The unexpected appearance of this charming young person drove every serious thought away. Fabrizio lived on at Bologna with a sense of the deepest delight and security. His artless propensity¹ to find happiness in anything which filled his life, betrayed itself in his letters to the duchess, and to such a point as to annoy her.  
Fabrizio hardly noticed it; only he noted² in abbreviated³ signs on the dial plate of his watch, “When I write to the duchess I must never say ‘when I was a prelate, when I was a churchman’—it vexes⁴ her.” He had bought a pair of ponies⁵, with which he was very much pleased, and harnessed them to a hired chaise whenever little Marietta had a fancy to go and see one of the delightful⁶ spots in the neighbourhood of Bologna. Almost every evening he drove her to the Reno Cascade⁷. On the way back he would stop at the house of the good-natured Crescentini, who rather believed himself to be Marietta’s father.
 
“Faith,” said Fabrizio to himself, “if this be the café life which struck me as being so absurd for any serious man to lead, I did wrong to turn up my nose at it.” He forgot that he never went near a café except to read the Constitutionnel, and that as he was utterly⁸ unknown to any one in Bologna, the pleasures of vanity had nothing to do with his present state of felicity. When he was not with little Marietta, he was to be seen at the observatory⁹, where he was attending a course of astronomy. The professor had taken a great fancy to him, and Fabrizio would lend him his horses on a Sunday, so that he and his wife might go and ruffle¹⁰ it in the Corso of the Montagnola.
 
He had a horror of making any one unhappy, however unworthy the person might be. Marietta would not hear of his seeing the mamaccia, but one day, when she was in church, he went up to the old woman’s room. She flushed with anger when she saw him enter. “I must play the Del Dongo here,” said Fabrizio to himself. “How much does Marietta earn a month when she has an engagement?” he called out, with very much the same air as that with which a self-respecting young Parisian takes his seat in the balcon at the Opéra Bouffe.
 
“Fifty crowns.”
 
“You lie, as usual. Tell me the truth, or, by God, you’ll not get a centime.”
 
“Well, she was earning twenty-two crowns in our company at Parma, when we were so unlucky as to meet you. I earned twelve crowns, and we each gave Giletti, our protector, a third of our earnings¹¹; on that Giletti made Marietta a present almost every month—something like two crowns——”
 
“You lie again; you only earned four crowns. But if you are good to Marietta, I will engage you as if I were an impresario¹². You shall have twelve crowns for yourself every month, and twenty-two for her, but if I see her eyes red once I shall go bankrupt.”
 
“You’re mighty¹³ proud of yourself! Well, let me tell you, your fine generosity¹⁴ is ruining us,” rejoined the old woman furiously. “We are losing l’avviamento [our custom]. When we have the crushing misfortune of losing your Excellency’s protection, no comedy company will know anything about us. They will all be full, we shall find no engagement, and, thanks to you, we shall die of hunger.”
 
“Go to the devil!” said Fabrizio, departing.
 
“I will not go to the devil, you ungodly wretch¹⁵! But I will go straight to the police, and they shall know from me that you are a monsignore who has cast away his cassock, and that Giuseppe Bossi is no more your name than it’s mine.”
 
Fabrizio had already descended¹⁶ several steps; he turned and came back. “In the first place, the police probably know my real name better than you do. But, if you venture to denounce me, if you dare to do anything so infamous,” he said very seriously, “Ludovico will talk to you, and it will not be six knife thrusts that you will have in your old carcass, but four times six, and you will spend six months in hospital, and without tobacco.”
 
The hag turned pale, rushed at Fabrizio’s hand, and tried to kiss it.
 
“I accept what you are ready to do for me and Marietta thankfully; you looked so good-natured that I took you for a simpleton. And consider this well; other people might make the same mistake. I would advise you to look more like a great gentleman, as a rule.” Then she added, with the most admirable impudence¹⁷, “You will think over this piece of good advice, and, as winter is not far off, you will make Marietta and me each a present of a good coat of that fine English stuff in the big shop on the Piazza¹⁸ San Petronio.”
 
The pretty Marietta’s love offered Fabrizio all the charms of the most tender friendship, and this made him think of the happiness of the same description he might have found in the company of the duchess.
 
