"The Prince kept me glued to a table all day yesterday; I could not leave the Palace.
His Highness made me copy out in my wretched attorney's script a number of diplomatic papers so stupid and so long-winded that I really believe his sole object was to keep me prisoner.
When I was finally able to take my leave of him, about five o'clock, half dead with hunger, he gave me the order to go straight home and not to go out in the evening.
As a matter of fact, I saw two of his private spies, well known to me, patrolling my street until nearly midnight.
This morning, as soon as I could, I sent for a carriage which took me to the door of the Cathedral.
I got down from the carriage very slowly, then at a quick pace walked through the church, and here I am.
Your Excellency is at this moment the one man in the world whom I am most passionately anxious to please."
"And I, Master Joker, am not in the least taken in by all these more or less well-constructed stories.
You refused to speak to me about Fabrizio the day before yesterday; I respected your scruples and your oaths of secrecy, although oaths, to a creature like you, are at the most means of evasion.
To-day, I require the truth.
What are these ridiculous rumours which make out that this young man is sentenced to death as the murderer of the comedian Giletti?"
"No one can give Your Excellency a better account of those rumours, for it was I myself who started them by the Sovereign's orders; and, I believe, it was perhaps to prevent me from informing you of this incident that he kept me prisoner all day yesterday.
The Prince, who does not take me for a fool, could have no doubt that I should come to you with my Cross and ask you to fasten it in my buttonhole."
"To the point!" cried the Minister. "And no fine speeches."
"No doubt, the Prince would be glad to pass sentence of death on Signor del Dongo, but he has been sentenced, as you probably know, only to twenty years in irons, commuted by the Prince, on the very day after the sentence, to twelve years in a fortress, with fasting on bread and water every Friday and other religious observances."
"It is because I knew of this sentence to imprisonment only that I was alarmed by the rumours of immediate execution which are going about the town; I remember the death of Conte Palanza, which was such a clever trick on your part."
"It was then that I ought to have had the Cross!" cried Rassi, in no way disconcerted; "I ought to have forced him when I held him in my hand, and the man wished the prisoner killed. I was a fool then; and it is armed with that experience that I venture to advise you not to copy my example to-day." (This comparison seemed in the worst of taste to his hearer, who was obliged to restrain himself forcibly from kicking Rassi.)
"In the first place," the latter went on with the logic of a trained lawyer and the perfect assurance of a man whom no insult could offend, "in the first place there can be no question of the execution of the said del Dongo; the Prince would not dare, the times have altogether changed!
Besides, I, who am noble and hope through you to become Barone, would not lend a hand in the matter.
Now it is only from me, as Your Excellency knows, that the executioner of supreme penalties can receive orders, and, I swear to you, Cavaliere Rassi will never issue any such orders against Signor del Dongo."
"And you will be acting wisely," said the Conte with a severe air, taking his adversary's measure.
"Let us make a distinction," went on Rassi, smiling. "I myself figure only in the official death-roll, and if Signor del Dongo happens to die of a colic, do not go and put it down to me.
The Prince is vexed, and I do not know why, with the Sanseverina." (Three days earlier Rassi would have said "the Duchessa," but, like everyone in the town, he knew of her breach with the Prime Minister.) The Conte was struck by the omission of her title on such lips, and the reader may judge of the pleasure that it afforded him; he darted at Rassi a glance charged with the keenest hatred.
"My dear angel," he then said to himself, "I can shew you my love only by blind obedience to your orders.
"I must admit," he said to the Fiscal, "that I do not take any very passionate interest in the various caprices of the Signora Duchessa; only, since it was she who introduced to me this scapegrace of a Fabrizio, who would have done well to remain at Naples and not come here to complicate our affairs, I make a point of his not being put to death in my time, and I am quite ready to give you my word that you shall be Barone in the week following his release from prison."
"In that case, Signor Conte, I shall not be Barone for twelve whole years, for the Prince is furious, and his hatred of the Duchessa is so keen that he is trying to conceal it."
"His Highness is too good; what need has he to conceal his hatred, since his Prime Minister is no longer protecting the Duchessa?
Only I do not wish that anyone should be able to accuse me of meanness, nor above all of jealousy: it was I who made the Duchessa come to this country, and if Fabrizio dies in prison you will not be Barone, but you will perhaps be stabbed with a dagger.
But let us not talk about this trifle: the fact is that I have made an estimate of my fortune, at the most I may be able to put together an income of twenty thousand lire, on which I propose to offer my resignation, most humbly, to the Sovereign.
I have some hope of finding employment with the King of Naples; that big town will offer me certain distractions which I need at this moment and which I cannot find in a hole like Parma; I should stay here only in the event of your obtaining for me the hand of the Princess Isotta," and so forth.
The conversation on this subject was endless.
As Rassi was rising to leave, the Conte said to him with an air of complete indifference:
"You know that people have said that Fabrizio was playing me false, in the sense that he was one of the Duchessa's lovers; I decline to accept that rumour, and, to give it the lie, I wish you to have this purse conveyed to Fabrizio."
"But, Signor Conte," said Rassi in alarm, looking at the purse, "there is an enormous sum here, and the regulations… ."
"To you, my dear Sir, it may be enormous," replied the Conte with an air of the most supreme contempt: "a cit like you, sending money to his friend in prison, thinks he is ruining himself if he gives him ten sequins; I, on the other hand, wish Fabrizio to receive these six thousand francs, and on no account is the Castle to know anything of the matter."
While the terrified Rassi was trying to answer, the Conte shut the door on him with impatience.
"Those fellows," he said to himself, "cannot see power unless it is cloaked in insolence."
So saying, this great Minister abandoned himself to an action so ridiculous that we have some misgivings about recording it.
He ran to take from his desk a portrait in miniature of the Duchessa, and covered it with passionate kisses.
"Forgive me, my dear angel," he cried, "if I did not fling out of the window with my own hands that drudge who dares to speak of you in a tone of familiarity; but, if I am acting with this excess of patience, it is to obey you!
And he will lose nothing by waiting."
After a long conversation with the portrait, the Conte, who felt his heart dead in his breast, had the idea of an absurd action, and dashed into it with the eagerness of a child.
He sent for a coat on which his decorations were sewn and went to pay a call on the elderly Princess Isotta.
Never in his life had he gone to her apartments, except on New Year's Day.
He found her surrounded by a number of dogs, and tricked out in all her finery, including diamonds even, as though she were going to court.
The Conte having shewn some fear lest he might be upsetting the arrangements of Her Highness, who was probably going out, the lady replied that a Princess of Parma owed it to herself to be always in such array.
For the first time since his disaster the Conte felt an impulse of gaiety.
"I have done well to appear here," he told himself, "and this very day I must make my declaration."
The Princess had been delighted to receive a visit from a man so renowned for his wit, and a Prime Minister; the poor old maid was hardly accustomed to such visitors.
The Conte began by an adroit preamble, relative to the immense distance that must always separate from a plain gentleman the members of a reigning family.