“Dear signora, dear signora!” he says. “Light a candle that I can see
where you are,” she cries. He scratches a new match, lifts the shade and
chimney off the lamp, and lights it as neatly as a servant. He places
himself again by the door, as far from her as possible. Suddenly he goes
out on the balcony with his gun. “Now the signora cannot be afraid any
longer.”
But when she does not cease weeping he says: “Signora, I am Passafiore;
I come with a message to you from Falco. He no longer wishes to destroy
your railway.”
“Have you come to jest with me?” she says.
Then the man answers, almost weeping: “Would God that it were a jest!
God! that Falco were the man he has been!”
He tells her how Falco went up Mongibello and crowned its top. But the
mountain had not liked it; it had now overthrown Falco. A single little
piece of pumice-stone from Mongibello had been enough to overthrow him.
“It is all over with Falco,” says Passafiore. “He goes about in the
quarry, and waits to fall ill. For a week he has neither slept nor eaten.
He is not sick yet, but the wound in his hand does not heal either. He
thinks that he has the poison in his body. ‘Soon I shall be a mad dog,’
he says. No wine nor food tempt him. He takes no pleasure in my praising
his deeds. ‘What is that to talk about?’ he says. ‘I shall end my life
like a mad dog.’”
Donna Micaela looked sharply at Passafiore. “What do you wish me to do
about it? You cannot mean that I am to go down into the quarry to Falco
Falcone?”
Passafiore looks down and dares not answer anything.
She explains to him what that same Falco has made her suffer. He has
frightened away her workmen. He has set himself against her dearest wish.
All of a sudden Passafiore falls on his knees. He dares not go a step
nearer to her than he is, but he falls on his knees.
He implores her to understand the importance of it. She does not know,
she does not understand who Falco is. Falco is a great man. Ever since
Passafiore was a little child he has heard of him. All his life long he
has longed to come out to the quarry and live with him. All his cousins
went to Falco; his whole race were with him. But the priest had set his
heart that Passafiore should not go. He apprenticed him to a tailor; only
think, to a tailor! He talked to him, and said that he should not go. It
was such a terrible sin to live like Falco. Passafiore had also struggled
against it for many years for Don Matteo’s sake. But at last he had not
been able to resist; he had gone to the quarry. And now he has not been
with Falco more than a year before the latter is quite destroyed. It is
as if the sun had gone out in the sky. His whole life is ruined.
Passafiore looks at Donna Micaela. He sees that she is listening to him,
and understands him.
He reminds Donna Micaela that she had helped a _jettatore_ and an
adulteress. Why should she be hard to a brigand? The Christ-image in San
Pasquale gave her everything she asked for. He was sure that she prayed
to the Christchild to protect the railway from Falco. And he had obeyed
her; he had made Mongibello’s pumice-stone break Falco’s might. But now,
would she not be gracious, and help them, that Falco might get his health
again, and be an honor to the land, as he had been before?
Passafiore succeeds in moving Donna Micaela. All at once she understands
how it is with the old brigand in the dark caves of the quarry. She sees
him there, waiting for madness. She thinks how proud he has been, and how
broken and crushed he now is. No, no; no one ought to suffer so. It is
too much, too much.
“Passafiore,” she exclaims, “tell me what you wish. I will do whatever I
can. I am no longer afraid. No, I am not at all afraid.”
“Donna Micaela, we have begged Falco to go to the Christchild and ask for
grace. But Falco will not believe in the image. He will not do anything
but sit still and wait for the disaster. But to-day, when I implored him
to go and pray, he said: ‘You know who sits and waits for me in the old
house opposite the church. Go to her, and ask her if she will give me the
privilege to go by her into the church. If she gives her permission, then
I shall believe in the image, and say my prayers to him.’”
“Well?” questions Donna Micaela.
“I have been to old Caterina, and she has given her permission. ‘He shall
be allowed to go into San Pasquale without my killing him,’ she said.”
Passafiore is still on his knees.
“Has Falco already been to the church?” asks Donna Micaela.
