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Title: The Miracles of Antichrist: A Novel

Author: Selma Lagerlöf

Translator: Pauline Bancroft Flach

Release date: April 27, 2017 [eBook #54615]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading
        Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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Produced by MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading
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The Miracles of Antichrist




               BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

    THE EMPEROR OF PORTUGALLIA

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)

    JERUSALEM, A Novel

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)

    THE STORY OF GÖSTA BERLING

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Pauline Bancroft Flach_)

    THE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF NILS

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)

    THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NILS

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)

    THE GIRL FROM THE MARSH CROFT

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)

    THE LEGEND OF THE SACRED IMAGE

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)

    THE MIRACLES OF ANTICHRIST

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Pauline Bancroft Flach_)

    CHRIST LEGENDS

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)

    FROM A SWEDISH HOMESTEAD

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Jessie Brochner_)

    INVISIBLE LINKS

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Pauline Bancroft Flach_)

    LILLIECRONA’S HOME

    (_Trans. from Swedish by Anna Barwell_)




                              THE MIRACLES
                             _of_ ANTICHRIST

                                _A NOVEL_

                           FROM THE SWEDISH OF
                             SELMA LAGERLÖF

                              TRANSLATED BY
                         PAULINE BANCROFT FLACH

                             [Illustration]

                        GARDEN CITY      NEW YORK
                        DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
                                  1919

                          _Copyright, 1899, by_
                        DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

                 _All rights reserved, including that of
                   translation into foreign languages_




CONTENTS


                         INTRODUCTION:

    CHAPTER                                        PAGE

          I THE EMPEROR’S VISION                      1

         II ROME’S HOLY CHILD                         9

        III ON THE BARRICADE                         19

                          FIRST BOOK

          I MONGIBELLO                               25

         II FRA GAETANO                              39

        III THE GOD-SISTER                           48

         IV DIAMANTE                                 62

          V DON FERRANTE                             64

         VI DON MATTEO’S MISSION                     71

        VII THE BELLS OF SAN PASQUALE                77

       VIII TWO SONGS                               113

         IX FLIGHT                                  125

          X THE SIROCCO                             128

         XI THE FEAST OF SAN SEBASTIANO             156

                           SECOND BOOK

          I A GREAT MAN’S WIFE                      185

         II PANEM ET CIRCENSES                      193

        III THE OUTCAST                             204

         IV THE OLD MARTYRDOM                       213

          V THE LADY WITH THE IRON RING             226

         VI FRA FELICE’S LEGACY                     229

        VII AFTER THE MIRACLE                       252

       VIII A JETTATORE                             255

         IX PALAZZO GERACI AND PALAZZO CORVAJA      270

          X FALCO FALCONE                           286

         XI VICTORY                                 315

                          THIRD BOOK

          I THE OASIS AND THE DESERT                323

         II IN PALERMO                              329

        III THE HOME-COMING                         338

         IV ONLY OF THIS WORLD                      354

          V A FRESCO OF SIGNORELLI                  373




The Miracles of Antichrist




INTRODUCTION

“_When Antichrist comes, he shall seem as Christ_”




I

THE EMPEROR’S VISION


It was at the time when Augustus was emperor in Rome and Herod was king
in Jerusalem.

It happened once upon a time that a very great and holy night sank down
over the earth. It was the darkest night ever seen by man; it seemed
as if the whole earth had passed under a vault. It was impossible to
distinguish water from land, or to find the way on the most familiar
paths. And it could not be otherwise, for not a ray of light came from
the sky. All the stars stayed in their houses, and the fair moon kept her
face turned away.

And just as intense as the darkness was the silence and the calm. The
rivers stood still in their course; the wind did not stir, and even the
leaves of the aspen ceased to tremble. Any one walking by the sea would
have found that the waves no longer broke on the shore, and the sand of
the desert did not crunch under the wanderer’s foot. Everything was as
if turned to stone and without motion, in order not to disturb the holy
night. The grass did not dare to grow, the dew could not fall, and the
flowers feared to exhale their perfume.

During that night the beasts of prey did not hunt, the serpents did not
sting, the dogs did not bay. And what was even more wonderful, none of
the inanimate things would have disturbed the holiness of the night by
lending themselves to an evil deed. No false key could open a lock, and
no knife could shed blood.

In Rome, on that very night, a little group of people came down from the
emperor’s palace on the Palatine and made their way over the Forum to
the Capitol. During the day just completed his councillors had asked the
emperor if they might not raise a temple to him on Rome’s holy mountain.
But Augustus had not immediately given his consent. He did not know
if it would be pleasing to the gods for him to possess a temple next
to theirs, and he had answered that he wished first to discover by a
nocturnal sacrifice to his genius what their wishes were. Followed by a
few faithful retainers, he was now on his way to perform that sacrifice.

Augustus was carried in his litter, for he was old, and the long stairs
to the Capitol fatigued him. He held the cage of doves which was his
offering. Neither priests, nor soldiers, nor councillors accompanied him;
only his nearest friends. Torch-bearers walked in front of him, as if to
force a way through the darkness of the night, and behind him followed
slaves, carrying the tripod, the charcoal, the knives, the holy fire, and
everything needed for the sacrifice.

On the way the emperor chatted gayly with his retainers, and none of
them noticed the infinite silence and calm of the night. It was only on
reaching the open place on the top of the Capitol, which had been thought
of for the new temple, that it was revealed to them that something
unusual was occurring.

It could not be a night like any other, for on the edge of the cliff they
saw the strangest being. They thought at first that it was an old twisted
olive trunk; then they thought that an ancient statue from the temple of
Jupiter had wandered out on the cliff. At last they saw that it could
only be the old sibyl.

They had never seen anything so old, so weather-beaten, and so gigantic.
If the emperor had not been there, they would have all fled home to their
beds. “It is she,” they whispered to each other, “who counts as many
years as there are grains of sand on her native shores. Why has she come
out of her cave to-night? What does she foretell to the emperor and to
the country, she who writes her prophecies on the leaves of trees, and
knows that the wind carries the words of the oracle to him who needs
them?”

They were so terrified that all would have fallen on their knees with
their foreheads to the ground had the sibyl made the slightest movement.
But she sat as still as if she had been without life. Crouched on the
very edge of the cliff, and shading her eyes with her hand, she stared
out into the night. She sat there as if she had gone up on the hill the
better to see something happening far away. She alone could see something
in the black night!

At the same moment the emperor and all his suite perceived how intense
the darkness was. Not one of them could see a hand’s-breadth in front
of him. And what a calm, what silence! They could not even hear the
rippling murmur of the Tiber. The air seemed to choke them; a cold sweat
came out on their foreheads, and their hands were stiff and powerless.
They thought that something dreadful must be impending.

But no one liked to show that he was afraid, and everybody told the
emperor that it was a good omen; nature herself held her breath to greet
a new god.

They urged Augustus to hurry, and said that the old sibyl had probably
come up from her cave to greet his genius.

But the truth was that the old sibyl, engrossed in a vision, did not even
know that Augustus had come to the Capitol. She was transported in spirit
to a far distant land, where she thought she was wandering over a great
plain. In the darkness she kept striking her foot against something,
which she thought to be tufts of grass. She bent down and felt with her
hand. No, they were not tufts of grass, but sheep. She was walking among
great sleeping flocks of sheep.

Then she perceived the fire of the shepherds. It was burning in the
middle of the plain, and she approached it. The shepherds were lying
asleep by the fire, and at their sides they had long, pointed staves,
with which they defended their flocks from wild beasts. But the little
animals with shining eyes and bushy tails, which crept forward to the
fire, were they not jackals? And yet the shepherds did not throw their
staves at them; the dogs continued to sleep; the sheep did not flee; and
the wild beasts lay down to rest beside the men.

All this the sibyl saw, but of what was going on behind her on the
mountain she knew nothing. She did not know that people were raising
an altar, lighting charcoal, strewing incense, and that the emperor was
taking one of the doves out of the cage to make a sacrifice to her.
But his hands were so benumbed that he could not hold the bird. With a
single flap of her wings the dove freed herself, and disappeared into the
darkness of the night.

When that happened, the courtiers looked suspiciously at the old sibyl.
They thought that it was she who was the cause of the misfortune.

Could they know that the sibyl still thought she was standing by the
shepherds’ fire, and that she was now listening to a faint sound which
came vibrating through the dead silence of the night? She had heard it
for a long time before she noticed that it came from the sky, and not
from the earth. At last she raised her head, and saw bright, glistening
forms gliding about up in the darkness. They were small bands of angels,
who, singing, and apparently searching, flew up and down the wide plain.

While the sibyl listened to the angels’ song, the emperor was preparing
for a new sacrifice. He washed his hands, purified the altar, and grasped
the other dove. But although he now made a special effort to hold it
fast, the bird slipped through his fingers, and swung itself up into the
impenetrable night.

The emperor was appalled. He fell on his knees before the empty altar
and prayed to his genius. He called on him for strength to avert the
misfortunes which this night seemed to portend.

Nothing of all this had the sibyl heard. She was listening with her
whole soul to the angels’ song, which was growing stronger and stronger.
At last it became so loud that it wakened the shepherds. They raised
themselves on their elbows, and saw shining hosts of silvery angels
moving in the darkness in long, fluttering lines, like birds of passage.
Some had lutes and violins in their hands; others had zithers and harps,
and their song sounded as gay as children’s laughter, and as free from
care as the trilling of a lark. When the shepherds heard it they rose up
to go to the village which was their home, to tell of the miracle.

They went by a narrow, winding path, and the sibyl followed them.
Suddenly it became light on the mountain. A great, bright star kindled
over it, and the village on its top shone like silver in the starlight.
All the wandering bands of angels hastened thither with cries of
jubilation, and the shepherds hurried on so fast that they almost ran.
When they had reached the town they found that the angels had gathered
over a low stable near the gate. It was a wretched building, with roof of
straw, and the bare rock for one wall. Above it hung the star, and more
and more angels kept coming. Some of them placed themselves on the straw
roof, or settled down on the steep cliff behind the house; others hovered
over it with fluttering wings. High, high up, the air was lighted by
their shining wings.

At the moment when the star flamed out over the mountain-village all
nature awoke, and the men who stood on the top of the Capitol were
conscious of it. They felt fresh, but caressing breezes; sweet perfumes
streamed up about them; the trees rustled; the Tiber murmured, the stars
shone, and the moon stood high in the heaven and lighted the world.
And out of the sky the two doves flew circling down, and lighted on the
emperor’s shoulders.

When this miracle took place Augustus rose up with proud joy, but his
friends and his slaves fell on their knees. “Hail, Cæsar!” they cried.
“Your genius has answered you! You are the god who shall be worshipped on
the heights of the Capitol.”

And the tribute which the men in their transport offered the emperor was
so loud that the old sibyl heard it. It waked her from her visions. She
rose from her place on the edge of the cliff, and came forward toward the
people. It seemed as if a dark cloud had risen up from the abyss and sunk
down over the mountain. She was terrifying in her old age. Coarse hair
hung in thin tufts about her head, her joints were thickened, and her
dark skin, hard as bark, covered her body with wrinkle upon wrinkle.

Mighty and awe-inspiring, she advanced towards the emperor. With one hand
she seized his wrist, with the other she pointed towards the distant east.

“Look,” she commanded, and the emperor raised his eyes and saw. The
heavens opened before his eyes and he looked away to the far east. And
he saw a miserable stable by a steep cliff, and in the open door some
kneeling shepherds. Within the stable he saw a young mother on her knees
before a little child, who lay on a bundle of straw on the floor.

And the sibyl’s big, bony fingers pointed towards that poor child.

“Hail, Cæsar!” said the sibyl, with a scornful laugh. “There is the god
who shall be worshipped on the heights of the Capitol.”

Augustus shrank back from her as if from a maniac.

But upon the sibyl fell the mighty spirit of the prophetess. Her dim eyes
began to burn, her hands were stretched towards heaven, her voice did not
seem to be her own, but rang with such strength that it could have been
heard over the whole world. And she spoke words which she seemed to have
read in the stars:--

    “On the heights of the Capitol the redeemer of the world shall be
        worshipped,
    Christ or Antichrist, but no frail mortal.”

When she had spoken she moved away between the terrified men, went slowly
down the mountain, and disappeared.

Augustus, the next day, strictly forbade his people to raise him any
temple on the Capitol. In its place he built a sanctuary to the new-born
godchild and called it “Heaven’s Altar,” Aracoeli.




II

ROME’S HOLY CHILD


On the summit of the Capitol stood a monastery occupied by Franciscan
monks. It was, however, less a monastery than a fortress. It was like a
watch-tower by the seashore, where watch was kept for an approaching foe.

Near the monastery stood the magnificent basilica “Santa Maria in
Aracoeli.” The basilica was built because the sibyl had caused Augustus
to see Christ. But the monastery was built because they feared the
fulfilment of the sibyl’s prophecy; that Antichrist should come to be
worshipped on the Capitol.

And the monks felt like warriors. When they went to church to sing and
pray, they thought that they were walking on ramparts, and sending
showers of arrows down on the assaulting Antichrist.

They lived always in terror of Antichrist, and all their service was a
struggle to keep him away from the Capitolium.

They drew their hats down over their eyes and sat and gazed out into
the world. Their eyes grew feverish with watching, and they continually
thought they discovered Antichrist. “He is here, he is there!” they
cried. And they fluttered up in their brown robes and braced themselves
for the struggle, as crows gather on a crag when they catch a glimpse of
an eagle.

But some said: “What is the use of prayers and penitence? The sibyl has
said it. Antichrist must come.”

Then others said, “God can work a miracle. If it was of no avail to
struggle, He would not have let the sibyl warn us.”

Year after year the Franciscans defended the Capitol by penitences, and
works of charity, and the promulgation of God’s word.

They protected it century after century, but as time went on, men
became more and more feeble and lacking in force. The monks said among
themselves: “Soon the kingdoms of the earth can stand no longer. A
redeemer of the world is needed as in the time of Augustus.”

They tore their hair and scourged themselves, for they knew that he who
was to be born again must be the Antichrist, and that it would be a
regeneration of force and violence.

As a sick man is tormented by his pain, so were they hunted by the
thought of Antichrist. And they saw him before them. He was as rich as
Christ had been poor, as wicked as Christ had been good, as honored as
Christ had been humiliated.

He bore powerful weapons and marched at the head of bloody evil-doers.
He overturned the churches, murdered the priests, and armed people for
strife, so that brother fought against brother, and each feared his
neighbor, and there was no peace.

And for every person of power and might who made his way over the sea of
time, they cried out from the watch-tower on the Capitol: “Antichrist,
Antichrist!”

And for every one who disappeared, and went under, the monks cried:
“Hosanna!” and sang the “Te Deum.” And they said: “It is because of our
prayers that the wicked fall before they succeed in scaling the Capitol.”

It was a hard punishment that in that beautiful monastery its monks could
never feel at rest. Their nights were heavier than their days. Then they
saw wild beasts come into their cells and stretch themselves out beside
them on their beds. And each wild beast was Antichrist. But some of the
monks saw him as a dragon, and others as a griffin, and others as a
sphinx. When they got up from their dreams they were as weak as after a
severe illness.

The only comfort of these poor monks was the miracle-working image of
Christ, which was kept in the basilica of Aracoeli. When a monk was
frightened to desperation, he went into the church to seek consolation
from it. He would go through the whole basilica and into a well-guarded
chapel at the side of the great altar. There he lighted the consecrated
wax candles, and spoke a prayer, before opening the altar shrine, which
had double locks and doors of iron. And as long as he gazed at the image,
he remained upon his knees.

The image represented a little babe, but he had a gold crown upon his
head, gold shoes upon his feet, and his whole dress shone with jewels,
which were given to him by those in distress, who had called on him for
help. And the walls of the chapel were covered with pictures, which
showed how he had saved from dangers of fire and shipwreck, how he had
cured the sick and helped all those who were in trouble. When the monk
saw it he rejoiced, and said to himself: “Praise be to God! As yet it is
Christ who is worshipped on the Capitol.”

The monk saw the face of the image smile at him with mysterious,
conscious power, and his spirit soared up into the holy realms of
confidence. “What can overthrow you in your might?” he said. “What can
overthrow you? To you the Eternal City bends its knees. You are Rome’s
Holy Child. Yours is the crown which the people worship. You come in
your might with help and strength and consolation. You alone shall be
worshipped on the Capitol.”

The monk saw the crown of the image turn into a halo, which sent out rays
over the whole world. And in whatever direction he followed the rays he
saw the world full of churches, where Christ was worshipped. It seemed
as if a powerful conqueror had shown him all the castles and fortresses
which defended his kingdom. “It is certain that you cannot fall,” said
the monk. “Your kingdom will be everlasting.”

And every monk who saw the image had a few hours of consolation and
peace, until fear seized him again. But had the monks not possessed the
image, their souls would not have found a moment’s rest.

Thus had the monks of Aracoeli, by prayers and struggles, worked their
way through the centuries, and there had never lacked for watchers; as
soon as one had been exhausted by terror and anxiety, others had hurried
forward to take his place.

And although most of those who entered the monastery were struck down by
madness or premature death, the succession of monks never diminished,
for it was held a great honor before God to wage the war on Aracoeli.

So it happened that sixty years ago this struggle still went on, and in
the degenerate times the monks fought with greater eagerness than ever
before, and awaited the certain coming of Antichrist.

At that time a rich Englishwoman came to Rome. She went up to the
Aracoeli and saw the image, and he charmed her so that she thought she
could not live if she did not possess him. She went again and again up to
Aracoeli to see the image, and at last she asked the monks if she might
buy him.

But even if she had covered the whole mosaic floor in the great basilica
with gold coins, the monks would not have been willing to sell her that
image, which was their only consolation.

Still the Englishwoman was attracted beyond measure by the image, and
found no joy nor peace without it. Unable to accomplish her object by any
other means, she determined to steal the image. She did not think of the
sin she was committing; she felt only a strong compulsion and a burning
thirst, and preferred to risk her soul rather than to deny her heart the
joy of possessing the object of her longing. And to accomplish her end,
she first had an image made exactly like the one on Aracoeli.

The image on Aracoeli was carved from olive wood from the gardens of
Gethsemane; but the Englishwoman dared to have an image carved from elm
wood, which was exactly like him. The image on Aracoeli was not painted
by mortal hand. When the monk who had carved him had taken up his
brushes and colors, he fell asleep over his work. And when he awoke,
the image was colored,--self-painted as a sign that God loved him. But
the Englishwoman was bold enough to let an earthly painter paint her elm
image so that he was like the holy image.

For the false image she procured a crown and shoes, but they were not of
gold; they were only tin and gilding. She ordered ornaments; she bought
rings, and necklaces, and chains, and bracelets, and diamond suns--but
they were all brass and glass; and she dressed him as those seeking help
had dressed the true image. When the image was ready she took a needle
and scratched in the crown: “My kingdom is only of this world.” It was
as if she was afraid that she herself would not be able to distinguish
one image from the other. And it was as if she had wished to appease her
own conscience. “I have not wished to make a false Christ image. I have
written in his crown: ‘My kingdom is only of this world.’”

Thereupon she wrapped herself in a big cloak, hid the image under it, and
went up to Aracoeli. And she asked that she might be allowed to say her
prayers before the Christchild.

When she stood in the sanctuary, and the candles were lighted, and the
iron door opened, and the image showed itself to her, she began to
tremble and shake and looked as if she were going to faint. The monk who
was with her hurried into the sacristy after water and she was left alone
in the chapel. And when he came back she had committed the sacrilege.
She had exchanged the holy, miracle-working image, and put the false and
impotent one in his place.

The monk saw nothing. He shut in the false image behind iron doors
and double locks, and the Englishwoman went home with the treasure of
Aracoeli. She placed him in her palace on a pedestal of marble and was
more happy than she had ever been before.

Up on Aracoeli, where no one knew what injury they had suffered, they
worshipped the false Christ image as they had worshipped the true one,
and when Christmas came they built for him in the church, as was the
custom, a most beautiful niche. There he lay, shining like a jewel, on
Maria’s knees, and about him shepherds and angels and wise men were
arranged. And as long as he lay there children came from Rome, and the
Campagna, and were lifted up on a little pulpit in the basilica of
Aracoeli, and they preached on the sweetness and tenderness and nobleness
and power of the little Christchild.

But the Englishwoman lived in great terror that some one would discover
that she had stolen the Christ image of Aracoeli. Therefore she confessed
to no one that the image she had was the real one. “It is a copy,” she
said; “it is as like the real one as it can be, but it is only copied.”

Now it happened that she had a little Italian servant girl. One day when
the latter went through the room she stopped before the image and spoke
to him. “You poor Christchild, who are no Christchild,” she said, “if you
only knew how the real child lies in his glory in the niche in Aracoeli
and how Maria and San Giuseppe and the shepherds are kneeling before him!
And if you knew how the children place themselves on a little pulpit just
in front of him, and how they courtesy, and kiss their fingers to him,
and preach for him as beautifully as they can!”

A few days after the little maid came again and spoke to the image. “You
poor Christchild, who are no Christchild,” she said, “do you know that
to-day I have been up in Aracoeli and have seen how the true child was
carried in the procession? They held a canopy over him, all the people
fell on their knees, and they sang and played before him. Never will you
see anything so wonderful!”

And mark that a few days later the little maid came again and spoke to
the image: “Do you know, Christchild, who are not a real Christchild,
that it is better for you to stand where you are standing? For the real
child is called to the sick and is driven to them in his gold-laced
carriage, but _he_ cannot help them and they die in despair. And people
begin to say that Aracoeli’s holy child has lost his power to do good,
and that prayers and tears do not move him. It is better for you to stand
where you are standing than to be called upon and not to be able to help.”

But the next night a miracle came to pass. About midnight a loud ringing
was heard at the cloister gate at Aracoeli. And when the gate-keeper did
not come quickly enough to open, some one began to knock. It sounded
clear, like ringing metal, and it was heard through the whole monastery.
All the monks leaped from their beds. All who had been tortured by
terrible dreams rose at one time, and believed that Antichrist was come.

But when they opened the door--when they opened it! It was the little
Christ image that stood on the threshold. It was his little hand that
had pulled the bell-rope; it was his little, gold-shod foot that had
been stretched out to kick the door.

The gate-keeper instantly took the holy child up in his arms. Then he saw
that it had tears in its eyes. Alas, the poor, holy child had wandered
through the town by night! What had it not seen? So much poverty and so
much want; so much wickedness and so many crimes! It was terrible to
think what it must have experienced.

The gate-keeper went immediately to the prior and showed him the image.
And they wondered how it had come out into the night.

Then the prior had the church bells rung to call the monks to the
service. And all the monks of Aracoeli marched into the great, dim
basilica in order to place the image, with all solemnity, back in its
shrine.

Worn and suffering, they walked and trembled in their heavy homespun
robes. Several of them were weeping, as if they had escaped from some
terrible danger. “What would have happened to us,” they said, “if our
only consolation had been taken from us? Is it not Antichrist who has
tempted out Rome’s holy child from the sheltering sanctuary?”

But when they came to set the Christ image in the shrine of the chapel,
they found there the false child; him who wore the inscription on his
crown: “My kingdom is only of this world.”

And when they examined the image more closely they found the inscription.

Then the prior turned to the monks and spoke to them:--

“Brothers, we will sing the ‘Te Deum,’ and cover the pillars of the
church with silk, and light all the wax candles, and all the hanging
lamps, and we will celebrate a great festival.

“As long as the monastery has stood it has been a home of terror and a
cursed dwelling; but for the suffering of all those who have lived here,
God has been gracious. And now all danger is over.

“God has crowned the fight with victory, and this that you have seen is
the sign that Antichrist shall not be worshipped on the Capitol.

“For in order that the sibyl’s words should be carried out, God has sent
this false image of Christ that bears the words of Antichrist in its
crown, and he has allowed us to worship and adore him as if he had been
the great miracle-worker.

“But now we can rest in joy and peace, for the sibyl’s mystic speech is
fulfilled, and Antichrist has been worshipped here.

“Great is God, the Almighty, who has let our cruel fear be dispelled, and
who has carried out His will without the world needing to gaze upon the
false image made by man.

“Happy is the monastery of Aracoeli that rests under the protection of
God, and does His will, and is blessed by His abounding grace.”

When the prior had said those words he took the false image in his hands,
went through the church, and opened the great door. Thence he walked
out on the terrace. Below him lay the high and broad stairway with its
hundred and nineteen marble steps that leads down from the Capitol as if
into an abyss. And he raised the image over his head and cried aloud:
“Anathema Antikristo!” and hurled him from the summit of the Capitol down
into the world.




III

ON THE BARRICADE


When the rich Englishwoman awoke in the morning she missed the image and
wondered where she should look for him. She believed that no one but
the monks of Aracoeli could have taken him, and she hurried towards the
Capitol to spy and search.

She came to the great marble staircase that leads up to the basilica of
Aracoeli. And her heart beat wildly with joy, for on the lowest step lay
he whom she sought. She seized the image, threw her cloak about him, and
hurried home. And she put him back on his place of honor.

But as she now sank into contemplation of his beauty, she found that the
crown had been dented. She lifted it off the image to see how great the
damage was, and at the same moment her eyes fell on the inscription that
she herself had scratched: “My kingdom is only of this world.”

Then she knew that this was the false Christ image, and that the right
one had returned to Aracoeli.

She despaired of ever again getting it into her possession, and she
decided to leave Rome the next day, for she would not remain there when
she no longer had the image.

But when she left she took the forged image with her, because he reminded
her of the one she loved, and he followed her afterwards on all her
journeys.

She was never at rest and travelled continually, and in that way the
image was carried about over the whole world.

And wherever the image came, the power of Christ seemed to be diminished
without any one rightly understanding why. For nothing could look more
impotent than that poor image of elm wood, dressed out in brass rings and
glass beads.

When the rich Englishwoman who had first owned the image was dead, he
came as an inheritance to another rich Englishwoman, who also travelled
continually, and from her to a third.

Once, and it was still in the time of the first Englishwoman, the image
came to Paris.

As he passed through the great city there was an insurrection. Crowds
rushed wildly screaming through the streets and cried for bread. They
plundered the shops and threw stones at the houses of the rich. Troops
were called out against them, and then they tore up the stones of the
street, dragged together carriages and furniture, and built barricades.

As the rich Englishwoman came driving in her great travelling-carriage,
the mass of people rushed towards it, forced her to leave it, and dragged
the carriage up to one of the barricades.

When they tried to roll the carriage up among all the thousand things of
which the barricade consisted, one of the big trunks fell to the ground.
The cover sprang open, and among other things out rolled the rejected
Christ image.

The people threw themselves upon him to plunder, but they soon saw that
all his grandeur was imitation and quite worthless, and they began to
laugh at him and mock him.

He went from hand to hand among the agitators, until one of them bent
forward to look at his crown. His eyes were attracted by the words which
stood scratched there: “My kingdom is only of this world.”

The man called this out quite loudly, and they all screamed that the
little image should be their badge. They carried him up to the summit of
the barricade and placed him there like a banner.

Among those who defended the barricade was one man who was not a poor
working-man, but a man of education, who had passed his whole life in
study. He knew all the want that tortured mankind, and his heart was full
of sympathy, so that he continually sought means to better their lot. For
thirty years he had written and thought without finding any remedy. Now
on hearing the alarm bell he had obeyed it and rushed into the streets.

He had seized a weapon and gone with the insurgents with the thought that
the riddle which he had been unable to solve should now be made clear by
violence and force, and that the poor should be able to fight their way
to a better lot.

There he stood the whole day and fought; and people fell about him, blood
splashed up into his face, and the misery of life seemed to him greater
and more deplorable than ever before.

But whenever the smoke cleared away, the little image shone before his
eyes; through all the tumult of the fight it stood unmoved high up on the
barricade.

Every time he saw the image the words “My kingdom is only of this world”
flashed through his brain. At last he thought that the words wrote
themselves in the air and began to wave before his eyes, now in fire, now
in blood, now in smoke.

He stood still. He stood there with gun in hand, but he had stopped
fighting. Suddenly he knew that this was the word that he had sought
after all his life. He knew what he would say to the people, and it was
the poor image that had given him the solution.

He would go out into the whole world and proclaim: “Your kingdom is only
of this world.

“Therefore you must care for this life and live like brothers. And you
shall divide your property so that no one is rich and no one poor. You
shall all work, and the earth shall be owned by all, and you shall all be
equal.

“No one shall hunger, no one shall be tempted to luxury, and no one shall
suffer want in his old age.

“And you must think of increasing every one’s happiness, for there is no
compensation awaiting you. Your kingdom is only of this world.”

All this passed through his brain while he stood on the barricade, and
when the thought became clear to him, he laid down his weapon, and did
not lift it again for strife and the shedding of blood.

A moment later the barricade was stormed and taken. The victorious troops
dashed through and quelled the insurrection, and before night order and
peace reigned in the great city.

The Englishwoman sent out her servants to look for her lost possessions,
and they found many, if not all. What they found first of all on the
captured barricade was the image ejected from Aracoeli.

But the man who had been taught during the fight by the image began to
proclaim to the world a new doctrine, which is called Socialism, but
which is an Antichristianity.

And it loves, and renounces, and teaches, and suffers like Christianity,
so that it has every resemblance to the latter, just as the false image
from Aracoeli has every resemblance to the real Christ image.

And like the false image it says: “My kingdom is only of this world.”

And although the image that has spread abroad the teachings is unnoticed
and unknown, the teachings are not; they go through the world to save and
remodel it.

They are spreading from day to day. They go out through all countries,
and bear many names, and they mislead because they promise earthly
happiness and enjoyment to all, and win followers more than any doctrine
that has gone through the world since the time of Christ.




FIRST BOOK

“_There shall be great want_”




I

MONGIBELLO


Towards the end of the seventies there was in Palermo a poor boy whose
name was Gaetano Alagona. That was lucky for him! If he had not been one
of the old Alagonas people would have let him starve to death. He was
only a child, and had neither money nor parents. The Jesuits of Santa
Maria i Jesu had taken him out of charity into the cloister school.

One day, when studying his lesson, a father came and called him from the
school-room, because a cousin wished to see him. What, a cousin! He had
always heard that all his relatives were dead. But Father Josef insisted
that it was a real Signora, who was his relative and wished to take him
out of the monastery. It became worse and worse. Did she want to take him
out of the monastery? That she could never do! He was going to be a monk.

He did not at all wish to see the Signora. Could not Father Josef tell
her that Gaetano would never leave the monastery, and that it was of no
avail to ask him? No, Father Josef said that he could not let her depart
without seeing him, and he half dragged Gaetano into the reception-room.
There she stood by one of the windows. She had gray hair; her skin was
brown; her eyes were black and as round as beads. She had a lace veil on
her head, and her black dress was smooth with wear, and a little green,
like Father Josef’s very oldest cassock.

She made the sign of the cross when she saw Gaetano. “God be praised, he
is a true Alagona!” she said, and kissed his hand.

She said that she was sorry that Gaetano had reached his twelfth year
without any of his family asking after him; but she had not known that
there were any of the other branch alive. How had she found it out now?
Well, Luca had read the name in a newspaper. It had stood among those who
had got a prize. It was a half-year ago now, but it was a long journey to
Palermo. She had had to save and save to get the money for the journey.
She had not been able to come before. But she had to come and see him.
_Santissima madre_, she had been so glad! It was she, Donna Elisa, who
was an Alagona. Her husband, who was dead, had been an Antonelli. There
was one other Alagona, that was her brother. He, too, lived at Diamante.
But Gaetano probably did not know where Diamante was. The boy drew his
head back. No, she thought as much, and she laughed.

“Diamante is on Monte Chiaro. Do you know where Monte Chiaro is?”

“No.”

She drew up her eyebrows and looked very roguish.

“Monte Chiaro is on Etna, if you know where Etna is.”

It sounded so anxious, as if it were too much to ask that Gaetano should
know anything about Etna. And they laughed, all three, she and Father
Josef and Gaetano.

She seemed a different person after she had made them laugh. “Will you
come and see Diamante and Etna and Monte Chiaro?” she asked briskly.
“Etna you must see. It is the greatest mountain in the world. Etna is a
king, and the mountains round about kneel before him, and do not dare to
lift their eyes to his face.”

Then she told many tales about Etna. She thought perhaps that it would
tempt him.

And it was really true that Gaetano had not thought before what kind of
a mountain Etna was. He had not remembered that it had snow on its head,
oak forests in its beard, vineyards about its waist, and that it stood in
orange groves up to its knees. And down it ran broad, black rivers. Those
streams were wonderful; they flowed without a ripple; they heaved without
a wind; the poorest swimmer could cross them without a bridge. He guessed
that she meant lava. And she was glad that he had guessed it. He was a
clever boy. A real Alagona!

And Etna was so big! Fancy that it took three days to drive round it and
three days to ride up to the top and down again! And that there were
fifty towns beside Diamante on it, and fourteen great forests, and two
hundred small peaks, which were not so small either, although Etna was so
big that they seemed as insignificant as a swarm of flies on a church
roof. And that there were caves which could hold a whole army, and hollow
old trees, where a flock of sheep could find shelter from the storm!

Everything wonderful was to be found on Etna. There were rivers of which
one must beware. The water in them was so cold that any one who drank of
it would die. There were rivers which flowed only by day, and others that
flowed only in winter, and some which ran deep under the earth. There
were hot springs, and sulphur springs, and mud-volcanoes.

It would be a pity for Gaetano not to see the mountain, for it was so
beautiful. It stood against the sky like a great tent. It was as gayly
colored as a merry-go-round. He ought to see it in the morning and
evening, when it was red; he ought to see it at night, when it was white.
He ought also to know that it truly could take every color; that it could
be blue, black, brown or violet; sometimes it wore a veil of beauty, like
a signora; sometimes it was a table covered with velvet; sometimes it had
a tunic of gold brocade and a mantle of peacock’s-feathers.

He would also like to know how it could be that old King Arthur was
sitting there in a cave. Donna Elisa said that it was quite certain that
he still lived on Etna, for once, when the bishop of Catania was riding
over the mountain, three of his mules ran away, and the men who followed
them found them in the cave with King Arthur. Then the king asked the
guides to tell the bishop that when his wounds were healed he would come
with his knights of the Round Table and right everything that was in
disorder in Sicily. And he who had eyes to see knew well enough that
King Arthur had not yet come out of his cave.

Gaetano did not wish to let her tempt him, but he thought that he might
be a little friendly. She was still standing, but now he fetched her a
chair. That would not make her think that he wanted to go with her.

He really liked to hear her tell about her mountain. It was so funny that
it should have so many tricks. It was not at all like Monte Pellegrino,
near Palermo, that only stood where it stood. Etna could smoke like a
chimney and blow out fire like a gas jet. It could rumble, shake, vomit
forth lava, throw stones, scatter ashes, foretell the weather, and
collect rain. If Mongibello merely stirred, town after town fell, as if
the houses had been cards set on end.

Mongibello, that was also a name for Etna. It was called Mongibello
because that meant the mountain of mountains. It deserved to be called so.

Gaetano saw that she really believed that he would not be able to resist.
She had so many wrinkles in her face, and when she laughed, they ran
together like a net. He stood and looked at it; it seemed so strange. But
he was not caught yet in the net.

She wondered if Gaetano really would have the courage to come to Etna.
For inside the mountain were many bound giants and a black castle, which
was guarded by a dog with many heads. There was also a big forge and a
lame smith with only one eye in the middle of his forehead. And worst of
all, in the very heart of the mountain, there was a sulphur sea which
cooked like an oil kettle, and in it lay Lucifer and all the damned. No,
he never would have the courage to come there, she said.

Otherwise there was no danger in living there, for the mountain feared
the saints. Donna Elisa said that it feared many saints, but most Santa
Agata of Catania. If the Catanians always were as they should be to her,
then neither earthquake nor lava could do them any harm.

Gaetano stood quite close to her and he laughed at everything she said.
How had he come there and why could he not stop laughing? It was a
wonderful signora.

Suddenly he said, in order not to deceive her, “Donna Elisa, I am going
to be a monk.”--“Oh, are you?” she said. Then without anything more she
began again to tell about the mountain.

She said that now he must really listen; now she was coming to the most
important of all. He was to fellow her to the south side of the mountain
so far down that they were near the castle of Catania, and there he would
see a valley, a quite big and wide oval valley. But it was quite black;
the lava streams came from all directions flowing down into it. There
were only stones there, not a blade of grass.

But what had Gaetano believed about the lava? Donna Elisa was sure that
he believed that it lay as even and smooth on Etna as it lies in the
streets. But on Etna there are so many surprises. Could he understand
that all the serpents and dragons and witches that lay and boiled in
the lava ran out with it when there was an eruption? There they lay and
crawled and crept and twisted about each other, and tried to creep up
to the cold earth, and held each other fast in misery until the lava
hardened about them. And then they could never come free. No indeed!

The lava was not unproductive, as he thought. Although no grass grew,
there was always something to see. But he could never guess what it was.
It groped and fell; it tumbled and crept; it moved on its knees, on its
head, and on its elbows. It came up the sides of the valley and down
the sides of the valley; it was all thorns and knots; it had a cloak of
spider’s-web and a wig of dust, and as many joints as a worm. Could it be
anything but the cactus? Did he know that the cactus goes out on the lava
and breaks the ground like a peasant? Did he know that nothing but the
cactus can do anything with the lava?

Now she looked at Father Josef and made a funny face. The cactus was the
best goblin to be found on Etna; but goblins were goblins. The cactus was
a Turk, for it kept female slaves. No sooner had the cactus taken root
anywhere than it must have almond trees near it. Almond trees are fine
and shining signoras. They hardly dare to go out on the black surface,
but that does not help them. Out they must, and out they are. Oh, Gaetano
should see if he came there. When the almond trees stand white with their
blossoms in the spring on the black field among the gray cacti, they are
so innocent and beautiful that one could weep over them as over captive
princesses.

Now he must know where Monte Chiaro lay. It shot up from the bottom of
that black valley. She tried to make her umbrella stand on the floor.
It stood so. It stood right up. It had never thought of either sitting
or lying. And Monte Chiaro was as green as the valley was black. It
was palm next palm, vine upon vine. It was a gentleman in a flowery
dressing-gown. It was a king with a crown on his head. It bore the whole
of Diamante about its temples.

Some time before Gaetano had a desire to take her hand. If he only could
do it. Yes, he could. He drew her hand to him like a captured treasure.
But what should he do with it? Perhaps pat it. If he tried quite gently
with one finger, perhaps she would not notice it. Perhaps she would not
notice if he took two fingers. Perhaps she would not even notice if he
should kiss her hand. She talked and talked. She noticed nothing at all.

There was still so much she wished to say. And nothing so droll as her
story about Diamante!

She said that the town had once lain down on the bottom of the valley.
Then the lava came, and fiery red looked over the edge of the valley.
What, what! was the last day come? The town in great haste took its
houses on its back, on its head, and under its arms, and ran up Monte
Chiaro, that lay close at hand.

Zigzagging up the mountain the town ran. When it was far enough up it
threw down a town gate and a piece of town wall. Then it ran round the
mountain in a spiral and dropped down houses. The poor people’s houses
tumbled as they could and would. There was no time for anything else.
No one could ask anything better than crowding and disorder and crooked
streets. No, that you could not. The chief street went in a spiral round
the mountain, just as the town had run, and along it had set down here
a church and there a palace. But there had been that much order that
the best came highest up. When the town came to the top of the mountain
it had laid out a square, and there it had placed the city hall and the
Cathedral and the old palazzo Geraci.

If he, Gaetano Alagona, would follow her to Diamante, she would take him
with her up to the square on the top of the mountain, and show him what
stretches of land the old Alagonas had owned on Etna, and on the plain of
Catania, and where they had raised their strongholds on the inland peaks.
For up there all that could be seen, and even more. One could see the
whole sea.

Gaetano had not thought that she had talked long, but Father Josef seemed
to be impatient. “Now we have come to your own home, Donna Elisa,” he
said quite gently.

But she assured Father Josef that at her house there was nothing to see.
What she first of all wished to show Gaetano was the big house on the
corso, that was called the summer palace. It was not so beautiful as the
palazzo Geraci, but it was big; and when the old Alagonas were prosperous
they came there in summer to be nearer the snows of Etna. Yes, as she
said, towards the street it was nothing to see, but it had a beautiful
court-yard with open porticos in both the stories. And on the roof there
was a terrace. It was paved with blue and white tiles, and on every tile
the coat of arms of the Alagonas was burnt in. He would like to come and
see that?

It occurred to Gaetano that Donna Elisa must be used to having children
come and sit on her knees when she was at home. Perhaps she would not
notice if he should also come. And he tried. And so it was. She was used
to it. She never noticed it at all.

She only went on talking about the palace. There was a great state suite,
where the old Alagonas had danced and played. There was a great hall with
a gallery for the music; there was old furniture and clocks like small
white alabaster temples that stood on black ebony pedestals. In the state
apartment no one lived, but she would go there with him. Perhaps he had
thought that she lived in the summer palace. Oh, no; her brother, Don
Ferrante, lived there. He was a merchant, and had his shop on the lower
floor; and as he had not yet brought home a signora, everything stood up
there as it had stood.

Gaetano wondered if he could sit on her knees any longer. It was
wonderful that she did not notice anything. And it was fortunate, for
otherwise she might have believed that he had changed his mind about
being a monk.

But she was just now more than ever occupied with her own affairs. A
little flush flamed up in her cheeks under all the brown, and she made a
few of the funniest faces with her eyebrows. Then she began to tell how
she herself lived.

It seemed as if Donna Elisa must have the very smallest house in the
town. It lay opposite the summer palace, but that was its only good
point. She had a little shop, where she sold medallions and wax candles
and everything that had to do with divine service. But, with all respect
to Father Josef, there was not much profit in such a trade now-a-days,
however it may have been formerly. Behind the shop there was a little
workshop. There her husband had stood and carved images of the saints,
and rosary beads; for he had been an artist, Signor Antonelli. And next
to the workshop were a couple of small rat-holes; it was impossible to
turn in them; one had to squat down, as in the cells of the old kings.
And up one flight were a couple of small hen-coops. In one of them
she had laid a little straw and put up a few hooks. That would be for
Gaetano, if he would come to her.

Gaetano thought that he would like to pat her cheek. She would be sorry
when he could not go with her. Perhaps he could permit himself to pat
her. He looked under his hair at Father Josef. Father Josef sat and
looked on the floor and sighed, as he was in the habit of doing. He did
not think of Gaetano, and she, she noticed nothing at all.

She said that she had a maid, whose name was Pacifica, and a man, whose
name was Luca. She did not get much help, however, for Pacifica was old;
and, since she had grown deaf, she had become so irritable that she could
not let her help in the shop. And Luca, who really was to have been a
wood-carver, and carve saints that she could sell, never gave himself
time to stand still in the workshop; he was always out in the garden,
looking after the flowers. Yes, they had a little garden among the stones
on Monte Chiaro. But he need not think it was worth anything. She had
nothing like the one in the cloister, that Gaetano would understand. But
she wanted so much to have him, because he was one of the old Alagonas.
And there at home she and Luca and Pacifica had said to one another:
“Do we ask whether we will have a little more care, if we can only get
him here?” No, the Madonna knew that they had not done so. But now the
question was, whether he was willing to endure anything to be with them.

And now she had finished, and Father Josef asked what Gaetano thought
of answering. It was the prior’s wish, Father Josef said, that Gaetano
should decide for himself. And they had nothing against his going out
into the world, because he was the last of his race.

Gaetano slid gently down from Donna Elisa’s lap. But to answer! That
was not such an easy thing to answer. It was very hard to say no to the
signora.

Father Josef came to his assistance. “Ask the signora that you may be
allowed to answer in a couple of hours, Gaetano. The boy has never
thought of anything but being a monk,” he explained to Donna Elisa.

She stood up, took her umbrella, and tried to look glad, but there were
tears in her eyes.

Of course, of course he must consider it, she said. But if he had known
Diamante he would not have needed to. Now only peasants lived there,
but once there had been a bishop, and many priests, and a multitude of
monks. They were gone now, but they were not forgotten. Ever since that
time Diamante was a holy town. More festival days were celebrated there
than anywhere else, and there were quantities of saints; and even to-day
crowds of pilgrims came there. Whoever lived at Diamante could never
forget God. He was almost half a priest. So for that reason he ought to
come. But he should consider it, if he so wished. She would come again
to-morrow.

Gaetano behaved himself very badly. He turned away from her and rushed to
the door. He did not say a word of thanks to her for coming. He knew that
Father Josef had expected it, but he could not. When he thought of the
great Mongibello that he never would see, and of Donna Elisa, who would
never come again, and of the school, and of the shut-in cloister garden,
and of a whole restricted life! Father Josef never could expect so much
of him; Gaetano had to run away.

It was high time too. When Gaetano was ten steps from the door, he began
to cry. It was too bad about Donna Elisa. Oh, that she should be obliged
to travel home alone! That Gaetano could not go with her!

He heard Father Josef coming, and he hid his face against the wall. If he
could only stop sobbing!

Father Josef came sighing and murmuring to himself, as he always did.
When he came up to Gaetano he stopped, and sighed more than ever.

“It is Mongibello, Mongibello,” said Father Josef; “no one can resist
Mongibello.”

Gaetano answered him by weeping more violently.

“It is the mountain calling,” murmured Father Josef. “Mongibello is like
the whole earth; it has all the earth’s beauty and charm and vegetation
and expanses and wonders. The whole earth comes at once and calls him.”

Gaetano felt that Father Josef spoke the truth. He felt as if the earth
stretched out strong arms to catch him. He felt that he needed to bind
himself fast to the wall in order not to be torn away.

“It is better for him to see the earth,” said Father Josef. “He would
only be longing for it if he stayed in the monastery. If he is allowed to
see the earth perhaps he will begin again to long for heaven.”

Gaetano did not understand what Father Josef meant when he felt himself
lifted into his arms, carried back into the reception-room, and put down
on Donna Elisa’s knees.

“You shall take him, Donna Elisa, since you have won him,” said Father
Josef. “You shall show him Mongibello, and you shall see if you can keep
him.”

But when Gaetano once more sat on Donna Elisa’s lap he felt such
happiness that it was impossible for him to run away from her again. He
was as much captured as if he had gone into Mongibello and the mountain
walls had closed in on him.




II

FRA GAETANO


Gaetano had lived with Donna Elisa a month, and had been as happy as a
child can be. Merely to travel with Donna Elisa had been like driving
behind gazelles and birds of paradise; but to live with her was to be
carried on a golden litter, screened from the sun.

Then the famous Franciscan, Father Gondo, came to Diamante, and Donna
Elisa and Gaetano went up to the square to listen to him. For Father
Gondo never preached in a church; he always gathered the people about him
by fountains or at the town gates.

The square was swarming with people; but Gaetano, who sat on the railing
of the court-house steps, plainly saw Father Gondo where he stood on
the curb-stone. He wondered if it could be true that the monk wore a
horse-hair shirt under his robes, and that the rope that he had about his
waist was full of knots and iron points to serve him as a scourge.

Gaetano could not understand what Father Gondo said, but one shiver after
another ran through him at the thought that he was looking at a saint.

When the Father had spoken for about an hour, he made a sign with his
hand that he would like to rest a moment. He stepped down from the steps
of the fountain, sat down, and rested his face in his hands. While the
monk was sitting so, Gaetano heard a gentle roaring. He had never before
heard any like it. He looked about him to discover what it was. And it
was all the people talking. “Blessed, blessed, blessed!” they all said at
once. Most of them only whispered and murmured; none called aloud, their
devotion was too great. And every one had found the same word. “Blessed,
blessed!” sounded over the whole market-place. “Blessings on thy lips;
blessings on thy tongue; blessings on thy heart!”

The voices sounded soft, choked by weeping and emotion, but it was as if
a storm had passed by through the air. It was like the murmuring of a
thousand shells.

That took much greater hold of Gaetano than the monk’s sermon. He did
not know what he wished to do, for that gentle murmuring filled him with
emotion; it seemed almost to suffocate him. He climbed up on the iron
railing, raised himself above all the others, and began to cry the same
as they, but much louder, so that his voice cut through all the others.

Donna Elisa heard it and seemed to be displeased. She drew Gaetano down
and would not stay any longer, but went home with him.

In the middle of the night Gaetano started up from his bed. He put on his
clothes, tied together what he possessed in a bundle, set his hat on his
head and took his shoes under his arm. He was going to run away. He could
not bear to live with Donna Elisa.

Since he had heard Father Gondo, Diamante and Mongibello were nothing to
him. Nothing was anything compared to being like Father Gondo, and being
blessed by the people. Gaetano could not live if he could not sit by the
fountain in the square and tell legends.

But if Gaetano went on living in Donna Elisa’s garden, and eating peaches
and mandarins, he would never hear the great human sea roar about him.
He must go out and be a hermit on Etna; he must dwell in one of the big
caves, and live on roots and fruits. He would never see a human being; he
would never cut his hair; and he would wear nothing but a few dirty rags.
But in ten or twenty years he would come back to the world. Then he would
look like a beast and speak like an angel.

That would be another matter than wearing velvet clothes and a glazed
hat, as he did now. That would be different from sitting in the shop with
Donna Elisa and taking saint after saint down from the shelf and hearing
her tell about what they had done. Several times he had taken a knife and
a piece of wood and had tried to carve images of the saints. It was very
hard, but it would be worse to make himself into a saint; much worse.
However, he was not afraid of difficulties and privations.

He crept out of his room, across the attic and down the stair. It only
remained to go through the shop out to the street, but on the last step
he stopped. A faint light filtered through a crack in the door to the
left of the stairs.

It was the door to Donna Elisa’s room, and Gaetano did not dare to go any
further, since his foster mother had her candle lighted. If she was not
asleep she would hear him when he drew the heavy bolts on the shop door.
He sat softly down on the stairs to wait.

Suddenly he happened to think that Donna Elisa must sit up so long at
night and work in order to get him food and clothes. He was much touched
that she loved him so much as to want to do it. And he understood what a
grief it would be to her if he should go.

When he thought of that he began to weep.

But at the same time he began to upbraid Donna Elisa in his thoughts. How
could she be so stupid as to grieve because he went. It would be such a
joy for her when he should become a holy man. That would be her reward
for having gone to Palermo and fetched him.

He cried more and more violently while he was consoling Donna Elisa. It
was hard that she did not understand what a reward she would receive.

There was no need for her to be sad. For ten years only would Gaetano
live on the mountain, and then he would come back as the famous hermit
Fra Gaetano. Then he would come walking through the streets of Diamante,
followed by a great crowd of people, like Father Gondo. And there would
be flags, and the houses would be decorated with cloths and wreaths. He
would stop in front of Donna Elisa’s shop, and Donna Elisa would not
recognize him and would be ready to fall on her knees before him. But so
should it not be; he would kneel to Donna Elisa, and ask her forgiveness,
because he had run away from her ten years ago. “Gaetano,” Donna Elisa
would then answer, “you give me an ocean of joy against a little brook of
sorrow. Should I not forgive you?”

Gaetano saw all this before him, and it was so beautiful that he began to
weep more violently. He was only afraid that Donna Elisa would hear how
he was sobbing and come out and find him. And then she would not let him
go.

He must talk sensibly with her. Would he ever give her greater pleasure
than if he went now?

It was not only Donna Elisa, there was also Luca and Pacifica, who would
be so glad when he came back as a holy man.

They would all follow him up to the market-place. There, there would be
even more flags than in the streets, and Gaetano would speak from the
steps of the town hall. And from all the streets and courts people would
come streaming.

Then Gaetano would speak, so that they should all fall on their knees and
cry: “Bless us, Fra Gaetano, bless us!”

After that he would never leave Diamante again. He would live under the
great steps outside Donna Elisa’s shop.

And they would come to him with their sick, and those in trouble would
make a pilgrimage to him.

When the syndic of Diamante went by he would kiss Gaetano’s hand.

Donna Elisa would sell Fra Gaetano’s image in her shop.

And Donna Elisa’s god-daughter, Giannita, would bow before Fra Gaetano
and never again call him a stupid monk-boy.

And Donna Elisa would be so happy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ah … Gaetano started up, and awoke. It was bright daylight, and Donna
Elisa and Pacifica stood and looked at him. And Gaetano sat on the
stairs with his shoes under his arm, his hat on his head and his bundle
at his feet. But Donna Elisa and Pacifica wept. “He has wished to run
away from us,” they said.

“Why are you sitting here, Gaetano?”

“Donna Elisa, I wanted to run away.”

Gaetano was in a good mood, and answered as boldly as if it had been the
most natural thing in the world.

“Do you want to run away?” repeated Donna Elisa.

“I wished to go off on Etna and be a hermit.”

“And why are you sitting here now?”

“I do not know, Donna Elisa; I must have fallen asleep.”

Donna Elisa now showed how distressed she was. She pressed her hands over
her heart, as if she had terrible pains, and she wept passionately.

“But now I shall stay, Donna Elisa,” said Gaetano.

“You, stay!” cried Donna Elisa. “You might as well go. Look at him,
Pacifica, look at the ingrate! He is no Alagona. He is an adventurer.”

The blood rose in Gaetano’s face and he sprang to his feet and struck out
with his hands in a way which astonished Donna Elisa. So had all the men
of her race done. It was her father and her grandfather; she recognized
all the powerful lords of the family of Alagona.

“You speak so because you know nothing about it, Donna Elisa,” said the
boy. “No, no, you do not know anything; you do not know why I had to
serve God. But you shall know it now. Do you see, it was long ago. My
father and mother were so poor, and we had nothing to eat; and so father
went to look for work, and he never came back, and mother and we children
were almost dead of starvation. So mother said: ‘We will go and look for
your father.’ And we went. Night came and a heavy rain, and in one place
a river flowed over the road. Mother asked in one house if we might pass
the night there. No, they showed us out. Mother and children stood in the
road and cried. Then mother tucked up her dress and went down into the
stream that roared over the road. She had my little sister on her arm and
my big sister by the hand and a big bundle on her head. I went after as
near as I could. I saw mother lose her footing. The bundle she carried
on her head fell into the stream, and mother caught at it and dropped
little sister. She snatched at little sister and big sister was whirled
away. Mother threw herself after them, and the river took her too. I was
frightened and ran to the shore. Father Josef has told me that I escaped
because I was to serve God for the dead, and pray for them. And that was
why it was first decided that I was to be a monk, and why I now wish to
go away on Etna and become a hermit. There is nothing else for me but to
serve God, Donna Elisa.”

Donna Elisa was quite subdued. “Yes, yes, Gaetano,” she said, “but it
hurts me so. I do not want you to go away from me.”

“No, I shall not go either,” said Gaetano. He was in such a good mood
that he felt a desire to laugh. “I shall not go.”

“Shall I speak to the priest, so that you may be sent to a seminary?”
asked Donna Elisa, humbly.

“No; but you do not understand, Donna Elisa; you do not understand. I
tell you that I will not go away from you. I have thought of something
else.”

“What have you thought of?” she asked sadly.

“What do you suppose I was doing while I sat there on the stairs? I was
dreaming, Donna Elisa. I dreamed that I was going to run away. Yes,
Donna Elisa, I stood in the shop, and I was going to open the shop door,
but I could not because there were so many locks. I stood in the dark
and unlocked lock after lock, and always there were new ones. I made a
terrible noise, and I thought: ‘Now surely Donna Elisa will come.’ At
last the door opened, and I was going to rush out; but just then I felt
your hand on my neck, and you drew me in, and I kicked, and I struck you
because I was not allowed to go. But, Donna Elisa, you had a candle with
you, and then I saw that it was not you, but my mother. Then I did not
dare to struggle any more, and I was very frightened, for mother is dead.
But mother took the bundle I was carrying and began to take out what was
in it. Mother laughed and looked so glad, and I grew glad that she was
not angry with me. It was so strange. What she drew out of the bundle
was all the little saints’ images that I had carved while I sat with you
in the shop, and they were so pretty. ‘Can you carve such pretty images,
Gaetano?’ said mother. ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Then you can serve God by
it,’ said mother. ‘Do I not need to leave Donna Elisa, then?’ ‘No,’ said
mother. And just as mother said that, you waked me.”

