But the sight of the cat, just glimpsed in moving the branch, stuck in his mind, and a moment later Cosimo found himself trembling with fear again. For that cat, outwardly in every way the same as every other cat, was a terrible and terrifying cat; enough to make one scream just to look at it. It was difficult to say exactly what was so terrifying about it. The cat was a kind of tabby, bigger than any other tabby, but that did not mean anything; it was terrible, with its straight whiskers like hedgehogs' quills, with breath which one could almost see rather than hear, coming from between a double row of teeth sharp as claws. Its ears were sharply pointed pennants, covered with deceptively soft hair; the fur, standing on end, swelled around the neck in a yellow ring and stripes quivered over its flanks as if it were being stroked. The cat's neck was in a position so unnatural it seemed impossible to hold. All this that Cosimo had caught sight of in the second before he dropped the branch back to its proper place was in addition to what he had not had time to see but could imagine: the great tufts of hair around the paws masking the tearing strength of the claws, ready to spring at him. He could still see between the leaves the yellow irises with the rolling black pupils fixed on him. He could still hear the hoarse breathing growing heavier and hoarser. It all made him realize that he was face to face with the most savage wild cat in the woods.
All the twitter and flutter of the woods were silent. And then it leaped, the wild cat, but not at the boy, an almost vertical leap which astounded more than terrified Cosimo. The terror came afterwards, at seeing the animal on a branch right above his head. It was there, crouching, he could see the belly with its long whitish fur, the tense paws with their claws in the wood, the arched back. "Fff . . . fff . . ." it was hissing, ready to drop right on him. Cosimo, with a quick maneuver that was purely instinctive, moved on to a lower branch. "Fff . . . fff . . ." hissed the wild cat, and at each of the Fff's it jumped to one side and another, and was on a branch above Cosimo again. My brother repeated his maneuver, but found himself astride the lowest branch of the tree. The jump to the ground beneath was of some distance, but not so great that he would not have preferred to jump down rather than wait to see what the animal would do as soon as it had stopped making that torturing sound somewhere between a wheeze and a growl.
Cosimo was at the very point of jumping to the ground, but two instincts in him clashed—the natural one to save himself and the stubborn one never to leave the trees at any cost—and he tightened his legs and knees on the branch. The cat thought now, with the boy wavering, was the moment to spring; it came down at him with fur on end, claws out, and that wheeze. Cosimo could think of nothing better than to shut his eyes and bring up his rapier, a stupid move which the cat could easily evade. Then it was on him. A claw dug into Cosimo's cheek, but he, instead of falling, clinging as he was to the branch by the knees, swung out along the branch. This was quite the opposite of what the cat, who found itself thrown off balance and falling, was expecting. It tried to save itself by plunging its claws into the branch, and to do so had to twist around in the air—an instant, but enough for Cosimo, in a sudden victorious thrust, to plunge his rapier deep into its belly.
He was saved, covered with blood, the wild beast stuck on his rapier as on a spit, and a cheek torn from under his eye to his chin in a triple slash. He was screaming with pain and victory and frenziedly clinging to the branch, to the rapier, to the body of the cat, in that desperate moment that comes to one who wins for the first time and realizes the agony of victory, realizes too that now he is bound to continue on the road he has chosen and will not be granted any evasion through failure.
So I saw him arriving over the trees, covered with blood down to his waistcoat, his queue in disorder under the battered tricorn, holding by the neck that dead wild cat which now seemed just like any other cat.
I ran to the Generalessa on the terrace. "Lady Mother," I shouted, "he's wounded!"
"Was? Wounded? How?" She was already pointing her telescope.
"Wounded so he looks wounded!" I exclaimed, and the Generalessa seemed to understand my definition, for following him with the telescope as he came jumping on quicker than ever, she said: "Es ist wahr."
