One of Gaetano’s hands holds her hands firmly and closely, the other holds her head still. Then he kisses her.
Was she mad, that she could think that he would let anything, anything in the world, part them now?
IV
ONLY OF THIS WORLD
As she grew up everybody said of her: “She is going to be a saint, a saint.”
Her name was Margherita Cornado. She lived in Girgenti on the south side of Sicily, in the great mining district. When she was a child her father was a miner; later he inherited a little money, so that he no longer needed to work.
There was a little, narrow, miserable roof-garden on Margherita Cornado’s house in Girgenti. A small and steep stairway led up to it, and one had to creep out through a low door. But it was well worth the trouble. When you reached the top you saw not only a mass of roofs, but the whole air over the town was gaily crowded with the towers and façades of all Girgenti’s churches. And every façade and every tower was a quivering lace-work of images, of loggias, of glowing canopies.
And outside the town there was a wide plain which sloped gently down towards the sea, and a semicircle of hills that guarded the plain. The plain was glittering red; the ocean was blue as enamel; the hillsides were yellow; it was a whole orient of warmth and color.
But there was even more to be seen. Ancient temples were dotted about the valley. Ruins and strange old towers were everywhere, as in a fairy world.