“What is to be done about it?” said Nino. “Pepa must find some other work.”
“Nino,” said Mother Zia, “you do not know what that woman has said to the neighbors about Pepa and Signor Gasparo.”
“Who can prevent women from talking?” said Nino.
“If Pepa has nothing else to do, now she might at least have cooked dinner for us,” said Turiddo.
“Signora Gasparo has said that her husband let Pepa steal bread that she should—”
“Mother,” interrupted Nino, red as fire, “I do not intend to have myself put in the galleys for Pepa’s sake.”
“The galleys do not eat Christians,” said Mother Zia.
“Nino,” said Pietro, “we had better go to the town to get some food.”
As they said it they heard some one laugh behind them. It was Falco who laughed.
A while later Falco entered Signora Gasparo’s shop and asked for bread. The poor woman was frightened when Pepa’s brother came into the shop.But she thought: “He has just come from his work. He has not been home yet. He knows nothing.”
“Beppo,” she said to him, for Falco’s name was not then Falco, “is the harvest a good one?” And she was prepared not to have him answer.
Falco was more talkative than usual, and immediately told her how many grapes had already been put through the press. “Do you know,” he continued, “that a farmer was murdered yesterday.”—“Alas, yes, poor Signor Riego; I heard so.” And she asked how it had happened.
“It was Salvatore who did it. But it is too dreadful for a signora to hear!”—“Oh, no, what is done can be and is told.”
“Salvatore went up to him in this way, signora.” And Falco drew his knife and laid his hand on the woman’s head. “Then he cut him across the throat from ear to ear.”
As Falco spoke, he suited the action to the word. The woman did not even have time to scream. It was the work of a master.
After that, Falco was sent to the galleys, where he remained five years.
When the people tell of that, their terror increases. “Falco is brave,” they say. “Nothing in the world can frighten him away from his purpose.”
That immediately made them think of another story.
Falco was taken to the galleys in August, where he became acquainted with Biagio, who afterwards followed him through his whole life. One day he and Biagio and a third prisoner were ordered to go to work in the fields. One of the overseers wished to construct a garden around his house. They dugthere quietly, but their eyes began to wander and wander. They were outside the walls; they saw the plain and the mountains; they even saw up to Etna. “It is the time,” whispered Falco to Biagio. “I will rather die than go back to prison,” said Biagio. Then they whispered to the other prisoner that he must stand by them. He did not wish to do so, because his time of punishment was soon up. “Else we will kill you,” they said, and then he agreed.
The guard stood over them with his loaded rifle in his hand. On account of their fetters, Falco and Biagio hopped with feet together over to the guard. They swung their shovels over him, and before he had time to think of shooting he was thrown down, bound, and had a clump of earth in his mouth. Thereupon the prisoners pried open their chains with the shovels, so that they could take a step, and crept away over the plain to the hills.
When night came Falco and Biagio abandoned the prisoner whom they had taken with them. He was old and feeble, so that he would have hindered their flight. The next day he was seized by the carabinieri, and shot.
They shudder when they think of it. “Falco is merciless,” they say. They know that he will not spare the railway.
Story after story comes to frighten the poor people working on the railway on the slopes of Etna.
They tell of all the sixteen murders that Falco has committed. They tell of his attacks and plunderings.
There is one story more terrifying than all the others together.
When Falco escaped from the galleys he lived in the woods and caves, and in the big quarry near Diamante. He soon gathered a band about him, and became a wonderful and famous brigand hero.
All his family were held in much greater consideration than before. They were respected, as the mighty are respected. They scarcely needed to work, for Falco loved his relations and was generous to them. But he was not lenient towards them; he was very stern.
Mother Zia was dead, and Nino was married and lived in his father’s cottage. It happened one day that Nino needed money, and he knew no better way than to go to the priest,—not Don Matteo, but to old Don Giovanni. “Your Reverence,” said Nino to him, “my brother asks you for five hundred lire.” “Where shall I find five hundred lire?” said Don Giovanni. “My brother needs them; he must have them,” said Nino.
Then old Don Giovanni promised to give the money, if he only were given time to collect it. Nino was hardly willing to agree to that. “You can scarcely expect me to take five hundred lire from my snuff-box,” said Don Giovanni. And Nino granted him three days’ respite. “But beware of meeting my brother during that time,” he said.
