The Brewer of Preston (15 page)

“What is it?” asked Puglisi, himself going outside into the heavy downpour.

“Over there,” said Catalanotti, pointing towards a spot halfway up the mound. “There. I first saw it out of the corner of my eye and didn't pay any attention. Then it came back to me. Look.”

Puglisi looked towards the spot the other was indicating to him with his outstretched arm. Sticking out in the middle of the blinding white salt pile was a sort of ball, colored pink and black.

“That wasn't there before,” said Puglisi.

“Before when?”

“The first time I looked out this window, it wasn't there. Apparently the rain is bringing it to the surface, so we can see it. What do you think it is?” he asked, but since he already knew the answer, he said, “In my opinion—”

“It's a head, sir. It's the head of a corpse,” said Catalanotti. “The head of a pickled corpse.”

While escorting Signora Agatina—who seemed to him strangely calm, given her misfortunes—Catalanotti dropped in at police headquarters to tell his colleague Burruano to hurry and inform the judge of the discovery. Meanwhile, Puglisi, who hadn't expected the additional exertion, began climbing the little mountain of salt in the pouring rain.

He got covered with salt from head to toe, the crystals working their way under his clothing, making Agatina's bites and scratches burn like fire. Several times he slipped back down to the bottom of the mound and had to start his climb all over again, each time with greater difficulty, eyes watering from the salt. In the end he managed to get within reach of the head, and recognized Dr. Gammacurta.

“Doctor! Doctor!” he cried hopelessly.

But a sort of miracle occurred. Gammacurta opened his eyes and looked straight at him, recognizing him.

“Oh, it's you?” he managed to articulate with difficulty, but clearly. “Good morning.”

Then he dropped his head to one side, closed his eyes, and died.

Puglisi looked him over carefully. There were no visible signs of injury. Then he started to dig away the salt around the doctor's head and chest, and at last he saw a pink sort of paste made of water, salt, and blood.

I
n endeavoring to describe the truly painful events that have occasioned such damage and unrest in the town of Vigàta, an integral part of the province of Montelusa for which I humbly embody the function of prefectorial representative of the state, it behooves me to remind Your Most Illustrious Lordship what my sentiments concerning the problems afflicting Sicily have always been. Of the prefects of this island consulted last August, and especially of the four who met in Palermo, I certainly was not in the majority who declared themselves favorable to the continued use of conventional means to achieve the fruitlessly much-desired and much-sought pacification of the island. This was because, rich with the experience handed down to me by my predecessor in this high office, the enlightened Commendator Saverio Foà, who long presided over the destinies of this province, I had looked on in despair as I encountered a province in every way the same as that described to me, one that had already frustrated the efforts and eroded the reputations of so many able and zealous functionaries sent to govern it. In consequence, Your Excellency, who surely know my thoughts on these matters and who saw fit, in your capacity as minister of the interior, to place so high a function on my shoulders, will not be surprised to learn that I—being well familiar, by direct and indirect experience, with the moral perversity of this population, for whom all sense of justice, honesty, and honor remain a dead letter, and who as a result are rapacious, bloody, and superstitious—am of the opinion, and increasingly so, that I should not rule out recourse to any of the exceptional, restrictive legal measures that the government makes available, in the proper circumstances, yet never implements with the necessary firmness required.

The events that occurred yesterday evening in Vigàta painfully confirm what I have been thinking for some time, since, all other considerations aside, what happened on the occasion of the new theatre of Vigàta's opening to the public has the very hallmarks of a genuine popular uprising, incited by a few agitators, against my person as representative of the state. While others may think differently and support their positions with nothing more than empty rumors, it is clear that this was a seditious rebellion aimed at overthrowing and defeating the authority of the state in this Sicilian province. I present this pure and simple fact, that it may prove valid by the power of its truth.

When I assumed my high office, the theatre of Vigàta had already been almost entirely built, lacking only a few embellishments of little importance. As it was my responsibility to appoint the members of the Adminstrative Council, I proposed to nominate two prominent figures from Vigàta and four from Montelusa, as the proximity of the provincial capital seemed certain to contribute to the prosperity of the theatre itself to a greater degree than the people of Vigàta could ever do, being scarcely interested in matters of art. When apprised of the composition of the council, the two Vigatese members immediately resigned, citing miserably parochial reasons for their action. In order to avoid harmful delays and useless polemics, I replaced the two appointed members from Vigàta with two exemplary citizens of Montelusa. The president of the Administrative Council, the Marchese Antonino Pio di Condò, a man of lofty sentiment and exquisite sensibility, one day happened to ask me cordially if I had any suggestions as to the opera that should be performed for the inaugural soirée, an event that must certainly be solemn in character. Entirely by chance, a title came to mind, that of The Brewer of Preston, an opera I had occasion to enjoy in my greener years—to wit, at its triumphal première in Florence in 1847.

