Our hero’s arrival threw Clelia into a condition of despair. The poor girl, earnestly pious¹ and thoroughly² honest with herself, could not blink the fact that she could never know happiness apart from Fabrizio. But when her father had been half poisoned, she had made a vow³ to the Madonna that she would sacrifice herself to him by marrying the marchese. She had also vowed⁴ she would never see Fabrizio again, and she was already torn by the most cruel remorse⁵, on account of the admission into which she had slipped in her letter to Fabrizio the night before his flight. How shall I describe the feelings that swelled⁶ that shadowed heart when, as she sadly watched her birds fluttering hither and thither⁷, she raised her eyes, instinctively⁸, and lovingly, to the window whence Fabrizio had once gazed at her, and saw him stand there once again, and greet her with the tenderest respect.  
At first she thought it was a vision, which Heaven had sent her as a punishment. At last the hideous⁹ truth forced itself on her mind. “They have taken him,” she thought, “and now he is lost!” She remembered the language used within the fortress¹⁰ after his escape—the very humblest jailer had felt himself mortally humiliated¹² by it. Clelia looked at Fabrizio, and in spite of herself, her eyes spoke¹³ all the passion that was driving her to despair. “Can you believe,” she seemed to say to Fabrizio, “that I shall find happiness in the sumptuous¹⁴ palace that is being prepared for me? My father tells me, till I am sick of hearing it, that you are as poor as we are. Heavens! how gladly would I share that poverty! But, alas¹⁵, we must never see each other again!”
 
Clelia had not the strength to make any use of the alphabets. Even as she gazed at Fabrizio, she turned faint, and dropped upon a chair beside the window. Her head rested upon the window ledge¹⁶, and as she had striven to look at him till the last moment her face, turned toward Fabrizio, was fully¹⁷ exposed to his gaze. When, after a few moments, she opened her eyes, her first glance sought Fabrizio. Tears stood in his eyes, but they were tears of utter happiness. He saw that absence had not made her forget him. For some time the two poor young creatures remained as though bewitched by the sight of each other. Fabrizio ventured to say a few words, as though singing to a guitar, something to this effect: “It is to see you again that I have come back to prison; I am to be tried.”
 
These words seemed to stir all Clelia’s sense of virtue¹⁸. She rose swiftly to her feet, covered her eyes, and endeavoured to make him understand, by the most earnest gestures, that she must never see him again. This had been her promise to the Madonna, which she had forgotten when she had looked at him. When Fabrizio still ventured to give expression to his love, Clelia fled indignantly, swearing to herself that she would never see him again. For these were the exact terms of her vow to the Madonna: “My eyes shall never look on him again.” She had written them on a slip of paper which her uncle Cesare had allowed her to burn on the altar, at the moment of the elevation¹⁹, while he was saying mass.
 
But in spite of every vow, Fabrizio’s presence in the Farnese Tower drove Clelia back into all her former habits. She now generally spent her whole day alone in her room, but hardly had she recovered from the state of agitation²⁰ into which Fabrizio’s appearance had thrown her, than she began to move about the palace, and renew acquaintance, so to speak, with all her humbler friends. A very talkative old woman, who worked in the kitchens, said to her, with a look of mystery, “Signor Fabrizio will not get out of the citadel²¹ this time.”
 
“He will not commit the crime of getting over the walls,” said Clelia, “but he will go out by the gate if he is acquitted²³.”
 
“I tell your Excellency, and I know what I am saying, that he will never go out till he is carried out feet foremost.”
 
Clelia turned deadly pale; the old woman remarked it, and her eloquence²⁴ was checked. She felt she had committed an imprudence in speaking thus before the daughter of the governor, whose duty it would be to tell every one Fabrizio had died of illness. As Clelia was going back to her rooms she met the prison doctor, an honest, timid kind of man, who told her, with a look of alarm, that Fabrizio was very ill. Clelia could hardly drag herself along; she hunted high and low for her uncle, the good priest Cesare, and found him at last in the chapel²⁵, praying fervently²⁶; his face betrayed the greatest distress²⁷. The dinner bell rang. Not a word was exchanged between the two brothers at table, but toward the end of the meal the general addressed some very tart²⁸ remark to his brother. This latter looked at the servants, who left the room.
 
“General,” said Don Cesare to the governor, “I have the honour to inform you that I am about to leave the citadel. I give you my resignation.”
 
