FIRST BOOK (continued 3)

How could they, he said, be so foolish as to believe that nothing better would come? Should the people, who possessed the whole earth, be content to let their parents starve, and their children grow up to be good-for-nothings and criminals?

Did they not know that there were treasures in the mountains, and in the sea, and in the ground? Had they never heard that the earth was rich? Did they think that it could not feed its children?

They should not murmur among themselves, and say that it was impossible to arrange matters differently. They should not think that there must be rich and poor. Alas, they understood nothing! They did not know their Mother Earth. Did they think that she hated any of them? They had lain down on the ground and heard the earth speak? Perhaps they had seen her make laws? They had heard her pass sentence? She had commanded some to starve, and some to die of luxury?

Why did they not open their ears and listen to the new teachings pouring through the world? Would they not like to have a better life? Did they like their rags? Were they satisfied with sorrel and cresses? Did they not wish to possess a roof over their heads?

And he told them that it made no difference, no difference, if they refused to believe in the new times that were coming. They would come in spite of it. They did not need to lift the sun up from the sea in the morning. The new times would come to them as the sun came, but why would they not be ready to meet them? Why did they shut themselves in, and fear the new light?

He spoke long in the same strain, and more and more of the poor people of Diamante gathered about him.

The longer he continued, the more beautiful became his speech and the clearer grew his voice.

His eyes were full of fire, and to the people looking up at him, he seemed as beautiful as a young prince.

He was one of the race of once powerful lords, who had possessed means to shower happiness and gold on everybody within their wide lands. They believed him when he said that he had happiness to give them. They felt comforted, and rejoiced that their young lord loved them.

When he had finished speaking they began to shout, and call to him that they wished to follow him and do what he commanded.

He had gained ascendency over them in a moment. He was so beautiful and so glorious that they could not resist him. And his faith seized and subdued.

That night there was not one poor person in Diamante who did not believe that Gaetano would give him happy days, free from care. That night they called down blessings on him, all those who lived in sheds and out-houses. That night the hungry lay down with the sure belief that the next day tables groaning under many dishes would stand spread for them when they awoke.

For when Gaetano spoke, his power was so great that he could convince an old man that he was young, and a freezing man that he was warm. And people felt that what he promised must come.

He was the prince of the coming times. His hands were generous, and miracles and blessings would stream down over Diamante, now that he had come again.

The next day, towards sunset, Giannita came into the sick-room and whispered to Donna Micaela: “There is an insurrection in Paternó. They have been shooting for several hours, and you can hear them as far away as here. Orders for troops have already gone to Catania. And Gaetano says that it will break out here, too. He says that it will break out in all the towns of Etna at one time.”

Donna Micaela made a sign to Giannita to stay with her father, and she herself went across the street and into Donna Elisa’s shop.

Donna Elisa sat behind the counter with her frame, but she was not working. The tears fell so heavy and fast that she had ceased to embroider.

“Where is Gaetano?” said Donna Micaela, without any preamble. “I must speak to him.”

“God give you strength to talk to him,” answered Donna Elisa. “He is in the garden.”

She went out across the court-yard and into the walled garden.

In the garden there were many narrow paths winding from terrace to terrace. There was also a number of arbors and grottos and benches. And it was so thick with stiff agaves, and close-growing dwarf palms, and thick-leaved rubber-plants, and rhododendrons, that it was impossible to see two feet in front of one. Donna Micaela walked for a long time on those innumerable paths before she could find Gaetano. The longer she walked, the more impatient she became.

At last she found him at the farther end of the garden. She caught sight of him on the lowest terrace, built out on one of the bastions of the wall of the town. There sat Gaetano at ease, and worked with chisel and hammer on a statuette. When he saw Donna Micaela, he came towards her with outstretched hands.

She hardly gave herself time to greet him. “Is it true,” she said, “that you have come home to be our ruin?” He began to laugh. “The syndic has been here,” he said. “The priest has been here. Are you coming too?”

It wounded her that he laughed, and that he spoke of the priest and the syndic. It was something different, and more, that she came.

“Tell me,” she said, stiffly, “if it is true that we are to have an uprising this evening.”—“Oh, no,” he answered; “we shall have no uprising.” And he said it in such a voice that it almost made her sorry for him.

“You cause Donna Elisa great grief,” she burst out.—“And you too, do I not?” he said, with a slight sneer. “I cause you all sorrow. I am the lost son; I am Judas. I am the angel of justice who is driving you from that paradise where people eat grass.”

She answered: “Perhaps we think that what we have is better than being shot by the soldiers.”—“Yes, of course; it is better to starve to death. We are used to that.”—“Nor is it pleasant to be murdered by bandits.”—“But why for Heaven’s sake have any bandits, if you do not want to be murdered by them?”—“Yes, I know,” she said, more passionately, “that you want all the rich to perish.”

He did not answer immediately; he stood and bit his lips, so as not to lose his temper. “Let me talk with you, Donna Micaela!” he said at last. “Let me explain it to you!”

At the same time he put on a patient expression. He talked socialism with her, so clear and simple that a child could have understood.

But she was far from being able to follow it. Perhaps she could have, but she did not wish to. She did not wish just then to hear of socialism.

It had been so wonderful to her to see him. The ground had rocked under her; and something glorious and blessed had passed through and quite overcome her. “God, it is he whom I love!” she said to herself. “It is really he.”

Before she had seen him she had known very well what she would say to him. She would have led him back to the faith of his childhood. She would have shown him that those new teachings were detestable and dangerous. But then love came. It made her confused and stupid. She could not answer him. She only sat and wondered that he could talk.

