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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Charterhouse of Parma Volume 1 (of 2),
+by Stendhal
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Charterhouse of Parma Volume 1 (of 2)
+
+Author: Stendhal
+
+Translator: Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncrieff
+
+Contributor: Honoré de Balzac
+
+Release Date: September 25, 2021 [eBook #66374]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA VOLUME 1
+(OF 2) ***
+
+MARIE-HENRI BEYLE
+
+[DE STENDHAL]
+
+
+
+
+THE CHARTERHOUSE
+OF PARMA
+
+
+
+
+
+_Translated from the French by_
+
+C. K. SCOTT MONCRIEFF
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE
+
+
+
+
+BONI & LIVERIGHT
+
+NEW YORK MCMXXV
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+A STUDY OF M. BEYLE by Honoré De Balzac
+BEYLE'S REPLY TO BALZAC
+_TO THE READER_
+CHAPTER ONE
+CHAPTER TWO
+CHAPTER THREE
+CHAPTER FOUR
+CHAPTER FIVE
+CHAPTER SIX
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+CHAPTER NINE
+CHAPTER TEN
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+A STUDY OF M. BEYLE
+
+By Honoré De Balzac
+
+
+In our day, literature quite evidently presents three aspects; and, so
+far from being a symptom of decadence, this triplicity, to use an
+expression coined by M. Cousin in his dislike of the word trinity, seems
+to me a natural enough effect of the abundance of literary talent: it is
+a tribute to the nineteenth century, which does not offer one sole and
+invariable form, like the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which
+were more or less obedient to the tyranny of a man or of a system.
+
+These three forms, aspects or systems, by whichever name you choose to
+call them, exist in nature and correspond to general sympathies which
+were bound to declare themselves at a time when literature has seen,
+through the spread of knowledge, the number of its appreciators increase
+and the practice of reading advance with unparalleled progress.
+
+In all generations and among all peoples there are minds that are
+elegiac, meditative, contemplative, minds that attach themselves more
+especially to the great imagery, the vast spectacles of nature, and
+transpose these into themselves. Hence a whole school to which I should
+give the name: the _Literature of Imagery_, to which belong lyrical
+writing, the epic and everything that springs from that way of looking
+at things.
+
+There are, on the other hand, other active souls who like rapidity,
+movement, conciseness, sudden shocks, action, drama, who avoid
+discussion, who have little fondness for meditation, and take pleasure
+in results. From these, another whole system from which springs what I
+should call, in contrast to the former system, the _Literature of
+Ideas_.
+
+Finally, certain complete beings, certain _bifrontal_ intelligences
+embrace everything, choose both lyricism and action, drama and ode, in
+the belief that perfection requires a view of things as a whole. This
+school, which may be called _Literary Eclecticism_, demands a
+representation of the world as it is: imagery and ideas, the idea in the
+image or the image in the idea, movement and meditation. Walter Scott
+has entirely satisfied these eclectic natures.
+
+Which party predominates, I do not know. I should not like anyone to
+infer from this natural distinction forced consequences. Thus, I do not
+mean to say that such and such a poet of the school of imagery is devoid
+of ideas, or that some other poet of the school of ideas cannot invent
+fine images. These three formulas apply only to the general impression
+left by the poets' work, to the mould into which the writer casts his
+thought, to the natural tendency of his mind. Every image corresponds to
+an idea, or, more precisely, to a _sentiment_ which is a collection of
+ideas, and the idea does not always end in an image. The idea demands an
+effort in its development which does not come readily to every mind.
+Also the image is essentially popular, it is readily understood. Suppose
+that M. Hugo's _Notre-Dame de Paris_ were to appear simultaneously with
+_Manon Lescaut_, _Notre-Dame_ would seize hold of the masses far more
+promptly than Manon, and would seem to have outrivalled it in the eyes
+of those who kneel before the _Vox populi_.
+
+And yet, whatever be the kind from which a work proceeds, it will dwell
+in the human memory only by obeying the laws of the ideal and those of
+form. In literature, imagery and idea correspond nearly enough to what
+in painting we call design and colour. Rubens and Raphael are two great
+painters; but he would be strangely mistaken who thought that Raphael
+was not a colourist; and those who would refuse to Rubens the title of
+draughtsman may go and kneel before the painting with which the
+illustrious Fleming has adorned the Church of the Jesuits at Genoa, as
+an act of homage to design.
+
+M. Beyle, better known by the pseudonym Stendhal, is, in my opinion, one
+of the most eminent masters of the _Literature of Ideas_, a school to
+which belong MM. Alfred de Musset, Mérimée, Léon Gozlan, Béranger,
+Delavigne, Gustave Planche, Madame de Girardin, Alphonse Karr and
+Charles Nodier. Henry Monnier belongs to it by the truth of his
+proverbs, which are often lacking in a root-idea, but which are
+nevertheless full of that naturalness and that accurate observation
+which are characteristic of the school.
+
+This school, to which we already owe much fine work, recommends itself
+by its abundance of facts, by the sobriety of its imagery, by
+conciseness, by clarity, by the _petite phrase_ of Voltaire, by a way of
+relating a story which the eighteenth century possessed, and, above all,
+by a sense of comedy. M. Beyle and M. Mérimée, despite their profound
+seriousness, have something ironical and sly in the manner in which they
+state their facts. With them the comedy is kept in reserve. It is the
+spark in the flint.
+
+M. Victor Hugo's is undoubtedly the most eminent talent in the
+_Literature of Imagery_. M. Lamartine belongs to this school, which M.
+de Chateaubriand held over the baptismal font, and the philosophy of
+which was created by M. Ballanche. _Obermann_ is another. MM. Auguste
+Barbier, Théophile Gautier, Sainte-Beuve are others, as are a number of
+feeble imitators. In some of the authors whom I have just named, the
+sentiment prevails sometimes over the image, as in M. de Sénancour and
+M. Sainte-Beuve. By his poetry rather than by his prose, M. de Vigny is
+seen to belong to this great school. All these poets have little sense
+of comedy, they know nothing of dialogue, with the exception of M.
+Gautier, who has a keen sense of it. M. Hugo's dialogue is too much his
+own speech, he does not transform himself sufficiently, he puts himself
+into his character, instead of becoming that character. But this school
+has, like the other, produced some fine work. It is remarkable for the
+poetic fulness of its language, for the wealth of its imagery, for the
+closeness of its union with nature; the other school is human, and this
+one divine in the sense that it tends to raise itself by feeling towards
+the very heart of creation. It prefers nature to man. The French
+language is indebted to it for a strong dose of poetry which was
+necessary, for it has developed the poetic feeling long resisted by the
+_positivism_--pardon the word--of our language, and the dryness stamped
+on it by the writers of the eighteenth century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
+Bernardin de Saint-Pierre were the instigators of this revolution, which
+I regard as fortunate.
+
+The secret of the struggle between the Classics and the Romantics lies
+entirely in this quite natural disparity of minds. For two centuries
+past, the _Literature of Ideas_ has held exclusive sway, and so the
+heirs of the eighteenth century naturally mistook the only system of
+literature that they knew for the whole of literature. Let us not blame
+them, these defenders of the classic! The Literature of Ideas, full of
+facts, closely knit, is part of the genius of France. The _Profession de
+foi du vicaire savoyard_, _Candide_, the _Dialogue de Sylla et
+d'Eucrate_, the _Considérations sur les causes de la Grandeur et de la
+Décadence des Romains_, the _Provinciales_, _Manon Lescaut_, _Gil
+Blas_, are more in the French spirit than the works of the Literature of
+Imagery. But we owe to this latter the poetry of which the two previous
+centuries had not even a suspicion, if we set aside La Fontaine, André
+Chénier and Racine. The Literature of Imagery is in its cradle, and
+already includes a number of men whose genius is incontestable; but,
+when I see how many the other school includes, I believe it to be at the
+height rather than in the decline of its dominance over our beautiful
+tongue. The struggle ended, one may say that the Romantics have not
+invented new methods, that in the theatre, for instance, those who
+complain of want of action have made ample use of the _tirade_ and the
+soliloquy, and that we have not, so far, either heard the keen and
+compact dialogue of Beaumarchais, nor seen again the comedy of Molière,
+which will always be based upon reason and ideas. Comedy is the enemy of
+meditation and imagery. M. Hugo has gained enormously in this contest.
+But men of wide reading remember the war waged on M. de Chateaubriand,
+during the Empire; it was fully as savage, and ended sooner because M.
+de Chateaubriand stood alone, without the _stipante caterva_ of M. Hugo,
+without the antagonism of the press, without the support furnished to
+the Romantics by the men of genius of England and Germany, better known
+and better appreciated.
+
+As for the third school, which partakes of each of the other two, it has
+less chance than they of exciting the masses, who have little taste for
+the _mezzo termine_, for composite things, and see in eclecticism an
+arrangement that runs counter to their passions in so far as it calms
+them. France likes to find war in everything. In time of peace, she is
+still fighting. Nevertheless, Walter Scott, Madame de Staël, Cooper,
+George Sand seem to me to have distinct genius. As for myself, I take my
+stand under the banner of literary eclecticism for the following reason:
+I do not believe the portrayal of modern society to be possible by the
+severe method of the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth
+centuries. The introduction of the dramatic element, of the image, the
+picture, of description, of dialogue, seems to me indispensable in
+modern literature. Let us confess frankly that _Gil Blas_ is wearisome
+as form: in the piling up of events and ideas there is something
+sterile. The idea, personified in a character, shews a finer
+intelligence. Plato cast his psychological ethics in the form of
+dialogue.
+
+_La Chartreuse de Parme_ is of our period and, up to the present, to my
+mind, is the masterpiece of the Literature of Ideas, while M. Beyle has
+made concessions in it to the two other schools, which are admissible by
+fair minds and satisfactory to both camps.
+
+If I have so long delayed, in spite of its importance, in speaking of
+this book, you must understand that it was difficult for me to acquire a
+sort of impartiality. Even now I am not certain that I can retain it, so
+extraordinary, after a third, leisurely and thoughtful reading, do I
+find this work.
+
+I can imagine all the mockery which my admiration for it will provoke.
+There will be an outcry, of course, at my infatuation, when I am simply
+still filled with enthusiasm after the point at which enthusiasm should
+have died. Men of imagination, it will be said, conceive as promptly as
+they forget their affection for certain works of which the common herd
+arrogantly and ironically protest that they can understand nothing.
+Simple-minded, or even intelligent persons who with their proud gaze
+sweep the surface of things, will say that I amuse myself with paradox,
+that I have, like M. Sainte-Beuve, my _chers inconnus_. I am incapable
+of compromise with the truth, that is all.
+
+M. Beyle has written a book in which sublimity glows from chapter after
+chapter. He has produced, at an age when men rarely find monumental
+subjects and after having written a score of extremely intelligent
+volumes, a work which can be appreciated only by minds and men that are
+truly superior. In short, he has written _The Prince up to date_, the
+novel that Machiavelli would write if he were living banished from Italy
+in the nineteenth century.
+
+And so the chief obstacle to the renown which M. Beyle deserves lies in
+the fact that _La Chartreuse de Parme_ can find readers fitted to enjoy
+it only among diplomats, ministers, observers, the leaders of society,
+the most distinguished artists; in a word, among the twelve or fifteen
+hundred persons who are at the head of things in Europe. Do not be
+surprised, therefore, if, in the ten months since this surprising work
+was published, there has not been a single journalist who has either
+read, or understood, or studied it, who has announced, analysed and
+praised it, who has even alluded to it. I, who, I think, have some
+understanding of the matter, I have read it for the third time in the
+last few days: I have found the book finer even than before, and have
+felt in my heart the kind of happiness that comes from the opportunity
+of doing a good action.
+
+Is it not doing a good action to try to do justice to a man of immense
+talent, who will appear to have genius only in the eyes of a few
+privileged beings and whom the transcendency of his ideas deprives of
+that immediate but fleeting popularity which the courtiers of the public
+seek and which great souls despise? If the mediocre knew that they had a
+chance of raising themselves to the level of the sublime by
+understanding them, _La Chartreuse de Parme_ would have as many readers
+as _Clarissa Harlowe_ had on its first appearance.
+
+There are in admiration that is made legitimate by conscience ineffable
+delights. Therefore all that I am going to say here I address to the
+pure and noble hearts which, in spite of certain pessimistic
+declamations, exist in every country, like undiscovered pleiads, among
+the families of minds devoted to the worship of art. Has not humanity,
+from generation to generation, has it not here below its constellations
+of souls, its heaven, its angels, to use the favourite expression of the
+great Swedish prophet, Swedenborg, a chosen people for whom true artists
+work and whose judgments make them ready to accept privation, the
+insolence of upstarts and the indifference of governments?
+
+You will pardon me, I hope, what malevolent persons will call
+_longueurs_. In the first place, I am firmly convinced, the analysis of
+so curious and so interesting a work as this will give more pleasure to
+the most fastidious reader than he would derive from the unpublished
+novel whose place it fills. Besides, any other critic would require at
+least three articles of the length of this, if he sought to give an
+adequate explanation of this novel, which often contains a whole book in
+a single page, and which cannot be explained save by a man to whom the
+North of Italy is fairly familiar. Finally, let me assure you that, with
+the help of M. Beyle, I am going to try to make myself instructive
+enough to be read with pleasure to the end.
+
+A sister of the Marchese del Dongo, named Gina, the abbreviation of
+Angelina, whose early character, as a young girl, would have a certain
+similarity, could an Italian woman ever resemble a Frenchwoman, to the
+character of Madame de Lignolle in _Faublas_, marries at Milan, against
+the will of her brother, who wishes to marry her to an old man, noble,
+rich and Milanese, a certain Conte Pietranera, poor and without a penny.
+
+The Conte and Contessa support the French party, and are the ornament of
+the Court of Prince Eugène. We are in the days of the Kingdom of Italy,
+when the story begins.
+
+The Marchese del Dongo, a Milanese attached to Austria and her spy,
+spends fourteen years waiting for the fall of the Emperor Napoleon.
+Moreover, this Marchese, the brother of Gina Pietranera, does not live
+at Milan: he occupies his castle of Grianta, on the Lake of Como: he
+there brings up his elder son in the love of Austria and on sound
+principles; but he has a younger son, named Fabrizio, to whom Signora
+Pietranera is passionately devoted: Fabrizio is a cadet of the family;
+like her, he will be left without a penny in the world. Who is not
+familiar with the fondness of noble hearts for the disinherited? Also,
+she wishes to make something of him. Then, fortunately, Fabrizio is a
+charming boy; she obtains leave to put him to school at Milan, where,
+playing truant, she makes him see something of the viceregal court.
+
+Napoleon falls for the first time. While he is on the Island of Elba, in
+the course of the reaction at Milan, which the Austrians have
+reoccupied, an insult offered to the Armies of Italy in the presence of
+Pietranera, who takes it up, is the cause of his death: he is killed in
+a duel.
+
+A lover of the Contessa refuses to avenge her husband, Gina humiliates
+him by one of those acts of vengeance, magnificent south of the Alps,
+which would be thought stupid in Paris. This is her revenge:
+
+Although she despises, in _petto_, this lover who has been adoring her
+at a distance and without reward for the last six years, she pays
+certain attentions to the wretch, and, when he is in a paroxysm of
+suspense, writes to him:
+
+
+"Will you act for once like a man of spirit? Please to imagine that you
+have never known me. I am, with a touch of contempt, your servant,
+
+GINA PIETRANERA."
+
+
+Then, to increase still further the desperation of this rich man, with
+his income of two hundred thousand lire, she _ginginates_ (_ginginare_
+is a Milanese verb meaning everything that passes at a distance between
+a pair of lovers before they have spoken; the verb has its noun: one is
+a _gingino_. It is the first stage in love). Well, she ginginates for a
+moment with a fool whom she soon abandons; then she retires, with a
+pension of fifteen hundred francs, to a third floor apartment where all
+Milan of the day comes to see her and admires her.
+
+Her brother, the Marchese, invites her to return to the ancestral castle
+on the Lake of Como. She goes there, to see once more and to protect her
+charming nephew, Fabrizio, to comfort her sister-in-law and to plan her
+own future amid the sublime scenery of the Lake of Como, her native soil
+and the native soil of this nephew whom she has made her son: she has no
+children. Fabrizio, who loves Napoleon, learns of his landing from the
+Gulf of Juan and wishes to go to serve the sovereign of his uncle
+Pietranera. His mother, who, the wife of a rich Marchese with an income
+of five hundred thousand lire, has not a penny to call her own, his aunt
+Gina, who has nothing, give him their diamonds: Fabrizio is in their
+eyes a hero.
+
+The inspired volunteer crosses Switzerland, arrives in Paris, takes part
+in the battle of Waterloo, then returns to Italy, where, for having
+dabbled in the conspiracy of 1815 against the peace of Europe, he is
+disowned by his father and the Austrian government place him on their
+index. For him, to return to Milan would be to enter the Spielberg. From
+this point Fabrizio, in trouble, persecuted for his heroism, this
+sublime boy becomes everything in the world to Gina.
+
+The Contessa returns to Milan, she obtains a promise from Bubna and from
+the men of character whom Austria at this period has put in authority
+there, not to persecute Fabrizio, whom, following the advice of an
+extremely shrewd Canon, she keeps in concealment at Novara. Meanwhile,
+with all these things happening, no money. But Gina is of a sublime
+beauty, she is the type of that Lombard beauty (_bellezza folgorante_)
+which can be realised only at Milan and in the Scala when you see
+assembled there the thousand beautiful women of Lombardy. The events of
+this troubled life have developed in her the most magnificent Italian
+character: she has intellect, shrewdness, the Italian grace, the most
+charming conversation, an astonishing command of herself; in short, the
+Contessa is at one and the same time Madame de Montespan, Catherine de'
+Medici, Catherine II, too, if you like: the most audacious political
+genius and the most consummate feminine genius, hidden beneath a
+marvellous beauty. Having watched over her nephew, despite the hatred of
+the elder brother who is jealous of him, despite the hatred and
+indifference of the father, having snatched him from these perils,
+having been one of the queens of the court of the Viceroy Eugène, and
+then nothing; all these crises have enriched her natural forces,
+exercised her faculties and awakened the instincts numbed in the depths
+of her being by her early prosperity, by a marriage the joys of which
+have been rare, owing to the continual absence of Napoleon's devoted
+servant. Everyone sees or can divine in her the thousand treasures of
+passion, the resources and the refulgence of the most perfect feminine
+heart.
+
+The old Canon, whom she has seduced, sends Fabrizio to Novara, a small
+town in Piedmont, under the tutelage of a parish priest. This priest
+puts a step to the inquiries of the police by his description of
+Fabrizio: "a younger son who feels wronged because he is not the
+eldest." When Gina, who had dreamed of Fabrizio's becoming aide-de-camp
+to Napoleon, sees Napoleon banished to St. Helena, she realises that
+Fabrizio, his name inscribed in the black book of the Milanese police,
+is lost to her for ever.
+
+During the uncertainties which prevailed throughout Europe at the time
+of the battle of Waterloo, Gina has made the acquaintance of Conte Mosca
+della Rovere, the Minister of the famous Prince of Parma,
+Ranuccio-Ernesto IV.
+
+Let us pause at this point.
+
+Certainly, after having read the book, it is impossible not to
+recognise, in Conte Mosca, the most remarkable portrait that anyone
+could ever make of Prince Metternich, but of a Metternich transported
+from the great Chancellory of the Austrian Empire to the modest State of
+Parma. The State of Parma and Ernesto IV seem to me similarly to be the
+Duke of Modena and his Duchy. M. Beyle says of Ernesto IV that he is one
+of the richest Princes in Europe: the wealth of the Duke of Modena is
+famous. In seeking to avoid personalities the author has expended more
+ingenuity than Walter Scott required to construct the plot of
+Kenilworth. Indeed, these two similarities are vague enough, outwardly,
+to be denied, and so real inwardly that the well-informed reader cannot
+be mistaken. M. Beyle has so exalted the sublime character of the Prime
+Minister of the State of Parma that it is doubtful whether Prince
+Metternich be so great a man as Mosca, although the heart of that
+celebrated statesman does offer, to those who know his life well, one or
+two examples of passions of a compass at least equal to that of Mosca's.
+It is not slandering the Austrian Minister to believe him capable of all
+the secret greatnesses of Mosca. As for what Mosca is throughout the
+book, as for the conduct of the man whom Gina regards as the greatest
+diplomat in Italy, it took genius to create the incidents, the events
+and the innumerable and recurring plots in the midst of which this
+immense character unfolds. All that M. de Metternich has done during his
+long career is not more extraordinary than what you see done by Mosca.
+When one comes to think that the author has invented it all, ravelled
+all the plot and then unravelled it, as things do ravel and unravel
+themselves at a court, the most daring mind, a mind to which the
+conception of ideas is a familiar process, is left dazed, stupefied
+before so huge a task. As for myself, I suspect some literary
+Aladdin's-lamp. To have dared to put on the stage a man of the genius
+and force of M. de Choiseul, Potemkin, M. de Metternich, to create him,
+to justify the creation by the actions of the creature himself, to make
+him move in an environment which is appropriate to him and in which his
+faculties have full play, is the work not of a man but of a fairy, a
+wizard. Bear in mind that the most skilfully complicated plots of Walter
+Scott do not arrive at the admirable simplicity which prevails in the
+recital of these events, so numerous, so _thickly foliaged_, to borrow
+the famous expression of Diderot.
+
+Here is the portrait of Mosca. We are in 1816, remember.
+
+"He 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 told 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."
+
+And so the powder which M. de Metternich wears, and which softens a face
+already so gentle, is justified in Mosca by the will of his master. In
+spite of the prodigious efforts of M. Beyle, who, on page after page,
+naturalises in this State marvellous inventions to deceive his reader
+and blunt the point of his allusions, the mind is at Modena and will on
+no account consent to remain at Parma. Whoever has seen, known, met M.
+de Metternich, thinks that he hears him speaking through the mouth of
+Mosca, lends Mosca his voice and clothes him in his manners. Although,
+in the book, Ernesto IV dies, and the Duke of Modena is still living,
+one is often reminded of that Prince _so notorious for his severities_,
+_which the Liberals of Milan called cruelties_. Such are the expressions
+used by the author in speaking of the Prince of Parma.
+
+In these two portraits, begun with a satirical intention, there is,
+however, nothing that can wound, nothing that reeks of vengeance.
+Although M. Beyle has no cause to thank M. de Metternich, who refused
+him his _exequatur_ for the Trieste Consulate, and although the Duke of
+Modena has never been able to look with pleasure on the author of _Rome,
+Naples et Florence_, of the _Promenades en Rome_, and of certain other
+works, these two figures are portrayed with great taste and the utmost
+propriety.
+
+This is what, no doubt, occurred during the actual work of these two
+creations. Carried away by the enthusiasm necessary to him who handles
+clay and scalpel, the brush and colours, the pen and the treasures of
+man's moral nature, M. Beyle, who had started out to depict a little
+court in Italy and a diplomat, ended with the type PRINCE and the type
+PRIME MINISTER. The resemblance, began with the fantasy of a satirical
+mind, ceased where the genius of the arts appeared to the artist.
+
+This convention of masks once admitted, the reader, keenly interested,
+accepts the admirable Italian scene which the author paints, the town
+and all the buildings necessary to his story, which, in many places, has
+the magical quality of an Oriental tale.
+
+This long parenthesis was indispensable. Let us continue.
+
+Mosca is smitten with love, but with a love immense, eternal, boundless,
+for Gina, absolutely like M. de Metternich and his Leykam. He lets her,
+at the risk of compromising himself, have the latest diplomatic news
+before anyone else. The presence at Milan of this Minister of the State
+of Parma is perfectly accounted for later on.
+
+To give you an idea of this famous Italian love, I must relate to you a
+distinctly curious incident. On their departure, in 1799, the Austrians
+saw as they left Milan, on the Bastion, a certain Contessa B----nini who
+was driving with a Canon, both heedless of revolutions and war: they
+were in love. The Bastion is a magnificent avenue which starts from the
+Eastern Gate (Porta Renza) and corresponds to the Champs-Elysées in
+Paris, with this slight difference that on the left extends the Duomo,
+"that mountain of gold transmuted into marble," as Francis II, who had a
+gift of expression, called it; and on the right the snowy fringe, the
+sublime chasms of the Alps. On their return in 1814 the first thing the
+Austrians saw was the Contessa and the Canon, sitting in the same
+carriage and saying, perhaps, the same things, at the same point on the
+Bastion. I have seen, in that city, a young man who became ill if he
+went more than a certain number of streets away from the house of his
+mistress. When a woman gives an Italian sensations, he never leaves her.
+
+"In spite of his frivolous air and his polished manners. Mosca," says M.
+Beyle, "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 would blunt it by repeated stabbings of his throbbing limbs."
+This superior man guesses the superior mind of the Contessa, he falls in
+love with her to the point of behaving like a schoolboy.
+
+"After all," the Minister said to himself, "old age is only being
+incapable of indulging in these delicious timidities."
+
+The Contessa one evening remarks the fine, benevolent gaze of Mosca.
+(The gaze with which M. de Metternich would deceive the Deity.)
+
+"At Parma," she says to him, "if you were to look like that, you would
+give them the hope that they might escape hanging."
+
+In the end the diplomat, having realised how essential this woman is to
+his happiness, and after three months of inward struggle, arrives with
+three different plans, devised to secure his happiness, and makes her
+agree to the wisest of them.
+
+In Mosca's eyes, Fabrizio is a child: the excessive interest which the
+Contessa takes in her nephew seems to him one of those elective
+maternities which, until love comes to reign there, beguile the hearts
+of noble-hearted women.
+
+Mosca, unfortunately, is married. Accordingly he brings to Milan the
+Duca Sanseverina-Taxis. Let me, in this analysis, introduce a few
+quotations which will give you examples of the vivid, free, sometimes
+faulty style of M. Beyle, and will enable me to make myself be read with
+pleasure.
+
+The Duca is 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. Apart from this, the Duca is by no means an absolute
+idiot, says the Conte: "he gets his clothes and wigs from Paris. He is
+not the sort of man who would do anything _deliberately_ mean, he
+seriously believes that honour consists in having a Grand Cordon, and he
+is ashamed of his riches. He wants an Embassy. Marry him, he will give
+you a hundred thousand scudi, a magnificent jointure, his _palazzo_ and
+the most superb existence in Parma. On these conditions, I make the
+Prince appoint him Ambassador, he will have his Grand Cordon, and he
+will start the day after his marriage; you become Duchessa Sanseverina,
+and we live happily. Everything is settled with the Duca, who will be
+made the happiest man in the world by our arrangement: he will never
+shew his face again in Parma. If this life does not appeal to you, I
+have four hundred thousand francs, I hand in my resignation and we go
+and live at Naples."
+
+"Do you know that what you and your Duca are proposing is highly
+immoral?" says the Contessa.
+
+"No more immoral than what is done at every court," the Minister
+answers. "Absolute Power has this advantage, that it justifies
+everything. Every year we shall be afraid of a 1798, and everything that
+can reduce that fear will be supremely moral. You shall hear the
+speeches I make on the subject at my receptions. The Prince has
+consented, and you will have a brother in the Duca, who has not dared to
+hope for such a marriage, which saves his face; he thinks himself ruined
+because he lent twenty-five napoleons to the great Ferrante Palla, a
+Republican, a poet and something of a genius, whom we have sentenced to
+death, fortunately in his absence."
+
+Gina accepts. We next see her Duchessa Sanseverina-Taxis, astonishing
+the court of Parma by her affability, by the noble serenity of her mind.
+Her house is the most attractive in the town, she reigns there, she is
+the glory of this little court.
+
+The portrait of Ernesto IV, his reception of the Duchessa, her
+introduction to each member in turn of the Reigning House, all these
+details are marvels of wit, depth, succinctness. Never have the hearts
+of Princes, Ministers, courtiers and women been so depicted. The reader
+will find it hard to lay the book down.
+
+When the Duchessa's nephew fled from Austrian persecution and was on his
+way from the Lake of Como to Novara under the protection of his
+confessor and the parish priest, he met Fabio Conti, General of the
+Armies of the State of Parma, one of the most curious figures of this
+court and of the book, a general who thinks of nothing but whether His
+Highness's soldiers ought to have seven buttons on their uniform or
+nine; but this comic general possesses an entrancing daughter, Clelia
+Conti. Fabrizio and Clelia, both trying to escape from the police, have
+exchanged a few words. Clelia is the most beautiful creature in Parma.
+As soon as the Prince sees the effect produced in his court by the
+Sanseverina, he thinks of counter-balancing that beauty by bringing
+Clelia to light. A great difficulty! Girls are not received at court: he
+therefore has her created a Canoness.
+
+The Prince has of course a mistress. One of his weaknesses is to ape
+Louis XIV. So, to be in the picture, he has provided himself with a La
+Vallière, one Contessa Balbi, who dips her fingers into every
+money-bag, and is not forgotten when any government contract is made.
+Ernesto IV would be in despair if the Balbi were not slightly grasping:
+the scandalous fortune of his mistress is a sign of royal power. He is
+lucky, the Contessa is a miser!
+
+"She received me," the Duchessa tells Mosca, "as though she expected me
+to give her a _buona mancia_ (a tip)."
+
+But, to the great grief of Ernesto IV, the Contessa, who has no brains,
+cannot be compared for a moment to the Duchessa; this humiliates him, a
+first source of irritation. His mistress is thirty, and a model of
+Italian _leggiadria_.
+
+She had still the finest eyes in the world and the most graceful little
+hands;[1] but her skin was netted with countless fine little wrinkles
+which made her look like a young grandmother. As she was obliged to
+smile at everything the Prince said, and sought to make him think, by
+this ironical smile, that she understood him, Conte Mosca used to say
+that these suppressed yawns had in course of time produced her wrinkles.
+
+The Duchessa parries the first blow aimed at her by His Highness by
+making a friend of Clelia, who, fortunately, is an innocent creature.
+From motives of policy, the Prince allows to exist at Parma a sort of
+Party, called Liberal (God knows what sort of Liberals!). A Liberal is a
+man who has the great men of Italy, Dante, Machiavelli, Petrarch, Leo X
+painted welcoming Monti on a ceiling. This passes as an epigram against
+the power which has no longer any great men. This Liberal Party has as
+its chief a Marchesa Raversi, an ugly and mischievous woman, as
+irritating as an Opposition. Fabio Conti, the General, belongs to this
+Party. The Prince, who hangs agitators, has his reasons for allowing a
+Liberal Party.
+
+Ernesto IV rejoices in a Laubardemont, his Fiscal General or Chief
+Justice, named Rassi. This Rassi, full of natural intelligence, is one
+of the most horribly comic or comically horrible personages that can be
+imagined: he laughs and has people hanged, he makes a game of his
+justice. He is necessary, indispensable to the Prince. Rassi is a blend
+of Fouché, Fouquier-Tinville, Merlin, Triboulet and Scapin. You call
+the Prince a _tyrant_: he says that this is conspiracy and he hangs you.
+He has already hanged two Liberals. Since this execution, notorious
+throughout Italy, the Prince, who is brave when on the field of battle
+and has led armies, the Prince, though a man of spirit, lives in fear.
+This Rassi becomes something terrible, he attains to gigantic
+proportions while still remaining grotesque: he embodies all the justice
+of this little State.
+
+And now for the inevitable effects at court of the Duchessa's triumphs.
+The Conte and the Duchessa, that pair of eagles caged in this tiny
+capital, soon begin to offend the Prince. In the first place the
+Duchessa is sincerely attached to the Conte, the Conte is more in love
+every day, and this happiness irritates a bored Prince. Mosca's talents
+are indispensable to the Cabinet of Parma. Ranuccio-Ernesto and his
+Minister are attached to one another like the Siamese twins. Indeed,
+they have between them contrived the impossible plan ("impossible" is a
+rhetorical precaution on M. Beyle's part) of making a single State of
+Northern Italy. Beneath his mask of absolutism, the Prince is intriguing
+to become the Sovereign of this Constitutional Kingdom. He is dying of
+envy to ape Louis XVIII, to give a Charter and Two Chamber government to
+Northern Italy. He regards himself as a great politician, he has his
+ambition: he redeems in his own eyes his subordinate position by this
+plan with which Mosca is fully acquainted; he has control of his
+treasury! The more need he has of Mosca and the more he recognises his
+Minister's talent, the more reasons there are in the depths of this
+princely heart for an unconfessed jealousy. Life at court is boring, at
+the _palazzo_ Sanseverina it is amusing. What means remain to him of
+demonstrating his power to himself? The chance of tormenting his
+Minister. And he torments him cruelly! The Prince tries first of all, in
+a friendly way, to secure the Duchessa as his mistress, she refuses;
+there are blows to self-esteem the elements of which may easily be
+guessed from this brief analysis. Presently, the Prince reaches the
+stage of wishing to attack his Minister through the Duchessa, and he
+then seeks out ways of making her suffer.
+
+All this part of the novel is of a remarkable literary solidity. This
+painting has the magnitude of a canvas fifty feet by thirty, and at the
+same time the manner, the execution is Dutch in its minuteness. We come
+to the drama, and to a drama the most complete, the most gripping, the
+strangest, the truest, the most profoundly explored in the human heart
+that has ever been invented, but one that has existed, undoubtedly, at
+many periods, and will reappear at courts where it will be enacted
+again, as Louis XIII and Richelieu, as Francis II and Prince Metternich,
+as Louis XV, the du Barry and M. de Choiseul have enacted it in the
+past.
+
+The prospect which, in this new setting, has most attracted the Duchessa
+is that of the possibility of making a career for her hero, for this
+child of her heart, for Fabrizio her nephew. Fabrizio will owe his
+fortune to the genius of Mosca. The love which she has conceived for the
+child she continues to feel for the youth. I may tell you now,
+beforehand, that this love is to become later on, at first without
+Gina's knowledge, then consciously, a passion that will reach the
+sublime. Nevertheless she will always be the wife of the great diplomat,
+to whom she will never have committed any other act of infidelity than
+that of the passionate impulses of her heart towards this young idol;
+she will not deceive this man of genius, she will always make him happy
+and proud; she will make him aware of her least emotions, he will endure
+the most horrible rages of jealousy, and will never have any grounds for
+complaint. The Duchessa will be frank, artless, sublime, resigned,
+moving as a play of Shakespeare, beautiful as poetry, and the most
+severe reader will have no fault to find. I doubt if any poet has ever
+solved such a problem with as much felicity as has M. Beyle in this bold
+work. The Duchessa is one of those magnificent statues which make us at
+once admire the art that created them and inveigh against Nature which
+is so sparing of such models. Gina, when you have read the book, will
+remain before your eyes like a sublime statue: it will be neither the
+Venus de Milo, nor the Venus de' Medici; it will be Diana with the
+voluptuousness of Venus, with the suavity of Raphael's Virgins, and the
+movement of Italian passion. Above all, there is nothing French in the
+Duchessa. Yes, the Frenchman who has modelled, chiselled, wrought this
+marble, has left nothing on it of his native soil. _Corinne_, you must
+realise, is a miserable sketch compared with this living, ravishing
+creature. You will find her great, intellectual, passionate, always true
+to life, and yet the author has carefully concealed her sensual aspect.
+There is not in the work a single word that can make one think of the
+pleasures of love or can inspire them. Although the Duchessa, Mosca,
+Fabrizio, the Prince and his son, Clelia, although the book and its
+characters are, in their different ways, passion with all its furies;
+although it is Italy as it is, with its shrewdness, its dissimulation,
+its cunning, its coolness, its tenacity, its higher policy in every
+connexion. _La Chartreuse de Parme_ is more chaste than the most
+puritanical of the novels of Walter Scott. To make a noble, majestic,
+almost irreproachable character of a duchess who makes a Mosca happy,
+and keeps nothing from him, is not that a masterpiece of fiction? The
+_Phèdre_ of Racine, that sublime creation of the French stage, which
+Jansenism did not venture to condemn, is not so beautiful, nor so
+complete, nor so animated.
+
+Well, at the moment when everything is smiling on the Duchessa, when she
+is amusing herself with this court life where a sudden storm is always
+to be feared, when she is most tenderly attached to the Conte, who,
+literally, is mad with happiness; when he has the patent and receives
+the honours of Prime Minister _which come very near to those paid to the
+Sovereign himself_, she says to him one day:
+
+"And Fabrizio?"
+
+The Conte then offers to obtain for her, from Austria, a pardon for this
+dear nephew.
+
+"But, if he is somewhat superior to the young men 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,"
+says Mosca, "heaven had endowed him with a real passion, were it only
+for angling, I should respect it; but what is he to do at Milan, even
+after he has obtained his pardon?"
+
+"I should like him to be an officer," says the Duchessa.
+
+"Would you advise a Sovereign," says Mosca, "to entrust a post which, at
+a given date, may be of some importance, to a young man who has shown
+enthusiasm, who, from Como, has gone to join Napoleon at Waterloo? A del
+Dongo cannot be a merchant, nor a barrister, nor a doctor. You will cry
+out in protest, but you will come in the end to agree with me. If
+Fabrizio wishes it, he can quickly become Archbishop of Parma, one of
+the highest dignities in Italy, and from that Cardinal. We have had at
+Parma three del Dongo Archbishops, the Cardinal who wrote a book in
+sixteen-something, Fabrizio in 1700 and Ascanio in 1750. Only, shall I
+remain Minister long enough? That is the sole objection."
+
+After two months spent in discussion, the Duchessa, defeated on every
+point by the Conte's observations, and rendered desperate by the
+precarious position of a younger son of a Milanese family, utters one
+day this profound Italian saying to her friend:
+
+"Prove to me again that every other career is impossible for Fabrizio."
+
+The Conte proves it.
+
+The Duchessa, susceptible to the thought of fame, sees no other way of
+salvation, here below, for her dear Fabrizio, than the Church and its
+high dignities, for the future of Italy lies in Rome, and nowhere else.
+To anyone who has studied Italy carefully, it is clear that the unity of
+government in that country, that its nationality will never be
+re-established save by the hand of a Sixtus V. The Pope alone has the
+power to stir and to reconstitute Italy. And so we see with what pains
+the Austrian court has watched, for the last thirty years, the elections
+of Popes, what aged imbeciles she has allowed to don the Triple Crown.
+"Perish Catholicism sooner than my domination!" seems to be her guiding
+motto. Miserly Austria would spend a million to prevent the election of
+a Pope with French ideas. And then, if some fine Italian genius employed
+sufficient dissimulation to put on the white cassock, he might die like
+Ganganelli. There perhaps is to be found the secret of the refusals of
+the Court of Rome, which has not chosen to accept the invigorating
+potion, the elixir offered to it by men of fine ecclesiastical genius
+from France: Borgia would not have failed to make them take their seat
+among his devoted Cardinals. The author of the Bull _In coena Domini_
+would have understood the great Gallican idea, Catholic Democracy, he
+would have adapted it to the circumstances. M. de Lamennais, that fallen
+angel, would not then, in his Breton obstinacy, have abandoned the
+Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church.
+
+So the Duchessa adopts this plan of the Conte. In this great woman there
+is, as in great politicians, a moment of uncertainty, of hesitation
+before a plan; but she never goes back upon her resolutions. The
+Duchessa is always right in wishing what she has wished. Her
+persistency, that strong quality of her imperious character, imparts an
+element of terror to all the scenes of this fertile drama.
+
+Nothing could be more clever than the initiation of Fabrizio into his
+future destiny. The lovers display to Fabrizio the chances of his life.
+Fabrizio, a boy of astonishing intelligence, grasps everything at once
+and has a vision of the tiara. The Conte does not pretend to make a
+priest of him of the sort one sees everywhere in Italy. Fabrizio is a
+great gentleman, he can remain perfectly ignorant if it seems good to
+him, and will none the less become Archbishop. Fabrizio refuses to lead
+the life of the caffè, he has a horror of poverty, and realises that he
+cannot be a soldier. When he speaks of going and becoming an American
+citizen (we are in 1817), he has explained to him the dulness of life in
+America, without smartness, without music, without love affairs, without
+war, the cult of the god Dollar, and the respect due to artisans, to the
+masses who by their votes decide everything. Fabrizio has a horror of
+_mobocracy_.
+
+At the voice of the great diplomat, who shows him life as it really is,
+the young man's illusions take flight. He had not understood what is
+incomprehensible to young people, the "_Surtout pas de zèle_!" of M. de
+Talleyrand.
+
+"Remember," Mosca says to him, "that a proclamation, a caprice of the
+heart flings the enthusiast into the bosom of the party opposed to his
+own future sympathies."
+
+What a phrase![2]
+
+The instructions given by the Minister to the neophyte who is to return
+to Parma only as a _Monsignore_, in violet stockings, and whom he sends
+to Naples to complete his studies with letters of recommendation to the
+Archbishop there, one of his clever friends; these instructions, given
+in the Duchessa's drawing-room, during a game of cards, are admirable. A
+single quotation will show you the fineness of the perceptions, the
+science of life which the author gives to this great character.
+
+"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? And once
+you knew and had adopted those rules, would you not wish to win? Do not
+fall into the vulgar habit of speaking with horror of Voltaire, Diderot,
+Raynal and all those harebrained Frenchmen who have brought us that
+foolish government by Two Chambers. Speak of them with a calm irony,
+they are people who have long since been refuted. You will be forgiven a
+little amorous intrigue, if it is done in the proper way, but they would
+take note of your objections: age stifles intrigue but encourages doubt.
+Believe everything, do not yield to the temptation to shine; be morose:
+discerning eyes will see your cleverness in yours and it will be time
+enough to be witty when you are an Archbishop!"
+
+The astonishing and fine superiority of Mosca is never lacking, either
+in action or in speech; it makes this book one as profound, from page to
+page, as the _Maxims_ of La Rochefoucauld. And observe that their
+passion leads the Conte and Duchessa to make mistakes, they are obliged
+to bring their talent into play to atone for them. To another man who
+had consulted him, the Conte would have explained the misfortunes that
+would await him at Parma after the death of Ernesto IV. But his passion
+has made him completely blind to his own interests. Talent alone can
+make you discover this poignant touch of comedy for yourself. Great
+politicians are nothing more, after all, than equilibrists who, if they
+do not take care, see their finest edifice come crashing to the ground.
+Richelieu was only saved from his peril, on the Day of the Dupes, by the
+broth of the Queen Mother, who refused to go to Saint-Germain without
+having taken the _lait de poule_ which preserved her complexion. The
+Duchessa and Mosca live by a perpetual expenditure of all their
+faculties; and so the reader who follows the spectacle of their life is
+kept in a trance, through chapter after chapter, so well are the
+difficulties of this existence set before him, so cleverly are they
+explained. Finally, let us note well, these crises, these terrible
+scenes are woven into the substance of the book: the flowers are not
+stitched on, they are of the same substance as the rest.
+
+"We must keep our love secret," the Duchessa says sadly to her lover, on
+the day on which she has guessed that his struggle with the Prince has
+begun.
+
+When, to outact his acting, she lets Ernesto IV gather that she is only
+moderately in love with the Conte, she gives him a day of happiness; but
+the Prince is shrewd, he sees sooner or later that he has been tricked.
+And his disappointment adds violence to the storm brought about by her
+ill-wishers.
+
+This great work could not have been conceived or executed save by a man
+of fifty, in the full vigour of his age and in the maturity of all his
+talents. One sees perfection in every detail. The character of the
+Prince is drawn by the hand of a master, and is, as I have told you,
+_The Prince_. One conceives him admirably, as a man and as sovereign.
+This man might be at the head of the Russian Empire, he would be capable
+of ruling it, he would be great; but the man would remain what he is,
+liable to vanity, to jealousy, to passion. In the seventeenth-century,
+at Versailles, he would be Louis XIV and would avenge himself on the
+Duchessa, as did Louis XIV on Fouquet. Criticism can find no fault in
+the greatest or in the smallest character; they are all what they ought
+to be. There is life and especially the life of courts, not drawn in
+caricature, as Hoffmann has tried to draw it, but seriously and
+ironically. Finally, this book explains to you admirably all that Louis
+XIII's _camarilla_ made Richelieu suffer. This work applied to vast
+interests like those of the cabinet of Louis XIV, of Pitt's cabinet, of
+Napoleon's cabinet or of the Russian cabinet, would have been impossible
+owing to the prolixities and explanations which so many veiled interests
+would have required; whereas you get a comprehensive view of the State
+of Parma; and Parma enables you to understand, _mutato nomine_, the
+intrigues of the most exalted court. Things were like this tinder the
+Borgia Pope, at the court of Tiberius, at the court of Philip II: they
+must be like this also at the court of Peking!
+
+Let us enter into the terrible Italian drama which has been slowly and
+logically preparing itself in a charming manner. I spare you the details
+of the court and its original figures; the Princess who thinks it her
+duty to be unhappy, because the Prince has his Pompadour; the Heir
+Apparent who is kept caged; the Princess Isotta, the Chamberlain, the
+Minister of the Interior, the Governor of the Citadel, Fabio Conti. One
+cannot afford to take the least thing lightly. If, like the Duchessa,
+Fabrizio and Mosca, you accept the court of Parma, you play your game of
+whist and your interests are at stake. When the Prime Minister thinks
+that he has fallen from power, he says quite seriously:
+
+"When our guests have gone, we can decide on a way of barricading
+ourselves for the night; the best plan would be to set off while they're
+dancing for your place at Sacca, by the Po, from where in twenty minutes
+one can get into Austria."
+
+Indeed the Duchessa, the Minister, every Parmesan subject is liable to
+end his days in the citadel.
+
+When the Prince confesses his desires to the Duchessa and she in reply
+asks him:
+
+"How should we ever lode Mosca in the face again, that man of genius and
+heart?"
+
+"I have thought of that," says the Prince: "we should never look him in
+the face again! The citadel waits."
+
+The Sanseverina does not fail to repeat this saying to Mosca, who puts
+his affairs in order.
+
+Four years elapse.
+
+The Minister, who has not allowed Fabrizio to come to Parma during these
+four years, permits him to reappear there when the Pope has created him
+Monsignore, a kind of dignity which entitles him to wear violet
+stockings. Fabrizio has nobly answered the expectations of his political
+master. At Naples he has had mistresses, he has had the passion for
+archeology, he has sold his horses to make excavations, he has behaved
+well, he has aroused no jealousy, he may become Pope. What delights him
+most about his return to Parma is the thought of being delivered from
+the attentions of the charming Duchessa d'A----. His governor, who has
+made him an educated man, receives a Cross and a pension. Fabrizio's
+first appearance at Parma, his arrival, his various presentations at
+court, form the highest comedy of manners, character and intrigue that
+one can read anywhere. At more than one point, the better class of
+reader will lay down this book on his table to say to himself:
+
+"Heavens! How good this is, how exquisitely arranged, how deep!"
+
+He will meditate upon words like the following, for instance, upon which
+Princes ought to meditate well for their own good: _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_.
+
+Here begin the Duchessa's ingenuous passion for Fabrizio, and Mosca's
+torments. Fabrizio is a diamond that has lost nothing by being polished.
+Gina, who had sent him to Naples a devil-may-care young rough-rider,
+whose horsewhip seemed to be an inherent part of his person, sees him
+now with a noble and confident bearing before strangers, and in private
+the same fire of youth.
+
+"This nephew," Mosca tells his mistress, "is made to adorn all the
+exalted posts." But the great diplomat, attentive at first to Fabrizio,
+turns to look at the Duchessa and notices _a curious look in her eyes_.
+"I am in my fifties," he reflects.
+
+The Duchessa is so happy that she does not give the Conte a thought.
+This profound effect, made on Mosca by a single glance, is irremediable.
+
+When Ranuccio-Ernesto IV guesses that the aunt loves the nephew a little
+more warmly than the laws of consanguinity permit, which at Parma is
+incest, he is at the pinnacle of happiness. He writes his Minister an
+anonymous letter on the subject. When he is sure that Mosca has read it,
+he sends for him, without giving him time to call first on the Duchessa,
+and keeps him on the rack throughout a conversation full of princely
+friendliness and hypocrisy. Certainly the pangs of love causing a fine
+heart to bleed always make an effective scene; but this heart is
+Italian, this is the heart of a man of genius, and I know nothing that
+grips me so as the chapter on Mosca's jealousy.
+
+Fabrizio does not love his aunt; he adores her as an aunt, she inspires
+no longing in him as a woman; nevertheless, in their Conversations, a
+gesture, a word may make youth break out, the least thing may then make
+his aunt leave Parma, because riches, honours are nothing to her who,
+once already, before the eyes of all Milan, has managed to live on a
+third floor, with an income of fifteen hundred francs. The future
+Archbishop sees an abyss open before him. The Prince is as happy as a
+king, while waiting for a catastrophe to destroy the private happiness
+of his dear Minister. Mosca, the great Mosca, weeps like a child. The
+prudence of this dear Fabrizio, who understands Mosca and understands
+his aunt, prevents any disaster. The Monsignore makes himself fall in
+love with a little Marietta, an actress of the lowest grade, a columbine
+who has her harlequin, a certain Giletti, formerly one of Napoleon's
+dragoons, and a fencing master, a man horrible in mind and body, who
+devours Marietta, beats her, steals her blue shawls and all her
+earnings.
+
+Mosca breathes again. The Prince is uneasy, his prey is escaping, he
+could hold the Sanseverina by her nephew, and now the nephew turns out a
+profound politician! In spite of Marietta, the Duchessa's passion is so
+artless, her familiarities are so dangerous, that Fabrizio, to restore
+tranquillity, proposes to the Conte, who also is an antiquarian and is
+engaged on excavations, to go down to the country and superintend the
+work. The Minister adores Fabrizio. The company which includes Marietta,
+her _mammaccia_--a figure drawn in four pages with an astounding truth
+and depth of character--and Giletti, the whole motley crew, leave Parma.
+This trio, Giletti, the _mammaccia_ and Marietta come along the road
+while Fabrizio is shooting. There follows an encounter between the
+dragoon, who seeks, in an access of Italian vanity, to kill the
+_black-frock_, and Fabrizio, who is amazed at seeing Marietta on the
+road. This accidental duel becomes serious when Fabrizio sees that
+Giletti, who has only one eye, is trying to disfigure him: he kills him.
+Giletti was plainly the aggressor, the workmen engaged on the
+excavations saw everything, Fabrizio realises all the capital that the
+Raversi faction and the Liberals will make out of this ridiculous
+adventure against himself, the Ministers, his aunt; he takes flight, he
+crosses the Po. Thanks to the clever assistance of Lodovico, an old
+servant of the Sanseverina household, a fellow who writes sonnets, he
+finds shelter and reaches Bologna, where he sees Marietta again.
+Lodovico becomes fanatically attached to Fabrizio. This retired coachman
+is one of the most complete of the figures of the second magnitude.
