Chapter VI: The Golden Shell (2)

La Favorita, curiously, is one of the few monuments of beauty or charm left by that long reign of the Spanish monarchs of Sicily, which, with some mutations, lasted for about six hundred years. They loaded the land with a weight of many churches and convents, yet what one goes to see is what was done by the Greeks, the Moslems, and the Normans. La Favorita is not old, as one counts age in that immemorial land of the High Gods. A slight century or so of age it has, being built for the villegiatura of Ferdinando IV. at the period when the Eighteenth Century affected a taste in Chinoiseries, bought blue hawthorn jars, ate from old Pekin plates, set up lacquered cabinets, and built Pagoda-esque pleasure houses. The Château is but a flimsy and rather vulgar example of the taste of the day, but the Eighteenth Century often planted delicious gardens, and the pleached allées, the ilex avenues, the fountains and plaisances of La Favorita, make an adorable park for modern Palermo, having by time and the years grown into a majestic richness of triumphant verdure.

But Gaspero is not content with La Favorita. He has things even better in store for Jane and Peripatetica—explaining that by giving the most minute gratuity to the guardian of the park’s nether portal they may be allowed to slip through into a private path that leads to the sea. They do give the gratuity, and do slip through, winding along a rough country road leading under the beetling red cliffs of Pellegrino; by way of olive orchards, mistily grey as smoke, through which burn the rosy spring fires of the Judas-trees, whose drifting pink clouds are so much more beautiful than the over-praised almond blossoms. They skirt flowery meadows all broad washes of gold and mauve, past a landscape as fair as a dream of Paradise, and Gaspero draws up at last upon a beach of shining silver upon which a sea of heaving sapphire lips softly and without speech. A sea that strews those argent sands with shells like rose petals, like flakes of gold, like little, curled, green leaves. And dismounting they rest there in the sunset, forgetting “dusty death,” and glad to be alive; glad of Gaspero’s tender indulgent joy in their pleasure as he gathers for them the strewn sea-flowers, tells them little Sicilian stories of the people, and makes them entirely forget they haven’t had their tea.

It was in returning from this place of peace that he had that crowning inspiration about the puppet show, which is why in the darkness of that very evening they are threading a black and greasy alleyway which smells of garlic and raw fish. But they go cheerfully and confidently in the dimly seen wake of Gaspero’s festa richness of attire.

An oil torch flares and reeks before a calico curtain. This curtain, brushed aside, shows a pigeon-hole room, nine feet high, very narrow, and not long. On either wall hangs a frail balcony, into one of which the three wriggle carefully and deposit themselves on a board hardly a palm’s breadth wide. From the vantage point of these choice and expensive seats—for which they have magnificently squandered six cents apiece—they are enabled to look down about four inches on the heads of the commonality standing closely packed into the narrow alley leading to the stage. A strictly masculine commonality, for Gaspero explains in a whisper that the gentler sex of Palermo are not expected to frequent puppet shows, lest their delicate sensibilities may suffer shock from the broad behaviour of the wooden dolls. Of course, he hurries to add, handsomely, all things are permitted to forestieri, whose bold fantasticalities are taken for granted.

The groundlings appear to be such folk as fishpeddlers, longshoremen, ragpickers—what you will—who smoke persistent tiny cigarettes, and refresh themselves frequently with orange juice, or anisette and water. These have plunged to the extent of two cents for their evening’s amusement, and have an air of really not considering expense. The gallery folk are of a higher class. On Peripatetica’s right hand sits one who has the air of an unsuccessful author or artist; immediately upon the entrance of the forestieri he carefully assumes an attitude of sarcastic detachment, as of one who lends himself to the pleasures of the people merely in search of material. Opposite is an unmistakable valet who also, after a quick glance at the newcomers, buttons his waistcoat and takes on an appearance of indulgent condescension to the situation.

A gay drop curtain, the size of a dinner napkin, rolls up after a preliminary twitter from concealed mandolins. The little scene is set in a wood. From the left enters a splendid miniature figure glittering in armour, crowned, plumed, and robed, stepping with a high melodramatic stride. It is King Charlemagne, the inevitable _deus ex machina_ of every Sicilian puppet play. Taking the centre of the stage and the spotlight, he strikes his tin-clad bosom a resounding blow with his good right wooden hand, and bursts into passionate recitative.

“The cursèd Moslem dogs have seized his subjects upon the high seas, and cast them into cruellest slavery. Baptised Christians bend their backs above the galley oars of Saracen pirate ships, and worse—oh, worst of all!”—both hands here play an enraged tattoo upon his resounding bosom-pan—“they have seized noble Christian maidens and haled them to their infernal harems.

“S’death! shall such things be? No! by his halidome, _no_! Rinaldo shall wipe this stain from his ‘scutcheon. What ho—without there!”

Enter hastily from right Orlando.

“His Majesty called?”

“Called? well rather! Go find me that good Knight Rinaldo, the great Paladin, and get the very swiftest of moves on, or something will happen which is likely to be distinctly unpleasant.”

