Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part four, chapter 22

English

Blasco had returned from the camp of Francavilla, on June 23, with two couriers of the Marquis de Lede, to bring to the Marquis of Montemar, in Palermo, the participation of the victory of the Spanish weapons.

The letter, written in Spanish, was shortly after published in the press of Francesco Cichè, Palermo's printer, and caused, as was to be expected, great lights and apparatuses in the Cassaro, Te deum in the churches and salvage from the bulwarks and castles.

Blasco had urged the honor to bring the announcement of what seemed a great victory to have the ease to return to Palermo: He had left Gabriella in such a depressed state of mind that in spite of the events of the camp and the dangers of the bitter and bloody battle, he could not impose a certain tranquillity on his heart. He was in deep anxiety.

Leaving, he had strongly recommended Gabriella woman to Coriolano. The knight of Floresta had answered him:

"Your recommendations are superfluous. She will have nothing to fear; no one will accuse the Duchess..." "But those good guys..."

"They've already been warned and they won't hear a word... Don Girolamo commissioned it..."

"Ah!... all right, but there's the birro..."

"Don't worry about it. Last night he was judged... On the other hand, I informed the Prince of Carini of everything, and you will understand that he is not a man to let commit any violence against a woman in his house and no judge will dare order her arrest. Leave quietly..."

Don't worry? Oh no; Blasco had lost his tranquillity: many sad and painful things had happened and burdened his spirit, so that he could keep his soul serene! Another prayer had come to him on his lips, and he had not dared to formulate it; Coriolan, who observed it, smiled finely, as he used to do:

"I understand you, dear, without you telling me anything. Don't be tormented about it either, I will watch over Violant woman and keep you informed of all that may interest you."

Blasco wasn't wrong to be upset: Emanuele's death had raised a great noise, all the greater because of the extraordinary circumstances that had accompanied her. Having found his body in the room of Violante, in the villa of the prince of Butera, seemed inexplicable; but he did not testify in favor of the killed, when the maiden told her grandfather, in all its details, the attack of which had almost not been victimized. The prince of Butera saw such an affront in that fact, that the death of the wretch did not seem enough to expiate him and gave his heartfelt displeasure to the prince of Geraci. But he, who was fed up with his nephew's racketeering, shook his shoulders and said,

"What can I do? He cannot have greater satisfaction than this, that I do not move a step to get revenge of my nephew's death."

Justice began its investigation, pretending to assume that the murderous hand had been much more than that of a woman, not daring to investigate the truth because it would have affected three very powerful and powerful families of the kingdom. But all this if it removed a danger from the head of woman Gabriella, I did not say apparently his terrors, that the loneliness and distance of Blasco had increased.

The distance, above all, had made her restless and bitter: the dominant thought that, like a tarlo, would eat her brain assiduously, filled her with deep sadness:

"Does he love her? And Violante?"

Why, then, could his eye not penetrate and read into the depths of the heart of Blasco and Violante? Sometimes she had gone to visit Violante, in the palace of her grandfather's prince and had been welcomed with sympathy. The prince ran to meet her, kissed her hands properly ceremonious, but with a keen feeling of gratitude, and called her: "Here's our heroine!"

But this allusion, evoking a blood scene of which she was horrified, held her heart in a grip of ice.

Even Violante did not have to woman Gabriella that harshness of ways, that proud and reserved attitude of before: She used to kiss her hand respectfully and call her "mother." Now she was in a singular condition: She was a widow without ever being a wife; the death of Emanuel had rendered the cause of annulment useless, even though she freed her from those infavourable marriages but had not brought her any joy. He aspired only to close himself in a cloister and without the firm opposition of his grandfather, from a piece would come back. One day, when Gabriella had gone to visit her stepdaughter, the speech about the monastery had come out.

"What a cloister! what nuns!" cried the prince of Butera laughing; "it wants nothing but the veil. You got married to joke, now you have to get married for real, with a nice knight..."

"Oh no! Excellency, forgive me, but I will marry no man; my purpose is irrevocable. Why do you want to contradict me? Why do you want to make me unhappy?..."

"But listen to the ideas!... At that age!... When you find a beautiful young noble, rich..."

Violant had become as pale as before an imminent danger. On reaching his begging hands he had murmured:

"Your Excellency makes me suffer. I can never see a man..."

The prince had laughed, but Gabriella had in turn become white and suffering; she alone had understood the tragedy of that soul that had once hatched and locked to love; she alone had heard under that "never will I be able to see a man" what was implied to you that, that heart was all occupied, taken, overwhelmed by Blasco's vision. Violante loved him, he still loved him, he always loved him, he loved him fully, deeply, intensely!... And she closed her love with a force of will and renunciation that amazed her, Gabriella woman, they amazed and grieved her, that she could not give up her passion, that shook and tormented to the sole suspicion that they could contend with the object of her passion.

