with rough raillery. She has made a bet with some of the village swains
on a matter regarding the under-priest, and at his answer the group
around burst into loudest laughter. But even this is not enough to
discomfit _Frà Giuseppe_; he has seen the joke and retaliates smartly,
neither fear nor prudery hindering.
Another damsel appeals to him for succour against the too forward
advances of a stalwart old farmer, and something of a romp ensues.
Broad jests and plain words are spoken, but though a spade be called
a spade with little ado, _Frà Giuseppe_ offers no reproof. His own
education has not aimed at making him peculiarly sensitive to outward
grossness of speech, and that is generally the worst feature about this
frank and merry people. Who that is Italian, by birth and by nature,
could have grown to be thus susceptible? A country priest, at all
events, is not, and, as a rule, he gets on best by descending—if such a
word be the fit one—to the work and the interests of the peasants about
him, happy enough in his own way, and careless of any great show of
respect.
Now he joins another party, and this time the group is one of old
and seasoned men, whose interests are wrapped up in the crops and
the coming fair. Hear him, as with avidity he discusses the country’s
prospects, or reconnoitres cautiously, that he may know the better how
to buy and to sell with advantage on Monday next!
Here is no moonstruck priest, but a man of the world—poor,
parsimonious, and prudent. Poor, but not always stingy, not always
grasping, because he, too—though pinched and careworn far more than the
greater number of his people, who have their own lands and crops—he too
has the proverbial _buon cuore_ of the Italians.
‘Eh, Teresa,’ he calls now to an old woman whom, as he turns his steps
back to the little cottage, he meets coming down the path, a basket of
eggs and vegetables on her head. ‘Hast brought my portion at last? And
thou hast made me wait for it!’ ‘It is too true, _Signor Cappellano_,’
replies the poor soul. ‘Your excellence must excuse. It has been a bad
time, and I have not had the things to bring, though, the Virgin knows,
the will to bring them!’ ‘Well, well, it signifies not. Come now to the
kitchen, and you shall eat a good mouthful of _minestra_ with Ninetta
and myself.’
The little footpath leads down the meadow to the house with the
thatched roof, where Michaelmas daisies grow to the front. There are
no glass windows, there is only one chimney, the hearth is in the
middle of the floor: it is just like a peasant’s hut. Ninetta has the
_minestra_ ready; its savoury perfume pervades the kitchen, and she
stands with the great pot tipped up to pour it out, blowing away the
steam from her face meanwhile. She is a merry-eyed, wrinkled old lady
of considerable years, and she is not conspicuous for a superabundance
of mother-wit; in this she differs from Caterina, who is the Prevosto’s
housekeeper. The poor peasant wife eats the good soup silently, while
Ninetta chatters and the _Cappellano_ scolds.
‘Well, well, I shall get a better mess than this to-morrow, _Ninetta
mia_,’ says he; ‘truly no man could keep his heart alive many days on
nonsense of this sort. But with the morning’s sun I go to the threshing
at neighbour _Pasquale’s_, and thank Heaven there will be a _minestra_
there that is fit to be called one, when it will be his daughter
_Marrina_ who has made it!’
‘Oh, yes, you—you are always for praising what the pretty girls can do!
An old woman like me can never please you. I’m ashamed of you, priest
as you are!’
_Frà Giuseppe_ laughs contentedly. Such talk is his pleasure, spite
of Ultramontane convictions. So is it also his pleasure to go to the
common threshing-floor next day, where he handles his flail with the
best of them, and bandies compliments with the pretty hostess as well,
to quarrel afterwards—a pipe in his mouth—over bowls and _moro_ with
village swains.
But none the less tenderly does he doctor the hurts of the very men
with whom he has quarrelled—for the _Signor Cappellano_ is village
physician too—none the less patiently would he sit beside a sick bed
that night, for the sun goes down on nobody’s wrath—the sun that sinks
behind the stately cone of Monte Baneo’s hill, to leave the rich little
valley lying quiet beneath a clear summer night. And walnut trees stand
still upon the darkened sky, to shadow the cottage over, where _Frà
Giuseppe_ sleeps the placid sleep of the field-labourer.
Sweeping the Church.
Bells ring in the great Festa of San Giovanni Battista, and chosen
girls of the village are busy with their preparations within the
church, preparations both for the _funzione_ and for the procession.
San Giovanni Battista is the patron saint, and hence it is that his day
is held in higher honour here than even in the other villages around.
