HOLY WEEK
PALM SUNDAY
Being in Catania for Holy Week I went to the cathedral on Palm Sunday.
The archbishop in his yellow mitre, red inside because he is also a
cardinal, accompanied by nine canons in white mitres and many priests and
others, passed out of the church by a side exit and proceeded to the
western entrance, which was closed against him. I heard him knock and
listened to the chanted dialogue which he carried on with those inside.
I saw the great doors thrown open and watched the procession enter and
pass up the nave among crowds of people who waved palm-branches.
After this I called at the Teatro Sicilia, the marionette theatre of
Gregorio Grasso, and discovered that he was devoting all the week to the
Story of the Passion and would begin that evening with the event which I
had seen commemorated by the procession in the cathedral. Here was an
opportunity to see something which I had often wished to see and about
which I had talked with Achille Greco and his sons in their theatre at
Palermo, where they also do the Passion in Holy Week, using a play in
verse written by Filippo Orioles of which they have a MS. copy; but they
have not performed it recently because it takes too much preparation.
Orioles wrote his play for living actors, and it is laid out to get all
the events into one performance instead of being a series of seven
performances extending over a whole week as in Catania.
Gregorio Grasso took me behind, where one of his assistants, Carmelo,
showed me the preparations and told me about the performance. The first
scene was to be the meeting of the Sanhedrin and the beginning of the
conspiracy of Annas and Caiaphas to destroy the Nazarene; this makes a
firm foundation on which the rest of the drama is built. The second
scene would be the departure of Christ with Mary; after that would come
the Entry with Palms into Jerusalem, and the evening was to conclude with
a cinematograph show.
As a rule in this theatre the back scene is only about a third of the way
down the stage, the figures appear in front of it and are manipulated by
men who stand on a platform behind, leaning over a strong bar which runs
along the top of the scene, their heads, shoulders and arms being
concealed by a piece of scenery which falls just low enough. The entry
into Jerusalem had been prepared behind this back scene; it was a set
group representing Christ on the ass, surrounded by apostles carrying
palms, and was to be disclosed by the removal of the back scene, the bar
and the platform in front of which the meeting of the Sanhedrin would be
shown.
But I was not to witness the performance because Turiddu Balistrieri
wanted me to go to the Teatro Giacinta Pezzana and see a special
performance of _La Signora dalle Camelie_ in which he and some of his
family, who are all artists, were to take part. I could not go to both
and chose Dumas because, in the first place, being Turiddu's compare it
was my duty to support the family. In the second place I had seen the
Entry with Palms at the duomo in the morning and had all the rest of the
week free to see the marionettes do the rest of the story. So I went to
the Teatro Pezzana in the evening. It is a small place, small enough to
have been formerly used for marionettes, and was now being used by a
Society of Lovers of the Drama. Turiddu was presiding over the
box-office and had considered my requirements. He sent me in with his
young brother Gennaro, who found me a place, and I saw a play which
cannot be considered seriously except as an opportunity for the actress
who undertakes the part of Margherita Gautier. On this occasion it was
undertaken by Desdemona Balistrieri, Turiddu's sister, a girl of fifteen
years and ten months, two years older than himself; I had never expected
to see so young a Margherita Gautier. She gave a remarkable performance
with nothing childish about it and nothing--but it would be unbecoming in
me to praise the sister of my compare. Her grandmother, the old lady
referred to in Chapter XVII (_ante_) who slept in the piazza after the
earthquake, was Prudenza, and her mother, Signora Balistrieri, was
Olimpia and appeared between the old generation and the young, joining
and yet separating them. Turiddu's part was small; he was merely a page
bringing a letter or a message.
MONDAY
In the afternoon I went to the Teatro Sicilia and found everything
prepared for the evening. Christ and the apostles were sitting at the
supper-table as in Leonardo's fresco in Milan; not that they were
imitating Leonardo, the early mosaics and the miracle plays, influencing
and counter-influencing one another, must have determined the composition
of the representations of the Last Supper before Leonardo's time; he was
not inventing, he was giving the people something they were accustomed to
see and the marionettes were similarly following their own traditions. I
do not think the apostles were all in their usual places, S. John was
next to Christ, but Judas was at one end of the table--a terrible fellow
with shaggy black hair falling over his face--and he had not spilt the
salt. There was no salt for him to spill. Signor Greco told me that
when they perform the Orioles play at Palermo, they use a horse-shoe
table, Judas sits near one end and not only spills the salt, but behaves
like a naughty child, putting his elbows on the table and throwing the
plates on the floor so that they break. On the supper-table at Catania
there was a wooden model of a roasted lamb, with jointed neck and legs,
lying on a dish. There were plates with lettuces cut up, bread and wine,
oil and vinegar and oranges, all real. Each apostle had a glass and
there was a metal chalice for Christ. I forget all the things that are
on the table in the chapel of the Last Supper at Varallo-Sesia, but I
remember they have ripe figs, which is a mistake, because figs do not
become ripe till later in the year. Oranges are at their best in Sicily
in the spring and lettuces are in season. The audience understand this
and know that lettuces are appropriate for supper because they contain
some narcotic, so that a raw lettuce is often eaten after dinner. The
supper had been prepared in front of the back scene, and behind it, ready
to be disclosed at the proper moment, was the garden wherein the capture
of Christ was to take place.
