The Viceroys

by Federico De Roberto

  One of these, however, went slightly amiss. The ‘Cavaliere’ land bordered to the east on another property, in the hands of the Public Trustee and still unsold, whose boundary consisted of an old hedge of prickly pears with big gaps in it. Don Blasco was having a fine high wall built covered with flints and broken bottles, and he appropriated a number of little pieces of land; in a corner where there were no traces of hedge he annexed to the ‘Cavaliere’ a fair-sized slice of this other land. This had now been discovered by the Intendancy of Finance, who poured out summonses, which set the monk baying and yelling against Italian thieves, as in the old days. He almost got to the point of reconciliation with the reactionaries at the chemist’s.

  ‘Accuse me of encroachment? Surely the San Nicola property stretched as far as the vineyards? Are they trying to teach me what the monastery property is, those thieves who’ve stripped a kingdom?’

  Garino added the rest. But as no talk could return summonses by the Public Lands Department, and an enquiry on the spot would prove them right, the ex-police informer, seeing the monk so worked up, suggested one day:

  ‘Why doesn’t Your Excellency say a word to your brother the Deputy?’

  Don Blasco did not reply. He had already been to the duke.

  For years he had not spoken a word to his brother, for even longer he had been abusing him in public and private. So Don Gaspare was astounded at seeing him appear. The monk entered his brother’s study with his hat on his head as if in his own home, said ‘Morning to you’ in the tone of one seeing a person from the day before, and sat down. The duke, after the first moment of amazement, smiled subtly and answered in the same tone, ‘Well, what’s up?’

  The monk at once plunged into his subject.

  ‘You know I’ve bought the “Cavaliere” land of San Nicola? There’s no boundary line and I had a wall put up. Now the Public Lands people are accusing me of encroachment …’

  The duke went on smiling from ear to ear, enjoying it all. Then the monk was silent, thinking there was no need to add more, but his brother wanted the satisfaction of hearing this man by whom he had always been reviled asking for help and said:

  ‘Well?…’

  ‘Well?… Can’t you talk to someone?’

  It was not exactly what he had hoped, but the duke was a good old man at heart, not of the same stuff as the prince and the Prior, and he contented himself with that.

  ‘All right. Come back with the papers tomorrow.’

  So, to the amazement of all their relations, the two brothers were seen going together up and down the steps of the Intendancy, the Prefecture, the Civil Engineers and the Public Lands Department.

  In a few days things looked like being arranged, but the duke now suggested a more radical solution to the monk.

  ‘Why don’t you just buy the other estate?’

  ‘Where’ll I get the money?’

  ‘Oh, we’ll find the money!’

  He got it from the banks on whose board he was. With it he speculated in public lands, redeemed properties taken from mortmain and purchased some of them anew. Now to be under his own roof as well he was building a fine new house in the Via Plebiscito. Through him, Don Blasco was allowed a discount at the Bank of Credit and Deposits, and signed an I.O.U. for twenty-five thousand lire. The ‘Cavaliere’ land, increased by almost double, thus became a good-sized property, ‘a real feudal estate’, as it was called by Garino, who was now for ever exalting the duke, his talents, the position and power he had reached through his own abilities. But the gossips at the pro-Bourbon pharmacy were harder at it than ever prophesying the day, now imminent, when Don Blasco and other committers of sacrilege would have to restore their ill-gotten goods. The monk let them be and no longer even passed the street around the pharmacy, a glimpse of which even from a distance made him want to retch. But as time went by, lack of conversation began weighing on him, and one Sunday, meeting his tenant, the teacher, on the stairs, he invited him in.

  The teacher said he had been a Garibaldino, described the Aspromonte affair, talked of nothing but conspiracies and threatened the end of the world too, but only if Italy did not occupy Rome.

  ‘So you think this Government will last?’ asked Don Blasco in trepidation.

  ‘If it does its duty! Otherwise we’ll kick it out as we have the others! We aren’t frightened by police! We’ve seen firing! We know all about revolutions!’

