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Angelica Sedàra
Princess Maria Stella is the Prince of Salina’s husband and the mother of their seven children. The Princess is a tiny woman inclined to hysterical fits who yearns for her husband despite his frequent infidelity. The Princess affectionately dominates her seven children. She is also a deeply devout Catholic, with a fervor and accompanying prudishness that the Prince finds off-putting.
Princess Maria Stella Quotes in The Leopard
The The Leopard quotes below are all either spoken by Princess Maria Stella or refer to Princess Maria Stella. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1. Introduction to the Prince Quotes
Suddenly he was swept by a gust of tenderness toward himself. “I’m just a poor, weak creature,” he thought as his heavy steps crunched the dirty gravel. “I’m weak and without support. Stella! Oh well, the Lord knows how much I’ve loved her; but I was married at twenty. And now she’s too bossy, as well as too old […] seven children I’ve had with her, seven; and never once have I seen her navel. Is that right?” Now, whipped by this odd anguish, he was almost shouting, “Is it right? I ask you all […] Why, she’s the real sinner!”
Related Characters:
Prince Don Fabrizio Corbèra (speaker), Princess Maria Stella
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Page Number and Citation:
24
Explanation and Analysis:
One evening, after losing his temper with his family, the Prince comforts himself with a visit to a favorite prostitute in Palermo—but he feels guilty about his actions. On the way, he engages in a series of self-justifications for his infidelity. His primary excuse is that he and the Princess, Maria Stella, have been married for a long time, and that her personality has become distasteful to him over the years. In addition, she is prudish, despite having had many children with him, and she can’t satisfy his desires. The Prince twists this excuse in order to exonerate himself from blame for seeking satisfaction elsewhere—even casting Maria Stella as the true offender in their marriage, not himself.
This quote is an example of the contrast between love and sensual lust throughout the novel. Through the Prince’s infidelity and his attempts to justify his wrongdoings to himself, Lampedusa implicitly argues that real love is characterized by selflessness and concern for another person—qualities that the Prince seemingly lacks. When these things are lacking, a person can only fall back on lust, which can’t sustain happiness in the long run. The Prince’s love for his wife is thus fundamentally distorted and weakened by his uncontained lust.
Chapter 2. Donnafugata Quotes
At the bottom of the steps the authorities took their leave, and the Princess […] invited the Mayor, the Archpriest, and the notary to dine that same evening. […] And [the Prince] added, turning to the others, “And after dinner, at nine o’clock, we shall be happy to see all our friends.” For a long time Donnafugata commented on these last words. And the Prince, who had found Donnafugata unchanged, was found very much changed himself, for never before would he have issued so cordial an invitation; and from that moment, invisibly, began the decline of his prestige.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6. A Ball Quotes
They were the most moving sight there, two young people in love dancing together, blind to each other’s defects, deaf to the warnings of fate, deluding themselves that the whole course of their lives would be as smooth as the ballroom floor, unknowing actors made to play the parts of Juliet and Romeo by a director who had concealed the fact that tomb and poison were already in the script. Neither of them was good, each full of self-interest, swollen with secret aims; yet there was something sweet and touching about them both; those murky but ingenuous ambitions of theirs were obliterated by the words of jesting tenderness he was murmuring in her ear, by the scent of her hair, by the mutual clasp of those bodies of theirs destined to die.
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Princess Maria Stella Character Timeline in The Leopard
The timeline below shows where the character Princess Maria Stella appears in The Leopard. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1. Introduction to the Prince
As the Salina children and the small, domineering Princess depart, the huge Prince, Fabrizio, towers over them all. He is tall and strong with...
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...angry. Though the Prince doesn’t explode, his anger smolders throughout dinner. At one point, the Princess strokes his hand soothingly, and the Prince feels a surge of desire. However, this prompts...
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...of his sleeping wife. Troubled and unable to sleep himself, he has sex with Maria Stella before dawn.
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Chapter 2. Donnafugata
After the service, the Princess invites the Mayor and a couple of other dignitaries to dinner; everyone is amazed when...
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...in which they had left it. (Don Onofrio is renowned for once having left the Princess’s liqueur sitting untouched for an entire year.) The Prince takes an approving tour of the...
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Chapter 3. The Troubles of Don Fabrizio
...the necessity of undergoing marriage negotiations with the likes of Don Calogero. Yet when the Princess protests the match, the Prince sternly informs her that his mind is made up.
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Chapter 4. Love at Donnafugata
...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...
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...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...
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Chapter 6. A Ball
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,...
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...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...
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Chapter 7. Death of a Prince
...aware of their decline. His daughters imagine an afterlife just like this one, and Maria Stella clung to the present life even while suffering from diabetes.
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...beyond which lies his home, with its observatory, its paintings, and the bed in which Stella had died. Thinking about the loss of his beloved possessions, the Prince forgets about his...
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