The Charterhouse of Parma (72 page)

On the other hand, if she agreed to yield to Fabrizio’s entirely natural desire, if she tried not to hurt that affectionate soul she knew so well, and whose peace of mind her singular vow so strangely compromised, what likelihood was there of abducting the only son of one of the greatest noblemen in Italy without the deception being discovered? The Marchese Crescenzi would spend enormous sums, would himself lead the investigations, and sooner or later the abduction would be found out. There was only one means of warding off this danger, which was to send the boy far away—to Edinburgh, for instance, or to Paris; but to this a mother’s affection could never consent. The other means suggested by Fabrizio, and indeed the more reasonable solution, had something sinister about it, and almost more alarming in this desperate mother’s eyes; they would have to feign the child’s illness, said Fabrizio; he would grow steadily worse, and finally die in the Marchese Crescenzi’s absence.

A repugnance which, in Clélia, amounted to terror, caused a rupture which could not last.

Clélia claimed that they must not tempt God; that this beloved son was the fruit of a crime, and that if they further roused the fire of Heaven, God would not fail to take the boy for his own. Fabrizio spoke once again of his strange destiny:

“The station in life to which chance has called me,” he said to
Clélia, “and my love compel me to an eternal solitude; I cannot, like most of my fellow men, enjoy the sweetness of an intimate society, since you will receive me only in a darkness, which reduces to no more than moments, actually, that part of my life I can spend with you …”

Many tears were shed. Clélia fell ill, but she loved Fabrizio too greatly to refuse forever the terrible sacrifice he asked of her. To all appearances, Sandrino fell ill; the Marchese quickly summoned the most renowned physicians, and at this moment Clélia encountered a terrible difficulty she had not foreseen; she had to prevent this beloved child from taking any of the remedies prescribed by the doctors; it was no small matter.

The child, kept in bed more than was good for his health, became really ill. How to explain to the physician the cause of this sickness? Torn by two conflicting interests both so dear to her, Clélia was on the verge of losing her mind. Must she consent to an apparent recovery, and thereby sacrifice the whole consequence of a long and painful deception? Fabrizio, for his part, could neither forgive himself for the violence with which he ruled his beloved’s heart nor renounce his plan. He had found a way to be admitted every night to the sick child’s room, which had produced a further complication. The Marchesa came to nurse her son, and on some occasions Fabrizio was compelled to see her by the light of the candles, which seemed to Clélia’s poor sick heart a terrible sin which presaged Sandrino’s death. It was in vain that the most renowned casuists, consulted as to obedience to a vow in a case where the fulfillment of that vow would obviously be harmful, had replied that the vow could not be regarded as broken in a criminal fashion, so long as the person bound by a promise to God dissolved that promise not for the idle pleasure of the senses but in order not to cause an obvious evil. Yet the Marchesa was in despair nonetheless, and Fabrizio saw the moment approaching when his strange idea would effect the deaths of both Clélia and his son.

He had recourse to his intimate friend Count Mosca, who, old diplomat that he was, was touched by this love story, most of which was quite unknown to him.

“I can arrange the Marchese’s absence for you for five or six days at least: when do you want this to happen?”

Some time afterward, Fabrizio came to tell the Count that everything was in readiness for him to take advantage of such an absence.

Two days later, as the Marchese was returning from one of his estates near Mantua, certain “brigands,” apparently hired to carry out a personal vendetta, abducted him though without in any way mistreating him, and placed him in a boat which took three days to make its way down the Po, covering the same route Fabrizio had taken so long ago after the famous Giletti business. On the fourth day, the brigands deposited the Marchese on a desert island in the Po, after being careful to rob him completely and to leave him no money or belongings of any value whatever. It took the Marchese two whole days to return to his
palazzo
in Parma; he found it draped with black, and his entire household in mourning.

