernesto IV, the absolute sovereign of Parma and one of the
wealthiest Princes in Europe to boot. The Conte would already have
attained to this exalted position if he had cared to shew a more
solemn face: they say that the Prince often lectures him on this
failing.

"'What do my manners matter to Your Highness,' he answers boldly,
'so long as I conduct his affairs?'

"This favourite's bed of roses," her informant went on, "is not
without its thorns. He has to please a Sovereign, a man of sense and
intelligence, no doubt, but a man who, since his accession to an
absolute throne, seems to have lost his head altogether and shews, for
instance, suspicions worthy of an old woman.

"Ernesto IV is courageous only in war. On the field of battle he has
been seen a score of times leading a column to the attack like a
gallant general; but after the death of his father, Ernesto III, on
his return to his States, where, unfortunately for him, he possesses
unlimited power, he set to work to inveigh in the most senseless
fashion against Liberals and liberty. Presently he began to imagine
that he was hated; finally, in a moment of ill temper, he had two
Liberals hanged, who may or may not have been guilty, acting on the
advice of a wretch called Rassi, a sort of Minister of Justice.

"From that fatal moment the Prince's life changed; we find him
tormented by the strangest suspicions. He is not fifty, and fear has
so reduced him, if one may use the expression, that whenever he
speaks of Jacobins, and the plans of the Central Committee in Paris,
his face becomes like that of an old man of eighty; he relapses into
the fantastic fears of childhood. His favourite, Rassi, the Fiscal
General (or Chief Justice), has no influence except through his
master's fear; and whenever he is alarmed for his own position, he
makes haste to discover some fresh conspiracy of the blackest and most
fantastic order. Thirty rash fellows have banded themselves together
to read a number of the _Constitutionnel_, Rassi declares them to be
conspirators, and sends them off to prison in that famous citadel of
Parma, the terror of the whole of Lombardy. As it rises to a great
height, a hundred and eighty feet, people say, it is visible from a
long way off in the middle of that immense plain; and the physical
outlines of the prison, of which horrible things are reported, makes
it the queen, governing by fear, of the whole of that plain, which
extends from Milan to Bologna."

"Would you believe," said another traveller to the Contessa, "that
at night, on the third floor of his palace, guarded by eighty
sentinels who every quarter of an hour cry aloud a whole sentence,
Ernesto IV trembles in his room. All the doors fastened with ten
bolts, and the adjoining rooms, above as well as below him, packed
with soldiers, he is afraid of the Jacobins. If a plank creaks in the
floor, he snatches up his pistols and imagines there is a Liberal
hiding under his bed. At once all the bells in the castle are set
ringing, and an aide-de-camp goes to awaken Conte Mosca. On reaching
the castle, the Minister of Police takes good care not to deny the
existence of any conspiracy; on the contrary, alone with the Prince,
and armed to the teeth, he inspects every corner of the rooms, looks
under the beds, and, in a word, gives himself up to a whole heap of
ridiculous actions worthy of an old woman. All these precautions would
have seemed highly degrading to the Prince himself in the happy days
when he used to go to war and had never killed anyone except in open
combat. As he is a man of infinite spirit, he is ashamed of these
precautions; they seem to him ridiculous, even at the moment when he
is giving way to them, and the source of Conte Mosca's enormous
reputation is that he devotes all his skill to arranging that the
Prince shall never have occasion to blush in his presence. It is he,
Mosca, who, in his capacity as Minister of Police, insists upon
looking under the furniture, and, so people say in Parma, even in the
cases in which the musicians keep their double-basses. It is the
Prince who objects to this and teases his Minister over his excessive
punctiliousness. 'It is a challenge,' Conte Mosca replies; 'think of
the satirical sonnets the Jacobins would shower on us if we allowed
you to 'be killed. It is not only your life that we are defending, it
is our honour.'

But it appears that the Prince is only half taken in by this, for if
anyone in the town should take it into his head to remark that they
have passed a sleepless night at the castle, the Grand Fiscal Rassi
sends the impertinent fellow to the citadel, and once in that lofty
abode, and _in the fresh air_, as they say at Parma, it is a miracle
if anyone remembers the prisoner's existence. It is because he is a
soldier, and in Spain got away a score of times, pistol in hand, from
a tight corner, that the Prince prefers Conte Mosca to Rassi, who is a
great deal more flexible and baser. Those unfortunate prisoners in
the citadel are kept in the most rigorously secret confinement, and
all sort of stories are told about them. The Liberals assert that (and
this, they say, is one of Rassi's ideas) the gaolers and confessors
are under orders to assure them, about once a month, that one of them
is being led out to die. That day the prisoners have permission to
climb to the platform of the huge tower, one hundred and eighty feet
high, and from there they see a procession file along the plain with
some spy who plays the part of a poor devil going to his death."

These stories and a score of others of the same nature and of no less
authenticity keenly interested Signora Pietranera: on the following
day she asked Conte Mosca, whom she rallied briskly, for details. She
found him amusing, and maintained to him that at heart he was a
monster without knowing it. One day as he went back to his inn the
Conte said to himself: "Not only is this Contessa Pietranera a
charming woman; but when I spend the evening in her box I manage to
forget certain things at Parma the memory of which cuts me to the
heart."--This Minister, in spite of his frivolous air and his polished
manners, was not blessed with a soul of the French type; he could not
_forget_ the things that annoyed him. When there was a thorn in his
pillow, he was obliged to break it off and .to blunt its point by
repeated stabbings of his throbbing limbs. (I must apologise for the
last two sentences, which are translated from the Italian.) On the
morrow of this discovery, the Conte found that, notwithstanding the
business that had summoned him to Milan, the day spun itself out to an
enormous length; he could not stay in one place, he wore out his
carriage-horses. About six o'clock he mounted his saddle-horse to ride
to the _Corso_; he had some hope of meeting Signora Pietranera there;
seeing no sign of her, he remembered that at eight o'clock the Scala
Theatre opened; he entered it, and did not see ten persons in that
immense auditorium. He felt somewhat ashamed of himself for being
there. "Is it possible," he asked himself, "that at forty-five and
past I am committing follies at which a sub-lieutenant would blush?
Fortunately nobody suspects them." He fled, and tried to pass the time
by strolling up and down the attractive streets that surround the
Scala. They are lined with _caffè_ which at that hour are filled to
overflowing with people. Outside each of these _caffè_ crowds of
curious idlers perched on chairs in the middle of the street sip ices
and criticise the passers-by. The Conte was a passer-by of importance;
at once he had the pleasure of being recognised and addressed. Three
or four importunate persons of the kind that one cannot easily shake
off seized this opportunity to obtain an audience of so powerful a
Minister. Two of them handed him petitions; the third was content with
pouring out a stream of long-winded advice as to his political
conduct.

"One does not sleep," he said to himself, "when one has such a brain;
one ought not to walk about when one is so powerful." He returned to
the theatre, where it occurred to him that he might take a box in the
third tier; from there his gaze could plunge, unnoticed by anyone,
into the box in the second tier in which he hoped to see the Contessa
arrive. Two full hours of waiting did not seem any too long to this
lover; certain of not being seen he abandoned himself joyfully to the
full extent of his folly. "Old age," he said to himself, "is not that,
more than anything else, the time when one is no longer capable of
these delicious puerilities?"

Finally the Contessa appeared. Armed with his glasses, he studied her
with rapture: "Young, brilliant, light as a bird," he said to
himself, "she is not twenty-five. Her beauty is the least of her
charms: where else could one find that soul, always sincere, which
never acts _with prudence_, which abandons itself entirely to the
impression of the moment, which asks only to be carried away towards
some new goal? I can understand Conte Nani's foolish behaviour."

The Conte supplied himself with excellent reasons for behaving
foolishly, so long as he was thinking only of capturing the
happiness which he saw before his eyes. He did not find any quite so
satisfactory when he came to consider his age and the anxieties,
sometimes of the saddest nature, that burdened his life. "A man of
ability, whose spirit has been destroyed by fear, gives me a sumptuous
life and plenty of money to be his Minister; but were he to dismiss me
to-morrow, I should be left old and poor, that is to say everything
that the world despises most; there's a fine partner to offer the
Contessa!" These thoughts were too dark, he came back to Signora
Pietranera; he could not tire of gazing at her, and, to be able to
think of her better, did not go down to her box. "Her only reason for
taking Nani, they tell me, was to put that imbecile Limercati in his
place when he could not be prevailed upon to run a sword, or to hire
someone else to stick a dagger into her husband's murderer. I would
fight for her twenty times over!" cried the Conte in a transport of
enthusiasm. Every moment he consulted the theatre clock which, with
illuminated figures upon a black background, warned the audience
every five minutes of the approach of the hour at which it was
permissible for them to visit a friend's box. The Conte said to
himself: "I cannot spend more than half an hour at the most in the
box, seeing that I have known her so short a time; if I stay longer, I
shall attract attention, and, thanks to my age and even more to this
accursed powder on my hair, I shall have all the bewitching
allurements of a Cassandra." But a sudden thought made up his mind
once and for all. "If she were to leave that box to pay someone else a
visit, I should be well rewarded for the avarice with which I am
hoarding up this pleasure." He rose to go down to the box in which he
could see the Contessa; all at once he found that he had lost almost
all his desire to present himself to her.

"Ah! this is really charming," he exclaimed with a smile at his own
expense, and coming to a halt on the staircase; "an impulse of genuine
shyness! It must be at least five and twenty years since an adventure
of this sort last came my way."

He entered the box, almost with an effort to control himself; and,
making the most, like a man of spirit, of the condition in which he
found himself, made no attempt to appear at ease, or to display his
wit by plunging into some entertaining story; he had the courage to
be shy, he employed his wits in letting his disturbance be apparent
without making himself ridiculous. "If she should take it amiss," he
said to himself, "I am lost for ever. What! Shy, with my hair covered
with powder, hair which, without the disguise of the powder, would be
visibly grey! But, after all, it is a fact; it cannot therefore be
absurd unless I exaggerate it or make a boast of it." The Contessa had
spent so many weary hours at the castle of Grianta, facing the
powdered heads of her brother and nephew, and of various politically
_sound_ bores of the neighbourhood, that it never occurred to her to
give a thought to her new adorer's style in hairdressing.

The Contessa's mind having this protection against the impulse to
laugh on his entry, she paid attention only to the news from France
which Mosca always had for her in detail, on coming to her box; no
doubt he used to invent it. As she discussed this news with him, she
noticed this evening the expression in his eyes, which was good and
kindly.

"I can imagine," she said to him, "that at Parma, among your slaves,
you will not wear that friendly expression; it would ruin everything
and give them some hope of not being hanged!"

The entire absence of any sense of self-importance in a man who passed
as the first diplomat in Italy seemed strange to the Contessa; she
even found a certain charm in it. Moreover, as he talked well and with
warmth, she was not at all displeased that he should have thought fit
to take upon himself for one evening, without ulterior consequences,
the part of squire of dames.

It was a great step forward, and highly dangerous; fortunately for
the Minister, who, at Parma, never met a cruel fair, the Contessa had
arrived from Grianta only a few days before: her mind was still stiff
with the boredom of a country life. She had almost forgotten how to
make fun; and all those things that appertain to a light and elegant
way of living had assumed in her eyes as it were a tint of novelty
which made them sacred; she was in no mood to laugh at anyone, even a
lover of forty-five, and shy. A week later, the Conte's temerity might
have met with a very different sort of welcome.

At the Scala, it is not usual to prolong for more than twenty minutes
or so these little visits to one's friends' boxes; the Conte spent the
whole evening in the box in which he had been so fortunate as to meet
Signora Pietranera. "She is a woman," he said to himself, "who revives
in me all the follies of my youth!" But he was well aware of the
danger. "Will my position as an all-powerful Bashaw in a place forty
leagues away induce her to pardon me this stupid behaviour? I get so
bored at Parma!" Meanwhile, every quarter of an hour, he registered a
mental vow to get up and go.

"I must explain to you, Signora," he said to the Contessa with a
laugh, "that at Parma I am bored to death, and I ought to be allowed
to drink my fill of pleasure when the cup comes my way. So, without
involving you in anything and simply for this evening, permit me to
play the part of lover in your company. Alas, in a few days I shall
be far away from this box which makes me forget every care and indeed,
you will say, every convention."

A week after this monstrous visit to the Contessa's box, and after a
series of minor incidents the narration of which here would perhaps
seem tedious, Conte Mosca was absolutely mad with love, and the
Contessa had already begun to think that his age need offer no
objection if the suitor proved attractive in other ways. They had
reached this stage when Mosca was recalled by a courier from Parma.
One would have said that his Prince was afraid to be left alone. The
Contessa returned to Grianta; her imagination no longer serving to
adorn that lovely spot, it appeared to her a desert. "Should I be
attached to this man?" she asked herself. Mosca wrote to her, and had
not to play a part; absence had relieved him of the source of all
his anxious thoughts; his letters were amusing, and, by a little
piece of eccentricity which was not taken amiss, to escape the
comments of the Marchese del Dongo, who did not like having to pay
for the carriage of letters, he used to send couriers who would post
his at Como or Lecco or Varese or some other of those charming little
places on the shores of the lake. This was done with the idea that the
courier might be employed to take back her replies. The move was
successful.

Soon the days when the couriers came were events in the Contessa's
life; these couriers brought her flowers, fruit, little presents of
no value, which amused her, however, and her sister-in-law as well.
Her memory of the Conte was blended with her idea of his great power;
the Contessa had become curious to know everything that people said of
him; the Liberals themselves paid a tribute to his talents.

The principal source of the Conte's reputation for evil was that he
passed as the head of the _Ultra_ Party at the Court of Parma, while
the Liberal Party had at its head an intriguing woman capable of
anything, even of succeeding, the Marchesa Raversi, who was immensely
rich. The Prince made a great point of not discouraging that one of
the two parties which happened not to be in power; he knew quite well
that he himself would always be the master, even with a Ministry
formed in Signora Raversi's drawing-room. Endless details of these
intrigues were reported at Grianta. The bodily absence of Mosca, whom
everyone described as a Minister of supreme talent and a man of
action, made it possible not to think any more of his powdered head, a
symbol of everything that is dull and sad; it was a detail of no
consequence, one of the obligations of the court at which, moreover,
he was playing so distinguished a part. "It is a ridiculous thing, a
court," said the Contessa to the Marchesa, "but it is amusing; it is a
game that it is interesting to play, but one must agree to the rules.
Who ever thought of protesting against the absurdity of the rules of
piquet? And yet, once you are accustomed to the rules, it is
delightful to beat your adversary with _repique_ and _capot_."

The Contessa often thought about the writer of these entertaining
letters; the days on which she received them were delightful to her;
she would take her boat and go to read them in one of the charming
spots by the lake, the Pliniana, Belan, the wood of the Sfrondata.
These letters seemed to console her to some extent for Fabrizio's
absence. She could not, at all events, refuse to allow the Conte to be
deeply in love; a month had not passed before she was thinking of him
with tender affection. For his part, Conte Mosca was almost sincere
when he offered to hand in his resignation, to leave the Ministry and
to come and spend the rest of his life with her at Milan or elsewhere.
"I have 400,000 francs," he added, "which will always bring us in an
income of 15,000." --"A box at the play again, horses, everything,"
thought the Contessa; they were pleasant dreams. The sublime beauty of
the different views of the Lake of Como began to charm her once more.
She went down to dream by its shores of this return to a brilliant
and distinctive life, which, most unexpectedly, seemed to be coming
within the bounds of possibility. She saw herself on the Corso, at
Milan, happy and gay as in the days of the Viceroy: "Youth, or at any
rate a life of action, would begin again for me."

Sometimes her ardent imagination concealed things from her, but never
did she have those deliberate illusions which cowardice induces. She
was above all things a woman who was honest with herself. "If I am a
little too old to be doing foolish things," she said to herself,
"envy, which creates illusions as love does, may poison my stay in
Milan for me. After my husband's death, my noble poverty was a
success, as was my refusal of two vast fortunes. My poor little Conte
Mosca had not a twentieth part of the opulence that was cast at my
feet by those two worms, Limercati and Nani. The meagre widow's
pension which I had to struggle to obtain, the dismissal of my
servants, which made some sensation, the little fifth-floor room,
which brought a score of carriages to the door, all went to form at
the time a striking spectacle. But I shall have unpleasant moments,
however skilfully I may handle things, if, never possessing any
fortune beyond my widow's pension, I go back to live at Milan on the
snug little middle-class comfort which we can secure with the 15,000
lire that Mosca will have left after he retires. One strong
objection, out of which eavy will forge a terrible weapon, is that the
Conte, although separated long ago from his wife, is still a married
man. This separation is known at Parma, but at Milan it will come as
news, and they will put it down to me. So, my dear Scala, my divine
Lake of Como, adieu! adieu!"

In spite of all these forebodings, if the Contessa had had the
smallest income of her own she would have accepted Mosca's offer to
resign his office. She regarded herself as a middle-aged woman, and
the idea of the court alarmed her; but what will appear in the highest
degree improbable on this side of the Alps is that the Conte would
have handed in that resignation gladly. So, at least, he managed to
make his friend believe. In all his letters he implored, with an ever
increasing frenzy, a second interview at Milan; it was granted him.
"To swear that I feel an insane passion for you," the Contessa said to
him one day at Milan, "would be a lie; I should be only too glad to
love to-day at thirty odd as I used to love at two and twenty! But I
have seen so many things decay that I had imagined to be eternal! I
have the most tender regard for you, I place an unbounded confidence
in you, and of all the men I know, you are the one I like best." The
Contessa believed herself to be perfectly sincere; and yet, in the
final clause, this declaration embodied a tiny falsehood. Fabrizio,
perhaps, had he chosen, might have triumphed over every rival in her
heart. But Fabrizio was nothing more than a boy in Conte Mosca's eyes:
he himself reached Milan three days after the young hothead's
departure for Novara, and he hastened to intercede on his behalf with
Barone Binder. The Conte considered that his exile was now
irrevocable.

He had not come to Milan alone; he had in his carriage the Duca
Sanseverina-Taxis, a handsome little old man of sixty-eight,
dapple-grey, very polished, very neat, immensely rich but not quite as
noble as he ought to have been. It was his grandfather, only, who had
amassed millions from the office of Farmer General of the Revenues of
the State of Parma. His father had had himself made Ambassador of the
Prince of Parma to the Court of ----, by advancing the following
argument: "Your Highness allots 30,000 francs to his Representative at
the Court of ----, where he cuts an extremely modest figure. Should
Your Highness deign to appoint me to the post, I will accept 6,000
francs as salary. My expenditure at the Court of ---- will never fall
below 100,000 francs a year, and my agent will pay over 20,000 francs
every year to the Treasurer for Foreign Affairs at Parma. With that
sum they can attach to me whatever Secretary of Embassy they choose,
and I shall shew no curiosity to inquire into diplomatic secrets, if
there are any. My object is to shed lustre on my house, which is still
a new one, and to give it the distinction of having filled one of the
great public offices."

The present Duca, this Ambassador's son and heir, had made the stupid
mistake of coming out as a semi-Liberal, and for the last two years
had been in despair. In Napoleon's time, he had lost two or three
millions owing to his obstinacy in remaining abroad, and even now,
after the re-establishment of order in Europe, he had not managed to
secure a certain Grand Cordon which adorned the portrait of his
father. The want of this Cordon was killing him by inches.

At the degree of intimacy which in Italy follows love, there was no
longer any obstacle in the nature of vanity between the lovers. It was
therefore with the most perfect simplicity that Mosca said to the
woman he adored:

"I have two or three plans of conduct to offer you, all pretty well
thought out; I have been thinking of nothing else for the last three
months.

"First: I hand in my resignation, and we retire to a quiet life at
Milan or Florence or Naples or wherever you please. We have an income
of 15,000 francs, apart from the Prince's generosity, which will
continue for some time, more or less.

"Secondly: You condescend to come to the place in which I have some
authority; you buy a property, Sacca, for example, a charming house
in the middle of a forest, commanding the valley of the Po; you can
have the contract signed within a week from now. The Prince then
attaches you to his court. But here I can see an immense objection.
You will be well received at court; no one would think of refusing,
with me there; besides, the Princess imagines she is unhappy, and I
have recently rendered her certain services with an eye to your
future. But I must remind you of one paramount objection: the Prince
is a bigoted churchman, and, as you already know, ill luck will have
it that I am a married man. From which will arise a million minor
unpleasantnesses. You are a widow; it is a fine title which would have
to be exchanged for another, and this brings me to my third proposal.

"One might find a new husband who would not be a nuisance. But first
of all he would have to be considerably advanced in years, for why
should you deny me the hope of some day succeeding him? Very well, I
have made this curious arrangement with the Duca Sanseverina-Taxis,
who, of course, does not know the name of his future Duchessa. He
knows only that she will make him an Ambassador and will procure him
the Grand Cordon which his father had and the lack of which makes him
the most unhappy of mortals. Apart from this, the Duca is by no means
an absolute idiot; he gets his clothes and wigs from Paris. He is not
in the least the sort of man who would do anything _deliberately_
mean, he seriously believes that honour consists in his having a
Cordon, and he is ashamed of his riches. He came to me a year ago
proposing to found a hospital, in order to get this Cordon; I laughed
at him then, but he did not by any means laugh at me when I made him a
proposal of marriage; my first condition was, you can understand,
that he must never set foot again in Parma."

"But do you know that what you are proposing is highly immoral?" said
the Contessa.

"No more immoral than everything else that is done at our court and a
score of others. Absolute Power has this advantage, that it
sanctifies everything in the eyes of the public: what harm can there
be in a thing that nobody notices? Our policy for the next twenty
years is going to consist in fear of the Jacobins--and such fear, too!
Every year, we shall fancy ourselves on the eve of '93. You will hear,
I hope, the fine speeches I make on the subject at my receptions!
They are beautiful! Everything that can in any way reduce this fear
will be _supremely moral_ in the eyes of the nobles and the bigots.
And you see, at Parma, everyone who is not either a noble or a bigot
is in prison, or is packing up to go there; you may be quite sure that
this marriage will not be thought odd among us until the day on which
I am disgraced. This arrangement involves no dishonesty towards
anyone; that is the essential thing, it seems to me. The Prince, on
whose favour we are trading, has placed only one condition on his
consent, which is that the future Duchessa shall be of noble birth.
Last year my office, all told, brought me in 107,000 francs; my total
income would therefore be 122,000; I invested 20,000 at Lyons. Very
well, chose for yourself; either a life of luxury based on our having
122,000 francs to spend, which, at Parma, go as far as at least
400,000 at Milan, but with this marriage which will give you the name
of a passable man on whom you will never set eyes after you leave the
altar; or else the simple middle-class existence on 15,000 francs at
Florence or Naples, for I am of your opinion, you have been too much
admired at Milan; we should be persecuted here by envy, which might
perhaps succeed in souring our tempers. Our grand life at Parma will,
I hope, have some touches of novelty, even in your eyes, which have
seen the court of Prince Eugène; you would be wise to try it before
shutting the door on it for ever. Do not think that I am seeking to
influence your opinion. As for me, my mind is quite made up: I would
rather live on a fourth floor with you than continue that grand life
by myself."

