Part 10

He entered the box making something of an effort upon himself; and, like a man of sense taking advantage of the accident that had befallen him, he did not at all try to appear at ease or to be witty by launching into some amusing story; he had the courage to be timid, he used his wit to let his confusion show without being ridiculous. "If she takes this the wrong way," he said to himself, "I am lost forever. What! timid with hair covered in powder, and which without the help of powder would look gray! But after all the thing is true, so it can only be ridiculous if I exaggerate it or make a trophy of it." The countess had so often been bored at the castle of Grianta, faced with the powdered faces of her brother, her nephew, and a few tiresome well-meaning neighbors, that she did not think to concern herself with the coiffure of her new admirer.

The countess's mind having a shield against the burst of laughter at his entrance, she paid attention only to the news from France that Mosca always had to give her privately on arriving in the box; no doubt he invented it. In discussing it with him, she noticed that evening his gaze, which was handsome and kindly.

--"I imagine," she said to him, "that at Parma, amid your slaves, you will not wear that kindly look; it would spoil everything and give them some hope of not being hanged."

The total lack of self-importance in a man who passed for the first diplomat in Italy struck the countess as singular; she even found he had a certain grace. Finally, as he spoke well and with fire, she was not offended that he had judged it fitting to take on, for one evening and without consequence, the role of the attentive suitor.

This was a great step made, and a dangerous one; fortunately for the minister, who at Parma found no cruel beauties, it was only a few days since the countess had arrived from Grianta; her mind was still stiffened by the boredom of country life. She had as it were forgotten how to jest; and all those things belonging to an elegant and light-hearted way of living had taken on in her eyes a tinge of novelty that made them sacred; she was disposed to mock nothing, not even a shy lover of forty-five. A week later, the count's boldness might have met with a very different reception.

At La Scala, it is the custom to make these little visits to the boxes last only some twenty minutes; the count spent the whole evening in the one where he had the happiness of meeting Mme Pietranera. "She is a woman," he said to himself, "who restores to me all the follies of youth!" But he felt the danger well. "Will my quality of all-powerful pasha forty leagues from here earn me forgiveness for this foolishness? I am so bored at Parma!" Still, from quarter hour to quarter hour he promised himself to leave.

--"I must confess, madam," he said laughing to the countess, "that at Parma I am dying of boredom, and I must be allowed to intoxicate myself with pleasure when I find it in my path. So, without consequence and for one evening, permit me to play the role of lover by your side. Alas! in a few days I shall be far from this box that makes me forget all sorrows and even, you will say, all proprieties."

Eight days after this monstrous visit to the box at La Scala, and following several little incidents whose recounting might seem long perhaps, Count Mosca was absolutely mad with love, and the countess already thought that age ought not to be an objection, if otherwise one found him pleasing. They had reached these thoughts when Mosca was recalled by a courier from Parma. One would have said his prince was afraid all alone. The countess returned to Grianta; her imagination no longer adorning that fine place, it seemed deserted to her. "Could I have grown attached to this man?" she said to herself. Mosca wrote and had nothing to play, absence had taken from him the source of all his thoughts; his letters were amusing, and, by a little singularity that was not ill received, to avoid the comments of Marquis del Dongo who did not like to pay postage, he sent couriers who dropped his letters in the mail at Como, Lecco, Varese, or some other of those charming little towns around the lake. This tended to ensure that the courier brought back the replies; he succeeded.

Soon the courier days became an event for the countess; these couriers brought flowers, fruit, little gifts of no value, but which amused her as well as her sister-in-law. The memory of the count mingled with the idea of his great power; the countess had become curious about all that was said of him, the liberals themselves paid homage to his talents. The chief source of bad reputation for the count was that he passed for the head of the ultra party at the court of Parma, and that the liberal party had at its head a woman capable of anything, and even of succeeding, the Marquise Raversi, immensely rich. The prince was careful enough not to discourage whichever of the two parties was not in power; he knew well he would always be master, even with a ministry taken from Mme Raversi's salon. They gave at Grianta a thousand details of these intrigues; the absence of Mosca, whom everyone painted as a minister of the first talent and a man of action, allowed them to think no more of the powdered hair, symbol of all that is slow and sad, it was a detail without consequence, one of the obligations of the court, where he otherwise played so fine a role. "A court is ridiculous," the countess said to the marquise, "but it is amusing; it is a game that engages, but whose rules must be accepted. Who ever thought to exclaim against the ridiculousness of the rules of whist? And yet once one is used to the rules, it is pleasant to make one's opponent repic and capot."

