Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions Part 31

"Oh, well, you know what he meant by that? He had heard that it was going to destroy the world, so he did not want to believe in it; he did not want it to exist; he was not going to encourage such a dangerous phenomenon by having anything to do with it. 'I'll leave you alone and I expect you to leave me alone.'"

"Yes; I suppose he thought that if he removed his custom the comet would fail."

"Precisely. But it is not quite that with S. Alfio; they want him to exist; they are afraid that if they don't believe in him, he will leave off performing miracles and will no longer cure them."

"It seems to me," I said, "that they are dominated by the prepotenza of S. Alfio very much as the sulphur-miners are dominated by the prepotenza of their capo-mafioso."

"With this distinction," he replied, "that the capo-mafioso has the power, and sometimes the will, to hurt them; it would require a struggle to destroy his prepotenza and there is the risk of failure. With S.

Alfio, if they cared to be master in their own house, they have only got to leave off believing in him, there need be no struggle and there could be no risk."

"You speak as though they could believe or leave off believing at will."

"So they can, in the loose sense in which they use the word. They only go on believing because their vanity is involved--it flatters them to attribute the gift of miracles to a creature of their own imagination and, by being satisfied with very little and very poor evidence, they make things easy for S. Alfio. But they could not tell you this themselves, they are half asleep about it."

I said: "Of course they are half asleep about it, and all S. Alfio's interests are bound up in their remaining so. They are not only asleep, they are dreaming, as the Red King dreamt of Alice. If they were to wake up S. Alfio would go out--bang!--just like a candle."

Alice and the Red King were as unknown to Joe as Poins or Moliere or d.i.c.kens. I did my best to explain the allusion, but I doubt whether I succeeded, for when I had finished he only said that Tweedledum and Tweedledee had better not go about saying things like that, or their bishop would be warning them to be on their guard as he warned the Canonico Recupero. I must try whether he will understand better if I send him a copy of _Through the Looking-Gla.s.s_ for his next onomastico.

He told me something which makes me suspect that the people must have a dim feeling of how things really are. It seems that sometimes, though rarely, it pleases them to pretend to believe that their padrone has displeased them. Then they half wake up and depose him; but nothing comes of it, they only choose a new one or, after a short time, reinstate the old one.

We went to a house on the route and sat on a balcony in the sunset and the drunken people pelted down-hill, smothered in the golden glory of the dust they raised, banging their tambourines, blowing their whistles, and singing that now the festa was over they must go home and work to pay the debts it had run them into. It was no more use to think of stopping them to see the pictures now than when they were going out; so I pigeon-holed what the carts say about S. Alfio with my poor mother's problem about what influence people who never go to church have over their servants.

The cavalli mafiosi and the carts were stuck about with coloured feathers and festooned with bunches of garlic, with flowers, with lumps of lard, with little flags and ribbons, with garlands of caruba beans and with vetch. The flags, the ribbons, the flowers and the feathers were, I suppose, for gaiety and festa--pour faire la frime--but garlic has some magically beneficent properties; not only does it avert the evil eye, it is also a symbol of robust health, so that instead of replying to "How do you do?" by saying "As right as rain," they reply, "As right as garlic."

They believe that to put three crosses of garlic under the bed of a woman in child-birth will ensure a happy issue. There is something fortunate or healthy also about vetch and, no doubt, some special significance about lard and the beans of the carob. These beliefs are based lower than Giovanni Bianca's primeval lava, and I know no more about their origin than he does, but I suppose they are older than the Romans, older than the Greeks, older than the Sikels and the Sikans--probably much more than ten thousand or fourteen thousand years old. They spring from a soil which has become fertile by catching the dust of ages, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, wherein generations of beliefs have grown up, flourished and decayed. There is no more fertilising manure for a struggling young faith than the rotting remains of a dead superst.i.tion. And the roots pierce down beneath the soil and shoot into the crevices of an intolerance more unyielding than buried lava. To understand these things, one ought to become a pupil of Professore Pitre, and make a study of the science of demopsicologia, and even then one would only get glimpses of the more recent deposits of civilisation that lie crushed one under the other like the parallel surfaces of rich earth in the pit sunk near Jaci.

Whatever the significance of the things they carried or the origin of their belief in them, the people in the carts kept flinging them to the boys in the road, who caught them and picked them up and carried them off to make their festa with them later on. They were all very lively, but no one seemed to me very drunk, not more drunk than the nudi were naked; there were drunken people among them, but not enough to make me feel sure that S. Alfio ought to be identified with Bacchus. One can see more drunkenness on Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday, but one does not hastily identify Saint Lubbock with Dionysus.

