The paradoxical result of all these separate but convergent resolutions was that at dinner in the evening the pair most in love were the calmest, reposing on their illusory good intentions for next day; and they would muse ironically on the love relationships of the others, however minor. Concetta had disappointed Tancredi; when at Naples he had felt a certain remorse about her and that was why he had brought Cavriaghi along with him in the hope the Milanese might replace him with his cousin. Pity also played a part in his foresight; in a subtle but easy-going way, astute as he was, he had seemed when he arrived almost to be commiserating with her at his own abandonment; and he pushed forward his friend. Nothing doing; Concetta unravelled her little spool of schoolgirl gossip and looked at the sentimental little count with icy eyes behind which there seemed almost a certain contempt. A silly girl that; no good making any more efforts. What more did she want, anyway? Cavriaghi was a handsome lad, well set up, with a good name and flourishing dairy-farms in Brianza; in fact he was one about whom could be used that rather chilling term “a good match”. Ah: so Concetta wanted him, Tancredi, did she? He had wanted her too once; she was less beautiful, much less rich than Angelica, but she had something in her which the girl from Donnafugata would never possess. But life is a serious matter, devil take it! Concetta must have realised that. Why had she begun treating him so badly, then? Turning on him at the Holy Ghost Convent; and so many times afterwards. The Leopard, yes, the Leopard, of course; but there must be limits even for that proud beast. “Brakes is what you want, my dear cousin, brakes! You Sicilian girls have so few of ’em!”
Angelica, though, in her heart agreed with Concetta; Cavriaghi lacked pep; after loving Tancredi, to marry Cavriaghi would be like a drink of water after a taste of this Marsala in front of her. Concetta, of course, understood that from her own experience. But those other two sillies, Carolina and Caterina, were making fishes’ eyes at Cavriaghi, wriggling and languishing every time he went near them. Well, then! With her own lack of family scruples she just could not understand why one of the two didn’t try and nab the little count from Concetta for herself. “Boys at that age are like dogs; one only has to whistle and they come straight away. Silly girls! With all those scruples and taboos and pride, in the end they won’t get anyone.”
In the smoking-room, conversations between Tancredi and Cavriaghi, the only two smokers in the house and so the only exiles, also assumed a certain tone. The little count ended by confessing to his friend the failure of his own amorous hopes. “She’s too beautiful, too pure for me; she doesn’t love me; it was rash of me to hope; but I’ll leave here with a regret like a dagger in my heart. I’ve not even dared to make a definite proposal. I feel that to her I’m just a worm, and she’s right. I must find myself a she-worm to put up with me.” And his nineteen years made him laugh at his own discomfiture.
From the height of his own assured happiness Tancredi tried to console him: “You see, I’ve known Concetta all her life: she’s the sweetest creature in the world; a mirror of all the virtues; but she’s a little too reserved, too withdrawn, I’m afraid she has too high an opinion of herself; and then she’s Sicilian to the very marrow: she’s never left here; she might never feel at home in a place where one has to arrange a week ahead for a plate of macaroni!”
Tancredi’s little joke, one of the earliest expressions of national unity, brought a smile from Cavriaghi again; pains and sorrows did not stay with him long. “But I’d have laid in cases of your macaroni for her, of course! Anyway what’s done is done; I only hope your uncle and aunt, who’ve been so sweet to me, won’t take against me for having thrust myself among you pointlessly.” He was reassured quite sincerely, for Cavriaghi had made himself liked by everyone except Concetta (and perhaps liked by Concetta too, in a way) for the boisterous good humour which he combined with the most plaintive sentimentality; then they talked of something else, that is they talked of Angelica.
“You know, Falconeri, you are a lucky dog! To go and find a jewel like Signorina Angelica in this pigsty (excuse my calling it that, my dear fellow). What a beauty, good God, what a beauty! Lucky rascal, leading her round for hours in the remotest corners of this house as huge as our own cathedral! And not only lovely, but clever and cultured too; and good as well; one can see that in her eyes, in that sweet innocence of hers.”
Cavriaghi went on ecstatically about Angelica’s goodness, under Tancredi’s amused glance. “The really good person in all this is you yourself, Cavriaghi.” The phrase slipped unnoticed over that Milanese optimism. Then, “Listen,” said the young count, “you’ll be leaving in a few days; don’t you think it’s time I was introduced to the mother of the young baroness?”
