第 八 章 · Chapter Eight

So, less than a month after his arrival at court, Fabrizio had tasted

all the sorrows of a courtier, and the intimate friendship which

constituted the happiness of his life was poisoned. One evening,

tormented by these thoughts, he left that drawing-room of the Duchessa

in which he had too much of the air of a reigning lover; wandering at

random through the town, he came opposite the theatre, in which he saw

lights; he went in. It was a gratuitous imprudence in a man of his cloth

and one that he had indeed vowed that he would avoid in Parma, which,

after all, is only a small town of forty thousand inhabitants. It is

true that after the first few days he had got rid of his official

costume; in the evenings, when he was not going into the very highest

society, he used simply to dress in black like a layman in mourning.

At the theatre he took a box on the third tier, so as not to be noticed;

the play was Goldoni's _La Locanderia_. He examined the architecture of

the building, scarcely did he turn his eyes to the stage. But the

crowded audience kept bursting into laughter at every moment; Fabrizio

gave a glance at the young actress who was playing the part of the

landlady, and found her amusing. He looked at her more closely; she

seemed to him quite attractive, and, above all, perfectly natural; she

was a simple-minded young girl who was the first to laugh at the witty

lines Goldoni had put into her mouth, lines which she appeared to be

quite surprised to be uttering. He asked what her name was, and was

told: "Marietta Valserra."

"Ah!" he thought; "she has taken my name; that is odd." In spite of his

intentions he did not leave the theatre until the end of the piece. The

following evening he returned; three days later he knew Marietta

Valserra's address.

On the evening of the day on which, with a certain amount of trouble, he

had procured this address, he noticed that the Conte was looking at him

in the most friendly way. The poor jealous lover, who had all the

trouble in the world in keeping within the bounds of prudence, had set

spies on the young man's track, and this theatrical escapade pleased

him. How are we to depict the Conte's joy when, on the day following

that on which he had managed to bring himself to look amicably at

Fabrizio, he learned that the latter, in the partial disguise, it must

be admitted, of a long blue frock-coat, had climbed to the wretched

apartment which Marietta Valserra occupied on the fourth floor of an old

house behind the theatre? His joy was doubled when he heard that

Fabrizio had presented himself under a false name, and had had the

honour to arouse the jealousy of a scapegrace named Giletti, who in town

played Third Servant, and in the villages danced on the tight rope. This

noble lover of Marietta cursed Fabrizio most volubly and expressed a

desire to kill him.

_THE PHANTOM HARLEQUIN_

Opera companies are formed by an _impresario_ who engages in different

places the artists whom he can afford to pay or has found unemployed,

and the company collected at random remains together for one season or

two at most. It is not so with _comedy companies_; while passing from

town to town and changing their address every two or three months, they

nevertheless form a family of which all the members love or loathe one

another. There are in these companies united couples whom the _beaux_ of

the towns in which the actors appear find it sometimes exceedingly

difficult to sunder. This is precisely what happened to our hero. Little

Marietta liked him well enough, but was horribly afraid of Giletti, who

claimed to be her sole lord and master and kept a close watch over her.

He protested everywhere that he would kill the _Monsignore_, for he had

followed Fabrizio, and had succeeded in discovering his name. This

Giletti was quite the ugliest creature imaginable and the least fitted

to be a lover: tall out of all proportion, he was horribly thin,

strongly pitted by smallpox, and inclined to squint. In addition, being

endowed with all the graces of his profession, he was continually coming

into the wings where his fellow-actors were assembled, turning

cartwheels on his feet and hands or practising some other pretty trick.

He triumphed in those parts in which the actor has to appear with his

face whitened with flour and to give or receive a countless number of

blows with a cudgel. This worthy rival of Fabrizio drew a monthly salary

of 32 francs, and thought himself extremely well off.

