When the picture is on the mountain it is the custom for the women of the town to go to the Matrice in the evening to pray. When it is at Custonaci they go to the balio, where a stone prie-Dieu has been built for them from which they can see the sanctuary. Here they will go and pray every evening until such time as the next calamity brings the picture up among them again.
The brigadier and the corporal both sent illustrated postcards to me from Selinunte and I sent them postcards in return, but the corporal unaccountably desisted after being transferred to another station; for instead of returning home in about a month, as he had intended, he signed on for a further term of service. Perhaps on his change of address one of my cards may have gone wrong in the post, and he may have considered that I was neglecting him. I have never seen him again. The next time I went to Trapani the brigadier, who had been transferred to Custonaci, was guarding the coast between Monte San Giuliano and Cofano; I put off going to see him, however, because it was cold and wet and windy, not weather for excursions into places beyondthe reach of civilization. I talked to Mario, the coachman, about it, and he said he would be ready to take me if a fine day occurred. I had another reason for wishing to go to Custonaci: I thought it due to the Madonna di Custonaci that I should pay my respects to her in her sanctuary after having been present at her festa on the mountain.
Suddenly there came a fine Saturday. I went out immediately after breakfast, found Mario, told him to be ready in half an hour, ordered a basket of provisions from the hotel, put a few things together in case they might be wanted, and we started.
The road took us inland and round the foot of Mount Eryx, through Paparella and the other villages where some of the wealthy Trapanese have their summer villas, and after a most lovely drive of three hours, we arrived at Custonaci. The village is on a low rocky cliff which rises not from the sea but from an extensive plain. Standing on the cliff one looks over the plain with Monte San Giuliano closing the view on the left and on the right the mountain promontory of Cofano, a great, isolated, solemn, grey rock, full of caves, sprinkled with green and splashed with raw sienna; between them,two or three kilometres away, is the sea which, I suppose, formerly covered the plain and washed the foot of the cliff. Prominent on the shore, rather nearer to Cofano than to Monte Erice, is the caserma, an oblong white bungalow, and scattered upon the plain are a few fishermen’s cottages, but no other dwellings. We first sent a boy off to the caserma to tell the brigadier I had come, and then Mario, after attending to his horses, joined me in the only trattoria in the place and we ate our provisions.
After lunch we went to the sanctuary, the home of the famous wonder-working picture of the Madonna which hangs over the altar. The sagrestano pulled aside the curtains while another man pulled a cord which operated a wheel hung with bells of different sizes, thereby making a tremendous and discordant noise and signifying to all within earshot that the Madonna was being unveiled, in case any one might care to offer up a petition.
The light is better in the sanctuary than in the Matrice upon the Mountain, but this picture of the happy Mother with the Child at her breast holding three golden ears of corn did not thereby seem to gain as a workof art. The people, however, look upon it less as a work of art than as the representation of a divinity who lives for them as surely as Venus lived for the Romans, Aphrodite for the Greeks and Astarte for the Phœnicians, and as surely as other goddesses have lived here for other peoples. Cofano, looking across to Mount Eryx, saw the earliest appear on some prehistoric morning when man, born of a woman and living by the fruits of the earth, fashioned his first image of the Giver of Life and Increase, vivified it with the spirit of his faith and offered before it the homage of his praise and gratitude. His faith gradually lost its freshness and suffered corruption like the manna which the disobedient children of Israel left until the morning, so that the image of the goddess became a sepulchre and a breeding-place of unclean imaginings. Then man, seeing that virtue had gone out of the work of his hands, fashioned a new one, scarcely different in form, and breathed into it the breath of a new faith, scarcely different from the old. Again his faith carried with it into its stagnant prison the germs of its own decay. Thus was established the recurrent rhythm of the death and resurrection of the deity.Cofano has watched them come and go and will one day see the Madonna dethroned to make way for her successor. But that day will not dawn until, in the Sanctuary or upon the Mountain, the peasants shall stand unmoved before this touching symbol of the universal worship of Motherhood.
The brigadier was in sight when we came out of the church and before we had met in the piazza I became aware that I had caught cold—not a very remarkable thing in a wet January with a Sicilian wind. He was as courteous as ever, though a little inclined to grumble because I had not let him know when to expect me so that he could have met me on my arrival. I pleaded uncertainty caused by the bad weather, and he promised to forgive me if I would spend the night at the caserma instead of returning to Trapani. He would give me his own room all to myself, for he had to be out on duty guarding the coast between Monte San Giuliano and Cofano from 9 p.m. till 6 a.m. and, if he should find the coast quiet and wish to lie down in the early morning, there would be no difficulty, because one of his men had left him, so that he had four beds and only three guards to put into them.
It was getting late; we had taken longer to come than I had anticipated, the horses were tired. There is no inn at Custonaci, but I knew that Mario could manage somehow; so I accepted, and we went through the village, down the cliff by a steep and difficult path, and across the plain. On the way we talked of our day at Selinunte and I asked after his companions there, but he had heard nothing further of any of them. Soon we met one of the guards who had come from the caserma to look for us. He crossed himself as he told us that, coming along, he had heard the bells ring and knew that the picture of the Madonna was being unveiled. He was a man of few words, or found our conversation uninteresting, for he said nothing else all the rest of the way.
The caserma is quite close to and facing the sea. All round the door is a skeleton porch of wood, which in the summer is fitted with wire gauze to keep out the mosquitoes. Going through this, we were in the general room where I was introduced to the other two guards. Behind this room, with windows looking inland over the plain towards Custonaci, is the kitchen, and these two rooms make up the middle of the bungalow.The right wing consists of the brigadier’s sitting-room, out of which a door leads to his bedroom, and the left wing is all one large room, occupied by the men as their bedroom.
The brigadier took me into his sitting-room to rest. There were only a few things in it, merely his table with his books and official papers and three or four chairs; but everything, as at Selinunte, was clean and tidy. On the wall was an extensive eruption of postcards and among them those that had come from me. As I looked on the tranquil whitewash of this secluded caserma, dotted with views of our complicated and populous London, with its theatres and motor buses and the feverish rush of its tumult, I found myself wondering what it would be like to listen to thePastoral Symphonyin theMessiah, performed with occasional interpolations fromTill Eulenspiegel.
