The Miracles of Antichrist

He lay and smiled at the thought that old San Pasquale had called him out to say good-morning to him.

Fra Felice lay thus till late in the day, and dozed most of the time. No one was with him, and a feeling came over him that it would not do to creep in this way out of life. It was as if he had cheated somebody of something. That woke him time after time. He ought of course to get the priests, but he had no one to send for them.

While he lay there he thought that he shrank together more and more. Every time he awoke he thought that he had grown smaller. He felt as if he were quite disappearing. Now he could certainly wind his cloak four times about him.

He would have died quite by himself if Donna Elisa had not come to ask help for the blind of the little image. She was in a strange mood when she came, for she wished of course to get help for the blind, but yet she did not wish Donna Micaela’s plans to be promoted.

When she came into the church she saw Fra Felice lying on the platform under the altar, and she went forward and knelt beside him.

Fra Felice turned his eyes towards her and smiled quietly. “I am going to die,” he said, hoarsely; but he corrected himself and said: “I am permitted to die.”

Donna Elisa asked what the matter was, and said that she would fetch help.

“Sit down here,” he said, and made a feeble attempt to wipe away the dust on the platform with his sleeve.

Donna Elisa said that she wished to fetch the priests and sisters of charity.

He seized her skirt and held her back.

“I want to speak to you first, Donna Elisa.”

It was hard for him to talk, and he breathed heavily after each word. Donna Elisa sat down beside him and waited.

He lay for a while and panted; then a flush rose to his cheeks; his eyes began to shine, and he spoke with ease and eagerness.

“Donna Elisa,” said Fra Felice, “I have a legacy to give away. It has troubled me all day. I do not know to whom I shall give it.”

“Fra Felice,” said Donna Elisa, “do not concern yourself with such a thing. There is no one who does not need a good gift.”

But now when Fra Felice’s strength had returned, he wished, before he made up his mind about the legacy, to tell Donna Elisa how good God had been to him.

“Has not God been great in his grace to make me a polacco?” he said.

“Yes, it is a great gift,” said Donna Elisa.

“Only to be a little, little polacco is a great gift,” said Fra Felice; “it is especially useful since the monastery has been given up, and when my comrades are gone or dead. It means having a bag full of bread before one even stretches out one’s hand to beg. It means always seeing bright faces, and being greeted with deep reverences. I know no greater gift for a poor monk, Donna Elisa.”

Donna Elisa thought how revered and loved Fra Felice had been, because he had been able to predict what numbers would come out in the lottery. And she could not help agreeing with him.

“If I came wandering along the road in the heat,” said Fra Felice, “the shepherd came to me and went with me a long way, and held his umbrella over me as shelter against the sun. And when I came to the laborers in the cool stone-quarries, they shared their bread and their bean-soup with me. I have never been afraid of brigands nor of carabinieri. The official at the custom-house has shut his eyes when I went by with my bag. It has been a good gift, Donna Elisa.”

“True, true,” said Donna Elisa.

“It has not been an arduous profession,” said Fra Felice. “They spoke to me, and I answered them; that was all. They knew that every word has its number, and they noticed what I said and played accordingly. I never knew how it happened, Donna Elisa; it was a gift from God.”

“You will be a great loss to the poor people, Fra Felice,” said Donna Elisa.

Fra Felice smiled. “They care nothing for me on Sunday and Monday, when there has just been a drawing,” he said. “But they come on Thursday and Friday and on Saturday morning, because there is a drawing every Saturday.”

Donna Elisa began to be anxious, because the dying man thought of nothing but that. Suddenly there flashed across her memory thoughts of one and another who had lost in the lottery, and she remembered several who had played away all their prosperity. She wished to turn his thoughts from that sinful lottery business.

“You said that you wished to speak of your will, Fra Felice.”

“But it is because I have so many friends that it is hard for me to know to whom I shall give the legacy. Shall I give it to those who have baked sweet cakes for me, or to those who have offered me artichokes, browned in sweet oil? Or shall I bequeath it to the sisters of charity who nursed me when I was ill?”

“Have you much to give away, Fra Felice?”

