Part 24

To this man, whom great monarchies would have envied the Prince of Parma, no passion was known but that of being in intimate conversation with great personages and pleasing them by buffoonery. It mattered little to him whether the powerful man laughed at what he said, or at his own person, or made revolting jokes about Madame Rassi; provided he saw him laugh and was treated with familiarity, he was content. Sometimes the prince, not knowing how else to abuse the dignity of this great judge, would kick him; if the kicks hurt him, he would fall to weeping. But the instinct of buffoonery was so powerful in him, that he was seen every day to prefer the salon of a minister who flouted him, to his own salon where he reigned despotically over all the black robes of the land. Rassi had especially made for himself a separate position, in that it was impossible for the most insolent noble to be able to humiliate him; his way of avenging the insults he endured all day long was to recount them to the prince, to whom he had acquired the privilege of saying everything; it is true that often the reply was a well-applied and painful box on the ear, but he took no offense whatsoever. The presence of this great judge diverted the prince in his ill-humored moments, then he amused himself by outraging him. One sees that Rassi was almost the perfect man at court: without honor and without temper.

--Secrecy above all, the prince cried to him without greeting him, and treating him quite as a boor, he who was so polite with everyone. From when is your sentence dated?

--Most Serene Highness, from yesterday morning.

--How many judges has it been signed by?

--By all five.

--And the penalty?

--Twenty years of fortress, as Your Most Serene Highness had told me.

--The death penalty would have revolted, said the prince as if speaking to himself, a pity! What an effect on that woman! But he is a del Dongo, and that name is revered in Parma, because of the three almost successive archbishops... You tell me twenty years of fortress?

--Yes, Most Serene Highness, resumed the fiscal Rassi still standing and bent double, with, beforehand, public excuse before the portrait of His Most Serene Highness; moreover, fasting on bread and water every Friday and every eve of the principal feasts, the subject being of notorious impiety. This for the future and to break the back of his fortune.

--Write, said the prince:

His Most Serene Highness having deigned to listen with kindness to the most humble supplications of the marchioness del Dongo, mother of the guilty party, and of the duchess Sanseverina, his aunt, who represented that at the time of the crime their son and nephew was very young and besides led astray by a mad passion conceived for the wife of the unhappy Giletti, has been pleased, despite the horror inspired by such a murder, to commute the penalty to which Fabrice del Dongo has been condemned, to that of twelve years of fortress.

"Have it so that I may sign."

The prince signed and dated it the day before; then, returning the sentence to Rassi, he said to him:

--Write immediately below my signature:

The duchess Sanseverina having again thrown herself at the feet of His Highness, the prince has permitted that every Thursday the guilty party have one hour of walking on the platform of the square tower commonly called the Farnese tower.

"Sign that, said the prince, and above all closed lips, whatever you may hear announced in the city. You will tell councillor De' Capitani, who voted for two years of fortress and who even harangued in favor of that ridiculous opinion, that I urge him to reread the laws and regulations. Again, silence, and good evening."

The fiscal Rassi made, with much slowness, three profound reverences which the prince did not look at.

This took place at seven in the morning. A few hours later, the news of the exile of the marchioness Raversi spread through the city and the cafés, everyone spoke at once of this great event. The exile of the marchioness drove from Parma for some time that implacable enemy of small towns and small courts, boredom. General Fabio Conti, who had thought himself a minister, pleaded an attack of gout, and for several days did not leave his fortress. The bourgeoisie and consequently the common people concluded, from what was happening, that it was clear the prince had resolved to give the archbishopric of Parma to Monsignore del Dongo. The fine café politicians went so far as to claim that the current archbishop, Father Landriani, had been induced to feign an illness and present his resignation; he would be granted a large pension on the tobacco farm, they were sure: this rumor reached the archbishop who was much alarmed by it, and for some days his zeal for our hero was greatly paralyzed. Two months later, this fine news was found in the Paris journals, with this small change, that it was the count of Mosca, nephew of the duchess of Sanseverina, who was to be made archbishop.

The marchioness Raversi was furious in her castle of Velleja; she was no weak woman, one of those who believe they avenge themselves by launching insulting remarks against their enemies. The very day after her disgrace, the knight Riscara and three other of her friends presented themselves to the prince by his order, and asked him permission to go see her at her castle. His Highness received these gentlemen with perfect grace, and their arrival at Velleja was a great consolation for the marchioness. Before the end of the second week, she had thirty persons in her castle, all those whom the liberal ministry was to raise to office. Every evening the marchioness held a regular council with the best informed of her friends. One day when she had received many letters from Parma and Bologna, she withdrew early: the favorite lady's maid first introduced the reigning lover, count Baldi, a young man of admirable figure and quite insignificant; and later, the knight Riscara her predecessor: he was a small man black in body and mind, who, having begun as a repetitor of geometry at the noble college in Parma, now found himself councillor of state and knight of several orders.

