The general began to swear.
“Will you hold your tongue?” said the gendarme. “Where’s your uniform? Any man who chooses can say he is a general.”
The general grew more and more furious. In the carriage, meanwhile, matters were going far better.
The countess was making all the gendarmes run about as if they had been her servants. She had just given one of them a crown to go and fetch her some wine, and above all some cool water, from a villa which stood about two hundred paces off. She had found time to pacify Fabrizio, who was most anxious to bolt into the wood that clothed the hill. “I have two good pistols,” he kept saying. She persuaded the angry general to let his daughter get into her carriage. On this occasion the general, who was fond of talking of himself and his family, informed the ladies that his daughter was only twelve years old, having been born on October 27, 1803, but that she was so sensible that every one took her for fourteen or fifteen.
“Quite a common person,” was the verdict which the countess’s eyes telegraphed to the marchesa’s. In an hour’s time, thanks to the former lady, everything was settled. One of the gendarmes, who had business in the adjoining village, hired his horse to General Conti, after the countess had told him he would have ten francs for it.
The sergeant departed alone with the general, and his comrades remained under a tree, with four huge bottles of wine which the gendarme, with the assistance of a peasant, had brought back from the villa. The worthy chamberlain authorized Clelia Conti to accept a seat in the ladies’ carriage back to Milan, and the idea of arresting the gallant General Pietranera’s son never entered anybody’s head. After the first moments devoted to general civilities, and remarks on the little incident just brought to a close, Clelia Conti noticed the touch of enthusiasm evident in the beautiful countess’s manner when she spoke to Fabrizio. Clelia was sure she was not his mother. More especially was her attention attracted by the constant allusions to something bold, heroic, dangerous in the highest degree, which he had lately done. But what that might be the young girl, clever as she was, could not divine. She gazed in wonder on the young hero, whose eyes still seemed to sparkle with the fire of action. He, on his side, was somewhat taken aback by the singular beauty of the twelve-year-old girl, and his glances brought the colour to her cheeks.
About a league from Milan, Fabrizio took leave of the ladies, saying he must go and see his uncle. “If ever I get out of my difficulties,” said he, addressing Clelia, “I shall go and see the great pictures at Parma. Will you deign, then, to remember this name—Fabrizio del Dongo?”
“Very good!” said the countess. “So that’s how you keep your incognito! Signorina, be good enough to remember that this scamp is my son, and that his name is Pietranera, and not Del Dongo!”
That evening, very late, Fabrizio entered Milan by the Renza gate, which leads to a fashionable promenade. The very modest hoards amassed by the marchesa and her sister had been exhausted by the expense of sending servants into Switzerland. Luckily Fabrizio still had a few napoleons, and one of the diamonds, which they decided to sell.
The two ladies were much beloved, and knew everybody in the city. The leading members of the Austrian and religious party spoke to Baron Binder, the chief of the police, in Fabrizio’s favour. These gentlemen could not understand, they declared, how the prank of a boy of sixteen, who had quarrelled with his elder brother and left his father’s house, could be taken seriously.