The Charterhouse of Parma

longer feels, it seems to me, after thirty, and I am already a long way past that age. They will have told you that I was in love with Fabrizio, for I know that the rumour has gone round in this wicked court.” (Her eyes sparkled for the first time in this conversation, as she uttered the word “wicked.”) “I swear to you before God, and upon Fabrizio’s life, that never has there passed between him and me the tiniest thing which could not have borne the eyes of a third person. Nor shall I say to you that I love him exactly as a sister might; I love him instinctively, so to speak. I love in him his courage, so simple and so perfect that, one may say, he is not aware of it himself; I remember that this sort of admiration began on his return from Waterloo. He was still a boy then, for all his seventeen years; his great anxiety was to know whether he had really been present at the battle, and, if so, whether he could say that he had fought, when he had not marched to the attack of any enemy battery or column. It was during the serious discussions which we used to have together on this important subject that I began to see in him a perfect charm. His great soul revealed itself to me; what sophisticated falsehoods would a well-bred young man, in his place, have flaunted! Well then, if he is not happy I cannot be happy. There, that is a statement which well describes the state of my heart; if it is not the truth it is at any rate all of it that I see.” The Conte, encouraged by this tone of frankness and intimacy, tried to kiss her hand; she drew it back with a sort of horror. “The time is past,” she said to him; “I am a woman of thirty-seven, I find myself on the threshold of old age, I already feel all its discouragements, and perhaps I have even drawn near to the tomb. That is a terrible moment, by all one hears, and yet it seems to me that I desire it. I feel the worst symptom of old age; my heart is extinguished by this frightful misfortune, I can no longer love. I see in you now, dear Conte, only the shade of someone who was dear to me. I shall say more, it is gratitude, simply and solely, that makes me speak to you thus.”

“What is to become of me,” the Conte repeated, “of me who feel that I am attached to you more passionately than in the first days of our friendship, when I saw you at the Scala?”

“Let me confess to you one thing, dear friend, this talk of love bores me, and seems to me indecent. Come,” she said, trying to smile, but in vain, “courage! Be the man of spirit, the judicious man, the man of resource in all circumstances. Be with me what you really are in the eyes of strangers, the most able man and the greatest politician that Italy has produced for ages.”

The Conte rose, and paced the room in silence for some moments.

“Impossible, dear friend,” he said to her at length; “I am rent asunder by the most violent passion, and you ask me to consult my reason. There is no longer any reason for me!”

“Let us not speak of passion, I beg of you,” she said in a dry tone; and this was the first time, after two hours of talk, that her voice assumed any expression whatever. The Conte, in despair himself, sought to console her.

“He has betrayed me,” she cried without in any way considering the reasons for hope which the Conte was setting before her; “he has betrayed me in the most dastardly fashion!” Her deadly pallor ceased for a moment; but, even in this moment of violent excitement, the Conte noticed that she had not the strength to raise her arms.

“Great God! Can it be possible,” he thought, “that she is only ill? In that case, though, it would be the beginning of some very serious illness.” Then, filled with uneasiness, he proposed to call in the famous Razori, the leading physician in the place and in the whole of Italy.

“So you wish to give a stranger the pleasure of learning the whole extent of my despair?⁠ ⁠… Is that the counsel of a traitor or of a friend?” And she looked at him with strange eyes.

“It is all over,” he said to himself with despair, “she has no longer any love for me! And worse still; she no longer includes me even among the common men of honour.

“I may tell you,” the Conte went on, speaking with emphasis, “that I have been anxious above all things to obtain details of the arrest which has thrown us into despair, and the curious thing is that still I know nothing positive; I have had the constables at the nearest station questioned, they saw the prisoner arrive by the Castelnuovo road and received orders to follow his sediola. I at once sent off Bruno, whose zeal is as well known to you as his devotion; he has orders to go on from station to station until he finds out where and how Fabrizio was arrested.”

On hearing him utter Fabrizio’s name, the Duchessa was seized by a slight convulsion.

“Forgive me, my friend,” she said to the Conte as soon as she was able to speak; “these details interest me greatly, give me them all, let me have a clear understanding of the smallest circumstances.”

“Well, Signora,” the Conte went on, assuming a somewhat lighter air in the hope of distracting her a little, “I have a good mind to send a confidential messenger to Bruno and to order him to push on as far as Bologna; it was from there, perhaps, that our young friend was carried off. What is the