COMPARE BERTO
In 1901 I spent ten days on Mount Eryx, now usually called Monte San
Giuliano, near Trapani, where I went to see the nocturnal procession of
_Noah's Ark and the Universal Deluge_ (_Diversions in Sicily_, Chapter
X). During those days I made the acquaintance of about twenty young men
of whom Alberto Augugliaro, the son of the professor of mathematics in
the Ginnasio, was the chief. I have seen him nearly every year since,
first as a student at Trapani, then at the University of Palermo, and
again when he was at home on the Mountain for the holidays, in
villeggiatura, or doing the practical work for his diploma in the
chemist's shop of his uncle. When he became qualified, his uncle handed
the shop over to him and he is now established in it.
One starry September evening in 1909 we were walking together in the
balio (the garden on the top of the Mountain), and I asked whether, as he
was now over thirty, it was not time for him to think of getting married.
He confessed that negotiations were in progress. I inquired the lady's
name, and he came close to me, took my arm and whispered a word in my
ear. If he had shouted the word it would have reached no other ear but
mine. We were alone upon the Mountain; the Ericini were sleeping within
their walls of stone; over their tiled and terraced roofs the stars were
pacing through the night; in front of us and to our right and left, far
below, encircled by its mountainous amphitheatre, the spacious plain was
cooling after the heat of yesterday; behind us, the sea was drowsily
patting the shore round the foot of Monte Cofano and along by happy
Bonagia, swaying idly in and out of the harbours of Trapani and among the
islands--Levanzo, Favognana, and distant Marettimo. Berto need not have
whispered the word; but it was a secret--it was the name of his lady.
Soon after Christmas he announced in the most open manner, that is to say
on a post-card, that the preliminaries were over and that his engagement
to Giuseppina had been made public; I sent congratulations to them both
and he replied in a letter which, omitting the formalities, runs thus in
English:
I, on my part, and Giuseppina, on hers, are extremely contented
because we both love you with that love which is strong and powerful
enough to raise the heart and to transport us above the breathable
air; and, as our thoughts frequently fly to you, our distant English
friend, we make you a proposition, but you will understand that we
lay no obligation upon you and we do not ask you to take any trouble.
Here it is in two words: It is our most vivid desire that you should
become our compare: that is, that you should hold the tazza
containing the ring at our wedding. I repeat, it is our most vivid
desire that you will accede to our request for this honour and we
shall be most grateful to you if you will content us. It is for you
to send your answer which we await with anxiety.
Now, I cannot be more dear to Berto than he is to me--I am not sure about
the breathable air, but he is one of the best fellows I know--so I wrote
saying I was more flattered, honoured, and pleased by his request than I
could express in words. Moreover, it fell out very conveniently because
the ceremony was to take place in the following April at a time when I
intended to be in Sicily. Then came the difficulty about the wedding
present, and whether there was any special duty for a compare to perform
besides holding the ring. I remembered Ignazio's ash-tray and asked
whether perhaps I ought to bring something of the kind from London.
Berto replied that the tazza is a sacred object belonging to the church
and is lent for the ceremony and, as I did not seem to know much about
it, he kindly informed me that the customs of his country on the occasion
of a wedding are as follows:
The father and the mother of the bridegroom and the father and the
mother of the bride invite the relations and friends, who all offer
presents of greater or less value according to the degree of
relationship and friendship. The ring is chosen by the bridegroom in
consultation with the bride. The compare, of his own accord, offers
a present to the couple, more usually he offers it only to the bride.
All this I have told you merely as information with regard to the
customs of my country; it is not necessary for you to give any
present but, if you wish to do so, do as you wish. Wedding presents
are lifelong records of relationship and of friendship.
If I am to speak frankly, loyally and sincerely to you as the friend
I have always been to you, I recommend you to bring some present for
the bride because, as you who have travelled so much must know, in
small places not to receive a present from the compare would be to
provoke the remark among all who talk that the bride and bridegroom
were not complimented by the compare. I tell you this because you
are my dearest friend and not because I wish to be critical. Bring
anything you choose and be sure that whatever may be offered by you
will be accepted by my bride. For me--nothing. I have sufficient in
the thought and the comfort of your friendship.
So I consulted my sister, who recommended me to visit a jeweller's shop.
There is one in Regent Street where I take my sleeve-links to be repaired
when I have the misfortune to break them. She approved and I went and
explained the situation to the young man, who was very kind about it and,
after a few false starts, cordially advised one of a line of gold
pendants much in vogue to be worn with a light chain. He had an
apparently inexhaustible stock, and I became as confused and helpless as
when some change is necessary in my spectacles and the oculist wants to
know whether I see better with this or with that. I have no idea how
long I was there, but in the end I selected a meaningless object of a
design which the young man assured me was original and exclusive, and
which I hoped would appear fairly unobjectionable to the recipient.
After which, not being at all content to leave Berto resting solely on
the thought and comfort of my friendship, I chose for him a dozen silver
teaspoons. My sister, to whom I showed these articles, approved and, of
her own unprompted generosity, added a piece of Irish lace as a special
gift from herself to the bride, though she is unacquainted with any of
the family except from my description. Thus loaded I travelled to
Trapani and went up the Mountain in the public automobile, arriving on a
Thursday morning early in April, 1910, the wedding being fixed for the
following Saturday.
Berto met me at the Trapani gate of the town and took me to the Albergo
Sicilia, where I had stayed when I was on the Mountain in 1901. Signor
Bosco has died since, and his widow keeps on the inn with the help of
some members of her family of six daughters and four sons. One of these
sons is Peppi, a blacksmith, who plays a trombone in the municipal band.
Another is Alberto, one of the chauffeurs who drive the automobile up and
down the Mountain. Alberto and one of his sisters appeared as children
in the procession of the _Universal Deluge_. They were sitting at the
feet of Sin and holding one another's hands to represent the wicked
population destined to destruction. Alberto is now married. His wedding
took place in the morning, and at three o'clock in the afternoon three
hundred guests were entertained at dinner in the Albergo Sicilia, after
which they danced till dawn and, as the wedding was in December, they
must have been rather tired; but it was an exceptional case.
In the afternoon Berto came for me and took me to the house of his bride
to pay my respects. The house belongs to her; she has two brothers and a
sister all married and settled, and on Berto's marriage he will leave the
house of his parents and go and live in his wife's house. We entered
through a door that led through a high blank wall into a courtyard where
there were flowering plants in pots, and steps leading up to the
living-rooms on the first floor over a basement which is used partly as
stabling and partly as storage. This is the form of most of the houses
on the Mountain, and the blank wall and courtyard give them an air of
seclusion. We went up the steps and were received by the bride and many
of her relations, some of whom I had already met, for Giuseppina is a
cousin of Berto's mother. They showed me over the house; the rooms all
led into one another and, though they were not in a row, it was rather
like going over S. Joachim's house when it is being prepared for the
family festa of the Nascita. It would have been still more like it if we
had come in by the other front door, for the side we entered is on a
street that goes up-hill and the house is at a corner with another front
door in the other street at the top of the hill and level with the
living-rooms. This other front door leads straight into a hall, which
will be occupied by the musicians on the evening of the wedding, from
this one passes to the dining-room where the servants are to dance, then
to the salone where the guests are to dance.
We sat in the salone, about twenty of us in a circle, talking the usual
talk, and one of the young ladies asked me whether we had compari at an
English wedding. I said we had something of the kind. She inquired what
I should be called if I were compare at an English wedding, and, seeing
no way out of it, I modestly murmured:
"In England I should be called the Best Man."
This naturally led to a torrent of compliments, which I battled with for
some moments, and finally subdued by asking to see the rest of the house.
