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:
