Pescara Tales Page 18

  ‘In the name of His Highness Ferdinand II, by the grace of God King of the Two Sicilies, of Jerusalem…’

  ‘Death to the robber!’

  Two, three shots were heard detonated among the howling, and the solemn address ended there. Struck in the breast and forehead, Mazzagrogna staggered, lifted up both his arms and then fell forward. In falling, his neck entered a gap between two iron pickets of a row that projected from the railing of the balcony, and his head was left hanging beyond them over the balcony’s edge like a pumpkin, blood dripping on the ground below.

  The incident greatly amused the multitude, their hilarity rose to the very stars that had begun now to glimmer. Those carrying the spar with the hanging corpse brought the gibbet under the balcony and confronted Vincenzo Murro with the major-domo. The spar lurched from side to side, and while they were intent on watching the changing juxtaposition of the two cadavers the people were almost silent for a moment; then some extempore poet, alluding to Mazzagrogna’s albino eyes and the gone-dim ones of the messenger, shouted this inspiration at the top of his voice:

  Yea, come to the window, Your Highness Fried-eyes:

  We had something for you, but it weren’t boukays!

  The crude sarcasm was answered by a peal of laughter, spreading to the peripheries of the crowd, like the sound of water descending over the stones of a mountain stream.

  A rival rhymester bellowed:

  Yon’s the fate of a fool: when alive he saw naught;

  Now he’s dead, he won’t blinker his eyes like he ought!

  There was a new wave of bitter laughter. Here came a third insult:

  Thou ape with the face of a parboiled endive,

  Thy hue’s now no worse than when thou wast alive!

  Other such couplets flew at Mazzagrogna. A ferocious joy had invaded the spirits of the mob. The sight and smell of blood intoxicated those nearest to it. Tommaso di Beffi and Rocco Furci competed to see who was most dexterous in flinging stones at the hanging, not yet cold cranium of the killed major-domo. Each time it was struck, it made a slight movement and oozed more blood. A stone by Rocco Furci hit it squarely at last, eliciting a satisfactory thud, and with it the applause of the spectators.

  But now they had had enough of Mazzagrogna; the cry ‘Cassàura! Cassàura! The Duke! Death to the Duke!’ recommenced.

  Fabrizio and Ferdinandino Scioli circulated among the rioters, fomenting further violence. A terrible rattle of stones arose, stones volleyed at the windows of the palace; it was a sound like hail, shots were interspersed in it, glass fell on the assailants, stones bounced back, not a few of those below being struck.

  The stoning petered out; all the ready lead having been fired off, Ferdinandino Scioli now shouted:

  ‘Down with the door!’

  And that shout, repeated by so many voices, wrested from the Duke of Ofena any last hope of salvation.

  V.

  No one had dared close the shutter to the balcony where Mazzagrogna had fallen. The body lay hanging in its disorder. The rebels had disburdened themselves of the spar and left it with the bloody corpse of Vincenzo Murro leaning against the balcony parapet. The late messenger, his limbs hacked by axes, could be glimpsed occasionally between the wind-swollen curtains. The night was weighty in its moments of natural stillness, its stars endlessly scintillating; in the distance some stubble fields were burning.

  While the blows on the door multiplied, the Duke grimly considered what was to be done. Don Filippo, numbed by terror, kept his eyes closed and had ceased to speak. Carletto Grua, his head now bandaged, cowered in a corner, his teeth chattering from fever and fear, his swollen eyes pathetically following every gesture and motion of his lord. The servants, almost all of them, had taken refuge in the palace attics, leaving only a few in the adjoining rooms.

  Don Luigi brought them together, reanimated them; he armed them with pistols or hunting pieces, then assigned each of them a place at some window or between the shutters of a balcony. Each was to fire on the crowd, shooting as quickly as possible, not speaking and not exposing himself.

  ‘Go to your stations!’