Conte Mosca felt himself drawn up from the gate of the tomb when his

watchers gave him the full authority for all these details. His kindly

nature reappeared; he seemed more gay and better company than ever in

the Duchessa's drawing-room, and took good care to say nothing to her of

the little adventure which had restored him to life. He even took steps

to ensure that she should be informed of everything that occurred with

the greatest possible delay. Finally he had the courage to listen to the

voice of reason, which had been crying to him in vain for the last month

that, whenever a lover's lustre begins to fade, it is time for that

lover to travel.

Urgent business summoned him to Bologna, and twice a day cabinet

messengers brought him not so much the official papers of his

departments as the latest news of the love affairs of little Marietta,

the rage of the terrible Giletti and the enterprises of Fabrizio.

One of the Conte's agents asked several times for _Arlecchino fantasma e

pasticcio_, one of Giletti's triumphs (he emerges from the pie at the

moment when his rival Brighella is sticking the knife into it, and gives

him a drubbing); this was an excuse for making him earn 100 francs.

Giletti, who was riddled with debts, took care not to speak of this

windfall, but became astonishing in his arrogance.

Fabrizio's whim changed to a wounded pride (at his age, his anxieties

had already reduced him to the state of having whims!). Vanity led him

to the theatre; the little girl acted in the most sprightly fashion and

amused him; on leaving the theatre, he was in love for an hour. The

Conte returned to Parma on receiving the news that Fabrizio was in real

danger; Giletti, who had served as a trooper in that fine regiment the

Dragoni Napoleone, spoke seriously of killing him, and was making

arrangements for a subsequent flight to Romagna. If the reader is very

young, he will be scandalised by our admiration for this fine mark of

virtue. It was, however, no slight act of heroism on the part of Conte

Mosca, his return from Bologna; for, after all, frequently in the

morning he presented a worn appearance, and Fabrizio was always so

fresh, so serene! Who would ever have dreamed of reproaching him with

the death of Fabrizio, occurring in his absence and from so stupid a

cause? But his was one of those rare spirits which make an everlasting

remorse out of a generous action which they might have done and did not

do; besides, he could not bear the thought of seeing the Duchessa look

sad, and by any fault of his.

He found her, on his arrival, taciturn and gloomy. This is what had

occurred: the little lady's maid, Cecchina, tormented by remorse and

estimating the importance of her crime by the immensity of the sum that

she had received for committing it, had fallen ill. One evening the

Duchessa, who was devoted to her, went up to her room. The girl could

not hold out against this mark of kindness; she dissolved in tears, was

for handing over to her mistress all that she still possessed of the

money she had received, and finally had the courage to confess to her

the questions asked by the Conte and her own replies to them. The

Duchessa ran to the lamp which she blew out, then said to little

Cecchina that she forgave her, but on condition that she never uttered a

word about this strange episode to anyone in the world. "The poor

Conte," she added in a careless tone, "is afraid of being laughed at;

all men are like that."

_REMORSE_

The Duchessa hastened downstairs to her own apartments. No sooner had

she shut the door of her bedroom than she burst into tears; there seemed

to her something horrible in the idea of her making love to Fabrizio

whom she had seen brought into the world; and yet what else could her

behaviour imply?

This had been the primary cause of the black melancholy in which the

Conte found her plunged; on his arrival she suffered fits of impatience

with him, and almost with Fabrizio; she would have liked never to set

eyes on either of them again; she was contemptuous of the part,

ridiculous in her eyes, which Fabrizio was playing with the little

Marietta; for the Conte had told her everything, like a true lover,

incapable of keeping a secret. She could not grow used to this disaster;

her idol had a fault; finally, in a moment of frank friendship, she

asked the Conte's advice; this was for him a delicious instant, and a

fine reward for the honourable impulse which had made him return to

Parma.

"What could be more simple?" said the Conte, smiling. "Young men want to

have every woman they see, and next day they do not give her a thought.

Ought he not to be going to Belgirate, to see the Marchesa del Dongo?

Very well, let him go. During his absence, I shall request the company

of comedians to take their talents elsewhere, I shall pay their

travelling expenses; but presently we shall see him in love with the

first pretty woman that may happen to come his way: it is in the nature

of things, and I should not care to see him act otherwise. . . . If

necessary, get the Marchesa to write to him."

