The Leopard (7 page)

It had been an idyllic evening and was followed by others equally cordial. During one of these the General was asked to try to obtain an exemption from the order expelling Jesuits for Father Pirrone, described as very aged and very ill; the General, who had taken a liking to the good priest, pretended to believe in his wretched state and agreed; he talked to political friends, pulled a string or two, and Father Pirrone stayed. Which went to confirm the Prince more than ever in the accuracy of his predictions. The General was also most helpful about the complicated permits necessary in those troubled times for anyone wanting to move from place to place; and it was largely due to him that the Salina family was able to enjoy its annual sojourn in the country in that year of revolution. The young Captain asked for a month's leave and set off with his uncle and aunt. Even apart from permits, preparations for the Salinas' journey had been lengthy and complicated. Cryptic negotiations had to be conducted in the agent's office with "persons of influence" from Girgenti, negotiations ending in smiles, handclasps, and the tinkle of coin. Thus a second and more useful permit had been obtained; though this was no novelty. Piles of luggage and food had to be collected too, and cooks and servants sent on three days ahead; then there was one of the smaller telescopes to be packed and Paolo persuaded to stay behind in Palermo. After this they were able to move off; the General and the little Lieutenant came to wish them Godspeed and bring them flowers; and as the carriages moved off from Villa Salina two scarlet-covered arms continued to wave for a long time; at a carriage window appeared the Prince's black top hat, but the little hand in black lace mittens which the young Count had hoped to see remained in Concetta's lap.

The journey had lasted more than three days and had been appalling. The roads, the famous Sicilian roads because of which the Prince of Satriano had lost the Viceregency, were no more than tracks, all ruts and dust. The first night at Marineo, at the home of a notary and friend, had been more or less bearable, but the second at a little inn at Prizzi had been torture, with three of them to a bed, besieged by repellent local fauna. The third was at Bisacquino; no bugs there, but to make up for that the Prince had found thirteen flies in his glass of fruit juice, while a strong smell of excrement wafted in from the street and the privy next door, and all this had caused him most unpleasant dreams; waking at very early dawn amid all that sweat and stink, he had found himself comparing this ghastly journey with his own life, which had first moved over smiling level ground, then clambered up rocky mountains, slid over threatening passes, to emerge eventually into a landscape of interminable undulations, all of the same color, all bare as despair. These early morning fantasies were the very worst that could happen to a man of middle age; and although the Prince knew that they would vanish with the day's activities, he suffered acutely all the same, as he was used enough to them by now to realize that deep inside him they left a sediment of grief which, accumulating day by day, would in the end be the real cause of his death.

With the rising of the sun those monsters had gone back to their lairs in his unconscious; near by now were Donnafugata and his palace, with its many-jetted fountains, its memories of saintly forebears, the sense it gave him of everlasting childhood. Even the people there were pleasant, simple, and devoted. At this point a thought occurred: Would they, after recent events, be just as devoted as before? "We'll soon see."

Now at last they were nearly there. Tancredi's mischievous face appeared at the carriage window sill. "Uncle, Aunt, get ready, in five minutes we'll be there." Tancredi was too tactful to precede the Prince into the town. He put his horse to a walk and proceeded in silence beside the leading carriage.

Beyond the short bridge leading into the town the authorities, surrounded by a few dozen peasants, were waiting. As the carriages moved onto the bridge the municipal band struck up with frenzied enthusiasm "Gypsy girls we," from La Traviata, the first odd and endearing greeting by Donnafugata to its Prince in recent years; after this, at a warning by some urchin on the lookout, the bells of the Mother Church and of the Convent of the Holy Spirit filled the air with festive sound.