She wondered if he was much handsomer now than formerly. Formerly she had not been confused at all when she saw him. She had never been attracted to that extent. Or was it that he had become a free, strong man? She was frightened when she felt how he subdued her.

She dared not contradict him. She dared not even speak, for fear of bursting into tears. Had she dared to speak, she would not have talked of public affairs. She would have told him what she had felt the day the bells rang. Or she would have prayed to be allowed to kiss his hand. She would have told him how she had dreamed of him. She would have said that if she had not had him to dream of she could not have borne her life. She would have begged to be allowed to kiss his hand in gratitude, because he had given her life all these years.

If there was to be no uprising, why did he talk socialism? What had socialism to do with them, sitting alone in Donna Elisa’s garden? She sat and looked along one of the paths. Luca had put up wooden arches on both sides of it, and up these climbed garlands of light rose-shoots, full of little buds and flowers. One always wondered whither one was coming when one went along that path. And one came to a little weather-beaten cupid. Old Luca understood things better than Gaetano.

While they sat there the sun set, and Etna grew rosy-red. It was as if Etna flushed with anger at what was going on in Donna Elisa’s garden. It was at sunset, when Etna glowed red, that she had always thought of Gaetano. It seemed as if they both had been waiting for it. And they had both arranged how it would be when Gaetano came. She had only feared that he would be too fiery, and too passionately wild. And he talked only of those dreadful Socialists, whom she detested and feared.

He talked a long time. She saw Etna grow pale and become bronze-brown, and then the darkness came. She knew that there would be moonlight. There she sat quite still, and hoped for help from the moonlight. She herself could do nothing. She was entirely in his power. But when the moonlight came, it did not help either. He continued to talk of capitalists and working-men.

Then it seemed to her as if there could be but one explanation for all this. He must have ceased to love her.

Suddenly she remembered something. It was a week ago. It was the same day that Gaetano had come home. She had come into Giannita’s room, but she had walked so softly that Giannita had not heard her. She had seen Giannita stand as if in ecstasy, with up-stretched arms and up-turned face. And in her hands she held a picture. First she carried it to her lips and kissed it, then she lifted it up over her head and looked up to it in rapture. And the picture had been of Gaetano.

When Donna Micaela had seen that, she had gone away as silently as she had come. She had only thought then that Giannita was to be pitied if she loved Gaetano. But now, when Gaetano only talked socialism, now she remembered it.

Now she began to think that Gaetano also loved Giannita. She remembered that they were friends from childhood. He had perhaps loved her a long time. Perhaps he had come home to marry her. Donna Micaela could say nothing; she had nothing to complain of. It was scarcely a month since she wrote to Gaetano that it was not right of him to love her.

He now leaned towards her, enchained her glance, and actually compelled her to listen to what he was saying.

“You shall understand; you shall see and understand, Donna Micaela! What we need here in the South is a regeneration, a pulling up by the roots, such as Christianity was in its time. Up with the slaves; down with the masters! A plow which turns up new social furrows! We must sow in new earth; the old earth is impoverished. The old surface furrows bear only weak, miserable growth. Let the deep earth come up to the light, and we shall see something different!

“See, Donna Micaela, why does socialism live; why has it not gone under? Because it comes with a new word. ‘Think of the earth,’ it says, just as Christianity came with the word, ‘Think of heaven.’ Look about you! Look at the earth; is it not all that we possess? Let us therefore establish ourselves here so that we shall be happy. Why, why, has no one thought of it before? Because we have been so busy with that Hereafter. Let us leave the Hereafter! The earth, the earth, Donna Micaela! Ah, we socialists, we love her! We worship the sacred earth,—the poor, despised mother, who wears mourning because her children yearn for heaven.

“Believe me, Donna Micaela,” he said, “it will be accomplished in less than seven years. In the year nineteen hundred it will be ready. Then martyrs will have bled; then apostles will have spoken; then shall crowds upon crowds have been won over! We, the rightful sons of the earth, shall have the victory! And she shall lie before us in all her loveliness; she shall bring us beauty, bring us pleasure, bring us knowledge, bring us health!”

Gaetano’s voice began to tremble, and tears quivered in his eyes. He went forward to the edge of the terrace, and he stretched out his arms as if to embrace the moonlit earth. “You are so dazzlingly beautiful,” he said, “so dazzlingly beautiful!”

And Donna Micaela for a moment thought she felt his grief over all the sorrow that lay under the surface of beauty. She saw life full of vice and suffering, like a dirty river filled with the stench of uncleanliness, wind through the glistening world of beauty.

“And no one can enjoy you,” said Gaetano; “no one can dare to enjoy you. You are untamed, and full of whims and anger. You are uncertainty and peril; you are sorrow and pain; you are want and shame; you are the force that grinds; you are everything terrible that can be named, because the people have not wished to make you better.

“But your day will come,” he said, triumphantly. “Some day they will turn to you with all their love; they will not turn to a dream, which gives nothing and is good for nothing.”

She interrupted him roughly. She began to fear him more and more.

“So it is true that you have had no success in England?”

“What do you mean?”

“People say that the great master, to whom Miss Tottenham sent you, has said that you—”

“What has he said?”

“That you and your images suited Diamante, but nowhere else.”

“Who says such things?”

“People think so, because you are so changed.”

“Since I am a socialist.”

“Why should you be one if you had been successful?”

“Ah, why—? You do not know,” he continued, with a laugh, “that my master in England himself was a socialist. You do not know that it was he who taught me these opinions—”

He paused, and did not go on with the controversy. He went over to the bench where he had been sitting when she came, and brought back a statuette. He handed it to Donna Micaela. He seemed to wish to say: “See for yourself if you are right.”