This suggestion, offered with the air of a complete indifference, came

as a ray of light to the Duchessa; she was frightened of Giletti. That

evening, the Conte announced, as though by chance, that one of his

couriers, on his way to Vienna, would be passing through Milan; three

days later Fabrizio received a letter from his mother. He seemed greatly

annoyed at not having yet been able, thanks to Giletti's jealousy, to

profit by the excellent intentions, assurance of which little Marietta

had conveyed to him through a _mammaccia_, an old woman who acted as her

mother.

Fabrizio found his mother and one of his sisters at Belgirate, a large

village in Piedmont, on the right shore of Lake Maggiore; the left shore

belongs to the Milanese, and consequently to Austria. This lake,

parallel to the Lake of Como, and also running from north to south, is

situated some ten leagues farther to the west. The mountain air, the

majestic and tranquil aspect of this superb lake which recalled to him

that other on the shores of which he had spent his childhood, all helped

to transform into a tender melancholy Fabrizio's grief, which was akin

to anger. It was with an infinite tenderness that the memory of the

Duchessa now presented itself to him; he felt that in separation he was

acquiring for her that love which he had never felt for any woman;

nothing would have been more painful to him than to be separated from

her for ever, and, he being in this frame of mind, if the Duchessa had

deigned to have recourse to the slightest coquetry, she could have

conquered this heart by--for instance--presenting it with a rival. But,

far from taking any so decisive a step, it was not without the keenest

self-reproach that she found her thoughts constantly following in the

young traveller's footsteps. She reproached herself for what she still

called a fancy, as though it had been something horrible; she redoubled

her forethought for and attention to the Conte, who, captivated by such

a display of charm, paid no heed to the sane voice of reason which was

prescribing a second visit to Bologna.

_LAKE MAGGIORE_

The Marchesa del Dongo, busy with preparations for the wedding of her

elder daughter, whom she was marrying to a Milanese Duca, could give

only three days to her beloved son; never had she found in him so tender

an affection. Through the cloud of melancholy that was more and more

closely enwrapping Fabrizio's heart, an odd and indeed ridiculous idea

had presented itself, and he had suddenly decided to adopt it. Dare we

say that he wished to consult Priore Blanès? That excellent old man was

totally incapable of understanding the sorrows of a heart torn asunder

by boyish passions more or less equal in strength; besides, it would

have taken a week to make him gather even a faint impression of all the

conflicting interests that Fabrizio had to consider at Parma; but in the

thought of consulting him Fabrizio recaptured the freshness of his

sensations at the age of sixteen. Will it be believed? It was not simply

as to a man full of wisdom, to an old and devoted friend, that Fabrizio

wished to speak to him; the object of this expedition, and the feelings

that agitated our hero during the fifty hours that it lasted are so

absurd that doubtless, in the interests of our narrative, it would have

been better to suppress them. I am afraid that Fabrizio's credulity may

make him forfeit the sympathy of the reader; but after all thus it was;

why flatter him more than another? I have not flattered Conte Mosca, nor

the Prince.

Fabrizio, then, since the whole truth must be told, Fabrizio escorted

his mother as far as the port of Laveno, on the left shore of Lake

Maggiore, the Austrian shore, where she landed about eight o'clock in

the evening. (The lake is regarded as neutral territory, and no passport

is required of those who do not set foot on shore.) But scarcely had

night fallen when he had himself ferried to this same Austrian shore,

and landed in a little wood which juts out into the water. He had hired

a _sediola_, a sort of rustic and fast-moving tilbury, by means of which

he was able, at a distance of five hundred yards, to keep up with his

mother's carriage; he was disguised as a servant of the _casa_ del Dongo,

and none of the many police or customs officials ever thought of asking

him for his passport. A quarter of a league before Como, where the

Marchesa and her daughter were to stop for the night, he took a path to

the left which, making a circuit of the village of Vico, afterwards

joined a little road recently made along the extreme edge of the lake.

