at the bazaar. Don Antonio Greco, who had the marionette theatre, would
not come with his dolls. The town-band would not play. None of the
shop-keepers would give any of their wares. When Donna Micaela was gone
they laughed at her.
A railroad, a railroad! She did not know what she was thinking of. There
would have to be a company, shares, statutes, concessions. How should a
woman manage such things?
While some were content to laugh at Donna Micaela, some were angry with
her.
She went to the cellar-like shop near the old Benedictine monastery,
where Master Pamphilio related romances of chivalry. She came to ask him
if he would come to her bazaar and entertain the public with Charlemagne
and his paladins; but as he was in the midst of a story, she had to sit
down on a bench and wait.
Then she noticed Donna Concetta, Master Pamphilio’s wife, who was sitting
on the platform at his feet knitting a stocking. As long as Master
Pamphilio was speaking, Donna Concetta’s lips moved. She had heard his
romances so many times that she knew them by heart, and said the words
before they had passed Master Pamphilio’s lips. But it was always the
same pleasure to her to hear him, and she wept, and she laughed, as she
had done when she heard him for the first time.
Master Pamphilio was an old man, who had spoken much in his day, so that
his voice sometimes failed him in the big battle-scenes, when he had to
speak loud and fast. But Donna Concetta, who knew it all by heart, never
took the word from Master Pamphilio. She only made a sign to the audience
to wait until his voice came back. But if his memory failed him, Donna
Concetta pretended that she had dropped a stitch, raised the stocking to
her eyes, and threw him the word behind it, so that no one noticed it.
And every one knew that although Donna Concetta perhaps could have told
the romances better than Master Pamphilio, she would never have been
willing to do such a thing, not only because it was not fitting for a
woman, but also because it would not give her half so much pleasure as
to listen to dear Master Pamphilio.
When Donna Micaela saw Donna Concetta, she fell to dreaming. Oh, to sit
so on the platform, where her beloved was speaking; to sit so day in and
day out and worship. She knew whom that would have suited.
When Master Pamphilio had finished speaking Donna Micaela went forward
and asked him to help her. It was hard for him to say no, on account of
the thousand prayers that were written in her eyes. But Donna Concetta
came to his rescue. “Master Pamphilio,” she said, “tell Donna Micaela of
Guglielmo the Wicked.” And Master Pamphilio began.
“Donna Micaela,” he said, “do you know that once there was a king in
Sicily whose name was Guglielmo the Wicked? He was so covetous that he
took all his subjects’ money. He commanded that every one possessing gold
coins should give them to him. And he was so severe and so cruel that
they all had to obey him.
“Well, Donna Micaela, Guglielmo the Wicked wished to know if any one had
gold hidden in his house. Therefore he sent one of his servants along the
Corso in Palermo with a beautiful horse. And the man offered the horse
for sale, and cried loudly: ‘Will be sold for a piece of gold; will be
sold for a piece of gold!’ But there was no one who could buy the horse.
“Yet it was a very beautiful horse, and a young nobleman, the Duke of
Montefiascone, was much taken by him. ‘There is no joy for me if I cannot
buy the horse,’ said he to his steward. ‘Signor Duca,’ answered his
steward, ‘I can tell you where you can find a piece of gold. When your
noble father died and was carried away by the Capucins, according to the
ancient custom I put a piece of gold in his mouth. You can take that,
signor.’
“For you must know, Donna Micaela, that in Palermo they do not bury the
dead in the ground. They carry them to the monastery of the Capucins, and
the monks hang them up in their vaults. Ah, there are so many hanging in
those vaults!--so many ladies, dressed in silk and cloth of silver; so
many noble gentlemen, with orders on their breasts; and so many priests,
with cloak and cap over skeleton and skull.
“The young duke followed his advice. He went to the Capucin monastery,
took the piece of gold from his father’s mouth and bought the horse with
it.
“But you understand that the king had only sent his servant with the
horse in order to find out if any one still had any money. And now the
duke was taken before the king. ‘How does it happen that you still have
gold pieces?’ said Guglielmo the Wicked.--‘Sire, it was not mine; it was
my father’s.’ And he told how he had got the piece of gold. ‘It is true,’
said the king. ‘I had forgotten that the dead still had money.’ And he
sent his servants to the Capucins and had them take all the gold pieces
out of the mouths of the dead.”
