This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
CASTELLINARIA
AND OTHER SICILIAN DIVERSIONS
BY
HENRY FESTING JONES
[Picture: Title page]
LONDON: A. C. FIFIELD 1920
_First Published_ . . . 1911
_Re-issued_ . . . 1920
AL
CARO * COMPARE
ALBERTO * AUGUGLIARO
DI * MONTE * ERICE
ALLA
CARA * COMARE
GIUSEPPINA * AUGUGLIARO
E
A * TUTTI
GLI * AMICI * SICILIANI
CHE
GAREGGIANDO
IN
CORTESIA * OSPITALITA * AFFEZIONE
HANNO * FATTO
DELLA * LORO * ISOLA
UNA * SECONDA * PATRIA
PER
L'AUTORE * RICONOSCENTE
PREFACE
It is probable that every book contains, besides misprints, some
statements which the author would be glad to modify if he could. In
Chapter V of _Diversions in Sicily_ it is stated that the seating
arrangements of the marionette theatre in Catania would be condemned by
the County Council, which I believe to be correct, but, on visiting the
theatre since, I find I was wrong in saying that there are no passages; I
did not see them on my first visit because the audience hid them.
Again, in Chapter XVI it is stated that Giovanni Grasso enters in the
third act of _La Morte Civile_, whereas he enters in the second act. I
have since seen the play several times, and, though it is tedious, it is
not so much so as to justify a spectator in thinking any of its acts long
enough for two.
In Chapter IV I say that the Government makes an annual profit of
3,000,000 pounds sterling out of the lottery, but I do not say whether
this profit is gross or net. There is a paragraph in the _Morning Post_,
12 September, 1911, which states clearly that never since the union of
Italy has the State lottery been so productive as in the present year of
Jubilee; the gross yield has been 3,715,088 pounds, and the net gain,
after deducting commissions and prizes, 1,489,180 pounds.
In Chapter XV it is stated that the words of the play in Signor Greco's
marionette theatre in Palermo are always improvised except in the case of
_Samson_. This is incorrect. The words of the long play about the
paladins are improvised, but they have in the theatre the MSS. of several
religious plays by the author of _Samson_, who was a Palermitan, Filippo
Orioles. All who are interested in the legends, folklore, popular
entertainments, superstitions, and traditions of the people of Sicily are
under deep obligations to Giuseppe Pitre, of Palermo, Professore di
Demopsicologia, for his numerous volumes treating of those subjects. In
_Spettacoli e Feste Popolari Siciliane_ he gives the little that is known
of Filippo Orioles, who died in 1793 at the great age of one hundred and
six years. The subject of the most famous of his plays is the Passion of
Jesus Christ, and its title in English signifies The Redemption of Adam.
It has had an immense success throughout Sicily; it has been copied in
MS. many times, printed continually, performed over and over again in
theatres, in churches, in the public squares, and in private houses. It
was written for living actors, and Signor Greco considers it too long for
a performance by marionettes, so when they do it in his teatrino they
treat it even more freely than our London managers treat a play by
Shakespeare. Copies are difficult to procure because their owners keep
them jealously. Professore Pitre has, however, lately added to our
obligations by publishing a reprint of the play: _Il Riscatto d'Adamo
nella Morte di Gesu Cristo_; Tragedia di Filippo Orioles, Palermitano;
Riprodotta sulla edizione di 1750; con prefazione di G. Pitre. Palermo:
Tipografia Vittoria Giliberti, Via Celso 93. 1909. A copy of this
reprint is in the library of the British Museum.
Many of the friends who have helped me to write this book are named in
the following pages, many more are unnamed. I hereby tender my thanks to
all of them.
I specially thank Signor Cesare Coppo, of Casale-Monferrato, who,
although he is not a Sicilian, has helped me in a manner which I will
only hint at by saying that he could give a better account than I can of
Peppino Pampalone, of Castellinaria.
To an English friend, Mr. Joseph Benwell Clark, I am indebted for the
drawing on the title-page and on the cover. When any of the audience
leaves Signor Greco's marionette theatre in Palermo to smoke a cigarette
or to drink a glass of water between the acts he receives a ticket with a
picture of two fighting paladins, which he gives up on returning. I
brought away one of these tickets as a ricordo of the marionettes. The
picture is not very clear, because it is printed from a wood-block that
has been a good deal worn. Mr. Clark has made from it a drawing which
looks more like what the artist originally intended, and I trust that
Signor Greco will not be angry with us for assuming his permission to
reproduce the picture.
