Part 35

--Once again he offers his life.

--Think of what you are saying, cried the duchess, with that wild eye which, after tears, announces that anger is gaining the upper hand over tenderness.

--He offers his life to stand in the way of Fabrice's fate, or to avenge him.

--There are circumstances, replied the duchess, in which I might accept the sacrifice of your life.

She looked at him with stern attention. A flash of joy shone in her glance; he rose quickly and stretched his arms toward heaven. The duchess went to fetch a paper hidden in the secret recess of a large walnut armoire.

--Read, she said to Ferrante.

It was the deed of gift in favor of his children, of which we have spoken.

Tears and sobs prevented Ferrante from reading the end; he fell to his knees.

--Give me back that paper, said the duchess, and, before him, she burned it at the candle.

"It must not be," she added, "that my name appear if you are taken and executed, for your head is at stake."

--My joy is to die harming the tyrant, a far greater joy to die for you. That being settled and well understood, deign no longer to make mention of this detail of money; I should see in it an injurious doubt.

--If you are compromised, I may be so too, replied the duchess, and Fabrice after me: it is for that reason, and not because I doubt your bravery, that I require that the man who pierces my heart be poisoned and not killed. For the same reason, which is important to me, I order you to do everything in the world to save yourself.

--I shall execute faithfully, punctually, and prudently. I foresee, Madame la Duchesse, that my vengeance will be mingled with yours: were it otherwise, I should still obey faithfully, punctually, and prudently. I may not succeed, but I shall employ all my strength as a man.

--It is a matter of poisoning the murderer of Fabrice.

--I had guessed it, and during the twenty-seven months that I have led this wandering and abominable life, I have often thought of such a deed on my own account.

--If I am discovered and condemned as an accomplice, pursued the duchess in a tone of pride, I will not have it said that I seduced you. I order you to seek to see me no more before the time of our vengeance: it is not a question of putting him to death before I give you the signal. His death at this moment, for example, would be fatal to me, far from being of use. Probably his death ought not to take place until several months hence, but it will take place. I require that he die by poison, and I would rather leave him living than see him struck by a gunshot. For reasons I will not explain to you, I require that your life be saved.

Ferrante was delighted with this tone of authority the duchess assumed toward him: his eyes shone with deep joy. As we have said, he was horribly thin; but one could see that he had been very handsome in his early youth, and he believed himself still what he had once been. "Am I mad," he said to himself, "or does the duchess mean, one day, when I shall have given her this proof of devotion, to make me the happiest of men? And in fact, why not? Is it not that I am worth more than that doll of a Count Mosca who, when it came to it, could do nothing for her, not even contrive the escape of Monsignore Fabrice?"

--I may wish his death as soon as tomorrow, continued the duchess, still with the same air of authority. You know that immense water reservoir which is at the corner of the palace, close to the hiding place you have sometimes occupied; there is a secret means of making all that water flow into the street: well! that shall be the signal of my vengeance. You will see, if you are in Parma, or you will hear it said, if you dwell in the woods, that the great reservoir of the Sanseverina palace has burst. Act at once, but by poison, and above all expose your life as little as possible. Let no one ever know that I had a hand in this affair.

--Words are useless, answered Ferrante with ill-restrained enthusiasm: I am already decided upon the means I shall employ. The life of this man becomes more hateful to me than it was, since I shall not dare to see you again while he lives. I shall await the signal of the reservoir burst in the street.

He bowed abruptly and left. The duchess watched him walk away.

When he was in the other room, she called him back.

--Ferrante! she cried, sublime man!

He came back in, as if impatient to be detained; his face was superb at that instant.

--And your children?

--Madame, they will be richer than I; you perhaps grant them some small pension.

--Here, said the duchess, giving him a sort of large olivewood case, here are all the diamonds that remain to me; they are worth fifty thousand francs.

--Ah, Madame! you humiliate me!... said Ferrante with a gesture of horror, and his face changed completely.

--I shall never see you again before the deed: take it, I wish it, added the duchess with a look of haughtiness that overwhelmed Ferrante; he put the case in his pocket and went out.

The door had been closed by him. The duchess called him back once more; he re-entered with an anxious air: the duchess was standing in the middle of the salon; she threw herself into his arms. After a moment, Ferrante almost fainted with happiness; the duchess disengaged herself from his embrace, and with her eyes pointed to the door.

"There is the only man who has understood me," she said to herself, "that is how Fabrice would have acted, had he been able to hear me."

