“Cavaliere, Cavaliere,” said Donna Elisa, “can you understand? The bandits come here from Etna, creeping down to Diamante. The bandits attack the custom-house and shout: ‘Long live Socialism!’ They do it only to frighten people away from the streets and to draw the Carabiniere down to Porta Etnea. There is not a single man from Diamante who has anything to do with it. It is the bandits who arrange it all, to be able to plunder Miss Tottenham and Donna Micaela, two women, Cavaliere! What did those officers think at the court-martial? Did they believe that Gaetano was in league with the bandits? Did they not see that he was a nobleman, a true Alagona, an artist? How could they have sentenced him?”
Donna Micaela listened with horror, but she tried to imagine that she was still dreaming. She thought she heard Gaetano ask if she was sacrificing him to God. She thought she answered that she did. Now she was dreaming of how it would be in case he really had been captured. It could be nothing else.
“What a night of misfortune!” said Donna Elisa. “What is flying about in the air, and making people mad and confused? You have seen Gaetano, Cavaliere. He has always been passionate and fiery, but it has not been without intelligence; he has not been without sense and judgment. But to-night he throws himself right into the arms of the troops. You know that he wanted to cause an uprising; you know that he came home for that. And when he hears the shooting, and some one shouting, ‘Long live Socialism!’ he becomes wild, and beside himself. He says to himself, ‘That is the insurrection!’ and he rushes down the street to join it. And he shouts the whole time, ‘Long live Socialism!’ as loud as he can. And so he meets a great crowd of soldiers, a whole host. For they were on their way to Paternó, and heard the shooting as they passed by, and marched in to see what was going on. And Gaetano can no longer recognize a soldier’s cap. He thinks that they are the rebels; he thinks that they are angels from heaven, and he rushes in among them and lets them capture him. And they, who have already caught all the bandits sneaking away with their booty, now lay hands on Gaetano too. They go through the town and find everything quiet; but before they leave, they pass sentence on their prisoners. And they condemn Gaetano like the others, condemn him like those who have broken in and murdered women. Have they not lost their senses, Cavaliere?”
Donna Micaela could not hear what her father answered. She wished to ask a thousand questions, but she was still paralyzed and could not move. She wondered if Gaetano had been shot.
“What do they mean by sentencing him to twenty-nine years’ imprisonment?” said Donna Elisa. “Do you think that he can live so long, or that any one who loves him can live so long? He is dead, Cavaliere; as dead for me as Giannita.”
Donna Micaela felt as if strong fetters bound her beyond escape. It was worse, she thought, than to be tied to a pillory and whipped.
“All the joy of my old age is taken from me,” said Donna Elisa. “Both Giannita and Gaetano! I have always expected them to marry each other. It would have been so suitable, because they were both my children, and loved me. For what shall I live now, when I have no young people about me? I was often poor when Gaetano first came to me, and people said to me that I should have been better off alone. But I answered: ‘It makes no difference, none, if only I have young people about me.’ And I thought that when he grew up he would find a young wife, and then they would have little children, and I would never need to sit a lonely and useless old woman.”
Donna Micaela lay thinking that she could have saved Gaetano, but had not wished to do so. But why had she not wished? It seemed to her quite incomprehensible. She began to count up to herself all her reasons for permitting him to rush to destruction. He was an atheist; a socialist; he wished to cause a revolt. That had outweighed everything else when she opened the garden gate for him. It had crushed her love also. She could not now understand it. It was as if a scale full of feathers had weighed down a scale full of gold.
“My beautiful boy!” said Donna Elisa, “my beautiful boy! He was already a great man over there in England, and he came home to help us poor Sicilians. And now they have sentenced him like a bandit. People say that they were ready to shoot him, as they shot the others. Perhaps it would have been better if they had done so, Cavaliere. It had been better to have laid him in the church-yard than to know that he was in prison. How will he be able to endure all his suffering? He will not be able to bear it; he will fall ill; he will soon be dead.”
At these words, Donna Micaela roused herself from her stupor, and got up from the sofa. She staggered across the room and came in to her father and Donna Elisa, as pale as poor murdered Giannita. She was so weak that she did not dare to cross the floor; she stood at the door and leaned against the door-post.