In correcting the proof-sheets I have had the assistance of my sister,
Miss Lilian Isabel Jones, and of my friend Mr. R. A. Streatfeild. I am
much obliged to them both for the care which they have exercised.
I must not conclude without saying that Castellinaria still remains as in
Chapter II of my previous book, "not so marked on any map of Sicily."
_September_, 1911
CONTENTS
CASTELLINARIA
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CHANGES IN THE TOWN 17
II. FESTA RIMANDATA 36
PALERMO
III. MARIONETTISTS AT HOME 53
IV. MALAGIGI 66
V. ARGANTINO 73
VI. THE ESCAPE FROM PARIS 82
CATANIA
VII. THE BUFFO'S HOLIDAY 93
TRAPANI
VIII. THE NASCITA 115
MOUNT ERYX
IX. THE COMPARE 129
X. COMPARE BERTO 135
XI. BERTO'S WEDDING 142
TRABONELLA
XII. SULPHUR 151
XIII. OMERTA AND THE MAFIA 157
XIV. MALA VITA 165
CASTELLINARIA
XV. THE CARDINALESSA 177
XVI. THE CORPORAL 185
EARTHQUAKE ECHOES
XVII. TOTO CARBONARA 203
TURIDDU BALISTRIERI 208
RAILWAY PORTERS 216
GIUSEPPE PLATANIA 220
GIULIO ADAMO 222
CECE LUNA 223
FUGITIVES AND VICTIMS 227
THE SLOPES OF ETNA
XVIII. LAVA 233
XIX. S. ALFIO 242
XX. THE NAKED RUNNERS 248
CATANIA
XXI. HOLY WEEK 261
ORTIGIA
XXII. O FOUNTAIN ARETHUSE 289
CASTELLINARIA
CHAPTER I
CHANGES IN THE TOWN
Enrico Pampalone entered the world with a compliment to his godfather,
for of all the days in the year he chose to be born on my birthday.
Peppino sent me a telegram at once, then a formal invitation to the
christening, then a letter, an extract from which I translate:
With immense joy I inform you that Brancaccia has given to the light
a fine, healthy boy. Mother and child are well and send you their
salutations. We are all beside ourselves with delight at this happy
event and my father is talking of his grandson all day long. In
accordance with your promise, you ought to hold the baby at the
baptism, but, as I absolutely cannot permit you to undertake so long
a journey for this purpose, I am sending you a formal document and I
beg you to return it to me at once signed with your name in order
that the ceremony may take place with as little delay as possible.
We are all looking forward to the pleasure of seeing you playing with
your godchild which you will be able to do on your next visit.
The formal document was to the following effect:
WHEREAS I the undersigned have undertaken the duty of acting as
godfather to Enrico the new-born son of Giuseppe and Brancaccia
Pampalone of the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) Castellinaria
Sicily AND WHEREAS I am detained in London for several weeks and
desire that the baptism of the said infant shall not be delayed on
that account NOW I DO HEREBY APPOINT Luigi Pampalone the father of
the said Giuseppe Pampalone to be my substitute for me and in my name
to hold the said Enrico Pampalone his grandson at the sacred font on
the occasion of his baptism and to do all such other acts and deeds
as may be necessary in the promises as fully and effectually as I
could do the same if I were present in my own person I hereby
agreeing to ratify and confirm all that the said Luigi Pampalone
shall do by virtue of this writing AS WITNESS my hand this day of
I filled up the date, signed the document, and returned it to Peppino,
and he told me all about the ceremony. By virtue of the christening I
became the padrino of Enrico, who became my figlioccio, and I also became
the compare of Peppino and Brancaccia and in some spiritual way a member
of the family. Peppino sent me a post-card every week, and so I learnt
that the baby was the finest ever seen, and weighed more and ate more
than any baby that had ever been born in Castellinaria. Then there came
information about the first tooth and the first intelligent, if
unintelligible, sounds. Soon he was three months old, then six, then a
year, and still I had not seen him.
When at last I returned to Sicily, he was more than a year old, and came
down to the station to meet me. He laughed as soon as he saw me, threw
away his india-rubber ball, and signified that he was to be given to me.
Whatever he wants is always done at once and, as he never wants anything
unreasonable, the method is working out admirably. I took him from
Brancaccia, and he nestled down in my arms, all the time gazing up at me
with an expression of satisfied wonder, as though at last he understood
something that had been puzzling him. Peppino was present, but effaced
himself by helping Carmelo with what he calls my "luggages." I suppose I
exchanged the usual greetings with the parents, but they did not count, I
had seen them since their marriage; this time I had come to see Enrico.
There was some difficulty about getting into the carriage, because they
thought I could not do it unless they took him away, and he did not want
to be taken away. When we were settled, and Carmelo was driving us up
the zig-zags, I said:
"Of course you don't expect me to know much about babies, not being
married or anything--but isn't he an unusually fine child for his age?"
Brancaccia was much flattered and replied that recently, when they had
bought him some new clothes, he took the size usually sold for babies of
twice his age. This made Peppino laugh at his wife, and say that the
compare might not know much about babies, but he knew how to get on the
right side of Ricuzzu's mother.
"Why do you call him Ricuzzu?" I asked.
"Ricuzzu is Enrico in Sicilian."
"Then I shall call him Ricuzzu also."
"Of course, yes."
The motion of the carriage soon sent the child to sleep. I handed him
back to Brancaccia, and looked at her as she sat with him in her arms.
She was more beautiful than before, because of something that has eluded
the skill of all the painters who have striven to capture it for their
hortus siccus of the Madonna and Child, something that Enrico had
awakened in her heart, and that I saw glowing in her eyes and throbbing
in all her movements.
"Isn't he like Peppino?" asked Brancaccia.
"He is the very image of Peppino," I replied; but I noticed that he also
had Brancaccia's blue eyes, and was promising to have her black hair.
We arrived at the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) and Peppino took
me up to my room. Brancaccia had been before us, and had put an enormous
bunch of flowers in water on the table to greet me. I went out on the
balcony, just to make sure that the panorama was still there, and, after
putting myself straight, descended into the garden, where I found Peppino
waiting for me, and where we were to have tea in the English
manner--"sistema Inglese," as Brancaccia said.
The English system is not always in working order at a moment's notice,
so we had time for a walk round. The afternoon breeze was conducting a
symphony of perfumes, and, as we strolled among the blossoms that were
the orchestra, we could identify the part played by each flower;
sometimes one became more prominent, sometimes another, but always
through the changing harmonies we could distinguish the stately canto
fermo of the roses, counterpointed with a florid rhythm from the zagara.
If Flaubert had been writing in Sicilian, he could have said "una corona
di zagara," or, in English, "a wreath of orange-blossoms," and he need
not have worried himself to death by trying to elude the recurrent "de"
of "une couronne de fleurs d'oranger." There was also music of another
kind coming from a passero solitario (the blue rock thrush) who was
hanging in a cage in a doorway. We spoke to him, and he could not have
made more fuss about us if we had been the King of Italy and the Pope of
Rome paying him a visit.
I said, "Aren't you pleased with your beautiful garden, Peppino?"
He replied, "Yes, and other things too. Sometimes I am cross with my
life; but I think of Brancaccia and the baby, and I look around me, and
then I says to myself, 'Ah, well, never mind! Be a good boy!'"
Presently we came to a fountain which, when I turned a tap, twisted round
and round, spouting out graceful, moving curves, and the drops fell in
the basin below and disturbed the rose-leaves that were sleeping on the
water. I also found an image of the Madonna and Bambino in a corner,
with an inscription in front promising forty days' indulgence to anyone
who should recite devoutly an Ave before it. I understood this as well
as one who is not a Roman Catholic can be said to understand such a
promise, and better than I understood another image to which Peppino
called my attention. It was a small coloured crockery S. Giuseppe,
standing on the top of the wall and looking into the garden, protected by
a couple of tiles arranged over him as an inverted V, and held in place
by dabs of mortar.
I said, "Why do you keep your patron saint on the wall like that?"
He replied that it had nothing to do with him. The land over the wall
belongs to the monks, and they put the saint up to gaze into the garden
in the hope that Peppino's father might thereby become gradually
illuminated with the idea of giving them a piece of his land; they wanted
it to join to their own, which is rather an awkward shape just there.
The influence of S. Giuseppe had already been at work four years, but
Peppino's father still remained obstinately unilluminated.
Carmelo brought the tea and set a chair for Ricuzzu, who has his own
private meals like other babies but likes to sit up to the table and
watch his father and mother having theirs, occasionally honouring their
repast by trying his famous six--or is it seven?--teeth upon a crust,
which he throws upon the ground when he has done with it. So we all four
sat together in the shade of the Japanese medlar-tree and talked about
the changes in the town since my last visit.
First Peppino repeated something he had told me last time I was there,
before Ricuzzu was born. It was about the horror of that fatal night
when he heard his father crying in the dark; he went to his parents' room
to find out what was the matter, and heard the old man babbling of being
lost on Etna, wandering naked in the snow. Peppino struck a light, which
woke his father from his dream, but it did not wake his mother. She had
been lying for hours dead by her husband's side.