This was the first time—and from a Lombard voice—that Tancredi heard his future wife called by a title. For a second he did not realise who the other was referring to. Then the prince in him rebelled. “Baroness? what d’you mean, Cavriaghi? She’s a dear, sweet creature whom I love and that’s quite enough.”
That it really was “quite enough” was not actually true; but Tancredi was perfectly sincere; with his atavistic habit of great possessions it seemed to him that the estates of Gibildolce and Settesoli, all those bags of gold, had been his since the time of Charles of Anjou, always.
“I’m sorry but I don’t think you’ll be able to meet Angelica’s mother; she’s leaving to-morrow for the vapour baths at Sciacca; she’s very ill, poor thing.”
He stubbed the end of his cheroot in an ashtray. “Let’s go into the drawing-room, shall we? We’ve been bears here for long enough.”
One day about that time Don Fabrizio received a letter from the Prefect of Girgenti, written in a style of extreme courtesy, announcing the arrival at Donnafugata of the Cavaliere Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo, Secretary to the Prefecture, who wanted to talk to him, the Prince, about a subject very close to the Government’s heart. Surprised, Don Fabrizio sent off his son, Francesco Paolo, to the post station next day to receive the missus dominicus and invite him to stay at the palace, an act both of hospitality and of true compassion, consisting in not abandoning the body of the Piedmontese to the thousands of little creatures who would have tortured him in the cave-hostelry of Zzu Menico.
The post coach arrived at dusk with an armed guard on the box and a few glum faces inside. From it also alighted Chevalley di Monterzuolo, recognisable at once by his scared look and wary simper. He had been in Sicily for a month, in the most persistently native part of the island what was more, bounced there straight from his little property near Montferrat. Timid and congenitally bureaucratic, he found himself much out of his element. His head had been stuffed with the tales of brigands by which Sicilians love to test the nervous resistance of new arrivals, and for a month he had seen every usher in his office as a murderer, and every wooden paper cutter on his desk as a dagger; for a month, too, the oily cooking had upset his inside.
There he stood now, in the twilight, with his valise of beige cloth, peering at the very unpromising aspect of the street in the midst of which he had been dumped. The inscription “Corso Vittorio Emmanuele”, whose blue letters on a white ground adorned the half-ruined house opposite him, was not enough to convince him that he was in a place which was, after all, part of his own nation; and he did not dare to ask the way from any of the peasants propped against walls like caryatids, in his certainty of not being understood and his fear of a gratuitous knife in the guts, still dear to him however upset.
When Francesco Paolo came up and introduced himself he screwed up his eyes at first as he thought himself done for: but the fair-haired youth’s calm honest air reassured him a little, and when he realised that he was being invited to stay with the Salina he was both surprised and relieved. The dark journey to the palace was enlivened by a running contest between Piedmontese and Sicilian courtesies (the two most punctilious in Italy) over the valise, which in the end was born by both knightly contenders, though very light.
On reaching the palace the bear
ded faces of the armed rangers standing about in the first courtyard once more disturbed the soul of Chevalley di Monterzuolo; while the distant cordiality of the Prince’s greeting, together with the evident luxury of the rooms he glimpsed, flung him into contrary worries. Member of one of those families of Piedmontese squireens which live on their own land with dignity and narrow means, it was the first time he found himself a guest at a great house, and this redoubled his shyness; meanwhile the bloodthirsty anecdotes he had been told at Girgenti, the staggeringly insolent aspect of the townsfolk here, the “bravos” (as he called them to himself) encamped in the courtyard, filled him with terror; so that he went down to dinner in the grip of contrasting fears, at finding himself in an ambience above his normal habits and at feeling an innocent traveller in a bandit’s trap.