It was midnight, and Fabrizio could count upon not meeting any of the

police. The trees of the various thickets into which the little road

kept continually diving traced the black outline of their foliage

against a sky bright with stars but veiled by a slight mist. Water and

sky were of a profound tranquillity. Fabrizio's soul could not resist

this sublime beauty; he stopped, then sat down on a rock which ran out

into the lake, forming almost a little promontory. The universal silence

was disturbed only, at regular intervals, by the faint ripple of the

lake as it lapped on the shore. Fabrizio had an Italian heart; I crave

the reader's pardon for him: this defect, which will render him less

attractive, consisted mainly in this: he had no vanity, save by fits and

starts, and the mere sight of sublime beauty melted him to a tender mood

and took from his sorrows their hard and bitter edge. Seated on his

isolated rock, having no longer any need to be on his guard against the

police, protected by the profound night and the vast silence, gentle

tears moistened his eyes, and he found there, with little or no effort,

the happiest moments that he had tasted for many a day.

_A NIGHT SCENE_

He resolved never to tell the Duchessa any falsehood, and it was because

he loved her to adoration at that moment that he vowed to himself never

to say to her _that he loved her_; never would he utter in her hearing

the word love, since the passion which bears that name was a stranger to

his heart. In the enthusiasm of generosity and virtue which formed his

happiness at that moment, he made the resolution to tell her, at the

first opportunity, everything: his heart had never known love. Once this

courageous plan had been definitely adopted, he felt himself delivered

of an enormous burden. "She will perhaps have something to say to me

about Marietta; very well, I shall never see my little Marietta again,"

he assured himself blithely.

The overpowering heat which had prevailed throughout the day was

beginning to be tempered by the morning breeze. Already dawn was

outlining in a faint white glimmer the Alpine peaks that rise to the

north and east of Lake Como. Their massive shapes, bleached by their

covering of snow, even in the month of June, stand out against the

pellucid azure of a sky which at those immense altitudes is always pure.

A spur of the Alps stretching southwards into smiling Italy separates

the sloping shores of Lake Como from those of the Lake of Garda.

Fabrizio followed with his eye all the branches of these sublime

mountains, the dawn as it grew brighter came to mark the valleys that

divide them, gilding the faint mist which rose from the gorges beneath.

Some minutes since Fabrizio had taken the road again; he passed the hill

that forms the peninsula of Durini, and at length there met his gaze

that _campanile_ of the village of Grianta in which he had so often made

observations of the stars with Priore Blanès. "What bounds were there

to my ignorance in those days? I could not understand," he reminded

himself, "even the ridiculous Latin of those treatises on astrology

which my master used to pore over, and I think I respected them chiefly

because, understanding only a few words here and there, my imagination

stepped in to give them a meaning, and the most romantic sense

imaginable."

Gradually his thoughts entered another channel. "May not there be

something genuine in this science? Why should it be different from the

rest? A certain number of imbeciles and quick-witted persons agree among

themselves that they know (shall we say) _Mexican_; they impose

themselves with this qualification upon society which respects them and

governments which pay them. Favours are showered upon them precisely

because they have no real intelligence, and authority need not fear

their raising the populace and creating an atmosphere of rant by the aid

of generous sentiments! For instance, Father Bari, to whom Ernesto IV

has just awarded a pension of 4,000 francs and the Cross of his Order

for having restored nineteen lines of a Greek dithyramb!

"But, Great God, have I indeed the right to find such things ridiculous?

Is it for me to complain," he asked himself, suddenly, stopping short in

the road, "has not that same Cross just been given to my governor at

Naples?" Fabrizio was conscious of a feeling of intense disgust; the

fine enthusiasm for virtue which had just been making his heart beat

high changed into the vile pleasure of having a good share in the spoils

of a robbery. "After all," he said to himself at length, with the

lustreless eyes of a man who is dissatisfied with himself, "since my

birth gives me the right to profit by these abuses, it would be a signal

piece of folly on my part not to take my share, but I must never let

myself denounce them in public." This reasoning was by no means unsound;

but Fabrizio had fallen a long way from that elevation of sublime

happiness to which he had found himself transported an hour earlier. The

thought of privilege had withered that plant, always so delicate, which

we name happiness.

