Diversions in Sicily Part 1

Diversions in Sicily.

by H. Festing Jones.

TO ENRICO PAMPALONE

MY DEAR ENRICO,

Your father and I, sitting one summer night on the terrace at Castellinaria watching the moon on the water, agreed that this book might be dedicated to you, although you have not yet put it into my power to ask your permission.

"After all," exclaimed your father, "what is existence?" And I was unable to give him a satisfactory reply.

When Orlando and his Paladins were overcome at Roncisvalle through the treachery of Gano di Magonza, were they all slain? When "the Crusaders'

streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise," did none linger? When the angel carried up to heaven the soul of Guido Santo, did he never fight another battle? The young men of your island hardly think so; their thoughts and actions are still coloured by the magnificent language and the chivalrous exploits of Christian and Turk. As long as there is an imaginative s...o...b..ack in the Quattro Canti working for pennies by day, so long will those pennies be paid for the story to be told by night in the marionette theatre. Often will Angelica recover her ring, and as often be robbed of it again; often will the ghostly voice of Astolfo, imprisoned in a myrtle upon Alcina's magic isle, reveal the secret of his woe; often will Rinaldo drink of the Fountains of Hatred and of Love, and, forgetful of the properties of those waters, return and drink once more.

And what of those other and less heroic figures--the brigadier and his guards gambling among the ruins of Selinunte, the ingenious French gentleman cla.s.sifying the procession at Calatafimi, Micio buying his story-books and chocolate at Castellinaria, and many another whom I should like to think you will some day meet, palely wandering up and down these pages?

To pursue the subject might disincline you ever to take leave of the world of the unborn, whereas I am desirous of making your acquaintance as soon as possible. Let me, then, rather a.s.sure you that life is not all marionettes and metaphysics, and that I know of no reason why you should not at once enter upon an existence as real as that enjoyed by your dear father or your beautiful mother--it would be unbecoming in a son to expect more. Castellinaria is waiting to welcome you. You could not have a more delightful birthplace than your native town, or more charming compatriots than your fellow-townspeople. Only resemble your parents, and you will never regret having hastened the day when I shall be ent.i.tled to sign myself

Your affectionate G.o.dfather, HENRY FESTING JONES.

NOTE

Chapters VIII-XI have been enlarged and re-written since August, 1903, when they appeared as _A Festa on Mount Eryx_ in _The Monthly Review_. I have to thank Mr. John Murray for kindly giving me permission to reprint them here.

A few sentences in Chapter XIII have been taken from a pamphlet I wrote and had printed for private circulation in 1904, ent.i.tled: _Diary of a Journey through North Italy to Sicily in the spring of 1903_, _undertaken for the purpose of leaving the MSS. of three books by Samuel Butler at Varallo-Sesia_, _Aci-Reale and Trapani_.

It would be impossible to enumerate and thank all the many friends who, with the courtesy and patience that never desert a Sicilian, have given me information, explanation and a.s.sistance. Among them are two, however, to whom, and to whose families, I desire to give my special thanks, namely: Cavaliere Uffiziale Giovanni Gra.s.so, of the Teatro Macchiavelli, Catania; and Signor Achille Greco, of the Marionette Theatre, in the Piazza Nuova, Palermo.

Signor Greco wrote to me recently that, for Rosina's riddle in his episode of the masks in _Samson_, he had dipped in the stream of children's games current to-day in Palermo; he did not appear to know that Plato had dipped in his own Athenian stream for the riddle quoted by Glaucon towards the end of the fifth book of the _Republic_. The riddles are similar not because Rosina had read the dialogue, nor because Glaucon had seen the play, but because the two streams flowed as one until Greek colonists took their folk-lore with them into Sicily before Plato was born.

CHAPTER I--THE BRIGADIER AND THE LOTTERY

One wet Sat.u.r.day evening in May I found myself at Castelvetrano consulting Angelo, the guide, about the weather. His opinion was that it would clear up during the night; I said that if it did we would go to Selinunte, and this confirmed his view; so, on the understanding that there was to be no rain, I appointed him padrone of the expedition and promised to acquiesce in all his arrangements.

He was quite right; Sunday morning was brilliantly fine, and at about 8.30 we started. He began by showing me his purchases; he had been out early, marketing, and his basket contained fresh tunny, the first of the season, veal, salame, dried fish, bread and oranges, but no wine; he said we should find that at the locanda, where they would cook the tunny and the veal for us.

Cicciu, our driver, was one of those queer creatures one sometimes meets in Italy. At first I took him to be of feeble intellect, for when I spoke to him or merely looked at him, he shut up his eyes, showed his teeth and covered his face all over with grinning wrinkles; but on knowing him better, I found he was really extremely intelligent and perfectly good. He was about sixteen, but would have pa.s.sed for twenty.