Orlando vanishes, and in a twinkling appears Rinaldo, more shining, more resplendent, more befeathered even than the King; with an appalling stride (varied by a robin-like hop), calculated to daunt the boldest worm of a Moslem.

He awaits his sovereign’s commands with ligneous dignity, but as the King pours out the tale his legs rattle with strained attention, and when the Christian maids come into the story his falchion flashes uncontrollably from its sheath.

“_Will_ he go? Will a bird fly? Will a fish swim?”

Charlemagne retires, leaving Rinaldo to plan the campaign with Orlando.

Enter now another person in armour, but wearing half an inch more of length of blue petticoat, and with luxuriant locks streaming from beneath the plumed helmet. ’Tis Bramante, the warrior maiden, who in shrill soprano declines to be left out of any chivalric ruction. Three six-inch swords flash in the candlelight; three vows to conquer or die bring down the dinner napkin to tumultuous applause.

The pit has been absorbed to the point of letting its cigarettes go out, and the author and the valet hastily resume their forgotten condescension.

Every one cracks and eats melon seeds until the second act reveals the court of a Saracen palace.

The thumps of the three adventurers’ striding feet bring out hasty swarms of black slaves, who fall like grain before the Christian swords. Better metal than this must meet a Paladin!

Turbaned warriors fling themselves into the fray, and the clash of steel on steel rings through the palace. Orlando is down, Rinaldo and Bramante fight side by side, though Rinaldo staggers with wounds. The crescented turbans one by one roll in the dust, and as the two panting conquerors lean exhausted upon their bloody swords—enter the Soldan himself!

Now Turk meets Paladin, and comes the tug of war.

Bramante squeaks like a mouse; hops like a sparrow.

_Ding, dong!_ Rinaldo is beaten to his knee and the Soldan shortens his blade for a final thrust, but—Bramante rushes in, and with one terrific sweep of her sword shears his head so clean from his shoulders that it rolls to the footlights and puts out one of the candles.

_Ha! ha!_ He trusted in his false god, Mahound!

Bramante hops violently.

Enter suddenly, rescued Christian Maid. Also in armour; also possessing piercing falsetto.

Saved! saved! She falls clattering upon Rinaldo’s breast, and Bramante, after an instant’s hesitation, falls there on top of her, with peculiarly vicious intensity.

More dinner napkin. More frenzied applause. Gaspero draws a long breath. His eyes are full of tears of feeling.

Scene in the wood again. Charlemagne has thanked Rinaldo. Has thanked Bramante. Has blessed the Christian Maid, and has retired exhausted to his afternoon nap!

Christian Maid insists upon expressing _her_ gratitude to the Paladin with her arms round his neck.

Bramante drags her off by her back hair, a dialogue ensuing which bears striking likeness to the interview of cats on a back fence.

Christian Maid opines that Bramante is _no lady_, and swords are out instantly.

_One, two, three!—clash, slash, bang!_

Rinaldo hops passionately and futilely around the two contestants.

Ladies! Ladies! he protests in agony, but blood is beginning to flow, when, suddenly, a clap of thunder—a glitter of lightning!

The cover of an ancient tomb in the wood rolls away, and from the black pit rises a grisly skeleton. Six legs clatter and rattle like pie-pans; swords fall. It is the ghost of Rinaldo’s father. Christian Maid is really Rinaldo’s sister, he explains, carried off by Saracens in her childhood.

Skeleton pulls down the cover of the tomb and retires to innocuous desuetude.

Opportune entry of Orlando miraculously cured of his wounds. Rinaldo has an inspiration, and bestows upon Orlando the hand of the Christian Maid.

All the tins of the kitchen tumble at once—everybody has fallen on every one else’s mail-clad bosom!...

Dear Gaspero! It has been a _wonderful_ day.

* * * * *

A slow, fine rain falls. Vapours roll among the vapoury hills.

It is just the day for the museum, and such a museum! Not one of those cold and formal mausoleums built by the modern world for the beauties of the dead past, but a fine old monastery of the Philippines with two cloistered cortile; with a long, closed gallery for the hanging of the pictures; with big refectories, ambulatories, and chapels for housing the sculpture, and with its little cells crammed with gold and silver work, with enamels, with embroideries, with jewels. A gracious casket for the treasures of old time.

The rain is dripping softly into the open cloister, where the wet garlands of wisteria and heavy-clustered gold of the banksias are distilling their mingled fragrance in the damp air. The rain makes sweet tinklings in the old fountains and in the sculptured wellheads gathered in the court; on the cloister walls are grouped bas-reliefs—tinted Madonnas by Gagini; Greek fragments, stone vases standing on the floor, twisted columns, broken but lovely torsos.

Indeed, it is not like a museum at all. No ticketed rigidity, no historical sequence—just treasures set about where the setting will best accord with and display their beauties. There is not even a catalogue to be had, which gives a delightful sense of freedom at first, but this has its drawbacks when Jane and Peripatetica come to the tomb of Aprilis in a side chamber, and wish to know something more of this sad little maid sculptured into the marble of the tomb’s sunken lid—wrapped in a straitly folded wimple, with slim crossed feet, and small head turned half aside; smiling innocently in the sleep which has lasted so long. Aprilis, whose April had never blossomed into May, and whose epitaph has for five hundred years called Sicily to witness the grief of those who lost her:

“Sicilia, Hic Jacet Aprilis. Miseranda Puella
Unicce Quælugens Occultipa Diem 18 Otobre
XIII 1495.”

