MAY AND SAN GENNARO'S MIRACLE
Gentle April opened all the flowers in the gardens, terraces, and
balconies in Naples; wherever there was a little earth warmed by the
sun, bedewed with rime, a flower sprang up. Common, uncultivated,
popular flowers, quite a humble flora without refinements, having
no exquisite colouring or scents, but bright, warm, bursting from
the earth with profuse vegetation and plump, full petals. April made
the big, sweet-smelling, blood-red roses blossom, and the pinks,
beloved of the people--white, pink, variegated--_written on_ as they
poetically call them, as if these stripes were mystic words; then
single and double stocks--white, yellow, red--that the town girls
love; they grow them on the damp north balconies of Foria Street; and
the mallow with green, perfumed leaves and little pink flowers; but
above all, everywhere, roses and pinks--magnificent, velvety, almost
arrogant roses, and rich, close pinks bursting their green envelope.
In the damp, dark squares of the low-lying quarters, from Santa Maria
la Nova to Porto Piazzetta, from San Giovanni Maggiore to Santi
Apostoli, in all these half-popular and cloistral, middle-class
and archæological quarters, rose-sellers wandered about; some
queer-looking hawkers with big baskets full of cut roses or slips,
the root wrapped in a cabbage-leaf, giving such pathetic drawn-out
cries that they reached the hearts of sentimental girls. The
rose-girl comes into one of these little squares that are always
soaking, dripping with dirty, black water, puts the basket on the
ground, and sings on in a melancholy, drawn-out voice: 'Roses,
lovely roses!' Then women's heads stick out of shops, balconies and
gateways, attracted by the long, sad chant, full of melancholy,
almost painful, voluptuousness.
Whoever has a few sous, or only one, buys these roses, the slips for
the balconies, or cut ones to put before the Virgin, and to scatter,
when faded, in the linen drawers. The girl, having sold part of her
merchandise, lifts the basket on her head, and goes off, taking up
her melancholy cry in the distance, dwelling on the roses' beauty.
That warm May-day all the seamstresses going errands, who found their
lovers by chance at the street corners, carried a rose in their
hands; all the common folk walking about in the narrow streets round
Forcella wore pinks on their white muslin camisoles; the children out
from school playing in the streets had flowers; even the servants had
flowers on their market-baskets, laid on the provisions wrapped in a
white towel.
Really, poetic sentiment was not the only reason that scattered
flowers everywhere--at the street corners, in women and children's
hands, on washing baskets, flour-sacks, fruit and tomatoes, in the
big frying shops at Purgatorio ad Arco, and the old-clothes shops
at Anticaglia; it was the quantity one could get for a penny: for
a smile, a word, and flowers are so precious to humble folk, who
love colour and are intoxicated with the slightest perfume. May-day!
In that noon-day sun many dull, gloomy houses of Trinità Maggiore,
Forcella, Tribunali, San Sebastiano, San Pietro a Maiella Streets,
besides the flowers in the balconies, had put bright-coloured flags,
old red damasks, yellow, bright, buttercup curtains, blue silk
hangings edged with gold and silver, and many coloured stuffs, kept
up in boxes for years, outside the railings for drapery.
The people that live in these tall, black, melancholy palaces, that
only get the sun on the terraces, are patricians of old clerical
families, very devout and pious, under the influence of all the great
old churches around: the Gesù Nuovo, Santa Chiara, San Domenico
Maggiore, San Giovanni Maggiore, Pietra Santa, the Sacramentiste,
the Girolomini, San Severo, Donna Regina; and finally the influence
of the old minster, the grand cathedral, so old, they say, it was
a temple of the Sun in Naples' pagan times--or, rather, its early
pagan times. There are rich, stern old middle-class families also
in the high, dark houses who keep up the customs of their citizen
forefathers, and have rigid monastic tendencies. These people, that
bright May-day, had taken out of camphored chests silk draperies they
had bought at the great factory Ferdinand of Bourbon set up at Terra
di Lavoro, or from San Leucio, with its bright, gay factories, for
weddings and baptisms held in their private chapels and oratories. A
pious folk, that inherits faith in its blood, they are born, live,
and die without doubting for a moment. They put all the repressed
strength of fancy into that grand mystic dream that rises from the
terrors of Hell to the supreme ecstasies of Paradise, having a horror
of Purgatory, as if the flesh felt its warm flames; and, dreaming
and dreaming on, they come to the last moment with eyes shut in
invincible hope.
Besides the May roses and the hedge of pinks blooming on the
balconies, in spite of want of sun, these pious folk had put out for
rejoicings this May-day their brocades, damasks, and watered silks.
May-day! The darkness of old Naples' streets was brightened up by
that general wealth of sweet-smelling flowers, with petals scattered
on the gray Vesuvian lava stones; and there being so many flowers
everywhere, it seemed the sun must be there too. Its presence was
felt up there, where the two narrow lines of tall palaces ended in a
clear streak of soft blue sky--spring's thin azure. It seemed as if a
white sun was down in these narrow openings, Tribunali and Forcella
Streets, because so many coloured stuffs, such vivid draperies, waved
from the balconies, windows, and terraces. In San Domenico Maggiore
Square, especially, the ancient De Sangro and Carigliano Palaces
had magnificent brocades; even San Severo Palace, that hides in a
dark lane its gloomy vestibule, was dazzling with ancient stuffs.
