The Viceroys (61 page)

So in spite of his cold relations with his father, he followed the latter's example and treated each Uzeda according to his particular fixation. His Aunt Chiara would talk to him about
adopting her maid's bastard, and he approved her decision. His Uncle Ferdinando, who had thought himself to have every conceivable disease when full of health, now that he was visibly wasting away thought himself robust and could not endure being advised to see a doctor. Consalvo would congratulate him on looking so well.

Don Blasco had not shown himself at the palace for some time. Since he had lived in his own home and dealt with his own money, his mania for criticising the whole family had gone; when he happened to be with his relations he chatted of this or that and soon left. So as not to be alone at home he had brought in the Cigar-woman, her husband and daughters. Thus he was served hand and foot and needed for nothing. For some time he was not to be seen at all.

‘What's uncle doing?… what's Don Blasco doing?…' But no one knew a thing. The prince, the marchese, Lucrezia, and to some extent even Benedetto, were trying to ingratiate themselves with him because of the money he must have tucked away; but he evaded them all and if he heard them make smiling allusions to his riches, started shouting as before, ‘What riches or poverty?… What …?' and out came more newly-coined swear words.

One day, though, when Benedetto was reading in the Prefect's Announcements the list of latest purchases of Church lands, he came across the name of Matteo Garino.

‘Isn't that the Cigar-woman's husband?' he asked his wife.

‘I think so. Why?'

‘He's bought the “Cavaliere”, one of the best of the Benedictines' properties.'

Without an instant's hesitation, Lucrezia exclaimed, ‘Garino? It's Uncle Don Blasco who's bought it.'

Shortly after the truth came out. Garino was a cover-name for Don Blasco, who had put up the money and was already in possession of the estate. A monk, a Benedictine monk, one who had made a vow of poverty, buying land from his own monastery and so flouting Divine Law! The scandal was tremendous; Donna Ferdinanda was all vituperation of her brother. The duke smiled sceptically, remembering the furious threats of eternal damnation spat out by the monk. And the prince himself,
although not wanting to get on the wrong side of an uncle who could buy such estates, shook his head. And all zealous Catholics, supporters of the Curia, homeless monks, pro-Bourbons who had once been Don Blasco's close friends, turned against him. But if anyone mentioned these critics he would shout:

‘Yes, sir, the “Cavaliere” was bought on my account; and why not? Who's criticising? My sister who's been a moneylender for fifty years? My nephew who ‘as robbed all his relations? Are they scrupulous and fearful of wrong doing?… I've no scruples about it at all! If I myself hadn't bought the “Cavaliere”, someone else would have. Anyway it would never have stayed with the monastery, for the good reason that the monastery no longer exists!… In fact, it's the same in my hands as if it were still with San Nicola. Why, I've had the chapel restored, and say Mass in it every day when I go there. If it had gone into anyone else's hands, it would be used as a pigsty by this time …'

Actually he only said Mass now and again, as he was so busy ploughing up the enclosure, tearing away old trees, scooping out a well, enlarging the farmhouse and adapting it as a villa to stay in, moving the surrounding wall so as to tidy up his boundaries; then he had to keep a watchful eye on builders and diggers lest they steal. In the country, to be ready for wind or rain, he wore a shooting jacket and half-length boots; back in town he put off his habit and scapular, but designed himself a black suit like a Protestant clergyman's, with a waistcoat buttoned to the top and a clerical collar. He disapproved, though, of two or three of his former colleagues who had stripped off everything and plunged without reserve into secular life, like the revolutionary Father Rocca; and of those who without putting off their habits gave cause for gossip by their conduct, like Father Agatino Renda, who spent all day with the widow Roccasciano, gambling from morn till night. Father Gerbini had gone to Paris, where he had been made rector of the Madeleine; others who had stayed in Catania were leading priest's lives. But Don Blasco proposed himself as a model to the lot. Fra' Carmelo, who often came to visit him as he did the prince, seemed not to notice the change in His Paternity as he repeated with desperate
gestures his eternal refrain, ‘They've thrown me out!… they've thrown me out!…' Don Blasco would give him money, a drink, comfort him with fine words. But whenever the madman had taken drink, he would be less sane than ever and begin reviling the devil worshippers who had stripped the monastery.

‘Assassins and thieves! Thieves and assassins! The biggest monastery in the kingdom!… And those thieves went and took its property! To hell with them! To hell with them, they're excommunicated …'

Once, more delirious than usual, he fell on his knees declaiming and making great signs of the Cross. ‘In the Name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Ghost! In God's name I adjure you … Restore your ill-gotten gains to San Nicola! Thieves!… Swine!… Are you Christians or Turks! Think of your souls! Of hell-fire!'

Don Blasco finally lost patience, took him by a shoulder and pushed him out.

‘All right, all right, we understand. But be off for the moment. I'm busy …'

And he banged the door in his face as Donna Lucia appeared.

‘He's beginning to interrupt my devotions, that old loony. If he comes back again, just throw him downstairs, d'you hear?'

O
NE NIGHT
, while Lucrezia was snoring away in bed and Benedetto studying the Council accounts at his desk, a sharp ring at the bell made husband start and wife awake. Benedetto went to open the door, and found himself facing the young prince, who was white as a sheet.

‘Can I wash?' he asked his uncle, drawing from his jacket pocket a hand red with blood.

‘Consalvo! What's happened? What's the matter?…'

‘Nothing, don't shout … To open a window … I broke a pane … and cut my hand … Let me wash!… It's nothing.' But it was a deep wound, beginning from the back of the hand, twisting under the thumb-joint and ending at the wrist. It had been treated with lint, but must have opened again as the handkerchief wound round the hand had not a white corner on it, and blood was dropping, marking suit and shirt.

