The general, very pale, and very much horrified, transmitted the order suggested by Fabrizio to the specially selected jailers, who had followed him. These gentry, very much crestfallen at seeing the poison discovered, lost no time in getting downstairs. They made as though they were going in front, to get out of the way of the prince’s aide-de-camp on the narrow staircase; as a matter of fact, they were panting to escape and disappear. To General Fontana’s great astonishment, Fabrizio halted for more than a quarter of an hour at the little iron staircase that ran round the pillar on the ground floor. He wanted to give Clelia time to conceal herself on the first floor.
It was the duchess who, after doing several wild things, had succeeded in getting General Fontana sent to the citadel. This success had been the result of chance. Leaving Count Mosca, who was as much alarmed as herself, she hurried to the palace. The princess, who had a strong dislike to energy, which always struck her as being vulgar, thought she was mad, and did not show the least disposition to attempt any unusual step to help her. The duchess, distracted, was weeping bitterly. All she could do was to repeat, over and over again, “But, madam, within a quarter of an hour Fabrizio will be dead of poison!”
When the duchess perceived the princess’s perfect indifference, her grief drove her mad. That moral reflection, which would certainly have occurred to any woman educated in one of those northern religions which permit of self-examination—“I was the first to use poison, and now it is by poison that I am destroyed”—never occurred to her. In Italy such considerations, in moments of deep passion, would seem as commonplace as a pun would appear to a Parisian, under parallel circumstances.
In her despair, the duchess chanced to go into the drawing-room, where she found the Marchese Crescenzi, who was in waiting that day. When the duchess had returned to Parma he had thanked her fervently for his post as lord in waiting, to which, but for her, he could never have aspired. There had been no lack of asseverations of devotion on his part. The duchess addressed him in the following words:
“Rassi is going to have Fabrizio, who is in the citadel, poisoned. Put some chocolate and a bottle of water, which I will give you, into your pocket. Go up to the citadel, and save my life by telling General Fabio Conti that if he does not allow you to give Fabrizio the chocolate and the water yourself, you will break off your marriage with his daughter.”
The marchese turned pale, and his features, instead of kindling into animation, expressed the most miserable perplexity. He “could not believe that so hideous a crime could be committed in so well-ordered a city as Parma, ruled over by so great a prince,” and so forth. And to make it worse, he enunciated all these platitudes exceedingly slowly. In a word, the duchess found she had to deal with a man who was upright enough, but weak beyond words, and quite unable to make up his mind to act. After a score of remarks of this kind, all of them interrupted by her impatient exclamations, he hit on an excellent excuse. His oath as lord in waiting forbade him to take part in any machinations against the government.
My readers will imagine the anxiety and despair of the duchess, who felt the time was slipping by.
“But see the governor, at all events, and tell him I will hunt Fabrizio’s murderers into hell!”
Despair had quickened the duchess’s eloquence. But all her fervour only added to the marchese’s alarm, and doubled his natural irresolution. At the end of an hour he was even less inclined to do anything than he had been at first.
The unhappy woman, who had reached the utmost limit of distraction, and was thoroughly convinced the governor would never refuse anything to so rich a son-in-law, went so far as to throw herself at his feet. This seemed only to increase the Marchese Crescenzi’s cowardice—the strange sight filled him with an unconscious fear that he himself might be compromised. But then a strange thing happened. The marchese, a kind-hearted man at bottom, was touched when he saw so beautiful and, above all, so powerful a woman, kneeling at his feet.