At dinner he ate well for the first time since setting foot on Sicilian shores, and the charm of the girls, the austerity of Father Pirrone and the grand manner of Don Fabrizio convinced him that the palace of Donnafugata was not the lair of Capraro the bandit, and that he would probably leave there alive. His greatest consolation was the presence of Cavriaghi, who, he was told, had been staying there for ten days and looked in excellent health and also on excellent terms with that young Falconeri, a friendship between a Sicilian and a Lombard which seemed almost miraculous to him. At the end of dinner he went up to Don Fabrizio and requested a private interview as he wished to leave again next morning; but the Prince clapped him on the shoulder and with a most Leopard-like smile exclaimed, “Not at all, my dear Cavaliere, you’re in my home now and I’ll hold you as hostage for as long as I like; you won’t leave to-morrow morning, and to be quite sure of it I shall deprive myself of the pleasure of a private talk with you until the afternoon.” This phrase, which would have terrified the excellent Secretary three hours before, now rather cheered him. That evening Angelica was not there, and so they played a hand of whist; at a table with Don Fabrizio, Tancredi and Father Pirrone, he won two rubbers and gained three lire and thirty-five centimes; after which he withdrew to his own room, enjoyed the cleanliness of the linen and fell into the trustful sleep of the just.
Next morning Tancredi and Cavriaghi led him around the garden, showed him the picture gallery and tapestry collection. They also trotted him a little round the town; under the honey-coloured sun of that November day it seemed less sinister than it had the night before; he even saw a smile here and there, and Chevalley di Monterzuolo began to reassure himself about rustic Sicily. Tancredi noticed this and was at once assailed by the singular island itch to tell foreigners tales which, however horrifying, were unfortunately quite true. They were passing in front of a jolly building with a façade decorated in crude stucco work.
“That, my dear Chevalley, is the home of Baron Mútolo; now it’s closed and empty as the family live in Girgenti since the baron’s son was captured by brigands ten years ago.”
The Piedmontese began to tremble. “Poor things, I wonder how much they paid to free him.”
“No, no, they didn’t pay a thing; they were in financial straits already and had no ready money, like everybody else here. But they got the boy back all the same; by instalments, though.”
“What do you mean, Prince?”
“By instalments, I said, by instalments; bit by bit. First arrived the index finger of his right hand. A week later his left foot; and finally in a great big basket, under a layer of figs (it was August), the head; its eyes were staring and there was congealed blood on the corner of the lips. I didn’t see it, I was a child then; but I’m told it wasn’t a very pretty sight. The basket was left on that very step there, the second one up to the door, by an old woman with a black shawl on her head; no one recognised her.”
Chevalley’s eyes went rigid with horror; he had already heard the story before this, but seeing now in the sunshine the very step on which the bizarre gift had been put was a different matter. His bureaucratic mind came to his help. “What an inept police those Bourbons had. Very soon, when our carabinieri come along, they’ll put an end to all this.”
“No doubt, Chevalley, no doubt.”
Then they passed in front of the Civic Club, which had its daily show of iron chairs and men in mourning under the shade of the plane trees in the Square. Bows, smiles. “Take a good look, Chevalley, impress the scene on your memory; twice a year or so one of these gentlemen here is left stone dead on his own little arm-chair; a rifle shot in the uncertain light of dusk, and no one ever knows who it was that shot him.” Chevalley felt the need to lean on Cavriaghi’s arm so as to sense a little northern blood near him.
Shortly afterwards, at the top of a steep alley, through multi-coloured festoons of drawers out to dry, they saw the simple baroque front of a little church. “That’s Santa Ninfa. The parish priest was killed in there five years ago as he was saying Mass.”
“Horrors! Shooting in church!”
“Oh, no shooting, Chevalley. We are too good Catholics for misbehaviour of that kind. They just put poison in the communion wine; more discreet, more liturgical, I might say. No one ever knew who did it; the priest was a most excellent person; he had no enemies.”
Like a man who wakes up in the night to see a skeleton sitting at the foot of the bed in his own trousers, and saves himself from panic by forcing himself to believe it’s just a joke by drunken friends, so Chevalley took refuge in the idea that he was having his leg pulled. “Very amusing, Prince, really entertaining; you should write novels, you know; you tell these stories very well.” But his voice was trembling; Tancredi took pity on him, and although on their way home they passed three or four places all of which were most evocative, he abstained from telling their tales, and talked about Bellini and Verdi, perennial curative unctions for national wounds.