Passafiore moves somewhat nearer. He wrings his hands in despair. “Donna
Micaela, Falco is very ill. It is not alone that about the dog; he was
ill before.” And Passafiore struggles with himself before he can say it
out. At last he acknowledges that although Falco is a very great man,
he sometimes has attacks of madness. He had not spoken of old Caterina
alone; he had said: “If Caterina will let me go into the church, and if
Donna Micaela Alagona comes down into the quarry and gives me her hand,
and leads me to the church, I will go to the image.” And from that no one
had been able to move him. Donna Micaela, who was greatest and holiest of
women, must come to him, or he would not go.
When Passafiore has finished, he remains kneeling with bowed head. He
dares not look up.
But Donna Micaela does not hesitate a second, since there has been
question of the Christ-image. She seems not to think of Falco’s being
already mad. She does not say a word of her terror. Her faith in the
image is such that she answers softly, like a subdued and obedient
child:--
“Passafiore, I will go with you.”
She follows him as if walking in her sleep. She does not hesitate to go
with him up Etna. She does not hesitate to climb down the steep cliffs
into the quarry. She comes, pale as death, but with shining eyes, to the
old brigand in his hole in the cliff and gives him her hand. He rises up,
ghastly pale as she, and follows her. They do not seem like human beings,
but like spectres. They move on towards their goal in absolute silence.
Their own identity is dead, but a mightier spirit guides and leads them.
Even the day after it seems like a fairy tale to Donna Micaela that she
has done such a thing. She is sure that her own compassion, or pity, or
love could never have made her go down into the brigands’ cave at night
if a strange power had not led her.
While Donna Micaela is in the robber’s cave, old Caterina sits at her
window, and waits for Falco. She has consented, almost without their
needing to ask her.
“He shall go in peace to the church,” she says. “I have waited for him
twenty years, but he shall go to the church.”
Soon Falco comes by, walking with Donna Micaela’s hand in his. Passafiore
and Biagio follow him. Falco is bent; it is plain that he is old and
feeble. He alone goes into the church; the others remain outside.
Old Caterina has seen him very plainly, but she has not moved. She sits
silent all the time Falco is inside the church. Her niece, who lives with
her, believes that she is praying and thanking God because she has been
able to conquer her thirst for revenge.
At last Caterina asks her to open a window. “I wish to see if he still
has his snake shadow,” she says.
But she is gentle and friendly. “Take the gun, if you wish,” she says.
And her niece moves the gun over to the other side of the table.
At last Falco comes from the church. The moonlight falls on his face,
and Caterina sees that he is unlike the Falco she remembered. The
terrible moroseness and arrogance are no longer visible in his face. He
comes bent and broken; he almost inspires her with pity.
“_He_ helps me,” he says aloud to Passafiore and Biagio. “He has promised
to help me.”
The brigands wish to go, but Falco is so happy that he must first tell
them of his joy.
“I feel no buzzing in my head; there is no burning, no uneasiness. He is
helping me.”
His comrades take him by the hand to lead him away.
Falco goes a few steps, then stops again. He straightens himself up, and
at the same time moves his body so that the snake shadow writhes and
twists on the wall.
“I shall be quite well, quite well,” he says.
The men drag him away, but it is too late.
Caterina’s eyes have fallen on the snake shadow. She can control herself
no longer; she throws herself across the table, takes the gun, shoots
and kills Falco. She had not intended to do it, but when she saw him it
was impossible for her to let him go. She had cherished the thought of
revenge for twenty years. It took the upper hand over her.
“Caterina, Caterina,” screams her niece.
“He only asked me to be allowed to go in peace _into_ the church,”
answers the old woman.
Old Biagio lays Falco’s body straight, and says with a grim look:--
“He would be quite well; quite well.”
XI
VICTORY
Far back in ancient days the great philosopher Empedokles lived in
Sicily. He was the most beautiful and the most perfect of men; so
wonderful and so wise that the people regarded him as an incarnate god.
Empedokles owned a country-place on Etna, and one evening he prepared a
feast there for his friends. During the repast he spoke such words that
they cried out to him: “Thou art a god, Empedokles; thou art a god!”
During the night Empedokles thought: “You have risen as high as you can
rise on earth. Now die, before adversity and feebleness take hold of
you.” And he wandered up to the summit of Etna and threw himself into the
burning crater. “When no one can find my body,” he thought, “the people
will say that I have been taken up alive to the gods.”
The next morning his friends searched for him through the villa and on
the mountain. They too came up to the crater, and there they found by the
crater’s mouth Empedokles’ sandal. They understood that Empedokles had
sought death in the crater in order to be counted among the immortals.