The fresh flowers in the shops, in the tiny balconies of poor houses
that come by turns in old Naples with magnates' palaces, on the flat
roofs and terraces, out in the air, between earth and heaven; the
flowers carried by women, children, humble working people, artisans,
beggars even--fresh flowers--formed the people's festival in honour
of Naples' protector. That was the explanation, too, of the silk
draperies, the gold and silver damasks, the tapestries; it was all
the tribute of the old Naples' nobility and burghers to Naples' great
patron.
May-day is lovely in Naples, from the air's caressing breath, from
the vivid streak of blue sky that manages to make the darkest,
most villainous streets gay. May-day is lovely, from the roses
that bloom on all sides, seeming to grow from women and children's
hands even, as well as all the common garden and field flowers. It
is miracle-working San Gennaro's day. It is on May-day his relics
are carried from the cathedral crypts--called _Succorpo_, or San
Gennaro's Treasury--to Santa Chiara Church, so that the saint may
deign, on the prayers of the people, to do the miracle of liquefying
his blood. The Bishop of Pozzuoli's head, which was cut off by the
executioner's axe, is set in an old gold mask. It bears the Bishop's
mitre, enriched with precious stones, and sparkles with a thousand
fires. The other relic is the coagulated blood, kept in a very
fine crystal phial: through the cold dark clot of blood a straw is
visible, going across it and immovable. It was gathered by pious folk
present at the Bishop's martyrdom, and religiously preserved. This is
the day, the fourth of the flowery, sweet-smelling May calends, that
these relics go, borne in triumphant procession, from the cathedral
to Santa Chiara Church.
Now, that year 188- it seemed as if the flower of faith grew more
vigorously in the people's heart--that devotion to the city's patron
burst forth more brightly; for since two in the afternoon the crowd
had been rushing along to old Naples, obstructing the narrow streets,
lanes and blind alleys. San Gennaro is profoundly popular in Naples,
much--a hundred thousand times--more than the real first Bishop of
Naples, Sant' Aspreno. But who remembers _him_? He is one of the
forgotten ones of the martyrology, which has its shipwrecks in the
sea of oblivion, such as happen in other seas.
Sant' Aspreno's little church stands in a lane in the Porto quarter,
and is underground; one goes down thirty steps, below the level of
the soil; it is merely an oratory, rude, dark, damp, and alarming,
where Sant' Aspreno's stick is adored, the pastoral staff of Naples'
first pastor. But who goes to Sant' Aspreno's? A few devout people
and some lovers of archæological things. San Gennaro, before all
the other saints--before Sant' Anna, the powerful old woman, or
San Giuseppe, the patron of a good death, next in order to the
Immaculate Virgin and the Eternal Father, who are worshipped in
Santa Chiara. San Gennaro has the devotion of all lowly Neapolitan
hearts to himself. Above all, he was a Neapolitan, born in that
black, evil-smelling quarter, Molo Piccolo, where it seems his
descendants still live, and take great pride in such an ancestor.
He came of Naples common folk, and his family consists of some old
working-women, who spend their time between work and prayer, carrying
out the _spiritual life_--trying, at least, to reach their great
ancestor's perfection in piety. Glorious San Gennaro, the Bishop who
suffered martyrdom! His head was cut off by infidels at Pozzuoli, on
a great marble stone, which is still preserved: it has a large scar,
and three streaks of blood running down; the severed head, being
cast into the sea, swam from Pozzuoli to Naples, the face keeping a
deathly pallor from loss of blood.
Nor from that day that the saint's head was picked up and preserved,
and the coagulated blood put into a phial, to this, has the saint
ever ceased to protect Naples. In the maritime suburb, on the
Maddalena Bridge, where the little stream Sebeto has to go under a
stone arch, the patron saint's statue in marble looks at Vesuvius
close at hand, and stands with two fingers raised in a commanding
attitude. By that gesture the saint has prevented lava from coming
into Naples during Vesuvius' tremendous eruptions; never will the
lava dare to pass that limit. San Gennaro, with uplifted finger,
says: '_Thou shalt go no further!_' From the most ancient times,
twice a year--in soft September, when his name-day occurs, and in
flowery May--San Gennaro does the miracle of liquefying his blood
before the people. Whilst here at Naples the blood in the phial
boils up, making the straw fixed in the cold, dry clot move about,
in Pozzuoli the blood on the marble block gets fresh and bright; and
whoso standing on the shore has the eyes of faith sees the saint's
livid, cut-off head floating in. The miracle is repeated twice every
year. When it is later than the usual hour, it is a bad sign; it
means a bad year: if he were not to do the miracle ... but the patron
saint could not forsake his faithful city. In eruptions, epidemics,
earthquakes, his hand is always raised to mitigate and overcome the
scourge. All the common people have their own legends about him,
besides the great legend of the miracles. The great saint was a
Naples man, poor, of the people; there has not been a king, a prince
or great lord who has visited San Gennaro's chapel without adding a
splendid gift to the patron's wealth. Naples' common folk, to cry up
their saint, go about saying proudly and tenderly, 'Even Vittorio!