Gaetano looked at Donna Elisa in triumph.

“What did mother mean by that?”

Donna Elisa only wondered.

Gaetano threw his head back and laughed.

“Mother meant that you should apprentice me, so that I could serve God by
carving beautiful images of angels and saints, Donna Elisa.”




III

THE GOD-SISTER


In the noble island of Sicily, where there are more old customs left than
in any other place in the south, it is always the habit of every one
while yet a child to choose a god-brother or god-sister, who shall carry
his or her children to be christened, if there ever are any.

But this is not by any means the only use god-brothers and sisters have
of one another. God-brothers and sisters must love one another, serve one
another, and revenge one another. In a god-brother’s ear a man can bury
his secrets. He can trust him with both money and sweetheart, and not be
deceived. God-brothers and sisters are as faithful to each other as if
they were born of the same mother, because their covenant is made before
San Giovanni Battista, who is the most feared of all the saints.

It is also the custom for the poor to take their half-grown children to
rich people and ask that they may be god-brothers and sisters to their
young sons and daughters. What a glad sight it is on the holy Baptist’s
day to see all those little children in festival array wandering through
the great towns looking for a god-brother or sister! If the parents
succeed in giving their son a rich god-brother, they are as glad as if
they were able to leave him a farm as an inheritance.

When Gaetano first came to Diamante, there was a little girl who was
always coming in and out of Donna Elisa’s shop. She had a red cloak and
pointed cap and eight heavy, black curls that stood out under the cap.
Her name was Giannita, and she was daughter of Donna Olivia, who sold
vegetables. But Donna Elisa was her god-mother, and therefore thought
what she could do for her.

Well, when midsummer day came, Donna Elisa ordered a carriage and drove
down to Catania, which lies full twenty miles from Diamante. She had
Giannita with her, and they were both dressed in their best. Donna Elisa
was dressed in black silk with jet, and Giannita had a white tulle dress
with garlands of flowers. In her hand Giannita held a basket of flowers,
and among the flowers lay a pomegranate.

The journey went well for Donna Elisa and Giannita. When at last they
reached the white Catania, that lies and shines on the black lava
background, they drove up to the finest palace in the town.

It was lofty and wide, so that the poor little Giannita felt quite
terrified at the thought of going into it. But Donna Elisa walked bravely
in, and she was taken to Cavaliere Palmeri and his wife who owned the
house.

Donna Elisa reminded Signora Palmeri that they were friends from infancy,
and asked that Giannita might be her young daughter’s god-sister.

That was agreed upon, and the young signorina was called in. She was a
little marvel of rose-colored silk, Venetian lace, big, black eyes, and
thick, bushy hair. Her little body was so small and thin that one hardly
noticed it.

Giannita offered her the basket of flowers, and she graciously accepted
it. She looked long and thoughtfully at Giannita, walked round her, and
was fascinated by her smooth, even curls. When she had seen them, she ran
after a knife, cut the pomegranate and gave Giannita half.

While they ate the fruit, they held each other’s hand and both said:--

    “Sister, sister, sister mine!
    Thou art mine, and I am thine,
    Thine my house, my bread and wine,
    Thine my joys, my sacrifice,
    Thine my place in Paradise.”

Then they kissed each other and called each other god-sister.

“You must never fail me, god-sister,” said the little signorina, and both
the children were very serious and moved.

They had become such good friends in the short time that they cried when
they parted.

But then twelve years went by and the two god-sisters lived each in her
own world and never met. During the whole time Giannita was quietly in
her home and never came to Catania.

But then something really strange happened. Giannita sat one afternoon
in the room back of the shop embroidering. She was very skilful and was
often overwhelmed with work. But it is trying to the eyes to embroider,
and it was dark in Giannita’s room. She had therefore half-opened the
door into the shop to get a little more light.

Just after the clock had struck four, the old miller’s widow, Rosa
Alfari, came walking by. Donna Olivia’s shop was very attractive from
the street. The eyes fell through the half-open door on great baskets
with fresh vegetables and bright-colored fruits, and far back in the
background the outline of Giannita’s pretty head. Rosa Alfari stopped and
began to talk to Donna Olivia, simply because her shop looked so friendly.

Laments and complaints always followed old Rosa Alfari. Now she was sad
because she had to go to Catania alone that night. “It is a misfortune
that the post-wagon does not reach Diamante before ten,” she said. “I
shall fall asleep on the way, and perhaps they will then steal my money.
And what shall I do when I come to Catania at two o’clock at night?”

Then Giannita suddenly called out into the shop. “Will you take me with
you to Catania, Donna Alfari?” she asked, half in joke, without expecting
an answer.

But Rosa Alfari said eagerly, “Lord, child, will you go with me? Will you
really?”

Giannita came out into the shop, red with pleasure. “If I will!” she
said. “I have not been in Catania for twelve years.”

Rosa Alfari looked delightedly at her; Giannita was tall and strong, her
eyes gay, and she had a careless smile on her lips. She was a splendid
travelling companion.

“Get ready,” said the old woman. “You will go with me at ten o’clock; it
is settled.”

The next day Giannita wandered about the streets of Catania. She was
thinking the whole time of her god-sister. She was strangely moved to be
so near her again. She loved her god-sister, Giannita, and she did it not
only because San Giovanni has commanded people to love their god-brothers
and sisters. She had adored the little child in the silk dress; she was
the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She had almost become her
idol.

She knew this much about her sister, that she was still unmarried and
lived in Catania. Her mother was dead, and she had not been willing to
leave her father, and had stayed as hostess in his house. “I must manage
to see her,” thought Giannita.

Whenever Giannita met a well-appointed carriage she thought: “Perhaps it
is my god-sister driving there.” And she stared at everybody to see if
any of them was like the little girl with the thick hair and the big eyes.

Her heart began to beat wildly. She had always longed for her god-sister.
She herself was still unmarried, because she liked a young wood-carver,
Gaetano Alagona, and he had never shown the slightest desire to marry
her. Giannita had often been angry with him for that, and not least had
it irritated her never to be able to invite her god-sister to her wedding.

She had been so proud of her, too. She had thought herself finer than the
others, because she had such a god-sister. What if she should now go to
see her, since she was in the town? It would give a lustre to the whole
journey.

As she thought and thought of it, a newspaper-boy came running.
“_Giornale da Sicilia_,” he called. “The Palmeri affair! Great
embezzlements!”

Giannita seized the boy by the neck as he rushed by. “What are you
saying?” she screamed. “You lie, you lie!” and she was ready to strike
him.

“Buy my paper, signora, before you strike me,” said the boy. Giannita
bought the paper and began to read. She found in it without difficulty
the Palmeri affair.

“Since this case is to be tried to-day in the courts,” wrote the paper,
“we will give an account of it.”

Giannita read and read. She read it over and over before she understood.
There was not a muscle in her body which did not begin to tremble with
horror when she at last comprehended it.

Her god-sister’s father, who had owned great vineyards, had been ruined,
because the blight had laid them waste. And that was not the worst. He
had also dissipated a charitable fund which had been intrusted to him. He
was arrested, and to-day he was to be tried.

Giannita crushed the newspaper together, threw it into the street and
trampled on it. It deserved no better for bringing such news.

Then she stood quite crushed that this should meet her when she came to
Catania for the first time in twelve years. “Lord God,” she said, “is
there any meaning in it?”

At home, in Diamante, no one would ever have taken the trouble to tell
her what was going on. Was it not destiny that she should be here on the
very day of the trial?

“Listen, Donna Alfari,” she said; “you may do as you like, but I must go
to the court.”

There was a decision about Giannita. Nothing could disturb her. “Do you
not understand that it is for this, and not for your sake, that God has
induced you to take me with you to Catania?” she said to Rosa Alfari.

Giannita did not doubt for a moment that there was something supernatural
in it all.

Rosa Alfari must needs let her go, and she found her way to the Palace of
Justice. She stood among the street boys and riff-raff, and saw Cavaliere
Palmeri on the bench of the accused. He was a fine gentleman, with a
white, pointed beard and moustache. Giannita recognized him.

She heard that he was condemned to six months’ imprisonment, and Giannita
thought she saw even more plainly that she had come there as an emissary
from God. “Now my god-sister must need me,” she thought.

She went out into the street again and asked her way to the Palazzo
Palmeri.

On the way a carriage drove by her. She looked up, and her eyes met those
of the lady who sat in the carriage. At the same moment something told
her that this was her god-sister. She who was driving was pale and bent
and had beseeching eyes. Giannita loved her from the first sight. “It is
you who have given me pleasure many times,” she said, “because I expected
pleasure from you. Now perhaps I can pay you back.”

Giannita felt filled with devotion when she went up the high, white
marble steps to the Palazzo Palmeri, but suddenly a doubt struck
her. “What can God wish me to do for one who has grown up in such
magnificence?” she thought. “Does our Lord forget that I am only poor
Giannita from Diamante?”

She told a servant to greet Signorina Palmeri and say to her that her
god-sister wished to speak to her. She was surprised when the servant
came back and said that she could not be received that day. Should she
be content with that? Oh, no; oh, no!

“Tell the signorina that I am going to wait here the whole day, for I
must speak to her.”

“The signorina is going to move out of the palace in half an hour,” said
the servant.

Giannita was beside herself. “But I am her god-sister, her god-sister,
do you not understand?” she said to the man. “I must speak to her.” The
servant smiled, but did not move.

But Giannita would not be turned away. Was she not sent by God? He must
understand, understand, she said, and raised her voice. She was from
Diamante and had not been in Catania for twelve years. Until yesterday
afternoon at four o’clock she had not thought of coming here. He must
understand, not until yesterday afternoon at four o’clock.

The servant stood motionless. Giannita was ready to tell him the whole
story to move him, when the door was thrown open. Her god-sister stood on
the threshold.

“Who is speaking of yesterday at four o’clock?” she said.

“It is a stranger, Signorina Micaela.”

Then Giannita rushed forward. It was not at all a stranger. It was her
god-sister from Diamante, who came here twelve years ago with Donna
Elisa. Did she not remember her? Did she not remember that they had
divided a pomegranate?

The signorina did not listen to that. “What was it that happened
yesterday at four o’clock?” she asked, with great anxiety.

“I then got God’s command to go to you, god-sister,” said Giannita.

The other looked at her in terror. “Come with me,” she said, as if afraid
that the servant should hear what Giannita wished to say to her.

She went far into the apartment before she stopped. Then she turned so
quickly towards Giannita that she was frightened. “Tell me instantly!”
she said. “Do not torture me; let me hear it instantly!”

She was as tall as Giannita, but very unlike her. She was more delicately
made, and she, the woman of the world, had a much more wild and untamed
appearance than the country girl. Everything she felt showed in her face.
She did not try to conceal it.

Giannita was so astonished at her violence that she could not answer at
first.

Then her god-sister lifted her arms in despair over her head and the
words streamed from her lips. She said that she knew that Giannita had
been commanded by God to bring her word of new misfortunes. God hated
her, she knew it.

Giannita clasped her hands. God hate her! on the contrary, on the
contrary!

“Yes, yes,” said Signorina Palmeri. “It is so.” And as she was inwardly
afraid of the message Giannita had for her, she began to talk. She did
not let her speak; she interrupted her constantly. She seemed to be so
terrified by everything that had happened to her during the last days
that she could not at all control herself.

Giannita must understand that God hated her, she said. She had done
something so terrible. She had forsaken her father, failed her father.
Giannita must have read the last account. Then she burst out again in
passionate questionings. Why did she not tell her what she wished to
tell her? She did not expect anything but bad news. She was prepared.

But poor Giannita never got a chance to speak; as soon as she began, the
signorina became frightened and interrupted her. She told her story as if
to induce Giannita not to be too hard to her.

Giannita must not think that her unhappiness only came from the fact of
her no longer having her carriage, or a box at the theatre, or beautiful
dresses, or servants, or even a roof over her head. Neither was it enough
that she had now lost all her friends, so that she did not at all know
where she should ask for shelter. Neither was it misfortune enough that
she felt such shame that she could not raise her eyes to any one’s face.

But there was something else much worse.

She sat down, and was silent a moment, while she rocked to and fro in
agony. But when Giannita began to speak, she interrupted her.

Giannita could not think how her father had loved her. He had always had
her live in splendor and magnificence, like a princess.

She had not done much for him; only let him think out delightful things
to amuse her. It had been no sacrifice to remain unmarried, for she had
never loved any one like her father, and her own home had been finer than
any one else’s.

But one day her father had come and said to her, “They wish to arrest me.
They are spreading the report that I have stolen, but it is not true.”
Then she had believed him, and helped him to hide from the _Carabinieri_.
And they had looked for him in vain in Catania, on Etna, over the whole
of Sicily.

But when the police could not find Cavaliere Palmeri, the people began
to say: “He is a fine gentleman, and they are fine gentlemen who help
him; otherwise they would have found him long ago.” And the prefect in
Catania had come to her. She received him smiling, and the prefect came
as if to talk of roses, and the beautiful weather. Then he said: “Will
the signorina look at this little paper? Will the signorina read this
little letter? Will the signorina observe this little signature?” She
read and read. And what did she see? Her father was not innocent. Her
father had taken the money of others.

When the prefect had left her, she had gone to her father. “You are
guilty,” she said to him. “You may do what you will, but I cannot help
you any more.” Oh, she had not known what she said! She had always been
very proud. She had not been able to bear to have their name stamped with
dishonor. She had wished for a moment that her father had been dead,
rather than that this had happened to her. Perhaps she had also said it
to him. She did not rightly know what she had said.

But after that God had forsaken her. The most terrible things had
happened. Her father had taken her at her word. He had gone and given
himself up. And ever since he had been in prison he had not been willing
to see her. He did not answer her letters, and the food that she sent
him he sent back untouched. That was the most dreadful thing of all. He
seemed to think that she wished to kill him.

She looked at Giannita as anxiously as if she awaited her sentence of
death.

“Why do you not say to me what you have to say?” she exclaimed. “You are
killing me!”

But it was impossible for her to force herself to be silent.

“You must know,” she continued, “that this palace is sold, and the
purchaser has let it to an English lady, who is to move in to-day. Some
of her things were brought in already yesterday, and among them was a
little image of Christ.

“I caught sight of it as I passed through the vestibule, Giannita. They
had taken it out of a trunk, and it lay there on the floor. It had been
so neglected that no one took any trouble about it. Its crown was dented,
and its dress dirty, and all the small ornaments which adorned it were
rusty and broken. But when I saw it lying on the floor, I took it up and
carried it into the room and placed it on a table. And while I did so,
it occurred to me that I would ask its help. I knelt down before it and
prayed a long time. ‘Help me in my great need!’ I said to the Christchild.

“While I prayed, it seemed to me that the image wished to answer me. I
lifted my head, and the child stood there as dull as before, but a clock
began to strike just then. It struck four, and it was as if it had said
four words. It was as if the Christchild had answered a fourfold _yes_ to
my prayer.

“That gave me courage, Giannita, so that to-day I drove to the Palace of
Justice to see my father. But he never turned his eyes toward me during
the whole time he stood before his judges.

“I waited until they were about to lead him away, and threw myself on
my knees before him in one of the narrow passages. Giannita, he let the
soldiers lead me away without giving me a word.

“So, you see, God hates me. When I heard you speak of yesterday
afternoon at four o’clock, I was so frightened. The Christchild sends me
a new misfortune, I thought. It hates me for having failed my father.”

When she had said that, she was at last silent and listened breathlessly
for what Giannita should say.

And Giannita told her story to her.

“See, see, is it not wonderful?” she said at the end. “I have not been in
Catania for twelve years, and then I come here quite unexpectedly. And I
know nothing at all; but as soon as I set my foot on the street here, I
hear your misfortune. God has sent a message to me, I said to myself. He
has called me here to help my god-sister.”

Signorina Palmeri’s eyes were turned anxiously questioning towards her.
Now the new blow was coming. She gathered all her courage to meet it.

“What do you wish me to do for you, god-sister?” said Giannita. “Do you
know what I thought as I was walking through the streets? I will ask her
if she will go with me to Diamante, I thought. I know an old house there,
where we could live cheaply. And I would embroider and sew, so that we
could support ourselves. When I was out in the street I thought that it
might be, but now I understand that it is impossible, impossible. You
require something more of life; but tell me if I can do anything for you.
You shall not thrust me away, for God has sent me.”

The signorina bent towards Giannita. “Well?” she said anxiously.

“You shall let me do what I can for you, for I love you,” said Giannita,
and fell on her knees and put her arms about her.

“Have you nothing else to say?” asked the signorina.

“I wish I had,” said Giannita, “but I am only a poor girl.”

It was wonderful to see how the features of the young signorina’s face
softened; how her color came back and how her eyes began to shine. Now it
was plain that she had great beauty.

“Giannita,” she said, low and scarcely audibly, “do you think that it is
a miracle? Do you think that God can let a miracle come to pass for my
sake?”

“Yes, yes,” whispered Giannita back.

“I prayed the Christchild that he should help me, and he sends you to me.
Do you think that it was the Christchild who sent you, Giannita?”

“Yes, it was; it was!”

“Then God has not forsaken me, Giannita?”

“No, God has not forsaken you.”

The god-sisters sat and wept for a while. It was quite quiet in the room.
“When you came, Giannita, I thought that nothing was left me but to kill
myself,” she said at last. “I did not know where to turn, and God hated
me.”

“But tell me now what I can do for you, god-sister,” said Giannita.

As an answer the other drew her to her and kissed her.

“But it is enough that you are sent by the little Christchild,” she said.
“It is enough that I know that God has not forsaken me.”




IV

DIAMANTE


Micaela Palmeri was on her way to Diamante with Giannita.

They had taken their places in the post-carriage at three o’clock in the
morning, and had driven up the beautiful road over the lower slopes of
Etna, circling round the mountain. But it had been quite dark. They had
not seen anything of the surrounding country.

The young signorina by no means lamented over that. She sat with closed
eyes and buried herself in her sorrow. Even when it began to grow light,
she would not lift her eyes to look out. It was not until they were quite
near Diamante that Giannita could persuade her to look at the landscape.

“Look! Here is Diamante; this is to be your home,” she said.

Then Micaela Palmeri, to the right of the road, saw mighty Etna, that cut
off a great piece of the sky. Behind the mountain the sun was rising,
and when the upper edge of the sun’s disc appeared above the line of the
mountain, it looked as if the white summit began to burn and send out
sparks and rays.

Giannita entreated her to look at the other side.

And on the other side she saw the whole jagged mountain chain, which
surrounds Etna like a towered wall, glowing red in the sunrise.

But Giannita pointed in another direction. It was not that she was to
look at, not that.

Then she lowered her eyes and looked down into the black valley. There
the ground shone like velvet, and the white Simeto foamed along in the
depths of the valley.

But still she did not turn her eyes in the right direction.

At last she saw the steep Monte Chiaro rising out of the black,
velvet-lined valley, red in the morning light and encircled by a crown
of shady palms. On its summit she saw a town flanked with towers, and
encompassed by a wall, and with all its windows and weather-vanes
glittering in the light.

At that sight she seized Giannita’s arm and asked her if it was a real
town, and if people lived there.

She believed that it was one of heaven’s cities, and that it would
disappear like a vision. She was certain that no mortal had ever passed
up the path that from the edge of the valley went in great curves over to
Monte Chiaro and then zigzagged up the mountain, disappearing through the
dark gates of the town.

But when she came nearer to Diamante, and saw that it was of the earth,
and real, tears rose to her eyes. It moved her that the earth still held
all this beauty for her. She had believed that, since it had been the
scene of all her misfortunes, she would always find it gray and withered
and covered with thistles and poisonous growths.

She entered poor Diamante with clasped hands, as if it were a sanctuary.
And it seemed to her as if this town could offer her as much happiness as
beauty.




V

DON FERRANTE


A few days later Gaetano was standing in his workshop, cutting
grape-leaves on rosary beads. It was Sunday, but Gaetano did not feel it
on his conscience that he was working, for it was a work in God’s honor.

A great restlessness and anxiety had come over him. It had come into his
mind that the time he had been living at peace with Donna Elisa was now
drawing to a close, and he thought that he must soon start out into the
world.

For great poverty had come to Sicily, and he saw want wandering from
town to town and from house to house like the plague, and it had come to
Diamante also.

No one ever came now to Donna Elisa’s shop to buy anything. The little
images of the saints that Gaetano made stood in close rows on the
shelves, and the rosaries hung in great bunches under the counter. And
Donna Elisa was in great want and sorrow, because she could not earn
anything.

That was a sign to Gaetano that he must leave Diamante, go out into the
world, emigrate if there was no other way. For it could not be working to
the honor of God to carve images that never were worshipped, and to turn
rosary beads that never glided through a petitioner’s fingers.

It seemed to him that, somewhere in the world, there must be a beautiful,
newly built cathedral, with finished walls, but whose interior yet stood
shivering in nakedness. It awaited Gaetano’s coming to carve the choir
chairs, the altar-rail, the pulpit, the lectern, and the shrine. His
heart ached with longing for that work which was waiting.

But there was no such cathedral in Sicily, for there no one ever thought
of building a new church; it must be far away in such lands as Florida or
Argentina, where the earth is not yet overcrowded with holy buildings.

He felt at the same time trembling and happy, and had begun to work with
redoubled zeal in order that Donna Elisa should have something to sell
while he was away earning great fortunes for her.

Now he was waiting for but one more sign from God before he decided on
the journey. And this was that he should have the strength to speak to
Donna Elisa of his longing to go. For he knew that it would cause her
such sorrow that he did not know how he could bring himself to speak of
it.

While he stood and thought Donna Elisa came into the workshop. Then he
said to himself that this day he could not think of saying it to her, for
to-day Donna Elisa was happy. Her tongue wagged and her face beamed.

Gaetano asked himself when he had seen her so. Ever since the famine had
come, it had been as if they had lived without light in one of the caves
of Etna.

Why had Gaetano not been with her in the square and heard the music?
asked Donna Elisa. Why did he never come to hear and see her brother,
Don Ferrante? Gaetano, who only saw him when he stood in the shop with
his tufts of hair and his short jacket, did not know what kind of a man
he was. He considered him an ugly old tradesman, who had a wrinkled face
and a rough beard. No one knew Don Ferrante who had not seen him on
Sunday, when he conducted the music.

That day he had donned a new uniform. He wore a three-cornered hat with
green, red, and white feathers, silver on his collar, silver-fringed
epaulets, silver braid on his breast, and a sword at his side. And when
he stepped up to the conductor’s platform the wrinkles had been smoothed
out of his face and his figure had grown erect. He could almost have been
called handsome.

When he had led _Cavalleria_, people had hardly been able to breathe.
What had Gaetano to say to that, that the big houses round the
market-place had sung too? From the black Palazzo Geraci, Donna Elisa had
distinctly heard a love song, and from the convent, empty as it was, a
beautiful hymn had streamed out over the market-place.

And when there was a pause in the music the handsome advocate Favara, who
had been dressed in a black velvet coat and a big broad-brimmed hat and a
bright red necktie, had gone up to Don Ferrante, and had pointed out over
the open side of the square, where Etna and the sea lay. “Don Ferrante,”
he had said, “you lift us toward the skies, just as Etna does, and you
carry us away into the eternal, like the infinite sea.”

If Gaetano had seen Don Ferrante to-day he would have loved him. At least
he would have been obliged to acknowledge his stateliness. When he
laid down his baton for a while and took the advocate’s arm, and walked
forward and back with him on the flat stones by the Roman gate and the
Palazzo Geraci, every one could see that he could well measure himself
against the handsome Favara.

Donna Elisa sat on the stone bench by the cathedral, in company with the
wife of the syndic. And Signora Voltaro had said quite suddenly, after
sitting for a while, watching Don Ferrante: “Donna Elisa, your brother is
still a young man. He may still be married, in spite of his fifty years.”

And she, Donna Elisa, had answered that she prayed heaven for it every
day.

But she had hardly said it, when a lady dressed in mourning came into the
square. Never had anything so black been seen before. It was not enough
that dress and hat and gloves were black; her veil was so thick that it
was impossible to believe that there was a face behind it. Santissimo
Dio! it looked as if she had hung a pall over herself. And she had walked
slowly, and with a stoop. People had almost feared, believing that it was
a ghost.

Alas, alas! the whole market-place had been so full of gayety! The
peasants, who were at home over Sunday, had stood there in great crowds
in holiday dress, with red shawls wound round their necks. The peasant
women on their way to the cathedral had glided by, dressed in green
skirts and yellow neckerchiefs. A couple of travellers had stood by the
balustrade and looked at Etna; they had been dressed in white. And all
the musicians in uniform, who had been almost as fine as Don Ferrante,
and the shining instruments, and the carved cathedral _façade_! And the
sunlight, and Mongibello’s snow top--so near to-day that one could
almost touch it--had all been so gay.

Now, when the poor black lady came into the midst of it all, they had
stared at her, and some had made the sign of the cross. And the children
had rushed down from the steps of the town-hall, where they were riding
on the railing, and had followed her at a few feet’s distance. And even
the lazy Piero, who had been asleep in the corner of the balustrade, had
raised himself on his elbow. It had been a resurrection, as if the black
Madonna from the cathedral had come strolling by.

But had no one thought that it was unkind that all stared at the black
lady? Had no one been moved when she came so slowly and painfully?

Yes, yes; one had been touched, and that had been Don Ferrante. He had
the music in his heart; he was a good man and he thought: “Curses on all
those funds that are gathered together for the poor, and that only bring
people misfortune! Is not that poor Signorina Palmeri, whose father has
stolen from a charitable fund, and who is now so ashamed that she dares
not show her face?” And, as he thought of it, Don Ferrante went towards
the black lady and met her just by the church door.

There he made her a bow, and mentioned his name. “If I am not mistaken,”
Don Ferrante had said, “you are Signorina Palmeri. I have a favor to ask
of you.”

Then she had started and taken a step backwards, as if to flee, but she
had waited.

“It concerns my sister, Donna Elisa,” he had said. “She knew your mother,
signorina, and she is consumed with a desire to make your acquaintance.
She is sitting here by the Cathedral. Let me take you to her!”

And then Don Ferrante put her hand on his arm and led her over to Donna
Elisa. And she made no resistance. Donna Elisa would like to see who
could have resisted Don Ferrante to-day.

Donna Elisa rose and went to meet the black lady, and throwing back her
veil, kissed her on both cheeks.

But what a face, what a face! Perhaps it was not pretty, but it had
eyes that spoke, eyes that mourned and lamented, even when the whole
face smiled. Yes, Gaetano perhaps would not wish to carve or paint a
Madonna from that face, for it was too thin and too pale; but it is to be
supposed that our Lord knew what he was doing when he did not put those
eyes in a face that was rosy and round.

When Donna Elisa kissed her, she laid her head down on her shoulder, and
a few short sobs shook her. Then she looked up with a smile, and the
smile seemed to say: “Ah, does the world look so? Is it so beautiful? Let
me see it and smile at it! Can a poor unfortunate really dare to look at
it? And to be seen? Can I bear to be seen?”

All that she had said without a word, only with a smile. What a face,
what a face!

But here Gaetano interrupted Donna Elisa. “Where is she now?” he said. “I
too must see her.”

Then Donna Elisa looked Gaetano in the eyes. They were glowing and clear,
as if they were filled with fire, and a dark flush rose to his temples.

“You will see her all in good time,” she said, harshly. And she repented
of every word she had said.

Gaetano saw that she was afraid, and he understood what she feared. It
came into his mind to tell her now that he meant to go away, to go all
the way to America.

Then he understood that the strange signorina must be very dangerous.
Donna Elisa was so sure that Gaetano would fall in love with her that she
was almost glad to hear that he meant to go away.

For anything seemed better to her than a penniless daughter-in-law, whose
father was a thief.




VI

DON MATTEO’S MISSION


One afternoon the old priest, Don Matteo, inserted his feet into newly
polished shoes, put on a newly brushed soutane, and laid his cloak in the
most effective folds. His face shone as he went up the street, and when
he distributed blessings to the old women spinning by the doorposts, it
was with gestures as graceful as if he had scattered roses.

The street along which Don Matteo was walking was spanned by at least
seven arches, as if every house wished to bind itself to a neighbor.
It ran small and narrow down the mountain; it was half street and half
staircase; the gutters were always overflowing, and there were always
plenty of orange-skins and cabbage-leaves to slip on. Clothes hung on the
line, from the ground up to the sky. Wet shirt-sleeves and apron-strings
were carried by the wind right into Don Matteo’s face. And it felt horrid
and wet, as if Don Matteo had been touched by a corpse.

At the end of the street lay a little dark square, and there Don Matteo
saw an old house, before which he stopped. It was big, and square, and
almost without windows. It had two enormous flights of steps, and two big
doors with heavy locks. And it had walls of black lava, and a “loggia,”
where green slime grew over the tiled floor, and where the spider-webs
were so thick that the nimble lizards were almost held fast in them.

Don Matteo lifted the knocker, and knocked till it thundered. All the
women in the street began to talk, and to question. All the washerwomen
by the fountain in the square dropped soap and wooden clapper, and began
to whisper, and ask, “What is Don Matteo’s errand? Why does Don Matteo
knock on the door of an old, haunted house, where nobody dares to live
except the strange signorina, whose father is in prison?”

But now Giannita opened the door for Don Matteo, and conducted him
through long passages, smelling of mould and damp. In several places in
the floor the stones were loose, and Don Matteo could see way down into
the cellar, where great armies of rats raced over the black earth floor.

As Don Matteo walked through the old house, he lost his good-humor. He
did not pass by a stairway without suspiciously spying up it, and he
could not hear a rustle without starting. He was depressed as before some
misfortune. Don Matteo thought of the little turbaned Moor who was said
to show himself in that house, and even if he did not see him, he might
be said to have felt him.

At last Giannita opened a door and showed the priest into a room. The
walls there were bare, as in a stable; the bed was as narrow as a nun’s,
and over it hung a Madonna that was not worth three soldi. The priest
stood and stared at the little Madonna till the tears rose to his eyes.

While he stood so Signorina Palmeri came into the room. She kept her head
bent and moved slowly, as if wounded. When the priest saw her he wished
to say to her: “You and I, Signorina Palmeri, have met in a strange old
house. Are you here to study the old Moorish inscriptions or to look for
mosaics in the cellar?” For the old priest was confounded when he saw
Signorina Palmeri. He could not understand that the noble lady was poor.
He could not comprehend that she was living in the house of the little
Moor.

He said to himself that he must save her from this haunted house, and
from poverty. He prayed to the tender Madonna for power to save her.

Thereupon he said to the signorina that he had come with a commission
from Don Ferrante Alagona. Don Ferrante had confided to him that she
had refused his proposal of marriage. Why was that? Did she not know
that, although Don Ferrante seemed to be poor as he stood in his shop,
he was really the richest man in Diamante? And Don Ferrante was of an
old Spanish family of great consideration, both in their native country
and in Sicily. And he still owned the big house on the Corso that had
belonged to his ancestors. She should not have said no to him.

While Don Matteo was speaking, he saw how the signorina’s face grew stiff
and white. He was almost afraid to go on. He feared that she was going to
faint.

It was only with the greatest effort that she was able to answer him. The
words would not pass her lips. It seemed as if they were too loathsome
to utter. She quite understood, she said, that Don Ferrante would like
to know why she had refused his proposal. She was infinitely touched and
grateful on account of it, but she could not be his wife. She could
not marry, for she brought dishonor and disgrace with her as a marriage
portion.

“If you marry an Alagona, dear signorina,” said Don Matteo, “you need not
fear that any one will ask of what family you are. It is an honorable
old name. Don Ferrante and his sister, Donna Elisa, are considered the
first people in Diamante, although they have lost all the family riches,
and have to keep a shop. Don Ferrante knows well enough that the glory
of the old name would not be tarnished by a marriage with you. Have no
scruples for that, signorina, if otherwise you may be willing to marry
Don Ferrante.”

But Signorina Palmeri repeated what she had said. Don Ferrante should
not marry the daughter of a convict. She sat pale and despairing, as if
wishing to practise saying those terrible words. She said that she did
not wish to enter a family which would despise her. She succeeded in
saying it in a hard, cold voice, without emotion.

But the more she said, the greater became Don Matteo’s desire to help
her. He felt as if he had met a queen who had been torn from her throne.
A burning desire came over him to set the crown again upon her head, and
fasten the mantle about her shoulders.

Therefore Don Matteo asked her if her father were not soon coming out of
prison, and he wondered what he would live on.

The signorina answered that he would live on her work.

Don Matteo asked her very seriously whether she had thought how her
father, who had always been rich, could bear poverty.

Then she was silent. She tried to move her lips to answer, but could not
utter a sound.

Don Matteo talked and talked. She looked more and more frightened, but
she did not yield.

At last he knew not what to do. How could he save her from that haunted
house, from poverty, and from the burden of dishonor that weighed her
down? But then his eyes chanced to fall on the little image of the
Madonna over the bed. So the young signorina was a believer.

The spirit of inspiration came to Don Matteo. He felt that God had sent
him to save this poor woman. When he spoke again, there was a new ring in
his voice. He understood that it was not he alone who spoke.

“My daughter,” he said, and rose, “you will marry Don Ferrante for your
father’s sake! It is the Madonna’s will, my daughter.”

There was something impressive in Don Matteo’s manner. No one had ever
seen him so before. The signorina trembled, as if a spirit voice had
spoken to her, and she clasped her hands.

“Be a good and faithful wife to Don Ferrante,” said Don Matteo, “and the
Madonna promises you through me that your father will have an old age
free of care.”

Then the signorina saw that it was an inspiration which guided Don
Matteo. It was God speaking through him. And she sank down on her knees,
and bent her head. “I shall do what you command,” she said.

       *       *       *       *       *

But when the priest, Don Matteo, came out of the house of the little Moor
and went up the street, he suddenly took out his breviary and began
to read. And although the wet clothes struck him on the cheek, and the
little children and the orange-peels lay in wait for him, he only looked
in his book. He needed to hear the great words of God.

For within that black house everything had seemed certain and sure, but
when he came out into the sunshine he began to worry about the promise he
had given in the name of the Madonna.

Don Matteo prayed and read, and read and prayed. Might the great God in
heaven protect the woman, who had believed him and obeyed him as if he
had been a prophet!

Don Matteo turned the corner into the Corso. He struck against donkeys
on their way home, with travelling signorinas on their backs; he walked
right into peasants coming home from their work, and he pushed against
the old women spinning, and entangled their thread. At last he came to a
little, dark shop.

It was a shop without a window which was at the corner of an old palace.
The threshold was a foot high; the floor was of trampled earth; the door
almost always stood open to let in the light. The counter was besieged by
peasants and mule-drivers.

And behind the counter stood Don Ferrante. His beard grew in tufts; his
face was in one wrinkle; his voice was hoarse with rage. The peasants
demanded an immoderately high payment for the loads that they had driven
up from Catania.




VII

THE BELLS OF SAN PASQUALE


The people of Diamante soon perceived that Don Ferrante’s wife, Donna
Micaela, was nothing but a great child. She could never succeed in
looking like a woman of the world, and she really was nothing but a
child. And nothing else was to be expected, after the life she had led.

Of the world she had seen nothing but its theatres, museums, ball-rooms,
promenades, and race courses; and all such are only play places. She had
never been allowed to go alone on the street. She had never worked. No
one had ever spoken seriously to her. She had not even been in love with
any one.

After she had moved into the summer palace she forgot her cares as gayly
and easily as a child would have done. And it appeared that she had the
playful disposition of a child, and that she could transform and change
everything about her.

The old dirty Saracen town Diamante seemed like a paradise to Donna
Micaela. She said that she had not been at all surprised when Don
Ferrante had spoken to her in the square, nor when he had proposed to
her. It seemed quite natural to her that such things should happen in
Diamante. She had seen instantly that Diamante was a town where rich men
went and sought out poor, unfortunate signorinas to make them mistresses
of their black lava palaces.

She also liked the summer-palace. The faded chintz, a hundred years old,
that covered the furniture told her stories. And she found a deep meaning
in all the love scenes between the shepherds and shepherdesses on the
walls.

She had soon found out the secret of Don Ferrante. He was no ordinary
shop-keeper in a side street. He was a man of ambition, who was
collecting money in order to buy back the family estate on Etna and the
palace in Catania and the castle on the mainland. And if he went in short
jacket and pointed cap, like a peasant, it was in order the sooner to be
able to appear as a grandee of Spain and prince of Sicily.

After they were married Don Ferrante always used every evening to put on
a velvet coat, take his guitar under his arm, and place himself on the
stairway to the gallery in the music-room in the summer-palace and sing
canzoni. While he sang, Donna Micaela dreamed that she had been married
to the noblest man in beautiful Sicily.

When Donna Micaela had been married a few months her father was released
from prison and came to live at the summer palace with his daughter. He
liked the life in Diamante and became friends with every one. He liked
to talk to the bee-raisers and vineyard workers whom he met at the Café
Europa, and he amused himself every day by riding about on the slopes of
Etna to look for antiquities.

But he had by no means forgiven his daughter. He lived under her roof,
but he treated her like a stranger, and never showed her affection.
Donna Micaela let him go on and pretended not to notice it. She could
not take his anger seriously any longer. That old man, whom she loved,
believed that he would be able to go on hating her year after year! He
would live near her, hear her speak, see her eyes, be encompassed by
her love, and he could continue to hate her! Ah, he knew neither her
nor himself. She used to sit and imagine how it would be when he must
acknowledge that he was conquered; when he must come and show her that he
loved her.

One day Donna Micaela was standing on her balcony waving her hand to her
father, who rode away on a small, dark-brown pony, when Don Ferrante came
up from the shop to speak to her. And what Don Ferrante wished to say was
that he had succeeded in getting her father admitted to “The Brotherhood
of the Holy Heart” in Catania.

But although Don Ferrante spoke very distinctly, Donna Micaela seemed not
to understand him at all.

He had to repeat to her that he had been in Catania the day before, and
that he had succeeded in getting Cavaliere Palmeri into a brotherhood. He
was to enter it in a month.

She only asked: “What does that mean? What does that mean?”

“Oh,” said Don Ferrante, “can I not have wearied of buying your father
expensive wines from the mainland, and may I not sometimes wish to ride
Domenico?”

When he had said that, he wished to go. There was nothing more to say.

“But tell me first what kind of a brotherhood it is,” she said.--“What
it is! A lot of old men live there.”--“Poor old men?”--“Oh, well, not
so rich.”--“They do not have a room to themselves, I suppose?”--“No,
but very big dormitories.”--“And they eat from tin basins on a
table without a cloth?”--“No, they must be china.”--“But without a
table-cloth?”--“Lord, if the table is clean!”

He added, to silence her: “Very good people live there. If you like to
know it, it was not without hesitation they would receive Cavaliere
Palmeri.”

Thereupon Don Ferrante went. His wife was in despair, but also very
angry. She thought that he had divested himself of rank and class and
become only a plain shop-keeper.

She said aloud, although no one heard her, that the summer palace was
only a big, ugly old house, and Diamante a poor and miserable town.

Naturally, she would not allow her father to leave her. Don Ferrante
would see.

When they had eaten their dinner Don Ferrante wished to go to the Café
Europa and play dominoes, and he looked about for his hat. Donna Micaela
took his hat and followed him out to the gallery that ran round the
court-yard. When they were far enough from the dining-room for her father
not to be able to hear them, she said passionately:--

“Have you anything against my father?”--“He is too expensive.”--“But you
are rich.”--“Who has given you such an idea? Do you not see how I am
struggling?”--“Save in some other way.”--“I shall save in other ways.
Giannita has had presents enough.”--“No, economize on something for
me.”--“You! you are my wife; you shall have it as you have it.”

She stood silent a moment. She was thinking what she could say to
frighten him.

“If I am now your wife, do you know why it is?”--“Oh yes.”--“Do you also
know what the priest promised me?”--“That is his affair, but I do what
I can.”--“You have heard, perhaps, that I broke with all my friends in
Catania when I heard that my father had sought help from them and had not
got it.”--“I know it.”--“And that I came here to Diamante that he might
escape from seeing them and being ashamed?”--“They will not be coming
to the brotherhood.”--“When you know all this, are you not afraid to do
anything against my father?”--“Afraid? I am not afraid of my wife.”

“Have I not made you happy?” she asked.--“Yes, of course,” he answered
indifferently.--“Have you not enjoyed singing to me? Have you not liked
me to have considered you the most generous man in Sicily? Have you not
been glad that I was happy in the old palace? Why should it all come to
an end?”

He laid his hand on her shoulder and warned her. “Remember that you are
not married to a fine gentleman from the Via Etnea!”--“Oh, no!”--“Up here
on the mountain the ways are different. Here wives obey their husbands.
And we do not care for fair words. But if we want them we know how to get
them.”

She was frightened when he spoke so. In a moment she was on her knees
before him. It was dark, but enough light came from the other rooms for
him to see her eyes. In burning prayer, glorious as stars, they were
fixed on him.

“Be merciful! You do not know how much I love him!” Don Ferrante
laughed. “You ought to have begun with that. Now you have made me angry.”
She still knelt and looked up at him. “It is well,” he said, “for you
hereafter to know how you shall behave.” Still she knelt. Then he asked:
“Shall I tell him, or will you?”

Donna Micaela was ashamed that she had humbled herself. She rose and
answered imperiously: “I shall tell him, but not till the last day. And
you _shall_ not let him notice anything.”

“No, I _shall_ not,” he said, and mimicked her. “The less talk about it,
the better for me.”

But when he was gone Donna Micaela laughed at Don Ferrante for believing
that he could do what he liked with her father. She knew some one who
would help her.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the Cathedral at Diamante there is a miracle-working image of the
Madonna, and this is its story.

Long, long ago a holy hermit lived in a cave on Monte Chiaro. And this
hermit dreamed one night that in the harbor of Catania lay a ship loaded
with images of the saints, and among these there was one so holy that
Englishmen, who are richer than anybody else, would have paid its weight
in gold for it. As soon as the hermit awoke from this dream he started
for Catania. In the harbor lay a ship loaded with images of the saints,
and among the images was one of the holy Madonna that was more holy than
all the others. The hermit begged the captain not to carry that image
away from Sicily, but to give it to him. But the captain refused. “I
shall take it to England,” he said, “and the Englishmen will pay its
weight in gold.” The hermit renewed his petitions. At last the captain
had his men drive him on shore, and hoisted his sail to depart.

It looked as if the holy image was to be lost to Sicily; but the hermit
knelt down on one of the lava blocks on the shore and prayed to God that
it might not be. And what happened? The ship could not go. The anchor
was up, the sail hoisted, and the wind fresh; but for three long days
the ship lay as motionless as if it had been a rock. On the third day
the captain took the Madonna image and threw it to the hermit, who still
lay on the shore. And immediately the ship glided out of the harbor. The
hermit carried the image to Monte Chiaro, and it is still in Diamante,
where it has a chapel and an altar in the Cathedral.

Donna Micaela was now going to this Madonna to pray for her father.

She sought out the Madonna’s chapel, which was built in a dark corner of
the Cathedral. The walls were covered with votive offerings, with silver
hearts and pictures that had been given by all those who had been helped
by the Madonna of Diamante.

The image was hewn in black marble, and when Donna Micaela saw it
standing in its niche, high and dark, and almost hidden by a golden
railing, it seemed to her that its face was beautiful, and that it shone
with mildness. And her heart was filled with hope.

Here was the powerful queen of heaven; here was the good Mother Mary;
here was the afflicted mother who understood every sorrow; here was one
who would not allow her father to be taken from her.

Here she would find help. She would need only to fall on her knees and
tell her trouble, to have the black Madonna come to her assistance.

While she prayed she felt certain that Don Ferrante was even at that
moment changing his mind. When she came home he would come to meet her
and say to her that she might keep her father.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a morning three weeks later.

Donna Micaela came out of the summer palace to go to early mass; but
before she set out to the church, she went into Donna Elisa’s shop to
buy a wax candle. It was so early that she had been afraid that the shop
would not be open; but it was, and she was glad to be able to take a gift
with her to the black Madonna.

The shop was empty when Donna Micaela came in, and she pushed the door
forward and back to make the bell ring and call Donna Elisa in. At last
some one came, but it was not Donna Elisa; it was a young man.

That young man was Gaetano, whom Donna Micaela scarcely knew. For Gaetano
had heard so much about her that he was afraid to meet her, and every
time she had come over to Donna Elisa he had shut himself into his
workshop. Donna Micaela knew no more about him than that he was to leave
Diamante, and that he was always carving holy images for Donna Elisa
to have something to sell while he was earning great fortunes away in
Argentina.

When she now saw Gaetano, she found him so handsome that it made her
glad to look at him. She was full of anxiety as a hunted animal, but no
sorrow in the world could prevent her from feeling joy at the sight of
anything so beautiful.

She asked herself where she had seen him before, and she remembered that
she had seen his face in her father’s wonderful collection of pictures in
the palace at Catania. There he had not been in working blouse; he had
had a black felt hat with long, flowing, white feathers, and a broad lace
collar over a velvet coat. And he had been painted by the great master
Van Dyck.

Donna Micaela asked Gaetano for a wax candle, and he began to look for
one. And now, strangely enough, Gaetano, who saw the little shop every
day, seemed to be quite strange there. He looked for the wax candle in
the drawers of rosaries and in the little medallion boxes. He could not
find anything, and he grew so impatient that he turned out the drawers
and broke the boxes open. The destruction and disorder were terrible. And
it would be a real grief to Donna Elisa when she came home.

But Donna Micaela liked to see how he shook the thick hair back from his
face, and how his gold-colored eyes glowed like yellow wine when the sun
shines through it. It was a consolation to see any one so beautiful.

Then Donna Micaela asked pardon of the noble gentlemen whom the great Van
Dyck had painted. For she had often said to them: “Ah, signor, you have
been beautiful, but you never could have been so dark and so pale and
so melancholy. And you did not possess such eyes of fire. All that the
master who painted you has put into your face.” But when Donna Micaela
saw Gaetano she found that it all could be in a face, and that the
master had not needed to add anything. Therefore she asked the noble old
gentlemen’s pardon.

At last Gaetano had found the long candle-boxes that stood under the
counter, where they had always stood. And he gave her the candle, but
he did not know what it cost, and said that she could come in and pay
it later. When she asked him for something to wrap it in he was in such
trouble that she had to help him to look.

It grieved her that such a man should think of travelling to Argentina.

He let Donna Micaela wrap up the candle and watched her while she did it.
She wished she could have asked him not to look at her now, when her face
reflected only hopelessness and misery.

Gaetano had not scrutinized her features more than a moment before he
sprang up on a little step-ladder, took down an image from the topmost
shelf, and came back with it to her. It was a little gilded and painted
wooden angel, a little San Michele fighting with the arch-fiend, which he
had created from paper and wadding.

He handed it to Donna Micaela and begged her to accept it. He wished to
give it to her, he said, because it was the best he had ever carved. He
was so certain that it had greater power than his other images that he
had put it away on the top shelf, so that no one might see and buy it.
He had forbidden Donna Elisa to sell it except to one who had a great
sorrow. And now Donna Micaela was to take it.

She hesitated. She found him almost too daring.

But Gaetano begged her to look how well the image was carved. She saw
that the archangel’s wings were ruffled with anger, and that Lucifer was
pressing his claws into the steel plate on his leg? Did she see how San
Michele was driving in his spear, and how he was frowning and pressing
his lips together?

He wished to lay the little image in her hand, but she gently pushed it
away. She saw that it was beautiful and spirited, she said, but she knew
that it could not help her. She thanked him for his gift, but she would
not accept it.

Then Gaetano seized the image and rolled it in paper and put it back in
its place.

And not until it was wrapped up and put away did he speak to her.

But then he asked her why she came to buy wax candles if she was not a
believer. Did she mean to say that she did not believe in San Michele?
Did she not know that he was the most powerful of the angels, and that
it was he who had vanquished Lucifer and thrown him into Etna? Did she
not believe that it was true? Did she not know that San Michele lost a
wing-feather in the fight, and that it was found in Caltanisetta? Did she
know it or not? Or what did she mean by San Michele not being able to
help her? Did she think that none of the saints could help? And he, who
was standing in his workshop all day long, carving saints!--would he do
such a thing if there was no good in it? Did she believe that he was an
impostor?

But as Donna Micaela was just as strong a believer as Gaetano, she
thought that his speech was unjust, and it irritated her to contradiction.

“It sometimes happens that the saints do not help,” she said to him. And
when Gaetano looked unbelieving, she was seized by an uncontrollable
desire to convince him, and she said to him that some one had promised
her in the name of the Madonna that, if she was a faithful wife to Don
Ferrante, her father should enjoy an old age free of care. But now her
husband wished to put her father in a brotherhood, which was as wretched
as a poor-house and strict as a prison. And the Madonna had not averted
it; in eight days it would happen.

Gaetano listened to her with the greatest earnestness. That was what
induced her to confide the whole story to him.

“Donna Micaela,” he said, “you must turn to the black Madonna in the
Cathedral.”

“So you think that I have not prayed to her?”

Gaetano flushed and said almost with anger: “You will not say that you
have turned in vain to the black Madonna?”

“I have prayed to her in vain these last three weeks--prayed to her,
prayed to her.”

When Donna Micaela spoke of it she could scarcely breathe. She wanted to
weep over herself because she had awaited help each day, and each day
been disappointed; and yet had known nothing better to do than begin
again with her prayers. And it was visible on her face that her soul
lived over and over again what she had suffered, when each day she had
awaited an answer to her prayer, while the days slipped by.

But Gaetano was unmoved; he stood smiling, and drummed on one of the
glass cases that stood on the counter.

“Have you only _prayed_ to the Madonna?” he said.

Only prayed, only prayed! But she had also promised her to lay aside all
sins. She had gone to the street where she had lived first, and nursed
the sick woman with the ulcerated leg. She never passed a beggar without
giving alms.

Only prayed! And she told him that if the Madonna had had the power
to help her, she ought to have been satisfied with her prayers. She
had spent her days in the Cathedral. And the anguish, the anguish that
tortured her, should not that be counted?

He only shrugged his shoulders. Had she not tried anything else?

Anything else! But there was nothing in the world that she had not tried.
She had given silver hearts and wax candles. Her rosary was never out of
her hand.

Gaetano irritated her. He would not count anything that she had done; he
only asked: “Nothing else? Nothing else?”

“But you ought to understand,” she said. “Don Ferrante does not give me
so much money. I cannot do more. At last I have succeeded in getting some
silk and cloth for an altar cloth. You ought to understand!”

But Gaetano, who had daily intercourse with the saints, and who knew
the power and wildness of enthusiasm that had filled them when they
had compelled God to obey their prayers, smiled scornfully at Donna
Micaela, who thought she could subjugate the Madonna with wax candles and
altar-cloths.

He understood very well, he answered. The whole was clear to him. It
was always so with those miserable saints. Everybody called to them
for help, but few understood what they ought to do to get their prayers
granted. And then people said that the saints had no power. All were
helped who knew how they ought to pray.

Donna Micaela looked up in eager expectation. There was such strength and
conviction in Gaetano’s words that she began to believe that he would
teach her the right words of salvation.

Gaetano took the candle lying in front of her on the counter and threw it
down into the box again, and told her what she had to do. He forbade her
to give the Madonna any gifts, or to pray to her, or to do anything for
the poor. He told her that he would tear her altar-cloth to pieces if she
sewed another stitch on it.

“Show her, Donna Micaela, that it means something to you,” he said, and
fixed his eyes on her with compelling force. “Good Lord, you must be
able to find something to do, to show her that it is serious, and not
play. You must be able to show her that you will not live if you are not
helped. Do you mean to continue to be faithful to Don Ferrante, if he
sends your father away? I know you do. If the Madonna has no need to fear
what you are going to do, why should she help you?”

Donna Micaela drew back. He came swiftly out from behind the counter and
seized her coat sleeve.

“Do you understand? You shall show her that you can throw yourself away
if you do not get help. You shall throw yourself into sin and death if
you do not get what you want. That is the way to force the saints.”

She tore herself from him and went without a word. She hurried up the
spiral street, came to the Cathedral, and threw herself down in terror
before the altar of the black Madonna.

That happened one Saturday morning, and on Sunday evening Donna Micaela
saw Gaetano again. For it was beautiful moonlight, and in Diamante it is
the custom on moonlight nights for all to leave their homes and go out
into the streets. As soon as the inhabitants of the summer palace had
come outside their door they had met acquaintances. Donna Elisa had taken
Cavaliere Palmeri’s arm, and the syndic Voltaro had joined Don Ferrante
to discuss the elections; but Gaetano came up to Donna Micaela because he
wished to hear if she had followed his advice.

“Have you stopped sewing on that altar-cloth?” he said.

But Donna Micaela answered that all day yesterday she had sewn on it.

“Then it is you who understand what you are doing, Donna Micaela.”

“Yes, now there is no help for it, Don Gaetano.”

She managed to keep them away from the others, for there was something
she wished to speak to him about. And when they came to Porta Etnea, she
turned out through the gate, and they went along the paths that wind
under Monte Chiaro’s palm groves.

They could not have walked on the streets filled with people. Donna
Micaela spoke so the people in Diamante would have stoned her if they had
heard her.

She asked Gaetano if he had ever seen the black Madonna in the Cathedral.
She had not seen her till yesterday. The Madonna perhaps had placed
herself in such a dark corner of the Cathedral so that no one should be
able to see her. She was so black, and had a railing in front of her. No
one could see her.

But to-day Donna Micaela had seen her. To-day the Madonna had had a
festival, and she had been moved from her niche. The floor and walls of
her chapel had been covered with white almond-blossoms, and she herself
had stood down on the altar, dark and high, surrounded by the white glory.

But when Donna Micaela had seen the image she had been filled with
despair; for the image was no Madonna. No, she had prayed to no Madonna.
Oh, a shame, a shame! It was plainly an old heathen goddess. She had a
helmet, not a crown; she had no child on her arm; she had a shield. It
was a Pallas Athene. It was no Madonna. Oh, no; oh, no!

It was like the people of Diamante to worship such an image. It was like
them to set up such a blasphemy and worship it! Did he know what was the
worst misfortune? Their Madonna was so ugly. She was disfigured, and she
had never been a work of art. She was so ugly that one could not bear to
look at her.

And to have been deceived by all the thousand votive offerings that hung
in the chapel; to have been fooled by all the legends about her! To have
wasted three weeks in praying to her! Why had she not been helped? She
was no Madonna, she was no Madonna.

They walked along the path on the town wall running around Monte Chiaro.
The whole world was white about them. A white mist wreathed the base of
the mountain, and the almond-trees on Etna were quite white. Sometimes
they passed under an almond-tree, which arched them over with its
glistening branches, as thickly covered with flowers as if they had been
dipped in a bath of silver. The moonlight shone so bright on the earth
that everything was divested of its color, and became white. It seemed
almost strange that it could not be felt, that it did not warm, that it
did not dazzle the eyes.

Donna Micaela wondered if it was the moonlight that subdued Gaetano,
so that he did not seize her, and throw her down into Simeto, when she
cursed the black Madonna.

He walked silent and quiet at her side, but she was afraid of what he
might do. In spite of her fear, she could not be silent.

What she had still to say was the most dreadful of all. She said that she
had tried all day long to think of the real Madonna, and that she had
recalled to her mind all the images of her she had ever seen. But it had
all been in vain, because as soon as she thought of the shining queen of
heaven, the old black goddess came and placed herself between them. She
saw her come like a dried-up and officious old maid, and stand in front
of the great queen of heaven, so that now no Madonna existed for her any
longer. She believed that the latter was angry with her because she had
done so much for the other, and that she hid her face and her grace from
her. And, on account of the false Madonna, her father was now to suffer
misfortune. Now she would never be allowed to keep him in her home. Now
she would never win his forgiveness. Oh, God! oh, God!

And all this she said to Gaetano, who honored the black Madonna of
Diamante more than anything else in the world.

He now came close up to Donna Micaela, and she feared that it was her
last hour. She said in a faint voice, as if to excuse herself: “I am mad.
Grief is driving me mad. I never sleep.”