--I have the good habit, said the marchioness to these two men, of never destroying any paper, and well for me; here are nine letters that the Sanseverina wrote me on different occasions. You are both going to leave for Genoa, you will seek among the galley slaves a former notary named Burati, like the great poet of Venice, or Durati. You, count Baldi, place yourself at my desk and write what I am going to dictate to you.

An idea comes to me and I write you this word. I am going to my cottage near Castelnovo; if you wish to come spend twelve hours with me, I shall be very happy: there is, it seems to me, not much danger after what has just happened; the clouds are clearing. However stop before entering Castelnovo; you will find on the road one of my people, they all love you to madness. You will keep, of course, the name of Bossi for this little trip. They say you have a beard like the most admirable capuchin, and you have not been seen in Parma except with the decent face of a grand vicar.

--Do you understand, Riscara?

--Perfectly; but the trip to Genoa is a useless luxury; I know a man in Parma who, to be sure, is not yet at the galleys, but who cannot fail to arrive there. He will counterfeit admirably the handwriting of the Sanseverina.

At these words, count Baldi opened wide his so beautiful eyes; he only understood.

--If you know this worthy personage of Parma, for whom you hope for advancement, said the marchioness to Riscara, apparently he knows you also; his mistress, his confessor, his friend may be sold to the Sanseverina; I prefer to defer this little joke for some days, and expose myself to no hazard. Leave in two hours like good little lambs, see no living soul in Genoa and return very quickly.

The knight Riscara ran off laughing, and speaking through the nose like Punch: One must prepare the packets, he said running in a burlesque fashion. He wanted to leave Baldi alone with the lady. Five days later, Riscara brought back to the marchioness her count Baldi all scraped: to shorten by six leagues, they had made him cross a mountain on a mule's back; he swore they would not catch him again making long voyages. Baldi handed to the marchioness three copies of the letter she had dictated to him, and five or six other letters in the same handwriting, composed by Riscara, and of which one might perhaps make use later. One of these letters contained very pretty jokes about the tears the prince had at night, and about the deplorable thinness of the marchioness Baldi, his mistress, who left, it was said, the mark of a pair of tweezers on the cushion of the bergère after sitting on it a moment. One would have sworn all these letters were written by the hand of Mme Sanseverina.

--Now I know beyond doubt, said the marchioness, that the friend of the heart, that Fabrice is in Bologna or in the surroundings...

--I am too ill, cried count Baldi interrupting her; I beg to be excused from this second voyage, or at least I should like to obtain some days of rest to restore my health.

--I shall plead your cause, said Riscara; he rose and spoke low to the marchioness.

--Well! so be it, I consent, she replied smiling.

--Rest easy, you shall not leave, said the marchioness to Baldi with rather a disdainful air.

--Thanks, he cried with heartfelt accent.

Indeed, Riscara alone mounted the post-chaise. He had scarcely been two days in Bologna, when he caught sight in a calash of Fabrice and little Marietta. "The devil! said he to himself, it appears our future archbishop does not constrain himself; this must be made known to the duchess, who will be charmed by it." Riscara had only the trouble of following Fabrice to know his lodging; the next morning, the latter received by a courier the letter of Genoese manufacture; he found it a little short, but otherwise had no suspicion. The idea of seeing again the duchess and the count made him mad with happiness, and whatever Ludovic might say, he took a horse at the post and set off at a gallop. Without suspecting it, he was followed at a short distance by the knight Riscara, who, on arriving, six leagues from Parma, at the post before Castelnovo, had the pleasure of seeing a great crowd in the square before the prison of the place; they had just brought our hero there, recognized at the post, as he changed horses, by two constables chosen and sent by count Zurla.

The small eyes of the knight Riscara shone with joy; he verified with exemplary patience all that had just happened in this little village, then dispatched a courier to the marchioness Raversi. After which, running through the streets as if to see the very curious church, and afterwards to look for a painting by the Parmesan which he had been told existed in the country, he finally met the podestà who hastened to render his homages to a councillor of state. Riscara affected surprised that he had not sent at once to the citadel of Parma the conspirator he had had the good fortune to arrest.

--One might fear, added Riscara with a cold air, that his numerous friends who were seeking him the day before yesterday to favor his passage through the States of His Most Serene Highness may meet the gendarmes; these rebels were well twelve or fifteen on horseback.