Was it pride? By necessity? Out of gratitude for his liberating who Violante forever renounced the hope of supreme joy? So was that girl so heroic? She seemed older. And he thought with dismay that perhaps this greatness made it in the eyes of Blasco more beautiful, more desired, more loved; loved as a higher thing, as a thing of heaven. She envied that creature struck by tragic fate, from whose hands she herself had torn the chalice of happiness. Donna Gabriella had torn it from her, had drunk you in long sips, greedily, had kept it for herself, had left it sitebonda and hopeless and yet envied her for that heroic sacrifice, noble, silent that was her strength.

Envy, yes; but with her amazement, Gabriella realized that in her heart that feeling had nothing unethical and hateful, if ever something that could even be admired and grateful. She said inside herself:

"For me, it is certain only for me that Violante sacrifices himself."

She had gone home upset, tender, humiliated, with a heart full of fears, suspicions, thinking about Blasco's return and what he had to do to chain him to himself passionately and eternally. How? With what new virtues?

Sometimes sad and biech thoughts came to torment her. If she hadn't killed Emanuele, Violante would have succumbed: Instead of being generous, he should have resigned himself to become the accomplice of the sad young man. Which abyss wouldn't have dug between Blasco and Violante? Yeah, but how and how much would Blasco hate her? Hated? And wouldn't it have been better than living in uncertainty, doubt, suspicion? Hated? But that would give her the ease, the reason to take revenge and end it... And then...

So Gabriella had lived during the absence of Blasco. Coriolano, who had visited her for a few days, had failed to infuse her courage and to lift her from the overthrow in which she had fallen, yearning and fearing the return of Blasco.

When Blasco, after having been to the general count of Montemar to deliver the letter, presented himself to woman Gabriella found her in a great anxiety. The news that a bloody battle had taken place in Francavilla, in which they had fallen, on one side and on the other, between the dead and the wounded, about seven thousand men, with superior generals and officers, had quickly spread throughout the city. It was said that Lieutenant General Caracciolo and Brigadier Tauchur, who were with the guards and dragons of the Capuchins, were killed in the Spanish army, around which they had sustained the greatest impact of the Germans. Dragons and guards had been massacred. This was enough for Gabriella woman to tremble over the fate of Blasco of whom she had not heard.

When she saw him come in, she leaped up, running to meet him with open arms and with a cry in which all the voices of her burning and tormented heart vibrated: "My blasphemy!..."

He was expansive and tender, but to a woman Gabriella did not seem that in her kisses was that warm fervor of passion that she had dreamed of in expectation. Supposition or reality, this was enough to reawaken the anxieties, fears, suspicions, envy, drowsy torments, and to freeze her blood, dampen her impetus; and then she noticed that Blasco did not seem to notice the sudden coldness of a woman Gabriella. So were you worried about any other thoughts? From that very dominant thought of hers? But Blasco didn't. no word about Violante, indeed it seemed that he avoided any allusion to her, or even the approaching with the discourse: as soon as the possibility of talking about it became apparent, he misled the conversation and always had a topic ready. Was it about a woman Gabriella? Was that fiction?

He asked him with a tremble in his voice:

"Will you always be here?..."

"A few days alone and I will return to the camp."

And she bowed her head on her breast with an anguished silence; and she asked him again,

"Why don't you take me with you?"

"But it is not possible, my love; you live under tents, you sleep on straw thrown to the ground, exposed to surprises... And these people, the soldiers!... I'd be sure to beat myself 20 times a day for you: Not as long as it scares me, but it would keep you in constant anguish. No, no; it's not even a half-time thing to think about... After all, the war won't last long. We can't resist: Imperials are stronger: Milazzo is in their power, they have half Messina, in the sea they are masters because they are helped by the English... You will see that the island will pass to the emperor and we will have waged war on the Savoiard to give comfort to the Germanic to take our beautiful island. From one master to another, always like this!"

She was immersed in that war and political speech, which she didn't care about. Either Spanish or Austrian or Savoy, no one would give back Blasco's heart, his love, his peace. If they had gone away, far from the island, in a foreign city, alone, perhaps then she would have taken the empire back into that soul that fled them. Got it? He wondered if he had ever really had that empire. He said in a low voice:

"What do I care about the inconveniences? What do I care about sleeping on the floor? I'll always be there for you, always... I will disguise myself as a man, as if I were your payroll..."

Blasco laughed. She passed her hand over her hair with a caress and said to her:

"And these beautiful hairs, where do I delight in sinking my fingers?..."

For the skin and for the veins of woman Gabriella passed a tremor, made of sensations and memories. He bowed his head on Blasco's chest and murmured with deep despair:

"Ah, you don't love me anymore!"

Blasco cheated. That did not seem to him the voice of a woman Gabriella, but an inner voice, which raised his conscience and forced him to confess what in vain he tried to hide from himself. And yet he suffocated that inner voice, imposed on his conscience to lie, raised in his heart all the sweetest memories, all the visions of drunkenness caught on that mouth now altered by pain, all the gratitude, the tender friendship that he felt intensely towards that woman, aroused all these feelings, all these feelings so that she did not see the ruin of what seemed passionate, and it had not been for him that the impetus of a youth fascinated by beauty and drunken by a mouth full of kisses...