+Fabrizio's flight, the scenery by the Po, the descriptions of famous
+places through which the young prelate passes, his adventures during his
+exile from Parma, his correspondence with the Archbishop, another
+character admirably drawn, the smallest details are of a literary
+execution that bears the hall-mark of genius. And all is so Italian as
+to make one take the coach and fly to Italy, there to seek this drama
+and this poetry. The reader becomes Fabrizio.
+
+During this absence, Fabrizio goes to revisit his native scenes, the
+Lake of Como and the paternal castle, despite the dangers of his
+position with regard to Austria, at that time very strict. We are in
+1821, a time when a passport was not to be treated lightly. The prelate
+recognised as Fabrizio del Dongo may be sent to the Spielberg. In this
+part of the book the author completes the portrait of a fine head, that
+of a Priore Blanès, a simple village curate, who adores Fabrizio and
+cultivates the study of judicial astrology. This portrait is done so
+seriously, there shines from it so great a faith in the occult sciences,
+that the satire of which those sciences--to which we shall return and
+which do not rest, as has been supposed, upon false foundations--might
+naturally be the object dies away on the lips of the incredulous. I do
+not know what the author's opinion may be, but he justifies that of the
+Priore Blanès. Priore Blanès is a character who is true in Italy. The
+truth of him can be felt, just as one can tell whether one of Titian's
+heads is the portrait of a Venetian gentleman or a fancy.
+
+The Prince orders the preparation of the case against Fabrizio, and in
+this task the genius of Rassi is revealed. The Fiscal General sends the
+witnesses for the defence out of the country, purchases evidence for the
+prosecution, and, as he impudently informs the Prince, produces out of
+this foolish affair--the death inflicted on a Giletti by a del Dongo, in
+self-defence, by a del Dongo who had received the first blow!--a
+sentence of detention for twenty years in the fortress. The Prince would
+have liked a death sentence, in order to exercise clemency and so
+humiliate the Sanseverina.
+
+"But," says Rassi, "I have done better than that, I have broken his
+neck, his career is barred to him for ever. The Vatican can do nothing
+more for a murderer."
+
+So the Prince holds the Sanseverina in his clutches at last! Ah! It is
+then that the Duchessa becomes superb, that the court of Parma is
+agitated, that the lights go up on the drama, which assumes gigantic
+proportions. One of the finest scenes in modern fiction is, certainly,
+that in which the Sanseverina comes to pay her farewell to the Sovereign
+and presents him with an ultimatum. The scene of Elizabeth, Amy and
+Leicester in _Kenilworth_ is no greater, more dramatic nor more
+terrible. The tiger is braved in his den: the serpent is caught, in vain
+does he writhe his coils and beg for pity, the woman crushes him. Gina
+desires, dictates, obtains from the Prince a rescript annulling the
+proceedings. She does not seek a pardon, the Prince will state that the
+proceedings are unjust and shall have no consequences in the future,
+which is an absurd thing to expect of an absolute Sovereign. This
+absurdity she demands, she obtains it. Mosca is magnificent in this
+scene where the lovers are alternately saved, lost, in peril for a
+gesture, a word, a glance!
+
+In every walk of life, artists have an invincible self-respect, a sense
+of their art, a professional conscience which is ineradicable from the
+man. One does not corrupt, one never succeeds in buying this conscience.
+The actor who wishes most harm to his theatre or to an author will never
+play a part badly. The chemist, called in to look for arsenic in a body,
+will find it if there is any there. The writer, the painter, are always
+faithful to their genius, even at the foot of the scaffold. This does
+not exist in woman. The universe is the stepping-stone of her passion.
+And so woman is greater and finer than man in this respect. Woman is
+passion; man is action. If this were not so, man would not adore woman.
+And so it is in the social circle of the court, which gives the greatest
+flight to her passion, that woman sheds her most brilliant radiance. Her
+finest stage is the world of Absolute Power. That is why there are no
+longer any women in France. Now Conte Mosca suppresses, from a trace of
+ministerial self-respect, in the Prince's rescript, the words on which
+the Duchessa depends. The Prince imagines that his Minister considers
+him before the Sanseverina, and casts a glance at him which the reader
+intercepts. Mosca, like a true statesman, will not countersign a stupid
+thing, that is all: the Prince is mistaken. In the intoxication of her
+triumph, rejoicing that she has saved Fabrizio, the Duchessa, who trusts
+in Mosca, does not peruse the rescript. She was thought to be ruined,
+she had made all preparations for her departure in the face of Parma,
+she returns from the court having effected a revolution. Mosca was
+thought to be in disgrace. Fabrizio's sentence was taken as an insult by
+the Prince to the Duchessa and Minister. Not at all, the Raversi is
+banished. The Prince laughs, he is holding his vengeance in reserve:
+this woman who has humiliated him, he is going to make die of grief.
+
+The Marchesa Raversi, instead of composing Ovidian _Tristia_, like
+everyone who is banished from a court where he or she handled the reins
+of power, sets to work. She guesses what has happened in the Prince's
+cabinet, she extracts his secrets from Rassi, who allows her to do so;
+he is aware of the Prince's intentions. The Marchesa has some letters
+written by the Duchessa, she sends her lover to the galleys at Genoa to
+get a letter forged from the Duchessa to Fabrizio, telling him of her
+triumph, and appointing a meeting at her country house. Sacca, close to
+the Po, a delicious spot where the Duchessa always spends the summer.
+Poor Fabrizio hastens there, he is caught, they put handcuffs on him, he
+is shut up in the citadel, and while they are shutting him up, he
+recognises the daughter of the governor, Fabio Conti, the lovely and
+sublime Clelia, for whom he is to feel that eternal love that gives no
+respite.
+
+Fabrizio del Dongo, her nephew, he whom she adores, in the most
+honourable fashion, in the citadel! . . . Imagine the Duchessa's
+feelings! She learns of Mosca's mistake. She will not see Mosca again.
+There is only Fabrizio now in the world! Once inside that terrible
+fortress, he may die there, die there by poison!
+
+This is the Prince's system: a fortnight of terror, a fortnight of hope.
+And he will handle this fiery steed, this proud soul, this Sanseverina
+whose triumphs and happiness, though necessary to the brilliance of his
+court, were insulting to his inner man. Played on in this way, the
+Sanseverina will become thin, old and ugly: he will knead her like
+dough.
+
+This terrible duel in which the Duchessa has inflicted the first wound,
+piercing her adversary to the heart but without killing him, in which
+she will receive for the next year a fresh wound daily, is the most
+powerful thing that the genius of the modern novel has invented.
+
+Let us turn now to Fabrizio in prison, and so come to my analysis of
+that chapter, which is one of the diamonds on this crown.
+
+The episode of the robbers in Lewis's _Monk_, his _Anaconda_, which is
+his best book, the interest of the last volumes by Mrs. Radcliffe, the
+thrilling vicissitudes in the Red Indian romances of Cooper, all the
+extraordinary things I know in the narratives of travels and prisoners,
+none of these can compare with the confinement of Fabrizio in the
+fortress of Parma, three hundred and something feet above the ground.
+This terrifying abode is a Vaucluse: he makes love there to Clelia, he
+is happy there, he displays the ingenuity of prisoners, and he prefers
+his prison to the most enchanting spot that the world has to offer. The
+Bay of Naples is beautiful only through the eyes of Lamartine's Elvire;
+but, in the eyes of a Clelia, in the trills of her voice, there are
+whole universes. The author depicts, as he knows how to depict, by
+little incidents which have the eloquence of Shakespearean action, the
+progress of the love between these two fair creatures, amid the dangers
+of an imminent death by poison. This part of the book will be read with
+halting breath, straining throat, avid eyes by all those readers who
+have imagination, or simply hearts. Everything in it is perfect, rapid,
+real, without any improbability or strain. There you find passion in all
+its glory, its rendings, its hopes, its melancholies, its returns, its
+abatements, its inspirations, the only ones that equal those of genius.
+Nothing has been forgotten. You will read there an encyclopædia of all
+the resources of the prisoner; his marvellous languages for which he
+makes use of nature, the means by which he gives life to a song and
+meaning to a sound. Read in prison, this book is capable of killing a
+prisoner, or of making him tunnel through his walls.
+
+While Fabrizio is inspiring love and feeling it, during the most
+engrossing scenes of the drama inside the prison, there is, you must
+understand, a fight to the death going on outside the fortress. The
+Prince, the governor, Rassi, attempt to poison him. Fabrizio's death is
+determined upon at a moment when the Prince's vanity is mortally
+wounded. The charming Clelia, the most delicious figure you could see in
+a dream, then reveals the extent of her love by helping Fabrizio to
+escape, although his rescuers have nearly killed her father, the
+General.
+
+At this crisis in the book, we understand all the incidents that have
+gone before. Without those adventures in which we have seen the people,
+in which we have watched them acting, nothing would be intelligible,
+everything would seem false and impossible.
+
+Let us return to the Duchessa. The courtiers, the Raversi party triumph
+in the griefs of this noble woman. Her calm is killing the Prince, and
+no one can explain it to him. Mosca himself does not understand it.
+Here, we see that Mosca, great as he is, is inferior to this woman who,
+at this moment, seems to you to be the genius of Italy. Profound is her
+dissimulation, bold are her plans. As for her revenge, it will be
+complete. The Prince has been too greatly offended, she sees him
+implacable: between them, the duel is to the death; but the Duchessa's
+vengeance would be impotent, imperfect, if she allowed Ranuccio-Ernesto
+IV to take Fabrizio from her by poison. Fabrizio must be set at liberty.
+This attempt seems literally impossible to every reader, so carefully
+has tyranny taken its precautions, so deeply has it involved the
+governor, Fabio Conti, whose honour is at stake if he does not guard his
+prisoners.
+
+There is in this man something of Hudson Lowe, but of a Hudson Lowe
+magnified to the tenth degree; he is Italian, and wishes to avenge the
+Raversi for the disgrace that the Duchessa has brought on her. Gina
+fears nothing. This is why:
+
+"The lover thinks more often of penetrating to his mistress's chamber
+than the husband of guarding his wife; the prisoner thinks more often of
+escaping than the gaoler of shutting his door; therefore, in spite of
+the obstacles in their way, the lover and the prisoner must succeed in
+the end."
+
+She will help him! Oh, what a fine painting of this Italian in despair,
+who cannot flee from this abhorrent court! "Come," she says to herself,
+"_forward, unhappy woman_" (we weep as we read this great feminine
+utterance), "do your duty, pretend to forget Fabrizio!" "_Forget him_!"
+the word saves her: she has not been able to shed a tear until this
+word. Then the Duchessa conspires, she conspires with the Prime
+Minister, whom she has ostensibly banished in disgrace, but who would
+set Parma on fire and deluge it with blood for her, who would kill
+everyone, the Prince even. This true lover realises that he is in the
+wrong, he is the most wretched of men. Alas! What a feeble excuse! He
+did not believe his master to be so false, so cowardly, so cruel. And so
+he admits that his mistress is entitled to be implacable. He finds it
+natural that Fabrizio should be, at this moment, everything in the world
+to her, he has that weakness of great men for their mistresses which
+leads them to understand even the infidelity which may mean their death.
+The enamoured veteran is sublime! He says but one word to himself, in
+the scene when Gina has made him come to her for their rupture. A single
+night has ravaged the Duchessa.
+
+"Great God!" exclaims Mosca to himself, "she looks all her forty years
+to-day!"
+
+What a book is this in which one finds these cries of passion, these
+profound diplomatic sayings, and on every page. Note this as well: you
+will not meet in this book those extra flourishes, so aptly named
+_tartines_. No, the characters act, reflect, feel, and always the drama
+sweeps on. Never does the poet, a dramatist in his ideas, stoop in his
+path to pick the smallest flower, everything has the rapidity of a
+dithyramb.
+
+Let us proceed! The Duchessa is ravishing in her admissions to Mosca,
+and sublime in her despair. Finding her so changed, he supposes her to
+be ill, and wishes to send for Razori, the leading doctor in Parma and
+in Italy.
+
+"Is that the counsel of a traitor or of a friend?" she asks. "You wish
+to convey to a stranger the measure of my despair!"
+
+"I am lost," thinks the Conte, "she no longer includes me even among the
+common men of honour."
+
+"Bear in mind," the Duchessa tells him with the most imperious air,
+"that I am not distressed by the capture of Fabrizio, that I have not
+the least shadow of a desire to go away, that I am full of respect for
+the Prince. As for yourself: I intend to have the entire control of my
+own behaviour, I wish to part from you as an old and good friend.
+Consider that I have reached sixty, the young woman is dead. With
+Fabrizio in prison, I am incapable of love. Finally, I should be the
+unhappiest woman in the world were I to compromise your future. If you
+see me making a show of having a young lover, do not let yourself be
+distressed by that. I can swear to you, by Fabrizio's future happiness,
+that I have never been guilty of the slightest infidelity towards you,
+and that in five whole years . . . that is a long time!" she says,
+trying to smile. "I swear to you that I have never either planned or
+wished such a thing. Now you understand that, leave me."
+
+The Conte goes, he spends two days and two nights in thought.
+
+"Great heavens!" he at length exclaims, "the Duchessa never said a word
+to me about an escape; can she have been wanting in sincerity for once
+in her life, and is the motive of her quarrel only a desire that I
+should betray the Prince? No sooner said than done."
+
+Did I not tell you that this book was a masterpiece, and can you not see
+it for yourself, merely from this rough analysis?
+
+The Minister, after this discovery, treads the ground as if he were a
+boy of fifteen, takes a new lease of life. He is going to seduce Rassi
+from the Prince, and make him his own creature.
+
+"Rassi," he says to himself, "is paid by his master to carry out the
+sentences that disgrace us throughout Europe, but he will not refuse to
+let himself be paid by me to betray his master's secrets. He has a
+mistress and a confessor. The mistress is of so low an order that the
+market woman would know the whole story by to-morrow morning."
+
+He goes to say his prayers at the cathedral and to find the Archbishop.
+
+"What sort of man is Dugnani, the Vicar of San Paolo?" he asks him.
+
+"A small mind with great ambition, few scruples and extreme poverty; for
+we too have our vices!" says the Archbishop, raising his eyes to heaven.
+
+The Minister cannot help laughing at the analytical depth reached by
+true piety combined with honesty. He sends for the priest and says to
+him only:
+
+"You direct the conscience of my friend the Fiscal General; are you sure
+he has nothing to tell me?"
+
+The Conte is prepared to stake everything: there is only one thing that
+he wishes to know, the moment at which Fabrizio will be in danger of
+death, and he does not propose to interfere with the Duchessa's plans.
+His interview with Rassi is a capital scene. This is how the Conte
+begins, adopting the tone of the most lofty impertinence:
+
+"What, sir, you carry off from Bologna a conspirator who is under my
+protection; more than that, you propose to cut off his head, and you say
+nothing to me about it. Do you know the name of my successor? Is it
+General Conti or yourself?"
+
+The Minister and Fiscal agree upon a plan which allows them to retain
+their respective positions. I must leave to you the pleasure of reading
+the admirable details of this continuous web in which the author drives
+a hundred characters abreast without being more embarrassed than a
+skilful coachman is by the reins of a ten-horse coach. Everything is in
+its place, there is not the slightest confusion. You see everything, the
+town and the court. The drama is amazing in its skill, its execution,
+its clearness. The air plays over the picture, not a character is
+superfluous. Lodovico, who on many occasions has proved that he is an
+honest Figaro, is the Duchessa's right arm. He plays a fine part, he
+will be well rewarded.
+
+The time has now come to speak to you of one of the subordinate
+characters who is shown in colossal proportions, and to whom frequent
+reference is made in the book, namely Ferrante Palla, a Liberal doctor
+under sentence of death who is wandering through Italy, where he
+performs his task of propaganda.
+
+Ferrante Palla is a great poet, like Silvio Pellico, but he is what
+Pellico is not, a Radical Republican. Let us not concern ourselves with
+the faith of this man. He has faith, he is the Saint Paul of the
+Republic, a martyr of Young Italy, he is a sublime work of art like the
+_Saint Bartholomew_ at Milan, like Foyatier's _Spartacus_, like Marius
+pondering over the ruins of Carthage. Everything that he does,
+everything that he says is sublime. He has the conviction, the grandeur,
+the passion of the believer. However high you may place, in execution,
+in conception, in reality, the Prince, the Minister, the Duchessa,
+Ferrante Palla, this superb statue, set in a corner of the picture,
+commands your gaze, compels your admiration. In spite of your opinions,
+constitutional, monarchical or religious, he subjugates you. Greater
+than his own misfortunes, preaching Italy from the hollow shelter of his
+caves, without bread for his mistress and their five children;
+committing highway robbery to maintain them, and keeping a note of the
+sums stolen and the persons robbed so as to restore to them this forced
+loan to the Republic when he shall have the power to do so; stealing
+moreover in order to print his pamphlets entitled: _The necessity for a
+budget in Italy_! Ferrante Palla is the type of a family of minds to be
+found in Italy, sincere but misguided, full of talent but ignorant of
+the fatal results of their doctrine. Send them with plenty of gold to
+France and to the United States, as Ministers of Absolute Princes!
+Instead of persecuting them, let them acquire enlightenment, these true
+men, full of great and exquisite qualities. They will say like Alfieri
+in 1793: "Little men, at work, reconcile me to the great."
+
+I praise with all the more enthusiasm this creation of Ferrante Palla,
+having caressed the same figure myself. If I have the trifling advantage
+over M. Beyle of priority, I am inferior to him in execution. I have
+perceived this inward drama, so great, so powerful, of the stern and
+conscientious Republican in love with a Duchess who holds to Absolute
+Power. My Michel Chrestien, in love with the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse,
+could not stand out with the relief of Ferrante Palla, a lover after the
+style of Petrarch of the Duchessa Sanseverina. Italy and its customs,
+Italy and its scenery, the perils, the starvation of Ferrante Palla are
+far more attractive than the meagre details of Parisian civilisation.
+Although Michel Chrestien dies at Saint-Merry and Ferrante Palla escapes
+to the United States after his crimes, Italian passion is far superior
+to French passion, and the events of this episode add to their Apennine
+savour an interest with which it is useless to compete. In a period when
+everything is levelled more easily under the uniform of the National
+Guard and the _Bourgeois_ law than under the steel triangle of the
+Republic, literature is essentially lacking, in France, in those great
+obstacles between lovers which used to be the source of fresh beauties,
+of new situations, and which made subjects dramatic. And so it was
+difficult for the serious paradox of the passion of a Radical for a
+great lady to escape trained pens.
+
+In no book, unless it be _Old Mortality_, is there to be found a figure
+of an energy comparable to that which M. Beyle has given to Ferrante
+Palla, whose name exercises a sort of compulsion over the imagination.
+Between Balfour of Burley and Ferrante Palla, I have no hesitation, I
+choose Ferrante Palla; the design is the same; but Walter Scott, great
+colourist as he may be, has not the thrilling, warm colour, as of
+Titian, which M. Beyle has spread over his character. Ferrante Palla is
+a whole poem in himself, a poem superior to Lord Byron's _Corsair_. "Ah!
+That is how people love!" is what all M. Beyle's feminine readers will
+say to themselves on reading this sublime and most reprehensible
+episode.
+
+Ferrante Palla has the most impenetrable of retreats in the
+neighbourhood of Sacca. He has often seen the Duchessa, he has fallen
+passionately in love with her. The Duchessa has met him, has been moved.
+Ferrante Palla has told her everything, as though in the presence of
+God. He knows that the Duchessa loves Mosca, his own love therefore is
+hopeless. There is something touching in the Italian grace with which
+the Duchessa lets him give himself the pleasure of kissing the white
+hands of a woman with blue blood. He has not clasped a white hand for
+seven years, and this poet adores beautiful white hands. His mistress,
+whom he no longer loves, does the heavy work, makes clothes for the
+children, and he cannot desert a woman who will not leave him,
+notwithstanding the most appalling poverty. These obligations of an
+honest man become apparent. The Duchessa has compassion for everything,
+like a true Madonna. She has offered him his pardon! Ah, but Ferrante
+Palla has, like Carl Sand, his own little sentences to enforce; he has
+his preaching, his journeyings to rekindle the zeal of Young Italy.
+
+"All those scoundrels, who do so much harm to the people, would live for
+long years," he says, "and whose fault would that be? What would my
+father say when I meet him in heaven!"
+
+She then proposes to provide for the needs of the woman and her
+children, and give him an undiscoverable hiding-place in the _palazzo_
+Sanseverina.
+
+The _palazzo_ Sanseverina includes an immense reservoir, built in the
+middle ages with a view to prolonged sieges, and capable of supplying
+the town with water for a year. Part of the _palazzo_ is built over this
+immense structure. The dapple-grey Duca spent the night after their
+marriage in telling his wife the secret of the reservoir and of its
+hiding-place. An enormous stone which moves on a pivot will let all the
+water escape and flood the streets of Parma. In one of the thick walls
+of the reservoir there is a chamber without light and without much air,
+which no one would ever suspect; you would have to pull down the
+reservoir to find it.
+
+Ferrante Palla accepts the hiding-place for evil days, and refuses the
+Duchessa's money; he has made a vow never to have more than a hundred
+francs on him. At the moment when she offers him her sequins, he has
+money; but he lets himself go so far as to accept one sequin.
+
+"I take this sequin, because I love you," he says; "but I am on the
+wrong side of my hundred by five francs, and, if they were to hang me
+this minute, I should feel remorse."
+
+"He does really love," the Duchessa says to herself.
+
+Is not that the simplicity of Italy, taken from life? Molière, writing
+a novel to describe this people, the only one except the Arabs that has
+preserved its reverence for vows, could do nothing finer.
+
+Ferrante Palla becomes the Duchessa's other arm in her conspiracy, and
+is a terrible weapon, his energy makes one shudder! Here is the scene
+that occurs one evening in the _palazzo_ Sanseverina. The lion of the
+people has emerged from his retreat. He enters for the first time rooms
+ablaze with regal splendour. He finds there his mistress, his idol, the
+idol whom he has set above Young Italy, above the Republic and the
+welfare of humanity; he sees her distressed, tears in her eyes! The
+Prince has snatched from her him whom she loves best in the world, he
+has basely deceived her, and this _tyrant_ holds the sword of Damocles
+over the beloved head.
+
+"What is happening here," says this sublime Republican Don Quixote, "is
+an injustice of which the Tribune of the People ought to take note. On
+the other hand, as a private citizen, I can give the Signora Duchessa
+Sanseverina nothing but my life, and I lay it at her feet. The creature
+you see at your feet is not a puppet of the court, he is a man.--She has
+wept in my presence," he says to himself, "she is less unhappy."
+
+"Think of the risk you are running," says the Duchessa.
+
+"The Tribune will answer you: 'What is life when the voice of duty
+speaks?' The man will say to you: 'Here is a body of iron and a heart
+that fears nothing in the world but your displeasure.'"
+
+"If you speak to me of your feelings," says the Duchessa, "I shall not
+see you again."
+
+Ferrante Palla departs sadly.
+
+Am I mistaken? Are they not as fine as Corneille, these dialogues? And,
+remember, such passages abound, they are all, after their kind, at the
+same high level. Struck by the beauty of this character, the Duchessa
+prepares a written document providing for the future of Ferrante's
+mistress and his five children, without saying anything to him, for she
+is afraid that he may let himself be killed on learning that his
+dependents have had this provision made for them.
+
+Finally, on the day when the whole of Parma is discussing the probable
+death of Fabrizio, the Tribune braves every danger. He enters the
+_palazzo_ at night, he arrives disguised as a Capuchin in the Duchessa's
+presence; he finds her drowned in tears and voiceless: she greets him
+with her hand and points to a chair. Palla prostrates himself, prays to
+God, so divine does her beauty seem to him, and breaks off his prayer to
+say:
+
+"Once again _he_ offers his life."
+
+"Think of what you are saying!" cries the Duchessa with that haggard eye
+which shews more clearly than sobs that anger is mastering affection.
+
+"He offers his life to place all obstacle in the way of Fabrizio's fate
+or to avenge it."
+
+"If I were to accept!" she says, gazing at him.
+
+She sees the joy of martyrdom flash in Palla's eye. She rises, goes to
+look for the deed of gift prepared a month back, for Ferrante's mistress
+and children.
+
+"Read this!"
+
+He reads it and falls on his knees, he sobs, he almost dies of joy.
+
+"Give me back the paper," says the Duchessa.
+
+She burns it over a candle.
+
+"My name," she tells him, "must not appear. If you are taken and
+executed, if you are weak, I may be also, and Fabrizio would be in
+danger. I wish you to sacrifice yourself."
+
+"I will perform the task faithfully, punctually and prudently."
+
+"If I am discovered and convicted," the Duchessa goes on proudly, "I
+do not wish to be accused of having corrupted you. Do not put him to
+death until I give the signal. That signal will be the flooding of the
+streets of Parma, of which you are bound to hear."
+
+Ferrante, delighted by the Duchessa's tone of authority, takes his
+leave. When he has gone, the Duchessa calls him back.
+
+"Ferrante, sublime man!"
+
+He returns.
+
+"And your children?"
+
+"Bah! You will provide for them."
+
+"Look, here are my diamonds."
+
+And she gives him a little olive-wood box.
+
+"They are worth fifty thousand francs."
+
+"Oh! Signora!" says Ferrante with a start of horror, "I may perhaps not
+see you again. Take them, it is my wish."
+
+Ferrante leaves her. The door closes behind him, the Duchessa again
+calls him back. He sees her standing there, he comes back uneasily. The
+great Sanseverina throws herself into his arms. Ferrante is on the point
+of fainting. She allows him to kiss her, frees herself from his embrace
+when he threatens to become disrespectful, and shews him the door.
+
+She remains standing for some time and says to herself.
+
+"That is the one man who has understood me; Fabrizio would be like that
+if he could only know me."
+
+I cannot lay too much stress on the merit of this scene. M. Beyle is not
+in the least a preacher. He does not urge you on to regicide, he gives
+you a fact, states it as it occurred. No one, not even a Republican,
+feels the desire to kill a tyrant on reading it. It is the play of
+private passions, that is all. It is a question of a duel which requires
+extraordinary, but equally matched arms. The Duchessa makes use of Palla
+to poison the Prince as the Prince makes use of one of Fabrizio's
+enemies to poison Fabrizio. One can avenge oneself on a king, Coriolanus
+avenged himself well on his country, Beaumarchais and Mirabeau avenged
+themselves well on their period which despised them. This is not moral,
+but the author has told you of it, and washes his hands of it as Tacitus
+washes his of the crimes of Tiberius. "I am inclined to believe," he
+says, "that the immoral delight in taking revenge which one finds in
+Italy springs from the strength of imagination of that race; other races
+do not forgive, they forget." Thus the moralist explains this energetic
+people among whom we find so many inventors, who have the richest, the
+finest imagination, with its accompanying drawbacks. This reflexion is
+more profound than it appears at a first reading, it explains the
+rhetorical stupidities which weigh down the Italians, the only race that
+is comparable to the French, a race superior to the Russians or the
+English, whose genius has the feminine fibre, that delicacy, that
+majesty which make it in many respects superior to all other races. From
+this point the Duchessa regains her advantage over the Prince. Hitherto,
+she was weak and tricked in this great duel; Mosca, prompted by his
+courtier's spirit, had been acting as second to the Prince. Now that her
+revenge is assured, Gina feels her strength. Each step that her thoughts
+take gives her happiness, she can play her part. The Tribune's courage
+heightens hers. Lodovico is electrified by her. These three
+conspirators, on whom Mosca shuts his eyes, while leaving his police
+free to act against them if they notice anything, arrive at the most
+extraordinary result.
+
+The Minister has been the dupe of his mistress, he fully believed
+himself to be in disgrace, as he deserved. If he had not been thoroughly
+taken in, he could never have played the part of a forlorn lover, for
+happiness admits of no concealment. That fire of the heart has its
+smoke. But, after the fascination of Ferrante by the Duchessa, her joy
+enlightens the Minister, he at last guesses her purpose, without knowing
+how far she has gone.
+
+Fabrizio's escape borders on the miraculous. It has required so much
+physical strength and such an exercise of intelligence, that the dear
+boy is on the point of death: the scent of his aunt's clothing and
+handkerchief revives him. This slight detail, which is not forgotten
+among a thousand other incidents, will delight those who are in love: it
+is placed, as might be placed in a finale a melody which recalls the
+sweetest elements of the life of love. All precautions have been
+carefully taken, there is no indiscretion: Conte Mosca, who is present
+in person at the expedition with more than two dozen spies, does not
+receive a single report of it as Minister.
+
+"Now I'm committing high treason," he says to himself, blind with joy.
+
+Everyone has understood his orders without a word said, and escapes in
+his own way. The business finished, each head has to think of and for
+itself. Lodovico is the courier, he crosses the Po. Ah! When Fabrizio is
+out of the reach of his crowned assassin, the Duchessa, who until then
+had been crouching like a jaguar, coiled like a serpent hidden in the
+undergrowth, flat as one of Cooper's Indians in the mud, supple as a
+slave and feline as a deceitful woman, rises to her full height: the
+panther shews her claws, the serpent is going to sting, the Indian to
+utter his yell of triumph, she leaps for joy, she is mad. Lodovico, who
+knows nothing of Ferrante Palla, who says of him in the common phrase:
+"He is a poor man persecuted because of Napoleon!" Lodovico is afraid
+that his mistress is going out of her mind. She gives him the small
+property of Ricciarda. He trembles on receiving this regal gift. What
+has he done to deserve it? "Conspire, and for Monsignore, why that is a
+pleasure."
+
+It is then, the author tells us, that the Duchessa allows herself to
+commit an act not only horrible in the eyes of morality, but fatal to
+the tranquillity of her life. We suppose, of course, that in this hour
+of bliss, she will forgive the Prince. No.
+
+"If you wish to acquire the property, you must do two things," she tells
+Lodovico, "and without exposing yourself. You must go back at once
+across the Po, illuminate my house at Sacca in such a way as to make
+people think it is on fire. I have prepared everything for this
+festivity, in case we succeeded. There are lamps and oil in the cellars.
+Here is a line to my agent. Let the whole population of Sacca drink
+themselves drunk, empty all my barrels and all my bottles. By the
+Madonna! If I find one full bottle, one barrel with two fingers of wine
+left in it, you lose Ricciarda! When that is done, return to Parma and
+let the water out of the reservoir. Wine for my dear people at Sacca,
+water for the town of Parma!"
+
+This makes one shudder. It is the Italian spirit, which M. Hugo has
+perfectly reproduced when he makes Lucrezia Borgia say: "You have given
+me a ball at Venice, I offer you in return a supper at Ferrara." The two
+speeches are equivalent. Lodovico sees in this nothing more than a
+magnificent insolence and an exquisite joke. He repeats: "Wine for the
+people of Sacca, water for the people of Parma!" Lodovico returns after
+having carried out the Duchessa's orders, establishes her at Belgirate,
+and takes Fabrizio, who has still the Austrian police to fear, to
+Locarno, in Switzerland.
+
+Fabrizio's escape, the illumination of Sacca throw the State of Parma
+into utter confusion. Little attention is paid to the flooding of the
+town. A similar event occurred at the time of the French invasion. A
+horrible punishment awaits the Duchessa. She sees Fabrizio dying of love
+for Clelia, resentful of being First Grand Vicar to the Archbishop and
+so unable to marry his beloved.
+
+In the arms of his aunt and on Lake Maggiore, he dreams of his dear
+prison. What then are the sufferings of this woman who has ordered a
+crime, who has so to speak brought down the moon from the sky by taking
+this beloved boy out of prison, and who sees him so artless and simple,
+thinking of other things, refusing to perceive anything, and not
+allowing himself to succumb to what he had so wisely fled from in the
+company of his Gina, his mother, his sister, his aunt, his friend who
+longed to be something more than a friend to him, all this torture is
+unspeakable; but, in the book, it is felt, it is seen. We are pained by
+Fabrizio's desertion of the Sanseverina, although we are conscious that
+the gratification of her love would be criminal. Fabrizio is not even
+grateful. The ex-prisoner, like a Minister in retirement who dreams of
+coalitions which will restore him to power, thinks only of his prison;
+he sends for pictures of Parma, that city abhorrent to his aunt; he puts
+one of the fortress in his bedroom. Finally, he writes a letter of
+apology to General Conti for having escaped, so as to be able to say to
+Clelia that he finds no happiness in liberty without her, and you can
+imagine what effect this letter (it is taken as a masterpiece of
+ecclesiastical irony) produces on the General: he swears that he will be
+avenged. The Duchessa, terrified and brought back to a sense of
+self-preservation by the futility of her revenge, takes a boatman from
+each of the villages on Lake Maggiore; she makes them row her out to the
+middle of the lake; then she tells them that a search may be made for
+Fabrizio, who served under Napoleon at Waterloo, and bids them keep a
+sharp watch; she makes herself loved, and obeyed; she pays well, and so
+has a spy in every village; she gives each of them permission to enter
+her room at any hour, even at night when she is asleep. One evening, at
+Locarno, during a party, she hears of the death of the Prince of Parma.
+She looks at Fabrizio.
+
+"I have done this for him; I would have done things a thousand times
+worse," she says to herself, "and look at him there, silent,
+indifferent, dreaming about another!"
+
+At this thought she faints. This fainting-fit may be her ruin. The
+company gathers round her, Fabrizio thinks of Clelia: she sees him, she
+shudders, she finds herself surrounded by all these curious people, an
+archpriest, the local authorities, and so forth. She recovers the calm
+of a great lady, and says:
+
+"He was a great Prince, who was vilely slandered; it is an immense loss
+for us.--Ah!" she says to herself, when she is alone, "it is now that I
+have to pay for the transports of happiness and childish joy that I felt
+in my _palazzo_ at Parma when I welcomed Fabrizio there on his return
+from Naples. If I had said a word, all would have been over, I should
+have left Mosca. Once he was with me, Clelia would never have meant
+anything to Fabrizio. Clelia wins, she is twenty. I am almost twice her
+age. I must die! _A woman of forty is no longer anything save for the
+men who have loved her in her youth_!"
+
+It is for this reflexion, profound in its shrewdness, suggested by grief
+and almost entirely true, that I quote this passage. The Duchessa's
+soliloquy is interrupted by a noise outside, at midnight.
+
+"Good," she says, "they are coming to arrest me; so much the better, it
+will occupy my mind, fighting them for my head."
+
+It is nothing of the sort. Conte Mosca has sent her their most faithful
+courier to inform her, before the rest of Europe, of recent events at
+Parma, and of the details of the death of Ranuccio-Ernesto IV: there has
+been a revolution, the Tribune Ferrante Palla has been on the verge of
+triumph, he has spent the fifty thousand francs, the price of the
+diamonds, on the cause of his dear Republic instead of giving them to
+his children; the rising has been suppressed by Mosca, who served under
+Napoleon in Spain, and who has displayed the courage of a soldier and
+the coolness of a statesman; he has saved Rassi, which he will bitterly
+repent; finally, he gives details of the accession to the throne of
+Ranuccio-Ernesto V, a young prince who is enamoured of Signora
+Sanseverina. The Duchessa is free to return. The Princess Dowager, who
+adores her for reasons which the reader knows and has gathered from the
+intrigues of the court at the time when the Duchessa reigned there,
+writes her a charming letter, creates her Duchessa in her own right, and
+Grand Mistress. It would not, however, be prudent for Fabrizio to return
+at present, the sentence must be quashed by a retrial of the case.
+
+The Duchessa conceals Fabrizio at Sacca, and returns to Parma
+triumphant. Thus the subject revives of its own accord without effort,
+without monotony. There is not the slightest resemblance between the
+early favour enjoyed by the innocent Sanseverina, under Ranuccio-Ernesto
+IV, and the favour enjoyed by the Duchessa who has had him poisoned,
+under Ranuccio-Ernesto V. The young twenty-year-old Prince is madly in
+love with her, the peril incurred by the criminal is balanced by the
+boundless power enjoyed by the Dowager's Grand Mistress. This Louis XIII
+on a small scale finds his Richelieu in Mosca. The great Minister,
+during the riots, carried away by a lingering trace of zeal, of
+enthusiasm, has called him a boy. The word has remained in the Prince's
+heart, it has hurt him. Mosca is useful to him; but the Prince, who is
+only twenty years old in politics, is fifty in self-esteem. Rassi is
+working in secret, he searches among the people and through all Italy,
+and learns that Ferrante Palla, who is as poor as Job, has sold nine or
+ten diamonds at Genoa. During the underground burrowings of the Fiscal
+General joy reigns at court. The Prince, a shy young man like all shy
+young men, attacks the woman of forty, grows frenzied in his pursuit of
+her; it is true that Gina, more beautiful than ever, does not look more
+than thirty, she is happy, she is making Mosca thoroughly happy,
+Fabrizio is saved, he is to be tried again, acquitted, and will be, when
+his sentence is quashed. Coadjutor to the Archbishop, who is
+seventy-eight years old, with the right of eventual succession.
+
+Clelia alone causes the Duchessa any misgivings. As for the Prince, she
+is amused by him. They act plays at court (those _commedie dell' arte_
+in which each character invents the dialogue as he goes on, the outline
+of the plot being posted up in the wings--a sort of glorified charade).
+The Prince takes the lovers' parts, and Gina is always the leading lady.
+Literally, the Grand Mistress is dancing upon a volcano. This part of
+the work is charming. In the very middle of one of these plays, this is
+what happens. Rassi has said to the Prince: "Does Your Highness choose
+to pay a hundred thousand francs to find out the exact manner of His
+august father's death?" He has had the hundred thousand francs, because
+the Prince is a boy. Rassi has tried to corrupt the Duchessa's head
+maid, this maid has told Mosca everything. Mosca has told her to let
+herself be corrupted. Rassi requires one thing only, to have the
+Duchessa's diamonds examined by two jewellers. Mosca posts counter-spies
+and learns that one of these inquisitive jewellers is Rassi's brother.
+Mosca appears, between the acts of the play, to warn the Duchessa, whom
+he finds in the highest spirits.
+
+"I have very little time," she says to Mosca, "but let us go into the
+guard-room."
+
+There she says with a laugh to her friend the Minister:
+
+"You always scold me when I tell you unnecessary secrets; very well, it
+was I who called Ernesto V to the throne; it was a case of avenging
+Fabrizio, whom I loved far more than I love him to-day, though always
+quite innocently. You will scarcely believe in my innocence, but that
+does not matter, since you love me in spite of my crimes! Very well,
+there is one crime in my life: Ferrante Palla had my diamonds. I did
+worse, I let myself be kissed by him so that he should poison the man
+who wished to poison our Fabrizio. Where is the harm?"
+
+"And you tell me this in the guard-room?" says the Conte, _slightly
+taken aback_!
+
+This last expression is charming.
+
+"It is because I am in a hurry," she says, "Rassi is on the track: but I
+have never spoken of insurrection, I abhor Jacobins. Think it over, and
+give me your advice after the play."
+
+"I will give it you now," replies Mosca without hesitation. "You will
+buttonhole the Prince behind the scenes, make him lose his head, but
+without doing anything dishonourable, you understand."
+
+The Duchessa is called to go on the stage, and returns behind the
+scenes.
+
+Ferrante Palla's farewell to his idol is one of the finest things in
+this book, where there are so many fine things; but we come now to the
+capital scene, to the scene which crowns the work, to the burning of the
+papers in the case drawn up by Rassi, which the Grand Mistress obtains
+from Ranuccio-Ernesto V and the Princess Dowager, a terrible scene, in
+which she is now lost, now saved, at the whim of the mother and son who
+feel themselves overpowered by the force of character of this sort of
+Princesse des Ursins. This scene occupies only eight pages, but it is
+without parallel in the art of literature. There is nothing analogous to
+which it can be compared, it is unique. I say nothing of it, it is
+sufficient to draw attention to it. The Duchessa triumphs, she destroys
+the proofs and even carries away one of the documents for Mosca, who
+takes note of the names of some of the witnesses and cries: "It was high
+time, they were getting warm!" Rassi is in despair: the Prince has given
+orders for a retrial of Fabrizio's case. Fabrizio, instead of making
+himself a prisoner, as Mosca wishes, in the town prison, which is under
+the Prime Minister's orders, returns at once to his beloved citadel,
+where the General, who thought that his honour had been tarnished by the
+escape, rigorously confines him with the intention of getting rid of
+him. Mosca would have answered for him, with his life, in the town
+prison; but in the citadel Fabrizio is helpless.
+
+This news comes as a bolt from the blue to the Duchessa: she remains
+speechless and unhearing. Fabrizio's love for Clelia bringing him back
+to the place where death lies in wait for him and where the girl will
+give him a moment's happiness for which he must pay with his life--the
+thought of this crushes her, and Fabrizio's imminent danger is the last
+straw.
+
+This danger exists already, it is not created to fit the scene, it is
+the result of the passions aroused by Fabrizio during his former
+imprisonment, by his escape, by the fury of Rassi who has been forced to
+sign the order for a fresh trial. And so, even in the most minute
+details, the author loyally obeys the laws of the poetry of the novel.
+This exact observation of the rules, whether it come from the
+calculation, meditation, and natural deduction of a well chosen, well
+developed and fruitful subject, or from the instinct peculiar to talent,
+produces this powerful and permanent interest which we find in great, in
+fine works of art.
+
+Mosca, in despair, makes the Duchessa understand the impossibility of
+getting a young Prince to believe that a prisoner can be poisoned in his
+State, and offers to get rid of Rassi.
+
+"But," he tells her, "you know how squeamish I am about that sort of
+thing. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I still think of those two
+spies whom I had shot in Spain."
+
+"Rassi owes his life, then," replies the Duchessa, "to the fact that I
+care more for you than for Fabrizio; I do not wish to poison the
+evenings of the old age which we shall have to spend together."
+
+The Duchessa hastens to the fortress, and is there convinced of
+Fabrizio's peril; she goes to the Prince. The Prince is a boy who, as
+the Minister has foreseen, does not understand the danger that can
+threaten an innocent person in his State Prison. He declines to
+dishonour himself, to pass judgment on his own justice. Finally, in view
+of the imminence of the peril (the poison has been given), the Duchessa
+wrests from him the order to set Fabrizio at liberty in exchange for a
+promise to yield to this young Prince's desires. This scene has an
+originality of its own after that of the burning of the papers. At that
+time, Gina's only thought was for herself, now it is for Fabrizio.
+Fabrizio once acquitted and appointed Coadjutor to the Archbishop with
+the right of eventual succession, which is tantamount to being made
+Archbishop, the Duchessa finds a way to elude the consequences of her
+promise by one of those dilemmas which women who are not in love can
+always find with a maddening coolness. She is to the end the woman of
+great character whose career started as you have read. There follows a
+change in the Ministry. Mosca leaves Parma with his wife, for the
+Duchessa and he, both widowed, have now married. But nothing goes well,
+and at the end of a year the Prince recalls Conte and Contessa Mosca.
+Fabrizio is Archbishop and in high favour.
+
+There follows the love of Clelia and Archbishop Fabrizio, which ends in
+the death of Clelia, in that of a beloved child, and in the resignation
+and withdrawal of the Archbishop, who dies, doubtless after a long
+expiation, in the Charterhouse of Parma.
+
+I explain this ending to you in a few words, since, in spite of
+beautiful details, it is sketched rather than finished. If the author
+had had to develop the romance of the end like that of the beginning, it
+would have been difficult to know where to stop. Is there not a whole
+drama in the love of a celibate priest? So there is a whole drama in the
+love of the Coadjutor and Clelia. Book upon book!
+
+Had M. Beyle some woman in his mind when he drew his Sanseverina? I
+fancy so. For this statue, as for the Prince and the Prime Minister,
+there must necessarily have been some model. Is she at Milan? Is she at
+Rome, at Naples, at Florence? I cannot say. Although I am quite
+convinced that there do exist women like the Sanseverina, though in very
+small numbers, and that I know some myself, I believe also that the
+author has perhaps enlarged the model and has completely idealised her.
+In spite of this labour, which removes all similarity, one may find in
+the Princesse B---- certain traits of the Sanseverina. Is she not
+Milanese? Has she not passed through good and adverse fortune? Is she
+not shrewd and witty?
+
+You know now the framework of this immense edifice, and I have taken you
+round it. My hasty analysis, bold, believe me, for it requires boldness
+to undertake to give you an idea of a novel constructed out of incidents
+as closely compressed as are those of _La Chartreuse de Parme_; my
+analysis, dry as it may be, has outlined the masses for you, and you can
+judge whether my praise is exaggerated. But it is difficult to enumerate
+to you in detail the fine and delicate sculptures that enrich this solid
+structure, to stop before the statuettes, the paintings, the landscapes,
+the bas-reliefs which decorate it. This is what happened to me. At the
+first reading, which took me quite by surprise, I found faults in the
+book. On my reading it again, the _longueurs_ vanished, I saw the
+necessity for the detail which, at first, had seemed ta me too long or
+too diffuse. To give you a good account of it, I ran through the book
+once more. Captivated then by the execution, I spent more time than I
+had intended in the contemplation of this fine book, and everything
+struck me as most harmonious, connected naturally or by artifice but
+concordantly.
+
+Here, however, are the errors which I pick out, not so much from the
+point of view of art as in view of the sacrifices which every author
+must learn to make to the majority.
+
+If I found confusion on first reading the bode, my impression will be
+that of the public, and therefore evidently this book is lacking in
+method. M. Beyle has indeed disposed the events as they happened, or as
+they ought to have happened; but he has committed, in his arrangement of
+the facts, a mistake which many authors commit, by taking a subject true
+in nature which is not true in art. When he sees a landscape, a great
+painter takes care not to copy it slavishly, he has to give us not so
+much its letter as its spirit. So, in his simple, artless and unstudied
+manner of telling his story, M. Beyle has run the risk of appearing
+confused. Merit which requires to be studied is in danger of remaining
+unperceived. And so I could wish, in the interest of the book, that the
+author had begun with his magnificent sketch of the battle of Waterloo,
+that he had reduced everything which precedes it to some account given
+by Fabrizio or about Fabrizio while he is lying in the village in
+Flanders where he arrives wounded. Certainly, the work would gain in
+lightness. The del Dongo father and son, the details about Milan, all
+these things are not part of the book: the drama is at Parma, the
+principal characters are the Prince and his son. Mosca, Rassi, the
+Duchessa, Ferrante Palla, Lodovico, Clelia, her father, the Raversi,
+Giletti, Marietta. Skilled advisers or friends endowed with simple
+common sense might have procured the development of certain portions
+which the author has not supposed to be as interesting as they are, and
+would have called for the excision of several details, superfluous in
+spite of their fineness. For instance, the work would lose nothing if
+the Priore Blanès were to disappear entirely.
+
+I will go farther, and will make no compromise, in favour of this fine
+work, over the true principles of art. The law which governs everything
+is that of unity in composition; whether you place this unity in the
+central idea or in the plan of the book, without it there can be only
+confusion. So, in spite of its title, the work is ended when Conte and
+Contessa Mosca return to Parma and Fabrizio is Archbishop. The great
+comedy of the court is finished. It is so well finished, and the author
+has so clearly felt this, that it is in this place that he sets his
+Moral, as our forerunners used to do at the end of their fables.
+
+"One can conclude with this moral," he says: "the man who comes to a
+court risks his happiness, if he is happy; and in any case makes his
+future depend upon the intrigues of a chambermaid.
+
+"On the other hand, in America, in the Republic, one has to waste one's
+whole time paying serious court to the shopkeepers in the street and
+becoming as stupid as themselves; and there, there is no Opera."
+
+If, beneath the Roman purple and with a mitre on his head, Fabrizio
+loves Clelia, become Marchesa Crescenzi, and if you were telling us
+about it, you would then wish to make the life of this young man the
+subject of your book. But if you wished to describe the whole of
+Fabrizio's life, you ought, being a man of such sagacity, to call your
+book Fabrizio, or the Italian in the Nineteenth Century. In launching
+himself upon such a career, Fabrizio ought not to have found himself
+outshone by figures so typical, so poetical as are those of the two
+Princes, the Sanseverina, Mosca, Ferrante Palla. Fabrizio ought to have
+represented the young Italian of to-day. In making this young man the
+principal figure of the drama, the author was under an obligation to
+give him a large mind, to endow him with a feeling which would make him
+superior to the men of genius who surround him, and which he lacks.
+Feeling, in short, is equivalent to talent. _To feel_ is the rival of
+_to understand as to act_ is the opposite of _to think_. The friend of a
+man of genius can raise himself to his level by affection, by
+understanding. In matters of the heart, an inferior man may prevail over
+the greatest artist. There lies the justification of those women who
+fall in love with imbeciles. So, in a drama, one of the most ingenious
+resources of the artist is (in the case in which we suppose M. Beyle to
+be) to make a hero superior by his feeling when he cannot by genius
+compete with the people among whom he is placed. In this respect,
+Fabrizio's part requires recasting. The genius of Catholicism ought to
+urge him with its divine hand towards the _Charterhouse of Parma_, and
+that genius ought from time to time to overwhelm him with the tidings of
+heavenly grace. But then the Priore Blanès could not perform this part,
+for it is impossible to cultivate judicial astrology and to be a saint
+according to the Church. The book ought therefore to be either shorter
+or longer.
+
+Possibly the slowness of the beginning, possibly that ending which
+begins a new book and in which the subject is abruptly strangled, will
+damage its success, possibly they have already damaged it. M. Beyle has
+moreover allowed himself certain repetitions, perceptible only to those
+who know his earlier books; but such readers themselves are necessarily
+connoisseurs, and so fastidious. M. Beyle, keeping in mind that great
+principle: "Unlucky in love, as in the arts, who says too much!" ought
+not to repeat himself, he, always concise and leaving much to be
+guessed. In spite of his sphinx-like habit, he is less enigmatic here
+than in his other works, and his true friends will congratulate him on
+this.
+
+The portraits are brief. A few words are enough for M. Beyle, who paints
+his characters both by action and by dialogue; he does not weary one
+with descriptions, he hastens to the drama and arrives at it by a word,
+by a thought. His landscapes, traced with a somewhat dry touch which,
+however, is suited to the country, are lightly done. He takes his stand
+by a tree, on the spot where he happens to be; he shews you the lines of
+the Alps which on all sides enclose the scene of action, and the
+landscape is complete. The book is particularly valuable to travellers
+who have strolled by the Lake of Como, over the Brianza, who have passed
+under the outermost bastions of the Alps and crossed the plains of
+Lombardy. The spirit of those scenes is finely revealed, their beauty is
+well felt. One can see them.