The next day Don Giovanni rode to Nicolosi to try to claim a payment. Who should he meet on the way but Falco and two of his band. Don Giovanni threw himself from his donkey and fell on his knees before Falco. “What does this mean, Don Giovanni?”—“As yet I have no money for you, Falco, but I will try to get it. Have mercy upon me!”
Falco asked, and Don Giovanni told the whole story. “Your Reverence,” said Falco, “he has been deceiving you.” He begged Don Giovanni to go with him to Diamante. When they came to the old house Don Giovanni rode in behind the wall of San Pasquale, and Falco called Nino out. Nino came out on one of the balconies. “Eh, Nino!” said Falco, and laughed. “You have cheated the priest out of money?” “Do you know it already?” said Nino. “I was just going to tell it to you.”
Now Falco became sterner. “Nino,” he said, “the priest is my friend, and he believes that I have wished to rob him. You have done very wrong.” He suddenly put his gun to his shoulder and shot Nino down, and when he had done so he turned to Don Giovanni, who had almost fallen from his donkey with terror. “You see now, your Reverence, that I had no part in Nino’s designs on you!”
And that happened twenty years ago, when Falco had not been a brigand for more than five years.
“Will Falco spare the railway,” people say, as they tell it, “when he did not spare his own brother?”
There was yet more.
After Nino’s murder there was a vendetta over Falco. Nino’s wife was so terrified when she found her husband dead that half her body became paralyzed, and she could no longer walk. But she took her place at the window in the old cottage. There she has sat for twenty years with a gun beside her, and waited for Falco. And of her the great brigand has been afraid. For twenty years he has not gone past the home of his ancestors.
The woman has not deserted her post. No one ever goes to the church of San Pasquale without seeing her revengeful eyes shining behind the panes. Who has ever seen her sleep? Who has seen her work? She could do nothing but await her husband’s murderer.
When people hear that, they are even more afraid. Falco has luck on his side, they think. The woman who wishes to kill him cannot move from her place. He has luck on his side. He will also succeed in destroying the railway. Fortune has never failed Falco. The carabinieri have hunted, but have never been able to catch him. The carabinieri have feared Falco more than Falco has feared the carabinieri.
People tell a story of a young carabiniere lieutenant who once pursued Falco. He had arranged a line of beaters and hunted Falco from one thicket to another. At last the officer was certain that he had Falco shut in in a grove. A guard was stationed round the wood, and the officer searched the covert, gun in hand. But however much he searched, he saw no Falco. He came out, and met a peasant. “Have you seen Falco Falcone?”—“Yes, signor; he just went by me, and he asked me to greet you.”—“Diavolo!”—“He saw you in the thicket, and he was just going to shoot you, but he did not do so, because he thought that perhaps it was your duty to prosecute him.”—“Diavolo! Diavolo!”—“But if you try another time—”—“Diavolo! Diavolo! Diavolo!”
Do you think that lieutenant came back? Do you not think that he instantly sought out a district where he did not need to hunt brigands?
And the workmen on Etna asked themselves: “Who will protect us against Falco? He is terrible. Even the soldiers tremble before him.”
They remember that Falco Falcone is now an old man. He no longer plunders post-wagons; he does not carry off land-owners. He sits quiet generally in the quarry near Diamante, and instead of robbing money and estates, he takes money and estates under his protection.
He takes tribute from the great landed proprietors and guards their estates from other thieves, and it has become calm and peaceful on Etna, for he allows no one to injure those who have paid a tax to him.
But that is not reassuring. Since Falco has become friends with the great, he can all the more easily destroy the railway.
And they remember the story of Niccola Galli, who is overseer on the estate of the Marquis di San Stefano on the southern side of Etna. Once his workmen struck in the middle of the harvest time. Niccola Galli was in despair. The wheat stood ripe, and he could not get it reaped. His workmen would not work; they lay down to sleep at the edge of a ditch.
Niccola placed himself on a donkey and rode down to Catania to ask his lord for advice. On the way he met two men with guns on their shoulders. “Whither are you riding, Niccola?”
