The two brothers were fond of each other, and had always been close, so if now Giovannino seemed to be putting a spoke in the wheel it was her fault for not having told him of the match she had in mind. The fault was also Michele’s. Lymphatic, incapable of excitement, fond only of shooting and good food, when his mother let years pass without finding him a wife, he had never asked for one. Now that his cousin Teresa was suggested, he was prepared to marry her, without any desire, without any urge, as he would have married any other girl. He treated his cousin with the familiarity justified by their relationship, joked with her as he joked with all, rather grossly; he was incapable of saying a tender word to her. How could anyone suspect then that he was the girl’s future husband? It was not even suspected by Baldassarre, who was astounded at hearing that the bridegroom was not to be his favourite but the other brother. What? The prince wanted to give that other one to the young mistress? Suppose the signorina didn’t want him! Hadn’t he himself, Baldassarre, announced to all that the bridegroom was the young baron Giovannino? ‘Oh, come on! The prince doesn’t know that the young mistress loves the younger! When he sees she’s really in earnest he’ll come round …’ Instead of which Teresa’s eyes were always red with tears because of the aversion her father showed her and the coldness with which her stepmother also treated her, because of this new quarrel broken out in the family which she longed to see at peace. And one day the princess said to her:
‘Well, can you tell us what’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing, mamma, there’s nothing the matter with me.’
‘Then why all this continual gloom? You’re holding stubbornly to your idea, are you? Well, now it’s time to speak frankly. Your father has declared that you’ll either marry Michele or no-one. I didn’t want to tell you before, thinking he might change, but you know him better than I do … D’you want to cause him great pain just at this moment? Don’t you know he’s ill, much more seriously than he seems? And not only your father but the duchess too? Two families! You’ve disturbed two families!… Now that you know how things are, persist if you wish. Of course nowadays parents’ wishes have not the effect of law on children. If you want him at any cost you can even elope, as girls do who have no respect or shame …’
When she used these arguments Donna Graziella’s voice sweetened, as if she could not believe in the hypothesis she was enunciating. ‘You can marry him too, but on other conditions, of course, and without your parents’ blessing. If you think you could be happy like that, go ahead.’
Teresa wept no more now; she had poured out so many tears in secret, soaking her pillow every night. She looked ahead of her fixedly, seeing nothing, with a nervous trembling of her jaw, an infinitely bitter twist on her lips. The princess now stopped being severe and reverted to quiet persuasion, saying lovingly that the best judges of what suited her were her own parents, and that by herself she could make a mistake, as had for example her aunt Lucrezia, who had wanted to marry Giulente at all costs, and how did she speak of him now? Certainly the cases were not the same, for there was not so much difference between Michele and Giovannino to make one worthy of her and the other not. But there was a serious reason which had decided them to give her the elder, a reason she should be told.
‘If Michele isn’t as handsome as Giovannino, he has iron health, while his brother is delicate, sickly. Apart from another even more serious thing: his overwhelming restlessness … Don’t you know his father was mad when he was born? May God disprove the prophecy, but suppose one day his brain went too? That would be nice for you!… So you see your father has reasons and not just fancies. To flout him means giving him pain which can be fatal to him, particularly as we are not sure what his illness is. I cried so much a few days ago when the doctor confided to me that his health has to be taken very seriously. I didn’t want to say anything to you but you should know what your responsibility would be if you oppose his wishes, which are only for your own good.’
