Part 13

The prince found himself, as it were, challenged by the perfectly proper manners and the utterly unassailable replies of the young runaway from college; what he had foreseen did not come to pass: in the twinkling of an eye he adopted a tone of simple good-nature, and, going back, in a few words, to the great principles of societies and of government, he delivered, adapting them to the circumstance, some phrases of Fénelon which he had been made to learn by heart from childhood for public audiences.

--These principles astonish you, young man, he said to Fabrice (he had called him monsignore at the beginning of the audience, and meant to give him monsignore on dismissing him, but in the course of the conversation he found it more adroit, more favorable to pathetic turns, to address him by a little name of friendship); these principles astonish you, young man, I confess they bear little resemblance to the absolutist twaddle (that was the word) one may read every day in my official journal... But, good God! what am I about to cite to you there? those journal writers are quite unknown to you.

--I beg pardon of Your Most Serene Highness; not only do I read the journal of Parma, which seems to me fairly well written, but furthermore I hold, with it, that all that has been done since the death of Louis XIV, in 1715, is at once a crime and a folly. Man's greatest interest is his salvation, there cannot be two ways of seeing on that subject, and that happiness must last an eternity. The words liberty, justice, happiness of the greatest number, are infamous and criminal: they give minds the habit of discussion and mistrust. A chamber of deputies mistrusts what those people call the ministry. This fatal habit of mistrust once contracted, human weakness applies it to everything, man comes to mistrust the Bible, the orders of the Church, tradition, etc.; from then on he is lost. Even if, which is horribly false and criminal to say, this mistrust toward the authority of princes established by God were to give happiness during the twenty or thirty years of life each of us may claim, what is half a century or a whole century, compared to an eternity of torments? etc.

One could see, from the air with which Fabrice spoke, that he sought to arrange his ideas so as to make them as easily grasped as possible by his listener; it was clear he was not reciting a lesson.

Soon the prince no longer cared to struggle with this young man whose simple and grave manners embarrassed him.

--Farewell, monsignore, he said to him abruptly, I see they give an excellent education in the Ecclesiastical Academy of Naples, and it is quite natural that when these good precepts fall upon a mind as distinguished as yours, brilliant results are obtained. Farewell; and he turned his back on him.

"I did not please that animal," Fabrice said to himself.

"Now we have left to see," said the prince as soon as he was alone, "whether this handsome young man is susceptible of passion for something; in that case he would be complete... Can one repeat the lessons of the aunt with more wit? I seemed to hear her speak; if there were a revolution in my house, it would be she who would draft the <i>Moniteur</i>, as once the San Felice did at Naples! But the San Felice, despite her twenty-five years and her beauty, was a little hanged! A warning to women of too much wit." Believing Fabrice the pupil of his aunt, the prince was mistaken: men of wit born on the throne or beside it soon lose all fineness of tact; they proscribe, around them, the freedom of conversation which seems to them grossness; they will see only masks and pretend to judge the beauty of the complexion; the amusing thing is that they believe themselves to have great tact. In this case, for example, Fabrice believed almost all that we have heard him say; it is true he did not think of all these great principles twice a month. He had lively tastes, he had wit, but he had faith.

The taste for liberty, the fashion and the cult of the happiness of the greatest number, with which the nineteenth century has infatuated itself, were in his eyes but a heresy which will pass like the others, but after having killed many souls, as the plague while it reigns in a country kills many bodies. And despite all that Fabrice read French newspapers with delight, and even committed imprudences to procure them.

As Fabrice returned quite disheveled from his audience at the palace, and was relating to his aunt the various attacks of the prince:

--You must, she said to him, go presently to Father Landriani, our excellent archbishop; go on foot, mount the staircase slowly, make little noise in the antechambers; if you are made to wait, so much the better, a thousand times the better! in a word, be apostolic!

--I understand, said Fabrice, our man is a Tartuffe.

--Not in the least, he is virtue itself.

--Even after what he did, Fabrice resumed in astonishment, at the execution of Count Palanza?