It is evening, and the vigil of the feast. All the afternoon, wearisome
chimes have been sounding overhead, rippling along in a joyous,
careless fashion, with here and there a great echoing stroke to give
them emphasis. Upon the church piazza, or even within the building
itself, the noise is almost maddening, but from woods and valleys
around, or, better still, from the far side of the torrent, the bell’s
voices have a sweet and plaintive ring that might almost lull to rest
in these summer days.
Within the church four or five girls are at work. Some sweep the
tesselated, marble floor of the nave, some dust the queer gaudy figures
of saints and Virgins or the vessels of the sanctuary. Others, again,
are busy hanging heavy crimson damask from windows and cornice, and in
this work a man must needs be found to help with ha’mmer and steps.
Two—and these are the greater and more privileged spirits—stand upon
the daïs of the high altar to adorn it with flaring artificial flowers;
fresh blossoms are rarely seen in a Romish church. The maidens ply
their tasks merrily, not overanxious that the work be quickly ended,
for it is pleasanter than toil in the fields or at home in cottages,
and they chatter noisily the while. There is none of the reverential
awe in their behaviour for which Roman Catholics are usually credited.
Presently the _Signor Cappellano_ comes in. He is supposed to be
superintending the business, but there is field labour to attend to,
the potato harvest is at hand, which the _Cappellano_ can ill afford to
leave in other care than his own.
‘_Orsù_,’ begins the little man sharply. ‘Haste with your business,
girls, for I have much to do and little time to waste.’
‘And it is perhaps necessary that your honour remain here to spy upon
us,’ retorts the foremost of the maidens, pertly? ‘We are fairly
capable of setting in order the church, and you may return to the
fields.’
The little priest laughs. He knows that he is not much beloved among
the neighbours, but the speaker is a pretty girl among her set, and the
_Cappellano_ would fain be a favourite. He walks around, making a few
haphazard remarks, that are received with about as much scorn as the
feeble suggestions of an English curate who comes in among the squire’s
daughters in the midst of decorations. He is soon out again in the hot
daylight.
[Illustration: BIANCA DECORATES THE ALTAR AND SNUBS THE
UNDER-PRIEST.]
‘The good-for-nothing meddler!’ ejaculates she fervently who has spoken
before. ‘It seems impossible he should not have understood by this
time that I will have none of his impertinence!’ and she laughs a loud
laugh, in which the others join also, furtively glancing at one another
and then giggling afresh.
‘Say on, Bianca, and tell us a little news,’ they plead. And
the request is readily complied with, for Bianca is the bold and
adventurous spirit of the village, and has always some tale on hand
which she loves to pass on amongst the quieter of her companions. The
damsel is a proud and powerful woman; she has taken her stand long
since in their midst, and, before her face at all events, the rest of
the flock is tacitly content to submit to her sway.
She stands now upon the altar steps as she begins her story—a fine and
goodly figure. Through the soft texture of her blue homespun, likely
enough her only garment, one can clearly see the curves of her large
and shapely form. Her bare feet rest freely upon the cool marble; one
of her bare arms, from whence sleeves are tucked away, is stretched on
high to fix a garland around the reredos, the other—curved and rounded
beautifully—selects flowers from the basket at her side. Firm and
graceful are the poses into which her figure is thrown as she moves and
stands and stoops in the various requirements of her task. Bianca is no
wondrous beauty; she has the heavy features and the sallow complexion
of her race—she is but a fair sample of our Apennine _contadina_, only
a woman with dark and fervid eyes, with masses of coarse and glossy
hair; yet she has a fairness of form and a perfection of graceful
strength, that we may not look to find elsewhere, as we find it at
every turn amongst the North Italian peasants.
‘Well, girls,’ says she, and her voice sounds clear above the noise of
the bells, ‘you must know that I’ve had an adventure—a fine and a merry
one, too, and, what’s more, it’s the son of the _sindaco_ that I have
to thank for it.’
‘Oh!’ comes an ejaculation in many tones from all the maidens.
‘It was down at the fair of Presoli. I went to sell and to buy for the
mother, and as I was bargaining over a handkerchief—and I must have
been red with excitement, too—he comes up behind me, and I hear him
laughing with right good-will at my tussle with the old _pedona_. “Ha,
ha! my pretty girl,” says he, “and I will give you the handkerchief.”
