and broke the track so badly that no trains have run for the past
month,” the guard explained.
“Scylla!” We must have been dozing, for we all started when the guard
called out the name of the station.
“Look!”
The tremendous rock of Scylla, with the strong castle on the top,
springs from the sea like a great many-toned jewel of coral, shading
from rose to yellow. The sun shone, the wind blew the surf in great
green and white surges against the cliff. Further out the water was pale
emerald, with sudden streaks of amethyst; everywhere on sea, shore and
cloud lay shadows of sapphire.
Even Patsy was dumb, moved beyond words by that glimpse.
“Their Excellencies saw the castle?” chirruped the friendly guard. “The
earthquake didn’t hurt it, more than to crack the outer wall a trifle.
They knew how to build in those days!”
“The castle is a trumpery medieval affair,” remarked Patsy, “though it
was standing when Robert Guiscard came in 1060, but the rock! In the
Odyssey it’s described as the home of a roaring sea monster, with six
terrific heads, twelve deformed feet, and three rows of teeth. Look over
there--the lighthouse! That marks the whirlpool! ‘_Incidit in Scyllam
qui vult vitare Charybdis!_’”
Across the narrow strait lay the jewel of the south, Sicily! The old
name, Trinacria, was given to the island on account of its shape, an
irregular triangle with three great points or promontories. It was once
a part of the Apennine range, but in some volcanic upheaval it was
broken off--as a monarch breaks a link from his gold chain and tosses it
to some henchman--and thrown into the Mediterranean, where it shines a
brilliant in a sapphire setting, the most coveted, the most disputed of
earth’s gems.
Patsy had not spoken for twenty minutes. His dancing eyes had grown
grave and steady; the imp, the sprite, the creature of impulse, was
gone; in his place was a stranger with grave eyes.
“Villa San Giovanni,” cried the guard. “Il ferryboat per Messina.”
“Ferryboat! Sounds familiar,” said Patsy. “Tumble out, we’re here!”
As Patsy made me comfortable on one of the wooden benches, I saw a
familiar face that puzzled me in the crowd of passengers. Where had I
met that pale girl with the mouth like a scarlet trumpet-creeper, the
thin curved eyebrows like a crescent moon, the deep eyes that looked
violet in the distance and were blue?
“I know her,” I said.
“She doesn’t appear to know you,” Patsy murmured. I was so sure I knew
her that I began to burrow in my memory, searched pigeonhole after
pigeonhole to find just where in a lifetime of impressions that arch
face was tucked away.
“It’s Palladia!” I found her at last. “My milliner, lost to us in Rome
for three painful years, ever since she went to Palermo to set up for
herself.”
I spoke to the girl without more ado:
“Palladia, don’t you remember me?”
“Perfectly, Signora. I have not seen you since the morning I brought you
the hat with the primole for Pasqua.”
“And you would not have spoken to me?”
“Pardon me, Signora, may I fasten your veil? I feared you would not
recall me.” We were shaking hands warmly now; she was my milliner again,
I her client.
“If I bent the hat a little, so? That is more becoming.”
“You have done well in Palermo?”
“Discreetly; I am returning from Naples, where I have been to buy the
new shapes, look over the modes. I have some beautiful French straw--if
the Signora should come to Palermo?”
“Of course I shall come, just to get one of your hats. I haven’t had a
decent one since you left Rome.” Palladia produced her card and, wishing
each other _buon viaggio_, we parted at the dock, Palladia to take the
train for Palermo, we to look for a cab.
“No one to meet us! They can’t have received letter or telegram,” said
Patsy. “Just as well, nothing like taking our friends unawares. Now they
won’t have time to smarten up for us.”
“Will that old rabbit-hutch hold us all?” I asked, looking distrustfully
at the only vehicle in sight. The driver understood; he seized the
wheel of the battered old cab and shook it violently to show how strong
it was.
“This is a most excellent and signorial carriage, Signorino. It needs
paint; why should it not? I dug it out myself from the ruins, and the
horse too. That blessed animal has cost me a lot of fatigue. It was nine
days before I could get him out, nine days _sotto le macerie_!”
“How much to the Case Americane?” asked Patsy.
“Two francs, Excellency, with a slight token for myself. The Comandante
himself set the price. He drives with no other; I am the official
coachman of the Americans.”
For a horse that had been nine days buried, the poor little rat of a
pony drew the cab bravely through the Via San Martino, one smooth lake
of yellow mud.
