The only moments when Fabrizio’s deep sadness knew a little respite were those he spent lurking behind a glass pane which he had substituted for one of the oiled-paper squares in the window of his lodging, opposite the Palazzo Cantarini, to which mansion, as my readers know, Clelia had retired. On the few occasions, since he had left the fortress, on which he had caught sight of her, he had been profoundly distressed by a striking change in her appearance, from which he augured very ill. Since Clelia’s one moment of weakness her face had assumed a most striking appearance of nobility and gravity. It might have been that of a woman of thirty. In this extraordinary change of expression Fabrizio recognised the reflection of some deep-seated resolution. “Every moment of the day,” said he to himself, “she is swearing to herself that she will keep her vow to the Madonna, and never look at me again.”
Fabrizio only guessed at part of Clelia’s misery. She knew that her father, who had fallen into the direst disgrace, would never be able to return to Parma and reappear at the court (without which life was impossible to him) until she married the Marchese Crescenzi. She wrote her father word that she desired to be married. The general was then lying ill from worry at Turin. This fateful decision had aged her by ten years.
She was quite aware that Fabrizio had a window facing the Palazzo Cantarini, but only once had she been so unfortunate as to look at him. The moment she caught sight of the turn of a head or the outline of a figure the least resembling his, she instantly closed her eyes. Her deep piety, and her trust in the Madonna’s help, were to be her onlysupport for the future. She had to endure the sorrow of feeling no esteem for her father; her future husband’s character she took to be perfectly commonplace, and suited to the dominant feelings of the upper ranks of society. To crown it all, she adored a man whom she must never see again, and who, nevertheless, had certain claims upon her. Taking it altogether, her fate seemed to her the most miserable that could be conceived, and it must be acknowledged that she was right. The moment she was married she ought to have gone to live two hundred leagues from Parma.
Fabrizio was acquainted with the extreme modesty of Clelia’s character; he knew how much any unusual step, the discovery of which might cause comment, was certain to displease her. Nevertheless, driven to distraction by his own sadness, and by seeing Clelia’s eyes so constantly turned away from him, he ventured to try to buy over two of the servants of her aunt, the Countess Cantarini. One day, as dusk was falling, Fabrizio, dressed like a respectable countryman, presented himself at the door of the palace, at which one of the servants he had bribed was awaiting him. He announced that he had just arrived from Turin with letters for Clelia from her father. The servant took up his message, and then conducted him into a huge antechamber on the first floor. In this apartment Fabrizio spent what was perhaps the most anxious quarter of an hour in his whole life. If Clelia repulsed him he could never hope to know peace again. “To cut short the wearisome duties with which my new position overwhelms me,” he mused, “I will rid the Church of an indifferent priest, and will take refuge, under a feigned name, in some Carthusian monastery.” At last the servant appeared, and told him the Signorina Clelia was willing to receive him.
Our hero’s courage quite failed him as he climbed the staircase to the second floor, and he very nearly fell down from sheer fright.
Clelia was sitting at a little table, on which a solitary taper was burning. No sooner did she recognise Fabrizio, under his disguise, than she rushed away, and hid herself at the far end of the drawing-room. “This is how you care for mysalvation,” she cried, hiding her face in her hands. “Yet you know that when my father was at the point of death from poison, I made a vow to the Madonna that I would never see you. That vow I have never broken except on that one day—the most wretched of my life—when my conscience commanded me to save you from death. I do a great deal when, by putting a forced and, no doubt, a wicked interpretation on my vow, I consent even to listen to you.”
Fabrizio was so astounded by this last sentence that, for a few seconds, he was incapable even of rejoicing over it. He had expected to see Clelia rush away in the most lively anger. But at last he recovered his presence of mind, and blew out the candle. Although he believed he had understood Clelia’s wishes, he was trembling with alarm as he moved toward the far end of the drawing-room, where she had taken refuge behind a sofa. He did not know whether she might not take it ill if he kissed her hand. Throbbing with passion, she cast herself into his arms.
“Dearest Fabrizio,” she said, “how slow you have been in coming! I can only speak to you for a few moments, for even that is certainly a great sin, and when I promised that I would never see you again, there is no doubt I understood myself to promise that I would never speak to you either. But how can you punish my poor father’s vengeful thought so barbarously? For, after all, he was nearly poisoned, first, to facilitate your flight. Should you not have done something for me, who risked my fair fame to save you? Besides, now you are altogether bound to the priestly life, you could not marry me, even if I found means of getting rid of this detestable marchese. And then, how could you dare to attempt to see me in full daylight, on the day of that procession, and thus violate my holy vow to the Madonna, in the most shocking manner?”
Beside himself with surprise and happiness, Fabrizio clasped her closely in his arms.
A conversation which had to begin by explaining so many things was necessarily a long one. Fabrizio told Clelia the exact truth as to her father’s banishment. The duchess had had nothing whatever to do with it, for the very goodreason that she had never thought, for a single instant, that the idea of poison had emanated from General Conti. She had always believed that to be a witticism on the part of the Raversi faction, which was bent on driving out Count Mosca. His long dissertation on this historical fact made Clelia very happy; she had been wretched at the thought that it was her duty to hate any one belonging to Fabrizio, and she no longer looked on the duchess with a jealous eye.
The happiness consequent on that evening’s meeting only lasted a few days.
The worthy Don Cesare arrived from Turin, and found courage, in his perfect single-heartedness, to seek the presence of the duchess. After having obtained her word that she would not betray the confidence he was about to repose in her, he confessed that his brother, misled by a false idea of honour, and believing himself defied and ruined in public opinion by Fabrizio’s escape, had believed himself bound to seek for vengeance.
Before Don Cesare had talked for two minutes his cause was won; his absolute honesty had touched the duchess, who was not accustomed to such exhibitions; its novelty delighted her.
“Hurry on the marriage of the general’s daughter with the Marchese Crescenzi, and I give you my word of honour that I will do everything I can to have the general received as if he were coming back from an ordinary journey. I will ask him to dinner myself. Will that satisfy you? No doubt there will be a stiffness at first, and the general must not be too hasty about asking to be reappointed governor of the citadel. But you know my regard for the marchese; I shall bear no grudge against his father-in-law.”
Armed with these assurances, Don Cesare sought his niece, and told her that her father’s life lay in her hands; he had fallen ill from sheer despair, not having appeared at any court for several months.
