Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions Part 21

The gesticulating Sicilian, however, is not more deeply moved by what he is describing than the phlegmatic Englishman is when he is quietly telling something. I have sometimes ventured to laugh at the Sicilian for his unnecessary vehemence, and he has stopped in the middle of it all and joined in the laughter. It would be extremely interesting to see Giovanni Gra.s.so in the part of an English gentleman, a Wyndham or a Hawtrey part. I believe he would succeed because I believe he would succeed in anything he set his mind to do, but for him to reproduce an Englishman's tranquillity would be as much of an effort as it would be for an English actor to reproduce a Sicilian's mobility.

Their power of acting is not confined to those who are actors by profession; the love of improvising little scenes in daily life may be said to be characteristic of them. To suppose that they do this from a love of lying would be to simplify unduly; they have the artist's power of seeing a thing in two senses at once, and they a.s.sume that they will not be misunderstood, at all events, they are not going to give it all away by explaining, and if the stranger is taken in--well, as a rule, it does not very much signify. Just as omerta makes things difficult for the Sicilian police, so this love of acting makes things difficult for the foreign traveller. There is a story in the form of a dialogue between a foreigner in Palermo inquiring of a native about a tree that was clipped into a fantastic shape. It can hardly be given in English because it turns on the double meaning of "naturale," which means sometimes "natural" and sometimes "naturally," but if it be added that "scusi" = "excuse me"; "quest' albero" = "this tree"; "e" = "is"; "o" = "or," any reader will be able to understand it:

FOREIGNER: Scusi, Signore; quest' albero e artificiale o naturale?

PALERMITAN: Artificiale.

FOR: Oh, artificiale?

PAL: Naturale.

FOR: E naturale?

PAL: Artificiale.

FOR: (_getting irritated_): Scusi, Signore; quest' albero e artificiale o naturale?

PAL: Artificiale, naturale.

And then the foreigner goes home and writes a book about his travels, saying that the natives are so stupid they do not even know whether their trees are clipped into odd shapes by nature or art. But the apparently grave and courteous Palermitan knew what he was doing all the time and was enjoying it as a child enjoys committing a harmless piece of mischief.

If one were to pierce through it and understand them as they may be supposed to understand themselves, one would not necessarily be in a position to give an opinion about the mafia, for, besides those who speak of the growing confidence in the police, there are others who a.s.sert that the improvement, if any, is slight and only on the surface, and that the spirit of the mafia is not confined to the mala vita, but extends to the upper cla.s.ses and influences even the administration of justice and the elections. When the natives differ on such a point, a mere foreigner can hardly decide; but I have more frequently heard the opinion expressed in favour of improvement. Certainly, in the Teatro Machiavelli, when murderers are taken by the police it is often done now with the approval of the audience, which they tell me would not have been the case some years back.

Before writing about the mala vita one ought at least to have seen a man murdered in the street. I have never seen this, nor have I ever even seen the body of a murdered man lying in the street. All that I know about the mala vita in Sicily has been gathered from conversation, books and plays. Lest it should be thought that in thus disclaiming practical knowledge of the subject I am inspired by omerta--as a traveller may shut his eyes to unpleasant incidents out of regard for his hosts--I will here collect together all the occasions when I have thought myself to be in the immediate neighbourhood of the mala vita.

At Castellinaria the barber who keeps the shop opposite the Albergo della Madonna--the shop in which Alfio Mascalucia was a.s.sistant--always seemed to me to be a man one would readily trust with all one's possessions. He must be now over forty, married and with a family. Peppino told me the other day that in his youth, meaning between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, this barber had been a notorious ricottaro and had often been in prison for crimes of various kinds. When I heard this, his extremely courteous manner reminded me of the Robin Hood side of the Cristiani, and of the oriental hospitality of the mafiosi towards strangers. I asked Peppino whether I ought to discontinue my custom. He said not unless I was dissatisfied with him as a barber. Then I realised that I must have forgotten where I was for the moment.

Carmelo and his brother Rosario at Castellinaria have both been in prison for attempting to murder, but they can neither of them be said ever to have belonged to the cla.s.s of habitual criminals.

In the Teatro Machiavelli Peppino Fazio gave me as a ricordo one of the knives used by the mafiosi. The blade doubles on the handle, so that when open it is about twice as long as when shut; some are as long as twenty-four inches when open, mine is only eighteen. Being intended for the theatre, it has never been sharpened or pointed but, except for this it is a real mala vita knife. They told me there would be nothing to fear so long as I continued the life of blameless respectability which had no doubt become habitual to me--or some nonsense of that kind--but that if I should happen to be caught by the police in doubtful surroundings and searched, even this knife, in spite of its arrested adolescence, might get me into trouble.