"Thanks be to God, everything seems as usual," thought the Prince as he climbed out of his carriage. There was Don Calogero Sedara, the Mayor, with a tricolor sash bright and new as his job tight around his waist; Monsignor Trottolino, the Archpriest, with his big red face; Don Ciccio Ginestra, the notary, all braid and feathers, as Captain of the National Guard; there was Don Toto Giambono, the doctor, and there was little Nunzia Giarritta, who offered the Princess a rather messy bunch of flowers, gathered half an hour before in the palace gardens. There was Ciccio Tumeo, the cathedral organist, who was not strictly speaking of sufficient standing to be there with the authorities but had come along all the same as friend and hunting companion of the Prince, and had had the excellent notion of bringing along with him, for the Prince's pleasure, his pointer bitch Teresina, with two little brown spots above her eyes i daring rewarded with a special smile from Don Fabrizio. The latter was in high good humor and sincerely amiable; he and his wife got out of the carriage to express their thanks, and against the tempestuous music of Verdi and the crashing of bells embraced the Mayor and shook hands with all the others. The crowd of peasants stood there silent, but their motionless eyes emitted a curiosity in no way hostile, for the poor of Donnafugata really did have a certain affection for their tolerant lord, who so often forgot to demand their little rents of kind or money; also, used as they were to seeing the bewhiskered Leopard on the palace facade, on the church front, above the fountains, on the majolica tiles in their houses, they were glad to set eyes now on the real animal, in nankeen trousers, distributing friendly shakes of the paw to all, his features amiably wreathed in feline smiles. "Yes indeed; everything is the same as before, better, in fact, than before." Tancredi, too, was the object of great curiosity; though everybody had known him for a long time, now he seemed to them transfigured; no longer did they see him as a mere unconventional youth, but as an aristocratic liberal, companion of Rosolino Pilo, wounded hero of the battle of Palermo. Amid this open admiration he was swimming about like a fish in water; these rustic admirers he found really rather fun; he talked to them in dialect, joked, laughed at himself and his own wounds; but when he said "General Garibaldi," his voice dropped an octave and he put on the rapt look of a choirboy before the Monstrance; then to Don Calogero Sebra, of whom he had vaguely heard as being very active during the period of the liberation, he said in booming tones, "Ah, Don Calogero, Crispi said lots of nice things to me about you." After which he gave his arm to his cousin Concetta and moved off, leaving everyone in raptures.

The carriages, with servants, children, and Bendico, went on to the palace; but according to ancient usage, before the others set foot in their home they had to hear a Te Deum in the cathedral. This was, anyway, only a few paces off, and they moved there in procession, the new arrivals dusty but imposing, the authorities gleaming but humble. Ahead walked Don Ciccio Ginestra, the prestige of his uniform cleaving a path; he was followed by the Prince, giving an arm to the Princess, and looking like a sated and pacified lion; behind them came Tancredi with, on his right, Concetta, who found this walk toward a church beside her cousin most upsetting and conducive to gentle weeping: a state of mind in no way alleviated by the dutiful young man's strong pressure on her arm, though its only purpose was to save her from potholes and ruts. The others followed in disorder. The organist had rushed off so as to have time to deposit Teresina at home and be back at his resonant post at the moment of entry into church. The bells were clanging away ceaselessly, and on the walls of the houses the slogans "Viva Garibaldi," "Viva King Vittorio ... .. Death to the Bourbon King," scrawled by an inexpert brush two months before, were fading away as if they wanted to merge back into the walls. Firecrackers were exploding all around as they moved up the steps, and as the little procession entered the church Don Ciccio Tumeo, who had arrived panting but in time, broke impetuously into the strains of Verdi's "Love me, Alfredo." The nave was packed with curious idlers between its squat columns of red marble; the Salina family sat in the choir, and during the short ceremony Don Fabrizio got up and made an impressive bow to the crowd; meanwhile the Princess was on the verge of swooning from heat and exhaustion; Tancredi, pretending to brush away flies, more than once grazed Concetta's blonde head. All was in order and, after a short address by Monsignor Trottolino, they all genuflected to the altar, turned toward the doors, and issued into the sun-dazed square.

At the bottom of the steps the authorities took their leave, and the Princess, acting under instructions whispered to her during the ceremony, invited the Mayor, the Archpriest, and the notary to dine that same evening. The Archpriest was a bachelor by profession and the notary one by vocation, so that for them the question of consorts did not arisei the invitation to the Mayor was rather languidly extended to his wife; she was some peasant woman, of great beauty, but considered by her own husband as quite unpresentable in public for a number of reasons i thus no one was surprised at his saying that she was indisposed; but great was the amazement when he added, "If Your Excellencies will allow I'll bring along my daughter Angelica, who's been talking for the past month of nothing but her longing to be presented to you now that she's grown up." Consent was, of course, given; and the Prince, who had seen Tumeo peering at him from behind the others' shoulders, called out to him, "You come too, of course, Don Ciccio, and bring Teresina." And he added, turning to the others, "And after dinner, at nine o'clock, we shall be happy to see all our friends." For a long time Donnafugata commented on these last words. And the Prince, who had found Donnafugata unchanged, was found very much changed himself, for never before would he have issued so cordial an invitation; and from that moment, invisibly, began the decline of his prestige.

