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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THE SIROCCO
131
the insurrection would break out. She saw the
starved people come rushing along the street. They
would plunder the shops and they would plunder
the few rich men there were in the town. Outside
the summer palace the wild horde would stop, and
they would climb up to the balcony and the glass
doors. “Bring out the jewels of the old Alagonas;
bring out Don Ferrante’s millions!” That was
their dream, —the summer palace! They believed
that it was as full of gold as a fairy palace.
But when they found nothing, they would put a
dagger to her throat, to make her give up the
treasures that she had never possessed, and she
would be killed by the bloodthirsty crowds.
Why could not the great land-owners stop at home?
Why must they irritate the poor by living in grand
style in Rome and Paris? The people would not
be so bitter against them if they stayed at home;
they would not swear such a solemn and sacred oath
to kill all the rich when the time should come.
Donna Micaela wished that she could have escaped
to one of the big towns. But both her father and
Don Ferrante fell ill that autumn, and for their sakes
she was forced to remain where she was; And she
knew that she would be killed as an atonement for
the sins of the rich against the poor.
For many years misfortunes had been gathering
over Sicily, and now they could no longer be held
back. Etna itself began to menace an eruption.
At night sulphurous smoke floated red as fire, and
rumblings were heard as far away as Diamante.
The end of everything was coming. Everything
was to be destroyed at once.
Did not the government know of the discontent?
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