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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IN PALERMO
333
Fire, that is joy. It is good that fires can be
lighted. Suddenly a great blaze flames up on
Monte Pellegrino, just over the harbor. Mighty
flames burst from all the pointed mountain walls
surrounding the town. There are fires on Monte
Falcone, on San Martino, on the mountain of The
Thousands, where Garibaldi passed.
Far out on the sea comes the big Naples steamer.
And on the steamer is Bosco, the socialist.
He cannot sleep that night. He has gone up
from his cabin, and paces to and fro on the deck.
And then his old mother, who has journeyed to
Naples to meet him, comes from her cabin to keep
him company. But he cannot talk with her. He
is thinking that he will soon be at home. Ah,
Palermo, Palermo!
He has been in prison over two years. They
have been two years of suffering and longing, and
has it been of any good ? That is what he wishes to
know. Has it been of benefit that he has been
faithful to the cause, and gone to prison? Has
Palermo thought of him ? Have his sufferings won
the cause a single follower?
His old mother sits crouched on the gangway, and
shivers in the chill of the night. He has asked
her, but she knows nothing of such things. She
speaks of little Francesco and little Lina, how they
have grown. She knows nothing of what he is
struggling for.
Now he comes to his mother, takes her by the
wrist, leads her to the railing, and asks her if she
sees anything far away to the south. She looks out
over the water with her dim eyes, and sees only the
night, only the black night on the water. She
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