“It will do, Donna Elisa. It will do.”

Fra Felice seemed to be worse again; he lay silent with panting breast.

“I had also wished to give it to all poor, homeless monks, who had lost their monasteries,” he whispered.

And then after thinking for a while: “I should also have liked to give it to the good old man in Rome. He, you know, who watches over us all.”

“Are you so rich, Fra Felice?” said Donna Elisa.

“I have enough, Donna Elisa; I have enough.”

He closed his eyes, and rested for a while; then he said: —

“I want to give it to everybody, Donna Elisa.”

He acquired new strength at the thought; a slight flush was again visible in his cheeks, and he raised himself on his elbow.

“See here, Donna Elisa,” he said, while he thrust his hand into his cloak and drew out a sealed envelope, which he handed to her, “you shall go and give this to the syndic, to the syndic of Diamante.

“Here, Donna Elisa,” said Fra Felice, “here are the five numbers that win next Saturday. They have been revealed to me, and I have written them down. And the syndic shall take these numbers and have them fastened up on the Roman Gate, where everything of importance is published. And he shall let the people know that it is my testament. I bequeath it to the people. Five winning numbers, a whole quintern, Donna Elisa!”

Donna Elisa took the envelope and promised to give it to the syndic. She could do nothing else, for poor Fra Felice had not many minutes left to live.

“When Saturday comes,” said Fra Felice, “there will be many who will think of Fra Felice. ‘Can old Fra Felice have deceived us?’ they will ask themselves. ‘Can it be possible for us to win the whole quintern?’

“On Saturday evening there is a drawing on the balcony of the town-hall in Catania, Donna Elisa. Then they carry out the lottery-wheel and table, and the managers of the lottery are there, and the pretty little poor-house child. And one number after another is put into the lucky wheel until they are all there, the whole hundred.

“All the people stand below and tremble in expectation, as the sea trembles before the storm-wind.

“Everybody from Diamante will be there, and they will stand quite pale and hardly daring to look one another in the face. Before, they have believed, but not now. Now they think that old Fra Felice has deceived them. No one dares to cherish the smallest hope.

“Then the first number is drawn, and I was right. Ah, Donna Elisa, they will be so astonished they will scarcely be able to rejoice. For they have all expected disappointment. When the second number comes out, there is the silence of death. Then comes the third. The lottery managers will be astonished that everything is so quiet. ‘To-day they are not winning anything,’ they will say. ‘To-day the state has all the prizes.’ Then comes the fourth number. The poor-house child takes the roll from the wheel; and the marker opens the roll, and shows the number. Down among the people it is almost terrible; no one is able to say a word for joy. Then the last number comes. Donna Elisa, the people scream, they cry, they fall into one another’s arms and sob. They are rich. All Diamante is rich – ”

Donna Elisa had kept her arm under Fra Felice’s head and supported him while he had panted out all this. Suddenly his head fell heavily back. Old Fra Felice was dead.

While Donna Elisa was with old Fra Felice, many people in Diamante had begun to trouble themselves about the blind. Not the men; most of the men were in the fields at work; but the women. They had come in crowds to Santa Lucia to console the blind, and finally, when about four hundred women had gathered together, it occurred to them to go and speak to the syndic.

They had gone up to the square and called for the syndic. He had come out on the balcony of the town-hall, and they had prayed for the blind. The syndic was a kind and handsome man. He had answered them pleasantly, but had not been willing to yield. He could not repeal what had been decided in the town Junta. But the women were determined that it should be repealed, and they remained in the square. The syndic went into the town-hall again, but they stayed in the square and called and prayed. They did not intend to go away till he yielded.

While this was going on, Donna Elisa came to give the syndic Fra Felice’s testament. She was grieved unto death at all the misery, but at the same time she felt a bitter satisfaction, because she had received no help from the Christchild. She had always believed that the saints did not wish to help Donna Micaela.

It was a fine gift she had received in San Pasquale’s church. Not only could it not help the blind, but it was in a fair way to ruin the whole town. Now what little the people still possessed would go to the lottery collector. There would be a borrowing and a pawning.

