VIII TWO SONGS

It was the morning after the day when San Pasquale’s bells had rung; and Donna Elisa sat in her shop and counted her money. The day before, when everyone had been afraid, there had been an incredible sale in the shop, and the next morning, when she had come down, she had at first been almost frightened. For the whole shop was desolate and empty; the medallions were gone, the wax candles were gone, and so were all the great bunches of rosaries. All Gaetano’s beautiful images had been taken down from the shelves and sold, and it was a real grief to Donna Elisa not to see the host of holy men and women about her.

She opened the money-drawer, and it was so full that she could hardly pull it out. And while she counted her money she wept over it as if it had all been false. For what good did it do her to possess all those dirty lire and those big copper coins when she had lost Gaetano!

Alas! she thought that if he had stopped at home one day more he would not have needed to go, for now she was laden down with money.

While she was counting she heard the post-carriage stop outside her door. But she did not even look up; she did not care what happened, since Gaetano[114] was gone. Then the door opened, and the bell rang violently. She only wept and counted. Then some one said: “Donna Elisa, Donna Elisa!” And it was Gaetano!

“But heavens! how can you be at home?” she cried.—“You have sold all your images. I had to come home to carve new ones for you.”—“But how did you find out about it?”—“I met the post-carriage at two o’clock in the night. Rosa Alfari was in it, and she told me everything.”—“What luck that you went down to the post-carriage! What luck that you happened to think of going down to the post-carriage!”—“Yes; was it not good fortune?” said Gaetano.

In less than an hour Gaetano was again standing in his workshop; and Donna Elisa, who had nothing at all to do in her empty shop, came incessantly to the door to look at him. No, was he really standing there and carving? She could not let five minutes pass without coming to look at him.

But when Donna Micaela heard that he was back she felt no joy, rather anger and despair. For she was afraid that Gaetano would come to tempt her.

She had heard that a rich Englishwoman had come to Diamante the day the bells rang. She was deeply affected when she heard that it was the lady with the Christ image. He had therefore come as soon as she had called on him. The rain and the bell-ringing were his work!

She tried to rejoice her soul with the thought that there had been a miracle for her sake. It would be more to her than all earthly happiness and love to feel that she was surrounded by God’s grace. She[115] did not wish anything earthly to come and drag her down from that blessed rapture.

But when she met Gaetano on the street he hardly looked at her; and when she met him at Donna Elisa’s he did not take her hand and did not speak to her at all.

For the truth was that, although Gaetano had come home because it had been too hard to go without Donna Micaela, he did not wish to tempt or to persuade her. He saw that she was under the protection of the saints, and she had become so sacred to him that he scarcely dared to dream of her.

He wished to be near her, not in order to love her, but because he believed that her life would blossom with holy deeds. Gaetano longed for miracles, as a gardener longs for the first rose in the spring.

But when weeks went by and Gaetano never tried to approach Donna Micaela, she began to doubt, and to think that he had never loved her. She said to herself that he had won the promise from her to flee with him only in order to show her that the Madonna could work a miracle.

If that were true, she did not know why he had not continued his journey without turning back.

That caused her anxiety. She thought that she could conquer her love better if she knew whether Gaetano loved her. She weighed the pros and cons, and she was more and more sure that he had never loved her.

While Donna Micaela was thinking of this, she had to sit and keep Don Ferrante company. He had lain sick a long time. He had had two strokes of paralysis, and had risen from his sick-bed a[116] broken man. All at once he had become old and dull and afraid, so that he never dared to be alone. He never worked in the shop; he was in every way a changed man.

He had been seized with a great desire to be aristocratic and fashionable. It looked as if poor Don Ferrante’s head was turned with pride.

Donna Micaela was very good to him, and sat hour after hour and chatted with him.

“Who could it be,” she used to ask, “who once stood in the market-place with plumes on his hat, and braid on his coat, and sword at his side, and who played so that people said that his music was as uplifting as Etna, and as strong as the sea? And who caught sight of a poor signorina dressed in black, who did not dare to show her face to the world, and went forward to her and offered his arm? Who could it be? Could it be Don Ferrante, who stands the whole week in his shop and wears a pointed cap and a short jacket? No; that cannot be possible. No old merchant could have done such a thing.”

Don Ferrante laughed. That was just the way he liked to have her talk to him. She would also tell him how it would be when he came to court. The king would say this, and the queen would say that. “The old Alagonas have come up again,” they would say at court. And who has brought up the race? People will wonder and wonder. The Don Ferrante, who is a Sicilian prince and Spanish grandee, is that the same man who stood in a shop in Diamante and shouted at the teamsters? No, people will say, it cannot be the same. It is impossible for it to be the same.