The brigadier proposed a stroll while the guards prepared supper—they take it by turns to be cook, one each day, but this being an occasion, all three would be cooks to-night. We called at a cottage in the hope of buying some fish, but the weather had been too bad and there was none. We meta young man, however, who had a kid for sale and wanted 95 centesimi per kilo; the brigadier would only give 80. The young man could not deal; the kid belonged to his father, and he had no power to exceed his instructions; he would go home and call at the caserma in the morning with the ultimissimo prezzo. We passed a great hole in the ground like a dry well. The brigadier said that if it were not so very near the caserma, it might do as a hiding-place for any one flying from justice, or for brigands to conceal a prisoner.
“Or for smugglers to keep their spoils in,” I said; and the brigadier chuckled.
He showed me the stone that had been put up to mark the spot at which the Madonna was landed by the French sailors as they returned from Alexandria. We strolled back and tied up the pig which had broken loose and, the brigadier said, was not yet old enough, meaning that there would be no pork for supper yet awhile. With all this difficulty about pork and fish and kid, the simple life, as lived at the caserma, appeared to be less simple than it might have been if the shops had been a little nearer.
Supper consisted of chicory served with the water it had been boiled in, to which was added some oil; there was also bread and wine, then chicken and afterwards poached eggs which they call eggs in their shirtsleeves. Before we had finished I told them that we have a proverb in England that too many cooks spoil the broth, and added that I had never known precisely how many were supposed to be too many, but that, judging by the excellence of the repast, certainly more than three would be required in the caserma of Custonaci. I said this because I was beginning to feel it was time that something of the kind should come from me. Sicilians are not only polite in themselves, but the cause that politeness or an attempt at it, is in other men; and this was the best I could do at the moment in their manner. Knowing I was among experts, I had not much fear as to their reception of my little compliment, just as a student of the violin is less nervous when performing before a master of the instrument than before the general public. The brigadier and his guards accepted it as though it were of the finest quality, and even complimented me upon it.
After supper there came a large moth which fluttered about the lamp; one of the guards called it a “farfalla notturna,” a nocturnal butterfly, and said it had come to bring us good fortune. Another of the men, who was of a sceptical temperament, said it might be so, but that in matters of this kind one never can be sure what one’s fortune would have been if the moth had not come. I said that if there was to be any good fortune for me I should like it to take the form of curing the cold which, for my sins, I had caught that morning as I came out of the sanctuary. The guard who believed in the moth—after returning my compliment about the cooking by saying I must be wrong to talk about my sins, for he was sure I had never committed any—said that as to the kind of luck the moth would bring, Fortune would not submit to dictation, the most I could do to control her would be to look out farfalla notturna in the book and put a few soldi on the number in the next lottery. I told him I had had enough of the lottery at Castelvetrano. The brigadier was interested, so I told him about it and said I was afraid the reason I had lost was that my numbers had nothing to do with anything that had happened to me duringthe week. He confirmed what Peppino had said and added that he was always very careful about the choosing of his numbers.
“But surely,” I said, “you do not always win when you follow that rule?”
“I have played every week for twenty years,” said the brigadier, “and have only won four times; but I always hope.”
“One can hope,” I said, “without spending any soldi.”
Here the guard who believed in the moth interposed, seeing that I did not know much about it—
“It is no use hoping unless you do something. It would be absurd to hope for two hundred and fifty francs next week unless you encouraged Fortune to send you the money. Buy a ticket with a likely number and you will have the right to hope.”
“It is like praying for rain,” added the brigadier; “the Madonna may not answer the prayer, but those who pray have done their best and are entitled to hope that rain will follow.”
“This,” I said, “reminds me of an old lady who always insisted on her daughter taking a dose of the medicine her doctor prescribed for her own imaginary complaints.’How can you hope to be well,’ she used to say, ‘if you never take any medicine?’“
“Exactly,” said the guard who believed in the moth, “we do not know how the medicine works any more than we know how the Madonna works, or how a dream affects the lottery, but if you do nothing it is no use hoping.”
With regard to my cold, the sceptical guard, with a twinkle in his eye, recommended me to repent of the sins for which I had said it was a punishment. I was ready to do so if I could be sure as to which sins it was more particularly aimed at. The sceptical guard thought he knew.
“Did you not tell us you had been on the Mountain at the festa? When the sagrestano unveiled the picture in the sanctuary this morning, the Madonna heard the bells ring and looked round the church; no doubt she recognized you as the heretical Englishman she had seen prying into her mysteries. She probably regretted she had not paid you out at the time and, as you came her way this morning, took the opportunity of doing it now.”
I agreed that it would have been more of a miracle had she done it in a balmy August,in the midst of other occupations, instead of in a tempestuous January when business was slack; but, on the whole, I did not believe that either the Madonna or my sins had had anything to do with my cold which I considered to be a natural, or non-miraculous, consequence of the rain and the wind. But the sceptical guard objected that even so the Madonna could not get quite clear, for, if she is credited with the rain, as she certainly is, she must be debited with its unpleasant consequences, if any.
The guard who had heard the bells ring, when he came to meet us, gravely nodded his approval, not seeing that the sceptical guard was speaking ironically, but he began to suspect presently. The guard who believed in the moth told us that he had been stationed once on the coast a little east of Girgenti, near a town where the peasants pray for rain to their patron, S. Calogero, whose painted image, carved in wood, stands in their church. If it rains at once, well and good, they return thanks, and there is an end of the matter. But if their prayers are unanswered after what they consider a reasonable time, they hold a service and punctuate their prayers with threatening cries—
“Corda, o pioggia!”
The saint sometimes chooses the second alternative and sends the rain—the peasants return thanks, and all goes well. But if he is still obdurate, they assume he has chosen the first, put the threat into execution, take down S. Calogero, tie a cord about his neck and reverently cast him into the sea where they leave him till it does rain. If one waits long enough the rain always comes at last, even on the south coast of Sicily. Then they pull the poor saint out of the water, dry him, give him a fresh coat of paint and carry him back to his place in the church, with a brass band and thanksgiving—another form of the recurrent death and resurrection of the god, imitating sunset and sunrise.
