Maurice had begun to dread the arrival of the post. Artois was rapidly
recovering his strength, and in each of her letters Hermione wrote with a
more glowing certainty of her speedy return to Sicily, bringing the
invalid with her. Would they come before June 11th, the day of the fair?
That was the question which preoccupied Maurice, which began to haunt
him, and set a light of anxiety in his eyes when he saw Antonino climbing
up the mountain-side with the letter-bag slung over his shoulder. He felt
as if he could not forego this last festa. When it was over, when the
lights had gone out in the houses of San Felice, and the music was
silent, and the last rocket had burst in the sky, showering down its
sparks towards the gaping faces of the peasants, he would be ready to
give up this free, unintellectual life, this life in which his youth ran
wild. He would resign himself to the inevitable, return to the existence
in which, till now, he had found happiness, and try to find it there once
more, try to forget the strange voices that had called him, the strange
impulses that had prompted him. He would go back to his old self, and
seek pleasure in the old paths, where he walked with those whom society
would call his "equals," and did not spend his days with men who wrung
their scant livelihood from the breast of the earth and from the breast
of the sea, with women whose eyes, perhaps, were full of flickering
fires, but who had never turned the leaves of a printed book, or traced a
word upon paper. He would sit again at the feet of people who were
cleverer and more full of knowledge than himself, and look up to them
with reverence.
But he must have his festa first. He counted upon that. He desired that
so strongly, almost so fiercely, that he felt as if he could not bear to
be thwarted, as if, should fate interfere between him and the fulfilment
of this longing, he might do something almost desperate. He looked
forward to the fair with something of the eagerness and the anticipation
of a child expectant of strange marvels, of wonderful and mysterious
happenings, and the name San Felice rang in his ears with a music that
was magical, suggesting curious joys.
He often talked about the fair to Gaspare, asking him many questions
which the boy was nothing loath to answer.
To Gaspare the fair of San Felice was the great event of the Sicilian
year. He had only been to it twice; the first time when he was but ten
years old, and was taken by an uncle who had gone to seek his fortune in
South America, and had come back for a year to his native land to spend
some of the money he had earned as a cook, and afterwards as a restaurant
proprietor, in Buenos Ayres; the second time when he was sixteen, and had
succeeded in saving up a little of the money given to him by travellers
whom he had accompanied as a guide on their excursions. And these two
days had been red-letter days in his life. His eyes shone with excitement
when he spoke of the festivities at San Felice, of the bands of
music--there were three "musics" in the village; of the village beauties
who sauntered slowly up and down, dressed in brocades and adorned with
jewels which had been hoarded in the family chests for generations, and
were only taken out to be worn at the fair and at wedding-feasts; of the
booths where all the desirable things of the world were exposed for
sale--rings, watches, chains, looking-glasses, clocks that sang and
chimed with bells like church towers, yellow shoes, and caps of all
colors, handkerchiefs, and shawls with fringes that, when worn, drooped
almost to the ground; ballads written by native poets, relating the life
and the trial of Musolino, the famous brigand, his noble address to his
captors, and his despair when he was condemned to eternal confinement;
and the adventures of Giuseppe Moroni, called "Il Niccheri"
(illetterato), composed in eight-lined verses, and full of the most
startling and passionate occurrences. There were donkeys, too--donkeys
from all parts of Sicily, mules from Girgenti, decorated with
red-and-yellow harness, with pyramids of plumes and bells upon their
heads, painted carts with pictures of the miracles of the saints and the
conquests of the Saracens, turkeys and hens, and even cages containing
yellow birds that came from islands far away and that sang with the
sweetness of the angels. The ristoranti were crowded with people, playing
cards and eating delicious food, and outside upon the pavements were
dozens of little tables at which you could sit, drinking syrups of
beautiful hues and watching at your ease the marvels of the show. Here
came boys from Naples to sing and dance, peddlers with shining knives and
elegant walking-sticks for sale, fortune-tellers with your fate already
printed and neatly folded in an envelope, sometimes a pigeon-man with a
high black hat, who made his doves hop from shoulder to shoulder along a
row of school-children, or a man with a monkey that played antics to the
sound of a grinding organ, and that was dressed up in a red worsted
jacket and a pair of cloth trousers. And there were shooting-galleries
and puppet-shows and dancing-rooms, and at night, when the darkness came,
there were giuochi di fuoco which lit up the whole sky, till you could
see Etna quite plainly.