The Viceroys (75 page)

‘I've nothing to pay back: your only right is to the copies!'

‘Well, I want those!'

‘After my renouncing those rights?'

‘Many thanks for the renunciation! The Will's been judged false, d'you understand? Go off and draw your share now, go on…!'

The money scraped together from
The Sicilian Herald
had not helped the cavaliere much. First of all the people he sent around to collect the money for the instalments kept a good half for one reason or another, and certain of them even made off with the whole price. When he tried collecting on his own all his earnings went on travelling expenses. The paper-makers, the engraver and printer had been paid only in part. They had therefore arranged to have all copies of the book sequestrated and freed only on payment, so that if Don Eugenio sold a copy he had to pay for it at cost price and make only a lira or two's profit. The sums paid by ‘cadet branches' of ‘noble families' had gone in a day or two of good living, and now he was again flung into indigence. To raise himself he tried another coup:
The New Herald or a Supplement to the Historico-Noble Work.

Having less shame and more hunger now than before he intended putting in it not only forgotten families, but also new nobles, those who were not to be found in Mugnòs or Villabianca,
people who got themselves called ‘Cavaliere' without having any real title, who made a great show of more or less imaginary coats-of-arms. But for this he needed more money … Seeing that he could expect nothing from the prince he went to Consalvo, who might give him help in his quality as Assessor. But the young prince had now taken another step forward in his political ideas.

On the 16th March of that year, 1876, after sixteen years the party of the Right had finally collapsed, to the amazement of the local moderates and the utter delight of the progressives. In the crash, the enemies of the duke prophesied that the great patriot, following his usual tactics, would turn against his own friends in favour of the new winners; but the prophecy did not come true. The duke, who had not been going to the capital for some time, was not aware of the reasons and importance of this Parliamentary revolution, refused to believe in its success and duration, and so stuck to his own ideas more than ever. This was his salvation, for the triumphant progressives had no voice in affairs as yet, while almost the whole of the governing class of the country were against the vaunted novelty.

On the dissolution of the Chamber, a lawyer called Molara dared to put up against the duke, with a near-revolutionary programme which mentioned the ‘fifteen years of misgovernment', of rights ‘trampled underfoot', of ‘imminent' vindication, not to speak of
‘redde rationem'
. The duke's supporters all drew close around him, feeling themselves threatened with him. In reply to Molara's ‘challenge' Oragua produced, after five legislatures, a ‘Letter to my electors'. This was written by Benedetto Giulente, who was still waiting for a chance to make a programme of his own. It enumerated the reasons why the right wing could expect the gratitude of the Italian nation, whose unification was all due to that party; if errors had been committed those had origins in circumstances and not intentions. Don Gaspare was thus re-elected with over two hundred votes; Molara could scarcely scrape together a hundred. One of the Reparation Ministers passing through Catania was greeted with whistles.

But while the duke was quite giddy with his new triumph, Consalvo had sniffed the wind and realised the change taking
place in the whole of Italy, and the imminence of Liberal reforms. So without participating in the electoral campaign he declared the Right to be dead and buried. Keeping people at a distance so as to avoid contagion, he began to declare himself ‘democratic'. And here was his uncle, Don Eugenio, choosing this very moment to come and suggest this business of a ‘
New Herald!
…' He let the scarecrow wait a good while in his anterooms; then, after listening to the request, shrugged his shoulders.

‘Heralds and Trumpeters indeed! What's the point of them? Such things have had their day! The Commune can't spend public money on supporting publications based on class-divisions! There's only one class, that of free citizens!'

This reply, heard by his clerks, repeated throughout the offices, brought him applause from good democrats. The cavaliere went straight off to report it to the prince, to gain a mark by showing his son up in a bad light. But neither informing nor persistent begging brought in a cent; Giacomo even asked for the money back that he had advanced before, and accused him in addition of stupidity for letting his creditors impose sequestration on him.

The cavaliere made another attempt with his sister Ferdinanda. When he appeared at her house the door was shut in his face. Even so, he sent a message to the old spinster asking for a small loan, which would be nothing for her and would assure him of a meal. The old women replied that even if she saw him dying of hunger she would never give a cent towards printing that ‘filth'.

This road being closed too, Don Eugenio fell back on his niece Chiara. He found the marchese alone; his wife, who had given him no respite for some time, had one day ordered horses harnessed secretly and driven off with the little bastard to the Belvedere, from which she never returned. The cavaliere tried to explain his plight to his nephew, but the latter could talk of nothing but his own troubles and all that mad-woman had made him suffer. So that the unfortunate ex-Gentleman of the Bedchamber left empty-handed once again.

Not knowing where to turn next, he went to Giovannino Radalì. With the keen nose of a starving hound he had noticed
the tenderness between the two cousins, particularly from Baldassarre's remarks. The major-domo was more pleased and satisfied than ever with the turn things were taking. The growing intimacy between the two families was an indication that the prince approved of the match ‘since His Excellency never did a thing without a double aim'—and the mutual love of the two young people assured their union. If it was not actually talked of openly yet, that must certainly be due to the prince's disappointment about that Will; as the master always dealt with one matter at a time he naturally had to wait for the case to end before deciding to get his daughter married. Breaking the reserve which he scrupulously maintained on all matters concerning his employers, Baldassarre then assured his intimates that once the quarrel was settled the match would quite certainly be arranged.