Soon after seven o'clock in the evening I was sitting in my room at the
albergo and saw a great light which I supposed might have something to do
with the electric tram. After this I heard a roaring noise which I
supposed might be occasioned by an explosive motor bicycle in the street.
Then the glass in the window rattled for a considerable time, which I
supposed might be due to a slight shock of earthquake. At about
half-past eight I went to the Teatro Sicilia. Gregorio and his
assistants were all outside, and received me with congratulations on my
courage; I was the only one of their patrons bold enough to think of
witnessing the performance, all the others had been too much frightened
by the earthquake--if it had been an earthquake; and in about ten minutes
we shut up the theatre and came away. I went to the Teatro Machiavelli
to see what effect had been produced there. There was some anxiety about
the phenomenon, but more, it seemed, as to whether enough people would
come to make it worth while to have a performance. We were waiting for
instructions when someone brought in a bolletino hastily prepared in a
newspaper office with an account of the avvenimento celeste. We sat
round and listened while one of the actors read about the convulsion of
nature, the trembling of the palaces, the flashes of flame at a great
height in the sky, the terror of the inhabitants of Catania. Was the
phenomenon of telluric origin--Etna or an earthquake? Was it of
atmospheric origin--a thunderbolt or a waterspout? Or could it be a
miracle in the dictionary sense of something contrary to the course of
nature? No one knew. Gradually a sufficient number of the public
overcame their fright and took places in the theatre; and thus I saw a
play by Peppino Fazio called _I Delitti del Caporale_ of which I have
forgotten a great deal, but it contained one incident which I have not
forgotten.
There was a scene in the cottage of a brigand who lived with his sister,
he was out and she was alone. A corporal of infantry entered and made
infamous proposals which she rejected; a struggle followed and was ended
by the man shooting the girl through the heart. Overcome by remorse and
filled with respect for the dead, he reverently raised the corpse, laid
it along the floor by the wall at the back of the cottage and covered it
with a sheet. He placed an oil lamp on the floor so that the head, the
breast, the hips, the knees and the toes caught the light, while shadows
fell in the depressions between. He knelt in prayer and then crept from
the solemn scene on which the curtain slowly descended.
We were then transported to a country road outside the caserma of the
carabinieri; they were carousing and plotting how to take the brigand. A
countryman came and gave information on which they settled a plan of
action and the scene ended, but it had occupied a good deal of time and
had distracted the mind.
The curtain rose again on the brigand's cottage. Nothing had been moved.
Three carabinieri entered furtively, they noticed what was on the floor,
lying by the wall, but did not disturb it, they had other business in
hand and concealed themselves behind doors and furniture. There was a
pause and the house was very still. The brigand came home, noisily threw
down his gun, clanked about the cottage in his great boots, took his
knife and his pistols from his belt and banged them down on the table.
As he turned he caught sight of the sheet covering something the form of
which was emphasised by the oil lamp burning at its head. He did not
speak, but surprise and alarm seized him and appeared in his face and in
his attitude. He approached it, raised the sheet and with a yell of
terror and grief fell on his knees by the corpse as he recognised his
sister. The three carabinieri came from their hiding and took him.
It was a typical drama for the Machiavelli. Notwithstanding the want of
variety in their plots--and the title of one of their plays signifies as
little as the title of a London pantomime--I have seldom passed an
evening there without seeing some incident as striking as this return to
the house of death. They know how to do these things with a simplicity
and an apparent unconsciousness of the effect they are producing which
bring with them a strange astonishment.
This was not the corporal's only crime, but to clear up this one it may
be added that the hand of the corpse clutched a button which, in the
struggle, the girl had torn off the man's coat; this led to his
identification, and in prison he met the brigand, who shot him and thus
avenged the murder. I have seen happy endings that were more artificial.
TUESDAY
Compare Turiddu came early to inquire whether I was much alarmed by the
disturbance and to tell me what had happened. A bolide had fallen into
the Catanian sea--he took me to the port and showed me precisely where.
"It was near that ship," he said.
The people had rushed to the cathedral to pray S. Agata to avert further
harm. They also went to the Piazza S. Nicola hoping it might be large
enough to hold them all in case there was an earthquake, for they were
all thinking of Messina. The sailors, believing that what they saw fall
into the sea was the moon, drew their boats up into safety. The sea did
rise, but only eight centimetres, not so much as it would have risen if
the moon had really fallen into it. When the newspapers came out I read
more particulars: that a barber in the Via Lincoln had been so much
frightened that he cut the throat of the customer he was shaving,
fortunately, however, no damage was done as the wound was only skin-deep;
that a woman ran naked into the Via Garibaldi, not having time in her
fright to put any clothes on; that a waiter handing a dish to a lady in
the Birraria Svizzera dropped it on her silk dress, which was ruined; and
that a priest in the Quattro Canti was seen moving his arms like an
electric fan and was heard to exclaim "God save me!" He did not say "God
save us" because he was an egoist.
It should be added that the article was written by Peppino Fazio, who
confessed to me that though these things may have happened he did not see
them. He found them in his imagination. It should perhaps be added
further that he knows his public and is not afraid of being taken
seriously.
I also saw an account of an interview with Professor Ricco of the
Observatory, who stated that an aerolite had fallen out of the profundity
of space and that it had not been ascertained where it had struck our
planet.
As no one had gone to the Teatro Sicilia on Monday the marionettes were
thrown a day late and the programme arranged for the Monday was remanded
to the Tuesday, like a festa. I half feared I might be prevented again
from seeing it because some friends from England arrived in Catania for
the night and I did not know whether they would care to go. They were,
however, much interested when I made the proposal. We were rather late,
and missed the Last Supper, arriving just before the curtain rose on the
garden. It was a beautiful scene. Christ was kneeling at a rock in the
background, the disciples were sleeping in the foreground and the wings
were hidden by branches of real trees. An angel descended with a cup
from which the principal figure drank. When the angel had departed there
was a pause--the lights changed and through the silence we heard the
tramp, tramp of approaching people; soldiers came on preceded by Judas,
who betrayed his Master with a kiss, Peter cut off Malchus's right ear,
the Nazarene was taken and the curtain fell.
WEDNESDAY
Turiddu came in the morning and we conducted my friends round the town.
We went to the shop where the old Swiss watchmaker sells the amber of
which Brancaccia's necklace is made; we went to the market, where we ate
a prickly pear, just to see what it was like, and the man politely
refused payment because we were foreigners; in the market also we bought
bergamot snuff-boxes; we then showed them the port, where they bought
crockery, and the Villa Bellini, where they took photographs; after which
we went back to the albergo, where we had luncheon. Then we accompanied
them to the station and saw them off for Taormina. Turiddu was as
pleased as anyone, he liked making the acquaintance of his compare's
English friends and they thought him a delightful boy. Strictly speaking
they were not English; the two ladies were Inglesi Americane, which
Turiddu said he understood because his mother had acted in the Argentina
and, though South America is not North America, it appeared pedantic to
insist on the distinction. The two gentlemen, again, were really Inglesi
Irlandesi, and here also we were in trouble because he mistook Irlandesi
for Olandesi and thought they were what we should call Boers.
After they had gone I went to the Teatro Sicilia to learn what I had
missed by not seeing the Cena. Carmelo told me that when Christ has
spoken the words "This is my body" he breaks the bread and gives each of
the apostles a piece. Judas does not eat his piece, he steals it and
leaves the room. In his absence Christ blesses the wine and gives the
others to drink, he washes their feet and they go out to the Mount of
Olives. This is followed by a scene of Judas coming to Annas and
Caiaphas, showing his piece of bread and telling them that he had heard
Christ speak blasphemy. Carmelo explained that the priests were
Hebrews--there were Hebrews, he said, in those days, living in that
country--and Hebrews believe that bread is the Body of God; therefore for
a man--and they thought Christ was merely a man--to declare that the
bread was his body amounted to blasphemy. This was evidence against the
Nazarene; it carried the story on a step and the plotting priests
prepared everything for the betrayal and capture of Christ--the final
scene which we saw.
I did not know, or had forgotten, that Hebrews were so particular about
bread, but Carmelo assured me that they never throw bread away, and if
they find a piece on the floor they pick it up and put it in a hole in
the wall and keep it. It may be eaten, but may never be otherwise
destroyed. I thought of Ruskin telling his readers in _The Elements of
Drawing_ that stale crumb of bread is better than india-rubber to rub out
their mistakes, but "it crumbles about the room and makes a mess; and
besides, you waste the good bread, which is wrong; and your drawing will
not for a long while be worth the crumbs. So use india-rubber very
lightly."
"Are you a Christian?" asked Carmelo suddenly.
I was not embarrassed. A few days before, when one of the priests at
Tindaro asked me the same question, I replied that I had been baptised
into the Christian faith soon after birth. The priest said that between
the two Churches of Rome and England there were unfortunate differences
as to the mysteries but I need not concern myself with them. "Nature
does not believe in the mysteries," said my priest, who was a most
friendly person, and as I had been baptised, if I lived a good life, and
he was politely certain I did, then I was a Christian. So I considered
myself justified in answering Carmelo's question in the affirmative.
In the evening I returned to the Teatro Sicilia; Carmelo put me into a
good place and this time I saw the whole performance. The Nazarene was
taken before Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod. The priests taxed him
with being a magician. Herod proposed that he should perform a miracle
if he could, but Christ was silent and did nothing. Herod therefore
concluded that the priests were wrong and that Christ must be mad. He
directed that he should be clothed in white and taken back to Pilate, and
this was done.
We were then in the house of the Madonna, and S. John came and told her
and the other Maries all that had happened to her son. Each of the holy
women carried a handkerchief and the lamentation became monotonous.
Judas had received the thirty pieces of silver and began his remorse by
taking them, in a red purse, back to the priests, who scoffed at him and
turned him out. His rage and despair were extreme and gave the audience
an opportunity to relieve their feelings by laughing.
Before the last scene Gregorio in his ordinary clothes came on and told
the audience the programme for the next day. He also apologised for
presenting the Passion with marionettes, he usually performs it with
living actors, he himself being the Nazarene. This year, however, he did
not feel strong enough to undertake the part or to get all the other
actors together; and he appealed to our consideration and begged us to
accept marionettes.
