The Leopard (28 page)

Below in the street, between the hotel and the sea, a barrel organ stopped and was playing away in the avid hope of touching the hearts of foreigners who at that season were not there. It was grinding out "You who opened your wings to God," from Lucia di Lammermoor. What remained of Don Fabrizio thought of all the rancor mingling with all the tortures coming, throughout Italy, at that moment from mechanical music of the kind. Tancredi, intuitive as ever, ran to the balcony, threw down a coin, waved for the barrel organ to stop. The outer silence closed in again, the clamor within grew huge. Tancredi. Yes, much on the credit side came from Tancredi: that sympathy of his, all the more precious for being ironic; the aestlictic pleasure of watching him maneuver amid the shoals of life, the bantering affection whose touch was so right. Then, the dogs: Fufi, the fat pug of his childhood) the impetuous poodle Tom, confidant and friend, Speedy's gentle eyes, Bendico's delicious nonsense, the caressing paws of Pop, the pointer at that moment searching for him under bushes and garden chairs and never to see him again; then a horse or two, those already more distant and extraneous. There were the first few hours of returns to Donnafugata, the sense of tradition and the perennial expressed in stone and water, time congealed; a few carefree shoots, a cozy massacre or two of hares and pheasants, a few good laughs with Tumeo, a few minutes of compunction at the convent amid odors of musk and almond cakes. Anything else? Yes, there were other things, but these were only grains of gold mixed with earth: moments of satisfaction when he had made some biting reply to a fool, of content when he had realized that in Concetta's beauty and "tharacter was prolonged the true Salina strain; a moment or two of frenzied passion; the surprise of Arago's letter spontaneously congratulating him on the accuracy of his difficult calculations about Huxley's comet. And-why not?-the public thrill of being given a medal at the Sorbonne, the exquisite sensation of one or two fine silk cravats, the smell of morocco leathers, the gay, voluptuous air of a few women passed in the street, of one glimpsed even yesterday at the station of Catania in a brown travelling dress and suede gloves, mingling amid the crowds and seeming to search for his exhausted face through the dirty compartment window. What a noise that crowd was making! "Sandwiches! " "Il Corriere dell'isola!" And then the panting of the tired breathless train . . . and that appalling sun as they arrived, those lying faces, the crashing falls. . . . In the growing dark he tried to count how much time he had really lived. His brain could not cope with the simple calculation any more: three months, three weeks, a total of six months, six by eight, eighty-four . . . fortyeight thousand . . . 840,000. He summed up. "I'm seventy-three years old, and all in all I may have lived, really lived, a total of two . . . three at the most." And the pains, the boredom, how long had they been? Useless to try to make himself count those; all of the rest: seventy years. He felt his hand no longer being squeezed. Tancredi got up hurriedly and went out. . . . Now it was not a river erupting over him but an ocean, tempestuous, all foam and raging white-flecked waves. . . .

He must have had another stroke, for suddenly he realized that he was lying stretched out on the bed. Someone was feeling his pulse; from the window came the blinding implacable reflection of the sea; in the room there was the sound of a faint hiss; it was his own death rattle, but he did not know it. Around him was a little crowd, a group of strangers staring at him with frightened expressions. Gradually he recognized them: Concetta, Francesco Paolo, Carolina, Tancredi, Fabrizietto. The person taking his pulse was Doctor Cataliotti; he tried to smile a greeting at the latter, but no one seemed to notice; all were weeping except Concetta; even Tancredi, who was saying, "Uncle, dearest Uncle mine! "

Suddenly amid the group appeared a young woman, slim, in brown travelling dress and wide bustle, with a straw hat trimmed by a speckled veil which could not hide the sly charm of her face. She slid a little suede-gloved hand between one elbow and another of the weeping kneelers, apologized, drew closer. It was she, the creature forever yearned for, coming to fetch him; strange that one so young should yield to him; the time for the train's de parture must be very close. When she was face to face with him she raised her veil, and there, modest, but ready to be possessed, she looked lovelier than she ever had when glimpsed in stellar space. The crashing of the sea subsided altogether.

