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.
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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.
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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.
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“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[319] 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.”
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“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.
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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?[322] 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.