In the days when Giovanni Grasso acted in his own Machiavelli theatre,
before he went on tour and acquired his world-wide reputation, they used
to do the Passion there also, and he was Judas. Sometimes he doubled his
part and did Annas as well, or Pilate or the good centurion, making any
necessary alterations in those places where his two characters ought to
have appeared together. It would be a great thing to see Giovanni as
Judas, but I suppose he will never do it again.
I noticed that all the figures had been newly dressed and painted for the
occasion and the pupils of their eyes were freshly varnished to catch the
light. About the soldiers there was still some reminiscence of paladins,
but the principal characters had been prepared with due regard to the
works of the great masters--though here again I suppose they were really
following the traditions of the theatre as preserved by the pictures.
The figures gained by hiding their legs, but Joseph of Arimathaea and
Nicodemus had not this advantage. They were princes and were like
Shakespearean young men of the brilliant water-fly type, such as Osric.
Misandro was also a prince. He was a swaggerer and behaved as badly as
any paladin, but he was not a buffo. When they do the Nativita at
Christmas a buffo is permitted, he accompanies the Shepherds as their
servant, and I should like to see him. Misandro was all in golden
armour, as fine a figure as one could expect a Prince of Judaea to be.
He had a contrast in Claudio Cornelio the good centurion. Claudio was
left alone with Christ and confessed his faith, while a bright light from
the cinematograph box illuminated the stage as though to signify that if
we believe, all will become clear. The most successful of the figures
was Pilate. He was in black with a red sash and his robes fell in folds
of great dignity.
The words were all declaimed either from memory or extempore, and there
were several speakers. The one who had most to do did it with a great
deal of energy, especially as Judas and Misandro. Gregorio spoke for
Christ and a woman spoke for the women and the angels.
The Christ was of course a failure, in art all Christs are failures, even
the Christ in the chapels at Varallo-Sesia, even the Christ in the
pictures by the masters. The Child Christ may be a success, at least we
can sometimes fancy that that baby might become the Saviour of the World,
he reminds us of those babies we have all seen in real life with a look
in their eyes as though they had solved the riddle of the universe. But
the Man Christ does not convince; we only tolerate him because we have
been brought up to acquiesce in the convention. The Christs of pictures
and statues are not, however, such failures as the Christ at
Ober-Ammergau; by keeping still and not trying to appear so real they
leave more to the imagination. If all these fail how can a marionette be
expected to succeed? Hiding its legs when it moves is not enough.
Gregorio knew he was attempting the impossible and did his best to save
the figure from being worse than it might have been, but the result was
rather as though it were all the time apologising for having undertaken
the part. He made it move very little and very slowly, so slowly that
the action of the drama was interrupted. He allowed it no gestures,
except an occasional raising of the hand. He spoke for it only the few
words given to Christ in the gospels. When it caused a miracle, there
came a great light, as when the good centurion confessed his faith, and
there was music. When it entered, the drum beat a Saracen rhythm and
there was music again. By these means the figure was detached from the
others and appeared as though belonging to another world. When the
marionettes do the Orioles play at Palermo, Christ speaks much more than
the words from the gospels and is treated more like one of the other
characters, at least nothing is done to suggest that they are giving the
Passion with the part of Christ as nearly omitted as possible.
The music at Catania was faint and scrappy. Gounod's _Meditation on
Bach's First Prelude_ occurred frequently, but it seldom got beyond the
first ten or twelve bars, sometimes not beyond the second or third. And
there were similar short references to some of the more sentimental
melodies of Bellini and Verdi. It was not intended to distract the
attention; it was rather to provide an unobtrusive background for the ear
against which the voice spoke, as the scenery was a background for the
eye against which the figures moved.
THURSDAY
This was the day for visiting the sepulchres in the churches. Turiddu
took me to the cathedral, and we saw a procession moving slowly down the
nave. It turned up one of the aisles and entered a sepulchre which had
been prepared, passing between a double file of dismal creatures entirely
shrouded in white except for two eye-holes, like those ghouls that issued
stealthily from charnel-houses in German fairy tales, and used to pursue
me in dreams when I was a boy. One by one the lights on the altar were
extinguished, Phrygian cadences dropped inconclusively from the choir
above, the archbishop came out of the sepulchre and the hooded ghosts
crept with him. A Dominican occupied the pulpit and began a sermon, but
as we could not get near enough to hear what he said, we came away.
Turiddu afterwards took me to visit a few more sepulchres, and it was a
gloomy business.
In the evening, at the Teatro Sicilia, the curtain rose on Christ bound
to the column, and there were two Turks armed with scourges. They did
not actually scourge him, it was enough that they told Misandro they had
executed their orders. Peter denied his master and the cock crew thrice.
While Judas was continuing his remorse, Peter appeared to him, and,
confessing his sin of denying Christ, proposed to expiate it by throwing
himself into a well; he tempted Judas to follow his example and preceded
him to show the way. But we saw that it was not really Peter, it was a
devil. Judas was about to follow the devil when an angel appeared and
stopped him. He was to die a different death, and not yet.
