‘Now he’s talked, can you tell me what he said?’
In the final days Consalvo’s anxiety grew feverish. He could scarcely fail to succeed, but wanted to be first. His supporting committee now included the whole city, the whole constituency, electors and non-electors. Posters with the words ‘VOTE FOR THE PRINCE OF FRANCALANZA: ELECT CONSALVO UZEDA OF FRANCALANZA. PRINCE CONSALVO OF FRANCALANZA CANDIDATE FOR THE FIRST CONSTITUENCY’ grew bigger and bigger, covered huge areas of paper with letters a foot high; the very walls seemed to be shouting his name … First! First! He wanted to be first!…
On the eve of polling day there was real pandemonium in the palace; all were asking, ‘The prince, where’s the prince?…’ But his household replied he was with his uncle the duke, who was not well. Despite this all work went on as intensely as if he were there. Giardona’s and Lisi’s representatives had come to make up final lists of election officials. Meanwhile invigilators over the rural wards were making ready to leave. At midnight the prince arrived. The meeting went on until two in the morning, when the first carriages left for outlying wards.
And next day, when booths were opened and voting began, together with the news of the prince’s victory—for electors were declaring for him in thousands, returning specially from the country, hauled to voting booths on chairs if they could not go on their own feet—a rumour, first vague, then ever more insistent, went round among Lisi’s followers: ‘Betrayal! Betrayal!…’ In the last hours of the previous night, it was affirmed, the prince had come to an agreement with Vazza. Some gave details, ‘We saw him entering the lawyer’s house towards eleven o’clock …’ and there, they asserted, had been plotted their betrayal, agreement with the clericals, abandonment of Lisi, perhaps also of Giardona. ‘What? When? What the devil are you saying? The prince was at the old duke’s and didn’t move from there!…’ replied his supporters in their glee at victory already assured.
Towards dusk the first telegrams from provincial wards reached the palace. But those results were not all equally favourable; some local candidates had strong majorities, in first counts the prince’s place oscillated between second and third. Consalvo, very pale, was all atremble. But as the results of the urban wards came in his position consolidated. There was no mention of third place now; he was with Vazza between first or second. When the last telegrams and last messages with the definite figures arrived, there was no more doubt; he was first with six thousand and forty-three votes; Vazza came just after with five thousand nine hundred and eighty-nine votes; then Giardona with four thousand nine hundred and fourteen votes; the radical Marcenò was out with three thousand three hundred and nine votes; Lisi dropped to fewer than three thousand votes; the others were all a thousand votes or so apart, with two thousand, or even scarcely a thousand. Giulente had only seven hundred!
It was late at night, but the Francalanza palace was all lit up, with every window aglitter. An endless throng poured in to congratulate ‘the first elect of the people’. There was an incessant buzz on the stairs; it was impossible to breathe in the rooms. Consalvo, radiant, moving with difficulty amid the compact crowd, was seizing every hand, embracing all, healed as if by magic from his mania about isolation and contagion in his wild delight at the magnificent triumph. When a great torchlight procession, a vast demonstration with music and flags, frantically acclaimed him, he went on the balcony, harangued the crowd and gave himself up once again to their curiosity, like a tribune.
For three days the town was in constant ferment. Every night the demonstration was renewed, the enthusiasm grew instead of cooling. In the slums a little song to the tune of ‘Mastro Raffaele’ was all the rage:
Long live the prince,
Who pays our drinks,
Long live the prince
Who fills our bellies.
Groups of drunks went round shouting ‘Hurrah for Victor Emmanuel! Hurrah for the Revolution! Hurrah for His Holiness!…’ and things even wilder. For three days the palace was invaded by people coming to congratulate him, an incessant procession from ten in the morning till midnight, with scarcely two hours’ pause for lunch and dinner. He made an attempt at talking modestly about the general results, about the ‘fine experiment’ of the new law, about the good sense shown by Italians, but they would not let him have his say, insisted on talking only of him, of his resounding, richly deserved victory.
