When she went back to her rooms she was giddy with delight; every one bowed down before her.
“How happiness does change the duchess!” said the courtiers on every side; “one would hardly know her again. At last that Roman soul, which as a rule scorns everything, actually condescends to appreciate the exceeding favour which the sovereign has just shown her.”
Toward the end of the evening the count came to her. “I must tell you some news.” Immediately the persons close to the duchess retired to a distance.
“When the prince returned to the palace,” the count went on, “he sent to the princess to announce his arrival. Imagine her astonishment! ‘I have come,’ he said, ‘to give you an account of a really very pleasant evening which I have just spent with the Sanseverina. It is she who begged me to give you details of the manner in which she has rearranged that smoky old palace.’ And then the prince, seating himself, began to describe each of your rooms. He spent more than five-and-twenty minutes with his wife, who was shedding tears of joy. In spite of her cleverness, she could not find a word to carry on the conversation in the light tone which it was his Highness’s pleasure to give it.”
The prince was not a bad man, whatever the Italian Liberals might say of him. He had, it is true, cast a certain number of them into prison, but this was out of fright, and he would sometimes reiterate, as though to console himself for certain memories, “It is better to kill the devil than to let the devil kill us.” On the morrow after the party to which we have just referred he was quite joyous; he had done two good actions—had been to the party, and had talked to his wife. At dinner he spoke to her again. In a word, that Thursday party at the Sanseverina palace brought about a domestic revolution which resounded all over Parma. The Raversi was dismayed, and the duchess tasted a twofold joy. She had been able to serve her lover, and she had found him more devoted than ever.
“And all that because a very imprudent notion came into my head,” said she to the count. “I should have more freedom, no doubt, at Rome or at Naples, but could I find any existence so fascinating as this? No, my dear count, and, in good truth, I owe my happiness to you.”
[4] In Italy, young men who are learned or protected in high quarters are created monsignori and prelates, which does not mean that they are bishops. They then wear violet stockings. A monsignore takes no vows, and can relinquish his violet stockings if he desires to marry.