CATANIA

CHAPTER XXI HOLY WEEK

PALM SUNDAY

Being in Catania for Holy Week I went to the cathedral on Palm Sunday.

The archbishop in his yellow mitre, red inside because he is also a cardinal, accompanied by nine canons in white mitres and many priests and others, pa.s.sed out of the church by a side exit and proceeded to the western entrance, which was closed against him. I heard him knock and listened to the chanted dialogue which he carried on with those inside.

I saw the great doors thrown open and watched the procession enter and pa.s.s up the nave among crowds of people who waved palm-branches.

After this I called at the Teatro Sicilia, the marionette theatre of Gregorio Gra.s.so, and discovered that he was devoting all the week to the Story of the Pa.s.sion and would begin that evening with the event which I had seen commemorated by the procession in the cathedral. Here was an opportunity to see something which I had often wished to see and about which I had talked with Achille Greco and his sons in their theatre at Palermo, where they also do the Pa.s.sion in Holy Week, using a play in verse written by Filippo Orioles of which they have a MS. copy; but they have not performed it recently because it takes too much preparation.

Orioles wrote his play for living actors, and it is laid out to get all the events into one performance instead of being a series of seven performances extending over a whole week as in Catania.

Gregorio Gra.s.so took me behind, where one of his a.s.sistants, Carmelo, showed me the preparations and told me about the performance. The first scene was to be the meeting of the Sanhedrin and the beginning of the conspiracy of Annas and Caiaphas to destroy the Nazarene; this makes a firm foundation on which the rest of the drama is built. The second scene would be the departure of Christ with Mary; after that would come the Entry with Palms into Jerusalem, and the evening was to conclude with a cinematograph show.

As a rule in this theatre the back scene is only about a third of the way down the stage, the figures appear in front of it and are manipulated by men who stand on a platform behind, leaning over a strong bar which runs along the top of the scene, their heads, shoulders and arms being concealed by a piece of scenery which falls just low enough. The entry into Jerusalem had been prepared behind this back scene; it was a set group representing Christ on the a.s.s, surrounded by apostles carrying palms, and was to be disclosed by the removal of the back scene, the bar and the platform in front of which the meeting of the Sanhedrin would be shown.

But I was not to witness the performance because Turiddu Balistrieri wanted me to go to the Teatro Giacinta Pezzana and see a special performance of _La Signora dalle Camelie_ in which he and some of his family, who are all artists, were to take part. I could not go to both and chose Dumas because, in the first place, being Turiddu's compare it was my duty to support the family. In the second place I had seen the Entry with Palms at the duomo in the morning and had all the rest of the week free to see the marionettes do the rest of the story. So I went to the Teatro Pezzana in the evening. It is a small place, small enough to have been formerly used for marionettes, and was now being used by a Society of Lovers of the Drama. Turiddu was presiding over the box-office and had considered my requirements. He sent me in with his young brother Gennaro, who found me a place, and I saw a play which cannot be considered seriously except as an opportunity for the actress who undertakes the part of Margherita Gautier. On this occasion it was undertaken by Desdemona Balistrieri, Turiddu's sister, a girl of fifteen years and ten months, two years older than himself; I had never expected to see so young a Margherita Gautier. She gave a remarkable performance with nothing childish about it and nothing--but it would be unbecoming in me to praise the sister of my compare. Her grandmother, the old lady referred to in Chapter XVII (_ante_) who slept in the piazza after the earthquake, was Prudenza, and her mother, Signora Balistrieri, was Olimpia and appeared between the old generation and the young, joining and yet separating them. Turiddu's part was small; he was merely a page bringing a letter or a message.

MONDAY

In the afternoon I went to the Teatro Sicilia and found everything prepared for the evening. Christ and the apostles were sitting at the supper-table as in Leonardo's fresco in Milan; not that they were imitating Leonardo, the early mosaics and the miracle plays, influencing and counter-influencing one another, must have determined the composition of the representations of the Last Supper before Leonardo's time; he was not inventing, he was giving the people something they were accustomed to see and the marionettes were similarly following their own traditions. I do not think the apostles were all in their usual places, S. John was next to Christ, but Judas was at one end of the table--a terrible fellow with s.h.a.ggy black hair falling over his face--and he had not spilt the salt. There was no salt for him to spill. Signor Greco told me that when they perform the Orioles play at Palermo, they use a horse-shoe table, Judas sits near one end and not only spills the salt, but behaves like a naughty child, putting his elbows on the table and throwing the plates on the floor so that they break. On the supper-table at Catania there was a wooden model of a roasted lamb, with jointed neck and legs, lying on a dish. There were plates with lettuces cut up, bread and wine, oil and vinegar and oranges, all real. Each apostle had a gla.s.s and there was a metal chalice for Christ. I forget all the things that are on the table in the chapel of the Last Supper at Varallo-Sesia, but I remember they have ripe figs, which is a mistake, because figs do not become ripe till later in the year. Oranges are at their best in Sicily in the spring and lettuces are in season. The audience understand this and know that lettuces are appropriate for supper because they contain some narcotic, so that a raw lettuce is often eaten after dinner. The supper had been prepared in front of the back scene, and behind it, ready to be disclosed at the proper moment, was the garden wherein the capture of Christ was to take place.