When the body was laid out and the watchers were praying by it at night,
the widower sat in a chair singing. He was not in the room with the
body, he had his own room, and his song was unlike anything Peppino had
ever heard; it had no words, no rhythm, no beginning and no end, yet it
was not moaning, it was a cantilena of real notes. It seemed to be a
comfort to him in his grief to pour these lamenting sounds out of his
broken heart. All the town came to the funeral, for the family is held
in much respect, and there were innumerable letters of condolence and
wreaths of flowers. When it was over, Peppino wrote a paragraph which
appeared in the _Corriere di Castellinaria_:
A tutte le pie cortesi persone che con assistenza, con scritti, con
l'intervento ai funebri della cara sventurata estinta, con adornarne
di fiori l'ultima manifestazione terrena desiderarono renderne meno
acre it dolore, ringraziamenti vivissimi porge la famiglia PAMPALONE.
He showed me this and waited while I copied it. When I had finished he
went on, talking more to himself than to me:
"The life it is not the same when we are wanting someone to be here that
is gone away. When we were young and this person was living, things it
was so; now we can understand this person who is gone, and things it is
other. This is not a good thing. Now is the time this dear person
should be living; now would we be taking much care."
For many weeks they feared lest the father might follow the mother, but
he began to take a new interest in life on the day when Peppino brought
home his bride, and when Ricuzzu was born he soon became almost his old
self.
"Things it is like that," said Peppino; "the young ones are coming to dry
the eyes that have tears in them because the old ones are going away."
Brancaccia's attention was occupied by the tea and the baby, and by
trying to follow Peppino's talk. He has been giving her English lessons
and, though she has not yet got much beyond saying, "Me no speakare
l'Inglese," she is quick enough to know what he is talking about,
especially as she has heard most of it before. She now said a few words
in dialect, evidently reminding him of something, and he at once began to
tell me about their wedding tour. He had told me some of it last time I
was there, and how he had wanted to take his bride to England and show
her London, but they had not time enough, and that journey has been put
off for some future occasion. They went to Venice, which was a
particularly suitable place, because his cousin Vanni was there with his
ship, the _Sorella di Ninu_, unloading a cargo of wine; they crossed by
night to Naples, and Peppino showed Brancaccia Pompeii and all the
sights; then they went to Rome for a few days and on, through Florence,
to Venice. They stayed there a week, and then Vanni, having unloaded his
wine, took them down the Adriatic and brought them safely home again.
"It was sun," said Peppino, "and we was in Venice, Sammarco Place, where
is--how speak you the colomba?--Excuse me, it is the dove. And there was
different other people also--love-people, the young ones that go to the
field in the spring to take the flower Margherita, and to be pulling the
leaves to know the future, plenty many; also sposi, and some that bring
the macchina to make the picture, and the bride was to be standing with
the colomba in the hand. She put the grain in the hand, and would have a
colomba that was with his feet in her finger and eat the grain; but the
bridegroom was not clever to take the photograph and the colomba
was--what is it?--he was finish his grain and flied away, and she was
telling to her sposo:
"'Now you are not clever to take the photograph and you shall be obliged
to pay for another packet of grain.'
"In the second time, not only a colomba was in the hand but also another
one was stopping in the hat very large with the colomba, too large, I am
not certain that the bridegroom was able to take all the photograph."
Whereupon Brancaccia interposed, producing the result, and I exclaimed:
"Why, it is Brancaccia herself! I did not know you meant that this
happened to you. I thought you were telling me about other sposi, not
about yourselves."
Then they laughed together, and I saw that Brancaccia, by showing me the
photograph, had let out more than was intended, unless perhaps it was all
intended; either way, no harm was done, and I was allowed to put the
picture in my pocket.
Carmelo came to clear away the tea, and I said:
"It seems to me, Peppino, that you have a new waiter. What has become of
Letterio?"
"Ah! you do not know about Letterio. Now I shall tell you."
At this point it became necessary for Brancaccia to disappear somewhat
suddenly with the baby.
"It was festa," said Peppino, "and Letterio was drinking and his friends
were telling to drink some more, and he was drinking plenty much. Then
was he going out in a very hurry and was telling that he would be married
very directly and was meeting a girl and was telling: 'Please, you, marry
me this day.' And the girl was telling: 'Go away, Letterio, you are a
drunk man.' And he was finding another girl and they was telling the
same things--plenty girls--all that day. Afterwards many weeks are
passing and Letterio don't be asking to be married, he was telling always
that he would not be married never, never, never; also with the suspicion
that no girl would take him. Excuse me, it is like the man who was fell
down from the horse and was telling that he was go down--was not fell
down. And it was festa again and Letterio was drinking plenty much again
and was going on the street again and was meeting a girl again and was
telling: 'Please, you, marry me very directly.' And the girl was
replying: 'Yes.'"
