Kabanata Kabanata 2 · Chapter Two
. . . _Alors que Vesper vient embrunir nos
yeux,
Tout épris d'avenir, je contemple les cieux,
En qui Dieu nous escrit, par notes non obscures.
Les sorts et les destins de toutes créatures.
Car lui, du fond des deux regardant un
humain.
Parfois mû de pitié, lui montre le chemin;
Par les astres du ciel qui sont ses caractères,
Les choses nous prédit et bonnes et contraires;
Mais les hommes chargés de terre et de trépas,
Méprisent tel écrit, et ne le lisent pas._
RONSARD.
The Marchese professed a vigorous hatred of enlightenment: "It is
ideas," he used to say, "that have ruined Italy"; he did not know quite
how to reconcile this holy horror of instruction with his desire to see
his son Fabrizio perfect the education so brilliantly begun with the
Jesuits. In order to incur the least possible risk, he charged the good
Priore Blanès, parish priest of Grianta, with the task of continuing
Fabrizio's Latin studies. For this it was necessary that the priest
should himself know that language; whereas it was to him an object of
scorn; his knowledge in the matter being confined to the recitation, by
heart, of the prayers in his missal, the meaning of which he could
interpret more or less to his flock. But this priest was nevertheless
highly respected and indeed feared throughout the district; he had
always said that it was by no means in thirteen weeks, nor even in
thirteen months that they would see the fulfilment of the famous
prophecy of San Giovita, the patron saint of Brescia. He added, when he
was speaking to friends whom he could trust, that this number _thirteen_
was to be interpreted in a fashion which would astonish many people, if
it were permitted to say all that one knew (1813).
_PRIORE BLANÈS_
The fact was that the Priore Blanès, a man whose honesty and virtue
were primitive, and a man of parts as well, spent all his nights up in
his belfry; he was mad on astrology. After using up all his days in
calculating the conjunctions and positions of the stars, he would devote
the greater part of his nights to following their course in the sky.
Such was his poverty, he had no other instrument than a long telescope
with pasteboard tubes. One may imagine the contempt that was felt for
the study of languages by a man who spent his time discovering the
precise dates of the fall of empires and the revolutions that change the
face of the world. "What more do I know about a horse," he asked
Fabrizio, "when I am told that in Latin it is called _equus_?"
The _contadini_ looked upon Priore Blanès with awe as a great magician:
for his part, by dint of the fear that his nightly stations in the
belfry inspired, he restrained them from stealing. His clerical brethren
in the surrounding parishes, intensely jealous of his influence,
detested him; the Marchese del Dongo merely despised him, because he
reasoned too much for a man of such humble station. Fabrizio adored him:
to gratify him he sometimes spent whole evenings in doing enormous sums
of addition or multiplication. Then he would go up to the belfry: this
was a great favour and one that Priore Blanès had never granted to
anyone; but he liked the boy for his simplicity. "If you do not turn out
a hypocrite," he would say to him, "you will perhaps be a man."
Two or three times in a year, Fabrizio, intrepid and passionate in his
pleasures, came within an inch of drowning himself in the lake. He was
the leader of all the great expeditions made by the young _contadini_ of
Grianta and Cadenabbia. These boys had procured a number of little keys,
and on very dark nights would try to open the padlocks of the chains
that fastened the boats to some big stone or to a tree growing by the
water's edge. It should be explained that on the Lake of Como the
fishermen in the pursuit of their calling put out night-lines at a great
distance from the shore. The upper end of the line is attached to a
plank kept afloat by a cork keel, and a supple hazel twig, fastened to
this plank, supports a little bell which rings whenever a fish, caught
on the line, gives a tug to the float.
The great object of these nocturnal expeditions, of which Fabrizio was
commander in chief, was to go out and visit the night-lines before the
fishermen had heard the warning note of the little bells. They used to
choose stormy weather, and for these hazardous exploits would embark in
the early morning, an hour before dawn. As they climbed into the boat,
these boys imagined themselves to be plunging into the greatest dangers;
this was the finer aspect of their behaviour; and, following the example
of their fathers, would devoutly repeat a _Hail, Mary_. Now it
frequently happened that at the moment of starting, and immediately
after the _Hail, Mary_, Fabrizio was struck by a foreboding. This was
the fruit which he had gathered from the astronomical studies of his
friend Priore Blanès, in whose predictions he had no faith whatsoever.
According to his youthful imagination, this foreboding announced to him
infallibly the success or failure of the expedition; and, as he had a
stronger will than any of his companions, in course of time the whole
band had so formed the habit of having forebodings that if, at the
moment of embarking, one of them caught sight of a priest on the shore,
or if someone saw a crow fly past on his left, they would hasten to
replace the padlock on the chain of the boat, and each would go off to
his bed. Thus Priore Blanès had not imparted his somewhat difficult
science to Fabrizio; but, unconsciously, had infected him with an
unbounded confidence in the signs by which the future can be foretold.
