Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part three, chapter 16

English

Violante sat behind the window of his room from which the valley was dominated and looked out at the expanse of yokes that faded in the distance, among the damp vapors of the earth. Big circus of fog swayed over the peaks of the harsh and bare mountains. Down there lay vast expanses of lands that seemed abandoned, scattered with wild plants, small, shaved or spotted, without a tree, without a house or a hut. Sometimes a solitary tower; such another a closed of stones to gather the flocks in the night; between one hill and another, or at the foot of a yoke some dark spot: a forest; or some whitish spot: a village or a city.

Violante also saw a stretch of the path that led to the fortress, at the top of which his prison stood. That path, coming out from among some boulders that hid it, turned little by little along the side of the cliff. Since Aunt Nora had addressed to her the encouraging words and mentioned to Blasco, Violante stood to spy from the window on that section of the path, from which Blasco must certainly come. From there, in fact, he saw once in a while climb the mule that brought supplies to the castle and had inferted that that was the access road, and that Blasco would come from there.

She preferred to spend the days in this sweet expectation, which keeping her away from her stepmother, spared her those violent and hateful scenes, which opened furrows in her heart and limited her contacts to the not too long moments of meals, in which she could not avoid being next to Gabriella woman; nevertheless this, or because in solitude she became sadder, or because seeing herself run away from her stepdaughter excited all the evil feelings that had nested in her heart, sometimes entered the room of the girl and always found a pretext to torment her.

One evening in preparing the room for the night, Aunt Nora said to Violante:

"He'll come tomorrow."

The maiden's heart began to beating with violence; there was no need to ask and yet he asked confused and red:

"Who?"

"Mr. Don Blasco."

Blasco!... At last he would come; there was nothing but that night but how long it would seem to her! And what time would he arrive? At dawn, she promised her desire; in the evening, she was disanimated by fear: so they spent the hours between these two inner voices that contended with it: but there was always that great certainty, which had a name tomorrow. "He will come tomorrow," thought the maiden. "Why didn't he come earlier?" Mentally she asked herself this question, which remained unanswered; that Blasco who stood before her inner eyes did not speak, but looked. How'd he come? To this new question a sense of fear stirred her heart. The men who kept her, who did not allow them to go out, who did not let anyone near the castle; those men who, while showing themselves to be helpful and respectful, like vassals, had something hard and inflexible and threatening, would have let her and her stepmother take away, without resisting? What if they killed him? This idea filled her with so much dismay that she really seemed to see Blasco killed; and then she felt capable of self-sacrifice for the salvation of the young man.

"Let him not come, that I may not see him, that I may remain here always, as long as he has no evil."

But another voice encouraged her. What were you afraid of? Who was as brave and brave as he was? He would have knocked down and overcome every obstacle and no one would resist his arm. The faith in the invincibility of his deliverer, of whom he had had a great trial, emerged in her and somehow mitigated the anxieties and fears of danger.

He didn't look all night, and in the morning he got out of bed with a feverish impatience. Aunt Nora, who came to remake the room, asked with a fearful voice:

"What time will Mr. Blasco arrive?"

"I don't know: I don't know..."

Violante thought for a minute and asked again:

"Does Mrs. Duchess know Mr. Blasco's coming?"

"Oh no; you didn't have to tell him. And then they didn't order me to tell her..."

"Did you have to tell me alone?"

"That's the way it is."

"Who ordered you?"

Aunt Nora had her back, as if to say: "What a question!..."

And he added nothing else. Violante stood at the window with his eyes fixed on the path.

Gabriella was also nervous and impatient. Aunt Nora had announced to her the coming of someone, but she had told her, apparently to comfort her, actually to prepare her:

"Let's hope she doesn't stay here more than this week, and she spends holy Christmas in her palace."

"What do you know?" asked the Duchess.

"I don't know anything... But a few words heard..."

"And what word have ye heard?... What word? Say it... I want it..."

"Oh, Your Excellency, words... what do I know? They said: "We still have little of this exile and will return to Palermo." That's what they said!"

"Who said that?"

"Hey... men."

Donna Gabriella deduced from those few and few words that some novelty was in sight and waited impatiently for her. That long captivity had exasperated her. But a new thought made her more restless and nervous: "What if those men were just talking about themselves? If deliverance came only for them, with a change of guardians?" Therefore she also waited, not for a deliverer, but for the day of the departure of her keepers, to know something of her lot: And that morning, sitting behind the window, having nothing else to do, he looked down at that stretch of path that he could see.

So, at the same time Violante and woman Gabriella saw two knights rise between the boulders, climb the short stretch of visible path and disappear again behind the high rocks: both followed the two knights with a fearful soul, not depicting them, because they were wrapped in the garments; but Violante already knew who was one of them. Both of them, seeing them, had a thought of joy.

Violante thought:

"It's him".

Donna Gabriella said:

"It is not the change of guard; therefore they come to take us!..."

