Bab Bab 17 · Chapter Nineteen

General Fabio Conti's ambition, exalted to madness by the obstacles

which were occurring in the career of the Prime Minister Mosca, and

seemed to forebode his fall, had led him to make violent scenes before

his daughter; he told her incessantly, and angrily, that she was ruining

her own prospects if she did not finally make up her mind to choose a

husband; at twenty and past it was time to make a match; this cruel

state of isolation, in which her unreasonable obstinacy was plunging the

General, must be brought to an end, and so forth.

It was originally to escape from these continual bursts of ill humour

that Clelia had taken refuge in the aviary; it could be reached only by

an extremely awkward wooden stair, which his gout made a serious

obstacle to the governor.

For some weeks now Clelia's heart had been so agitated, she herself knew

so little what she ought to decide, that, without giving any definite

promise to her father, she had almost let herself be engaged. In one of

his fits of rage, the General had shouted that he could easily send her

to cool her heels in the most depressing convent in Parma, and that

there he would let her stew until she deigned to make a choice.

"You know that our family, old as it is, cannot muster a rent-roll of

6,000 lire, while the Marchese Crescenzi's fortune amounts to more than

100,000 scudi a year. Everyone at court agrees that he has the sweetest

temper; he has never given anyone cause for complaint; he is a fine

looking man, young, popular with the Prince; and I say that you ought to

be shut up in a madhouse if you reject his advances. If this were the

first refusal, I might perhaps put up with it, but there have been five

or six suitors now, all among the first men at court, whom you have

rejected, like the little fool that you are. And what would become of

you, I ask you, if I were to be put on half-pay? What a triumph for my

enemies, if they saw me living in some second floor apartment, I who

have so often been talked of for the Ministry! No, begad, my good nature

has let me play Cassandra quite long enough. You will kindly supply me

with some valid objection to this poor Marchese Crescenzi, who is so

kind as to be in love with you, to be willing to marry you without a

dowry, and to make over to you a jointure of 30,000 lire a year, which

will at least pay my rent; you will talk to me reasonably, or, by

heaven, you will marry him in two months from now!"

_ANGUISH_

One passage alone in the whole of this speech had struck Clelia; this

was the threat to send her to a convent, and thereby remove her from the

citadel, at the moment, moreover, when Fabrizio's life seemed to be

hanging only by a thread, for not a month passed in which the rumour of

his approaching death did not run afresh through the town and through

the court. Whatever arguments she might use, she could not make up her

mind to run this risk. To be separated from Fabrizio, and at the moment

when she was trembling for his life! This was in her eyes the greatest

of evils; it was at any rate the most immediate.

This is not to say that, even in not being parted from Fabrizio, her

heart found any prospect of happiness; she believed him to be loved by

the Duchessa, and her soul was torn by a deadly jealousy. Incessantly she

thought of the advantages enjoyed by this woman who was so generally

admired. The extreme reserve which she imposed on herself with regard to

Fabrizio, the language of signs to which she had restricted him, from

fear of falling into some indiscretion, all seemed to combine to take

from her the means of arriving at any enlightenment as to his relations

with the Duchessa. Thus, every day, she felt more cruelly than before

the frightful misfortune of having a rival in the heart of Fabrizio, and

every day she dared less to expose herself to the danger of giving him

an opportunity to tell her the whole truth as to what was passing in

that heart. But how charming it would be, nevertheless, to hear him make

an avowal of his true feelings! What a joy for Clelia to be able to

clear away those frightful suspicions which were poisoning her life!

Fabrizio was fickle; at Naples he had had the reputation of changing his

mistress rather easily. Despite all the reserve imposed on the character

of a young lady, since she had become a Canoness and had gone to court,

Clelia, without ever asking questions, but by listening attentively, had

succeeded in learning the reputation that had been made for themselves

by the young men who in succession had sought her hand; very well,

Fabrizio, when compared with all these young men, was the one who was

charged with being most fickle in affairs of the heart. He was in

prison, he was dull, he was paying court to the one woman to whom he

could speak; what more simple? What, indeed, _more common_? And it was

this that grieved Clelia. Even if, by a complete revelation, she should

learn that Fabrizio no longer loved the Duchessa, what confidence could

she have in his words? Even if she believed in the sincerity of what he

said, what confidence could she have in the permanence of his feelings?

And lastly, to drive the final stroke of despair into her heart, was not

Fabrizio already far advanced in his career as a churchman? Was he not

on the eve of binding himself by lifelong vows? Did not the highest

dignities await him in that walk in life? "If the least glimmer of sense

remained in my mind," the unhappy Clelia said to herself, "ought I not

to take flight? Ought I not to beg my father to shut me up in some

convent far away? And, as a last straw, it is precisely the fear of

being sent away from the citadel and shut up in a convent that is

governing all my conduct! It is that fear which is forcing me to hide

the truth, which is obliging me to act the hideous and degrading lie of

pretending to accept the public attentions of the Marchese Crescenzi."

_PRISON_

Clelia was by nature profoundly reasonable; in the whole of her life she

had never had to reproach herself with a single unconsidered step, and

her conduct on this occasion was the height of unreason: one may judge

of her sufferings! They were all the more cruel in that she let herself

rest under no illusion. She was attaching herself to a man who was

desperately loved by the most beautiful woman at court, a woman who had

so many claims to be reckoned superior to Clelia herself! And this man

himself, had he been at liberty, was incapable of a serious attachment,

whereas she, as she felt only too well, would never have but this one

attachment in her life.

It was, therefore, with a heart agitated by the most frightful remorse

that Clelia came every day to the aviary: carried to this spot as though

in spite of herself, her uneasiness changed its object and became less

cruel, the remorse vanished for a few moments; she watched, with

indescribable beatings of her heart, for the moments at which Fabrizio

could open the sort of hatch that he had made in the enormous screen

which masked his window. Often the presence of the gaoler Grillo in his

cell prevented him from conversing by signs with his friend.

One evening, about eleven, Fabrizio heard sounds of the strangest nature

in the citadel: at night, by leaning on the window-sill and poking his

head out through the hatch, he could distinguish any noise at all loud

that was made on the great staircase, called "of the three hundred

steps," which led from the first courtyard, inside the round tower, to

the stone platform on which had been built the governor's _palazzo_ and

the Farnese prison in which he himself was.

About halfway up, at the hundred and eightieth step, this staircase

passed from the south side of a vast court to the north side; at this

point there was an iron bridge, very light and very narrow, on the

middle of which a turnkey was posted. This man was relieved every six

hours, and was obliged to rise and stand to one side to enable anyone to

pass over the bridge which he guarded, and by which alone one could

reach the governor's _palazzo_ and the Torre Farnese. Two turns of a

spring, the key of which the governor carried on his person, were enough

to hurl this iron bridge down into the court, more than a hundred feet

below; this simple precaution once taken, as there was no other

staircase in the whole of the citadel, and as every evening at midnight

a serjeant brought to the governor's house, and placed in a closet which

was reached through his bedroom, the ropes of all the wells, he was left

completely inaccessible in his _palazzo_, and it would have been equally

impossible for anyone in the world to reach the Torre Farnese. All this

Fabrizio had thoroughly observed for himself on the day of his arrival

at the citadel, while Grillo who, like all gaolers, loved to boast of

his prison, had explained it to him many times since; thus he had but

little hope of escape. At the same time he reminded himself of a maxim

of Priore Blanès: "The lover thinks more often of reaching his mistress

than the husband of guarding his wife; the prisoner thinks more often of

escaping than the gaoler of shutting his door; and so, whatever the

obstacles may be, the lover and the prisoner ought to succeed."

_THE SERENADE_

That evening Fabrizio could hear quite distinctly a considerable number

of men cross the iron bridge, known as the Slave's bridge, because once

a Dalmatian slave had succeeded in escaping, by throwing the guardian of

the bridge down into the court below.

"They are coming here to carry off somebody, perhaps they are going to

take me out to hang me; but there may be some disorder, I must make the

most of it." He had armed himself, he was already taking the gold from

some of his hiding-places, when suddenly he stopped.