_MILAN_
The Marchese felt that any accident to his ciphered correspondence might
put him at the mercy of his sister; and so every year, at the feast of
Sant'Angela, which was Contessa Pietranera's name-day, Fabrizio was
given leave to go and spend a week at Milan. He lived through the year
looking hopefully forward or sadly back to this week. On this great
occasion, to carry out this politic mission, the Marchese handed over to
his son four scudi, and, in accordance with his custom, gave nothing to
his wife, who took the boy. But one of the cooks, six lackeys and a
coachman with a pair of horses, started for Como the day before, and
every day at Milan the Marchesa found a carriage at her disposal and a
dinner of twelve covers.
The sullen sort of life that was led by the Marchese del Dongo was
certainly by no means entertaining, but it had this advantage that it
permanently enriched the families who were kind enough to sacrifice
themselves to it. The Marchese, who had an income of more than two
hundred thousand lire, did not spend a quarter of that sum; he was
living on hope. Throughout the thirteen years from 1800 to 1813, he
constantly and firmly believed that Napoleon would be overthrown within
six months. One may judge of his rapture when, at the beginning of 1813,
he learned of the disasters of the Beresima! The taking of Paris and the
fall of Napoleon almost made him lose his head; he then allowed himself
to make the most outrageous remarks to his wife and sister. Finally,
after fourteen years of waiting, he had that unspeakable joy of seeing
the Austrian troops re-enter Milan. In obedience to orders issued from
Vienna, the Austrian General received the Marchese del Dongo with a
consideration akin to respect; they hastened to offer him one of the
highest posts in the government; and he accepted it as the payment of a
debt. His elder son obtained a lieutenancy in one of the smartest
regiments of the Monarchy, but the younger repeatedly declined to accept
a cadetship which was offered him. This triumph, in which the Marchese
exulted with a rare insolence, lasted but a few months, and was followed
by a humiliating reverse. Never had he had any talent for business, and
fourteen years spent in the country among his footmen, his lawyer and
his doctor, added to the crustiness of old age which had overtaken him,
had left him totally incapable of conducting business in any form. Now
it is not possible, in an Austrian country, to keep an important place
without having the kind of talent that is required by the slow and
complicated, but highly reasonable administration of that venerable
Monarchy. The blunders made by the Marchese del Dongo scandalised the
staff of his office, and even obstructed the course of public business.
His ultra-monarchist utterances irritated the populace which the
authorities sought to lull into a heedless slumber. One fine day he
learned that His Majesty had been graciously pleased to accept the
resignation which he had submitted of his post in the administration,
and at the same time conferred on him the place of _Second Grand
Majordomo Major_ of the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom. The Marchese was
furious at the atrocious injustice of which he had been made a victim;
he printed an open letter to a friend, he who so inveighed against the
liberty of the press. Finally, he wrote to the Emperor that his
Ministers were playing him false, and were no better than Jacobins.
These things accomplished, he went sadly back to his castle of Grianta.
He had one consolation. After the fall of Napoleon, certain powerful
personages at Milan planned an assault in the streets on Conte Prina, a
former Minister of the King of Italy, and a man of the highest merit.
Conte Pietranera risked his own life to save that of the Minister, who
was killed by blows from umbrellas after five hours of agony. A priest,
the Marchese del Dongo's confessor, could have saved Prina by opening
the wicket of the church of San Giovanni, in front of which the
unfortunate Minister was dragged, and indeed left for a moment in the
gutter, in the middle of the street; but he refused with derision to
open his wicket, and, six months afterwards, the Marchese was happily
able to secure for him a fine advancement.
_PRINA_
He execrated Conte Pietranera, his brother-in-law, who, not having an
income of 50 louis, had the audacity to be quite content, made a point
of showing himself loyal to what he had loved all his life, and had the
insolence to preach that spirit of justice without regard for persons,
which the Marchese called an infamous piece of Jacobinism. The Conte had
refused to take service in Austria; this refusal was remembered against
him, and, a few months after the death of Prina, the same persons who
had hired the assassins contrived that General Pietranera should be
flung into prison. Whereupon the Contessa, his wife, procured a passport
and sent for post-horses to go to Vienna to tell the Emperor the truth.
Prina's assassins took fright, and one of them, a cousin of Signora
Pietranera, came to her at midnight, an hour before she was to start for
Vienna, with the order for her husband's release. Next day, the Austrian
General sent for Conte Pietranera, received him with every possible mark
of distinction, and assured him that his pension as a retired officer
would be issued to him without delay and on the most liberal scale. The
gallant General Bubna, a man of sound judgment and warm heart, seemed
quite ashamed of the assassination of Prina and the Conte's
imprisonment.