“We call this treatment of S. Calogero an act of faith,” said the sceptical guard, “and yet when a gambler puts a few soldi on any number he may have dreamt of, we call it superstition. The peasant and the gambler are both playing for material gain, and S. Calogero in the sea has as much connection with the meteorological conditions as the dream has with the lottery numbers; yet the treatment of the saint has the sanction of the Church and theact of the gambler is branded as superstitious. But to abuse a thing is not to alter its nature.”
The guard who had heard the bells ring now began to remonstrate gently and begged there might be no confusing of faith with superstition.
The sceptical guard replied that it was difficult to keep them apart, or, indeed, to look upon them as two different things. The only confusion there was arose because of the imperfections of language—a clumsy instrument, though the best we have for its purpose. We call a kiss a kiss whether it be given by an old woman to her grandchild or by a young man to his bride; but the having one word for two things does not make them the same in intention, and so the having two words for faith and superstition does not make them fundamentally different. The guard who had heard the bells was beginning to look uncomfortable, if not actually offended, the tendency of all this being to depreciate his faith in the Madonna and treat it as superstition. The brigadier and the guard who believed in the moth, on the other hand, were rather pleased, their superstition about the lottery numbers wasbeing elevated into faith. The brigadier was an unselfish man and anxious to spare from further annoyance the guard who had heard the bells. He was also a sensible man and knew that discussions of this kind, endless if left to develop, will generally yield to surgical treatment. He rose, saying it was time for him to begin protecting the coast. I took the hint, thanked them all for a very pleasant evening and wished them “Buon riposo.” The brigadier shut me in for the night, promising to call me in the morning, and the legend above my bedroom door was—
“Comandante della Brigata.”
In the morning he knocked while it was still dark. I got up, dressed, and as the sun began to stir behind Custonaci, came through the general room and the porch of the bungalow into the translucent freshness where the sceptical guard was already smoking an early cigarette. To the right of us rose Cofano and to our left, on the top of Mount Eryx, where formerly stood the temple of Venus, were the towers of Conte Pepoli’s castle, touched by the rising sun and so distinct that we could almost count the stones. In front of us, betweenthese two enormous headlands, lay the sea as calm as when the Madonna stayed the tempest, and all along the great curve of the shore little waves were lazily playing in the morning stillness. I asked the sceptical guard what part of Sicily he came from.
“I am not a Sicilian,” he replied, “I come from another mountain near Rome where there was once another temple dedicated to Fortune.”
“Are you from Palestrina?”
“Yes,” he replied. “You cannot see much here of what the temple of Venus was, but on my mountain you can see what the temple of Fortune must have been. In the days when she flourished, kings and princes travelled from distant lands to consult her oracle; now no one ever comes near the place except a tourist or two, passing to some more prosperous town, who may stay an hour to gaze upon the remains of her fallen greatness.”
“Perhaps her temple was too prosperous and too near the shrine of St. Peter.”
“St. Peter should have seized her temple and preserved her popularity for his own profit instead of condemning the faith in her as superstition and allowing the controlof it to pass into the hands of the state. For if Fortune ever died she rose again and is worshipped as much as ever she was, only she is now called the Lottery.”
“It was a neglected opportunity.”
“And it would have been so easy to invent a legend of the arrival of a picture or a statue of la Madonna di Palestrina to inherit the prestige of Fortune. Then I should never have left home to join the guardia di finanza.”
I said that possibly something of the kind had been attempted, and that there may have been insuperable obstacles of which we knew nothing; and in any case, whatever the desolation of Palestrina, Custonaci was not in a particularly thriving condition, while the prosperity of Monte San Giuliano is due more to the salt than to the Madonna. But he would not be comforted; so I asked him what he would have done if he had not left home, and he told me that he had been educated to be a chemist and had taken his diploma at Rome with the intention of succeeding to his uncle’s shop, but he could not stand the dulness of the life.
The brigadier called to us that coffee was ready and we turned to go in. The youngman came about the kid, which meant that his father had agreed to take 80 centesimi per kilo. So the kid had to be weighed and it was some time before we could persuade the vendor that it was just under and not just over 5½ kilos. To tell the truth, it was a delicate job, for the steelyard was a clumsy instrument, though, like the sceptical guard’s language, the best we had. The brigadier paid the young man entirely in coppers, so he had a good deal of weight to carry home with him.
After coffee we started to walk across the plain back to Custonaci, calling again at the settlement of cottages and waiting for the boats to come in, thinking it possible that the luck brought by the farfalla notturna might take the form of fish. But the boats brought nothing. We agreed therefore to consider that the beauty of the morning had exhausted the good fortune and, if so, the farfalla had done the thing handsomely. It was a day of blue sky and brown earth, with flocks of sheep and goats tinkling their bells in the distance; a day of dwarf palm and almond-blossom, and the bark of a dog now and then; of aloes and flitting birds, of canes with feathery tops, of prickly pears andblooming red geranium. The bastone di S. Giuseppe had begun to come up and the tufts of grass were full of lily-leaves preparing for the spring.
We climbed the cliff and scrambled into the village. It was Sunday morning; the first Mass was over and half the population was coming out of the sanctuary, the other half waiting to go in for the second Mass. Among them, talking to a shoemaker, who seemed to be the principal man of the place, we found Mario. I inquired what he had done with his horses and how he had passed the night. He said he had found a stable for Gaspare and Totò and had himself slept in the carriage. I trusted he had not been very uncomfortable and he replied that he always slept in his carriage. So I had travelled to Custonaci and was about to return to Trapani in Mario’s bed. He introduced me to the shoemaker.
“You see all these young men?” said the shoemaker. “In another couple of months they will be in America.”
I spoke to some of those who had returned from the States and from South America. Those who have been to the States like an opportunity to speak English, but they arenot very strong at it, and it is more than tinged with Yankeeisms. One of them told me that in New York he was treated very well by his Capo-Boss. They earn more over there than they can at home; every week brings American money-orders to Custonaci and on mail days the post-office is crowded with wives, mothers and sweethearts. When they have saved anything up to 5000 lire (£200) they return and buy a bit of land on which a family of contadini can live, or they embellish the family shop or open a new one and hope for the best. If business is bad and they lose their money before they are too old, they can go back and make some more. It is the same on the Mountain; the young men emigrate and bring back money and new ideas. The time will come when Cofano will see what influence this wooing of Fortune in a foreign land by the sons of Mount Eryx and Custonaci may have on the next incarnation of the goddess who reigns in this corner of the island.
