‘The hero! The hero! The hero! The great hero!… The thunderbolt of war!… He’s got in here from fright! Using the excuse of there being no-one at home! His cheeks are awobble with terror …’
The monastery was beginning to fill up with timid folk, fugitive priests, Bourbon spies, people in the Liberals’ bad books; even the castle was not considered so safe. For the novices, those not taken off by worried parents, it was a holiday; new faces everywhere, an incessant coming and going, constant anticipation of no one knew quite what. The Liberal boys had also got together a band like the ones encamped outside the city. Its leader was Giovannino Radalì, who was nurturing a plot to raise the monastery, go into the streets and join the adult rebels. But they had no flags, and with the excuse of decorating a small altar sent a servant out to buy papers of various colours. The man brought white and red, but blue instead of green; a mistake which caused a day’s delay.
The young prince, to whom, as he was considered a spy, the revolutionaries had of course said nothing, had even so sniffed something in the air and decided to find out what it was. An unusual circumstance helped him. The tobacco he and his cousin had planted was ripe. The leaves, torn off, set for a few days in the sun, were already beginning to shrivel; they just had to be rolled up to make three or four cigars, and these Giovannino considered ready to be smoked. Then, hidden together in a corner of the garden, for they were friends apart from politics, they lit matches and began drawing the first puffs. Out came an acrid, pestilential smoke which burnt eyes and throat. Giovannino was very pale and breathing in gasps, but went on drawing as Consalvo was declaring:
‘They’re excellent!… Real tobacco through and through … Don’t you like them?’
‘Yes … a glass of water … my head’s going round …’ Suddenly he went white as paper, his eyes rolled and he began to mutter deliriously:
‘The master … water … the flags.’
Consalvo, on whom the poison was working more slowly, asked:
‘What flags?… Where are they?…’
‘Under the bed … the revolution … Oh dear!… I’m going to be sick!…’
The young prince flung away his cigar and went indoors. He too felt nausea coming over him, his feet were unsteady and his sight rather misty, but he dragged himself as far as the master.
‘They’ve made flags … for the revolution … under the bed …’
‘Who?…’
‘Them … Giovannino … the plot …’
Nausea was rising, rising, clutching at his throat; his hands were freezing, everything was swirling vertiginously around him.
‘What plot?… And what’s the matter with you?’
‘Giovan … the rev …’
He put his hands out and fell to the ground like a corpse. When he came to his senses he found himself in bed, with Fra’ Carmelo watching over him. The light was dim, it was impossible to tell if it was dawn or dusk. No voice or sound of footsteps could be heard in the monastery; only the chirping of sparrows on the orange blossom.
‘How do you feel?’ asked the lay-brother, tenderly.
‘All right … What’s happened? What time is it?’
‘The sun’s just risen!… You did give us a fright! Don’t you recall?’
Then, confusedly, he remembered the cigars, nausea, his denunciation. Had a whole night passed then? What about Giovannino?
‘He too! He’s better now … The master searched in all the rooms, under the beds … he found lots of flags … His Paternity blamed me … as if I knew anything about these devilries!’
The plotters, finding themselves discovered, were desperate, not knowing whence the blow had fallen. But Giovannino, then also recovered, had just got up and was walking among his consternated comrades.
‘How did it happen? Was it you?’
‘Me?… Ah, that Judas of a cousin of mine!…’ And the blood rushed to his head with a wild impetus of rage, like a true ‘loony’s son’. ‘Wait! Wait!’
They hid and waited for Consalvo to come out, then surrounded him in the garden. Giovannino went up to him and asked:
‘Was it you, you dirty little spy, who told the master?’
Consalvo understood. Pale, trembling, he began protesting:
‘By the Most Holy Mary! The master … It wasn’t me …’
But the circle grew closer round him.
‘So you deny it too, do you? Have you only the guts to lie, you filthy spy!’
‘I swear to you …’
‘Oh, you stinking spy, you …’ and the first blow fell on his shoulders. Then they were all on top of him; he began yelling, but no-one heard his cries, for suddenly, at that unusual hour, all the bells of San Nicola began ringing out, so unexpectedly and strangely that the boys stopped hitting the informer and looked at each other, flustered. Suddenly Giovannino exclaimed:
‘The revolution!…’ and rushed indoors.