Soon after seven o'clock in the evening I was sitting in my room at the albergo and saw a great light which I supposed might have something to do with the electric tram. After this I heard a roaring noise which I supposed might be occasioned by an explosive motor bicycle in the street.

Then the gla.s.s in the window rattled for a considerable time, which I supposed might be due to a slight shock of earthquake. At about half-past eight I went to the Teatro Sicilia. Gregorio and his a.s.sistants were all outside, and received me with congratulations on my courage; I was the only one of their patrons bold enough to think of witnessing the performance, all the others had been too much frightened by the earthquake--if it had been an earthquake; and in about ten minutes we shut up the theatre and came away. I went to the Teatro Machiavelli to see what effect had been produced there. There was some anxiety about the phenomenon, but more, it seemed, as to whether enough people would come to make it worth while to have a performance. We were waiting for instructions when someone brought in a bolletino hastily prepared in a newspaper office with an account of the avvenimento celeste. We sat round and listened while one of the actors read about the convulsion of nature, the trembling of the palaces, the flashes of flame at a great height in the sky, the terror of the inhabitants of Catania. Was the phenomenon of telluric origin--Etna or an earthquake? Was it of atmospheric origin--a thunderbolt or a waterspout? Or could it be a miracle in the dictionary sense of something contrary to the course of nature? No one knew. Gradually a sufficient number of the public overcame their fright and took places in the theatre; and thus I saw a play by Peppino Fazio called _I Delitti del Caporale_ of which I have forgotten a great deal, but it contained one incident which I have not forgotten.

There was a scene in the cottage of a brigand who lived with his sister, he was out and she was alone. A corporal of infantry entered and made infamous proposals which she rejected; a struggle followed and was ended by the man shooting the girl through the heart. Overcome by remorse and filled with respect for the dead, he reverently raised the corpse, laid it along the floor by the wall at the back of the cottage and covered it with a sheet. He placed an oil lamp on the floor so that the head, the breast, the hips, the knees and the toes caught the light, while shadows fell in the depressions between. He knelt in prayer and then crept from the solemn scene on which the curtain slowly descended.

We were then transported to a country road outside the caserma of the carabinieri; they were carousing and plotting how to take the brigand. A countryman came and gave information on which they settled a plan of action and the scene ended, but it had occupied a good deal of time and had distracted the mind.

The curtain rose again on the brigand's cottage. Nothing had been moved.

Three carabinieri entered furtively, they noticed what was on the floor, lying by the wall, but did not disturb it, they had other business in hand and concealed themselves behind doors and furniture. There was a pause and the house was very still. The brigand came home, noisily threw down his gun, clanked about the cottage in his great boots, took his knife and his pistols from his belt and banged them down on the table.

As he turned he caught sight of the sheet covering something the form of which was emphasised by the oil lamp burning at its head. He did not speak, but surprise and alarm seized him and appeared in his face and in his att.i.tude. He approached it, raised the sheet and with a yell of terror and grief fell on his knees by the corpse as he recognised his sister. The three carabinieri came from their hiding and took him.

It was a typical drama for the Machiavelli. Notwithstanding the want of variety in their plots--and the t.i.tle of one of their plays signifies as little as the t.i.tle of a London pantomime--I have seldom pa.s.sed an evening there without seeing some incident as striking as this return to the house of death. They know how to do these things with a simplicity and an apparent unconsciousness of the effect they are producing which bring with them a strange astonishment.

This was not the corporal's only crime, but to clear up this one it may be added that the hand of the corpse clutched a b.u.t.ton which, in the struggle, the girl had torn off the man's coat; this led to his identification, and in prison he met the brigand, who shot him and thus avenged the murder. I have seen happy endings that were more artificial.

TUESDAY

Compare Turiddu came early to inquire whether I was much alarmed by the disturbance and to tell me what had happened. A bolide had fallen into the Catanian sea--he took me to the port and showed me precisely where.

"It was near that ship," he said.

The people had rushed to the cathedral to pray S. Agata to avert further harm. They also went to the Piazza S. Nicola hoping it might be large enough to hold them all in case there was an earthquake, for they were all thinking of Messina. The sailors, believing that what they saw fall into the sea was the moon, drew their boats up into safety. The sea did rise, but only eight centimetres, not so much as it would have risen if the moon had really fallen into it. When the newspapers came out I read more particulars: that a barber in the Via Lincoln had been so much frightened that he cut the throat of the customer he was shaving, fortunately, however, no damage was done as the wound was only skin-deep; that a woman ran naked into the Via Garibaldi, not having time in her fright to put any clothes on; that a waiter handing a dish to a lady in the Birraria Svizzera dropped it on her silk dress, which was ruined; and that a priest in the Quattro Canti was seen moving his arms like an electric fan and was heard to exclaim "G.o.d save me!" He did not say "G.o.d save us" because he was an egoist.

It should be added that the article was written by Peppino Fazio, who confessed to me that though these things may have happened he did not see them. He found them in his imagination. It should perhaps be added further that he knows his public and is not afraid of being taken seriously.

I also saw an account of an interview with Professor Ricco of the Observatory, who stated that an aerolite had fallen out of the profundity of s.p.a.ce and that it had not been ascertained where it had struck our planet.

As no one had gone to the Teatro Sicilia on Monday the marionettes were thrown a day late and the programme arranged for the Monday was remanded to the Tuesday, like a festa. I half feared I might be prevented again from seeing it because some friends from England arrived in Catania for the night and I did not know whether they would care to go. They were, however, much interested when I made the proposal. We were rather late, and missed the Last Supper, arriving just before the curtain rose on the garden. It was a beautiful scene. Christ was kneeling at a rock in the background, the disciples were sleeping in the foreground and the wings were hidden by branches of real trees. An angel descended with a cup from which the princ.i.p.al figure drank. When the angel had departed there was a pause--the lights changed and through the silence we heard the tramp, tramp of approaching people; soldiers came on preceded by Judas, who betrayed his Master with a kiss, Peter cut off Malchus's right ear, the Nazarene was taken and the curtain fell.

WEDNESDAY

Turiddu came in the morning and we conducted my friends round the town.

We went to the shop where the old Swiss watchmaker sells the amber of which Brancaccia's necklace is made; we went to the market, where we ate a p.r.i.c.kly pear, just to see what it was like, and the man politely refused payment because we were foreigners; in the market also we bought bergamot snuff-boxes; we then showed them the port, where they bought crockery, and the Villa Bellini, where they took photographs; after which we went back to the albergo, where we had luncheon. Then we accompanied them to the station and saw them off for Taormina. Turiddu was as pleased as anyone, he liked making the acquaintance of his compare's English friends and they thought him a delightful boy. Strictly speaking they were not English; the two ladies were Inglesi Americane, which Turiddu said he understood because his mother had acted in the Argentina and, though South America is not North America, it appeared pedantic to insist on the distinction. The two gentlemen, again, were really Inglesi Irlandesi, and here also we were in trouble because he mistook Irlandesi for Olandesi and thought they were what we should call Boers.

After they had gone I went to the Teatro Sicilia to learn what I had missed by not seeing the Cena. Carmelo told me that when Christ has spoken the words "This is my body" he breaks the bread and gives each of the apostles a piece. Judas does not eat his piece, he steals it and leaves the room. In his absence Christ blesses the wine and gives the others to drink, he washes their feet and they go out to the Mount of Olives. This is followed by a scene of Judas coming to Annas and Caiaphas, showing his piece of bread and telling them that he had heard Christ speak blasphemy. Carmelo explained that the priests were Hebrews--there were Hebrews, he said, in those days, living in that country--and Hebrews believe that bread is the Body of G.o.d; therefore for a man--and they thought Christ was merely a man--to declare that the bread was his body amounted to blasphemy. This was evidence against the Nazarene; it carried the story on a step and the plotting priests prepared everything for the betrayal and capture of Christ--the final scene which we saw.

I did not know, or had forgotten, that Hebrews were so particular about bread, but Carmelo a.s.sured me that they never throw bread away, and if they find a piece on the floor they pick it up and put it in a hole in the wall and keep it. It may be eaten, but may never be otherwise destroyed. I thought of Ruskin telling his readers in _The Elements of Drawing_ that stale crumb of bread is better than india-rubber to rub out their mistakes, but "it crumbles about the room and makes a mess; and besides, you waste the good bread, which is wrong; and your drawing will not for a long while be worth the crumbs. So use india-rubber very lightly."

"Are you a Christian?" asked Carmelo suddenly.