“Well, Donna Micaela, I shut myself in and drew back from all intercourse with people. When a year had passed I had found peace. I asked myself why I was shut in so. ‘You are a harmless man,’ I said; ‘you wish to hurt no one. Why do you live as miserably as a criminal?’ I had just meant to go back to life again, when I met Fra Felice in one of the passages. ‘Fra Felice, where is the cat?’--‘The cat, signor?’--‘Yes, the monastery cat, that used to come and get milk from me; where is he now?’--‘He was caught in a rat-trap.’--‘What do you say, Fra Felice?’--‘He got his paw in a steel trap and he could not get loose. He dragged himself to one of the garrets and died of starvation.’ What do you say to that, Donna Micaela?”
“Was it supposed to be your fault that the cat died?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Ah, what folly!”
“When some time had passed, again the desire to live awoke within me. Then Gandolfo knocked on my door, and invited me to your festival. Why should I not go? It is impossible to believe that one brings misfortune only by showing one’s self. It was a festival in itself, Donna Micaela, only to get ready and to take out one’s black clothes, brush them, and put them on. But when I came down to the scene of the festival, it was deserted; the rain streamed in torrents; your Venetian lanterns were filled with water. And you yourself looked as if you had suffered all life’s misfortunes in a single day. When you looked at me you became ashy gray with terror. I asked some one: ‘What was Signora Alagona’s maiden name?’--‘Palmeri.’--‘Ah, Palmeri; so she is from Catania. She has recognized the _jettatore_.’”
“You have been very friendly, very kind, and I am distressed to have spoiled your festival. But now I promise you that I shall keep away both from your entertainment and your railway.”
“I do not believe it. I cannot believe it.”
“I do not believe it either. Yes, yes, I believe. Do you see, people say that no one can have power over a _jettatore_ who is not as great in evil as he. Once, they say, a _jettatore_ looked at himself in the glass, and then fell down and died. Well, I never look at myself in the glass. Therefore I believe it.”
“I do not believe it. I think I almost believed it when I saw you out there. Now I do not believe it.”