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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146 THE MIRACLES OF ANTICHRIST ’
But as soon as he realizes the homage, he feels
that he does not at all deserve it. He would like
to fall on his knees before those hundred and fifty
thousand people who pay him homage and pray to
them for forgiveness that he is so powerless, that he
has done nothing for them.
• ••••••••
As though by a special fate, Donna Micaela is ’
in Palermo that night. She is there to start one of
those new undertakings which she thinks she ought
to organize in order to retain life and reason. She
is probably there either on account of the draining
or of the marble quarry.
She is down at the harbor ; like all the others.
People notice her as she pushes her way forward to
the edge of the water: a tall, dark woman, with an
air of being some one, a pale face with marked
features and imploring, longing, passionate eyes.
During the reception in the harbor, Donna Micaela
is fighting out a strange struggle. “ If it were
Gaetano,” she thinks, “could I, could I —
“ If it were for him all these people were
rejoicing, could I —”
There is so much joy — a joy the like of which she
has never seen. The people love one another and
are like brothers. And that not only because a
socialist is coming home, but because they all
believe that the earth will soon be happy. “If he
were to come now, while all this joy is roaring
about me,” she thinks. “Could I, could I —”
She sees Bosco’s carriage trying to force a way
through the crowd. It moves forward step by step.
For long moments it stands quite still. It will
take several hours to come up from the harbor.
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