The possibility of this strange marriage was debated by the loving
couple every day. The Contessa saw the Duca Sanseverina-Taxis at the
Scala Ball, and thought him highly presentable. In one of their final
conversations, Mosca summed up his proposals in the following words:
"We must take some decisive action if we wish to spend the rest of our
lives in an enjoyable fashion and not grow old before our time. The
Prince has given his approval; Sanseverina is a person who might
easily be worse; he possesses the finest _palazzo_ in Parma, and a
boundless fortune; he is sixty-eight, and has an insane passion for
the Grand Cordon; but there is one great stain on his character: he
once paid 10,000 francs for a bust of Napoleon by Canova. His second
sin, which will be the death of him if you do not come to his rescue,
is that he lent 25 napoleons to Ferrante Palla, a lunatic of our
country but also something of a genius, whom we have since sentenced
to death, fortunately in his absence. This Ferrante has written a
couple of hundred lines in his time which are like nothing in the
world; I will repeat them to you, they are as fine as Dante. The
Prince then sends Sanseverina to the Court of ----, he marries you on
the day of his departure, and in the second year of his stay abroad,
which he calls an Embassy, he receives the Grand Cordon of the ----,
without which he cannot live. You will have in him a brother who will
give you no trouble at all; he signs all the papers I require in
advance, and besides you will see nothing of him, or as little as you
choose. He asks for nothing better than never to shew his face at
Parma, where his grandfather the tax-gatherer and his own profession
of Liberalism stand in his way. Rassi, our hangman, makes out that the
Duca was a secret subscriber to the _Constitutionnel_ through
Ferrante Palla the poet, and this slander was for a long time a
serious obstacle in the way of the Prince's consent."

Why should the historian who follows faithfully all the most trivial
details of the story that has been told him be held responsible? Is it
his fault if his characters, led astray by passions which he,
unfortunately for himself, in no way shares, descend to conduct that
is profoundly unmoral? It is true that things of this sort are no
longer done in a country where the sole passion that has outlived all
the rest is that for money, as an excuse for vanity.

Three months after the events we have just related, the Duchessa
Sanseverina-Taxis astonished the court of Parma by her easy affability
and the noble serenity of her mind; her house was beyond comparison
the most attractive in the town. This was what Conte Mosca had
promised his master. Ranuccio-Ernesto IV, the Reigning Prince, and
the Princess his Consort, to whom she was presented by two of the
greatest ladies in the land, gave her a most marked welcome. The
Duchessa was curious to see this Prince, master of the destiny of the
man she loved, she was anxious to please him, and in this was more
than successful. She found a man of tall stature but inclined to
stoutness; his hair, his moustache, his enormous whiskers were of a
fine gold, according to his courtiers; elsewhere they had provoked, by
their faded tint, the ignoble word _flaxen_. From the middle of a
plump face there projected to no distance at all a tiny nose that was
almost feminine. But the Duchessa observed that, in order to notice
all these points of ugliness, one had first to attempt to catalogue
the Prince's features separately. Taken as a whole, he had the air of
a man of sense and of firm character. His carriage, his way of holding
himself were by no means devoid of majesty, but often he sought to
impress the person he was addressing; at such times he grew
embarrassed himself, and fell into an almost continuous swaying motion
from one leg to the other. For the rest, Ernesto IV had a piercing and
commanding gaze; his gestures with his arms had nobility, and his
speech was at once measured and concise.

Mosca had warned the Duchessa that the Prince had, in the large
cabinet in which he gave audiences, a full-length portrait of Louis
XIV, and a very fine table by Scagliola of Florence. She found the
imitation striking; evidently he sought to copy the gaze and the noble
utterance of Louis XIV, and he leaned upon the Scagliola table so as
to give himself the pose of Joseph II. He sat down as soon as he had
uttered his greeting to the Duchessa, to give her an opportunity to
make use of the _tabouret_ befitting her rank. At this court,
duchesses, princesses, and the wives of Grandees of Spain alone have
the right to sit; other women wait until the Prince or Princess
invites them; and, to mark the difference in rank, these August
Personages always take care to allow a short interval to elapse before
inviting the ladies who are not duchesses to be seated. The Duchessa
found that at certain moments the imitation of Louis XIV was a little
too strongly marked in the Prince; for instance, in his way of smiling
good-naturedly and throwing back his head.

Ernesto IV wore an evening coat in the latest fashion, that had come
from Paris; every month he had sent to him from that city, which he
abhorred, an evening coat, a frock coat, and a hat. But by an odd
blend of costume, on the day on which the Duchessa was received he had
put on red breeches, silk stockings and very close-fitting shoes,
models for which might be found in the portraits of Joseph II.

He received Signora Sanseverina graciously; the things he said to her
were shrewd and witty; but she saw quite plainly that there was no
superfluity of warmth in his reception of her.--"Do you know why?"
said Conte Mosca on her return from the audience, "it is because Milan
is a larger and finer city than Parma. He was afraid, had he given you
the welcome that I expected and he himself had led me to hope, of
seeming like a provincial in ecstasies before the charms of a
beautiful lady who has come down from the capital. No doubt, too, he
is still upset by a detail which I hardly dare mention to you; the
Prince sees at his court no woman who can vie with you in _beauty_.
Yesterday evening, when he retired to bed, that was his sole topic
of conversation with Pernice, his principal valet, who is good enough
to confide in me. I foresee a little revolution in etiquette; my chief
enemy at this court is a fool who goes by the name of General Fabio
Conti. Just imagine a creature who has been on active service for
perhaps one day in his life, and sets out from that day to copy the
bearing of Frederick the Great. In addition to which, he aims also at
copying the noble affability of General La Fayette, and that because
he is the leader, here, of the Liberal Party (God knows what sort of
Liberals!)."

"I know your Fabio Conti," said the Duchessa; "I had a good view of
him once near Como; he was quarrelling with the police." She related
the little adventure which the reader may perhaps remember.

"You will learn one day, Signora, if your mind ever succeeds in
penetrating the intricacies of our etiquette, that young ladies do not
appear at court here until after their marriage. At the same time, the
Prince has, for the superiority of his city of Parma over all others,
a patriotism so ardent that I would wager that he will find some way
of having little Clelia Conti, our La Fayette's daughter, presented to
him. She is charming, upon my soul she is; and was still reckoned, a
week ago, the best-looking person in the States of the Prince.

"I do not know," the Conte went on, "whether the horrors that the
enemies of our Sovereign have disseminated against him have reached
the castle of Grianta; they make him out a monster, an ogre. The truth
is that Ernesto IV was full of dear little virtues, and one may add
that, had he been invulnerable like Achilles, he would have continued
to be the model of a potentate. But in a moment of boredom and anger,
and also a little in imitation of Louis XIV cutting off the head of
some hero or other of the Fronde, who was discovered living in
peaceful solitude on a plot of land near Versailles, fifty years after
the Fronde, one fine day Ernesto IV had two Liberals hanged. It seems
that these rash fellows used to meet on fixed days to speak evil of
the Prince and address ardent prayers to heaven that the plague might
visit Parma and deliver them from the tyrant. The word _tyrant_ was
proved. Rassi called this conspiracy; he had them sentenced to
death, and the execution of one of them, Conte L----., was atrocious.
All this happened before my time. Since that fatal hour," the Conte
went on, lowering his voice, "the Prince has been subject to fits of
panic _unworthy of a man_, but these are the sole source of the favour
that I enjoy. But for this royal fear, mine would be a kind of merit
too abrupt, too harsh for this court, where idiocy runs rampant.
Would you believe that the Prince looks under the beds in his room
before going to sleep, and spends a million, which at Parma is the
equivalent of four millions at Milan, to have a good police force; and
you see before you, Signora Duchessa, the Chief of that terrible
Police. By the police, that is to say by fear, I have become Minister
of War and Finance; and as the Minister of the Interior is my nominal
chief, in so far as he has the police under his jurisdiction, I have
had that portfolio given to Conte Zurla-Contarini, an imbecile who is
a glutton for work and gives himself the pleasure of writing eighty
letters a day. I received one only this morning on which Conte
Zurla-Contarini has had the satisfaction of writing with his own hand
the number 20,715."

The Duchessa Sanseverina was presented to the melancholy Princess of
Parma, Clara-Paolina, who, because her husband had a mistress (quite
an attractive woman, the Marchesa Balbi), imagined herself to be the
most unhappy person in the universe, a belief which had made her
perhaps the most trying. The Duchessa found a very tall and very thin
woman, who was not thirty-six and appeared fifty. A symmetrical and
noble face might have passed as beautiful, though somewhat spoiled by
the large round eyes which could barely see, if the Princess had not
herself abandoned every attempt at beauty. She received the Duchessa
with a shyness so marked that certain courtiers, enemies of Conte
Mosca, ventured to say that the Princess looked like the woman who was
being presented and the Duchessa like the sovereign. The Duchessa,
surprised and almost disconcerted, could find no language that would
put her in a place inferior to that which the Princess assumed for
herself. To restore some self-possession to this poor Princess, who at
heart was not wanting in intelligence, the Duchessa could think of
nothing better than to begin, and keep going, a long dissertation on
botany. The Princess was really learned in this science; she had some
very fine hothouses with quantities of tropical plants. The Duchessa,
while seeking simply for a way out of a difficult position, made a
lifelong conquest of Princess Clara-Paolina, who, from the shy and
speechless creature that she had been at the beginning of the
audience, found herself towards the end so much at her ease that, in
defiance of all the rules of etiquette, this first audience lasted for
no less than an hour and a quarter. Next day, the Duchessa sent out to
purchase some exotic plants, and posed as a great lover of botany.

The Princess spent all her time with the venerable Father Landriani,
Archbishop of Parma, a man of learning, a man of intelligence even,
and a perfectly honest man, but one who presented a singular spectacle
when he was seated in his chair of crimson velvet (it was the
privilege of his office) opposite the armchair of the Princess,
surrounded by her maids of honour and her two ladies _of company_. The
old prelate, with his flowing white locks, was even more timid, were
such a thing possible, than the Princess; they saw one another every
day, and every audience began with a silence that lasted fully a
quarter of an hour. To such a state had they come that the Contessa
Alvizi, one of the ladies of company, had become a sort of favourite,
because she possessed the art of encouraging them to talk and so
breaking the silence.

To end the series of presentations, the Duchessa was admitted to the
presence of H.S.H. the Crown Prince, a personage of taller stature
than his father and more timid than his mother. He was learned in
mineralogy, and was sixteen years old. He blushed excessively on
seeing the Duchessa come in, and was so put off his balance that he
could not think of a word to say to that beautiful lady. He was a
fine-looking young man, and spent his life in the woods, hammer in
hand. At the moment when the Duchessa rose to bring this silent
audience to an end:

"My God! Signora, how pretty you are!" exclaimed the Crown Prince; a
remark which was not considered to be in too bad taste by the lady
presented.

The Marchesa Balbi, a young woman of five-and-twenty, might still have
passed for the most perfect type of _leggiadria italiana_, two or
three years before the arrival of the Duchessa Sanseverina at Parma.
As it was, she had still the finest eyes in the world and the most
charming airs, but, viewed close at hand, her skin was netted with
countless fine little wrinkles which made the Marchesa look like a
young grandmother. Seen from a certain distance, in the theatre for
instance, in her box, she was still a beauty, and the people in the
pit thought that the Prince shewed excellent taste. He spent every
evening with the Marchesa Balbi, but often without opening his lips,
and the boredom she saw on the Prince's face had made this poor woman
decline into an extraordinary thinness. She laid claim to an unlimited
subtlety, and was always smiling a bitter smile; she had the prettiest
teeth in the world, and in season and out, having little or no sense,
would attempt by an ironical smile to give some hidden meaning to her
words. Conte Mosca said that it was these continual smiles, while
inwardly she was yawning, that gave her all her wrinkles. The Balbi
had a finger in every pie, and the State never made a contract for
1,000 francs without there being some little _ricordo_ (this was the
polite expression at Parma) for the Marchesa. Common report would
have it that she had invested six millions in England, but her
fortune, which indeed was of recent origin, did not in reality amount
to 1,500,000 francs. It was to be out of reach of her stratagems, and
to have her dependent upon himself, that Conte Mosca had made himself
Minister of Finance. The Marchesa's sole passion was fear
disguised in sordid avarice: "_/ shall die on straw_!" she used
occasionally to say to the Prince, who was shocked by such a remark.
The Duchessa noticed that the ante-room, resplendent with gilding, of
the Balbi's _palazzo_, was lighted by a single candle which guttered
on a priceless marble table, and that the doors of her drawing-room
were blackened by the footmen's fingers.

"She received me," the Duchessa told her lover, "as though she
expected me to offer her a gratuity of 50 francs."

The course of the Duchessa's successes was slightly interrupted by
the reception given her by the shrewdest woman of the court, the
celebrated Marchesa Raversi, a consummate intriguer who had
established herself at the head of the party opposed to that of Conte
Mosca. She was anxious to overthrow him, all the more so in the last
few months, since she was the niece of the Duca Sanseverina, and was
afraid of seeing her prospects impaired by the charms of his new
Duchessa. "The Raversi is by no means a woman to be ignored," the
Conte told his mistress; "I regard her as so far capable of sticking
at nothing that I separated from my wife solely because she insisted
on taking as her lover Cavaliere Bentivoglio, a friend of the
Raversi." This lady, a tall virago with very dark hah-, remarkable for
the diamonds which she wore all day, and the rouge with which she
covered her cheeks, had declared herself in advance the Duchessa's
enemy, and when she received her in her own house made it her business
to open hostilities. The Duca Sanseverina, in the letters he wrote
from ----, appeared so delighted with his Embassy and, above all, with
the prospect of the Grand Cordon, that his family were afraid of his
leaving part of his fortune to his wife, whom he loaded with little
presents. The Raversi, although definitely ugly, had for a lover Conte
Baldi, the handsomest man at court; generally speaking, she was
successful in all her undertakings.

The Duchessa lived in the greatest style imaginable. The _palazzo_
Sanseverina had always been one of the most magnificent in the city
of Parma, and the Duca, to celebrate the occasion of his Embassy and
his future Grand Cordon, was spending enormous sums upon its
decoration; the Duchessa directed the work in person.

The Conte had guessed aright; a few days after the presentation of
the Duchessa, young Clelia Conti came to court; she had been made a
Canoness. In order to parry the blow which this favour might be
thought to have struck at the Conte's influence, the Duchessa gave a
party, on the pretext of throwing open the new garden of her
_palazzo_, and by the exercise of her most charming manners made
Clelia, whom she called her young friend of the Lake of Como, the
queen of the evening. Her monogram was displayed, as though by
accident, upon the principal transparencies. The young Clelia,
although slightly pensive, was pleasant in the way in which she spoke
of the little adventure by the Lake, and of her warm gratitude. She
was said to be deeply religious and very fond of solitude. "I would
wager," said the Conte, "that she has enough sense to be ashamed of
her father." The Duchessa made a friend of this girl; she felt
attracted towards her, she did not wish to appear jealous, and
included her in all her pleasure parties; after all, her plan was to
seek to diminish all the enmities of which the Conte was the object.

Everything smiled on the Duchessa; she was amused by this court
existence where a sudden storm is always to be feared; she felt as
though she were beginning life over again. She was tenderly attached
to the Conte, who was literally mad with happiness. The pleasing
situation had bred in him an absolute impassivity towards everything
in which only his professional interests were concerned. And so,
barely two months after the Duchessa's arrival, he obtained the patent
and honours of Prime Minister, honours which come very near to those
paid to the Sovereign himself. The Conte had complete control of his
master's will; they had a proof of this at Parma by which everyone was
impressed.

To the southeast, and within ten minutes of the town rises that
famous citadel so renowned throughout Italy, the main tower of which
stands one hundred and eighty feet high and is visible from so far.
This tower, constructed on the model of Hadrian's Tomb, at Rome, by
the Farnese, grandsons of Paul III, in the first half of the sixteenth
century, is so large in diameter that on the platform in which it ends
it has been possible to build a _palazzo_ for the governor of the
citadel and a new prison called the Farnese tower. This prison,
erected in honour of the eldest son of Ranuccio-Ernesto II, who had
become the accepted lover of his step-mother, is regarded as a fine
and singular monument throughout the country. The Duchessa was curious
to see it; on the day of her visit the heat was overpowering in Parma,
and up there, in that lofty position, she found fresh air, which so
delighted her that she stayed for several hours. The officials made a
point of throwing open to her the rooms of the Farnese tower.

The Duchessa met on the platform of the great tower a poor Liberal
prisoner who had come to enjoy the half-hour's outing that .was
allowed him every third day. On her return to Parma, not having yet
acquired the discretion necessary in an absolute court, she spoke of
this man, who had told her the whole history of his life. The Marchesa
Raversi's party seized hold of these utterances of the Duchessa and
repeated them broadcast, greatly hoping that they would shock the
Prince. Indeed, Ernesto IV was in the habit of repeating that the
essential thing was to impress the imagination. "_Perpetual_ is a big
word," he used to say, "and more terrible in Italy than elsewhere":
accordingly, never in his life had he granted a pardon. A week after
her visit to the fortress the Duchessa received a letter commuting a
sentence, signed by the Prince and by his Minister, with a blank left
for the name. The prisoner whose name she chose to write in this space
would obtain the restoration of his property, with permission to spend
the rest of his days in America. The Duchessa wrote the name of the
man who had talked to her. Unfortunately this man turned out to be
half a rogue, a weak-kneed creature; it was on the strength of his
confession that the famous Ferrante Palla had been sentenced to death.

The unprecedented nature of this pardon set the seal upon Signora
Sanseverina's position. Conte Mosca was wild with delight; it was a
great day in his life and one that had a decisive influence on
Fabrizio's destiny. He, meanwhile, was still at Romagnano, near
Novara, going to confession, hunting, reading nothing, and paying
court to a lady of noble birth, as was laid down in his instructions.
The Duchessa was still a trifle shocked by this last essential.
Another sign which boded no good to the Conte was that, while she
would speak to him with the utmost frankness about everyone else, and
would think aloud in his presence, she never mentioned Fabrizio to him
without first carefully choosing her words.

"If you like," the Conte said to her one day, "I will write to that
charming brother you have on the Lake of Como, and I will soon force
that Marchese del Dongo, if I and my friends in a certain quarter
apply a little pressure, to ask for the pardon of your dear Fabrizio.
If it be true, as I have not the least doubt that it is, that Fabrizio
is somewhat superior to the young fellows who ride their English
thoroughbreds about the streets of Milan, what a life, at eighteen, to
be doing nothing with no prospect of ever having anything to do! If
heaven had endowed him with a real passion for anything in the world,
were it only for angling, I should respect it; but what is he to do at
Milan, even after he has obtained his pardon? He will get on a horse,
which he will have had sent to him from England, at a certain hour of
the day; at another, idleness will take him to his mistress, for whom
he will care less than he will for his horse.... But, if you say
the word, I will try to procure this sort of life for your nephew."

"I should like him to be an officer," said the Duchessa.

"Would you recommend a Sovereign to entrust a post which, at a given
date, may be of some importance to a young man who, in the first
place, is liable to enthusiasm, and, secondly, has shewn enthusiasm
for Napoleon to the extent of going to join him at Waterloo? Just
think where we should all be if Napoleon had won at Waterloo! We
should have no Liberals to be afraid of, it is true, but the
Sovereigns of ancient Houses would be able to keep their thrones only
by marrying the daughters of his Marshals. And so military life for
Fabrizio would be the life of a squirrel in a revolving cage: plenty
of movement with no progress. He would have the annoyance of seeing
himself cut out by all sorts of plebeian devotion. The essential
quality in a young man of the present day, that is to say for the next
fifty years perhaps, so long as we remain in a state of fear and
religion has not been re-established, is not to be liable to
enthusiasm and not to shew any spirit.

"I have thought of one thing, but one that will begin by making you
cry out in protest, and will give me infinite trouble for many a day
to come: it is an act of folly which I am ready to commit for you. But
tell me, if you can, what folly would I not commit to win a smile?"

"Well?" said the Duchessa.

"Well, we have had as Archbishops of Parma three members of your
family: Ascanio del Dongo who wrote a book in sixteen-something,
Fabrizio in 1699, and another Ascanio in 1740. If Fabrizio cares to
enter the prelacy, and to make himself conspicuous for virtues of the
highest order, I can make him a Bishop somewhere, and then Archbishop
here, provided that my influence lasts. The real objection is this:
shall I remain Minister for long enough to carry out this fine plan,
which will require several years? The Prince may die, he may have the
bad taste to dismiss me. But, after all, it is the only way open to me
of securing for Fabrizio something that is worthy of you."

They discussed the matter at length: the idea was highly repugnant to
the Duchessa.

"Prove to me again," she said to the Conte, "that every other career
is impossible for Fabrizio." The Conte proved it.

"You regret," he added, "the brilliant uniform; but as to that, I do
not know what to do."

After a month in which the Duchessa had asked to be allowed to think
things over, she yielded with a sigh to the sage views of the
Minister. "Either ride stiffly upon an English horse through the
streets of some big town," repeated the Conte, "or adopt a calling
that is not unbefitting his birth; I can see no middle course.
Unfortunately, a gentleman cannot become either a doctor or a
barrister, and this age is made for barristers.

"Always bear in mind, Signora," the Conte went on, "that you are
giving your nephew, on the streets of Milan, the lot enjoyed by the
young men of his age who pass for the most fortunate. His pardon once
procured, you will give him fifteen, twenty, thirty thousand francs;
the amount does not matter; neither you nor I make any pretence of
saving money."

The Duchessa was susceptible to the idea of fame; she did not wish
Fabrizio to be simply a young man living on an allowance; she reverted
to her lover's plan.