"But surely," I exclaimed, "surely they were not so silly as to get
married when he was sober, were they?"
It seemed, however, that they were. To save the expense and avoid the
chaff that would have attended a marriage in Castellinaria, they went to
the next village for a couple of days and returned married.
"But when the man," said Peppino, "must be finding the courage in the
bottle, this is not a good thing. The courage for the happy marriage
must be in the heart. We know that good wine it is sincero, it makes to
be speaking the truth; yes, very likely. But the wine it is sometimes
traditore, it can also be telling the--what is bugia? Excuse me, it is
the lie."
"And so Letterio is married?"
"Look here, he was married. Now I shall tell you. Oh! what a bad woman
she was! Impossible to keep her in the albergo. 'Please go away,
Letterio; I am very sorry; you and your wife also.' And went away, to
his home in Messina and his wife also. In the winter was coming the
disaster, the terremoto, the earthquake, and the city was finished to be
consumed and the train was bringing the fugitives all day and all night.
I was down to the station, Brancaccia was making ready the beds, Carmelo
was driving them up and was bringing more and then more--broken people,
also whole people, all without nothing, very undressed, and the albergo
was became a hospital, a refugio, and the doctors were committing
operations upon them in the bedrooms and were curing them and curing them
till they died and went away in the cimitero--Oh! it was very
pitiful--and sometimes they were repairing them and sending them away in
the train. And I was making the journey with the hopeness to un-dig
Letterio. During three days was I searching the mournful ruins of
Messina but I don't be finding Letterio, nor alive nor dead, nor his
wife, and I am unhappy; also Brancaccia is unhappy. This is why she was
now going away with Ricuzzu."
"Oh! I thought probably the baby had--"
"Yes, many times that is the explication, but this time it is other; it
is that she don't like to be hearing the story of Letterio. I shall tell
you that Brancaccia is a gentle person, very tender in the heart."
"Yes," I agreed, "of course she is. But are not you both making too much
of this? You could not have known there would be an earthquake in
Messina. If there was to be one it might have been in some other city,
and they would not have been destroyed."
"Look here; perhaps she was not a so bad woman; perhaps some day she
would be making a little Ricuzzu and would be learning to be a good
woman."
"She might learn very slowly or not at all; and think of her poor husband
all the time!"
"Let us talk of something other. Do you remember Alfio Mascalucia?"
"Perhaps; what did he do?"
"You were always calling him Bellini."
"In the barber's shop opposite? Of course, I remember him, but I had no
idea he had such a magnificent name or I never should have dared to take
liberties with it."
I remembered him very well. I remembered going into the shop one day and
he was alone, busy writing at a table in the corner. He said he was
composing a polka. He had ruled his own staves because, like Schubert,
he could not afford to buy music paper; he wanted all the money he could
save to pay a publisher to publish his polka--just as we do in
England--and if it succeeded his fortune would be made. I felt a sinking
at the heart, as though he was telling me he had been gazing on the
mirage of the lottery until he had dreamt a number. He had filled about
two pages and a half with polka stuff, but had not yet composed the
conclusion.
"You see, what I must do is to make it arrive there where the bars end"
(he had drawn his bar lines by anticipation); "that will not be
difficult; it is the beginning that is difficult--the tema. It does not
much matter now what I write for the coda in those empty bars, but I must
fill them all with something."
I said, "Yes. That, of course--well, of course, that is the proper
spirit in which to compose a polka."
As I had shown myself so intelligent, he often talked to me about his
music and his studies; he had an Italian translation of Cherubini's
_Treatise_, and had nearly finished all the exercises down to the end of
florid counterpoint in four parts. His professor was much pleased with
him, and had congratulated him upon possessing a mind full of resource
and originality--just the sort of mind that is required for composing
music of the highest class. He explained to me that counterpoint is a
microcosm. In life we have destiny from which there is no escape; in
counterpoint we have the canto fermo of which not a note may be altered.
Destiny, like the canto fermo, is dictated for us by One who is more
learned and more skilful than we; it is for us to accept what is given,
and to compose a counterpoint, many counterpoints, that shall flow over
and under and through, without breaking any of the rules, until we reach
the full close, which is the inevitable end of both counterpoint and
life.