  The firing began. Don Luigi put his faith in panicking the rioters. He himself fired and reloaded his long pistols, fired with cool deliberation and without tiring. As the multitude was close-packed not a shot missed. The cries that followed each discharge excited the servants and kindled their ardour. Confusion was soon visible among the mutineers, many fleeing and leaving behind their fallen; and from the domestics came a cry of victory:

  ‘Long live the Duke!’

  In a short while the palace was clear of besiegers; around it the wounded groaned, the remnants of rush-torches left glowing on the ground cast an uncertain light on bodies, provoked reflections from pools of blood, spat sparks in dying out. The wind had risen, its curving squalls investing the holm oaks. Across the vale below the town barking dogs answered each other.

  Drunk with victory, sweaty from their endeavours, the servants went below to take refreshments. They were all unharmed. They drank with great freedom and talked loudly to and across each other. Some proclaimed the names of those they had hit, and they described comically the manner in which they fell. The whippers-in drew similarities with the high points of various hunts; a cook boasted that he had killed the terrible Rocco Furci. Fuelled by wine, the vaunts and exaggerations grew.

  VI.

  Now while Duke Ofena, confident in having at least for that night evaded danger, was solely concerned with attending to the blubbering Carletto, a sudden glare was reflected in a mirror, and a new clamour became audible through the whistling of the south-westerly gales: something was happening in the nether reaches of the palace. At the same moment five or six servants appeared whom smoke had almost suffocated while they lay sleeping drunk down there. They had not yet come to themselves, they swayed and were unable to speak from the torpid state of their tongues. Some others elbowed past them shouting:

  ‘Fire! Fire!’

  They trembled and milled together like sheep, their native cowardice overcoming them again, their senses dulled, sleepers in a languid nightmare; they could not think what they must do and their awareness of their peril was not yet so complete as to incite a frantic search for the means to escape it.

  The Duke was baffled for a moment; but Carletto Grua saw tendrils of smoke begin to enter the room, heard in the distant spaces below that singular roar that flames make in consuming their fuel, and he began screaming at such a high pitch and gesturing so frantically that Don Filippo jerked himself out of the deep stupor he had fallen into and saw the face of death.

  Death was inevitable; the fire, driven by recurrent winds, could be heard spreading with stupendous celerity throughout the woodwork, through the skeletal frame of the ancient building, devouring everything, raising new mobile flames, fluid in its progress, singing. The flames ran lightly along the walls, lapped up tapestry and hangings, hesitated an instant on those surfaces, grew coloured with changeable and vague tints, penetrated with a thousand subtle and vibrant tongues into the texture of the fabric, for a moment appeared to inspire souls into the painted figures on walls, to light a smile till then unseen on the lips of nymphs and goddesses, to move for an instant their motionless poses and gestures. The flames passed onwards, constantly more luminous, wrapping themselves around wooden furniture and utensils, preserving to the last moment their form and making them seem as if made of garnet, until as if by enchantment they disaggregated suddenly and collapsed into cinders. The voices of the flames were innumerable, formed a vast choir, a profound harmony, like a rustling forest of a million leaves, an organ with a million pipes. The sky now appeared above at intervals through roaring gaps, a pure sky with its crowns of stars. The entire palace was in the power of the flames.

  ‘Save me! Save me!’ the old man was screaming, attempting in vain to lift himself from his chair, already feeling beneath him the floor giving way, feeling himself being blinded by the implacable redness.
‘Save me!’

  With a supreme effort he managed to stand, began tripping forward, his trunk inclined, his steps a sequence of little leaps, running as if pressed by an irresistible arm towards something ahead of him, his misshapen hands in fluttering agitation; until he fell at last, struck down and a prey to the flames, his whole body swelling and then collapsing like a broken blister.

  Now from one moment to the next the cries of the returning population grew louder and rose above the noise of the conflagration. The servants, maddened by terror and pain, half afire, were leaping from windows to their death on the ground outside, or if still alive were rushed upon and finished off. At each such plummet there rose a universal shout:

  ‘The Duke! The Duke!’ bellowed the savages below, not yet satisfied, because they wanted to see the petty tyrant falling, together with his faggot.

  ‘There he be! There! ‘Tis he!’

