The prince was beside himself, but the habit of reigning with absolute authority had brought him strength to resist his first impulses. “I must possess this woman,” thought he; “I owe it to myself. And then I must kill her with my scorn. If she leaves this study I shall never see her again.” But wild as he was, at that moment, with rage and hatred, how was he to pitch on a phrase which would at once fulfil what was due to himself, and induce the duchess not to forsake his court that instant? “A gesture,” thought he, “can neither be repeated nor turned into ridicule,” and he put himself between the duchess and the door of the room. Soon after he heard somebody tapping at the door. “Who is the damned fellow,” he exclaimed, swearing with all the strength of his lungs, “who is the damned fellow who wants to intrude his idiotic person here?” Poor General Fontana put in a pale and completely puzzled countenance. With a face like the face of a dying man he murmured inarticulately, “His Excellency Count Mosca craves the honour of an audience.”
“Let him come in,” shouted the prince, and as Mosca bowed before him, “Well,” said he, “here is the Duchess Sanseverina, who says she is instantly leaving Parma to go and settle in Naples, and who has been making impertinent remarks to me into the bargain.”
“What!” said Mosca.
“What! You knew nothing about the plan of departure?”
“Not a single word. When I left the duchess at six o’clock she was cheerful and gay.” The words produced an incredible effect upon the prince. First of all he looked at Mosca, whose increasing pallor proved that he had spoken the truth, and had nothing to do with the duchess’s sudden freak. “In that case,” said he to himself, “she is lost to me forever. My pleasure and my vengeance both fly away together. At Naples she and her nephew Fabrizio will write epigrams on the mighty rages of the little Prince of Parma.” Then he looked at the duchess; the most violent scorn and anger were struggling in her breast, her eyes were riveted on Count Mosca, and the delicate lines of her beautiful mouth expressed the bitterest disdain. Her whole expression seemed to say “Cringing courtier!”
“Thus,” thought the prince after having scrutinized her, “I have lost the means of recalling her to my country. Once more, if she leaves the study at this moment, she is lost to me. God only knows what she will say about my judges at Naples. And with the wit and divine powers of persuasion Heaven has given her, she will make everybody believe her. Thanks to her, I shall bear the reputation of an undignified tyrant, who gets up in the night to look under his bed.” Then, by a skilful manœuvre, as if he were walking about to calm his agitation, the prince once more placed himself in front of the study door. The count was at his right, some three paces off, pale, discomposed, and trembling to such an extent that he was obliged to support himself by leaning on the back of the arm-chair which the duchess had occupied during the beginning of the audience, and which the prince had pushed away with an angry gesture.
The count was in love. “If the duchess goes,” he was saying to himself, “I shall follow her. But will she allow me to follow her? That is the question.” On the prince’s left the duchess stood erect, her arms folded tightly across her bosom, superbly angry, watching him. The brilliant colour which had lately flushed her beautiful face had faded into the deepest pallor. The prince’s face, unlike those of the other two actors in the scene, was red, and he looked worried. His left hand convulsively jerked the cross fastened to the ribbon of his order, which he wore under his coat; his right hand caressed his chin.
“What is to be done?” said he to the count, hardly knowing what he said, and carried away by his habit of consulting Mosca about everything.
“Truly I know not, your Most Serene Highness,” said the count, like a man who was breathing out his last sigh; he could hardly speak the words. The tone of his voice was the first consolation to his wounded pride which the prince had enjoyed during the audience, and this small piece of good fortune inspired him with a remark that was very grateful to his vanity.
“Well,” said he, “I am the most sensible of us three. I am willing to completely overlook my own position in the world. I shall speak as a friend,” and he added, with a noble smile of condescension—a fine imitation of the good old times of Louis XIV—“as a friend speaking to his friends. Duchess,” he added, “what must I do to induce you to forget this untimely decision?”