Toward midnight one of those thick white fogs which the Po sometimes casts over its banks rose over the town, and thence to the esplanade and the bastions, in the midst of which stands the great tower of the citadel5. Fabrizio thought he perceived that the little acacias round the soldiers’ gardens, at the foot of the great wall below, were no longer visible. “This is capital!” thought he to himself.
A little after the stroke of half-past twelve the tiny lamp appeared in the aviary6 window. Fabrizio was ready; he crossed himself, then he fastened the thin rope which was to carry him down the twenty-five feet between his room and the platform on which the palace stood to his bed. He reached the roof of the guard-room occupied, since the previous night, by the two hundred extra men of whom we have spoken, without any mishap7. Unluckily, at that hour—a quarter to one—the soldiers were not yet asleep, and while Fabrizio stepped stealthily over the great curved roof tiles he heard them saying that the devil was on their roof, and that they must try and shoot him with a musket8. Some voices declared this wish to be exceedingly impious; others said that if they fired a shot without killing10 anything the governor would put them all in prison for having alarmed the garrison11 unnecessarily. All this fine discussion caused Fabrizio to hurry over the roof as quickly as he could, and thus make much more noise than he might have done. As a matter of fact, when he passed, clinging to his rope, in front of the windows, and fortunately for him, owing to the projection12 of the roof, some four or five feet away from them, they were all bristling13 with bayonets. Some people have declared that Fabrizio, who was always a wild fellow, took it into his head to play the devil’s part, and threw a handful of sequins to the soldiers. He certainly did scatter14 sequins all over the floor of his room and across the platform, as he passed from the Farnese Tower to the parapet, on the chance of their distracting the attention of the soldiers who might try to pursue him.
Once he had reached the platform, surrounded by sentries15, who, as a rule, shouted a complete sentence, “All’s well round my post,” every quarter of an hour, he moved toward the western parapet, and looked about for the new stone.
What appears incredible, and might induce one to doubt the facts, if their consequences had not been witnessed by a whole city, is that the sentries along the parapet did not catch sight of Fabrizio and lay hands on him. It is true that the fog to which we have referred was beginning to rise, and Fabrizio has related that when he was on the platform the fog seemed to him to have reached half-way up the Farnese Tower. But it was not a thick fog, and he could clearly distinguish the sentries, some of whom were moving about. He used to add that, driven by some supernatural force, he placed himself boldly between two sentries, not very far from each other, and quietly unwound the long rope he was carrying slung16 round his body, and which got entangled17 twice over. It took him a long time to disentangle it, and lay it out upon the parapet. He could hear the soldiers talking all round him, and was quite resolved to stab the first who came near him. “I was not in the least agitated,” he used to add; “I seemed to myself to be performing some ceremony.”
At last he cleared his rope, and fastened it into an opening in the parapet, made for the rain-water to run through. Then he climbed on to the parapet, and prayed earnestly to God. Next, like a hero of the days of chivalry18, he thought for an instant of Clelia. “What a different man I am,” said he to himself, “from the careless and libertine19 Fabrizio who came into this place nine months ago!” At last he began to let himself down the tremendous height. He moved mechanically, he said, as he would have done if he had been coming down before friends, in broad daylight, to win a wager20. About midway he suddenly felt the strength in his arms fail; he even thinks he lost his grip of the rope for a moment. But he soon grasped it again. Perhaps, he said afterward21, he held on to the brambles against which he was slipping and which tore him. Every now and then he felt a most agonizing22 pain between his shoulders, which almost took away his breath. The undulating motion was most trying; he was constantly being swung away from the rope against the brambles; he was touched by several birds of considerable size, which he disturbed, and which blundered against him as they flew away. He took the first of these for people in pursuit of him, who were descending23 from the citadel in the same manner, and made ready to defend himself. At last he reached the base of the great tower, unhurt, except that his hands were bleeding. He related that over the lower half of the tower the outward slope of the wall was of great assistance to him. He rubbed against it as he went down, and the plants growing between the stones held him up. When he reached the bottom he fell on an acacia in the soldiers’gardens, which, looking at it from above, he had taken to be four or five feet high, but which really was fifteen or twenty. A drunken man who was sleeping under it took him for a robber. When Fabrizio fell out of this tree he almost put out his left arm. He began to hurry toward the rampart, but according to his own story his legs seemed made of wadding; he had no strength left. In spite of the danger he sat down, and drank a little brandy which still remained to him. For some minutes he slept, so soundly as not to remember where he was. When he woke up he thought he was in his room, and could not understand how it was he saw trees. At last the awful truth dawned on him. Instantly he moved toward the rampart, and reached it by a wide flight of steps. A sentry24 was snoring in his box close by. He found a cannon25 lying in the grass, and fastened his third rope to it. It was a little too short, and he fell into a muddy ditch, with about a foot of water in it. Just as he was getting up, and trying to make out where he was, he felt himself seized by two men; for a moment he was alarmed, but soon, close to his ear, and in a very low voice, he heard the words, “Ah, monsignore, monsignore!” He realized dimly that the men came from the duchess, and instantly he fainted dead away. A little while after he felt himself being carried by men who walked swiftly and silently. Then they stopped, which terrified him very much. But he had no strength either to speak or to open his eyes. He felt somebody embrace him, and suddenly he recognised the perfume of the duchess’s clothes. That perfume revived him; he was able to open his eyes and say “Ah, dearest friend!” and then he fainted again.
