Read Sicilian Tragedee for Free Online

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,” says Caporeale.
    “Screw Tomasi di Lampedusa and his Leopard ; he was pretty fond of that aristocratic di , wasn’t he? However, it doesn’t seem to me that the guy in the zoot suit and the little blond blow-job artist are actually dancing together.”
    “Who?”
    Cosentino points with his chin.
    “No, no, I was referring to Cagnotto and his new conquest.” Cosentino turns to look. “They’re not dancing either.”
    “Wrong, those two are ballroom dancing, with the accent on ball.”
     
     
    Goethe, in his Italian Journey , wrote of Palazzo Biscari:

    CATANIA, MAY 3, 1787
    We were about to take our leave when [the Prince] took us to his mother’s suite to see the rest of his smaller works of art. Then we were introduced to a distinguished-looking lady, who received us
with the words, “Look around, you will find everything just as my dear husband arranged it. This I owe to the filial devotion of my son, who not only allows me to live in his best rooms but also will not allow a single object in his father’s collection to be removed or displaced. In consequence I enjoy the double advantage of living in the fashion I have been accustomed to for so long, and of making the acquaintance of eminent foreigners, who, as in former times, come here from far-off countries to look at our treasures …”
    We were sorry to have to leave her and she was sorry to see us go.

    On this occasion there is no sorrow in Palazzo Biscari when it comes time to bid the guests farewell. Nor are the guests sorry to leave the palazzo. Tight shoes, pinching bodices, sweaty crowd, melting makeup, and fried eggplant: all are grateful to see the end of the celebration in honor of Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli.
    Outside, on the terrace, the white putti lit up by the sun look as if they need to take a piss.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Car Theater Elegance
    “Car Theater Elegance. E-Class Mercedes. Two 5.8-inch monitors in 16:9 format installed in the front headrests?” asks Turi Pirrotta, in the kitchen, reading aloud from a dealer’s brochure.
    Betty’s face is sodden with tears and mascara is running down her cheeks. (When the fuck had she put on that mascara, when it was still practically dawn?) “Yeah, that’s right, the Mercedes with the TV,” says Betty, all pragmatism.
    Last night Turi Pirrotta, feeling fucked over as always in recent months, needless to say because of that slimeball Turrisi and his petrochemical investments in the Ispica countryside, had to take two Ambien to go to sleep.
    And a quarter of an hour ago he had been shaken out of bed by the shrieks of Betty, who was howling as if somebody were dissolving her body in quicklime.
    Accustomed by now to his daughter’s hysterics, Pirrotta was only moderately concerned, and rose from his bed swearing, took a look at his wife (that other bitch who slept like a baby, with an eye mask on her face that looked like she was riding on a jumbo jet and two
earplugs with cords like Tampax), put on his dressing gown, threaded his toes into his slippers, went flying as he tripped over the African footstool, got up somewhat rattled, ran to Betty’s room, and found her on her knees in the bathroom with her head inside the toilet bowl, while she vomited ranting nasally (the screams echoing off the porcelain of the toilet bowl), “That bitch Anna! They did an article about her in the paper. For that hopeless party of hers in Taormina. That ass-kissing-bitch-of-a-goddamned-whore!”
    Her pale white arm pointing, Betty indicated La Voce della Sicilia , crumpled up and tossed in the sink.
    Pirrotta took the newspaper, sat on the rim of the bathtub, put on his glasses which he took from the pocket of his