Fabrizio hastened to the archiepiscopal palace; there he shewed himself simple and modest, a tone which he assumed only too easily; whereas it required an effort for him to play the great gentleman.
As he listened to the somewhat prolix Stories of Monsignor Landriani, he was saying to himself:
"Ought I to have fired my pistol at the footman who was leading the thin horse?"
His reason said to him: "Yes," but his heart could not accustom itself to the bleeding image of the handsome young man, falling from his horse, all disfigured.
"That prison in which I should have been swallowed up, if the horse had stumbled, was that the prison with which I was threatened by all those forecasts?"
This question was of the utmost importance to him, and the Archbishop was gratified by his air of profound attention.
Chapter 11
On leaving the Archbishop's Palace, Fabrizio hastened to see little Marietta; he could hear from the street the loud voice of Giletti, who had sent out for wine and was regaling himself with his friends the prompter and the candle-snuffers.
The mammaccia, who played the part of mother, came alone in answer to his signal.
"A lot has happened since you were here," she cried; "two or three of our actors are accused of having celebrated the great Napoleon's festa with an orgy, and our poor company, which they say is Jacobin, has been ordered to leave the States of Parma, and evviva Napoleone!
But the Minister has had a finger in that pie, they say.
One thing certain is that Giletti has got money, I don't know how much, but I've seen him with a fistful of scudi.
Marietta has had five scudi from our manager to pay for the journey to Mantua and Venice, and I have had one.
She is still in love with you, but Giletti frightens her; three days ago, at the last performance we gave, he absolutely wanted to kill her; he dealt her two proper blows, and, what was abominable of him, tore her blue shawl.
If you would care to. give her a blue shawl, you would be a very good boy, and we can say that we won it in a lottery.
The drum-major of the carabinieri is giving an assault-at-arms to-morrow, you will find the hour posted up at all the street corners.
Come and see us; if he has gone to the assault, and we have any reason to hope that he will stay away for some time, I shall be at the window, and I shall give you a signal to come up.
Try to bring us something really nice, and Marietta will be madly in love with you."
As he made his way down the winding staircase of this foul rookery, Fabrizio was filled with compunction.
"I have not altered in the least," he said to himself; "all the fine resolutions I made on the shore of our lake, when I looked at life with so philosophic an eye, have gone to the winds.
My mind has lost its normal balance; the whole thing was a dream, and vanishes before the stern reality.
Now would be the time for action," he told himself as he entered the palazzo Sanseverina about eleven o'clock that evening.
But it was in vain that he sought in his heart for the courage to speak with that sublime sincerity which had seemed to him so easy, the night he spent by the shore of the Lake of Como.
"I am going to vex the person whom I love best in the world; if I speak, I shall simply seem to be jesting in the worst of taste; I am not worth anything, really, except in certain moments of exaltation."
"The Conte has behaved admirably towards me," he said to the Duchessa, after he had given her an account of his visit to the Archbishop's Palace; "I appreciate his conduct all the more, in that I think I am right in saying that personally I have made only a very moderate impression on him: my behaviour towards him ought therefore to be strictly correct. He has his excavations at Sanguigna, about which he is still madly keen, if one is to judge, that is, by his expedition the day before yesterday: he went twelve leagues at a gallop in order to spend a couple of hours with his workmen. If they find fragments of statues in the ancient temple, the foundations of which he has just laid bare, he is afraid of their being stolen; I should like to propose to him that I should go and spend a night or two at Sanguigna.
To-morrow, about five, I have to see the Archbishop again; I can start in the evening and take advantage of the cool night air for the journey."
The Duchessa did not at first reply.
"One would think you were seeking excuses for staying away from me," she said to him at length with extreme affection: "No sooner do you come back from Belgirate than you find a reason for going off again."
"Here is a fine opportunity for speaking," thought Fabrizio. "But by the lake I was a trifle mad; I did not realise, in my enthusiasm for sincerity, that my compliment ended in an impertinence.
It was a question of saying: 'I love you with the most devoted friendship, etc., etc., but my heart is not susceptible to love.'
Is not that as much as to say: 'I see that you are in love with me: but take care, I cannot pay you back in the same coin.'
If it is love that she feels, the Duchessa may be annoyed at its being guessed, and she will be revolted by my impudence if all that she feels for me is friendship pure and simple … and that is one of the offences people never forgive."
While he weighed these important thoughts in his mind, Fabrizio, quite unconsciously, was pacing up and down the drawing-room with the grave air, full of dignity, of a man who sees disaster staring him in the face.
The Duchessa gazed at him with admiration; this was no longer the child she had seen come into the world, this was no longer the nephew always ready to obey her; this was a serious man, a man whom it would be delicious to make fall in love with her.
She rose from the ottoman on which she was sitting, and, flinging herself into his arms in a transport of emotion:
"So you want to run away from me?" she asked him.
"No," he replied with the air of a Roman Emperor, "but I want to act wisely."
This speech was capable of several interpretations; Fabrizio did not feel that he had the courage to go any farther and to run the risk of wounding this adorable woman.
He was too young, too susceptible to sudden emotion; his brain could not supply him with any elegant turn of speech to give expression to what he wished to say.
By a natural transport, and in defiance of all reason, he took this charming woman in his arms and smothered her in kisses.
At that moment the Conte's carriage could be heard coming into the courtyard, and almost immediately the Conte himself entered the room; he seemed greatly moved.
"You inspire very singular passions," he said to Fabrizio, who stood still, almost dumbfoundered by this remark.
"The Archbishop had this evening the audience which His Serene Highness grants him every Thursday; the Prince has just been telling me that the Archbishop, who seemed greatly troubled, began with a set speech, learned by heart, and extremely clever, of which at first the Prince could understand nothing at all.
Landriani ended by declaring that it was important for the Church in Parma that Monsignor Fabrizio del Dongo should be appointed his First Vicar General, and, in addition, as soon as he should have completed his twenty-fourth year, his Coadjutor with eventual succession.
"The last clause alarmed me, I must admit," said the Conte: "it is going a little too fast, and I was afraid of an outburst from the Prince; but he looked at me with a smile, and said to me in French:
'Ce sont la de vos coups, monsieur!'
" 'I can take my oath, before God and before Your Highness,' I exclaimed with all the unction possible, 'that I knew absolutely nothing about the words eventual succession.'
Then I told him the truth, what in fact we were discussing together here a few hours ago; I added, impulsively, that, so far as the future was concerned, I should regard myself as most bounteously rewarded with His Highness's favour if he would deign to allow me a minor Bishopric to begin with.
The Prince must have believed me, for he thought fit to be gracious; he said to me with the greatest possible simplicity:
'This is an official matter between the Archbishop and myself; you do not come into it at all; the worthy man delivered me a kind of report, of great length and tedious to a degree, at the end of which he came to an official proposal; I answered him very coldly that the person in question was extremely young, and, moreover, a very recent arrival at my court, that I should almost be giving the impression that I was honouring a bill of exchange drawn upon me by the Emperor, in giving the prospect of so high a dignity to the son of one of the principal officers of his Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom.