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Chapter 28 · The Charterhouse of Parma

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  Section thirty four of the Charterhouse of Palmer by Stendahl, translated by C.
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  K. Scott Montcreeve. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read
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  by Peter Dan, Chapter twenty eight. Carried away by the train of events,
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  we have not had time to sketch the comic race of courtiers who swarm
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  at the court of Palmer, and who made fatuous comments on the incidents which
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  we have related. What in that country makes a small noble, adorned with
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  an income of three or four thousand lira worthy to figure in black stockings at
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  the Prince's levees is first and foremost, that he shall never have read Voltaire
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  and Rousseau. This condition is not very difficult to fulfill. He must then
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  know how to speak with a motion of the Sovereign's cold or of the latest
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  case of mineralogical specimens that has come to him from Saxony. If after this
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  you were not absent from Mass for a single day in the year, if
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  you could include in the number of your intimate friends two or three prominent monks,
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  the Prince deigned to address a few words to you once every year,
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  a fortnight before or a fortnight after the first of January, which brought you
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  great relief in your parish, and the tax collector dared not press you unduly
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  if you were in arrears with the annual sum of one hundred francs with which
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  your small estate was burdened. Signor Gonzo was a poor devil of this sort,
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  very noble, who, apart from possessing some little fortune of his own,
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  had obtained through the marchesse Cresnzi's influence, a magnificent post, which brought
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  him in eleven hundred and fifty francs annually. This man might have dined at
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  home, but he had one passion. He was never at his ease and
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  happy, except when he found himself in the drawing room of some great personage,
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  who said to him, from time to time, hold your tongue,
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  Gonzo, you're a perfect fool. This judgment was prompted by ill temper,
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  for Gonzo had almost always more intelligence than the great personage. He would discuss
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  anything, and quite gracefully. Besides, he was ready to change his opinion
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  on a grimace from the master of the house to tell the truth, although
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  of a profound subtlety in securing his own interests, he had not an idea
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  in his head, and when the Prince had not a cold, was sometimes
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  embarrassed as he came into a drawing room courtiers. What had in palmer one
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  Gonzo a reputation was a magnificent cocked hat adorned with a slightly dilapidated black plume,
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  which he wore even with evening dress. But you ought to have seen
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  the way in which he carried this plume, whether upon his head or in
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  his hand. There were talent and importance combined. He inquired with genuine anxiety
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  after the health of the Marchesa's little dog, And if the Palazzo Crescenzi had
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  caught fire, he would have risked his life to save one of those fine
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  arm chairs in gold brocade, which for so many years had caught in his
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  black silk breeches. Whenever it so happened that he ventured to sit down for
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  a moment, seven or eight persons of this species appeared every evening at seven
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  o'clock in the Marchesa Creshenzi's drawing room. No sooner had they sat down than
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  a lackey magnificently attired in a daffodil yellow livery covered all over with silver braid,
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  as was the red waistcoat which completed his magnificence. Came to take the
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  poor devil's hats and canes. He was immediately followed by a footman carrying an
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  infinitesimal cup of coffee supported on a stem of silver filigree, and every half
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  hour a butler wearing a sword and a magnificent coat in the French style,
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  brought round ices. Half an hour after the threadbare little courtiers once saw arrive
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  five or six officers, talking in loud voices and with a very military air,
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  and usually discussing the number of buttons which ought to be on the soldier's
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  uniform in order that the commander in chief might gain victories. It would not
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  have been prudent to quote a French newspaper in this drawing room, for even
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  when the news itself was the most agreeable kind, as for instance, that
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  fifty liberals had been shot in Spain, the speaker nonetheless remained convicted of having
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  read a French newspaper. The crowning effort of all these people's skill was to
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  obtain every ten years an increase of one hundred and fifty francs in their pensions.