“A thousand thanks, Signor Beppo,” I answer, and then we discourse a
little, and when I have sold the little white heifer and bought the
sieves and the rolling-pin for the mother, “It is nearly evening,”
says he, “and at dusk the dance is to begin. Thou wilt surely come and
step one measure with me.” I stay for the dance, I give no thought to
the scolding which the mother will, perhaps, give me—for she expected
me home for the supper, you must know—but I just enjoy myself to the
full. Then the Signor Beppo gives me to eat and to drink, good wine of
Monferrato, and he conducts me home in the later evening—it must have
been upon ten o’clock.’
‘Oh, what fun!’ exclaim all the girls. ‘But didst thou not fear the
mother?’
‘_Che!_’ the girl ejaculates, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I invented a
little white lie for her. I told her there had come a rich _signore_,
and wanted to buy the heifer for a good price, but then, that he went
away, having said he would come back for her; that I waited, though
tired and weary I was, until dusk of evening, and when he never came,
that I sold to another man. Oh, the mother praised me for a thrifty
girl! You think I am so stupid that I can’t even find a lie when I want
it!’
The girls laugh. ‘Oh, no,’ says one, ‘and the white lies which one
needs not to tell in confession are so fair and convenient.’
‘But say on, Bianca,’ calls out another. ‘The handkerchief that he gave
thee—thou hast it?’
‘Surely. It is a ravishing handkerchief. He would have given me a
brooch of gold, but that I would not.’
‘Oh, pity!’ says a sympathetic maid.
‘Pity!’ retorts Bianca. ‘Thou little fool! And what excuse should I
have given for the trinket? The kerchief the mother knew well I meant
to buy for myself, but gold gives no man to a girl but he who will
marry her, and where was then my suitor to show? No, Bianca has got no
gourd’s head on her shoulders! She knows her business! Also did he get
his box on the ear before I had done with him, the fine young man,’
laughs she!
‘How was that? tell us,’ come the voices in chorus. But Bianca has said
as much as she means to say, and no entreaties can extract more news
from her.
‘I’ve told you the story for fun,’ says she, ‘and as to how I played my
cards and why I spoke my mind as I did, that’s no concern of yours. And
what’s more, girls, when your day comes, I don’t doubt you’ll know how
to manage your game just as well as I did without any advice of mine,’
puts in this wary daughter of Eve. ‘All I say is, have your fun, and
mind you don’t pay the bill.’
And Bianca is right, for again she is but a fair specimen of her class.
The girls of North Italy are by no means so weak and impressionable
as their free and fiery natures have led it to be surmised. Fun and
frolic they love well enough, it is true; neither do they fear to run
a risk of misunderstanding, sometimes, for the sake of a little glory
and a brave adventure. But the girl who has not been dexterous with
her weapons and bold in her dignity is for ever scorned amongst her
neighbours and her comrades.
Therefore it is that our girls can freely go their way.
The Village Sempstress.
When the road leaves the church to steer for the valley’s narrower end
and to follow the river’s course, it leads, before half a mile is gone,
into the midst of a little hamlet that is one of San Matteo’s prettiest
parasites. And there stands a cottage that has always been a marked
feature in the neighbourhood. It is the house of Marrina, the village
sempstress.
When the day’s heat has abated, and the shadows begin to deepen, and
the breezes to blow more freshly, let us, with the villagers, gather
round one of the village’s greatest characters.
She is an old maid. An old maid with plenty of ditties, like most
of her kind, ditties about the youthful days when Paolo proposed,
and nothing but prudence induced her to send poor Giovanni about his
business—he who was such a handsome young fellow, too, and had such
a flourishing _pasta_ business! But in spite of them all, Marrina is
still single, though she is past fifty, and is of so portly a figure as
to excuse any man for thinking twice about the necessary allowance of
_polenta_ and beans. If you ask her, she will praise the Virgin to your
face, who has kept her a virgin in peace and contentment until this
age, and will assure you that, though Giovanni and Paolo were dying of
love, nothing should persuade her to change her determination. Has she
not nephews and nieces of all sizes, sexes, natures, and ages to cheer
her loneliness? Does she not nourish towards all the men whose coats
she fashions, and whose breeches she mends, a love far greater and more
philanthropic than any she could have borne to one poor single husband?
It must surely be under no protest that Marrina is happy. Watch her
broad, beaming face as she turns it round on the bystanders; listen to
her good-humoured jests! She is no soured woman, though she has been
lame from childhood, and has probably never been wooed as she pretends.