Even Vittorio!' which means that the great King Victor Emmanuel also
brought his gift to the patron saint. In former days there were
knights of San Gennaro, and his treasury was guarded with hierarchal
pomp; the keys were under a solemn trust. There are no longer any
knights; indeed, the order is abolished, and the old patrician pomp
is rather diminished. But what of that? The saint is stronger than
ever, powerful, miracle-working, safe in the people's heart as in an
inviolable tabernacle.
That year the people's love for San Gennaro came out stronger than
ever, as if a new rush of faith had fortified their souls. At a
certain hour the traffic through Forcella and Tribunali was stopped;
all who were leaving Naples or arriving had to make a long round to
the station by Marina or Foria Road. The cabman told any annoyed fare
who asked the reason of the endless journey, 'It was San Gennaro';
and touched his hat with his whip in compliment to the saint. He
tried to hurry his horse, not for the sake of being obliging to his
fare, but that he himself, after putting up his cab or by taking his
stand with it at a street corner, might see San Gennaro's precious
blood pass. If all the little streets were crowded with people, all
the sumptuous balconies of the patricians' houses and the small,
mean balconies alongside were swarming, and in the wide street by
the cathedral the crowd was stupendous. That great road that goes
down rather too steeply from the hill to the sea from Foria Road
to Marina, which was the first surgical cut through old Naples
(an energetic cut, but not well carried out; rather ferocious and
ridiculous as regards architecture, but certainly sanitary--the Duomo
Road, which is the Toledo of old Naples), had then all the majesty of
its great days, when the popular flood alarms even those who count
over its numbers proudly. People stretched up to Gerolomini and
Pendino, above and below, in the two porticos to the right and left
of the cathedral; they stood on the broad flight of steps, climbed on
the gas-lamps, and even on the scaffolding that has been up so many
years for repairs to the west front; there were people there close
together, crushed in, choking in the open air, hanging on to iron
girders or a beam, and balancing themselves in an extraordinary way
on an insecure board. Sometimes a mother in the crowd held up her
child to let it get air, and it waved its legs and arms rejoicingly
for that throw into the gentle May air. The cathedral police vainly
tried to make way for the procession, which was already formed in the
church; but when they pushed back the crowd, it surged back again so
strongly it went up against the façade of the church.
Suddenly from under the black arch of the great wide-open door,
where some torches were burning in the background, solemn psalmody
was heard, and the head of the procession appeared amidst silence
and stillness in the crowd. Very, very slowly, with an almost
imperceptible motion, the Naples religious orders came forward in
advance. White and black monks, brown, shoeless, or in sandals, with
cape or shaven head, singing holy San Gennaro's lauds, with wandering
eyes, and holding bent torches, whose slender flame was hardly
visible, being swallowed up by the sunlight. A little boy followed to
pick up the great wax drops that fell from the torches. Dominicans,
Benedictines, Franciscans, Verginisti, missionaries, Jesuits, monks,
and priests in double file were flowing along, carried by the crowd,
not looking at it, gazing at a far-off point on the horizon or on
the ground. All mouths were open to sing the Latin psalms--severe,
stem mouths, like the psalms that came from them, which rose in waves
over the crowd's head; and involuntarily, as the religious orders
moved along imperceptibly down towards Foria, the devout who knew
the Divo Gennaro's Latin prayers joined in the solemn song, while
many of the crowd, excited by the air and light and others singing,
intoned a wordless psalmody, seized by a mystical fervour. From the
bottom of the Duomo Road the crowd, advancing with the procession,
went with open mouths; thousands of voices were solemnly singing,
the wide sky swallowing up the sound. But those that went on towards
Forcella did not leave the Duomo Road open: others took their place,
and pushed them on; then, a string of parish priests and the canons
of San Giovanni Maggiore having passed, there was a lively tumult
among the people, showing evident interest and pleasure. It was
caused by the slow filing-out of saints that go with Saint Gennaro,
to do him honour in his chapel--there are forty-six of them, either
whole statues or busts, in silver. These saints stand on litters,
carried on four men's shoulders. These porters disappear among the
crowd, so that the saint seems to go along miraculously by himself,
all sparkling, over the people's heads. Very, very slowly, as I said,
for the crowd was so dense, so congested, the statues sometimes
stood motionless, while the people gazed on them with suffused eyes
lingeringly, for Naples' devotion loves to feed at length on the
sight of their special protectors, who are shut up in the treasury
all the year, and only come out that day to bless the poor folk.
As every saint appeared under the dark vane of the great door and
went through the people on the way to Santa Chiara by Forcella, there
were shouts of joy. The first was Naples' other patron, one who comes
next to San Gennaro as a protector, Sant' Antonio. He carries a staff
with a tinkling bell on the top, and at his side is the head of the
animal he loved. The bell swayed as the saint moved, and rang out
cheerfully above the crowd, making them gay, so that they cried out:
'Sant' Antonio! Sant' Antonio!'
Excited, almost sobbing, Carmela, the cigar-girl, asked the
saint's protection. He, too, loved an ugly beast, as she loved
that ungrateful, hard-hearted Raffaele, called Farfariello. She
had been pushed right into the telegraph-office in Duomo Road, and
her strained face following his figure showed her hard life and
privations plainer than ever. She gazed on the saint's shining face,
he who had resisted so many temptations, imploring him to take that
love out of her heart, and free her from love's temptations, for it
made her gnawing poverty twice as hard.
'Sant' Antonio, Sant' Antonio!' the crowd shouted to the saint as he
went off.
'Sant' Antonio, deliver me!' Carmela sobbed out, not knowing she had
cried out, and that her neighbours were listening.
But one prays aloud in Naples, whether in the church or the street.
Now the Archangel Michael, the triumphant warrior, appeared, tall
and agile, in a splendid victorious pose, his dazzling corslet close
to his young figure, a helmet on the fair, triumphant head, lance in
hand to kill the dragon his foot presses down; Michael, mystic and
war-like, saint and hero. Seeing him appear so handsome and breathing
out triumph, with the devil wriggling vainly under his feet, the
devout had an artistic feeling in their enthusiasm: San Michele was
called on by thousands of voices.
Leaning against a column of the portico, to the right of the
cathedral, was the Marquis di Formosa. He took off his hat in humble
greeting of the brilliant Archangel, for whom he had great devotion;
that combination of cherubim and warrior pleased his violent
disposition and love of fighting so much. As the splendid, handsome
saint came forward, for ever victorious, trampling on the dragon,
the old Marquis prayed passionately and fervently that he might be
enabled to overcome the dragon of poverty, shame and death that came
against him every day; he implored great Michael, overthrower of the
devil, to lend him his holy lance to kill the monster that threatened
to devour him. San Michele went down the road to the sea also; he was
so handsome, flaming with glory in the noon-day light, that the three
syllables of his name were repeated over and over again, up and down,
as fire runs along a powder-train: 'Michele! Michele! Michele!'
But San Rocco made a diversion, the saviour of the plague-stricken,
the people's protector in all epidemics; he is dressed as a pilgrim,
with mantle, hood, and staff; he raises the tunic to show the bare
knee, with a sore carved on it, a sign of the plague. A faithful
little dog follows him--so faithful that people say: 'San Rocco
and his dog,' referring to inseparables. This strong friendship,
the saint's rather queer figure, in a short cloak, and the dog
following--this well-known story, excites affectionate hilarity among
the crowd. They look on San Rocco as a dear, indulgent friend they
can joke with, as he never gets in a rage.
'Is your knee cold, Santo Rocco?'
'Hi, hi, baldhead!'
'Lend me your great-coat, Santo Rocco!'
But the really devout were scandalized, and insisted on silence. The
lovely saint who was a sinner now appeared, the penitent Maddalena,
quivering over her bearers' heads, her fine hair falling down her
back, her eyes bedewed with petrified tears; behind her, curiously
enough, came another saintly sinner, Maria Egiziaca, consumed and
wasted by a not less ardent remorse than the Magdalene's. A sort of
dull shiver went through all those who saw the statues pass in their
midst--it was a quiet excitement that had no outburst. On the widest
low step of the flight, under the façade scaffolding, stood Filomena,
Carmela's unhappy sister, in blue skirt, gray silk bodice, a pink
ribbon round her neck, hair combed to the top of the head, cheeks
covered with rouge. She did not hear the insolent hints of those
around her. Pulling up her embroidered shawl, she prayed earnestly to
the two saints--sinners like herself, but still saints--in blessed
San Gennaro's name, to do her the grace of freeing her from her
disgraceful life, and she would offer up a solid silver heart.
Then there was a great flutter among the women in the balconies
and street. After San Giuseppe and Sant' Andrea Avellino, both
patrons of a _good death_, and therefore very dear to imaginative
Neapolitans, who have the greatest fear of death; after San Alfonso
di Liguori, who is called 'wry-neck,' with loving familiarity,
because his head leans to one shoulder; after San Vincenzio Ferrari,
who bears the flame of the Holy Ghost on his head, and an open book
of the law in his hands--when all these popular saints passed amid
shouts, smiles, and affectionate greetings, a fine shining saint,
as if newly out of the engraver's hands, with a round, good-natured
face and open lowered hands to rain down blessings, came out of the
cathedral. It was San Pasquale Baylon, the girls' patron saint--he
they make a _novena_ to to get a husband; he sends husbands, being an
accommodating, joyous saint: all the lassies know the figure, they
recognise him at once. From a balcony with a dressmaker's signboard,
'Madama Juliana,' Antonietta the blonde, with her friend Nannina, let
fall a rose, that whirled slowly down on to San Pasquale's arm. All
felt the devotion, the longing, in that act; quantities of roses were
thrown from the balconies and street at San Pasquale. 'Like you, just
the same, oh, blessed San Pasquale,' prayed the girls, referring to
the husband they wanted.
