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
141
had heard that all the socialists on the island had
been put in prison, and all the little insurrection
fires lighted in the mountain towns had been quickly
choked. It looked almost as if the rebellion would
come to nothing!
But now the last Alagona was come, and him the
people would follow. Life would enter into those
black groups on the market-place. The men in the
linen garments would climb up out of the quarries.
The next evening Gaetano spoke in the
marketplace. He had sat by the fountain, and had seen
how the people came to get water. For two years
he had foregone the pleasure of seeing the slender
girls lift the heavy water-jars to their heads and
walk away with firm, slow step.
But it was not only the young girls who came to
the fountain; there were people of all ages. And
when he saw how poor and unhappy most of them
were, he began to talk to them of the future.
He promised them better times soon. He said
to old Assunta that she hereafter should get her
daily bread without needing to ask alms of any one.
And when she said that she did not understand how
that could be, he asked her almost with anger if she
did not know that now the time had come when no
old people and no children should be without care
and shelter.
He pointed to the old chair-maker, who was as
poor as Assunta, and moreover very sick, and he
asked if she believed that the people would endure
much longer having no support for the poor, and no
hospitals. Could she not understand that it was
impossible for such things to continue? Could they
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