Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part two, chapter 9

Blasco didn't sleep that night. Two thoughts hammered his head, different and almost opposite: The teacher and the speeches in the tavern. Who was that educator, who had looked at him with such curiosity and sympathy at once? She had looked at him and smiled at him as per person known, but he had never seen him; he had never seen him educating, except from far away, on the feast days when they populated their loggias hanging on the Cassaro, or on the Strada Nuova, but through the thick grids like nets he had not seen them except as white and black shadows; nor did he remember that any of those shadows had ever drawn his attention.

Meanwhile, now, the image of her had remained thick in his brain: He saw her again, and confessed to himself that she was a very beautiful and pretty girl; but who was she and in which monastery was she?

From these thoughts he passed on to others who were awakening and associated themselves with that little heard by him in the dive. He did not doubt that it was a plot to the detriment of Don Raimondo and that those men were Beati Paoli; and he tormented himself with this question: If, in the face of the danger that really threatened the house of the Duke of Motta, he had done well to leave and abandon him. Don Raimondo was not much thought: He was a powerful man, and he had to be able to defend himself: And then he'd always been disliked. But the Duchess, could he leave the Duchess at the mercy of those mysterious enemies? The image of a woman Gabriella always aroused a sad regret, reminding him of the delightful hours that had given him the illusion of love. A feeling had remained in his flesh, uncancellable, and sometimes acute: and for it he believed and felt as bound by certain obligations to woman Gabriella, obligations of defense and covert and non-compromising protection.

So he spent the night. When the servant came in the morning to tell him that the horse was ready, he replied:

"Take off his saddle and bring it back to the manger."

"Your Excellency doesn't leave anymore?" asked the servant.

"No... maybe I'll leave tomorrow..."

Coriolano was no less amazed than his servant. At breakfast he asked his guest: "Do you feel sick, perhaps?"

"No; but I'll tell you... It's a commitment... You'll agree with me..."

He told him about his meeting in the dive, his words heard, his suspicions and his purposes.

"They must be those goddamn Beati Paoli, it's obvious! But do you know it's a terrible thing? And I don't understand how the government can't make a bust and hang them... If I had twenty men at my command, I would certainly have the courage to cleanse the city from this leprosy!"

"Do you believe it?" said Coriolano with his cold and polite smile.

"Eh, goddamn it!" exclaimed Blasco.

"You should first know who I am, how many I am and where I am..."

"With good spies..."

"They expose them on the forks, under the priest's nose, as they did tonight with Matteo Lo Vecchio, means with the sharpest, most experienced, most capable and most fearsome of the birri of the city, and perhaps of the kingdom! But do not meddle with these things, my young friend, and put yourselves in the head that, if the Beati Paoli have decided to take a shot at the Duchess, your worth, your courage, your sacrifice will not come to prevent them from doing what they have established. They're men who don't back down, they don't stop... Do not stand in their way."

"Why not? What you tell me is for me a greater appeal to face them..."

"You will not face them..."

"Why?"

"They'll stop you."

"Will they kill me?"

"They will punish you..."

"It's the same thing."

"No; the executioner punishes and does not kill... They are executioners of justice."

"Frightened justice!... I don't want to, who has wronged to avenge, faults to punish, if he is persuaded to act in righteousness, why is he hiding in the shadows?"

Coriolano raised his shoulders, as if to say that that was not a question to ask, and instead answered:

"But what else are you worried about? Neither the Duke nor the Duchess of Motta are in any danger for now: They depart the day after tomorrow after the king."

"Ah, how do you know?"

As soon as he said these words, he blushed and added:

"Forgive my indiscretion..."

"Oh, you're not indiscreet... And something that was said last night at the Palace."

"That's better, then! And thank you for this. news that takes a lot of thought out of my mind. I'll leave tomorrow."

Coriolano asked him:

"Where do you count on spending the evening?"

"I don't know... maybe I'll go to bed soon..."

"Obie! I'll take you with me; we'll go to the Longarini house: There is a show and the Union of Music sings a new opera. Are you in?"

"I'm in."

"So tonight... if you don't want to stay in the house until an hour at night, we can meet at the Longarini Palace... Do you know where he is?"

"Yes; near San Francesco."

"Exactly. At the bell of an hour at night, I will wait for you at the corner of the alley of Our Lady the Beautiful."

"I won't make you wait."

Blasco took up the day a little 'walking, a little' yawning, a little 'thinking about his journey, the educanda, perhaps more than that, and the invitation made by Coriolano, to whom he was surprised to have given up without any objection. He no longer wanted to go to any aristocratic conversation; yet that evening he would find himself in the midst of all the nobility!

