One thing struck the duchess and increased her romantic admiration for her nephew; he absolutely refused to lead the ordinary life of young men in large Italian cities.
“Don’t you see yourself at the Corso, in Florence, or Naples,” said the duchess, “riding your thorough-bred English horses, and then in the evening your carriage, and beautiful rooms, and so forth?” She dwelt with delight on her description of the commonplace enjoyments from which she saw Fabrizio turn in disdain. “He is a hero,” thought she to herself.
“And after ten years of that delightful life,” said Fabrizio, “what shall I have done? What shall I be? Nothing but a middle-aged young man who will have to make way for the first good-looking youth who rides into society on another English horse.”
At first he would not hear of going into the Church. He talked of going to New York, obtaining citizenship, and serving as a soldier in the republic of America.
“What a mistake you will make! You will have no fighting, and you will just fall back into the old café life, only without elegance, without music, and without love-making,” replied the duchess. “Believe me, your life in America would be a sad business, both for you and me.” And she explained what dollar worship was, and the respect necessarily paid to the artisan class, on whose votes everything depended. They went back again to the Church plan.
“Before you lose your temper over it,” said the duchess, “try to understand what the count asks you to do. It is not at all a question of your living a poor and more or less exemplary life, like Father Blanès. Remember the history of your ancestors, who were Archbishops of Parma. Read the notices of their lives in the Appendix to the Genealogy. The man who bears a great name must be first and foremost a true nobleman, high-hearted, generous, a protector of justice, destined from the outset to stand at the head of his order, guilty of but one piece of knavery in his life, and that a very useful one.”
“Alas!” cried Fabrizio, “so all my illusions have vanished into thin air!” and he sighed deeply. “It is a cruel sacrifice. I confess I never reckoned with the horror of enthusiasm and intelligence, even when used in their own service, which will reign for the future among all absolute sovereigns.”
“Consider that a proclamation, or a mere freak of the affections, may drive an enthusiastic man into the opposite party to that in the service of which he has spent his whole life.”
“Enthusiastic! I!” repeated Fabrizio. “What an extraordinary accusation! I can not even contrive to fall in love!”