Bab Bab 13 · Chapter Fifteen

A couple of hours later, the unfortunate Fabrizio, fitted with handcuffs

and actually attached by a long chain to the _sediola_ into which he had

been made to climb, started for the citadel of Parma, escorted by eight

constables. These had orders to take with them all the constables

stationed in the villages through which the procession had to pass; the

_podestà_ in person followed this important prisoner. About seven

o'clock in the evening the _sediola_, escorted by all the little boys in

Parma and by thirty constables, came down the fine avenue of trees,

passed in front of the little _palazzo_ in which Fausta had been living

a few months earlier, and finally presented itself at the outer gate of

the citadel just as General Fabio Conti and his daughter were coming

out. The governor's carriage stopped before reaching the drawbridge to

make way for the _sediola_ to which Fabrizio was attached; the General

instantly shouted for the gates to be shut, and hastened down to the

turnkey's office to see what was the matter; he was not a little

surprised when he recognised the prisoner, who had grown quite stiff

after being fastened to his _sediola_ throughout such a long journey;

four constables had lifted him down and were carrying him into the

turnkey's office. "So I have in my power," thought the feather-pated

governor, "that famous Fabrizio del Dongo, with whom anyone would say

that for the last year the high society of Parma had taken a vow to

occupy themselves exclusively!"

The General had met him a score of times at court, at the Duchessa's and

elsewhere; but he took good care not to shew any sign that he knew him;

he was afraid of compromising himself.

"Have a report made out," he called to the prison clerk, "in full detail

of the surrender made to me of the prisoner by his worship the

_podestà_ of Castelnuovo."

Barbone, the clerk, a terrifying personage owing to the volume of his

beard and his martial bearing, assumed an air of even greater importance

than usual; one would have called him a German gaoler. Thinking he knew

that it was chiefly the Duchessa Sanseverina who had prevented his

master from becoming Minister of War, he was behaving with more than his

ordinary insolence towards the prisoner; in speaking to him he used the

pronoun _voi_, which in Italy is the formula used in addressing

servants.

"I am a prelate of the Holy Roman Church," Fabrizio said to him firmly,

"and Grand Vicar of this Diocese; my birth alone entitles me to

respect."

"I know nothing about that!" replied the clerk pertly; "prove your

assertions by shewing the brevets which give you a right to those highly

respectable titles."

Fabrizio had no such documents and did not answer. General Fabio Conti,

standing by the side of his clerk, watched him write without raising his

eyes to the prisoner, so as not to be obliged to admit that he was

really Fabrizio del Dongo.

Suddenly Clelia Conti, who was waiting in the carriage, heard a

tremendous racket in the guard-room. The clerk Barbone, in making an

insolent and extremely long description of the prisoner's person,

ordered him to undo his clothing in order to verify and put on record

the number and condition of the scars received by him in his fight with

Giletti.

"I cannot," said Fabrizio, smiling bitterly; "I am not in a position to

obey the gentleman's orders, these handcuffs make it impossible."

_PRISON_

"What!" cried the General with an innocent air, "the prisoner is

handcuffed! Inside the fortress! That is against the rules, it requires

an order _ad hoc_; take the handcuffs off him."

Fabrizio looked at him: "There's a nice Jesuit," he thought; "for the

last hour he has seen me with these handcuffs, which have been hurting

me horribly, and he pretends to be surprised!"

The handcuffs were taken off by the constables; they had just learned

that Fabrizio was the nephew of the Duchessa Sanseverina, and made haste

to shew him a honeyed politeness which formed a sharp contrast to the

rudeness of the clerk; the latter seemed annoyed by this and said to

Fabrizio, who stood there without moving:

"Come along, there! Hurry up, shew us those scratches you got from poor

Giletti, the time he was murdered." With a bound, Fabrizio sprang upon

the clerk, and dealt him such a blow that Barbone fell from his chair

against the General's legs. The constables seized hold of the arms of

Fabrizio, who made no attempt to resist them; the General himself and

two constables who were standing by him hastened to pick up the clerk,

whose face was bleeding copiously. Two subordinates who stood farther

off ran to shut the door of the office, in the idea that the prisoner

was trying to escape. The _brigadiere_ who was in command of them

thought that young del Dongo could not make a serious attempt at flight,

since after all he was in the interior of the citadel; at the same time,

he went to the window to put a stop to any disorder, and by a

professional instinct. Opposite this open window and within a few feet

of it the General's carriage was drawn up: Clelia had shrunk back inside

it, so as not to be a witness of the painful scene that was being

enacted in the office; when she heard all this noise, she looked out.

