nervousness, for _he_ is the Archbishop, and he brings two _Cappellani_
with him! Besides which there will be all the neighbouring clergy to
dinner to-morrow, at mid-day! _Bontà di Dio!_ The bells are at work
merrily—so merrily that no one can hear the first of the popguns that
shall announce the approach of his Holiness. Six of the handsomest
village swains have gone up the mountain to meet him. Swains of the
village whence he comes, will bear him in sedan chair to the confines
of the parish, but on San Matteo’s frontier it will be San Matteo’s
duty to provide for the progress of the guest. So six of our best grown
lads have gone up the road as far as the turn where, if you went up
with them, you would have a view of valleys and mountains that stretch
as far away as to the sea. The Signor Prevosto is nervous. He stands
upon the church porch in canonicals and snaps at _Frà Giuseppe_, who,
also in canonicals, offers curious suggestions as to means and manners.
‘Here are baskets and enough of plucked flowers,’ says he, ‘but no
one is ready to shower them before his Holiness! Pick me out two clean
girls from among you to do this work!’
There are many ‘clean’—even pretty—girls among the village
damsels, much prettier girls than those daughters of townfolk in
_villeggiatura_, but the _contadine_ are all too bashful, even whilst
longing for so prominent a post, and it is only just as the pop-guns go
off again, and the bells cease jangling because the great man is close
by, that two maidens are found, who, being children of Maso, the baker,
feel themselves worthy of so mighty an office. ‘_Eccolo, eccolo!_’ The
piazza is full of people, and with one voice they raise the shout.
His shoes with the bright steel buckles rest against the foot-board
of a lowly sedan chair! His purple stockings have not been too grand
to be donned for ‘us lowly peasants!’ His broad, red face beams on the
company, and his sacerdotal hat crowns all, as the baker’s girls strew
their gorse and daisies! Truly, the village swains have been honoured
in bearing so goodly a burden! They rest, and mop their hot brows as
_l’Arcivescovo_ descends to greet the people, and, ascending the church
steps, prepares to give them his friendly address.
_Dio!_ how short it is! One has barely time to note the folds of his
garments, the shape of his cuffs, or the turn of his hat! But he is
tired and hungry, _povero sant’ uomo_! And does not the whole village
know that Caterina has a supper prepared that would tempt the Lord
himself to forget his duty? All the priests, big and little, file
off through the piazza and through the gateway; they go past the
oratory and under the _campanile_, and up into the Prevosto’s garden.
The Archbishop is very fat; he has to be helped up the broken stone
steps that lead to the piazzetta, where vines hang and climb on the
_pergola_, where gourds ripen in the sun, and the fountain trickles
and the cherries lie drying in flat baskets. The Prevosto makes many
excuses for his lowly fare and lowlier habitation; but is it not the
will of the Holy Church that he should have no better? The great man
and his chaplains eat their supper bravely, nevertheless, whilst the
villagers gather in knots to talk them over; then they all go to bed
until the daybreak of the morrow.
[Illustration: VIRGINIA GOES TO CONFIRMATION.]
Virginia wakes with the greyest of the dawn. It is a fine day for
her—one that will never come again till the day she is married and
then—are there not graver responsibilities therewith? The ‘remnant’
has been enough to make a gown as quaint as any little maiden could
desire, but this little maiden has a fear lest it should be too quaint,
lest the girls of the walnut-grove should eclipse her! New shoes,
a new kerchief, and the lace veil go far, however, to restore her
complacency.
The family get under way, and set off towards the church, Virginia
walking two paces in front of the rest, as befits so great a personage.
Upon the piazza she must fall into the ranks of children of her
own parish, for many other parishes have sent candidates to this
_Cresima_. So they enter. The organ-loft is thronged with parents
and relations, and other spectators have climbed to the gallery which
encircles the roof; the nave is exclusively reserved for the priests
and their prey. Behind and around a barricade covered with crimson
damask, the candidates are ranged in methodically-moving ranks, while
the bishop and his priests stand in the midst, ready to perform upon
each advancing boy or girl. The organ sounds, it plays merry waltzes
and pathetic love-songs, with now and then a warlike march. ‘_Il
nostro Arcivescovo_’ stands and mutters low, whilst he dabs each
newly-presented cheek with oil from his sacred phial, and anoints each
separate ear. Then the chaplain wipes the oil off again, and for each
the deed has been done. ‘What a mercy it didn’t drop upon my dress,’
thinks Virginia, and fans herself with her first fan, and feels her
new earrings. How nice it is to be a _figlia di prima communione_, but
alas, how many more there are still to have the oil, and how long it
will be before we can eat plums again and climb for apricots!
At last the great day is drawing to its close. Everybody has amused
themselves well. There was so much fine music, you might almost fancy
you were at the opera—from what we’ve heard tell of it! And so much
beautiful damask and false flowers and incense! Paradise could not much
excel such a place, especially as everyone had their best things on!
‘Did you see Marrina? Not pure wool, that! And Tomasina—well, hers was
a real silk stripe in the material. But Tomasina is proud! I wouldn’t
be proud like that—I’d as soon have a _bordato_ gown!’ says one. ‘And
the holy man’s sermon! That did make one laugh! He doesn’t know much
about us, that’s evident! Would have made the prevosto out to be a
saint!’ continues another.
‘The Prevosto knows better than to come over us with such nonsense! As
if he were the Madonna’s own friend! Patience, they’ve got to be so in
church! And of course it’s only right a priest should talk fine when he
gets into the pulpit or the confessional! Where would our poor souls be
otherwise?’ objects a third.
Everybody has had their dinner. The Archbishop and the priests ate
Catterina’s mushrooms and _risotto_ and _polpette_, while Virginia had
real holiday _ravioli_, with plenty of honour and glory for condiment.
To-morrow mother Maddalena will have enough to do thinking of her
family as a whole, but to-day Virginia is the child _par excellence_.
After dinner there is more congregating, more admiring of garments;
then more church, when the great man sings vespers in a splendid cope,
and Virginia still keeps on her frock, if not her veil, and rests
content that she looks as well as little Bianca of the village on
the hill. But now it is all over. The fine trappings are put away—the
church’s damasks stored in the press of the Sacristy, and Virginia’s
frock in an old oaken chest at home. The Arcivescovo is gone, and the
walnuts will soon be ripe, with the chestnut harvest coming quickly
on. Virginia has her rags on again and is up the trees, but she has not
forgotten her _vestito di lana_, nor how _la Cresima_ has made a woman
of her.
In Villeggiatura. Town Folk in the Country.
_La Signora Pareto_ lives in town—Via degl’Uffiziali, No. 4. She lives
at the top of 149 steps, on the sixth floor of a very new and very
pink house in the most recent suburbs of the city. It takes such a
long time and, when one has only one maid-servant, and is blessed with
six children, time is a precious thing—it takes such a long time and,
for a lady of la Signora Pareto’s goodly proportions, it takes so many
more long breaths than she can, in wisdom, spare to get up those said
hundred and forty-nine steps, that, it may safely be stated, neither
mamma nor children go out for a walk more than once a month. What would
you have? Children would wear their very souls to rags if the good Lord
weren’t wiser than to leave souls in people’s own keeping, and you
couldn’t let folk see them in plain things any more than you can let
them wear out their best ones: that is only natural!
So it comes to be just about once in a month that _la Signora Pareto_
thinks it is time to have the children’s faces washed and their short
hair, that was shaved last summer, brushed up in a ridge on their
crowns, and their hats with the bright flowers and feathers put on,
while she herself dons silken and trailing garments for a walk in the
lime-scented _Acquasola_. Who would believe this to be the same Signora
Pareto who, with heel-trodden slippers and loosened gown, stirs the
_polenta_, and fans the fire, and shrilly scolds the children on the
top floor of No. 4 Via degl’Uffiziali? And who would recognise in the
primly-walking and stiffly-dressed boys and girls of the public gardens
those scantily-attired mortals who hunt the house-top above the sixth
floor, and peril their necks on dangerous parapets, and furtively feel
for small spoil in the kitchen, and get whipped for venial sins in
theft and fibbing?
The lady mother walks with portly, swaying frame and upright head,
that black tresses profusely adorn; behind her trail yards of green
silk in the gravel’s dust, and on her broad bosom, mock gold and stones
glitter, for alas, she is not of the peasant women, who fear aught but
the true metal! And the children plod primly two-and-two, with all
that tells of childhood carefully hidden from the much-revered gaze
of the world, and too proud of furbelowed frocks to think of any other
enjoyment, to borrow any youthful glee from the sweet-scented acacias
or the flowering laburnum and purple Judas-blossoms.
No wonder that not much of country pink flushes the cheeks of the poor
town-bred babies who get so little fresh, free air; no wonder that from
time to time the town-bred mother, who thinks more of outward show
than of any other human advantage, begins to note the pallid hue on
her offsprings’ faces, begins to long for a bit of rough life, where
they can rejoice in heaven’s pure air without new frocks, and where her
own battered slippers and torn skirts will be good enough to breathe a
mouthful of honest wind in, when the wind blows around homely meadows
and cottages, where the great world’s criticism does not, happily,
penetrate.
_La Signora Pareto_ has a brother-in-law who is a great _negoziante_;
he is rich, richer far than herself—which is a trial when one is in
town, for appearances must be kept up and the brother-in-law’s wife has
to be vied with! But when the time comes for going _in villeggiatura_
then those riches in the family are an advantage, because there is a
little house up in the Apennines, some mile or two from Busalla, that
belongs to the brother-in-law, and which one may have for very little
money, if a little squabbling and haggling be added thereto.
So one day at the end of July the family from the sixth floor in Via
degl’Uffiziali makes a move. The maid-of-all-work is sent home—in the
country one does not only half, but all, the cooking oneself, and has
a village girl in to help! The good papa takes charge of numbers four,
five, and six, because his arms are the strongest; the shrill-voiced
mamma attempts to keep three elder boys in order, whose spirits are
quite too much for them at the prospect, first of a journey, and then
of green trees, and fruit to plunder! One kisses the neighbours all the
way down the staircase—inmates of pianos five, four, &c.—one reaches
the station, one takes many a second-class ticket, half and whole.
After an hour’s slow progress, sitting in a railway carriage, with
the din of children in the ears, and, in the nostrils, the smell of
truffles and fish and such things as cannot be procured in the country,
one descends at last on the platform of a little station, and lifts out
the joyful half-dozen of one’s progeny!
How green the trees are, how fresh the breeze, even along the dusty
highway, that would lead across the mountains of the Giove, were one
not minded to turn aside and follow the torrent’s course to left! Paolo
and Checchino, and even the little Emilia, feel it blow pleasantly,
indeed, upon their almost bare heads that were short-shaven again
yesterday for the season of recess! They caper gladly along the
road, while father and mother exchange greetings and compliments with
fruit-sellers and barbers in the town’s little street, with peasant men
and women as they strike out into the free country beyond.
[Illustration: _In Villeggiatura._
“Madonna, what a heat!” complains the town lady, while the
papa trudges on wearily in front with babies two and three.]
The chestnut leaves are broad and full on the boughs of trees to the
road’s right hand, the river runs idly to left, and beyond the river
more turf springs and more chestnuts grow upon it. Woods flourish,
with meadows, and fields, and vineyards. After the village of Ponte is
past—with the bridge over the stream whence the carriage-road begins
to run to left of it—when the last of the houses, that have been
built for summer visitors, is behind, papa and mamma Pareto have a
rougher and stonier way along which to drive their little flock—for the
brother-in-law’s cottage lies up the side valley of _la Valle Calda_.
‘_Madonna_, what a heat!’ complains the town lady, loosening the scarf
around her throat! And even the children’s strength begins to ebb into
fretfulness, while the papa trudges along wearily in front with babies
two and three. It is three miles from Busalla to the parish church of
the village, and town heat has not been apt to fit anyone for work.
‘_Andiamo_, Nina, thou art truly the laziest of all, because thou art
tall! Fie and for shame!’ scolds the mother to her eldest-born girl.
But the tall campanile is in sight at last, and everybody plucks up
courage to take and give friendly greetings courteously. The Prevosto
comes out on the _piazza_ with his serving-maid behind; the Cappellano
descends the rugged steps of his dwelling to give a welcome. Neither
priest is in canonicals—the one has been tilling the soil, and the
other pruning the vines—but the family of Pareto are no sticklers
for etiquette when once out of town. Compliments and greetings flow
graciously, words and jokes fly swiftly; the children are admired,
the village news is told. Then the party moves onward towards its
destination, but escorted now and strengthened by gathering friends.
The sun is setting above the tree-tops of the little deep, dark dell
beneath the church: it is night before parents and children are well
installed in the black and white cottage that stands in the midst of
open meadows, having maize fields around it, and a fence about its
modest garden. The family has come by an afternoon train for the cool’s
sake, and it is time to go to bed before the well has even been visited
hard by, or any of the familiar nooks; indeed, the children are asleep
almost before the fire has been lit for them to have their supper, and
the sharp words of the mother, who is ever threatening punishments that
have no room in her heart, fall but lightly on their ears.
The morning sun creeps softly down the side of tall Monte Mazzo
opposite. When the Pareto family gets up next morning, the cottage lies
yet in shade, as do the meadows also and our own chestnut woods above
the well, and even the _campanile_, with everything that is on this
side the torrent. ‘One must rise early to enjoy the Creator,’ says the
mother, and the children are not prone to quarrel with her advice in
these country days! With garments that already are faded and soon will
be torn as well, with white-toed shoes and heads bare to the sun and
the breezes, they scour the country betimes to visit their favourite
haunts, to spoil the fruit trees that are in season, and to coax scrap
and bit from neighbourly cauldrons and granaries. Nobody gives much
thought to them all day. They are safe, for everybody knows them, and
will take a turn at looking after them, safe as the peasant children
themselves, of whom they are part and parcel now that town pride and
strivings are left behind.
_La Signora Pareto_ has gossip enough to do herself this first day.
There is no need to hire any girl for a help _this_ week, for there
are neighbours and to spare who will gladly give a hand for the sake
of a bit of city news! They must see once again the fine dress which
the lady wore yesternight when she arrived! ‘Oh, but that is nothing!
On the day of the Assumption, at mass and procession, you shall see
what you shall see,’ boasts the town bird, and yet at the present
moment her dress is more slatternly by far than that of the peasant
women who throng her kitchen. They wear skirts of dark homespun linen,
bright cotton kerchiefs, and aprons, but her garments are of threadbare
woollen stuff and soiled, while a loose black bodice hangs carelessly
upon her shoulders in place of the folded square, and her hair is still
in the fashionable coils of last night, but rough now and disordered.
Caterina, the parsonage housekeeper, calls in now with a supply of
eggs and vegetables to help out the first day’s dinner. She thinks but
slightly of _la Signora Pareto’s_ grandeur as she looks on the stained
and trailing skirts that are deemed good enough for the country—for
Caterina is a strict and thrifty woman. But when the day of the
Assumption comes, and the lady of the cottage comes to mass, then even
the priest’s servant is forced to admit that her costume is one ‘truly
of luxury!’ For the silk dress with the train that Marrina, the village
sempstress, declared would have reached right over to America, where
the emigrants go—the violet silk and the gold ornaments, and the French
cashmere shawl, have all been thought worthy of so grand an occasion!
Nina, the firstborn, has her hat and feathers on, and her white frilled
petticoat, whilst even the boys have been promoted to cleanliness.
The day is bright even amid this dazzling summer brightness. Spite of
the heat, meadows are fresh and the wooded turf, because of many rills
that water the valley. Orchis and yellow lady’s-slipper and broom have
come in place of the ragged robins and the buttercups, and upon the
open land over the hills the little pink heather blossom will soon be
abloom. The river winds slowly, the mountains make a dark, dented line
upon the calm sky, all around, the chestnut woods stir in the breeze,
and droop their boughs upon the green grass.
The stars on the Virgin’s blue robe glitter in the sunlight as the
procession winds up across the fields, by the well, and by the cottage
of the town family, to come back again along the river path into
the church. And _la Signora Pareto_ is proud to walk behind the Holy
Madonna, for she is well-dressed, and people stare even more at _her_
garments than at the Virgin’s own, which they have seen many times. ‘It
is even more worth while to don one’s finery here than in town,’ thinks
the lady, for in town there is always a fear it may pass unnoticed in
the crowd! But all the same one must do one’s economy in the country.
For what else does one come but to economise, and to rejoice in the
Creator, as _la Signora Pareto_ says? So to-morrow the soiled grey
skirts will be on again, the children will be shoeless and ragged, and
we shall eat _minestra_ of beans in place of _ravioli_ for dinner.
But the cool air fans freshly all the same upon the children’s cheeks,
meadows are soft and fragrant that lie around the black-and-white
house—the garden grows peas and beans and gourds and lettuce beneath
the fruit trees, and this is matter of interest to everybody. The vines
trail wildly across the kitchen window, and boys and girls think it
fine fun to blow the sulphur upon them that keeps off the fell disease.
Who cares whether children’s clothes are rent and threadbare, since
roses are coming to their cheeks in the wild, free life and the good
air of this Apennine _villeggiatura_?
