Il Signor Cappellano.
The Signor Prevosto is parish priest, and yet he is little more than a peasant. TheSignor Cappellanois under-priest, and he is just nothing more than a peasant. ‘Abbiate pazienza,’ his own parishioners would say if they were excusing his deficiencies to you! What would you have? San Matteo is not a large parish; though its hamlets lie far from one another, and it takes a long while on a weary way to bear the Sacrament to the sick, or even to offer homely advice to marriageable girl or ill-used wife, still the parish does not require three priests. And since they are kept merely to say a mass each on Sundays and holy days, why, they must manage with what pay they can get, for the best of the tithes must go to the rectory.
So theCappellanohas little to do and little to earn for doing it. The Church gives him a cottage and a slip of barren land that lies mostly alongside of the stream’s bed; the cottage is weathertight and sufficient for himself and his old servant, and, with the aid of heaven’s mighty sun and man’s patient care, the landbrings forth produce enough to keep two souls and two bodies—what more could an under-priest expect? Michaelmas daisies stand with goodly sunflowers in a row before his porch, brilliantpomi d’ororipen their fruit against the southern wall, while the gourds trail large leaves and golden flowers along the ground, among wheat and beans and potatoes. Neither he nor old Ninetta taste meat more than once a week, but what of that? Theminestrais as wholesome without, and ofpolentaone never wearies, only theSignor Cappellanohimself must till the ground and sow and reap and manure again, or even the pumpkins would not grow large nor the maize fill its cones, so how can you expect him to be other than a peasant? ‘Abbiate pazienza di lui!’
‘Frà Giuseppe’ has the care of the parish school. Perhaps he gets paid a trifle more for it—a trifle that goes towards the meat onfestadays; be that as it may, if you come down the hill from the ‘Square Village’ towards the church, early upon any morning but a Sunday or a Thursday, you may hear certain monotonous sounds that leave no doubt as to the employment pursued beneath the thatched roof of theCappellano’southouse. The sound is the sound of lessons repeated, of moral tales read aloud, often of the switching of boys’ calves, oftener of the poor pedagogue’s swearing. He knowslittle enough himself, but the boys know less, and will never know more, because both teacher and pupil are sure that knowledge is quite useless, having got along, and seen others get along, very well without it thus far.
The school hours last till ten o’clock only—if he does not receive much, at leastFrà Giuseppegives but little—the best of the day is all in front, and theCappellanomakes good use of it. Besides digging trenches amidst maize and rice, training the vine, pruning the fig and the cherry tree, besides kicking the shins of refractory urchins, and having altogether a good deal to do with the boys, he has something to do with the girls too—he is the writer of village love-letters. The post is one of some importance:Frà Giuseppeturns another honest penny by it.
But this is scarcely a matter we speak of. The love-letters—and even other letters, would-be business letters, whichFrà Giuseppewrites for the parish—cannot always be free from little white lies and intrigues of an innocent nature if they are to satisfy their purchasers, and in this, as in other trades, one must go heart and soul into one’s affair, and always work for the most lucrative market. So it is not asCappellanothatFrà Giuseppewrites his customers’ letters, but only as villageScrivano, and that is quite a different thing, and not a thing to be mentioned in the same breath with his priestly title. One isnot forced to be consistent, and though, for the half-hour when he is in canonicals, the under-priest thinks fit—as under-priests do everywhere—to differ from his superior in matters of religious theory, though as in this case, he belongs to the Ultramontane party when he wears robe and biretta, and would fain make a stir in the parish about thePrevosto’slaxity and so forth—in fact, though theSignor Cappellanobe a bit of a bigot in intention, both time and policy forbid him any indulgence of his opinion in practice.
‘Life is short and argument is long,’ says he. Were he possessed of ever so much more influence than he has in the parish he would still be a poor man, whose gourds and vines must always be a great deal more important to him than the souls of human creatures.
So, in other things beside the writing of letters, does theCappellanowear two faces, and having salved conscience by the preaching of fiery doctrines within the church’s walls of a Sunday and feast-day at Second Mass—he has the worldly wisdom to be nothing more outside the pulpit than that which he really is: a peasant amongst peasant neighbours. Who can afford to be a priest all day long for so poor a salary? One must needs have a little fun to one’s victuals when poverty forbids better sauce, or even a priest’s digestion would suffer, and theSignor Cappellanoknows well enough funis not to be got by a strict face outside the church doors.
Il Signor Cappellano.A plump, hardy-looking girl of some twenty-five years accosts him with rough raillery.
Il Signor Cappellano.
A plump, hardy-looking girl of some twenty-five years accosts him with rough raillery.