"Man is a quaint animal," he exclaimed, "I must admit! What would an

invisible onlooker say if he saw my preparations? Do I by any chance

wish to escape? What would happen to me the day after my return to

Parma? Should I not be doing everything in the world to return to

Clelia? If there is some disorder, let us profit by it to slip into the

governor's _palazzo_; perhaps I may be able to speak to her, perhaps,

encouraged by the disorder, I may venture to kiss her hand. General

Conti, highly mistrustful by nature, and no less vain, has his _palazzo_

guarded by five sentries, one at each corner of the building and a fifth

outside the door, but fortunately the night is very dark." On tiptoe

Fabrizio stole down to find out what the gaoler Grillo and his dog were

doing: the gaoler was fast asleep in an oxhide suspended by four ropes

and enclosed in a coarse net; the dog Fox opened his eyes, rose, and

came quietly towards Fabrizio to lick his hand.

Our prisoner returned softly up the six steps, which led to his wooden

cell; the noise was becoming so loud at the foot of the Torre Farnese,

and immediately opposite the door, that he thought that Grillo might

easily awake. Fabrizio, armed with all his weapons, ready for action,

was imagining that he was destined that night for great adventures, when

suddenly he heard the most beautiful symphony in the world strike up: it

was a serenade which was being given to the governor or his daughter. He

was seized with a fit of wild laughter: "And I who was already dreaming

of striking dagger-blows! As though a serenade were not infinitely more

normal than an abduction requiring the presence of two dozen people in a

prison, or than a mutiny!" The music was excellent, and seemed to

Fabrizio delicious, his spirit having had no distraction for so many

weeks; it made him shed very pleasant tears; in his delight he addressed

the most irresistible speeches to the fair Clelia. But the following

day, at noon, he found her in so sombre a melancholy, she was so pale,

she directed at him a gaze in which he read at times such anger, that he

did not feel himself to be sufficiently justified in putting any

question to her as to the serenade; he was afraid of being impolite.

Clelia had every reason to be sad, it was a serenade given her by the

Marchese Crescenzi; a step so public was in a sense the official

announcement of their marriage. Until the very day of the serenade, and

until nine o'clock that evening, Clelia had set up the bravest

resistance, but she had had the weakness to yield to the threat of her

being sent immediately to a convent, which had been held over her by her

father.

_PRISON_

"What! I should never see him again!" she had said to herself, weeping.

It was in vain that her reason had added: "I should never see again that

creature who will harm me in every possible way, I should never see

again that lover of the Duchessa, I should never see again that man who

had ten acknowledged mistresses at Naples, and was unfaithful to them

all; I should never see again that ambitious young man who, if he

survives the sentence that he is undergoing, is to take holy orders! It

would be a crime for me to look at him again when he is out of his

citadel, and his natural inconstancy will spare me the temptation; for,

what am I to him? An excuse for spending less tediously a few hours of

each of his days in prison." In the midst of all this abuse, Clelia

happened to remember the smile with which he had looked at the

constables who surrounded him when he came out of the turnkey's office

to go up to the Torre Farnese. The tears welled into her eyes: "Dear

friend, what would I not do for you? You will ruin me, I know; such is

my fate; I am ruining myself in a terrible fashion by listening to-night

to this frightful serenade; but to-morrow, at midday, I shall see your

eyes again."

It was precisely on the morrow of that day on which Clelia had made such

great sacrifices for the young prisoner, whom she loved with so strong a

passion; it was on the morrow of that day on which, seeing all his

faults, she had sacrificed her life to him, that Fabrizio was in despair

at her coldness. If, even employing only the imperfect language of

signs, he had done the slightest violence to Clelia's heart, probably

she would not have been able to keep back her tears, and Fabrizio would

have won an avowal of all that she felt for him; but he lacked the

courage, he was in too deadly a fear of offending Clelia, she could

punish him with too severe a penalty. In other words, Fabrizio had no

experience of the emotion that is given one by a woman whom one loves;

it was a sensation which he had never felt, even in the feeblest degree.

It took him a week, from the day of the serenade, to place himself once

more on the old footing of simple friendship with Clelia. The poor girl

armed herself with severity, being half dead with fear of betraying

herself, and it seemed to Fabrizio that every day he was losing ground

with her.

