‘And the young prince?’
‘Ah, the young prince, not for the moment …’
And Don Eugenio, eyes glittering with curiosity in his famished face, sat down on the backless chair which the porter kept at the door of his little room, and asked:
‘Why? What’s the news?’
Gradually Pasqualino revealed the truth. The young prince could no longer live at home, at least for a time, because of the constant friction with his father. From all these upsets the Signor Prince had fallen ill. As for Don Consalvo, he could not be said to be afflicted enough to fall ill, but the quarrels and disagreements had made him lose weight too. So it was best for them both to be apart for a time … thus the prince had had time to calm down and persuade himself that after all his son had not actually murdered anyone! Perhaps they were accusing him of taking no interest in the administration of the property, of ill-treating his stepmother? ‘But Your Excellency knows what the Signor Prince is like; he’d have both hands cut off rather than hand over the account-books and strong-box keys to others! It’s true the Signorino is not as fond of the princess as he was of his mother. But one has only one mother, hasn’t one, Cavaliere? A stepmother should be respected, and he does respect her …’ The real reason for the friction was in fact different. The Signor Prince did not want to have money spent, and the young prince on the other hand spent it like a lord … So the Signorino had signed one or two I.O.U.’s, and every time creditors presented one to the prince, good God, he nearly had a stroke. He even wanted to have him arrested, as if such a thing could be said in the Francalanza palace even as a joke!
Pasqualino made a gesture of indignation, brought out another chair from the little room and sat down next to the cavaliere, who, nodding his head gravely, took from his pocket a half-smoked cigar and asked the coachman for a match. ‘Then, Your Excellency will allow me?…’ and he lit his pipe and went on with what he was saying. For whom, then, had the Signor Prince amassed all those riches? Not for himself, as he got no pleasure from them; not for his daughter; for once married the Signorina Teresa would take her dowry and that would be that; so for the son, surely! Then why keep him short of money? A young man like the Prince of Mirabella needed so many things; he had to spend a lot!… The master did not understand that, for he himself as a young man had lived like a monk … ‘But we’re not all made the same way are we?’ And then times had changed. The gentry had to spend if they wanted to be respected; otherwise some newly enriched shoemaker would be more respected!…
And Pasqualino, in his bitterness at being unable to get as much as he once used to for private household expenses, boldly qualified the prince as swinishly stingy, capable of denying his own son for a lire, and for the cavaliere’s benefit, he hinted that if the head of the family had been different he would have helped relations not as rich as himself. Don Eugenio, smoking and spitting, his thin Don Quixotish legs crossed, bowed his head, agreed with the coachman and with himself too. ‘I said … it couldn’t last … my nephew has such a way of behaving!’
The conversation went on in the cool of the vestibule. Master and servant discoursed intimately, as equals, mingling smoke of pipe and cigar; in fact though Pasqualino was no longer smart as before, yet he seemed the master and Don Eugenio the servant. The head porter, part-scandalised and part-envious of the confidence granted by the cavaliere to the coachman was walking dignifiedly up and down before the entrance, his hands behind the back of his frogged overcoat.
‘Who is that old rag-bag?’ asked the estate-clerks as they came out after work.
‘The Signor Prince’s uncle, so he says!’
All in all, that was the best greeting poor Don Eugenio got. Next day he began to do the rounds of relations who were in town. First he went to his brother, Don Blasco.
The monk now looked on the point of exploding. His great belly was swelled out with blubber, his head bigger than ever and his chin sunk into a gelatinous mass of neck. He was now so huge and his legs so weak that he could not move. Beside him Donna Lucia, Garino’s wife, seemed light and slim.
‘Why’ve you come back?’ he said to his brother by way of greeting, immediately he saw him enter. He had in fact received the circular of The Sicilian Herald, and realising from it that the author must be in sore need of money was making the first move to avoid requests for subsidies.
‘I’ve come only for a little visit,’ replied Don Eugenio. ‘First of all to see you all again, and then to associate you with the work which I sent you a leaflet about.’
