CHAPTER XXVI
The only moments when Fabrizio’s deep sadness knew a little respite were those he spent lurking behind a glass pane which he had substituted for one of the oiled-paper squares in the window of his lodging, opposite the Palazzo Cantarini, to which mansion, as my readers know, Clelia had retired. On the few occasions, since he had left the fortress, on which he had caught sight of her, he had been profoundly distressed by a striking change in her appearance, from which he augured very ill. Since Clelia’s one moment of weakness her face had assumed a most striking appearance of nobility and gravity. It might have been that of a woman of thirty. In this extraordinary change of expression Fabrizio recognised the reflection of some deep-seated resolution. “Every moment of the day,” said he to himself, “she is swearing to herself that she will keep her vow to the Madonna, and never look at me again.”
Fabrizio only guessed at part of Clelia’s misery. She knew that her father, who had fallen into the direst disgrace, would never be able to return to Parma and reappear at the court (without which life was impossible to him) until she married the Marchese Crescenzi. She wrote her father word that she desired to be married. The general was then lying ill from worry at Turin. This fateful decision had aged her by ten years.
She was quite aware that Fabrizio had a window facing the Palazzo Cantarini, but only once had she been so unfortunate as to look at him. The moment she caught sight of the turn of a head or the outline of a figure the least resembling his, she instantly closed her eyes. Her deep piety, and her trust in the Madonna’s help, were to be her only support for the future. She had to endure the sorrow of feeling no esteem for her father; her future husband’s character she took to be perfectly commonplace, and suited to the dominant feelings of the upper ranks of society. To crown it all, she adored a man whom she must never see again, and who, nevertheless, had certain claims upon her. Taking it altogether, her fate seemed to her the most miserable that could be conceived, and it must be acknowledged that she was right. The moment she was married she ought to have gone to live two hundred leagues from Parma.
Fabrizio was acquainted with the extreme modesty of Clelia’s character; he knew how much any unusual step, the discovery of which might cause comment, was certain to displease her. Nevertheless, driven to distraction by his own sadness, and by seeing Clelia’s eyes so constantly turned away from him, he ventured to try to buy over two of the servants of her aunt, the Countess Cantarini. One day, as dusk was falling, Fabrizio, dressed like a respectable countryman, presented himself at the door of the palace, at which one of the servants he had bribed was awaiting him. He announced that he had just arrived from Turin with letters for Clelia from her father. The servant took up his message, and then conducted him into a huge antechamber on the first floor. In this apartment Fabrizio spent what was perhaps the most anxious quarter of an hour in his whole life. If Clelia repulsed him he could never hope to know peace again. “To cut short the wearisome duties with which my new position overwhelms me,” he mused, “I will rid the Church of an indifferent priest, and will take refuge, under a feigned name, in some Carthusian monastery.” At last the servant appeared, and told him the Signorina Clelia was willing to receive him.
Our hero’s courage quite failed him as he climbed the staircase to the second floor, and he very nearly fell down from sheer fright.
Clelia was sitting at a little table, on which a solitary taper was burning. No sooner did she recognise Fabrizio, under his disguise, than she rushed away, and hid herself at the far end of the drawing-room. “This is how you care for my salvation,” she cried, hiding her face in her hands. “Yet you know that when my father was at the point of death from poison, I made a vow to the Madonna that I would never see you. That vow I have never broken except on that one day—the most wretched of my life—when my conscience commanded me to save you from death. I do a great deal when, by putting a forced and, no doubt, a wicked interpretation on my vow, I consent even to listen to you.”
Fabrizio was so astounded by this last sentence that, for a few seconds, he was incapable even of rejoicing over it. He had expected to see Clelia rush away in the most lively anger. But at last he recovered his presence of mind, and blew out the candle. Although he believed he had understood Clelia’s wishes, he was trembling with alarm as he moved toward the far end of the drawing-room, where she had taken refuge behind a sofa. He did not know whether she might not take it ill if he kissed her hand. Throbbing with passion, she cast herself into his arms.