“There’s Old Glory!” shouted Patsy.
I had been so much taken up with looking back at the desolate streets,
at the Tell Tale Tower, I did not know we had arrived at camp. Two
Italian soldiers, on guard at the entrance, halted the cab.
“Stop, thou knowest thou canst go no
[Illustration: HOTEL REGINA ELENA AND CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE, AMERICAN
VILLAGE, MESSINA. _Page 284._]
farther,” said the elder, evidently a friend of the driver’s.
“What dost thou say? I, who drive to the door of the barracks four times
every day at least! Mayst thou die of an accident!”
“Never, unless there is an officer in thy cab. These be strangers,
without a written pass from the Comandante; they cannot enter!”
“Archpriest, I say! Mayst thou be stricken with--“
“Oh, come now, officer,” Patsy interrupted persuasively, “you will not
make the lady walk through this mud! We are friends of the American
Comandante. He expects us.”
The soldier was firm; we could not pass.
“Peace, I will inform the Sor Comandante,” said a new voice. It was
Gasperone; I recognized him from J.’s description. He put his finger to
his lips and tapped gently at the door of the small neat wooden cottage
nearest the flag.
“Behold a lady and two gentlemen, who have driven up in a cab,” said
Gasperone through the half-opened door. “Shall they be sent away or
allowed to enter the camp?”
J., standing at his drawing-board, looked from the window.
“Good Lord,” I heard him cry, “they’ve come!”
Our plan was to spend the afternoon at the camp and push on that night
to Taormina, an hour and a half distant by train. Captain Belknap
received us most kindly and showed us about the camp. What had been
accomplished was a miracle; the place had already begun to look like a
neat, well laid out American village.
“We save every tree we possibly can,” said Belknap. “Each lemon tree
brings an income of at least ten francs, the mulberries even more.”
Belknap and J. fought hard for the life of every tree that did not
actually interfere with the construction of the buildings. Some of the
streets have long lines of lemon trees, with here and there a fig tree.
They saved a double row of shade trees, for which the guests at Hotel
Regina Elena will some day bless them.
As we were inspecting the site of the hotel, the heavens opened and the
flood descended. We hurried to the office for shelter and admired the
trim row of ledgers, the typewriter, the letter scales, the red, white
and blue silk cord that Uncle Sam makes for his own special service,
all the tidy paraphernalia of the Chief’s workroom. I peeped into the
drafting-room, partitioned off with a wooden screen from the office. It
looked nice and professional, with sheets of architect’s paper, opaque
white, semi-transparent blue, yellow tracing, compasses, T squares, all
sorts of fascinating architectural tools. On the wall hung the neatly
drawn plans of the hotel; on the drawing-board was the ground plan for
the Queen’s hospital at Villaggio Regina Elena.
“May we look?” Patsy asked.
“If you will not touch,” J. glanced up from his work. “Mind that India
ink!”
“I can’t let you go on to Taormina in such a tempest,” said Captain
Belknap. “If you will put up with what we can offer, I should be glad to
have you spend the night at the camp.” This was more than we had dared
hope for; Patsy was in the seventh heaven.
“It’s a reward for bringing down the new recruit,” he whispered.
Brush, the “new recruit,” was sent almost immediately to Reggio, where
Wilcox found him an invaluable assistant.
I was shown to my quarters--the room that had been Mr. Bicknell’s--in a
small frame house, sixteen by sixteen. It was divided into two rooms by
a wooden partition with a door; there was a well fitted window with a
sash curtain in each room. Behind the house was the famous kitchen, of
which we had heard so much. It is a tiny convenient place with a cement
floor and walls, a stone table with little holes for the live charcoal,
and grates to go over the fire. My room had a table, chair, washstand
with jug, basin and pail. Gasperone brought me hot water and took my
boots and dress to brush. In the corner of the room was a most ingenious
and convenient bed. Some springy boards were nailed rather loosely to an
upright head and footpiece; the boards were almost as good as a spring,
the mattress and pillow of sea-moss were comfortable enough for anybody,
not born in Sybaris.
I sat down and looked out of the window towards the tool house, the
center of interest for the moment. The men had knocked off work, and
were passing in file, very slowly, before the open window, where the
paymaster sat, paying each man what was due him.
[Illustration: AMERICAN VILLAGE, MESSINA. THE PAY LINE. _Page 286._]
[Illustration: “THE FRONT OF THE PALACE HAD FALLEN INTO A HEAP OF
RUINS.” _Page 305._]
[Illustration: SEMINARA. CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF THE POOR.]
After our long journey, our harassing drive through ruined
Messina--where the reality surpassed all descriptions--the exquisite
neatness, the order, the comfort of the Zona Case Americane, brought a
sense of well-being like oil poured on a burning wound. I sat for an
hour in that fragrant little wooden room, while the rain drummed with
soft fingers on the roof, and went over the history of our journey step
by step, tested link by link the chain of chance circumstances that had
drawn young Brush, the new recruit, from the garage in Florence to the
camp by the Torrente Zaera.
The manner in which the whole American working party was brought
together is well illustrated by the story. If Mr. Parrish had not been
in Florence, if he had not hunted up Mr. Brush, if that letter from camp
had not come the day we lunched at the Trattoria Aurora, we should not
have had one of our most useful and faithful workers; and young Brush
would have missed one of the great experiences of his life. Mr. Griscom
felt that one of his practical difficulties was that all the help he
could hope for must be drawn from the American colonies in Italy, the
Government agents, consuls, artists and missionaries. If this was a
difficulty--which I question--the way it was overcome both at the
Embassy and the camp was magnificent. Whatever tool he had, Belknap
worked with and found it a good tool. It may have been his nature--he is
the kind of workman who never grumbles at his tools--but the character
of the helpers surely counted for something. Our consuls were never
found wanting. Bayard Cutting from Milan, though out of health at the
time of the earthquake, went down to Messina with the first relief
party, and from that time on he was faithful to the great work. Bishop
at Palermo, Crowninshield at Naples, Smith at Genoa, did magnificent
service, working day and night, without thought of sparing themselves.
The spirit of the officials and volunteers was almost without exception
altruistic. Every man was trying to help the other out; all were matched
in the great race for service. Sailors, consuls, artists and
missionaries have something in common surely; it was just that something
that made them of so much use. They are not machines; they have not been
warped and deformed by the commercial slavery that is sapping the
life-blood of our people. Mammon, the slave-driver, may crack his whip;
it does not frighten them. Their time is not money, it’s beyond price,
so they spent it freely for their suffering brothers and never counted
the cost.
J. had written that the nights were cold. I unpacked my hot-water bottle
and my traveling rug; I was just on the point of calling Gasperone to
fill the bottle, when J. looked in. His eyes brightened at the sight of
the rubber bottle.
“Are you going to use this?” he asked.
“Oh, no! I always travel with it, in case of illness.”
“If you are sure, I will have it filled; Belknap’s taken cold. You
brought the rug; will you need it?”
“No, no! There are plenty of blankets.”
“You think so? Then I will take this for him. Some of the men have been
greedy about blankets; he has less than any man in the camp.”
“Take them, take them of course!” J. went off with bottle and rug; I
piled every garment I had with me on my sea-moss bed and tucked myself
up comfortably. What sort of man was this Chief who inspired such
devotion?
It must have been after midnight, for the cocks were crowing, when I was
awakened by the sound of gunshots, followed by loud shouts and the noise
of hurrying footsteps. I listened, as I never listened before.
In the distance a dog bayed; some vagrant cur had escaped in spite of
the stringent orders to shoot all dogs and cats on sight. The flash of a
lantern next, the clank of a sword-belt as if one buckled on his weapon
as he ran, more footsteps, at first light and hurrying, then slow and
heavy,--the tread of men who carry a burthen: they passed the door, grew
faint, were lost in the silence of the night. Through the upper
uncurtained window-panes the haggard face of the gibbous moon looked
from an angry sky.
I asked at breakfast what the commotion had been. No one had heard the
noises of the night; it was suggested that I had been dreaming. Months
after, Patsy told me what had happened.
“You remember the two soldiers who challenged us when we reached the
camp? They had to keep a strict watch at night so that the building
materials and tools should not be stolen. The soldier on duty fell
asleep at his post. He was wakened suddenly by the steps of his comrade,
come to relieve him; before he was fully awake he caught up his gun and
shot the poor fellow, who, as it happened, was his best friend. I had it
from the cab-driver, never a word of it at camp of course!”
That morning Patsy hunted up the Avvocato Bonanno, and through him made
several interesting acquaintances. He lunched with some officers, and
recognized among the dishes served certain canned meats sent out from
America for the _profughi_.
