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[78] 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[79] 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[80] 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.”
[81]
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[82] 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[83] 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[84] 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[85] 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[86] 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[87] 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[88] 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.
[89]
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[90] 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[91] 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[92] 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[93] 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!
[94]
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?”
[95]
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.
[96]
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[97] 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.[98] 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[99] 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[100] 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[101] 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.
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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.
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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[104] 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[105] 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.
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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[107] 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.
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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[109] 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.
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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[111] 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.
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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.