Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
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PAN EM ET CIR CENSES 197
lish signorina. Who has such an army as poverty ?
But for once the English signorina could conquer it.
She had something to fight with too and to
conquer with. She filled the whole square with loaded
tables. She had wine-skins arranged along the
stone bench that lines the wall of the Cathedral.
She had turned the deserted convent into a larder
and kitchen. She had all the foreign colony in
Diamante dressed in white aprons, to serve the
courses. She had all of Diamante who are used to
eating their fill, wandering to and fro as spectators.
Ah, spectators, what did she not have for
spectators? She had great Etna and the dazzling sun.
She had the red peaks of the inland mountains and
the old temple of Vulcan, that was now consecratcd
to San Pasquale. And none of them had ever seen
a satisfied Diamante. None of them had ever before
happened to think how much more beautiful they
themselves would be if the people could look at
them without hunger hissing in their ears and
trampling on their heels.
But mark one thing! Although that signorina
was so wonderful and so great, she was not
beautiful. And in spite of all her power, she was neither
charming nor attractive. She did not rule with
jests, and she did not reward with smiles. She
had a heavy, clumsy body, and a heavy, clumsy
disposition.
The day she gave food to the poor she became a
different person. A chivalrous people live in our
noble island. Among all those poor people there
was not one who let her feel that she was exercising
charity. They worshipped her, but they worshipped
her as a woman. They sat down at the table as
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