The Viceroys (92 page)

No reply. But he still went on talking, realising that the old woman must enjoy hearing gossip and news, seeing someone near.

‘I don't believe any of it, with all due respect. Is that a sin? Even St Thomas wanted to see and touch before believing … and he was a saint! But frankly, certain stories!… Teresa's quite infatuated now … Ah well, each of us has his own conscience to deal with … And what has my Aunt Lucrezia against me? What did she expect me to do?… She goes round everywhere talking against me as if I was the foulest of creatures …'

The old woman did not breathe a word, her back still to him.

‘All for the great love for her husband which has burst all of a sudden in her breast!… Before she used to declare Giulente's attitudes ridiculous'—he did not call him
Uncle
, knowing that would please her—‘now all those who have not suported him are infamous!'

A new outbreak of coughing made the old woman shake like a bellows. When it calmed she said in a feeble tone but with bitter contempt:

‘Infamous times!… Degenerate race!'

The shaft was directed at him too. Consalvo was silent a little, with head bowed but a mocking smile on his lips, as the old woman could not see him. Then in a gentle humble tone he went on:

‘Your Excellency may blame me too … If I've done anything
to displease you, I ask your pardon … But there is nothing for which my conscience reproves me … Your Excellency cannot regret that one of her name is again among the first in the land … Maybe you are pained at the means by which this result has been obtained … Believe me it pains me more than you … But we do not choose our period for coming into the world; we find it as it is, and as it is we must accept it. Anyway, if it's true that things aren't too good nowadays, were they all so very wonderful before?'

Not a syllable in reply.

‘Your Excellency judges our age to be infamous, nor would I say that all nowadays is for the best; but surely the past often seems fine only because it is past … The important thing is not to let oneself be overwhelmed … I remember how in '61 when our uncle the duke was elected deputy for the first time, my father said to me, “You see? When there were Viceroys, the Uzeda were the Viceroys; now that there are deputies, our uncle is in Parliament!” Your Excellency knows I was not on good terms with my dead father; but he said then a thing which seemed to me and still seems very just … Once the power of our family came from kings; now it comes from the people. The difference is more in name than fact … Of course it's not pleasant to depend on the mob, but lots of those sovereigns were not exactly saints. And one man alone who holds the reins of power in his own hands and considers himself invested by divine right and makes a law of his every whim is more difficult to win over and keep on good terms with than the human flock, numerous but servile by nature … And then the change is more apparent than actual. Even the Viceroys of long ago had to propitiate the mob; otherwise ambassadors went and complained in Madrid and had them recalled by the Court … and even beheaded!… You may have been told that nowadays an election costs money, but remember what Mugnòs wrote about the Viceroy Lopez Ximenes, who had to offer thirty thousand
scudi
to King Ferdinando in order to keep his job … and wasted the money! How right Solomon was when he said there's nothing new under the sun! All complain of present corruption and refuse to trust the electoral system because votes are bought. But does Your Excellency know Suetonius, the celebrated writer
of antiquity? He tells how Augustus, on election days, would distribute a thousand sesterces a head to the patrician order of which he was a member, so that they should not take anything from the candidates …'

He was saying these things for himself too, to affirm the justice of his own views, but as the old woman did not move he thought that maybe she had dozed off and he was talking to the wall. So he got up to look; Donna Ferdinanda's eyes were wide open. Then he went on, walking up and down the room.

‘History is monotonous repetition; men have been, are and will always be the same. Exterior conditions change. Certainly there seems an abyss between the Sicily of before 1860, still more-or-less feudal, and this of today, but the difference is all on the surface. The first man to be elected by near-universal suffrage is not a member of the working class, or a bourgeois or a democrat; it is I, because I'm called Prince of Francalanza. The prestige of nobility is not and cannot be extinguished. Now that all talk of democracy, do you know what is the most sought-after book in the university library where I sometimes go for my studies? The
Sicilian Herald
of poor old Uncle Don Eugenio, peace be on his soul. It's been so much handled that it's had to be rebound three times! For just consider: before being noble meant the enjoyment of great prerogatives, privileges, immunities, and important exemptions. Now if all that is over, if nobility is something purely ideal yet sought after by all, may that not mean that its value, its prestige, have grown?… In politics Your Excellency has been loyal to the Bourbons, and that is most proper if they are considered as legitimate sovereigns … But what does their legitimacy depend on? On the fact that they were on the throne for more than a hundred years … Eighty years from now Your Excellency would also recognise the Savoy dynasty as legitimate … Of course absolute monarchy did look after our class interests better, but it's been overwhelmed by a superior force and an irresistible current … Must we too set their feet on our own necks? Our duty, it seems to me, instead of despising the new laws, is to use them!…'

