Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part one, chapter 12

At 22 o'clock the next day, a real flood of people came down to Cassaro, to Porta Felice, to see the king's landing. From the balconies hang tapestries and carpets; to the Four Songs four arches of triumph had been improvised in the night, decorated with fabrics, tassels, fringes and lamps; and the four perspectives disappeared almost under the velvets and golds.

At Porta Felice was built the bridge for the landing, with a large arch parade in the colors of the city, and surmounted by a golden and crowned eagle, which between the claws held the shield Sabaudo.

From midday, the Spanish garrison, with its luggage, had gone to the Cala to embark; and a crowd of friends, relatives, fellow countrymen, who had already become citizens, had accompanied the soldiers of King Philip not without some regret. Those soldiers had already contracted marriage and close kinship with the citizens, and in the custom of the dwelling they considered themselves citizens; the reason for the treaties chased them out of the kingdom, whose possession they did not think to be deprived. With the families, there were about twelve thousand people who left, leaving so many things dear, memories, affections, customs, to give place to a new people, rained suddenly, as a conquering army, but without even having the glory to have conquered the kingdom.

That departure had something sad and distressing: it stirred regret and pity, perhaps even disdainful.

The Savoy and Piedmontese troops, while the Spaniards embarked, descended from the vessels and were ordered in the Navy promenade, to precede the king's entrance as he had ordered.

It was therefore a double spectacle what was offered to the people, as preparation for the other more solemn and of the whole new, such as the entrance of the sovereigns, who would not have landed that when the Savoyard troops had taken possession of the city. It was estimated that the king would not set foot on the ground before twenty - three hours, that is, an hour before the Hail; so it was necessary to hurry to find a good place in the front row, or on the church steps, from whence the spectacle would be enjoyed better.

At twenty-two hours all the balconies of the Cassaro were crowded with people, especially of ladies; the steps wedged, the Cassaro clogged. Not an empty palm of earth. On the heads of the crowd, here and there emerged the lively and playful aspects of children, kept riding on the necks of the fathers. The crowd opened, jumping, waving on one side and on the other to let the carriages of the nobility pass; to the magnificence of the crew, to the richness and colors of the liveries recognized them. That was Prince Butera's first title of the kingdom. Prince Don Placido Nicolò Branciforti with the head lost in a huge curled wig, greeted with friendly smiles of protection how many, and were not few, escaped and were drinking at his passage. That other one belonged to the prince of Geraci... These are the liveries of Alliata's house, and those of Settimo's house, Bonanno's house, of Regalmici's marquis, of Filangeri's house; they all passed, shining the gold of decorations the beauty and number of horses, the quantity of slaves and servants.

The Senate passed into its carriages, preceded by the musicians, the conestables on horseback, the ceremonies and the two dealerships; with the captain, with the judges, the officers, the urban guards dressed in red and yellow, a truly royal magnificence, which was reason for the pride and pleasure of the people, whose innate taste satisfied every beautiful, rich, magnificent thing.

Over there, outside Porta Felice, the riot was major. The Savoiard regiments and squadrons, about six thousand men, with flags, drums, officers in their various uniforms, headed to enter the city; the crowd gathered around them, treading between the lines of soldiers and the carriages that were to be deployed according to the rank the precinences, near the bridge of secus. Many more crowds had stormed the boats; the water of the Cala was full of them. The sun descending over Monte Cuccio wore a golden light on the fort of the Garita and the castle's castle or threw on the waves jagged and waved by thousands of oars, flames on the rose silks of the bridge, on the velvets, on the banners.

A cannon shot turned everyone towards the Castle. It was seen over the antenna slowly rising and unfolding to the sun the banner of the kingdom of Sicily, all white with a large black crowned eagle in the middle, carrying the shield of Savoy in his chest. The sun overlaid that banner with light, as if to greet him and it seemed that it truly shone again with splendor of wish again was for the kingdom from the bad lordship reduced to wretched decrepit province.

At the same time some gondolas were detached from the vessels of the pier; the first of them, large, adorned with gold and a red velvet pavilion, with the sign of the city, was served by rowers in red livery. It was the gondola of the Senate, and inside there were King Vittorio Amedeo, Queen Anna of OrlÈans and the Prince Thomas. Then the troops gave in the drums, the trumpets rang, and, ordained, with every step, they began to enter from the Happy Gate.