Calatafimi is a town of 10,000 inhabitants about twenty miles inland from Trapani. A slight eminence to the west of the town, 1115 feet above the sea, crowned by the ruins of a castle of the Saracens (hence the name of the place, Cal’ at Eufimi), commands an extensive and beautiful view which includes three monuments—first, the famous Greek temple of Segesta; secondly, the theatre and the remains of the city above it; thirdly, the obelisk commemorating Garibaldi’s first victory over the Neapolitans in May, 1860. These three monuments are considered to be the chief attractions of Calatafimi; but one should not suppose that, after one has seen its principal monuments, there is nothing more to be got out of a Sicilian town. I hadpicnicked in the temple of Segesta, climbed up through the site of the ancient city to the theatre and seen Garibaldi’s monument over and over again and in all kinds of weather, before I knew anything of the processions which occur at Calatafimi early in May.
I was there one year when the annual festa was conducted with more than the usual ceremony. I went to the Albergo Samuel Butler, named after the author ofErewhon, who often stayed there when writingThe Authoress of the Odyssey, and was well known in the town. Owing to the death of Don Paolo who, with his wife, Donna Maria, used to manage the hotel, it is now (1908), I regret to say, closed, and the traveller must do the best he can at one of the other inns. Butler’s memory is, however, still preserved in the name of one of the streets.
The day after my arrival was the great day of the festa, and opened with rain. The people, who had come from all the country round, hung about listlessly during the morning, hoping that the weather might clear up and by noon the authorities decided that the ceremonies should proceed, so that, as they all had to be crowded intothe afternoon, the town for the rest of the day was choked with processions.
There was first the Procession of the Maestranza, of unascertainable antiquity. Those who took part in it came riding on horses and mules covered with gaudy trappings and carrying something to indicate their trades. The Oil-pressers, suitably dressed, carried a model of an oil-press; the Millers carried a little mill; and these two companies carried their money on trays. The Vetturini, who came next, carried their money stuck into little wooden horses, like almonds in a hedgehog pudding. The Tillers of the Ground carried a model of a plough. There were men carrying long lighted candles with circular loaves of bread threaded on them; others carried bags full of nuts and sugar-plums which they continually scattered among the crowd and threw in at the open windows.
There was the procession with the traditional Car of the Massari, made by fixing a square wooden framework on a cart and covering the outside of it with green leaves which were again nearly hidden by loaves in the shape of rings about eight inches across. It looked like a square Jack-in-the-Green onwheels and the men inside it, standing on chairs and looking over the top of the framework, cut off the loaves and threw them to the crowd. They hit me full on the chest with one and I clutched it before it fell, to the great delight of some children who were standing near and who said I must take it home and keep it and it would never go bad, but would bring me good luck.
Then there was the Procession of the Holy Crucifix, the Padrone of Calatafimi. For many years no one knew of its existence; it stood, like the Discobolus in Butler’s poem,A Psalm of Montreal, stowed away, in a lumber room, turning its face to the wall, and when brought out was found to be so black that it might have come from Egypt and so intensely thaumaturgic that the church of Il Crocefisso had to be built to hold it. That particular crucifix, however, like the letter of the Madonna at Messina, no longer exists; it was burnt and the one in use is a copy, made, one must suppose, from memory. They had the good sense, however, to make it, if anything, blacker than the original, and happily it has turned out to be at least equally thaumaturgic. One cannot see how black it really is, for it is covered with silver,like the frame of the picture of the Madonna di Custonaci, and festooned with votive offerings, earrings, necklaces, watches and chains which glitter and glisten as the procession passes along the streets.
Finally, rather late in the day, came the Procession of the Personaggi, telling the story ofThe Prodigal Son. It consisted of twenty-nine principal and many accessory figures, the more important ones carrying scrolls stating who they were. The dresses were not equal to those one expects to see at a leading London theatre, but the peasants of the neighbourhood are unaccustomed to contemplate the triumphs of the modern theatrical costumier. There may have been much else in the procession that would have failed to win praise from a metropolitan crowd of spectators, and such justice as was done to it by the author of the little book, which was on sale for a few centesimi, might have struck an exacting critic as being tempered with more mercy than it fairly deserved. But the author was not thinking of the exacting critic, his attitude of mind was rather that of Theseus when he determined thatPyramus and Thisbeshould be performed—
For never anything can be amissWhen simpleness and duty tender it.
For never anything can be amissWhen simpleness and duty tender it.
Moreover, the little book was not intended to be the exact description of something the writer had seen; it was written to ensure that the people should miss nothing they had come to see, and I believe I can best convey an idea of what this procession appeared to them by translating from the book. In the group No. 6—the Prodigal departing with his friends—the figures were on horseback; but all the other personages went on foot, following each other at distances of about ten yards, and walking slowly through the middle of the streets between wondering rows of solemn and delighted people.
I.Divine Mercy.—A majestic matron robed as a sovereign, resplendent with jewels and sheltering sinners under the voluminous folds of her mantle.
2.The Blind Design of the Prodigal.—His departure from his father’s house. A resolute youth in the garb of nudity, with a bandage over his eyes; his right hand is tied behind him and in his left is a bunch of flowers; he turns and gives ear to the Evil Spirit.
3.The Evil Spirit.—Clothed in skins like a faun, he is lying in wait for the preceding figure.
4.The Young Son.—His sword by his side, with haughty mien he demands his portion.
5.The Father of the Prodigal.—A grave personage, sad and tearful, in the act of handing over his keys and caskets which are carried by a servant.
6.The Departure of the Prodigal.—A gay young man mounted on a courser and attended by friends also on horseback. One of his companions carries a scroll: “Invenies multos, si res tibi floret, amicos;” another carries another scroll: “Si fortuna perit, nullus amicus erit.”
7.The Prodigal far from Home.—He flauntshis rich raiment and carries a lute; one would say he is enjoying life.
8.The Allegory of the False Friends.—They have consumed his wealth and now conspire to abandon him. A man of double aspect, with two faces, carries swallows taking wing: “Ita falsi amici.”
9.The Prodigal reduced to poverty—despised and spurned by his friends. A youth in mean attire, compelled by hunger to beg, he shades his eyes with his left hand and in his right carries a scroll: “Confusion hath covered my face. To beg I am ashamed.”
10.The Citizen Patron—to whom the unhappy youth offers his services. An austere man, gazing on him with a harsh countenance, gives him a crust of bread and a rod and sends him forth into the country to tend the swine.
11.The Son’s Resolution.—In tattered rags, unshod and leaning on a stick, the wretch is saying, “I will arise and go to my father.”
12.The Father’s Welcome.—Descrying him from afar, he goes with open arms to meet his boy, embraces him, folds him tenderly to his bosom and, exulting with joy, exclaims, “My son was dead and is aliveagain—was lost and is found.” The son is saying, “Father, I have sinned.”
13.The Rejoicings at Home.—A group of youths and maidens crowned with flowers and playing upon instruments of music.
14.A Servantpresenting the prodigal with sumptuous apparel and a golden ring.
15.The Elder Son.—He has returned from the country, angry and resentful, and is astonished to see the prodigal.
16.The Good Fathergoes to meet him and, calming his anger with soft words, exhorts him to become reconciled to his brother. He blesses them both and foretells peace, brotherly love and happiness.
17.The Wicked Man in Prosperitycontented with his state and persisting in evil, a fit subject for reproof. A voluptuary and a miser, magnificently attired, is clasping to his heart a purse full of money and a bunch of flowers and corn.
18.The Divine Warning.—A prophet who contemplates the preceding figure threateningly while he records the fatal sentence:“Thou fool; this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”
19.The Punishment of Tribulation.—Divine Love that desireth not the death of a sinner. A celestial winged messenger carrying a scourge: “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.”
20.The Remorse of Conscience.—The awakening of Repentance. A man in sorrowful garments expressing the emotions of his heart, now weeping, now confused, now raising his eyes to Heaven, now looking on the serpent that gnaws his heart.
21.The Contrite Sinnerhearkening to the whisperings of grace. A penitent, his heart pierced by an arrow, weeping and carrying a scourge: “Against Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight.”
22.A Holy Ministersupplicating the Crucifix with these words: “A broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt Thou not despise.”
23.Divine Grace.—A beautiful girl in white with a transparent veil, radiant and joyful, carries a branch of palm.
24.Peace of Mind.—The soul reconciled with Jesus Christ. Jesus of Nazareth comforting the soul and opening His arms toreceive her: “Come my Beloved, my Bride.”
25.The Soul.—A lovely maiden, modestly clad, with precious gems on her bosom and a garland of white roses on her brow: “My Beloved is mine and I am His.”
26.The Joy of the Angels.—They appear as nymphs and sing a hymn of glory to God and of welcome to the repentant sinner.
27.The Holy Cross, decorated with flowers and rays of glory, carried on high by a seraph.
28.The Holy Virgin with the Cross.—It is partly wrapped in a precious cloth and the Madonna, full of joy and lovingkindness, invites the people to kiss the holes from which the nails have been drawn.
29.Calatafimi.—A handsome, smiling youth in Trojan attire devoutly offering his heart to the crucified Saviour with these words: “Thy blessing be upon us evermore.”
* * * * *
A stranger had arrived at the albergo and Donna Maria did not know how to manage unless he supped with me; I was delighted to make his acquaintance and to have his company, especially as he turnedout to be an ingenious French gentleman with a passion for classification. He had come from Palermo and spent the morning at the Temple of Segesta which had pleased him very much and given him no difficulty. It was architecture—a branch of painting. His plans were upset by the rain and, instead of returning to Palermo, he had come on for the night to Calatafimi, where he arrived in time for the procession ofThe Prodigal Sonwhich had interested him very much but puzzled him dreadfully. He could not classify it.
“Why not procession—a branch of drama?” I inquired.
He said it was perhaps not so simple as I thought, and that he had been trying unsuccessfully to work it in with his scheme. I begged him to expound his scheme, which he was so ready to do that I suspected he had intended me to ask this.
“There are,” he said, “three simple creative arts. In the first, ideas are expressed in words; this is literature. In the second, ideas are expressed in the sounds of the scale; this is music. In the third, ideas are expressed in rigid forms either round, as in sculpture, or flat, as inpainting. We may call this third art painting, that being its most popular phase.”
“I see your difficulty,” said I. “If drama is not one of the arts, the procession cannot be a branch of drama. But I think the drama is one of the arts all the same.”
“Please do not be in a hurry,” said the French gentleman. “Any two of these arts cover some ground in common where they can meet, unite and give birth to another distinct art related to both as a child is related to its parents, and inheriting qualities from both. It is to these happy marriages that we owe drama—the offspring of literature and painting; song—the offspring of literature and music; and dance—the offspring of music and painting. This gives us altogether six creative arts.
“And now observe what follows. In the first place, these six arts exist for the purpose of expressing ideas. In the next place, painting is without movement, its descendants, drama and dance, inherit movement, the one from literature, and the other from music. Again, inasmuch as a painter must paint his own pictures, painting does nottolerate the intervention of a third person to interpret between the creator and the public. The painter is his own executive artist; when his creative work is done, nothing more is wanted than a frame and a good light. Literature permits such intervention, for a book can be read aloud. Music and song demand performance, and will continue to do so until the public can read musical notation, and probably afterwards, for even Mozart said that it does make a difference when you hear the music performed; while in the case of the drama and the dance the performers are so much part of the material of the work of art that it can hardly be said to exist without them. Is not this a striking way of pointing the essential difference between the creative artist and the executive?”
“Very,” I replied. “I am afraid, however, that you have not a high opinion of the executive artist.”
“I will confess that he sometimes reminds me of the proverb, ‘God sends the tune and the devil sends the singer.’“
I laughed and said, “We have not exactly that proverb in English, though I have heard something like it. It can, however, onlyapply to the performer at his worst, whereas you are inclined to look upon him, even at his best, as nothing more than a picture frame.”
“And a good light,” he added. “Don’t forget the good light. Frame or no frame, a picture presented in a bad light or in the dark is no more than a sonata performed badly or not at all.”
“Well, let us leave the performer for the present and return to your second trio of arts. Are you now going to combine them, as you did the first, and raise a third family in which a place may be found for such things as processions?”
