Italian sections of New York City is their love feuds. Every day and
every hour, in all these sections, is being enacted those peculiarly
temperamental and emotional things which we attribute more to
dispositions that sensate rather than think. How often have I myself
been an eye-witness to some climacteric conclusion, to some dreadful
blood feud or opposition or contention--a swarthy Italian stabbing a
lone woman in a dark street at night, a seemingly placid diner in some
purely Italian restaurant rising to an amazing state of rage because
of a look, a fancied insult, some old forgotten grudge, maybe, renewed
by the sight of another. At one time, when I had personal charge of
the Butterick publications, I was an immediate and personal witness
to stabbings and shootings that took place under my very eye, some
bleeding and fleeing adversary brushing me as he ran, to fall exhausted
a little farther on. And mobs of Americans, not understanding these
peculiarly deep-seated and emotional feuds, and resenting always the
use of the knife or the stiletto, seeking to wreak summary vengeance
upon those who, beyond peradventure, are in nowise governed by our
theories or our conventions, but hark by other and more devious paths
back into the Italy of the Middle Ages, and even beyond that.
The warmth of passion and tenderness that lies wrapped up in these
wonderful southern quarters of our colder northern clime. The
peculiarly romantic and marvelously involved series of dramatic
episodes, feuds or fancies, loves or hates, politics or passion, such
as would do honor to a mediæval love tale--the kind of episodes that
have made the history of Italy as intricate as any in the world!
The section that has always interested me most is the one that lies
between Ninety-sixth Street and One Hundred and Sixteenth on the East
Side of Manhattan Island, and incloses all the territory that lies
between Second Avenue and the East River. It is a wonderful section.
Here, regardless of the presence of the modern tenement building and
the New York policeman, you may see such a picture of Italian life and
manners as only a visit to Naples and the vine-clad hills of southern
Italy would otherwise afford.
Vigorous and often attractive maidens in orange and green skirts,
with a wealth of black hair fluffed back from their foreheads, and
yellow shawls and coral necklaces fastened about their necks; dark,
somber-faced Italian men, a world of moods and passions sleeping in
their shadowy eyes, decked out in bright Garibaldian shirts and soft
slouch hats, their tight-fitting corduroy trousers drawn closely about
their waists with a leather belt; quaint, cameo-like old men with
earrings in their ears and hands like claws and faces seamed with the
strongest and most sinister lines, and yet with eyes that flash with
feeling or beam with tenderness; and old women, in all forms of color
and clothing, who chatter and gesticulate and make the pavements
resound with the excitement of their everyday bargaining.
This, truly, in so far as New York is concerned, is the region of
the love feud and the balcony. If you will stand at any of the
cross-streets that lead east from Second Avenue you will obtain
a splendid panorama of the latter feature, window after window
ornamented with a red or green or orange iron balcony and hung, in the
summertime, with an array of green vines and bright flower-pots that
invariably suggests the love scene of Shakespeare’s famous play and
the romantic love feeling of the south. Dark, poetic-looking Italians
lean against doorjambs and open gateways and survey the surrounding
neighborhood with an indolent and romantic eye. Plump Italian mothers
gaze comfortably out of open windows, before which they sit and sew
and watch their chubby little children romp and play in the streets.
Fat, soft-voiced merchants, and active, graceful, song-singing Italian
street venders ply their various vocations, the latter turning a
wistful eye to every window, the former lolling contentedly in wooden
chairs, the blessings of warmth and a little trade now and again being
all that they require.
And from out these windows and within these doors hang or lounge those
same maidens, over whom many a bloody feud has been waged and for whom
(for a glance of the eyes or the shrug of the shoulder) many of these
moody-faced, somber-eyed, love-brooding Romeos have whipped out their
glistening steel and buried it in the heart of a hated rival. Girls
have been stabbed here, been followed and shot (I have seen it myself);
petty love-conversations upon a street corner or in the adjacent
park between two ardent lovers have been interrupted by the sudden
appearance of a love frenzied Othello, who could see nothing for it but
to end the misery of his unrequited affection by plunging his knife
into the heart of his rival and into that of his fair but unresponsive
sweetheart. They love and hate; and death is the solution of their
difficulties--death and the silence of the grave.