A tearful scene between mother and son came next; I did not care for it,
but the dream of Claudia, the wife of Pilate, was, as Carmelo said, "una
visione tremenda." In a dress of scarlet satin trimmed with gold and
lace, she sat in an arm-chair in a garden and went to sleep. Christ
appeared to her. She spoke to him, but he did not reply, and as she woke
he vanished. She slept again, and Annas appeared to her in red fire,
threatening her if she yielded to the emotions which the vision of the
Man of Sorrows had raised in her heart. She woke in dismay as he
vanished. She slept again, and saw Pilate in hell surrounded by devils.
She woke in fright. She slept again, and a devil appeared and talked to
her, justifying Pilate. S. Michele came and killed the devil.
GOOD FRIDAY
The Machiavelli was closed. At the Sicilia the performance began with
the trial of Christ. Pilate sat in the middle with Joseph of Arimathaea
and Nicodemus on his right, Caiaphas, Annas, and Misandro on his left.
Beyond Nicodemus was the Nazarene in a red cloak holding a reed and
crowned with thorns; and beyond Misandro was Barabbas. Pilate made the
opening speech. Caiaphas then spoke for the prosecution; the question in
debate was whether Christ was the Son of God, and he accused Christ of
being a deceiver. Nicodemus followed for the defence. Then Annas for
the prosecution. He said: "The voice of God is the voice of the people."
He was followed by Joseph, who maintained that the wonders performed by
Christ were not done by magic, they were miracles; that is he was not a
magician, he was the Son of God. Misandro spoke last.
Here a messenger arrived from Claudia telling her dream and begging
Pilate to go to her. The Court rose and Pilate went home to comfort his
wife, while the others talked among themselves just as barristers do in
the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand when the sitting is suspended.
Pilate returned and took his seat. He proposed to liberate Christ and to
sacrifice Barabbas. He presented Christ to the people, saying:
"Ecce Homo."
And the crowd shouted: "Not this man, but Barabbas."
Pilate ironically congratulated them:
"You are right, O ignorant People!" and, telling Barabbas to go and
thieve again, he liberated him.
Then the false witnesses came. One was a soldier, the other a Turk.
They took the oath to speak the truth and nothing but the truth. They
were both of them stupid and comic, confused and contradictory, and made
the audience laugh, and when one of them admitted that he had been
bribed, Annas in his rage gobbled like a turkey.
Pilate closed the debate and washed his hands in a basin held by a
servant. Then he wrote the sentence and made Misandro read it. The
trial lasted a whole hour, the intention being, I suppose, to reproduce
that tediousness which is so characteristic of real trials.
In the next scene Judas continued his remorse and Peter--it was really
Peter this time--came and counselled him to ask pardon of Jesus, but he
would not listen.
Then came the journey to Calvary and the meeting with the Daughters of
Jerusalem and S. Veronica, Misandro ill-treating the women and Claudio
Cornelio protecting them.
The last scene was the Crucifixion. The thieves were in place. At the
back was the Cross lying on the ground. The figure of Christ was nailed
to it by a Turk with a hammer; the Cross was raised; Misandro approved;
the Turk gave the sponge; Misandro reviled Christ, saying: "Thou that
destroyest the temple of God and buildest it in three days, save
thyself"; Christ and the thieves held their dialogue; the Madonna and S.
John stood at the foot of the Cross while Christ spoke the sentences and
inclined his head. Then there was the earthquake, and we saw the souls
in purgatory surrounding the Cross and heard them welcoming their Lord.
SATURDAY
Compare Turiddu came early and we went to the duomo to see the Gloria.
The church was full and he told me to be careful about my watch and my
money because--"picketi pocketi"; and then he asked me whether I
understood those two words which his mother had brought back from one of
her tours.
His Eminence, the Cardinal Archbishop, was conducting a service in a side
chapel--blessing the baptismal water, or the font, or both, or perhaps
doing something else, for Turiddu is not such an authority on
ecclesiastical matters as Carmelo is on matters theatrical. He knows
more than I do, however; it was he who made me go to see the Gloria on
the Saturday, without him I should have missed it by waiting till the
Sunday. The western doors were thrown open and we looked through into
the sunshine and up to the arch that stands at the top of the Via
Garibaldi. The archbishop finished his service and returned through the
congregation to the space within the rails of the principal altar.
Behind him as he stood and concealing the altar and the east end of the
church hung a curtain from the roof to the floor. There was chanting and
movement among the priests; they continually kept going and coming,
disappearing into the secret place behind the great curtain and
reappearing; they were preparing the mystery. Presently the curtain
shook and the congregation understood. The suppressed excitement grew
and a murmuring began, caused, I suppose, by everyone telling everyone
else, as Turiddu told me, that the curtain was about to fall. Another
instant--and its fall revealed the Gloria.
Above the altar was a tomb and above the tomb was the figure of the risen
Christ triumphing over death; in his left hand he held a banner and, with
his right, he blessed the people. There were lights, and sudden music
from the organ and from the choir; the deafening bells clanged and,
through the great open doors, we heard the sound of revolvers being shot
off into the air and of fireworks being exploded.