The faithful Bruno, with a squad26 of police officers, all devoted27 to the count, was waiting two hundred paces off. The count himself was hiding in a little house close to the spot where the duchess was waiting. He would not have hesitated, had it been necessary, to draw his sword, assisted by several half-pay officers, his own intimate friends. He considered himself bound to save Fabrizio’s life. He believed him to be in the most imminent28 danger, and felt the prince would have signed his pardon if he (Mosca) had not committed the folly29 of endeavouring to save his sovereign from writing another.
Ever since midnight the duchess, surrounded by men armed to the teeth, had been wandering up and down, in dead silence, close to the citadel ramparts. She could not stay quiet for an instant; she expected to have to fight to save Fabrizio from his pursuers. Her fervent30 imagination had inspired her with a hundred precautions, too long to mention here, and all of them incredibly imprudent. More than eighty persons are calculated to have been on foot that night, expecting to fight on some extraordinary occasion. Fortunately Ferrante and Ludovico were at the head of the business, and the Minister of Police was not hostile. But the count himself remarked that nobody betrayed the duchess, and, in his ministerial capacity, he knew nothing at all.
The duchess utterly31 lost her head when she saw Fabrizio. First of all she clasped him in her arms, and then, when she saw he was covered with blood, she grew beside herself with alarm. The blood had flowed from Fabrizio’s hands, but she thought he was dangerously hurt. Helped by one of her servants, she was taking off his coat, to dress his wounds, when Ludovico, who fortunately was present, insisted on placing the duchess and Fabrizio in one of the little carriages, which had been kept hidden in a garden near the gate of the city, and they started full gallop32 to get across the Po at Sacca. Ferrante, with twenty well-armed men, formed the rear-guard, and had staked his own life that he would stop all pursuit. The count did not leave the vicinity of the citadel—and then alone and on foot—till two hours later, when he saw that nothing was stirring. “Now,” said he, “I am steeped in high treason,” and he was half wild with joy.
Ludovico hit upon the excellent idea of putting a young surgeon attached to the duchess’s household, and who was very much of Fabrizio’s build, into a carriage.
“Fly,” said he to him, “toward Bologna! Blunder as much as ever you can, try to get yourself arrested, then refuse to give clear answers, and end by owning that you are Fabrizio del Dongo. Above all things, gain time. Use all[411] your skill to be as stupid as you can. You will get off with a month’s imprisonment33, and the duchess will give you fifty sequins.”
“Does anybody think of money when it’s a question of serving the duchess?”
Off he started, and was arrested some hours later, to the deep delight of General Fabio Conti and Rassi, who saw his barony take to itself wings and fly away together with Fabrizio’s peril34.
It was not till six o’clock in the morning that the escape became known in the citadel, and it was ten before anybody dared tell the prince. So well had the duchess been served, that in spite of Fabrizio’s profound slumber35, which she took for a dangerous fainting fit, and consequently stopped the carriage three times over, she was crossing the river in a boat as the clock struck four. Relays of horses awaited them on the farther bank; they drove two more leagues very swiftly, then they were stopped for more than an hour to verify their passports. The duchess had passports of every kind, both for herself and Fabrizio, but she was half mad that day; she took it into her head to give ten napoleons to the Austrian police official; she took his hand and burst into tears. The official, very much startled, did all his verification over again. They now took post-horses. The duchess paid so lavishly36, that in a country, where every stranger is looked at doubtfully, she aroused universal suspicion. Once more Ludovico came to the rescue; he declared the duchess was mad with grief on account of the long-continued fever of young Count Mosca, the son of the Prime Minister of Parma, whom she was taking to Pavia, to consult the doctors there.
It was not till they were ten leagues beyond the Po that the prisoner thoroughly38 woke up. One of his shoulders was dislocated, and he was covered with abrasions39. The duchess was still behaving in such an extraordinary fashion that the host of the village inn in which they dined thought he had to do with one of the imperial princesses, and would have rendered her the honours he believed to be her due, when Ludovico warned him that the princess would certainly[412] have him thrown into prison if he ventured to have the bells rung.
At last, toward six o’clock in the evening, they reached Piedmontese soil. Not till then was Fabrizio in perfect safety. He was conveyed to a little village, standing40 off the high-road, his hands were dressed; he slept for a few hours longer.
It was at this village that the duchess indulged in an action which was not only a hateful one from the moral point of view, but the effect of which on the tranquillity41 of the remainder of her life was grievous in the extreme. Some weeks before Fabrizio’s escape, on a day when the whole of Parma had betaken itself to the citadel gates to try and catch sight of the scaffold being erected42 in the courtyard for his benefit, the duchess had shown Ludovico, who had become her household factotum43, the secret whereby one of the stones forming the bottom of the famous reservoir attached to the Palazzo Sanseverina, that work of the thirteenth century to which we have already referred, might be driven out of its skilfully44 concealed45 iron bed. While Fabrizio was sleeping soundly in the little village tavern46, the duchess sent for Ludovico. So strange were the glances she cast at him that he thought she had lost her reason.
“No doubt you expect me to give you several thousand francs,” said she. “Well, I am not going to do that. You are a poet; you would soon have squandered47 all the money. I shall give you the little property called the Ricciarda, a league from Casal Maggiore.” Beside himself with delight, Ludovico cast himself at her feet, protesting, in heartfelt accents, that it was not for the sake of earning money that he had helped to save Monsignore Fabrizio, and that he had always loved him with a special affection since the time when he had been third coachman to the duchess, and had had the honour of driving his carriage. When the man, who really was a faithful-hearted fellow, thought he had sufficiently48 encroached on this great lady’s time, he would have taken his leave, but she, with flashing eyes, said to him, “Stay here!”
She was walking silently up and down the tavern room, from time to time casting the most extraordinary glances on Ludovico. At last the man, perceiving no apparent end to her strange march, ventured to address his mistress:
“The signora has granted me such an excessive gift, so far beyond anything a poor man like myself could have imagined, and above all so immensely superior to the poor services I have had the honour of doing her, that I think I can not, in all conscience, keep the lands of the Ricciarda. I have the honour to return the property to the signora, and to entreat49 her to grant me a pension of four hundred francs a year.”
“How many times in your life,” said she to him, with the gloomiest air of pride, “how many times have you heard it said that I relinquished50 a plan I had once mentioned?”
Having said these words, the duchess walked up and down again for some minutes, then, stopping suddenly short, she cried:
“It is by accident, and because he won that little girl’s favour, that Fabrizio’s life has been saved. If he had not made himself charming he would have died; can you deny me that?” she cried, sailing down upon Ludovico, her eyes flashing with the darkest rage. Ludovico stepped several paces backward, and concluded she was certainly mad, a fact which inspired him with serious alarm regarding his ownership of the Ricciarda.
“Well, well,” said the duchess, changing suddenly to the gentlest and most cheerful tone, “I desire my good people at Sacca shall have a delightful51 day—one they shall remember for ages. You shall go back to Sacca. Have you any objection? Do you think you will be in any danger?”
“Very little, signora. Nobody in Sacca will ever let out that I have been in attendance on Monsignore Fabrizio, and besides, if I may venture to say so to the signora, I am longing52 to see my property of the Ricciarda. It seems so comical to me to be a landowner.”