“She will not love me! Then she must die!”
The wonder of the colony is the frankness and freedom with which its
members take to this solution. Actually, it would seem as if this to
them were the only or normal way out of a love tangle. And if you can
ever contrive an intelligent conversation with any of them you will
find it so. Lounge in their theaters, the _teatro marionette_, their
cafés, about the open doorways and the street corners, and hear the
frankness with which they discuss the latest difficulty. Then you will
see for yourself how simple it all seems to them.
Vincenzo is enamored of his Elvina. So is Nicola. They give each other
black looks, and when Elvina is seen by Vincenzo to walk openly with
Nicola he broods in silence, meditating his revenge.
One night, when the moon is high and the noisy thoroughfare is
pulsating with that suppressed enthusiasm which is a part of youth and
passion and all the fervid freshness of a warm July night, Vincenzo
meets them at the street corner. He is despondent, desperate. Out comes
his knife--click!--and the thing is done. On the pavement lies Nicola
bleeding. Elvina may be seen running and screaming. She too is wounded,
mayhap to the death. Vincenzo runs and throws his hands dramatically
over his head as he falls, mayhap shot or stabbed--by himself or
another. Or Elvina kneels in the open street beside her lover and
cries. Or Vincenzo, white-faced and calm, surrenders himself into the
hands of the rough, loud swearing American policeman--and there you
have it.
[Illustration: A Love Affair in Little Italy]
But ask of the natives, and see what it is they think. They will not
have it that Vincenzo should not have done so, nor Elvina, nor Nicola.
Love is love! Youth is youth! What would you? May not a man settle the
affairs of his heart in his own way? _Perdi!_
And these crimes (as the law considers them), so common are they
that it would be quite impossible to give more than a brief mention
to any of a hundred or more that have occurred within as many as ten
or fifteen years. Sometimes, as in the case of Tomasso Ceralli and
Vincenzo Matti, it is a question of a married woman and an illegal
passion. Sometimes, as in the case of Biegio Refino and Alessandro
Scia, it is some poor cigarette-factory girl who, being used as a tool
by one or more, has fallen into others’ hands and so incensed all and
brought into being a feud. Sometimes, as in the case of Mollinero and
Pagnani, it is a bold, bad Carmen who is not sorry to see her lovers
fight.
But these stories are truly legion and in some instances the police
would never have been the wiser save for a man or a woman whom the
neighbors could not get out of the way in time. Once caught, however,
they come bustling into the nearest station house, these strange groups
of wild, fantastic, disheveled men and women, and behind them, or
before, the brawny officers of our colder clime, with their clubs and
oaths and hoarse comments on the folly and the murderous indecency
of it all--and all in an effort to inspire awe and a preventive fear
that, somehow, can never be inspired. “These damned dagos, with their
stilettos! These crazy wops!” But the melancholy Italian does not care
for these commands or our laws. They are not for him. Let the cold,
chilly American threaten; he will carry his stiletto anyhow. It is
reserved as a last resource in the face of injustice or cruelty or the
too great indifference of this world and of fate.
One of the most interesting of these love affairs that ever came to
my personal attention was that of Vincenzo Cordi, street musician
and, in a way, a ne’er-do-well, who became unduly enraged because
Antonio Fellicitti, vegetable merchant, paid too marked attention to
his sweetheart. These men, typical Italians of the quarter, knew each
other, but there was no feeling until the affections of both were
aroused by the charms of Maria Maresco, the pretty daughter of one of
the laborers of the street.
According to the best information that could be obtained at the time,
Cordi had been first in the affections of the girl, but Fellicitti
arrived on the scene and won her away from him. Idling about the
vicinity of her house in One Hundred and Fourteenth Street he had seen
her and had fallen desperately in love.