_PRIVILEGE_

"If we are not to believe in astrology," he went on, seeking to calm

himself; "if this science is, like three quarters of the sciences that

are not mathematical, a collection of enthusiastic simpletons and adroit

hypocrites paid by the masters they serve, how does it come about that

I think so often and with emotion of this fatal circumstance: I did make

my escape from the prison at B----, but in the uniform and with the

marching orders of a soldier who had been flung into prison with good

cause?"

Fabrizio's reasoning could never succeed in penetrating farther; he went

a hundred ways round the difficulty without managing to surmount it. He

was too young still; in his moments of leisure, his mind devoted itself

with rapture to enjoying the sensations produced by the romantic

circumstances with which his imagination was always ready to supply him.

He was far from employing his time in studying with patience the actual

details of things in order to discover their causes. Reality still

seemed to him flat and muddy; I can understand a person's not caring to

look at it, but then he ought not to argue about it. Above all, he ought

not to fashion objections out of the scattered fragments of his

ignorance.

Thus it was that, though not lacking in brains, Fabrizio could not

manage to see that his half-belief in omens was for him a religion, a

profound impression received at his entering upon life. To think of this

belief was to feel, it was a happiness. And he set himself resolutely to

discover how this could be a _proved_, a real science, in the same

category as geometry, for example. He searched his memory strenuously

for all the instances in which omens observed by him had not been

followed by the auspicious or inauspicious events which they seemed to

herald. But all this time, while he believed himself to be following a

line of reasoning and marching towards the truth, his attention kept

coming joyfully to rest on the memory of the occasions on which the

foreboding had been amply followed by the happy or unhappy accident

which it had seemed to him to predict, and his heart was filled with

respect and melted; and he would have felt an invincible repugnance for

the person who denied the value of omens, especially if in doing so he

had had recourse to irony.

Fabrizio walked on without noticing the distance he was covering, and

had reached this point in his vain reasonings when, raising his head, he

saw the wall of his father's garden. This wall, which supported a fine

terrace, rose to a height of more than forty feet above the road, on its

right. A cornice of wrought stone along the highest part, next to the

balustrade, gave it a monumental air. "It is not bad," Fabrizio said to

himself dispassionately, "it is good architecture, a little in the Roman

style"; he applied to it his recently acquired knowledge of antiquities.

Then he turned his head away in disgust; his father's severities, and

especially the denunciation of himself by his brother Ascanio on his

return from his wanderings in France, came back to his mind.

"That unnatural denunciation was the origin of my present existence; I

may detest, I may despise it; when all is said and done, it has altered

my destiny. What would have become of me once I had been packed off to

Novara, and my presence barely tolerated in the house of my father's

agent, if my aunt had not made love to a powerful Minister? If the said

aunt had happened to possess merely a dry, conventional heart instead of

that tender and passionate heart which loves me with a sort of

enthusiasm that astonishes me? Where should I be now if the Duchessa had

had the heart of her brother the Marchese del Dongo?"

_PRIORE BLANÈS_

Oppressed by these cruel memories, Fabrizio began now to walk with an

uncertain step; he came to the edge of the moat immediately opposite the

magnificent façade of the castle. Scarcely did he cast a glance at that

great building, blackened by time. The noble language of architecture

left him unmoved, the memory of his brother and father stopped his heart

to every sensation of beauty, he was attentive only to the necessity of

keeping on his guard in the presence of hypocritical and dangerous

enemies. He looked for an instant, but with a marked disgust, at the

little window of the bedroom which he had occupied until 1815 on the

third storey. His father's character had robbed of all charm the memory

of his early childhood. "I have not set foot in it," he thought, "since

the 7th of March, at eight o'clock in the evening. I left it to go and

get the passport from Vasi, and next morning my fear of spies made me

hasten my departure. When I passed through again after my visit to

France, I had not time to go upstairs, even to look at my prints again,

and that thanks to my brother's denouncing me."

