Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part two, chapter 11

Italiano

English

That morning, at the table, Don Raimondo told his wife: "Do you know that last night, when they left Lungarini's house, they tried to assassinate Blasco from Castiglione?"

The Duchess paled and stuttered; "How?... Who?..."

"It seems that they have placed him; but that young man must have hard leather; a dead man and a seriously wounded one have been found on the ground. He didn't; which means he'd escaped: But there must be some other wounded, because there was a pool of blood on the ground."

The Duchess made an effort to overcome the emotion and asked:

"How, then, is it known that it was Mr. Blasco?..."

"The wounded man confessed it..."

"And... did he say the reasons?"

"No. But he who has a good nose will not have much difficulty recognizing from where the hand comes..."

"And you suspect?"

"Nothing," said the Duke of Motta with his cold smile, and spoke of something else.

Donna Gabriella contended; but when, after desined, she returned to her rooms, she gave herself up to a lively agitation. The half sentences, the veiled threats of the prince of Iraci left no doubt to her that the blow came from him and yielding to a first feeling of hatred and revenge, could not hide a certain spite that the blow had not completely succeeded; but other sweeter memories, overlapped with the bad guys; other thoughts arose, a little remorse penetrated her heart: the remorse of having lent his complicity in that crime. The idea that the beautiful young woman still loved at the bottom of her soul (and her hatred was only made of passion) could die, upset her.

With the same lightness with which he had invited the prince to vengeance, he now made vows for Blasco to be saved. He wondered where he was; perhaps in the home of the knight of Floresta. What if he sent for news? No, no! News. Why? It was all over between them: They hit him, worse for him, because she if Was it worth it?

Why was he accusing himself of complicity? He had never said a word to the prince, let alone encouraged him... A few words of indignation, yes, 'He said it, but... After all, there was rust between him and the prince, to which she was foreign, and one day or another she had to end up like this... He confessed, however, that Blasco was worth much more than the prince of Iraki. He was more beautiful, more valiant, bold, he had a certain I don't know that... Ah, how happy they would have been!... and how she had fled, how she had lost that happiness, to whose threshold she had reached!... Displaced?

He stayed a piece with his head leaning on his hand, his mind sank into a thousand different thoughts and did not shake that when the waitress came to ask her what clothes she wanted to wear to get out. In fact, he remembered that he had to go to the monastery of Montevergini to visit his stepdaughter. His visits were not very frequent in truth; perhaps one a week. He went there not out of affection for that girl, to whom he did not even bind her together in life, but out of convenience and habit.

Moreover, the visit to a monastery entered in those times among the occupations of a great lady: she went there with all the pump required by the rank and wealth, in golden and painted pedestal, and impennacchiata, followed by lackeys in rich liveries, and sometimes accompanied by some knights, who came to the door chatting and talking to please the lady. He was sure to meet at the parlour other ladies, which transformed the visit into a worldly circle to which there were no lack of refreshments, because the mother abbess, remembering that she was also the daughter of lords, did not neglect to the noble visitors those attentions that their rank and reputation of the monastery required.

There were monasteries and monasteries. God's house was not the same for everyone. That's what they thought: Since the good God had given some the nobility and wealth, it was quite natural that even for the noble girls who withdrew from the world there were religious houses, where they could keep immaculate from plebeous contacts the purity of the birth. The plebes were there, but to serve, for to this the Lord had destined them, and of this no one doubted.

So there were monasteries for the nobility as there were for the civilized: As for the minute people, he gave his contingent to the conservatories of the transgressors. The monastery of Montevergini had a tradition in the education of the maidens and in the past had contiguous to itself a true and proper education for the noble girls.

Violante Albamonte di Branciforti was a teacher in the monastery of Montevergini. Donna Gabriella forgot or tried to forget what upset her and randomly chose a dress, at the sight of which a live reddened her face: It was a dress that reminded her of one of the sweetest moments of her life; she had chosen it without thinking and it seemed that the case wanted to recall it to the past.

She entrusted herself to the wise hands of the waitress who seemed to have a great desire to speak. But the Duchess did not pay attention to her, and she then shyly risked:

"Your Excellency may know..."

Donna Gabriella turned quickly; she realized that the waitress wanted to talk about what was to be the subject of all the speeches of that day, but she pretended not to understand.

"What?" he said.

"What happened to Mr. Knight Don Blasco..."

"I know, hurry up."

He cut the word in her mouth, fearing gossip, but curiosity stinged her. The waitress of the rest was not Eva's daughter at all and, since she had news, she could not keep them in store.

