Sickened by the thought, Clelia gazed, with horror in her eyes, round the minister’s splendidly lighted rooms.
“Never,” whispered the circle of courtiers who gathered round the two reigning beauties, and strove to join in their conversation, “never have they talked together so eagerly, and at the same time with such an air of intimacy. Can it be that the duchess, who is always trying to soothe the hatreds roused by the Prime Minister, has pitched on some great marriage for Clelia?” This conjecture was strengthened by a circumstance which had never, hitherto, been noticed at court. There was more light, so to speak, more passion, in the young girl’s eyes than in those of the lovely duchess. She, on her side, was astonished, and to her credit we may say it, delighted, by the new charms she was discovering in the youthful recluse. For over an hour she had been gazing at her with a pleasure such as is not often felt at the sight of a rival.
“But what can be happening?” wondered the duchess. “Never has Clelia looked so lovely, and I may say, so touching. Can it be that her heart has spoken?… But if it be so, her love is an unhappy one; there is a gloomy pain at the bottom of this new-found animation.… But an unhappy love keeps silence. Is she trying to tempt back some faithless swain by her social successes?” And the duchess scrutinized all the young men standing round. She noted no very striking expression in any one of them. They all wore the same appearance of more or less self-satisfied conceit. “There is some miracle here,” thought the duchess, nettled at not being able to guess what it all meant. “Where is Count Mosca, that cleverest of beings? No, I am not mistaken. Clelia certainly does look at me as if I had roused quite a new sense of interest in her. Is it the result of the bestowal of some order on that crawling courtier, her father? I fancied her young and high-souled nature incapable of descending to matters of pecuniary gain. Can General Fabio Conti have any important request to make to the count?”
Toward ten o’clock one of the duchess’s friends came up to her and murmured something in a low voice. She turned very white. Clelia took her hand, and ventured to squeeze it.
“I thank you, and now I understand you.… You have a noble heart,” said the duchess with a great effort. She was hardly able to say the few words. She smiled profusely at the lady of the house, who left her seat to conduct her to the door of the outer drawing-room. Such an honour was due to princesses of the blood only, and the duchess felt its cruel irony in connection with her present position. So she smiled and smiled to the Countess Zurla; but though she tried desperately hard, she could not articulate a single word.
Clelia’s eyes filled with tears as she watched the duchess pass out of the rooms, crowded with all the most brilliant society of the city. “What will become of that poor woman,” she thought, “when she finds herself alone in her carriage? It would be indiscreet of me to offer to go with her. I dare not.… How it would console the poor prisoner, sitting in some miserable room, if he could know how deeply he is loved! Into what horrible solitude they have cast him! And we are here, in these brightly lighted rooms. It is monstrous! Could I find means of sending him a line? Good heavens! That would be to betray my father. His position between the two parties is so delicate. What will become of him if he exposes himself to the hatred of the duchess, who rules the Prime Minister, the master of three parts of the business of the state? And then, the prince keeps a close eye on everything that happens in the fortress, and he will have no joking on that subject. Terror makes people cruel.… In any case, Fabrizio” (Clelia had ceased saying Monsignore del Dongo) “is far more to be pitied.… He has much more at stake than the mere danger of losing a lucrative appointment. And the duchess!… What a frightful passion love is! And yet all these liars in society talk of it as a source of happiness. One hears old women pitied because they can no longer feel love nor inspire it. Never shall I forget what I have just seen—that sudden change. How the duchess’s eyes, so lovely, so shining, grew sad and dim after the Marchese N⸺ whispered those fatal words in her ear! Fabrizio must be very worthy to be so much loved.”
Amid these very serious reflections, which quite filled Clelia’s mind, the complimentary remarks around her were more offensive to her than ever. To escape them she moved toward an open window, half shaded by a silken curtain. She had a hope that no one would dare to follow her into this retreat. The window opened on a little grove of orange trees, planted in the ground; as a matter of fact, it was necessary to roof them over every winter. Clelia breathed the perfume of the flowers with the greatest delight, and with this enjoyment, a certain amount of peace came back into her heart. “I thought him a very noble-looking fellow,” she mused. “But imagine his inspiring so remarkable a woman with such a passion! She has had the glory of refusing the prince’s own advances; and if she had condescended to desire it she might have been the queen of these dominions. My father says that the sovereign’s passion was so great that he would have married her if ever he had been free. And this love of hers for Fabrizio has lasted so long. For it is quite five years since we met them near the Lake of Como. Yes, quite five years,” she reiterated after a moment’s thought. “It struck me even then, when so many things were unperceived by my childish eyes. How both those ladies seemed to admire Fabrizio!”
Clelia noticed with delight that none of the young men who were so eager to talk to her had ventured to come near her balcony. One of them, the Marchese Crescenzi, had made a few steps in her direction, and then had stopped beside a card-table. “If only,” she said, “I could see some pretty orange trees like these out of my window in the palace in the fortress—the only one which has any shade at all—my thoughts might be less sad. But there is nothing to be seen but those great hewn stones of the Farnese Tower. Ah!” she said, starting, “perhaps that is where they have put him! How I long for a talk with Don Cesare; he will be less strict than the general. My father will certainly tell me nothing as we drive back to the fortress, but I shall get everything out of Don Cesare. I have some money. I might buy a few orange trees, and set them under the window of my aviary, so that they would prevent me from seeing the great walls of the Farnese Tower. How much more I shall hate them now that I know one of the persons shut up within them!… Yes, this is the third time I have seen him: once at court, at the princess’s birthday ball; to-day, standing with three gendarmes round him, while that horrible Barbone was asking that the handcuffs might be put upon him; and then that time at the Lake of Como—that is quite five years ago. What a young rascal he looked then! How he looked at the gendarmes, and how strangely his mother and his aunt looked at him! There was some secret that day, certainly—something they were hiding among themselves. I had an idea at the time that he, too, was afraid of the gendarmes.” Clelia shuddered. “But how ignorant I was! No doubt, even then, the duchess was interested in him.… How he made us laugh after a few minutes when, in spite of their evident anxiety, the two ladies had grown somewhat accustomed to a stranger’s presence!… And this evening I could not answer anything he said to me.… Oh, ignorance and timidity, how often you resemble the vilest things on earth! And that is my case even now, when I am past twenty.… I was quite right to think of taking the veil—I am really fit for nothing but the cloistered life. ‘Worthy daughter of a jailer,’ he must have said to himself. He despises me, and as soon as he is able to write to the duchess he will tell her of my unkindness, and the duchess will think me a very deceitful girl, for this evening she may have believed I was full of sympathy for her misfortune.”
Clelia perceived that somebody was drawing near, with the apparent intention of standing beside her on the iron balcony in front of the window. This vexed her, though she reproached herself for the feeling. The dreams thus disturbed were not devoid of a certain quality of sweetness. “Here comes some intruder. I’ll give him a cold reception,” she thought. She turned her head with a scornful glance, and perceived the archbishop’s timorous figure edging toward her balcony by almost invisible degrees. “This holy man has no knowledge of the world,” thought Clelia to herself. “Why does he come and disturb a poor girl like me? My peace is the only thing I have!” She was greeting him with a respect not untinged with haughtiness when the prelate spoke:
“Signorina, have you heard the dreadful news?”