“What I should do without him,” the old gentleman continued, “I really don’t know. The way he manages the estate is simply wonderful.” And he went rambling off into long digressions about the stupidity of peasants, the incompetence and dishonesty of bailiffs, the badness of the weather, the spread of phylloxera, the high price of manure. The upshot of it all was that, since Fabio had taken over the estate, everything had gone well; even the weather had improved. “It’s such a relief,” the Count concluded, “to feel that I have some one in charge on whom I can rely, some one I can trust, absolutely. It leaves me free to devote my mind to more important things.”
I could not help wondering what the important things were; but it would have been impertinent, I felt, to ask. Instead, I put a more practical question. “But what will happen,” I asked, “when your son’s military duties take him away from Padua?”
The old Count gave me a wink and laid his forefinger, very deliberately, to the side of his long nose. The gesture was rich with significance. “They never will,” he said. “It’s all arranged. A little _combinazione_, you know. I have a friend in the Ministry. His military duties will always keep him in Padua.” He winked again and smiled.
I could not help laughing, and the old Count joined in with a joyous ha-ha that was the expression of a profound satisfaction, that was, as it were, a burst of self-applause. He was evidently proud of his little _combinazione_. But he was prouder still of the other combination, about which he now confidentially leaned across the table to tell me. It was decidedly the subtler of the two.
“And it’s not merely his military duties,” he said, wagging at me the thick, yellow-nailed forefinger which he had laid against his nose, “it’s not merely his military duties that’ll keep the boy in Padua. It’s his domestic duties. He’s married. I married him.” He leaned back in his chair, and surveyed me, smiling. The little wrinkles round his eyes seemed to be alive. “That boy, I said to myself, must settle down. He must have a nest, or else he’ll fly away. He must have roots, or else he’ll run. And his poor old father will be left in the lurch. He’s young, I thought, but he must marry. He _must_ marry. At once.” And the old gentleman made great play with his forefinger. It was a long story. His old friend, the Avvocato Monaldeschi, had twelve children--three boys and nine girls. (And here there were digressions about the Avvocato and the size of good Catholic families.) The eldest girl was just the right age for Fabio. No money, of course; but a good girl and pretty, and very well brought up and religious. Religious--that was very important, for it was essential that Fabio should have a large family--to keep him more effectually rooted, the old Count explained--and with these modern young women brought up outside the Church one could never be certain of children. Yes, her religion was most important; he had looked into that very carefully before selecting her. Well, the next thing, of course, was that Fabio should be induced to select her. It had been a matter of bringing the horse to water _and_ making him drink. Oh, a most difficult and delicate business! For Fabio prided himself on his independence; and he was obstinate, like a mule. Nobody should interfere with his affairs, nobody should make him do what he didn’t want to. And he was so touchy, he was so pig-headed that often he wouldn’t do what he really wanted, merely because somebody else had suggested that he ought to do it. So I could imagine--the old Count spread out his hands before me--just how difficult and delicate a business it had been. Only a consummate diplomat could have succeeded. He did it by throwing them together a great deal and talking, meanwhile, about the rashness of early marriages, the uselessness of poor wives, the undesirability of wives not of noble birth. It worked like a charm; within four months, Fabio was engaged; two months later he was married, and ten months after that he had a son and heir. And now he was fixed, rooted. The old gentleman chuckled, and I could fancy that I was listening to the chuckling of some old white-haired tyrant of the quattrocento, congratulating himself on the success of some peculiarly ingenious stroke of policy--a rich city induced to surrender itself by fraud, a dangerous rival lured by fair words into a cage and trapped. Poor Fabio, I thought; and also, what a waste of talent!