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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DON MA TTEO’S MISSION
73
to say to her: “You and I, Signorina Palmeri, have
met in a strange old house. Are you here to study
the old Moorish inscriptions or to look for mosaics
in the cellar?” For the old priest was confounded
when he saw Signorina Palmeri. He could not
understand that the noble lady was poor. He could
not comprehend that she was living in the house of
the little Moor.
He said to himself that he must save her from
this haunted house, and from poverty. He prayed
to the tender Madonna for power to save her.
Thereupon he said to the signorina that he had
come with a commission from Don Ferrante Alagona.
Don Ferrante had confided to him that she had
refused his proposal of marriage. Why was that?
Did she not know that, although Don Ferrante
seemed to be poor as he stood in his shop, he was
really the richest man in Diamante? And Don
Ferrante was of an old Spanish family of great
consideration, both in their native country and in Sicily.
And he still owned the big house on the Corso that
had belonged to his ancestors. She should not have
said no to him.
While Don Matteo was speaking, he saw how the
signorina’s face grew stiff and white. He was
almost afraid to go on. He feared that she was
going to faint.
It was only with the greatest effort that she was
able to answer him. The words would not pass her
lips. It seemed as if they were too loathsome to
utter. She quite understood, she said, that Don
Ferrante would like to know why sh$ had refused
his proposal. She was infinitely touched and
grateful on account of it, but she could not be his wife,
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