I called him Bellini because he told me that the composer of _Norma_ had
attained to a proficiency in counterpoint which was miraculous, and that
he was the greatest musician the world had ever known. This high praise
was given to Bellini partly, of course, because he was a native of
Catania. London is a long way from Catania, and in England perhaps we
rather neglect Italian music of the early part of last century. Once, at
Casale-Monferrato, I heard a travelling company do _I Puritani_; they did
it extremely well, and I thought the music charming, especially one
sparkling little tune sung by Sir Giorgio to warn Sir Riccardo that if he
should see a couple of fantasmas they would be those of Elvira and Lord
Arturo. Alfio may have been thinking of the maxim, "Ars est celare
artem," and may have meant to say that Bellini had shown himself a more
learned contrapuntist than (say) Bach, by concealing his contrapuntal
skill more effectually than Bach had managed to conceal his in the _Mass
in B minor_. While my hair was being cut I examined the polka with
interest; it was quite carefully done, the bass was figured all through
and the discords were all resolved in the orthodox manner; after the shop
was shut he came over to the albergo and played it to us on the piano in
the salon. I should say it was a very good polka, as polkas go, and
certainly more in the manner of the Catanian maestro than in that of the
Leipzig cantor.
"And what about Alfio?" I asked. "Did he also marry a bad woman?"
Then Peppino told me the story of the Figlio di Etna. He called him this
because he came from a village on the slopes of the volcano, where his
parents kept a small inn, the Albergo Mongibello, and where also lived
his cousin Maria, to whom he was engaged. In the days when he used to
talk to me about his counterpoint, Alfio was about twenty-four, and
always so exceedingly cheerful and full of his music that no one would
have suspected that his private life was being carried on in an inferno,
yet so it was; a widow had fallen in love with him, and had insisted on
his living with her. "And look here," said Peppino, "the bad day for
Alfio was the day when he went to the house of the widow." He was too
much galantuomo to resist; he had not forgotten Maria but he thought she
could wait, and besides, he was at first flattered by the widow's
attentions and amused by the novelty of the situation; but he never cared
for the widow, and soon his chains became unbearable. As Peppino said,
"There don't be some word to tell the infernalness it is when you are
loved by the woman you hate." He exercised his contrapuntal ingenuity by
devising schemes for circumventing this troublesome passage in the canto
fermo of his life without breaking any of the rules, and finally hit upon
the device of running away. So many men in a similar difficulty have
done the same thing, that his professor, and even the stern Cherubini
himself, would have condemned the progression less on account of its
harshness and irregularity than because of its lack of originality. He
scraped together about fifty francs and disappeared to Livorno where he
soon found work in a barber's shop, cutting hair, trimming and shaving
beards and whiskers, and making wigs for the theatre. He wrote the widow
two letters containing nothing but conventional compliments, and
displayed his resource and originality by posting one in the country and
sending the other to a friend in Genoa who posted it there.
After about three months of freedom, counterpoint and hair-dressing, he
was sent for to return to his village for a few days and vote; Peppino
anticipated my inquiry about the money for the journey by protesting that
he knew nothing about the details of politics. However it may have been
managed, Alfio got leave from his employer, went home and voted. He said
nothing about the widow, but he promised Maria to return and marry her in
a year, when he should have saved enough money. He did not know how he
was going to do it, but he had to say something. Then the silly fellow
must needs go for a day to Castellinaria to salute his friends in the
barber's shop there--just as murderers seem never to learn that it is
injudicious to re-visit the scenes of their crimes. Naturally the widow
heard of his being in the town, they met in the street and had a terrible
row. What frightened poor Alfio most was a sort of half persuasion that
perhaps he had behaved badly to her. But he did not relent; he returned
to his village, bade farewell to his family, embraced his adorata mamma,
renewed his promise to Maria, went down to Catania, entered the station
and turned pale as he saw the widow sitting in a corner with a parcel and
a bundle.
"Where are you going?"
"I am coming with you."
He had let out that he would return to Livorno in a few days, and she had
resolved to accompany him, wherever he might be going. She had sold all
her furniture in a hurry and come to Catania, knowing that he must start
from there. She waited for him inside the station when it was open,
outside when it was shut; she had to wait four days and four nights. She
refused to leave him. She bought her own ticket and travelled with him.
They settled down in Livorno--if that can be called settling down which
was a continual hurly-burly; the only repose about it appeared in the
bar's rests to which poor Alfio's counterpoint was now reduced. He grew
irritable, abused her and beat her; but she was one of those women who
love their man more passionately the more he knocks them about. Maria
sent him a post-card for his onomastico, and the widow got hold of it.
