Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part one, chapter 18

Finding accommodation in Palermo was more than difficult, impossible. The inns regurgitated. In Blasco there were only two roads, or ask Father Bonaventura for hospitality, in the convent of San Francesco, or ask the knight of Floresta. He preferred the latter who was as young as him and knight, and for whom he felt a deep sympathy.

"Will I disturb you if I ask you to accommodate me in some part of your palace?"

"You will give me a gift, for which I will be grateful," answered the knight with an accent of sincerity.

"Thank you! I was sure of your kindness."

The knight of Floresta had a classic name; his name was Coriolano.

As he accompanied Blasco to the "furnishings" room, he said to him: "Call me by my name, and leave me out of compliments. I value you and I like to treat you like a brother. As you will see, in your hospitality I satisfy a selfish feeling, so you don't have to thank me for anything."

He was too gentleman to ask Blasco why he had ever left the Albamonte palace, although he could not claim not to be curious. But Blasco felt obliged to tell him. At the first word Coriolano Floresta interrupted him.

"Excuse me; if it is to explain to me the reasons for your dear coming, please do not continue; if it is to make me friendly confidencies, in the idea that I may be of use to you, then I am here..."

"You are not only a gentleman, but a very kind man, Coriolano. Well, yes, they are my confidence in a friend. I need a brotherly heart, and I feel like I found it in you. I seem to all a young man a little strange, runaway, laughing, fighting, running from here to there without thinking about tomorrow, of nothing else worried, except drinking at the cup of joy. For such has my adventurous life formed me; but at the bottom of the soul there is bound sadness, and from there casts a shadow around me, a shadow that I only see... I was for a while the trick of fortune; which I did not like point: I tried to reverse the parts and make myself in my turn ruler of it; I succeeded, but it does not take away that, from time to time, it does not give me any shots. It doesn't matter. I understand you have to laugh about it: but sometimes, no, I can't laugh, especially when, like now, I'm in a condition... Mah!..."

He told him about the scene in the Bologna plan, dating back to the previous ones, and about the brief and significant dialogue between him and the Duke of Motta.

"What do you want? That's who I am. If I saw a brother of mine commit a vileness, I think I would take him; fortunately I have no brothers. Besides, if I have to confess the truth, I don't mind leaving the Albamonte building. How did I live there? My stay in that house exposed me to a thousand dangers, which, don't laugh, I had to avoid. This is the most painful part, but also the most beautiful of mine Resolution..."

The knight of Floresta listened to him smiling slightly; he held his chin leaning on his hand and his elbow on the high armrest of his high chair; it was a white hand, feminine, without a lie. To the silence that followed Blasco's last words, he said with the grace that gave the tone to his gesture as to his word: "Poor friend! Are you really in love?"

Blasco blushed and strongly replied, "Who says that?"

"Do you regret that I guessed it? I beg your pardon..."

Blasco bowed his head for a moment, then revived with a certain bitterness: "Well, yes. I'm in love. This is the first time I've ever really fallen in love. Isn't she beautiful? Isn't it lovely? Doesn't she have mysterious charms that bind souls?... The first time I saw her, now about three months ago, she passed before me quickly; a fleeting vision, which left a deep footprint in her memory... During this time I could know her, appreciate her, admire her. So this passion was born. You understand that my condition in that house forbade me to take advantage; favorable circumstances... I love her, and too much to compromise her. I have restrained my desires, I have suffocated the voice of passion, I have, as it were, macerated like an anacoret... That sounds weird, doesn't it? You're right, I don't recognize myself either! Bah! I thought I had put an end to the beasts; I realize that I had committed one bigger than the others..."

He laughed, but of a rice that did not come from the heart, and that evidently cost him an effort.

"Have you ever fallen in love, Coriolano?"

"Never," answered the knight with his slight and subtle smile. "I have always thought that in the world there can be something better to do."

"What, then, have you done better?"

Coriolan of Floresta looked at him with a clear gaze and a wonderful naivety, and replied: "Nothing. Blasco looked at him amazed, then, as he reflected, he said: "Maybe you're right; "nothing" is always better than falling in love like a beast!... Happy are you who do not have this goddamn craving on you, which I have, which multiplies your life, which pushes you to do something, and makes you feel more and more like a void that must be filled! I have this craving; I have it from birth..."

And suddenly cutting off that melancholy reflection, he said: "Do you know my life, Coriolano? No; now I want to tell you briefly."

He picked up a bit like refreshing his memory, and resumed: "Until a few months ago, I was ignoring in which part of the world I was born; from my childhood I had only some imperfect, confused, vaporous reminiscence. Memories don't start until my fifth year. I was gathered in the ruins of Catania, by a good friar who took me with him to a convent.

