Gennaro

“ Gennaro crossed himself devoutly, then he muttered a prayer; at last he took up the dagger and stabbed the pentagon in the very middle, just where Vranic had pointed to him with his finger; still, he grew ghastly pale as he did so.
"Holy Mother," said the youth, "forgive me if I have done wrong!"
All the eyes anxiously turned from the bit of paper to the waterspout, whirling round and coming ever nearer. ”

“ I like Gennaro's love for his unknown parent. The deepest feelings of the human heart are those given to the unattainable and the mysterious. Love for the known and the possessed takes the more endurable (is it not so?) ”

“ The pattering ceased, and we heard them talking. Their voices got nearer, and presently I could discern them through the creepers, the grotesque figure of the young man, and the slim little white-robed boy. Gennaro had his arm round Eustace's neck, and Eustace was talking away in his fluent, slip-shod Italian.
"I understand almost everything," I heard him say. "The trees, hills, stars, water, I can see all. But isn't it odd! I can't make out men a bit. Do you know what I mean?"
"Ho capito," said Gennaro gravely, and took his arm off Eustace's shoulder. ”

“ It was really him, Don Gennaro Parascandolo, the famous Don Gennaro, a tall, strong, agreeable man, with a countenance breathing honesty, good faith, good temper; his hand-shake was hearty, his smile cheered the most low-spirited people, his glance put life into one; a very rich man—in short, little Agnesina's godfather, a rich man with no children.
He had had children—he and his sickly wife with the grayish hair and sad eyes. She liked to stay shut up in her [31] sumptuous silent house, and when she went about with him looked like a woman's shadow, a living image of grief. ”

“ But they stopped her; each way she made a step, on each side stood a stern, unyielding man. They stood about her, yet not near her.{15}
“Gennaro, Gennaro; help!”
“Signors!” cried the youth, “what wouldst thou? This lady I protect; he that insults her is my friend no longer.”
“We would wish to tell the lady who we are, and tell thee who she is,” cried they earnestly, and yet with something of mockery in their tones, “then she may go; we shall have no wish to keep her with us.”
“I, for one, am that Maffio Orsini, whose brother you murdered as he slept.” ”

“ In his present feverish state of mind, Gennaro was utterly unable to resist the temptation of this overwhelming thought; and crushing down his horror at the sacrilege he would thus commit, and thinking only of the joy of winning approbation from his beloved Maliella, the passion-racked youth staggered to his tool-chest, seized some files and other necessary implements, and made his way out from the garden by a seldom-used postern-door, which, however, he carefully locked behind him. ”

“ NEW YORK, GENOA, NAPLES, ROME, PALERMO "This is the reminder so that Gennaro and his father-in-law will not forget," I gasped.
"Yes," added Craig, pulling us away, "and Cesare himself is wounded, too. Perhaps that was for putting up the notice refusing to pay. Perhaps not. It's a queer case—they usually set the bombs off at night when no one is around. There must be more back of this than merely to scare Gennaro. It looks to me as if they were after Cesare, too, first by poison, then by dynamite." ”

“ Said they, one after the other.—“I am bidden, and I, and I.”
“And I also, Signors,” said a fresh voice.
“What, Signor Bevarana!”
“Or Gubetta,” said Orsini.
“That man seems every where; indeed, I do begin to doubt him,” said Gennaro, softly to Orsini.
“Oh, fear not,” said the other, carelessly. “He is a man of pleasure, like ourselves, and fain not be alone if he can find him company. Thou art still sad, Gennaro.”
“Oh,” cried one laughingly. “Perchance the Borgia has enchanted him.”
“That woman’s name again. I swear, Signors, I hate the sound of it.” ”

“ Maliella, utterly unable to regard Gennaro in any other light than that of a brotherly protector, repulsed him with laughing scorn and unbelief; but failing to prevent his further protestations and entreaties for reciprocation, she boldly declared her love for Rafaele, and when Gennaro, with jealousy raging at his heart, turned aside with disdain at the mention of the outlaw Camorrist's name, she passionately announced her preference for one whose love for her was so deep that he was even willing to risk his immortal soul by offering to steal the Jewels of the Madonna for her adornment. ”

