Freewater

Find it at [Link]
( 4.5/5.0 ★ | 461 downloads )
-- Click the link to download --

[Link]
539780316056618&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%[Link]%2Fsearch%2
Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316056618
Freewater

ISBN: 9780316056618
Category: Media > Books
File Fomat: PDF, EPUB, DOC...
File Details: 7.2 MB
Language: English
Website: [Link]
Short description: Good condition book with a firm cover and clean
readable pages. Shows normal use including some light wear or limited
notes highlighting yet remains a dependable copy overall. Supplemental
items like CDs or access codes may not be included.

DOWNLOAD: [Link]
offerid=1494105.26539780316056618&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2F
[Link]%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316056618
 Freewater

• Click the link: [Link]

8&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%[Link]%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316056618 to do
latest version of Freewater in multiple formats such as PDF, EPUB, and more.

• Don’t miss the chance to explore our extensive collection of high-quality resources, books, and guides on
our website. Visit us regularly to stay updated with new titles and gain access to even more valuable
materials.
.
 But when the police could not find Cavaliere Palmeri, the people
began to say: “He is a fine gentleman, and they are fine gentlemen
who help him; otherwise they would have found him long ago.” And
the prefect in Catania had come to her. She received him smiling,
and the prefect came as if to talk of roses, and the beautiful
weather. Then he said: “Will the signorina look at this little paper?
Will the signorina read this little letter? Will the signorina observe
this little signature?” She read and read. And what did she see? Her
father was not innocent. Her father had taken the money of others.
When the prefect had left her, she had gone to her father. “You
are guilty,” she said to him. “You may do what you will, but I cannot
help you any more.” Oh, she had not known what she said! She had
always been very proud. She had not been able to bear to have their
name stamped with dishonor. She had wished for a moment that her
father had been dead, rather than that this had happened to her.
Perhaps she had also said it to him. She did not rightly know what
she had said.
But after that God had forsaken her. The most terrible things had
happened. Her father had taken her at her word. He had gone and
given himself up. And ever since he had been in prison he had not
been willing to see her. He did not answer her letters, and the food
that she sent him he sent back untouched. That was the most
dreadful thing of all. He seemed to think that she wished to kill him.
She looked at Giannita as anxiously as if she awaited her sentence
of death.
“Why do you not say to me what you have to say?” she exclaimed.
“You are killing me!”
But it was impossible for her to force herself to be silent.
“You must know,” she continued, “that this palace is sold, and the
purchaser has let it to an English lady, who is to move in to-day.
Some of her things were brought in already yesterday, and among
them was a little image of Christ.
 “I caught sight of it as I passed through the vestibule, Giannita.
They had taken it out of a trunk, and it lay there on the floor. It had
been so neglected that no one took any trouble about it. Its crown
was dented, and its dress dirty, and all the small ornaments which
adorned it were rusty and broken. But when I saw it lying on the
floor, I took it up and carried it into the room and placed it on a
table. And while I did so, it occurred to me that I would ask its help.
I knelt down before it and prayed a long time. ‘Help me in my great
need!’ I said to the Christchild.
“While I prayed, it seemed to me that the image wished to answer
me. I lifted my head, and the child stood there as dull as before, but
a clock began to strike just then. It struck four, and it was as if it had
said four words. It was as if the Christchild had answered a fourfold
yes to my prayer.
“That gave me courage, Giannita, so that to-day I drove to the
Palace of Justice to see my father. But he never turned his eyes
toward me during the whole time he stood before his judges.
“I waited until they were about to lead him away, and threw
myself on my knees before him in one of the narrow passages.
Giannita, he let the soldiers lead me away without giving me a word.
“So, you see, God hates me. When I heard you speak of yesterday
afternoon at four o’clock, I was so frightened. The Christchild sends
me a new misfortune, I thought. It hates me for having failed my
father.”
When she had said that, she was at last silent and listened
breathlessly for what Giannita should say.
And Giannita told her story to her.
“See, see, is it not wonderful?” she said at the end. “I have not
been in Catania for twelve years, and then I come here quite
unexpectedly. And I know nothing at all; but as soon as I set my
foot on the street here, I hear your misfortune. God has sent a
message to me, I said to myself. He has called me here to help my
god-sister.”
 Signorina Palmeri’s eyes were turned anxiously questioning
towards her. Now the new blow was coming. She gathered all her
courage to meet it.
“What do you wish me to do for you, god-sister?” said Giannita.
“Do you know what I thought as I was walking through the streets?
I will ask her if she will go with me to Diamante, I thought. I know
an old house there, where we could live cheaply. And I would
embroider and sew, so that we could support ourselves. When I was
out in the street I thought that it might be, but now I understand
that it is impossible, impossible. You require something more of life;
but tell me if I can do anything for you. You shall not thrust me
away, for God has sent me.”
The signorina bent towards Giannita. “Well?” she said anxiously.
“You shall let me do what I can for you, for I love you,” said
Giannita, and fell on her knees and put her arms about her.
“Have you nothing else to say?” asked the signorina.
“I wish I had,” said Giannita, “but I am only a poor girl.”
It was wonderful to see how the features of the young signorina’s
face softened; how her color came back and how her eyes began to
shine. Now it was plain that she had great beauty.
“Giannita,” she said, low and scarcely audibly, “do you think that it
is a miracle? Do you think that God can let a miracle come to pass
for my sake?”
“Yes, yes,” whispered Giannita back.
“I prayed the Christchild that he should help me, and he sends
you to me. Do you think that it was the Christchild who sent you,
Giannita?”
“Yes, it was; it was!”
“Then God has not forsaken me, Giannita?”
“No, God has not forsaken you.”
 The god-sisters sat and wept for a while. It was quite quiet in the
room. “When you came, Giannita, I thought that nothing was left me
but to kill myself,” she said at last. “I did not know where to turn,
and God hated me.”
“But tell me now what I can do for you, god-sister,” said Giannita.
As an answer the other drew her to her and kissed her.
“But it is enough that you are sent by the little Christchild,” she
said. “It is enough that I know that God has not forsaken me.”

