San Pasquale’s bells are not much bigger than those that are used on farms to call the work people home; and like them, they are hung under the roof in a little frame, and set in motion by pulling a rope that hangs down by the church wall.
It is not heavy work to make the bells ring, but nevertheless they are not so light that they can swing quite by themselves. Whoever has seen old Fra Felice from the Franciscan monastery put his foot in the loop of the rope and tread up and down to start them going, knows well enough that the bells cannot begin to ring without assistance.
But that was just what they were doing that morning. The rope was fastened to a cleat in the wall, and there was no one touching it. Nor did any one sit crouching on the roof to set them going. People plainly saw how the bells swung backwards and forwards, and how the tongues hit against the brazen throats. It could not be explained.
When Donna Micaela awoke, the bells were already ringing, and she lay quiet for a long time, and listened, and listened. She had never heard anything more beautiful. She did not know that it was a miracle, but she lay and thought how beautiful it was. She lay and wondered if real bronze bells could sound like that.
No one will ever know what the metal was that rang in San Pasquale’s bells that day.
She thought that the bells said to her that now she was to be glad; now she was to live and love; now she was to go to meet something great and beautiful; now she was never again to have regrets and never be sad.
Then her heart began to dance in a kind of stately measure, and she marched solemnly to the sound of bells into a great castle. And to whom could the castle belong, who could be lord of such a beautiful place, if not love?
It can be hidden no longer: when Donna Micaela awoke she felt that she loved Gaetano, and that she desired nothing better than to go with him.
When Donna Micaela drew back the curtain from the window and saw the gray morning, she kissed her hand to it and whispered: “You, who are morning to the day when I am going away, you are the most beautiful morning I have ever seen; and gray as you are, I will caress and kiss you.”