At once she began to prepare lint and bandages and balsams as if for the ambulance of a battalion, and handed them all over for me to take to him, without its even occurring to her that he might decide to return home for doctoring. I ran into the park with the parcel of bandages and stood waiting under the last mulberry tree by the wall of the Ondarivas, for he had already vanished in the magnolia.
He made a triumphant appearance in the Ondariva garden with the dead animal in his hands. And what should he see in the space in front of the villa? A coach ready to leave, with servants loading bags on the luggage rack, and, amid a cluster of severe, black-robed governesses and aunts, Viola in traveling dress embracing the Marchese and Marchesa.
"Viola!" he shouted, raising the cat by its neck. "Where are you going?"
All the people around the coach raised their eyes to the branches, and at the sight of him, lacerated, bleeding, with that mad air and that dead animal in his hands, began making gestures of disgust: "Ici de nouveau! Et arrangé de cette façon." And as if swept by a sudden gust of rage all the aunts began to push the girl toward the coach.
Viola turned around, her nose in the air and an expression of contempt and boredom which might have been meant for Cosimo as well as her relations, gave a quick glance at the trees (surely in reply to his question), said: "They're sending me to school!" and turned around to get into the coach. She had not deigned to look either at him or his trophy.
The carriage door was already shut, the coachman was on the box, and Cosimo, still unable to take in this departure, was trying to attract her attention and make her understand that he had dedicated that bloodthirsty victory to her, but could only explain by shouting: "I've killed a cat!"
The whip gave a crack, the coach started off amid waving of handkerchiefs by the aunts, and from the door came: "How clever of you!" from Viola, whether of enthusiasm or denigration was not clear.
This was their farewell. And in Cosimo, tension, pain from his wounds, disappointment at not getting any glory from his victory, despair at that sudden departure, all surged up in him and he broke into violent sobs, shrieking and screaming and tearing at the twigs.
"Hors d'ici! Hors d'ici! Poisson sauvage! Hors de notre jardin!" shrieked the aunts, and all the Ondariva servants came running up with long sticks and threw stones to drive him away.
Still sobbing and screaming, Cosimo flung the dead cat in the faces of the people below. The servants took the animal by its neck and flung it onto a dunghill.
When I heard that our little neighbor had left, I hoped for a time that Cosimo might come down. I don't know why, but I linked with her, or with her also, my brother's decision to stay up in the trees.
But he did not even mention it. I climbed up to take him bandages and lint, and he himself tended the scratches on his face and arms. Then he asked for a fishing rod with a hook. He used it to fish up the dead cat from an olive tree over the Ondariva's compost pile. He skinned it, cured the fur as best he could, and made a cap of it. It was the first of the fur caps which we were to see him wear his whole life through.
} 7 {
THE last attempt to capture Cosimo was made by our sister Battista. It was her initiative, of course, done without consulting anyone, in secret, as she always did things. She went out at night, with a pailful of glue and a rope ladder, and daubed a carob tree with glue from top to bottom. It was a tree on which Cosimo used to perch every morning.
In the morning, stuck to the carob tree were goldfinches beating their wings, wrens all wrapped in a sticky mess, night butterflies, leaves borne by the wind, a squirrel's tail, and also the tail torn off Cosimo's coat. Who knows if he had sat on a branch and managed to free himself, or if instead—more probably, as I had not seen him wear the jacket for some time—he put that piece of rag there on purpose to pull
our legs. Anyway, the tree remained hideously covered with glue and then dried up.
All of us, even our father, began to be convinced that Cosimo would never return. Since my brother had been hopping about on trees all over Ombrosa, the Baron had not dared show himself in public, for fear the ducal dignity might be compromised. Every day he became gaunter and paler, how much due to paternal anxiety and how much to dynastic worries I do not know; but the two were now fused, for Cosimo was his eldest son, the heir to the title, and if it is difficult to imagine a baron hopping about on trees like a bird, it seems still more unsuitable for a duke, even though a boy, and this conduct of the heir was certainly no support for the contested title.