Fabrizio turned away his head in horror. "Priore Blanès is eighty-three

at the very least," he said sorrowfully to himself; "he hardly ever

comes to the castle now, from what my sister tells me; the infirmities

of old age have had their effect on him. That heart, once so strong and

noble, is frozen by age. Heaven knows how long it is since he last went

up to his _campanile_! I shall hide myself in the cellar, under the vats

or under the wine-press, until he is awake; I shall not go in and

disturb the good old man in his sleep; probably he will have forgotten

my face, even; six years mean a great deal at his age! I shall find only

the tomb of a friend! And it is really childish of me," he added, "to

have come here to provoke the disgust that the sight of my father's

castle gives me."

Fabrizio now came to the little _piazza_ in front of the church; it was

with an astonishment bordering on delirium that he saw, on the second

stage of the ancient _campanile_, the long and narrow window lighted by

the little lantern of Priore Blanès. The Priore was in the habit of

leaving it there, when he climbed to the cage of planks which formed his

observatory, so that the light should not prevent him from reading the

face of his planisphere. This chart of the heavens was stretched over a

great jar of terra-cotta which had originally belonged to one of the

orange trees at the castle. In the opening, at the bottom of the jar,

burned the tiniest of lamps, the smoke of which was carried away from

the jar through a little tin pipe, and the shadow of the pipe indicated

the north on the chart. All these memories of things so simple in

themselves deluged Fabrizio's heart with emotions and filled him with

happiness.

Almost without thinking, he put his hands to his lips and gave the

little, short, low whistle which had formerly been the signal for his

admission. At once he heard several tugs given to the cord which, from

the observatory above, opened the latch of the _campanile_ door. He dashed

headlong up the staircase, moved to a transport of excitement; he found

the Priore in his wooden armchair in his accustomed place; his eye was

fixed on the little glass of a mural quadrant. With his left hand the

Priore made a sign to Fabrizio not to interrupt him in his observation;

a moment later, he wrote down a figure upon a playing card, then,

turning round in his chair, opened his arms to our hero who flung

himself into them, dissolved in tears. Priore Blanès was his true

father.

"I expected you," said Blanès, after the first warm words of affection.

Was the Priore speaking in his character as a diviner, or, indeed, as he

often thought of Fabrizio, had some astrological sign, by pure chance,

announced to him the young man's return?

"This means that my death is at hand," said Priore Blanès.

"What!" cried Fabrizio, quite overcome.

"Yes," the Priore went on in a serious but by no means sad tone: "five

months and a half, or six months and a half after I have seen you again,

my life having found its full complement of happiness will be

extinguished

Come face al mancar dell'alimento"

(as the little lamp is when its oil runs dry). "Before the supreme

moment, I shall probably pass a month or two without speaking, after

which I shall be received into Our Father's Bosom; provided always that

He finds that I have performed my duty in the post in which He has

placed me as a sentinel.

"But you, you are worn out with exhaustion, your emotion makes you ready

for sleep. Since I began to expect you, I have hidden a loaf of bread

and a bottle of brandy for you in the great chest which holds my

instruments. Give yourself that sustenance, and try to collect enough

strength to listen to me for a few moments longer. It lies in my power

to tell you a number of things before night shall have given place

altogether to-day; at present I see them a great deal more distinctly

than perhaps I shall see them to-morrow. For, my child, we are at all

times frail vessels, and we must always take that frailty into account.

To-morrow, it may be, the old man, the earthly man in me will be

occupied with preparations for my death, and to-morrow evening at nine

o'clock, you will have to leave me."

Fabrizio having obeyed him in silence, as was his custom:

"Then, it is true," the old man went on, "that when you tried to see

Waterloo you found nothing at first but a prison?"

"Yes, Father," replied Fabrizio in amazement.