His general appearance was grey, the actual colour of his face, hands and clothes being powdered out of sight by the dust which held all together like a transparent glaze over a painting. He drove us along between flowery fields of cistus until the temples of Selinunte came in sight, then down to the Marinella, a handful of houses on the sh.o.r.e under the low cliff. We drew up at the locanda which distinguished itself by displaying over the door, in a five-ounce medicine bottle, a sample of a cloudy, canary-coloured fluid to advertise the wine Angelo had spoken of, and the forlorn bunch of five or six faded sprigs of camomile which hung on the same hook const.i.tuted the bush. We left our basket with instructions and drove off to inspect the acropolis and the ruins, returning in about an hour and a half.

The locanda was an immense, cavernous room divided into front and back by a part.i.tion about seven feet high with an opening in the middle. There was no regular window, but we were only a few feet from the sea which reflected the suns.h.i.+ne through the open door and up into the arched roof and illuminated the front part. In the obscurity behind the part.i.tion were dim ladders leading up to trap-doors and, through a few holes in the roof and in the end wall, blinding rays of light glinted on piles of earthenware--saucepans, jugs, cups and saucers, coloured crockery lamps, rough basins glazed green inside, heaped up in stacks and protected from one another by straw. There were hanks of rope, fans of hawks' feathers for blowing the fire, palm-leaf brooms and oil-jars big enough for thieves. There were horns on the walls to keep off the evil eye, prints of the Madonna, some with sprigs of camomile stuck into the frame, a cheap.i.s.simo coloured lithograph of S. Giuseppe with the Bambino, and in front of it on a little bracket, in half a tumbler of oil, floated a burning wick. In a corner was the landlord putting his whole soul into the turning about of a sieve full of coffee beans which he had roasted and was now cooling. And everything was covered with a grey dust like the bloom on a plum or like Cicciu.

Our table was spread in a clearing among the pottery in the front part of the room and everything was ready on a clean white cloth, wine and all.

Besides the landlord and his wife there were two men in uniform, one a corporal of the coastguards and the other a policeman. There was also a third man in ordinary clothes--I did not find out what he was, but they were all, including the landlord, friends of Angelo who, in his capacity of padrone, invited them to join us at lunch. We were just about to begin when I missed Cicciu. Angelo said we need not wait for him, he had only gone to the sea to wash his feet. So we sat down without him and presently he returned saying he had washed all over, but he looked just as dusty as before his bath.

There must be something in the air of Selinunte that encourages bathing, for they told me that in a few days an annual festa was to take place there, the pilgrims arriving the evening before and spending the whole night bathing in the sea, the men in one part and the women in another; at dawn they would come out of the water, dress and attend to their religious duties. I said I should like very much to see it, whereupon the corporal, who sat next me and clinked gla.s.ses with me every time he drank, invited me to stay--there would be plenty of room in the caserma and they could make me comfortable for as long as I would remain. I had, however, made appointments elsewhere, so I told him it was unfortunate, but I could not alter my plans and was sorry I must decline his invitation.

After lunch by general consent we all went strolling up the cliff and through a garden belonging to a large house. I a.s.sumed that Angelo had been arranging something in dialect and asked the corporal, who happened to be next me, where we were going. He first picked a geranium most politely and stuck it in my b.u.t.ton-hole; then he told me we were going to the big house which was the caserma. It appeared that he had been so overcome by my hospitality that he had invited Angelo to bring me to call upon the brigadier and his companions-in-arms at the guard-house. It was really Angelo who had shown the hospitality, nevertheless, though not directly responsible for all details, I was responsible for having s.h.i.+fted the responsibility on Angelo by making him padrone of the expedition, so that the hospitality was in a sense mine. But if left to myself, I should never have had the courage to invite two such influential members of the legal profession as a coastguard and a policeman to lunch with me, not to speak of the third man who might have been anything from a sheriff's officer to the Lord Chancellor himself.

But they were all friends of Angelo and so was I and in Sicily the maxim "Gli amici dei nostri amici sono i nostri" is acted upon quite literally.

Pa.s.sing through the door of the caserma we entered a large oblong room; at each end were three or four beds and on the side opposite the door two open windows. Through the windows across a barley-field, lightly stirred by the breeze from the sea, the Temple of Apollo was lying in the heat, an extinct heap of ruins, as though the naughty boy of some family of Cyclopes had spilt his brother's box of bricks. In the middle of the room ten or twelve men were sitting round a table on which were dishes of what at first I took to be some kind of frutta di mare, objects about the size and shape of sea-urchins. The brigadier received me with great courtesy and put me to sit next him, and the corporal sat on the other side of me. A dreamy Sunday afternoon feeling pervaded the air, the brigadier said they were slaughtering time ("bisogna ammazzare un po' di tempo"). Being to a certain extent soldiers, their business was to kill something and they were compa.s.sing the destruction of their present enemy by drinking wine and eating not sea-urchins but cold boiled artichokes.