Turiddu could not see over the heads of the people; I lifted him up, he
looked at the Gloria and turning himself round in my arms kissed me as he
said:
"Buona Pasqua, Compare."
Everyone was saying "Buona Pasqua" to everyone else, everyone standing
near a friend or a relation was exchanging kisses with him or her as a
sign of goodwill; many were weeping for joy, and those who had been
quarrelling became reconciled, forgiving one another their offences and
entering upon a new life, vowing that, with the help of their Heavenly
Father, who had revealed to them the Mystery of the Resurrection, they
would from this day avoid all further disputes even though, in order to
perform the vow, it should be necessary to avoid one another's company.
This is not imaginative writing, like Peppino Fazio's account of the
effect of the bolide, it is what I saw--the effect of the Gloria.
And the spirit of the Gloria floated down the nave and through the open
doors and out into the piazza, where the elephant of lava stands over the
fountain. It passed up the Via Garibaldi, down the Corso, along the
Stesicoro Etnea, it spread itself through the city and became identified
with the morning sunshine.
"Come along," said Turiddu, "let's go and buy a paschal lamb for mother."
We followed the Gloria into the piazza among the fireworks and the
revolvers.
I said: "What about the plates, Turiddu? Don't the people throw the
crockery out of window in their joy? We must be careful."
He replied that they only do that in the poorer parts of the town, and
they always look first to make sure that no one is passing. But we had
better be careful, all the same, because the revolvers are loaded and the
squibs are dangerous.
He took me past the municipio, where the band was playing, and we came to
a sweet-shop, where paschal lambs made of almond paste and sugar were
flocking together on all the tables and shelves. They were not like the
one at the Last Supper, they were in their fleeces and were standing or
lying among candied fruits and tufts of dried grass that had been
artificially dyed unlikely colours. Turiddu chose one, and I sent him
off home with it as an Easter offering of goodwill to his mother.
Peppino Fazio was standing at a kiosk near the Quattro Canti with two
young cousins, buying button-holes of violas; he gave me the one he had
intended for himself.
"Wear this," he said, "it is the primavera. Proserpine has risen from
the underworld, she has returned to Enna and is scattering flowers again.
Stay; let us exchange; I will take another bunch and you shall pay the
man for it one soldo. Buona Pasqua."
So we exchanged bunches. "Wear this," I said, echoing his words, "it is
the primavera; the time for visiting sepulchres is over. Proserpine has
sent these flowers down from Castrogiovanni by the morning train. Buona
Pasqua."
In the next piazza, in the shadow of the statue of Bellini, was one of
the men from the Teatro Machiavelli; he had brought out his dog and
talked of going a-birding, he hoped it was not too early for quail, he
had already seen ripe strawberries in the market. Buona Pasqua.
Then I came upon Joe, the Policeman, keeping order in the street.
He said: "Buona Pasqua. You are very good-looking this morning." He
meant I was looking very well, but he will be so English.
I replied: "Buona Pasqua. But, my dear Joe, you ought not to be wearing
flowers in uniform, ought you?"
"It is the primavera," he said. He also told me that the revolvers and
the squibs and the plates had not done much damage this year--perhaps ten
or a dozen accidents, but none fatal, so far as was yet known.
I went along the Via Stesicoro, not considering my steps because I was
looking up the street, wondering how long the Gloria would take to melt
the snow on Etna, and I stumbled across Carmelo.
"Buona Pasqua, Carmelo, and have you been to church this morning?"
No, he had been to the port with his friends to see the steamer in which
they were to go to Naples; there they would change into another steamer
and be taken to the States. They had begged, borrowed, stolen, or, it
may be, possibly even earned enough soldi to begin their new life upon
another soil and under other skies in a new world. Buona Pasqua.
I returned to the albergo and found that Turiddu had been and had left
for me a characteristic Sicilian cake--a ring of bread on one side of
which, half embedded in the pasta, were four new-laid eggs. This was
accompanied by a note from his mother begging me to accept it as her
Easter offering of goodwill. She was telling me more than that the hens
had begun to lay again. She was reminding me of how I had seen her at
the Teatro Pessana as the link between her mother and her children,
joining them and separating them like a passage of modulation. I
understood her to mean that for the future I was to see an egg as a
transitional something between the hen that laid it and the chicken that
will burst from its shell, as a secret place of repose where the one is
transmuted into the other, as a sacred temple wherein is prepared a
mystery of resurrection. Mothers know some things that cannot be told
except in symbolism, and not very clearly then, symbols being as
perplexing as unresolved diminished sevenths which may be understood in
many different senses. I read the riddle of the eggs in the sense
suggested by the context of the Gloria, and I think I read it aright, for
in Catania on that Easter morning we were all of one mind, we were all
breathing the Gloria, we were all filled with the spirit of the new life,
the spirit that animated also our far-away English monk as he sat in his
Berkshire cell making music for
Summer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu.
In the evening I went to the Machiavelli. The theatre had been taken by
a young amateur who carries on a business of forwarding oranges and other
fruit. He gave a performance of one of Giovanni Grasso's plays,
_Feudalismo_, part of which I was obliged to see because in the second
act there is a song sung behind, and Turiddu had been asked to sing it;
on such a day the claims of the family were stronger even than on Palm
Sunday. His voice has not yet broken, but if it turns out to be as good
for a man as it is now for a boy, he ought to do well with it. I must
not continue--it would be more unbecoming in me to praise my compare for
his singing than to praise his sister for her acting.