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Don Ferrante liked that, and wished to hear her talk so day in and day out. He was never tired of listening, and Donna Micaela was very patient with him.

But one day while she was chatting, Donna Elisa came in. “Sister-in-law, if you happen to own the ‘Legend of the Holy Virgin of Pompeii,’ will you lend it to me?” she asked.—“What, are you going to begin to read?” asked Donna Micaela.—“The saints preserve us! you know very well that I cannot read. Gaetano is asking for it.”

Donna Micaela did not own the “Legend of the Holy Virgin at Pompeii.” But she did not say so to Donna Elisa; she went to her book-shelf and took a little book, a collection of Sicilian love-songs, and gave it to Donna Elisa, who carried the little book over to Gaetano.

But Donna Micaela had no sooner done so before a lively regret seized her. And she asked herself what she had meant by behaving so,—she who had been helped by the little Christchild?

She blushed with shame as she thought that she had marked one of the little songs, one that ran thus:—
“For one single question’s answer longing,
Night I asked, and asked the daytime’s burning;
Watched the flight of birds, and swift clouds thronging,
In water strove to read the hot lead’s turning;
Leaves I counted plucked from many flowers,
Lured dark prophets forth, and sought their powers,
Till at last I called on Heaven above me:
‘Doth he love me still, as once he loved me?’”

She had hoped to get an answer to it. But it would serve her right if no answer came. It would serve[118] her right if Gaetano despised her and thought her forward.

Yet she had meant no harm. The only thing she had desired had been to find out if Gaetano loved her.

Several weeks again passed and Donna Micaela still sat with Don Ferrante.

But one day Donna Elisa had tempted her out. “Come with me into my garden, sister-in-law, and see my big magnolia-tree. You have never seen anything so beautiful.”

She had gone with Donna Elisa across the street and had come into her court-yard. And Donna Elisa’s magnolia was like the shining sun, so that people were aware of it even before they saw it. At a great distance the fragrance lay and rocked in the air, and there was a murmuring of bees, and a twittering of birds.

When Donna Micaela saw the tree she could hardly breathe. It was very high and broad, with a beautifully even growth, and its large, firm leaves were of a fresh, dark green. But now it was entirely covered with great, bright flowers, that lighted and adorned it so that it looked as if dressed for a feast, and one felt an intoxicating joy streaming forth from the tree. Donna Micaela almost lost consciousness, and a new and irresistible power took possession of her. She drew down one of the stiff branches, and without breaking it spread out the flower that it bore, took a needle and began to prick letters on the flower leaf. “What are you doing, sister-in-law?” asked Donna Elisa.—“Nothing, nothing.”—“In my time young girls used to prick love-letters on the magnolia-blossoms.”—“Perhaps[119] they do it still.”—“Take care; I shall look at what you have written when you are gone.”—“But you cannot read.”—“I have Gaetano.”—“And Luca; you had better ask Luca.”

When Donna Micaela came home, she repented of what she had done. Would Donna Elisa really show the flower to Gaetano? No, no; Donna Elisa was too sensible. But if he had seen her from the window of his workshop? Well, he would not answer. She had made herself ridiculous.

No, never, never again would she do such a thing. It was best for her not to know. It was best for her that Gaetano did not ask after her.

Nevertheless she wondered what answer she would get. But none came.

So another week passed. Then it came into Don Ferrante’s mind that he would like to go out for a drive in the afternoon.

In the carriage-house of the summer palace there was an ancient state carriage, which was certainly more than a hundred years old. It was very high; it had a small, narrow body, which swung on leather straps between the back wheels, which were as big as the water-wheels of a mill. It was painted white, with gilding; it was lined with red velvet, and had a coat of arms on its doors.

Once it had been a great honor to ride in that carriage; and when the old Alagonas had passed in it along the Corso, people had stood on their thresholds, and crowded to their doors, and hung over balconies to see them. But then it had been drawn by spirited barbs; then the coachman had worn a wig, and the footman gold braid, and it had been driven with embroidered silk reins.

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Now Don Ferrante wished to harness his old horses before the gala carriage and have his old shopman take the place of coachman.

When Donna Micaela told him that it could not be, Don Ferrante began to weep. What would people think of him if he did not show himself on the Corso in the afternoon? That was the last thing a man of position denied himself. How could anyone know that he was a nobleman, if he did not drive up and down the street in the carriage of the old Alagonas?

The happiest hour Don Ferrante had enjoyed since his illness was when he drove out for the first time. He sat erect and nodded and waved very graciously to every one he met. And the people of Diamante bowed, and took off their hats, so that they swept the street. Why should they not give Don Ferrante this pleasure?