"So you had better be careful," said one of them; "but if you do get put into prison, let us know and you shall be treated as well as any ricottaro. I will bring you a good dinner every day."

"Yes," said another, "and I will bring you cigarettes."

"And I," said a third, "will fetch your linen and bring it back to you nicely washed and ironed."

Whenever I show my knife to any of my English friends, for I am happy to say I got it safely home, they always exclaim that it is an entirely prosaic object. And so it is. It is as unromantic as an escape of gas.

Several times I have been in a theatre when the performance has been interrupted by a disturbance among the audience, but I have never seen it develop into a serious row.

Once in Palermo my bedroom looked over a small piazza, and one night I heard talking and looked out. I saw a crowd and distinguished a man disputing from below with another man on a balcony about fifteen feet from mine, and there was a woman in the room behind him. The dispute was all in dialect, but evidently they were very angry. Presently the man on the balcony drew a revolver, it shone in the doubtful light, and he threatened the man below; but nothing further happened and presently the crowd dispersed, the man on the balcony retired and all was quiet.

Perhaps this was the prelude to a murder, and I may have read about it afterwards in the newspaper without knowing how near I had been to the crime.

There was one other occasion when I thought I was going to see something of the mala vita. On the cliff at Castellinaria are some remains of polygonal buildings which have been made a national monument. The custode's cabin is just below, in a sheltered place where Peppino and I sometimes go and sit after supper. One moonlight evening, it was rather late, but the lamp was still s.h.i.+ning in the cabin and the custode was still hanging about, I heard someone approaching and, looking up, saw, against the sky, a sinewy, slight woman in a long black dress with a black shawl over her head. She was coming rapidly along the edge of the cliff with a shuffling, swaying motion, and as she came she was continually rearranging the shawl over her head and chattering volubly to herself in a hoa.r.s.e, coa.r.s.e, raucous voice. The custode glanced at her as she drew near and I thought he flinched. I do not know how I knew it, but I was sure she was his wife. She was beside herself with pa.s.sion.

She must have found out something--something about some other woman. I felt as I have felt at an Ibsen play--as though I were looking through the keyhole into a room where dirty linen was about to be washed. She shook and trembled all over like an express train approaching a country station. Reason told me that Peppino and I were safe, we were on the platform; nevertheless accidents do happen and there was the poor custode on the line. She drew up in front of us, and her draperies swirled round her with the suddenness of her stopping. She became silent and still, while she looked at me as though fixing my appearance on her brain for this life and the next; she looked at Peppino in the same way and at the custode. Then the chattering began again and the restless rearranging of her shawl over her head. Suddenly she turned, poured herself into the cabin and exploded. It was not as with an earthquake, for the walls were left standing and the roof and foundations were unshaken, and an earthquake, they say, seems to last for an eternity, whereas this woman seemed to take but a moment to complete her work of desolation. She pounced upon something among the debris and laughed hysterically as she hid it in her bosom.

The storm was over. She was transformed into a rather beautiful and extremely graceful woman of about thirty. She exchanged a few words of friendly chaff with her husband, smiled at Peppino and bowed to me as she pa.s.sed out, went up the path against the moonlit sky and faded into the night.

All this was about a pack of cards. She had promised to lend the cards to a neighbour that evening; her husband was to have brought them home early in the day; he had forgotten to do so and she had come to fetch them. So there was no murder and no dirty linen, but the cabin had to be tidied.

What would this woman do had she the motive and the cue for pa.s.sion that I had supposed for her? If her husband ever does entertain another lady in his cabin and his wife hears of it, I hope I may not be in the neighbourhood. But if I were to be there and to witness the crime, omerta would forbid me, as a good Sicilian, to say anything about it. I should have to forget the claims of justice and go to prison, if necessary, rather than give such information as might lead to the conviction of the person or persons guilty.

Lastly, there was the lady in the restaurant-car--but perhaps she ought not to be included in the list. Let her have the benefit of the doubt and a chapter to herself.

CASTELLINARIA

CHAPTER XV THE CARDINALESSA

One day, as I was travelling through the island by rail, I lunched in the restaurant-car and divided my attention between the colazione, the view and the other lunchers.

