Free The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa Page A

felt soothed. With the upper part of the towel in his hands at last he began drying his hair, whiskers, and neck, while with the lower end the humiliated Father Pirrone rubbed his feet.
    When the peak and slopes of the mountain were dry, the Prince said, "Now sit down, Father, and tell me why you're in such a hurry to talk to me." And as the Jesuit sat down he began some more intimate moppings on his own.
    "Well, Excellency, I've been given a most delicate commission. One who is very dear to you indeed has opened her heart to me and charged me to tell you of her feelings, trusting, perhaps wrongly, that the consideration with which I am honored . . ." Father Pirrone hesitated and hovered from phrase to phrase.
    Don Fabrizio lost patience. "Well, come on, Father, who is it? The Princess?" And his raised arm seemed to be threatening: in fact he was drying an armpit.
    "The Princess is tired; she"s asleep and I have not seen her. No, it is the Signorina Concetta." Pause. "She is in love." A man of forty-five can consider himself still young till the moment comes when he realizes that he has children old enough to fall in love. The Prince felt old age come over him in one blow; he forgot the huge distances still tramped out shooting, the "Gesummaria" he could still evoke from his wife, how fresh he now was at the end of a long and arduous journey. Suddenly he saw himself as a white-haired old man walking beside herds of grandchildren on billy goats in the public gardens of Villa Giulia.
    "Why ever did the silly girl go and tell you such a thing? Why not come to me? " He did not even ask who the man was; there was no need to.
    "Your Excellency hides his fatherly heart almost too well under the mask of authority. It's quite understandable that the poor girl should be frightened of you, and so fall back on the family chaplain."
    Don Fabrizio slipped on his long drawers and snorted; he foresaw long interviews, tears, endless bother. The silly girl was spoiling his first day at Donnafugata with her fancies. "I know, Father, I know. Here no one really understands me. It's my misfortune." He was sitting now on a stool with the fuzz of fair hair on his chest dotted with pearly drops of water. Rivulets were snaking over the tiles, and the room was full of the milky smell of bran and the almond smell of soap. "Well, what should I say, in your opinion? "
    The Jesuit was sweating in the heat of the little room, and now that his message had been delivered would have liked to go, but he was held back by a feeling of responsibility. "The wish to found a Christian family is most agreeable to the eyes of the Church. The presence of Our Lord at the marriage in Cana . . ."
    "Let's keep to the point, shall we? I wish to talk about this marriage, not about marriage in general. Has Don Tancredi made any definite proposal, by any chance, and if so, when?" For five years Father Pirrone had tried to teach the boy Latin; for seven years he had put up with his quips and pranks; like everyone else, he had felt his charm. But Tancredi's recent political attitudes had offended him; his old affection was struggling now with a new rancor. He did not know what to say. "Well, not a real proposal, exactly, no. But the Signorina Concetta is quite certain: his attentions, his glances, his remarks, have all become more and more open and frequent and quite convinced the dear creature; she is sure that she is loved; but, being an obedient and respectful daughter, she wants me to find out from you what her answer is to be if a proposal does come. She thinks it imminent." The Prince felt a little reassured; however, did a chit of a girl like that think she had acquired enough experience to be able to judge so surely the behavior of a young man, and particularly of a young man like Tancredi? Perhaps it was just imagination, one of those "golden dreams" which convulse the pillows of schoolgirls. The danger might not be so near. Danger. The word resounded so clearly in his