The rebel squads had finally entered the city, to attack the Neapolitan troops. All the monks locked themselves in. The Abbot had the gates chained after a terrified mob came clamouring for refuge inside the monastery. Only the bell-tower remained open to those in revolt, who continued to ring wildly as the thunder of the first cannons were heard from the Ursino castle.
Don Blasco, in spite of the dagger he wore under his habit, was green with bile and terror and came to take refuge, together with the most suspected pro-Bourbons, in the Novitiate, as a safer corner which no one would be likely to enter because of the young people. Even so he spat out a string of insults against that coward of a brother of his who had stayed inside with the excuse of the gates being shut, while still plotting with that other ‘swine’ Lorenzo Giulente.
‘Why doesn’t he get out into the streets? Why doesn’t he go out and fight? I’ll open the gates myself if he wants!… The rotter! The traitor!’
Actually the duke, who was in confabulation with the Abbot and his nephew the Prior, disapproved of the attack and was repeating General Clary’s view as wise and prudent.
‘Clary said to me yesterday, “Let’s wait to see what Garibaldi does; if he stays in Palermo I’ll embark with my soldiers and go; if not, you people must all be patient; I’ll be staying.” He was quite right, it seems to me! What need was there of attacking him? The fate of Sicily will not be decided here! But they won’t listen to me! What can I do about it? I wash my hands of it!’
‘They won’t listen to him!’ stormed Don Blasco, ‘after he’s gone and loosed them?… And now he acts the Jesuit? To stay on good terms with Clary if the mob gets the worst of it?’
Cannon boomed occasionally; people coming from the Botte dell’ Acqua seeking a refuge said that the heaviest skirmishing was at the Quattro Cantoni, but elsewhere the rebels were only sniping at the troops from behind corners of houses or terraces. Bourbon agents, pale and terrified, hurried in to take refuge in the lay-brothers’ cells. Garino, one of the first to shut himself up in San Nicola, stuck to Don Blasco’s habit and seemed quite out of his mind. The young prince too kept close to his uncle, not daring even to complain about the beating-up he had received, while Giovannino Radalì and the other Liberals among the boys surrounded Fra’ Carmelo and said to him:
‘Now Garibaldi’s coming!… We’ll all be leaving!… We’ll never be returning!…’
Before evening the bell-ringing and cannonades stopped. Don Blasco, who had gone to question passers-by from the walls of the flower-garden, returned waving his arms and roaring with delight:
‘The great revolution’s over!… The Lancers came out and cleared the streets … Hurray!… Hurray!…’
This news was confirmed from all sides, but the duke, for the moment, prudently remained inside. Don Blasco’s joy, however, was of short duration. Next day, on orders from Naples, Clary prepared for departure, and, handing over the city to a provisional junta, embarked the day after with all his troops.
Don Lorenzo Giulente with his nephew went up to San Nicola and invited the duke to the Town Hall
, where leading citizens were trying to control the revolution. Already, after the troops’ departure, in the first excitement of liberation, the first impulse to vengeance, a group of workmen had chased one of the worst and most hated police ‘rats’, killed him, and carried his head around the town. The duke’s heart was aquiver at the thought of leaving the safe refuge of the monastery and going into the city in its ferment, but the two Giulente assured him that all was quiet now and that he was expected by friends. So together they crossed streets more deserted than in time of plague, with all shops and windows barred up and a terrifying silence.
Don Gaspare Uzeda, in spite of the Giulentes’ assurances, and the proofs of his popularity newly acquired among Liberals, was afraid that someone might blame him for his lurking in San Nicola on the day of battle, or that the revolutionaries of ’48 would remember old tales. His legs trembled as he entered the Town Hall, crossed the crowded courtyard, went up to the room where they were deliberating; but gradually a smile came out on his pale closed lips, blood began circulating freely in his veins again, as he found himself saluted respectfully and cordially on all sides. Workers bowed to him, friends shook his hand and exclaimed, ‘At last!… It’s come!… We’re free!… At last we’re our own masters!…’
The most urgent matter to be dealt with was arranging some kind of service of public order, a militia to act until the formation of a National Guard. Money was needed to arm this militia and Guard. A subscription was opened to collect funds, and the duke offered three hundred onze. No one had given so much, the sum produced a sensation. When the meeting broke up, Don Gaspare was accompanied back to San Nicola by some dozens of people.
Next morning he added another hundred onze to buy ammunition. His popularity was growing by leaps and bounds. There was a dearth of work, as the city was still more or less a desert; he let no-one of those who turned to him for help go away empty-handed. He plucked up courage and went every day to the Reading Room, where Liberals commented jubilantly on news of the revolution’s progress. He put himself at the head of demonstrators going to fetch the band from the Charity Home, and went round town to the sound of the ‘Garibaldi Anthem’. Gradually, as he felt more and more reassured, he became quite at home in the Town Hall where his advice was always being asked. While all were talking of liberty and equality, no-one thought of doing anything to show how times had changed and privileges been destroyed and all citizens become really and truly equal. He suggested and had passed a decree for the abolition of superfine bread. This made him a great hero.
Don Blasco, lying low in the monastery, fumed away; not so much perhaps at the ruin of his party and the triumph of heresy, as at the news of his brother being suddenly considered a champion of liberty. The Governor would do nothing without the duke’s consent and put him on every commission, a group of admirers accompanied him to the Francalanza palace, which he had reopened and was now living in lest its closing be imputed to the family’s pro-Bourbonism; and petty shopkeepers and workers, all those who did not know what would happen next, were converted to the new party on hearing that a grandee like the Duke of Oragua, a Francalanza, was in it. Day and night as many patriotic demonstrations with music and torches and flags took place beneath the palace windows as beneath those of old Liberals who had been in prison or returned from exile.
Now everyone talked in the squares, from balconies, to stir people up or discuss what action to take in the political clubs being formed. But the duke, incapable of saying two consecutive words in public, terrified at the idea of having to speak before a crowd, would come down and meet them at the gates and get out of it by shouting with them, ‘Long live Garibaldi! Long live Victor Emmanuel! Long live liberty!…’ by taking Garibaldi volunteers to a café, paying for their ices, cigars and liqueurs. On the formation of the National Guard he was made a major in it. Every day he sent round to the guard on duty bottles of wine, cakes, packets of cigars, presents of all kinds. And his reputation grew and grew; in demonstrations the cry of ‘Long live Oracqua!’—as most pronounced it—was as frequent as ‘Long live Garibaldi!’ or ‘Victor Emmanuel!…’ All these enormities reduced Don Blasco to grim silence more terrible than any shouts. But the monk was not at the end of his trials. For where should the exiles, the brigands enrolling to follow the anti-Christ, be lodged? At San Nicola!…
At the announcement that Nino Bixio’s and Menotti Garibaldi’s column was coming to Catania, the Governor had sent a messenger to tell the Abbot that he had arranged for the soldiers of liberty to be put up at the monastery of the Benedictine Fathers. The Abbot, pro-Bourbon to the eyebrows, tried to make difficulties, but the Prior Don Lodovico persuaded him that it was best not to put up opposition.
On the 27th July the National Guard marched out to meet, just outside the gates, the column entering the city amid hurricanes of applause, and the volunteers were quartered at San Nicola, along the first floor and Clock corridors. Straw scattered over the floors, arms racks, rifles, cartridge cases, bayonets, pipe-stems, reduced the monastery to a state of siege. To reach the refectory Don Blasco had to cross this inferno twice a day. He would pass by, mute, pale, fretting, while the soldiers shouted ‘Hurrahs!’ to the Prior Don Lodovico, who had wine and cakes distributed.
All day long the men trained down in the outer courtyard. Bixio watched, whip in hand; occasionally he laid it across the shoulders of the most recalcitrant … ‘All in the name of liberty! All to get rid of age-old tyranny!’ the pro-Bourbon monks exclaimed to Don Blasco, but the latter did not even reply. Nothing seemed to interest him any longer, as if the world were about to end.