8

Relics

The Vicar-General's visit -A picture and some relics Concetta's room - Visit from Angelica and Senator Tassoni - The Cardinal;
end of the relics - End of all

MAY, 1910

Anyone paying a visit to the old Salina ladies would nearly always find at least one priest's hat on the hall chairs. All three were spinsters, and their household had been rent by secret struggles for hegemony, so that each, a strong character in her own way, wanted a separate confessor. It was still the custom in that year, 19 10, for confessions to take place at home, and these penitents'

scruples meant frequent repetition. Add to this little platoon of confessors the chaplain who came every morning to celebrate Mass in the private chapel, the Jesuit in charge of the general spiritual direction of the household, the monks and priests who came to elicit alms for this or that parish or good work, and it will be readily understood why there was such an incessant coming and going of clerics, and why the antechamber of Villa Salina was often reminiscent of one of those Roman shops around Piazza della Minerva which display in their windows every imaginable ecclesiastical headgear, from flaming crimson for Cardinals to cindery black for country priests.

On that particular afternoon of May, 1910, the parade of hats was quite unprecedented. The presence of the VicarGeneral of the Archdiocese of Palermo was announced by his huge hat of fine beaver in a delicate shade of fuchsia, placed on a separate chair, with, next to it, a single glove, the right-hand one, in woven silk of the same delicate hue; his secretary's of gleaming long-haired black plush, the crown circled by a narrow violet cord; those of two Jesuit Fathers, subdued tenebrous felts, symbols of modesty and reserve. The chaplain's headgear lay on an isolated chair, as was proper for a person undergoing inquiry. The meeting that day was no unimportant matter. In accordance with Papal instructions the Cardinal Archbishop had begun an inspection of the private chapels of his archdiocese, to reassure himself about the merits of those allowed to have services there, the conformity of liturgy and decoration with the canons of the Church, and the authenticity of the relics venerated in them. The Salina chapel was the best known in the city and one of the first which His Eminence proposed to visit. And it was in order to arrange for this event, fixed for next morning, that Monsignor the Vicar-General had called at Villa Salina. Unfortunate rumors about that chapel, seeped through many a filter, had reached the Archiepiscopal Curia: not, of course, anything about the merits of the owners or of their right to carry out their religious duties in their own home; such subjects were beyond discussion. Nor was there any doubt thrown on the regularity or continuity of services held there, for these were as near perfection as may be, except perhaps for an overwhelming and perfectly comprehensible reluctance on the part of the Salina ladies to let anyone who was outside their close family circle be present at the sacred rites. The Cardinal's attention had been drawn to an image venerated in the villa, and to the relics, the dozens of relics) exposed in the chapel. There were the most disturbing rumors about the authenticity of these, and it was desired that their genuineness be proved. The chaplain, an ecclesiastic of some culture and high hopes, had been reprimanded severely for not having kept the old ladies sufficiently on the alert; he had had, as it were, a

"dressing-down of the tonsure."

The meeting was taking place in the main drawing room of the villa, the one of the monkeys and cockatoos. On a sofa covered with blue material interwoven with pink, a purchase of thirty years before that clashed with the evanescent tints of the precious wall hangings, sat the Signorina Concetta with Monsignor the Vicar-General on her right; on each side of the sofa in two similar armchairs were the Signorina Carolina and one of the Jesuits, Father Corti, while the Signorina Caterina, whose legs were paralyzed, was in a wheel chair, and the other ecclesiastics had to be content with chairs covered in the same material as the walls, which then seemed far less valuable to everyone than the envied armchairs. The three sisters were all beyond seventy, and Concetta was not the eldest; but the struggle for power which has been -hinted at at the beginning had ended some time ago with the rout of her adversaries, so no one would now have dared contest her functions as mistress of the house. She still showed the vestiges of past beauty; heavy ano imposing in her stiff clothes of black watered silk, she wore her snowwhite hair drawn up in a lofty coiffure so as to show her almost unfurrowed brow; this, together with contemptuous eyes and a resentful line above her nose, gave her an air that was authoritarian, almost imperial; so much so that a nephew of hers, having caught sight in some book or other of a picture of a famous Czarina, used to call her in private "Catherine the Great": an unsuitable name made quite innocent by the complete purity of Concetta's life and her nephew's total ignorance of Russian history.

