The Viceroys (46 page)

A
T SAN NICOLA
, after the new Italian government settled down, life went on just as under the Neapolitans; and that was one of the main arguments of the Liberal against the Bourbon group during the constant political discussions in the shade of the cloisters.

‘Why, to listen to you one'd think the end of the world was due and the monastery about to be blown up, instead of which it's all going strong.'

‘Going strong my foot!' boomed Don Blasco. ‘You just wait and see.'

For the moment the monks went on playing ostrich. Meanwhile the little prince's character became worse and worse as he grew. From hectoring the lay-brothers he was now terrorising the men-servants, from whom he demanded the most forbidden things; curved knives to scoop out bamboo canes which he wound with wire and made into barrels for muskets and pistols; gunpowder to load these weapons which could easily have blown up in his hands and blinded him in both eyes; rockets and squibs to take gunpowder from, or sulphur, saltpetre and carbon to make it himself. He had an instinctive and dominating urge for the chase; in the garden during recreation, as he could do nothing else he would throw stones at birds, chancing cracking a companion's head, or clamber up the walls to destroy sparrows' nests, risking his own neck. And when the servants displeased him, did not get him nets, bird-lime, powder, he would curse them, denounce them to the Novice Master for faults that were completely invented, or put them to even harder trials by flinging about everything in his room after they had just tidied it.

Nor had the mania for smoking left him either. Attributing his nicotine-poisoning at the time of the revolution to the bad preparation of tobacco, he now tried real cigars and got more poisoned than before. On the master's discovering this too it was decided to give him a heavy punishment and forbid him to go out for a week; then the week was reduced to three days, thanks to the nearness of Christmas.

Every year when this came round one of the novices had to give a sermon, receiving in reward an
onza
, almost thirteen lire in the new money, together with a box of chocolates and two live cockerels. The Christmas sermon that year of 1861 fell to Consalvo Uzeda. It had been written for him by the Father Librarian, a literary man, so that instead of the few pages of other years this filled a whole exercise book. Consalvo, having an iron memory and a brazen face, awaited the ceremony with a calm and confidence unknown to his companions, who paid for their presents with fifteen days af anxiety and one of panic. On the day of the function the Chapter-house, in which the monks had already settled into their stalls, was invaded by the usual crowd of male relatives; the women, because of the enclosure, remained next door in the sacristy, the doors of which were left wide open. Everybody was exclaiming in whispers:

‘What a fine lad! How frank and self-assured!'

Then the young prince, in a pleated white cotta climbed to the pulpit, gazed calmly down at the crowd of spectators and glanced at the sacristy, turning his little roll of manuscript in his hands and coughing a little before beginning. Under the Abbot's stall, standing with the prince, the Duke of Oragua and Benedetto Giulente, Don Eugenio was saying:

‘What mastery! He might have been preaching for years!' But the amazement was almost boundless when the boy opened the exercise book, gave it a glance, lowered it and recited from memory:

‘Reverend Fathers and beloved Brothers, it was a night of deepest winter when in a stall at Nazareth …' and went on to the end without even a glance at the exercise book, gesticulating, pausing for effect, changing tone like a trained orator or an old actor on the stage. When he finished and went down again,
he was nearly suffocated by all the embraces and kisses. The princess had tears in her eyes, even Donna Ferdinanda was moved, but although mute, the Deputy—whose throat tightened and sight dimmed at the mere thought of a crowd—was not the least admiring.

‘What presence of mind! What frankness!…' And all the ladies drew him to them, hugged him, kissed him on the face. He let them, returning kisses on cheeks that were fresh and scented, wrinkling his nose at those that were flaccid and wrinkled. Apart from the monastery gifts he also put in his pockets the lire given him by his uncles and aunts. Most content at all was Fra' Carmelo; he felt himself to be author of that triumph, to have a right to part of the applause, the congratulations, the ladies' kisses. Had he not kept a guiding eye on that boy for the five years of novitiate? Had he not praised his intelligence, prophesied his success? The boy's masters complained at his not loving study; well, was he going to be a lawyer, doctor or theologian? He was with the Benedictines to receive an education suitable to his birth; then he would go home and be Prince of Francalanza!