Now the procession hurried a little; the saints passed quicker, for
the impatience of the crowd in front of the cathedral and Duomo Road
got tremendous. Great shudders went through the people; all this
splendour of silver aureoles and faces, that singular walking over
people's heads, and going off towards Forcella, the continuous new
silvery apparitions in the great black vane of the cathedral door,
gave a nervous feeling even to quiet onlookers.
Cesare Fragalà and De Feo the medium were standing in a little
coffee-house doorway to see the procession, but the mild little
confectioner, who fled from his shop every day he could, to follow
the mysterious lanky medium, had lost the old youthful joyousness and
certainty about life--his face had a sickly, care-lined look now.
The medium, though he pumped out money every week from the whole
cabalistic group, and from others too, still wore his dirty torn
clothes, unstarched, frayed linen, and cravat curled up like a wick;
his complexion was still yellow with dull-red, scirrhus-like streaks,
as if he had barely recovered from a severe fever. The medium always
brought Cesare Fragalà along with him now; he insisted on keeping up
with De Feo's fantastic ideas, though his simple commercial mind did
not understand them; but he was furious, enraged at himself for his
want of comprehension. He accused his own disposition, as being too
lively, healthy, and stupid to be able to take in the spirituality
and refinements of him who had the luck to be visited by the spirits.
Now, Don Pasqualino had told all his devotees plainly enough that
a great fortune would come to them that May Saturday, sacred to
San Gennaro's precious blood. The gamblers listened greedily; for
many weeks, for ever so long, they had not won a half-penny. Except
Ninetto Costa, the stock-broker, who made a big profit off some
numbers he got from a wine merchant's lad who brought him an account
to settle, and Marzano, who got an _ambo_ of fifty francs from his
friend the cobbler's advice, no one else had got anything, in spite
of the inspired friar, or the medium, good spirits or bad, in spite
of all their prayers and magic.
Now, Don Pasqualino, who had sucked up hundreds of francs that winter
and spring, said that San Gennaro would certainly grant a favour
that first Saturday in May, and all the Cabalists believed him, and
were scattered here and there among the crowd in Duomo Road, having
agreed to meet at Vespers in Santa Chiara. But Cesare Fragalà clung
the harder to the medium, the deeper he plunged in the gambling
gulf; he had staked a lot that Saturday, and was determined to keep
an eye on him. Whenever a saint appeared, the medium turned up his
eyes, and prayed in a whisper in the midst of the crowd; Fragalà,
alongside of him, crossed himself distractedly. He stretched his
ears to hear all the medium said when each saint came out. Now Santa
Candida Brancaccio passed, one of the first Naples Christian martyrs,
a young woman looking up to heaven, and in her right hand she held a
long arrow, that of divine love. A voice called out from the crowd,
supposing the arrow to be a pen:
'Write a letter for me to the eternal Father, Santa Candida!'
'The saint is writing for you,' the medium at once chimed in, turning
to Fragalà.
'So we hope--that is my hope,' he humbly replied.
A great noise greeted San Biagio, another Bishop of Naples; he
is shown blessing the town. For two or three years diphtheria and
quinsy had kept the hearts of Naples' mothers in terror, especially
among the lower classes. San Biagio is just the saint for throat
complaints. When the silver saint came out, amidst clamour, fathers
and mothers held out their children to the holy Bishop to get his
blessing, that they might escape the dreadful scourge that killed so
many innocents.
'San Biase! San Biase!' screamed out the excited, sobbing mothers,
holding up their children.
Annarella too, Carmela's and unhappy Filomena's sister, held up
her two remaining sons, for the smallest was dead, after having
languished a long time. Ah! he would never again be waiting for her
on the cellar doorstep, patiently munching a bit of bread till she
came back from work. Poor little Peppinello--he was dead! He died of
wretchedness in a damp, smelly cellar, from bad, coarse food, with
only his little garments to cover him when asleep, always clinging to
his mother for warmth. Mother's little flower was dead, starved by
the _bonafficciata_, by that terrible lottery that ruined Gaetano,
that drove him to steal his children's bread. Annarella would never
be consoled for that death. The two left to her were well-behaved
and strong, but they were not her blonde, delicate flower. They had
dragged her there to see San Gennaro, and when the wretched woman saw
so many little ones held up she lifted hers too, weeping and sobbing,
thinking her dear flower had not been saved either by San Biase, San
Gennaro, or all the saints in Paradise. But as the day went on, the
people's emotion increased; everyone was given up to strong emotions
that grew stronger every moment from the influence of those around
them. In the excited eyes of girls, mothers, the poor, the unhappy,
the guilty, all who needed help, whether moral or material, that show
of saints got to be like a dream; they saw a shining vision pass,
with silvery, dazzling reflections; the names got lost, but the whole
procession of the blessed images was impressed on them.