But Gaetano’s only thought had been what a child she was, and that she
did not at all understand how to meet life.

He hardly knew himself what he was doing when he gently drew her to him
and kissed her, because she had gone so astray and was such a helpless
child.

She was so overcome with astonishment that she did not even think of
avoiding it. And she neither screamed nor ran away. She understood
instantly that he had kissed her as he would a child. She only walked
quickly on and began to cry. That kiss had made her feel how helpless and
forsaken she was, and how much she longed for some one strong and good to
take care of her.

It was terrible that, although she had both father and husband, she
should be so forsaken that this stranger should need to feel sympathy for
her.

When Gaetano saw her trembling with silent sobs, he felt that he too
began to shake. A strong and violent emotion took possession of him.

He came close to her once more and laid his hand on her arm. And his
voice, when he spoke, was not clear and loud; it was thick and choked
with emotion.

“Will you go with me to Argentina if the Madonna does not help you?”

Then Donna Micaela shook him off. She felt suddenly that he no longer
talked to her as to a child. She turned and went back into the town.
Gaetano did not follow her; he remained standing in the path where he had
kissed her, and it seemed as if never again could he leave that place.

For two days Gaetano dreamed of Donna Micaela, but on the third he came
to the summer palace to speak to her.

He found her on the roof-garden, and instantly told her that she must
flee with him.

He had thought it out since they parted. He had stood in his workshop and
considered everything that had happened, and now it was all clear to him.

She was a rose which the strong sirocco had torn from its stem and
roughly whirled through the air, that she might find so much the better
rest and protection in a heart which loved her. She must understand
that God and all the saints wished and desired that they should love
one another, otherwise these great misfortunes would not have brought
her near to him. If the Madonna refused to help her, it was because she
wished to set her free from her promise of faithfulness to Don Ferrante.
For all the saints knew that she was his, Gaetano’s. She was created for
him; for him she had grown up; for him she was alive. When he kissed
her in the path in the moonlight he had been like a lost child who had
wandered long in the desert and now at last had come to the gate of his
home. He possessed nothing; but she was his home and his hearth; she was
the inheritance God had apportioned to him, the only thing in the world
that was his.

Therefore he could not leave her behind. She must go with him; she must,
she must!

He did not kneel before her. He stood and talked to her with clenched
hands and blazing eyes. He did not ask her, he commanded her to go with
him, because she was his.

It was no sin to take her away; it was his duty. What would become of her
if he deserted her?

Donna Micaela listened to him without moving. She sat silent a long time,
even after he had ceased speaking.

“When are you going?” she asked at length.

“I leave Diamante on Saturday.”

“And when does the steamer go?”

“It goes on Sunday evening from Messina.”

Donna Micaela rose and walked away towards the terrace stairs.

“My father is to go to Catania on Saturday,” she said. “I shall ask Don
Ferrante to be allowed to go with him.” She went down a few steps, as if
she did not mean to say anything more. Then she stopped. “If you meet me
in Catania, I will go with you whither you will.”

She hurried down the steps. Gaetano did not try to detain her. A time
would come when she would not run away from him. He knew that she could
not help loving him.

Donna Micaela passed the whole of Friday afternoon in the Cathedral. She
had come to the Madonna and thrown herself down before her in despair.
“Oh, Madonna mia, Madonna mia! Shall I be to-morrow a fugitive wife? Will
the world have the right to say all possible evil of me?” Everything
seemed equally terrible to her. She was appalled at the thought of
fleeing with Gaetano, and she did not know how she could stay with Don
Ferrante. She hated the one as much as the other. Neither of them seemed
able to offer her anything but unhappiness.

She saw that the Madonna would not help. And now she asked herself if it
really would not be a greater misery to go with Gaetano than to remain
with Don Ferrante. Was it worth while to ruin herself to be revenged on
her husband?

She suffered great anguish. She had been driven on by a devouring
restlessness the whole week. Worst of all, she could not sleep. She no
longer thought clearly or soundly.

Time and time again she returned to her prayers. But then she thought:
“The Madonna cannot help me.” And so she stopped.

Then she came to think of the days of her former sorrows, and remembered
the little image that once had helped her, when she had been in despair
as great as this.

She turned with passionate eagerness to the poor little child. “Help me,
help me! Help my old father, and help me myself that I may not be tempted
to anger and revenge!”

When she went to bed that night, she was still tormented and distressed.
“If I could sleep only one hour,” she said, “I should know what I wanted.”

Gaetano was to start on his travels early the next morning. She came at
last to the decision to speak to him before he left, and tell him that
she could not go with him. She could not bear to be considered a fallen
woman.

She had hardly decided that before she fell asleep. She did not wake
till the clock struck nine the next morning. And then Gaetano was already
gone. She could not tell him that she had changed her mind.

But she did not think of it either. During her sleep something new and
strange had come over her. It seemed to her that in the night she had
lived in heaven and was filled with bliss.

       *       *       *       *       *

What saint is there who does more for man than San Pasquale? Does it not
sometimes happen to you to stand and talk in some lonely place in the
woods or plains, and either to speak ill of some one or to make plans
for something foolish? Now please notice that just as you are talking
and talking you hear a rustling near by, and look round in wonder to see
if some one has thrown a stone. It is useless to look about long for the
thrower of the stone. It comes from San Pasquale. As surely as there is
justice in heaven, it was San Pasquale who heard you talking evil, and
threw one of his stones in warning.

And any one who does not like to be disturbed in his evil schemes may not
console himself with the thought that San Pasquale’s stones will soon
come to an end. They will not come to an end at all. There are so many of
them that they will hold out till the last day of the world. For when San
Pasquale lived here on the earth, do you know by chance what he did, do
you know what he thought about more than anything else? San Pasquale gave
heed to all the little flint-stones that lay in his path, and gathered
them up into his bag. You, signor, you will scarcely stoop to pick up a
soldo, but San Pasquale picked up every little flint-stone, and when he
died, he took them all with him up to heaven, and there he sits now, and
throws them at everybody who thinks of doing anything foolish.

But that is not by any means the only use that San Pasquale is to man.
It is he, also, who gives warning if any one is to be married, or if any
one is to die; and he even gives the sign with something besides stones.
Old Mother Saraedda at Randazzo sat by her daughter’s sick bed one night
and fell asleep. The daughter lay unconscious and was about to die, and
no one could summon the priest. How was the mother waked in time? How was
she waked, so that she could send her husband to the priest’s house? By
nothing else than a chair, which began to rock forward and back, and to
crack and creak, until she awoke. And it was San Pasquale who did it. Who
else but San Pasquale is there to think of such a thing?

There is one thing more to tell about San Pasquale. It was of big
Cristoforo from Tre Castagni. He was not a bad man, but he had a bad
habit. He could not open his mouth without swearing. He could not say two
words without one of them being an oath. And do you think that it did
any good for his wife and neighbors to admonish him? But over his bed he
had a little picture representing San Pasquale, and the little picture
succeeded in helping him. Every night it swung forward and back in its
frame, swung fast or slow, as he had sworn that day. And he discovered
that he could not sleep a single night until he stopped swearing.

In Diamante San Pasquale has a church, which lies outside the Porta
Etnea, a little way down the mountain. It is quite small and poor, but
the white walls and the red roof stand beautifully embedded in a grove of
almond-trees.

Therefore, as soon as the almond-trees bloom in the spring, San
Pasquale’s church becomes the most beautiful in Diamante. For the
blossoming branches arch over it, thickly covered with white, glistening
flowers, like the most gorgeous garment.

San Pasquale’s church is very miserable and deserted, because no service
can be held there. For when the Garibaldists, who freed Sicily, came to
Diamante, they camped in San Pasquale’s church and in the Franciscan
monastery beside it. And in the church itself they stabled brute beasts,
and led such a wild life with women and with gambling that ever since it
has been considered unhallowed and unclean, and has never been opened for
divine service from that time.

Therefore it is only when the almond-trees are in bloom that strangers
and fine people pay attention to San Pasquale. For although the whole of
the slopes of Etna are white then with almond-blossoms, still the biggest
and the most luxuriant trees stand about the old, condemned church.

But the poor people of Diamante come to San Pasquale the whole year
round. For although the church is always closed, people go there to get
advice from the saint. There is an image of him under a big stone canopy
just by the entrance, and people come to ask him about the future. No one
can foretell the future better than San Pasquale.

Now it happened that the very morning when Gaetano left Diamante the
clouds had come rolling down from Etna, as thick as if they had been
dust from innumerable hosts, and they filled the air like dark-winged
dragons, and vomited forth rain, and breathed mists and darkness. It grew
so thick over Diamante that one could scarcely see across the street.
The dampness dripped from everything; the floor was as wet as the roof,
the doorposts and balustrades were covered with drops, the fog stood and
quivered in the passage-ways and rooms, until one would have thought them
full of smoke.

That very morning, at an early hour, before the rain had begun, a rich
English lady started in her big travelling-carriage to make the trip
round Etna. But when she had driven a few hours a terrible rain began,
and everything was wrapped in mist. As she did not wish to miss seeing
any of the beautiful district through which she was travelling, she
determined to drive to the nearest town and to stay there until the storm
was over. That town was Diamante.

The Englishwoman was a Miss Tottenham, and it was she who had moved into
the Palazzo Palmeri at Catania. Among all the other things she brought
with her in her trunks was the Christ image, upon which Donna Micaela had
called the evening before. For that image, which was now both old and
mishandled, she always carried with her, in memory of an old friend who
had left her her wealth.

It seemed as if San Pasquale had known what a great miracle-worker
the image was, for it was as if he wished to greet him. Just as Miss
Tottenham’s travelling-carriage drove in through Porta Etnea, the bells
began to ring on San Pasquale’s church.

They rang afterwards all day quite by themselves.

San Pasquale’s bells are not much bigger than those that are used on
farms to call the work people home; and like them, they are hung under
the roof in a little frame, and set in motion by pulling a rope that
hangs down by the church wall.

It is not heavy work to make the bells ring, but nevertheless they are
not so light that they can swing quite by themselves. Whoever has seen
old Fra Felice from the Franciscan monastery put his foot in the loop of
the rope and tread up and down to start them going, knows well enough
that the bells cannot begin to ring without assistance.

But that was just what they were doing that morning. The rope was
fastened to a cleat in the wall, and there was no one touching it. Nor
did any one sit crouching on the roof to set them going. People plainly
saw how the bells swung backwards and forwards, and how the tongues hit
against the brazen throats. It could not be explained.

When Donna Micaela awoke, the bells were already ringing, and she lay
quiet for a long time, and listened, and listened. She had never heard
anything more beautiful. She did not know that it was a miracle, but she
lay and thought how beautiful it was. She lay and wondered if real bronze
bells could sound like that.

No one will ever know what the metal was that rang in San Pasquale’s
bells that day.

She thought that the bells said to her that now she was to be glad; now
she was to live and love; now she was to go to meet something great and
beautiful; now she was never again to have regrets and never be sad.

Then her heart began to dance in a kind of stately measure, and she
marched solemnly to the sound of bells into a great castle. And to whom
could the castle belong, who could be lord of such a beautiful place, if
not love?

It can be hidden no longer: when Donna Micaela awoke she felt that she
loved Gaetano, and that she desired nothing better than to go with him.

When Donna Micaela drew back the curtain from the window and saw the gray
morning, she kissed her hand to it and whispered: “You, who are morning
to the day when I am going away, you are the most beautiful morning I
have ever seen; and gray as you are, I will caress and kiss you.”

But she still liked the bells best.

By that you may know that her love was strong, for to all the others it
was torture to hear those bells, that would not stop ringing. No one
asked about them during the first half-hour. During the first half-hour
people hardly heard any ringing, but during the second and the third!!!

No one need believe that San Pasquale’s little bells could not make
themselves heard. They are always loud and their clang seemed now to grow
and grow. It soon sounded as if the fog were filled with bells; as if the
sky hung full of them, although no one could see them for the clouds.

When Donna Elisa first heard the ringing she thought that it was San
Giuseppe’s little bell, and then that it was the bell of the Cathedral
itself. Then she thought she heard the bell of the Dominican monastery
chime in, and at last she was certain that all the bells in the town rang
and rang all they could, all the bells in the five monasteries and the
seven churches. She thought that she recognized them all, until finally
she asked, and heard that it was only San Pasquale’s little bells that
were ringing.

During the first hours, and before people generally knew that the bells
were ringing all by themselves, they noticed that the raindrops fell
in time to the sound of the bells, and that every one spoke with a
metallic voice. People also noticed that it was impossible to play on
mandolin and guitar, because the bells blended with the music and made
it ear-splitting; neither could any one read, because the letters swung
to and fro like bell-clappers, and the words acquired a voice, and read
themselves out quite audibly.

Soon the people could not bear to see flowers on long stalks, because
they thought that they swung to and fro. And they complained that sound
came from them, instead of fragrance.

Others insisted that the mist floating through the air moved in time with
the sound of the bells, and they said that all the pendulums conformed to
it, and that every one who went by in the rain tried to do likewise.

And that was when the bells had only rung a couple of hours, and when the
people still laughed at them.

But at the third hour the ringing seemed to increase even more, and then
some stuffed cotton into their ears, while others buried themselves under
pillows. But they felt just as distinctly how the air quivered with the
strokes, and they thought that they perceived how everything moved in
time. Those who fled up to the dark attic found the sound of the bells
clear and ringing there, as if they came from the sky; and those who fled
down into the cellar heard them as loud and deafening there as if San
Pasquale’s church stood under ground.

Every one in Diamante began to be terrified except Donna Micaela, whom
love protected from fear.

And now people began to think that it must mean something, because it was
San Pasquale’s bells that rang. Every one began to ask himself what the
saint foretold. Each had his own dread, and believed that San Pasquale
gave warning to him of what he least wished. Each had a deed on his
conscience to remember, and now thought that San Pasquale was ringing
down a punishment for him.

Toward noon, when the bells still rang, everybody was sure that San
Pasquale was ringing such a misfortune upon Diamante that they might all
expect to die within the year.

Pretty Giannita came terrified and weeping to Donna Micaela, and lamented
that it was San Pasquale who was ringing. “God, God, if it had been any
other than San Pasquale!”

“He sees that something terrible is coming to us,” said Giannita. “The
mist does not prevent him from seeing as far as he will. He sees that an
enemy’s fleet is approaching in the bay! He sees that a cloud of ashes is
rising out of Etna which will fall over us and bury us!”

Donna Micaela smiled, and thought that she knew of what San Pasquale
was thinking. “He is tolling a passing-bell for the beautiful
almond-blossoms, that are destroyed by the rain,” she said to Giannita.

She let no one frighten her, for she believed that the bells were ringing
for her alone. They rocked her to dream. She sat quite still in the
music-room and let joy reign in her. But in the whole world about her was
fear and anxiety and restlessness.

No one could sit at his work. No one could think of anything but the
great horror that San Pasquale foretold.

People began to give the beggars more gifts than they had ever had; but
the beggars did not rejoice, because they did not believe they would
survive the morrow. And the priests could not rejoice, although they had
so many penitents that they had to sit in the confessional all day long,
and although gift upon gift was piled up on the altar of the saint.

Not even Vicenzo da Lozzo, the letter-writer, was glad of the day,
although people besieged his desk under the court-house loggia, and were
more than willing to pay him a soldo a word, if they only might write a
line of farewell on this their last day to their dear ones far away.

It was not possible to keep school that day, for the children cried the
whole time. At noon the mothers came, their faces stiff with terror, and
took their little ones home with them, so that they might at least be
together in misfortune.

The apprentices at the tailors and shoe-makers had a holiday. But the
poor boys did not dare to enjoy it; they preferred to sit in their places
in the workshops, and wait.

In the afternoon the ringing still continued.

Then the old gate-keeper of the palazzo Geraci, where now no one lives
but beggars, and who is himself a beggar, and goes dressed in the most
miserable rags, went and put on the light-green velvet livery that he
wears only on saints’ days and on the king’s birthday. And no one could
see him sitting in the gateway dressed in that array without being
chilled with fear, for people understood that the old man expected that
no other than destruction would march in through the gate he was guarding.

It was dreadful how people frightened one another.

Poor Torino, who had once been a man of means, went from house to house
and cried that now the time had come when every one who had cheated and
beggared him would get his punishment. He went into all the little shops
along the Corso and struck the counter with his hand, saying that now
every one in the town would get his sentence, because all had connived to
cheat him.

It was also terrifying to hear of the game of cards at the Café Europa.
There the same four had played year after year at the same table, and
no one had ever thought that they could do anything else. But now they
suddenly let their cards fall, and promised each other that if they
survived the horror of this day they would never touch them again.

Donna Elisa’s shop was packed with people; to propitiate the saints and
to avert the menace, they bought all the sacred things that she had to
sell. But Donna Elisa thought only of Gaetano, who was away, and believed
that San Pasquale was warning her that he would be lost during the
voyage. And she took no pleasure in all the money that she was earning.

When San Pasquale’s bells went on ringing the whole afternoon people
could hardly hold out.

For now they knew that it was an earthquake which they foretold, and that
all Diamante would be wrecked.

In the alleys, where the very houses seemed afraid of earthquakes, and
huddled together to support one another, people moved their miserable old
furniture out on the street into the rain, and spread tents of bed-quilts
over them. And they even carried out their little children in their
cradles, and piled up boxes over them.

In spite of the rain, there was such a crowd on the Corso that it was
almost impossible to pass through. For every one was trying to go out
through Porta Etnea to see the bells swinging and swinging, and to
convince themselves that no one was touching the rope,--that it was
firmly tied. And all who came out there fell on their knees in the road,
where the water ran in streams, and the mud was bottomless.

The doors to San Pasquale’s church were shut, as always, but outside the
old gray-brother, Fra Felice, went about with a brass plate, among those
who prayed, and received their gifts.

In their turn the frightened people went forward to the image of San
Pasquale beneath the stone canopy, and kissed his hand. An old woman came
carefully carrying something under a green umbrella. It was a glass with
water and oil, in which floated a little wick burning with a faint flame.
She placed it in front of the image and knelt before it.

Though many thought that they ought to try to tie up the bells, no one
dared to propose it. For no one dared to silence God’s voice.

Nor did any one dare to say that it might be a device of old Fra Felice
to collect money. Fra Felice was beloved. It would fare badly with
whoever said such things as that.

Donna Micaela also came out to San Pasquale and took her father with her.
She walked with her head high and quite without fear. She came to thank
him for having rung a great passion into her soul. “My life begins this
day,” she said to herself.

Don Ferrante did not seem to be afraid either, but he was grim and angry.
For every one had to go in to him in his shop, and tell him what they
thought, and hear his opinion, because he was one of the Alagonas, who
had governed the town for so many years.

All day terrified, trembling people came into his shop. And they all came
up to him and said: “This is a terrible ringing, Don Ferrante. What is to
become of us, Don Ferrante?”

Even Ugo Favara, the splenetic advocate, came into the shop, and took
a chair, and sat down behind the counter. And Don Ferrante had him
sitting there all day, quite livid, quite motionless, suffering the most
inconceivable anguish without uttering a word.

Every five minutes Torino-il-Martello came in and struck the counter,
saying that the hour had come in which Don Ferrante was to get his
punishment.

Don Ferrante was a hard man, but he could no more escape the bells than
any other. And the longer he heard them, the more he began to wonder why
everybody streamed into his shop. It seemed as if they meant something
special. It seemed as if they wished to make him responsible for the
ringing, and the evil it portended.

He had not spoken of it to any one, but his wife must have spread it
about. He began to believe that everybody was thinking the same, although
they did not dare to say it. He thought that the advocate was sitting and
waiting for him to yield. He believed that the whole town came in to see
if he would really dare to send his father-in-law away.

Donna Elisa, who had so much to do in her own shop that she could not
come herself, sent old Pacifica continually to him to ask what he thought
of the bell-ringing. And the priest too came to the shop for a moment and
said, like all the others: “Did you ever hear such a terrible ringing,
Don Ferrante?”

Don Ferrante would have liked to know if the advocate and Don Matteo
and all the others came only to reproach him because he wished to send
Cavaliere Palmeri away.

The blood began to throb in his temples. The room swam now and then
before his eyes. People came in continually and asked: “Have you ever
heard such a terrible ringing?” But one never came and asked, and that
was Donna Micaela. She could not come when she felt no fear. She was
merely delighted and proud that the passion which was to fill her whole
life had come. “My life is to be great and glorious,” she said. And she
was appalled that till now she had been only a child.

She would travel with the post-carriage that went by Diamante at ten
o’clock at night. Towards four, she thought, she must tell her father
everything, and begin his packing.

But that did not seem hard to her. Her father would soon come to her in
Argentina. She would beg him to be patient for a few months, until they
could have a home to offer him. And she was sure that he would be glad to
have her leave Don Ferrante.

She moved in a delicious trance. Everything that had seemed dreadful
appeared so no longer. There was no shame, no danger; no, none at all.

She only longed to hear the rattling of the post-carriage.

Then she heard many voices on the stairs leading from the court-yard to
the second floor. She heard a multitude of heavy feet tramping. She saw
people passing through the open portico that ran round the court-yard,
and through which one had to go to come into the rooms. She saw that they
were carrying something heavy between them, but she could not see what it
was, because there was such a crowd.

The pale-faced advocate walked before the others. He came and said to her
that Don Ferrante had wished to drive Torino out of his shop; Torino had
cut him with his knife. It was nothing dangerous. He was already bandaged
and would be well in a fortnight.

Don Ferrante was carried in, and his eyes wandered about the room, not in
search of Donna Micaela, but of Cavaliere Palmeri. When he saw him, he
let his wife know without a word, only by a few gestures, that her father
never would need to leave his house; never, never.

Then she pressed her hands against her eyes. What, what! her father need
not go? She was saved. A miracle had come to pass to help her!

Ah, now she must be glad, be content! But she was not. She felt the most
terrible pain.

She could not go. Her father was allowed to remain, and so she must be
faithful to Don Ferrante. She struggled to understand. It was so. She
could not go.

She tried to change it in some way. Perhaps it was a false conclusion.
She had been so confused. No, no, it was so, she could not.

Then she became tired unto death. She had travelled and travelled the
whole day. She had been so long on the way. And she would never get
there. She sank down. A torpor and faintness came over her. There was
nothing to do but to rest after the endless journey she had made. But
that she could never do. She began to weep because she would never reach
her journey’s end. Her whole life long she would travel, travel, travel,
and never reach the end of her journey.




VIII

TWO SONGS


It was the morning after the day when San Pasquale’s bells had rung;
and Donna Elisa sat in her shop and counted her money. The day before,
when everyone had been afraid, there had been an incredible sale in the
shop, and the next morning, when she had come down, she had at first
been almost frightened. For the whole shop was desolate and empty; the
medallions were gone, the wax candles were gone, and so were all the
great bunches of rosaries. All Gaetano’s beautiful images had been taken
down from the shelves and sold, and it was a real grief to Donna Elisa
not to see the host of holy men and women about her.

She opened the money-drawer, and it was so full that she could hardly
pull it out. And while she counted her money she wept over it as if it
had all been false. For what good did it do her to possess all those
dirty lire and those big copper coins when she had lost Gaetano!

Alas! she thought that if he had stopped at home one day more he would
not have needed to go, for now she was laden down with money.

While she was counting she heard the post-carriage stop outside her door.
But she did not even look up; she did not care what happened, since
Gaetano was gone. Then the door opened, and the bell rang violently. She
only wept and counted. Then some one said: “Donna Elisa, Donna Elisa!”
And it was Gaetano!

“But heavens! how can you be at home?” she cried.--“You have sold all
your images. I had to come home to carve new ones for you.”--“But how
did you find out about it?”--“I met the post-carriage at two o’clock in
the night. Rosa Alfari was in it, and she told me everything.”--“What
luck that you went down to the post-carriage! What luck that you happened
to think of going down to the post-carriage!”--“Yes; was it not good
fortune?” said Gaetano.

In less than an hour Gaetano was again standing in his workshop; and
Donna Elisa, who had nothing at all to do in her empty shop, came
incessantly to the door to look at him. No, was he really standing there
and carving? She could not let five minutes pass without coming to look
at him.

But when Donna Micaela heard that he was back she felt no joy, rather
anger and despair. For she was afraid that Gaetano would come to tempt
her.

She had heard that a rich Englishwoman had come to Diamante the day the
bells rang. She was deeply affected when she heard that it was the lady
with the Christ image. He had therefore come as soon as she had called on
him. The rain and the bell-ringing were his work!

She tried to rejoice her soul with the thought that there had been a
miracle for her sake. It would be more to her than all earthly happiness
and love to feel that she was surrounded by God’s grace. She did not
wish anything earthly to come and drag her down from that blessed rapture.

But when she met Gaetano on the street he hardly looked at her; and when
she met him at Donna Elisa’s he did not take her hand and did not speak
to her at all.

For the truth was that, although Gaetano had come home because it had
been too hard to go without Donna Micaela, he did not wish to tempt or to
persuade her. He saw that she was under the protection of the saints, and
she had become so sacred to him that he scarcely dared to dream of her.

He wished to be near her, not in order to love her, but because he
believed that her life would blossom with holy deeds. Gaetano longed for
miracles, as a gardener longs for the first rose in the spring.

But when weeks went by and Gaetano never tried to approach Donna Micaela,
she began to doubt, and to think that he had never loved her. She said
to herself that he had won the promise from her to flee with him only in
order to show her that the Madonna could work a miracle.

If that were true, she did not know why he had not continued his journey
without turning back.

That caused her anxiety. She thought that she could conquer her love
better if she knew whether Gaetano loved her. She weighed the pros and
cons, and she was more and more sure that he had never loved her.

While Donna Micaela was thinking of this, she had to sit and keep Don
Ferrante company. He had lain sick a long time. He had had two strokes of
paralysis, and had risen from his sick-bed a broken man. All at once he
had become old and dull and afraid, so that he never dared to be alone.
He never worked in the shop; he was in every way a changed man.

He had been seized with a great desire to be aristocratic and
fashionable. It looked as if poor Don Ferrante’s head was turned with
pride.

Donna Micaela was very good to him, and sat hour after hour and chatted
with him.

“Who could it be,” she used to ask, “who once stood in the market-place
with plumes on his hat, and braid on his coat, and sword at his side,
and who played so that people said that his music was as uplifting as
Etna, and as strong as the sea? And who caught sight of a poor signorina
dressed in black, who did not dare to show her face to the world, and
went forward to her and offered his arm? Who could it be? Could it be Don
Ferrante, who stands the whole week in his shop and wears a pointed cap
and a short jacket? No; that cannot be possible. No old merchant could
have done such a thing.”

Don Ferrante laughed. That was just the way he liked to have her talk to
him. She would also tell him how it would be when he came to court. The
king would say this, and the queen would say that. “The old Alagonas have
come up again,” they would say at court. And who has brought up the race?
People will wonder and wonder. The Don Ferrante, who is a Sicilian prince
and Spanish grandee, is that the same man who stood in a shop in Diamante
and shouted at the teamsters? No, people will say, it cannot be the same.
It is impossible for it to be the same.

Don Ferrante liked that, and wished to hear her talk so day in and day
out. He was never tired of listening, and Donna Micaela was very patient
with him.

But one day while she was chatting, Donna Elisa came in. “Sister-in-law,
if you happen to own the ‘Legend of the Holy Virgin of Pompeii,’ will you
lend it to me?” she asked.--“What, are you going to begin to read?” asked
Donna Micaela.--“The saints preserve us! you know very well that I cannot
read. Gaetano is asking for it.”

Donna Micaela did not own the “Legend of the Holy Virgin at Pompeii.” But
she did not say so to Donna Elisa; she went to her book-shelf and took a
little book, a collection of Sicilian love-songs, and gave it to Donna
Elisa, who carried the little book over to Gaetano.

But Donna Micaela had no sooner done so before a lively regret seized
her. And she asked herself what she had meant by behaving so,--she who
had been helped by the little Christchild?

She blushed with shame as she thought that she had marked one of the
little songs, one that ran thus:--

    “For one single question’s answer longing,
    Night I asked, and asked the daytime’s burning;
    Watched the flight of birds, and swift clouds thronging,
    In water strove to read the hot lead’s turning;
    Leaves I counted plucked from many flowers,
    Lured dark prophets forth, and sought their powers,
    Till at last I called on Heaven above me:
    ‘Doth he love me still, as once he loved me?’”

She had hoped to get an answer to it. But it would serve her right if
no answer came. It would serve her right if Gaetano despised her and
thought her forward.

Yet she had meant no harm. The only thing she had desired had been to
find out if Gaetano loved her.

Several weeks again passed and Donna Micaela still sat with Don Ferrante.

But one day Donna Elisa had tempted her out. “Come with me into my
garden, sister-in-law, and see my big magnolia-tree. You have never seen
anything so beautiful.”

She had gone with Donna Elisa across the street and had come into her
court-yard. And Donna Elisa’s magnolia was like the shining sun, so that
people were aware of it even before they saw it. At a great distance the
fragrance lay and rocked in the air, and there was a murmuring of bees,
and a twittering of birds.

When Donna Micaela saw the tree she could hardly breathe. It was very
high and broad, with a beautifully even growth, and its large, firm
leaves were of a fresh, dark green. But now it was entirely covered with
great, bright flowers, that lighted and adorned it so that it looked
as if dressed for a feast, and one felt an intoxicating joy streaming
forth from the tree. Donna Micaela almost lost consciousness, and a
new and irresistible power took possession of her. She drew down one
of the stiff branches, and without breaking it spread out the flower
that it bore, took a needle and began to prick letters on the flower
leaf. “What are you doing, sister-in-law?” asked Donna Elisa.--“Nothing,
nothing.”--“In my time young girls used to prick love-letters on the
magnolia-blossoms.”--“Perhaps they do it still.”--“Take care; I shall
look at what you have written when you are gone.”--“But you cannot
read.”--“I have Gaetano.”--“And Luca; you had better ask Luca.”

When Donna Micaela came home, she repented of what she had done. Would
Donna Elisa really show the flower to Gaetano? No, no; Donna Elisa was
too sensible. But if he had seen her from the window of his workshop?
Well, he would not answer. She had made herself ridiculous.

No, never, never again would she do such a thing. It was best for her not
to know. It was best for her that Gaetano did not ask after her.

Nevertheless she wondered what answer she would get. But none came.

So another week passed. Then it came into Don Ferrante’s mind that he
would like to go out for a drive in the afternoon.

In the carriage-house of the summer palace there was an ancient state
carriage, which was certainly more than a hundred years old. It was very
high; it had a small, narrow body, which swung on leather straps between
the back wheels, which were as big as the water-wheels of a mill. It was
painted white, with gilding; it was lined with red velvet, and had a coat
of arms on its doors.

Once it had been a great honor to ride in that carriage; and when the
old Alagonas had passed in it along the Corso, people had stood on their
thresholds, and crowded to their doors, and hung over balconies to see
them. But then it had been drawn by spirited barbs; then the coachman
had worn a wig, and the footman gold braid, and it had been driven with
embroidered silk reins.

Now Don Ferrante wished to harness his old horses before the gala
carriage and have his old shopman take the place of coachman.

When Donna Micaela told him that it could not be, Don Ferrante began to
weep. What would people think of him if he did not show himself on the
Corso in the afternoon? That was the last thing a man of position denied
himself. How could anyone know that he was a nobleman, if he did not
drive up and down the street in the carriage of the old Alagonas?

The happiest hour Don Ferrante had enjoyed since his illness was when
he drove out for the first time. He sat erect and nodded and waved very
graciously to every one he met. And the people of Diamante bowed, and
took off their hats, so that they swept the street. Why should they not
give Don Ferrante this pleasure?

Donna Micaela was with him, for Don Ferrante did not dare to drive alone.
She had not wished to go, but Don Ferrante had wept, and reminded her
that he had married her when she was despised and penniless. She ought
not to be ungrateful; she ought not to forget what he had done for her,
and ought to come with him. Why did she not wish to drive with him in his
carriage? It was the finest old carriage in Sicily.

“Why will you not come with me?” said Don Ferrante. “Remember that I am
the only one who loves you. Do you not see that not even your father
loves you? You must not be ungrateful.”

In this way he had forced Donna Micaela to take her place in the gala
carriage.

But it was not at all as she had expected. No one laughed. The women
courtesied, and the men bowed as solemnly as if the carriage had been a
hundred years younger. And Donna Micaela could not detect a smile on any
face.

No one in all Diamante would have wished to laugh; for every one knew
how Don Ferrante treated Donna Micaela. They knew how he loved her, and
how he wept if she left him for a single minute. They knew, too, that he
tormented her with jealousy, and that he trampled her hats to pieces,
if they became her, and never gave her money for new dresses, because
no other was to find her beautiful, and love her. But all the time he
told her that she was so ugly that no one but he could bear to look at
her face. And because every one in Diamante knew it all, no one laughed.
Laugh at her, sitting and chatting with a sick man! They are pious
Christians in Diamante, and not barbarians.

So the gala-carriage in its faded glory drove up and down the Corso in
Diamante during the hour between five and six. And in Diamante it drove
quite alone, for there were no other fine carriages there; but people
knew that at that same time all the carriages in Rome drove to Monte
Pincio, all those in Naples to the Via Nazionale, and all in Florence to
the Cascine, and all in Palermo to La Favorita.

But when the carriage approached the Porta Etnea for the third time, a
merry sound of horns was heard from the road outside.

And through the gate swung a big, high coach in the English style.

It was meant to look old-fashioned also. The postilion riding on the off
leader had leather trousers, and a wig tied in a pig-tail. The coach was
like an old diligence, with the body behind the coach box and seats on
the roof.

But everything was new; the horses were magnificent, powerful animals,
carriage and harness shone, and the passengers were some young gentlemen
and ladies from Catania, who were making an excursion up Etna. And they
could not help laughing as they drove by the old gala-carriage. They
leaned over from where they sat on the high roof to look at it, and their
laughter sounded very loud and echoed between the high, silent houses of
Diamante.

Donna Micaela was very unhappy. They were some of her old circle of
friends. What would they not say when they came home? “We have seen
Micaela Palmeri in Diamante.” And they would laugh and talk, laugh and
talk.

Her life seemed so squalid. She was nothing but the slave of a fool. Her
whole life long she would never do anything but chat with Don Ferrante.

When she came home she was quite exhausted. She was so tired and weak
that she could scarcely drag herself up the steps.

And all the time Don Ferrante was rejoicing in his good fortune at having
met all those fine people, and having been seen in his state. He told her
that now no one would ask whether she was ugly, or whether her father had
stolen. Now people knew that she was the wife of a man of rank.

After dinner Donna Micaela sat quite silent, and let her father talk to
Don Ferrante. Then a mandolin began to sound quite softly in the street
under the window of the summer palace. It was a single mandolin with
no accompaniment of guitar or violin. Nothing could be more light and
airy; nothing more captivating and affecting. No one could think that
human hands were touching the strings. It was as if bees and crickets and
grasshoppers were giving a concert.

“There is some one again who has fallen in love with Giannita,” said Don
Ferrante. “That is a woman, Giannita. Any one can see that she is pretty.
If I were young I should fall in love with Giannita. She knows how to
love.”

Donna Micaela started. He was right, she thought. The mandolin-player
meant Giannita. That evening Giannita was at home with her mother, but
otherwise she always lived at the summer palace. Donna Micaela had
arranged it so since Don Ferrante had been ill.

But Donna Micaela liked the mandolin playing, for whomever it might be
meant. It came sweet, and soft, and comforting. She went gently into her
room to listen better in the dark and loneliness.

A sweet, strong fragrance met her there. What was it? Her hands began to
tremble before she found a candle and a match. On her work-table lay a
big, widely opened magnolia-blossom.

On one of the flower petals was pricked: “Who loves me?” And now stood
under it: “Gaetano.”

Beside the flower lay a little white book full of love-songs. And there
was a mark against one of the little verses:--

    “None have known the love that I have brought thee,
    Silent, secret, born in midnight’s measure.
    All my dreams have stolen forth and sought thee;
    Miser-like, the while, I watched my treasure:
    Tho’ the priest shall seek to shrive me, dying,
    Silent I, nor needing him to speed me,
    Bar the door, fling forth the key, and lying
    Thus unshriven, go where death shall lead me.”

The mandolin continued to play. There is something of open air and
sunlight in a mandolin; something soothing and calming; something of the
cheering carelessness of beautiful nature.




IX

FLIGHT


At that time the little image from Aracoeli was still in Diamante.

The Englishwoman who owned it had been fascinated by Diamante. She had
not been able to bring herself to leave it.

She had hired the whole first floor of the hotel, and had established
herself there as in a home. She bought for large sums everything she
could find in the way of old pots and old coins. She bought mosaics, and
altar-pictures, and holy images. She thought that she would like to make
a collection of all the saints of the church.

She heard of Gaetano, and sent him a message to come to her at the hotel.

Gaetano collected what he had carved during the last few days and took
them with him to Miss Tottenham. She was much pleased with his little
images, and wished to buy them all.

But the rich Englishwoman’s rooms were like the lumber-rooms of a museum.
They were filled with every conceivable thing, and there was confusion
and disorder everywhere. Here stood half-empty trunks; there hung cloaks
and hats; here lay paintings and engravings; there were guide-books,
railway time-tables, tea-sets, and alcohol lamps; elsewhere halberds,
prayer-books, mandolins, and escutcheons.

And that opened Gaetano’s eyes. He flushed suddenly, bit his lips, and
began to repack his images.

He had caught sight of an image of the Christchild. It was the outcast,
who was standing there in the midst of all the disorder, with his
wretched crown on his head and brass shoes on his feet. The color was
worn off his face; the rings and ornaments hanging on him were tarnished,
and his dress was yellowed with age.

When Gaetano saw that, he would not sell his images to Miss Tottenham; he
meant simply to go his way.

When she asked him what was the matter with him he stormed at her, and
scolded her.

Did she know that many of the things she had about her were sacred?

Did she know, or did she not know, that that was the holy Christchild
himself? And she had let him lose three fingers on one hand, and let the
jewels fall out of his crown, and let him lie dirty, and tarnished, and
dishonored! And if she had so treated the image of God’s own son, how
would she let everything else fare? He would not sell anything to her.

When Gaetano burst out at her in that way Miss Tottenham was enraptured,
enchanted.

Here was the true faith and the righteous, holy wrath. This young man
must become an artist. To England, he should go to England! She wished to
send him to the great master, her friend, who was trying to reform art;
to him who wished to teach people to make beautiful house-furnishings,
beautiful church-fittings, who wished to create a whole beautiful world.

She decided and arranged, and Gaetano let her go on, because he would
rather now go away from Diamante.

He saw that he could no longer endure to live there. He believed that it
was God leading him out of temptation.

He went away quite unobserved. Donna Micaela scarcely knew anything of it
until he was gone. He had not dared to come and bid her good-bye.




X

THE SIROCCO


After that two years passed quietly. The only thing that happened at
Diamante and in all Sicily was that the people grew ever poorer and
poorer.

Then there came an autumn, and it was about the time when the wine was to
be harvested.

At that time songs generally rise full-fledged to the lips; at that time
new and beautiful melodies stream from the mandolins.

Then crowds of young people go out to the vineyards, and there is work
and laughter all day, dance and laughter all night, and no one knows what
sleep is.

Then the bright ocean of air over the mountain is more beautiful than
at any other time. Then the air is full of wit; sparkling glances flash
through it; it gets warmth not only from the sun, but also from the
glowing faces of the young women of Etna.

But that autumn all the vineyards were devastated by the phylloxera. No
grape-pickers pushed their way between the vines; no long lines of women
carrying heaped-up baskets on their heads wound up to the presses, and at
night there was no dancing on the flat roofs.

That autumn no clear, light October air lay over the Etna region. As
if it had been in league with the famine, the heavy, weakening wind
from the Sahara came over from Africa, and brought with it dust and
exhalations that darkened the sky.

Never, as long as that autumn lasted, was there a fresh mountain breeze.
The baleful Sirocco blew incessantly.

Sometimes it came dry and heavy with sand, and so hot that they had to
shut doors and windows, and keep in their rooms, not to faint away.

But oftener it came warm and damp and enervating. And the people felt no
rest; trouble left them neither by day nor by night, and cares piled upon
them like snow-drifts on the high mountains.

And the restlessness reached Donna Micaela as she sat and watched with
her old husband, Don Ferrante.

During that autumn she never heard any one laugh, nor heard a song.
People crept by one another, so full of anger and despair that they were
almost choked. And she said to herself that they were certainly dreaming
of an insurrection. She saw that they had to revolt. It would help no
one, but they had no other resource.

In the beginning of the autumn, sitting on her balcony, she heard the
people talk in the street. They always talked of the famine: We have
blight in wheat and wine; there is a crisis in sulphur and oranges; all
Sicily’s yellow gold has failed. How shall we live?

And Donna Micaela understood that it was terrible. Wheat, wine, oranges,
and sulphur, all their yellow gold!

She began to understand, too, that the misery was greater than men could
bear long, and she grieved that life should be made so hard. She asked
why the people should be forced to bear such enormous taxes. Why should
the salt tax exist, so that a poor woman could not go down to the shore
and get a pail of salt water, but must buy costly salt in the government
shops? Why should there be a tax on palm-trees? The peasants, with anger
in their hearts, were felling the old trees that had waved so long over
the noble isle. And why should a tax be put on windows? What did they
want? Was it that the poor should take away their windows, move out of
their rooms, and live in cellars?

In the sulphur-mines there were strikes and turbulence, and the
government was sending troops to force the people back to work. Donna
Micaela wondered if the government did not know that there was no
machinery in those mines. Perhaps it had never heard that children
dragged the ore up from the deep shafts. It did not know that these
children were slaves; it could not imagine that parents had sold them to
overseers. Or if the government did know it, why did it wish to help the
mine-owners?

At one time she heard of a terrible number of crimes. And she began again
with her questions. Why did they let the people become so criminal? And
why did they let them be so poor and so ragged? Why must they all be so
ragged? She knew that any one living in Palermo or Catania did not need
to ask. But he who lived in Diamante could not help fearing and asking.
Why did they let the people be so poor that they died of hunger?

As yet the summer was hardly over; it was no later in the autumn than the
end of October, and already Donna Micaela began to see the day when the
insurrection would break out. She saw the starved people come rushing
along the street. They would plunder the shops and they would plunder
the few rich men there were in the town. Outside the summer palace the
wild horde would stop, and they would climb up to the balcony and the
glass doors. “Bring out the jewels of the old Alagonas; bring out Don
Ferrante’s millions!” That was their dream,--the summer palace! They
believed that it was as full of gold as a fairy palace.

But when they found nothing, they would put a dagger to her throat, to
make her give up the treasures that she had never possessed, and she
would be killed by the bloodthirsty crowds.

Why could not the great land-owners stop at home? Why must they irritate
the poor by living in grand style in Rome and Paris? The people would not
be so bitter against them if they stayed at home; they would not swear
such a solemn and sacred oath to kill all the rich when the time should
come.

Donna Micaela wished that she could have escaped to one of the big towns.
But both her father and Don Ferrante fell ill that autumn, and for their
sakes she was forced to remain where she was. And she knew that she would
be killed as an atonement for the sins of the rich against the poor.

For many years misfortunes had been gathering over Sicily, and now they
could no longer be held back. Etna itself began to menace an eruption. At
night sulphurous smoke floated red as fire, and rumblings were heard as
far away as Diamante. The end of everything was coming. Everything was to
be destroyed at once.

Did not the government know of the discontent? Ah, the government had
at last heard of it, and it had appointed a committee. It was a great
comfort to see the members of the committee come driving one fine day
along the Corso in Diamante. If only the people had understood that they
wished them well! If the women had not stood in their doorways and spat
at the fine gentlemen from the mainland; if the children had not run
beside the carriages and cried: “Thief, thief!”

Everything they did only stirred up the revolt, and there was no one who
could control the people and quiet them. They trusted no officials. They
despised those least who only took bribes. But people said that many
belonged to the society of Mafia; they said that their one thought was to
extort money and acquire power.

As time went on, several signs showed that something terrible was
impending. In the papers they wrote that crowds of working-men were
gathering in the larger towns and wandering about the streets. People
read also in the papers how the socialist leaders were going through the
country, and making seditious speeches. All at once it became clear to
Donna Micaela whence all the trouble came. The socialists were inciting
the revolt. It was their firebrand speeches that set the blood of the
people boiling. How could they let them do it? Who was king in Sicily?
Was his name Don Felice, or Umberto?

Donna Micaela felt a horror which she could not shake off. It was as if
they had conspired especially against her. And the more she heard of the
socialists, the more she feared them.

Giannita tried to calm her. “We have not a single socialist in
Diamante,” she said. “In Diamante no one is thinking of revolt.” Donna
Micaela asked her if she did not know what it meant when the old distaff
spinners sat in their dark corners, and told of the great brigands and
of the famous Palermo fisherman, Giuseppe Alesi, whom they called the
Masaniello of Sicily.

If the socialists could once get the revolt started, Diamante would also
join in. All Diamante knew already that something dreadful was impending.
They had seen the ghost of the big, black monk on the balcony of the
Palazzo Geraci; they heard the owls scream through the night, and some
declared that the cocks crowed at sunset, and were silent at daybreak.

One day in November Diamante was suddenly filled with terrible people.
They were men with the faces of wild beasts, with bushy beards, and
with big hands set on enormously long arms. Several of them wore wide,
fluttering linen garments, and the people thought that they recognized in
them famous bandits and newly freed galley-slaves.

Giannita related that all these wild people lived in the mountain wastes
inland and had crossed Simeto and come to Diamante, because a rumor had
gone about that revolt had already broken out. But when they had found
everything quiet, and the barracks full of soldiers, they had gone away.

Donna Micaela thought incessantly of those people, and expected them to
be her murderers. She saw before her their fluttering linen garments and
their brute faces. She knew that they were lurking in their mountain
holes, and waiting for the day when they should hear shots and the noise
of an outbreak in Diamante. Then they would fall upon the town with
fire and murder, and march at the head of all the starving people as the
generals and leaders in the plundering.

All that autumn Donna Micaela had to nurse both her father and Don
Ferrante; for they lay sick month after month. People had told her,
however, that their lives were in no danger.

She was very glad to be able to keep Don Ferrante alive, for it was her
only hope that at the last the people would spare him, who was of such an
old and venerated race.

As she sat by their sick-beds, her thoughts went often in longing to
Gaetano, and many were the times when she wished that he were at home.
She would not feel such terror and fear of death if he stood once more in
his workshop. Then she would have felt nothing but security and peace.

Even now, when he was so far away, it was to him her thoughts turned when
fear was driving her mad. Not a single letter had come from him since he
had gone away, so that sometimes she believed that he had forgotten her
entirely. At other times she was quite sure that he loved her, for she
felt herself compelled to think of him, and knew that he was near her in
thought, and was calling to her.

That autumn she at last received a letter from Gaetano. Alas, such a
letter! Donna Micaela’s first thought was to burn it.

She had gone up to the roof-garden in order to be alone when she read the
letter. She had once heard Gaetano’s declaration of love there. That had
not moved her. It had neither warmed her nor frightened her.

But this letter was different. He prayed that she would come to him, be
his, give him her life. When she read it she was frightened at herself.
She felt how she longed to cry out into the air, “I am coming, I am
coming,” and set out. It drew her, carried her away.

“Let us be happy!” he wrote. “We are losing time; the years are passing.
Let us be happy!”

He described to her how they would live. He told her of other women who
had obeyed love and been happy. He wrote as temptingly as convincingly.

But it was not the contents; it was the love that glowed and burned
in the letter which overcame her. It rose from the paper like an
intoxicating incense, and she felt it penetrate her. It was burning,
longing, speaking, in every word.

Now she was no longer a saint to him, as she had been before. It came so
unexpectedly, after two years’ silence, that she was stunned. And she was
troubled because it delighted her.

She had never thought that love was like this. Should she really like it?
She found with dismay that she did like it.

And so she punished both herself and him by writing a severe reply. It
was moral, moral; it was nothing but moral! She was proud when she had
written it. She did not deny that she loved him, but perhaps Gaetano
would not be able to find the words of love, they were so buried in
admonitions. He could not have found them, for he wrote no more letters.

But now Donna Micaela could no longer think of Gaetano as a shelter and a
support. Now he was more dangerous than the men from the mountains.

Every day graver news came to Diamante. Everybody began to get out their
weapons. And although it was forbidden, they were carried secretly by
every one.

All travellers left the island, and in their place one regiment after
another was sent over from Italy.

The socialists talked and talked. They were possessed by evil spirits;
they could not rest until they had brought on the disaster!

At last the ringleaders had decided on the day on which the storm was to
break loose. All Sicily, all Italy, was to rise. It was no longer menace;
it was reality.

More and more troops came from the mainland. Most of them were
Neapolitans, who live in constant feud with the Sicilians. And now the
news came that the island had been declared in a state of siege. There
were to be no more courts of justice; only court-martials. And the people
said that the soldiers would be free to plunder and murder as they
pleased.

No one knew what was to happen. Terror seemed to make every one mad. The
peasants raised ramparts in the hills. In Diamante men stood in great
groups on the market-place, stood there day after day, without going to
their work. There was something terrible in those groups of men dressed
in dark cloaks and slouch hats. They were all probably dreaming of the
hour when they should plunder the summer palace.

The nearer the day approached when the insurrection was to break out, the
sicker Don Ferrante became; and Donna Micaela began to fear that he would
die.

It seemed to her a sign that she was predestined to destruction, that she
was also losing Don Ferrante. Who would have any regard for her when he
was no longer alive?

She watched over him. She and all the women of the quarter sat in silent
prayer about his bed.

One morning, towards six o’clock, Don Ferrante died. And Donna Micaela
mourned him, because he had been her only protector, and the only one who
could have saved her from destruction; and she wished to honor the dead,
as is still the custom in Diamante.

She had them drape the room where the body was lying with black, and
close all the shutters, so that the glad sunlight should not enter. She
had all the fires put out on the hearths, and sent for a blind singer to
come to the palace every day and sing dirges.

She let Giannita care for Cavaliere Palmeri, so that she herself might
sit quiet in the death-room, among the other women.

It was evening on the day of death before all preparations were
completed, and they were waiting only for the White Brotherhood to come
and take away the corpse. In the death-chamber there was the silence of
the grave. All the women of the quarter sat there motionless with dismal
faces.

Donna Micaela sat pale with her great fear, and stared involuntarily at
the pall that was spread over the body. It was a pall which belonged to
the family; their coat of arms was heavily and gorgeously embroidered on
the centre, and it had silver fringes and thick tassels. The pall had
never been spread over any one but an Alagona. It seemed to lie there so
that Donna Micaela should not for a moment forget that her last support
had fallen, and that she was now alone, and without protection from the
infuriated people.

Some one came in and announced that old Assunta had come. Old Assunta;
what did old Assunta want? Yes, it was she who came to sing the praises
of the dead.

Donna Micaela let Assunta come into the room. She appeared just as she
looked every day, when she sat and begged on the Cathedral steps; the
same patched dress, the same faded headcloth, and the same crutch.

Little and bent, she limped forward to the coffin. She had a shrivelled
face, a sunken mouth, and dull eyes. Donna Micaela said to herself that
it was incarnate helplessness and feebleness who had come into the room.

The old woman raised her voice and began to speak in the wife’s name.

“My lord is dead, and I am alone! He who raised me to his side is
dead! Is it not terrible that my home has lost its master?--Why are
the shutters of your windows closed? say the passers-by.--I answer, I
cannot bear to see the light, because my sorrow is so great; my grief is
three-fold.--What, are so many of your race carried away by the White
Brethren?--No, none of my race is dead, but I have lost my husband, my
husband, my husband!”

Old Assunta needed to say no more. Donna Micaela burst into lamentations.
The whole room was filled with the sound of weeping from the sympathetic
women; for there is no grief like losing a husband. Those who were
widows thought of what they had lost, and those who were not as yet
widows thought of the time when they would not be able to go on the
street, because no husband would be with them; when they would be left to
loneliness, poverty, oblivion; when they would be nothing, mean nothing;
when they would be the world’s outcast children because they no longer
had a husband; because nothing any longer gave them the right to live.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was late in December, the days between Christmas and the New Year.

There was still the same danger of insurrection, and people still heard
terrifying rumors. It was said that Falco Falcone had gathered together
a band of brigands in the quarries, and that he was only waiting for the
appointed day to break into Diamante and plunder it.

It was also whispered that the people in several of the small mountain
towns had risen, torn down the custom’s offices at the town-gates, and
driven away the officials.

People said too that troops were passing from town to town, arresting all
suspicious people, and shooting them down by hundreds.

Every one said that they must fight. They could not let themselves be
murdered by those Italians without trying to make some resistance.

During all this, Donna Micaela sat tied to her father’s sick-bed, just as
she had sat before by Don Ferrante’s. She could not escape from Diamante,
and terror so grew within her that she was nothing but one trembling fear.

The last and worst of all the messages of terror that reached her had
been about Gaetano.

For when Don Ferrante had been dead a week Gaetano had come home. And
that had not caused her dismay; it had only made her glad. She had
rejoiced in at last having some one near her who could protect her.

At the same time she decided that she could not receive Gaetano if he
came to see her. She felt that she still belonged to the dead. She would
rather not see Gaetano until after a year.

But when Gaetano had been at home a week without coming to the summer
palace, she asked Giannita about him. “Where is Gaetano? Has he perhaps
gone away again, since no one speaks of him?”

“Alas, Micaela,” answered Giannita, “the less people speak of Gaetano,
the better for him.”

She told Donna Micaela, as if she was telling of a great shame, that
Gaetano had become a socialist.

“He has been quite transformed over there, in England,” she said. “He no
longer worships either God or the saints. He does not kiss the priest’s
hand when he meets him. He says to every one that they shall pay no more
duties at the town-gates. He encourages the peasants not to pay their
rent. He carries weapons. He has come home to start a rebellion, to help
the bandits.”

She needed to say no more to chill Donna Micaela with a greater terror
than she had ever felt before.

It was this that the sultry days of the autumn had portended. It would be
he who would shake the bolt from the clouds. Why had she not understood
it long ago?

It was a punishment and a revenge. It would be he who would bring the
misfortune!

During those last days she had been calmer. She had heard that all the
socialists on the island had been put in prison, and all the little
insurrection fires lighted in the mountain towns had been quickly choked.
It looked almost as if the rebellion would come to nothing!

But now the last Alagona was come, and him the people would follow. Life
would enter into those black groups on the market-place. The men in the
linen garments would climb up out of the quarries.

       *       *       *       *       *

The next evening Gaetano spoke in the market-place. He had sat by the
fountain, and had seen how the people came to get water. For two years
he had foregone the pleasure of seeing the slender girls lift the heavy
water-jars to their heads and walk away with firm, slow step.

But it was not only the young girls who came to the fountain; there were
people of all ages. And when he saw how poor and unhappy most of them
were, he began to talk to them of the future.

He promised them better times soon. He said to old Assunta that she
hereafter should get her daily bread without needing to ask alms of any
one. And when she said that she did not understand how that could be,
he asked her almost with anger if she did not know that now the time
had come when no old people and no children should be without care and
shelter.

He pointed to the old chair-maker, who was as poor as Assunta, and
moreover very sick, and he asked if she believed that the people would
endure much longer having no support for the poor, and no hospitals.
Could she not understand that it was impossible for such things to
continue? Could they not all understand that hereafter the old and the
sick should be cared for?

He also saw some children who, as he knew, lived on cresses and sorrel,
which they gathered on the river-banks and by the roadside, and he
promised that henceforward no one should need to starve. He laid his hand
on the children’s heads, and swore as solemnly as if he were prince of
Diamante, that they should never again want for bread.

They knew nothing in Diamante, he said; they were ignorant; they did not
understand that a new and blessed time had come; they believed that this
old misery would continue forever.

While he was thus consoling the poor, more and more had gathered about
him, and he suddenly sprang up, placed himself on the steps of the
fountain, and began to speak.

How could they, he said, be so foolish as to believe that nothing
better would come? Should the people, who possessed the whole earth, be
content to let their parents starve, and their children grow up to be
good-for-nothings and criminals?