--_Intelligenti pauca_! cried the podestà with a knowing air.

CHAPTER XV

Two hours later, the poor Fabrice, furnished with handcuffs and attached by a long chain to the very _sediola_ in which he had been made to mount, set off for the citadel of Parma, escorted by eight gendarmes. These had orders to take with them all the gendarmes stationed in the villages the cortège was to cross; the podestà himself followed this prisoner of importance. Toward seven in the evening, the _sediola_, escorted by all the urchins of Parma and by thirty gendarmes, crossed the fine promenade, passed before the little palace inhabited by the Fausta a few months earlier and finally presented itself at the outer gate of the citadel at the instant when general Fabio Conti and his daughter were about to leave. The governor's carriage stopped before reaching the drawbridge to let in the _sediola_ to which Fabrice was attached; the general at once cried that the citadel gates be closed, and hastened down to the entry office to see a little what was about to happen; he was not a little surprised when he recognized the prisoner, who had become quite stiff, attached to his _sediola_ during so long a road; four gendarmes had lifted him and were carrying him to the registry office. I then have in my power, said the vain governor to himself, this famous Fabrice del Dongo, of whom it would seem that for nearly a year the high society of Parma has sworn to occupy itself exclusively!

Twenty times the general had met him at court, at the duchess's and elsewhere; but he took good care not to show he knew him; he would have feared to compromise himself.

--Let there be drawn up, he cried to the prison clerk, a most circumstantial report of the handing over that is made to me of the prisoner by the worthy podestà of Castelnovo.

Barbone, the clerk, a terrible personage by the volume of his beard and his martial bearing, took an air more important than usual, one would have said a German jailer. Believing he knew that it was especially the duchess Sanseverina who had prevented his master, the governor, from becoming minister of war, he was of a more than ordinary insolence toward the prisoner; he addressed him calling him _voi_, which is in Italy the way of speaking to servants.

--I am a prelate of the holy Roman Church, said Fabrice with firmness, and grand vicar of this diocese; my birth alone gives me right to consideration.

--I know nothing of it! replied the clerk with impertinence; prove your assertions by exhibiting the commissions which give you right to these very respectable titles.

Fabrice had no commissions and did not answer. General Fabio Conti, standing beside his clerk, watched him write without raising his eyes to the prisoner so as not to be obliged to say he was indeed Fabrice del Dongo.

Suddenly Clélia Conti, who was waiting in the carriage, heard a frightful uproar in the guardroom. The clerk Barbone making an insolent and very long description of the person of the prisoner, ordered him to open his garments, so that one might verify and establish the number and state of the scratches received at the time of the Giletti affair.

--I cannot, said Fabrice smiling bitterly; I find myself unable to obey the orders of monsieur, the handcuffs prevent me!

--What! cried the general with a naive air, the prisoner has handcuffs! in the interior of the fortress! that is against the regulations, a special order is needed; take off his handcuffs.

Fabrice looked at him. "There is a queer Jesuit! thought he; for an hour he has seen these handcuffs which hinder me horribly, and he feigns surprise!"

The handcuffs were removed by the gendarmes; they had just learned that Fabrice was nephew of the duchess Sanseverina, and hastened to show him a honeyed politeness which contrasted with the clumsiness of the clerk; the latter seemed piqued and said to Fabrice who remained motionless:

--Come now! hurry up! show us those scratches you received from poor Giletti, at the assassination.

With a bound, Fabrice sprang upon the clerk, and gave him such a box on the ear, that Barbone fell from his chair onto the general's legs. The gendarmes seized the arms of Fabrice who remained motionless; the general himself and two gendarmes who were at his side hastened to raise the clerk whose face was bleeding abundantly. Two more distant gendarmes ran to close the office door, in the idea that the prisoner was seeking to escape. The brigadier who commanded them thought that the young del Dongo could not attempt a very serious flight, since after all he found himself in the interior of the citadel; nonetheless he approached the window to prevent disorder, and by a gendarme's instinct. Opposite this open window, and two steps away, was stopped the general's carriage: Clélia had nestled in the back, so as not to be witness of the sad scene passing in the office; when she heard all this noise, she looked.

--What is happening? said she to the brigadier.

--Miss, it is the young Fabrice del Dongo who has just applied a fine box on the ear to that insolent Barbone!

--What! is it M. del Dongo they are bringing to prison?

--Why, certainly, said the brigadier; it is because of the high birth of this poor young man that so many ceremonies are made; I thought miss was in the know.