Here old Master Pamphilio finished his story. And now Donna Concetta
turned to Donna Micaela with wrathful eyes. “It is you who are out with
the horse,” she said.
“Am I? am I?”
“You, you, Donna Micaela! The government will say: ‘They are building
a railway in Diamante. They must be rich.’ And they will increase our
taxes. And God knows that we cannot pay the tax with which we are already
loaded down, even if we should go and plunder our ancestors.”
Donna Micaela tried to calm her.
“They have sent you out to find out if we still have any money. You
are spying for the rich; you are in league with the government. Those
bloodsuckers in Rome have paid you.”
Donna Micaela turned away from her.
“I came to talk to you, Master Pamphilio,” she said to the old man.
“But I shall answer you,” replied Donna Concetta; “for this is a
disagreeable matter, and such things are my affair. I know what is the
duty of the wife of a great man, Donna Micaela.”
Donna Concetta became silent, for the fine lady gave her a look which was
so full of jealous longing that it made her sorry for her. Heavens, yes,
there had been a difference in their husbands; Don Ferrante and Master
Pamphilio!
II
PANEM ET CIRCENSES
In Diamante travellers are often shown two palaces that are falling into
ruins without ever having been completed. They have big window-openings
without frames, high walls without a roof, and wide doors closed with
boards and straw. The two palaces stand opposite each other on the
street, both equally unfinished and equally in ruins. There are no
scaffoldings about them, and no one can enter them. They seem to be only
built for the doves.
Listen to what is told of them.
What is a woman, O signore? Her foot is so little that she goes through
the world without leaving a trace behind her. For man she is like his
shadow. She has followed him through his whole life without his having
noticed her.
Not much can be expected of a woman. She has to sit all day shut in like
a prisoner. She cannot even learn to spell a love-letter correctly. She
cannot do anything of permanence. When she is dead there is nothing to
write on her tombstone. All women are of the same height.
But once a woman came to Diamante who was as much above all other women
as the century-old palm is above the grass. She possessed lire by
thousands, and could give them away or keep them, as she pleased. She
turned aside for no one. She was not afraid of being hated. She was the
greatest marvel that had ever been seen.
Of course she was not a Sicilian. She was an Englishwoman. And the first
thing she did when she came was to take the whole first floor of the
hotel for herself alone. What was that for her? All Diamante would not
have been enough for her.
No, all Diamante was not enough for her. But as soon as she had come she
began to govern the town like a queen. The syndic had to obey her. Was it
not she who made him put stone benches in the square? Was it not at her
command that the streets were swept every day?
When she woke in the morning all the young men of Diamante stood waiting
outside her door, to be allowed to accompany her on some excursion. They
had left shoemaker’s awl and stone-cutter’s chisel to act as guides to
her. Each had sold his mother’s silk dress to buy a side-saddle for his
donkey, so that _she_ might ride on it to the castle or to Tre Castagni.
They had divested themselves of house and home in order to buy a horse
and carriage to drive her to Randazzo and Nicolosi.
We were all her slaves. The children began to beg in English, and the
old blind women at the hotel door, Donna Pepa and Donna Tura, draped
themselves in dazzlingly white veils to please her.
Everything moved round her; industries and trades grew up about her.
Those who could do nothing else dug in the earth for coins and pottery
to offer her. Photographers moved to the town and began to work for her.
Coral merchants and hawkers of tortoise-shell grew out of the earth about
her. The priests of Santa Agnese dug up the old Dionysius theatre, that
lay hidden behind their church, for her sake; and every one who owned a
ruined villa unearthed in the darkness of the cellar remains of mosaic
floors and invited her by big posters to come and see.
There had been foreigners before in Diamante, but they had come and
gone, and no one had enjoyed such power. There was soon not a man in the
town who did not put all his trust in the English signorina. She even
succeeded in putting a little life into Ugo Favara. You know Ugo Favara,
the advocate, who was to have been a great man, but had reverses and came
home quite broken. She employed him to take care of her affairs. She
needed him, and she took him.