Did they not know that there were treasures in the mountains, and in the
sea, and in the ground? Had they never heard that the earth was rich? Did
they think that it could not feed its children?

They should not murmur among themselves, and say that it was impossible
to arrange matters differently. They should not think that there must be
rich and poor. Alas, they understood nothing! They did not know their
Mother Earth. Did they think that she hated any of them? They had lain
down on the ground and heard the earth speak? Perhaps they had seen her
make laws? They had heard her pass sentence? She had commanded some to
starve, and some to die of luxury?

Why did they not open their ears and listen to the new teachings pouring
through the world? Would they not like to have a better life? Did they
like their rags? Were they satisfied with sorrel and cresses? Did they
not wish to possess a roof over their heads?

And he told them that it made no difference, no difference, if they
refused to believe in the new times that were coming. They would come in
spite of it. They did not need to lift the sun up from the sea in the
morning. The new times would come to them as the sun came, but why would
they not be ready to meet them? Why did they shut themselves in, and fear
the new light?

He spoke long in the same strain, and more and more of the poor people of
Diamante gathered about him.

The longer he continued, the more beautiful became his speech and the
clearer grew his voice.

His eyes were full of fire, and to the people looking up at him, he
seemed as beautiful as a young prince.

He was one of the race of once powerful lords, who had possessed means
to shower happiness and gold on everybody within their wide lands. They
believed him when he said that he had happiness to give them. They felt
comforted, and rejoiced that their young lord loved them.

When he had finished speaking they began to shout, and call to him that
they wished to follow him and do what he commanded.

He had gained ascendency over them in a moment. He was so beautiful and
so glorious that they could not resist him. And his faith seized and
subdued.

That night there was not one poor person in Diamante who did not believe
that Gaetano would give him happy days, free from care. That night
they called down blessings on him, all those who lived in sheds and
out-houses. That night the hungry lay down with the sure belief that the
next day tables groaning under many dishes would stand spread for them
when they awoke.

For when Gaetano spoke, his power was so great that he could convince
an old man that he was young, and a freezing man that he was warm. And
people felt that what he promised must come.

He was the prince of the coming times. His hands were generous, and
miracles and blessings would stream down over Diamante, now that he had
come again.

       *       *       *       *       *

The next day, towards sunset, Giannita came into the sick-room and
whispered to Donna Micaela: “There is an insurrection in Paternó. They
have been shooting for several hours, and you can hear them as far away
as here. Orders for troops have already gone to Catania. And Gaetano says
that it will break out here, too. He says that it will break out in all
the towns of Etna at one time.”

Donna Micaela made a sign to Giannita to stay with her father, and she
herself went across the street and into Donna Elisa’s shop.

Donna Elisa sat behind the counter with her frame, but she was not
working. The tears fell so heavy and fast that she had ceased to
embroider.

“Where is Gaetano?” said Donna Micaela, without any preamble. “I must
speak to him.”

“God give you strength to talk to him,” answered Donna Elisa. “He is in
the garden.”

She went out across the court-yard and into the walled garden.

In the garden there were many narrow paths winding from terrace to
terrace. There was also a number of arbors and grottos and benches. And
it was so thick with stiff agaves, and close-growing dwarf palms, and
thick-leaved rubber-plants, and rhododendrons, that it was impossible to
see two feet in front of one. Donna Micaela walked for a long time on
those innumerable paths before she could find Gaetano. The longer she
walked, the more impatient she became.

At last she found him at the farther end of the garden. She caught sight
of him on the lowest terrace, built out on one of the bastions of the
wall of the town. There sat Gaetano at ease, and worked with chisel and
hammer on a statuette. When he saw Donna Micaela, he came towards her
with outstretched hands.

She hardly gave herself time to greet him. “Is it true,” she said, “that
you have come home to be our ruin?” He began to laugh. “The syndic has
been here,” he said. “The priest has been here. Are you coming too?”

It wounded her that he laughed, and that he spoke of the priest and the
syndic. It was something different, and more, that she came.

“Tell me,” she said, stiffly, “if it is true that we are to have an
uprising this evening.”--“Oh, no,” he answered; “we shall have no
uprising.” And he said it in such a voice that it almost made her sorry
for him.

“You cause Donna Elisa great grief,” she burst out.--“And you too, do I
not?” he said, with a slight sneer. “I cause you all sorrow. I am the
lost son; I am Judas. I am the angel of justice who is driving you from
that paradise where people eat grass.”

She answered: “Perhaps we think that what we have is better than
being shot by the soldiers.”--“Yes, of course; it is better to starve
to death. We are used to that.”--“Nor is it pleasant to be murdered
by bandits.”--“But why for Heaven’s sake have any bandits, if you
do not want to be murdered by them?”--“Yes, I know,” she said, more
passionately, “that you want all the rich to perish.”

He did not answer immediately; he stood and bit his lips, so as not to
lose his temper. “Let me talk with you, Donna Micaela!” he said at last.
“Let me explain it to you!”

At the same time he put on a patient expression. He talked socialism with
her, so clear and simple that a child could have understood.

But she was far from being able to follow it. Perhaps she could have, but
she did not wish to. She did not wish just then to hear of socialism.

It had been so wonderful to her to see him. The ground had rocked under
her; and something glorious and blessed had passed through and quite
overcome her. “God, it is he whom I love!” she said to herself. “It is
really he.”

Before she had seen him she had known very well what she would say to
him. She would have led him back to the faith of his childhood. She
would have shown him that those new teachings were detestable and
dangerous. But then love came. It made her confused and stupid. She could
not answer him. She only sat and wondered that he could talk.

She wondered if he was much handsomer now than formerly. Formerly she had
not been confused at all when she saw him. She had never been attracted
to that extent. Or was it that he had become a free, strong man? She was
frightened when she felt how he subdued her.

She dared not contradict him. She dared not even speak, for fear of
bursting into tears. Had she dared to speak, she would not have talked
of public affairs. She would have told him what she had felt the day the
bells rang. Or she would have prayed to be allowed to kiss his hand. She
would have told him how she had dreamed of him. She would have said that
if she had not had him to dream of she could not have borne her life. She
would have begged to be allowed to kiss his hand in gratitude, because he
had given her life all these years.

If there was to be no uprising, why did he talk socialism? What had
socialism to do with them, sitting alone in Donna Elisa’s garden? She sat
and looked along one of the paths. Luca had put up wooden arches on both
sides of it, and up these climbed garlands of light rose-shoots, full of
little buds and flowers. One always wondered whither one was coming when
one went along that path. And one came to a little weather-beaten cupid.
Old Luca understood things better than Gaetano.

While they sat there the sun set, and Etna grew rosy-red. It was as if
Etna flushed with anger at what was going on in Donna Elisa’s garden.
It was at sunset, when Etna glowed red, that she had always thought of
Gaetano. It seemed as if they both had been waiting for it. And they had
both arranged how it would be when Gaetano came. She had only feared that
he would be too fiery, and too passionately wild. And he talked only of
those dreadful Socialists, whom she detested and feared.

He talked a long time. She saw Etna grow pale and become bronze-brown,
and then the darkness came. She knew that there would be moonlight. There
she sat quite still, and hoped for help from the moonlight. She herself
could do nothing. She was entirely in his power. But when the moonlight
came, it did not help either. He continued to talk of capitalists and
working-men.

Then it seemed to her as if there could be but one explanation for all
this. He must have ceased to love her.

Suddenly she remembered something. It was a week ago. It was the same
day that Gaetano had come home. She had come into Giannita’s room, but
she had walked so softly that Giannita had not heard her. She had seen
Giannita stand as if in ecstasy, with up-stretched arms and up-turned
face. And in her hands she held a picture. First she carried it to her
lips and kissed it, then she lifted it up over her head and looked up to
it in rapture. And the picture had been of Gaetano.

When Donna Micaela had seen that, she had gone away as silently as she
had come. She had only thought then that Giannita was to be pitied if
she loved Gaetano. But now, when Gaetano only talked socialism, now she
remembered it.

Now she began to think that Gaetano also loved Giannita. She remembered
that they were friends from childhood. He had perhaps loved her a long
time. Perhaps he had come home to marry her. Donna Micaela could say
nothing; she had nothing to complain of. It was scarcely a month since
she wrote to Gaetano that it was not right of him to love her.

He now leaned towards her, enchained her glance, and actually compelled
her to listen to what he was saying.

“You shall understand; you shall see and understand, Donna Micaela! What
we need here in the South is a regeneration, a pulling up by the roots,
such as Christianity was in its time. Up with the slaves; down with the
masters! A plow which turns up new social furrows! We must sow in new
earth; the old earth is impoverished. The old surface furrows bear only
weak, miserable growth. Let the deep earth come up to the light, and we
shall see something different!

“See, Donna Micaela, why does socialism live; why has it not gone under?
Because it comes with a new word. ‘Think of the earth,’ it says, just as
Christianity came with the word, ‘Think of heaven.’ Look about you! Look
at the earth; is it not all that we possess? Let us therefore establish
ourselves here so that we shall be happy. Why, why, has no one thought of
it before? Because we have been so busy with that Hereafter. Let us leave
the Hereafter! The earth, the earth, Donna Micaela! Ah, we socialists, we
love her! We worship the sacred earth,--the poor, despised mother, who
wears mourning because her children yearn for heaven.

“Believe me, Donna Micaela,” he said, “it will be accomplished in less
than seven years. In the year nineteen hundred it will be ready. Then
martyrs will have bled; then apostles will have spoken; then shall crowds
upon crowds have been won over! We, the rightful sons of the earth, shall
have the victory! And she shall lie before us in all her loveliness; she
shall bring us beauty, bring us pleasure, bring us knowledge, bring us
health!”

Gaetano’s voice began to tremble, and tears quivered in his eyes. He went
forward to the edge of the terrace, and he stretched out his arms as if
to embrace the moonlit earth. “You are so dazzlingly beautiful,” he said,
“so dazzlingly beautiful!”

And Donna Micaela for a moment thought she felt his grief over all
the sorrow that lay under the surface of beauty. She saw life full
of vice and suffering, like a dirty river filled with the stench of
uncleanliness, wind through the glistening world of beauty.

“And no one can enjoy you,” said Gaetano; “no one can dare to enjoy you.
You are untamed, and full of whims and anger. You are uncertainty and
peril; you are sorrow and pain; you are want and shame; you are the force
that grinds; you are everything terrible that can be named, because the
people have not wished to make you better.

“But your day will come,” he said, triumphantly. “Some day they will turn
to you with all their love; they will not turn to a dream, which gives
nothing and is good for nothing.”

She interrupted him roughly. She began to fear him more and more.

“So it is true that you have had no success in England?”

“What do you mean?”

“People say that the great master, to whom Miss Tottenham sent you, has
said that you--”

“What has he said?”

“That you and your images suited Diamante, but nowhere else.”

“Who says such things?”

“People think so, because you are so changed.”

“Since I am a socialist.”

“Why should you be one if you had been successful?”

“Ah, why--? You do not know,” he continued, with a laugh, “that my master
in England himself was a socialist. You do not know that it was he who
taught me these opinions--”

He paused, and did not go on with the controversy. He went over to
the bench where he had been sitting when she came, and brought back a
statuette. He handed it to Donna Micaela. He seemed to wish to say: “See
for yourself if you are right.”

She took it, and held it up in the moonlight. It was a Mater Dolorosa in
black marble. She could see it quite plainly.

She could also recognize it. The image had her own features. It
intoxicated her for a moment. In the next she was filled with horror. He,
a socialist; he, an unbeliever; he dared to create a Madonna! And he had
given the image her features! He entangled her in his sin!

“I have done it for you, Donna Micaela,” he said.

Ah, since it was hers! She threw it out over the balustrade. It struck
against the steep mountain side; fell deeper and deeper; broke loose
stones, and certainly shattered itself to pieces. At last a splash was
heard down in Simeto.

“What right have you to carve Madonnas?” she asked Gaetano.

He stood silent. He had never seen Donna Micaela thus.

In the moment when she rose up before him she had become tall and
stately. The beauty that always came and went in her, like an uneasy
guest, was enthroned in her face. She looked cold and inflexible; a woman
to win and conquer.

“Then you still believe in God, since you carve Madonnas?” she said.

He breathed hurriedly. Now it was he who was paralyzed. He had been a
believer himself. He knew how he had wounded her. He saw that he had
forfeited her love. He had made a terrible, infinite chasm between them.

He must speak, must win her over to his side.

He began again, but feebly and falteringly.

She listened quietly for a while. Then she interrupted him almost
compassionately.

“How did you become so?”

“I thought of Sicily,” he said submissively.

“You thought of Sicily,” she repeated thoughtfully. “And why did you come
home?”

“I came home to cause an insurrection.”

It was as if they had spoken of an illness, a chill, that he had
contracted, and that could quite easily be cured.

“You came home to be our ruin,” she said, sternly.

“As you will; as you will,” he said, complying. “You can call it so. As
everything is going now, you are certainly right to call it so. Ah, if
they had not given me false information; if I had not come a week too
late! Is it not like us Sicilians to let the government anticipate us?
When I came the leaders were already arrested, the island garrisoned with
forty thousand men. Everything lost!”

It sounded strangely blank when he said that “everything lost.” And for
that which never could be anything, he had lost happiness. His opinions
and principles seemed to him now to be dry cobwebs, which had captured
him. He wished to tear himself away to come to her. She was the only
reality, the only thing that was his. So he had felt before. It came back
now. She was the only thing in the world.

“They are, however, fighting to-day in Paternó.”

“There has been a disagreement by the town-gate,” he said. “It is
nothing. If I had been able to inflame all Etna, the whole circle of
towns round about Etna! Then they would have understood us! they would
have listened to us! Now they are shooting down a few hungry peasants to
make a few hungry mouths the less. They do not yield an inch to us.”

He strove to break through his cobwebs. Could he venture to go up to her,
to tell her that all that was of no importance? He did not need to think
of politics. He was an artist; he was free! And he wanted to possess her!

Suddenly it seemed as if the air trembled. A shot echoed through the
night, then another and another.

She came forward to him and grasped his wrist. “Is that the uprising?”
she asked.

Shot upon shot came thundering. Then were heard the cries and din of a
crowd rushing down the street.

“It is the uprising; it must be the uprising! Ah, long live socialism!”

He was filled with joy. Entire faith in his belief came back to him. He
would win her too. Women have never refused to belong to the victor.

They both hurried without another word through the garden to the door.
There Gaetano began to swear and call. He could not get out. There was no
key in the lock. He was shut into the garden.

He looked about. There were high walls on three sides, and on the fourth
an abyss. There was no way out for him. But from the town came a terrible
noise. The people were rushing up and down; there were shots and cries.
And they heard them yell: “Long live freedom! Long live socialism!” He
threw himself against the door, and almost shrieked. He was imprisoned;
he could not take part.

Donna Micaela came up to him as quickly as she could. Now, since she had
heard him, she no longer thought of keeping him back.

“Wait, wait!” she said. “I took the key.”

“You, you!” he said.

“I took it when I came. It occurred to me that I could keep you shut in
here if you should want to cause an uprising. I wished to save you.”

“What folly!” he said, and snatched the key from her.

While he stood and fumbled to find the key-hole, he still had time to say
something.

“Why do you not want to save me now?”

She did not answer.

“Perhaps so that your God may have a chance to destroy me.”

She was still silent.

“Do you not dare to save me from His wrath?”

“No, I do not dare,” she said quietly.

“You believers are terrible!” he said.

He felt that she threw him aside. It froze him, and took away his
courage, that she did not make a single attempt to persuade him to stay.
He turned the key forward and back without being able to open the door,
paralyzed by her standing there pale and cold behind him.

Then he suddenly felt her arms about his neck and her lips seeking his.

At the same moment the door flew open and he rushed away. He would not
have her kisses, which only consecrated him to death. She was as terrible
as a spectre to him with her ancient faith. He rushed away like a
fugitive.




XI

THE FEAST OF SAN SEBASTIANO


When Gaetano rushed away, Donna Micaela stood for a long time in Donna
Elisa’s garden. She stood there as if turned to stone, and could neither
feel nor think.

Then suddenly the thought came that Gaetano and she were not alone in the
world. She remembered her father lying sick, whom she had forgotten for
so many hours.

She went through the gate of the court-yard out to the Corso, which lay
deserted and empty. Tumult and shots were still audible far away, and she
said to herself that they must be fighting down by Porta Etnea.

The moon shed its clear light on the façade of the summer-palace, and it
amazed her that at such an hour, and on such a night, the balcony doors
stood open, and the window shutters were not closed. She was still more
surprised that the gate was standing ajar, and that the shop-door was
wide open.

As she went in through the gate, she did not see the old gate-keeper,
Piero, there. The lanterns in the court-yard were not lighted, and there
was not a soul to be seen anywhere.

She went up the steps to the gallery, and her foot struck against
something hard. It was a little bronze vase, which belonged in
the music-room. A few steps higher up she found a knife. It was a
sheath-knife, with a long, dagger-like blade. When she lifted it up a
couple of dark drops rolled down from its edge. She knew that it must be
blood.

And she understood too that what she had feared all the autumn had now
happened. Bandits had been in the summer-palace for plunder. And everyone
who could run away had run away; but her father, who could not leave his
bed, must be murdered.

She could not tell whether the brigands were not still in the house. But
now, in the midst of danger, her fears vanished; and she hurried on,
unheeding that she was alone and defenceless.

She went along the gallery into the music-room. Broad rays of moonlight
fell upon the floor, and in one of those rays lay a human form stretched
motionless.

Donna Micaela bent down over that motionless body. It was Giannita. She
was murdered; she had a deep, gaping wound in her neck.

Donna Micaela laid the body straight, crossed the hands over the breast,
and closed the eyes. In so doing, her hands were wet with the blood; and
when she felt that warm, sticky blood, she began to weep. “Alas, my dear,
beloved sister,” she said aloud, “it is your young life that has ebbed
away with this blood. All your life you have loved me, and now you have
shed your blood defending my house. Is it to punish my hardness that God
has taken you from me? Is it because I did not allow you to love him whom
I loved that you have gone from me? Alas, sister, sister, could you not
have punished me less severely?”

She bent down and kissed the dead girl’s forehead. “You do not believe
it,” she said. “You know that I have always been faithful to you. You
know that I have loved you.”

She remembered that the dead was severed from everything earthly, that it
was not grief and assurances of friendship she needed. She said a prayer
over the body, since the only thing she could do for her sister was to
support with pious thoughts the flight of the soul soaring up to God.

Then she went on, no longer afraid of anything that could happen to
herself, but in inexpressible terror of what might have happened to her
father.

When she had at last passed through the long halls in the state apartment
and stood by the door to the sick-room, her hands groped a long time for
the latch; and when she had found it, she had not the strength to turn
the key.

Then her father called from his room and asked who was there. When she
heard his voice and knew that he was alive, everything in her trembled,
and burst, and lost its power to serve her. Brain and heart failed her
at once, and her muscles could no longer hold her upright. She had still
time to think that she had been living in terrible suspense. And with a
feeling of relief, she sank down in a long swoon.

Donna Micaela regained consciousness towards morning. In the meantime
much had happened. The servants had come out of their hiding-places, and
had gone for Donna Elisa. She had taken charge of the deserted palace,
had summoned the police, and sent a message to the White Brotherhood.
And the latter had carried Giannita’s body to her mother’s house.

When Donna Micaela awoke, she found herself lying on the sofa in a room
next her father’s. No one was with her, but in her father’s room she
heard Donna Elisa talking.

“My son and my daughter,” said Donna Elisa, sobbing; “I have lost both my
son and my daughter.”

Donna Micaela tried to raise herself, but she could not. Her body still
lay in a stupor, although her soul was awake.

“Cavaliere, Cavaliere,” said Donna Elisa, “can you understand? The
bandits come here from Etna, creeping down to Diamante. The bandits
attack the custom-house and shout: ‘Long live Socialism!’ They do it only
to frighten people away from the streets and to draw the Carabiniere down
to Porta Etnea. There is not a single man from Diamante who has anything
to do with it. It is the bandits who arrange it all, to be able to
plunder Miss Tottenham and Donna Micaela, two women, Cavaliere! What did
those officers think at the court-martial? Did they believe that Gaetano
was in league with the bandits? Did they not see that he was a nobleman,
a true Alagona, an artist? How could they have sentenced him?”

Donna Micaela listened with horror, but she tried to imagine that she was
still dreaming. She thought she heard Gaetano ask if she was sacrificing
him to God. She thought she answered that she did. Now she was dreaming
of how it would be in case he really had been captured. It could be
nothing else.

“What a night of misfortune!” said Donna Elisa. “What is flying about
in the air, and making people mad and confused? You have seen Gaetano,
Cavaliere. He has always been passionate and fiery, but it has not been
without intelligence; he has not been without sense and judgment. But
to-night he throws himself right into the arms of the troops. You know
that he wanted to cause an uprising; you know that he came home for
that. And when he hears the shooting, and some one shouting, ‘Long live
Socialism!’ he becomes wild, and beside himself. He says to himself,
‘That is the insurrection!’ and he rushes down the street to join it.
And he shouts the whole time, ‘Long live Socialism!’ as loud as he can.
And so he meets a great crowd of soldiers, a whole host. For they were
on their way to Paternó, and heard the shooting as they passed by, and
marched in to see what was going on. And Gaetano can no longer recognize
a soldier’s cap. He thinks that they are the rebels; he thinks that they
are angels from heaven, and he rushes in among them and lets them capture
him. And they, who have already caught all the bandits sneaking away with
their booty, now lay hands on Gaetano too. They go through the town and
find everything quiet; but before they leave, they pass sentence on their
prisoners. And they condemn Gaetano like the others, condemn him like
those who have broken in and murdered women. Have they not lost their
senses, Cavaliere?”

Donna Micaela could not hear what her father answered. She wished to ask
a thousand questions, but she was still paralyzed and could not move. She
wondered if Gaetano had been shot.

“What do they mean by sentencing him to twenty-nine years’
imprisonment?” said Donna Elisa. “Do you think that he can live so long,
or that any one who loves him can live so long? He is dead, Cavaliere; as
dead for me as Giannita.”

Donna Micaela felt as if strong fetters bound her beyond escape. It was
worse, she thought, than to be tied to a pillory and whipped.

“All the joy of my old age is taken from me,” said Donna Elisa. “Both
Giannita and Gaetano! I have always expected them to marry each other.
It would have been so suitable, because they were both my children, and
loved me. For what shall I live now, when I have no young people about
me? I was often poor when Gaetano first came to me, and people said to me
that I should have been better off alone. But I answered: ‘It makes no
difference, none, if only I have young people about me.’ And I thought
that when he grew up he would find a young wife, and then they would have
little children, and I would never need to sit a lonely and useless old
woman.”

Donna Micaela lay thinking that she could have saved Gaetano, but had
not wished to do so. But why had she not wished? It seemed to her quite
incomprehensible. She began to count up to herself all her reasons for
permitting him to rush to destruction. He was an atheist; a socialist; he
wished to cause a revolt. That had outweighed everything else when she
opened the garden gate for him. It had crushed her love also. She could
not now understand it. It was as if a scale full of feathers had weighed
down a scale full of gold.

“My beautiful boy!” said Donna Elisa, “my beautiful boy! He was already
a great man over there in England, and he came home to help us poor
Sicilians. And now they have sentenced him like a bandit. People say that
they were ready to shoot him, as they shot the others. Perhaps it would
have been better if they had done so, Cavaliere. It had been better to
have laid him in the church-yard than to know that he was in prison. How
will he be able to endure all his suffering? He will not be able to bear
it; he will fall ill; he will soon be dead.”

At these words, Donna Micaela roused herself from her stupor, and got up
from the sofa. She staggered across the room and came in to her father
and Donna Elisa, as pale as poor murdered Giannita. She was so weak that
she did not dare to cross the floor; she stood at the door and leaned
against the door-post.

“It is I,” she said; “Donna Elisa, it is I--”

The words would not come to her lips. She wrung her hands in despair that
she could not speak.

Donna Elisa was instantly at her side. She put her arm about her to
support her, without paying any attention to Donna Micaela’s attempt to
push her away.

“You must forgive me, Donna Elisa,” she said, with an almost inaudible
voice. “I did it.”

Donna Elisa did not heed much what she was saying. She saw that she had
fever, and thought that she was delirious.

Donna Micaela’s lips worked; she plainly wished to say something, but
only a few words were audible. It was impossible to understand what she
meant. “Against him, as against my father,” she said, over and over. And
then she said something about bringing misfortune on all who loved her.

Donna Elisa had got her down on a chair, and Donna Micaela sat there and
kissed her old, wrinkled hands, and asked her to forgive her what she had
done.

Yes, of course, of course, Donna Elisa forgave her.

Donna Micaela looked her sharply in the face with great, feverish eyes,
and asked if it were true.

It was really true.

Then she laid her head on Donna Elisa’s shoulder and sobbed, thanked her,
and said that she could not live if she did not obtain her forgiveness.
She had sinned against no one so much as against her. Could she forgive
her?

“Yes, yes,” said Donna Elisa again and again, and thought that the other
was out of her head from fever and fright.

“There is something I ought to tell you,” said Donna Micaela. “I know it,
but you do not know it. You will not forgive me if you hear it.”

“Yes, of course I forgive you,” said Donna Elisa.

They talked in that way for a long time without understanding each other;
but it was good for old Donna Elisa to have some one that night to put to
bed, comforted and dosed with strengthening herbs and drops. It was good
for her to still have some one to come and lay her head on her shoulder
and cry away her grief.

       *       *       *       *       *

Donna Micaela, who had loved Gaetano for nearly three years without a
thought that they could ever belong to each other, had accustomed herself
to a strange kind of love. It was enough for her to know that Gaetano
loved her. When she thought of it, a tender feeling of security and
happiness stole through her. “What does it matter; what does it matter?”
she said, when she suffered adversity. “Gaetano loves me.” He was always
with her, cheering and comforting her. He took part in all her thoughts
and undertakings. He was the soul of her life.

As soon as Donna Micaela could get his address, she wrote to him. She
acknowledged to him that she had firmly believed that he had gone to
misfortune. But she had been so much afraid of what he proposed to
accomplish in the world that she had not dared to save him.

She also wrote how she detested his teachings. She did not dissemble at
all to him. She said that even if he were free she could not be his.

She feared him. He had such power over her that, if they were united, he
would make her a socialist and an atheist. Therefore she must always live
apart from him, for the salvation of her soul.

But she begged and prayed that in spite of everything he would not cease
to love her. He must not; he must not! He might punish her in any way he
pleased, if only he did not cease to love her.

He must not do as her father had. He had perhaps reason to close his
heart to her now, but he must not. He must be merciful.

If he knew how she loved him! If he knew how she dreamed of him!

She told him that he was nothing less than life itself to her.

“Must I die, Gaetano?” she asked.

“Is it not enough that those opinions and teachings part us? Is it not
enough that they have carried you to prison? Will you also cease to love
me, because we do not think alike?

“Ah, Gaetano, love me! It leads to nothing; there is no hope in your
love, but love me; I die if you do not love me.”

Donna Micaela had hardly sent off the letter before she began to wait for
the answer. She expected a stormy and angry reply, but she hoped that
there would be one single word to show her that he still loved her.

But she waited several weeks without receiving any letter from Gaetano.

It did not help her to stand and wait every morning for the
letter-carrier out on the gallery, and almost break his heart because he
was always obliged to say that he did not have anything for her.

One day she went herself to the post-office, and asked them, with the
most beseeching eyes, to give her the letter she was expecting. It
must be there, she said. But perhaps they had not been able to read
the address; perhaps it had been put into the wrong box? And her soft,
imploring eyes so touched the postmaster that she was allowed to look
through piles of old, unclaimed letters, and to turn all the drawers in
the post-office upside down. But it was all in vain.

She wrote new letters to Gaetano; but no answer came.

Then she tried to believe what seemed impossible. She tried to make her
soul realize that Gaetano had ceased to love her.

As her conviction increased, she began to shut herself into her room. She
was afraid of people, and preferred to sit alone.

Day by day she became more feeble. She walked deeply bent, and even her
beautiful eyes seemed to lose their life and light.

After a few weeks she was so weak that she could no longer keep up, but
lay all day on her sofa. She was prey to a suffering that gradually
deprived her of all vital power. She knew that she was failing, and she
was afraid to die. But she could do nothing. There was only one remedy
for her, but that never came. While Donna Micaela seemed to be thus
quietly gliding out of life, the people of Diamante were preparing to
celebrate the feast of San Sebastiano, that comes at the end of January.

It was the greatest festival of Diamante, but in the last few years it
had not been kept with customary splendor, because want and gloom had
weighed too heavily on their souls.

But this year, just after the revolt had failed, and while Sicily was
still filled with troops, and while the beloved heroes of the people
languished in prison, they determined to celebrate the festival with all
the old-time pomp; for now, they said, was not the time to neglect the
saint.

And the pious people of Diamante determined that the festival should be
held for a week, and that San Sebastiano should be honored with flags and
decorations, and with races and biblical processions, illuminations, and
singing contests.

The people bestirred themselves with great haste and eagerness. There
was polishing and scrubbing in every house. They brought out the old
costumes, and they prepared to receive strangers from all Etna.

The summer-palace was the only house in Diamante where no preparations
were made. Donna Elisa was deeply grieved at it, but she could not induce
Donna Micaela to have her house decorated. “How can you ask me to trim a
house of mourning with flowers and leaves?” she said. “The roses would
shed their petals if I tried to use them to mask the misery that reigns
here.”

But Donna Elisa was very eager for the festival, and expected much good
to result from honoring the saint as in the old days. She could talk of
nothing but of how the priests had decorated the façade of the Cathedral
in the old Sicilian way, with silver flowers and mirrors. And she
described the procession: how many riders there were to be, and what high
plumes they were to have in their hats, and what long, garlanded staves,
with wax candles at the end, they were to carry in their hands.

When the first festival day came, Donna Elisa’s house was the most
gorgeously decorated. The green, red, and white standard of Italy waved
from the roof, and red cloths, fringed with gold, bearing the saint’s
initials, were spread over the window-sills and balcony railings. Up
and down the wall ran garlands of holly, shaped into stars and arches,
and round the windows crept wreaths made of the little pink roses from
Donna Elisa’s garden. Just over the entrance stood the saint’s image,
framed in lilies, and on the threshold lay cypress-branches. And if one
had entered the house, one would have found it as much adorned on the
inside as on the outside. From the cellar to the attic it was scoured and
covered with flowers, and on the shelves in the shop no saint was too
small or insignificant to have an everlasting or a harebell in his hand.
Like Donna Elisa, every one in penniless Diamante had decorated along
the whole street. In the street above the house of the little Moor there
was such an array of flags that it looked like clothes hung out to dry
from the earth to the sky. Every house and every arch carried flags, and
across the streets were hung ropes, from which fluttered pennant after
pennant.

At every tenth step the people of Diamante had raised triumphal arches
over the street. And over every door stood the image of the saint, framed
in wreaths of yellow everlastings. The balconies were covered with red
quilts and bright-colored table-cloths, and stiff garlands wound up the
walls.

There were so many flowers and leaves that no one could understand how
they had been able to get them all in January. Everything was crowned
and wreathed with flowers. The brooms had crowns of crocuses, and each
door-knocker a bunch of hyacinths. In windows stood pictures with
monograms, and inscriptions of blood-red anemones.

And between those decorated houses the stream of people rolled as mighty
as a rising river. It was not the inhabitants of Diamante alone who were
honoring San Sebastiano. From all Etna came yellow carts, beautifully
ornamented and painted, drawn by horses in shining harness, and loaded
down with people. The sick, the beggars, the blind singers came in great
crowds. There were whole trains of pilgrims, unhappy people, who now,
after their misfortunes, had some one to pray to.

Such numbers came that the people wondered how they all would ever find
room within the town walls. There were people in the streets, people
in the windows, people on the balconies. On the high stone steps sat
people, and the shops were full of them. The big street-doors were thrown
wide, and in the openings chairs were arranged in a half-circle, as in a
theatre. There the house-owners sat with their guests and looked at the
passers-by.

The whole street was filled with an intoxicating noise. It was
not only the talking and laughter of the people. There were also
organ-grinders standing and turning hand-organs big as pianos. There
were street-singers, and there were men and women who declaimed Tasso in
cracked, worn-out voices. There were all kinds of criers, the sound of
organs streamed from all the churches, and in the square on the summit
of the mountain the town band played so that it could be heard over all
Diamante.

The joyous noise, and the fragrance of the flowers, and the flapping of
the flags outside Donna Micaela’s window had power to wake her from her
stupor. She rose up, as if life had sent for her. “I will not die,” she
said to herself. “I will try to live.”

She took her father’s arm and went out into the street. She hoped
that the life there would mount to her head so that she might forget
her sorrow. “If I do not succeed,” she thought, “if I can find no
distraction, I must die.”

Now in Diamante there was a poor old stone-cutter, who had thought of
earning a few soldi during the festival. He had made a couple of small
busts out of lava, of San Sebastiano and of Pope Leo XIII. And as he knew
that many in Diamante loved Gaetano, and grieved over his fate, he also
made a few portraits of him.

Just as Donna Micaela came out into the street she met the man, and he
offered her his wretched little images.

“Buy Don Gaetano Alagona, Donna Micaela,” said the man; “buy Don Gaetano,
whom the government has put in prison because he wished to help Sicily.”

Donna Micaela pressed her father’s arm hard and went hurriedly on.

In the Café Europa the son of the innkeeper stood and sang canzoni. He
had composed a few new ones for the festival, and among others some about
Gaetano. For he could not know that people did not care to hear of him.

When Donna Micaela passed by the café and heard the singing, she stopped
and listened.

“Alas, Gaetano Alagona!” sang the young man. “Songs are mighty. I shall
sing you free with my songs. First I will send you the slender canzone.
He shall glide in between your prison-gratings, and break them. Then I
will send you the sonnet, that is fair as a woman, and which will corrupt
your guards. I will compose a glorious ode to you, which will shake the
walls of your prison with its lofty rhythms. But if none of these help
you, I will burst out in the glorious epos, that has hosts of words. Oh,
Gaetano, mighty as an army it marches on! All the legions of ancient Rome
would not have had the strength to stop it!”

Donna Micaela hung convulsively on her father’s arm, but she did not
speak, and went on.

Then Cavaliere Palmeri began to speak of Gaetano. “I did not know that he
was so beloved,” he said.

“Nor I,” murmured Donna Micaela.

“To-day I saw some strangers coming into Donna Elisa’s shop, and begging
her to be allowed to buy something that he had carved. She had left only
a couple of old rosaries, and I saw her break them to pieces and give
them out bead by bead.”

Donna Micaela looked at her father like a beseeching child. But he did
not know whether she wished him to be silent or to go on speaking.

“Donna Elisa’s old friends go about in the garden with Luca,” he said,
“and Luca shows them Gaetano’s favorite places and the garden beds
that he used to plant. And Pacifica sits in the workshop beside the
joiner’s-bench, and relates all sorts of things about him, ever since he
was--so big.”

He could tell no more; the crush and the noise became so great about him
that he had to stop.

They meant to go to the Cathedral. On the Cathedral steps sat old
Assunta, as usual. She held a rosary in her hands and mumbled the same
prayer round the whole rosary. She asked the saint that Gaetano, who had
promised to help all the poor, might come back to Diamante.

As Donna Micaela walked by her, she distinctly heard: “San Sebastiano,
give us Gaetano! Ah, in your mercy; ah, in our misery, San Sebastiano,
give us Gaetano!”

Donna Micaela had meant to go into the church, but she turned on the
steps.

“There is such a crowd there,” she said, “I do not dare to go in.”

She went home again. But while she had been away, Donna Elisa had watched
her opportunity. She had hoisted a flag on the roof of the summer-palace;
she had spread draperies on the balconies, and as Donna Micaela came
home, she was fastening up a garland in the gateway. For Donna Elisa
could not bear to have the summer-palace underrated. She wished no honor
to San Sebastiano omitted at this time. And she feared that the saint
would not help Diamante and Gaetano if the palace of the old Alagonas did
not honor him.

Donna Micaela was pale as if she had received her death warrant, and bent
like an old woman of eighty years.

She murmured to herself: “I make no busts of him; I sing no songs about
him; I dare not pray to God for him; I buy none of his beads. How can he
believe that I love him? He must love all these others, who worship him,
but not me. I do not belong to his world, he can love me no longer.”

And when she saw that they wished to adorn her house with flowers, it
seemed to her so piteously cruel that she snatched the wreath from Donna
Elisa and threw it at her feet, asking if she wished to kill her.

Then she went past her up the stairs to her room. She threw herself on
the sofa and buried her face in the cushions.

She now first understood how far apart she and Gaetano were. The idol of
the people could not love her.

She felt as if she had prevented him from helping all those poor people.

How he must detest her; how he must hate her!

Then her illness came creeping back over her. That illness which
consisted of not being loved! It would kill her. She thought, as she lay
there, that it was all over.

While she lay there, suddenly the little Christchild stood before her
inward eye. He seemed to have entered the room in all his wretched
splendor. She saw him plainly.

Donna Micaela began to call on the Christchild for help. And she was
amazed at herself for not having turned before to that good helper. It
was probably because the image did not stand in a church, but was carried
about as a museum-piece by Miss Tottenham, that she remembered him only
in her deepest need.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was late in the evening of the same day. After dinner Donna Micaela
had given all her servants permission to go to the festival, so that she
and her father were alone in the big house. But towards ten o’clock her
father rose and said he wished to hear the singing-contest in the square.
And as Donna Micaela did not dare to sit alone, she was obliged to go
with him.

When they came to the square they saw that it was turned into a theatre,
with lines upon lines of chairs. Every corner was filled with people, and
it was with difficulty that they found places.

“Diamante is glorious this evening, Micaela,” said Cavaliere Palmeri. The
charm of the night seemed to have softened him. He spoke more simply and
tenderly to his daughter than he had done for a long time.

Donna Micaela felt instantly that he spoke the truth. She felt as she had
done when she first came to Diamante. It was a town of miracles, a town
of beauty, a little sanctuary of God.

Directly in front of her stood a high and stately building made of
shining diamonds. She had to think for a moment before she could
understand what it was.

Yet it was nothing but the front of the Cathedral, covered with flowers
of stiff silver and gold paper and with thousands of little mirrors stuck
in between the flowers. And in every flower was hung a little lamp with a
flame as big as a fire-fly. It was the most enchanting illumination that
Donna Micaela had ever seen.

There was no other light in the market-place, nor was any needed. That
great wall of diamonds shone quite sufficiently. The black Palazzo Geraci
was flaming red, as if it had been lighted by a conflagration.

Nothing of the world outside of the square was visible. Everything below
it was in the deepest darkness, and that made her think again that she
saw the old enchanted Diamante that was not of the earth, but was a
holy city on one of the mounts of heaven. The town-hall with its heavy
balconies and high steps, the long convent and the Roman gate were again
glorious and wonderful. And she could hardly believe it was in that town
that she had suffered such terrible pain.

In the midst of the great crowd of people, no chill was felt. The winter
night was mild as a spring morning; and Donna Micaela began to feel
something of spring in her. It began to stir and tremble in her in a way
which was both sweet and terrible. It must feel so in the snow-masses on
Etna when the sun melts them into sparkling brooks.

She looked at the people who filled the market-place, and was amazed at
herself that she had been so tortured by them in the forenoon. She was
glad that they loved Gaetano. Alas, if he had only continued to love her,
she would have been unspeakably proud and happy in their love. Then she
could have kissed those old callous hands that made images of him and
were clasped in prayers for him.

As she was thinking this, the church-door was thrown open and a big, flat
wagon rolled out of the church. Highest on the red-covered wagon stood
San Sebastiano by his stake, and below the image sat the four singers,
who were to contest.

There was an old blind man from Nicolosi; a cooper from Catania, who
was considered to be the best improvisatore in all Sicily; a smith
from Termini, and little Gandolfo, who was son to the watchman in the
town-hall of Diamante.

Everybody was surprised that Gandolfo dared to appear in such a difficult
contest. Did he do it perhaps to please his betrothed, little Rosalia? No
one had ever heard that he could improvise. He had never done anything in
his whole life but eat mandarins and stare at Etna.

The first thing was to draw lots among the competitors, and the lots fell
so that the cooper should come first and Gandolfo last. When it fell so
Gandolfo turned pale. It was terrible to come last, when they all were to
speak on the same subject.

The cooper elected to speak of San Sebastiano, when he was a soldier of
the legion in ancient Rome, and for his faith’s sake was bound to a stake
and used as a target for his comrades. After him came the blind man, who
told how a pious Roman matron found the martyr bleeding and pierced with
arrows, and succeeded in bringing him back to life. Then came the smith,
who related all the miracles San Sebastiano had worked in Sicily during
the pest in the fifteenth century. They were all much applauded. They
spoke many strong words of blood and death, and the people rejoiced in
them. But every one from Diamante was anxious for little Gandolfo.

“The smith takes all the words from him. He must fail,” they said.

“Ah,” said others, “little Rosalia will not take the engagement ribbon
out of her hair for that.”

Gandolfo shrunk together in his corner of the wagon. He grew smaller
and smaller. Those sitting near could hear how his teeth chattered with
fright.

When his turn came at last, and he rose and began to improvise, he was
very bad. He was worse than any one had expected. He faltered out a
couple of verses, but they were only a repetition of what the others had
said.

Then he suddenly stopped and gasped for breath. In that moment the
strength of despair came to him. He straightened himself up, and a slight
flush rose to his cheeks.

“Oh, signori,” said little Gandolfo, “let me speak of that of which I am
always thinking! Let me speak of what I always see before me!”

And he began unopposed and with wonderful power to tell what he himself
had seen.

He told how he who was son to the watchman of the town-hall had crept
through dark attics and had lain hidden in one of the galleries of the
court-room the night the court-martial had been held to pass sentence on
the insurgents in Diamante.

Then he had seen Don Gaetano Alagona on the bench of the accused with a
lot of wild fellows who were worse than brutes.

He told how beautiful Gaetano had been. He had seemed like a god to
little Gandolfo beside those terrible people about him. And he described
those bandits with their wild-beast faces, their coarse hair, their
clumsy limbs. He said that no one could look into their eyes without a
quiver of the heart.

Yet, in all his beauty, Don Gaetano was more terrible than those people.
Gandolfo did not know how they dared to sit beside him on the bench.
Under his frowning brows his eyes flashed at his fellow-prisoners with
a look which would have killed their souls, if they like others had
possessed such a thing.

“‘Who are you,’ he seemed to ask, ‘who dare to turn to plundering and
murder while you call on sacred liberty? Do you know what you have done?
Do you know that on account of your devices I am now a prisoner? And it
was I who would have saved Sicily!’” And every glance he cast at them was
a death warrant.

His eyes fell on all the things that the bandits had stolen and that
were now piled up on a table. He recognized them. Could he help knowing
the clocks and the silver dishes from the summer-palace? could he help
knowing the relics and coins that had been stolen from his English
patroness? And when he had recognized the things, he turned to his
fellow-prisoners with a terrible smile. “‘You heroes! you heroes!’ said
the smile; ‘you have stolen from two women!’”

His noble face was constantly changing. Once Gandolfo had seen it
contracted by a sudden terror. It was when the man sitting nearest to him
stretched out a hand covered with blood. Had he perhaps had a sudden idea
of the truth? Did he think that those men had broken into the house where
his beloved lived?

Gandolfo told how the officers who were to be the judges had come in,
silent and grave, and sat down in their places. But he said when he had
seen those noble gentlemen his anxiety had diminished. He had said to
himself that they knew that Gaetano was of good birth, and that they
would not sentence him. They would not mix him up with the bandits. No
one could possibly believe that he had wished to rob two women.

And see, when the judge called up Gaetano Alagona his voice was without
hardness. He spoke to him as to an equal.

“But,” said Gandolfo, “when Don Gaetano rose, he stood so that he could
see out over the square. And through the square, through this same
square, where now so many people are sitting in happiness and pleasure, a
funeral procession was passing.

“It was the White Brotherhood carrying the body of the murdered Giannita
to her mother’s house. They walked with torches, and the bier, carried
on the bearers’ shoulders, was plainly visible. As the procession passed
slowly across the market-place, one could recognize the pall spread over
the corpse. It was the pall of the Alagonas adorned with a gorgeous coat
of arms and rich silver fringes. When Gaetano saw it, he understood that
the corpse was of the house of Alagona. His face became ashy gray, and
he reeled as if he were going to fall.

“At that moment the judge asked him: ‘Do you know the murdered woman?’
And he answered: ‘Yes.’ Then the judge, who was a merciful man,
continued: ‘Was she near to you?’ And then Don Gaetano answered: ‘I love
her.’”

When Gandolfo had come so far in his story, people saw Donna Micaela
suddenly rise, as if she had wished to contradict him, but Cavaliere
Palmeri drew her quickly down beside him.

“Be quiet, be quiet,” he said to her.

And she sat quiet with her face hidden in her hands. Now and then her
body rocked and she wailed softly.

Gandolfo told how the judge, when Gaetano had acknowledged that, had
shown him his fellow-prisoners and asked him: “‘If you loved that woman,
how can you have anything in common with the men who have murdered her?’”

Then Don Gaetano had turned towards the bandits. He had raised his
clenched hand and shaken it at them. And he had looked as if he had
longed for a dagger, to be able to strike them down one after another.

“‘With those!’” he had shouted. “‘Should I have anything in common with
those?’”

And he had certainly meant to say that he had nothing to do with robbers
and murderers. The judge had smiled kindly at him, as if he had only
waited for that answer to set him free.

But then a divine miracle had happened.

And Gandolfo told, how among all the stolen things that lay on the table,
there had also been a little Christ image. It was a yard high, richly
covered with jewels and adorned with a gold crown and gold shoes. Just at
that moment one of the officers bent down to draw the image to him; and
as he did so, the crown fell to the floor and rolled all the way to Don
Gaetano.

Don Gaetano picked up the Christ-crown, held it a moment in his hands and
looked at it carefully. It seemed as if he had read something in it.

He did not hold it more than one minute. In the next the guard took it
from him.

Donna Micaela looked up almost frightened. The Christ image! He was there
already! Should she so soon get an answer to her prayer?

Gandolfo continued: “But when Don Gaetano looked up, every one trembled
as at a miracle, for the man was transformed.

“Ah, signori, he was so white that his face seemed to shine, and his eyes
were calm and tender. And there was no more anger in him.

“And he began to pray for his fellow-prisoners; he began to pray for
their lives.

“He prayed that they should not kill those poor fellow-creatures. He
prayed that the noble judges should do something for them that they might
some day live like others. ‘We have only this life to live,’ he said.
‘Our kingdom is only of this world.’

“He began to tell how those men had lived. He spoke as if he could read
their souls. He pictured their life, gloomy and unhappy as it had been.
He spoke so that several of the judges wept.

“The words came strong and commanding, so that it sounded as if Don
Gaetano had been judge and the judges the criminals. ‘See,’ he said,
‘whose fault is it that these poor men have gone to destruction? Is it
not you who have the power who ought to have taken care of them?’

“And they were all dismayed at the responsibility he forced upon them.

“But suddenly the judge had interrupted him.

“‘Speak in your own defence, Gaetano Alagona,’ he said; ‘do not speak in
that of others!’

“Then Don Gaetano had smiled. ‘Signor,’ he said, ‘I have not much more
than you with which to defend myself. But still I have something. I have
left my career in England to make a revolt in Sicily. I have brought over
weapons. I have made seditious speeches. I have something, although not
much.’

“The judge had almost begged him. ‘Do not speak so, Don Gaetano,’ he had
said. ‘Think of what you are saying!’

“But he had made confessions that compelled them to sentence him.

“When they told him that he was to sit for twenty-nine years in prison,
he had cried out: ‘Now may her will be done, who was just carried by. May
I be as she wished!’

“And I saw no more of him,” said little Gandolfo, “for the guards placed
him between them and led him away.

“But I, who heard him pray for those who had murdered his beloved, made a
vow that I would do something for him.

“I vowed to recite a beautiful improvisation to San Sebastiano to induce
him to help him. But I have not succeeded. I am no improvisatore; I could
not.”

Here he broke off and threw himself down, weeping aloud before the image.
“Forgive me that I could not,” he cried, “and help him in spite of it.
You know that when they sentenced him I promised to do it for his sake
that you might save him. But now I have not been able to speak of you,
and you will not help him.”

Donna Micaela hardly knew how it happened, but she and little Rosalia,
who loved Gandolfo, were beside him at almost the same moment. They
drew him to them, and both kissed him, and said that no one had spoken
like him; no one, no one. Did he not see that they were weeping? San
Sebastiano was pleased with him. Donna Micaela put a ring on the boy’s
finger and round about him the people were waving many-colored silk
handkerchiefs, that glistened like waves of the sea in the strong light
from the Cathedral.

“Viva Gaetano! viva Gandolfo!” cried the people.

And flowers and fruits and silk handkerchiefs and jewels came raining
down about little Gandolfo. Donna Micaela was crowded away from him
almost with violence. But it never occurred to her to be frightened. She
stood among the surging people and wept. The tears streamed down her
face, and she wept for joy that she could weep. That was the greatest
blessing.

She wished to force her way to Gandolfo; she could not thank him enough.
He had told her that Gaetano loved her. When he had quoted the words,
“Now may her will be done who was just carried by,” she had suddenly
understood that Gaetano had believed that it was she lying under the pall
of the Alagonas.

And of that dead woman he had said: “I love her.”

The blood flowed once more in her veins; her heart beat again; her tears
fell. “It is life, life,” she said to herself, while she let herself be
carried to and fro by the crowd. “Life has come again to me. I shall not
die.”

They all had to come up to little Gandolfo to thank him, because he had
given them some one to love, to trust in, to long for in those days of
dejection, when everything seemed lost.




SECOND BOOK

“_Antichrist shall go from land to land and give bread to the poor_”




I

A GREAT MAN’S WIFE


It was in February, and the almond-trees were beginning to blossom on the
black lava about Diamante.

Cavaliere Palmeri had taken a walk up Etna and had brought home a big
almond branch, full of buds and flowers and put it in a vase in the
music-room.

Donna Micaela started when she saw it. So they had already come, the
almond-blossoms. And for a whole month, for six long weeks, they would be
everywhere.

They would stand on the altar in the church; they would lie on the
graves, and they would be worn on the breast, on the hat, in the hair.
They would blossom over the roads, in the heaps of ruins, on the black
lava. And every almond-flower would remind her of the day when the bells
rang, when Gaetano was free and happy, and when she dreamed of passing
her whole life with him.

It seemed to her as if she never before fully understood what it meant
that he was shut in and gone, that she should never see him again.

She had to sit down in order not to fall; her heart seemed to stop, and
she shut her eyes.

While she was sitting thus she had a strange experience.

She is all at once at home in the palace in Catania. She is sitting in
the lofty hall reading, and she is a happy young girl, Signorina Palmeri.
A servant brings in a wandering salesman to her. He is a handsome young
fellow with a sprig of almond-blossoms in his button-hole; on his head he
carries a board full of little images of the saints, carved in wood.

She buys some of the images, while the young man’s eyes drink in all the
works of art in the hall. She asks him if he would like to see their
collections. Yes, that he would. And she herself goes with him and shows
him.

He is so delighted with what he sees that she thinks that he must
be a real artist, and she says to herself that she will not forget
him. She asks where his home is. He answers: “In Diamante.”--“Is
that far away?”--“Four hours in the post-carriage.”--“And with the
railway?”--“There is no railway to Diamante, signorina.”--“You must build
one.”--“We! we are too poor. Ask the rich men in Catania to build us a
railway!”

When he has said that he starts to go, but he turns at the door and
comes and gives her his almond-blossoms. It is in gratitude for all the
beautiful things she has let him see.

When Donna Micaela opened her eyes she did not know whether she had been
dreaming or whether perhaps once some such thing had really happened.
Gaetano could really have been some time in the Palazzo Palmeri to sell
his images, although she had forgotten it; but now the almond-blossoms
had recalled it.

But it was no matter, no matter. The important thing was that the young
wood-carver was Gaetano. She felt as if she had been talking to him. She
thought she heard the door close behind him.

And it was after that that it occurred to her to build a railway between
Catania and Diamante.

Gaetano had surely come to her to ask her to do it. It was a command from
him, and she felt that she must obey.

She made no attempt to struggle against it. She was certain that Diamante
needed a railway more than anything else. She had once heard Gaetano say
that if Diamante only possessed a railway, so that it could easily send
away its oranges and its wine and its honey and its almonds, and so that
travellers could come there conveniently, it would soon be a rich town.

She was also quite certain that she could succeed with the railway. She
must try at all events. It never occurred to her not to. When Gaetano
wished it, she must obey.

She began to think how much money she herself could give. It would not go
very far. She must get more money. That was the first thing she had to do.

Within the hour she was at Donna Elisa’s, and begged her to help her
arrange a bazaar. Donna Elisa lifted her eyes from her embroidery.
“Why do you want to arrange a bazaar?”--“I mean to collect money for
a railway.”--“That is like you, Donna Micaela; no one else would have
thought of such a thing.”--“What, Donna Elisa? What do you mean?”--“Oh,
nothing.”

And Donna Elisa went on embroidering.

“You will not help me, then, with my bazaar?”--“No, I will not.”--“And
you will not give a little contribution towards it?”--“One who has so
lately lost her husband,” answered Donna Elisa, “ought not to trifle.”

Donna Micaela saw that Donna Elisa was angry with her for some reason
or other, and that she therefore would not help her. But there must be
others who would understand; and it was a beautiful plan, which would
save Diamante.

But Donna Micaela wandered in vain from door to door. However much she
talked and begged, she gained no partisans.

She tried to explain, she used all her eloquence to persuade. No one was
interested in her plans.

Wherever she came, people answered her that they were too poor, too poor.

The syndic’s wife answered no. Her daughters were not allowed to sell
at the bazaar. Don Antonio Greco, who had the marionette theatre, would
not come with his dolls. The town-band would not play. None of the
shop-keepers would give any of their wares. When Donna Micaela was gone
they laughed at her.

A railroad, a railroad! She did not know what she was thinking of. There
would have to be a company, shares, statutes, concessions. How should a
woman manage such things?

While some were content to laugh at Donna Micaela, some were angry with
her.

She went to the cellar-like shop near the old Benedictine monastery,
where Master Pamphilio related romances of chivalry. She came to ask him
if he would come to her bazaar and entertain the public with Charlemagne
and his paladins; but as he was in the midst of a story, she had to sit
down on a bench and wait.

Then she noticed Donna Concetta, Master Pamphilio’s wife, who was sitting
on the platform at his feet knitting a stocking. As long as Master
Pamphilio was speaking, Donna Concetta’s lips moved. She had heard his
romances so many times that she knew them by heart, and said the words
before they had passed Master Pamphilio’s lips. But it was always the
same pleasure to her to hear him, and she wept, and she laughed, as she
had done when she heard him for the first time.

Master Pamphilio was an old man, who had spoken much in his day, so that
his voice sometimes failed him in the big battle-scenes, when he had to
speak loud and fast. But Donna Concetta, who knew it all by heart, never
took the word from Master Pamphilio. She only made a sign to the audience
to wait until his voice came back. But if his memory failed him, Donna
Concetta pretended that she had dropped a stitch, raised the stocking to
her eyes, and threw him the word behind it, so that no one noticed it.
And every one knew that although Donna Concetta perhaps could have told
the romances better than Master Pamphilio, she would never have been
willing to do such a thing, not only because it was not fitting for a
woman, but also because it would not give her half so much pleasure as
to listen to dear Master Pamphilio.

When Donna Micaela saw Donna Concetta, she fell to dreaming. Oh, to sit
so on the platform, where her beloved was speaking; to sit so day in and
day out and worship. She knew whom that would have suited.

When Master Pamphilio had finished speaking Donna Micaela went forward
and asked him to help her. It was hard for him to say no, on account of
the thousand prayers that were written in her eyes. But Donna Concetta
came to his rescue. “Master Pamphilio,” she said, “tell Donna Micaela of
Guglielmo the Wicked.” And Master Pamphilio began.