"What is happening?" she asked the _brigadiere_.

"Signorina, it is young Fabrizio del Dongo who has just given that

insolent Barbone a proper smack!"

"What! It is Signor del Dongo that they are taking to prison?"

"Eh! No doubt about that," said the _brigadiere_; "it is because of the

poor young man's high birth that they are making all this fuss; I

thought the Signorina knew all about it." Clelia remained at the window:

when the constables who were standing round the table moved away a

little she caught a glimpse of the prisoner. "Who would ever have said,"

she thought, "that I should see him again for the first time in this sad

plight, when I met him on the road from the Lake of Como? . . . He gave

me his hand to help me into his mother's carriage. . . . He had the

Duchessa with him even then! Had they begun to love each other as long

ago as that?"

It should be explained to the reader that the members of the Liberal

Party swayed by the Marchesa Raversi and General Conti affected to

entertain no doubt as to the tender intimacy that must exist between

Fabrizio and the Duchessa. Conte Mosca, whom they abhorred, was the

object of endless pleasantries for the way in which he was being

deceived.

"So," thought Clelia, "there he is a prisoner, and a prisoner in the

hands of his enemies. For after all, Conte Mosca, angel as one would

like to think him, will be delighted when he hears of this capture."

A loud burst of laughter sounded from the guard-room.

"Jacopo," she said to the _brigadiere_ in a voice that quivered with

emotion, "what in the world is happening?"

"The General asked the prisoner sharply why he had struck Barbone:

Monsignor Fabrizio answered calmly: 'He called me _assassino_; let him

produce the titles and brevets which authorise him to give me that

title'; and they all laughed."

A gaoler who could write took Barbone's place; Clelia saw the latter

emerge mopping with his handkerchief the blood that streamed in

abundance from his hideous face; he was swearing like a heathen: "That

f---- Fabrizio," he shouted at the top of his voice, "I'll have his

life, I will, if I have to steal the hangman's rope." He had stopped

between the office window and the General's carriage, and his oaths

redoubled.

"Move along there," the _brigadiere_ told him; "you mustn't swear in

front of the Signorina."

Barbone raised his head to look at the carriage, his eyes met those of

Clelia who could not repress a cry of horror; never had she seen at such

close range so atrocious an expression upon any human face. "He will

kill Fabrizio!" she said to herself, "I shall have to warn Don Cesare."

This was her uncle, one of the most respected priests in the town;

General Conti, his brother, had procured for him the post of _economo_

and principal chaplain in the prison.

The General got into the carriage.

"Would you rather stay at home," he said to his daughter, "or wait for

me, perhaps for some time, in the courtyard of the Palace? I must go and

report all this to the Sovereign."

Fabrizio came out of the office escorted by three constables; they were

taking him to the room which had been allotted to him. Clelia looked out

of the window, the prisoner was quite close to her. At that moment she

answered her father's question in the words: "_I will go with you_."

Fabrizio, hearing these words uttered close to his ear, raised his eyes

and met the girl's gaze. He was struck, especially, by the expression of

melancholy on her face. "How she has improved," he thought, "since our

meeting near Como! What an air of profound thought! . . . They are quite

right to compare her with the Duchessa; what angelic features!" Barbone,

the bloodstained clerk, who had not taken his stand beside the carriage

without a purpose, held up his hand to stop the three constables who

were leading Fabrizio away, and, moving round behind the carriage until

he reached the window next which the General was sitting:

"As the prisoner has committed an act of violence in the interior of the

citadel," he said to him, "in consideration of Article 157 of the

regulations, would it not be as well to put the handcuffs on him for

three days?"

"Go to the devil!" cried the General, still considerably embarrassed by

this arrest. It was important for him that he should not drive either

the Duchessa or Conte Mosca to extremes; and besides, what attitude was

the Conte going to adopt towards this affair? After all, the murder of a

Giletti was a mere trifle, and only intrigue had succeeded in magnifying

it into anything of importance.