Clelia insisted on going to see her father, who was hiding under a false name in a village near Turin; for he had taken it into his head that the court of Parma would request his extradition, with the object of bringing him to trial. Shefound him in bed, ill, and almost out of his mind. That very night she wrote a letter to Fabrizio, breaking with him forever. On receiving the letter, Fabrizio, whose character was growing very like that of his mistress, went into retreat at the Convent of Velleia, in the mountains, some thirty leagues from Parma. Clelia had written him a letter that covered ten pages. She had solemnly sworn she would never marry the marchese without his consent. That consent she now besought, and Fabrizio granted it in a letter written from his retreat at Velleia, and breathing the purest friendship.
When Clelia received this letter—the friendly tone of which nettled her, we must acknowledge—she herself fixed her wedding-day, and the festivities connected with it added to the splendour which rendered the court of Parma specially noticeable that winter.
Ranuzio-Ernest V was a miser at heart, but he was desperately in love, and he hoped to keep the duchess permanently at his court. He begged his mother’s acceptance of a considerable sum of money, to be spent in entertaining. The mistress of the robes made admirable use of this addition to the royal income; the festivities at Parma that winter recalled the best days of the Milanese court, and of Prince Eugène, that lovable viceroy of Italy, the memory of whose goodness has endured so long.
The archbishop’s coadjutor had been recalled to Parma by his duties. But he gave out that, from religious motives, he should continue to live in retirement in the small apartment in the archiepiscopal palace which his protector, Monsignore Landriani, had insisted on his accepting, and thither he retired, with one servant only. He was not present, therefore, at any of the brilliant court entertainments, and this fact earned him a most saintly reputation in Parma, and all over his future diocese. An unexpected result of this retirement, which had been inspired solely by Fabrizio’s profound and hopeless sadness, was that the worthy archbishop, who had always loved him, and who, in fact, had been the person who had first thought of having him appointed coadjutor, began to feel a little jealous. The archbishop, andvery rightly, conceived it his duty to attend all the court functions, according to the usual Italian custom. On these occasions he wore his gala costume, very nearly the same as that in which he appeared in his cathedral choir. The hundreds of servants gathered in the pillared anteroom of the palace never failed to rise and crave the archbishop’s blessing as he passed, and he, as invariably, condescended to stop and bestow it. It was during one of these moments of solemn silence that Monsignore Landriani heard a voice saying: “Our archbishop goes to balls, and Monsignore del Dongo never goes out of his room.”
From that moment the immense favour in which Fabrizio had stood at the archiepiscopal palace came to an end. But he was able, now, to stand on his own feet. The behaviour which had only been actuated by the despair into which Clelia’s marriage had cast him, was taken to be the result of his simple and lofty piety, and devout folk read the translation of his family genealogy, which exemplified the most ridiculous vanity, as though it were an edifying work. The booksellers published a lithographed edition of his picture, which was bought up in a few days, and more especially by the lower classes. The engraver, out of ignorance, surrounded Fabrizio’s portrait with several adornments, which should only have appeared on the portrait of a bishop, and to which a coadjutor could lay no claim. The archbishop saw one of these pictures, and his fury exceeded all bounds. He sent for Fabrizio, and spoke to him in the harshest manner, and in terms which his rage occasionally rendered very coarse. Fabrizio had no difficulty, as my readers will readily believe, in behaving as Fénelon would have done in such a case. He listened to the archbishop with all possible humility and respect, and when the prelate ceased speaking, he told him the whole story of the translation of the genealogy by Count Mosca’s orders, at the time of his first imprisonment. It had been published for worldly ends—such, indeed, as had seemed to him (Fabrizio), by no means suited for a man in his position. As to the portrait, he had had as little to do with the second edition as with the first. During his retreat the bookseller had sent him twenty-four copies ofthis second edition addressed to the archiepiscopal palace. He had sent his servant to buy a twenty-fifth copy, and having thus discovered that the price of each to be thirty sous, he had sent a hundred francs in payment for the first twenty-four portraits.
All these arguments, though put forward in the most reasonable manner, by a man whose heart was full of sorrow of a very different kind, increased the archbishop’s fury to madness. He even went so far as to accuse Fabrizio of hypocrisy.
“This is what comes of being a common man,” said Fabrizio to himself, “even when he is clever.”
He had a more serious trouble at that moment, in the shape of his aunt’s letters, which absolutely insisted on his returning to his rooms at the Palazzo Sanseverina, or, at all events, on his coming occasionally to see her. In that house Fabrizio felt he was certain to hear talk of the Marchese Crescenzi’s splendid entertainments in honour of his marriage, and he was not sure he would be able to endure this without making an exhibition of himself.
When the marriage ceremony took place, Fabrizio had already kept utter silence for a week, after having commanded his servant, and those persons in the archbishop’s palace with whom he had to do, never to open their lips to him.
When Archbishop Landriani became aware of this fresh piece of affectation he sent for Fabrizio much oftener than was his wont, and insisted on holding lengthy conversations with him. He even made him confer with certain of his country canons, who complained that the archbishop had contravened their privileges. Fabrizio took all this with the perfect indifference of a man whose head is full of other things. “I should do much better,” thought he, “to turn Carthusian. I should be less wretched among the rocks at Velleia.”
He paid a visit to his aunt, and could not restrain his tears when he kissed her. He was so altered, his eyes, which his excessive thinness made look larger than ever, seeming ready to start out of his head, and his whole appearance, inhis threadbare black cassock, was so miserable and wretched, that at her first sight of him the duchess could hardly help crying too. But a moment later, when she had told herself it was Clelia’s marriage that had so sorely changed this handsome young fellow, her feelings were as fierce as those of the archbishop, though more skilfully concealed. She was cruel enough to dilate at length on various picturesque details which had marked the Marchese Crescenzi’s delightful entertainments. Fabrizio made no reply, but his eyes closed with a little convulsive flutter, and he turned even paler than before, which at first sight would have been taken to be impossible. At such moments of excessive misery his pallor took a greenish tint.
Count Mosca came into the room, and the sight he beheld (and which appeared to him incredible) cured him, once for all, of that jealousy of Fabrizio which he had never ceased to feel. This gifted man made the most delicate and ingenious endeavours to rouse Fabrizio to some interest in mundane affairs. The count had always felt an esteem, and a certain regard for him. This regard, being no longer counterbalanced by jealousy, deepened into something approaching devotion. “He really has paid honestly for his fine position,” said Mosca to himself, as he summed up Fabrizio’s misfortunes. On pretext of showing him the Parmegiano, which the prince had sent the duchess, the count drew Fabrizio apart.
“Hark ye, my friend, let us speak as man to man. Can I serve you in any way? You need not fear I shall question you. But tell me, would money be of any use to you? Can interest serve you in any fashion? Speak out; you may command me—or, if you prefer it, write to me.”
Fabrizio embraced him affectionately, and talked about the picture.
“Your behaviour is a masterpiece of the most skilful policy,” said the count, returning to an ordinary light conversational tone. “You are laying up a most admirable future for yourself. The prince respects you. The populace venerates you. Your threadbare black suit keeps Archbishop Landriani awake o’ nights. I have some acquaintancewith political business, and I vow I don’t know what advice I could give you to improve it. Your first step in society, made at five-and-twenty, has placed you in a position that is absolutely perfect. You are very much talked about at court. And do you know to what it is you owe a distinction which, at your age, is unique? To your threadbare black garments. The duchess and I, as you know, are in possession of the house Petrarch once owned, which stands on a beautiful hill in the forest, close to the river. It has struck me that if ever the small spites of envious folk should weary you, you might become Petrarch’s successor, and his renown would set off yours.” The count was racking his brains to bring a smile to the wasted melancholy face. But he could not do it. What made the alteration in Fabrizio’s countenance all the more striking was that until quite lately its fault, if it possessed one, had been its occasionally unseasonable expression of sensuous enjoyment and gay delight.
The count did not allow him to depart without telling him that in spite of the retirement in which he was living, it might look somewhat affected if he did not put in an appearance at court on the following Saturday—the princess-mother’s birthday. The words went through Fabrizio like a dagger thrust. “Good God!” thought he, “what possessed me to enter this house?” He could not think of the meeting he might have to face at court, without a shudder. The thought of it overrode all others. He made up his mind that his only remaining chance was to reach the palace at the very moment when the doors of the reception rooms were thrown open.
As a matter of fact, Monsignore del Dongo’s name was one of the first to be announced at the great state entertainment, and the princess received him with all imaginable courtesy. Fabrizio kept his eyes on the clock, and as soon as the hand pointed to the twentieth minute of his visit, he rose to take his leave. But just at that moment the prince entered his mother’s apartment. After paying him his duty, Fabrizio was skilfully edging toward the door, when to his great discomfiture, one of those trifles of court etiquettewith the use of which the mistress of the robes was so well acquainted, was suddenly sprung upon him. The chamberlain in waiting ran after him to say he had been named to join the prince’s whist party. This, at Parma, is an excessive honour, far transcending the rank the archbishop’s coadjutor occupies in society. To play whist with the sovereign would be a special honour for the archbishop himself. Fabrizio felt the chamberlain’s words go through him like a dart, and mortally as he hated any public scene, he very nearly told him he had been seized with a sudden attack of giddiness. But it occurred to him that this would expose him to questions, and complimentary condolences, even more intolerable than the game of cards would be. He hated to open his mouth that day.
Luckily, the superior general of the Franciscan Friars happened to be among the important personages who had come to offer their congratulations to the princess. This monk, a very learned man, and worthy follower of Fontana and Duvoisin, had taken his stand in a distant corner of the reception room. Fabrizio placed himself in front of him, turning round so as not to see the doorway into the room, and began talking theology with him. But he could not prevent himself from hearing the Marchese and Marchesa Crescenzi announced. Contrary to his own expectation, Fabrizio experienced a sensation of violent anger.
“If I were Borso Valserra” (one of the first Sforza’s generals), said he to himself, “I should go over and stab that dull marchese, with the very ivory-handled dagger Clelia gave me on that blessed day, and I would teach him to have the insolence of showing himself with his marchesa anywhere in my presence.” His face had altered so completely that the superior general of the Franciscans said to him:
“Is your Excellency ill?”
“I have a frightful headache … the light hurts me … and I am only staying on because I have been desired to join the prince’s whist party.”
At these words the superior general of the Franciscans, who was a man of the middle class, was so taken aback, that, not knowing what else to do, he began bowing to Fabrizio,who, on his side, being far more agitated than the superior general, fell to talking with the most extraordinary volubility. He noticed that a great silence had fallen on the room behind him, but he would not look round. Suddenly the bow of a violin was rapped against a desk, some one played a flourish, and the famous singer, Signora P⸺, sang Cimarosa’s once celebrated air,Quelle pupille tenere. Fabrizio stood his ground for the first few bars. But soon his anger melted within him, and he felt an intense longing for tears. “Good God,” he thought, “what an absurd scene! and with my priestly habit, too!” He thought it wiser to talk about himself.
“These violent headaches of mine, when I fight against them as I am doing to-night,” said he to the superior general of the Franciscans, “always end in crying fits, which might give rise to ill-natured comment, in the case of a man of our calling. So I beseech your most illustrious reverence will give me leave to look at you while I weep, and will make no remark on my condition.”
“Our provincial at Catanara suffers from just the very same discomfort,” said the general of the Franciscans, and he began a long story in an undertone.
The absurdity of the tale, which involved a recital of everything the provincial ate at his evening meal, made Fabrizio smile, a thing he had not done for many a day. But he soon ceased listening to the superior general. Signora P⸺ was singing, in the most divine fashion, an air by Pergolese (the princess had a fondness for old-fashioned music). There was a slight noise three paces from Fabrizio. For the first time that evening he turned his head. The chair which had scraped on the parquet floor was occupied by the Marchesa Crescenzi, whose eyes, swimming with tears, met Fabrizio’s, which were in no better case. The marchesa bowed her head. For some seconds Fabrizio went on gazing at her. He was studying that diamond-laden head. But his eyes were full of anger and disdain. Then, repeating to himself, “And my eyes shall never look on thee again,” he turned back to the superior general and said:
“My complaint is coming on again, worse than ever.”
And, indeed, for over half an hour Fabrizio wept abundantly. Fortunately, one of Mozart’s symphonies—vilely played, as they generally are in Italy—came to his rescue, and helped to dry his tears.
He held his ground, and never looked toward the Marchesa Crescenzi. But Signora P⸺ began to sing again, and Fabrizio’s soul, relieved by the tears he had shed, passed into a state of perfect calm. Then life looked different to him. “How can I expect,” he mused, “to be able to forget her at the very outset? Would that be possible?” Then the idea occurred to him: “Can I possibly be more wretched than I have been for the last two months? And if nothing can increase my misery, why should I deny myself the pleasure of seeing her? She has forgotten her vows, she is fickle—is not every woman fickle? But who can deny her heavenly beauty? A glance of hers throws me into an ecstasy, and I have to do myself violence even to look at other women, who are supposed to be the loveliest of their sex. Well, why should I not enjoy that ecstasy? At all events, it will give me a moment’s respite.”