"Poor young man!... Such a good man, so valiant!..."

"He is not dead," said Gabriella, as if to ascertain other news beyond those provided by her husband.

"Yesterday no, thank God! But now who knows anything about it?"

Donna Gabriella shuddered.

"What does that mean?"

"I say you don't know now if he's alive or dead, because he's gone."

"What do you mean, gone?"

"Yeah, Your Excellency... They took him away, we don't know where..."

"They must have taken him to Floresta's palace..."

"Excellency, no; at the Floresta Palace there is no..."

"How can you say that?..."

"Eh, these things we need you to know right away..."

The Duchess looked astounded at the waitress, while holding her tight torso on her hips and pointing to her breasts.

"Peter" continued the waitress, "he informed himself. The knight Don Blasco had to leave, I think, this morning... and they haven't seen him since yesterday. So they took him away. Where did they take him and why did they take him?... That's what we don't know."

Donna Gabriella had remained as overwhelmed by this news. She also asked the same questions, and found that disappearance mysterious; Mysterious and scary: She thought with gruesomeness that they had to be the killers themselves to take him away, to leave no trace of the crime and that Blasco was dead at that time. These thoughts made her nervous. He ordered the waitress to hurry and went out. At the foot of the staircase, the porterina was waiting for her.

The way to the monastery of Montevergini was not long. It was enough to walk the road of St. Cosmo and Guilla and turn for that of Celso. Before the door of the parlor there were still other porters and a crowd of servants, a multiplicity and variety of liveries, which threw bright notes of colors and glows of gold and silver in the square before the church, grey of shadows.

In the parlour there were ladies; almost semi-gods names, meaning the greatness, the power, the magnificence; the great hall with the great Christ on the wall, the wax images of the Sorrowful and the Immaculate inside the glass boards, surrounded by lit lamps and wax flowers; the sacred paintings, a little grey in the heavy golden frames. This large room, so severe, at that hour was revived by the sparkle of silks and razors with soft and delicate shades; by the whiteness of the laces and feathers that swayed over the great hats, by the roseo nitore of the hills and bare arms. All a breath of worldliness invaded the austere simplicity of speech and made a curious contrast with the black dress of teachers and teachers: The teachers, with short hair, the head closed in the soggolo, the face with cloistered paleness watched, apparently, the conversations; in reality they tended the ear with greedy curiosity to all the speeches and informed themselves of the worldly life.

The theme of the speeches was frivolous and light, but the convenience suggested warnings and wise sentences, which the educating young people, ready to fly, welcomed with slight smiles. There were already large, flowers of girls, in the heart of which love forged its arrows; they were already destined for you by the cruelty of customs to the life of the cloister, and had acquired in advance the cold seriousness of the nun, at least outwardly.

There were little ones, little clogged allodolettes, that did not lose the liveliness of the movements and were not stopped for a moment, despite the domestic ceremonial forced them to be contentious and respectful in the presence of the mothers. The ladies sometimes forgot to talk to the teachers and talk to each other, as if in a conversation room; the majestic mothers took part in the speeches. And the speaker was filled with a nice cachiaccio, with Argentine laughter. From confessors and from the last miracle we passed to the next weddings, or even to the small scandal of the day, whispered behind the fans, with metaphors that the girls did not have to understand, between winking eyes and ambiguous smiles.

The entrance of woman Gabriella brought a diversion; the ladies rose up; one after another they responded with a gracious reverence to the reverence of woman Gabriella, ceremonious greetings, prescribed by good customs, even between spouses and close friends, when they were in public. Then someone asked:

"Well, has your Excellency heard from that young man?"

They called him "that young man" since Blasco didn't have a title. She answered with the air of those who intend not to be annoyed by troublesome questions, but with ceremonious manners:

"My God, I'm so sorry I can't give any news to their lordships, because I don't really know anything."

Violante came at that point to take her away with embarrassment; the girl approached her timidly, and after having done her reverence, crawling back her right foot and bending on her knees, kissed the hand that Gabriella gave her.

"Well," asked the Duchess, "how are you, little girl?"

"Well, Your Excellency, to serve you."

It was the answer of good rules. Violante was about thirteen years old and had quite developed, although the rigid dress of educanda seemed to want to erase or conceal every vestige of the woman who was already beginning to blossom from the tender envelope of the child. The face of a very pure oval had that ivory color, which is so common in Sicily, and which made the black eye darker and velvety, under the shadow of the long eyelashes. The brown hair, plentiful, wavy, shiny, wonderfully framed that face in which the playfulness of childhood contrasted with the mysterious and indefinable seriousness of puberty; the rebellious vivacity at every brake with the awe that inspired that great lady, and with the rules imposed by the rigor of the mother teacher. There were still two natures contending for the possession of that quick, well-formed, graceful personage, full of charms and naive seductions.

