The train passed through the tunnel under the headland on which stands
the Albergo Belvedere, and steamed into the station of Castellinaria, a
town that is not so marked on any map of Sicily. I had written to
Carmelo to meet the train and drive me up, but he was not among the
coachmen. I recognized his brother, and said to him--
"Hullo! Rosario, where have you been all these years?"
"Well, you see," he replied, "I have been away. First there was the
military service and then I had a disgrazia; but I have come back now."
I avoided inquiring into the disgrazia till I could ascertain from some
one else whether he meant what we should call a misfortune or something
more serious and merely said I was glad it was all over and asked after
his brother.
"Carmelo is quite well--he is in private service. He told me to meet you
and sent you his salutes and apologies for not coming himself; he will
call on you this evening."
"At the Albergo Belvedere?"
"No, excuse me, the Belvedere is closed; he told me to take you to the
Albergo della Madonna, unless you wish to go anywhere else."
So Rosario drove me with my luggage up the zigzags for an hour and a half
through dust and sunshine, past orchards of lemons and oranges, among
prickly pears and agave overgrown with pink and red geranium, by rocky
slopes of mesembryanthemum, yellow marguerites, broom and sweet peas,
between white walls with roses straggling over them and occasional
glimpses of the sea dotted with fishing boats and, now and then, of the
land covered with olives, almonds, and vines.
We stopped in the corso at the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) and
were received by a young man who introduced himself as Peppino, the son
of the landlord. He also said he remembered me, that he had been a
waiter in a restaurant in Holborn where I used to dine; I did not
recognize him, though, of course, I did not say so. There was something
in his manner as though he had recently been assured by my banker that
the balance to my credit during the last ten years or so had never fallen
below a much larger sum than my passbook had been in the habit of
recording. He would not hear of my doing anything about my luggage or
dinner, he knew my ways and would show me to my room at once. It was a
very fine room with two beds, and he promised that no one should be put
into the second bed, not even during the festa which in a few days would
fill the town with pilgrims. He then departed to bring up my luggage and
I went out on to the balcony.
Before me lay one of those stupendous panoramas which are among the
glories of Sicily. First a garden of flowers with orange and lemon trees
whose blossoms scented the air, then a thicket of almonds full of
glittering goldfinches, then a drop of several hundred feet; beyond, to
the right, a great mountain with snow on its rocky summit, its lower
slopes and the intervening country highly cultivated; to the left the
sea, an illimitable opal gleaming in the sunset. Between the mountain
and the sea the coastline went in and out, in and out, in a succession of
bays and promontories that receded and receded until sea and land and sky
were blended into one distant haze. Across the first bay was the port
and, as the dusk deepened, constellations of lights gathered and glowed
among the shipping. I took possession, thinking that if, like Peppino's
parents, I might spend my declining days here, the troubles of life, and
especially those attendant upon old age, might be easier to bear. And
yet, possibly, a stupendous panorama might turn out as deceitful as
proficiency at whist, or great riches, or worldly honours, or any of the
other adjuncts of age popularly supposed to be desirable; for I suspect
that most of these things fail and become as naught in the balance when
weighed against a good digestion, a modest competency and a quiet
conscience. These are the abiding securities that smooth our passage
through life and bring a man peace at the last, and each of us has his
own way of going about to win them.
Peppino brought my luggage and, with no nonsense about what I would have
for dinner or when or where I should like it, told me that it would be
ready at 7.30 in the garden. Accordingly I went down punctually and
found a table spread under a trellis of vines from which hung an electric
light. Peppino waited on me as, according to his account, he used to do
in London, and entertained me with reminiscences of his life there. He
had attended divine service at St. Paul's, which he called il Duomo di
Londra, and had found it a more reverent function, though less emotional,
than Mass at home. He was enthusiastic about the river Thames, the
orators in Hyde Park and the shiny soldiers riding in the streets. He
remembered the lions in the Zoological Gardens and the "Cock" at
Highbury, where he once drank a whisky-soda and disliked it intensely.
He had stood on the base of La Torre del Duca di Bronte (by which he
meant the Nelson Column) to see the Lord Mayor's Show, and considered it
far finer than any Sicilian procession--more poetical in conception, he
said, and carried out with greater magnificence. He had been to Brighton
from Saturday to Monday and burst into tears when he saw the sea again.
It is difficult to travel on the Underground Railway without losing
oneself, but Peppino can do it. He got lost once, but that was in some
street near Covent Garden, soon after his arrival, and before he had
ventured alone in the Underground; he asked his way of a policeman who
spoke Italian and told him the way: he believes that all London policemen
speak Italian, but he himself prefers English if he can get a chance to
speak it.
Sicilians always want to speak English, especially those of the lower
orders who invariably consider it as a master-key that will open every
door leading to wealth. Sometimes what they say is, of course, nothing
more than otiose compliment; sometimes they are merely introducing the
subject of their want of money in an artistic manner in the hope of
anything from a soldo to a promise to take them into service as valet,
courier, coachman, or whatever it may be--a sort of shaking of Fortune's
bag to see what will come out. Sometimes they really do want to learn
English and some of them even make attempts to pick up a few words and
actually retain them.
