“Look at me, Don Antonio Greco,” she said. “I bear in my hands golden bowls full of ripe figs!”
And she told how she had prayed, and what she had vowed, and what she had been advised.
When she said that to Don Antonio, he sprang up. His arms fell stiffly beside his body, and his hair raised itself from his head. He was seized with an unspeakable terror. “‘The Old Martyrdom’!” he screamed, “‘The Old Martyrdom’!”
For “The Old Martyrdom” is a miracle-play, which in its time was given in all Sicily. It drove out all other oratorios and mysteries, and was played every year in every town for two centuries. It was the greatest day of the year, when “The Old Martyrdom” was performed. But now it is never played; now it only lives in the people’s memory as a legend.
In the old days it was also played in the marionette theatres. But now it has come to be considered old-fashioned and out-of-date. It has probably not been played for thirty years.
Don Antonio began to roar and scream at Donna Emilia, because she tortured him with such folly. He struggled with her as with a demon, who had come to seize him. It was amazing; it was heartrending, he said. How could she get hold of such a word? But Donna Emilia stood quiet and let him rave. She only said that what she had heard was God’s will.
Soon Don Antonio began to be uncertain. The great idea gradually took possession of him. Nothing had ever been so loved and played in Sicily, and did not the same people still live on the noble isle? Did they not love the same earth, the same mountains, the same skies as their forefathers had loved? Why should they not also love “The Old Martyrdom”?
He resisted as long as he could. He said to Donna Emilia that it would cost too much. Where could he get apostles with long hair and beards? He had no table for the Last Supper; he had none of the machinery required for the entry, and carrying of the cross.
But Donna Emilia saw that he was going to give in, and before night he actually went to Fra Felice and renewed her vow to put the receipts of one evening in the box of the little image, if it proved to be good advice.
Fra Felice told Donna Micaela about the vow, and she was glad, and at the same time anxious how it would turn out.