The count considered himself as already out of office. “Let me see,” thought he to himself, “how many horses shall we be able to keep after my disgrace, for that is what my retirement¹ will be called?” The count reckoned up his fortune. When he had entered the ministry² he had possessed³ eighty thousand francs. He now discovered, to his great astonishment⁴, that his whole possessions did not amount to five hundred thousand francs. “That makes twenty thousand francs a year at the most,” he mused⁵. “I really am a terrible blunderer. There is not a vulgar fellow at Parma who does not believe I have saved a hundred and fifty thousand francs a year. And on that particular point the prince is more vulgar-minded than anybody else. When they see me in poverty they will only say I am very clever about concealing⁶ my wealth. By Jove!” he exclaimed, “if I am in office for three months longer that fortune shall be doubled!” This idea suggested an excuse for writing to the duchess, and he seized it eagerly. But to gain forgiveness for writing at all, in their present terms, he filled his letter up with figures and calculations. “We shall only have twenty thousand francs a year,” he said, “to keep us all three at Naples—Fabrizio, you, and I. Fabrizio and I will keep one saddle horse between us.” The minister had only just sent his letter off, when Chief-Justice Rassi was announced. He received him with a haughtiness⁸ that bordered closely on impertinence.  
“How is this, sir?” he cried; “you have a conspirator⁹ in whom I am interested carried off from Bologna, and you would fain cut off his head, and all this without a word to me. May I inquire if you know my successor’s name? Is he to be General Conti or yourself?”
 
Rassi was struck dumb. He had too little social experience to be able to judge whether the count was speaking seriously or not. He turned very red, and mumbled¹⁰ some unintelligible¹¹ words. The count watched him, and enjoyed his confusion.
 
All at once Rassi gave himself a shake, and exclaimed with perfect glibness¹², just like Figaro when he is caught red-handed by Almaviva:
 
“Upon my word, count, I’ll not mince¹³ matters with you. What will you give me if I answer all your questions just as I would answer those of my confessor?”
 
“The Cross of St. Paul” (the Parmese order), “or, if you can furnish me with a pretext¹⁴ for granting it to you, I will give you money.”
 
“I would rather have the Cross of St. Paul, because that gives me noble rank.”
 
“What, my dear sir! You still have some regard for our poor advantages?”
 
“If I had been nobly born,” replied Rassi, with all the impudence¹⁵ of his trade, “the relations of the people whom I have hanged would hate me, but they would not despise me.”
 
“Well,” returned the count, “I will save you from their scorn. Do you enlighten my ignorance. What do you intend to do with Fabrizio?”
 
“Indeed, the prince is sorely puzzled. He is very much afraid that, tempted¹⁶ by Armida’s lovely eyes—excuse this glowing language, I use the sovereign’s own words—he is afraid that, fascinated by those exquisite¹⁷ eyes, of which he himself has felt the charm, you may leave him in the lurch¹⁸, and you are the only man capable of managing this Lombard business. I will even tell you,” added Rassi, lowering his voice, “that you have a fine opportunity here, quite worth the Cross of St. Paul that you are giving me. The prince would confer on you, as a reward from the nation, a fine property worth six hundred thousand francs, which he would cut off his own domains¹⁹, or else a grant of three hundred thousand crowns, on condition of your undertaking²⁰ not to interfere²¹ about Fabrizio del Dongo, or at all events only to mention the matter to him in public.”
 
“I expected something better than that,” said the count. “If I don’t interfere about Fabrizio I must quarrel with the duchess.”
 
“Well, that again is just what the prince says. Between ourselves, the fact is that he is furiously angry with the duchess, and he is afraid that to console yourself for your quarrel with that charming lady you may ask him, now that your wife is dead, to grant you the hand of his cousin, Princess Isota—she is not more than fifty years old.”
 
“He has guessed aright,” replied the count. “Our master is the cleverest man in his own dominions²².”
 
