The Leopard

By November, 1860, the Prince has developed a grudging admiration for Don Calogero—particularly his intelligence, which is unencumbered by the limitations of good manners and courtesy. Don Calogero easily sees solutions to the Prince’s financial difficulties—but these lead to a reputation for treating dependents harshly, and the consequent decline of the Salinas’ reputation and prestige. Meanwhile, Don Calogero appreciates the Prince’s good breeding and grace, which rub off on him in turn.

Over the course of the two men’s meetings, Don Calogero begins to develop better manners, greater subtlety in conversation, and more softness toward women—all of which prove to be more productive for himself. From this point forward, Don Calogero and his family start to become more refined, which in turn starts the Sedàras’ transformation from peasantry to gentry.

When Angelica visits the Salinas for the first time as Tancredi’s fiancée, it’s obvious that she has been carefully coached in advance. She wins the Prince’s heart by warmly embracing him and calling him “Uncle mine,” and she is received with equal warmth by the rest of the household. The Prince and Princess tell flattering stories of Tancredi. When praise of Tancredi happens to mention other women, Angelica’s eyes flash with envy. However, this comes from pride and ambition, not genuine love, which is self-forgetting. Angelica longs for Tancredi’s embrace, but she doesn’t love him.

Hints about Tancredi’s political future don’t mean much to Angelica—though one day this will change, as she will become a “venomous string puller” in Italian politics. Neither does she care very much about his boasted cleverness. For her, he is mainly a ticket to a position within the nobility; any amusement he offers is secondary. In any case, the Sedàras’ first visit following the engagement is a success.

In the evenings before dinner, the Prince reads novels aloud to his family, though he chooses and censors them carefully, avoiding any “filth” that might offend the Princess or his young daughters. One rainy day, while reading Angiola Maria, a servant rushes in with the news that Tancredi has arrived. Concetta cries, “Darling!” but in the uproar, her exclamation isn’t heard. The family rushes downstairs to find a soaked Tancredi in a Piedmontese Cavalry uniform. After the joyful greetings have subsided, Tancredi introduces his guest, Count Carlo Cavriaghi. The Prince sends the young men off to dry and change, and Tancredi sends an enticing note across the square to Angelica.

Within minutes, the family is regathered in the warmth of the drawing-room. Tancredi and Carlo are the first military officers the Salina girls have seen close up. Puzzled, the Prince asks the young “Garibaldini” why they aren’t wearing red shirts. The men respond with shock—they’re no longer rabble Redshirts but now serve in Victor Emmanuel’s real army. Sitting slightly apart, Carlo flirts with Concetta and gives her a poetry book as a gift, but she responds coolly. Meanwhile, Tancredi shows off the engagement ring he’s bought for Angelica.

Suddenly, Angelica appears shyly at the door, wrapped in a damp peasant’s cape and looking anxious. Tancredi jumps up and kisses her in front of everyone, showing her the ring. Another kiss makes him feel as if he is invading and possessing Sicily once again.

The family had been planning to return to Palermo by now, but Tancredi’s visit postpones the trip. The rain subsides, revealing Sicily’s most pleasant season, called St. Martin’s summer, blue and mild. During this time, sensuality fills the palace, seeming to awaken the spirits of long-ago inhabitants. The atmosphere, which touches everyone from Caterina and Carolina (the younger Salina daughters) to the elderly governess, revolves most of all around Tancredi and Angelica, the latter visiting almost constantly.

Tancredi wants to show Angelica the tangled maze of the massive palace complex, corners of which even the Prince has never seen. The two always set off with a chaperone, whether Cavriaghi or the girls’ governess. But it’s easy for the couple to slip away, enjoying the solitude, the pleasant frights offered by the secretive palace, and the chance to hold hands—or occasionally steal kisses. Among their many explorations, one day they find a nest of rooms in the old guest wing. In one of these rooms, Tancredi finds a collection of strange paraphernalia, including whips with silver handles. He won’t let Angelica see them, realizing he’s found the core of the palace’s strange sensual energy. His kisses are subdued for the rest of that day.

