"... in the secret apartment but in the venerated one called the Apartment of Saint-Duke, where in the middle of the seventeenth century a Salina had withdrawn as if into a private monastery, there to do penance and prepare his own journey toward heaven. They were small low rooms, with floors of humble brick, whitewashed walls, like those of the poorest peasants. The last of these opened on to a balcony which overlooked the yellow expanse of estate after estate, all immersed in sad light. On one wall was a huge crucifix, more than life-sized; the head of the martyred God touched the ceiling, the bleeding feet grazed the floor; the wound in the ribs seemed like a mouth prevented by brutality from pronouncing the words of ultimate salvation. Next to the Divine Body there hung from a nail a lash with a short handle, from which dangled six strips of now-hardened leather ending in six lumps of lead as big as walnuts. This was the 'discipline' of the Saint-Duke. ... 'There,' said Tancredi, 'you're like that whip there, you're used for the same ends.'"
The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa