IV THE OLD MARTYRDOM

From the summer-palace in Diamante many letters were sent during that time to Gaetano Alagona, who was in prison in Como. But the letter-carrier never had a letter in his bag from Gaetano addressed to the summer-palace.

For Gaetano had gone into his life-long imprisonment as if it had been a grave. The only thing he asked or desired was that it should give him the grave’s forgetfulness and peace.

He felt as if he were dead; and he said to himself that he did not wish to hear the laments and wails of the survivors. Nor did he wish to be deceived with hopes, or be tempted by tender words to long for family and friends. Nor did he wish to hear anything of what was happening in the world, when he had no power to take part and to lead.

He found work in the prison, and carved beautiful works of art, as he had always done. But he never would receive a letter, nor a visitor. He thought that in that way he could cease to feel the bitterness of his misfortunes. He believed that he would be able to teach himself to live a whole life within four narrow walls.

And for that reason Donna Micaela never had a word of answer from him.

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Finally she wrote to the director of the prison and asked if Gaetano was still alive. He answered that the prisoner she asked about never read a letter. He had asked to be spared all communications from the outside world.

So she wrote no more. Instead she continued to work for her railway. She hardly dared to speak of it in Diamante, but nevertheless she thought of nothing else. She herself sewed and embroidered, and she had all her servants make little cheap things that she could sell at her bazaar. In the shop she looked up old wares for the tombola. She had Piero, the gate-keeper, prepare colored lanterns; she persuaded her father to paint signs and placards; and she had her maid, Lucia, who was from Capri, arrange coral necklaces and shell boxes.

She was not at all sure that even one person would come to her entertainment. Every one was against her; no one would help her. They did not even like her to show herself on the streets or to talk business. It was not fitting for a well-born lady.

Old Fra Felice tried to assist her, for he loved her because she had helped him with the image.

One day, when Donna Micaela was lamenting that she could not persuade any one that the people ought to build the railway, he lifted his cap from his head and pointed to his bald temples.

“Look at me, Donna Micaela,” he said. “So bald will that railway make your head if you go on as you have begun.”

“What do you mean, Fra Felice?”

“Donna Micaela,” said the old man, “would it not be folly to start on a dangerous undertaking without having a friend and helper?”

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“I have tried enough to find friends, Fra Felice.”

“Yes, men!” said the old man. “But how do men help? If any one is going fishing, Donna Micaela, he knows that he must call on San Pietro; if any one wishes to buy a horse, he can ask help of San Antonio Abbate. But if I want to pray for your railway, I do not know to whom I shall turn.”

Fra Felice meant that the trouble was that she had chosen no patron saint for her railway. He wished her to choose the crowned child that stood out in his old church as its first friend and promoter. He told her that if she only did that she would certainly be helped.

She was so touched that any one was willing to stand by her that she instantly promised to pray for her railway to the child at San Pasquale.

Fra Felice got a big collection-box and painted on it in bright, distinct letters: “Gifts for the Etna Railway,” and he hung it in his church beside the altar.

It was not more than a day after that that Don Antonio Greco’s wife, Donna Emilia, came out to the old, deserted church to consult San Pasquale, who is the wisest of all the saints.

During the autumn Don Antonio’s theatre had begun to fare ill, as was to be expected when no one had any money.

Don Antonio thought to run the theatre with less expense than before. He had cut off a couple of lamps and did not have such big and gorgeously painted play-bills.

But that had been great folly. It is not at the moment when people are losing their desire to go to the theatre that it will answer to shorten the princesses’[216] silk trains and economize on the gilding of the king’s crowns.

Perhaps it is not so dangerous at another theatre, but at a marionette theatre it is a risk to make any changes, because it is chiefly half-grown boys who go to the marionette theatre. Big people can understand that sometimes it is necessary to economize, but children always wish to have things in the same way.