There were two things in the duchess's character: she always wanted what she had once wanted; she never reopened for deliberation what had once been decided. She cited in this connection a saying of her first husband, the amiable General Pietranera: "What insolence toward myself!" he would say; "why should I believe I have more wit today than when I took that course?"

From that moment, a sort of gaiety reappeared in the duchess's character. Before the fatal resolution, at every step her mind took, at every new thing she saw, she had the sense of her inferiority to the prince, of her weakness and her duping; the prince, in her view, had basely deceived her, and Count Mosca, by virtue of his courtier's genius, though innocently, had seconded the prince. As soon as vengeance was resolved upon, she felt her strength; every step of her mind gave her happiness. I am rather inclined to believe that the immoral happiness one finds in revenge in Italy is bound up with the imaginative force of that people; the people of other countries do not properly speaking forgive, they forget.

The duchess did not see Palla again until toward the last days of Fabrice's imprisonment. As may perhaps have been guessed, it was he who gave the idea of the escape: there existed in the woods, two leagues from Sacca, a tower of the Middle Ages, half-ruined, and more than a hundred feet high; before speaking a second time to the duchess of flight, Ferrante begged her to send Ludovic, with trustworthy men, to set up a series of ladders near this tower. In the duchess's presence he went up it with the ladders, and came down with a simple knotted rope; he renewed the experiment three times, then he explained his idea anew. A week later, Ludovic also wished to descend from this old tower with a knotted rope: it was then that the duchess communicated this idea to Fabrice.

In the last days preceding this attempt, which might bring about the death of the prisoner, and in more than one way, the duchess could find a moment's rest only when Ferrante was at her side; the courage of this man electrified her own; but it is easy to see that she had to hide this singular proximity from the count. She feared, not that he would rebel, but she would have been afflicted by his objections, which would have redoubled her anxieties. "What! to take for intimate counselor a madman, recognized as such, and condemned to death! And," added the duchess, speaking to herself, "a man who, afterward, might do such strange things!" Ferrante was in the duchess's salon at the moment when the count came to make her aware of the conversation the prince had had with Rassi; and, when the count had gone out, she had much ado to prevent Ferrante from marching at once to the execution of a frightful design!

--I am strong now! cried this madman; I have no more doubt as to the legitimacy of the deed!

--But, in the moment of anger which will inevitably follow, Fabrice would be put to death!

--But thus one would spare him the peril of that descent: it is possible, easy even, he added; but this young man lacks experience.

The marriage of the sister of Marquis Crescenzi was celebrated, and it was at the feast given on that occasion that the duchess met Clelia, and could speak to her without arousing the suspicions of the observers of good society. The duchess herself handed Clelia the packet of ropes in the garden, where these ladies had gone to breathe for a moment. These ropes, manufactured with the greatest care, half hemp and half silk, with knots, were very slender and quite flexible; Ludovic had tested their strength, and, in all their parts, they could bear without breaking a weight of eight hundredweight. They had been compressed so as to form several packets of the shape of an in-quarto volume; Clelia took possession of them, and promised the duchess that all that was humanly possible should be accomplished to get these packets as far as the Farnese tower.

--But I fear the timidity of your character; and besides, added the duchess politely, what interest can an unknown man inspire in you?

--M. del Dongo is unhappy, and I promise you that by me he shall be saved!

But the duchess, counting very little on the presence of mind of a young person of twenty, had taken other precautions of which she took good care not to inform the governor's daughter. As was natural to suppose, this governor was at the feast given for the marriage of the sister of Marquis Crescenzi. The duchess said to herself that, if she had him given a strong narcotic, one might believe at first that it was a matter of an apoplectic fit, and then, instead of placing him in his carriage to take him back to the citadel, one might, with a little skill, have prevail the advice to use a litter, which happened by chance to be in the house where the feast was given. There would also be met there intelligent men, dressed as workmen employed for the feast, and who, in the general confusion, would obligingly offer to carry the sick man to his lofty palace. These men, directed by Ludovic, carried a rather large quantity of ropes, adroitly hidden under their clothes. One sees that the duchess had truly lost her mind since she had been seriously thinking of Fabrice's flight. The peril of that beloved being was too strong for her soul, and above all lasted too long. By excess of precautions, she nearly caused this flight to fail, as will be seen. All was executed as she had planned, with this sole difference, that the narcotic produced too powerful an effect; everyone believed, and even men of the profession, that the general had an apoplectic fit.

