“Besides, once I have uttered the fatal word ‘jealousy,’ my course is traced for me forever. If on the contrary I say nothing today, I can speak tomorrow, I remain master of the situation.” The crisis was too acute; the Conte would have gone mad had it continued. He was comforted for a few moments, his attention came to rest on the anonymous letter. From whose hand could it have come? There followed then a search for possible names, and a personal judgment of each, which created a diversion. In the end, the Conte remembered a gleam of malice that had darted from the eyes of the Sovereign, when it had occurred to him to say, towards the end of the audience: “Yes, dear friend, let us be agreed on this point: the pleasures and cares of the most amply rewarded ambition, even of unbounded power, are as nothing compared with the intimate happiness that is afforded by relations of affection and love. I am a man first, and a Prince afterwards, and, when I have the good fortune to be in love, my mistress speaks to the man and not to the Prince.” The Conte compared that moment of malicious joy with the phrase in the letter; “It is thanks to your profound sagacity that we see this State so well governed.” “Those are the Prince’s words!” he exclaimed, “in a courtier they would be a gratuitous piece of imprudence; the letter comes from His Highness.”
This problem solved, the faint joy caused by the pleasure of guessing the solution was soon effaced by the cruel spectre of the charming graces of Fabrizio, which returned afresh. It was like an enormous weight that fell back on the heart of the unhappy man. “What does it matter from whom the anonymous letter comes?” he cried with fury, “does the fact that it discloses to me exist any the less? This caprice may alter my whole life,” he said, as though to excuse himself for being so mad. “At the first moment, if she cares for him in a certain way, she will set off with him for Belgirate, for Switzerland, for the ends of the earth. She is rich, and besides, even if she had to live on a few louis a year, what would that matter to her? Did she not admit to me, not a week ago, that her palazzo, so well arranged, so magnificent, bored her? Novelty is essential to so youthful a spirit! And with what simplicity does this new form of happiness offer itself! She will be carried away before she has begun to think of the danger, before she has begun to think of being sorry for me! And yet I am so wretched!” cried the Conte, bursting into tears.
He had sworn to himself that he would not go to the Duchessa’s that evening; never had his eyes thirsted so to gaze on her. At midnight he presented himself at her door; he found her alone with her nephew; at ten o’clock she had sent all her guests away and had closed her door.
At the sight of the tender intimacy that prevailed between these two creatures, and of the Duchessa’s artless joy, a frightful difficulty arose before the eyes of the Conte, and one that was quite unforeseen. He had never thought of it during his long deliberation in the picture gallery: how was he to conceal his jealousy?
Not knowing what pretext to adopt, he pretended that he had found the Prince that evening excessively ill-disposed towards him, contradicting all his assertions, and so forth. He had the distress of seeing the Duchessa barely listen to him, and pay no attention to these details which, forty-eight hours earlier, would have plunged her in an endless stream of discussion. The Conte looked at Fabrizio: never had that handsome Lombard face appeared to him so simple and so noble! Fabrizio paid more attention than the Duchessa to the difficulties which he was relating.
“Really,” he said to himself, “that head combines extreme good-nature with the expression of a certain artless and tender joy which is irresistible. It seems to be saying: ‘Love and the happiness it brings are the only serious things in this world.’ And yet, when one comes to some detail which requires thought, the light wakes in his eyes and surprises one, and one is left dumbfounded.
“Everything is simple in his eyes, because everything is seen from above. Great God! how is one to fight against an enemy like this? And after all, what is life without Gina’s love? With what rapture she seems to be listening to the charming sallies of that mind, which is so boyish and must, to a woman, seem without a counterpart in the world!”
An atrocious thought gripped the Conte like a sudden cramp. “Shall I stab him here, before her face, and then kill myself?”
He took a turn through the room, his legs barely supporting him, but his hand convulsively gripping the hilt of his dagger. Neither of the others paid any attention to what he might be doing. He announced that he was going to give an order to his servant; they did not even hear him; the Duchessa was laughing tenderly at something Fabrizio had just said to her. The Conte went up to a lamp in the outer room, and looked to see whether the point of his dagger was well sharpened. “One must behave graciously, and with perfect manners