"Observe," the Conte said to her, "that I do not pretend to turn
Fabrizio into an exemplary priest, like so many that you see. No, he
is a great gentleman, first and foremost; he can remain perfectly
ignorant if it seems good to him, and will none the less become Bishop
and Archbishop, if the Prince continues to regard me as a useful
person.

"If your orders deign to transform my proposal into an immutable
decree," the Conte went on, "our _protégé_ must on no account be seen
in Parma living with modest means. His subsequent promotion will cause
a scandal if people have seen him here as an ordinary priest; he ought
not to appear in Parma until he has his _violet stockings_ [Footnote:
In Italy, young men with influence or brains become Monsignori_ and
_prelati_, which does not mean bishop; they then wear violet
stockings. A man need not take any vows to become _Monsignore_; he can
discard his violet stockings and marry.] and a suitable establishment.
Then everyone will assume that your nephew is destined to be a Bishop,
and nobody will be shocked.

"If you will take my advice, you will send Fabrizio to take his
theology and spend three years at Naples. During the vacations of the
Ecclesiastical Academy he can go if he likes to visit Paris and
London, but he must never shew his face in Parma." This sentence made
the Duchessa shudder.

She sent a courier to her nephew, asking him to meet her at Piacenza.
Need it be said that this courier was the bearer of all the means of
obtaining money and all the necessary passports?

Arriving first at Piacenza, Fabrizio hastened to meet the Duchessa,
and embraced her with transports of joy which made her dissolve in
tears. She was glad that the Conte was not present; since they had
fallen in love, it was the first time that she had experienced this
sensation.

Fabrizio was profoundly touched, and then distressed by the plans
which the Duchessa had made for him; his hope had always been that,
his affair at Waterloo settled, he might end by becoming a soldier.
One thing struck the Duchessa, and still further increased the
romantic opinion that she had formed of her nephew; he refused
absolutely to lead a cajffè-haunting existence in one of the big towns
of Italy.

"Can't you see yourself on the _Corso_ of Florence or Naples," said
the Duchessa, "with thoroughbred English horses? For the evenings a
carriage, a charming apartment," and so forth. She dwelt with
exquisite relish on the details of this vulgar happiness, which she
saw Fabrizio thrust from him with disdain. "He is a hero," she
thought.

"And after ten years of this agreeable life, what shall I have done?"
said Fabrizio; "what shall I be? A young man _of a certain age_, who
will have to move out of the way of the first good-looking boy who
makes his appearance in society, also mounted upon an English horse."

Fabrizio at first utterly rejected the idea of the Church. He spoke
of going to New York, of becoming an American citizen and a soldier
of the Republic.

"What a mistake you are making! You won't have any war, and you'll
fall back into the _caffè_ life, only without smartness, without
music, without love affairs," replied the Duchessa. "Believe me, for
you just as much as for myself, it would be a wretched existence there
in America." She explained to him the cult of the god _Dollar_, and
the respect that had to be shewn to the artisans in the street who by
their votes decided everything. They came back to the idea of the
Church.

"Before you fly into a passion," the Duchessa said to him, "just try
to understand what the Conte is asking you to do; there is no question
whatever of your being a poor priest of more or less exemplary and
virtuous life, like Priore Blanès. Remember the example of your
uncles, the Archbishops of Parma; read over again the accounts of
their lives in the supplement to the Genealogy. First and foremost, a
man with a name like yours has to be a great gentleman, noble,
generous, an upholder of justice, destined from the first to find
himself at the head of his order ... and in the whole of his life
doing only one dishonourable thing, and that a very useful one."

"So all my illusions are shattered," said Fabrizio, heaving a deep
sigh; "it is a cruel sacrifice! I admit, I had not taken into account
this horror of enthusiasm and spirit, even when wielded to their
advantage, which from now onwards is going to prevail amongst absolute
monarchs."

"Remember that a proclamation, a caprice of the heart flings the
enthusiast into the bosom of the opposite party to the one he has
served all his life!"

"I an enthusiast!" repeated Fabrizio; "a strange accusation! I
cannot manage even to be in love!"

"What!" exclaimed the Duchessa.

"When I have the honour to pay my court to a beauty, even if she is of
good birth and sound religious principles, I cannot think about her
except when I see her."

This avowal made a strange impression upon the Duchessa.

"I ask for a month," Fabrizio went on, "in which to take leave of
Signora C----, of Novara, and, what will be more difficult still, of
all the castles I have been building in the air all my life. I shall
write to my mother, who will be so good as to come and see me at
Belgirate, on the Piedmontese shore of Lake Maggiore, and, in
thirty-one days from now, I shall be in Parma incognito."

"No, whatever you do!" cried the Duchessa. She did not wish Conte
Mosca to see her talking to Fabrizio.

The same pair met again at Piacenza. The Duchessa this time was highly
agitated: a storm had broken at court; the Marchesa Raversi's party
was on the eve of a triumph; it was on the cards that Conte Mosca
might be replaced by General Fabio Conti, the leader of what was
called at Parma the _Liberal Party_. Omitting only the name of the
rival who was growing in the Prince's favour, the Duchessa told
Fabrizio everything. She discussed afresh the chances of his future
career, even with the prospect of his losing the all-powerful
influence of the Conte.

"I am going to spend three years in the Ecclesiastical Academy at
Naples," exclaimed Fabrizio; "but since I must be before all things a
young gentleman, and you do not oblige me to lead the life of a
virtuous seminarist, the prospect of this stay at Naples does -not
frighten me in the least; the life there will be in every way as
pleasant as life at Romagnano; the best society of the neighbourhood
was beginning to class me as a Jacobin. In my exile I have discovered
that I know nothing, not even Latin, not even how to spell. I
had planned to begin my education over again at Novara; I shall
willingly study theology at Naples; it is a complicated science." The
Duchessa was overjoyed. "If we are driven out of Parma," she told him,
"we shall come and visit you at Naples. But since you agree, until
further orders, to try for the violet stockings, the Conte, who knows
the Italy of to-day through and through, has given me an idea to
suggest to you. Believe or not, as you choose, what they teach you,
_but never raise any objection_. Imagine that they are teaching you
the rules of the game of whist; would you raise any objection to the
rules of whist? I have told the Conte that you do believe, and he is
delighted to hear it; it is useful in this world and in the next. But,
if you believe, do not fall into the vulgar habit of speaking with
horror of Voltaire, Diderot, Raynal and all those harebrained
Frenchmen who paved the way to the Dual Chamber. Their names should
not be allowed to pass your lips, but if you must mention them, speak
of these gentlemen with a calm irony: they are people who have long
since been refuted and whose attacks are no longer of any consequence.
Believe blindly everything that they tell you at the Academy. Bear in
mind that there are people who will make a careful note of your
slightest objections; they will forgive you a little amorous intrigue
if it is done in the proper way, but not a doubt: age stifles intrigue
but encourages doubt. Act on this principle at the tribunal of
penitence. You shall have a letter of recommendation to a Bishop who
is factotum to the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples: to him alone you
should admit your escapade in France and your presence on the 18th of
June in the neighbourhood of Waterloo. Even then, cut it as short as
possible, confess it only so that they cannot reproach you with having
kept it secret. You were so young at the time!

"The second idea which the Conte sends you is this: if there should
occur to you a brilliant argument, a triumphant retort that will
change the course of the conversation, do not give in to the
temptation to shine; remain silent: people of any discernment will see
your cleverness in your eyes. It will be time enough to be witty when
you are a Bishop."

Fabrizio began his life at Naples with an unpretentious carriage and
four servants, good Milanese, whom his aunt had sent him. After a year
of study, no one said of him that he was a man of parts: people looked
upon him as a great nobleman, of a studious bent, extremely generous,
but something of a libertine.

That year, amusing enough for Fabrizio, was terrible for the Duchessa.
The Conte was three or four times within an inch of ruin; the Prince,
more timorous than ever, because he was ill that year, believed that
by dismissing him he could free himself from the odium of the
executions carried out before the Conte had entered his service. Rassi
was the cherished favourite who must at all costs be retained. The
Conte's perils won him the passionate attachment of the Duchessa; she
gave no more thought to Fabrizio. To lend colour to their possible
retirement, it appeared that the air of Parma, which was indeed a
trifle damp as it is everywhere in Lombardy, did not at all agree with
her. Finally, after intervals of disgrace which went so far as to,
make the Conte, though Prime Minister, spend sometimes twenty whole
days without seeing his master privately, Mosca won; he secured the
appointment of General Fabio Conti, the so-called Liberal, as governor
of the citadel in which were imprisoned the Liberals condemned by
Rassi. "If Conti shows any leniency towards his prisoners," Mosca
observed to his lady, "he will be disgraced as a Jacobin whose
political theories have made him forget his duty as a general; if he
shows himself stern and pitiless, and that, to my mind, is the
direction in which he will tend, he ceases to be the leader of his own
party and alienates all the families that have a relative in the
citadel. This poor man has learned how to assume an air of awed
respect on the approach of the Prince; if necessary, he changes his
clothes four times a day; he can discuss a question of etiquette, but
his is not a head capable of following the difficult path by which
alone he can save himself from destruction; and in any case, I am
there."

The day after the appointment of General Fabio Conti, which brought
the ministerial crisis to an end, it was announced that Parma was to
have an ultra-monarchist newspaper.

"What feuds the paper will create!" said the Duchessa.

"This paper, the idea of which is perhaps my masterpiece," replied
the Conte with a smile, "I shall gradually and quite against my will
allow to pass into the hands of the ultra-rabid section. I have
attached some good salaries to the editorial posts. People are coming
from all quarters to beg for employment on it; the excitement will
help us through the next month or two, and people will forget the
danger I have been in. Those seriously minded gentlemen P---- and
D------ are already on the list."

"But this paper will be quite revoltingly absurd."

"I am reckoning on that," replied the Conte. "The Prince will read it
every morning and admire the doctrines taught by myself as its
founder. As to the details, he will approve or be shocked; of the
hours which he devotes every day to work, two will be taken up in this
way. The paper will get itself into trouble, but when the serious
complaints begin to come in, in eight or ten months' time, it will be
entirely in the hands of the ultra-rabids. It will be this party,
which is annoying me, that will have to answer; as for me, I shall
raise objections to the paper; but after all I greatly prefer a
hundred absurdities to one hanging. Who remembers an absurdity two
years after the publication of the official gazette! It is better than
having the sons and family of the hanged men vowing a hatred which
will last as long as I shall and may perhaps shorten my life."

The Duchessa, always passionately interested in something, always
active, never idle, had more spirit than the whole court of Parma put
together; but she lacked the patience and impassivity necessary
for success in intrigue. However, she had managed to follow with
passionate excitement the interests of the various groups, she was
beginning even to establish a certain personal reputation
with the Prince. Clara-Paolina, the Princess Consort, surrounded with
honours but a prisoner to the most antiquated etiquette, looked upon
herself as the unhappiest of women. The Duchessa Sanseverina paid her
various attentions and tried to prove to her that she was by no means
so unhappy as she supposed. It should be explained that the Prince saw
his wife only at dinner: this meal lasted for thirty minutes, and the
Prince would spend whole weeks without saying a word to
Clara-Paolina. Signora Sanseverina attempted to change all this;
she amused the Prince, all the more as she had managed to retain her
independence intact. Had she wished to do so, she could not have
succeeded in never hurting any of the fools who swarmed about this
court. It was this utter inadaptability on her part that led to her
being execrated by the common run of courtiers, all Conti or
Marchesi, with an average income of 5,000 lire. She realised this
disadvantage after the first few days, and devoted herself exclusively
to pleasing the Sovereign and his Consort, the latter of whom was in
absolute control of the Crown Prince. The Duchessa knew how to
amuse the Sovereign, and profited by the extreme attention he
paid to her lightest word to put in some shrewd thrusts at the
courtiers who hated her. After the foolish actions that Rassi had
made him commit, and for foolishness that sheds blood there is no
reparation, the Prince was sometimes afraid and was often
bored, which had brought him to a state of morbid envy; he felt that
he was deriving little amusement from life, and grew sombre when he
saw other people amused; the sight of happiness made him furious. "We
must keep our love secret," she told her admirer, and gave the Prince
to understand that she was only very moderately attached to the Conte,
who for that matter was so thoroughly deserving of esteem.

This discovery had given His Highness a happy day. From time to time,
the Duchessa let fall a few words about the plan she had in her mind
of taking a few months' holiday every year, to be spent in seeing
Italy, which she did not know at all; she would visit Naples,
Florence, Rome. Now nothing in the world was more capable of
distressing the Prince than an apparent desertion of this sort: it was
one of his most pronounced weaknesses; any action that might be
interpreted as showing contempt for his capital city pierced him to
the heart. He felt that he had no way of holding Signora Sanseverina,
and Signora Sanseverina was by far the most brilliant woman in Parma.
A thing without parallel in the lazy Italian character, people used to
drive in from the surrounding country to attend her Thursdays; they
were regular festivals; almost every week the Duchessa had something
new and sensational to present. The Prince was dying to see one of
these Thursdays for himself; but how was it to be managed? Go to the
house of a private citizen! That was a thing that neither his father
nor he had ever done in their lives!

There came a certain Thursday of cold wind and rain; all through the
evening the Prince heard carriages rattling over the pavement of the
piazza outside the Palace, on their way to Signora Sanseverina's. He
moved petulantly in his chair: other people were amusing themselves,
and he, their sovereign Prince, their absolute master, who ought to
find more amusement than anyone in the world, he was tasting the fruit
of boredom! He rang for his aide-de-camp: he was obliged to wait until
a dozen trustworthy men had been posted in the street that led from
the Royal Palace to the _palazzo_ Sanseverina. Finally, after an hour
that seemed to the Prince an age, during which he had been minded a
score of times to brave the assassins' daggers and to go boldly out
without any precaution, he appeared in the first of Signora
Sanseverina's drawing-rooms. A thunderbolt might have fallen upon the
carpet and not produced so much surprise. In the twinkling of an eye,
and as the Prince advanced through them, these gay and noisy rooms
were hushed to a stupefied silence; every eye, fixed on the Prince,
was strained with attention. The courtiers appeared disconcerted; the
Duchessa alone shewed no sign of surprise. When finally her guests had
recovered sufficient strength to speak, the great preoccupation of all
present was to decide the important question: had the Duchessa been
warned of this visit, or had she like everyone else been taken by
surprise?

The Prince was amused, and the reader may now judge of the utterly
impulsive character of the Duchessa, and of the boundless power which
vague ideas of departure, adroitly disseminated, had enabled her to
assume.

As she went to the door with the Prince, who was making her the
prettiest speeches, an odd idea came to her which she ventured to put
into words quite simply, and as though it were the most natural thing
in the world.

"If Your Serene Highness would address to the Princess three or four
of these charming utterances which he lavishes on me, he could be far
more certain of giving me pleasure than by telling me that I am
pretty. I mean that I would not for anything in the world have the
Princess look with an unfriendly eye on the signal mark of his favour
with which His Highness has honoured me this evening."

The Prince looked fixedly at her and replied in a dry tone:

"I was under the impression that I was my own master and could go
where I pleased."

The Duchessa blushed.

"I wished only," she explained, instantly recovering herself, "not
to expose His Highness to the risk of a bootless errand, for this
Thursday will be the last; I am going for a few days to Bologna or
Florence."

When she reappeared in the rooms, everyone imagined her to be at the
height of favour, whereas she had just taken a risk upon which, in the
memory of man, no one had ever ventured. She made a sign to the Conte,
who rose from the whist-table and followed her into a little room that
was lighted but empty.

"You have done a very bold thing," he informed her; "I should not have
advised it myself, but when hearts are really inflamed," he added with
a smile, "happiness enhances love, and if you leave to-morrow morning,
I shall follow you to-morrow night. I shall be detained here only by
that burden of a Ministry of Finance which I was stupid enough to take
on my shoulders; but in four hours of hard work, one can hand over a
good many accounts. Let us go back, dear friend, and play at
ministerial fatuity with all freedom and without reserve; it may be
the last performance that we shall give in this town. If he thinks he
is being defied, the man is capable of anything; he will call it
_making an example_. When these people have gone, we can decide on a
way of barricading you for to-night; the best plan perhaps would be
to set off without delay for your house at Sacca, by the Po, which has
the advantage of being within half an hour of Austrian territory."

For the Duchessa's love and self-esteem this was an exquisite
moment; she looked at the Conte, and her eyes brimmed with tears. So
powerful a Minister, surrounded by this swarm of courtiers who loaded
him with homage equal to that which they paid to the Prince himself,
to leave everything for her sake, and with such unconcern!

When she returned to the drawing-room she was beside herself with joy.
Everyone bowed down before her.

"How prosperity has changed the Duchessa!" was murmured everywhere
by the courtiers, "one would hardly recognise her. So that Roman
spirit, so superior to everything in the world, does, after all, deign
to appreciate the extraordinary favour that has just been conferred
upon her by the Sovereign!"

Towards the end of the evening the Conte came to her: "I must tell you
the latest news." Immediately the people who happened to be standing
near the Duchessa withdrew.

"The Prince, on his return to the Palace," the Conte went on, "had
himself announced at the door of his wife's room. Imagine the
surprise! 'I have come to tell you,' he said to her, 'about a really
most delightful evening I have spent at the Sanseverina's. It was she
who asked me to give you a full description of the way in which she
has decorated that grimy old _palazzo_.' Then the Prince took a seat
and went into a description of each of your rooms in turn.

"He spent more than twenty-five minutes with his wife, who was in
tears of joy; for all her intelligence, she could not think of
anything to keep the conversation going in the light tone which His
Highness was pleased to impart to it."

This Prince was by no means a wicked man, whatever the Liberals of
Italy might say of him. As a matter of fact, he had cast a good number
of them into prison, but that was from fear, and he used to repeat now
and then, as though to console himself for certain unpleasant
memories: "It is better to kill the devil than to let the devil kill
you." The day after the party we have been describing, he was
supremely happy; he had done two good actions: he had gone to the
_Thursday_, and he had talked to his wife. At dinner, he addressed
her again; in a word, this _Thursday_ at Signora Sanseverina's
brought about a domestic revolution with which the whole of Parma
rang; the Raversi was in consternation, and the Duchessa doubly
delighted: she had contrived to be of use to her lover, and had found
him more in love with her than ever.

"All this owing to a thoroughly rash idea which came into my mind!"
she said to the Conte. "I should be more free, no doubt, in Rome or
Naples, but should I find so fascinating a game to play there? No,
indeed, my dear Conte, and you provide me with all my joy in life."




CHAPTER SEVEN

It is with trifling details of court life as insignificant as those
related in the last chapter that we should have to fill up the history
of the next four years. Every spring the Marchesa came with her
daughters to spend a couple of months at the _palazzo_ Sanseverina or on
the property of Sacca, by the bank of the Po; there they spent some
very pleasant hours and used to talk of Fabrizio, but the Conte would
never allow him to pay a single visit to Parma. The Duchessa and the
Minister had indeed to make amends for certain acts of folly, but on
the whole Fabrizio followed soberly enough the line of conduct that
had been laid down for him: that of a great nobleman who is studying
theology and does not rely entirely on his virtues to bring him
advancement. At Naples, he had acquired a keen interest in the study
of antiquity, he made excavations; this new passion had almost taken
the place of his passion for horses. He had sold his English
thoroughbreds in order to continue his excavations at Miseno, where he
had turned up a bust of Tiberius as a young man which had been classed
among the finest relics of antiquity. The discovery of this bust was
almost the keenest pleasure that had come to him at Naples. He had
too lofty a nature to seek to copy the other young men he saw, to wish
for example to play with any degree of seriousness the part of lover.
Of course he never lacked mistresses, but these were of no consequence
to him, and, in spite of his years, one might say of him that he still
knew nothing of love: he was all the more loved on that account.
Nothing prevented him from behaving with the most perfect coolness,
for to him a young and pretty woman was always equivalent to any other
young and pretty woman; only the latest comer seemed to him the most
exciting. One of the most generally admired ladies in Naples had done
all sorts of foolish things in his honour during the last year of his
stay there, which at first had amused him, and had ended by boring him
to tears, so much so that one of the joys of his departure was the
prospect of being delivered from the attentions of the charming
Duchessa d'A----. It was in 1821 that, having satisfactorily passed
all his examinations, his director of studies, or governor, received a
Cross and a gratuity, and he himself started out to see at length that
city of Parma of which he had often dreamed. He was _Monsignore_, and
he had four horses drawing his carriage; at the stage before Parma he
took only two, and on entering the town made them stop outside the
church of San Giovanni. There was to be found the costly tomb of
Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo, his great-granduncle, the author of
the Latin genealogy. He prayed beside the tomb, then went on foot to
the _palazzo_ of the Duchessa, who did not expect him until several
days later. There was a large crowd in her drawing-room; presently
they were left alone.

"Well, are you satisfied with me?" he asked her as he flung himself
into her arms; "thanks to you, I have spent four quite happy years at
Naples, instead of eating my head off at Novara with my mistress
authorised by the police."

The Duchessa could not get over her astonishment; she would not have
known him had she seen him go by in the street; she discovered him to
be, what as a matter of fact he was, one of the best-looking men in
Italy; his physiognomy in particular was charming. She had sent him to
Naples a devil-may-care young rough-rider; the horsewhip he invariably
carried at that time had seemed an inherent part of his person:
now he had the noblest and most measured bearing before strangers,
while in private conversation she found that he had retained all the
ardour of his boyhood. This was a diamond that had lost nothing by
being polished. Fabrizio had not been in the room an hour when Conte
Mosca appeared; he arrived a little too soon. The young man spoke to
him with so apt a choice of terms of the Cross of Parma that had been
conferred on his governor, and expressed his lively gratitude for
certain other benefits of which he did not venture to speak in so open
a fashion, with so perfect a restraint, that at the first glance the
Minister formed an excellent impression of him. "This nephew," he
murmured to the Duchessa, "is made to adorn all the exalted posts to
which you will raise him in due course." So far, all had gone
wonderfully well, but when the Minister, thoroughly satisfied with
Fabrizio, and paying attention so far only to his actions and
gestures, turned to the Duchessa, he noticed a curious look in her
eyes. "This young man is making a strange impression here," he said to
himself. This reflexion was bitter; the Conte had reached the
_fifties_, a cruel word of which perhaps only a man desperately in
love can feel the full force. He was a thoroughly good man, thoroughly
deserving to be loved, apart from his severities as a Minister. But in
his eyes that cruel word _fifties_ threw a dark cloud over his whole
life and might well have made him cruel on his own account. In the
five years since he had persuaded the Duchessa to settle at Parma, she
had often aroused his jealousy, especially at first, but never had she
given him any real grounds for complaint. He believed indeed, and
rightly, that it was with the object of making herself more certain of
his heart that the Duchessa had had recourse to those apparent
bestowals of her favour upon various young _beaux_ of the court. He
was sure, for instance, that she had rejected the offers of the
Prince, who, indeed, on that occasion, had made a significant
utterance.

