Part 25

This idea was despair to the high-souled young girl. "What makes my conduct utterly degrading," she added, "is that formerly, when we first met, also with an escort of gendarmes, as he says, it was I who was the prisoner, and he was doing me a service and rescuing me from a great predicament... Yes, it must be admitted, my conduct is complete: it is at once boorishness and ingratitude. Alas! the poor young man! now that he is in misfortune everyone will show themselves ungrateful toward him. He had said to me then: Will you remember my name in Parma? How he must despise me at this hour! A polite word was so easy to say! It must be owned, yes, my behavior toward him has been atrocious. In the old days, without the generous offer of his mother's carriage, I should have had to follow the gendarmes on foot in the dust, or, which is far worse, to ride pillion behind one of those men; it was then my father who was arrested and I defenseless! Yes, my conduct is complete. And how keenly a being like him must have felt it! What a contrast between his so noble countenance and my conduct! What nobility! what serenity! How he looked like a hero surrounded by his vile enemies! I understand now the duchess's passion: since he is thus in the midst of a vexing event that may have dreadful consequences, how must he not appear when his soul is happy!"

The governor of the citadel's carriage remained more than an hour and a half in the palace courtyard, and yet when the general came down from the prince's apartments, Clélia did not think it had stayed too long.

"What is His Highness's will?" Clélia asked.

"His word said: prison! and his look: death!"

"Death! Good heavens!" cried Clélia.

"Come, be quiet!" said the general peevishly; "how foolish I am to answer a child!"

Meanwhile, Fabrice was climbing the three hundred and eighty steps that led to the Farnese tower, a new prison built on the platform of the great tower, at a prodigious height. He did not think once, at least distinctly, of the great change that had just taken place in his fortunes. "What a look!" he said to himself; "how many things it expressed! what deep pity! She seemed to say: life is such a web of misfortunes! Do not grieve too much at what befalls you! are we not here below to be unfortunate? How her beautiful eyes remained fixed upon me, even when the horses advanced with such noise under the vault!"

Fabrice completely forgot to be unhappy.

Clélia followed her father through several salons; at the beginning of the evening, no one yet knew the news of the arrest of the great culprit, for that was the name the courtiers gave two hours later to this poor imprudent young man.

It was remarked that evening that there was more animation than usual in Clélia's face; now, animation, the appearance of taking part in what surrounded her, were especially what this beautiful person lacked. When her beauty was compared to the duchess's, it was above all this air of being moved by nothing, this way of being as if above all things, that made the scale tip in favor of her rival. In England, in France, lands of vanity, the opinion would probably have been quite the opposite. Clélia Conti was a young girl still a little too slender whom one might compare to the beautiful faces of Guido; we shall not conceal that, according to the standards of Greek beauty, one might have reproached this head with somewhat marked features, for example, the lips filled with the most touching grace were a little full.

The admirable singularity of this face, in which naive graces and the celestial stamp of the noblest soul shone forth, is that, though of the rarest and most singular beauty, it in no way resembled the heads of Greek statues. The duchess, on the contrary, had a little too much of the known beauty of the ideal, and her truly Lombard head recalled the voluptuous smile and tender melancholy of Leonardo da Vinci's beautiful Herodias. As much as the duchess was sprightly, sparkling with wit and mischief, attaching herself with passion, if one may so speak, to all the subjects that the current of conversation brought before her soul's eye, so much did Clélia show herself calm and slow to be moved, whether through contempt for what surrounded her, or through regret for some absent chimera. For a long time it had been thought she would end by embracing the religious life. At twenty she was seen to have a repugnance for going to balls, and if she followed her father there, it was only through obedience and so as not to harm the interests of his ambition.

"It will therefore be impossible for me," the general's vulgar soul too often repeated, "heaven having given me for daughter the most beautiful person in our sovereign's states, and the most virtuous, to derive some advantage from her for the advancement of my fortune! My life is too isolated, I have only her in the world, and I absolutely need a family to support me in the world, and to give me a certain number of salons where my merit and above all my aptitude for office may be established as the unassailable bases of all political reasoning. Well! my daughter so beautiful, so wise, so pious, takes offense as soon as a young man well established at court undertakes to make his homages agreeable to her. Is this suitor dismissed, her character becomes less gloomy, and I see her almost gay, until another wooer enters the lists. The handsomest man at court, Count Baldi, presented himself and displeased: the richest man in His Highness's states, Marquis Crescenzi, succeeded him, she claims he would make her unhappy.