“But is it not a very comical thing,” said he to himself, “that I am not capable of that exclusive and passionate¹⁹ preoccupation which men call love? Amid all my chance liaisons²⁰, at Novara or at Naples, did I ever meet a woman whose presence I preferred, even in the earliest days, to a ride on a good-looking horse that I had never mounted before? Can it be,” he added, “that what is called ‘love’ is yet another lie? I love, of course, just as I am hungry at six o’clock in the evening. Can it be that this somewhat vulgar propensity is what these liars²¹ have lifted into the love of Othello and the love of Tancred? Or must I believe that my organization is different from that of other men. What if no passion should ever touch my heart? That would be a strange fate!”
 
At Naples, especially toward the close of his residence there, Fabrizio had met women who, proud of their rank, their beauty, and the worldly position of the adorers they had sacrificed to him, had tried to govern him. At the very first inkling of their plans Fabrizio had broken with them in the promptest and most scandalous manner. “Now,” said he, “if I ever allow myself to be carried away by the pleasure, no doubt a very keen one, of being on good terms with that pretty woman known as the Duchess Sanseverina, I am exactly like the blundering Frenchman who killed the hen that laid the golden eggs. To the duchess I owe the only happiness with which a tender feeling has ever inspired me. My affection for her is my life; and besides, apart from her what am I? A miserable²² exile condemned²³ to a hand-to-mouth existence, in a ruinous castle near Novara. I remember that when the great autumn rains came I used to be obliged to fasten an umbrella over the head of my bed, for fear of accidents. I used to ride the agent’s horses, and he just allowed it out of respect for my blue blood (and my muscular strength). But he was beginning to think I had stayed there too long. My father allowed me twelve hundred francs a year, and thought himself damned because he was supporting a Jacobin. My poor mother and my sisters went without gowns so as to enable me to make some trifling²⁴ presents to my mistresses. This kind of generosity used to wring²⁵ my heart, and besides, my state of penury²⁶ was beginning to be suspected, and the young noblemen in the neighbourhood would soon have been pitying me. Sooner or later some coxcomb²⁷ would have betrayed his scorn for a poor and unsuccessful Jacobin, for in their eyes I was nothing else. I should have bestowed²⁸ or received some hearty²⁹ sword thrust, which would have brought me to the fortress³⁰ of Fenestrella or forced me to take refuge in Switzerland once more—still with my twelve hundred francs a year. To the duchess I owe the happiness of having escaped all these ills, and further, she it is who feels for me those transports of affection which I ought to feel for her.
 
“Instead of the ridiculous and shabby existence which would have turned me into that sorry animal, a fool, I have spent four years in a great city, and with an excellent carriage, which has prevented me from feeling envy, and other low provincial³¹ sentiments. This aunt, in her extreme kindness, is always scolding me because I do not draw enough money from her banker. Shall I spoil this admirable position forever? Shall I lose the only friend I have in the world? All I have to do is to tell her a lie, and say to a charming woman, who probably has not her equal in the world, and for whom I have the most passionate regard, ‘I love you.’ This from me, who do not know what real love means! She would spend whole days reproaching me with the absence of those transports which I have never known. Now, Marietta, who can not see into my heart, and who takes a caress³² for an outburst of passion, thinks me madly in love with her, and believes herself the happiest of living women.
 
“As a matter of fact, the only slight acquaintance that I have ever had with that tender absorption which is, I believe, denominated love, was for that young girl Aniken, at the inn at Zonders, near the Belgian frontier.”
 
It is with much regret that we must here relate one of Fabrizio’s worst actions. In the midst of his tranquil³³ life, a foolish sting to his vanity took possession of the heart which love could not vanquish³⁴, and carried him quite off his feet. Living in Bologna at the same time as himself, was the celebrated³⁵ Fausta , undoubtedly³⁶ one of the first singers of our time, and perhaps the most capricious woman ever seen. The gifted Venetian poet Burati had written a famous satirical sonnet³⁷ concerning her, which, at that time, was in the mouth of every one, from princes to the lowest urchins³⁸ in the street:—
 
“To will and not to will, to adore and detest³⁹ in one and the same day, to find no happiness save in inconstancy, to scorn that which the world adores, so long as the world adores it—Fausta has all these faults and many more. Wherefore, never cast your eyes upon the serpent; if once thou seest her, oh, imprudent man, all her caprices are forgotten. If thou hast the happiness of hearing her, thou forgettest even thyself, and love, at that moment, makes of thee what Circe once made the comrades of Ulysses.”
 