Fewer and fewer spectators came to Don Antonio, and he went on economizing and saving. Then it occurred to him that he could dispense with the two blind violin-players, Father Elia and Brother Tommaso, who also used to play during the interludes and in the battle-scenes.

Those blind men, who earned so much by singing in houses of mourning, and who took in vast sums on feast-days, were expensive. Don Antonio dismissed them and got a hand-organ.

That caused his ruin. All the apprentices and shop-boys in Diamante ceased to go to the theatre. They would not sit and listen to a hand-organ. They promised one another not to go to the theatre till Don Antonio had taken back the fiddlers, and they kept their promise. Don Antonio’s dolls had to perform to empty walls.

The young boys who otherwise would rather go without their supper than the theatre, stayed away night after night. They were convinced that they could force Don Antonio to arrange everything as before.

But Don Antonio comes of a family of artists. His father and his brother have marionette theatres; his brothers-in-law, all his relations are of the profession.[217] And Don Antonio understands his art. He can change his voice indefinitely; he can man?uvre at the same time a whole army of dolls; and he knows by heart the whole cycle of plays founded on the chronicles of Charlemagne.

And now Don Antonio’s artistic feelings were hurt. He would not be forced to take back the blind men. He wished to have the people come to his theatre for his sake, and not for that of the musicians.

He changed his tactics and began to play big dramas with elaborate mountings. But it was futile.

There is a play called “The Death of the Paladin,” which treats of Roland’s fight at Ronceval. It requires so much machinery that a puppet theatre has to be kept shut for two days for it to be set up. It is so dear to the public that it is generally played for double price and to full houses for a whole month. Don Antonio now had that play mounted, but he did not need to play it; he had no spectators.

After that his spirit was broken. He tried to get Father Elia and Brother Tommaso back, but they now knew what their value was to him.

They demanded such a price that it would have been ruin to pay them. It was impossible to come to any agreement.

In the small rooms back of the marionette theatre they lived as in a besieged fortress. They had nothing else to do but to starve.

Donna Emilia and Don Antonio were both gay young people, but now they never laughed. They were in great want, but Don Antonio was a proud man, and he could not bear to think that his art no longer had the power to draw.

So, as I said, Donna Emilia went down to the[218] church of San Pasquale to ask the saint for good advice. It had been her intention to repeat nine prayers to the great stone-image standing outside of the church, and then to go; but before she had begun to pray she had noticed that the church-door stood open. “Why is San Pasquale’s church-door open?” said Donna Emilia. “That has never happened in my time,”—and she went into the church.

The only thing to be seen there was Fra Felice’s beloved image and the big collection-box. The image looked so beautiful in his crown and his rings that Donna Emilia was tempted forward to him, but when she came near enough to look into his eyes, he seemed to her so tender and so cheering that she knelt down before him and prayed. She promised that if he would help her and Don Antonio in their need, she would put the receipts of a whole evening in the big box that hung beside him.

After her prayers were over, Donna Emilia concealed herself behind the church-door, and tried to catch what the passers-by were saying. For if the image was willing to help her, he would let her hear a word which would tell her what to do.

She had not stood there two minutes before old Assunta of the Cathedral steps passed by with Donna Pepa and Donna Tura. And she heard Assunta say in her solemn voice: “That was the year when I heard ‘The Old Martyrdom’ for the first time.” Donna Emilia heard quite distinctly. Assunta really said “The Old Martyrdom.”

Donna Emilia thought that she would never reach her home. It was as if her legs could not carry her fast enough, and the distance increased as[219] she ran. When she finally saw the corner of the theatre with the red lanterns under the roof and the big illustrated play-bills, she felt as if she had gone many miles.

When she came in to Don Antonio, he sat with his big head leaning on his hand and stared at the table. It was terrible to see Don Antonio. In those last weeks he had begun to lose his hair; on the very top of his head it was so thin that the skin shone through. Was it strange, when he was in such trouble? While she had been away he had taken all his puppets out and inspected them. He did that now every day. He used to sit and look at the puppet that played Armida. Was she no longer beautiful and beguiling? he would ask. And he tried to polish up Roland’s sword and Charlemagne’s crown. Donna Emilia saw that he had gilded the emperor’s crown again; it was for at least the fifth time. But then he had stopped in the midst of his work and had sat down to brood. He had noticed it himself. It was not gilding that was lacking; it was an idea.