Before Niccola had time to say many words they took his donkey by the bit and turned him round. “You must not ride to the Marquis, Niccola?”—“Must I not?”—“No; you must ride home.”
As they went along, Niccola sat and shook on his donkey. When they were again at home the mensaid: “Now show us the way to the fields!” And they went out to the laborers. “Work, you scoundrels! The marquis has paid his tribute to Falco Falcone. You can strike in other places, but not here.” That field was reaped as never before. Falco stood on one side of it and Biagio on the other. The grain is soon harvested with such overseers.
When the people remember that, their terror does not decrease. “Falco keeps his word,” they say. “He will do what he has threatened to do.”
No one has been a robber chief as long as Falco. All the other famous heroes are dead or captives. He alone keeps himself alive and in his profession by incredible good fortune and skill.
Gradually he has collected about him all his family. His brothers-in-law and nephews are all with him. Most of them have been sent to the galleys, but not one of them thinks whether he suffers in prison; he only asks if Falco is satisfied with him.
In the newspapers there are often accounts of Falco’s deeds. Englishmen thrust a note of ten lire into their guide’s hand if he will show them the way to Falco’s quarry. The carabinieri no longer shoot at him, because he is the last great brigand.
He so little fears to be captured that he often comes down to Messina or Palermo. He has even crossed the sound and been in Italy. He went to Naples when Guglielmo and Umberto were there to christen a battle-ship. He travelled to Rome when Umberto and Margherita celebrated their silver wedding.
The people think of it all, and tremble. “Falcois loved and admired,” the workmen say. “The people worship Falco. He can do what he will.”
They know too that when Falco saw Queen Margherita’s silver wedding, it pleased him so much that he said: “When I have lived on Etna for five and twenty years, I shall celebrate my silver wedding with Mongibello.”
People laughed at that and said that it was a good idea of Falco’s. For he had never had a sweetheart, but Mongibello with its caves and forests and craters and ice-fields had served and protected him like a wife. To no one in the world did Falco owe such gratitude as to Mongibello.
People ask when Falco and Mongibello are going to celebrate their silver wedding. And people answer that it will be this spring. Then the workmen think: “He is coming to destroy our railway on the day of Mongibello.”
They are filled with doubt and terror. They soon will not dare to work any more. The nearer the time approaches when Falco is to celebrate his union with Mongibello, the more there are who leave Signor Alfredo. Soon he is practically alone at the work.
There are not many people in Diamante who have seen the big quarry on Etna. They have learned to avoid it because Falco Falcone lives there. They have been careful to keep out of range of his gun.
They have not seen the great hole in Mongibello’s side from which their ancestors, the Greeks, took stone in remote times. They have not seen the beautifully colored walls, and the mighty rocks that look like ruined pillars. Perhaps they do not knowthat on the bottom of the quarry grow more magnificent flowers than in a conservatory. There it is no longer Sicily; it is India.
In the quarry are mandarin trees, so yellow with fruit that they look like gigantic sun-flowers; the camellias are as big as tambourines; and on the ground between the trees lie masses of magnificent figs and downy peaches embedded in fallen rose-leaves.
One evening Falco is sitting alone in the quarry. Falco is busy making a wreath, and he has beside him a mass of flowers. The string he is using is as thick as a rope; he holds his foot on the ball so that it shall not roll away from him. He wears spectacles, which continually slip too far down his hooked nose.
Falco is swearing horribly, for his hands are stiff and callous from incessantly handling a gun, and cannot readily hold flowers. The fingers squeeze them together like steel tongs. Falco swears because the lilies and anemones fall into little pieces if he merely looks at them.
Falco sits in his leather breeches and in the long, buttoned-up coat, buried in flowers like a saint on a feast-day. Biagio and his nephew, Passafiore, have gathered them for him. They have piled up in front of him an Etna of the most beautiful flowers of the quarry. Falco can choose among lilies and cactus-flowers and roses and pelargoniums. He roars at the flowers that he will trample them to dust under his leather sandals if they do not submit themselves to his will.
Never before has Falco Falcone had to do with flowers. In the whole course of his life he has nevertied a nosegay for a girl, or plucked a rose for his button-hole. He has never even laid a wreath on his mother’s grave.
