Part 33

It is also quite true that the rest of her answer was less clear: Fabrice pointed this out to her and took advantage of the occasion to renew his request for a meeting. Clelia, seeing her good faith called into question, granted it almost at once, while observing to him that she was dishonoring herself forever in Grillo's eyes. In the evening, when night had fallen, she appeared, accompanied by her maid, in the chapel of black marble; she stopped in the middle, beside the vigil lamp; the maid and Grillo withdrew to thirty paces near the door. Clelia, all trembling, had prepared a fine speech: her aim was to make no compromising avowal, but the logic of passion is urgent; the deep interest she takes in knowing the truth does not allow her to keep vain reserves, and at the same time the extreme devotion she feels for what she loves removes from her the fear of giving offense. Fabrice was at first dazzled by Clelia's beauty; for nearly eight months he had seen no one so close except jailers. But the name of Marchese Crescenzi restored all his fury to him, and it increased when he clearly saw that Clelia answered only with prudent reserves; Clelia herself understood that she was increasing his suspicions instead of dispelling them. This sensation was too cruel for her.

--Will you be very happy, she said to him with a sort of anger and tears in her eyes, to have made me override all that I owe to myself? Until the 3rd of August of last year, I had felt only aversion for the men who had sought to please me. I had a boundless and probably exaggerated contempt for the character of courtiers; everything that was happy at this court displeased me. I found, on the contrary, singular qualities in a prisoner who was brought into this citadel on the 3rd of August. I experienced, at first without being aware of it, all the torments of jealousy. The charms of a charming woman, and one well known to me, were dagger thrusts to my heart, because I believed, and still believe a little, that this prisoner was attached to her. Soon the persecutions of Marchese Crescenzi, who had asked for my hand, redoubled; he is very rich and we have no fortune; I repulsed them with great freedom of mind, when my father pronounced the fatal word *convent*; I understood that if I left the citadel I could no longer watch over the life of the prisoner whose fate interested me. The masterpiece of my precautions had been that up to that moment he had in no way suspected the dreadful dangers threatening his life. I had firmly resolved never to betray either my father or my secret; but that woman of admirable activity, of superior mind, of terrible will, who protects this prisoner, offered him, as I suppose, means of escape; he rejected them and wished to persuade me that he refused to leave the citadel so as not to distance himself from me. Then I made a great mistake; I struggled for five days; I ought at once to have taken refuge in the convent and left the fortress: this step offered me a very simple means of breaking with Marchese Crescenzi. I had not the courage to leave the fortress, and I am a lost girl; I have attached myself to a frivolous man: I know what his conduct was at Naples; and what reason should I have to believe he will have changed his character? Shut in a severe prison, he paid court to the only woman he could see; she was a distraction for his boredom. As he could speak to her only with certain difficulties, this amusement took on the false appearance of a passion. This prisoner, having made a name for himself in the world by his courage, imagines he proves that his love is better than a simple passing fancy, by exposing himself to rather great perils to continue seeing the person he believes he loves. But as soon as he is in a great city, surrounded anew by the seductions of society, he will be again what he has always been, a man of the world given to dissipation, to gallantry, and his poor prison companion will end her days in a convent, forgotten by this frivolous being, and with the mortal regret of having made him an avowal.

This historical speech, of which we give only the principal features, was, as may well be thought, interrupted twenty times by Fabrice. He was madly in love, and thus he was perfectly convinced that he had never loved before seeing Clelia, and that the destiny of his life was to live only for her.

The reader no doubt pictures the fine things he was saying, when the maid warned her mistress that half past eleven had just struck, and that the general might return at any moment; the parting was cruel.

--I perhaps see you for the last time, Clelia said to the prisoner: a measure which is in the evident interest of the Raversi cabal may furnish you a cruel way of proving that you are not inconstant.

Clelia left Fabrice stifled by her sobs, and dying of shame at not being able to hide them entirely from her maid, nor above all from the jailer Grillo. A second conversation was possible only when the general announced he must spend the evening in society; and as, since Fabrice's imprisonment and the curiosity it inspired in the courtier, he had found it prudent to give himself an almost continual fit of gout, his trips to the city, subject to the exigencies of a skillful policy, were decided only at the moment of stepping into the carriage.