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  It is thus that the prince shares with his nobility the pleasures of reigning
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  over all the peasants and burgesses of the land. The principal personage, beyond
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  all question of the Crescenzi drawing room, was the Cavalier Foscarini, an entirely
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  honest man, in consequence of which he had been in prison off and on
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  under every government. He had been a member of that famous Chamber of Deputies
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  which at Milan rejected the registration law presented to them by Napoleon, an action
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  of very rare occurrence in history. Cavalier Foscarini, after having been for twenty
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  years a friend of the Marchesa's mother, had remained the influential man in the
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  house. He had always some amusing story to tell, but nothing escaped his
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  shrewd perception, and the young Marchesa, who felt herself guilty at heart,
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  trembled before him. As Gonzo had a regular passion for the great gentleman,
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  who said rude things to him and moved him to tears once or twice every
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  year, his mania was to seek to do him trifling services. And if
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  he had not been paralyzed by the habits of an extreme poverty, he might
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  sometimes have succeeded, for he was not lacking in a certain ingredient of shrewdness
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  and a far greater effrontery. Gonzo, as we have seen him, felt
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  some contempt for the Marchesa Cresenzi, for never in her life had she addressed
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  a word to him that was not quite civil. But after all, she
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  was the wife of the famous marches Cresenzi cavalier donre to the princess, who
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  once or twice in a month used to say to Gonzo, hold your tongue,
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  Gonzo, You're a perfect fool. Sonnets. Gonzo observed that everything which
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  was said about little Annetta Mariin he made the Marchesa emerge for a moment from
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  the state of dreamy indifference, in which as a rule, she remained plunged
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  until the clock struck eleven. Then she made tea and offered a cup to
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  each of the men present, addressing him by name, after which, at
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  the moment of her withdrawing to her room, she seemed to find a momentary
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  gaiety, and this was the time chosen for repeating to her satirical sonnets.
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  They composed such sonnets admirably in Italy. It is the one kind of literature
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  that has still a little vitality. As a matter of fact, it is
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  not subjected to the censor, and the courtiers of the Casa Cresnzi invariably prefaced
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  their sonnets with these words, will the Signora Marchesa permit one to repeat to
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  her a very bad sonnet? And when the sonnet had been greeted with laughter
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  and had been repeated several times, one of the officers would not fail to
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  exclaim the Minister of Police or to Zebra, giving a bit of hanging to
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  the authors of such atrocities. Middle class society, on the other hand,
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  welcomes these sonnets with the most open admiration, and the lawyer's clerk sell copies
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  of them. From the sort of curiosity shown by the Marchesa, Gonzo imagined
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  that too much had been said in front of her of the beauty of the
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  little Mariini, who moreover had a fortune of a million, and that the
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  other woman was jealous of her. As with his incessant smile and his complete
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  effrontery towards all that was not noble, Gonzo found his way everywhere on the
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  very next day he arrived at the Marchesa's drawing room, carrying his plumed hat
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  in a triumphant fashion which was to be seen perhaps only once or twice in
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  the year. When the Prince had said to him Adieu Gonzo. After respectfully
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  greeting the Marchesa, Gonzo did not withdraw, as usual to take his seat
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  on the chair which had just been pushed forward for him. He took his
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  stand in the middle of the circle and exclaimed bluntly, I have seen the
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  portrait of Monseigneur Deldagno. Slelia was so surprised that she was obliged to lean
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  upon the arm of her chair. She tried to face the storm, but
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  presently was obliged to leave the room. You must agree, my poor Gonzo,
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  that your tactlessness is unique, came arrogantly from one of the officers who
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  was finishing his fourth eyes. Don't you know that the coadjutor, who was
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  one of the most gallant colonels in Napoleon's army, played a trick that ought
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  to have hanged him on the Marchesa's father, and he walked out of the
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  citadel, where General Fabio Conti was in command as he might have walked out
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  of the Staccata. The Staccata is the principal church in Palmer. Indeed,
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  I am ignorant of many things, my dear Captain, and I am a
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  poor, imbecile who makes blunders all day long. This reply, quite to
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  the Italian taste, caused a laugh at the expense of the brilliant officer.
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  The Marchesa soon returned. She had armed herself with courage and was not without
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  hope of being able herself to admire this portrait, which was said to be
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  excellent. She spoke with praise of the talent of Hayez, who had painted
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  it. Unconsciously, she addressed charming smiles at Gonzo, who looked malevolently at
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  the officer, as all the other courtiers of the house indulged in the same
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  pastime. The officer took flight, not without vowing a deadly hatred against a
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  Gonzo. The latter was triumphant, and later in the evening, when he
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  took his leave, was invited to dine next day. Gonzo, I can
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  tell you something more, cried Gonzo the following evening, after dinner, when
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  the servants had left the room. The latest thing is that our coadjutor has
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  fallen in love with the little Mariini. One may judge of the agitation that
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  arose in Slelia's heart on hearing so extraordinary an announcement. The Marches himself was
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  moved. But Gonzo, my friend, you are off the track as usual,
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  and you ought to speak with a little more caution of a person who
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  has had the honor to sit down eleven times at his Highness's whist table.