Therefore the delicate flowers rebel against him. The flower sprays are entangled in his hair and in his hat, and the petals have caught in his bushy beard. He shakes his head violently, and the scar in his cheek glows red as fire as it used to do in the old days, when he fought with the carabinieri.
Still the wreath grows, and thick as a tree-trunk it winds round Falco’s feet and legs. Falco swears at it as if it were the steel fetters that once dragged between his ankles. He complains more, when he tears himself on a thorn or burns himself on a nettle, than he did when the whip of the galley guard lashed his back.
Biagio and Passafiore, his nephew, do not dare to show themselves; they lie concealed in a cave till everything is ready. They laugh at Falco with all their might, for such wailings as Falco’s have not sounded in the quarry since unhappy prisoners of war were kept at work there.
Biagio looks up to great Etna, which is blushing in the light of the setting sun. “Look at Mongibello,” he says to Passafiore; “see how it blushes. It must guess what Falco is busy with down in the quarry.” And Passafiore answers: “Mongibello has probably never thought that it would ever have anything on its head but ashes and snow.”
But suddenly Biagio stopped laughing. “It is not well, Passafiore,” he said. “Falco has become too proud. I am afraid that the great Mongibello is going to make a fool of him.”
The two bandits look one another in the eyesquestioningly. “It is well if it is only pride,” says Passafiore.
But now they look away at the same moment, and dare say no more. The same thought, the same dread has seized them both. Falco is going mad. He is already mad at times. It is always so with great brigand chiefs; they cannot bear their glory and their greatness; they all go mad.
Passafiore and Biagio have seen it for a long time, but they have borne it in silence, and each has hoped that the other has seen nothing. Now they understand that they both know it. They press each other’s hands without a word. There is still something so great in Falco. Both of them, Passafiore and Biagio, will take care that no one shall perceive that he is no longer the man he was.
Finally Falco has his wreath ready; he hangs it on the barrel of his gun and comes out to the others. All three climb out of the quarry, and at the nearest farm-house they take horses in order to come quickly to the top of Mongibello.
They ride at full gallop so that they have no chance to talk, but as they pass the different farms they can see the people dancing on the flat roofs. And from the sheds, where the laborers sleep at night, they hear talk and laughter. There happy, peaceful people are sitting, guessing conundrums and matching verses. Falco storms by, such things are not for him. Falco is a great man.
They gallop towards the summit. At first they ride between almond-trees and cactus, then under plane-trees and stone-pines, then under oaks and chestnut-trees.
The night is dark; they see nothing of thebeauty of Mongibello. They do not see the vine-encircled Monte Rosso; they do not see the two hundred craters that stand in a circle round Etna’s lofty peak like towers round a town; they do not see the endless stretches of thick forest.
In Casa del Bosco, where the road ends, they dismount. Biagio and Passafiore take the wreath and carry it between them. As they walk along, Falco begins to talk. He likes to talk since he has grown old.
Falco says that the mountain is like the twenty-five years of his life that he has passed there. The years that founded his greatness had blossomed with deeds. To be with him then had been like going through an endless arbor, where lemons and grapes hung down overhead. Then his deeds had been as numerous as the orange-trees round Etna’s base. When he had come higher the deeds had been less frequent, but those he had executed had been mighty as the oaks and chestnut-trees on the rising mountain. Now that he was at the summit of greatness, he scorned to act. His life was as bald as the mountain top; he was content to see the world at his feet. But people ought to understand that, if he should now undertake anything, nothing could resist him. He was terrible, like the fire-spouting summit.
Falco walks before and talks; Passafiore and Biagio follow him in silent terror. Dimly they see the mighty slopes of Mongibello with their towns and fields and forests spread out beneath them. And Falco thinks that he is as mighty as all that!
As they struggle upwards they are beset with a growing feeling of dread. The gaping fissures inthe ground; the sulphur smoke from the crater, which rolls down the mountain, too heavy to rise into the air; the explosions inside the mountain; the incessant, gently rumbling earthquake; the slippery, rough ice-fields crossed by gushing brooks; the extreme cold, the biting wind,—make the walk hideous. And Falco says that it is like him! How can he have such things in his soul? Is it filled with a cold and a horror to be compared to Etna’s?
