“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?”
“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 today.”
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:
“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
