Part 12

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.

The syndic’s wife answered no. Her daughters were not allowed to sell 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.