“Your pleasure delights me. I think the tenant53 of the Ricciarda owes me some two or three years of his rent. I make him a present of one half of what he owes me; the other[414] half of all his arrears54 I give to you, but on this condition: You will go to Sacca, you will say that the day after to-morrow is the fête day of one of my patron saints, and the night after your arrival you will have my house illuminated55 in the most splendid manner. Spare neither money nor pains. Recollect56 that this has to do with the greatest happiness of my life.
“I have been making ready for this illumination for a long time. For more than three months I have been collecting everything needful for this splendid festivity in the cellars of my house. I have deposited all the fireworks for a magnificent display in the gardener’s care. You will have them let off on the terrace facing the Po. There are eighty-nine great hogsheads of wine in my cellars. You will set up eighty-nine fountains running wine in my park. If a single bottle remains57 undrunk on the following day, I shall say you do not love Fabrizio. When the fountains of wine are running, and the illumination and the fireworks are in full swing, you will slip away cautiously, for it is possible, and that is my hope, that in Parma all these fine doings will be taken as an insult.”
“That is not possible only; it is certain. And it is certain, too, that Chief-Justice Rassi, who signed monsignore’s sentence, will be bursting with rage. And,” added Ludovico somewhat timidly, “if the signora desired to give her poor servant even a greater pleasure than that of receiving half the arrears of the Ricciarda, she would give me leave to play a little joke upon that same Rassi.”
“You’re a good fellow,” exclaimed the duchess, delighted. “But I absolutely forbid you to do anything at all to Rassi. I intend to have him publicly hanged at some future time. As for yourself, try not to get yourself arrested at Sacca; everything would be spoiled if I lost you.”
“Me, signora! Once I have said I am keeping the feast of one of the Signora Duchessa’s patron saints, you may be sure that if the police sent thirty gendarmes58 to interfere59, not one of them would be on his horse by the time they reached the red cross in the middle of the village. They are not to be trifled with, those Sacca men—first-rate smugglers every one of them, and they worship the signora.”
“Well,” the duchess began again with a curiously60 offhand61 air, “while I give wine to my good people at Sacca, I want to drench62 the people of Parma. On the very night when my castle is lighted up, take the best horse in my stables, hurry off to my palace in Parma, and open the reservoir.”
“Ah, that’s a fine idea of the signora’s,” cried Ludovico in fits of laughter, “wine for the good folks at Sacca, water for the Parmese townsmen, who had made so certain, the wretches63, that monsignore was going to be poisoned like poor .”
Ludovico could not get over his delight. The duchess watched his ecstasies64 with evident satisfaction. “Wine for the Sacca men,” he kept saying, “water for the Parmese! The signora doubtless knows, better than I do, that twenty years ago, when the reservoir was imprudently emptied, the water ran a foot deep in many of the streets of Parma.”
“And water for the Parmese,” answered the duchess, laughing. “The square before the citadel would have been crammed65 with people if Fabrizio’s head had been cut off.… Everybody calls him the great culprit.… But above all things, do it cunningly! Let no living being ever know that the inundation66 was your work, nor done by my order. Fabrizio, even the count himself, must remain in ignorance of this wild joke.… But I was forgetting my poor people at Sacca. Go you, and write a letter to my man of business, which I will sign. You will tell him he is to distribute a hundred sequins among the poor of Sacca, in honour of my patron saint, and that he is to take all your orders about the illumination, the fireworks, and the wine. Above all things, be sure there is not one full bottle in my cellars the next morning.”
“The signora’s steward67 will only find one difficulty. The signora has owned the castle now for five years, and she has not left ten poor persons in Sacca.”
“And water for the Parmese!” quoth the duchess, humming it like a tune2. “How shall you carry out my joke?”
“I see my plan quite clearly. I shall start from Sacca at nine o’clock. At half past ten my horse will be at the inn of the Three Blockheads on the road to Casal Maggiore, and my property of the Ricciarda. At eleven I shall be in my room at the palace, and at a quarter past the townsfolk of Parma will have water, and more than they want of it, to drink the great culprit’s health. Ten minutes later I shall go out of the city by the Bologna road; as I pass it by I shall make a deep bow to the citadel on which monsignore’s bravery and the signora’s wit have just heaped dishonour68. I shall take a country path with which I am well acquainted, and so I shall make my way back to the Ricciarda.”
