The roles are now reversed, and while landlords are
impoverished, the rich emigrant buys up the farms or makes his own terms
for work to be done, wages being trebled. A new type of peasant is being
evolved, independent of family, fatherland or traditions - with a sure
haven of refuge across the water when life at home becomes intolerable.
Yes; a change is at hand.
And another of those things which emigration and the new order of
affairs are surely destroying is that ancient anthropomorphic way of
looking at nature, with its expressive turns of speech. A small boy,
whom I watched gathering figs last year, informed me that the fig-tree
was innamorato delle pietre e cisterne - enamoured of stones and
cisterns; meaning, that its roots are searchingly destructive to masonry
and display a fabulous intuition for the proximity of water. He also
told me, what was news to me, that there are more than two or three
varieties of figs. Will you have his list of them? Here it is:
There is the fico arnese, the smallest of all, and the fico
santillo, both of which are best when dried; the fico vollombola,
which is never dried, because it only makes the spring fruit; the fico
molegnano, which ripens as late as the end of October and must be eaten
fresh; the fico coretorto (" wry-heart " - from its shape), which has
the most leathery skin of all and is often destroyed by grubs after
rain; the fico troiano; the fico arzano; and the fico vescovo,
which appears when all the others are over, and is eaten in February
(this may be the kind referred to in Stamer's "Dolce Napoli" as deriving
from Sorrento, where the first tree of its kind was discovered growing
out of the garden wall of the bishop's palace, whence the name). All
these are neri - black.
Now for the white kinds. The fico paradiso has a tender skin, but is
easily spoilt by rain and requires a ridiculous amount of sun to dry it;
ihe fico vottato is also better fresh; the fico pezzottolo is often
attacked by grubs, but grows to a large size every two or three years;
the fico pascarello is good up till Christmas; the fico natalino;
lastly, the fico - - , whose name I will not record, though it would
be an admirable illustration of that same anthropomorphic turn of mind.
The santillo and arnese, he added, are the varieties which are cut
into two and laid lengthwise upon each other and so dried (Query: Is not
this the "duplex ficus" of Horace?).
"Of course there are other kinds," he said, "but I don't remember them
just now." When I asked whether he could tell these different fig-trees
apart by the leaves and stems alone and without the fruit, he said that
each kind, even in winter, retained its peculiar "faccia" (face), but
that some varieties are more easy to distinguish than others. I enquired
into the mysteries of caprification, and learned that artificial
ripening by means of a drop of oil is practised with some of them,
chiefly the santillo, vollombola, pascarello and natalino. Then he
gave me an account of the prices for the different qualities and seasons
which would have astonished a grocer.
All of which proves how easy it is to misjudge of folks who, although
they do not know that Paris is the capital of France, yet possess a
training adapted to their present needs. They are specialists for things
of the grain-giving earth; it is a pleasure to watch them grafting vines
and olives and lemons with the precision of a trained horticulturist.
They talk of "governing" (governare) their soil; it is the word they
use in respect to a child.
Now figs are neither white nor black, but such is the terminology.
Stones are white or black; prepared olives are white or black; wine is
white or black. Are they become colour-blind because impregnated,
from earliest infancy, with a perennial blaze of rainbow hues -
colour-blinded, in fact; or from negligence, attention to this
matter not bringing with it any material advantage? Excepting that
sign-language which is profoundly interesting from an artistic and
ethnological point of view - why does not some scholar bring old lorio's
"Mimica degli Antichi" up to date? - few things are more worthy of
investigation than the colour-sense of these people. Of blue they have
not the faintest conception, probably because there are so few blue
solids in nature; Max Mueller holds the idea of blue to be quite
a modern acquisition on the part of the human race. So a cloudless sky
is declared to be "quite white." I once asked a lad as to the colour
of the sea which, at the moment, was of the most brilliant sapphire hue.
He pondered awhile and then said:
"Pare come fosse un colore morto" (a sort of dead colour).
Green is a little better known, but still chiefly connected with things
not out of doors, as a green handkerchief. The reason may be that this
tint is too common in nature to be taken note of. Or perhaps because
their chain of association between green and grass is periodically
broken up - our fields are always verdant, but theirs turn brown in
summer. Trees they sometimes call yellow, as do some ancient writers;
but more generally "half-black" or "tree-colour." A beech in full leaf
has been described to me as black. "Rosso" does not mean red, but
rather dun or dingy; earth is rosso. When our red is to be signified,
they will use the word "turco," which came in with the well-known
dye-stuff of which the Turks once monopolized the secret.
