Kitobni o'qish: «The Miracles of Antichrist», sahifa 4

“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.