“Can you see Concetta, Father, as ambassadress in Vienna or Petersburg?”
The question took Father Pirrone quite unawares. “What has that to do with it? I don’t understand.”
Don Fabrizio did not bother to explain; he plunged back into his silent thoughts. Money? Concetta would have a dowry, of course. But the Salina fortune would have to be divided into seven parts, unequal at that, in which the girls’ would be the smallest. Well, then? Tancredi needed much more; Maria Santa Pau, for instance, with four estates already hers and all those uncles, priests and misers; or one of the Sutèra girls, so ugly but so rich. Love. Of course, love. Flames for a year, ashes for thirty. He knew what love was. . . . Anyway, Tancredi would always find women falling for him like ripe pears.
Suddenly he felt cold. The water on him had evaporated and the skin of his arms was icy. The ends of his fingers were crinkling. Oh, dear, what a lot of bothersome talk it would all mean. That must be avoided . . . “Now I have to go and dress, Father. Tell Concetta, will you, that I am not in the least annoyed, but that we’ll talk about all this later when we’re quite sure it’s not all just the fancy of a romantic girl. Au revoir, Father.”
He got up and passed into the dressing-room. From the Mother Church next door rang a lugubrious funeral knell. Someone had died at Donnafugata, some tired body unable to withstand the deep gloom of Sicilian summer had lacked stamina to await the rains. “Lucky person,” thought the Prince, as he rubbed lotion on his whiskers. “Lucky person, with no worries now about daughters, dowries and political careers.” This ephemeral identification with an unknown corpse was enough to calm him. “While there’s death there’s hope,” he thought; then he saw the absurd side of letting himself get into such a state of depression because one of his daughters wanted to marry. “Ce sont leurs affaires, après tout,” he thought in French, as he did when his cogitations persisted in playing pranks. He settled in an arm-chair and dropped off into a doze.
An hour later he awoke refreshed and went down into the garden. The sun was already low and its rays, no longer overwhelming, were lighting amiably on the araucarias, the pines, the lusty ilexes which were the glory of the place. From the end of the main alley, sloping gently down between high laurel hedges framing anonymous busts of broken-nosed goddesses, could be heard the gentle drizzle of spray falling into the fountain of Amphitrite. He moved swiftly towards it, eager to see it again. The waters came spurting in minute jets, blown from shells of Tritons and Naiads, from noses of marine monsters, spattering and pattering on the greenish surface, bouncing and bubbling, wavering and quivering, dissolving into laughing little gurgles; from the whole fountain, the tepid water, the stones covered with velvety moss, emanated a promise of pleasure that would never turn to pain. Perched on an islet in the middle of the round basin, modelled by a crude but sensual hand, a vigorous smiling Neptune was embracing a willing Amphitrite; her navel, wet with spray and gleaming in the sun, would be the nest, shortly, for hidden kisses in subaqueous shade. Don Fabrizio paused, gazed, remembered, regretted. He stood there a long while.
“Uncle, come and look at the foreign peaches. They’ve turned out fine. And leave these indecencies which are not for men of your age.”
Tancredi’s affectionate mocking voice called him from his voluptuous torpor. He had not heard the boy come; he was like a cat. For the first time he felt a touch of rancour prick him at the sight of Tancredi; this fop with the pinched-in waist under his dark blue suit had been the cause of those sour thoughts of his about death two hours ago. Then he realised that it was not rancour, just disguised alarm: he was afraid the other would talk to him about Concetta. But his nephew’s approach and tone was not that of one preparing to make amorous confidences to a man like himself. Don Fabrizio grew calm again; his nephew was looking at him with the affectionate irony which youth accords to age. “They can allow themselves to be a bit nice to us, as they’re so sure to be free of us the day after our funerals”. He went with Tancredi to look at the “foreign peaches”. The grafting with German cuttings, made two years ago, had succeeded perfectly; there was not much fruit, a dozen or so, on the two grafted trees, but it was big, velvety, luscious-looking; yellowish, with a faint flush of rosy pink on the cheeks, like those of modest little Chinese girls. The Prince felt them with the delicacy for which his fleshy fingers were famous. “They seem quite ripe. A pity there are too few for to-night. But we’ll get them picked to-morrow and see what they’re like.”
“There! that’s how I like you, uncle; like this, in the part of agricola pius—appreciating in anticipation the fruits of your own labours; and not as I found you a short while ago, gazing at all that shameless naked flesh.”
“And yet, Tancredi, these peaches are also products of love, of coupling.”
“Of course, but legal love, blessed by you as their master, and by Nino the gardener as notary. Considered, fruitful love. As for those,” he went on, pointing at the fountain whose shimmer could just be discerned through a veil of ilexes, “d’you really think they’ve been before a priest?”
The conversation was taking a dangerous turn and Don Fabrizio hastily changed its direction. As they moved back up towards the house Tancredi began telling what he had heard of the love-life of Donnafugata: Menica, the daughter of Saverio the keeper, had let herself be put with child by her young man; the marriage would be rushed on now. Calicohio had just avoided being shot by an angry husband.
“But how d’you know such things?”
“I know, Uncle, I know. They tell me everything; they know I’ll sympathise.”
When they reached the top of the steps, which rose from the garden to the palace with gentle turns and long landings, they could see the dusky horizon beyond the trees; over towards the sea huge, inky clouds were climbing up the sky. Perhaps the anger of God was satiated and the annual curse over Sicily nearly over? At that moment those clouds loaded with relief were being stared at by thousands of other eyes, sensed in the womb of the earth by billions of seeds.
“Let’s hope the summer is over and that the rains are finally here,” said Don Fabrizio; and with these words the haughty noble to whom rain would only be a personal nuisance showed himself a brother to his roughest peasants.
The Prince had always taken care that the first dinner at Donnafugata should bear the stamp of solemnity: children under fifteen were excluded from table, French wines were served, there was punch alla Romana before the roast; and the flunkeys were in powder and knee-breeches. On just one detail did he compromise; he never wore evening dress, lest he embarrass guests who would, obviously, possess none. That evening, in the “Leopold” drawing-room, as it was called, the Salina family were awaiting the last arrivals. From under lace-covered shades the oil-lamps spread circumscribed yellow light: the vast equestrian portraits of past Salinas were as imposing and shadowy as their memories. Don Onofrio had already arrived with his wife, and so had the arch-priest who, with his light mantle folded back on his shoulders in sign of gala, was telling the Princess about tiffs at the College of Mary. Don Ciccio, the organist, had also arrived (Teresina had already been tied to the leg of a scullery table) and was recalling with the Prince their fantastic bags in the Dragonara ravines. All was placid and normal when Francesco Paolo, the sixteen-year-old son, burst into the room and announced: “Papa, Don Calogero is just coming up the stairs. In tails!”
Tancredi, intent on fascinating the wife of Don Onofrio, realised the import of the news a second before the others. But when he heard that fatal word he could not contain himself and burst into convulsive laughter. No laugh, though, came from the Prince on whom, one might almost say, this news had more effect than the bulletin about Garibaldi’s landing at Marsala. That had been an event not only foreseen but also distant and invisible. Now, with his sensibility to presages and symbols, he saw revolution in that white tie and two black tails moving at this moment up the stairs of his own home. Not only was he, the Prince, no longer the major landowner in Donna
fugata, but he now found himself forced to receive, when in afternoon dress himself, a guest appearing in evening clothes.
His distress was great; it still lasted as he moved mechanically towards the door to receive his guest. When he saw him, however, his agonies were somewhat eased. Though perfectly adequate as a political demonstration it was obvious that, as tailoring, Don Calogero’s tail-coat was a disastrous failure. The stuff was excellent, the style modern, but the cut appalling. The Word from London had been most inadequately made flesh in a tailor from Girgenti to whom Don Calogero had gone with his tenacious avarice. The wings of his cravat pointed straight to heaven in mute supplication, his huge collar was shapeless, and, what is more, it is our painful but necessary duty to add that the mayor’s feet were shod in buttoned boots.
Don Calogero advanced towards the Princess with a hand outstretched and still gloved. “My daughter begs you to excuse her; she was not quite ready. Your Excellency knows how females are on these occasions,” he added, expressing in his near dialect a thought of Parisian levity, “but she’ll be here in a second; it’s only a step from our place, as you know.”
The second lasted five minutes; then the door opened and in came Angelica. The first impression was of dazed surprise. The Salina family all stood there with breath taken away; Tancredi could even feel the veins pulsing in his temples. Under the first shock from her beauty the men were incapable of noticing or analysing its defects, which were numerous; there were to be many for ever incapable of this critical appraisal. She was tall and well-made, on an ample scale; her skin looked as if it had the flavour of fresh cream which it resembled, her childlike mouth that of strawberries. Under a mass of raven hair, curling in gentle waves, her green eyes gleamed motionless as those of statues, and like them a little cruel. She was moving slowly, making her wide white skirt rotate around her, and emanating from her whole person the invincible calm of a woman sure of her own beauty. Only many months later was it known that at the moment of that victorious entry of hers she had been on the point of fainting from nerves.
She took no notice of the Prince hurrying towards her, she passed by Tancredi grinning at her in a daydream; before the Princess’s arm-chair she bent her superb back in a slight bow, and this form of homage, unusual in Sicily, gave her for an instant the fascination of exoticism as well as that of local beauty.
“Angelica, my dear, it’s so long since I’ve seen you. You’ve changed a lot; not for the worse!” The Princess could not believe her own eyes; she remembered the rather ugly and uncared-for thirteen-year-old girl of four years ago and could not make her tally with this voluptuous maiden before her. The Prince had no memories to reorganise; he only had forecasts to overturn; the blow to his pride dealt by the father’s tail-coat was now repeated by the daughter’s looks; but this time it was not a matter of black stuff but of milk-smooth white skin; and well-cut, yes, very well indeed! Old war horse that he was, the bugle-call of feminine beauty found him ready and he turned to the girl with the tone of gracious respect which he would have used to the Duchess of Bovino or the Princess of Lampedusa; “How lucky we are, Signorina Angelica, to have gathered such a lovely flower in our home; and I hope that we shall have the pleasure of seeing you here often.”
“Thank you, Prince; I see that you are as kind to me as you have always been to my dear father.” The voice was pretty, low-pitched, a little too careful perhaps; Florentine schooling had cancelled the sagging Girgenti accent; the only Sicilian characteristic still in her speech was the harsh consonants, which, anyway toned in well with her clear but emphatic type of beauty. In Florence she had also been taught to drop the “Excellency”.
About Tancredi there seems little to be said; after being introduced by Don Calogero, after manoeuvring the searchlight of his blue eyes, after just managing to resist implanting a kiss on Angelica’s hand, he had resumed his chat with the Signora Rotolo without taking in a word that the good lady said. Father Pirrone, in a dark corner, was deep in meditation over Holy Scripture, which that night appeared only in the guise of Delilahs, Judiths and Esthers.
The central doors of the drawing-room were flung open and the butler declaimed mysterious sounds announcing that dinner was ready: “Prann’ pronn’.” The heterogeneous group moved towards the dining-room.
The Prince was too experienced to offer Sicilian guests, in a town of the interior, a dinner beginning with soup, and he infringed the rules of haute cuisine all the more readily as he disliked it himself. But rumours of the barbaric foreign usage of serving an insipid liquid as first course had reached the notables of Donnafugata too insistently for them not to quiver with a slight residue of alarm at the start of a solemn dinner like this. So when three lackeys in green, gold and powder entered, each holding a great silver dish containing a towering macaroni pie, only four of the twenty at table avoided showing pleased surprise; the Prince and Princess from foreknowledge, Angelica from affectation and Concetta from lack of appetite. All the others (including Tancredi, I regret to say) showed their relief in varying ways, from the fluty and ecstatic grunts of the notary to the sharp squeak of Francesco Paolo. But a threatening circular stare from the host soon stifled these improper demonstrations.
Good manners apart, though, the aspect of those monumental dishes of macaroni was worthy of the quivers of admiration they evoked. The burnished gold of the crusts, the fragrance of sugar and cinnamon they exuded, were but preludes to the delights released from the interior when the knife broke the crust; first came a spice-laden haze, then chicken livers, hard boiled eggs, sliced ham, chicken and truffles in masses of piping hot, glistening macaroni, to which the meat juice gave an exquisite hue of suède.