IV
DIAMANTE

Micaela Palmeri was on her way to Diamante with Giannita.

They had taken their places in the post-carriage at three o’clock in
the morning, and had driven up the beautiful road over the lower
slopes of Etna, circling round the mountain. But it had been quite
dark. They had not seen anything of the surrounding country.
The young signorina by no means lamented over that. She sat
with closed eyes and buried herself in her sorrow. Even when it
began to grow light, she would not lift her eyes to look out. It was
not until they were quite near Diamante that Giannita could
persuade her to look at the landscape.
“Look! Here is Diamante; this is to be your home,” she said.
Then Micaela Palmeri, to the right of the road, saw mighty Etna,
that cut off a great piece of the sky. Behind the mountain the sun
was rising, and when the upper edge of the sun’s disc appeared
above the line of the mountain, it looked as if the white summit
began to burn and send out sparks and rays.
Giannita entreated her to look at the other side.
 And on the other side she saw the whole jagged mountain chain,
which surrounds Etna like a towered wall, glowing red in the sunrise.
But Giannita pointed in another direction. It was not that she was
to look at, not that.
Then she lowered her eyes and looked down into the black valley.
There the ground shone like velvet, and the white Simeto foamed
along in the depths of the valley.
But still she did not turn her eyes in the right direction.
At last she saw the steep Monte Chiaro rising out of the black,
velvet-lined valley, red in the morning light and encircled by a crown
of shady palms. On its summit she saw a town flanked with towers,
and encompassed by a wall, and with all its windows and weather-
vanes glittering in the light.
At that sight she seized Giannita’s arm and asked her if it was a
real town, and if people lived there.
She believed that it was one of heaven’s cities, and that it would
disappear like a vision. She was certain that no mortal had ever
passed up the path that from the edge of the valley went in great
curves over to Monte Chiaro and then zigzagged up the mountain,
disappearing through the dark gates of the town.
But when she came nearer to Diamante, and saw that it was of
the earth, and real, tears rose to her eyes. It moved her that the
earth still held all this beauty for her. She had believed that, since it
had been the scene of all her misfortunes, she would always find it
gray and withered and covered with thistles and poisonous growths.
She entered poor Diamante with clasped hands, as if it were a
sanctuary. And it seemed to her as if this town could offer her as
much happiness as beauty.
 V
DON FERRANTE