She took it, and held it up in the moonlight. It was a Mater Dolorosa in black marble. She could see it quite plainly.

She could also recognize it. The image had her own features. It intoxicated her for a moment. In the next she was filled with horror. He, a socialist; he, an unbeliever; he dared to create a Madonna! And he had given the image her features! He entangled her in his sin!

“I have done it for you, Donna Micaela,” he said.

Ah, since it was hers! She threw it out over the balustrade. It struck against the steep mountain side; fell deeper and deeper; broke loose stones, and certainly shattered itself to pieces. At last a splash was heard down in Simeto.

“What right have you to carve Madonnas?” she asked Gaetano.

He stood silent. He had never seen Donna Micaela thus.

In the moment when she rose up before him she had become tall and stately. The beauty that always came and went in her, like an uneasy guest, was enthroned in her face. She looked cold and inflexible; a woman to win and conquer.

“Then you still believe in God, since you carve Madonnas?” she said.

He breathed hurriedly. Now it was he who was paralyzed. He had been a believer himself. He knew how he had wounded her. He saw that he had forfeited her love. He had made a terrible, infinite chasm between them.

He must speak, must win her over to his side.

He began again, but feebly and falteringly.

She listened quietly for a while. Then she interrupted him almost compassionately.

“How did you become so?”

“I thought of Sicily,” he said submissively.

“You thought of Sicily,” she repeated thoughtfully. “And why did you come home?”

“I came home to cause an insurrection.”

It was as if they had spoken of an illness, a chill, that he had contracted, and that could quite easily be cured.

“You came home to be our ruin,” she said, sternly.

“As you will; as you will,” he said, complying. “You can call it so. As everything is going now, you are certainly right to call it so. Ah, if they had not given me false information; if I had not come a week too late! Is it not like us Sicilians to let the government anticipate us? When I came the leaders were already arrested, the island garrisoned with forty thousand men. Everything lost!”

It sounded strangely blank when he said that “everything lost.” And for that which never could be anything, he had lost happiness. His opinions and principles seemed to him now to be dry cobwebs, which had captured him. He wished to tear himself away to come to her. She was the only reality, the only thing that was his. So he had felt before. It came back now. She was the only thing in the world.

“They are, however, fighting to-day in Paternó.”

“There has been a disagreement by the town-gate,” he said. “It is nothing. If I had been able to inflame all Etna, the whole circle of towns round about Etna! Then they would have understood us! they would have listened to us! Now they are shooting down a few hungry peasants to make a few hungry mouths the less. They do not yield an inch to us.”

He strove to break through his cobwebs. Could he venture to go up to her, to tell her that all that was of no importance? He did not need to think of politics. He was an artist; he was free! And he wanted to possess her!

Suddenly it seemed as if the air trembled. A shot echoed through the night, then another and another.

She came forward to him and grasped his wrist. “Is that the uprising?” she asked.

Shot upon shot came thundering. Then were heard the cries and din of a crowd rushing down the street.

“It is the uprising; it must be the uprising! Ah, long live socialism!”

He was filled with joy. Entire faith in his belief came back to him. He would win her too. Women have never refused to belong to the victor.

They both hurried without another word through the garden to the door. There Gaetano began to swear and call. He could not get out. There was no key in the lock. He was shut into the garden.

He looked about. There were high walls on three sides, and on the fourth an abyss. There was no way out for him. But from the town came a terrible noise. The people were rushing up and down; there were shots and cries. And they heard them yell: “Long live freedom! Long live socialism!” He threw himself against the door, and almost shrieked. He was imprisoned; he could not take part.

Donna Micaela came up to him as quickly as she could. Now, since she had heard him, she no longer thought of keeping him back.

“Wait, wait!” she said. “I took the key.”

“You, you!” he said.

“I took it when I came. It occurred to me that I could keep you shut in here if you should want to cause an uprising. I wished to save you.”

“What folly!” he said, and snatched the key from her.

While he stood and fumbled to find the key-hole, he still had time to say something.

“Why do you not want to save me now?”

She did not answer.

“Perhaps so that your God may have a chance to destroy me.”

She was still silent.

“Do you not dare to save me from His wrath?”

“No, I do not dare,” she said quietly.

“You believers are terrible!” he said.

He felt that she threw him aside. It froze him, and took away his courage, that she did not make a single attempt to persuade him to stay. He turned the key forward and back without being able to open the door, paralyzed by her standing there pale and cold behind him.

Then he suddenly felt her arms about his neck and her lips seeking his.

At the same moment the door flew open and he rushed away. He would not have her kisses, which only consecrated him to death. She was as terrible as a spectre to him with her ancient faith. He rushed away like a fugitive.

XI THE FEAST OF SAN SEBASTIANO

When Gaetano rushed away, Donna Micaela stood for a long time in Donna Elisa’s garden. She stood there as if turned to stone, and could neither feel nor think.

Then suddenly the thought came that Gaetano and she were not alone in the world. She remembered her father lying sick, whom she had forgotten for so many hours.

She went through the gate of the court-yard out to the Corso, which lay deserted and empty. Tumult and shots were still audible far away, and she said to herself that they must be fighting down by Porta Etnea.

The moon shed its clear light on the façade of the summer-palace, and it amazed her that at such an hour, and on such a night, the balcony doors stood open, and the window shutters were not closed. She was still more surprised that the gate was standing ajar, and that the shop-door was wide open.

As she went in through the gate, she did not see the old gate-keeper, Piero, there. The lanterns in the court-yard were not lighted, and there was not a soul to be seen anywhere.

