During the moment of silence occupied by these reflections Fabrizio felt that already Clelia was seeking to free herself from his embrace.
“I feel no pain as yet,” he said to her, “but presently it will prostrate me at your feet; help me to die.”
“O my only friend!” was her answer, “I will die with thee.” She clasped him in her arms with a convulsive movement.
She was so beautiful, half unclad and in this state of intense passion, that Fabrizio could not resist an almost unconscious impulse. No resistance was offered him.
In the enthusiasm of passion and generous instincts which follows an extreme happiness, he said to her fatuously:
“I must not allow an unworthy falsehood to soil the first moments of our happiness: but for your courage, I should now be only a corpse, or writhing in atrocious pain, but I was going to begin my dinner when you came in, and I have not touched these dishes at all.”
Fabrizio dwelt upon these appalling images to conjure away the indignation which he could already read in Clelia’s eyes. She looked at him for some moments, while two violent and conflicting sentiments fought within her, then flung herself into his arms. They heard a great noise in the corridor, the three iron doors were violently opened and shut, voices shouted.
“Ah! If I had arms!” cried Fabrizio; “they made me give them up before they would let me in. No doubt they are coming to kill me. Farewell, my Clelia, I bless my death since it has been the cause of my happiness.” Clelia embraced him and gave him a little dagger with an ivory handle, the blade of which was scarcely longer than that of a penknife.
“Do not let yourself be killed,” she said to him, “and defend yourself to the last moment; if my uncle the Priore hears the noise, he is a man of courage and virtue, he will save you.” So saying she rushed to the door.
“If you are not killed,” she said with exaltation, holding the bolt of the door in her hand and turning her head towards him, “let yourself die of hunger rather than touch anything. Carry this bread always on you.” The noise came nearer, Fabrizio seized her round the body, stepped into her place by the door, and, opening it with fury, dashed down the six steps of the wooden staircase. He had in his hand the little dagger with the ivory handle, and was on the point of piercing with it the waistcoat of General Fontana, Aide-de-Camp to the Prince, who recoiled with great alacrity, crying in a panic: “But I am coming to save you, Signor del Dongo.”
Fabrizio went up the six steps, called into the cell: “Fontana has come to save me”; then, returning to the General, on the wooden steps, discussed matters coldly with him. He begged him at great length to pardon him a movement of anger. “They wished to poison me; the dinner that is there on my table is poisoned; I had the sense not to touch it, but I may admit to you that this procedure has given me a shock. When I heard you on the stair, I thought that they were coming to finish me off with their dirks. Signor Generale, I request you to order that no one shall enter my cell: they would remove the poison, and our good Prince must know all.”
The General, very pale and completely taken aback, passed on the orders suggested by Fabrizio to the picked body of gaolers who were following him: these men, greatly dismayed at finding the poison discovered, hastened downstairs; they went first, ostensibly so as not to delay the Prince’s Aide-de-Camp on the narrow staircase, actually in order to escape themselves and vanish. To the great surprise of General Fontana, Fabrizio kept him for fully a quarter of an hour on the little iron staircase which ran round the pillar of the ground floor; he wished to give Clelia time to hide on the floor above.
It was the Duchessa who, after various wild attempts, had managed to get General Fontana sent to the citadel; it was only by chance that she succeeded. On leaving Conte Mosca, as alarmed as she was herself, she had hastened to the Palace. The Princess, who had a marked repugnance for energy, which seemed to her vulgar, thought her mad and did not appear at all disposed to attempt any unusual measures on her behalf. The Duchessa, out of her senses, was weeping hot tears, she could do nothing but repeat, every moment:
“But, Ma’am, in a quarter of an hour Fabrizio will be dead, poisoned.”
Seeing the Princess remain perfectly composed, the Duchessa became mad with grief. She completely overlooked the moral reflection which would not have escaped a woman brought up in one of those Northern religions which allow self-examination: “I was the first to use poison, and I am perishing by poison.” In Italy reflections of that sort, in moments of passion, appear in the poorest of taste, as a pun would seem in Paris in similar circumstances.
The Duchessa, in desperation, risked going into the drawing-room where she found the Marchese Crescenzi, who was in waiting that day. On her return to Parma he had thanked her effusively for the place of Cavaliere d’onore, to which, but for her, he would never have had any claim. Protestations of unbounded devotion had not been lacking on his part. The
