Diversions in Sicily — 19 - Chapter XIX, Brancaccia

CHAPTER XIX--BRANCACCIA

After the players were gone I resumed my normal habits.

One morning, as Peppino and I were returning to colazione he asked me whether I had seen the procession down on the shore.

"Of course I saw it, but I did not know what it was all about."

"That," said he, "was the bishop; he go to bless the sea and pray God to send the tunnies.

Every spring shall be coming always the tunnies, but if to don't bless the sea, then to be coming few tunnies; if to bless the sea then to be coming plenty many tunnies."

"It was a beautiful procession," I said.

"I knew it was the bishop; I saw his mitre and the vestments and the gilded crosses and the smoke of the incense in the sunlight.

But do you think it is quite sportsmanlike to pray that many tunnies may be killed?"

"Yes," said Peppino, "it is right to pray to win the battle, and we battle the tunnies so we may pray."

"It is not quite the same thing," said I. "In battle the enemy has a religion too and can pray against us: it may be fair if both pray equally, especially if both have the same religion.

But it is taking a mean advantage of the poor tunnies to pray against them, for they have no religion."

"Perhaps they have," said Peppino.

"Perhaps they have Signor Vescovo down in the sea and make a procession with tunny priests very well dressed, and bells and banners and incense and singing, and to pray against the death and the boiling in oil, and to escape to be eaten."

"I should like to see that procession," I said.

I knew that Peppino had sporting instincts to which I could appeal because, a few days before, he had taken me into his room and shown me the cups he had won.

Some of them were English, for when in London he was not occupied as a waiter without intermission; his recreation was to retire from business occasionally for a few weeks, go into training and appear as a champion bicyclist.

So that, after my frugal chop and potato in Holborn, I had been in the habit of giving twopence to an athlete famous enough to have had his portrait in the illustrated papers--that is, if his recollection of me in Holborn was not his invention; anyhow, there were the cups.

It had come to pass by this time that Peppino and I took our meals together and we were attended by the waiter, a native of Messina, named Letterio.

This name is given to many of the boys of Messina, and the girls are called Letteria.

It seems that when St. Paul was at Messina the citizens gave him a congratulatory address for the Madonna; he took it back with him and gave it to her in Jerusalem.

She, in reply, sent them a letter in Hebrew which they have now in the cathedral.

At least they have a translation of it.

Or, to be exact, a translation of a translation of it.

The first translation was into Greek and the second into Latin.

This is the letter after which the children are baptized.

It is to be hoped they have another translation ready in Sicilian, or perhaps in Tuscan, to take its place in case anything should happen to it.

Letterio could not tell me the contents of the letter, but he knew it was in the Duomo and was his padrona, and was sure that, though only a translation, the meaning of the original had been religiously preserved.

Peppino never spoke a word to Letterio; he talked to me and gesticulated.

When he held out one hand flat and patted it with the other, I did not pay much attention to the gesture, assuming that he was merely emphasizing what he was saying to me, and that Letterio brought cutlets because it was time for them.

When he tumbled his hands rapidly one over the other and Letterio brought salad, I did not see that it was cause and effect.

But when he put his hand to his mouth as though drinking and Letterio brought another bottle of wine, I saw that Peppino had not been saying everything twice over to me, once with words and once with gestures, as a Sicilian usually does, but that he had been carrying on two independent conversations with two people simultaneously.

Talking about Letterio's name naturally led us to talk about baptisms, and so we returned to the subject of marriage.

Another friend of Peppino's was to be married that evening--yes, poor man!

The church was to bless the union at four o'clock next morning, after which the happy pair would drive down to the station in a cart, the side panels painted with scenes from the story of Orlando out of the marionette theatre, and the back panel with a ballet girl over the words "Viva la Divina Provvidenza."

Then they would take the train to Palermo for a honeymoon of three days.

The interval between the two ceremonies was to be spent in dancing and, if I liked, Peppino would take me to see it.

So in the evening we went to a house at the other end of the town, "far away--beyond the Cappucini," as Peppino said.

We entered by a back door which led directly into a small bedroom containing the music: one clarionet, a quartet of Saxhorns, and one trombone.

The room also contained four babies in one bed, and two more on a mattress on the floor, all peacefully sleeping.

These were the babies that had succumbed to the late hour, their mothers having brought them because they wanted their suppers, and would presently want their breakfasts.

We sat among the band and the babies for some time to get accustomed to the noise, and then passed into the room where the dancing was going on.