They were useless preoccupations, of course, for the people of Ombrosa just laughed at our father's pomposity; and the nobles living nearby thought him mad. By now these nobles had taken to living in pleasantly sited villas rather than in their feudal castles, and this already tended to make them behave more like private citizens, avoiding unnecessary bothers. Who gave a thought any more to the ancient Dukedom of Ombrosa? The strange thing about Ombrosa was that it was no one's and yet everyone's, with certain rights to the Ondarivas—lords of almost all the land there—but a free commune for some time, tributary of the Republic of Genoa; we did not have to worry about our inherited lands and about others we had bought for nothing from the commune at a moment when it was heavily in debt. What more could anyone ask? There was a small circle of nobles living in that area, with villas and parks down to the sea. All of them lived a pleasant life visiting each other and hunting. Life cost little. They had certain advantages over those who were at court, having none of the worries, duties and expenses of nobles with a royal family, capital, or politics to beware of. But feeling himself a dethroned potentate, our father did not enjoy this life at all. He had eventually broken off all relations with the nobles of the neighborhood (our mother, being a foreigner, had never had any at all, one could say). This had its advantages, as by seeing no one, we both saved money and hid the penury of our finances.
Not that we had better relations with the common people of Ombrosa—you know what they are like: rather crude, thinking of nothing but business. At that period, with the drinking of sugared lemonade spreading among the richer classes, lemons were beginning to sell well; and they had planted lemon groves everywhere and rebuilt the port ruined by the invasions of pirates many years before. Situated between the Republic of Genoa, the fiefs of the King of Sardinia, the Kingdom of France and episcopal lands, they trafficked with all and worried about none, except for tributes owed to Genoa, which made them sweat every time they fell due and caused riots every year against the tax collectors of the Republic.
When these disturbances about taxes broke out, the Baron of Rondò always imagined that he might be approached with an offer of the ducal coronet. He would appear in the piazza, and offer himself to the people of Ombrosa as their protector, but each time he had to make a quick getaway under a hail of rotten lemons. Then he would say that a conspiracy had been formed against him; by the Jesuits, as usual. For he had got it into his head that there was a life-and-death struggle between him and the Jesuits, and that the Society thought of nothing but plotting his ruin. In fact there had been some difference of opinion between them about the ownership of an orchard which was being fought over by our family and the Society of Jesus; after some tension the Baron, being then on good terms with the Bishop, had managed to get the Father Provincial removed from the diocese. Since that time our father was certain that the Society was sending agents to make attempts on his life and rights; he on his part tried to enroll a militia of faithful to liberate the Bishop, whom he considered had fallen prisoner of the Jesuits; and he offered asylum and protection to anyone who declared himself persecuted by the Jesuits, which was why he had chosen as our spiritual father that semi-Jansenist with his head in the clouds.