Of course, the guide-books ignore her. Trust the guide-books to preserve a stony silence about anything of real human interest!...

Another court; a great basin where papyrus grows, where bananas wave silken banners amid the delicate plumes of tall bamboo, where are more purple wreaths of wistaria and snow-drifts of roses, and where the treasures are mostly Greek. Very notable among these a marble tripod draped with the supple folds of a python; the lax power of the great snake subtly contrasted with, and emphasized by, the rigid lines of the seat of the soothsayer. More notable still, in the Sala del Fauna, is an archaic statue of Athene from Selinunto—like some splendid sharded insect in her helmet and lion skin—rescued from that vast wreck of a city. They had travelled from Palermo a few days before to see that city, drawn by Crawford’s fine passages of description, and there they, too, had wondered at the astonishing remains of those astonishing Greeks.

... “There is nothing in Europe like the ruins of Selinunto. Side by side, not one stone upon another, as they fell at the earthquake shock, the remains of four temples lie in the dust within the city, and still more gigantic fragments of three others lie without the ruined walls. At first sight the confusion looks so terrific that the whole seems as if it might have fallen from the sky, from a destruction of the home of the gods—as if Zeus might have hurled a city at mankind, to fall upon Sicily in a wild wreck of senseless stone. Blocks that are Cyclopean lie like jackstraws one upon another; sections of columns twenty-eight feet round are tossed together upon the ground like leaves from a basket, and fragments of cornice fifteen feet long lie across them, or stand half upright, or lean against the enormous steps. No words can explain to the mind the involuntary shock which the senses feel at first sight of it all. One touches the stones in wonder, comparing one’s small human stature with their mass, and the intellect strains hopelessly to recall their original position; one climbs in and out among them, sometimes mounting, sometimes descending, as one might pick one’s way through an enormous quarry, scarcely understanding that the blocks one touches have all been hewn into shape by human hands, and that the hills from which men brought them are but an outline in the distance.”...

All that quiet falling day Jane and Peripatetica wandered in the transformed monastery, staring at the great metopes; lingering among the Saracenic carvings and jewelled windows, poring over Phœnician seals; over the amazing ecclesiastic needlework, the gold monstrances, the carved gems, and last and best of all some delicious reliefs at sight of which they forgave at once and forever their old enemy, the Eighteenth Century, for all its disgusting crimes against beauty. They sought madly through the books for some mention of these tall, adorable nymphs in adorably impossible attitudes, these curled and winged and dimpled babies, fluttering like fat little wrens sweetly ignorant of the laws of gravitation; but as always on any subject of interest Baedeker and the rest frigidly refused to tell the name of the man out of whose head and hands had grown these enchanting figures.

“Oh, dear Unknown!” cries Jane regretfully, “why is your noble name buried in silence! I wish to make a pilgrimage to your tomb, to cover it with Sicilian roses, and breathe a prayer for the repose of your sweet and gracious soul.”

“Me too!” echoes Peripatetica, in tender scorn of the stodgy rules of English grammar.

* * * * *

The Paschal season is near.

Always, in all lands of all faiths, the coming of Spring, the yearly resurrection of life and nature, has been welcomed with gladness. The occultation of Osiris, of Baldur, of Persephone, of the Christ, is mourned; their coming again hailed with flowers and feasting.

Palermo is filling with visitors; with a glory of flowers and verdure in which the loveliest city in the world grows daily lovelier. The Conca d’Oro—the Shell of Gold—swims in a golden sea of sunshine.

On the Wednesday before Easter the whole population exchanges cakes. Cakes apotheosized by surprising splendours of icing; icing, gilded, silvered, snowily sculptured into Loves and angels and figures of national heroes. Icing wrought into elaborate garlands tinted rose, purple, and green; built into towers and ornate architectural devices. Structures of confectionery three feet high are borne on big platters between two men. Every child carries gay little cakes to be presented to grandparents and godparents, to cousins and playmates.

All Maundy Thursday the population moves from church to church. Masses moan incessant in every chapel. Before the Virgins on every street-shrine, draped in black, candles blaze and drip. Priests and monks hurry to and fro, bent upon preparations for the great spectacle of the morrow.

Friday morning early all Palermo is in the streets in its best attire. Small children dressed as little cardinals, as nuns, as priests, bishops, angels with gilded wings, as Virgins, as John the Baptist, are on their way to the churches from which the processions are to flow. Monks and friars gather from outlying country convents.

At ten o’clock a throbbing dirge begins. The first of the processions is under way. A band plays a funeral march, and is followed by acolytes swinging censers. Pious elderly citizens, perspiring in frock coats, carry tall, flaming candles that drop wax upon their clothes. A few priests, in black and purple, follow, bearing holy vessels. Behind these a row of men in mediæval armour and carrying halberds, surround a heavy, hand-borne bier hung with black velvet, on which rests a glass and gilt case containing an image of the Crucified—a life-sized image, brown with age. Presumably it has been taken from some ancient and revered Spanish crucifix, for it is crowned with thorns, is emaciated, is writhed with pain, painted with the dark, faded red of streaming wounds—one of those agonised figures conceived by the pious realism of the older Spanish sculptors.

Immediately follows another hand-borne litter upon which is standing a tall Virgin clothed in black hood and mantle—a pallid, narrow-faced Virgin—also Spanish and realistic. The delicate clasped hands hold a lace handkerchief, her breast is hung with votive silver hearts. The features are distorted with grief, the lids, reddened with tears, are drooped over sunken, deep-shadowed eyes, and her countenance seamed and withered—a poignant figure of unutterable maternal woe! Burning candles alternate with mounds of roses about the edge of the platform on which she stands.

As the dead Son and the mourning Mother pass, hats come off and heads are bowed, signs of the cross are made. A few of the older peasant women fall to their knees upon the sidewalk and mutter an Agnus Dei, a Hail Mary, with streaming tears. A priest walks last of all, rattling a contribution box at the end of a long stick, looking anxiously at the balconies and windows from which the well-to-do spectators lean. For his is but a poor church; the velvet palls and cloaks are cotton, and frayed and faded, the bier and platform old, and so massive that the stalwart bearers must set them down often to wipe away the sweat, which is why it takes advantage of the unpre-empted morning hours and is early in the field.

Later in the day, in Gaspero’s cab and under his guidance, Jane and Peripatetica take up a coign of vantage in a square debouching upon the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, along which the Jesuits are to parade at four o’clock. Here the crowd is solidly packed, the balconies and windows crowded with the aristocracy of Palermo. The Guarda Mobili in their splendid uniforms keep open the way for the marching fraternities and sodalities with their crucifixes and Virgin-embroidered banners, open a lane for the monks, for the crowds of tiny angels and cardinals who must patter for hours in the slow-moving procession. Priests and acolytes swarm; censers steam, hundreds of candles of all weights and heights flare and flame, and then slowly, slowly, to the wailing music, moves forward a splendid catafalque of crystal in which lies stretched upon a bed of white velvet, richly wrought with gold, a fair youth. A youth with white, naked limbs, relaxed and pure; not soiled by the grimy, bloody agonies of martyrdom, but poetised to a picture of Love too early dead—a charming image. And the beautiful tall Virgin is not the simple Mother of the Carpenter convulsed with despair. She is a stately, sorrowful Queen, crowned, hung with jewels, robed in superb royal weeds; proudly refusing to show the full depth of her bereavement, as she follows her dead Son amid the wax torches shining palely in the sunshine through the white and green of the sheaves of lilies that grow about her knees.

The emotional effect upon the crowd is intense; one can hear like an undertone the sound of indrawn, gulping breath. Gaspero passes his sleeve across the tears in his dark eyes.

This version of the tragedy is lifted above the realism of pain into a penetrating and lovely symbolism that swells the heart with poignant and tender emotions as the divine funeral train winds slowly away, with perfume, with lights, and with the slow sobbing of the muffled drums.

So had Sicilians two thousand years ago crowded every spring to see a similar spectacle of a weeping Queen of Love following an image of a lovely dead youth....

“Ah! and himself—Adonis—how beautiful to behold he lies on his silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice beloved Adonis—Adonis beloved even among the dead.... O Queen, O Aphrodite, that playest with gold, lo, from the stream eternal of Acheron they have brought back to thee Adonis—even in the twelfth month they have brought him, the dainty-footed Hours.... Before him lie all that the tall tree-branches bear, and the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver; and the golden vessels are full of the incense of Syria. And all the dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading-tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft olive-oil, all cakes fashioned in semblance of things that fly, and of things that creep, lo, here they are set before him.

“Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender anise, and children flit overhead—the little Loves—as the young nightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from bough to bough....

“But lo, in the morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry him forth among the waves that break upon the beach, and with locks unloosed, and ungirt raiment falling to the ankles, and bosoms bare we will begin our shrill sweet song.

“Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods, dost visit both this world and the stream of Acheron.... Dear has thine advent been, Adonis, and dear shall it be when thou comest again.”

* * * * *

Gaspero never permitted Jane and Peripatetica to lose anything. Doubling through narrow, black streets where lofty buildings nearly met above their heads and where they snatched hurried, delighted glimpses of intricate old grilles, of arched and wheeled windows, of splendid hatchments and fine carved portals—he brought them out at admirable view points for all the many similar parades in widely separated parts of the city.

As the purple dusk came down they found themselves in the Marina, watching the last of the processions moving slowly down the broad avenue to the sea-street. The crowd had thinned. The small angels and John the Baptists went wearily upon dusty little feet, their crowns of now wilted roses canted at dissipated angles over their flushed and tearful faces, the heavy, half-burned wax torches wabbling dangerously near the draggled veils and drooping gilt wings.