That was the day Consalvo was longing for. From impatience at its not coming fast enough he let himself go more and more, so as to get himself sent away, putting not only lay-brothers and servants, but even his own master with their backs to the wall.

During the revolution and immediately afterwards the parents nicknamed ‘Scabby' had taken their son Michelino from the monastery, the Cùrcuma their Gasparino and the Cugnò their Luigi; and no new novices had entered except for Camillo Giulente, as there was a rumour of the Government suppressing the monasteries. The only ones to stay were those whom their families destined for the habit, among them Giovannino Radalì, the ‘madman's son'. On his father's death the duchess, from love of her eldest son, had destined her second to be a monk. Consalvo, who was not taking vows, wanted to leave as soon as possible, at once. Instead of which every time he asked his father, ‘When can I come home?' the latter answered in his usual cold dry way admitting no reply, ‘I must think it over!' He never did think it over.

The boy felt an aversion growing for this severe father from
whom he had never heard a kind word. When he went home on holidays he would spend a moment with his mother, then go down to the courtyard and visit the horses and carriages, ask the names of all the harness in the stables. The monk's habit bothered him as it prevented his getting up on to the box and learning to drive. He would have plenty of time for fun later, Orazio, the new coachman, would say to him. (Pasqualino had gone off to Florence in his uncle Raimondo's service.) But Consalvo wanted to have fun at once, to get away from the monks' tutelage, do what he liked. And at the idea of having to return to that monastic prison, he even envied the servants, and Donna Vanna's son, Salvatore, who had entered service with the Uzeda as an ostler and now spent his whole blessed day on the box driving about town. Consalvo envied and admired him for his great and varied knowledge, for the curses he so freely used. And Fra' Carmelo, when the time came to take him back to the monastery, had to talk himself hoarse before tearing him away from stalls and stables.

‘What have you been doing?' his mother and aunt would ask him.

‘Nothing,' he would reply, slightly red in the face.

He had been listening to Salvatore telling him about the habits of some of the Benedictine fathers.

‘At night they go out to visit their mistresses, and sometimes even they take them back with them into the monastery wrapped in cloaks. The porter pretends to take them for men! Surely Your Excellency who lives in there has seen them?'

He had never seen a thing himself, and these revelations all at one time astounded and disturbed him.

‘But isn't it a sin?'

‘Eee!…' exclaimed the retainer. ‘If they'd been the first to do it! But they've always done it, the monks have! Aren't the lay-brothers nearly all sons of the old monks?'

‘Fra' Carmelo too?'

‘Fra' Carmelo? Fra' Carmelo is another matter … He's the bastard of Your Excellency's grandfather, and Don Blasco's spurious brother …'

‘So he's my uncle?'

‘And Baldassarre is also … the prince's bastard brother.
Yes, they have their fun, do the Uzeda. And so will Your Excellency when you've grown up.'

Oh, how he longed to grow up! With what impatience and resentment against his father did he see the days, weeks, months, years pass in that prison! In what a state of mind did he now hear severe sermons by the monks, after knowing about their lives! Often he would discuss these secret matters with Giovannino, tell him what he would do as soon as he was outside the monastery, and Giovannino listened to him in utter amazement, as if he did not understand. This boy was like that, frenzied at times as a devil, at others inert as a loony. He too wanted to leave the monastery, and would go off on some days into terrible rages; then he would persuade himself that his mother the duchess was right, that all the family money belonged to his brother Michele, that he would live like a lord among other lords at San Nicola. Then he would be silent, no longer dream of escape, no longer envy Consalvo's future liberty.

When the political agitation stopped it also lessened a great cause of quarrels in the Novitiate and among the monks; but another reason for quarrelling soon appeared. The rumours about the suppression of religious houses in the near future were confirmed from Rome; it could not be long before the usurpers' government laid hands on Church property. Don Blasco had his say against the Liberals, turncoats, enemies of God and of themselves, who refused to listen to him. Now, however, it was not a question of shouting but of making some arrangements in view of that event. At San Nicola all the monastery's income had been spent without a thought for the morrow in the certainty that their plenitude would last till the end of time, but with the world so upside-down and the danger of the Government really abolishing religious orders, would it not be wise to take some thought, to draw in on expenses, so that the unprovided should not be left high and dry?

