She took her father’s arm and went out into the street. She hoped that the life there would mount to her head so that she might forget her sorrow. “If I do not succeed,” she thought, “if I can find no distraction, I must die.”
Now in Diamante there was a poor old stone-cutter, who had thought of earning a few soldi during the festival. He had made a couple of small busts out of lava, of San Sebastiano and of Pope Leo XIII. And as he knew that many in Diamante loved Gaetano, and grieved over his fate, he also made a few portraits of him.
Just as Donna Micaela came out into the street she met the man, and he offered her his wretched little images.
“Buy Don Gaetano Alagona, Donna Micaela,” said the man; “buy Don Gaetano, whom the government has put in prison because he wished to help Sicily.”
Donna Micaela pressed her father’s arm hard and went hurriedly on.
In the Café Europa the son of the innkeeper stood and sang canzoni. He had composed a few new ones for the festival, and among others some about Gaetano. For he could not know that people did not care to hear of him.
When Donna Micaela passed by the café and heard the singing, she stopped and listened.
“Alas, Gaetano Alagona!” sang the young man. “Songs are mighty. I shall sing you free with my songs. First I will send you the slender canzone. He shall glide in between your prison-gratings, and break them. Then I will send you the sonnet, that is fair as a woman, and which will corrupt your guards. I will compose a glorious ode to you, which will shake the walls of your prison with its lofty rhythms. But if none of these help you, I will burst out in the glorious epos, that has hosts of words. Oh, Gaetano, mighty as an army it marches on! All the legions of ancient Rome would not have had the strength to stop it!”
Donna Micaela hung convulsively on her father’s arm, but she did not speak, and went on.
Then Cavaliere Palmeri began to speak of Gaetano. “I did not know that he was so beloved,” he said.