A few days later Gaetano was standing in his workshop, cutting

grape-leaves on rosary beads. It was Sunday, but Gaetano did not
feel it on his conscience that he was working, for it was a work in
God’s honor.
A great restlessness and anxiety had come over him. It had come
into his mind that the time he had been living at peace with Donna
Elisa was now drawing to a close, and he thought that he must soon
start out into the world.
For great poverty had come to Sicily, and he saw want wandering
from town to town and from house to house like the plague, and it
had come to Diamante also.
No one ever came now to Donna Elisa’s shop to buy anything. The
little images of the saints that Gaetano made stood in close rows on
the shelves, and the rosaries hung in great bunches under the
counter. And Donna Elisa was in great want and sorrow, because she
could not earn anything.
That was a sign to Gaetano that he must leave Diamante, go out
into the world, emigrate if there was no other way. For it could not
be working to the honor of God to carve images that never were
worshipped, and to turn rosary beads that never glided through a
petitioner’s fingers.
It seemed to him that, somewhere in the world, there must be a
beautiful, newly built cathedral, with finished walls, but whose
interior yet stood shivering in nakedness. It awaited Gaetano’s
coming to carve the choir chairs, the altar-rail, the pulpit, the
lectern, and the shrine. His heart ached with longing for that work
which was waiting.
But there was no such cathedral in Sicily, for there no one ever
thought of building a new church; it must be far away in such lands
as Florida or Argentina, where the earth is not yet overcrowded with
holy buildings.
He felt at the same time trembling and happy, and had begun to
work with redoubled zeal in order that Donna Elisa should have
something to sell while he was away earning great fortunes for her.
Now he was waiting for but one more sign from God before he
decided on the journey. And this was that he should have the
strength to speak to Donna Elisa of his longing to go. For he knew
that it would cause her such sorrow that he did not know how he
could bring himself to speak of it.
While he stood and thought Donna Elisa came into the workshop.
Then he said to himself that this day he could not think of saying it
to her, for to-day Donna Elisa was happy. Her tongue wagged and
her face beamed.
Gaetano asked himself when he had seen her so. Ever since the
famine had come, it had been as if they had lived without light in
one of the caves of Etna.
Why had Gaetano not been with her in the square and heard the
music? asked Donna Elisa. Why did he never come to hear and see
her brother, Don Ferrante? Gaetano, who only saw him when he
stood in the shop with his tufts of hair and his short jacket, did not
know what kind of a man he was. He considered him an ugly old
tradesman, who had a wrinkled face and a rough beard. No one
knew Don Ferrante who had not seen him on Sunday, when he
conducted the music.
That day he had donned a new uniform. He wore a three-cornered
hat with green, red, and white feathers, silver on his collar, silver-
fringed epaulets, silver braid on his breast, and a sword at his side.
And when he stepped up to the conductor’s platform the wrinkles
had been smoothed out of his face and his figure had grown erect.
He could almost have been called handsome.
When he had led Cavalleria, people had hardly been able to
breathe. What had Gaetano to say to that, that the big houses round
the market-place had sung too? From the black Palazzo Geraci,
Donna Elisa had distinctly heard a love song, and from the convent,
empty as it was, a beautiful hymn had streamed out over the
market-place.
And when there was a pause in the music the handsome advocate
Favara, who had been dressed in a black velvet coat and a big
broad-brimmed hat and a bright red necktie, had gone up to Don
Ferrante, and had pointed out over the open side of the square,
where Etna and the sea lay. “Don Ferrante,” he had said, “you lift us
toward the skies, just as Etna does, and you carry us away into the
eternal, like the infinite sea.”
If Gaetano had seen Don Ferrante to-day he would have loved
him. At least he would have been obliged to acknowledge his
stateliness. When he laid down his baton for a while and took the
advocate’s arm, and walked forward and back with him on the flat
stones by the Roman gate and the Palazzo Geraci, every one could
see that he could well measure himself against the handsome
Favara.
Donna Elisa sat on the stone bench by the cathedral, in company
with the wife of the syndic. And Signora Voltaro had said quite
suddenly, after sitting for a while, watching Don Ferrante: “Donna
Elisa, your brother is still a young man. He may still be married, in
spite of his fifty years.”
And she, Donna Elisa, had answered that she prayed heaven for it
every day.
But she had hardly said it, when a lady dressed in mourning came
into the square. Never had anything so black been seen before. It
was not enough that dress and hat and gloves were black; her veil
was so thick that it was impossible to believe that there was a face
behind it. Santissimo Dio! it looked as if she had hung a pall over
herself. And she had walked slowly, and with a stoop. People had
almost feared, believing that it was a ghost.
 Alas, alas! the whole market-place had been so full of gayety! The
peasants, who were at home over Sunday, had stood there in great
crowds in holiday dress, with red shawls wound round their necks.
The peasant women on their way to the cathedral had glided by,
dressed in green skirts and yellow neckerchiefs. A couple of
travellers had stood by the balustrade and looked at Etna; they had
been dressed in white. And all the musicians in uniform, who had
been almost as fine as Don Ferrante, and the shining instruments,
and the carved cathedral façade! And the sunlight, and Mongibello’s
snow top—so near to-day that one could almost touch it—had all
been so gay.
Now, when the poor black lady came into the midst of it all, they
had stared at her, and some had made the sign of the cross. And the
children had rushed down from the steps of the town-hall, where
they were riding on the railing, and had followed her at a few feet’s
distance. And even the lazy Piero, who had been asleep in the
corner of the balustrade, had raised himself on his elbow. It had
been a resurrection, as if the black Madonna from the cathedral had
come strolling by.
But had no one thought that it was unkind that all stared at the
black lady? Had no one been moved when she came so slowly and
painfully?
Yes, yes; one had been touched, and that had been Don Ferrante.
He had the music in his heart; he was a good man and he thought:
“Curses on all those funds that are gathered together for the poor,
and that only bring people misfortune! Is not that poor Signorina
Palmeri, whose father has stolen from a charitable fund, and who is
now so ashamed that she dares not show her face?” And, as he
thought of it, Don Ferrante went towards the black lady and met her
just by the church door.
There he made her a bow, and mentioned his name. “If I am not
mistaken,” Don Ferrante had said, “you are Signorina Palmeri. I have
a favor to ask of you.”
 Then she had started and taken a step backwards, as if to flee,
but she had waited.
“It concerns my sister, Donna Elisa,” he had said. “She knew your
mother, signorina, and she is consumed with a desire to make your
acquaintance. She is sitting here by the Cathedral. Let me take you
to her!”
And then Don Ferrante put her hand on his arm and led her over
to Donna Elisa. And she made no resistance. Donna Elisa would like
to see who could have resisted Don Ferrante to-day.
Donna Elisa rose and went to meet the black lady, and throwing
back her veil, kissed her on both cheeks.
But what a face, what a face! Perhaps it was not pretty, but it had
eyes that spoke, eyes that mourned and lamented, even when the
whole face smiled. Yes, Gaetano perhaps would not wish to carve or
paint a Madonna from that face, for it was too thin and too pale; but
it is to be supposed that our Lord knew what he was doing when he
did not put those eyes in a face that was rosy and round.
When Donna Elisa kissed her, she laid her head down on her
shoulder, and a few short sobs shook her. Then she looked up with a
smile, and the smile seemed to say: “Ah, does the world look so? Is
it so beautiful? Let me see it and smile at it! Can a poor unfortunate
really dare to look at it? And to be seen? Can I bear to be seen?”
All that she had said without a word, only with a smile. What a
face, what a face!
But here Gaetano interrupted Donna Elisa. “Where is she now?”
he said. “I too must see her.”
Then Donna Elisa looked Gaetano in the eyes. They were glowing
and clear, as if they were filled with fire, and a dark flush rose to his
temples.
“You will see her all in good time,” she said, harshly. And she
repented of every word she had said.
 Gaetano saw that she was afraid, and he understood what she
feared. It came into his mind to tell her now that he meant to go
away, to go all the way to America.
Then he understood that the strange signorina must be very
dangerous. Donna Elisa was so sure that Gaetano would fall in love
with her that she was almost glad to hear that he meant to go away.
For anything seemed better to her than a penniless daughter-in-
law, whose father was a thief.