“ They had dragged her there to see San Gennaro, and when the wretched woman saw so many little ones held up she lifted hers too, weeping and sobbing, thinking her dear flower had not been saved either by San Biase, San Gennaro, or all the saints in Paradise. But as the day went on, the people's emotion increased; everyone was given up to strong emotions that grew stronger every moment from the influence of those around them. In the excited eyes of girls, mothers, the poor, the unhappy, the guilty, all who needed help, whether moral or material, that show of saints got to be like a dream ”

“ Gennaro!" at the top of his voice, and began running up the little alley that led to the hotel. Sure enough, there was Gennaro at the end of it, with his arms and legs sticking out of the nice little English-speaking waiter's dress suit, and a dirty fisherman's cap on his head—for, as the poor landlady truly said, however much she superintended his toilette, he always managed to introduce something incongruous into it before he had done.
Eustace sprang to meet him, and leapt right up into his arms, and put his own arms round his neck. ”

“ When we had fled to America Gennaro thought that he had cast it all off for ever. What was his horror one evening to meet in the streets the very man who had initiated him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned the name of ‘Death’ in the South of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in murder! He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he had already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his new home. ”

“ The Cardinal Archbishop, kneeling, his hands covering his face, prayed on in silence. The Credo went on behind him, intoned at short intervals by San Gennaro's relations, and carried on by the whole people. A solemn note stood out here and there amid the general rumble from a desolate heart, a sharp note struck off tortured nerves.... 'I believe!' shouted the people, with a break in the voice which seemed to denote a thousand prayers, vows, and hopes.
Ah! Luisella Fragalà, too, seated in a corner beside the melancholy Signora Parascandolo, was a profound believer. ”

“ As Don Gennaro Parascandolo had persuaded his poor shadow to leave the shade that evening, he was quite lively; whilst Luisella led the signora to the divan of honour, he went about, followed by Cesare, joking and laughing; all made a chorus to him wherever he passed, with that tendency to worship riches that all, and Southerners in particular, are apt to have. The Naddeos, Antonaccis, Durantes, and Fragalàs were rich people; but things may change in this world from one day to another. And Don Gennaro was so rich he really did not know what to do with his money! ”

“ I reached the terrace just in time to see Eustace jumping over the parapet of the garden wall. This time I knew for certain he would be killed. But he alighted in an olive tree, looking like a great white moth; and from the tree he slid on to the earth. And as soon as his bare feet touched the clods of earth he uttered a strange loud cry, such as I should not have thought the human voice could have produced, and disappeared among the trees below.
"He has understood and he is saved," cried Gennaro, who was still sitting on the asphalt path. "Now, instead of dying he will live!" ”

“ Nothing, nothing now would induce the medium to give them lottery numbers—certain, infallible ones. Every step he tried to take on his thin, shaky legs gave them a pang.
'If you don't take heart, Don Pasqualino, we shall stay here till evening,' Don Gennaro remarked.
He was in a hurry to be off. Indeed, his position among them was not very safe. All owed him money. If they had been bold enough to carry out one imprisonment, they might well carry out another more useful and profitable. Don Gennaro, indeed, took the command by his coolness and strength, but were not these men desperate? ”

“ Have you made plans, as I do, to stay forever at Chiavari, to buy a palazzo in Venice, a summer-house at Sorrento, a villa in Florence? All loving women dread society; but I, who am cast forever outside of it, ought I not to bury myself in some beautiful landscape, on flowery slopes, facing the sea, or in a valley that equals a sea, like that of Fiesole? But alas! we are only poor artists, and want of money is bringing these two bohemians back to Paris. Gennaro does not want me to feel that I have lost my luxury, and he wishes to put his new work, a grand opera, into rehearsal at once. ”

“ Thou wert born my vassal, Gino Monaldi; and though trained from boyhood in this occupation of a gondolier, thou art properly a being of my fiefs in Napoli."
"St. Gennaro make me grateful for the honor, Signore! But there is not a water-seller in the streets of Venice, nor a mariner on her canals, who does not wish this Jacopo anywhere but in the bosom of Abraham. He is the terror of every young lover, and of all the urgent creditors on the islands." ”

