“Non! vous ne me verrez jamais changer
Beaux yeux, qui m’avez appris à aimer!”
She ventured to say these two lines from Petrarch to herself.
Immediately after supper the princess retired. The prince had followed her to her own apartments, and did not reappear in the reception-room. As soon as this news spread, every one tried to go away at once, and confusion reigned supreme in all the anterooms. Clelia found herself quite near Fabrizio. The deep misery of his expression filled her with pity. “Let us forget the past,” she said, “and keep this in memory of our friendship.” As she said the word she put out her fan, so that he might take it.
In one moment everything changed to Fabrizio’s eyes. He was another man. The very next morning he announced that his retreat was at an end, and went back to his splendid rooms in the Palazzo Sanseverina.
The archbishop said, and believed, that the favour the prince had shown Fabrizio by summoning him to his card-table had turned the new-fledged saint’s head. The duchess perceived that he had come to an understanding with Clelia. That thought, which increased twofold the pain of the memory of her own fatal promise, made her finally resolve to absent herself for a while. People were astonished at her folly. “What! Leave court at the very moment when her favour appeared to know no limits!”
The count, who was perfectly happy now that he was satisfied there was no love between Fabrizio and the duchess, said to his friend: “This new prince of ours is the very incarnation of virtue, but I once called him ‘that child.’ Will he never forgive me? I only see one means of thoroughly regaining my credit with him, and that is by absence. I will make myself perfectly charming and respectful, and then I will fall ill, and ask leave to retire. You will grant me permission to do so, now that Fabrizio’s fortunes are assured. But,” he added, with a laugh, “will you make the immense sacrifice of changing the high and mighty title of duchess for a much humbler one, for my sake? I am entertaining myself by leaving all the business here in a state of the most inextricable confusion. I had four or five hard-working men in my various ministries; I had them all pensioned off, two months ago, because they read the French newspapers, and I have replaced them with first-class simpletons.”
“Once we are gone, the prince will find himself in such difficulties that, in spite of his horror of Rassi’s character, I have no doubt he will be obliged to recall him, and I only await my orders from the tyrant who rules my fate to write the most affectionate and friendly letter to my friend Rassi, and tell him I have every reason to hope his merits will soon be properly recognised.”