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.