The countess often thought of the author of so many charming letters. The day she received them was agreeable to her; she took her boat and went to read them in the beautiful spots of the lake, at the Pliniana, at Belan, in the woods of the Sfondrata. These letters seemed to console her a little for the absence of Fabrice. She could at least not refuse the count the fact of being quite in love; a month had not passed before she thought of him with a tender friendship. For his part, Count Mosca was almost in good faith when he offered her to give his resignation, leave the ministry, and come spend his life with her in Milan or elsewhere.

--"I have 400,000 francs," he added, "which will always bring us 15,000 livres in income."

"Once again a box, horses! etc.," said the countess to herself, these were pleasing dreams. The sublime beauties of the aspects of Lake Como began again to charm her. She went to dream on its shores of this return of brilliant and singular life which, against all appearance, became possible again for her. She saw herself on the Corso, in Milan, happy and gay as in the time of the viceroy.

"Youth, or at least active life, would begin again for me!"

Sometimes her ardent imagination hid things from her, but never with her was there that voluntary illusion given by cowardice. She was above all a woman in good faith with herself. "If I am a little too old to play the fool," she said to herself, "envy, which makes illusions for itself like love, may poison for me the stay in Milan. After my husband's death, my noble poverty was a success, as was the refusal of two great fortunes. My poor little Count Mosca has not the twentieth part of the opulence those two nincompoops Limercati and Nani laid at my feet. The paltry widow's pension painfully obtained, the servants dismissed, which had its splendor, the little room on the fifth floor that brought twenty carriages to the door, all that once formed a singular spectacle. But I shall have unpleasant moments, whatever address I use, if, still possessing only the widow's pension as fortune, I return to live in Milan with the good little bourgeois comfort that the 15,000 livres remaining to Mosca after his resignation can give us. A powerful objection, of which envy will make itself a terrible weapon, is that the count, though long separated from his wife, is married. This separation is known at Parma, but at Milan it will be news, and they will attribute it to me. Thus, my fine theater of La Scala, my divine Lake Como... farewell! farewell!"

Despite all these forebodings, if the countess had had the least fortune, she would have accepted Mosca's offer of resignation. She believed herself an elderly woman, and the court frightened her; but, what will seem of the last improbability on this side of the Alps, is that the count would have given that resignation with happiness. This is at least what he managed to persuade his friend of. In all his letters he solicited with a madness ever increasing a second interview in Milan; it was granted him.

--"To swear to you that I have for you a mad passion," the countess said to him one day in Milan, "would be to lie; I should be too happy to love today, past thirty, as once I loved at twenty-two! But I have seen fall so many things I had believed eternal! I have for you the most tender friendship, I grant you a boundless confidence, and of all men, you are the one I prefer."

The countess believed herself perfectly sincere, yet toward the end this declaration contained a small lie. Perhaps, if Fabrice had wished it, he would have carried all before him in her heart. But Fabrice was only a child in Count Mosca's eyes; the latter arrived in Milan three days after the young scatterbrain's departure for Novara, and he hastened to go speak in his favor to Baron Binder. The count thought the exile was a matter without remedy.

He had not arrived alone in Milan; in his carriage he had Duke Sanseverina-Taxis, a pretty little old man of sixty-eight, dappled gray, well-mannered, well-groomed, immensely rich, but not noble enough. It was only his grandfather who had amassed millions by the trade of farmer-general of the revenues of the State of Parma. His father had had himself named ambassador of the Prince of Parma to the court of ***, following this reasoning:

--"Your Highness grants 30,000 francs to his envoy at the court of ***, who cuts a very mediocre figure there. If she deigns to give me this post, I shall accept 6,000 francs in salary. My expenditure at the court of *** will never be below 100,000 francs a year and my steward will remit each year 20,000 francs to the foreign affairs treasury at Parma. With this sum, one may place near me whatever secretary of embassy one wishes, and I shall show myself in no way jealous of diplomatic secrets, if there are any. My aim is to give luster to my house, still new, and to illustrate it by one of the great offices of the country."

The present duke, son of this ambassador, had had the awkwardness to show himself half-liberal, and, for two years, he had been in despair. In Napoleon's time, he had lost two or three millions by his obstinacy in remaining abroad, and yet, since the re-establishment of order in Europe, he had not been able to obtain a certain grand cordon that adorned his father's portrait; the absence of this cordon was wasting him away.

