The Charterhouse of Parma (17 page)

The Duchess Sanseverina was presented to the melancholy Princess of Parma, Clara-Paolina, who because her husband had a mistress (the
Marchesa Balbi, rather a pretty woman), regarded herself as the most unfortunate person in the universe, which may well have made her the most tedious. The Duchess found herself confronting a very tall, angular woman who was not yet thirty-six and looked a good fifty. A regular and noble countenance might have passed for beautiful, though somewhat marred by huge round eyes that were half blind, if the Princess had not given up on herself. She received the Duchess with so marked a timidity that some of the courtiers hostile to Count Mosca ventured to say that the Princess had the look of the woman being presented, and the Duchess of the Sovereign. The Duchess, surprised and virtually disconcerted, desperately sought words to assume a position inferior to that which the Princess assigned to herself. In order to restore some self-possession to this wretched Princess who did not altogether lack a certain native intelligence, the Duchess could find nothing better than to start in on and to continue a long lecture on botany. The Princess was in fact quite learned in the matter; she had several fine hothouses with many tropical plants. The Duchess, quite simply trying to escape an awkward situation, made the permanent conquest of Princess Clara-Paolina, who from her initial timidity and silence at the beginning of the audience found herself at its end so at ease that, against all the rules of etiquette, this first audience lasted no less than an hour and a quarter. The following day, the Duchess sent for some exotic plants, and described herself as a great lover of all things botanical.

The Princess passed her life with the venerable Father Landriani, Archbishop of Parma, a man of learning and even of intelligence, and a thoroughly decent person who nonetheless presented a singular spectacle when he sat in his crimson velvet chair (to which his office entitled him), opposite the Princess’s armchair, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting and her two
lady-companions
. The old prelate with his long white hair was even more timid, if possible, than the Princess; they saw each other every day, and every audience began with a silence that lasted a good quarter of an hour. It was only natural that the Countess Alvizi, one of the lady-companions, had become a sort of favorite, since she had the art of encouraging them to speak to each other and of making them break the silence.

In order to end the series of presentations, the Duchess was admitted to the presence of His Serene Highness the Crown Prince, a personage taller than his father and more timid than his mother whose strong point was mineralogy and who was sixteen years old. He blushed violently when he saw the Duchess come in, and was so disoriented that he could never find a word to say to this lovely lady. He was a fine-looking boy, and spent his life in the woods, hammer in hand.

At the moment the Duchess stood up to bring this silent audience to a close: “My Lord, Madame, how pretty you are!” exclaimed the Crown Prince, an observation not regarded as being in excessively bad taste by the lady presented.

The Marchesa Balbi, a young woman of twenty-five, could still have passed, two or three years before the Duchess Sanseverina’s arrival in Parma, for the ideal type of Italian beauty. Now she still possessed the finest eyes in the world, and the most charming little airs and graces; but at close range, her skin was reticulated with countless tiny wrinkles which made the Marchesa into a young grandmother. Glimpsed at a certain distance, for example in her box at the theater, she was still a beauty; and people in the pit commended the Prince’s excellent taste. He spent every evening at the Marchesa Balbi’s, though frequently without opening his lips, and the boredom she observed in the Prince had caused this poor woman to decline into an extraordinary thinness. She laid claim to limitless subtlety, her constant smile tinged with malice; she had the finest teeth in the world, and on every occasion, though without any meaning, she sought by a cunning smile to suggest much more than what her mere words expressed. Count Mosca used to say that it was her continual smiles, even as she was inwardly yawning, that gave her so many wrinkles. Countess Balbi was a party to everything that was going on, and the State did not make a contract for a thousand francs without there being a
souvenir
(that was the polite expression in Parma) for the Marchesa. According to common gossip, she had invested six million francs in England, but in reality her fortune, quite recent in fact, did not amount to more than 1,500,000 francs. It was to be protected from her subtleties, and to be sure of her dependence upon himself, that Count Mosca had had himself
appointed Minister of Finance. The Marchesa’s sole passion was fear masked as sordid greed: “I shall die in the poorhouse,” she occasionally remarked to the Prince, who was shocked by this prophecy. The Duchess noticed that the antechamber of the Palazzo Balbi, resplendent with gilding, was lit by a single candle that guttered on a precious marble table, and that the doors of her salon were blackened by the footmen’s fingers.