"Decidedly," the general would say at other times, "my daughter's eyes are more beautiful than the duchess's, in this especially, that on rare occasions they are capable of a deeper expression; but this magnificent expression, when is it seen in her? Never in a salon where it might do her honor, but rather on a walk, alone with me, where she will let herself be moved, for example, by the misfortune of some hideous peasant. Preserve some memory of that sublime glance, I sometimes tell her, for the salons where we shall appear this evening. No: if she deigns to follow me into the world, her noble and pure face offers the rather haughty and unencouraging expression of passive obedience."

The general spared no effort, as one sees, to find himself a suitable son-in-law, but he spoke truly.

Courtiers, who have nothing to look at in their souls, are attentive to everything: they had remarked that it was especially on those days when Clélia could not bring herself to leap out of her dear reveries and feign interest in something, that the duchess liked to stop near her and sought to make her talk. Clélia had ash-blond hair, standing out, with a very soft effect, against cheeks of a fine coloring, but generally a little too pale. The shape alone of her brow might have announced to an attentive observer that this so noble air, this bearing so far above vulgar graces, sprang from a deep carelessness for all that is vulgar. It was the absence and not the impossibility of interest in anything. Since her father had been governor of the citadel, Clélia found herself happy, or at least free of cares, in her lofty apartment. The frightful number of steps one had to climb to reach this governor's palace, situated on the esplanade of the great tower, kept away boring visits, and Clélia, for this material reason, enjoyed the freedom of a convent; that was almost the whole ideal of happiness which, at one time, she had thought to ask of the religious life. She was seized with a sort of horror at the mere thought of putting her dear solitude and her intimate thoughts at the disposal of a young man whom the title of husband would authorize to disturb all that inner life. If through solitude she did not attain happiness, at least she had managed to avoid overly painful sensations.

The day Fabrice was taken to the fortress, the duchess met Clélia at the evening party of the Minister of the Interior, Count Zurla; everyone was forming a circle around them: that evening, Clélia's beauty prevailed over the duchess's. The young girl's eyes had so singular and so deep an expression that they were almost indiscreet: there was pity in them, there was also indignation and anger in her looks. The duchess's gaiety and brilliant ideas seemed to plunge Clélia into moments of pain bordering on horror. "What cries and groans will the poor woman utter," she said to herself, "when she learns that her lover, this young man of so great a heart and so noble a countenance, has just been thrown into prison! And those looks of the sovereign that condemn him to death! O absolute power, when will you cease to weigh upon Italy! O venal and base souls! And I am the daughter of a jailer! and I did not belie that noble character in not deigning to answer Fabrice! and formerly he was my benefactor! What does he think of me at this hour, alone in his room and face to face with his little lamp?" Revolted by this idea, Clélia cast looks of horror upon the magnificent illumination of the minister of the interior's salons.

"Never," it was said in the circle of courtiers forming around the two fashionable beauties, and seeking to mix in their conversation, "never have they spoken to each other with so animated and at the same time so intimate an air." The duchess, always attentive to ward off the hatreds excited by the prime minister, would she have thought of some great marriage in Clélia's favor? This conjecture was based on a circumstance that until then had never presented itself to the court's observation: the young girl's eyes had more fire, and even, if one may so say, more passion than those of the beautiful duchess. The latter, for her part, was astonished, and, it may be said to her glory, delighted at the so new graces she discovered in the young recluse; for an hour she had been looking at her with a pleasure rarely felt at the sight of a rival. "But what is happening, then?" the duchess wondered; "never has Clélia been so beautiful, and one may say so touching: would her heart have spoken?... But in that case, certainly it is unhappy love, there is somber grief at the bottom of this so new animation... But unhappy love is silent! Could it be a matter of winning back an inconstant through a success in the world?" And the duchess looked attentively at the young men around them. She saw nowhere any singular expression; it was always more or less self-satisfied conceit. "But there is a miracle here," said the duchess to herself, piqued at not guessing. "Where is Count Mosca, that so subtle being? No, I am not mistaken, Clélia is looking at me attentively and as if I were for her the object of a quite new interest. Is it the effect of some order given by her father, that vile courtier? I thought that noble and young soul incapable of lowering itself to money interests. Would General Fabio Conti have some decisive request to make of the count?"

Toward ten o'clock, a friend of the duchess's approached and said two words to her in a low voice; she grew excessively pale; Clélia took her hand and dared to press it.

"I thank you and I understand you now... you have a beautiful soul!" said the duchess, making an effort upon herself.

She scarcely had the strength to pronounce these few words. She addressed many smiles to the lady of the house who rose to accompany her to the door of the last salon: these honors were due only to princesses of the blood and made for the duchess a cruel absurdity with her present position. So she smiled much at Countess Zurla, but despite unheard-of efforts could never address a single word to her.

Clélia's eyes filled with tears seeing the duchess pass through these salons then peopled with the most brilliant of society. "What will become of this poor woman," she said to herself, "when she finds herself alone in her carriage? It would be an indiscretion on my part to offer to accompany her! I dare not... How the poor prisoner, seated in some dreadful room, face to face with his little lamp, would be consoled however if he knew he is loved to this degree! What frightful solitude is that into which they have plunged him! and we, we are here in these so brilliant salons! what horror! Would there be a means of getting a word to him? Good God! that would be betraying my father; his situation is so delicate between the two parties! What becomes of him if he exposes himself to the passionate hatred of the duchess who disposes of the prime minister's will, who is master in three quarters of affairs! On the other side the prince is constantly concerned with what passes at the fortress, and he brooks no jesting on this subject; fear makes him cruel... In all cases, Fabrice (Clélia no longer said Mr. del Dongo) is far more to be pitied!... it is for him a matter of something quite other than the danger of losing a lucrative post!... And the duchess!... What a horrible passion is love!... and yet all these liars of the world speak of it as a source of happiness! They pity elderly women because they can no longer feel or inspire love!... Never shall I forget what I have just seen; what a sudden change! How the duchess's eyes, so beautiful, so radiant, have become gloomy, extinguished, after the fatal word that Marquis N... came to tell her!... Fabrice must indeed be worthy of being loved!..."

Amid these very serious reflections that occupied Clélia's whole soul, the complimentary remarks that always surrounded her seemed even more disagreeable than usual. To free herself from them, she approached an open window half-veiled by a taffeta curtain; she hoped no one would have the boldness to follow her into this sort of retreat. This window gave onto a small grove of orange trees planted in the ground: true, every winter one was obliged to cover them with a roof. Clélia breathed with delight the perfume of these flowers, and this pleasure seemed to restore a little calm to her soul... "I found him looking very noble," she thought; "but to inspire such a passion in so distinguished a woman!... She had the glory of refusing the sovereign's homages, and had she deigned to wish it, she would have been queen of these states... My father says the sovereign's passion went so far as to marry her if ever he became free!... And this love for Fabrice has lasted so long! for it is fully five years since we met them near Lake Como!... Yes, five years ago," she said after a moment's reflection. "I was struck by it even then, when so many things passed unperceived before my childish eyes! How those two ladies seemed to admire Fabrice!..."

Clélia remarked with joy that none of the young men who spoke to her with such eagerness had dared approach the balcony. One of them, Marquis Crescenzi, had taken a few steps that way, then stopped near a gaming table. "If only," she said to herself, "beneath my little window in the fortress palace, the only one that has shade, I had a view of pretty orange trees, such as these, my thoughts would be less sad! but for all prospect the enormous cut stones of the Farnese tower... Ah!" she cried with a start, "perhaps it is there they have placed him! How I long to be able to speak to Don Cesare! he will be less severe than the general. My father will certainly tell me nothing on returning to the fortress, but I shall know all through Don Cesare... I have money, I could buy some orange trees which, placed beneath my aviary window, would keep me from seeing that great wall of the Farnese tower. How much more odious it will be to me now that I know one of the persons it hides from the light!... Yes, this is indeed the third time I have seen him; once at court, at the princess's birthday ball; today, surrounded by three gendarmes, while that horrible Barbone was soliciting handcuffs against him, and finally near Lake Como... That is fully five years ago; what a rakish air he had then! what eyes he made at the gendarmes, and what singular looks his mother and aunt gave him! Certainly there was some secret that day, something particular between them; at the time, I had the idea that he too was afraid of the gendarmes..." Clélia shuddered. "But how ignorant I was! Doubtless, already at that time the duchess had an interest in him... How he made us laugh after a few moments, when those ladies, despite their evident preoccupation, had grown a little accustomed to the presence of a stranger!... and this evening I could not answer the word he addressed to me!... O ignorance and timidity! how often you resemble the blackest things! And thus I am past twenty!... I was right indeed to think of the cloister; really I am made only for retirement! 'Worthy daughter of a jailer!' will he have said to himself. He despises me, and as soon as he can write to the duchess, he will speak of my want of regard, and the duchess will think me a very false little girl; for after all this evening she could believe me full of sensibility for her misfortune."