It was already the sunset; the air became dark: some flashlight began to light before the door of a shop; it was the sign: all the Cassaro suddenly glowed; at the shops, on the balcony railings, lanterns, torches, lamps were lit; from the ground floor to the troubles of the houses and palaces, the Cassaro appeared dotted with flaming stars, like a sky of August.

As the drums went on, they spread through Cassaro that quiver, that trembling stir of the expectation of a joy: "Here they are! Here they are!..."

After the soldiers the king would come. The king! What was a king? What was this invisible nume, this name that filled the hearts of a religious awe, this mysterious entity, of which until then they had known the distant will which they had bent, without wondering why?

There's the king at last. He came to restore his independence to the kingdom, to the capital his splendour...

From a balcony on the corner of the Schioppettieri street, Don Vincenzo Bongiovanni enjoyed the show. He wasn't alone. In addition to Pellegra, he had invited Don Girolamo Ammirata and his young nephew, of whom he was almost enthusiastic.

"Come with us," he said to them; "I have a good place in a friend's house. Do not be submissive; they are people who will be glad; and then... you will hear that I win! And you'll hear something else too. You know that Pellegra gossip made me a poem about the king coming? But poetry, not nonsense!...

Don Girolamo had accepted. Now all four stood in a song of the heavy and long loggia, leaning on the railing of wrought iron; the young man at the corner, Pellegra next to him, then Don Vincenzo and the rational; Don Vincenzo talkace, cheerful, quirky, also disgusting, regardless of Pellegra; Don Girolamo silent, serious, reserved. The painter was so infatuated in his speech, that he did not look at his daughter: and the two young men, in that blossoming of youth, seemed so happy to be near, wrapped in the shadow of the evening, that nothing seemed to interest them, surrounded by people everywhere, with a mobile crowd, floating, noisy before their eyes, they felt lonely; they did not see that themselves, they only heard the voices of their absorbed souls.

Many times they had stood beside in the painter's studio, posing, to satisfy the whims that fatuity suggested to Don Vincenzo, but although sudden. reddish and unwitting tremors sometimes upset them, they had never felt the sweet awe, the tender embarrassment that that evening the finding shoulder to shoulder, in the corner of the loggia, put them in the veins. The reel of the drums, the ringing of the trumpets attracted their attention for a while.

Pellegra saw the forest of bayonets shining in the Cassaro exclaimed: "How many soldiers!"

"Is it true that you made a poem for the king?" asked the young man.

"Yes..."

"How do you invent a poem? He never succeeded me: yet I think so many things... you know? when I am near you!... Will you be offended if I tell you?"

"No, go ahead..."

"Well, when I am near you, so many thoughts, so many beautiful ideas are tumultuous in my brain; and I cannot express them, or if I want to find the expressions, I can think of those that I read in the poets that Uncle Jerome has. The fathers of the college teach me Latin, and they don't teach me how to write poetry... Who taught you this?"

"To me? Nobody... The verses come to mind beautiful and made..."

"How I envy you..."

"Why?"

'Cause if I could write about it, I'd do a lot for you...

Pellegra blushed and smiled and seemed to want to mislead the speech: "Look, Emanuele," he said.

There was a group of officers riding the horse, with the turquoise scarves on the belt, the drawn swords, right and proud.

The young man said, "Would you like me to be one of them?"

"Yes, you know I've read a lot, don't you? I have read Jerusalem and Orlando, and those brave and courteous knights always pass before my eyes... Those were supposed to be really heroic times! I would have liked to have been born then."

"Ah, if I were bigger and richer!..."

"What would you do?"

I could have a captain's patent... and I could go through my company under your windows."

They were silent. Now, after the passage of regiments came the ride of the lords, the offices of the kingdom, the senate; finally the Marquis of Balbases already vicered for Spain. Vittorio Amedeo and Anna d'OrlÈans; the king satin, with the fashionable curly wig of France, the long face of the Savoy, the sharp nose, a bit hard and sustained; the queen lean, blonde, angular, with the nose long Bourbon. Behind, in the other carriages, Prince Thomas, the great dignitaries of the Piedmont Court, the guards. The artillery, from the ramparts; from the castle, from the vessels, thundered; the bells of all the churches, by order received by Monsignor Gasch, archbishop, were ringing at feast and from the street, from the illuminated balconies, between the splendor of a thousand and a thousand torches, as the procession proceeded, the cry of "Live the King!" was raised, crying imprisoned by centuries of foreign servitude in the depths of hearts, and that burst, now, with all the enthusiasm of a dream fulfilled.