His gaze seemed full of thoughts and words and his smile radiant in the soul a splendor of sunshine.

Donna Gabriella looked at her with an admiration that was not without spite. She was beautiful too, but she had a nobler beauty in her stepdaughter and at the same time more enchanting; with his intuition as a woman he discovered the still latent forces, that would make that girl the dominatrix of the hearts and that gave her a grip, as if the entrance of that beautiful into the world were to cast her into the shadows, which until then had even lorded. She already saw a rival, of whom no bond of blood could make her triumph tolerable.

Violant remained silent, waiting for her stepmother to speak to her; then she said:

"You know Mrs. Mother, who did I see the day before yesterday when I came back from Bagheria?"

The Duchess lifted her eyes to question her.

"Who?"

"Mr. Don Blasco, the knight who accompanied your Excellency here..."

Donna Gabriella had a dip of blood on her face: even that little girl reminded her of the beautiful young man, but the hearing of her name from those lips gave her an indefinable remembrance. His eyebrows frowned. She had gone to the monastery with Blasco perhaps a couple of times and Blasco had remained outside the parlour; where and how had she seen Violante? His mind ran rapidly dizzyingly among the most opposed and disparate assumptions. He asked:

"Where did you see him?"

"I couldn't point him out... in the country... But yes; just before you enter the city... before you reach the bridge... you know, Your Excellency, that ancient bridge... He was still; I recognized him well, but he was not..."

"Didn't he recognize you?..."

"But he never saw me..."

"How do you know him?"

"I saw him when he came with your Excellency..."

"He didn't come in here..."

Violent became red with shame.

"I've seen it from the grate... is it for if it's a bad thing?... We always look from among the grates... even the mother teacher..."

"It is not a well done thing," Gabriella observed with a certain harsh woman and after a minute of silence, with a look full of malice, she added: "But it won't happen again: Mr. Blasco is dead.

Violant paled.

"Dead!" he exclaimed with an accent of deep regret; "dead!"

"Killed" continued woman Gabriella more and more evil; "he was apparently a sad man... I didn't know him... he accompanied me, because he wanted your father..."

"Poor man!... What a shame! It was so beautiful!"

"Ehm!" rebuked lady Gabriella; "What is this speech?"

Violante lowered his head blushing, and stuttered: "Forgiveness."

He felt a desire to cry, but he did not know whether for the rebuke received or for the news so rawly given her. Blasco's image certainly now appeared to her surrounded by pity, for in her soul she did not understand the idea that such a handsome man, and that he was his father's friend, could be a sad man, as the stepmother had said.

Donna Gabriella exchanged a few words with the nun, I'll chat a little with the other ladies, then she left.

He had a heart full of spite, pain, a thousand indefinable feelings, but above all of a kind of dismay of something that was not yet clear. He needed air, and ordered the porters to take her to sea.

They went out on the Cassaro and fell down, among the bows of the knights who recognized the beautiful and noble lady, to whom Gabriella woman answered just with a nod of the head, so was occupied in her thoughts...

At the Marina square he saw the prince of Iraci on horseback; he leaned his head to be seen, hoping that he would approach the porter, but the prince, as soon as he peeked at it, turned away. Did you miss her? Why? Remorse? Scared? She threw herself back, clutching her teeth, with her face in pain and anger. She had looked out and tried to be seen only to investigate, for if, as she was certain, the assassination had been arranged by the prince, he had to be able to give her more accurate news; instead he went away. The aversion, the contempt that he had always felt for that light young man, incapable of a noble feeling, a true degenerate branch of a noble lineage exhausted over the centuries, went up from the bottom of his heart.

He ordered him to go back, and he had him brought home. On the way other new thoughts tortured her, and above them she saw the beautiful and seductive image of Violante, whose lips pronounced with enchanting grace, and almost with a soft tremor (so she felt them within herself) a name, the name of him "Mr. Blasco." He remembered certain words of the knight of Floresta, on Christmas night, in the house of Trabia that seemed to her full of mysterious allusions to a love.

The stepdaughter and the teacher departed from her vision and remained there a woman, a fearsome and invincible rival.

"We must never let that girl leave the monastery again," he thought; "no, no!"

