Beati Paoli
by Luigi Natoli
prologue, chapter 5
| Italiano | English |
Don Raimondo had fired all the ancient servitude and affectionate to the House Albamonte, holding only Magdalena, not to bump the Duchess his sister-in-law; however he had required her not to watch, the night, in the closet behind the master's room. This ban was as painful for Maddalena as a dismissal.
Don Raimondo replaced the servants who had been fired with a few people: just four porters, four staffmen, a waiter and a small team service. All new people, who seemed very devoted to the knight Albamonte.
The waiter's name was Giuseppico; he was a Major, long lived in slavery in the Tunisian prisons, then redeemed or liberated and seemed to enjoy great trust. He had a dark, skinny, nervous face, black eyes, but gloomy and thick, pepid eyebrows, joined together like a single bow: a gloomy and uncomfortable appearance. He spoke little and had rude and wild manners.
Donna Aloisia, to whom Maddalena had timidly communicated those news, was surprised and asked Fr Raimondo for an explanation: but the answer, if she closed her mouth, filled her with dismay.
"I didn't want to tell you the news, because of your health and because, after all, you are entitled to all the respect that deserves your rank. But his Excellency the Viceroy believed, in his wisdom, to entrust to me the protection of the duke, your son and my nephew, and you will agree with me that, having to govern the house up to the age, to care for the pupil, to administer and to preserve the heritage, it is right that you surround me with people of my trust.
By instinct, woman Aloisia held her child to her chest as if some unknown danger threatened him; she felt that she and her creature were at the mercy of that man, who had never inspired her trust and of whom she had always been afraid, and wondered for what right, she, who was the mother, was placed in the condition of a simple nurse: she wondered with a sense of terror if Don Raimondo would not dare even that the right to take her son away to breast-feed him by another nurse, on the pretext that she was sick. It was necessary to heal and have the air healthy and strong.
Her fever had ceased, because of the inner crisis that she had, as it were, imposed with the strength of her will on all her blood, on her whole body to heal. But it was still weak, as prostrated by the terrible blow received and unable to fight, or at least, nailed as it was, to be able to dispose of all its physical forces.
In those days had been baptized the child, without pump for the mourning of the house: he had baptized in the room of woman Aloisia the parish priest of St. Hippolytus; woman Aloisia had wanted the son to renew the name of the father. So he called himself Emanuel. Don Raimondo wanted to keep him at his baptism: this looked like the forehead of woman Aloisia, who could not hold a thrill, when she saw her little son on the arms of her brother-in-law and seemed to see a cold and ambiguous smile on her face.
From that day on she watched over her creature more than ever. The night in particular, since it had been forbidden to Maddalena to sleep in the adjoining closet, woman Aloisia had some fears, which made her jump on the bed.
One night she seemed to hear a slight sound of bare feet and to see the light of the lamp entering the bottom of the room a shadow.
He cried, "Who is it?"
No one answered: the shadow went away. Donna Aloisia did not close her eyes all night and in the morning she confided the terror of that apparition at Maddalena.
"I want you to sleep here in my room."
"Excellency, Mr. Knight forbade me..."
"So I no longer have the right to command my servants?"
Maddalena came her hands: "Oh, Your Excellency, and what would I not do to please her?... But now," he added with sorrow, "the master is him, and if I transgress he casts me away, and your Excellency will no longer have a devoted and faithful person beside him..."
"It won't come to this..."
"He threatened me, Your Excellency."
Donna Aloisia covered her face with her hands, as if to hide the redness on her face. That humiliating condition, while mortifying her, supported her suspicions and increased her fear of her brother-in-law. Maddalena took pity on him.
"If anything happens, Your Excellency, I will do anything to come tonight... And if I can't get in, don't be afraid of anything; I'll watch in some neighboring room. I'll hide..."
Don Raimondo was more correct than usual: he asked her how she had spent the night, if she felt well and if she was sure that she could breastfeed little Emanuele.
She replied to monosillabes. The suspicions made her seem insidious all those questions and seemed to see at the bottom of her brother-in-law's care as a slight bit of irony. He warned himself. In the evening he took little Emanuele into the bed, hiding him under the blankets as to take him away from the sight of others; he would make him sleep with himself, under the weirdness of his mother's arm. And he slept not: as soon as he closed his eyes, he leaped as he was struck by a sudden terror and looked at the bottom of the chamber in the Dark corners. The vagites of the little one, waking up suddenly, made her cheer; the ordinary fact assumed in that hour and in those conditions of spirit a frightening aspect.