He gave me some and begged me to make myself at home. The corporal clinked gla.s.ses with me and said that the wine was better than that at the locanda, wherein I agreed with him, but I did not tell him I found the artichokes a little uninteresting. They were so very small and there was so much to do to get what little there was of them that they were more trouble than shrimps or walnuts. Looked at from the brigadier's point of view, as a means of pa.s.sing the time on Sunday, they reminded me of the Litany; pulling off each leaf was like listening to each short clause and eating the unimportant little bit at the end was like intoning the little response; then the larger piece that was left, when all the leaves were off, followed like the coda and finale of the Litany after the more monotonous part has been disposed of. The Litany has, however, the advantage that it comes only one at a time, we do not kneel down to a whole plateful of it; on the other hand, there was wine with the artichokes and they were free from any trace of morbid introspection.

The brigadier and Angelo were in earnest conversation about something, and, as my mind began to wander from the artichokes (here again they resembled the Litany) and was able to attend more to what was going on, I became aware that they were talking about the lottery. Selinunte depends for news upon chance visitors and Angelo had brought the winning numbers which he had got from a cousin of his in one of the lottery offices at Castelvetrano. The brigadier had lost and in giving his instructions for the next week's drawing seemed to experience great difficulty in making up his mind.

Presently there looked in at one of the windows a hunchback riding on a mule and carrying a guitar. Several of the guards went to help him in, greeting him with shouts of--

"Addio, Filippo!"

He lifted one of his legs over the saddle, and then I saw that not only was he a hunchback but that his legs were withered. He reached up and hung on to the ledge over the window with both hands and swung himself very cleverly and with no a.s.sistance into a sitting position on the window-sill; two of the guards then picked him up, carried him into the room, set him on a chair and gave him some wine and artichokes. Being a jolly fellow, as cripples often are, he soon tired of the artichokes, asked for his guitar and began to sing Neapolitan songs. He had not sung more than two before the brigadier told me I should like to wash my hands and had better come into his bedroom. I glanced at Angelo who nodded back and the brigadier took me off with him. He began by showing me his room which was very clean and tidy. His bed was at one end, his table, with his official papers and books, in the middle and against the wall hung his guns which he showed me particularly, declaring that he was pa.s.sionately devoted to the chase. After he had done the honours I washed my hands and so did he; then he led the conversation to what his manner betrayed was the real business of the interview. He asked me my name and age, whether I was married or single and particulars of my family, whether I was an Englishman from London or from New York and how much a metre I had paid for the stuff my clothes were made of. This last was the only question that gave me any real trouble, but I made a hasty calculation, converted the result into francs, deducted five per cent.

for cash and hazarded--

"Fourteen lire."

In return for his polite interest in my affairs I pretended a similar interest in his, and it turned out that we had a friend in common--a maresciallo dei carabinieri whom I had met on Monte San Giuliano and of whom I was able to give the latest information namely, that he had retired, gone home to Cremona and married. Carabinieri are not allowed to marry so long as they are in service, or rather they may marry but only on condition of depositing a sum of money which is fixed at an amount beyond anything they are likely to be able to lay their hands on.

Having exhausted our questions and answers we returned to the guard-room and the corporal welcomed us by filling our gla.s.ses again. The brigadier, before sitting down, took Angelo aside and became again immersed in conversation; this time he appeared to be getting on more satisfactorily with his instructions. The artichokes were beginning to lose their attractions for every one, so I took out a packet of cigarettes and offered them round. In those days there used to be in every packet of Italian cigarettes a loose piece of paper about the size of a postage stamp with a number on it. Boxes of biscuits in England sometimes have a similar paper to identify the person responsible for the packing should anything be found to be wrong. In my packet there happened to be two pieces of paper which fluttered out upon the table as I opened it. The brigadier instantly pounced upon them. There was silence in the room. Every one watched and waited. Each of my pieces of paper bore the number thirty-three. The brigadier did me the honour of cancelling all his previous orders to Angelo and of putting his money for next week's lottery on thirty-three. The corporal and several of the men who had not intended to gamble changed their minds and gave similar instructions.

It was now time to think of returning, so Angelo got out of the window into the sunlight and went off to fetch the carriage and the guards began to chaff poor Cicciu about his watch-chain which was a ma.s.sive and extensive affair in silver. The corporal said they were playing a game with him and offered to teach it to me. I am not good at games, but this one was so simple that I mastered it in less than a minute and played it thus--

First I asked Cicciu to tell me the time. He shut up his eyes, showed his teeth and covered his face all over with grinning wrinkles. Then I asked him the time again. He replied in the same way. I asked him again and so on till he had overcome his shyness and at last pulled out his watch which was found to consist of a circular piece of tin with a paper watch-face gummed on to one side of it. Then we all laughed at the contrast between this and what his elaborate watch-chain had led us to expect.

