by Stendhal
The love of liberty, the fashion and the cult of the happiness of the greatest number, by which the nineteenth century was so taken, was in the Prince’s eyes merely another heresy which would pass like the rest, but after having slain many souls, just as the plague while it reigns in any one region slays many bodies. And despite all this Fabrizio used to delight in reading the French newspapers, and even committed certain indiscretions in order to obtain them.
When Fabrizio returned quite flustered from his audience and the palace, he reported to his aunt the Prince’s various modes of attack. “The first thing you you must do,” she explained, “is to pay a visit to Father Landriani, our excellent Archbishop; go there on foot, climb the stairs quite deliberately, make no noise in the antechambers; if you are kept waiting, all the better, in fact, all the best! In a word, be apostolical!”
“I understand,” Fabrizio said, “our man is a Tartuffe.”
“Not a bit of it, he is virtue itself.”
“Even after the way he behaved when Count Palanza was executed?” Fabrizio asked in amazement.
“Yes, my friend, after the way he behaved: our Archbishop’s father was a clerk in the Ministry of Finance, a petit-bourgeois, which explains everything. Monsignore Landriani is a man of lively intelligence, wide learning, deep thoughts; he is sincere, he loves virtue: I am certain that if the Emperor Decius were to return to the world, the Archbishop would undergo martyrdom like Polyeuctes in the opera they performed last week. That is the good side of the medal. This is what’s on the reverse: once he’s in the Sovereign’s presence, or even the Prime Minister’s, he is dazzled by so much greatness, he becomes disturbed, he blushes; it is physically impossible for him to say no. Hence the things he has done, and which have afforded him that cruel reputation throughout Italy; but what people do not know is that, when public opinion managed to enlighten him concerning Count Palanza’s trial, he gave himself the penance of living on bread and water for thirteen weeks, as many weeks as there are letters in the name Davide Palanza. We have in this very court a very shrewd rascal named Rassi, a Chief Justice or Fiscal Magistrate, who, when Count Palanza died, cast a spell over Father Landriani. During his thirteen-week penitence, Count Mosca, out of pity and a certain malice, invited him to dinner once, even twice a week; the good Archbishop, to show his good manners, dined like everyone else. He might have believed that it was a matter of revolution and Jacobinism to parade penitence for an action approved by the Sovereign. But it was known that for each dinner, when his duty as a loyal subject had obliged him to eat like the other guests, he imposed upon himself a penance of two more days of bread and water.
“Monsignore Landriani, a superior soul, a scholar of the first rank, has only one weakness: he wants to be loved. Hence, show your feelings when you look at him, and on your third visit, love him indeed. That, combined with your birth, will win you immediate adoration. Show no surprise if he accompanies you out onto the stairs as you leave, appear to be quite accustomed to such manners; he is a man born kneeling to the nobility. For the rest, be simple—be apostolic, no wit, no brilliance, no quick replies; if you don’t frighten him, he will be pleased with you; remember that it must be of his own accord that he makes you his Vicar-General. The Count and I will be surprised and even vexed by this excessively rapid promotion, which is essential in dealing with the Sovereign.”
Fabrizio hurried to the Archbishop’s Palace: by a singular stroke of luck, the good prelate’s footman, being a trifle deaf, did not hear the name del Dongo; he announced a young priest by the name of Fabrizio; the Archbishop happened to be seeing a parish priest of questionable behavior whom he had summoned for disciplinary action. He was in the course of delivering a reprimand, a painful affair for himself, and hoped to be soon rid of such a distressing business; hence he kept waiting for some three-quarters of an hour the young descendant of Archbishop Ascanio del Dongo.
How to describe his excuses and his despair when, after having shown out the parish priest to the second antechamber, and having asked as he again passed by the young man who was waiting how he might serve him, he noticed the violet stockings and heard the name Fabrizio del Dongo. This business struck our hero as so amusing that upon this very first visit he ventured to kiss the venerable prelate’s hand, in a transport of affection. One had to have heard the Archbishop’s voice as he repeated in despair, “A del Dongo waiting in my antechamber!” And he felt obliged, in apology, to tell him the parish priest’s whole story, his transgressions, his own replies, and so on.
“Can it be possible,” Fabrizio wondered as he returned to the Palazzo Sanseverina, “that this is the man who accelerated the execution of poor Count Palanza?”
“What does Your Excellency think?” he gaily inquired of Count Mosca, seeing him enter the Duchess’s salon (the Count did not want Fabrizio to call him Excellency). “Myself, I am amazed; I know nothing of human character: I would have wagered, had I not known his name, that this man cannot see a chicken bleed.”
“And you would have won your wager,” replied the Count; “but when he is in the Prince’s presence, or even mine, he cannot say no. In truth, for me to produce my entire effect, I must be wearing my yellow ribbon of the Grand Cordon over my coat; in ordinary evening dress, he would contradict me; hence I always wear my full uniform when I receive him. It is not up to us to destroy the prestige of power, the French newspapers are demolishing it quite rapidly enough; there is some question whether the mania of respect will last our time, and you, nephew, you will outlive such manners. You will be no more than a fellow-man!”