They stumble over blocks of ice, and they struggle forward through snow lying sometimes a yard deep. The mountain blast almost throws them down. They have to wade through slush and water, for through the day the sun has melted a mass of snow. And while they grow stiff with cold, the ground shakes under them with the everlasting fire.
They remember that Lucifer and all the damned are lying under them. They shudder because Falco has brought them to the gates of Hell.
But nevertheless beyond the ice-field they reach the steep cone of ashes on the very summit of the mountain. Here they drag themselves up, walking on sliding ashes and pumice-stone. When they are half way up the cone Falco takes the wreath, and motions to the others to wait. He alone will scale the summit.
The day is just breaking, and as Falco reaches the top the sun is visible. The glorious morning light streams over Mongibello and over the old Etna brigand on its summit. The shadow of Etna is thrown over the whole of Sicily, and it looks as if Falco, standing up there, reached from sea to sea, across the island.
Falco stands and gazes about him. He looksacross to Italy; he fancies he sees Naples and Rome. He lets his glance pass over the sea to the land of the Turk to the east and the land of the Saracen to the south. He feels as if it all lay at his feet and acknowledgedhisgreatness.
Then Falco lays the wreath on the summit of Mongibello.
When he comes down to his comrades he solemnly presses their hands. As he leaves the cone they see that he picks up a piece of pumice-stone, and puts it in his pocket. Falco takes with him a souvenir of the most beautiful hour of his life. He has never before felt himself so great as on the top of Mongibello.
On that day of happiness Falco will do no work. The next day, he says, he will begin the undertaking of freeing Mongibello from the railway.
There is a lonely farm-house on the road between Paternó and Adernó. It is quite large, and it is owned by a widow, Donna Silvia, who has many strong sons. They are bold people who dare to live alone the whole year in the country.
It is the day following the one when Falco crowned Mongibello. Donna Silvia is sitting on the grass-plot with her distaff; she is alone; there is no one else at home on the farm. A beggar comes softly creeping in through the gate.
He is an old man with a long, hooked nose which hangs down over his upper lip, a bushy beard, pale eyes with red eyelids. They are the ugliest eyes imaginable; the whites are yellowish, and they squint. The beggar is tall and very thin; he moves his body when he walks, so that it looks as if hewriggled forward. He walks so softly that Donna Silvia does not hear him. The first thing she notices is his shadow, which, slender as a snake, bends down towards her.
She looks up when she sees the shadow. Then the beggar bows to her and asks for a dish of macaroni.
“I have macaroni on the fire,” says Donna Silvia. “Sit down and wait; you shall have your fill.”
The beggar sits down beside Donna Silvia, and after a while they begin to chat. They soon talk of Falco.
“Is it true that you let your sons work on Donna Micaela’s railway?” says the beggar.
Donna Silvia bites her lips together, and nods an assent.
“You are a brave woman, Donna Silvia. Falco might be revenged on you.”
“Then he can take revenge,” says Donna Silvia. “But I will not obey one who has killed my father. He forced him to escape from prison in Augusta, and my father was captured and shot.”
And so saying she rises and goes in to get the food.
As she stands in the kitchen she sees the beggar through the window, sitting and rocking on the stone-bench. He is not quiet for a moment. And in front of him writhes his shadow, slender and lithe as a snake.
Donna Silvia remembers what she had once heard Caterina, who had been married to Falco’s brother, Nino, say. “How will you recognize Falco after twenty years?” people had asked her. “Should I not recognize the man with the snake-shadow?” sheanswered. “He will never lose it, long as he may live.”
Donna Silvia presses her hand on her heart. There in her yard Falco Falcone is sitting. He has come to be revenged because her sons work on the railway. Will he set fire to the house, or will he murder her?
Donna Silvia is shaking in every limb as she serves up her macaroni.
Falco begins to find the time long as he sits on the stone-bench. A little dog comes up to him and rubs against him. Falco feels in his pocket for a piece of bread, but he finds only a stone, which he throws to the dog.
The dog runs after the stone and brings it back to Falco. Falco throws it again. The dog takes the stone again, but now he runs away with it.