The syndic admitted Donna Elisa immediately, and was as calm and polite as always, although the women were calling in the square, the blind were bemoaning themselves in the waiting-room, and people had run in and out of his room all day.

“How can I be at your service, Signora Antonelli?” he said. Donna Elisa first looked about and wondered to whom he was speaking. Then she told about the testament.

The syndic was neither frightened nor surprised. “That is very interesting,” he said, and stretched out his hand for the paper.

But Donna Elisa held the envelope fast and asked: “Signor Sindaco, what do you intend to do with it? Do you intend to fasten it to the Roman Gate?”

“Yes; what else can I do, signora? It is a dead man’s last wish.”

Donna Elisa would have liked to tell him what a terrible testament it was, but she checked herself to speak of the blind.

“Padre Succi, who directed that the blind should always be allowed in his church, is also a dead man,” she interposed.

“Signora Antonelli, are you beginning with that too?” said the syndic, quite kindly. “It was a mistake; but why did no one tell me that the blind frequent the church of Lucia? Now, since it is decided, I cannot annul the decision; I cannot.”

“But their rights and patents, Signor Sindaco?”

“Their rights are worth nothing. They have to do with the Jesuits’ monastery, but there is no longer such a monastery. And tell me, Signora Antonelli, what will become of me if I yield?”

“The people will love you as a good man.”

“Signora, people will believe that I am a weak man, and every day I shall have four hundred laborers’ wives outside the town-hall, begging now for one thing, now for another. It is only to hold out for one day. To-morrow it will be forgotten.”

“To-morrow!” said Donna Elisa; “we shall never forget it.”

The syndic smiled, and Donna Elisa saw that he thought that he knew the people of Diamante much better than she.

“You think that their hearts are in it?” he said.

“I think so, Signor Sindaco.”

Then the syndic laughed softly. “Give me that envelope, Signora.”

He took it and went out on the balcony.

He began to speak to the women. “I wish to tell you,” he said, “that I have just now heard that old Fra Felice is dead, and that he has left a legacy to you all. He has written down five numbers that are supposed to win in the lottery next Saturday, and he bequeaths them to you. No one has seen them yet. They are lying here in this envelope, and it is unopened.”

He was silent a moment to let the women have time to think over what he had said.

Instantly they began to cry: “The numbers, the numbers!”

The syndic signed to them to be silent.

“You must remember,” he said, “that it was impossible for Fra Felice to know what numbers will be drawn next Saturday. If you play on these numbers, you may all lose. And we cannot afford to be poorer than we are already here in Diamante. I ask you therefore to let me destroy the testament without any one seeing it.”

“The numbers,” cried the women, “give us the numbers!”

“If I am permitted to destroy the testament,” said the syndic, “I promise you that the blind shall have their church again.”

There was silence in the square. Donna Elisa rose from her seat in the hall of the court-house and seized the back of her chair with both hands.

“I leave it to you to choose between the church and the numbers,” said the syndic.

“God in heaven!” sighed Donna Elisa, “is he a devil to tempt poor people in such a way?”

“We have been poor before,” cried one of the women, “we can still be poor.”

“We will not choose Barabbas instead of Christ,” cried another.

The syndic took a match-box from his pocket, lighted a match, and brought it slowly up to the testament.

The women stood quiet and let Fra Felice’s five numbers be destroyed. The blind people’s church was saved.

“It is a miracle,” whispered old Donna Elisa; “they all believe in Fra Felice, and they let his numbers burn. It is a miracle.”

Later in the afternoon Donna Elisa again sat in her shop with her embroidery frame. She looked old as she sat there, and there was something shaken and broken about her. It was not the usual Donna Elisa; it was a poor, elderly, forsaken woman.

She drew the needle slowly through the cloth, and when she wished to take another stitch she was uncertain and at a loss. It was hard for her to keep the tears from falling on her embroidery and spoiling it.

Donna Elisa was in such great grief for to-day she had lost Gaetano forever. There was no more hope of getting him back.

The saints had gone over to the side of the opponent, and worked miracles in order to help Donna Micaela. No one could doubt that a miracle had happened. The poor women of Diamante would never have been able to stand still while Fra Felice’s numbers burned if they had not been bound by a miracle.