Since that evening in the marble chapel, Fabrice's life was a succession of transports of joy. Great obstacles, it is true, still seemed to oppose his happiness; but at last he had that supreme and little-hoped-for joy of being loved by the divine being who occupied all his thoughts.

The third day after this interview, the lamp signals ended very early, at about midnight; at the instant they ceased, Fabrice had his head almost broken by a large lead ball which, launched into the upper part of his window blind, came to shatter his paper panes and fell into his room.

This very large ball was by no means as heavy as its size announced; Fabrice easily succeeded in opening it and found a letter from the duchess. By means of the archbishop, whom she carefully flattered, she had won over a soldier of the citadel garrison. This man, a skillful slinger, deceived the soldiers placed as sentinels at the angles and at the gate of the governor's palace, or arranged matters with them.

You must escape with ropes: I shudder in giving you this strange advice, I have hesitated for more than two whole months to say this word to you; but the official future darkens each day, and one may expect the worst. By the way, begin again at once the signals with your lamp, to prove to us that you have received this dangerous letter; mark P, B and G to the nun, that is, four, twelve and two; I shall not breathe until I have seen this signal; I am at the tower, the answer will be N and O, seven and five. Once the answer is received, make no further signals, and occupy yourself solely with understanding my letter.

Fabrice hastened to obey, and made the agreed signals, which were followed by the announced responses, then he continued reading the letter.

One may expect the worst; that is what the three men in whom I have most confidence declared to me, after making them swear on the Gospel to tell me the truth, however cruel it might be to me. The first of these men threatened the informer surgeon at Ferrara with falling upon him with an open knife in hand; the second told you on your return from Belgirate that it would have been more strictly prudent to fire a pistol shot at the valet who arrived singing in the wood and leading by a leash a fine rather lean horse; you do not know the third, he is a highwayman of my friends, a man of action if ever there was one, and who has as much courage as you; that is why above all I asked him to declare to me what you ought to do. All three told me, without each knowing I had consulted the other two, that it is better to risk breaking one's neck than to pass yet eleven years and four months in continual fear of a very probable poison.

You must for a month exercise in your room at climbing up and down by means of a knotted rope. Then, on a feast day when the citadel garrison has received a wine gratification, you will attempt the great enterprise. You will have three ropes of silk and hemp, of the thickness of a swan's quill, the first of eighty feet to descend the thirty-five feet from your window to the orange grove, the second of three hundred feet, and that is the difficulty because of the weight, to descend the hundred eighty feet of height of the great tower wall; a third of thirty feet will serve you to descend the rampart. I spend my life studying the great wall to the east, that is, on the Ferrara side: a fissure caused by an earthquake was filled by means of a buttress forming an inclined plane. My highwayman assures me he would undertake to descend on that side without too much difficulty and with only the penalty of a few scratches, by letting himself slide on the inclined plane formed by this buttress. The vertical space is only twenty-eight feet quite at the bottom; this side is the least guarded.

However, all things considered, my robber, who has three times escaped from prison, and whom you would like if you knew him, though he detests men of your class; my highwayman, I say, agile and nimble like you, thinks he would rather descend by the west side, exactly opposite the little palace formerly occupied by the Fausta, well known to you. What decides him for this side is that the wall, though very little inclined, is almost constantly covered with brushwood; there are twigs, thick as the little finger, which may well scratch if one is not careful, but which, also, are excellent for holding on. Still this morning, I was looking at this west side with an excellent telescope; the place to choose is precisely below a new stone placed on the upper balustrade, two or three years ago. Vertically below this stone, you will first find a bare space of some twenty feet; you must go there very slowly (you feel if my heart trembles in giving you these terrible instructions, but courage consists in knowing how to choose the lesser evil, however frightful it still may be); after the bare space, you will find eighty or ninety feet of very large brushwood, where birds are seen flying, then a space of thirty feet having only grasses, wallflowers and pellitory. Next, nearing the ground, twenty feet of brushwood, and finally twenty-five or thirty feet recently cleared.