“She received me,” the Duchess remarked to her friend, “as if she were expecting me to give her a tip of fifty francs.”

The Duchess’s triumphal progress was to some degree interrupted by her treatment at the hands of the cleverest woman at court, the famous Marchesa Raversi, a consummate schemer who headed the faction opposed to Count Mosca’s. She intrigued for his destruction, especially in the last few months, since as the niece of Count Sanseverina she feared to see her inheritance jeopardized by the charms of the new Duchess.

“Marchesa Raversi is not a foe to be despised,” the Count observed to his mistress. “I believe her to be so dangerous that I separated from my wife solely because she insisted on taking as her lover Cavaliere Bentivoglio, one of Marchesa Raversi’s friends.”

This lady, a tall virago with coal-black hair, remarkable for the diamonds she wore all day, and for the rouge with which she covered her cheeks, had declared herself the Duchess’s enemy from the start and opened hostilities immediately upon receiving her in her own home. The Duke Sanseverina, in the letters he sent from——, seemed so delighted by his embassy, and especially by his expectation of the Grand Cordon, that his family feared he would leave a share of his fortune to the wife upon whom he was now lavishing so many trifling gifts. Marchesa Raversi, homely as she was, had for a lover Count Balbi, the best-looking man at court: in general she succeeded at whatever she undertook.

The Duchess maintained a splendid establishment. The Palazzo Sanseverina had always been one of the finest in the city of Parma, and the Duke, on the occasion of his embassy and of his future Grand Cordon, expended enormous sums upon its embellishment: the Duchess was in charge of the alterations.

The Count had guessed correctly: a few days after the Duchess was presented, young Clélia Conti came to court, having been made a
Canoness
. In order to parry the blow this mark of favor might seem to strike at the Count’s credit, the Duchess gave a party on the pretext of opening her palace gardens, and, by her charming manners, she made young Clélia, whom she called her little friend from Lake Como, the queen of the evening. Her monogram appeared as though by accident upon all the principal lanterns of the garden. Though somewhat pensive, young Clélia had a charming way of referring to their little adventure beside the lake, and to her deep gratitude. She was said to be very religious and a lover of solitude.

“I’ll wager,” said the Count, “that she’s bright enough to be ashamed of her father.”

The Duchess made this young girl her friend, feeling attracted to her; she did not want to seem jealous, and included her in all her social occasions; ultimately her scheme was to try to diminish all the hostilities of which the Count was the object.

Everything smiled upon the Duchess, who was delighted by this court life where a storm is always to be feared; she felt as if she was beginning to live again. She was tenderly devoted to the Count, who was literally mad with happiness. This agreeable situation had afforded him a perfect
sang-froid
with regard to everything concerning his professional interests. Hence scarcely two months after the Duchess’s arrival, he obtained the patent and honors of Prime Minister, which closely approach those paid to the Sovereign himself. The Count had complete control over his master’s spirit, as all Parma was to learn in the most striking manner.

To the southwest, and ten minutes from the city, rises that citadel so famous throughout Italy; its huge tower a hundred and eighty feet high can be seen from a great distance. This tower, built in imitation of Hadrian’s mausoleum in Rome by the Farnese family, grandsons of Paul III, early in the sixteenth century, is so large in diameter that on its upper platform has been built a palace for the governor of the Citadel and a new prison known as the Farnese Tower. This prison, built in honor of Ranuccio-Ernesto II, who had become the cherished lover of his step-mother, was regarded throughout the region as singularly
beautiful. The Duchess was curious to see it; on the day of her visit, it was overpoweringly hot in Parma and up there, in that elevated position, she found refreshment, and was so delighted by doing so that she spent several hours in the place. A point was made of showing her all the rooms of the Farnese Tower.

