She went home again. But while she had been away, Donna Elisa had watched her opportunity. She had hoisted a flag on the roof of the summer-palace; she had spread draperies on the balconies, and as Donna Micaela came home, she was fastening up a garland in the gateway. For Donna Elisa could not bear to have the summer-palace underrated. She wished no honor to San Sebastiano omitted at this time. And she feared that the saint would not help Diamante and Gaetano if the palace of the old Alagonas did not honor him.
Donna Micaela was pale as if she had received her death warrant, and bent like an old woman of eighty years.
She murmured to herself: “I make no busts of him; I sing no songs about him; I dare not pray to God for him; I buy none of his beads. How can he believe that I love him? He must love all these others, who worship him, but not me. I do not belong to his world, he can love me no longer.”
And when she saw that they wished to adorn her house with flowers, it seemed to her so piteously cruel that she snatched the wreath from Donna Elisa and threw it at her feet, asking if she wished to kill her.
Then she went past her up the stairs to her room. She threw herself on the sofa and buried her face in the cushions.
She now first understood how far apart she and Gaetano were. The idol of the people could not love her.
She felt as if she had prevented him from helping all those poor people.
How he must detest her; how he must hate her!
Then her illness came creeping back over her. That illness which consisted of not being loved! It would kill her. She thought, as she lay there, that it was all over.
While she lay there, suddenly the little Christchild stood before her inward eye. He seemed to have entered the room in all his wretched splendor. She saw him plainly.
Donna Micaela began to call on the Christchild for help. And she was amazed at herself for not having turned before to that good helper. It was probably because the image did not stand in a church, but was carried about as a museum-piece by Miss Tottenham, that she remembered him only in her deepest need.
It was late in the evening of the same day. After dinner Donna Micaela had given all her servants permission to go to the festival, so that she and her father were alone in the big house. But towards ten o’clock her father rose and said he wished to hear the singing-contest in the square. And as Donna Micaela did not dare to sit alone, she was obliged to go with him.