Fabrizio knew something of mankind, but as regards passion he was without experience. Otherwise he would have told himself that the momentary delight in which he was about to indulge would stultify all the efforts he had been making for the past two months to forget Clelia.
The poor lady had only attended the reception under her husband’s compulsion. She would have departed, after the first half-hour, on the score of illness. But the marchese assured her that to send for her carriage and drive away, while many other carriages were still driving up, would be a most unusual proceeding, and might even be taken as an indirect criticism of the entertainment offered by the princess.
“As lord in waiting,” the marchese went on, “I am bound to remain in the room, at the princess’s orders, until all the guests have retired. There may, and there no doubt will, be orders to be given to the servants—they are so careless. Would you have me allow a mere equerry to usurp this honour?”
Clelia submitted. She had not seen Fabrizio. She still hoped he might not be present at the reception. But just as the concert was beginning, when the princess gave the ladies permission to be seated, Clelia, who was anything but pushing in such matters, allowed herself to be shouldered out of the best seats, near the princess, and was forced to seek a chair at the back of the room, in the very distant corner to which Fabrizio had retired. When she reached her seat the dress of the Franciscan superior general, an unusual one in such company, caught her attention, and at first she did not notice the slight man in a plain black coat who was talking to him. Yet a certain secret impulse made her rivet her eyes on that person.
“Every man here is in uniform, or wears a richly embroidered coat. Who can that young man in the plain black suit be?” She was gazing at him attentively, when a lady, passing to a seat near her, jerked her chair. Fabrizio turned his head. So altered was he that she did not recognise him. She said to herself at first: “Here is somebody who is like him. It must be his elder brother. But I thought he was only a few years older, and this man must be five-and-forty.” Suddenly she recognised him by the way his lips moved.
“Poor fellow, how he has suffered!” she thought. And she bowed her head, not on account of her vow, but crushed by her misery. Her heart was swelling with pity. He had not looked anything like that, even after he had been shut up nine months in prison. She did not look at him again. But though her eyes were not exactly turned toward him, she was conscious of his every movement.
When the concert came to an end, she saw him go over to the prince’s card-table, which was set out a few paces from the throne. When she saw Fabrizio thus removed some distance from her she breathed more freely.
But the Marchese Crescenzi had been very much disturbed at seeing his wife banished so far from the throne. He spent the whole evening trying to persuade a lady who was sitting three chairs from the princess, and whose husband was under pecuniary obligations to himself, that shehad better change places with the marchesa. The poor lady objected, as was natural. Then he went and fetched the husband, who owed him money. This gentleman made his better-half listen to the dreary voice of reason, and at last the marchese had the pleasure of arranging the exchange, and went to fetch his wife. “You are always far too retiring,” he said. “Why do you walk about with your eyes cast down? You will be taken for one of these middle-class women who are astonished at finding themselves here, and whom everybody else is astounded to see. That crazy woman the mistress of the robes is always doing that sort of thing. And then they talk about checking the progress of Jacobinism! Recollect that your husband holds the highest position of any man at the princess’s court. And supposing the republicans should succeed in pulling down the court, and even the nobility, your husband would still be the richest man in this country. That is a notion you do not consider half enough.”
The chair in which the marchese had the pleasure of seating his wife stood not more than six paces from the prince’s card-table. Clelia could only see Fabrizio’s profile, but she was so struck by his thinness, and especially by his air of utter indifference to anything that might happen to him in this world—he, who in old days had his word to say about every incident that occurred—that she ended by coming to the frightful conclusion that Fabrizio was completely altered, that he had forgotten her, and that his extreme emaciation must result from the severe fasting his piety had enjoined. Clelia was confirmed in this sad conviction by the conversation of all who sat near her. The coadjutor’s name was on every tongue; every one was seeking the reason of the special favour which had been shown him. How was it that he, young as he was, had been admitted to the prince’s card-table? A great effect was produced by the indifferent politeness and haughty air with which he dealt his cards, even when he cut them for his Highness.
“It really is incredible,” exclaimed the old courtiers. “The favour his aunt enjoys has quite turned his head.… But Heaven be thanked, that will not last long! Our sovereigndoes not like people who assume such airs of superiority.” The duchess went up to the prince, and the courtiers, who remained at a respectful distance from the card-table, so that they could only catch a few chance words of the prince’s conversation, noticed that Fabrizio flushed deeply. “No doubt,” thought they, “his aunt has chidden him for his fine show of indifference.” Fabrizio had just overheard Clelia’s voice; she was answering the princess, who, in her progress round the room, had addressed a few words to the wife of her lord in waiting. At last the moment came when Fabrizio had to change his place at the whist-table. This brought him exactly opposite Clelia, and several times he gave himself up to the delight of looking at her. The poor marchesa, feeling his eyes upon her, quite lost countenance. Several times she forgot what she owed her vow, and in her longing to read Fabrizio’s heart, she fixed her eyes upon his face.
When the prince had finished playing, the ladies rose to go into the supper room. There was some little confusion, and Fabrizio found himself close to Clelia. His resolution was still strong, but he happened to recognise a very slight perfume which she was in the habit of putting in her dress, and this sensation overmastered all his determination. He drew near her, and murmured, in an undertone, and as if to himself, two lines out of the sonnet from Petrarch which he had sent her printed on a silken handkerchief from the Lago Maggiore. “How great was my happiness when the outer world thought me wretched! and now, how altered is my fate!”
“No, he has not forgotten me,” thought Clelia in a passion of joy. “That noble heart is not unfaithful.”
“Non! vous ne me verrez jamais changerBeaux yeux, qui m’avez appris à aimer!”
“Non! vous ne me verrez jamais changerBeaux yeux, qui m’avez appris à aimer!”
“Non! vous ne me verrez jamais changerBeaux yeux, qui m’avez appris à aimer!”
“Non! vous ne me verrez jamais changer
Beaux yeux, qui m’avez appris à aimer!”
She ventured to say these two lines from Petrarch to herself.
Immediately after supper the princess retired. The prince had followed her to her own apartments, and did not reappear in the reception-room. As soon as this news spread, everyone tried to go away at once, and confusion reigned supreme in all the anterooms. Clelia found herself quite near Fabrizio. The deep misery of his expression filled her with pity. “Let us forget the past,” she said, “and keep this in memory of ourfriendship.” As she said the word she put out her fan, so that he might take it.