“Donna Micaela,” he said, “do you know that once there was a king in
Sicily whose name was Guglielmo the Wicked? He was so covetous that he
took all his subjects’ money. He commanded that every one possessing gold
coins should give them to him. And he was so severe and so cruel that
they all had to obey him.

“Well, Donna Micaela, Guglielmo the Wicked wished to know if any one had
gold hidden in his house. Therefore he sent one of his servants along the
Corso in Palermo with a beautiful horse. And the man offered the horse
for sale, and cried loudly: ‘Will be sold for a piece of gold; will be
sold for a piece of gold!’ But there was no one who could buy the horse.

“Yet it was a very beautiful horse, and a young nobleman, the Duke of
Montefiascone, was much taken by him. ‘There is no joy for me if I cannot
buy the horse,’ said he to his steward. ‘Signor Duca,’ answered his
steward, ‘I can tell you where you can find a piece of gold. When your
noble father died and was carried away by the Capucins, according to the
ancient custom I put a piece of gold in his mouth. You can take that,
signor.’

“For you must know, Donna Micaela, that in Palermo they do not bury the
dead in the ground. They carry them to the monastery of the Capucins, and
the monks hang them up in their vaults. Ah, there are so many hanging in
those vaults!--so many ladies, dressed in silk and cloth of silver; so
many noble gentlemen, with orders on their breasts; and so many priests,
with cloak and cap over skeleton and skull.

“The young duke followed his advice. He went to the Capucin monastery,
took the piece of gold from his father’s mouth and bought the horse with
it.

“But you understand that the king had only sent his servant with the
horse in order to find out if any one still had any money. And now the
duke was taken before the king. ‘How does it happen that you still have
gold pieces?’ said Guglielmo the Wicked.--‘Sire, it was not mine; it was
my father’s.’ And he told how he had got the piece of gold. ‘It is true,’
said the king. ‘I had forgotten that the dead still had money.’ And he
sent his servants to the Capucins and had them take all the gold pieces
out of the mouths of the dead.”

Here old Master Pamphilio finished his story. And now Donna Concetta
turned to Donna Micaela with wrathful eyes. “It is you who are out with
the horse,” she said.

“Am I? am I?”

“You, you, Donna Micaela! The government will say: ‘They are building
a railway in Diamante. They must be rich.’ And they will increase our
taxes. And God knows that we cannot pay the tax with which we are already
loaded down, even if we should go and plunder our ancestors.”

Donna Micaela tried to calm her.

“They have sent you out to find out if we still have any money. You
are spying for the rich; you are in league with the government. Those
bloodsuckers in Rome have paid you.”

Donna Micaela turned away from her.

“I came to talk to you, Master Pamphilio,” she said to the old man.

“But I shall answer you,” replied Donna Concetta; “for this is a
disagreeable matter, and such things are my affair. I know what is the
duty of the wife of a great man, Donna Micaela.”

Donna Concetta became silent, for the fine lady gave her a look which was
so full of jealous longing that it made her sorry for her. Heavens, yes,
there had been a difference in their husbands; Don Ferrante and Master
Pamphilio!




II

PANEM ET CIRCENSES


In Diamante travellers are often shown two palaces that are falling into
ruins without ever having been completed. They have big window-openings
without frames, high walls without a roof, and wide doors closed with
boards and straw. The two palaces stand opposite each other on the
street, both equally unfinished and equally in ruins. There are no
scaffoldings about them, and no one can enter them. They seem to be only
built for the doves.

Listen to what is told of them.

What is a woman, O signore? Her foot is so little that she goes through
the world without leaving a trace behind her. For man she is like his
shadow. She has followed him through his whole life without his having
noticed her.

Not much can be expected of a woman. She has to sit all day shut in like
a prisoner. She cannot even learn to spell a love-letter correctly. She
cannot do anything of permanence. When she is dead there is nothing to
write on her tombstone. All women are of the same height.

But once a woman came to Diamante who was as much above all other women
as the century-old palm is above the grass. She possessed lire by
thousands, and could give them away or keep them, as she pleased. She
turned aside for no one. She was not afraid of being hated. She was the
greatest marvel that had ever been seen.

Of course she was not a Sicilian. She was an Englishwoman. And the first
thing she did when she came was to take the whole first floor of the
hotel for herself alone. What was that for her? All Diamante would not
have been enough for her.

No, all Diamante was not enough for her. But as soon as she had come she
began to govern the town like a queen. The syndic had to obey her. Was it
not she who made him put stone benches in the square? Was it not at her
command that the streets were swept every day?

When she woke in the morning all the young men of Diamante stood waiting
outside her door, to be allowed to accompany her on some excursion. They
had left shoemaker’s awl and stone-cutter’s chisel to act as guides to
her. Each had sold his mother’s silk dress to buy a side-saddle for his
donkey, so that _she_ might ride on it to the castle or to Tre Castagni.
They had divested themselves of house and home in order to buy a horse
and carriage to drive her to Randazzo and Nicolosi.

We were all her slaves. The children began to beg in English, and the
old blind women at the hotel door, Donna Pepa and Donna Tura, draped
themselves in dazzlingly white veils to please her.

Everything moved round her; industries and trades grew up about her.
Those who could do nothing else dug in the earth for coins and pottery
to offer her. Photographers moved to the town and began to work for her.
Coral merchants and hawkers of tortoise-shell grew out of the earth about
her. The priests of Santa Agnese dug up the old Dionysius theatre, that
lay hidden behind their church, for her sake; and every one who owned a
ruined villa unearthed in the darkness of the cellar remains of mosaic
floors and invited her by big posters to come and see.

There had been foreigners before in Diamante, but they had come and
gone, and no one had enjoyed such power. There was soon not a man in the
town who did not put all his trust in the English signorina. She even
succeeded in putting a little life into Ugo Favara. You know Ugo Favara,
the advocate, who was to have been a great man, but had reverses and came
home quite broken. She employed him to take care of her affairs. She
needed him, and she took him.

There has never been a woman in Diamante who has done so much business
as she. She spread out like green-weed in the spring. One day no one
knows that there is any, and the next it is a great clump. Soon it was
impossible to go anywhere in Diamante without coming on her traces. She
bought country houses and town houses; she bought almond-groves and
lava-streams. The best places on Etna to see the view were hers as well
as the thirsting earth on the plain. And in town she began to build two
big palaces. She was to live in them and rule her kingdom.

We shall never see a woman like her again. She was not content with
all that. She wished also to fight the fight with poverty, O signore,
with Sicilian poverty! How much she gave out each day, and how much she
gave away on feast-days! Wagons, drawn by two pairs of oxen, went down
to Catania and came back piled up with all sorts of clothing. She was
determined that they should have whole clothes in the town where she
reigned.

But listen to what happened to her; how the struggle with poverty ended
and what became of the kingdom and the palace.

She gave a banquet for the poor people of Diamante, and after the banquet
an entertainment in the Grecian theatre. It was what an old emperor might
have done. But who has ever before heard of a woman doing such a thing?

She invited all the poor people. There were the two blind women from the
hotel-door, and old Assunta from the Cathedral steps. There was the man
from the post-house, who had his chin bound up in a red cloth on account
of cancer of the face; and there was the idiot who opens the iron doors
of the Grecian theatre. All the donkey-boys were there, and the handless
brothers, who exploded a bomb in their childhood and lost their fingers;
and the man with the wooden leg, and the old chair-maker who had grown
too old to work, both were there.

It was strange to see them creep out of their holes, all the poor in
Diamante. The old women who sit and spin with distaffs in the dark
alleys were there, and the organ-grinder, who has an instrument as big
as a church-organ, a wandering young mandolinist from Naples with a body
full of all possible deviltries. All those with diseased eyes and all
the decrepit; those without a roof over their heads; those who used to
collect sorrel by the roadside for dinner; the stone-cutter, who earned
one lira a day and had six children to provide for,--they had all been
invited and were present at the feast.

It was poverty marshalling its troops for the English signorina. Who has
such an army as poverty? But for once the English signorina could conquer
it.

She had something to fight with too and to conquer with. She filled the
whole square with loaded tables. She had wine-skins arranged along the
stone bench that lines the wall of the Cathedral. She had turned the
deserted convent into a larder and kitchen. She had all the foreign
colony in Diamante dressed in white aprons, to serve the courses. She had
all of Diamante who are used to eating their fill, wandering to and fro
as spectators.

Ah, spectators, what did she not have for spectators? She had great Etna
and the dazzling sun. She had the red peaks of the inland mountains and
the old temple of Vulcan, that was now consecrated to San Pasquale. And
none of them had ever seen a satisfied Diamante. None of them had ever
before happened to think how much more beautiful they themselves would be
if the people could look at them without hunger hissing in their ears and
trampling on their heels.

But mark one thing! Although that signorina was so wonderful and so
great, she was not beautiful. And in spite of all her power, she was
neither charming nor attractive. She did not rule with jests, and she did
not reward with smiles. She had a heavy, clumsy body, and a heavy, clumsy
disposition.

The day she gave food to the poor she became a different person. A
chivalrous people live in our noble island. Among all those poor people
there was not one who let her feel that she was exercising charity. They
worshipped her, but they worshipped her as a woman. They sat down at the
table as with an equal. They behaved to her as guests to their hostess.
“To-day I do you the honor to come to you; to-morrow you do me the
honor to come to me. So and not otherwise.” She stood on the high steps
of the town-hall and looked down at all the tables. And when the old
chair-maker, who sat at the head of the table, had got his glass filled,
he rose, bowed to her and said: “I drink to your prosperity, signorina.”

So did they all. They laid their hands on their hearts and bowed to her.
It would have perhaps been good for her if she had met with such chivalry
earlier in life. Why had the men in her native land let her forget that
women exist to be worshipped?

Here they all looked as if they were burning with a quiet adoration. Thus
are women treated in our noble island. What did they not give in return
for the food and the wine that she had offered them? They gave youth and
light-heartedness and all the dignity of being worth coveting. They made
speeches for her. “Noble-hearted signorina, you who have come to us from
over the sea, you who love Sicily,” and so on, and so on. She showed that
she could blush. She no longer hid her power to smile. When they had
finished speaking, the lips of the English signorina began to tremble.
She became twenty years younger. It was what she needed.

The donkey-boy was there, who carries the English ladies up to Tre
Castagni, and who always falls in love with them before he parts from
them. Now his eyes were suddenly opened to the great benefactress. It is
not only a slender, delicate body and a soft cheek that are worthy to be
adored, but also strength and force. The donkey-boy suddenly dropped
knife and fork, leaned his elbows on the table, and sat and looked
at her. And all the other donkey-boys did the same. It spread like a
contagion. It grew hot with burning glances about the English signorina.

It was not only the poor people who adored her. The advocate, Ugo Favara,
came and whispered to her that she had come as a providence to his poor
land and to him. “If only I had met such a woman as you before,” he said.

Fancy an old bird which has sat in a cage for many years and become rough
and lost all the gloss of his feathers. And then some one comes and
straightens them out and smooths them back. Think of it, signore!

There was that boy from Naples. He took his mandolin and began to sing
his very best. You know how he sings; he pouts with his big mouth and
says ugly words. He usually is like a grinning mask. But have you seen
the angel in his eyes? An angel which seems to weep over his fall and is
filled with a holy frenzy. That evening he was only an angel. He raised
his head like one inspired by God, and his drooping body became elastic
and full of proud vitality. Color came into his livid cheeks. And he
sang; he sang so that the notes seemed to fly like fireflies from his
lips and fill the air with joy and dance.

When it grew dark they all went over to the Grecian theatre. That was
the finishing touch to the entertainment. What did she not have to offer
there!

She had the Russian singer and the German variété artists. She had the
English wrestlers and the American magician. But what was that compared
to all the rest: the silvery moonlight and the place and its memories?
Those poor people seemed to feel like the Greeks and leaders of fashion
when they once more took their places on the stone-benches of their own
old theatre and from between the tottering pillars looked out at the most
beautiful panorama.

Those poor people did not stint; they shared all the pleasure they
received. They did not spare jubilation; there was no stopping their
hand-clapping. The performers left the platform with a wealth of praise.

Some one begged the English signorina to appear. All the adoration was
meant for her. She ought to stand face to face with it and feel it. And
they told her how intoxicating it was, how elevating, how inflaming.

She liked the proposal. She immediately agreed. She had sung in her
youth, and the English never seem to be afraid to sing. She would not
have done it if she had not been in a good mood, and she wished to sing
for those who loved her.

She came as the last number. Fancy what it was to stand on such an old
stage! It was where Antigone had been buried alive and Iphigenia had been
sacrificed. The English signorina stepped forward there to receive every
conceivable honor.

It stormed to meet her as soon as she showed herself. They seemed to wish
to stamp the earth to pieces to honor her.

It was a proud moment. She stood there with Etna as a background and
the Mediterranean as wings. Before her on the grass-grown benches was
sitting conquered poverty, and she felt that she had all Diamante at her
feet.

She chose “Bellini,” our own “Bellini.” She too wished to be amiable and
so she sang “Bellini,” who was born here under Etna; “Bellini” whom we
know by heart, note for note.

Of course, O signore, of course she could not sing. She had mounted the
tribune only to receive homage. She had come in order to let the love of
the people find an outlet. And now she sang false and feebly. And the
people knew every note.

It was that mandolinista from Naples. He was the first to grimace and to
take a note as false as that of the English signorina. Then it was the
man with the cancer, who laughed till he laughed his neckcloth off. Then
it was the donkey-boy, who began to clap his hands.

Then they all began. It was madness, but that they did not understand.
It is not in the land of the old Greeks that people can bear barbarians
who sing false. Donna Pepa and Donna Tura laughed as they had never
done before in their lives. “Not one true note! By the Madonna and San
Pasquale, not one true note!”

They had eaten their fill for once in their lives. It was natural that
intoxication and madness should take hold of them. And why should they
not laugh? She had not given them food in order to torture their ears
with files and saws. Why should they not defend themselves by laughing?
Why should they not mimic and hiss and scream? Why should they not lean
backward and split their sides with laughter? They were not the English
signorina’s slaves, I suppose.

It was a terrible blow to her. It was too great a blow for her to
understand. Were they hissing her? It must be something happening among
them; something that she could not see. She sang the aria to its end.
She was convinced that the laughter was for something with which she had
nothing to do.

When she had finished a sort of storm of applause roared over her. At
last she understood. Torches and the moonlight made the night so bright
that she could see the rows of people twisting with laughter. She heard
the scoffs and the jests now, when she was not singing. They were for
her. Then she fled from the stage. It seemed to her that Etna itself
heaved with laughter, and that the sea sparkled with merriment.

But it grew worse and worse. They had had such a good time, those poor
people; they had never had such a good time before, and they wished
to hear her once again. They called for her; they cried: “Bravo! Bis!
Da capo!” They could not lose such a pleasure. She, she was almost
unconscious. There was a storm about her. They screamed; they roared to
get her in. She saw them lift their arms and threaten her to get her in.
All at once it was all turned into an old circus. She had to go in to be
devoured by monsters.

It went on; it went on; it became wilder and wilder. The other performers
were frightened and begged her to yield. And she herself was frightened.
It looked as if they would have killed her if she did not do what they
wished.

She dragged herself on the stage and stood face to face with the crowd.
There was no pity. She sang because they all wished to be amused. That
was the worst. She sang because she was afraid of them and did not dare
not to. She was a foreigner and alone, and she had no one to protect her,
and she was afraid. And they laughed and laughed.

Screams and cries, crowing and whistling accompanied the whole aria. No
one had mercy on her. For the first time in her life she felt the need of
mercy.

Well, the next day she resolved to depart. She could not endure Diamante
any longer. But when she told the advocate, Favara, he implored her to
stay for his sake and made her an offer of marriage.

He had chosen his time well. She said yes, and was married to him. But
after that time she built no more on her palaces; she made no struggle
against poverty; she cared nothing to be queen in Diamante. Would you
believe it? She never showed herself on the street; she lived indoors
like a Sicilian.

Her little house stood hidden away behind a big building, and of herself
no one knew anything. They only knew that she was quite changed. No
one knew whether she was happy or unhappy; whether she shut herself in
because she hated the people, or because she wished to be as a Sicilian
wife ought to be.

Does it not always end so with a woman? When they build their palaces
they are never finished. Women can do nothing that has permanence.




III

THE OUTCAST


When Donna Micaela heard how the poor people had hooted Miss Tottenham
out, she hurried to the hotel to express her condolence. She wished to
beg her not to judge those poor creatures by what they had done when they
had been put out of their heads with pleasure and wine. She would beg her
not to take her hand from Diamante. She herself did not care very much
for Miss Tottenham, but for the sake of the poor--She would say anything
to pacify her.

When she came to the hotel Etna, she saw the whole street filled with
baggage-wagons. So there was no hope. The great benefactress was going
away.

Outside the hotel there was much sorrow and despair. The two old blind
women, Donna Pepa and Donna Tura, who had always sat in the hotel
court-yard, were now shut out, and they were kneeling before the door.
The young donkey-driver, who loved all young English ladies, stood with
his face pressed against the wall and wept.

Inside the hotel the landlord walked up and down the long corridor,
raging at Providence for sending him this misfortune. “Signor Dio,” he
mumbled, “I am beggared. If you let this happen, I will take my wife by
the hand and my children in my arms and throw myself with them down into
Etna.”

The landlady was very pale and humble. She scarcely dared to lift her
eyes from the ground. She would have liked to creep about on her knees to
prevail upon the rich signorina to remain.

“Do you dare to speak to her, Donna Micaela?” she said. “May God help
you to speak to her! Alas! tell her that the Neapolitan boy, who was the
cause of the whole misfortune, has been turned out of the town. Tell her
that they all wish to make amends. Speak to her, signora!”

The landlady took Donna Micaela to the Englishwoman’s drawing-room and
went in with her card. She came back immediately and asked her to wait a
few minutes. Signorina Tottenham was having a business talk with Signor
Favara.

It was the very moment when the advocate Favara asked Miss Tottenham’s
hand in marriage; and while Donna Micaela waited she heard him say quite
loud: “You must not go away, signorina! What will become of me if you go
away? I love you; I cannot let you go. I should not have dared to speak
if you had not threatened to go away. But now--”

He lowered his voice again, but Donna Micaela would hear no more and
went away. She saw that she was superfluous. If Signor Favara could not
succeed in keeping the great benefactress, no one could.

When she went out again through the gateway the landlord was standing
there quarrelling with the old Franciscan, Fra Felice. He was so
irritated that he not only quarrelled with Fra Felice, he also drove him
from his house.

“Fra Felice,” he cried, “you come to make more trouble with our great
benefactress. You will only make her more angry. Go away, I tell you! You
wolf, you man-eater, go away!”

Fra Felice was quite as enraged as the landlord, and tried to force
his way past him. But then the latter took him by the arm, and without
further notice marched him down the steps.

Fra Felice was a man who had received a great gift from his Creator. In
Sicily, where everybody plays in the lottery, there are people who have
the power to foretell what numbers will win at the next drawing. He who
has such second sight is called “polacco,” and is most often found in
some old begging monk. Fra Felice was such a monk. He was the greatest
polacco in the neighborhood of Etna.

As every one wished him to tell them a winning tern or quartern, he was
always treated with great consideration. He was not used to be taken by
the arm and be thrown into the street, Fra Felice.

He was nearly eighty years old and quite dried-up and infirm. As he
staggered away between the wagons, he stumbled, trod on his cloak, and
almost fell. But none of the porters and drivers that stood by the door
talking and lamenting had time that day to think of Fra Felice.

The old man tottered along in his heavy homespun cloak. He was so thin
and dry that there seemed to be more stiffness in the cloak than in the
monk. It seemed to be the old cloak that held him up.

Donna Micaela caught up with him and gently drew the old man’s arm
through her own. She could not bear to see how he struck against the
lamp-posts and fell over steps. But Fra Felice never noticed that she
was looking after him. He walked and mumbled and cursed, and did not know
but that he was as much alone as if he sat in his cell.

Donna Micaela wondered why Fra Felice was so angry with Miss Tottenham.
Had she been out to his monastery and taken down frescos from the walls,
or what had she done?

Fra Felice had lived for sixty years in the big Franciscan monastery
outside the Porta Etnea, wall to wall with the old church San Pasquale.

Fra Felice had been monk there for thirty years, when the monastery was
given up and sold to a layman. The other monks moved away, but Fra Felice
remained because he could not understand what selling the house of San
Francisco could mean.

If laymen were to come there, it seemed to Fra Felice almost more
essential that at least one monk should remain. Who else would attend to
the bell-ringing, or prepare medicines for the peasant women, or give
bread to the poor of the monastery? And Fra Felice chose a cell in a
retired corner of the monastery, and continued to go in and out as he had
always done.

The merchant who owned the monastery never visited it. He did not care
about the old building; he only wanted the vineyards belonging to it. So
Fra Felice still reigned in the old monastery, and fastened up the fallen
cornices and whitewashed the walls. As many poor people as had received
food at the monastery in former days, still received it. For his gift of
prophecy Fra Felice got such large alms as he wandered through the towns
of Etna that he could have been a rich man; but every bit of it went to
the monastery.

Fra Felice had suffered an even greater grief than for the monastery on
account of the monastery church. It had been desecrated during war, with
bloody fights and other atrocities, so that mass could never be held
there. But that he could not understand either. The church, where he had
made his vows, was always holy to Fra Felice.

It was his greatest sorrow that his church had fallen entirely into ruin.
He had looked on when Englishmen had come and bought pulpit and lectern
and choir chairs. He had not been able to prevent collectors from Palermo
coming and taking the chandeliers and pictures and brass hooks. However
much he had wished it, he had not been able to do anything to save his
church. But he hated those church-pillagers; and when Donna Micaela saw
him so angry, she thought that Miss Tottenham had wished to take some of
his treasures from him.

But the fact was that now, when Fra Felice’s church was emptied, and
no one came any more to plunder there, he had begun to think of doing
something to embellish it once more, and he had had his eye on the
collection of images of the saints in the possession of the rich English
lady. At her entertainment, when she had been kind and gentle towards
every one, he had dared to ask her for her beautiful Madonna, who had a
dress of velvet and eyes like the sky. And his request had been granted.

That morning Fra Felice had swept and dusted the church, and put flowers
on the altar, before he went to fetch the image. But when he came to the
hotel, the Englishwoman had changed her mind; she had not been at all
willing to give him the valuable Madonna. In its stead she had given him
a little ragged, dirty image of the Christchild, which she thought she
could spare without regret.

Ah, what joy and expectation old Fra Felice had felt, and then had been
so disappointed! He could not be satisfied; he came back time after time
to beg for the other image. It was such a valuable image that he could
not have bought it with all that he begged in a whole year. At last the
great benefactress had dismissed him; and it was then that Donna Micaela
had found him.

As they went along the street, she began to talk to the old man and won
his story from him. He had the image with him, and right in the street
he stopped, showed it to her, and asked her if she had ever seen a more
miserable object.

Donna Micaela looked at the image for a moment with stupefaction. Then
she smiled and said: “Lend me the image for a few days, Fra Felice!”

“You can take it and keep it,” said the old man. “May it never come
before my eyes again!”

Donna Micaela took the image home and worked on it for two days. When she
then sent it to Fra Felice it shone with newly polished shoes; it had a
fresh, clean dress; it was painted, and in its crown shone bright stones
of many colors.

He was so beautiful, the outcast, that Fra Felice placed him on the empty
altar in his church.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was very early one morning. The sun had not risen, and the broad sea
was scarcely visible. It was really very early. The cats were still
roaming about the roofs; no smoke rose from the chimneys; and the mists
lay and rolled about in the low valley round the steep Monte Chiaro.

Old Fra Felice came running towards the town. He ran so fast that he
thought he felt the mountain tremble beneath him. He ran so fast that the
blades of grass by the roadside had no time to sprinkle his cloak with
dew; so fast that the scorpions had no time to lift their tails and sting
him.

As the old man ran, his cloak flapped unfastened about him, and his rope
swung unknotted behind. His wide sleeves waved like wings, and his heavy
hood pounded up and down on his back, as if it wished to urge him on.

The man in the custom-office, who was still asleep, woke and rubbed his
eyes as Fra Felice rushed by, but he had no time to recognize him. The
pavements were slippery with dampness; beggars lay and slept by the high
stone steps with their legs heedlessly stretched out into the street;
exhausted domino-players were going home from the Café reeling with
sleep. But Fra Felice hastened onward regardless of all obstructions.

Houses and gateways, squares and arched-over alleys disappeared behind
old Fra Felice. He ran half-way up the Corso before he stopped.

He stopped in front of a big house with many heavy balconies. He seized
the door-knocker and pounded until a servant awoke. He would not be quiet
till the servant called up a maid, and the maid waked the signora.

“Donna Micaela, Fra Felice is downstairs. He insists on speaking to you.”

When Donna Micaela at last came down to Fra Felice, he was still panting
and breathless, but there was a fire in his eyes, and little pale roses
in his cheeks.

It was the image, the image. When Fra Felice had rung the four-o’clock
matins that morning he had gone into the church to look at him.

Then he had discovered that big stones had loosened from the dome just
over the image. They had fallen on the altar and broken it to pieces, but
the image had stood untouched. And none of the plaster and dust that had
tumbled down had fallen on the image; it was quite uninjured.

Fra Felice took Donna Micaela’s hand and told her that she must go with
him to the church and see the miracle. She should see it before any one,
because she had taken care of the image.

And Donna Micaela went with him through the gray, chilly morning to his
monastery, while her heart throbbed with eagerness and expectation.

When she arrived and saw that Fra Felice had told the truth, she said to
him that she had recognized the image as soon as she had caught sight of
it, and that she knew that it could work miracles. “He is the greatest
and gentlest of miracle-workers,” she said.

Fra Felice went up to the image and looked into its eyes. For there is a
great difference in images, and the wisdom of an old monk is needed to
understand which has power and which has not. Now Fra Felice saw that
this image’s eyes were deep and glowing, as if they had life; and that on
its lips hovered a mysterious smile.

Then old Fra Felice fell on his knees and stretched his clasped hands
towards the image, and his old shrivelled face was lighted by a great
joy.

It seemed to Fra Felice all at once as if the walls of his church were
covered with pictures and purple hangings; candles shone on the altar;
song sounded from the gallery; and the whole floor was covered with
kneeling, praying people.

All imaginary glory would fall to the lot of his poor old church, now
that it possessed one of the great miracle-working images.




IV

THE OLD MARTYRDOM


From the summer-palace in Diamante many letters were sent during
that time to Gaetano Alagona, who was in prison in Como. But the
letter-carrier never had a letter in his bag from Gaetano addressed to
the summer-palace.

For Gaetano had gone into his life-long imprisonment as if it had been a
grave. The only thing he asked or desired was that it should give him the
grave’s forgetfulness and peace.

He felt as if he were dead; and he said to himself that he did not wish
to hear the laments and wails of the survivors. Nor did he wish to be
deceived with hopes, or be tempted by tender words to long for family and
friends. Nor did he wish to hear anything of what was happening in the
world, when he had no power to take part and to lead.

He found work in the prison, and carved beautiful works of art, as he
had always done. But he never would receive a letter, nor a visitor. He
thought that in that way he could cease to feel the bitterness of his
misfortunes. He believed that he would be able to teach himself to live a
whole life within four narrow walls.

And for that reason Donna Micaela never had a word of answer from him.

Finally she wrote to the director of the prison and asked if Gaetano was
still alive. He answered that the prisoner she asked about never read a
letter. He had asked to be spared all communications from the outside
world.

So she wrote no more. Instead she continued to work for her railway. She
hardly dared to speak of it in Diamante, but nevertheless she thought
of nothing else. She herself sewed and embroidered, and she had all her
servants make little cheap things that she could sell at her bazaar. In
the shop she looked up old wares for the tombola. She had Piero, the
gate-keeper, prepare colored lanterns; she persuaded her father to paint
signs and placards; and she had her maid, Lucia, who was from Capri,
arrange coral necklaces and shell boxes.

She was not at all sure that even one person would come to her
entertainment. Every one was against her; no one would help her. They did
not even like her to show herself on the streets or to talk business. It
was not fitting for a well-born lady.

Old Fra Felice tried to assist her, for he loved her because she had
helped him with the image.

One day, when Donna Micaela was lamenting that she could not persuade any
one that the people ought to build the railway, he lifted his cap from
his head and pointed to his bald temples.

“Look at me, Donna Micaela,” he said. “So bald will that railway make
your head if you go on as you have begun.”

“What do you mean, Fra Felice?”

“Donna Micaela,” said the old man, “would it not be folly to start on a
dangerous undertaking without having a friend and helper?”

“I have tried enough to find friends, Fra Felice.”

“Yes, men!” said the old man. “But how do men help? If any one is going
fishing, Donna Micaela, he knows that he must call on San Pietro; if any
one wishes to buy a horse, he can ask help of San Antonio Abbate. But if
I want to pray for your railway, I do not know to whom I shall turn.”

Fra Felice meant that the trouble was that she had chosen no patron saint
for her railway. He wished her to choose the crowned child that stood out
in his old church as its first friend and promoter. He told her that if
she only did that she would certainly be helped.

She was so touched that any one was willing to stand by her that she
instantly promised to pray for her railway to the child at San Pasquale.

Fra Felice got a big collection-box and painted on it in bright, distinct
letters: “Gifts for the Etna Railway,” and he hung it in his church
beside the altar.

It was not more than a day after that that Don Antonio Greco’s wife,
Donna Emilia, came out to the old, deserted church to consult San
Pasquale, who is the wisest of all the saints.

During the autumn Don Antonio’s theatre had begun to fare ill, as was to
be expected when no one had any money.

Don Antonio thought to run the theatre with less expense than before. He
had cut off a couple of lamps and did not have such big and gorgeously
painted play-bills.

But that had been great folly. It is not at the moment when people are
losing their desire to go to the theatre that it will answer to shorten
the princesses’ silk trains and economize on the gilding of the king’s
crowns.

Perhaps it is not so dangerous at another theatre, but at a marionette
theatre it is a risk to make any changes, because it is chiefly
half-grown boys who go to the marionette theatre. Big people can
understand that sometimes it is necessary to economize, but children
always wish to have things in the same way.

Fewer and fewer spectators came to Don Antonio, and he went on
economizing and saving. Then it occurred to him that he could dispense
with the two blind violin-players, Father Elia and Brother Tommaso, who
also used to play during the interludes and in the battle-scenes.

Those blind men, who earned so much by singing in houses of mourning,
and who took in vast sums on feast-days, were expensive. Don Antonio
dismissed them and got a hand-organ.

That caused his ruin. All the apprentices and shop-boys in Diamante
ceased to go to the theatre. They would not sit and listen to a
hand-organ. They promised one another not to go to the theatre till Don
Antonio had taken back the fiddlers, and they kept their promise. Don
Antonio’s dolls had to perform to empty walls.

The young boys who otherwise would rather go without their supper than
the theatre, stayed away night after night. They were convinced that they
could force Don Antonio to arrange everything as before.

But Don Antonio comes of a family of artists. His father and his brother
have marionette theatres; his brothers-in-law, all his relations are
of the profession. And Don Antonio understands his art. He can change
his voice indefinitely; he can manœuvre at the same time a whole army
of dolls; and he knows by heart the whole cycle of plays founded on the
chronicles of Charlemagne.

And now Don Antonio’s artistic feelings were hurt. He would not be forced
to take back the blind men. He wished to have the people come to his
theatre for his sake, and not for that of the musicians.

He changed his tactics and began to play big dramas with elaborate
mountings. But it was futile.

There is a play called “The Death of the Paladin,” which treats of
Roland’s fight at Ronceval. It requires so much machinery that a puppet
theatre has to be kept shut for two days for it to be set up. It is so
dear to the public that it is generally played for double price and to
full houses for a whole month. Don Antonio now had that play mounted, but
he did not need to play it; he had no spectators.

After that his spirit was broken. He tried to get Father Elia and Brother
Tommaso back, but they now knew what their value was to him.

They demanded such a price that it would have been ruin to pay them. It
was impossible to come to any agreement.

In the small rooms back of the marionette theatre they lived as in a
besieged fortress. They had nothing else to do but to starve.

Donna Emilia and Don Antonio were both gay young people, but now they
never laughed. They were in great want, but Don Antonio was a proud man,
and he could not bear to think that his art no longer had the power to
draw.

So, as I said, Donna Emilia went down to the church of San Pasquale to
ask the saint for good advice. It had been her intention to repeat nine
prayers to the great stone-image standing outside of the church, and
then to go; but before she had begun to pray she had noticed that the
church-door stood open. “Why is San Pasquale’s church-door open?” said
Donna Emilia. “That has never happened in my time,”--and she went into
the church.

The only thing to be seen there was Fra Felice’s beloved image and the
big collection-box. The image looked so beautiful in his crown and his
rings that Donna Emilia was tempted forward to him, but when she came
near enough to look into his eyes, he seemed to her so tender and so
cheering that she knelt down before him and prayed. She promised that
if he would help her and Don Antonio in their need, she would put the
receipts of a whole evening in the big box that hung beside him.

After her prayers were over, Donna Emilia concealed herself behind the
church-door, and tried to catch what the passers-by were saying. For if
the image was willing to help her, he would let her hear a word which
would tell her what to do.

She had not stood there two minutes before old Assunta of the Cathedral
steps passed by with Donna Pepa and Donna Tura. And she heard Assunta say
in her solemn voice: “That was the year when I heard ‘The Old Martyrdom’
for the first time.” Donna Emilia heard quite distinctly. Assunta really
said “The Old Martyrdom.”

Donna Emilia thought that she would never reach her home. It was as if
her legs could not carry her fast enough, and the distance increased as
she ran. When she finally saw the corner of the theatre with the red
lanterns under the roof and the big illustrated play-bills, she felt as
if she had gone many miles.

When she came in to Don Antonio, he sat with his big head leaning on his
hand and stared at the table. It was terrible to see Don Antonio. In
those last weeks he had begun to lose his hair; on the very top of his
head it was so thin that the skin shone through. Was it strange, when he
was in such trouble? While she had been away he had taken all his puppets
out and inspected them. He did that now every day. He used to sit and
look at the puppet that played Armida. Was she no longer beautiful and
beguiling? he would ask. And he tried to polish up Roland’s sword and
Charlemagne’s crown. Donna Emilia saw that he had gilded the emperor’s
crown again; it was for at least the fifth time. But then he had stopped
in the midst of his work and had sat down to brood. He had noticed it
himself. It was not gilding that was lacking; it was an idea.

As Donna Emilia came into the room, she stretched out her hands to her
husband.

“Look at me, Don Antonio Greco,” she said. “I bear in my hands golden
bowls full of ripe figs!”

And she told how she had prayed, and what she had vowed, and what she had
been advised.

When she said that to Don Antonio, he sprang up. His arms fell stiffly
beside his body, and his hair raised itself from his head. He was seized
with an unspeakable terror. “‘The Old Martyrdom’!” he screamed, “‘The Old
Martyrdom’!”

For “The Old Martyrdom” is a miracle-play, which in its time was given
in all Sicily. It drove out all other oratorios and mysteries, and was
played every year in every town for two centuries. It was the greatest
day of the year, when “The Old Martyrdom” was performed. But now it is
never played; now it only lives in the people’s memory as a legend.

In the old days it was also played in the marionette theatres. But now it
has come to be considered old-fashioned and out-of-date. It has probably
not been played for thirty years.

Don Antonio began to roar and scream at Donna Emilia, because she
tortured him with such folly. He struggled with her as with a demon, who
had come to seize him. It was amazing; it was heartrending, he said. How
could she get hold of such a word? But Donna Emilia stood quiet and let
him rave. She only said that what she had heard was God’s will.

Soon Don Antonio began to be uncertain. The great idea gradually took
possession of him. Nothing had ever been so loved and played in Sicily,
and did not the same people still live on the noble isle? Did they
not love the same earth, the same mountains, the same skies as their
forefathers had loved? Why should they not also love “The Old Martyrdom”?

He resisted as long as he could. He said to Donna Emilia that it would
cost too much. Where could he get apostles with long hair and beards? He
had no table for the Last Supper; he had none of the machinery required
for the entry, and carrying of the cross.

But Donna Emilia saw that he was going to give in, and before night
he actually went to Fra Felice and renewed her vow to put the receipts
of one evening in the box of the little image, if it proved to be good
advice.

Fra Felice told Donna Micaela about the vow, and she was glad, and at the
same time anxious how it would turn out.

Through all the town it was known that Don Antonio was mounting “The Old
Martyrdom,” and every one laughed at him. Don Antonio had lost his mind.

The people would have liked well enough to see “The Old Martyrdom,” if
they could have seen it as it was played in former days. They would have
liked to see it given as in Aci, where the noblemen of the town played
the kings and the servants, and the artisans took the parts of the Jews
and the apostles; and where so many scenes from the Old Testament were
added that the spectacle lasted the whole day.

They would have also liked to see those wonderful days in Castelbuoco,
when the whole town was transformed into Jerusalem. There the mystery was
given so that Jesus came riding to the town, and was met with palms at
the town-gate. There the church represented the temple at Jerusalem and
the town-hall Pilate’s palace. There Peter warmed himself at a fire in
the priest’s court-yard; the crucifixion took place on a mountain above
the town; and Mary looked for the body of her son in the grottoes of the
syndic’s garden.

When the people had such things in their memory how could they be content
to see the great mystery in Don Antonio’s theatre?

But in spite of everything, Don Antonio worked with the greatest
eagerness to prepare the actors and to arrange the elaborate machinery.

And behold, in a few days came Master Battista, who painted placards, and
presented him with a play-bill. He had been glad to hear that Don Antonio
was going to play “The Old Martyrdom;” he had seen it in his youth, and
had great pleasure in it.

So there now stood in large letters on the corner of the theatre: “‘The
Old Martyrdom’ or ‘The Resurrected Adam,’ tragedy in three acts by
Cavaliere Filippo Orioles.”

Don Antonio wondered and wondered what the people’s mood would be. The
donkey-boys and apprentices who passed by his theatre read the notice
with scoffs and derision. It looked very black for Don Antonio, but in
spite of it he went on faithfully with his work.

When the appointed evening came, and the “Martyrdom” was to be played, no
one was more anxious than Donna Micaela. “Is the little image going to
help me?” she asked herself incessantly.

She sent out her maid, Lucia, to look about. Were there any groups of
boys in front of the theatre? Did it look as if there were going to be a
crowd? Lucia might go to Donna Emilia, sitting in the ticket-office, and
ask her if it looked hopeful.

But when Lucia came back she had not the slightest hope to offer. There
was no crowd outside the theatre. The boys had resolved to crush Don
Antonio.

Towards eight o’clock Donna Micaela could no longer endure sitting
at home and waiting. She persuaded her father to go with her to the
theatre. She knew well that a signora had never set her foot in Don
Antonio’s theatre, but she needed to see how it was going to be. It would
be such a dizzily great success for her railway if Don Antonio succeeded.

When Donna Micaela came to the theatre it was a few minutes before eight,
and Donna Emilia had not sold a ticket.

But she was not depressed; “Go in, Donna Micaela!” she said; “we shall
play at any rate, it is so beautiful. Don Antonio will play it for you
and your father and me. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever
performed.”

Donna Micaela came into the little hall. It was hung with black, as the
big theatres always were in the old days when “The Old Martyrdom” was
given. There were dark, silver-fringed curtains on the stage, and the
little benches were covered with black.

Immediately after Donna Micaela came in, Don Antonio’s bushy eyebrows
appeared in a little hole in the curtain. “Donna Micaela,” he cried, as
Donna Emilia had done, “we shall play at any rate. It is so beautiful, it
needs no spectators.”

Just then came Donna Emilia herself, and opened the door, and
courtesying, held it back. It was the priest, Don Matteo, who entered.

“What do you say to me, Donna Micaela?” he said, laughing. “But you
understand; it is ‘The Old Martyrdom.’ I saw it in my youth at the big
opera in Palermo; and I believe that it was that old play that made me
become a priest.”

The next time the door opened it was Father Elia and Brother Tommaso,
who came with their violins under their arms and felt their way to their
usual places, as quietly as if they had never had any disagreement with
Don Antonio.

The door opened again. It was an old woman from the alley above the house
of the little Moor. She was dressed in black, and made the sign of the
cross as she came in.

After her came four, five other old women; and Donna Micaela looked at
them almost resentfully, as they gradually filled the theatre. She knew
that Don Antonio would not be satisfied till he had his own public back
again,--till he had his self-willed, beloved boys to play for.

Suddenly she heard a hurricane or thunder. The doors flew open,--all at
the same time! It was the boys. They threw themselves down in their usual
places, as if they had come back to their home.

They looked at one another, a little ashamed. But it had been impossible
for them to see one old woman after another go into their theatre to see
what was being played for them. It had been quite impossible to see the
whole street full of old distaff-spinners in slow procession toward the
theatre, and so they had rushed in.

But hardly had the gay young people reached their places before
they noticed that they had come under a severe master. Ah, “The Old
Martyrdom,” “The Old Martyrdom!”

It was not given as in Aci and in Castelbuoco; it was not played as at
the opera in Palermo; it was only played with miserable marionettes with
immovable faces and stiff bodies; but the old play had not lost its
power.

Donna Micaela noticed it already in the second act during the Last
Supper. The boys began to hate Judas. They shouted threats and insults at
him.

As the story of the Passion went on, they laid aside their hats and
clasped their hands. They sat quite still, with their beautiful brown
eyes turned towards the stage. Now and then a few tears dropped. Now and
then a fist was clenched in indignation.

Don Antonio spoke with tears in his voice; Donna Emilia was on her knees
at the entrance. Don Matteo looked with a gentle smile at the little
puppets and remembered the wonderful spectacle in Palermo that had made
him a priest.

But when Jesus was cast into prison and tortured, the young people were
ashamed of themselves. They too had hated and persecuted. They were like
those pharisees, like those Romans. It was a shame to think of it. Could
Don Antonio forgive them?




V

THE LADY WITH THE IRON RING


Donna Micaela often thought of a poor little dressmaker whom she had
seen in her youth in Catania. She dwelt in the house next to the Palazzo
Palmeri, sitting always in the gateway with her work, so that Donna
Micaela had seen her a thousand times. She always sat and sang, and she
had certainly only known a single canzone. Always, always she sang the
same song.

“I have cut a curl from my black hair,” she had sung. “I have unfastened
my black, shining braids, and cut a curl from my hair. I have done it
to gladden my friend, who is in trouble. Alas, my beloved is sitting in
prison; my beloved will never again twine my hair about his fingers. I
have sent him a lock of my hair to remind him of the silken chains that
never more will bind him.”

Donna Micaela remembered the song well. It seemed as if it had sounded
through all her childhood to warn her of the suffering that awaited her.

       *       *       *       *       *

Donna Micaela often sat at that time on the stone steps of the church of
San Pasquale. She saw wonderful events take place far off on that Etna so
rich in legends.

Over the black lava glided a railway train on newly laid shining rails.
It was a festival train; flags waved along the road; there were wreaths
on the carriages; the seats were covered with purple cushions. At the
stations the people stood and shouted: “Long live the king! long live the
queen! long live the new railway!”

She heard it so well; she herself was on the train. Ah, how honored, how
honored she was! She was summoned before the king and queen; and they
thanked her for the new railway. “Ask a favor of us, princess!” said the
king, giving her the title that the ladies of the race of Alagona had
formerly borne.

“Sire,” she answered, as people answer in stories, “give freedom to the
last Alagona!”

And it was granted to her. The king could not say no to a prayer from her
who had built that fine railway, which was to give riches to all Etna.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Donna Micaela lifted her arm so that her dress-sleeve slid up, one
saw that she wore as a bracelet a ring of rusty iron. She had found it
in the street, forced it over her hand, and now she always wore it.
Whenever she happened to see or touch it, she grew pale, and her eyes
no longer saw anything of the world about her. She saw a prison like
that of Foscari in the doge’s palace in Venice. It was a dark, narrow,
cellar-like hole; light filtered in through a grated aperture; and from
the wall hung a great bunch of chains, which wound like serpents round
the prisoner’s legs and arms and neck.

May the saint work a miracle! May the people work! May she herself soon
have such praise that she can beg freedom for her prisoner! He will die
if she does not hurry. May the iron ring eat incessantly into her arm, so
that she shall not forget him for a second.




VI

FRA FELICE’S LEGACY


When Donna Emilia opened the ticket-office to sell tickets for the second
performance of “The Old Martyrdom,” the people stood in line to get
places; the second evening the theatre was so overcrowded that people
fainted in the crush, and the third evening people came from both Adernó
and Paternó to see the beloved tragedy. Don Antonio foresaw that he
would be able to play it a whole month for double price, and with two
performances every evening.

How happy they were, he and Donna Emilia, and with what joy and gratitude
they laid twenty-five lire in the collection-box of the little image!

In Diamante the incident caused great surprise, and many came to Donna
Elisa to find out if she believed that the saint wished them to support
Donna Micaela.

“Have you heard, Donna Elisa,” they said, “that Don Antonio Greco has
been helped by the Christchild in San Pasquale, because he promised to
give the receipts of one evening to Donna Micaela’s railway?”

But when they asked Donna Elisa about it, she shut her mouth and looked
as if she could not think of anything but her embroidery.

Fra Felice himself came in and told her of the two miracles the image had
already worked.

“Signorina Tottenham was very stupid to let the image go, if it is such a
miracle-worker,” said Donna Elisa.

So they all thought. Signorina Tottenham had owned the image many years,
and she had not noticed anything. It probably could not work miracles; it
was only a coincidence.

It was unfortunate that Donna Elisa would not believe. She was the only
one of the old Alagonas left in Diamante, and the people followed her,
more than they themselves knew. If Donna Elisa had believed, the whole
town would have helped Donna Micaela.

But Donna Elisa could not believe that God and the saints wished to aid
her sister-in-law.

She had watched her since the festival of San Sebastiano. Whenever any
one spoke of Gaetano, she turned pale, and looked very troubled. Her
features became like those of a sinful man, when he is racked with the
pangs of conscience.

Donna Elisa sat and thought of it one morning, and it was so engrossing
that she let her needle rest. “Donna Micaela is no Etna woman,” she said
to herself. “She is on the side of the government; she is glad that
Gaetano is in prison.”

Out in the street at that same moment people came carrying a great
stretcher. On it lay heaped up a mass of church ornaments; chandeliers
and shrines and reliquaries. Donna Elisa looked up for a moment, then
returned to her thoughts.

“She would not let me adorn the house of the Alagonas on the festival
of San Sebastiano,” she thought. “She did not wish the saint to help
Gaetano.”

Two men came by dragging a rattling dray on which lay a mountain of red
hangings, richly embroidered stoles, and altar pictures in broad, gilded
frames.

Donna Elisa struck out with her hand as if to push away all doubts. It
could not be an actual miracle which had happened. The saint must know
that Diamante could not afford to build a railway.

People now came past driving a yellow cart, packed full of music-stands,
prayer-books, praying-desks and confessionals.

Donna Elisa woke up. She looked out between the rosaries that hung
in garlands over the window panes. That was the third load of church
furnishings that had passed. Was Diamante being plundered? Had the
Saracens come to the town?

She went to the door to see better. Again came a stretcher, and on it lay
mourning-wreaths of tin, tablets with long inscriptions, and coats of
arms, such as are hung up in churches in memory of the dead.

Donna Elisa asked the bearers, and learned what was happening. They were
clearing out the church of Santa Lucia in Gesù. The syndic and the town
council had ordered it turned into a theatre.

After the uprising there had been a new syndic in Diamante. He was a
young man from Rome, who did not know the town, but nevertheless wished
to do something for it. He had proposed to the town-council that Diamante
should have a theatre like Taormina and other towns. They could quite
easily fit up one of the churches as a play-house. They certainly had
more than enough, with five town churches and seven monastery churches;
they could easily spare one of them.

There was for instance the Jesuits’ church, Santa Lucia in Gesù. The
monastery surrounding it was already changed to a barracks, and the
church was practically deserted. It would make an excellent theatre.

That was what the new syndic had proposed, and the town-council had
agreed to it.

When Donna Elisa heard what was going on she threw on her mantilla and
veil, and hurried to the Lucia church, with the same haste with which one
hurries to the house where one knows that some one is dying.

“What will become of the blind?” thought Donna Elisa. “How can they live
without Santa Lucia in Gesù?”

When Donna Elisa reached the silent little square, round which the
Jesuits’ long, ugly monastery is built, she saw on the broad stone
steps that extend the whole length of the church front, a row of ragged
children and rough-haired dogs. All of them were leaders of the blind,
and they cried and whined as loud as they could.

“What is the matter with you all?” asked Donna Elisa. “They want to take
our church away from us,” wailed the children. And thereupon all the dogs
howled more piteously than ever, for the dogs of the blind are almost
human.

At the church-door Donna Elisa met Master Pamphilio’s wife, Donna
Concetta. “Ah, Donna Elisa,” she said, “never in all your life have you
seen anything so terrible. You had better not go in.”

But Donna Elisa went on.

In the church at first she saw nothing but a white cloud of dust. But
hammer-strokes thundered through the cloud, for some workmen were busy
breaking away a big stone knight, lying in a window niche.

“Lord God!” said Donna Elisa, and clasped her hands together; “they are
tearing down Sor Arrigo!” And she thought how tranquilly he had lain in
his niche. Every time she had seen him she had wished that she might be
as remote from disturbance and change as old Sor Arrigo.

In the church of Lucia there was still another big monument. It
represented an old Jesuit, lying on a black marble sarcophagus with a
scourge in his hand and his cap drawn far down over his forehead. He was
called Father Succi, and the people used to frighten their children with
him in Diamante.

“Would they also dare to touch Father Succi?” thought Donna Elisa. She
felt her way through the plaster dust to the choir, where the sarcophagus
stood, in order to see if they had dared to move the old Jesuit.

Father Succi still lay on his stone bed. He lay there dark and hard,
as he had been in life; and one could almost believe that he was still
alive. Had there been doctors and tables with medicine-bottles and
burning candles beside the bed, one would have believed that Father Succi
lay sick in the choir of his church, waiting for his last hour.

The blind sat round about him, like members of the family who gather
round a dying man, and rocked their bodies in silent grief. There were
both the women from the hotel court-yard, Donna Pepa and Donna Tura;
there was old Mother Saraedda, who ate the bread of charity at the house
of the Syndic Voltaro; there were blind beggars, blind singers, blind of
all ages and conditions. All the blind of Diamante were there, and in
Diamante there is an incredible number who no longer see the light of the
sun.

They all sat silent most of the time, but every now and then one of them
burst into a wail. Sometimes one of them felt his way forward to the
monk, Father Succi, and threw himself weeping aloud across him.

It made it all the more like a death-bed that the priest and Father Rossi
from the Franciscan monastery were there and were trying to comfort the
despairing people.

Donna Elisa was much moved. Ah, so often she had seen those people happy
in her garden, and now to meet them in such misery! They had won pleasant
tears from her when they had sung mourning-songs over her husband, Signor
Antonelli, and over her brother, Don Ferrante. She could not bear to see
them in such need.

Old Mother Saraedda began to speak to Donna Elisa.

“I knew nothing when I came, Donna Elisa,” said the old woman. “I left
my dog outside on the steps and went in through the church door. Then I
stretched out my arm to push aside the curtain over the door, but the
curtain was gone. I put my foot down as if there were a step to mount
before the threshold, but there was no step. I stretched out my hand
to take the holy water; I courtesied as I went by the high altar; and I
listened for the little bell that always rings when Father Rossi comes to
the mass. Donna Elisa, there was no holy water, no altar, no bell; there
was nothing!”

“Poor thing, poor thing,” said Donna Elisa.

“Then I hear how they are hammering and pounding up in a window. ‘What
are you doing with Sor Arrigo?’ I cry, for I hear instantly that it is in
Sor Arrigo’s window.

“‘We are going to carry him away,’ they answer me.

“Just then the priest, Don Matteo, comes to me, takes me by the hand, and
explains everything. And I am almost angry with the priest when he says
that it is for a theatre. They want our church for a theatre!

“‘Where is Father Succi?’ I say instantly. ‘Is Father Succi still here?’
And he leads me to Father Succi. He has to lead me, for I cannot find
my way. Since they have taken away all the chairs and praying-desks and
carpets and platforms and folding steps, I cannot find my way. Before, I
found my way about here as well as you.”

“The priest will find you another church,” said Donna Elisa. “Donna
Elisa,” said the old woman, “what are you saying? You might as well say
that the priest can give us sight. Can Don Matteo give us a church where
we see, as we saw in this? None of us needed a guide here. There, Donna
Elisa, stood an altar; the flowers on it were red as Etna at sunset, and
we saw it. We counted sixteen wax-lights over the high altar on Sundays,
and thirty on festival days. We could see when Father Rossi held the
mass here. What shall we do in another church, Donna Elisa? There we
shall not be able to see anything. They have extinguished the light of
our eyes anew.”

Donna Elisa’s heart grew as warm as if molten lava had run over it. It
was certainly a great wrong they were doing to those blind unfortunates.

So Donna Elisa went over to Don Matteo.

“Your Reverence,” she said, “have you spoken to the syndic?”

“Alas, alas, Donna Elisa,” said Don Matteo, “it is better for you to try
to talk to him than for me.”

“Your Reverence, the syndic is a stranger; perhaps he has not heard of
the blind.”

“Signor Voltaro has been to him; Father Rossi has been to him; and I too,
I too. He answers nothing but that he cannot change what is decided in
the town Junta. We all know, Donna Elisa, that the town Junta cannot take
back anything. If it has decided that your cat shall hold mass in the
Cathedral, it cannot change it.”

Suddenly there was a movement in the church. A large blind man came in.
“Father Elia!” the people whispered, “Father Elia!”

Father Elia was the head man of the company of blind singers, who always
collected there. He had long white hair and beard, and was beautiful as
one of the holy patriarchs.

He, like all the others, went forward to Father Succi. He sat down beside
him, and leaned his head against the coffin.

Donna Elisa went up to Father Elia and spoke to him. “Father Elia,” she
said, “_you_ ought to go to the syndic.”

The old man recognized Donna Elisa’s voice, and he answered her, in his
thick, old-man’s tones:--

“Do you suppose that I have waited to have you say that to me? Don’t you
know that my first thought was to go to the syndic?”

He spoke with such a hard and distinct voice that the workmen stopped
hammering and listened, thinking some one had begun to preach.

“I told him that we blind singers are a company, and that the Jesuits
opened their church for us more than three hundred years ago, and gave us
the right to gather here to select new members and try new songs.

“And I said to him that there are thirty of us in the company; and that
the holy Lucia is our patroness; and that we never sing in the streets,
only in courts and in rooms; and that we sing legends of the saints and
mourning-songs, but never a wanton song; and that the Jesuit, Father
Succi, opened the church for us, because the blind are Our Lord’s singers.

“I told him that some of us are _recitatori_, who can sing the old songs,
but others are _trovatori_, who compose new ones. I said to him that we
give pleasure to many on the noble isle. I asked him why he wished to
deprive us of life. For the homeless cannot live.

“I said to him that we wander from town to town through all Etna, but the
church of Lucia is our home, and mass is held here for us every morning.
Why should he refuse us the comfort of God’s word?

“I told him that the Jesuits once changed their attitude towards us and
wished to drive us away from their church, but they did not succeed. We
received a letter from the Viceroy that we might hold our meetings in
perpetuity in Santa Lucia in Gesù. And I showed him the letter.”

“What did he answer?”

“He laughed at me.”

“Can none of the other gentlemen help you?”

“I have been to them, Donna Elisa. All the morning I have been sent from
Herod to Pilatus.”

“Father Elia,” said Donna Elisa with lowered voice, “have you forgotten
to call on the saints?”

“I have called on both the black Madonna and San Sebastiano and Santa
Lucia. I have prayed to as many as I could name.”

“Do you think, Father Elia,” said Donna Elisa, and lowered her voice
still more, “that Don Antonio Greco was helped, because he promised money
to Donna Micaela’s railway?”