As Donna Emilia came into the room, she stretched out her hands to her husband.

“Look at me, Don Antonio Greco,” she said. “I bear in my hands golden bowls full of ripe figs!”

And she told how she had prayed, and what she had vowed, and what she had been advised.

When she said that to Don Antonio, he sprang up. His arms fell stiffly beside his body, and his hair raised itself from his head. He was seized with an unspeakable terror. “‘The Old Martyrdom’!” he screamed, “‘The Old Martyrdom’!”

For “The Old Martyrdom” is a miracle-play,[220] which in its time was given in all Sicily. It drove out all other oratorios and mysteries, and was played every year in every town for two centuries. It was the greatest day of the year, when “The Old Martyrdom” was performed. But now it is never played; now it only lives in the people’s memory as a legend.

In the old days it was also played in the marionette theatres. But now it has come to be considered old-fashioned and out-of-date. It has probably not been played for thirty years.

Don Antonio began to roar and scream at Donna Emilia, because she tortured him with such folly. He struggled with her as with a demon, who had come to seize him. It was amazing; it was heartrending, he said. How could she get hold of such a word? But Donna Emilia stood quiet and let him rave. She only said that what she had heard was God’s will.

Soon Don Antonio began to be uncertain. The great idea gradually took possession of him. Nothing had ever been so loved and played in Sicily, and did not the same people still live on the noble isle? Did they not love the same earth, the same mountains, the same skies as their forefathers had loved? Why should they not also love “The Old Martyrdom”?

He resisted as long as he could. He said to Donna Emilia that it would cost too much. Where could he get apostles with long hair and beards? He had no table for the Last Supper; he had none of the machinery required for the entry, and carrying of the cross.

But Donna Emilia saw that he was going to give[221] in, and before night he actually went to Fra Felice and renewed her vow to put the receipts of one evening in the box of the little image, if it proved to be good advice.

Fra Felice told Donna Micaela about the vow, and she was glad, and at the same time anxious how it would turn out.

Through all the town it was known that Don Antonio was mounting “The Old Martyrdom,” and every one laughed at him. Don Antonio had lost his mind.

The people would have liked well enough to see “The Old Martyrdom,” if they could have seen it as it was played in former days. They would have liked to see it given as in Aci, where the noblemen of the town played the kings and the servants, and the artisans took the parts of the Jews and the apostles; and where so many scenes from the Old Testament were added that the spectacle lasted the whole day.

They would have also liked to see those wonderful days in Castelbuoco, when the whole town was transformed into Jerusalem. There the mystery was given so that Jesus came riding to the town, and was met with palms at the town-gate. There the church represented the temple at Jerusalem and the town-hall Pilate’s palace. There Peter warmed himself at a fire in the priest’s court-yard; the crucifixion took place on a mountain above the town; and Mary looked for the body of her son in the grottoes of the syndic’s garden.

When the people had such things in their memory how could they be content to see the great mystery in Don Antonio’s theatre?

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But in spite of everything, Don Antonio worked with the greatest eagerness to prepare the actors and to arrange the elaborate machinery.

And behold, in a few days came Master Battista, who painted placards, and presented him with a play-bill. He had been glad to hear that Don Antonio was going to play “The Old Martyrdom;” he had seen it in his youth, and had great pleasure in it.

So there now stood in large letters on the corner of the theatre: “‘The Old Martyrdom’ or ‘The Resurrected Adam,’ tragedy in three acts by Cavaliere Filippo Orioles.”

Don Antonio wondered and wondered what the people’s mood would be. The donkey-boys and apprentices who passed by his theatre read the notice with scoffs and derision. It looked very black for Don Antonio, but in spite of it he went on faithfully with his work.