At the table in front of me sat three gentlemen; beyond them, at a separate table, sat a distinguished-looking lady, quietly but well dressed in foamy white musliny stuff, with a good deal of lace and a few touches of pale green. She had a lovely hat and a veil, which she wore in such a way that I thought how well she would look in a motor-car. She did not appear to be much over thirty, and she was alone except that she had a little dog, whom she fed from her plate and who was evidently very fond of her. She was not strictly beautiful, her face depended for its charm more on its expression than on the regularity of its features, but there was about her a certain indescribable combination of dignity and vivacity that was curiously attractive, and that soon attracted the three gentlemen, who, I presently became aware, had entered into conversation with her. Possibly they had asked the waiter to introduce them while I was looking out of the window. Certainly they cannot have met her before, because I heard them ask her her nationality, and she told them that her father was an Italian, a native of Rome, and that her mother was French. And where was she going? To some place whose name I did not catch. Then she must change at the junction. Yes, but there would be no difficulty because she was accustomed to travelling, she had travelled in China, India, Egypt and America. No doubt she was gifted by nature with that happy temperament which enables its possessor to make friends easily, and her extensive travels had provided opportunities for its cultivation. I supposed the three gentlemen to be accountants or advocates or perhaps engineers; but I thought from her manner that she would have been just as much at her ease if they had been carabinieri. I heard her tell them she was twenty-two; she must have been very young when she began her travels.

While the waiter was making out our bills, one of the gentlemen begged her to grant him a favour. She smiled in her frank open way as an encouragement to him to name it, and he declared that he should consider it an honour if she would permit him to pay for her luncheon. The lady accepted his generosity, and granted his request with a smile of such queenly condescension that I had a vision of great Elizabeth stepping upon Raleigh's cloak.

Presently this gentleman went and sat by himself at a table for two and the lady joined him. This appeared to me a little odd; he might just as well have sat at her table, or have invited her to sit at his with the other two gentlemen, there was room and it would have been less marked.

But they seemed to prefer to start a little colony of their own, as it were, on neutral ground. The gentleman made another proposal: A gla.s.s of wine? With pleasure. So the waiter brought it, and then the lady accepted a cigarette.

At the junction the lady and the gentleman both got out, and I saw him help her into her train, which started first for the place whose name I had not caught. Then he got into his train, which was labelled "Castellinaria," and I went on without changing. A few days later, however, I returned to the junction, changed there and followed the accountant to Castellinaria, where I was going to see my friend Antonio, who happened to be engaged there on an engineering job. In the evening I told him about the lady in the restaurant-car. He laughed and said:

"But this lady is a particular friend of mine. She is often here, she returned two days ago and told me all this herself, only last night. If you would like to make her acquaintance I will take you to see her."

So we went to her hotel, which was not the Albergo della Madonna. She received us in her bedroom, for which she apologised charmingly--so charmingly as to make it appear the most natural thing in the world to be received by her in her bedroom. She remembered seeing me in the train, and begged me to sit down. She had a visitor--a gentleman. It was the gentleman who had paid for her luncheon in the restaurant-car. I was introduced, and he was, as I had supposed, an accountant. The lady was less elaborately clad than on the occasion of our previous meeting. Just as her other costume was precisely what it should have been for a restaurant-car, so this was precisely adapted to her present surroundings. She evidently understood dress. And very pretty it was to see her busying herself about the room, entertaining her guests and playing with her little dog. He was not the only little dog she had ever had. Her previous companion, who had been given her by a Neapolitan gentleman, died, and she wept for six weeks and was inconsolable until another friend gave her this one. She thought first of calling him Vesuvio, which was the name of his predecessor, but could not bring herself to do so. Then she had the inspiration to call him Etna, which suited him better, because he was a trifle bigger; it was also a kind of complimentary reference to her first love. While she told us this she was making coffee with a spirit lamp on the chest of drawers. She had a speciality for making coffee, and really it was quite drinkable.

She gave us the story of her life. She was the niece of a cardinal, in whose person were acc.u.mulated all the apostolic virtues, and her mother was a French lady of n.o.ble birth and almost incredible beauty, who, when Mary, or Mery as she prefers to write it, was about two months old, married the cardinal's coachman and had eleven more children. When one draws a conclusion from insufficient data, it is always satisfactory to discover, as one too seldom does, that one was right. I had been right about the gentleman being an accountant, and here I was right again in my surmise that the lady was exceptionally highly connected, so highly that one could overlook her mother's mesalliance with the coachman. Her uncle was only a bishop at the time of her birth, he became a cardinal soon after Mery's mother married the coachman, and then he forced the coachman to legitimise Mery, and in this way the coachman became Mery's legal father; and all this was part of a scheme to accelerate the ecclesiastical preferment of her uncle. Ah! but he was an ambitious man and aspired to the throne of S. Peter. His scheme failed, however, owing to the wicked intrigues of the Jesuits.

