The Viceroys (47 page)

He got the Bishop to talk to the leading monks, whom he also approached through their relatives, and anyone else who could exercise any influence on them; one or two had bowed, others given vague promises and in the end, in spite of all the shouting and plotting, Giulente had been admitted, but only by very few
votes. The news caused great excitement. Jumped-up nobles of recent date rejoiced as if they had had some good luck themselves, recognising the influence of the new era, the unprejudiced action of the Liberal monks. But purists were still outraged.

Once the trial year was over, before the novice could pronounce his vows, the Chapter had to renew their scrutiny. The Abbot, though sure of the result, treated the matter with great care and entrusted himself to Don Lodovico, explaining the new reasons which should induce the monks to say ‘yes'. Was it possible after a first favourable vote to give a contrary one, if during all that time the young man had been a living example of respect, humility and religious zeal? Anyway if what was feared should really happen, if the government did suppress the monasteries, what bother would the new monk be to the old ones? It was a good thing, in fact, in these sad times to show persecutors of the Church that the monastic state answered a real social need, since, in spite of the dangers of enjoying no advantages from it, young men still asked to bear its yoke … The Abbot, assured by Don Lodovico that all would go as he wished, slept peacefully. When on the day of the voting the monks were put the question if they wanted Giulente among them, thirty in thirty-two voters replied no and only two agreed.

‘For once people here are using their heads!' exclaimed Don Blasco, almost under His Paternity's nose.

The plot had been secretly prepared for some time. At the first voting half the voters had bowed to authority, knowing well that their vote was not binding and that they would have to do it all over again, but once they had to give it seriously no one had hesitated at all. Pro-Bourbons and pro-Liberals, supporters and adversaries of the Abbot, those for economy and those for spending, all agreed in opposing the admission of a grandchild of notaries like Giulente among descendants of the conquerors of the kingdom and of Viceroys. To them it did not matter whether the end of their period of plenty was near or far, nor did setting an example in the interests of religion; it was a matter above all of upholding principle, of keeping ‘cattle in their places', as Don Blasco put it. If the young man was an orphan and poor he would be given a place to sleep and eat as would
any one of the many parasites who lived on the monastery, but to be allowed to don the noble Benedictine habit? To be called Your Paternity? To sit in their refectory?…

Throughout the whole clientele of the monastery went long whispers of approval; that was what should have been done from the beginning! It was a fine lesson for the Abbot!… The young man, from disappointment and shame, did not show his face for a month. When he reappeared, pale and red eyed, no one knew what to do with him. If the Fathers did not want him he could not be sent back among the novices at his age, particularly after that scandal, as it drew on the poor wretch jeers and insults from the young prince and his companions. So the Abbot had to assign him an out-of-the-way cell at the end of a deserted corridor; and Giulente exchanged the habit of St Benedict for the humble cassock of a priest, and spent all day studying the books which his protector sent him from the library. In the refectory, as neither the Fathers nor the novices wanted him with them, he ate at the second table in the company of lay-brothers.

Don Lodovico expressed his own regret to the Abbot for this persecution. He had been very careful to avoid doing any of the propaganda with which His Paternity had charged him, first of all because his determined neutrality forbade him, then because he did not want Giulente in the monastery either. In spite of this he had been the only one to vote ‘yes', to show his own loyalty to his Superior, while certain meanwhile of the other monks' unanimous opposition. After the result of the scrutiny, he threw the blame on the deceitfulness of the monks who, after so many promises, had at the very last moment, from ‘stupid' prejudice, gone back on their tracks.

So things went on, with the usual bickering between parties, the usual more or less stormy discussions, when one fine day the whole community was abuzz with the rumour of an event as extraordinary as any during the revolution.

Garibaldi was already in Sicily recruiting, why no one knew, or rather all knew well; to march against the Pope. As he advanced, an ill-repressed quiver went up all round, in town and country, while authorities wavered about what on earth to do, at
one moment pretending to oppose him, then letting him through.

