Peppino usually took half an hour off and came about noon to wherever I
was sketching to fetch me to lunch. One morning as we walked along
nearly every man we met smiled and said to him--
"Buona festa, Peppino," and he smiled and returned their salutes with the
same words. He accounted for it by saying it was his onomastico--the day
of the saint whose name he bears.
"What?" said I, "is it S. Peppino and you never told me? I wish you many
happy returns of the day. But it cannot be everybody's onomastico as
well, and you say 'Buona festa, Peppino' to all who speak to you."
He replied that it was the 19th of March, the festa of S. Giuseppe, and
assured me that he had said "Buona festa, Peppino" to no one who was not
a namesake; so that about two-thirds of the men at Castellinaria must
have been baptized Giuseppe.
"Then that explains it," said I. "I was beginning to think that you
might have become engaged to be married and they were congratulating
you."
That did not do at all.
"I got no time to be married," said he, "too much busy. Besides,
marriage very bad thing. Look here, I shall tell you, listen to me.
Marriage is good for the woman, is bad for the man: every marriage makes
to be one woman more in the world, one man less. Did you understand?
And they are not happy together. We have a bad example in this town."
"Surely you don't mean to tell me that here in Castellinaria, where
everything moves so smoothly and so peacefully, you have an unhappy
married couple?"
He replied solemnly, slowly and decidedly, "Not one--all."
He continued in his usual manner, "Did you read the ten commandments for
the people who shall be married? If to find, shall be showing you. It
says, 'Non quarelate la prima volta.' Did you understand? 'Don't begin
to quarrel,' because you will never stop. After the quarrel you make the
peace, but it is too late: the man shall forget, perhaps, but the woman
shall forget never, never, never, and you have lost.
"I was telling to my friend," he continued, "'Please do not be married,
because when you would be married you would not love any more that lady.'
And he was telling to me that he would marry, because it would be a good
thing for him, good wife, good food, good care and many things like this.
And I was telling to him, 'I would be seeing if you shall be repeating
these words when you shall be married one year.' The year was passed but
my friend he don't be saying nothing to me. Excuse me, I am not so bad
man to ask him. I found him many times in the street, but he would not
meet me, would not speak. Oh, no! And he is not laughing any more. Not
one friend; fifteen friends, all married. Never they are telling they
are happy."
Having disposed of the question of marriage he told me that Carmelo had
been to see me and would call again. He had already been several times,
and I was puzzled to know what he wanted. He could hardly be wanting to
propose an excursion, for I had already made him get leave and take me
for several. But as, sooner or later, an opportunity must occur for
clearing up the mystery, I left it alone for the present and asked
Peppino, who always knew everything that was going on in the
neighbourhood, what ship it was I had seen coming into the bay and making
for the port.
He said she was the _Sorella di Ninu_, returning from Naples, where she
had been with a cargo of wine. He knew because she belonged to his
cousin Vanni, who was a wine merchant and, if I would give up a morning's
sketching, he would give up a morning's work, take me down to the port,
introduce me to his cousin and show me over the ship.
Accordingly next morning Carmelo got leave from his padrone and drove us
down the zig-zags among the flowers while Peppino told me about his
cousin. His father had two brothers, one was the father of Vanni and
used to keep a small wine shop down in the port and Vanni, who had a
voice, studied singing and went on the opera stage. The other brother
emigrated to America and never married. Very little was heard of him,
except that he was engaged in some speculative business, until at last
news came of his death. Had he died six months before, he would have
left nothing, but it happened that the markets were favourable and he
died rich. After the usual delays, his money came and was divided
between his surviving brothers. Vanni's father enlarged the wine shop,
bought vineyards and a ship, took his son away from the stage and sent
him to the University. In course of time he enlarged his business and
took Vanni into partnership. Peppino's father gave up being sagrestano,
bought vineyards and the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) and
educated his son. The part of Peppino's education that was most useful
to him was his two years in England, and that did not cost his father
anything, for he would only take money enough for the journey and all the
time he was away he kept himself and saved, so that he not only repaid
his father and paid for his journey home but had money in the bank.