The bearers of the images paused often to set down their heavy burdens. The balconies began to blossom with tinted lights. Here and there the Virgin with her twinkling candles was turned toward a balcony filled with some specially faithful children of the church, and stood facing them a moment, tall, ghostly, tragical, in the gathering darkness, before passing onward in her long pilgrimage of mourning that was to end within the church doors as night came down.

“It is enough, Gaspero,” they cried, as the flickering train passed away down the water avenue into the blue blackness of the shadowy evening, and then they went homewards full of that strange mingled sense of languor and refreshment—that “cleansing of the soul with pity and terror” which is the gift of the heroic tragedies....

Every hour of that night the bells rang and masses sang throughout the city. All day Saturday the churches swarmed, and the purple veils, hung before the altar pictures throughout Lent, were rent from top to bottom to the sound of the wailing De Profundis. Sunday the religious world seemed to exhale itself in music and flowers and triumphant masses. Easter Monday morning the populace hurried through the necessary domestic duties at the earliest possible moment, for the Pasqua Flora is the day of villegiatura for all Palermo. Every one wears new clothes. Even the humble asinelli are, for once in the year at least, brushed and combed, and decorated with fresh red tassels if the master is too poor to afford more elaboration of the always elaborate harness. Those asses who have the luck to be the property of rich contadini appear resplendent in new caparison; with towering brass collars heavy with scarlet chenille, flashing with mirrors and inlays of mother-of-pearl, glittering from head to tail with brass buckles, with bells and red tags innumerable, drawing new carts carved and painted with all the myths and legends and history of Sicily in crude chromatic vivacity.

Whole families stream countrywards in these carts to-day; babies clean and starched for once, grandmothers in purple kerchiefs tied under the chin and yellow kerchiefs crossed upon the breast, with gold hoops in their ears; daughters in flowered cottons, their uncovered heads wrought with fearful and wonderful pompadours, sleek and jet black.

Along the seashore, up the sides of Pellegrino, in all the open country about Palermo, they spread and sun themselves, eat, sleep, make love, gossip, dance, and sing in the golden air.

Gaspero drives slowly through the wide-spread picnic, pausing wherever a characteristic group attracts.

Here lies a whole family asleep; gorged with endless coils of macaroni, saturated with sun—a mere heap of crude-coloured clothes, of brown open-mouthed faces, of lax limbs that to-morrow must be gathered up again for a hand-to-hand struggle for bread for another twelve-month.

Under this tree a long table is spread with loaves, with meats, with iced cakes, and straw-covered flasks. A rich confrère of Gaspero celebrates the betrothal of his only daughter, a plump and solid heiress, who beneath an inky and mighty pompadour simpers at the broad jokes of her pursey, elderly fiancé. A solid fiancé, financially and physically. Altogether a solid match, says Gaspero. A dashing guest thrums his guitar and sings throatily of the joys of love and of money in the stocking.

Here a group of very old men watch about a boiling pot hung above a little fire, and twitter reminiscences of youth, catching one last pale gleam of the fast sinking sun of their meagre, toilsome lives.

Everywhere music and laughter and the smell of flowers and food and wine.

A big piano-organ is playing a rouladed waltz to a ring of young spectators, crowding to watch the elaborate steps of dancers swinging about singly with grace-steps, with high prancings, with tarantella flourishes. Male dancers, all. Gaspero explains that no respectable girl would be allowed to join them, the Sicilian girl’s diversions being distressingly limited.

One of the boyish dancers, with the keen, bold face and square head of a mediæval Condottiere, flourishes his light cane in fencing passes as he swings, which challenge inspires a spectator to leap into the ring with his own cane drawn. The newcomer, an obvious dandy in pointed patent-leather shoes, blue-ribboned hat, and light suit of cheap smartness, crosses canes dashingly with the would-be fencer, and the rest of the dancers drop back to see the fun.

The Condottiere finds in a few passes that he has met his master and craftily begins a waiting game. Lithe and quick as a cat, he circles and gives way, his opponent driving him round and round the ring, lunging daringly and playing to the gallery. He flourishes unnecessarily, pursues recklessly, assumes a contemptuous carelessness of the boy, always circling, always on guard, always coolly thrifty of breath and strength.

The dandy grows tired and angry, rushes furiously to make an end of his nimble evasive antagonist, who at last turns with cold courage and by a twist of his weapon sends the dandy’s cane flying clean over the ring of spectators, who scream with delight. But the Condottiere is a generous as well as a wily foe. He offers an embrace. The dandy reluctantly allows himself to be kissed on both cheeks, but the victor catches him about the waist and waltzes him around madly amid the laughter and bravas of the crowd.

* * * * *

It is Jane’s and Peripatetica’s last day in Sicily. Gaspero has taken them to Santa Maria di Gesu, the Minorite Monastery, but has paused by the way for a look at San Giovanni degli Eremiti, whose little red domes float clear against the burning azure sky like coral-tinted bubbles, so airily do they rise from the green of the high hill-garden with its tiny cloisters of miniature columns and miniscule grey arches heavy with yellow roses. And yet from this rosy, arch little fane rang the Sicilian Vespers which gave the signal for one of the bloodiest butcheries in history. It was Pasqua Flora, and all Palermo, as it did yesterday, was feasting and dancing out of doors. One of the French soldiers—then in occupation, upholding the hated House of Anjou—insulted a Sicilian girl and was stabbed. Just then the Vesper bells rang from San Giovanni degli Eremiti, and at the signal the conspiracy, long festering, broke into open flame, and Palermo rose and massacred the French till the streets ran with blood.