Clélia no longer left the door; when the gendarmes who surrounded the table drew aside a little, she caught sight of the prisoner. "Who would have told me, thought she, that I should see him again for the first time in this sad situation, when I met him on the road to Lake Como?... He gave me his hand to mount his mother's carriage... He was already with the duchess! Had their loves begun at that time?"

The reader must learn that in the liberal party directed by the marchioness Raversi and general Conti, they affected not to doubt the tender liaison which must exist between Fabrice and the duchess. Count Mosca, whom they abhorred, was for his duping the object of eternal jests.

"Thus, thought Clélia, here he is prisoner and prisoner of his enemies! for at bottom, count Mosca, even if one would believe him an angel, will be found delighted by this capture."

A fit of loud laughter burst in the guardroom.

--Jacopo, said she to the brigadier in an moved voice, what then is happening?

--The general has asked with vigor the prisoner why he struck Barbone: Monsignore Fabrice answered coldly: "He called me assassin, let him show the titles and commissions which authorize him to give me that name"; and they laugh.

A jailer who knew how to write replaced Barbone; Clélia saw him leave, who wiped with his handkerchief the blood flowing abundantly from his frightful face: he swore like a pagan:

--That damned Fabrice, said he in a very loud voice, shall never die but by my hand. I shall rob the executioner, etc.

He had stopped between the office window and the general's carriage to look at Fabrice, and his oaths redoubled.

--Go your way, said the brigadier to him; one does not swear thus before mademoiselle.

Barbone lifted his head to look into the carriage, his eyes met those of Clélia from whom escaped a cry of horror; never had she seen so close an expression of face so atrocious. "He will kill Fabrice! said she to herself, I must warn don Cesare." He was her uncle, one of the most respectable priests of the city; general Conti, his brother, had got him the place of steward and first chaplain of the prison.

The general remounted into the carriage.

--Do you wish to return home, said he to his daughter, or wait for me perhaps long in the palace court? I must go render account of all this to the sovereign.

Fabrice was leaving the office escorted by three gendarmes; they were conducting him to the chamber destined for him: Clélia looked through the door, the prisoner was very near her. At this moment she answered her father's question with these words: I shall follow you. Fabrice, hearing these words pronounced close to him, lifted his eyes and met the glance of the young girl. He was struck above all by the expression of melancholy of her face. "How she is beautified, thought he, since our meeting near Como! what expression of deep thought!... They are right to compare her to the duchess, what an angelic physiognomy!" Barbone, the bleeding clerk, who had not placed himself near the carriage without intent, stopped with a gesture the three gendarmes who were conducting Fabrice, and, making the round of the carriage by behind, to arrive at the door near which was the general:

--As the prisoner has committed an act of violence in the interior of the citadel, said he to him, by virtue of article 157 of the regulations, would there not be grounds to apply the handcuffs to him for three days?

--Go to the devil! cried the general, whom this arrest left not a little embarrassed.

It was a question for him of pushing neither the duchess nor count Mosca to the limit: and besides, in what sense was the count going to take this affair? at bottom, the murder of a Giletti was a bagatelle, and only intrigue had managed to make something of it.

During this short dialogue, Fabrice was superb amid these gendarmes, it was indeed the proudest and noblest bearing; his fine and delicate features, and the smile of contempt wandering on his lips, made a charming contrast with the gross appearances of the gendarmes who surrounded him. But all that formed, so to speak, only the outer part of his physiognomy; he was ravished by the celestial beauty of Clélia, and his eye betrayed all his surprise. She, deeply pensive, had not thought to withdraw her head from the door; he saluted her with the most respectful half-smile; then, after an instant:

--It seems to me, mademoiselle, said he to her, that formerly, near a lake, I already had the honor of meeting you with accompaniment of gendarmes.

Clélia blushed and was so disconcerted that she found no word to answer. "What a noble air amid these gross beings!" she was saying to herself at the moment Fabrice spoke to her. The deep pity, and we shall say almost the tenderness in which she was plunged, took from her the presence of mind necessary to find any word whatsoever, she noticed her silence and blushed still more. At this moment they were drawing with violence the bolts of the great gate of the citadel, was not His Excellency's carriage waiting for at least a minute? The noise was so violent under this vault, that, even if Clélia had found some word to answer, Fabrice could not have heard her words.

Carried away by the horses who had taken the gallop immediately after the drawbridge, Clélia said to herself: "He will have found me quite ridiculous!" Then suddenly she added: "Not only ridiculous; he will have believed he saw in me a base soul, he will have thought that I do not answer his salute because he is a prisoner and I the daughter of the governor."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”