I hold an uncertain image of that convent, which seemed wide, immense, cold, and in whose corridors there were paintings that terrified me. Those friars spoiled me: I was master of doing what I wanted: I entered the cells, climbed on their shoulders, threw stones at the poultry and, in the sacristy, ate the hosts that served for the mass.

The friar who took me with him was Father John. His figure and goodness are carved here, at the bottom of my heart. Maybe he thought he was making me another friar. At the age of six, he began to make me learn Latin; at the age of ten I translated some classics with ease that made me suppose an extraordinary ingenuity. Those good friars predicted that I would be a luminary of the Order.

Poor illusions!

But I loved running for the "selva," climbing trees, riding the mule of the convent. I liked the air and the sun more than the Virgilian declinations and egloghes. I had made myself a sword, with a skewer stolen in the kitchen, to which I had adapted, like Elsa, the cup of an old Arauolo and seemed to be armed like a knight.

One day, I was ten years old, Father John was sent to another convent. He could not take me with him, and before leaving, he kissed me, and gave me a letter for another friar, Father Bonaventura from Licodia, who before was in the same convent.

The departure of Brother John was more painful to me than I imagined; the convent, without him, seemed to me such a horrible place, that two days later, armed with my spit, and with bread in a bag, I fled.

Where was I going? I did not know the streets: until then my world had been confined to the garden, to the wild where the friars went to walk, to some countryside. After crossing those borders, a larger world appeared to me, which at first dismayed me; but in my brain there was only one idea: to visit Fr.John. Where? At the age of ten, we imagine that all roads must lead where we want to go. I ventured through the paths that stretched out before me, assuming that, necessarily, I would arrive in Messina before evening. In the evening I found myself alone, lost, on a lonely hill, among mountains that filled me with terror, surrounded by the thousand mysterious and indefinite noises of the coming night, and also hungry, having consumed my supply of bread.

Then I sat down on the floor, and I started crying. Where was the convent? I wanted to return: but what was the way? Above my head the immense sky became darker, and I dared not look at it: great shadows surrounded the valleys, and I looked on the ground, not to see them.

A dog barker made me cheat. I looked where it came from: if there were dogs, there had to be men.

Down, at the foot of the hill, a confused dust: I looked carefully: the last twilight made me recognize a flock. Then I was no longer afraid. I got off the hill, fast, calling. Two big shepherd dogs, which looked like two wolves, came across me suspicious and biech, but when they saw that I was a child, they stopped, looking at me with their honey-colored eyes, doing nothing.

"What are you doing alone in this mountain?" asked one of the three shepherds who led the flock: he was a small man, dumb, bearded, fierce. He seemed beautiful to me.

"I'm lost;" I stuttered, "have mercy on me... I'm afraid."

They laughed at all three, and what he had spoken, he said, "Well, come with us."

So I became a shepherd when I was ten years old: that wandering life, up the mountains, between heaven and earth, fortified me; perhaps I owe it a certain simplicity and contempt for all the superfluous things and the temper that made me resist the harshest trials. However, I did not know how to resign myself to that life. I had the letter of Brother John, who represented all my wealth, and I always thought of him, nor did I abandon the idea of reaching him. I would inform myself of the roads, ask for distances, and I would mature in my mind the design of an escape..."

"Are you bored, Coriolano?"

"Everything else. Your story is very interesting, and I am listening with pleasure. Go on, please."

"Whatever you want" Blasco filmed.

"I spent two years among the shepherds, caressing the plan of escape. The shepherds would not let me go; they had found a gardener, who rewarded them with milk and herbs, and with a bed of straw and skins, and they would not let him escape. Meanwhile, I knew and practiced those districts, the paths became familiar to me; I knew the feuds for which we could lead the flocks; I knew who they belonged to; I knew where the villages and the nearest castles were.

One morning, it was at the beginning of the autumn of 1700, we were in the State of Brolo; the shepherds had gone to the castle to revere the master, who arrived in those days, and left me alone. I saw the sea from the top of the hill and at the bottom of the Lipari Islands. The sea!... It was freedom. I don't know what crazy thing was going on with me. I forsook the flocks, and threw myself among the leaps of the hills, toward that far blue. To avoid any possible encounter, I strayed from the paths. One of the hounds, who had grown fond of me and was my cafeteria and bedmate, followed me. At first I had tried to drive him away, but he would stubbornly follow me, and to my threats he would answer lying on the ground, scoping and looking at me with his honey-colored eyes, so tenderly, that I no longer had the courage to reject him.

