The Viceroys

by Federico De Roberto

  Like Pasqualino, all the servants and minor dependants of the family were on the young count’s side in spite of the prince’s opposition. Raimondo, to acquire sympathy and support, no longer had his clothes sent from Florence or Naples as he had before, but distributed commissions of all kinds in the town, and the tailor, boot-maker, cravat-maker, honoured by having orders from the young Count Uzeda, would extol him to the skies, hold forth in his support, and argue with scandal-mongers. If anyone recalled Donna Isabella’s love for Fersa, they would cite innumerable witnesses to the contrary: all the Pinto family servants were ready to come from Palermo and swear on the Gospel that the little orphan girl had been hit again and again by her uncle and guardian, because he, ignoring the fact that Fersa was of ignoble birth, for all his wealth, was determined she should marry him. It was being said, was it, that the witnesses were suspect and obtained by bribery? They would list the Pinto family’s friends in Palermo, Don Michele Broggi, the Cavaliere Cùtica, the Notary Rosa, all above suspicion of corruption and cited by Donna Isabella to attest to the ill-treatment she had been subjected to, her constant refusals. Why, even her uncle himself would come and confirm putting pressure on her!

  ‘What then?’ Cousin Graziella in turn would exclaim. ‘Suppose they do get this marriage dissolved? Do they think they’ll ever manage to get the other one dissolved too? Don’t they know what Palmi said?’ And she would tell how that troublemaker Giulente had written to get the baron too to consent to his daughter’s marriage being dissolved and witness that he had forced her to marry Count Uzeda. She must, she said, from love of truth mention that Giulente had refused at first, as it was such a dreadful thing to do, and hoped to hand the job over to the duke, who was an intimate friend of the senator. Ah but the duke had other things to think of! He was still in Turin, looking after his own affairs, and did not want to return to Sicily for fear that his absence during the troubles of the year before might have been misunderstood, and when they wrote to him about Raimondo’s business he replied that he would not dream of getting mixed up in it.

  Then Giulente, to please his wife, brother-in-law, uncle and aunt, found himself in the position of having to approach the baron himself. ‘D’you know how long he took to write the letter?’ added Cousin Graziella, who was well up in every tiny detail. ‘A week! He tore up a whole ream of paper! I assure you! How can one ask a decent person to agree to his daughter’s marriage being dissolved, to his grandchildren being fatherless?…’ But the letter, full of respectful expressions, compliments, and excuses, had finally been sent off, and Giulente was still awaiting a reply! He’d have to wait some time! For through certain persons in Messina the cousin had come to hear of what the baron, clenching his fists, had said to a friend: ‘I’d rather see them all die first!…’

  For in fact ‘poor Matilde’, at death’s door from distress, indifferent now to all, realising that there was no hope left, would even have agreed to this last demand by her husband. The baron on the other hand swore terrible oaths that never, never while he was alive would his son-in-law succeed in breaking up the marriage. He realised that it was broken in fact, but he wanted Raimondo to stay chained for life and the Fersa never to be able to take before the world the place of his own daughter.

  Pasqualino knew that too; but to Donna Graziella’s coachman, who was taking his mistress’s part and prophesying a fiasco for the count, ‘One thing at a time,’ he replied. ‘Let the first case end!… When my mistress is free we can see about freeing the master too!… Now it’s not Canons who have to decide, but civil judges. By Victor Emmanuel’s law a marriage in church isn’t worth a fig, the only one that matters is before the mayor. Down with Francis II! Long live liberty!…’

  But Donna Ferdinanda, Lucrezia, none of Raimondo’s supporters would be satisfied with a civil judgement; they wanted to legitimise Raimondo’s and Donna Isabella’s situation before both men and God. So Ferdinando, who was a close friend of Canon Ravesa, an important member of the Curia and owner of a vineyard next door, talked to him every day in his brother’s favour. Every day too Don Blasco went to visit the Vicar-General Coco and drummed into him with noisy insistence the propriety, justice and necessity of annulling that marriage; and the irresponsibility, arrogance and rascality of the prince in opposing it.