To make sure that Maddalena watched over there, she called her: "Are you there, Maddalena?"
He held his ear; he heard a voice blowing under the closet door: "Sleep quiet."
She reassured herself: Maddalena was there and she was no longer alone.
Maddalena had hidden herself in the closet where she had slept for many nights and watched. After that exchange of words a great silence had been made in the palace; perhaps also woman Aloisia slept. Lost in the darkness, Maddalena occupied the time reciting the rosary; midnight she was sonata to the clock of Pannaria; other more distant watches had repeated it and for a moment the night ended with that bell: then everything returned in silence. Suddenly the good woman froze, a tremor took her legs: she let herself fall on the floor, curling under a table. He had seen a light through the door and heard carefully turn the key into the lock.
The closet door opened. Two men with a lantern came in quietly.
Maddalena recognized with terror Don Raimondo and Giuseppico.
The servant had a bottle in his hand equal to the one Aloisia woman kept on the night table; both of them approached the table under which she had curled up Maddalena and laid the lantern there. Maddalena held her breath and perhaps this was not difficult for her, because the terror had turned her into a statue and her life seemed to have stopped. Only his eyes were alive; they had multiplied the visual virtue.
She saw Don Raimondo and Giuseppi quietly, making no noise, almost touching the ground, approaching the door that she gave in the room. Giuseppico had the bottle in his hand. He took off his shoes.
In the act that stretched out his hand to the door, Don Raimondo asked him with a voice: "Are you sure he won't make a noise?"
"I have oiled it well," he whispered Giuseppico.
Slightly he tried to open.
Don Raimondo closed the lantern and the closet fell into the darkness.
"Did you open?" he murmured with a thread of voice.
"Not yet..."
But suddenly a voice breaks the silence: "Maddalena!... Maddalena!..."
Donna Aloisia had risen as if her nerves had vibrated at the imperceptible noise. Maddalena had felt like an impulse to respond, but she freaked out because of the fear of being discovered; on the other hand she felt that Don Raimondo and Giuseppico had also been caught by a thrill of fear and did not dare go any further.
"Damn it!..."
"We wait for him to fall asleep..." They were still silent.
"Maddalena!" once again called woman Aloisia, with almost trembling voice.
Don Raimondo said in an almost insensitive voice: "Let's go."
He opened the lantern and walked away with the same circumspection as a cat in ambush; Joseph followed him with the bottle in his hand. They went out, closing the door slightly behind them.
Maddalena tried to gather all her sensitivity in her hearing and felt them moving away; then she jumped out of her hiding place, approached the door of the room, and murmured with a voice still moved and she tried to make quiet: "Sleep quiet, Your Excellency; I am here..."
"I called you!..." rebuked woman Aloisia; "Why didn't you answer? Where were you?"
"Here; I was half asleep... Don't worry."
He did not want to tell her what he had seen and which still made her tremble, so as not to frighten her; but he was lost in a sea of conjecture and supposition, questions and answers, doubts and suspicions. Why did they want to penetrate the room? What was in that bottle that the gloomy servant had never abandoned? Who were they headed for? She thought she was alone; alone to watch over those two creatures, whose life, and here there was no doubt, was gravely threatened. She was alone and was a poor woman, who at any moment could be driven away or suppressed; and against her there was a man, Don Raimondo, who represented the unpunished omnipotence, and an arm, Giuseppico, who represented the immiserious, blind, beastly crime.
Poor Magdalene was shaking, under the weight of the terrible, enormous mystery of that night, which only her eyes had penetrated. Her discovery frightened her; she alone, in that great palace, knew that Don Raimondo and Giuseppico, the master and the servant, were planning a murder; she alone saw their arms armed, raised on the head of a helpless woman and a child; she alone possessed the horrible secret of those perverse souls.
Now he understood why Don Raimondo had fired the old bondage, faithful to the memory of the dead duke and devoted to the young widow; and never as now did he feel how serious the lack of Andrew was. Andrea was the shield and sword of defense. Where was Andrea? How to warn him? How Use it? And how can those poor victims be removed from the danger that lay upon them?
