One of our hero’s flirtations had consequences with a very pronounced bearing on his after career.  During a surreptitious visit to the theatre he became captivated with the actress, Marietta Valserra.  Stolen visits of two minutes duration to Marietta’s lodging on the fourth floor of an old house behind the theatre were an agreeable variation of the monotony of Fabrice’s clerical duties, and of his visits among the most important and least entertaining families in Parma.  But the trifling little intrigue came to the ears of Count Mosca, with the result that the travelling company to which Marietta belonged received its passports and was requested to move on.

In the affair, moreover, Fabrice had a rival.  Giletti was the low comedian of the company, and the ugliest member of it; he assumed proprietorship over Marietta, who, although she did not love him, was at any rate horribly afraid of him.  Giletti several times threatened to kill Fabrice; whereby Fabrice was not disturbed.

Count Mosca was passionately archaeological, and this taste he shared with Fabrice, who had cultivated the hobby at Naples.  It so happened that the two were engaged in excavations near the bridge over the Po where the main road passes into Austrian territory at Castel-Maggiore.  Early one morning Fabrice, after surveying the work that was going on in the trenches, strolled away with a gun, intent upon lark-shooting.  A wounded bird dropped on the road; and as Fabrice followed it he encountered a battered old carriage driving towards the frontier.  In it were Giletti, Marietta and an old woman who passed as Marietta’s mother.

Giletti leapt to the conclusion that Fabrice had come there, gun in hand, to insult him, and possibly to carry off Marietta.  He leapt out of the carriage.

“Brigand!” he yelled, “we are only a league from the frontier—­now I can finish you!”

Fabrice saw a pistol levelled at him at a distance of three feet; he knocked it aside with the butt of his gun, and it went off harmlessly.  Giletti then clutched the gun; the two men wrestled for it, and it exploded close to Giletti’s ear.  Staggered for an instant, he quickly recovered himself; drawing from its sheath a “property” sword, he fell once more upon Fabrice.

“Look out! he will kill you,” came an agitated whisper from Marietta; “take this!”

A sort of hunting knife was flung out of the carriage door.  Fabrice picked it up, and was nearly stunned forthwith by a blow from the handle of the “property” sword.  Happily Giletti was too near to use his sword-point.  Pulling himself together, Fabrice gave his enemy a gash on the thigh.  Giletti, swearing furiously, injured Fabrice on the cheek.  Blood poured down our hero’s face.  The thought, “I am disfigured for life!” flashed through his mind.  Enraged at the idea, he thrust the hunting knife at Giletti’s breast with all his force.  Giletti fell and lay motionless.