She went up the steps to the gallery, and her foot struck against something hard. It was a little bronze vase, which belonged in the music-room. A few steps higher up she found a knife. It was a sheath-knife, with a long, dagger-like blade. When she lifted it up a couple of dark drops rolled down from its edge. She knew that it must be blood.

And she understood too that what she had feared all the autumn had now happened. Bandits had been in the summer-palace for plunder. And everyone who could run away had run away; but her father, who could not leave his bed, must be murdered.

She could not tell whether the brigands were not still in the house. But now, in the midst of danger, her fears vanished; and she hurried on, unheeding that she was alone and defenceless.

She went along the gallery into the music-room. Broad rays of moonlight fell upon the floor, and in one of those rays lay a human form stretched motionless.

Donna Micaela bent down over that motionless body. It was Giannita. She was murdered; she had a deep, gaping wound in her neck.

Donna Micaela laid the body straight, crossed the hands over the breast, and closed the eyes. In so doing, her hands were wet with the blood; and when she felt that warm, sticky blood, she began to weep. “Alas, my dear, beloved sister,” she said aloud, “it is your young life that has ebbed away with this blood. All your life you have loved me, and now you have shed your blood defending my house. Is it to punish my hardness that God has taken you from me? Is it because I did not allow you to love him whom I loved that you have gone from me? Alas, sister, sister, could you not have punished me less severely?”

She bent down and kissed the dead girl’s forehead. “You do not believe it,” she said. “You know that I have always been faithful to you. You know that I have loved you.”

She remembered that the dead was severed from everything earthly, that it was not grief and assurances of friendship she needed. She said a prayer over the body, since the only thing she could do for her sister was to support with pious thoughts the flight of the soul soaring up to God.

Then she went on, no longer afraid of anything that could happen to herself, but in inexpressible terror of what might have happened to her father.

When she had at last passed through the long halls in the state apartment and stood by the door to the sick-room, her hands groped a long time for the latch; and when she had found it, she had not the strength to turn the key.

Then her father called from his room and asked who was there. When she heard his voice and knew that he was alive, everything in her trembled, and burst, and lost its power to serve her. Brain and heart failed her at once, and her muscles could no longer hold her upright. She had still time to think that she had been living in terrible suspense. And with a feeling of relief, she sank down in a long swoon.

Donna Micaela regained consciousness towards morning. In the meantime much had happened. The servants had come out of their hiding-places, and had gone for Donna Elisa. She had taken charge of the deserted palace, had summoned the police, and sent a message to the White Brotherhood. And the latter had carried Giannita’s body to her mother’s house.

When Donna Micaela awoke, she found herself lying on the sofa in a room next her father’s. No one was with her, but in her father’s room she heard Donna Elisa talking.

“My son and my daughter,” said Donna Elisa, sobbing; “I have lost both my son and my daughter.”

Donna Micaela tried to raise herself, but she could not. Her body still lay in a stupor, although her soul was awake.

“Cavaliere, Cavaliere,” said Donna Elisa, “can you understand? The bandits come here from Etna, creeping down to Diamante. The bandits attack the custom-house and shout: ‘Long live Socialism!’ They do it only to frighten people away from the streets and to draw the Carabiniere down to Porta Etnea. There is not a single man from Diamante who has anything to do with it. It is the bandits who arrange it all, to be able to plunder Miss Tottenham and Donna Micaela, two women, Cavaliere! What did those officers think at the court-martial? Did they believe that Gaetano was in league with the bandits? Did they not see that he was a nobleman, a true Alagona, an artist? How could they have sentenced him?”

Donna Micaela listened with horror, but she tried to imagine that she was still dreaming. She thought she heard Gaetano ask if she was sacrificing him to God. She thought she answered that she did. Now she was dreaming of how it would be in case he really had been captured. It could be nothing else.

“What a night of misfortune!” said Donna Elisa. “What is flying about in the air, and making people mad and confused? You have seen Gaetano, Cavaliere. He has always been passionate and fiery, but it has not been without intelligence; he has not been without sense and judgment. But to-night he throws himself right into the arms of the troops. You know that he wanted to cause an uprising; you know that he came home for that. And when he hears the shooting, and some one shouting, ‘Long live Socialism!’ he becomes wild, and beside himself. He says to himself, ‘That is the insurrection!’ and he rushes down the street to join it. And he shouts the whole time, ‘Long live Socialism!’ as loud as he can. And so he meets a great crowd of soldiers, a whole host. For they were on their way to Paternó, and heard the shooting as they passed by, and marched in to see what was going on. And Gaetano can no longer recognize a soldier’s cap. He thinks that they are the rebels; he thinks that they are angels from heaven, and he rushes in among them and lets them capture him. And they, who have already caught all the bandits sneaking away with their booty, now lay hands on Gaetano too. They go through the town and find everything quiet; but before they leave, they pass sentence on their prisoners. And they condemn Gaetano like the others, condemn him like those who have broken in and murdered women. Have they not lost their senses, Cavaliere?”

Donna Micaela could not hear what her father answered. She wished to ask a thousand questions, but she was still paralyzed and could not move. She wondered if Gaetano had been shot.

“What do they mean by sentencing him to twenty-nine years’ imprisonment?” said Donna Elisa. “Do you think that he can live so long, or that any one who loves him can live so long? He is dead, Cavaliere; as dead for me as Giannita.”

Donna Micaela felt as if strong fetters bound her beyond escape. It was worse, she thought, than to be tied to a pillory and whipped.