By this time we had arrived at the quay and Peppino went off to his
uncle's shop for information as to approaching the _Sorella di Ninu_,
leaving me alone with Carmelo. He seized the opportunity.
"I have been to see you several times because I wanted to tell you that I
also have been in prison."
"Hullo! Carmelo," I said, "have you been trying to murder your father?"
"No," he said, "it was not my father. It was a friend. We quarrelled.
I drew my knife and stabbed him in the arm. It happened last year."
I sympathized as well as I could and assured him that it should make no
difference in the relations between us.
Why did I say this? Why was I so indulgent towards Carmelo and so
implacable to Rosario? It seems as though an Englishman may also be a
mass of contradictions. It is true that parricide is perhaps the most
repulsive form that murder can take, but I do not think this had anything
to do with it, for ordinary murder is sufficiently repulsive. I believe
I was influenced by a conversation we had had during our last expedition;
Carmelo had told me that he intended soon to leave private service, to
marry and go into partnership with Rosario.
"But, Carmelo," I had objected, "would not that be rather risky? Don't
you remember that Rosario has been to prison for trying to kill your
father?"
"Oh, that all happened a long time ago and Rosario has married and
settled down since then."
Evidently Carmelo had thought this over and had felt uncomfortable that I
should shun Rosario for being a jail-bird and not shun him who was one
also. It seemed to indicate considerable delicacy of feeling on his part
and I was pleased with him for taking so much trouble to get the
confession off his chest. Whereas Rosario had treated his disgrazia as
merely an annoying little accident that might happen to any gentleman.
Peppino returned, stood on the quay and shouted to the ships; presently a
small boat containing Vanni and a sailor detached herself from the
confusion and rowed to our feet. I was introduced and, amid the usual
compliments, we took our seats and glided past the _Sacro Cuore_, the
_Due Sorelle_, the _Divina Provvidenza_, the _Maria Concetta_, the
_Stella Maris_, the _La Pace_, the _Indipendente_, the _Nuova Bambina_
and many more. Peppino called my attention to the names of the ships and
said how commonplace and dull they were after the romantic names he had
seen on the beach at Brighton. He gave, as an instance, _Pride of the
Ocean_, which I remembered having often seen there; it was all very well,
but somehow it had never impressed me as hitting the bull's-eye of
romance. During their voyage through time the words of one's own
language become barnacled over with associations so that we cannot see
them in their naked purity as we see the words of a foreign tongue. I
translated _Pride of the Ocean_ into _Vanto del Mare_ and offered it to
Peppino; it seemed to me to gain, but he said I had knocked all the
poetry out of it. One of the ships was the _Riunione dei due Fratelli_.
I inquired whether the brothers had quarrelled and made it up.
"Yes," said he, "that is the worst of family quarrels; they do not last."
"What do you mean, Peppino? Surely it is better for brothers to be
friends than to quarrel?"
"If to be friends inside also, then is it a good thing and much better;
but look here, excuse me; the brothers are quarrelling and fighting and
are failing to kill each others and the parents are telling to don't be
quarrelling and the brothers are telling that they would be quarrelling
and the parents are telling to don't be stupid and to embrace and became
friends and the brothers are telling, Go away, parents, and to leave
alone to be quarrelling in peace. But it is too difficult and many
months are passing and the brothers are--please, what is stanchi? Excuse
me, it is fatigued, and are embracing to make pleasure to the parents and
to make riunione outside and to baptize the ship, but inside it is
riunione not at all. It is to kiss with the lips and the heart is hating
each others. This is not a good thing."
The boat with the name that pleased me best was not there. Peppino told
me about it: it belonged to him before the money came from America and he
used it to ferry tourists across the bay and into the bowels of the
promontory through the mouth of a grotto where the reflected lights are
lovely on a sunny day; he called it the _Anime del Purgatorio_.
