Maurice had begun to dread the arrival of the post. Artois was rapidly

recovering his strength, and in each of her letters Hermione wrote with a

more glowing certainty of her speedy return to Sicily, bringing the

invalid with her. Would they come before June 11th, the day of the fair?

That was the question which preoccupied Maurice, which began to haunt

him, and set a light of anxiety in his eyes when he saw Antonino climbing

up the mountain-side with the letter-bag slung over his shoulder. He felt

as if he could not forego this last festa. When it was over, when the

lights had gone out in the houses of San Felice, and the music was

silent, and the last rocket had burst in the sky, showering down its

sparks towards the gaping faces of the peasants, he would be ready to

give up this free, unintellectual life, this life in which his youth ran

wild. He would resign himself to the inevitable, return to the existence

in which, till now, he had found happiness, and try to find it there once

more, try to forget the strange voices that had called him, the strange

impulses that had prompted him. He would go back to his old self, and

seek pleasure in the old paths, where he walked with those whom society

would call his "equals," and did not spend his days with men who wrung

their scant livelihood from the breast of the earth and from the breast

of the sea, with women whose eyes, perhaps, were full of flickering

fires, but who had never turned the leaves of a printed book, or traced a

word upon paper. He would sit again at the feet of people who were

cleverer and more full of knowledge than himself, and look up to them

with reverence.

But he must have his festa first. He counted upon that. He desired that

so strongly, almost so fiercely, that he felt as if he could not bear to

be thwarted, as if, should fate interfere between him and the fulfilment

of this longing, he might do something almost desperate. He looked

forward to the fair with something of the eagerness and the anticipation

of a child expectant of strange marvels, of wonderful and mysterious

happenings, and the name San Felice rang in his ears with a music that

was magical, suggesting curious joys.

He often talked about the fair to Gaspare, asking him many questions

which the boy was nothing loath to answer.

To Gaspare the fair of San Felice was the great event of the Sicilian

year. He had only been to it twice; the first time when he was but ten

years old, and was taken by an uncle who had gone to seek his fortune in

South America, and had come back for a year to his native land to spend

some of the money he had earned as a cook, and afterwards as a restaurant

proprietor, in Buenos Ayres; the second time when he was sixteen, and had

succeeded in saving up a little of the money given to him by travellers

whom he had accompanied as a guide on their excursions. And these two

days had been red-letter days in his life. His eyes shone with excitement

when he spoke of the festivities at San Felice, of the bands of

music--there were three "musics" in the village; of the village beauties

who sauntered slowly up and down, dressed in brocades and adorned with

jewels which had been hoarded in the family chests for generations, and

were only taken out to be worn at the fair and at wedding-feasts; of the

booths where all the desirable things of the world were exposed for

sale--rings, watches, chains, looking-glasses, clocks that sang and

chimed with bells like church towers, yellow shoes, and caps of all

colors, handkerchiefs, and shawls with fringes that, when worn, drooped

almost to the ground; ballads written by native poets, relating the life

and the trial of Musolino, the famous brigand, his noble address to his

captors, and his despair when he was condemned to eternal confinement;

and the adventures of Giuseppe Moroni, called "Il Niccheri"

(illetterato), composed in eight-lined verses, and full of the most

startling and passionate occurrences. There were donkeys, too--donkeys

from all parts of Sicily, mules from Girgenti, decorated with

red-and-yellow harness, with pyramids of plumes and bells upon their

heads, painted carts with pictures of the miracles of the saints and the

conquests of the Saracens, turkeys and hens, and even cages containing

yellow birds that came from islands far away and that sang with the

sweetness of the angels. The ristoranti were crowded with people, playing

cards and eating delicious food, and outside upon the pavements were

dozens of little tables at which you could sit, drinking syrups of

beautiful hues and watching at your ease the marvels of the show. Here

came boys from Naples to sing and dance, peddlers with shining knives and

elegant walking-sticks for sale, fortune-tellers with your fate already

printed and neatly folded in an envelope, sometimes a pigeon-man with a

high black hat, who made his doves hop from shoulder to shoulder along a

row of school-children, or a man with a monkey that played antics to the

sound of a grinding organ, and that was dressed up in a red worsted

jacket and a pair of cloth trousers. And there were shooting-galleries

and puppet-shows and dancing-rooms, and at night, when the darkness came,

there were giuochi di fuoco which lit up the whole sky, till you could

see Etna quite plainly.




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