At four in the afternoon the Prince sent to tell Chevalley that he was waiting for him in his study. This was a small room with walls lined by glass cases containing grey partridges with pink claws, rarities, stuffed trophies of past shoots. One wall was ennobled by a high, narrow bookcase, crammed full of back numbers of mathematical reviews. Above the great armchair meant for visitors hung a constellation of family miniatures; Don Fabrizio’s father, Prince Paolo, dark complexioned and sensual lipped as a Moor, with the cordon of St. Januarius diagonally across his black court uniform; Princess Carolina as a widow, with her fair hair heaped into a towering dressing and severe blue eyes; the Prince’s sister, Giulia, Princess of Falconeri, sitting on a bench in a garden, with the crimson splodge of a small parasol laid on the ground to her right and to her left the yellow splodge of Tancredi at three years old offering her wild flowers (Don Fabrizio had thrust this miniature into his pocket secretly while the bailiffs were making their inventory for the sale at Villa Falconeri). Beneath that was his eldest son, Paolo, in tight white leather breeches, just about to mount an arrogant horse with a curving neck and flashing eyes; then various unidentifiable uncles and aunts, covered with jewels or pointing sorrowfully at the bust of some extinct dear one. But in the centre of the constellation, acting as a kind of Polar star, shone a bigger miniature; this was of Don Fabrizio himself at the age of about twenty, with his very young wife leaning her head on his shoulder in an act of complete loving abandon. She was dark-haired, he rosy in the blue and silver uniform of the Royal Guards, smiling with pleasure, his face framed in his first and very fair long whiskers.
Chevalley, as soon as he sat down, began explaining the mission with which he had been charged. “After the happy annexation, I mean after the glorious union of Sicily and the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Turin Government intends to nominate a number of illustrious Sicilians as Senators of the Kingdom. The provincial authorities have been charged with drawing up a list of personalities to be proposed for the Central Government’s examination, and eventually for the royal nomination, and, of course, at Girgenti your name was mentioned at once, Prince; a name illustrious for its antiquity, for the personal prestige of its bearer, for scientific merit; and also for the di
gnified and liberal attitude assumed during recent events.” The little speech had been prepared for some time; it had been even the object of a number of pencil notes in a little book which was now in the hip pocket of Chevalley’s trousers. But Don Fabrizio gave no sign of life; his eyes could only just be glimpsed through his heavy lids. Motionless, the great paw with its blondish hairs completely covered a dome of St. Peter’s in alabaster on the table.
Accustomed by now to the slyness of the loquacious Sicilians whenever anything is suggested to them, Chevalley did not let himself be discouraged. “Before sending the list to Turin my superiors thought it proper to inform you in person and see if this proposal met with your approval. To ask for your assent, for which the Government much hopes, has been the object of my mission here; a mission which has also given me the honour and the pleasure of getting to know you and your family, this magnificent palace, and picturesque Donnafugata.”
Flattery always slipped off the Prince like water off leaves in fountains: it is one of the advantages enjoyed by men who are at once both proud and used to being so. “This fellow here seems to be under the impression he’s come to do me a great honour,” he was thinking. “To me, who am what I am, among other things a Peer of the Kingdom of Sicily, which must be more or less the same as a Senator. It’s true that one must value gifts in relation to those who offer them; when a peasant gives me his bit of cheese he’s making me a bigger present than the Prince of Làscari when he invites me to dinner. That’s obvious. The difficulty is that the cheese is nauseating. So all that remains is the heart’s gratitude which can’t be seen and the nose wrinkled in disgust which can be seen only too well.”
Don Fabrizio’s ideas about the Senate were very vague; in spite of every effort his thoughts kept leading him back to the Roman Senate; to Senator Papirius breaking a staff on the head of an ill-mannered Gaul, to a horse, Incitatus, made a senator by Caligula, an honour which even his son Paolo might have thought excessive. He was irritated at finding recurring to him insistently a phrase which was sometimes used by Father Pirrone: “Senatores boni viri, senatus autem mala bestia.” Nowadays there was also an Imperial Senate in Paris, though that was only an assembly of profiteers with big salaries. There was or had been a senate in Palermo, too, though it had only been a committee of civil administrators—what administrators! Low work for a Salina. He decided to be frank. “But Cavaliere, do explain what being a senator means; the newspapers under our last monarchy never allowed information about the constitutional systems of other Italian states to be printed, and a week’s visit of mine to Turin some years ago was not enough to enlighten me. What is it? A simple title of honour? A kind of decoration, or are there legislative, deliberative functions?”
The Leopard Page 17