  ‘Some people, though, think we might return …’

  ‘Return? We must go forward! Integrate national unity! Smash the last stronghold of theocracy, the last bulwark of obscurantism … Humanity never returns! We’ve buried the Middle Ages! The State must be lay, and the Church return to its origins; as that great man Jesus Christ said, “My Kingdom is not of this world”!’

  His tenant’s conversation, though from time to time it did make a quiver run down his spine, pleased Don Blasco a good deal, and one day, as he was passing in front of Cardarella’s pharmacy, old meeting-place of Liberals, the teacher, who was inside deep in discussion, called him in. They were talking about the suppressed religious orders, and the teacher refused to believe that some years the income of San Nicola had been beyond a million lire.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ confirmed Don Blasco. ‘It was the richest in Sicily, maybe in the whole former kingdom.’

  Then the teacher burst out against monks, priests, parasites of a society ‘which, thank heavens, was finally being organised on different basis’.

  From that day Don Blasco got into the habit of frequenting the new chemist’s. To this shop came rabid Liberals, shouting as much as those other retrogrades against the Government but for a different reason: because it was a government of rabbits, of France’s lackeys, of Napoleon Ill’s boot-lickers; because it persecuted true patriots and played the Jesuit in the Roman question. Aspromonte and Mentana would come up, but Rome must be Italian at all costs, or they would go down into the streets and begin shooting again. ‘Rome or death!’ shouted the teacher, who always had news of wars and revolutionary movements ready to break out, and Don Blasco, among the others’ shouts, would boom:

  ‘The Holy Father should think it over quietly, while there’s yet time and remember ’48. If he hadn’t listened to the reactionaries then, now he’d be respected President of the Italian Confederation!’

  ‘Quietly?’ cried the teacher. ‘Holy cannons is what they need! The blood of Monti and Tognetti is still steaming! It takes guns to break down the stronghold of fanaticism.’

  One day he entered his landlord’s apartments with an air of glory and triumph.

  ‘This is it, at last! War!’

  Don Blasco, disturbed by the news, as he feared a war might threaten the Italian state, was reassured when his tenant told him that the election of a German Prince to the throne of Spain had been considered by France as a casus belli. ‘Our duty …’ But as he was explaining what Italy’s duty was a servant appeared from the Uzeda palace. The prince asked for news of his uncle and at the same time warned him that Ferdinando was very ill and they ought to pay him a visit. Don Blasco, longing above all else to hear the words of his new friend, answered:

  ‘All right, all right; I’ll be up tomorrow …’

  FERDINANDO had been failing for a year. His haggard face, yellow eyes, white lips had long been signs of hidden illness, inner suffering; but while when perfectly well he thought he had every disease under the sun, now that something was really decaying in him, if people asked what was wrong he replied irritably:

  ‘Nothing! Why should anything be wrong? D’you want me to fall ill to please you?’

  And he gave the prince a rude reply when the latter one day advised him to go up to Pietra dell’Ovo for a time and breathe healthy country air. He no longer wanted to hear his country house even named. The books which had cost so much were gathering dust and moth on the shelves, implements were rusting and breaking, but the estate was prospering now that he no longer experimented with novelties. Stubbornly he denied his suffer
ings, his stomach pains, his intestinal disturbances, and attributed them to fantastic causes: undercooked bread, sirocco, evening chill. But he was falling into deep funereal hypochondria. For long, long days he never said a word, never saw a living soul. Shut up in his room, flung on the bed, he lay motionless, following the flight of flies. When the crisis passed, he gobbled indigestible food. One summer night his manservant, terrified by black vomit and blood-speckled diarrhoea, sent a son over to the palace to warn the family.