The next day, Tancredi and Angelica discover a different kind of whip, this one in the so-called Apartment of the Saint-Duke. It dates to the mid-17th century, when a Salina ancestor had a kind of private monastery. The humble room contains little besides a massive crucifix and a leather whip; the old Salina used to whip himself while overlooking his estates. Tancredi, realizing that these estates now belong to Angelica, notices a parallel between Angelica and the whip—they’re both “used for the same ends.”

The more the Tancredi and Angelica explore the palace, the greater their desire to consummate their relationship. But despite many temptations, the two lovers never give in. Ironically, these are the best days of their relationship—their renunciation of sexual desire is the closest thing they experience to real love. Their marriage turns out not to be successful, never fulfilling the future that was so tantalizingly hinted at.

Whenever Tancredi and Angelica emerge from the labyrinth of rooms, everyone teases them. As Angelica washes dust from her hands, she resolves that she won’t be drawn into the game again by Tancredi’s gaze and touch—but when the next day comes, she always changes her mind. Over dinner, though, the two are always filled with virtuous resolutions, and they muse on the relationships of others. Tancredi has brought Cavriaghi along in the hope that his friend might replace him in his cousin’s affections, but it hasn’t worked out; Concetta looks on Cavriaghi with contempt. Tancredi can’t understand why Concetta turned on him that day at the convent—he assumes that it was out of pride in the Leopard. Meanwhile, Concetta’s sisters, Carolina and Caterina, keep making eyes at Cavriaghi.

Meanwhile, in the privacy of the smoking room, Cavriaghi admits his failure to Tancredi—Concetta is too pure and beautiful for him, and she doesn’t love him. Tancredi consoles his friend that Concetta is too reserved and proud, too “Sicilian” to ever want to leave this isolated place. Then, the conversation turns back to Angelica: Cavriaghi asks when he’ll have a chance to meet the mother of the “Baroness.” Tancredi is startled, not used to thinking of Angelica bearing a noble title.

Around this time, the Prince receives an official letter announcing the visit of the Secretary of the Prefecture, a man named Aimone Chevalley di Monterzuolo. He wants to talk to the Prince about a governmental matter. The Prince is surprised and sends Francesco Paolo to meet the visitor. The timid bureaucrat has come from the mainland and isn’t used to Sicilian ways. Worse, Sicilians keep telling him awful stories about brigands, making him paranoid. As Chevalley waits at the post station, he finds it hard to believe this backward place is really part of his own nation. He cringes when Francesco Paolo approaches him, but the fair-haired young man soon reassures him.

At the Salina palace, Chevalley is once again thrown off balance by the luxury of the house, and he emerges for dinner feeling pulled between fear of primitive Sicilians and awkwardness at being a guest in such a fine place. However, the pleasantness of the meal, as well as the evident friendship between Tancredi and Cavriaghi—a Sicilian and a Lombard—convinces him that he’s probably not about to be killed.

The next morning, Tancredi and Cavriaghi take Chevalley on a tour of the palace and frighten him with more brigand tales—like the story of a baron’s son who was returned “in installments” (starting with his index finger) when his family couldn’t afford the ransom. Chevalley, horrified by the ineptitude of the police under the Bourbons, promises that the Carabinieri will soon come to put an end to this sort of thing. When Chevalley starts trembling at the story of a local priest whose Communion wine was poisoned, Tancredi finally takes pity on him and starts talking about Verdi instead.

That afternoon, Chevalley joins the Prince in his study. He immediately begins explaining the reason he was sent. “After the happy annexation, I mean after the glorious union” of Sicily and Sardinia, he begins, the government at Turin wants to nominate Sicilians as Senators of the new kingdom. Chevalley gives a flattering little speech listing the Prince’s qualifications, from his family history to his scientific achievement to his “dignified and liberal attitude” during the recent political developments. He has come to seek the Prince’s approval before putting his name forward. The Prince, used to being flattered, doesn’t respond at first. He is already a Peer of the Kingdom, so it’s not as if Chevalley is offering him a great new distinction. He doesn’t know much about senators, but he can’t help thinking of Caligula, who made his horse a senator. He asks Chevalley to explain more.

