Christ-image in a jewelled dress, and with a gold crown on his head and
gold shoes on his feet. “Here he is,” she said. “I have brought him with
me to show you.”
The children were in raptures. First they clasped their hands at the
sight of the image’s grave face, then they began to throw kisses to it.
“He is beautiful, is he not?” said the lady.
“Let us have him! Let us have him!” cried the children.
But now a big, rough workman, a dark man with a bushy, black beard,
pushed forward. He wished to snatch away the image. The old lady had
barely time to thrust it behind her back.
“Give it here, Donna Elisa, give it here!” said the man.
Poor Donna Elisa cast one glance at Donna Micaela, who had sat silent and
displeased the whole time by her side. Donna Micaela had been persuaded
with difficulty to go to Corvaja and show the image to the people there.
“The image helps us when it wills,” she said. “We shall not force
miracles.”
But Donna Elisa had been determined to go, and she had said that the
image was only waiting to be taken to the faithless wretches in Corvaja.
After everything that he had done, they might have enough faith in him to
believe that he could win them over also.
Now she, Donna Elisa, stood there with the man over her, and she did not
know how she could prevent him from snatching the image away.
“Give it to me amicably, Donna Elisa,” said the man, “otherwise, by God,
I will take it in spite of you. I will hack it to small pieces, to small,
small pieces. You shall see how much there will be left of your wooden
doll. You shall see if it can withstand the black Madonna.”
Donna Elisa pressed against the mountain wall; she saw no escape. She
could not run, and she could not struggle. “Micaela!” she wailed,
“Micaela!”
Donna Micaela was very pale. She held her hands against her heart, as she
always did when anything agitated her. It was terrible to her to stand
opposed to those dark men. These were they of the slouch hats and short
cloaks of whom she had always been afraid.
But now, when Donna Elisa appealed to her, she turned quickly, seized the
image and held it out to the man.
“See here, take it!” she said defiantly. And she took a step towards him.
“Take it, and do with it what you can!”
She held the image on her outstretched arms, and came nearer and nearer
to the dark workman.
He turned towards his comrades. “She does not believe that I can do
anything to the doll,” he said, and laughed at her. And the whole group
of workmen slapped themselves on the knee and laughed.
But he did not take the image; he grasped instead the big pick-axe, which
he held in his hand. He drew back a few steps, lifted the pick over his
head, and stiffened his whole body for a blow which was to crush at once
the entire hated wooden doll.
Donna Micaela shook her head warningly. “You cannot do it,” she said, and
she did not draw the image back.
He saw that nevertheless she was afraid, and he enjoyed frightening her.
He stood longer than was necessary with uplifted pick.
“Piero!” came a cry shrill and wailing.
“Piero! Piero!”
The man dropped his pick without striking. He looked terrified.
“God! it is Marcia calling!” he said.
At the same moment a crowd of people came tumbling out of a little
cottage which was built among the ruins of the old Palazzo Corvaja.
There were about a dozen women and a carabiniere, who were fighting.
The carabiniere held a child in his arms, and the women were trying to
drag the child away from him. But the policeman, who was a tall, strong
fellow, freed himself from them, lifted the child to his shoulder, and
ran down the terrace steps.
The dark Piero had looked on without making a movement. When the
carabiniere freed himself, he bent down to Donna Micaela and said
eagerly: “If _the little one_ can prevent that, all Corvaja shall be his
friend.”
Now the carabiniere was down in the square. Piero made a sign with his
hand. Instantly all his comrades closed in a ring round the fugitive. He
turned squarely round. Everywhere a close ring of men threatened him with
picks and shovels.
All at once there was terrible confusion. The women who had been
struggling with the carabiniere came rushing down with loud cries. The
little girl, whom he held in his arms, screamed as loud as she could and
tried to tear herself away. People came running from all sides. There
were questionings and wonderings.
“Let us go now,” said Donna Elisa to Donna Micaela. “Now no one is
thinking of us.”
But Donna Micaela had caught sight of one of the women. She screamed
least, but it was instantly apparent that it was she whom the matter
concerned. She looked as if she was about to lose her life’s happiness.
She was a woman who had been very beautiful, although all freshness now
was gone from her, for she was no longer young. But hers was still an
impressive and large-souled face. “Here dwells a soul which can love and
suffer,” said the face. Donna Micaela felt drawn to that poor woman as to
a sister.