The beginning of the meal, as happens in the provinces, was quiet. The arch-priest made the sign of the Cross and plunged in head first without a word. The organist absorbed the succulent dish with closed eyes; he was grateful to the Creator that his ability to shoot hare and woodcock could bring him ecstatic pleasures like this, and the thought came to him that he and Teresina could exist for a month on the cost of one of these dishes; Angelica, the lovely Angelica, forgot little Tuscan black-puddings and part of her good manners and devoured her food with the appetite of her seventeen years and the vigour given by grasping her fork half-way up the handle. Tancredi, in an attempt to link gallantry with greed, tried to imagine himself tasting, in the aromatic forkfuls, the kisses of his neighbour Angelica, but he realised at once that the experiment was disgusting and suspended it, with a mental reserve about reviving this fantasy with the pudding; the Prince, although rapt in the contemplation of Angelica sitting opposite him, was the only one at table able to notice that the demi-glace was overfilled, and made a mental note to tell the cook so next day; the others ate without thinking of anything, and without realising that the food seemed so delicious because sensuality was circulating in the house.
All were calm and contented. All except Concetta. She had of course embraced and kissed Angelica, told her not to use the formal third person and insisted on the familiar tu of their infancy, but under her pale blue bodice her heart was being torn to shreds; the violent Salina blood came surging up in her, and beneath a smooth forehead she found herself brooding over day-dreams of poisoning. Tancredi was sitting between her and Angelica distributing, with the punctiliousness of one who feels in the wrong, his glances, compliments and jokes equally between both neighbours; but Concetta had an intuition, an animal intuition of the current of desire flowing from her cousin towards the intruder, and the little frown between her nose and forehead deepened; she wanted to kill as much as she wanted to die. But being a woman she snatched at details; Angelica’s little finger in the air when her hand held her glass; a reddish mole on the skin of her neck; an attempt, half repressed, to remove with a finger a shred of food stuck in her very white teeth; she noticed even more sharply a certain coarseness of spirit; and to these details, which were really quite insignificant as they were cauterised by sensual fascination, she clung as t
rustingly and desperately as a falling builder’s boy snatches at a leaden gutter; she hoped that Tancredi would notice too and be revolted by these obvious traces of difference in breeding. But Tancredi had already noticed them, and, alas! with no result. He was letting himself be drawn along by the physical stimulus of a beautiful woman to his fiery youth, and also by the (as-it-were) numerical excitement aroused by a rich girl in the mind of a man ambitious and poor.
At the end of dinner the conversation became general; Don Calogero told in bad Italian but with knowing insight some inside stories about the conquest of the province by Garibaldi: the notary told the Princess of a little house he was having built “out of town”; Angelica, excited by light, food, Chablis and the obvious admiration she was arousing in every man around the table, asked Tancredi to describe some episodes of the “glorious battle” for Palermo. She had put an elbow on the table and was leaning her cheek on her hand. Her face was flushed and she was perilously attractive to behold; the arabesque made by her forearm, elbow, finger and hanging white glove seemed exquisite to Tancredi and repulsive to Concetta. The young man, while continuing to admire, was describing the campaign as if it had all been quite light and unimportant; the night march on Gibilrossa, the scene between Bixio and La Masa, the assault on Porta di Termini. “It was the greatest fun, signorina. Our biggest laugh was on the night of the 28th of May. The general needed a look-out post at the top of the convent at Origlione; we knocked, banged, cursed, knocked again: no one opened; it was an enclosed convent. Then Tassoni, Aldrighetti, I and one or two others tried to break down the door with our rifle butts. Nothing doing. We ran to fetch a beam from a shelled house nearby and finally, with a hellish din, the door gave way. We went in; not a soul in sight, but from a corner of the passage we heard desperate screams; a group of nuns had taken refuge in the chapel and were all crouching round the altar; I wonder, what they feared at the hands of those dozen excited young men! They looked absurd, old and ugly in their black habits, with starting eyes, ready and prepared for . . . martyrdom. They were whining like bitches. Tassoni, who’s a card, shouted: ‘Nothing doing, sisters, we’ve other things to think of; but we’ll be back when you’ve some novices.’ And we all laughed fit to burst. Then we left them there, their tongues hanging out, to go and shoot at Royalists from the terraces above. Ten minutes later I was wounded.”
The Leopard Page 9
