By remarkable good luck the good prelate’s servant, who was a trifle deaf, did not catch the name of Del Dongo. He announced a young priest called Fabrizio. The archbishop was engaged with a priest of not very exemplary morals, whom he had summoned in order to reprimand him. He was in the act of administering a reproof—a very painful effort to him, and did not care to carry the trouble about with him any longer. He therefore kept the great-nephew of the famous Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo waiting for three quarters of an hour.
How shall I reproduce his excuses and his despair when, having conducted the parish priest as far as the outermost antechamber, he inquired, as he passed back toward his apartment, what he could do for the young man who stood waiting, caught sight of his violet stockings, and heard the name Fabrizio del Dongo?
The matter struck our hero in so comic a light that even on this first visit he ventured, in a passion of tenderness, to kiss the saintly prelate’s hand. It was worth something to hear the archbishop reiterating in his despair “That a Del Dongo should have waited in my antechamber!” He felt obliged, in his own excuse, to relate the whole story of the parish priest, his offences, his replies, and so forth.
“Can that really be the man,” said Fabrizio to himself, as he returned to the Palazzo Sanseverina, “who hurried on the execution of that poor Count Palanza?”
“What does your Excellency think?” said Count Mosca laughingly, as he entered the duchess’s room. (The count would not allow Fabrizio to call him “your Excellency.”)
“I am utterly amazed! I know nothing about human nature. I would have wagered, if I had not known his name, that this man could not bear to see a chicken bleed.”
“And you would have won,” replied the count. “But when he is in the prince’s presence, or even in mine, he can not say ‘No.’ As a matter of fact, I must have my yellow ribbon across my coat if I am to produce my full effect upon him; in morning dress he would contradict me, and I always put on my uniform before I receive him. It is no business of ours to destroy the prestige of power—the French newspapers are demolishing it quite fast enough. The respectful mania will hardly last out our time, and you, nephew, you’ll outlive respect—you’ll be a good-natured man.”
Fabrizio delighted in the count’s society. He was the first superior man who had condescended to converse with him seriously, and, further, they had a taste in common—that for antiques and excavations. The count, on his side, was flattered by the extreme deference with which the young man listened to him, but there was one capital objection—Fabrizio occupied rooms in the Palazzo Sanseverina; he spent his life with the duchess, and let it appear, in all innocence, that this intimacy constituted his great happiness, and Fabrizio’s eyes and skin were distressingly brilliant.
For a long time Ranuzio-Ernest IV, who seldom came across an unaccommodating fair, had been nettled by the fact that the duchess, whose virtue was well known at court, had made no exception in his favour. As we have seen, Fabrizio’s intelligence and presence of mind had displeased him from the very outset; he looked askance at the extreme affection, somewhat imprudently displayed, between aunt and nephew. He listened with excessive attention to the comments of his courtiers, which were endless. The young man’s arrival, and the extraordinary audience granted him, were the talk and astonishment of the court for a good month. Whereupon the prince had an idea.
In his guard there was a private soldier who could carry his wine in the most admirable manner. This man spent his life in taverns, and reported the general spirit of the military direct to the sovereign. Carlone lacked education, otherwise he would long ago have been promoted. His orders were to be in the palace every day when the great clock struck noon.