There has never been a woman in Diamante who has done so much business
as she. She spread out like green-weed in the spring. One day no one
knows that there is any, and the next it is a great clump. Soon it was
impossible to go anywhere in Diamante without coming on her traces. She
bought country houses and town houses; she bought almond-groves and
lava-streams. The best places on Etna to see the view were hers as well
as the thirsting earth on the plain. And in town she began to build two
big palaces. She was to live in them and rule her kingdom.
We shall never see a woman like her again. She was not content with
all that. She wished also to fight the fight with poverty, O signore,
with Sicilian poverty! How much she gave out each day, and how much she
gave away on feast-days! Wagons, drawn by two pairs of oxen, went down
to Catania and came back piled up with all sorts of clothing. She was
determined that they should have whole clothes in the town where she
reigned.
But listen to what happened to her; how the struggle with poverty ended
and what became of the kingdom and the palace.
She gave a banquet for the poor people of Diamante, and after the banquet
an entertainment in the Grecian theatre. It was what an old emperor might
have done. But who has ever before heard of a woman doing such a thing?
She invited all the poor people. There were the two blind women from the
hotel-door, and old Assunta from the Cathedral steps. There was the man
from the post-house, who had his chin bound up in a red cloth on account
of cancer of the face; and there was the idiot who opens the iron doors
of the Grecian theatre. All the donkey-boys were there, and the handless
brothers, who exploded a bomb in their childhood and lost their fingers;
and the man with the wooden leg, and the old chair-maker who had grown
too old to work, both were there.
It was strange to see them creep out of their holes, all the poor in
Diamante. The old women who sit and spin with distaffs in the dark
alleys were there, and the organ-grinder, who has an instrument as big
as a church-organ, a wandering young mandolinist from Naples with a body
full of all possible deviltries. All those with diseased eyes and all
the decrepit; those without a roof over their heads; those who used to
collect sorrel by the roadside for dinner; the stone-cutter, who earned
one lira a day and had six children to provide for,--they had all been
invited and were present at the feast.
It was poverty marshalling its troops for the English signorina. Who has
such an army as poverty? But for once the English signorina could conquer
it.
She had something to fight with too and to conquer with. She filled the
whole square with loaded tables. She had wine-skins arranged along the
stone bench that lines the wall of the Cathedral. She had turned the
deserted convent into a larder and kitchen. She had all the foreign
colony in Diamante dressed in white aprons, to serve the courses. She had
all of Diamante who are used to eating their fill, wandering to and fro
as spectators.
Ah, spectators, what did she not have for spectators? She had great Etna
and the dazzling sun. She had the red peaks of the inland mountains and
the old temple of Vulcan, that was now consecrated to San Pasquale. And
none of them had ever seen a satisfied Diamante. None of them had ever
before happened to think how much more beautiful they themselves would be
if the people could look at them without hunger hissing in their ears and
trampling on their heels.
But mark one thing! Although that signorina was so wonderful and so
great, she was not beautiful. And in spite of all her power, she was
neither charming nor attractive. She did not rule with jests, and she did
not reward with smiles. She had a heavy, clumsy body, and a heavy, clumsy
disposition.
The day she gave food to the poor she became a different person. A
chivalrous people live in our noble island. Among all those poor people
there was not one who let her feel that she was exercising charity. They
worshipped her, but they worshipped her as a woman. They sat down at the
table as with an equal. They behaved to her as guests to their hostess.
“To-day I do you the honor to come to you; to-morrow you do me the
honor to come to me. So and not otherwise.” She stood on the high steps
of the town-hall and looked down at all the tables. And when the old
chair-maker, who sat at the head of the table, had got his glass filled,
he rose, bowed to her and said: “I drink to your prosperity, signorina.”
So did they all. They laid their hands on their hearts and bowed to her.
It would have perhaps been good for her if she had met with such chivalry
earlier in life. Why had the men in her native land let her forget that
women exist to be worshipped?