I cited this work not for personal reasons, of course, but because I considered the opera, in its fanciful lightness, its simplicity of word and music, appropriate for the Sicilians'—and more specifically, the Vigatese's—undeveloped appreciation of the more sublime manifestations of art. It was, I say, a simple, cordial suggestion on my part, but the marchese, a good patriot and noted exponent of the governing party, happened to interpret it, mistakenly, as an order—an order which I, in truth, had neither the power nor the intention to give. Upon learning that the suggestion came from me, a few members of the Administrative Council, Freemasons and Mazzinians in league with Freemasons and Mazzinians in Vigàta, fiercely and prejudicially opposed it, spreading in bad faith the rumor that the idea was not a simple suggestion on my part but a precise order. The Marchese Antonino Pio di Condò, offended by vile accusations that he was a man always ready to bow down to authority, irrevocably resigned. Commendator Massimo Però, a man of sound judgment and good sense, was then elected to replace him. It was at this time that Professor Artidoro Ragona, a member of the council, took it upon himself to recommend the same opera, having meanwhile had the opportunity to appreciate it during a recent sojourn in Naples. This occurred, I am keen to point out, without any intervention whatsoever on my part. And yet, this fact, too, became the subject of malicious gossip, according to which the relationship between Commendator Però's recommendation and the victory of his son, Dr. Achille Però, in the recent competition for the office of first secretary of the prefecture of Montelusa was hardly coincidental. I must likewise at this point declare firmly that neither was the well-deserved success of the worthy young Achille Però in any way owing to the good offices of one Mr. Emanuele Ferraguto, as some have spitefully insinuated. Mr. Ferraguto, a man of lofty sentiment, of highly civic disposition and generous mind, is . . .

To His Excillince the Perfict Bortuzzi
Montelusa

Dear Perfict,

Your a grate big sonofabich. Why don you go becka to Florince? Your not a perfict but a big fat stinkin turd enn a jeckass. Tree peple died coz a you inna fire inna teater. Your the biggest crook of all. You got no conshinz.

a citizin

To His Ixcillincy Bortuzzi Prephict of Montelusa

Stop breaking the balls of the Vigatese. The opra you want isna gonna play. Fuhgettabouttit, iss better fuh you.

The People of V
i
gàta.

My children, dear parishioners in the Lord,

Like the wound of Jesus nailed to the Cross, the wound in my side is losing more bile than blood these days, believe me. An atheistic, blasphemous municipal council has had a theatre built in this upstanding, industrious town and will open it tomorrow with the performance of an opera. Do not go to see it, beloved sons and daughters! For the very instant you set foot inside that building, your souls shall be lost for all eternity! But perhaps you don't believe what your old parish priest is telling you; surely you think I am joking or have turned senile. And perhaps it's true that my mind is not what it used to be; but, then, I am not speaking now in my own words, but in the words of people whose minds are far greater than mine and all of yours put together. Thus I say to you, and I repeat: the theatre is the devil's house of preference! Saint Augustine—who nevertheless was someone who had led a bad, wicked life, who went to brothels and coupled with foul, plague-ridden women and used to get drunk as a monkey—Saint Augustine, I say, tells us that once upon a time in Carthage, which is a city near here, over in Africa, he entered a theatre and saw a performance of naked men and women doing lewd things, and when he went home afterwards, he couldn't fall asleep all night, so afflicted was he by what he had seen!

And I would also like to tell you another story, a story told by Tertullian, who is hardly chickenshit but a very great mind. Tertullian tells that once, a devout woman, a respected mother of a family, got it in her head that she had to go to the theatre at all costs. Neither her husband, nor brother, nor mother, nor children could talk her out of it. And so the stubborn woman saw the performance, but when she came out, she was not the same. She cursed, she mouthed obscenities, she wanted every man she passed to mount her right there on the street. Thus her husband and sons brought her back home by force and quickly called a priest. The priest sprinkled the woman with holy water and commanded the devil to come out. And do you know what the devil said?

He said: “You, priest, get your hands off my things! I took this woman for myself, because she went into my house, which is the theatre, of her own accord!”

And when the woman died, her soul was damned, because the holy priest could do nothing for her. Do you, my dear parishioners, want to be taken by the devil? Do you want to damn your souls? The theatre is the house of the devil! It is the place of the devil! And that place deserves the same fire that God unleashed upon Sodom and Gomorrah! Fire! Fire!

Right Reverend Canon
G. Verga—Mother Church—Vigàta

Yesterday I went to church and heard your sermon against the theatre. And a question came to mind: the woman you have kept at the rectory and in your bed for twenty years and with whom you even had a son by the name of Giugiuzzo, aged fifteen, what category of whore does she belong to? Is she a woman of the theatre, a woman of Sodom, a woman of Gomorrah, or a simple slut?

Sincerely,

A parishioner who believes in God's things