The Miracles of Antichrist. Selma Lagerlöf
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While they ate the fruit, they held each other’s hand and both said:—
“Sister, sister, sister mine!
Thou art mine, and I am thine,
Thine my house, my bread and wine,
Thine my joys, my sacrifice,
Thine my place in Paradise.”
Then they kissed each other and called each other god-sister.
“You must never fail me, god-sister,” said the little signorina, and both the children were very serious and moved.
They had become such good friends in the short time that they cried when they parted.
But then twelve years went by and the two god-sisters lived each in her own world and never met. During the whole time Giannita was quietly in her home and never came to Catania.
But then something really strange happened. Giannita sat one afternoon in the room back of the shop embroidering. She was very skilful and was often overwhelmed with work. But it is trying to the eyes to embroider, and it was dark in Giannita’s room. She had therefore half-opened the door into the shop to get a little more light.
Just after the clock had struck four, the old miller’s widow, Rosa Alfari, came walking by. Donna Olivia’s shop was very attractive from the street. The eyes fell through the half-open door on great baskets with fresh vegetables and bright-colored fruits, and far back in the background the outline of Giannita’s pretty head. Rosa Alfari stopped and began to talk to Donna Olivia, simply because her shop looked so friendly.
Laments and complaints always followed old Rosa Alfari. Now she was sad because she had to go to Catania alone that night. “It is a misfortune that the post-wagon does not reach Diamante before ten,” she said. “I shall fall asleep on the way, and perhaps they will then steal my money. And what shall I do when I come to Catania at two o’clock at night?”
Then Giannita suddenly called out into the shop. “Will you take me with you to Catania, Donna Alfari?” she asked, half in joke, without expecting an answer.
But Rosa Alfari said eagerly, “Lord, child, will you go with me? Will you really?”
Giannita came out into the shop, red with pleasure. “If I will!” she said. “I have not been in Catania for twelve years.”
Rosa Alfari looked delightedly at her; Giannita was tall and strong, her eyes gay, and she had a careless smile on her lips. She was a splendid travelling companion.
“Get ready,” said the old woman. “You will go with me at ten o’clock; it is settled.”
The next day Giannita wandered about the streets of Catania. She was thinking the whole time of her god-sister. She was strangely moved to be so near her again. She loved her god-sister, Giannita, and she did it not only because San Giovanni has commanded people to love their god-brothers and sisters. She had adored the little child in the silk dress; she was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She had almost become her idol.
She knew this much about her sister, that she was still unmarried and lived in Catania. Her mother was dead, and she had not been willing to leave her father, and had stayed as hostess in his house. “I must manage to see her,” thought Giannita.
Whenever Giannita met a well-appointed carriage she thought: “Perhaps it is my god-sister driving there.” And she stared at everybody to see if any of them was like the little girl with the thick hair and the big eyes.
Her heart began to beat wildly. She had always longed for her god-sister. She herself was still unmarried, because she liked a young wood-carver, Gaetano Alagona, and he had never shown the slightest desire to marry her. Giannita had often been angry with him for that, and not least had it irritated her never to be able to invite her god-sister to her wedding.
She had been so proud of her, too. She had thought herself finer than the others, because she had such a god-sister. What if she should now go to see her, since she was in the town? It would give a lustre to the whole journey.
As she thought and thought of it, a newspaper-boy came running. “Giornale da Sicilia,” he called. “The Palmeri affair! Great embezzlements!”
Giannita seized the boy by the neck as he rushed by. “What are you saying?” she screamed. “You lie, you lie!” and she was ready to strike him.
“Buy my paper, signora, before you strike me,” said the boy. Giannita bought the paper and began to read. She found in it without difficulty the Palmeri affair.
“Since this case is to be tried to-day in the courts,” wrote the paper, “we will give an account of it.”
Giannita read and read. She read it over and over before she understood. There was not a muscle in her body which did not begin to tremble with horror when she at last comprehended it.
Her god-sister’s father, who had owned great vineyards, had been ruined, because the blight had laid them waste. And that was not the worst. He had also dissipated a charitable fund which had been intrusted to him. He was arrested, and to-day he was to be tried.
Giannita crushed the newspaper together, threw it into the street and trampled on it. It deserved no better for bringing such news.
Then she stood quite crushed that this should meet her when she came to Catania for the first time in twelve years. “Lord God,” she said, “is there any meaning in it?”
At home, in Diamante, no one would ever have taken the trouble to tell her what was going on. Was it not destiny that she should be here on the very day of the trial?
“Listen, Donna Alfari,” she said; “you may do as you like, but I must go to the court.”
There was a decision about Giannita. Nothing could disturb her. “Do you not understand that it is for this, and not for your sake, that God has induced you to take me with you to Catania?” she said to Rosa Alfari.
Giannita did not doubt for a moment that there was something supernatural in it all.
Rosa Alfari must needs let her go, and she found her way to the Palace of Justice. She stood among the street boys and riff-raff, and saw Cavaliere Palmeri on the bench of the accused. He was a fine gentleman, with a white, pointed beard and moustache. Giannita recognized him.
She heard that he was condemned to six months’ imprisonment, and Giannita thought she saw even more plainly that she had come there as an emissary from God. “Now my god-sister must need me,” she thought.
She went out into the street again and asked her way to the Palazzo Palmeri.
On the way a carriage drove by her. She looked up, and her eyes met those of the lady who sat in the carriage. At the same moment something told her that this was her god-sister. She who was driving was pale and bent and had beseeching eyes. Giannita loved her from the first sight. “It is you who have given me pleasure many times,” she said, “because I expected pleasure from you. Now perhaps I can pay you back.”
Giannita felt filled with devotion when she went up the high, white marble steps to the Palazzo Palmeri, but suddenly a doubt struck her. “What can God wish me to do for one who has grown up in such magnificence?” she thought. “Does our Lord forget that I am only poor Giannita from Diamante?”
She told a servant to greet Signorina Palmeri and say to her that her god-sister wished to speak to her. She was surprised when the servant came back and said that she could not be received that day. Should she be content with that? Oh, no; oh, no!
“Tell the signorina that I am going to wait here the whole day, for I must speak to her.”
“The signorina is going to move out of the palace in half an hour,” said the servant.
Giannita was beside herself. “But I am her god-sister, her god-sister, do you not understand?” she said to the man. “I must speak to her.” The servant smiled, but did not move.
But