After this brief storm, allayed by the Contessa's firmness of character,
the couple lived, for better or worse, on the retired pay for which,
thanks to General Bubna's recommendation, they were not long kept
waiting.
Fortunately, it so happened that, for the last five or six years, the
Contessa had been on the most friendly terms with a very rich young man,
who was also an intimate friend of the Conte, and never failed to place
at their disposal the finest team of English horses to be seen in Milan
at the time, his box in the theatre _alla Scala_ and his villa in the
country. But the Conte had a sense of his own valour, he was full of
generous impulses, he was easily carried away, and at such times allowed
himself to make imprudent speeches. One day when he was out shooting
with some young men, one of them, who had served under other flags than
his, began to belittle the courage of the soldiers of the Cisalpine
Republic. The Conte struck him, a fight at once followed, and the Conte,
who was without support, among all these young men, was killed. This
species of duel gave rise to a great deal of talk, and the persons who
had been engaged in it took the precaution of going for a tour in
Switzerland.
That absurd form of courage which is called resignation, the courage of
a fool who allows himself to be hanged without a word of protest, was
not at all in keeping with the Contessa's character. Furious at the
death of her husband, she would have liked Limercati, the rich young
man, her intimate friend, to be seized also by the desire to travel in
Switzerland, and there to shoot or otherwise assault the murderer of
Conte Pietranera.
_MILAN_
Limercati thought this plan the last word in absurdity, and the Contessa
discovered that in herself contempt for him had killed her affection.
She multiplied her attentions to Limercati; she sought to rekindle his
love, and then to leave him stranded and so make him desperate. To
render this plan of vengeance intelligible to French readers, I should
explain that at Milan, in a land widely remote from our own, people are
still made desperate by love. The Contessa, who, in her widow's weeds,
easily eclipsed any of her rivals, flirted with all the young men of
rank and fashion, and one of these, Conte N----, who, from the first,
had said that he felt Limercati's good qualities to be rather heavy,
rather starched for so spirited a woman, fell madly in love with her.
She wrote to Limercati:
"Will you for once act like a man of spirit? Please to consider
that you have never known me.
"I am, with a trace of contempt perhaps, your most humble servant,
"GINA PIETRANERA."
After reading this missive, Limercati set off for one of his country
seats, his love rose to a climax, he became quite mad and spoke of
blowing out his brains, an unheard-of thing in countries where hell is
believed in. Within twenty-four hours of his arrival in the country, he
had written to the Contessa offering her his hand and his rent-roll of
200,000 francs. She sent him back his letter, with its seal unbroken, by
Conte N----'s groom. Whereupon Limercati spent three years on his
estates, returning every other month to Milan, but without ever having
the courage to remain there, and boring all his friends with his
passionate love for the Contessa and his detailed accounts of the
favours she had formerly bestowed on him. At first, he used to add that
with Conte N---- she was ruining herself, and that such a connexion was
degrading to her.
The fact of the matter was that the Contessa had no sort of love for
Conte N----, and she told him as much when she had made quite sure of
Limercati's despair. The Conte, who was no novice, besought her upon no
account to divulge the sad truth which she had confided to him. "If you
will be so extremely indulgent," he added, "as to continue to receive me
with all the outward distinctions accorded to a reigning lover, I may
perhaps be able to find a suitable position."
After this heroic declaration the Contessa declined to avail herself any
longer either of Conte N----'s horses or of his box. But for the last
fifteen years she had been accustomed to the most fashionable style of
living; she had now to solve that difficult, or rather impossible
problem: how to live in Milan on a pension of 1,500 francs. She left her
_palazzo_, took a pair of rooms on a fifth floor, dismissed all her
servants, including even her own maid whose place she filled with a poor
old woman to do the housework. This sacrifice was as a matter of fact
less heroic and less painful than it appears to us; at Milan poverty is
not a thing to laugh at, and therefore does not present itself to
trembling souls as the worst of evils. After some months of this noble
poverty, besieged by incessant letters from Limercati, and indeed from
Conte N---- who also wished to marry her, it came to pass that the
Marchese del Dongo, miserly as a rule to the last degree, bethought
himself that his enemies might find a cause for triumph in his sister's
plight. What! A del Dongo reduced to living upon the pension which the
court of Vienna, of which he had so many grounds for complaint, grants
to the widows of its Generals!
He wrote to inform her that an apartment and an allowance worthy of his
sister awaited her at the castle of Grianta. The Contessa's volatile
mind embraced with enthusiasm the idea of this new mode of life; it was
twenty years since she had lived in that venerable castle that rose
majestically from among its old chestnuts planted in the days of the
Sforza. "There," she told herself, "I shall find repose, and, at my age,
is not that in itself happiness?" (Having reached one-and-thirty, she
imagined that the time had come for her to retire.) "On that sublime
lake by which I was born, there awaits me at last a happy and peaceful
existence."