Here they all looked as if they were burning with a quiet adoration. Thus
are women treated in our noble island. What did they not give in return
for the food and the wine that she had offered them? They gave youth and
light-heartedness and all the dignity of being worth coveting. They made
speeches for her. “Noble-hearted signorina, you who have come to us from
over the sea, you who love Sicily,” and so on, and so on. She showed that
she could blush. She no longer hid her power to smile. When they had
finished speaking, the lips of the English signorina began to tremble.
She became twenty years younger. It was what she needed.
The donkey-boy was there, who carries the English ladies up to Tre
Castagni, and who always falls in love with them before he parts from
them. Now his eyes were suddenly opened to the great benefactress. It is
not only a slender, delicate body and a soft cheek that are worthy to be
adored, but also strength and force. The donkey-boy suddenly dropped
knife and fork, leaned his elbows on the table, and sat and looked
at her. And all the other donkey-boys did the same. It spread like a
contagion. It grew hot with burning glances about the English signorina.
It was not only the poor people who adored her. The advocate, Ugo Favara,
came and whispered to her that she had come as a providence to his poor
land and to him. “If only I had met such a woman as you before,” he said.
Fancy an old bird which has sat in a cage for many years and become rough
and lost all the gloss of his feathers. And then some one comes and
straightens them out and smooths them back. Think of it, signore!
There was that boy from Naples. He took his mandolin and began to sing
his very best. You know how he sings; he pouts with his big mouth and
says ugly words. He usually is like a grinning mask. But have you seen
the angel in his eyes? An angel which seems to weep over his fall and is
filled with a holy frenzy. That evening he was only an angel. He raised
his head like one inspired by God, and his drooping body became elastic
and full of proud vitality. Color came into his livid cheeks. And he
sang; he sang so that the notes seemed to fly like fireflies from his
lips and fill the air with joy and dance.
When it grew dark they all went over to the Grecian theatre. That was
the finishing touch to the entertainment. What did she not have to offer
there!
She had the Russian singer and the German variété artists. She had the
English wrestlers and the American magician. But what was that compared
to all the rest: the silvery moonlight and the place and its memories?
Those poor people seemed to feel like the Greeks and leaders of fashion
when they once more took their places on the stone-benches of their own
old theatre and from between the tottering pillars looked out at the most
beautiful panorama.
Those poor people did not stint; they shared all the pleasure they
received. They did not spare jubilation; there was no stopping their
hand-clapping. The performers left the platform with a wealth of praise.
Some one begged the English signorina to appear. All the adoration was
meant for her. She ought to stand face to face with it and feel it. And
they told her how intoxicating it was, how elevating, how inflaming.
She liked the proposal. She immediately agreed. She had sung in her
youth, and the English never seem to be afraid to sing. She would not
have done it if she had not been in a good mood, and she wished to sing
for those who loved her.
She came as the last number. Fancy what it was to stand on such an old
stage! It was where Antigone had been buried alive and Iphigenia had been
sacrificed. The English signorina stepped forward there to receive every
conceivable honor.
It stormed to meet her as soon as she showed herself. They seemed to wish
to stamp the earth to pieces to honor her.
It was a proud moment. She stood there with Etna as a background and
the Mediterranean as wings. Before her on the grass-grown benches was
sitting conquered poverty, and she felt that she had all Diamante at her
feet.
She chose “Bellini,” our own “Bellini.” She too wished to be amiable and
so she sang “Bellini,” who was born here under Etna; “Bellini” whom we
know by heart, note for note.
Of course, O signore, of course she could not sing. She had mounted the
tribune only to receive homage. She had come in order to let the love of
the people find an outlet. And now she sang false and feebly. And the
people knew every note.
It was that mandolinista from Naples. He was the first to grimace and to
take a note as false as that of the English signorina. Then it was the
man with the cancer, who laughed till he laughed his neckcloth off. Then
it was the donkey-boy, who began to clap his hands.
Then they all began. It was madness, but that they did not understand.
It is not in the land of the old Greeks that people can bear barbarians
who sing false. Donna Pepa and Donna Tura laughed as they had never
done before in their lives. “Not one true note! By the Madonna and San
Pasquale, not one true note!”
They had eaten their fill for once in their lives. It was natural that
intoxication and madness should take hold of them. And why should they
not laugh? She had not given them food in order to torture their ears
with files and saws. Why should they not defend themselves by laughing?