Never had the whimsical notion of marrying this elderly princess entered the count’s head. Nothing could have been more uncongenial to a man with his mortal hatred²⁴ of court ceremonial. He began rapping his snuff-box on the top of a little marble table, close to his arm-chair.
 
Rassi took his perplexed²⁵ gesture to be the possible harbinger of a stroke of good fortune; his eyes shone.
 
“I beg of you, count,” he cried, “if your Excellency proposes to accept either the property worth six hundred thousand francs, or the money grant, not to choose anybody but myself to negotiate the matter for you. I would undertake,” he added, dropping his voice, “to get the money grant increased, or even to add a considerable tract²⁶ of forest to the landed property. If your Excellency would only condescend²⁷ to impart a little gentleness and caution into your manner of speaking of the brat²⁸ shut up yonder, the landed property bestowed²⁹ on you by the nation’s gratitude³⁰ might be turned into a duchy. I tell your Excellency again, the prince, at the present moment, loathes³¹ the duchess. But he is in a very great difficulty—to such a point, indeed, that I have sometimes imagined there must be some secret matter which he does not dare to acknowledge to me. At any rate, there is a perfect gold mine for us both in the business, for I can sell you his most private secrets, and very easily, too, seeing I am looked on as your sworn enemy. After all, furious though he is with the duchess, he believes, as we all do, that you are the only person in the world who can successfully carry through the secret arrangements about the Milanese territory. Will your Excellency give me leave to repeat the sovereign’s expression, word for word?” said Rassi, growing more eager. “Often there are features in the mere³² positions of words which no paraphrase³³ can render, and you may see more in them than I do.”
 
“I give you full leave,” said the count, who was still rapping the marble table absently with his gold snuff-box; “I give you full leave, and I shall be grateful.”
 
“If you will give me an hereditary³⁴ patent of nobility, independently of the Cross, I shall be more than satisfied. When I mention the idea of nobility to the prince, he answers: ‘Turn a rascal³⁵ like you into a noble! I should have to shut up shop the very next day; not a soul in Parma would ever seek for rank again.’ To come back to the Milanese business, the prince said to me, only three days ago: ‘That knave³⁶ is the only man who can carry on the thread of our intrigues³⁷. If I turn him away, or if he follows the duchess, I may as well give up all hope of one day seeing myself the Liberal and adored ruler of all Italy.’”
 
At these words the count breathed more freely. “Fabrizio will not die,” said he to himself.
 
Never before, in the whole of his life, had Rassi been admitted to familiar conversation with the Prime Minister. He was beside himself with delight. He felt himself on the eve of bidding farewell to that cognomen³⁸ of Rassi, which had become synonymous with everything that was mean and vile³⁹ throughout the whole country. The common people called all mad dogs Rassi; only quite lately soldiers had fought duels⁴⁰ because the name had been applied⁴¹ to them by some of their comrades. Never a week passed that the unlucky name did not appear in some piece of low doggerel⁴². His son, an innocent schoolboy of sixteen years of age, dared not show himself in the cafés because of his name.
 
The scalding memory of all these delightful⁴³ features of his position drove him to commit an imprudence.
 
“I have a property,” said he to the count, edging his seat close to the Prime Minister’s arm-chair; “it is called Riva. I should like to be Baron⁴⁴ Riva.”
 
“Why not?” said the Prime Minister. Rassi quite lost his head.
 
“Well, then, count, I will dare to be indiscreet; I will venture to guess the object of your desire. You aspire⁴⁵ to the hand of Princess Isota, and that is a noble ambition. Once you are related to the prince, you are safe from all disgrace; you have a tight hold upon our friend. I will not conceal⁷ from you that the idea of this marriage with Princess Isota is odious⁴⁶ to him. But if your business were in the hands of a skilful⁴⁷ man, well paid, we need not despair of success.”
 
“I, my dear Baron, should certainly despair. I repudiate⁴⁸ beforehand everything you may say in my name. But, on the day when that illustrious alliance at last crowns my earnest hopes, and raises me to that mighty⁴⁹ position in the state, I will either give you three hundred thousand francs of my own, or else I will advise the prince to show you some mark of favour, which you yourself may prefer to that sum of money.”
 
This conversation may seem a lengthy⁵⁰ one to the reader, yet we have suppressed more than half of it. It lasted for another two hours. Rassi left the count’s house, half delirious⁵¹ with delight. The count remained, with great hopes of saving Fabrizio, and more determined⁵² than ever to resign.
 
He felt convinced it would be a good thing to renew his credit by the presence of such men as Rassi and Conti in power. He dwelt with the keenest delight on a method of revenging himself on the prince which had just occurred to him. “He may drive the duchess out,” he exclaimed, “but, by my soul! he shall give up his hope of being constitutional King of Lombardy.” The whole idea was a ridiculous fancy; the prince, though a clever man, had dreamed over it till he had fallen desperately⁵³ in love with it.
 
The count flew on wings of delight to retail⁵⁴ this conversation with the chief justice to the duchess. He found her door closed; the porter hardly dared to tell him that he had received the order from his mistress’s own lips. Sadly the count retraced⁵⁵ his steps to the ministry; the misfortune which had befallen him had quite wiped out the joy caused by his conversation with the prince’s confidant. Too disheartened to do anything else, he was wandering drearily⁵⁶ up and down his picture gallery, when, a quarter of an hour later, the following note was delivered to him:
 
“Since it is true, dear and kind friend, that we are now no more than friends, you must only come to see me three times a week. After a fortnight we will reduce these visits, to which my heart still clings, to two in the month. If you desire to please me, you will give publicity⁵⁷ to this rupture⁵⁸ of ours. If you would bring back almost all the love I once felt for you, you would choose another woman to be your friend. As for me, I intend to be very gay; I propose to go out a great deal; perhaps I shall even find some clever man who may help me to forget my sorrows. As a friend, indeed, you will always hold the first place in my heart, but I do not wish it to be said that my action has been dictated⁵⁹ by your wisdom. And above all things, I wish it to be well known that I have lost all influence over your decisions. In a word, dear count, believe that you will always be my dearest friend, and never anything else. I beg you will not nurse any thought of change; this is the very end. You may reckon on my unchanging regard.”
 
The last words were too much for the count’s courage; he wrote an eloquent⁶⁰ letter to the prince, resigning all his posts, and sent it to the duchess, with the request that she would send it over to the palace. In a few moments his resignation came back to him, torn into four pieces, and on one of the blank spaces on the paper the duchess had condescended⁶¹ to write, “No! a thousand times No!”
 
It would be difficult to describe the poor minister’s despair. “She is right. I admit it,” he reiterated⁶² over and over again. “My omission⁶³ of the words ‘unjust proceedings’ is a terrible misfortune. It will end, perhaps, in Fabrizio’s death, and that will involve my own.”
 
It was with a sick weight at his heart that the count, who would not appear at the palace without being sent for, wrote out, with his own hand, the motu proprio which appointed Rassi a Knight⁶⁴ of the Order of St. Paul, and conferred on[314] him a title of hereditary nobility. To this document the count added a report, covering half a page, which laid the state reasons rendering⁶⁵ this step desirable, before the prince. It was a sort of melancholy⁶⁶ pleasure to him to make fair copies of these two papers, and send them to the duchess.
 
His brain was full of conjectures⁶⁷. He strove to guess at the future line of conduct of the woman he loved. “She knows nothing about it herself,” he thought. “Only one thing is certain—that nothing in the world would induce her to relinquish⁶⁸ the decisions she has once expressed.” His misery⁶⁹ was increased by the fact that he could not contrive⁷⁰ to see that the duchess was in the wrong. “She conferred a favour on me when she loved me. She loves me no longer because of a fault, involuntary, indeed, but which may have horrible consequences. I have no right to complain.” The next morning the count heard the duchess had begun to go into society again. She had appeared the night before in all the houses that had been open to guests. What would have become of him if he had met her in the same drawing-room? How was he to ............