The Marquis of Lungarini of the Abbot house, passionate for the performances. music, had in his palace built a beautiful theater, in which he gave the most famous works, with a luxury of equipment and clothing truly elegant: and with no lesser lordship invited all the patriot, to whom he did not mind finding a new and intellectual leisure. There were two or three lords in Palermo who had theatres at that time in the house; and, after the carnival, when he was silent theater of the Union of Music, called St. Cecilia, they opened their halls to the nobility, and made you taste the compositions of the beautiful ingenuities of the city or of the masters of Naples.

Blasco was almost sure to meet the Duchess of Motta and the Prince of Iraki; perhaps he would also be at the side of Don Raimondo: of which things he did not feel in truth, contented; but they put him in a certain malaise. It was not, of course, embarrassment, but fear of giving rise to some unfortunate incident.

"It will be better not to go," he thought; "I will wait for Coriolano on the corner of the alley, but to thank him and disengage me."

A few minutes before the bells called to the prayer of the dead, Blasco set out towards the road that still bears the name of Lungarini and St. Mark, from the palace that had this noble family. He walked slowly, with his hand leaning against the sword's helmet, rather like a idle man, who has nothing to do, than as one who goes on a date.

Before him, next to him, was a procession of carriers, carriages, servants with torches, illuminating all the road of St. Francis, or the Cintorinai; shouts of warning, pierced with whips, merged with the noise of the wheels and the scalpitio of the horses. Dressing along the walls, so as not to be crushed, the plebs admired the spectacle...

Blasco recognized in a carriage passing by the liveries of the prince of Iraki.

And it turns out that that acknowledgment, instead of reawakening the prudent reflections already made, put a certain pinch of malicious curiosity, indeed something that resembled that provocation that he wanted to avoid.

On the corner of the vicoletto that, lost the ancient baptism of Salto d'Opezzinga, now took its name from the image of Our Lady the Bella, found Coriolanus waiting for it.

"Very well!" said the knight of Floresta, stretching out his hand. "I'm glad you came. Let's go. You can't assume the pleasure that I promise myself tonight when I see these muzzles!"

The Marquis of Lungarini was very good lord to make a less than courteous welcome to Blasco that was presented to him by the knight of Floresta, but he could not entirely hide a certain embarrassment and a certain concern. Blasco noticed that he threw a quick glance into the vast hall and, following him, saw among a group of young gentlemen the prince of Iraki, pale, with his eyes glowing, his nostrils frenzied, all anger badly repressed in flight and gesture. Then he smiled, raised his head with a defiant air, and, as if the murmuring and the affectionate contempt did not concern him, walked through the hall and entered the palace.

It was a 17th century salon, adorned with stuccoes and frescoes, at the bottom of which the arch of the scene opened, whose painted pillars simulated columns of ancient green, marble statues and trophies. On the one hand three large balconies were opened, on the other hand, against the balconies, three large doors; the two rooms included between them were covered by high mirrors with golden stucco frames. From a large lamp hanging from the ceiling, and from an extraordinary amount of candlesticks fixed to the walls, a sea of light spread that caused the silks, the golds, the flesh of a crowd of dames, elegant in the tight and long busts like armor, in the skirts with bulge and flywheels, with delicate colors. All those ladies chirped, and filled the hall with their soft voices and kept, as fashion wanted, and little Argentine laughter like bell rings. Blasco also glanced at the ladies: and did not delay to see woman Gabriella. The heart gave him a leap, not being able to dominate his emotion: But he calmed down right away. He wondered if it would be appropriate for him to go and kiss the noble lady's hand, or if he had to pretend not to notice it. He also asked Coriolano della Floresta, who answered quietly.

"Don't hurry. If the case leads you near her, act like a good gentleman: In the meantime, you will have time to study the ground."

The orchestra began to tune the instruments; a crossing of violin strida, oboe laments, double bass humming; a confusion of harp groans and pinches of guitar. The orchestras of those times were not so rich in instruments and so many professors, as they are today. Few violins, a double bass, a harpoon, sometimes also the guitar, the mandolin among string instruments, the oboe, the pipe, the flute, among the wind instruments: Ten or twelve professors already composed a remarkable orchestra, from which the musicians of the time - and there were the classics of music - knew how to pull out wonderful harmonies.

When the "master of the chapel" took place and with a sheet of paper folded several times over himself beat on the open sheet on the lectern, it immediately became silent; all eyes turned towards the stage; the orchestra sang the first lines of a symphony and the curtain opened.

The scene represented a beach; on one song stood the peristyle of a kind of temple or basilica, which the painter had ventured to imprint on the most frank baroque. In front of it another building of indefinable significance. This scene represented Carthage at the time of its founder and the melodrama had as its subject "Didone abandoned," a theme favored by many and that was later to entic the Metastasio. The cases of the beautiful queen in love and died of love attracted a society full of sentimentality, sighs and tears, in which the Didons were so abandoned, without killing themselves, but more frequently abandoned. The poet had made Didone a querula dame who poured herself into "ohime" and "Numi"; and Enea, the wicked myth Trojan, a knight who spoke for madrigals. There was a third character, Arbace, disappointed that he dared neither to declare his love to Dido, nor to kill Enea, although swearing to the four winds between tears and lonely invocations his love, and threatening fiercely and unnecessarily the lucky rival; and a fourth character, Anna, who had something between the nurse, the priestess and the mezzanine.

