The Viceroys (50 page)

‘You can't see it through! The best thing is to leave me! I don't want to break up your family peace!'

And he, who felt the consequences of his false step growing, who in his heart was cursing the hour and place he had set eyes on this woman of whom he was already tired, for whose
sake he had even bowed before his brother, drew closer to her still from pride, handed himself over bound hand and foot. So they wouldn't receive her? He promised her that she should see them all at her feet. They were talking against her, were they? He assured her that she would be his wife.

To get other relations on his side he searched out his uncle Eugenio. The poor cavaliere was in very low water. His dealing in old potsherds no longer brought anything in; and could Victor Emmanuel give a university chair to Ferdinand II's Gentleman of the Bedchamber? So he had left the little apartment where he had lived so long and moved to two smaller rooms in a remote district. Always in search of money, he had now founded the
Academy of the Four Poets
, of which he was president, secretary, treasurer and all, and was nominating to right and left founder members, promoting members, patrons, effective members, corresponding and honorary members. Each of these received a diploma, a bronze medal, a copy of the statutes, and a bill of twenty lire for expenses; but too often the post returned not a money order but a rejected packet. His relatives kept him somewhat at a distance, fearing requests for money; but on finding Raimondo actually seeking him out, he suddenly sniffed a fair wind. He went at once to pay a visit to Donna Isabella, declared himself on her side against the prince, and invited himself to lunch and dinner every day. His clothes looked as if they were weeping off him and his shoes, on the contrary, laughing on his feet. A few days later he put on a brand-new skin. In gleaming suit, freshly ironed shirt, and gloves, he accompanied Donna Isabella every time she went out, acted as her
Cavaliere servente
, and upheld her cause in public and in private, calling her his ‘niece'.

Lucrezia, too, in spite of her husband, appeared in the streets with her and took her side, and launched violent diatribes against her eldest brother, putting his opposition down to a very simple motive.

‘From morality, d'you think? To get his support paid for! Shall we make a bet on it? Didn't I have to pay for his consent to my marriage?'

‘Lucrezia …' warned Benedetto.

‘Well? Isn't it true? Didn't I have to accept that forced
transaction so as to marry you? Everyone knows that! Now you're getting it!' She turned to Raimondo. ‘You see if I'm mistaken! Your uncle Don Blasco was right when he said … Oh, by the by, why not go and pay him a visit? And Lodovico? The more you have on your side the less will Giacomo's scruples count for. Come along, let's go together!'

And Raimondo drove up the mountainside once again, with his sister and brother-in-law this time, to Nicolosi where the Benedictines were having their country stay, in order to beg for his brother's and his uncle's support. Don Blasco knew the whole story and had almost forgotten Garibaldi; he was so busy shouting around as if possessed, against Raimondo for getting himself into this last and biggest mess, then against Giacomo, who was just as much to blame as his brother, with whom he was now playing the puritan after encouraging him. Why? To squeeze him dry!…

When his niece and nephew arrived it was after refectory and he was sleeping like a log. Fra' Carmelo woke him.

‘What is it?' he called. ‘What are you making all this row for?'

‘Your Paternity must excuse me, but Your Paternity's relatives are here.'

Out he came, and as soon as he saw Raimondo opened wide eyes, still dazed with sleep. Raimondo kissed his hand, as did Lucrezia and Benedetto. He did not stop him, stuttering:

‘Well, what's up? At this hour? In this sun?'

‘We've come to pay Your Excellency a visit,' explained Lucrezia for both of them.

‘It isn't so warm. Is Your Excellency well? I've not been here for two years. And how is Lodovico?'

Fra' Carmelo, flustered, came to say that His Paternity the Prior was conferring with the Abbot and could not come down for the moment. Raimondo went pale; now this other one was declaring war on him too. They were all ranging up against him! For this reason, when Lucrezia, by agreement with this uncle, suggested taking a turn in the garden, he said shortly:

‘No, I'm in a hurry to get back. Let's go.'

At the hotel next morning, he was not yet up when the servant came to announce:

‘Your Excellency's uncle is here.'