And at the same time, for that need of the spirit to expand and communicate its joy, they came out of their chambers, met on the threshold of the common gate with the same word on the mouth, a word expressing hope, relief, contentment, a heap of feelings:

"People are coming!"

Donna Gabriella immediately asked:

"How do you know?"

"I saw them from the window."

The Duchess thought: "So she was at the window too; did she also know?..."

And they waited. In that solitude, the arrival of those two knights was for woman Gabriella an event of great emotion, because there was something unknown in their coming; for Violante the emotion was different: She knew that one of those two knights was Blasco.

"Who will these be?" said Gabriella.

Violant was on the verge of answering: I know...

But he was silent. After what had happened between her and her stepmother, she was always afraid of betraying herself and of throwing at herself the impetuous collections of Gabriella woman. He kept silent and waited. Aunt Nora entered the room of the Duchess, smiling, with her hands on her hips, saying:

"Your Excellency prepare to leave; and also the young lady... They're here to pick them up. Stiano cheerful... even men leave..."

Donna Gabriella thought that if the men left with them it could mean that they changed from captivity and this reflection obscured her forehead and made her pull at the top of the soul a wave of suspicions. She ordered her stepdaughter in her harsh and imperious tone:

"Go get your clothes ready..."

She too, helped by Aunt Nora, began to gather all that belonged to her. Suddenly he asked the old woman:

"Have those gentlemen arrived that I saw from the window?"

"Excellency, yes... But one is the lord; the other is a field."

"Whose?"

"Mah!... perhaps of the Lord..."

"Where is this gentleman?"

"In the dining room..."

"Go and warn him that I wish to speak to him and that he prepares to receive me..."

Aunt Nora made a gesture with the boss, which could mean: "Feel that tone!" - and he went out.

A minute later, Gabriella entered the dining room with a challenging air, while Violante called Aunt Nora and asked her underneath, quickly:

"Well, Aunt Nora, did he come?"

"Yes, ma'am... He's in the dining room with the Duchess."

Without knowing why, Violante felt a grip on the heart. To feel that her stepmother was with Blasco she would have wanted to run and hear what they were saying, if the rules of good creation had allowed her.

"What do they say?" he asked.

"Who knows?"

When Donna Gabriella came in, she had not seen the man who was in the dining room, who looked from the window and turned his back on her; nor did she seem to hear the noise she had made in entering. She had to call:

"Sir."

But as soon as Blasco, shaken by that voice, turned, Gabriella woman sent a cry of astonishment:

"You?...you, Blasco?"

Blasco approached her to kiss her hand, as a good knight, but he did not seem amazed, for he evidently expected that meeting; only he could not conceal a slight redness.

"It's me, Mrs. Duchess, very happy to give you a service..."

Donna Gabriella met him with dark eyes and murmured with bitter irony:

"It is to me that you render a service?... Have you faced for me the annoyances of a long journey?... This confuses me and makes me proud, sir, because I was not accustomed to your sacrifices..."

Blasco looked at her with fraternal sweetness and her voice seemed to be filled with a compassionate and profound tenderness:

"Do you think that your life, that your person is not at my heart? Certainly I have not come for you alone, I would lack my duties of loyalty if I said this, but, believe me, that if it had been you, I would have come in the same way, to free you from a captivity..."

"Mysterious to me; not to you, apparently, since you know where they have relegated us and without any danger you can open our doors..."

The irony that gave the tone to these words was so vivid, that Blasco asked:

"What do you mean?"

"In short," Gabriella harshly said, "take off your mask, sir!... and have the loyalty or frankness to tell me for what purpose you have made us capture..."

"Me? You think I got you caught..."

"Oh, it's useless to pretend, but remember that as long as I'm alive, you'll never reach your goal!"

"Mrs. Duchess, I think you're deceiving yourself... What are you talking about? I don't know but one. Give you freedom. In this castle, of which up to three days ago I even ignored the existence, there are five devoted men until the sacrifice of their people, who today depend on me... only on me. Well, Mrs. Duchess, I will put these men at your command and I am leaving immediately, forsaking the pleasure of accompanying you and serving you."

And when he had come to the window that he was giving on the courtyard, he cried out,

"Christian!..."

A moment later, a man, in a short jacket and high boots, with a gun on his waist, appeared on the threshold.

"Christian," said Blasco, "what order did you receive?"

"To obey your lordship blindly in everything and for everything."

"He's fine. Listen to me, then. From now on you will receive no orders but from Mrs. Duchess. You won't recognize any boss but her..."

"If His Excellency commands me to throw myself and my men out of this rock, we will not think twice."

"Thank you, Christian; go and wait."

Christian made with his hand the act of kissing the hands of the lords and withdrew; as soon as he closed the door, Blasco said to Gabriella:

"And now my presence is completely useless. I'll leave you..."

He bowed respectfully and moved. Donna Gabriella, who remained silent, still, dark, gathered and shouted:

"Where are you going? Stay!..."

"Why?"

"Because I don't believe this play... You or that Christian, it is the same thing; I am always your prisoner and I know that I am coming out of here, to enter some other prison... just tell me, of grace, what you want..."

