The Miracles of Antichrist

“Do you dare to speak to her, Donna Micaela?” she said. “May God help you to speak to her! Alas! tell her that the Neapolitan boy, who was the cause of the whole misfortune, has been turned out of the town. Tell her that they all wish to make amends. Speak to her, signora!”

The landlady took Donna Micaela to the Englishwoman’s drawing-room and went in with her card. She came back immediately and asked her to wait a few minutes. Signorina Tottenham was having a business talk with Signor Favara.

It was the very moment when the advocate Favara asked Miss Tottenham’s hand in marriage; and while Donna Micaela waited she heard him say quite loud: “You must not go away, signorina! What will become of me if you go away? I love you; I cannot let you go. I should not have dared to speak if you had not threatened to go away. But now – ”

He lowered his voice again, but Donna Micaela would hear no more and went away. She saw that she was superfluous. If Signor Favara could not succeed in keeping the great benefactress, no one could.

When she went out again through the gateway the landlord was standing there quarrelling with the old Franciscan, Fra Felice. He was so irritated that he not only quarrelled with Fra Felice, he also drove him from his house.

“Fra Felice,” he cried, “you come to make more trouble with our great benefactress. You will only make her more angry. Go away, I tell you! You wolf, you man-eater, go away!”

Fra Felice was quite as enraged as the landlord, and tried to force his way past him. But then the latter took him by the arm, and without further notice marched him down the steps.

Fra Felice was a man who had received a great gift from his Creator. In Sicily, where everybody plays in the lottery, there are people who have the power to foretell what numbers will win at the next drawing. He who has such second sight is called “polacco,” and is most often found in some old begging monk. Fra Felice was such a monk. He was the greatest polacco in the neighborhood of Etna.

As every one wished him to tell them a winning tern or quartern, he was always treated with great consideration. He was not used to be taken by the arm and be thrown into the street, Fra Felice.

He was nearly eighty years old and quite dried-up and infirm. As he staggered away between the wagons, he stumbled, trod on his cloak, and almost fell. But none of the porters and drivers that stood by the door talking and lamenting had time that day to think of Fra Felice.

The old man tottered along in his heavy homespun cloak. He was so thin and dry that there seemed to be more stiffness in the cloak than in the monk. It seemed to be the old cloak that held him up.

Donna Micaela caught up with him and gently drew the old man’s arm through her own. She could not bear to see how he struck against the lamp-posts and fell over steps. But Fra Felice never noticed that she was looking after him. He walked and mumbled and cursed, and did not know but that he was as much alone as if he sat in his cell.

Donna Micaela wondered why Fra Felice was so angry with Miss Tottenham. Had she been out to his monastery and taken down frescos from the walls, or what had she done?

Fra Felice had lived for sixty years in the big Franciscan monastery outside the Porta Etnea, wall to wall with the old church San Pasquale.

Fra Felice had been monk there for thirty years, when the monastery was given up and sold to a layman. The other monks moved away, but Fra Felice remained because he could not understand what selling the house of San Francisco could mean.

If laymen were to come there, it seemed to Fra Felice almost more essential that at least one monk should remain. Who else would attend to the bell-ringing, or prepare medicines for the peasant women, or give bread to the poor of the monastery? And Fra Felice chose a cell in a retired corner of the monastery, and continued to go in and out as he had always done.

The merchant who owned the monastery never visited it. He did not care about the old building; he only wanted the vineyards belonging to it. So Fra Felice still reigned in the old monastery, and fastened up the fallen cornices and whitewashed the walls. As many poor people as had received food at the monastery in former days, still received it. For his gift of prophecy Fra Felice got such large alms as he wandered through the towns of Etna that he could have been a rich man; but every bit of it went to the monastery.

Fra Felice had suffered an even greater grief than for the monastery on account of the monastery church. It had been desecrated during war, with bloody fights and other atrocities, so that mass could never be held there. But that he could not understand either. The church, where he had made his vows, was always holy to Fra Felice.

It was his greatest sorrow that his church had fallen entirely into ruin. He had looked on when Englishmen had come and bought pulpit and lectern and choir chairs. He had not been able to prevent collectors from Palermo coming and taking the chandeliers and pictures and brass hooks. However much he had wished it, he had not been able to do anything to save his church. But he hated those church-pillagers; and when Donna Micaela saw him so angry, she thought that Miss Tottenham had wished to take some of his treasures from him.

But the fact was that now, when Fra Felice’s church was emptied, and no one came any more to plunder there, he had begun to think of doing something to embellish it once more, and he had had his eye on the collection of images of the saints in the possession of the rich English lady. At her entertainment, when she had been kind and gentle towards every one, he had dared to ask her for her beautiful Madonna, who had a dress of velvet and eyes like the sky. And his request had been granted.