Then there was trouble, for Cordi soon became aware of the defection
which Fellicitti had caused, and told him so. “You keep away,” was his
threat. “Go, and come near her no more. If you do, I will kill you.”
You can imagine the feeling which this conversation engendered. You
can see the gallant Antonio, eyeing his jealous rival through the
long, thin slits of his shadowy, southern eyes. He keep away? Ha! Ha!
Vincenzo keep him away? Ha! Ha! If Maria but loved him, let Vincenzo
rage. When the time came he would answer.
And of course the time came. It was of a Sunday evening in March, the
first day on which the long cold winter broke and the sun came out and
made the city summer-like. Thousands in this section filled the little
park, with its array of green benches, to overflowing. Thousands more
lounged in the streets and sunned themselves, or swarmed the cafés
where was music and red wine and lights and conversation. Still other
thousands sat by open windows or on the steps in front of open doors
and gossiped with their neighbors--a true forerunner of the glorious
summer to follow.
Then came the night, that glorious time of affection and good humor,
when every Italian of this neighborhood is at his best. The moon was on
high, a new moon, shining with all the thin delicacy of a pearl. Soft
airs were blowing, clear voices singing; from every window streamed
lamplight and laughter. It seemed as if all the beauty of spring had
been crowded into a single hour.
On this occasion the fair Maria was lounging in front of her own
doorstep when the lovesick Antonio came along. He was dressed in his
best. A new red handkerchief was fastened about his neck, a soft crush
hat set jauntily upon his forehead. Upon his hand was a ring, in
the handkerchief a bright pin, and he was in his most cavalier mood.
Together they talked, and as they observed the beauty of the night they
decided to stroll to the little park a block away.
Somewhere in this thoroughfare, however, stood the jealous Vincenzo
brooding. It was evident that he must have been concealed somewhere,
watching, for when the two strolled toward the corner he was seen
to appear and follow. At the corner, where the evening crowd was
the thickest and the merriest--summer pleasure at its height, as it
were--he suddenly confronted Antonio and drew his revolver.
“Ha!”
The astonished Antonio had no time to defend himself. He drew his
knife, of course, but before he could act Vincenzo had fired a bullet
into his breast and sent him reeling on his last journey.
Maria screamed. The crowd gathered. Friends of Antonio and Vincenzo
drew knives and revolvers, and for a few moments it looked as if a feud
were on. Then came the police, and with them the prosaic ambulance and
patrol wagon--and another tragedy was recorded. Antonio was dead and
Vincenzo severely cut and bruised.
And so it goes. They love desperately. They quarrel dramatically,
and in the end they often fight and die, as we have seen. The brief,
practical accounts of the newspapers give no least suggestion of the
color, the emotion, the sorrow, the rage--in a way, the dramatic
beauty--that attends them, nearly all.
CHRISTMAS IN THE TENEMENTS
They are infatuated with the rush and roar of a great metropolis. They
are fascinated by the illusion of pleasure. Broadway, Fifth Avenue, the
mansions, the lights, the beauty. A fever of living is in their blood.
An unnatural hunger and thirst for excitement is burning them up. For
this they labor. For this they endure a hard, unnatural existence. For
this they crowd themselves in stifling, inhuman quarters, and for this
they die.
The joys of the Christmas tide are no illusion with most of us, the
strange exhibition of fancy, of which it is the name, no mockery
of our dreams. Far over the wide land the waves of expectation and
sympathetic appreciation constantly oscillate one with the other in
the human breast, and in the closing season of the year are at last
given definite expression. Rings and pins, the art of the jeweler
and the skill of the dress-maker, pictures, books, ornaments and
knickknacks--these with one great purpose are consecrated, and in the
material lavishness of the season is seen the dreams of the world come
true.