Clélia perceived that someone was approaching and apparently with the design of placing himself beside her at the iron balcony of this window; she was annoyed though she reproached herself; the reveries from which she was torn were not without a certain sweetness. "There is an intruder whom I shall receive finely!" she thought. She was turning her head with a haughty look, when she caught sight of the timid face of the archbishop who was approaching the balcony by imperceptible little movements. "This holy man has no manners," thought Clélia; "why come disturb a poor girl such as I? My tranquility is all I possess." She was bowing to him with respect, but also with a haughty air, when the prelate said to her:

"Mademoiselle, do you know the horrible news?"

The young girl's eyes had already taken on a quite different expression; but, following her father's a hundred times repeated instructions, she answered with an air of ignorance that the language of her eyes flatly contradicted:

"I have learned nothing, Monseigneur."

"My first grand vicar, the poor Fabrice del Dongo, who is guilty as I am of the death of that brigand Giletti, was carried off at Bologna where he lived under the assumed name of Joseph Bossi; he has been shut up in your citadel; he arrived there chained to the very carriage that bore him. A sort of jailer named Barbone, who formerly obtained his pardon after assassinating one of his brothers, wanted to do Fabrice a personal violence; but my young friend is not a man to suffer an insult. He threw his infamous adversary at his feet, whereupon they took him down into a dungeon twenty feet underground, after putting him in handcuffs."

"Handcuffs, no."

"Ah! you know something!" cried the archbishop, and the old man's features lost some of their deep expression of discouragement; "but, first of all, one may approach this balcony and interrupt us: would you be charitable enough to give Don Cesare yourself this pastoral ring of mine which is here?"

The young girl had taken the ring, but did not know where to place it so as not to run the chance of losing it.

"Put it on your thumb," said the archbishop; and he placed it there himself. "Can I count on your delivering this ring?"

"Yes, Monseigneur."

"Will you promise me secrecy on what I am about to add, even in the case where you should not find it proper to accede to my request?"

"But yes, Monseigneur," answered the young girl all trembling, seeing the gloomy and serious air the old man had suddenly assumed... "Our respectable archbishop," she added, "can only give me orders worthy of him and of me."

"Tell Don Cesare that I commend my adopted son to him: I know that the constables who carried him off did not give him time to take his breviary, I pray Don Cesare to have his own conveyed to him, and if your uncle will send tomorrow to the archbishopric, I undertake to replace the book given to Fabrice. I pray Don Cesare to have the ring worn by this pretty hand conveyed likewise to Mr. del Dongo."

The archbishop was interrupted by General Fabio Conti who came to take his daughter to her carriage; there was a little moment of conversation there, which was not lacking in adroitness on the prelate's part. Without speaking in any way of the new prisoner, he arranged matters so that the current of discourse might conveniently bring into his mouth certain moral and political maxims; for example: There are moments of crisis in the life of courts which decide for a long time the existence of the greatest personages; there would be notable imprudence in changing into personal hatred the state of political estrangement which is often the very simple result of opposite positions. The archbishop, letting himself be carried a little by the deep sorrow this so unforeseen arrest caused him, went so far as to say that one must assuredly preserve the positions one enjoyed, but that there would be a quite gratuitous imprudence in drawing upon oneself for the future furious hatreds by lending oneself to certain things that are not forgotten.

When the general was in his carriage with his daughter:

"This may be called threats," he said to her... "threats to a man of my sort!"

There were no other words exchanged between father and daughter for twenty minutes.

On receiving the archbishop's pastoral ring, Clélia had well promised herself to speak to her father, when she should be in the carriage, of the little service the prelate asked of her. But after the word *threats* pronounced with anger, she assured herself that her father would intercept the commission; she covered the ring with her left hand and pressed it passionately. During all the time it took to go from the ministry of the interior to the citadel, she asked herself whether it would be criminal in her not to speak to her father. She was very pious, very timorous, and her heart, so tranquil ordinarily, beat with an unaccustomed violence; but at last the sentry's challenge placed on the rampart above the gate rang out at the carriage's approach, before Clélia had found the proper terms to dispose her father not to refuse, so much did she fear being refused! In climbing the three hundred and sixty steps that led to the governor's palace, Clélia found nothing.

She hastened to speak to her uncle, who scolded her and refused to lend himself to anything.

CHAPTER XVI

“Stories of the world, in your language.”