On the fourth day he went out into the streets. His arm nearly broke with all the hat-doffing and handshaking. Joy was written all over his face, showed in all his actions and words, in spite of his studied attempt to hide it. Tired of seeing the populace, to taste another flavour of triumph he thought of visiting his relatives. He began with the old duke, who was quite genuinely ill, after eighty years of machinations and intrigues.
‘Is Your Excellency pleased with the results?’ Consalvo asked him.
But though the old man had recommended his nephew everywhere so that power should stay in the family, he could not even so prevent himself feeling jealous of this rising star, while his own had not only set politically but he felt himself to have a very short time to live.
‘I’ve heard … good …’ he muttered shortly.
‘Have you seen how well things have gone in the rest of Italy? The world seemed to be falling about our ears and yet there are scarcely a dozen Radicals in. The Right has also gained …’
He was flattering his uncle a little, for he hoped to be his heir. In Rome he would need money, a lot of money; the richer he was the sooner he could win a place in the capital. He was not worried by the coolness shown by the duke; to whom else could the old man leave his fortune but to the heir of the Uzeda name? To Teresa’s children, maybe?
On leaving his uncle’s, he went on to his sister’s. Though owing her gratitude for her generosity at the time of their father’s death, he had not yet forgiven her refusal to help him during his struggle, and he wanted now to show her that he had been able to win through on his own. But Teresa was not in. The porter told him that the young duchess had driven out in her country coach, together with Monsignor the Vicar-General. He went upstairs even so, and found the old duchess with Father Gentile.
‘Teresa has gone to Belpasso, to visit the Servant of God … you know, the peasant girl of the miracles … His Lordship the Bishop had allowed no-one to pay such a visit; but made an exception for your sister alone …’
‘The duchess’s sanctity,’ said the Jesuit with compunction, ‘explains and sanctions this exception.’
Consalvo thought he should bow his head a little in sign of thanks, as if for a courtesy addressed to himself.
‘And when will she be back?’
‘Tonight for sure.’
‘His Lordship the Bishop,’ the priest explained, ‘has prudently taken such measures to prevent this sight from feeding the crowd’s unhealthy curiosity; but the Christian sentiments animating the young duchess and distinguishing her among others …’
The conversation, always on the same subject, continued between the Jesuit and the old dowager. Consalvo noticed a printed piece of paper on the desk by which he was sitting and read it out of the corner of his eye. FORMULA OF OATH. ‘In the presence of the Most Holy Trinity, of the Most Holy Virgin Mary and of all the Saints who were born or who lived on the soil of … In the name of the towns of … represented here, and before our venerated pastor, guide and spiritual head; I, delegated to this effect, declare to be formed the Christian province of … under the special patronage of Saint … In the name of this new province I freely and solemnly recognise Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, true God and true Man, in the Most Holy Host exposed on this altar, as our Lord and Master and as Supreme Head of … At the feet of Jesus Christ we place our belongings, our families, our persons, our lives, our honour, in a word all that is closest to the heart of man …’
Barely suppressing a smile, Consalvo rose to his feet.
‘D’you know that Ferdinanda is ill?’ the dowager said to him.
‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘A chill. But at her age anything can be serious … Why not go and visit her?’
He heeded this advice. Something might come to him from there too, half a million or so. Had he been more farseeing he would have dealt better with the old woman, without of course renouncing any of his own ambitions. The obstinacy and harshness with which he had treated her had been silly, worthy of a crazy Uzeda, not of the Honourable Deputy Consalvo of Francalanza, of the new man he wanted to be. On reaching the old woman’s house, that house to which he had so often come as a child to look at coats-of-arms, hear tales of the Viceroys and drink in aristocratic hauteur, a quiet smile came to his lips. Suppose his electors knew!
‘How is my aunt?’ he asked the maid, a new face.
‘So so …’ replied the woman, looking curiously at this unknown gentleman.
‘Say that her nephew the prince would like to see her.’