During this brief dialogue, Fabrizio stood superb among the group of

constables, his expression was certainly the proudest and most noble

that one could imagine; his fine and delicate features, and the

contemptuous smile that strayed over his lips made a charming contrast

with the coarse appearance of the constables who stood round him. But

all this formed, so to speak, only the external part of his physiognomy;

he was enraptured by the heavenly beauty of Clelia, and his eyes betrayed

his surprise to the full. She, profoundly pensive, had never thought of

drawing back her head from the window; he bowed to her with a half-smile

of the utmost respect; then, after a moment's silence:

"It seems to me, Signorina," he said to her, "that, once before, near a

lake, I had the honour of meeting you, in the company of the police."

Clelia blushed, and was so taken aback that she could find no words in

which to reply. "What a noble air among all those coarse creatures," she

had been saying to herself at the moment when Fabrizio spoke to her. The

profound pity, we might almost say the tender emotion in which she was

plunged deprived her of the presence of mind necessary to find words, no

matter what; she became conscious of her silence and blushed all the

deeper. At this moment the bolts of the great gate of the citadel were

drawn back with a clang; had not His Excellency's carriage been waiting

for at least a minute? The echo was so loud in this vaulted passage that

even if Clelia had found something to say in reply Fabrizio could not

have caught her words.

Borne away by the horses which had broken into a gallop immediately

after crossing the drawbridge, Clelia said to herself: "He must have

thought me very silly!" Then suddenly she added: "Not only silly; he

must have felt that I had a base nature, he must have thought that I did

not respond to his greeting because he is a prisoner and I am the

governor's daughter."

The thought of such a thing was terrible to this girl of naturally lofty

soul. "What makes my behaviour absolutely degrading," she went on, "is

that before, when we met for the first time, also _in the company of the

police_, as he said just now, it was I who was the prisoner, and he did

me a service, and helped me out of a very awkward position. . . . Yes, I

am bound to admit, my behaviour was quite complete, it combined rudeness

and ingratitude. Alas, poor young man! Now that he is in trouble,

everybody is going to behave disgracefully to him. Even if he did say to

me then: 'You will remember my name, I hope, at Parma?' how he must be

despising me at this moment! It would have been so easy to say a civil

word! Yes, I must admit, my conduct towards him has been atrocious. The

other time, but for the generous offer of his mother's carriage, I

should have had to follow the constables on foot through the dust, or,

what would have been far worse, ride pillion behind one of them; it was

my father then who was under arrest, and I defenceless! Yes, my

behaviour is complete. And how keenly a nature like his must have felt

it! What a contrast between his noble features and my behaviour! What

nobility! What serenity! How like a hero he looked, surrounded by his

vile enemies! Now I understand the Duchessa's passion: if he looks like

that in distressing circumstances which may end in frightful disaster,

what must he be like when his heart is happy!"

The governor's carriage waited for more than an hour and a half in the

courtyard of the Palace, and yet, when the General returned from his

interview with the Prince, Clelia by no means felt that he had stayed

there too long.

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

"His tongue said: Prison! His eyes: Death!"

"Death! Great God!" exclaimed Clelia.

"There now, be quiet!" said the General crossly; "what a fool I am to

answer a child's questions."

Meanwhile Fabrizio was climbing the three hundred and eighty steps which

led to the Torre Farnese, a new prison built on the platform of the

great tower, at a prodigious height from the ground. He never once

thought, distinctly that is to say, of the great change that had just

occurred in his fortunes. "What eyes!" he said to himself: "What a

wealth of expression in them! What profound pity! She looked as though

she were saying: 'Life is such a tangled skein of misfortunes! Do not

distress yourself too much about what is happening to you! Are we not

sent here below to be unhappy?' How those fine eyes of hers remained

fastened on me, even when the horses were moving forward with such a

clatter under the arch!"

_CLELIA CONTI_

Fabrizio completely forgot to feel wretched.

Clelia accompanied her father to various houses; in the early part of

the evening no one had yet heard the news of the arrest of the _great

culprit_, for such was the name which the courtiers bestowed a couple of

hours later on this poor, rash young man.

It was noticed that evening that there was more animation than usual in

Clelia's face; whereas animation, the air of taking part in what was

going on round her, was just what was chiefly lacking in that charming

young person. When you compared her beauty with that of the Duchessa, it

was precisely that air of not being moved by anything, that manner as

though of a person superior to everything, which weighed down the

balance in her rival's favour. In England, in France, lands of vanity,

the general opinion would probably have been just the opposite. Clelia

Conti was a young girl still a trifle too slim, who might be compared to

the beautiful models of Guido Reni. We make no attempt to conceal the

fact that, according to Greek ideas of beauty, the objection might have

been made that her head had certain features a trifle too strongly

marked; the lips, for instance, though full of the most touching charm,

were a little too substantial.