+
+The weak part of this book is the style, in so far as the arrangement of
+the words goes, for the thought, which is eminently French, sustains the
+sentences. The mistakes that M. Beyle makes are purely grammatical; he
+is careless, incorrect, after the manner of seventeenth-century writers.
+The quotations I have made shew what sort of faults he lets himself
+commit. In one place, a discord of tenses between verbs, sometimes the
+absence of a verb; here, again, sequences of _c'est_, of _ce que_, of
+_que_, which weary the reader, and have the effect on his mind of a
+journey in a badly hung carriage over a French road. These quite glaring
+faults indicate a scamping of work. But, if the French language is a
+varnish spread over thought, we ought to be as indulgent towards those
+in whom it covers fine paintings as we are severe to those who shew
+nothing but the varnish. If, in M. Beyle, this varnish is a little
+yellow in places and inclined to scale off in others, he does at least
+let us see a sequence of thoughts which are derived from one another
+according to the laws of logic. His long sentence is ill constructed,
+his short sentence lacks polish. He writes more or less in the style of
+Diderot, who was not a writer; but the conception is great and strong;
+the thought is original, and often well rendered. This system is not one
+to be imitated. It would be too dangerous to allow authors to imagine
+themselves to be profound thinkers.
+
+M. Beyle is saved by the deep feeling that animates his thought. All
+those to whom Italy is dear, who have studied or understood her, will
+read _La Chartreuse de Parme_ with delight. The spirit, the genius, the
+customs, the soul of that beautiful country live in this long drama that
+is always engaging, in this vast fresco so well painted, so strongly
+coloured, which moves the heart profoundly and satisfies the most
+difficult, the most exacting mind. The Sanseverina is the Italian woman,
+a figure as happily portrayed as Carlo Dolci's famous head of _Poetry_,
+Allori's _Judith_, or Guercino's _Sibyl_ in the Manfredini gallery. In
+Mosca he paints the man of genius in politics at grips with love. It is
+indeed love without speech (the speeches are the weak point in
+_Clarisse_), active love, always true to its own type, love stronger
+than the call of duty, love, such as women dream of, such as gives an
+additional interest to the least things in life. Fabrizio is quite the
+young Italian of to-day at grips with the distinctly clumsy despotism
+which suppresses the imagination of that fine country; but, as I have
+said above, the dominant thought or the feeling which urges him to lay
+aside his dignities and to end his life in a Charterhouse needs
+development. This book is admirably expressive of love as it is felt in
+the South. Obviously, the North does not love in this way. All these
+characters have a heat, a fever of the blood, a vivacity of hand, a
+rapidity of mind which is not to be found in the English nor in the
+Germans nor in the Russians, who arrive at the same results only by
+processes of revery, by the reasonings of a smitten heart, by the slow
+rising of their sap. M. Beyle has in this respect given this book the
+profound meaning, the feeling which guarantees the survival of a
+literary conception. But unfortunately it is almost a secret doctrine,
+which requires laborious study. _La Chartreuse de Parme_ is placed at
+such a height, it requires in the reader so perfect a knowledge of the
+court, the place, the people that I am by no means astonished at the
+absolute silence with which such a book has been greeted. That is the
+lot that awaits all books in which there is nothing vulgar. The secret
+ballot in which vote one by one and slowly the superior minds who make
+the name of such works, is not counted until long afterwards. Besides,
+M. Beyle is not a courtier, he has the most profound horror of the
+press. From largeness of character or from the sensitiveness of his
+self-esteem, as soon as his book appears, he takes flight, leaves Paris,
+travels two hundred and fifty leagues in order not to hear it spoken of.
+He demands no articles, he does not haunt the footsteps of the
+reviewers. He has behaved thus after the publication of each of his
+books. I admire this pride of character or this sensitiveness of
+self-esteem. Excuses there may be for mendicity, there can be none for
+that quest for praise and articles on which modern authors go begging.
+It is the mendicity, the pauperism of the mind. There are no great works
+of art that have fallen into oblivion. The lies, the complacencies of
+the pen cannot give life to a worthless book.
+
+After the courage to criticise comes the courage to praise. Certainly it
+is time someone did justice to M. Beyle's merit. Our age owes him much:
+was it not he who first revealed to us Rossini, the finest genius in
+music? He has pleaded constantly for that glory which France had not the
+intelligence to make her own. Let us in turn plead for the writer who
+knows Italy best, who avenges her for the calumnies of her conquerors,
+who has so well explained her spirit and her genius.
+
+I had met M. Beyle twice in society, in twelve years, before the day
+when I took the liberty of congratulating him on _La Chartreuse de
+Parme_ on meeting him in the Boulevard des Italiens. On each occasion,
+his conversation has fully maintained the opinion I had formed of him
+from his works. He tells stories with the spirit and grace which M.
+Charles Nodier and M. de Latouche possess in a high degree. Indeed he
+recalls the latter gentleman by the irresistible charm of his speech,
+although his physique--for he is extremely stout--seems at first sight
+to preclude refinement, elegance of manners; but he instantly disproves
+this suspicion, like Dr. Koreff, the friend of Hoffmann. He has a fine
+forehead, a keen and piercing eye, a sardonic mouth; in short, he has
+altogether the physiognomy of his talent. He retains in conversation
+that enigmatic turn, that eccentricity which leads him never to sign the
+already illustrious name of Beyle, to call himself one day Cotonnet,
+another Frédéric. He is, I am told, the nephew of the famous and
+industrious Daru, one of the strong arms of Napoleon. M. Beyle was
+naturally in the Emperor's service; 1815 tore him, necessarily, from his
+career, he passed from Berlin to Milan, and it is to the contrast
+between the life of the North and that of the South, which impressed
+him, that we are indebted for this writer. M. Beyle is one of the
+superior men of our time. It is difficult to explain how this observer
+of the first order, this profound diplomat who, whether in his writings
+or in his speech, has furnished so many proofs of the loftiness of his
+ideas and the extent of his practical knowledge should find himself
+nothing more than Consul at Civita-vecchia. No one could be better
+qualified to represent France at Rome. M. Mérimée knew M. Beyle
+early and takes after him; but the master is more elegant and has more
+ease. M. Beyle's works are many in number and are remarkable for
+fineness of observation and for the abundance of their ideas. Almost all
+of them deal with Italy. He was the first to give us exact information
+about the terrible case of the Cenci; but he has not sufficiently
+explained the causes of the execution, which was independent of the
+trial, and due to factional clamour, to the demands of avarice. His book
+_De l'amour_ is superior to M. de Sénancour's, he shews affinity to the
+great doctrines of Cabanis and the School of Paris; but he fails by the
+lack of method which, as I have already said, spoils _La Chartreuse de
+Parme_. He has ventured, in this treatise, upon the word
+_crystallisation_ to explain the phenomenon of the birth of this
+sentiment, a word which has been taken as a joke, but will survive on
+account of its profound accuracy. M. Beyle has been writing since 1817.
+He began with a certain show of Liberalism; but I doubt whether this
+great calculator can have let himself be taken in by the stupidities of
+Dual Chamber government. _La Chartreuse de Parme_ has an underlying bias
+which is certainly not against Monarchy. He finds fault with what he
+admires, he is a Frenchman.
+
+M. de Chateaubriand said, in a preface to the eleventh edition of
+_Atala_, that his book in no way resembled the previous editions, so
+thoroughly had he revised it. M. le Comte de Maistre admits having
+rewritten _Le Lépreux de la vallée d'Aoste_ seventeen times. I hope
+that M. Beyle also will set to work going over, polishing _La Chartreuse
+de Parme_, and will stamp it with the imprint of perfection, the emblem
+of irreproachable beauty which MM. de Chateaubriand and de Maistre have
+given to their precious books.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: So Balzac, reading _les petites mains les plus gracieuses_.
+Stendhal's words are _les petites mines_, and he makes the lady a
+Marchesa. Balzac's quotations are not, as a rule, textually accurate,
+but his analysis of the story is admirable.
+
+C. K. S. M.]
+
+[Footnote 2: What a phrase, indeed. But it is the Duchessa, not Mosca,
+who gives this advice to Fabrizio, at Piacenza, and it is the party
+"opposite to the one he has served all his life" that he is to be flung
+into.
+
+C. K. S. M.]
+
+
+This article opened the third and concluding number of Balzac's _Revue
+Parisienne_, dated September 25, 1840. Each of the earlier numbers had
+opened with a story, viz.; _Z. Marcas_ and _Les Fantaisies de Claudine_
+(_Un Prince de la Bohème_) afterwards embodied in the _Comédie
+Humaine_. This _Etude sur M. Beyle_ will be found in _Œuvres complètes
+de H. de Balzac--XXIII--Œuvres diverses--septième partie--Essais
+historiques et politiques_--Paris, Michel Lévy Frères, Editeurs, &c.,
+873, pages 687 to 738. It is also reprinted in Lévy's 1853 edition of
+_La Chartreuse de Parme_.
+
+
+
+
+BEYLE'S REPLY TO BALZAC
+
+
+On receiving the _Revue Parisienne_, Beyle at once wrote to Balzac the
+letter a translation of which follows. This letter he seems to have
+entrusted to his friend Romain Colomb, afterwards his literary executor,
+in whose hands it still remained six months later. As published by
+Colomb, the letter includes the text actually addressed to Balzac and
+the draft here appended to it, and it so figures in _Stendhal: Œuvres
+Posthumes: Correspondance Inédite précédée d'une Introduction par
+Prosper Mérimée de l'Académie Française_: Vol. II, pp. 293-299
+(Calmann-Lévy). The correct text was established by M. Paul Arbelet in
+the _Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France_, Oct.-Dec., 1917, pp.
+548 sqq. _La véritable lettre de Stendhal_, and reprinted by MM. G.
+Grès & Cie. in their edition of _La Chartreuse de Parme_ (1922).
+
+
+Civita-vecchia, 30th October, 1840.
+
+Last night, Sir, I received a great surprise. No one, I think, has ever
+been so well treated in a Review, and by the best judge of the subject.
+You have taken pity on an orphan left wandering in the street. I have
+made a fitting response to this kindness, I read the review last night,
+and this morning I have cut down to four or five pages the fifty-four
+opening pages[3] of the work which you have introduced to the world.
+
+The confection of literature would have disgusted me with all pleasure
+in writing; I have dismissed all rejoicings over the printed page, to a
+time twenty or thirty years hence. Some literary rag-picker may make the
+discovery of the works whose merit you so strangely exaggerate.
+
+Your illusion goes a long way, _Phèdre_, for instance. I may admit to
+you that I was shocked, I who am quite well-disposed towards the author.
+
+Since you have taken the trouble to read this novel three times, I shall
+have a number of questions to ask you at our next meeting on the
+boulevard.
+
+1. Am I allowed to call Fabrizio _our_ hero? It was a question of not
+repeating the name Fabrizio too often.
+
+2. Ought I to suppress the episode of _Fausta_, which has turned out
+unduly long? Fabrizio seizes the opportunity that is offered him to shew
+to the Duchessa that he is not susceptible to _love_.
+
+3. The fifty-four opening pages seem to me a graceful introduction. I
+did indeed feel some misgivings when correcting the proofs, but I
+thought of those boring first half-volumes of Walter Scott, and of the
+endless preamble to the divine _Princesse de Clèves_.
+
+I abhor an involved style, and I must admit to you that many pages of
+the _Chartreuse_ were printed from my original dictation. As children
+say: I shall not return to it again. I think, however, that since the
+destruction of the court, in 1792, the part played by form becomes more
+exiguous daily. Were M. Villemain, whom I cite as the most distinguished
+of our Academicians, to translate the _Chartreuse_ into French, he would
+require three volumes to express what I have given in two. The majority
+of scoundrels being emphatic and eloquent, people will take a dislike to
+the declamatory tone. At seventeen I came near to fighting a duel over
+the "indeterminate crest of the forests" of M. de Chateaubriand, who
+numbered many admirers in the 6th Dragoons. I have never read _La
+Chaumière indienne_, I cannot abide M. de Maistre.
+
+My Homer is the _Memoirs_ of Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr. Montesquieu and
+Fénelon's _Dialogues_ strike me as well written. Except for Madame de
+Mortsauf and her companions, I have read nothing of what has been
+printed in the last thirty years. I read Ariosto, whose stories I love.
+The Duchessa is copied from Correggio. I see the future history of
+French literature in the history of painting. We have reached the stage
+of the pupils of Pietro da Cortona, who worked rapidly and strained all
+his expressions, like Madame Cottin who makes the hewn stones of the
+Borromean Islands walk. After this novel, I have no . . .[4] While
+composing the Chartreuse, to acquire the tone, I used to read every
+morning two or three pages of the _Code Civil_.
+
+Permit a coarse expression: I do not wish to b---- the heart of the
+reader. This, poor reader lets ambitious phrases pass, such as "the wind
+that uproots the waves," but they come back to him after the moment of
+emotion. I wish on the other hand that, if the reader thinks of Conte
+Mosca, he shall find nothing to cut down.
+
+4. I am going to introduce, in the _foyer_ of the Opera, Bassi and
+Riscara, sent to Paris as spies after Waterloo by Ranuccio-Ernesto IV.
+Fabrizio returning from Amiens will be struck by their Italian
+appearance and clipped Milanese, which these watchers imagine to be
+understood by no one. Everyone tells me that I must announce my
+characters. I shall greatly reduce the good Priore Blanès. I thought
+that the story needed characters who do nothing, and only touch the
+heart of the reader and dispel the air of romance.
+
+You are going to think me a monster of pride. What, your inward sense
+will say, this creature, not content with what I have done for him, a
+thing without parallel in this century, still wishes to be praised for
+his style!
+
+I see but one rule: _to be clear_. If I am not clear, all my world
+crumbles to nothing. I wish to speak of what is occurring in the heart
+of Mosca, of the Duchessa, of Clelia. It is a country into which hardly
+penetrates the gaze of the newly rich, such as the Latinist Master of
+the Mint, M. le Comte Roy, M. Laffitte, etc., etc., etc., the gaze of
+the grocer, the worthy paterfamilias, etc., etc.
+
+If, to the obscurity of the matter, I add the obscurities of style of M.
+Villemain, of Madame Sand, etc. (supposing me to have the rare privilege
+of being able to write like those _choregi_ of good style), if I add to
+the difficulty of the subject the obscurities of this vaunted style, no
+one in the world will understand the struggle between the Duchessa and
+Ernesto IV. The style of M. de Chateaubriand and M. de Villemain seems
+to me to say: 1. a number of pleasant little things, but things not
+worth saying (like the style of Ausonius, Claudian, etc.); 2. a number
+of little _insincerities_, pleasant to listen to. These great
+Academicians would have seen the public go mad over their writings, had
+they been given to the world in 1780; their chance of greatness depended
+upon the old _régime_.
+
+In proportion as the semi-intelligent become more numerous, the part
+played by form decreases. If the _Chartreuse_ were translated into
+French by Madame Sand, she would make it a success, but, in order to
+express what there is in my two volumes, she would need three or four.
+Weigh this excuse.
+
+The semi-intelligent puts above everything else the verse of Racine, for
+he can understand what is meant by an unfinished line; but every day his
+verse becomes a less important factor in Racine's merit. The public, as
+it grows more numerous, less sheeplike, requires a greater quantity of
+_little actual facts_, as to a passion, a situation in real life, etc.
+How often do we find Voltaire, Racine, etc., all of them in fact except
+Corneille, obliged to _cap_ their lines for the sake of the rhyme; well,
+these capping lines occupy the place that should properly be filled by
+little actual facts.
+
+In fifty years' time M. Bignan, and the Bignans who write in prose will
+have so wearied their public with productions that are elegant and
+devoid of any other merit, that the semi-intelligent will be in great
+difficulties; their vanity requiring them always to speak of literature
+and to make a pretence of thought, what will become of them when they
+can no longer attach themselves to form? They will end by making their
+god of Voltaire. Wit lasts no more than two centuries; in 1978, Voltaire
+will be Voiture; but _Le Père Goriot_ will still be _Le Père Goriot_.
+Perhaps the semi-intelligent will be so distressed at no longer having
+their beloved rules to admire that it is highly possible that they will
+grow disgusted with literature and take to religion. All political
+rascals having a declamatory and eloquent tone, people will have grown
+sick of this in 1880. Then perhaps they will read the _Chartreuse_.
+
+
+[The following passage occurs among the Beyle manuscripts at Grenoble,
+and was added to the printed text of the letter by Colomb. It appears
+rather to be alternative to some of the preceding paragraphs.]
+
+
+The part played by _form_ becomes more exiguous daily. Take Hume;
+imagine a History of France from 1780 to 1840, written with Hume's sound
+sense; it would be read, even if it were written in patois; it[5] is
+written like the _Code Civil_. I am going to correct the style of the
+_Chartreuse_, since it hurts you, but I shall find it most difficult. I
+do not admire the style now in fashion, I have no patience with it. I
+see Claudians, Senecas, Ausoniuses. I have been told for the last year
+that one ought now and then to relax the reader's attention by
+describing scenery, dresses. These things have bored me so in other
+writers! I shall try.
+
+As for immediate success, of which I should never have thought but for
+the _Revue Parisienne_, it is quite fifteen years since I said to
+myself: I should become a candidate for the Academy if I won the hand of
+Mademoiselle Bertin, who would have my praises sung three times weekly.
+When society is no longer tainted with common upstarts, valuing above
+everything else nobility, just because they are ignoble, it will no
+longer be on its knees before the press of the aristocracy. Before 1793
+good company was the true judge of books, now it is haunted by the fear
+of another 1793, it is frightened, it is no longer a judge. Look at the
+catalogue which a little bookseller near Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin (Rue du
+Bac, about No. 110) supplies to the nobility, his neighbours. It is the
+argument that has most convinced me of the impossibility of pleasing
+these timid creatures, stupefied by idleness.
+
+I have not in the least copied M. de Metternich, whom I have not seen
+since 1810, at Saint-Cloud, when he wore a bracelet of the hair of
+Caroline Murat, who was such a beauty then. I feel no regret for all
+that is destined not to happen. I am a fatalist, and hide from it. I
+imagine that I shall perhaps have a little success about 1860 or '80.
+Then there will be very little said of M. de Metternich, and even less
+of the petty Prince. Who was Prime Minister of England in the time of
+Malherbe? If I have not the misfortune to hit upon a Cromwell, I am sure
+of a nonentity.
+
+Death makes us change places with these people. They can do anything
+with our bodies during their lives, but, at the moment of death,
+oblivion enwraps them for ever. Who will speak of M. de Villèle, of M.
+de Martignac, in a hundred years' time? M. de Talleyrand himself will be
+preserved only by his _Memoirs_, if he has left good ones, while _Le
+Roman comique_ is to-day what _Le Père Goriot_ will be in 1980. It is
+Scarron who makes known the name of the Rothschild of his day, M. de
+Montauron, who was also, to the extent of fifty louis, the protector of
+Corneille.
+
+You have well felt, Sir, with the tact of a man who has acted, that the
+_Chartreuse_ could not deal with a great State, such as France, Spain,
+Vienna, on account of the administrative detail. I was left with the
+petty Princes of Germany and Italy.
+
+But the Germans are so much on their knees before a riband, they are
+such fools! I spent several years among them, and have forgotten their
+language, out of contempt for them. You can easily see that my
+characters could not be Germans. If you follow this idea, you will find
+that I have been led by the hand to an extinct dynasty, to a Farnese,
+the least obscure of these _extinct_ personages, on account of the
+Generals, his grandsires.
+
+I take a character well-known to myself, I leave him the habits he has
+contracted in the art of going out every morning in pursuit of pleasure,
+then I give him more intelligence. I have never seen Signora di
+Belgiojoso. Rassi was a German; I have talked to him hundreds of times.
+I picked up the Prince while staying at Saint-Cloud in 1810 and 1811.
+
+Ouf! I hope that you will have read this treatise three times. You say,
+Sir, that you do not know English: you have in Paris the _bourgeois_
+style of Walter Scott in the heavy prose of M. Delécluze, editor of the
+_Débats_, and author of a _Mademoiselle de Liron_ which has something
+in it. Walter Scott's prose is inelegant and above all pretentious. One
+sees a dwarf who is determined not to lose an inch of his stature.
+
+This astounding article, such as no writer has ever received from
+another, I have read, I now make bold to confess to you, with shouts of
+laughter, whenever I came to an encomium that was at all strong, and I
+met them at every turn. I could see the expression on the faces of my
+friends as they read it.
+
+For instance the Minister d'Argout, being then Auditor to the Council of
+State, was my equal and, moreover, what is known as a friend; 1830
+comes, he is a Minister, his clerks, whom I do not know, think that
+there are at least thirty artists. . . .
+
+
+[Footnote 3: _i.e._, Chapters I and II.
+
+C. K. S. M.]
+
+[Footnote 4: This sentence is left unfinished at the foot of a page, the
+next page beginning with "While composing," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 5: This seems to refer to the _Chartreuse_.
+
+C. K. S. M.]
+
+
+
+
+_THE WORKS OF STENDHAL_
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+
+
+THE CHARTERHOUSE
+OF PARMA
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE
+
+
+
+
+_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
+
+
+
+
+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 Cæsar 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 _Encyclopædia_ 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.
+
+
+
+
+_MILAN IN 1796_
+
+
+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 majordomo 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, Gina 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 airs 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 in 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
+men 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.[6] 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 Giovita, 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 him 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 three 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.
+
+
+[Footnote 6: 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.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+
+. . . _Alors que Vesper vient embrunir nos
+   yeux,
+Tout épris d'avenir, je contemple les cieux,
+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 Giovita, 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).
+
+
+
+_PRIORE BLANÈS_
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+_MILAN_
+
+
+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 Austrian 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
+Majordomo 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 Dongo'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.
+
+
+
+
+_PRINA_
+
+
+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 post-horses 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 judgment 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.
+
+
+
+
+_MILAN_
+
+
+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 on 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."
+
+
+
+
+_THE LAKE_
+
+
+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 Cagnola, 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.
+
+
+
+
+_DEPARTURE_
+
+
+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;[7] 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 into 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE BIVOUAC_
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+_WAR_
+
+
+"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 _adjudant_,"
+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.
+
+
+[Footnote 7: The speaker is carried away by passion; he is rendering
+in prose some lines of the famous Monti.]
+
+
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+_WAR_
+
+
+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 liard."
+
+"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 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 Prussian
+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 bade 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.
+
+
+
+
+_WAR_
+
+
+"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-shootings 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 Boulot, 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 something 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!" he
+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 back! 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 serjeant'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 slowly; 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?"
+
+
+
+
+_WAR_
+
+
+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 to-night 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.[8] 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 or 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 on 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 earliest 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CONSTABLES_
+
+
+"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 mediæval 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE POLICE_
+
+
+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 scapegrace 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 dispatch 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 overbold 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
+intimate 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CANON_
+
+
+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 receive 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."
+
+These 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
+Valserra 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE POLICE_
+
+
+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[9]); 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.
+
+
+[Footnote 8: 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.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See the curious Memoirs of M. Andryane, as entertaining
+as a novel, and as lasting as Tacitus.]
+
+
+
+
+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 Eugène'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?"
+
+
+
+
+_MELANCHOLY_
+
+
+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 MINISTER_
+
+
+"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 sorts 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_."
+
+
+
+
+_MILAN_
+
+
+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 envy 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.
+
+
+
+
+_A RECENT CREATION_
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE DUCA SANSEVERINA_
+
+
+"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, choose 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."
+
+
+
+
+_A MATCH_
+
+
+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 immoral? 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE COURT OF PARMA_
+
+
+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 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: "_I 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 hair,
+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. This 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 stepmother, 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 confessions 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_[10] 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
+_caffè_-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."
+
+
+
+
+_ITALIAN PRUDENCE_
+
+
+"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 COURT_
+
+
+"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 man
+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."
+
+
+[Footnote 10: 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.]
+
+
+
+
+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 COURT_
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+_A FIRST AUDIENCE_
+
+
+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 youngman 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 at 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?"
+
+
+
+
+_THE ARCHBISHOP_
+
+
+"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 _Rassi_, 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. Show 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 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?"
+
+
+
+
+_A LETTER_
+
+
+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. . . .
+
+
+
+
+_NIGHT THOUGHTS_
+
+
+"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, all the ways of looking at what was happening to
+him which, for three mortal hours on end, kept this impassioned man in
+torment? At length the side of prudence prevailed, solely 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 judgment 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 faint 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.
+
+He 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.
+
+
+
+
+_CECCHINA_
+
+
+"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!-- One 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.)
+
+
+
+
+_UNCERTAINTIES_
+
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE PHANTOM HARLEQUIN_
+
+
+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
+cartwheels 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 possible 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."
+
+
+
+
+_REMORSE_
+
+
+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 Belgirate, 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.
+
+
+
+
+_LAKE MAGGIORE_
+
+
+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.
+
+Fabrizio, 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.
+
+
+
+
+_A NIGHT SCENE_
+
+
+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 Durini, 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 lines 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.
+
+
+
+
+_PRIVILEGE_
+
+
+"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?"
+
+
+
+
+_PRIORE BLANÈS_
+
+
+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 time. 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 planisphere. This chart of the heavens was stretched over a
+great jar of terra-cotta 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 mural 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-day; 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 _campanone_ going, which shakes all my instruments.
+To-day is the feast of San Giovita, 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
+Giovita, 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 Giovita; 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 tumble-down bedroom, serving as a kitchen as
+well, in which little Marietta received me twice, and for two minutes on
+each occasion.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CAMPANILE_
+
+
+"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 I 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 Giovita. 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 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 obol 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 _osterie_, 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."
+
+
+
+
+_THE CHESTNUT TREE_
+
+
+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 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FOREST_
+
+
+"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."
+
+
+
+
+_THE HORSE_
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+_HONEST JUDGES_
+
+
+"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."
+
+
+
+
+_GALEAZZO, DUKE OF MILAN_
+
+
+"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 Galeazzo, 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."
+
+
+
+
+_A CONQUEST_
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+_SANGUIGNA_
+
+
+The Duchessa did not at first reply.
+
+"One would think you were seeking excuses for staying away from me," she
+said to him at length with extreme affection: "No sooner do you come
+back from Belgirate than you find a reason for going off again."
+
+"Here is a fine opportunity for speaking," thought Fabrizio. "But by the
+lake I was a trifle mad; I did not realise, in my enthusiasm for
+sincerity, that my compliment ended in an impertinence. It was a
+question of saying: 'I love you with the most devoted friendship, etc.,
+etc., but my heart is not susceptible to love.' Is not that as much as
+to say: 'I see that you are in love with me: but take care, I cannot pay
+you back in the same coin.' If it is love that she feels, the Duchessa
+may be annoyed at its being guessed, and she will be revolted by my
+impudence if all that she feels for me is friendship pure and
+simple . . . and that is one of the offences people never forgive."
+
+While he weighed these important thoughts in his mind, Fabrizio, quite
+unconsciously, was pacing up and down the drawing-room with the grave
+air, full of dignity, of a man who sees disaster staring him in the
+face.
+
+The Duchessa gazed at him with admiration; this was no longer the child
+she had seen come into the world, this was no longer the nephew always
+ready to obey her; this was a serious man, a man whom it would be
+delicious to make fall in love with her. She rose from the ottoman on
+which she was sitting, and, flinging herself into his arms in a
+transport of emotion:
+
+"So you want to run away from me?" she asked him.
+
+"No," he replied with the air of a Roman Emperor, "but I want to act
+wisely."
+
+This speech was capable of several interpretations; Fabrizio did not
+feel that he had the courage to go any farther and to run the risk of
+wounding this adorable woman. He was too young, too susceptible to
+sudden emotion; his brain could not supply him with any elegant turn of
+speech to give expression to what he wished to say. By a natural
+transport, and in defiance of all reason, he took this charming woman in
+his arms and smothered her in kisses. At that moment the Conte's
+carriage could be heard coming into the courtyard, and almost
+immediately the Conte himself entered the room; he seemed greatly moved.
+
+"You inspire very singular passions," he said to Fabrizio, who stood
+still, almost dumbfoundered by this remark.
+
+"The Archbishop had this evening the audience which His Serene Highness
+grants him every Thursday; the Prince has just been telling me that the
+Archbishop, who seemed greatly troubled, began with a set speech,
+learned by heart, and extremely clever, of which at first the Prince
+could understand nothing at all. Landriani ended by declaring that it
+was important for the Church in Parma that _Monsignor_ Fabrizio del Dongo
+should be appointed his First Vicar General, and, in addition, as soon
+as he should have completed his twenty-fourth year, his Coadjutor _with
+eventual succession_.
+
+"The last clause alarmed me, I must admit," said the Conte: "it is going
+a little too fast, and I was afraid of an outburst from the Prince; but
+he looked at me with a smile, and said to me in French: 'Ce sont là de
+vos coups, monsieur!'
+
+
+
+
+_THE AUDIENCE_
+
+
+"'I can take my oath, before God and before Your Highness,' I exclaimed
+with all the unction possible, 'that I knew absolutely nothing about the
+words _eventual succession_.' Then I told him the truth, what in fact we
+were discussing together here a few hours ago; I added, impulsively,
+that, so far as the future was concerned, I should regard myself as most
+bounteously rewarded with His Highness's favour if he would deign to
+allow me a minor Bishopric to begin with. The Prince must have believed
+me, for he thought fit to be gracious; he said to me with the greatest
+possible simplicity: 'This is an official matter between the Archbishop
+and myself; you do not come into it at all; the worthy man delivered me
+a kind of report, of great length and tedious to a degree, at the end of
+which he came to an official proposal; I answered him very coldly that
+the person in question was extremely young, and, moreover, a very recent
+arrival at my court, that I should almost be giving the impression that
+I was honouring a bill of exchange drawn upon me by the Emperor, in
+giving the prospect of so high a dignity to the son of one of the
+principal officers of his Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom. The Archbishop
+protested that no recommendation of that sort had been made. That was a
+pretty stupid thing to say to _me_. I was surprised to hear it come from a
+man of his experience; but he always loses his head when he speaks to
+me, and this evening he was more troubled than ever, which gave me the
+idea that he was passionately anxious to secure the appointment. I told
+him that I knew better than he that there had been no recommendation
+from any high quarter in favour of this del Dongo, that nobody at my
+court denied his capacity, that they did not speak at all too badly of
+his morals, but that I was afraid of his being liable to enthusiasm, and
+that I had made it a rule never to promote to considerable positions
+fools of that sort, with whom a Prince can never be sure of anything.
+Then,' His Highness went on, 'I had to submit to a fresh tirade almost
+as long as the first; the Archbishop sang me the praises of the
+enthusiasm of the _Casa di Dio_. Clumsy fellow, I said to myself, you
+are going astray, you are endangering an appointment which was almost
+confirmed; you ought to have cut your speech short and thanked me
+effusively. Not a bit of it; he continued his homily with a ridiculous
+intrepidity; I had to think of a reply which would not be too
+unfavourable to young del Dongo; I found one, and by no means a bad one,
+as you shall judge for yourself. Monsignore, I said to him, Pius VII was
+a great Pope and a great saint: among all the Sovereigns, he alone dared
+to say _No_ to the tyrant who saw Europe at his feet: very well, he was
+liable to enthusiasm, which led him, when he was Bishop of Imola, to
+write that famous Pastoral of the _Citizen-Cardinal_ Chiaramonti, in
+support of the Cisalpine Republic.
+
+"'My poor Archbishop was left stupefied, and, to complete his
+stupefaction, I said to him with a very serious air: Good-bye,
+Monsignore, I shall take twenty-four hours to consider your proposal.
+The poor man added various supplications, by no means well expressed and
+distinctly inopportune after the word _Good-bye_ had been uttered by me.
+Now, Conte Mosca della Rovere, I charge you to inform the Duchessa that
+I have no wish to delay for twenty-four hours a decision which may be
+agreeable to her; sit down there and write the Archbishop the letter of
+approval which will bring the whole matter to an end.' I wrote the
+letter, he signed it, and said to me: 'Take it, immediately, to the
+Duchessa.' Here, Signora, is the letter, and it is this that has given
+me an excuse for taking the pleasure of seeing you again this evening."
+
+The Duchessa read the letter with rapture. While the Conte was telling
+his long story, Fabrizio had had time to collect himself: he shewed no
+sign of astonishment at the incident, he took the whole thing like a
+true nobleman who naturally has always supposed himself entitled to
+these extraordinary advancements, these strokes of fortune which would
+unhinge a plebeian mind; he spoke of his gratitude, but in polished
+terms, and ended by saying to the Conte:
+
+
+
+
+_TITULAR AND COADJUTOR_
+
+
+"A good courtier ought to flatter the ruling passion; yesterday you
+expressed the fear that your workmen at Sanguigna might steal any
+fragments of ancient sculpture they brought to light; I am extremely
+fond of excavation, myself; with your kind permission, I will go to
+superintend the workmen. To-morrow evening, after suitably expressing my
+thanks at the Palace and to the Archbishop, I shall start for
+Sanguigna."
+
+"But can you guess," the Duchessa asked the Conte, "what can have given
+rise to this sudden passion on our good Archbishop's part for Fabrizio?"
+
+"I have no need to guess; the Grand Vicar whose nephew I made a captain
+said to me yesterday: 'Father Landriani starts from this absolute
+principle, that the titular is superior to the coadjutor, and is beside
+himself with joy at the prospect of having a del Dongo under his orders,
+and of having done him a service.' Everything that can draw attention to
+Fabrizio's noble birth adds to his secret happiness: that he should have
+a man like that as his aide-de-camp! In the second place, Monsignor
+Fabrizio has taken his fancy, he does not feel in the least shy before
+him; finally, he has been nourishing for the last ten years a very
+vigorous hatred of the Bishop of Piacenza, who openly boasts of his
+claim to succeed him in the see of Parma, and is moreover the son of a
+miller. It is with a view to this eventual succession that the Bishop of
+Piacenza has formed very close relations with the Marchesa Raversi, and
+now their intimacy is making the Archbishop tremble for the success of
+his favourite scheme, to have a del Dongo on his staff and to give him
+orders."
+
+Two days after this, at an early hour in the morning, Fabrizio was
+directing the work of excavation at Sanguigna, opposite Colorno (which
+is the Versailles of the Princes of Parma); these excavations extended
+over the plain close to the high road which runs from Parma to the bridge
+of Casalmaggiore, the first town on Austrian territory. The workmen were
+intersecting the plain with a long trench, eight feet deep and as narrow
+as possible: they were engaged in seeking, along the old Roman Way, for
+the ruins of a second temple which, according to local reports, had
+still been in existence in the middle ages. Despite the Prince's orders,
+many of the _contadini_ looked with misgivings on these long ditches
+running across their property. Whatever one might say to them, they
+imagined that a search was being made for treasure, and Fabrizio's
+presence was especially desirable with a view to preventing any little
+unrest. He was by no means bored, he followed the work with keen
+interest; from time to time they turned up some medal, and he saw to it
+that the workmen did not have time to arrange among themselves to make
+off with it.
+
+The day was fine, the time about six o'clock in the morning: he had
+borrowed an old gun, single-barrelled; he shot several larks; one of
+them, wounded, was falling upon the high road. Fabrizio, as he went
+after it, caught sight, in the distance, of a carriage that was coming
+from Parma and making for the frontier at Casalmaggiore. He had just
+reloaded his gun when, the carriage which was extremely dilapidated
+coming towards him at a snail's pace, he recognised little Marietta; she
+had, on either side of her, the big bully Giletti and the old woman whom
+she passed off as her mother.
+
+Giletti imagined that Fabrizio had posted himself there in the middle of
+the road, and with a gun in his hand, to insult him, and perhaps even to
+carry off his little Marietta. Like a man of valour, he jumped down from
+the carriage; he had in his left hand a large and very rusty pistol, and
+held in his right a sheathed sword, which he used when the limitations
+of the company obliged them to cast him for the part of some Marchese.
+
+
+
+
+_GILETTI_
+
+
+"Ha! Brigand!" he shouted, "I am very glad to find you here, a league
+from the frontier; I'll settle your account for you, right away; you're
+not protected here by your violet stockings."
+
+Fabrizio was engaged in smiling at little Marietta, and barely heeding
+the jealous shouts of Giletti, when suddenly he saw within three feet of
+his chest the muzzle of the rusty pistol; he was just in time to aim a
+blow at it, using his gun as a club: the pistol went off, but did not
+hit anyone.
+
+"Stop, will you, you ----," cried Giletti to the _vetturino_; at the
+same time he was quick enough to spring to the muzzle of his adversary's
+gun and to hold it so that it pointed away from his body; Fabrizio and
+he pulled at the gun, each with his whole strength. Giletti, who was a
+great deal the more vigorous of the two, placing one hand in front of
+the other, kept creeping forward towards the lock, and was on the point
+of snatching away the gun when Fabrizio, to prevent him from making use
+of it, fired. He had indeed seen, first, that the muzzle of the gun was
+more than three inches above Giletti's shoulder: still, the detonation
+occurred close to the man's ear. He was somewhat startled at first, but
+at once recovered himself:
+
+"Oh, so you want to blow my head off, you scum! Just let me settle your
+reckoning." Giletti flung away the scabbard of his Marchese's sword, and
+fell upon Fabrizio with admirable swiftness. Our hero had no weapon, and
+gave himself up for lost.
+
+He made for the carriage, which had stopped some ten yards beyond
+Giletti; he passed to the left of it, and, grasping the spring of the
+carriage in his hand, made a quick turn which brought him level with the
+door on the right hand side, which stood open. Giletti, who had started
+off on his long legs and had not thought of checking himself by catching
+hold of the spring, went on for several paces in the same direction
+before he could stop. As Fabrizio passed by the open door, he heard
+Marietta whisper to him:
+
+"Take care of yourself; he will kill you. Here!"
+
+As he spoke, Fabrizio saw fall from the door a sort of big hunting
+knife, he stooped to pick it up, but as he did so was wounded in the
+shoulder by a blow from Giletti's sword. Fabrizio, on rising to his
+feet, found himself within six inches of Giletti, who struck him a
+furious blow in the face with the hilt of his sword; this blow was
+delivered with so much force that it completely took away Fabrizio's
+senses. At that moment, he was on the point of being killed. Fortunately
+for him, Giletti was still too near to be able to give him a thrust with
+the point. Fabrizio, when he came to himself, took to flight, and ran as
+fast as his legs would carry him; as he ran, he flung away the sheath of
+the hunting knife, and then, turning smartly round, found himself three
+paces ahead of Giletti, who was in pursuit. Giletti rushed on, Fabrizio
+struck at him with the point of his knife; Giletti was in time to beat
+up the knife a little with his sword, but he received the point of the
+blade full in the left cheek. He passed close by Fabrizio who felt his
+thigh pierced: it was Giletti's knife, which he had found time to open.
+Fabrizio sprang to the right; he turned round, and at last the two
+adversaries found themselves at a proper fighting distance.
+
+Giletti swore like a lost soul: "Ah! I shall slit your throat for you,
+you rascally priest," he kept on repeating every moment. Fabrizio was
+quite out of breath and could not speak: the blow on his face from the
+sword-hilt was causing him a great deal of pain, and his nose was
+bleeding abundantly. He parried a number of strokes with his hunting
+knife, and made a number of passes without knowing quite what he was
+doing. He had a vague feeling that he was at a public display. This idea
+had been suggested to him by the presence of the workmen, who, to the
+number of twenty-five or thirty, formed a circle round the combatants,
+but at a most respectful distance; for at every moment they saw them
+start to run, and spring upon one another.
+
+
+
+
+_A DUEL_
+
+
+The fight seemed to be slackening a little; the strokes no longer
+followed one another with the same rapidity, when Fabrizio said to
+himself: "To judge by the pain which I feel in my face, he must have
+disfigured me." In a spasm of rage at this idea, he leaped upon his
+enemy with the point of his hunting knife forwards. This point entered
+Giletti's chest on the right side and passed out near his left shoulder;
+at the same moment Giletti's sword passed right to the hilt through the
+upper part of Fabrizio's arm, but the blade glided under the skin and
+the wound was not serious.
+
+Giletti had fallen; as Fabrizio advanced towards him, looking down at
+his left hand which was clasping a knife, that hand opened mechanically
+and let the weapon slip to the ground.
+
+"The rascal is dead," said Fabrizio to himself. He looked at Giletti's
+face: blood was pouring from his mouth. Fabrizio ran to the carriage.
+
+"Have you a mirror?" he cried to Marietta. Marietta stared at him,
+deadly pale, and made no answer. The old woman with great coolness
+opened a green workbag and handed Fabrizio a little mirror with a
+handle, no bigger than his hand. Fabrizio as he looked at himself felt
+his face carefully: "My eyes are all right," he said to himself, "that
+is something, at any rate." He examined his teeth; they were not broken
+at all. "Then how is it that I am in such pain?" he asked himself,
+half-aloud.
+
+The old woman answered him:
+
+"It is because the top of your cheek has been crushed between the hilt
+of Giletti's sword and the bone we keep there. Your cheek is horribly
+swollen and blue: put leeches on it instantly, and it will be all
+right."
+
+"Ah! Leeches, instantly!" said Fabrizio with a laugh, and recovered all
+his coolness. He saw that the workmen had gathered round Giletti, and
+were gazing at him, without venturing to touch him.
+
+"Look after that man there!" he called to them; "take his coat off." He
+was going to say more, but, on raising his eyes, saw five or six men at
+a distance of three hundred yards on the high road, who were advancing
+on foot and at a measured pace towards the scene of action.
+
+"They are police," he thought, "and, as there has been a man killed,
+they will arrest me, and I shall have the honour of making a solemn
+entry into the city of Parma. What a story for the Raversi's friends at
+court who detest my aunt!"
+
+Immediately, with the rapidity of a flash of lightning, he flung to the
+open-mouthed workmen all the money that he had in his pockets and leaped
+into the carriage.
+
+"Stop the police from pursuing me!" he cried to his men, "and your
+fortunes are all made; tell them that I am innocent, that this man
+_attacked me and wanted to kill me_."
+
+"And you," he said to the _vetturino_, "make your horses gallop; you shall
+have four golden napoleons if you cross the Po before these people
+behind can overtake me."
+
+"Right you are," said the man; "but there's nothing to be afraid of:
+those men back there are on foot, and my little horses have only to trot
+to leave them properly in the lurch." So saying, he put the animals into
+a gallop.
+
+
+
+
+_PRECAUTIONS_
+
+
+Our hero was shocked to hear the word "afraid" used by the driver: the
+fact being that really he had been extremely afraid after the blow from
+the sword-hilt which had struck him in the face.
+
+"We may run into people on horseback coming towards us," said the
+prudent _vetturino_, thinking of the four napoleons, "and the men who
+are following us may call out to them to stop us. . . ." Which meant, in
+other words: "Reload your weapons."
+
+"Oh, how brave you are, my little Abate!" cried Marietta as she embraced
+Fabrizio. The old woman was looking out through the window of the
+carriage; presently she drew in her head.
+
+"No one is following you, sir," she said to Fabrizio with great
+coolness; "and there is no one on the road in front of you. You know how
+particular the officials of the Austrian police are: if they see you
+arrive like this at a gallop, along the embankment by the Po, they will
+arrest you, no doubt about it."
+
+Fabrizio looked out of the window.
+
+"Trot," he said to the driver. "What passport have you?" he asked the
+old woman.
+
+"Three, instead of one," she replied, "and they cost us four francs
+apiece; a dreadful thing, isn't it, for poor dramatic artists who are
+kept travelling all the year round! Here is the passport of Signor
+Giletti, dramatic artist: that will be you; here are our two passports,
+Marietta's and mine. But Giletti had all our money in his pocket; what
+is to become of us?"
+
+"What had he?" Fabrizio asked.
+
+"Forty good scudi of five francs," said the old woman.
+
+"You mean six, and some small change," said Marietta with a smile: "I
+won't have my little Abate cheated."
+
+"Isn't it only natural, sir," replied the old woman with great coolness,
+"that I should try to tap you for thirty-four scudi? What are
+thirty-four scudi to you, and we--we have lost our protector. Who is
+there now to find us lodgings, to beat down prices with the _vetturini_
+when we are on the road, and to put the fear of God into everyone?
+Giletti was not beautiful, but he was most useful; and if the little
+girl there hadn't been a fool, and fallen in love with you from the
+first, Giletti would never have noticed anything, and you would have
+given us good money. I can assure you that we are very poor."
+
+Fabrizio was touched; he took out his purse and gave several napoleons
+to the old woman.
+
+"You see," he said to her, "I have only fifteen left, so it is no use
+your trying to pull my leg any more."
+
+Little Marietta flung her arms round his neck, and the old woman kissed
+his hands. The carriage was moving all this time at a slow trot. When
+they saw in the distance the yellow barriers striped with black which
+indicated the beginning of Austrian territory, the old woman said to
+Fabrizio:
+
+"You would do best to cross the frontier on foot with Giletti's passport
+in your pocket; as for us, we shall stop for a minute, on the excuse of
+making ourselves tidy. And besides, the _dogana_ will want to look at
+our things. If you will take my advice, you will go through
+Casalmaggiore at a careless stroll; even go into the _caffè_ and drink
+a glass of brandy, once you are past the village, put your best foot
+foremost. The police are as sharp as the devil in an Austrian country;
+they will pretty soon know there has been a man killed; you are
+travelling with a passport which is not yours, that is more than enough
+to get you two years in prison. Make for the Po on your right after you
+leave the town, hire a boat and get away to Ravenna or Ferrara; get
+clear of the Austrian States as quickly as ever you can. With a couple
+of louis you should be able to buy another passport from some
+_doganiere_; it would be fatal to use this one; don't forget that you
+have killed the man."
+
+
+
+
+_FEAR_
+
+
+As he approached, on foot, the bridge of boats at Casalmaggiore,
+Fabrizio carefully reread Giletti's passport. Our hero was in great
+fear, he recalled vividly all that Conte Mosca had said to him about the
+danger involved in his entering Austrian territory; well, two hundred
+yards ahead of him he saw the terrible bridge which was about to give
+him access to that country, the capital of which, in his eyes, was the
+Spielberg. But what else was he to do? The Duchy of Modena, which
+marches with the State of Parma on the South, returned its fugitives in
+compliance with a special convention, the frontier of the State which
+extends over the mountains in the direction of Genoa was too far off;
+his misadventure would be known at Parma long before he could reach
+those mountains; there remained therefore nothing but the Austrian
+States on the left bank of the Po. Before there was time to write to the
+Austrian authorities asking them to arrest him, thirty-six hours, or
+even two days must elapse. All these considerations duly weighed,
+Fabrizio set a light with his cigar to his own passport; it was better
+for him, on Austrian soil, to be a vagabond than to be Fabrizio del
+Dongo, and it was possible that they might search him.
+
+Quite apart from the very natural repugnance which he felt towards
+entrusting his life to the passport of the unfortunate Giletti, this
+document presented material difficulties. Fabrizio's height was, at the
+most, five feet five inches, and not five feet ten inches as was stated
+on the passport. He was not quite twenty-four, and looked younger.
+Giletti had been thirty-nine. We must confess that our hero paced for a
+good half-hour along a flood-barrier of the Po near the bridge of boats
+before making up his mind to go down on to it. "What should I advise
+anyone else to do in my place?" he asked himself finally. "Obviously, to
+cross: there is danger in remaining in the State of Parma; a constable
+may be sent in pursuit of the man who has killed another man, even in
+self-defence." Fabrizio went through his pocket, tore up all his papers,
+and kept literally nothing but his handkerchief and his cigar-case; it
+was important for him to curtail the examination which he would have to
+undergo. He thought of a terrible objection which might be raised, and
+to which he could find no satisfactory answer: he was going to say that
+his name was Giletti, and all his linen was marked F. D.
+
+As we have seen, Fabrizio was one of those unfortunates who are
+tormented by their imagination; it is a characteristic fault of men of
+intelligence in Italy. A French soldier of equal or even inferior
+courage would have gone straight to the bridge and have crossed it
+without more ado, without thinking beforehand of any possible
+difficulties; but also he would have carried with him all his coolness,
+and Fabrizio was far from feeling cool when, at the end of the bridge, a
+little man, dressed in grey, said to him: "Go into the police office and
+shew your passport."
+
+This office had dirty walls studded with nails from which hung the pipes
+and the soiled hats of the officials. The big deal table behind which
+they were installed was spotted all over with stains of ink and wine;
+two or three fat registers bound in raw hide bore stains of all colours,
+and the margins of the pages were black with finger-marks. On top of the
+registers which were piled one on another lay three magnificent wreaths
+of laurel which had done duty a couple of days before for one of the
+Emperor's festivals.
+
+
+
+
+_THE PASSPORT_
+
+
+Fabrizio was impressed by all these details; they gave him a tightening
+of the heart; this was the price he must pay for the magnificent luxury,
+so cool and clean, that caught the eye in his charming rooms in the
+_palazzo_ Sanseverina. He was obliged to enter this dirty office and to
+appear there as an inferior; he was about to undergo an examination.
+
+The official who stretched out a yellow hand to take his passport was
+small and dark. He wore a brass pin in his necktie. "This is an
+ill-tempered fellow," thought Fabrizio. The gentleman seemed excessively
+surprised as he read the passport, and his perusal of it lasted fully
+five minutes.
+
+"You have met with an accident," he said to the stranger, looking at his
+cheek.
+
+"The _vetturino_ flung us out over the embankment."
+
+Then the silence was resumed, and the official cast sour glances at the
+traveller.
+
+"I see it now," Fabrizio said to himself, "he is going to inform me that
+he is sorry to have bad news to give me, and that I am under arrest."
+All sorts of wild ideas surged simultaneously into our hero's brain,
+which at this moment was not very logical. For instance, he thought of
+escaping by a door in the office which stood open. "I get rid of my
+coat, I jump into the Po, and no doubt I shall be able to swim across
+it. Anything is better than the Spielberg." The police official was
+staring fixedly at him, while he calculated the chances of success of
+this dash for safety; they furnished two interesting types of the human
+countenance. The presence of danger gives a touch of genius to the
+reasoning man, places him, so to speak, above his own level: in the
+imaginative man it inspires romances, bold, it is true, but frequently
+absurd.
+
+You ought to have seen the indignant air of our hero under the searching
+eye of this police official, adorned with his brass jewelry. "If I were
+to kill him," thought Fabrizio, "I should be convicted of murder and
+sentenced to twenty years in the galleys, or to death, which is a great
+deal less terrible than the Spielberg with a chain weighing a hundred
+and twenty pounds on each foot and nothing but eight ounces of bread to
+live on; and that lasts for twenty years; so that I should not get out
+until I was forty-four." Fabrizio's logic overlooked the fact that, as
+he had burned his own passport, there was nothing to indicate to the
+police official that he was the rebel, Fabrizio del Dongo.