One day (and Fabrizio had then been nearly three months in prison

without having had any communication whatever with the outer world, and

yet without feeling unhappy), Grillo had stayed very late in the morning

in his cell: Fabrizio did not know how to get rid of him; in the end,

half past twelve had already struck before he was able to open the two

little traps, a foot high, which he had carved in the fatal screen.

Clelia was standing at the aviary window, her eyes fixed on Fabrizio's;

her drawn features expressed the most violent despair. As soon as she

saw Fabrizio, she made him a sign that all was lost: she dashed to her

piano, and, pretending to sing a _recitativo_ from the popular opera of

the season, spoke to him in sentences broken by her despair and the fear

of being overheard by the sentries who were patrolling beneath the

window:

"Great God! You are still alive? How grateful I am to heaven! Barbone,

the gaoler whose impudence you punished on the day of your coming here,

disappeared, was not to be found in the citadel; the night before last

he returned, and since yesterday I have had reason to believe that he is

seeking to poison you. He comes prowling through the private kitchen of

the _palazzo_, where your meals are prepared. I know nothing for

certain, but my maid thinks that the horrible creature can only be

coming to the _palazzo_ kitchens with the object of taking your life. I

was dying of anxiety when I did not see you appear, I thought you were

dead. Abstain from all nourishment until further notice, I shall do

everything possible to see that a little chocolate comes to you. In any

case, this evening at nine, if the bounty of heaven wills that you have

any thread, or that you can tie strips of your linen together in a

riband, let it down from your window over the orange trees, I shall

fasten a cord to it which you can pull up, and by means of the cord I

shall keep you supplied with bread and chocolate."

Fabrizio had carefully treasured the piece of charcoal which he had

found in the stove in his cell: he hastened to make the most of Clelia's

emotion, and wrote on his hand a series of letters which taken in order

formed these words:

"I love you, and life is dear to me only because I see you; at all

costs, send me paper and a pencil."

As Fabrizio had hoped, the extreme terror which he read in Clelia's

features prevented the girl from breaking off the conversation after

this daring announcement, "I love you"; she was content with exhibiting

great vexation. Fabrizio was inspired to add: "There is such a wind

blowing to-day that I can only catch very faintly the advice you are so

kind as to give me in your singing; the sound of the piano is drowning

your voice. What is this poison, for instance, that you tell me of?"

At these words the girl's terror reappeared in its entirety; she began

in haste to trace large letters in ink on the pages of a book which she

tore out, and Fabrizio was transported with joy to see at length

established, after three months of effort, this channel of

correspondence for which he had so vainly begged. He had no thought of

abandoning the little ruse which had proved so successful, his aim was

to write real letters, and he pretended at every moment not to

understand the words of which Clelia was holding up each letter in turn

before his eyes.

She was obliged to leave the aviary to go to her father; she feared more

than anything that he might come to look for her; his suspicious nature

would not have been at all satisfied with the close proximity of the

window of this aviary to the screen which masked that of the prisoner.

Clelia herself had had the idea a few moments earlier, when Fabrizio's

failure to appear was plunging her in so deadly an anxiety, that it

might be possible to throw a small stone wrapped in a piece of paper

over the top of this screen; if by a lucky chance the gaoler in charge

of Fabrizio happened not to be in his cell at that moment, it was a

certain method of corresponding with him.

Our hero hastened to make a riband of sorts out of his linen; and that

evening, shortly after nine, he heard quite distinctly a series of

little taps on the tubs of the orange trees which stood beneath his

window; he let down his riband, which brought back with it a fine cord

of great length with the help of which he drew up first of all a supply

of chocolate, and then, to his unspeakable satisfaction, a roll of paper

and a pencil. It was in vain that he let down the cord again, he

received nothing more; apparently the sentries had come near the orange

trees. But he was wild with joy. He hastened to write Clelia an endless

letter: no sooner was it finished than he attached it to the cord and

let it down. For more than three hours he waited in vain for it to be

taken, and more than once drew it up again to make alterations. "If

Clelia does not see my letter to-night," he said to himself, "while she

is still upset by her idea of poison, to-morrow morning perhaps she will

utterly reject the idea of receiving a letter."