She began again the next day and then the one after, on and on, cajoling, producing reasons against which Teresa would never pronounce the opposing reasons crowding to her mind. For example hadn’t her aunt Lucrezia just changed her mind from sheer caprice, as everyone said?… And if they were so afraid for Giovannino’s mental health, why were they urging her to give him such a heavy blow as this, by refusing to allow her to marry him after he had told her that he loved only her? No, she did not say either these or any other things she thought, for had she done so she would have had to say that her father wanted to sacrifice her to a stupid prejudice, that her stepmother was pretending all that fondness in order to induce her to do what the prince wanted; she would have had to say that in no other family was a father’s illness a reason for making his daughters unhappy; she would have also had to say that Consalvo’s rebellion now seemed justified and that she should rebel herself … But this was sin! The confessor had warned her, recommended prudence, obedience, self-denial, all the Christian virtues of which she had such luminous examples in her family: Sister Maria of the Cross, who had been at San Placido since childhood, who had renounced with exemplary vocation this sad world to give herself to her Celestial Spouse and was now, as just reward for her Christian virtues, Abbess of her convent; Monsignor Lodovico, who had also spurned the rank awaiting him in secular life in order to embrace the monastic state. And Blessed Ximena in the past. That very year occurred the third anniversary of her exaltation among the Elect; would her descendant show herself degenerate just as that saint was looking down from paradise with particular love and fervour? The same arguments were repeated by her aunt the Abbess, at San Placido, where the princess now took her every Sunday by her husband’s order.
The Abbess, with a waxen face amid white veils, was well into her second childhood, and from behind the parlour gratings did nothing but repeat to her niece what had been impressed on her, saying, ‘You must carry out your father and mother’s wishes. Our Lord orders it, Our Immaculate Virgin orders it, our protector St Joseph orders it …’ Her voice had taken on the lilt of recitation of a Litany. And there among the convent walls, Teresa remembered her distant childhood, the old fear she had felt when they put her on the wheel to take her into the impenetrable convent. But she also remembered the nuns’ praises when she helped to deck the altars with flowers and light the candles before the Crucifix. ‘A holy little nun! A holy little nun!…’ And the instinct of sacrifice, the urge of humility, the thirst for rewards which had preoccupied her as a child, awoke in her again. Her confessor suggested a further scruple: that of urging another soul to sin; for she did not now know it, but so it was—the younger Radalì had threatened to rebel openly against his mother.
This was untrue. Giovannino had no idea of rebellion at all; at the announcement of his brother’s intended engagement he just lost his gaiety. Baldassarre, more determined than ever about arranging the second son’s marriage, no longer understood what was happening. ‘Had Giovannino paid court to his cousin or not? Had the signorina shown she liked him or not? Was the duke Michele totally indifferent to his cousin as he was to all other girls or not? Was he very fond of his own brother or not? Then who was all this muddle due to? To the prince, stubborn like all the Uzeda …’ Baldassarre at one point put a hand over his mouth so as not to repeat people’s opinions about the family ‘and of the duchess, who was not part-Uzeda for nothing …’
The centenary of Blessed Ximena was celebrated with unusual pomp. For the triduum the church of the Capuchins, all red drapery, gold fringes and flowered carpets, was lit up like broad day. Bells rang festively; Masses said continuously on every altar drew huge crowds of faithful of all kinds. The Saint’s descendants also came, but at different times, to avoid each other, so much did they love one another.
The princess and Teresa, the first day, lingered to beg their glorious relative to heal prince Giacomo, who for two weeks had been kept to his bed by mysterious ailments. But the greatest solemnity was reserved for the third day, when after P
ontifical High Mass the people would be admitted to contemplate the relics.
Already the Father Guardian, helped by Father Camillo and Monsignor the Vicar-General, had produced a little volume entitled ‘On the tercentenary of the canonisation of Blessed Uzeda’, printed with much display of margins and colours. All the relatives had received a copy, and Teresa, who had gone to Confession and was waiting to go to Holy Communion on the day of the great feast, meditated over her own copy. The legend of the Saint, which she had heard repeated piecemeal and in differing versions, was narrated consecutively in that booklet.
‘Ximena, of the illustrious stock of Uzeda,’ so began the first chapter, ‘was daughter of the Viceroy Consalvo and of the noble Caterina born Baroness of Marzanese. From her tenderest years she was an example of edification to her family, delighting in sacred images and the Divine Offices. Although her natural choice was to dedicate her life to her Celestial Spouse, yet her father was persuaded for political reasons to marry her to the Count of Motta-Reale, a mighty Spanish noble, but a man of cruel mind and with no fear of God.’ There followed a narrative of Ximena’s refusal, her long weeping, and the conflict between her filial and her celestial love. But one day when the girl was fifteen a singular miracle occurred; an angel appeared to Ximena and said to her, ‘The Lord has chosen you to redeem a soul; obey.’ Then the girl accepted the match.
The second chapter described the count’s castle, set on an eminence, ‘astride many trade routes’, and narrated the wickednesses of her lord. ‘He attacked travellers, left them naked and tied to trees by the roadside, or took them prisoners, or murdered them amid cruel torments.’ His life was an orgy; ‘he abused women, guzzled and drank from morn till night, cursed God and the Saints, and laughed at the Ministers of Heaven’. And the torments he inflicted on his bride were the subject of the third chapter. ‘Jeered at all day for her devout practices, forced to hear the coarse talk of that evil man and his henchmen, to observe their wickedness, to be present at their rascalities, Ximena made of her faith an ever-stronger shield, praying for the Almighty’s forgiveness for these fallen souls. But that wretched husband of hers in his iniquity, exacerbated by such exemplary sanctity, maddened by the protection his wife gave to the poor creatures who had fallen into his clutches, put Ximena to such a proof that the very pen blushes to narrate it. One night, drunk from all the wine swilled, he let his friends penetrate into the nuptial chamber where Ximena was reposing after a day spent in prayer and good works. The wretched girl awoke all of a sudden, and, terrified by the drunken men’s shifty eyes, leaped from the bed and fell at the feet of a sacred image of the Blessed Virgin of Perpetual Succour which she always kept with great devotion above the bed. Then a new miracle occurred; the frenzied crew stopped as if some magic ring were preventing them getting any nearer to the woman, and coming suddenly to their senses, they made the Sign of the Cross before the image, then left the room.’
When one fine day the count set off for his estates in Spain and his wife remained in Sicily alone, all suddenly changed in the castle of Motta-Reale. ‘Where before there had echoed obscene songs and clash of swords and sounds of shot, savage cries and sad laments, now only the praises of the Most High rose to heaven. That place, once the terror of passers-by, became a hospice for the derelict and sick drawn there by the countess’s great reputation for charity. She lodged pilgrims, adopted orphans, helped the needy, cured the sick, tended wounds and sores with her own hands and healed them most wonderfully. On the spots where so many wretches had fallen victims to the count were raised altars and crosses in expiation of old crimes and for the conversion of unbelievers. All Ximena’s fortune was divided among churches; she herself lived a frugal life, saying “little is too much, a lot alarms me”. Not content that the poor should come to her, she would go to the poor herself, facing storms and perils, visibly protected by Heaven …’
There was no news meanwhile of the count. What was he doing? Where was he? ‘One stormy night, while lightning flashed and thunder crashed, the countess got up, woke her maid, and said to her, “Go and open the gate, someone is knocking.” The woman replied, “No one is knocking; ’tis the thunder.” And a second time the countess got up and said to the woman, “Go and open, someone is knocking.” And the woman replied, “No one is knocking, ’tis the wind.” And a third time the countess got up and said to the woman, “Go and open, someone is knocking,” and the woman replied, “No one is knocking, ’tis the rain.” But when she was ordered to waken the servants, the maid herself rose. When the castle gate was opened, a beggar was found, asking for the mistress of the house. This was an old man, ragged and barefoot, whose face was stamped with the stigma of vice; the terrible disease which is the just punishment of the dissolute had corroded away his features and his eyes were closed to the light of day. He was dying of hunger, could scarcely stand, and would have been at the mercy of any small child. Who was this old man? It was the Count of Motta-Reale!
‘Having squandered all his riches in dissipation and gambling, lost his health, been abandoned by his former comrades in debauchery, rejected by all from horror of the disease destroying him, he had dragged himself from one place to another, blaspheming and cursing; till, having returned to Sicily, he heard of the great charity of a woman who greeted and tended all the sick, even those with leprosy. And as he climbed up to the castle and entered it, his dead eyes had been unable to recognise his old lair or his dulled ears to distinguish his consort’s voice. But she had recognised him. And, after restoring him with food and drink, dressing his wounds and washing his feet, Ximena put him to rest in her own bed … And the wretch, who till a few hours before had cursed and despaired, felt for the first time a gentle sweetness in his veins and a fire of gratitude melt his stony heart … But now his hour had sounded, and God had arranged to give him not the ephemeral health of the body, but the true health of the soul … The old man, cared for by the Blessed Ximena, entered his death agony amid the gentle murmur of her prayers. But his end had nothing dreadful about it at all; in fact he seemed completely healed, and to hear ineffable music and breathe sweet perfumes when a short time before he had been rotting and suppurating all over … And a smile of contentment played about his mouth as his lips murmured, “Who art thou who dost not reject me and who grantest me back life?” … And the Blessed Ximena replied, “Look me in the face.”
‘Then came the greatest miracle. The blind man’s eyes opened; he recognised his wife, the woman he had maltreated and offended and who alone was protecting him now in his wretchedness and infirmity; and at the instant when his soul, forgiven and redeemed, rose to heaven, from his lips came the words, “A Saint, O Lord! a Saint!…” ’
Teresa’s eyes were bathed in tears of emotion; but the little book was not finished. The last chapter narrated new, greater, clearer proofs of charity and sanctity given by the Blessed Ximena after her husband’s death. At the end it told of her death and her miracles. ‘She had not yet expired when flights of little birds came and settled on the roof of her house, perched on her balcony, entered her little room like celestial messengers come to meet her lovely soul. Sweet scents of roses and jasmine and hyacinths spread like incense from her body, and a great number of sick, brought to look at her for the last time on her death-bed, were miraculously healed on kissing the hem of her robe.
‘By divine prodigy the earthly remains of this chosen soul were preserved from corruption; after all the centuries the Blessed Ximena’s flesh still keeps the freshness and colour which it had in life, so that she seems deep in some divine dream. During plagues and other private and public calamities Blessed Uzeda has operated innumerable miracles, proved before the Sacred Courts of Rome. And for this reason, we hereby publish for the first time the cause for her canonisation, which we have been able to procure thanks to the noble intercession of his Most Eminent Cardinal Lodovico Uzeda, the Blessed Ximena’s distinguished descendant.’
The reading of this story, the solemnity of the centenary
, the harangues by her confessor, her stepmother and her aunt the nun, her father’s illness, even the raising of her uncle Lodovico to the supreme dignity of the Church in those same days, all united to bend Teresa’s heart like wax.
After all, was she being forced to marry a monster as the Saint had been in her time? Michele was no monster; he was a good young man. And her parents were not forcing her, they were just trying to persuade her, showing her the virtue of obedience, speaking for her own good, for the peace of two families, for the health of her father, made ill—it was said—by all his rebuffs. They were warning her not to follow Consalvo’s sad example, and promising her every reward, earthly and celestial.
Then that solemn ceremonial of the centenary, particularly on the third day, the adoration of the relics! She had gone to the altar steps for Holy Communion, had received the Sacred Host, while the smoke of incense and the scent of great masses of flowers were wafted in the air and bells rang festively and the organ played, grave and potent. How many brows had been bowed, how many prayers murmured before the Saint, to whom she had been compared herself! But for years and years she had been terrified at the idea of actually seeing the dead woman’s centuries-old corpse, as if by some new and ghastly miracle the lifeless body might raise itself in its coffin, break the glass and grasp the living amid the nauseating stench of rotten balsam … With the crowd opening respectfully to let them pass as she advanced towards the glittering chapel, her terror grew, turned her to ice, her legs felt as if they were giving way, cold shivers ran down her backbone. Ah, that coffin!
The Viceroys Page 58