While we were still laughing, Angelo drove up to the window and said it was time to go, so we began saying "Good-bye." Some of the men departed before us, but the brigadier, the corporal and one or two others were going our way. The brigadier fetched his gun in order to enjoy the chase and we all got out of the window. Angelo accompanied the hunting party, but the corporal came in the carriage with me and Cicciu drove us round the barley-field to the Temple of Apollo to wait for the others. On the way we heard the brigadier firing off his gun and wondered what sport he was having, and I took a leaf out of his book of politeness and asked the corporal his age and particulars of his family, after which, of course, I had to tell him all about myself and to promise I would take the first opportunity of visiting him in his home to clink gla.s.ses and drink wine with him.

We went all over the ruins while waiting for the hunting party which presently joined us. The brigadier was satisfied with his sport and permitted himself the pleasure of offering me the spoils--two birds the size of sparrows--which Angelo was to cook for supper. Then we said "Good-bye," promising to exchange picture postcards when I should be back in England. The corporal, however, was still going our way and we took him in the carriage a little further. We asked if he could not come with us all the way to Castelvetrano and he seemed inclined to do so, but he had to patrol the coast in the direction of Marsala from eleven o'clock that night till eleven the next morning, and it was so annoying because, as he must go to Castelvetrano in a few days, he might almost just as well come with us now. We hoped he would see his way to doing so and he hesitated and appeared to be on the point of yielding, but finally made the Herculean choice of duty before pleasure on the very sensible ground that, if it should be discovered he had deserted his post, he would be put into prison for two months. With the brigadier and all the guards in the secret, it seemed impossible that he should escape detection, so we pressed the invitation no further and took leave of him after exchanging names and addresses and promising to send postcards to one another.

As we drove away I could not but draw a comparison in my mind between the corporal's refusal of my invitation and mine of his, and I was ashamed of myself for the way I had scamped the bathing festa. I had made another engagement and there was an end of it. The corporal, on the other hand, had spared no expense in the manner of his refusal, nothing short of two months' imprisonment could have prevented him from coming with us. We English ought to be able to do this and some of us, I suppose, can, but there is no Italian who cannot. The French are polite, but not always to be trusted. A Frenchman, speaking of an Englishman to whom I had introduced him, said to me--

"He speaks French worse than you do."

Any Italian, wis.h.i.+ng to express a similar idea, would have said--

"He speaks Italian, it is true, but not so well as you do."

My meditations were interrupted by Angelo who had been taking stock of our possessions and, on looking into the basket, exclaimed with disgust that we had been robbed of our fish. It was the first I had heard about our fish, but he said the brigadier had given us ten and he had put them into the basket. How could they have got out again? All the afternoon we had been surrounded by coastguards and policemen whose profession is, as every one knows, to prevent robbery and to take up thieves. Angelo was furious and wanted to drive back and complain to the brigadier, but, on looking further through the basket, we found there were still two fish and I said they would be quite enough for supper--with the sparrows--and he finally agreed that we had better do nothing, it might look as though we thought the brigadier was not up to his business.

"And when the tailor is wearing a coat that does not fit him," said Angelo, "it is rude to tell him of it."

So we drove on among the cistus bushes and I asked him about the lottery.

Every Sat.u.r.day morning ninety cards numbered from one to ninety are put into a wheel of fortune and a blind-folded child from the orphan asylum publicly draws out five. Italy is divided into several districts and a drawing takes place in the chief town of each, the winning numbers are telegraphed to the lottery offices all over the country and afterwards posted up and published in the newspapers. Any one wis.h.i.+ng to try his luck chooses one or more numbers and buys a ticket and this choosing of the numbers is a very absorbing business. In the neighbourhood of Castelvetrano at that time the favourite numbers were five and twenty-six and the people were betting on those numbers when they had no special reason for choosing any others. Angelo could not tell why these two numbers were preferred, he could only say that the people found them sympathetic and, as a matter of fact, twenty-six had come out the day before. There are many ways of choosing a number if you find five and twenty-six unsympathetic; you can wait till something remarkable happens to you, look it out in "the useful book that knows" and then bet on its number, for everything really remarkable has a number in the book and, if you do not possess a copy, it can be consulted in a shop as the _Post Office Directory_ can be consulted in London. Or, if nothing remarkable happens to you in real life, perhaps you may have dreamt of a lady in a white dress, or of a man whetting a scythe, or of meeting a snake in the road--anything will do, so long as it strikes you at the time. When you see the country people coming into town on market day you may be sure that each one has received instructions from relations and friends at home to put something on a number for them.