The admirable peculiarity of this face in which shone the artless graces

and the heavenly imprint of the most noble soul was that, albeit of the

rarest and most singular beauty, it did not in any way resemble the

heads of Greek sculpture. The Duchessa had, on the other hand, a little

too much of the _recognised_ beauty of the ideal type, and her truly

Lombard head recalled the voluptuous smile and tender melancholy of

Leonardo's lovely paintings of Herodias. Just as the Duchessa shone,

sparkled with wit and irony, attaching herself passionately, if one may

use the expression, to all the subjects which the course of the

conversation brought before her mind's eye, so Clelia showed herself

calm and slow to move, whether from contempt for her natural

surroundings or from regret for some unfulfilled dream. It had long been

thought that she would end by embracing the religious life. At twenty

she was observed to show a repugnance towards going to balls, and if she

accompanied her father to these entertainments it was only out of

obedience to him and in order not to jeopardise the interests of his

career.

"It is apparently going to be impossible for me," the General in his

vulgarity of spirit was too prone to repeat, "heaven having given me as

a daughter the most beautiful person in the States of our Sovereign, and

the most virtuous, to derive any benefit from her for the advancement of

my fortune! I live in too great isolation, I have only her in the world,

and what I must absolutely have is a family that will support me

socially, and will procure for me a certain number of houses where my

merit, and especially my aptitude for ministerial office shall be laid

down as unchallengeable postulates in any political discussion. And

there is my daughter, so beautiful, so sensible, so religious, taking

offence whenever a young man well established at court attempts to find

favour in her sight. If the suitor is dismissed, her character becomes

less sombre, and I see her appear almost gay, until another champion

enters the lists. The handsomest man at court, Conte Baldi, presented

himself and failed to please; the richest man in His Highness's States,

the Marchese Crescenzi, has now followed him; she insists that he would

make her miserable.

"Decidedly," the General would say at other times, "my daughter's eyes

are finer than the Duchessa's, particularly as, on rare occasions, they

are capable of assuming a more profound expression; but that magnificent

expression, when does anyone ever see it? Never in a drawing-room where

she might do justice to it; but simply out driving alone with me, when

she lets herself be moved, for instance, by the miserable state of some

hideous rustic. 'Keep some reflexion of that sublime gaze,' I tell her

at times, 'for the drawing-rooms in which we shall be appearing this

evening.' Not a bit of it: should she condescend to accompany me into

society, her pure and noble features present the somewhat haughty and

scarcely encouraging expression of passive obedience." The General

spared himself no trouble, as we can see, in his search for a suitable

son-in-law, but what he said was true.

Courtiers, who have nothing to contemplate in their own hearts, notice

every little thing that goes on round about them; they had observed that

it was particularly on those days when Clelia could not succeed in

making herself emerge from her precious musings and feign an interest in

anything that the Duchessa chose to stop beside her and tried to make

her talk. Clelia had hair of an ashen fairness, which stood out with a

charming effect against cheeks that were delicately tinted but, as a

rule, rather too pale. The mere shape of her brow might have told an

attentive observer that air, so instinct with nobility, that

manner, so far superior to vulgar charms, sprang from a profound

indifference to everything that was vulgar. It was the absence and not

the impossibility of interest in anything. Since her father had become

governor of the citadel, Clelia had found happiness, or at least freedom

from vexations in her lofty abode. The appalling number of steps that

had to be climbed in order to reach this official residence of the

governor, situated on the platform of the main tower, kept away tedious

visitors, and Clelia, for this material reason, enjoyed the liberty of

the convent; she found there almost all the ideal of happiness which at

one time she had thought of seeking from the religious life. She was

seized by a sort of horror at the mere thought of putting her beloved

solitude and her secret thoughts at the disposal of a young man whom the

title of husband would authorise to disturb all this inner life. If, by

her solitude, she did not attain to happiness, at least she had

succeeded in avoiding sensations that were too painful.

