“I am sorry, sir, but I must do my duty and arrest you, General Fabio Conti.”
Fabrizio thought that the serjeant was making a joke at his expense when he addressed him as “General.” “You shall pay for this!” he said to himself. He examined the men in plain clothes and watched for a favourable moment to jump down from the carriage and dash across the fields.
The Contessa smiled—a smile of despair, I fancy—then said to the serjeant:
“But, my dear serjeant, is it this boy of sixteen that you take for General Conti?”
“Aren’t you the General’s daughter?” asked the serjeant.
“Look at my father,” said the Contessa, pointing to Fabrizio. The constables went into fits of laughter.
“Show me your passports and don’t argue the point,” said the serjeant, stung by the general mirth.
“These ladies never take passports to go to Milan,” said the coachman with a calm and philosophical air: “they are coming from their castle of Grianta. This lady is the Signora Contessa Pietranera; the other is the Signora Marchesa del Dongo.”
The serjeant, completely disconcerted, went forward to the horses’ heads and there took counsel with his men. The conference had lasted for fully five minutes when the Contessa asked if the gentlemen would kindly allow the carriage to be moved forward a few yards and stopped in the shade; the heat was overpowering, though it was only eleven o’clock in the morning. Fabrizio, who was looking out most attentively in all directions, seeking a way of escape, saw coming out of a little path through the fields and on to the high road a girl of fourteen or fifteen, who was crying timidly into her handkerchief. She came forward walking between two constables in uniform, and, three paces behind her, also between constables, stalked a tall, lean man who assumed an air of dignity, like a Prefect following a procession.
“Where did you find them?” asked the serjeant, for the moment completely drunk.
“Running away across the fields, with not a sign of a passport about them.”
The serjeant appeared to lose his head altogether; he had before him five prisoners, instead of the two that he was expected to have. He went a little way off, leaving only one man to guard the male prisoner who put on the air of majesty, and another to keep the horses from moving.
“Wait,” said the Contessa to Fabrizio, who had already jumped out of the carriage. “Everything will be settled in a minute.”
They heard a constable exclaim: “What does it matter! If they have no passports, they’re fair game whoever they are.” The serjeant seemed not quite so certain; the name of Contessa Pietranera made him a little uneasy: he had known the general, and had not heard of his death. “The General is not the man to let it pass, if I arrest his wife without good reason,” he said to himself.
During this deliberation, which was prolonged, the Contessa had entered into conversation with the girl, who was standing on the road, and in the dust by the side of the carriage; she had been struck by her beauty.
“The sun will be bad for you, Signorina. This gallant soldier,” she went on, addressing the constable who was posted at the horses’ heads, “will surely allow you to get into the carriage.”
Fabrizio, who was wandering round the vehicle, came up to help the girl to get in. Her foot was already on the step, her arm supported by Fabrizio, when the imposing man, who was six yards behind the carriage, called out in a voice magnified by the desire to preserve his dignity:
“Stay in the road; don’t get into a carriage that does not belong to you!”
Fabrizio had not heard this order; the girl, instead of climbing into the carriage, tried to get down again, and, as Fabrizio continued to hold her up, fell into his arms. He smiled; she blushed a deep crimson; they stood for a moment looking at one another after the girl had disengaged herself from his arms.
“She would be a charming prison companion,” Fabrizio said to himself. “What profound thought lies behind that brow! She would know how to love.”
The serjeant came up to them with an air of authority: “Which of these ladies is named Clelia Conti?”
“I am,” said the girl.
“And I,” cried the elderly man, “am General Fabio Conti, Chamberlain to H.S.H. the Prince of Parma; I consider it most irregular that a man in my position should be hunted down like a thief.”
“The day before yesterday, when you embarked at the harbour of Como, did you not tell the police inspector who asked for your passport to go away? Very well, his orders today are that you are not to go away.”
“I had already pushed off my boat, I was in a hurry, there was a storm threatening, a man not in uniform shouted to me from the quay to put back into harbour, I told him my name and went on.”
“And this morning you escaped from Como.”
“A man like myself does not take a passport when he goes from Milan to visit the lake. This morning, at Como, I was told that I should be arrested at the gate. I left the town on foot with my daughter; I hoped to find on the road some carriage that would take me to Milan, where the first thing I shall do will certainly be to call on the General Commanding the Province and lodge a complaint.”
A heavy weight seemed to have been lifted from the serjeant’s mind.
“Very well, General, you are under arrest and I shall take you to Milan. And you, who are you?” he said to Fabrizio.
“My