What decides me for this side is that there is found vertically, below the new stone of the upper balustrade, a wooden cabin built by a soldier in his garden, and which the engineer captain employed at the fortress wants to force him to demolish; it is seventeen feet high, covered with thatch, and the roof touches the great wall of the citadel. It is this roof that tempts me; in the dreadful case of an accident, it would break the fall. Once arrived there, you are within the enclosure of the rather negligently guarded ramparts; if you were stopped there, fire pistol shots and defend yourself for a few minutes. Your friend from Ferrara and another man of courage, the one I call the highwayman, will have ladders, and will not hesitate to scale this rather low rampart, and to fly to your rescue.

The rampart is only twenty-three feet high, and has a very large slope. I shall be at the foot of this last wall with a good number of armed men.

I hope to get five or six letters to you by the same route as this one. I shall constantly repeat the same things in other terms, so that we may be in full agreement. You guess with what heart I tell you that the man of the pistol shot at the valet, who after all is the best of beings and is dying of repentance, thinks you will escape with only a broken arm. The highwayman, who has more experience of these sorts of expeditions, thinks that, if you descend very slowly, and above all without hurrying, your liberty will cost you only scratches. The great difficulty is to have ropes; that is also what I think of exclusively for fifteen days that this great idea occupies all my moments.

I do not answer that folly, the only witless thing you have said in your life: "I will not escape!" The man of the pistol shot at the valet cried out that boredom had made you mad. I shall not hide from you that we dread a very imminent danger which perhaps will hasten the day of your flight. To announce this danger to you, the lamp will say several times in succession: Fire has caught in the castle! You will answer: Are my books burned?

This letter contained yet five or six pages of details; it was written in microscopic characters on very fine paper.

"All this is very fine and very well invented," Fabrice said to himself; "I owe eternal gratitude to the count and to the duchess; they will perhaps think I was afraid, but I shall not escape. Is it that one ever escapes from a place where one is at the height of happiness, to throw oneself into a frightful exile where everything will be lacking, even air to breathe? What should I do at the end of a month that I should be in Florence? I should take a disguise to come prowling near the gate of this fortress, and try to catch a glance!"

The next day, Fabrice was afraid; he was at his window toward eleven o'clock, looking at the magnificent landscape and awaiting the happy instant when he could see Clelia, when Grillo entered out of breath into his room:

--Quick! quick! my lord, throw yourself on your bed, pretend to be ill; here are three judges coming up! They are going to question you: reflect well before speaking; they come to entangle you.

As he said these words Grillo hastened to close the little trap of the blind, pushed Fabrice onto his bed, and threw two or three coats over him.

--Say you suffer a great deal and speak little, above all have the questions repeated so as to reflect.

The three judges entered. "Three galley escapes," Fabrice said to himself, seeing these low physiognomies, "and not three judges"; they had long black robes. They bowed gravely, and occupied, without a word, the three chairs that were in the room.

--Monsieur Fabrice del Dongo, said the eldest, we are pained by the sad mission we come to fulfill toward you. We are here to announce to you the decease of His Excellency M. the Marchese del Dongo, your father, second grand majordomo major of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, grand cross knight of the orders of, etc.

Fabrice burst into tears; the judge continued.

--Madame the Marquise del Dongo, your mother, informs you of this news by a missive letter; but as she joined to the fact some improper reflections, by a decree of yesterday, the court of justice has decided that her letter will be communicated to you only by extract, and it is this extract that M. the clerk Bona is going to read to you.

This reading finished, the judge approached Fabrice still lying down, and made him follow on his mother's letter the passages of which the copies had just been read. Fabrice saw in the letter the words unjust imprisonment, cruel punishment for a crime which is none, and understood what had motivated the judges' visit. Moreover, in his contempt for magistrates without integrity, he said to them exactly only these words:

--I am ill, gentlemen, I am dying of languor, and you will excuse me if I cannot rise.

The judges gone, Fabrice wept again a great deal, then he said to himself: "Am I a hypocrite? it seems to me I did not love him."

That day and the following ones, Clelia was very sad; she called him several times, but had scarcely the courage to say a few words to him. On the morning of the fifth day following the first interview, she told him that in the evening she would come to the marble chapel.

--I can address only a few words to you, she said to him on entering.

She was so trembling that she needed to lean on her maid. After sending her away at the entrance of the chapel:

--You are going to give me your word of honor, she added in a scarcely intelligible voice, you are going to give me your word of honor to obey the duchess, and to attempt to flee the day she orders you to and in the way she indicates, or tomorrow morning I take refuge in a convent, and I swear to you here that in my life I shall never speak to you again.