"Me? What do you want me to do? Do you expect me to? What I want, and why I came here, I told you. Do I have to tell you again? You don't believe me; and I can't force you to believe me... But you are wrong; forgive me the frankness... If I could tell you how and for what reasons you and Violant woman were captured and how I could know, after so long, where you were confined, and how I got your freedom, you would certainly believe me; but I should reveal secrets not mine. The duke your husband, to whom I have promised to bring you back, may, if he believes, tell you something..."

"My husband? So he's back?"

"For four days..."

"Is he in Palermo?"

"Where you and your daughter are waiting..."

"Did he know what had happened to me?"

"He had been informed."

"From you?"

"No, others prevented my desire..."

"Do you see any other interest in warning Don Raimondo?"

"I don't know, I couldn't say... What else do you care? During your imprisonment, I am sure you were not wronged by a hair, nor have you been disrespectful; now you are given back freedom and you will be accompanied with the utmost respect to the place, where the duke your husband will receive you... There will be no trace of this episode, except the memory, like a dream... To the duke I wanted to give you, as I promised him, but you will have the courtesy of apologizing for my absence. Do you have orders to give me?"

"I begged you to stay;" said Gabriella with a dark voice, "for my husband awaits us from your hands, you will accompany us..."

"As you wish..."

Donna Gabriella stayed a minute in silence, then with a smile full of bitterness she added:

"Surely you won't take the company, because... don't accompany me alone..."

Blasco felt a blaze on his face, but he didn't answer: Gabriella saw it, and paled; her lips became dumb, and they were quivered with anger. He could not contain himself and, grab him by the arm, hit him with a burning look, with a voice that seemed to be made of hiccups, he resumed:

"Why did you tell me you loved me? Why did you make yourself lord of my soul? Why have you kindled in my heart a passion that devours me, that destroys me? Why did you make me feel the voluptuousness of your kisses? Because one night, one burning night, whose memory burns my blood, my brain upsets: One night, you made me drink at the cup of joy, you made me believe that you possess everything, soul and body, forever, until death, after death? Why did you abandon me? What did I do to you? What did I do to you, Blasco? Wasn't I all, all donated to you, my great lord? And thou hast cast me away on a pretext... Thou hast filled me with all the torments, with all the anguish, with all the rage, with all the despairs; thou hast watered me with gall and absinthe; thou hast made me and made me burn with hatred... Only of hatred; and now I live for this hatred and in this hatred I vulture you both, you and her!... And, listen to me: to reach her, it is necessary that you kill me first!..."

Blasco had listened to that impetuous wave of words with pain, pity, amazement, trying to stop her with the gesture, interrupting her with a word.

"Duchess... Duchess..."

She gave in an anguish rice:

"Duchess!... Here is my name now; but when thy mouth sought mine, and thy hands were quivering with caresses, thou calledest me Gabriella... now this name is erased from thy soul under the footprint of another name... But I will dig that name with my own hands and you will see it burning and burning you in the night, relentless, tenacious as my hatred, as my vengeance."

"Gabriella... in God's name!..."

"God? Why do you call on God? What are you hoping for? He will not save you!..."

"Gabriella!..."

But the Duchess, conquered by her impetus, burst into tears and walked over a high chair. Blasco was moved; the evocation of the past, the passion not yet tamed by that woman, her pain, filled his heart with pity and tenderness.

She took the hand of a woman Gabriella, calling her gently and begging her:

"Gabriella, have mercy on you and me..."

He leaned over her and her words almost touched her hair. At that moment the door opened and Violante appeared, saying:

"Mrs. Mother..."

But in seeing Blasco in that attitude, he sent a sharp cry, as a wound, and wavered.

"Violante!" shouted Blasco with an unbreakable accent.

"Ah! she!" shouted Gabriella woman, leaping up, blind with jealousy and hatred pain; and grabbed from the table still set, a small fruit knife, from the blade to a bit curved, she spread over Violante, roaring: "Ah!... you will die!..."

Blasco saw, intuited, and in a flash threw himself between woman Gabriella and Violante who bent on his knees. The knife struck, went down, followed Blasco's undercoat, touched the skin. Blasco grabbed her wrist vigorously, disarmed her, threw the knife away, reproaching her:

"Disgraceful! What are you doing?..."

Donna Gabriella stole her eyes, saw Blasco in front of her, on whose clear undergarments a large reddish spot had surfaced; the horror was painted on her face; she took a step back stuttering:

"You... blood!... I..."

Blasco left her, and then Gabriella passed a hand over her eyes and forehead with an automatic gesture, then, as it were, sent one Squeeze and run to the window...

"Mrs. Mother!..." screamed scared Violante down on the floor.

But already Blasco had slendered, he had grabbed for life woman Gabriella had laid it over a high chair, frantic, frightened.

"Gabriella! Gabriella!..."

The Duchess sent another screaming and fell into convulsions, while Violante, inaudrated, cried out:

"Mr. Blasco, Mr. Blasco, what is it?"