The Abbot, as always, had first taken counsel with the Prior. Don Lodovico had been too modest to make any pronouncement. ‘What can I say to Your Paternity? The future is in God's hands. Anything might happen in these wicked times. The enemies of the Church are quite capable of this and more. I wouldn't be surprised if they restarted the persecutions of that
hellish year 1789!' He was sincere in his bitterness towards the new order of things, which at first he had supported from self-interest to keep in with the new temporal powers. But the suppression of the monasteries destroyed all his dreams of revenge, of domination, of honours. What did he care now about the San Nicola budget, when the whole of his future, fruit of fifteen years of policy, was in danger, and he would now have to think of some new line on which to strike out, another aim towards which to direct his own activity? And this poor wretch of an Abbot was insisting on having his opinion about a few petty daily expenses!

‘Tell me how I'd best act! What would you do in my position?…' For a moment Don Lodovico felt tempted to wash his hands of him but, bowing his head with greater humility than before, he replied:

‘Your Paternity is too good! Economies always seem to me praiseworthy. If the Lord does not allow his servants to be put to the proof, we will have more for good works …'

So the Abbot pronounced for economies by agreement with the Chapter. But the monks were all not of one mind. Among those who did not think suppression possible, among others who feared having to renounce luxuries which they had always enjoyed, the party for economies found a good deal of opposition. Between these two camps Don Blasco would not take either side, lashing out sometimes against one and sometimes against the other. He could not very well be against economies in the hope that the government would never come to pillaging as he had been prophesying this pillaging and throwing it in the face of Liberal ‘traitors'; and anyway economies which could eventually be divided among the monks in the case of dissolution were to his liking, as long as he got his own share when he left the monastery. But he did not want to renounce the comfort to which he was used; then the very fact that this party was led by the Abbot and his nephew the Prior and those of the Chapter made him take the opposite side and call them all ‘filthy ragamuffins', and shout, ‘Let 'em go out and keep inns and shops! Let 'em start selling oil, wine and
caciocavallo
cheese! That's the only thing they're good for! Those are the jobs they were born for!…' When on the other hand he heard the ‘patriot party' lull themselves
with the certainty that the government in any case would look after them whatever happened, he would come out with:

‘The government'll kick you all out and put out its arse for you to kiss! Judas sold Christ but he did at least get thirty pieces of silver! You others will just get kicks in the backside.'

In his heart, though, at the idea of dividing the money and finally possessing something of his own, he was in favour of economies though struggling against them. Anyway the running expenses at San Nicola were huge, not so much from the value of things bought, as for the royal way of spending money and rewarding the smallest job of work, of letting almost anyone enjoy the rich goods heaped up in the monastery larders. With a little more order, by letting the cooks steal a little less and the lay-brothers in charge of the estates enrich themselves a little more slowly than usual, enough could be saved annually for quite a number of families to live in ease. But houses given to those protected by the monks must not be touched; Don Blasco was just waiting to see them try to lay hands on the Cigar-woman's shop and apartment!

Neither he nor others had any intention of renouncing their rights; with free board and lodging each choir-monk had three
rotoli
of oil a month, a
soma
of coal, a
salma
of wine, all of which they handed over to their mistresses. Saving money was all very well, of course, but each expected his share.

The Abbot, willy-nilly, had to let them be. Anyway he shut an eye now as they had to be propitiated. Camillo Giulente, now twenty, had expressed a firm wish to pronounce vows and pass into the formal novitiate. A vote was needed for this and opposition against the intruder broke out more violently than ever, with shouts and loud threats to prevent the sanctioning of this outrage. But the Abbot insisted personally with all the monks and recommended the boy, stressing all his excellent qualities, how well he had done at his studies, his sad situation as a poor orphan.