"But if I were to accept Your Highness's offer," the Duchessa had
said to him with a smile, "how should I ever dare to look the Conte in
the face afterwards?"

"I should be almost as much out of countenance as you. The dear
Conte! My friend! But there is a very easy way out of that difficulty,
and I have thought of it: the Conte would be put in the citadel for
the rest of his days."

At the moment of Fabrizio's arrival, the Duchessa was so beside
herself with joy that she never even thought of the ideas which the
look in her eyes might put into the Conte's head. The effect was
profound and the suspicions it'aroused irremediable.

Fabrizio was received by the Prince two hours after his arrival; the
Duchessa, foreseeing the good effect which this impromptu audience
would have on the public, had been begging for it for the last two
months; this favour put Fabrizio beyond all rivalry from the first;
the pretext for it had been that he would only be passing through
Parma on his way to visit his mother in Piedmont. At the moment when a
charming little note from the Duchessa arrived to inform the Prince
that Fabrizio awaited his orders, the Prince was feeling bored. "I
shall see," he said to himself, "a saintly little simpleton, a mean or
a sly face." The Town Commandant had already reported the newcomer's
first visit to the tomb of his archiépiscopal uncle. The Prince saw
enter the room a tall young man whom, but for his violet stockings, he
would have taken for some young officer.

This little surprise dispelled his boredom: "Here is a fellow," he
said to himself, "for whom they will be asking me heaven knows what
favours, everything that I have to bestow. He is just come, he
probably feels nervous: I shall give him a little dose of Jacobin
politics; we shall see how he replies."

After the first gracious words on the Prince's part:

"Well, _Monsignore_," he said to Fabrizio, "and the people of Naples,
are they happy? Is the King loved?"

"Serene Highness," Fabrizio replied without a moment's hesitation, "I
used to admire, when they passed me in the street, the excellent
bearing of the troops of the various regiments of His Majesty the
King; the better classes are respectful towards their masters, as
they ought to be; but I must confess that, all my life, I have never
allowed the lower orders to speak to me about anything but the work
for which I am paying them."

"Plague!" said the Prince, "what a _slyboots_! This is a well-trained
bird, I recognise the Sanseverina touch." Becoming interested, the
Prince employed great skill in leading Fabrizio on to discuss this
scabrous topic. The young man, animated by the danger he was in, was
so fortunate as to hit upon some admirable rejoinders: "It is almost
insolence to boast of one's love for one's King," he said; "it is
blind obedience that one owes to him." At the sight of so much
prudence the Prince almost lost his temper: "Here, it seems, is a man
of parts come among us from Naples, and I don't like _that breed_; a
man of parts may follow the highest principles and even be quite
sincere; all the same on one side or the other he is always first
cousin to Voltaire and Rousseau."

This Prince felt himself almost defied by such correctness of manner
and such unassailable rejoinders coming from a youth fresh from
college; what he had expected never occurred; in an instant he
assumed a tone of good-fellowship and, reverting in a few words to the
basic principles of society and government, repeated, adapting them
to the matter in hand, certain phrases of Fénelon which he had been
made to learn by heart in his boyhood for use in public audiences.

"These principles surprise you, young man," he said to Fabrizio (he
had called him _Monsignore_ at the beginning of the audience, and
intended to give him his _Monsignore_ again in dismissing him, but in
the course of the conversation he felt it to be more adroit, better
suited to moving turns of speech, to address him in an informal and
friendly style). "These principles surprise you, young man. I admit
that they bear little resemblance to the _bread and butter
absolutism_" (this was the expression in use) "which you can read
every day in my official newspaper.... But, great heavens, what is
the good of my quoting that to you? Those writers in my newspaper must
be quite unknown to you."

"I beg Your Serene Highness's pardon; not only do I read the Parma
newspaper, which seems to me to be very well written, but I hold,
moreover, with it, that everything that has been done since the death
of Louis XIV, in 1715, has been at once criminal and foolish. Man's
chief interest in life is his own salvation, there can be no two ways
of looking at it, and that is a happiness that lasts for eternity. The
words _Liberty, Justice_, the _Good of the Greatest Number_, are
infamous and criminal: they form in people's minds the habits of
discussion and want of confidence. A Chamber of Deputies votes _no
confidence_ in what these people call _the Ministry_. This fatal habit
of _want of confidence_ once contracted, human weakness applies it
to everything, man loses confidence in the Bible, the Orders of the
Church, Tradition and everything else; from that moment he is lost.
Even upon the assumption--which is abominably false, and criminal even
to suggest--that this want of confidence in the authority of the
Princes _by God established_ were to secure one's happiness during the
twenty or thirty years of life which any of us may expect to enjoy,
what is half a century, or a whole century even, compared with an
eternity of torment?" And so on.

One could see, from the way in which Fabrizio spoke, that he was
seeking to arrange his ideas so that they should be grasped as quickly
as possible by his listener; it was clear that he was not simply
repeating a lesson.

Presently the Prince lost interest in his contest with this young man
whose simple and serious manner had begun to irritate him.

"Good-.bye, _Monsignore_," he said to him abruptly, "I can see that
they provide an excellent education at the Ecclesiastical Academy of
Naples, and it is quite simple when these good precepts fall upon so
distinguished a mind, one secures brilliant results. Good-bye." And he
turned his back on him.

"I have quite failed to please this animal," thought Fabrizio.

"And now, it remains to be seen," said the Prince as soon as he was
once more alone, "whether this fine young man is capable of passion
for anything; in that case, he would be complete.... Could anyone
repeat with more spirit the lessons he has learned from his aunt? I
felt I could hear her speaking; should we have a revolution here, it
would be she that would edit the _Monitore_, as the Sanfelice did at
Naples! But the Sanfelice, in spite of her twenty-five summers and
her beauty, got a bit of a hanging all the same! A warning to women
with brains." In supposing Fabrizio to be his aunt's pupil, the Prince
was mistaken: people with brains who are born on the throne or at the
foot of it soon lose all fineness of touch; they proscribe, in their
immediate circle, freedom of conversation which seems to them
coarseness; they refuse to look at anything but masks and pretend to
judge the beauty of complexions; the amusing part of it is that they
imagine their touch to be of the finest. In this case, for instance,
Fabrizio believed practically everything that we have heard him say;
it is true that he did not think twice in a month of these great
principles. He had keen appetites, he had brains, but he had faith.

The desire for liberty, the fashion and cult of the _greatest good
of the greatest number_, after which the nineteenth century has run
mad, were nothing in his eyes but a heresy which, like other heresies,
would pass away, though not until it had destroyed many souls, as the
plague while it reigns unchecked in a country destroys many bodies.
And in spite of all this Fabrizio read the French newspapers with keen
enjoyment, even taking rash steps to procure them.

Fabrizio having returned quite flustered from his audience at the
Palace, and having told his aunt of the various attacks launched on
him by the Prince:

"You ought," she told him, "to go at once to see Father Landriani, our
excellent Archbishop; go there on foot; climb the staircase quietly,
make as little noise as possible in the ante-rooms; if you are kept
waiting, so much the better, a thousand times better! In a word, be
_apostolic_!"

"I understand," said Fabrizio, "our man is a Tartuffe."

"Not the least bit in the world, he is virtue incarnate."

"Even after the way he behaved," said Fabrizio in some bewilderment,
"when Conte Palanza was executed?"

"Yes, my friend, after the way he behaved: the father of our
Archbishop was a clerk in the Ministry of Finance, a man of humble
position, and that explains everything. Monsignor Landriani is a man
of keen, extensive and deep intelligence; he is sincere, he loves
virtue; I am convinced that if an Emperor Decius were to reappear in
the world he would undergo martyrdom like Polyeuctes in the opera they
played last week. So much for the good side of the medal, now for the
reverse: as soon as he enters the Sovereign's, or even the Prime
Minister's presence, he is dazzled by the sight of such greatness, he
becomes confused, he begins to blush; it is physically impossible for
him to say no. This accounts for the things he has done, things which
have won him that cruel reputation throughout Italy; but what is not
generally known is that, when public opinion had succeeded in
enlightening him as to the trial of Conte Palanza, he set himself the
penance of living upon bread and water for thirteen weeks, the same
number of weeks as there are letters in the name _Davide Palanza_. We
have at this court a rascal of infinite cleverness named _Rossi_, a
Chief Justice or Fiscal General, who at the time of Conte Palanza's
death cast a spell over Father Landriani. During his thirteen weeks'
penance, Conte Mosca, from pity and also a little out of malice, used
to ask him to dinner once and even twice a week: the good Archbishop,
in deference to his host, ate like everyone else; he would have
thought it rebellious and Jacobinical to make a public display of his
penance for an action that had the Sovereign's approval. But we knew
that, for each dinner at which his duty as a loyal subject had obliged
him to eat like everyone else, he set himself a penance of two days
more of bread and water.

"Monsignor Landriani, a man of superior intellect, a scholar of the
first order, has only one weakness: _he likes to be loved_: therefore,
grow affectionate as you look at him, and, on your third visit, shew
your love for him outright. That, added to your birth, will make him
adore you at once. Shew no sign of surprise if he accompanies you to
the head of the staircase, assume an air of being accustomed to such
manners: he is a man who was born on his knees before the nobility.
For the rest, be simple, apostolic, no cleverness, no brilliance, no
prompt repartee; if you do not startle him at all, he will be
delighted with you; do not forget that it must be on his own
initiative that he makes you his Grand Vicar. The Conte and I will be
surprised and even annoyed at so rapid an advancement; that is
essential in dealing with the Sovereign."

Fabrizio hastened to the Archbishop's Palace: by a singular piece of
good fortune, the worthy prelate's footman, who was slightly deaf, did
not catch the name _del Dongo_; he announced a young priest named
Fabrizio; the Archbishop happened to be closeted with a parish priest
of by no means exemplary morals, for whom he had sent in order to
scold him. He was in the act of delivering a reprimand, a most painful
thing for him, and did not wish to be distressed by it longer than was
necessary; accordingly he kept waiting for three quarters of an hour
the great-nephew of the Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo.

How are we to depict his apologies and despair when, after having
conducted the priest to the farthest ante-room, and on asking, as he
returned, the man who was waiting _what he could do to serve him_, he
caught sight of the violet stockings and heard the name Fabrizio del
Dongo? This accident seemed to our hero so fortunate that on this
first visit he ventured to kiss the saintly prelate's hand, in a
transport of affection. He was obliged to hear the Archbishop repeat
in a tone of despair: "A del Dongo kept waiting in my ante-room!" The
old man felt obliged, by way of apology, to relate to him the whole
story of the parish priest, his misdeeds, his replies to the charges,
and so forth.

"Is it really possible," Fabrizio asked himself as he made his way
back to the _palazzo_ Sanseverina, "that this is the man who hurried
on the execution of that poor Conte Palanza?"

"What is Your Excellency's impression?" Conte Mosca inquired with a
smile, as he saw him enter the Duchessa's drawing-room. (The Conte
would not allow Fabrizio to address him as Excellency.)

"I have fallen from the clouds; I know nothing at all about human
nature: I would have wagered, had I not known his name, that that man
could not bear to see a chicken bleed."

"And you would have won your wager," replied the Conte; "but when he
is with the Prince, or merely with myself, he cannot say no. To be
quite honest, in order for me to create my full effect, I have to slip
the yellow riband of my Grand Cordon over my coat; in plain evening
dress he would contradict me, and so I always put on a uniform to
receive him. It is not for us to destroy the prestige of power, the
French newspapers are demolishing it quite fast enough; it is doubtful
whether the _mania of respect_ will last out our time, and you, my
dear nephew, will outlive respect altogether. You will be simply a
fellow-man!"

Fabrizio delighted greatly in the Conte's society; he was the first
superior person who had condescended to talk to him frankly, without
make-believe; moreover they had a taste in common, that for
antiquities and excavations. The Conte, for his part, was flattered by
the extreme attention with which the young man listened to him; but
there was one paramount objection: Fabrizio occupied a set of rooms in
the _palazzo_ Sanseverina, spent his whole time with the Duchessa,
let it be seen in all innocence that this intimacy constituted his
happiness in life, and Fabrizio had eyes and a complexion of a
freshness that drove the older man to despair.

For a long time past Ranuccio-Ernesto IV, who rarely encountered a
cruel fair, had felt it to be an affront that the Duchessa's virtue,
which was well known at court, had not made an exception in his
favour. As we have seen, the mind and the presence of mind of Fabrizio
had shocked him at their first encounter. He took amiss the extreme
friendship which Fabrizio and his aunt heedlessly displayed in public;
he gave ear with the closest attention to the remarks of his
courtiers, which were endless. The arrival of this young man and the
unprecedented audience which he had obtained provided the court with
news and a sensation for the next month; which gave the Prince an
idea.

He had in his guard a private soldier who carried his wine in the most
admirable way; this man spent his time in the _trattorie_, and
reported the spirit of the troops directly to his Sovereign. Carlone
lacked education, otherwise he would long since have obtained
promotion. Well, his duty was to be in the Palace every day when the
strokes of twelve sounded on the great clock. The Prince went in person
a little before noon to arrange in a certain way the shutters of a
_mezzanino_ communicating with the room in which His Highness dressed.
He returned to this _mezzanino_ shortly after twelve had struck, and
there found the soldier; the Prince had in his pocket writing
materials and a sheet of paper; he dictated to the soldier the
following letter:

"Your Excellency has great intelligence, doubtless, and it is thanks
to his profound sagacity that we see this State so well governed. But,
my dear Conte, such great success never comes unaccompanied by a
little envy, and I am seriously afraid that people will be laughing a
little at your expense if your sagacity does not discern that a
certain handsome young man has had the good fortune to inspire,
unintentionally it may be, a passion of the most singular order. This
happy mortal is, they say, only twenty-three years old, and, dear
Conte, what complicates the question is that you and I are
considerably more than twice that age. In the evening, at a certain
distance, the Conte is charming, scintillating, a wit, as attractive
as possible; but in the morning, in an intimate scene, all things
considered, the newcomer has perhaps greater attractions. Well, we
poor women, we make a great point of this youthful freshness,
especially when we have ourselves passed thirty. Is there not some
talk already of settling this charming youth at our court, in some
fine post? And if so, who is the person who speaks of it most
frequently to Your Excellency?"

The Prince took the letter and gave the soldier two scudi.

"This is in addition to your pay," he said in a grim tone. "Not a
single word of this to anyone, or you will find yourself in the
dampest dungeon in the citadel." The Prince had in his desk a
collection of envelopes bearing the addresses of most of the persons
at his court, in the handwriting of this same soldier who was
understood to be illiterate, and never even wrote out his own police
reports: the Prince picked out the one he required.

A few hours later, Conte Mosca received a letter by post; the hour of
its delivery had been calculated, and just as the postman, who had
been seen going in with a small envelope in his hand, came out of the
ministerial palace, Mosca was summoned to His Highness. Never had the
favourite appeared to be in the grip of a blacker melancholy: to
enjoy this at his leisure, the Prince called out to him, as he saw him
come in:

"I want to amuse myself by talking casually to my friend and not
working with my Minister. I have a maddening headache this evening,
and all sorts of gloomy thoughts keep coming into my mind."

I need hardly mention the abominable ill-humour which agitated the
Prime Minister, Conte Mosca della Rovere, when at length he was
permitted to take leave of his august master. Ranuccio-Ernesto IV was
a past-master in the art of torturing a heart, and it would not be
unfair at this point to make the comparison of the tiger which loves
to play with its victim.

The Conte made his coachman drive him home at a gallop; he called
out as he crossed the threshold that not a living soul was to be
allowed upstairs, sent word to the _auditor_ on duty that he might
take himself off (the knowledge that there was a human being within
earshot was hateful to him), and hastened to shut himself up in the
great picture gallery. There at length he could give full vent to his
fury; there he spent an hour without lights, wandering about the room
like a man out of his mind. He sought to impose silence on his heart,
to concentrate all the force of his attention upon deliberating what
action he ought to take. Plunged in an anguish that would have moved
to pity his most implacable enemy, he said to himself: "The man I
abhor is living in the Duchessa's house; he spends every hour of the
day with her. Ought I to try to make one of her women speak? Nothing
could be more dangerous; she is so good to them; she pays them well;
she is adored by them (and by whom, great God, is she not adored?)!
The question is," he continued, raging: "Ought I to let her detect the
jealousy that is devouring me, or not to speak of it?

"If I remain silent, she will make no attempt to keep anything from
me. I know Gina, she is a woman who acts always on the first impulse;
her conduct is incalculable, even by herself; if she tries to plan out
a course in advance, she goes all wrong; invariably, when it is time
for action, a new idea comes into her head which she follows
rapturously as though it were the most wonderful thing in the world,
and upsets everything.

"If I make no mention of my suffering, nothing will be kept back from
me, and I shall see all that goes on.... "Yes, but by speaking I
bring about a change of circumstances: I make her reflect; I give
her fair warning of all the horrible things that may happen....
Perhaps she will send him away" (the Conte breathed a sigh of relief),
"then I shall practically have won; even allowing her to be a little
out of temper for the moment, I shall soothe her ... and a little
ill-temper, what could be more natural? ... she has loved him like a
son for fifteen years. There lies all my hope: _like a son_ ... but
she had ceased to see him after his dash to Waterloo; now, on his
return from Naples, especially for her, he is a different man. _A
different man_!" he repeated with fury, "and that man is charming; he
has, apart from everything else, that simple and tender air and that
smiling eye which hold out such a promise of happiness! And those
eyes--the Duchessa cannot be accustomed to see eyes like those at this
court! ... Our substitute for them is a gloomy or sardonic stare. I
myself, pursued everywhere by official business, governing only by my
influence over a man who would like to turn me to ridicule, what a
look there must often be in mine! Ah! whatever pains I may take to
conceal it, it is in my eyes that age will always shew. My gaiety,
does it not always border upon irony? ... I will go farther, I must be
sincere with myself; does not my gaiety allow a glimpse to be caught,
as of something quite close to it, of absolute power ... and
irresponsibility? Do I not sometimes say to myself, especially when
people irritate me: 'I can do what I like!' and indeed go on to say
what is foolish: 'I ought to be happier than other men, since I
possess what others have not, sovereign power in three things out of
four ... ?' Very well, let us be just! The habit of thinking thus
must affect my smile, must give me a selfish, satisfied air. And, how
charming his smile is! It breathes the easy happiness of extreme
youth, and engenders it."

Unfortunately for the Conte, the weather that evening was hot,
stifling, with the threat of a storm in the air; the sort of weather,
in short, that in those parts carries people to extremes. How am I to
find space for all the arguments, al' the ways of looking at what was
happening to him, which for three mortal hours on end, kept this
impassioned mar in torment? At length the side of prudence prevailed,
solel; as a result of this reflexion: "I am in all probability mad;
when I think I am reasoning, I am not, I am simply turning about in
search of a less painful position, I pass by without seeing it some
decisive argument. Since I am blinded by excessive grief, let us
obey the rule, approved by every sensible man, which is called
_Prudence_.

"Besides, once I have uttered the fatal word _jealousy_, my course is
traced for me for ever. If on the contrary I say nothing to-day, I can
speak to-morrow, I remain master of the situation." The crisis was too
acute; the Conte would have gone mad had it continued. He was
comforted for a few moments, his attention came to rest on the
anonymous letter. From whose hand could it have come? There followed
then a search for possible names, and a personal judgement of each,
which created a diversion. In the end, the Conte remembered a gleam of
malice that had darted from the eyes of the Sovereign, when it had
occurred to him to say, towards the end of the audience: "Yes, dear
friend, let us be agreed on this point: the pleasures and cares of the
most amply rewarded ambition, even of unbounded power, are as nothing
compared with the intimate happiness that is afforded by relations of
affection and love. I am a man first, and a Prince afterwards, and,
when I have the good fortune to be in love, my mistress speaks to the
man and not to the Prince." The Conte compared that moment of
malicious joy with the phrase in the letter: "It is thanks to your
profound sagacity that we see this State so well governed." "Those are
the Prince's words!" he exclaimed; "in a courtier they would be a
gratuitous piece of imprudence; the letter comes from His Highness."

This problem solved, the fault joy caused by the pleasure of guessing
the solution was soon effaced by the cruel spectre of the charming
graces of Fabrizio, which returned afresh. It was like an enormous
weight that fell back on the heart of the unhappy man. "What does it
matter from whom the anonymous letter comes?" he cried with fury;
"does the fact that it discloses to me exist any the less? This
caprice may alter my whole life," he said, as though to excuse himself
for being so mad. "At the first moment, if she cares for him in a
certain way, she will set off with him for Belgirate, for Switzerland,
for the ends of the earth. She is rich, and besides, even if she had
to live on a few louis a year, what would that matter to her? Did she
not admit to me, not a week ago, that her _palazzo_, so well arranged,
so magnificent, bored her? Novelty is essential to so youthful a
spirit! And with what simplicity does this new form of happiness offer
itself! She will be carried away before she has begun to think of the
danger, before she has begun to think of being sorry for me! And yet I
am so wretched!" cried the Conte, bursting into tears.

He had sworn to himself that he would not go to the Duchessa's that
evening; never had his eyes thirsted so to gaze on her. At midnight he
presented himself at her door; he found her alone with her nephew; at
ten o'clock she had sent all her guests away and had closed her door.

At the sight of the tender intimacy that prevailed between these two
creatures, and of the Duchessa's artless joy, a frightful difficulty
arose before the eyes of the Conte, and one that was quite unforeseen.
He had never thought of it during his long deliberation in the picture
gallery: how was he to conceal his jealousy?

Not knowing what pretext to adopt, he pretended that he had found the
Prince that evening excessively ill-disposed towards him,
contradicting all his assertions, and so forth. He had the distress of
seeing the Duchessa barely listen to him, and pay no attention to
these details which, forty-eight hours earlier, would have plunged her
in an endless stream of discussion. The Conte looked at Fabrizio:
never had that handsome Lombard face appeared to him so simple and
so noble! Fabrizio paid more attention than the Duchessa to the
difficulties which he was relating.