Happily, Clelia, in despair, had not the least suspicion of the duchess's so criminal attempt. The disorder was such at the moment of the entrance into the citadel of the litter in which the general, half-dead, was enclosed, that Ludovic and his men passed without objection; they were only searched for form's sake at the Slave Bridge. When they had carried the general to his bed, they were conducted to the servants' hall, where the domestics treated them very well; but after this meal, which did not end until close to morning, they were explained that the custom of the prison required that, for the rest of the night, they be locked up in the lower halls of the palace; the next day at dawn they would be set free by the governor's lieutenant.

These men had found the means to hand over to Ludovic the ropes they had charged themselves with, but Ludovic had much trouble obtaining a moment's attention from Clelia. At last, in a moment when she was passing from one room to another, he showed her that he was depositing packets of rope in the dark corner of one of the salons on the first floor. Clelia was profoundly struck by this strange circumstance: at once she conceived atrocious suspicions.

--Who are you? she said to Ludovic.

And, upon his very ambiguous reply, she added:

--I ought to have you arrested; you or yours have poisoned my father!... Confess this instant the nature of the poison you have made use of, so that the citadel physician may administer the proper remedies; confess this instant, or else, you and your accomplices, never shall you leave this citadel!

--Mademoiselle is wrong to be alarmed, answered Ludovic, with perfect grace and politeness; it is in no way a matter of poison; someone had the imprudence to administer to the general a dose of laudanum, and it appears that the servant charged with this crime put a few drops too many in the glass; we shall have an eternal remorse for it; but Mademoiselle may believe that, thank heaven, there exists no sort of danger: M. the governor is to be treated for having taken, by error, too strong a dose of laudanum; but, I have the honor to repeat to Mademoiselle, the lackey charged with the crime was making no use of true poisons, like Barbone, when he wished to poison Mgr Fabrice. There was no intent to avenge the peril Mgr Fabrice has run; there was entrusted to this awkward lackey only a vial in which there was laudanum, I swear it to Mademoiselle! But it is well understood that, if I were officially interrogated, I would deny everything.

"Besides, if Mademoiselle speaks to anyone of laudanum and poison, were it to the excellent don Cesare, Fabrice is killed by the hand of Mademoiselle. She renders forever impossible all plans of flight; and Mademoiselle knows better than I that it is not with simple laudanum that one means to poison Monseigneur; she knows also that someone granted only a month's delay for this crime, and that it is already more than a week since the fatal order was received. Thus, if she has me arrested, or if only she says a word to don Cesare or to anyone else, she delays all our undertakings by more than a month, and I am right to say that she kills Mgr Fabrice with her own hand.

Clelia was terrified by the strange tranquillity of Ludovic.

"So, here I am in formal dialogue," she said to herself, "with the poisoner of my father, and who employs polite turns of phrase to speak to me! And it is love that has led me to all these crimes!..."

Remorse scarcely left her the strength to speak; she said to Ludovic:

--I am going to lock you up in this salon. I am running to tell the physician that it is only a matter of laudanum; but, great God! how shall I tell him that I learned it myself? I shall return then to set you free.

"But," said Clelia, running back from the door, "did Fabrice know anything of the laudanum?"

--Good heavens no, Mademoiselle, he would never have consented to it. And then, what use in making a useless confidence? we act with the strictest prudence. It is a matter of saving the life of Monseigneur, who will be poisoned within three weeks; the order for it has been given by someone who usually finds no obstacle to his will; and, to tell Mademoiselle all, it is said to be the terrible fiscal general Rassi who has received this commission.

Clelia fled in terror: she counted so much on the perfect honesty of don Cesare, that, employing a certain precaution, she dared tell him that laudanum, and nothing else, had been administered to the general. Without answering, without questioning, don Cesare ran to the physician.

Clelia returned to the salon, where she had locked up Ludovic intending to press him with questions about the laudanum. She no longer found him there: he had succeeded in escaping. She saw on a table a purse full of sequins, and a small box containing various sorts of poisons. The sight of these poisons made her shudder. "Who tells me," she thought, "that only laudanum was given to my father, and that the duchess did not mean to avenge the attempt of Barbone?"

"Great God!" she cried, "here I am in relation with the poisoners of my father! And I let them escape! And perhaps this man, put to the question, would have confessed something other than laudanum!"

At once Clelia fell to her knees, dissolving in tears, and prayed to the Madonna with fervor.

Meanwhile, the citadel physician, much astonished at the advice he received from don Cesare, according to which he had only to deal with laudanum, gave the proper remedies which soon made the most alarming symptoms disappear. The general came a little to himself as day began to break. His first action marking some consciousness was to load with insults the colonel second in command of the citadel, who had taken it upon himself to give some of the simplest orders in the world while the general was unconscious.

The governor then fell into a great rage against a kitchen maid who, in bringing him a broth, ventured to pronounce the word *apoplexy*.