There is one region, however, where, in the terrific drag of the
struggle for existence, the softer phases of this halcyon mood are
at first glance obscure. It is a region of tall tenements and narrow
streets where, crowded into an area of a few square miles, live and
labor a million and a half of people. It is the old-time tenement area,
leading almost unbrokenly north from Franklin Square to Fourteenth
Street. Here, during these late December evenings, the holiday
atmosphere is beginning to make itself felt. It is a region of narrow
streets with tall five-story, even seven-story, tenements lining either
side of the way and running thick as a river with a busy and toilsome
throng.
The ways are already lined with carts of special Christmas goods, such
as toys, candies, Christmas tree ornaments, feathers, ribbons, jewelry,
purses, fruit, and in a few wagons small Christmas greens such as holly
and hemlock wreaths, crosses of fir, balsam, tamarack pine and sprigs
of mistletoe. Work has not stopped in the factories or stores, and yet
these streets are literally packed with people, of all ages, sizes and
nationalities, and the buying is lively. One man, who looks as though
he might be a Bowery tough rather than a denizen of this particular
neighborhood, is offering little three-, five- and ten-inch dolls which
he announces as “genuine American beauties here. Three, five and ten.”
Another, a pale, full-bearded Jew, is selling little Christmas tree
ornaments of paste or glass for a penny each, and in the glare of the
newly-turned-on electric lights, it is not difficult to perceive that
they are the broken or imperfect lots of the toy manufacturers who are
having them hawked about during the eleventh hour before Christmas as
the best way of getting rid of them. Other dusty, grim and raucous
denizens are offering candy, mixed nuts, and other forms of special
confections, at ten cents a pound, a price at which those who are used
to the more expensive brands may instructively ponder.
Meats are selling in some of the cheaper butcher shops for ten, fifteen
and twenty cents a pound, picked chickens in barrels at fifteen and
twenty. A whole section of Elizabeth Street is given up to the sale of
stale fish at ten and fifteen cents a pound, and the crowd of Italians,
Jews and Bohemians who are taking advantage of these modest prices is
swarming over the sidewalk and into the gutters. A four- or five-pound
fish at fifteen cents a pound will make an excellent Christmas dinner
for four, five or six. A thin, ice-packed and chemically-preserved
chicken at fifteen or twenty cents a pound will do as much for another
family. Onions, garlic, old cast-off preserves, pickles and condiments
that the wholesale houses uptown have seen grow stale and musty on
their shelves, can be had here for five, ten and fifteen cents a
bottle, and although the combination is unwholesome it will be worked
over as Christmas dinners for the morrow. Cheap, unsalable, stale,
adulterated--these are the words that should be stamped on every
bottle, basket and barrel that is here being scrambled over. And yet
the purchasers would not be benefited any thereby. They must buy what
they can afford. What they can afford is this.
The street, with its mass of life, lingers in this condition until six
o’clock, when the great shops and factories turn loose their horde
of workers. Then into the glare of these electric-lighted streets
the army of shop girls and boys begins to pour. Here is a spectacle
interesting and provocative of thought at all seasons, but trebly so
on this particular evening. It is a shabby throng at best, commonplace
in garb and physical appearance, but rich in the qualities of youth and
enthusiasm, than which the world holds nothing more valuable.
Youth in all the glory of its illusions and its ambitions. Youth, in
whom the cold insistence of life’s physical limitations and the law
have not as yet worked any permanent depression. Thousands are hurrying
in every direction. The street cars which ply this area are packed as
only the New York street car companies can pack their patrons, and that
in cold, old, dirty and even vile cars. There are girls with black
hair, and girls with brown. Some have even, white teeth, some shapely
figures, some a touch of that persuasive charm which is indicated by
the flash of an eye. There are poor dresses, poor taste, and poor
manners mingled with good dresses, good taste and good manners. In the
glow of the many lights and shadows of the evening they are hurrying
away, with that lightness of spirit and movement which is the evidence
of a long strain of labor suddenly relaxed.