“All the joy of my old age is taken from me,” said Donna Elisa. “Both Giannita and Gaetano! I have always expected them to marry each other. It would have been so suitable, because they were both my children, and loved me. For what shall I live now, when I have no young people about me? I was often poor when Gaetano first came to me, and people said to me that I should have been better off alone. But I answered: ‘It makes no difference, none, if only I have young people about me.’ And I thought that when he grew up he would find a young wife, and then they would have little children, and I would never need to sit a lonely and useless old woman.”

Donna Micaela lay thinking that she could have saved Gaetano, but had not wished to do so. But why had she not wished? It seemed to her quite incomprehensible. She began to count up to herself all her reasons for permitting him to rush to destruction. He was an atheist; a socialist; he wished to cause a revolt. That had outweighed everything else when she opened the garden gate for him. It had crushed her love also. She could not now understand it. It was as if a scale full of feathers had weighed down a scale full of gold.

“My beautiful boy!” said Donna Elisa, “my beautiful boy! He was already a great man over there in England, and he came home to help us poor Sicilians. And now they have sentenced him like a bandit. People say that they were ready to shoot him, as they shot the others. Perhaps it would have been better if they had done so, Cavaliere. It had been better to have laid him in the church-yard than to know that he was in prison. How will he be able to endure all his suffering? He will not be able to bear it; he will fall ill; he will soon be dead.”

At these words, Donna Micaela roused herself from her stupor, and got up from the sofa. She staggered across the room and came in to her father and Donna Elisa, as pale as poor murdered Giannita. She was so weak that she did not dare to cross the floor; she stood at the door and leaned against the door-post.

“It is I,” she said; “Donna Elisa, it is I—”

The words would not come to her lips. She wrung her hands in despair that she could not speak.

Donna Elisa was instantly at her side. She put her arm about her to support her, without paying any attention to Donna Micaela’s attempt to push her away.

“You must forgive me, Donna Elisa,” she said, with an almost inaudible voice. “I did it.”

Donna Elisa did not heed much what she was saying. She saw that she had fever, and thought that she was delirious.

Donna Micaela’s lips worked; she plainly wished to say something, but only a few words were audible. It was impossible to understand what she meant. “Against him, as against my father,” she said, over and over. And then she said something about bringing misfortune on all who loved her.

Donna Elisa had got her down on a chair, and Donna Micaela sat there and kissed her old, wrinkled hands, and asked her to forgive her what she had done.

Yes, of course, of course, Donna Elisa forgave her.

Donna Micaela looked her sharply in the face with great, feverish eyes, and asked if it were true.

It was really true.

Then she laid her head on Donna Elisa’s shoulder and sobbed, thanked her, and said that she could not live if she did not obtain her forgiveness. She had sinned against no one so much as against her. Could she forgive her?

“Yes, yes,” said Donna Elisa again and again, and thought that the other was out of her head from fever and fright.

“There is something I ought to tell you,” said Donna Micaela. “I know it, but you do not know it. You will not forgive me if you hear it.”

“Yes, of course I forgive you,” said Donna Elisa.

They talked in that way for a long time without understanding each other; but it was good for old Donna Elisa to have some one that night to put to bed, comforted and dosed with strengthening herbs and drops. It was good for her to still have some one to come and lay her head on her shoulder and cry away her grief.

Donna Micaela, who had loved Gaetano for nearly three years without a thought that they could ever belong to each other, had accustomed herself to a strange kind of love. It was enough for her to know that Gaetano loved her. When she thought of it, a tender feeling of security and happiness stole through her. “What does it matter; what does it matter?” she said, when she suffered adversity. “Gaetano loves me.” He was always with her, cheering and comforting her. He took part in all her thoughts and undertakings. He was the soul of her life.

As soon as Donna Micaela could get his address, she wrote to him. She acknowledged to him that she had firmly believed that he had gone to misfortune. But she had been so much afraid of what he proposed to accomplish in the world that she had not dared to save him.

She also wrote how she detested his teachings. She did not dissemble at all to him. She said that even if he were free she could not be his.

She feared him. He had such power over her that, if they were united, he would make her a socialist and an atheist. Therefore she must always live apart from him, for the salvation of her soul.

But she begged and prayed that in spite of everything he would not cease to love her. He must not; he must not! He might punish her in any way he pleased, if only he did not cease to love her.

He must not do as her father had. He had perhaps reason to close his heart to her now, but he must not. He must be merciful.

If he knew how she loved him! If he knew how she dreamed of him!

She told him that he was nothing less than life itself to her.

“Must I die, Gaetano?” she asked.

“Is it not enough that those opinions and teachings part us? Is it not enough that they have carried you to prison? Will you also cease to love me, because we do not think alike?

“Ah, Gaetano, love me! It leads to nothing; there is no hope in your love, but love me; I die if you do not love me.”

Donna Micaela had hardly sent off the letter before she began to wait for the answer. She expected a stormy and angry reply, but she hoped that there would be one single word to show her that he still loved her.

But she waited several weeks without receiving any letter from Gaetano.

It did not help her to stand and wait every morning for the letter-carrier out on the gallery, and almost break his heart because he was always obliged to say that he did not have anything for her.

One day she went herself to the post-office, and asked them, with the most beseeching eyes, to give her the letter she was expecting. It must be there, she said. But perhaps they had not been able to read the address; perhaps it had been put into the wrong box? And her soft, imploring eyes so touched the postmaster that she was allowed to look through piles of old, unclaimed letters, and to turn all the drawers in the post-office upside down. But it was all in vain.

She wrote new letters to Gaetano; but no answer came.

Then she tried to believe what seemed impossible. She tried to make her soul realize that Gaetano had ceased to love her.

