“Secrecy, above all things!” exclaimed the prince, without any recognition of his salutation. The most courteous of men, as a rule, he treated Rassi like the merest varlet. “What is the date of your sentence?”
“Yesterday morning, your Most Serene Highness.”
“Twenty years in the fortress, as your Most Serene Highness told me.”
“A death sentence would have horrified people,” said the prince, as though talking to himself. “A pity! What a shock it would have been to that woman! But he is a Del Dongo, and the name is honoured in Parma because of the three archbishops who came almost one after the other.… Twenty years in the fortress, you say?”
“Yes, your Most Serene Highness,” replied Rassi, who was still standing doubled up in an attitude of obeisance. “To be preceded by a public apology before a portrait of your Most Serene Highness; and besides, a fast of bread and water every Friday and on the eves of all the chief feast days, because of _the prisoner’s notorious impiety_. This with a view to the future, and to break the neck of his career.”
“Write,” said the prince, “‘His Most Serene Highness, having deigned to grant a favourable hearing to the very humble petitions of the Marchesa del Dongo, mother of the culprit, and the Duchess Sanseverina, his aunt, who have represented that at the period of the crime their son and nephew was very young, and carried away by his mad passion for the wife of the unfortunate Giletti, has condescended, notwithstanding his horror of the murder, to commute the penalty to which Fabrizio del Dongo has been condemned to that of twelve years’ detention in the fortress.’
“Give the paper to me to sign.” The prince added his signature and the date of the preceding day. Then, handing the sheet back to Rassi, he said: “Write just below my signature: ‘The Duchess Sanseverina having once more cast herself at his Highness’s feet, the prince has granted the culprit permission to walk for an hour, every Thursday, on the platform of the square tower, vulgarly called the Farnese Tower.’
“Sign that,” said the prince, “and keep your lips sealed, whatever you may hear in the town. You will tell Councillor de’ Capitani, who voted for two years’ imprisonment, and even held forth in support of his ridiculous opinion, that I advise him to read over the laws and regulations. Now, silence again, and good-night to you.”