Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
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THE FEAST OF SAN SEBA ST/A NO 175
so tortured by them in the forenoon. She was glad
that they loved Gaetano. Alas, if he had only
continued to love her, she would have been unspeakably
proud and happy in their love. Then she could
have kissed those old callous hands that made images
of him and were clasped in prayers for him.
As she was thinking this, the church-door was
thrown open and a big, flat wagon rolled out of the
church. Highest on the red-covered wagon stood
San Sebastiano by his stake, and below the image
sat the four singers, who were to contest.
There was an old blind man from Nicolosi; a
cooper from Catania, who was considered to be the
best improvisatore in all Sicily; a smith from
Termini, and little Gandolfo, who was son to the
watchman in the town-hall of Diamante.
Everybody was surprised that Gandolfo dared to
appear in such a difficult contest. Did he do it
perhaps to please his betrothed, little Rosalia? No
one had ever heard that he could improvise. He
had never done anything in his whole life but eat
mandarins and stare at Etna.
The first thing was to draw lots among the
competitors, and the lots fell so that the cooper should
come first and Gandolfo last. When it fell so
Gandolfo turned pale. It was terrible to come last,
when they all were to speak on the same subject.
The cooper elected to speak of San Sebastiano,
when he was a soldier of the legion in ancient
Rome, and for his faith’s sake was bound to a stake
and used as a target for his comrades. After him
came the blind man, who told how a pious Roman
matron found the martyr bleeding and pierced with
arrows, and succeeded in bringing him back to life.
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