+
+Our hero was sufficiently alarmed, as we have seen; he would have been a
+great deal more so could he have read the thoughts that were disturbing
+the official's mind. This man was a friend of Giletti; one may judge of
+his surprise when he saw his friend's passport in the hands of a
+stranger; his first impulse was to have that stranger arrested, then he
+reflected that Giletti might easily have sold his passport to this fine
+young man who apparently had just been doing something disgraceful at
+Parma. "If I arrest him," he said to himself, "Giletti will get into
+trouble; they will at once discover that he has sold his passport; on
+the other hand, what will my chiefs say if it is proved that I, a friend
+of Giletti, put a _visa_ on his passport when it was carried by someone
+else." The official got up with a yawn and said to Fabrizio: "Wait a
+minute, sir"; then, adopting a professional formula, added: "A
+difficulty has arisen." On which Fabrizio murmured: "What is going to
+arise is my escape."
+
+As a matter of fact, the official went out of the office, leaving the
+door open; and the passport was left lying on the deal table. "The
+danger is obvious," thought Fabrizio; "I shall take my passport and walk
+slowly back across the bridge; I shall tell the constable, if he
+questions me, that I forgot to have my passport examined by the
+commissary of police in the last village in the State of Parma."
+Fabrizio had already taken the passport in his hand when, to his
+unspeakable astonishment, he heard the clerk with the brass jewelry say:
+
+"Upon my soul, I can't do any more work; the heat is stifling; I am
+going to the _caffè_ to have half a glass. Go into the office when you
+have finished your pipe, there's a passport to be stamped; the party is
+in there."
+
+Fabrizio, who was stealing out on tiptoe, found himself face to face
+with a handsome young man who was saying to himself, or rather humming:
+"Well, let us see this passport; I'll put my scrawl on it."
+
+"Where does the gentleman wish to go?"
+
+"To Mantua, Venice and Ferrara."
+
+"Ferrara it is," said the official, whistling; he took up a die, stamped
+the _visa_ in blue ink on the passport, rapidly wrote in the words:
+"Mantua, Venice and Ferrara," in the space left blank by the stamp, then
+waved his hand several times in the air, signed, and dipped his pen in
+the ink to make his flourish, which he executed slowly and with infinite
+pains. Fabrizio followed every movement of his pen; the clerk studied
+his flourish with satisfaction, adding five or six finishing touches,
+then handed the passport back to Fabrizio, saying in a careless tone: "A
+good journey, sir!"
+
+Fabrizio made off at a pace the alacrity of which he was endeavouring to
+conceal, when he felt himself caught by the left arm: instinctively his
+hand went to the hilt of his dagger, and if he had not observed that he
+was surrounded by houses he might perhaps have done something rash. The
+man who was touching his left arm, seeing that he appeared quite
+startled, said by way of apology:
+
+"But I called the gentleman three times, and got no answer; has the
+gentleman anything to declare before the customs?"
+
+"I have nothing on me but my handkerchief; I am going to a place quite
+near here, to shoot with one of my family."
+
+He would have been greatly embarrassed had he been asked to name this
+relative. What with the great heat and his various emotions, Fabrizio
+was as wet as if he had fallen into the Po. "I am not lacking in courage
+to face actors, but clerks with brass jewelry send me out of my mind; I
+shall make a humorous sonnet out of that to amuse the Duchessa."
+
+Entering Casalmaggiore, Fabrizio at once turned to the right along a
+mean street which leads down to the Po. "I am in great need," he said to
+himself, "of the succour of Bacchus and Ceres," and he entered a shop
+outside which there hung a grey clout fastened to a stick; on the clout
+was inscribed the word _Trattoria_. A meagre piece of bed-linen
+supported on two slender wooden hoops and hanging down to within three
+feet of the ground sheltered the doorway of the _Trattoria_ from the
+vertical rays of the sun. There, a half-undressed and extremely pretty
+woman received our hero with respect, which gave him the keenest
+pleasure; he hastened to inform her that he was dying of hunger. While
+the woman was preparing his breakfast, there entered a man of about
+thirty; he had given no greeting on coming in; suddenly he rose from the
+bench on which he had flung himself down with a familiar air, and said
+to Fabrizio: "_Eccellenza, la riverisco_! (Excellency, your servant!)"
+Fabrizio was in the highest spirits at the moment, and, instead of
+forming sinister plans, replied with a laugh: "And how the devil do you
+know my Excellency?"
+
+
+
+
+_THE TRATTORIA_
+
+
+"What! Doesn't Your Excellency remember Lodovico, one of the Signora
+Duchessa Sanseverina's coachmen? At Sacca, the place in the country
+where we used to go every year, I always took fever; I asked the Signora
+for a pension, and retired from service. Now I am rich; instead of the
+pension of twelve scudi a year, which was the most I was entitled to
+expect, the Signora told me that, to give me the leisure to compose
+sonnets, for I am a poet in the _lingua volgare_, she would allow me
+twenty-four scudi and the Signor Conte told me that if ever I was in
+difficulties I had only to come and tell him. I have had the honour to
+drive Monsignore for a stage, when he went to make his retreat, like a
+good Christian, in the Certosa of Velleja."
+
+Fabrizio studied the man's face and began to recognise him. He had been
+one of the smartest coachmen in the Sanseverina establishment; now that
+he was what he called rich his entire clothing consisted of a coarse
+shirt, in holes, and a pair of cloth breeches, dyed black at some time
+in the past, which barely came down to his knees; a pair of shoes and a
+villainous hat completed his equipment. In addition to this, he had not
+shaved for a fortnight. As he ate his omelette Fabrizio engaged in
+conversation with him, absolutely as between equals; he thought he
+detected that Lodovico was in love with their hostess. He finished his
+meal rapidly, then said in a low voice to Lodovico: "I want a word with
+you."
+
+"Your Excellency can speak openly before her, she is a really good
+woman," said Lodovico with a tender air.
+
+"Very well, my friends," said Fabrizio without hesitation, "I am in
+trouble, and have need of your help. First of all, there is nothing
+political about my case; I have simply and solely killed a man who
+wanted to murder me because I spoke to his mistress."
+
+"Poor young man!" said the landlady.
+
+"Your Excellency can count on me!" cried the coachman, his eyes ablaze
+with the most passionate devotion; "where does His Excellency wish to
+go?"
+
+"To Ferrara. I have a passport, but I should prefer not to speak to the
+police, who may have received information of what has happened."
+
+"When did you despatch this fellow?"
+
+"This morning, at six o'clock."
+
+"Your Excellency has no blood on his clothes, has he?" asked the
+landlady.
+
+"I was thinking of that," put in the coachman, "and besides, the cloth
+of that coat is too fine; you don't see many like that in the country
+round here, it would make people stare at us; I shall go and buy some
+clothes from the Jew. Your Excellency is about my figure, only thinner."
+
+"For pity's sake, don't go on calling me Excellency, it may attract
+attention."
+
+"Very good, Excellency," replied the coachman, as he left the tavern.
+
+"Here, here," Fabrizio called after him, "and what about the money! Come
+back!"
+
+"What do you mean--money!" said the landlady; "he has sixty-seven scudi
+which are entirely at your service. I myself," she went on, lowering her
+voice, "have forty scudi which I offer you with the best will in the
+world; one doesn't always have money on one when these accidents
+happen."
+
+On account of the heat, Fabrizio had taken off his coat on entering the
+_Trattoria_.
+
+"You have a waistcoat on you which might land us in trouble if anyone
+came in: that fine _English cloth_ would attract attention." She gave our
+fugitive a stuff waistcoat, dyed black, which belonged to her husband. A
+tall young man came into the tavern by an inner door; he was dressed
+with a certain style.
+
+
+
+
+_THE LANDLADY_
+
+
+"This is my husband," said the landlady. "Pietro-Antonio," she said to
+her husband, "this gentleman is a friend of Lodovico; he met with an
+accident this morning, across the river, and he wants to get away to
+Ferrara."
+
+"Oh, we'll get him there," said the husband with an air of great
+gentility; "we have Carlo-Giuseppe's boat."
+
+Owing to another weakness in our hero which we shall confess as
+naturally as we have related his fear in the police office at the end of
+the bridge, there were tears in his eyes; he was profoundly moved by the
+perfect devotion which he found among these _contadini_; he thought also
+of this characteristic generosity of his aunt; he would have liked to be
+able to make these people's fortune. Lodovico returned, carrying a
+packet.
+
+"So that's finished," the husband said to him in a friendly tone.
+
+"It's not that," replied Lodovico in evident alarm, "people are
+beginning to talk about you, they noticed that you hesitated before
+turning down our _vicolo_ and leaving the big street, like a man who was
+trying to hide."
+
+"Go up quick to the bedroom," said the husband.
+
+This room, which was very large and fine, had grey cloth instead of
+glass in its two windows; it contained four beds, each six feet wide and
+five feet high.
+
+"Be quick! Be quick!" said Lodovico, "there is a swaggering fool of a
+constable who has just been posted here and began trying to make love to
+the pretty lady downstairs; and I've told him that when he goes
+travelling about the country he may find himself stopping a bullet. If
+the dog hears any mention of Your Excellency, he'll want to do us a bad
+turn, he will try to arrest you here, so as to get Teodolinda's
+_Trattoria_ a bad name.
+
+"What's this?" Lodovico went on, seeing Fabrizio's shirt all stained
+with blood and his wounds bandaged with handkerchiefs, "so the _porco_
+shewed fight, did he? That's a hundred times more than you need to get
+yourself arrested, and I haven't bought you any shirt." Without ceremony
+he opened the husband's wardrobe and gave one of his shirts to Fabrizio,
+who was soon attired like a prosperous countryman. Lodovico took down a
+net that was hanging on the wall, placed Fabrizio's clothes in the
+basket in which the fish are put, went downstairs at a run and hastened
+out of the house by a back door; Fabrizio followed him.
+
+"Teodolinda," he called out as he passed by the bar, "hide what I've
+left upstairs, we are going to wait among the willows, and you,
+Pietro-Antonio, send us a boat quickly, we'll pay well for it."
+
+Lodovico led Fabrizio across more than a score of ditches. There were
+planks, very long and very elastic, which served as bridges across the
+wider of these ditches; Lodovico took up these planks after crossing by
+them. On coming to the last canal he took up the plank with haste. "Now
+we can stop and breathe," he said; "that dog of a constable will have to
+go two leagues and more to reach Your Excellency. Why, you're quite
+pale," he said to Fabrizio; "I haven't forgotten the little bottle of
+brandy."
+
+"It comes in most useful; the wound in my thigh is beginning to hurt me;
+and besides, I was in a fine fright in the police office by the bridge."
+
+"I can well believe it," said Lodovico; "with a shirt covered in blood,
+as yours was, I can't conceive how you ever even dared to set foot in
+such a place. As for your wounds, I know what to do; I am going to put
+you in a cool place where you can sleep for an hour; the boat will come
+for us there, if there is any way of getting a boat; if not, when you
+have rested a little, we shall go on two short leagues, and I shall take
+you to a mill where I shall take a boat myself. Your Excellency knows
+far more than I do: the Signora will be in despair when she hears of the
+accident; they will tell her that you are mortally wounded, perhaps even
+that you killed the other man by foul play. The Marchesa Raversi will
+not fail to circulate all the evil reports that can hurt the Signora.
+Your Excellency might write."
+
+
+
+
+_THE PO_
+
+
+"And how should I get the letter delivered?"
+
+"The boys at the mill where we are going earn twelve soldi a day; in a
+day and a half they can be at Parma, say four francs for the journey,
+two francs for the wear and tear of their shoe-leather: if the errand
+was being done for a poor man like me, that would be six francs; as it
+is in the service of a Signore, I shall give them twelve."
+
+When they had reached the resting-place in a clump of alders and
+willows, very leafy and very cool, Lodovico went to a house more than an
+hour's journey away in search of ink and paper. "Great heavens, how
+comfortable I am here," cried Fabrizio. "Fortune, farewell! I shall
+never be an Archbishop!"
+
+On his return, Lodovico found him fast asleep and did not like to arouse
+him. The boat did not arrive until the sun had almost set; as soon as
+Lodovico saw it appear in the distance he called Fabrizio, who wrote a
+couple of letters.
+
+"Your Excellency knows far more than I do," said Lodovico with a
+troubled air, "and I am very much afraid of displeasing him seriously,
+whatever he may say, if I add a certain remark."
+
+"I am not such a fool as you think me," replied Fabrizio, "and, whatever
+you may say, you will always be in my eyes a faithful servant of my
+aunt, and a man who has done everything in the world to get me out of a
+very awkward scrape."
+
+Many more protestations still were required before Lodovico could be
+prevailed upon to speak, and when, at last he had made up his mind, he
+began with a preamble which lasted for quite five minutes. Fabrizio grew
+impatient, then said to himself: "After all, whose fault is it? It is
+due to our vanity, which this man has very well observed from his seat
+on the box." Lodovico's devotion at last impelled him to run the risk of
+speaking plainly.
+
+"What would not the Marchesa Raversi give to the messenger you are going
+to send to Parma to have these two letters? They are in your
+handwriting, and consequently furnish legal evidence against you. Your
+Excellency will take me for an inquisitive and indiscreet fellow; in the
+second place, he will perhaps feel ashamed of setting before the eyes of
+the Signora Duchessa the wretched handwriting of a coachman like myself;
+but after all, the thought of your safety opens my mouth, although you
+may think me impertinent. Could not Your Excellency dictate those two
+letters to me? Then I am the only person compromised, and that very
+little; I can say, at a pinch, that you appeared to me in the middle of
+a field with an inkhorn in one hand and a pistol in the other, and that
+you ordered me to write."
+
+"Give me your hand, my dear Lodovico," cried Fabrizio, "and to prove to
+you that I wish to have no secret from a friend like yourself, copy
+these two letters just as they are." Lodovico fully appreciated this
+mark of confidence, and was extremely grateful for it, but after writing
+a few lines, as he saw the boat coming rapidly downstream:
+
+"The letters will be finished sooner," he said to Fabrizio, "if Your
+Excellency will take the trouble to dictate them to me." The letters
+written, Fabrizio wrote an A and a B on the closing lines, and on a
+little scrap of paper which he afterwards crumpled up, put in French:
+"_Croyez A et B_." The messenger would be told to hide this scrap of
+paper in his clothing.
+
+The boat having come within hailing distance, Lodovico called to the
+boatmen by names which were not theirs; they made no reply, and put into
+the bank a thousand yards lower down, looking all round them to make
+sure that they had not been seen by some _doganiere_.
+
+"I am at your orders," said Lodovico to Fabrizio; "would you like me to
+take these letters myself to Parma? Or would you prefer me to accompany
+you to Ferrara?"
+
+"To accompany me to Ferrara is a service which I was hardly daring to
+ask of you. I shall have to land, and try to enter the town without
+shewing my passport. I may tell you that I feel the greatest repugnance
+towards travelling under the name of Giletti, and I can think of no one
+but yourself who would be able to buy me another passport."
+
+"Why didn't you speak at Casalmaggiore? I know a spy there who would
+have sold me an excellent passport, and not dear, for forty or fifty
+francs."
+
+One of the two boatmen, whose home was on the right bank of the Po, and
+who consequently had no need of a foreign passport to go to Parma,
+undertook to deliver the letters. Lodovico, who knew how to handle the
+oars, set to work to propel the boat with the other man.
+
+"We shall find on the lower reaches of the Po," he said, "several armed
+vessels belonging to the police, and I shall manage to avoid them." Ten
+times at least they were obliged to hide among little islets flush with
+the water, covered with willows. Three times they set foot on shore in
+order to let the boat drift past the police vessels empty. Lodovico took
+advantage of these long intervals of leisure to recite to Fabrizio
+several of his sonnets. The sentiments were true enough, but were so to
+speak blunted by his expression of them, and were not worth the trouble
+of putting them on paper; the curious thing was that this ex-coachman
+had passions and points of view that were vivid and picturesque; he
+became cold and commonplace as soon as he began to write. "It is the
+opposite of what we see in society," thought Fabrizio; "people know
+nowadays how to express everything gracefully, but their hearts have
+nothing to say." He realised that the greatest pleasure he could give to
+this faithful servant would be to correct the mistakes in spelling in
+his sonnets.
+
+"They laugh at me when I lend them my copy-book," said Lodovico; "but if
+Your Excellency would deign to dictate to me the spelling of the words
+letter by letter, the envious fellows wouldn't have anything left to
+say: spelling doesn't make genius." It was not until the third night of
+his journey that Fabrizio was able to land in complete safety in a
+thicket of alders, a league above Pontelagoscuro. All the next day he
+remained hidden in a hempfield, while Lodovico went ahead to Ferrara; he
+there took some humble lodgings in the house of a poor Jew, who at once
+realised that there was money to be earned if one knew how to keep one's
+mouth shut. That evening, as the light began to fail, Fabrizio entered
+Ferrara riding upon a pony; he had every need of this support, for he
+had been touched by the sun on the river; the knife-wound that he had in
+his thigh, and the sword-thrust that Giletti had given him in the
+shoulder, at the beginning of their duel, were inflamed and had brought
+on a fever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+
+The Jew, the owner of the house, 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 manœuvres 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 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-eight 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."
+
+
+
+
+_SAN PETRONIO_
+
+
+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 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 possible 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 of 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 Lodovico 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
+surprise, 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, Lodovico 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.
+
+"Oh! 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 hand 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE INQUIRY_
+
+
+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 Landriani. 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 ARCHBISHOP_
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+_MARIETTA_
+
+
+"Good God! You were at Ferrara! And there was I looking for 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 _Constitutionnel_, and that, since he was a complete stranger
+to everyone in Bologna, the gratification of vanity did not enter at all
+into his present happiness. When he was not with little Marietta, he was
+to be seen at the Observatory, where he was taking a course in
+astronomy; the Professor had formed a great affection for him, and
+Fabrizio used to lend him his ponies on Sundays, to cut a figure with
+his wife on the _Corso della Montagnola_.
+
+
+
+
+_THE MAMMACCIA_
+
+
+He loathed the idea of harming any living creature, however undeserving
+that creature might be. Marietta was resolutely opposed to his seeing
+the old woman, but one day, when she was at church, he went up to visit
+the _Mammaccia_, who flushed with anger when she saw him enter the room.
+"This is a case where one plays the del Dongo," he said to himself.
+
+"How much does Marietta earn in a month when she is working?" he cried,
+with the air with which a self-respecting young man, in Paris, enters
+the balcony at the Bouffes.
+
+"Fifty scudi."
+
+"You are lying, as usual; tell the truth, or, by God, you shall not have
+a centesimo!"
+
+"Very well, she was getting twenty-two scudi in our company at Parma,
+when we had the bad luck to meet you; I was getting twelve scudi, and we
+used to give Giletti, our protector, a third of what each of us earned.
+Out of which, every month almost, Giletti would make Marietta a present;
+the present might be worth a couple of scudi."
+
+"You're lying still; you never had more than four scudi. But if you are
+good to Marietta, I will engage you as though I were an _impresario_;
+every month you shall have twelve scudi for yourself and twenty-two for
+her; but if I see her with red eyes, I make you bankrupt."
+
+"You're very stiff and proud; very well, your fine generosity will be
+the ruin of us," replied the old woman in a furious tone; "we lose our
+_avviamento_" (our connexion). "When we have the enormous misfortune to
+be deprived of Your Excellency's protection, we shall no longer be known
+in any of the companies, they will all be filled up; we shall not find
+any engagement, and, all through you, we shall starve to death."
+
+"Go to the devil," said Fabrizio as he left the room.
+
+"I shall not go to the devil, you impious wretch! But I will go straight
+away to the police office, where they shall learn from me that you are a
+Monsignore who has flung his cassock to the winds, and that you are no
+more Giuseppe Bossi than I am." Fabrizio had already gone some way down
+the stairs. He returned.
+
+"In the first place, the police know better than you what my real name
+may be; but if you take it into your head to denounce me, if you do
+anything so infamous," he said to her with great seriousness, "Lodovico,
+shall talk to you, and it is not six slashes with the knife that your
+old carcass shall get, but two dozen, and you will be six months in
+hospital, and no tobacco."
+
+The old woman turned pale, and dashed at Fabrizio's hand, which she
+tried to kiss.
+
+"I accept with gratitude the provision that you are making for Marietta
+and me. You look so good that I took you for a fool; and, you bear in
+mind, others besides myself may make the same error; I advise you always
+to adopt a more noblemanly air." Then she added with an admirable
+impudence: "You will reflect upon this good advice, and, as the winter
+is not far off, you will make Marietta and me a present of two good
+jackets of that fine English stuff which they sell at the big shop in
+the Piazza San Petronio."
+
+The love of the pretty Marietta offered Fabrizio all the charms of the
+most delightful friendship, which set him dreaming of the happiness of
+the same order which he might have been finding in the Duchessa's
+company.
+
+"But is it not a very pleasant thing," he asked himself at times, "that
+I am not susceptible to that exclusive and passionate preoccupation
+which they call love? Among the intimacies into which chance has brought
+me at Novara or at Naples, have I ever met a woman whose company, even
+in the first few days, was to my mind preferable to riding a good horse
+that I did not know? What they call love," he went on, "can that be just
+another lie? I feel myself in love, no doubt, as I feel a good appetite
+at six o'clock! Can it be out of this slightly vulgar propensity that
+those liars have fashioned the love of Othello, the love of Tancred? Or
+am I indeed to suppose that I am constructed differently from other men?
+That my soul should be lacking in one passion, why should that be? It
+would be a singular destiny!"
+
+
+
+
+_THE DUCHESSA_
+
+
+At Naples, especially in the latter part of his time there, Fabrizio had
+met women who, proud of their rank, their beauty and the position held
+in society by the adorers whom they had sacrificed to him, had attempted
+to lead him. On discovering their intention, Fabrizio had broken with
+them in the most summary and open fashion. "Well," he said to himself,
+"if I ever allow myself to be carried away by the pleasure, which no
+doubt is extremely keen, of being on friendly terms with that charming
+woman who is known as the Duchessa Sanseverina, I shall be exactly like
+that stupid Frenchman who killed the goose that was laying the golden
+eggs. It is to the Duchessa that I owe the sole happiness which has ever
+come to me from sentiments of affection: my friendship for her is my
+life, and besides, without her, what am I? A poor exile reduced to
+living from hand to mouth in a tumble-down country house outside Novara.
+I remember how, during the heavy autumn rains, I used to be obliged, at
+night, for fear of accidents, to fix up an umbrella over the tester of
+my bed. I rode the agent's horses, which he was good enough to allow out
+of respect for my blue blood (for my influence, that is), but he was
+beginning to find my stay there a trifle long; my father had made me an
+allowance of twelve hundred francs, and thought himself damned for
+having given bread to a Jacobin. My poor mother and sisters let
+themselves go without new clothes to keep me in a position to make a few
+little presents to my mistresses. This way of being generous pierced me
+to the heart. And besides, people were beginning to suspect my poverty,
+and the young noblemen of the district would have been feeling sorry for
+me next. Sooner or later some prig would have let me see his contempt
+for a poor Jacobin whose plans had come to grief, for in those people's
+eyes I was nothing more than that. I should have given or received some
+doughty thrust with a sword which would have carried me off to the
+fortress of Fenestrelle, or else I should have been obliged to take
+refuge again in Switzerland, still on my allowance of twelve hundred
+francs. I have the good fortune to be indebted to the Duchessa for the
+absence of all these evils; besides, it is she who feels for me the
+transports of affection which I ought to be feeling for her.
+
+"Instead of that ridiculous, pettifogging existence which would have
+made me a sad dog, a fool, for the last four years I have been living in
+a big town, and have an excellent carriage, which things have preserved
+me from feelings of envy and all the base sentiments of a provincial
+life. This too indulgent aunt is always scolding me because I do not
+draw enough money from the banker. Do I wish to ruin for all time so
+admirable a position? Do I wish to lose the one friend that I have in
+the world? All I need do is to utter a _falsehood_; all I need do is to
+say to a charming woman, a woman who is perhaps without a counterpart in
+the world, and for whom I feel the most passionate friendship: '_I love
+you_,' I who do not know what it is to love amorously. She would spend
+the day finding fault with me for the absence of these transports which
+are unknown to me. Marietta, on the other hand, who does not see into my
+heart, and takes a caress for a transport of the soul, thinks me madly
+in love and looks upon herself as the most fortunate of women.
+
+"As a matter of fact, the only slight acquaintance I have ever had with
+that tender obsession which is called, I believe, _love_, was with that
+young Aniken in the inn at Zonders, near the Belgian frontier."
+
+
+
+
+_FAUSTA_
+
+
+It is with regret that we have to record here one of Fabrizio's worst
+actions; in the midst of this tranquil life, a wretched _pique_ of
+vanity took possession of this heart rebellious to love and led it far
+astray. Simultaneously with himself there happened to be at Bologna the
+famous Fausta F----, unquestionably one of the finest singers of the day
+and perhaps the most capricious woman that was ever seen. The excellent
+poet Burati, of Venice, had composed the famous satirical sonnet about
+her, which at that time was to be heard on the lips alike of princes and
+of the meanest street Arabs:
+
+
+"To wish and not to wish, to adore and on the same day to detest, to
+find contentment only in inconstancy, to scorn what the world worships,
+while the world worships it: Fausta has these defects and many more.
+Look not therefore upon that serpent. If thou seest her, imprudent man,
+thou forgettest her caprices. Hast thou the happiness to hear her voice,
+thou dost forget thyself, and love makes of thee, in a moment, what
+Circe in days of yore made of the companions of Ulysses."
+
+
+For the moment, this miracle of beauty had come under the spell of the
+enormous whiskers and haughty insolence of the young Conte M-----, to
+such an extent as not to be revolted by his abominable jealousy.
+Fabrizio saw this Conte in the streets of Bologna and was shocked by the
+air of superiority with which he took up the pavement and deigned to
+display his graces to the public. This young man was extremely rich,
+imagined that everything was permitted him, and, as his _prepotenze_ had
+brought him threats of punishment, never appeared in public save with
+the escort of nine or ten _buli_ (a sort of cut-throat) clad in his
+livery, whom he had brought from his estates in the environs of Brescia.
+Fabrizio's eye had met once or twice that of this terrible Conte, when
+chance led him to hear Fausta sing. He was astonished by the angelic
+sweetness of her voice: he had never imagined anything like it; he was
+indebted to it for sensations of supreme happiness, which made a
+pleasing contrast to the _placidity_ of his life at the time. Could this
+at last be love? he asked himself. Thoroughly curious to taste that
+sentiment, and amused moreover by the thought of braving Conte M----,
+whose expression was more terrifying than that of any drum-major, our
+hero let himself fall into the childish habit of passing a great deal
+too often in front of the _palazzo_ Tanari, which Conte M---- had taken
+for Fausta.
+
+One day, as night was beginning to fall, Fabrizio, seeking to catch
+Fausta's eye, was greeted by peals of laughter of the most pointed kind
+proceeding from the Conte's _buli_, who were assembled by the door of
+the _palazzo_ Tanari. He hastened home, armed himself well, and again
+passed before the _palazzo_. Fausta, concealed behind her shutters, was
+awaiting his return, and gave him due credit for it. M----, jealous of
+the whole world, became specially jealous of Signor Giuseppe Bossi, and
+indulged in ridiculous utterances; whereupon every morning our hero had
+delivered at his door a letter which contained only these words:
+
+"Signor Giuseppe Bossi destroys troublesome insects and is staying at
+the Pellegrino, Via Larga, No. 79."
+
+Conte M----, accustomed to the respect which was everywhere assured him
+by his enormous fortune, his blue blood and the physical courage of his
+thirty servants, declined altogether to understand the language of this
+little missive.
+
+Fabrizio wrote others of the sort to Fausta; M---- posted spies round
+this rival, who perhaps was not unattractive; first of all, he learned
+his true name, and later that, for the present, he could not shew his
+face at Parma. A few days after this, Conte M----, his _buli_, his
+magnificent horses and Fausta set off together for Parma.
+
+Fabrizio, becoming excited, followed them next day. In vain did the good
+Lodovico utter pathetic remonstrances: Fabrizio turned a deaf ear, and
+Lodovico, who was himself extremely brave, admired him for it; besides,
+this removal brought him nearer to the pretty mistress he had left at
+Casalmaggiore. Through Lodovico's efforts, nine or ten old soldiers of
+Napoleon's regiments re-enlisted under Signor Giuseppe Bossi, in the
+capacity of servants. "Provided," Fabrizio told himself, when committing
+the folly of going after Fausta, "that I have no communication either
+with the Minister of Police, Conte Mosca, or with the Duchessa, I expose
+only myself to risk. I shall explain later on to my aunt that I was
+going in search of love, that beautiful thing which I have never
+encountered. The fact is that I think of Fausta even when I am not
+looking at her. But is it the memory of her voice that I love, or her
+person?" Having ceased to think of an ecclesiastical career, Fabrizio
+had grown a pair of moustaches and whiskers almost as terrible as those
+of Conte M----, and these disguised him to some extent. He set up his
+headquarters not at Parma--that would have been too imprudent--but in a
+neighbouring village, in the woods, on the road to Sacca, where his aunt
+had her country house. Following Lodovico's advice, he gave himself out
+in this village as the valet of a great English nobleman of original
+tastes, who spent a hundred thousand francs a year on providing himself
+with the pleasures of the chase, and would arrive shortly from the Lake
+of Como, where he was detained by the trout-fishing. Fortunately for
+him, the charming little _palazzo_ which Conte M---- had taken for the
+fair Fausta was situated at the southern extremity of the city of Parma,
+precisely on the road to Sacca, and Fausta's windows looked out over the
+fine avenues of tall trees which extend beneath the high tower of the
+citadel. Fabrizio was completely unknown in this little frequented
+quarter; he did not fail to have Conte M---- followed, and one day when
+that gentleman had just emerged from the admirable singer's door, he had
+the audacity to appear in the street in broad daylight; it must be
+admitted that he was mounted upon an excellent horse, and well armed. A
+party of musicians, of the sort that frequent the streets in Italy and
+are sometimes excellent, came and planted their viols under Fausta's
+window; after playing a prelude they sang, and quite well too, a cantata
+composed in her honour. Fausta came to the window and had no difficulty
+in distinguishing a young man of extremely polite manners, who, stopping
+his horse in the middle of the street, bowed to her first of all, then
+began to direct at her a gaze that could have but one meaning. In spite
+of the exaggeratedly English costume adopted by Fabrizio, she soon
+recognised the author of the passionate letters that had brought about
+her departure from Bologna. "That is a curious creature," she said to
+herself; "it seems to me that I am going to fall in love with him. I
+have a hundred louis in hand, I can quite well give that terrible Conte
+M---- the slip; if it comes to that, he has no spirit, he never does
+anything unexpected, and is only slightly amusing because of the
+bloodthirsty appearance of his escort."
+
+On the following day Fabrizio, having learned that every morning at
+eleven o'clock Fausta went to hear mass in the centre of the town, in
+that same church of San Giovanni which contained the tomb of his
+great-uncle, Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo, made bold to follow her
+there. To tell the truth, Lodovico had procured him a fine English wig
+with hair of the most becoming red. Inspired by the colour of his wig,
+which was that of the flames that were devouring his heart, he composed
+a sonnet which Fausta thought charming; an unseen hand had taken care to
+place it upon her piano. This little war lasted for quite a week; but
+Fabrizio found that, in spite of the steps he was taking in every
+direction, he was making no real progress; Fausta refused to see him. He
+strained the effect of singularity; she admitted afterwards that she was
+afraid of him. Fabrizio was kept going now only by a faint hope of
+coming to feel what is known as _love_, but frequently he felt bored.
+
+"Let us leave this place, Signore," Lodovico used to urge him; "you are
+not in the least in love: I can see that you have the most desperate
+coolness and commonsense. Besides, you are making no headway; if only
+for shame, let us clear out." Fabrizio was ready to go at the first
+moment of ill-humour, when he heard that Fausta was to sing at the
+Duchessa Sanseverina's. "Perhaps that sublime voice will succeed in
+softening my heart," he said to himself; and he actually ventured to
+penetrate in disguise into that _palazzo_ where he was known to every
+eye. We may imagine the Duchessa's emotion, when right at the end of the
+concert, she noticed a man in the full livery of a _chasseur_, standing
+by the door of the big drawing-room: that pose reminded her of someone.
+She went to look for Conte Mosca, who only then informed her of the
+signal and truly incredible folly of Fabrizio. He took it extremely
+well. This love for another than the Duchessa pleased him greatly; the
+Conte, a perfect _galantuomo_, apart from politics, acted upon the maxim
+that he could himself find happiness only so long as the Duchessa was
+happy. "I shall save him from himself," he said to his mistress; "judge
+of our enemies' joy if he were arrested in this _palazzo_! Also I have
+more than a hundred men with me here, and that is why I made them ask
+you for the keys of the great reservoir. He gives out that he is madly
+in love with Fausta, and up to the present has failed to get her away
+from Conte M----, who lets the foolish woman live the life of a queen."
+The Duchessa's features betrayed the keenest grief; so Fabrizio was
+nothing more than a libertine, utterly incapable of any tender and
+serious feeling. "And not to come and see us! That is what I shall never
+be able to forgive him!" she said at length; "and I writing to him every
+day to Bologna!"
+
+"I greatly admire his restraint," replied the Conte; "he does not wish
+to compromise us by his escapade, and it will be amusing to hear him
+tell us about it."
+
+Fausta was too great a fool to be able to keep quiet about what was on
+her mind; the day after the concert, every melody in which her eyes had
+addressed to that tall young man dressed as a _chasseur_, she spoke to
+Conte M---- of an unknown admirer. "Where do you see him?" asked the
+Conte in a fury. "In the streets, in church," replied Fausta, at a loss
+for words. At once she sought to atone for her imprudence, or at least
+to eliminate from it anything that could suggest Fabrizio: she dashed
+into an endless description of a tall young man with red hair; he had
+blue eyes; no doubt he was some Englishman, very rich and very awkward,
+or some prince. At this word Conte M----, who did not shine in the
+accuracy of his perceptions, conceived the idea, deliciously flattering
+to his vanity, that this rival was none other than the Crown Prince of
+Parma. This poor melancholy young man, guarded by five or six governors,
+under-governors, preceptors, etc., etc., who never allowed him out of
+doors until they had first held council together, used to cast strange
+glances at all the passable women whom he was permitted to approach. At
+the Duchessa's concert, his rank had placed him in front of all the rest
+of the audience in an isolated armchair within three yards of the fair
+Fausta, and his stare had been supremely shocking to Conte M----. This
+hallucination of an exquisite vanity, that he had a Prince for a rival,
+greatly amused Fausta, who took delight in confirming it with a hundred
+details artlessly supplied.
+
+"Your race," she asked the Conte, "is surely as old as that of the
+Farnese, to which this young man belongs?"
+
+"What do you mean? As old? I have no bastardy in my family, thank
+you."[11]
+
+As luck would have it, Conte M---- never had an opportunity of studying
+this pretended rival at his leisure, which confirmed him in the
+flattering idea of his having a Prince for antagonist. The fact was that
+whenever the interests of his enterprise did not summon Fabrizio to
+Parma, he remained in the woods round Sacca and on the bank of the Po.
+Conte M---- was indeed more proud, but was also more prudent since he
+had imagined himself to be on the way to disputing the heart of Fausta
+with a Prince; he begged her very seriously to observe the greatest
+restraint in all her doings. After flinging himself on his knees like a
+jealous and impassioned lover, he declared to her in so many words that
+his honour was involved in her not being made the dupe of the young
+Prince.
+
+"Excuse me, I should not be his dupe if I cared for him; I must say, I
+have never yet seen a Prince at my feet."
+
+"If you yield," he went on with a haughty stare, "I may not perhaps be
+able to avenge myself on the Prince but I will, most assuredly, be
+avenged"; and he went out, slamming the doors behind him. Had Fabrizio
+presented himself at that moment, he would have won his cause.
+
+"If you value your life," her lover said to her that evening as he bade
+her good night after the performance, "see that it never comes to my
+ears that the young Prince has been inside your house. I can do nothing
+to him, curse him, but do not make me remember that I can do everything
+to you!"
+
+"Ah, my little Fabrizio," cried Fausta, "if I only knew where to find
+you!"
+
+Wounded vanity may carry a young man far who is rich and from his cradle
+has always been surrounded by flatterers. The very genuine passion that
+Conte M---- felt for Fausta revived with furious intensity; it was in no
+way checked by the dangerous prospect of his coming into conflict with
+the only son of the Sovereign in whose dominions he happened to be
+staying; at the same time he had not the courage to try to see this
+Prince, or at least to have him followed. Not being able to attack him
+in any other way, M---- dared to consider making him ridiculous. "I
+shall be banished for ever from the States of Parma," he said to
+himself; "Pshaw! What does that matter?" Had he sought to reconnoitre
+the enemy's position, he would have learned that the poor young Prince
+never went out of doors without being followed by three or four old men,
+tiresome guardians of etiquette, and that the one pleasure of his choice
+that was permitted him in the world was mineralogy. By day, as by night,
+the little _palazzo_ occupied by Fausta, to which the best society of
+Parma went in crowds, was surrounded by watchers; M---- knew, hour by
+hour, what she was doing, and, more important still, what others were
+doing round about her. There is this to be said in praise of the
+precautions taken by her jealous lover: this eminently capricious woman
+had at first no idea of the multiplication of his vigilance. The reports
+of all his agents informed Conte M---- that a very young man, wearing a
+wig of red hair, appeared very often beneath Fausta's windows, but
+always in a different disguise. "Evidently, it is the young Prince,"
+thought M---- "otherwise, why the disguise? And, by gad, a man like me
+is not made to give way to him. But for the usurpations of the Venetian
+Republic, I should be a Sovereign Prince myself."
+
+On the feast of Santo Stefano, the reports of the spies took on a more
+sombre hue; they seemed to indicate that Fausta was beginning to respond
+to the stranger's advances. "I can go away this instant, and take the
+woman with me!" M---- said to himself; "but no! At Bologna I fled from
+del Dongo; here I should be fleeing before a Prince. But what could the
+young man say? He might think that he had succeeded in making me afraid.
+And, by God, I come of as good a family as he." M----- was furious, but,
+to crown his misery, he made a particular point of not letting himself
+appear in the eyes of Fausta, whom he knew to be of a mocking spirit, in
+the ridiculous character of a jealous lover. On Santo Stefano's day,
+then, after having spent an hour with her and been welcomed by her with
+an ardour which seemed to him the height of insincerity, he left her,
+shortly before eleven o'clock, getting ready to go and hear mass in the
+church of San Giovanni. Conte M---- returned home, put on the shabby
+black coat of a young student of theology, and hastened to San Giovanni;
+he chose a place behind one of the tombs that adorn the third chapel on
+the right; he could see everything that went on in the church beneath
+the arm of a cardinal who is represented as kneeling upon his tomb; this
+statue kept the light from the back of the chapel and gave him
+sufficient concealment. Presently he saw Fausta arrive, more beautiful
+than ever. She was in full array, and a score of admirers, drawn from
+the highest ranks of society, furnished her with an escort. Joyous
+smiles broke from her eyes and lips. "It is evident," thought the
+jealous wretch, "that she counts upon meeting here the man she loves,
+whom for a long time, perhaps, thanks to me, she has been prevented from
+seeing." Suddenly, the keen look of happiness in her eyes seemed to
+double in intensity; "My rival is here," muttered M----, and the fury of
+his outraged vanity knew no bounds. "What sort of figure do I cut here,
+serving as pendant to a young Prince in disguise?" But despite every
+effort on his part, he could never succeed in identifying this rival,
+for whom his famished gaze kept seeking in every direction.
+
+All through the service Fausta, after letting her eyes wander over the
+whole church, would end by bringing her gaze to rest, charged with love
+and happiness, on the dim corner in which M---- was concealed. In an
+impassioned heart, love is liable to exaggerate the slightest shades of
+meaning, it draws from them the most ridiculous conclusions; did not
+poor M---- end by persuading himself that Fausta had seen him, that,
+having in spite of his efforts perceived his deadly jealousy, she wished
+to reproach him with it and at the same time to console him for it with
+these tender glances?
+
+The tomb of the cardinal, behind which M---- had taken his post of
+observation, was raised four or five feet above the marble floor of San
+Giovanni. The fashionable mass ending about one o'clock, the majority of
+the faithful left the church, and Fausta dismissed the _beaux_ of the
+town, on a pretext of devotion; as she remained kneeling on her chair,
+her eyes, which had grown more tender and more brilliant, were fixed on
+M----; since there were now only a few people left in the building, she
+no longer put her eyes to the trouble of ranging over the whole of it
+before coming joyfully to rest on the cardinal's statue. "What
+delicacy!" thought Conte M----, imagining that he was the object of her
+gaze. At length Fausta rose and quickly left the church after first
+making some odd movements with her hands.
+
+M----, blind with love and almost entirely relieved of his mad jealousy,
+had left his post to fly to his mistress's _palazzo_ and thank her a
+thousand, thousand times, when, as he passed in front of the cardinal's
+tomb, he noticed a young man all in black: this funereal being had
+remained until then on his knees, close against the epitaph on the tomb,
+in such a position that the eyes of the jealous lover, in their search
+for him, must pass over his head and miss him altogether.
+
+This young man rose, moved briskly away, and was immediately surrounded
+by seven or eight persons, somewhat clumsy in their gait, of a singular
+appearance, who seemed to belong to him. M----- hurried after him, but,
+without any marked sign of obstruction, was stopped in the narrow
+passage formed by the wooden drum of the door, by these clumsy men who
+were protecting his rival; and when finally, at the tail of their
+procession, he reached the street, he was in time only to see someone
+shut the door of a carriage of humble aspect, which, by an odd contrast,
+was drawn by a pair of excellent horses, and in a moment had passed out
+of sight.
+
+He returned home panting with fury; presently there arrived his
+watchers, who reported impassively that that morning the mysterious
+lover, disguised as a priest, had been kneeling in an attitude of great
+devotion against a tomb which stood in the entrance of a dark chapel in
+the church of San Giovanni. Fausta had remained in the church until it
+was almost empty, and had then rapidly exchanged certain signs with the
+stranger; with her hands she had seemed to be making a series of
+crosses. M---- hastened to the faithless one's house; for the first time
+she could not conceal her uneasiness; she told him, with the artless
+mendacity of a passionate woman that, as usual, she had gone to San
+Giovanni, but that she had seen no sign there of that man who was
+persecuting her. On hearing these words, M----, beside himself with
+rage, railed at her as at the vilest of creatures, told her everything
+that he had seen himself, and, the boldness of her lies increasing with
+the force of his accusations, took his dagger and flung himself upon
+her. With great coolness Fausta said to him:
+
+"Very well, everything you complain of is the absolute truth, but I have
+tried to keep it from you so that you should not go rushing desperately
+into mad plans of vengeance which may ruin us both; for, let me tell you
+once for all, as far as I can make out, the man who is persecuting me
+with his attentions is one who is accustomed not to meet with any
+opposition to his wishes, in this country at any rate." Having very
+skilfully reminded M---- that, after all, he had no legal authority over
+her, Fausta ended by saying that probably she would not go again to the
+church of San Giovanni. M---- was desperately in love; a trace of
+coquetry had perhaps combined itself with prudence in the young woman's
+heart; he felt himself disarmed. He thought of leaving Parma; the young
+Prince, however powerful he might be, could not follow him, or if he did
+follow him would cease to be anything more than his equal. But pride
+represented to him afresh that this departure must inevitably have the
+appearance of a flight, and Conte M---- forbade himself to think of it.
+
+"He has no suspicion that my little Fabrizio is here," the singer said
+to herself, delighted, "and now we can make a fool of him in the most
+priceless fashion!"
+
+Fabrizio had no inkling of his good fortune; finding next day that the
+singer's windows were carefully shuttered, and not seeing her anywhere,
+he began to feel that the joke was lasting rather too long. He felt some
+remorse. "In what sort of position am I putting that poor Conte Mosca,
+and he the Minister of Police! They will think he is my accomplice, I
+shall have come to this place to ruin his career! But if I abandon a
+project I have been following for so long, what will the Duchessa say
+when I tell her of my essays in love?"
+
+One evening when, on the point of giving up everything, he was
+moralising thus to himself, as he strolled under the tall trees which
+divided Fausta's _palazzo_ from the citadel, he observed that he was
+being followed by a spy of diminutive stature; in vain did he attempt to
+shake him off by turning down various streets, this microscopic being
+seemed always to cling to his heels. Growing impatient, he dashed into a
+lonely street running along the bank of the Parma, where his men were
+ambushed; on a signal from him they leaped out upon the poor little spy,
+who flung himself at their feet; it was Bettina, Fausta's maid; after
+three days of boredom and seclusion, disguised as a man to escape the
+dagger of Conte M----, of whom her mistress and she were in great dread,
+she had undertaken to come out and tell Fabrizio to see someone loved
+him passionately and was burning to see him, but that the said person
+could not appear any more in the church of San Giovanni. "The time has
+come," Fabrizio said to himself, "hurrah for persistence!"
+
+The little maid was exceedingly pretty, a fact which took Fabrizio's
+mind from his moralisings. She told him that the avenue and all the
+streets through which he had passed that evening were being jealously
+watched, though quite unobtrusively, by M----'s spies. They had taken
+rooms on the ground floors or on the first storeys of the houses; hidden
+behind the shutters and keeping absolutely silent, they observed
+everything that went on in the apparently quite deserted street, and
+heard all that was said.
+
+"If those spies had recognised my voice," said little Bettina, "I should
+have been stabbed without mercy as soon as I got back to the house, and
+my poor mistress with me, perhaps."
+
+This terror rendered her charming in Fabrizio's eyes.
+
+"Conte M----," she went on, "is furious, and the Signora knows that he
+will stick at nothing. . . . She told me to say to you that she would
+like to be a hundred leagues away from here with you."
+
+Then she gave an account of the scene on St. Stephen's day, and of the
+fury of M----, who had missed none of the glances and signs of affection
+which Fausta, madly in love that day with Fabrizio, had directed towards
+him. The Conte had drawn his dagger, had seized Fausta by the hair, and,
+but for her presence of mind, she must have perished.
+
+Fabrizio made the pretty Bettina come up to a little apartment which he
+had near there. He told her that he came from Turin, and was the son of
+an important personage who happened at that moment to be in Parma, which
+meant that he had to be most careful in his movements. Bettina replied
+with a smile that he was a far grander gentleman than he chose to
+appear. It took our hero some little time to realise that the charming
+girl took him for no less a personage than the Crown Prince himself.
+Fausta was beginning to be frightened, and to love Fabrizio; she had
+taken the precaution of not mentioning his name to her maid, but of
+speaking to her always of the Prince. Finally Fabrizio admitted to the
+pretty girl that she had guessed aright: "But if my name gets out," he
+added, "in spite of the great passion of which I have furnished your
+mistress with so many proofs, I shall be obliged to cease to see her,
+and at once my father's Ministers, those rascally jokers whom I shall
+bring down from their high places some day, will not fail to send her an
+order to quit the country which up to now she has been adorning with her
+presence."
+
+Towards morning, Fabrizio arranged with the little lady's maid a number
+of plans by which he might gain admission to Fausta's house. He summoned
+Lodovico and another of his retainers, a man of great cunning, who came
+to an understanding with Bettina while he himself wrote the most
+extravagant letter to Fausta; the situation allowed all the
+exaggerations of tragedy, and Fabrizio did not miss the opportunity. It
+was not until day was breaking that he parted from the little lady's
+maid, whom he left highly satisfied with the ways of the young Prince.
+
+It had been repeated a hundred times over that, Fausta having now come
+to an understanding with her lover, the latter was no longer to pass to
+and fro beneath the windows of the little _palazzo_ except when he could
+be admitted there, and that then a signal would be given. But Fabrizio,
+in love with Bettina, and believing himself to have come almost to the
+point with Fausta, could not confine himself to his village two leagues
+outside Parma. The following evening, about midnight, he came on
+horseback and with a good escort to sing under Fausta's windows an air
+then in fashion, the words of which he altered. "Is not this the way in
+which our friends the lovers behave?" he asked himself.
+
+Now that Fausta had shewn a desire to meet him, all this pursuit seemed
+to Fabrizio very tedious. "No, I am not really in love in the least," he
+assured himself as he sang (none too well) beneath the windows of the
+little _palazzo_; "Bettina seems to me a hundred times preferable to
+Fausta, and it is by her that I should like to be received at this
+moment." Fabrizio, distinctly bored, was returning to his village when,
+five hundred yards from Fausta's _palazzo_, fifteen or twenty men flung
+themselves upon him; four of them seized his horse by the bridle, two
+others took hold of his arms. Lodovico and Fabrizio's _bravi_ were
+attacked, but managed to escape; they fired several shots with their
+pistols. All this was the affair of an instant: fifty lighted torches
+appeared in the street in the twinkling of an eye, as though by magic.
+All these men were well armed. Fabrizio had jumped down from his horse
+in spite of the men who were holding him; he tried to clear a space
+round him; he even wounded one of the men who was gripping his arms in
+hands like a pair of vices; but he was greatly surprised to hear this
+man say to him, in the most respectful tone:
+
+"Your Highness will give me a good pension for this wound, which will be
+better for me than falling into the crime of high treason by drawing my
+sword against my Prince."
+
+"So this is the punishment I get for my folly," thought Fabrizio; "I
+shall have damned myself for a sin which did not seem to me in the least
+attractive."
+
+Scarcely had this little attempt at a battle finished, when a number of
+lackeys in full livery appeared with a sedan-chair gilded and painted in
+an odd fashion. It was one of those grotesque chairs used by masked
+revellers at carnival time. Six men, with daggers in their hands,
+requested His Highness to get into it, telling him that the cold night
+air might be injurious to his voice: they affected the most reverential
+forms, the title "Prince" being every moment repeated and almost
+shouted. The procession began to move on. Fabrizio counted in the street
+more than fifty men carrying lighted torches. It might be about one
+o'clock in the morning; all the populace was gazing out of the windows,
+the whole thing went off with a certain gravity. "I was afraid of
+dagger-thrusts on Conte M----'s part," Fabrizio said to himself; "he
+contents himself with making a fool of me; I had not suspected him of
+such good taste. But does he really think that he has the Prince to deal
+with? If he knows that I am only Fabrizio, ware the dirk!"
+
+These fifty men carrying torches and the twenty armed men, after
+stopping for a long interval under Fausta's windows, proceeded to parade
+before the finest _palazzi_ in the town. A pair of _maggiordomi_ posted
+one on either side of the sedan-chair, asked His Highness from time to
+time whether he had any order to give them. Fabrizio took care not to
+lose his head; by the light which the torches cast he saw that Lodovico
+and his men were following the procession as closely as possible.