This led to his leaving the house for a few nights, but she had always
taken his money for housekeeping, so he had not enough to leave the town,
and she came to the shop in the daytime and made such a disturbance that
he was frightened into returning. He dreamt of disguising himself in one
of his own theatrical wigs and escaping so, but the idea was too like
some of those contrapuntal combinations which, as Cherubini says, may be
employed in a study-fugue, but which in practical music, as in practical
life, have to be weeded out by artificial selection.
Then his mother fell ill, and the family sent him the money to go home to
embrace her. The widow had put some of his money by for an emergency.
She was not going to lose sight of him again, especially now that she
knew about Maria; she bought a ticket and came too. They spent the night
at her brother's house in Catania and Alfio was to go next day to his
village. She said she would come too, he said that nothing would induce
him to take her with him. She implored and stormed and spat and swore,
knowing all the time she could not appear in his village as belonging to
him, and fearing that he intended to manipulate his going home alone into
a way of escape. She pretended to acquiesce but, in the morning, as he
was passing through the Quattro Canti she was there, disguised as a man
in her brother's clothes, and before Alfio could recognise her she had
stabbed him in the back and he fell down dead.
"But, Peppino," I exclaimed, "this is a worse tragedy than the other.
What a horrible woman!"
"The Padre Eterno was very angry that day when he made the bad woman."
"Where is she now?"
"In prison."
"That is no satisfaction to poor Alfio."
"No; and not satisfaction to his family. His mother died of grief during
that they were telling her his murder."
"And Maria?"
"Maria is telling that she would becoming a monkey-woman."
"What do you mean?"
"How do you say in English the lady-priest, the monaca?"
"Oh! yes,--a nun. But it seems a pity she should take such a serious
step. It is a dreadful story, Peppino."
"Yes; and I am fortunate because I also meet the bad woman."
"Was Alfio's widow a friend of yours?"
"No; I meet her in London."
"I'm glad she did not stab you."
"Not the widow--some other woman."
"I don't quite understand."
"It is difficult to understand--difficult to be sure when it is the bad
woman. The bad woman is like mosquitoes--not wanted but would not go
away."
"Tell me what happened."
"When I was in London, I was at this place where is the--please, what is
campo? No, not campo, but where is the beast with the horn in the
head--the cervo?"
"Ah! yes, the deer. You mean the Zoological Gardens."
"No, no. This place where is the villa with the red palazzo and the
chief labours of painting and beds and chinesy images are over the place
where is coming the fire in the winter-time, and on the wall is also the
armatura and the deer it is in the trees on the side of the river."
"I believe you mean Hampton Court."
"Yes, and was telling to the lady--she was a very kind lady--"
"But please, what lady? Alfio's widow was not at Hampton Court?"
"She was the wife of the plumber."
"I am afraid I am very stupid, Peppino, but I don't seem to get hold of
it. Who is the plumber?"
"I meet him at Margate; also his lady, his wife; they invite me to their
house; I accept their invitation."
"But Margate is not Hampton Court."
"No, they inhabit Hampton Court; they go to Margate for the
villeggiatura, for the--how do you say?--for the baths of the sea."
"Oh, now I understand. You met them at Margate and they invited you to
call on them at their house at Hampton Court."
"Of course, yes. And when I arrive, the husband, the plumber, he went
away with his tools for his work in a sack, and his lady she says to me,
'Please sit down.' And we talk together. She was a very kind lady. And
presently--she was on the sofa by the window and I was in a chair by the
fire--presently her husband return. I was like a fish not in his water,
but oh! it was my salvation. Why must he be leaving us together? She
was a very kind lady. And then to be returning without noise, so soon
and so sudden. Do you think--?"
I did not know. It looked rather like it, but the psychology of the
Hampton Court plumber resembles the Italian music of the early part of
last century in that it is but little studied among us. So I
congratulated him on his escape, and inquired whether any of Alfio's
compositions had been published.
"Alfio don't be writing no compositions."
"He told me he was composing music."
"Alfio never compose something. Too busy. Look here, the student that
shall be always making the exercise he don't be never composing the
music."
"But that polka? Don't you remember he came over to the albergo and
played us his polka?"
"Alfio don't write the polka. His professor gave him the polka to copy
for study."
"Oh! I see. Well, now don't you think we have had enough tragedies? Has
nothing pleasant happened in the town since--? What a stupid question!
Here is Brancaccia bringing the answer."