Donna Micaela was with him, for Don Ferrante did not dare to drive alone. She had not wished to go, but Don Ferrante had wept, and reminded her that he had married her when she was despised and penniless. She ought not to be ungrateful; she ought not to forget what he had done for her, and ought to come with him. Why did she not wish to drive with him in his carriage? It was the finest old carriage in Sicily.

“Why will you not come with me?” said Don Ferrante. “Remember that I am the only one who loves you. Do you not see that not even your father loves you? You must not be ungrateful.”

In this way he had forced Donna Micaela to take her place in the gala carriage.

But it was not at all as she had expected. No[121] one laughed. The women courtesied, and the men bowed as solemnly as if the carriage had been a hundred years younger. And Donna Micaela could not detect a smile on any face.

No one in all Diamante would have wished to laugh; for every one knew how Don Ferrante treated Donna Micaela. They knew how he loved her, and how he wept if she left him for a single minute. They knew, too, that he tormented her with jealousy, and that he trampled her hats to pieces, if they became her, and never gave her money for new dresses, because no other was to find her beautiful, and love her. But all the time he told her that she was so ugly that no one but he could bear to look at her face. And because every one in Diamante knew it all, no one laughed. Laugh at her, sitting and chatting with a sick man! They are pious Christians in Diamante, and not barbarians.

So the gala-carriage in its faded glory drove up and down the Corso in Diamante during the hour between five and six. And in Diamante it drove quite alone, for there were no other fine carriages there; but people knew that at that same time all the carriages in Rome drove to Monte Pincio, all those in Naples to the Via Nazionale, and all in Florence to the Cascine, and all in Palermo to La Favorita.

But when the carriage approached the Porta Etnea for the third time, a merry sound of horns was heard from the road outside.

And through the gate swung a big, high coach in the English style.

It was meant to look old-fashioned also. The postilion riding on the off leader had leather trousers,[122] and a wig tied in a pig-tail. The coach was like an old diligence, with the body behind the coach box and seats on the roof.

But everything was new; the horses were magnificent, powerful animals, carriage and harness shone, and the passengers were some young gentlemen and ladies from Catania, who were making an excursion up Etna. And they could not help laughing as they drove by the old gala-carriage. They leaned over from where they sat on the high roof to look at it, and their laughter sounded very loud and echoed between the high, silent houses of Diamante.

Donna Micaela was very unhappy. They were some of her old circle of friends. What would they not say when they came home? “We have seen Micaela Palmeri in Diamante.” And they would laugh and talk, laugh and talk.

Her life seemed so squalid. She was nothing but the slave of a fool. Her whole life long she would never do anything but chat with Don Ferrante.

When she came home she was quite exhausted. She was so tired and weak that she could scarcely drag herself up the steps.

And all the time Don Ferrante was rejoicing in his good fortune at having met all those fine people, and having been seen in his state. He told her that now no one would ask whether she was ugly, or whether her father had stolen. Now people knew that she was the wife of a man of rank.

After dinner Donna Micaela sat quite silent, and let her father talk to Don Ferrante. Then a mandolin began to sound quite softly in the street under the window of the summer palace. It was a single mandolin with no accompaniment of guitar or violin.[123] Nothing could be more light and airy; nothing more captivating and affecting. No one could think that human hands were touching the strings. It was as if bees and crickets and grasshoppers were giving a concert.

“There is some one again who has fallen in love with Giannita,” said Don Ferrante. “That is a woman, Giannita. Any one can see that she is pretty. If I were young I should fall in love with Giannita. She knows how to love.”

Donna Micaela started. He was right, she thought. The mandolin-player meant Giannita. That evening Giannita was at home with her mother, but otherwise she always lived at the summer palace. Donna Micaela had arranged it so since Don Ferrante had been ill.

But Donna Micaela liked the mandolin playing, for whomever it might be meant. It came sweet, and soft, and comforting. She went gently into her room to listen better in the dark and loneliness.

A sweet, strong fragrance met her there. What was it? Her hands began to tremble before she found a candle and a match. On her work-table lay a big, widely opened magnolia-blossom.

On one of the flower petals was pricked: “Who loves me?” And now stood under it: “Gaetano.”

Beside the flower lay a little white book full of love-songs. And there was a mark against one of the little verses:—
“None have known the love that I have brought thee,
Silent, secret, born in midnight’s measure.
All my dreams have stolen forth and sought thee;
Miser-like, the while, I watched my treasure:
Tho’ the priest shall seek to shrive me, dying,
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Silent I, nor needing him to speed me,
Bar the door, fling forth the key, and lying
Thus unshriven, go where death shall lead me.”

The mandolin continued to play. There is something of open air and sunlight in a mandolin; something soothing and calming; something of the cheering carelessness of beautiful nature.