The Silent Duchess Read Online Free PDF

for her as a group; even today they have only done so after much cajoling and patience.
    The gap left by their bodies is now filled by jasmine, dwarf palm trees and olive trees that slope down towards the sea. Why not paint this calm, immutable landscape instead of the brothers who never stay still for a moment? It has more depth and mystery and it has obligingly posed for centuries and is always there ready to be played with.
    Marianna's youthful hand reaches out towards another canvas and puts it on the easel in place of the first. She dips her brush into a soft oily green. Where should she begin? With the fresh brilliant emerald green of the dwarf palm trees or the shimmering turquoise of the grove of olive trees or the green streaked with yellow of the slopes of Monte Catalfano?
    Or she could paint the lodge, which was built by her grandfather Mariano Ucr@ia, with its square squat shape, its windows more suited to a tower than a hunting lodge in the country. She feels certain that one day it will be transformed into a villa and she will live there even through the winter because her roots are sunk into that soil, which she loves more than the cobblestones of Palermo.
    While she remains poised irresolutely with the brush dripping paint on to her canvas, she feels herself pulled by the sleeve. She turns. It is Agata, who presents her with a piece of paper.
    "Come--the puppeteer has arrived." From the handwriting she recognises that the invitation comes from Signoretto, though as a matter of fact it sounds more like a command than an invitation.
    She gets up, wipes her paintbrush, still
    dripping with green paint, on a small damp rag, cleans her hands by rubbing them against her striped apron and walks with her sister towards the entrance to the courtyard.
    Carlo, Geraldo, Fiammetta and
    Signoretto are already crowding round Tutui, the puppet master. He has left his donkey by the fig tree and is about to put up his theatre. Four vertical poles intersect with three horizontal planks and between them they support about four yards of black cloth. Meanwhile, leaning from the windows are the servants, Innocenza the cook, Don Raffaele Cuffa and even her ladyship the Duchess, towards whom the puppet master directs a low bow. The Duchess throws him a ten tar@i coin which he picks up quickly. He pockets it under his shirt, makes another theatrical bow and goes off to get his puppets from a saddle bag hanging down over the haunches of his donkey.
    Marianna has already witnessed those blows, those heads that slump beneath the platform only to reappear soon after, bold and unredeemed; for every year at this time Tutui appears at the lodge in Bagheria to amuse the children. Every year the Duchess throws him a ten tar@i piece and the puppet master wears himself out with bows and greetings so exaggerated that it seems almost as if he is pulling her leg. Meanwhile, no one knows how, the word has spread and dozens of children are crowding in from the surrounding countryside. The servants come down into the courtyard, drying their hands and tidying their hair. Among them is the cowman Don Ciccio Cal@o with his twin daughters Lina and Lena, the gardener Peppi Geraci with his wife Maria and their four sons, and of course the footman Don Peppino Cannarota.
    Soon on comes Nardo, who starts to beat Tiberio boom boom boom. The show has begun, while the children are still playing around. But a moment later they are all seated on the ground, heads in the air, eyes fixed on the stage.
    Marianna remains standing a little apart. The children unnerve her: she has too often been a target for their teasing. They jump on to her without letting her see them and make fun of her reaction, they bet with each other who can let off a fire cracker without her catching them.
    Meanwhile from the background of black cloth a new object is unexpectedly appearing. It
    is a gibbet, something that has never before been seen in Tutui's theatre. At its appearance the