Ludovico raised his eyes to the duchess’s face, and felt a thrill of terror. She was staring fixedly69 at the bare wall, six paces from her, and it must be acknowledged that there was something awful in her glance. “Ah, my poor land!” thought Ludovico to himself. “She certainly is mad.” The duchess looked at him and guessed his thought.
“Aha, Signor Ludovico, the great poet! You would like the gift in writing. Fetch me a sheet of paper.” Ludovico did not wait for a repetition of the injunction, and the duchess wrote out, in her own hand, a lengthy70 acknowledgment, antedated71 by twelve months, whereby she declared she had received the sum of eighty thousand francs from Ludovico San-Michele, and had given him the Ricciarda as security for that sum. If, at the expiration72 of twelve months, the duchess had not returned the said eighty thousand francs to Ludovico, the lands of the Ricciarda were to remain his property. “There is something fine,” said the duchess to herself, “in giving a faithful servant very nearly a third of all that remains to myself.”
“Hark!” said the duchess to Ludovico. “After you have played my joke with the reservoir I can only give you two days in which to enjoy yourself at Casal Maggiore. To insure the validity of the sale, you must say the business dates more than a year back. You must rejoin me at Belgirate, and that without any delay. Fabrizio may possibly go to England, and you must follow him thither73.”
Early the next morning the duchess and Fabrizio were at Belgirate.
They settled themselves down in that enchanting74 village. But a mortal sorrow awaited the duchess on the shores of the beautiful Lago Maggiore. Fabrizio was an altered man. From the very first moments of his awakening75 out of the lethargic76 slumber which had followed on his flight, the duchess had perceived that something extraordinary was passing within his soul. The deep feeling which he hid with so much care was a somewhat strange one—it was nothing less than his despair at finding himself out of prison. He carefully abstained77 from confessing the cause of his sadness; that would have elicited78 questions which he did not choose to answer. “But,” said the duchess in her astonishment79, “the hideous80 sensation, when hunger forced you to stave off inanition by eating some of the horrible food sent from the prison kitchen, the sensation—Is there any odd taste about this? Am I poisoning myself at this moment? Did not that feeling fill you with horror?”
“I thought of death,” replied Fabrizio, “just as I suppose soldiers think of it. It was a possibility, which I fully37 believed I should escape by my own skill.”
What an anxiety, what a grief was this to the duchess! She watched this being whom she adored, who had once been so unlike other men, so lively, so full of originality81, a prey82 now to the deepest reverie. He preferred solitude83 even to the pleasure of talking over everything, in utter frankness, with the best friend he had in the world. His behaviour to the duchess was still kindly84, attentive85, full of gratitude86. As in the old days, he would have given his life for her a hundred times over. But his heart was elsewhere. Often they sailed four or five leagues over the lovely lake without exchanging a word. Conversation, the chilly87 exchange of thought still possible to them, might, perhaps, have seemed agreeable to others. But they, and more especially the duchess, still recollected88 what their conversations had been before that fatal fray89 with Giletti had parted them. Fabrizio owed the duchess the story of the nine months he had spent in a hideous prison, and now it appeared that all he had to tell of that time amounted to a few short and unfinished phrases.
“This was sure to happen, sooner or later,” said the duchess to herself, drearily90. “Sorrow has aged91 me, or else real love has come to him, and I only hold the second place in his heart.” Humbled92, crushed, by this greatest of all possible sorrows, the duchess would sometimes murmur93 to herself, “If it had been Heaven’s will that Ferrante should have gone quite mad, or that his courage should have failed, it seems to me I should have been less wretched.” From that moment, this partial regret poisoned the duchess’s esteem94 for her own character. “So,” she mused95 bitterly, “I repent96 me now of a resolution I have once taken. I am no longer a Del Dongo.”
“Heaven willed it so,” she began again. “Fabrizio is in love, and what right have I to desire he should not be in love? Has one single word of love ever been exchanged between us?”
This thought, sensible as it was, prevented her from sleeping, and at last—this proves that age and a weakening soul had overtaken her, simultaneously97 with her hope of a condign98 vengeance—she was a hundred times more wretched at Belgirate than she had been at Parma. As to the identity of the person who had cast Fabrizio into so strange a reverie, there was no possibility of any reasonable doubt. Clelia Conti, that pious9 maiden99, had deceived her father, since she had consented to make the garrison drunk, and Fabrizio never mentioned Clelia’s name. “But,” the duchess added, beating her breast in her despair, “if the garrison had not been intoxicated100, all my inventiveness and all my care would have come to naught101. Therefore it is she who has saved him.”