“Do you think Santa Claus will have enough to fill that?” asks an
officer, who is standing in the glare of a balsam- and pine-trimmed
cigar store window, to a smartly dressed political heeler or detective
who is looking on with him at the mass of shop-girls hurrying past. A
shop-girl had gone by with her skirt cut to an inch or two below her
knee, revealing a trim little calf and ankle.
“Eee yo! I hope so! Isn’t she the candy?”
[Illustration: Christmas in the Tenements]
“Don’t get fresh,” comes quickly from the hurrying figure as she
disappears in the throng with a toss of her head. She has enjoyed the
comment well enough, and the rebuke is more mischievous than angry.
“A goldfish! A goldfish! Only one cent!” cries a pushcart vendor, who
is one of a thousand lining the pavements to-night, and at his behest
another shop-girl, equally budding and youthful, stops to extract a
penny from her small purse and carries away a thin, transparent prize
of golden paste, for a younger brother, probably.
Others like her are being pushed and jostled the whole length of this
crowded section. They are being nudged and admired as well as sought
and schemed for. Whatever affections or attachments they have will
be manifesting themselves to-night, as may be seen by the little
expenditures they themselves are making. A goldfish of transparent
paste or a half pound of candy, a cheap gold-plated stickpin, brooch or
ring, or a handkerchief, collar or necktie bought of one of the many
pushcart men, tell the story plainly enough. Sympathy, love, affection
and passion are running their errant ways among this vast unspoken
horde no less than among the more pretentious and well-remembered of
the world.
And the homes to which they are hurrying, the places which are
dignified by that title, but which here should have another name!
Thousands upon thousands of them are turning into entry ways, the gloom
or dirtiness or poverty of which should bar them from the steps of any
human being. Up the dark stairways they are pouring into tier upon tier
of human hives, in some instances not less than seven stories high
and, of course, without an elevator, and by grimy landings they are
sorted out and at last distributed each into his own cranny. Small,
dark one-, two- and three-room apartments, where yet on this Christmas
evening, one, and sometimes three, four and five are still at work
sewing pants, making flowers, curling feathers, or doing any other of
a hundred tenement tasks to help out the income supplied by the one or
two who work out. Miserable one- and two-room spaces where ignorance
and poverty and sickness, rather than greed or immorality, have made
veritable pens out of what would ordinarily be bad enough. Many
hundreds or thousands of others there are where thrift and shrewdness
are making the best of very unfortunate conditions, and a hundred or
two where actual abundance prevails. These are the homes. Let us enter.
Zorg is a Bohemian, and has a little two-room apartment. The windows
of the only one which has windows looks into Elizabeth Street. It is a
dingy apartment, unswept and unwhitewashed at present, where on this
hearty Christmas Eve, himself, his wife, his wife’s mother, and his
little twelve-year-old son are laboring at a fair-sized deal table
curling feathers. The latter is a simple task, once you understand
it, dull, tedious, unprofitable. It consists in taking a feather in
one hand, a knife in the other, and drawing the fronds quickly over
the knife’s edge. This gives them a very sprightly curl and can be
administered, if the worker be an expert, by a single movement of the
hand. It is paid for by the dozen, as such work is usually paid for
in this region, and the ability to earn much more than sixty cents a
day is not within the range of human possibility. Forty cents would
be a much more probable average, and this is approximately the wages
which these several individuals earn. Rent uses up three of the twelve
dollars weekly income; food, dress, coal and light six more. Three
dollars, when work is steady, is the sum laid aside for all other
purposes and pleasures, and this sum, if no amusements were indulged
in and no sickness or slackness of work befell, might annually grow to
the tidy sum of one hundred and fifty-six dollars; but it has never
done so. Illness invariably takes one part, lack of work a greater part
still. In the long drag of weary labor the pleasure-loving instincts of
man cannot be wholly restrained, and so it comes about that the present
Christmas season finds the funds of the family treasury low.
It is in such a family as this that the merry Christmas time comes with
a peculiar emphasis, and although the conditions may be discouraging,
the efforts to meet it are almost always commensurate with the means.