CONCLUSION.
Il Corpus Domini.
The Procession.
A June day’s dawn breaks white over the land, and in its wake comes the
sun, glorious to shine where dew-drops have lain cool through the short
summer night. They lie still on plucked flowers and herbage in the town
market of S. Domenico, though the sun rose half an hour ago, and they
lie thicker on soft green turf and gently stirring blossoms, beneath
the breezy chestnut woods of Apennine or Riviera mountains.
And the fair fine weather gladdens many a heart to-day, for it is the
feast of the Corpus Domini. Whether in country cottages or in city
streets—those small and darker streets where dwell the working people,
who yet can be moved by a feast day—in homes that stand beneath a cool
green shade, as in flats that have but the sadder shade from tall, town
houses opposite—all rise early on this hot June morning, because after
mass there is the great procession. Many folk, young and old, poor and
gentle, donned holiday dress to see the carnival of Martedì Grasso and,
of these, all are, perhaps, not left to wear their best clothes again
for this other pageant that is of the Church.
But Rosina, the fair _fioraja_, still combs her long black hair and
smiles to show her fine white teeth, and, from her room beside the
camellia-beds of the Peschiere, she comes forth adorned for the day.
And many others walk beside her in the procession, who stood beside
her, perhaps, to see the blessing of the palms at S. Lorenzo, and knelt
in divers churches before the _Santo Sepolcro_.
Maddalena, the little servant wench, walks behind the great cross
in crisply-smoothed _pezzotto_ and ear-drops that were new for the
sister’s festival of the first communion. She is proud to be so near
the procession’s heart, and glances along the ranks to see the crimson
banners floating aloft, and the Virgin’s images, to marvel at the great
throng of priests, where the Archbishop bears the Host beneath gaudy
panoply. Yet Maddalena cannot see the whole of the great sight so well
as can _la padrona_, who sits on a convenient balcony of the Via Nuova,
and sprinkles flowers upon the crowd, while she listens to compliments
from the rich silk mercer at her side, and secretly admires that very
dress which her little maid has so often assured her is becoming.
Not even _la Pettinatrice_, who has secured a side window through
hair-dressing acquaintance, can see the great silver ark that holds
the ashes of S. John, so closely as can _la Dè Maroni_, whose plaits
she has greased this morning, or _la Contessa Capramonte_, who sits
on a family terrace, with fair coils twisted by Marrina’s own hands,
and silken draperies purchased at the shop of fat Signor Giordano,
gazing placidly from a plebeian ground-floor opposite. For these, on
their balconies, are above the heads of the crowd, and close where the
procession must pass. Sprinkling their gorse-bloom and camellias, they
can look along the winding stream of the people, and see the companies
of friars and monks and Jesuits, the ranks of municipal orders,
gorgeous in civic dress, the blue-robed children of the Virgin, the
crosses and banners and saints, till the shaven crowns of officiating
priests are just below them, and rich vestments glitter, and incense
from acolytes’ censers floats around the Archbishop’s panoply, ere it
is wafted to the very windows where they kneel.
But, for all the grandeur and the throng, perhaps the town-folk have
not the best of it. At Bogliasco, where fisher-folk live, bells have
been ringing for the Corpus Domini as well, and Paolo has lounged about
the church door, smoking pipes with Maso, while the fat fisherwife and
Giannino and Nicoletta walked in the procession. At Ruta, on the hill,
old Giovanni, the _manente_, has knelt to the passing Host also, and
Maria has chattered whisperingly to the neighbours.
Though hot it has been, indeed, beneath the frail olive foliage and
beside the shining blue sea at Camogli, the priests have not failed
to go forth in their muffling copes under the panoply, chaunting
the office and bearing the Host. Nor has Lucrezia, the lace-weaver,
forgotten to carry the swaddled _bambino_ to see the procession at
Santa Margherita, while pop-guns were fired and men played at bowls on
the high road.
Even Teresa—the thrifty housewife at Portofino Castle—has found time,
amid manifold duties, to attend this most delicate of feasts, and has
gone so far as to leave the premises in charge of the household drudge,
while she follows the old _marchese_ to the pageant of Corpus Domini.
These all prayed their prayers in stifling churches, and knelt by dusty
waysides as the sacred Host went by, but, beneath the shady woods of
the Apennines, cooler breezes have stirred the broad chestnut leaves
upon this joyful June afternoon.