And Don Blasco appeared. For the first time in his life Raimondo saw his uncle actually move towards him, heard him ask in a tone that was almost polite:

‘How are you?' The monk could scarcely believe his luck at hearing of a new quarrel in the family and having a chance once more to get his nose into others' business. Now was his chance to urge one brother against the other, to help undo another of the dead princess's works, Raimondo's marriage. He felt positively invited to play this game.

Donna Isabella appeared in a dressing-gown, kissed his hand, called him ‘Excellency', as if he were already her uncle; and they all began talking about what to do next. Hearing her repeat that she wanted to hide herself away in the country, the monk broke out:

‘In the country? Why in the country? Well till November at most. But you must get a place ready in town! Are you afraid of people? Then why did you come? That's logic it seems to me!'

His advice was to make Giacomo produce the accounts at once, withdraw his power-of-attorney and begin dividing the property; at such a threat the prince would soon get milder. But the very day after the monk's visit Signor Marco came down from the Belvedere to tell the count that the prince wanted to hand back the power-of-attorney and give him the accounts, once he returned home. Raimondo sent off the administrator with a violent ‘I understand … all right …' and in a furious temper he refused to open his mouth all day. Donna Isabella, in consternation, kept on repeating, ‘D'you see? I bring you bad luck! Let me go! God will look after me!…' Then he answered, ‘No, I must win through!'

Just then Lucrezia, now very close with her sister-in-law (on the wrong side of the blanket), had an idea.

‘As you can't stay in the hotel indefinitely, and now is the time for the country, why not go to the Pietra dell'Ovo, to Ferdinando's? He has lots of space; he can give you a couple of rooms. You'll be with a relation and that'll have a good effect.'

All approved of this suggestion. Raimondo had not gone to visit that brother, nor did Ferdinando even know Raimondo was
back. By indifference, upbringing, taste, manner of life, they had become such strangers that each ignored the other's existence. Lucrezia, charged with the negotiations, went to Pietra dell'Ovo. Not having seen the Booby for some months, she was astounded at the change in him. He was gaunt as if he had been through a long illness, his eyes were sunken, his beard unkempt, his voice feeble and his gloom even deeper than usual.

‘Of course … let him come … He can treat it as his home,' he replied to his sister, without expressing any surprise at Raimondo's return or at the request for hospitality.

‘But there's something I must tell you …' added Lucrezia. ‘He's not alone.'

‘Is he with his wife?'

‘With his wife, yes … in a manner of speaking.'

And she explained to him that Raimondo had left Matilde and was now living with Donna Isabella. Ferdinando stood listening to her, looking to right and left as if he had lost something, then repeated:

‘All right, all right; tell him to come when he wants.'

When Raimondo and Donna Isabella arrived, they asked to visit the house, garden, and estate, and were full of praise for the excellent cultivation of the vineyards and the superb aspect of the orchards, approved changes in cultivation, admired all. But praise no longer had the same effect on the poor Booby as it once had. A transformation had taken place in his spirit; what had pleased him before now left him indifferent and a Robinson Crusoe's life had lost all attraction or he would never have agreed to let others into his house. The real master of the estate was now the bailiff, who did what he liked, cultivated things in his own way, pocketed the profits, and gave his master nothing but scraps. If, taken by a scruple, he sometimes asked Ferdinando for an order, the latter would reply:

‘Let me be! Don't mention such things!… I'm finished … At most I may have six months to live. You can begin getting my coffin ready.'

This is what had happened. The bookseller from whom he had bought works on agriculture, mechanics and natural history
had come across a number of medicinal booklets by unknown authors, theses for degrees by stupid doctors, old chemists' receipts, pages torn from anonymous encyclopædias, all waste paper which could only be sold by weight, and had one day suggested his buying them, giving him to understand that they were filled with the very flower of knowledge. Ferdinando paid a good price for them, and settled down to read the lot. Then he began getting worried. The description of diseases, the listing of symptoms, the uncertainty of cures, terrified him. Shut in his room, book in one hand, he would hold the other on his heart to verify the number of beats, or prod himself all over in terror of finding the tumours, muscle-stiffening, inflammations, which the doctors mentioned. Gradually, from a fit of coughing, a touch of indigestion, a headache, the slightest itch, pins-and-needles, he began to think he had every illness. The idea got into his solitary misanthrope's brain and caused devastation. Death now for him was just a matter of time; and it was the fear of dying alone, the need to see a friendly face, which had made him take his brother in.