As her conviction increased, she began to shut herself into her room. She was afraid of people, and preferred to sit alone.

Day by day she became more feeble. She walked deeply bent, and even her beautiful eyes seemed to lose their life and light.

After a few weeks she was so weak that she could no longer keep up, but lay all day on her sofa. She was prey to a suffering that gradually deprived her of all vital power. She knew that she was failing, and she was afraid to die. But she could do nothing. There was only one remedy for her, but that never came. While Donna Micaela seemed to be thus quietly gliding out of life, the people of Diamante were preparing to celebrate the feast of San Sebastiano, that comes at the end of January.

It was the greatest festival of Diamante, but in the last few years it had not been kept with customary splendor, because want and gloom had weighed too heavily on their souls.

But this year, just after the revolt had failed, and while Sicily was still filled with troops, and while the beloved heroes of the people languished in prison, they determined to celebrate the festival with all the old-time pomp; for now, they said, was not the time to neglect the saint.

And the pious people of Diamante determined that the festival should be held for a week, and that San Sebastiano should be honored with flags and decorations, and with races and biblical processions, illuminations, and singing contests.

The people bestirred themselves with great haste and eagerness. There was polishing and scrubbing in every house. They brought out the old costumes, and they prepared to receive strangers from all Etna.

The summer-palace was the only house in Diamante where no preparations were made. Donna Elisa was deeply grieved at it, but she could not induce Donna Micaela to have her house decorated. “How can you ask me to trim a house of mourning with flowers and leaves?” she said. “The roses would shed their petals if I tried to use them to mask the misery that reigns here.”

But Donna Elisa was very eager for the festival, and expected much good to result from honoring the saint as in the old days. She could talk of nothing but of how the priests had decorated the façade of the Cathedral in the old Sicilian way, with silver flowers and mirrors. And she described the procession: how many riders there were to be, and what high plumes they were to have in their hats, and what long, garlanded staves, with wax candles at the end, they were to carry in their hands.

When the first festival day came, Donna Elisa’s house was the most gorgeously decorated. The green, red, and white standard of Italy waved from the roof, and red cloths, fringed with gold, bearing the saint’s initials, were spread over the window-sills and balcony railings. Up and down the wall ran garlands of holly, shaped into stars and arches, and round the windows crept wreaths made of the little pink roses from Donna Elisa’s garden. Just over the entrance stood the saint’s image, framed in lilies, and on the threshold lay cypress-branches. And if one had entered the house, one would have found it as much adorned on the inside as on the outside. From the cellar to the attic it was scoured and covered with flowers, and on the shelves in the shop no saint was too small or insignificant to have an everlasting or a harebell in his hand. Like Donna Elisa, every one in penniless Diamante had decorated along the whole street. In the street above the house of the little Moor there was such an array of flags that it looked like clothes hung out to dry from the earth to the sky. Every house and every arch carried flags, and across the streets were hung ropes, from which fluttered pennant after pennant.

At every tenth step the people of Diamante had raised triumphal arches over the street. And over every door stood the image of the saint, framed in wreaths of yellow everlastings. The balconies were covered with red quilts and bright-colored table-cloths, and stiff garlands wound up the walls.

There were so many flowers and leaves that no one could understand how they had been able to get them all in January. Everything was crowned and wreathed with flowers. The brooms had crowns of crocuses, and each door-knocker a bunch of hyacinths. In windows stood pictures with monograms, and inscriptions of blood-red anemones.

And between those decorated houses the stream of people rolled as mighty as a rising river. It was not the inhabitants of Diamante alone who were honoring San Sebastiano. From all Etna came yellow carts, beautifully ornamented and painted, drawn by horses in shining harness, and loaded down with people. The sick, the beggars, the blind singers came in great crowds. There were whole trains of pilgrims, unhappy people, who now, after their misfortunes, had some one to pray to.

Such numbers came that the people wondered how they all would ever find room within the town walls. There were people in the streets, people in the windows, people on the balconies. On the high stone steps sat people, and the shops were full of them. The big street-doors were thrown wide, and in the openings chairs were arranged in a half-circle, as in a theatre. There the house-owners sat with their guests and looked at the passers-by.

The whole street was filled with an intoxicating noise. It was not only the talking and laughter of the people. There were also organ-grinders standing and turning hand-organs big as pianos. There were street-singers, and there were men and women who declaimed Tasso in cracked, worn-out voices. There were all kinds of criers, the sound of organs streamed from all the churches, and in the square on the summit of the mountain the town band played so that it could be heard over all Diamante.

The joyous noise, and the fragrance of the flowers, and the flapping of the flags outside Donna Micaela’s window had power to wake her from her stupor. She rose up, as if life had sent for her. “I will not die,” she said to herself. “I will try to live.”

She took her father’s arm and went out into the street. She hoped that the life there would mount to her head so that she might forget her sorrow. “If I do not succeed,” she thought, “if I can find no distraction, I must die.”

Now in Diamante there was a poor old stone-cutter, who had thought of earning a few soldi during the festival. He had made a couple of small busts out of lava, of San Sebastiano and of Pope Leo XIII. And as he knew that many in Diamante loved Gaetano, and grieved over his fate, he also made a few portraits of him.

Just as Donna Micaela came out into the street she met the man, and he offered her his wretched little images.

“Buy Don Gaetano Alagona, Donna Micaela,” said the man; “buy Don Gaetano, whom the government has put in prison because he wished to help Sicily.”

Donna Micaela pressed her father’s arm hard and went hurriedly on.

In the Café Europa the son of the innkeeper stood and sang canzoni. He had composed a few new ones for the festival, and among others some about Gaetano. For he could not know that people did not care to hear of him.