He tried to deceive himself, to deceive her, to amuse her, but in her heart, in Gabriella's heart a voice sadly repeated: "It's over! It's over!"

However, he added:

"But I will never abandon her again! I will be his tender friend until death."

The day was melancholy. In the afternoon, at the time of the walk to the street Colonna or Marina, Gabriella woman went to visit Violante wanting to investigate if any of his suspicions were founded.

"Do you want to walk with me in my carriage?" he asked; "we will ask permission of the prince."

But Violante thanked her:

"I never leave the house, madam;" he smiled, "my cloister began here..."

The Duchess sat next to her; she praised her a few small pieces of embroidery, and asked her if she had seen anyone.

"Who?"

"I don't know... I thought that some visit of duty to the prince... in his capacity as the first title of the kingdom, being the announcement of a victory of the king's weapons."

"No, ma'am, I haven't seen anyone..." "But surely he will have come."

"Him? Who?"

"Don Blasco," did the Duchess pretending to be casual and indifferent, but they betrayed each other in the lightning of the eyes and in the paleness of the lips.

Violant had like a shock: He paled, but stood up to the stepmother's gaze and answered with a clear and serene voice:

"No; he didn't come; we didn't see him."

Then Gabriella gave out as a sigh of relief, she was kind and affectionate and welcoming herself promised that she would return and for the first time, after so long, she really took herself to the Navy promenade, to hear the music of the Senate, which played music of Scarlatti that afternoon. If he could have turned back or looked beyond the walls, he would have seen Violante falling over a high chair, hiding his head in his hands and suffocating his hiccups, but at that moment Gabriella was happy and did not think of Violante.

But Blasco was not happy; he was not even happy. A burden weighed over her shoulders and oppressed her. Coriolano poked him a little, then said to him:

"I want to tell you some news that may interest you..."

"Interesting me?"

"Yes, you. You didn't think that by the death of Emanuele you were the last of the Albamontes, of the firstborn branch?"

"Oh, a bastard!"

"It is not the first time, in Sicilian hereditary law, that a natural son, recognized, is invested in the rights of the legitimate and takes the titles and privileges of the house. Manfredi III Chiaramonte was a natural son and was the most powerful of the Chiaramonte, so much so that he became acquainted with the kings. So your birth is not an obstacle. If Don Raimondo had lived perhaps he would have been entitled above you; and Violante woman could claim to herself, as heir to her father, the States of Motta; but Violante woman renounces to every possible and eventual right, because she enters a monastery.

"Violant?..."

"Yes; what do you want me to do? Maybe the poor girl would have found joy, happiness, if she had met the hand she was waiting for; now she only has to bury herself and her pain in the silent peace of the cloister."

"You had to leave her father..."

"No. Justice cannot be merciful; justice punishes. It's up to love to spread honey on the wounds: justice killed the guilty father; love had to revive a new life to the innocent daughter; you, Blasco, did not want it. But let's not talk about the past: Let's talk about the future... For eight days he has left for Madrid Don Girolamo Admired, as your attorney, begging the king, for your recognition..."

"Oh!" exclaimed Blasco blushing.

"To the supplication is united a legal allegation that carries out and comments on our feudal swear and a letter from the Count of Montemar for Cardinal Alberoni..."

"But all this..."

"It's a perfectly regular thing. In one or two months we will receive the royal letters; the investiture process will take place, and you will be the illustrious Mr. Don Blasco Albamonte Duke of Motta..."

"Thanks to the blood of two victims and the tears of a third... Oh, no, really..."

"You're still a boy! Do you want to be careful to take what is yours, just because a thief and an unworthy fell under the weight of their sins? Go! It's not something to think about!... I did well to act without your consent: You would have been able to stop me..."

"But who proves my origin?"

"Ah! do you think that I have not accumulated the evidence? You told me more than I needed to get them, and then I owned them."

"You?"

"Yes... Blasco looked at him with deep amazement.

"How come?"

"What do you care? It should not be difficult to suppose that the means of obtaining what I need are not lacking..."

"It's true."

The dialogue continued one more piece in this tone.

Blasco felt his heart filled with sudden hopes and suffering discouragements. Something dismayed him. Duke of Motta? To do what?

What use would those riches have been to him? Would he have become another man? Would his soul buy or lose anything more? And would happiness have only opened its doors then? So Blasco from Castiglione would die and become a memory? And with a fearful look he saw as in a scenery all his past of adventures, of poverty, of blows of the sword, imprisonments, escapes, loves of a day, and all animated by a wonderful playfulness; and he loved that past, loved that life now so far away, loved his condition as an abandoned child, lost in the world, who faced life with a sword at his side, half loaf hard in the sack, a beautiful song on the lips and the splendor of bold youth in the eyes!...

In the evening, when Gabriella returned as a woman, he was very concerned about that news and a cloud obscured his forehead; the Duchess felt her heart pressed and dared not question him. Both spent those hours as overwhelmed by a greater fatality, as oppressed by an imminent and looming misfortune and greeted themselves with a pale smile, with a flameless kiss, full of tears, similar to two who separate to walk different and distant roads, for which they will never meet again.