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  Well, Signor Marches, replied Gonzo, with a coarseness of people of his
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  sort. I can promise you that he would just as soon sit down to
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  the little Mariini. But it is enough that these details displease you. They
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  no longer exist for me, who desires, above all things not to shock
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  my beloved Marches. Regularly, after dinner, the Marches used to retire to
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  take a siesta. He let the time pass that day. But Gonzo would
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  sooner have cut out his tongue than have said another word about the little Mariini,
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  And every moment he began a speech so plained that the Marches might hope
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  that he was about to return to the subject of the little lady's love affairs.
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  Gonzo had in a superior degree, that Italian quality of mind, which
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  consists in exquisitely delaying the launching of the word for which one's hearer longs.
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  The poor Marches, dying of curiosity, was obliged to make advances. He
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  told Gonzo that when he had the pleasure of dining with him, he ate
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  twice as much as usual. Gonzo did not take the hint. He began
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  to describe a magnificent collection of pictures which the Marches Abalbi, the late Prince's
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  mistress, was forming. Three or four times he spoke of Hayez in a
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  slow and measured tone, full of the most profound admiration. The Marches said
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  to himself, now he is coming to the portrait which the little Marini ordered.
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  But this was what Gonzo took could care not to do five o'clock struck,
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  which put the Marches in the worst of tempers, for he was in
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  the habit of getting into his carriage at half past five after his siesta to
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  drive to the corso. This is what you do with your stupid talk,
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  he said rudely to Gonzo. You are making me reach the corso after the
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  princess, whose cavalier donore I am when she may have orders to give me.
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  Come along, hurry up, tell me in a few words, if
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  you can, what is this so called love affair of the coadjutor. But
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  Gonzo wished to keep this anecdote for the Marchesa, who had invited him to
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  dine. He did hurry up in very few words the story demanded of him,
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  and the marches are half asleep, ran off to take his siesta.
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  Gonzo adopted a wholly different manner with the poor Marchesa. She had remained so
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  young and natural in spite of her high position, that she felt it her
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  duty to make amends for the rudeness with which the Marchesa had just spoken to
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  Gonzo. Charmed by this success, a guest recovered all his eloquence and made
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  it a pleasure no less than a duty, to enter into endless details with
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  her. Little Annetta Marini gave as much as a sequin for each place that
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  was kept for her for the sermons. She always arrived with two of her
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  aunts and her father's old cashier. These places which were reserved for her overnight
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  were generally chosen almost opposite the pulpit, but slightly in the direction of the
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  high altar, for she had noticed that the coadjutor often turned towards the altar.
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  Now what the public also I had noticed, was that not infrequently those
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  speaking eyes of the young preacher rested with evident pleasure on the young heiress,
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  that striking beauty, and apparently with some attention. For when he had his
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  eyes fixed on her, his sermon became learned, the quotations began to abound
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  in it. There was no more sign of that eloquence which springs from the
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  heart. And the ladies, whose interests ceased almost at once, began to
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  look at the Marini and to find fault with her. Slelia made him repeat
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  to her three times over all these singular details. At the third repetition,
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  she became lost in meditation. She was calculating that just fourteen months had passed
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  since she last saw Fabrizio. Would it be very wrong? She asked herself
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  to spend an hour in a church, not to see Fabrizio, but to
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  hear a famous preacher. Besides, I shall take a seat a long way
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  from the pulpit, and I shall look at Fabrizio only once as I go
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  in, and once more at the end of the sermon. No Slelia said
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  to herself, it is not Fabrizio I am going to see. I am
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  going to hear the astounding preacher. In the midst of all these reasonings,
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  the Marchesa felt some remorse. Her conduct had been so exemplary for fourteen months.