The fact was that Clelia had been unable to avoid going down to the town

with her father; Fabrizio almost guessed as much when he heard, about

half past twelve, the General's carriage return; he recognised the trot

of the horses. What was his joy when, a few minutes after he had heard

the General cross the terrace and the sentries present arms to him, he

felt a pull at the cord which he had not ceased to keep looped round his

arm! A heavy weight was attached to this cord; two little tugs gave him

the signal to draw it up. He had considerable difficulty in getting the

heavy object that he was lifting past a cornice which jutted out some

way beneath his window.

This object which he had so much difficulty in pulling up was a flask

filled with water and wrapped in a shawl. It was with ecstasy that this

poor young man, who had been living for so long in so complete a

solitude, covered this shawl with his kisses. But we must abandon the

attempt to describe his emotion when at last, after so many days of

fruitless expectation, he discovered a little scrap of paper which was

attached to the shawl by a pin.

"Drink nothing but this water, live upon chocolate; to-morrow I shall do

everything in the world to get some bread to you, I shall mark it on

each side with little crosses in ink. It is a terrible thing to say, but

you must know it, perhaps Barbone has been ordered to poison you. How is

it that you did not feel that the subject of which you treat in your

pencilled letter was bound to displease me? Besides, I should not write

to you, but for the danger that threatens us. I have just seen the

Duchessa, she is well and so is the Conte, but she has grown very thin;

do not write to me again on that subject; do you wish to make me angry?"

It required a great effort of virtue on Clelia's part to write the

penultimate line of this letter. Everyone alleged, in the society at

court, that Signora Sanseverina was becoming extremely friendly with

Conte Baldi, that handsome man, the former friend of the Marchesa

Raversi. What was certain was that he had quarrelled in the most open

fashion with the said Marchesa, who for six years had been a second

mother to him and had established him in society.

Clelia had been obliged to begin this hasty little note over again, for,

in the first draft, some allusion escaped her to the fresh amours with

which popular malice credited the Duchessa.

"How base of me!" she had exclaimed, "to say things to Fabrizio against

the woman he loves!"

The following morning, long before it was light, Grillo came into

Fabrizio's cell, left there a package of some weight, and vanished

without saying a word. This package contained a loaf of bread of some

size, adorned on every side with little crosses traced in ink: Fabrizio

covered them with kisses; he was in love. Besides the bread there was a

roll wrapped in a large number of folds of paper; these enclosed six

hundred francs in sequins; last of all Fabrizio found a handsome

breviary, quite new: a hand which he was beginning to know had traced

these words on the margin:

"_Poison_! Beware of water, wine, everything; live upon chocolate, try

to make the dog eat your untouched dinner; you must not appear

distrustful, the enemy would try some other plan. Do nothing foolish, in

Heaven's Name! No frivolity!"

Fabrizio made haste to erase these dear words which might compromise

Clelia, and to tear a large number of pages from the breviary, with the

help of which he made several alphabets; each letter was properly drawn

with crushed charcoal soaked in wine. These alphabets had dried when at

a quarter to twelve Clelia appeared, a few feet inside the aviary

window. "The great thing now," Fabrizio said to himself, "is that she

shall consent to make use of these." But, fortunately for him, it so

happened that she had a number of things to say to the young prisoner

with regard to the attempt to poison him: a dog belonging to one of the

maidservants had died after eating a dish that was intended for him.

Clelia, so far from raising any objection to the use of the alphabets,

had prepared a magnificent one for herself, in ink. The conversation

carried out by these means, awkward enough in the first few moments,

lasted not less than an hour and a half, that is to say all the time

that Clelia was able to spend in the aviary. Two or three times, when

Fabrizio allowed himself forbidden liberties, she made no answer, and

turned away for a moment to give the necessary attention to her birds.

Fabrizio had obtained the concession that, in the evening, when she sent

him his water, she would convey to him one of the alphabets which she

had written in ink, and which were far more visible. He did not fail to

write her a very long letter in which he took care not to include

anything affectionate, in a manner at least that might give offence.