That morning Fra Felice had swept and dusted the church, and put flowers on the altar, before he went to fetch the image. But when he came to the hotel, the Englishwoman had changed her mind; she had not been at all willing to give him the valuable Madonna. In its stead she had given him a little ragged, dirty image of the Christchild, which she thought she could spare without regret.

Ah, what joy and expectation old Fra Felice had felt, and then had been so disappointed! He could not be satisfied; he came back time after time to beg for the other image. It was such a valuable image that he could not have bought it with all that he begged in a whole year. At last the great benefactress had dismissed him; and it was then that Donna Micaela had found him.

As they went along the street, she began to talk to the old man and won his story from him. He had the image with him, and right in the street he stopped, showed it to her, and asked her if she had ever seen a more miserable object.

Donna Micaela looked at the image for a moment with stupefaction. Then she smiled and said: “Lend me the image for a few days, Fra Felice!”

“You can take it and keep it,” said the old man. “May it never come before my eyes again!”

Donna Micaela took the image home and worked on it for two days. When she then sent it to Fra Felice it shone with newly polished shoes; it had a fresh, clean dress; it was painted, and in its crown shone bright stones of many colors.

He was so beautiful, the outcast, that Fra Felice placed him on the empty altar in his church.

It was very early one morning. The sun had not risen, and the broad sea was scarcely visible. It was really very early. The cats were still roaming about the roofs; no smoke rose from the chimneys; and the mists lay and rolled about in the low valley round the steep Monte Chiaro.

Old Fra Felice came running towards the town. He ran so fast that he thought he felt the mountain tremble beneath him. He ran so fast that the blades of grass by the roadside had no time to sprinkle his cloak with dew; so fast that the scorpions had no time to lift their tails and sting him.

As the old man ran, his cloak flapped unfastened about him, and his rope swung unknotted behind. His wide sleeves waved like wings, and his heavy hood pounded up and down on his back, as if it wished to urge him on.

The man in the custom-office, who was still asleep, woke and rubbed his eyes as Fra Felice rushed by, but he had no time to recognize him. The pavements were slippery with dampness; beggars lay and slept by the high stone steps with their legs heedlessly stretched out into the street; exhausted domino-players were going home from the Café reeling with sleep. But Fra Felice hastened onward regardless of all obstructions.

Houses and gateways, squares and arched-over alleys disappeared behind old Fra Felice. He ran half-way up the Corso before he stopped.

He stopped in front of a big house with many heavy balconies. He seized the door-knocker and pounded until a servant awoke. He would not be quiet till the servant called up a maid, and the maid waked the signora.

“Donna Micaela, Fra Felice is downstairs. He insists on speaking to you.”

When Donna Micaela at last came down to Fra Felice, he was still panting and breathless, but there was a fire in his eyes, and little pale roses in his cheeks.

It was the image, the image. When Fra Felice had rung the four-o’clock matins that morning he had gone into the church to look at him.

Then he had discovered that big stones had loosened from the dome just over the image. They had fallen on the altar and broken it to pieces, but the image had stood untouched. And none of the plaster and dust that had tumbled down had fallen on the image; it was quite uninjured.

Fra Felice took Donna Micaela’s hand and told her that she must go with him to the church and see the miracle. She should see it before any one, because she had taken care of the image.

And Donna Micaela went with him through the gray, chilly morning to his monastery, while her heart throbbed with eagerness and expectation.

When she arrived and saw that Fra Felice had told the truth, she said to him that she had recognized the image as soon as she had caught sight of it, and that she knew that it could work miracles. “He is the greatest and gentlest of miracle-workers,” she said.

Fra Felice went up to the image and looked into its eyes. For there is a great difference in images, and the wisdom of an old monk is needed to understand which has power and which has not. Now Fra Felice saw that this image’s eyes were deep and glowing, as if they had life; and that on its lips hovered a mysterious smile.

Then old Fra Felice fell on his knees and stretched his clasped hands towards the image, and his old shrivelled face was lighted by a great joy.

It seemed to Fra Felice all at once as if the walls of his church were covered with pictures and purple hangings; candles shone on the altar; song sounded from the gallery; and the whole floor was covered with kneeling, praying people.

All imaginary glory would fall to the lot of his poor old church, now that it possessed one of the great miracle-working images.

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.

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?”

“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’ 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. And Don Antonio understands his art. He can change his voice indefinitely; he can manœuvre 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 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 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, 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 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?