The Leopard (4 page)

The Prince concentrated on shaving the difficult bit between lips and chin. His nephew's slightly nasal voice had such youthful zest that it was impossible to be angry; but he might allow himself a touch of surprise. He turned and with his towel under his chin looked his nephew up and down. The young man was in shooting kit, a long tight jacket, high leggings. "And who was this person, may I ask? "

"Yourself, Uncle, yourself. I saw you with my own eyes, at the Villa Airoldi block post, as you were talking to the sergeant. A fine thing at your age! And a priest with you too! You old playboy!"

Really, this was a little too insolent. Tancredi thought he could allow himself anything. Dark blue eyes, the eyes of his mother, his own eyes, gazed laughingly at him through half-closed lids. The Prince was offended: the boy didn't know where to stop; but he could not bring himself to reprove him; and anyway he was quite right. "Why are you dressed like that, though? What's going on?

A fancydress ball in the morning?"

The youth became serious; his triangular face assumed an unexpectedly manly look. "I'm leaving, Uncle, leaving in an hour. I came to say goodbye."

Poor Salina felt his heart tighten. "A duel?"

"A big duel, Uncle. A duel with little King Francis. I'm going into the hills at Ficuzza; don't tell a soul, particularly not Paolo. Great things are in the offing, and I don't want to stay at home. And anyway I'd be arrested at once if I did." The Prince had one of his visions: a savage guerrilla skirmish, shots in the woods, and Tancredi, his Tancredi, lying on the ground with his guts hanging out like that poor soldier. "You're mad, my boy, to go with thos,-people! They're all in the maffia, all troublemakers. A Falconeri should be with us, for the King."

The eyes began smiling again. "For the King, yes, of course. But which King?" The lad had one of those sudden serious moods which made him so mysterious and so endearing. "Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they'll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. D'you understand?" Rather moved, he embraced his uncle. "Well, goodbye, for now. I'll be back with the tricolor." The rhetoric of those friends of his had touched Tancredi a little too; and yet, no, there was a tone in that nasal voice which undercut the emphasis.

What a boy! Talking rubbish and contradicting it at the same time. And all that Paolo of his was probably thinking of at that moment was Guiscard's digestion! This was his real son! The Prince jumped up, pulled the towel from his neck, and rummaged in a drawer. "Tancredi, Tancredi, wait! " He ran after his nephew, slipped a roll of gold pieces into his pocket, and squeezed his shoulder.

The other laughed. "You're subsidizing the Revolution now! Thank you, Uncle, see you soon; and my respects to my aunt." And off he rushed down the stairs.

Bendico was called from following his friend with joyous barks through the villa, the Prince's shave was over, his face washed. The valet came to help him into shoes and clothes. "The tricolor! Tricolor indeed! They fill their mouths with these words, the rascals. What does that ugly geometric sign, that aping of the French mean, compared to our white banner with its golden lily in the middle? What hope can those clashing colors bring them?" It was now the moment for the monumental black satin cravat to be wound around his neck: a difficult operation during which political worries were best suspended. One turn, two turns, three turns. The big delicate hands smoothed out the folds, settled the overlaps, pinned into the silk the little head of Medusa with ruby eyes. "A clean waistcoat.

Can't you see this one's dirty? " The valet stood on tiptoe to help him slip on a frock coat of brown cloth; he proffered a handkerchief with three drops of bergamot. Keys, watch and chain, money, the Prince put in a pocket himself. Then he glanced in a mirror; no doubt about it, he was still a fine-looking man. "Old playboy indeed! A bad joke, that one of Tancredi's! I'd like to see him at my age, all skin and bone that he is!"

His vigorous steps made the windows tinkle in the rooms he crossed. The house was calm, luminous, ornate; above all it was his own. On his way downstairs he suddenly understood that remark of Tancredi's, "If we want things to stay as they are…” Tancredi would go a long way: he had always thought so.

