The Charterhouse of Parma (36 page)

This glance galvanized the Prince, hitherto quite uncertain, though these words might have seemed to herald a commitment; little he cared for words.

A few more remarks were exchanged, but finally Count Mosca received orders to write the gracious letter sought by the Duchess. He omitted the phrase
this unjust procedure will have no future consequences
. “It suffices,” the Count said to himself, “that the Prince promise not to sign the sentence which will be presented to him.” The Prince thanked him, as he signed, with a glance.

The Count was greatly mistaken, for the Prince was tired and would have signed anything; he believed he was well out of the episode, and in his eyes the entire situation was dominated by these words: “If the Duchess leaves, I shall find my court a bore before the week is out.” The Count noticed that his master corrected the date, and substituted that of the following day. He glanced at the clock, which showed that the time was nearly midnight. The Minister saw in this corrected date no more than the pedantic desire to give proof of exactitude and good government. As to the Marchesa Raversi’s banishment, it was of no special account; the Prince took a special pleasure in banishing people.

“General Fontana!” he exclaimed, opening the door.

The general appeared, his face so amazed and so inquisitive that there was a lively glance exchanged between the Count and the Duchess, and this glance made peace between them.

“General Fontana,” said the Prince, “you will take my carriage waiting
in the colonnade, you will go to the Marchesa Raversi’s, you will have yourself announced; if she is in bed, you will add that you come on my behalf, and once you are in her bedroom, you will say these very words and no others: ‘Marchesa Raversi, His Serene Highness advises you to leave tomorrow, before eight in the morning, for your Castle at Velleja; His Highness will inform you when you may return to Parma.’ ”

The Prince’s eyes sought those of the Duchess, who, without thanking him as he expected, made a deep and extremely respectful curtsy and quickly left the room.

“What a woman!” said the Prince, turning toward Count Mosca.

The Count, delighted by the banishment of Marchesa Raversi, which would facilitate all his functions as Minister, spoke for a good half-hour as the consummate courtier he was; he sought to console his Sovereign’s vanity and took his leave only when he saw the Prince was indeed convinced that the anecdotal history of Louis XIV had no finer page than the one he himself had just furnished his future historians.

Returning to her palace, the Duchess closed her door and gave orders that no one was to be admitted, not even the Count. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts, and to determine how she should regard the scene which had just occurred. She had acted impulsively and to grant herself the pleasure of the moment; but whatever she had been led to do, she had done it with a certain steadiness of manner. She had nothing to reproach herself for, and she recovered her usual
sang-froid
with the notion that there was even less to regret: such was the character she owed it to herself to display as the prettiest woman at court at the age of thirty-six.

She speculated at this moment as to what Parma might have to offer by way of entertainment, as she might have done upon returning from a long journey, so deeply had she been convinced, between nine and eleven, that she would be leaving this country forever.

“The poor Count cut a funny figure when he learned, in the Prince’s presence, that I was leaving.… Well, he’s a lovable man and a true heart! He would have abandoned his ministries to follow me.… But it’s also true that for five long years he hasn’t had a single distraction to reproach me for. What women married at the altar could say as
much to their lord and master? It must be admitted that the Count is neither self-important nor pedantic; he never tempts me to deceive him; in my presence he always seems to be ashamed of his own powers.… What a figure he cut in the presence of his lord and master; if he were here I would throw my arms around him.… But for nothing in the world would I take it upon myself to console a Minister who has lost his portfolio—that is a sickness cured only by death … and the cause of death as well. What a misfortune it would be to be a young Minister! I must write him, that’s one of those things he should know officially before quarreling with his Prince.… But I am forgetting my good servants.”

The Duchess rang. Her women were still busy packing her trunks; the carriage had come to the door and was being loaded; all the servants who had no work to do were standing around this carriage, tears in their eyes. Cecchina, who on great occasions was the only one entitled to enter the Duchess’s bedroom, informed her of all these details. “Have them come upstairs,” said the Duchess.

A moment later, she walked into the antechamber. “I have been promised,” she told them, “that the sentence against my nephew will not be signed by the Sovereign”—this is the word used in Italy—“I am postponing my departure; we shall see if my enemies will have the power to change this resolution.”

After a brief silence, the servants began exclaiming, “Long live Her Grace the Duchess!” and applauding furiously. The Duchess, already in the next room, reappeared like an actress taking a bow, curtsied gracefully to her people, and said, “My
friends, I thank you.
”

Had she said the word, all of them, at that moment, would have marched upon the Palace to attack it. The Duchess beckoned to a postilion, a former smuggler and a devoted servant, who followed her.

“You will dress as a prosperous farmer, you will leave Parma any way you can, you will hire a
sediola
and go as fast as you can to Bologna. You will enter the town as a stroller, and through the Florence gate, and you will hand Fabrizio, who is at the
Pellegrino
, a package which Cecchina will give you. Fabrizio is in hiding and is known there as Joseph Bossi; do not betray him by some stupidity, and don’t appear to know who he is; my enemies may set spies on your heels. Fabrizio will
send you back here in a few hours or a few days: it is especially on the return journey that you must redouble your precautions not to betray him.”

“Ah! the Marchesa Raversi’s people!” the postilion exclaimed. “We’ll be waiting for them, and if Your Grace gives the word, we shall exterminate them all.”

“Some day, perhaps! But promise on your life to do nothing without my orders.”

It was a copy of the Prince’s letter which the Duchess intended to send to Fabrizio; she could not resist the pleasure of entertaining him, and added a word concerning the scene which had produced the letter; this “word” became a letter of ten pages. She called back the postilion. “You cannot leave,” she told him, “until four in the morning, when the gates are opened.”