“Bravo! Bravissimo!… to cast suspicion on me! And your reason, may I inquire?”
 
“My conscience.”
 
“Pooh! you’re nothing but a shaveling priest. You know nothing about honour.”
 
“Fabrizio is killed!” said Clelia to herself. “They’ve poisoned him at his dinner, or else they’ll do it to-morrow.” She flew to her aviary²⁹, determined³⁰ to sing and accompany herself on the piano. “I will confess it all,” said she to herself. “I shall be given absolution for breaking my vow to save a man’s life.” What was her consternation³¹, on reaching the aviary, to perceive that the screens had been replaced by boards, fastened to the iron bars. Half distracted, she endeavoured to warn the prisoner by a few words, which she screamed rather than sang. There was no answer of any sort. A deathlike silence already reigned³² within the Farnese Tower. “It’s all over,” she thought. Distraught, she ran down the stairs, then ran back again, to fetch what money she had, and her little diamond earrings³³. As she went by she snatched up the bread remaining from dinner, which had been put on a sideboard. “If he is still alive, it is my duty to save him.” With a haughty³⁴ air she moved toward the little door in the tower. The door was open, and eight soldiers had only just been stationed in the pillared hall on the ground floor. She looked boldly at the soldiers. Clelia had intended to speak to the sergeant³⁵ who should have been in charge, but the man was not there. Clelia hurried up the little iron staircase which wound round one of the pillars; the soldiers stared at her, very much astonished, but presumably on account of her lace shawl, and her bonnet³⁶, they dared not say anything to her. There was nobody at all on the first floor, but on the second, at the entrance to the passage, which, as my readers may recollect³⁷, was closed by three iron-barred doors, and led to Fabrizio’s room, she found a turnkey, a stranger to her, who said, with a startled look:
 
“He hasn’t dined yet.”
 
“I know that quite well,” said Clelia loftily. The man did not venture to stop her. Twenty paces farther on, Clelia found, sitting on the first of the six wooden steps leading up to Fabrizio’s room, another turnkey, very elderly, and exceedingly red in the face, who said to her firmly, “Signorina, have you an order from the governor?”
 
“Do you not know who I am?”
 
At that moment Clelia was possessed³⁸ by a sort of supernatural strength. She was quite beside herself. “I am going to save my husband,” she said to herself.
 
While the old turnkey was calling out, “But my duty will not permit me,” Clelia ran swiftly up the six steps. She threw herself against the door. A huge key was in the lock; it took all her strength to turn it. At that moment the old turnkey, who was half drunk, snatched at the bottom of her skirt. She dashed into the room, slammed the door, tearing her gown, and, as the turnkey pushed at it, to get in after her, she shot a bolt which she found just under her hand. She looked into the room and saw Fabrizio sitting at a very small table, on which his dinner was laid. She rushed at the[470] table, overturned it, and, clutching Fabrizio’s arm, she cried, “Hast thou eaten?”
 
This use of the second person singular filled Fabrizio with joy. For the first time in her agitation, Clelia had forgotten her womanly reserve and betrayed her love.
 
Fabrizio had been on the point of beginning his fatal meal. He clasped her in his arms, and covered her with kisses. “This food has been poisoned,” thought he to himself. “If I tell her I have not touched it, religion will reassert its rights, and Clelia will take to flight. But if she looks upon me as a dying man I shall persuade her not to leave me. She is longing³⁹ to find a means of escape from her hateful marriage; chance has brought us this one. The jailers will soon collect; they will break in the door, and then there will be such a scandal that the Marchese Crescenzi will take fright, and break off his marriage.”
 
During the momentary⁴⁰ silence consequent on these reflections, Fabrizio felt that Clelia was already endeavouring to free herself from his embrace.
 
“I feel no pain as yet,” he said to her, “but soon I shall lie at thy feet in agony. Help me to die!”
 
“Oh, my only friend,” she answered, “I will die with thee!” and she clasped her arms about him with a convulsive pressure.
 
Half dressed as she was, and half wild with passion, she was so beautiful that Fabrizio could not restrain an almost involuntary gesture. He met with no resistance.
 
In the gush⁴¹ of passion and generous feeling which follows on excessive happiness, he said to her boldly: “The first instants of our happiness shall not be soiled by a vile⁴² lie. But for thy courage I should now be nothing but a corpse⁴³, or struggling in the most hideous tortures. But at thy entrance I was only about to dine; I had not touched any of the dishes.”
 
Fabrizio dilated⁴⁴ on the frightful⁴⁵ picture, so as to soften⁴⁶ the indignation he already perceived in Clelia’s eyes. Torn by violent and conflicting feelings, she looked at him for an instant, and then threw herself into his arms. A great noise arose in the passage, the iron doors were roughly opened and violently banged, and there was talking and shouting.
 
“Oh, if only I was armed!” exclaimed Fabrizio. “They took my arms away before they would let me come in. No doubt they are coming to make an end of me. Farewell, my Clelia! I bless my death, since it has brought me my happiness!” Clelia kissed him, and gave him a little ivory-handled dagger⁴⁷, with a blade not much longer than that of a penknife.
 
“Do not let them kill thee,” she said. “Defend thyself to the last moment. If my uncle hears the noise—he is brave and virtuous—he will save thee. I am going to speak to them!” and as she said the words, she rushed toward the door.
 
“If thou art not killed,” she said feverishly⁴⁸, with her hand on the bolt and her head turned toward him, “starve rather than touch any food that is brought thee. Keep this bread about thy person always.” The noise was drawing nearer. Fabrizio caught hold of her, took her place by the door, and throwing it open violently, rushed down the six wooden steps. The ivory-handled dagger was in his hand, and he was just about to drive it into the waistcoat of General Fontana, the prince’s aide-de-camp, who started back in alarm, and exclaimed, “But I have come to save you, Signor del Dongo!”
 
Fabrizio turned back, up the six steps, said, within the room, “Fontana has come to save me,” then, returning to the general, on the wooden steps, he conversed⁴⁹ calmly with him, begging him, in many words, to forgive him his angry impulse. “There has been an attempt to poison me; that dinner you see laid out there is poisoned. I had the sense not to touch it, but I will confess to you that the incident annoyed me. When I heard you coming up the stairs, I thought they were coming to finish me with daggers⁵⁰.… General, I request you will give orders that nobody shall enter my room. Somebody would take away the poison, and our good prince must be informed of everything.”
 
The general, very pale, and very much horrified⁵¹, transmitted the order suggested by Fabrizio to the specially⁵² selected jailers, who had followed him. These gentry⁵³, very much crestfallen⁵⁴ at seeing the poison discovered, lost no time in getting downstairs. They made as though they were going in front, to get out of the way of the prince’s aide-de-camp on the narrow staircase; as a matter of fact, they were panting to escape and disappear. To General Fontana’s great astonishment⁵⁵, Fabrizio halted for more than a quarter of an hour at the little iron staircase that ran round the pillar on the ground floor. He wanted to give Clelia time to conceal⁵⁶ herself on the first floor.
 
It was the duchess who, after doing several wild things, had succeeded in getting General Fontana sent to the citadel. This success had been the result of chance. Leaving Count Mosca, who was as much alarmed as herself, she hurried to the palace. The princess, who had a strong dislike to energy, which always struck her as being vulgar, thought she was mad, and did not show the least disposition⁵⁷ to attempt any unusual step to help her. The duchess, distracted, was weeping bitterly. All she could do was to repeat, over and over again, “But, madam, within a quarter of an hour Fabrizio will be dead of poison!”
 
When the duchess perceived the princess’s perfect indifference⁵⁸, her grief drove her mad. That moral reflection, which would certainly have occurred to any woman educated in one of those northern religions which permit of self-examination—“I was the first to use poison, and now it is by poison that I am destroyed”—never occurred to her. In Italy such considerations, in moments of deep passion, would seem as commonplace as a pun would appear to a Parisian, under parallel circumstances.
 
In her despair, the duchess chanced to go into the drawing-room, where she found the Marchese Crescenzi, who was in waiting that day. When the duchess had returned to Parma he had thanked her fervently for his post as lord in waiting, to which, but for her, he could never have aspired⁵⁹. There had been no lack of asseverations of devotion on his part. The duchess addressed him in the following words:
 
“Rassi is going to have Fabrizio, who is in the citadel, poisoned. Put some chocolate and a bottle of water, which I will give you, into your pocket. Go up to the citadel, and save my life by telling General Fabio Conti that if he does not allow you to give Fabrizio the chocolate and the water yourself, you will break off your marriage with his daughter.”
 