‘I couldn't go home in this state …' the youth explained as he kept his hand immersed in a basin of reddening water. But suddenly he lost the confidence that had sustained him till then and began to tremble, his forehead covered with cold sweat, staring round with a stunned look in which Giulente could now read shock at sudden aggression, fear of death glimpsed in a blade flash.

‘Tell the truth. What happened?…'

‘Again?… A broken pane, I told you … Now go and call Giovannino, who went to the chemist's with me. He's waiting down below …'

Consalvo's friend, even paler, confirmed his story. The truth
came out next day. For some time Consalvo had been after the daughter of Gesualdo Marotta, the Belvedere barber. She made a living as a ladies' hairdresser, and although always in the streets, took no notice of men for fear of her brothers, who did not jest on matters of honour. But when the young prince got a whim into his head he would not rest till it was satisfied, and in spite of pleading and the Marotta brothers' warnings he set every pimp in town on to the job of overcoming the resistance of the young woman and her family, promising to take her off the streets and away from her wearisome job that exposed her to perils, and set her up in a dressmaker's shop, and also assure her the custom of all his relatives and friends. It had all been useless. Then, seeing he could achieve nothing by fair means, one day he had the girl kidnapped and kept her with him for three days up at the Belvedere. For a time the brothers were silent, as if in the dark. Then one night, as the young prince was leaving the Café de Sicilia in the company of Giovaninno Radalì, he felt a slash with a sharp blade on the hand he put out instinctively to defend himself. ‘We'll meet again!…' the aggressor called as he ran off at Radalì's cry.

The prince said nothing when he saw his son with a bound hand. He made show of believing the story of the broken pane and even tended him together with the princess, who watched beside Consalvo's bed as devotedly as a real mother. The youth scarcely bothered to hide his irritation at these unwelcome attentions, and greeted as liberators the friends who visited him morning and evening. The danger he had been through, the blood lost, filled these comrades-in-play with admiration; but on recovering he never put his nose outside the gates.

The Marotta brothers had let him know that they were ready to start again when they next saw him by night or day, and that the second time he would not get off with just a scratch, and that they were waiting to do their own justice as well as denouncing the matter to the law.

The Uzeda, worried about the heir's life, had recourse to the duke; he alone, with the authority which came from his political position, could get Prefect or Questor or magistrates to see the rascals left the youth in peace. The duke, on hearing of the incident and what was wanted of him, instead of siding with his
grand-nephew, unexpectedly flew into a rage, all the stranger as it was not in character.

‘Serves him right! These are the consequences of the life he leads! Why don't you put him under lock and key? Are you proud of his exploits? What d'you want from me?'

No-one had ever seen him so put out; he looked almost like his brother Don Blasco. The fact was that his adversaries were trying every means of attacking him again, and Consalvo's silly imbroglio played right into their hands. The Deputy had not been to the capital for two years and had quite abandoned public affairs in favour of his own. What a great patriot, eh? Such unselfishness he showed, such love of his homeland! When he had irons in the fire at Turin and Florence he used the excuse of public affairs to keep away from Catania, even if the Chamber was locked and ministers scattered; nothing could have torn him from Turin during the troubles of '62. He had only come home to be re-elected. The last time he had not even bothered to do that, considering his constituency as a feudal right which no one could take from him. Now that he wanted to settle his own affairs, although most serious matters were being discussed in Parliament, he did not move. But even if he did go what would he do there? What had he done in all his eight years as a deputy? He had raised and lowered his head like a puppet, to say yes or no as he was bid! Why, if he'd opened his mouth just once! His excuse was that the public put him off. But the truth was that he hadn't the shadow of an idea in his noodle and could not even write a line without several mistakes, and he thought to hide his supine ignorance by an air of presumption and self-confidence! And a person like that was entrusted with all the affairs of the town and province, allowed to dictate his opinions on every kind of question: public education, engineering, music, ships … Not content with exercising so much personal power he also got his adherents in everywhere to play his game; so that Giulente uncle had been given charge of the Bank and Giulente nephew been made Mayor.

All these accusations by his enemies circulating round town were gaining credence, becoming a threat. Giulente took up his defence, but people did not listen to him now as they had at one
time; the Deputy's discredit was beginning to spread to him. He was called a hypocrite for trying to keep old friendships after becoming a mere executor of the duke's abuses and injustices. A hypocrite only? The bitterest said that he got his share of the Deputy's spoils too; some share must be coming to him from their illicit profits, from fruits of their trafficking.

This subject of the Deputy's earnings excited his enemies more than any other. The duke, they said, used his public offices to his own advantage. The money he had spent on the revolution was bringing him in a thousand per cent! That explained his ‘patriotism', his play-acting conversion to liberty while the Uzeda family had always been a nest of Bourbonists and reactionaries, and in '48 he had actually sat and enjoyed the spectacle of the city in its death agony through a telescope as if he were at the theatre! It was partly explained by fear too, a need to prove his Liberalism and democracy to avoid getting shot—and some fools had let themselves be taken in by that abolition of fine-quality bread for about a fortnight. But greed had overcome fear. Well-informed folk told how once, in the first phase of the new government, he had made a most significant remark that revealed the hereditary avarice of the Viceroys, the rapacity of the Uzeda of old: ‘Now that Italy's made, we must make our bit …' If he had not said those exact words he had certainly put the idea into action; that was why he was so loud in praise of the new regime and its beneficent effects. Laws were good when they were good for him. That suppression of the religious communities for instance! According to him the release of Church lands would result in lighter taxes and make everyone a property-owner. Instead of which taxes were growing heavier all the time, and who had those properties gone to? To the Duke of Oragua, the rich folk, the capitalists, those who already ruled the roost …