Fabrizio hastened to the archiépiscopal palace; there he shewed himself simple and modest, a tone which he assumed only too easily; whereas it required an effort for him to play the great gentleman. As he listened to the somewhat prolix stories of Monsignor Landriani, he was saying to himself: "Ought I to have fired my pistol at the footman who was leading the thin horse?" His reason said to him: "Yes," but his heart could not accustom itself to the bleeding image of the handsome young man, falling from his horse, all disfigured.
"That prison in which I should have been swallowed up, if the horse had stumbled, was that the prison with which I was threatened by all those forecasts?"
This question was of the utmost importance to him, and the Archbishop was gratified by his air of profound attention.
[CHAPTER ELEVEN]
On leaving the Archbishop's Palace, Fabrizio hastened to see little Marietta; he could hear from the street the loud voice of Giletti who had sent out for wine and was regaling himself with his friends the prompter and the candle-snuffers. The mammaccia, who played the part of mother, came alone in answer to his signal.
"A lot has happened since you were here," she cried; "two or three of our actors are accused of having celebrated the great Napoleon's festa with an orgy, and our poor company, which they say is Jacobin, has been ordered to leave the States of Parma, and evviva Napoleone! But the Minister has had a finger in that pie, they say. One thing certain is that Giletti has got money, I don't know how much, but I've seen him with a fistful of scudi. Marietta has had five scudi from our manager to pay for the journey to Mantua and Venice, and I have had one. She is still in love with you, but Giletti frightens her; three days ago, at the last performance we gave, he absolutely wanted to kill her; he dealt her two proper blows, and, what was abominable of him, tore her blue shawl. If you would care to give her a blue shawl, you would be a very good boy, and we can say that we won it in a lottery. The drum-major of the carabinieri is giving an assault-at-arms to-morrow, you will find the hour posted up at all the street-corners. Come and see us; if he has gone to the assault, and we have any reason to hope that he will stay away for some time, I shall be at the window, and I shall give you a signal to come up. Try to bring us something really nice, and Marietta will be madly in love with you."
As he made his way down the winding staircase of this foul rookery, Fabrizio was filled with compunction. "I have not altered in the least," he said to himself; "all the fine resolutions I made on the shore of our lake, when I looked at life with so philosophic an eye, have gone to the winds. My mind has lost its normal balance; the whole thing was a dream, and vanishes before the stern reality. Now would be the time for action," he told himself as he entered the palazzo Sanseverina about eleven o'clock that evening. But it was in vain that he sought in his heart for the courage to speak with that sublime sincerity which had seemed to him so easy, the night he spent by the shore of the Lake of Como. "I am going to vex the person whom I love best in the world; if I speak, I shall simply seem to be jesting in the worst of taste; I am not worth anything, really, except in certain moments of exaltation.
"The Conte has behaved admirably towards me," he said to the Duchessa, after he had given her an account of his visit to the Archbishop's Palace; "I appreciate his conduct all the more, in that I think I am right in saying that personally I have made only a very moderate impression on him: my behaviour towards him ought therefore to be strictly correct. He has his excavations at Sanguigna, about which he is still madly keen, if one is to judge, that is, by his expedition the day before yesterday: he went twelve leagues at a gallop in order to spend a couple of hours with his workmen. If they find fragments of statues in the ancient temple, the foundations of which he has just laid bare, he is afraid of their being stolen; I should like to propose to him that I should go and spend a night or two at Sanguigna. To-morrow, about five, I have to see the Archbishop again; I can start in the evening and take advantage of the cool night air for the journey."
SANGUIGNA
The Duchessa did not at first reply.