About a year before the period of her misfortunes, the duchess had made acquaintance with a strange being. One day, when, as they say in that country, “aveva la luna,” she had betaken herself, quite unexpectedly, toward evening, to her country house on the hill overlooking the Po, at Sacca, beyond Colorno. She delighted in making improvements in the place; she loved the huge forest that crowns the hill and grows close up to the house. She was having paths cut through it to various picturesque¹ spots.  
“You’ll be carried off by brigands², fair lady,” said the prince to her one day. “A forest where you are known to walk can not possibly remain deserted³.” The prince cast an eye on the count, whose jealousy⁴ he was always trying to kindle⁵.
 
“I have no fears, Most Serene⁶ Highness,” replied the duchess, with an air of innocence⁷. “When I walk about in my woods, I reassure⁸ myself with the thought that I have never done any one any harm; therefore, who should there be to hate me?” The remark struck the hearers as a bold one; it recalled the insulting language employed by the Liberals of the country, a most impudent⁹ set of people.
 
On the day of which we speak, the duchess was reminded of the prince’s remark by the sight of a very poorly dressed man, who was following her, at a distance, through the trees. In the course of her walk she made an unexpected turn, which brought her so close to the stranger that she was frightened. Her first impulse was to call to her gamekeeper, whom she had left about a thousand paces off, in the flower-garden, close to the house. But the stranger had time to approach her, and cast himself at her feet. He was young, very handsome, miserably¹⁰ clad—there were rents a foot long in his garments—but his eyes blazed with the fire of an ardent¹¹ soul.
 
“I am condemned¹² to death; I am Dr. Ferrante Palla; I am starving, and so are my five children.”
 
The duchess had noticed that he was frightfully thin, but his eyes were so beautiful, and their expression at once so fervent¹³ and so tender, that any idea of crime never occurred to her. “Pallagi,” thought she to herself, “should have given such eyes to the St. John in the Desert he has just placed in the cathedral.” The thought of St. John had been suggested by Ferrante’s incredible thinness. The duchess gave him the only three sequins she had in her purse, apologizing for the smallness of the gift, on the score that she had just paid her gardener’s account. Ferrante thanked her fervently¹⁴. “Alas!” he said, “in old days I lived in cities; I saw beautiful women. Since I have been condemned to death for performing my duties as a citizen I have dwelt in the woods, and I was following you, just now, not to rob you, nor to ask for alms, but, like some savage¹⁵, fascinated by a dainty beauty. It is long since I have seen two fair white hands.”
 
“But pray rise,” said the duchess, for he was still kneeling.
 
“Let me stay where I am,” answered Ferrante. “The position makes me realize I am not stealing at this moment, and that thought calms me. For you must know that since I have been prevented from following my profession, I have lived by theft. But at this moment I am only a humble¹⁶ mortal adoring a sublime¹⁷ beauty.” The duchess realized that the man was a little mad, but she was not frightened, she read the poor fellow’s fervent and kindly¹⁸ soul in his eyes, and besides, she was not at all averse¹⁹ to people of extraordinary appearance.
 
“I am a doctor, then, and I made love to the wife of Sarasine, the apothecary²⁰ at Parma. He discovered us, and drove her out, with three children whom he suspected, and justly, to be mine, and not his own. She has borne me two more since then. The mother and her five children live in the deepest poverty about a league from here, in a sort of hut in the wood, which I built with my own hands. For I must keep out of the gendarmes²¹’ way, and the poor woman will not be parted from me. I was condemned to death, and very justly, too, for I was a conspirator²²; I loathe²³ the prince, who is a tyrant²⁴. I could not take to flight, for I had no money. But my misfortunes have grown far greater now, and if I had killed myself it would have been better for me, a thousand times. I have no love, now, for the unhappy woman who has borne me these five children, and sacrificed everything for me. I love another. But if I kill myself, the five children and the mother must literally²⁵ die of hunger.” There was truth in the man’s voice.
 
“But how do you live?” exclaimed the duchess, greatly affected²⁶.
 
“The children’s mother spins; the eldest²⁷ girl is fed by a farmer of Liberal opinions, whose sheep she tends. As for me, I rob on the highway between Piacenza and Genoa.”
 
“How can you reconcile robbery with your Liberal principles?”
 
“I keep note of the people whom I rob, and if ever I have anything of my own, I will return the sums I have stolen from them. I reckon that a tribune of the people, such as I, performs a work, considering its danger, well worth a hundred francs a month, and I take care not to steal more than twelve hundred francs a year. But I am mistaken; I steal a little more than that, and the overplus enables me to pay for the printing of my works.”
 
“What works?”
 
“Will the ever have a chamber²⁸ and a budget?”
 
“What!” cried the duchess in astonishment²⁹. “Then you, sir, are one of the most famous poets of our century, the renowned³⁰ Ferrante Palla!”
 
“Renowned, that may be; but most unhappy, that is sure.”
 
“And a man of such powers, sir, is forced to live by theft!”
 
“Perhaps that is the very reason why I have some talent. Up till now all our best-known authors have been[388] paid either by the government or by the faith they were endeavouring to undermine. Now, in my case, first of all, I carry my life in my hand, and secondly³¹, consider, madam, the thoughts that stir within me when I set out to rob! ‘Am I doing right?’ I say to myself. ‘Are my services as a tribune really worth a hundred francs a month?’ I’ve two shirts, the coat you see upon me, some poor weapons, and I shall certainly end by being hanged. I venture to think I am disinterested³². I should be happy, but for the fatal love which prevents my finding anything but misery³³ in the company of the mother of my children. The ugliness of my poverty is what makes me suffer. I love rich dresses, white hands”—and he began to look at the duchess’s hands in a way that frightened her.
 
“Farewell, sir,” she said. “Can I serve you in any matter at Parma?”
 
“Give a thought, sometimes, to this question: His profession is to stir men’s hearts, and prevent them from falling asleep in that false and utterly³⁴ material happiness which monarchies³⁵ bestow³⁶. Is the service he renders his fellow-citizens worth a hundred francs a month?—My misfortune,” he added very gently, “is that I love. For nearly two years you have filled all my soul, but until this day I had looked at you without causing you any fear,” and he took to flight with a rapidity so prodigious³⁷ that it both astonished and reassured³⁸ the duchess. “The gendarmes would find it difficult to catch him,” she thought. “He certainly is mad.”
 
“He is mad,” her servants told her. “We have all known for ever so long that the poor man is desperately³⁹ in love with the signora. When she is here, we see him wandering about in the upper parts of the wood, and as soon as she is gone he never fails to come down and sit wherever she has stopped. He carefully picks up any flowers which may have fallen from her nosegay, and carries them about for a long time, fastened to his shabby hat.”
 
“And you never told me of these follies⁴⁰?” said the duchess, almost reproachfully.
 
“We were afraid the Signora Duchessa might tell Count Mosca. Poor Ferrante is such a good fellow, he never does any one any harm, and because he loves our Napoleon, he has been condemned to death.”
 
Not a word did she say to the minister about this meeting, and as it was the first secret she had kept from him for over four years, she found herself stopped short in the middle of a sentence at least ten times over. When she went back to Sacca she brought gold with her, but Ferrante did not appear. A fortnight later she went again. Ferrante, after having followed her for some time, bounding along in the wood about a hundred paces from her, bore down upon her as swiftly as a sparrow-hawk and cast himself at her knees, as on the first occasion.
 
“Where were you a fortnight ago?”
 
“In the mountains beyond Novi, robbing some muleteers on their way back from Milan, where they had been selling oil.”
 
“Accept this purse.”
 
Ferrante opened the purse, took out a single sequin, which he kissed and thrust into his bosom⁴¹, and then gave the purse back to her.
 
“You give me back this purse—you, who are a robber!”
 
“No doubt about that. My rule is that I must never have more than a hundred francs. Now, at this moment, the mother of my children has eighty francs and I have twenty-five; I am out of my reckoning by five francs, and if I were to be hanged at this moment I should be stung by remorse⁴². I have taken one sequin, because it comes from you, and I love you!”
 
The tone in which these simple words were spoken was perfect. “He really does love!” thought the duchess to herself.
 
That day he seemed quite off his balance. He said there were some people at Parma who owed him six hundred francs, and with that sum he would repair his hut, in which his poor children were now constantly catching⁴⁴ cold.
 
“But I will advance the six hundred francs to you,” exclaimed the duchess, greatly moved.
 
“But, then, would not my political opponents slander⁴⁵ me, and say that I, a public man, am selling myself?”
 
The duchess, deeply touched, offered to conceal⁴⁷ him at Parma if he would swear to her that for the moment he would not exercise his functions in the town, and above all that he would not carry out any of the death sentences which he declared he had in petto.
 
“And if I am hanged as the result of my imprudence,” said Ferrante seriously, “all those wretches⁴⁸ who do the people so much harm will live for years and years, and whose fault will that be? What would my father say to me when I meet him up yonder?”
 
The duchess talked to him a great deal about his little children, who would very likely die of the damp. At last he accepted her offer of a hiding-place in Parma.
 
During the one and only half-day which the Duke Sanseverina had spent at Parma after his marriage, he had shown the duchess a very curious secret chamber in the southern corner of the palace which bore his name. The outer wall, which dates from the middle ages, is eight feet thick. It has been hollowed out within, and a chamber has been thus formed, some twenty feet high, and only two wide. Just beside it is that much-admired “reservoir,” quoted by all travellers—a famous piece of twelfth-century work, erected⁴⁹ during the siege of Parma by the Emperor Sigismund, and included, at a later period, within the inclosure of the Palazzo Sanseverina.
 
To enter the hiding-place, a huge block of stone, set toward its centre on an iron pivot⁵⁰, must be swung aside. So deeply touched was the duchess by Ferrante’s condition of madness and the melancholy⁵¹ fate of his children, for whom he obstinately⁵² refused to accept any gift of value, that for some considerable time she allowed him to make use of this chamber. About a month later she saw him again, still in the woods at Sacca, and, being a trifle calmer on that occasion, he recited one of his sonnets⁵³, which struck her as being equal, if not superior, to all the finest things produced in Italy during the two previous centuries. Ferrante was granted several interviews. But his passion grew more ardent and importunate⁵⁴, and the duchess perceived that it was following the laws of every love which is allowed the smallest opportunityfor conceiving a gleam of hope. She sent him back to his woods, and forbade him to speak to her. He obeyed her instantly, with the most perfect gentleness.
 
Thus matters stood when Fabrizio was arrested. Three days afterward⁵⁵, just at nightfall, a Capuchin friar knocked at the door of the Palazzo Sanseverina. He had, he said, an important secret, which he desired to communicate to the mistress of the mansion⁵⁶. She was so wretched that she admitted him to her presence. It was Ferrante. “A fresh iniquity⁵⁷ is taking place here—one with which the tribune of the people must concern himself. Moreover, as a private individual, all I have to give the Duchess Sanseverina is my life, and that I offer her.”
 
This heartfelt devotion on the part of a thief and a madman touched the duchess deeply. For a long time she conversed⁵⁸ with this man, held to be the greatest poet of northern Italy, and she shed many tears. “This man understands my heart,” said she to herself. The next day, at the Ave Maria, he reappeared, disguised as a liveried servant.
 
“I have not left Parma. I have heard a horrible thing which my lips shall never repeat—but here I am. Consider, madam, what it is that you refuse! The being you see before you is no court puppet, but a man.” He knelt as he spoke⁴³ the words, as though to increase their weight, and added: “Yesterday I said to myself, ‘She wept in my presence, therefore she is a thought less wretched!’”
 
“But, sir, think of the risks you are running. You will be arrested in this city.”
 
“The tribune, madam, will reply, ‘What is life when duty calls?’ The unhappy man whose penance⁵⁹ it is that he feels no passion for virtue⁶⁰ since he has been consumed by love, will add: ‘Madam, Fabrizio, a brave-hearted man, is perhaps about to perish. Do not drive away another brave man who offers you his service. Here you have a frame of steel and a heart that fears nothing in the world save your displeasure!’”
 
“If you mention your feelings to me again, I will close my doors to you forever.”
 
It did occur to the duchess, that evening, to tell Ferrante she would provide a small income for his children. But she was afraid he might go out from her presence and destroy himself.
 
Hardly had he left her, when, haunted as she was by gloomy forebodings, she began to muse⁶¹. “I, too, may die—would to God it might be so, and soon! If I could only find a man worthy⁶² of the name, to whom I might confide⁶³ my poor Fabrizio!”
 
An idea flashed across the duchess. She took a sheet of paper, and in a document into which she introduced all the few law terms with which she was acquainted, she acknowledged that she had received the sum of twenty thousand francs from Signor Ferrante Palla, on the express condition that she should pay a yearly pension of fifteen hundred francs to Signora Sarasine and her five children. The duchess added: “I further leave a yearly income of three hundred francs to each of her five children, on condition that Ferrante Palla shall professionally attend my nephew Fabrizio del Dongo, and be as a brother to him—I implore⁶⁵ him to do this!” She signed the paper, antedated⁶⁶ it by a year, and put it away.
 
Two days later Ferrante reappeared. It was just at the moment when the whole town was stirred by reports of Fabrizio’s approaching execution. Was this gloomy ceremony to take place within the citadel⁶⁷, or under the tree in the public square? Many men of the humbler classes walked up and down in front of the citadel gates that evening, to try and see whether the scaffold was being built. This sight had moved Ferrante. He found the duchess dissolved in tears, and quite unable to speak. She greeted him with her hand, and pointed⁶⁸ him to a seat. Ferrante, who was disguised, that day, as a Capuchin friar, behaved magnificently. Instead of seating himself, he knelt down, and began to pray devoutly⁶⁹ in an undertone. Seizing a moment when the duchess was a little calmer, and without changing his position, he broke off his prayer for an instant, with the words: “Once again he offers his life.”
 
“Consider what you say,” exclaimed the duchess, and in her eye there was that wild look which follows upon tears, and warns us that rage is getting the better of emotion.
 
“He offers his life to place an obstacle in the way of Fabrizio’s fate, or to avenge⁷⁰ it.”
 
“There is a circumstance,” replied the duchess, “in which I might accept the sacrifice of your life.”
 
She was looking at him, closely and sternly. A flash of joy shone in his eyes; he rose swiftly to his feet and stretched out his arms toward heaven. The duchess fetched a document hidden in a secret drawer in her walnut-wood cabinet. “Read it,” said she to Ferrante. It was the gift in his children’s favour, of which we have just spoken.
 
Tears and sobs⁷¹ prevented Ferrante from reading to the end; he fell on his knees.
 
“Give me back that paper,” said the duchess, and she burned it at the taper⁷² before his eyes.
 
“My name must not appear if you are taken and executed,” she added, “for this matter affects your very life.”
 
“It is a joy to me to die by injuring the tyrant; it is a much greater joy to die for you. Now that is said, and clearly understood, do me the kindness not to speak of money again. It gives me a painful feeling that you may doubt me.”
 
“If you are compromised I may be so too,” replied the duchess, “and Fabrizio after me. For that reason, and not at all because I doubt your courage, I insist that the man who will pierce my heart shall be poisoned, and not stabbed. For the same reason, a most important one to me, I command you to do everything in the world to save yourself.”
 
“I will perform all—faithfully, punctually, and prudently⁷³. I foresee, madam, that my vengeance⁷⁴ will be bound up with yours. Even if it were otherwise, I would still obey—faithfully, punctually, and prudently. I may not succeed, but I will strive with all the strength a man can use.”
 
“Fabrizio’s murderer must be poisoned.”
 
“I had guessed it; and during the seven-and-twenty months of this wandering and hateful life of mine, I have often thought of committing such an action on my own account.”
 
“If I am detected and condemned as your accomplice,” continued the duchess, and there was pride in her voice, “I do not choose to have it imputed⁷⁵ to me that I have tempted⁷⁶ you. I command you to make no attempt to see me before the moment of our vengeance. There is to be no question of his being put to death until I give you the signal. At this moment, for instance, his death, far from being a service, would be a misfortune to me. His death will probably not have to take place for several months, but it will take place! I insist that he shall die by poison, and I would rather let him live on than see him killed by a bullet. For reasons which I do not choose to explain, I insist that your life shall be saved.”
 
The tone of authority the duchess used to him filled Ferrante with delight. A mighty⁷⁷ joy shone in his eyes. As we have said, he was frightfully thin, but it was easy to see that he had been exceedingly handsome in his early youth, and he fancied he still was what he had been in former days. “Am I mad?” he thought, “or does the duchess intend, some day, when I shall have given her this proof of my devotion, to make me the happiest of all living men? And why not, after all? Am I not quite as good as that puppet Mosca, who has not been able to do anything for her in her need—not even to help Monsignore Fabrizio to escape?”
 
“I may desire his death even to-morrow,” continued the duchess, still in the same authoritative⁷⁸ tone. “You know that huge reservoir of water, at the corner of the palace, close by the hiding-place you have occasionally occupied? There are secret means whereby all that water can be turned into the street. Well, that shall be the signal for my vengeance. If you are at Parma you will see, if you are living in your woods you will hear, that the great reservoir at the Sanseverina Palace has burst. Act then, at once! But use poison, and, above all things, risk your own life as little as may be. Let no one ever know that I have had a finger in the matter.”
 
“Words are useless,” replied Ferrante, with ill-restrained enthusiasm. “I have already decided⁷⁹ on the means I shall employ. That man’s life becomes more odious⁸⁰ to me than before, since as long as he lives I shall not dare to look on you again. I shall await the signal of the reservoir bursting on to the street.” He bowed swiftly, and went out. The duchess watched him go.
 
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