Just at that moment this miracle of beauty was so fascinated by the huge whiskers and overweening insolence⁴¹ of the young Count  that even his abominable⁴² jealousy⁴³[232] did not revolt her. Fabrizio saw the count in the streets of Bologna, and was nettled⁴⁴ by the air of superiority with which he swaggered along the pavements, and graciously condescended⁴⁵ to show off his charms before the public. The young man was very rich, believed he might venture anything, and as his prepotenzi had earned him several threats, he hardly ever appeared unaccompanied by eight or ten buli (a sort of ruffian) who wore his liveries, and came from his property near Brescia.
 
Once or twice, when he had chanced to hear the Fausta sing, Fabrizio had crossed glances with the doughty⁴⁶ count. He was astonished by the angelic sweetness of her voice; he had never dreamed of anything like it. It gave him sensations of supreme⁴⁷ delight, a fine contrast to the placidity⁴⁸ of his existence. “Can this, at last, be love?” said he to himself. Full of curiosity to feel the passion, and amused, too, by the idea of braving the count, who looked far more threatening than any drum-major, our hero committed the childish folly⁴⁹ of appearing much too frequently in front of the Palazzo Tanari, in which the count had installed the Fausta.
 
One day, toward nightfall, Fabrizio, who was trying to make Fausta look at him, was greeted by shrieks⁵⁰ of laughter, evidently intentional⁵¹, from the count’s buli, who were standing⁵² round the door of the palace. He hurried home, armed himself well, and returned.
 
Fausta, hidden behind her sun-blinds, was expecting this return, and noted it down to his credit. The count, who was jealous of everybody on earth, became especially jealous of Signor Giuseppe Bossi, and indulged in all sorts of absurd threats, whereupon our hero sent him a letter every morning containing nothing but these words: “Signor Giuseppe Bossi destroys vermin, and lives at the Pellegrino, in the Via Larga, No. 79.”
 
Count , inured⁵³ to the respect ensured him everywhere by his great fortune, his blue blood, and the bravery of his thirty serving-men, refused to understand the language of the little note.
 
Fabrizio wrote more notes to the Fausta.  set spies upon his rival, who was not, perhaps, unpleasing to the lady. He first of all learned his real name, and that, for the moment, at all events, he did not dare to show his face in Parma. A few days later Count , with his buli, his splendid horses, and Fausta, all departed to Parma.
 
Fabrizio, warming to the game, followed them next morning. In vain did the faithful Ludovico remonstrate⁵⁴ pathetically with him. Fabrizio would not listen, and Ludovico, who was a brave man himself, admired him for it. Besides, this journey would bring him nearer his own pretty mistress at Casal-Maggiore. By Ludovico’s care, eight or ten old soldiers who had served in Napoleon’s regiments⁵⁵, entered Signor Giuseppe Bossi’s service, nominally⁵⁶ as servants.
 
“If,” said Fabrizio to himself, “when I commit this folly of going after the Fausta, I only hold no communication with the Minister of Police, Count Mosca, nor with the duchess, I risk no one but myself. Later on I will tell my aunt that I did it all in search of love, that beautiful thing that I have never been able to discover. The fact is that I do think about Fausta, even when I don’t see her; but is it the memory of her voice that I love, or is it her person?”
 
As he had given up all thoughts of the Church as a career, Fabrizio had grown moustaches and whiskers almost as tremendous as those of Count , and these somewhat disguised him. He established his headquarters, not at Parma—that would have been too imprudent—but in a village hard by, on the road to Sacca, where his aunt’s country house was situated⁵⁷. Advised by Ludovico, he gave himself out in the village as the valet of a very eccentric English nobleman who spent a hundred thousand francs a year on sport, and who was shortly to arrive from the Lake of Como, where he was detained by the trout-fishing.
 
Fortunately the pretty little palace which Count M⸺ had hired for the fair Fausta stood at the southernmost end of the town of Parma, and just on the Sacca road, and Fausta’s windows looked on to the fine avenues of tall trees which stretch away below the high tower of the citadel⁵⁸.
 
Fabrizio was not known in that lonely quarter of the[234] town. He did not fail to have Count  followed, and one day, when he had just left the exquisite⁵⁹ singer’s house, Fabrizio was bold enough to appear in the street in broad daylight. He was well armed, indeed, and mounted on an excellent horse. Musicians, such as are constantly found in the Italian streets, and who occasionally are very good indeed, ranged themselves with their instruments under the Fausta’s windows, and, after some introductory chords, sang, very fairly, a cantata⁶⁰ in her honour. Fausta appeared at the window, and her attention was easily caught by a very courteous⁶¹ young gentleman, who first of all saluted⁶² her, and then began to bombard her with most significant glances. In spite of the exaggeratedly English dress Fabrizio had donned, she soon recognised the sender of the passionate letters which had brought about her departure from Bologna. “This is a strange being,” said she to herself. “I fancy I am going to fall in love with him. I have a hundred louis in my pocket. I can very well afford to break with the terrible count. He really has no intelligence, and there is nothing novel about him; the only thing that rather entertains me is the frightful⁶³ appearance of his followers⁶⁴.”
 
