The Miracles of Antichrist. Lagerlöf Selma
behaved himself very badly. He turned away from her and rushed to the door. He did not say a word of thanks to her for coming. He knew that Father Josef had expected it, but he could not. When he thought of the great Mongibello that he never would see, and of Donna Elisa, who would never come again, and of the school, and of the shut-in cloister garden, and of a whole restricted life! Father Josef never could expect so much of him; Gaetano had to run away.
It was high time too. When Gaetano was ten steps from the door, he began to cry. It was too bad about Donna Elisa. Oh, that she should be obliged to travel home alone! That Gaetano could not go with her!
He heard Father Josef coming, and he hid his face against the wall. If he could only stop sobbing!
Father Josef came sighing and murmuring to himself, as he always did. When he came up to Gaetano he stopped, and sighed more than ever.
“It is Mongibello, Mongibello,” said Father Josef; “no one can resist Mongibello.”
Gaetano answered him by weeping more violently.
“It is the mountain calling,” murmured Father Josef. “Mongibello is like the whole earth; it has all the earth’s beauty and charm and vegetation and expanses and wonders. The whole earth comes at once and calls him.”
Gaetano felt that Father Josef spoke the truth. He felt as if the earth stretched out strong arms to catch him. He felt that he needed to bind himself fast to the wall in order not to be torn away.
“It is better for him to see the earth,” said Father Josef. “He would only be longing for it if he stayed in the monastery. If he is allowed to see the earth perhaps he will begin again to long for heaven.”
Gaetano did not understand what Father Josef meant when he felt himself lifted into his arms, carried back into the reception-room, and put down on Donna Elisa’s knees.
“You shall take him, Donna Elisa, since you have won him,” said Father Josef. “You shall show him Mongibello, and you shall see if you can keep him.”
But when Gaetano once more sat on Donna Elisa’s lap he felt such happiness that it was impossible for him to run away from her again. He was as much captured as if he had gone into Mongibello and the mountain walls had closed in on him.
II
FRA GAETANO
Gaetano had lived with Donna Elisa a month, and had been as happy as a child can be. Merely to travel with Donna Elisa had been like driving behind gazelles and birds of paradise; but to live with her was to be carried on a golden litter, screened from the sun.
Then the famous Franciscan, Father Gondo, came to Diamante, and Donna Elisa and Gaetano went up to the square to listen to him. For Father Gondo never preached in a church; he always gathered the people about him by fountains or at the town gates.
The square was swarming with people; but Gaetano, who sat on the railing of the court-house steps, plainly saw Father Gondo where he stood on the curb-stone. He wondered if it could be true that the monk wore a horse-hair shirt under his robes, and that the rope that he had about his waist was full of knots and iron points to serve him as a scourge.
Gaetano could not understand what Father Gondo said, but one shiver after another ran through him at the thought that he was looking at a saint.
When the Father had spoken for about an hour, he made a sign with his hand that he would like to rest a moment. He stepped down from the steps of the fountain, sat down, and rested his face in his hands. While the monk was sitting so, Gaetano heard a gentle roaring. He had never before heard any like it. He looked about him to discover what it was. And it was all the people talking. “Blessed, blessed, blessed!” they all said at once. Most of them only whispered and murmured; none called aloud, their devotion was too great. And every one had found the same word. “Blessed, blessed!” sounded over the whole market-place. “Blessings on thy lips; blessings on thy tongue; blessings on thy heart!”
The voices sounded soft, choked by weeping and emotion, but it was as if a storm had passed by through the air. It was like the murmuring of a thousand shells.
That took much greater hold of Gaetano than the monk’s sermon. He did not know what he wished to do, for that gentle murmuring filled him with emotion; it seemed almost to suffocate him. He climbed up on the iron railing, raised himself above all the others, and began to cry the same as they, but much louder, so that his voice cut through all the others.
Donna Elisa heard it and seemed to be displeased. She drew Gaetano down and would not stay any longer, but went home with him.
In the middle of the night Gaetano started up from his bed. He put on his clothes, tied together what he possessed in a bundle, set his hat on his head and took his shoes under his arm. He was going to run away. He could not bear to live with Donna Elisa.
Since he had heard Father Gondo, Diamante and Mongibello were nothing to him. Nothing was anything compared to being like Father Gondo, and being blessed by the people. Gaetano could not live if he could not sit by the fountain in the square and tell legends.
But if Gaetano went on living in Donna Elisa’s garden, and eating peaches and mandarins, he would never hear the great human sea roar about him. He must go out and be a hermit on Etna; he must dwell in one of the big caves, and live on roots and fruits. He would never see a human being; he would never cut his hair; and he would wear nothing but a few dirty rags. But in ten or twenty years he would come back to the world. Then he would look like a beast and speak like an angel.
That would be another matter than wearing velvet clothes and a glazed hat, as he did now. That would be different from sitting in the shop with Donna Elisa and taking saint after saint down from the shelf and hearing her tell about what they had done. Several times he had taken a knife and a piece of wood and had tried to carve images of the saints. It was very hard, but it would be worse to make himself into a saint; much worse. However, he was not afraid of difficulties and privations.
He crept out of his room, across the attic and down the stair. It only remained to go through the shop out to the street, but on the last step he stopped. A faint light filtered through a crack in the door to the left of the stairs.
It was the door to Donna Elisa’s room, and Gaetano did not dare to go any further, since his foster mother had her candle lighted. If she was not asleep she would hear him when he drew the heavy bolts on the shop door. He sat softly down on the stairs to wait.
Suddenly he happened to think that Donna Elisa must sit up so long at night and work in order to get him food and clothes. He was much touched that she loved him so much as to want to do it. And he understood what a grief it would be to her if he should go.
When he thought of that he began to weep.
But at the same time he began to upbraid Donna Elisa in his thoughts. How could she be so stupid as to grieve because he went. It would be such a joy for her when he should become a holy man. That would be her reward for having gone to Palermo and fetched him.
He cried more and more violently while he was consoling Donna Elisa. It was hard that she did not understand what a reward she would receive.
There was no need for her to be sad. For ten years only would Gaetano live on the mountain, and then he would come back as the famous hermit Fra Gaetano. Then he would come walking through the streets of Diamante, followed by a great crowd of people, like Father Gondo. And there would be flags, and the houses would be decorated with cloths and wreaths. He would stop in front of Donna Elisa’s shop, and Donna Elisa would not recognize him and would be ready to fall on her knees before him. But so should it not be; he would kneel to Donna Elisa, and ask her forgiveness, because he had run away from her ten years ago. “Gaetano,” Donna Elisa would then answer, “you give me an ocean of joy against a little brook of sorrow. Should I not forgive you?”
Gaetano saw all this before him, and it was so beautiful that he began to weep more violently. He was only afraid that Donna Elisa would hear how he was sobbing and come out and find him. And then she would not let him go.
He must talk sensibly with her. Would he ever give her greater pleasure than if he