It is Sunday morning, andFrà Giuseppehas just sung mass and delivered a scathing discourse in broad Genoese dialect to the somewhat empty benches of a nine o’clock congregation. He comes out of the sacristy now, having doffed hissoutane, to keep only the knee-breeches and stockings with steel-buckled shoes for a finish, the long black coat and three-cornered hat of etiquette. He crosses thepiazza, which is crowded with peasants, male and female, not all of whom have been in church, except for a moment at the Elevation. A group of lads and maidens turn towards him; none of them are very respectful in manner, butFrà Giuseppetakes no offence. Though his person were held in ever such veneration—even as thePrevosto’sown—though his voice be listened to with some amount of awe, as it is at the confessional, though, on holy ground, his counsels and upbraidings be sometimes regarded, none knows better than theCappellanohimself what a mere name is any priest’s power outside of his office.
A plump, hardy-looking girl of some twenty-five years accosts him now with rough raillery. She has made a bet with some of the village swains on a matter regarding the under-priest, and at his answer the grouparound burst into loudest laughter. But even this is not enough to discomfitFrà Giuseppe; he has seen the joke and retaliates smartly, neither fear nor prudery hindering.
Another damsel appeals to him for succour against the too forward advances of a stalwart old farmer, and something of a romp ensues. Broad jests and plain words are spoken, but though a spade be called a spade with little ado,Frà Giuseppeoffers no reproof. His own education has not aimed at making him peculiarly sensitive to outward grossness of speech, and that is generally the worst feature about this frank and merry people. Who that is Italian, by birth and by nature, could have grown to be thus susceptible? A country priest, at all events, is not, and, as a rule, he gets on best by descending—if such a word be the fit one—to the work and the interests of the peasants about him, happy enough in his own way, and careless of any great show of respect.
Now he joins another party, and this time the group is one of old and seasoned men, whose interests are wrapped up in the crops and the coming fair. Hear him, as with avidity he discusses the country’s prospects, or reconnoitres cautiously, that he may know the better how to buy and to sell with advantage on Monday next!
Here is no moonstruck priest, but a man of the world—poor,parsimonious, and prudent. Poor, but not always stingy, not always grasping, because he, too—though pinched and careworn far more than the greater number of his people, who have their own lands and crops—he too has the proverbialbuon cuoreof the Italians.
‘Eh, Teresa,’ he calls now to an old woman whom, as he turns his steps back to the little cottage, he meets coming down the path, a basket of eggs and vegetables on her head. ‘Hast brought my portion at last? And thou hast made me wait for it!’ ‘It is too true,Signor Cappellano,’ replies the poor soul. ‘Your excellence must excuse. It has been a bad time, and I have not had the things to bring, though, the Virgin knows, the will to bring them!’ ‘Well, well, it signifies not. Come now to the kitchen, and you shall eat a good mouthful ofminestrawith Ninetta and myself.’
The little footpath leads down the meadow to the house with the thatched roof, where Michaelmas daisies grow to the front. There are no glass windows, there is only one chimney, the hearth is in the middle of the floor: it is just like a peasant’s hut. Ninetta has theminestraready; its savoury perfume pervades the kitchen, and she stands with the great pot tipped up to pour it out, blowing away the steam from her face meanwhile. She is a merry-eyed, wrinkled old lady of considerableyears, and she is not conspicuous for a superabundance of mother-wit; in this she differs from Caterina, who is the Prevosto’s housekeeper. The poor peasant wife eats the good soup silently, while Ninetta chatters and theCappellanoscolds.
‘Well, well, I shall get a better mess than this to-morrow,Ninetta mia,’ says he; ‘truly no man could keep his heart alive many days on nonsense of this sort. But with the morning’s sun I go to the threshing at neighbourPasquale’s, and thank Heaven there will be aminestrathere that is fit to be called one, when it will be his daughterMarrinawho has made it!’
‘Oh, yes, you—you are always for praising what the pretty girls can do! An old woman like me can never please you. I’m ashamed of you, priest as you are!’
Frà Giuseppelaughs contentedly. Such talk is his pleasure, spite of Ultramontane convictions. So is it also his pleasure to go to the common threshing-floor next day, where he handles his flail with the best of them, and bandies compliments with the pretty hostess as well, to quarrel afterwards—a pipe in his mouth—over bowls andmorowith village swains.
But none the less tenderly does he doctor the hurts of the very men with whom he has quarrelled—for theSignor Cappellanois village physician too—none the lesspatiently would he sit beside a sick bed that night, for the sun goes down on nobody’s wrath—the sun that sinks behind the stately cone of Monte Baneo’s hill, to leave the rich little valley lying quiet beneath a clear summer night. And walnut trees stand still upon the darkened sky, to shadow the cottage over, whereFrà Giuseppesleeps the placid sleep of the field-labourer.