+Fabrizio said to himself: "Lodovico has only nine or ten men, and dares
+not attack." From the interior of his sedan-chair he could see quite
+plainly that the men responsible for carrying out this practical joke
+were armed to the teeth. He made a show of talking and laughing with the
+_maggiordomi_ who were looking after him. After more than two hours of
+this triumphal march, he saw that they were about to pass the end of the
+street in which the _palazzo_ Sanseverina stood.
+
+As they turned the corner, he quickly opened the door in the front of
+the chair, jumped out over one of the carrying poles, felled with a blow
+from his dagger one of the flunkeys who thrust a torch into his face; he
+received a stab in the shoulder from a dirk; a second flunkey singed his
+beard with his lighted torch, and finally Fabrizio reached Lodovico to
+whom he shouted: "Kill! Kill everyone carrying a torch!" Lodovico used
+his sword, and delivered Fabrizio from two men who had started in
+pursuit of him. He arrived, running, at the door of the _palazzo_
+Sanseverina; out of curiosity the porter had opened the little door,
+three feet high, that was cut in the big door, and was gazing in
+bewilderment at this great mass of torches. Fabrizio sprang inside and
+shut this miniature door behind him; he ran to the garden and escaped by
+a gate which opened on to an unfrequented street. An hour later, he was
+out of the town; at daybreak he crossed the frontier of the States of
+Modena, and was safe. That evening he entered Bologna. "Here is a fine
+expedition," he said to himself; "I never even managed to speak to my
+charmer." He made haste to write letters of apology to the Conte and the
+Duchessa, prudent letters which, while describing all that was going on
+in his heart, could not give away any information to an enemy. "I was in
+love with love," he said to the Duchessa, "I have done everything in the
+world to acquire knowledge of it; but it appears that nature has refused
+me a heart to love, and to be melancholy; I cannot raise myself above
+the level of vulgar pleasure," and so forth.
+
+It would be impossible to give any idea of the stir that this escapade
+caused in Parma. The mystery of it excited curiosity: innumerable people
+had seen the torches and the sedan-chair. But who was the man they were
+carrying away, to whom every mark of respect was paid? No one of note
+was missing from the town next day.
+
+The humble folk who lived in the street from which the prisoner had made
+his escape did indeed say that they had seen a corpse; but in daylight,
+when they ventured out of their houses, they found no other traces of
+the fray than quantities of blood spilled on the pavement. More than
+twenty thousand sightseers came to visit the street that day. Italian
+towns are accustomed to singular spectacles, but the _why_ and the
+_wherefore_ of these are always known. What shocked Parma about this
+occurrence was that even a month afterwards, when people had ceased to
+speak of nothing but the torchlight procession, nobody, thanks to the
+prudence of Conte Mosca, had been able to guess the name of the rival
+who had sought to carry off Fausta, from Conte M----. This jealous and
+vindictive lover had taken flight at the beginning of the parade. By the
+Conte's order. Fausta was sent to the citadel. The Duchessa laughed
+heartily over a little act of injustice which the Conte was obliged to
+commit to put a stop to the curiosity of the Prince, who otherwise might
+have succeeded in hitting upon the name of Fabrizio.
+
+There was to be seen at Parma a scholar, arrived there from the North to
+write a History of the Middle Ages; he was in search of manuscripts in
+the libraries, and the Conte had given him every possible facility. But
+this scholar, who was still quite young, shewed a violent temper; he
+believed, for one thing, that everybody in Parma was trying to make a
+fool of him. It was true that the boys in the streets sometimes followed
+him on account of an immense shock of bright red hair which he displayed
+with pride. This scholar imagined that at his inn they were asking
+exaggerated prices for everything, and he never paid for the smallest
+trifle without first looking up its price in the _Travels_ of a certain
+Mrs. Starke, a book which has gone into its twentieth edition because it
+indicates to the prudent Englishman the price of a turkey, an apple, a
+glass of milk, and so forth.
+
+The scholar with the fiery crest, on the evening of the very day on
+which Fabrizio made this forced excursion, flew into a rage at his inn,
+and drew from his pocket a brace of small pistols to avenge himself on
+the _cameriere_ who demanded two soldi for an indifferent peach. He was
+arrested, for to carry pocket pistols is a serious crime!
+
+As this irascible scholar was long and lean, the Conte conceived the
+idea, next morning, of making him pass in the Prince's eyes as the rash
+fellow who, having tried to steal away Fausta from Conte M----, had
+afterwards been hoaxed. The carrying of pocket pistols is punishable at
+Parma with three years in the galleys; but this punishment is never
+enforced. After a fortnight in prison, during which time the scholar had
+seen no one but a lawyer who had put in him a terrible fright by his
+account of the atrocious laws aimed by the pusillanimity of those in
+power against the bearers of hidden arms, another lawyer visited the
+prison and told him of the expedition inflicted by Conte M---- on a
+rival who had not yet been identified. "The police do not wish to admit
+to the Prince that they have not been able to find out who this rival
+is. Confess that you were seeking to find favour with Fausta; that fifty
+brigands carried you off while you were singing beneath her window; that
+for an hour they took you about the town in a sedan-chair without saying
+anything to you that was not perfectly proper. There is nothing
+humiliating about this confession, you are asked to say only one word.
+As soon as, by saying it, you have relieved the police from their
+difficulty, you will be put into a post-chaise and driven to the
+frontier, where they will bid you good-bye."
+
+The scholar held out for a month; two or three times the Prince was on
+the point of having him brought to the Ministry of the Interior, and of
+being present in person at his examination. But at last he gave no more
+thought to the matter when the scholar, losing patience, decided to
+confess everything, and was conveyed to the frontier. The Prince
+remained convinced that Conte M----'s rival had a forest of red hair.
+
+Three days after the escapade, while Fabrizio, who was in hiding at
+Bologna, was planning with the faithful Lodovico the best way to catch
+Conte M----, he learned that he too was hiding in a village in the
+mountains on the road to Florence. The Conte had only two or three of
+his _buli_ with him; next day, just as he was coming home from his ride,
+he was seized by eight men in masks who gave him to understand that they
+were _sbirri_ from Parma. They conducted him, after bandaging his eyes,
+to an inn two leagues farther up the mountains, where he found himself
+treated with the utmost possible respect, and an abundant supper
+awaiting him. He was served with the best wines of Italy and Spain.
+
+"Am I a State prisoner then?" asked the Conte.
+
+"Nothing of the sort," the masked Lodovico answered him, most politely.
+"You have given offence to a private citizen by taking upon yourself to
+have him carried about in a sedan-chair; to-morrow morning he wishes to
+fight a duel with you. If you kill him, you will find a pair of good
+horses, money, and relays prepared for you along the road to Genoa."
+
+"What is the name of this fire-eater?" asked the Conte with irritation.
+
+"He is called _Bombace_. You will have the choice of weapons and good
+seconds, thoroughly loyal, but it is essential that one of you die!"
+
+"Why, it is murder, then!" said the Conte; growing frightened.
+
+"Please God, no! It is simply a duel to the death with the young man
+whom you have had carried about the streets of Parma in the middle of
+the night, and whose honour would be tarnished if you remained alive.
+One or other of you is superfluous on this earth, therefore try to kill
+him; you shall have swords, pistols, sabres, all the weapons that can be
+procured at a few hours' notice, for we have to make haste; the police
+at Bologna are most diligent, as you perhaps know, and they must on no
+account interfere with this duel which is necessary to the honour of the
+young man whom you have made to look foolish."
+
+"But if this young man is a Prince. . . ."
+
+"He is a private citizen like yourself, and indeed a great deal less
+wealthy than you, but he wishes to fight to the death, and he will force
+you to fight, I warn you."
+
+"Nothing in the world frightens me!" cried M----.
+
+"That is just what your adversary most passionately desires," replied
+Lodovico. "To-morrow, at dawn, prepare to defend your life; it will be
+attacked by a man who has good reason to be extremely angry, and will
+not let you off lightly; I repeat that you will have the choice of
+weapons; and remember to make your will."
+
+Next morning, about six o'clock, breakfast was brought to Conte M----, a
+door was then opened in the room in which he was confined, and he was
+made to step into the courtyard of a country inn; this courtyard was
+surrounded by hedges and walls of a certain height, and its doors had
+been carefully closed.
+
+In a corner, upon a table which the Conte was requested to approach, he
+found several bottles of wine and brandy, two pistols, two swords, two
+sabres, paper and ink; a score of _contadini_ stood in the windows of
+the inn which overlooked the courtyard. The Conte implored their pity.
+"They want to murder me," he cried, "save my life!"
+
+"You deceive yourself, or you wish to deceive others," called out
+Fabrizio, who was at the opposite corner of the courtyard, beside a table
+strewn with weapons. He was in his shirtsleeves, and his face was
+concealed by one of those wire masks which one finds in fencing-rooms.
+
+"I require you," Fabrizio went on, "to put on the wire mask which is
+lying beside you, then to advance towards me with a sword or with
+pistols; as you were told yesterday evening, you have the choice of
+weapons."
+
+Conte M---- raised endless difficulties, and seemed most reluctant to
+fight; Fabrizio, for his part, was afraid of the arrival of the police,
+although they were in the mountains quite five leagues from Bologna. He
+ended by hurling at his rival the most atrocious insults; at last he had
+the good fortune to enrage Conte M----, who seized a sword and advanced
+upon him. The fight began quietly enough.
+
+After a few minutes, it was interrupted by a great tumult. Our hero had
+been quite aware that he was involving himself in an action which, for
+the rest of his life, might be a subject of reproach or at least of
+slanderous imputations. He had sent Lodovico into the country to procure
+witnesses. Lodovico gave money to some strangers who were working in a
+neighbouring wood; they ran to the inn shouting, thinking that the game
+was to kill an enemy of the man who had paid them. When they reached the
+inn, Lodovico asked them to keep their eyes open and to notice whether
+either of the two young men who were fighting acted treacherously and
+took an unfair advantage over the other.
+
+The fight, which had been interrupted for the time being by the cries of
+murder uttered by the _contadini_, was slow in beginning again. Fabrizio
+offered fresh insults to the fatuity of the Conte. "Signor Conte," he
+shouted to him, "when one is insolent, one ought to be brave also. I
+feel that the conditions are hard on you; you prefer to pay people who
+are brave." The Conte, once more stung to action, began to shout to him
+that he had for years frequented the fencing-school of the famous
+Battistini at Naples, and that he was going to punish his insolence.
+Conte M----'s anger having at length reappeared, he fought with a
+certain determination, which did not however prevent Fabrizio from
+giving him a very pretty thrust in the chest with his sword, which kept
+him in bed for several months. Lodovico, while giving first aid to the
+wounded man, whispered in his ear: "If you report this duel to the
+police, I will have you stabbed in your bed."
+
+Fabrizio withdrew to Florence; as he had remained in hiding at Bologna,
+it was only at Florence that he received all the Duchessa's letters of
+reproach; she could not forgive his having come to her concert and made
+no attempt to speak to her. Fabrizio was delighted by Conte Mosca's
+letters; they breathed a sincere friendship and the most noble
+sentiments. He gathered that the Conte had written to Bologna, in such a
+way as to clear him of any suspicion which might attach to him as a
+result of the duel. The police behaved with perfect justice: they
+reported that two strangers, of whom one only, the wounded man, was
+known to them (namely Conte M----), had fought with swords, in front of
+more than thirty _contadini_, among whom there had arrived towards the
+end of the fight the curate of the village, who had made vain efforts to
+separate the combatants. As the name of Giuseppe Bossi had never been
+mentioned, less than two months afterwards Fabrizio returned to Bologna,
+more convinced than ever that his destiny condemned him never to know
+the noble and intellectual side of love. So much he gave himself the
+pleasure of explaining at great length to the Duchessa; he was
+thoroughly tired of his solitary life and now felt a passionate desire
+to return to those charming evenings which he used to pass with the
+Conte and his aunt. Since then he had never tasted the delights of good
+society.
+
+"I am so bored with the thought of the love which I sought to give
+myself, and of Fausta," he wrote to the Duchessa, "that now, even if her
+fancy were still to favour me, I would not go twenty leagues to hold her
+to her promise; so have no fear, as you tell me you have, of my going to
+Paris, where I see that she has now made her appearance and has created
+a _furore_. I would travel all the leagues in the world to spend an
+evening with you and with that Conte who is so good to his friends."
+
+
+[Footnote 11: Pier-Luigi, the first sovereign of the Farnese family, so
+renowned for his virtues, was, as is generally known, a natural son of
+His Holiness Pope Paul III.]
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOLUME I
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA VOLUME 1
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+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Charterhouse of Parma Volume 1 (of 2), by Stendhal</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Charterhouse of Parma Volume 1 (of 2)</p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Stendhal</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncrieff</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Contributor: Honoré de Balzac</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 25, 2021 [eBook #66374]</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues</div>
+
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/charterhouse01_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>MARIE-HENRI BEYLE</h2>
+
+<h2>[DE STENDHAL]</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>THE CHARTERHOUSE<br />
+OF PARMA</h1>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h5><i>Translated from the French by</i></h5>
+
+<h4>C. K. SCOTT MONCRIEFF</h4>
+
+
+
+
+<h4>VOLUME ONE</h4>
+
+
+
+
+<h5>BONI &amp; LIVERIGHT</h5>
+
+<h5>NEW YORK MCMXXV</h5>
+
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+
+<h4><i>The Works of Stendhal</i></h4>
+
+
+
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+
+
+<h3>THE CHARTERHOUSE<br />
+OF PARMA</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<h4>VOLUME ONE</h4>
+
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<h4>CONTENTS</h4>
+<p class="nind"><a href="#A_STUDY_OF_M_BEYLE">A STUDY OF M. BEYLE by<br />
+Honoré De Balzac</a><br />
+<a href="#BEYLES_REPLY_TO_BALZAC">BEYLE'S REPLY TO BALZAC</a><br />
+<a href="#TO_THE_READER"><i>TO THE READER</i></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_ONE">CHAPTER ONE</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_TWO">CHAPTER TWO</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_THREE">CHAPTER THREE</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_FOUR">CHAPTER FOUR</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_FIVE">CHAPTER FIVE</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_SIX">CHAPTER SIX</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_SEVEN">CHAPTER SEVEN</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_EIGHT">CHAPTER EIGHT</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_NINE">CHAPTER NINE</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_TEN">CHAPTER TEN</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_ELEVEN">CHAPTER ELEVEN</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_TWELVE">CHAPTER TWELVE</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_THIRTEEN">CHAPTER THIRTEEN</a></p>
+
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<h4>TRANSLATOR'S DEDICATION</h4>
+
+<p>
+TO MADAME C&mdash;&mdash; R&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">C. K. S. M.</p>
+
+<p>Pisa, December, 1924.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="A_STUDY_OF_M_BEYLE">A STUDY OF M. BEYLE<br />
+<br />
+By Honoré De Balzac</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+In our day, literature quite evidently presents three aspects; and, so
+far from being a symptom of decadence, this triplicity, to use an
+expression coined by M. Cousin in his dislike of the word trinity, seems
+to me a natural enough effect of the abundance of literary talent: it is
+a tribute to the nineteenth century, which does not offer one sole and
+invariable form, like the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which
+were more or less obedient to the tyranny of a man or of a system.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These three forms, aspects or systems, by whichever name you choose to
+call them, exist in nature and correspond to general sympathies which
+were bound to declare themselves at a time when literature has seen,
+through the spread of knowledge, the number of its appreciators increase
+and the practice of reading advance with unparalleled progress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In all generations and among all peoples there are minds that are
+elegiac, meditative, contemplative, minds that attach themselves more
+especially to the great imagery, the vast spectacles of nature, and
+transpose these into themselves. Hence a whole school to which I should
+give the name: the <i>Literature of Imagery</i>, to which belong lyrical
+writing, the epic and everything that springs from that way of looking
+at things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are, on the other hand, other active souls who like rapidity,
+movement, conciseness, sudden shocks, action, drama, who avoid
+discussion, who have little fondness for meditation, and take pleasure
+in results. From these, another whole system from which springs what I
+should call, in contrast to the former system, the <i>Literature of
+Ideas</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, certain complete beings, certain <i>bifrontal</i> intelligences
+embrace everything, choose both lyricism and action, drama and ode, in
+the belief that perfection requires a view of things as a whole. This
+school, which may be called <i>Literary Eclecticism</i>, demands a
+representation of the world as it is: imagery and ideas, the idea in the
+image or the image in the idea, movement and meditation. Walter Scott
+has entirely satisfied these eclectic natures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Which party predominates, I do not know. I should not like anyone to
+infer from this natural distinction forced consequences. Thus, I do not
+mean to say that such and such a poet of the school of imagery is devoid
+of ideas, or that some other poet of the school of ideas cannot invent
+fine images. These three formulas apply only to the general impression
+left by the poets' work, to the mould into which the writer casts his
+thought, to the natural tendency of his mind. Every image corresponds to
+an idea, or, more precisely, to a <i>sentiment</i> which is a collection
+of ideas, and the idea does not always end in an image. The idea demands
+an effort in its development which does not come readily to every mind.
+Also the image is essentially popular, it is readily understood. Suppose
+that M. Hugo's <i>Notre-Dame de Paris</i> were to appear simultaneously
+with <i>Manon Lescaut</i>, <i>Notre-Dame</i> would seize hold of the
+masses far more promptly than Manon, and would seem to have outrivalled
+it in the eyes of those who kneel before the <i>Vox populi</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And yet, whatever be the kind from which a work proceeds, it will dwell
+in the human memory only by obeying the laws of the ideal and those of
+form. In literature, imagery and idea correspond nearly enough to what
+in painting we call design and colour. Rubens and Raphael are two great
+painters; but he would be strangely mistaken who thought that Raphael
+was not a colourist; and those who would refuse to Rubens the title of
+draughtsman may go and kneel before the painting with which the
+illustrious Fleming has adorned the Church of the Jesuits at Genoa, as
+an act of homage to design.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. Beyle, better known by the pseudonym Stendhal, is, in my opinion, one
+of the most eminent masters of the <i>Literature of Ideas</i>, a school to
+which belong MM. Alfred de Musset, Mérimée, Léon Gozlan, Béranger,
+Delavigne, Gustave Planche, Madame de Girardin, Alphonse Karr and
+Charles Nodier. Henry Monnier belongs to it by the truth of his
+proverbs, which are often lacking in a root-idea, but which are
+nevertheless full of that naturalness and that accurate observation
+which are characteristic of the school.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This school, to which we already owe much fine work, recommends itself
+by its abundance of facts, by the sobriety of its imagery, by conciseness,
+by clarity, by the <i>petite phrase</i> of Voltaire, by a way of
+relating a story which the eighteenth century possessed, and, above all,
+by a sense of comedy. M. Beyle and M. Mérimée, despite their profound
+seriousness, have something ironical and sly in the manner in which they
+state their facts. With them the comedy is kept in reserve. It is the
+spark in the flint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. Victor Hugo's is undoubtedly the most eminent talent in the
+<i>Literature of Imagery</i>. M. Lamartine belongs to this school, which M.
+de Chateaubriand held over the baptismal font, and the philosophy of
+which was created by M. Ballanche. <i>Obermann</i> is another. MM. Auguste
+Barbier, Théophile Gautier, Sainte-Beuve are others, as are a number of
+feeble imitators. In some of the authors whom I have just named, the
+sentiment prevails sometimes over the image, as in M. de Sénancour and
+M. Sainte-Beuve. By his poetry rather than by his prose, M. de Vigny is
+seen to belong to this great school. All these poets have little sense
+of comedy, they know nothing of dialogue, with the exception of M.
+Gautier, who has a keen sense of it. M. Hugo's dialogue is too much his
+own speech, he does not transform himself sufficiently, he puts himself
+into his character, instead of becoming that character. But this school
+has, like the other, produced some fine work. It is remarkable for the
+poetic fulness of its language, for the wealth of its imagery, for the
+closeness of its union with nature; the other school is human, and this
+one divine in the sense that it tends to raise itself by feeling towards
+the very heart of creation. It prefers nature to man. The French
+language is indebted to it for a strong dose of poetry which was
+necessary, for it has developed the poetic feeling long resisted by the
+<i>positivism</i>&mdash;pardon the word&mdash;of our language, and the
+dryness stamped on it by the writers of the eighteenth century.
+Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre were the instigators of
+this revolution, which I regard as fortunate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The secret of the struggle between the Classics and the Romantics lies
+entirely in this quite natural disparity of minds. For two centuries
+past, the <i>Literature of Ideas</i> has held exclusive sway, and so the
+heirs of the eighteenth century naturally mistook the only system of
+literature that they knew for the whole of literature. Let us not blame
+them, these defenders of the classic! The Literature of Ideas, full of
+facts, closely knit, is part of the genius of France. The <i>Profession
+de foi du vicaire savoyard</i>, <i>Candide</i>, the <i>Dialogue de Sylla
+et d'Eucrate</i>, the <i>Considérations sur les causes de la Grandeur
+et de la Décadence des Romains</i>, the <i>Provinciales</i>, <i>Manon
+Lescaut</i>, <i>Gil Blas</i>, are more in the French spirit than the
+works of the Literature of Imagery. But we owe to this latter the poetry
+of which the two previous centuries had not even a suspicion, if we set
+aside La Fontaine, André Chénier and Racine. The Literature of Imagery
+is in its cradle, and already includes a number of men whose genius is
+incontestable; but, when I see how many the other school includes, I
+believe it to be at the height rather than in the decline of its
+dominance over our beautiful tongue. The struggle ended, one may say
+that the Romantics have not invented new methods, that in the theatre,
+for instance, those who complain of want of action have made ample use
+of the <i>tirade</i> and the soliloquy, and that we have not, so far,
+either heard the keen and compact dialogue of Beaumarchais, nor seen
+again the comedy of Molière, which will always be based upon reason and
+ideas. Comedy is the enemy of meditation and imagery. M. Hugo has gained
+enormously in this contest. But men of wide reading remember the war
+waged on M. de Chateaubriand, during the Empire; it was fully as savage,
+and ended sooner because M. de Chateaubriand stood alone, without the
+<i>stipante caterva</i> of M. Hugo, without the antagonism of the press,
+without the support furnished to the Romantics by the men of genius of
+England and Germany, better known and better appreciated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the third school, which partakes of each of the other two, it has
+less chance than they of exciting the masses, who have little taste for
+the <i>mezzo termine</i>, for composite things, and see in eclecticism an
+arrangement that runs counter to their passions in so far as it calms
+them. France likes to find war in everything. In time of peace, she is
+still fighting. Nevertheless, Walter Scott, Madame de Staël, Cooper,
+George Sand seem to me to have distinct genius. As for myself, I take my
+stand under the banner of literary eclecticism for the following reason:
+I do not believe the portrayal of modern society to be possible by the
+severe method of the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth
+centuries. The introduction of the dramatic element, of the image, the
+picture, of description, of dialogue, seems to me indispensable in
+modern literature. Let us confess frankly that <i>Gil Blas</i> is wearisome
+as form: in the piling up of events and ideas there is something
+sterile. The idea, personified in a character, shews a finer
+intelligence. Plato cast his psychological ethics in the form of
+dialogue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i> is of our period and, up to the present,
+to my mind, is the masterpiece of the Literature of Ideas, while M.
+Beyle has made concessions in it to the two other schools, which are
+admissible by fair minds and satisfactory to both camps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If I have so long delayed, in spite of its importance, in speaking of
+this book, you must understand that it was difficult for me to acquire a
+sort of impartiality. Even now I am not certain that I can retain it, so
+extraordinary, after a third, leisurely and thoughtful reading, do I
+find this work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I can imagine all the mockery which my admiration for it will provoke.
+There will be an outcry, of course, at my infatuation, when I am simply
+still filled with enthusiasm after the point at which enthusiasm should
+have died. Men of imagination, it will be said, conceive as promptly as
+they forget their affection for certain works of which the common herd
+arrogantly and ironically protest that they can understand nothing.
+Simple-minded, or even intelligent persons who with their proud gaze
+sweep the surface of things, will say that I amuse myself with paradox,
+that I have, like M. Sainte-Beuve, my <i>chers inconnus</i>. I am incapable
+of compromise with the truth, that is all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. Beyle has written a book in which sublimity glows from chapter after
+chapter. He has produced, at an age when men rarely find monumental
+subjects and after having written a score of extremely intelligent
+volumes, a work which can be appreciated only by minds and men that are
+truly superior. In short, he has written <i>The Prince up to date</i>, the
+novel that Machiavelli would write if he were living banished from Italy
+in the nineteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so the chief obstacle to the renown which M. Beyle deserves lies in
+the fact that <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i> can find readers fitted to
+enjoy it only among diplomats, ministers, observers, the leaders of
+society, the most distinguished artists; in a word, among the twelve or
+fifteen hundred persons who are at the head of things in Europe. Do not
+be surprised, therefore, if, in the ten months since this surprising
+work was published, there has not been a single journalist who has
+either read, or understood, or studied it, who has announced, analysed
+and praised it, who has even alluded to it. I, who, I think, have some
+understanding of the matter, I have read it for the third time in the
+last few days: I have found the book finer even than before, and have
+felt in my heart the kind of happiness that comes from the opportunity
+of doing a good action.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Is it not doing a good action to try to do justice to a man of immense
+talent, who will appear to have genius only in the eyes of a few
+privileged beings and whom the transcendency of his ideas deprives of
+that immediate but fleeting popularity which the courtiers of the public
+seek and which great souls despise? If the mediocre knew that they had a
+chance of raising themselves to the level of the sublime by
+understanding them, <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i> would have as many
+readers as <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i> had on its first appearance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are in admiration that is made legitimate by conscience ineffable
+delights. Therefore all that I am going to say here I address to the
+pure and noble hearts which, in spite of certain pessimistic
+declamations, exist in every country, like undiscovered pleiads, among
+the families of minds devoted to the worship of art. Has not humanity,
+from generation to generation, has it not here below its constellations
+of souls, its heaven, its angels, to use the favourite expression of the
+great Swedish prophet, Swedenborg, a chosen people for whom true artists
+work and whose judgments make them ready to accept privation, the
+insolence of upstarts and the indifference of governments?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You will pardon me, I hope, what malevolent persons will call
+<i>longueurs</i>. In the first place, I am firmly convinced, the analysis
+of so curious and so interesting a work as this will give more pleasure to
+the most fastidious reader than he would derive from the unpublished
+novel whose place it fills. Besides, any other critic would require at
+least three articles of the length of this, if he sought to give an
+adequate explanation of this novel, which often contains a whole book in
+a single page, and which cannot be explained save by a man to whom the
+North of Italy is fairly familiar. Finally, let me assure you that, with
+the help of M. Beyle, I am going to try to make myself instructive
+enough to be read with pleasure to the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sister of the Marchese del Dongo, named Gina, the abbreviation of
+Angelina, whose early character, as a young girl, would have a certain
+similarity, could an Italian woman ever resemble a Frenchwoman, to the
+character of Madame de Lignolle in <i>Faublas</i>, marries at Milan,
+against the will of her brother, who wishes to marry her to an old man,
+noble, rich and Milanese, a certain Conte Pietranera, poor and without a
+penny.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Conte and Contessa support the French party, and are the ornament of
+the Court of Prince Eugène. We are in the days of the Kingdom of Italy,
+when the story begins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Marchese del Dongo, a Milanese attached to Austria and her spy,
+spends fourteen years waiting for the fall of the Emperor Napoleon.
+Moreover, this Marchese, the brother of Gina Pietranera, does not live
+at Milan: he occupies his castle of Grianta, on the Lake of Como: he
+there brings up his elder son in the love of Austria and on sound
+principles; but he has a younger son, named Fabrizio, to whom Signora
+Pietranera is passionately devoted: Fabrizio is a cadet of the family;
+like her, he will be left without a penny in the world. Who is not
+familiar with the fondness of noble hearts for the disinherited? Also,
+she wishes to make something of him. Then, fortunately, Fabrizio is a
+charming boy; she obtains leave to put him to school at Milan, where,
+playing truant, she makes him see something of the viceregal court.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Napoleon falls for the first time. While he is on the Island of Elba, in
+the course of the reaction at Milan, which the Austrians have
+reoccupied, an insult offered to the Armies of Italy in the presence of
+Pietranera, who takes it up, is the cause of his death: he is killed in
+a duel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A lover of the Contessa refuses to avenge her husband, Gina humiliates
+him by one of those acts of vengeance, magnificent south of the Alps,
+which would be thought stupid in Paris. This is her revenge:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although she despises, in <i>petto</i>, this lover who has been adoring her
+at a distance and without reward for the last six years, she pays
+certain attentions to the wretch, and, when he is in a paroxysm of
+suspense, writes to him:
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>
+"Will you act for once like a man of spirit? Please to imagine that you
+have never known me. I am, with a touch of contempt, your servant,
+</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">GINA PIETRANERA."</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>
+Then, to increase still further the desperation of this rich man, with
+his income of two hundred thousand lire, she <i>ginginates</i>
+(<i>ginginare</i> is a Milanese verb meaning everything that passes at a
+distance between a pair of lovers before they have spoken; the verb has
+its noun: one is a <i>gingino</i>. It is the first stage in love). Well,
+she ginginates for a moment with a fool whom she soon abandons; then she
+retires, with a pension of fifteen hundred francs, to a third floor
+apartment where all Milan of the day comes to see her and admires her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her brother, the Marchese, invites her to return to the ancestral castle
+on the Lake of Como. She goes there, to see once more and to protect her
+charming nephew, Fabrizio, to comfort her sister-in-law and to plan her
+own future amid the sublime scenery of the Lake of Como, her native soil
+and the native soil of this nephew whom she has made her son: she has no
+children. Fabrizio, who loves Napoleon, learns of his landing from the
+Gulf of Juan and wishes to go to serve the sovereign of his uncle
+Pietranera. His mother, who, the wife of a rich Marchese with an income
+of five hundred thousand lire, has not a penny to call her own, his aunt
+Gina, who has nothing, give him their diamonds: Fabrizio is in their
+eyes a hero.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inspired volunteer crosses Switzerland, arrives in Paris, takes part
+in the battle of Waterloo, then returns to Italy, where, for having
+dabbled in the conspiracy of 1815 against the peace of Europe, he is
+disowned by his father and the Austrian government place him on their
+index. For him, to return to Milan would be to enter the Spielberg. From
+this point Fabrizio, in trouble, persecuted for his heroism, this
+sublime boy becomes everything in the world to Gina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Contessa returns to Milan, she obtains a promise from Bubna and from
+the men of character whom Austria at this period has put in authority
+there, not to persecute Fabrizio, whom, following the advice of an
+extremely shrewd Canon, she keeps in concealment at Novara. Meanwhile,
+with all these things happening, no money. But Gina is of a sublime
+beauty, she is the type of that Lombard beauty (<i>bellezza folgorante</i>)
+which can be realised only at Milan and in the Scala when you see
+assembled there the thousand beautiful women of Lombardy. The events of
+this troubled life have developed in her the most magnificent Italian
+character: she has intellect, shrewdness, the Italian grace, the most
+charming conversation, an astonishing command of herself; in short, the
+Contessa is at one and the same time Madame de Montespan, Catherine de'
+Medici, Catherine II, too, if you like: the most audacious political
+genius and the most consummate feminine genius, hidden beneath a
+marvellous beauty. Having watched over her nephew, despite the hatred of
+the elder brother who is jealous of him, despite the hatred and
+indifference of the father, having snatched him from these perils,
+having been one of the queens of the court of the Viceroy Eugène, and
+then nothing; all these crises have enriched her natural forces,
+exercised her faculties and awakened the instincts numbed in the depths
+of her being by her early prosperity, by a marriage the joys of which
+have been rare, owing to the continual absence of Napoleon's devoted
+servant. Everyone sees or can divine in her the thousand treasures of
+passion, the resources and the refulgence of the most perfect feminine
+heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old Canon, whom she has seduced, sends Fabrizio to Novara, a small
+town in Piedmont, under the tutelage of a parish priest. This priest
+puts a step to the inquiries of the police by his description of
+Fabrizio: "a younger son who feels wronged because he is not the
+eldest." When Gina, who had dreamed of Fabrizio's becoming aide-de-camp
+to Napoleon, sees Napoleon banished to St. Helena, she realises that
+Fabrizio, his name inscribed in the black book of the Milanese police,
+is lost to her for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the uncertainties which prevailed throughout Europe at the time
+of the battle of Waterloo, Gina has made the acquaintance of Conte Mosca
+della Rovere, the Minister of the famous Prince of Parma,
+Ranuccio-Ernesto IV.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us pause at this point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Certainly, after having read the book, it is impossible not to
+recognise, in Conte Mosca, the most remarkable portrait that anyone
+could ever make of Prince Metternich, but of a Metternich transported
+from the great Chancellory of the Austrian Empire to the modest State of
+Parma. The State of Parma and Ernesto IV seem to me similarly to be the
+Duke of Modena and his Duchy. M. Beyle says of Ernesto IV that he is one
+of the richest Princes in Europe: the wealth of the Duke of Modena is
+famous. In seeking to avoid personalities the author has expended more
+ingenuity than Walter Scott required to construct the plot of
+Kenilworth. Indeed, these two similarities are vague enough, outwardly,
+to be denied, and so real inwardly that the well-informed reader cannot
+be mistaken. M. Beyle has so exalted the sublime character of the Prime
+Minister of the State of Parma that it is doubtful whether Prince
+Metternich be so great a man as Mosca, although the heart of that
+celebrated statesman does offer, to those who know his life well, one or
+two examples of passions of a compass at least equal to that of Mosca's.
+It is not slandering the Austrian Minister to believe him capable of all
+the secret greatnesses of Mosca. As for what Mosca is throughout the
+book, as for the conduct of the man whom Gina regards as the greatest
+diplomat in Italy, it took genius to create the incidents, the events
+and the innumerable and recurring plots in the midst of which this
+immense character unfolds. All that M. de Metternich has done during his
+long career is not more extraordinary than what you see done by Mosca.
+When one comes to think that the author has invented it all, ravelled
+all the plot and then unravelled it, as things do ravel and unravel
+themselves at a court, the most daring mind, a mind to which the
+conception of ideas is a familiar process, is left dazed, stupefied
+before so huge a task. As for myself, I suspect some literary
+Aladdin's-lamp. To have dared to put on the stage a man of the genius
+and force of M. de Choiseul, Potemkin, M. de Metternich, to create him,
+to justify the creation by the actions of the creature himself, to make
+him move in an environment which is appropriate to him and in which his
+faculties have full play, is the work not of a man but of a fairy, a
+wizard. Bear in mind that the most skilfully complicated plots of Walter
+Scott do not arrive at the admirable simplicity which prevails in the
+recital of these events, so numerous, so <i>thickly foliaged</i>, to borrow
+the famous expression of Diderot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here is the portrait of Mosca. We are in 1816, remember.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He 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 told 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so the powder which M. de Metternich wears, and which softens a face
+already so gentle, is justified in Mosca by the will of his master. In
+spite of the prodigious efforts of M. Beyle, who, on page after page,
+naturalises in this State marvellous inventions to deceive his reader
+and blunt the point of his allusions, the mind is at Modena and will on
+no account consent to remain at Parma. Whoever has seen, known, met M.
+de Metternich, thinks that he hears him speaking through the mouth of
+Mosca, lends Mosca his voice and clothes him in his manners. Although,
+in the book, Ernesto IV dies, and the Duke of Modena is still living,
+one is often reminded of that Prince <i>so notorious for his
+severities</i>, <i>which the Liberals of Milan called cruelties</i>.
+Such are the expressions used by the author in speaking of the Prince of
+Parma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In these two portraits, begun with a satirical intention, there is,
+however, nothing that can wound, nothing that reeks of vengeance.
+Although M. Beyle has no cause to thank M. de Metternich, who refused
+him his <i>exequatur</i> for the Trieste Consulate, and although the
+Duke of Modena has never been able to look with pleasure on the author
+of <i>Rome, Naples et Florence</i>, of the <i>Promenades en Rome</i>,
+and of certain other works, these two figures are portrayed with great
+taste and the utmost propriety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is what, no doubt, occurred during the actual work of these two
+creations. Carried away by the enthusiasm necessary to him who handles
+clay and scalpel, the brush and colours, the pen and the treasures of
+man's moral nature, M. Beyle, who had started out to depict a little
+court in Italy and a diplomat, ended with the type PRINCE and the type
+PRIME MINISTER. The resemblance, began with the fantasy of a satirical
+mind, ceased where the genius of the arts appeared to the artist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This convention of masks once admitted, the reader, keenly interested,
+accepts the admirable Italian scene which the author paints, the town
+and all the buildings necessary to his story, which, in many places, has
+the magical quality of an Oriental tale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This long parenthesis was indispensable. Let us continue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mosca is smitten with love, but with a love immense, eternal, boundless,
+for Gina, absolutely like M. de Metternich and his Leykam. He lets her,
+at the risk of compromising himself, have the latest diplomatic news
+before anyone else. The presence at Milan of this Minister of the State
+of Parma is perfectly accounted for later on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To give you an idea of this famous Italian love, I must relate to you a
+distinctly curious incident. On their departure, in 1799, the Austrians
+saw as they left Milan, on the Bastion, a certain Contessa
+B&mdash;&mdash;nini who was driving with a Canon, both heedless of
+revolutions and war: they were in love. The Bastion is a magnificent
+avenue which starts from the Eastern Gate (Porta Renza) and corresponds
+to the Champs-Elysées in Paris, with this slight difference that on the
+left extends the Duomo, "that mountain of gold transmuted into marble,"
+as Francis II, who had a gift of expression, called it; and on the right
+the snowy fringe, the sublime chasms of the Alps. On their return in
+1814 the first thing the Austrians saw was the Contessa and the Canon,
+sitting in the same carriage and saying, perhaps, the same things, at
+the same point on the Bastion. I have seen, in that city, a young man
+who became ill if he went more than a certain number of streets away
+from the house of his mistress. When a woman gives an Italian
+sensations, he never leaves her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"In spite of his frivolous air and his polished manners. Mosca," says M.
+Beyle, "was not blessed with a soul of the French type; he could not
+<i>forget</i> the things that annoyed him. When there was a thorn in his
+pillow, he would blunt it by repeated stabbings of his throbbing limbs."
+This superior man guesses the superior mind of the Contessa, he falls in
+love with her to the point of behaving like a schoolboy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"After all," the Minister said to himself, "old age is only being
+incapable of indulging in these delicious timidities."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Contessa one evening remarks the fine, benevolent gaze of Mosca.
+(The gaze with which M. de Metternich would deceive the Deity.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"At Parma," she says to him, "if you were to look like that, you would
+give them the hope that they might escape hanging."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the end the diplomat, having realised how essential this woman is to
+his happiness, and after three months of inward struggle, arrives with
+three different plans, devised to secure his happiness, and makes her
+agree to the wisest of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Mosca's eyes, Fabrizio is a child: the excessive interest which the
+Contessa takes in her nephew seems to him one of those elective
+maternities which, until love comes to reign there, beguile the hearts
+of noble-hearted women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mosca, unfortunately, is married. Accordingly he brings to Milan the
+Duca Sanseverina-Taxis. Let me, in this analysis, introduce a few
+quotations which will give you examples of the vivid, free, sometimes
+faulty style of M. Beyle, and will enable me to make myself be read with
+pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duca is 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. Apart from this, the Duca is by no means an absolute
+idiot, says the Conte: "he gets his clothes and wigs from Paris. He is
+not the sort of man who would do anything <i>deliberately</i> mean, he
+seriously believes that honour consists in having a Grand Cordon, and he
+is ashamed of his riches. He wants an Embassy. Marry him, he will give
+you a hundred thousand scudi, a magnificent jointure, his <i>palazzo</i>
+and the most superb existence in Parma. On these conditions, I make the
+Prince appoint him Ambassador, he will have his Grand Cordon, and he
+will start the day after his marriage; you become Duchessa Sanseverina,
+and we live happily. Everything is settled with the Duca, who will be
+made the happiest man in the world by our arrangement: he will never
+shew his face again in Parma. If this life does not appeal to you, I
+have four hundred thousand francs, I hand in my resignation and we go
+and live at Naples."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Do you know that what you and your Duca are proposing is highly
+immoral?" says the Contessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No more immoral than what is done at every court," the Minister
+answers. "Absolute Power has this advantage, that it justifies
+everything. Every year we shall be afraid of a 1798, and everything that
+can reduce that fear will be supremely moral. You shall hear the
+speeches I make on the subject at my receptions. The Prince has
+consented, and you will have a brother in the Duca, who has not dared to
+hope for such a marriage, which saves his face; he thinks himself ruined
+because he lent twenty-five napoleons to the great Ferrante Palla, a
+Republican, a poet and something of a genius, whom we have sentenced to
+death, fortunately in his absence."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gina accepts. We next see her Duchessa Sanseverina-Taxis, astonishing
+the court of Parma by her affability, by the noble serenity of her mind.
+Her house is the most attractive in the town, she reigns there, she is
+the glory of this little court.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The portrait of Ernesto IV, his reception of the Duchessa, her
+introduction to each member in turn of the Reigning House, all these
+details are marvels of wit, depth, succinctness. Never have the hearts
+of Princes, Ministers, courtiers and women been so depicted. The reader
+will find it hard to lay the book down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the Duchessa's nephew fled from Austrian persecution and was on his
+way from the Lake of Como to Novara under the protection of his
+confessor and the parish priest, he met Fabio Conti, General of the
+Armies of the State of Parma, one of the most curious figures of this
+court and of the book, a general who thinks of nothing but whether His
+Highness's soldiers ought to have seven buttons on their uniform or
+nine; but this comic general possesses an entrancing daughter, Clelia
+Conti. Fabrizio and Clelia, both trying to escape from the police, have
+exchanged a few words. Clelia is the most beautiful creature in Parma.
+As soon as the Prince sees the effect produced in his court by the
+Sanseverina, he thinks of counter-balancing that beauty by bringing
+Clelia to light. A great difficulty! Girls are not received at court: he
+therefore has her created a Canoness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Prince has of course a mistress. One of his weaknesses is to ape
+Louis XIV. So, to be in the picture, he has provided himself with a La
+Vallière, one Contessa Balbi, who dips her fingers into every
+money-bag, and is not forgotten when any government contract is made.
+Ernesto IV would be in despair if the Balbi were not slightly grasping:
+the scandalous fortune of his mistress is a sign of royal power. He is
+lucky, the Contessa is a miser!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"She received me," the Duchessa tells Mosca, "as though she expected me
+to give her a <i>buona mancia</i> (a tip)."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, to the great grief of Ernesto IV, the Contessa, who has no brains,
+cannot be compared for a moment to the Duchessa; this humiliates him, a
+first source of irritation. His mistress is thirty, and a model of
+Italian <i>leggiadria</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had still the finest eyes in the world and the most graceful little
+hands;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> but her skin was netted with countless fine little wrinkles
+which made her look like a young grandmother. As she was obliged to
+smile at everything the Prince said, and sought to make him think, by
+this ironical smile, that she understood him, Conte Mosca used to say
+that these suppressed yawns had in course of time produced her wrinkles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa parries the first blow aimed at her by His Highness by
+making a friend of Clelia, who, fortunately, is an innocent creature.
+From motives of policy, the Prince allows to exist at Parma a sort of
+Party, called Liberal (God knows what sort of Liberals!). A Liberal is a
+man who has the great men of Italy, Dante, Machiavelli, Petrarch, Leo X
+painted welcoming Monti on a ceiling. This passes as an epigram against
+the power which has no longer any great men. This Liberal Party has as
+its chief a Marchesa Raversi, an ugly and mischievous woman, as
+irritating as an Opposition. Fabio Conti, the General, belongs to this
+Party. The Prince, who hangs agitators, has his reasons for allowing a
+Liberal Party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ernesto IV rejoices in a Laubardemont, his Fiscal General or Chief
+Justice, named Rassi. This Rassi, full of natural intelligence, is one
+of the most horribly comic or comically horrible personages that can be
+imagined: he laughs and has people hanged, he makes a game of his
+justice. He is necessary, indispensable to the Prince. Rassi is a blend
+of Fouché, Fouquier-Tinville, Merlin, Triboulet and Scapin. You call the
+Prince a <i>tyrant</i>: he says that this is conspiracy and he hangs you.
+He has already hanged two Liberals. Since this execution, notorious
+throughout Italy, the Prince, who is brave when on the field of battle
+and has led armies, the Prince, though a man of spirit, lives in fear.
+This Rassi becomes something terrible, he attains to gigantic
+proportions while still remaining grotesque: he embodies all the justice
+of this little State.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now for the inevitable effects at court of the Duchessa's triumphs.
+The Conte and the Duchessa, that pair of eagles caged in this tiny
+capital, soon begin to offend the Prince. In the first place the
+Duchessa is sincerely attached to the Conte, the Conte is more in love
+every day, and this happiness irritates a bored Prince. Mosca's talents
+are indispensable to the Cabinet of Parma. Ranuccio-Ernesto and his
+Minister are attached to one another like the Siamese twins. Indeed,
+they have between them contrived the impossible plan ("impossible" is a
+rhetorical precaution on M. Beyle's part) of making a single State of
+Northern Italy. Beneath his mask of absolutism, the Prince is intriguing
+to become the Sovereign of this Constitutional Kingdom. He is dying of
+envy to ape Louis XVIII, to give a Charter and Two Chamber government to
+Northern Italy. He regards himself as a great politician, he has his
+ambition: he redeems in his own eyes his subordinate position by this
+plan with which Mosca is fully acquainted; he has control of his
+treasury! The more need he has of Mosca and the more he recognises his
+Minister's talent, the more reasons there are in the depths of this
+princely heart for an unconfessed jealousy. Life at court is boring, at
+the <i>palazzo</i> Sanseverina it is amusing. What means remain to him of
+demonstrating his power to himself? The chance of tormenting his
+Minister. And he torments him cruelly! The Prince tries first of all, in
+a friendly way, to secure the Duchessa as his mistress, she refuses;
+there are blows to self-esteem the elements of which may easily be
+guessed from this brief analysis. Presently, the Prince reaches the
+stage of wishing to attack his Minister through the Duchessa, and he
+then seeks out ways of making her suffer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this part of the novel is of a remarkable literary solidity. This
+painting has the magnitude of a canvas fifty feet by thirty, and at the
+same time the manner, the execution is Dutch in its minuteness. We come
+to the drama, and to a drama the most complete, the most gripping, the
+strangest, the truest, the most profoundly explored in the human heart
+that has ever been invented, but one that has existed, undoubtedly, at
+many periods, and will reappear at courts where it will be enacted
+again, as Louis XIII and Richelieu, as Francis II and Prince Metternich,
+as Louis XV, the du Barry and M. de Choiseul have enacted it in the
+past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The prospect which, in this new setting, has most attracted the Duchessa
+is that of the possibility of making a career for her hero, for this
+child of her heart, for Fabrizio her nephew. Fabrizio will owe his
+fortune to the genius of Mosca. The love which she has conceived for the
+child she continues to feel for the youth. I may tell you now,
+beforehand, that this love is to become later on, at first without
+Gina's knowledge, then consciously, a passion that will reach the
+sublime. Nevertheless she will always be the wife of the great diplomat,
+to whom she will never have committed any other act of infidelity than
+that of the passionate impulses of her heart towards this young idol;
+she will not deceive this man of genius, she will always make him happy
+and proud; she will make him aware of her least emotions, he will endure
+the most horrible rages of jealousy, and will never have any grounds for
+complaint. The Duchessa will be frank, artless, sublime, resigned,
+moving as a play of Shakespeare, beautiful as poetry, and the most
+severe reader will have no fault to find. I doubt if any poet has ever
+solved such a problem with as much felicity as has M. Beyle in this bold
+work. The Duchessa is one of those magnificent statues which make us at
+once admire the art that created them and inveigh against Nature which
+is so sparing of such models. Gina, when you have read the book, will
+remain before your eyes like a sublime statue: it will be neither the
+Venus de Milo, nor the Venus de' Medici; it will be Diana with the
+voluptuousness of Venus, with the suavity of Raphael's Virgins, and the
+movement of Italian passion. Above all, there is nothing French in the
+Duchessa. Yes, the Frenchman who has modelled, chiselled, wrought this
+marble, has left nothing on it of his native soil. <i>Corinne</i>, you must
+realise, is a miserable sketch compared with this living, ravishing
+creature. You will find her great, intellectual, passionate, always true
+to life, and yet the author has carefully concealed her sensual aspect.
+There is not in the work a single word that can make one think of the
+pleasures of love or can inspire them. Although the Duchessa, Mosca,
+Fabrizio, the Prince and his son, Clelia, although the book and its
+characters are, in their different ways, passion with all its furies;
+although it is Italy as it is, with its shrewdness, its dissimulation,
+its cunning, its coolness, its tenacity, its higher policy in every
+connexion. <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i> is more chaste than the most
+puritanical of the novels of Walter Scott. To make a noble, majestic,
+almost irreproachable character of a duchess who makes a Mosca happy,
+and keeps nothing from him, is not that a masterpiece of fiction? The
+<i>Phèdre</i> of Racine, that sublime creation of the French stage, which
+Jansenism did not venture to condemn, is not so beautiful, nor so
+complete, nor so animated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, at the moment when everything is smiling on the Duchessa, when she
+is amusing herself with this court life where a sudden storm is always
+to be feared, when she is most tenderly attached to the Conte, who,
+literally, is mad with happiness; when he has the patent and receives
+the honours of Prime Minister <i>which come very near to those paid to the
+Sovereign himself</i>, she says to him one day:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And Fabrizio?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Conte then offers to obtain for her, from Austria, a pardon for this
+dear nephew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But, if he is somewhat superior to the young men 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,"
+says Mosca, "heaven had endowed him with a real passion, were it only
+for angling, I should respect it; but what is he to do at Milan, even
+after he has obtained his pardon?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I should like him to be an officer," says the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Would you advise a Sovereign," says Mosca, "to entrust a post which, at
+a given date, may be of some importance, to a young man who has shown
+enthusiasm, who, from Como, has gone to join Napoleon at Waterloo? A del
+Dongo cannot be a merchant, nor a barrister, nor a doctor. You will cry
+out in protest, but you will come in the end to agree with me. If
+Fabrizio wishes it, he can quickly become Archbishop of Parma, one of
+the highest dignities in Italy, and from that Cardinal. We have had at
+Parma three del Dongo Archbishops, the Cardinal who wrote a book in
+sixteen-something, Fabrizio in 1700 and Ascanio in 1750. Only, shall I
+remain Minister long enough? That is the sole objection."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After two months spent in discussion, the Duchessa, defeated on every
+point by the Conte's observations, and rendered desperate by the
+precarious position of a younger son of a Milanese family, utters one
+day this profound Italian saying to her friend:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Prove to me again that every other career is impossible for Fabrizio."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Conte proves it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa, susceptible to the thought of fame, sees no other way of
+salvation, here below, for her dear Fabrizio, than the Church and its
+high dignities, for the future of Italy lies in Rome, and nowhere else.