The emotion had taken the heart of Don Girolamo: the painter gesticulated and shouted: "I like it! I like it!... Word of honor that I will make a picture of it; I will make a picture of it!... Now I want to go to the Cathedral; it must be all enlightened, and there will be the archbishop to receive the king, and sing the Te deum... Come on, come on. Come on, Pellegra! Come, Don Girolamo."

He dragged his friends down the stairs, adding: "Let's go through the alleys, there will be no people and we can go soon."

He was so caught up in his idea, laughing like a child and running down the Schioppettieri's street, that he had no regard for his companions. Don Girolamo had tried to moderate him: "Hell, do you want to explode? The Cathedral does not take it away, of course." But Don Vincenzo did not listen to him; he even forgot his daughter. He had to follow him to the best in that race, up the square of the theater of St. Lucia, on the road under the arch of St. Joseph and on the road of St. Clare.

Pellegra and Emanuele held close, the haste occasionally pushed them towards each other and their shoulders were bumping slightly. They were laughing. That race entertained them; they seemed to be two lambs coming out of the fold running on the lawn. Don Girolamo was following them. Other people had the same idea and rushed along the same path; at some point it was so numerous, that it was necessary to open up the step, hitting someone, who threw behind them moccoli. They went up the street of the Origlione, driving themselves into a maze of alleys, from where, finally, through the alley of the Lombardo, they succeeded in the Cassaro, at the extreme limit of the plan of the Cathedral.

But at the end of the alley they had to stop: the Cassaro was at that point invaded by a river in full; the greedy population of performances had followed the troops, and had come together; resurrected and divided by the carriages, leaned on the balustrade, chased back into the alleys, pushed back, rampant in the plan; pressed under the beautiful portico of the fifteenth century, to enter the church, and find the best places. But the church had to be packed.

The painter said: "We must open the way with the fury of elbows..."

"But you can't go into church," said Fr.Jerome; "do you not see what a rush it is?"

"Bah! We will enter the sacristy: you will see that to me they will open... I'm known..."

We have to follow him. Don Vincenzo animated himself into the crowd by grasping the right to throw himself behind a carriage, taking advantage of the short free space between a carriage and the other to pass to the other part of the Cassaro. Pellegra tried to follow him, but at that point there was another carriage, preceded by four lackeys with torches, one of which, with the usual tracotanza of the servants, took Pellegra by one arm and threw her back; but at the same time a violent pusher sent him on his legs raised between the legs of the horses. A scream dominated the noise; the coachman tried to restrain the horses, but not so in time to prevent the lackey from being overwhelmed and pesto by the first two.

There was a moment of panic and confusion. The screaming, the immediately curling of the horses, the arresting of the carriage, the rushing of the other lackeys to draw and raise up the fallen, the confused perception of a shock and of a fall, frightened the crowd that, not knowing what it was, imagined a fight, weapons, dead; the closest to the carriage came back violently throwing themselves on those who were behind; the motion spread in a moment; the crowd waved, escaped, leaving there in the middle of the lackeys with the bleeding wounded in their arms, and before them Emmanuel in a stab, with a ferocious youthful face, and Pellegra trembling, restricted to Don Girolamo.

All this happened with a speed that did not give time to anyone to form a precise idea of what happened, except for the young man. But the screaming, the sudden stopping of the horses, the wandering of the crowd, threw the dismay even inside the carriage; the door opened immediately and leaped out of it Blasco, who saw the wounded lackey, supported by his companions, rushed up, exclaiming, "What then happened?"

He was still far from assuming that Emanuele, seeing the villain act of the lackey who threw it between the legs of the horses; and the others who had not noticed anything, so the scene had taken place quickly, suddenly, unexpectedly, so they could not give any explanation.

But Emanuel said, "Lord, your lackeys are uncreated! You have to teach them to respect the ladies, if you don't want them to throw themselves under your wheels..."

Blasco looked stunned at that young man, who had Attitudes as a man, and that he spoke so proudly.

"What do you mean, my boy?" he asked as he approached him.