--Am I of an age, he cried, to have apoplexies? It is only my bitter enemies who can take pleasure in spreading such rumors. And besides, have I been bled, that calumny itself should dare speak of apoplexy?

Fabrice, wholly occupied with the preparations for his flight, could not conceive the strange rumors that filled the citadel at the moment when the half-dead governor was brought back to it. At first he had some idea that his sentence was changed, and that they were coming to put him to death. Seeing then that no one presented himself in his room, he thought that Clelia had been betrayed, that on her return to the fortress they had taken from her the ropes she was probably bringing, and that finally his plans of flight were henceforth impossible. The next day, at dawn, he saw enter his room a man unknown to him, who, without a word, deposited there a basket of fruit: beneath the fruit was hidden the following letter:

Penetrated with the liveliest remorse by what has been done, not, thank heaven, with my consent, but on the occasion of an idea I had had, I have made a vow to the most holy Virgin that if, by the effect of her holy intercession, my father is saved, never shall I oppose a refusal to her commands; I shall marry the marquis as soon as he requires it of me, and never shall I see you again. Nevertheless, I believe it is my duty to complete what has been begun. Next Sunday, on the return from the mass to which you will be conducted at my request (think to prepare your soul, you may kill yourself in the difficult enterprise); on the return from mass, I say, delay as much as possible your return to your room; you will find there what is necessary to you for the meditated enterprise. If you perish, my soul will be torn! Will you be able to accuse me of having contributed to your death? The duchess herself has repeated to me several times that the Raversi faction is prevailing? they mean to bind the prince by a cruelty which separates him forever from Count Mosca. The duchess, dissolving in tears, swore to me that only this resource remains: you perish if you attempt nothing. I can no longer look at you, I have made a vow of it; but if on Sunday, toward evening, you see me entirely clothed in black, at the accustomed window, it will be the signal that the following night all will be arranged as far as my weak means allow. After eleven o'clock, perhaps only at midnight or one, a small lamp will appear at my window, it will be the decisive instant; commend yourself to your holy patron, take in haste the priest's clothes with which you are provided, and go.

Adieu, Fabrice, I shall be in prayer, and shedding the bitterest tears, you may believe it, while you run such great dangers. If you perish, I shall not survive you; great God! what am I saying? but if you succeed, I shall never see you again. Sunday, after mass, you will find in your prison the money, the poisons, the ropes, sent by that terrible woman who loves you passionately, and who repeated to me three times over that this course must be taken. God save you and the holy Madonna!

Fabio Conti was a jailer always uneasy, always unhappy, always seeing in his dreams one of his prisoners escaping him: he was abhorred by all who were in the citadel; but misfortune inspiring the same resolutions in all men, the poor prisoners, those even who were chained in dungeons three feet high, three feet wide and eight feet long, where they could neither stand nor sit, all the prisoners, even those, I say, had the idea of having a Te Deum sung at their expense when they learned that their governor was out of danger. Two or three of these unfortunates made sonnets in honor of Fabio Conti. O effect of misfortune upon these men! Let him who blames them be led by his destiny to pass a year in a dungeon three feet high, with eight ounces of bread a day and fasting on Fridays.

Clelia, who left her father's room only to go and pray in the chapel, said that the governor had decided that the rejoicings should take place only on Sunday. On the morning of that Sunday, Fabrice attended mass and the Te Deum; in the evening there was a fireworks display, and in the lower halls of the castle there was distributed to the soldiers a quantity of wine four times that which the governor had granted; an unknown hand had even sent several barrels of brandy which the soldiers broached. The generosity of the soldiers who were getting drunk would not have those five soldiers who stood guard as sentinels around the palace suffer from their position; as they came to their sentry boxes, a trusted domestic gave them wine, and it is not known by what hand those who were placed on sentinel at midnight and during the rest of the night also received a glass of brandy, and the bottle was forgotten each time near the sentry box (as was proved at the trial which followed).

The disorder lasted longer than Clelia had thought, and it was only toward one o'clock that Fabrice, who, for more than eight days, had sawed through two bars of his window, the one not giving onto the aviary, began to take down the window blind; he was working almost above the heads of the sentinels who guarded the governor's palace, they heard nothing. He had made only a few new knots in the immense rope necessary to descend from that terrible height of a hundred eighty feet. He arranged this rope in a bandolier around his body: it encumbered him greatly, its volume being enormous; the knots prevented it from forming a compact mass, and it stood out more than eighteen inches from the body. "There is the great obstacle," said Fabrice to himself.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”