After the song in _Feudalismo_ there was time also for the second
representation at the Teatro Sicilia. The performance began with the
wounding of Christ. Then Annas and Caiaphas discussed the question of
whether, after all, they might not have made a mistake in treating Christ
as a magician. They had been alarmed by the earthquake, the atmospheric
disturbances and the rising of the dead from their graves. Could these
phenomena signify that he was the Son of God? And something else
troubled them; on consideration they did not like the wording of Pilate's
sentence. They went to his palace, but Pilate was not disposed to listen
to their objections.
"What I have written I have written," said Pilate.
They had brought the sentence with them and pointed out to him that he
had condemned "il Re dei Giudei" the King of the Jews and, inasmuch as
condemning a king is a serious step and might get him into trouble,
suggested that for his own safety he should add the letter "o" to the
word "Re." This would make it that he had condemned "Il Reo dei Giudei,"
the Criminal of the Jews. Pilate was persuaded and agreed to add the
letter. He went away and fetched his pen, which looked like a feather
from the tail of a hawk, and Annas held the paper; but Pilate's pen
refused to write, it was wafted from his hand by a power stronger than
his, it hung in the air before their eyes and fluttered away to heaven.
This miracle was accompanied by music; and, if I had been consulted, I
should not have advised the _Marcia Reale Italiana_, because that
composition, on account of its inherent frivolity, has always seemed to
me unfit for the accompaniment of any manifestation of power. To despise
Bellini because he is not Schubert would be to adopt the attitude of the
buffo's critic who escaped from Paris in the teatrino at Palermo;
nevertheless the countrymen of Schubert have known how to appear before
the world clothed in the solemn splendour of Haydn's majestic Hymn to the
Emperor, while the Italians come mountebanking along in an ill-fitting,
machine-made suit of second-hand flourishes, as though that were the best
they could lay their hands on. They have not done themselves justice.
But this is not the place for a digression; before returning to Pilate
and his visitors, however, let me say distinctly that the music was the
Italian _Marcia Reale_ played, not as the other scraps were played, but
with a loud and jaunty heartlessness as though the miraculous pen were
jeering at the priests:
"There! you didn't expect that; now, did you?"
Joseph and Nicodemus also came to Pilate begging the body of Jesus. The
priests objected, for they had not forgotten the prophecy about building
the Temple of God in three days, and they feared trickery. Pilate
compromised, granting the request but setting a guard.
Next we saw the Descent from the Cross, effected by Joseph and Nicodemus;
and while the body lay on a couch, a melancholy Miserere was sung behind.
The Entombment followed, the Madonna in black lamenting and weeping.
The last scene was in a wood, where Judas came to finish his remorse. He
refused all comfort and all the benevolent suggestions of the angels who
visited him. They told him that God is ever willing to pardon the sinner
who sincerely repents and freely confesses his sin. It is with God
always as it is with men at the season of the Gloria. But the wretched
Judas could not think of repentance and confession; his cowardly soul was
not torn by sorrow for past sin, it was paralysed by fear of future
punishment; or we may have been intended to understand that the road to
perdition lies through madness. He spoke three sentences, and the last
word of each was echoed by a diabolical voice and then appeared written
in letters of blood and fire:--Giuda:--Dio:--Stesso. These words made a
sentence by themselves and signified: "_Judas_ is against _God_ and
against _Himself_." Faith, Hope, and Charity appeared to him separately;
he would have nothing to do with any of them and they all deserted him.
A devil approached and Judas trembled, knowing his time had come. He
went and fetched a rope, and with the devil's help accomplished his fatal
destiny by hanging himself to one of the trees of the wood, and as his
wicked soul came out of his mouth the devil greedily snatched it away and
carried it down to be eternally tormented in hell. It was like an untidy
black hen.
EASTER DAY
I had to go into the country for the night, and so was obliged to miss
the Resurrection as presented by the marionettes. I did not, however,
much mind, because I had seen the Gloria in the cathedral, where the
Christ over the altar was modelled much better than any figure in the
theatre. Besides, I called on Gregorio in the course of the day and had
a talk with him and his son, Angiolino, who told me what is done on the
last evening of the drama, and showed me the preparations. The first
scene, representing the tomb, was nearly ready. After the curtain rises
there is an earthquake, and Misandro comes to see whether the watching
soldiers are doing their duty; he finds them asleep and wakes them. This
is repeated, and the third time Misandro sees the tomb open with a loud
noise and a bright light--"like the bolide," said Angiolino. Christ
rises, and Misandro, seeing the actual Resurrection, is convinced that
Christ is the Son of God and not a magician; he goes to spend the rest of
his life preaching the gospel among the heathen. I did not ask what
music accompanies the miracle of the Resurrection; I confess I was afraid
to do so after what I had heard accompanying the flight of the pen. If I
had been consulted here I should have advised silence to suggest that no
music could be found suitable for the tremendous mystery that was being
accomplished. But I do not think such advice would have been accepted.