_THE LAKE_
I cannot say whether she was mistaken, but one thing certain is that
this passionate soul, which had just refused so lightly the offer of two
vast fortunes, brought happiness to the castle of Grianta. Her two
nieces were wild with joy. "You have renewed the dear days of my youth,"
the Marchesa told her, as she took her in her arms; "before you came, I
was a hundred." The Contessa set out to revisit, with Fabrizio, all
those enchanting spots in the neighbourhood of Grianta, which travellers
have made so famous: the Villa Melzi on the other shore of the lake,
opposite the castle, and commanding a fine view of it; higher up, the
sacred wood of the Sfrondata, and the bold promontory which divides the
two arms of the lake, that of Como, so voluptuous, and the other which
runs towards Lecco, grimly severe: sublime and charming views which the
most famous site in the world, the Bay of Naples, may equal, but does
not surpass. It was with ecstasy that the Contessa recaptured the
memories of her earliest childhood and compared them with her present
sensations. "The Lake of Como," she said to herself, "is not surrounded,
like the Lake of Geneva, by wide tracts of land enclosed and cultivated
according to the most approved methods, which suggest money and
speculation. Here, on every side, I see hills of irregular height
covered with clumps of trees that have grown there at random, which the
hand of man has never yet spoiled and forced to _yield a return_.
Standing among these admirably shaped hills which run down to the lake
at such curious angles, I can preserve all the illusions of Tasso's and
Ariosto's descriptions. All is noble and tender, everything speaks of
love, nothing recalls the ugliness of civilisation. The villages halfway
up their sides are hidden in tall trees, and above the tree-tops rises
the charming architecture of their picturesque belfries. If some little
field fifty yards across comes here and there to interrupt the clumps of
chestnuts and wild cherries, the satisfied eye sees growing on it plants
more vigorous and happier than elsewhere. Beyond these hills, the crests
of which offer one hermitages in all of which one would like to dwell,
the astonished eye perceives the peaks of the Alps, always covered in
snow, and their stern austerity recalls to one so much of the sorrows of
life as is necessary to enhance one's immediate pleasure. The
imagination is touched by the distant sound of the bell of some little
village hidden among the trees: these sounds borne across the waters
which soften their tone, assume a tinge of gentle melancholy and
resignation, and seem to be saying to man: 'Life is fleeting: do not
therefore show yourself so obdurate towards the happiness that is
offered you, make haste to enjoy it.'" The language of these enchanting
spots, which have not their like in the world, restored to the Contessa
the heart of a girl of sixteen. She could not conceive how she could
have spent all these years without revisiting the lake. "Is it then to
the threshold of old age," she asked herself, "that our happiness takes
flight?" She bought a boat which Fabrizio, the Marchesa and she
decorated with their own hands, having no money to spend on anything, in
the midst of this most luxurious establishment; since his disgrace the
Marchese del Dongo had doubled his aristocratic state. For example, in
order to reclaim ten yards of land from the lake, near the famous plane
avenue, in the direction of Cadenabbia, he had an embankment built the
estimate for which ran to 80,000 francs. At the end of this embankment
there rose, from the plans of the famous Marchese Cagnola, a chapel
built entirely of huge blocks of granite, and in this chapel Marchesi,
the sculptor then in fashion at Milan, built him a tomb on which a
number of bas-reliefs were intended to represent the gallant deeds of
his ancestors.
Fabrizio's elder brother, the Marchesino Ascanio, sought to join the
ladies in their excursions; but his aunt flung water over his powdered
hair, and found some fresh dart every day with which to puncture his
solemnity. At length he delivered from the sight of his fat, pasty face
the merry troop who did not venture to laugh in his presence. They
supposed him to be the spy of the Marchese his father, and care had to
be taken in handling that stern despot, always in a furious temper since
his enforced retirement.
Ascanio swore to be avenged on Fabrizio.
