“S. Alfio’s first miracle was to cure one of his brothers of that complaint, which he had contracted while carrying a beam.”
“But was not S. Alfio a medical man? Why do you call it a miracle when a medical man cures his patient? Have you been reading the plays of Molière?”
“Who is Molière?” asked one of them. “Did he write his plays in the Catanian dialect?”
It does not do to make these allusions when talking with Sicilians who are employed in the municipio. One might as well quote Candide to some young schoolmaster who thinks the only thing worth knowing is the date of the Battle of Salamis. So I returned to S. Alfio and asked whether he always answers all prayers; they said the people believe he does or they hope he will. One of them, thinking I was inclined to scoff, rebuked me, saying:
“If you had been to Trecastagne and seen what I have seen, you would believe. I saw in the church there a dumb man. He tried to shout ‘Viva S. Alfio,’ but could only make inarticulate noises. The people encouraged him, and he went on trying till at last he said the words distinctly. I heard him say them. You are making a mistake in not going to Trecastagne. You might also behold a miracle and then you would believe as I do.”
I thought of Géronte when his daughter recovers her
speech in Le Médecin Malgré Lui and wanted to ask how long this dumb man retained his miraculous power and whether his relations and friends were pleased about it and whether, after the novelty had worn off, they continued shouting “Viva S. Alfio.” But I said nothing; I was afraid of confirming them in the notion that I was scoffing, whereas I was very much impressed; the influence of the stream of lava was still upon me and all that Joe had said about living on the slopes of volcanoes. And I was wondering whether I could manage to be back in Catania for the 10th of May and see the people running naked to Trecastagne. I was not anxious to go there myself, not because I should have had to run naked all the thirteen kilometres, they would have let me wear my clothes and drive in a painted cart, but because there is no albergo there and it would have meant being up all night. If S. Alfio had earned his reputation by restoring those who spend sleepless nights in the street, I might have given him a chance of exercising his power on me.
There is generally some way of doing anything one really wants to do, and by the time we were separating in Catania, at one o’clock in the morning I was promising to try to return in time for the Festa di S. Alfio.
CHAPTER XIX
S. ALFIO
I was back in Catania before the 9th of May and began talking about S. Alfio in the Teatro Machiavelli. One of the actors whose name is Volpes, the one who did the listening father in the play about Rosina and the good young man, is employed by day in the cathedral, his department being the brass-work; he is therefore something of a hagiologist. He was going on business to Lentini, which is situated to the south of Catania on the way to