On the evening after Fabrizio had been taken to the fortress, the

Duchessa met Clelia at the party given by the Minister of the Interior,

Conte Zurla; everyone gathered round them; that evening, Clelia's beauty

outshone the Duchessa's. The beautiful eyes of the girl wore an

expression so singular and so profound as to be almost indiscreet; there

was pity, there were indignation also and anger in her gaze. The gaiety

and brilliant ideas of the Duchessa seemed to plunge Clelia into spells

of grief that bordered on horror. "What will be the cries and groans of

this poor woman," she said to herself, "when she learns that her lover,

that young man with so great a heart and so noble a countenance, has

just been flung into prison? And that look in the Sovereign's eyes which

condemns him to death! O Absolute Power, when wilt thou cease to crush

down Italy! O base and venal souls! And I am the daughter of a gaoler!

And I have done nothing to deny that noble station, for I did not deign

to answer Fabrizio! And once before he was my benefactor! What can he be

thinking of me at this moment, alone in his room with his little lamp

for sole companion?" Revolted by this idea, Clelia cast a look of horror

at the magnificent illumination of the drawing-rooms of the Minister of

the Interior.

_THE COURT_

"Never," the word went round the circle of courtiers who had gathered

round the two reigning beauties, and were seeking to join in their

conversation, "never have they talked to one another with so animated

and at the same time so intimate an air. Can the Duchessa, who is always

so careful to smooth away the animosities aroused by the Prime Minister,

can she have thought of some great marriage for Clelia?" This conjecture

was founded upon a circumstance which until then had never presented

itself to the observation of the court: the girl's eyes shewed more

fire, and indeed, if one may use the term, more passion than those of

the beautiful Duchessa. The latter, for her part, was astonished, and,

one may say it to her credit, delighted by the discovery of charms so

novel in the young recluse; for an hour she had been gazing at her with

a pleasure by no means commonly felt in the sight of a rival. "Why, what

can have happened?" the Duchessa asked herself; "never has Clelia looked

so beautiful, or, one might say, so touching: can her heart have spoken?

. . . But in that case, certainly, it is an unhappy love, there is a

dark grief at the root of this strange animation. . . . But unhappy love

keeps silent. Can it be a question of recalling a faithless lover by

shining in society?" And the Duchessa gazed with attention at all the

young men who stood round them. Nowhere could she see any unusual

expression, every face shone with a more or less pleased fatuity. "But a

miracle must have happened," the Duchessa told herself, vexed by her

inability to solve the mystery. "Where is Conte Mosca, that man of

discernment? No, I am not mistaken, Clelia is looking at me attentively,

and as if I was for her the object of a quite novel interest. Is it the

effect of some order received from her father, that vile courtier? I

supposed that young and noble mind to be incapable of lowering itself to

any pecuniary consideration. Can General Fabio Conti have some decisive

request to make of the Conte?"

About ten o'clock, a friend of the Duchessa came up to her and murmured

a few words; she turned extremely pale: Clelia took her hand and

ventured to press it.

"I thank you, and I understand you now . . . you have a noble heart,"

said the Duchessa, making an effort to control herself; she had barely

the strength to utter these few words. She smiled profusely at the lady

of the house, who rose to escort her to the door of the outermost

drawing-room: such honours were due only to Princesses of the Blood, and

were for the Duchessa an ironical comment on her position at the moment.

And so she continued to smile at Contessa Zurla, but in spite of untold

efforts did not succeed in uttering a single word.

Clelia's eyes filled with tears as she watched the Duchessa pass through

these rooms, thronged at the moment with all the most brilliant figures

in society. "What is going to happen to that poor woman," she wondered,

"when she finds herself alone in her carriage? It would be an

indiscretion on my part to offer to accompany her, I dare not. . . . And

yet, what a consolation it would be to the poor prisoner, sitting in

some wretched cell, if he knew that he was loved to such a point! What a

frightful solitude that must be in which they have plunged him! And we,

we are here in these brilliant rooms, how horrible! Can there be any way

of conveying a message to him? Great God! That would be treachery to my

father; his position is so delicate between the two parties! What will

become of him if he exposes himself to the passionate hatred of the

Duchessa, who controls the will of the Prime Minister, who in three out

of every four things here is the master? On the other hand, the Prince

takes an unceasing interest in everything that goes on at the fortress,

and will not listen to any jest on that subject; fear makes him

cruel. . . . In any case, Fabrizio" (Clelia no longer thought of him as

Signor del Dongo) "is greatly to be pitied. . . . It is a very different

thing for him from the risk of losing a lucrative post! . . . And the

Duchessa! . . . What a terrible passion love is! . . . And yet all those

liars in society speak of it as a source of happiness! One is sorry for

elderly women because they can no longer feel or inspire love. . . .