  At the prince’s arrival and suggestion of sending for a doctor, the sick man cried that he wanted no-one and had quite recovered. But now all realised that his condition was serious. Lucrezia, his childhood companion, tried vainly to convince him that he must see a doctor; he threatened to lock himself in his room and see no one at all. But his pulse showed that fever was raging. To conquer this obstinacy, they had recourse to a trick, as if he were a child or madman; by pretending that a surveyor had to come to draw the plan of the house they got a doctor into his room. The doctor shook his head; the patient’s condition was much more serious than they thought. At the age of thirty-nine he was dying. The old and impoverished blood of the Viceroys was festering inside him, no longer nourishing the flaccid fibres. To try to combat his blood-condition a most severe diet and cure were necessary. But the maniac would listen to no-one, least of all his relations. If they insisted he shouted, ‘Oh, stop it, won’t you?’ As he was convinced that he was perfectly well, their suggestions that he was ill could only mean they wanted his death, were expecting it. Why? To get his inheritance! He confided this to his servants, and when the Uzeda left, said:

  ‘D’you think those come here for love of me? They’re after my money! Another time tell ’em I’m not here.’

  But actually his money had gone already. First in wild experiments ruining the soil, then in mad expense on books and implements, later in cheating by the factor when he had refused to set eyes on his property even from a distance and begun to incur debts. Without surprise or wondering why, he found himself surrounded by people offering to lend money, within reason of course. And he signed I.O.U. after I.O.U., all of which ended up in the hands of the prince, who with his eyes on the property at Pietra dell’Ovo, and realising this madman would never make a Will, was getting a hold on it that way. The maniac, incapable of totting up money borrowed and thinking himself still master of his own property, was convinced that his relations were waiting round him for his death. As soon as they appeared he turned his back on them all, except his nephew Consalvo.

  The latter’s debts had been finally paid, which was widely attributed to Donna Ferdinanda. But in fact the old spinster had not herself paid a cent. She would have died of a stroke if she’d had to pay out sixty lire, let alone six hundred, or six thousand! The money had really been paid by the prince, whom Princess Graziella, with a generosity that edified all, had persuaded to pardon her stepson. Surely the Prince of Mirabella’s signature could not be cited? That would never happen while she was alive! Why if Giacomo was stubborn enough to go on saying ‘no’ she’d pay out of her own pocket! Yes, for Consalvo as for Teresina, she felt a true mother’s love, though she had not borne him in her womb and her stepson repaid her so ill! ‘But what can I do? No-one commands the heart, do they? Ah well, one day or other he’ll realise I should not be treated like this …’ She had induced the prince to pay the I.O.U., and also found the expedient of hinting that it was the spinster’s generosity, lest Consalvo presume on the paternal weakness in future.

  Aversion between father and son was meanwhile growing daily. To avoid the prince’s company and at the same time seem victimised, Consalvo deserted the paternal house. But instead of going with friends to café or club, he went to his uncle Ferdinando’s where he bought papers and read out the political news. The sick man took a passionate interest in the threatened war, which was the only subject that could loosen his tongue. Don Blasco, on finally coming to visit his nephew, also discussed this subject with him passionately, repeating the teacher’s arguments; but the duke assured everyone that it was all a false alarm and there’d be no war, with as convinced an air as if this had been secretly confided to him by Napoleon.

  When the news of the declaration of war did finally burst on them, the great man exclaimed that Bismarck and William must have lost their heads. Or were they joking? To attack Napoleon? The French Army, the first in the world, would rout, mince, pulverise the Prussian, and take Berlin in two weeks at the most. Instead of which came cables announcing German victories.

  Then the Deputy’s adversaries began to ridicule him with more zest. That nincompoop with the air of a reborn Cavour was not even capable of understanding the most obvious things. Contradicted by facts, he held stubbornly to his silliness, announced new French plans, then imminent retaliation, intervention by the Powers.

  Ferdinando, from deep in the armchair which he now never left because his legs did not hold him, would listen to those speeches as anxiously as if his health depended on them. Trembling with fever, his forehead aflame, he let a new obsession overwhelm his weakened brain now: Napoleon’s victories, which he yearned for. Buying a map of the Rhine, he spent his days sticking big pins in all the French positions and small pins in the Prussian ones. War bulletin in hand, he studied the operations of the two armies, changed his signs according to the real changes, and as the small pins advanced and the big pins withdrew his illness got worse. In raucous, cavernous tones he explained what the French should have done to regain their lost positions. He improvised strategic plans, plotted out every day numerous theatres of war, disposed divisions and regiments arbitrarily, exclaiming, ‘This one here, that one there …’ until, exhausted, overwhelmed, he fell back with hands dangling and head awry, eyes shut and mouth open as if on the point of expiring.