VI
DON MATTEO’S MISSION

One afternoon the old priest, Don Matteo, inserted his feet into
newly polished shoes, put on a newly brushed soutane, and laid his
cloak in the most effective folds. His face shone as he went up the
street, and when he distributed blessings to the old women spinning
by the doorposts, it was with gestures as graceful as if he had
scattered roses.
The street along which Don Matteo was walking was spanned by
at least seven arches, as if every house wished to bind itself to a
neighbor. It ran small and narrow down the mountain; it was half
street and half staircase; the gutters were always overflowing, and
there were always plenty of orange-skins and cabbage-leaves to slip
on. Clothes hung on the line, from the ground up to the sky. Wet
shirt-sleeves and apron-strings were carried by the wind right into
Don Matteo’s face. And it felt horrid and wet, as if Don Matteo had
been touched by a corpse.
At the end of the street lay a little dark square, and there Don
Matteo saw an old house, before which he stopped. It was big, and
square, and almost without windows. It had two enormous flights of
steps, and two big doors with heavy locks. And it had walls of black
lava, and a “loggia,” where green slime grew over the tiled floor, and
where the spider-webs were so thick that the nimble lizards were
almost held fast in them.
Don Matteo lifted the knocker, and knocked till it thundered. All
the women in the street began to talk, and to question. All the
washerwomen by the fountain in the square dropped soap and
wooden clapper, and began to whisper, and ask, “What is Don
Matteo’s errand? Why does Don Matteo knock on the door of an old,
haunted house, where nobody dares to live except the strange
signorina, whose father is in prison?”
But now Giannita opened the door for Don Matteo, and conducted
him through long passages, smelling of mould and damp. In several
places in the floor the stones were loose, and Don Matteo could see
way down into the cellar, where great armies of rats raced over the
black earth floor.
As Don Matteo walked through the old house, he lost his good-
humor. He did not pass by a stairway without suspiciously spying up
it, and he could not hear a rustle without starting. He was depressed
as before some misfortune. Don Matteo thought of the little
turbaned Moor who was said to show himself in that house, and
even if he did not see him, he might be said to have felt him.
At last Giannita opened a door and showed the priest into a room.
The walls there were bare, as in a stable; the bed was as narrow as
a nun’s, and over it hung a Madonna that was not worth three soldi.
The priest stood and stared at the little Madonna till the tears rose
to his eyes.
While he stood so Signorina Palmeri came into the room. She kept
her head bent and moved slowly, as if wounded. When the priest
saw her he wished to say to her: “You and I, Signorina Palmeri, have
met in a strange old house. Are you here to study the old Moorish
inscriptions or to look for mosaics in the cellar?” For the old priest
was confounded when he saw Signorina Palmeri. He could not
understand that the noble lady was poor. He could not comprehend
that she was living in the house of the little Moor.
He said to himself that he must save her from this haunted house,
and from poverty. He prayed to the tender Madonna for power to
save her.
Thereupon he said to the signorina that he had come with a
commission from Don Ferrante Alagona. Don Ferrante had confided
to him that she had refused his proposal of marriage. Why was that?
Did she not know that, although Don Ferrante seemed to be poor as
he stood in his shop, he was really the richest man in Diamante?
And Don Ferrante was of an old Spanish family of great
consideration, both in their native country and in Sicily. And he still
owned the big house on the Corso that had belonged to his
ancestors. She should not have said no to him.
While Don Matteo was speaking, he saw how the signorina’s face
grew stiff and white. He was almost afraid to go on. He feared that
she was going to faint.
It was only with the greatest effort that she was able to answer
him. The words would not pass her lips. It seemed as if they were
too loathsome to utter. She quite understood, she said, that Don
Ferrante would like to know why she had refused his proposal. She
was infinitely touched and grateful on account of it, but she could
not be his wife. She could not marry, for she brought dishonor and
disgrace with her as a marriage portion.
“If you marry an Alagona, dear signorina,” said Don Matteo, “you
need not fear that any one will ask of what family you are. It is an
honorable old name. Don Ferrante and his sister, Donna Elisa, are
considered the first people in Diamante, although they have lost all
the family riches, and have to keep a shop. Don Ferrante knows well
enough that the glory of the old name would not be tarnished by a
marriage with you. Have no scruples for that, signorina, if otherwise
you may be willing to marry Don Ferrante.”
 But Signorina Palmeri repeated what she had said. Don Ferrante
should not marry the daughter of a convict. She sat pale and
despairing, as if wishing to practise saying those terrible words. She
said that she did not wish to enter a family which would despise her.
She succeeded in saying it in a hard, cold voice, without emotion.
But the more she said, the greater became Don Matteo’s desire to
help her. He felt as if he had met a queen who had been torn from
her throne. A burning desire came over him to set the crown again
upon her head, and fasten the mantle about her shoulders.
Therefore Don Matteo asked her if her father were not soon
coming out of prison, and he wondered what he would live on.
The signorina answered that he would live on her work.
Don Matteo asked her very seriously whether she had thought
how her father, who had always been rich, could bear poverty.
Then she was silent. She tried to move her lips to answer, but
could not utter a sound.
Don Matteo talked and talked. She looked more and more
frightened, but she did not yield.
At last he knew not what to do. How could he save her from that
haunted house, from poverty, and from the burden of dishonor that
weighed her down? But then his eyes chanced to fall on the little
image of the Madonna over the bed. So the young signorina was a
believer.
The spirit of inspiration came to Don Matteo. He felt that God had
sent him to save this poor woman. When he spoke again, there was
a new ring in his voice. He understood that it was not he alone who
spoke.
“My daughter,” he said, and rose, “you will marry Don Ferrante for
your father’s sake! It is the Madonna’s will, my daughter.”
There was something impressive in Don Matteo’s manner. No one
had ever seen him so before. The signorina trembled, as if a spirit
voice had spoken to her, and she clasped her hands.
“Be a good and faithful wife to Don Ferrante,” said Don Matteo,
“and the Madonna promises you through me that your father will
have an old age free of care.”
Then the signorina saw that it was an inspiration which guided
Don Matteo. It was God speaking through him. And she sank down
on her knees, and bent her head. “I shall do what you command,”
she said.