At the point of intimacy that follows love in Italy, there was no longer any objection of vanity between the two 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 rather well combined; I have thought of nothing else for three months.

"1st. I give my resignation, and we live as good bourgeois in Milan, Florence, Naples, wherever you wish. We have fifteen thousand livres in income, independently of the prince's favors which will last more or less.

"2nd. You deign to come into the country where I have some influence, you buy an estate, Sacca, for example, a charming house, in the middle of a forest, dominating the course of the Po; you can have the deed of sale signed within a week. The prince attaches you to his court. But here presents itself an immense objection. You will be well received at this court; no one would dream of stirring before me; besides, the princess believes herself unhappy, and I have just rendered her services on your behalf. But I remind you of a capital objection: the prince is perfectly devout, and as you still know, fate wills that I be married. Whence a million petty disagreeables. You are a widow, it is a fine title that would have to be exchanged for another, and this forms the object of my third proposition.

"One might find a new husband not troublesome. But first he would have to be quite advanced in age, for why should you refuse me the hope of replacing him one day? Well? I have concluded this singular affair with Duke Sanseverina-Taxis, who, understand, does not know the name of the future duchess. He knows only that she will make him ambassador and give him a grand cordon that his father had, and whose absence renders him the most unfortunate of mortals. Apart from that, this duke is not too imbecile; he has his clothes and wigs sent from Paris. He is in no way a man given to premeditated spite; he seriously believes that honor consists in having a cordon, and he is ashamed of his wealth. He came a year ago to propose founding a hospital to win this cordon; I mocked him, but he did not mock me when I proposed a marriage; my first condition was, understand, that he never set foot in Parma again.

--"But do you know that what you propose to me there is quite immoral?" said the countess.

--"No more immoral than all that is done at our court and in twenty others. Absolute power has this convenience, that it sanctifies all in the eyes of the peoples; now, what is a ridiculousness no one perceives? Our politics, for twenty years, will consist in fearing the Jacobins, and what fear! Each year we shall believe ourselves on the eve of '93. You will hear, I hope, the phrases I make on that at my receptions! It is fine! All that can diminish a little this fear will be sovereignly moral in the eyes of the nobles and the devout. Now, at Parma, all that is not noble or devout is in prison, or packing to enter it; be well convinced that this marriage will seem singular among us only from the day I fall from favor. This arrangement is a cheat toward no one, that is the essential, it seems to me. The prince, whose favor we make our trade and merchandise, put but one condition on his consent, that the future duchess be born noble. Last year, my post, all told, brought me a hundred and seven thousand francs; my revenue must have totaled a hundred and twenty-two thousand; I placed twenty thousand of it at Lyon. Well! choose: 1st, a great existence based on a hundred and twenty-two thousand francs to spend, which, at Parma, are worth at least as much as four hundred thousand at Milan; but with this marriage which gives you the name of a passable man whom you will never see except at the altar, 2nd, or else the little bourgeois life with fifteen thousand francs in Florence or Naples, for I am of your opinion, you were too admired at Milan; envy would persecute us there, and perhaps succeed in giving us ill humor. The great existence at Parma will have, I hope, some shades of novelty, even in your eyes who have seen the court of Prince Eugene; it would be wise to know it before shutting its door on oneself. Do not think I seek to influence your opinion. As for me, my choice is well made: I had rather live on a fourth floor with you than continue alone this great existence."

The possibility of this strange marriage was debated each day between the two lovers. The countess saw Duke Sanseverina-Taxis at the ball of La Scala, and he seemed to her quite presentable. In one of their last conversations, Mosca summed up his proposition thus: a decisive course must be taken, if we wish to spend the rest of our life in a cheerful way and not be old before our time. The prince has given his approval; Sanseverina is a rather good than bad personage; he possesses the finest palace in Parma and a boundless fortune; he is sixty-eight and has a mad passion for the grand cordon; but a great blot spoils his life, he once bought for ten thousand francs a bust of Napoleon by Canova. His second sin which will kill him, if you do not come to his rescue, is to have lent twenty-five napoleons to Ferrante Palla, a madman of our country, but somewhat a man of genius, whom since we have condemned to death, happily in contumacy. This Ferrante made two hundred verses in his life, nothing approaches them; I shall recite them to you, it is as beautiful as Dante. The prince sends Sanseverina to the court of ***, he marries you the day of his departure, and the second year of his voyage, which he will call an embassy, he receives this cordon of *** without which he cannot live. You will have in him a brother who will be in no way disagreeable, he signs in advance all the papers I wish, and besides you will see him little or never, as shall suit you. He asks nothing better than not to show himself at Parma where his farmer grandfather and his supposed liberalism embarrass him. Rassi, our executioner, claims the duke was secretly subscribed to the <i>Constitutionnel</i> through the intermediary of Ferrante Pella the poet, and this calumny long posed a serious obstacle to the prince's consent.