  But the most important person to win over was Monsignor the Bishop, who did nothing now without the approval of Don Lodovico. The latter, convinced that the abolition of religious communities was only a question of time, had lost interest in San Nicola and turned his attention to the Bishop’s palace, where his birth, reputation for intelligence, learning and sanctity had flung open all doors. In a short time, as he had been the right hand of the Abbot so he became the right hand of the head of the diocese. His prudent advice, his unique position in relation to all political parties, made him indispensable in many delicate matters when the new political authorities had to be conciliated without the ‘legitimate’ ones being betrayed, to save appearances and serve Christ and Mammon. Now, had he said a word in Raimondo’s favour Donna Isabella’s marriage would have been annulled; but the Prior’s answers to Donna Ferdinanda, who was badgering him to take up her protégée’s cause, remained ambiguous, adducing difficulties to be overcome, the embarrassment to which they were putting him.

  ‘Dissolving a marriage is a serious matter … Your Excellency knows well how justly contrary the Church is to pronouncing sentence of this kind, how it proceeds with leaden feet. There are some proofs and some reasons it cannot accept … These may be perhaps enough for secular judges, whose responsibility is not pledged to the Divine Majesty. I am truly pained to see Raimondo on so wrong a road … After this case will come a second, the scandal is immense … I have my duties to carry out … my conscience …’

  ‘Conscience?… Conscience?…’ Donna Ferdinanda, who was listening to him with shut mouth and set teeth, burst out. ‘Let’s leave conscience apart! Why not admit you haven’t forgiven him for taking your place and want to make him pay now that you have him in a vice.’

  The Prior suddenly went pale, glanced for an instant straight at his aunt, who was staring fixedly at him as if wanting to read his heart. Then he bent his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

  ‘Your Excellency afflicts me cruelly … You know well that the passions of the world are alien to my heart … that I love my brother as I respect Your Excellency!… Tell Raimondo that; give me a chance of proving it …’

  Donna Ferdinanda went straight off to Raimondo to tell him to go and make a personal visit to his brother and recommend himself to him. For a moment the young man rebelled. He was tired of begging and of being humiliated, of paying court to Ferdinando and Giulente to win them over to his case, of prompting Pasqualino and other rumour-mongers. He had already humiliated himself once before Giacomo with no results. He had humiliated himself before Lodovico on that other visit to Nicolosi, when his brother had not deigned to appear. Now he had to throw himself at that Jesuit’s feet, ask his pardon for taking his place, beg him to grant not only forgiveness but protection and support. It was too much, he could bear no more. The mortifications to his self-love stung him more than anything else, made him clench his fists and chew his nails, almost brought tears to his eyes …

  But now all his relations and the nobility in general, just back from the country, were siding with the prince. Cousin Graziella was going round saying everywhere that the civil case would not get through either, that the judges would themselves bring an action for false witness against those who had tried to prove lack of consent. Just think of the ecclesiastical case then!

  One Sunday, Donna Isabella, who had gone into town for some shopping, returned to Ferdinando’s with eyes red.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Raimondo, almost brusquely, almost ready to burst out against her who was first cause of all that had happened.

  ‘Nothing … nothing …’ and she began to cry.

  He had to raise his voice to hear the reason fo
r her sobs. His mistress had met the Grazzeri and Cousin Graziella in the street. The cousin had turned the other way, Lucia and Agatina Grazzeri had not answered her greeting, pretending not to see her.

  Next day he went to San Nicola to visit the Prior.

  Lodovico received him with open arms, listened to him with benevolent attention. Raimondo, rather pale, said to him, ‘I implore you to help me …’ He was invoking his help to get out of the false situation in which he found himself. It was urgent to legitimise it for a new and powerful reason which no one yet knew, and which he confided to the Prior before anyone else; Donna Isabella was pregnant.