The Gesu Monastery has no such sanguinary associations. The plain little building, high on the hillside, stands buried among enormous cypresses and clouds of roses, and surrounded by the massive marble tombs and mortuary chapels of Palermo’s nobility and Sicily’s magnates. It is a place of great peace and silence. A place of unutterable beauty of outlook upon gorges feathered with pines, upon stern violet mountains melting into more distant heights of amethyst, into outlines of hyacinth, into silhouettes of mauve, into high ghostly shadows that vanish into floods of aerial blue. A place which looks on sea and shore and city, and where the chemistry of sun and air transmutes the multitudinous tones of the landscape to an incredible witchery of tint, to living hues like those of the colours of jewels, of flowers, of the little burning feathers of the butterflies’ wings.

“Doubtless God might have made a more beautiful view than this from the Gesu, but doubtless God never did,” sighed Jane.

But still Gaspero is not satisfied. He can never rest content with anything less than perfection. Yes; he admits the Gesu is admirable, but he knows a still more “molto bella vista.”

“There is nothing better than the best,” says Jane sententiously. “I am drenched and satiated with all the loveliness that I can bear. Any other ‘vista’ would be an anticlimax.”

“Dear Jane,” remonstrated Peripatetica, “haven’t you yet guessed that Gaspero is a wizard? I suspected it the very first day. Of course, you can see that he’s no ordinary guide and cab-driver, and, as a matter of fact, I don’t believe there _are_ any such sights as the ones we think he has showed us. You’ve been on Broadway? Well, can you lay your hand on your heart, and honestly affirm that when you are there again you won’t at once realize that there never were such beauties as these we’ve been seeing? Won’t you know then that this is all a glamour—a hypnotic suggestion of Gaspero’s mind upon ours?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped Jane. “What is all this rhodomontade leading to?”

“To a desire to follow the wizard,” answered Peripatetica recklessly. “Whither Gaspero goeth I go! I am fully prepared to wallow in glamours, and besides we’ve luncheon in our basket, so don’t be tiresome, Jane. Let’s abandon the commonplace and ‘follow the Gleam.’”

“Very well,” laughed Jane, climbing into the carriage. “Gaspero and ‘gleam’ if you like.”

Whether the molto bella vista ever existed remains still a subject of dispute. Peripatetica insists that it was only a pretext for leading them to a place where Gaspero intended they should lunch, but Jane, who always kicks against the philosophic pricks of the determinists, contends that she exercised a certain measure of free will in the matter. However that may be, they wound among mountain roads, by caves Gaspero said were once the dwellings of giants, by little outlying villages where old women span and wove in the doorways and young women made lace; where copper-workers sat in the street and with musical clang of little hammers beat out glittering vessels of rosy metal. They scattered flocks of goats from their path, the shaggy white bucks leaping nimbly upon the wall and staring at them with curious ironic, satyr-like glances; and far, very far up, they came upon a mountain meadow mistily shadowed by enormous gnarled olive trees—a meadow knee-deep in flowers. A meadow that was a sea of flowers, orange, golden and lemon, rippling and dimpling in the light and shade, breathed upon by the faint flying airs of those high spaces:

“In Arcady, in Arcady!
Where all the leaves are merry—”

cried Peripatetica joyously.

“Of course it’s Arcady,” said Jane, with conviction. “And we have come upon it in the Age—or perhaps the moment—of Gold. Gaspero,” she announced firmly, “we will lunch right here.”

“But Signorina—the Vista!” protested the Wizard with a quizzical smile.

It was really (Peripatetica is convinced) Gaspero’s subtle understanding of Jane’s character which led him to offer just sufficient opposition to fix her determination to stay at the very spot where he could best work his magic, for a flowing world of shadowy purple swam about them in a thousand suave folds down to a shining sea, and he could not have showed them any vista more beautiful. But why attempt to shake Jane’s pleased conviction it was really owing to her that for a few hours she and Peripatetica could truly say, “I too have lived in Arcadia.” That it was owing to her they cheerfully fed there, and lay cradled for long warm hours in that perfumed flood of flowers in happy thoughtless silence, wrapped in a fold of the Earth Mother’s—the great Demeter’s—mantle; a fold embroidered by the fine fingers of her daughter Persephone, the Opener of Flowers.

* * * * *

That night, when the full moon rose over the silky sea, far down the horizon behind them slowly faded into the distance the ghostly silver peaks of the enchanted Land of the Older Gods.