When Donna Micaela passed by the café and heard the singing, she stopped and listened.

“Alas, Gaetano Alagona!” sang the young man. “Songs are mighty. I shall sing you free with my songs. First I will send you the slender canzone. He shall glide in between your prison-gratings, and break them. Then I will send you the sonnet, that is fair as a woman, and which will corrupt your guards. I will compose a glorious ode to you, which will shake the walls of your prison with its lofty rhythms. But if none of these help you, I will burst out in the glorious epos, that has hosts of words. Oh, Gaetano, mighty as an army it marches on! All the legions of ancient Rome would not have had the strength to stop it!”

Donna Micaela hung convulsively on her father’s arm, but she did not speak, and went on.

Then Cavaliere Palmeri began to speak of Gaetano. “I did not know that he was so beloved,” he said.

“Nor I,” murmured Donna Micaela.

“To-day I saw some strangers coming into Donna Elisa’s shop, and begging her to be allowed to buy something that he had carved. She had left only a couple of old rosaries, and I saw her break them to pieces and give them out bead by bead.”

Donna Micaela looked at her father like a beseeching child. But he did not know whether she wished him to be silent or to go on speaking.

“Donna Elisa’s old friends go about in the garden with Luca,” he said, “and Luca shows them Gaetano’s favorite places and the garden beds that he used to plant. And Pacifica sits in the workshop beside the joiner’s-bench, and relates all sorts of things about him, ever since he was—so big.”

He could tell no more; the crush and the noise became so great about him that he had to stop.

They meant to go to the Cathedral. On the Cathedral steps sat old Assunta, as usual. She held a rosary in her hands and mumbled the same prayer round the whole rosary. She asked the saint that Gaetano, who had promised to help all the poor, might come back to Diamante.

As Donna Micaela walked by her, she distinctly heard: “San Sebastiano, give us Gaetano! Ah, in your mercy; ah, in our misery, San Sebastiano, give us Gaetano!”

Donna Micaela had meant to go into the church, but she turned on the steps.

“There is such a crowd there,” she said, “I do not dare to go in.”

She went home again. But while she had been away, Donna Elisa had watched her opportunity. She had hoisted a flag on the roof of the summer-palace; she had spread draperies on the balconies, and as Donna Micaela came home, she was fastening up a garland in the gateway. For Donna Elisa could not bear to have the summer-palace underrated. She wished no honor to San Sebastiano omitted at this time. And she feared that the saint would not help Diamante and Gaetano if the palace of the old Alagonas did not honor him.

Donna Micaela was pale as if she had received her death warrant, and bent like an old woman of eighty years.

She murmured to herself: “I make no busts of him; I sing no songs about him; I dare not pray to God for him; I buy none of his beads. How can he believe that I love him? He must love all these others, who worship him, but not me. I do not belong to his world, he can love me no longer.”

And when she saw that they wished to adorn her house with flowers, it seemed to her so piteously cruel that she snatched the wreath from Donna Elisa and threw it at her feet, asking if she wished to kill her.

Then she went past her up the stairs to her room. She threw herself on the sofa and buried her face in the cushions.

She now first understood how far apart she and Gaetano were. The idol of the people could not love her.

She felt as if she had prevented him from helping all those poor people.

How he must detest her; how he must hate her!

Then her illness came creeping back over her. That illness which consisted of not being loved! It would kill her. She thought, as she lay there, that it was all over.

While she lay there, suddenly the little Christchild stood before her inward eye. He seemed to have entered the room in all his wretched splendor. She saw him plainly.

Donna Micaela began to call on the Christchild for help. And she was amazed at herself for not having turned before to that good helper. It was probably because the image did not stand in a church, but was carried about as a museum-piece by Miss Tottenham, that she remembered him only in her deepest need.

It was late in the evening of the same day. After dinner Donna Micaela had given all her servants permission to go to the festival, so that she and her father were alone in the big house. But towards ten o’clock her father rose and said he wished to hear the singing-contest in the square. And as Donna Micaela did not dare to sit alone, she was obliged to go with him.

When they came to the square they saw that it was turned into a theatre, with lines upon lines of chairs. Every corner was filled with people, and it was with difficulty that they found places.

“Diamante is glorious this evening, Micaela,” said Cavaliere Palmeri. The charm of the night seemed to have softened him. He spoke more simply and tenderly to his daughter than he had done for a long time.

Donna Micaela felt instantly that he spoke the truth. She felt as she had done when she first came to Diamante. It was a town of miracles, a town of beauty, a little sanctuary of God.

Directly in front of her stood a high and stately building made of shining diamonds. She had to think for a moment before she could understand what it was.

Yet it was nothing but the front of the Cathedral, covered with flowers of stiff silver and gold paper and with thousands of little mirrors stuck in between the flowers. And in every flower was hung a little lamp with a flame as big as a fire-fly. It was the most enchanting illumination that Donna Micaela had ever seen.

There was no other light in the market-place, nor was any needed. That great wall of diamonds shone quite sufficiently. The black Palazzo Geraci was flaming red, as if it had been lighted by a conflagration.

Nothing of the world outside of the square was visible. Everything below it was in the deepest darkness, and that made her think again that she saw the old enchanted Diamante that was not of the earth, but was a holy city on one of the mounts of heaven. The town-hall with its heavy balconies and high steps, the long convent and the Roman gate were again glorious and wonderful. And she could hardly believe it was in that town that she had suffered such terrible pain.