Swept away by oratorical fervour in the exaltation of his recent triumph, feeling a need to justify himself in his own eyes, to re-establish himself in the old woman's good graces, he was
improvising another speech, the true one, in confutation of what he had said before the mob. And the old woman lay there listening, without coughing now, subjugated by her nephew's eloquence, entertained, almost lulled by his emphatic and theatrical declamation.

‘Does Your Excellency remember our readings of Mugnòs?…' went on Consalvo. ‘Well, let us imagine that historian to be still alive and wanting to bring up to date his
Genealogical Theatre
at the chapter
On the family of Uzeda.
What would he say? He'd say more or less, “Don Gafpare Vzeda” ', he pronounced the ‘s' as ‘f' and the ‘U' as ‘V', “ ‘was promoted to highest ranks during the great changes resulting in the passing of Sicily from King Don Francis II of Bourbon to King Don Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy. He was elected Deputy to the National Parliament of Turin, Florence and Rome, and was eventually raised by King Don Umberto with singular despatch to the rank of Senator. Don Consalvo Uzeda, Eighth Prince of Francalanza, held power as Mayor of his native town, was then Deputy to the Parliament of Rome and after that …” ' He was silent a moment, with closed eyes; already he saw himself on the Ministerial bench at Montecitorio. Then he went on, ‘That is what Mugnòs would say if he were alive today; this is what the future historians of our family will say in different words. The old Uzeda were Knights of St James, now they are Knights of the Crown of Italy. The two things are different, but through no fault of theirs! And Your Excellency considers them degenerate! Why, may I ask?'

The old woman did not reply.

‘Physically, yes; our blood is impoverished; and yet that does not prevent many of us reaching Your Excellency's enviable age in health and sanity … By nature they're often stubborn, excessive, unbalanced, and even …' He wanted to add ‘mad' but passed over that. ‘They're never at peace between themselves and always at each other's throats. But let Your Excellency think of the past! Remember that Don Blasco Uzeda was nicknamed in the Sicilian tongue
Sciarra
which may be translated as
Quarreller.
Remember that other Artale Uzeda, nicknamed
Sconza
, which means
Rotten
!… I and my father did not see eye to eye, and he disinherited me, but the Viceroy Ximenes
imprisoned his son and condemned him to death … Your Excellency can see that in some aspects times have changed for the better … And remember the felony of the sons of Artale III; remember all the quarrels between relatives, about confiscated property, about dowries …

‘Even so I have no intention of justifying what is happening now. We're too voluble and too pig-headed at the same time. Look at my Aunt Chiara, first willing to die rather than marry the marchese, then one mind with him in two bodies, then completely broken with him. Look at my Aunt Lucrezia, who, vice versa, acted the madwoman to marry Giulente, then despised him like a servant, and is now all one with him to the point of quarrelling with me and pushing him into a ridiculous electoral fiasco! Look, in another way, even at Teresa. From filial obedience, to be thought saintly, she married someone she did not love, so hastening poor Giovannino's madness and suicide, and now she goes and kneels all day in the Chapel of Blessed Ximena, where the lamp burns which she lit for her poor cousin's health! And what was Blessed Ximena herself if not divinely pig-headed?

‘I myself, since the day when I decided to change my life, have lived only to prepare myself for the new one. But our family history is full of similar sudden conversions, of stubborn addiction to good or evil … I could try and amuse Your Excellency by writing out all our contemporary family history in the style of old authors. Your Excellency would soon realise your judgment to be mistaken. No, our race has not degenerated; it is the same as it ever was.'