He had been seized with a great desire to be aristocratic and fashionable. It looked as if poor Don Ferrante’s head was turned with pride.
Donna Micaela was very good to him, and sat hour after hour and chatted with him.
“Who could it be,” she used to ask, “who once stood in the market-place with plumes on his hat, and braid on his coat, and sword at his side, and who played so that people said that his music was as uplifting as Etna, and as strong as the sea? And who caught sight of a poor signorina dressed in black, who did not dare to show her face to the world, and went forward to her and offered his arm? Who could it be? Could it be Don Ferrante, who stands the whole week in his shop and wears a pointed cap and a short jacket? No; that cannot be possible. No old merchant could have done such a thing.”
Don Ferrante laughed. That was just the way he liked to have her talk to him. She would also tell him how it would be when he came to court. The king would say this, and the queen would say that. “The old Alagonas have come up again,” they would say at court. And who has brought up the race? People will wonder and wonder. The Don Ferrante, who is a Sicilian prince and Spanish grandee, is that the same man who stood in a shop in Diamante and shouted at the teamsters? No, people will say, it cannot be the same. It is impossible for it to be the same.
Don Ferrante liked that, and wished to hear her talk so day in and day out. He was never tired of listening, and Donna Micaela was very patient with him.
But one day while she was chatting, Donna Elisa came in. “Sister-in-law, if you happen to own the ‘Legend of the Holy Virgin of Pompeii,’ will you lend it to me?” she asked.—“What, are you going to begin to read?” asked Donna Micaela.—“The saints preserve us! you know very well that I cannot read. Gaetano is asking for it.”
Donna Micaela did not own the “Legend of the Holy Virgin at Pompeii.” But she did not say so to Donna Elisa; she went to her book-shelf and took a little book, a collection of Sicilian love-songs, and gave it to Donna Elisa, who carried the little book over to Gaetano.
But Donna Micaela had no sooner done so before a lively regret seized her. And she asked herself what she had meant by behaving so,—she who had been helped by the little Christchild?
She blushed with shame as she thought that she had marked one of the little songs, one that ran thus:—