“My friend,” said he to the serving-man, “I am not a common thief, for I am going to begin by giving you twenty francs; but I am obliged to borrow your horse. I shall be killed if I do not clear out at once. The four brothers Riva, those great hunters whom you doubtless know, are on my heels. They have just caught me in their sister’s bedroom. I jumped out of the window, and here I am. They have turned out into the forest, with their hounds and their guns. I had hidden myself in that big hollow chestnut4 tree because I saw one of them cross the road; their hounds will soon be on my track. I am going to get on your horse and gallop a league beyond Como; thence I shall go to Milan, to cast myself at the viceroy’s feet. If you consent with a good grace, I’ll leave your horse at the posting-house, with two napoleons for yourself. If you make the slightest difficulty I shall kill you with these pistols. If, when I am once off, you set the gendarmes5 after me, my cousin, the brave Count Alari, the Emperor’s equerry, will see to your bones being broken for you.”
Fabrizio invented his speech as he delivered it, which[182] he did in the most gentle manner. “For the rest,” he said, laughing, “my name is no secret. I am the Marchesino Ascanio del Dongo. My home is close by, at Grianta. Now, then,” he cried, raising his voice, “let the horse go!” The stupefied servant said never a word. Fabrizio put up the pistol he had held in his left hand, laid hold of the bridle, which the man had dropped, sprang on the horse, and cantered off. When he had ridden three hundred paces he perceived he had forgotten to give him the twenty francs he had promised. He pulled up; the road was still empty, except for the servant, who was galloping6 after him. He waved him forward with his handkerchief, and when he was within fifty paces threw a handful of silver coins upon the road, and started off again. Looking back from a distance, he saw the servant picking up the silver. “Now, that really is a sensible man,” said Fabrizio, laughing; “not a useless word did he say.” He rode rapidly southward, halted at a lonely house, and started forth7 again a few hours later. By two o’clock in the morning he had reached the Lago Maggiore. He soon saw his boat, standing8 on and off. He made the signal agreed on, and she approached the shore. He could find no peasant with whom he might leave the horse, so he turned the noble creature loose, and three hours later, he was at Belgirate. Once in a friendly country, he took some repose9. He was full of joy, for he had been thoroughly10 successful. Dare we mention the true cause of his delight? His tree was growing splendidly, and his soul had been refreshed by the deep emotion he had felt in Father Blanès’s arms. “Does he really believe,” said he to himself, “in all the predictions he has made to me? Or is it that as my brother has given me the reputation of a Jacobin, a man who knows neither truth nor law, and capable of any crime, he simply desired to induce me to resist the temptation of taking the life of some villain11 who may do me an evil turn?” The day after the next, Fabrizio was at Parma, where he vastly entertained the duchess and the count by relating with the greatest exactness, as was his wont12, the whole story of his journey.
When Fabrizio arrived, he found the porter and all the[183] servants at the Palazzo Sanseverina garbed13 in the deepest mourning.
“Whose loss do we mourn?” he inquired of the duchess.
“That excellent man who was known as my husband has just died at Baden. He has left me the palace—that was a settled thing; but, as a proof of his regard, he has added a legacy14 of three hundred thousand francs, and this places me in a serious difficulty. I will not give it up for the benefit of his niece, the Marchesa Raversi, who plays me the vilest16 of tricks every day of her life. You, who understand art, must really find me some good sculptor17, and I will put up a monument to the duke which shall cost three hundred thousand francs.” The count began to tell stories about the Raversi.
“In vain have I striven to soften18 her by kindness,” said the duchess. “As for the duke’s nephews, I have had them all made colonels or generals, and in return, never a month passes without their sending me some abominable19 anonymous20 letter. I have been obliged to hire a secretary to read all my letters of that description.”
“And their anonymous letters are the least of all their sins,” continued Count Mosca. “They carry on a regular manufacture of vile15 accusations21. Twenty times over I ought to have had the whole set brought before the courts, and your Excellency” (turning to Fabrizio) “will guess whether my worthy22 judges would have condemned23 them or not.”
“Well, that’s what spoils all the rest, to me,” replied Fabrizio, with that artlessness that sounded so comical at court. “I would much rather see them sentenced by magistrates24 who would judge them according to their own consciences.”
“If you, who travel to improve your mind, would give me the addresses of a few such magistrates, you would do me a real kindness. I would write to them before I went to bed to-night.”
“If I were a minister this lack of upright judges would wound my vanity.”
