The Charterhouse of Parma by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of Adelaide Library

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/stendhal/charter/chapter14.html

Last updated Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 14:13

The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A couple of hours later, the unfortunate Fabrizio, fitted with handcuffs and actually attached by a long chain

to the sediola into which he had been made to climb, started for the citadel of Parma, escorted by eight constables. These had orders to take with them all the constables stationed in the villages through which the procession had to pass; the podestà in person followed this important prisoner. About seven o’clock in the evening the sediola, escorted by all the little boys in Parma and by thirty constables, came down the fine avenue of trees, passed in front of the little palazzo in which Fausta had been living a few months earlier, and finally presented itself at the outer gate of the citadel just as General Fabio Conti and his daughter were coming out. The governor’s carriage stopped before reaching the drawbridge to make way for the sediola to which Fabrizio was attached; the General instantly shouted for the gates to be shut, and hastened down to the turnkey’s office to see what was the matter; he was not a little surprised when he recognised the prisoner, who had grown quite stiff after being fastened to his sediola throughout such a long journey; four constables had lifted him down and were carrying him into the turnkey’s office. “So I have in my power,” thought the feather-pated governor, “that famous Fabrizio del Dongo, with whom anyone would say that for the last year the high society of Parma had taken a vow to occupy themselves exclusively!”

The General had met him a score of times at court, at the Duchessa’s and elsewhere; but he took good care not to shew any sign that he knew him; he was afraid of compromising himself.

“Have a report made out,” he called to the prison clerk, “in full detail of the surrender made to me of the prisoner by his worship the podestà of Castelnuovo.”

Barbone, the clerk, a terrifying personage owing to the volume of his beard and his martial bearing, assumed an air of even greater importance than usual; one would have called him a German gaoler. Thinking he knew that it was chiefly the Duchessa Sansevérina who had prevented his master from becoming Minister of War, he was behaving with more than his ordinary insolence towards the prisoner; in speaking to him he used the pronoun voi, which in Italy is the formula used in addressing servants.

“I am a prelate of the Holy Roman Church,” Fabrizio said to him firmly, “and Grand Vicar of this Diocese; my birth alone entitles me to respect.”

“I know nothing about that!” replied the clerk pertly; “prove your assertions by shewing the brevets which give you a right to those highly respectable titles.”

Fabrizio had no such documents and did not answer. General Fabio Conti, standing by the side of his clerk, watched him write without raising his eyes to the prisoner, so as not to be obliged to admit that he was really Fabrizio del Dongo.

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