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  Well, she said to herself, in order to secure some peace of
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  mind, if the first woman who arrived this evening has been to hear Monseigneur
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  deldonno, I shall go too. If she has not been, I shall
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  stay away. Having come to this decision, the Marchesa made Gonzo happy by
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  saying to him, try to find out on what day the coadjutor will be
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  preaching and in what church this evening. Before you go, I shall perhaps
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  have a commission to give you. No sooner had Gonzo set off for the
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  corso than Cleelia went to take the air in the garden of her palazzo.
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  She did not consider the objection that for ten months she had not set foot
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  in it. She was lively animated. She had color that evening. As
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  each boring visitor entered the room, her heart throbbed with emotion. At length,
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  they announced Gonzo, who at the first glance, saw that he was
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  going to be the indispensable person for the next week. The Marchesa is jealous
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  of the little Marini, and upon my word, it would be a fine
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  drama to put on the stage, he said to himself, with the Marchesa
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  playing the leading lady, little Annetta the juvenile, and Monseigneur Deldonno the lover.
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  Upon my word, the sis would not be too dear. At two
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  francs, he was beside himself with joy, and throughout the evening cut everybody
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  short and told the most ridiculous stories that, for example, of the famous
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  actress and the Marquis de Peigigni, which he had heard the day before from
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  a French visitor. The Marchesa, for her part, could not stay in
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  one place. She moved about the drawing room. She passed into a gallery
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  adjoining it, into which the Marchesa had admitted no picture that had not cost
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  more than twenty thousand francs. These pictures spoke in so clear a language that
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  evening that they wore out the Marchesa's heart with the force of her emotion.
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  At last she heard the double doors open. She ran to the drawing room.
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  It was the Marchesa Ravesi, but on making her the customary polite speeches.
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  Slelia felt that her voice was failing her. The Marchesa made her repeat
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  twice the question what do you think of the fashionable preacher, which he had
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  not heard. At first, I did regard him as a little intriguer,
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  a most worthy nephew of the illustrious Comtessa Mosque. But the last time he
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  preached my it was at the Church of the Visitation opposite you. He was
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  so sublime that I could not hate him any longer, and I regard him
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  as the most eloquent man I have ever heard. So you have been to
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  hear his sermons, said Slelia, trembling with happiness. Why the Marchesa laughed.
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  Haven't you been listening? I wouldn't miss one for anything in the world.
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  They say that his lungs are affected, and that soon you will have
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  to give up preaching. No sooner had the Marchesa left than Sleia called Gonzo
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  to the gallery. I have almost decided. She told him to hear this
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  preacher who is so highly praised, when does he preach next Monday, that
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  is to say, in three days from now? And one would say that
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  he had guessed your Excellency's intention, for he is coming to preach in the
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  church of the Visitation. There was more to be settled, but Slelia could
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  no longer muster enough voice to speak. She took five or six turns of
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  the gallery without adding a word. Gonzo said to himself, there is vengeance
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  at work. How can anyone have the insolence to escape from a prison,
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  especially when he is guarded by a hero like General Fabio Uconti. However,
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  you must make haste, he added, with delicate irony. His lungs are
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  affected. I heard doctor Rambo say he has not a year to live.
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  God is punishing him for having broken his bond by treacherously escaping from the citadel.
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  The Marchesa sat down on the divan in the gallery and made assigned to
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  Gonzo to follow her example. After some moments of silence, she handed him
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  a little purse, in which he had a few sequins ready. Reserve four
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  places for me. Will it be permitted for poor Gonzo to slip in your
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  Excellency's train? Certainly reserve five places. I do not in the least mind,
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  she added, whether I am near the pulpit, but I should like
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  to see Signorina Marini, who they say is so pretty. The Marchesa could
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  not live through the three days that separated her from the famous Monday, the
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  day of the sermon. Gonzo, inasmuch as it was a signal honor to
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  be seen in the company of so great a lady, had put on his
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  French coat with his sword. This was not all taking advantage of the proximity
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  of the palazzo. He had had carried into the church a magnificent gilt arm
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  chair for the Marchesa, which was thought the last word in insolence by the
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  middle classes. One may imagine how the poor Marchesa felt when she saw this
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  arm chair, which had been placed directly opposite the pulpit. Slelia was in
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  such confusion, with downcast eyes, shrinking into a corner of the huge chair,
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  that she had not even the courage to look at the little Marini,
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  whom Gonzo pointed out to her with his hand, with an effrontery which amazed
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  her. Every one, not of noble birth, was absolutely nothing in the
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  eyes of this courtier. Fabrizio appeared in the pulpit. He was so thin,
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  so pale, so consumed that Slelia's eyes immediately filled with tears, Fabrizio
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  uttered a few words, then stopped, as though his voice had suddenly failed.