+To anyone who has studied Italy carefully, it is clear that the unity of
+government in that country, that its nationality will never be
+re-established save by the hand of a Sixtus V. The Pope alone has the
+power to stir and to reconstitute Italy. And so we see with what pains
+the Austrian court has watched, for the last thirty years, the elections
+of Popes, what aged imbeciles she has allowed to don the Triple Crown.
+"Perish Catholicism sooner than my domination!" seems to be her guiding
+motto. Miserly Austria would spend a million to prevent the election of
+a Pope with French ideas. And then, if some fine Italian genius employed
+sufficient dissimulation to put on the white cassock, he might die like
+Ganganelli. There perhaps is to be found the secret of the refusals of
+the Court of Rome, which has not chosen to accept the invigorating
+potion, the elixir offered to it by men of fine ecclesiastical genius
+from France: Borgia would not have failed to make them take their seat
+among his devoted Cardinals. The author of the Bull <i>In coena Domini</i>
+would have understood the great Gallican idea, Catholic Democracy, he
+would have adapted it to the circumstances. M. de Lamennais, that fallen
+angel, would not then, in his Breton obstinacy, have abandoned the
+Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So the Duchessa adopts this plan of the Conte. In this great woman there
+is, as in great politicians, a moment of uncertainty, of hesitation
+before a plan; but she never goes back upon her resolutions. The
+Duchessa is always right in wishing what she has wished. Her
+persistency, that strong quality of her imperious character, imparts an
+element of terror to all the scenes of this fertile drama.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing could be more clever than the initiation of Fabrizio into his
+future destiny. The lovers display to Fabrizio the chances of his life.
+Fabrizio, a boy of astonishing intelligence, grasps everything at once
+and has a vision of the tiara. The Conte does not pretend to make a
+priest of him of the sort one sees everywhere in Italy. Fabrizio is a
+great gentleman, he can remain perfectly ignorant if it seems good to
+him, and will none the less become Archbishop. Fabrizio refuses to lead
+the life of the caffè, he has a horror of poverty, and realises that he
+cannot be a soldier. When he speaks of going and becoming an American
+citizen (we are in 1817), he has explained to him the dulness of life in
+America, without smartness, without music, without love affairs, without
+war, the cult of the god Dollar, and the respect due to artisans, to the
+masses who by their votes decide everything. Fabrizio has a horror of
+<i>mobocracy</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the voice of the great diplomat, who shows him life as it really is,
+the young man's illusions take flight. He had not understood what is
+incomprehensible to young people, the "<i>Surtout pas de zèle</i>!" of M.
+de Talleyrand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Remember," Mosca says to him, "that a proclamation, a caprice of the
+heart flings the enthusiast into the bosom of the party opposed to his
+own future sympathies."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a phrase!<a name="FNanchor_2_1" id="FNanchor_2_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_1" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The instructions given by the Minister to the neophyte who is to return
+to Parma only as a <i>Monsignore</i>, in violet stockings, and whom he
+sends to Naples to complete his studies with letters of recommendation
+to the Archbishop there, one of his clever friends; these instructions,
+given in the Duchessa's drawing-room, during a game of cards, are
+admirable. A single quotation will show you the fineness of the
+perceptions, the science of life which the author gives to this great
+character.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Believe or not, as you choose, what they teach you, <i>but never raise
+any objection</i>. Imagine that they are teaching you the rules of the game
+of whist; would you raise any objection to the rules of whist? And once
+you knew and had adopted those rules, would you not wish to win? Do not
+fall into the vulgar habit of speaking with horror of Voltaire, Diderot,
+Raynal and all those harebrained Frenchmen who have brought us that
+foolish government by Two Chambers. Speak of them with a calm irony,
+they are people who have long since been refuted. You will be forgiven a
+little amorous intrigue, if it is done in the proper way, but they would
+take note of your objections: age stifles intrigue but encourages doubt.
+Believe everything, do not yield to the temptation to shine; be morose:
+discerning eyes will see your cleverness in yours and it will be time
+enough to be witty when you are an Archbishop!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The astonishing and fine superiority of Mosca is never lacking, either
+in action or in speech; it makes this book one as profound, from page to
+page, as the <i>Maxims</i> of La Rochefoucauld. And observe that their
+passion leads the Conte and Duchessa to make mistakes, they are obliged
+to bring their talent into play to atone for them. To another man who
+had consulted him, the Conte would have explained the misfortunes that
+would await him at Parma after the death of Ernesto IV. But his passion
+has made him completely blind to his own interests. Talent alone can
+make you discover this poignant touch of comedy for yourself. Great
+politicians are nothing more, after all, than equilibrists who, if they
+do not take care, see their finest edifice come crashing to the ground.
+Richelieu was only saved from his peril, on the Day of the Dupes, by the
+broth of the Queen Mother, who refused to go to Saint-Germain without
+having taken the <i>lait de poule</i> which preserved her complexion. The
+Duchessa and Mosca live by a perpetual expenditure of all their
+faculties; and so the reader who follows the spectacle of their life is
+kept in a trance, through chapter after chapter, so well are the
+difficulties of this existence set before him, so cleverly are they
+explained. Finally, let us note well, these crises, these terrible
+scenes are woven into the substance of the book: the flowers are not
+stitched on, they are of the same substance as the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We must keep our love secret," the Duchessa says sadly to her lover, on
+the day on which she has guessed that his struggle with the Prince has
+begun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When, to outact his acting, she lets Ernesto IV gather that she is only
+moderately in love with the Conte, she gives him a day of happiness; but
+the Prince is shrewd, he sees sooner or later that he has been tricked.
+And his disappointment adds violence to the storm brought about by her
+ill-wishers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This great work could not have been conceived or executed save by a man
+of fifty, in the full vigour of his age and in the maturity of all his
+talents. One sees perfection in every detail. The character of the
+Prince is drawn by the hand of a master, and is, as I have told you,
+<i>The Prince</i>. One conceives him admirably, as a man and as sovereign.
+This man might be at the head of the Russian Empire, he would be capable
+of ruling it, he would be great; but the man would remain what he is,
+liable to vanity, to jealousy, to passion. In the seventeenth-century,
+at Versailles, he would be Louis XIV and would avenge himself on the
+Duchessa, as did Louis XIV on Fouquet. Criticism can find no fault in
+the greatest or in the smallest character; they are all what they ought
+to be. There is life and especially the life of courts, not drawn in
+caricature, as Hoffmann has tried to draw it, but seriously and
+ironically. Finally, this book explains to you admirably all that Louis
+XIII's <i>camarilla</i> made Richelieu suffer. This work applied to vast
+interests like those of the cabinet of Louis XIV, of Pitt's cabinet, of
+Napoleon's cabinet or of the Russian cabinet, would have been impossible
+owing to the prolixities and explanations which so many veiled interests
+would have required; whereas you get a comprehensive view of the State
+of Parma; and Parma enables you to understand, <i>mutato nomine</i>, the
+intrigues of the most exalted court. Things were like this tinder the
+Borgia Pope, at the court of Tiberius, at the court of Philip II: they
+must be like this also at the court of Peking!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us enter into the terrible Italian drama which has been slowly and
+logically preparing itself in a charming manner. I spare you the details
+of the court and its original figures; the Princess who thinks it her
+duty to be unhappy, because the Prince has his Pompadour; the Heir
+Apparent who is kept caged; the Princess Isotta, the Chamberlain, the
+Minister of the Interior, the Governor of the Citadel, Fabio Conti. One
+cannot afford to take the least thing lightly. If, like the Duchessa,
+Fabrizio and Mosca, you accept the court of Parma, you play your game of
+whist and your interests are at stake. When the Prime Minister thinks
+that he has fallen from power, he says quite seriously:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"When our guests have gone, we can decide on a way of barricading
+ourselves for the night; the best plan would be to set off while they're
+dancing for your place at Sacca, by the Po, from where in twenty minutes
+one can get into Austria."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed the Duchessa, the Minister, every Parmesan subject is liable to
+end his days in the citadel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the Prince confesses his desires to the Duchessa and she in reply
+asks him:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How should we ever lode Mosca in the face again, that man of genius and
+heart?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have thought of that," says the Prince: "we should never look him in
+the face again! The citadel waits."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Sanseverina does not fail to repeat this saying to Mosca, who puts
+his affairs in order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Four years elapse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Minister, who has not allowed Fabrizio to come to Parma during these
+four years, permits him to reappear there when the Pope has created him
+Monsignore, a kind of dignity which entitles him to wear violet
+stockings. Fabrizio has nobly answered the expectations of his political
+master. At Naples he has had mistresses, he has had the passion for
+archeology, he has sold his horses to make excavations, he has behaved
+well, he has aroused no jealousy, he may become Pope. What delights him
+most about his return to Parma is the thought of being delivered from the
+attentions of the charming Duchessa d'A&mdash;&mdash;. His governor, who
+has made him an educated man, receives a Cross and a pension. Fabrizio's
+first appearance at Parma, his arrival, his various presentations at
+court, form the highest comedy of manners, character and intrigue that
+one can read anywhere. At more than one point, the better class of
+reader will lay down this book on his table to say to himself:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Heavens! How good this is, how exquisitely arranged, how deep!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He will meditate upon words like the following, for instance, upon which
+Princes ought to meditate well for their own good: <i>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</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here begin the Duchessa's ingenuous passion for Fabrizio, and Mosca's
+torments. Fabrizio is a diamond that has lost nothing by being polished.
+Gina, who had sent him to Naples a devil-may-care young rough-rider,
+whose horsewhip seemed to be an inherent part of his person, sees him
+now with a noble and confident bearing before strangers, and in private
+the same fire of youth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"This nephew," Mosca tells his mistress, "is made to adorn all the
+exalted posts." But the great diplomat, attentive at first to Fabrizio,
+turns to look at the Duchessa and notices <i>a curious look in her
+eyes</i>. "I am in my fifties," he reflects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa is so happy that she does not give the Conte a thought.
+This profound effect, made on Mosca by a single glance, is irremediable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Ranuccio-Ernesto IV guesses that the aunt loves the nephew a little
+more warmly than the laws of consanguinity permit, which at Parma is
+incest, he is at the pinnacle of happiness. He writes his Minister an
+anonymous letter on the subject. When he is sure that Mosca has read it,
+he sends for him, without giving him time to call first on the Duchessa,
+and keeps him on the rack throughout a conversation full of princely
+friendliness and hypocrisy. Certainly the pangs of love causing a fine
+heart to bleed always make an effective scene; but this heart is
+Italian, this is the heart of a man of genius, and I know nothing that
+grips me so as the chapter on Mosca's jealousy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio does not love his aunt; he adores her as an aunt, she inspires
+no longing in him as a woman; nevertheless, in their Conversations, a
+gesture, a word may make youth break out, the least thing may then make
+his aunt leave Parma, because riches, honours are nothing to her who,
+once already, before the eyes of all Milan, has managed to live on a
+third floor, with an income of fifteen hundred francs. The future
+Archbishop sees an abyss open before him. The Prince is as happy as a
+king, while waiting for a catastrophe to destroy the private happiness
+of his dear Minister. Mosca, the great Mosca, weeps like a child. The
+prudence of this dear Fabrizio, who understands Mosca and understands
+his aunt, prevents any disaster. The Monsignore makes himself fall in
+love with a little Marietta, an actress of the lowest grade, a columbine
+who has her harlequin, a certain Giletti, formerly one of Napoleon's
+dragoons, and a fencing master, a man horrible in mind and body, who
+devours Marietta, beats her, steals her blue shawls and all her
+earnings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mosca breathes again. The Prince is uneasy, his prey is escaping, he
+could hold the Sanseverina by her nephew, and now the nephew turns out a
+profound politician! In spite of Marietta, the Duchessa's passion is so
+artless, her familiarities are so dangerous, that Fabrizio, to restore
+tranquillity, proposes to the Conte, who also is an antiquarian and is
+engaged on excavations, to go down to the country and superintend the
+work. The Minister adores Fabrizio. The company which includes Marietta,
+her <i>mammaccia</i>&mdash;a figure drawn in four pages with an
+astounding truth and depth of character&mdash;and Giletti, the whole
+motley crew, leave Parma. This trio, Giletti, the <i>mammaccia</i> and
+Marietta come along the road while Fabrizio is shooting. There follows
+an encounter between the dragoon, who seeks, in an access of Italian
+vanity, to kill the <i>black-frock</i>, and Fabrizio, who is amazed at
+seeing Marietta on the road. This accidental duel becomes serious when
+Fabrizio sees that Giletti, who has only one eye, is trying to disfigure
+him: he kills him. Giletti was plainly the aggressor, the workmen
+engaged on the excavations saw everything, Fabrizio realises all the
+capital that the Raversi faction and the Liberals will make out of this
+ridiculous adventure against himself, the Ministers, his aunt; he takes
+flight, he crosses the Po. Thanks to the clever assistance of Lodovico,
+an old servant of the Sanseverina household, a fellow who writes
+sonnets, he finds shelter and reaches Bologna, where he sees Marietta
+again. Lodovico becomes fanatically attached to Fabrizio. This retired
+coachman is one of the most complete of the figures of the second
+magnitude. Fabrizio's flight, the scenery by the Po, the descriptions of
+famous places through which the young prelate passes, his adventures
+during his exile from Parma, his correspondence with the Archbishop,
+another character admirably drawn, the smallest details are of a
+literary execution that bears the hall-mark of genius. And all is so
+Italian as to make one take the coach and fly to Italy, there to seek
+this drama and this poetry. The reader becomes Fabrizio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During this absence, Fabrizio goes to revisit his native scenes, the
+Lake of Como and the paternal castle, despite the dangers of his
+position with regard to Austria, at that time very strict. We are in
+1821, a time when a passport was not to be treated lightly. The prelate
+recognised as Fabrizio del Dongo may be sent to the Spielberg. In this
+part of the book the author completes the portrait of a fine head, that
+of a Priore Blanès, a simple village curate, who adores Fabrizio and
+cultivates the study of judicial astrology. This portrait is done so
+seriously, there shines from it so great a faith in the occult sciences,
+that the satire of which those sciences&mdash;to which we shall return and
+which do not rest, as has been supposed, upon false foundations&mdash;might
+naturally be the object dies away on the lips of the incredulous. I do
+not know what the author's opinion may be, but he justifies that of the
+Priore Blanès. Priore Blanès is a character who is true in Italy. The
+truth of him can be felt, just as one can tell whether one of Titian's
+heads is the portrait of a Venetian gentleman or a fancy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Prince orders the preparation of the case against Fabrizio, and in
+this task the genius of Rassi is revealed. The Fiscal General sends the
+witnesses for the defence out of the country, purchases evidence for the
+prosecution, and, as he impudently informs the Prince, produces out of
+this foolish affair&mdash;the death inflicted on a Giletti by a del Dongo,
+in self-defence, by a del Dongo who had received the first blow!&mdash;a
+sentence of detention for twenty years in the fortress. The Prince would
+have liked a death sentence, in order to exercise clemency and so
+humiliate the Sanseverina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But," says Rassi, "I have done better than that, I have broken his
+neck, his career is barred to him for ever. The Vatican can do nothing
+more for a murderer."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So the Prince holds the Sanseverina in his clutches at last! Ah! It is
+then that the Duchessa becomes superb, that the court of Parma is
+agitated, that the lights go up on the drama, which assumes gigantic
+proportions. One of the finest scenes in modern fiction is, certainly,
+that in which the Sanseverina comes to pay her farewell to the Sovereign
+and presents him with an ultimatum. The scene of Elizabeth, Amy and
+Leicester in <i>Kenilworth</i> is no greater, more dramatic nor more
+terrible. The tiger is braved in his den: the serpent is caught, in vain
+does he writhe his coils and beg for pity, the woman crushes him. Gina
+desires, dictates, obtains from the Prince a rescript annulling the
+proceedings. She does not seek a pardon, the Prince will state that the
+proceedings are unjust and shall have no consequences in the future,
+which is an absurd thing to expect of an absolute Sovereign. This
+absurdity she demands, she obtains it. Mosca is magnificent in this
+scene where the lovers are alternately saved, lost, in peril for a
+gesture, a word, a glance!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In every walk of life, artists have an invincible self-respect, a sense
+of their art, a professional conscience which is ineradicable from the
+man. One does not corrupt, one never succeeds in buying this conscience.
+The actor who wishes most harm to his theatre or to an author will never
+play a part badly. The chemist, called in to look for arsenic in a body,
+will find it if there is any there. The writer, the painter, are always
+faithful to their genius, even at the foot of the scaffold. This does
+not exist in woman. The universe is the stepping-stone of her passion.
+And so woman is greater and finer than man in this respect. Woman is
+passion; man is action. If this were not so, man would not adore woman.
+And so it is in the social circle of the court, which gives the greatest
+flight to her passion, that woman sheds her most brilliant radiance. Her
+finest stage is the world of Absolute Power. That is why there are no
+longer any women in France. Now Conte Mosca suppresses, from a trace of
+ministerial self-respect, in the Prince's rescript, the words on which
+the Duchessa depends. The Prince imagines that his Minister considers
+him before the Sanseverina, and casts a glance at him which the reader
+intercepts. Mosca, like a true statesman, will not countersign a stupid
+thing, that is all: the Prince is mistaken. In the intoxication of her
+triumph, rejoicing that she has saved Fabrizio, the Duchessa, who trusts
+in Mosca, does not peruse the rescript. She was thought to be ruined,
+she had made all preparations for her departure in the face of Parma,
+she returns from the court having effected a revolution. Mosca was
+thought to be in disgrace. Fabrizio's sentence was taken as an insult by
+the Prince to the Duchessa and Minister. Not at all, the Raversi is
+banished. The Prince laughs, he is holding his vengeance in reserve:
+this woman who has humiliated him, he is going to make die of grief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Marchesa Raversi, instead of composing Ovidian <i>Tristia</i>, like
+everyone who is banished from a court where he or she handled the reins
+of power, sets to work. She guesses what has happened in the Prince's
+cabinet, she extracts his secrets from Rassi, who allows her to do so;
+he is aware of the Prince's intentions. The Marchesa has some letters
+written by the Duchessa, she sends her lover to the galleys at Genoa to
+get a letter forged from the Duchessa to Fabrizio, telling him of her
+triumph, and appointing a meeting at her country house. Sacca, close to
+the Po, a delicious spot where the Duchessa always spends the summer.
+Poor Fabrizio hastens there, he is caught, they put handcuffs on him, he
+is shut up in the citadel, and while they are shutting him up, he
+recognises the daughter of the governor, Fabio Conti, the lovely and
+sublime Clelia, for whom he is to feel that eternal love that gives no
+respite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio del Dongo, her nephew, he whom she adores, in the most
+honourable fashion, in the citadel! . . . Imagine the Duchessa's
+feelings! She learns of Mosca's mistake. She will not see Mosca again.
+There is only Fabrizio now in the world! Once inside that terrible
+fortress, he may die there, die there by poison!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is the Prince's system: a fortnight of terror, a fortnight of hope.
+And he will handle this fiery steed, this proud soul, this Sanseverina
+whose triumphs and happiness, though necessary to the brilliance of his
+court, were insulting to his inner man. Played on in this way, the
+Sanseverina will become thin, old and ugly: he will knead her like
+dough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This terrible duel in which the Duchessa has inflicted the first wound,
+piercing her adversary to the heart but without killing him, in which
+she will receive for the next year a fresh wound daily, is the most
+powerful thing that the genius of the modern novel has invented.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us turn now to Fabrizio in prison, and so come to my analysis of
+that chapter, which is one of the diamonds on this crown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The episode of the robbers in Lewis's <i>Monk</i>, his <i>Anaconda</i>,
+which is his best book, the interest of the last volumes by Mrs.
+Radcliffe, the thrilling vicissitudes in the Red Indian romances of
+Cooper, all the extraordinary things I know in the narratives of travels
+and prisoners, none of these can compare with the confinement of
+Fabrizio in the fortress of Parma, three hundred and something feet
+above the ground. This terrifying abode is a Vaucluse: he makes love
+there to Clelia, he is happy there, he displays the ingenuity of
+prisoners, and he prefers his prison to the most enchanting spot that
+the world has to offer. The Bay of Naples is beautiful only through the
+eyes of Lamartine's Elvire; but, in the eyes of a Clelia, in the trills
+of her voice, there are whole universes. The author depicts, as he knows
+how to depict, by little incidents which have the eloquence of
+Shakespearean action, the progress of the love between these two fair
+creatures, amid the dangers of an imminent death by poison. This part of
+the book will be read with halting breath, straining throat, avid eyes
+by all those readers who have imagination, or simply hearts. Everything
+in it is perfect, rapid, real, without any improbability or strain.
+There you find passion in all its glory, its rendings, its hopes, its
+melancholies, its returns, its abatements, its inspirations, the only
+ones that equal those of genius. Nothing has been forgotten. You will
+read there an encyclopædia of all the resources of the prisoner; his
+marvellous languages for which he makes use of nature, the means by
+which he gives life to a song and meaning to a sound. Read in prison,
+this book is capable of killing a prisoner, or of making him tunnel
+through his walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Fabrizio is inspiring love and feeling it, during the most
+engrossing scenes of the drama inside the prison, there is, you must
+understand, a fight to the death going on outside the fortress. The
+Prince, the governor, Rassi, attempt to poison him. Fabrizio's death is
+determined upon at a moment when the Prince's vanity is mortally
+wounded. The charming Clelia, the most delicious figure you could see in
+a dream, then reveals the extent of her love by helping Fabrizio to
+escape, although his rescuers have nearly killed her father, the
+General.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this crisis in the book, we understand all the incidents that have
+gone before. Without those adventures in which we have seen the people,
+in which we have watched them acting, nothing would be intelligible,
+everything would seem false and impossible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us return to the Duchessa. The courtiers, the Raversi party triumph
+in the griefs of this noble woman. Her calm is killing the Prince, and
+no one can explain it to him. Mosca himself does not understand it.
+Here, we see that Mosca, great as he is, is inferior to this woman who,
+at this moment, seems to you to be the genius of Italy. Profound is her
+dissimulation, bold are her plans. As for her revenge, it will be
+complete. The Prince has been too greatly offended, she sees him
+implacable: between them, the duel is to the death; but the Duchessa's
+vengeance would be impotent, imperfect, if she allowed Ranuccio-Ernesto
+IV to take Fabrizio from her by poison. Fabrizio must be set at liberty.
+This attempt seems literally impossible to every reader, so carefully
+has tyranny taken its precautions, so deeply has it involved the
+governor, Fabio Conti, whose honour is at stake if he does not guard his
+prisoners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is in this man something of Hudson Lowe, but of a Hudson Lowe
+magnified to the tenth degree; he is Italian, and wishes to avenge the
+Raversi for the disgrace that the Duchessa has brought on her. Gina
+fears nothing. This is why:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The lover thinks more often of penetrating to his mistress's chamber
+than the husband of guarding his wife; the prisoner thinks more often of
+escaping than the gaoler of shutting his door; therefore, in spite of
+the obstacles in their way, the lover and the prisoner must succeed in
+the end."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She will help him! Oh, what a fine painting of this Italian in despair,
+who cannot flee from this abhorrent court! "Come," she says to herself,
+"<i>forward, unhappy woman</i>" (we weep as we read this great feminine
+utterance), "do your duty, pretend to forget Fabrizio!" "<i>Forget
+him</i>!" the word saves her: she has not been able to shed a tear until
+this word. Then the Duchessa conspires, she conspires with the Prime
+Minister, whom she has ostensibly banished in disgrace, but who would
+set Parma on fire and deluge it with blood for her, who would kill
+everyone, the Prince even. This true lover realises that he is in the
+wrong, he is the most wretched of men. Alas! What a feeble excuse! He
+did not believe his master to be so false, so cowardly, so cruel. And so
+he admits that his mistress is entitled to be implacable. He finds it
+natural that Fabrizio should be, at this moment, everything in the world
+to her, he has that weakness of great men for their mistresses which
+leads them to understand even the infidelity which may mean their death.
+The enamoured veteran is sublime! He says but one word to himself, in
+the scene when Gina has made him come to her for their rupture. A single
+night has ravaged the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Great God!" exclaims Mosca to himself, "she looks all her forty years
+to-day!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a book is this in which one finds these cries of passion, these
+profound diplomatic sayings, and on every page. Note this as well: you
+will not meet in this book those extra flourishes, so aptly named
+<i>tartines</i>. No, the characters act, reflect, feel, and always the
+drama sweeps on. Never does the poet, a dramatist in his ideas, stoop in
+his path to pick the smallest flower, everything has the rapidity of a
+dithyramb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us proceed! The Duchessa is ravishing in her admissions to Mosca,
+and sublime in her despair. Finding her so changed, he supposes her to
+be ill, and wishes to send for Razori, the leading doctor in Parma and
+in Italy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is that the counsel of a traitor or of a friend?" she asks. "You wish
+to convey to a stranger the measure of my despair!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am lost," thinks the Conte, "she no longer includes me even among the
+common men of honour."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Bear in mind," the Duchessa tells him with the most imperious air,
+"that I am not distressed by the capture of Fabrizio, that I have not
+the least shadow of a desire to go away, that I am full of respect for
+the Prince. As for yourself: I intend to have the entire control of my
+own behaviour, I wish to part from you as an old and good friend.
+Consider that I have reached sixty, the young woman is dead. With
+Fabrizio in prison, I am incapable of love. Finally, I should be the
+unhappiest woman in the world were I to compromise your future. If you
+see me making a show of having a young lover, do not let yourself be
+distressed by that. I can swear to you, by Fabrizio's future happiness,
+that I have never been guilty of the slightest infidelity towards you,
+and that in five whole years . . . that is a long time!" she says,
+trying to smile. "I swear to you that I have never either planned or
+wished such a thing. Now you understand that, leave me."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Conte goes, he spends two days and two nights in thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Great heavens!" he at length exclaims, "the Duchessa never said a word
+to me about an escape; can she have been wanting in sincerity for once
+in her life, and is the motive of her quarrel only a desire that I
+should betray the Prince? No sooner said than done."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Did I not tell you that this book was a masterpiece, and can you not see
+it for yourself, merely from this rough analysis?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Minister, after this discovery, treads the ground as if he were a
+boy of fifteen, takes a new lease of life. He is going to seduce Rassi
+from the Prince, and make him his own creature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Rassi," he says to himself, "is paid by his master to carry out the
+sentences that disgrace us throughout Europe, but he will not refuse to
+let himself be paid by me to betray his master's secrets. He has a
+mistress and a confessor. The mistress is of so low an order that the
+market woman would know the whole story by to-morrow morning."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He goes to say his prayers at the cathedral and to find the Archbishop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What sort of man is Dugnani, the Vicar of San Paolo?" he asks him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"A small mind with great ambition, few scruples and extreme poverty; for
+we too have our vices!" says the Archbishop, raising his eyes to heaven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Minister cannot help laughing at the analytical depth reached by
+true piety combined with honesty. He sends for the priest and says to
+him only:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You direct the conscience of my friend the Fiscal General; are you sure
+he has nothing to tell me?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Conte is prepared to stake everything: there is only one thing that
+he wishes to know, the moment at which Fabrizio will be in danger of
+death, and he does not propose to interfere with the Duchessa's plans.
+His interview with Rassi is a capital scene. This is how the Conte
+begins, adopting the tone of the most lofty impertinence:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What, sir, you carry off from Bologna a conspirator who is under my
+protection; more than that, you propose to cut off his head, and you say
+nothing to me about it. Do you know the name of my successor? Is it
+General Conti or yourself?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Minister and Fiscal agree upon a plan which allows them to retain
+their respective positions. I must leave to you the pleasure of reading
+the admirable details of this continuous web in which the author drives
+a hundred characters abreast without being more embarrassed than a
+skilful coachman is by the reins of a ten-horse coach. Everything is in
+its place, there is not the slightest confusion. You see everything, the
+town and the court. The drama is amazing in its skill, its execution,
+its clearness. The air plays over the picture, not a character is
+superfluous. Lodovico, who on many occasions has proved that he is an
+honest Figaro, is the Duchessa's right arm. He plays a fine part, he
+will be well rewarded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The time has now come to speak to you of one of the subordinate
+characters who is shown in colossal proportions, and to whom frequent
+reference is made in the book, namely Ferrante Palla, a Liberal doctor
+under sentence of death who is wandering through Italy, where he
+performs his task of propaganda.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferrante Palla is a great poet, like Silvio Pellico, but he is what
+Pellico is not, a Radical Republican. Let us not concern ourselves with
+the faith of this man. He has faith, he is the Saint Paul of the
+Republic, a martyr of Young Italy, he is a sublime work of art like the
+<i>Saint Bartholomew</i> at Milan, like Foyatier's <i>Spartacus</i>, like
+Marius pondering over the ruins of Carthage. Everything that he does,
+everything that he says is sublime. He has the conviction, the grandeur,
+the passion of the believer. However high you may place, in execution,
+in conception, in reality, the Prince, the Minister, the Duchessa,
+Ferrante Palla, this superb statue, set in a corner of the picture,
+commands your gaze, compels your admiration. In spite of your opinions,
+constitutional, monarchical or religious, he subjugates you. Greater
+than his own misfortunes, preaching Italy from the hollow shelter of his
+caves, without bread for his mistress and their five children;
+committing highway robbery to maintain them, and keeping a note of the
+sums stolen and the persons robbed so as to restore to them this forced
+loan to the Republic when he shall have the power to do so; stealing
+moreover in order to print his pamphlets entitled: <i>The necessity for a
+budget in Italy</i>! Ferrante Palla is the type of a family of minds to be
+found in Italy, sincere but misguided, full of talent but ignorant of
+the fatal results of their doctrine. Send them with plenty of gold to
+France and to the United States, as Ministers of Absolute Princes!
+Instead of persecuting them, let them acquire enlightenment, these true
+men, full of great and exquisite qualities. They will say like Alfieri
+in 1793: "Little men, at work, reconcile me to the great."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I praise with all the more enthusiasm this creation of Ferrante Palla,
+having caressed the same figure myself. If I have the trifling advantage
+over M. Beyle of priority, I am inferior to him in execution. I have
+perceived this inward drama, so great, so powerful, of the stern and
+conscientious Republican in love with a Duchess who holds to Absolute
+Power. My Michel Chrestien, in love with the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse,
+could not stand out with the relief of Ferrante Palla, a lover after the
+style of Petrarch of the Duchessa Sanseverina. Italy and its customs,
+Italy and its scenery, the perils, the starvation of Ferrante Palla are
+far more attractive than the meagre details of Parisian civilisation.
+Although Michel Chrestien dies at Saint-Merry and Ferrante Palla escapes
+to the United States after his crimes, Italian passion is far superior
+to French passion, and the events of this episode add to their Apennine
+savour an interest with which it is useless to compete. In a period when
+everything is levelled more easily under the uniform of the National
+Guard and the <i>Bourgeois</i> law than under the steel triangle of the
+Republic, literature is essentially lacking, in France, in those great
+obstacles between lovers which used to be the source of fresh beauties,
+of new situations, and which made subjects dramatic. And so it was
+difficult for the serious paradox of the passion of a Radical for a
+great lady to escape trained pens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In no book, unless it be <i>Old Mortality</i>, is there to be found a
+figure of an energy comparable to that which M. Beyle has given to
+Ferrante Palla, whose name exercises a sort of compulsion over the
+imagination. Between Balfour of Burley and Ferrante Palla, I have no
+hesitation, I choose Ferrante Palla; the design is the same; but Walter
+Scott, great colourist as he may be, has not the thrilling, warm colour,
+as of Titian, which M. Beyle has spread over his character. Ferrante
+Palla is a whole poem in himself, a poem superior to Lord Byron's
+<i>Corsair</i>. "Ah! That is how people love!" is what all M. Beyle's
+feminine readers will say to themselves on reading this sublime and most
+reprehensible episode.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferrante Palla has the most impenetrable of retreats in the
+neighbourhood of Sacca. He has often seen the Duchessa, he has fallen
+passionately in love with her. The Duchessa has met him, has been moved.
+Ferrante Palla has told her everything, as though in the presence of
+God. He knows that the Duchessa loves Mosca, his own love therefore is
+hopeless. There is something touching in the Italian grace with which
+the Duchessa lets him give himself the pleasure of kissing the white
+hands of a woman with blue blood. He has not clasped a white hand for
+seven years, and this poet adores beautiful white hands. His mistress,
+whom he no longer loves, does the heavy work, makes clothes for the
+children, and he cannot desert a woman who will not leave him,
+notwithstanding the most appalling poverty. These obligations of an
+honest man become apparent. The Duchessa has compassion for everything,
+like a true Madonna. She has offered him his pardon! Ah, but Ferrante
+Palla has, like Carl Sand, his own little sentences to enforce; he has
+his preaching, his journeyings to rekindle the zeal of Young Italy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"All those scoundrels, who do so much harm to the people, would live for
+long years," he says, "and whose fault would that be? What would my
+father say when I meet him in heaven!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She then proposes to provide for the needs of the woman and her
+children, and give him an undiscoverable hiding-place in the <i>palazzo</i>
+Sanseverina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>palazzo</i> Sanseverina includes an immense reservoir, built in the
+middle ages with a view to prolonged sieges, and capable of supplying
+the town with water for a year. Part of the <i>palazzo</i> is built over
+this immense structure. The dapple-grey Duca spent the night after their
+marriage in telling his wife the secret of the reservoir and of its
+hiding-place. An enormous stone which moves on a pivot will let all the
+water escape and flood the streets of Parma. In one of the thick walls
+of the reservoir there is a chamber without light and without much air,
+which no one would ever suspect; you would have to pull down the
+reservoir to find it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferrante Palla accepts the hiding-place for evil days, and refuses the
+Duchessa's money; he has made a vow never to have more than a hundred
+francs on him. At the moment when she offers him her sequins, he has
+money; but he lets himself go so far as to accept one sequin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I take this sequin, because I love you," he says; "but I am on the
+wrong side of my hundred by five francs, and, if they were to hang me
+this minute, I should feel remorse."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He does really love," the Duchessa says to herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Is not that the simplicity of Italy, taken from life? Molière, writing
+a novel to describe this people, the only one except the Arabs that has
+preserved its reverence for vows, could do nothing finer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferrante Palla becomes the Duchessa's other arm in her conspiracy, and
+is a terrible weapon, his energy makes one shudder! Here is the scene
+that occurs one evening in the <i>palazzo</i> Sanseverina. The lion of the
+people has emerged from his retreat. He enters for the first time rooms
+ablaze with regal splendour. He finds there his mistress, his idol, the
+idol whom he has set above Young Italy, above the Republic and the
+welfare of humanity; he sees her distressed, tears in her eyes! The
+Prince has snatched from her him whom she loves best in the world, he
+has basely deceived her, and this <i>tyrant</i> holds the sword of Damocles
+over the beloved head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is happening here," says this sublime Republican Don Quixote, "is
+an injustice of which the Tribune of the People ought to take note. On
+the other hand, as a private citizen, I can give the Signora Duchessa
+Sanseverina nothing but my life, and I lay it at her feet. The creature
+you see at your feet is not a puppet of the court, he is a man.&mdash;She
+has wept in my presence," he says to himself, "she is less unhappy."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Think of the risk you are running," says the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The Tribune will answer you: 'What is life when the voice of duty
+speaks?' The man will say to you: 'Here is a body of iron and a heart
+that fears nothing in the world but your displeasure.'"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If you speak to me of your feelings," says the Duchessa, "I shall not
+see you again."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferrante Palla departs sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Am I mistaken? Are they not as fine as Corneille, these dialogues? And,
+remember, such passages abound, they are all, after their kind, at the
+same high level. Struck by the beauty of this character, the Duchessa
+prepares a written document providing for the future of Ferrante's
+mistress and his five children, without saying anything to him, for she
+is afraid that he may let himself be killed on learning that his
+dependents have had this provision made for them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, on the day when the whole of Parma is discussing the probable
+death of Fabrizio, the Tribune braves every danger. He enters the
+<i>palazzo</i> at night, he arrives disguised as a Capuchin in the
+Duchessa's presence; he finds her drowned in tears and voiceless: she
+greets him with her hand and points to a chair. Palla prostrates
+himself, prays to God, so divine does her beauty seem to him, and breaks
+off his prayer to say:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Once again <i>he</i> offers his life."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Think of what you are saying!" cries the Duchessa with that haggard eye
+which shews more clearly than sobs that anger is mastering affection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He offers his life to place all obstacle in the way of Fabrizio's fate
+or to avenge it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If I were to accept!" she says, gazing at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sees the joy of martyrdom flash in Palla's eye. She rises, goes to
+look for the deed of gift prepared a month back, for Ferrante's mistress
+and children.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Read this!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reads it and falls on his knees, he sobs, he almost dies of joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Give me back the paper," says the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She burns it over a candle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"My name," she tells him, "must not appear. If you are taken and
+executed, if you are weak, I may be also, and Fabrizio would be in
+danger. I wish you to sacrifice yourself."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I will perform the task faithfully, punctually and prudently."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If I am discovered and convicted," the Duchessa goes on proudly, "I
+do not wish to be accused of having corrupted you. Do not put him to
+death until I give the signal. That signal will be the flooding of the
+streets of Parma, of which you are bound to hear."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferrante, delighted by the Duchessa's tone of authority, takes his
+leave. When he has gone, the Duchessa calls him back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ferrante, sublime man!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He returns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And your children?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Bah! You will provide for them."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Look, here are my diamonds."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she gives him a little olive-wood box.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They are worth fifty thousand francs."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh! Signora!" says Ferrante with a start of horror, "I may perhaps not
+see you again. Take them, it is my wish."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferrante leaves her. The door closes behind him, the Duchessa again
+calls him back. He sees her standing there, he comes back uneasily. The
+great Sanseverina throws herself into his arms. Ferrante is on the point
+of fainting. She allows him to kiss her, frees herself from his embrace
+when he threatens to become disrespectful, and shews him the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She remains standing for some time and says to herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That is the one man who has understood me; Fabrizio would be like that
+if he could only know me."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I cannot lay too much stress on the merit of this scene. M. Beyle is not
+in the least a preacher. He does not urge you on to regicide, he gives
+you a fact, states it as it occurred. No one, not even a Republican,
+feels the desire to kill a tyrant on reading it. It is the play of
+private passions, that is all. It is a question of a duel which requires
+extraordinary, but equally matched arms. The Duchessa makes use of Palla
+to poison the Prince as the Prince makes use of one of Fabrizio's
+enemies to poison Fabrizio. One can avenge oneself on a king, Coriolanus
+avenged himself well on his country, Beaumarchais and Mirabeau avenged
+themselves well on their period which despised them. This is not moral,
+but the author has told you of it, and washes his hands of it as Tacitus
+washes his of the crimes of Tiberius. "I am inclined to believe," he
+says, "that the immoral delight in taking revenge which one finds in
+Italy springs from the strength of imagination of that race; other races
+do not forgive, they forget." Thus the moralist explains this energetic
+people among whom we find so many inventors, who have the richest, the
+finest imagination, with its accompanying drawbacks. This reflexion is
+more profound than it appears at a first reading, it explains the
+rhetorical stupidities which weigh down the Italians, the only race that
+is comparable to the French, a race superior to the Russians or the
+English, whose genius has the feminine fibre, that delicacy, that
+majesty which make it in many respects superior to all other races. From
+this point the Duchessa regains her advantage over the Prince. Hitherto,
+she was weak and tricked in this great duel; Mosca, prompted by his
+courtier's spirit, had been acting as second to the Prince. Now that her
+revenge is assured, Gina feels her strength. Each step that her thoughts
+take gives her happiness, she can play her part. The Tribune's courage
+heightens hers. Lodovico is electrified by her. These three
+conspirators, on whom Mosca shuts his eyes, while leaving his police
+free to act against them if they notice anything, arrive at the most
+extraordinary result.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Minister has been the dupe of his mistress, he fully believed
+himself to be in disgrace, as he deserved. If he had not been thoroughly
+taken in, he could never have played the part of a forlorn lover, for
+happiness admits of no concealment. That fire of the heart has its
+smoke. But, after the fascination of Ferrante by the Duchessa, her joy
+enlightens the Minister, he at last guesses her purpose, without knowing
+how far she has gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio's escape borders on the miraculous. It has required so much
+physical strength and such an exercise of intelligence, that the dear
+boy is on the point of death: the scent of his aunt's clothing and
+handkerchief revives him. This slight detail, which is not forgotten
+among a thousand other incidents, will delight those who are in love: it
+is placed, as might be placed in a finale a melody which recalls the
+sweetest elements of the life of love. All precautions have been
+carefully taken, there is no indiscretion: Conte Mosca, who is present
+in person at the expedition with more than two dozen spies, does not
+receive a single report of it as Minister.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Now I'm committing high treason," he says to himself, blind with joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everyone has understood his orders without a word said, and escapes in
+his own way. The business finished, each head has to think of and for
+itself. Lodovico is the courier, he crosses the Po. Ah! When Fabrizio is
+out of the reach of his crowned assassin, the Duchessa, who until then
+had been crouching like a jaguar, coiled like a serpent hidden in the
+undergrowth, flat as one of Cooper's Indians in the mud, supple as a
+slave and feline as a deceitful woman, rises to her full height: the
+panther shews her claws, the serpent is going to sting, the Indian to
+utter his yell of triumph, she leaps for joy, she is mad. Lodovico, who
+knows nothing of Ferrante Palla, who says of him in the common phrase:
+"He is a poor man persecuted because of Napoleon!" Lodovico is afraid
+that his mistress is going out of her mind. She gives him the small
+property of Ricciarda. He trembles on receiving this regal gift. What
+has he done to deserve it? "Conspire, and for Monsignore, why that is a
+pleasure."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is then, the author tells us, that the Duchessa allows herself to
+commit an act not only horrible in the eyes of morality, but fatal to
+the tranquillity of her life. We suppose, of course, that in this hour
+of bliss, she will forgive the Prince. No.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If you wish to acquire the property, you must do two things," she tells
+Lodovico, "and without exposing yourself. You must go back at once
+across the Po, illuminate my house at Sacca in such a way as to make
+people think it is on fire. I have prepared everything for this
+festivity, in case we succeeded. There are lamps and oil in the cellars.
+Here is a line to my agent. Let the whole population of Sacca drink
+themselves drunk, empty all my barrels and all my bottles. By the
+Madonna! If I find one full bottle, one barrel with two fingers of wine
+left in it, you lose Ricciarda! When that is done, return to Parma and
+let the water out of the reservoir. Wine for my dear people at Sacca,
+water for the town of Parma!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This makes one shudder. It is the Italian spirit, which M. Hugo has
+perfectly reproduced when he makes Lucrezia Borgia say: "You have given
+me a ball at Venice, I offer you in return a supper at Ferrara." The two
+speeches are equivalent. Lodovico sees in this nothing more than a
+magnificent insolence and an exquisite joke. He repeats: "Wine for the
+people of Sacca, water for the people of Parma!" Lodovico returns after
+having carried out the Duchessa's orders, establishes her at Belgirate,
+and takes Fabrizio, who has still the Austrian police to fear, to
+Locarno, in Switzerland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio's escape, the illumination of Sacca throw the State of Parma
+into utter confusion. Little attention is paid to the flooding of the
+town. A similar event occurred at the time of the French invasion. A
+horrible punishment awaits the Duchessa. She sees Fabrizio dying of love
+for Clelia, resentful of being First Grand Vicar to the Archbishop and
+so unable to marry his beloved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the arms of his aunt and on Lake Maggiore, he dreams of his dear
+prison. What then are the sufferings of this woman who has ordered a
+crime, who has so to speak brought down the moon from the sky by taking
+this beloved boy out of prison, and who sees him so artless and simple,
+thinking of other things, refusing to perceive anything, and not
+allowing himself to succumb to what he had so wisely fled from in the
+company of his Gina, his mother, his sister, his aunt, his friend who
+longed to be something more than a friend to him, all this torture is
+unspeakable; but, in the book, it is felt, it is seen. We are pained by
+Fabrizio's desertion of the Sanseverina, although we are conscious that
+the gratification of her love would be criminal. Fabrizio is not even
+grateful. The ex-prisoner, like a Minister in retirement who dreams of
+coalitions which will restore him to power, thinks only of his prison;
+he sends for pictures of Parma, that city abhorrent to his aunt; he puts
+one of the fortress in his bedroom. Finally, he writes a letter of
+apology to General Conti for having escaped, so as to be able to say to
+Clelia that he finds no happiness in liberty without her, and you can
+imagine what effect this letter (it is taken as a masterpiece of
+ecclesiastical irony) produces on the General: he swears that he will be
+avenged. The Duchessa, terrified and brought back to a sense of
+self-preservation by the futility of her revenge, takes a boatman from
+each of the villages on Lake Maggiore; she makes them row her out to the
+middle of the lake; then she tells them that a search may be made for
+Fabrizio, who served under Napoleon at Waterloo, and bids them keep a
+sharp watch; she makes herself loved, and obeyed; she pays well, and so
+has a spy in every village; she gives each of them permission to enter
+her room at any hour, even at night when she is asleep. One evening, at
+Locarno, during a party, she hears of the death of the Prince of Parma.
+She looks at Fabrizio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have done this for him; I would have done things a thousand times
+worse," she says to herself, "and look at him there, silent,
+indifferent, dreaming about another!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this thought she faints. This fainting-fit may be her ruin. The
+company gathers round her, Fabrizio thinks of Clelia: she sees him, she
+shudders, she finds herself surrounded by all these curious people, an
+archpriest, the local authorities, and so forth. She recovers the calm
+of a great lady, and says:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He was a great Prince, who was vilely slandered; it is an immense loss
+for us.&mdash;Ah!" she says to herself, when she is alone, "it is now that
+I have to pay for the transports of happiness and childish joy that I felt
+in my <i>palazzo</i> at Parma when I welcomed Fabrizio there on his return
+from Naples. If I had said a word, all would have been over, I should
+have left Mosca. Once he was with me, Clelia would never have meant
+anything to Fabrizio. Clelia wins, she is twenty. I am almost twice her
+age. I must die! <i>A woman of forty is no longer anything save for the
+men who have loved her in her youth</i>!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is for this reflexion, profound in its shrewdness, suggested by grief
+and almost entirely true, that I quote this passage. The Duchessa's
+soliloquy is interrupted by a noise outside, at midnight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Good," she says, "they are coming to arrest me; so much the better, it
+will occupy my mind, fighting them for my head."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is nothing of the sort. Conte Mosca has sent her their most faithful
+courier to inform her, before the rest of Europe, of recent events at
+Parma, and of the details of the death of Ranuccio-Ernesto IV: there has
+been a revolution, the Tribune Ferrante Palla has been on the verge of
+triumph, he has spent the fifty thousand francs, the price of the
+diamonds, on the cause of his dear Republic instead of giving them to
+his children; the rising has been suppressed by Mosca, who served under
+Napoleon in Spain, and who has displayed the courage of a soldier and
+the coolness of a statesman; he has saved Rassi, which he will bitterly
+repent; finally, he gives details of the accession to the throne of
+Ranuccio-Ernesto V, a young prince who is enamoured of Signora
+Sanseverina. The Duchessa is free to return. The Princess Dowager, who
+adores her for reasons which the reader knows and has gathered from the
+intrigues of the court at the time when the Duchessa reigned there,
+writes her a charming letter, creates her Duchessa in her own right, and
+Grand Mistress. It would not, however, be prudent for Fabrizio to return
+at present, the sentence must be quashed by a retrial of the case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa conceals Fabrizio at Sacca, and returns to Parma
+triumphant. Thus the subject revives of its own accord without effort,
+without monotony. There is not the slightest resemblance between the
+early favour enjoyed by the innocent Sanseverina, under Ranuccio-Ernesto
+IV, and the favour enjoyed by the Duchessa who has had him poisoned,
+under Ranuccio-Ernesto V. The young twenty-year-old Prince is madly in
+love with her, the peril incurred by the criminal is balanced by the
+boundless power enjoyed by the Dowager's Grand Mistress. This Louis XIII
+on a small scale finds his Richelieu in Mosca. The great Minister,
+during the riots, carried away by a lingering trace of zeal, of
+enthusiasm, has called him a boy. The word has remained in the Prince's
+heart, it has hurt him. Mosca is useful to him; but the Prince, who is
+only twenty years old in politics, is fifty in self-esteem. Rassi is
+working in secret, he searches among the people and through all Italy,
+and learns that Ferrante Palla, who is as poor as Job, has sold nine or
+ten diamonds at Genoa. During the underground burrowings of the Fiscal
+General joy reigns at court. The Prince, a shy young man like all shy
+young men, attacks the woman of forty, grows frenzied in his pursuit of
+her; it is true that Gina, more beautiful than ever, does not look more
+than thirty, she is happy, she is making Mosca thoroughly happy,
+Fabrizio is saved, he is to be tried again, acquitted, and will be, when
+his sentence is quashed. Coadjutor to the Archbishop, who is
+seventy-eight years old, with the right of eventual succession.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clelia alone causes the Duchessa any misgivings. As for the Prince, she
+is amused by him. They act plays at court (those <i>commedie dell'
+arte</i> in which each character invents the dialogue as he goes on, the
+outline of the plot being posted up in the wings&mdash;a sort of
+glorified charade). The Prince takes the lovers' parts, and Gina is
+always the leading lady. Literally, the Grand Mistress is dancing upon a
+volcano. This part of the work is charming. In the very middle of one of
+these plays, this is what happens. Rassi has said to the Prince: "Does
+Your Highness choose to pay a hundred thousand francs to find out the
+exact manner of His august father's death?" He has had the hundred
+thousand francs, because the Prince is a boy. Rassi has tried to corrupt
+the Duchessa's head maid, this maid has told Mosca everything. Mosca has
+told her to let herself be corrupted. Rassi requires one thing only, to
+have the Duchessa's diamonds examined by two jewellers. Mosca posts
+counter-spies and learns that one of these inquisitive jewellers is
+Rassi's brother. Mosca appears, between the acts of the play, to warn
+the Duchessa, whom he finds in the highest spirits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have very little time," she says to Mosca, "but let us go into the
+guard-room."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There she says with a laugh to her friend the Minister:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You always scold me when I tell you unnecessary secrets; very well, it
+was I who called Ernesto V to the throne; it was a case of avenging
+Fabrizio, whom I loved far more than I love him to-day, though always
+quite innocently. You will scarcely believe in my innocence, but that
+does not matter, since you love me in spite of my crimes! Very well,
+there is one crime in my life: Ferrante Palla had my diamonds. I did
+worse, I let myself be kissed by him so that he should poison the man
+who wished to poison our Fabrizio. Where is the harm?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And you tell me this in the guard-room?" says the Conte, <i>slightly
+taken aback</i>!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This last expression is charming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is because I am in a hurry," she says, "Rassi is on the track: but I
+have never spoken of insurrection, I abhor Jacobins. Think it over, and
+give me your advice after the play."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I will give it you now," replies Mosca without hesitation. "You will
+buttonhole the Prince behind the scenes, make him lose his head, but
+without doing anything dishonourable, you understand."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa is called to go on the stage, and returns behind the
+scenes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ferrante Palla's farewell to his idol is one of the finest things in
+this book, where there are so many fine things; but we come now to the
+capital scene, to the scene which crowns the work, to the burning of the
+papers in the case drawn up by Rassi, which the Grand Mistress obtains
+from Ranuccio-Ernesto V and the Princess Dowager, a terrible scene, in
+which she is now lost, now saved, at the whim of the mother and son who
+feel themselves overpowered by the force of character of this sort of
+Princesse des Ursins. This scene occupies only eight pages, but it is
+without parallel in the art of literature. There is nothing analogous to
+which it can be compared, it is unique. I say nothing of it, it is
+sufficient to draw attention to it. The Duchessa triumphs, she destroys
+the proofs and even carries away one of the documents for Mosca, who
+takes note of the names of some of the witnesses and cries: "It was high
+time, they were getting warm!" Rassi is in despair: the Prince has given
+orders for a retrial of Fabrizio's case. Fabrizio, instead of making
+himself a prisoner, as Mosca wishes, in the town prison, which is under
+the Prime Minister's orders, returns at once to his beloved citadel,
+where the General, who thought that his honour had been tarnished by the
+escape, rigorously confines him with the intention of getting rid of
+him. Mosca would have answered for him, with his life, in the town
+prison; but in the citadel Fabrizio is helpless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This news comes as a bolt from the blue to the Duchessa: she remains
+speechless and unhearing. Fabrizio's love for Clelia bringing him back
+to the place where death lies in wait for him and where the girl will
+give him a moment's happiness for which he must pay with his life&mdash;the
+thought of this crushes her, and Fabrizio's imminent danger is the last
+straw.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This danger exists already, it is not created to fit the scene, it is
+the result of the passions aroused by Fabrizio during his former
+imprisonment, by his escape, by the fury of Rassi who has been forced to
+sign the order for a fresh trial. And so, even in the most minute
+details, the author loyally obeys the laws of the poetry of the novel.