“I was going to make my way out through the main sewer, there would be water up to my chin, but I’d get through …”

“No,” the Duchess said, “I don’t want to expose to a fever one of my most faithful servants. Do you know anyone in Monsignore the Archbishop’s household?”

“The second coachman is a friend of mine.”

“Here is a letter for that saintly prelate: make your way into his Palace without any fuss, get yourself taken to his footman; I don’t want Monsignore to be awakened. If he’s already in his bedroom, spend the night in the Palace, and since he usually gets up at dawn, at four tomorrow morning have yourself announced on my behalf, ask for the holy Archbishop’s blessing, and give him this package, and take whatever letters he may give you for Bologna.”

The Duchess was sending the Archbishop the original of the Prince’s letter; since this letter concerned his First Grand Vicar, she requested him to deposit it in the archiepiscopal archives, where she hoped that the Grand Vicars and the canons, her nephew’s colleagues, would be so good as to become familiar with it; all under conditions of the profoundest secrecy.

The Duchess wrote to Monsignore Landriani with a familiarity which would enchant this good bourgeois; her signature alone took up three lines; the letter, an extremely agreeable one, was followed by
these words:
Angelina-Cornelia-Isola Valserra del Dongo, Duchess Sanseverina
.

“I haven’t written so much, I suspect,” the Duchess said to herself with a smile, “since my marriage contract with the poor Duke; but these people can only be managed by such things, and in the eyes of the bourgeois, it is a caricature which constitutes beauty.” She could not end the evening without yielding to the temptation of writing a letter of persiflage to the poor Count; she informed him officially,
for his guidance
, she said,
in his relations with crowned heads
, that she did not feel herself capable of consoling a Minister in disgrace. “The Prince frightens you; when you can no longer see him, will I be the one to frighten you?” She had this letter delivered immediately.

For his part, at seven the next morning, the Prince summoned Count Zurla, Minister of the Interior. “Once again,” he said, “give the strictest orders to all the magistrates that they must arrest Signor Fabrizio del Dongo. We are informed that he may venture to reappear in our territories. While this fugitive from justice is in Bologna, where he appears to defy the pursuits of our tribunals, post
sbirri
who are personally acquainted with him: (1) on the road from Bologna to Parma; (2) around the Duchess Sanseverina’s castle, at Sacca, and around her house at Castelnovo; (3) around Count Mosca’s castle. I venture to hope that your sagacity, my dear Count, will manage to conceal these orders of your Sovereign from the penetration of Count Mosca. Understand that I want Signor Fabrizio del Dongo arrested.”

As soon as this Minister had left, a secret door admitted into the Prince’s study Chief Justice Rassi, who advanced bent double, bowing still lower at every step. The countenance of this rascal was a picture: it did justice to the entire infamy of his role, and, while the rapid and chaotic movements of his eyes betrayed what knowledge he had of his merits, the arrogant and grimacing assurance of his mouth showed that he was well able to measure himself against contempt.

Since this personage will be acquiring considerable influence over Fabrizio’s destiny, we may say a word concerning him here. He was tall, with fine, extremely intelligent eyes, but a face ruined by smallpox; as for reason, he had plenty of that, and of the subtlest variety; he was considered to know all there was to know about the law, but it was
especially by his talents of resourcefulness that he shone. Whatever aspect a case might present, he readily found, and in very short order, the appropriate legal means of arriving at a conviction or an acquittal; above all he was a past-master in the subtleties of prosecution.

This man, whose services great kingdoms might well have envied the Prince of Parma, was known to have but one passion: to converse intimately with great personages and to entertain them by his buffooneries. It mattered little to him that the eminent man laughed at what he said, or at how he looked, or made disgusting jokes about Signora Rassi; provided he was seen to laugh and provided he treated Rassi himself with familiarity, he was satisfied. Occasionally the Prince, not knowing how to insult the dignity of this great jurist any further, would give him a kick; if the kicks hurt, Rassi would begin to cry. But his sense of buffoonery was so powerful that he might be seen any day of the week preferring the salon of a Minister who flouted him to his own, where he reigned despotically over every black gown of the country. Rassi had made a special position for himself, in that it was impossible for the most insolent nobleman to humiliate him; his way of taking revenge for the insults he suffered all day long was to relate them to the Prince, who had granted him the privilege of saying anything at all; it is true that the response was frequently a well-aimed slap, and one that stung, but Rassi took no umbrage at that. The presence of this great jurist distracted the Prince in his moments of ill humor, when he found it amusing to tease the fellow. It is evident that Rassi was a virtually perfect courtier: without honor and without humor.

“Secrecy above all!” the Prince exclaimed without any form of greeting, and treating Rassi—he who was so polite with everyone—as if he were some sort of scullion. “From when is your sentence dated?”

“As of yesterday morning, Serene Highness.”

“How many judges have signed it?

“All five.”

“And the penalty?”

“Twenty years in the fortress, as Your Serene Highness told me.”

“The death penalty would have caused some sort of rebellion,” said the Prince, as though speaking to himself, “but it’s a pity! What an effect
on that woman! But he
is
a del Dongo, and this name is revered in Parma, on account of the three Archbishops virtually in succession.… You said twenty years in the fortress?”

“Yes, Serene Highness,” replied Justice Rassi, still standing bent double, “with, beforehand, a public apology before Your Serene Highness’s portrait; furthermore, bread and water every Friday and on the eve of all chief holidays,
the subject being of notorious impiety
. This for the future and to ruin his career.”

“Write,” said the Prince:

“Give it to me to sign.” The Prince signed and dated the document as of the previous day; then, handing it back to Rassi, he said to him: “Write immediately under my signature: