Thus, only a month after his arrival at court, Fabrizio was acquainted with all the worries of a courtier, and the intimate friendship which had been the happiness of his life was poisoned. One evening, harassed1 by these thoughts, he left the duchess’s apartments, where he looked far too much like the reigning2 lover, and, wandering aimlessly through the town, happened to pass by the theatre, which was lighted up. He went in. This, for a man of his cloth, was a piece of gratuitous3 imprudence, and one he had fully5 intended to avoid while at Parma, which, after all, is only a small town of forty thousand inhabitants. It is true, indeed, that from the first days of his residence there he had put aside his official dress, and in the evenings, unless he was going to very large parties, he wore plain black, like any man in mourning.
At the theatre he took a box on the third tier, so as not to be seen. The piece was Goldoni’s “Locandiera.” He was looking at the architecture of the house, and had hardly turned his eyes upon the stage. But the numerous audience was in a state of constant laughter. Fabrizio glanced at the young actress who was playing the part of the Locandiera, and thought her droll6; he looked at her more attentively7, and she struck him as being altogether pretty, and, above all, exceedingly natural. She was a simple young creature, the first to laugh at the pretty things Goldoni had put into her mouth, which seemed to astonish her as she spoke8 them. He inquired her name, and was told it was Marietta Valserra.
“Ah,” thought he to himself, “she has taken my name! How odd!” Contrary to his intention, he did not leave the theatre until the play was over. The next day he came back.[156] Three days after that he had found out where Marietta Valserra lived.
On the very evening of the day on which, with a good deal of difficulty, he had procured9 this address, he noticed that the count looked at him in the most pleasant manner. The poor jealous lover, who had hard work to restrain himself within the bounds of prudence4, had set spies upon the young man’s conduct, and was delighted at his freak for the actress. How shall I describe the count’s delight when, the day after that on which he had been able to force himself to be gracious to Fabrizio, he learned that the young man—partly disguised, indeed, in a long blue over-coat—had climbed to the wretched apartment on the fourth floor of an old house behind the theatre, in which Marietta Valserra lived. His delight increased twofold when he knew that Fabrizio had presented himself under a false name, and was honoured by the jealousy10 of a good-for-nothing fellow of the name of Giletti, who played third-rate servants’ parts in the city, and danced on the tight rope in the neighbouring villages. This noble lover of Marietta’s was heaping volleys of abuse on Fabrizio, and vowed11 he would kill him.
Opera companies are formed by an impresario12, who engages the artists he can afford to pay, or finds disengaged, from all quarters, and the company thus collected by chance remains13 together for a season or two, at the outside. This is not the case with comedy companies. These, though they move about from town to town, and change their place of residence every two or three months, continue, nevertheless, as one family, the members of which either love or hate each other. These companies frequently comprise couples, living in constant and close relations, which the beaux of the towns in which they occasionally perform find it very difficult to break up. This is exactly what happened to our hero. Little Marietta liked him well enough, but she was horribly afraid of Giletti, who claimed to be her lord and master, and kept a close eye upon her. He openly declared that he would kill the monsignore, for he had dogged Fabrizio’s steps, and had succeeded in finding out his name.[157] This Giletti was certainly the most hideous14 of beings, and the least attractive imaginable as a lover. He was enormously tall, hideously15 thin, deeply pitted with small-pox, and had something of a squint16 into the bargain. Notwithstanding this, he was full of the graces peculiar17 to his trade, and would make his entry on the wings, where his comrades were assembled, turning wheels on his hands and feet, or performing some other pleasing trick. His great parts were those in which the actor appears with his face whitened with flour, and receives or inflicts18 innumerable blows with a stick. This worthy19 rival of Fabrizio’s received a salary of thirty-two francs a month, and thought himself very well off indeed.
To Count Mosca it was as though he had been brought back from the gates of the tomb, when his watchers brought him the proofs of all these details. His good-nature reasserted itself; he was gayer and better company than ever in the duchess’s rooms, and took good care not to tell her anything of the little adventure which had restored him to life. He even took precautions to prevent her hearing anything of what was happening until the latest possible moment; and finally, he gathered courage to listen to his reason, which for a month had been vainly assuring him that whenever a lover’s merits fade, that lover should take a journey.
Important business summoned him to Bologna, and twice a day the cabinet couriers brought him, not so much the necessary papers from his offices, as news of little Marietta’s amours, of the redoubtable21 Giletti’s fury, and of Fabrizio’s undertakings22.
Several times over one of the count’s agents bespoke23 performances of “Arlecchino schelettro e pasta,” one of Giletti’s triumphs (he emerges from the pie just as his rival Brighella is going to eat it, and thrashes him soundly). This made a pretext24 for sending him a hundred francs. Giletti, who was over head and ears in debt, took good care to say nothing about this windfall, but his pride reached an astonishing pitch.
What had been a whim25 in Fabrizio’s case, now became a[158] matter of piqued26 vanity. (Young as he was, his anxieties had already driven him to indulge in whims27.) His vanity led him to the theatre; the little girl acted very well and amused him. When the play was over he was in love for quite an hour. The count, receiving news that Fabrizio was in real danger, returned to Parma. Giletti, who had served as a dragoon in the fine “Napoleon” regiment29, was seriously talking of murdering Fabrizio, and was making arrangements for his subsequent flight into the Romagna. If my reader be very young, he will be scandalized by my admiration30 for this fine trait of virtue31. Yet it involved no small effort of heroism32 on the count’s part to leave Bologna. For too often, indeed, in the mornings, his complexion33 looked sorely jaded34, and Fabrizio’s was so fresh and pleasant to look at! Who could have reproached him with Fabrizio’s death if it had occurred in his absence, and on account of so foolish a business? But to his rare nature, the thought of a generous action, which he might have done, and which he had not performed, would have been an eternal remorse35; and, further, he could not endure the idea of seeing the duchess sad, and by his fault.
When he arrived, he found her taciturn and gloomy. This is what had happened. Her little maid Cecchina, tormented36 by remorse and gauging37 the importance of her own fault by the large sum she had been paid for committing it, had fallen sick. One night the duchess, who had a real regard for her, went up to her room. The young girl could not resist this mark of kindness. She burst into tears, begged her mistress to take back the money still remaining to her out of what she had received, and at last gathered courage to tell her the story of the count’s questions and her own replies. The duchess ran across to the lamp and put it out. Then she told Cecchina that she would forgive her, but only on condition that she never said a word about the strange scene to anybody on earth. “The poor count,” she added carelessly, “is afraid of looking ridiculous—all men are alike.”
The duchess hurried down to her own apartments. She had hardly shut herself into her own room before she burst[159] into tears. The idea of love passages with Fabrizio, at whose birth she had been present, was horrible to her, and yet what other meaning could her conduct bear?
Such had been the first cause of the black depression in which the count found her plunged38. When he arrived, she had fits of impatience39 with him, and almost with Fabrizio; she would have liked never to have seen either of them again. She was vexed40 by Fabrizio’s behaviour with little Marietta, which seemed to her ridiculous. For the count—who, like a true lover, could keep nothing from his mistress—had told her the whole story. She could not grow accustomed to this disaster; there was a flaw in her idol41. At last, in a moment of confidence, she asked the count’s advice. It was an exquisite42 instant for him, and a worthy reward for the upright impulse which had brought him back to Parma.
“What can be more simple?” said the count, with a smile. “These young fellows fall in love with every woman they see, and the next morning they have forgotten all about her. Ought he not to go to Belgirate to see the Marchesa del Dongo? Very well, then. Let him start. While he is away I shall request the comedy company to remove itself and its talents elsewhere, and will pay its travelling expenses. But we shall soon see him in love again with the first pretty woman chance may throw across his path. That is the natural order of things, and I would not have it otherwise. If it is necessary, let the marchesa write to him.”
This suggestion, emitted with an air of the most complete indifference43, was a ray of light to the duchess; she was afraid of Giletti.
That evening the count mentioned, as though by chance, that one of his couriers was about to pass through Milan on his way to Vienna.
Three days later Fabrizio received a letter from his mother.
He departed, very much annoyed because Giletti’s jealousy had hitherto prevented him from taking advantage of the friendly feelings of which Marietta had assured him[160] through her mamaccia, an old woman who performed the functions of her mother.
Fabrizio met his mother and one of his sisters at Belgirate, a large Piedmontese village on the right bank of the Lago Maggiore. The left bank is in Milanese territory, and consequently belongs to Austria.