In one moment everything changed to Fabrizio’s eyes. He was another man. The very next morning he announced that his retreat was at an end, and went back to his splendid rooms in the Palazzo Sanseverina.
The archbishop said, and believed, that the favour the prince had shown Fabrizio by summoning him to his card-table had turned the new-fledged saint’s head. The duchess perceived that he had come to an understanding with Clelia. That thought, which increased twofold the pain of the memory of her own fatal promise, made her finally resolve to absent herself for a while. People were astonished at her folly. “What! Leave court at the very moment when her favour appeared to know no limits!”
The count, who was perfectly happy now that he was satisfied there was no love between Fabrizio and the duchess, said to his friend: “This new prince of ours is the very incarnation of virtue, but I once called him ‘that child.’ Will he never forgive me? I only see one means of thoroughly regaining my credit with him, and that is by absence. I will make myself perfectly charming and respectful, and then I will fall ill, and ask leave to retire. You will grant me permission to do so, now that Fabrizio’s fortunes are assured. But,” he added, with a laugh, “will you make the immense sacrifice of changing the high and mighty title of duchess for a much humbler one, for my sake? I am entertaining myself by leaving all the business here in a state of the most inextricable confusion. I had four or five hard-working men in my various ministries; I had them all pensioned off, two months ago, because they read the French newspapers, and I have replaced them with first-class simpletons.”
“Once we are gone, the prince will find himself in such difficulties that, in spite of his horror of Rassi’s character, Ihave no doubt he will be obliged to recall him, and I only await my orders from the tyrant who rules my fate to write the most affectionate and friendly letter to my friend Rassi, and tell him I have every reason to hope his merits will soon be properly recognised.”
This serious conversation took place the day after Fabrizio’s return to the Palazzo Sanseverina. The duchess still felt sore at the sight of Fabrizio’s evident happiness. “So,” said she to herself, “that pious little minx has deceived me! She has not been able to hold out against her lover for even three months.”
The certain expectation of happiness had given that cowardly being, the young prince, courage to love. He heard a rumour of the preparations for departure at the Palazzo Sanseverina, and his Frenchvalet de chambre, who had but scant faith in any fine lady’s virtue, inspired him with courage as to the duchess. Ernest V ventured on a step that was severely blamed by the princess, and by all sensible people about the court. In the eyes of the populace, it set the seal on the astounding favour the duchess enjoyed. The prince went to see her in her palace.
“You are going!” said he, and there was a gravity about his tone which made it hateful to the duchess. “You are going! You mean to deceive me, and break your oath. And yet, if I had delayed ten minutes about granting you Fabrizio’s pardon, he would have died! And you would leave me behind you in misery! But for your oaths I never should have dared to love you as I do. Have you no honour?”
“Consider well, my prince. Have you ever been so happy, all your life long, as during the four months which have just gone by? Your glory as a sovereign, and, I venture to think, your happiness as a kind-hearted man, have never reached such a point before. This is the arrangement I propose to you. If you condescend to accept it, I will not be your mistress for a passing moment, and in virtue ofan oath extorted from me by fear, but I will devote every instant of my life to making you happy. I will be to you, always, what I have been for the last four months, and perhaps, some day, love may crown friendship. I would not say that might never be.”
“Well,” said the prince, overjoyed, “be something else, and something more! Rule me and my dominions, both at once. Be my Prime Minister. I offer you such a marriage as the necessities of my rank permit me. We have an instance of the kind quite near us—the King of Naples has just married the Duchess of Partana. I offer you all I can—a marriage of the same kind. I will add a piece of shabby policy, to convince you that I am no longer a child, and that I have thought of everything. I will not lay stress on the position I thus impose on myself, of being the last sovereign of my race, nor on the grief of seeing the great powers dispose of my succession during my lifetime. I hail these drawbacks—very real ones—as a blessing, since they provide me with a further means of showing you my regard and passionate devotion.”
The duchess did not feel a moment’s hesitation. The prince bored her, and she thought the count perfectly charming. There was only one man in the world whom she could have preferred to him. And besides that, she ruled the count, and the prince, as the natural outcome of his rank, would more or less have ruled her. Finally, he might grow inconstant and take mistresses. Before many years were out, their difference of age would almost appear to give him a right to do so.
From the very first, the prospect of being bored had settled the whole question. Nevertheless the duchess, in her desire to be charming, asked to be allowed to think it over.
Space will not permit me to repeat the almost tender expressions, and the infinitely gracious terms, in which she wrapped her refusal. The prince got into a rage; he saw all his happiness slipping through his fingers. What was he to do with himself after the duchess had left his court? And then there was the humiliation of being rebuffed; and besides,“What will my French servant say when I tell him I have failed.”
The duchess was artful enough to calm the prince, and little by little, to bring the negotiation back to its proper limits.
“If your Highness will only consent not to insist on the result of a fatal promise, which fills me with horror, because it makes me despise myself, I will spend my whole life at your court, and that court shall always be what it has been this winter. Every instant of my life shall be devoted to increasing your happiness as a man, and your glory as a sovereign. But if your Highness insists on my keeping my oath, you will have blighted the rest of my life, and you will see me depart from your dominions that instant, never to return. The day on which I lose my honour will be the last day on which I shall ever look upon you.”
But, like all pusillanimous men, the prince was obstinate; and besides, her refusal of his hand had stung his pride as a man and as a sovereign. He thought of all the difficulties he would have had to surmount to insure the acceptance of this marriage, and which, nevertheless, he had been resolved to overcome. For three hours the same arguments were repeated on each side, and frequently interlarded with very bitter expressions. The prince exclaimed: “Do you then want to make me believe, madam, that you have no honour? If I had hesitated as long that day, when General Fabio Conti was poisoning Fabrizio, you would be building his tomb now in some church in Parma.”
“No, not in Parma indeed—a country of poisoners!”
“Very well, madam,” retorted the prince angrily. “You can depart and take my scorn with you.”
As he was going out the duchess said in a low tone: “Well, sire, come here at ten o’clock to-night, in the most absoluteincognito, and you will make a fool’s bargain. You will see me for the last time in your life—and I would have devoted the whole of mine to making you as happy as an absolute sovereign can be, in this Jacobin century. And pray consider what your court will be like when I am no longer there to drag it out of its natural dulness and spitefulness!”
“On your part, you refuse the crown of Parma, and something better than a crown. For you would not have been an every-day princess, married out of policy, and without love. My heart is wholly yours, and you would have been absolute mistress of my actions, and of my government, forever.”