“No, it is not the time to go yet,” she said to Donna Elisa.
The carabiniere asked and asked if they would not let him come out.
No, no, no! Not until he let the child go!
It was the child of Piero and his wife, Marcia. But they were not the
child’s real parents. The trouble arose from that.
The carabiniere tried to win the people over to his side. He tried to
convince, not Piero nor Marcia, but the others. “Ninetta is the child’s
mother,” he said; “you all know that. She has not been able to have the
child with her while she was unmarried; but now she is married, and
wishes to have her child back. And now Marcia refuses to give her the
boy. It is hard on Ninetta, who has not been able to have her child with
her for eight years. Marcia will not give him up. She drives Ninetta away
when she comes and begs for her child. Finally Ninetta had to complain
to the syndic. And the syndic has told us to get her the child. It is
Ninetta’s own child,” he said appealingly.
But it had no great effect on the men of Corvaja.
“Ninetta is a Geraci,” burst out Piero, and the circle stood fast round
the carabiniere.
“When we came here to fetch the child,” said the latter, “we did not
find him. Marcia was dressed in black, and her rooms were draped with
black, and a lot of women sat and mourned with her. And she showed us the
certificate of the child’s death. Then we went and told Ninetta that her
child was in the church-yard.
“Well, well, a while afterwards I went on guard here in the square. I
watched the children playing there. Who was strongest, and who shouted
the loudest, if not one of the girls? ‘What is your name?’ I asked her.
‘Francesco,’ she answered instantly.
“It occurred to me that that girl, Francesco, might be Ninetta’s boy,
and I stood quiet and waited. Just now I saw Francesco go into Marcia’s
house. I followed, and there sat the girl Francesco and ate supper with
Marcia. She and all the mourners began to scream when I appeared. Then
I seized Signorina Francesco and ran. For the child is not Marcia’s.
Remember that, signori! He is Ninetta’s. Marcia has no right to him.”
Then at last Marcia began to speak. She spoke in a deep voice which
compelled every one to listen, and she made only a few, but noble
gestures. Had she no right to the child? But who had given him food and
clothing? He had been dead a thousand times over if she had not been
there. Ninetta had left him with La Felucca. They knew La Felucca. To
leave one’s child to her was the same as saying to it: “You shall die.”
And, moreover, right? right? What did that mean? The one whom the boy
loved had a right to him. The one who loved the boy had a right to him.
Piero and she loved the boy like their own son. They could not be parted
from him.
The wife was desperate, the husband perhaps even more so. He threatened
the carabiniere whenever he made a movement. Yet the carabiniere seemed
to see that the victory would be his. The people had laughed when he
spoke of “Signorina Francesco.” “Cut me down, if you will,” he said to
Piero. “Does it help you? Will you retain the child for that? He is not
yours. He is Ninetta’s.”
Piero turned to Donna Micaela. “Pray to him to help me.” He pointed to
the image.
Donna Micaela instantly went forward to Marcia. She was shy and trembled
for what she was venturing, but it was not the time for her to hold back.
“Marcia,” she whispered, “confess! Confess,--if you dare!” The startled
woman looked at her. “I see it so well,” whispered Donna Micaela; “you
are as alike as two berries. But I will say nothing if you do not wish
it.” “He will kill me,” said Marcia. “I know one who will not let him
kill you,” said Donna Micaela. “Otherwise they will take your child from
you,” she added.
All were silent, with eyes fixed on the two women. They saw how Marcia
struggled with herself. The features of her strong face were distorted.
Her lips moved. “The child is mine,” she said, but in so low a voice that
no one heard it. She said it again, and now it came in a piercing scream:
“The child is mine!”
“What will you do to me when I confess it?” she said to the man. “The
child is mine, but not yours. He was born in the year when you were at
work in Messina. I put him with La Felucca, and Ninetta’s boy was there
too. One day when I came to La Felucca she said, ‘Ninetta’s boy is
dead.’ At first I only thought: ‘God! if it had been mine! Then I said
to La Felucca: ‘Let my boy be dead, and let Ninetta’s live.’ I gave La
Felucca my silver comb, and she agreed. When you came home from Messina
I said to you: ‘Let us take a foster child. We have never been on good
terms. Let us try what adopting a child will do.’ You liked the proposal,
and I adopted my own child. You have been happy with him, and we have
lived as if in paradise.”