“But it strikes me,” rejoined the count, “that your Excellency,[184] who is so fond of the French, and once upon a time even lent them the help of your invincible25 arm, is forgetting one of their great maxims26, ‘It is better to kill the devil than that the devil should kill you?’ I should very much like to see how anybody could govern these eager beings who read the history of the French Revolution all day long, with judges who would acquit27 the persons I accused. They would end by acquitting28 rascals29 whose guilt30 was perfectly31 evident, and every man of them would think himself a Brutus. But I have a bone to pick with you. Does not your sensitive soul feel some remorse32 concerning that fine horse, rather too lean, which you have just turned loose on the shores of the Maggiore?”
“I certainly intend,” said Fabrizio very gravely, “to send the owner of the horse whatever sum may be necessary to pay him the expenses of advertising33, and any others he may have incurred34 in recovering the beast from the peasants who must have found it. I propose to read the Milanese newspaper carefully, so as to find any advertisement touching35 a strayed horse. I am quite familiar with the appearance of this one.”
“He really is primitive,” said the count to the duchess. “And what would have become of your Excellency,” he continued, laughing, “if, while you were galloping along on that horse’s back, he had happened to stumble? You would have found yourself at the Spielberg, my dear young nephew, and with all my credit, I should barely have contrived36 to get some thirty pounds struck off the weight of the shackles37 on each of your legs. In that delightful38 retreat you would have spent quite ten years; your legs would possibly have swelled39 and mortified40. Then they would have been neatly41 cut off for you.”
“Ah, for pity’s sake, don’t carry the wretched story any further,” broke in the duchess with tears in her eyes. “He is back, and safe——”
“And I am even more glad of it than you, you may be sure of that,” responded the minister very gravely. “But pray, since this boy was set on going into Lombardy, why did he not ask me to get him a passport in a fitting name?[185] The moment I heard of his arrest I should have hurried off to Milan, and my friends there would have been willing enough to close their eyes and pretend their police had taken up one of the Prince of Parma’s subjects. The story of your trip is entertaining and amusing enough, I am quite ready to admit that,” the count continued, and his tone grew less gloomy. “Your leap on to the high-road decidedly enchants42 me. But between ourselves, since that serving-man held your life in his hands, you had a right to deprive him of his. We propose to raise your Excellency to a brilliant position—at least, such are the orders this lady gives me, and I do not think my bitterest enemies can accuse me of ever having neglected her commands. What a heartbreak it would have been to her if that lean horse of yours had happened to make a false step while you were riding a steeple-chase upon his back! It would almost have been better if he had broken your neck outright43.”
“Because tragic events are happening all around us,” replied the count, and he, too, was moved. “This is not France, where everything ends with a song or a sentence of imprisonment45, and I really am wrong to laugh when I talk to you of such matters. Well, nephew mine, granting that I find a chance some day of making you a bishop46—for, frankly47, I can not begin with making you Archbishop of Parma, as the duchess here would very reasonably have me do. Supposing you were settled in your bishopric, and far from the sound of our wise counsels; tell us what your policy would be.”
“I would kill the devil sooner than let him kill me, as my friends the French so sensibly say,” answered Fabrizio, with shining eyes. “I would hold the position you gave me by every means, even with my pistols. I have read the story of our ancestor, who built Grianta, in the Del Dongo Genealogy48. Toward the end of his life his good friend Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, sent him to inspect a fortified49 castle on our lake. There was some fear of a fresh invasion by the Swiss. ‘I really must send a civil word to the commandant[186] of the fortress50,’ said the duke, just as he was dismissing him. He wrote two lines, and gave him the letter; then he took it back. ‘It will be more courteous51 if I seal it,’ said the prince. Vespasiano del Dongo departed. But as he was sailing over the lake he remembered an old Greek story, for he was a learned man. He opened his good master’s letter, and found it was an order to the commandant of the fortress to put him to death the moment he arrived. So absorbed had Sforza been in his effort to make the deception52 he had been playing on our ancestor life-like, that he had left a considerable space between the last line of his note and his signature. Vespasiano del Dongo inserted an order to recognise him as governor-general of all the lake castles, in the blank space, and tore the upper part of the letter off. When he had reached the fortress, and his authority had been duly acknowledged, he threw the commandant down a well, declared war on Sforza, and, after a few years, exchanged his strong castle for the huge estates which have enriched every branch of our family, and which will one day benefit me to the extent of four thousand francs a year.”