"I mean, sir," replied Emanuele, "that I was the one who taught your lackey a lesson."

Blasco went from one amazement to another and, curiously enough, every anger fell from the soul. But a female voice from the carriage shook him by his astonishment.

"Don Blasco! Don Blasco!"

He then approached the door from which he had put out a big scared face: "It is nothing, Mrs. Duchess." he reassured "a lackey fell."

And when he returned to Emanuele, he put his hand on his shoulder and said to him: "You seem like a good boy to me and I like good guys. But I suggest you never let me see you again. Get out..."

With a gesture he made him turn around; but the young man with his face on fire, turned intently to react: except that Don Girolamo and Pellegra threw themselves in front of him, holding him and repairing him at a time.

"Emanuele! Emanuele!..."

The carriages that were behind in the meantime were moving, the reassured crowd was pushing, tightening from every side, narrow and pushed by the river rising up from the Cassaro, which came down from the alleys. Blasco made a gesture of carelessness with his shoulders and got back in the carriage: the coachman hurled the horses, who moved with a great scalpitio; the carriage resumed the journey with only two lackeys, passed before Emanuele and Pellegra, to reach the place that belonged to her hierarchically.

Pellegra and Emanuele saw in the carriage next to Blasco a beautiful young lady.

Don Girolamo recognized her: "Ah!" exclaimed "the Duchess of Motta!..."

They crossed the Cassaro and entered the floor of the Cathedral, tending the crowd with the proposal to reach Don Vincenzo Bongiovanni, who supposedly was waiting in front of the little door of the sacristy. Pellegra tightened to Emanuele, feeling chills at the young man's contact, which made her pale: inside she justified herself, attributing to the pressing of the mold, inside which they barely opened the step, that they had to tighten to him; but she was almost immediately forced to confess that she was not without pleasure, and that she gladly gave in to the rush that pushed her against the shoulder of Emanuele. He now appeared to her greater, a man; so manly and above her age it seemed to her that gesture, because of readiness, energy, courage, all the more admirable, because they were powerful lords.

At some point the crowd was so dense, they found themselves tight. Emanuele, instinctively, as if to defend Pellegra from those who pressed her, surrounded her life with her arm.

She felt faint, and murmured: "Oh God!... What are you doing, Emanuele?"

He seemed to be amazed at this act of his; he stuttered: "Excuse me... there are many people... I didn't think you could get hurt..."

"No..." he replied, not considering the weight of his words; "I don't feel bad about it."

And then they looked at each other smiling, but with a new look, and they felt the blood stirred, and they did not speak; but their hands were not left.

So they came before the little door of the sacristy. Don Vincenzo Bongiovanni was not there: perhaps he had entered, eager to wait. The bells were ringing out; the king and queen had already entered the Cathedral, received by the cardinal and the Chapter; the carriages had stood in line, one after the other, with their lackeys around, weary and impertinent, waiting for the masters who had followed the king into the temple.

The Duchess of Motta had also come off the carriage, leaning on Blasco's arm.

She had asked for information about what happened, but the young man merely replied: "A girlfriend. A pusher; a lackey went under, but he didn't hurt himself much; I had him carried into the shop of a spice."

Don Raimondo, in his capacity as magistrate, having had to go with his colleagues, had begged Blasco to accompany the Duchess; what he had accepted in good measure. For two or three days he had been a guest of the Albamonte palace, and although he did not abuse his fortune, he had become, without will and without knowing it, the ruler of the "Torre di Montalbano."

Don Raimondo, while preserving his mask of cold and courteous protector, felt within himself a kind of animosity against that young man, whose origin with his acumen penetrated the mystery; but he felt that he was and was to be the natural defender of his person and of his house and he always followed him now on a pretext, now with another.

It was enough to see for a day Blasco in the company of the noble duke and to observe the consideration in which he was held, so that with the curiosity aroused by his entry into aristocratic society, a kind of benevolent attention was manifested. Which, while he had calmed down the scruples of his new friend, had helped to settle the matter with Prince Iraki. It is understood that, given the difference in degree, it was not the case of a challenge in full order, according to the judgment of the "politicians," that is, of the leaders in this matter. And the knight of the Floresta went up and down, and there were explanations of each other, and there was no talk of anything. But in the meantime, as the matter kept occupied for two or three days knights and high-ranking lords, the fame of Blasco da Castiglione was assured.