The crowd, now confused and deafened, shaken by religious fervour,
did not recognise a group of saints of Naples' earliest ages--Sant'
Aspreno, San Severo, Sant' Eusebio, Sant' Agrippino, and Sant'
Attanasio, most antique saints, rather obscure and forgotten. A roar
like thunder greeted the five Franciscans who keep watch round San
Gennaro in the _succorpo_: San Francesco d'Assisi, Di Paolo, Di
Ceronimo, Caracciolo, and Borgia. Another shout when Sant' Anna,
the Virgin's mother, came out, to whom, say the people, no grace is
ever refused. No one troubled themselves much about San Domenico,
who invented the Rosary, as no one in the confusion of that noontide
hour recognised the proud Spanish monk, except the gloomy Finance
Secretary, Don Domenico Mayer. Being pushed by the crowd against a
wall, he kept his tall hat well over his eyes, and his arms were
crossed in a proud, gloomy way, his lips set in a sad, sceptical
smile. The saints went on and on, out of the cathedral's great dark
portal, towards Forcella, rather quicker now; the crowd swayed from
right to left, as if to free itself from the constraint of that close
attention.
The saints' procession was just about finishing, having lasted
nearly an hour, from the slowness of the going, and it ended with
San Gaetano Thiene, the angelic San Filippo Neri, with the holy
doctors Tommaso and Agostino, Santa Irene, Sant' Maria Maddalena di
Pazzi, the great Santa Teresa in ecstasy, all ardour and passion,
that magnificent saint of Avila, who died of divine love. When the
long file of saints finished, and the first of the cathedral canons
came out, there was a great movement among the waiting people. All
stretched their heads to see better, not to lose a tittle of the
religious show; but the noise was unrestrained in spite of this close
attention. At last the canons ended also, and finally, under the
great embroidered, gold-fringed canopy, appeared the chief pastor
of the Neapolitan Church, pallid, his face radiant with a deeply
compassionate expression, his lips moving in prayer. Eight gentlemen
held up the poles of the canopy, eight choir-boys swung censers of
smoking incense around him. The Archbishop, a Cardinal Prince of the
Church, walked slowly, alone, under the canopy, his eyes fixed on his
own clasped hands; and the whole crowd of women stretching out their
arms, men praying, children lisping San Gennaro's name, gazed not at
the canopy, gold vestments, or jewelled mitre, but affectionately,
enthusiastically at the Archbishop's waxen, clasped hands, weeping,
crying, asking favours and pity, gazing fixedly at what he pressed in
his hands, now trembling with sacred respect. To it were directed all
glances, all sighs, all prayers. The Cardinal Archbishop of Naples
held the phial of the precious blood.
* * * * *
In Santa Chiara's fine church, all white with stucco and loaded with
gilding like a very spacious royal hall, the crowd was waiting for
San Gennaro's miracle. It was not yet night, but thousands of wax
tapers, on the high altar and in the side chapels, especially on
those dedicated to the Virgin and Eternal Father, lighted up the
vast, lovely, graceful church. On the high altar, San Gennaro's head,
in a gemmed mitre, the face ornamented with gold, was placed on a
white napkin in a gold dish. The two phials of the precious blood
stood more in the middle, for the adoration of the faithful. All
around the high altar and behind the antique carved wood balustrade
that cuts off a large space with the altar from the rest of the
church, stood the forty-six silver statues that form a guard of
honour to San Gennaro's relics. The Cardinal Archbishop and the
canons were doing service at the high altar to Naples' holy patron,
that he might perform the miracle; behind the balustrade, to the side
of the high altar, stood a solitary, favoured, happy group of old men
and women, all in black, with white neckerchiefs and cravats, the
men uncovered, the women with a black veil over their hair, a group
watched, commented on, and envied by all the other devotees. They
were San Gennaro's relations; they alone had the right to go up to
the high altar to see the miracle at half a yard's distance.
Then came an immense crowd--in the great single nave of Santa
Chiara, in the side chapels, and even outside the two great doors,
on the steps and cloisters, where the latest arrivals stood on
tiptoe, dazzled by the thousands of tapers, trying to see something,
struggling vainly to push a step forward, for there was no more room
for anyone. All were agitated and disquieted, from the Cardinal
Archbishop kneeling in prayer before the altar to the humblest
little woman of the lower class; all were waiting till the heavenly
Gennaro carried out the miracle. Most fervently, with head bent over
the seat in front, with the trusting piety of a young heart, Bianca
Maria Cavalcanti was praying, as the miraculous moment drew near. She
prayed to San Gennaro, in the name of his precious blood, to give
peace to her father's heart, to give Amati faith; and sincerely, in
the great, wise, deep goodness of her heart, she asked nothing for
herself. It was enough for her that her father's sick, troubled,
tortured heart should have peace; that Antonio Amati's strong, hard
heart, besides its human love, should share the highest tenderness
of the Divine. Here in a short time one of the greatest miracles
of religion would be accomplished. Could not San Gennaro work a
miracle in their hearts, if she worshipped with her whole strength?