Parts of this might have borne, I do not say amplification, for it was quite long enough, but a word or two of elucidation. I have no doubt Mery would have been quite ready to explain everything, for she had nothing to conceal and the subject would have done as well as any other to display her feminine charm, but I did not interrupt, because I have observed that when a thorough woman of business undertakes to elucidate a point of law, she does it so much in the manner of Mrs. Nickleby that she not infrequently leaves it more obscure than she finds it. Mery did not expressly say she was a woman of business, she, in fact, disclaimed any such pretension, but she did it with a delightful mock modesty that forbade us to take her words literally.

No expense was spared over Mery's education. She was sent to a convent at Ma.r.s.eilles and the nuns were very kind to her, not because of her ecclesiastical connection, but because they were holy women with large and n.o.ble hearts. Before her education was completed, however, she was sent for to return home, and oh, what a home it was! Her mother's health had broken down because the cardinal beat her, her legal father drank instead of protecting his wife, the younger children were uncared-for and the elder children, though they were growing up, had not Mery's business capacity and powers of management. She put her shoulder to the wheel, did the marketing, the cooking and the cleaning; she washed and mended the children's clothes and saw to everything. She hated the life, but woman was born to suffer and she did her duty.

In time her next sister married a music-hall singer--I should say a dramatic artist. Mery, who was now entering upon the heyday of her youth and beauty, was naturally introduced to the friends of her sister's husband. Every man in the company fell in love with her; all the bachelors proposed, and without her natural firmness, reinforced by the teaching of the holy nuns, she could scarcely have escaped matrimony.

There was another thing that helped to save her--she was waiting for her anima gemella. I may here say that her anima gemella has not yet crossed her path and that her real age is twenty-seven. She told us this in confidence and it is not to go any further. For people in restaurant-cars she is any age she thinks proper at the moment, they do not matter, but she will never deceive her friends.

Her sister's husband was a man of real insight; he divined that Mery was a heaven-inspired dancer, and devoted himself to the development of her genius. She did not say he had taught her to dance; she said he encouraged and developed her natural genius for dancing. She made her debut with a success which the newspapers declared to be even more "phenomenal" than that which attends the debut of every artist.

Engagements followed, and soon she was dancing practically all over the globe, creating a furore wherever she went and leaving the younger children's socks to wash and darn themselves. Her mother was too ill and her legal father too drunk to know what she was doing or where she was doing it, but His Eminence heard and was so much scandalised that when she danced into the Eternal City the doors of the Vatican were closed to her. Cardinals are delightful men, most of them--and Mery knows because she is on terms of intimacy with every member of the College--but too frequently they have a fault; they do not understand the artistic temperament. Nevertheless, if her uncle could have heard the cheers that greeted her in Shanghai and New York, and the encores that called her back in Cairo and Calcutta, if he could have seen the flowers that choked the wheels of her carriage in St. Petersburg and the diamonds that were showered upon her in Brazil, even his commonplace heart must have been moved.

She did not dance for us because, it seems, they do not dance when they are resting, which was perhaps the psychological reason, but there was also a geographical reason in the want of s.p.a.ce, for the room was small and contained, besides Mery and Etna in one arm-chair, another arm-chair and two ordinary chairs occupied by her visitors; also there was the chest of drawers on which she had made the coffee and all such other articles of furniture as one usually sees in a hotel bedroom, including two beds. The extra bed was there because Mery was, she confessed it, of luxurious habits and in the hot weather liked to be able to change and finish the night in a cool bed.

Here there came a pause, not that she was exhausted, but something had happened about the little dog, who required attention. When Etna's business had been settled I thought it might be tactful if I suspended the inconvenience, as they say, so I asked Antonio whether we ought not to go and we begged leave to retire. She wished us good night in her frank, open way, thanked me for my visit, inquired how long I was staying in the town and concluded with the hope that I would call again, she never went out, so I should be sure to find her at any time. It should not be Addio, it should be Arrivederci.

There are few places where I am more at home than I am in Castellinaria, but as I had come there this time expressly to see Antonio he considered it his duty to look after me; he was engaged next day, however, so he deputed two of his friends to amuse me, and they invited me to come for a drive to the lighthouse. On the way, one of them said:

"And so Antonio took you yesterday to pa.s.s an intellectual evening with the cardinalessa."