The Salina palace was next door to the Mother Church. Its short facade with seven windows on the square gave no hint of its vast size, which extended three hundred yards back; the buildings were of different styles, but all harmoniously grouped around three great courtyards ending in a large garden. At the main entrance in the square the travellers were subjected to new demonstrations of welcome. Don Onofrio Rotolo, the family's local steward, took no part in the official greetings at the entry of the town. Educated under the rigid rule of the Princess Carolina, he considered the "vulgus" as nonexistent and the Prince as resident abroad until the moment when he crossed the threshold of his own palace. So there he stood, exactly two steps outside the gates, very small, very old, very bearded, with a much younger and plumper wife standing beside him, flanked by lackeys and eight keepers with golden Leopards on their caps and in their hands eight shotguns of uncertain damaging power. "I am happy to welcome Your Excellencies to your home. And I beg to hand back the palace in the exact state in which it was left to me." Don Onofrio Rotolo was one of the rare persons held in esteem by the Prince, and perhaps the only one who had never cheated him. His honesty was on the verge of mania, and spectacular tales were told of it, such as the glass of rosolio once left half full by the Princess at the moment of departure, and found a year later in exactly the same place with its contents evaporated and reduced to a state of sugary rubber, but untouched. "For it is an infinitesimal part of the Prince's patrimony and must not be dispersed." After a proper exchange of greetings with Don Onofrio and Donna Maria, the Princess, who was still on her feet only by sheer strength of will, went straight to bed, the girls and Tancredi hurried off to the tepid shade of the gardens, while the Prince and his steward went on a tour of the main apartments. Everything was in perfect order: the pictures were clear of dust in their heavy frames, the old gilt bindings emitted discreet gleams, the high sun made the gray marble glitter around the doorposts. Everything was in the state it had been in for the last fifty years. Away from the noisy whirlwind of civil dissent Don Fabrizio felt refreshed, full of serene confidence, and glanced almost tenderly at Don Onofrio trotting along beside him. "Don Onofrio, you're like one of those djinns standing guard over treasure, really you are; we owe you a great debt of gratitude." In another year the sentiment might have been the same but the words themselves would never have come to his lips; Don Onofrio looked at him in gratitude and surprise. "My duty, Your Excellency, it's just my duty," and to hide his emotion he scratched the back of his ear with the long nail on the little finger of his left hand.

After this the steward was put to the torture of tea. Don Fabrizio had two cups brought, and with death in his heart Don Onofrio had to swallow one. After this he began to recount the chronicles of Donnafugata: he had renewed the lease for the Aquila estate two weeks before, on rather worse termsi he had had to meet heavy expenses for the repairs of the roof in the guest wing; but in the safe, at His Excellency's disposal, was the sum of three thousand, two hundred and seventy-five ounces of gold, after paying all expenses, taxes, and his own salary.

Then came the private news, all of which turned around the great novelty of the year: the rapid rise to fortune of Don Calogero Sedara; six months ago a mortgage arranged by the latter with Baron Tumino had been foreclosed, and he had gained possession of the estate i thus by the loan of a thousand ounces of gold he now owned a property which yielded five hundred ounces a year; in April Don Calogero had also been able to buy for practically nothing a certain piece of land which contained a vein of much sought-after stone that he intended to exploit; he had also made some very profitable sales of grain in the period of confusion and famine after the landings. The voice of Don Onofrio filled with rancor. "I've totted it up roughly on my fingers: Don Calogero's income will very shortly be equal to that of Your Excellency here at Donnafugata." With riches had also grown political influence. He had become head of the liberals in the town and also in the surrounding districts; when the elections were held he was sure to be returned as Deputy to Turin. "And what airs they give themselves; not he, who's far too shrewd to do that, but his daughter, who's just got back from school in Florence and goes around town in a crinoline and with velvet ribbons hanging from her hat."