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  He tried in vain to begin various sentences. He turned round and took
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  up a sheet of paper. Brethren, he said, an unhappy soul,
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  and one well worthy of all your pity, requests you, through my lips,
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  to pray for the ending of his torments, which will cease only with
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  his life. Fabricio read the rest of his paper very slowly, but the
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  expression of his voice was such that before he was half way through the prayer,
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  everyone was weeping, even Gonzo. At any rate, I shall not
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  be noticed, thought the Marchesa, bursting into tears the Orangerie. While he
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  was reading from the paper, Fabrizio found two or three ideas concerning the state
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  of the unhappy man for whom he had come to beg the prayers of the
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  faithful. Presently, thoughts came to him in abundance. While he appeared to
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  be addressing the public, he spoke only to the Marchesa. He ended his
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  discourse a little sooner than was usual, because, in spite of his efforts
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  to control them, his tears got the better of him to such a point
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  that he was no longer able to pronounce his words in an intelligible manner.
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  The good judges found this sermon strange, but quite equal in pathos, at
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  least to the famous sermon preached with the lighted candles. As for Slelia,
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  no sooner had she heard the first ten lines of the prayer read by Fabrizio
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  than it seemed to her an atrocious crime to have been able to spend fourteen
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  months without seeing him. On her return home, she took to her bed
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  to be able to think of Fabrizio with perfect freedom, And next morning,
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  at an early hour, Fabricio received a note catched in the following terms.
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  We rely upon your honor find four bravi, of whose discretion you can be
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  sure. And to morrow, when midnight sounds from the staccata, be by
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  a little door which bears the number nineteen in the Strada Sampaolo. Remember that
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  you may be attacked, do not come alone. On recognizing that heavenly script,
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  Fabrizio fell on his knees and burst into tears. At last, he
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  cried, after fourteen months and eight days, farewell to preaching. It would
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  take too long to describe all the varieties of folly to which the hearts of
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  Fabrizio and Slelia were a prey. That day, the little door indicated in
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  the note was none other than that of the arrangerie of the Palazzo Cressenzi,
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  And and ten times in the day Fabrizio found an excuse to visit it.
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  He armed himself and alone, shortly before midnight, with a rapid step,
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  was passing by the door, when, to his inexpressible joy, he heard
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  a well known voice say, in a very low whisper, come in here,
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  friend of my heart. Fabrizio entered cautiously and found himself actually in the
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  orangerie, but opposite a window heavily barred, which stood three or four feet
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  above the ground. The darkness was intense. Fabrizio had heard a slight sound
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  in this window, and was exploring the bars with his hand, when he
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  felt another hand slip through the bars, take hold of his and carry it
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  to a pair of lips, which gave it a kiss. It is I,
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  said a dear voice, who have come here to tell you that I
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  love you, and to ask if you are willing to obey me. One
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  may imagine the answer, the joy, the astonishment of Fabrizio after the first
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  transports, Slelia said to him, I have made a vow to the Madonna,
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  as you know, never to see you. That is why I receive
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  you in this profound darkness. I wish you to understand dearly that should you
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  ever force me to look at you in the daylight, all would be over
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  between us. But first of all, I do not wish you to preach
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  before Annetta Marini. And do not go and think that it was I who
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  was so foolish as to have an arm chair carried into the house of God.
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  My dear angel I shall never preach again before any one. I have
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  been preaching only in the hope that one day I might see you. Do
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  not speak like that. Remember that it is not permitted to me to see
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  you here. We shall ask leave to pass over without saying a single word
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  about them an interval of three years. At the time when our story is
• 23:47
  resumed, Comte Mosca had long since returned to Palmer as Prime Minister and was
• 23:52
  more powerful than ever. After three years of divine happiness, Fabrizio's heart underwent
• 23:57
  a caprice of affection, which led to a complete change in his circumstances.