Brancaccia not only brought the baby, she also brought to show me the
clothes in which he had been christened, just as on my last visit, before
he was born, she had brought and shown me the clothes in which she had
been married. I have a confused recollection of fine muslin and
embroidery and pretty gay ribbons. I remember more clearly her necklace
of Sicilian amber which has been in the family for generations and, in
the natural order of things, will one day be passed on to the wife of
Ricuzzu. Each piece of amber is circular, flat underneath and convex
above, and is surrounded with a fine golden band whereby it is joined to
the next, side by side. The two smallest, at the back of the wearer's
neck, near the clasp, are about as big as threepenny bits, and the pieces
increase in size through sixpences, shillings, florins, half-crowns,
until the one in the middle on her breast is nearly as large as a
five-shilling piece. They are all sorts of colours, honey-yellow, rich
orange, Venetian red, brown sherry, some clear and some clouded, some
have insects in them, some when held properly in the sunlight, have a
fluorescent, hazy tinge like the blue in a horse's eye, some are a
peacock-green and others a deep purple. The largest piece is green, and
has objects in it which Brancaccia says are cherry-blossoms. Peppino
accepts his wife's view because it amuses him to call this piece The
Field of Enna, where Proserpine was gathering flowers when Pluto carried
her off, and these are the flowers she was gathering. But he knows that
this kind of amber is called Simetite, because it is the fossilised resin
of some prehistoric tree that used to grow on the upper reaches of the
river Simeto which rises at the back of Etna, beyond Bronte, and falls
into the sea near Catania; whereas Castrogiovanni, which is the modern
Enna, is not on the Simeto. Castrogiovanni is, however, not far from the
upper part of another river, which falls into the Simeto near the sea.
And he argues that if The Field of Enna was washed down the
Castrogiovanni river it may still have exuded from a tree of the same
kind as those that used to grow on the Simeto, and in any case it had to
pass through the mouth of the Simeto before reaching the sea, and so it
may be called Simetite. Having got into the sea, it was thrown up in a
storm or found in a fisherman's net.
Then I must be shown the mule, with his beautiful harness, and the new
cart which Ricuzzu had received as a birthday present from his
grandfather; so we went to the stable. The cart was painted with the
story of Orlando's madness, showing first how he had gone to bed in his
boots; or rather how he lay outside a bed that was too short for him with
all his armour on, like a lobster on a dish. This occurred in the house
of a contadino who was standing with a lighted candle in his hand and had
brought his wife. They did not know to whom they were speaking, and were
telling him that the room had been occupied last by a knight and his lady
and that the lady, in gratitude for their hospitality, had given the
contadina a bracelet, saying that she had received it as a present from
Orlando. And Orlando was exclaiming:
"Show me that bracelet."
In the second picture the contadina had brought the bracelet, and Orlando
was sitting up, contemplating it and saying:
"It is the bracelet which I gave to Angelica. The last occupants of this
bed must have been that fatal woman and her husband Medoro. I am Orlando
Paladino."
These were the two panels on one side of the cart. On the other side,
the third picture showed Orlando, who had got off the bed, and was
standing up delivering a long "Addio" in the manner of Othello--one could
almost hear the words: "Orlando's occupation's gone." The contadino and
his wife were furtively leaving the room, perhaps because poetry bored
these simple folk, but it may have been because Orlando, having no
further use for his arms, was punctuating his speech by throwing away
first la Durlindana, next his shield, then his helmet, his cuirass, front
and back, his leggings, and his shirt.
In the last picture he had nothing on but a pair of short white drawers;
he had gone quite mad and had knocked down the house; its fall revealed a
smiling landscape across which peasants and sheep were escaping, and the
trees shook with the violence of his fury. He was catching some of the
peasants and throwing them away, shouting and cursing that fatal woman,
and struggling to drown the music and the drum, which made a crescendo
till the curtain fell. I should have recognised it even if the pictures
had not had titles, because I had recently seen it in a marionette
theatre.
The harness cost as much as the cart, and it took a month to make it. It
was of leather, wood and metal, tasselled with gold and silver and wool
of many colours; here and there were sparkling bits of looking-glass, and
little pictures of ladies; here and there circles and crescents of blue
and red felt, and little pictures of cupids and angels. Other spaces
were covered with silver tinsel and spangles. There were spread eagles
and horses' heads and two bouquets of artificial flowers. There was a
St. George and the Dragon carved in wood and painted, there were bells
and ribbons, and two trophies of coloured feathers, one for the head and
another for the back, each more magnificent, and three or four times
larger, than the plume which the maresciallo dei carabinieri wears with
his gala uniform.