Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions Part 1

Castellinaria.

by Henry Festing Jones.

PREFACE

It is probable that every book contains, besides misprints, some statements which the author would be glad to modify if he could. In Chapter V of _Diversions in Sicily_ it is stated that the seating arrangements of the marionette theatre in Catania would be condemned by the County Council, which I believe to be correct, but, on visiting the theatre since, I find I was wrong in saying that there are no pa.s.sages; I did not see them on my first visit because the audience hid them.

Again, in Chapter XVI it is stated that Giovanni Gra.s.so enters in the third act of _La Morte Civile_, whereas he enters in the second act. I have since seen the play several times, and, though it is tedious, it is not so much so as to justify a spectator in thinking any of its acts long enough for two.

In Chapter IV I say that the Government makes an annual profit of 3,000,000 pounds sterling out of the lottery, but I do not say whether this profit is gross or net. There is a paragraph in the _Morning Post_, 12 September, 1911, which states clearly that never since the union of Italy has the State lottery been so productive as in the present year of Jubilee; the gross yield has been 3,715,088 pounds, and the net gain, after deducting commissions and prizes, 1,489,180 pounds.

In Chapter XV it is stated that the words of the play in Signor Greco's marionette theatre in Palermo are always improvised except in the case of _Samson_. This is incorrect. The words of the long play about the paladins are improvised, but they have in the theatre the MSS. of several religious plays by the author of _Samson_, who was a Palermitan, Filippo Orioles. All who are interested in the legends, folklore, popular entertainments, superst.i.tions, and traditions of the people of Sicily are under deep obligations to Giuseppe Pitre, of Palermo, Professore di Demopsicologia, for his numerous volumes treating of those subjects. In _Spettacoli e Feste Popolari Siciliane_ he gives the little that is known of Filippo Orioles, who died in 1793 at the great age of one hundred and six years. The subject of the most famous of his plays is the Pa.s.sion of Jesus Christ, and its t.i.tle in English signifies The Redemption of Adam.

It has had an immense success throughout Sicily; it has been copied in MS. many times, printed continually, performed over and over again in theatres, in churches, in the public squares, and in private houses. It was written for living actors, and Signor Greco considers it too long for a performance by marionettes, so when they do it in his teatrino they treat it even more freely than our London managers treat a play by Shakespeare. Copies are difficult to procure because their owners keep them jealously. Professore Pitre has, however, lately added to our obligations by publis.h.i.+ng a reprint of the play: _Il Riscatto d'Adamo nella Morte di Gesu Cristo_; Tragedia di Filippo Orioles, Palermitano; Riprodotta sulla edizione di 1750; con prefazione di G. Pitre. Palermo: Tipografia Vittoria Giliberti, Via Celso 93. 1909. A copy of this reprint is in the library of the British Museum.

Many of the friends who have helped me to write this book are named in the following pages, many more are unnamed. I hereby tender my thanks to all of them.

I specially thank Signor Cesare Coppo, of Casale-Monferrato, who, although he is not a Sicilian, has helped me in a manner which I will only hint at by saying that he could give a better account than I can of Peppino Pampalone, of Castellinaria.

To an English friend, Mr. Joseph Benwell Clark, I am indebted for the drawing on the t.i.tle-page and on the cover. When any of the audience leaves Signor Greco's marionette theatre in Palermo to smoke a cigarette or to drink a gla.s.s of water between the acts he receives a ticket with a picture of two fighting paladins, which he gives up on returning. I brought away one of these tickets as a ricordo of the marionettes. The picture is not very clear, because it is printed from a wood-block that has been a good deal worn. Mr. Clark has made from it a drawing which looks more like what the artist originally intended, and I trust that Signor Greco will not be angry with us for a.s.suming his permission to reproduce the picture.

In correcting the proof-sheets I have had the a.s.sistance of my sister, Miss Lilian Isabel Jones, and of my friend Mr. R. A. Streatfeild. I am much obliged to them both for the care which they have exercised.

I must not conclude without saying that Castellinaria still remains as in Chapter II of my previous book, "not so marked on any map of Sicily."