THE END

------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------

THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

WILLIAM J. LOCKE

“LIFE IS A GLORIOUS THING.”—_W. J. Locke_

“If you wish to be lifted out of the petty cares of to-day, read one
of Locke’s novels. You may select any from the following titles and
be certain of meeting some new and delightful friends. His
characters are worth knowing.”—_Baltimore Sun._

The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne At the Gate of Samaria A Study in Shadows Where Love Is Derelicts The Demagogue and Lady Phayre The Beloved Vagabond The White Dove The Usurper Septimus Idols

_12mo._ _Cloth._ _$1.50 each._

Eleven volumes bound in green cloth. Uniform edition in box. $16.50
per set. Half morocco $45.00 net. Express prepaid.

=The Belovéd Vagabond=

“‘The Belovéd Vagabond’ is a gently-written, fascinating tale. Make
his acquaintance some dreary, rain-soaked evening and find the
vagabond nerve-thrilling in your own heart.” —_Chicago
Record-Herald._

=Septimus=

“Septimus is the joy of the year.”—_American Magazine._

=The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne=

“A literary event of the first importance.”—_Boston Herald._

“One of those rare and much-to-be-desired stories which keep one
divided between an interested impatience to get on, and an
irresistible temptation to linger for full enjoyment by the
way.”—_Life._

=Where Love Is=

“A capital story told with skill.”—_New York Evening Sun._

“One of those unusual novels of which the end is as good as the
beginning.”—_New York Globe._

=The Usurper=

“Contains the hall-mark of genius itself. The plot is masterly in
conception, the descriptions are all vivid flashes from a brilliant
pen. It is impossible to read and not marvel at the skilled
workmanship and the constant dramatic intensity of the incident,
situations and climax.”—_The Boston Herald._

=Derelicts=

“Mr. Locke tells his story in a very true, a very moving, and a very
noble book. If any one can read the last chapter with dry eyes we
shall be surprised. ‘Derelicts’ is an impressive, an important book.
Yvonne is a creation that any artist might be proud of.”—_The Daily
Chronicle._

=Idols=

“One of the very few distinguished novels of this present book
season.”—_The Daily Mail._

“A brilliantly written and eminently readable book.” —_The London
Daily Telegraph._

=A Study in Shadows=

“Mr. Locke has achieved a distinct success in this novel. He has
struck many emotional chords, and struck them all with a firm, sure
hand. In the relations between Katherine and Raine he had a delicate
problem to handle, and he has handled it delicately.” —_The Daily
Chronicle._

=The White Dove=

“It is an interesting story. The characters are strongly conceived
and vividly presented, and the dramatic moments are powerfully
realized.”—_The Morning Post._

=The Demagogue and Lady Phayre=

“Think of Locke’s clever books. Then think of a book as different
from any of these as one can well imagine—that will be Mr. Locke’s
new book.”—_New York World._

=At the Gate of Samaria=

“William J. Locke’s novels are nothing if not unusual. They are
marked by a quaint originality. The habitual novel reader inevitably
is grateful for a refreshing sense of escaping the commonplace path
of conclusion.”—_Chicago Record-Herald._

---------------------------------------------------------

POEMS WORTH HAVING

=Stephen Phillips=

NEW POEMS, including IOLE: A Tragedy in One Act; LAUNCELOT AND
GUINEVERE, ENDYMION, and many other hitherto unpublished poems.

_Cloth, 12mo_ _$1.25 net_ _Half morocco, $4.00 net_ _Postage 10
cents_

“I have read the ‘New Poems’ of Stephen Phillips with the greatest
interest. In my judgment it is the best volume that he has ever
published.”—Wm. Lyon Phelps of Yale University.

_Uniform Sets._ 4 volumes, including NEW POEMS, POEMS, PAOLO AND
FRANCESCA, HEROD.

_Cloth, $5.00 net_ _Half morocco, $15.00 net_ _Express 50 cents_

=Laurence Hope=

=COMPLETE WORKS.= Uniform Edition 3 volumes, 12mo. Bound in red
cloth, in box.

=India’s Love Lyrics=, including “The Garden of Kama.”

=Stars of the Desert=

=Last Poems.= Translations from the Book of Indian Love.

_Cloth, $4.50 net_ _Postage 35 cents_ _Half morocco, $12.00_
_Postage 50 cents_

“The comparison of Laurence Hope to Sappho readily suggested itself
to the admiring reviewers of her first book of poems.... The
compliment was fully deserved.... As a singer of the melancholy of
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feeling and beauty of thought.” —_New York Evening Mail._

=The Poems of Arthur Symons=

A Collected Edition of the Poet’s works issued in two volumes with a
Photogravure Portrait as Frontispiece.

_8vo_ _$3.00 net_ _Half morocco, $10.00_ _Postage 24 cents_

=The Fool of the World, and Other Poems=

By ARTHUR SYMONS

_12mo_ _$1.50 net_ _Half morocco, $5.00_ _Postage 15 cents_

“Stands at the head of all British poets of his generation.”—_New
York Evening Post._

=The Poems of William Watson=

Edited and arranged with an introduction by J. A. SPENDER.

