At his interview with the prince, Fabrizio behaved like a perfect gentleman. In the first place, he had no intention of looking like a child who is frightened by a mere nothing. The prince inquired kindly how he felt.
“Like a man, your Serene Highness, who is starving with hunger, because, by good luck, he has neither breakfasted nor dined.”
After having had the honour of thanking the prince, he requested permission to see the archbishop, before proceeding to the city jail.
The prince had turned exceedingly pale when the conviction that the poison had not been altogether a phantom of the duchess’s imagination had forced itself upon his childish brain. Absorbed by the cruel thought, he did not at first reply to Fabrizio’s request that he might see the archbishop. Then he felt obliged to atone for his inattention by excessive graciousness.
“You can go out alone, sir, and move through the streets of my capital without any guard. Toward ten or eleven o’clock you will repair to the prison, and I trust you will not have to stay there long.”
On the morrow of that great day, the most remarkable in his whole life, the prince thought himself a young Napoleon. That great man, he had read, had received favours from several of the most beautiful women of his court. Now that he too was a Napoleon by his success in love, he recollected that he had also been a Napoleon under fire. His soul was still glowing with delight over the firmness of his treatment of the duchess. The sense that he had achieved something difficult made quite another man of him. For a whole fortnight he became accessible to generous-minded argument; he showed some resolution of character.
He began, that very day, by burning the patent creating Rassi a count, which had been lying on his writing-table for the last month. He dismissed General Fabio Conti, and commanded Colonel Lange, his successor, to tell him the truth about the poison. Lange, a brave Polish soldier, terrified the jailers, and found out that Signor del Dongo was to have been poisoned at his breakfast, but that too many persons would have had to have been let into the secret. At his dinner, measures had been more carefully taken, and but for General Fontana’s arrival, Monsignore del Dongo would have died. The prince was thrown into consternation. But, desperately in love as he was, it was a consolation to him to be able to think, “It turns out that I really have saved Monsignore del Dongo’s life, and the duchess will not dare to break the word she has given me.” From this thought another proceeded: “My way of life is much more difficult than I supposed. Every one agrees that the duchess is an exceedingly clever woman. In this case my interest and my heart agree. What divine happiness it would be for me, if she would become my Prime Minister!”
So worried was the prince by the horrors he had discovered, that he would have nothing to do with the acting that evening.
“It would be too great a happiness for me,” said he to the duchess, “if you would rule my dominions, even as you rule my heart. To begin with, I am going to tell you how I have spent my day.” And he began to relate everything very exactly. How he had burned Rassi’s patent, his appointment of Lange, Lange’s report on the attempted poisoning, and so forth.