Soon the people could not bear to see flowers on long stalks, because they thought that they swung to and fro. And they complained that sound came from them, instead of fragrance.
Others insisted that the mist floating through the air moved in time with the sound of the bells, and they said that all the pendulums conformed to it, and that every one who went by in the rain tried to do likewise.
And that was when the bells had only rung a couple of hours, and when the people still laughed at them.
But at the third hour the ringing seemed to increase even more, and then some stuffed cotton into their ears, while others buried themselves under pillows. But they felt just as distinctly how the air quivered with the strokes, and they thought that they perceived how everything moved in time. Those who fled up to the dark attic found the sound of the bells clear and ringing there, as if they came from the sky; and those who fled down into the cellar heard them as loud and deafening there as if San Pasquale’s church stood under ground.
Every one in Diamante began to be terrified except Donna Micaela, whom love protected from fear.
And now people began to think that it must mean something, because it was San Pasquale’s bells that rang. Every one began to ask himself what the saint foretold. Each had his own dread, and believed that San Pasquale gave warning to him of what he least wished. Each had a deed on his conscience to remember, and now thought that San Pasquale was ringing down a punishment for him.
Toward noon, when the bells still rang, everybody was sure that San Pasquale was ringing such a misfortune upon Diamante that they might all expect to die within the year.
Pretty Giannita came terrified and weeping to Donna Micaela, and lamented that it was San Pasquale who was ringing. “God, God, if it had been any other than San Pasquale!”
“He sees that something terrible is coming to us,” said Giannita. “The mist does not prevent him from seeing as far as he will. He sees that an enemy’s fleet is approaching in the bay! He sees that a cloud of ashes is rising out of Etna which will fall over us and bury us!”
Donna Micaela smiled, and thought that she knew of what San Pasquale was thinking. “He is tolling a passing-bell for the beautiful almond-blossoms, that are destroyed by the rain,” she said to Giannita.