Often after some story about the court, told by her with that grace, that abandonment which she alone in the world possesses, and which is a necessary part of my education besides, I kiss her hand and sometimes her cheek.
What is to happen if that hand presses mine in a certain fashion?"
Fabrizio put in an appearance every day in the most respectable and least amusing drawing-rooms in Parma.
Guided by the able advice of the Duchessa, he paid a sagacious court to the two Princes, father and son, to the Princess Clara-Paolina and Monsignore the Archbishop.
He met with successes, but these did not in the least console him for his mortal fear of falling out with the Duchessa.
Chapter 8
So, less than a month after his arrival at court, Fabrizio had tasted all the sorrows of a courtier, and the intimate friendship which constituted the happiness of his life was poisoned.
One evening, tormented by these thoughts, he left that drawing-room of the Duchessa in which he had too much of the air of a reigning lover; wandering at random through the town, he came opposite the theatre, in which he saw lights; he went in.
It was a gratuitous imprudence in a man of his cloth and one that he had indeed vowed that he would avoid in Parma, which, after all, is only a small town of forty thousand inhabitants.
It is true that after the first few days he had got rid of his official costume; in the evenings, when he was not going into the very highest society, he used simply to dress in black like a layman in mourning.
At the theatre he took a box on the third tier, so as not to be noticed; the play was Goldoni's La Locanderia.
He examined the architecture of the building, scarcely did he turn his eyes to the stage.
But the crowded audience kept bursting into laughter at every moment; Fabrizio gave a glance at the young actress who was playing the part of the landlady, and found her amusing. He looked at her more closely; she seemed to him quite attractive, and, above all, perfectly natural; she was a simple-minded young girl who was the first to laugh at the witty lines Goldoni had put into her mouth, lines which she appeared to be quite surprised to be uttering.
He asked what her name was, and was told:
"Marietta Valserra."
"Ah!" he thought; "she has taken my name; that is odd."
In spite of his intentions he did not leave the theatre until the end of the piece.
The following evening he returned; three days later he knew Marietta Valserra's address.
On the evening of the day on which, with a certain amount of trouble, he had procured this address, he noticed that the Conte was looking at him in the most friendly way.
The poor jealous lover, who had all the trouble in the world in keeping within the bounds of prudence, had set spies on the young man's track, and this theatrical escapade pleased him.
How are we to depict the Conte's joy when, on the day following that on which he had managed to bring himself to look amicably at Fabrizio, he learned that the latter, in the partial disguise, it must be admitted, of a long blue frock-coat, had climbed to the wretched apartment which Marietta Valserra occupied on the fourth floor of an old house behind the theatre?
His joy was doubled when he heard that Fabrizio had presented himself under a false name, and had had the honour to arouse the jealousy of a scapegrace named Giletti, who in town played Third Servant, and in the villages danced on the tight rope.
This noble lover of Marietta cursed Fabrizio most volubly and expressed a desire to kill him.
Opera companies are formed by an impresario who engages in different places the artists whom he can afford to pay or has found unemployed, and the company collected at random remains together for one season or two at most.
It is not so with comedy companies; while passing from town to town and changing their address every two or three months, they nevertheless form a family of which all the members love or loathe one another.
There are in these companies united couples whom the beaux of the towns in which the actors appear find it sometimes exceedingly difficult to sunder.
This is precisely what happened to our hero. Little Marietta liked him well enough, but was horribly afraid of Giletti, who claimed to be her sole lord and master and kept a close watch over her.
He protested everywhere that he would kill the Monsignore, for he had followed Fabrizio, and had succeeded in discovering his name.
This Giletti was quite the ugliest creature imaginable and the least fitted to be a lover: tall out of all proportion, he was horribly thin, strongly pitted by smallpox, and inclined to squint.
In addition, being endowed with all the graces of his profession, he was continually coming into the wings where his fellow-actors were assembled, turning cart-wheels on his feet and hands or practising some other pretty trick.
He triumphed in those parts in which the actor has to appear with his face whitened with flour and to give or receive a countless number of blows with a cudgel.
This worthy rival of Fabrizio drew a monthly salary of 32 francs, and thought himself extremely well off.
Conte Mosca felt himself drawn up from the gate of the tomb when his watchers gave him the full authority for all these details.
His kindly nature reappeared; he seemed more gay and better company than ever in the Duchessa's drawing-room, and took good care to say nothing to her of the little adventure which had restored him to life.
He even took steps to ensure that she should be informed of everything that occurred with the greatest possibly delay.
Finally he had the courage to listen to the voice of reason, which had been crying to him in vain for the last month that, whenever a lover's lustre begins to fade, it is time for that lover to travel.
Urgent business summoned him to Bologna, and twice a day cabinet messengers brought him not so much the official papers of his departments as the latest news of the love affairs of little Marietta, the rage of the terrible Giletti and the enterprises of Fabrizio.
One of the Conte's agents asked several times for Arlecchino fantasma e pasticcio, one of Giletti's triumphs (he emerges from the pie at the moment when his rival Brighella is sticking the knife into it, and gives him a drubbing); this was an excuse for making him earn 100 francs.
Giletti, who was riddled with debts, took care not to speak of this windfall, but became astonishing in his arrogance.
Fabrizio's whim changed to a wounded pride (at his age, his anxieties had already reduced him to the state of having whims!).
Vanity led him to the theatre; the little girl acted in the most sprightly fashion and amused him; on leaving the theatre, he was in love for an hour.
The Conte returned to Parma on receiving the news that Fabrizio was in real danger; Giletti, who had served as a trooper in that fine regiment the Dragoni Napoleone, spoke seriously of killing him, and was making arrangements for a subsequent flight to Romagna.
If the reader is very young, he will be scandalised by our admiration for this fine mark of virtue.
It was, however, no slight act of heroism on the part of Conte Mosca, his return from Bologna; for, after all, frequently in the morning he presented a worn appearance, and Fabrizio was always so fresh, so serene!
Who would ever have dreamed of reproaching him with the death of Fabrizio, occurring in his absence and from so stupid a cause?
But his was one of those rare spirits which make an everlasting remorse out of a generous action which they might have done and did not do; besides, he could not bear the thought of seeing the Duchessa look sad, and by any fault of his.
He found her, on his arrival, taciturn and gloomy.
This is what had occurred: the little lady's maid, Cecchina, tormented by remorse and estimating the importance of her crime by the immensity of the sum that she had received for committing it, had fallen ill.
One evening the Duchessa, who was devoted to her, went up to her room.
The girl could not hold out against this mark of kindness; she dissolved in tears, was for handing over to her mistress all that she still possessed of the money she had received, and finally had the courage to confess to her the questions asked by the Conte and her own replies to them.