Page:The International - Volume 1.djvu/166

"Is Venera dead?" wondered old Nunziata, spinning beneath her fig tree. "And that poor Phenicia flits about like a shadow, without blood or voice."

But one day Phenicia appeared under the shade of the fig tree and begged Nunziata to persuade her grandson again to lend her his mule.

"Where are you going?" asked Nunziata.

"To Messina, grandma, to testify."

"To testify—to testify!" and grandma Nunziata shook her head dubiously. After a pause, she said: "May God strengthen you, my daughter. Nanni will gladly lend you the mule . . . to testify!"

Phenicia thanked her, and, entering the house, said to Venera:

"To-morrow I go to Messina. Nanni is a good boy; he will lend me his mule again . . . I will testify." She sat down upon the edge of the bed.

Venera sprang up, and standing before her daughter-in-law, and piercing her pale face with her eyes, asked between closely set teeth: "What will you testify?"

"What else but the truth?" replied Phenicia, and her lips trembled like an aspen leaf. She raised her eyes to the crucifix, but instantly dropped them.

The journey to Messina, the streets there full of noise, the great house where the court was held, the witnesses, the long speeches, all seemed to her like an endless dream, full of trouble and misery. She fancied she could hear the ocean, and the wind roaring about her. The people seemed to be moving to and fro in a mist, like ghosts, their eyes like daggers—like live coals. Among the witnesses she saw Marie, with her child in her arms, a triumphant smile upon her lips. She was speaking of the island of Pantellarie, where the sun shines so hot that the bones of the prisoners bleach out beneath the skin, which becomes hard and dry like parchment. Her head went round and she did not know what it was that the attorney whispered to her again and again, when he met her in the entry. Why did he speak to her? What did he want? Why, she knew all.

That fearful roaring of the wind and the sea suddenly stopped, and she felt as though she lay in a grave, it was so quiet now, both within and around her, and she then realized that she stood in a great hall, which easily could have held half of the palace of Corvejo. From the elevated tribune behind her, thousands of curious eyes, glowing strangely, watched her; and before her, between two burning candles, stood a crucifix. She shuddered from head to foot. She thought of that pale, dying Christ in her home in Taormin, the crown of thorns upon his head, and of his bleeding side. Her hand involuntarily sought her heart . . . she was overcome with a sort of stupor, and she felt as if she was slowly and noiselessly sliding down an inclined surface—down, down, but she no longer cared where . . . Pale, calm, and beautiful she stood before the court.

A strange, monotonous voice came from the silence, like a spring bubbling from a rock; it was addressed to her. Yes, she finally understood that some one spoke to her. He explained to her that she was not obliged to testify, but that if she wished to do so she would be sworn. Then followed a short exposition of the duties of witnesses, the wickedness of perjury, its consequences both in this world and the next. It seemed to her that she had heard all this before. She could not listen with out impatience; she was waiting for some thing else, she herself not knowing what. But suddenly it came, the question that, according to her instructions, she expected, and to which she replied: "I wish to be sworn."

For the first time she raised her large beaming eyes, dark as the night and bright as the gold on the robe of the Madonna, as Nunziata used to say. A murmur arose in the hall, like the hum in a bee-hive; they marveled at her beauty, and in an instant she had the sympathy of all. She repeated the oath word for word, as it was read to her, and her voice did not tremble. Then came the examination. She replied briefly, clearly and with decision, but with a strange emphasis, as if she were trying to convince