There was only one person our father trusted, and that was the Cavalier. The Baron had a weakness for this illegitimate brother of his, as if he were an only son in misfortune; and I don't know if we realized it, but there must certainly have been, in our attitude toward the Cavalier Carrega, a touch of jealousy at our father being fonder of that fifty-year-old brother of his than of either of us boys. Anyway, we were not the only ones to look at him askance; the Generalessa and Battista pretended to respect him but really could not bear him; under that subdued exterior he did not care a fig for any of us, and may have hated us all, even the Baron to whom he owed so much. The Cavalier spoke so little that at certain times he might have been thought either deaf and dumb or incapable of understanding our language; I don't know how he had managed once to practice as a lawyer, and if he had been so absent-minded before his time with the Turks. Perhaps he had also been a person of intellect, if he had learned from the Turks all those calculations of hydraulics, the only job he was now capable of applying himself to, exaggeratedly praised by my father. I never knew much about his past, nor who his mother had been, nor what his relations had been in youth with our grandfather (who must surely have been fond of him too, as he had made him into a lawyer and granted him the title of Cavalier), nor how he had ended up in Turkey. It was not even certain if it was in Turkey itself that he had spent so much time, or in some Berber state such as Tunis or Algiers; anyway it was a Mohammedan country, and it was said that he had become a Mohammedan too. So many things were said of him: that he had held important appointments, been a high dignitary of the Sultan, Hydraulic Advisor to the Divan, or something of the kind, before falling into disgrace due to a palace plot or a woman's jealousy or a gambling debt, and been sold as a slave. It was known that he was found in chains rowing with the slaves in an Ottoman galley captured by the Venetians, who freed him. In Venice he had lived more or less as a beggar until he had got into some other trouble, a fight, I think (though who he could fight with, a man so timid, heaven only knows) and ended in prison again. He was ransomed by our father through the good offices of the Republic of Genoa, and returned to us, a little bald man with a black beard, very frightened, half dumb (I was a child but the scene that evening left an impression on my mind), decked out in clothes that were far too big for him. Our father imposed him on everyone as a person in authority, named him administrator, and allotted him a study, which was filled more and more with disordered papers. The Cavalier wore a long robe and a skullcap in the shape of a fez, as did many nobles and bourgeois in their studies, in those days; only he was, to tell the truth, very rarely in his study, and was seen going around dressed like that outside in the country too. Eventually he also appeared at table in those Turkish robes, and the strange thing was that our father, usually such a stickler for rules, seemed to tolerate it.
In spite of his duties as administrator, the Cavalier scarcely ever exchanged a word with bailiffs or tenants or peasants, due to his timidity and inarticulateness; and all the practical cares, giving of orders, keeping people up to scratch, in fact fell on our father. Enea Silvio Carrega kept the account books, and I do not know if our affairs were going so badly because of the way in which he kept them, or if his accounts went so badly because of our affairs. He would also make calculations and drawings of irrigation schemes, and fill a big blackboard with lines and figures, and words in Turkish writing. Every now and again our father shut himself up in the study with him for hours (they were the longest periods the Cavalier ever spent there) and after a short time the angry voice of the Baron, and the loud sounds of a quarrel, would come from behind the closed door, but the voice of the Cavalier could scarcely ever be heard. Then the door would open and the Cavalier would appear wrapped in the folds of his robe, with the skullcap stuck on the top of his head, go toward a French window with his quick little steps and out into the park and garden. "Enea Silvio! Enea Silvio!" shouted our father, running behind, but his half brother was already between the rows of vines, or among the lemon groves, and all that could be seen was the red fez moving stubbornly among the leaves. Our father would
follow, calling; after a little we saw them returning, the Baron always talking and waving his arms, and the little Cavalier hobbling along beside him, his fists clenched in the pockets of his robe.
} 8 {
IN THOSE days Cosimo often challenged men on the ground to compete in aiming or skill, partly to try out his own capacities and discover just what he could manage to do up there on the treetops. The urchins he challenged to quoits. One day they were among the shacks of the vagabonds and down-and-outs near Porta Capped, with Cosimo playing quoits with them from a dried and leafless ilex tree, when he saw a horseman approaching. It was a tall, rather bowed man, wrapped in a black cloak. He recognized his father. The rabble dispersed, while the women stood looking on from the thresholds of their shacks.
The Baron Arminio rode right up under the tree. The sunset was red. Cosimo stood among bare branches. They looked straight at each other. It was the first time since the dinner of the snails that they found themselves like that, face to face. Many days had passed, things had changed. Both of them knew that the snails did not enter into it now; nor did the obedience of sons or the authority of fathers; that all the many logical and sensible things which could be said would be out of place; yet they had to say something.
"You're making a spectacle of yourself!" began the father, bitterly. "Really worthy of a gentleman!" (He called him by the formal "voi," as he did for the most serious reprimands, but the use of the word now had a sense of distance, of detachment.)
The Baron in the Trees Page 6