Bixio and Menotti were lodged in the guest wing. The Abbot avoided them, but the Prior—from prudence he said—treated his guests with all respect, enquired solicitously if there was anything they needed, and put the flower-garden at the disposal of the son of anti-Christ, who spent his leisure moments cultivating roses. One day, the novices, who were much reduced in number because many families had withdrawn their sons during the upset, were in a state of great expectation; Menotti was to come among them. Giovannino Radalì, Pedantoni, all the Liberals gazed at him with wide eyes as if he’d dropped from the moon, without bringing out a word, while he patted their heads. But Giovannino ran into the garden to pick the best rose and offered it to him calling him ‘General!…’ Consalvo was standing apart, frowning like his uncle Don Blasco, very downcast.
‘Not acting the spy “rat” any more,’ said his companions, when Menotti left. ‘Are you afraid of your tail being cut off?’
He did not reply. One day his father, reassured by the way public events were going, came down to see him.
‘I don’t want to stay here any more,’ the boy told him. ‘So many boys have left …’
‘Want?…’ replied the prince in a harsh tone, ‘Who taught you to use the word “want” …? You have to stay here for the moment.’
The duke not only approved of that decision but induced his nephew to bring his family back to town, as there was no danger, and such prolonged keeping apart, such signs of fear, might be taken ill by people. They all arrived a few days later, the marchese and the marchesa alone, beside themselves with delight in a carriage moving at foot’s pace out of regard for Chiara’s pregnancy, now finally confirmed as being in its sixth month. Every time the carriage stopped at blockposts Lucrezia put her head out of the window, thinking she recognised Giulente in every soldier.
But Benedetto was no longer in Sicily. In the first days he had helped his uncle Lorenzo and the duke to bring some order into the revolution, haranguing the crowds, speaking in the clubs with an eloquence admired by all, writing articles in a paper called Italia risorta founded by his uncle to urge annexation to Piedmont. Then in spite of his father and mother’s opposition, he had volunteered as a Garibaldino in a regiment of Scouts, and left for the mainland. On arrival in town, Lucrezia found a letter from the young man announcing that he was going to join Garibaldi to carry out his duty towards his country, and reco
mmending her not to weep should the great fate befall him of dying for Italy. She began reading every newspaper and every bulletin to learn what had happened to him, but understood less than ever, as she was quite incapable of making out the southern army’s movements.
Don Blasco, at his relations’ arrival, finally let out the bile that had been accumulating for three months. Every day, on coming to the palace, he spewed out curses against his brother and heaped the prince himself with insults for allowing the hated tricolour flag to hang from the central balcony, for putting out lights to greet that ‘brigand’s’ victories.
The prince looked humble and agreed, exclaiming, ‘But what can I do about it? He’s my uncle! Can I send him away?’ He was careful, however, not to make any remonstrances to the duke, very glad that the great patriot’s popularity should guarantee him his person and his home. But he made safety doubly sure; he talked against the duke to Don Blasco, against Don Blasco to the duke, certain of not being found out, as those two avoided each other like the plague. He also had to keep at bay Donna Ferdinanda, who had become a termagant after the fall of the legitimate Government, was for ever invoking its return and even went so far as to promise Saint Barbara a votive lamp if she threw all her thunderbolts against the betrayers. She demanded that the young prince be taken away from a monastery so infested by revolutionaries, and she adjured her little nephew, when the latter came to see her on holiday, ‘Don’t risk talking to those enemies of God or I’ll never look you in the face again!’ Consalvo’s reply was, ‘Yes, Excellency!’ as it was to the duke when the latter said to him, ‘Fine soldiers, those Garibaldini, eh?…’
The boy’s shoulders were still smarting from that beating for spying; now he was following the example of his uncle the Prior, who enjoyed the confidence of the out-and-out pro-Bourbon Abbot and was meanwhile very popular with the revolutionaries … What did the young prince care about Bourbon or Savoy? He wanted to get away from the Novitiate; that was why he had a secret rancour against his father, who had not allowed him to do so.
The Viceroys Page 27
