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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312 THE MIRACLES OF ANTICHRIST ’
“ Has Falco already been to the church ?” asks
Donna Micaela.
Passafiore moves somewhat nearer. He wrings
his hands in despair. “Donna Micaela, Falco is
very ill. It is not alone that about the dog; he was
ill before.” And Passafiore struggles with himself
before he can say it out. At last he acknowledges
that although Falco is a very great man, he
sometimes has attacks of madness. He had not spoken
of old Caterina alone; he had said: “If Caterina
will let me go into the church, and if Donna Micaela
Alagona comes down into the quarry and gives me
her hand, and leads me to the church, I will go to
the image.” And from that no one had been able
to move him. Donna Micaela, who was greatest
and holiest of women, must come to him, or he
would not go.
When Passafiore has finished, he remains
kneeling with bowed head. He dares not look up.
But Donna Micaela does not hesitate a second,
since there has been question of the Christ-image.
She seems not to think of Falco’s being already
mad. She does not say a word of her terror. Her
faith in the image is such that she answers softly,
like a subdued and obedient child : —
“Passafiore, I will go with you.”
She follows him as if walking in her sleep. She
does not hesitate to go with him up Etna. She
does not hesitate to climb down the steep cliffs into
the quarry. She comes, pale as death, but with
shining eyes, to the old brigand in his hole in the
cliff and gives him her hand. He rises up, ghastly
pale as she, and follows her. They do not seem like
human beings, but like spectres. They move on
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