So the cavaliere began winking at Giovannino and praising him in the presence of Teresa, who would flush all the colours of the rainbow. ‘As if one didn't know he'll be your husband …' he would murmur in his niece's ear; and in the young man's, ‘As if one didn't know she'll be your wife …' He encouraged them both, gave them news of each other, carried greetings and messages to and fro, until eventually he asked Giovannino for a small loan of a thousand lire. The young man gave it at once, and Don Eugenio made off.

‘M
AYOR
at twenty-six?… Whoever heard of such a thing!… He'll need a tutor at the same time! We'll be ruled by wet-nurses!…' But sarcasm had no effect, so enthusiastic were Consalvo Uzeda's supporters. In the year since the young prince had become an Assessor, had there not been more continual improvements to the city than his predecessors had carried through in eighteen years? The town-criers, who before went round in greasy slovenly rags, dragging rusty sabres like old spits, now, at his suggestion, were in splendid new uniforms, all facings, frogging and pom-poms so that they looked like admirals to a man. And the fire brigade, with gleaming helmets and red plumes like Roman soldiers of the Holy Sepulchre, wasn't that all his work too?… ‘Make way for the young! Make way for the young and learned like the Prince of Mirabella!'

Now he studied no longer, judging his preparation as sufficient, and realising too that in a chief branch of knowledge, that of throwing dust in people's eyes, he was already a past-master. He knew that his family's great popularity depended on its outer splendour, on showy liveries, gleaming carriages, majestic porters, and although people said that times had changed, he knew that all these things, visible signs of richness and power, had never, could never lose their value with changing times. So the improvements made by what he, although only an Assessor, already called ‘my administration' had been chiefly connected with things that showed and could be appreciated at once by the crowd. Thus he had taken the greatest trouble about training and dressing the municipal services, watchmen, crossing-sweepers, dog-catchers, of which he was head and which he
would review like a general. When he left the paternal roof one of his minor sufferings, endured in patience like all the others, had been no longer to have clusters of valets, scullions, coachmen and attendants who bowed as he passed; now he had a little army at his command.

Direct contact with things or people was still a torture for him. He would receive them with his hands deep in his pockets so as not to have to shake those of others, or shake them wearing gloves which he would then throw away. He signed papers with a pen in two fingers while a clerk held the sheets so that they did not slide away beneath, and on leaving the Town Hall had his chair locked away in a cupboard lest anyone should sit in it. One day when the key could not be found he stood up for six hours. Some scruffy clerks, with long hair and black nails, were a horror to him. He would snort and exclaim, ‘Don't push on top of people' as they talked to him of business or reported on their duties, and instead of answering their questions would suddenly burst out with ‘Do get that quiff cut off!' or ‘Clean your nails a bit!'

‘As if we could all spend our days in front of the mirror as he does!' those rebuked would mutter, calling him aristocratic, proud and a fraud, for to hear him anyone would think all men were brothers on the same bench … But such complaints were lost amid the chorus of praise from the other employees for whom he had created jobs or put up salaries, arranged bonuses or granted holidays or condoned shortcomings; all those stood before him humbly and called him ‘Your Excellency' like servants. Thus the party wanting to raise him to the highest office was strong in the town and very strong in the Town Hall. Even so he wavered, adducing his immature age and inexperience. And to Giulente, who was playing into his hands with even greater trust, he confided that he was afraid of coming a cropper and ruining his future. ‘You won't fall,' Benedetto assured him protectively, ‘we'll all sustain you, the whole of your uncle the duke's party.' But he did not yield even when the Prefect asked him, and thanking ‘from the depths of his heart' the deputations come to invite him, he declared that the weight was too heavy for his shoulders. He continued to hold off, knowing that there was a current running against him of inevitable complainers,
envious malcontents, all those who wanted to break with these ever-present nobles, these eternal Uzeda. When the municipal employees repeated, as they did every day:

‘Your Excellency should be Mayor; the city wishes it …'

‘How do I know?' he replied once. ‘The city has said nothing tome!'

Then a demonstration was formed, with music and flags, to go and acclaim him as head of the town. He allowed a half-promise to be torn from him: ‘If the Prefect proposes my nomination …' The demonstrators went and shouted ‘Long live Mayor Mirabella!' under the balconies of the Prefecture. Then when the decree of nomination was ready, he posed another condition: that every faction of the Council from Bourbonist pro-clericals to Republicans should be represented on the Electoral Committee. They let him dictate the list of Assessors himself. At the top he put Benedetto Giulente. The latter protested in vain, but Consalvo said to him:

‘If you don't accept, it's no go. I'll be Mayor in name but in fact we'll do everything together. I realise that I'm asking a sacrifice of you, but you have made many others!…'

Lucrezia's reaction to this can be imagined. She was beside herself.

‘Mayor to Assessor! He's making a prawn's progress! One of these days he'll be nominated usher! The job for which he was born! And he lets himself be taken in by that little Jesuit! To serve as his footstool! To act as his servant! There's nothing else he's good for.'

She went and unbosomed herself to her aunt Ferdinanda. Both of them were on tenterhooks just then, as they were awaiting a decision any moment from the Court of Appeal about Don Blasco's Will. The day this was announced in the prince's favour, annulling the first expert opinion and establishing a new one, the aunt and niece, green with bile, screamed and ranted so much that poor Giulente, worn out by all the shouting and railing, escaped from home in despair. The prince, who had recently been in bad health again, recovered suddenly as if by a miracle, and showed his pleasure by speaking to people almost urbanely, even asking news of ‘God save us!'.