He would have succeeded had not the mountain cast up his shoe.
But on account of that story Empedokles’ name has never been forgotten,
and many have wondered where his villa could have been situated.
Antiquaries and treasure-seekers have looked for it; for the villa of the
wonderful Empedokles was naturally filled with marble statues, bronzes,
and mosaics.
Donna Micaela’s father, Cavaliere Palmeri, had set his heart on solving
the problem of the villa. Every morning he mounted his pony, Domenico,
and rode away to search for it. He was armed as an investigator, with a
scraper in his belt, a spade at his side, and a big knapsack on his back.
Every evening, when Cavaliere Palmeri came home, he told Donna Micaela
about Domenico. During the years that they had ridden about on Etna,
Domenico had become an antiquary. Domenico turned from the road as soon
as he caught sight of a ruin. He stamped on the ground in places where
excavations should be made. He snorted scornfully and turned away his
head if any one showed him a counterfeit piece of old money.
Donna Micaela listened with great patience and interest. She was sure
that in case that villa finally did let itself be found Domenico would
get all the glory of the discovery.
Cavaliere Palmeri never asked his daughter about _her_ undertaking. He
never showed any interest in the railway. It seemed almost as if he were
ignorant that she was working for it.
It was not singular however; he never showed interest in anything that
concerned his daughter.
One day, as they both sat at the dining-table, Donna Micaela all at once
began to talk of the railway.
She had won a victory, she said; she had finally won a victory.
He must hear what news she had received that day. It was not merely to be
a railway between Catania and Diamante, as she first had thought; it was
to be a railway round the whole of Etna.
By Falco’s death she had not only been rid of Falco himself, but now the
people believed also that the great Mongibello and all the saints were on
her side. And so there had arisen an agitation of the people to make the
railway an actuality. Contributions were signed in all the towns of Etna.
A company was formed. To-day the concession had come; to-morrow the work
was to begin in earnest.
Donna Micaela was excited; she could not eat. Her heart swelled with joy
and thankfulness. She could not help talking of the tremendous enthusiasm
that had seized the people. She spoke with tears in her eyes of the
Christchild in the church of San Pasquale.
It was touching to see how her face shone with hope. It was as if she
had, besides the happiness of which she was speaking, a whole world of
bliss in expectation.
That evening she felt that Providence had guided her well and happily.
She perceived that Gaetano’s imprisonment had been the work of God to
lead him back to faith. He would be set free by the miracles of the
little image, and that would convert him so that he would become a
believer as before. And she might be his. How good God was!
And while this great bliss stirred within her, her father sat opposite
her quite cold and indifferent.
“It was very extraordinary,” was all he said.
“You will come to-morrow to the ceremony of the laying of the
foundations?”
“I do not know; I have my investigations.”
Donna Micaela began to crumble her bread rather hastily. Her patience was
exhausted. She had not asked him to share her sorrows, but her joys; he
must share her joys!
All at once the shackles of submission and fear, which had bound her ever
since the time of his imprisonment, broke.
“You who ride so much about Etna,” she said with a very quiet voice,
“must have also come to Gela?”
The cavaliere looked up and seemed to search his memory. “Gela, Gela?”
“Gela is a village of a hundred houses, which is situated on the southern
side of Monte Chiaro, quite at its foot,” continued Donna Micaela, with
the most innocent expression. “It is squeezed in between Simeto and the
mountain, and a branch of the river generally flows through the principal
street of Gela so that it is very unusual to be able to pass dry-shod
through the village. The roof of the church fell in during the last
earthquake, and it has never been mended, for Gela is quite destitute.
Have you really never heard of Gela?”
Cavaliere Palmeri answered with inexpressible solemnity: “My
investigations have taken me up the mountain. I have not thought of
looking for the great philosopher’s villa in Gela.”
“But Gela is an interesting town,” said Donna Micaela, obstinately. “They
have no separate out-houses there. The pigs live on the lower floor, the
people one flight up. There is an endless number of pigs in Gela. They
thrive better than the people, for the people are almost always sick.
Fever is always raging there; malaria never leaves it. It is so damp that
the cellars are always under water, and it is wrapped in swamp mists
every night. In Gela there are no shops and no police, nor post-office,
nor doctor, nor apothecary. Six hundred people are living there forgotten
and brutalized. You have never heard of Gela?” She looked honestly
surprised.