"Really," he said to himself, "that head combines extreme good-nature
with the expression of a certain artless and tender joy which is
irresistible. It seems to be saying: 'Love and the happiness it brings
are the only serious things in this world.' And yet, when one comes to
some detail which requires thought, the light wakes in his eyes and
surprises one, and one is left dumbfoundered.

"Everything is simple in his eyes, because everything is seen from
above. Great God! how is one to fight against an enemy like this? And
after all, what is life without Gina's love? With what rapture she
seems to be listening to the charming sallies of that mind, which is
so boyish and must, to a woman, seem without a counterpart in the
world!"

An atrocious thought gripped the Conte like a sudden cramp. "Shall I
stab him here, before her face, and then kill myself?"

He took a turn through the room, his legs barely supporting him, but
his hand convulsively gripping the hilt of his dagger. Neither of the
others paid any attention to what he might be doing. He announced that
he was going to give an order to his servant; they did not even hear
him; the Duchessa was laughing tenderly at something Fabrizio had just
said to her. The Conte went up to a lamp in the outer room, and looked
to see whether the point of his dagger was well sharpened. "One must
behave graciously, and with perfect manners to this young man," he
said to himself as he returned to the other room and went up to them.

Hé became quite mad; it seemed to him that, as they leaned their heads
together, they were kissing each other, there, before his eyes. "That
is impossible in my presence," he told himself; "my wits have gone
astray. I must calm myself; if I behave rudely, the Duchessa is quite
capable, simply out of injured vanity, of following him to Belgirate;
and there, or on the way there, a chance word may be spoken which will
give a name to what they now feel for one another; and after that, in
a moment, all the consequences.

"Solitude will render that word decisive, and besides, once the
Duchessa has left my side, what is to become of me? And if, after
overcoming endless difficulties on the Prince's part, I go and shew my
old and anxious face at Belgirate, what part shall I play before these
people both mad with happiness?

"Here even, what else am I than the _terzo incomodo_?" (That beautiful
Italian language is simply made for love: _terzo incomodo_, a third
person when two are company.) What misery for a man of spirit to feel
that he is playing that execrable part, and not to be able to muster
the strength to get up and leave the room!

The Conte was on the point of breaking out, or at least of betraying
his anguish by the discomposure of his features. When in one of his
circuits of the room he found himself near the door, he took his
flight, calling out, in a genial, intimate tone: "Good-bye, you
two!--Once must avoid bloodshed," he said to himself.

The day following this horrible evening, after a night spent half in
compiling a detailed sum of Fabrizio's advantages, half in the
frightful transports of the most cruel jealousy, it occurred to the
Conte that he might send for a young servant of his own; this man was
keeping company with a girl named Cecchina, one of the Duchessa's
personal maids, and her favourite. As good luck would have it, this
young man was very sober in his habits, indeed miserly, and was
anxious to find a place as porter in one of the public _institutions_
of Parma. The Conte ordered the man to fetch Cecchina, his
mistress, instantly. The man obeyed, and an hour later the Conte
appeared suddenly in the room where the girl was waiting with her
lover. The Conte frightened them both by the amount of gold that he
gave them, then he addressed these few words to the trembling
Cecchina, looking her straight in the face:

"Is the Duchessa in love with Monsignore?"

"No," said the girl, gaining courage to speak after a moment's
silence.... "No, _not yet_, but he often kisses the Signora's
hands, laughing, it is true, but with real feeling."

This evidence was completed by a hundred answers to as many furious
questions from the Conte; his uneasy passion made the poor couple earn
in full measure the money that he had flung them: he ended by
believing what they told him, and was less unhappy. "If the Duchessa
ever has the slightest suspicion of what we have been saying," he told
Cecchina, "I shall send your lover to spend twenty years in the
fortress, and when you see him again his hair will be quite white."

Some days elapsed, during which Fabrizio in turn lost all his gaiety.

"I assure you," he said to the Duchessa, "that Conte Mosca feels an
antipathy for me."

"So much the worse for His Excellency," she replied with a trace of
temper.

This was by no means the true cause of the uneasiness which had made
Fabrizio's gaiety vanish. "The position in which chance has placed me
is not tenable," he told himself. "I am quite sure that she will
never say anything, she would be as much horrified by a too
significant word as by an incestuous act. But if, one evening, after a
rash and foolish day, she should come to examine her conscience, if
she believes that I may have guessed the feeling that she seems to
have formed for me, what part should I then play in her eyes? Nothing
more nor less than the _casto Giuseppe_!" (An Italian expression
alluding to the ridiculous part played by Joseph with the wife of the
eunuch Potiphar.)

"Should I give her to understand by a fine burst of confidence that
I am not capable of serious affection? I have not the necessary
strength of mind to announce such a fact so that it shall not be as
like as two peas to a gross impertinence. The sole resource left to me
is a great passion left behind at Naples; in that case, I should
return there for twenty-four hours: such a course is wise, but is it
really worth the trouble? There remains a minor affair with some one
of humble rank at Parma, which might annoy her; but anything is
preferable to the appalling position of a man who will not see the
truth. This course may, it is true, prejudice my future; I should
have, by the exercise of prudence and the purchase of discretion, to
minimise the danger." What was so cruel an element among all these
thoughts was that really Fabrizio loved the Duchessa far above anyone
else in the world. "I must be very clumsy," he told himself angrily,
"to have such misgivings as to my ability to persuade her of what is
so glaringly true!" Lacking the skill to extricate himself from this
position, he grew sombre and sad. "What would become of me, Great God,
if I quarrelled with the one person in the world for whom I feel a
passionate attachment?" From another point of view, Fabrizio could not
bring himself to spoil so delicious a happiness by an indiscreet word.
His position abounded so in charm! The intimate friendship of so
beautiful and attractive a woman was so pleasant! Under the most
commonplace relations of life, her protection gave him so agreeable a
position at this court, the great intrigues of which, thanks to her
who explained them to him, were as amusing as a play! "But at any
moment I may be awakened by a thunderbolt," he said to himself. "These
gay, these tender evenings, passed almost in privacy with so thrilling
a woman, if they lead to something better, she will expect to find in
me a lover; she will call on me for frenzied raptures, for acts of
folly, and I shall never have anything more to offer her than
friendship, of the warmest kind, but without love; nature has not
endowed me with that sort of sublime folly. What reproaches have I not
had to bear on that account! I can still hear the Duchessa d'A----
speaking, and I used to laugh at the Duchessa! She will think that I
am wanting in love for her, whereas it is love that is wanting in me;
never will she make herself understand me. Often after some story
about the court, told by her with that grace, that abandonment which
she alone in the world possesses, and which is a necessary part of my
education besides, I kiss her hand and sometimes her cheek. What is to
happen if that hand presses mine in a certain fashion?"

Fabrizio put in an appearance every day in the most respectable and
least amusing drawing-rooms in Parma. Guided by the able advice of
the Duchessa, he paid a sagacious court to the two Princes, father
and son, to the Princess Clara-Paolina and Monsignore the Archbishop.
He met with successes, but these did not in the least console him for
his mortal fear of falling out with the Duchessa.




CHAPTER EIGHT

So, less than a month after his arrival at court, Fabrizio had tasted
all the sorrows of a courtier, and the intimate friendship which
constituted the happiness of his life was poisoned. One evening,
tormented by these thoughts, he left that drawing-room of the Duchessa
in which he had too much of the air of a reigning lover; wandering at
random through the town, he came opposite the theatre, in which he saw
lights; he went in. It was a gratuitous imprudence in a man of his
cloth and one that he had indeed vowed that he would avoid in Parma,
which, after all, is only a small town of forty thousand inhabitants.
It is true that after the first few days he had got rid of his
official costume; in the evenings, when he was not going into the
very highest society, he used simply to dress in black like a layman
in mourning.

At the theatre he took a box on the third tier, so as not to be
noticed; the play was Goldoni's _La Locanderia_. He examined the
architecture of the building, scarcely did he turn his eyes to the
stage. But the crowded audience kept bursting into laughter at every
moment; Fabrizio gave a glance at the young actress who was playing
the part of the landlady, and found her amusing. He looked at her more
closely; she seemed to him quite attractive, and, above all, perfectly
natural; she was a simple-minded young girl who was the first to laugh
at the witty lines Goldoni had put into her mouth, lines which she
appeared to be quite surprised to be uttering. He asked what her name
was, and was told: "Marietta Valserra."

"Ah!" he thought; "she has taken my name; that is odd." In spite of
his intentions he did not leave the theatre until the end of the
piece. The following evening he returned; three days later he knew
Marietta Valserra's address.

On the evening of the day on which, with a certain amount of trouble,
he had procured this address, he noticed that the Conte was looking at
him in the most friendly way. The poor jealous lover, who had all the
trouble in the world in keeping within the bounds of prudence, had set
spies on the young man's track, and this theatrical escapade pleased
him. How are we to depict the Conte's joy when, on the day following
that on which he had managed to bring himself to look amicably
at Fabrizio, he learned that the latter, in the partial disguise, it
must be admitted, of a long blue frock-coat, had climbed to the
wretched apartment which Marietta Valserra occupied on the fourth
floor of an old house behind the theatre? His joy was doubled when
he heard that Fabrizio had presented himself under a false name, and
had had the honour to arouse the jealousy of a scapegrace named
Giletti, who in town played Third Servant, and in the villages danced
on the tight rope. This noble lover of Marietta cursed Fabrizio most
volubly and expressed a desire to kill him.

Opera companies are formed by an _impresario_ who engages in
different places the artists whom he can afford to pay or has found
unemployed, and the company collected at random remains together for
one season or two at most. It is not so with _comedy companies_; while
passing from town to town and changing their address every two or
three months, they nevertheless form a family of which all the members
love or loathe one another. There are in these companies united
couples whom the _beaux_ of the towns in which the actors appear find
it sometimes exceedingly difficult to sunder. This is precisely what
happened to our hero. Little Marietta liked him well enough, but was
horribly afraid of Giletti, who claimed to be her sole lord and master
and kept a close watch over her. He protested everywhere that he would
kill the _Monsignore_, for he had followed Fabrizio, and had succeeded
in discovering his name. This Giletti was quite the ugliest creature
imaginable and the least fitted to be a lover: tall out of all
proportion, he was horribly thin, strongly pitted by smallpox, and
inclined to squint. In addition, being endowed with all the graces of
his profession, he was continually coming into the wings where his
fellow-actors were assembled, turning cart-wheels on his feet and
hands or practising some other pretty trick. He triumphed in those
parts in which the actor has to appear with his face whitened with
flour and to give or receive a countless number of blows with a
cudgel. This worthy rival of Fabrizio drew a monthly salary of 32
francs, and thought himself extremely well off.

Conte Mosca felt himself drawn up from the gate of the tomb when his
watchers gave him the full authority for all these details. His kindly
nature reappeared; he seemed more gay and better company than ever in
the Duchessa's drawing-room, and took good care to say nothing to
her of the little adventure which had restored him to life. He even
took steps to ensure that she should be informed of everything that
occurred with the greatest possibly delay. Finally he had the courage
to listen to the voice of reason, which had been crying to him in vain
for the last month that, whenever a lover's lustre begins to fade,
it is time for that lover to travel.

Urgent business summoned him to Bologna, and twice a day cabinet
messengers brought him not so much the official papers of his
departments as the latest news of the love affairs of little Marietta,
the rage of the terrible Giletti and the enterprises of Fabrizio.

One of the Conte's agents asked several times for _Arlecchino
fantasma e pasticcio_, one of Giletti's triumphs (he emerges from the
pie at the moment when his rival Brighella is sticking the knife into
it, and gives him a drubbing); this was an excuse for making him earn
100 francs. Giletti, who was riddled with debts, took care not to
speak of this windfall, but became astonishing in his arrogance.

Fabrizio's whim changed to a wounded pride (at his age, his anxieties
had already reduced him to the state of having whims!). Vanity led him
to the theatre; the little girl acted in the most sprightly fashion
and amused him; on leaving the theatre, he was in love for an hour.
The Conte returned to Parma on receiving the news that Fabrizio was
in real danger; Giletti, who had served as a trooper in that fine
regiment the Dragoni Napoleone, spoke seriously of killing him, and
was making arrangements for a subsequent flight to Romagna. If the
reader is very young, he will be scandalised by our admiration for
this fine mark of virtue. It was, however, no slight act of heroism
on the part of Conte Mosca, his return from Bologna; for, after all,
frequently in the morning he presented a worn appearance, and
Fabrizio was always so fresh, so serene! Who would ever have dreamed
of reproaching him with the death of Fabrizio, occurring in his
absence and from so stupid a cause? But his was one of those rare
spirits which make an everlasting remorse out of a generous action
which they might have done and did not do; besides, he could not bear
the thought of seeing the Duchessa look sad, and by any fault of his.

He found her, on his arrival, taciturn and gloomy. This is what had
occurred: the little lady's maid, Cecchina, tormented by remorse and
estimating the importance of her crime by the immensity of the sum
that she had received for committing it, had fallen ill. One evening
the Duchessa, who was devoted to her, went up to her room. The girl
could not hold out against this mark of kindness; she dissolved in
tears, was for handing over to her mistress all that she still
possessed of the money she had received, and finally had the courage
to confess to her the questions asked by the Conte and her own replies
to them. The Duchessa ran to the lamp, which she blew out, then said
to little Cecchina that she forgave her, but on condition that she
never uttered a word about this strange episode to anyone in the
world. "The poor Conte," she added in a careless tone, "is afraid of
being laughed at; all men are like that."

The Duchessa hastened downstairs to her own apartments. No sooner had
she shut the door of her bedroom than she burst into tears; there
seemed to her something horrible in the idea of her making love to
Fabrizio, whom she had seen brought into the world; and yet what else
could her behaviour imply?

This had been the primary cause of the black melancholy in which the
Conte found her plunged; on his arrival she suffered fits of
impatience with him, and almost with Fabrizio; she would have liked
never to set eyes on either of them again; she was contemptuous of the
part, ridiculous in her eyes, which Fabrizio was playing with the
little Marietta; for the Conte had told her everything, like a true
lover, incapable of keeping a secret. She could not grow used to this
disaster; her idol had a fault; finally, in a moment of frank
friendship, she asked the Conte's advice; this was for him a delicious
instant, and a fine reward for the honourable impulse which had made
him return to Parma.

"What could be more simple?" said the Conte, smiling. "Young men want
to have every woman they see, and next day they do not give her a
thought. Ought he not to be going to Belgirate, to see the Marchesa
del Dongo? Very well, let him go. During his absence, I shall request
the company of comedians to take their talents elsewhere, I shall pay
their travelling expenses; but presently we shall see him in love with
the first pretty woman that may happen to come his way: it is in the
nature of things, and I should not care to see him act otherwise. ...
If necessary, get the Marchesa to write to him."

This suggestion, offered with the air of a complete indifference,
came as a ray of light to the Duchessa; she was frightened of Giletti.
That evening, the Conte announced, as though by chance, that one of
his couriers, on his way to Vienna, would be passing through Milan;
three days later Fabrizio received a letter from his mother. He seemed
greatly annoyed at not having yet been able, thanks to Giletti's
jealousy, to profit by the excellent intentions, assurance of which
little Marietta had conveyed to him through a _mammaccia_, an old
woman who acted as her mother.

Fabrizio found his mother and one of his sisters at Beigirate, a
large village in Piedmont, on the right shore of Lake Maggiore; the
left shore belongs to the Milanese, and consequently to Austria. This
lake, parallel to the Lake of Como, and also running from north to
south, is situated some ten leagues farther to the west. The mountain
air, the majestic and tranquil aspect of this superb lake which
recalled to him that other on the shores of which he had spent his
childhood, all helped to transform into a tender melancholy Fabrizio's
grief, which was akin to anger. It was with an infinite tenderness
that the memory of the Duchessa now presented itself to him; he felt
that in separation he was acquiring for her that love which he had
never felt for any woman; nothing would have been more painful to him
than to be separated from her for ever, and, he being in this frame of
mind, if the Duchessa had deigned to have recourse to the slightest
coquetry, she could have conquered this heart by--for
instance--presenting it with a rival. But, far from taking any so
decisive a step, it was not without the keenest self-reproach that she
found her thoughts constantly following in the young traveller's
footsteps. She reproached herself for what she still called a fancy,
as though it had been something horrible; she redoubled her
forethought for and attention to the Conte, who, captivated by such a
display of charm, paid no heed to the sane voice of reason which was
prescribing a second visit to Bologna.

The Marchesa del Dongo, busy with preparations for the wedding of her
elder daughter, whom she was marrying to a Milanese Duca, could give
only three days to her beloved son; never had she found in him so
tender an affection. Through the cloud of melancholy that was more and
more closely enwrapping Fabrizio's heart, an odd and indeed ridiculous
idea had presented itself, and he had suddenly decided to adopt it.
Dare we say that he wished to consult Priore Blanès? That excellent
old man was totally incapable of understanding the sorrows of a heart
torn asunder by boyish passions more or less equal in strength;
besides, it would have taken a week to make him gather even a faint
impression of all the conflicting interests that Fabrizio had to
consider at Parma; but in the thought of consulting him Fabrizio
recaptured the freshness of his sensations at the age of sixteen. Will
it be believed? It was not simply as to a man full of wisdom, to an
old and devoted friend, that Fabrizio wished to speak to him; the
object of this expedition, and the feelings that agitated our hero
during the fifty hours that it lasted are so absurd that, doubtless,
in the interests of our narrative, it would have been better to
suppress them. I am afraid that Fabrizio's credulity may make him
forfeit the sympathy of the reader; but after all thus it was; why
flatter him more than another? I have not flattered Conte Mosca, nor
the Prince.

Fabrizo, then, since the whole truth must be told, Fabrizio escorted
his mother as far as the port of Laveno, on the left shore of Lake
Maggiore, the Austrian shore, where she landed about eight o'clock in
the evening. (The lake is regarded as neutral territory, and no
passport is required of those who do not set foot on shore.) But
scarcely had night fallen when he had himself ferried to this same
Austrian shore, and landed in a little wood which juts out into the
water. He had hired a _sediola_, a sort of rustic and fast-moving
tilbury, by means of which he was able, at a distance of five hundred
yards, to keep up with his mother's carriage; he was disguised as a
servant of the _casa_ del Dongo, and none of the many police or
customs officials ever thought of asking him for his passport. A
quarter of a league before Como, where the Marchesa and her daughter
were to stop for the night, he took a path to the left which, making a
circuit of the village of Vico, afterwards joined a little road
recently made along the extreme edge of the lake. It was midnight, and
Fabrizio could count upon not meeting any of the police. The trees of
the various thickets into which the little road kept continually
diving traced the black outline of their foliage against a sky bright
with stars but veiled by a slight mist. Water and sky were of a
profound tranquillity. Fabrizio's soul could not resist this sublime
beauty; he stopped, then sat down on a rock which ran out into the
lake, forming almost a little promontory. The universal silence was
disturbed only, at regular intervals, by the faint ripple of the lake
as it lapped on the shore. Fabrizio had an Italian heart; I crave the
reader's pardon for him: this defect, which will render him less
attractive, consisted mainly in this: he had no vanity, save by fits
and starts, and the mere sight of sublime beauty melted him to a
tender mood and took from his sorrows their hard and bitter edge.
Seated on his isolated rock, having no longer any need to be on his
guard against the police, protected by the profound night and the vast
silence, gentle tears moistened his eyes, and he found there, with
little or no effort, the happiest moments that he had tasted for many
a day.

He resolved never to tell the Duchessa any falsehood, and it was
because he loved her to adoration at that moment that he vowed to
himself never to say to her _that he loved her_; never would he utter
in her hearing the word love, since the passion which bears that name
was a stranger to his heart. In the enthusiasm of generosity and
virtue which formed his happiness at that moment, he made the
resolution to tell her, at the first opportunity, everything: his
heart had never known love. Once this courageous plan had been
definitely adopted, he felt himself delivered of an enormous burden.
"She will perhaps have something to say to me about Marietta; very
well, I shall never see my little Marietta again," he assured himself
blithely.

The overpowering heat which had prevailed throughout the day was
beginning to be tempered by the morning breeze. Already dawn was
outlining in a faint white glimmer the Alpine peaks that rise to the
north and east of Lake Como. Their massive shapes, bleached by their
covering of snow, even in the month of June, stand out against the
pellucid azure of a sky which at those immense altitudes is always
pure. A spur of the Alps stretching southwards into smiling Italy
separates the sloping shores of Lake Como from those of the Lake of
Garda. Fabrizio followed with his eye all the branches of these
sublime mountains, the dawn as it grew brighter came to mark the
valleys that divide them, gilding the faint mist which rose from the
gorges beneath.

Some minutes since, Fabrizio had taken the road again; he passed the
hill that forms the peninsula of Burini, and at length there met his
gaze that _campanile_ of the village of Grianta in which he had so
often made observations of the stars with Priore Blanès. "What bounds
were there to my ignorance in those days? I could not understand," he
reminded himself, "even the ridiculous Latin of those treatises on
astrology which my master used to pore over, and I think I respected
them chiefly because, understanding only a few words here and there,
my imagination stepped in to give them a meaning, and the most
romantic sense imaginable."

Gradually his thoughts entered another channel. "May not there be
something genuine in this science? Why should it be different from the
rest? A certain number of imbeciles and quick-witted persons agree
among themselves that they know (shall we say) _Mexican_; they impose
themselves with this qualification upon society which respects them
and governments which pay them. Favours are showered upon them
precisely because they have no real intelligence, and authority need
not fear their raising the populace and creating an atmosphere of rant
by the aid of generous sentiments! For instance, Father Bari, to whom
Ernesto IV has just awarded a pension of 4,000 francs and the Cross of
his Order for having restored nineteen liries of a Greek dithyramb!

"But, Great God, have I indeed the right to find such things
ridiculous? Is it for me to complain?" he asked himself, suddenly,
stopping short in the road, "has not that same Cross just been given
to my governor at Naples?" Fabrizio was conscious of a feeling of
intense disgust; the fine enthusiasm for virtue which had just been
making his heart beat high changed into the vile pleasure of having a
good share in the spoils of a robbery. "After all," he said to himself
at length, with the lustreless eyes of a man who is dissatisfied with
himself, "since my birth gives me the right to profit by these abuses,
it would be a signal piece of folly on my part not to take my share,
but I must never let myself denounce them in public." This reasoning
was by no means unsound; but Fabrizio had fallen a long way from that
elevation of sublime happiness to which he had found himself
transported an hour earlier. The thought of privilege had withered
that plant, always so delicate, which we name happiness.