• 24:03
  The Marchesa had a charming little boy, two years old, Sandrino, who
• 24:07
  was his mother's joy. He was always with her or on the knees of
• 24:11
  the Marchesa Crescenzi. Fabrizio, on the other hand, hardly ever saw him.
• 24:17
  He did not wish him to become accustomed to loving another father. He
• 24:21
  formed the plan of taking the child away before his memory should have grown distinct
• 24:26
  La Michitzio. In the long hours of each day, when the Marchesa could
• 24:32
  not see her lover, Sandrino's company consoled her, for we have to confess
• 24:37
  a thing which will seemed strange north of the Alps. In spite of her
• 24:41
  errors, she had remained true to her vow. She had promised the Madonna,
• 24:44
  as the reader may perhaps remember, never to see Fabrizio. These had
• 24:48
  been her exact words. Consequently, she received him only at night, and
• 24:53
  there was never any light in the room. But every evening he was received
• 24:57
  by his mistress. And what is worthy of admiration in the midst of a
• 25:02
  court devoured by curiosity and envy. Fabrizio's precautions had been so ably calculated that
• 25:07
  this ammetitia, as it is called in Lombardy, had never even been suspected.
• 25:15
  Their love was too intense for quarrels not to occur. Slelia was extremely
• 25:18
  given to jealousy, but almost always their quarrels sprang from another cause. Fabrizio
• 25:25
  had made use of some public ceremony in order to be in the same place
• 25:27
  as the Marchesa and to look at her. She then seized a pretext to
• 25:32
  escape quickly, and for a long time afterwards banished her lover. Amazement was
• 25:37
  felt at the court of Palma that no intrigue should be known of a woman
• 25:41
  so remarkable, both for her beauty and for the loftiness of her mind.
• 25:45
  She gave rise to passions which inspired many foolish actions, and often Fabrizio too
• 25:51
  was jealous. The good Archbishoplandriani had long been dead, the piety, the
• 25:56
  exemplary morals, the eloquence of Fabrizio had made him be forgotten. His own
• 26:02
  elder brother was dead, and all the wealth of his family had come to
• 26:06
  him. From this time onwards. He distributed annually among the vicars and curates
• 26:11
  of his diocese the hundred odd thousand francs which the Archbishopric of Palmer brought him
• 26:15
  in It would be difficult to imagine a life more honored, more honorable,
• 26:22
  or more useful than Fabrizio had made for himself when everything was upset by this
• 26:26
  unfortunate caprice of paternal affection, according to the var which I respect and which
• 26:33
  nevertheless is the bane of my life, since you refuse to see me during
• 26:36
  the day, he said once to Slelia, I am obliged to live perpetually
• 26:41
  alone, with no other distraction than my work. And besides, I have
• 26:45
  not enough work. In the course of this stern and sad way of passing
• 26:49
  the long hours of each day. An idea has occurred to me which is
• 26:52
  now torturing me, and against which I have been striving in vain for six
• 26:56
  months. My son will not love me at all. He never hears my
• 27:00
  name mentioned, brought up amid all the pleasing luxury of the Palazzo Crescenzi.