Cavaliere Palmeri shook his head. “Of course I have heard the name--”
Donna Micaela cast a questioning glance on her father. She then bent
quickly forward towards him, and drew out of his breastpocket a small,
bent knife, such a knife as is used to prune grape-vines.
“Poor Empedokles,” she said, and all at once her whole face sparkled
with fun. “You may believe you have mounted to the gods, but Etna always
throws up your shoe.”
Cavaliere Palmeri sank back as if shot.
“Micaela!” he said, feebly fencing like some one who does not know how he
shall defend himself.
But she was instantly as serious and innocent as before. “I have been
told,” she said, “that Gela a few years ago was on the way to ruin. All
the people there grow grapes, and when the phylloxera came and destroyed
their vineyards, they almost starved to death. The Agricultural Society
sent them some of those American plants that are not affected by the
phylloxera. The people of Gela set them out, but all the plants died. How
could the people of Gela know how to tend American vines? Well, some one
came and taught them.”
“Micaela!”--it came almost like a wail. Donna Micaela thought that her
father already looked like a conquered man, but she continued as if she
had noticed nothing.
“_Some one came_,” she said with strong emphasis, “and he had had new
vines sent out. He began to plant them in their vineyards. They laughed
at him; they said that he was mad. But look, his vines grew and lived;
they did not die. And he has saved Gela.”
“I do not think that your story is entertaining, Micaela,” said Cavaliere
Palmeri with an attempt to interrupt her.
“It is quite as entertaining as your investigations,” she said, calmly.
“But I will tell you something. One day I went into your room to get a
book on antiquities. Then I found that all your bookshelves were full of
pamphlets about the phylloxera, about the cultivation of grapes, about
wine-making.”
The cavaliere twisted on his chair like a worm. “Be silent; be silent!”
he said feebly. He was more embarrassed than when he was accused of theft.
Now all the suppressed fun shone once more in her eyes.
“I sometimes looked at the letters you sent off,” she continued. “I
wished to see with what learned men you corresponded. It surprised me
that the letters were always addressed to presidents and secretaries of
Agricultural Societies.”
Cavaliere Palmeri was unable to utter a word. Donna Micaela enjoyed his
helplessness more than can be described.
She looked him steadily in the eyes. “I do not believe that Domenico
has yet learned to recognize a ruin,” she said with emphasis. “The
dirty children of Gela play with him every day, and feed him with
water-cresses. Domenico seems to be a god in Gela, to say nothing of
his--”
Cavaliere Palmeri seemed to have an idea.
“Your railway,” he said; “what did you say about your railway? Perhaps I
really can come to-morrow.”
Donna Micaela did not listen to him. She took up her pocket-book.
“I have here a counterfeit old coin,” she said,--“a ‘Demarata’ of nickel.
I bought it to show Domenico. He is going to snort.”
“Listen, child!”
She did not answer his attempts to make amends. Now the power was hers.
It would take more than that to pacify her.
“Once I opened your knapsack to look at your antiquities. The only thing
there was an old grape-vine.”
She was full of sparkling gayety.
“Child, child!”
“What is it to be called? It does not seem to be investigating. Is it
perhaps charity; is it perhaps atonement--”
Cavaliere Palmeri struck with his clenched fist on the table so that
the glasses and plates rang. It was unbearable. A dignified and solemn
old gentleman could not endure such mockery. “As surely as you are my
daughter, you must be silent now.”
“Your daughter!” she said, and her gayety was gone in an instant; “am
I really your daughter? The children in Gela are allowed to caress at
least Domenico, but I--”
“What do you wish, Micaela, what do you want?”
They looked at one another, and their eyes simultaneously filled with
tears.
“I have no one but you,” she murmured.
Cavaliere Palmeri opened his arms unconditionally to her. She rose
hesitatingly; she did not know if she saw right.
“I know how it is going to be,” he said, grumblingly; “not one minute
will I have to myself.”
“To find the villa?”
“Come here and kiss me, Micaela! To-night is the first time since we left
Catania that you have been irresistible.”
When she threw her arms about him it was with a hoarse, wild cry which
almost frightened him.