The next morning Fabrizio, having heard that the Fausta went to mass every day about eleven o’clock, in that very church of San Giovanni which contained the tomb of his great-uncle, the Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo, ventured to follow her there. It must be said that Ludovico had provided him with a fine English wig⁶⁵ of the brightest red hair. À propos to the colour of these locks—that of the flame which devoured⁶⁶ his heart—he wrote a sonnet which delighted the Fausta. An unknown hand had laid it carefully on her piano. This manœuvring went on for quite a week, but Fabrizio felt that in spite of all his various efforts, he was making no real progress.
 
Fausta refused to receive him. He had overdone⁶⁷ his eccentricity⁶⁸, and she has since acknowledged that she was afraid of him. Fabrizio still retained a faint hope of arriving at the sensation which is known as love, but in the meanwhile, he was very often sorely bored.
 
“Sir, let us take ourselves off,” said Ludovico to him over and over again. “You are not the least in love; your coolness and reasonableness are quite hopeless, and besides, you make no progress whatsoever⁶⁹. Let us decamp, for very shame.”
 
In the first flush of disgust, Fabrizio was on the very point of departing. Then he heard that the Fausta was to sing at the Duchess Sanseverina’s house. “Perhaps that sublime⁷⁰ voice will really set my heart on fire at last,” thought he, and he actually dared to introduce himself, in disguise, into his aunt’s palace, where every one knew him.
 
The emotion of the duchess may be imagined, when, quite toward the end of the concert, she noticed a man in a chasseur’s livery standing near the door of the great drawing-room; something in his appearance stirred her memory. She sought Count Mosca, and it was not until then that he informed her of Fabrizio’s extraordinary and really incomprehensible folly. He took the matter very well—this love for somebody who was not the duchess was very agreeable to him—and the count, who, politics apart, was a man of perfect honour, acted on the maxim⁷¹ that his own happiness depended entirely⁷² on that of the duchess. “I will save him from himself,” said he to his friend. “Imagine our enemies’ delight if he were arrested in this very palace! So I have posted a hundred men of my own in the house, and it was on this account that I asked you to give me the keys of the great water-tank. He gives himself out as being desperately⁷³ in love with the Fausta, and hitherto he has not been able to carry her off from Count , who gives the giddy creature all the luxuries of a queen.”
 
The liveliest sorrow was painted on the features of the duchess.
 
Fabrizio was nothing more than a libertine⁷⁴, then—incapable of any tender or serious feeling! “And not to see us! That is what I shall never be able to forgive him,” she said at last. “And I, who am writing to him every day, to Bologna——”
 
“I give him great credit for his self-restraint,” said the count. “He does not desire to compromise us by his[236] freak, and it will be very amusing to hear his account of it later.”
 
The Fausta was too giddy-pated to be able to hold her tongue about anything which occupied her thoughts. The morning after the concert, during which she had sung all her airs at the tall young man dressed as a chasseur, she referred, in conversation with the count, to an unknown and attentive⁷⁵ individual. “Where do you see him?” inquired the count in a fury. “In the streets, in church,” replied the Fausta, in confusion. She immediately tried to repair her imprudence, or at all events to remove any idea which could recall Fabrizio’s person. She launched into an endless description of a tall red-haired young man with blue eyes, some very rich and clumsy Englishman, doubtless, or else some prince. At this word the count, the definiteness of whose impressions was their only virtue⁷⁷, jumped to the conclusion—a delightful one for his vanity—that his rival was none other than the hereditary⁷⁸ Prince of Parma. This poor melancholy⁷⁹ youth, watched over by five or six governors, sub-governors, tutors, etc., who never allowed him to go out without holding a preliminary council, was in the habit of casting strange looks at every decent-looking woman whom he was allowed to approach. At the duchess’s concert he had been seated, as his rank demanded, in front of all the other auditors⁸⁰, in a separate arm-chair, and three paces from the fair Fausta, and had gazed at her in a manner which had caused excessive vexation to the count. This delightful piece of wild vanity, the idea of having a prince for his rival, entertained Fausta vastly, and she amused herself by strengthening it with a hundred details, imparted in the most apparently⁸¹ artless fashion.
 