  With his eyes almost shut, his head slightly bent, his hands folded in his lap, the Prior looked like an indulgent and friendly confessor. Not a contraction of his face, not a dilation of his chest hinted at the intimate satisfaction he felt to see finally there before him, submissive and almost supplicating, the thief who had robbed him, the person for whom he had been banned from his family and the world.

  ‘You can help me, put in a good word,’ went on Raimondo, ‘mention that after all, what we’re asking is only justice … for Isabella’s will was forced; thirty witnesses can prove the truth …’

  ‘I know! I know!’ replied the Prior eventually. ‘I wouldn’t have listened to you had I not known that right is on your side!’

  ‘Then can I count on you?’

  ‘Indeed you can, indeed you can I But there’s another matter. The present case is not a question so much of abstract justice as of worldly prudence. We have, of course, to render account only to God for our actions, but in order that our consciences should be entirely at rest we should not and cannot lose sight of the effect which our judgements may have! Now, how can you expect this step to be considered properly if in our own family the very head of our house does not recognise your reasons, and condemns you with such severity?’

  ‘And suppose Giacomo comes round?’ insisted Raimondo.

  ‘It’ll be a great step forward! Public opinion would follow him, you’ll see, and all those who declared themselves your enemies till now will support you entirely. Then it will be much easier to get what you want. Giacomo too can be of more use with the judges than I can. You well know how close are his relations with the Bishopric’s … a word from him would mean much more than one from me …’

  This was the point he wanted to reach with all that talk. He did not like this affair of Raimondo’s, all this mess of marriages to be dissolved and retied. The mute reproval of the general public was well-known to him and put him on guard against the mistake of supporting a bad cause, the triumph of which would anyway be of no help to him whatsoever.

  On his return Raimondo sent for Signor Marco. Shut in a room together, they spent a few minutes in close confabulation. The administrator returned next day and then the day after, staying longer each time.

  One afternoon Ferdinando had flung himself on his bed for a snooze when the baying of dogs suddenly awoke him; his agent was knocking on the door.

  ‘Excellency! Excellency!… Your brother’s here … The prince himself!’

  He jumped to the ground, rubbing his eyes. Giacomo here? When Raimondo was here too? Suppose they ran into each other?

  ‘I’m coming at once. You keep him … but don’t say a thing about …’

  ‘What, Excellency? But the two brothers are chatting together! The princess is here too …’

  Rushing down to prevent some disaster, Ferdinando entered the drawing-room and found his two brothers and sisters-in-law chatting away gaily together.

  ‘We were passing this way,’ said the prince, ‘and thought of paying you a visit.’

  Next day, in the Yellow Drawing-room, Cousin Graziella, who had come to luncheon early and found the princess with Don Mariano, was attacking Raimondo and his mistress with more than usual heat, narrating their latest moves, their approaches to the duke to lend his deputy’s authority to obtain the dissolution of the marriages and get the good Baron Palmi to agree. The princess was on hot coals, changing colour, raising, lowering and rolling her eyes as if to invoke the intervention of Don Mariano, and coughing slightly to warn the cousin not to insist. But on she went more ardently than ever:

  ‘If only they’d be a little patient! They’d be freed just the same, for poor Matilde is at death’s door. They seem to want to bring on her end! Imagine what effect this news has on her!… But her father is swearing worse than ever that he’ll never agree to suit their plans. His daughter implores him to keep calm, as when such news arrives he seems on the verge of an apoplectic fit … It’s really a bit too much! There’s Donna Ferdinanda’s thumbprint all over it! Don’t you think things have got to the point where they ought to be warned to be more prudent?’

  The princess had no time to reply or hide the new embarrassment in which this question threw her when Baldassarre, entering soundlessly, announced with that fine serenity of his:

  ‘The Signor Count and the Signora Countess.’

  Cousin Graziella was turned to salt. Raimondo? The countess? Which countess? Then Donna Isabella appeared, went towards the princess, who came to meet her, embraced and kissed her on both cheeks.