It made a poor soul so old and cross to have the good saints help Donna Micaela, who did not like Gaetano.

The door-bell jingled violently, and Donna Elisa rose from old habit. It was Donna Micaela. She was joyful, and came toward Donna Elisa with outstretched hands. But Donna Elisa turned away, and could not press her hand.

Donna Micaela was in raptures. “Ah, Donna Elisa, you have helped my railway. What can I say? How shall I thank you?”

“Never mind about thanking me, sister-in-law!”

“Donna Elisa!”

“If the saints wish to give us a railway, it must be because Diamante needs it, and not because they love you.”

Donna Micaela shrank back. At last she thought she understood why Donna Elisa was angry with her. “If Gaetano were at home,” she said. She stood and pressed her hand to her heart and moaned. “If Gaetano were at home he would not allow you to be so cruel to me.”

“Gaetano? – would not Gaetano?”

“No, he would not. Even if you are angry with me because I loved him while my husband was alive, you would not dare to upbraid me for it if he were at home.”

Donna Elisa lifted her eyebrows a little. “You think that he could prevail upon me to be silent about such a thing,” she said, and her voice was very strange.

“But, Donna Elisa,” Donna Micaela whispered in her ear, “it is impossible, quite impossible not to love him. He is beautiful; don’t you know it? And he subjugates me, and I am afraid of him. You must let me love him.”

“Must I?” Donna Elisa kept her eyes down and spoke quite shortly and harshly.

Donna Micaela was beside herself. “It is I whom he loves,” she said. “It is not Giannita, but me, and you ought to consider me as a daughter; you ought to help me; you ought to be kind to me. And instead you stand against me; you are cruel to me. You do not let me come to you and talk of him. However much I long, and however much I work, I may not tell you of it.”

Donna Elisa could hold out no longer. Donna Micaela was nothing but a child, young and foolish and quivering like a bird’s heart, – just one to be taken care of. She had to throw her arms about her.

“I never knew it, you poor, foolish child,” she said.

VII

AFTER THE MIRACLE

The blind singers had a meeting in the church of Lucia. Highest up in the choir behind the altar sat thirty old, blind, men on the carved chairs of the Jesuit fathers. They were poor, most of them; most of them had a beggar’s wallet and a crutch beside them.

They were all very earnest and solemn; they knew what it meant to be members of that holy band of singers, of that glorious old Academy.

Now and then below in the church a subdued noise was audible. The blind men’s guides were sitting there, children, dogs, and old women, waiting. Sometimes the children began to romp with one another and with the dogs, but it was instantly suppressed and silenced.

Those of the blind who were trovatori stood up one after another and spoke new verses.

“You people who live on holy Etna,” one of them recited, “men who live on the mountain of wonders, rise up, give your mistress a new glory! She longs for two ribbons to heighten her beauty, two long, narrow bands of steel to fasten her mantle. Give them to your mistress, and she will reward you with riches; she will give gold for steel. Countless are the treasures that she in her might will give them who assist her.”

“A gentle worker of miracles has come among us,” said another. “He stands poor and unnoticed in the bare old church, and his crown is of tin, and his diamonds of glass. ‘Make no sacrifices to me, O ye poor,’ he says; ‘build me no temple, all ye who suffer. I will work for your happiness. If prosperity shines from your houses, I shall shine with precious stones; if want flees from the land, my feet will be clothed in golden shoes embroidered with pearls.’”

As each new verse was recited, it was accepted or rejected. The blind men judged with great severity.

The next day they wandered out over Etna, and sang the railway into the people’s hearts.

After the miracle of Fra Felice’s legacy, people began to give contributions to the railway. Donna Micaela soon had collected about a hundred lire. Then she and Donna Elisa made the journey to Messina to look at the steam-tram that runs between Messina and Pharo. They had no greater ambition; they would be satisfied with a steam-tram.

“Why does a railway need to be so expensive?” said Donna Elisa. “It is just an ordinary road, although people do lay down two steel rails on it. It is the engineer and the fine gentlemen who make a railway expensive. Don’t trouble yourself about engineers, Micaela! Let our good road-builders, Giovanni and Carmelo, build your railway.”