The old woman was quite capable of not receiving him; he awaited the reply with some anxiety. But Donna Ferdinanda, on hearing Consalvo was there, answered the maid in a voice made hoarse by her chill, ‘Let him in.’ She had heard of the latest outrages committed by her nephew, that speech made in public like a mountebank, the denial of his class principles, the praise of liberty and democracy, the Francalanza palace invaded by a mob of rascals, Baldassarre admitted to the table where he had once served; it had all been described to her by Lucrezia, in order to avenge herself, to ruin Consalvo’s chances for the inheritance. Donna Ferdinanda had felt the old Uzeda blood boil with indignation and rage. But now she was ill, her humours tempered by the egotism of old age and infirmity. And Consalvo had come to visit her; so he was humiliating himself, giving her this satisfaction denied her for so long. After all, in spite of his apostasy and outrages, he was still Prince of Francalanza, head of the family, her protégé of long ago … ‘Let him in.’
He came respectfully towards her, bent over the little iron bedstead, that one of years ago, and asked:
‘Aunt, how are you?’
She made an ambiguous gesture of the head.
‘Have you fever? Let me feel your pulse … No, just a little heat. What have you taken? Have you called a doctor?’
‘Doctors are all donkeys,’ she replied briefly, turning her face to the wall.
‘Your Excellency is right. They know very little … but they do know a bit more than us … Why not get one in early …’
The old woman replied with an outbreak of cavernous coughing that ended with yellowish phlegm.
‘You have a cough and take nothing! I’ll bring you some pastilles which are quite miraculous. Will you promise to take them?’
Donna Ferdinanda gave her usual nod.
‘I knew nothing or I’d have come before. But I was only told that Your Excellency wasn’t very well at the Radalìs’ a few moments ago … Do you know that today my sister has gone to see the Servant of God, the one whom people say all those things about? She’s the only one to have permission and has gone with the Vicar-General. It seems a most unusual favour … Does Your Excellency believe all that is being said?’
No reply. But he still went on talking, realising that the old woman must enjoy hearing gossip and news, seeing someone near.
‘I don’t believe any of it, with all due respect. Is that a sin? Even St Thomas wanted to see and touch before believing … and he was a saint! But frankly, certain stories!… Teresa’s quite infatuated now … Ah well, each of us has his own conscience to deal with … And what has my Aunt Lucrezia against me? What did she expect me to do?… She goes round everywhere talking against me as if I was the foulest of creatures …’
The old woman did not breathe a word, her back still to him.
‘All for the great love for her husband which has burst all of a sudden in her breast!… Before she used to declare Giulente’s attitudes ridiculous’—he did not call him Uncle, knowing that would please her—‘now all those who have not suported him are infamous!’
A new outbreak of coughing made the old woman shake like a bellows. When it calmed she said in a feeble tone but with bitter contempt:
‘Infamous times!… Degenerate race!’
The shaft was directed at him too. Consalvo was silent a little, with head bowed but a mocking smile on his lips, as the old woman could not see him. Then in a gentle humble tone he went on:
‘Your Excellency may blame me too … If I’ve done anything to displease you, I ask your pardon … But there is nothing for which my conscience reproves me … Your Excellency cannot regret that one of her name is again among the first in the land … Maybe you are pained at the means by which this result has been obtained … Believe me it pains me more than you … But we do not choose our period for coming into the world; we find it as it is, and as it is we must accept it. Anyway, if it’s true that things aren’t too good nowadays, were they all so very wonderful before?’
Not a syllable in reply.
