The Leopard (11 page)

Yes, Don Fabrizio had certainly had his worries those last two months; they had come from all directions, like ants making for a dead lizard. Some had crawled from crevices of the political situation; some had been flung on him by other people's passionsi and some (these had the sharpest bite) had sprung up within himself, from his irrational reactions, that is, to politics and the whims of others (((whims" was his name when irritated for what in calm he called "Passions"). He would review these worries every day, maneuver them, set them in column or extend them in open order on the parade ground of his own conscience, hoping to find in their evolutions a sense of finality that could reassure him; and not succeeding. In former years there had been far fewer bothers, and anyway his stay at Donnafugata had always been a period of rest; his worries used to drop their rifles, disperse into crags of the valleys and settle down there quietly, so intent on munching bread and cheese that their warlike uniforms were forgotten and they could be mistaken for inoffensive peasants. This year, though, they had all stayed on parade in a body, like mutinous troops shouting and brandishing weapons, arousing, in his home, the dismay of a Colonel who has given the order "Fall out" only to find his battalion standing there in closer and more threatening order than ever. The arrival had been all right, with bands, fireworks, ,,bells, gypsy songs, and Te Deum; but afterward! The bourgeois revolution climbing his stairs in Don Calogero's tail coat; Angelica's beauty, which had put the shy graceof his Concetta in the shade; Tancredi rushing at the inevitable changes, and even able to deck out his realistic motives with sensual infatuation; the scruples and deceptions of the Plebiscite; the endless little subterfuges he had submit to, he, the Leopard, who for years had swept away difficulties with a wave of his paw.

Tancredi had been gone for more than a month and was now at Caserta bivouacking in the apartments of his King; from there every now and again he sent Don Fabrizio letters which the latter read with alternate frowns and smiles, and then put away in the remotest drawer of his desk. He had never written to Concetta, though he did not forget to send her a greeting with the usual sly affection; once he even wrote, "I kiss the hands of all the little Leopardesses and particularly Concettes," phrases censored by paternal prudence when the letter was read out to the assembled family. Angelica was now visiting them almost daily, more seductive than ever, accompanied by her father or some old witch of a maid: officially these visits were made to her friends the girls, but in fact their climax obviously came at the moment when she asked with apparent indifference, "And what news of the Prince?" "Prince" in Angelica's mouth did not, alas, mean him, Don Fabrizio, but the little Garibaldino Captain; and this provoked a strange sensation in Salina, woven from the warp of the crude cotton of sensual jealousy and the woof of silken pleasure at his dear Tancredi's success; a sensation, when all was said and done, that was somewhat disagreeable. It was always he who answered this question; he would give a carefully considered account of what he knew, taking care, however, to present a wellarranged little bouquet of news, from which his cautious tweezers had extracted both thorns (descriptions of many a jaunt to Naples, obvious allusions to the legs of Aurora Schwarzwald, dancer at the San Carlo) and premature buds ("send news of the Signorina Angelica"-"In Ferdinand 11's study I found a Madonna by Andrea del Sarto which reminded me of the Signorina Sedera"). So he would put together an insipid picture of Tancredi which bore very little resemblance to the original, but did at least prevent anyone from saying that he himself was acting either as spoilsport or pimp. These verbal precautions corresponded to his own feelings about Tancredi's considered passion, but he found them tiresome too; anyway, they were only one sample of all the guile in language and behavior he had been forced to use for some time; he thought with regret of the year before, when he could say whatever went through his head, in the certainty that any silly remark would be treated as words from the Gospel, and any unconsidered comment as princely carelessness. And now that he had begun regretting the past, he would find himself, in moments of worst humor , slithering quite a way down that perilous slope; once, as he was putting sugar in a cup of tea which Angelica was holding out to him, he realized that he was envying the chances open to a Fabrizio, Salina and Tancredi Falconeri of three centuries before, who would have rid themselves of urges to bed down with the Angelicas of their day without ever going before a priest, or giving a thought to the dowries of such local girls (which were anyway then nonexistent) and never needing to keep uncles on tenterhooks about saying or suppressing appropriate remarks. The impulse of atavistic lust (which was not really all lust, but partly a sensuality stemming from laziness) stung the civilized gentleman nearing fifty so sharply that it made him blush; somewhere, at infinite removes, he had been touched by scruples which he chose to call Rousseauesque, and felt deeply ashamed; which could also go to show how deep was his revulsion from the social circumstances in which he was so inextricably involved.