This would have been just the morning to visit the caves, for there were
no clouds. We stood on the deck of the _Sorella di Ninu_, looking up
through the brown masts and the rigging into the blue sky, and watching
the gulls as they glided and circled above us and turned their white
wings to the sun. Vanni did the honours of his ship, showed us his
barrels and casks, nearly all empty now, and made us look down into the
hold where there was a cask capable of holding, I forget how much, but it
was so big that it could never have been got into the ship after it was
made, so it had to be built inside. Then we must taste his wine, of
which he still had some in one of the casks, and the captain brought
tumblers and another queer-shaped glass with a string round its rim in
which to fetch the wine up; it was about the size and shape of a
fir-cone, the broad upper part being hollow to hold the wine, and the
pointed lower part solid. The captain held it by the string and dropped
it neatly down through the bung-hole, as one drops a bucket into a well;
its heavy point sank through the wine without any of that swishing and
swashing which happens with a flat-bottomed, buoyant, wooden bucket, and
he drew it up full and gleaming like a jewel. The first lot was used to
rinse the tumblers inside and out and then thrown overboard, sparkling
and flashing in the sunlight as it fell into the sea. The taster was
lowered again and the tumblers filled.
Vanni, seeing I admired the taster, wanted to give it to me, but it was
the only one he had and was in constant use when customers came to the
ship, so I declined it and he promised to bring one for me next time his
ship made a voyage; in the meantime I took one of the tumblers as a
ricordo. Then we went into the captain's cabin and sat round his table
listening to his stories and smoking cigarettes. Every now and then a
silence came over us, broken occasionally by one of us saying suddenly--
"Ebbene, siamo qua!" ("Well, here we are!")
This sort of thing formerly used to make me feel nervous; it was as
though I had failed to entertain my friends or as though they had given
up the hope of entertaining me. After experiencing it several times,
however, I came to take a different and more accurate view. There was no
occasion to do or say anything. We were enjoying one another's society.
Vanni told us he was thinking of taking a cargo of Marsala to England and
what would the English people say to it? Now the Marsala was very good
and, according to Vanni, could be put upon the market at a very low
price, but I foresaw difficulties. Knowing that he had sung in opera in
Naples, Palermo, Malta and many other places, I asked if he liked music.
He said he adored it. Music, he declared, was the most precious gift of
God to man--more precious even than poetry. He had his box at the opera
and always occupied it during the season. And he enjoyed music of all
kinds, not only the modern operas of Mascagni, Puccini and so on, but
also the old music of Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini. I asked if he did
not like _Le Nozze di Figaro_. He had never heard of it, nor of _Don
Giovanni_, nor of _Fidelio_. He had heard the names of Beethoven and
Mozart, but not of Handel, Schubert or Brahms. He had heard also of
Wagner, but had never heard any of his music.
I was not surprised he should not have heard of those composers who are
not famous for operas, nor by his odd list of so-called old musicians,
but I was surprised that he should place music so decidedly above poetry.
I said it appeared to me he had practically expressed the opinion that
Donizetti was a more precious gift of God to man than Dante. Put like
that, he did not hold to what he had said and confessed he had been
speaking without due consideration. But Peppino said that in some
respects Donizetti was a better man than Dante; he was smoother and
better tempered, "and many things like this." Peppino had been brought
up, like every Italian, to worship Dante, but when he went to London and
mastered the English language, when he began to read our literature and
to think for himself, then he saw that Dante was "un falso idolo." Every
nation gets the poet she deserves and Italy has her faults; but what,
asked Peppino, what has Italy done to deserve her dreary Dante? On the
other hand, with all his admiration for England, he could hardly believe
that we really do deserve our Shakespeare.