Falco remembers that it is the stone he picked up on Mongibello, and goes after the dog to get it back. He whistles to the dog, and it comes to him instantly. “Drop the stone!” The dog puts its head on one side and will not drop it. “Ah, give me the stone, rascal!” The dog shuts its mouth. It has no stone. “Let me see; let me see!” says Falco. He bends the dog’s head back and forces it to open its mouth. The stone lies far in under the gums, and Falco tries to force it out. Then the dog bites him, till the blood flows.
Falco is terrified. He goes in to Donna Silvia. “I hope your dog is healthy,” he says.
“My dog? I have no dog. It is dead.”—“But the one running outside?”—“I do not know which one you mean,” she says.
Falco says nothing more, nor does he do DonnaSilvia any harm. He simply goes his way, frightened; he thinks that the dog is mad, and he fears hydrophobia.
One evening Donna Micaela sits alone in the music-room. She has put out the lamp and opened the balcony doors. She likes to listen to the street in the evening and at night. No more smiths and stone-cutters and criers are heard. There is song, laughter, whispering, and mandolins.
Suddenly she sees a dark hand laid on the balcony railing. The hand drags up after it an arm and a head; within a moment a whole human being swings himself into the balcony. She sees him plainly, for the street-lamps are still burning. He is a small, broad-shouldered, bearded fellow, dressed like a shepherd, with leather sandals, a slouch hat, and an umbrella tied to his back. As soon as he is on his feet he snatches his gun from his shoulder and comes into the room with it in his hands.
She sits still without giving a sign of life. There is no time either to summon help or to escape. She hopes that the man will take what he wishes to take, and go away without noticing her, sitting back in the dark room.
The man puts his gun down between his legs, and she hears him scratching with a match. She shuts her eyes. He will believe that she is asleep.
When the robber gets the match lighted, he sees her instantly. He coughs to wake her. As she remains motionless, he creeps over to her and carefully stretches out a finger towards her arm. “Do not touch me! do not touch me!” she screams, and can no longer sit still. The man draws back instantly.“Dear Donna Micaela, I only wanted to wake you.”
There she sits and shakes with terror, and he hears how she is sobbing. “Dear signora, dear signora!” he says. “Light a candle that I can see where you are,” she cries. He scratches a new match, lifts the shade and chimney off the lamp, and lights it as neatly as a servant. He places himself again by the door, as far from her as possible. Suddenly he goes out on the balcony with his gun. “Now the signora cannot be afraid any longer.”
But when she does not cease weeping he says: “Signora, I am Passafiore; I come with a message to you from Falco. He no longer wishes to destroy your railway.”
“Have you come to jest with me?” she says.
Then the man answers, almost weeping: “Would God that it were a jest! God! that Falco were the man he has been!”
He tells her how Falco went up Mongibello and crowned its top. But the mountain had not liked it; it had now overthrown Falco. A single little piece of pumice-stone from Mongibello had been enough to overthrow him.
“It is all over with Falco,” says Passafiore. “He goes about in the quarry, and waits to fall ill. For a week he has neither slept nor eaten. He is not sick yet, but the wound in his hand does not heal either. He thinks that he has the poison in his body. ‘Soon I shall be a mad dog,’ he says. No wine nor food tempt him. He takes no pleasure in my praising his deeds. ‘What is that to talk about?’ he says. ‘I shall end my life like a mad dog.’”
Donna Micaela looked sharply at Passafiore. “What do you wish me to do about it? You cannot mean that I am to go down into the quarry to Falco Falcone?”
Passafiore looks down and dares not answer anything.
She explains to him what that same Falco has made her suffer. He has frightened away her workmen. He has set himself against her dearest wish.
All of a sudden Passafiore falls on his knees. He dares not go a step nearer to her than he is, but he falls on his knees.
He implores her to understand the importance of it. She does not know, she does not understand who Falco is. Falco is a great man. Ever since Passafiore was a little child he has heard of him. All his life long he has longed to come out to the quarry and live with him. All his cousins went to Falco; his whole race were with him. But the priest had set his heart that Passafiore should not go. He apprenticed him to a tailor; only think, to a tailor! He talked to him, and said that he should not go. It was such a terrible sin to live like Falco. Passafiore had also struggled against it for many years for Don Matteo’s sake. But at last he had not been able to resist; he had gone to the quarry. And now he has not been with Falco more than a year before the latter is quite destroyed. It is as if the sun had gone out in the sky. His whole life is ruined.