When he appeared before Catania the garrison which was supposed to stop him had evacuated the town, and the Prefect went down to the port to board a man-of-war. And the General marched in with his volunteers between two rows of applauding and frantically shouting population, amid a delirium of enthusiasm compared to which even demonstrations of 1860 seemed lukewarm and dim. From a balcony of the Workers' Club, dominating the main street swollen as a torrent with people, he explained the aim of his new enterprise, and in his gentle voice gave out the call for the new war, ‘Rome or death!…' And where should he go and set up his own headquarters then but at San Nicola!

The shouting and confusion among the monks there also left the demonstrations of '48 and '60 far behind. Don Blasco became a fanatic. The things he said about the ‘Piedmontese' for not shooting Garibaldi, and about Garibaldi for not sweeping away the ‘Piedmontese', would have made an infidel's ears burn. This was his main hope, his sustaining faith; that the two parties would exterminate each other, the brigands from Basilicata give the last tip of the whole affair, and then come a cataclysm, a universal deluge no longer of water but of fire and iron so that the world would rise purified from its own ashes. Those fools of Liberal monks, ‘those milk-sops', were still daring to clap hands while the revolution was threatening final ruin to the last most august, most sacred representative of legitimacy; the Holy Father! They were clapping hands with the agitators, the down-and-outs in search of a hand-out, the escaped galley slaves who made up the new bands! They were waggling hips fattened at the expense of San Nicola, rubbing hands which that idle life of theirs still let them keep white and smooth as women's!

‘You bunch of cadgers, d'you think you've won a lottery? Don't you understand that the sooner heresy triumphs, the sooner they'll have you flung out in the street? What have you to be so gay about, who are worse traitors than Judas! Don't you realise you've everything to lose and nothing to gain?'

‘Well?'

‘What d'you mean—well?'

‘Well, we'll get some liberty too …' When the monk was given this reply he went pale, then all the blood mounted to his head and his eyes seemed about to start from their sockets.

‘Oh so that's what you lack, is it?' he hissed. ‘It's liberty you lack, is it?… So you're locked into a prison, you poor wretches, are you?… What's the liberty you lack then, to booze like wineskins? To guzzle yourselves to death? To keep your sluts? Why, don't you know what people call you …?' And he spat out in their faces the nickname by which they were known all over the town, ‘Hogs of Christ!'

Amid this flurry of discussions threatening to end in blows the poor Abbot was like a chick lost in stubble, not knowing what to do, not wanting to lend a hand or in any way to speed the collapse of good principles, but unable to oppose the Garibaldini's coming. Nevertheless he clung to the Prior, put himself in his hands, never left him for a second. Don Lodovico, complaining of the sad times, imploring the Lord to ease those hard trials, took over control of the monastery and prepared for Garibaldi's reception. He ordered the royal apartments to be aired, straw and forage to be got in, cellars and larders emptied. When the General arrived, he went to meet him at the very bottom of the stairs, accompanied his staff to their rooms, and presided over the Redshirts' dinner, apologising for the absence of the Abbot kept to his bed by a slight indisposition.

Don Blasco, yellow as a lemon, no longer able to shout at the Garibaldini's coming, had shut himself into the Novitiate again. Almost all the boys had gone, taken away by their respective families getting to safety for fear of disturbances. Only the young prince, Giovannino Radalì and two or three others remained, while the Uzeda had all escaped to the Belvedere, except for Ferdinando, shut up as always at Pietra dell'Ovo, and Lucrezia with Benedetto, who during those agitated days took his place among the few authorities and rare notabilities that remained. He would have volunteered to go through the new campaign with old comrades-in-arms had he not felt it his duty to remain with his wife. The day after Garibaldi's arrival he went to the monastery to pay his respects to the General, who recognised
him at once, shook hands and talked to him for a time in spite of the coming and going of deputations, representatives of all kinds hurrying to greet the former Dictator. Uncertainty and disquiet, hopes and fears about what would happen next were universal. What plans had Garibaldi? What were the orders of representatives of authority? Would the struggle, if there was to be one, break out in Catania? What would the National Guard do?…

No one knew a thing. Some said that the Government was secretly in league with Garibaldi and only pretending to obstruct him so as to throw dust in the eyes of the great powers. Benedetto, who had begun republishing his newspaper
Italia risorta
, upheld this view, and the silence of the Duke of Oragua, to whom he had written letter after letter begging him to return to Sicily, as his presence might become necessary, tended to confirm it. However, he assured the Dictator of the unanimous support of the entire town. After taking leave he was just about to go out into the town again when he heard his name called.