We went to the room which had been arranged as the buffet; the walls were
adorned with large looking-glasses, and in the middle was a table for the
cakes and sweets. The buffet is to be my bedroom next time I come to the
Mountain. We passed through two other saloni and then inspected two
bedrooms, one for the happy couple, the other for Berto's mother, who is
to stay with them for the first few days. The presents were arranged on
a table by the side of the nuptial couch, which had arrived that morning
from Palermo together with the rest of the bedroom suite, very handsome,
and made of Hungarian ash. The presents were rather as I have seen
wedding presents in England, plenty of spoons and forks, gold brooches,
rings, bracelets, some set with diamonds and some with other stones, and
I was glad I was not really back in Regent Street choosing my pendant.
We went into the courtyard and into the stable where we saw Mille-lire
the donkey, who is scarcely bigger than a Saint Bernard dog and only cost
thirty-five lire. It was Berto who gave him the name of Mille-lire to
signify that his value far exceeds his price. He has a cart to match and
can take four people, but I think they must be rather small people. He
shares his stable with thirty-eight chickens, old and young, and two
ducks, who all come out into the courtyard to be fed in the sun. There
are also three pigeons, making a total of forty-four creatures. In
addition there are two cats who live in the house and two tortoises who
live in the courtyard. Tortoises are found wild among the rocks in the
mountains and the peasants bring them up to the town and sell them.
These came from Monte Asparacio, which is near Cofano; they cost forty
centimes each, and bring good luck to the house. On Mount Eryx there is
a convent of nuns of S. Teresa, to whom flesh is forbidden, but the
prohibition does not extend to tortoises, which the nuns eat with tomato
sauce. When the nuns begin to feel the infirmities of age they are no
longer limited to this strange meat, the prohibition is withdrawn, and
they live like other old ladies, eating what they choose. I have no idea
how many fourpenny tortoises would make a meal for a healthy young nun on
Monte San Giuliano, where one's appetite is sharpened by the air. They
occasionally add a few snails, which are also permitted; there is a kind
of snail which is found underground and is considered a luxury by others
besides the nuns of S. Teresa.
After the stable and the courtyard we went to the terrace whence, over
the roofs and cupolas and among the towers and belfries of the town,
there is a view of the sea and the plain. Then we visited the kitchen
and saw the oven for baking the bread. All the well-to-do families on
the Mountain possess land on the campagna where they grow their own corn;
they take it to the mill to be weighed and ground, and fetch back the
flour which is also weighed; they know that if they leave a hundred
kilograms of grain they must receive ninety-nine of flour, and in this
wasted kilogram of flour lurks the true reason why the miller wears a
white hat. They bake their own bread and sometimes make their own
maccaroni at home. They grow their own grapes and make their own wine.
They have olive trees for oil, and goats whose milk they drink,
considering it lighter and more digestible than cows' milk. Berto's
sister has a private goat of her own, who lives down in the country and
comes up every morning, a journey of three-quarters of an hour, and she
milks it herself. Thus they pass their lives very close to Mother Earth,
and the seasons sensibly affect their comfort. They have little use for
money except to buy coffee, fish, sugar, meat, and clothes, or the stuff
of which they make their clothes, and some of them raise their own linen
and wool. But they want money when there is a family festa; Berto told
me he had spent 700 lire merely for the sweetmeats and cakes at his
wedding.
All Friday and most of Saturday I spent in being presented to various
members of the family and in making preparations. Berto recommended me
to visit the barber on Saturday afternoon and, as a good Sicilian, I
followed his advice and went to the salone of Peppino. When Samuel
Butler first came to Mount Eryx in 1892 to see whether he could identify
the localities with those described as Scheria and Ithaca in the
_Odyssey_, he slipped in the street and put his ankle out of joint. The
doctor was away, and his foot was set by Peppino, who is a barber-surgeon
with a salone close to the spot where the accident happened. Accordingly
Peppino is the barber I employ when I am on the Mountain. While he was
attending to me I observed a change in the salone, and, on asking where
the looking-glasses were, was told they had been lent to Berto to
ornament the buffet of his wedding festa.
After the barber, I had my dinner, as I found there would be no
opportunity to do so when once the wedding ceremonies had begun, and then
I dressed. In the meantime a cloud began to collect on the Mountain and
the wind began to blow.