Page:The International - Volume 1.djvu/170

160 stractedly, gazing before her into the empty air.

"Who? To whom?"

"O Christ, Christ!" whispered Phenicia, and her hands moved as though they were trying to seize some one by the robe.

Carmenio shuddered.

"Are you raving? Talking in a dream?" he cried. Phenicia rubbed her eyes.

"Oh," she said, "I thought I saw Him down below walking under the almond trees." And after a moment's pause she added sadly: "It was an illusion." Then she became lost in thought until finally she addressed her brother.

"Look, my Carmenio," she said, "look and tell me if that garden where He appeared to Mary Magdalen on the day of the resurrection could have been more beautiful than that yonder?" She bowed her head and they walked slowly on.

In a short time, they reached the gate of the town, and then betook themselves through poor, ill-kept, narrow streets to the house of their uncle.

Aunt Pina, seeing that they were empty-handed, did not receive them very cordially. She fell at once to complaining of hard times, and did not ask them twice to drink the sour wine, which, after a brief in ward struggle, she poured out into small glasses for them.

"I shall come back to you after mass, auntie," said Phenicia, starting up after resting a short time. Carmenio followed her. She walked rapidly, passed quickly through the portico of mouldering red marble, in whose arch the frescoes were sadly fading, fell upon her face before the humble altar and remained kneeling thus a long time.

The women around the confessional raised their heads in curiosity, then bowed them again and continued their prayers.

The hard, stern face of Father Philip, yellow, wrinkled and scowling, appeared from time to time in the dim light of the confessional, when the zealous monk rested a few moments and dropped the curtain concealing him from view. Then he again inclined his head to listen to the sins confided to him, his pitiless words of reproof, uttered in a subdued, whispered voice, sounding weird and fearful in the deep silence.

Carmenio crouched in a corner, and weary with the long journey, soon fell asleep in the grateful coolness of the church, upon whose threshold the sun played and within whose walls were mingled the faint odors of incense and of flowers.

He did not know how long he had slept, when he was suddenly awakened by a piercing cry of distress. It was Phenicia's voice. He sprang up alarmed and looked in the direction whence came that fearful wail. What he saw there seemed to him like a wild dream. The monk stood up right before the confessional, out of which he had just stepped, and with a repellant gesture tried to drive away Phenicia, who with one hand held him by the robe, while the other clutched her hair. Her face was livid, her eyes stared wildly as if in the agony of death, and seemed starting from their sockets. "For the dear souls of your dead," cried Phenicia hoarsely, "for the precious wounds of our Savior!"

The priest looked at her severely and in silence, loosened his robe, and walked away. The women who were still in the church arose from their knees in alarm, forgetting to finish their prayers. With a deep groan Phenicia fell upon her face and dug her nails into the stone floor against which she was striking her forehead.

When the monk had disappeared, the startled women began to talk: "What has she done that he refused to give her absolution?" "Murder?" "Yes, yes!" "No," said an old woman standing near Carmenio, "I know what it was, I heard it down below in Taormin. She swore falsely."

"A lie, a lie!" screamed Carmenio, for getting that he was in church. They looked at him in amazement. The old woman touched the half-dead Phenicia, saying: "My child, do not despair, God can still forgive."

Phenicia arose, stared around like one awakening from a dream, and then flew out of the church.

Carmenio tried to follow her, but his legs