“That,” he replied, “may hardly be, for there is no couple of them that has not a parent in common. But there is no reason why any two or more of the six arts should not appear simultaneously, assisting one another to express an idea. Thus an illustrated book is not drama—it is literature assisted by painting. And so a symphony illustrating a poem is not song—it is music assisted by literature, or vice versa, and is sometimes called Programme Music. When we look at dissolving views accompanied by a piano, we are not contemplating adance—we are looking at painting illustrated by music; and, if there is some one to explain the views in words, literature is also present. When you come to think of it, it is rare to find music and painting either alone or together without literature. Except in the case of fugues or sonatas and symphonies, which are headed ‘Op. ---’ so-and-so, or ‘No. ---’ whatever it may be, music usually has a title. And except in the case of such things as decorative arabesques and sometimes landscapes, painting usually has a title. The opportunity of supplying a title is peculiarly tempting to literature who produces so many of her effects by putting the right word in the right place.”
I said that this was all very interesting, but what had become of the procession? He replied that he was giving me, as I had requested, a preliminary exposition of his scheme.
“Comic opera,” he continued, “is drama interrupted by song and dance. Grand opera is the simultaneous presentation of most, perhaps all, of the six arts. There is no reason in nature against any conceivable combination; it is for the creativeartist to direct and for the performing artists to execute the combination so that it shall please and convince the public. And now,revenons à nos processions, where can we find a place for them?”
“Surely,” said I, “some such combination will include them—unless they have nothing to do with art.”
“I have thought that perhaps they have nothing to do with art, for art should not be tainted with utility; but religious pictures are tainted with utility just as much. Besides, I do not like to confess myself beaten.”
It was plain the procession was not going to be allowed to escape. I considered for a moment and said—
“I suppose we may not classify the procession as literature assisted by dance, because literature ought to have words and dance ought to have music.”
“The words are not omitted,” he replied; “they are in the little book. Besides, we have the story in our minds as with programme music. The omission of the music from the dance is more serious. It may be that we shall have to call it a variety of drama, as you originally suggested.”
“Oh, but that,” I replied modestly, “wasonly thrown out before I had the advantage of hearing your scheme of classification. May it not be that—”
“I have it,” he interrupted. “Of course, how stupid I have been! The procession does not move.”
“Does not move!” I echoed. “Why, it moved all through the town.”
“Yes, I know; but things like that often happen in classification,” he replied calmly. “Properly considered, each figure and each group illustrated a separate point in the story, and was rigid. They went past us, of course; and if they had gone on cars it would have been less puzzling; but these good people cannot afford cars and so the figures had to walk. It would have done as well if the public had walked past the figures, but that would have been difficult to manage. The only movement in the procession was in the story which we held in our minds, and of which we were reminded both by the title and by the little book which we held in our hands. The procession must be classified as literature illustrated by living statuary, or sculpture, which, of course, is a branch of painting.”
I regret that the French gentleman leftCalatafimi so early next morning that I had no opportunity of ascertaining whether he slept well after determining that processions do not proceed.
The next time I was in Palermo, Turiddu, the conduttore, who used to take me about the town, had returned after being for a year in Naples. He was employed at another hotel, but that did not prevent his making an appointment to take me to the marionettes. My experiences at Trapani had removed all sense of danger, and I now felt as safe in the theatre as in the streets of London. Statistics may or may not support the view, but I am inclined to attribute the general impression that Sicily is more dangerous than other countries, less to the frequency of crime there than to the operatic manner in which it is committed. So that I no longer wanted Turiddu to protect me. As the figures on the stage were to interpret the drama to the public, so he was tointerpret to me their interpretation. The ingenious French gentleman at Calatafimi would, perhaps, have classified him as an incarnation of the book of the words.
The theatre was already full when we arrived. We had had to buy another straw hat on the way, to preserve our dignity and incognito; this had delayed us, and the play had begun, but the audience politely made room for us in the gallery at the side.
We were in a wood and there was a picturesque, half-naked, wild man on the stage with loose, brown hair hanging down to his waist; he wore a short, green skirt trimmed with silver braid, a wreath of pink and white roses, yellow leather boots and gaiters; a mantle fell from his shoulders to the ground and made a background of green to his figure. He was actually, as I afterwards discovered, about thirty inches high and his roses were as large as real roses, so that his wreath was enormous and looked very well. Turiddu whispered to me that he was Samson, which made me inquire whether they were going through the whole Bible this winter, but he said this was an exceptional evening, after which they would return to the usual story.
Samson had already killed the lion with a blow of his sinewy right arm; its body lay in the middle of the stage, and the busy bees were at work filling its carcase with honey. He observed them, commented upon their industry, tasted the honey and composed his riddle.
The next scene was the hall of audience in the king’s palace. Guards came in and placed themselves at corners. They were followed by a paladin in golden armour with short trousers of Scotch plaid made very full, so that when he stood with his legs together he appeared to be wearing a kilt. Turiddu and I both took him for a Scotchman and, as I had seen Ottone and Astolfo d’Inghilterra in the teatrino at Trapani, there seemed to be no reason why he should not be one. Highlanders, of course, do not wear trousers, but we supposed that his Sicilian tailor had had little experience in the cutting of kilts. Whatever he was, he had an unusually animated appearance, for, by a simple mechanism, he could open and shut his eyes. Then came a lady, and the knight kissed her. She was followed by a king and his prime minister, neither of them very splendid, their robes being apparentlydressing-gowns, such as one might pick up cheap at any second-hand clothes shop in the Essex Road, Islington. As each of these personages entered, the courtiers, who were not in view, shouted “Evviva.” Last of all came Samson.
There was a dispute and it was to be submitted to the king, whom they addressed as Pharaoh. I said to Turiddu—
“But Pharaoh was king of Egypt and all this happened in Palestine—if, indeed, it happened anywhere.”
“Pharaoh also governed Palestine,” replied Turiddu.
The dispute arose out of the killing of the lion which had been about to attack the lady, and Samson, having delivered her, was by every precedent of romance bound to marry her and wished to do so. But she was already engaged to the golden Scotchman, and that was why he had kissed her. After much discussion it was agreed that if the paladin should guess the riddle to be put forth by Samson he might marry the lady, otherwise Samson should have her. All was done regularly and in the presence of King Pharaoh.
Samson then propounded his riddle:“Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.”
The golden Highlander winked his eyes, put his fist up to his forehead and meditated anxiously for some time. Then he said—
“Sono confuso.”
He wanted to give it up, but the lady would not allow this, and King Pharaoh, taking in the situation, ruled that he must have time; so they all went away except the knight and the lady. Then the poor paladin made the best use of his time and gave his whole attention to the riddle; sometimes he winked his eyes, and sometimes he put his fist up to his head and meditated as hard as ever he could, turning first one way and then the other. But nothing came of it; he only repeated—
“Sono confuso.”
The lady continued her encouragement, saying that riddles were seldom easy to guess, that he must not worry too much and the true answer would come into his head, probably while he was thinking of something else; but he only turned away and said again—
“Sono confuso.”
The lady did not mind how stupid hewas, for she was really in love with him; but she began to perceive that, unless something were done, she might have to marry a man who, though very strong and clever enough to compose a riddle, was unable to wink his eyes, so she undertook to see Samson alone and try to inveigle the answer out of him. The knight, having had some experience of her powers of persuasion, was comforted, discontinued his meditations, dropped his fist, said “Addio,” embraced her and left the stage.
Samson now came on and the first thing he did was to put his arm round the lady’s neck. She was quite ready for him and put her arm round his. Thus they stood indulging in a little preliminary fondling till she asked him point-blank to tell her “il mistero dell’ oscuro problema.” He instantly removed his arm and stood off, exclaiming with great firmness—
“No, no, no, non posso!”
Thereupon she began to go away as though all was over between them. It was a simple ruse, but it deceived the framer of the riddle; he drew her towards him in repentance, put his arm round her neck again and whispered into her ear. She took a moment toconsider, and then laughed. It was not the spontaneous laugh of a person overwhelmed by the irresistible humour of a good joke, it could not well have been that, assuming that he had told her the true answer; nor was it the perfunctory laugh of a person pretending to be amused. It was a laugh of heartless mockery.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the lady.
Samson smelt mischief and brought the curtain down with a fine speech, threatening her with his wrath if she should betray him.
The next act passed in the same hall of audience; soldiers entered and stood as guards, and then came Pharaoh. He was followed by two obviously comic men, who might have been costermongers or knockabout brothers from a music hall, and one comic woman. The men wore modern shirts and trousers and long-tailed coats, or rather dressing-gowns, that had once been as good as those worn by Pharaoh and his prime minister. Turiddu told me they were Pasquino and Onofrio, and the woman, who seemed to be just an ordinary woman out of the market with an apron, was Colombina. But the people give Pasquino the pet name of Peppinino and call the woman Rosina.These are the masks of Palermo, whose origin, like that of other Italian masks, is of great antiquity. They grew up to supply a want just as in our own day we have seen Ally Sloper growing up to supply a want of the people of London.
There was a dispute as to which of the two men Rosina was to marry, and the question had been referred to King Pharaoh who decided that it was a case for trial by riddle, and, accordingly, Rosina propounded a riddle which was in four questions; after each question Onofrio turned away his head to meditate, while Rosina, unobserved, whispered the answer into the ear of Pasquino who presently announced it in a loud voice and then danced with Rosina in triumph.
The four questions and answers were—
Q. A man that was no man—A. An eunuch—
Q. Threw a stone that was no stone—A. A pumice-stone—
Q. At a bird that was no bird—A. A bat—
Q. Sitting on a tree that was no tree—A. An elder-tree.
This being a riddle and in dialect and,moreover, dialect spoken in the presence of a king, certainly was, or rather was intended to be, humorous. Nevertheless, King Pharaoh was as little amused as our own Queen Victoria would have been if Ally Sloper and his companions had been taken to Windsor to perform in cockney slang before her. Pharaoh had to sit it out because he was there to see fair play, but he was so bored that he failed to observe how shamelessly Rosina was cheating; so she won her cause and danced off with Pasquino.
Turiddu explained to me that elder-trees are in the habit of drying up and falling down dead, a thing not done by properly conducted trees. I asked him what all this had to do with the play. He had just bought a handful of melon seeds from a man who was pushing his way about among the audience, and was munching them contentedly, not in the least put out by the course the story had taken. He said we had been witnessing a comic interlude intentionally introduced to amuse the boys by burlesquing the situation in the principal story the extreme seriousness of which might otherwise have depressed them unduly. I had read of such things being done inmediæval mystery plays, and here was an instance in my presence and not as an imitation or resuscitation of a dead archaism but as a vital growth.
The interlude being over, the original story was resumed. The paladin and the lady entered, followed by Pharaoh and his prime minister, who had gone off to make room for the final dance, and lastly, by Samson. The golden paladin took the stage, winking excessively, and, in a triumphant, overbearing manner, said—
“What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?”
Samson glared at the lady who ostentatiously shook her head.
“Ha, ha, ha!” jeered the paladin, and Samson covered his face for shame. The lady continued to shake her head, but, like the lady in another play, she did protest too much and Samson’s suspicions were confirmed. He exercised great self-control and appealed to Pharaoh, pointing out that it was absurd to suppose his riddle could have been guessed by an unassisted Scotchman, no matter how bright his armour, and concluded his speech by openly accusing the lady of having betrayed him. This was toomuch for the paladin; he drew his sword and approached Samson to pay him out for his rudeness and for not admitting that he had been fairly beaten. Before he could finish the speech that usually precedes a stage duel, Samson, who was unarmed, knocked him down in self-defence with one blow of his fist. He fell back upon Pharaoh who happened to be standing behind him; Pharaoh fell back upon his prime minister who happened to be standing behind him; the prime minister fell back upon the lady who happened to be shaking her head in protest behind him, and all four came to the ground together. Trumpets sounded, the piano struck up, the operators stamped with their clogged feet, the audience applauded and there were calls for “Sansone,” but it was not a moment for responding to calls. Soldiers came on one by one and Samson knocked them down; they came two by two and he knocked them down; they came three by three and he knocked them down. Between his feats of strength he frequently put his long hair back with his hand, so that it should fall behind and not hinder his movements or obstruct his sight. When he had done, the curtain fell on about thirtysoldiers, heaps upon heaps, writhing in their death agonies.
The next act was in a wood and there was the Highland paladin who had not been killed when Samson knocked him down; he had, however, been a good deal hurt and was winking more than ever. There were also a few soldiers who had either recovered or had not been knocked down in the previous scene; in these cases, as with earthquakes, one has to wait to find out who is killed and who survives. Turiddu said that Samson was being arrested and presently some more soldiers entered with a prisoner, but it was the wrong man; it was, in fact, Samson’s father. He was led away in chains. Then they brought on Samson with several yards of iron chain coiled round and hanging down from his joined hands.
