Tales of My Native Town

by Gabriele D'Annunzio

Now while the Mascalicesi raged like prodigious lions on the stone steps, Giacobbe disappeared suddenly and skirted the rear of the edifice for an undefended opening by which he could penetrate the sacristy. Finally he discovered an aperture at a slight distance from the ground, clambered up, remained fixed there, held fast at the hips by its narrowness, twisted and turned, until at length he succeeded in forcing his long body through the opening.

The welcome aroma of incense was vanishing in the nocturnal frost of the house of God. Groping in the dark, guided by the crashing of the external blows, the man walked toward the door, stumbling over the chain, and falling on his face and hands.

Radusanian hatchets already resounded upon the hardness of the oak doors, when he began to force the lock with an iron, breathless, suffocated by the violent palpitation of anxiety that sapped his strength, with his eyes blurred by indistinct flashes, with his wounds aching and emitting a tepid stream which flowed down over his skin.

“Saint Pantaleone! Saint Pantaleone!” shouted outside the hoarse voices of those who felt the door yielding slowly, while they redoubled their shouts and the blows of their hatchets. From the other side of the wood resounded the heavy thud of bodies of those that had been murdered and the sharp blow of a knife that had pinioned some one against the door, nailed through the back. And it seemed to Giacobbe that the whole nave throbbed with the beating of his wild heart.

After a final effort, the door swung open. The Radusani rushed in headlong with an immense shout of victory, passing over the bodies of the dead, dragging the Saint of silver to the altar.

An animated oscillation of reflections suddenly illuminated the obscurity of the nave and made the gold of the candelabra glitter. And in that glaring splendour, which now and again was intensified by the burning of the adjacent houses, a second struggle took place. The entangled bodies rolled upon the bricks, remained in a death grip, balanced together here and there in their wrathful struggles, howled and rolled beneath the benches, upon the steps of the chapels and against the corners of the confessionals. In the symmetrical concave of this house of God arose that icy sound of the steel that penetrates the flesh or that grinds through the bones, that single broken groan of a man wounded in a vital part, that rattle that the framework of the skull gives forth when crushed with a blow, that roar of him who dreads to die, that atrocious hilarity of him who has reached the point of exulting in killing, all of these sounds echoed through this house of God. And the calm odour of incense arose above the conflict.

The silver idol had not yet reached the glory of the altar, because the hostile forces, encircling the altar, had prevented it. Giacobbe, wounded in many places, struck with his scythe, never yielding a palm’s breadth of the steps which he had been the first to conquer. There remained but two to support the Saint. The enormous white head rolled as if drunk over the wrathful pool of blood. The Mascalicesi raged.

Then Saint Pantaleone fell to the pavement, giving a sharp rattle that stabbed the heart of Giacobbe deeper than any sword could have done. As the ruddy mower darted over to lift it, a huge demon of a man with a blow from a sickle stretched the enemy on his spine.

Twice he arose, and two other blows hurled him down again. The blood inundated his entire face, breast and hands, while on his shoulders and arms the bones, laid bare by deep wounds, shone out, but still he persisted in recovering. Maddened by his fierce tenacity of life, three, four, five ploughmen together struck him furiously in the stomach, thus disgorging his entrails. The fanatic fell backwards, struck his neck on the bust of the silver Saint, turned suddenly upon his stomach with his face pressed against the metal and with his arms extended before him and his legs contracted under him.

Thus was Saint Pantaleone lost.