. . .
I Accepted The Kindly Proffered Invitation Of The Priests To Share Their
Dinner; They Held Out Hopes Of Some Sort Of Sleeping Accommodation As
Well.
It was a patriarchal hospitality before that fire of logs (the
night had grown chilly), and several other guests partook of it,
forestal inspectors and such-like notabilities - one lady among them who,
true to feudal traditions, hardly spoke a word the whole evening.
I was
struck, as I have sometimes been, at the attainments of these country
priests; they certainly knew our Gargantuan novelists of the Victorian
epoch uncommonly well. Can it be that these great authors are more
readable in Italian translations than in the original? One of them took
to relating, in a strain of autumnal humour, experiences of his life in
the wilds of Bolivia, where he had spent many years among the Indians;
my neighbour, meanwhile, proved to be steeped in Horatian lore. It was
his pet theory, supported by a wealth of aptly cited lines, that Horace
was a "typical Italian countryman," and great was his delight on
discovering that I shared his view and could even add another - somewhat
improper - utterance of the poet's to his store of illustrative quotations.
They belonged to the old school, these sable philosophers; to the days
when the priest was arbiter of life and death, and his mere word
sufficient to send a man to the galleys; when the cleverest boys of
wealthy and influential families were chosen for the secular career and
carefully, one might say liberally, trained to fulfil those responsible
functions. The type is becoming extinct, the responsibility is gone, the
profession has lost its glamour; and only the clever sons of pauper
families, or the dull ones of the rich, are now tempted to forsake the
worldly path.
Regarding the origin of this festival, I learned that it was
"tradition." It had been suggested to me that the Virgin had appeared to
a shepherd in some cave near at hand - the usual Virgin, in the usual
cave; a cave which, in the present instance, no one was able to point
out to me. Est traditio, ne quaeras amplius.
My hosts answered questions on this subject with benignant ambiguity,
and did not trouble to defend the divine apparition on the sophistical
lines laid down in Riccardi's "Santuari." The truth, I imagine, is that
they have very sensibly not concerned themselves with inventing an
original legend. The custom of congregating here on these fixed days
seems to be recent, and I am inclined to think that it has been called
into being by the zeal of some local men of standing. On the other hand,
a shrine may well have stood for many years on this spot, for it marks
the half-way house in the arduous two days' journey between San Severino
and Castro-villari, a summer trek that must date from hoary antiquity.
Our bedroom contained two rough couches which were to be shared between
four priests and myself. Despite the fact that I occupied the place of
honour between the two oldest and wisest of my ghostly entertainers,
sleep refused to come; the din outside had grown to a pandemonium. I lay
awake till, at 2.30 a.m., one of them arose and touched the others with
a whispered and half-jocular oremus! They retired on tiptoe to the
next room, noiselessly closing the door, to prepare themselves for early
service. I could hear them splashing vigorously at their ablutions in
the icy water, and wondered dreamily how many Neapolitan priests would
indulge at that chill hour of the morning in such a lustrai rite,
prescribed as it is by the rules of decency and of their church.
After that, I stretched forth at my ease and endeavoured to repose
seriously. There were occasional lulls, now, in the carnival, but
explosions of sound still broke the stillness, and phantoms of the
restless throng began to chase each other through my brain. The exotic
costumes of the Albanian girls in their green and gold wove themselves
into dreams and called up colours seen in Northern Africa during still
wilder festivals - negro festivals such as Fro-mentin loved to depict. In
spectral dance there flitted before my vision nightmarish throngs of
dusky women bedizened in that same green and gold; Arabs I saw, riding
tumultuously hither and thither with burnous flying in the wind; beggars
crawling about the hot sand and howling for alms; ribbons and flags
flying - a blaze of sunshine overhead, and on earth a seething orgy of
colour and sound; methought I heard the guttural yells of the
fruit-vendors, musketry firing, braying of asses, the demoniacal groans
of the camels - -
Was it really a camel? No. It was something infinitely worse, and within
a few feet of my ears. I sprang out of bed. There, at the very window,
stood a youth extracting unearthly noises out of the Basilicata bagpipe.
To be sure! I remembered expressing an interest in this rare instrument
to one of my hosts who, with subtle delicacy, must have ordered the boy
to give me a taste of his quality - to perform a matutinal serenade, for
my especial benefit. How thoughtful these people are. It was not quite 4
a.m. With some regret, I said farewell to sleep and stumbled out of
doors, where my friends of yesterday evening were already up and doing.
The eating, the dancing, the bagpipes - they were all in violent
activity, under the sober and passionless eye of morning.
A gorgeous procession took place about midday. Like a many-coloured
serpent it wound out of the chapel, writhed through the intricacies of
the pathway, and then unrolled itself freely, in splendid convolutions,
about the sunlit meadow, saluted by the crash of mortars, bursts of
military music from the band, chanting priests and women, and all the
bagpipers congregated in a mass, each playing his own favourite tune.
The figure of the Madonna - a modern and unprepossessing image - was
carried aloft, surrounded by resplendent ecclesiastics and followed by a
picturesque string of women bearing their votive offerings of candles,
great and small.
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