At dinner Don Raimondo brought other news: the wounded, gathered on the Via Lattarini, had made his statement that, evidently, as the Duke said for his experience, it was a lot of lies. He and his dead companion were two of those miserable known to righteousness, who at the market They lived on robberies and cracks. In his statement he reported that he was going with his partner that night, to gather rags in the trash, when, by chance, they both came across a group of lords or civilians, he did not know well, because it was dark. One of them gave him a slap; his companion answered with a stab; but the other fell down to avenge him, and threw themselves on them two with swords and guns, and tanned them like that, and took away the wounded lord. He didn't know who they were or where they went.

"It's all a lie," said Don Raimondo; "because if it's true that they were looking for rags, they would have to have a lot to put them back. And there was no sign of any sacks. It's only true that Mr. Blasco was taken away by someone... And here's the mystery. From the Palazzo Lungarini he went out alone, and only passed before the row of carriages and pedestals. But... if you had a good nose... Enough."

He shook his shoulders, as if to say "I don't care" and concluded:

"Remember, my dear, that in two days you will leave with the queen: The king told me this morning, worthy of giving me this anticipation..."

He handed her a card that the Duchess automatically opened, while the duke continued with gallantry:

"And that I owe in part to your lovely contest..."

And she blushed, and had a wave of indignation, and returned the paper unto him, saying, "I won't leave..."

"How?" cried marvellous Don Raimondo, pale.

"I won't leave, I tell you. I'll go thank the king, but I'll beg him to release me from court service. I don't have that ambition..."

"You don't mean it," said the Duke, trying to take this as a joke.

"You must be deceived. I'm serious. I won't leave."

Don Raimondo squeezed his jaws like he used to do when anger roared inside him, and his thin lips paled. His voice became gloomy and threatening:

"Woman Gabriella," he said, "you forget that a woman of your rank does not lack her duties to the king, and that when you accept a position, you must fulfill all the obligations that she imposes... and forget that in this house the master is me..."

"You cannot force me to become the king's favorite!..."

"Because you, of course, would rather be the lover of a bastard!"

"Don Raimondo!" cried the Duchess standing shining with indignation.

"Ah!" continued the blind duke of anger "ah, do you think that I ignore everything? You think I don't know? That I don't have you in my power to shut you down in a retreat like an adulterous wife?..."

"Why don't you do it?" cried Gabriella on his face with a defiance; "Why don't you do it?"

"Don't make a scandal!"

"Ah!... you're scared!"

"Do not force me to take a step from which I flee! Donna Gabriella, look after you! You don't know me!..."

"Oh, I know you too much!..."

"And then look at you!... and let's finish it. These are useless speeches. You will obey the king..."

"No!"

"So do you want to ruin everything?"

"I don't ruin anything for you. What you wanted, you got; now you have in your hands the order that you desired, and you have nothing left to fear from your enemies: You can send them on the forks, without giving account to anyone; you can surround your house with guards, let them accompany you, follow you by the grenadiers, by the cavalry, by whom you like... So what do you want from me that I pay the favor that the king has granted you? Is this what you want? Well, then, have the courage to accompany me into the bed of his majesty!..."

"Duchess!..."

"Why are you offended?

"Shut up! You even lose respect for yourself!..."

"Ah! Leave these sentences! In short: I am not willing to become the favorite of the king, to please you..."

"However..." Fr. Raimondo insinuated with irony.

"However, I gave the king an interview that remained within the limits of a tender friendship... it is so. I found the king more knight than you imagine... That's all. And I don't intend to go any further: Put it in your head."

"But who tells you otherwise?... You abusively interpreted my thought..."

"No; no: I read you and I read you very well. And that's why I refuse...

"And do you think that I am so foolish as to attribute to a decorous feeling such as your sudden change? You hide something that I will know; but woe to you..."

"Don't scare me!..."

"Challenge?"

"Yes!..."

Don Raimondo held his fists in a rush of rage and moved against Gabriella who, without bewildering, stretched out his arm to the cord of the bell and rang... The duke paled and stopped banging. A lackey showed up at the door.

"My carriage," Gabriella ordered quietly.

"Where are you going?

You're not going out!"

"Tonight the queen keeps a circle; I go to thank her and to beg her to release me from court service..."

And she quickly crossed the room, entered her room, closing the door behind her.

Don Raimondo followed her with his eyes burning with hatred and anger and, stretched out his threatening fist, murmured between his teeth:

"Ah, you too, you too?... but I will tread you down!"