+This exact observation of the rules, whether it come from the
+calculation, meditation, and natural deduction of a well chosen, well
+developed and fruitful subject, or from the instinct peculiar to talent,
+produces this powerful and permanent interest which we find in great, in
+fine works of art.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mosca, in despair, makes the Duchessa understand the impossibility of
+getting a young Prince to believe that a prisoner can be poisoned in his
+State, and offers to get rid of Rassi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But," he tells her, "you know how squeamish I am about that sort of
+thing. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I still think of those two
+spies whom I had shot in Spain."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Rassi owes his life, then," replies the Duchessa, "to the fact that I
+care more for you than for Fabrizio; I do not wish to poison the
+evenings of the old age which we shall have to spend together."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa hastens to the fortress, and is there convinced of
+Fabrizio's peril; she goes to the Prince. The Prince is a boy who, as
+the Minister has foreseen, does not understand the danger that can
+threaten an innocent person in his State Prison. He declines to
+dishonour himself, to pass judgment on his own justice. Finally, in view
+of the imminence of the peril (the poison has been given), the Duchessa
+wrests from him the order to set Fabrizio at liberty in exchange for a
+promise to yield to this young Prince's desires. This scene has an
+originality of its own after that of the burning of the papers. At that
+time, Gina's only thought was for herself, now it is for Fabrizio.
+Fabrizio once acquitted and appointed Coadjutor to the Archbishop with
+the right of eventual succession, which is tantamount to being made
+Archbishop, the Duchessa finds a way to elude the consequences of her
+promise by one of those dilemmas which women who are not in love can
+always find with a maddening coolness. She is to the end the woman of
+great character whose career started as you have read. There follows a
+change in the Ministry. Mosca leaves Parma with his wife, for the
+Duchessa and he, both widowed, have now married. But nothing goes well,
+and at the end of a year the Prince recalls Conte and Contessa Mosca.
+Fabrizio is Archbishop and in high favour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There follows the love of Clelia and Archbishop Fabrizio, which ends in
+the death of Clelia, in that of a beloved child, and in the resignation
+and withdrawal of the Archbishop, who dies, doubtless after a long
+expiation, in the Charterhouse of Parma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I explain this ending to you in a few words, since, in spite of
+beautiful details, it is sketched rather than finished. If the author
+had had to develop the romance of the end like that of the beginning, it
+would have been difficult to know where to stop. Is there not a whole
+drama in the love of a celibate priest? So there is a whole drama in the
+love of the Coadjutor and Clelia. Book upon book!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had M. Beyle some woman in his mind when he drew his Sanseverina? I
+fancy so. For this statue, as for the Prince and the Prime Minister,
+there must necessarily have been some model. Is she at Milan? Is she at
+Rome, at Naples, at Florence? I cannot say. Although I am quite
+convinced that there do exist women like the Sanseverina, though in very
+small numbers, and that I know some myself, I believe also that the
+author has perhaps enlarged the model and has completely idealised her.
+In spite of this labour, which removes all similarity, one may find in
+the Princesse B&mdash;&mdash; certain traits of the Sanseverina. Is she not
+Milanese? Has she not passed through good and adverse fortune? Is she
+not shrewd and witty?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You know now the framework of this immense edifice, and I have taken you
+round it. My hasty analysis, bold, believe me, for it requires boldness
+to undertake to give you an idea of a novel constructed out of incidents
+as closely compressed as are those of <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i>; my
+analysis, dry as it may be, has outlined the masses for you, and you can
+judge whether my praise is exaggerated. But it is difficult to enumerate
+to you in detail the fine and delicate sculptures that enrich this solid
+structure, to stop before the statuettes, the paintings, the landscapes,
+the bas-reliefs which decorate it. This is what happened to me. At the
+first reading, which took me quite by surprise, I found faults in the
+book. On my reading it again, the <i>longueurs</i> vanished, I saw the
+necessity for the detail which, at first, had seemed ta me too long or
+too diffuse. To give you a good account of it, I ran through the book
+once more. Captivated then by the execution, I spent more time than I
+had intended in the contemplation of this fine book, and everything
+struck me as most harmonious, connected naturally or by artifice but
+concordantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, however, are the errors which I pick out, not so much from the
+point of view of art as in view of the sacrifices which every author
+must learn to make to the majority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If I found confusion on first reading the bode, my impression will be
+that of the public, and therefore evidently this book is lacking in
+method. M. Beyle has indeed disposed the events as they happened, or as
+they ought to have happened; but he has committed, in his arrangement of
+the facts, a mistake which many authors commit, by taking a subject true
+in nature which is not true in art. When he sees a landscape, a great
+painter takes care not to copy it slavishly, he has to give us not so
+much its letter as its spirit. So, in his simple, artless and unstudied
+manner of telling his story, M. Beyle has run the risk of appearing
+confused. Merit which requires to be studied is in danger of remaining
+unperceived. And so I could wish, in the interest of the book, that the
+author had begun with his magnificent sketch of the battle of Waterloo,
+that he had reduced everything which precedes it to some account given
+by Fabrizio or about Fabrizio while he is lying in the village in
+Flanders where he arrives wounded. Certainly, the work would gain in
+lightness. The del Dongo father and son, the details about Milan, all
+these things are not part of the book: the drama is at Parma, the
+principal characters are the Prince and his son. Mosca, Rassi, the
+Duchessa, Ferrante Palla, Lodovico, Clelia, her father, the Raversi,
+Giletti, Marietta. Skilled advisers or friends endowed with simple
+common sense might have procured the development of certain portions
+which the author has not supposed to be as interesting as they are, and
+would have called for the excision of several details, superfluous in
+spite of their fineness. For instance, the work would lose nothing if
+the Priore Blanès were to disappear entirely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I will go farther, and will make no compromise, in favour of this fine
+work, over the true principles of art. The law which governs everything
+is that of unity in composition; whether you place this unity in the
+central idea or in the plan of the book, without it there can be only
+confusion. So, in spite of its title, the work is ended when Conte and
+Contessa Mosca return to Parma and Fabrizio is Archbishop. The great
+comedy of the court is finished. It is so well finished, and the author
+has so clearly felt this, that it is in this place that he sets his
+Moral, as our forerunners used to do at the end of their fables.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"One can conclude with this moral," he says: "the man who comes to a
+court risks his happiness, if he is happy; and in any case makes his
+future depend upon the intrigues of a chambermaid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"On the other hand, in America, in the Republic, one has to waste one's
+whole time paying serious court to the shopkeepers in the street and
+becoming as stupid as themselves; and there, there is no Opera."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, beneath the Roman purple and with a mitre on his head, Fabrizio
+loves Clelia, become Marchesa Crescenzi, and if you were telling us
+about it, you would then wish to make the life of this young man the
+subject of your book. But if you wished to describe the whole of
+Fabrizio's life, you ought, being a man of such sagacity, to call your
+book Fabrizio, or the Italian in the Nineteenth Century. In launching
+himself upon such a career, Fabrizio ought not to have found himself
+outshone by figures so typical, so poetical as are those of the two
+Princes, the Sanseverina, Mosca, Ferrante Palla. Fabrizio ought to have
+represented the young Italian of to-day. In making this young man the
+principal figure of the drama, the author was under an obligation to
+give him a large mind, to endow him with a feeling which would make him
+superior to the men of genius who surround him, and which he lacks.
+Feeling, in short, is equivalent to talent. <i>To feel</i> is the rival of
+<i>to understand as to act</i> is the opposite of <i>to think</i>. The
+friend of a man of genius can raise himself to his level by affection, by
+understanding. In matters of the heart, an inferior man may prevail over
+the greatest artist. There lies the justification of those women who
+fall in love with imbeciles. So, in a drama, one of the most ingenious
+resources of the artist is (in the case in which we suppose M. Beyle to
+be) to make a hero superior by his feeling when he cannot by genius
+compete with the people among whom he is placed. In this respect,
+Fabrizio's part requires recasting. The genius of Catholicism ought to
+urge him with its divine hand towards the <i>Charterhouse of Parma</i>, and
+that genius ought from time to time to overwhelm him with the tidings of
+heavenly grace. But then the Priore Blanès could not perform this part,
+for it is impossible to cultivate judicial astrology and to be a saint
+according to the Church. The book ought therefore to be either shorter
+or longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Possibly the slowness of the beginning, possibly that ending which
+begins a new book and in which the subject is abruptly strangled, will
+damage its success, possibly they have already damaged it. M. Beyle has
+moreover allowed himself certain repetitions, perceptible only to those
+who know his earlier books; but such readers themselves are necessarily
+connoisseurs, and so fastidious. M. Beyle, keeping in mind that great
+principle: "Unlucky in love, as in the arts, who says too much!" ought
+not to repeat himself, he, always concise and leaving much to be
+guessed. In spite of his sphinx-like habit, he is less enigmatic here
+than in his other works, and his true friends will congratulate him on
+this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The portraits are brief. A few words are enough for M. Beyle, who paints
+his characters both by action and by dialogue; he does not weary one
+with descriptions, he hastens to the drama and arrives at it by a word,
+by a thought. His landscapes, traced with a somewhat dry touch which,
+however, is suited to the country, are lightly done. He takes his stand
+by a tree, on the spot where he happens to be; he shews you the lines of
+the Alps which on all sides enclose the scene of action, and the
+landscape is complete. The book is particularly valuable to travellers
+who have strolled by the Lake of Como, over the Brianza, who have passed
+under the outermost bastions of the Alps and crossed the plains of
+Lombardy. The spirit of those scenes is finely revealed, their beauty is
+well felt. One can see them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The weak part of this book is the style, in so far as the arrangement of
+the words goes, for the thought, which is eminently French, sustains the
+sentences. The mistakes that M. Beyle makes are purely grammatical; he
+is careless, incorrect, after the manner of seventeenth-century writers.
+The quotations I have made shew what sort of faults he lets himself
+commit. In one place, a discord of tenses between verbs, sometimes the
+absence of a verb; here, again, sequences of <i>c'est</i>, of <i>ce
+que</i>, of <i>que</i>, which weary the reader, and have the effect on
+his mind of a journey in a badly hung carriage over a French road. These
+quite glaring faults indicate a scamping of work. But, if the French
+language is a varnish spread over thought, we ought to be as indulgent
+towards those in whom it covers fine paintings as we are severe to those
+who shew nothing but the varnish. If, in M. Beyle, this varnish is a
+little yellow in places and inclined to scale off in others, he does at
+least let us see a sequence of thoughts which are derived from one
+another according to the laws of logic. His long sentence is ill
+constructed, his short sentence lacks polish. He writes more or less in
+the style of Diderot, who was not a writer; but the conception is great
+and strong; the thought is original, and often well rendered. This
+system is not one to be imitated. It would be too dangerous to allow
+authors to imagine themselves to be profound thinkers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. Beyle is saved by the deep feeling that animates his thought. All
+those to whom Italy is dear, who have studied or understood her, will
+read <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i> with delight. The spirit, the genius,
+the customs, the soul of that beautiful country live in this long drama
+that is always engaging, in this vast fresco so well painted, so
+strongly coloured, which moves the heart profoundly and satisfies the
+most difficult, the most exacting mind. The Sanseverina is the Italian
+woman, a figure as happily portrayed as Carlo Dolci's famous head of
+<i>Poetry</i>, Allori's <i>Judith</i>, or Guercino's <i>Sibyl</i> in the
+Manfredini gallery. In Mosca he paints the man of genius in politics at
+grips with love. It is indeed love without speech (the speeches are the
+weak point in <i>Clarisse</i>), active love, always true to its own
+type, love stronger than the call of duty, love, such as women dream of,
+such as gives an additional interest to the least things in life.
+Fabrizio is quite the young Italian of to-day at grips with the
+distinctly clumsy despotism which suppresses the imagination of that
+fine country; but, as I have said above, the dominant thought or the
+feeling which urges him to lay aside his dignities and to end his life
+in a Charterhouse needs development. This book is admirably expressive
+of love as it is felt in the South. Obviously, the North does not love
+in this way. All these characters have a heat, a fever of the blood, a
+vivacity of hand, a rapidity of mind which is not to be found in the
+English nor in the Germans nor in the Russians, who arrive at the same
+results only by processes of revery, by the reasonings of a smitten
+heart, by the slow rising of their sap. M. Beyle has in this respect
+given this book the profound meaning, the feeling which guarantees the
+survival of a literary conception. But unfortunately it is almost a
+secret doctrine, which requires laborious study. <i>La Chartreuse de
+Parme</i> is placed at such a height, it requires in the reader so
+perfect a knowledge of the court, the place, the people that I am by no
+means astonished at the absolute silence with which such a book has been
+greeted. That is the lot that awaits all books in which there is nothing
+vulgar. The secret ballot in which vote one by one and slowly the
+superior minds who make the name of such works, is not counted until
+long afterwards. Besides, M. Beyle is not a courtier, he has the most
+profound horror of the press. From largeness of character or from the
+sensitiveness of his self-esteem, as soon as his book appears, he takes
+flight, leaves Paris, travels two hundred and fifty leagues in order not
+to hear it spoken of. He demands no articles, he does not haunt the
+footsteps of the reviewers. He has behaved thus after the publication of
+each of his books. I admire this pride of character or this
+sensitiveness of self-esteem. Excuses there may be for mendicity, there
+can be none for that quest for praise and articles on which modern
+authors go begging. It is the mendicity, the pauperism of the mind.
+There are no great works of art that have fallen into oblivion. The
+lies, the complacencies of the pen cannot give life to a worthless book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the courage to criticise comes the courage to praise. Certainly it
+is time someone did justice to M. Beyle's merit. Our age owes him much:
+was it not he who first revealed to us Rossini, the finest genius in
+music? He has pleaded constantly for that glory which France had not the
+intelligence to make her own. Let us in turn plead for the writer who
+knows Italy best, who avenges her for the calumnies of her conquerors,
+who has so well explained her spirit and her genius.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had met M. Beyle twice in society, in twelve years, before the day
+when I took the liberty of congratulating him on <i>La Chartreuse de
+Parme</i> on meeting him in the Boulevard des Italiens. On each
+occasion, his conversation has fully maintained the opinion I had formed
+of him from his works. He tells stories with the spirit and grace which
+M. Charles Nodier and M. de Latouche possess in a high degree. Indeed he
+recalls the latter gentleman by the irresistible charm of his speech,
+although his physique&mdash;for he is extremely stout&mdash;seems at
+first sight to preclude refinement, elegance of manners; but he
+instantly disproves this suspicion, like Dr. Koreff, the friend of
+Hoffmann. He has a fine forehead, a keen and piercing eye, a sardonic
+mouth; in short, he has altogether the physiognomy of his talent. He
+retains in conversation that enigmatic turn, that eccentricity which
+leads him never to sign the already illustrious name of Beyle, to call
+himself one day Cotonnet, another Frédéric. He is, I am told, the
+nephew of the famous and industrious Daru, one of the strong arms of
+Napoleon. M. Beyle was naturally in the Emperor's service; 1815 tore
+him, necessarily, from his career, he passed from Berlin to Milan, and
+it is to the contrast between the life of the North and that of the
+South, which impressed him, that we are indebted for this writer. M.
+Beyle is one of the superior men of our time. It is difficult to explain
+how this observer of the first order, this profound diplomat who,
+whether in his writings or in his speech, has furnished so many proofs
+of the loftiness of his ideas and the extent of his practical knowledge
+should find himself nothing more than Consul at Civita-vecchia. No one
+could be better qualified to represent France at Rome. M. Mérimée knew
+M. Beyle early and takes after him; but the master is more elegant and
+has more ease. M. Beyle's works are many in number and are remarkable
+for fineness of observation and for the abundance of their ideas. Almost
+all of them deal with Italy. He was the first to give us exact
+information about the terrible case of the Cenci; but he has not
+sufficiently explained the causes of the execution, which was
+independent of the trial, and due to factional clamour, to the demands
+of avarice. His book <i>De l'amour</i> is superior to M. de
+Sénancour's, he shews affinity to the great doctrines of Cabanis and
+the School of Paris; but he fails by the lack of method which, as I have
+already said, spoils <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i>. He has ventured, in
+this treatise, upon the word <i>crystallisation</i> to explain the
+phenomenon of the birth of this sentiment, a word which has been taken
+as a joke, but will survive on account of its profound accuracy. M.
+Beyle has been writing since 1817. He began with a certain show of
+Liberalism; but I doubt whether this great calculator can have let
+himself be taken in by the stupidities of Dual Chamber government. <i>La
+Chartreuse de Parme</i> has an underlying bias which is certainly not
+against Monarchy. He finds fault with what he admires, he is a
+Frenchman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. de Chateaubriand said, in a preface to the eleventh edition of
+<i>Atala</i>, that his book in no way resembled the previous editions, so
+thoroughly had he revised it. M. le Comte de Maistre admits having
+rewritten <i>Le Lépreux de la vallée d'Aoste</i> seventeen times. I hope
+that M. Beyle also will set to work going over, polishing <i>La Chartreuse
+de Parme</i>, and will stamp it with the imprint of perfection, the emblem
+of irreproachable beauty which MM. de Chateaubriand and de Maistre have
+given to their precious books.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>So Balzac, reading <i>les petites mains les plus gracieuses</i>.
+Stendhal's words are <i>les petites mines</i>, and he makes the lady a
+Marchesa. Balzac's quotations are not, as a rule, textually accurate,
+but his analysis of the story is admirable. </p>
+
+<p class="nind">C. K. S. M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_2_1" id="Footnote_2_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_1"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>What a phrase, indeed. But it is the Duchessa, not Mosca,
+who gives this advice to Fabrizio, at Piacenza, and it is the party
+"opposite to the one he has served all his life" that he is to be flung
+into.</p>
+
+<p class="nind">C. K. S. M.</p></div>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>
+This article opened the third and concluding number of Balzac's <i>Revue
+Parisienne</i>, dated September 25, 1840. Each of the earlier numbers
+had opened with a story, viz.; <i>Z. Marcas</i> and <i>Les Fantaisies de
+Claudine</i> (<i>Un Prince de la Bohème</i>) afterwards embodied in the
+<i>Comédie Humaine</i>. This <i>Etude sur M. Beyle</i> will be found in
+<i>Œuvres complètes de H. de Balzac&mdash;XXIII&mdash;Œuvres
+diverses&mdash;septième partie&mdash;Essais historiques et
+politiques</i>&mdash;Paris, Michel Lévy Frères, Editeurs, &amp;c.,
+873, pages 687 to 738. It is also reprinted in Lévy's 1853 edition of
+<i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="BEYLES_REPLY_TO_BALZAC">BEYLE'S REPLY TO BALZAC</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+On receiving the <i>Revue Parisienne</i>, Beyle at once wrote to Balzac the
+letter a translation of which follows. This letter he seems to have
+entrusted to his friend Romain Colomb, afterwards his literary executor,
+in whose hands it still remained six months later. As published by
+Colomb, the letter includes the text actually addressed to Balzac and
+the draft here appended to it, and it so figures in <i>Stendhal: Œuvres
+Posthumes: Correspondance Inédite précédée d'une Introduction par
+Prosper Mérimée de l'Académie Française</i>: Vol. II, pp. 293-299
+(Calmann-Lévy). The correct text was established by M. Paul Arbelet in
+the <i>Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France</i>, Oct.-Dec., 1917, pp.
+548 sqq. <i>La véritable lettre de Stendhal</i>, and reprinted by MM. G.
+Grès &amp; Cie. in their edition of <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i> (1922).
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 50%;">Civita-vecchia, 30th October, 1840.</p>
+
+<p>
+Last night, Sir, I received a great surprise. No one, I think, has ever
+been so well treated in a Review, and by the best judge of the subject.
+You have taken pity on an orphan left wandering in the street. I have
+made a fitting response to this kindness, I read the review last night,
+and this morning I have cut down to four or five pages the fifty-four
+opening pages<a name="FNanchor_3_1" id="FNanchor_3_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_1" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> of the work which you have introduced to the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The confection of literature would have disgusted me with all pleasure
+in writing; I have dismissed all rejoicings over the printed page, to a
+time twenty or thirty years hence. Some literary rag-picker may make the
+discovery of the works whose merit you so strangely exaggerate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Your illusion goes a long way, <i>Phèdre</i>, for instance. I may admit to
+you that I was shocked, I who am quite well-disposed towards the author.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since you have taken the trouble to read this novel three times, I shall
+have a number of questions to ask you at our next meeting on the
+boulevard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. Am I allowed to call Fabrizio <i>our</i> hero? It was a question of not
+repeating the name Fabrizio too often.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Ought I to suppress the episode of <i>Fausta</i>, which has turned out
+unduly long? Fabrizio seizes the opportunity that is offered him to shew
+to the Duchessa that he is not susceptible to <i>love</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The fifty-four opening pages seem to me a graceful introduction. I
+did indeed feel some misgivings when correcting the proofs, but I
+thought of those boring first half-volumes of Walter Scott, and of the
+endless preamble to the divine <i>Princesse de Clèves</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I abhor an involved style, and I must admit to you that many pages of
+the <i>Chartreuse</i> were printed from my original dictation. As
+children say: I shall not return to it again. I think, however, that
+since the destruction of the court, in 1792, the part played by form
+becomes more exiguous daily. Were M. Villemain, whom I cite as the most
+distinguished of our Academicians, to translate the <i>Chartreuse</i>
+into French, he would require three volumes to express what I have given
+in two. The majority of scoundrels being emphatic and eloquent, people
+will take a dislike to the declamatory tone. At seventeen I came near to
+fighting a duel over the "indeterminate crest of the forests" of M. de
+Chateaubriand, who numbered many admirers in the 6th Dragoons. I have
+never read <i>La Chaumière indienne</i>, I cannot abide M. de Maistre.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My Homer is the <i>Memoirs</i> of Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr. Montesquieu
+and Fénelon's <i>Dialogues</i> strike me as well written. Except for Madame
+de Mortsauf and her companions, I have read nothing of what has been
+printed in the last thirty years. I read Ariosto, whose stories I love.
+The Duchessa is copied from Correggio. I see the future history of
+French literature in the history of painting. We have reached the stage
+of the pupils of Pietro da Cortona, who worked rapidly and strained all
+his expressions, like Madame Cottin who makes the hewn stones of the
+Borromean Islands walk. After this novel, I have no . . .<a name="FNanchor_4_1" id="FNanchor_4_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_1" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> While
+composing the Chartreuse, to acquire the tone, I used to read every
+morning two or three pages of the <i>Code Civil</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Permit a coarse expression: I do not wish to b&mdash;&mdash; the heart
+of the reader. This, poor reader lets ambitious phrases pass, such as
+"the wind that uproots the waves," but they come back to him after the
+moment of emotion. I wish on the other hand that, if the reader thinks
+of Conte Mosca, he shall find nothing to cut down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. I am going to introduce, in the <i>foyer</i> of the Opera, Bassi and
+Riscara, sent to Paris as spies after Waterloo by Ranuccio-Ernesto IV.
+Fabrizio returning from Amiens will be struck by their Italian
+appearance and clipped Milanese, which these watchers imagine to be
+understood by no one. Everyone tells me that I must announce my
+characters. I shall greatly reduce the good Priore Blanès. I thought
+that the story needed characters who do nothing, and only touch the
+heart of the reader and dispel the air of romance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You are going to think me a monster of pride. What, your inward sense
+will say, this creature, not content with what I have done for him, a
+thing without parallel in this century, still wishes to be praised for
+his style!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I see but one rule: <i>to be clear</i>. If I am not clear, all my world
+crumbles to nothing. I wish to speak of what is occurring in the heart
+of Mosca, of the Duchessa, of Clelia. It is a country into which hardly
+penetrates the gaze of the newly rich, such as the Latinist Master of
+the Mint, M. le Comte Roy, M. Laffitte, etc., etc., etc., the gaze of
+the grocer, the worthy paterfamilias, etc., etc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, to the obscurity of the matter, I add the obscurities of style of M.
+Villemain, of Madame Sand, etc. (supposing me to have the rare privilege
+of being able to write like those <i>choregi</i> of good style), if I add
+to the difficulty of the subject the obscurities of this vaunted style, no
+one in the world will understand the struggle between the Duchessa and
+Ernesto IV. The style of M. de Chateaubriand and M. de Villemain seems
+to me to say: 1. a number of pleasant little things, but things not
+worth saying (like the style of Ausonius, Claudian, etc.); 2. a number
+of little <i>insincerities</i>, pleasant to listen to. These great
+Academicians would have seen the public go mad over their writings, had
+they been given to the world in 1780; their chance of greatness depended
+upon the old <i>régime</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In proportion as the semi-intelligent become more numerous, the part
+played by form decreases. If the <i>Chartreuse</i> were translated into
+French by Madame Sand, she would make it a success, but, in order to
+express what there is in my two volumes, she would need three or four.
+Weigh this excuse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The semi-intelligent puts above everything else the verse of Racine, for
+he can understand what is meant by an unfinished line; but every day his
+verse becomes a less important factor in Racine's merit. The public, as
+it grows more numerous, less sheeplike, requires a greater quantity of
+<i>little actual facts</i>, as to a passion, a situation in real life,
+etc. How often do we find Voltaire, Racine, etc., all of them in fact
+except Corneille, obliged to <i>cap</i> their lines for the sake of the
+rhyme; well, these capping lines occupy the place that should properly
+be filled by little actual facts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In fifty years' time M. Bignan, and the Bignans who write in prose will
+have so wearied their public with productions that are elegant and
+devoid of any other merit, that the semi-intelligent will be in great
+difficulties; their vanity requiring them always to speak of literature
+and to make a pretence of thought, what will become of them when they
+can no longer attach themselves to form? They will end by making their
+god of Voltaire. Wit lasts no more than two centuries; in 1978, Voltaire
+will be Voiture; but <i>Le Père Goriot</i> will still be <i>Le Père
+Goriot</i>. Perhaps the semi-intelligent will be so distressed at no
+longer having their beloved rules to admire that it is highly possible
+that they will grow disgusted with literature and take to religion. All
+political rascals having a declamatory and eloquent tone, people will
+have grown sick of this in 1880. Then perhaps they will read the
+<i>Chartreuse</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>
+[The following passage occurs among the Beyle manuscripts at Grenoble,
+and was added to the printed text of the letter by Colomb. It appears
+rather to be alternative to some of the preceding paragraphs.]
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>
+The part played by <i>form</i> becomes more exiguous daily. Take Hume;
+imagine a History of France from 1780 to 1840, written with Hume's sound
+sense; it would be read, even if it were written in patois; it<a name="FNanchor_5_1" id="FNanchor_5_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_1" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> is
+written like the <i>Code Civil</i>. I am going to correct the style of the
+<i>Chartreuse</i>, since it hurts you, but I shall find it most difficult.
+I do not admire the style now in fashion, I have no patience with it. I
+see Claudians, Senecas, Ausoniuses. I have been told for the last year
+that one ought now and then to relax the reader's attention by
+describing scenery, dresses. These things have bored me so in other
+writers! I shall try.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for immediate success, of which I should never have thought but for
+the <i>Revue Parisienne</i>, it is quite fifteen years since I said to
+myself: I should become a candidate for the Academy if I won the hand of
+Mademoiselle Bertin, who would have my praises sung three times weekly.
+When society is no longer tainted with common upstarts, valuing above
+everything else nobility, just because they are ignoble, it will no
+longer be on its knees before the press of the aristocracy. Before 1793
+good company was the true judge of books, now it is haunted by the fear
+of another 1793, it is frightened, it is no longer a judge. Look at the
+catalogue which a little bookseller near Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin (Rue du
+Bac, about No. 110) supplies to the nobility, his neighbours. It is the
+argument that has most convinced me of the impossibility of pleasing
+these timid creatures, stupefied by idleness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have not in the least copied M. de Metternich, whom I have not seen
+since 1810, at Saint-Cloud, when he wore a bracelet of the hair of
+Caroline Murat, who was such a beauty then. I feel no regret for all
+that is destined not to happen. I am a fatalist, and hide from it. I
+imagine that I shall perhaps have a little success about 1860 or '80.
+Then there will be very little said of M. de Metternich, and even less
+of the petty Prince. Who was Prime Minister of England in the time of
+Malherbe? If I have not the misfortune to hit upon a Cromwell, I am sure
+of a nonentity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Death makes us change places with these people. They can do anything
+with our bodies during their lives, but, at the moment of death,
+oblivion enwraps them for ever. Who will speak of M. de Villèle, of M.
+de Martignac, in a hundred years' time? M. de Talleyrand himself will be
+preserved only by his <i>Memoirs</i>, if he has left good ones, while <i>Le
+Roman comique</i> is to-day what <i>Le Père Goriot</i> will be in 1980. It
+is Scarron who makes known the name of the Rothschild of his day, M. de
+Montauron, who was also, to the extent of fifty louis, the protector of
+Corneille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You have well felt, Sir, with the tact of a man who has acted, that the
+<i>Chartreuse</i> could not deal with a great State, such as France,
+Spain, Vienna, on account of the administrative detail. I was left with
+the petty Princes of Germany and Italy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the Germans are so much on their knees before a riband, they are
+such fools! I spent several years among them, and have forgotten their
+language, out of contempt for them. You can easily see that my
+characters could not be Germans. If you follow this idea, you will find
+that I have been led by the hand to an extinct dynasty, to a Farnese,
+the least obscure of these <i>extinct</i> personages, on account of the
+Generals, his grandsires.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I take a character well-known to myself, I leave him the habits he has
+contracted in the art of going out every morning in pursuit of pleasure,
+then I give him more intelligence. I have never seen Signora di
+Belgiojoso. Rassi was a German; I have talked to him hundreds of times.
+I picked up the Prince while staying at Saint-Cloud in 1810 and 1811.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ouf! I hope that you will have read this treatise three times. You say,
+Sir, that you do not know English: you have in Paris the <i>bourgeois</i>
+style of Walter Scott in the heavy prose of M. Delécluze, editor of the
+<i>Débats</i>, and author of a <i>Mademoiselle de Liron</i> which has
+something in it. Walter Scott's prose is inelegant and above all
+pretentious. One sees a dwarf who is determined not to lose an inch of
+his stature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This astounding article, such as no writer has ever received from
+another, I have read, I now make bold to confess to you, with shouts of
+laughter, whenever I came to an encomium that was at all strong, and I
+met them at every turn. I could see the expression on the faces of my
+friends as they read it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For instance the Minister d'Argout, being then Auditor to the Council of
+State, was my equal and, moreover, what is known as a friend; 1830
+comes, he is a Minister, his clerks, whom I do not know, think that
+there are at least thirty artists. . . .
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_3_1" id="Footnote_3_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_1"><span class="label">[3]</span></a><i>i.e.</i>, Chapters I and II.</p>
+
+<p class="nind">C. K. S. M.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_4_1" id="Footnote_4_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_1"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>This sentence is left unfinished at the foot of a page, the
+next page beginning with "While composing," etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_5_1" id="Footnote_5_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_1"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>This seems to refer to the <i>Chartreuse</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="nind">C. K. S. M.</p></div>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><i>The Works of Stendhal</i></h4>
+
+
+
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+
+
+<h3>THE CHARTERHOUSE<br />
+OF PARMA</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<h4>VOLUME ONE</h4>
+
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="TO_THE_READER"><i>TO THE READER</i></a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>zabaione</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>assassin</i>."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I publish this tale without any alteration from the manuscript of 1830,
+a course which may have two drawbacks:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>puntiglio</i>. Lastly, poverty is not, with them, a subject
+for ridicule.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second drawback concerns the author.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I confess that I have been so bold as to leave my characters with their
+natural asperities; but, on the other hand&mdash;this I proclaim
+aloud&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">23rd January, 1839.</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4>THE CHARTERHOUSE<br />
+OF PARMA</h4>
+
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_ONE">CHAPTER ONE</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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 Cæsar 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>loyal
+subjects</i>, 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 <i>cicisbeo</i>
+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 <i>Encyclopædia</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>MILAN IN 1796</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Monferrina</i>, <i>Salterello</i> and other Italian
+dances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i>
+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 <i>palazzo</i>, 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 majordomo 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 <i>Herodias</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>assignats</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"'What, Lieutenant,' she broke in, 'three ounces of bread!'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"'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.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>casa del Dongo</i> (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, Gina 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After these two years of folly and happiness, the Directory in Paris,
+giving itself the airs 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 in 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then began that period of reaction and a return to the old ideas, which
+the Milanese call <i>i tredici mesi</i> (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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+men to be found in Italy at the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.<a name="FNanchor_6_1" id="FNanchor_6_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_1" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> 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 <i>festa</i>. 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 <i>casa Tanzi</i>. 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 Giovita, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>contadini</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 him 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 three 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_6_1" id="Footnote_6_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_1"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>By the local custom, borrowed from Germany, this title is
+given to every son of a Marchese; <i>Contino</i> to the son of a Conte,
+<i>Contessina</i> to the daughter of a Conte, etc.</p></div>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_TWO">CHAPTER TWO</a></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">. . . <i>Alors que Vesper vient embrunir nos</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>yeux,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Tout épris d'avenir, je contemple les cieux,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>En qui Dieu nous escrit, par notes non obscures.</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Les sorts et les destins de toutes créatures.</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Car lui, du fond des deux regardant un</i></span><br />
+<span class="i2"><i>humain.</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Parfois mû de pitié, lui montre le chemin;</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Par les astres du ciel qui sont ses caractères,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Les choses nous prédit et bonnes et contraires;</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Mais les hommes chargés de terre et de trépas,</i></span><br />
+<span class="i0"><i>Méprisent tel écrit, et ne le lisent pas.</i></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i28">RONSARD.</span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>
+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 Giovita, the patron saint of Brescia. He added, when he
+was speaking to friends whom he could trust, that this number
+<i>thirteen</i> was to be interpreted in a fashion which would astonish
+many people, if it were permitted to say all that one knew (1813).
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>PRIORE BLANÈS</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>equus</i>?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>contadini</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>contadini</i>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Hail, Mary</i>. Now it
+frequently happened that at the moment of starting, and immediately
+after the <i>Hail, Mary</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>MILAN</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 Austrian 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 <i>Second Grand
+Majordomo Major</i> 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 Dongo'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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>PRINA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 post-horses 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 judgment and warm heart, seemed
+quite ashamed of the assassination of Prina and the Conte's
+imprisonment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>alla Scala</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>MILAN</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash;, 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:
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>
+"Will you for once act like a man of spirit? Please to consider
+that you have never known me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am, with a trace of contempt perhaps, your most humble servant,
+</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">"GINA PIETRANERA."</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash;'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 on him. At first, he used to add that
+with Conte N&mdash;&mdash; she was ruining herself, and that such a
+connexion was degrading to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fact of the matter was that the Contessa had no sort of love for Conte
+N&mdash;&mdash;, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this heroic declaration the Contessa declined to avail herself any
+longer either of Conte N&mdash;&mdash;'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
+<i>palazzo</i>, 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&mdash;&mdash; 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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE LAKE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>yield a return</i>.
+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 Cagnola, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ascanio swore to be avenged on Fabrizio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Are we to spend all the youth that is left to us in this gloomy
+castle?" the Marchesa used to exclaim.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before the Contessa came, she had not had the courage even to feel these
+regrets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>DEPARTURE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>terrible news</i>. 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;<a name="FNanchor_7_1" id="FNanchor_7_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_1" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> 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.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"She will tell my sisters, and those women will betray me without
+knowing it!" cried Fabrizio with a sort of heroic grandeur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 into 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>adjudant</i> 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 <i>adjudant</i> 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 <i>adjudant</i> 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 <i>bone</i> his fine horses. At once a soldier
+called by the <i>adjudant</i> put his hand on the servant's collar;
+another soldier took charge of the horses, and, with an air of severity,
+the <i>adjudant</i> ordered Fabrizio to follow him and not to answer
+back.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE BIVOUAC</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>gendarmerie</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What fools they are!" cried the officer; "this really is too much."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>gendarmerie</i> went off in peals of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>adjudant</i> had taken only the horses, and the officer of
+<i>gendarmerie</i> 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&mdash;&mdash;. 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Get me out of here, I swear on my honour to return to prison as soon as
+they have stopped fighting."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Stuff and nonsense! Have you the <i>quibus</i>?" He seemed worried; he did
+not understand the word <i>quibus</i>. 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.
+
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>WAR</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day, before dawn, the woman who was quite moved said to Fabrizio:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"My dear boy, you are still far too young for that dirty trade; take my
+advice, don't go back to it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What!" stammered Fabrizio, "is it a crime then to wish to defend one's
+country?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>adjudant</i>,"
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_7_1" id="Footnote_7_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_1"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>The speaker is carried away by passion; he is rendering
+in prose some lines of the famous Monti.</p></div>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_THREE">CHAPTER THREE</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio soon came upon some <i>vivandières</i>, and the extreme gratitude
+that he felt for the gaoler's wife of B&mdash;&mdash; impelled him to
+address them; he asked one of them where he would find the 4th Hussar
+Regiment, to which he belonged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You would do just as well not to be in such a hurry, young soldier,"
+said the <i>cantinière</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This advice displeased Fabrizio; but however much he urged on his horse,
+he could go no faster than the <i>cantinière</i> 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 <i>cantinière</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>WAR</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"First of all, my boy," said the <i>cantinière</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the truth, and Fabrizio admitted as much with good grace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>yellow-boys</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio followed this advice and, presenting a napoleon to the
+<i>vivandière</i>, asked her to accept payment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>brute</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meal finished, the <i>vivandière</i>, who was still haranguing, was
+interrupted by a woman who had come across the fields and passed them on
+the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Hallo there, hi!" this woman shouted. "Hallo, Margot! Your 6th Light
+are over there on the right."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I must leave you, my boy," said the <i>vivandière</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio, stung to the quick, admitted nevertheless to his new friend
+that she had guessed aright.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>cantinière</i> in a tone of authority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But I want to fight."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You shall fight too; why, the 6th Light are famous fighters, and
+there's fighting enough to-day for everyone."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But shall we come soon to the regiment?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"In a quarter of an hour at the most."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We're beginning to hear the infantry fire now," said the
+<i>vivandière</i>, whipping up her little horse, which seemed quite
+excited by the firing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>cantinière</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio's face, pale enough by nature, assumed a markedly green tinge;
+the <i>cantinière</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Come nearer," the <i>cantinière</i> ordered him, "get off your horse,
+you'll have to get accustomed to them; look," she cried, "he's stopped
+one in the head."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Get off your horse then, lad," said the <i>cantinière</i>, "and give him
+a shake of the hand to see if he'll return it."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The <i>vivandière</i> 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 <i>vivandière</i> 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
+<i>vivandière</i> looked at him now and again from the corner of her
+eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"On the contrary, I want to start fighting at once," exclaimed our hero
+with a sombre air which seemed to the <i>vivandière</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point the road dived down into a clump, of trees. The
+<i>vivandière</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They're ours," said the <i>vivandière</i> 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 <i>vivandière</i>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If I only knew where the regiment was," said the <i>cantinière</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment, the <i>cantinière</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where are the 6th Light?" she shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Over there, five minutes away, across that canal that runs along by the
+willows; why, Colonel Macon has just been killed."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Will you take five francs for your horse, you?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Five francs! That's not a bad one, <i>ma</i>! An officer's horse I can
+sell in ten minutes for five napoleons."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Give me one of your napoleons," said the <i>vivandière</i> to Fabrizio.
+Then going up to the mounted soldier: "Get off, quickly," she said to
+him, "here's your napoleon."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soldier dismounted, Fabrizio sprang gaily on to the saddle, the
+<i>vivandière</i> unstrapped the little portmanteau which was on his old
+horse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Come and help me, all of you!" she said to the soldiers, "is that the
+way you leave a lady to do the work?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"A good sign!" said the <i>vivandière</i>, "the gentleman is not
+accustomed to being tickled by portmanteaus."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"A general's horse," cried the man who had sold it, "a horse that's
+worth ten napoleons if it's worth a liard."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Here are twenty francs," said Fabrizio, who could not contain himself
+for joy at feeling between his legs a horse that could really move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Look, there's the <i>brute</i> advancing," the soldier said to him as he
+took the twenty francs. It was now about two o'clock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Up here! There is a watering-place on the left!" he shouted, and in
+time they all crossed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where did you get that horse?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio was so much upset that he answered in Italian:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"<i>L'ho comprato poco fa.</i> (I bought it just now.)"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What's that you say?" cried the general.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Who is that general who is chewing up the one next to him?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Gad, it's the Marshal!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What Marshal?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Marshal Ney, you fool! I say, where have you been serving?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Something like. But who are you?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am the brother of a captain's wife."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And what is he called, your captain?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the escort was halted, he caught sight of the little cart of a
+<i>cantinière</i>, and his affection for this honourable corps sweeping
+aside every other consideration, set off at a gallop to join her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Stay where you are, curse you," the serjeant shouted after him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What can he do to me here?" thought Fabrizio, and he continued to gallop
+towards the <i>cantinière</i>. When he put spurs to his horse, he had
+had some hope that it might be his good <i>cantinière</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How you do go for it, you boozer!" cried the <i>cantinière</i>. The
+brandy gave him an idea: "I must buy the goodwill of my comrades, the
+hussars of the escort."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Give me the rest of the bottle," he said to the <i>vivandière</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What do you mean," was her answer, "what's left there costs ten francs,
+on a day like this."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he rejoined the escort at a gallop:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah! You're bringing us a drop of drink," cried the serjeant. "That was
+why you deserted, was it? Hand it over."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That's what you'll find out to-night," was the serjeant's reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the serjeant called out to his men: "Don't you see the Emperor,
+curse you!" Whereupon the escort shouted: "<i>Vive l'Empereur</i>!" 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They went down into a road filled with water, the horses wished to
+drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"So that was the Emperor who went past then?" he asked the man next to
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This general was none other than Comte d'A&mdash;&mdash;, the Lieutenant
+Robert of the 15th of May, 1796. How delighted he would have been to meet
+Fabrizio del Dongo!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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: "<i>Ladri!
+Ladri</i>! (Thieves! Thieves!)" It was an amusing experience to run after
+horse-stealers across a battlefield.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The escort and the general, Comte d'A&mdash;&mdash;, 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 <i>Gerusalemme Liberata</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Friends, could you sell me a mouthful of bread?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I say, here's a fellow who thinks we're bakers!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>cantinière</i> of that morning! She ran to him and was frightened by his
+appearance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_FOUR">CHAPTER FOUR</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+Nothing could awaken him, neither the muskets fired close to the cart
+nor the trot of the horse which the <i>cantinière</i> was flogging with all
+her might. The regiment, attacked unexpectedly by swarms of Prussian
+cavalry, after imagining all day that they were winning the battle, was
+beating a retreat or rather fleeing in the direction of France.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is happening?" he asked the <i>cantinière</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.&mdash;I must go and fight," he said to the
+<i>cantinière</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Keep calm, you shall fight, and more than you want! We're done for.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Aubry, my lad," she called out to a passing corporal, "keep an eye on
+the little cart now and then."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Are you going to fight?" Fabrizio asked Aubry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, no, I'm putting my pumps on to go to a dance!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I shall follow you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I tell you, he's all right, the little hussar," cried the
+<i>cantinière</i>. "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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why, what is happening?" Fabrizio wondered. At length, when he found
+himself alone with the corporal, he said to him: "I have no musket."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 bade by our fellows."
+Fabrizio set off at a run and returned the next minute with a musket and
+a pouch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>WAR</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You there, wipe the flint of your musket with your handkerchief. Have
+you never fired a musket?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am a hunter."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>look-out</i>,
+bear-shootings 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Did you kill your man?" Corporal Aubry asked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes; but I've lost my musket."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It's not muskets we're short of. You're not a bad b&mdash;&mdash;; 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Go and f&mdash;&mdash; yourself!" replied the corporal, "you and all your
+generals. You've all of you betrayed the Emperor to-day."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What," said the general, furious, "you dispute my orders. Do you know
+that I am General Comte B&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Me, too!" said another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have," said one of the men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Give it here," said the corporal in a tone of authority. He divided the
+bread into five pieces and took the smallest himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"They're like a flock of sheep running away," said Fabrizio with a
+guileless air to the corporal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Those people going along the high road look like a flock of sheep . . .
+they are running like frightened sheep. . . ."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of his dwelling upon the word <i>sheep</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We shall not attempt to conceal the fact that Fabrizio was highly
+pleased with himself after using the word <i>sheep</i>. 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You are our cavalry; gallop over to that farm on the little hill; ask
+the farmer if he will <i>sell</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>vivandière</i>: 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Stripped, ruined, robbed!" cried the <i>vivandière</i>, 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 <i>vivandière</i>: "Mount!" She did
+not have to be told twice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Shorten the stirrups for me," was her only remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>vivandière</i>, she went on:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And to think that they were Frenchmen who robbed me, beat me, destroyed
+me. . . ."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What! It wasn't the enemy?" said Fabrizio with an air of innocence
+which made his grave, pale face look charming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What a fool you are, you poor boy!" said the <i>vivandière</i>, smiling
+through her tears; "but you're very nice, for all that."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>cantinière</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I'm called Vasi," replied Fabrizio, with a curious expression on his
+face. "Boulot, I mean," he added, quickly correcting himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash; 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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he was making these reflexions and saying to himself: "I must not
+forget that I am called Boulot, or look-out for the prison fate
+threatens me with," the corporal and the <i>cantinière</i> had been
+exchanging a few words with regard to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Don't say I'm inquisitive," said the <i>cantinière</i>, ceasing to
+address him in the second person singular, "it's for your good I ask you
+these questions. Who are you, now, really?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>cantinière</i> had addressed to him. But as, before
+answering, he had to think of the French words which would express his
+meaning most clearly, the <i>cantinière</i>, pricked by a keen curiosity,
+added, to induce him to speak: "Corporal Aubry and I are going to give
+you some good advice."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>gendarme</i>, 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.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What was he called?" asked the <i>cantinière</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I've given my word," said Fabrizio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He's right," put in the corporal, "the <i>gendarme</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Teulier, Captain in the 4th Hussars," replied our hero.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And so," said the corporal, with a certain subtlety, "from your foreign
+accent the soldiers took you for a spy?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"There's no insult about it; that's where you're wrong; the soldiers'
+mistake was quite natural," replied Corporal Aubry gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But make the boy tell us the whole story," said the <i>cantinière</i>, her
+curiosity more and more excited. Fabrizio obeyed. When he had finished:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It comes to this," said the <i>cantinière</i>, 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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Besides, he lets everyone see the colour of his money," added the
+<i>cantinière</i>; "he will be robbed of all he has as soon as he hasn't
+got us to look after him."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio was extremely proud of this little speech. We need not report
+the long discussion that followed between the corporal and the
+<i>cantinière</i> 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 <i>gendarme</i>
+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
+<i>scoffed</i> from him, and so on indefinitely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With feminine curiosity the <i>cantinière</i> kept harking back incessantly
+to the way in which he had been dispossessed of the good horse which she
+had made him buy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How much money have you?" the <i>cantinière</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Altogether, I may have got left thirty napoleons in gold, and eight or
+nine five-franc pieces."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"In that case, you have a clear field!" exclaimed the <i>cantinière</i>.
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That's right," said the <i>cantinière</i>. "Never let on to anyone that
+you've been in battle, don't breathe a word about B&mdash;&mdash;, or the
+<i>gendarme</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Take back your horse!" the <i>cantinière</i> shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"God forbid!" said Fabrizio. "Gallop! Away with you! I give him to you.
