Infants, they are carried there; adults,
they carry their own offspring; grey-beards, their tottering steps are
still supported by kindly and sturdier fellow-wanderers.
Popes and emperors no longer scramble up these slopes; the spirit of
piety has abated among the great ones of the earth; so much is certain.
But the rays of light that strike the topmost branches have not yet
penetrated to the rank and seething undergrowth. And then - what else can
one offer to these Abruzzi mountain-folk? Their life is one of
miserable, revolting destitution. They have no games or sports, no
local racing, clubs, cattle-shows, fox-hunting, politics, rat-catching,
or any of those other joys that diversify the lives of our peasantry. No
touch of humanity reaches them, no kindly dames send them jellies or
blankets, no cheery doctor enquires for their children; they read no
newspapers or books, and lack even the mild excitements of church
versus chapel, or the vicar's daughter's love-affair, or the squire's
latest row with his lady - nothing! Their existence is almost bestial in
its blankness. I know them - I have lived among them. For four months in
the year they are cooped up in damp dens, not to be called chambers,
where an Englishman would deem it infamous to keep a dog - cooped up amid
squalor that must be seen to be believed; for the rest of the time they
struggle, in the sweat of their brow, to wrest a few blades of corn from
the ungrateful limestone. Their visits to the archangel - these vernal
and autumnal picnics - are their sole form of amusement.
The movement is said to have diminished since the early nineties, when
thirty thousand of them used to come here annually. It may well be the
case; but I imagine that this is due not so much to increasing
enlightenment as to the depopulation caused by America; many villages
have recently been reduced to half their former number of inhabitants.
And here they kneel, candle in hand, on the wet flags of this foetid and
malodorous cave, gazing in rapture upon the blandly beaming idol, their
sensibilities tickled by resplendent priests reciting full-mouthed Latin
phrases, while the organ overhead plays wheezy extracts from "La Forza
del Destino" or the Waltz out of Boito's "Mefistofele"... for sure, it
must be a foretaste of Heaven! And likely enough, these are "the poor in
heart" for whom that kingdom is reserved.
One may call this a debased form of Christianity. Whether it would have
been distasteful to the feelings of the founder of that cult is another
question, and, debased or not, it is at least alive and palpitating,
which is more than can be said of certain other varieties. But the
archangel, as was inevitable, has suffered a sad change. His fairest
attribute of Light-bringer, of Apollo, is no longer his own; it has been
claimed and appropriated by the "Light of the World," his new master.
One by one, his functions have been stripped from him, all save in name,
as happens to men and angels alike, when they take service under
"jealous" lords.
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