“Yes, but the princess, your mother, would have had the right to despise me as a vile schemer.”
“Pooh! I would have given the princess an income, and banished her.”
Three quarters of an hour were spent in sharp rejoinders. The prince, who was a fastidious-minded man, could neither make up his mind to insist on his rights, nor to allow the duchess to depart. He had been told that once the first victory was won, no matter how, women always came round.
Dismissed in anger by the offended duchess, he ventured to reappear, trembling and very miserable, at three minutes before ten o’clock. At half past ten the duchess got into her carriage and started for Bologna. As soon as she was beyond the boundary of the prince’s dominions she wrote to the count:
“The sacrifice is accomplished. Do not expect me to be cheerful for a month. I shall never see Fabrizio again. I am waiting for you at Bologna, and I will be the Countess Mosca whenever you choose. One thing, only, I ask of you: never force me to reappear in the country I am now leaving; and remember always that instead of a hundred and fifty thousand francs a year, you are going to have thirty or forty thousand at the outside. All the fools about you have stared at you open-mouthed, and now your whole reputation will depend upon how far you choose to condescend to understand their small ideas—‘Tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin!’”
A week later, the marriage took place at Perugia, in a church which contains the tombs of the count’s ancestors. The prince was in despair. He had sent the duchess three or four couriers, and she had carefully sent him back envelopes which covered his letters, with the seals unbroken.Ernest V had conferred a splendid income on the count, and had given Fabrizio the ribbon of his Order.
“That was what pleased me most about our farewells,” said the count to the new Countess Mosca della Rovere. “We parted the best friends in the world. He gave me a Spanish Order, and diamonds which are worth quite as much as the Order. He told me he would make me a duke, only that he wanted to keep that method of drawing you back to his dominions in his own hands; consequently I am commissioned to inform you (and it is a fine mission for a husband!) that if you will condescend to return to Parma, even for a month, I shall be made a duke, with any title you choose, and you will be given a fine property.”
All this the duchess refused with a sort of horror.
After that scene at the court ball, tolerably decisive as it had appeared, Clelia betrayed no recollection of the love she had momentarily seemed to share. The most vehement remorse had surged over that virtuous and pious nature. Fabrizio understood this very well, and in spite of all the hope he tried to feel, a gloomy sadness overcame his soul. This time, however, his misery did not force him into retirement, as at the period of Clelia’s marriage.
The count had begged his nephew to keep him exactly informed of everything that happened at court, and Fabrizio, who was beginning to realize all he owed him, had resolved to fulfil this mission faithfully. Like every one in the city and at court, Fabrizio had no doubt that his friend nursed the project of returning to the ministry, and wielding greater power than he had ever held before. The count’s forecasts were soon verified. Within six weeks of his departure, Rassi was Prime Minister. Fabio Conti was appointed Minister of War, and the prisons, which the count had well-nigh emptied, began to fill again. When the prince summoned these men to power he fancied he would thereby avenge himself on the duchess. He was crazed by passion, and he hated Mosca as his rival.
Fabrizio had a great deal on his hands. Archbishop Landriani, now seventy-two years old, had fallen into a very weak condition, and hardly ever went beyond his palacedoors. His coadjutor was obliged to represent him on almost every occasion.
The Marchesa Crescenzi, overwhelmed by remorse, and terrified by what her religious director said to her, had hit upon an excellent plan for keeping out of Fabrizio’s sight. On the plea that her first confinement was approaching, she had shut herself up within her own palace; but to this palace a huge garden was attached.
To this garden Fabrizio contrived to find access, and along Clelia’s favourite walk he placed nosegays of flowers, arranged in an order which constituted a language, like those she had sent him every evening during the last days of his imprisonment in the Farnese Tower.
This attempt caused the marchesa great annoyance. Her heart throbbed, sometimes with remorse, and then again with passion. For several months she would not go into the palace garden at all; she even scrupled to cast a glance in that direction.
Fabrizio began to believe he was parted from her forever, and despair was taking possession of his soul. The society in which he spent his life was hateful to him, and if he had not been convinced in his heart that the count would never find peace of mind out of office, he would have retired to his little rooms in the archiepiscopal palace. It would have been a comfort to him to live alone with his thoughts, and never to hear a human voice except when he was performing his ecclesiastical functions. “But,” said he to himself, “no one but I can serve the interests of Count and Countess Mosca.”
The prince still treated him with a respect which insured him the foremost rank at court, and this favour was largely owing to his own behaviour. Fabrizio’s extreme reserve, the result of an indifference to all the affections and petty passions that fill the lives of ordinary men, which amounted to positive disgust, had piqued the young prince’s vanity. He would often remark that Fabrizio was as clever as his aunt. The prince’s candid nature had realized half the truth, that no one else about him possessed the same methods of feeling as Fabrizio. A fact which could escape noone, not even the most ordinary courtier, was that Fabrizio’s credit was by no means that of an ordinary coadjutor, but even exceeded the consideration displayed by the sovereign for the archbishop. Fabrizio wrote word to the count that if ever the prince should be clever enough to perceive the muddle into which such ministers as Rassi, Fabio Conti, Zurla, and others of the same calibre had brought his affairs, he, Fabrizio, would be the natural channel whereby the sovereign might make some friendly demonstration, without too great a risk to his own vanity.
“But for the recollection of the fatal words, ‘that child,’” he wrote to Countess Mosca, “applied by a man of genius to an august personage, that august personage would already have exclaimed ‘Come back at once, and rid me of all these vagabonds.’ Even now, if the wife of the man of genius would condescend to any step, even the slightest, the count would be recalled with the greatest joy. But if he will wait till the fruit is thoroughly ripe he will return in far more brilliant fashion. And indeed, the princess’s receptions have grown deadly dull; the only amusement they afford consists in the ridiculous behaviour of Rassi, who, now he is a count, has developed a mania for noble birth. Strict orders have just been issued that no person who can not prove eight quarterings of noble descent is to dare to appear at the princess’s evening receptions. These are the exact terms of the edict. The men who have hitherto had the right to go into the great gallery in the morning, and be present when the sovereign passes through to mass, are to continue in the enjoyment of this privilege. But all new arrivals will have to prove their eight quarterings.À proposof which somebody said, ‘It’s very clear that Rassi knows no quarter.’”