He wondered, "Will I alert the mistress tomorrow? What am I gonna tell her? And then?"
He held his forehead in his hands. "Yeah, and then what? What would Aloisia do? Would he have given faith to a poor servant? And did it have the right to accuse a lord, rather his master? And was it a lawful act to spy on?" The prejudice, naturalized in his blood, which had to be silenced, always silenced and provided for himself, made every step seem shameful: the fear of a weakness on the part of woman Aloisia, of some terrible punishment on the part of Don Raimondo, the fear, even greater, that her impudence could take away from the two unconscious victims a defense, all the more sure, the more hidden, all these ideas, all these feelings and still others, persuaded her to silence.
It was better.
Shut up and watch without being seen or suspected; here is the party to choose and choose.
He spent the night in this almanac, bouncing suspiciously at every slight noise, fearing to see the two scumbags appear at any moment. When the bells of the convent of Mercedes sounded, he breathed with relief and quietly left the closet, went to his little room at the other end of a corridor, and waited for it to take up its service, as if nothing had happened. One doubt he had: if she had been seen; but he reassured himself when he raised up the whole house, in no face did he discover what was curious or malicious that is for us as an accusation.
This security allowed her to simulate a tranquillity that was not at the bottom of her heart.
When she appeared to her now, she entered the Duchess' room.
Donna Aloisia rebuked her, not harsh, but with a tone of regret that pierced the heart of poor Maddalena. She invented an excuse to justify herself, trying to calm her down. Donna Aloisia told her that night in her sleep she felt that there were people behind the closet door.
"I was there, in fact," said Maddalena, endeavoring to smile, but pale.
"I know; but it seemed to me that they were men and not just one. It seemed to me as if they wanted to open. I was sweating cold..."
"Your Excellency certainly had a bad dream..."
"I believe... You never strayed, did you?..."
"Oh no!..."
"All right, that's it; when I know you next door, I'm quieter..." Just before midday, on the pretext of going to confession, Maddalena left the palace and went to the church of Mercedes. He didn't have the confidence to meet Andrea, but he was hoping to meet him or see him from afar or at least to meet someone who could track him down. The neighborhood knew him all the way to St. Augustine and the Cape: it was not difficult to find a friend. Fortune favored her.
As soon as she came out of the door, wrapped in a black mantle, a woman who sat there, with a large basket of eggs on a stool, called her. She was a farmer in Monreale who came every day to sell eggs in the Cape market and for ten years occupied that place and knew the palace. The sight of the Duchess' waitress aroused her curiosity; she wanted to know about the lady. Maddalena was not aware of the fact that she had been called and stopped, because this made her comfortable to linger on the road. He answered how he could to the peasant who seemed to repeat all the gossip of the market around the events of the "tower of Montalbano." Andrea's name fell into his own speech.
"The poor young man does not know how to give himself peace, that he was thrown away like this. Yesterday, talking about it, he wanted to cry..."
"Where did you see him?"
"Here; he passes us often..."
"Ah!... Would you do me a favor?"
"Two, even..."
"If you see him today or tomorrow morning, tell him that I have something very important to talk to him about..."
"What?"
"I'll tell you later..."
"Do you want me to send him up?"
"No... You can't... Do this, tell him to come from the vicolet..."
The peasant looked at her with a clever and a little resentful air: "Oh, say, such assignments could you not give them to others?"
"O Aunt! what's the matter with you?... For today's holy day, I swear... I'm an honest girl!... It is a holy work and God will reward you... I swear to you..."
Maddalena immediately returned home, satisfied. She seemed to be more confident now that she could have the help of Andrea, a bold and de-vote young man. He was almost certain that Andrea would come from the vicoletto on the same night, on which the window of his room stood: but he still could not find how Andrea could defend woman Aloisia.
He came in the evening; at night he spread out his shadows, but Andrew did not show up. Maddalena felt her heart pressed; she assured the Duchess that she would stay in the closet and went to hide. This time he threw a blanket on the table as if someone had left it for you, so that a flap, Falling from the front, he formed a better hiding place: he took off his shoes and drove himself under the table. The dark dress, confused with the blanket and the shadow, really made it invisible.