Never shall I forget what I have just seen; what a sudden change! How

those beautiful, radiant eyes of the Duchessa turned dull and dead after

the fatal word which Marchese N---- came up and said to her! . . .

Fabrizio must indeed be worthy of love!"

_REMORSE_

Breaking in upon these highly serious reflexions, which were absorbing

the whole of Clelia's mind, the complimentary speeches which always

surrounded her seemed to her even more distasteful than usual. To escape

from them she went across to an open window, half-screened by a taffeta

curtain; she hoped that no one would be so bold as to follow her into

this sort of sanctuary. This window opened upon a little grove of

orange trees planted in the ground: as a matter of fact, every winter

they had to be protected by a covering, Clelia inhaled with rapture the

scent of their blossom, and this pleasure seemed to restore a little

calm to her spirit. "I felt that he had a very noble air," she thought,

"but to inspire such passion in so distinguished a woman! She has had

the glory of refusing the Prince's homage, and if she had deigned to

consent, she would have reigned as queen over his States. . . . My

father says that the Sovereign's passion went so far as to promise to

marry her if ever he became free to do so. . . . And this love for

Fabrizio has lasted so long! For it is quite five years since we met

them by the Lake of Como. . . . Yes, it is quite five years," she said

to herself after a moment's reflexion. "I was struck by it even then,

when so many things passed unnoticed before my childish eyes. How those

two ladies seemed to admire Fabrizio! . . ."

Clelia remarked with joy that none of the young men who had been

speaking to her with such earnestness had ventured to approach her

balcony. One of them, the Marchese Crescenzi, had taken a few steps in

that direction, but had then stopped by a card-table. "If only," she

said to herself, "under my window in our _palazzo_ in the fortress, the

only one that has any shade, I had some pretty orange trees like these

to look at, my thoughts would be less sad: but to have as one's sole

outlook the huge blocks of stone of the Torre Farnese. . . . Ah!" she

cried with a convulsive movement, "perhaps that is where they have put

him. I must speak about it at once to Don Cesare! He will be less severe

than the General. My father is certain to tell me nothing on our way back

to the fortress, but I shall find out everything from Don Cesare. . . . I

have money, I could buy a few orange trees, which, placed under

the window of my aviary, would prevent me from seeing that great wall of

the Torre Farnese. How infinitely more hateful still it will be to me

now that I know one of the people whom it hides from the light of

day! . . . Yes, it is just the third time I have seen him. Once at court,

at the ball on the Princess's birthday; to-day, hemmed in by three

constables, while that horrible Barbone was begging for handcuffs to be

put on him, and the other time by the Lake of Como. That is quite five

years ago. What a hang-dog air he had then! How he stared at the

constables, and what curious looks his mother and his aunt kept giving

him. Certainly there must have been some secret that day, some special

knowledge which they were keeping to themselves; at the time, I had an

idea that he too was afraid of the police. . . ." Clelia shuddered; "But

how ignorant I was! No doubt at that time the Duchessa had already begun

to take an interest in him. How he made us laugh after the first few

minutes, when the ladies, in spite of their obvious anxiety, had begun

to grow more accustomed to the presence of a stranger! . . . And this

evening I had not a word to say in reply when he spoke to me. . . . O

ignorance and timidity! How often you have the appearance of the blackest

cowardice! And I am like this at twenty, yes and past twenty! . . . I

was well-advised to think of the cloister; really I am good for

nothing but retirement. 'Worthy daughter of a gaoler!' he will have been

saying to himself. He despises me, and, as soon as he is able to write

to the Duchessa, he will tell her of my want of consideration, and the

Duchessa will think me a very deceitful little girl; for, after all,

this evening she must have thought me full of sympathy with her in her

trouble."

Clelia noticed that someone was approaching, apparently with the

intention of taking his place by her side on the iron balcony of this

window; she could not help feeling annoyed, although she blamed herself

for being so; the meditations in which she was disturbed were by no

means without their pleasant side. "Here comes some troublesome fellow

to whom I shall give a warm welcome!" she thought. She was turning her

head with a haughty stare, when she caught sight of the timid face of

the Archbishop who was approaching the balcony by a series of almost

imperceptible little movements. "This saintly man has no manners,"

thought Clelia. "Why come and disturb a poor girl like me? My

tranquillity is the only thing I possess." She was greeting him with

respect, but at the same time with a haughty air, when the prelate said

to her:

"Signorina, have you heard the terrible news?"