This plan proved successful; his letter was accepted.

Next day, in their conversation by the alphabets, Clelia made him no

reproach; she told him that the danger of poison was growing less;

Barbone had been attacked and almost killed by the men who were keeping

company with the kitchen-maids of the governor's _palazzo_; probably he

would not venture to appear in the kitchens again. Clelia confessed to

him that, for his sake, she had dared to steal an antidote from her

father; she was sending it to him; the essential thing was to refuse at

once all food in which he detected an unusual taste.

Clelia had put many questions to Don Cesare without succeeding in

discovering who had sent the six hundred francs which Fabrizio had

received; in any case, it was an excellent sign; the severity was

decreasing.

This episode of the poison advanced our hero's position enormously; he

was still unable ever to obtain the least admission that resembled love,

but he had the happiness of living on the most intimate terms with

Clelia. Every morning, and often in the evening, there was a long

conversation with the alphabets; every evening, at nine o'clock, Clelia

accepted a long letter, to which she sometimes replied in a few words;

she sent him the newspaper and several books; finally, Grillo had been

won over to the extent of bringing Fabrizio bread and wine, which were

given him every day by Clelia's maid. The gaoler Grillo had concluded

from this that the governor was not acting in concert with the people

who had ordered Barbone to poison the young Monsignore, and was greatly

relieved, as were all his fellows, for it had become a proverb in the

prison that "you had only to look Monsignor del Dongo in the face for

him to give you money."

Fabrizio had grown very pale; the complete want of exercise was

affecting his health; apart from this, he had never in his life been so

happy. The tone of the conversation between Clelia and himself was

intimate, and at times quite gay. The only moments in Clelia's life that

were not besieged by grim forebodings and remorse were those which she

spent in talk with him. One day she was so rash as to say to him:

"I admire your delicacy; as I am the governor's daughter, you never

speak to me of your desire to regain your freedom!"

"That is because I take good care not to feel so absurd a desire," was

Fabrizio's answer; "once back in Parma, how should I see you again? And

life would become insupportable if I could not tell you all that is in

my mind--no, not quite all that is in my mind, you take good care of

that: but still, in spite of your hard-heartedness, to live without

seeing you every day would be to me a far worse punishment than this

prison! Never in my life have I been so happy! . . . Is it not pleasant

to find that happiness was awaiting me in prison?"

_DIPLOMACY_

"There is a great deal more to be said about that," replied Clelia with

an air which became of a sudden unduly serious and almost sinister.

"What!" cried Fabrizio, greatly alarmed, "is there a risk of my losing

the tiny place I have managed to win in your heart, which constitutes my

sole joy in this world?"

"Yes," she told him; "I have good reason to believe that you are lacking

in frankness towards me, although you may be regarded generally as a

great gentleman; but I do not wish to speak of this to-day."

This singular opening caused great embarrassment in their conversation,

and often tears started to the eyes of both.

The Fiscal General Rassi was still anxious to change his name; he was

tired to death of the name he had made for himself, and wished to become

Barone Riva. Conte Mosca, for his part, was toiling, with all the skill

of which he was capable, to strengthen in this venal judge his passion

for the barony, just as he was seeking to intensify in the Prince his

mad hope of making himself Constitutional Monarch of Lombardy. They were

the only means that he could invent of postponing the death of Fabrizio.

The Prince said to Rassi:

"A fortnight of despair and a fortnight of hope, it is by patiently

carrying out this system that we shall succeed in subduing that proud

woman's nature; it is by these alternatives of mildness and harshness

that one manages to break the wildest horses. Apply the caustic firmly."

And indeed, every fortnight, one saw a fresh rumour come to birth in

Parma announcing the death of Fabrizio in the near future. This talk

plunged the unhappy Duchessa in the utmost despair. Faithful to her

resolution not to involve the Conte in her downfall, she saw him but

twice monthly; but she was punished for her cruelty towards that poor

man by the continual alternations of dark despair in which she was

passing her life. In vain did Conte Mosca, overcoming the cruel jealousy

inspired in him by the assiduities of Conte Baldi, that handsome man,

write to the Duchessa when he could not see her, and acquaint her with

all the intelligence that he owed to the zeal of the future Barone Riva;

the Duchessa would have needed (for strength to resist the atrocious

rumours that were incessantly going about with regard to Fabrizio), to

spend her life with a man of intelligence and heart such as Mosca; the

nullity of Baldi, leaving her to her own thoughts, gave her an appalling

existence, and the Conte could not succeed in communicating to her his

reasons for hope.

