The appearance of the three fountains: the beautiful lady seen by Bruno Cornacchiola

Sitting in the shade of an eucalyptus, Bruno tries to concentrate, but he doesn't have time to write down a few notes that the children return to the office: "Daddy, daddy, we can't find the ball that was lost, because there are many thorns and we are barefoot and we hurt ourselves ... ». «But you are not good for anything! I'll go, »says Dad a little annoyed. But not before using a precautionary measure. In fact, he makes little Gianfranco sit on top of the pile of clothes and shoes that the children had taken off because it was very hot that day. And to make him feel comfortable, he puts the magazine in his hands to look at the figures. Meanwhile, Isola, instead of helping Dad to find the ball, wants to go over the cave to collect some flowers for Mum. "Okay, be careful, however, to Gianfranco who is small and could get hurt, and not make him go near the cave." "Okay, I'll take care of it," reassures him. Papa Bruno takes Carlo with him and the two go down the slope, but the ball is not found. To make sure that little Gianfranco is always in his place, his dad occasionally calls him and after getting an answer, he goes further and further down the slope. This is repeated three or four times. But when, after calling him, he gets no answer, worried, Bruno rushes back up the slope with Carlo. He calls again, in a louder and louder voice: "Gianfranco, Gianfranco, where are you?", But the boy no longer answers and is no longer in the place where he left him. More and more worried, he looks for him in the bushes and rocks, until his eye runs off towards a cave and sees the little boy kneeling on the edge. "Island, get down!" Shouts Bruno. Meanwhile, he approaches the cave: the child is not only kneeling but also holds his hands as if in an attitude of prayer and looks inward, all smiling ... He seems to whisper something ... He gets closer to the little one and distinctly hears these words: « Beautiful Lady! ... Beautiful Lady! ... Beautiful Lady! ... ». "He repeated these words like a prayer, a song, a praise," recalls the father verbatim. "What are you saying, Gianfranco?" Bruno shouts at him, "what's wrong? ... what do you see? ..." But the child, attracted by something strange, does not respond, does not shake himself, remains in that attitude and with an enchanting smile always repeats the same words. Isola arrives with a bouquet of flowers in his hand: "What do you want, Daddy?" Bruno, between the angry, the amazed and the frightened, thinks that it is a game of children, since no one in the house had taught the child to pray, having not even been baptized. So he asks Isola: "But did you teach him this game of the" Beautiful Lady "?". «No, dad, I don't know him 'I'm playing, I never played with Gianfranco». "And how come you say," Beautiful Lady "?" "I don't know, Dad: maybe someone has entered the cave." So saying, Isola pushes aside the broom flowers that hung over the entrance, looks inside, then turns: "Dad, there's nobody!", And starts to leave, when she suddenly stops, the flowers fall from her hands and she too kneels with her hands clasped, next to her little brother. He looks towards the interior of the cave and as he murmurs kidnapped: "Beautiful Lady! ... Beautiful Lady! ...". Papa Bruno, angry and bewildered more than ever, cannot explain the curious and strange way of doing the two, who on their knees, enchanted, look towards the inside of the cave, always repeating the same words. He begins to suspect that they are making fun of him. Then call Carlo who was still looking for the ball: «Carlo, come here. What are Isola and Gianfranco doing? ... But what is this game? ... Did you agree? ... Listen, Carlo, it's late, I have to prepare for tomorrow's speech, go ahead and play, as long as you don't go into that cave…". Carlo looks at Dad astonished and shouts at him: "Dad, I'm not playing, I can't do it! ...", and he starts to leave too, when he stops abruptly, turns to the cave, joins his two hands and kneels near Isola. He too fixes a point inside the cave and, fascinated, repeats the same words as the other two ... Dad then can't take it anymore and shouts: «And no, huh? ... This is too much, you don't make fun of me. Enough, get up! » But nothing happens. None of the three listen to him, nobody gets up. Then he approaches Carlo and: "Carlo, get up!" But that does not move and continues to repeat: "Beautiful Lady! ...". Then, with one of the usual outbursts of anger, Bruno takes the boy by the shoulders and tries to move him, to put him back on his feet, but he can't. "It was like lead, as if it weighed tons." And here the anger begins to give way to fear. We try again, but with the same result. Anxiously, he approaches the little girl: "Isola, get up, and don't act like Carlo!" But Isola doesn't even answer. Then he tries to move her, but he can't do it with her either ... He looks with terror at the ecstatic faces of the children, their eyes wide and shining and makes the last attempt with the youngest, thinking: "I can raise this". But he too weighs like marble, "like a stone column stuck on the ground", and he can't lift it. Then he exclaims: "But what happens here? ... Are there any witches in the cave or some devil? ...". And his hatred against the Catholic Church immediately leads him to think that it is some priest: "Will it not be some priest who entered the cave and hypnotism hypnotizes my children?". And he shouts: "Whoever you are, even a priest, come out!" Absolute silence. Then Bruno enters the cave with the intention of punching the strange being (as a soldier he also distinguished himself as a good boxer): «Who's here?», He shouts. But the cave is absolutely empty. He goes out and tries again to raise the children with the same result as before. Then the poor panicked man climbs the hill to seek help: "Help, help, come and help me!". But nobody sees and nobody must have heard it. He returns excitedly by the children who, still kneeling with folded hands, continue to say: "Beautiful Lady! ... Beautiful Lady! ...". He approaches and tries to move them ... He calls them: "Carlo, Isola, Gianfranco! ...", but the children remain motionless. And here Bruno begins to cry: "What will it be? ... what happened here? ...". And full of fear he raises his eyes and hands to heaven, shouting: "God save us!". As soon as he uttered this cry for help, Bruno sees two candid, transparent hands coming out from inside the cave, slowly approaching him, touching his eyes, making them fall like scales, like a veil that blinded him ... bad ... but then, suddenly his eyes are invaded by such a light that for a few moments everything disappears before him, children, cave ... and he feels light, ethereal, as if his spirit had been freed from matter. A great joy is born within him, something completely new. In that state of kidnapping, even the children no longer hear the usual exclamation. When Bruno starts seeing again after that moment of luminous blinding, he notices that the cave lights up until it disappears, swallowed by that light ... Only a block of tuff stands out and above this, barefoot, the figure of a woman wrapped in a halo of golden light, with features of a celestial beauty, untranslatable in human terms. Her hair is black, united on the head and just protruding, as much as the lawn-green coat that from the head descends along the sides to the feet allows. Under the mantle, a candid, luminous robe, surrounded by a pink band that descends to two flaps, to its right. The stature seems to be medium, the face color slightly brown, the apparent age of twenty five. In his right hand he holds a book not so bulky, of a cinerine color, leaning against his chest, while his left hand is resting on the book itself. The face of the Beautiful Lady translates an expression of maternal kindness, suffused with serene sadness. "My first impulse was to speak, to raise a cry, but feeling almost immobilized in my faculties, my voice died in my throat," the seer will confide. In the meantime, a very sweet floral scent had spread throughout the cave. And Bruno comments: "I too found myself next to my creatures, on my knees, with folded hands."