On the platform of the big tower, the Duchess encountered a wretched Liberal prisoner, who had emerged to take the half-hour’s exercise granted him every three days. Having come back down to Parma, and not yet in possession of that discretion requisite in an absolute monarchy, she mentioned this man who had told her his entire history. The faction of the Marchesa Raversi seized upon these remarks of the Duchess and repeated them widely, hoping they would distress the Prince. Indeed, Ernesto IV frequently repeated that it was crucial to impress the imagination of the people. “
Perpetual
is a big word,” he would say, “and more terrible in Italy than elsewhere.”

Consequently, he had never once in his life granted a pardon. Eight days after her visit to the fortress, the Duchess received a letter of commutation, signed by the Prince and the Minister, with the name left blank. The prisoner whose name she would write in this space was to obtain restitution of his possessions and permission to spend the rest of his days in America. The Duchess wrote the name of the man who had spoken to her. Unfortunately, this person turned out to be something of a rogue, and a weak spirit as well; it was upon his confession that the famous Ferrante Palla had been condemned to death.

The exceptional nature of this pardon had intensified the delights of the Duchess’s position. Count Mosca was mad with happiness, this was a splendid period of his life, and was to exert a decisive influence upon Fabrizio’s destiny. The latter was still in Romagnano, near Novara, going to confession, hunting, never reading, and paying court to a noble lady according to his instructions. The Duchess was still slightly shocked by this last necessity. Another sign which meant little or nothing to the Count was that though she was entirely frank with him on every subject imaginable, and virtually thought aloud in his presence, she never mentioned Fabrizio to him without first carefully choosing her words.

“If you like,” the Count said to her one day, “I shall write to that
charming brother of yours on the shores of Lake Como, and shall compel that Marchese del Dongo, with a certain pressure from me and my friends in——, to seek pardon for your charming Fabrizio. If it is true, as I am far from doubting, that he is somewhat superior to the young fellows who ride their English thoroughbreds through the streets of Milan, what a life for a man of eighteen, doing nothing and with the prospect of nothing ever to do! Had Heaven granted him a real passion for anything at all, even for fishing, I should respect it; but what will he do in Milan, even after he has been pardoned? At a certain hour of the day he will ride a horse he has obtained from England, at a certain hour his idleness will take him to his mistress, whom he will care for less than his horse … But if you so desire it, I shall try to procure just such a life for your nephew.”

“I should like him to be an officer,” said the Duchess.

“Would you advise a Sovereign to confide a position which, on a given date, may be of some importance to a young man who first of all is capable of enthusiasm and who secondly has shown that enthusiasm for Napoléon, to the point of joining him at Waterloo? Think of where we should all be if Napoléon had won! We should have no Liberals to fear, true enough, but the sovereigns of our old families could continue to reign only by marrying the daughters of Bonaparte’s marshals. Thus a military career for Fabrizio is the life of a squirrel in a revolving cage: plenty of movement but getting nowhere. He will have the disappointment of seeing himself outstripped by every plebeian devotion. The first virtue of a young man today—that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers—is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains.

“One thing occurs to me, that will at first make you cry out in protest, and will give me infinite trouble long afterward—an act of madness that I will perform for your sake. But tell me, if you can, what madness would I not perform to obtain a smile …”

“Well?” said the Duchess.

“Well! we have had, as Archbishops of Parma, three members of your family: Ascanio del Dongo, who wrote something or other in sixteen hundred something or other, Fabrizio in 1699, and another Ascanio
in 1740. If your Fabrizio is willing to enter the priesthood and display virtues of the first order, I shall make him a Bishop somewhere, then Arshbishop here, provided my influence lasts. The real objection is this: will I remain Minister long enough to achieve this fine plan which requires several years? The Prince may die, he may have the poor taste to dismiss me. But in any case, this is the one means I have to do something for Fabrizio which will be worthy of you.”

There followed a lengthy argument: the Duchess found this notion repugnant in the extreme. “Show me again,” she said to the Count, “that any other career is impossible for Fabrizio.”