"Yes," said the prince, with a terrible look, "it is a prison which you will quit only for the grave."
"My dear, you frighten me," said Pazza, smiling. "Am I a criminal without knowing it? Have I deserved your displeasure, that you threaten me with a dungeon?"
"You have a short memory," replied Charming. "An insult is written on sand to the giver; it is inscribed on marble and bronze to the receiver."
"Charming," returned the poor child, beginning to be afraid, "you are repeating something from those speeches that tired me so much. Can you find nothing better to say to me to-day?"
"Wretch!" cried the king, "you no longer remember the box on the ear that you gave me seven years ago, but I have not forgotten it. Know that if I wished you for my wife, it has been only to have your life in my hands and to make you slowly expiate your crime of high treason."
"My dear," said Pazza, with a pettish manner, "you may put on your Bluebeard airs, but you will not frighten me, I assure you. I know you, Charming, and I warn you that if you do not put an end to this bad jest, I will not only give you one box on the ear, but three, before I forgive you. Make haste and let me go out, or I vow that I will keep my word."
"Vow it then, madame," cried the prince, furious at not intimidating his victim. "I accept your vow. I vow, too, on my side, that I will never acknowledge you as my wife till I have been base enough to receive three times an insult which nothing but blood can wash out. He laughs well that laughs last. Here, Rachimburg!"
At this terrible name, a jailer with a bushy beard and threatening mien entered the room, pushed the queen on a wretched truckle-bed, and shut and double-locked the iron door.
If Pazza wept, it was so quietly that no one heard her. Tired of the silence, Charming departed, with rage in his heart, resolving that his rigor should break the pride that braved him. Vengeance, it is said, is the delight of kings.
Two hours later the countess received a note by a sure hand acquainting her with the sad fate of her niece. How this note reached her is known to me, but I will not betray the secret. If a charitable jailer is found by chance, he should be treated with consideration; the species is rare, and is daily becoming rarer.