The sensation of finding himself a prisoner in a situation evolving more rapidly than foreseen was particularly acute that morning. The night before, in fact, the stagecoach bearing the irregular and scanty mail to Donnafugata in its canary-yellow box had brought a letter from Tancredi.

This proclaimed its importance even before reading, written as it was on sumptuous sheets of gleaming paper and in a harmonious script scrupulously tracing full strokes down and thin strokes up. It was obviously the "clean copy" of any number of disordered drafts. In it the Prince was not addressed by the name of "Uncle mine," which had become dear to him; the wily youth had thought of a formula, "dear Uncle Fabrizio, ') which had a number of merits: of putting off any suspicion of connivance, proclaiming from the very first line the importance of what was to follow, allowing the letter to be shown to anyone, and also of providing a link with the ancient pre-Christian beliefs which attributed a binding power to the exact invocation of a name.

"Dear Uncle Fabrizio," therefore, was informed that his '(most affectionate and devoted nephew" had for the last three months been a prey to the most violent love, and that neither "the risks of war" (read: walks in the park of Caserta) nor "the many attractions of a great city" (read: the charms of the dancer Schwarzwald) had been able even for an instant to drive from his mind and heart the image of the Sionorina Angelica Sedera (here a long procession of adjectives to exalt the beauty, grace, virtue, and intellect of his beloved) i then, in neat hieroglyphics of ink and sentiment, the letter went on to say that Tancredi had felt so conscious of his own unworthiness that he had tried to suffocate his ardor ("long but vain have been the hours during which, amid the clamor of Naples or the austere company of my comrades-in-arms, I have tried to repress my feelings"). But now love had overcome his reserve, and he was begging his dearly beloved uncle to deign to request Signorina Angelica's "most esteemed father" for her hand, in his name and on his behalf. "You know, Uncle, that all I can offer to the object of my affection is my love, my name, and my sword." After this phrase, in connection with which it should not be forgotten that romanticism was then at high noon, Tancredi went on to long considerations of the expediency, nay the necessity, of unions between families such as the Falconeris and the Sediras (once he even dared write "The House of Sedara") being encouraged in order to bring new blood into old families, and also to level out classes, aims of the current political movement in Italy. This was the only part of the letter that Don Fabrizio read with any pleasure; and not just because it confirmed his own previsions and crowned him with the laurels of a prophet, but also (it would be harsh to say "above all") because the style, with its hints of subdued irony, magically evoked his nephew's image: the jesting nasal tone, the sparkling malice in his blue eyes, the mockingly polite smile. And when he realized that this little Jacobin sally was written out on exactly one single sheet of paper so that if he wanted he could let others read the letter while subtracting this revolutionary chapter, his admiration for Tancredi's tact knew no bounds. After a brief resume of recent operations and an expression of the conviction that within a year they would be in Rome, "predestined capital of the new Italy," he thanked his uncle for the care and affection given him in the past, and ended by excusing himself for daring to confide him with this charge, "on which my future happiness depends." Then came greetings (for Don Fabrizio only). A first reading of this extraordinary composition made Don Fabrizio's head spin: once again he noted how astoundingly fast all this had gone; put in modern terms, he could be said to be in the state of mind of someone today who thinks he has boarded one of the old planes which potter between Palermo and Naples, and suddenly finds himself shut inside a super jet and realizes he will be at his destination almost before there will be time to make the sign of the Cross. Then the second affectionate layer of his nature came to the top, and he rejoiced at this decision of Tancredi's which would assure him an ephemeral carnal satisfaction and a perennial financial peace. He paused, then, for a moment to note the youth's extraordinary selfconfidence in presuming his own wish already accepted by Angelica; but all these thoughts were swept away eventually by a sense of humiliation at being forced to deal with Don Calogero about subjects so intimate, and also of vexation at having to conduct delicate negotiations next day, with the use, what was more, of precaution and cunning alien to his presumably leonine nature. Don Fabrizio revealed the contents of this letter to his wife only when they were lying in bed under the pale blue glow from the glass-hooded oil lamp. Maria Stella did not say a word at first, just made a series of signs of the Cross then she remarked that she should have crossed herself with her left hand and not with her right; after this supreme expression of amazement she loosed the thunderbolts of her eloquence. Sitting up in bed, her fingers rumpling the sheet while her words furrowed the lunar atmosphere of the enclosed room like angry scarlet torches: "I'd so hoped he would marry Concetta! He's a traitor, like all liberals of his kind; first he betrayed his King, now he betrays us! He, with that double face of his, those honeyed words and poisoned actions! That's what happens when one lets people into one's home who aren't of our own blood!" Here she let loose her cavalry charge in family scenes: "I always said so, but no one would listen to me. I never could endure that fop! You just lost your head about him!" In reality the Princess too had been subject to Tancredi's charm, and she loved him still; but the pleasure of shouting "I told you so" being the strongest any human being can enjoy, all truths and all feelings were swept along in its wake. "And now he has even had the impertinence to ask you, his uncle and Prince of Salina, father of the very girl he has deceived, to carry his squalid message to that slut's rascally father! You mustn't do it, Fabrizio, you mustn't do it, you shan't do it, you mustn’t do it! " Her voice went up in tone, her body began to stiffen.

