And that was when the bells had only rung a couple of hours, and when the people still laughed at them. But at the third hour the ringing seemed to increase even more, and then some stuffed cotton into their ears, while others buried themselves under pillows. But they felt just as distinctly how the air quivered with the strokes, and they thought that they perceived how everything moved in time. Those who fled up to the dark attic found the sound of the bells clear and ringing there, as if they came from the sky; and those who fled down into the cellar heard them as loud and deafening there as if San Pasquale’s church stood under ground. Every one in Diamante began to be terrified except Donna Micaela, whom love protected from fear. And now people began to think that it must mean something, because it was San Pasquale’s bells that rang. Every one began to ask himself what the saint foretold. Each had his own dread, and believed that San Pasquale gave warning to him of what he least wished. Each had a deed on his conscience to remember, and now thought that San Pasquale was ringing down a punishment for him. Toward noon, when the bells still rang, everybody was sure that San Pasquale was ringing such a misfortune upon Diamante that they might all expect to die within the year. Pretty Giannita came terrified and weeping to Donna Micaela, and lamented that it was San Pasquale who was ringing. “God, God, if it had been any other than San Pasquale!” “He sees that something terrible is coming to us,” said Giannita. “The mist does not prevent him from seeing as far as he will. He sees that an enemy’s fleet is approaching in the bay! He sees that a cloud of ashes is rising out of Etna which will fall over us and bury us!” Donna Micaela smiled, and thought that she knew of what San Pasquale was thinking. “He is tolling a passing-bell for the beautiful almond-blossoms, that are destroyed by the rain,” she said to Giannita. She let no one frighten her, for she believed that the bells were ringing for her alone. They rocked her to dream. She sat quite still in the music-room and let joy reign in her. But in the whole world about her was fear and anxiety and restlessness. No one could sit at his work. No one could think of anything but the great horror that San Pasquale foretold. People began to give the beggars more gifts than they had ever had; but the beggars did not rejoice, because they did not believe they would survive the morrow. And the priests could not rejoice, although they had so many penitents that they had to sit in the confessional all day long, and although gift upon gift was piled up on the altar of the saint. Not even Vicenzo da Lozzo, the letter-writer, was glad of the day, although people besieged his desk under the court-house loggia, and were more than willing to pay him a soldo a word, if they only might write a line of farewell on this their last day to their dear ones far away.