A few days after the bazaar Palazzo Corvaja began to show itself hostile. Donna Micaela one day found on the roof-garden a lemon, which was so thickly set with pins that it looked like a steel ball. It was Palazzo Corvaja, that was trying to bewitch as many pains into her head as there were pins in the lemon.
Then Corvaja waited a few days to see what effect the lemon would have. But when Donna Micaela’s people continued to work on Etna and stake out the line, they came one night and pulled everything up. And when the stakes were set up again the next day, they broke the windows in the church of San Pasquale and threw stones at the Christ-image.
There was a long and narrow little square on the south side of Monte Chiaro. On both the long sides stood dark, high buildings. On one of the short sides was an abyss; on the other rose the steep mountain. The mountain wall was arranged in terraces, but the steps were crumbled and the marble railings broken. On the broadest of the terraces rose the stately ruins of Palazzo Corvaja.
The chief ornament of the square was a beautiful, oblong water-basin which stood quite under the terraces, close to the mountain wall. It stood there white as snow, covered with carvings, and full of clear, cold water. It was the best preserved of all the former glories of the Corvaja.
One beautiful and peaceful evening two ladies dressed in black came walking into the little square. For the moment it was almost empty. The two ladies looked about them, and when they saw no one they sat down on the bench by the fountain, and waited.
Soon several inquisitive children came forward and looked at them, and the older of the two began to talk to the children. She began to tell them stories: “It is said,” and “It is told,” and “Once upon a time,” she said.
Then the children were told of the Christchild who turned himself into roses and lilies when the Madonna met one of Herod’s soldiers, who had been commanded to kill all children. And they were told the legend of how the Christchild once had sat and shaped birds out of clay, and how he clapped his hands and gave the clay pigeons wings with which to fly away when a naughty boy wished to break them to pieces.
While the old lady was talking, many children gathered about her, and also big people. It was a Saturday evening, so that the laborers were coming home from their work in the fields. Most of them came up to the Corvaja fountain for water. When they heard that some one was telling legends they stopped to listen. Both the ladies were soon surrounded by a close, dark wall of heavy, black cloaks and slouch hats.
Suddenly the old lady said to the children: “Do you like the Christchild?” “Yes, yes,” they said, and their big, dark eyes sparkled.—“Perhaps you would like to see him?”—“Yes, we should indeed.”