But these interesting plums, such as even they are, are stuck in an enormous pudding of presentation of the intrigues and vicissitudes of a petty Italian court,[130] in which, and in the persons who take part in them, I at least find it difficult to take the very slightest interest. Fabrice del Dongo himself,[131] with whom every woman falls in love, and who candidly confesses that he does not know whether he has ever been really in love with any woman--though there is one possible exception precedent, his aunt, the Duchess of Sanseverina, and one subsequent, Clelia Conti, who saves him from prison, as above--is depicted with extraordinary science of human nature. But it is a science which, once more, excludes passion, humour, gusto--all the _fluids_ of real or fictitious life. Fabrice is like (only "much more also") the simulacra of humanity that were popular in music-halls a few years ago. He walks, talks, fights, eats, drinks, _thinks_ even, and makes love if he does not feel it, exactly like a human being. Except the "fluids" just mentioned, it is impossible to mention anything human that he lacks. But he lacks these, and by not having them lacks everything that moves the reader. And so it is more or less with all of them: with the Duchess and Clelia least perhaps, but even with them to some extent; with the Duchess's first _cicisbeo_ and then husband, Count Mosca, prime minister of the Duke of Parma; with his master, the feebly cruel and feebly tyrannical Ranuce-Ernest IV.; with the opposition intriguers at court; with the Archbishop, to whom Fabrice is made, by the influence of Count and Duchess, coadjutor and actual successor; with Clelia's father and her very much belated husband--with all of them in short. You cannot say they are "out"; on the contrary they do and say exactly what in the circumstances they would do and say. Their creator's remarks about them are sometimes of a marvellous subtlety, expressed in a laconism which seems to regard Marivaudage or Meredithese with an aristocratic disdain. But at other times this laconic letter literally killeth. Perhaps two examples of the two effects should be given: (_Fabrice has found favour in the eyes and arms of the actress Marietta_) The love of this pretty Marietta gave Fabrice all the charms of the sweetest friendship. _And this made him think of the happiness of the same kind which he might have found with the Duchess herself._ If this is not "piercing to the accepted hells beneath" with a diamond-pointed plunger, I know not what is. But much later, quite towards the end of the book, the author has to tell how Fabrice again and Clelia "forgot all but love" in one of their stolen meetings to arrange his escape. (_He has, by the way, told a lie to make her think he is poisoned_)