“I have no money to give,” said the old man, disconsolately.

“Still, you ought to think of it, Father Elia,” said Donna Elisa,
“since you are in such straits. You ought to try if, by promising the
Christ-image that you yourself and all who belong to your company will
speak and sing of the railway, and persuade people to give contributions
to it, you may keep your church. We do not know if it can help, but one
ought to try every possible thing, Father Elia. It costs nothing to
promise.”

“I will promise anything for your sake,” said the old man.

He laid his old blind head again against the black coffin, and Donna
Elisa understood that he had given the promise in his desire to be left
in peace with his sorrow.

“Shall I present your vow to the Christ-image?” she said.

“Do as you will, Donna Elisa,” said the old man.

       *       *       *       *       *

That same day old Fra Felice had risen at five o’clock in the morning
and begun to sweep out his church. He felt quite active and well; but
while he was working it seemed as if San Pasquale, sitting with his
bag of stones outside the church-door, had something to say to him. He
went out, but there was nothing the matter with San Pasquale; quite the
contrary. Just then the sun glided up from behind Etna, and down the dark
mountain-sides the rays came hurrying, many-colored as harp-strings. When
the rays reached Fra Felice’s old church they turned it rosy red; rosy
red were also the old barbaric pillars that held up the canopy over the
image, and San Pasquale with his bag of stones, and Fra Felice himself.
“We look like young boys,” thought the old man; “we have still long years
to live.”

But as he was going back into the church, he felt a sharp pressure at
his heart, and it came into his mind that San Pasquale had called him
out to say farewell. At the same time his legs became so heavy that he
could hardly move them. He felt no pain, but a weariness which could mean
nothing but death. He was scarcely able to put his broom away behind the
door of the sacristy; then he dragged himself up the choir, lay down on
the platform in front of the high altar, and wrapped his cloak about him.

The Christ-image seemed to nod to him and say: “Now I need you, Fra
Felice.” He lay and nodded back: “I am ready; I shall not fail you.”

It was only to lie and wait; and it was beautiful, Fra Felice thought.
He had never before in all his life had time to feel how tired he was.
Now at last he might rest. The image would keep up the church and the
monastery without him.

He lay and smiled at the thought that old San Pasquale had called him out
to say good-morning to him.

Fra Felice lay thus till late in the day, and dozed most of the time. No
one was with him, and a feeling came over him that it would not do to
creep in this way out of life. It was as if he had cheated somebody of
something. That woke him time after time. He ought of course to get the
priests, but he had no one to send for them.

While he lay there he thought that he shrank together more and more.
Every time he awoke he thought that he had grown smaller. He felt as if
he were quite disappearing. Now he could certainly wind his cloak four
times about him.

He would have died quite by himself if Donna Elisa had not come to ask
help for the blind of the little image. She was in a strange mood when
she came, for she wished of course to get help for the blind, but yet she
did not wish Donna Micaela’s plans to be promoted.

When she came into the church she saw Fra Felice lying on the platform
under the altar, and she went forward and knelt beside him.

Fra Felice turned his eyes towards her and smiled quietly. “I am going
to die,” he said, hoarsely; but he corrected himself and said: “I am
permitted to die.”

Donna Elisa asked what the matter was, and said that she would fetch help.

“Sit down here,” he said, and made a feeble attempt to wipe away the dust
on the platform with his sleeve.

Donna Elisa said that she wished to fetch the priests and sisters of
charity.

He seized her skirt and held her back.

“I want to speak to you first, Donna Elisa.”

It was hard for him to talk, and he breathed heavily after each word.
Donna Elisa sat down beside him and waited.

He lay for a while and panted; then a flush rose to his cheeks; his eyes
began to shine, and he spoke with ease and eagerness.

“Donna Elisa,” said Fra Felice, “I have a legacy to give away. It has
troubled me all day. I do not know to whom I shall give it.”

“Fra Felice,” said Donna Elisa, “do not concern yourself with such a
thing. There is no one who does not need a good gift.”

But now when Fra Felice’s strength had returned, he wished, before he
made up his mind about the legacy, to tell Donna Elisa how good God had
been to him.

“Has not God been great in his grace to make me a _polacco_?” he said.

“Yes, it is a great gift,” said Donna Elisa.

“Only to be a little, little _polacco_ is a great gift,” said Fra Felice;
“it is especially useful since the monastery has been given up, and when
my comrades are gone or dead. It means having a bag full of bread before
one even stretches out one’s hand to beg. It means always seeing bright
faces, and being greeted with deep reverences. I know no greater gift
for a poor monk, Donna Elisa.”

Donna Elisa thought how revered and loved Fra Felice had been, because he
had been able to predict what numbers would come out in the lottery. And
she could not help agreeing with him.

“If I came wandering along the road in the heat,” said Fra Felice, “the
shepherd came to me and went with me a long way, and held his umbrella
over me as shelter against the sun. And when I came to the laborers in
the cool stone-quarries, they shared their bread and their bean-soup
with me. I have never been afraid of brigands nor of _carabinieri_. The
official at the custom-house has shut his eyes when I went by with my
bag. It has been a good gift, Donna Elisa.”

“True, true,” said Donna Elisa.

“It has not been an arduous profession,” said Fra Felice. “They spoke to
me, and I answered them; that was all. They knew that every word has its
number, and they noticed what I said and played accordingly. I never knew
how it happened, Donna Elisa; it was a gift from God.”

“You will be a great loss to the poor people, Fra Felice,” said Donna
Elisa.

Fra Felice smiled. “They care nothing for me on Sunday and Monday, when
there has just been a drawing,” he said. “But they come on Thursday
and Friday and on Saturday morning, because there is a drawing every
Saturday.”

Donna Elisa began to be anxious, because the dying man thought of nothing
but that. Suddenly there flashed across her memory thoughts of one and
another who had lost in the lottery, and she remembered several who had
played away all their prosperity. She wished to turn his thoughts from
that sinful lottery business.

“You said that you wished to speak of your will, Fra Felice.”

“But it is because I have so many friends that it is hard for me to know
to whom I shall give the legacy. Shall I give it to those who have baked
sweet cakes for me, or to those who have offered me artichokes, browned
in sweet oil? Or shall I bequeath it to the sisters of charity who nursed
me when I was ill?”

“Have you much to give away, Fra Felice?”

“It will do, Donna Elisa. It will do.”

Fra Felice seemed to be worse again; he lay silent with panting breast.

“I had also wished to give it to all poor, homeless monks, who had lost
their monasteries,” he whispered.

And then after thinking for a while: “I should also have liked to give it
to the good old man in Rome. He, you know, who watches over us all.”

“Are you so rich, Fra Felice?” said Donna Elisa.

“I have enough, Donna Elisa; I have enough.”

He closed his eyes, and rested for a while; then he said:--

“I want to give it to everybody, Donna Elisa.”

He acquired new strength at the thought; a slight flush was again visible
in his cheeks, and he raised himself on his elbow.

“See here, Donna Elisa,” he said, while he thrust his hand into his cloak
and drew out a sealed envelope, which he handed to her, “you shall go and
give this to the syndic, to the syndic of Diamante.

“Here, Donna Elisa,” said Fra Felice, “here are the five numbers that win
next Saturday. They have been revealed to me, and I have written them
down. And the syndic shall take these numbers and have them fastened up
on the Roman Gate, where everything of importance is published. And he
shall let the people know that it is my testament. I bequeath it to the
people. Five winning numbers, a whole quintern, Donna Elisa!”

Donna Elisa took the envelope and promised to give it to the syndic. She
could do nothing else, for poor Fra Felice had not many minutes left to
live.

“When Saturday comes,” said Fra Felice, “there will be many who will
think of Fra Felice. ‘Can old Fra Felice have deceived us?’ they will ask
themselves. ‘Can it be possible for us to win the whole quintern?’

“On Saturday evening there is a drawing on the balcony of the town-hall
in Catania, Donna Elisa. Then they carry out the lottery-wheel and
table, and the managers of the lottery are there, and the pretty little
poor-house child. And one number after another is put into the lucky
wheel until they are all there, the whole hundred.

“All the people stand below and tremble in expectation, as the sea
trembles before the storm-wind.

“Everybody from Diamante will be there, and they will stand quite pale
and hardly daring to look one another in the face. Before, they have
believed, but not now. Now they think that old Fra Felice has deceived
them. No one dares to cherish the smallest hope.

“Then the first number is drawn, and I was right. Ah, Donna Elisa, they
will be so astonished they will scarcely be able to rejoice. For they
have all expected disappointment. When the second number comes out, there
is the silence of death. Then comes the third. The lottery managers will
be astonished that everything is so quiet. ‘To-day they are not winning
anything,’ they will say. ‘To-day the state has all the prizes.’ Then
comes the fourth number. The poor-house child takes the roll from the
wheel; and the marker opens the roll, and shows the number. Down among
the people it is almost terrible; no one is able to say a word for joy.
Then the last number comes. Donna Elisa, the people scream, they cry,
they fall into one another’s arms and sob. They are rich. All Diamante is
rich--”

Donna Elisa had kept her arm under Fra Felice’s head and supported him
while he had panted out all this. Suddenly his head fell heavily back.
Old Fra Felice was dead.

       *       *       *       *       *

While Donna Elisa was with old Fra Felice, many people in Diamante had
begun to trouble themselves about the blind. Not the men; most of the men
were in the fields at work; but the women. They had come in crowds to
Santa Lucia to console the blind, and finally, when about four hundred
women had gathered together, it occurred to them to go and speak to the
syndic.

They had gone up to the square and called for the syndic. He had come out
on the balcony of the town-hall, and they had prayed for the blind. The
syndic was a kind and handsome man. He had answered them pleasantly,
but had not been willing to yield. He could not repeal what had been
decided in the town Junta. But the women were determined that it should
be repealed, and they remained in the square. The syndic went into the
town-hall again, but they stayed in the square and called and prayed.
They did not intend to go away till he yielded.

While this was going on, Donna Elisa came to give the syndic Fra Felice’s
testament. She was grieved unto death at all the misery, but at the same
time she felt a bitter satisfaction, because she had received no help
from the Christchild. She had always believed that the saints did not
wish to help Donna Micaela.

It was a fine gift she had received in San Pasquale’s church. Not only
could it not help the blind, but it was in a fair way to ruin the whole
town. Now what little the people still possessed would go to the lottery
collector. There would be a borrowing and a pawning.

The syndic admitted Donna Elisa immediately, and was as calm and polite
as always, although the women were calling in the square, the blind were
bemoaning themselves in the waiting-room, and people had run in and out
of his room all day.

“How can I be at your service, Signora Antonelli?” he said. Donna Elisa
first looked about and wondered to whom he was speaking. Then she told
about the testament.

The syndic was neither frightened nor surprised. “That is very
interesting,” he said, and stretched out his hand for the paper.

But Donna Elisa held the envelope fast and asked: “Signor Sindaco, what
do you intend to do with it? Do you intend to fasten it to the Roman
Gate?”

“Yes; what else can I do, signora? It is a dead man’s last wish.”

Donna Elisa would have liked to tell him what a terrible testament it
was, but she checked herself to speak of the blind.

“Padre Succi, who directed that the blind should always be allowed in his
church, is also a dead man,” she interposed.

“Signora Antonelli, are you beginning with that too?” said the syndic,
quite kindly. “It was a mistake; but why did no one tell me that the
blind frequent the church of Lucia? Now, since it is decided, I cannot
annul the decision; I cannot.”

“But their rights and patents, Signor Sindaco?”

“Their rights are worth nothing. They have to do with the Jesuits’
monastery, but there is no longer such a monastery. And tell me, Signora
Antonelli, what will become of me if I yield?”

“The people will love you as a good man.”

“Signora, people will believe that I am a weak man, and every day I shall
have four hundred laborers’ wives outside the town-hall, begging now for
one thing, now for another. It is only to hold out for one day. To-morrow
it will be forgotten.”

“To-morrow!” said Donna Elisa; “we shall never forget it.”

The syndic smiled, and Donna Elisa saw that he thought that he knew the
people of Diamante much better than she.

“You think that their hearts are in it?” he said.

“I think so, Signor Sindaco.”

Then the syndic laughed softly. “Give me that envelope, Signora.”

He took it and went out on the balcony.

He began to speak to the women. “I wish to tell you,” he said, “that I
have just now heard that old Fra Felice is dead, and that he has left a
legacy to you all. He has written down five numbers that are supposed
to win in the lottery next Saturday, and he bequeaths them to you. No
one has seen them yet. They are lying here in this envelope, and it is
unopened.”

He was silent a moment to let the women have time to think over what he
had said.

Instantly they began to cry: “The numbers, the numbers!”

The syndic signed to them to be silent.

“You must remember,” he said, “that it was impossible for Fra Felice
to know what numbers will be drawn next Saturday. If you play on these
numbers, you may all lose. And we cannot afford to be poorer than we
are already here in Diamante. I ask you therefore to let me destroy the
testament without any one seeing it.”

“The numbers,” cried the women, “give us the numbers!”

“If I am permitted to destroy the testament,” said the syndic, “I promise
you that the blind shall have their church again.”

There was silence in the square. Donna Elisa rose from her seat in the
hall of the court-house and seized the back of her chair with both hands.

“I leave it to you to choose between the church and the numbers,” said
the syndic.

“God in heaven!” sighed Donna Elisa, “is he a devil to tempt poor people
in such a way?”

“We have been poor before,” cried one of the women, “we can still be
poor.”

“We will not choose Barabbas instead of Christ,” cried another.

The syndic took a match-box from his pocket, lighted a match, and brought
it slowly up to the testament.

The women stood quiet and let Fra Felice’s five numbers be destroyed. The
blind people’s church was saved.

“It is a miracle,” whispered old Donna Elisa; “they all believe in Fra
Felice, and they let his numbers burn. It is a miracle.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Later in the afternoon Donna Elisa again sat in her shop with her
embroidery frame. She looked old as she sat there, and there was
something shaken and broken about her. It was not the usual Donna Elisa;
it was a poor, elderly, forsaken woman.

She drew the needle slowly through the cloth, and when she wished to take
another stitch she was uncertain and at a loss. It was hard for her to
keep the tears from falling on her embroidery and spoiling it.

Donna Elisa was in such great grief for to-day she had lost Gaetano
forever. There was no more hope of getting him back.

The saints had gone over to the side of the opponent, and worked miracles
in order to help Donna Micaela. No one could doubt that a miracle had
happened. The poor women of Diamante would never have been able to stand
still while Fra Felice’s numbers burned if they had not been bound by a
miracle.

It made a poor soul so old and cross to have the good saints help Donna
Micaela, who did not like Gaetano.

The door-bell jingled violently, and Donna Elisa rose from old habit.
It was Donna Micaela. She was joyful, and came toward Donna Elisa with
outstretched hands. But Donna Elisa turned away, and could not press her
hand.

Donna Micaela was in raptures. “Ah, Donna Elisa, you have helped my
railway. What can I say? How shall I thank you?”

“Never mind about thanking me, sister-in-law!”

“Donna Elisa!”

“If the saints wish to give us a railway, it must be because Diamante
needs it, and not because they love _you_.”

Donna Micaela shrank back. At last she thought she understood why Donna
Elisa was angry with her. “If Gaetano were at home,” she said. She stood
and pressed her hand to her heart and moaned. “If Gaetano were at home he
would not allow you to be so cruel to me.”

“Gaetano?--would not Gaetano?”

“No, he would not. Even if you are angry with me because I loved him
while my husband was alive, you would not dare to upbraid me for it if he
were at home.”

Donna Elisa lifted her eyebrows a little. “You think that he could
prevail upon me to be silent about such a thing,” she said, and her voice
was very strange.

“But, Donna Elisa,” Donna Micaela whispered in her ear, “it is
impossible, quite impossible not to love him. He is beautiful; don’t you
know it? And he subjugates me, and I am afraid of him. You must let me
love him.”

“Must I?” Donna Elisa kept her eyes down and spoke quite shortly and
harshly.

Donna Micaela was beside herself. “It is I whom he loves,” she said. “It
is not Giannita, but me, and you ought to consider me as a daughter;
you ought to help me; you ought to be kind to me. And instead you stand
against me; you are cruel to me. You do not let me come to you and talk
of him. However much I long, and however much I work, I may not tell you
of it.”

Donna Elisa could hold out no longer. Donna Micaela was nothing but a
child, young and foolish and quivering like a bird’s heart,--just one to
be taken care of. She had to throw her arms about her.

“I never knew it, you poor, foolish child,” she said.




VII

AFTER THE MIRACLE


The blind singers had a meeting in the church of Lucia. Highest up in the
choir behind the altar sat thirty old, blind, men on the carved chairs
of the Jesuit fathers. They were poor, most of them; most of them had a
beggar’s wallet and a crutch beside them.

They were all very earnest and solemn; they knew what it meant to be
members of that holy band of singers, of that glorious old Academy.

Now and then below in the church a subdued noise was audible. The blind
men’s guides were sitting there, children, dogs, and old women, waiting.
Sometimes the children began to romp with one another and with the dogs,
but it was instantly suppressed and silenced.

Those of the blind who were _trovatori_ stood up one after another and
spoke new verses.

“You people who live on holy Etna,” one of them recited, “men who live
on the mountain of wonders, rise up, give your mistress a new glory! She
longs for two ribbons to heighten her beauty, two long, narrow bands of
steel to fasten her mantle. Give them to your mistress, and she will
reward you with riches; she will give gold for steel. Countless are the
treasures that she in her might will give them who assist her.”

“A gentle worker of miracles has come among us,” said another. “He stands
poor and unnoticed in the bare old church, and his crown is of tin, and
his diamonds of glass. ‘Make no sacrifices to me, O ye poor,’ he says;
‘build me no temple, all ye who suffer. I will work for your happiness.
If prosperity shines from your houses, I shall shine with precious
stones; if want flees from the land, my feet will be clothed in golden
shoes embroidered with pearls.’”

As each new verse was recited, it was accepted or rejected. The blind men
judged with great severity.

The next day they wandered out over Etna, and sang the railway into the
people’s hearts.

       *       *       *       *       *

After the miracle of Fra Felice’s legacy, people began to give
contributions to the railway. Donna Micaela soon had collected about a
hundred lire. Then she and Donna Elisa made the journey to Messina to
look at the steam-tram that runs between Messina and Pharo. They had no
greater ambition; they would be satisfied with a steam-tram.

“Why does a railway need to be so expensive?” said Donna Elisa. “It
is just an ordinary road, although people do lay down two steel rails
on it. It is the engineer and the fine gentlemen who make a railway
expensive. Don’t trouble yourself about engineers, Micaela! Let our good
road-builders, Giovanni and Carmelo, build your railway.”

They carefully inspected the steam-tramway to Pharo and brought back all
the knowledge they could. They measured how wide it ought to be between
the rails, and Donna Micaela drew on a piece of paper the way the rails
ran by one another at the stations. It was not so difficult; they were
sure they would come out well.

That day there seemed to be no difficulties. It was as easy to build a
station as an ordinary house, they said. Besides, more than two stations
were not needed; a little sentry-box was sufficient at most of the
stopping-places.

If they could only avoid forming a company, taking fine gentlemen into
their service, and doing things that cost money, their plan of the
railway would be realized. It would not cost so much. The ground they
could certainly get free. The noble gentlemen who owned the land on Etna
would of course understand how much use of the railway they would have,
and would let it pass free of charge over their ground.

They did not trouble themselves to stake out the line beforehand. They
were going to begin at Diamante and gradually build their way to Catania.
They only needed to begin and lay a little piece every day. It was not so
difficult.

After that journey they began the attempt to build the road at their own
risk. Don Ferrante had not left a large inheritance to Donna Micaela,
but one good thing that he had bequeathed her was a long stretch of
lava-covered waste land off on Etna. Here Giovanni and Carmelo began to
break ground for the new railway.

When the work began, the builders of the railway possessed only one
hundred lire. It was the miracle of the legacy that had filled them with
holy frenzy.

What a railway it would be, what a railway!

The blind singers were the share-collectors, the Christ-image gave the
concession, and the old shop woman, Donna Elisa, was the engineer.




VIII

A JETTATORE


In Catania there was once a man with “the evil eye,” a _jettatore_. He
was almost the most terrible _jettatore_ who had ever lived in Sicily.
As soon as he showed himself on the street people hastened to bend their
fingers to the protecting sign. Often it did not help at all; whoever met
him could prepare himself for a miserable day; he would find his dinner
burned, and the beautiful old jelly-bowl broken. He would hear that his
banker had suspended payments, and that the little note that he had
written to his friend’s wife had come into the wrong hands.

Most often a _jettatore_ is a tall, thin man, with pale, shy eyes and
a long nose, which overhangs and _hacks_ his upper lip. God has set
the mark of a parrot’s beak upon the _jettatore_. Yet all things are
variable; nothing is absolutely constant. This _jettatore_ was a little
fellow with a nose like a San Michele.

Thereby he did much more harm than an ordinary _jettatore_. How much
oftener is one pricked by a rose than burned by a nettle!

A _jettatore_ ought never to grow up. He is well off only when he is a
child. Then he still has his little mamma, and she never sees the evil
eye; she never understands why she sticks the needle into her finger
every time he comes to her work-table. She will never be afraid to kiss
him. Although she has sickness constantly in the house, and the servants
leave, and her friends draw away, she never notices anything.

But after the _jettatore_ has come out into the world, he often has a
hard time enough. Every one must first of all think of himself; no one
can ruin his life by being kind to a _jettatore_.

There are several priests who are _jettatori_. There is nothing strange
in that; the wolf is happy if he can tear to pieces many sheep. They
could not very well do more harm than by being priests. One need only ask
what happens to the children whom he baptizes, and the couples whom he
marries.

The _jettatore_ in question was an engineer and wished to build railways.
He had also a position in one of the state railway buildings. The
state could not know that he was a _jettatore_. Ah, but what misery,
what misery! As soon as he obtained a place on the railway a number of
accidents occurred. When they tunnelled through a hill, one cave-in after
another; when they tried to lay a bridge, breach upon breach; when they
exploded a blast, the workmen were killed by the flying fragments.

The only one who was never injured was the engineer, the _jettatore_.

The poor fellows working under him! They counted their fingers and limbs
every evening. “To-morrow perhaps we will have lost you,” they said.

They informed the chief engineer; they informed the minister. Neither
of them would listen to the complaint. They were too sensible and too
learned to believe in the evil eye. The workmen ought to mind better what
they were about. It was their own fault that they met with accidents.

And the gravel-cars tipped over; the locomotive exploded.

One morning there was a rumor that the engineer was gone. He had
disappeared; no one knew what had become of him. Had some one perhaps
stabbed him? Oh, no; oh, no! would any one have dared to kill a
_jettatore_?

But he was really gone; no one ever saw him again.

It was a few years later that Donna Micaela began to think of building
her railway. And in order to get money for it, she wished to hold a
bazaar in the great Franciscan monastery outside Diamante.

There was a cloister garden there, surrounded by splendid old pillars.
Donna Micaela arranged little booths, little lotteries, and little places
of diversion under the arcades. She hung festoons of Venetian lanterns
from pillar to pillar. She piled up great kegs of Etna wine around the
cloister fountain.

While Donna Micaela worked there she often conversed with little
Gandolfo, who had been made watchman at the monastery since Fra Felice’s
death.

One day she made Gandolfo show her the whole monastery. She went through
it all from attic to cellar, and when she saw those countless little
cells with their grated windows and whitewashed walls and hard wooden
seats, she had an idea.

She asked Gandolfo to shut her in in one of the cells and to leave her
there for the space of five minutes.

“Now I am a prisoner,” she said, when she was left alone. She tried the
door; she tried the window. She was securely shut in.

So that was what it was to be a prisoner! Four empty walls about one, the
silence of the grave, and the chill.

“Now I can feel as a prisoner feels,” she thought.

Then she forgot everything else in the thought that possibly Gandolfo
might not come to let her out. He could be called away; he could be
taken suddenly ill; he could fall and kill himself in some of the dark
passage-ways. Many things could happen to prevent him from coming.

No one knew where she was; no one would think of looking for her in that
out-of-the-way cell. If she were left there for even an hour she would go
mad with terror.

She saw before her starvation, slow starvation. She struggled through
interminable hours of anguish. Ah, how she would listen for a step; how
she would call!

She would shake the door; she would scrape the masonry of the walls with
her nails; she would bite the grating with her teeth.

When they finally found her she would be lying dead on the floor, and
they would find everywhere traces of how she had tried to break her way
out.

Why did not Gandolfo come? Now she must have been there a quarter of an
hour, a half-hour. Why did he not come?

She was sure that she had been shut in a whole hour when Gandolfo came.
Where had he been such a long time?

He had not been long at all. He had only been away five minutes.

“God! God! so that is being a prisoner; that is Gaetano’s life!” She
burst into tears when she saw the open sky once more above her.

A while later, as they stood out on an open _loggia_, Gandolfo showed her
a couple of windows with shutters and green shades.

“Does any one live there?” she asked.

“Yes, Donna Micaela, some one does.”

Gandolfo told her that a man lived there who never went out except at
night,--a man who never spoke to any one.

“Is he crazy?” asked Donna Micaela.

“No, no; he is as much in his right mind as you or I. But people say that
he has to conceal himself. He is afraid of the government.”

Donna Micaela was much interested in the man. “What is his name?” she
said.

“I call him Signor Alfredo.”

“How does he get any food?” she asked.

“I prepare it for him,” said Gandolfo.

“And clothes?”

“I get them for him. I bring him books and newspapers, too.”

Donna Micaela was silent for a while. “Gandolfo,” she said, and gave him
a rose which she held in her hand, “lay this on the tray the next time
you take food to your poor prisoner.”

After that Donna Micaela sent some little thing almost every day to the
man in the monastery. It might be a flower, a book or some fruit. It was
her greatest pleasure. She amused herself with her fancies. She almost
succeeded in imagining that she was sending all these things to Gaetano.

When the day for the bazaar came, Donna Micaela was in the cloister early
in the morning. “Gandolfo,” she said, “you must go up to your prisoner
and ask him if he will come to the entertainment this evening.”

Gandolfo soon came back with the answer. “He thanks you very much, Donna
Micaela,” said the boy. “He will come.”

She was surprised, for she had not believed that he would venture out.
She had only wished to show him a kindness.

Something made Donna Micaela look up. She was standing in the cloister
garden, and a window was thrown open in one of the buildings above her.
Donna Micaela saw a middle-aged man of an attractive appearance standing
up there and looking down at her.

“There he is, Donna Micaela,” said Gandolfo.

She was happy. She felt as if she had redeemed and saved the man. And it
was more than that. People who have no imagination will not understand
it. But Donna Micaela trembled and longed all day; she considered how she
would be dressed. It was as if she had expected Gaetano.

Donna Micaela soon had something else to do than to dream; the livelong
day a succession of calamities streamed over her.

The first was a communication from the old Etna brigand, Falco Falcone:--

    DEAR FRIEND, DONNA MICAELA,--As I have heard that you intend
    to build a railway along Etna, I wish to tell you that with my
    consent it will never be. I tell you this now so that you need
    not waste any more money and trouble on the matter.

    Enlightened and most nobly born signora, I remain

                          Your humble servant,

                                                       FALCO FALCONE.

    Passafiero, my sister’s son, has written this letter.

Donna Micaela flung the dirty letter away. It seemed to her as if it were
the death sentence of the railway, but to-day she would not think of it.
Now she had her bazaar.

The moment after, her road-builders, Giovanni and Carmelo, appeared. They
wished to counsel her to get an engineer. She probably did not know what
kind of ground there was on Etna. There was, first, lava; then there was
ashes; and then lava again. Should the road be laid on the top layer of
lava, or on the bed of ashes, or should they dig down still deeper? About
how firm a foundation did a railway need? They could not go ahead without
a man who understood that.

Donna Micaela dismissed them. To-morrow, to-morrow; she had no time to
think of it to-day.

Immediately after, Donna Elisa came with a still worse piece of news.

There was a quarter in Diamante where a poverty-stricken and wild people
lived. Those poor souls had been frightened when they heard of the
railway. “There will be an eruption of Etna and an earthquake,” they had
said. Great Etna will endure no fetters. It will shake off the whole
railway. And people said now that they ought to go out and tear up the
track as soon as a rail was laid on it.

A day of misfortune, a day of misfortune! Donna Micaela felt farther from
her object than ever.

“What is the good of our collecting money at our bazaar?” she said
despondingly.

The day promised ill for her bazaar. In the afternoon it began to rain.
It had not rained so in Diamante since the day when the clocks rang.
The clouds sank to the very house-roofs, and the water poured down from
them. People were wet to the skin before they had been two minutes in the
street. Towards six o’clock, when Donna Micaela’s bazaar was to open, it
was raining its very hardest. When she came out to the monastery, there
was no one there but those who were to help in serving and selling.

She felt ready to cry. Such an unlucky day! What had dragged down all
these adversities upon her?

Donna Micaela’s glance fell on a strange man who was leaning against a
pillar, watching her. Now all at once she recognized him. He was the
_jettatore_--the _jettatore_ from Catania, whom people had taught her to
fear as a child.

Donna Micaela went quickly over to him. “Come with me, signor,” she said,
and went before him. She wished to go so far away that no one should hear
them, and then she wished to beg of him never to come before her eyes
again. She could do no less. He must not ruin her whole life.

She did not think in what direction she went. Suddenly she was at the
door of the monastery church and turned in there.

Within, it was almost dark. Only by the Christ-image a little oil lamp
was burning.

When Donna Micaela saw the Christ-image she was startled. Just then she
had not wished to see him.

He reminded her of the time when his crown had rolled to Gaetano’s feet,
when he had been so angry with the brigands. Perhaps the Christ-image did
not wish her to drive away the _jettatore_.

She had good reason to fear the _jettatore_. It was wrong of him to come
to her entertainment; she must somehow be rid of him.

Donna Micaela had gone on through the whole church, and now stood and
looked at the Christ-image. She could not say a word to the man who
followed her.

She remembered what sympathy she had lately felt for him, because a
prisoner, like Gaetano. She had been so happy that she had tempted him
out to life. What did she now wish to do? Did she wish to send him back
to captivity?

She remembered both her father and Gaetano. Should this man be the third
that she--

She stood silent and struggled with herself. At last the _jettatore_
spoke:--

“Well, signora, is it not true that now you have had enough of me?”

Donna Micaela made a negative gesture.

“Do you not desire me to return to my cell?”

“I do not understand you, signor.”

“Yes, yes, you understand. Something terrible has happened to you to-day.
You do not look as you did this morning.”

“I am very tired,” said Donna Micaela, evasively.

The man came close up to her as if to force out the truth. Questions and
answers flew short and panting between them.

“Do you not see that all your festival is likely to be a failure?”--“I
must arrange it again to-morrow.”--“Have you not recognized me?”--“Yes,
I have seen you before in Catania.”--“And you are not afraid of the
_jettatore_?”--“Yes, formerly, as a child.”--“But now, now are you not
afraid?” She avoided answering him. “Are you yourself afraid?” she said.
“Speak the truth!” he said, impatiently. “What did you wish to say to me
when you brought me here?”

She looked anxiously about her. She had to say something; she must have
something to answer him. Then a thought occurred to her which seemed to
her quite terrible. She looked at the Christ-image. “Do you require it?”
she seemed to ask him. “Shall I do it for this strange man? But it is
throwing away my only hope.”

“I hardly know whether I dare to speak of what I wish of you,” she said.
“No, you see; you do not dare.”--“I intend to build a railway; you know
that?”--“Yes, I know.”--“I want you to help me.”--“I?”

Now that she had made a beginning, it was easier for her to continue. She
was surprised that her words sounded so natural.

“I know that you are a railroad builder. Yes, you understand of course
that with my railroad no pay is given. But it would be better for you
to help me work than to sit shut in here. You are making no use of your
time.”

He looked at her almost sternly. “Do you know what you are saying?”--“It
is of course a presumptuous request.”--“Just so, yes, a presumptuous
request.”

Thereupon the poor man began to try to terrify her.

“It will go with your railway as with your festival.” Donna Micaela
thought so too, but now she thought that she had closed all ways of
escape for herself; now she must go on being good. “My festival will soon
be in full swing,” she said calmly.

“Listen to me, Donna Micaela,” said the man. “The last thing a man ceases
to believe good of is himself. No one can cease to have hope for himself.”

“No; why should he?”

He made a movement as if he were impatient with her confidence.

“When I first began to think about the thing,” he said, “I was easily
consoled. ‘There have been a few unfortunate occurrences,’ I said to
myself, ‘so you have the reputation, and it has become a belief. It is
the belief that has made the trouble. People have met you, and people
have believed that they would come to grief, and come to grief they did.
It is a misfortune worse than death to be considered a _jettatore_, but
you need not yourself believe it.’”

“It is so absurd,” said Donna Micaela.

“Yes, of course, whence should my eyes have got the power to bring
misfortune? And when I thought of it I determined to make a trial. I
travelled to a place where no one knew me. The next day I read in the
paper that the train on which I had travelled had run over a flagman.
When I had been one day in the hotel, I saw the landlord in despair, and
all the guests leaving. What had happened? I asked. ‘One of our servants
has been taken with small-pox.’ Ah, what a wretched business!

“Well, Donna Micaela, I shut myself in and drew back from all intercourse
with people. When a year had passed I had found peace. I asked myself why
I was shut in so. ‘You are a harmless man,’ I said; ‘you wish to hurt no
one. Why do you live as miserably as a criminal?’ I had just meant to go
back to life again, when I met Fra Felice in one of the passages. ‘Fra
Felice, where is the cat?’--‘The cat, signor?’--‘Yes, the monastery cat,
that used to come and get milk from me; where is he now?’--‘He was caught
in a rat-trap.’--‘What do you say, Fra Felice?’--‘He got his paw in a
steel trap and he could not get loose. He dragged himself to one of the
garrets and died of starvation.’ What do you say to that, Donna Micaela?”

“Was it supposed to be your fault that the cat died?”

“I am a _jettatore_.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Ah, what folly!”

“When some time had passed, again the desire to live awoke within me.
Then Gandolfo knocked on my door, and invited me to your festival. Why
should I not go? It is impossible to believe that one brings misfortune
only by showing one’s self. It was a festival in itself, Donna Micaela,
only to get ready and to take out one’s black clothes, brush them, and
put them on. But when I came down to the scene of the festival, it was
deserted; the rain streamed in torrents; your Venetian lanterns were
filled with water. And you yourself looked as if you had suffered all
life’s misfortunes in a single day. When you looked at me you became
ashy gray with terror. I asked some one: ‘What was Signora Alagona’s
maiden name?’--‘Palmeri.’--‘Ah, Palmeri; so she is from Catania. She has
recognized the _jettatore_.’”

“Yes, it is true; I recognized you.”

“You have been very friendly, very kind, and I am distressed to have
spoiled your festival. But now I promise you that I shall keep away both
from your entertainment and your railway.”

“Why should you keep away?”

“I am a _jettatore_.”

“I do not believe it. I cannot believe it.”

“I do not believe it either. Yes, yes, I believe. Do you see, people say
that no one can have power over a _jettatore_ who is not as great in evil
as he. Once, they say, a _jettatore_ looked at himself in the glass,
and then fell down and died. Well, I never look at myself in the glass.
Therefore I believe it.”

“I do not believe it. I think I almost believed it when I saw you out
there. Now I do not believe it.”

“Perhaps you will let me work on your railway?”

“Yes, yes, if you only will.”

He came again close up to her, and they exchanged a few short sentences.
“Come forward to the light; I wish to see your face!”--“You think that
I am dissembling.”--“I think that you are polite.”--“Why should I be
polite to you?”--“That railway means something to you?”--“It means life
and happiness to me.”--“How is that?”--“It will win one who is dear to
me.”--“Very dear?”

She did not reply, but he read the answer in her face.

He bent his knee to her, and sank his head so low that he could kiss the
hem of her dress. “You are good; you are very good. I shall never forget
it. If I were not who I am, how I would serve you!”

“You _shall_ serve me,” she said. And she was so moved by his misfortunes
that she felt no more fear of his injuring her.

He sprang up. “I will tell you something. You cannot go across the floor
without stumbling if I look at you.”

“Oh!” she said.

“Try!”

And she tried. She was very much frightened, and had never felt so
unsteady as when she took her first step. Then she thought: “If it were
for Gaetano’s sake, I could do it.” And then it was easy.

She walked to and fro on the church floor. “Shall I do it again?” He
nodded.

As she was walking, the thought flashed through her brain: “The
Christchild has taken the curse from him, because he is to help me.” She
turned suddenly and came back to him.

“Do you know, do you know? you are no _jettatore_!”

“Am I not?”

“No, no!” She took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Do you not see?
do you not understand? It is taken from you.”

Little Gandolfo’s voice was heard in the path outside the church. “Donna
Micaela, Donna Micaela, where are you? There are so many people, Donna
Micaela. Do you hear; do you hear?”

“Is it no longer raining?” said the _jettatore_, in an uncertain voice.

“It is not raining; how could it be raining? The Christ-image has taken
the curse from you because you are going to work for his railway.”

The man reeled and grasped at the air with his hands. “It is gone. Yes, I
think it is gone. Just now it was there. But now--”

He wished again to fall on his knees before Donna Micaela.

“Not to me,” she said; “to him, to him.” She pointed to the Christ-image.

But nevertheless he fell down before her. He kissed her hands, and with a
voice broken by sobs he told her how every one had hated and persecuted
him, and how much misery life had brought him hitherto.

The next day the _jettatore_ went out on Etna and staked out the road.
And he was no more dangerous than any one else.




IX

PALAZZO GERACI AND PALAZZO CORVAJA


At the time when the Normans ruled in Sicily, long before the family of
Alagona had come to the island, the two magnificent buildings, Palazzo
Geraci and Palazzo Corvaja, were built in Diamante.

The noble Barons Geraci placed their house in the square, high up on the
summit of Monte Chiaro. The Barons Corvaja, on the other hand, built
their home far down the mountain and surrounded it with gardens.

The black-marble walls of Palazzo Geraci were built round a square
court-yard, full of charm and beauty. A long flight of steps, passing
under an arch adorned with an escutcheon, led to the second story. Not
entirely round the court-yard, but here and there in the most unexpected
places, the walls opened into little pillared loggias. The walls were
covered with bas-reliefs, with speckled slabs of Sicilian marble and with
the coats of arms of the Geraci barons. There were windows also, very
small, but with exquisitely carved frames; some round, with panes so
small that they could be covered with a grape leaf; some oblong, and so
narrow that they let in no more light than a slit in a curtain.

The Barons Corvaja did not try to adorn the court-yard of their palace,
but on the lower floor of the house they fitted up a magnificent hall.
In the floor was built a basin for gold-fish; in niches in the walls
fountains covered with mosaic, in which clear water spouted into gigantic
shells. Over it all, a Moorish vaulted roof, supported on slender
pillars, with twining vines in mosaic. It was a hall whose equal is only
to be seen in the Moorish palace in Palermo.

There was much rivalry and emulation during all the time of building.
When Palazzo Geraci put forth a balcony, Palazzo Corvaja acquired its
high Gothic bay-windows; when the roof of Palazzo Geraci was adorned with
richly carved battlements, a frieze of black marble, inlaid with white a
yard wide, appeared on Palazzo Corvaja. The Geraci house was crowned by
a high tower; the Corvaja had a roof garden, with antique pots along the
railing.

When the palaces were finished the rivalry began between the families who
had built them. The houses seemed to breed hostility and strife for all
who lived in them. A Baron Geraci could never agree with a Baron Corvaja.
When Geraci fought for Anjou, Corvaja fought for Manfred. If Geraci
changed sides, and supported Aragoni, Corvaja went to Naples, and fought
for Robert and Joanna.

But that was not all. It was an understood thing that when Geraci found a
son-in-law, Corvaja had to increase his power by a rich marriage. Neither
of the families could rest. They had to vie with each other while eating,
while amusing themselves, while working. The Geraci came to the court of
the Bourbons in Naples, not out of desire of distinction, but because the
Corvaja were there. The Corvaja on the other hand had to grow grapes and
mine sulphur, because the Geraci were interested in agriculture and the
working of mines. When a Geraci received an inheritance some old relative
of the Corvaja had to lie down and die, so that the honor of the family
should not be hazarded.

Palazzo Geraci was always kept busy counting its servants, in order not
to let Palazzo Corvaja lead. But not only the servants, but the braid
on the caps, the harnesses and the horses. The pheasant feather on the
heads of the Corvaja leaders must not be an inch higher than that on
the Geraci. Their goats must increase in the same proportion, and the
Geraci’s oxen must have just as long horns as the Corvaja’s.

In our time one might have expected an end to the enmity between the two
palaces. In our time there are just as few Corvaja in the one palace as
there are Geraci in the other.

The Geraci court-yard is now a dirty hole, which contains donkey-stalls
and pig-styes and chicken houses. On the high steps rags are dried and
the bas-reliefs are broken and mouldy. In one of the passage-ways a
trade in vegetables is carried on, and in the other shoes are made. The
gate-keeper looks like the most ragged of beggars, and from cellar to
attic live none but poor and penniless people.

It is no better in Palazzo Corvaja. There is not a vestige of the mosaic
left in the big hall; only bare, empty arches. No beggars live there,
because the palace is principally in ruins. It no longer raises its
beautiful façade with the carved windows to the bright Sicilian sky.

But the enmity between Geraci and Corvaja is not over. In the old days
it was not only the noble families themselves who competed with one
another; it was also their neighbors and dependents. All Diamante is
to this day divided into Geraci and Corvaja. There is still a high,
loop-holed wall running across the town, dividing the part of Diamante
which stands by the Geraci from that which has declared itself for the
Corvaja.

Even in our day no one from Geraci will marry a girl from Corvaja. And a
shepherd from Corvaja cannot let his sheep drink from a Geraci fountain.
They have not even the same saints. San Pasquale is worshipped in Geraci,
and the black Madonna is Corvaja’s patron saint.

A man from Geraci can never believe but that all Corvaja is full of
magicians, witches, and werewolves. A man from Corvaja will risk his
salvation that in Geraci there are none but rogues and pick-pockets.

Donna Micaela lived in the Geraci district, and soon all that part of the
town were partisans of her railway. But then Corvaja could do no less
than to oppose her.

The inhabitants of Corvaja specially disliked two things. They were
jealous of the reputation of the black Madonna, and therefore did not
like to have another miracle-working image come to Diamante. That was
one thing. The other was that they feared that Mongibello would bury all
Diamante in ashes and fire if any one tried to encircle it with a railway.

A few days after the bazaar Palazzo Corvaja began to show itself hostile.
Donna Micaela one day found on the roof-garden a lemon, which was so
thickly set with pins that it looked like a steel ball. It was Palazzo
Corvaja, that was trying to bewitch as many pains into her head as there
were pins in the lemon.

Then Corvaja waited a few days to see what effect the lemon would have.
But when Donna Micaela’s people continued to work on Etna and stake out
the line, they came one night and pulled everything up. And when the
stakes were set up again the next day, they broke the windows in the
church of San Pasquale and threw stones at the Christ-image.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a long and narrow little square on the south side of Monte
Chiaro. On both the long sides stood dark, high buildings. On one of
the short sides was an abyss; on the other rose the steep mountain. The
mountain wall was arranged in terraces, but the steps were crumbled and
the marble railings broken. On the broadest of the terraces rose the
stately ruins of Palazzo Corvaja.

The chief ornament of the square was a beautiful, oblong water-basin
which stood quite under the terraces, close to the mountain wall. It
stood there white as snow, covered with carvings, and full of clear, cold
water. It was the best preserved of all the former glories of the Corvaja.

One beautiful and peaceful evening two ladies dressed in black came
walking into the little square. For the moment it was almost empty. The
two ladies looked about them, and when they saw no one they sat down on
the bench by the fountain, and waited.

Soon several inquisitive children came forward and looked at them, and
the older of the two began to talk to the children. She began to tell
them stories: “It is said,” and “It is told,” and “Once upon a time,”
she said.

Then the children were told of the Christchild who turned himself into
roses and lilies when the Madonna met one of Herod’s soldiers, who had
been commanded to kill all children. And they were told the legend of how
the Christchild once had sat and shaped birds out of clay, and how he
clapped his hands and gave the clay pigeons wings with which to fly away
when a naughty boy wished to break them to pieces.

While the old lady was talking, many children gathered about her, and
also big people. It was a Saturday evening, so that the laborers were
coming home from their work in the fields. Most of them came up to the
Corvaja fountain for water. When they heard that some one was telling
legends they stopped to listen. Both the ladies were soon surrounded by a
close, dark wall of heavy, black cloaks and slouch hats.

Suddenly the old lady said to the children: “Do you like the
Christchild?” “Yes, yes,” they said, and their big, dark eyes
sparkled.--“Perhaps you would like to see him?”--“Yes, we should indeed.”

The lady threw back her mantilla and showed the children a little
Christ-image in a jewelled dress, and with a gold crown on his head and
gold shoes on his feet. “Here he is,” she said. “I have brought him with
me to show you.”

The children were in raptures. First they clasped their hands at the
sight of the image’s grave face, then they began to throw kisses to it.

“He is beautiful, is he not?” said the lady.

“Let us have him! Let us have him!” cried the children.

But now a big, rough workman, a dark man with a bushy, black beard,
pushed forward. He wished to snatch away the image. The old lady had
barely time to thrust it behind her back.

“Give it here, Donna Elisa, give it here!” said the man.

Poor Donna Elisa cast one glance at Donna Micaela, who had sat silent and
displeased the whole time by her side. Donna Micaela had been persuaded
with difficulty to go to Corvaja and show the image to the people there.
“The image helps us when it wills,” she said. “We shall not force
miracles.”

But Donna Elisa had been determined to go, and she had said that the
image was only waiting to be taken to the faithless wretches in Corvaja.
After everything that he had done, they might have enough faith in him to
believe that he could win them over also.

Now she, Donna Elisa, stood there with the man over her, and she did not
know how she could prevent him from snatching the image away.

“Give it to me amicably, Donna Elisa,” said the man, “otherwise, by God,
I will take it in spite of you. I will hack it to small pieces, to small,
small pieces. You shall see how much there will be left of your wooden
doll. You shall see if it can withstand the black Madonna.”

Donna Elisa pressed against the mountain wall; she saw no escape. She
could not run, and she could not struggle. “Micaela!” she wailed,
“Micaela!”

Donna Micaela was very pale. She held her hands against her heart, as she
always did when anything agitated her. It was terrible to her to stand
opposed to those dark men. These were they of the slouch hats and short
cloaks of whom she had always been afraid.

But now, when Donna Elisa appealed to her, she turned quickly, seized the
image and held it out to the man.

“See here, take it!” she said defiantly. And she took a step towards him.
“Take it, and do with it what you can!”

She held the image on her outstretched arms, and came nearer and nearer
to the dark workman.

He turned towards his comrades. “She does not believe that I can do
anything to the doll,” he said, and laughed at her. And the whole group
of workmen slapped themselves on the knee and laughed.

But he did not take the image; he grasped instead the big pick-axe, which
he held in his hand. He drew back a few steps, lifted the pick over his
head, and stiffened his whole body for a blow which was to crush at once
the entire hated wooden doll.

Donna Micaela shook her head warningly. “You cannot do it,” she said, and
she did not draw the image back.

He saw that nevertheless she was afraid, and he enjoyed frightening her.
He stood longer than was necessary with uplifted pick.

“Piero!” came a cry shrill and wailing.

“Piero! Piero!”

The man dropped his pick without striking. He looked terrified.

“God! it is Marcia calling!” he said.

At the same moment a crowd of people came tumbling out of a little
cottage which was built among the ruins of the old Palazzo Corvaja.
There were about a dozen women and a carabiniere, who were fighting.
The carabiniere held a child in his arms, and the women were trying to
drag the child away from him. But the policeman, who was a tall, strong
fellow, freed himself from them, lifted the child to his shoulder, and
ran down the terrace steps.

The dark Piero had looked on without making a movement. When the
carabiniere freed himself, he bent down to Donna Micaela and said
eagerly: “If _the little one_ can prevent that, all Corvaja shall be his
friend.”

Now the carabiniere was down in the square. Piero made a sign with his
hand. Instantly all his comrades closed in a ring round the fugitive. He
turned squarely round. Everywhere a close ring of men threatened him with
picks and shovels.

All at once there was terrible confusion. The women who had been
struggling with the carabiniere came rushing down with loud cries. The
little girl, whom he held in his arms, screamed as loud as she could and
tried to tear herself away. People came running from all sides. There
were questionings and wonderings.

“Let us go now,” said Donna Elisa to Donna Micaela. “Now no one is
thinking of us.”

But Donna Micaela had caught sight of one of the women. She screamed
least, but it was instantly apparent that it was she whom the matter
concerned. She looked as if she was about to lose her life’s happiness.

She was a woman who had been very beautiful, although all freshness now
was gone from her, for she was no longer young. But hers was still an
impressive and large-souled face. “Here dwells a soul which can love and
suffer,” said the face. Donna Micaela felt drawn to that poor woman as to
a sister.

“No, it is not the time to go yet,” she said to Donna Elisa.

The carabiniere asked and asked if they would not let him come out.

No, no, no! Not until he let the child go!

It was the child of Piero and his wife, Marcia. But they were not the
child’s real parents. The trouble arose from that.

The carabiniere tried to win the people over to his side. He tried to
convince, not Piero nor Marcia, but the others. “Ninetta is the child’s
mother,” he said; “you all know that. She has not been able to have the
child with her while she was unmarried; but now she is married, and
wishes to have her child back. And now Marcia refuses to give her the
boy. It is hard on Ninetta, who has not been able to have her child with
her for eight years. Marcia will not give him up. She drives Ninetta away
when she comes and begs for her child. Finally Ninetta had to complain
to the syndic. And the syndic has told us to get her the child. It is
Ninetta’s own child,” he said appealingly.

But it had no great effect on the men of Corvaja.

“Ninetta is a Geraci,” burst out Piero, and the circle stood fast round
the carabiniere.

“When we came here to fetch the child,” said the latter, “we did not
find him. Marcia was dressed in black, and her rooms were draped with
black, and a lot of women sat and mourned with her. And she showed us the
certificate of the child’s death. Then we went and told Ninetta that her
child was in the church-yard.

“Well, well, a while afterwards I went on guard here in the square. I
watched the children playing there. Who was strongest, and who shouted
the loudest, if not one of the girls? ‘What is your name?’ I asked her.
‘Francesco,’ she answered instantly.

“It occurred to me that that girl, Francesco, might be Ninetta’s boy,
and I stood quiet and waited. Just now I saw Francesco go into Marcia’s
house. I followed, and there sat the girl Francesco and ate supper with
Marcia. She and all the mourners began to scream when I appeared. Then
I seized Signorina Francesco and ran. For the child is not Marcia’s.
Remember that, signori! He is Ninetta’s. Marcia has no right to him.”

Then at last Marcia began to speak. She spoke in a deep voice which
compelled every one to listen, and she made only a few, but noble
gestures. Had she no right to the child? But who had given him food and
clothing? He had been dead a thousand times over if she had not been
there. Ninetta had left him with La Felucca. They knew La Felucca. To
leave one’s child to her was the same as saying to it: “You shall die.”
And, moreover, right? right? What did that mean? The one whom the boy
loved had a right to him. The one who loved the boy had a right to him.
Piero and she loved the boy like their own son. They could not be parted
from him.

The wife was desperate, the husband perhaps even more so. He threatened
the carabiniere whenever he made a movement. Yet the carabiniere seemed
to see that the victory would be his. The people had laughed when he
spoke of “Signorina Francesco.” “Cut me down, if you will,” he said to
Piero. “Does it help you? Will you retain the child for that? He is not
yours. He is Ninetta’s.”

Piero turned to Donna Micaela. “Pray to him to help me.” He pointed to
the image.

Donna Micaela instantly went forward to Marcia. She was shy and trembled
for what she was venturing, but it was not the time for her to hold back.
“Marcia,” she whispered, “confess! Confess,--if you dare!” The startled
woman looked at her. “I see it so well,” whispered Donna Micaela; “you
are as alike as two berries. But I will say nothing if you do not wish
it.” “He will kill me,” said Marcia. “I know one who will not let him
kill you,” said Donna Micaela. “Otherwise they will take your child from
you,” she added.

All were silent, with eyes fixed on the two women. They saw how Marcia
struggled with herself. The features of her strong face were distorted.
Her lips moved. “The child is mine,” she said, but in so low a voice that
no one heard it. She said it again, and now it came in a piercing scream:
“The child is mine!”

“What will you do to me when I confess it?” she said to the man. “The
child is mine, but not yours. He was born in the year when you were at
work in Messina. I put him with La Felucca, and Ninetta’s boy was there
too. One day when I came to La Felucca she said, ‘Ninetta’s boy is
dead.’ At first I only thought: ‘God! if it had been mine! Then I said
to La Felucca: ‘Let my boy be dead, and let Ninetta’s live.’ I gave La
Felucca my silver comb, and she agreed. When you came home from Messina
I said to you: ‘Let us take a foster child. We have never been on good
terms. Let us try what adopting a child will do.’ You liked the proposal,
and I adopted my own child. You have been happy with him, and we have
lived as if in paradise.”

Before she finished speaking the carabiniere put the child down on the
ground. The dark men silently opened their ranks for him, and he went his
way. A shiver went through Donna Micaela when she saw the carabiniere
go. He should have stayed to protect the poor woman. His going seemed to
mean: “That woman is beyond the pale of the law; I cannot protect her.”
Every man and woman standing there felt the same: “She is outside of the
law.”

One after another went their way.

Piero, the husband, stood motionless without looking up. Something fierce
and dreadful was gathering in him. Rage and suffering were gathering
within him. Something terrible would happen as soon as he and Marcia were
alone.

The woman made no effort to escape. She stood still, paralyzed by the
certainty that her fate was sealed, and that nothing could change it. She
neither prayed nor fled. She shrank together like a dog before an angry
master. The Sicilian women know what awaits them when they have wounded
their husbands’ honor.

The only one who tried to defend her was Donna Micaela. Never would she
have begged Marcia to confess, she said to Piero, if she had known what
he was. She had thought that he was a generous man. Such a one would
have said: “You have done wrong; but the fact that you confess your sin
publicly, and expose yourself to my anger to save the child, atones for
everything. It is punishment enough.” A generous man would have taken the
child on one arm, put the other round his wife’s waist, and have gone
happy to his home. A signor would have acted so. But he was no signor; he
was a bloodhound.

She talked in vain; the man did not hear her; the woman did not hear her.
Her words seemed to be thrown back from an impenetrable wall.

Just then the child came to the father, and tried to take his hand.
Furious, he looked at the boy. As the latter was dressed in girl’s
clothes, his hair smoothly combed and drawn back by the ears, he saw
instantly the likeness to Marcia, which he had not noticed before. He
kicked Marcia’s son away.

There was a terrible tension in the square. The neighbors continued to go
quietly and slowly away. Many went unwillingly and with hesitation, but
still they went. The husband seemed only to be waiting for the last to go.

Donna Micaela ceased speaking; she took the image instead and laid it in
Marcia’s arms. “Take him, my sister Marcia, and may he protect you!” she
said.

The man saw it, and his rage increased. It seemed as if he could no
longer contain himself till he was alone. He crouched like a wild beast
ready to spring.

But the image did not rest in vain in the woman’s arms. The outcast moved
her to an act of the greatest love.

“What will Christ in Paradise say to me, who have first deceived my
husband, and then made him a murderer?” she thought. And she remembered
how she had loved big Piero in the days of her happy youth. She had not
then thought of bringing such misery upon him.

“No, Piero, no, do not kill me!” she said eagerly. “They will send you to
the galleys. You shall be relieved of seeing me again without that.”

She ran towards the other side of the square, where the ground fell away
into an abyss. Every one understood her intention. Her face bore witness
for her.

Several hurried after her, but she had a good start. Then the image,
which she still carried, slipped from her arms and lay at her feet. She
stumbled over it, fell, and was overtaken.

She struggled to get away, but a couple of men held her fast. “Ah, let me
do it!” she cried; “it is better for him!”