And he began to enumerate distinguished subscribers: His Highness the Bey of Tunis, the Vizirs of the Regency, the chief grandees of Palermo, the Prince of Alì, the Marchese of Lojacomo, the Duke of this and the Count of that.
‘Well?’ exclaimed the monk, as if to say ‘Why come to tell me all these lies?’, without even asking his brother. ‘Have you been in Tunis? What were you doing there?’
‘I also have subscriptions by twenty Town Councils, thirty Societies and eight Libraries. It’s superb business. When all is said and done, and expenses of printing, paper, postage, etc. deducted, even with only the subscriptions gathered so far it’s a sure gain, but I’ve still half Sicily to go round for subscribers. If we reach three hundred there’ll be ten thousand lire net profit.’
‘Well …?’
‘I’d like to suggest our printing the book together.’
The monk stared him in the whites of the eyes.
‘Are you mad?’
‘Why? Or don’t you think there’s profit in it? I’ll tot it up for you in a minute and show you the signatures I’ve gathered.’
‘I don’t want to see a thing! Whatever you say I believe; thank you very much; but keep the ten thousand lire for yourself.’
The cavaliere persisted for quite a time in the wheedling insinuating tone of some agent or middleman, with a fine flow of words to show the beauties of his proposal in the best light but to no purpose; Don Blasco went on refusing, first dryly, then raising his voice, then shouting for this nagger to get out of his hair.
‘Then … if you don’t want to run the business risks … do me a favour … Subscribers don’t pay in advance, I need a sum down to begin printing. Lend me a thousand lire or so …’
‘I haven’t got it.’
‘I’ll hand over the surest signatures, you can choose them yourself.’
‘I haven’t got it.’
The cavaliere did not allow even this to discourage him. He reduced his request from a thousand to eight hundred and then to five hundred lire, and as the monk went on replying almost in a whine of impatience; ‘I haven’t got it … I … have … not … got … it … How am I to din that into you?…’ Don Eugenio ended calmly:
‘Then I’ll wait till it’s convenient for you. I’m in no hurry; I must get all the subscriptions first … Then I’ll bring the application forms, enquiries, and leaflets to show you.’
Hoping to succeed better with his sister, the cavaliere went and renewed his efforts with Donna Ferdinanda. The old spinster, dry and green as garlic, seemed to defy time; the years passed over her without effect. She was now sixty-two but looked no more than fifty. Only her hands had become covered with wrinkles and were worn thin and calloused from counting money, as if from working iron or hoeing land. She too had received The Sicilian Herald circular; on seeing her brother she began to ask news of his health, of Palermo, of the people she knew in that city, listening with interest to the interminable speeches of the cavaliere, who, encouraged by this friendly reception, named great numbers of people with whom he was, he said, like a ‘brother’, telling stories about them with as much interest as if they affected him personally. ‘The separation of the Duke Proti, such a dear friend … that mad baroness simply refused to listen to me … As I told the prince, my dear Emanuele, I said, do think it over well …’ His gossip went on a long time because Donna Ferdinanda was giving him a lot of rope, which the cavaliere did not even need, so happy was he to mention hi
s grand connections at Palermo.
‘And d’you know the best of the news? Palmi’s daughter is married!’
‘Yes? Who to?’
‘To my friend Memmo Duffredi, Duffredi of Casaura, Ciccio Lojacomo’s nephew, one of the first nobles of Palermo. He’s worth millions!’
‘Really?’
‘Such luck for the girl! That intriguer the baron arranged it all and pinned Memmo down. Of course, as a relation I couldn’t quite say it, otherwise I’d have gone to Ciccio and warned him, ‘Your son can find a better match …’ And that girl has a certain way about her … Anyway, I didn’t say a word, particularly as when it was all being arranged I was in Tunis …’
‘Oh, so you’ve been in Tunis, have you? And what were you doing there?’
‘What was I doing there? Nothing. Just a trip …’ and he coughed a little, even so, embarrassed and almost confused. Donna Ferdinanda went on asking him questions about Tunis, if it was a fine city, how long he had been there and so on, until the cavaliere, as if finally making up his mind, said:
‘I also went there to gather subscriptions for my new book, you know …’
‘Book?’ exclaimed the old spinster, looking amazed. ‘What book?’
‘D’you mean to say you never got the leaflet?’
‘I never got anything.’
‘The Sicilian Herald?… the history of our nobility?’
‘A book! So you’re printing a book, are you?… ha, ha, ha,’ and she broke out into one of those rare laughs of hers which caught people on the raw. Don Eugenio, who had sustained scatheless all the monk’s refusals, was quite riled by his sister’s hilarity.
‘Why not?’ asked he, trying to re-erect his own dignity which Donna Ferdinanda was demolishing with that nasty laughter of hers.
‘Why shouldn’t I be as good at writing as anyone else?’
‘Ha! ha! ha!’
On and on went her laughter. But when the old man explained what book it was he had written she became subtler, more ironic, more cutting. A history of the nobility after those of Mugnòs and Villabianca? To slip in all the new rich who called themselves ‘Cavaliere’ and ‘Marchese’? Genuine nobles were all in the old books!… Then the cavaliere tried to show what a good speculation it was at least, but the old spinster gave him no quarter. Make money with dirtied paper? Who on earth valued soiled paper except cheesemongers? And whoever would think of buying a book from him? They’d all start laughing like herself! Signatures? Given to get rid of him! The point was how many would pay up later!…
‘At least, lend me a couple of hundred lire, won’t you?’
‘No, you’d never give them back.’
And all insistence was useless.
When he went to repeat the attempt with his niece Chiara, Don Eugenio was not even able to see her; the maid said that the marchese was out and the marchesa shut in her room with a headache.
‘Tell her her uncle is here.’
‘Your Excellency must excuse me, when she has a headache, nobody can talk to the Signora Marchesa.’
On the cavaliere making a gesture of impatience, the woman muttered, looking around, ‘Excellency, there’s trouble.’
‘What trouble?’
‘The Marchesa … but please, Signor Cavaliere, don’t lose me my job … Mad for her husband, wasn’t she, Excellency? All one they were. Whatever the Signor Marchese wanted was law for her … and the master never took advantage of it; love and accord in every possible way. But now?… now there’s no more peace, because of that son of … I know who! A little devil he is, Excellency, and the mistress dotes on him, lets him do what he likes, takes his side against the master. They quarrel every day … the Signor Marchese wants to correct him, teach him manners, make him study, but Your Excellency’s niece takes against the master for maltreating the lad. Yesterday things came to a head; they haven’t talked for twenty-four hours … The Signor Marchese left the house at dawn. I wonder if he’ll come back!’
And Don Eugenio for all his insistence could not persuade the maid to face her mistress’s ill-temper by taking the message.
Then he went to knock at the Giulentes’ door. He reached it at about dusk, after a day hurrying to and fro. Benedetto was not there; and Lucrezia was unrecognisable she had become so hideous. Her body had become a sack of flesh in which neither breast nor waist nor hips could be distinguished. Her face, from continual acrimony and incurable discontent at her own condition, looked hard and sour, unexpectedly like the prince’s. The first remarks she made to her uncle on seeing him after all those years were against Benedetto.
‘He’s not here; he’s never at home. Now he’s not mayor any more he’s got himself nominated President of the Provincial Council. For love of country, of course, Your Excellency! The older he gets the more of an ass he becomes. He’s mad! But the awful thing is he makes me mad too. After twenty years …’—she calculated time in her own way—‘any man who was less of an ass would have realised he ought to stop sucking up to people. Instead, he’s like an egg on the boil; the longer he’s at it the harder he sticks! He wants to be a deputy: what for, I ask? If he were a deputy, what would he get out of it? All he got from being mayor was that not a soul could ever see him, not even those he’d been crazy enough to help. Serves him right!…’
Towards her own family she still had that mixture of resentment, envy and respect, according as pride at being part of it, regret at having left it, or suspicion of being rejected by it was uppermost in her mind. When talking of the prince’s journey now, she kept on mentioning that her brother and sister-in-law wrote to her every two days, and quoting from their letters announcing an autumn return. Then she began criticising and pin-pricking:
‘They were right to collect Teresina from college themselves and carry her off travelling … My sister-in-law’s another mother to that girl!… She loves her so much she kept her two years more than necessary in college so as to turn her out a lady of letters. Graziella knows such a lot about belles-lettres!’
Then she at once added, ‘Your Excellency hasn’t seen Teresina’s latest portrait?… No? Wait, you’ll see what a beauty she is. They sent it me two months ago … But as to Consalvo,’ she went on after showing her uncle the portrait, ‘there’s no news whatsoever … he might not be their son at all. Without the letters he writes to his aunt we wouldn’t know if he was alive or dead. He’s said to be in Paris now … he’s been in Berlin, London, Vienna …’
The cavaliere was not listening to her but mulling over his best approach. As soon as his niece paused, he explained the speculation he proposed and its combination of sure financial gain with nobility of purpose? But Lucrezia replied:
‘The history of our nobility? Where’s there any nobility nowadays? What history does Your Excellency intend writing? Boot-lickers are the rage now, not nobles! Nowadays to get any respect one has to come from nothing! Why not write the history of jumped-up peasants and notaries? There’s money to be made there!’
Imperturbable, Don Eugenio started again next day. At the Radalì-Uzeda’s he found the Duke Michele and the Baron Giovannino; the duchess was out. Michele, at twenty-five, was losing his hair and seemed twice that age. Giovannino on the other hand was more graceful, slim and elegant than before. When they heard their relative’s request, they both replied that only their mother could give an answer. And next day the cavaliere went back and talked to the duchess, who said in surprise, ‘Me print books? However did such an idea get into your head? As if I could know a thing about it!’
So Don Eugenio had a walk for nothing.
But he did not lose heart. From distant relatives he passed to friends, mere acquaintances, people he met in the street whom he stopped under pretence of seeing and greeting again. He would begin by recounting as if he’d had it directly the news of the prince and of Consalvo learnt from Lucrezia, regret the quarrel between father and son, announce the return of the young princess, whom he said he had seen in Florence. ‘What a beauty!…’ Then he t
alked of his sojourn in Palermo, described the apartment of ten rooms in which he lived on the Cassaro, all the while draped majestically in filthy ragged clothes which told only of poverty, hunger and squalid promiscuity. He would also mention his journey to Tunis, the decoration he had received from the Bey, without explaining quite why he had obtained it and what precisely he had done at His Highness’ Court. After thoroughly bemusing people with all this he would ask point blank:
‘Did you get my leaflet?’
And again he explained the scope of the book, enumerated the subscribers he had got. These grew in numbers every time; the signatures of private citizens went up from two to three hundred, to four, five hundred; those of Town Councils from fifty, to sixty, to ninety; libraries multiplied from one moment to another. A thousand subscribers were already certain, another thousand more or less definite. And he would offer a part share, ask for less and less money down, and finally declare that he would be quite content with twelve signatures, with six, even with one. To get away from him people made ambiguous promises. But he noted down their names in a grimy dog-eared notebook, stuffed only with circulars and application forms which he redistributed, thrusting them into the pockets of anyone who made to refuse them, and asking them to put them around and fill one up as soon as possible. After a day of work, just as he was about to go into his hotel again, he met Benedetto coming out.
‘Excellency!… how are you?… I came to visit you; I’m so sorry for not being at home yesterday.’
Somewhat embarrassed, Don Eugenio invited him up to his room. It had a sagging floor, two strips of white cotton acting as curtains on the window, a basin on a chair and a jug on the floor.
‘I had to come here as the Grand Hotel was all full up. How uncomfortable one is in this town. At Palermo I had a twelve-roomed apartment. The staircase was really superb!…’
And in spite of Lucrezia’s refusal he pulled the circulars from his pocket and got down to business at once.
The Viceroys Page 50
