“That prison which would have swallowed me up if the horse had stumbled—was it the prison with which so many omens threaten me?”
The question was of sovereign importance to him. And the archbishop was enchanted with his air of deep attention.
CHAPTER XI
When Fabrizio left the archiepiscopal palace he hurried off to Marietta’s dwelling. In the distance he heard Giletti’s rough voice. He had sent out for wine, and was carousing with his friends the prompter and the candle snuffer. The mamaccia, who performed the functions of a mother to Marietta, was the only person who answered his signal.
“Things have happened while you have been away,” she cried. “Two or three of our actors have been accused of having held an orgy in honour of the great Napoleon’s birthday, and our unlucky company has been given the name of Jacobin. So we have been ordered to clear out of the dominion of Parma, and, Evriva Napoleone! But the Prime Minister is supposed to have paid our reckoning. Giletti certainly has money in his pocket. I don’t know how much, but I have seen him with a handful of crown pieces. The manager has given Marietta five crowns for her travelling expenses to Mantua and Venice, and one for mine. She is still very much in love with you, but she is afraid of Giletti. Three days ago, at her last performance, he really would have killed her. He boxed her ears soundly twice over, and, what is abominable, he tore her blue shawl. If you would give her a blue shawl it would be very good-natured of you, and we would say we had won it in the lottery. The drum master of the carabineers is holding a competition to-morrow—you will see the hour advertised at every street corner. Come and see us then. If Giletti goes to the match, and we can hope he will stay away for any time, I will be at the window, and will beckon you to come up. Try to bring us something very pretty. And Marietta dotes upon you.”
As he descended the winding stairs that led from the vile garret, Fabrizio’s soul was filled with compunction. “I am not a bit altered,” he thought. “All those fine resolutions I made on the shores of the lake, when I looked at life with so much philosophy, have flown away. I was not in my normal condition then. It was all a dream, which disappears when I have to face stern realities. This would be the moment for action,” he went on, as he re-entered the Sanseverina Palace about eleven o’clock at night. But in vain did he search his heart for that noble sincerity which had seemed so easy of attainment during the night he had spent on the shores of Como. “I shall displease the person I love best in the world. If I speak, I shall look like an inferior play-actor. I really never am worth anything, except in certain moments of excitement.”
“The count is wonderfully good to me,” said he to the duchess, after he had given her an account of his visit to the archbishop. “I value his kindness all the more highly because I fancy I notice that he does not particularly care about me. Therefore I must be all the more correct in my behaviour to him. I know he has excavations at Sanguigna in which he still delights—judging, at least, by his expedition the day before yesterday, galloping twelve leagues to spend two hours with his workmen. He is afraid that if they find fragments of statuary in the antique temple, the foundations of which he has just laid bare, they may steal them. I should like to offer to go and spend thirty-six hours at Sanguigna. I am to see the archbishop to-morrow, about five o’clock. I could start in the evening, and take advantage of the cool hours of the night for my ride.”
The duchess made no answer at first. Presently she said to him in a very tender voice: “It looks as if you were seeking pretexts for getting away from me; you are hardly back from Belgirate, and you find out a reason for starting off again.”