_September_, 1911

CASTELLINARIA

CHAPTER I

CHANGES IN THE TOWN

Enrico Pampalone entered the world with a compliment to his G.o.dfather, for of all the days in the year he chose to be born on my birthday.

Peppino sent me a telegram at once, then a formal invitation to the christening, then a letter, an extract from which I translate:

With immense joy I inform you that Brancaccia has given to the light a fine, healthy boy. Mother and child are well and send you their salutations. We are all beside ourselves with delight at this happy event and my father is talking of his grandson all day long. In accordance with your promise, you ought to hold the baby at the baptism, but, as I absolutely cannot permit you to undertake so long a journey for this purpose, I am sending you a formal doc.u.ment and I beg you to return it to me at once signed with your name in order that the ceremony may take place with as little delay as possible.

We are all looking forward to the pleasure of seeing you playing with your G.o.dchild which you will be able to do on your next visit.

The formal doc.u.ment was to the following effect:

WHEREAS I the undersigned have undertaken the duty of acting as G.o.dfather to Enrico the new-born son of Giuseppe and Brancaccia Pampalone of the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) Castellinaria Sicily AND WHEREAS I am detained in London for several weeks and desire that the baptism of the said infant shall not be delayed on that account NOW I DO HEREBY APPOINT Luigi Pampalone the father of the said Giuseppe Pampalone to be my subst.i.tute for me and in my name to hold the said Enrico Pampalone his grandson at the sacred font on the occasion of his baptism and to do all such other acts and deeds as may be necessary in the promises as fully and effectually as I could do the same if I were present in my own person I hereby agreeing to ratify and confirm all that the said Luigi Pampalone shall do by virtue of this writing AS WITNESS my hand this day of

I filled up the date, signed the doc.u.ment, and returned it to Peppino, and he told me all about the ceremony. By virtue of the christening I became the padrino of Enrico, who became my figlioccio, and I also became the compare of Peppino and Brancaccia and in some spiritual way a member of the family. Peppino sent me a post-card every week, and so I learnt that the baby was the finest ever seen, and weighed more and ate more than any baby that had ever been born in Castellinaria. Then there came information about the first tooth and the first intelligent, if unintelligible, sounds. Soon he was three months old, then six, then a year, and still I had not seen him.

When at last I returned to Sicily, he was more than a year old, and came down to the station to meet me. He laughed as soon as he saw me, threw away his india-rubber ball, and signified that he was to be given to me.

Whatever he wants is always done at once and, as he never wants anything unreasonable, the method is working out admirably. I took him from Brancaccia, and he nestled down in my arms, all the time gazing up at me with an expression of satisfied wonder, as though at last he understood something that had been puzzling him. Peppino was present, but effaced himself by helping Carmelo with what he calls my "luggages." I suppose I exchanged the usual greetings with the parents, but they did not count, I had seen them since their marriage; this time I had come to see Enrico.

There was some difficulty about getting into the carriage, because they thought I could not do it unless they took him away, and he did not want to be taken away. When we were settled, and Carmelo was driving us up the zig-zags, I said:

"Of course you don't expect me to know much about babies, not being married or anything--but isn't he an unusually fine child for his age?"

Brancaccia was much flattered and replied that recently, when they had bought him some new clothes, he took the size usually sold for babies of twice his age. This made Peppino laugh at his wife, and say that the compare might not know much about babies, but he knew how to get on the right side of Ricuzzu's mother.

"Why do you call him Ricuzzu?" I asked.

"Ricuzzu is Enrico in Sicilian."

"Then I shall call him Ricuzzu also."

"Of course, yes."

The motion of the carriage soon sent the child to sleep. I handed him back to Brancaccia, and looked at her as she sat with him in her arms.

She was more beautiful than before, because of something that has eluded the skill of all the painters who have striven to capture it for their hortus siccus of the Madonna and Child, something that Enrico had awakened in her heart, and that I saw glowing in her eyes and throbbing in all her movements.

"Isn't he like Peppino?" asked Brancaccia.

"He is the very image of Peppino," I replied; but I noticed that he also had Brancaccia's blue eyes, and was promising to have her black hair.