It was only with the most extreme difficulty that the duchess could induce Fabrizio to give her any details of the events of that night, which, so the duchess said to herself, “would otherwise have been the subject of never-ending conversation between us. In those happy days he would have talked all day long, and with incessant102 spirit and gaiety, about the veriest trifle it came into my head to suggest.”
As it was necessary to provide for every contingency103, the duchess had established Fabrizio at the port of Locarno, a Swiss town at the end of the Lago Maggiore. Every day she fetched him, in a boat, for long expeditions on the lake. One day she took it into her head to go up to his room, and found the walls covered with a quantity of views of the city of Parma, for which he had sent to Milan, or even to Parma itself—that country which he should have held in detestation. His little sitting-room104 had been transformed into a studio, fitted with all the impedimenta of a water-colour artist, and she found him just finishing a third sketch105 of the Farnese Tower and the governor’s palace.
“All you need do now,” said she, with a look of vexation, “is to draw the portrait of that delightful governor who wanted to poison you, from memory. But now I come to think of it,” continued the duchess, “you really should write him a letter of apology for having taken the liberty of escaping and bringing ridicule106 upon his citadel.”
The poor lady little thought how truly she was speaking.
Fabrizio’s first care, the moment he had reached a place of safety, had been to indite107 General Fabio Conti a perfectly108 polite and, in a sense, a very ridiculous letter, in which he begged him to forgive him for having escaped, alleging109, as his excuse, that he had been given reason to believe that a person occupying a subaltern position in the prison had been ordered to poison him. Fabrizio cared little what he wrote. His one hope was that the letter might fall under Clelia’s eyes, and his own face was wet with tears as he traced the words. He closed his epistle with a very whimsical phrase: he ventured to say that now he was at liberty, he very often regretted his little chamber110 in the Farnese Tower. This was the ruling thought of his letter, and he hoped Clelia would understand it. Still in a writing humour, and still hoping that a certain person might read what he wrote, Fabrizio penned his thanks to Don Cesare, the good-natured chaplain who had lent him theological books. A few days later Fabrizio persuaded the small bookseller at Locarno to travel to Milan, where this worthy111, who was a friend of the celebrated112 book-fancier, Reina, bought him the most splendid editions to be discovered of the works lent him by Don Cesare. The kind chaplain received these books, with a fine letter telling him that the poor prisoner, in moments of impatience113 which might perhaps be forgiven him, had covered the margins114 of his books with absurd notes. He therefore besought115 him to replace those volumes in his library by these now despatched to him, with a most lively sense of gratitude.
Fabrizio was not exactly correct when he described his endless scribblings on the margins of a folio copy of the works of St. Jerome as “notes.” Hoping he might be able to send the book back to the good chaplain and exchange it for another, he had written on its margins, from day to day, a most careful journal of everything that happened to him in prison. These great events amounted to nothing but the expression of his ecstasies of divine love (the word divine was used instead of another, which he dared not write). Sometimes this “divine love” cast the prisoner into the deepest despair; then, again, a voice heard in the air would give him some hope, and lift him into transports of happiness. All this was written, fortunately, in prison ink, composed of wine, chocolate, and soot116, and Don Cesare, when he put the volume of St. Jerome back on his library shelves, had scarcely glanced at it. If he had looked closely over the margins he would have become aware that one day the prisoner, believing himself to have been poisoned, was rejoicing in the thought that he was to die within forty paces of that which he had loved best in this world. But other eyes besides those of the kind-hearted chaplain had perused117 the page since Fabrizio’s escape. The beautiful idea of dying near the object of one’s love, expressed in a hundred different forms, was followed by a sonnet118, which set forth119 that the soul, parted after hideous torments120 from the weak body which it had inhabited for the past three-and-twenty years, and impelled121 by that instinctive122 desire for happiness natural to everything which has had life, would not, even if the great Judge granted pardon for all its sins, betake itself to heaven, to join the angelic choir123, the moment it obtained its freedom; but that, more happy after death than it had been in life, it would join itself to its earthly love, within a few paces of the prison in which it groaned124 so long. “Thus,” ran the last line of the sonnet, “I shall have found my paradise on earth.”