All round sat the friends and relations, some with babies, some without; and all the ladies very serious, the bride in the middle chair of a row along one wall was so desperately serious that she was quite forbidding.

As when the traveller asks the chambermaid if he can have his linen back from the wash in time to catch an early train, and notices an expression passing across her face as she replies, "Impossibilissimo!"

--well knowing that nothing is easier, only she wants an extra fifty centimes--even such an expression did I see not passing across the face of the bride, but frozen upon it as she sat with her back up against the wall frowning on the company.

Peppino said she was all right.

Brides have to behave like this; they consider it modest and maiden-like to appear to take no interest or pleasure in their wedding ceremonies.

The bridegroom was a very different sort of person--gay, alert and all the time dancing, talking, laughing and gesticulating with every one, as though his good spirits and vitality were inexhaustible.

The guests on the chairs left space for only two couples at a time.

At the first opportunity Peppino began to dance, choosing for his partner a young lady who was not merely the prettiest girl in the room, but the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.

She was also an exception to the other ladies in that she looked happy, especially when dancing with Peppino.

She had a quantity of fine, black, curly hair, a dark complexion and surprising eyes, like Love-in-a-mist when the morning sun shines on it, full of laughter and good humour.

Her eyelids, her nose and chin, her full lips and the curves of her cheeks were modelled with the delicate precision of a violin, and when she moved it was with that wave-o'-the-sea motion which Florizel observed in Perdita's dancing.

I

put her black hair and complexion down to some Arabian ancestor, and her blue eyes to some Norman strain.

"Who is that wonderfully beautiful girl you have been dancing with, Peppino?"

said I. He replied, with a rather bored air, that her name was Brancaccia, and that she was the daughter of a distant cousin of his father who kept a curiosity shop in the corso.

"How long has this been going on, Peppino?

Why did you never mention Brancaccia to me before?"

He replied in a tone, as though closing the discussion, that there had never been any reason to mention her, that he had known her all her life, and she was nothing to him.

I changed the subject and, saying it was a long time since I had been to a ball, asked if there was anything I ought to do.

He said that I was expected to dance.

Now my dancing days terminated many years ago when I was told that my dancing was the very prose of motion, but I did not want to say so, because I thought it just possible I might be allowed to dance with Brancaccia if I played my cards judiciously; so I merely said modestly I was afraid of knocking up against the other couple.

Peppino silenced this objection by promising to dance with me himself, and to see that all went well.

So I danced a waltz with Peppino.

He, of course, complimented me upon my proficiency, and told me I ought now to dance with the bridegroom.

So I danced another waltz with the bridegroom.

He then said it was expected that I should dance with the bride.

This naturally alarmed me, but I boldly asked her and she consented with a stiff bow: we performed a polka together and I restored her to her seat, feeling as though I had crossed from Siracusa to Valletta in a storm, more frightened than hurt, it is true, but glad it was over, especially as I now considered myself entitled to introduce the subject of dancing with Brancaccia.

Peppino received the proposition without enthusiasm, saying she was her own mistress and I could do as I liked.

"But first," he said, "there shall be a contraddanza; did you know what is contraddanza?

All right, I shall tell you.

A dancing man shall be crying to the people to do and they shall do, but if to don't know, better to don't dance or would come confusion; better to see and to expect."

"All right, Peppino," I said.

"I don't know enough about it; I will look on and wait, and when it is over I shall ask Brancaccia to dance a waltz with me."

Peppino paid no attention: he was off and busy superintending the preparations for the contraddanza.

Eight couples stood in the middle of the room, space being made for them by removing the chairs they left unoccupied, and by the remaining guests packing themselves more closely into the corners.

The dancers stood in a circle, men and women alternately, and the circle sometimes became a square, as in a quadrille, and sometimes two parallel rows, as in Sir Roger de Coverley.

One of the men dancers, shouting in dialect, gave short staccato directions which the others carried out.

This brightened up the party, and some of the women began to look less gloomy, but a week of contraddanze would not have brought the best of them up to the standard of Brancaccia.

I approached her and said-- "Signorina, will you do me the favour of dancing with me?"

Another man was about to make a similar request and the girl might have been in a difficulty had not Peppino, who happened to be hovering near, made a gesture and taken the other man away.

She rose and we danced a waltz.

As we went round and round I saw Peppino talking with the other man and watching us, and then it flashed into my head that he had planned all this.

He and Brancaccia were in love with one another, any one could tell that, and he wanted me to meet her so that he could talk to me about her afterwards.

I said to Brancaccia-- "What is Peppino saying to the gentleman?"

