Part 20

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.

The same indolence that had taken possession of Donna Micaela crept through the whole town. It was soon plain that everything that depended on people who did not believe in the Christchild of Diamante was badly managed and unsuccessful. Even the Etna railway was conducted in the wrong way. Accidents were happening constantly on the steep inclines; and the price of the tickets was too high. The people began to use the omnibuses and post wagons again.

Donna Micaela and others with her began to think of carrying the Christ-image out into the world. They would go out and show how he gave health and subsistence and happiness to all who were quiet and industrious and helped their neighbor. If people could once see, they would certainly be converted.

“The image ought to stand on the Capitol and govern the world,” said the people of Diamante.

“All those who govern us are incapable,” said the people. “We prefer to be guided by the holy Christchild.”

“The Christchild is powerful and charitable; if he ruled us, the poor would be rich, and the rich would have enough. He knows who wish to do right. If he should come to power, they who now are ruled would sit in the parliament. He would pass through the world like a plough with a sharp edge, and that which now lies unprofitable in the depths would then bear harvests.”

Before their longed-for plans came to pass, however, in the first days of March, 1896, the news of the battle at Adna arrived. The Italians had been defeated, and several thousands of them were killed or taken prisoners.

A few days later there was a change of ministry in Rome. And the man who came to power was afraid of the rage and despair of the Sicilians. To pacify them he pardoned out several of the imprisoned socialists. The five for whom he thought the people longed most were set free. They were Da Felice, Bosco, Verro, Barbato and Alagona.

Ah, Micaela tried to be glad when she heard it. She tried not to weep.

She had believed that Gaetano was in prison because the Christ-image was to break down the walls of his cell. He was sent there by the grace of God, because he had to be forced to bow his head before the Christchild and say: “My Lord and my God.”

But now it was not the image which had freed him; he would come out the same heathen as before; the same yawning chasm would still exist between them.

She tried to be glad. It was enough that he was free. What did she or her happiness matter in comparison to that!

But it happened so with everything for which Diamante had hoped and striven.

The great desert was very cruel to the poor oasis.

II

IN PALERMO

At last, at last, it is one o’clock at night. Those who are afraid to oversleep rise from their beds, dress themselves and go out into the street.

And those who have sat and hung over a café table till now start up when they hear steps echo on the stone pavements. They shake the drowsiness from their bodies and hurry out. They mingle in the swiftly increasing stream of people, and the heavy feet of Time begin to move a little faster.

Mere acquaintances press each other’s hands with heartfelt warmth. It is plain that the same enthusiasm fills all souls. And the most absurd people are out; old university professors, distinguished noblemen and fine ladies, who otherwise never set their foot in the street. They are all equally joyous.

“God! God! that he is coming, that Palermo is to have him back again!” they say.

The Palermo students, who have not moved from their usual headquarters in Quattro Canti all night, have provided torches and colored lanterns. They were not to be lighted till four o’clock, when the man they expected was to come; but about two o’clock one or two of them begin to try whether their torches burn well. Then they light everything and greet the flames with cheers. It is impossible to stand in darkness when so much joy is burning within them.

In the hotels the travellers are waked and urged to get up. “There is a festival in Palermo to-night, O signori!”

The travellers ask for whom. “For one of the socialists whom the government has pardoned out of prison. He is coming now in the steamer from Naples.”--“What kind of a man is he?”--“His name is Bosco, and the people love him.”