Although within the citadel of Parma Fabrizio was never mentioned, except as a vile125 traitor126 who had violated the most sacred laws, the worthy priest was delighted at the sight of these beautiful books, sent him by an unknown hand—for Fabrizio had been careful not to write for a few days after their arrival, lest the sight of his name should induce the indignant return of the whole consignment127. Don Cesare did not mention this attention to his brother, who flew into a fury whenever Fabrizio’s name was spoken. But since the prisoner’s escape he had fallen back into all his former intimacy128 with his charming niece, and as he had at one time taught her a little Latin, he showed her the beautiful books he had received. This had been the traveller’s hope. Clelia suddenly reddened deeply; she had recognised Fabrizio’s handwriting. Long narrow pieces of yellow paper had been placed, like markers, in different parts of the volume, and how true is it that amidst the sordid129 money interests, and the cold and colourless vulgarity of the considerations which fill our lives, the acts inspired by a genuine passion seldom fail to produce their due effect! On this occasion, as though some favouring goddess led her by the hand, Clelia, guided by instinct, and by one overmastering thought, begged her uncle to allow her to compare his old copy of St. Jerome with that he had just received. How shall I describe the joy that brightened the gloomy sadness into which Fabrizio’s absence had plunged130 her, when she found, on the margins of the old St. Jerome, the sonnet of which we have spoken, and the recital131, day by day, of the love she had inspired!
That very first day she knew the lines by heart, and sang them to herself, leaning on her own window, opposite that lonely one at which she had so often seen the tiny opening appear in the wooden screen. The screen in question had been taken down, to be produced in court, and used as a proof in an absurd trial which Rassi was now instituting against Fabrizio, who was accused of having escaped, or, as the Chief Justice put it, laughing himself, of having snatched himself from the clemency132 of a magnanimous prince.
Every step Clelia had taken caused her bitter remorse133, and now that she was so unhappy, her self-reproach was all the deeper. She struggled to soften134 the blame she cast upon herself by recalling the vow135 she had made to the Madonna, when the general had been half poisoned, and renewed every day since—that she would never see Fabrizio again.
Fabrizio’s escape had made the general very ill, and besides, he had very nearly lost his post, when the prince, in his rage, discharged all the jailers in the Farnese Tower, and sent them as prisoners to the city jail. The general had been partly saved by the intercession of Count Mosca, who preferred having him shut up in the top of his citadel to having to deal with him as an active and intriguing136 rival in court circles.
It was during this fortnight of uncertainty137 as to the disgrace of the general, who was really ill, that Clelia found courage to perform the sacrifice of which she had spoken to Fabrizio. She had been clever enough to fall ill on that day of general rejoicing, which had also, as my readers recollect, been that of Fabrizio’s flight. The next day, again, she was ill, and, in a word, she managed so cleverly that, except for the jailer Grillo, whose special charge Fabrizio had been, not a soul suspected her complicity, and Grillo held his peace. But as soon as Clelia’s fears from this quarter were quieted, her legitimate138 remorse tortured her yet more cruelly. “What earthly reason,” said she to herself, “can possibly lessen139 the crime of a daughter who betrays her father?”
One evening, after having spent almost the whole day in the chapel140, and in tears, she begged her uncle, Don Cesare, to come with her to the general, whose fits of rage now terrified her all the more because they were constantly mingled141 with curses of that abominable142 traitor Fabrizio.
When she reached her father’s presence she found courage to tell him that if she had always refused to give her hand to the Marchese Crescenzi it was because she felt no inclination143 toward him, and that she was convinced the union would not bring her happiness. At these words the general flew into a fury, and Clelia had considerable difficulty in speaking again. She added that if her father, tempted144 by the marchese’s fortune, thought himself obliged to give her a formal order to marry him, she was ready to obey. The general was quite taken aback by this conclusion, which he did not in the least expect. He ended, however, by being very much delighted. “So,” said he to his brother, “I shall not have to live in rooms on the second floor, after all, even if this scamp Fabrizio’s vile behaviour does cost me my place.”
Count Mosca took care to be very much shocked by the escape of “that good-for-nothing fellow Fabrizio,” and seized every opportunity of repeating Rassi’s vulgar phrase as to the dull behaviour of the young man who had turned his back on the sovereign’s clemency.