I was beginning to feel giddy, as though the _Sorella di Ninu_, instead
of being quietly in port, was out on the tumbling ocean in a sudden gale,
so very unusual is it to hear such opinions in Italy. But Peppino is
full of surprises. To recover my balance I turned the conversation back
to the wine, taking my way through the music and telling them that in
England we thought very highly of the Austrian and German composers, and
asking Vanni if he would recommend any one to introduce their
compositions into Sicily. He replied that if it was pleasing music it
might be successful, but that if it was very different from Italian music
it would hardly pay to bring it over until the people had been educated.
I feared it would be the same with the wine. He must first educate us to
forsake our old friends, beer, whisky and tea, before he could create a
market on which he could put his Marsala.
Driving back, I told Peppino about the lottery at Castelvetrano and how
my numbers had lost. He inquired whether my birthday fell during the
week I bought the ticket. It did not.
"Then," said he, "of course you could not be winning and Angelo very
stupid to let you play those numbers."
It seems that numbers are no good unless they are connected with
something that happens to you during the week. This explained why at
Selinunte the brigadier had discarded the price of my clothes, which was
not his concern but mine and belonged to the week in which I had bought
them, and preferred to play the number that fell from the cigarettes, of
which he was at the moment actually smoking one.
"If there shall be a railway accident," continued Peppino, "on Thursday
night, then shall there be going plenty much people and shall sleep in
the ground to be first on Friday morning, because the office shall shut
early to take the papers to Palermo to turn the wheel the Saturday. And
if to come out the number, the people shall be gaining many money, but if
to don't come out, shall be gaining no money. This is not a good thing.
"They think it is fortunate the--please, what is sogno? Excuse me, it is
the dream. But it must be the dream in the week you play. When the man
in the dream shall be coming from the other world and shall be saying,
'Please you, play this number,' then they believe you shall certainly
win. But if to play the number, very uncertain to win."
They live in a state of wild hope after buying their tickets until the
numbers are declared and, the odds being enormously in favour of the
government, the gamblers usually lose. Then they live in a state of
miserable despair until the possession of a few soldi, the happening of
something remarkable, or merely the recollection of the departed joys of
hope compared with present actual depression, urges them to try their
luck again. So that the gambler's life consists of alternations of
feverish expectation and maddening dejection. "This is not a good
thing"; but it is a worse thing for the gambler who wins. He sees how
easy it is and is encouraged to believe he can do it every time; in his
exaltation he stakes again and loses all his winnings, instead of only a
few soldi. If he does not do this he spends the money in treating his
friends and getting into debt over it and has to pawn his watch. So that
the Genovese, by way of wishing his enemy ill-luck, while appearing to
observe the proprieties, says to him--
"Ti auguro un' ambo." ("I hope you may win an ambo.")
Peppino does not approve of the lottery, yet he has not made up his mind
that it ought to be abolished. It certainly does harm, but so deep is
the natural instinct for gambling that innumerable private lotteries
would spring up to replace it, and they would do far more mischief,
because they would be in the hands of rogues, whereas the government
manages the affair quite honestly. The government pays no attention to
dreams or ladies in white dresses or anything that happens during the
week; it bases its calculations on the mathematical theory of chances,
and gathers in the soldi week after week, so that it makes an annual
profit of about three million sterling. Besides, if people are willing
to pay for the pleasure of a week of hope, why should they not be allowed
to do so? The uneducated as a class ought to contribute to the expenses
of governing their country, and the lottery is a sure and convenient way
of collecting their contributions. It is literally what it is often
called--La tassa sull' ignoranza. (The tax upon ignorance.)
Peppino even uses the lottery himself, but in a way of his own. He
chooses two numbers every week, according to what occurs to him as though
he were going in for an ambo and, instead of buying a ticket, puts four
soldi into an earthenware money-box. The numbers he has chosen do not
come out and he considers that he has won his four soldi and has put them
by. In this way he has accumulated several money-boxes full, and if ever
his numbers come out he intends to break his boxes and distribute the
contents among the deserving poor.