I went once from Siracusa to Malta at the end of December; it was
abominably rough, and my luggage was thrown about in the cabin with such
violence that some of the things slipped out of my bag. I was too
sea-sick to be sure I had picked them all up, but afterwards discovered
that the only thing left behind was my new diary for the next year. On
returning from Valletta to Siracusa about a fortnight later, I asked the
steward if he had found my diary and it was produced by the cabin-boy who
must have been a youth of considerable energy and enterprise. He had
apparently learnt by ear several English words and, finding a book full
of blank paper, had written them down, spelling them the best way he
could, that is phonetically, according to Italian pronunciation, and
writing the Italian equivalents, spelt in his own way, in a parallel
column. His writing is so distinct that I am certain I have got every
letter right, but I do not recognize his second English word for latrina,
it is probably some corrupt form of lavatory. The vocabulary, though
restricted, seems a fairly useful one for a cabin-boy to begin with:
ENGL. ITALY.
Fork Forketa
Spoun Cuchiaio
Neif Coltelo
Pleit Piati
Glas Bichiere
Bootl Butiglia
Voutsch Orologio
Tebl Tavola
Ceaer Sedia
Taul Tavaglia
Serviet Serviette
Dabliusii Latrina
Lavetrim ,,
Vouder Aqua
Badi Letto
Peppino is not exactly of this class, his parents were able to give him a
good education, he took his degree at the University of Palermo and,
though he does not practise his profession, is a qualified engineer.
When he returned from London his English was probably better than the
cabin-boy's will ever be, but he is a little out of practice.
I had observed a couple of picturesque ruffians hovering about in the
gloom of the garden; towards the end of dinner they wandered into the
circle of the electric light and resolved themselves into Carmelo and
Rosario. We invited them to sit down, gave them wine and cigarettes and
talked over the changes that had taken place in the town since I had last
been there.
When they had gone, I asked Peppino about Rosario's misfortune and learnt
that he had been put into prison for stabbing his father. He had only
wounded him, and Peppino thought the father had probably been in the
wrong, for he has a bad history in the books of the police, but Rosario
had not done himself any good over it, because, of course, the crime and
its consequences have now gone down into his own history.
An Englishman may be a mass of prejudices, but I confess I did not like
the idea of hob-nobbing with a would-be parricide and determined that
Rosario should not drive me any more; if I wanted a carriage, Carmelo
should get leave of his padrone and take me.
Next morning, while I was having my coffee, there was a sound of passing
music; I recognized it as belonging to a funeral, and asked Peppino if he
knew who was dead. Several people were dead and he did not know which
this was, unless it was old Baldassare; it must be either a married woman
or a grown-up man. I asked how he knew that. He replied that when
apprenticed to his father, who had been sagrestano before taking the
hotel, he had learnt all about the ceremonies of the Church.
"They do this," he said, "when it is a married lady dead or a grown man.
If it shall be the woman dead unmarried or a boy dead, then shall it be a
different song, a different ring of bell and the dead shall go very
directly in the paradiso; it is like the--please, what is fuochi
artificiali? Excuse me, it is the rocket; prestissimo and St. Peter he
don't be asking no question. Did you understand?"
He then diverged to ceremonies connected with last illnesses--
"When the doctor is coming it is telling always that you would be good of
the malady, but when the priest is coming it is telling that you are
finished. This is not a good thing. It is difficult to hope when the
doctor is shaking the head and is telling 'Please, you; go, catch the
priest quickly, quickly.' And sometimes the notary, the man of law, if
the malade is having money; if no money, it is the notary not at all.
When the doctor is coming out, the priest is coming in, and generally
after would be the death. But you must pay. If to pay less would come
only one priest and not well dressed, if to pay more, very well dressed
and too many priests. If to pay plenty, plenty, then to ring all the
bells and enter by the great door; but if to pay few, then not many bells
and to enter by the second door. Did you understand?
"When they die the parents always, and also the man that is to die, they
fear the--please, what is not the paradiso? Excuse me, it is the
inferno: and they tell to the priest 'Please come.' Then they pay him to
tell all that is good, and sometimes the priest arrive that you will be
dead. If you shall suicide, very likely you are dead before. Then shall
the parents pay him to tell that the man to die has taken all the
functions of religion and the holy oil to put in the foot to prevent him
the death. But it is prevent not at all.
"Did you know what is sacramento? All right, I shall tell you. The
priest is going with the sacramento on the hand and the umbrella on the
head and you must pay--always must pay, it is the interesting thing. And
the old women are going and are praying because the man is dead: and the
soldiers are going and are taking the arms before the risorgimento, but
now the law it is redeemed. Then they arrive into the room of the malade
and take the sacramento and up and down and put the holy oil in the foot
and pray and went away, and the malade who is not dead would very soonly
die."