This witty145 remark, beloved by the smart set, did not take at all among the populace. The people, left to their own good sense, and though they held Fabrizio a very guilty man, admired the courage he had shown in climbing down from so great a height. There was not a soul about court who felt any admiration146 for his courage. As for the police, which was sorely humiliated147 by its mishap, it had officially discovered that twenty soldiers, bought over with money distributed by the duchess—that vilely148 ungrateful woman whose name could not be pronounced without a sigh—had brought Fabrizio four ladders, each forty-five feet long, and all bound together. Fabrizio had thrown down a rope, which had been fastened to these ladders, and his only exploit had been the very ordinary one of hauling them up. Certain notoriously imprudent Liberals, and among them a Doctor C⸺, an agent in the prince’s direct pay, added, and compromised themselves by saying so, that this merciless police had been so cruel as to cause eight of the soldiers who had abetted149 the ungrateful Fabrizio’s flight to be barbarously shot. Hence Fabrizio was blamed, even by genuine Liberals, because his foolhardiness had brought about the death of eight poor soldiers. Thus do small despots whittle150 down the value of public opinion.
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1
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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arsenic
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| n.砒霜，砷；adj.砷的 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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aviary
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| n.大鸟笼，鸟舍 | |
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mishap
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| n.不幸的事，不幸；灾祸 | |
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musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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sentries
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| 哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 ) | |
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slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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libertine
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| n.淫荡者；adj.放荡的，自由思想的 | |
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wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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23
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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24
sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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27
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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29
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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30
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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32
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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33
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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34
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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35
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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36
lavishly
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| adv.慷慨地，大方地 | |
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37
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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38
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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39
abrasions
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| n.磨损( abrasion的名词复数 )；擦伤处；摩擦；磨蚀（作用） | |
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40
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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41
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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42
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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43
factotum
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| n.杂役；听差 | |
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44
skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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45
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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46
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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47
squandered
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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49
entreat
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| v.恳求，恳请 | |
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50
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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51
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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52
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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53
tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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54
arrears
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| n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作 | |
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55
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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56
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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57
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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58
gendarmes
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| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
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59
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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60
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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61
offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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62
drench
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| v.使淋透，使湿透 | |
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63
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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64
ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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65
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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66
inundation
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| n.the act or fact of overflowing | |
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67
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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68
dishonour
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| n./vt.拒付（支票、汇票、票据等）；vt.凌辱，使丢脸；n.不名誉，耻辱，不光彩 | |
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69
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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70
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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71
antedated
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| v.（在历史上）比…为早( antedate的过去式和过去分词 )；先于；早于；（在信、支票等上）填写比实际日期早的日期 | |
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72
expiration
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| n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物 | |
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73
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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74
enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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75
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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76
lethargic
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| adj.昏睡的，懒洋洋的 | |
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77
abstained
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| v.戒（尤指酒），戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 )；弃权（不投票） | |
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78
elicited
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| 引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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80
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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81
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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82
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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83
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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84
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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85
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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86
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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87
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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88
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
fray
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| v.争吵；打斗；磨损，磨破；n.吵架；打斗 | |
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90
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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91
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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92
humbled
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| adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低 | |
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93
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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94
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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95
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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96
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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97
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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98
condign
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| adj.应得的，相当的 | |
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99
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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100
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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101
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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102
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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103
contingency
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| n.意外事件，可能性 | |
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104
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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105
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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106
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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107
indite
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| v.写（文章，信等）创作 | |
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108
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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109
alleging
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| 断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 ) | |
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110
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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111
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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112
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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113
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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114
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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115
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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116
soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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117
perused
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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118
sonnet
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| n.十四行诗 | |
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119
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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120
torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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121
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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123
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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124
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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125
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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126
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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127
consignment
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| n.寄售；发货；委托；交运货物 | |
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128
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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129
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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130
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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131
recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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132
clemency
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| n.温和，仁慈，宽厚 | |
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133
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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134
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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135
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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136
intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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137
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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138
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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139
lessen
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| vt.减少，减轻；缩小 | |
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140
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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141
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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142
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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143
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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144
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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145
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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146
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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147
humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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148
vilely
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| adv.讨厌地，卑劣地 | |
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149
abetted
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| v.教唆（犯罪）( abet的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；怂恿；支持 | |
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whittle
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| v.削（木头），削减；n.屠刀 | |
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