BERTO'S WEDDING
A Sicilian wedding is conducted either on system _a_, when the happy
couple go away for their honeymoon and the ceremony is performed in the
morning, or on system _b_, when they do not go away but have a ball at
home, and then the ceremony is performed in the evening. The wedding of
Ignazio proceeded on system _a_, that of Berto and Giuseppina on system
_b_. As for Alberto Bosco, his wedding was either a combination of _a_
and _b_ or an exceptional case.
Berto's brother Nicolao came to fetch me at 5.30 p.m. and took me to the
house of the bride's brother in the piazza, where the bride was waiting.
Her dress was of pale grey crepe trimmed with dull silver embroidery and
she wore zagara in her bonnet. Exceptional cases being excepted, it may
be said that brides only wear white silk and a veil and wreath of orange
blossom, as Ignazio's bride did at the religious ceremony, when the
wedding is conducted on system _a_. I failed to discover any rule about
a cortege of bridesmaids, if there is such a rule it is probably elastic.
The other ladies wore dresses as for a dance in England in the country in
the winter. The gentlemen, like the guests at the Nascita, wore evening
dress. And of course we all had cloaks or over-coats.
When we were about to leave the house, Peppi Bosco, with his trombone and
the rest of the municipal band, began to play, and to the strains of
their music we crossed the piazza in the fog. The bride was conducted by
her brother, the bridegroom came next escorting a lady cousin, I
followed, as compare, with Berto's mother, and the others came after. We
entered the municipio and went upstairs into a large room. The sindaco
sat behind a table, the bride and bridegroom sat facing one another in
two armchairs on the opposite side of the table and we ranged ourselves
about the room.
The sindaco had often before sat at that table and received other wedding
parties, nevertheless he appeared at a loss, or perhaps he disapproved of
matrimony. At any rate he was not going to acquiesce in the proceedings
until he had dwelt, as elderly people will, on the serious nature of the
duties the young people were proposing to undertake. He went so far as
to put clearly before them aspects of the case which they might have
overlooked and to read them legal extracts of a discouraging nature.
They were unmoved, and the sindaco, still dissatisfied, asked Berto
point-blank whether he really wished, under the circumstances, to take
Giuseppina to be his wife. Berto replied in the affirmative. Concealing
his surprise, the sindaco turned to Giuseppina and asked her whether she
wished to be married to Berto. She said she did; and indeed it was the
reason why we were all there, as the sindaco must have known if he had
given the matter a thought, for the wedding had been the talk of the town
since Christmas; but the law does not regard hearsay evidence. Finding
there was no help for it, he pronounced the necessary words and, no doubt
with a view of disclaiming personal responsibility should he hereafter be
taxed with marriage-mongering, invited them to sign the book with a pen
made entirely of gold in the form of a feather, which he afterwards
offered them as a wedding present with his best wishes and a paper on
which his clerk had neatly engrossed the legal extracts.
We descended into the piazza now vacated by Peppi Bosco, who had been
playing in it with his municipal music during the ceremony, and, forming
ourselves into a procession as before, walked down the principal street
of the town, and I was thinking of many things. As we passed the club I
remembered how once in the winter Berto had taken me there and introduced
me to all the notabilities of the place and I had wondered how the fog
agreed with the billiard table. We passed the farmacia where Berto
spends his time making up prescriptions and gossiping with his friends.
We went on down the street and my thoughts wandered to other subjects.
In the first place there was my hat, or rather Berto's uncle's hat, for,
though I had remembered about the guests at the Nascita wearing evening
clothes, I had forgotten that they brought their cylindrical hats, and
Berto had borrowed one for me, which was so small I had to hold it on.
And the wind blew and roared and shook the shutters and banged the
windows and doors and smashed the glass down on to the roughly paved
streets, and the dense, chilly cloud went through the cracks and
penetrated into every house and damped the beds and discoloured the
whitewash of the walls. And I had Berto's mother on one arm and could
not keep his uncle's hat on my head. At last I took it off and carried
it under my other arm, putting on my head a cap which I happened to have
in my pocket.
We came to the steep part of the street near the salone of Peppino and I
thought of his looking-glasses that were temporarily adorning the future
bedroom of Berto's compare, and I thought of Butler's accident and of the
authoress of the _Odyssey_ writing her poem up here three thousand years
ago. And what are three thousand years to Time in his flight? An
interval that he can clear with a flap or two of his mighty wings. No
one knows how often he has flapped them since these narrow roughly paved
streets began to give the town its irregular shape; no one knows anything
of the prehistoric incarnations of her who has reigned here as Phoenician
Astarte, as Greek Aphrodite, as Roman Venus, and who now reigns here as
Italian Maria. We were adding one more to the processions that during
unnumbered ages have passed along the streets of Mount Eryx worshipping
the Mystery of Birth.
We turned down by the Palazzo Platamone and at last reached the Matrice.
