The Viceroys (60 page)

‘My family betrayed me. That man wasn't the right husband for me. They forced him on me. I've been sacrificed!…'

She also ran Giulente down in another way, ridiculing his patriotism, attributing it to ambition or saying it did not really exist.

‘The fool has played the Liberal in order to become somebody. But he's become nothing and done less than nothing. Wounded on the Volturno indeed! Look at his leg, it's healthier than mine!'

Often she said even worse things quite shamelessly, partly because she could not realise their unseemliness, partly because she thought she could say whatever occurred to her. She never rose before midday, and remained without dressing for two hours or more, with a skirt thrown over her night-gown, neck and arms bare, and feet in slippers. She would show herself in this state to valet and cook, and even receive visitors. If Benedetto was present and exclaimed, wringing his hands, ‘But, Lucrezia! Please …' she looked at him in amazement, with staring eyes. ‘What's the matter? They're intimates, aren't they? Should I put on a ball gown for them? One of those you had me sent from Paris?…' If he then told her to order clothes and spend whatever she liked, she shrugged her shoulders. ‘Me? What for? To celebrate what? I don't go anywhere nowadays, or see anyone of my own class! Save your money, do!'

At times he would get desperate and lose patience; then she threatened to leave.

‘Ah, so you're taking that tone, are you? Be careful or I'll leave you flat … Don't you give me ideas about going or wild
horses won't hold me back … you know what we Uzeda are like when we get something in our heads! Raimondo turned things upside-down to leave one wife and get another! Giacomo swore to marry Graziella, so killed off that other poor wretch before her time …'

‘Quiet now. What are you saying!'

Yet he put up with her frenzies, whims, contradictions, reproofs, ironic jeers. But his wife's fierce enmity did him no less harm than the duke's protection. The latter had not yet left for the capital and was now spending all his time on his own affairs, seeing to his estates, improving the properties that he had bought from mortmain, speculating on contracts, using his credit with public offices to recoup what he had spent during the revolution. And with the air of advising Giulente, he persuaded him to do whatever he wanted. Officially his nephew was Mayor; in fact he himself was. Not a chair was moved in the Town Hall without his approval, but it was especially in the nomination of employees, the concession of public works, the distribution of honorary, but indirectly or morally profitable jobs, that he made his will prevail. He protected faithful followers however inept, advanced men from whom he hoped for something in exchange, and gave no quarter to those of opposing parties, whatever their qualifications or whoever recommended them. All this with a convincing show of utter disinterest, urging his nephew to do what he himself wanted as if it had nothing to do with him at all.

Thus by dint of open injustices and flagrant violations of the law, the Town Hall became an electoral agency, a factory for clients. Benedetto, from respect and timidity, above all from hope of gathering his uncle's political inheritance, did not dare contradict him. When he hesitated a moment about some more than ordinarily grave wrong the duke conquered his scruples by adducing needs of political strife, or promising to make it up later, or simply by hinting that after all he had put Giulente in the job, so the latter should do what his uncle wanted. In exchange he guaranteed him support by Government and Prefecture, sustained him in the Council, even praised him in the family and contradicted Lucrezia, who abused him in front of all. To please her uncle she replied that the little good her husband
ever did was when he followed his advice. But when alone with Benedetto, she flung at him his blind obedience to the duke.

‘Swine! Idiot! Fool! Don't you see he's squeezing you like a lemon? He wants you to take the chestnuts out of the fire without getting burnt himself!… At least if you got a share …'

And she advised him to participate in the Deputy's dubious affairs, sell his own authority, get himself paid for actions which it was his duty to do. She would say this with no scruples, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, something the Viceroys had done at the time of their power.

So, partly for his wife's sake and partly for the uncle's, Giulente committed all sorts of injustices, though refusing to be paid for them, risking his fine reputation as a disinterested Liberal and ‘wounded hero of the Volturno'. But ambition blinded him. He wanted to play a part in politics, and the goal for which he endured the Town Hall was Parliament. When the duke retired sooner or later he wanted to take his place. While other relatives all had eyes on the money being made by the Deputy, he aspired to the political inheritance; a seat in the Chamber of Deputies would be confirmation, recognition of his patriotism, of his capacities.