Why would the historian who faithfully follows the slightest details of the account given him be guilty? Is it his fault if the characters, seduced by passions he does not share, unfortunately for him, fall into profoundly immoral actions? It is true that things of this sort are no longer done in a country where the sole passion surviving all others is money, a means of vanity.

Three months after the events recounted up to here, Duchess Sanseverina-Taxis astonished the court of Parma by her easy amiability and the noble serenity of her mind; her house was beyond comparison the most agreeable in the city. This is what Count Mosca had promised his master. Ranuce-Ernest IV, the reigning prince, and the princess his wife, to whom she was presented by two of the greatest ladies of the country, gave her a most distinguished reception. The duchess was curious to see this prince master of the fate of the man she loved, she wished to please him and succeeded too well. She found a man of elevated stature, but a little thick; his hair, his moustaches, his enormous side-whiskers were a fine blond according to his courtiers; elsewhere their faded color would have provoked the ignoble word <i>flax</i>. In the middle of a heavy face rose very little a tiny nose almost feminine. But the duchess remarked that to perceive all these motives for ugliness, one had to seek to detail the prince's features. On the whole, he had the air of a man of wit and a firm character. The prince's bearing, his manner of holding himself, were not without majesty, but often he wished to impose upon his interlocutor; then he embarrassed himself and fell into a balancing from one leg to the other almost continual. Otherwise, Ernest IV had a penetrating and dominating gaze; the gestures of his arms had nobility, and his words were at once measured and concise.

Mosca had warned the duchess that the prince had, in the great cabinet where he received in audience, a full-length portrait of Louis XIV, and a very fine table of Florentine scagliola. She found the imitation striking; evidently he sought the noble look and word of Louis XIV, and he leaned on the scagliola table, in a way to give himself the turn of Joseph II. He sat down immediately after the first words addressed by him to the duchess, in order to give her the occasion to make use of the stool belonging to her rank. At this court, duchesses, princesses, and wives of the grandees of Spain sit alone; the other women wait until the prince or princess invites them to; and, to mark the difference of ranks, these august persons always take care to let pass a little interval before inviting the non-ducal ladies to sit. The duchess found that at certain moments the imitation of Louis XIV was a little too marked in the prince; for example, in his way of smiling with kindness while throwing back his head.

Ernest IV wore a frock-coat of the fashion just arrived from Paris; he was sent every month from that city, which he abhorred, a frock-coat, a riding coat, and a hat. But, by a bizarre mixture of costumes, the day the duchess was received he had put on red breeches, silk stockings, and heavily buckled shoes, of which one may find the models in the portraits of Joseph II.

He received Mme Sanseverina with grace; he said to her spirited and subtle things; but she remarked very well that there was no excess in the good reception.

--"Do you know why?" Count Mosca said to her on the return from the audience, "it is that Milan is a larger and finer city than Parma. He would have feared, in giving you the reception I expected and that he had led me to hope for, to look like a provincial in ecstasy before the graces of a fine lady arriving from the capital. No doubt also he is still vexed at a particularity I dare not tell you: the prince sees at his court no woman who can dispute you in beauty. Such was last evening, at his little levee, the sole subject of his talk with Pernice, his first valet de chambre, who has kindnesses for me. I foresee a little revolution in etiquette; my greatest enemy at this court is a fool called General Fabio Conti. Picture an original who was perhaps at war one day in his life, and who starts from there to imitate the bearing of Frederick the Great. Moreover, he is also bent on reproducing the noble affability of General Lafayette, and that because he is here the head of the liberal party. (God knows what liberals!)

--"I know the Fabio Conti," said the duchess; "I had a vision of him near Como; he was quarreling with the gendarmerie."

She recounted the little adventure of which the reader may perhaps remember.

--"You will know one day, madam, if your mind ever succeeds in penetrating the depths of our etiquette, that young ladies appear at court only after their marriage. Well, the prince has for the superiority of his city of Parma over all others a patriotism so burning, that I would wager he is going to find a means to have presented to him the little Clélia Conti, daughter of our Lafayette. She is faith a charm, and passed still, a week ago, for the finest person in the prince's states."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”