"Well, that was a rare piece of good fortune, for, warned by my voice,

your soul can prepare itself for another prison, far different in its

austerity, far more terrible! Probably you will escape from it only by a

crime; but, thanks be to heaven, that crime will not have been committed

by you. Never fall into crime, however violently you may be tempted; I

seem to see that it will be a question of killing an innocent man, who,

without knowing it, usurps your rights; if you resist the violent

temptation which will seem to be justified by the laws of honour, your

life will be most happy in the eyes of men . . . and reasonably happy in

the eyes of the sage," he added after a moment's reflexion; "you will

die like me, my son, sitting upon a wooden seat, far from all luxury and

having seen the hollowness of luxury, and like me not having to reproach

yourself with any grave sin.

"And now, the discussion of your future state is at an end between us, I

could add nothing of any importance. It is in vain that I have tried to

see how long this imprisonment is to last; is it to be for six months, a

year, ten years? I have been able to discover nothing; apparently I have

made some error, and heaven has wished to punish me by the distress of

this uncertainty. I have seen only that after your prison, but I do not

know whether it is to be at the actual moment of your leaving it, there

will be what I call a crime; but, fortunately, I believe I can be sure

that it will not be committed by you. If you are weak enough to involve

yourself in this crime, all the rest of my calculations becomes simply

one long error. Then you will not die with peace in your soul, on a

wooden seat and clad in white." As he said these words, Priore Blanès

attempted to rise; it was then that Fabrizio noticed the ravages of

time; it took him nearly a minute to get upon his feet and to turn

towards Fabrizio. Our hero allowed him to do this, standing motionless

and silent. The Priore flung himself into his arms again and again; he

embraced him with extreme affection. After which he went on, with all

the gaiety of the old days: "Try to make a place for yourself among all

my instruments where you can sleep with some comfort; take my furs; you

will find several of great value which the Duchessa Sanseverina sent me

four years ago. She asked me for a forecast of your fate, which I took

care not to give her, while keeping her furs and her fine quadrant.

Every announcement of the future is a breach of the rule, and contains

this danger, that it may alter the event, in which case the whole

science falls to the ground, like a child's card-castle; and besides,

there were things that it was hard to say to that Duchessa who is always

so charming. But let me warn you, do not be startled in your sleep by

the bells, which will make a terrible din in your ear when the men come

to ring for the seven o'clock mass; later on, in the stage below, they

will set the big _campanone_ going, which shakes all my instruments.

To-day is the feast of San Giovita, Martyr and Soldier. As you know, the

little village of Grianta has the same patron as the great city of

Brescia, which, by the way, led to a most amusing mistake on the part of

my illustrious master, Giacomo Marini of Ravenna. More than once he

announced to me that I should have quite a fine career in the church; he

believed that I was to be the curate of the magnificent church of San

Giovita, at Brescia; I have been the curate of a little village of seven

hundred and fifty chimneys! But all has been for the best. I have seen,

and not ten years ago, that if I had been curate at Brescia, my destiny

would have been to be cast into prison on a hill in Moravia, the

Spielberg. To-morrow I shall bring you all manner of delicacies pilfered

from the great dinner which I am giving to all the clergy of the

district who are coming to sing at my high mass. I shall leave them down

below, but do not make any attempt to see me, do not come down to take

possession of the good things until you have heard me go out again. You

must not see me again _by daylight_, and as the sun sets to-morrow at

twenty-seven minutes past seven, I shall not come up to embrace you

until about eight, and it is necessary that you depart while the hours

are still numbered by nine, that is to say before the clock has struck

ten. Take care that you are not seen in the windows of the _campanile_:

the police have your description, and they are to some extent under the

orders of your brother, who is a famous tyrant. The Marchese del Dongo

is growing feeble," added Blanès with a sorrowful air, "and if he were

to see you again, perhaps he would let something pass to you, from hand

to hand. But such benefits, tainted with deceit, do not become a man

like yourself, whose strength will lie one day in his conscience. The

Marchese abhors his son Ascanio, and it is on that son that the five or

six millions that he possesses will devolve. That is justice. You, at

his death, will have a pension of 4,000 francs, and fifty ells of black

cloth for your servants' mourning."