She had never thought that love was like this. Should she really like it? She found with dismay that she did like it.
And so she punished both herself and him by writing a severe reply. It was moral, moral; it was nothing but moral! She was proud when she had written it. She did not deny that she loved him, but perhaps Gaetano would not be able to find the words of love, they were so buried in admonitions. He could not have found them, for he wrote no more letters.
But now Donna Micaela could no longer think of Gaetano as a shelter and a support. Now he was more dangerous than the men from the mountains.
Every day graver news came to Diamante. Everybody began to get out their weapons. And although it was forbidden, they were carried secretly by every one.
All travellers left the island, and in their place one regiment after another was sent over from Italy.
The socialists talked and talked. They were possessed by evil spirits; they could not rest until they had brought on the disaster!
At last the ringleaders had decided on the day on which the storm was to break loose. All Sicily, all Italy, was to rise. It was no longer menace; it was reality.
More and more troops came from the mainland. Most of them were Neapolitans, who live in constant feud with the Sicilians. And now the news came that the island had been declared in a state of siege. There were to be no more courts of justice; only court-martials. And the people said that the soldiers would be free to plunder and murder as they pleased.
No one knew what was to happen. Terror seemed to make every one mad. The peasants raised ramparts in the hills. In Diamante men stood in great groups on the market-place, stood there day after day, without going to their work. There was something terrible in those groups of men dressed in dark cloaks and slouch hats. They were all probably dreaming of the hour when they should plunder the summer palace.