In the midst of the great crowd of people, no chill was felt. The winter night was mild as a spring morning; and Donna Micaela began to feel something of spring in her. It began to stir and tremble in her in a way which was both sweet and terrible. It must feel so in the snow-masses on Etna when the sun melts them into sparkling brooks.

She looked at the people who filled the market-place, and was amazed at herself that she had been so tortured by them in the forenoon. She was glad that they loved Gaetano. Alas, if he had only continued to love her, she would have been unspeakably proud and happy in their love. Then she could have kissed those old callous hands that made images of him and were clasped in prayers for him.

As she was thinking this, the church-door was thrown open and a big, flat wagon rolled out of the church. Highest on the red-covered wagon stood San Sebastiano by his stake, and below the image sat the four singers, who were to contest.

There was an old blind man from Nicolosi; a cooper from Catania, who was considered to be the best improvisatore in all Sicily; a smith from Termini, and little Gandolfo, who was son to the watchman in the town-hall of Diamante.

Everybody was surprised that Gandolfo dared to appear in such a difficult contest. Did he do it perhaps to please his betrothed, little Rosalia? No one had ever heard that he could improvise. He had never done anything in his whole life but eat mandarins and stare at Etna.

The first thing was to draw lots among the competitors, and the lots fell so that the cooper should come first and Gandolfo last. When it fell so Gandolfo turned pale. It was terrible to come last, when they all were to speak on the same subject.

The cooper elected to speak of San Sebastiano, when he was a soldier of the legion in ancient Rome, and for his faith’s sake was bound to a stake and used as a target for his comrades. After him came the blind man, who told how a pious Roman matron found the martyr bleeding and pierced with arrows, and succeeded in bringing him back to life. Then came the smith, who related all the miracles San Sebastiano had worked in Sicily during the pest in the fifteenth century. They were all much applauded. They spoke many strong words of blood and death, and the people rejoiced in them. But every one from Diamante was anxious for little Gandolfo.

“The smith takes all the words from him. He must fail,” they said.

“Ah,” said others, “little Rosalia will not take the engagement ribbon out of her hair for that.”

Gandolfo shrunk together in his corner of the wagon. He grew smaller and smaller. Those sitting near could hear how his teeth chattered with fright.

When his turn came at last, and he rose and began to improvise, he was very bad. He was worse than any one had expected. He faltered out a couple of verses, but they were only a repetition of what the others had said.

Then he suddenly stopped and gasped for breath. In that moment the strength of despair came to him. He straightened himself up, and a slight flush rose to his cheeks.

“Oh, signori,” said little Gandolfo, “let me speak of that of which I am always thinking! Let me speak of what I always see before me!”

And he began unopposed and with wonderful power to tell what he himself had seen.

He told how he who was son to the watchman of the town-hall had crept through dark attics and had lain hidden in one of the galleries of the court-room the night the court-martial had been held to pass sentence on the insurgents in Diamante.

Then he had seen Don Gaetano Alagona on the bench of the accused with a lot of wild fellows who were worse than brutes.

He told how beautiful Gaetano had been. He had seemed like a god to little Gandolfo beside those terrible people about him. And he described those bandits with their wild-beast faces, their coarse hair, their clumsy limbs. He said that no one could look into their eyes without a quiver of the heart.

Yet, in all his beauty, Don Gaetano was more terrible than those people. Gandolfo did not know how they dared to sit beside him on the bench. Under his frowning brows his eyes flashed at his fellow-prisoners with a look which would have killed their souls, if they like others had possessed such a thing.

“‘Who are you,’ he seemed to ask, ‘who dare to turn to plundering and murder while you call on sacred liberty? Do you know what you have done? Do you know that on account of your devices I am now a prisoner? And it was I who would have saved Sicily!’” And every glance he cast at them was a death warrant.

His eyes fell on all the things that the bandits had stolen and that were now piled up on a table. He recognized them. Could he help knowing the clocks and the silver dishes from the summer-palace? could he help knowing the relics and coins that had been stolen from his English patroness? And when he had recognized the things, he turned to his fellow-prisoners with a terrible smile. “‘You heroes! you heroes!’ said the smile; ‘you have stolen from two women!’”

His noble face was constantly changing. Once Gandolfo had seen it contracted by a sudden terror. It was when the man sitting nearest to him stretched out a hand covered with blood. Had he perhaps had a sudden idea of the truth? Did he think that those men had broken into the house where his beloved lived?

Gandolfo told how the officers who were to be the judges had come in, silent and grave, and sat down in their places. But he said when he had seen those noble gentlemen his anxiety had diminished. He had said to himself that they knew that Gaetano was of good birth, and that they would not sentence him. They would not mix him up with the bandits. No one could possibly believe that he had wished to rob two women.

And see, when the judge called up Gaetano Alagona his voice was without hardness. He spoke to him as to an equal.

“But,” said Gandolfo, “when Don Gaetano rose, he stood so that he could see out over the square. And through the square, through this same square, where now so many people are sitting in happiness and pleasure, a funeral procession was passing.

“It was the White Brotherhood carrying the body of the murdered Giannita to her mother’s house. They walked with torches, and the bier, carried on the bearers’ shoulders, was plainly visible. As the procession passed slowly across the market-place, one could recognize the pall spread over the corpse. It was the pall of the Alagonas adorned with a gorgeous coat of arms and rich silver fringes. When Gaetano saw it, he understood that the corpse was of the house of Alagona. His face became ashy gray, and he reeled as if he were going to fall.

“At that moment the judge asked him: ‘Do you know the murdered woman?’ And he answered: ‘Yes.’ Then the judge, who was a merciful man, continued: ‘Was she near to you?’ And then Don Gaetano answered: ‘I love her.’”

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.