_In 2 volumes_ _12mo_ _cloth, $2.50 net_ _Half morocco, $7.50 net_
_Photogravure Portrait_ _Postage 20 cents_

“The lover of poetry cannot fail to rejoice in this handsome
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“Work which will live, one may venture to say, as long as the
language.”—_Philadelphia Public Ledger._

---------------------------------------------------------

=VERNON LEE=

Uniform sets boxed. _8 vols. Cloth. $12.00 net. Express extra. $1.50
net each. Postage 10 cents._

Limbo and Other Essays: “Ariadne in Mantua”
Pope Jacynth, and Other Fantastic Tales
Hortus Vitæ, or the Hanging Gardens
The Sentimental Traveller
The Enchanted Woods
The Spirit of Rome
Genius Loci
Hauntings

⸪ “If we were asked to name the three authors writing in English
to-day to whom the highest rank of cleverness and brilliancy might
be accorded, we would not hesitate to place among them VERNON
LEE.”—_Baltimore Sun._

---------------------------------------------------------

=ELIZABETH BISLAND=

=The Secret Life. Being the Book of a Heretic.=

_12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 10 cents._

“A book of untrammelled thought on living topics ... extraordinarily
interesting.”—_Philadelphia Press._

“Excellent style, quaint humor, and shrewd philosophy.”—_Review of
Reviews._

---------------------------------------------------------

=W. COMPTON LEITH=

=Apologia Diffidentis=. An intimate personal book.

_Cloth. 8vo. $2.50 net. Postage 15 cents._

⸪ “Mr. LEITH formulates the anatomy of diffidence as Burton did of
melancholy; and it might almost be said that he has done it with
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has never equalled this.... A human document as striking as it is
unusual.... The impress of truth and wisdom lies deep upon every
page.”—_The Dial._

---------------------------------------------------------

=GILBERT K. CHESTERTON=

=Heretics=. Essays. _12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents._

“Always entertaining.”—_New York Evening Sun._

“Always original.”—_Chicago Tribune._

=Orthodoxy=. Uniform with “Heretics.”

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=All Things Considered=. Essays on various subjects, such as:

Conceit and Caricature; Spiritualism; Science and Religion; Woman,
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_12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents._

=The Napoleon of Notting Hill=. _12mo. $1.50._

“A brilliant piece of satire, gemmed with ingenious
paradox.”—_Boston Herald._

---------------------------------------------------------

=CHARLES H. SHERRILL=

=Stained Glass Tours in France=. How to reach the examples of XIIIth,
XIVth, XVth and XVIth Century Stained Glass in France (with maps and
itineraries) and what they are. _Ornamental cloth. 12mo. Profusely
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⸪ “The author wastes no time on technicalities, and it will be hard
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Sun._

---------------------------------------------------------

=FRANK RUTTER=

=The Path to Paris=. The Record of a Riverside Journey from Le Havre to
Paris. 62 Illustrations. _Cloth. 8vo. $5.00 net. Postage 20 cents._

⸪ A delightful account of a journey along the banks of the Seine.
Impressions and adventures. Descriptions of historic and artistic
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Hanslip Fletcher.

---------------------------------------------------------

=ANATOLE FRANCE=

“Anatole France is a writer whose personality is very strongly
reflected in his works.... To reproduce his evanescent grace and
charm is not to be lightly achieved, but the translators have done
their work with care, distinction, and a very happy sense of the
value of words.”—_Daily Graphic._

“We must now all read all of Anatole France. The offer is too good
to be shirked. He is just Anatole France, the greatest living writer
of French.—_Daily Chronicle._”

_Complete Limited Edition in English_

Under the general editorship of Frederic Chapman. 8vo., special
light-weight paper, wide margins, Caslon type, bound in red and
gold, gilt top, and papers from designs by Beardsley, initials by
Ospovat. _$2.00 per volume_ (except Joan of Arc), _postpaid_.

=The Red Lily=. Translated by WINIFRED STEPHENS.

=The Well of Saint Clare=. Translated by ALFRED ALLINSON.

=Mother of Pearl=. Translated by FREDERIC CHAPMAN,

Containing:

The Procurator of Judea
Our Lady’s Juggler
Amycus and Celestine
Madam de Luzy, etc.

=The Garden of Epicurus=. Translated by ALFRED R. ALLINSON,
Containing:

In the Elysian Fields
Card Houses
Careers for Women
The Priory, etc.

=The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard=. Translated by LAFCADIO HEARN.

This novel was “crowned” by the French Academy in 1881, the author
being received into membership in 1896.

“The highest presentation of France’s many qualities and gifts is to
be found in this exquisite book.”

=Joan of Arc=. Translated by WINIFRED STEPHENS. 2 volumes. _$8.00 net per set. Postage extra._

“THIS IS AN EPOCH-MAKING BOOK.... BENEATH THE SIMPLICITY OF THE
MEDIÆVAL NARRATIVE THERE MAY STILL BE DISCERNED THE DELICIOUS IRONY
AND THE DELICATE SUBTLE HUMOR OF THE NOVELS.” STEPHENS in “_French
Novelists of Today_.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s note:

○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

○ Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.

○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.

○ Inconsistent spelling was made consistent when a predominant form
was found in this book; otherwise it was not changed.