“The Sicilian peasants simply won’t eat them; they’d rather starve,”
Patsy explained. “The only thing to do with the quantities of tinned
food we sent is to feed it to the army; they’re not so particular.
Another time when we want to help such people in a plight like this, we
should send flour and corn-meal and trust them to turn them into
macaroni and polenta, their two staples of life. We’re so fond of
change, so keen about new foods, that we give old standbys, like hominy
and oatmeal, new fancy names every year, just to sell them. An American
believes something new is better than anything old. An Italian only
admits a thing good that has been so proven by the centuries. Have you
room in your bag for this?” Patsy handed me a pound package of Salada
Ceylon tea.
“Where did you get it?”
“Bought it! We sent these poor devils half a cargo of tea! They did not
know what on earth it was good for, tried to smoke it, chew it, use it
as snuff--no go! Finally they put it on sale; now foreigners in camp and
on shipboard can buy it at a fair price! The money is put into coffee;
_that_ is the very breath of life to a Sicilian.”
X
THE VILLAGGIO REGINA ELENA
“What did you think had happened?”
Caterina traced a cross with her bare brown toe in the dusty path of the
_campo santo_: “Per Dio, Signora, we thought it was the Day of Judgment.
Mamma, babbo and I were dressed, ready to go to work--we live here, my
father is _guardiano_. My two brothers were in bed; they were killed.
One still remains _sotto le macerie_; there is no way to get the body
out. After the 28th of April no more may be moved on account of
infection; it is finished.”
Caterina, daughter of the porter at the cemetery, a lovely girl of
sixteen, was our guide. Smiling, she welcomed us, standing under a
sculptured “Genius of Grief.”
“A strange guide for such a place!” said Patsy.
Strange indeed! Coffins everywhere, and babies in grandams’ arms--the
new life pushing aside the old, as the green oak leaves come out beneath
the brown.
As Caterina led the way up the sunny slope, between cypresses and
roses, she pointed out the tottering and broken monuments; the
earthquake had wrought strange havoc here. The chapel of the Cavallieri
di Messina with its fine Ionic colonnade was a ruin; some of the tombs
were wrenched open.
“Perhaps these dead, like ourselves, thought that the last day had
come,” said Caterina.
A wine cart loaded with casks of wine, with a coffin lashed at the back,
passed us. It was followed by two women with grim set faces--no tears,
they were all shed long ago. Caterina paused by the grave of the
patriot, La Farina, picked a red rose and handed it to me with a shy
smile. From the upper terrace we looked down on a plain, furrowed as if
for planting. A long line of men were digging a trench. Piles of plain
unmarked wooden boxes--there must have been several hundreds--were
stacked on the ground.
“These might be packing cases for dry-goods,” said Patsy. “There’s not
the faintest suggestion of the human form, not even the sloping line of
the shoulders, to show what they are!”
“Will there be no service, no benediction?” I asked Caterina.
“God has already given them benediction enough,” she replied.
Messina is like a battle-field; there is too much haste for funeral
pomp; nothing remains to be done but get the poor human remains out of
sight, under ground as soon as possible. From time to time the
Archbishop visits the _campo santo_, blesses the dead _en masse_, and
sprinkles holy water on the long brown mounds.
As we watched the men delving in the fosse, a gay little painted
_carretto_ passed, driven by a blond lad with a roguish face and a rose
behind his ear. He sat upon two coffins, whistling merrily.
“_Buon giorno_, Caterina; what a fine day, if the sun would only stay!”
He flourished his whip and flicked a fly off the mule’s ear.
Caterina looked at him adoringly and echoed his wish:
“Perhaps the rains are over,” she said. “Thou art well, Carlino?”
While they talked about the weather, their eyes also spoke of secrets
unspeakable. It was easy to see how things stood between them. In that
dreadful indescribable atmosphere, hazel eyes caught fire from blue.
Death had become a commonplace to the lover and his lass; after so many
months of familiarity they had grown callous to its ugliness. In the
meeting of their eyes, life laughed at death.
In the upper, more aristocratic part of the _campo santo_, the dead lay
in separate graves. Caterina stopped near two grave-diggers at work.
“Two metres deep,” she said sagely.
A pair of stone-masons were working here, directed by a tall eagle-faced
man and a youth, evidently his son. One mason marked on a small white
headstone letters and a date in black; then with a chisel, which he
knocked only with his hand, chipped out the letters from the stone. It
must have been soft as cheese, for by the time the grave was a metre
deep, the name Domenica was neatly carved. The second mason was
smoothing a little white cross that had been roughed out of the same
soft stone. When the grave was two metres deep, cross and headstone were
ready. The plain wooden coffin had a rude cross nailed on the lid.
Without a flower or a tear, it was lowered into the grave and the earth
filled in.
“Thou hast done well and quickly,” said the gentleman to the elder
mason. “Here is the money as agreed.”
“The others the Signore spoke of?”
“Gone--there was some mistake. We have found only this, the youngest.
Perhaps another has buried them, thinking them his own. I return to Rome
tonight.”
Then I remembered: this was the man I had met with the fair young woman
going from one survivor to another, asking for news of Messina.
An Italian officer and an Englishman passed, and stood looking down at
those men digging in the long trench.
“What do you advise?” asked the officer. “She is tormented; here is her
last letter. Nothing will satisfy her unless I find him. I have tried
every way; there is no trace, no record. He may have been among those
burned or carried out to sea the first days; he may be in that trench.
What would you do?”
“Find him,” said the Englishman, “or another in his place, and put up a
stone to him. Then she can have a place to lay her flowers and to weep;
it’s not his bones, but his memory--” They passed out of earshot.
We moved to another part of the upper terrace and watched half a dozen
men take up the flat stone covers of a row of tombs, sunk under the
marble pavement.
“What are they doing?” Patsy asked.
“We must make room here, there, everywhere, for these new ones,”
Caterina answered. “No one could have expected such a calamity; how
could we be prepared?” She spoke with the anxiety of a hostess, who has
not beds enough for her guests to sleep in. “These poor dead, they too
must lie in sanctified ground; it is their turn.”
“Those buried here before?”
“The people who died of the last cholera.”
“Let us go,” said Patsy, “we’ve seen enough.”
Did he remember the story they tell in Florence? When the ancient city
wall was taken down fifty years ago, the workmen died like sheep of a
mysterious disease. An investigation was ordered. It was found that the
old wall crossed the cemetery, where the victims of the great plague
were buried in the fourteenth century; the plague germs were still
alive, and the workmen had died of the plague that in Boccaccio’s time
decimated Florence.
“Would you like a new dress, Caterina?” said Patsy, as we paused at the
gate. Her ragged gown clung to her with the grace of classic drapery; it
seemed a pity to change it for a stiff new dress. “Come to the Case
Americane at two o’clock and ask for the Signora.”
“_Si, Signorino!_” She watched us go with dancing eyes; she was to have
a new dress.
Carlino was waiting outside the gate. His cart was empty now; we stopped
to look at the pretty turnout. The mule’s harness was superb, with a
high pommel and headstall of crimson velvet embroidered in tinsel. The
wooden axle was beautifully carved with grotesque heads at either end.
The panels in sides and back of the cart were painted with different
scenes from Sicilian history or literature. Many of the old legends are
preserved in this way. In spite of the painting being rather poor,
certain classic details are observed. The subject of each scene is
stated so that there can be no doubt as to what the painter wishes to
portray. On one panel of Carlino’s _carretto_ the title is painted under
a tragic mask:
“Eschylus gives a rehearsal of his play of Œdipus at Colonus at the
Theatre of Dionysius.”
“That’s Eschylus,” Patsy pointed out, “you know him by the roll of
manuscript in his hand--the play happens to be by Sophocles, a mere
detail!”
The next panel represents English soldiers scouting in the desert.
“That’s an officer in khaki and a wide-awake hat on horseback, with an
Arab in a bournous pointing out the way.”
“_La prima lettera amorosa_” occupies the third panel, a garden scene--a
gentleman in Louis Quinze dress plays the harp to the heroine in pink
satin, reading a letter; below the tail-board is a boldly carved dragon;
in an under-panel a pair of sweethearts embracing. Carlino was proud of
his cart, which was fresh, clean, and newly varnished.
“Not a bad _carretto_, is it?” he said, pleased at our attention. We
left Carlino waiting, and singing as he waited an old song of the
people:
“Mamma, mamma fò la preghiera
Tu non lo sai con quale ardore
Prego Iddio mattina e sera
Che dell’ amante mi serbi il core!”
We looked into the Giardino Mazzini, where the Calabresi family took
refuge after the earthquake. The sign at the entrance was still intact:
“The public is prayed not to touch the plants or to walk upon the
grass.”