By means of various pretexts of considerable ingenuity the Minister had

succeeded in making the Prince agree to his depositing in a friendly

castle, in the very heart of Lombardy, the records of all the highly

complicated intrigues by means of which Ranuccio-Ernest IV nourished the

utterly mad hope of making himself Constitutional Monarch of that

smiling land.

More than a score of these extremely compromising documents were in the

Prince's hand, or bore his signature, and in the event of Fabrizio's

life being seriously threatened the Conte had decided to announce to His

Highness that he was going to hand these documents over to a great power

which with a word could crush him.

Conte Mosca believed that he could rely upon the future Barone Riva, he

was afraid only of poison; Barbone's attempt had greatly alarmed him,

and to such a point that he had determined to risk taking a step which,

to all appearance, was an act of madness. One morning he went to the

gate of the citadel and sent for General Fabio Conti, who came down as

far as the bastion above the gate; there, strolling with him in a

friendly fashion, he had no hesitation in saying to him, after a short

preamble, acidulated but polite:

_PRISON_

"If Fabrizio dies in any suspicious manner, his death may be put down to

me; I shall get a reputation for jealousy, which would be an absurd and

abominable stigma and one that I am determined not to accept. So, to

clear myself in the matter, if he dies of illness, _I shall kill you

with my own hand_; you may count on that." General Fabio Conti made a

magnificent reply and spoke of his bravery, but the look in the Conte's

eyes remained present in his thoughts.

A few days later, as though he were working in concert with the Conte,

the Fiscal Rassi took a liberty which was indeed singular in a man of

his sort. The public contempt attached to his name, which was proverbial

among the rabble, had made him ill since he had acquired the hope of

being able to change it. He addressed to General Fabio Conti an official

copy of the sentence which condemned Fabrizio to twelve years in the

citadel. According to the law, this was what should have been done on

the very day after Fabrizio's admission to prison; but what was

unheard-of at Parma, in that land of secret measures, was that Justice

should allow itself to take such a step without an express order from

the Sovereign. How indeed could the Prince entertain the hope of

doubling every fortnight the Duchessa's alarm, and of subduing that

proud spirit, to quote his own words, once an official copy of the

sentence had gone out from the Chancellory of Justice? On the day before

that on which General Fabio Conti received the official document from

the Fiscal Rassi, he learned that the clerk Barbone had been beaten

black and blue on returning rather late to the citadel; he concluded

from this that there was no longer any question, in a certain quarter,

of getting rid of Fabrizio; and, in a moment of prudence which saved

Rassi from the immediate consequences of his folly, he said nothing to

the Prince, at the next audience which he obtained of him, of the

official copy of Fabrizio's sentence which had been transmitted to him.

The Conte had discovered, happily for the peace of mind of the

unfortunate Duchessa, that Barbone's clumsy attempt had been only an act

of personal revenge, and had caused the clerk to be given the warning of

which we have spoken.

Fabrizio was very agreeably surprised when, after one hundred and

thirty-five days of confinement in a distinctly narrow cell, the good

chaplain Don Cesare came to him one Thursday to take him for an airing

on the dungeon of the Torre Farnese: he had not been there ten minutes

before, unaccustomed to the fresh air, he began to feel faint.

Don Cesare made this accident an excuse to allow him half an hour's

exercise every day. This was a mistake: these frequent airings soon

restored to our hero a strength which he abused.

There were several serenades; the punctilious governor allowed them only

because they created an engagement between the Marchese Crescenzi and

his daughter Clelia, whose character alarmed him; he felt vaguely that

there was no point of contact between her and himself, and was always

afraid of some rash action on her part. She might fly to the convent,

and he would be left helpless.