Not knowing what pretext to adopt, he pretended he had found the prince exceedingly prejudiced against him that evening, contradicting everything he said, and so forth. He had the pain of perceiving that the duchess hardly listened to him, and paid no attention to circumstances which only two nights before would have led her into a whole train of argument. The count looked at Fabrizio. Never had that handsome Lombard countenance seemed to him so simple and so noble. Fabrizio was paying much more attention than the duchess to the difficulties he was relating.
“Really,” said he to himself, “that face combines extreme kind-heartedness with a certain expression of tender and artless delight which is quite irresistible. It seems to say, ‘The only serious matters in this world are love and the happiness it brings.’ And yet if any detail which demands intelligence occurs, his eye kindles, and one is quite astonished and amazed.
“In his eyes everything is simple, because everything is sent from above. My God, how am I to struggle against such an enemy? And after all, what will my life be without Gina’s love? With what delight she seems to listen to the charming sallies of that young intellect, which, to a woman’s mind, must seem unique!”
A frightful thought clutched the count like a cramp. “Shall I stab him there, in her sight, and kill myself afterward?” He walked up and down the room; his legs were shaking under him, but his hand closed convulsively upon the handle of his dagger. Neither of the others were paying any attention to him. He said he was going to give an order to his servant. They did not even hear him; the duchess was laughing fondly at something Fabrizio had just said to her. The count went under a lamp in the outer drawing-room, and looked to see whether the point of his dagger was sharp. “My manner to the young man must be gracious and perfectly polite,” he thought, as he returned and drew close to them.
His brain was boiling. They seemed to him to be bending forward and exchanging kisses there in his very sight. “That is not possible under my eyes,” he thought. “My reason is going. I must compose myself. If I am rough the duchess is capable, out of sheer pique to her vanity, of following him to Belgirate, and there, or during the journey, a chance word may give a name to what they feel for each other; and then, in a moment, all the consequences must come.
“Solitude will make that one word decisive, and besides, what is to become of me once the duchess is far away from me? And if, after a great many difficulties with the prince, I should go and show my aged and careworn face at Belgirate, what part should I play between those two in their delirious happiness?
“Even here, what am I but the terzo incommodo (our beautiful Italian language was made for the purposes of love)! Terzo incommodo (the third party, in the way)! What anguish for a man of parts to feel himself in this vile position, and not to have strength of mind to get up and go away!”
The count was on the point of breaking out, or at all events of betraying his suffering by the disorder of his countenance. As he walked round the drawing-room, finding himself close to the door, he took to flight, calling out, in good-natured and friendly fashion, “Good-bye, you two!—I must not shed blood,” he murmured to himself.
On the morrow of that horrible evening, after a night spent partly in revolving Fabrizio’s advantages, and partly in the agonizing paroxysms of the most cruel jealousy, it occurred to the count to send for a young man-servant of his own. This man was making love to a girl named Cecchina, one of the duchess’s waiting-maids, and her favourite. By good luck, this young servant was exceedingly steady in his conduct, even stingy, and was anxious to be appointed doorkeeper in one of the public buildings at Parma. The count ordered this man to send instantly for Cecchina. The man obeyed, and an hour later the count appeared unexpectedly in the room occupied by the girl and her lover. The count alarmed them both by the quantity of gold coins he gave them; then, looking into the trembling Cecchina’s eyes, he addressed her in the following words: “Are there love passages between the duchess and monsignore?”
“No,” said the girl, making up her mind after a moment’s silence. “No, not yet; but he often kisses the signora’s hands. He laughs, I know, but he kisses them passionately.”