Even so his wife's contempt grew. She did not understand that public office could be exercised for the pleasure of exercising it, without speculation and with a loss of time, a putting aside of all other occupations for it and a disregard of private affairs. For he never went to the country and let agents and factors do what they liked! As if he was in a position to allow himself such a luxury! As if he were the young Prince of Mirabella!

Consalvo could do and did do whatever he liked. He never bothered about domestic matters—for his father thought of those—and only came home to sleep, when he did sleep there. He gave up the room he had occupied on returning from the monastery, and arranged a small apartment on the first floor, overlooking the inner courtyard, in the process breaking down walls, blocking up windows, opening new stairs, disorganising the plan of the palace a bit more. The prince let him be. Not content with being entirely segregated from the rest of the family with servants exclusively for his own use, he was now eating alone,
declaring that his father's hours did not suit him. The prince accepted this too, to the great amazement of those who knew his overbearing character and need of absolute command.

The young man led a fine life: horses, carriages, hunting, fencing, gambling, and the rest. The Nobles' Club having ended after a fire in '62, he, together with a dozen or so companions, founded another club, a smarter, richer resurrection of the old. Though only authentic nobles were admitted, Consalvo had got in two or three young men who were not of the same class but useful to him as pimps. His protection and friendship he granted only to those who were of use to him and who admired and courted him. As at the Novitiate, now too he derided those less noble and rich than himself; one of his complaints against his father was that the latter's grasping avarice led him to hold out a hand to the newly enriched.

The outward luxury of the Uzeda, which seemed unique before 1860, was now beginning to be equalled if not surpassed by new people. While the palace furniture of fifty years before was falling to pieces and liveries of the previous century being eaten by moths, there were now families spending fortunes to set up houses and carriages in the modern taste. But shabby furniture and liveries were a kind of additional title of nobility in the prince's eyes; all might now have porters at their gates while twenty years before the only one in town was at the Uzeda palace, but who else had a pike-rack in their hall?

Consalvo, anyway, did his best to destroy the effects of parental meanness. When, from high on a brake or stage-coach in elegant clothes sent specially from Florence, he drove a team of four horses like an expert coachman, stopping to pick up friends whom he met on his way, overtaking all other carriages, whipping coachmen who dared cross his path as his ancestors had, people would stop to admire and repeat his name and title with pride, as if some of his lustre was reflected on those who could greet him or at least knew him by name in the very town where he was born. If he bought or sold a pair of horses, if he dismissed or re-engaged a servant, if he won or lost at the tables, news of these events was the small-change of every conversation. His dislike of his stepmother was generally praised and
explained by his respect for his mother's memory. All were either self-interested or enthusiastic about finding him a wife, and every now and again the rumour of a possible marriage would go round everywhere until, repeated before him, it made him burst into roars of laughter. For the moment he wanted fun; there would be plenty of time to shackle himself later. And his assiduous visits to this or that lady, the showy presents which he made to singers and actresses explained that reply. For Pasqualino Riso the high old days of Count Raimondo were back. His young master made him earn his keep.

His energy had another outlet, less elegant but just as widely known. He and some of his wildest friends had formed a group which was the terror of half the town by night. Armed with swordsticks, revolvers or sometimes just daggers, they meandered round with street-women, singing at the tops of their voices, putting out gaslamps, starting quarrels with passers-by, forcing taverns and brothels to open by yelling and flinging stones at the windows, playing
tocco
and
briscola
with pimps, ordering suppers ending with every plate broken; innkeepers let them be, since they were usually ready to pay for any damage they did.

Sometimes, however, from a whim or the pleasure of bullying and of exercising the Viceroys' hereditary power, the young prince refused to pay up or paid in blows. While squandering sums on women he was also capable of taking for fun off one or two poor wretches the few coins they had in their pockets, compensating them later but meanwhile leaving them sobbing or blurting out strings of oaths which made him double up with laughter.