THIRD BOOK
“_And he shall win many followers_”
I
THE OASIS AND THE DESERT
In the spring of 1894 the Etna railway was begun; in the autumn of 1895
it was finished. It went up from the shore, made a circuit round the
mountain in a wide half-circle, and came down again to the shore.
Trains come and go every day, and Mongibello lies subdued and makes no
sign. Foreigners pass with amazement through the black, distorted lava
streams, through the groves of white almond-trees, through the dark old
Saracen towns. “Look, look! is there such a land on earth!” they say.
In the railway carriages there is always some one telling of the time
when the Christ-image was in Diamante.
What a time! What a time! Each day new miracles were performed. They
cannot tell of them all, but he brought as much happiness to Diamante as
if the hours of the day had been dancing maidens. People thought that
Time had filled his hour-glass with shining sands of gold.
If any one had asked who reigned in Diamante at that time, the answer
would have been that it was the Christ-image. Everything was done
according to his will. No one took a wife, or played in a lottery, or
built himself a house without consulting him.
Many knife-thrusts were spared for the image’s sake, many old feuds
settled, and many bitter words were never uttered.
The people had to be good, for they observed that the image helped those
who were peaceable and helpful. To them he granted the pleasant gifts of
happiness and riches.
If the world had been as it ought to be, Diamante would soon have become
a rich and powerful town. But instead, that part of the world which did
not believe in the image destroyed all his work. All the happiness he
scattered about him was of no avail.
The taxes were constantly increased, and took all their money. There was
the war in Africa. How could the people be happy when their sons, their
money, and their mules had to go to Africa? The war did not go well; one
defeat followed another. How could they be happy when their country’s
honor was at stake?
Especially after the railway had been finished was it manifest that
Diamante was like an oasis in a great desert. An oasis is exposed to the
drifting sands of the desert and to robbers and wild beasts. So was also
Diamante. The oasis would have to spread over the whole desert to feel
secure. Diamante began to believe that it could never be happy until the
whole world worshipped its Christ-image.
It now happened that everything that Diamante hoped and strove for was
denied it.
Donna Micaela and all Diamante longed to get Gaetano back. When the
railway was ready Donna Micaela went to Rome and asked for his release,
but it was refused her. The king and the queen would have liked to help
her, but they could not. You know who was minister then. He ruled Italy
with a hand of iron; do you think that he allowed the king to pardon a
rebellious Sicilian?
The people also longed that the Christchild of Diamante should have the
adoration that was his due, and Donna Micaela sought an audience for
his sake with the old man in the Vatican. “Holy Father,” she said, “let
me tell you what has been taking place in Diamante on the slopes of
Etna!” And when she had told of all the miracles performed by the image,
she asked the pope to have the old church of San Pasquale purified and
consecrated, and to appoint a priest for the worship of the Christchild.
“Dear Princess Micaela,” said the pope, “those incidents of which you
speak, the church dares not consider miracles. But you need not at all
despair. If the Christchild wishes to be worshipped in your town, he will
give one more sign. He will show Us his will so plainly that We shall not
need to hesitate. And forgive an old man, my daughter, because he has to
be cautious!”
A third thing the people of Diamante had hoped. They had expected at last
to hear something from Gaetano. Donna Micaela journeyed also to Como,
where he was held prisoner. She had letters of recommendation from the
highest quarters in Rome, and she was sure that she would be allowed
to speak to him. But the director of the prison sent her to the prison
doctor.
The latter forbade her to speak to Gaetano.
“You wish to see the prisoner?” he said. “You shall not do it. Do you say
that he loves you and believes you to be dead? Let him think it! Let him
believe it! He has bowed his head to Death. He suffers no longing. Do you
wish him to know that you are alive, so that he may begin to long? You
wish, perhaps, to kill him? I will tell you something; if he begins to
long for life, he will be dead within three months.”
He spoke so positively that Donna Micaela understood that she must give
up seeing Gaetano. But what a disappointment, what a disappointment!
When she came home, she felt like one who has dreamt so vividly that he
cannot, even after he is awake, rouse himself from his visions. She could
not realize that all her hopes had been a mockery. She surprised herself
time after time thinking: “When I have saved Gaetano.” But now she no
longer had any hope of saving him.
She thought now of one, now of another enterprise, on which she wished to
embark. Should she drain the plain, or should she begin to quarry marble
on Etna. She hesitated and wondered. She could not keep her mind on
anything.