When the appointed evening came, and the “Martyrdom” was to be played, no one was more anxious than Donna Micaela. “Is the little image going to help me?” she asked herself incessantly.

She sent out her maid, Lucia, to look about. Were there any groups of boys in front of the theatre? Did it look as if there were going to be a crowd? Lucia might go to Donna Emilia, sitting in the ticket-office, and ask her if it looked hopeful.

But when Lucia came back she had not the slightest hope to offer. There was no crowd outside the theatre. The boys had resolved to crush Don Antonio.

Towards eight o’clock Donna Micaela could no longer endure sitting at home and waiting. She[223] persuaded her father to go with her to the theatre. She knew well that a signora had never set her foot in Don Antonio’s theatre, but she needed to see how it was going to be. It would be such a dizzily great success for her railway if Don Antonio succeeded.

When Donna Micaela came to the theatre it was a few minutes before eight, and Donna Emilia had not sold a ticket.

But she was not depressed; “Go in, Donna Micaela!” she said; “we shall play at any rate, it is so beautiful. Don Antonio will play it for you and your father and me. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever performed.”

Donna Micaela came into the little hall. It was hung with black, as the big theatres always were in the old days when “The Old Martyrdom” was given. There were dark, silver-fringed curtains on the stage, and the little benches were covered with black.

Immediately after Donna Micaela came in, Don Antonio’s bushy eyebrows appeared in a little hole in the curtain. “Donna Micaela,” he cried, as Donna Emilia had done, “we shall play at any rate. It is so beautiful, it needs no spectators.”

Just then came Donna Emilia herself, and opened the door, and courtesying, held it back. It was the priest, Don Matteo, who entered.

“What do you say to me, Donna Micaela?” he said, laughing. “But you understand; it is ‘The Old Martyrdom.’ I saw it in my youth at the big opera in Palermo; and I believe that it was that old play that made me become a priest.”

The next time the door opened it was Father Elia[224] and Brother Tommaso, who came with their violins under their arms and felt their way to their usual places, as quietly as if they had never had any disagreement with Don Antonio.

The door opened again. It was an old woman from the alley above the house of the little Moor. She was dressed in black, and made the sign of the cross as she came in.

After her came four, five other old women; and Donna Micaela looked at them almost resentfully, as they gradually filled the theatre. She knew that Don Antonio would not be satisfied till he had his own public back again,—till he had his self-willed, beloved boys to play for.

Suddenly she heard a hurricane or thunder. The doors flew open,—all at the same time! It was the boys. They threw themselves down in their usual places, as if they had come back to their home.

They looked at one another, a little ashamed. But it had been impossible for them to see one old woman after another go into their theatre to see what was being played for them. It had been quite impossible to see the whole street full of old distaff-spinners in slow procession toward the theatre, and so they had rushed in.

But hardly had the gay young people reached their places before they noticed that they had come under a severe master. Ah, “The Old Martyrdom,” “The Old Martyrdom!”

It was not given as in Aci and in Castelbuoco; it was not played as at the opera in Palermo; it was only played with miserable marionettes with immovable faces and stiff bodies; but the old play had not lost its power.

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Donna Micaela noticed it already in the second act during the Last Supper. The boys began to hate Judas. They shouted threats and insults at him.

As the story of the Passion went on, they laid aside their hats and clasped their hands. They sat quite still, with their beautiful brown eyes turned towards the stage. Now and then a few tears dropped. Now and then a fist was clenched in indignation.

Don Antonio spoke with tears in his voice; Donna Emilia was on her knees at the entrance. Don Matteo looked with a gentle smile at the little puppets and remembered the wonderful spectacle in Palermo that had made him a priest.

But when Jesus was cast into prison and tortured, the young people were ashamed of themselves. They too had hated and persecuted. They were like those pharisees, like those Romans. It was a shame to think of it. Could Don Antonio forgive them?