As a way of making money Peppino prefers the course of always doing
whatever there is to be done in the house and in the vineyard. A few
years ago his father's vines were suffering from disease; he made
inquiries, studied the subject, ascertained the best course to pursue
and, with his own hands and some little assistance, rooted up all the
plants and laid down American vines, with the result that the yield is
now more than double what it ever was before. And this he thinks was a
great deal better than losing money week after week in the lottery, not
only because of the result, but because of the interest he took in the
work. In fact, he attends to his own business and finds every moment of
the day occupied. He says--
"Always to begin one thing before to finish some other thing, this is the
good life."
Certainly it seems to agree with him. There is not much the matter with
Peppino's health nor with his banking account nor with his conscience, so
far as I can judge. Every one in the town is fond of him and he is
always happy and ready to do any one a good turn. Indeed, his popularity
is the only thing that causes me any uneasiness about him. There is
generally something wrong about a man who has no enemies--but there are
exceptions to every rule.
The poor professor, on the other hand, has at least one enemy and that
the worst a man can have, namely himself. The evening before he went
away he took me into his confidence and consulted me about his future and
his prospects. He is married, but his wife is out of her mind, and he
has three sons, all doing badly, one of them very badly. He told me he
was not at the moment employed as professor, he was living on his
patrimony which consisted of a few acres of vines; he was gradually
selling his land and spending the proceeds, and he thought this the best
plan because the vines were all diseased and did not bring him in enough
money to keep himself and his family. Should I recommend him to come to
England, learn English and try to keep himself by the exercise of his
profession? It was like Vanni's idea of bringing his wine to England. I
could only say I was afraid we already had enough professors. Then he
thought he might write and earn a little money that way; he had read all
Sir Walter Scott's novels in a translation--thirty-two volumes I think he
said; he admired them immensely and was thinking of writing a romance; he
had in fact an idea for one, and would I be so good as to give him my
opinion about it? A young lady is desired by her father to marry a man
she does not love, a rich man, much older than herself. She refuses,
but, later on, consents to make the sacrifice. After a year of unhappy
married life she meets a man of her own age, falls in love with him, and
one day her husband surprises them together, in his rage kills them both
and commits suicide.
"Now," said the professor, "what do you think of my theme?"
I said that, so far as I could remember Sir Walter Scott's novels at the
moment, they contained nothing from which any one could say he had taken
his plot which, of course, was greatly to his credit on the score of
originality, but I begged to be allowed to defer giving any further
opinion until he had finished the work; so much depends upon the way in
which these things are carried out.
He had also written a poem entitled _Completo_, of which he gave me a
copy. It was, he said, "un grido dell' anima." He had not found a
publisher for it yet, but if I would translate it into English and get it
published in London, I could send him any profits that might accrue. I
showed it to Peppino who swore he remembered something very like it in an
Italian magazine and that the professor had had nothing to do with it
beyond copying it. I translated it without rhymes, the professor not
having gone to that expense. I have not offered the result to any
English publisher, none of them would receive it as Peppino did when I
showed it to him. He said I had performed a miracle, that I had
converted a few lines of drivelling nonsense--just the sort of stuff that
would attract the professor--into a masterpiece. But I am afraid the
prestige of the English language may have blinded Peppino to any little
defects, as it made him see more romance than I could find in the names
of the English boats. This was my "masterpiece":
FULL INSIDE.
The train is full; Ah me! the load of travellers!
The engine whistles; Ah me! the piercing shriek!
My heart is burdened; Ah me! the weight of sorrows!
My soul exclaims; Ah me! the despairing cry!
O Train! have pity upon me
For you are strong and I am weak,
Transfer to my heart the load of your passengers
And take in exchange the weight of my sorrows.
Next time I saw the professor he was in charge of a newspaper kiosk in
Palermo, looking older and more dilapidated and still waiting for the
manna to fall from heaven. He complained of the slackness of trade. He
also complained that the work was too hard and was killing him; so that,
one way or the other, he intended to shut up the kiosk and look out for
something else.
CATANIA