  ‘How are you, Margherita? I was anxious to repay your charming visit of yesterday …’

  They were calling each other ‘tu’! The Fersa woman had found a way of mentioning that Margherita had paid her a visit! And now the prince appeared, shaking Raimondo’s hand and saying:

  ‘Sister-in-law and cousin, will you both stay to luncheon?’

  ‘THE Duke of Oragua! The deputy! The patriot! Where? Where is he? There he is … He’s stouter!… He’s been away nearly three years!… Does he come from Turin? Signor Duke! Excellency! Excellency!…’

  And there were greetings and bows to left and right, some drawing back a pace before meeting him and baring their heads as at the passage of the Blessed Sacrament. When he had passed everyone turned round to follow him for a time with their eyes. Only a few enjoyed the privilege of being able to go up to him, shake his hand and ask his news. Very few indeed, the elect, could have the honour of accompanying him, escorting him, mingling with the group of close admirers and friends who followed him everywhere, to the Prefecture, to the Municipality, to the clubs. He would walk in the middle of the street as if he owned the place, listened to devoutly by those beside him, awaited by a throng of courtiers intent on singing his praises even when some pressing little need drew him into a corner.

  At the palace there was the same coming and going as the time before, electors, petitioners, delegations of political societies returning to thank him personally, after thanking him in writing, for the good he had done the town and his fellow-citizens; thanks to him, the first railway begun in Sicily was to run between Catania and Messina, and in the port there were wharves for steamships, and the town had many new schools, an inspectorate of forests, and a stallion depot; a credit-establishment, the Banca Meridionale, was about to open; the Government had promised to undertake a number of public works and help the municipality and province; and one by one good Liberals, sons of the revolution, were obtaining what they asked for; a job, a subsidy, a decoration.

  His popularity was at its apex. Some did, it is true, blame him for his absence during the troubles of ’62 and put it down to fear, revived those tales about him in ’48, and accused him of having finally thought of his constituency only now when the Chamber was being dissolved and he wanted his mandate reconfirmed; but these murmurers were the eternal malcontents, the few republicans, an out-and-out Garibaldino or two, all people who could not forgive his adherence to the conservative party. In conversations about politics, he would uphold a moderate policy quite openly, ‘Now we’ve had our revolution and reached our aim,’ and praise the Government’s prudent action, deplore Garibaldi’s rashness, criticise discontent with the September Convention, affirm that a league of good men and true was necessary to save the nation from enemies, external and internal.

  More than in
his first period as deputy, he would now make great play with mention of important political friends, ‘When I went to see Minghetti … As Rattazzi said to me … At the Minister’s home …’ But he no longer quoted Baron Palmi. If his nephew Raimondo’s actions were mentioned he would make a slight motion with shoulders and head which could fit in with any mood of the questioner, approval, indulgence, blame. By now anyway Raimondo’s and Donna Isabella’s situation was legalised, and all the relations followed the prince’s example and treated them as husband and wife. In less than six months, the Episcopal Court, accepting the fact that the marriage had been contracted by force and fear, had set Donna Isabella free.

  Raimondo’s marriage with Matilde had been rather more trouble. At first the baron was also expected to ask for his daughter’s marriage to be annulled and assert that he had forced her into it. But the baron, ‘a stubborn oaf’, explained Pasqualino, had said no and went on saying no until the very last moment, even though his daughter—God rest her soul—had finally set her heart at rest, particularly on learning that the first marriage no longer existed and that the count had a son to legitimatise. Donna Matilde—one must be fair!—in spite of wild ideas was quite sensible really, and knowing that she was ill, and realising that the count would be free anyway sooner or later, had decided to ask her father’s consent to the dissolving of the civil marriage; not of the religious one, for she had certain rather odd scruples about the sanctity of the sacrament of matrimony; but her husband would be content with a civil divorce. Yes, the count and countess had none of the pigheadedness of the rustic baron, who swore that he would prefer to see his daughter dead rather than consent to free his son-in-law!… He wouldn’t do it? Then the count himself asked to be freed, adducing that his mother had forced him to take that wife!