But when the priest, Don Matteo, came out of the house of the
little Moor and went up the street, he suddenly took out his breviary
and began to read. And although the wet clothes struck him on the
cheek, and the little children and the orange-peels lay in wait for
him, he only looked in his book. He needed to hear the great words
of God.
For within that black house everything had seemed certain and
sure, but when he came out into the sunshine he began to worry
about the promise he had given in the name of the Madonna.
Don Matteo prayed and read, and read and prayed. Might the
great God in heaven protect the woman, who had believed him and
obeyed him as if he had been a prophet!
Don Matteo turned the corner into the Corso. He struck against
donkeys on their way home, with travelling signorinas on their
backs; he walked right into peasants coming home from their work,
and he pushed against the old women spinning, and entangled their
thread. At last he came to a little, dark shop.
It was a shop without a window which was at the corner of an old
palace. The threshold was a foot high; the floor was of trampled
earth; the door almost always stood open to let in the light. The
counter was besieged by peasants and mule-drivers.
 And behind the counter stood Don Ferrante. His beard grew in
tufts; his face was in one wrinkle; his voice was hoarse with rage.
The peasants demanded an immoderately high payment for the
loads that they had driven up from Catania.

VII
THE BELLS OF SAN PASQUALE

The people of Diamante soon perceived that Don Ferrante’s wife,

Donna Micaela, was nothing but a great child. She could never
succeed in looking like a woman of the world, and she really was
nothing but a child. And nothing else was to be expected, after the
life she had led.
Of the world she had seen nothing but its theatres, museums,
ball-rooms, promenades, and race courses; and all such are only
play places. She had never been allowed to go alone on the street.
She had never worked. No one had ever spoken seriously to her. She
had not even been in love with any one.
After she had moved into the summer palace she forgot her cares
as gayly and easily as a child would have done. And it appeared that
she had the playful disposition of a child, and that she could
transform and change everything about her.
The old dirty Saracen town Diamante seemed like a paradise to
Donna Micaela. She said that she had not been at all surprised when
Don Ferrante had spoken to her in the square, nor when he had
proposed to her. It seemed quite natural to her that such things
should happen in Diamante. She had seen instantly that Diamante
was a town where rich men went and sought out poor, unfortunate
signorinas to make them mistresses of their black lava palaces.
She also liked the summer-palace. The faded chintz, a hundred
years old, that covered the furniture told her stories. And she found
a deep meaning in all the love scenes between the shepherds and
shepherdesses on the walls.
She had soon found out the secret of Don Ferrante. He was no
ordinary shop-keeper in a side street. He was a man of ambition,
who was collecting money in order to buy back the family estate on
Etna and the palace in Catania and the castle on the mainland. And
if he went in short jacket and pointed cap, like a peasant, it was in
order the sooner to be able to appear as a grandee of Spain and
prince of Sicily.
After they were married Don Ferrante always used every evening
to put on a velvet coat, take his guitar under his arm, and place
himself on the stairway to the gallery in the music-room in the
summer-palace and sing canzoni. While he sang, Donna Micaela
dreamed that she had been married to the noblest man in beautiful
Sicily.
When Donna Micaela had been married a few months her father
was released from prison and came to live at the summer palace
with his daughter. He liked the life in Diamante and became friends
with every one. He liked to talk to the bee-raisers and vineyard
workers whom he met at the Café Europa, and he amused himself
every day by riding about on the slopes of Etna to look for
antiquities.
But he had by no means forgiven his daughter. He lived under her
roof, but he treated her like a stranger, and never showed her
affection. Donna Micaela let him go on and pretended not to notice
it. She could not take his anger seriously any longer. That old man,
whom she loved, believed that he would be able to go on hating her
year after year! He would live near her, hear her speak, see her
eyes, be encompassed by her love, and he could continue to hate
her! Ah, he knew neither her nor himself. She used to sit and
imagine how it would be when he must acknowledge that he was
conquered; when he must come and show her that he loved her.
 One day Donna Micaela was standing on her balcony waving her
hand to her father, who rode away on a small, dark-brown pony,
when Don Ferrante came up from the shop to speak to her. And
what Don Ferrante wished to say was that he had succeeded in
getting her father admitted to “The Brotherhood of the Holy Heart”
in Catania.
But although Don Ferrante spoke very distinctly, Donna Micaela
seemed not to understand him at all.
He had to repeat to her that he had been in Catania the day
before, and that he had succeeded in getting Cavaliere Palmeri into
a brotherhood. He was to enter it in a month.
She only asked: “What does that mean? What does that mean?”
“Oh,” said Don Ferrante, “can I not have wearied of buying your
father expensive wines from the mainland, and may I not sometimes
wish to ride Domenico?”
When he had said that, he wished to go. There was nothing more
to say.
“But tell me first what kind of a brotherhood it is,” she said.
—“What it is! A lot of old men live there.”—“Poor old men?”—“Oh,
well, not so rich.”—“They do not have a room to themselves, I
suppose?”—“No, but very big dormitories.”—“And they eat from tin
basins on a table without a cloth?”—“No, they must be china.”—“But
without a table-cloth?”—“Lord, if the table is clean!”
He added, to silence her: “Very good people live there. If you like
to know it, it was not without hesitation they would receive Cavaliere
Palmeri.”
Thereupon Don Ferrante went. His wife was in despair, but also
very angry. She thought that he had divested himself of rank and
class and become only a plain shop-keeper.
She said aloud, although no one heard her, that the summer
palace was only a big, ugly old house, and Diamante a poor and
miserable town.
 Naturally, she would not allow her father to leave her. Don
Ferrante would see.
When they had eaten their dinner Don Ferrante wished to go to
the Café Europa and play dominoes, and he looked about for his hat.
Donna Micaela took his hat and followed him out to the gallery that
ran round the court-yard. When they were far enough from the
dining-room for her father not to be able to hear them, she said
passionately:—
“Have you anything against my father?”—“He is too
expensive.”—“But you are rich.”—“Who has given you such an idea?
Do you not see how I am struggling?”—“Save in some other
way.”—“I shall save in other ways. Giannita has had presents
enough.”—“No, economize on something for me.”—“You! you are my
wife; you shall have it as you have it.”
She stood silent a moment. She was thinking what she could say
to frighten him.
“If I am now your wife, do you know why it is?”—“Oh yes.”—“Do
you also know what the priest promised me?”—“That is his affair, but
I do what I can.”—“You have heard, perhaps, that I broke with all
my friends in Catania when I heard that my father had sought help
from them and had not got it.”—“I know it.”—“And that I came here
to Diamante that he might escape from seeing them and being
ashamed?”—“They will not be coming to the brotherhood.”—“When
you know all this, are you not afraid to do anything against my
father?”—“Afraid? I am not afraid of my wife.”
“Have I not made you happy?” she asked.—“Yes, of course,” he
answered indifferently.—“Have you not enjoyed singing to me? Have
you not liked me to have considered you the most generous man in
Sicily? Have you not been glad that I was happy in the old palace?
Why should it all come to an end?”
He laid his hand on her shoulder and warned her. “Remember that
you are not married to a fine gentleman from the Via Etnea!”—“Oh,
no!”—“Up here on the mountain the ways are different. Here wives
obey their husbands. And we do not care for fair words. But if we
want them we know how to get them.”
She was frightened when he spoke so. In a moment she was on
her knees before him. It was dark, but enough light came from the
other rooms for him to see her eyes. In burning prayer, glorious as
stars, they were fixed on him.
“Be merciful! You do not know how much I love him!” Don
Ferrante laughed. “You ought to have begun with that. Now you
have made me angry.” She still knelt and looked up at him. “It is
well,” he said, “for you hereafter to know how you shall behave.” Still
she knelt. Then he asked: “Shall I tell him, or will you?”
Donna Micaela was ashamed that she had humbled herself. She
rose and answered imperiously: “I shall tell him, but not till the last
day. And you shall not let him notice anything.”
“No, I shall not,” he said, and mimicked her. “The less talk about
it, the better for me.”
But when he was gone Donna Micaela laughed at Don Ferrante for
believing that he could do what he liked with her father. She knew
some one who would help her.