The floor was hidden by the people standing on it and the ceiling by
thousands of wax candles hanging from it. The organ was playing
antiphonally with Peppi Bosco, who had preceded us with his trombone and
his municipal music. We went into the sagrestia and I did not at first
recognise the Arciprete Messina who received us, for I had not previously
seen him in his vestments, but he knew me. We had met in the street when
he was wearing his ordinary clothes the day before and I had told him I
had his photograph taken by Butler, who wanted his face because it is
particularly round, like that of so many of the Ericini, and Butler used
to say they are descended from the Cyclopes who formerly lived
here--Cyclopes means circle-faced, not one-eyed.
After signing the register we left the sagrestia, pushed our way through
the people, and stood outside the altar-rails in a circle, the arciprete,
Berto, Giuseppina, myself and another priest. I held an old silver
tazza, on which the ring was placed. The music was tremendous and had to
be made to play piano. The arciprete read the words and, at the proper
moment, I handed the tazza, from which he took the ring and gave it to
the bridegroom, who placed it upon the bride's finger. And the Madonna
di Custonaci sat over the altar with the Child at her breast smiling down
upon our little circle and giving her blessing to Berto and Giuseppina
who, with the sanction of their relations and friends, were taking the
first step on the path that leads to motherhood.
We were not in the church ten minutes, and the music became forte again
as our procession passed out into the fog. We went to the bride's house
and entered by the door that leads into the courtyard which was occupied
by Peppi Bosco, who had again preceded us with his trombone and municipal
music. The bride retired and, after a few moments, reappeared among the
guests, escorted by Berto and accompanied by someone bearing a large
tea-tray piled up with sugared almonds, which she ladled to us in
handfuls with a silver coffee-cup. On whatever system a Sicilian wedding
is conducted it would be incomplete without sugared almonds, and they are
sent in boxes to all friends who are unable to attend. Several boxes
were given to me for my near relations who, by virtue of my having become
compare of Berto and Giuseppina, are now in a manner related to them.
And the bride also gave me for my sister a special gift of a handkerchief
embroidered by someone in the neighbourhood.
After the almonds, the music began in the front hall and we danced.
There were waltzes, polkas and contraddanze, also games involving dances.
I did not try to dance the waltzes or the polkas, they were quite
different from those I used to be taught; Berto said they were dancing
the ballo figurato. Nor did I dance the tarantella, which I never was
taught in any form, but I saw it danced by Berto's mother and a brother
of the bride. I danced in three contraddanze, first with Berto's mother,
then with his bride, then with his sister. One of the dancers called out
in French what we were to do, and the mistakes we made added to the
amusement. Frequently there was a promenade, the partners walking
arm-in-arm round the room, which gave time to recover ourselves when we
had got into any great confusion. Sometimes he who directs the
contraddanza is so fertile in invention that he can make it last two
hours. I do not think any that I danced lasted above half an hour, and
they always ended by our promenading away to the buffet, which was under
the joyous direction of Berto's father. Here we ate sweetmeats and cakes
and drank rosolio, which is any kind of light liqueur.
Berto's brother Nicolao took me away at 3 a.m., and I wanted someone to
show me the road because the cloud was still on the Mountain, and they do
not keep the streets lighted all night. But the rest danced for another
hour and then departed, leaving Berto's mother to attend to the bride and
to stay in the house.
Next day at noon we all called to inquire and I remained to dinner at
two. While we were at table we heard the drum beating a Saracen rhythm
and went to the window. It was the festa of S. Francesco da Paola; he
was coming out of his church and going up to the balio on the top of the
Mountain. The fog had cleared away, leaving a few light clouds whose
shadows chased one another across the campagna and out to sea, where they
played with the islands that were swimming in it, each separate and
distinct in the brightness like those on a China plate. S. Francesco
turned his back to the islands; he had not come out to bless the sea.
Nor had he come to bless Cofano; he knew it was beyond his power to make
that rocky wilderness to blossom as a rose. The translucent mountains
stood back in a rugged amphitheatre before him, reverently saluting the
throne of Venus; he acknowledged their salute, but he did not bless the
barren mountains; he remembered the words of his Master: To him that hath
shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that
which he seemeth to have.
Good old San Cicciu da Paola turned his eyes away from the mountains and
looked down upon the exuberance of the campagna. Every patch was a
mother's breast suckling the young bread and wine and oil, making the
little figs to swell on their branches and the big blobby oranges to grow
bigger and blobbier among their leaves. The salad was pushing, pushing
up through the soil; peaches, apples, pears, medlars and plums were
forming inside their faint pink and snowy blooms; there were almonds and
blossoming pomegranates, asparagus and tomatoes, artichokes in disorderly
tufts and beans combed into tidy rows. In the hollow places, like marshy
pools reflecting the sky, lay beds of pale blue flax to be woven into
wedding sheets for Mount Eryx.
San Cicciu looked upon it and saw that it was good, and he blessed all
that fertility. He was doing for the campagna what the Cyclopean
arciprete had asked the Madonna to do for Berto and Giuseppina.
TRABONELLA