There was a storm in which they were all in danger; although they were
infinitely short of money, they paid the two boatmen generously not to
say anything to the Marchese, who already was showing great ill humour
at their taking his two daughters with them. They encountered a second
storm; the storms on this lake are terrible and unexpected: gusts of
wind sweep out suddenly from the two mountain gorges which run down into
it on opposite sides and join battle on the water. The Contessa wished
to land in the midst of the hurricane and pealing thunder; she insisted
that, if she were to climb to a rock that stood up by itself in the
middle of the lake and was the size of a small room, she would enjoy a
curious spectacle; she would see herself assailed on all sides by raging
waves; but in jumping out of the boat she fell into the water. Fabrizio
dived in after her to save her, and both were carried away for some
distance. No doubt it is not a pleasant thing to feel oneself drowning;
but the spirit of boredom, taken by surprise, was banished from the
feudal castle. The Contessa conceived a passionate enthusiasm for the
primitive nature of the Priore Blanès and for his astrology. The little
money that remained to her after the purchase of the boat had been spent
on buying a spy-glass, and almost every evening, with her nieces and
Fabrizio, she would take her stand on the platform of one of the gothic
towers of the castle. Fabrizio was the learned one of the party, and
they spent many hours there very pleasantly, out of reach of the spies.
It must be admitted that there were days on which the Contessa did not
utter a word to anyone; she would be seen strolling under the tall
chestnuts lost in sombre meditations; she was too clever a woman not to
feel at times the tedium of having no one with whom to exchange ideas.
But next day she would be laughing as before: it was the lamentations of
her sister-in-law, the Marchesa, that produced these sombre impressions
on a mind naturally so active.
"Are we to spend all the youth that is left to us in this gloomy
castle?" the Marchesa used to exclaim.
Before the Contessa came, she had not had the courage even to feel these
regrets.
Such was their life during the winter of 1814 and 1815. On two
occasions, in spite of her poverty, the Contessa went to spend a few
days at Milan; she was anxious to see a sublime ballet by Vigano, given
at the Scala, and the Marchese raised no objections to his wife's
accompanying her sister-in-law. They went to draw the arrears of the
little pension, and it was the penniless widow of the Cisalpine General
who lent a few sequins to the millionaire Marchesa del Dongo. These
parties were delightful; they invited old friends to dinner, and
consoled themselves by laughing at everything, just like children. This
Italian gaiety, full of surprise and brio, made them forget the
atmosphere of sombre gloom which the stern faces of the Marchese and his
elder son spread around them at Grianta. Fabrizio, though barely
sixteen, represented the head of the house admirably.
_DEPARTURE_
On the 7th of March, 1815, the ladies had been back for two days after a
charming little excursion to Milan; they were strolling under the fine
avenue of plane trees, then recently extended to the very edge of the
lake. A boat appeared, coming from the direction of Como, and made
strange signals. One of the Marchese's agents leaped out upon the bank:
Napoleon had just landed from the Gulf of Juan. Europe was kind enough
to be surprised at this event, which did not at all surprise the
Marchese del Dongo; he wrote his Sovereign a letter full of the most
cordial effusion; he offered him his talents and several millions of
money, and informed him once again that his Ministers were Jacobins and
in league with the ringleaders in Paris.
On the 8th of March, at six o'clock in the morning, the Marchese,
wearing all his orders, was making his elder son dictate to him the
draft of a third political despatch; he was solemnly occupied in
transcribing this in his fine and careful hand, upon paper that bore the
Sovereign's effigy as a watermark. At the same moment, Fabrizio was
knocking at Contessa Pietranera's door.
"I am off," he informed her, "I am going to join the Emperor who is also
King of Italy; he was such a good friend to your husband! I shall travel
through Switzerland. Last night, at Menaggio, my friend Vasi, the dealer
in barometers, gave me his passport; now you must give me a few
napoleons, for I have only a couple on me; but if necessary I shall go
on foot."
The Contessa wept with joy and grief. "Great Heavens! What can have put
that idea into your head?" she cried, seizing Fabrizio's hands in her
own.
She rose and went to fetch from the linen-cupboard, where it was
carefully hidden, a little purse embroidered with pearls; it was all
that she possessed in the world.
"Take it," she said to Fabrizio; "but, in heaven's name, do not let
yourself be killed. What will your poor mother and I have left, if you
are taken from us? As for Napoleon's succeeding, that, my poor boy, is
impossible; our gentlemen will certainly manage to destroy him. Did you
not hear, a week ago, at Milan the story of the twenty-three plots to
assassinate him, all so carefully planned, from which it was only by a
miracle that he escaped? And at that time he was all-powerful. And you
have seen that it is not the will to destroy him that is lacking in our
enemies; France ceased to count after he left it."
It was in a tone of the keenest emotion that the Contessa spoke to
Fabrizio of the fate in store for Napoleon. "In allowing you to go to
join him, I am sacrificing to him the dearest thing I have in the
world," she said. Fabrizio's eyes grew moist, he shed tears as he
embraced the Contessa, but his determination to be off was never for a
moment shaken. He explained with effusion to this beloved friend all the
reasons that had led to his decision, reasons which we take the liberty
of finding highly attractive.