The estate office was still empty, lit silently by the sun through closed shutters. Although the scene of more frivolity than anywhere else in the villa, its appearance was of calm austerity. On whitewashed walls, reflected in waxpolished tiles, hung enormous pictures representing the various Salina estates: there, in bright colors contrasting with the gold and black frame, was Salina, the island of the twin mountains, surrounded by a sea of white-flecked waves on which pranced beflagged galleons; Querceta, its low houses grouped around the rustic church on which were converging groups of bluish-colored pilgrims; Ragattisi, tucked under mountain gorges; Argivocale, tiny in contrast to the vast plains of corn dotted with hard-working peasants; Donnafugata, with its baroque palace, goal of coaches in scarlet and green and gilt, loaded with women, wine, and violins; and many others, all protected by a taut reassuring sky and by the Leopard grinning between long whiskers. Each picture was festiveeach trying to show the enlightened empire, like wine, of the House oi Salina. Ingenuous masterpieces of rustic art from the previous century; useless, though, at showing boundaries, or detailing areas or tenancies; such things remained obscure. The wealth of many centuries had been transmitted into, ornament, luxury, pleasure; no more; the abolition of feudal rights had swept away duties as well as privileges~ wealth, like an old wine, had let the dregs of greed, even of care and prudence, fall to the bottom of the barrel, leaving only verve and color. And thus eventually it cancelled it-self out; this wealth which had achieved its object was composed now only of essential oils-and, like essential oils, it soon evaporated. Already some of the estates which looked so gay in those pictures had taken wing, leaving behind only bright-colored paintings and names. Others seemed, like those September swallows which though still present are grouped stridently on trees, ready for departure. But there were so many; it seemed they could never end.

In spite of this the sensation felt by the Prince on entering his own office was, as always, an unpleasant one. In the center of the room towered a huge desk, with dozens of drawers, niches, recesses, hollows, and folding shelves; its mass of yellow wood and black inlay was carved and decorated like a stage set, full of unexpected, uneven surfaces, secret drawers which no one now knew how to work except thieves. It was covered with papers, and, although the Prince had taken care that most of these referred to the starry regions of astronomy, there were quite enough others to fill his princely heart with dismay. Suddenly he was reminded of King Ferdinand's desk at Caserta, also covered with papers needing decisions which could claim to influence the course of fate, that was actually flowing along on its own in another valley.

Salina thought of a medicine recently discovered in the United States of America which could prevent suffering even during the most serious operations and produce serenity amid disaster. "Morphia" was the name given to this crude substitute for the stoicism of the ancients and for Christian fortitude. With the late King, poor man, phantom administration had taken the place of morphia; he, Salina, had a more refined recipe: astronomy. And thrusting away the memory of lost Ragattisi and precarious Argivocale, he plunged into reading the latest number of the
Journal des Savants. "'Les derni~res observations de l'Observatoire
de Greense~ich prisentent an intjr~t tout particulier. . . ."

But he was soon exiled from these stellar realms. In came Don Ciccio Ferrara, the accountant. He was a scraggy little man who hid the deluded and rapacious mind of a "liberal" behind reassuring spectacles and immaculate cravats. That morning he looked brisker than usual; obviously, the same news which had depressed Father Pirrone had acted as a tonic on him. "Sad times, Your Excellency," he said after the usual ritual greetings. "Big troubles ahead, but after a bit of bother and a shot or two things will turn out for the best; then glorious new days will dawn for this Sicily of ours; if it weren't that so many fine lads are sure to get killed, we should be really pleased."

The Prince grunted and expressed no opinion. "Don Ciccio," he said then, "the Querceta rents need looking into; we haven't had a thing from them for two years."

"The books are all in order, Excellency." It was the magic phrase. "I only have to write to Don Angelo Mazza to send out collectors; I will prepare the letter for your signature this very day."

He went to turn over the huge registers. In them, with two years' delay, were inscribed in minute writing all the Salina accounts, except for the really important ones. When he was alone again the Prince waited a little before soaring back through the clouds. He felt irritated not so much by the events themselves as by the stupidity of Don Ciccio, whom he sensed at once to represent the class which would now be gaining power. "What the fellow says is the very contrary of the truth. Regretting the fine lads who're sure to die! There'll be very few of those, if I'm any judge of the two adversaries; not a single casualty more than is strictly necessary for a victory bulletin, whether compiled at Naples or Turin. But he does believe in 'glorious new days for this Sicily of ours,' as he puts it; these have been promised us on every single one of the thousand invasions we've had from Nicias onward, and they've never come. And why should they come, anyway? What will happen then? Oh, well. Just negotiations punctuated by a little harmless shooting, then all will be the same though all will be changed." Into his mind had come Tancredi's ambiguous words, which he now found himself really understanding. Reassured, he ceased turning over the pages of the scientific review and looked up at the scorched slopes of Monte Pellegrino, scarred like the face of misery by eternal ravines. Soon afterward appeared Russo, to the Prince the most significant of his dependents. Clever, dressed rather smartly in a striped velvet jacket, with greedy eyes below a remorseless forehead, the Prince found him a perfect specimen of a class on its way up. He was obsequious too, and even sincerely friendly in a way, for his cheating was done in the certainty of exercising a right. "I can imagine how Your Excellency must be worried by Signorino Tancredi's departure; but he won't be away long, I'm sure, and all will end well." Again the Prince found himself facing one of the enigmas of Sicily; in this secret island, where houses are barred and peasants refuse to admit they even know the way to their own village in clear view on a hillock within a few minutes'