Passafiore looks at Donna Micaela. He sees that she is listening to him, and understands him.
He reminds Donna Micaela that she had helped ajettatoreand an adulteress. Why should she be hardto a brigand? The Christ-image in San Pasquale gave her everything she asked for. He was sure that she prayed to the Christchild to protect the railway from Falco. And he had obeyed her; he had made Mongibello’s pumice-stone break Falco’s might. But now, would she not be gracious, and help them, that Falco might get his health again, and be an honor to the land, as he had been before?
Passafiore succeeds in moving Donna Micaela. All at once she understands how it is with the old brigand in the dark caves of the quarry. She sees him there, waiting for madness. She thinks how proud he has been, and how broken and crushed he now is. No, no; no one ought to suffer so. It is too much, too much.
“Passafiore,” she exclaims, “tell me what you wish. I will do whatever I can. I am no longer afraid. No, I am not at all afraid.”
“Donna Micaela, we have begged Falco to go to the Christchild and ask for grace. But Falco will not believe in the image. He will not do anything but sit still and wait for the disaster. But to-day, when I implored him to go and pray, he said: ‘You know who sits and waits for me in the old house opposite the church. Go to her, and ask her if she will give me the privilege to go by her into the church. If she gives her permission, then I shall believe in the image, and say my prayers to him.’”
“Well?” questions Donna Micaela.
“I have been to old Caterina, and she has given her permission. ‘He shall be allowed to go into San Pasquale without my killing him,’ she said.”
Passafiore is still on his knees.
“Has Falco already been to the church?” asks Donna Micaela.
Passafiore moves somewhat nearer. He wrings his hands in despair. “Donna Micaela, Falco is very ill. It is not alone that about the dog; he was ill before.” And Passafiore struggles with himself before he can say it out. At last he acknowledges that although Falco is a very great man, he sometimes has attacks of madness. He had not spoken of old Caterina alone; he had said: “If Caterina will let me go into the church, and if Donna Micaela Alagona comes down into the quarry and gives me her hand, and leads me to the church, I will go to the image.” And from that no one had been able to move him. Donna Micaela, who was greatest and holiest of women, must come to him, or he would not go.
When Passafiore has finished, he remains kneeling with bowed head. He dares not look up.
But Donna Micaela does not hesitate a second, since there has been question of the Christ-image. She seems not to think of Falco’s being already mad. She does not say a word of her terror. Her faith in the image is such that she answers softly, like a subdued and obedient child:—
“Passafiore, I will go with you.”
She follows him as if walking in her sleep. She does not hesitate to go with him up Etna. She does not hesitate to climb down the steep cliffs into the quarry. She comes, pale as death, but with shining eyes, to the old brigand in his hole in the cliff and gives him her hand. He rises up, ghastly pale as she, and follows her. They do not seem like human beings, but like spectres. They move ontowards 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 moonlightfalls 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.
“Hehelps 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 peaceintothe 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.”
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 aboutherundertaking. 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 numberof 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.
“And he shall win many followers”
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 wrongway. 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 peoplelonged 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.
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 impossibleto 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.”
There are preparations everywhere in the night for his sake. One of the goatherds on Monte Pellegrino is busy tying little bunches of blue-bells for his goats to wear in their collars. And as he has a hundred goats, and they all wear collars—But it must be done. His goats could not wander into Palermo the next morning without being adorned in honor of the day.
The dressmakers have had to sit at their work till midnight to finish all the new dresses that are to be worn that morning. And when such a little dressmaker has finished her work for others, she has to think of herself. She puts a couple of plumes in her hat and piles up bunches of ribbon a yard high. To-day she must be beautiful.
The long rows of houses begin to be illuminated. Here and there a rocket whizzes up. Fire-crackers hiss and snap at every street corner.
The flower shops along Via Vittorio Emanuele are emptied again and again. Always more, more of the white orange-blossoms! All Palermo is filled with the sweet fragrance of the orange-blossoms.
The gate-keeper in Bosco’s house has no peacefor a moment. Magnificent cakes and towerlike bouquets are incessantly passing up the stairway, and poems of welcome and telegrams of congratulation are constantly coming. There is no end to them.