She is proud of her position—the position which gowns and petticoats,
corduroys and jackets, have won for her. With heavy figure, scantily
clad in red and purple _bordato_—the homespun linen of the district—a
bright yellow kerchief folded across her ample bosom, and her few
grey locks neatly braided and packed into a lump behind her head, she
sits on the stone bench beneath her cottage porch, two stockingless
feet propped on an opposite stool, while she clips rashly with great
scissors, sewing, settling, and jabbering jocosely the while.
A knot of peasants has gathered round; Marrina’s porch is almost as
common a meeting-ground as the church piazza on _festas_ or the well at
sunset. If there is any news rife anywhere, it is to be heard from the
sempstress sooner than from anyone else; if there is any advice wanted,
she is the one whose advice is asked at least, if rarely taken. A more
sympathetic person could not be with whom to gossip over all matters of
personal interest, with whom to weigh the pros and cons in all affairs
of female indecision, and perhaps the taking of advice rarely includes
much that is more definite. Besides the family circle—that children
of brothers and of sisters, boys and girls of all ages, have swelled
to goodly proportions around her—many inhabitants, not only of this
hamlet, but of others in the parish, have met together to-night. Some
have brought their own supper from home to eat, standing or lounging
on steps and wall, others content themselves only with taking their
evening rest. Amongst the men, many do not even talk; Marrina and her
crew do it for them.
‘I never knew a man like you, Gian-Battista, for wearing out the knees
of your breeches! I’ve patched this pair for you three or four times!’
(And this may clearly be discerned, for stuffs of more than one colour
and texture have been used to help out the poor brown fustian.) ‘If
you had a wife, and were not a blessed unencumbered mortal as I am, she
would have told you long ago it wasn’t worth paying two _soldi_ every
fortnight to get these things seen to! But I must earn my money, though
I shan’t have the face to ask you for the coppers this time! Look
there, here’s Bianca! She’s been to Ponte Decimo and some new stuff
she’ll have brought to show me! I’m sick of these girls’ vanity! When I
was a girl we took what our aunts and mothers gave us, without being so
bold as to choose for ourselves. Eh, well, come on, child! What if I do
talk? We’ve all been young once. Hand over the things.’
[Illustration: _The Village Sempstress._
“I never knew a man like you Gian Battista, for wearing out
the knees of your breeches.”]
And the old face is as eager as any of the young ones over the merits
of pure wool _versus_ cheaper mixed wares. ‘Give over thy silk apron,
for the love of the Holy Mother, girl, and just buy a good thing while
you’re about it! Who cares whether you’ve a silk apron or a decent
stuff one? New-fangled notions from the towns! I’ve no patience with
you all! As long as you’ve a good dress, a clean veil, and a little
gold on, not the Lord himself but must needs be content with your
looks!’
‘Don’t you think it’s too bright?’ objects the anxious and undecided
purchaser. ‘They do say that in Genoa one wears nothing but dark
colours.’
‘You go away with you!’ retorts the old woman angrily. ‘Why, when you
can’t _get_ a colour now if you want it! When I was young that pedlar
that you’ve heard me speak of—who used to look two ways out of his
eyes, you know—why, I’ve known him bring round stuffs with colours in
them that shamed the very Creator of the world! Now, hasn’t the Virgin
that they carry round in procession got fine colours on? You don’t
suppose the holy _Madonna_ doesn’t know what’s to be worn! Go to!’
And Marrina flings her big shears recklessly into some yards of calico,
out of which there issues speedily the roughest pattern of a man’s
shirt.
‘You’ve woven good linen this year, mother Teresa. I’ll buy twenty
_palmi_ of it to make my Virginia some sheets against her marriage. The
girl must have them, and, if her mother won’t give them her, I suppose
her aunt must! And you,’ turning to the former girl, ‘not content with
a stuff like that for a mere _festa_ dress, when my poor Tonietta has
got nothing but a calico frock to have her First Communion! Why, I’d
almost believe the wool was English, and they make no bad goods there,
for they’re so rich they don’t need to.’
And Marrina takes the coveted stuff in her hands, crushing it to test
its genuineness, and regarding it with the eye of a true connoisseur.
Then, carefully refolding it, she gives back the packet without another
word, and returns to her work.