The marchese turned pale, and his features, instead of kindling⁶⁰ into animation⁶¹, expressed the most miserable⁶² perplexity. He “could not believe that so hideous a crime could be committed in so well-ordered a city as Parma, ruled over by so great a prince,” and so forth⁶³. And to make it worse, he enunciated⁶⁴ all these platitudes⁶⁵ exceedingly slowly. In a word, the duchess found she had to deal with a man who was upright enough, but weak beyond words, and quite unable to make up his mind to act. After a score of remarks of this kind, all of them interrupted by her impatient exclamations⁶⁶, he hit on an excellent excuse. His oath as lord in waiting forbade him to take part in any machinations against the government.
 
My readers will imagine the anxiety and despair of the duchess, who felt the time was slipping by.
 
“But see the governor, at all events, and tell him I will hunt Fabrizio’s murderers into hell!”
 
Despair had quickened the duchess’s eloquence. But all her fervour only added to the marchese’s alarm, and doubled his natural irresolution⁶⁷. At the end of an hour he was even less inclined to do anything than he had been at first.
 
The unhappy woman, who had reached the utmost limit of distraction⁶⁸, and was thoroughly convinced the governor would never refuse anything to so rich a son-in-law, went so far as to throw herself at his feet. This seemed only to increase the Marchese Crescenzi’s cowardice—the strange sight filled him with an unconscious fear that he himself might be compromised. But then a strange thing happened. The marchese, a kind-hearted man at bottom, was touched when he saw so beautiful and, above all, so powerful a woman, kneeling at his feet.
 
“I myself, rich and noble as I am,” thought he, “may one day be forced to kneel at the feet of some republican.”
 
The marchese began to cry, and at last it was agreed that the duchess, as mistress of the robes, should introduce him to the princess, who would give him leave to convey a small basket, of the contents of which he would declare himself ignorant, to Fabrizio.
 
The previous night, before the duchess had become aware of Fabrizio’s folly⁶⁹ in giving himself up to the citadel, a commedia dell’arte had been acted at court, and the prince, who always kept the lovers’ parts for himself, and played them with the duchess, had spoken to her so passionately⁷¹ of his love that had such a thing been possible, in Italy, to any passionate⁷⁰ man, or any prince, he would have looked ridiculous.
 
The prince, who, shy as he was, took his love-affairs very seriously, was walking along one of the corridors of the palace, when he met the duchess, hurrying the Marchese Crescenzi, who looked very much flustered⁷², into the princess’s presence. He was so surprised and dazzled by the beauty and the emotion with which despair had endued⁷³ the mistress of the robes, that for the first time in his life he showed some decision of character. With a gesture that was more than imperious, he dismissed the marchese, and forthwith made a formal declaration of his love to the duchess. No doubt the prince had thought it all over beforehand, for it contained some very sensible remarks.
 
“Since my rank forbids me the supreme⁷⁴ happiness of marrying you, I will swear to you on the Holy Wafer that I will never marry without your written consent. I know very well,” he added, “that I shall cause you to lose the hand of the Prime Minister—a clever and very charming man—but, after all, he is fifty-six years old, and I am not yet twenty-two. I should feel I was insulting you, and should deserve your refusal, if I spoke to you of advantages apart from my love. But every soul about my court who cares about money speaks with admiration⁷⁵ of the proof of love the count gives you, by leaving everything he possesses in your hands. I shall be only too happy to imitate him in this respect. You will use my fortune much better than I, and you will have the entire disposal of the annual sum which my ministers pay over to the lord steward⁷⁶ of the crown. Thus[475] it will be you, duchess, who will decide what sums I may expend⁷⁷ each month.”
 
The duchess thought all these details very long-winded. The sense of Fabrizio’s peril⁷⁸ was tearing at her heart.
 
“But don’t you know, sir,” she exclaimed, “that Fabrizio is at this moment being poisoned in your citadel. Save him! I believe everything!” The arrangement of her sentence was thoroughly awkward. At the word poison all the confidence, all the good faith which had been evident in the poor, well-meaning prince’s conversation, disappeared like a flash. The duchess only noticed her blunder when it was too late to remedy it, and this increased her despair—a thing she had thought impossible. “If I had not mentioned poison,” said she to herself, “he would have granted me Fabrizio’s liberty. Oh, dear Fabrizio,” she added, “I am fated to ruin you by my folly!”
 
It took the duchess a long time, and she was forced to employ many wiles⁷⁹, before she could win the prince back to his passionate declarations of affection. But h............