When Raimondo saw that Ferdinando scarcely ate a thing, was shut up in his room all day and sometimes did not even rise, he began asking what was the matter, if he felt ill. At first, as if held back by some kind of shame, Ferdinando gave negative answers; then eventually, under pressure, he confessed. He had a chronic intestinal catarrh, a swollen spleen, slow bronchitis; shingle-germs were circulating in his blood, his glandular system was stopped up. When Raimondo began laughing at this list, he added, in a sad voice and almost with tears in his eyes:

‘There's not much to laugh at, you know! D'you think it's all imagination? I know what I suffer …'

‘Then why not call in a doctor?'

‘A doctor? What can doctors do? Now I've got to this point?'

There seemed no way of persuading him. Then Donna Isabella entered the scene. Instead of contradicting the maniac she began by agreeing with him; she recognised the existence and gravity of his ills, the uselessness of medical prescriptions, but if doctors were out of their depth couldn't he at least try one of those empirical remedies which can do wonders at times?

‘When I was a girl I had an internal catarrh which was
even longer and more stubborn than yours. D'you know I got rid of it? With lettuce salad!'

And she had a plate of it prepared for him, to go with a big red slice of roast meat. Ferdinando began to eat gingerly at first. He had no faith in the result, was sure that food would quicken his end.

‘Now what you need on top of that is a good walk,' and she offered him her arm as if to a convalescent, and led him out into the garden.

Next day the sick man found himself, incredibly, waking up feeling lively and with some appetite. The salad and roast meat did wonders in a short time. But there was still the itch to be cured—he had given it the name of shingles.

‘The remedy for that is even simpler: a bath in soft water!'

For months he had washed nothing but the ends of his nose and fingers, two or three times a week, for fear of catching pneumonia. So the shingles went off too. Milk, eggs, exercise, cleanliness, brought him back to life, and tears of gratitude towards Donna Isabella sprang to his eyes.

‘What a woman! What a brain? What a mind!'

He had very few friends, but every time he met one of them he began talking about her as admiringly as if she were the wisest and most virtuous of women, an angel from heaven. He got in the habit of moving about more, went to visit his sister Lucrezia, sought people out on purpose to talk about her.

‘She does so love Raimondo! How well she looks after a house! Words can't express what she's done for me! If it wasn't for her, I'd be dead and buried by now!'

One day he arrived at Lucrezia's while husband and wife were in the midst of a lively discussion. At his appearance they went silent.

‘What were you talking of?'

‘About Raimondo's position,' replied his sister, deciding to let him into the secret. ‘It can't go on long like this. It'll have to be legalised by dissolving the marriages.'

This she announced with the same simplicity as Raimondo and Donna Ferdinanda had said it to her. To ask and obtain a double annulment of marriage seemed a very simple matter to the Uzeda; who could deny the ‘Viceroys' what they
wanted? Were not their wishes a law to all? Did they not possess all material and moral means to overcome obstacles and resistance? They had dependants everywhere, among pro-Bourbons and Liberals, in sacristies and courtrooms. The noble were with them from solidarity, the ignoble from respect; all were bound to be proud and happy to render them a service. The only thing necessary for success in this matter was good advice; that was why they wanted Benedetto's help. Like the first time it was mentioned to him, Benedetto hesitated, halted by scruples, conscious of the evil they were making him do, of the difficulties, of the disapproval it would bring from their uncle the duke, who was such a friend of Palmi. But his wife persistently showed how stupid his scruples were and even how meritorious his help could be.

‘Suppose a child is born tomorrow? Will it be condemned to remain a bastard? Raimondo cannot go back to his wife; that's as sure as death. Well? Isn't it better to get them straight with law and society? Aren't I right?'