When she asked him what was the matter with him he stormed at her, and scolded her.
Did she know that many of the things she had about her were sacred?
Did she know, or did she not know, that that was the holy Christchild himself? And she had let him lose three fingers on one hand, and let the jewels fall out of his crown, and let him lie dirty, and tarnished, and dishonored! And if she had so treated the image of God’s own son, how would she let everything else fare? He would not sell anything to her.
When Gaetano burst out at her in that way Miss Tottenham was enraptured, enchanted.
Here was the true faith and the righteous, holy wrath. This young man must become an artist. To England, he should go to England! She wished to send him to the great master, her friend, who was trying to reform art; to him who wished to teach people to make beautiful house-furnishings, beautiful church-fittings, who wished to create a whole beautiful world.
She decided and arranged, and Gaetano let her go on, because he would rather now go away from Diamante.
He saw that he could no longer endure to live there. He believed that it was God leading him out of temptation.
He went away quite unobserved. Donna Micaela scarcely knew anything of it until he was gone. He had not dared to come and bid her good-bye.
After that two years passed quietly. The only thing that happened at Diamante and in all Sicily was that the people grew ever poorer and poorer.
Then there came an autumn, and it was about the time when the wine was to be harvested.
At that time songs generally rise full-fledged to the lips; at that time new and beautiful melodies stream from the mandolins.
Then crowds of young people go out to the vineyards, and there is work and laughter all day, dance and laughter all night, and no one knows what sleep is.
Then the bright ocean of air over the mountain is more beautiful than at any other time. Then the air is full of wit; sparkling glances flash through it; it gets warmth not only from the sun, but also from the glowing faces of the young women of Etna.
But that autumn all the vineyards were devastated by the phylloxera. No grape-pickers pushed their way between the vines; no long lines of women carrying heaped-up baskets on their heads wound up to the presses, and at night there was no dancing on the flat roofs.