Gaetano was to start on his travels early the next morning. She came at last to the decision to speak to him before he left, and tell him that she could not go with him. She could not bear to be considered a fallen woman.
She had hardly decided that before she fell asleep. She did not wake till the clock struck nine the next morning. And then Gaetano was already gone. She could not tell him that she had changed her mind.
But she did not think of it either. During her sleep something new and strange had come over her. It seemed to her that in the night she had lived in heaven and was filled with bliss.
What saint is there who does more for man than San Pasquale? Does it not sometimes happen to you to stand and talk in some lonely place in the woods or plains, and either to speak ill of some one or to make plans for something foolish? Now please notice that just as you are talking and talking you hear a rustling near by, and look round in wonder to see if some one has thrown a stone. It is useless to look about long for the thrower of the stone. It comes from San Pasquale. As surely as there is justice in heaven, it was San Pasquale who heard you talking evil, and threw one of his stones in warning.
And any one who does not like to be disturbed in his evil schemes may not console himself with the thought that San Pasquale’s stones will soon come to an end. They will not come to an end at all. There are so many of them that they will hold out till the last day of the world. For when San Pasquale lived here on the earth, do you know by chance what he did, do you know what he thought about more than anything else? San Pasquale gave heed to all the little flint-stones that lay in his path, and gathered them up into his bag. You, signor, you will scarcely stoop to pick up a soldo, but San Pasquale picked up every little flint-stone, and when he died, he took them all with him up to heaven, and there he sits now, and throws them at everybody who thinks of doing anything foolish.
But that is not by any means the only use that San Pasquale is to man. It is he, also, who gives warning if any one is to be married, or if any one is to die; and he even gives the sign with something besides stones. Old Mother Saraedda at Randazzo sat by her daughter’s sick bed one night and fell asleep. The daughter lay unconscious and was about to die, and no one could summon the priest. How was the mother waked in time? How was she waked, so that she could send her husband to the priest’s house? By nothing else than a chair, which began to rock forward and back, and to crack and creak, until she awoke. And it was San Pasquale who did it. Who else but San Pasquale is there to think of such a thing?