• 27:07
  He barely knows me. On the rare occasions when I do see him,
• 27:11
  I think of his mother, whose heavenly beauty he recalls to me, and
• 27:15
  whom I may not see. And he must find me a serious person,
• 27:18
  which with children means sad. Well said the Marchesa to what is all this
• 27:25
  speech leading. It frightens me to my having my son. I wish him
• 27:30
  to live with me. I wish to see him every day. I wish
• 27:33
  him to grow accustomed to loving me. I wish to love him myself at
• 27:37
  my leisure. Since a fatality without counterpart in the world decrees that I must
• 27:44
  be deprived of that happiness. With so many other tender hearts enjoy and forbids
• 27:48
  me to pass my life with all that I adore. I wish at least
• 27:52
  to have beside me a creature who recalls you to my heart, who to
• 27:56
  some extent takes your place. Men and a players are a burden to me
• 28:00
  in my enforced solitude. You know that ambition has always been a vain word
• 28:06
  to me, since the moment when I had the good fortune to be locked
• 28:07
  up by barbone. And anything that is not felt in my heart seems to
• 28:12
  me fatuous in the melancholy which, in your absence overwhelms me. Sandrino,
• 28:21
  one can imagine the keen anguish with which her lover's grief filled the heart of
• 28:25
  poor Clelia. Her sorrow was all the more intense as she felt that Fabrizio
• 28:30
  had some justification. She went the length of wondering whether she ought not to
• 28:34
  try to obtain a release from her vow, then she would receive Fabrizio during
• 28:38
  the day like any other person in society, and her reputation for sagacity was
• 28:44
  too well established for any scandal to arise. She told herself that by spending
• 28:48
  enough money, she could procure a dispensation from her vow. But she felt
• 28:53
  also that this purely worldly arrangement would not set her conscience at rest, and
• 28:57
  that an angry heaven might perhaps punish her for this fresh crime. On the
• 29:03
  other hand, if she consented to yield to so natural a desire on the
• 29:07
  part of Fabrizio, if she sought not to hurt that tender heart which she
• 29:11
  knew so well, and whose tranquility her singular vow so strangely jeopardized, What
• 29:17
  chance was there of abducting the only son of one of the greatest nobles in
• 29:19
  Italy without the frauds being discovered. The marches of Cressenzi would spend enormous sums,
• 29:26
  would himself conduct the investigations, and sooner or later the facts of the
• 29:30
  abduction would become known. There was only one way of meeting this danger.
• 29:34
  The child must be sent abroad to Edinburgh, for instance, or to Paris.
• 29:38
  But this was a course to which the mother's affection could never consent.
• 29:44
  The other plan proposed by Fabrizio, which was indeed the more reasonable of the
• 29:48
  two, had something sinister about it, and was almost more alarming still in
• 29:52
  the eyes of this despairing mother. She must, said Fabrizio, faint an
• 29:56
  illness for the child. He would grow steadily worse, until finally he died
• 30:00
  in the marches Creshenzi's absence, a repugnance which in Slelia amounted to terror,
• 30:07
  caused a rupture that could not last. Slellia insisted that they must not tempt
• 30:11
  God, that this beloved son was the fruit of a crime, and that
• 30:15
  if they provoked the divine anger further, God would not fail to call him
• 30:19
  back to himself. Fabricio spoke again of his strange destiny, the station to
• 30:26
  which chances called me, He said to Slelia, and my love oblige me
• 30:30
  to dwell in an eternal solitude. I cannot, like the majority of my
• 30:33
  brethren, taste the pleasures of an intimate society, since you will receive me
• 30:38
  only in the darkness which reduces to a few moments, so to speak,
• 30:41
  the part of my life which I may spend with you. Tears flowed in
• 30:47
  abundance. Slellia fell ill, But she loved Fabrizio too well to maintain her
• 30:52
  opposition to the terrible sacrifice that he demanded of her. Apparently, Sandrino fell
• 30:57
  ill the mot Jesa went in haste for the most celebrated doctors, and slearlier
• 31:03
  at once encountered a terrible difficulty which he had not foreseen. She must prevent
• 31:07
  this adored child from taking any of the remedies ordered by the doctors. It
• 31:12
  was no small matter. The child, kept in bed longer than was good
• 31:18
  for his health, became really ill. I was one to explain to the
• 31:22
  doctors the cause of his malady. Torn asunder by two conflicting interests, both
• 31:26
  so dear to Sleia was within an ace of losing her reason. Must she
• 31:32
  consent to an apparent recovery, and so sacrifice all the results of that long
• 31:36
  and painful make believe Fabrizio, for his part, could neither forgive himself the
• 31:41
  violence he was doing to the heart of his mistress, nor abandon his project.