The poor bronze emperor on the Piazza Bologna, poor, ugly Charles the Fifth, who is forlorn and thin and wretched as San Giovanni in the desert, has in some inscrutable manner got a bunch of flowers in his hand. When the students standing on Quattro Canti, quite near by, hear of it, they march up to the emperor in a procession, light him with their torches, and raise a cheer for the old despot. And one of them takes his bunch of flowers to give it to the great socialist.
Then the students march down to the harbor.
Long before they get there their torches are burnt out, but they do not care. They come with arms about each other’s necks, singing loudly, and sometimes breaking off in their song to shout: “Down with Crispi! Long live Bosco!” The song begins again, but it is again broken off, because those who cannot sing throw their arms round the singers and kiss them.
Guilds and corporations swarm out of the quarters of the town where the same trade has been carried on for more than a thousand years. The masons come with their band of music and their banner; there come the workers in mosaic; here come the fishermen.
When the societies meet, they salute one another with their banners. Sometimes they take time to stop and make speeches. Then they tell of the five released prisoners, the five martyrs whom the governmentat last has given back to Sicily. And all the people shout: “Long live Bosco! Long live Da Felice! Long live Verro! Long live Barbato! Long live Alagona!”
If any one who has had enough of the life in the streets comes down to the harbor of Palermo, he stops and asks: “What place is this? Madonna Santissima, where am I?”
For he has expected to find the harbor still deserted and dark.
All the boats and skiffs in the harbor of Palermo have been taken by different societies and unions. They are floating about in the harbor, richly hung with colored Venetian lights, and every minute great bunches of rockets are sent up from them.
Over the heavy thwarts priceless rugs and hangings have been spread, and on them sit ladies, the beautiful Palermo ladies, dressed in light silks and shaded velvets.
The small craft glide about on the water, now in big groups, now separately. From the big ships rise masts and oars covered with pennants and lights, and the little harbor steam-launches dart about with funnels wreathed in flowers.
Beneath it all the water lies and shines and mirrors and reflects, so that the light from one lantern becomes a stream of brightness, and the drops that fall from the oars are like a rain of gold.
Round about the harbor stand a hundred thousand, a hundred and fifty thousand people, quite delirious with joy. They kiss one another; they raise shouts of rapture, and they are happy, happy. They are beside themselves with joy. Many of them cannot keep from weeping.
Fire, that is joy. It is good that fires can be lighted. Suddenly a great blaze flames up on Monte Pellegrino, just over the harbor. Mighty flames burst from all the pointed mountain walls surrounding the town. There are fires on Monte Falcone, on San Martino, on the mountain of The Thousands, where Garibaldi passed.
Far out on the sea comes the big Naples steamer. And on the steamer is Bosco, the socialist.
He cannot sleep that night. He has gone up from his cabin, and paces to and fro on the deck. And then his old mother, who has journeyed to Naples to meet him, comes from her cabin to keep him company. But he cannot talk with her. He is thinking that he will soon be at home. Ah, Palermo, Palermo!
He has been in prison over two years. They have been two years of suffering and longing, and has it been of any good? That is what he wishes to know. Has it been of benefit that he has been faithful to the cause, and gone to prison? Has Palermo thought of him? Have his sufferings won the cause a single follower?
His old mother sits crouched on the gangway, and shivers in the chill of the night. He has asked her, but she knows nothing of such things. She speaks of little Francesco and little Lina, how they have grown. She knows nothing of what he is struggling for.
Now he comes to his mother, takes her by the wrist, leads her to the railing, and asks her if she sees anything far away to the south. She looks out over the water with her dim eyes, and sees only the night, only the black night on the water. Shedoes not see at all that a cloud of fire is floating on the horizon.
Then he begins to walk again, and she creeps down under cover. He does not need to talk to her; it is joy enough to have him home again after only two years’ absence. He was condemned to be away for twenty-four. She had not expected ever to see him again. But now the king has showed grace. For the king is a good man. If only he were allowed to be as good as he wished!
Bosco walks across the deck, and asks the sailors if they do not see the golden cloud on the horizon.
“That is Palermo,” say the seamen. “There is always a bright light floating over it at night.”