In the Cathedral at Diamante there is a miracle-working image of

the Madonna, and this is its story.
Long, long ago a holy hermit lived in a cave on Monte Chiaro. And
this hermit dreamed one night that in the harbor of Catania lay a
ship loaded with images of the saints, and among these there was
one so holy that Englishmen, who are richer than anybody else,
would have paid its weight in gold for it. As soon as the hermit
awoke from this dream he started for Catania. In the harbor lay a
ship loaded with images of the saints, and among the images was
one of the holy Madonna that was more holy than all the others. The
hermit begged the captain not to carry that image away from Sicily,
but to give it to him. But the captain refused. “I shall take it to
England,” he said, “and the Englishmen will pay its weight in gold.”
The hermit renewed his petitions. At last the captain had his men
drive him on shore, and hoisted his sail to depart.
It looked as if the holy image was to be lost to Sicily; but the
hermit knelt down on one of the lava blocks on the shore and prayed
to God that it might not be. And what happened? The ship could not
go. The anchor was up, the sail hoisted, and the wind fresh; but for
three long days the ship lay as motionless as if it had been a rock.
On the third day the captain took the Madonna image and threw it
to the hermit, who still lay on the shore. And immediately the ship
glided out of the harbor. The hermit carried the image to Monte
Chiaro, and it is still in Diamante, where it has a chapel and an altar
in the Cathedral.
Donna Micaela was now going to this Madonna to pray for her
father.
She sought out the Madonna’s chapel, which was built in a dark
corner of the Cathedral. The walls were covered with votive
offerings, with silver hearts and pictures that had been given by all
those who had been helped by the Madonna of Diamante.
The image was hewn in black marble, and when Donna Micaela
saw it standing in its niche, high and dark, and almost hidden by a
golden railing, it seemed to her that its face was beautiful, and that
it shone with mildness. And her heart was filled with hope.
Here was the powerful queen of heaven; here was the good
Mother Mary; here was the afflicted mother who understood every
sorrow; here was one who would not allow her father to be taken
from her.
Here she would find help. She would need only to fall on her
knees and tell her trouble, to have the black Madonna come to her
assistance.
While she prayed she felt certain that Don Ferrante was even at
that moment changing his mind. When she came home he would
come to meet her and say to her that she might keep her father.