This lake, which is parallel to the Lake of Como, and, like it, runs from north to south, lies about thirty miles farther westward44. The mountain air, the calm and majestic45 aspect of the splendid lake, which recalled that near which he had spent his childhood, all contributed to change Fabrizio’s annoyance46, which had verged47 upon anger, into a gentle melancholy48. The memory of the duchess rose up before him, clothed with infinite tenderness. It seemed to him, now he was far from her, that he was beginning to love her with that love which he had never yet felt for any woman. Nothing could have been more painful to him than the thought of being parted from her forever, and if, while he was in this frame of mind, the duchess had condescended49 to the smallest coquetry—such, for example, as giving him a rival—she would have conquered his heart.
But far from taking so decisive a step, she could not help reproaching herself bitterly because her thoughts hovered51 so constantly about the young traveller’s path. She upbraided52 herself for what she still called a fancy, as if it had been an abomination. Her kindness and attention to the count increased twofold, and he, bewitched by all these charms, could not listen to the healthy reason which prescribed a second trip to Bologna.
The Marchesa del Dongo, greatly hurried by the arrangements for the wedding of her eldest53 daughter with a Milanese duke, could only spend three days with her beloved son. Never had she found him so full of tender affection. Amid the melancholy which was taking stronger and yet stronger hold of Fabrizio’s soul, a strange and even absurd idea had presented itself to him, and was forthwith carried into effect. Dare we say he was bent54 on consulting Father Blanès? The good old man was perfectly55 incapable56 of understanding the sorrows of a heart torn by various[161] boyish passions of almost equal strength; and besides, it would have taken a week to give him even a faint idea of the various interests at Parma which Fabrizio was forced to consider. Yet when Fabrizio thought of consulting him, all the fresh feelings of his sixteenth year came back to him. Shall I be believed when I affirm that it was not simply to the wise man and the absolutely faithful friend that Fabrizio longed to speak? The object of this excursion and the feelings which agitated57 our hero all through the fifty hours of its duration are so absurd, that for the sake of my story I should doubtless do better to suppress them. I fear Fabrizio’s credulity may deprive him of the reader’s sympathy. But thus he was. Why should I flatter him more than another? I have not flattered Count Mosca nor the prince.
Fabrizio, then, if the truth must be told, accompanied his mother to the port of Laveno, on the left bank of the Lago Maggiore, the Austrian side, where she landed about eight o’clock at night. (The lake itself is considered neutral, and no passports are asked of any one who does not land.) But darkness had hardly fallen before he, too, had himself put ashore58 on that same Austrian bank, in a little wood which juts59 out into the water. He had hired a sediola—a sort of country gig which travels very fast—in which he was able to follow about five hundred paces behind his mother’s carriage. He was disguised as a servant belonging to the Casa del Dongo, and none of the numerous police or customs officers thought of asking him for his passport. A quarter of a league from Como, where the Marchesa del Dongo and her daughter were to spend the night, he took a path to the left, which, after running round the village of Vico, joined a narrow newly made road along the very edge of the lake. It was midnight, and Fabrizio had reason to hope he would not meet any gendarmes60. The black outline of the foliage61 on the clumps62 of trees through which the road constantly passed stood out against a starry63 sky, just veiled by a light mist. A profound stillness hung over the waters and the sky. Fabrizio’s soul could not resist this sublime64 beauty; he stopped and seated himself on a rock which jutted65 out into the lake and formed a[162] little promontory66. Nothing broke the universal silence, save the little waves that died out at regular intervals67 upon the beach. Fabrizio had the heart of an Italian. I beg the fact may be forgiven him. This drawback, which will make him less attractive, consisted, above all, in the following fact: he was only vain by fits and starts, and the very sight of sublime beauty filled his heart with emotion, and blunted the keen and cruel edge of his sorrows. Sitting on his lonely rock, no longer forced to keep watch against police agents, sheltered by the darkness of the night and the vast silence, soft tears rose in his eyes, and he enjoyed, at very little cost, the happiest moments he had known for many a day.
He resolved he would never tell a lie to the duchess; and it was because he loved her to adoration68 at that moment that he swore an oath never to tell her that he loved her; never would he drop into her ear that word love, because the passion to which the name is given had never visited his heart. In the frenzy69 of generosity70 and virtue which made him feel so happy at that moment, he resolved, on the earliest opportunity, to tell her the whole truth—that his heart had never known what love might be. Once this bold decision had been adopted, he felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off him. “Perhaps she will say something to me about Marietta. Very good; then I will never see little Marietta again,” he answered his own thought, joyously71.
The morning breeze was beginning to temper the overwhelming heat which had prevailed the whole day long. The dawn was already outlining the Alpine72 peaks whic............