Don Fabrizio, still lying on his back, gave a sideways glance to assure himself that the valerian was on the night table. The bottle was there with a silver spoon across the stopper; in the glaucous half darkness of the room they shone like a reassuring beacon, built to withstand storms of hysteria. For a moment he thought of getting out of bed and fetching them; but he compromised by just sitting up too; thus he reacquired a position of prestige. "Now, Stella, my dear, don't be silly. You don't know what you are saying. Angelica is not a slut. She may become one, but for the moment she's a girl just like any other, prettier than others, and she simply wants to make a good marriage; she may even be a little in love with Tancredi, like everyone else. She'll have money; most of it was ours, but it's now well, almost too well, taken care of by Don Calogeroi and Tancredi has great need of that; he's a gentleman, he's ambitious, he's a perfect sieve with money. As for Concetta, he never actually said a word to her, in fact it's she who's treated him badly ever since we got to Donnafugata. And he's not a traitor; he follows the times, that's all, in his politics and in his private life; and anyway he's a very lovable lad, you know that as well as I do, Stella my dear." Five huge fingers stroked the top of her tiny head. She was sobbing now; having been sensible enough to drink a sip of water, the fire of her rage had muted to self-pity. Don Fabrizio began to hope that he would not have to get out of the warm bed, face a barefoot crossing of the chilly room. Then to ensure his future peace he pretended to be angry: "And I'll have no shouting in my own house, in my own room, in my own bed! None of this 'You do this' and 'You won't do that.' I decide; I'd already decided long before it ever crossed your mind! That's enough now! "

The hater of shouting was himself bawling with all the breath in his great chest. Thinking he had a table in front of him, he banged a great fist on his own knee, hurt himself, and calmed down too.

The Princess, alarmed, was whining in a low voice like a frightened puppy.

"Now let's sleep. Tomorrow I'm going out shooting and have to get up early. Enough! What's decided is decided. Good night, Stella, my dear." He kissed his wife first on her forehead and then on her lips. He lay down again and turned toward the wall. The shadow of his recumbent form was projected on the silken wall like the silhouette of a mountain range on a blue horizon. Stella lay back too, and as her right leg grazed the left leg of the Prince she felt consoled and proud at having for a husband a man so vital and so proud. What did Tancredi matter . . . or even Concetta, . . . ?

For the moment such tightrope balancing was suspended, along with all other thought, in the archaic and aromatic countryside, if it could be called that, where he went shooting every morning. The term "countryside" implies soil transformed by labor; but the scrub clinging to the slopes was still in the very same state of scented tangle in which it had been found by Phoenicians, Dorians, and lonians when they disembarked in Sicily, that America of antiquity. Don Fabrizio and Tumeo climbed up and down, slipped and were scratched by thorns, just as any Archidamus or Philostratus must have been tired and scratched twenty-five centuries before. They saw the same objects, their clothes were soaked with just as sticky a sweat, the same indifferent breeze blew steadily from the sea, moving myrtles and broom, spreading a smell of thyme. The dogs' sudden pauses for thought, their tension waiting for prey, was the very same as when Artemis was invoked for the chase. Reduced to these basic elements, its face washed clear of worries, life took on a tolerable aspect. That morning, shortly before reaching the top of the hill, Arguto and Teresina began the hieratic dance of dogs who have scented preyi stretching, stiffening, prudently raising paws, repressing barks; a few minutes later a tiny beige-colored backside slid through the grass and two almost simultaneous shots ended the silent wait ; at the Prince's feet Arguto placed an animal in its death throes.