‘Excellency! Excellency …'

It was Fra' Carmelo behind him, who when he got up to him whispered in his ear with an air of mystery, ‘Your Uncle Don Blasco wants to talk to you.'

Skulking in the farthest room of the farthest corridors in the Novitiate, Don Blasco insisted on hearing his nephew's voice twice before opening. Then he locked the door in the lay-brother's face.

‘Now have you gone off your head too, you swine?' said he to Benedetto.

The latter had scarcely muttered a timid submissive ‘why?' when the monk started again with renewed violence.

‘How d'you mean, “why”? You have the face to ask that? With civil war about to break out? The town shelled? The streets running with blood? Decent folk persecuted … And you ask me “why” …?'

‘It's not any fault of …'

‘It's not any fault of yours? Whose then? Mine? Oh, of course! I was the one to start things off, wasn't I? I know that game! Put the blame on decent people who're guilty of sticking to their principles. I'm surprised they haven't come to arrest
me! Let 'em, let 'em!…' And his eyes glittered like a lion's.

‘Calm yourself, Your Excellency …' stuttered Giulente.

‘So I must calm myself too, must I? While my country is threatened with final ruin? When I see a creature like you clapping hands with the others, instead of working to avoid this inferno …'

‘In what way though?'

‘In what way though? By making 'em leave! Let 'em cut each other's throats, in the country, out at sea, wherever they like and not inside a city like ours, where the damage could be incalculable, involving women, old people, children, decent … They can go and do it where they like; the world's a big place!… That's the way!…'

Giulente stood perplexed, not daring to contradict his uncle, but not wanting either to contradict himself within half an hour.

‘But what can be done? The whole town's for the General.'

‘The whole town? First of all you're a fool! Who in the town? Madmen like you? And all the more reason! If the town is for him, if he's entered it to triumph, what's to be done about it? If it was a strong-point I'd understand; but a city open to the four winds? If he must start a battle, let him do it elsewhere! Let him take with him whoever and whatever he likes and good journey to him!'

The monk was gradually becoming calmer and said the last words almost in the tone of any other human being. But as soon as Benedetto observed:

‘And who's to persuade him of that?'

‘Oh, by the blood of Mahomet!' shouted the monk as loudly as before, with a gesture of fury. ‘Am I talking to an animal or a reasonable being? Who's to persuade him? You people around him! Isn't there a National Guard? Isn't there any kind of authority? You, what the devil are you? A captain, a good citizen, and all that, aren't you? It's up to people like you to speak up frankly and clearly, after those Piedmontese rabbits of yours have beaten a retreat, leaving us in the soup! Or d'you think maybe I ought to get involved with those assassins, brigands, galley slaves, pimps …'

But at the sound of a step in the corridor, Don Blasco went silent as if by magic. He gulped as if his throat was itching,
took a step or two through the room, paused a moment to listen; and then when the noise stopped he declared:

‘If you can get that in your head, all the better; if not get this, that as far as I'm concerned I don't care a fig for you or Garibaldi or Victor Emmanuel or any of you.'

Giulente went home thoughtful and worried. As soon as he entered his wife's room he saw Lucrezia sitting in a corner, staring at the floor with red eyes.

‘What's wrong with you?… What's happened?…'

‘Nothing. Nothing's wrong with me.'

‘But you've been crying, Lucrezia! Tell me, now! Tell me what's wrong?'

She denied it, without looking him in the face, her mouth obstinately shut, and had Vanna not come in Benedetto would have been unable to know anything.