It was a morning three weeks later.

Donna Micaela came out of the summer palace to go to early
mass; but before she set out to the church, she went into Donna
Elisa’s shop to buy a wax candle. It was so early that she had been
afraid that the shop would not be open; but it was, and she was
glad to be able to take a gift with her to the black Madonna.
The shop was empty when Donna Micaela came in, and she
pushed the door forward and back to make the bell ring and call
Donna Elisa in. At last some one came, but it was not Donna Elisa; it
was a young man.
That young man was Gaetano, whom Donna Micaela scarcely
knew. For Gaetano had heard so much about her that he was afraid
to meet her, and every time she had come over to Donna Elisa he
had shut himself into his workshop. Donna Micaela knew no more
about him than that he was to leave Diamante, and that he was
always carving holy images for Donna Elisa to have something to sell
while he was earning great fortunes away in Argentina.
When she now saw Gaetano, she found him so handsome that it
made her glad to look at him. She was full of anxiety as a hunted
animal, but no sorrow in the world could prevent her from feeling
joy at the sight of anything so beautiful.
She asked herself where she had seen him before, and she
remembered that she had seen his face in her father’s wonderful
collection of pictures in the palace at Catania. There he had not
been in working blouse; he had had a black felt hat with long,
flowing, white feathers, and a broad lace collar over a velvet coat.
And he had been painted by the great master Van Dyck.
Donna Micaela asked Gaetano for a wax candle, and he began to
look for one. And now, strangely enough, Gaetano, who saw the
little shop every day, seemed to be quite strange there. He looked
for the wax candle in the drawers of rosaries and in the little
medallion boxes. He could not find anything, and he grew so
impatient that he turned out the drawers and broke the boxes open.
The destruction and disorder were terrible. And it would be a real
grief to Donna Elisa when she came home.
But Donna Micaela liked to see how he shook the thick hair back
from his face, and how his gold-colored eyes glowed like yellow wine
when the sun shines through it. It was a consolation to see any one
so beautiful.
Then Donna Micaela asked pardon of the noble gentlemen whom
the great Van Dyck had painted. For she had often said to them:
“Ah, signor, you have been beautiful, but you never could have been
so dark and so pale and so melancholy. And you did not possess
such eyes of fire. All that the master who painted you has put into
your face.” But when Donna Micaela saw Gaetano she found that it
all could be in a face, and that the master had not needed to add
anything. Therefore she asked the noble old gentlemen’s pardon.
At last Gaetano had found the long candle-boxes that stood under
the counter, where they had always stood. And he gave her the
candle, but he did not know what it cost, and said that she could
come in and pay it later. When she asked him for something to wrap
it in he was in such trouble that she had to help him to look.
It grieved her that such a man should think of travelling to
Argentina.
He let Donna Micaela wrap up the candle and watched her while
she did it. She wished she could have asked him not to look at her
now, when her face reflected only hopelessness and misery.
Gaetano had not scrutinized her features more than a moment
before he sprang up on a little step-ladder, took down an image from
the topmost shelf, and came back with it to her. It was a little gilded
and painted wooden angel, a little San Michele fighting with the
arch-fiend, which he had created from paper and wadding.
 He handed it to Donna Micaela and begged her to accept it. He
wished to give it to her, he said, because it was the best he had ever
carved. He was so certain that it had greater power than his other
images that he had put it away on the top shelf, so that no one
might see and buy it. He had forbidden Donna Elisa to sell it except
to one who had a great sorrow. And now Donna Micaela was to take
it.
She hesitated. She found him almost too daring.
But Gaetano begged her to look how well the image was carved.
She saw that the archangel’s wings were ruffled with anger, and that
Lucifer was pressing his claws into the steel plate on his leg? Did she
see how San Michele was driving in his spear, and how he was
frowning and pressing his lips together?
He wished to lay the little image in her hand, but she gently
pushed it away. She saw that it was beautiful and spirited, she said,
but she knew that it could not help her. She thanked him for his gift,
but she would not accept it.
Then Gaetano seized the image and rolled it in paper and put it
back in its place.
And not until it was wrapped up and put away did he speak to her.
But then he asked her why she came to buy wax candles if she
was not a believer. Did she mean to say that she did not believe in
San Michele? Did she not know that he was the most powerful of the
angels, and that it was he who had vanquished Lucifer and thrown
him into Etna? Did she not believe that it was true? Did she not
know that San Michele lost a wing-feather in the fight, and that it
was found in Caltanisetta? Did she know it or not? Or what did she
mean by San Michele not being able to help her? Did she think that
none of the saints could help? And he, who was standing in his
workshop all day long, carving saints!—would he do such a thing if
there was no good in it? Did she believe that he was an impostor?
But as Donna Micaela was just as strong a believer as Gaetano,
she thought that his speech was unjust, and it irritated her to
contradiction.
“It sometimes happens that the saints do not help,” she said to
him. And when Gaetano looked unbelieving, she was seized by an
uncontrollable desire to convince him, and she said to him that some
one had promised her in the name of the Madonna that, if she was a
faithful wife to Don Ferrante, her father should enjoy an old age free
of care. But now her husband wished to put her father in a
brotherhood, which was as wretched as a poor-house and strict as a
prison. And the Madonna had not averted it; in eight days it would
happen.
Gaetano listened to her with the greatest earnestness. That was
what induced her to confide the whole story to him.