+Do you want something to buy another cart with? Half of what I have is
+yours."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Take back your horse, I tell you!" cried the <i>cantinière</i> angrily;
+and she prepared to dismount. Fabrizio drew his sabre. "Hold on tight!" he
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>cantinière</i> and
+Corporal Aubry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash;. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 back! 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 <i>parroco</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"One of those horses belongs to me, f&mdash;&mdash; you, but I don't mind
+giving you five francs for the trouble you've taken in bringing it here."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What are you playing at?" said the soldier. Fabrizio took aim at him
+from a distance of six paces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Let go the horse, or I'll blow your head off."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soldier had his musket slung on his back; he reached over his
+shoulder to seize it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If you move an inch, you're a dead man!" cried Fabrizio, rushing upon
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Dismount, or you're a dead man. Bridle the black, and go farther off
+with the other two. . . . If you move, I fire."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>cantinière</i>; 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 <i>cantinière</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>cantinière</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Advance, you, hussar!" the officer called to him with an air of
+authority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio went on a few paces and then halted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Do you want to take my horse?" he shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Not in the least; advance."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am very young, sir, to make them listen to me; I ought to have a
+written order from you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He is right," said the colonel, studying him closely; "make out the
+order, La Rose, you've got the use of your right hand."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Headquarters, by the bridge of La Sainte, June 19, 1815.
+</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"> "For Colonel Le Baron, wounded in the right arm,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">and by his orders,</span></p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">"LA ROSE, <i>Serjeant</i>."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Armed with the serjeant'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
+<i>vivandière</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>cantinière's</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Halt! You bad soldier," he said to the hussar; "I know you, you're in
+Captain Henriot's squadron."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;&mdash; yourself!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 slowly; 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hussar whom the serjeant had wounded was dying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_FIVE">CHAPTER FIVE</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>WAR</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>cantinière's</i> advice. "What friendship!" he said to himself, "what an
+open nature!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Very well, there is money in my dolman!" he cried, sitting up in bed;
+"buy me some civilian clothes and to-night 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.<a name="FNanchor_8_1" id="FNanchor_8_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_1" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1st, that he had never gone beyond Switzerland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2ndly, that he had left the castle suddenly after a quarrel with his
+elder brother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 or 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 on 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 earliest childhood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I expect the <i>doganieri</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>doganieri</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE CONSTABLES</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 mediæval 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
+<i>trattoria</i>:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am sorry, sir, but I must do my duty and arrest you, General Fabio
+Conti."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Contessa smiled&mdash;a smile of despair, I fancy&mdash;then said to
+the serjeant:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But, my dear serjeant, is it this boy of sixteen that you take for
+General Conti?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Aren't you the General's daughter?" asked the serjeant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Look at my father," said the Contessa, pointing to Fabrizio. The
+constables went into fits of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Show me your passports and don't argue the point," said the serjeant,
+stung by the general mirth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where did you find them?" asked the serjeant, for the moment completely
+drunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Running away across the fields, with not a sign of a passport about
+them."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Wait," said the Contessa to Fabrizio, who had already jumped out of the
+carriage. "Everything will be settled in a minute."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Stay in the road; don't get into a carriage that does not belong to
+you!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"She would be a charming prison companion," Fabrizio said to himself.
+"What profound thought lies behind that brow! She would know how to
+love."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The serjeant came up to them with an air of authority: "Which of these
+ladies is named Clelia Conti?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am," said the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And this morning you escaped from Como."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A heavy weight seemed to have been lifted from the serjeant's mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Very well, General, you are under arrest and I shall take you to Milan.
+And you, who are you?" he said to Fabrizio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"My son," replied the Contessa; "Ascanio, son of the Divisional General
+Pietranera."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Without a passport, Signora Contessa?" said the serjeant, in a much
+gentler tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"At his age, he has never had one; he never travels alone, he is always
+with me."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During this colloquy General Conti was standing more and more on his
+dignity with the constables.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Not so much talk," said one of them; "you are under arrest, that's
+enough!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You will be glad to hear," said the serjeant, "that we allow you to hire
+a horse from some <i>contadino</i>; 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The General began to swear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Will you kindly be quiet!" the constable repeated. "Where is your
+general's uniform? Anybody can come along and say he's a general."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The General grew more and more angry. Meanwhile things were looking much
+brighter in the carriage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>contadino</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE POLICE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A league outside Milan Fabrizio announced that he was going to see his
+uncle, and took leave of the ladies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Good!" said the Contessa, "that is how you keep your identity secret.
+Signorina, deign to remember that this scapegrace is my son, and is
+called Pietranera, and not del Dongo."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening, at a late hour, Fabrizio entered Milan by the Porta Renza,
+which leads to a fashionable gathering-place. The dispatch 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 overbold Italian imaginations to be
+struck by terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Give me, day by day," repeated Barone Binder to Fabrizio's protectors,
+"a <i>certified</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Marchesa was in despair when Barone Binder's reply was communicated
+to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Fabrizio will be arrested," she sobbed, "and once he is in prison, God
+knows when he will get out! His father will disown him!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Signora Pietranera and her sister-in-law took counsel with two or three
+intimate friends, and, in spite of anything these might say, the
+Marchesa was absolutely determined to send her son away that very night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No; but he is anxious to please the Emperor Francis."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>palazzo</i>, 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 <i>osteria</i>, and while the
+footmen, on whom they could rely, were looking after the horses,
+Fabrizio, disguised as a <i>contadino</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE CANON</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>tarocchi</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Shew her in, and leave us," he said in faint accents. The Contessa
+entered the room; Borda fell on his knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is in this position that I wish to receive 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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. . . ."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That is to say, Geneva," put in the Canon with a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Contessa finished her story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>palazzo</i>
+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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>collo-torto</i>" (that is, hypocrite), "see, signed Ascanio
+Valserra 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 <i>palazzo</i> del Dongo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>seccatore</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was necessary that, in his exile at Romagnano, Fabrizio
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(3) Must never let himself be seen in the <i>caffè</i>, must never read any
+newspaper other than the official <i>Gazette</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE POLICE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i>, 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
+<i>ultra</i> 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<a name="FNanchor_9_1" id="FNanchor_9_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_1" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>); but he went three
+leagues on foot and wrapped himself in a mystery which he imagined to be
+impenetrable, in order to read the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, 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 <i>sound</i> mistress. But there was no room as yet for
+<i>imitation of others</i> 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. "<i>He is a younger son who feels himself wronged because he is
+not the eldest</i>" was the <i>parroco's</i> comment.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_8_1" id="Footnote_8_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_1"><span class="label">[8]</span></a>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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_9_1" id="Footnote_9_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_1"><span class="label">[9]</span></a>See the curious Memoirs of M. Andryane, as entertaining
+as a novel, and as lasting as Tacitus.</p></div>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_SIX">CHAPTER SIX</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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 Eugène's court, may still find me good-looking and even
+young, but for him I am a respectable woman&mdash;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 . . ."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>MELANCHOLY</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>palazzo</i> at Parma. In 1813 I found
+that my whole worldly wealth consisted of a huge <i>palazzo</i>,
+half-finished, and a pension."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>A MINISTER</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"A pension: 3,500 francs, like my husband's?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The frankness, the <i>disinvoltura</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"'What do my manners matter to Your Highness,' he answers boldly, 'so
+long as I conduct his affairs?'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>Constitutionnel</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>fresh air</i>,
+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 sorts 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."&mdash;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 <i>forget</i> 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 <i>Corso</i>; 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 <i>caffè</i> which at that hour are filled to
+overflowing with people. Outside each of these <i>caffè</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>with
+prudence</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>sound</i> bores of the
+neighbourhood, that it never occurred to her to give a thought to her
+new adorer's style in hairdressing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The principal source of the Conte's reputation for evil was that he passed
+as the head of the <i>Ultra</i> 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 <i>repique</i> and <i>capot</i>."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>MILAN</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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."&mdash;"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 envy 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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>A RECENT CREATION</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 &mdash;&mdash;, by advancing the following
+argument: "Your Highness allots 30,000 francs to his Representative at the
+Court of &mdash;&mdash;, 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 &mdash;&mdash; 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE DUCA SANSEVERINA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>deliberately</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But do you know that what you are proposing is highly immoral?" said
+the Contessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;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 <i>supremely
+moral</i> 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, choose 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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>A MATCH</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i> 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 &mdash;&mdash;, 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 &mdash;&mdash;, 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 <i>Constitutionnel</i> through Ferrante Palla the
+poet, and this slander was for a long time a serious obstacle in the way
+of the Prince's consent."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 immoral? 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>flaxen</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>tabouret</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE COURT OF PARMA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.&mdash;"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 <i>beauty</i>. 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 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!)."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>tyrant</i> was proved. Rassi called
+this conspiracy; he had them sentenced to death, and the execution of
+one of them, Conte L&mdash;&mdash;, 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 <i>unworthy of a
+man</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>of company</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Marchesa Balbi, a young woman of five-and-twenty, might still have
+passed for the most perfect type of <i>leggiadria italiana</i>, 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
+<i>ricordo</i> (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: "<i>I shall die on straw</i>!" 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 <i>palazzo</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"She received me," the Duchessa told her lover, "as though she expected
+me to offer her a gratuity of 50 francs."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 hair,
+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 &mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa lived in the greatest style imaginable. The <i>palazzo</i>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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. This 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i> 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 stepmother, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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. "<i>Perpetual</i> 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 confessions that the famous
+Ferrante Palla had been sentenced to death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I should like him to be an officer," said the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well?" said the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They discussed the matter at length: the idea was highly repugnant to
+the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Prove to me again," she said to the Conte, "that every other career is
+impossible for Fabrizio." The Conte proved it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You regret," he added, "the brilliant uniform; but as to that, I do not
+know what to do."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If your orders deign to transform my proposal into an immutable
+decree," the Conte went on, "our <i>protégé</i> 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 <i>violet stockings</i><a name="FNanchor_10_1" id="FNanchor_10_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_1" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and a
+suitable establishment. Then everyone will assume that your nephew is
+destined to be a Bishop, and nobody will be shocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>caffè</i>-haunting existence in one of the big towns of Italy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Can't you see yourself on the <i>Corso</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And after ten years of this agreeable life, what shall I have done?"
+said Fabrizio; "what shall I be? A young man <i>of a certain age</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What a mistake you are making! You won't have any war, and you'll fall
+back into the <i>caffè</i> 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 <i>Dollar</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>ITALIAN PRUDENCE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I an enthusiast!" repeated Fabrizio; "a strange accusation! I cannot
+manage even to be in love!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What!" exclaimed the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This avowal made a strange impression upon the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I ask for a month," Fabrizio went on, "in which to take leave of
+Signora C&mdash;&mdash;, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No, whatever you do!" cried the Duchessa. She did not wish Conte Mosca
+to see her talking to Fabrizio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Liberal Party</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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, <i>but never raise any objection</i>. 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!
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE COURT</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What feuds the paper will create!" said the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;&mdash; and
+D&mdash;&mdash; are already on the list."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But this paper will be quite revoltingly absurd."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 man
+vowing a hatred which will last as long as I shall and may perhaps
+shorten my life."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Thursdays</i>; 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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i> 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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Prince looked fixedly at her and replied in a dry tone:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I was under the impression that I was my own master and could go where
+I pleased."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa blushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>making an example</i>. 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she returned to the drawing-room she was beside herself with joy.
+Everyone bowed down before her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>palazzo</i>.' Then the Prince took a seat and
+went into a description of each of your rooms in turn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Thursday</i>, and he had talked
+to his wife. At dinner, he addressed her again; in a word, this
+<i>Thursday</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_10_1" id="Footnote_10_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_1"><span class="label">[10]</span></a>In Italy, young men with influence or brains become
+<i>Monsignori</i> and <i>prelati</i>, which does not mean bishop; they then wear
+violet stockings. A man need not take any vows to become <i>Monsignore</i>;
+he can discard his violet stockings and marry.</p></div>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_SEVEN">CHAPTER SEVEN</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i> 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&mdash;&mdash;. 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
+<i>Monsignore</i>, 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 <i>palazzo</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE COURT</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>fifties</i>, 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 <i>fifties</i> 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 <i>beaux</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>A FIRST AUDIENCE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+After the first gracious words on the Prince's part:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well, <i>Monsignore</i>," he said to Fabrizio, "and the people of Naples,
+are they happy? Is the King loved?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Plague!" said the Prince, "what a <i>slyboots</i>! 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 <i>that breed</i>; 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"These principles surprise you, young man," he said to Fabrizio (he had
+called him <i>Monsignore</i> at the beginning of the audience, and
+intended to give him his <i>Monsignore</i> 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 <i>bread and butter absolutism</i>"
+(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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>Liberty</i>, <i>Justice</i>, the <i>Good of the Greatest
+Number</i>, are infamous and criminal: they form in people's minds the
+habits of discussion and want of confidence. A Chamber of Deputies votes
+<i>no confidence</i> in what these people call <i>the Ministry</i>. This
+fatal habit of <i>want of confidence</i> 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&mdash;which is abominably false, and
+criminal even to suggest&mdash;that this want of confidence in the
+authority of the Princes by God <i>established</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently the Prince lost interest in his contest with this young man
+whose simple and serious manner had begun to irritate him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Good-bye, <i>Monsignore</i>," 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have quite failed to please this animal," thought Fabrizio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And now, it remains to be seen," said the Prince as soon as he was once
+more alone, "whether this fine youngman 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 <i>Monitore</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The desire for liberty, the fashion and cult of the <i>greatest good of
+the greatest number</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio having returned quite flustered from his audience at the
+Palace, and having told his aunt of the various attacks launched at him
+by the Prince:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>apostolic</i>!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I understand," said Fabrizio, "our man is a Tartuffe."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Not the least bit in the world, he is virtue incarnate."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Even after the way he behaved," said Fabrizio in some bewilderment,
+"when Conte Palanza was executed?"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE ARCHBISHOP</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>Davide Palanza</i>. We have at this court a rascal of
+infinite cleverness named <i>Rassi</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Monsignor Landriani, a man of superior intellect, a scholar of the
+first order, has only one weakness: <i>he likes to be loved</i>: 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. Show 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>del Dongo</i>; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>what he could do to serve him</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is it really possible," Fabrizio asked himself as he made his way back
+to the <i>palazzo</i> Sanseverina, "that this is the man who hurried on the
+execution of that poor Conte Palanza?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 man
+could not bear to see a chicken bleed."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>mania
+of respect</i> will last out our time, and you, my dear nephew, will
+outlive respect altogether. You will be simply a fellow-man!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>palazzo</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had in his guard a private soldier who carried his wine in the most
+admirable way; this man spent his time in the <i>trattorie</i>, 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
+<i>mezzanino</i> communicating with the room in which His Highness
+dressed. He returned to this <i>mezzanino</i> 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>A LETTER</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+The Prince took the letter and gave the soldier two scudi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>auditor</i> 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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If I make no mention of my suffering, nothing will be kept back from
+me, and I shall see all that goes on. . . .
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>NIGHT THOUGHTS</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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: <i>like a
+son</i> . . . 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. <i>A different man!</i>" 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&mdash;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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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, all the ways of looking at what was happening to
+him which, for three mortal hours on end, kept this impassioned man in
+torment? At length the side of prudence prevailed, solely 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 <i>Prudence</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Besides, once I have uttered the fatal word <i>jealousy</i>, 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 judgment 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This problem solved, the faint 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 <i>palazzo</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An atrocious thought gripped the Conte like a sudden cramp. "Shall I
+stab him here, before her face, and then kill myself?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>CECCHINA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Here even what else am I than the <i>terzo incomodo</i>?" (That beautiful
+Italian language is simply made for love: <i>Terzo incomodo</i>, 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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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!&mdash; One must avoid
+bloodshed," he said to himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>institutions</i> 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Is the Duchessa in love with Monsignore?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," said the girl, gaining courage to speak after a moment's silence.
+. . . "No, <i>not yet</i>, but he often kisses the Signora's hands,
+laughing, it is true, but with real feeling."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some days elapsed, during which Fabrizio in turn lost all his gaiety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I assure you," he said to the Duchessa, "that Conte Mosca feels an
+antipathy for me."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"So much the worse for His Excellency," she replied with a trace of
+temper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>casto
+Giuseppe</i>!" (An Italian expression alluding to the ridiculous part
+played by Joseph with the wife of the eunuch Potiphar.)
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>UNCERTAINTIES</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;&mdash; 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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_EIGHT">CHAPTER EIGHT</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the theatre he took a box on the third tier, so as not to be noticed;
+the play was Goldoni's <i>La Locanderia</i>. 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE PHANTOM HARLEQUIN</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+Opera companies are formed by an <i>impresario</i> 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 <i>comedy companies</i>; 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
+<i>beaux</i> 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
+<i>Monsignore</i>, 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 cartwheels 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 possible 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of the Conte's agents asked several times for <i>Arlecchino fantasma e
+pasticcio</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>REMORSE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>mammaccia</i>, an old woman who acted as
+her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio found his mother and one of his sisters at Belgirate, 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&mdash;for instance&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>LAKE MAGGIORE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio, 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 <i>sediola</i>, 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 <i>casa</i>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>A NIGHT SCENE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>that he loved her</i>; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some minutes since Fabrizio had taken the road again; he passed the hill
+that forms the peninsula of Durini, and at length there met his gaze that
+<i>campanile</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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) <i>Mexican</i>; 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 lines of a Greek dithyramb!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>PRIVILEGE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;&mdash;, but in the uniform and with
+the marching orders of a soldier who had been flung into prison with good
+cause?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>proved</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>PRIORE BLANÈS</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 time. 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>campanile</i>! 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio now came to the little <i>piazza</i> in front of the church; it
+was with an astonishment bordering on delirium that he saw, on the second
+stage of the ancient <i>campanile</i>, 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 planisphere. This chart of the heavens was stretched over a
+great jar of terra-cotta 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>campanile</i> 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 mural 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"This means that my death is at hand," said Priore Blanès.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What!" cried Fabrizio, quite overcome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Come face al mancar dell'alimento"</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>
+(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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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-day; 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio having obeyed him in silence, as was his custom:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Then, it is true," the old man went on, "that when you tried to see
+Waterloo you found nothing at first but a prison?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Yes, Father," replied Fabrizio in amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>campanone</i> going, which shakes all my
+instruments. To-day is the feast of San Giovita, 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
+Giovita, 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 <i>by daylight</i>, 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
+<i>campanile</i>: 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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_NINE">CHAPTER NINE</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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 Giovita; ten
+would have been enough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>campanile</i> 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 <i>campanile</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash;, 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 tumble-down bedroom, serving as a kitchen
+as well, in which little Marietta received me twice, and for two minutes
+on each occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE CAMPANILE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>mammaccia</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I should perhaps have done well to adopt the <i>caffè</i> 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 I 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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>festa</i> of San Giovita. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bells had been making the air throb for ten minutes, the procession
+was coming out of the church, the <i>mortaretti</i> 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 <i>mortaretti</i> go off
+between his legs, with the result that on the mornings of public
+holidays his mother liked to see him by her side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It should be explained that the <i>mortaretti</i> (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 <i>mortaretti</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>contadini</i> 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 <i>campanile</i> 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 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 obol 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>piazza</i> 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 <i>osterie</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>contadini</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE CHESTNUT TREE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>his tree</i>. 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 to the tree, which indeed would grow all the better if its
+spread began higher from the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>contadini</i>; 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 <i>doganieri</i> 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 <i>Mercadante</i>, which was popular at that time in Lombardy.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE FOREST</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_TEN">CHAPTER TEN</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE HORSE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio invented the substance of this speech as he went on, uttering
+it in a wholly pacific tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>contadino</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On his arrival, Fabrizio found the porter and all the servants of the
+<i>palazzo</i> Sanseverina wearing the tokens of the deepest mourning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Whom have we lost?" he inquired of the Duchessa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That excellent man whom people called my husband has just died at Baden.
+He has left me this <i>palazzo</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>HONEST JUDGES</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"If I were Minister, this absence of judges who were honest men would
+wound my self-respect."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>History of the Revolution in France</i>, 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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>contadini</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He is truly <i>primitive</i>," 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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. . . ."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>GALEAZZO, DUKE OF MILAN</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"You are very tragic this evening, my friend," said the Duchessa, quite
+overcome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 Galeazzo, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>John Bull</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>A CONQUEST</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why, what is the matter with you?" the Duchessa asked him, in surprise;
+"the Conte has plunged you in a sea of dark thoughts."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Minister was enchanted with his little air of wisdom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah!" thought Fabrizio, "now for some joke about little Marietta." He
+was mistaken; the Conte went on to say:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Your <i>Gospel</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This question was of the utmost importance to him, and the Archbishop
+was gratified by his air of profound attention.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_ELEVEN">CHAPTER ELEVEN</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>mammaccia</i>, who played the
+part of mother, came alone in answer to his signal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>festa</i> with an orgy, and our poor company, which they say is
+Jacobin, has been ordered to leave the States of Parma, and <i>evviva
+Napoleone</i>! 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 <i>carabinieri</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>SANGUIGNA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+The Duchessa did not at first reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"So you want to run away from me?" she asked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"No," he replied with the air of a Roman Emperor, "but I want to act
+wisely."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You inspire very singular passions," he said to Fabrizio, who stood
+still, almost dumbfoundered by this remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>Monsignor</i> 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 <i>with
+eventual succession</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!'
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE AUDIENCE</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"'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 <i>eventual succession</i>.' 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 <i>me</i>. 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 <i>Casa di Dio</i>. 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 <i>No</i> 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
+<i>Citizen-Cardinal</i> Chiaramonti, in support of the Cisalpine
+Republic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"'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 <i>Good-bye</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>TITULAR AND COADJUTOR</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>contadini</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>GILETTI</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Stop, will you, you &mdash;&mdash;," cried Giletti to the
+<i>vetturino</i>; 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Take care of yourself; he will kill you. Here!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>A DUEL</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Have you a mirror?" he cried to Marietta. Marietta stared at him,
+deadly pale, and made no answer. The old woman with great coolness
+opened a green workbag and handed Fabrizio a little mirror with a
+handle, no bigger than his hand. Fabrizio as he looked at himself felt
+his face carefully: "My eyes are all right," he said to himself, "that
+is something, at any rate." He examined his teeth; they were not broken
+at all. "Then how is it that I am in such pain?" he asked himself,
+half-aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old woman answered him:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>attacked me and wanted to kill me</i>."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"And you," he said to the <i>vetturino</i>, "make your horses gallop; you
+shall have four golden napoleons if you cross the Po before these people
+behind can overtake me."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>PRECAUTIONS</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We may run into people on horseback coming towards us," said the
+prudent <i>vetturino</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio looked out of the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Trot," he said to the driver. "What passport have you?" he asked the
+old woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What had he?" Fabrizio asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Forty good scudi of five francs," said the old woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You mean six, and some small change," said Marietta with a smile: "I
+won't have my little Abate cheated."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;we have lost our protector. Who
+is there now to find us lodgings, to beat down prices with the
+<i>vetturini</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio was touched; he took out his purse and gave several napoleons
+to the old woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You see," he said to her, "I have only fifteen left, so it is no use
+your trying to pull my leg any more."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>dogana</i> 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 <i>caffè</i> 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
+<i>doganiere</i>; it would be fatal to use this one; don't forget that you
+have killed the man."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>FEAR</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE PASSPORT</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>palazzo</i> Sanseverina. He was obliged to enter this dirty office and
+to appear there as an inferior; he was about to undergo an examination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You have met with an accident," he said to the stranger, looking at his
+cheek.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"The <i>vetturino</i> flung us out over the embankment."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the silence was resumed, and the official cast sour glances at the
+traveller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>visa</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Upon my soul, I can't do any more work; the heat is stifling; I am going
+to the <i>caffè</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Where does the gentleman wish to go?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"To Mantua, Venice and Ferrara."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ferrara it is," said the official, whistling; he took up a die, stamped
+the <i>visa</i> 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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But I called the gentleman three times, and got no answer; has the
+gentleman anything to declare before the customs?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have nothing on me but my handkerchief; I am going to a place quite
+near here, to shoot with one of my family."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Trattoria</i>. 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 <i>Trattoria</i> 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: "<i>Eccellenza, la riverisco</i>! (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?"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE TRATTORIA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>lingua volgare</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio studied the man's face and began to recognise him. He had been
+one of the smartest coachmen in the Sanseverina establishment; now that
+he was what he called rich his entire clothing consisted of a coarse
+shirt, in holes, and a pair of cloth breeches, dyed black at some time
+in the past, which barely came down to his knees; a pair of shoes and a
+villainous hat completed his equipment. In addition to this, he had not
+shaved for a fortnight. As he ate his omelette Fabrizio engaged in
+conversation with him, absolutely as between equals; he thought he
+detected that Lodovico was in love with their hostess. He finished his
+meal rapidly, then said in a low voice to Lodovico: "I want a word with
+you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Your Excellency can speak openly before her, she is a really good
+woman," said Lodovico with a tender air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Poor young man!" said the landlady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Your Excellency can count on me!" cried the coachman, his eyes ablaze
+with the most passionate devotion; "where does His Excellency wish to
+go?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"When did you despatch this fellow?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"This morning, at six o'clock."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Your Excellency has no blood on his clothes, has he?" asked the
+landlady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"For pity's sake, don't go on calling me Excellency, it may attract
+attention."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Very good, Excellency," replied the coachman, as he left the tavern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Here, here," Fabrizio called after him, "and what about the money! Come
+back!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What do you mean&mdash;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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On account of the heat, Fabrizio had taken off his coat on entering the
+<i>Trattoria</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You have a waistcoat on you which might land us in trouble if anyone
+came in: that fine <i>English cloth</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE LANDLADY</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"This is my husband," said the landlady. "Pietro-Antonio," she said to
+her husband, "this gentleman is a friend of Lodovico; he met with an
+accident this morning, across the river, and he wants to get away to
+Ferrara."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh, we'll get him there," said the husband with an air of great
+gentility; "we have Carlo-Giuseppe's boat."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>contadini</i>; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"So that's finished," the husband said to him in a friendly tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>vicolo</i> and leaving the big street, like a man who
+was trying to hide."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Go up quick to the bedroom," said the husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>Trattoria</i> a bad name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What's this?" Lodovico went on, seeing Fabrizio's shirt all stained with
+blood and his wounds bandaged with handkerchiefs, "so the <i>porco</i>
+shewed fight, did he? That's a hundred times more than you need to get
+yourself arrested, and I haven't bought you any shirt." Without ceremony
+he opened the husband's wardrobe and gave one of his shirts to Fabrizio,
+who was soon attired like a prosperous countryman. Lodovico took down a
+net that was hanging on the wall, placed Fabrizio's clothes in the
+basket in which the fish are put, went downstairs at a run and hastened
+out of the house by a back door; Fabrizio followed him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE PO</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"And how should I get the letter delivered?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Give me your hand, my dear Lodovico," cried Fabrizio, "and to prove to
+you that I wish to have no secret from a friend like yourself, copy
+these two letters just as they are." Lodovico fully appreciated this
+mark of confidence, and was extremely grateful for it, but after writing
+a few lines, as he saw the boat coming rapidly downstream:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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:
+"<i>Croyez A et B</i>." The messenger would be told to hide this scrap of
+paper in his clothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>doganiere</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_TWELVE">CHAPTER TWELVE</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+The Jew, the owner of the house, had procured a discreet surgeon, who,
+realising in his turn that there was money in the case, informed
+Lodovico that his <i>conscience</i> obliged him to make his report to the
+police on the injuries of the young man whom he, Lodovico, called his
+brother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 manœuvres 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 <i>sediola</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lodovico knew at Bologna two or three servants in great houses; it was
+decided that he should go to 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>caffè</i>!" 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-eight 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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>SAN PETRONIO</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Come back in an hour," Fabrizio ordered him, somewhat harshly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>deprives
+one of the courage to think of unfamiliar things</i>, and especially
+forbids <i>personal examination</i>, 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, <i>Preparation for the Sacrament of
+Penance</i>. 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,
+<i>Murder</i>, 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 <i>Simony</i> (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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio did not leave the church until he had prepared the confession
+which he proposed to make 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>comune</i> a
+certain San Micheli, Lodovico, who has a brother, named Fabrizio, in
+service with the Signora Duchessa Sanseverina at Parma. All is settled,
+<i>siamo a cavallo</i>." (An Italian proverb meaning: "We are saved.")
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 possible 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 of 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What do the candles cost?" he asked the woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Two bajocchi each."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a matter of fact they were scarcely thicker than quills and were not
+a foot in length.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How many candles can still go on your triangle?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Sixty-three, since there are seven alight."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"It is <i>for grace received</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am dying of hunger," he said to Lodovico as he joined him outside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Don't let us go to an <i>osteria</i>, 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>osteria</i> close to San Petronio. To his extreme
+surprise, 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, Lodovico remained
+outside, strolling in the <i>piazza</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Have you a passport for me?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>poveri del buon Dio</i>. Peppe,
+brandishing his gold-headed cane, ordered them to leave His Excellency
+alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Oh! 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:
+"<i>Eccellenza</i>!" 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 hand corner. A
+couple of hours later he had a spy on his heels, on account of the title
+of <i>Eccellenza</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE INQUIRY</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 Landriani. 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 <i>Truth</i>, as the fashion controls it in Paris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>a Sua Eccellenza reverendissima monsignor Fabrizio
+del Dongo, primo gran vicario della diocesi di Parma, canonico</i>, etc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>clumsiness</i>, or rather the insolence of not having condescended to
+have recourse to a <i>bulo</i>" (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."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE ARCHBISHOP</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>vetturino</i> 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 <i>vetturino</i>. 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 <i>vetturino</i>, 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 <i>bagattella</i> (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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I shall not repeat to you, my dear son, what you must long have known,
+namely that of the thirty-four <i>contadini</i> 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"How is it," she said to Fabrizio, "that you are walking freely in the
+street like this?" Fabrizio told her his story.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>MARIETTA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+"Good God! You were at Ferrara! And there was I looking for 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 <i>pubblicità</i>.
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4><a id="CHAPTER_THIRTEEN">CHAPTER THIRTEEN</a></h4>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>When I was prelate, when I was in the Church</i>: 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 <i>Cascata del Reno</i>.
+On their way back, he would call on the friendly Crescentini, who regarded
+himself as to some extent Marietta's father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Upon my soul, if this is the <i>caffè</i> 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 <i>caffè</i>
+except to read the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, 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 <i>Corso della Montagnola</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE MAMMACCIA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Mammaccia</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Fifty scudi."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You are lying, as usual; tell the truth, or, by God, you shall not have
+a centesimo!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>impresario</i>;
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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
+<i>avviamento</i>" (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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Go to the devil," said Fabrizio as he left the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old woman turned pale, and dashed at Fabrizio's hand, which she
+tried to kiss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>THE DUCHESSA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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 <i>falsehood</i>; 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>I love
+you</i>,' I who do not know what it is to love amorously. She would spend
+the day finding fault with me for the absence of these transports which
+are unknown to me. Marietta, on the other hand, who does not see into my
+heart, and takes a caress for a transport of the soul, thinks me madly
+in love and looks upon herself as the most fortunate of women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"As a matter of fact, the only slight acquaintance I have ever had with
+that tender obsession which is called, I believe, <i>love</i>, was with
+that young Aniken in the inn at Zonders, near the Belgian frontier."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h5><i>FAUSTA</i></h5>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>pique</i> 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&mdash;&mdash;, 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:
+</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"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."
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>
+For the moment, this miracle of beauty had come under the spell of the
+enormous whiskers and haughty insolence of the young Conte
+M&mdash;&mdash;-, 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 <i>prepotenze</i> had brought him threats of punishment, never
+appeared in public save with the escort of nine or ten <i>buli</i> (a
+sort of cut-throat) clad in his livery, whom he had brought from his
+estates in the environs of Brescia. Fabrizio's eye had met once or twice
+that of this terrible Conte, when chance led him to hear Fausta sing. He
+was astonished by the angelic sweetness of her voice: he had never
+imagined anything like it; he was indebted to it for sensations of
+supreme happiness, which made a pleasing contrast to the
+<i>placidity</i> 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&mdash;&mdash;, 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 <i>palazzo</i> Tanari, which Conte M&mdash;&mdash; had
+taken for Fausta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>buli</i>, who were assembled by the door
+of the <i>palazzo</i> Tanari. He hastened home, armed himself well, and
+again passed before the <i>palazzo</i>. Fausta, concealed behind her
+shutters, was awaiting his return, and gave him due credit for it.
+M&mdash;&mdash;, 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Signor Giuseppe Bossi destroys troublesome insects and is staying at
+the Pellegrino, Via Larga, No. 79."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Conte M&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio wrote others of the sort to Fausta; M&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;,
+his <i>buli</i>, his magnificent horses and Fausta set off together for
+Parma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash;, and these disguised him to some extent. He set
+up his headquarters not at Parma&mdash;that would have been too
+imprudent&mdash;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 <i>palazzo</i>
+which Conte M&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash; 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the following day Fabrizio, having learned that every morning at
+eleven o'clock Fausta went to hear mass in the centre of the town, in
+that same church of San Giovanni which contained the tomb of his
+great-uncle, Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo, made bold to follow her
+there. To tell the truth, Lodovico had procured him a fine English wig
+with hair of the most becoming red. Inspired by the colour of his wig,
+which was that of the flames that were devouring his heart, he composed
+a sonnet which Fausta thought charming; an unseen hand had taken care to
+place it upon her piano. This little war lasted for quite a week; but
+Fabrizio found that, in spite of the steps he was taking in every
+direction, he was making no real progress; Fausta refused to see him. He
+strained the effect of singularity; she admitted afterwards that she was
+afraid of him. Fabrizio was kept going now only by a faint hope of
+coming to feel what is known as <i>love</i>, but frequently he felt bored.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Let us leave this place, Signore," Lodovico used to urge him; "you are
+not in the least in love: I can see that you have the most desperate
+coolness and commonsense. Besides, you are making no headway; if only
+for shame, let us clear out." Fabrizio was ready to go at the first
+moment of ill-humour, when he heard that Fausta was to sing at the
+Duchessa Sanseverina's. "Perhaps that sublime voice will succeed in
+softening my heart," he said to himself; and he actually ventured to
+penetrate in disguise into that <i>palazzo</i> 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
+<i>chasseur</i>, 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 <i>galantuomo</i>, 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 <i>palazzo</i>! 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&mdash;&mdash;, 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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>chasseur</i>, she spoke
+to Conte M&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;, 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&mdash;&mdash;. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Your race," she asked the Conte, "is surely as old as that of the
+Farnese, to which this young man belongs?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What do you mean? As old? I have no bastardy in my family, thank
+you."<a name="FNanchor_11_1" id="FNanchor_11_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_1" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As luck would have it, Conte M&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Ah, my little Fabrizio," cried Fausta, "if I only knew where to find
+you!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash; 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 <i>palazzo</i> occupied by Fausta, to which
+the best society of Parma went in crowds, was surrounded by watchers;
+M&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;- 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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash; 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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tomb of the cardinal, behind which M&mdash;&mdash; 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
+<i>beaux</i> 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&mdash;&mdash;; 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&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M&mdash;&mdash;, blind with love and almost entirely relieved of his mad
+jealousy, had left his post to fly to his mistress's <i>palazzo</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash;- 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;, 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash;
+forbade himself to think of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i> 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&mdash;&mdash;, of whom her mistress and she were in
+great dread, she had undertaken to come out and tell Fabrizio to see
+someone loved him passionately and was burning to see him, but that the
+said person could not appear any more in the church of San Giovanni. "The
+time has come," Fabrizio said to himself, "hurrah for persistence!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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&mdash;&mdash;'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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This terror rendered her charming in Fabrizio's eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Conte M&mdash;&mdash;," 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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she gave an account of the scene on St. Stephen's day, and of the
+fury of M&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i> except when he
+could be admitted there, and that then a signal would be given. But
+Fabrizio, in love with Bettina, and believing himself to have come
+almost to the point with Fausta, could not confine himself to his
+village two leagues outside Parma. The following evening, about
+midnight, he came on horseback and with a good escort to sing under
+Fausta's windows an air then in fashion, the words of which he altered.
+"Is not this the way in which our friends the lovers behave?" he asked
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>palazzo</i>; "Bettina seems to me a hundred times preferable
+to Fausta, and it is by her that I should like to be received at this
+moment." Fabrizio, distinctly bored, was returning to his village when,
+five hundred yards from Fausta's <i>palazzo</i>, fifteen or twenty men
+flung themselves upon him; four of them seized his horse by the bridle,
+two others took hold of his arms. Lodovico and Fabrizio's <i>bravi</i>
+were attacked, but managed to escape; they fired several shots with
+their pistols. All this was the affair of an instant: fifty lighted
+torches appeared in the street in the twinkling of an eye, as though by
+magic. All these men were well armed. Fabrizio had jumped down from his
+horse in spite of the men who were holding him; he tried to clear a
+space round him; he even wounded one of the men who was gripping his
+arms in hands like a pair of vices; but he was greatly surprised to hear
+this man say to him, in the most respectful tone:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Your Highness will give me a good pension for this wound, which will be
+better for me than falling into the crime of high treason by drawing my
+sword against my Prince."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"So this is the punishment I get for my folly," thought Fabrizio; "I
+shall have damned myself for a sin which did not seem to me in the least
+attractive."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Scarcely had this little attempt at a battle finished, when a number of
+lackeys in full livery appeared with a sedan-chair gilded and painted in
+an odd fashion. It was one of those grotesque chairs used by masked
+revellers at carnival time. Six men, with daggers in their hands,
+requested His Highness to get into it, telling him that the cold night
+air might be injurious to his voice: they affected the most reverential
+forms, the title "Prince" being every moment repeated and almost
+shouted. The procession began to move on. Fabrizio counted in the street
+more than fifty men carrying lighted torches. It might be about one
+o'clock in the morning; all the populace was gazing out of the windows,
+the whole thing went off with a certain gravity. "I was afraid of
+dagger-thrusts on Conte M&mdash;&mdash;'s part," Fabrizio said to himself;
+"he contents himself with making a fool of me; I had not suspected him of
+such good taste. But does he really think that he has the Prince to deal
+with? If he knows that I am only Fabrizio, ware the dirk!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These fifty men carrying torches and the twenty armed men, after
+stopping for a long interval under Fausta's windows, proceeded to parade
+before the finest <i>palazzi</i> in the town. A pair of
+<i>maggiordomi</i> posted one on either side of the sedan-chair, asked
+His Highness from time to time whether he had any order to give them.
+Fabrizio took care not to lose his head; by the light which the torches
+cast he saw that Lodovico and his men were following the procession as
+closely as possible. Fabrizio said to himself: "Lodovico has only nine
+or ten men, and dares not attack." From the interior of his sedan-chair
+he could see quite plainly that the men responsible for carrying out
+this practical joke were armed to the teeth. He made a show of talking
+and laughing with the <i>maggiordomi</i> who were looking after him.
+After more than two hours of this triumphal march, he saw that they were
+about to pass the end of the street in which the <i>palazzo</i>
+Sanseverina stood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As they turned the corner, he quickly opened the door in the front of
+the chair, jumped out over one of the carrying poles, felled with a blow
+from his dagger one of the flunkeys who thrust a torch into his face; he
+received a stab in the shoulder from a dirk; a second flunkey singed his
+beard with his lighted torch, and finally Fabrizio reached Lodovico to
+whom he shouted: "Kill! Kill everyone carrying a torch!" Lodovico used
+his sword, and delivered Fabrizio from two men who had started in
+pursuit of him. He arrived, running, at the door of the <i>palazzo</i>
+Sanseverina; out of curiosity the porter had opened the little door,
+three feet high, that was cut in the big door, and was gazing in
+bewilderment at this great mass of torches. Fabrizio sprang inside and
+shut this miniature door behind him; he ran to the garden and escaped by
+a gate which opened on to an unfrequented street. An hour later, he was
+out of the town; at daybreak he crossed the frontier of the States of
+Modena, and was safe. That evening he entered Bologna. "Here is a fine
+expedition," he said to himself; "I never even managed to speak to my
+charmer." He made haste to write letters of apology to the Conte and the
+Duchessa, prudent letters which, while describing all that was going on
+in his heart, could not give away any information to an enemy. "I was in
+love with love," he said to the Duchessa, "I have done everything in the
+world to acquire knowledge of it; but it appears that nature has refused
+me a heart to love, and to be melancholy; I cannot raise myself above
+the level of vulgar pleasure," and so forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would be impossible to give any idea of the stir that this escapade
+caused in Parma. The mystery of it excited curiosity: innumerable people
+had seen the torches and the sedan-chair. But who was the man they were
+carrying away, to whom every mark of respect was paid? No one of note
+was missing from the town next day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The humble folk who lived in the street from which the prisoner had made
+his escape did indeed say that they had seen a corpse; but in daylight,
+when they ventured out of their houses, they found no other traces of
+the fray than quantities of blood spilled on the pavement. More than
+twenty thousand sightseers came to visit the street that day. Italian
+towns are accustomed to singular spectacles, but the <i>why</i> and the
+<i>wherefore</i> of these are always known. What shocked Parma about this
+occurrence was that even a month afterwards, when people had ceased to
+speak of nothing but the torchlight procession, nobody, thanks to the
+prudence of Conte Mosca, had been able to guess the name of the rival who
+had sought to carry off Fausta, from Conte M&mdash;&mdash;. This jealous
+and vindictive lover had taken flight at the beginning of the parade. By
+the Conte's order. Fausta was sent to the citadel. The Duchessa laughed
+heartily over a little act of injustice which the Conte was obliged to
+commit to put a stop to the curiosity of the Prince, who otherwise might
+have succeeded in hitting upon the name of Fabrizio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was to be seen at Parma a scholar, arrived there from the North to
+write a History of the Middle Ages; he was in search of manuscripts in
+the libraries, and the Conte had given him every possible facility. But
+this scholar, who was still quite young, shewed a violent temper; he
+believed, for one thing, that everybody in Parma was trying to make a
+fool of him. It was true that the boys in the streets sometimes followed
+him on account of an immense shock of bright red hair which he displayed
+with pride. This scholar imagined that at his inn they were asking
+exaggerated prices for everything, and he never paid for the smallest
+trifle without first looking up its price in the <i>Travels</i> of a
+certain Mrs. Starke, a book which has gone into its twentieth edition
+because it indicates to the prudent Englishman the price of a turkey, an
+apple, a glass of milk, and so forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The scholar with the fiery crest, on the evening of the very day on
+which Fabrizio made this forced excursion, flew into a rage at his inn,
+and drew from his pocket a brace of small pistols to avenge himself on
+the <i>cameriere</i> who demanded two soldi for an indifferent peach. He
+was arrested, for to carry pocket pistols is a serious crime!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As this irascible scholar was long and lean, the Conte conceived the
+idea, next morning, of making him pass in the Prince's eyes as the rash
+fellow who, having tried to steal away Fausta from Conte
+M&mdash;&mdash;, had afterwards been hoaxed. The carrying of pocket
+pistols is punishable at Parma with three years in the galleys; but this
+punishment is never enforced. After a fortnight in prison, during which
+time the scholar had seen no one but a lawyer who had put in him a
+terrible fright by his account of the atrocious laws aimed by the
+pusillanimity of those in power against the bearers of hidden arms,
+another lawyer visited the prison and told him of the expedition
+inflicted by Conte M&mdash;&mdash; on a rival who had not yet been
+identified. "The police do not wish to admit to the Prince that they
+have not been able to find out who this rival is. Confess that you were
+seeking to find favour with Fausta; that fifty brigands carried you off
+while you were singing beneath her window; that for an hour they took
+you about the town in a sedan-chair without saying anything to you that
+was not perfectly proper. There is nothing humiliating about this
+confession, you are asked to say only one word. As soon as, by saying
+it, you have relieved the police from their difficulty, you will be put
+into a post-chaise and driven to the frontier, where they will bid you
+good-bye."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The scholar held out for a month; two or three times the Prince was on
+the point of having him brought to the Ministry of the Interior, and of
+being present in person at his examination. But at last he gave no more
+thought to the matter when the scholar, losing patience, decided to
+confess everything, and was conveyed to the frontier. The Prince
+remained convinced that Conte M&mdash;&mdash;'s rival had a forest of red
+hair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three days after the escapade, while Fabrizio, who was in hiding at
+Bologna, was planning with the faithful Lodovico the best way to catch
+Conte M&mdash;&mdash;, he learned that he too was hiding in a village in
+the mountains on the road to Florence. The Conte had only two or three
+of his <i>buli</i> with him; next day, just as he was coming home from
+his ride, he was seized by eight men in masks who gave him to understand
+that they were <i>sbirri</i> from Parma. They conducted him, after
+bandaging his eyes, to an inn two leagues farther up the mountains,
+where he found himself treated with the utmost possible respect, and an
+abundant supper awaiting him. He was served with the best wines of Italy
+and Spain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Am I a State prisoner then?" asked the Conte.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Nothing of the sort," the masked Lodovico answered him, most politely.
+"You have given offence to a private citizen by taking upon yourself to
+have him carried about in a sedan-chair; to-morrow morning he wishes to
+fight a duel with you. If you kill him, you will find a pair of good
+horses, money, and relays prepared for you along the road to Genoa."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What is the name of this fire-eater?" asked the Conte with irritation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He is called <i>Bombace</i>. You will have the choice of weapons and good
+seconds, thoroughly loyal, but it is essential that one of you die!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Why, it is murder, then!" said the Conte; growing frightened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Please God, no! It is simply a duel to the death with the young man
+whom you have had carried about the streets of Parma in the middle of
+the night, and whose honour would be tarnished if you remained alive.
+One or other of you is superfluous on this earth, therefore try to kill
+him; you shall have swords, pistols, sabres, all the weapons that can be
+procured at a few hours' notice, for we have to make haste; the police
+at Bologna are most diligent, as you perhaps know, and they must on no
+account interfere with this duel which is necessary to the honour of the
+young man whom you have made to look foolish."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"But if this young man is a Prince. . . ."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"He is a private citizen like yourself, and indeed a great deal less
+wealthy than you, but he wishes to fight to the death, and he will force
+you to fight, I warn you."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Nothing in the world frightens me!" cried M&mdash;&mdash;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"That is just what your adversary most passionately desires," replied
+Lodovico. "To-morrow, at dawn, prepare to defend your life; it will be
+attacked by a man who has good reason to be extremely angry, and will
+not let you off lightly; I repeat that you will have the choice of
+weapons; and remember to make your will."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next morning, about six o'clock, breakfast was brought to Conte
+M&mdash;&mdash;, a door was then opened in the room in which he was
+confined, and he was made to step into the courtyard of a country inn;
+this courtyard was surrounded by hedges and walls of a certain height,
+and its doors had been carefully closed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a corner, upon a table which the Conte was requested to approach, he
+found several bottles of wine and brandy, two pistols, two swords, two
+sabres, paper and ink; a score of <i>contadini</i> stood in the windows of
+the inn which overlooked the courtyard. The Conte implored their pity.
+"They want to murder me," he cried, "save my life!"
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"You deceive yourself, or you wish to deceive others," called out
+Fabrizio, who was at the opposite corner of the courtyard, beside a table
+strewn with weapons. He was in his shirtsleeves, and his face was
+concealed by one of those wire masks which one finds in fencing-rooms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I require you," Fabrizio went on, "to put on the wire mask which is
+lying beside you, then to advance towards me with a sword or with
+pistols; as you were told yesterday evening, you have the choice of
+weapons."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Conte M&mdash;&mdash; raised endless difficulties, and seemed most
+reluctant to fight; Fabrizio, for his part, was afraid of the arrival of
+the police, although they were in the mountains quite five leagues from
+Bologna. He ended by hurling at his rival the most atrocious insults; at
+last he had the good fortune to enrage Conte M&mdash;&mdash;, who seized
+a sword and advanced upon him. The fight began quietly enough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a few minutes, it was interrupted by a great tumult. Our hero had
+been quite aware that he was involving himself in an action which, for
+the rest of his life, might be a subject of reproach or at least of
+slanderous imputations. He had sent Lodovico into the country to procure
+witnesses. Lodovico gave money to some strangers who were working in a
+neighbouring wood; they ran to the inn shouting, thinking that the game
+was to kill an enemy of the man who had paid them. When they reached the
+inn, Lodovico asked them to keep their eyes open and to notice whether
+either of the two young men who were fighting acted treacherously and
+took an unfair advantage over the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fight, which had been interrupted for the time being by the cries of
+murder uttered by the <i>contadini</i>, was slow in beginning again.
+Fabrizio offered fresh insults to the fatuity of the Conte. "Signor
+Conte," he shouted to him, "when one is insolent, one ought to be brave
+also. I feel that the conditions are hard on you; you prefer to pay
+people who are brave." The Conte, once more stung to action, began to
+shout to him that he had for years frequented the fencing-school of the
+famous Battistini at Naples, and that he was going to punish his
+insolence. Conte M&mdash;&mdash;'s anger having at length reappeared, he
+fought with a certain determination, which did not however prevent
+Fabrizio from giving him a very pretty thrust in the chest with his
+sword, which kept him in bed for several months. Lodovico, while giving
+first aid to the wounded man, whispered in his ear: "If you report this
+duel to the police, I will have you stabbed in your bed."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fabrizio withdrew to Florence; as he had remained in hiding at Bologna,
+it was only at Florence that he received all the Duchessa's letters of
+reproach; she could not forgive his having come to her concert and made
+no attempt to speak to her. Fabrizio was delighted by Conte Mosca's
+letters; they breathed a sincere friendship and the most noble
+sentiments. He gathered that the Conte had written to Bologna, in such a
+way as to clear him of any suspicion which might attach to him as a
+result of the duel. The police behaved with perfect justice: they
+reported that two strangers, of whom one only, the wounded man, was known
+to them (namely Conte M&mdash;&mdash;), had fought with swords, in front of
+more than thirty <i>contadini</i>, among whom there had arrived towards the
+end of the fight the curate of the village, who had made vain efforts to
+separate the combatants. As the name of Giuseppe Bossi had never been
+mentioned, less than two months afterwards Fabrizio returned to Bologna,
+more convinced than ever that his destiny condemned him never to know
+the noble and intellectual side of love. So much he gave himself the
+pleasure of explaining at great length to the Duchessa; he was
+thoroughly tired of his solitary life and now felt a passionate desire
+to return to those charming evenings which he used to pass with the
+Conte and his aunt. Since then he had never tasted the delights of good
+society.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"I am so bored with the thought of the love which I sought to give
+myself, and of Fausta," he wrote to the Duchessa, "that now, even if her
+fancy were still to favour me, I would not go twenty leagues to hold her
+to her promise; so have no fear, as you tell me you have, of my going to
+Paris, where I see that she has now made her appearance and has created
+a <i>furore</i>. I would travel all the leagues in the world to spend an
+evening with you and with that Conte who is so good to his friends."
+</p>
+
+<p><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_11_1" id="Footnote_11_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_1"><span class="label">[11]</span></a>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.</p></div>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4>END OF VOLUME I</h4>
+
+<p><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-22 16:18:51 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-22 16:18:51 -0800
commit	53ff3d19930166b22d5f650c34d471ad75e49c3b (patch)
tree	9ed222338783e3d843537aa5b1d7586729abcae9