Then Herod is ill and commands Pilate to send Jesus to cure him. Pilate
commands the priests to produce Jesus, reminding them that he had washed
his hands; but each of the priests accuses the other of being
responsible, and so they enter upon their eternal punishment of mutual
recrimination.
Christ appears to the Magdalene, to Luke, to Matthew and to a contadino.
He takes two of them to a tavern, where he breaks bread and vanishes. So
they recognise him and go to tell the good news to the Madonna and the
other holy women. Doubting Thomas is convinced. Jesus breathes the Holy
Spirit upon them and they receive the gift of tongues. The last scene is
the Ascension, and Christ as he is received into heaven speaks words of
comfort to his mother, telling her it will not be long before she joins
him.
The marionettes were behindhand with their Gloria, because the bolide
having transferred Monday's programme to Tuesday had syncopated the
succeeding performances into counterpoint of the fourth order, and
everything that happened after that was one beat late. Had they moved
concurrently with the Church, and reached the Resurrection on the
Saturday, they would have repeated it on the Sunday to fill up the time
till Easter Monday, when they were to return to _Erminio della Stella
d'Oro_, a story of romance and chivalry invented by Angelo Grasso, the
father of Gregorio and of Giovanni.
I asked Gregorio where he had found the particulars for Misandro and the
remorse of Judas and for the dream of Pilate's wife and the pen that flew
away. He replied that he did not know where they came from, they are
traditional in the theatre and had probably come out of the libraries.
As to Judas and the angel preventing him from drowning himself in the
well, I asked whether they have in Sicily the saying about a man being
born to be hanged and whether any allusion was intended. Angiolino said
they have such a saying, or something like it, but it had never occurred
to him to suppose that any allusion was intended, it might be so, but he
thought not.
The Christ that had been prepared for the Resurrection in the Teatro
Sicilia was not the marionette that had been on the Cross; the stigmata
were there, the spear wound was wanted in the scene with Thomas, and the
people were free to take it as being the same figure with all the other
marks of suffering removed, or they might think it was a different one,
or they might come behind the scenes and find out for themselves as I
did. Dwellers in another planet, if they watch the recurrence of the
mystery of our spring, may think the flowers they saw sinking into the
earth last autumn return again with the marks of decay removed, they
cannot come behind our scenes and make sure; but we know that a new
generation is born. The marionettes are not didactic; if the people
choose to see in the Resurrection of Christ any one of Nature's ageless
mysteries they may do so; they may see the birth of the younger
generation, the blossoming of fresh flowers after winter, the awakening
to a new day after sleep; or, if they prefer it, they may see the
resurrection of their own dead bodies at the sound of the Last Trump--one
of those mysteries in which, as my priest at Tindaro told me, Nature does
not believe, and with which I need not concern myself.
I do not think they saw in it any of these meanings. At Ober-Ammergau
the play is presented so that Mendelssohn need not have hesitated to
advise the late Prince Consort to honour a performance with his presence.
In the Teatro Sicilia other tastes have to be consulted. I think the
audience looked on at the Passion of Christ as they are accustomed to
look on at _I Delitti del Caporale_ or _Feudalismo_ or at the _Story of
the Paladins_ or _Erminio della Stella d'Oro_; if they suspected any
symbolism or mystery, the melodrama with which they were saturated
provided a context that determined the direction of the resolution. They
saw wicked priests conspiring with a cowardly traitor and an overbearing
bully to bring about the destruction of an innocent man. They saw the
innocent man passing through misfortune and in the end triumphing over
his enemies by means of a happy ending, which reminded them of the happy
ending of a Machiavelli play, when the hero returns from prison and the
bad people are punished. They saw a mother weeping for her son, but they
saw no allusion to Ceres weeping for loss of Proserpine, although their
Castrogiovanni was her Enna--just as Angiolino saw no reference to Judas
having been born to be hanged, although they have the saying in Sicily,
and he is the son of the house. I do not think they saw any significance
in the fact that this mystery of the Death and Resurrection of the God is
repeated every spring. I imagine that the point made by Joseph of
Arimathaea in his speech for the defence, that the wonders done by Christ
on earth were miracles and were not occasioned by magic, was lost upon
them. It would take a long time to make one of them understand that la
Durlindana, the sword of Orlando, was a magical sword and not a
miraculous one. And yet this distinction between miracle and magic was
the pivot of the plot as it was presented to them. If they had felt
themselves lifted out of their ordinary routine I do not think they would
have done what they did after the curtain had fallen on the section of
the story presented each evening.
At the Machiavelli they are accustomed to remain for the farce and the
Canzonettisti Napoletani which close the performance; so at the Sicilia
they remain for the cinematograph. Every evening during Holy Week the
programme posted up at the door concluded with these words "Indi
Cinematografo," and there were always three parts to the show. First
there was cruelty--victorious tyrants forcing conquered queens to drink
their lovers' blood, or some horror of the Inquisition, or the barrel of
Regulus bumping down-hill and coming to smash at the bottom. The second
part was a modern comedy carried on in Parisian drawing-rooms or on board
an electric launch on an American river. The third part was always a
wild farce and usually contained an impossible chase. Not till after the
cinematograph had concluded its show did the audience go away contented.
ORTIGIA