Fabrice remained mute.

--Promise, said Clelia with tears in her eyes and as if beside herself, or else we speak here for the last time. The life you have made me live is frightful: you are here because of me and each day may be the last of your existence.

At this moment Clelia was so weak that she was obliged to seek support on an enormous armchair placed formerly in the middle of the chapel, for the use of the prisoner prince; she was on the point of fainting.

--What must I promise? said Fabrice with a crushed air.

--You know it.

--I therefore swear to throw myself knowingly into a frightful misfortune, and to condemn myself to live far from all that I love in the world.

--Promise precise things.

--I swear to obey the duchess, and to take flight the day she wishes and as she wishes. And what shall become of me once far from you?

--Swear to save yourself, whatever may happen.

--How! are you decided to marry Marchese Crescenzi as soon as I am no longer here?

--O God! what soul do you believe me to have?... But swear, or I shall never again have a single instant of peace of soul.

--Well! I swear to save myself from here the day Mme Sanseverina orders it, and whatever may happen between now and then.

This oath obtained, Clelia was so weak that she was obliged to withdraw after thanking Fabrice.

--All was ready for my flight tomorrow morning, she said to him, if you had stubbornly remained. I should have seen you this instant for the last time of my life, I had made the vow to the Madonna. Now, as soon as I can leave my room, I shall go examine the terrible wall below the new stone of the balustrade.

The next day, he found her pale to the point of giving him keen pain. She said to him from the window of the aviary:

--Let us not deceive ourselves, dear friend; as there is sin in our friendship, I do not doubt that misfortune will befall us. You will be discovered in seeking to take flight, and lost forever, if not worse; nevertheless one must satisfy human prudence, which orders us to try all. You need, to descend outside the great tower, a solid rope of more than two hundred feet in length. However much care I give myself since I know the duchess's plan, I have been able to procure only ropes together barely forming fifty feet. By an order of the day from the governor, all ropes seen in the fortress are burned, and every evening the ropes of the wells are removed, so weak besides that often they break in raising their light burden. But pray God to forgive me, I betray my father, and I work, unnatural daughter, to give him a mortal grief. Pray God for me, and if your life is saved, make the vow to consecrate all its instants to his glory.

"Here is an idea that came to me: in eight days I shall leave the citadel to attend the wedding of one of Marchese Crescenzi's sisters. I shall return in the evening as is proper, but I shall do all in the world to return only very late, and perhaps Barbone will not dare examine me too closely. At this wedding of the marchese's sister will be found the greatest ladies of the court, and no doubt Mme Sanseverina. In the name of God! contrive that one of these ladies give me a packet of ropes well compressed, not too thick, and reduced to the smallest volume. Were I to expose myself to a thousand deaths, I shall employ even the most dangerous means to introduce this packet of ropes into the citadel, to the contempt, alas! of all my duties. If my father has knowledge of it I shall never see you again; but whatever destiny awaits me, I shall be happy within the bounds of a sister's friendship if I can contribute to saving you."

That very evening, by the night correspondence by means of the lamp, Fabrice gave notice to the duchess of the unique occasion there would be to introduce into the citadel a sufficient quantity of ropes. But he implored her to keep the secret even from the count, which seemed bizarre. "He is mad," thought the duchess, "prison has changed him, he takes things tragically." The next day, a lead ball, launched by the slinger, brought the prisoner the announcement of the greatest possible peril: the person who undertook to introduce the ropes, he was told, positively and exactly saved his life. Fabrice hastened to give this news to Clelia. This lead ball also brought Fabrice a very exact view of the west wall by which he was to descend from the top of the great tower into the space between the bastions; from this place, it was fairly easy afterward to escape, the ramparts being only twenty-three feet high and rather negligently guarded. On the back of the plan was written in a fine small hand a magnificent sonnet: a generous soul exhorted Fabrice to take flight, and not to let his soul be debased and his body waste away through the eleven years of captivity he still had to undergo.

Here a necessary detail, which partly explains the courage the duchess had in advising Fabrice to so dangerous a flight, obliges us to interrupt for an instant the history of this bold enterprise.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”