"Yesterday evening, it wanted seven minutes to six, we were strolling,
you remember, by the shore of the lake along the plane avenue, below the
Casa Sommariva, and we were facing the south. It was there that I first
noticed, in the distance, the boat that was coming from Como, bearing
such great tidings. As I looked at this boat without thinking of the
Emperor, and only envying the lot of those who are free to travel,
suddenly I felt myself seized by a profound emotion. The boat touched
ground, the agent said something in a low tone to my father, who changed
colour, and took us aside to announce the _terrible news_. I turned
towards the lake with no other object but to hide the tears of joy that
were flooding my eyes. Suddenly, at an immense height in the sky and on
my right hand side, I saw an eagle, the bird of Napoleon; he flew
majestically past making for Switzerland, and consequently for Paris.
'And I too,' I said to myself at that moment, 'will fly across
Switzerland with the speed of an eagle, and will go to offer that great
man a very little thing, but the only thing, after all, that I have to
offer him, the support of my feeble arm. He wished to give us a country,
and he loved my uncle.' At that instant, while I was gazing at the
eagle, in some strange way my tears ceased to flow; and the proof that
this idea came from above is that at the same moment, without any
discussion, I made up my mind to go, and saw how the journey might be
made. In the twinkling of an eye all the sorrows that, as you know, are
poisoning my life, especially on Sundays, seemed to be swept away by a
breath from heaven. I saw that mighty figure of Italy raise herself from
the mire in which the Germans keep her plunged;[7] she stretched out her
mangled arms still half loaded with chains towards her King and
Liberator. 'And I,' I said to myself, 'a son as yet unknown to fame of
that unhappy Mother, I shall go forth to die or to conquer with that man
marked out by destiny, who sought to cleanse us from the scorn that is
heaped upon us by even the most enslaved and the vilest among the
inhabitants of Europe.'
"You know," he added in a low tone drawing nearer to the Contessa, and
fastening upon her a pair of eyes from which fire darted, "you know that
young chestnut which my mother, in the winter in which I was born,
planted with her own hands beside the big spring in our forest, two
leagues from here; before doing anything else I wanted to visit it. 'The
spring is not far advanced,' I said to myself, 'very well, if my tree is
in leaf, that shall be a sign for me. I also must emerge from the state
of torpor in which I am languishing in this cold and dreary castle.' Do
you not feel that these old blackened walls, the symbols now as they
were once the instruments of despotism, are a perfect image of the
dreariness of winter? They are to me what winter is to my tree.
"Would you believe it, Gina? Yesterday evening at half past seven I came
to my chestnut; it had leaves, pretty little leaves that were quite big
already! I kissed them, carefully so as not to hurt them. I turned the
soil reverently round the dear tree. At once filled with a fresh
enthusiasm, I crossed the mountain; I came to Menaggio: I needed a
passport to enter Switzerland. The time had flown, it was already one
o'clock in the morning when I found myself at Vasi's door. I thought
that I should have to knock for a long time to arouse him, but he was
sitting up with three of his friends. At the first word I uttered: 'You
are going to join Napoleon' he cried; and he fell on my neck. The others
too embraced me with rapture. 'Why am I married?' I heard one of them
say."
Signora Pietranera had grown pensive. She felt that she must offer a few
objections. If Fabrizio had had the slightest experience of life, he
would have seen quite well that the Contessa herself did not believe in
the sound reasons which she hastened to urge on him. But, failing
experience, he had resolution; he did not condescend even to hear what
those reasons were. The Contessa presently came down to making him
promise that at least he would inform his mother of his intention.
"She will tell my sisters, and those women will betray me without
knowing it!" cried Fabrizio with a sort of heroic grandeur.
"You should speak more respectfully," said the Contessa, smiling through
her tears, "of the sex that will make your fortune; for you will never
appeal to men, you have too much fire for prosaic souls."
The Marchesa dissolved in tears on learning her son's strange plan; she
could not feel its heroism, and did everything in her power to keep him
at home. When she was convinced that nothing in the world, except the
walls of a prison, could prevent him from starting, she handed over to
him the little money that she possessed; then she remembered that she
had also, the day before, received nine or ten small diamonds, worth
perhaps ten thousand francs, which the Marchese had entrusted to her to
take to Milan to be set. Fabrizio's sisters came into their mother's
room while the Contessa was sewing these diamonds into our hero's
travelling coat; he handed the poor women back their humble napoleons.
His sisters were so enthusiastic over his plan, they kissed him with so
clamorous a joy that he took in his hand the diamonds that had still to
be concealed and was for starting off there and then.
"You will betray me without knowing it," he said to his sisters. "Since
I have all this money, there is no need to take clothes; one can get
them anywhere." He embraced these dear ones and set off at once without
even going back to his own room. He walked so fast, afraid of being
followed by men on horseback, that before night he had entered Lugano.