  Meanwhile the duke, feeling the opposition to him growing and the ground shrinking beneath his feet, had realised he must do something in order to restore his prestige, and was preparing an unexpected move. Fear of war was increasing general discontent; the Government’s adversaries were taking advantage of this to shout and threaten louder. Members of the opposition, drawn from different parties and social orders with varying roots and opposing aims, were momentarily agreed on demanding Rome. The worse the situation of France became, the more accusations of weakness and cowardice poured on the Government from all sides; threats of taking over power seemed about to become action at any moment. Now, while those with nothing to complain of were keeping malcontents at bay, advising prudence and steering between two currents, one night the duke, who had been away on his estates, went to the National Club where battle was joined day and night, and expressed his opinion unhesitatingly; the moment had come to act! If the Government let this chance escape it would never be excused in the nation’s eyes! He had always opposed the impatience of the progressive party, for though it might be warm-hearted, it could do the country great harm. But now times were ripe and any delay would be an inexcusable fault. If those in Florence didn’t do their duty he threatened ‘to go out into the streets with a rifle, as in ’60 …’

  ‘Ah, the buffoon … ah, the old fox …’ they exclaimed in the enemy camp. But in spite of his denigrators the duke’s new opinions, so frankly professed and repeated daily to whoever wanted to listen or not, did sustain his shaky credit. Benedetto Giulente had been amazed to hear them as, foreseeing his uncle following a temporising policy till the last, he had done so himself. He was even more surprised when the duke came to see him and said they must begin republishing the news-sheet Italia risorta to urge the Government along the road to Rome; the time was ripe, by not following the current they risked being overwhelmed by it.

  Benedetto, though spending all day at the Town Hall, got together an editorial staff of municipal clerks and elementary schoolmasters, and published the news-sheet. Lucrezia ranted against this husband of hers who now wanted Rome, if you please, ‘as if he could put it in his pocket or carry it off to sell at a fair!’ But Bene
detto’s inflamatory articles, announcing that the duke was on the people’s side and ready to leave for Florence if the Government refused to listen to the country’s voice, obtained a new wave of popularity for the Deputy.

  The day when the news came of Victor Emmanuel’s letter to the Pope, there also arrived an unexpected guest from Rome, Don Lodovico. He had sent news of himself to his family only once a year or so, intent as he was on the duties of his office and the forwarding of a career which was now well advanced. Already, in little more than three years, he was Secretary of Propaganda, Archbishop of Nicea, and held in high esteem by Pius IX. To the prince, who looked at him at first as if he had dropped from the moon, he said in a tone of gentle reproval:

  ‘Ferdinando is at death’s door, and you merely wrote to say he was unwell! Had it not been for Monsignor the Bishop, I’d not have known the truth!’

  And he went and settled by his sick brother’s side. The latter no longer left his bed; when he shut his eyes his green, emaciated face was like a corpse’s, but he refused all treatment more obstinately than before. As his body decayed the last gleams of his obscured reason dimmed too; now he sent out every day for dozens upon dozens of boxes of pins and reams of paper and packets of pencils. These were for tracing plans of campaign, putting in signs for forts, encampments and headquarters; but he forgot what he bought them for, and went on ordering more and more and shouting and raving if he was not obeyed. With evangelical patience, with untiring zeal, with admirable abnegation, Don Lodovico watched over the sick man and complied with his every mania. Meanwhile—this was driving Baldassarre to despair—evil tongues were saying that he had come to Sicily not for the love of the Booby, to whom he had never given a thought, but to avoid being in Rome at such a critical moment, and take council later from events!…