It was before me now, alert, animous, searching the spots, smelling every crack of cliffs, every monstrous group of boulders. Suddenly he stopped with his ears straight, puffing his back. I looked and paled; in a spot I saw two pupils shining and whitening formidable teeth. A big wolf stood before us, growling. Lightning, it was the name of the dog, with a leap assaulted the beast; I saw nothing but a terrible development of rolling, jumping, bumping bodies; I heard nothing but a deaf, angry growl. Then I began to shout to give courage to Lightning and, holding my skewer, I approached, trying to hit the wolf. Lightning was beaten valiantly; his neck and back were bleeding, but he had come to bend the wolf by the nape, sticking his teeth, and forcing him to bend, helpless. It was the right time. I threw a stash in his side. The wolf screamed and fell. Lightning hurried him with bites to the throat, nor left him unless he saw him immobile in his own blood; then he shook his back, and despite being wounded, he made two or three leaps of joy. I embraced her and kissed him: without him, I would be torn by the beast.

Towards evening we arrived in a small village, on the sea. I knew his name was Zappardino. I didn't dare go into the village, but I waited for him to write it down, to admit me into one of the dry boats, in which I could spend the night.

But I was hungry: even Lampo had to be hungry: how to provide? The sun had set, the Fishermen's cottages smoked: of course, those poor people were setting themselves up for dinner. That idea increased and made hunger unbearable. I travelled the small village, with the same result; then I found a church, perhaps the parish, and I thought that the curate would gather me, for God's sake!... He welcomed me by wielding a knotty stick. Lightning was willing to defend me, but I drew it to me. That night we went to sleep on an empty stomach. Flash preceded me by driving himself into the bushes: he removed, without wanting it, two quails. I was very expert in throwing stones, like all the shepherds: those quails seemed to me to rain from heaven, as to the Jews in the desert. It was the way back, and apparently I would find other quails: I chose pebbles, and I started hunting. After an hour I had killed six quails. "Come on, Lightning! The good Lord has thought of us."

I became a little drifter, and, what is worse, I took pleasure in wandering and adventurous life; but I began to understand that I could not and should not live by charity, and that it was necessary to provide the means to earn my life. I didn't know any of them, but I felt willing; as a soldier I was still too small; friar I didn't want to be.

Only, lost, poor, without other comrades that my spit and Lampo, Coming to Cefalù (I started in small stages to come to Palermo) and I happened on a day when a lord de Franchis, on behalf of the bishop, armed his trabaccolo, Santa Maria, and hired the crew. I was offered by a hub. I was strong, not unpleasant, I was accepted, and three days later, with a great emotion, I ventured on the first trip by sea. And so a new life began: after I had tried the earth, I tried the sea; escaped the wolves, I went to meet the sharks. I became attached to that life; there was something that was suited to my taste. When the wind whistled between the rigging and messed with my hair and the lively and sparkling waves threatened the trabaccle, I felt happy.

One day they found out that I could read and write, and, even more astonishing, that I knew Latin, as a friar. In the midst of those crude and ignorant people, you seemed to be a singular phenomenon, indeed unique; they considered me with some respect, imagining who knows what. This caused the envy of another hub, four or five years older than me, who began to tease me and Lampo. I disdained to answer him as far as I was concerned, but I wouldn't tolerate him harassing Lampo. One day, to spite me, he kicked Lightning, I took it for life, raised it up and threw it into the sea. This fact revealed me to myself: until then I had ignored what my muscles were capable of. The hub was saved: I was beaten and put to the stumps, but the punishment appeared to me unjust and abusive. The trabaccolo was en route to Naples: when we landed, I, who had served the punishment, went down to the ground, hid myself and never returned aboard the Holy Mary. But I did not give up the life of the sea.

For eight years, passing from trabaccoli to brigantini, from brigandini to vascelli, from merchant woods to woods running, I lived on the sea, tossed by storms, to the gripes with barbariscans, going through the Mediterranean, beating me, risking my life, escaping to a thousand dead, not certainly because the prudence made me guarding, but because it seemed that some mysterious being protected me...

But every time I saw a friar, I remembered Brother John, and he stinged a regret, a regret, which made me more expensive and precious his letter as a relic. I couldn't think of my mother, because her image had faded, she had disappeared from my heart, and I thought I never had!... Poor mom! Father Bonaventura's word has now raised in the dark bottom of my conscience a pale and sad face of a woman, a little confused and uncertain, but with great sorrowful eyes!"

Blasco kept quiet, almost to enjoy the vision evoked by his words, then resumed.