He was now, thank heaven, in a Swiss town, and had no longer any fear of
being waylaid on the lonely road by constables in his father's pay. From
this haven, he wrote him a fine letter, a boyish weakness which gave
strength and substance to the Marchese's anger. Fabrizio took the post,
crossed the Saint-Gothard; his progress was rapid, and he entered France
by Pontarlier. The Emperor was in Paris. There Fabrizio's troubles
began; he had started out with the firm intention of speaking to the
Emperor: it had never occurred to him that this might be a difficult
matter. At Milan, ten times daily he used to see Prince Eugène, and
could have spoken to him had he wished. In Paris, every morning he went
to the courtyard of the Tuileries to watch the reviews held by Napoleon;
but never was he able to come near the Emperor. Our hero imagined all
the French to be profoundly disturbed, as he himself was, by the extreme
peril in which their country lay. At table in the hotel in which he was
staying, he made no mystery about his plans; he found several young men
with charming manners, even more enthusiastic than himself, who, in a
very few days, did not fail to rob him of all the money that he
possessed. Fortunately, out of pure modesty, he had said nothing of the
diamonds given him by his mother. On the morning when, after an orgy
overnight, he found that he had been decidedly robbed, he bought a fine
pair of horses, engaged as servant an old soldier, one of the dealer's
grooms, and, filled with contempt for the young men of Paris with their
fine speeches, set out to join the army. He knew nothing except that it
was concentrated near Maubeuge. No sooner had he reached the frontier
than he felt that it would be absurd for him to stay in a house,
toasting himself before a good fire, when there were soldiers in bivouac
outside. In spite of the remonstrances of his servant, who was not
lacking in common sense, he rashly made his way to the bivouacs on the
extreme frontier, on the road into Belgium. No sooner had he reached the
first battalion that was resting by the side of the road than the
soldiers began to stare at the sight of this young civilian in whose
appearance there was nothing that suggested uniform. Night was falling,
a cold wind blew. Fabrizio went up to a fire and offered to pay for
hospitality. The soldiers looked at one another amazed more than
anything at the idea of payment, and willingly made room for him by the
fire. His servant constructed a shelter for him. But, an hour later, the
_adjudant_ of the regiment happening to pass near the bivouac, the
soldiers went to report to him the arrival of this stranger speaking bad
French. The _adjudant_ questioned Fabrizio, who spoke to him of his
enthusiasm for the Emperor in an accent which aroused grave suspicion;
whereupon this under-officer requested our hero to go with him to the
Colonel, whose headquarters were in a neighbouring farm. Fabrizio's
servant came up with the two horses. The sight of them seemed to make so
forcible an impression upon the _adjudant_ that immediately he changed
his mind and began to interrogate the servant also. The latter, an old
soldier, guessing his questioner's plan of campaign from the first,
spoke of the powerful protection which his master enjoyed, adding that
certainly they would not _bone_ his fine horses. At once a soldier called
by the _adjudant_ put his hand on the servant's collar; another soldier
took charge of the horses, and, with an air of severity, the _adjudant_
ordered Fabrizio to follow him and not to answer back.
_THE BIVOUAC_
After making him cover a good league on foot, in the darkness rendered
apparently more intense by the fires of the bivouacs which lighted the
horizon on every side, the adjutant handed Fabrizio over to an officer
of _gendarmerie_ who, with a grave air, asked for his papers. Fabrizio
showed his passport, which described him as a dealer in barometers
travelling with his wares.
"What fools they are!" cried the officer; "this really is too much."
He put a number of questions to our hero who spoke of the Emperor and of
Liberty in terms of the keenest enthusiasm; whereupon the officer of
_gendarmerie_ went off in peals of laughter.
"Gad! You're no good at telling a tale!" he cried. "It is a bit too much
of a good thing their daring to send us young mugs like you!" And
despite all the protestations of Fabrizio, who was dying to explain that
he was not really a dealer in barometers, the officer sent him to the
prison of B----, a small town in the neighbourhood where our hero
arrived at about three o'clock in the morning, beside himself with rage
and half dead with exhaustion.
Fabrizio, astonished at first, then furious, understanding absolutely
nothing of what was happening to him, spent thirty-three long days in
this wretched prison; he wrote letter after letter to the town
commandant, and it was the gaoler's wife, a handsome Fleming of
six-and-thirty, who undertook to deliver them. But as she had no wish to
see so nice-looking a boy shot, and as moreover he paid well, she put
all these letters without fail in the fire. Late in the evening, she
would deign to come in and listen to the prisoner's complaints; she had
told her husband that the young greenhorn had money, after which the
prudent gaoler allowed her a free hand. She availed herself of this
licence and received several gold napoleons in return, for the
_adjudant_ had taken only the horses, and the officer of _gendarmerie_
had confiscated nothing at all. One afternoon in the month of June,
Fabrizio heard a violent cannonade at some distance. So they were
fighting at last! His heart leaped with impatience. He heard also a
great deal of noise in the town; as a matter of fact a big movement of
troops was being effected; three divisions were passing through B----.