Before she finished speaking the carabiniere put the child down on the
ground. The dark men silently opened their ranks for him, and he went his
way. A shiver went through Donna Micaela when she saw the carabiniere
go. He should have stayed to protect the poor woman. His going seemed to
mean: “That woman is beyond the pale of the law; I cannot protect her.”
Every man and woman standing there felt the same: “She is outside of the
law.”
One after another went their way.
Piero, the husband, stood motionless without looking up. Something fierce
and dreadful was gathering in him. Rage and suffering were gathering
within him. Something terrible would happen as soon as he and Marcia were
alone.
The woman made no effort to escape. She stood still, paralyzed by the
certainty that her fate was sealed, and that nothing could change it. She
neither prayed nor fled. She shrank together like a dog before an angry
master. The Sicilian women know what awaits them when they have wounded
their husbands’ honor.
The only one who tried to defend her was Donna Micaela. Never would she
have begged Marcia to confess, she said to Piero, if she had known what
he was. She had thought that he was a generous man. Such a one would
have said: “You have done wrong; but the fact that you confess your sin
publicly, and expose yourself to my anger to save the child, atones for
everything. It is punishment enough.” A generous man would have taken the
child on one arm, put the other round his wife’s waist, and have gone
happy to his home. A signor would have acted so. But he was no signor; he
was a bloodhound.
She talked in vain; the man did not hear her; the woman did not hear her.
Her words seemed to be thrown back from an impenetrable wall.
Just then the child came to the father, and tried to take his hand.
Furious, he looked at the boy. As the latter was dressed in girl’s
clothes, his hair smoothly combed and drawn back by the ears, he saw
instantly the likeness to Marcia, which he had not noticed before. He
kicked Marcia’s son away.
There was a terrible tension in the square. The neighbors continued to go
quietly and slowly away. Many went unwillingly and with hesitation, but
still they went. The husband seemed only to be waiting for the last to go.
Donna Micaela ceased speaking; she took the image instead and laid it in
Marcia’s arms. “Take him, my sister Marcia, and may he protect you!” she
said.
The man saw it, and his rage increased. It seemed as if he could no
longer contain himself till he was alone. He crouched like a wild beast
ready to spring.
But the image did not rest in vain in the woman’s arms. The outcast moved
her to an act of the greatest love.
“What will Christ in Paradise say to me, who have first deceived my
husband, and then made him a murderer?” she thought. And she remembered
how she had loved big Piero in the days of her happy youth. She had not
then thought of bringing such misery upon him.
“No, Piero, no, do not kill me!” she said eagerly. “They will send you to
the galleys. You shall be relieved of seeing me again without that.”
She ran towards the other side of the square, where the ground fell away
into an abyss. Every one understood her intention. Her face bore witness
for her.
Several hurried after her, but she had a good start. Then the image,
which she still carried, slipped from her arms and lay at her feet. She
stumbled over it, fell, and was overtaken.
She struggled to get away, but a couple of men held her fast. “Ah, let me
do it!” she cried; “it is better for him!”
Her husband came up to her also. He had caught up her child and placed
him on his arm. He was much moved.
“See, Marcia, let it be as it is,” he said. He was embarrassed, but his
dark, deep-set eyes shone with happiness and said more than his words.
“Perhaps, according to old custom, it ought to be so, but I do not care
for that. Look, come now! It would be a pity for such a woman as you,
Marcia.”
He put his arm about Marcia’s waist, and went towards his house in the
ruins of Palazzo Corvaja. It was like a triumphal entry of one of the
former barons. The people of Corvaja stood on both sides of the way and
bowed to him and Marcia.
As they went past Donna Micaela, they both stopped, bowed deep to her,
and kissed the image which some one had given back to her. But Donna
Micaela kissed Marcia. “Pray for me in your happiness, sister Marcia!”
she said.
X
FALCO FALCONE
The blind singers have week after week sung of Diamante’s railway, and
the big collection-box in the church of San Pasquale has been filled
every evening with gifts. Signor Alfredo measures and sets stakes on
the slopes of Etna, and the distaff-spinners in the dark alleys tell
stories of the wonderful miracles that have been performed by the little
Christ-image in the despised church. From the rich and powerful men who
own the land on Etna comes letter after letter promising to give ground
to the blessed undertaking.