“Andiamo, andiamo,” said the soldiers, but the jubilant paladin could not resist the temptation to stop the soldiers and make a taunting speech which amounted to—
“Here is the end of all your rage, O Sansone!”
Samson listened with great forbearance and, when it was his turn, replied in a speech full of dignity, containing a great deal aboutgloria and vendetta and the weight of his chains and il cuore di Sansone, and he threatened them over and over again, and struggled and shook himself and made great efforts to get free, so that the soldiers shrank back. Suddenly he broke his chains, and the soldiers all ran away and Samson after them, leaving the paladin alone. A soldier soon returned and announced that Samson was committing deeds of violence behind. This frightened the paladin; he winked nervously and hurried away, exclaiming—
“Arrest him, arrest him; I’m off,” amid the derisive laughter of the audience.
Then Samson came on in his fury, armed with the jawbone of an ass; Turiddu said it was of a horse, but I knew better, at least, I knew what it ought to have been. The soldiers did their best, but he knocked them all down again as before amid immense cheering.
The next scene was outside a castle in the country. Samson came on alone with his jawbone, and stood silent, very terrible, and waiting for an opportunity to break out.
The silence was prolonged. Nothing happened. It was a pause of expectation.
Then we heard a voice, a solemn, cavernous voice with a vibrato like a cinematograph, calling loud and slow—
“Sansone, Sansone, Sansone!”
“Whose voice is that?” exclaimed Samson, looking round and seeing no one.
The voice repeated its call two or three times and at last Samson recognized it.
“E la voce del mio genitore.”
“Sansone, Sansone, Sansone! In questa torre sono incarcerato.”
Then Samson understood that Manoah had been arrested and imprisoned and must be delivered. He approached the castle and knocked.
“Chi è?” said the porter.
“Son io, Sansone.”
We heard a movement of consternation within the castle and then Samson called out—
“Aprite.”
There was more consternation and the voice of Pasquino or Onofrio was heard speaking in dialect which made the audience laugh. The castle sent a messenger who came on and asked what Samson wanted.
“Open the door and give me my father,” said Samson with suppressed rage. Throughout Samson behaved with extreme moderation.But the messenger, instead of doing as he was told, approached Samson in a hostile manner. Samson took him in his arms and, with his great strength, threw him up and out of sight. We heard his body fall inside the castle walls.
“Aprite,” said Samson.
Then several messengers came, sometimes singly, sometimes two together, and once four soldiers came and said—
“Va via, Sansone,” but they only got themselves into trouble, for he took them all up and threw them back into the castle and we heard each of them fall separately.
“Aprite,” said Samson, “datemi il mio genitore.”
Then there came a comic dwarf; Samson looked at him scornfully, and saying—
“Cosa vuoi, Insetto?” took him up, twirled him round and round and threw him away.
Then Pasquino and Onofrio came on; Samson, after doing them some damage, but not so much as they deserved because they were favourites with the audience, passed by them and disappeared in the direction of the castle gate. We heard him knock and we heard the movement within, indicating seriousalarm, while the masks made comments in dialect. This was repeated and repeated with a roaring crescendo until, with a crash, the walls of the castle fell upon the stage—a bushel of stones—and Samson entered carrying the castle gates under his left arm and his father on his right, and the delighted audience applauded as the curtain fell.
After this we came away, which I have often regretted since, because these marionettes were the best I had seen. They were worked by artists who understood the handling of repose and the value of small things well placed. Occasionally, it is true, the figures moved too much and were unintentionally comic, but wonderful effects were produced by very slight movements. When a puppet was delivering a tirade, the listener, standing as motionless as one of the knights at Catania, would sometimes turn his head almost imperceptibly, or shift his weight from one leg to the other, or place his right hand on his hip with his arm a-kimbo. The action not only expressed contempt, acquiescence, or boredom as the case required, but vivified the whole scene, spreading over it like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond.
If I had been as strong as Samson I wouldhave stayed to the end, for I knew he could not be wearing all that loose, brown hair merely to toss it back when he was fighting. The Philistines would come later on and bribe the lady to entice him and see wherein his great strength lay, and he would be enticed and, forgetting how she had betrayed him over the riddle, would tell her everything; for he had a guileless, generous nature, and every time he was deceived thought it an exceptional case and no rule for future conduct. And presently the lady would make him sleep upon her knees and a young man would come with a pair of scissors and crouch under her mantle and cut off his locks and drop them into a shallow round box upon the floor, as in Carpaccio’s picture in Milan, and she would wake him up, exclaiming—
“The Philistines be upon thee, Samson,” and he would rise powerless and be taken and bound in fetters of brass.
Nevertheless, the marionettes, with all the romance of their story and the unexpected way in which their movements stimulate the imagination, would certainly fail without the wizardry of the voice of the speaker, for the voice is the soul of the marionettes. Andas the cobbler from Mount Eryx found his opportunity in the Death of Bradamante at Trapani, so the voice at Palermo would surely have done something with the Blinding of Samson—something perhaps not unworthy ofTotal Eclipse. It communicated to us the dignity and beauty of Samson’s character; when he was observing the industrious bees it was full of pity for the dead lion, and we knew that the poor beast had had every chance of escape and had only been killed after a delay that was longer than it was judicious. And so we knew that he did not kill the soldiers till his great patience had been exhausted and the voice was full of sorrow for their death.
Why should he be so constantly driven to use his strength? Why could he never use it without harming some one? Why was he born into a world where men played on his simplicity and women charmed him to destruction? These were the riddles that confused Samson. It seemed to him that he was no better than the Arabian giant who held the Princess of Bizerta in thrall—that cruel bully who cared not how many he killed, nor who they were, and believed every man to be as wicked as himself. Samson,each time his patience was exhausted, hated himself for what he had to do, yet no experience could shake his faith in that melancholy but attractive swindle—the ultimate goodness of man. Both Samson and the giant were as mistaken as they were powerful, but Samson, by virtue of his weakness, was the stronger man, for, while the giant’s brutality aroused our hatred, Samson’s nobility compelled our love.