"There Is Nothing Like It On Earth, And
I Have Been Six Times To America, Sir.
The artist - a real artist, mind
you, not a common professor - spent his whole life in carving it.
It was
for the church, you see, and he wanted to show what he could do in the
way of a masterpiece. Then, when it was finished and in its place, the
priests refused to pay for it. It was made not for them, they said, but
for the glory of God; the man's reward was sufficient. And besides, he
could have remission of sins for the rest of his life. He said he did
not care about remission of sins; he wanted money - money! But he got
nothing. Whereupon he began to brood and to grow yellow. Money - money!
That was all he ever said. And at last he became quite green and died.
After that, his son took up the quarrel, but he got as little out of the
priests as the father. It was fixed in the church, you understand, and
he could not take it away. He climbed through the window one night and
tried to burn it - the marks are there to this day - but they were too
sharp for him. And he took the business so much to heart that he also
soon died quite young! And quite green - like his father."
The most characteristic item in the above history is that about growing
green. People are apt to put on this colour in the south from
disappointment or from envy. They have a proverb which runs "sfoga o
schiatta" - relieve yourself or burst; our vaunted ideal of
self-restraint, of dominating the reflexes, being thought not only
fanciful but injurious to health. Therefore, if relief is thwarted,
they either brood themselves into a green melancholy, or succumb to a
sudden "colpo di sangue," like a young woman of my acquaintance who,
considering herself beaten in a dispute with a tram-conductor about a
penny, forthwith had a "colpo di sangue," and was dead in a few hours. A
primeval assertion of the ego . . .
Unable to perambulate the streets of Morano, I climbed to the ruined
fortress along the verdant slope at its back, and enjoyed a fair view
down the fertile valley, irrigated by streamlets and planted with
many-hued patches of culture, with mulberries, pomegranates and poplars.
Some boys were up here, engaged in fishing - fishing for young kestrels
in their nest above a shattered gateway. The tackle consisted of a rod
with a bent piece of wire fixed to one end, and it seemed to me a pretty
unpromising form of sport. But suddenly, amid wild vociferations, they
hooked one, and carried it off in triumph to supper. The mother bird,
meanwhile, sailed restlessly about the aether watching every movement,
as I could see by my glasses; at times she drifted quite near, then
swerved again and hovered, with vibrating pinions, directly overhead. It
was clear that she could not tear herself away from the scene, and
hardly had the marauders departed, when she alighted on the wall and
began to inspect what was left of her dwelling. It was probably rather
untidy. I felt sorry for her; yet such harebrained imprudence cannot go
unpunished. With so many hundred crannies in this old castle, why choose
one which any boy can reach with a stick? She will know better next season.
Then an old shepherd scrambled up, and sat on the stone beside me. He
was short-sighted, asthmatic, and unable to work; the doctor had
recommended an evening walk up to the castle. We conversed awhile, and
he extracted a carnation out of his waistcoat pocket - unusual receptacle
for flowers - which he presented to me. I touched upon the all-absorbing
topic of mules.
"Mules are very busy animals in Morano," he explained. "Animali
occupatissimi." However, he promised to exert himself on my behalf; he
knew a man with a mule - two mules - he would send him round, if possible.
Quite a feature in the landscape of Morano is the costume of the women,
with their home-dyed red skirts and ribbons of the same hue plaited into
their hair. It is a beautiful and reposeful shade of red, between
Pompeian and brick-colour, and the tint very closely resembles that of
the cloth worn by the beduin (married) women of Tunisia. Maybe it was
introduced by the Saracens. And it is they, I imagine, who imported that
love of red peppers (a favourite dish with most Orientals) which is
peculiar to these parts, where they eat them voraciously in every form,
particularly in that of red sausages seasoned with these fiery condiments.
The whole country is full of Saracen memories. The name of Morano, they
say, is derived from moro, [Footnote: This is all wrong, of course.
And equally wrong is the derivation from moral, a mulberry - abundant
as these trees are. And more wrong still, if possible, is that which is
drawn from a saying of the mysterious Oenotrians - that useful
tribe - who, wandering in search of homesteads across these regions and
observing their beauty, are supposed to have remarked: Hic moremur -
here let us stay! Morano (strange to say) is simply the Roman Muranum.]
a Moor; and in its little piazza - an irregular and picturesque spot,
shaded by a few grand old elms amid the sound of running waters - there
is a sculptured head of a Moor inserted into the wall, commemorative, I
was told, of some ancient anti-Saracen exploit. It is the escutcheon of
the town. This Moor wears a red fez, and his features are painted black
(this is de rigueur, for "Saracens "); he bears the legend Vivit
sub arbore morus. Near at hand, too, lies the prosperous village
Saracena, celebrated of old for its muscatel wines. They are made from
the grape which the Saracens brought over from Maskat, and planted all
over Sicily. [Footnote: See next chapter.]
The men of Morano emigrate to America; two-thirds of the adult and
adolescent male population are at this moment on the other side of the
Atlantic.
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