  ‘Down! Down! We would have thee!’

  ‘Die, thou dog! Die! Die! Die!’

  Out of the great door, before the confronting crowd appeared Don Luigi with his clothes on fire and carrying over his shoulders the inert body of Carletto Grua. The Duke’s face was wholly burnt, unrecognisable, almost hairless and beardless. But he walked through the flames, bold, not yet dead because that atrocious pain itself sustained his spirit.

  The mob was struck dumb at that first sight. Then it broke out again into howls and gestures, awaiting with ferocity for the great victim to near it and die in front of it.

  ‘Here, here, thou dog! We would see thee die!’

  Don Luigi heard through the flames the last insults. He gathered himself for a moment in an attitude of indescribable scorn. Then he turned his back, to walk into the fire and disappear forever.

  THE FERRYMAN

  I.

  Donna Laura Albònico was in the garden, sitting under a pergola, it was midday and she was trying to keep cool.

  The villa was quiet, a white presence behind her with closed shutters in a setting of citrus trees. The light and heat from the sun were immense. It was in the middle of June and the perfumes of the flowering oranges and lemons mingled in the tranquil air with the odour of roses. The roses grew everywhere in the garden, were untamed and indomitable. Their magnificent masses swayed beside the paths with each occasional breath of wind and covered the ground with an abundance of their perfumed snow. At certain moments the air, pregnant with fragrance, induced a sensation that was as sweet and possessing as the first savour of a well-proven wine. Fountains murmured, invisible in the foliage except when a sparkling jet appeared above it, appeared and disappeared in a kind of game, or when lower spouts caused flowers and grass to rustle and shake as if living creatures moved there, browsing or scratching out lairs. Unseen birds sang.

  Dona Laura sitting under the pergola was meditating.

  She was old, a woman with a fine aristocratic profile, a long and slightly aquiline nose, a forehead that was perhaps too broad, and a perfect mouth, still fresh, the mouth of a kindly, well-disposed person. Her white hair bent about her temples and made around her head a kind of coronet. She was someone who must have been beautiful in her youth and worthy of being loved.

  She had arrived to stay but two days in that solitary house, had come with her husband and the odd servant. She had declined going to the villa of a landed magnate that rose on a hill in the Piedmont and which was where they usually sojourned in summer; she had declined the sea; and all for this deserted and semi-arid countryside instead.

  ‘Please, let us go to Penti,’ she had said to her husband.

  The Baron, in his seventies, was somewhat taken aback by his wife’s strange wish.

  ‘Why to Penti? What do people go there for?’

  ‘I beg you, let us go. For a change,’ she had insisted.

  The Baron, as always, allowed himself to be persuaded.

  Now that they had arrived, Donna Laura sat considering once again a secret she had long kept. In youth her life had been traversed by a period of passionate love. At eighteen she had married Baron Albònico from motives of family convenience. The Baron fought with great gallantry under the first Napoleon and he was almost always absent from home, following everywhere the flight of the imperial eagles. In one of those long absences, the Marquis of Fontanella, a young lord, married with children, fell in love with Donna Laura, and as he was very handsome and ardent he overcame the resistance of his beloved.

  From that point the two lovers passed a season of the sweetest felicity, they lived oblivious to all else. But one day Donna Laura found that she was pregnant, despaired, and remained for some time in terrible anguish, not knowing how to resolve the calamity, how to save herself. Following her lover’s advice, she departed for France and submerged herself in a little town in Provence, in one of those sunny districts of orchards and gardens where the women speak the idiom of the troubadours.

  She stayed in a country house surrounded by a great orchard, the trees were in flower, it was spring. Between fits of dread and black melancholy she had intervals of infinite bliss. She passed long hours sitting in the shade, feeling liberated from her own mind, while from time to time an undefinable sentiment of maternity sent a profound tremor throughout her. The flowers around emitted a penetrating fragrance, light nausea rose to her throat and diffused an immense lassitude through all her limbs. It was an unforgettable time.