Why should they not mimic and hiss and scream? Why should they not lean
backward and split their sides with laughter? They were not the English
signorina’s slaves, I suppose.
It was a terrible blow to her. It was too great a blow for her to
understand. Were they hissing her? It must be something happening among
them; something that she could not see. She sang the aria to its end.
She was convinced that the laughter was for something with which she had
nothing to do.
When she had finished a sort of storm of applause roared over her. At
last she understood. Torches and the moonlight made the night so bright
that she could see the rows of people twisting with laughter. She heard
the scoffs and the jests now, when she was not singing. They were for
her. Then she fled from the stage. It seemed to her that Etna itself
heaved with laughter, and that the sea sparkled with merriment.
But it grew worse and worse. They had had such a good time, those poor
people; they had never had such a good time before, and they wished
to hear her once again. They called for her; they cried: “Bravo! Bis!
Da capo!” They could not lose such a pleasure. She, she was almost
unconscious. There was a storm about her. They screamed; they roared to
get her in. She saw them lift their arms and threaten her to get her in.
All at once it was all turned into an old circus. She had to go in to be
devoured by monsters.
It went on; it went on; it became wilder and wilder. The other performers
were frightened and begged her to yield. And she herself was frightened.
It looked as if they would have killed her if she did not do what they
wished.
She dragged herself on the stage and stood face to face with the crowd.
There was no pity. She sang because they all wished to be amused. That
was the worst. She sang because she was afraid of them and did not dare
not to. She was a foreigner and alone, and she had no one to protect her,
and she was afraid. And they laughed and laughed.
Screams and cries, crowing and whistling accompanied the whole aria. No
one had mercy on her. For the first time in her life she felt the need of
mercy.
Well, the next day she resolved to depart. She could not endure Diamante
any longer. But when she told the advocate, Favara, he implored her to
stay for his sake and made her an offer of marriage.
He had chosen his time well. She said yes, and was married to him. But
after that time she built no more on her palaces; she made no struggle
against poverty; she cared nothing to be queen in Diamante. Would you
believe it? She never showed herself on the street; she lived indoors
like a Sicilian.
Her little house stood hidden away behind a big building, and of herself
no one knew anything. They only knew that she was quite changed. No
one knew whether she was happy or unhappy; whether she shut herself in
because she hated the people, or because she wished to be as a Sicilian
wife ought to be.
Does it not always end so with a woman? When they build their palaces
they are never finished. Women can do nothing that has permanence.
III
THE OUTCAST
When Donna Micaela heard how the poor people had hooted Miss Tottenham
out, she hurried to the hotel to express her condolence. She wished to
beg her not to judge those poor creatures by what they had done when they
had been put out of their heads with pleasure and wine. She would beg her
not to take her hand from Diamante. She herself did not care very much
for Miss Tottenham, but for the sake of the poor--She would say anything
to pacify her.
When she came to the hotel Etna, she saw the whole street filled with
baggage-wagons. So there was no hope. The great benefactress was going
away.
Outside the hotel there was much sorrow and despair. The two old blind
women, Donna Pepa and Donna Tura, who had always sat in the hotel
court-yard, were now shut out, and they were kneeling before the door.
The young donkey-driver, who loved all young English ladies, stood with
his face pressed against the wall and wept.
Inside the hotel the landlord walked up and down the long corridor,
raging at Providence for sending him this misfortune. “Signor Dio,” he
mumbled, “I am beggared. If you let this happen, I will take my wife by
the hand and my children in my arms and throw myself with them down into
Etna.”
The landlady was very pale and humble. She scarcely dared to lift her
eyes from the ground. She would have liked to creep about on her knees to
prevail upon the rich signorina to remain.
“Do you dare to speak to her, Donna Micaela?” she said. “May God help
you to speak to her! Alas! tell her that the Neapolitan boy, who was the
cause of the whole misfortune, has been turned out of the town. Tell her
that they all wish to make amends. Speak to her, signora!”
The landlady took Donna Micaela to the Englishwoman’s drawing-room and
went in with her card. She came back immediately and asked her to wait a
few minutes. Signorina Tottenham was having a business talk with Signor
Favara.