My readers will readily imagine that such letters as these were not confided to the ordinary post. Countess Mosca wrote back from Naples: “We have a concert every Thursday, and a party every Sunday. Our rooms are absolutely crowded. The count is delighted with his excavations; he sets apart a thousand francs a month for them, and has just brought down labourers from the mountains of the Abruzzi,who only cost him twenty-three sous a day. You really ought to come and see us. This is more than the twentieth time that I have summoned you, ungrateful boy!”
Fabrizio had no intention of obeying the summons. Even his daily letter to the count or countess was an almost unendurable weariness to him. My readers will forgive him when they learn that a whole year had thus passed away without his being able to address a single word to the marchesa. All his attempts to enter into some kind of correspondence with her were repulsed with horror. The habitual silence which, out of sheer weariness of life, Fabrizio kept everywhere, except at court, and when performing his religious functions, added to the perfect purity of his morals, had won him such extraordinary veneration that he made up his mind, at last, to follow his aunt’s advice.
“The prince,” she wrote, “venerates you so deeply that you must expect to fall into disgrace shortly. Then he will shower marks of neglect upon you, and the vile scorn of the courtiers will follow on his. All these small despots, however honest-hearted they may be, change like the fashions, and on the same account—out of boredom. The only way in which you can insure yourself support against the sovereign’s whims is by preaching. You improvise poetry so well! Try to talk, for half an hour, about religion! You will talk heresy at first, but pay a learned and discreet theologian to listen to your sermons, and point out their faults to you, and the next time you preach you can correct them.”
The misery of mind engendered by a crossed love makes any effort requiring attention and activity an odious burden. But Fabrizio reminded himself that his influence over the populace, if he acquired any, might some day be useful to his aunt and to the count, for whom his admiration daily increased, in proportion to his own knowledge of life and the wickedness of men. So he made up his mind to preach, and his success, the way to which had been prepared by his emaciation and his threadbare coat, was unexampled. His sermons breathed a deep sadness, which, combined with his handsome face, and the stories of the high favour in which he stood at court, conquered every woman’s heart. Theladies discovered that he had been one of the bravest captains in Napoleon’s army, and before long, this ridiculous story was absolutely believed. The seats in the churches in which he was to preach were kept beforehand; the poorer folk would take possession of them at five o’clock in the morning, and turn money by the speculation.
So great was Fabrizio’s success, that at last an idea which changed his every feeling flashed across his brain. Might not the Marchesa Crescenzi come some day, were it out of mere curiosity, to hear him preach? And of a sudden the delighted public perceived that his eloquence increased twofold. In moments of excitement he ventured on word-pictures, the boldness of which would have made the most practised orators tremble. Occasionally, quite forgetting himself, he would be swept away by a wave of passionate inspiration, and the whole of his audience would be melted into tears, but in vain did hisaggrottato[6]eye scan every face turned toward the pulpit, in search of that one being whose presence would have meant so much to him.
“But if ever that happiness does come to me,” he thought, “I shall either faint away, or I shall stop dead short in my discourse.” To protect himself from this last difficulty, he composed a sort of tender and passionate prayer, which he always laid on a stool in his pulpit. His intention was to begin to read this composition if the marchesa’s presence should ever make it impossible for him to improvise a word.
One day he heard, through those of the marchesa’s servants who were in his pay, that orders had been given to make the box belonging to the Casa Crescenzi, at the principal theatre, ready for the next evening. It was more than a year since the marchesa had appeared in any theatre, and she was breaking her habit now, in order to hear a tenor who had created afurore, and crammed the building every evening. Fabrizio’s first feeling was one of the greatest joy. “At last I shall be able to look at her for a whole evening. They say she has grown very pale.” And hetried to fancy how that lovely head must look, with all its tints dulled by the struggle that had passed within its owner’s soul. His faithful Ludovico, quite alarmed by what he called his master’s madness, secured, though with much difficulty, a box on the fourth tier, almost opposite the marchesa’s. An idea occurred to Fabrizio. “I hope I may put it into her head to come and listen to my sermon, and I will choose a very small church, so that I may be able to see her well.” Fabrizio usually preached at three o’clock. Early in the morning of the day on which the marchesa was to go to the theatre he announced that as some duty connected with his office would keep him at the archiepiscopal palace the whole day long, he would preach, as an exception, at half past eight, that night, in the little Church of Santa Maria della Visitazione, which stood just opposite one of the wings of the Palazzo Crescenzi. He sent Ludovico to the Nuns of the Visitation with an enormous quantity of tapers, and begged them to light their church up brilliantly. He obtained a whole company of grenadiers of the guard, and a sentry, with fixed bayonet, was set on each chapel, to prevent any thieving. His sermon was not to begin until half past eight, but at two o’clock in the day the church was completely filled. My readers will conceive what a stir there was in the usually quiet street overlooked by the noble outlines of the Palazzo Crescenzi. Fabrizio had given out that, in honour of Our Lady of Pity, his subject would be the pity which a generous heart should feel for a person in misfortune, even if that person be a guilty one.
Disguised with every possible care, Fabrizio entered his box at the theatre as soon as the doors were opened, and before it was lighted up. Toward eight o’clock the performance began, and a few minutes afterward he experienced a joy which no one who has not felt it can conceive. He saw the door of the Crescenzi box open, and very soon the marchesa entered it. He had not obtained such a good view of her since the day when she had given him her fan. Fabrizio thought he would have choked with joy. His sensations were so extraordinary that he said to himself: “Perhaps I am going to die. What a blessed ending to my sadlife! Perhaps I shall fall down in this box. The good people waiting for me in the Church of the Visitation will wait in vain, and to-morrow they will hear their future archbishop has been found in an opera box, disguised as a servant, and dressed in livery. Farewell, then, to all my reputation! And what care I for my reputation?”
However, toward a quarter to nine Fabrizio made a great effort, and leaving his box on the fourth tier, he proceeded on foot, and with the greatest difficulty, to the place where he was to change his undress livery for more appropriate habiliments. He did not reach the Church of the Visitation till near nine o’clock, and then, so white and weak did he appear, that a report spread through the church that the coadjutor would not be able to preach that night. My readers will imagine all the attentions that were lavished on him by the nuns, through the grating of their inner parlour, in which he had taken refuge. The good ladies talked a great deal. Fabrizio asked them to leave him alone for a few minutes, and then he hurried off to his pulpit. One of his faithful adherents had told him, about three o’clock, that the church was quite full, but full of people of the lowest class, apparently attracted by the sight of the lighted tapers. When Fabrizio entered the pulpit he was agreeably surprised to find all the chairs occupied by young people of fashion, and older ones holding the most important positions in the city. He began his sermon with a few apologetic sentences, which were received with suppressed exclamations of admiration. Then came a passionate description of the unhappy being whom all men must pity if they would worthily honour the Madonna of Pity, who herself suffered so sorely upon earth. The orator was very much agitated; at times he could hardly speak so as to make himself heard in the far corners of the little church. In the eyes of all the women, and many of the men, his own excessive pallor made him look like the unhappy being they were called upon to pity. A very few minutes after the words of excuse with which his sermon opened, his audience perceived that he was not in his ordinary condition. His sadness, that evening, was deeper and more tender than it generally was; at one moment tears werevisible in his eyes, and the whole audience broke into a sob, so loud that it quite interrupted his discourse.
This first interruption was followed by half a score. There were cries of admiration, bursts of tears, and incessant exclamations, such as “O Holy Madonna!” “O great God!” So general and so inexpressible was the emotion of this select audience, that nobody was ashamed to cry out, and the people who did so were not considered ridiculous by their neighbours.
During the rest which is usually taken in the middle of a sermon, Fabrizio was told that not a soul remained in the theatre. Only one lady, the Marchesa Crescenzi, was still in her box. During this interval of rest, a great noise suddenly rose in the building; the faithful were voting a statue to the coadjutor. The reception of the later half of his discourse was so extraordinary, and unrestrained outbursts of Christian repentance were so frequently replaced by exclamations of admiration which were utterly profane, that before he left the pulpit he felt himself obliged to address a sort of reprimand to his auditors. Whereupon every one walked out of the church in a sedate and formal manner, and, once the street was reached, indulged in an outburst of fervent applause, and shouts of “Evviva del Dongo!”
Fabrizio hastily looked at his watch, and rushed to a little grated window which lighted the narrow passage from the organ to the convent. As a civility to the incredible and unusual crowd which filled the street, the porter of the Palazzo Crescenzi had garnished the iron hands which we often see projecting from the walls of palaces built in the middle ages, with a dozen torches. After a few moments, and long before the shouting had ceased, the event which Fabrizio was awaiting with so much anxiety occurred—the marchesa’s carriage, bringing her back from the theatre, appeared in the street. The coachman was obliged to pull up, and it was only at a foot’s pace and by dint of much shouting that he was able to bring the vehicle to the door.
The marchesa’s heart, like that of any person in sorrow, had been touched by the noble music. But the utter solitude of the theatre, once she had learned its cause, hadaffected her far more. In the middle of the second act, and while the splendid tenor was on the stage, even the people in the pit had suddenly left their seats to go and try their chance of getting inside the Church of the Visitation. When the crowd stopped the marchesa before she could get to her own door, she broke into tears. “I had not chosen ill!” said she to herself.
But just on account of this moment of emotion, she steadily repulsed the suggestions of the marchese, and all thehabituésof the house, who could not conceive why she did not go to hear such an astonishing preacher. “Why,” they cried, “he triumphs over the finest tenor in Italy!”
“If I once see him I am lost!” said the marchesa to herself.
In vain did Fabrizio, whose powers seemed to grow more brilliant every day, preach again, several times over, in the little church near the Palazzo Crescenzi. He never beheld Clelia, who, indeed, ended by being seriously vexed, at last, by his affectation in coming to disturb her quiet street, after having driven her out of her garden.
Fabrizio, as his eyes ran over the faces of the women listening to him, had for some time noticed a very pretty dark-complexioned countenance, and a pair of eyes that blazed. These splendid eyes were generally swimming in tears by the time he had reached the eighth or tenth sentence in his sermon. When Fabrizio was obliged to say things that were lengthy and wearisome to himself, he was rather fond of looking at this pretty head, the youth of which attracted him. He found out that the young lady was called Annetta Marini, the only child and heiress of the richest clothier in Parma, who had died some months previously.
Soon the name of Annetta Marini was on every one’s lips. She had fallen desperately in love with Fabrizio. When these wonderful sermons had begun, it had been already settled that she was to marry Giacomo Rassi, the eldest son of the Minister of Justice, a young man who had appeared by no means displeasing to her. But when she had heard Monsignore Fabrizio preach twice, she vowed shewould not marry at all, and when she was asked the reason of this strange alteration, she replied that it was not worthy of any honest girl to marry one man when she felt she was desperately in love with another. At first her family vainly sought to discover who that other might be.
But the scalding tears Annetta shed during Fabrizio’s sermons put them on the track. When her mother and uncles asked her whether she loved Monsignore Fabrizio, she answered boldly, that, as the truth had been found out, she would not soil herself by telling a lie. She added that as she had no hope of marrying the man she adored, she was at all events resolved her eyes should no longer be offended by the sight of young Count Rassi’s ridiculous figure. Within two days the scorn thus cast on the son of a man who was the envy of the entire middle class was the talk of the whole town. Annetta Marini’s answer was reckoned delightful, and every soul repeated it. It was talked of at the Palazzo Crescenzi, as everywhere else.
Clelia took good care never to open her lips on such a subject in her drawing-room. But she questioned her waiting-woman, and on the following Sunday, after she had heard mass in the chapel within her palace, she took her waiting-woman with her in her carriage, and went to a second mass in the Signorina Marini’s parish church. Here she found all the fine gentlemen in the town, attracted by the same object. They were standing round the door. Soon a great stir among them convinced the marchesa that Signorina Marini was entering the church. From the place she occupied she could see her very well, and, pious though she was, she did not pay very much attention to the mass. Clelia thought this middle-class beauty wore a resolute look, which to her mind would only have been appropriate in a married woman of several years’ standing. Otherwise her figure and waist were admirably neat; and her eyes, as they say in Lombardy, seemed to hold conversations with everything they looked at.
Before mass was over the marchesa slipped out.
The very next day thehabituésof the Palazzo Crescenzi, who came there every evening, were retailing another storyof Annetta Marini’s absurdities. As her mother, fearing she might do something foolish, kept her very short of money, Annetta had gone to see the famous painter Hayez, who was then at Parma, decorating the drawing-room of the Palazzo Crescenzi, and had offered him a magnificent diamond ring given her by her father if he would paint her Monsignore del Dongo’s picture. But she desired the monsignore might be represented in ordinary black, and not in priestly garb. Consequently, on the previous evening, the fair Annetta’s mother had been greatly surprised and sorely scandalized at discovering a splendid picture of Fabrizio del Dongo, in the finest gold frame that had been gilded at Parma for the last twenty years, in her daughter’s chamber.