"If we are not to believe in astrology," he went on, seeking to calm
himself; "if this science is, like three quarters of the sciences that
are not mathematical, a collection of enthusiastic simpletons and
adroit hypocrites paid by the masters they serve, how does it come
about that I think so often and with emotion of this fatal
circumstance: I did make my escape from the prison at B----, but in
the uniform and with the marching orders of a soldier who had been
flung into prison with good cause?"

Fabrizio's reasoning could never succeed in penetrating farther; he
went a hundred ways round the difficulty without managing to
surmount it. He was too young still; in his moments of leisure, his
mind devoted itself with rapture to enjoying the sensations produced
by the romantic circumstances with which his imagination was always
ready to supply him. He was far from employing his time in studying
with patience the actual details of things in order to discover their
causes. Reality still seemed to him flat and muddy; I can understand a
person's not caring to look at it, but then he ought not to argue
about it. Above all, he ought not to fashion objections out of the
scattered fragments of his ignorance.

Thus it was that, though not lacking in brains, Fabrizio could not
manage to see that his half-belief in omens was for him a religion, a
profound impression received at his entering upon life. To think of
this belief was to feel, it was a happiness. And he set himself
resolutely to discover how this could be a _proved_, a real science,
in the same category as geometry, for example. He searched his memory
strenuously for all the instances in which omens observed by him had
not been followed by the auspicious or inauspicious events which
they seemed to herald. But all this time, while he believed himself to
be following a line of reasoning and marching towards the truth, his
attention kept coming joyfully to rest on the memory of the occasions
on which the foreboding had been amply followed by the happy or
unhappy accident which it had seemed to him to predict, and his heart
was filled with respect and melted; and he would have felt an
invincible repugnance for the person who denied the value of omens,
especially if in doing so he had had recourse to irony.

Fabrizio walked on without noticing the distance he was covering, and
had reached this point in his vain reasonings when, raising his head,
he saw the wall of his father's garden. This wall, which supported a
fine terrace, rose to a height of more than forty feet above the road,
on its right. A cornice of wrought stone along the highest part, next
to the balustrade, gave it a monumental air. "It is not bad,"
Fabrizio said to himself dispassionately, "it is good architecture, a
little in the Roman style"; he applied to it his recently acquired
knowledge of antiquities. Then he turned his head away in disgust; his
father's severities, and especially the denunciation of himself by his
brother Ascanio on his return from his wanderings in France, came back
to his mind.

"That unnatural denunciation was the origin of my present existence;
I may detest, I may despise it; when all is said and done, it has
altered my destiny. What would have become of me once I had been
packed off to Novara, and my presence barely tolerated in the house of
my father's agent, if my aunt had not made love to a powerful
Minister? If the said aunt had happened to possess merely a dry,
conventional heart instead of that tender and passionate heart which
loves me with a sort of enthusiasm that astonishes me? Where should I
be now if the Duchessa had had the heart of her brother the Marchese
del Dongo?"

Oppressed by these cruel memories, Fabrizio began now to walk with an
uncertain step; he came to the edge of the moat immediately opposite
the magnificent façade of the castle. Scarcely did he cast a glance at
that great building, blackened by tune. The noble language of
architecture left him unmoved, the memory of his brother and father
stopped his heart to every sensation of beauty, he was attentive only
to the necessity of keeping on his guard in the presence of
hypocritical and dangerous enemies. He looked for an instant, but
with a marked disgust, at the little window of the bedroom which he
had occupied until 1815 on the third storey. His father's character
had robbed of all charm the memory of his early childhood. "I have not
set foot in it," he thought, "since the 7th of March, at eight o'clock
in the evening. I left it to go and get the passport from Vasi, and
next morning my fear of spies made me hasten my departure. When I
passed through again after my visit to France, I had not time to go
upstairs, even to look at my prints again, and that thanks to my
brother's denouncing me."

Fabrizio turned away his head in horror. "Priore Blanès is
eighty-three at the very least," he said sorrowfully to himself; "he
hardly ever comes to the castle now, from what my sister tells me; the
infirmities of old age have had their effect on him. That heart, once
so strong and noble, is frozen by age. Heaven knows how long it is
since he last went up to his _campanile_! I shall hide myself in the
cellar, under the vats or under the wine-press, until he is awake; I
shall not go in and disturb the good old man in his sleep; probably he
will have forgotten my face, even; six years mean a great deal at his
age! I shall find only the tomb of a friend! And it is really childish
of me," he added, "to have come here to provoke the disgust that the
sight of my father's castle gives me."

Fabrizio now came to the little _piazza_ in front of the church; it
was with an astonishment bordering on delirium that he saw, on the
second stage of the ancient campanile, the long and narrow window
lighted by the little lantern of Priore Blanès. The Priore was in the
habit of leaving it there when he climbed to the cage of planks which
formed his observatory, so that the light should not prevent him
from reading the face of his plain sphere. This chart of the heavens
was stretched over a great jar of terracotta which had originally
belonged to one of the orange-trees at the castle. In the opening, at
the bottom of the jar, burned the tiniest of lamps, the smoke of which
was carried away from the jar through a little tin pipe, and the
shadow of the pipe indicated the north on the chart. All these
memories of things so simple in themselves deluged Fabrizio's heart
with emotions and filled him with happiness.

Almost without thinking, he put his hands to his lips and gave the
little, short, low whistle which had formerly been the signal for his
admission. At once he heard several tugs given to the cord which, from
the observatory above, opened the latch of the _campanile_ door. He
dashed headlong up the staircase, moved to a transport of
excitement; he found the Priore in his wooden armchair in his
accustomed place; his eye was fixed on the little glass of a mura]
quadrant. With his left hand the Priore made a sign to Fabrizio not to
interrupt him in his observation; a moment later, he wrote down a
figure upon a playing card, then, turning round in his chair, opened
his arms to our hero, who flung himself into them, dissolved in tears.
Priore Blanès was his true father.

"I expected you," said Blanès, after the first warm words of
affection. Was the Priore speaking in his character as a diviner, or,
indeed, as he often thought of Fabrizio, had some astrological sign,
by pure chance, announced to him the young man's return?

"This means that my death is at hand," said Priore Blanès.

"What!" cried Fabrizio, quite overcome.

"Yes," the Priore went on in a serious but by no means sad tone: "five
months and a half, or six months and a half after I have seen you
again, my life having found its full complement of happiness will be
extinguished

_Come face al mancar dell'alimento_"

(as the little lamp is when its oil runs dry). "Before the supreme
moment, I shall probably pass a month or two without speaking, after
which I shall be received into Our Father's Bosom; provided always
that He finds that I have performed my duty in the post in which He
has placed me as a sentinel.

"But you, you are worn out with exhaustion, your emotion makes you
ready for sleep. Since I began to expect you, I have hidden a loaf of
bread and a bottle of brandy for you in the great chest which holds my
instruments. Give yourself that sustenance, and try to collect enough
strength to listen to me for a few moments longer. It lies in my power
to tell you a number of things before night shall have given place
altogether to days; at present I see them a great deal more distinctly
than perhaps I shall see them to-morrow. For, my child, we are at all
times frail vessels, and we must always take that frailty into
account. To-morrow, it may be, the old man, the earthly man in me will
be occupied with preparations for my death, and to-morrow evening at
nine o'clock, you will have to leave me."

Fabrizio having obeyed him in silence, as was his custom:

"Then, it is true," the old man went on, "that when you tried to see
Waterloo you found nothing at first but a prison?"

"Yes, Father," replied Fabrizio in amazement.

"Well, that was a rare piece of good fortune, for, warned by my voice,
your soul can prepare itself for another prison, far different in its
austerity, far more terrible! Probably you will escape from it only by
a crime; but, thanks be to heaven, that crime will not have been
committed by you. Never fall into crime, however violently you may be
tempted; I seem to see that it will be a question of killing an
innocent man, who, without knowing it, usurps your rights; if you
resist the violent temptation which will seem to be justified by the
laws of honour, your life will be most happy in the eyes of men ...
and reasonably happy in the eyes of the sage," he added after a
moment's reflexion; "you will die like me, my son, sitting upon a
wooden seat, far from all luxury and having seen the hollowness of
luxury, and like me not having to reproach yourself with any grave
sin.

"And now, the discussion of your future state is at an end between us,
I could add nothing of any importance. It is in vain that I have tried
to see how long this imprisonment is to last; is it to be for six
months, a year, ten years? I have been able to discover nothing;
apparently I have made some error, and heaven has wished to punish me
by the distress of this uncertainty. I have seen only that after
your prison, but I do not know whether it is to be at the actual
moment of your leaving it, there will be what I call a crime; but,
fortunately, I believe I can be sure that it will not be committed by
you. If you are weak enough to involve yourself in this crime, all
the rest of my calculations becomes simply one long error. Then you
will not die with peace in your soul, on a wooden seat and clad in
white." As he said these words, Priore Blanès attempted to rise; it
was then that Fabrizio noticed the ravages of time; it took him nearly
a minute to get upon his feet and to turn towards Fabrizio. Our hero
allowed him to do this, standing motionless and silent. The Priore
flung himself into his arms again and again; he embraced him with
extreme affection. After which he went on, with all the gaiety of the
old days: "Try to make a place for yourself among all my instruments
where you can sleep with some comfort; take my furs; you will find
several of great value which the Duchessa Sanseverina sent me four
years ago. She asked me for a forecast of your fate, which I took care
not to give her, while keeping her furs and her fine quadrant. Every
announcement of the future is a breach of the rule, and contains this
danger, that it may alter the event, in which case the whole science
falls to the ground, like a child's card-castle; and besides, there
were things that it was hard to say to that Duchessa who is always so
charming. But let me warn you, do not be startled in your sleep by the
bells, which will make a terrible din in your ear when the men come to
ring for the seven o'clock mass; later on, in the stage below, they
will set the big _campanarie_ going, which shakes all my instruments.
To-day is the feast of San Giovila, Martyr and Soldier. As you know,
the little village of Grianta has the same patron as the great city of
Brescia, which, by the way, led to a most amusing mistake on the part
of my illustrious master, Giacomo Marini of Ravenna. More than once he
announced to me that I should have quite a fine career in the church;
he believed that I was to be the curate of the magnificent church of
San Giovila, at Brescia; I have been the curate of a little village of
seven hundred and fifty chimneys! But all has been for the best. I
have seen, and not ten years ago, that if I had been curate at
Brescia, my destiny would have been to be cast into prison on a hill
in Moravia, the Spielberg. To-morrow I shall bring you all manner of
delicacies pilfered from the great dinner which I am giving to all the
clergy of the district who are coming to sing at my high mass. I shall
leave them down below, but do not make any attempt to see me, do not
come down to take possession of the good things until you have heard
me go out again. You must not see me again _by daylight_, and as the
sun sets to-morrow at twenty-seven minutes past seven, I shall not
come up to embrace you until about eight, and it is necessary that you
depart while the hours are still numbered by nine, that is to say
before the clock has struck ten. Take care that you are not seen in
the windows of the _campanile_: the police have your description, and
they are to some extent under the orders of your brother, who is a
famous tyrant. The Marchese del Dongo is growing feeble," added Blanès
with a sorrowful air, "and if he were to see you again, perhaps he
would let something pass to you, from hand to hand. But such benefits,
tainted with deceit, do not become a man like yourself, whose strength
will lie one day in his conscience. The Marchese abhors his son
Ascanio, and it is on that son that the five or six millions that he
possesses will devolve. That is justice. You, at his death, will have
a pension of 4,000 francs, and fifty ells of black cloth for your
servants' mourning."




CHAPTER NINE

Fabrizio's soul was exalted by the old man's speech, by his own keen
attention to it, and by his extreme exhaustion. He had great
difficulty in getting to sleep, and his slumber was disturbed by
dreams, presages perhaps of the future; in the morning, at ten
o'clock, he was awakened by the whole belfry's beginning to shake; an
alarming noise seemed to come from outside. He rose in bewilderment
and at first imagined that the end of the world had come; then he
thought that he was in prison; it took him some time to recognise the
sound of the big bell, which forty peasants were setting in motion in
honour of the great San Giovila; ten would have been enough.

Fabrizio looked for a convenient place from which to see without being
seen; he discovered that from this great height his gaze swept the
gardens, and even the inner courtyard of his father's castle. He had
forgotten this. The idea of that father arriving at the ultimate
bourne of life altered all his feelings. He could even make out the
sparrows that were hopping in search of crumbs upon the wide balcony
of the dining-room. "They are the descendants of the ones I used to
tame long ago," he said to himself. This balcony, like every balcony
in the mansion, was decorated with a large number of orange-trees in
earthenware tubs, of different sizes: this sight melted his heart; the
view of that inner courtyard thus decorated, with its sharply defined
shadows outlined by a radiant sun, was truly majestic.

The thought of his father's failing health came back to his mind. "But
it is really singular," he said to himself, "my father is only
thirty-five years older than I am; thirty-five and twenty-three make
only fifty-eight!" His eyes, fixed on the windows of the bedroom of
that stern man who had never loved him, filled with tears. He
shivered, and a sudden chill ran through his veins when he thought he
saw his father crossing a terrace planted with orange-trees which was
on a level with his room; but it was only one of the servants. Close
underneath the _campanile_ a number of girls dressed in white and
split up into different bands were occupied in tracing patterns with
red, blue and yellow flowers on the pavement of the streets through
which the procession was to pass. But there was a spectacle which
spoke with a more living voice to Fabrizio's soul: from the campanile
his gaze shot down to the two branches of the lake, at a distance of
several leagues, and this sublime view soon made him forget all the
others; it awakened in him the most lofty sentiments. All the memories
of his childhood came crowding to besiege his mind; and this day which
he spent imprisoned in a belfry was perhaps one of the happiest days
of his life.

Happiness carried him to an exaltation of mind quite foreign to his
nature; he considered the incidents of life, he, still so young, as if
already he had arrived at its farthest goal. "I must admit that, since
I came to Parma," he said to himself at length after several hours of
delicious musings, "I have known no tranquil and perfect joy such as I
used to find at Naples in galloping over the roads of Vomero or pacing
the shores of Miseno. All the complicated interests of that nasty
little court have made me nasty also. ... I even believe that it would
be a sorry happiness for me to humiliate my enemies if I had any; but
I have no enemy. ... Stop a moment!" he suddenly interjected, "I
have got an enemy, Giletti.... And here is a curious thing," he
said to himself, "the pleasure that I should feel in seeing such an
ugly fellow go to all the devils in hell has survived the very slight
fancy that I had for little Marietta.... She does not come within a
mile of the Duchessa d'A----, to whom I was obliged to make love at
Naples, after I had told her that I was in love with her. Good God,
how bored I have been during the long assignations which that fair
Duchessa used to accord me; never anything like that in the tumbledown
bedroom, serving as a kitchen as well, in which little Marietta
received me twice, and for two minutes on each occasion.

"Oh, good God, what on earth can those people have to eat? They make
one pity them! ... I ought to have settled on her and the _mammaccia_
a pension of three beefsteaks, payable daily.... Little Marietta,"
he went on, "used to distract me from the evil thoughts which the
proximity of that court put in my mind.

"I should perhaps have done well to adopt the _caffè_ life, as the
Duchessa said; she seemed to incline in that direction, and she has
far more intelligence than I. Thanks to her generosity, or indeed
merely with that pension of 4,000 francs and that fund of 40,000
invested at Lyons, which my mother intends for me, I should always
have a horse and a few scudi to spend on digging and collecting a
cabinet. Since it appears that I am not to know the taste of love,
there will always be those other interests to be my great sources of
happiness; I should like, before 1 die, to go back to visit the
battlefield of Waterloo and try to identify the meadow where I was so
neatly lifted from my horse and left sitting on the ground. That
pilgrimage accomplished, I should return constantly to this sublime
lake; nothing else as beautiful is to be seen in the world, for my
heart at least. Why go so far afield in search of happiness? It is
there, beneath my eyes!

"Ah," said Fabrizio to himself, "there is this objection: the police
drive me away from the Lake of Como, but I am younger than the people
who are setting those police on my track. Here," he added with a
smile, "I should certainly not find a Duchessa d'A----, but I should
find one of those little girls down there who are strewing flowers on
the pavement, and, to tell the truth, I should care for her just as
much. Hypocrisy freezes me, even in love, and our great ladies aim at
effects that are too sublime. Napoleon has given them new ideas as to
conduct and constancy.

"The devil!" he suddenly exclaimed, drawing back his head from the
window, as though he had been afraid of being recognised despite the
screen of the enormous wooden shutter which protected the bells from
rain, "here comes a troop of police in full dress." And indeed, ten
policemen, of whom four were non-commissioned officers, had come into
sight at the top of the village street. The serjeant distributed them
at intervals of a hundred yards along the course which the procession
was to take. "Everyone knows me here; if they see me, I shall make but
one bound from the shores of the Lake of Como to the Spielberg, where
they will fasten to each of my legs a chain weighing a hundred and ten
pounds: and what a grief for the Duchessa!"

It took Fabrizio two or three minutes to realise that, for one thing,
he was stationed at a height of more than eighty feet, that the place
in which he stood was comparatively dark, that the eyes of the people
who might be looking up at him were blinded by a dazzling sun, in
addition to which they were walking about, their eyes wide open, in
streets all the houses of which had just been whitewashed with lime,
in honour of the _festa_ of San Giovila. Despite all these clear and
obvious reasons, Fabrizio's Italian nature would not have been in a
state, from that moment, to enjoy any pleasure in the spectacle, had
he not interposed between himself and the policemen a strip of old
cloth which he nailed to the frame of the window, piercing a couple of
holes in it for his eyes.

The bells had been making the air throb for ten minutes, the
procession was coming out of the church, the _mortaretti_ started to
bang. Fabrizio turned his head and recognised that little terrace,
adorned with a parapet and overlooking the lake, where so often, when
he was a boy, he had risked his life to watch the _mortaretti_ go off
between his legs, with the result that on the mornings of public
holidays his mother liked to see him by her side.

It should be explained that the _mortaretti_ (or little mortars) are
nothing else than gun-barrels which are sawn through so as to leave
them only four inches long; that is why the peasants greedily collect
all the gun-barrels which, since 1796, European policy has been sowing
broadcast over the plains of Lombardy. Once they have been reduced to
a length of four inches, these little guns are loaded to the muzzle,
they are planted in the ground in a vertical position, and a train of
powder is laid from one to the next; they are drawn up in three lines
like a battalion, and to the number of two or three hundred, in some
suitable emplacement near the route along which the procession is to
pass. When the Blessed Sacrament approaches, a match is put to the
train of powder, and then begins a running fire of sharp explosions,
utterly irregular and quite ridiculous; the women are wild with joy.
Nothing is so gay as the sound of these _mortaretti_, heard at a
distance on the lake and softened by the rocking of the water; this
curious sound, which had so often been the delight of his boyhood,
banished the somewhat too solemn thoughts by which our hero was
being besieged; he went to find the Priore's big astronomical
telescope, and recognised the majority of the men and women who were
following the procession. A number of charming little girls, whom
Fabrizio had last seen at the age of eleven or twelve, were now superb
women in the full flower of the most vigorous youth; they made our
hero's courage revive, and to speak to them he would readily have
braved the police.

After the procession had passed and had re-entered the church by a
side door which was out of Fabrizio's sight, the heat soon became
intense even up in the belfry; the inhabitants returned to their
homes, and a great silence fell upon the village. Several boats took
on board loads of _contadini_ returning to Bellagio, Menaggio and
other villages situated on the lake; Fabrizio could distinguish the
sound of each stroke of the oars: so simple a detail as this sent him
into an ecstasy; his present joy was composed of all the unhappiness,
all the irritation that he found in the complicated life of a
court. How happy he would have been at this moment to be sailing for a
league over that beautiful lake which looked so calm and reflected so
clearly the depth of the sky above! He heard the door at the foot of
the _campanile_ opened: it was the Priore's old servant who brought in
a great hamper, and he had all the difficulty in the world in
restraining himself from speaking to her. "She is almost as fond of me
as of her master," he said to himself, "and besides, I am leaving
to-night at nine o'clock; would she not keep the oath of secrecy I
should make her swear, if only for a few hours? But," Fabrizio
reminded himself, "I should be vexing my friend! I might get him into
trouble with the police!" and he let Ghita go without speaking to
her. He made an excellent dinner, then settled himself down to sleep
for a few minutes: he did not awake until half-past eight in the
evening; the Priore Blanès was shaking him by the arm; it was dark.

Blanès was extremely tired, and looked fifty years older than the
night before. He said nothing more about serious matters, sitting in
his wooden armchair. "Embrace me," he said to Fabrizio. He clasped him
again and again in his arms. "Death," he said at last, "which is
coming to put an end to this long life, will have nothing about it so
painful as this separation. I have a purse which I shall leave in
Ghita's custody, with orders to draw on it for her own needs, but to
hand over to you what is left, should you ever come to ask for it. I
know her; after those instructions, she is capable, from economy on
your behalf, of not buying meat four times in the year, if you do not
give her quite definite orders. You may yourself be reduced to
penury, and the oboi of your aged friend will be of service to you.
Expect nothing from your brother but atrocious behaviour, and try to
earn money by some work which will make you useful to society. I
foresee strange storms; perhaps, in fifty years' time, the world will
have no more room for idlers! Your mother and aunt may fail you, your
sisters will have to obey their husbands.... Away with you, away
with you, fly!" exclaimed Blanès urgently; he had just heard a little
sound in the clock which warned him that ten was about to strike, and
he would not even allow Fabrizio to give him a farewell embrace.