“ On awakening from her swoon and finding herself in the arms of Gennaro, she had been filled with dismay on realising that she had, unwittingly, yielded herself to the passion of one suitor when her love was given to another; and, overcome with shame at this discovery, and still horrified at the recollection of the sacrilege which had been committed for her sake, she had struggled free from the detaining embrace of the young blacksmith, and, escaping from the garden, had hastened with all speed to seek protection and comfort from Rafaele. ”

“ The crew had nothing to do but to mend old sails, to eat and sleep. They were a merry set of men, as easily amused as children; besides, all of them were wonderfully musical and possessed splendid voices. Gennaro, the youngest, especially might have made a great fortune as a tenor. In the evening they would sing all in a chorus, accompanying themselves with a guitar, a mandoline and a triangle.
Vranic, amongst them, was like an owl in an aviary of singing-birds ”

“ Maliella, still under the strange spell of the mental vision of Rafaele which her vivid imagination and passionate desire had conjured up, yielded herself unresistingly to the mystical atmosphere of love which enveloped her senses; and as Gennaro, quite unsuspicious of her mistake, and almost mad with the unexpected joy of possession, held her in a close embrace, the half-dreaming girl, lost to her surroundings, uttered a deep sigh of unconscious content and swooned in his arms. ”

“ Leyland went on asking questions. He wanted to know who it was that Eustace had in his mind when he spoke.
"That is easy to say," Gennaro gravely answered. "It is you, it is I. It is all in this house, and many outside it. If he wishes for mirth, we discomfort him. If he asks to be alone, we disturb him. He longed for a friend, and found none for fifteen years. ”

“ There is nothing of which we are so continually reminded as that we must not pretend to judge of the reasonableness and fitness of the Divine dispensations, and there may therefore be good cause for the San Gennaro affair, though we cannot fathom it. Still, as the generality of people of education have given it up, one wonders at the orthodox few whose belief lingers on. There are other bloods that liquefy in various places besides San Gennaro’s. ”

“ Are you not ashamed?' shouted Don Gennaro, quite scandalized.
[285]
'He treats me so at all hours of the day,' the medium muttered in a thread of a voice.
'Keep up your courage; you will come away with me,' said the money-lender, handing him a flask of brandy that he always carried.
'I shall not have the strength, sir,' said the other feebly. 'They have killed me, shut up here, with no air nor light, with this stink that makes me sick. I have generally fasted or got poor food, and been worried all the time to give lottery numbers. ”

“ Exactly so, and won from him a hundred pieces of gold: he lost them with so good a grace that my lady was quite enchanted with him; for the more the colonel lost, the more merry he became. San Gennaro! I think he is a sorcerer, who can coin ducats from vine-leaves. He scatters a handful of gold among the servants every time he comes here! so you may easily imagine how much they are devoted to him. He is either Satan or a rich man, and has a way with him that makes all the men his slaves, and the girls his worshippers: that is, all save myself, signor. ”

“ She took the little bottle, looked at it agonizingly, and then said, “There is barely enough for thee. Holy virgin, he has cast it to the ground.”
“But if I must die, thou demon—if I, my friend, my dear Orsini, if we all die, shalt thou live—thou? Ah! thou also hast reached death; none will come to help thee; hast thou not closed the door thyself. Prepare thee, thou shalt die!”
See how the knife glitters in the pale moonlight as it sweeps high up into the air.{29}
“Gennaro! Gennaro! wouldst thou kill me?” ”

“ He's asking the gruff-voiced fellow if he will have another bottle of wine. He says he will. Good. They must be at Prince Street now—we'll give them a few minutes more, not too much, for word will be back to Albano's like wildfire, and they will get Gennaro after all. Ah, they are drinking again. What was that, Luigi? The money is all right, he says? Now, Vincenzo, out with the lights!" [62]
A door banged open across the street, and four huge dark figures darted out in the direction of Albano's.
With his finger Kennedy pulled down the other switch and shouted: "Gennaro, this is Kennedy! ”