Chevalley eagerly describes the Senate’s functions: it will deliberate and approve legislation and help heal Italy as it emerges into the modern world. Finally, the Prince says that if this were simply a title of honor, he’d be happy to accept it. When Chevalley asks why he won’t, the Prince speaks at length about Sicilian history and culture. Sicilians, he explains, have long been accustomed to foreign rulers, and so they’re used to splitting hairs; while he is glad to support the new Italian State, he doesn’t believe he can participate. After all, the Sicilian nobility wasn’t consulted during Garibaldi’s invasion—why should they be now?

Chevalley must understand, the Prince explains, that Sicilians never forgive the sin of “doing.” Sicilians are old: for 2,500 years, they’ve been living in a civilization that’s been made by outsiders, not by themselves. They’re a colony, and they’re tired. Though the intention of making Sicily part of a free State may have been good, it comes too late. Sicilians, he says, just want to sleep, and they’ll hate anyone who tries to wake them.  

Anyway, the Prince doubts that the new Italian Kingdom offers gifts worth having. Sicilians’ sensuality, violence, and laziness is all a part of their desire for death and oblivion, he claims. This is why the culture lags, why novelties attract after they’re already dead, and why myths take hold. Even more than foreign domination, the climate and landscape of Sicily reinforce all this. It’s a landscape that knows no moderation between drought and rain. All these things have formed the Sicilian character, resulting in inertia and insularity.

Chevalley is disturbed by this lecture and tries to interrupt, but the Prince keeps going. There are exceptions to the rule, of course; but by the time a man has spent his youth on the island, it’s too late for his character to be any different. He is grateful, he tells Chevalley, for the government’s offer. However, he is a member of the old ruling class and will therefore always have ties to the Bourbon regime. He is comfortable neither in the old world nor the new. He also has no illusions that he could really be of use; only the self-deceived believe that they can guide others. It’s time for the old to withdraw and watch the young in their “capers and somersaults.” He suggests, however, that Calogero Sedàra be considered in his stead. Sedàra has power; he is practical and clever.

Chevalley quietly pities the Prince’s hopelessness, much as he pities the poverty and squalor he’s witnessed since arriving in Sicily. Surely, he tells the Prince, the people here must want to improve their lives. And if honest men don’t try, then unscrupulous men like Sedàra will fill the void, and things will go on as before. In response to this plea, the Prince smiles and tells Chevalley a story: just before Garibaldi’s invasion, some British naval officers asked the Prince if they could use his roof terrace for reconnaissance. While delighted by the scenery, the young soldiers expressed dismay about the poverty they’d seen. The Prince knows that these two things are related. He told the soldiers that the Italians were coming in order to teach the Sicilians “good manners,” but that they will fail, because Sicilians believe themselves to be gods.

The Prince tells Chevalley the same thing: Sicilians will never improve their lives, because they believe they’re already perfect. Their vanity, their independence, and their belief in a grand past prevents them from desiring improvements or participation in the wider world. The Prince also doesn’t believe that feudalism is entirely at fault. Other countries, after all, have emerged from feudal systems, and their outcomes have been better. The difference is the Sicilian pride, which is really blindness. The Prince ends the conversation—he must dress for dinner and “act the part of a civilized man.”

The next morning, the Prince and Tumeo accompany Chevalley to the post station at dawn. Donnafugata’s  town square is filled with refuse and stray dogs; weary men are beginning to emerge from their houses in search of day labor. Chevalley is sure that the new, modern government will change all this. The Prince, however, believes all this will last. The “Leopards” and lions will be replaced by jackals and hyenas, and all will continue to think themselves the best of humanity.