Her husband came up to her also. He had caught up her child and placed
him on his arm. He was much moved.

“See, Marcia, let it be as it is,” he said. He was embarrassed, but his
dark, deep-set eyes shone with happiness and said more than his words.
“Perhaps, according to old custom, it ought to be so, but I do not care
for that. Look, come now! It would be a pity for such a woman as you,
Marcia.”

He put his arm about Marcia’s waist, and went towards his house in the
ruins of Palazzo Corvaja. It was like a triumphal entry of one of the
former barons. The people of Corvaja stood on both sides of the way and
bowed to him and Marcia.

As they went past Donna Micaela, they both stopped, bowed deep to her,
and kissed the image which some one had given back to her. But Donna
Micaela kissed Marcia. “Pray for me in your happiness, sister Marcia!”
she said.




X

FALCO FALCONE


The blind singers have week after week sung of Diamante’s railway, and
the big collection-box in the church of San Pasquale has been filled
every evening with gifts. Signor Alfredo measures and sets stakes on
the slopes of Etna, and the distaff-spinners in the dark alleys tell
stories of the wonderful miracles that have been performed by the little
Christ-image in the despised church. From the rich and powerful men who
own the land on Etna comes letter after letter promising to give ground
to the blessed undertaking.

During these last weeks every one comes with gifts. Some give building
stone for the stations, some give powder to blast the lava blocks,
some give food to the workmen. The poor people of Diamante, who have
nothing, come in the night after their work. They come with shovels and
wheelbarrows and creep out on Etna, dig the ground, and ballast the road.
When Signor Alfredo and his people come in the morning they believe that
the Etna goblins have broken out from their lava streams and helped on
the work.

All the while people have been questioning and asking: “Where is the king
of Etna, Falco Falcone? Where is the mighty Falco who has held sway on
the slopes of Etna for five and twenty years? He wrote to Don Ferrante’s
widow that she would not be allowed to construct the railway. What did
he mean by his threat? Why does he sit still when people are braving his
interdiction? Why does he not shoot down the people of Corvaja when they
come creeping through the night with wheelbarrows and pickaxes? Why does
he not drag the blind singers down into the quarry and whip them? Why
does he not have Donna Micaela carried off from the summer-palace, in
order to be able to demand a cessation in the building of the railway as
a ransom for her life?”

Donna Micaela says to herself: “Has Falco Falcone forgotten his promise,
or is he waiting to strike till he can strike harder?”

Everybody asks in the same way: “When is Etna’s cloud of ashes to fall on
the railway? When will Mongibello cataracts tear it away? When will the
mighty Falco Falcone be ready to destroy it?”

While every one is waiting for Falco to destroy the railway, they talk a
great deal about him, especially the workmen under Signor Alfredo.

Opposite the entrance to the church of San Pasquale, people say, stands
a little house on a bare crag. The house is narrow, and so high that
it looks like a chimney left standing on a burnt building site. It is
so small that there is no room for the stairs inside the house; they
wind up outside the walls. Here and there hang balconies and other
projections that are arranged with no more symmetry than a bird’s nest on
a tree-trunk.

In that house Falco Falcone was born, and his parents were only poor
working-people. In that miserable hut Falco learned arrogance.

Falco’s mother was an unfortunate woman, who during the first years of
her marriage brought only daughters into the world. Her husband and all
her neighbors despised her.

The woman longed continually for a son. When she was expecting her fifth
child she strewed salt every day on the threshold and sat and watched who
should first cross it. Would it be a man or a woman? Should she bear a
son or a daughter?

Every day she sat and counted. She counted the letters in the month
when her child was to be born. She counted the letters in her husband’s
name and in her own. She added and subtracted. It was an even number;
therefore she would bear a son. The next day she made the calculation
over again. “Perhaps I counted wrong yesterday,” she said.

When Falco was born his mother was much honored, and she loved him on
account of it more than all her other children. When the father came
in to see the child he snatched off his cap and made a low bow. Over
the house-door they set a hat as a token of honor, and they poured
the child’s bath water over the threshold, and let it run out into
the street. When Falco was carried to the church he was laid on his
god-mother’s right arm; when the neighbors’ wives came to look after his
mother they courtesied to the child sleeping in his cradle.

He was also bigger and stronger than children generally are. Falco had
thick hair when he was born, and when he was a week old he already had
a tooth. When his mother laid him to her breast he was so wild that she
laughed and said: “I think that I have brought a hero into the world.”

She was always expecting great achievements from Falco, and she put
pride into him. But who else hoped anything of him? Falco could not
even learn to read. His mother tried to take a book and teach him the
letters. She pointed to A, that is the big hat; she pointed to B, that
is the spectacles; she pointed to C, that is the snake. That he could
learn. Then his mother said: “If you put the spectacles and the big hat
together, it makes Ba.” That he could not learn. He became angry and
struck her, and she let him alone. “You will be a great man yet,” she
said.

Falco was dull and bad-tempered in his childhood and youth. As a child,
he would not play; as a youth, he would not dance. He had no sweetheart,
but he liked to go where fighting was to be expected.

Falco had two brothers who were like other people, and who were much
more esteemed than he. Falco was wounded to see himself eclipsed by his
brothers, but he was too proud to show it. His mother was always on his
side. After his father’s death she had him sit at the head of the table,
and she never allowed any one to jest with him. “My oldest son is the
best of you all,” she said.

When the people remember it all they say: “Falco is proud. He will make
it a point of honor to destroy the railway.”

And they have hardly terrified themselves with one story before they
remember another about him.

For thirty long years, people say, Falco lived like any other poor
person on Etna. On Monday he went away to his work in the fields with
his brothers. He had bread in his sack for the whole week, and he made
soup of beans and rice like every one else. And he was glad on Saturday
evening to be able to return to his home. He was glad to find the table
spread, with wine and macaroni, and the bed made up with soft pillows.

It was just such a Saturday evening. Falco and Falco’s brothers were on
their way home; Falco, as usual, a little behind the others, for he had a
heavy and slow way of walking. But look, when the brothers reached home,
no supper was waiting, the beds were not made, and the dust lay thick
on the threshold. What, were all in the house dead? Then they saw their
mother sitting on the floor in a dark corner of the cottage. Her hair was
drawn down over her face, and she sat and traced patterns with her finger
on the earth floor. “What is the matter?” said the brothers. She did not
look up; she spoke as if she had spoken to the earth. “We are beggared,
beggared.” “Do they want to take our house from us?” cried the brothers.
“They wish to take away our honor and our daily bread.”

Then she told: “Your eldest sister has had employment with Baker Gasparo,
and it has been good employment. Signor Gasparo gave Pepa all the bread
left over in the shop, and she brought it to me. There has been so much
that there was enough for us all. I have been happy ever since Pepa found
that employment. It will give me an old age free from care, I thought.
But last Monday Pepa came home to me and wept; Signora Gasparo had turned
her away.”

“What had Pepa done?” asked Nino, who was next younger to Falco.

“Signora Gasparo accused Pepa of stealing bread. I went to Signora
Gasparo and asked her to take Pepa back. ‘No,’ she said, ‘the girl is
not honest.’ ‘Pepa had the bread from Signor Gasparo,’ I said; ‘ask him.’
‘I cannot ask him,’ said the signora; ‘he is away, and comes home next
month.’ ‘Signora,’ I said, ‘we are so poor. Let Pepa come back to her
place.’ ‘No,’ she said; ‘I myself will leave Signor Gasparo if he takes
that girl back.’ ‘Take care,’ I said then; ‘if you take bread from me, I
will take life from you.’ Then she was frightened and called others in,
so that I had to go.”

“What is to be done about it?” said Nino. “Pepa must find some other
work.”

“Nino,” said Mother Zia, “you do not know what that woman has said to the
neighbors about Pepa and Signor Gasparo.”

“Who can prevent women from talking?” said Nino.

“If Pepa has nothing else to do, now she might at least have cooked
dinner for us,” said Turiddo.

“Signora Gasparo has said that her husband let Pepa steal bread that she
should--”

“Mother,” interrupted Nino, red as fire, “I do not intend to have myself
put in the galleys for Pepa’s sake.”

“The galleys do not eat Christians,” said Mother Zia.

“Nino,” said Pietro, “we had better go to the town to get some food.”

As they said it they heard some one laugh behind them. It was Falco who
laughed.

A while later Falco entered Signora Gasparo’s shop and asked for bread.
The poor woman was frightened when Pepa’s brother came into the shop.
But she thought: “He has just come from his work. He has not been home
yet. He knows nothing.”

“Beppo,” she said to him, for Falco’s name was not then Falco, “is the
harvest a good one?” And she was prepared not to have him answer.

Falco was more talkative than usual, and immediately told her how
many grapes had already been put through the press. “Do you know,” he
continued, “that a farmer was murdered yesterday.”--“Alas, yes, poor
Signor Riego; I heard so.” And she asked how it had happened.

“It was Salvatore who did it. But it is too dreadful for a signora to
hear!”--“Oh, no, what is done can be and is told.”

“Salvatore went up to him in this way, signora.” And Falco drew his knife
and laid his hand on the woman’s head. “Then he cut him across the throat
from ear to ear.”

As Falco spoke, he suited the action to the word. The woman did not even
have time to scream. It was the work of a master.

After that, Falco was sent to the galleys, where he remained five years.

When the people tell of that, their terror increases. “Falco is brave,”
they say. “Nothing in the world can frighten him away from his purpose.”

That immediately made them think of another story.

Falco was taken to the galleys in August, where he became acquainted with
Biagio, who afterwards followed him through his whole life. One day he
and Biagio and a third prisoner were ordered to go to work in the fields.
One of the overseers wished to construct a garden around his house. They
dug there quietly, but their eyes began to wander and wander. They were
outside the walls; they saw the plain and the mountains; they even saw up
to Etna. “It is the time,” whispered Falco to Biagio. “I will rather die
than go back to prison,” said Biagio. Then they whispered to the other
prisoner that he must stand by them. He did not wish to do so, because
his time of punishment was soon up. “Else we will kill you,” they said,
and then he agreed.

The guard stood over them with his loaded rifle in his hand. On account
of their fetters, Falco and Biagio hopped with feet together over to the
guard. They swung their shovels over him, and before he had time to think
of shooting he was thrown down, bound, and had a clump of earth in his
mouth. Thereupon the prisoners pried open their chains with the shovels,
so that they could take a step, and crept away over the plain to the
hills.

When night came Falco and Biagio abandoned the prisoner whom they had
taken with them. He was old and feeble, so that he would have hindered
their flight. The next day he was seized by the carabinieri, and shot.

They shudder when they think of it. “Falco is merciless,” they say. They
know that he will not spare the railway.

Story after story comes to frighten the poor people working on the
railway on the slopes of Etna.

They tell of all the sixteen murders that Falco has committed. They tell
of his attacks and plunderings.

There is one story more terrifying than all the others together.

When Falco escaped from the galleys he lived in the woods and caves, and
in the big quarry near Diamante. He soon gathered a band about him, and
became a wonderful and famous brigand hero.

All his family were held in much greater consideration than before. They
were respected, as the mighty are respected. They scarcely needed to
work, for Falco loved his relations and was generous to them. But he was
not lenient towards them; he was very stern.

Mother Zia was dead, and Nino was married and lived in his father’s
cottage. It happened one day that Nino needed money, and he knew no
better way than to go to the priest,--not Don Matteo, but to old Don
Giovanni. “Your Reverence,” said Nino to him, “my brother asks you for
five hundred lire.” “Where shall I find five hundred lire?” said Don
Giovanni. “My brother needs them; he must have them,” said Nino.

Then old Don Giovanni promised to give the money, if he only were given
time to collect it. Nino was hardly willing to agree to that. “You can
scarcely expect me to take five hundred lire from my snuff-box,” said
Don Giovanni. And Nino granted him three days’ respite. “But beware of
meeting my brother during that time,” he said.

The next day Don Giovanni rode to Nicolosi to try to claim a payment. Who
should he meet on the way but Falco and two of his band. Don Giovanni
threw himself from his donkey and fell on his knees before Falco. “What
does this mean, Don Giovanni?”--“As yet I have no money for you, Falco,
but I will try to get it. Have mercy upon me!”

Falco asked, and Don Giovanni told the whole story. “Your Reverence,”
said Falco, “he has been deceiving you.” He begged Don Giovanni to go
with him to Diamante. When they came to the old house Don Giovanni rode
in behind the wall of San Pasquale, and Falco called Nino out. Nino came
out on one of the balconies. “Eh, Nino!” said Falco, and laughed. “You
have cheated the priest out of money?” “Do you know it already?” said
Nino. “I was just going to tell it to you.”

Now Falco became sterner. “Nino,” he said, “the priest is my friend, and
he believes that I have wished to rob him. You have done very wrong.” He
suddenly put his gun to his shoulder and shot Nino down, and when he had
done so he turned to Don Giovanni, who had almost fallen from his donkey
with terror. “You see now, your Reverence, that I had no part in Nino’s
designs on you!”

And that happened twenty years ago, when Falco had not been a brigand for
more than five years.

“Will Falco spare the railway,” people say, as they tell it, “when he did
not spare his own brother?”

There was yet more.

After Nino’s murder there was a vendetta over Falco. Nino’s wife was
so terrified when she found her husband dead that half her body became
paralyzed, and she could no longer walk. But she took her place at the
window in the old cottage. There she has sat for twenty years with a gun
beside her, and waited for Falco. And of her the great brigand has been
afraid. For twenty years he has not gone past the home of his ancestors.

The woman has not deserted her post. No one ever goes to the church of
San Pasquale without seeing her revengeful eyes shining behind the panes.
Who has ever seen her sleep? Who has seen her work? She could do nothing
but await her husband’s murderer.

When people hear that, they are even more afraid. Falco has luck on his
side, they think. The woman who wishes to kill him cannot move from her
place. He has luck on his side. He will also succeed in destroying the
railway. Fortune has never failed Falco. The carabinieri have hunted, but
have never been able to catch him. The carabinieri have feared Falco more
than Falco has feared the carabinieri.

People tell a story of a young carabiniere lieutenant who once pursued
Falco. He had arranged a line of beaters and hunted Falco from one
thicket to another. At last the officer was certain that he had Falco
shut in in a grove. A guard was stationed round the wood, and the
officer searched the covert, gun in hand. But however much he searched,
he saw no Falco. He came out, and met a peasant. “Have you seen Falco
Falcone?”--“Yes, signor; he just went by me, and he asked me to greet
you.”--“_Diavolo!_”--“He saw you in the thicket, and he was just going
to shoot you, but he did not do so, because he thought that perhaps it
was your duty to prosecute him.”--“_Diavolo! Diavolo!_”--“But if you try
another time--”--“_Diavolo! Diavolo! Diavolo!_”

Do you think that lieutenant came back? Do you not think that he
instantly sought out a district where he did not need to hunt brigands?

And the workmen on Etna asked themselves: “Who will protect us against
Falco? He is terrible. Even the soldiers tremble before him.”

They remember that Falco Falcone is now an old man. He no longer plunders
post-wagons; he does not carry off land-owners. He sits quiet generally
in the quarry near Diamante, and instead of robbing money and estates, he
takes money and estates under his protection.

He takes tribute from the great landed proprietors and guards their
estates from other thieves, and it has become calm and peaceful on Etna,
for he allows no one to injure those who have paid a tax to him.

But that is not reassuring. Since Falco has become friends with the
great, he can all the more easily destroy the railway.

And they remember the story of Niccola Galli, who is overseer on the
estate of the Marquis di San Stefano on the southern side of Etna. Once
his workmen struck in the middle of the harvest time. Niccola Galli was
in despair. The wheat stood ripe, and he could not get it reaped. His
workmen would not work; they lay down to sleep at the edge of a ditch.

Niccola placed himself on a donkey and rode down to Catania to ask his
lord for advice. On the way he met two men with guns on their shoulders.
“Whither are you riding, Niccola?”

Before Niccola had time to say many words they took his donkey by the bit
and turned him round. “You must not ride to the Marquis, Niccola?”--“Must
I not?”--“No; you must ride home.”

As they went along, Niccola sat and shook on his donkey. When they were
again at home the men said: “Now show us the way to the fields!” And
they went out to the laborers. “Work, you scoundrels! The marquis has
paid his tribute to Falco Falcone. You can strike in other places, but
not here.” That field was reaped as never before. Falco stood on one side
of it and Biagio on the other. The grain is soon harvested with such
overseers.

When the people remember that, their terror does not decrease. “Falco
keeps his word,” they say. “He will do what he has threatened to do.”

No one has been a robber chief as long as Falco. All the other famous
heroes are dead or captives. He alone keeps himself alive and in his
profession by incredible good fortune and skill.

Gradually he has collected about him all his family. His brothers-in-law
and nephews are all with him. Most of them have been sent to the galleys,
but not one of them thinks whether he suffers in prison; he only asks if
Falco is satisfied with him.

In the newspapers there are often accounts of Falco’s deeds. Englishmen
thrust a note of ten lire into their guide’s hand if he will show them
the way to Falco’s quarry. The carabinieri no longer shoot at him,
because he is the last great brigand.

He so little fears to be captured that he often comes down to Messina
or Palermo. He has even crossed the sound and been in Italy. He went to
Naples when Guglielmo and Umberto were there to christen a battle-ship.
He travelled to Rome when Umberto and Margherita celebrated their silver
wedding.

The people think of it all, and tremble. “Falco is loved and admired,”
the workmen say. “The people worship Falco. He can do what he will.”

They know too that when Falco saw Queen Margherita’s silver wedding, it
pleased him so much that he said: “When I have lived on Etna for five and
twenty years, I shall celebrate my silver wedding with Mongibello.”

People laughed at that and said that it was a good idea of Falco’s. For
he had never had a sweetheart, but Mongibello with its caves and forests
and craters and ice-fields had served and protected him like a wife. To
no one in the world did Falco owe such gratitude as to Mongibello.

People ask when Falco and Mongibello are going to celebrate their silver
wedding. And people answer that it will be this spring. Then the workmen
think: “_He is coming to destroy our railway on the day of Mongibello_.”

They are filled with doubt and terror. They soon will not dare to work
any more. The nearer the time approaches when Falco is to celebrate his
union with Mongibello, the more there are who leave Signor Alfredo. Soon
he is practically alone at the work.

       *       *       *       *       *

There are not many people in Diamante who have seen the big quarry on
Etna. They have learned to avoid it because Falco Falcone lives there.
They have been careful to keep out of range of his gun.

They have not seen the great hole in Mongibello’s side from which their
ancestors, the Greeks, took stone in remote times. They have not seen the
beautifully colored walls, and the mighty rocks that look like ruined
pillars. Perhaps they do not know that on the bottom of the quarry grow
more magnificent flowers than in a conservatory. There it is no longer
Sicily; it is India.

In the quarry are mandarin trees, so yellow with fruit that they look
like gigantic sun-flowers; the camellias are as big as tambourines; and
on the ground between the trees lie masses of magnificent figs and downy
peaches embedded in fallen rose-leaves.

One evening Falco is sitting alone in the quarry. Falco is busy making a
wreath, and he has beside him a mass of flowers. The string he is using
is as thick as a rope; he holds his foot on the ball so that it shall not
roll away from him. He wears spectacles, which continually slip too far
down his hooked nose.

Falco is swearing horribly, for his hands are stiff and callous from
incessantly handling a gun, and cannot readily hold flowers. The fingers
squeeze them together like steel tongs. Falco swears because the lilies
and anemones fall into little pieces if he merely looks at them.

Falco sits in his leather breeches and in the long, buttoned-up coat,
buried in flowers like a saint on a feast-day. Biagio and his nephew,
Passafiore, have gathered them for him. They have piled up in front of
him an Etna of the most beautiful flowers of the quarry. Falco can choose
among lilies and cactus-flowers and roses and pelargoniums. He roars at
the flowers that he will trample them to dust under his leather sandals
if they do not submit themselves to his will.

Never before has Falco Falcone had to do with flowers. In the whole
course of his life he has never tied a nosegay for a girl, or plucked a
rose for his button-hole. He has never even laid a wreath on his mother’s
grave.

Therefore the delicate flowers rebel against him. The flower sprays are
entangled in his hair and in his hat, and the petals have caught in his
bushy beard. He shakes his head violently, and the scar in his cheek
glows red as fire as it used to do in the old days, when he fought with
the carabinieri.

Still the wreath grows, and thick as a tree-trunk it winds round Falco’s
feet and legs. Falco swears at it as if it were the steel fetters that
once dragged between his ankles. He complains more, when he tears himself
on a thorn or burns himself on a nettle, than he did when the whip of the
galley guard lashed his back.

Biagio and Passafiore, his nephew, do not dare to show themselves; they
lie concealed in a cave till everything is ready. They laugh at Falco
with all their might, for such wailings as Falco’s have not sounded in
the quarry since unhappy prisoners of war were kept at work there.

Biagio looks up to great Etna, which is blushing in the light of the
setting sun. “Look at Mongibello,” he says to Passafiore; “see how it
blushes. It must guess what Falco is busy with down in the quarry.” And
Passafiore answers: “Mongibello has probably never thought that it would
ever have anything on its head but ashes and snow.”

But suddenly Biagio stopped laughing. “It is not well, Passafiore,” he
said. “Falco has become too proud. I am afraid that the great Mongibello
is going to make a fool of him.”

The two bandits look one another in the eyes questioningly. “It is well
if it is only pride,” says Passafiore.

But now they look away at the same moment, and dare say no more. The same
thought, the same dread has seized them both. Falco is going mad. He is
already mad at times. It is always so with great brigand chiefs; they
cannot bear their glory and their greatness; they all go mad.

Passafiore and Biagio have seen it for a long time, but they have borne
it in silence, and each has hoped that the other has seen nothing. Now
they understand that they both know it. They press each other’s hands
without a word. There is still something so great in Falco. Both of them,
Passafiore and Biagio, will take care that no one shall perceive that he
is no longer the man he was.

Finally Falco has his wreath ready; he hangs it on the barrel of his gun
and comes out to the others. All three climb out of the quarry, and at
the nearest farm-house they take horses in order to come quickly to the
top of Mongibello.

They ride at full gallop so that they have no chance to talk, but as they
pass the different farms they can see the people dancing on the flat
roofs. And from the sheds, where the laborers sleep at night, they hear
talk and laughter. There happy, peaceful people are sitting, guessing
conundrums and matching verses. Falco storms by, such things are not for
him. Falco is a great man.

They gallop towards the summit. At first they ride between almond-trees
and cactus, then under plane-trees and stone-pines, then under oaks and
chestnut-trees.

The night is dark; they see nothing of the beauty of Mongibello. They do
not see the vine-encircled Monte Rosso; they do not see the two hundred
craters that stand in a circle round Etna’s lofty peak like towers round
a town; they do not see the endless stretches of thick forest.

In Casa del Bosco, where the road ends, they dismount. Biagio and
Passafiore take the wreath and carry it between them. As they walk along,
Falco begins to talk. He likes to talk since he has grown old.

Falco says that the mountain is like the twenty-five years of his life
that he has passed there. The years that founded his greatness had
blossomed with deeds. To be with him then had been like going through
an endless arbor, where lemons and grapes hung down overhead. Then his
deeds had been as numerous as the orange-trees round Etna’s base. When
he had come higher the deeds had been less frequent, but those he had
executed had been mighty as the oaks and chestnut-trees on the rising
mountain. Now that he was at the summit of greatness, he scorned to act.
His life was as bald as the mountain top; he was content to see the
world at his feet. But people ought to understand that, if he should now
undertake anything, nothing could resist him. He was terrible, like the
fire-spouting summit.

Falco walks before and talks; Passafiore and Biagio follow him in silent
terror. Dimly they see the mighty slopes of Mongibello with their towns
and fields and forests spread out beneath them. And Falco thinks that he
is as mighty as all that!

As they struggle upwards they are beset with a growing feeling of
dread. The gaping fissures in the ground; the sulphur smoke from the
crater, which rolls down the mountain, too heavy to rise into the air;
the explosions inside the mountain; the incessant, gently rumbling
earthquake; the slippery, rough ice-fields crossed by gushing brooks;
the extreme cold, the biting wind,--make the walk hideous. And Falco
says that it is like him! How can he have such things in his soul? Is it
filled with a cold and a horror to be compared to Etna’s?

They stumble over blocks of ice, and they struggle forward through snow
lying sometimes a yard deep. The mountain blast almost throws them down.
They have to wade through slush and water, for through the day the sun
has melted a mass of snow. And while they grow stiff with cold, the
ground shakes under them with the everlasting fire.

They remember that Lucifer and all the damned are lying under them. They
shudder because Falco has brought them to the gates of Hell.

But nevertheless beyond the ice-field they reach the steep cone of ashes
on the very summit of the mountain. Here they drag themselves up, walking
on sliding ashes and pumice-stone. When they are half way up the cone
Falco takes the wreath, and motions to the others to wait. He alone will
scale the summit.

The day is just breaking, and as Falco reaches the top the sun is
visible. The glorious morning light streams over Mongibello and over the
old Etna brigand on its summit. The shadow of Etna is thrown over the
whole of Sicily, and it looks as if Falco, standing up there, reached
from sea to sea, across the island.

Falco stands and gazes about him. He looks across to Italy; he fancies
he sees Naples and Rome. He lets his glance pass over the sea to the land
of the Turk to the east and the land of the Saracen to the south. He
feels as if it all lay at his feet and acknowledged _his_ greatness.

Then Falco lays the wreath on the summit of Mongibello.

When he comes down to his comrades he solemnly presses their hands. As
he leaves the cone they see that he picks up a piece of pumice-stone,
and puts it in his pocket. Falco takes with him a souvenir of the most
beautiful hour of his life. He has never before felt himself so great as
on the top of Mongibello.

On that day of happiness Falco will do no work. The next day, he says, he
will begin the undertaking of freeing Mongibello from the railway.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is a lonely farm-house on the road between Paternó and Adernó. It
is quite large, and it is owned by a widow, Donna Silvia, who has many
strong sons. They are bold people who dare to live alone the whole year
in the country.

It is the day following the one when Falco crowned Mongibello. Donna
Silvia is sitting on the grass-plot with her distaff; she is alone; there
is no one else at home on the farm. A beggar comes softly creeping in
through the gate.

He is an old man with a long, hooked nose which hangs down over his upper
lip, a bushy beard, pale eyes with red eyelids. They are the ugliest eyes
imaginable; the whites are yellowish, and they squint. The beggar is
tall and very thin; he moves his body when he walks, so that it looks as
if he wriggled forward. He walks so softly that Donna Silvia does not
hear him. The first thing she notices is his shadow, which, slender as a
snake, bends down towards her.

She looks up when she sees the shadow. Then the beggar bows to her and
asks for a dish of macaroni.

“I have macaroni on the fire,” says Donna Silvia. “Sit down and wait; you
shall have your fill.”

The beggar sits down beside Donna Silvia, and after a while they begin to
chat. They soon talk of Falco.

“Is it true that you let your sons work on Donna Micaela’s railway?” says
the beggar.

Donna Silvia bites her lips together, and nods an assent.

“You are a brave woman, Donna Silvia. Falco might be revenged on you.”

“Then he can take revenge,” says Donna Silvia. “But I will not obey one
who has killed my father. He forced him to escape from prison in Augusta,
and my father was captured and shot.”

And so saying she rises and goes in to get the food.

As she stands in the kitchen she sees the beggar through the window,
sitting and rocking on the stone-bench. He is not quiet for a moment. And
in front of him writhes his shadow, slender and lithe as a snake.

Donna Silvia remembers what she had once heard Caterina, who had been
married to Falco’s brother, Nino, say. “How will you recognize Falco
after twenty years?” people had asked her. “Should I not recognize the
man with the snake-shadow?” she answered. “He will never lose it, long
as he may live.”

Donna Silvia presses her hand on her heart. There in her yard Falco
Falcone is sitting. He has come to be revenged because her sons work on
the railway. Will he set fire to the house, or will he murder her?

Donna Silvia is shaking in every limb as she serves up her macaroni.

Falco begins to find the time long as he sits on the stone-bench. A
little dog comes up to him and rubs against him. Falco feels in his
pocket for a piece of bread, but he finds only a stone, which he throws
to the dog.

The dog runs after the stone and brings it back to Falco. Falco throws it
again. The dog takes the stone again, but now he runs away with it.

Falco remembers that it is the stone he picked up on Mongibello, and goes
after the dog to get it back. He whistles to the dog, and it comes to him
instantly. “Drop the stone!” The dog puts its head on one side and will
not drop it. “Ah, give me the stone, rascal!” The dog shuts its mouth. It
has no stone. “Let me see; let me see!” says Falco. He bends the dog’s
head back and forces it to open its mouth. The stone lies far in under
the gums, and Falco tries to force it out. Then the dog bites him, till
the blood flows.

Falco is terrified. He goes in to Donna Silvia. “I hope your dog is
healthy,” he says.

“My dog? I have no dog. It is dead.”--“But the one running outside?”--“I
do not know which one you mean,” she says.

Falco says nothing more, nor does he do Donna Silvia any harm. He simply
goes his way, frightened; he thinks that the dog is mad, and he fears
hydrophobia.

       *       *       *       *       *

One evening Donna Micaela sits alone in the music-room. She has put out
the lamp and opened the balcony doors. She likes to listen to the street
in the evening and at night. No more smiths and stone-cutters and criers
are heard. There is song, laughter, whispering, and mandolins.

Suddenly she sees a dark hand laid on the balcony railing. The hand drags
up after it an arm and a head; within a moment a whole human being swings
himself into the balcony. She sees him plainly, for the street-lamps are
still burning. He is a small, broad-shouldered, bearded fellow, dressed
like a shepherd, with leather sandals, a slouch hat, and an umbrella tied
to his back. As soon as he is on his feet he snatches his gun from his
shoulder and comes into the room with it in his hands.

She sits still without giving a sign of life. There is no time either to
summon help or to escape. She hopes that the man will take what he wishes
to take, and go away without noticing her, sitting back in the dark room.

The man puts his gun down between his legs, and she hears him scratching
with a match. She shuts her eyes. He will believe that she is asleep.

When the robber gets the match lighted, he sees her instantly. He coughs
to wake her. As she remains motionless, he creeps over to her and
carefully stretches out a finger towards her arm. “Do not touch me! do
not touch me!” she screams, and can no longer sit still. The man draws
back instantly. “Dear Donna Micaela, I only wanted to wake you.”

There she sits and shakes with terror, and he hears how she is sobbing.
“Dear signora, dear signora!” he says. “Light a candle that I can see
where you are,” she cries. He scratches a new match, lifts the shade and
chimney off the lamp, and lights it as neatly as a servant. He places
himself again by the door, as far from her as possible. Suddenly he goes
out on the balcony with his gun. “Now the signora cannot be afraid any
longer.”

But when she does not cease weeping he says: “Signora, I am Passafiore;
I come with a message to you from Falco. He no longer wishes to destroy
your railway.”

“Have you come to jest with me?” she says.

Then the man answers, almost weeping: “Would God that it were a jest!
God! that Falco were the man he has been!”

He tells her how Falco went up Mongibello and crowned its top. But the
mountain had not liked it; it had now overthrown Falco. A single little
piece of pumice-stone from Mongibello had been enough to overthrow him.

“It is all over with Falco,” says Passafiore. “He goes about in the
quarry, and waits to fall ill. For a week he has neither slept nor eaten.
He is not sick yet, but the wound in his hand does not heal either. He
thinks that he has the poison in his body. ‘Soon I shall be a mad dog,’
he says. No wine nor food tempt him. He takes no pleasure in my praising
his deeds. ‘What is that to talk about?’ he says. ‘I shall end my life
like a mad dog.’”

Donna Micaela looked sharply at Passafiore. “What do you wish me to do
about it? You cannot mean that I am to go down into the quarry to Falco
Falcone?”

Passafiore looks down and dares not answer anything.

She explains to him what that same Falco has made her suffer. He has
frightened away her workmen. He has set himself against her dearest wish.

All of a sudden Passafiore falls on his knees. He dares not go a step
nearer to her than he is, but he falls on his knees.

He implores her to understand the importance of it. She does not know,
she does not understand who Falco is. Falco is a great man. Ever since
Passafiore was a little child he has heard of him. All his life long he
has longed to come out to the quarry and live with him. All his cousins
went to Falco; his whole race were with him. But the priest had set his
heart that Passafiore should not go. He apprenticed him to a tailor; only
think, to a tailor! He talked to him, and said that he should not go. It
was such a terrible sin to live like Falco. Passafiore had also struggled
against it for many years for Don Matteo’s sake. But at last he had not
been able to resist; he had gone to the quarry. And now he has not been
with Falco more than a year before the latter is quite destroyed. It is
as if the sun had gone out in the sky. His whole life is ruined.

Passafiore looks at Donna Micaela. He sees that she is listening to him,
and understands him.

He reminds Donna Micaela that she had helped a _jettatore_ and an
adulteress. Why should she be hard to a brigand? The Christ-image in San
Pasquale gave her everything she asked for. He was sure that she prayed
to the Christchild to protect the railway from Falco. And he had obeyed
her; he had made Mongibello’s pumice-stone break Falco’s might. But now,
would she not be gracious, and help them, that Falco might get his health
again, and be an honor to the land, as he had been before?

Passafiore succeeds in moving Donna Micaela. All at once she understands
how it is with the old brigand in the dark caves of the quarry. She sees
him there, waiting for madness. She thinks how proud he has been, and how
broken and crushed he now is. No, no; no one ought to suffer so. It is
too much, too much.

“Passafiore,” she exclaims, “tell me what you wish. I will do whatever I
can. I am no longer afraid. No, I am not at all afraid.”

“Donna Micaela, we have begged Falco to go to the Christchild and ask for
grace. But Falco will not believe in the image. He will not do anything
but sit still and wait for the disaster. But to-day, when I implored him
to go and pray, he said: ‘You know who sits and waits for me in the old
house opposite the church. Go to her, and ask her if she will give me the
privilege to go by her into the church. If she gives her permission, then
I shall believe in the image, and say my prayers to him.’”

“Well?” questions Donna Micaela.

“I have been to old Caterina, and she has given her permission. ‘He shall
be allowed to go into San Pasquale without my killing him,’ she said.”

Passafiore is still on his knees.

“Has Falco already been to the church?” asks Donna Micaela.

Passafiore moves somewhat nearer. He wrings his hands in despair. “Donna
Micaela, Falco is very ill. It is not alone that about the dog; he was
ill before.” And Passafiore struggles with himself before he can say it
out. At last he acknowledges that although Falco is a very great man,
he sometimes has attacks of madness. He had not spoken of old Caterina
alone; he had said: “If Caterina will let me go into the church, and if
Donna Micaela Alagona comes down into the quarry and gives me her hand,
and leads me to the church, I will go to the image.” And from that no one
had been able to move him. Donna Micaela, who was greatest and holiest of
women, must come to him, or he would not go.

When Passafiore has finished, he remains kneeling with bowed head. He
dares not look up.

But Donna Micaela does not hesitate a second, since there has been
question of the Christ-image. She seems not to think of Falco’s being
already mad. She does not say a word of her terror. Her faith in the
image is such that she answers softly, like a subdued and obedient
child:--

“Passafiore, I will go with you.”

She follows him as if walking in her sleep. She does not hesitate to go
with him up Etna. She does not hesitate to climb down the steep cliffs
into the quarry. She comes, pale as death, but with shining eyes, to the
old brigand in his hole in the cliff and gives him her hand. He rises up,
ghastly pale as she, and follows her. They do not seem like human beings,
but like spectres. They move on towards their goal in absolute silence.
Their own identity is dead, but a mightier spirit guides and leads them.

Even the day after it seems like a fairy tale to Donna Micaela that she
has done such a thing. She is sure that her own compassion, or pity, or
love could never have made her go down into the brigands’ cave at night
if a strange power had not led her.

While Donna Micaela is in the robber’s cave, old Caterina sits at her
window, and waits for Falco. She has consented, almost without their
needing to ask her.

“He shall go in peace to the church,” she says. “I have waited for him
twenty years, but he shall go to the church.”

Soon Falco comes by, walking with Donna Micaela’s hand in his. Passafiore
and Biagio follow him. Falco is bent; it is plain that he is old and
feeble. He alone goes into the church; the others remain outside.

Old Caterina has seen him very plainly, but she has not moved. She sits
silent all the time Falco is inside the church. Her niece, who lives with
her, believes that she is praying and thanking God because she has been
able to conquer her thirst for revenge.

At last Caterina asks her to open a window. “I wish to see if he still
has his snake shadow,” she says.

But she is gentle and friendly. “Take the gun, if you wish,” she says.
And her niece moves the gun over to the other side of the table.

At last Falco comes from the church. The moonlight falls on his face,
and Caterina sees that he is unlike the Falco she remembered. The
terrible moroseness and arrogance are no longer visible in his face. He
comes bent and broken; he almost inspires her with pity.

“_He_ helps me,” he says aloud to Passafiore and Biagio. “He has promised
to help me.”

The brigands wish to go, but Falco is so happy that he must first tell
them of his joy.

“I feel no buzzing in my head; there is no burning, no uneasiness. He is
helping me.”

His comrades take him by the hand to lead him away.

Falco goes a few steps, then stops again. He straightens himself up, and
at the same time moves his body so that the snake shadow writhes and
twists on the wall.

“I shall be quite well, quite well,” he says.

The men drag him away, but it is too late.

Caterina’s eyes have fallen on the snake shadow. She can control herself
no longer; she throws herself across the table, takes the gun, shoots
and kills Falco. She had not intended to do it, but when she saw him it
was impossible for her to let him go. She had cherished the thought of
revenge for twenty years. It took the upper hand over her.

“Caterina, Caterina,” screams her niece.

“He only asked me to be allowed to go in peace _into_ the church,”
answers the old woman.

Old Biagio lays Falco’s body straight, and says with a grim look:--

“He would be quite well; quite well.”




XI

VICTORY


Far back in ancient days the great philosopher Empedokles lived in
Sicily. He was the most beautiful and the most perfect of men; so
wonderful and so wise that the people regarded him as an incarnate god.

Empedokles owned a country-place on Etna, and one evening he prepared a
feast there for his friends. During the repast he spoke such words that
they cried out to him: “Thou art a god, Empedokles; thou art a god!”

During the night Empedokles thought: “You have risen as high as you can
rise on earth. Now die, before adversity and feebleness take hold of
you.” And he wandered up to the summit of Etna and threw himself into the
burning crater. “When no one can find my body,” he thought, “the people
will say that I have been taken up alive to the gods.”

The next morning his friends searched for him through the villa and on
the mountain. They too came up to the crater, and there they found by the
crater’s mouth Empedokles’ sandal. They understood that Empedokles had
sought death in the crater in order to be counted among the immortals.

He would have succeeded had not the mountain cast up his shoe.

But on account of that story Empedokles’ name has never been forgotten,
and many have wondered where his villa could have been situated.
Antiquaries and treasure-seekers have looked for it; for the villa of the
wonderful Empedokles was naturally filled with marble statues, bronzes,
and mosaics.

Donna Micaela’s father, Cavaliere Palmeri, had set his heart on solving
the problem of the villa. Every morning he mounted his pony, Domenico,
and rode away to search for it. He was armed as an investigator, with a
scraper in his belt, a spade at his side, and a big knapsack on his back.

Every evening, when Cavaliere Palmeri came home, he told Donna Micaela
about Domenico. During the years that they had ridden about on Etna,
Domenico had become an antiquary. Domenico turned from the road as soon
as he caught sight of a ruin. He stamped on the ground in places where
excavations should be made. He snorted scornfully and turned away his
head if any one showed him a counterfeit piece of old money.

Donna Micaela listened with great patience and interest. She was sure
that in case that villa finally did let itself be found Domenico would
get all the glory of the discovery.

Cavaliere Palmeri never asked his daughter about _her_ undertaking. He
never showed any interest in the railway. It seemed almost as if he were
ignorant that she was working for it.

It was not singular however; he never showed interest in anything that
concerned his daughter.

One day, as they both sat at the dining-table, Donna Micaela all at once
began to talk of the railway.

She had won a victory, she said; she had finally won a victory.

He must hear what news she had received that day. It was not merely to be
a railway between Catania and Diamante, as she first had thought; it was
to be a railway round the whole of Etna.

By Falco’s death she had not only been rid of Falco himself, but now the
people believed also that the great Mongibello and all the saints were on
her side. And so there had arisen an agitation of the people to make the
railway an actuality. Contributions were signed in all the towns of Etna.
A company was formed. To-day the concession had come; to-morrow the work
was to begin in earnest.

Donna Micaela was excited; she could not eat. Her heart swelled with joy
and thankfulness. She could not help talking of the tremendous enthusiasm
that had seized the people. She spoke with tears in her eyes of the
Christchild in the church of San Pasquale.

It was touching to see how her face shone with hope. It was as if she
had, besides the happiness of which she was speaking, a whole world of
bliss in expectation.

That evening she felt that Providence had guided her well and happily.
She perceived that Gaetano’s imprisonment had been the work of God to
lead him back to faith. He would be set free by the miracles of the
little image, and that would convert him so that he would become a
believer as before. And she might be his. How good God was!

And while this great bliss stirred within her, her father sat opposite
her quite cold and indifferent.

“It was very extraordinary,” was all he said.

“You will come to-morrow to the ceremony of the laying of the
foundations?”

“I do not know; I have my investigations.”

Donna Micaela began to crumble her bread rather hastily. Her patience was
exhausted. She had not asked him to share her sorrows, but her joys; he
must share her joys!

All at once the shackles of submission and fear, which had bound her ever
since the time of his imprisonment, broke.

“You who ride so much about Etna,” she said with a very quiet voice,
“must have also come to Gela?”

The cavaliere looked up and seemed to search his memory. “Gela, Gela?”

“Gela is a village of a hundred houses, which is situated on the southern
side of Monte Chiaro, quite at its foot,” continued Donna Micaela, with
the most innocent expression. “It is squeezed in between Simeto and the
mountain, and a branch of the river generally flows through the principal
street of Gela so that it is very unusual to be able to pass dry-shod
through the village. The roof of the church fell in during the last
earthquake, and it has never been mended, for Gela is quite destitute.
Have you really never heard of Gela?”

Cavaliere Palmeri answered with inexpressible solemnity: “My
investigations have taken me up the mountain. I have not thought of
looking for the great philosopher’s villa in Gela.”

“But Gela is an interesting town,” said Donna Micaela, obstinately. “They
have no separate out-houses there. The pigs live on the lower floor, the
people one flight up. There is an endless number of pigs in Gela. They
thrive better than the people, for the people are almost always sick.
Fever is always raging there; malaria never leaves it. It is so damp that
the cellars are always under water, and it is wrapped in swamp mists
every night. In Gela there are no shops and no police, nor post-office,
nor doctor, nor apothecary. Six hundred people are living there forgotten
and brutalized. You have never heard of Gela?” She looked honestly
surprised.

Cavaliere Palmeri shook his head. “Of course I have heard the name--”

Donna Micaela cast a questioning glance on her father. She then bent
quickly forward towards him, and drew out of his breastpocket a small,
bent knife, such a knife as is used to prune grape-vines.

“Poor Empedokles,” she said, and all at once her whole face sparkled
with fun. “You may believe you have mounted to the gods, but Etna always
throws up your shoe.”

Cavaliere Palmeri sank back as if shot.

“Micaela!” he said, feebly fencing like some one who does not know how he
shall defend himself.

But she was instantly as serious and innocent as before. “I have been
told,” she said, “that Gela a few years ago was on the way to ruin. All
the people there grow grapes, and when the phylloxera came and destroyed
their vineyards, they almost starved to death. The Agricultural Society
sent them some of those American plants that are not affected by the
phylloxera. The people of Gela set them out, but all the plants died. How
could the people of Gela know how to tend American vines? Well, some one
came and taught them.”

“Micaela!”--it came almost like a wail. Donna Micaela thought that her
father already looked like a conquered man, but she continued as if she
had noticed nothing.

“_Some one came_,” she said with strong emphasis, “and he had had new
vines sent out. He began to plant them in their vineyards. They laughed
at him; they said that he was mad. But look, his vines grew and lived;
they did not die. And he has saved Gela.”

“I do not think that your story is entertaining, Micaela,” said Cavaliere
Palmeri with an attempt to interrupt her.

“It is quite as entertaining as your investigations,” she said, calmly.
“But I will tell you something. One day I went into your room to get a
book on antiquities. Then I found that all your bookshelves were full of
pamphlets about the phylloxera, about the cultivation of grapes, about
wine-making.”

The cavaliere twisted on his chair like a worm. “Be silent; be silent!”
he said feebly. He was more embarrassed than when he was accused of theft.

Now all the suppressed fun shone once more in her eyes.

“I sometimes looked at the letters you sent off,” she continued. “I
wished to see with what learned men you corresponded. It surprised me
that the letters were always addressed to presidents and secretaries of
Agricultural Societies.”

Cavaliere Palmeri was unable to utter a word. Donna Micaela enjoyed his
helplessness more than can be described.

She looked him steadily in the eyes. “I do not believe that Domenico
has yet learned to recognize a ruin,” she said with emphasis. “The
dirty children of Gela play with him every day, and feed him with
water-cresses. Domenico seems to be a god in Gela, to say nothing of
his--”

Cavaliere Palmeri seemed to have an idea.

“Your railway,” he said; “what did you say about your railway? Perhaps I
really can come to-morrow.”

Donna Micaela did not listen to him. She took up her pocket-book.

“I have here a counterfeit old coin,” she said,--“a ‘Demarata’ of nickel.
I bought it to show Domenico. He is going to snort.”

“Listen, child!”

She did not answer his attempts to make amends. Now the power was hers.
It would take more than that to pacify her.

“Once I opened your knapsack to look at your antiquities. The only thing
there was an old grape-vine.”

She was full of sparkling gayety.

“Child, child!”

“What is it to be called? It does not seem to be investigating. Is it
perhaps charity; is it perhaps atonement--”

Cavaliere Palmeri struck with his clenched fist on the table so that
the glasses and plates rang. It was unbearable. A dignified and solemn
old gentleman could not endure such mockery. “As surely as you are my
daughter, you must be silent now.”

“Your daughter!” she said, and her gayety was gone in an instant; “am
I really your daughter? The children in Gela are allowed to caress at
least Domenico, but I--”

“What do you wish, Micaela, what do you want?”

They looked at one another, and their eyes simultaneously filled with
tears.

“I have no one but you,” she murmured.

Cavaliere Palmeri opened his arms unconditionally to her. She rose
hesitatingly; she did not know if she saw right.

“I know how it is going to be,” he said, grumblingly; “not one minute
will I have to myself.”

“To find the villa?”

“Come here and kiss me, Micaela! To-night is the first time since we left
Catania that you have been irresistible.”

When she threw her arms about him it was with a hoarse, wild cry which
almost frightened him.




THIRD BOOK

“_And he shall win many followers_”




I

THE OASIS AND THE DESERT


In the spring of 1894 the Etna railway was begun; in the autumn of 1895
it was finished. It went up from the shore, made a circuit round the
mountain in a wide half-circle, and came down again to the shore.

Trains come and go every day, and Mongibello lies subdued and makes no
sign. Foreigners pass with amazement through the black, distorted lava
streams, through the groves of white almond-trees, through the dark old
Saracen towns. “Look, look! is there such a land on earth!” they say.

In the railway carriages there is always some one telling of the time
when the Christ-image was in Diamante.

What a time! What a time! Each day new miracles were performed. They
cannot tell of them all, but he brought as much happiness to Diamante as
if the hours of the day had been dancing maidens. People thought that
Time had filled his hour-glass with shining sands of gold.

If any one had asked who reigned in Diamante at that time, the answer
would have been that it was the Christ-image. Everything was done
according to his will. No one took a wife, or played in a lottery, or
built himself a house without consulting him.

Many knife-thrusts were spared for the image’s sake, many old feuds
settled, and many bitter words were never uttered.

The people had to be good, for they observed that the image helped those
who were peaceable and helpful. To them he granted the pleasant gifts of
happiness and riches.

If the world had been as it ought to be, Diamante would soon have become
a rich and powerful town. But instead, that part of the world which did
not believe in the image destroyed all his work. All the happiness he
scattered about him was of no avail.

The taxes were constantly increased, and took all their money. There was
the war in Africa. How could the people be happy when their sons, their
money, and their mules had to go to Africa? The war did not go well; one
defeat followed another. How could they be happy when their country’s
honor was at stake?

Especially after the railway had been finished was it manifest that
Diamante was like an oasis in a great desert. An oasis is exposed to the
drifting sands of the desert and to robbers and wild beasts. So was also
Diamante. The oasis would have to spread over the whole desert to feel
secure. Diamante began to believe that it could never be happy until the
whole world worshipped its Christ-image.

It now happened that everything that Diamante hoped and strove for was
denied it.

Donna Micaela and all Diamante longed to get Gaetano back. When the
railway was ready Donna Micaela went to Rome and asked for his release,
but it was refused her. The king and the queen would have liked to help
her, but they could not. You know who was minister then. He ruled Italy
with a hand of iron; do you think that he allowed the king to pardon a
rebellious Sicilian?

The people also longed that the Christchild of Diamante should have the
adoration that was his due, and Donna Micaela sought an audience for
his sake with the old man in the Vatican. “Holy Father,” she said, “let
me tell you what has been taking place in Diamante on the slopes of
Etna!” And when she had told of all the miracles performed by the image,
she asked the pope to have the old church of San Pasquale purified and
consecrated, and to appoint a priest for the worship of the Christchild.

“Dear Princess Micaela,” said the pope, “those incidents of which you
speak, the church dares not consider miracles. But you need not at all
despair. If the Christchild wishes to be worshipped in your town, he will
give one more sign. He will show Us his will so plainly that We shall not
need to hesitate. And forgive an old man, my daughter, because he has to
be cautious!”

A third thing the people of Diamante had hoped. They had expected at last
to hear something from Gaetano. Donna Micaela journeyed also to Como,
where he was held prisoner. She had letters of recommendation from the
highest quarters in Rome, and she was sure that she would be allowed
to speak to him. But the director of the prison sent her to the prison
doctor.

The latter forbade her to speak to Gaetano.

“You wish to see the prisoner?” he said. “You shall not do it. Do you say
that he loves you and believes you to be dead? Let him think it! Let him
believe it! He has bowed his head to Death. He suffers no longing. Do you
wish him to know that you are alive, so that he may begin to long? You
wish, perhaps, to kill him? I will tell you something; if he begins to
long for life, he will be dead within three months.”

He spoke so positively that Donna Micaela understood that she must give
up seeing Gaetano. But what a disappointment, what a disappointment!

When she came home, she felt like one who has dreamt so vividly that he
cannot, even after he is awake, rouse himself from his visions. She could
not realize that all her hopes had been a mockery. She surprised herself
time after time thinking: “When I have saved Gaetano.” But now she no
longer had any hope of saving him.

She thought now of one, now of another enterprise, on which she wished to
embark. Should she drain the plain, or should she begin to quarry marble
on Etna. She hesitated and wondered. She could not keep her mind on
anything.

The same indolence that had taken possession of Donna Micaela crept
through the whole town. It was soon plain that everything that depended
on people who did not believe in the Christchild of Diamante was badly
managed and unsuccessful. Even the Etna railway was conducted in the
wrong way. Accidents were happening constantly on the steep inclines;
and the price of the tickets was too high. The people began to use the
omnibuses and post wagons again.

Donna Micaela and others with her began to think of carrying the
Christ-image out into the world. They would go out and show how he
gave health and subsistence and happiness to all who were quiet and
industrious and helped their neighbor. If people could once see, they
would certainly be converted.

“The image ought to stand on the Capitol and govern the world,” said the
people of Diamante.

“All those who govern us are incapable,” said the people. “We prefer to
be guided by the holy Christchild.”

“The Christchild is powerful and charitable; if he ruled us, the poor
would be rich, and the rich would have enough. He knows who wish to do
right. If he should come to power, they who now are ruled would sit in
the parliament. He would pass through the world like a plough with a
sharp edge, and that which now lies unprofitable in the depths would then
bear harvests.”

Before their longed-for plans came to pass, however, in the first days
of March, 1896, the news of the battle at Adna arrived. The Italians
had been defeated, and several thousands of them were killed or taken
prisoners.

A few days later there was a change of ministry in Rome. And the man who
came to power was afraid of the rage and despair of the Sicilians. To
pacify them he pardoned out several of the imprisoned socialists. The
five for whom he thought the people longed most were set free. They were
Da Felice, Bosco, Verro, Barbato and Alagona.

Ah, Micaela tried to be glad when she heard it. She tried not to weep.

She had believed that Gaetano was in prison because the Christ-image was
to break down the walls of his cell. He was sent there by the grace of
God, because he had to be forced to bow his head before the Christchild
and say: “My Lord and my God.”

But now it was not the image which had freed him; he would come out the
same heathen as before; the same yawning chasm would still exist between
them.

She tried to be glad. It was enough that he was free. What did she or her
happiness matter in comparison to that!

But it happened so with everything for which Diamante had hoped and
striven.

The great desert was very cruel to the poor oasis.




II

IN PALERMO


At last, at last, it is one o’clock at night. Those who are afraid to
oversleep rise from their beds, dress themselves and go out into the
street.

And those who have sat and hung over a café table till now start up when
they hear steps echo on the stone pavements. They shake the drowsiness
from their bodies and hurry out. They mingle in the swiftly increasing
stream of people, and the heavy feet of Time begin to move a little
faster.

Mere acquaintances press each other’s hands with heartfelt warmth. It
is plain that the same enthusiasm fills all souls. And the most absurd
people are out; old university professors, distinguished noblemen and
fine ladies, who otherwise never set their foot in the street. They are
all equally joyous.

“God! God! that he is coming, that Palermo is to have him back again!”
they say.

The Palermo students, who have not moved from their usual headquarters in
Quattro Canti all night, have provided torches and colored lanterns. They
were not to be lighted till four o’clock, when the man they expected was
to come; but about two o’clock one or two of them begin to try whether
their torches burn well. Then they light everything and greet the flames
with cheers. It is impossible to stand in darkness when so much joy is
burning within them.

In the hotels the travellers are waked and urged to get up. “There is a
festival in Palermo to-night, O signori!”

The travellers ask for whom. “For one of the socialists whom the
government has pardoned out of prison. He is coming now in the steamer
from Naples.”--“What kind of a man is he?”--“His name is Bosco, and the
people love him.”

There are preparations everywhere in the night for his sake. One of the
goatherds on Monte Pellegrino is busy tying little bunches of blue-bells
for his goats to wear in their collars. And as he has a hundred goats,
and they all wear collars--But it must be done. His goats could not
wander into Palermo the next morning without being adorned in honor of
the day.

The dressmakers have had to sit at their work till midnight to finish all
the new dresses that are to be worn that morning. And when such a little
dressmaker has finished her work for others, she has to think of herself.
She puts a couple of plumes in her hat and piles up bunches of ribbon a
yard high. To-day she must be beautiful.

The long rows of houses begin to be illuminated. Here and there a rocket
whizzes up. Fire-crackers hiss and snap at every street corner.

The flower shops along Via Vittorio Emanuele are emptied again and again.
Always more, more of the white orange-blossoms! All Palermo is filled
with the sweet fragrance of the orange-blossoms.

The gate-keeper in Bosco’s house has no peace for a moment. Magnificent
cakes and towerlike bouquets are incessantly passing up the stairway, and
poems of welcome and telegrams of congratulation are constantly coming.
There is no end to them.

The poor bronze emperor on the Piazza Bologna, poor, ugly Charles the
Fifth, who is forlorn and thin and wretched as San Giovanni in the
desert, has in some inscrutable manner got a bunch of flowers in his
hand. When the students standing on Quattro Canti, quite near by, hear of
it, they march up to the emperor in a procession, light him with their
torches, and raise a cheer for the old despot. And one of them takes his
bunch of flowers to give it to the great socialist.

Then the students march down to the harbor.

Long before they get there their torches are burnt out, but they do not
care. They come with arms about each other’s necks, singing loudly, and
sometimes breaking off in their song to shout: “Down with Crispi! Long
live Bosco!” The song begins again, but it is again broken off, because
those who cannot sing throw their arms round the singers and kiss them.