She prayed on, her cheeks flushed with an unwonted fire, a faint
blush over them, with a restrained force of mystic enthusiasm, a new
passion that had come into her frozen life and brightened it.
At the high altar, his face turned to heaven, breathing intense
faith, his voice trembling with overpowering emotion, the Cardinal
Archbishop was saying the Latin prayers in honour of Naples' high
protector. The whole crowd responded with a long thundering 'Amen!'
'Amen!' came from Santa Chiara's patrician nuns, hidden behind the
choir grating.
After the _Oremus_, a moment's silence followed; the fore-running
breath of great things seemed to pass over the praying people. San
Gennaro's relations at the high altar intoned the _Credo_ in Italian
impetuously, and the whole church took it up; that ended, there were
two minutes of uneasy waiting, to see if the miracle was beginning.
But a second, a third _Credo_ was soon taken up with vigour, as if
the whole people declared its belief, swore it on their conscience,
gave themselves over to faith in spirit and truth, impetuously. The
Cardinal Archbishop, kneeling, his hands covering his face, prayed
on in silence. The _Credo_ went on behind him, intoned at short
intervals by San Gennaro's relations, and carried on by the whole
people. A solemn note stood out here and there amid the general
rumble from a desolate heart, a sharp note struck off tortured
nerves.... 'I believe!' shouted the people, with a break in the voice
which seemed to denote a thousand prayers, vows, and hopes.
Ah! Luisella Fragalà, too, seated in a corner beside the melancholy
Signora Parascandolo, was a profound believer. Tears, caused by
her excited religious feelings, ran down her cheeks silently. She
had a dark presentiment of coming misfortune; she felt it, without
seeing or making out what it was, but sure that it was on its way
inexorably. She asked San Gennaro for strength, such as he had in
his frightful martyrdom, to bear the mysterious catastrophe that
was coming on her. Signora Parascandolo was saying the Creed too
with the people in a feeble voice; but in the almost frightened
pauses, while waiting for the imminent miracle, she, bereaved of
her children, begged San Gennaro to grant her a grace, to take her
from this land of exile, whence all her children were gone, leaving
her alone, groping in the cold and darkness. Rosy Agnesina's happy
mother, just like the unhappy mother who was wounded in the past, as
she was to be in the future, asked for strength to conquer or to die.
But at the fifteenth _Credo_ uneasiness began among the multitude;
the words of faith sounded shrilly, like a challenge flung to
unbelievers, but they had a quiver of secret dread; the pauses
between each _Credo_ got longer as the depression of waiting wore out
their nerves, then it was taken up again enthusiastically, as if the
renewed rush of feeling was terrible, as is the way with crowds.
The wildest in mystic enthusiasm were the old people at the high
altar; from behind them a flame ran from one heart to another,
carrying the devouring fire into soft indolent temperaments, even
to the hearts of sceptics, who trembled as if a rude revolution had
struck them and was clearing their eyes. At the twenty-first _Credo_
there was anguish in the expectation. All eyes went from the saint's
head on the gold dish to the clear crystal phial with its clot of
dark blood. The head, in its gemmed mitre and yellow gold mask,
sparkled with metallic, rather livid reflections; the blood was still
congealed, a stone that prayers could not break. At the twenty-second
_Credo_, intoned with a burst of rage, some shouts were heard,
calling out desperately:
'San Gennaro! San Gennaro! San Gennaro!'
The feverish prayers recited by the multitude in Santa Chiara, which
humbly, forcibly, tremblingly implored a miracle from Naples' holy
patron, were fervently said by two women kneeling in the crowd,
their elbows on straw seats, and faces hidden, absorbed soul and
body in the grace they implored. Donna Caterina, the clandestine
lottery keeper, and Donna Concetta, the money-lender, had taken a
vow together to San Gennaro for a bishop's heavy gold ring with a
large topaz, if he would do them the grace to end their sufferings:
either change their lovers, Ciccillo and Alfonso Jannacone's, hearts,
make them tolerant of the sisters' enterprises, or change their own
hearts, and free them from love of money. A ring, a magnificent
ring, to the miracle-working saint if he did that miracle for them;
so they both prayed in a whisper, saying their offer over again,
monotonously raising their imploring, tearful eyes to the high altar,
where the great mystery was imminent. But the people were in a panic
already from that delay; they felt a great terror that just that
year, after two centuries and a half, the saint, angry, perhaps,
with the sins of the people, should refuse to do the miracle that
is the proof of his benevolence. The Creed, taken up again after a
longer, deeper, and therefore more emotional pause of silence, had an
alarmed, almost angry, tone, and burst out with a despairing rush;
above all, the old women's voices at the high altar got angry and
frightened, trembling with sorrow and terror. In a silent pause,
suddenly one of them said, in a voice shaken by devout familiarity,
meek jocularity, and uncontrollable impatience:
'Old cross-patch, you want to keep us waiting, eh?'