When, about eleven o'clock, the gaoler's wife came in to share his
griefs, Fabrizio was even more friendly than usual; then, seizing hold
of her hands:
"Get me out of here, I swear on my honour to return to prison as soon as
they have stopped fighting."
"Stuff and nonsense! Have you the _quibus_?" He seemed worried; he did
not understand the word _quibus_. The gaoler's wife, noticing his
dismay, decided that he must be in low water, and instead of talking in
gold napoleons as she had intended talked now only in francs.
_WAR_
"Listen," she said to him, "if you can put down a hundred francs, I will
place a double napoleon on each eye of the corporal who comes to change
the guard during the night. He won't be able to see you breaking out of
prison, and if his regiment is to march to-morrow he will accept."
The bargain was soon struck. The gaoler's wife even consented to hide
Fabrizio in her own room, from which he could more easily make his
escape in the morning.
Next day, before dawn, the woman who was quite moved said to Fabrizio:
"My dear boy, you are still far too young for that dirty trade; take my
advice, don't go back to it."
"What!" stammered Fabrizio, "is it a crime then to wish to defend one's
country?"
"Enough said. Always remember that I saved your life; your case was
clear, you would have been shot. But don't say a word to anyone, or you
will lose my husband and me our job; and whatever you do, don't go about
repeating that silly tale about being a gentleman from Milan disguised
as a dealer in barometers, it's too stupid. Listen to me now, I'm going
to give you the uniform of a hussar who died the other day in the
prison; open your mouth as little as you possibly can; but if a serjeant
or an officer asks you questions so that you have to answer, say that
you've been lying ill in the house of a peasant who took you in out of
charity when you were shivering with fever in a ditch by the roadside.
If that does not satisfy them, you can add that you are going back to
your regiment. They may perhaps arrest you because of your accent; then
say that you were born in Piedmont, that you're a conscript who was left
in France last year, and all that sort of thing."
For the first time, after thirty-three days of blind fury, Fabrizio
grasped the clue to all that had happened. They took him for a spy. He
argued with the gaoler's wife, who, that morning, was most affectionate;
and finally, while armed with a needle she was taking in the hussar's
uniform to fit him, he told his whole story in so many words to the
astonished woman. For an instant she believed him; he had so innocent an
air, and looked so nice dressed as a hussar.
"Since you have such a desire to fight," she said to him at length half
convinced, "what you ought to have done as soon as you reached Paris was
to enlist in a regiment. If you had paid for a serjeant's drink, the
whole thing would have been settled." The gaoler's wife added much good
advice for the future, and finally, at the first streak of dawn, let
Fabrizio out of the house, after making him swear a hundred times over
that he would never mention her name, whatever happened. As soon as
Fabrizio had left the little town, marching boldly with the hussar's
sabre under his arm, he was seized by a scruple. "Here I am," he said to
himself, "with the clothes and the marching orders of a hussar who died
in prison, where he was sent, they say, for stealing a cow and some
silver plate! I have, so to speak, inherited his identity . . . and
without wishing it or expecting it in any way! Beware of prison! The
omen is clear, I shall have much to suffer from prisons!"
Not an hour had passed since Fabrizio's parting from his benefactress
when the rain began to fall with such violence that the new hussar was
barely able to get along, hampered by a pair of heavy boots which had
not been made for him. Meeting a peasant mounted upon a sorry horse, he
bought the animal, explaining by signs what he wanted; the gaoler's wife
had recommended him to speak as little as possible, in view of his
accent.
That day the army, which had just won the battle of Ligny, was marching
straight on Brussels. It was the eve of the battle of Waterloo. Towards
midday, the rain still continuing to fall in torrents, Fabrizio heard
the sound of the guns; this joy made him completely oblivious of the
fearful moments of despair in which so unjust an imprisonment had
plunged him. He rode on until late at night, and, as he was beginning to
have a little common sense, went to seek shelter in a peasant's house a
long way from the road. This peasant wept and pretended that everything
had been taken from him; Fabrizio gave him a crown, and he found some
barley. "My horse is no beauty," Fabrizio said to himself, "but that
makes no difference, he may easily take the fancy of some _adjudant_,"
and he went to lie down in the stable by its side. An hour before dawn
Fabrizio was on the road, and, by copious endearments, succeeded in
making his horse trot. About five o'clock, he heard the cannonade: it
was the preliminaries of Waterloo.
[Footnote 7: The speaker is carried away by passion; he is rendering
in prose some lines of the famous Monti.]