The two women, as wanted the good costume that prohibited women from the stage, were two men: two of those wretches who, with cruel offense to nature and humanity, were destined to sing with female voices; so wonderful voices, and at the same time so penetrating and suggestive, that they stirred the blood, shivering; they made usep, weep, dream...

The choir, in a fantastic, turquoise costume, sang a kind of boat, which had the souls at the entrance of Didone and Anna. Dido began to gush out a sentimental air. What good was it for you to be queen? What good was it to have founded a city? She was alone! Maybe in hatred at Venus. Yet, didn't he always offer his sacrifices to the goddess? Anna reminded her of her sworn faith to her dead husband, and then there was a duet between the two women and the two singers marvelously competed in trills, gorges, flutters, blooms, that the hall was moved, kidnapped. After the act was finished, the applause broke out and comments began. Everyone praised the music and virtuosity of the singers; some meticulous, who wanted to look for the fur in the egg, was overwhelmed.

"Yeah! If he were a foreign teacher, he would find everything beautiful; because he is Palermon, here we are in search of defects!..."

"Not for nothing we are in Palermo!"

Blasco didn't take any interest in music; he didn't seem to taste it, or perhaps his brain was wandering elsewhere. He had seen the prince of Iraci, leaning on the wall, almost next to the chair in which Gabriella was seated, bowing down several times and talking to the Duchess, smiling: He had noticed more than once that their eyes had mentioned him and he did not have to make an effort to understand that he had to be the object of their speeches.

In the second act the Trojan galleys arrived and landed Aeneas with the sequel. The people of Carthage run, groups of choirs are formed; Enea gives thanks to the gods and meanwhile Didone returns followed by the inevitable Anna. Dido gives hospitality to the Trojan and his people and then Trojans and Carthaginians, for joy, weave a ballet. But on the most beautiful is Arbace; who, having in vain tried to pity Dido, is angry with Aeneas. They're handing swords. Aeneas lands Arbace, takes away his sword and sings an aisle to say that he will hang that strip at the temple of Venus his father. Dido wants to be the minister of that offering, and Aeneas gallantly gives her the sword. The duet in which Dido hears himself flashing with love sends the audience into view. When she says:

Alas, what a fire I hear!

Alas, let the heart languish me!

Let the ladies be moved and some think she needs to dry her eyes. Arbace understands what it is; he beats his hip and goes off confused, threatening, while the choir ridicules him.

Blasco looked at Gabriella and the prince of Iraci with a mocking smile. The prince was bruised: The poet seemed to have composed that episode to mock him: The Duchess seemed a little embarrassed under Blasco's eye. The applause that had been raised since the end of the act prevented it from being annoyed by that situation.

In the third act the catastrophe. Enea, rebuked by the Numi, hastens to leave. Dido, having heard of it, invests the hero, who shows her the need to leave. Such is the will of fate, and this commands his honor.

Sweet my well resigned

to the great will of fate

I give birth desperate

but my heart I leave to you.

But Dido does not know what to do with that ideal legacy and bursts into invective, remembering the wedding, the sweetness of the hymenaeus, and calling it cruel, nursed by irkan tiger, not born from Venus, but from the ferocious Erinni. All things that don't move Enea. The choir of the Carthaginians cries of pain: The Trojans sing with joy. Arbace returns and would like to take advantage of the circumstance, but Dido vents against him calling him good-for-nothing, bearer of offense, without honor etc... Arbace swears revenge and part...

Blasco looked again in the hall: The Duchess was there nervous, but the prince of Iraki was gone. He smiled, and sought Coriolano to tell him that discovery, but the knight of Floresta was not there either. He thought: "It will be at the end of the hall," and followed the show that was rushing towards the end. Arbace of course does not arrive in time, since the Trojan galleys have already gone away; he returns disappointed, mortified to bring the news and in fact, at the end of the scene there are boats, on which Aeneas and his companions sing a farewell. Then Dido, after having driven away Arbace and rejected Anna, climbs on a pyre set for a sacrifice, and pierces; he dies deliciously singing like a nightingale, among the applause of the audience, the tears of the ladies, the comments of the knights.

Domestics in great livery served in large trays of silver jams and refreshments and the hall filled with a great chatter. Only woman Gabriella seemed nervous and impatient.

Blasco set out to go out with the intention of looking for Coriolano, but the knight was not there. He went out in the other room, there wasn't even: He went back to the theater, and almost on the door met Gabriella. He bowed down to her, but the Duchess passed before him, upset and disdainful, pretending not to see him.

There was too much flaunting in that outrage.