The sky has become overcast. Banks and boulders of heavy cloud rest on
the hills of Savignone down the valley. The mountains have caught the
gloom, and look so dark that the ruined castle upon Monte Pilato’s side
scarcely shows from off its background. A storm has been prophesied all
day, because the air was so sultry; and now the walnuts overhead rustle
ominously, and even the chestnuts far away seem to sway as though
before a coming strength. Large drops of rain begin to fall.
‘Holy Madonna, and the tempest must come now when we want to keep the
wheat upright!’
Marrina takes her huge person hastily away, limping over the stones,
and calling with shrill voice to one niece to see to the linen, to the
other to drive in the cows.
‘Ah, it’s become a strange parish since the days when I was a girl,’
she mutters. ‘Not a bell ringing yet for the Lord’s mercy against the
storm, and it’s upon us, with the corn standing half a yard high, and
the maize too!’
Most of the neighbours have disappeared to see after their property,
but to the remaining Marrina addresses her complaint.
‘Why, when I was fifteen there wasn’t a stranger in the village—not
even other country folk, let alone town folk! And now, because our
valleys grow things better than theirs do, they must come and spoil our
luck! It’s the strangers do it all. Not but that I admire the fine pink
house over the river that Signor Mendicano built, as well as the blue
front to the miller’s new cottage, but I say it’s the strangers spoil
everything!’
‘You can’t have it both ways, dear heart,’ remarks a young man from
beneath.
‘That’s all very well for you, Giannino. The strangers do you a great
deal of good, I suppose, when they persuade you to play bowls all day
and waste your time! When your land has gone to rack and ruin, and
the disease has killed all your vines from want of a little care, they
can set it all to-rights, I suppose, by just talking you over to go to
America! It’s no fortune you’ll make there, but the fortune of pride
and conceit, though you’ll have left your native land for it, and the
girl who loves you well! But the young are all alike nowadays—no fear
in them, and no fitting shame of things they know nothing about! And,
to be sure, it’s not much there is in the girls of to-day that would
keep a man to them! Yes, they’ll be all off to get their fortunes too,
as if the poverty that did for their parents couldn’t do for them!
‘Ah, the bells _have_ begun to ring at last,’ she puts in as the
clashing chime breaks in on her speech.
‘It’s all the foreigners from the towns!’ she goes on again glibly.
‘Now, I remember when I first used to go and mend canonicals in
the sacristy for the _Prevosto_! It was as fearful he was of these
_Signori_ as I am. They’ll ruin the village, Marrina, he said. And
now doesn’t he go and eat their very _minestra_—I should even dare to
say broth that’s made with meat on a Saturday, if it weren’t I’d be
afraid for my soul at saying such a thing of the Lord’s priest! And no
more delight does he take in walking under the canopy at procession
than—_Dio!_ And there he is with the lady of the Signor Perrino! And
a real woollen dress she has on, with this rain down on us! Why it’s a
sin!’
Marrina quickly swings herself down the broken steps of her abode, and
hastens towards the advancing couple.
‘Fetch a chair for her under the _pergola_; why it’s no education you
young men have nowadays,’ she whispered angrily to Giannino.
The rain has come up the valley in a great mist; it has broken over the
fields and the woods in a torrent that quickly saturates the ground; it
drops again from the broad-leaved chestnuts. It is scarcely a wholesome
rain, though the land was parched, for the hail descends and a violent
storm might heavily damage the growing things of the country.
The _Prevosto_ seeks Marrina’s sympathy in this evil chance, but
all her complaints have quickly given place to pleasure in the
very presence of the townwoman with the real woollen dress on of a
working-day. She is only a tradesman’s wife, but she has bits of news
from the city and a figured silk jacket to display, and Marrina warms
so that she is really mortified at the refusal of beans and _polenta_,
which refreshment was offered at once with the gracious hospitality
that comes as naturally to these courteous peasants as the passing
benediction or chance greeting by the roadside.
But at last the storm is over, the air is fresh, the soil is fragrant
after the rain. The _Prevosto_ goes on his way towards the sick
person, whom he has to visit. The tradesman’s wife, after an exciting
gossip, returns to the pink house in the meadows. Marrina lays aside
her needle, for the night has darkened, and work cannot be done by
firelight. ‘She’s a good soul, and it was a beautiful stuff,’ she
murmurs sitting by the hearth. ‘But I say let everyone keep to what
he’s been brought up in. And as for the strange folk and the going to
America, I say, God forbid!’
The Village Damsel.