During these last weeks every one comes with gifts. Some give building
stone for the stations, some give powder to blast the lava blocks,
some give food to the workmen. The poor people of Diamante, who have
nothing, come in the night after their work. They come with shovels and
wheelbarrows and creep out on Etna, dig the ground, and ballast the road.
When Signor Alfredo and his people come in the morning they believe that
the Etna goblins have broken out from their lava streams and helped on
the work.
All the while people have been questioning and asking: “Where is the king
of Etna, Falco Falcone? Where is the mighty Falco who has held sway on
the slopes of Etna for five and twenty years? He wrote to Don Ferrante’s
widow that she would not be allowed to construct the railway. What did
he mean by his threat? Why does he sit still when people are braving his
interdiction? Why does he not shoot down the people of Corvaja when they
come creeping through the night with wheelbarrows and pickaxes? Why does
he not drag the blind singers down into the quarry and whip them? Why
does he not have Donna Micaela carried off from the summer-palace, in
order to be able to demand a cessation in the building of the railway as
a ransom for her life?”
Donna Micaela says to herself: “Has Falco Falcone forgotten his promise,
or is he waiting to strike till he can strike harder?”
Everybody asks in the same way: “When is Etna’s cloud of ashes to fall on
the railway? When will Mongibello cataracts tear it away? When will the
mighty Falco Falcone be ready to destroy it?”
While every one is waiting for Falco to destroy the railway, they talk a
great deal about him, especially the workmen under Signor Alfredo.
Opposite the entrance to the church of San Pasquale, people say, stands
a little house on a bare crag. The house is narrow, and so high that
it looks like a chimney left standing on a burnt building site. It is
so small that there is no room for the stairs inside the house; they
wind up outside the walls. Here and there hang balconies and other
projections that are arranged with no more symmetry than a bird’s nest on
a tree-trunk.
In that house Falco Falcone was born, and his parents were only poor
working-people. In that miserable hut Falco learned arrogance.
Falco’s mother was an unfortunate woman, who during the first years of
her marriage brought only daughters into the world. Her husband and all
her neighbors despised her.
The woman longed continually for a son. When she was expecting her fifth
child she strewed salt every day on the threshold and sat and watched who
should first cross it. Would it be a man or a woman? Should she bear a
son or a daughter?
Every day she sat and counted. She counted the letters in the month
when her child was to be born. She counted the letters in her husband’s
name and in her own. She added and subtracted. It was an even number;
therefore she would bear a son. The next day she made the calculation
over again. “Perhaps I counted wrong yesterday,” she said.
When Falco was born his mother was much honored, and she loved him on
account of it more than all her other children. When the father came
in to see the child he snatched off his cap and made a low bow. Over
the house-door they set a hat as a token of honor, and they poured
the child’s bath water over the threshold, and let it run out into
the street. When Falco was carried to the church he was laid on his
god-mother’s right arm; when the neighbors’ wives came to look after his
mother they courtesied to the child sleeping in his cradle.
He was also bigger and stronger than children generally are. Falco had
thick hair when he was born, and when he was a week old he already had
a tooth. When his mother laid him to her breast he was so wild that she
laughed and said: “I think that I have brought a hero into the world.”
She was always expecting great achievements from Falco, and she put
pride into him. But who else hoped anything of him? Falco could not
even learn to read. His mother tried to take a book and teach him the
letters. She pointed to A, that is the big hat; she pointed to B, that
is the spectacles; she pointed to C, that is the snake. That he could
learn. Then his mother said: “If you put the spectacles and the big hat
together, it makes Ba.” That he could not learn. He became angry and
struck her, and she let him alone. “You will be a great man yet,” she
said.
Falco was dull and bad-tempered in his childhood and youth. As a child,
he would not play; as a youth, he would not dance. He had no sweetheart,
but he liked to go where fighting was to be expected.
Falco had two brothers who were like other people, and who were much
more esteemed than he. Falco was wounded to see himself eclipsed by his
brothers, but he was too proud to show it. His mother was always on his
side. After his father’s death she had him sit at the head of the table,
and she never allowed any one to jest with him. “My oldest son is the
best of you all,” she said.