This abduction, so skillfully arranged, had a deadly consequence: Sandrino, established in secret in a large and splendid house where the Marchesa came to see him almost every day, died after several months. Clélia believed she had been stricken by a just punishment, for having been unfaithful to her vow to the Madonna: so often had she seen Fabrizio by candlelight, and even twice in broad daylight, and with such tender raptures during Sandrino’s illness! She survived this beloved son no more than a few months herself, though she had the sweetness of dying in her lover’s arms.

Fabrizio was too much in love, and too much a believer, to resort to suicide; he hoped to meet Clélia again in a better world, but he was too intelligent not to feel that he had a great deal for which to atone.

A few days after Clélia’s death, he signed several settlements by which he assured a pension of a thousand francs to each of his servants, and kept a similar pension for himself; he gave estates worth an income of nearly a hundred thousand lire to Countess Mosca; a similar sum to the Marchesa del Dongo, his mother; and whatever might remain of the paternal fortune to one of his sisters who had married impecuniously. The following day, after having sent to the proper authorities his resignation of the Archbishopric and of all the positions which the favor of Ernesto V and the friendship of his Prime Minister had successively heaped upon him, he retired to
the Charterhouse of Parma
,
situated in the woods bordering the Po, some two leagues from Sacca.

Countess Mosca had strongly approved, at the time, her husband’s resumption of his Ministry, but she herself had never been willing to set foot within the State of Ernesto V. She held Court at Vignano, a quarter of a league from Casalmaggiore, on the left bank of the Po, and consequently within Austrian territory. In that magnificent Palace of Vignano, which the Count had built for her, she was at home on Thursdays to all the high society of Parma, and every day to her many friends. Fabrizio would not have let a day pass without coming to Vignano. The Countess, in a word, united all the appearances of happiness, but she lived only a very short time after Fabrizio, whom she adored and who spent but one year in his Charterhouse.

The prisons of Parma were empty, the Count enormously rich, Ernesto V adored by his subjects, who compared his government to that of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany.

TO THE HAPPY FEW

1
Parma:
Stendhal probably selected Parma as the site of his novel’s chief action because he had found here the initial
donnée
of his narrative in an ancient chronicle concerning the origins of the greatness of the Farnese family which had ruled over Parma since the sixteenth century. Further, Stendhal had visited the city in 1811 and again in 1814; he knew it well enough to speak of it readily, little enough to feel hampered by any strict accuracy in describing its topographical details. Then, too, Parma was the city of Correggio, perhaps Stendhal’s favorite painter; in his letter of thanks to Balzac he observes: “The entire character of the Duchess Sanseverina is copied from Correggio (that is, produces on my soul the same effect as Correggio).”

2
Gros:
Antoine-Jean, Baron Gros, 1771–1835. A pupil of David, introduced in 1793 by Josephine into Napoleon’s entourage; he was made a baron by Charles X.

3
Lieutenant Robert:
Though he appears only in the novel’s first pages, this character is of great importance,
since Stendhal has on three or four occasions indicated that he was Fabrizio’s real father. All of Stendhal’s young heroes have a similarly questionable paternity, perhaps a logical consequence of Stendhal’s resentment of his own father.

4
Italian Legion:
In 1797 Napoleon created an Italian Legion, consisting of some seven hundred infantry and three hundred cavalry.

5
Directory:
The Directory succeeded the Convention in October 1795 and governed until Napoleon seized power in November 1799.

6
Marengo:
In the Battle of Marengo (in Piedmont, Northern Italy) on June 14, 1800, Napoleon won a decisive victory over the Austrians.

7
bocche di Cattaro
:
An inlet on the Adriatic coast south of Dubrovnik.

8
Many serious authors:
Stendhal’s ironic reference to Sterne’s procedure in
Tristram Shandy
.

9
Beresina:
During the retreat from Moscow (1813), Napoleon’s armies were attacked while crossing the River Beresina; some ninety thousand men were lost during this retreat. Stendhal himself, bearing dispatches from Josephine, was one of the survivors.

10
Gulf of Juan:
Having escaped from Elba, Napoleon and some seven hundred French troops had landed on the southern French coast on March 1, and would reach Paris within three weeks.

11
famous poet Monti:
Vincenzo Monti (1754–1828). A classicizing poet who in the lines Fabrizio paraphrases laments the death of Mascheroni, who had welcomed the Napoleonic liberation of Italy.

12
Piedmont:
Piedmont was part of the French Empire, and its male inhabitants subject to conscription.

13
napoleon:
A gold coin worth twenty francs.

14
Fénelon:
François de La Mothe-Fénelon (1651–1715), theologian, wrote a celebrated pedagogical romance
Télémaque
in 1699 for the grandson of Louis XIV, of whom he had been appointed tutor; in 1695, he was made Archbishop of Cambrai.

15
Silvio Pellico
(1789–1854): His account of his years of imprisonment by the Austrians,
My Prisons
, was published in 1832.

16
Signor Andryane:
Author of another account of imprisonment under the Austrians,
Memoirs of a Political Prisoner in the Spielberg
. The Spielberg was an Austrian fortress-prison in Brünn (Brno).

17
Bayard:
Chevalier de Bayard (c. 1473–1524),
“le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche
” (the fearless and blameless knight).

18
Pietragrua:
Stendhal lists names of women he had known in Milan, specifically Angela Pietragrua with whom he had been in love.

19
Constitutionnel
:
A French newspaper representing Liberal opinion and banned throughout Austrian territory.

20
scagliola
:
inlaid marble.

21
Joseph II
(1741–1790): King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor.

22
Lafayette:
Stendhal had met Lafayette on several occasions and was impressed by his “noble affability.”

23
Canoness:
An honorary title conferred on lay persons by certain religious communities.

24
Monitore
(
Moniteur
): A Liberal French daily founded in 1789.

25
Marchesa San Felice:
During the occupation of Naples by the French, the Marchesa de San Felice (1768–1800) was instrumental in disclosing an anti-Republican plot. When the Royalists regained control of Naples in 1799, the Marchesa was arrested and condemned to death, and executed in 1800.

26
Polyeucte:
Character in a tragedy by Corneille produced in 1643, in which Polyeucte, the governor of Armenia under the Emperor Decius, is baptized and suffers martyrdom. The story became the substance of many operas, notably by Donizetti.

27
La Locandiera
:
In this play of 1753, regarded as Goldoni’s masterpiece, the mistress of an inn is betrothed to a young man called Fabrizio.

28
Themistocles:
In Napoleon’s letter of July 14, 1815, to the Prince Regent, he seeks protection under British law and compares himself to Themistocles, the Athenian general exiled from Athens and seeking asylum with his former enemy the king of Persia.

29
Charterhouse of Velleja:
Stendhal’s invention.

30
Madonna of Cimabue:
No Madonna by the thirteenth century Italian painter exists in the church at San Petronio.

31
baiocchi
:
A copper coin of low value, comparable to a penny.

32
Cascata del Reno
:
The falls on the river Reno, west of Bologna.

33
Bouffes Parisiens:
A theatre company, initially Italian, specializing in comedy.

34
Tancred
(Tancredi): A hero of Tasso’s
Gerusalemme liberata
.

35
Burati
(1778–1832): A satirist and poet writing in Venetian dialect, whom Stendhal knew personally.

36
Parmigianino
(1503–1540): A Mannerist painter noted for his portraits and religious paintings.

37
Intelligenti pauca!
:
[Latin] A word to the wise is sufficient!

38
Judith:
In the Apocrypha, a Hebrew maiden who saves her town of Bethulia by seducing the besieging general, Holofernes, and beheading him while he sleeps.

39
Rasori:
Giovanni Rasori (1766–1837), a physician of
liberal sympathies whom Stendhal had known in Milan.