'San Gennaro! San Gennaro! San Gennaro!' yelled the populace,
curiously excited.
Down there, at the bottom of the church, near the wall, where that
sweet, faded Madonna, said to be Giotti's, calms the eye with its
subdued colouring, Don Pasqualino stood in an attitude that was
all prayer; he was standing, but his head and shoulders were bent
forward obsequiously, and now and then, when he raised his head from
tiredness or inspiration to look at the gilded, painted sky in the
church, the whites of his eyes looked enormous, out of proportion,
and all colour had left his cheeks; his livid pallor went on
increasing. By a magnetic attraction, all those who believed in him
and his visions had gathered round him, all disturbed-looking, full
of repressed despair, that showed itself in some faces as if they
were deep down in sorrow's abyss, for that Saturday, too, had brought
them a great disappointment, two hours before, when the lottery
figures came out; all were bent by a gnawing remorse, for they
felt guilty towards others and themselves. The Marquis di Formosa
was bowed, his fine figure looked almost decrepit, for he felt the
shame of his disreputable life; he was losing everything, even his
daughter, in a slow agony of bad health and wretchedness. Cesare
Fragalà's commercial standing was always getting more compromised;
he felt his trading correspondents' coldness, his wife's evident low
spirits and secret dread, hoping always, but in vain, to set it all
right with a big haul. Ninetto Costa was pallid, but smiling, his
eyes hollow from sitting up at night and anxiety; he often thought of
the catastrophe, choosing in his mind between dishonourable flight
and the revolver shot that does not clear scores, but softens people.
Baron Lamarra was there, big, fat and flabby, cursing his ambitious
beggar-on-horseback dreams, shuddering at the idea of that promissory
note signed by himself and his wife. Marzano's gentle smile had
got rather idiotic, for he increased his frugality every week so
as to be able to gamble; he had given up snuff, smoking and wine,
had pawned his pension papers, and was now getting compromised in
queer affairs. Colaneri and Trifari were getting no more pupils; the
first especially felt himself suspected, discredited, fearing every
morning, as he entered the school, to be turned out by order of a
superior, or knocked down by the students. All, all, were attacked
by that Saturday-evening desolation, the black, terrible hour when
conscience alone speaks, loudly, sternly, inflexibly. Still, they
were in church, and the most indifferent and unbelieving murmured
some words of prayer; they still surrounded the medium, eagerly
looking at him as he prayed. One could see from that fascination that
he still had power over them, and judge from their eager glances that
once the momentary discouragement was past the passion would grow
again. Ah! but that hour in the midst of the crowd, breathing out
all its unhappiness in prayer, was as frightful for them, who were
guilty, as the fatal night of Gethsemane was for the great sinless
One.
Despairingly, all fixed their eyes on the high altar, where the
burning candles cast reflections on the saint's face.
'San Gennaro! San Gennaro!' the people shouted out as every _Credo_
ended.
A wind of terror that the miracle would not come blew over them and
burst out in their voices. San Gennaro's relatives were torn with
sorrow and rage; they had got to the thirty-fifth _Credo_, and the
time was going by with threatening slowness; they, feeling at once
offence at their holy ancestor's delay and despair at his anger,
called out to him things like this:
'San Gennaro, face of gold, don't keep us waiting any longer!'
'You are in a rage, eh? What have we done to you?'
'Old cross-patch, do the miracle for your people!'
The feeling of rage, tenderness, devotion, and agitation that
breathed in these reproaches and pious invocations cannot be
expressed. The legend says San Gennaro likes to be pressed, and does
not get offended at the remarks his relatives and the populace make
to him, and the people's emotion was such that at the thirty-eighth
_Credo_ each sentence of the prayer was said desperately, as if every
word was dragged out by overpowering agony; cries burst out far back:
'Green face!'
'Ugly yellow face!'
'Not much of a saint!'
'Do this miracle--do it!'
The thirty-eighth _Credo_ was clamorous; everyone said it from one
end of the church to the other: the Cardinal, the priests, men,
women, and children, everyone was seized by a mystical rage. All of
a sudden, in the great silent pause that followed the prayer, the
Archbishop turned to the people; his face, irradiated by an almost
divine light, seemed transfigured; his uplifted hands displayed the
phial. The precious blood in its thin crystal covering was bubbling
up. What a shout! The old church's foundations seemed shaken by it;
the echoes were so loud and long that passers-by in neighbouring
streets were alarmed; the sonorous bells in the tower seemed to
quiver of themselves; the weeping--the sob of a whole kneeling
people, cast down on the ground, kissing the cold marble, holding out
their arms, quivering with the vision of the blood--was endless.
At the high altar the old relatives lay as if they were dead; one
single powerful force bent the whole crowd; there was one lament,
sob, prayer; in that long moment everyone mentioned with warm tears
and shaking voice his own sorrow and need. At the high altar the
Archbishop and clergy now stood up, and sang the anthem in full tones
above the organ notes.