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.