The conversation lasted an hour; coffee had been taken. and it was getting late. Monsignor resumed his arguments: "His Eminence paternally desires that Mass celebrated in private should be in conformity with the purest rites of Holy Mother Church, and that is why in his pastoral care he is visiting your chapel first, for he knows it to be a beacon for the laity of Palermo and he desires that all objects venerated there should bring ever more edification to yourselves and to all devout souls." Concetta was silent, but Carolina, the elder sister, exploded, "Now we're to appear as accused before our friends, are we? This idea of inspecting our chapel, excuse me for saying so, Monsignor, should never have passed through His Eminence's head." Monsignor laughed, amused. "Signorina, you cannot imagine what pleasure your vehemence gives me; it is the expression of a simple and absolute faith, most acceptable to the Church and certainly to Our Lord Himself; and it is only in order to make this faith flower yet more abundantly and to purify it that the Holy Father has recommended these inspections, which have been taking place for some months throughout the Catholic world."

The reference to the Holy Father was not, actually, very opportune: Carolina was one of those Catholics who consider themselves to be in closer possession of religious truths than the Pope himself; and a few moderate declarations of Pius X, the abolition of some secondary feast days in particular, had already exasperated her. "This Pope would do better to mind his own business." Then she began to wonder if she hadn't gone too far, crossed herself, and muttered a Gloria Patri. Concetta intervened. "Don't let Vourself be drawn into saying things you don't think, Carolina. Or what sort of impression will Monsignor here take away with him?"

The latter was actually now smiling more than ever; here in front of him, he was thinking, was a little girl grown old in narrow ideas and and practices. Benignly he indulged her.

"Monsignor will take away the impression of having been in the company of three saintly ladies," said he. Father Corti, the Jesuit, tried to relax the tension. I, Monsignor, am among those who can best confirm your words; Father Pirrone, whose memory is venerated by all who knew him, often used to tell me when I was a novice of the-saintly atmosphere in which the ladies grew up: and the name of Salina should be a guarantee for that." Monsignor wanted to get down to facts. "Well, Signorina Concetta, now that everything's clear I should like, with your permission, to visit the chapel in order to prepare His Eminence for the marvels of faith he will see tomorrow morning." In Prince Fabrizio's time there had been no chapel in the villa; the whole family used to go out to church on feast days, and even Father Pirrone had had to walk quite a way every morning to say his own Mass. But after the death of Prince Fabrizio, when, as a result of various complications of inheritance which would be boring to narrate, the villa became the exclusive property of the three sisters, they at once thought of setting up their own oratory. They chose an out-of-the-way drawing room, which with its half columns of imitation granite stuck into the walls was vaguely reminiscent of a Roman basilica; they obliterated an unsuitable mythological fresco from the center of the ceiling and set up an altar. And all was ready. When Monsignor entered, the chapel was lit by the late afternoon sun, which fell full on the picture above the altar so venerated by the Salina ladies. It was a painting in the style of Cremona and represented a slim and very attractive young woman, with eyes turned to heaven and an abundance of brown hair scattered in gracious disorder on half-bare shoulders; in her right hand she was gripping a crumpled letter, with an expression of anxious expectancy not -unconnected with a certain sparkle in her glistening eyesi behind her was a green and gentle Lombard landscape. No Holy Child, no crowns, no snakes, no stars, in fact none of those symbols which usually accompany the image of Our Lady; the painter must have relied on the virginal expression as a sufficient mark of recognition. Monsignor drew nearer, went up one of the altar steps and stood there, without crossing himself, looking at the picture for a minute or two, his face all smiling admiration as if he were an art critic. Behind him the sisters made signs of the Cross and murmured a Hail Mary.