--Yes, my friend, after what he did: the father of our archbishop was a clerk in the ministry of finance, a little bourgeois, which explains everything. Monsignor Landriani is a man of quick, broad, profound mind; he is sincere, he loves virtue: I am convinced that if an emperor Decius were to return to the world, he would undergo martyrdom like the Polyeucte of the Opera, which they gave us last week. There is the fair side of the medal, here is the reverse: as soon as he is in the presence of the sovereign, or only of the prime minister, he is dazzled by so much greatness, he is troubled, he blushes; it is materially impossible for him to say no. Hence the things he did, which earned him that cruel reputation throughout all Italy; but what is not known is that, when public opinion came to enlighten him on the trial of Count Palanza, he imposed on himself the penance of living on bread and water for thirteen weeks, as many weeks as there are letters in the names Davide Palanza. We have at this court a scoundrel of infinitely witty, named Rassi, grand judge or attorney general, who, at the death of Count Palanza, bewitched Father Landriani. At the time of the penance of the thirteen weeks, Count Mosca, out of pity and a little out of mischief, invited him to dinner once and even twice a week; the good archbishop, to pay his court, dined like everyone else. He would have thought there was rebellion and Jacobinism in displaying a penance for an action approved by the sovereign. But it was known that, for each dinner, where his duty as a faithful subject had obliged him to eat like everyone else, he imposed on himself a penance of two days of nourishment on bread and water.

"Monsignor Landriani, a superior mind, a scholar of the first rank, has but one weakness, he wishes to be loved: thus, grow tender as you look at him, and, by the third visit, love him altogether. That, joined to your birth, will make you adored at once. Show no surprise if he accompanies you down the staircase, look as if accustomed to such ways; he is a man born on his knees before the nobility. Otherwise, be simple, apostolic, no wit, no brilliance, no quick repartee; if you do not frighten him, he will take pleasure with you; think that he must of his own motion make you his grand vicar. The count and I shall be surprised and even angry at this too rapid advancement, that is essential with regard to the sovereign.

Fabrice ran to the archbishop's palace: by a singular good fortune, the valet of the good prelate, a little deaf, did not hear the name del Dongo; he announced a young priest, named Fabrice; the archbishop was with a curate of not very exemplary morals, whom he had had come to scold. He was in the middle of a reprimand, a thing very painful for him, and did not wish to have that sorrow on his heart any longer; he therefore made the little nephew of the great archbishop Ascanio del Dongo wait three quarters of an hour.

How to paint his excuses and his despair when, after having accompanied the curate to the second antechamber, and as he asked on passing to this man who waited, in what he could serve him, he perceived the violet stockings and heard the name Fabrice del Dongo? The thing seemed so amusing to our hero, that, from this first visit, he ventured to kiss the hand of the holy prelate, in a transport of tenderness. One should have heard the archbishop repeat in despair:

--A del Dongo waiting in my antechamber!

He thought himself obliged, by way of excuse, to tell him the whole anecdote of the curate, his faults, his answers, etc.

"Is it really possible," Fabrice said to himself as he returned to the Sanseverina palace, "that this is the man who hastened the execution of that poor Count Palanza!"

--What does Your Excellency think, said Count Mosca to him laughing, as he saw him enter the duchess's house (the count did not wish Fabrice to call him Excellency).

--I am thunderstruck; I know nothing of the character of men: I would have wagered, if I had not known his name, that this one cannot see a chicken bleed.

--And you would have won, the count resumed; but when he is before the prince, or only before me, he cannot say no. To be sure, for me to produce my full effect, the great yellow cordon must be passed over my coat; in a frock coat he would contradict me, so I always take a uniform to receive him. It is not for us to destroy the prestige of power, the French newspapers demolish it quickly enough; hardly will the respectful mania live as long as we, and you, my nephew, will outlive respect. You, you will be a good fellow!

Fabrice took great pleasure in the society of the count: he was the first superior man who had deigned to speak to him without playacting; besides they had a common taste, that of antiquities and excavations. The count, for his part, was flattered by the extreme attention with which the young man listened to him; but there was a capital objection: Fabrice occupied an apartment in the Sanseverina palace, spent his life with the duchess, showed in all innocence that this intimacy made his happiness, and Fabrice had eyes, a complexion of a desperate freshness.

Long since, Ranuce-Ernest IV, who rarely found cruel ones, was piqued that the virtue of the duchess, well known at court, had not made an exception in his favor. We have seen it, the wit and presence of mind of Fabrice had offended him from the first day. He took ill the extreme friendship which she and her nephew showed each other with heedless abandon; he lent an ear with extreme attention to the talk of his courtiers, which was infinite. The arrival of this young man and the so extraordinary audience he had obtained made for a month at court the news and the astonishment; whereupon the prince had an idea.