They carefully inspected the steam-tramway to Pharo and brought back all the knowledge they could. They measured how wide it ought to be between the rails, and Donna Micaela drew on a piece of paper the way the rails ran by one another at the stations. It was not so difficult; they were sure they would come out well.

That day there seemed to be no difficulties. It was as easy to build a station as an ordinary house, they said. Besides, more than two stations were not needed; a little sentry-box was sufficient at most of the stopping-places.

If they could only avoid forming a company, taking fine gentlemen into their service, and doing things that cost money, their plan of the railway would be realized. It would not cost so much. The ground they could certainly get free. The noble gentlemen who owned the land on Etna would of course understand how much use of the railway they would have, and would let it pass free of charge over their ground.

They did not trouble themselves to stake out the line beforehand. They were going to begin at Diamante and gradually build their way to Catania. They only needed to begin and lay a little piece every day. It was not so difficult.

After that journey they began the attempt to build the road at their own risk. Don Ferrante had not left a large inheritance to Donna Micaela, but one good thing that he had bequeathed her was a long stretch of lava-covered waste land off on Etna. Here Giovanni and Carmelo began to break ground for the new railway.

When the work began, the builders of the railway possessed only one hundred lire. It was the miracle of the legacy that had filled them with holy frenzy.

What a railway it would be, what a railway!

The blind singers were the share-collectors, the Christ-image gave the concession, and the old shop woman, Donna Elisa, was the engineer.

VIII

A JETTATORE

In Catania there was once a man with “the evil eye,” a jettatore. He was almost the most terrible jettatore who had ever lived in Sicily. As soon as he showed himself on the street people hastened to bend their fingers to the protecting sign. Often it did not help at all; whoever met him could prepare himself for a miserable day; he would find his dinner burned, and the beautiful old jelly-bowl broken. He would hear that his banker had suspended payments, and that the little note that he had written to his friend’s wife had come into the wrong hands.

Most often a jettatore is a tall, thin man, with pale, shy eyes and a long nose, which overhangs and hacks his upper lip. God has set the mark of a parrot’s beak upon the jettatore. Yet all things are variable; nothing is absolutely constant. This jettatore was a little fellow with a nose like a San Michele.

Thereby he did much more harm than an ordinary jettatore. How much oftener is one pricked by a rose than burned by a nettle!

A jettatore ought never to grow up. He is well off only when he is a child. Then he still has his little mamma, and she never sees the evil eye; she never understands why she sticks the needle into her finger every time he comes to her work-table. She will never be afraid to kiss him. Although she has sickness constantly in the house, and the servants leave, and her friends draw away, she never notices anything.

But after the jettatore has come out into the world, he often has a hard time enough. Every one must first of all think of himself; no one can ruin his life by being kind to a jettatore.

There are several priests who are jettatori. There is nothing strange in that; the wolf is happy if he can tear to pieces many sheep. They could not very well do more harm than by being priests. One need only ask what happens to the children whom he baptizes, and the couples whom he marries.

The jettatore in question was an engineer and wished to build railways. He had also a position in one of the state railway buildings. The state could not know that he was a jettatore. Ah, but what misery, what misery! As soon as he obtained a place on the railway a number of accidents occurred. When they tunnelled through a hill, one cave-in after another; when they tried to lay a bridge, breach upon breach; when they exploded a blast, the workmen were killed by the flying fragments.

The only one who was never injured was the engineer, the jettatore.

The poor fellows working under him! They counted their fingers and limbs every evening. “To-morrow perhaps we will have lost you,” they said.

They informed the chief engineer; they informed the minister. Neither of them would listen to the complaint. They were too sensible and too learned to believe in the evil eye. The workmen ought to mind better what they were about. It was their own fault that they met with accidents.

And the gravel-cars tipped over; the locomotive exploded.

One morning there was a rumor that the engineer was gone. He had disappeared; no one knew what had become of him. Had some one perhaps stabbed him? Oh, no; oh, no! would any one have dared to kill a jettatore?