Fabrizio greatly enjoyed the Count’s company: this was the first superior man who had deigned to speak to him frankly; moreover, they shared an enthusiasm for antiquities and excavations. The Count, for his part, was flattered by the extreme attention with which the young man listened to him; but there was one capital objection: Fabrizio occupied an apartment in the Palazzo Sanseverina, spent his life with the Duchess, and revealed in all innocence that he was enchanted by such intimacy; and Fabrizio’s eyes and his complexion were of a mortifying brilliance.
For a long time, Ranuccio-Ernesto IV, who rarely met with resistance from the Fair Sex, had been stung by the fact that the Duchess’s virtue, so widely known at court, had not made an exception in his favor. As we have seen, Fabrizio’s wit and presence of mind had startled him at their first encounter. He took amiss the extreme intimacy the young man and his aunt so rashly displayed; he listened carefully to his courtiers’ gossip, which was endless. The young man’s arrival and the unprecedented audience he had obtained constituted the principal topic of conversation and amazement for a month at court, whereupon the Prince had an idea.
Among his palace guard, he had a simple soldier who held his wine admirably; this man spent his life in taverns, and reported on the morale of the troops directly to his Sovereign. Carlone lacked education, or he would have obtained advancement long since. Now, his orders were to be at the Palace every day on the stroke of noon by the tower clock. The Prince himself proceeded a little before noon to arrange the blinds of a vestibule adjoining His Highness’s dressing-room. He returned to this vestibule shortly after noon had struck, and found the soldier there; in his pocket the Prince had a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and dictated the following letter to the soldier:
Your Excellency is doubtless very intelligent, and it is as a consequence of that great wisdom of yours that our State is so well governed. But, my dear Count, such great successes are never obtained without a certain amount of envy, and I very much fear the laughter at your expense, if your sagacity fails to discern that a certain handsome young man has been so fortunate as to inspire, perhaps in spite of himself, a singular sentiment of love. This lucky mortal is apparently but twenty-three years old, and, Dear Count, to complicate matters, the fact is that both you and I are much more than twice this age. In the evening, at a certain distance, the Count is charming, scintillating, a man of great intelligence and as attractive as c
an be; but mornings, at close range, to put matters frankly, the newcomer may possess superior attractions. Now, we women set great store by such youthful freshness, especially when we are past thirty ourselves. Has there not already been talk of establishing this appealing youth at our court, in some splendid position? And who indeed is the person who most frequently speaks of it to Your Excellency?
The Prince took the letter and gave the soldier two scudi. “This is a supplement to your pay,” he told him solemnly. “Not one word to anyone, or else the dankest dungeon in the Citadel.”
In his desk, the Prince kept a collection of envelopes addressed to most of his courtiers, in the handwriting of this same soldier who was believed to be illiterate, and who never even wrote out his own police reports: the Prince selected the envelope he required.
A few hours later, Count Mosca received a letter by post; the time it would arrive had been carefully calculated, and as soon as the courier, who had been seen coming in with a small envelope in his hand, left the Ministerial Palace, Mosca was summoned to His Highness’s quarters. Never had the favorite seemed overwhelmed by a deeper depression: to enjoy the situation at greater leisure, the Prince exclaimed upon catching sight of him, “I need to relax a little by chatting at ease with my friend, and not by working with my Minister. I have had a dreadful headache this evening, and gloomy thought have given me no respite.”
Need we speak of the abominable mood which distressed the Prime Minister, Count Mosca della Rovere, as soon as he was allowed to leave his august master? Ranuccio-Ernesto IV was quite adept at tormenting a heart, and it would not be excessively unfair to offer here the comparison with a tiger which enjoys toying with its prey. The Count had himself driven home at a gallop; he shouted as he entered the door that no one was to be allowed upstairs, informed the clerk on duty that he was free to go (the knowledge that a human being was within range of his voice was hateful to him), and hastily shut himself up in the great picture gallery. Here at last he could give free rein to all his rage; here the evening was spent in darkness, wandering about like a man beside himself. He sought to silence his heart, in order to concentrate all his powers of attention upon what course of action to take. Plunged into anguish which would have wrung pity from his cruelest enemy, he reasoned with himself as follows:
“The man I abhor is living in the Duchess’s palace, spending all his time with her. Ought I to try making one of her chambermaids speak? Nothing is more dangerous; she is so kind; she pays them well! They adore her! (By whom, indeed, is she not adored?) Here is the question,” he continued furiously: “Am I to reveal the jealousy which is devouring me, or never speak of it at all? If I keep silence, she will not attempt to keep anything from me. I know Gina, she is a woman of impulse from head to toe; her behavior is unforeseen, even by herself; if she wishes to play a part in advance, she loses her way; invariably, at the moment of action, some new idea occurs to her which she follows in ecstasy, as if it were the most wonderful inspiration in the world, and which ruins everything.