“You talk like an academician!” cried the count laughingly. “You have told the story of a splendid prank53. But it is not once in ten years that the delightful opportunity for doing such startling things presents itself. A man who may be stupid at times, but is watchful54 and prudent55 always, may often enjoy the pleasure of outwitting men of imagination. It was a freak of the imagination that led Napoleon to put himself into the hands of the prudent John Bull, instead of trying to escape to America. John Bull sat in his counting-house, and laughed at the Emperor’s letter and his reference to Themistocles. The mean Sancho Panzas of this world will always triumph over the noble-hearted Don Quixotes. If you will consent not to do anything extraordinary, I don’t doubt you may be a highly respected, if not a highly respectable, bishop. Nevertheless, I hold to my previous observation. In this matter of the horse your Excellency behaved very foolishly. You have been within an ace2 of imprisonment for life.”
[187]
Fabrizio shuddered56 at the words. He sat on, plunged57 in a deep astonishment58. “Was that the imprisonment which threatens me?” he mused59. “Is that the crime I was not to commit?” Father Blanès’s predictions, the prophetic value of which he had despised, began to assume all the importance of real omens60 in his eyes.
“Well,” cried the duchess, quite surprised, “what is the matter with you? The count has cast you into a very gloomy reverie.”
“The light of a new truth has fallen upon my mind, and instead of rebelling against it, I am adopting it. It is quite true. I have been very near a prison that never would have opened its doors again. But the servant lad looked so handsome in his English livery it would have been a sin to kill him.”
The count was delighted with his air of youthful wisdom.
“He is satisfactory in every way,” he said, looking at the duchess. “I must tell you, my boy, that you have made a conquest, and perhaps the most desirable one you could possibly have made.”
“Ha!” thought Fabrizio, “now I shall hear some jest about little Marietta.” He was mistaken. The count went on: “Your evangelic simplicity61 has won the heart of our venerable archbishop, Father Landriani. One of these days you will be made a grand vicar, and the beauty of the joke is that the three present grand vicars, all of them men of parts and hard-working, and two of them, I believe, grand vicars before you were born, are about to send a fine letter to their archbishop, begging you may take rank above them all. These gentlemen base this request on your virtuous62 qualities, in the first place, and in the second, on the fact that you are great-nephew to the famous Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo. When I heard of the respect your virtues63 had inspired, I instantly promoted the senior grand vicar’s nephew to a captaincy. He had remained a lieutenant64 ever since he had served at the siege of Tarragona, under Marshal Suchet.”
“Go at once, just as you are, in your travelling dress, and pay an affectionate call on your archbishop,” exclaimed[188] the duchess. “Tell him all about your sister’s marriage. When he knows she is going to be a duchess he will think you more apostolic than ever. Of course, you will forget everything the count has just confided65 to you about your approaching appointment.”
Fabrizio hurried off to the archiepiscopal palace. His behaviour there was both modest and simple. This was a tone he could assume only too easily. For him the effort was when he had to play the nobleman. While he was listening to Monsignore Landriani’s somewhat lengthy66 dissertations67 he kept saying to himself, “Ought I to have fired my pistol at the man-servant who was leading the lean horse?” His reason replied in the affirmative. But he could not reconcile his heart to the thought of that handsome young fellow dropping disfigured from his saddle.
“That prison which would have swallowed me up if the horse had stumbled—was it the prison with which so many omens threaten me?”
The question was of sovereign importance to him. And the archbishop was enchanted68 with his air of deep attention.
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1
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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ace
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| n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的 | |
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bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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gendarmes
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| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
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6
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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7
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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10
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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11
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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garbed
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| v.（尤指某类人穿的特定）服装，衣服，制服( garb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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15
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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vilest
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| adj.卑鄙的( vile的最高级 )；可耻的；极坏的；非常讨厌的 | |
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sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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18
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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19
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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20
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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21
accusations
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| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
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22
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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24
magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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26
maxims
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| n.格言，座右铭( maxim的名词复数 ) | |
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acquit
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| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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acquitting
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的现在分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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29
rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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shackles
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| 手铐( shackle的名词复数 )； 脚镣； 束缚； 羁绊 | |
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38
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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39
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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40
mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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41
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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enchants
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| 使欣喜，使心醉( enchant的第三人称单数 )； 用魔法迷惑 | |
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43
outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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44
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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45
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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46
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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47
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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48
genealogy
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| n.家系，宗谱 | |
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49
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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50
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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51
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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52
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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53
prank
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| n.开玩笑，恶作剧；v.装饰；打扮；炫耀自己 | |
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54
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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55
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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56
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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57
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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58
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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59
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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60
omens
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| n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 ) | |
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61
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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62
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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63
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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64
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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65
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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66
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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67
dissertations
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| 专题论文，学位论文( dissertation的名词复数 ) | |
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68
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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