Clelia submitted. She had not seen Fabrizio. She still hoped he might not be present at the reception. But just as the concert was beginning, when the princess gave the ladies permission to be seated, Clelia, who was anything but pushing in such matters, allowed herself to be shouldered out of the best seats, near the princess, and was forced to seek a chair at the back of the room, in the very distant corner to which Fabrizio had retired. When she reached her seat the dress of the Franciscan superior general, an unusual one in such company, caught her attention, and at first she did not notice the slight man in a plain black coat who was talking to him. Yet a certain secret impulse made her rivet her eyes on that person.
“Every man here is in uniform, or wears a richly embroidered coat. Who can that young man in the plain black suit be?” She was gazing at him attentively, when a lady, passing to a seat near her, jerked her chair. Fabrizio turned his head. So altered was he that she did not recognise him. She said to herself at first: “Here is somebody who is like him. It must be his elder brother. But I thought he was only a few years older, and this man must be five-and-forty.” Suddenly she recognised him by the way his lips moved.
“Poor fellow, how he has suffered!” she thought. And she bowed her head, not on account of her vow, but crushed by her misery. Her heart was swelling with pity. He had not looked anything like that, even after he had been shut up nine months in prison. She did not look at him again. But though her eyes were not exactly turned toward him, she was conscious of his every movement.
When the concert came to an end, she saw him go over to the prince’s card-table, which was set out a few paces from the throne. When she saw Fabrizio thus removed some distance from her she breathed more freely.
But the Marchese Crescenzi had been very much disturbed at seeing his wife banished so far from the throne. He spent the whole evening trying to persuade a lady who was sitting three chairs from the princess, and whose husband was under pecuniary obligations to himself, that she had better change places with the marchesa. The poor lady objected, as was natural. Then he went and fetched the husband, who owed him money. This gentleman made his better-half listen to the dreary voice of reason, and at last the marchese had the pleasure of arranging the exchange, and went to fetch his wife. “You are always far too retiring,” he said. “Why do you walk about with your eyes cast down? You will be taken for one of these middle-class women who are astonished at finding themselves here, and whom everybody else is astounded to see. That crazy woman the mistress of the robes is always doing that sort of thing. And then they talk about checking the progress of Jacobinism! Recollect that your husband holds the highest position of any man at the princess’s court. And supposing the republicans should succeed in pulling down the court, and even the nobility, your husband would still be the richest man in this country. That is a notion you do not consider half enough.”
The chair in which the marchese had the pleasure of seating his wife stood not more than six paces from the prince’s card-table. Clelia could only see Fabrizio’s profile, but she was so struck by his thinness, and especially by his air of utter indifference to anything that might happen to him in this world—he, who in old days had his word to say about every incident that occurred—that she ended by coming to the frightful conclusion that Fabrizio was completely altered, that he had forgotten her, and that his extreme emaciation must result from the severe fasting his piety had enjoined. Clelia was confirmed in this sad conviction by the conversation of all who sat near her. The coadjutor’s name was on every tongue; every one was seeking the reason of the special favour which had been shown him. How was it that he, young as he was, had been admitted to the prince’s card-table? A great effect was produced by the indifferent politeness and haughty air with which he dealt his cards, even when he cut them for his Highness.
“It really is incredible,” exclaimed the old courtiers. “The favour his aunt enjoys has quite turned his head.… But Heaven be thanked, that will not last long! Our sovereign does not like people who assume such airs of superiority.” The duchess went up to the prince, and the courtiers, who remained at a respectful distance from the card-table, so that they could only catch a few chance words of the prince’s conversation, noticed that Fabrizio flushed deeply. “No doubt,” thought they, “his aunt has chidden him for his fine show of indifference.” Fabrizio had just overheard Clelia’s voice; she was answering the princess, who, in her progress round the room, had addressed a few words to the wife of her lord in waiting. At last the moment came when Fabrizio had to change his place at the whist-table. This brought him exactly opposite Clelia, and several times he gave himself up to the delight of looking at her. The poor marchesa, feeling his eyes upon her, quite lost countenance. Several times she forgot what she owed her vow, and in her longing to read Fabrizio’s heart, she fixed her eyes upon his face.
When the prince had finished playing, the ladies rose to go into the supper room. There was some little confusion, and Fabrizio found himself close to Clelia. His resolution was still strong, but he happened to recognise a very slight perfume which she was in the habit of putting in her dress, and this sensation overmastered all his determination. He drew near her, and murmured, in an undertone, and as if to himself, two lines out of the sonnet from Petrarch which he had sent her printed on a silken handkerchief from the Lago Maggiore. “How great was my happiness when the outer world thought me wretched! and now, how altered is my fate!”
“No, he has not forgotten me,” thought Clelia in a passion of joy. “That noble heart is not unfaithful.”