The girl's eyes had at once assumed a totally different expression; but,

following the instructions repeated to her a hundred times over by her

father, she replied with an air of ignorance which the language of her

eyes loudly contradicted:

"I have heard nothing, Monsignore."

"My First Grand Vicar, poor Fabrizio del Dongo, who is no more guilty

than I am of the death of that brigand Giletti, has been arrested at

Bologna where he was living under the assumed name of Giuseppe Bossi;

they have shut him up in your citadel; he arrived there actually

_chained_ to the carriage that brought him. A sort of gaoler, named

Barbone, who was pardoned some time ago after murdering one of his own

brothers, chose to attempt an act of personal violence against Fabrizio,

but my young friend is not the man to take an insult quietly. He flung

his infamous adversary to the ground, whereupon they cast him into a

dungeon, twenty feet underground, after first putting handcuffs on his

wrists."

"Not handcuffs, no!"

"Ah! Then you do know something," cried the Archbishop. And the old

man's features lost their intense expression of discouragement. "But,

before we go any farther, someone may come out on to this balcony and

interrupt us: would you be so charitable as to convey personally to Don

Cesare my pastoral ring here?"

The girl took the ring, but did not know where to put it for fear of

losing it.

"Put it on your thumb," said the Archbishop; and he himself slipped the

ring into position. "Can I count upon you to deliver this ring?"

"Yes, Monsignore."

"Will you promise me to keep secret what I am going to say, even if

circumstances should arise in which you may find it inconvenient to

agree to my request?"

"Why, yes, Monsignore," replied the girl, trembling all over as she

observed the sombre and serious air which the old man had suddenly

assumed. . . .

"Our estimable Archbishop," she went on, "can give me no orders that are

not worthy of himself and me."

_DISTRESS_

"Say to Don Cesare that I commend to him my adopted son; I know that the

_sbirri_ who carried him off did not give him time to take his breviary

with him, I therefore request Don Cesare to let him have his own, and if

your uncle will send to-morrow to my Palace, I promise to replace the

book given by him to Fabrizio. I request Don Cesare also to convey the

ring which this pretty hand is now wearing to Signor del Dongo." The

Archbishop was interrupted by General Fabio Conti, who came in search of

his daughter to take her to the carriage; there was a brief interval of

conversation in which the prelate shewed a certain adroitness. Without

making any reference to the latest prisoner, he so arranged matters that

the course of the conversation led naturally to the utterance of certain

moral and political maxims by himself; for instance: "There are moments

of crisis in the life of a court which decide for long periods the

existence of the most exalted personages; it would be distinctly

imprudent to change into _personal hatred_ the state of political

aloofness which is often the quite simple result of diametrically

opposite positions." The Archbishop, letting himself be carried away to

some extent by the profound grief which he felt at so unexpected an

arrest, went so far as to say that one must undoubtedly strive to retain

the position one holds, but that it would be a quite gratuitous

imprudence to attract to oneself furious hatreds in consequence of

lending oneself to certain actions which are never forgotten.

When the General was in the carriage with his daughter: "Those might be

described as threats," he said to her. . . . "Threats, to a man of my

sort!"

No other words passed between father and daughter for the next twenty

minutes.

On receiving the Archbishop's pastoral ring, Clelia had indeed promised

herself that she would inform her father, as soon as she was in the

carriage, of the little service which the prelate had asked of her; but

after the word threats, uttered with anger, she took it for granted that

her father would intercept the token; she covered the ring with her left

hand and pressed it passionately. During the whole of the time that it

took them to drive from the Ministry of the Interior to the citadel, she

was asking herself whether it would be criminal on her part not to speak

of the matter to her father. She was extremely pious, extremely

timorous, and her heart, usually so tranquil, beat with an unaccustomed

violence; but in the end the _chi va là_ of the sentry posted on the

rampart above the gate rang out on the approach of the carriage before

Clelia had found a form of words calculated to incline her father not to

refuse, so much afraid was she of his refusing. As they climbed the

three hundred and sixty steps which led to the governor's residence,

Clelia could think of nothing.

She hastened to speak to her uncle, who rebuked her and refused to lend

himself to anything.