  And when the solemn moment neared, he arrived to be beside her, the one person she had desired. The poor woman was wretched. He sat by the bed, ashen, not speaking much, kissing often her hands. She gave birth at night, cried out between the spasms, gripped the bedstead, believed she was dying. The first whimpers of the infant shook her soul to its roots. Supine, her head turned a little to one side on the pillows, deathly pale, her voice gone, without strength to keep her eyelids open, she felt about with her bloodless hands, weakly searching in front of her with certain small, vague movements like those the dying make towards the light.

  The next day, all day, she kept with her in the same bed and under the same cover the child. It was a fragile creature, soft, somewhat pink, and it quivered with its own incessant energy, with manifest life, a being in whom the human outlines had yet to be made quite definite. The eyes were still closed, a little swollen, and from the mouth came a faint lament, almost an indistinct mewing.

  The spellbound mother could not get enough of looking at and touching it, of feeling on her cheek the filial breath. A blond light entered through the window, and the fields of Provence were visible beyond the orchard, stretching out everywhere and covered in cereal crops. That day had a kind of sanctity. The songs from the grain-fields succeeded and answered each other in the quiet air.

  After that, the child was taken from her, was hidden, was carried away who knows where and she did not see it again. She returned home and lived with her husband the life of all women, without any other subsequent event that might have troubled her. She had no more children.

  But that memory, her pure adoration of that creature she ceased to see after that day, of whose whereabouts she could have no knowledge, remained with her always. It was in her mind constantly, a turning over of all the minute particularities surrounding those days: she could see again clearly the country, the form of certain trees which stood in front of the house, the line of a hill that hid the horizon, the colour and designs of the material which covered the bed, a stain in the vaulted ceiling of the room, a saucer with figures under the glass which was brought to her, all, all was remembered plainly, minutely. At any moment the apparition of those distant things could rise in her memory, just like that, without order, without connection, as in dreams. Sometimes she was dumbfounded. She would have before her the precise and living features of certain persons seen down there in the south, their movements, some insignificant gesture, a pose, a gaze. And her ears seemed to detect the little creature’s whimper, she seemed to have just touched those incredibly delicate hands, rosy, soft, those tiny hands that were perhaps the only
parts perfectly formed, like miniatures of human hands, with almost imperceptible veins, every segment of the fingers marked with subtle creases at the joints, with transparent nails, tender, just-just suffused with a violet tone. Oh, those hands! With what strange tremors the mother thought of their unconscious reaching out to touch! How well she could remember that odour, that singular odour that recalled the odour of pigeon chicks in their first plumage!

  Thus did Donna Laura, often enclosed in that interior world that progressively assumed more the appearance of life, passed years, many years, until she grew old. Many times she had asked her ancient lover news of her son. She would have liked to have seen him again, to have known his circumstances.

  ‘Do tell me at least where he lives. I beg you.’

  The Marquis refused, fearing an indiscretion. She should not see him. She would not be able to control herself. The son would guess the truth; he would make use of the secret for his own ends, or he would proclaim it to the world… No, no, she should not see him.

  Donna Laura, confronted by these arguments of a practical man, remained lost. She could not imagine that the creature she had given birth to could have grown, could be an adult, would be approaching or be within the precincts of middle-age. By now some forty years had passed since the day of birth; and yet, in her thoughts she could see nothing but a roseate infant with its eyes still shut.

  But the Marquis of Fontanella was dying.

  When Donna Laura learned of the old man’s mortal illness, she was overcome by such painful distress that one evening, unable to resist the spasm, she left her house and alone made her way to that of the ailing man, impelled by a tenacious thought, the thought of her son. Before the Marquis died, she should be told what he knew!

  She passed by walls, her coat gathered about her as if fearing to be discovered. The streets were full of people; the light of the setting sun reddened the houses along the way, and between them gardens appeared all violet with lilacs in flower. Flights of swallows crossed each other in a luminous sky; groups of children ran by shouting and calling to each other. At times a pregnant woman might be seen leaning on her husband’s arm, her swollen shadow traced on a wall.