From his hiding place he heard the clocks, clear and distinct in the night silence. As time passed and midnight approached, she felt invaded by fear and an indomitable shivering went through her person. The twelve slow and gloomy touches fell into her blood like twelve ice waves: she was sweating cold. Shortly afterward he heard the same noise as the evening before, light and watchful: he saw the door opened and Don Raimondo and Giuseppico entered, but they were not alone; a woman was with them. That woman had her stature and was dressed in dark; in the shadow she could be mistaken for her. Maddalena shuddered; it seemed to her that her heart stopped for fear. As in the previous night, Don Raimondo laid the lantern on the table and closed it, while three Giuseppico tried to open the door that he placed in the room. No one was whispering, one could almost hear the violent pulses of the hearts. A square of dim light that was drawn in the shadow indicated that the door had opened. Maddalena saw the woman, as light as a ghost, entering the room: something shining in her hands revealed the bottle. The door closed quietly behind her. The moment he spent seemed like a century.
Maddalena felt nailed to the ground, incapable of the slightest movement; she had no blood in her veins, such and so was the distressing terror of that moment; she heard the voice of woman Aloisia, asking: "Are you, Maddalena?"
And the woman's voice replied quietly: "Excellency, yes. Sleep quietly."
The voice was so quiet, it couldn't recognize itself. He didn't hear anything anymore. He saw the door open, the woman went out with the bottle in her hand and closed the swing slightly.
Don Raimondo asked with great lips, "Don't you?"
"Excellency yes," answered the woman in the same way. With the same caution, with the same silence they came out of the closet, closed the door and went away. Then Magdalena made an effort, got up, ran, pushed the door of the room and entered. Her heart burst into her chest. What did they do? What would he have found?
He approached the bed: woman Aloisia opened her eyes, saw her, and asked her with surprise, mixed with fear: "What is there, why did you come back?"
"Nothing," stuttered Magdalena convulsa, looking at the Duchess and little Emanuele: "nothing, it seemed to me that your Excellency had called me."
Seeing her without suspicion and surprise, she had felt a great relief, but always doubting who knows what, looked around. The eyes ran to the bottle of water placed on the night table. One suspicion crossed her mind: was it that she had prepared, or was it the other, that she had already seen in the hand of Joseph and, just before, the mysterious woman? Quickly he took the bottle, ran into the closet and opened the window emptying its contents out. He was about to close when she seemed to hear the door open; he put his head in the shadows, recognized Joseph and the woman who went out and went to the little square of the Cape, where they fled. Then he went back to his room.
Donna Aloisia was there, amazed, not knowing how to explain herself all that mooring: she suspected and fear shook in her eyes. When Magdalena returned, she asked: "Well? What happened?"
"Nothing, Your Excellency..." said the faithful servant; "I forgot to renew the water..."
"Didn't you bring her now?"
"Yeah... I mean, I screwed up the bottle... Sleep well, Your Excellency, don't be afraid of anything!... and, look, Your Excellency, don't drink anything, don't eat anything unless I give it to you..."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing... nothing. Ideas going through my head... I desire this grace... It's a pleasure to have... Your Excellency rest... rest quietly..."
He came out, closing the door and left her confused, dismayed, fought by a thousand thoughts, by a thousand suspicions, by a thousand fears. Donna Aloisia no longer slept for that night; but not even Maddalena slept: the poor woman fell on a chair, exhausted, with whispering nerves, and gave herself up to tears.
Meanwhile, in his room Don Raimondo, I also awakened, he walked wandering and wondering: "Would she have drunk?"
Accompanied by Giuseppico, Don Raimondo came out of the palace at one hour in the night of Italy, turned left, and on a crossroads, dark and winding, he arrived at Pannaria where the Mount of Pietà was located and put a narrow and long, real vine swarming in the shade. Giuseppico thinned the darkness with the lantern and the light, following those almost clandestine routes, revealing its ugliness and miseries. From time to time they stopped: Giuseppico raised the lantern, turned around as spying, then resumed the path. In the middle of the day that little vicolet stopped another time.
"It's here," said Giuseppico.
He closed the lantern and beat three times to a miserable door.
One voice asked: "Who is it?..."
"It's me, Peppa la Sarda."
The little door sucked timidly, then, as reassured, opened. Don Raimondo and Giuseppico entered and the door closed. Then, from the shadow that surrounded him, a man leaped agilely like a leopard and approached the door and leaned his ear.
It was Andrea.