When the people remember it all they say: “Falco is proud. He will make
it a point of honor to destroy the railway.”
And they have hardly terrified themselves with one story before they
remember another about him.
For thirty long years, people say, Falco lived like any other poor
person on Etna. On Monday he went away to his work in the fields with
his brothers. He had bread in his sack for the whole week, and he made
soup of beans and rice like every one else. And he was glad on Saturday
evening to be able to return to his home. He was glad to find the table
spread, with wine and macaroni, and the bed made up with soft pillows.
It was just such a Saturday evening. Falco and Falco’s brothers were on
their way home; Falco, as usual, a little behind the others, for he had a
heavy and slow way of walking. But look, when the brothers reached home,
no supper was waiting, the beds were not made, and the dust lay thick
on the threshold. What, were all in the house dead? Then they saw their
mother sitting on the floor in a dark corner of the cottage. Her hair was
drawn down over her face, and she sat and traced patterns with her finger
on the earth floor. “What is the matter?” said the brothers. She did not
look up; she spoke as if she had spoken to the earth. “We are beggared,
beggared.” “Do they want to take our house from us?” cried the brothers.
“They wish to take away our honor and our daily bread.”
Then she told: “Your eldest sister has had employment with Baker Gasparo,
and it has been good employment. Signor Gasparo gave Pepa all the bread
left over in the shop, and she brought it to me. There has been so much
that there was enough for us all. I have been happy ever since Pepa found
that employment. It will give me an old age free from care, I thought.
But last Monday Pepa came home to me and wept; Signora Gasparo had turned
her away.”
“What had Pepa done?” asked Nino, who was next younger to Falco.
“Signora Gasparo accused Pepa of stealing bread. I went to Signora
Gasparo and asked her to take Pepa back. ‘No,’ she said, ‘the girl is
not honest.’ ‘Pepa had the bread from Signor Gasparo,’ I said; ‘ask him.’
‘I cannot ask him,’ said the signora; ‘he is away, and comes home next
month.’ ‘Signora,’ I said, ‘we are so poor. Let Pepa come back to her
place.’ ‘No,’ she said; ‘I myself will leave Signor Gasparo if he takes
that girl back.’ ‘Take care,’ I said then; ‘if you take bread from me, I
will take life from you.’ Then she was frightened and called others in,
so that I had to go.”
“What is to be done about it?” said Nino. “Pepa must find some other
work.”
“Nino,” said Mother Zia, “you do not know what that woman has said to the
neighbors about Pepa and Signor Gasparo.”
“Who can prevent women from talking?” said Nino.
“If Pepa has nothing else to do, now she might at least have cooked
dinner for us,” said Turiddo.
“Signora Gasparo has said that her husband let Pepa steal bread that she
should--”
“Mother,” interrupted Nino, red as fire, “I do not intend to have myself
put in the galleys for Pepa’s sake.”
“The galleys do not eat Christians,” said Mother Zia.
“Nino,” said Pietro, “we had better go to the town to get some food.”
As they said it they heard some one laugh behind them. It was Falco who
laughed.
A while later Falco entered Signora Gasparo’s shop and asked for bread.
The poor woman was frightened when Pepa’s brother came into the shop.
But she thought: “He has just come from his work. He has not been home
yet. He knows nothing.”
“Beppo,” she said to him, for Falco’s name was not then Falco, “is the
harvest a good one?” And she was prepared not to have him answer.
Falco was more talkative than usual, and immediately told her how
many grapes had already been put through the press. “Do you know,” he
continued, “that a farmer was murdered yesterday.”--“Alas, yes, poor
Signor Riego; I heard so.” And she asked how it had happened.
“It was Salvatore who did it. But it is too dreadful for a signora to
hear!”--“Oh, no, what is done can be and is told.”
“Salvatore went up to him in this way, signora.” And Falco drew his knife
and laid his hand on the woman’s head. “Then he cut him across the throat
from ear to ear.”
As Falco spoke, he suited the action to the word. The woman did not even
have time to scream. It was the work of a master.
After that, Falco was sent to the galleys, where he remained five years.
When the people tell of that, their terror increases. “Falco is brave,”
they say. “Nothing in the world can frighten him away from his purpose.”
That immediately made them think of another story.