"Hurry, hurry!" he cried to him; "it will take you at least a minute
to get down the stair; take care not to fall, that would be a terrible
omen." Fabrizio dashed down the staircase and emerging on to the
_piazza_ began to run. He had scarcely arrived opposite his father's
castle when the bell sounded ten times; each stroke reverberated in
his bosom, where it left a singular sense of disturbance. He stopped
to think, or rather to give himself up to the passionate feelings
inspired in him by the contemplation of that majestic edifice which he
had judged so coldly the night before. He was recalled from his
musings by the sound of footsteps; he looked up and found himself
surrounded by four constables. He had a brace of excellent pistols,
the priming of which he had renewed while he dined; the slight sound
that he made in cocking them attracted the attention of one of the
constables, and he was within an inch of being arrested. He saw the
danger he ran, and decided to fire the first shot; he would be
justified in doing so, for this was the sole method open to him of
resisting four well-armed men. Fortunately, the constables, who were
going round to clear the _osteria_, had not shown themselves
altogether irresponsive to the hospitality that they had received in
several of those sociable resorts; they did not make up their minds
quickly enough to do their duty. Fabrizio took to his heels and ran.
The constables went a few yards, running also, and shouting "Stop!
Stop!" then everything relapsed into silence. After every three
hundred yards Fabrizio halted to recover his breath. "The sound of my
pistols nearly made me get caught; this is just the sort of thing that
would make the Duchessa tell me, should it ever be granted me to see
her lovely eyes again, that my mind finds pleasure in contemplating
what is going to happen in ten years' time, and forgets to look out
for what is actually happening beneath my nose."

Fabrizio shuddered at the thought of the danger he had just escaped;
he increased his pace, and presently found himself impelled to run,
which was not over-prudent, as it attracted the attention of several
_contadini_ who were going back to their homes. He could not bring
himself to stop until he had reached the mountain, more than a league
from Grianta, and even when he had stopped, he broke into a cold sweat
at the thought of the Spielberg.

"There's a fine fright!" he said aloud: on hearing the sound of this
word, he was almost tempted to feel ashamed. "But does not my aunt
tell me that the thing I most need is to learn to make allowances for
myself? I am always comparing myself with a model of perfection,
which cannot exist. Very well, I forgive myself my fright, for, from
another point of view, I was quite prepared to defend my liberty, and
certainly all four of them would not have remained on their feet to
carry me off to prison. What I am doing at this moment," he went on,
"is not military; instead of retiring rapidly, after having attained
my object, and perhaps given the alarm to my enemies, I am amusing
myself with a fancy more ridiculous perhaps than all the good Priore's
predictions."

For indeed, instead of retiring along the shortest line, and gaining
the shore of Lake Maggiore, where his boat was awaiting him, he made
an enormous circuit to go and visit _his tree_. The reader may perhaps
remember the love that Fabrizio bore for a chestnut tree planted by
his mother twenty-three years earlier. "It would be quite worthy of my
brother," he said to himself, "to have had the tree cut down; but
those creatures are incapable of delicate shades of feeling; he will
never have thought of it. And besides, that would not be a bad
augury," he added with firmness. Two hours later he was shocked by
what he saw; mischief-makers or a storm had broken one of the main
branches of the young tree, which hung down withered; Fabrizio cut it
off reverently, using his dagger, and smoothed the cut carefully, so
that the rain should not get inside the trunk. Then, although time was
highly precious to him, for day was about to break, he spent a good
hour in turning the soil round his dear tree. All these acts of folly
accomplished, he went rapidly on his way towards Lake Maggiore. All
things considered, he was not at all sad; the tree was coming on
well, was more vigorous than ever, and in five years had almost
doubled in height. The branch was only an accident of no consequence;
once it had been cut off, it did no more harm

THE CHESTNUT TREE	167

to the tree, which indeed would grow all the better if its spread
began higher from the ground.

Fabrizio had not gone a league when a dazzling band of white indicated
to the east the peaks of the Resegon di Lee, a mountain famous
throughout the district. The road which he was following became
thronged with _contadini_; but, instead of adopting military
tactics, Fabrizio let himself be melted by the sublime or touching
aspect of these forests in the neighbourhood of Lake Como. They are
perhaps the finest in the world; I do not mean to say those that bring
in most new money, as the Swiss would say, but those that speak most
eloquently to the soul. To listen to this language in the position in
which Fabrizio found himself, an object for the attentions of the
gentlemen of the Lombardo-Venetian police, was really childish. "I
am half a league from the frontier," he reminded himself at length, "I
am going to meet _doganieri_ and constables making their morning
rounds: this coat of fine cloth will look suspicious, they will ask me
for my passport; now that passport is inscribed at full length with my
name, which is marked down for prison; so here I am under the
regrettable necessity of committing a murder. If, as is usual, the
police are going about in pairs, I cannot wait quietly to fire until
one of them tries to take me by the collar; he has only to clutch me
for a moment while he falls, and off I go to the Spielberg." Fabrizio,
horrified most of all by the necessity of firing first, possibly on an
old soldier who had served under his uncle, Conte Pietranera, ran to
hide himself in the hollow trunk of an enormous chestnut; he was
renewing the priming of his pistols, when he heard a man coming
towards him through the wood, singing very well a delicious air from
_Mercadante_, which was popular at that time in Lombardy.

"There is a good omen for me," he said to himself. This air, to which
he listened religiously, took from him the little spark of anger which
was finding its way into his reasonings. He scrutinised the high road
carefully, in both directions, and saw no one: "The singer must be
coming along some side road," he said to himself. Almost at that
moment, he saw a footman, very neatly dressed in the English style and
mounted on a hack, who was coming towards him at a walk, leading a
fine thoroughbred, which however was perhaps a little too thin.

"Ah! If I reasoned like Conte Mosca," thought Fabrizio, "when he
assures me that the risks a man runs are always the measure of his
rights over his neighbours, I should blow out this servant's brains
with a pistol-shot, and, once I was mounted on the thin horse, I
should laugh aloud at all the police in the world. As soon as I was
safely in Parma, I should send money to the man, or to his widow ...
but it would be a horrible thing to do!"




CHAPTER TEN

Moralising thus, Fabrizio sprang down on to the high road which runs
from Lombardy into Switzerland: at this point, it is fully four or
five feet below the level of the forest. "If my man takes fright," he
said to himself, "he will go off at a gallop, and I shall be stranded
here looking the picture of a fool." At this moment he found himself
only ten yards from the footman, who had stopped singing: Fabrizio
could see in his eyes that he was frightened, he was perhaps going to
turn his horses. Still without having come to any decision, Fabrizio
made a bound, and seized the thin horse by the bridle.

"My friend," he said to the footman, "I am not an ordinary thief,
for I am going to begin by giving you twenty francs, but I am obliged
to borrow your horse; I shall be killed if I don't get away pretty
quickly. I have the four Riva brothers on my heels, those great
hunters whom you probably know; they caught me just now in their
sister's bedroom, I jumped out of the window, and here I am. They
dashed out into the forest with their dogs and guns. I hid myself in
that big hollow chestnut because I saw one of them cross the road;
their dogs will track me down. I am going to mount your horse and
gallop a league beyond Como; I am going to Milan to throw myself at
the Viceroy's feet. I shall leave your horse at the post-house with
two napoleons for yourself, if you consent with good grace. If you
offer the slightest resistance, I shall kill you with these pistols
you see here. If, after I have gone, you set the police on my track,
my cousin, the gallant Conte Alari, Equerry to the Emperor, will take
good care to break your bones for you."

Fabrizio invented the substance of this speech as he went on, uttering
it in a wholly pacific tone.

"As far as that goes," he went on with a laugh, "my name is no secret;
I am the Marchesino Ascanio del Dongo, my castle is quite close to
here, at Grianta. Damn you!" he cried, raising his voice, "will you
let go the horse!" The servant, stupefied, never breathed a word.
Fabrizio transferred the pistol to his left hand, seized the bridle
which the other dropped, sprang into the saddle, and made off at a
canter. When he had gone three hundred yards, it occurred to him that
he had forgotten to give the man the twenty francs he had promised
him; he stopped; there was still no one upon the road but the footman,
who was following him at a gallop; he signalled to him with his
handkerchief to come on, and when he judged him to be fifty yards off,
flung a handful of small change on to the road and went on again.
>From a distance he looked and saw the footman gathering up the money.
"There is a truly reasonable man," Fabrizio said to himself with a
laugh, "not an unnecessary word." He proceeded rapidly southwards,
halted, towards midday, at a lonely house, and took the road again a
few hours later. At two o'clock in the morning he was on the shore of
Lake Maggiore; he soon caught sight of his boat, which was tacking to
and fro; at the agreed signal, it made for the shore. He could see no
_contadino_ to whom to hand over the horse, so he gave the noble
animal its liberty, and three hours later was at Belgirate. There,
finding himself on friendly soil, he took a little rest; he was
exceedingly joyful, everything had proved a complete success. Dare
we indicate the true causes of his joy? His tree showed a superb
growth, and his soul had been refreshed by the deep affection which he
had found in the arms of Priore Blanès. "Does he really believe," he
asked himself, "in all the predictions he has made me? Or was he,
since my brother has given me the reputation of a Jacobin, a man
without law or honour, sticking at nothing, was he seeking simply to
bind me not to yield to the temptation to break the head of some
animal who may have done me a bad turn?" Two days later, Fabrizio was
at Parma, where he greatly amused the Duchessa and the Conte, when he
related to them, with the utmost exactitude, which he always observed,
the whole story of his travels.

On his arrival, Fabrizio found the porter and all the servants of
the _palazzo_ Sanseverina wearing the tokens of the deepest mourning.

"Whom have we lost?" he inquired of the Duchessa.

"That excellent man whom people called my husband has just died at
Baden. He has left me this _palazzo_, that had been arranged
beforehand, but as a sign of good fellowship he has added a legacy of
300,000 francs, which embarrasses me greatly; I have no desire to
surrender it to his niece, the Marchesa Raversi, who plays the most
damnable tricks on me every day. You are interested in art, you must
find me some good sculptor; I shall erect a tomb to the Duca which
will cost 300,000 francs." The Conte began telling anecdotes about the
Raversi.

"I have tried to win her by kindness, but all in vain," said the
Duchessa. "As for the Duca's nephews, I have made them all colonels or
generals. In return for which, not a month passes without their
sending me some abominable anonymous letter; I have been obliged to
engage a secretary simply to read letters of that sort."

"And these anonymous letters are their mildest offence," the Conte
joined in; "they make a regular business of inventing infamous
accusations. A score of times I could have brought the whole gang
before the courts, and Your Excellency may imagine," he went on,
addressing Fabrizio, "whether my good judges would have convicted
them."

"Ah, well, that is what spoils it all for me," replied Fabrizio with a
simplicity which was quite refreshing at court; "I should prefer to
see them sentenced by magistrates judging according to their
conscience."

"You would oblige me greatly, since you are travelling with a view to
gaining instruction, if you would give me the addresses of such
magistrates; I shall write to them before I go to bed."

"If I were Minister, this absence of judges who were honest men would
wound my self-respect."

"But it seems to me," said the Conte, "that Your Excellency, who is
so fond of the French, and did indeed once lend them the aid of his
invincible arm, is forgetting for the moment one of their great
maxims: 'It is better to kill the devil than to let the devil kill
you.' I should like to see how you would govern these burning souls,
who read every day the _History of the Revolution in France_, with
judges who would acquit the people whom I accuse. They would reach the
point of not convicting the most obviously guilty scoundrels, and
would fancy themselves Brutuses. But I should like to pick a crow with
you; does not your delicate soul feel a touch of remorse at the
thought of that fine (though perhaps a little too thin) horse which
you have just abandoned on the shore of Lake Maggiore?"

"I fully intend," said Fabrizio, with the utmost seriousness, "to
send whatever is necessary to the owner of the horse to recompense him
for the cost of advertising and any other expenses which he may be
made to incur by the _contadini_ who may have found it; I shall study
the Milan newspaper most carefully to find the announcement of a
missing horse; I know the description of that one very well."

"He is truly _primitive_" said the Conte to the Duchessa. "And where
would Your Excellency be now," he went on with a smile, "if, while he
was galloping away hell for leather on this borrowed horse, it had
taken it into its head to make a false step? You would be in the
Spielberg, my dear young nephew, and all my authority would barely
have managed to secure the reduction by thirty pounds of the weight of
the chain attached to each of your legs. You would have had some ten
years to spend in that pleasure-resort; perhaps your legs would have
become swollen and gangrened, then they would have cut them clean
off."

"Oh, for pity's sake, don't go any farther with so sad a romance!"
cried the Duchessa, with tears in her eyes. "Here he is back again.
..."

"And I am more delighted than you, you may well believe," replied
the Minister with great seriousness, "but after all why did not this
cruel boy come to me for a passport in a suitable name, since he was
anxious to penetrate into Lombardy? On the first news of his arrest, I
should have set off for Milan, and the friends I have in those parts
would have obligingly shut their eyes and pretended to believe that
their police had arrested a subject of the Prince of Parma. The story
of your adventures is charming, amusing, I readily agree," the Conte
went on, adopting a less sinister tone; "your rush from the wood on to
the high road quite thrills me; but, between ourselves, since this
servant held your life in his hands, you had the right to take his.
We are about to arrange a brilliant future for Your Excellency; at
least, the Signora here orders me to do so, and I do not believe that
my greatest enemies can accuse me of having ever disobeyed her
commands. What a bitter grief for her and for myself if, in this sort
of steeplechase which you appear to have been riding on this thin
horse, he had made a false step! It would almost have been better,"
the Conte added, "if the horse had broken your neck for you."

"You are very tragic this evening, my friend," said the Duchessa,
quite overcome.

"That is because we are surrounded by tragic events," replied the
Conte, also with emotion; "we are not in France, where everything ends
in song, or in imprisonment for a year or two, and really it is wrong
of me to speak of all this to you in a jocular tone. Well, now, my
young nephew, just suppose that I find a chance to make you a Bishop,
for really I cannot begin with the Archbishopric of Parma, as is
desired, most reasonably, by the Signora Duchessa here present; in
that Bishopric, where you will be far removed from our sage counsels,
just tell us roughly what your policy will be?"

"To kill the devil rather than let him kill me, in the admirable words
of my friends the French," replied Fabrizio with blazing eyes; "to
keep, by every means in my power, including pistols, the position you
will have secured for me. I have read in the del Dongo genealogy the
story of that ancestor of ours who built the castle of Grianta.
Towards the end of his life, his good friend Galeazze, Duke of Milan,
sent him to visit a fortress on our lake; they were afraid of another
invasion by the Swiss. 'I must just write a few civil words to the
governor,' the Duke of Milan said to him as he was sending him off. He
wrote and handed our ancestor a note of a couple of lines; then he
asked for it back to seal it. 'It will be more polite,' the Prince
explained. Vespasiano del Dongo started off, but, as he was sailing
over the lake, an old Greek tale came into his mind, for he was a man
of learning; he opened his liege lord's letter and found inside an
order addressed to the governor of the castle to put him to death as
soon as he should arrive. The Sforza, too much intent on the trick he
was playing our ancestor, had left a space between the end of the
letter and his signature; Vespasiano del Dongo wrote in this space an
order proclaiming himself Governor General of all the castles on the
lake, and tore off the original letter. Arriving at the fort, where
his authority was duly acknowledged, he flung the commandant down a
well, declared war on the Sforza, and after a few years exchanged his
fortress 'for those vast estates which have made the fortune of every
branch of our family, and one day will bring in to me, personally, an
income of four thousand lire."

"You talk like an academician," exclaimed the Conte, laughing; "that
was a bold stroke with a vengeance; but it is only once in ten years
that one has a chance to do anything so sensational. A creature who is
half an idiot, but who keeps a sharp look-out, and acts prudently all
his life, often enjoys the pleasure of triumphing over men of
imagination. It was by a foolish error of imagination that Napoleon
was led to surrender to the prudent _John Bull_, instead of seeking to
conquer America. John Bull, in his counting-house, had a hearty laugh
at his letter in which he quotes Themistocles. In all ages, the base
Sancho Panza triumphs, you will find, in the long run, over the
sublime Don Quixote. If you are willing to agree to do nothing
extraordinary, I have no doubt that you will be a highly respected, if
not a highly respectable Bishop. In any case, what I said just now
holds good: Your Excellency acted with great levity in the affair of
the horse; he was within a finger's breadth of perpetual
imprisonment."

This statement made Fabrizio shudder. He remained plunged in a
profound astonishment. "Was that," he wondered, "the prison with
which I am threatened? Is that the crime which I was not to commit?"
The predictions of Blanès, which as prophecies he utterly derided,
assumed in his eyes all the importance of authentic forecasts.

"Why, what is the matter with you?" the Duchessa asked him, in
surprise; "the Conte has plunged you in a sea of dark thoughts."

"I am illuminated by a new truth, and, instead of revolting against
it, my mind adopts it. It is true, I passed very near to an endless
imprisonment! But that footman looked so nice in his English jacket!
It would have been such a pity to kill him!"

The Minister was enchanted with his little air of wisdom.

"He is excellent in every respect," he said, with his eyes on the
Duchessa. "I may tell you, my friend, that you have made a conquest,
and one that is perhaps the most desirable of all."

"Ah!" thought Fabrizio, "now for some joke about little Marietta." He
was mistaken; the Conte went on to say:

"Your Gospel simplicity has won the heart of our venerable
Archbishop, Father Landriani. One of these days we are going to make a
Grand Vicar of you, and the charming part of the whole joke is that
the three existing Grand Vicars, all most deserving men, workers, two
of whom, I fancy, were Grand Vicars before you were born, will demand,
in a finely worded letter addressed to their Archbishop, that you
shall rank first among them. These gentlemen base their plea in the
first place upon your virtues, and also upon the fact that you are the
great-nephew of the famous Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo. When I
learned the respect that they felt for your virtues, I immediately
made the senior Vicar General's nephew a captain; he had been a
lieutenant ever since the siege of Tarragona by Marshal Suchet."

"Go right away now, dressed as you are, and pay a friendly visit to
your Archbishop!" exclaimed the Duchessa. "Tell him about your
sister's wedding; when he hears that she is to be a Duchessa, he will
think you more apostolic than ever. But, remember, you know nothing of
what the Conte has just told you about your future promotion."

Fabrizio hastened to the archiépiscopal palace; there he shewed
himself simple and modest, a tone which he assumed only too easily;
whereas it required an effort for him to play the great gentleman. As
he listened to the somewhat prolix Stories of Monsignor Landriani, he
was saying to himself: "Ought I to have fired my pistol at the footman
who was leading the thin horse?" His reason said to him: "Yes," but
his heart could not accustom itself to the bleeding image of the
handsome young man, falling from his horse, all disfigured.

"That prison in which I should have been swallowed up, if the horse
had stumbled, was that the prison with which I was threatened by all
those forecasts?"

This question was of the utmost importance to him, and the Archbishop
was gratified by his air of profound attention.




CHAPTER ELEVEN

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."

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_!'

" '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:

"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.

"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.

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 à 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.

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."

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.

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?"

"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 he 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.

"This is my husband," said the landlady. "Pietro-Antonio," she said to
her husband, "this gentleman is a friend of Ludovico; 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 that 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." "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 Ludovico?' cried Fabrizio, "and to prove
to you that I wish to have no secret from a friend like yourself, copy
these two letters jest 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.




CHAPTER TWELVE

The Jew, the owner of the bouse, had procured a discreet surgeon,
who, realising in his turn that there was money in the case, informed
Lodovico that his _conscience_ obliged him to make his report to the
police on the injuries of the young man whom he, Lodovico, called his
brother. "The law is clear on the subject," he added; "it is evident
that your brother cannot possibly have injured himself, as
he says, by falling from a ladder while he was holding an open knife
in his hand."

Lodovico replied coldly to this honest surgeon that, if he should
decide to yield to the inspirations of his conscience, he, Lodovico,
would have the honour, before leaving Ferrara, of falling upon him
in precisely the same way, with an open knife in his hand. When he
reported this incident to Fabrizio, the latter blamed him strongly,
but there was not a moment to be lost; they must fly. Lodovico told
the Jew that he wished to try the effect of a little fresh air on his
brother; he went to fetch a carriage, and our friends left the house
never to return. The reader is no doubt finding these accounts of all
the manoeuvres that the absence of a passport renders necessary
extremely wearisome; this sort of anxiety does not exist in France;
but in Italy, and especially in the neighbourhood of the Po, people
talk about passports all day long. Once they had left Ferrara without
hindrance, as though they were taking a drive, Lodovico sent the
carriage back, then re-entered the town by another gate and returned
to pick up Fabrizio with a _sediola_ which he had hired to take them a
dozen leagues. Coming near Bologna, our friends had themselves taken
through the fields to the road which leads from Florence to Bologna;
they spent the night in the most wretched inn they could find, and on
the following day, Fabrizio feeling strong enough to walk a little,
they entered Bologna like ordinary pedestrians. They had burned
Giletti's passport; the comedian's death must by now be common
knowledge, and there was less danger in being arrested as people
without passports than as bearing the passport of a man who had been
killed.

Lodovico knew at Bologna two or three servants in great houses; it was
decided that he should go to the them and find out how the land lay.
He explained to them that, while he was on his way from Florence,
travelling with his younger brother, the latter, wanting to sleep, had
let him come on by himself an hour before sunrise. He was to have
joined him in the village where he, Lodovico, would stop to escape the
midday heat. But Lodovico, seeing no sign of his brother, had decided
to retrace his steps; he had found his brother injured by a blow from
a stone and with several knife-wounds, and, in addition, robbed by
some men who had picked a quarrel with him. This brother was a
good-looking boy, knew how to groom and drive horses, read and write,
and was anxious to find a place with some good family. Lodovico
reserved for use on a future occasion the detail that, when Fabrizio
was on the ground, the robbers had fled, taking with them the little
bag in which the brothers had put their linen and their passports.

On arriving in Bologna, Fabrizio, feeling extremely tired and not
venturing, without a passport, to shew his face at an inn, had gone
into the huge church of San Petronio. He found there a delicious
coolness; presently he felt quite revived. "Ungrateful wretch that I
am," he said to himself suddenly, "I go into a church, simply to sit
down, as it might be in a _caffè_'." He threw himself on his knees and
thanked God effusively for the evident protection with which he had
been surrounded ever since he had had the misfortune to kill Giletti.
The danger which still made him shudder had been that of his being
recognised in the police office at Casalmaggiore. "How," he asked
himself, "did that clerk, whose eyes were so full of suspicion, who
read my passport through at least three times, fail to notice that I
am not five feet ten inches tall, that I am not thirty-nine years old,
and that I am not strongly pitted by small-pox? What thanks I owe to
Thee, O my God! And I have actually refrained until this moment from
casting the nonentity that I am at Thy feet. My pride has chosen to
believe that it was to a vain human prudence that I owed the good
fortune of escaping the Spielberg, which was already opening to engulf
me."

Fabrizio spent more than an hour in this state of extreme emotion, in
the presence of the immense bounty of God. Lodovico approached,
without his hearing him, and took his stand opposite him. Fabrizio,
who had buried his face in, his hands, raised his head, and his
faithful servant could see the tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Come back in an hour," Fabrizio ordered him, somewhat harshly.

Lodovico forgave this tone in view of the speaker's piety. Fabrizio
repeated several times the Seven Penitential Psalms, which he knew by
heart; he stopped for a long time at the verses which had a bearing on
his situation at the moment.

Fabrizio asked pardon of God for many things, but what is really
remarkable is that it never entered his head to number among his
faults the plan of becoming Archbishop simply because Conte Mosca was
Prime Minister and felt that office and all the importance it implied
to be suitable for the Duchessa's nephew. He had desired it without
passion, it is true, but still he had thought of it, exactly as one
might think of being made a Minister or a General. It had never
entered his thoughts that his conscience might be concerned in this
project of the Duchessa. This is a remarkable characteristic of the
religion which he owed to the instruction given him by the Jesuits of
Milan. That religion _deprives one of the courage to think of
unfamiliar things_, and especially forbids _personal examination_, as
the most enormous of sins; it is a step towards Protestantism. To find
out of what sins one is guilty, one must question one's priest, or
read the list of sins, as it is to be found printed in the books
entitled, _Preparation for the Sacrament of Penance_. Fabrizio knew by
heart the list of sins, rendered into the Latin tongue, which he had
learned at the Ecclesiastical Academy of Naples. So, when going
through that list, on coming to the article, _Murder_, he had most
forcibly accused himself before God of having killed a man, but in
defence of his own life. He had passed rapidly, and without paying
them the slightest attention, over the various articles relating to
the sin of _Simony_ (the procuring of ecclesiastical dignities with
money). If anyone had suggested to him that he should pay a hundred
louis to become First Grand Vicar of the Archbishop of Parma, he would
have rejected such an idea with horror; but, albeit he was not wanting
in intelligence, nor above all in logic, it never once occurred to his
mind that the employment on his behalf of Conte Mosca's influence was
a form of Simony. This is where the Jesuitical education triumphs: it
forms the habit of not paying attention to things that are clearer
than daylight. A Frenchman, brought up among conflicting personal
interests and in the prevailing irony of Paris, might, without being
deliberately unfair, have accused Fabrizio of hypocrisy at the very
moment when our hero was opening his soul to God with the utmost
sincerity and the most profound emotion.

Fabrizio did not leave the church until he had prepared the confession
which he proposed to make the next day. He found Lodovico sitting on
the steps of the vast stone peristyle which rises above the great
piazza opposite the front of San Petronio. As after a storm the air
becomes more pure, so now Fabrizio's soul was tranquil and happy and
so to speak refreshed.

"I feel quite well now, I hardly notice my wounds," he said to
Lodovico as he approached him; "but first of all I have to apologise
to you; I answered you crossly when you came and spoke to me in the
church; I was examining my conscience. Well, how are things going?"

"Excellently: I have taken lodgings, to tell the truth not at all
worthy of Your Excellency, with the wife of one of my friends, who is
a very pretty woman and, better still, on the best of terms with one
of the heads of the police. To-morrow I shall go to declare how our
passports came to be stolen; my declaration will be taken in good
part; but I shall pay the carriage of the letter which the police will
write to Casalmaggiore, to find out whether there exists in that
_comune_ a certain San Micheli, Lodovico, who has a brother, named
Fabrizio, in service with the Signora Duchessa Sanseverina at Parma.
All is settled, _siamo a cavallo_." (An Italian proverb meaning: "We
are saved.")

Fabrizio had suddenly assumed a most serious air: he begged Lodovico
to wait a moment, almost ran back into the church, and when barely
past the door flung himself down on his knees; he humbly kissed the
stone slabs of the floor. "It is a miracle, Lord," he cried with
tears in his eyes: "when Thou sawest my soul disposed to return to the
path of duty, Thou hast saved me. Great God! It is posr sible that one
day I may be killed in some quarrel; in the hour of my death remember
the state in which my soul is now." It was with transports of the
keenest joy that Fabrizio recited afresh the Seven Penitential Psalms.
Before leaving the building he went up to an old woman who was seated
before a great Madonna and by the side of an iron triangle rising
vertically from a stand on the same metal. The sides of this triangle
bristled with a large number of spikes intended to support the little
candles which the piety of the faithful keeps burning before the
famous Madonna of Cimabue. Seven candles only were lighted when
Fabrizio approached the stand; he registered this fact in his memory,
with the intention of meditating upon it later on when he had more
leisure.

"What do the candles cost?" he asked the woman.

"Two bajocchi each."

As a matter of fact they were scarcely thicker than quills and were
not a foot in length.

"How many candles can still go on your triangle?"

"Sixty-three, since there are seven alight."

"Ah!" thought Fabrizio, "sixty-three and seven make seventy; that also
is to be borne in mind." He paid for the candles, placed the first
seven in position himself, and lighted them, then fell on his knees to
make his oblation, and said to the old woman as he rose:

"It is _for grace received_."

"I am dying of hunger," he said to Ludovico as he joined him outside.

"Don't let us go to an osteria, let us go to our lodgings; the woman
of the house will go out and buy you everything you want for your
meal; she will rob you of a score of soldi, and will be all the more
attached to the newcomer in consequence."

"All this means simply that I shall have to go on dying of hunger for
a good hour longer," said Fabrizio, laughing with the serenity of a
child; and he entered an osteria close to San Petronio. To his extreme
suprise, he saw at a table near the one at which he had taken his
seat, Peppe, his aunt's first footman, the same who on a former
occasion had come to meet him at Geneva. Fabrizio made a sign to him
to say nothing; then, having made a hasty meal, a smile of happiness
hovering over his lips, he rose; Peppe followed him, and, for the
third time, our hero entered the church of San Petronio. Out of
discretion, Ludovico remained outside, strolling in the _piazza_.

"Oh, Lord, Monsignore! How are your wounds? The Signora Duchessa is
terribly upset: for a whole day she thought you were dead, and had
been left lying on some island in the Po; I must go and send off a
messenger to her this very instant. I have been looking for you for
the last six days; I spent three at Ferrara, searching all the inns."

"Have you a passport for me?"

"I have three different ones: one with Your Excellency's names and
titles, a second with your name only, and the other in a false name,
Giuseppe Bossi; each passport is made out in duplicate, according to
whether Your Excellency prefers to have come from Florence or from
Modena. You have only to go for a turn outside the town. The Signor
Conte would be glad if you would lodge at the Albergo del Pellegrino;
the landlord is a friend of his."

Fabrizio, with the air of a casual visitor, advanced along the right
aisle of the church to the place where his candles were burning; he
fastened his eyes on Cimabue's Madonna, then said to Peppe as he fell
on his knees: "I must just give thanks for a moment." Peppe followed
his example. When they left the church, Peppe noticed that Fabrizio
gave a twenty-franc piece to the first pauper who asked him for alms:
this mendicant uttered cries of gratitude which drew into the wake of
the charitable stranger the swarms of paupers of every kind who
generally adorn the Piazza San Petronio. All of them were anxious to
have a share in the napoleon. The women, despairing of making their
way through the crowd that surrounded him, flung themselves on
Fabrizio, shouting to him to know whether it was not the fact that he
had intended to give his napoleon to be divided among all the _poveri
del buon Dio_. Peppe, brandishing his gold-headed cane, ordered them
to leave His Excellency alone.

"Ohi Excellency!" all the women proceeded to cry in still more
piercing accents, "give another gold napoleon for the poor women!"
Fabrizio increased his pace, the women followed him, screaming, and a
number of male paupers, running in from every street, created a sort
of tumult. All this crowd, horribly dirty and energetic, cried out:
"_Eccellenza_!" Fabrizio had great difficulty in escaping from the
rabble; the scene brought his imagination back to earth. "I have got
only what I deserve," he said to himself; "I have rubbed shoulders
with the mob."

Two women followed him as far as the Porta Saragozza, by which he left
the town: Peppe stopped them by threatening them seriously with his
cane and flinging them some small change; Fabrizio climbed the
charming hill of San Michele in Bosco, made a partial circuit of the
town outside the walls, took a path which brought him in five hundred
yards to the Florence road, then re-entered Bologna and gravely handed
to the police official a passport in which his description was given
in the fullest detail. This passport gave him the name of Giuseppe
Bossi, student of theology. Fabrizio noticed a little spot of red ink
dropped, as though by accident, at the foot of the sheet, near the
right-harid corner. A couple of hours later he had a spy on his heels,
on account of the title of _Eccellenza_ which his companion had given
him in front of the beggars of San Petronio, although his passport
bore none of the titles which give a man the right to make his
servants address him as Excellency.

Fabrizio saw the spy and made light of him; he gave no more thought
either to passports or to police, and amused himself with everything,
like a boy. Peppe, who had orders to stay beside him, seeing that he
was more than satisfied with Lodovico, preferred to go back in person
to convey these good tidings to the Duchessa. Fabrizio wrote two very
long letters to his dear friends; then it occurred to him to write a
third to the venerable Archbishop Laadriani. This letter produced a
marvellous effect; it contained a very exact account of the affair
with Giletti. The good Archbishop, deeply moved, did not fail to go
and read this letter to the Prince, who was quite ready to listen to
it, being somewhat curious to know what line this young Monsignore
took to excuse so shocking a murder. Thanks to the many friends of the
Marchesa Raversi, the Prince, as well as the whole city of Parma,
believed that Fabrizio had procured the assistance of twenty or thirty
peasants to overpower a bad actor who had had the insolence to
challenge him for the favours of little Marietta. In despotic courts,
the first skilful intriguer controls the _Truth_, as the fashion
controls it in Paris.

"But, what in the devil's name!" exclaimed the Prince to the
Archbishop; "one gets things of that sort done for one by somebody
else; but to do them oneself is not the custom; besides, one doesn't
kill a comedian like Giletti, one buys him."

Fabrizio had not the slightest suspicion of what was going on at
Parma. As a matter of fact, the question there was whether the death
of this comedian, who in his lifetime had earned a monthly salary of
thirty-two francs, was not going to bring about the fall of the Ultra
Ministry, and of its leader, Conte Mosca.

On learning of the death of Giletti, the Prince, stung by the
independent airs which the Duchessa was giving herself, had ordered
the Fiscal General Rassi to treat the whole case as though the person
charged were a Liberal. Fabrizio, for his part, thought that a man of
his rank was superior to the laws; he did not take into account that
in countries where bearers of great names are never punished, intrigue
can do anything, even against them. He often spoke to Lodovico of his
perfect innocence, which would very soon be proclaimed; his great
argument being that he was not guilty. Whereupon Lodovico said to him:
"I cannot conceive how Your Excellency, who has so much intelligence
and education, can take the trouble to say all that before me who am
his devoted servant; Your Excellency adopts too many precautions; that
sort of thing is all right to say in public, or before a court." "This
man believes me to be a murderer, and loves me none the less for it,"
thought Fabrizio, falling from the clouds.

Three days after Peppe's departure, he was greatly astonished to
receive an enormous letter, sealed with a plait of silk, as in the
days of Louis XIV, and addressed _a Sua Eccellenza reverendissima
monsignor Fabrizio del Dongo, primo gran vicario della diocesi di
Parma, canonico_, etc.

"Why, am I still all that?" he asked himself with a laugh. Archbishop
Landriani's letter was a masterpiece of logic and lucidity; it filled
nevertheless nineteen large pages, and gave an extremely good account
of all that had occurred in Parma on the occasion of the death of
Giletti.

"A French army commanded by Marshal Ney, and marching upon the town,
would not have had a greater effect," the good Archbishop informed
him; "with the exception of the Duchessa and myself, my dearly beloved
son, everyone believes that you gave yourself the pleasure of killing
the histrion Giletti. Had this misfortune befallen you, it is one of
those things which one hushes up with two hundred louis and six
months' absence abroad; but the Marchesa Raversi is seeking to
overthrow Conte Mosca with the help of this incident. It is not at all
with the dreadful sin of murder that the public blames you, it is
solely with the _clumsiness_, or rather the insolence of not having
condescended to have recourse to a _bulo_" (a sort of hired assassin).
"I give you a summary here in clear terms of the things that I hear
said all around me, for since this ever deplorable misfortune, I go
every day to three of the principal houses in the town to have an
opportunity of justifying you. And never have I felt that I was making
a more blessed use of the scanty eloquence with which heaven has
deigned to endow me."

The scales fell from Fabrizio's eyes; the Duchessa's many letters,
filled with transports of affection, never condescended to tell him
anything. The Duchessa swore to him that she would leave Parma for
ever, unless presently he returned there in triumph. "The Conte will
do for you," she wrote to him in the letter that accompanied the
Archbishop's, "everything that is humanly possible. As for myself, you
have changed my character with this fine escapade of yours; I am now
as great a miser as the banker Tombone; I have dismissed all my
workmen, I have done more, I have dictated to the Conte the
inventory of my fortune, which turns out to be far less considerable
than I supposed. After the death of the excellent Conte Pietranera,
whom, by the way, you would have done far better to avenge, instead of
exposing your life to a creature of Giletti's sort, I was left with
an income of twelve hundred francs and five thousand francs of debts;
I remember, among other things, that I had two and a half dozen white
satin slippers coming from Paris and not a single pair of shoes to
wear in the street. I have almost made up my mind to take the three
hundred thousand francs which the Duca has left me, the whole of which
I intended to use in erecting a magnificent tomb to him. Besides, it
is the Marchesa Raversi who is your principal enemy, that is to say
mine; if you find life dull by yourself at Bologna, you have only to
say the word, I shall come and join you. Here are four more bills of
exchange," and so on.

The Duchessa said not a word to Fabrizio of the opinion that was held
in Parma of his affair, she wished above all things to comfort him,
and in any event the death of a ridiculous creature like Giletti did
not seem to her the sort of thing that could be seriously charged
against a del Dongo. "How many Gilettis have not our ancestors sent
into the other world," she said to the Conte, "without anyone's ever
taking it into his head to reproach them with it?"

Fabrizio, taken completely by surprise, and getting for the first time
a glimpse of the true state of things, set himself down to study the
Archbishop's letter. Unfortunately the Archbishop himself believed him
to be better informed than he actually was. Fabrizio gathered that the
principal cause of the Marchesa Raversi's triumph lay in the fact that
it was impossible to find any eye-witnesses of the fatal combat. The
footman who had been the first to bring the news to Parma had been at
the village inn at Sanguigna when the fight occurred; little Marietta
and the old woman who acted as her mother had vanished, and the
Marchesa had bought the _vetturino_ who drove the carriage, and who
had now made an abominable deposition. "Although the proceedings are
enveloped in the most profound mystery," wrote the Archbishop in his
Ciceronian style, "and directed by the Fiscal General, Rassi, of whom
Christian charity alone can restrain me from speaking evil, but who
has made his fortune by harrying his wretched prisoners as the
greyhound harries the hare; although this Rassi, I say, whose
turpitude and venality your imagination would be powerless to
exaggerate, has been appointed to take charge of the case by an angry
Prince, I have been able to read the three depositions of the
vetturino. By a signal piece of good fortune, the wretch contradicts
himself. And I shall add, since I am addressing my Grand Vicar, him
who, after myself, is to have the charge of this Diocese, that I have
sent for the curate of the parish in which this straying sinner
resides. I shall tell you, my dearly beloved son, but under the seal
of the confessional, that this curate already knows, through the wife
of the vetturino, the number of scudi that he has received from the
Marchesa Raversi; I shall not venture to say that the Marchesa
insisted upon his slandering you, but that is probable. The scudi were
transmitted to him through a wretched priest who performs functions of
a base order in the Marchesa's. household, and whom I have been
obliged to banish from the altar for the second time. I shall not
weary you with an account of various other actions which you might
expect from me, and which, moreover, enter into my duty. A Canon, your
colleague at the Cathedral, who is a little too prone at times to
remember the influence conferred upon him by the wealth of his family,
to which, by divine permission, he is now the sole heir, having
allowed himself to say in the house of Conte Zurla, the Minister of
the Interior, that he regarded this _bagattella_ (he referred to the
killing of the unfortunate Giletti) as proved against you, I summoned
him to appear before me, and there, in the presence of my three other
Vicars General, of my Chaplain and of two curates who happened to be
in the waiting-room, I requested him to communicate to us his brethren
the elements of the complete conviction which he professed to have
acquired against one of his colleagues at the Cathedral; the unhappy
man was able to articulate only the most inconclusive arguments; every
voice was raised against him, and, although I did not think it my duty
to add more than a very few words, he burst into tears and made us the
witnesses of his full confession of his complete error, upon which I
promised him secrecy in my name and in the names of the persons who
had been present at the discussion, always on the condition that he
would devote all his zeal to correcting the false impressions that
might have been created by the language employed by him during the
previous fortnight.

"I shall not repeat to you, my dear son, what you must long have
known, namely that of the thirty-four contadini employed on the
excavations undertaken by Conte Mosca, whom the Raversi pretends to
have been paid by you to assist you in a crime, thirty-two were at
the bottom of their trench, wholly taken up with their work, when you
armed yourself with the hunting knife and employed it to defend your
life against the man who had attacked you thus unawares. Two of
their number, who were outside the trench, shouted to the others:
'They are murdering Monsignore!' This cry alone reveals your innocence
in all its whiteness. Very well, the Fiscal General Rassi maintains
that these two men have disappeared; furthermore, they have found
eight of the men who were at the bottom of the trench; at their first
examination, six declared that they had heard the cry: 'They are
murdering Monsignore!' I know, through indirect channels, that at
their fifth examination, which was held yesterday evening, five
declared that they could not remember distinctly whether they had
heard the cry themselves or whether it had been reported to them by
their comrades. Orders have been given that I am to be informed of
the place of residence of these excavators, and their parish priests
will make them understand that they are damning themselves if, in
order to gain a few soldi, they allow themselves to alter the
truth."

The good Archbishop went into endless details, as may be judged by
those we have extracted from his letter. Then he added, using the
Latin tongue:

"This affair is nothing less than an attempt to bring about a change
of government. If you are sentenced, it can be only to the galleys or
to death, in which case I should intervene by declaring from my
Archepiscopal Throne that I know you to be innocent, that you simply
and solely defended your life against a brigand, and that finally I
have forbidden you to return to Parma for so long as your enemies
shall be triumphant there; I propose even to stigmatise, as he
deserves, the Fiscal General; the hatred felt for that man is as
common as esteem for his character is rare. But finally, on the eve of
the day on which this Fiscal is to pronounce so unjust a sentence, the
Duchessa Sanseverina will leave the town, and perhaps even the States
of Parma: in that event, no doubt is felt that the Conte will hand in
his resignation. Then, very probably, General Fabio Conti will come
into office and the Marchesa Raversi will be triumphant. The great
mistake in your case is that no skilled person has been appointed to
take charge of the procedure necessary to bring your innocence into
the light of day, and to foil the attempts that have been made to
suborn witnesses. The Conte believes that he is playing this part; but
he is too great a gentleman to stoop to certain details; besides, in
his capacity as Minister of Police, he was obliged to issue, at the
first moment, the most severe orders against you. Lastly, dare I say
it, our Sovereign Lord believes you to be guilty, or at least feigns
that belief, and has introduced a certain bitterness into the affair."
(The words corresponding to "our Sovereign Lord" and "feigns that
belief" were in Greek, and Fabrizio felt infinitely obliged to the
Archbishop for having had the courage to write them. With a
pen-knife he cut this line out of the letter, and destroyed it on the
spot.)

Fabrizio broke off a score of times while reading this letter; he
was carried away by transports of the liveliest gratitude: he
replied at once in a letter of eight pages. Often he was obliged to
raise his head so that his tears should not fall on the paper. Next
day, as he was sealing this letter, he felt that it was too worldly in
tone. "I shall write it in Latin," he said to himself, "that will make
it appear more seemly to the worthy Archbishop." But, while he was
seeking to construct fine Latin phrases of great length, in the true
Ciceronian style, he remembered that one day the Archbishop, in
speaking to him of Napoleon, had made a point of calling him
Buonaparte; at that instant there vanished all the emotion that, on
the previous day, had moved him to tears. "O King of Italy!" he
exclaimed, "that loyalty which so many others swore to thee in thy
lifetime, I shall preserve for thee after thy death. He is fond of me,
no doubt, but because I am a del Dongo and he a son of the people."
So that his fine letter in Italian might not be wasted, Fabrizio made
a few necessary alterations in it, and addressed it to Conte Mosca.

That same day, Fabrizio met in the street little Marietta; she flushed
with joy and made a sign to him to follow her without speaking. She
made swiftly for a deserted archway; there, she pulled forward the
black lace shawl which, following the local custom, covered her
head, so that she could not be recognised; then turning round quickly:

"How is it," she said to Fabrizio, "that you are walking freely in the
street like this?" Fabrizio told her his story.

"Good God! You were at Ferrara! And there was I looking for you
everywhere in the place! You must know that I quarrelled with the
old woman, because she wanted to take me to Venice, where I knew quite
well that you would never go, because you are on the Austrian black
list. I sold my gold necklace to come to Bologna, I had a presentiment
that I should have the happiness of meeting you here; the old woman
arrived two days after me. And so I shan't ask you to come and see us,
she would go on making those dreadful demands for money which make me
so ashamed. We have lived very comfortably since the fatal day you
remember, and haven't spent a quarter of what you gave us. I would
rather not come and see you at the Albergo del Pellegrino, it would be
a _pubblicità_. Try to find a little room in a quiet street, and at
the Ave Maria" (nightfall) "I shall be here, under this same archway."
So saying, she took to her heels.




CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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 _Constitutionne_l, 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_.

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!"

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, or the
other hand, who does not see into my heart, and takes ; caress for a
transport of the soul, thinks me madly in lov< 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 the young Aniken in the inn at Zonders, near the Belgian
frontier."

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, whence 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, Ludovico 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 common sense. 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 the _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." [Footnote: 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.]

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 who 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 Bellina, and believing himself to have come
almost to the point wilh Fausla, could not confine himself to his
village two leagues outside Parma. The following evening, about
midnighl, 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_; "Bellina seems lo me a hundred limes
preferable to Fausta, and it is by her that I should like to be
received at this moment." Fabrizio, distinclly 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 look hold of his arms. Lodovico and
Fabrizio's _bravi_ were attacked, bui managed to escape; they fired
several shots with their pistols. All Ihis was the affair of an
instanl: fifty lighted torches appeared in Ihe slreet 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 Ihe men who were holding
him; he iried lo clear a space round him; he even wounded one of