• 31:45
  He had found a way of being admitted every night to the sick child's
• 31:49
  room, which had led to another complication. The Marchesa came to attend to
• 31:55
  her son, and sometimes Fabrizia was obliged to see her by candlelight, which
• 32:00
  seemed to the poor sick heart of Slelia a horrible sin, and one that
• 32:02
  foreboded the death of Sandrino in vain. Had the most famous casuists consulted as
• 32:09
  to the necessity of adherence to a vow in a case where its performance would
• 32:14
  obviously do harm, replied that the vow could not be regarded as broken in
• 32:17
  a criminal fashion so long as the person bound by a promise to God failed
• 32:22
  to keep that promise, not for a vain pleasure of the senses, but
• 32:25
  so as not to cause an obvious evil. The Marchesa was none the less
• 32:30
  in despair, and Fabrizio could see the time coming when his strange idea was
• 32:35
  going to bring about the death of Slelia and that of his son. He
• 32:39
  had recourse to his intimate friend, Comte Mosca, who, for all the
• 32:44
  old minister that he was, was moved by this tale of love, of
• 32:47
  which to a great extent he had been ignorant. I can procure for you
• 32:52
  the Marchesa's absence for five or six days at least, when do you require
• 32:55
  it. A little later, Fabrizio came to inform the Conte that everything was
• 33:00
  in readiness now for them to take advantage of the Marches's absence. Two days
• 33:07
  after this, as the marches was riding home from one of his estates in
• 33:09
  the neighborhood of Mantua, a party of brigands, evidently hard to execute some
• 33:15
  personal vengeance, carried him off without maltreating him in any way, and placed
• 33:20
  him in a boat, which took three days to travel down the Poe,
• 33:22
  making the same journey that Fabrizio had made long ago after the famous affair with
• 33:28
  Gilletti. On the fourth day, the brigands maroon the marches Are on a
• 33:32
  desert island in the Poe, taking care first to rob him completely and to
• 33:37
  leave him no money or other object that had the slightest value. It was
• 33:42
  two whole days before the Marchesa managed to reach his palazzo in Palma. He
• 33:45
  found it draped in black, and all his household in mourning. This abduction,
• 33:52
  very skillfully carried out, had a deplorable consequence. Sandrino secretly installed in
• 33:58
  a large and fine house with a martin. Jasa came to see him almost
• 34:00
  every day. Died after a few months. Slelia imagined herself to have been
• 34:07
  visited with a just punishment for having been unfaithful to hervah to the Madonna.
• 34:12
  She had seen Fabrizio so often by candlelight, and indeed twice in broad daylight,
• 34:16
  and with such rapturous affection during Sandrino's illness. She survived by a few
• 34:22
  months only this beloved son, but had the joy of dying in the arms
• 34:27
  of her lover. Fabrizio was too much in love and too religious to have
• 34:32
  recourse to suicide. He hoped to meet Slelia again in a better world,
• 34:37
  but he had too much intelligence not to feel that he had first to atone
• 34:40
  for many faults. A few days after Slellia's death, he signed several settlements
• 34:46
  by which he assured a pension of one thousand francs to each of his servants,
• 34:51
  and reserved a similar pension for himself. He gave landed property of an
• 34:55
  annual value of one hundred thousand lira or thereabouts to Contessa Mosca, a similar
• 35:01
  estate to the Marchesa Deldonno, his mother on such residue as there might be
• 35:07
  of the paternal fortune to one of his sisters, who was poorly married.
• 35:12
  On the following day, having forwarded to the proper authorities his resignation of his
• 35:16
  archbishopric and of all the posts which the favor of Ernesto the fifth and the
• 35:21
  Prime Minister's friendship had successfully heaped upon him, he retired to the charterhouse of
• 35:25
  Palma, situated in the woods adjoining the Poe, two leagues from Sacca.
• 35:31
  Gina Deldonno, Contessa Mosca, had strongly approved at the time her husband's returned
• 35:38
  to office, but she herself would never, on any account consent to cross
• 35:42
  the frontier of the states of Ernesto the Fifth. She held her court at
• 35:46
  Vignano, a quarter of a league from Casselmaggiori, on the left bank of
• 35:51
  the Poe, and consequently in the Austrian states. In this magnificent palace at
• 35:57
  Vignano, which the Conte had built for her, she entertained every Thursday all
• 36:00
  the high society of Parma, and every day her own many friends. Fabrizio
• 36:07
  had never missed a day in going to Vignano. The Contessa in a word
• 36:10
  combined all the outward appearances of happiness. But she lived for a very short
• 36:15
  time. Only after Fabrizio, whom she adored, and who spent but one
• 36:20
  year in his charterhouse. The prisons of Palmer were empty, the contimmensely rich
• 36:27
  Anesta the Fifth, adored by his subjects, who compared his rule to that
• 36:31
  of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. End of Section thirty four