Often he and his band went down to the port and caused uproar in taverns where English sailors got drunk like savages. He would jump on to a table, holding the floor boldly, preach on the rule of St Benedict, repeat his uncle's and Giulente's political opinions. Without knowing a word of English he held long, serious discussions with the sailors, making up for his own use and consumption a language no one understood. Such evenings often ended with a boxing-match, bruised ribs and broken crockery … What would Fra' Carmelo have said? The lay-brother still appeared now and again at the palace, looking
thinner and wilder every time, to sing his usual chant of, ‘They've thrown me out … they've thrown me out …' Nothing else could be got from him.

When Consalvo happened to go near San Nicola on his nightly excursions, he was always meeting the Brother, wandering round the local streets like a soul in torment, or standing still and staring at the dark mass of the monastery walls. The young prince would alter his voice and call out mockingly, amid the others' laughter, ‘Father Prior!… Father Abbot!… Where are the pigs of the Lord?'

He was life and soul of the group, their acknowledged and obeyed leader. Often Giovannino Radalì would go with him, but though he was now free, rich and a baron, his moods were uncertain; sometimes he did wild things, at others reining in his companions; usually he took part in these excursions with a deep frown and a false laugh. Now and again he vanished, went off to Augusta, to the estate left him by his uncle, where no-one could get at him until, in a sudden change of mood, he decided to return. Then Consalvo would drag him off on his revels.

One night the band came to blows with a group of townees, barbers and shop assistants, about some women. Staves fell, knives flashed, but luckily the police arrived and all took to their heels. Those beaten up, tricked husbands, victims of bullying, dared make no complaint; anyone threatening to go to the police was dissuaded as the culprits were nobles: the Baron Radalì, the young Prince of Mirabella, the young Marchese Cugnò! And the police, if anyone did have recourse to them, arranged matters; a few bank-notes and all was smoothed over. But such was the prestige of those names that few dared complain. Most considered themselves honoured to deal with such nobles, admired them and talked of them with deepest respect.

In carnival time, the favourite disguise for urchins and carters was that of ‘baron'. They would go round dressed in ragged trousers, mended shirts, an old swallow-tail coat, a huge paper collar and a paper top-hat high as a chimney-stack, calling each other, amid laughter from passers-by, by the names of real ‘barons'. ‘Bye-bye, Francalanza!… How're things, Radalì?… Just off to the theatre, Marchese!…'

What could workers have done, such thought, without those
nobles whose luxurious way of life, pleasures, even follies, were chances for poor folk to work and earn?

And the young prince was a regal spender. His father paid for his horses, carriages, guns and dogs, and allowed him a hundred lire a month for small pleasures. But Consalvo sometimes lost in one night his allowance for the entire year, and next day he would go round to the moneylenders, who gave him whatever he wanted against his signature on an I.O.U. As for his relations, they either encouraged him to squander or ignored his extravagance, or were taken in by his wiles, as he knew how to get round each one of them by encouraging them in their various whimsies. Benedetto alone realised that this manner of life must be costing a great deal and suspected his debts, but the young man won him over by playing on his vanity as a patriot, ‘a wounded hero of the Volturno', a future deputy; and when Benedetto told his wife of his fears to be passed on to the prince, Lucrezia jumped at him.

‘What are you putting your nose into? Let him be! D'you think my nephew's a beggar who can't allow himself such a luxury? He can pay his own debts, anyway!'

Donna Ferdinanda for her part would go into ecstasies at her protégé's success and show her pleasure by every now and again giving him a five-lire note, which the youth thanked her for profusely, then left as a tip to a café waiter.

The duke, deep in his own affairs, heard rumours of his grand-nephew's debts, but the youth only had to call the Deputy ‘saviour of his country', ‘great statesman', and prophesy a ministerial post, to quieten him down. A little later, to ingratiate himself more with Donna Ferdinanda, Consalvo would agree with her complaints of the duke's treachery; and in this he was sincere, for though he took no part in politics he was all for absolute government, which protected nobles and kept the mob in order. These sentiments, however, did not prevent him from being pleasant to his Uncle Giulente, though he did not call him ‘Excellency', but simply
Vol.
Later he sympathised with his Aunt Lucrezia if she complained of her ‘swine of a husband'.