“Is your family,” said she to the count, “as old as that of the Farnese, to which this young man belongs?”
 
“As old! What do you mean? There are no bastards⁸² in my family.”
 
It so fell out that Count  never could get a clear view of his pretended rival, and this confirmed his flattering conviction that he had a prince for his antagonist⁸³. As a matter of fact, Fabrizio, when the necessities of his enterprise did not summon him to Parma, spent his time in the woods near Sacca, and on the banks of the Po. Count  had grown more haughty⁸⁴ than ever, but far more prudent⁴⁰, too, since he had believed himself to be disputing Fausta’s affections with a prince. He besought⁸⁵ her very earnestly to behave with the utmost reserve in everything she did.
 
After casting himself at her feet, like a jealous and passionate lover, he told her very plainly that his honour demanded that she should not be duped by the young prince.
 
“Excuse me,” she replied. “I should not be his dupe if I loved him. I have never yet seen a prince at my feet.”
 
“If you yield,” he responded, with a haughty look, “I may not, perhaps, be able to avenge⁸⁶ myself on the prince, but vengeance⁸⁷ I will have, you may be certain,” and he went out, banging the doors behind him. Had Fabrizio made his appearance at that moment, he would have won his cause.
 
“If you value your life,” said Count to her that evening, as he took leave of her after the play, “see to it that I never find out that the young prince has entered your house. I can do nothing to him, but s’death, madam, do not force me to remember that I can do anything I please to you!”
 
“Ah, my little Fabrizio,” exclaimed the Fausta, “if I only knew where to lay my hand on you!”
 
Wounded vanity may drive a wealthy young man, who has been surrounded by flatterers since his birth, into many things. The very real passion with which the Fausta had inspired Count  burned up again furiously. The dangerous prospect⁸⁸ of a struggle with the only son of the sovereign in whose country he was sojourning did not daunt⁸⁹ him, and at the same time he was not clever enough to make any attempt to get a sight of the prince, or at least have him followed. As he could discover no other method of attack,  ventured on the idea of making him look ridiculous. “I shall be banished⁹⁰ forever from the dominion⁹¹ of Parma,” said he. “Well, what matter?”
 
If he had made any attempt to reconnoitre the enemy’s position, Count  would have discovered that the poor young prince never went out of doors except in the company of three or four old men, the tiresome⁹² guardians⁹³ of official etiquette⁹⁴, and that the only pleasure of his own choice in which he was allowed to indulge, was his taste for mineralogy. Both in the daytime, and at night, the little Palazzo occupied by Fausta, and to which the best company in Parma crowded, was surrounded by watchers. M⸺ was kept informed, hour by hour, of what she was doing, and especially of what was done by those about her. One point, at least, was praiseworthy, in the precautions taken by the jealous man—the lady, whimsical as she was, had no suspicion, at first, of the increasing watchfulness⁹⁵ about her. All Count ’s agents reported that a very young man, wearing a wig of red hair, constantly appeared under the Fausta’s windows, but every time in some fresh disguise. “Clearly that is the young prince,” said  to himself; “otherwise why should he disguise himself? Egad, I am not the man to make way for him! But for the usurpations of the Venetian republic I should now be a reigning⁹⁶ prince like him.”
 
On San Stefano’s Day the spies’ reports grew more gloomy; they seemed to indicate that the Fausta was beginning to respond to her unknown admirer’s attentions. “I might depart instantly, and take the woman with me,” said  to himself, “but I fled from Bologna before Del Dongo. Here I should flee before a prince, and what would the young man say? He might think he had contrived⁹⁷ to frighten me, and on my soul, my family is as good as his!”
 was beside himself with rage, and to crown his misery⁹⁸, his great object was to prevent his jealousy from making him look ridiculous in the eyes of Fausta, with whose jeering⁹⁹ disposition¹⁰⁰ he was well acquainted. Therefore, on San Stefano’s Day, after having spent an hour with her, and received a welcome which seemed to him the very acme¹⁰¹ of falsehood, he left her, toward eleven o’clock, when she was dressing¹⁰² to go and hear mass at the Church of San Giovanni. Count  returned to his rooms, put on the shabby black dress of a young theological student, and hurried off to San Giovanni. He chose out a place behind one of the tombs which adorned¹⁰³ the third chapel¹⁰⁴ on the right. Under the arm of a............