The Charterhouse of Parma, Volume 2

by Stendhal

REMORSE

Breaking in upon these highly serious reflexions, which were absorbing the whole of Clelia's mind, the complimentary speeches which always surrounded her seemed to her even more distasteful than usual. To escape from them she went across to an open window, half-screened by a taffeta curtain; she hoped that no one would be so bold as to follow her into this sort of sanctuary. This window opened upon a little grove of orange trees planted in the ground: as a matter of fact, every winter they had to be protected by a covering, Clelia inhaled with rapture the scent of their blossom, and this pleasure seemed to restore a little calm to her spirit. "I felt that he had a very noble air," she thought, "but to inspire such passion in so distinguished a woman! She has had the glory of refusing the Prince's homage, and if she had deigned to consent, she would have reigned as queen over his States. . . . My father says that the Sovereign's passion went so far as to promise to marry her if ever he became free to do so. . . . And this love for Fabrizio has lasted so long! For it is quite five years since we met them by the Lake of Como. . . . Yes, it is quite five years," she said to herself after a moment's reflexion. "I was struck by it even then, when so many things passed unnoticed before my childish eyes. How those two ladies seemed to admire Fabrizio! . . ."

Clelia remarked with joy that none of the young men who had been speaking to her with such earnestness had ventured to approach her balcony. One of them, the Marchese Crescenzi, had taken a few steps in that direction, but had then stopped by a card-table. "If only," she said to herself, "under my window in our palazzo in the fortress, the only one that has any shade, I had some pretty orange trees like these to look at, my thoughts would be less sad: but to have as one's sole outlook the huge blocks of stone of the Torre Farnese. . . . Ah!" she cried with a convulsive movement, "perhaps that is where they have put him. I must speak about it at once to Don Cesare! He will be less severe than the General. My father is certain to tell me nothing on our way back to the fortress, but I shall find out everything from Don Cesare. . . . I have money, I could buy a few orange trees, which, placed under the window of my aviary, would prevent me from seeing that great wall of the Torre Farnese. How infinitely more hateful still it will be to me now that I know one of the people whom it hides from the light of day! . . . Yes, it is just the third time I have seen him. Once at court, at the ball on the Princess's birthday; to-day, hemmed in by three constables, while that horrible Barbone was begging for handcuffs to be put on him, and the other time by the Lake of Como. That is quite five years ago. What a hang-dog air he had then! How he stared at the constables, and what curious looks his mother and his aunt kept giving him. Certainly there must have been some secret that day, some special knowledge which they were keeping to themselves; at the time, I had an idea that he too was afraid of the police. . . ." Clelia shuddered; "But how ignorant I was! No doubt at that time the Duchessa had already begun to take an interest in him. How he made us laugh after the first few minutes, when the ladies, in spite of their obvious anxiety, had begun to grow more accustomed to the presence of a stranger! . . . And this evening I had not a word to say in reply when he spoke to me. . . . O ignorance and timidity! How often you have the appearance of the blackest cowardice! And I am like this at twenty, yes and past twenty! . . . I was well-advised to think of the cloister; really I am good for nothing but retirement. 'Worthy daughter of a gaoler!' he will have been saying to himself. He despises me, and, as soon as he is able to write to the Duchessa, he will tell her of my want of consideration, and the Duchessa will think me a very deceitful little girl; for, after all, this evening she must have thought me full of sympathy with her in her trouble."

Clelia noticed that someone was approaching, apparently with the intention of taking his place by her side on the iron balcony of this window; she could not help feeling annoyed, although she blamed herself for being so; the meditations in which she was disturbed were by no means without their pleasant side. "Here comes some troublesome fellow to whom I shall give a warm welcome!" she thought. She was turning her head with a haughty stare, when she caught sight of the timid face of the Archbishop who was approaching the balcony by a series of almost imperceptible little movements. "This saintly man has no manners," thought Clelia. "Why come and disturb a poor girl like me? My tranquillity is the only thing I possess." She was greeting him with respect, but at the same time with a haughty air, when the prelate said to her:

"Signorina, have you heard the terrible news?"

The girl's eyes had at once assumed a totally different expression; but, following the instructions repeated to her a hundred times over by her father, she replied with an air of ignorance which the language of her eyes loudly contradicted:

"I have heard nothing, Monsignore."

"My First Grand Vicar, poor Fabrizio del Dongo, who is no more guilty than I am of the death of that brigand Giletti, has been arrested at Bologna where he was living under the assumed name of Giuseppe Bossi; they have shut him up in your citadel; he arrived there actually chained to the carriage that brought him. A sort of gaoler, named Barbone, who was pardoned some time ago after murdering one of his own brothers, chose to attempt an act of personal violence against Fabrizio, but my young friend is not the man to take an insult quietly. He flung his infamous adversary to the ground, whereupon they cast him into a dungeon, twenty feet underground, after first putting handcuffs on his wrists."

"Not handcuffs, no!"

"Ah! Then you do know something," cried the Archbishop. And the old man's features lost their intense expression of discouragement. "But, before we go any farther, someone may come out on to this balcony and interrupt us: would you be so charitable as to convey personally to Don Cesare my pastoral ring here?"