“But we are hungry,” they say. “You don’t fast all the year; what do you eat?”
Silvestro, like so many hermits, lives on roots, but he has not yet sown the seed—he will sow it now. The soldiers object, they are not going to wait four months for their dinner. Silvestro did not mean that they should: the seed will grow during Mass and they shall eat the roots afterwards. They are more amused than ever, but consent to wait. Silvestro sows his seed in two places and they all go off to Mass.
An angel descends with ballet-girl feet, performs an elegant dance and blesses the
seed, which by a simple stage trick immediately grows up in two flower-pots. The angel dances again and disappears.
Silvestro returns from Mass with the captain, who is deep in thought, and the two soldiers, who show comic incredulity in every movement. The captain tells Silvestro that during Mass he had a vision of the Passion. Silvestro is not surprised.
“Ah!” he says musingly, “yes; that, I suppose, would be so.”
The captain is so much impressed he is not at all sure he ought not to be baptized. The soldiers, who are too hungry to pay any attention, interrupt—
“What about that food?”
They had been standing with their backs to the full-blown turnips. Silvestro turns them round and they are stupefied to see that the miracle has been performed. They are all three converted and insist on being baptized instantly. Silvestro performs the ceremony, somewhat perfunctorily, and promises to cure the emperor. They shout, “Evviva Silvestro!” and dance for joy as the curtain falls.
For the third act we returned to the palace in Rome. Costantino was still in