“Not ever mentioning my torment, nothing will be concealed from me and I shall know everything that may be happening …
“Yes, but by speaking, I create other circumstances; I cause her to think about what she is doing; I suggest any number of the horrible things that may well happen … Perhaps he will be sent away”—the Count breathed again—”whereby I have virtually triumphed; even so, there will be some sort of vexation at the moment, I shall calm her … and what could be more natural than such vexation?… for fifteen years she has loved him like her own son. There lies all my hope: like a son … but she had stopped seeing him after his Waterloo escapade; but on his return from Naples, for her at least, he has become another man. Another man,” he repeated furiously, “and this man is charming; above all he has that naïve and tender quality, and that smiling glance, which promise so much happiness! And it is just such eyes which the Duchess is hardly accustomed to find at our court!… Here they have been replaced by gloomy or sardonic looks. I myself, pursued by affairs, prevailing only by my influence over a man who would enjoy making me look like a fool—what must my own glances suggest more often than not? Ah, whatever precautions I take, it is my eyes above all which have made me old! Even my good humor borders on a kind of irony most of the time.… Moreover, and here I must be honest, does not my good humor itself suggest something very close to absolute power … and a certain nastiness? Do I not say as much to myself on occasion, especially when I am thwarted: I can do whatever I like? And I even add this foolishness: I must be happier than the next man, since I possess what others do not have—sovereign power in three matters out of four. Well then! Be fair; the habit of thinking in such fashions must have spoiled my smile … must give me a selfish, self-satisfied expression.… And how charming his smile appears! It breathes the easy happiness of first youth, and indeed engenders it.”
Unfortunately for the Count, the weather was warm that evening, stifling, and a storm was imminent; the kind of weather, in a word, which in these regions leads one to make extreme resolutions. How to account for all the arguments, all the ways of regarding what was happening to him, which for three mortal hours kept this impassioned man in torment? Ultimately, the party of discretion prevailed, solely as a consequence of this reflexion: “I am mad, most likely; imagining I can reason, I am doing anything but; I am merely circling about to find a less painful position, passing blindly over some decisive argument. Since I am blinded by excessive pain, let us follow that rule, approved by all elderly men, which is called prudence. Moreover, once I have uttered the fatal word jealousy, my role is determined forever. On the contrary, by saying nothing today, I may speak tomorrow, and remain master of the whole situation.”
The crisis was too acute; the Count would have gone mad indeed had it lasted. He was comforted for few moments, his attention lingering over the anonymous letter. Where could it have come from? There ensued a search for names and a judgment of each, which produced a certain diversion. Finally the Count recalled a flash of malice that had appeared in his Sovereign’s eye when he had reached the point of saying, toward the end of the audience:
“Yes, dear friend, let us agree on this, the pleasures and cares of the happiest ambition, even of limitless power, are nothing compared to the inner happiness caused by relations of tenderness and love. I am a man before I am a prince, and when I have the good fortune to love, my mistress speaks to the man and not to the prince.”
The Count compared that moment of malign felicity with this phrase of the letter: It is as a consequence of that great wisdom of yours that our State is so well governed. “The Prince wrote that!” he exclaimed. “From a courtier, that remark would be of a gratuitous indiscretion; the letter comes from His Highness!”
This problem solved, the minor satisfaction produced by the pleasure of guessing correctly was soon erased by the cruel apparition of Fabrizio’s charming graces, which obsessed him anew. It was as if an enormous weight had once again fallen upon the wretched man’s heart.
“What does it matter whom the anonymous letter comes from!” he exclaimed in a fury. “Does it make the fact that it gives me away exist any the less? This whim may change my life,” he mused, as though to excuse himself for such insanity. “At the first opportunity, if she loves him in a certain fashion, she leaves with him for Belgirate, for Switzerland, for some corner or other of the world. She is rich now, and even if she had to live on no more than a few louis a year, what would that matter to her? Didn’t she confess to me herself, not eight days ago, that her palace, for all its comfort, all its splendor, bores her? A soul so young at heart craves novelty! And how readily that new happiness presents itself! She will be carried away before having realized the danger, before having thought of pitying me! And yet I am so wretched!” cried the Count, bursting into tears.
He had sworn not to visit the Duchess that evening, but to no avail; never had he thirsted so to see her. Around midnight he appeared at her door; he fou
nd her alone with her nephew; at ten she had dismissed all her guests and closed her doors.
At the sight of the tender intimacy which reigned between these two beings, and of the Duchess’s naïve joy, a hideous difficulty rose before the Count’s eyes, all unexpectedly! During the long deliberation in the picture gallery he had not thought of it: how was he to conceal his jealousy?
Uncertain what excuse to use, he claimed that this evening he had found the Prince excessively ill-disposed toward him, contradicting each of his assertions, and so on. He had the pain of seeing the Duchess scarcely heed what he was saying, and pay no attention to those circumstances which, as recently as the evening before, would have inspired endless speculations. The Count looked at Fabrizio: never had that handsome Lombard countenance seemed to him so simple and so noble! Fabrizio paid more attention than the Duchess to the difficulties he was describing.
“Really,” he told himself, “that countenance combines an extreme sweetness of expression with a certain tender and naïve joy which makes it irresistible. It seems to say: there is nothing but love and the happiness it bestows which are serious matters in this world. And yet were we to stumble over some detail in which mind might be necessary, its vigilance wakens and astonishes you, and you are left dumbfounded.