We arrived at the Albergo della Madonna (con giardino) and Peppino took me up to my room. Brancaccia had been before us, and had put an enormous bunch of flowers in water on the table to greet me. I went out on the balcony, just to make sure that the panorama was still there, and, after putting myself straight, descended into the garden, where I found Peppino waiting for me, and where we were to have tea in the English manner--"sistema Inglese," as Brancaccia said.

The English system is not always in working order at a moment's notice, so we had time for a walk round. The afternoon breeze was conducting a symphony of perfumes, and, as we strolled among the blossoms that were the orchestra, we could identify the part played by each flower; sometimes one became more prominent, sometimes another, but always through the changing harmonies we could distinguish the stately canto fermo of the roses, counterpointed with a florid rhythm from the zagara.

If Flaubert had been writing in Sicilian, he could have said "una corona di zagara," or, in English, "a wreath of orange-blossoms," and he need not have worried himself to death by trying to elude the recurrent "de"

of "une couronne de fleurs d'oranger." There was also music of another kind coming from a pa.s.sero solitario (the blue rock thrush) who was hanging in a cage in a doorway. We spoke to him, and he could not have made more fuss about us if we had been the King of Italy and the Pope of Rome paying him a visit.

I said, "Aren't you pleased with your beautiful garden, Peppino?"

He replied, "Yes, and other things too. Sometimes I am cross with my life; but I think of Brancaccia and the baby, and I look around me, and then I says to myself, 'Ah, well, never mind! Be a good boy!'"

Presently we came to a fountain which, when I turned a tap, twisted round and round, spouting out graceful, moving curves, and the drops fell in the basin below and disturbed the rose-leaves that were sleeping on the water. I also found an image of the Madonna and Bambino in a corner, with an inscription in front promising forty days' indulgence to anyone who should recite devoutly an Ave before it. I understood this as well as one who is not a Roman Catholic can be said to understand such a promise, and better than I understood another image to which Peppino called my attention. It was a small coloured crockery S. Giuseppe, standing on the top of the wall and looking into the garden, protected by a couple of tiles arranged over him as an inverted V, and held in place by dabs of mortar.

I said, "Why do you keep your patron saint on the wall like that?"

He replied that it had nothing to do with him. The land over the wall belongs to the monks, and they put the saint up to gaze into the garden in the hope that Peppino's father might thereby become gradually illuminated with the idea of giving them a piece of his land; they wanted it to join to their own, which is rather an awkward shape just there.

The influence of S. Giuseppe had already been at work four years, but Peppino's father still remained obstinately unilluminated.

Carmelo brought the tea and set a chair for Ricuzzu, who has his own private meals like other babies but likes to sit up to the table and watch his father and mother having theirs, occasionally honouring their repast by trying his famous six--or is it seven?--teeth upon a crust, which he throws upon the ground when he has done with it. So we all four sat together in the shade of the j.a.panese medlar-tree and talked about the changes in the town since my last visit.

First Peppino repeated something he had told me last time I was there, before Ricuzzu was born. It was about the horror of that fatal night when he heard his father crying in the dark; he went to his parents' room to find out what was the matter, and heard the old man babbling of being lost on Etna, wandering naked in the snow. Peppino struck a light, which woke his father from his dream, but it did not wake his mother. She had been lying for hours dead by her husband's side.

When the body was laid out and the watchers were praying by it at night, the widower sat in a chair singing. He was not in the room with the body, he had his own room, and his song was unlike anything Peppino had ever heard; it had no words, no rhythm, no beginning and no end, yet it was not moaning, it was a cantilena of real notes. It seemed to be a comfort to him in his grief to pour these lamenting sounds out of his broken heart. All the town came to the funeral, for the family is held in much respect, and there were innumerable letters of condolence and wreaths of flowers. When it was over, Peppino wrote a paragraph which appeared in the _Corriere di Castellinaria_:

A tutte le pie cortesi persone che con a.s.sistenza, con scritti, con l'intervento ai funebri della cara sventurata estinta, con adornarne di fiori l'ultima manifestazione terrena desiderarono renderne meno acre it dolore, ringraziamenti vivissimi porge la famiglia PAMPALONE.