‘Your Excellency judges our age to be infamous, nor would I say that all nowadays is for the best; but surely the past often seems fine only because it is past … The important thing is not to let oneself be overwhelmed … I remember how in ’61 when our uncle the duke was elected deputy for the first time, my father said to me, “You see? When there were Viceroys, the Uzeda were the Viceroys; now that there are deputies, our uncle is in Parliament!” Your Excellency knows I was not on good terms with my dead father; but he said then a thing which seemed to me and still seems very just … Once the power of our family came from kings; now it comes from the people. The difference is more in name than fact … Of course it’s not pleasant to depend on the mob, but lots of those sovereigns were not exactly saints. And one man alone who holds the reins of power in his own hands and considers himself invested by divine right and makes a law of his every whim is more difficult to win over and keep on good terms with than the human flock, numerous but servile by nature … And then the change is more apparent than actual. Even the Viceroys of long ago had to propitiate the mob; otherwise ambassadors went and complained in Madrid and had them recalled by the Court … and even beheaded!… You may have been told that nowadays an election costs money, but remember what Mugnòs wrote about the Viceroy Lopez Ximenes, who had to offer thirty thousand scudi to King Ferdinando in order to keep his job … and wasted the money! How right Solomon was when he said there’s nothing new under the sun! All complain of present corruption and refuse to trust the electoral system because votes are bought. But does Your Excellency know Suetonius, the celebrated writer of antiquity? He tells how Augustus, on election days, would distribute a thousand sesterces a head to the patrician order of which he was a member, so that they should not take anything from the candidates …’
He was saying these things for himself too, to affirm the justice of his own views, but as the old woman did not move he thought that maybe she had dozed off and he was talking to the wall. So he got up to look; Donna Ferdinanda’s eyes were wide open. Then he went on, walking up and down the room.
‘History is monotonous repetition; men have been, are and will always be the same. Exterior conditions change. Certainly there seems an abyss between the Sicily of before 1860, still more-or-less feudal, and this of today, but the difference is all on the surface. The first man to be elected by near-universal suffrage is not a member of the working class, or a bourgeois or a democrat; it is I, because I’m called Prince of Francalanza. The prestige of nobility is not and cannot be extinguished. Now that all talk of democracy, do you know what is the most sought-after book in the university library where I sometimes go for my studies? The Sicilian Herald of poor old Uncle Don Eugenio, peace be on his soul. It’s been so much handled that it’s had to be rebound three times! For just consider: before being noble meant the enjoyment of great prerogatives, privileges, immunities, and important exemptions. Now if all that is over, if nobility is something purely ideal yet sought after by all, may that not mean that its value, its prestige,
have grown?… In politics Your Excellency has been loyal to the Bourbons, and that is most proper if they are considered as legitimate sovereigns … But what does their legitimacy depend on? On the fact that they were on the throne for more than a hundred years … Eighty years from now Your Excellency would also recognise the Savoy dynasty as legitimate … Of course absolute monarchy did look after our class interests better, but it’s been overwhelmed by a superior force and an irresistible current … Must we too set their feet on our own necks? Our duty, it seems to me, instead of despising the new laws, is to use them!…’
Swept away by oratorical fervour in the exaltation of his recent triumph, feeling a need to justify himself in his own eyes, to re-establish himself in the old woman’s good graces, he was improvising another speech, the true one, in confutation of what he had said before the mob. And the old woman lay there listening, without coughing now, subjugated by her nephew’s eloquence, entertained, almost lulled by his emphatic and theatrical declamation.
‘Does Your Excellency remember our readings of Mugnòs?…’ went on Consalvo. ‘Well, let us imagine that historian to be still alive and wanting to bring up to date his Genealogical Theatre at the chapter On the family of Uzeda. What would he say? He’d say more or less, “Don Gafpare Vzeda” ’, he pronounced the ‘s’ as ‘f’ and the ‘U’ as ‘V’, “ ‘was promoted to highest ranks during the great changes resulting in the passing of Sicily from King Don Francis II of Bourbon to King Don Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy. He was elected Deputy to the National Parliament of Turin, Florence and Rome, and was eventually raised by King Don Umberto with singular despatch to the rank of Senator. Don Consalvo Uzeda, Eighth Prince of Francalanza, held power as Mayor of his native town, was then Deputy to the Parliament of Rome and after that …” ’ He was silent a moment, with closed eyes; already he saw himself on the Ministerial bench at Montecitorio. Then he went on, ‘That is what Mugnòs would say if he were alive today; this is what the future historians of our family will say in different words. The old Uzeda were Knights of St James, now they are Knights of the Crown of Italy. The two things are different, but through no fault of theirs! And Your Excellency considers them degenerate! Why, may I ask?’
The Viceroys Page 69
