The Leopard: Chapter 6. A Ball Summary & Analysis

In November 1862, the Salinas are headed to a ball. The Prince, Princess, Concetta, and Carolina cram into a carriage. Now that outbreaks of revolutionary violence have faded, Palermo society can’t get enough of parties, as if to congratulate one another “on still existing.” This ball, the Ponteleones’, is one of the biggest of the season, and Angelica will be presented there for the first time. Normally, the Salinas wouldn’t show up as early as 10:30 P.M., but the Sedàras don’t understand society’s rules and will take the invitation literally.

The Prince looks forward to the impression Angelica will make, but he also dreads seeing Don Calogero’s outfit—he knows Tancredi has taken his future father-in-law to a good tailor. Suddenly, the carriage stops to make way for a priest walking past with the Blessed Sacrament, on his way to a person’s deathbed. The Prince gets out of the carriage and kneels on the street until the priest passes out of sight. Then the carriage continues its journey, and a short time later, the Salinas arrive at the ball.

The family approaches the entrance of the beautiful Ponteleone palace and are greeted by Don Diego, Prince of Ponteleone, and Donna Margherita. They find Tancredi just inside, eagerly watching for Angelica’s arrival. The hosts mention that Colonel Pallavicino is also expected. The Colonel shot General Garibaldi in the foot at Aspromonte, and the Prince perceives that Ponteleone approves of the Colonel’s actions because they maintained the compromise between old and new. Colonel Pallavicino circulates through the party, charming ladies with emotional tales of the battle.

Don Calogero and Angelica arrive late, Don Calogero looking respectable if inelegant. (The military medal he’s mistakenly worn soon disappears into Tancredi’s pocket.) Angelica is modest and restrained, having been coached by Tancredi in advance that spontaneity doesn’t suit a future princess. She is an immediate hit, making young men regret that they hadn’t discovered her for themselves—but it’s common knowledge that she was the Prince of Salina’s to bestow. Angela also fits in smoothly with the other ladies and soon moves through the party at ease. As she tours the palace, she praises the furniture and art with a careful reserve, showing that she’s tasteful but not provincial.

The Prince wanders through the house, his mood worsening. The décor seems outdated, and when he sees a few old mistresses among the women, he feels regret at spending his best years pursuing them. The Prince finds the young women unimpressive too, attributing this to poor nutrition and too much intermarriage; they mostly sit around giggling. Annoyed by their high-pitched chatter, the Prince soon withdraws to the room occupied by the older men. He has never had many friends among them, as he's considered eccentric for his interest in astronomy and has a rather forbidding demeanor.

Regretting that he came at all, the Prince finally wanders into the ballroom. The muted colors remind him achingly of Donnafugata, and the deities painted on the ceiling look like they will reside there forever (though a bomb will disprove this in 1943). Don Calogero joins the Prince and admires the pricy gold leaf. The Prince feels a jolt of dislike, knowing that Sedàra is thinking of the room’s value instead of its charm—it’s because of men like him, the Prince thinks, that palaces like these have an air of foreboding about them. But then, he shifts his attention to the lovely sight of Tancredi and Angelica gliding by, gazing into each other’s eyes. They are both motivated by self-interest, yet the beauty and tenderness of the moment obscures this.

Sensing the death awaiting them all, the Prince feels compassion for everyone present—they are savoring what enjoyments they can before being snuffed out forever. Even if he despises them, he also has to admit that the nobility are the only kinds of people among whom he can be truly at ease. He feels himself to be superior to them in intelligence and breeding, yet he senses that they share a common cause. With Don Calogero distracted, the Prince quietly slips away.

It is two o’clock in the morning, and the Prince is growing tired. He finally finds comfortable solitude in the library, gazing at a painting, Greuze’s Death of the Just Man. The elderly man in the picture is dying in a clean bed surrounded by weeping grandchildren. The Prince wonders if his own death will be similar; the thought is strangely calming to him. He is more disturbed by others’ death than his own, knowing that his own will mean the “death […] of the whole world.”

Just then, Tancredi and Angelica stroll in, needing a break from the dance. They gaze indifferently at the painting—death is abstract to them, not real. Angelica has a request for the Prince: she’s heard of his reputation as a dancer and wants him to dance the next mazurka with her. The Prince feels suddenly youthful but requests a calmer waltz instead.

The Prince and Angelica make a beautiful couple; his niece-to-be chatters warmly as they dance. The Prince feels a twinge of sadness when Concetta crosses his mind, but it passes quickly. He soon feels 20 again. The Prince remembers dancing with Maria Stella in this same ballroom, before he grew disillusioned and bored with life. As the waltz ends, he notices that the rest of the couples have withdrawn from the dance floor and are looking on in admiration. Angelica then invites the Prince to eat supper with her and Tancredi, but he declines, knowing that his presence would be a bore to the young people.

Soon after, the Prince heads into the supper room, where mountains of cakes and delicacies are piled beneath an elaborate chandelier. He chooses some cakes from the dessert table and wanders in search of a seat. He ends up sitting next to Colonel Pallavicino and, from his conversation, soon finds that the man is very intelligent. The Colonel talks about the difficulty of firing on Garibaldi when faced with a large mob of agitated men. If he hadn’t done so, he says, then ultimately the newfound Italian Kingdom would have collapsed. The Colonel claims that it also freed Garibaldi from flatterers—lesser men than those who’d followed him in his invasion of Sicily. Afterward, Garibaldi thanked the Colonel, who kissed his hand with respect. The Colonel says that Garibaldi is really just an adventurous little boy.

As the men continue drinking together, Colonel Pallavicino complains of conditions on the Italian mainland. He says there has never been as much disunity as there is now, as the cities fret and maneuver—Turin doesn’t want to give up its position as capital to Rome, for instance. The Colonel predicts that someday, the red shirts will return. They’re like Italy’s fixed stars—but even these, as the Prince knows, only appear to be permanent. The Prince feels chilled by these words.

The ball continues until six in the morning. Ladies’ dresses are disheveled, men are pale from vomiting, and dirty dishes litter the tables—but nobody wants to be the first to leave. Instead of taking the carriage home with his family, the Prince decides to walk home to enjoy the fresh air. He also wants to look at the one or two remaining stars in the sky. Their distance and seeming unchangeable nature comforts him as always. He watches a wagon filled with recently slaughtered bulls pass by, blood dripping onto the street. The Prince sighs, looks up at Venus again, and wonders when he will be allowed to join the stars, far away from death, in eternal certainty.