“Donna Micaela,” he said, “you must turn to the black Madonna in
the Cathedral.”
“So you think that I have not prayed to her?”
Gaetano flushed and said almost with anger: “You will not say that
you have turned in vain to the black Madonna?”
“I have prayed to her in vain these last three weeks—prayed to
her, prayed to her.”
When Donna Micaela spoke of it she could scarcely breathe. She
wanted to weep over herself because she had awaited help each
day, and each day been disappointed; and yet had known nothing
better to do than begin again with her prayers. And it was visible on
her face that her soul lived over and over again what she had
suffered, when each day she had awaited an answer to her prayer,
while the days slipped by.
But Gaetano was unmoved; he stood smiling, and drummed on
one of the glass cases that stood on the counter.
“Have you only prayed to the Madonna?” he said.
Only prayed, only prayed! But she had also promised her to lay
aside all sins. She had gone to the street where she had lived first,
and nursed the sick woman with the ulcerated leg. She never passed
a beggar without giving alms.
Only prayed! And she told him that if the Madonna had had the
power to help her, she ought to have been satisfied with her prayers.
She had spent her days in the Cathedral. And the anguish, the
anguish that tortured her, should not that be counted?
He only shrugged his shoulders. Had she not tried anything else?
Anything else! But there was nothing in the world that she had not
tried. She had given silver hearts and wax candles. Her rosary was
never out of her hand.
Gaetano irritated her. He would not count anything that she had
done; he only asked: “Nothing else? Nothing else?”
“But you ought to understand,” she said. “Don Ferrante does not
give me so much money. I cannot do more. At last I have succeeded
in getting some silk and cloth for an altar cloth. You ought to
understand!”
But Gaetano, who had daily intercourse with the saints, and who
knew the power and wildness of enthusiasm that had filled them
when they had compelled God to obey their prayers, smiled
scornfully at Donna Micaela, who thought she could subjugate the
Madonna with wax candles and altar-cloths.
He understood very well, he answered. The whole was clear to
him. It was always so with those miserable saints. Everybody called
to them for help, but few understood what they ought to do to get
their prayers granted. And then people said that the saints had no
power. All were helped who knew how they ought to pray.
Donna Micaela looked up in eager expectation. There was such
strength and conviction in Gaetano’s words that she began to believe
that he would teach her the right words of salvation.
Gaetano took the candle lying in front of her on the counter and
threw it down into the box again, and told her what she had to do.
He forbade her to give the Madonna any gifts, or to pray to her, or
to do anything for the poor. He told her that he would tear her altar-
cloth to pieces if she sewed another stitch on it.
“Show her, Donna Micaela, that it means something to you,” he
said, and fixed his eyes on her with compelling force. “Good Lord,
you must be able to find something to do, to show her that it is
serious, and not play. You must be able to show her that you will not
live if you are not helped. Do you mean to continue to be faithful to
Don Ferrante, if he sends your father away? I know you do. If the
Madonna has no need to fear what you are going to do, why should
she help you?”
Donna Micaela drew back. He came swiftly out from behind the
counter and seized her coat sleeve.
“Do you understand? You shall show her that you can throw
yourself away if you do not get help. You shall throw yourself into
sin and death if you do not get what you want. That is the way to
force the saints.”
She tore herself from him and went without a word. She hurried
up the spiral street, came to the Cathedral, and threw herself down
in terror before the altar of the black Madonna.
That happened one Saturday morning, and on Sunday evening
Donna Micaela saw Gaetano again. For it was beautiful moonlight,
and in Diamante it is the custom on moonlight nights for all to leave
their homes and go out into the streets. As soon as the inhabitants
of the summer palace had come outside their door they had met
acquaintances. Donna Elisa had taken Cavaliere Palmeri’s arm, and
the syndic Voltaro had joined Don Ferrante to discuss the elections;
but Gaetano came up to Donna Micaela because he wished to hear if
she had followed his advice.
“Have you stopped sewing on that altar-cloth?” he said.
But Donna Micaela answered that all day yesterday she had sewn
on it.
 “Then it is you who understand what you are doing, Donna
Micaela.”
“Yes, now there is no help for it, Don Gaetano.”
She managed to keep them away from the others, for there was
something she wished to speak to him about. And when they came
to Porta Etnea, she turned out through the gate, and they went
along the paths that wind under Monte Chiaro’s palm groves.
They could not have walked on the streets filled with people.
Donna Micaela spoke so the people in Diamante would have stoned
her if they had heard her.
She asked Gaetano if he had ever seen the black Madonna in the
Cathedral. She had not seen her till yesterday. The Madonna
perhaps had placed herself in such a dark corner of the Cathedral so
that no one should be able to see her. She was so black, and had a
railing in front of her. No one could see her.
But to-day Donna Micaela had seen her. To-day the Madonna had
had a festival, and she had been moved from her niche. The floor
and walls of her chapel had been covered with white almond-
blossoms, and she herself had stood down on the altar, dark and
high, surrounded by the white glory.
But when Donna Micaela had seen the image she had been filled
with despair; for the image was no Madonna. No, she had prayed to
no Madonna. Oh, a shame, a shame! It was plainly an old heathen
goddess. She had a helmet, not a crown; she had no child on her
arm; she had a shield. It was a Pallas Athene. It was no Madonna.
Oh, no; oh, no!
It was like the people of Diamante to worship such an image. It
was like them to set up such a blasphemy and worship it! Did he
know what was the worst misfortune? Their Madonna was so ugly.
She was disfigured, and she had never been a work of art. She was
so ugly that one could not bear to look at her.