walk from here, in spite of the ostentatious show of mystery, reserve is a myth.

He signed to Russo to sit down and stared him in the eyes. "Pietro, let's talk to each other man to man. You're involved in all this too, aren't you?" No, was the answer, not actually; he had a family and such risks were for young men like Signorino Tancredi.

"I'd never hide anything from Your Excellency, who's like a father to me." (Yet three years before he had hidden in his cellar three hundred baskets of lemons belonging to the Prince, and he knew that the Prince knew.) "But I must say that my heart is with them, those bold lads." He got up to let in Benclico, who was making the door shake under his friendly impetus. Then he sat down again. "Your Excellency knows we can't stand any more: searches, questions, nagging about every little thing, a police SPY at every street corner; an honest man can't even look after his own affairs. Afterward, though, we'll have liberty, security, lighter taxes, ease, trade. Everything will be better; the only ones to lose will be the priests. But the Lord protects poor folk like me, not them."

The Prince smiled. He knew that he, Russo, was at that moment trying through intermediaries to buy the estate of Argivocale.

"There will be a day or two of shooting and trouble, but Villa Salina will be safe as a rock; Your Excellency is our father, I have many friends here. The Piedmontese will come cap in hand to pay Your Excellencies their respects. And then, you are also the uncle, the guardian of Don Tancredi!"

The Prince felt humiliated, reduced to the rank of one protected by Russo's friends; his only merit, as far as he could see, was being uncle to that urchin Tancredi. "In a week's time I'll find my life's safe only because I keep Bendico." He squeezed one of the dog's ears so hard that the poor creature whined, honored doubtless, but in pain.

Shortly afterward a remark of Russo's relieved the Prince. "Everything will be better, believe me, Excellency. Honest and able men will have a chance to get ahead, that's all. The rest will be as it was before." All that these people, these petty little local

"liberals," wanted was to find ways of making more money themselves. No more. The swallows would take wing a little sooner, that was all. Anyway, there were still plenty in the nest.

"You may be right. Who knows?" Now he had penetrated all the hidden meanings: the enigmatic words of Tancredi, the rhetorical ones of Ferrara, the false but revealing ones of Russo, had yielded their reassuring secret. Much would happen, but all would be play-acting; a noisy, romantic play with a few spots of blood on the comic costumes. This was a country of arrangements, with none of that frenzy of the French; and anyway, had anything really serious happened in France, except for that June of '48? He felt like saying to Russo, but his innate courtesy held him back, "I understand now; you don't want to destroy us, who are your

'fathers.' You just want to take our places. Gently, nicely, putting a few thousand ducats in your pockets meanwhile. And what then? Your nephew, my dear Russo, will sincerely believe himself a baroni maybe you will become, because of your name, descendant of a grand duke of Muscovy instead of some red-skinned peasant, which is what that name of yours means. And long before that your daughter will have married one of us, perhaps Tancredi himself, with his blue eyes and his willowy hands. She's good-looking, anyway, and once she's learned to wash . . . For all will be the same. just as it is now: except for an imperceptible shifting about of classes. My Court Chamberlain's gilt keys, my cherry-colored ribbon of St. Januarius will stay in a drawer and end up in some glass case of Paolo's. But the Salinas will remain the Salinas; they may even get some compensation or other: a seat in the Sardinian Senate, that pink ribbon of the Order of St. Maurice. Both have tassels, after all." He got up. "Pietro, talk to your friends, will you? There are a lot of girls here. They mustn't be alarmed."