Guilds and corporations swarm out of the quarters of the town where the
same trade has been carried on for more than a thousand years. The masons
come with their band of music and their banner; there come the workers in
mosaic; here come the fishermen.

When the societies meet, they salute one another with their banners.
Sometimes they take time to stop and make speeches. Then they tell of
the five released prisoners, the five martyrs whom the government at
last has given back to Sicily. And all the people shout: “Long live
Bosco! Long live Da Felice! Long live Verro! Long live Barbato! Long live
Alagona!”

If any one who has had enough of the life in the streets comes down to
the harbor of Palermo, he stops and asks: “What place is this? Madonna
Santissima, where am I?”

For he has expected to find the harbor still deserted and dark.

All the boats and skiffs in the harbor of Palermo have been taken by
different societies and unions. They are floating about in the harbor,
richly hung with colored Venetian lights, and every minute great bunches
of rockets are sent up from them.

Over the heavy thwarts priceless rugs and hangings have been spread, and
on them sit ladies, the beautiful Palermo ladies, dressed in light silks
and shaded velvets.

The small craft glide about on the water, now in big groups, now
separately. From the big ships rise masts and oars covered with pennants
and lights, and the little harbor steam-launches dart about with funnels
wreathed in flowers.

Beneath it all the water lies and shines and mirrors and reflects, so
that the light from one lantern becomes a stream of brightness, and the
drops that fall from the oars are like a rain of gold.

Round about the harbor stand a hundred thousand, a hundred and fifty
thousand people, quite delirious with joy. They kiss one another; they
raise shouts of rapture, and they are happy, happy. They are beside
themselves with joy. Many of them cannot keep from weeping.

Fire, that is joy. It is good that fires can be lighted. Suddenly a great
blaze flames up on Monte Pellegrino, just over the harbor. Mighty flames
burst from all the pointed mountain walls surrounding the town. There are
fires on Monte Falcone, on San Martino, on the mountain of The Thousands,
where Garibaldi passed.

Far out on the sea comes the big Naples steamer. And on the steamer is
Bosco, the socialist.

He cannot sleep that night. He has gone up from his cabin, and paces to
and fro on the deck. And then his old mother, who has journeyed to Naples
to meet him, comes from her cabin to keep him company. But he cannot
talk with her. He is thinking that he will soon be at home. Ah, Palermo,
Palermo!

He has been in prison over two years. They have been two years of
suffering and longing, and has it been of any good? That is what he
wishes to know. Has it been of benefit that he has been faithful to
the cause, and gone to prison? Has Palermo thought of him? Have his
sufferings won the cause a single follower?

His old mother sits crouched on the gangway, and shivers in the chill
of the night. He has asked her, but she knows nothing of such things.
She speaks of little Francesco and little Lina, how they have grown. She
knows nothing of what he is struggling for.

Now he comes to his mother, takes her by the wrist, leads her to the
railing, and asks her if she sees anything far away to the south. She
looks out over the water with her dim eyes, and sees only the night, only
the black night on the water. She does not see at all that a cloud of
fire is floating on the horizon.

Then he begins to walk again, and she creeps down under cover. He does
not need to talk to her; it is joy enough to have him home again after
only two years’ absence. He was condemned to be away for twenty-four.
She had not expected ever to see him again. But now the king has showed
grace. For the king is a good man. If only he were allowed to be as good
as he wished!

Bosco walks across the deck, and asks the sailors if they do not see the
golden cloud on the horizon.

“That is Palermo,” say the seamen. “There is always a bright light
floating over it at night.”

It cannot be anything that concerns him. He tries to persuade himself
that nothing is being done for him. He can hardly expect every one all at
once to have become socialists.

But after a while he thinks: “Still there must be something unusual going
on. All the sailors are gathering forward at the bow.”

“Palermo is burning,” say the seamen.

Yes, that is what it must be.--It is because he has suffered so terribly
that he expects something should be done for him.

Then the sailors see the fires on the mountains.

It cannot be a conflagration. It must be some saint’s day. They ask one
another what day it is.

He, too, tries to believe that it is some such thing. He asks his mother
if it is a feast-day. They have so many of them.

They come nearer and nearer. The thundering sound of the festival in the
great city meets them.

“All Palermo is singing and playing to-night,” says one.

“A telegram must have come of a victory in Africa,” says another.

No one has a thought that it can be for his sake. He goes and places
himself at the stern in order not to see anything. He will not deceive
himself with false hopes. Would all Palermo be illuminated for a poor
socialist?

Then his mother comes and fetches him. “Do not stand there! Come and see
Palermo! It must be a king who is coming there to-day. Come and look at
Palermo!”

He considers a moment. No, he does not think that any king is visiting
Sicily just now. But he cannot dare to think, when no one else, not even
his mother--

All at once every one on the steamer gives a loud cry. It sounds almost
like a cry of distress. A big cutter has steered right down on them and
now glides along by the steamer’s side.

The cutter is all flowers and lights; over the railing hang red and white
silken draperies, everybody on board is dressed in red and white. Bosco
stands on the steamer and looks to see what that beautiful messenger
brings. Then the sail turns, and on its white surface shines to meet him:
“Long live Bosco!”

It is his name. Not a saint’s, not a king’s, not the victorious
general’s! The homage is for no other on the steamer. His name, his name!

The cutter sends up some rockets; a whole cloud of stars rain down, and
then it is gone.

He enters the harbor, and there is jubilation and enthusiasm and cheering
and adoration. People say: “We do not know how he will be able to live
through it.”

But as soon as he realizes the homage, he feels that he does not at all
deserve it. He would like to fall on his knees before those hundred and
fifty thousand people who pay him homage and pray to them for forgiveness
that he is so powerless, that he has done nothing for them.

       *       *       *       *       *

As though by a special fate, Donna Micaela is in Palermo that night. She
is there to start one of those new undertakings which she thinks she
ought to organize in order to retain life and reason. She is probably
there either on account of the draining or of the marble quarry.

She is down at the harbor; like all the others. People notice her as she
pushes her way forward to the edge of the water: a tall, dark woman, with
an air of being some one, a pale face with marked features and imploring,
longing, passionate eyes.

During the reception in the harbor, Donna Micaela is fighting out a
strange struggle. “If it were Gaetano,” she thinks, “could I, could I--

“If it were for him all these people were rejoicing, could I--”

There is so much joy--a joy the like of which she has never seen. The
people love one another and are like brothers. And that not only because
a socialist is coming home, but because they all believe that the earth
will soon be happy. “If he were to come now, while all this joy is
roaring about me,” she thinks. “Could I, could I--”

She sees Bosco’s carriage trying to force a way through the crowd. It
moves forward step by step. For long moments it stands quite still. It
will take several hours to come up from the harbor.

“If it were he, and I saw every one crowding round him, could I forbear
from throwing myself into his arms? Could I?”

       *       *       *       *       *

As soon as she can work her way out of the crowd she takes a carriage,
drives out of Palermo, and passes through the plain of Conca d’Oro to the
big Cathedral of the old Norman kings in Monreale.

She goes in, and stands face to face with the most beautiful image
of Christ that human art has created. High up in the choir sits the
blessing-giving Christ in glowing mosaic. He is mighty and mysterious and
majestic. Without number are they who make a pilgrimage to Monreale in
order to feel the consolation of gazing upon his face. Without number are
they who in far distant lands long for him.

The ground rocks under any one who sees him for the first time. His eyes
compel the knees of the foreigner to bend. Without being conscious of it
the lips falter: “Thou, God, art God.”

About the walls of the temple glow the great events of the world in
wonderful mosaic pictures. They only lead to him. They are only there to
say: “All the past is his; all the present belongs to him, and all the
future.”

The mysteries of life and death dwell within that head.

There lives the spirit which directs the fate of the world. There glows
the love which shall lead the world to salvation.

And Donna Micaela calls to him: “Thou son of God, do not part me from
thee! Let no man have power to part me from thee!”




III

THE HOME-COMING


It is a strange thing to come home. While yet on the journey, you cannot
at all realize how strange it will be.

When you come down to Reggio on the Strait of Messina, and see Sicily
emerge from the sea like a bank of fog, you are at first almost
impatient. “Is it nothing else?” you say. “It is only a land like all
others.”

And when you disembark at Messina you are still impatient. Something
ought to have happened while you have been away. It is dreadful to be met
by the same poverty, the same rags, the same misery as when you went away.

You see that the spring has come. The fig-trees are again in leaf; the
grape-vines send out tendrils which grow yards long in a few hours, and a
mass of peas and beans are spread out on the fruit-stands by the harbor.

If you glance towards the heights above the town, you see that the gray
cactus plants that climb along the edges of the cliffs are covered with
blood-red flowers. They have blossomed everywhere like little, glowing
flames. It looks as if the flower cups had been filled with fire, which
now is breaking out.

But, however much the cactus blossoms, it is still gray and dusty and
cobwebby. You say to yourself that the cactus is like Sicily. However
many springs it may blossom, it is still the gray land of poverty.

It is hard to realize that everything has remained quiet and the same.
Scylla and Charybdis ought to have begun to roar as in former days. The
stone giant in the Girgenti temple should have risen with reconstructed
limbs. The temple of Selinunto ought to have raised itself from its
ruins. All Sicily should have awakened.

If you continue your journey from Messina down the coast, you are still
impatient. You see that the peasants are still ploughing with wooden
ploughs and that their horses are just as thin and broken and jaded.

Yes, everything is the same. The sun sheds its light over the earth like
a rain of color; the pelargoniums bloom at the roadside; the sea is a
soft pale blue, and caresses the shore.

Wild mountains with bold peaks line the coast. Etna’s lofty top shines in
the distance.

You notice all at once that something strange is taking place. All your
impatience is gone. Instead you rejoice in the blossoming earth and in
the mountains and in the sea. You are reclaimed by the beautiful earth
as a bit of her lost property. There is no time to think of anything but
tufts and stones.

At last you approach your real home, the home of your childhood. What
wicked thoughts have filled your mind while you have been away! You never
wished to see that wretched home again, because you had suffered too much
there. And then you see the old walled town from afar, and it smiles at
you innocently, unconscious of its guilt. “Come and love me once more,”
it says. And you can only be happy and grateful because it is willing to
accept your love.

Ah, when you go up the zigzag path that leads to the gate of the town!
The light shade of the olive-tree falls over you. Was it meant as a
caress? A little lizard scampers along a wall. You have to stop and
look. May not the lizard be a friend of your childhood who wishes to say
good-day?

Suddenly a fear strikes you. Your heart begins to throb and beat. You
remember that you do not know what you may be going to hear when you come
home. No one has written letters; you have received none. Everything that
recalled home you have put away. It seemed the most sensible way, since
you were never to come home again. Up to that moment your feelings for
your home have been dead and indifferent.

But in that moment you do not know how you can bear it if everything is
not exactly the same on the mountain of your birth. It will be a mortal
blow if there is a single palm missing on Monte Chiaro or if a single
stone has loosened from the town wall.

Where is the big agave at the turn of the cliff? The agave is not
there; it has blossomed and been cut down. And the stone bench at the
street-corner is broken. You will miss that bench; it has been such a
pleasant resting-place. And look, they have built a barn on the green
meadow under the almond-trees. You will never again be able to stretch
out there in the flowering clover.

You are afraid of every step. What will you meet next?

You are so moved that you feel that you could weep if a single old
beggar-woman has died in your absence.

No, you did not know that to come home was so strange.

You came out of prison a few weeks ago, and the torpor of the prison
still has possession of you. You hardly know if you will take the trouble
to go home. Your beloved is dead; it is too terrible to tear your longing
from its grave. So you drift aimlessly about, and let one day pass like
the next. At last you pluck up courage. You must go home to your poor
mother.

And when you are there, you feel that you have been longing for every
stone, every blade of grass.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ever since he came into the shop Donna Elisa has thought: “Now I will
tell him of Micaela. Perhaps he does not even know that she is alive.”
But she puts it off from minute to minute, not only because she wishes to
have him for a while to herself alone, but also because as soon as she
mentions Micaela’s name he will fall into the anguish and misery of love.
For Micaela will not marry him; she has said so to Donna Elisa a thousand
times. She would like to free him from prison, but she will not be the
wife of an atheist.

Only for one half-hour will Donna Elisa keep Gaetano for herself; only
for one half-hour.

But even so long she may not sit with his hand in hers, asking him a
thousand questions, for the people have learned that he has come. All at
once the whole street is full of those who wish to see him. Donna Elisa
has bolted the door, for she knew that she would not have him in peace a
moment after they had discovered him, but it was of little avail. They
knock on the windows, and pound on the door.

“Don Gaetano,” they cry; “Don Gaetano!”

Gaetano comes laughing out to the steps. They wave their caps and cheer.
He hurries down into the crowd, and embraces one after another.

But that is not what they wish. He must go up on the steps and make a
speech. He must tell them how cruel the government has been to him, and
how he has suffered in prison.

Gaetano laughs still, and stations himself on the steps. “Prison,” he
says; “what is it to talk about? I have had my soup every day, and that
is more than many of you can say.”

Little Gandolfo swings his cap and calls to him: “There are many more
socialists in Diamante now than when you went away, Don Gaetano.”

“How else could it be?” he laughs. “Everybody must become a socialist. Is
socialism anything dreadful or terrible? Socialism is an idyl. It is an
idyl of one’s own home and happy work, of which every one dreams from his
childhood. A whole world filled with--”

He stops, for he has cast a glance towards the summer-palace. There
stands Donna Micaela on one of the balconies, and looks down at him.

He does not think for a moment that it is an illusion or a hallucination.
He sees instantly that she is flesh and blood. But just for that
reason--and also because the prison life has taken all his strength from
him, so that he cannot be considered a well person--

He feels a terrible difficulty in holding himself upright. He clutches
in the air with his hands, tries to get support from the door-post, but
nothing helps. His legs give way under him; he slides down the steps and
strikes his head on the stones.

He lies there like one dead.

Every one rushes to him, carries him in, runs after surgeon and doctor,
prescribes, talks, and proposes a thousand ways to help him.

Donna Elisa and Pacifica get him finally into one of the bedrooms. Luca
drives the people out and places himself on guard before the closed door.
Donna Micaela, who came in with the others, was taken first of them all
by the hand and led out. She was not allowed to stay in at all. Luca had
himself seen Gaetano fall as if from a blow on the temple when he caught
sight of her.

Then the doctor comes, and he makes one attempt after another to rouse
Gaetano. He is not successful; Gaetano lies as if turned to stone. The
doctor thinks that he received a dangerous blow on the head when he fell.
He does not know whether he will succeed in bringing him to life.

The swoon in itself was nothing, but that blow on the hard edge of the
stone steps--

In the house there is an eager bustle. The poor people outside can only
listen and wait.

There they stand the livelong day outside Donna Elisa’s door. There stand
Donna Concetta and Donna Emilia. No love has been lost between them in
former times, but to-day they stand beside one another and mourn.

Many anxious eyes peer in through the windows of Donna Elisa’s house.
Little Gandolfo and old Assunta from the Cathedral steps, and the poor
old chair-maker, stand there the whole afternoon without tiring. It is so
terrible that Gaetano is going to die just when they have got him back
again.

The blind stand and wait as if they expected him to give them their
sight, and the poor people, both from Geraci and Corvaja, are waiting to
hear how it will turn out for their young lord, the last Alagona.

He wished them well, and he had great strength and power. If he could
only have lived--

“God has taken his hand from Sicily,” they say. “He lets all those perish
who wish to help the people.”

All the afternoon and evening, and even till midnight, the crowd of
people are still outside Donna Elisa’s house. At precisely twelve o’clock
Donna Elisa throws open the shop-door and comes out on the steps. “Is he
better?” they all cry at the sight of her.--“No, he is not better.”

Then there is silence; but at last a single trembling voice asks: “Is he
worse?”--“No, no; he is not worse. He is the same. The doctor is with
him.”

Donna Elisa has thrown a black shawl over her head and carries a lantern
in her hand. She goes down the steps to the street, where the people are
sitting and lying, closely packed one beside one another. She makes her
way quietly through them.

“Is Gandolfo here?” she asks. “Yes, Donna Elisa.” And Gandolfo comes
forward to her.

“You must come with me and open your church for me.”

Every one who hears Donna Elisa say that, understands that she wishes
to go to the Christchild in the church of San Pasquale and pray for
Gaetano. They rise and wish to go with her.

Donna Elisa is much touched by their sympathy. She opens her heart to
them.

“I will tell you something,” she says, and her voice trembles
exceedingly. “I have had a dream. I do not know how I could sleep
to-night. But while I was sitting at the bedside, and was most anxious,
I did fall asleep. I had scarcely closed my eyes before I saw the
Christchild before me in his crown and gold shoes, as he stands out in
San Pasquale. And he spoke in this way to me: ‘Make the unhappy woman who
is on her knees praying in my church your son’s wife, then Gaetano will
be well.’ He hardly had time to say it before I awoke, and when I opened
my eyes, I seemed to see the Christchild disappearing through the wall.
And now I must go out and see if any one is there.

“But now you all hear that I vow that if there is any woman out in the
church of San Pasquale, I shall do what the image commanded me. Even if
it is the poorest girl from the street, I shall take charge of her and
make her my son’s wife.”

When Donna Elisa has spoken, she and all those who have waited in the
street go out to San Pasquale. The poor people are filled with shuddering
expectation. They can scarcely contain themselves from rushing by Donna
Elisa, in order to see if there is any one in the church.

Fancy if it is a gypsy girl who has sought shelter there for the night!
Who can be in the church at night except some poor, homeless wanderer?
Donna Elisa has made a terrible vow.

At last they come to Porta Etnea, and from there they go quickly,
quickly down the hill. The saints preserve us, the church door is open!
Some one really is there.

The lantern shakes in Donna Elisa’s hand. Gandolfo wishes to take it from
her, but she will keep it. “In God’s name, in God’s name,” she murmurs as
she goes into the church.

The people crowd in after her. They almost crush one another to death in
the door, but their excitement keeps them silent, no one says a word. All
gaze at the high altar. Is any one there? Is any one there? The little
hanging-lamp over the image shines pitifully faint. Is any one there?

Yes, some one is there. There is a woman there. She is on her knees,
praying, and her head is so deeply bent that they cannot see who she is.
But when she hears steps behind her she lifts her long, bowed neck and
looks up. It is Donna Micaela.

At first she is frightened and starts up as if she wished to escape.
Donna Elisa is also frightened, and they look at one another as if they
had never met before. Then Donna Micaela says in a very low voice: “You
have come to pray for him, sister-in-law.” And the people see her move a
little way along so that Donna Elisa may have room directly in front of
the image.

Donna Elisa’s hand trembles so that she has to set the lantern down on
the floor, and her voice is quite hoarse as she says: “Has none other but
you been here to-night, Micaela?”--“No, none other.”

Donna Elisa has to support herself against the wall to keep from falling,
and Donna Micaela sees it. She is instantly beside her and puts her
arm about her waist. “Sit down, sit down!” She leads her to the altar
platform and kneels down in front of her. “Is he so ill? We will pray for
him.”

“Micaela,” says Donna Elisa, “I thought that I should find help
here.”--“Yes, you shall see, you will.”--“I dreamed that the image
came to me, that he came to me and said that I was to come here.”--“He
has also helped us many times before.”--“But he said this to me: ‘Make
the unhappy woman who is on her knees praying before my altar your
son’s wife, then your son will be well.’”--“What do you say that he
said?”--“I was to make her who was kneeling and praying out here my son’s
wife.”--“And you were willing to do it? You did not know whom you would
meet!”

“On the way I made a vow--and those who followed me heard it--that
whoever it might be, I would take her in my arms and lead her to my home.
I thought that it was some poor woman whom God wished to help.”--“It is
one indeed.”--“I was in despair when I saw that there was no one here but
you.”

Donna Micaela does not answer; she gazes up at the image. “Is it your
will? Is it your will?” she whispers anxiously.

Donna Elisa continues to bemoan herself. “I saw him so plainly, and
he has never deceived before. I thought that some poor girl who had
no marriage portion had prayed to him for a husband. Such things have
happened before. What shall I do now?”

She laments and bewails; she cannot get away from the thought that it
ought to be a poor woman. Donna Micaela grows impatient. She takes her
by the arm and shakes her. “But Donna Elisa, Donna Elisa!”

Donna Elisa does not listen to her; she continues her laments. “What
shall I do? what shall I do?”

“Why, make the poor woman who was kneeling and praying here your son’s
wife, Donna Elisa!”

Donna Elisa looks up. Such a face as she sees before her! So bewitching,
so captivating, so smiling!

But she may not look at it for more than a second. Donna Micaela hides it
instantly in Donna Elisa’s old black dress.

       *       *       *       *       *

Donna Micaela and Donna Elisa go together into the town. The street
winds so that they cannot see Donna Elisa’s house until they are quite
near. When it at last comes into view they see that the shop windows are
lighted up. Four gigantic wax-candles are burning behind the bunches of
rosaries.

Both the women press each other’s hands. “He lives!” one whispers to the
other. “He lives!”

“You must not tell him anything about what the image commanded you to
do,” says Donna Micaela to Donna Elisa.

Outside the shop they embrace one another and each goes her own way.

In a little while Gaetano comes out on the steps of the shop. He stands
still for a moment and breathes in the fresh night air. Then he sees how
lights are burning in the dark palace across the street.

Gaetano breathes short and panting; he seems almost afraid to go further.
Suddenly he dashes across like some one going to meet an unavoidable
misfortune. He finds the door to the summer-palace unlocked, takes the
stairs in two bounds, and bursts open the door to the music-room without
knocking.

Donna Micaela is sitting there, wondering if he will come now in the
night or the next morning. Then she hears his step outside in the
gallery. She is seized with terror; how will he be? She has longed so
unspeakably for him. Will he really be so that all that longing will be
satisfied?

And will no more walls rise between them? Will they for once be able to
tell each other everything? Will they speak of love, and not of socialism?

When he opens the door she tries to go to meet him, but she cannot; she
is trembling in every limb. She sits down and hides her face in her hands.

She expects him to throw his arms about her and kiss her, but that he
does not do. It is not Gaetano’s way to do what people expect of him.

As soon as he could stand upright he has thrown on his clothes to come
to see her. He is apparently wildly gay when he comes now. He would
have liked her to take it lightly also. He will not be agitated. He had
fainted in the forenoon. He could stand nothing.

He stands quietly beside her until she regains her composure. “You have
weak nerves,” he says. That is actually all he says.

She and Donna Elisa and every one is convinced that he has come to clasp
her in his arms and say that he loves her. But just for that reason it is
impossible for Gaetano. Some people are malicious; it is their nature
never to do just what they ought to do.

Gaetano begins to tell her of his journey; he does not speak even of
socialism, but talks of express-trains and conductors and curious
travelling companions.

Donna Micaela sits and looks at him; her eyes beg and implore more and
more eagerly. Gaetano seems to be glad and happy to see her, but why can
he not say what he has to say?

“Have you been on the Etna railway?” she asks.

“Yes,” he answers, and begins quite unconstrainedly to speak of the
beauty and usefulness of the road. He knows nothing of how it came to be.

Gaetano is saying to himself that he is a brute. Why does he not speak
the words for which she is longing? But why is she sitting there so
humbly? Why does she show that he needs only to stretch out his hand and
take her? He is desperately, stormily happy to be near her, but he feels
so sure of her, so certain. It is so amusing to torture her.

The people of Diamante are still standing outside in the street, and they
all feel as great a happiness as if they had given away a daughter in
marriage.

They have been patient till now in order to give Gaetano time to declare
himself. But now it surely must be accomplished. And they begin to
shout:--

“Long live Gaetano! long live Micaela!”

Donna Micaela looks up with inexpressible dismay. He surely must
understand that she has nothing to do with it.

She goes out to the gallery and sends Luca down with the request that
they will be silent.

When she comes back, Gaetano has risen. He offers her his hand; he wishes
to go.

Donna Micaela puts out her hand almost without knowing what she is doing.
But then she draws it back; “No, no,” she says.

He wishes to go, and who knows whether he will come again on the morrow.
She has not been able to talk to him; she has not been able to say a word
to him of all that she wished to say.

Surely there was no need for them to be like ordinary lovers. That man
had given her life all its life for many years. Whether he spoke to her
of love or not was of no importance; yet she wishes to tell him what he
has been to her.

And now, just now. One has to make the most of one’s opportunities when
Gaetano is in question. She dares not let him go.

“You must not go yet,” she says. “I have something to say to you.”

She draws forward a chair for him; she herself places herself a little
behind him. His eyes are too gay to-night, they trouble her.

Then she begins to speak. She lays before him the great, hidden treasures
of her life. They were all the words he had said to her and all the
dreams he had set her to dreaming. She had not lost one. She had
collected and saved them up. They had been the only richness in her poor
life.

In the beginning she speaks fast, as if repeating a lesson. She is afraid
of him; she does not know whether he likes her to speak. At last she
dares to look at him. He is serious now, no longer malicious. He sits
still and listens as if he would not lose a syllable. Just now his face
was sickly and ashen, but now it suddenly changes. His face begins to
shine as though transfigured.

She talks and talks. She looks at him, and now she is beautiful. How
could she help being beautiful? At last she can speak out to him, she
can tell him how love came to her and how it has never left her since.
Finally she can tell him how he has been all the world to her.

Words cannot say enough; she takes his hand and kisses it.

He lets her do it without moving. The color in his cheeks grows no
deeper, but it becomes clearer, more transparent. She remembers Gandolfo,
who had said that Gaetano’s face was so white that it shone.

He does not interrupt her. She tells him about the railway, speaks of one
miracle after another. He looks at her now and then. His eyes glow at the
sight of her. He is not by any means making fun of her.

She wonders exceedingly what is passing in him. He looks as if what
she said was nothing new to him. He seems to recognize everything she
says. Could it be that his love for her was the same as that she felt
for him? Was it connected with every noble feeling in him? Had it been
the elevating power in his life? Had it given wings to his artistic
powers? Had it taught him to love the poor and the oppressed? Is it once
more taking possession of him, making him feel that he is an artist, an
apostle, that nothing is too high for him?

But as he is still silent she thinks that perhaps he will not be tied to
her. He loves her, but possibly he wishes to be a free man. Perhaps he
thinks that she is not a suitable wife for a socialist.

Her blood begins to boil. She thinks that he perhaps believes that she is
sitting there and begging for his love.

She has told him almost everything that has happened while he has been
away. Now she suddenly breaks off in her story.

“I have loved you,” she says. “I shall always love you, and I think that
I should like you to tell me once that you love me. It would make the
parting easier to bear.”

“Would it?” he says.

“Can I be your wife?” she says, and her voice trembles with indignation.
“I no longer fear your teachings as I did; I am not afraid of your poor;
I wish to turn the world upside down, I, as well as you. But I am a
believer. How can I live with you if you do not agree with me in that? Or
perhaps you would win me to unbelief? Then the world would be dead for
me. Everything would lose its meaning, its significance. I should be a
miserable, destitute creature. We must part.”

“Really!” he turns towards her. His eyes begin to glow with impatience.

“You may go now,” she says quietly; “I have said to you everything I
wished to say. I should have wished that you had something to say to me.
But perhaps it is better as it is. We will not make it harder to part
than it need be.”

One of Gaetano’s hands holds her hands firmly and closely, the other
holds her head still. Then he kisses her.

Was she mad, that she could think that he would let anything, anything in
the world, part them now?




IV

ONLY OF THIS WORLD


As she grew up everybody said of her: “She is going to be a saint, a
saint.”

Her name was Margherita Cornado. She lived in Girgenti on the south side
of Sicily, in the great mining district. When she was a child her father
was a miner; later he inherited a little money, so that he no longer
needed to work.

There was a little, narrow, miserable roof-garden on Margherita Cornado’s
house in Girgenti. A small and steep stairway led up to it, and one had
to creep out through a low door. But it was well worth the trouble. When
you reached the top you saw not only a mass of roofs, but the whole
air over the town was gaily crowded with the towers and façades of all
Girgenti’s churches. And every façade and every tower was a quivering
lace-work of images, of loggias, of glowing canopies.

And outside the town there was a wide plain which sloped gently down
towards the sea, and a semicircle of hills that guarded the plain. The
plain was glittering red; the ocean was blue as enamel; the hillsides
were yellow; it was a whole orient of warmth and color.

But there was even more to be seen. Ancient temples were dotted about
the valley. Ruins and strange old towers were everywhere, as in a fairy
world.

As Margherita Cornado grew up, she used to spend most of her days there;
but she never looked out over the dazzling landscape. She was occupied
with other things.

Her father used to tell her of the life in the sulphur mines at Grotte,
where he had worked. While Margherita Cornado sat on the airy terrace,
she thought that she was incessantly walking about the dark mine veins,
and finding her way through dim shafts.

She could not help thinking of all the misery that existed in the mines;
especially she thought of the children, who carried the ore up to the
surface. “The little wagons,” they called them. That expression never
left her mind. Poor, poor little wagons, the little mine-wagons!

They came in the morning, and each followed a miner down into the mine.
As soon as he had dug out enough ore, he loaded the mine-wagon with a
basket of it, and then the latter began to climb. Several of them met on
the way, so that there was a long procession. And they began to sing:--

    “One journey made in struggling and pain,
    Nineteen times to be travelled again.”

When they finally reached the light of day, they emptied their baskets
of ore and threw themselves on the ground to rest a moment. Most of them
dragged themselves over to the sulphurous pools near the shaft of the
mine and drank the pestiferous water.

But they soon had to go down again, and they gathered at the mouth of
the mine. As they clambered down, they cried: “Lord and God, have mercy,
have mercy, have mercy!”

Every journey the little wagons made, their song grew more feeble. They
groaned and cried as they crawled up the paths of the mine.

The little wagons were bathed in perspiration; the baskets of ore ground
holes in their shoulders. As they went up and down they sang:--

    “Seven more trips without pause for breath,
    The pain of living is worse than death.”

Margherita Cornado had suffered for those poor children all her own
childhood. And because she was always thinking of their hardships, people
believed that she would be a saint.

Neither did she forget them as she grew older. As soon as she was grown,
she went to Grotte, where most of the mines are, and when the little
wagons came out into the daylight, she was waiting for them by the shaft
with fresh, clean water. She wiped the perspiration from their faces, and
she dressed the wounds on their shoulders. It was not much that she could
do for them, but soon the little wagons felt that they could not go on
with their work any day that Margherita Cornado did not come and comfort
them.

But unfortunately for the little wagons, Margherita was very beautiful.
One day one of the mining-engineers happened to see her as she was
relieving the children, and instantly fell very much in love with her.

A few weeks after, Margherita Cornado stopped coming to the Grotte mines.
She sat at home instead and sewed on her wedding outfit. She was going
to marry the mining-engineer. It was a good match, and connected her with
the chief people of the town, so she could not care for the little wagons
any longer.

A few days before the wedding the old beggar, Santuzza, who was
Margherita’s god-mother, came and asked to speak to her. They betook
themselves to the roof-garden in order to be alone.

“Margherita,” said the old woman, “you are in the midst of such happiness
and magnificence that perhaps there is no use speaking to you of those
who are in need and sorrow. You have forgotten all such things.”

Margherita reproved her for speaking so.

“I come with a greeting to you from my son, Orestes. He is in trouble,
and he needs your advice.”

“You know that you can speak freely to me, Santuzza,” said the girl.

“Orestes is no longer at the Grotte mines; you know that, I suppose. He
is at Racalmuto. And he is very badly off there. Not that the pay is so
bad, but the engineer is a man who grinds down the poor to the last drop
of blood.”

The old woman told how the engineer tortured the miners. He made them
work over time; he fined them if they missed a day. He did not look after
the mines properly; there was one cave-in after another. No one was
secure of his life as long as he was under earth.

“Well, Margherita, Orestes had a son. A splendid boy; just ten years old.
The engineer came and wished to buy the boy from Orestes, and set him to
work with the little wagons. But Orestes said no. His boy should not be
ruined by such work.

“Then the engineer threatened him, and said that Orestes would be
dismissed from the mine.”

Santuzza paused.

“And then?” asked Margherita.

“Yes, then Orestes gave his son to the engineer. The next day the boy
got a whipping from him. He beat him every day. The boy grew more and
more feeble. Orestes saw it, and asked the engineer to spare the boy,
but he had no mercy. He said that the boy was lazy, and he continued to
persecute him. And now he is dead. My grandson is dead, Margherita.”

The girl had quite forgotten all her own happiness. She was once more
only the miner’s daughter, the protector of the little wagons, the poor
child who used to sit on the bright terrace and weep over the hardships
of the black mines.

“Why do you let the man live?” she cried.

The old woman looked at her furtively. Then she crept close to her with a
knife. “Orestes sends you this with a thousand questions,” she said.

Margherita Cornado took the knife, kissed the blade, and gave it back
without a word.

It was the evening before the wedding. The parents of the bridegroom were
awaiting their son. He was to come home from the mines towards night; but
he never came. Later in the night a servant was sent to the Grotte mines
to look for him, and found him a mile from Girgenti. He lay murdered at
the roadside.

A search for the murderer was immediately instituted. Strict examinations
of the miners were held, but the culprit could not be discovered. There
were no witnesses; no one could be prevailed upon to betray a comrade.

Then Margherita Cornado appeared and denounced Orestes, who was the son
of her god-mother, Santuzza, and who had not moved to Racalmuto at all.

She did it although she had heard afterwards that her betrothed had
been guilty of everything of which Santuzza had accused him. She did it
although she herself had sealed his doom by kissing the knife.

She had hardly accused Orestes before she repented of it; she was filled
with the anguish of remorse.

In another land what she had done would not have been considered a crime,
but it is so regarded in Sicily. A Sicilian would rather die than be an
informer.

Margherita Cornado enjoyed no rest either by night or by day. She had a
continual aching feeling of anguish in her heart, a great unhappiness
dwelt in her.

She was not severely judged, because every one knew that she had loved
the murdered man and thought that Santuzza had been too cruel towards
her. No one spoke of her disdainfully, and no one refused to salute her.

But it made no difference to her that others were kind to her. Remorse
filled her soul and tortured her like an aching wound. Orestes had
been sentenced to the galleys for life. Santuzza had died a few weeks
after her son’s sentence had been passed, and Margherita could not ask
forgiveness of either of them.

She called on the saints, but they would not help her. It seemed as if
nothing in the world could have the power to free her from the horror of
remorse.

At that time the famous Franciscan monk, Father Gondo, was sojourning in
the neighborhood of Girgenti. He was preaching a pilgrimage to Diamante.

It did not disturb Father Gondo not to have the pope acknowledge the
Christ-image in the church of San Pasquale as a miracle-worker. He had
met the blind singers on his wanderings and had heard them tell of the
image. Through long, happy nights he had sat at the feet of Father Elia
and Brother Tommaso, and from sunset to sunrise they had told him of the
image.

And now the famous preacher had begun to send all who were in trouble
to the great miracle-worker. He warned the people not to let that holy
time pass unheeded. “The Christchild,” he said, “had not hitherto been
much worshipped in Sicily. The time had come when he wished to possess
a church and followers. And to effect it he let his holy image perform
miracle after miracle.”

Father Gondo, who had passed his novitiate in the monastery of Aracoeli
on the Capitol, told the people of the image of the Christchild that
was there, and of the thousand miracles he had performed. “And now that
good little child wishes to be worshipped in Sicily,” said Father Gondo.
“Let us hesitate no longer, and hasten to him. For the moment heaven is
generous. Let us be the first to acknowledge the image! Let us be like
the shepherds and wise men of the East; let us go to the holy child
while he is still lying on his bed of straw in the miserable hut!”

Margherita Cornado was filled with a new hope when she heard him. She was
the first to obey Father Gondo’s summons. After her others joined him
also. Forty pilgrims marched with him through the plateaus of the inland
to Diamante.

They were all very poor and unhappy. But Father Gondo made them march
with song and prayer. Soon their eyes began to shine as if the star of
Bethlehem had gone before them.

“Do you know,” said Father Gondo, “why God’s son is greater than all the
saints? Because he gives the soul holiness; because he forgives sins;
because he grants to the spirit a blessed trust in God; because his
kingdom is not of this world.”

When his little army looked tired, he gave them new life by telling them
of the miracles the image had performed. The legends of the blind singers
were like cooling drinks and cheering wine. The poor wanderers in the
barren lands of Sicily walked with a lighter step, as if they were on
their way to Nazareth to see the carpenter’s son.

“He will take all our burdens from us,” said Father Gondo. “When we come
back our hearts will be freed from every care.”

And during the wandering through the scorched, glowing desert, where no
trees gave cooling shade, and where the water was bitter with salt and
sulphur, Margherita Cornado felt that her heart’s torments were relieved.
“The little king of heaven will take away my pain,” she said.

At last, one day in May, the pilgrims reached the foot of the hill of
Diamante. There the desert stopped. They saw about them groves of
olive-trees and fresh green leaves. The mountain shone; the town shone.
They felt that they had come to a place in the shadow of God’s grace.

They toiled joyfully up the zigzag path, and with loud and exultant
voices sang an old pilgrims’ song.

When they had gone some way up the mountain, people came running from
Diamante to meet them. When the people heard the monotonous sound of the
old song, they threw aside their work and hurried out. And the people of
Diamante embraced and kissed the pilgrims.

They had expected them long ago; they could not understand why they
had not come before. The Christ-image of Diamante was a wonderful
miracle-worker; he was so compassionate, so loving that every one ought
to come to him.

When Margherita Cornado heard them she felt as if her heart was already
healed of its pain. All the people of Diamante comforted her and
encouraged her. “He will certainly help you; he helps every one,” they
said. “No one has prayed to him in vain.”

At the town-gate the pilgrims parted. The townspeople took them to their
homes, so that they might rest after their journey. In an hour they were
all to meet at the Porta Etnea in order to go out to the image together.

But Margherita had not the patience to wait a whole hour. She asked her
way out to the church of San Pasquale and went there alone before all the
others.

When Father Gondo and the pilgrims came out to San Pasquale an hour
later, they saw Margherita Cornado sitting on the platform by the high
altar. She was sitting still and did not seem to notice their coming. But
when Father Gondo came close up to her, she started up as if she had lain
in wait for him and threw herself upon him. She seized him by the throat
and tried to strangle him.

She was big, splendidly developed and strong. It was only after a severe
struggle that Father Gondo and two of the pilgrims succeeded in subduing
her. She was quite mad, and so violent that she had to be bound.

The pilgrims had come in a solemn procession; they sang, and held burning
candles in their hands. There was a long line of them, for many people
from Diamante had joined them. Those who came first immediately stopped
their singing; those coming after had noticed nothing and continued their
song. But then the news of what had happened passed from file to file,
and wherever it came the song stopped. It was horrible to hear how it
died away and changed into a low wail.

All the weary pilgrims realized that they had failed in their coming. All
their laborious wanderings had been in vain. They were disappointed in
their beautiful hopes. The holy image would have no consolation to offer
them.

Father Gondo himself was in despair. It was a more severe blow to him
than to any one else, for each one of the others had only his own sorrow
to think of, but he bore the sorrows of all those people in his heart.
What answer could he give to all the hopes he had awakened in them?

Suddenly one of his beautiful, child-like smiles passed over his face.
The image must wish to test his faith and that of the others. If only
they did not fail, they would certainly be helped.

He began again to sing the pilgrim song in his clear voice and went up to
the altar.

But as he came nearer to the image, he broke off in his song again. He
stopped and looked at the image with staring eyes. Then he stretched out
his hand, took the crown and brought it close to his eyes. “It is written
there; it is written there,” he murmured. And he let the crown fall from
his hand and roll down on the stone floor.

From that moment Father Gondo knew that the outcast from Aracoeli was
before him.

But he did not immediately cry it out to the people, but said instead,
with his usual gentleness,--

“My friends, I wish to tell you something strange.”

He told them of the Englishwoman who had wished to steal the Christ-image
of Aracoeli. And he told how the image had been called Antichrist and had
been cast out into the world.

“I still remember old Fra Simone,” said Father Gondo. “He never showed me
the image without saying: ‘It was this little hand that rang. It was this
little foot that kicked on the door.’

“But when I asked Fra Simone what had become of the other image, he
always said: ‘What should have become of him? The dogs of Rome have
probably dragged him away and torn him to pieces.’”

When Father Gondo had finished speaking, he went, still quite slowly and
quietly, and picked up the crown that he had just let fall to the floor.

“Now read that!” he said. And he let the crown go from man to man. The
people stood with their wax-candles in their hands and lighted up the
crown with them. Those who could read, read; the others saw that at least
there was an inscription.

And each one who had held the crown in his hand instantly extinguished
his candle.

When the last candle was put out, Father Gondo turned to his pilgrims
who had gathered about him. “I have brought you here,” he said to them,
“that you might find one who gives the soul peace and an entry to God’s
kingdom; but I have brought you wrong, for this one has no such thing to
give. His kingdom is only of this world.

“Our unfortunate sister has gone mad,” continued Father Gondo, “because
she came here and hoped for heavenly benefits. Her reason gave way when
her prayers were not heard. He could not hear her, for his kingdom is
only of this world.”

He was silent a moment, and they all looked up at him to find out what
they ought to think of it all.

He asked as quietly as before: “Shall an image which bears such words in
its crown any longer be allowed to desecrate an altar?”

“No, no!” cried the pilgrims. The people of Diamante stood silent.

Father Gondo took the image in his hands and carried it on his
outstretched arms through the church and towards the door.

But although the Father had spoken gently and humbly, his eyes had rested
the whole time sternly and with compelling force on the crowd of people.
There was not one there whom he had not subdued and mastered by the
strength of his will. Every one had felt paralyzed and without the power
of thinking independently.

As Father Gondo approached the door, he stopped and looked around. One
last commanding glance fell on the people.

“The crown also,” said Father Gondo. And the crown was handed to him.

He set the image down and went out under the stone canopy that protected
the image of San Pasquale. He whispered a word to a couple of pilgrims,
and they hurried away. They soon came back with their arms full of
branches and logs. They laid them down before Father Gondo and set them
on fire.

All who had been in the church had crowded out. They stood in the yard
outside the church, still subdued, with no will of their own. They saw
that the monk meant to burn their beloved image that helped them so, and
yet they made no resistance. They could not understand themselves why
they did not try to save the image.

When Father Gondo saw the fire kindle and therefore felt that the image
was entirely in his power, he straightened himself and his eyes flashed.

“My poor children,” he said gently, and turned to the people of Diamante.
“You have been harboring a terrible guest. How is it possible for you not
to have discovered who he is?

“What ought I to believe of you?” he continued more sternly. “You
yourselves say that the image has given you everything for which you
have prayed. Has no one in Diamante in all these years prayed for the
forgiveness of sins and the peace of the soul?

“Can it be possible? The people of Diamante have not had anything to pray
for except lottery numbers and good years and daily bread and health and
money. They have asked for nothing but the good of this world. Not one
has needed to pray for heavenly grace.

“Can it really be? No, it is impossible,” said Father Gondo joyfully,
as if filled with a sudden hope. “It is I who have made a mistake. The
people of Diamante have understood that I would not lay the image on the
fire without asking and investigating about it. You are only waiting for
me to be silent to step forward and give your testimony.

“Many will now come and say: ‘That image has made me a believer;’ and
many will say: ‘He has granted me the forgiveness of sins;’ and many will
say: ‘He has opened my eyes, so that I have been able to gaze on the
glory of heaven.’ They will come forward and speak, and I shall be mocked
and derided and compelled to bear the image to the altar and acknowledge
that I have been mistaken.”

Father Gondo stopped speaking and smiled invitingly at the people. A
quick movement passed through the crowd of listeners. Several seemed to
have the intention of coming forward and testifying. They came a few
steps, but then they stopped.

“I am waiting,” said the Father, and his eyes implored and called on the
people to come.

No one came. The whole mass of people was in wailing despair that they
would not testify to the advantage of their beloved image. But no one did
so.

“My poor children,” said Father Gondo, sadly. “You have had Antichrist
among you, and he has got possession of you. You have forgotten heaven.
You have forgotten that you possess a soul. You think only of this world.

“Formerly it was said that the people of Diamante were the most religious
in Sicily. Now it must be otherwise. The inhabitants of Diamante are
slaves of the world. Perhaps they are even infidel socialists, who love
only the earth. They can be nothing else. They have had Antichrist among
them.”

When the people were accused in such a way, they seemed at last to be
about to rise in resistance. An angry muttering passed through the ranks.

“The image is holy,” one cried. “When he came San Pasquale’s bells rang
all day.”

“Could they ring for less time to warn you of such a misfortune?”
rejoined the monk.

He went on with his accusations with growing violence. “You are
idolaters, not Christians. You serve him because he helps you. There is
nothing of the spirit of holiness in you.”

“He has been kind and merciful, like Christ,” answered the people.

“Is not just that the misfortune?” said the Father, and now all of a
sudden he was terrible in his wrath. “He has taken the likeness of Christ
to lead you astray. In that way he has been able to weave his web about
you. By scattering gifts and blessings over you, he has lured you into
his net and made you slaves of the world. Or is it not so? Perhaps some
one can come forward and say the contrary? Perhaps he has heard that some
one who is not present to-day has prayed to the image for a heavenly
grace.”

“He has taken away the power of a _jettatore_,” said one.

“Is it not he who is as great in evil as the _jettatore_ who has power
over him?” answered the father, bitterly.

They made no other attempts to defend the image. Everything that they
said seemed only to make the matter worse.

Several looked round for Donna Micaela, who was also present. She stood
among the crowd, heard and saw everything, but made no attempt to save
the image.

When Father Gondo had said that the image was Antichrist she had been
terrified, and when he showed that the people of Diamante had only asked
for the good of this world, her terror had grown. She had not dared to do
anything.

But when he said that she and all the others were in the power of
Antichrist, something in her rose against him. “No, no,” she said, “it
cannot be so.” If she should believe that an evil power had governed her
during so many years, her reason would give way. And her reason began to
defend itself.

Her faith in the supernatural broke in her like a string too tightly
stretched. She could not follow it any longer.

With infinite swiftness everything of the supernatural that she herself
had experienced flashed through her mind, and she passed sentence on it.
Was there a single proven miracle? She said to herself that there were
coincidences, coincidences.

It was like unravelling a skein. From what she herself had experienced
she passed to the miracles of other times. They were coincidences. They
were hypnotism. They were possibly legends, most of them.

The raging monk continued to curse the people with terrible words. She
tried to listen to him to get away from her own thoughts. But all she
thought was that what he said was madness and lies.

What was going on in her? Was she becoming an atheist?

She looked about for Gaetano. He was there also; he stood on the church
steps quite near the monk. His eyes rested on her. And as surely as if
she had told him it, he knew what was passing in her. But he did not
look as if he were glad or triumphant. He looked as if he wished to stop
Father Gondo, to save a little vestige of faith for her.

Donna Micaela’s thoughts had no mercy. They went on and robbed her soul.
All the glowing world of the supernatural was destroyed, crushed. She
said to herself that no one knew anything of celestial matters, nor could
know anything. Many messages had gone from earth to heaven. None had gone
from heaven to earth.

“But I will still believe in God,” she said, and clasped her hands as if
still to hold fast the last and best.

“Your eyes, people of Diamante, are wild and evil,” said Father Gondo.
“God is not in you. Antichrist has driven God away from you.”

Donna Micaela’s eyes again sought Gaetano’s. “Can you give a poor,
doubting creature something on which to live?” they seemed to ask. His
eyes met hers with proud confidence. He read in her beautiful, imploring
eyes how her trembling soul clung to him for support. He did not doubt
for a moment that he would be able to make her life beautiful and rich.

She thought of the joy that always met him wherever he showed himself.
She thought of the joy that had roared about her that night in Palermo.
She knew that it rose from the new faith in a happy earth. Could that
faith and that joy take possession of her also?

She wrung her hands in anguish. Could that new faith be anything to her?
Would she not always feel as unhappy as now?

Father Gondo bent forward over the fire.

“I say to you once more,” he cried, “if only one person comes and says
that this image has saved his soul, I will not burn it.”

Donna Micaela had a sudden feeling that she did not wish the poor image
to be destroyed. The memory of the most beautiful hours of her life was
bound to it.

“Gandolfo, Gandolfo,” she whispered. She had just seen him beside her.

“Yes, Donna Micaela.”

“Do not let him burn the image, Gandolfo!”

The monk had repeated his question once, twice, thrice. No one came
forward to defend the image. But little Gandolfo crept nearer and nearer.

Father Gondo brought the image ever closer to the fire.

Involuntarily Gaetano had bent forward. Involuntarily a proud smile
passed over his face. Donna Micaela saw that he felt that Diamante
belonged to him. The monk’s wild proceedings made Gaetano master of
their souls.

She looked about in terror. Her eyes wandered from face to face. Was
the same thing going on in all those people’s souls as in her own? She
thought she saw that it was so.

“Thou, Antichrist,” said Father Gondo, threateningly, “dost thou see that
no one has thought of his soul as long as thou hast been here? Thou must
perish.”

Father Gondo laid the outcast on the pyre.

But the image had not lain there more than a second before Gandolfo
seized him.

He caught him up, lifted him high above his head, and ran. Father Gondo’s
pilgrims hurried after him, and there began a wild chase down Monte
Chiaro’s precipices.

But little Gandolfo saved the image.

Down the road a big, heavy travelling-carriage came driving. Gandolfo,
whose pursuers were close at his heels, knew nothing better to do than to
throw the image into the carriage.

Then he let himself be caught. When his pursuers wished to hurry after
the carriage, he stopped them. “Take care; the lady in the carriage is
English.”

It was Signora Favara, who had at last wearied of Diamante and was
travelling out into the world once more. And she was allowed to go away
unmolested. No Sicilian dares to lay hands on an Englishwoman.




V

A FRESCO OF SIGNORELLI


A week later Father Gondo was in Rome. He was granted an interview with
the old man in the Vatican and told him how he had found Antichrist
in the likeness of Christ, how the former had entangled the people of
Diamante in worldliness, and how he, Father Gondo, had wished to burn
him. He also told how he had not been able to lead the people back to
God. Instead, all Diamante had fallen into unbelief and socialism. No one
there cared for his soul; no one thought of heaven. Father Gondo asked
what he should do with those unfortunate people.

The old pope, who is wiser than any one now living, did not laugh at
Father Gondo’s story; he was deeply distressed by it.

“You have done wrong; you have done very wrong,” he said.

He sat silent for a while and pondered; then he said: “You have not seen
the Cathedral in Orvieto?”--“No, Holy Father.”--“Then go there now and
see it,” said the pope; “and when you come back again, you shall tell me
what you have seen there.”

Father Gondo obeyed. He went to Orvieto and saw the most holy Cathedral.
And in two days he was back in the Vatican.

“What did you see in Orvieto?” the pope asked him.

Father Gondo said that in one of the chapels of the Cathedral he
had found some frescoes of Luca Signorelli, representing “The Last
Judgment.” But he had not looked at either the “Last Judgment” or at the
“Resurrection of The Dead.” He had fixed all his attention on the big
painting which the guide called “The Miracles of Antichrist.”

“What did you see in it?” asked the pope.

“I saw that Signorelli had painted Antichrist as a poor and lowly man,
just as the Son of God was when he lived here on earth. I saw that he had
dressed him like Christ and given him Christ’s features.”

“What more did you see?” said the pope.

“The first thing that I saw in the fresco was Antichrist preaching so
that the rich and the mighty came and laid their treasures at his feet.

“The second thing I saw was a sick man brought to Antichrist and healed
by him.

“The third thing I saw was a martyr proclaiming Antichrist and suffering
death for him.

“The fourth thing I saw in the great wall-picture was the people
hastening to a great temple of peace, the spirit of evil hurled from
heaven, and all men of violence killed by heaven’s thunderbolts.”

“What did you think when you saw that?” asked the pope.

“When I saw it, I thought: ‘That Signorelli was mad. Does he mean that in
the time of Antichrist evil shall be conquered, and the earth become holy
as a paradise?’”

“Did you see anything else?”

“The fifth thing I saw depicted in the painting was the monks and priests
piled up on a big bonfire and burned.

“And the sixth and last thing I saw was the Devil whispering in
Antichrist’s ear, and suggesting to him how he was to act and speak.”

“What did you think when you saw that?”

“I said to myself: ‘That Signorelli is not mad; he is a prophet.
Antichrist will certainly come in the likeness of Christ and make a
paradise of the world. He will make it so beautiful that the people will
forget heaven. And it will be the world’s most terrible temptation.’”

“Do you understand now,” said the pope, “that there was nothing new in
all that you told me? The Church has always known that Antichrist would
come, armed with the virtues of Christ.”

“Did you also know that he had actually come, Holy Father?” asked Father
Gondo.

“Could I sit here on Peter’s chair year after year without knowing that
he has come?” said the pope. “I see starting a movement of the people,
which burns with love for its neighbor and hates God. I see people
becoming martyrs for the new hope of a happy earth. I see how they
receive new joy and new courage from the words ‘Think of the earth,’ as
they once found them in the words ‘Think of heaven.’ I knew that he whom
Signorelli had foretold had come.”

Father Gondo bowed silently.

“Do you understand now wherein you did wrong?”

“Holy Father, enlighten me as to my sin.”

The old pope looked up. His clear eyes looked through the veil of chance
which shrouds future events and saw what was hidden behind it.

“Father Gondo,” he said, “that little child with whom you fought in
Diamante, the child who was merciful and wonder-working like Christ, that
poor, despised child who conquered you and whom you call Antichrist, do
you not know who he is?”

“No, Holy Father.”

“And he who in Signorelli’s picture healed the sick, and softened the
rich, and felled evil-doers to the earth, who transformed the earth to a
paradise and tempted the people to forget heaven. Do you not know who he
is?”

“No, Holy Father.”

“Who else can he be but the Antichristianity, socialism?”

The monk looked up in terror.

“Father Gondo,” said the pope, sternly, “when you held the image in your
arms you wished to burn him. Why? Why were you not loving to him? Why did
you not carry him back to the little Christchild on the Capitolium from
whom he proceeded?

“That is what you wandering monks could do. You could take the great
popular movement in your arms, while it is still lying like a child
in its swaddling clothes, and you could bear it to Jesus’ feet; and
Antichrist would see that he is nothing but an imitation of Christ, and
would acknowledge him his Lord and Master. But you do not do so. You
cast Antichristianity on the pyre, and soon he in his turn will cast you
there.”

Father Gondo bent his knee. “I understand, Holy Father. I will go and
look for the image.”

The pope rose majestically. “You shall not look for the image; you shall
let him go his way through the ages. We do not fear him. When he comes
to storm the Capitol in order to mount the throne of the world, we shall
meet him, and we shall lead him to Christ. We shall make peace between
earth and heaven. But you do wrong,” he continued more mildly, “to hate
him. You must have forgotten that the sibyl considered him one of the
redeemers of the world. ‘On the heights of the Capitol the redeemer of
the world shall be worshipped, Christ or Antichrist.’”

“Holy Father, if the miseries of this world are to be remedied by him,
and heaven suffers no injury, I shall not hate him.”

The old pope smiled his most subtle smile.

“Father Gondo, you will permit me also to tell you a Sicilian story. The
story goes, Father Gondo, that when Our Lord was busy creating the world,
He wished one day to know if He had much more work to do. And He sent San
Pietro out to see if the world was finished.

“When San Pietro came back, he said: ‘Every one is weeping and sobbing
and lamenting.’

“‘Then the world is not finished,’ said Our Lord, and He went on working.

“Three days later Our Lord sent San Pietro again to the earth.

“‘Everyone is laughing and rejoicing and playing,’ said San Pietro, when
he came back.

“‘Then the world is not finished,’ said Our Lord, and He went on working.

“San Pietro was dispatched for the third time.

“‘Some are weeping and some are laughing,’ he said, when he came back.

“‘Then the world is finished,’ said Our Lord.

“And so shall it be and continue,” said the old pope. “No one can save
mankind from their sorrows, but much is forgiven to him who brings new
courage to bear them.”


THE END





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