He had in his guard a simple soldier who bore wine in an admirable fashion; this man passed his life at the tavern, and rendered account of the spirit of the military directly to the sovereign. Carlone lacked education, otherwise he would long since have obtained advancement. Now, his orders were to be found before the palace every day when noon sounded on the great clock. The prince went himself a little before noon to arrange in a certain way the persienne of a mezzanine adjoining the room where His Highness dressed. He returned to this mezzanine a little after noon had sounded, he found the soldier there; the prince had in his pocket a sheet of paper and a writing case, he dictated to the soldier the note which follows:

Your Excellency has much wit, no doubt, and it is thanks to your profound sagacity that we see this State so well governed. But, my dear count, such great successes do not proceed without a little envy, and I greatly fear lest men laugh a little at your expense, if your sagacity does not guess that a certain handsome young man has had the happiness to inspire, despite himself perhaps, a most singular love. This favored mortal has, they say, but twenty-three years, and, dear count, what complicates the question is that you and I have much more than double that age. In the evening, at a certain distance, the count is charming, sprightly, witty, amiable to the possible; but in the morning, in intimacy, taking things aright, the newcomer perhaps has more agreeableness. Now, we women set great store by this freshness of youth, especially when we have passed thirty. Is it not already spoken of to fix this amiable adolescent at our court, by some fine post? And who then is the person who speaks of it most often to Your Excellency?

The prince took the letter and gave two crowns to the soldier.

--This over and above your pay, he said to him with a gloomy air; absolute silence toward everyone, or else the dampest of the low dungeons at the citadel.

The prince had in his office a collection of envelopes with the addresses of most of the people of the court, in the hand of this same soldier who passed for not knowing how to write, and never even wrote his police reports: the prince chose the one that was needed.

A few hours later, Count Mosca received a letter by the post; the hour it could arrive had been calculated, and at the moment the postman, seen entering holding a little letter in his hand, left the palace of the ministry, Mosca was called to His Highness. Never had the favorite appeared dominated by a blacker sadness; to enjoy it at leisure, the prince cried to him as he saw him:

--I need to unbend by chatting at random with the friend, and not to work with the minister. I am enjoying this evening a mad headache, and moreover black ideas come to me.

Need one speak of the abominable humor which agitated the Prime Minister, Count Mosca della Rovere, at the instant he was permitted to quit his august master? Ranuce-Ernest IV was perfectly skilled in the art of torturing a heart, and I could make here, not too unjustly, the comparison of the tiger who loves to play with his prey.

The count had himself driven home at a gallop; he cried as he passed that no living soul be allowed up, sent word to the auditor on duty that he gave him his freedom (to have a human being within reach of his voice was odious to him), and ran to shut himself in the great picture gallery. There at last he could give himself up to all his fury; there he spent the evening without lights walking at random, like a man beside himself. He sought to impose silence on his heart, to concentrate all the force of his attention in the discussion of the course to take. Plunged in anguishes which would have pitied his cruellest enemy, he said to himself: "The man I abhor lodges with the duchess, spends all his moments with her. Ought I to attempt to make one of her women talk? Nothing more dangerous; she is so good; she pays them well! she is adored by them! (And by whom, good God, is she not adored!) Here is the question," he resumed with rage: "Ought I to let guess the jealousy which devours me, or not speak of it? If I am silent, they will not hide from me. I know Gina, she is a woman all of first impulse; her conduct is unforeseen even for herself; if she tries to trace a role in advance, she gets tangled; always, at the moment of action, a new idea comes to her which she follows with transport as being the best in the world, and which spoils all.

"Saying nothing of my martyrdom, they do not hide from me and I see all that can happen...

"Yes, but in speaking, I bring about other circumstances; I make reflections; I prevent many of those horrible things which may happen... Perhaps he is sent away (the count breathed), then I have almost won my case; even if there were a little ill humor in the moment, I shall calm it... and this ill humor, what more natural?... she has loved him like a son for fifteen years. There lies all my hope: like a son... but she has ceased to see him since his flight to Waterloo; but on returning from Naples, especially for her, he is another man. Another man, he repeated with rage, and this man is charming; he has above all that naive and tender air and that smiling eye which promise so much happiness! and those eyes the duchess must not be accustomed to finding at our court!... They are replaced there by the gloomy and sardonic look. Myself, pursued by affairs, reigning only by my influence over a man who would like to turn me into ridicule, what looks must I often have? Ah! whatever care I take, it is especially my look which must be old in me! Is not my gaiety always neighbor to irony?... I shall say more, here one must be sincere, does not my gaiety let be glimpsed, as something quite near, absolute power... and wickedness? Is it not that sometimes I say not to myself, especially when one irritates me: I can what I will? and even I add a folly: I must be happier than another, since I possess what others have not: sovereign power in three quarters of things. Well! let us be just; the habit of this thought must spoil my smile... must give me an air of selfishness... content... And, how charming his smile is! it breathes the easy happiness of earliest youth, and makes it be born."

Unhappily for the count, that evening the weather was hot, stifling, announcing the storm; one of those times, in a word, which, in those countries, lead to extreme resolutions. How relate all the reasonings, all the ways of seeing what was happening to him, which, during three deadly hours, put this passionate man to torture? At last the party of prudence prevailed, solely by virtue of this reflection: "I am mad, probably; in believing I reason, I do not reason; I only turn about to seek a less cruel position, I pass without seeing beside some decisive reason. Since I am blinded by excessive pain, let us follow this rule, approved by all wise men, which is called prudence.

"Besides, once I have pronounced the fatal word <i>jealousy</i>, my role is traced forever. On the contrary, saying nothing today, I may speak tomorrow, I remain master of all."

The crisis was too strong, the count would have gone mad, had it lasted. He was relieved for some instants, his attention came to rest on the anonymous letter. From what quarter could it come? There was there a search of names, and a judgment as to each of them, which made a diversion. At length the count recalled a flash of malice which had shot from the eye of the sovereign when he came to say toward the end of the audience:

--Yes, dear friend, let us agree, the pleasures and the cares of the happiest ambition, even of boundless power, are nothing beside the intimate happiness given by relations of tenderness and love. I am a man before being a prince, and, when I have the happiness to love, my mistress addresses herself to the man and not to the prince.

The count joined this moment of malicious happiness to this phrase of the letter: It is thanks to your profound sagacity that we see this State so well governed.

"This phrase is from the prince," he cried, "in a courtier it would be a gratuitous imprudence; the letter comes from His Highness."

This problem resolved, the little joy caused by the pleasure of guessing was soon effaced by the cruel apparition of the charming graces of Fabrice, which came back again. It was like an enormous weight which fell back on the heart of the unhappy man.

--What matters from whom the anonymous letter is! he cried with fury, does the fact it denounces exist any the less? This caprice may change my life, he said as if to excuse himself for being so mad. At the first moment, if she loves him in a certain way, she leaves with him for Belgirate, for Switzerland, for some corner of the world. She is rich, and besides, were she to live on a few louis each year, what does it matter to her? Did she not confess to me, not eight days ago, that her palace, so well arranged, so magnificent, bores her? This so young soul needs novelty! And with what simplicity this new felicity presents itself! she will be carried away before having thought of the danger, before having thought to pity me! And yet I am so unhappy! cried the count, bursting into tears.

He had sworn to himself not to go to the duchess's that evening, but he could not hold; never had his eyes had such a thirst to look at her. Toward midnight he presented himself at her house; he found her alone with her nephew, at ten o'clock she had sent everyone away and had her door shut.

At the sight of the tender intimacy which reigned between these two beings, and of the naive joy of the duchess, an awful difficulty rose before the count's eyes, and unforeseen! he had not thought of it during the long deliberation in the picture gallery: how to hide his jealousy?

Not knowing what pretext to have recourse to, he pretended that that evening, he had found the prince excessively prejudiced against him, contradicting all his assertions, etc. He had the grief of seeing the duchess scarcely listen to him, and pay no attention to those circumstances which, the day before yesterday still, would have thrown her into infinite reasonings. The count looked at Fabrice: never had this beautiful Lombard face seemed to him so simple and so noble! Fabrice paid more attention than the duchess to the embarrassments he was relating.

"Really," he said to himself, "this head joins extreme goodness to the expression of a certain naive and tender joy which is irresistible. It seems to say: there is only love and the happiness it gives which are serious things in this world. And yet when one comes to some detail where wit is necessary, his look awakens and astonishes you, and one remains confounded.

"All is simple in his eyes because all is seen from above. Great God! how to combat such an enemy? And after all, what is life without the love of Gina? With what ravishment she seems to listen to the charming sallies of this so young wit, which, for a woman, must seem unique in the world!"

An atrocious idea seized the count like a cramp: "To stab him there before her, and kill myself after?"

He took a turn in the room, scarcely supporting himself on his legs, but his hand convulsively clenched around the handle of his dagger. Neither of the two paid attention to what he might do. He said he was going to give an order to his lackey, he was not even heard; the duchess was laughing tenderly at a word Fabrice had just addressed to her. The count approached a lamp in the first salon, and looked whether the point of his dagger was well sharpened. "One must be gracious and of perfect manners toward this young man," he said to himself as he returned and drew near them.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”