She, looking up and smiling, in an amused and friendly way, said-- "Oh!

Peppino is always talking to people."

"Some of them seem to enjoy his conversation."

"Do you mean the gentleman?"

she said, looking away.

"No, I do not," I replied, and she blushed delightfully.

As I led her back to her seat, I said, "If Peppino asks me about my partner, I shall tell him that I have just danced with the most beautiful and charming young lady in the world, and that her future husband, whoever he may be, will be an extremely fortunate man."

She replied, "Thank you very much, but I do not suppose Peppino will ask you anything about me."

"I shall tell him what I think of you whether he asks me or not," said I, bowing.

It was now nearly two o'clock and I got Peppino to take me away.

Remembering what Brancaccia had said, I began at once-- "What a wonderfully beautiful and charming girl Brancaccia is; she seems to me to be the most desirable young lady I have ever met."

There was a pause, and I added, "You are a bachelor, Peppino, Brancaccia is unmarried and she is quite different from all the other young ladies."

"That," he replied, "is what says my mother.

But womans it is always like that.

First she will be mother, not satisfied; then she will be grandmother, not satisfied."

"Of course, if you are too much occupied there is an end of the matter.

But, you know, you have as much time as any one else, twenty-four hours in the day, and some of the others find that enough.

Would not Brancaccia be exactly the woman to help you to run the albergo and to look after your parents in their old age?"

He admitted that she had the reputation of being an admirable housekeeper and that he had never heard anything against her.

So I went on and said all I could think of in favour of matrimony, to which he listened without attempting to interrupt.

I finished by saying that if he did marry Brancaccia and it turned out unsuccessful he was not to blame me.

He replied with great decision that I need not fear anything of the kind, for he had made up his mind never to marry any one, and certainly not Brancaccia.

* * * * * Soon after the wedding festa I returned to London.

Peppino and I exchanged several postcards, but Brancaccia's name was never mentioned in any of his.

After a year I received a letter from him.

{329} "CASTELLINARIA.

"PREGIATISSIMO E INDIMENTICABILE SIGNORE!

"Sono gia piu di dodeci mesi che non ho il piacere di vedere la sua grata persona sulla nostra spiaggia.

"Con vero piacere Le faccio sapere che mio caro padre gode buonissima salute e che desidera grandemente di rivederla.

"Tre mesi fa il mio cuore e stato distrutto, causa la salita al cielo della mia adorata mamma.

Non posso trovare parole per esprimerle il mio cordoglio.

Sarebbe stato meglio che il buon Dio avesse preso anche me, perche non prendero piu alcun piacere nella vita.

"Vi annuncio che Domenica prossima si celebrera il mio matrimonio.

"Non posso mai dimenticare la sua squisita cortesia ed il gentile pensiero che nutre a mio riguardo.

La prego credere che io sono ora, e per tutta la mia vita saro, a Lei legato di affezione, divozione e rispetto.

"PAMPALONE GIUSEPPE."

I replied in a letter of congratulation to the bride and bridegroom, wishing them every happiness, sending them a wedding present and promising to come and see them as soon as possible.

In due course I received a box of sugar-plums and a letter signed by Peppino and Brancaccia asking me to be godfather to their first son when he should he born--an honour which, of course, I accepted.

I trust that at the christening festa this book may not be thought unworthy to take the place of the more conventional silver mug.

THE END

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BECCLES.

Footnotes.

{151} [Greek text] offerings made at departure, a feast of Aphrodite at Eryx.

[Greek text] the festival of the return opp.

to [Greek text].

--Liddell and Scott's Lexicon.

{154} Taken partly from oral tradition and partly from _Le Glorie di Maria SS.

Immaculata_, _sotto il titolo di Custonaci_, by Maestro F. Giuseppe Castronuovo, and _Feste Patronali in Sicilia_, by Giuseppe Pitre.

Torino Palermo Carlo Clausen, 1900. {329} Translation: CASTELLINARIA.

MOST PRECIOUS AND UNFORGETTABLE SIR!

It is now more than twelve months since I had the pleasure of seeing your grateful person upon our shore.

I have real pleasure in telling you that my dear father is in the enjoyment of good health and greatly desires to see you again.

Three months ago my heart was destroyed in consequence of the ascent into heaven of my adored mamma.

I cannot find words to express to you my grief.

It would have been better if the good God had taken me as well, for I shall have no more pleasure in life.

I announce to you that on Sunday next my wedding will be celebrated.

I can never forget your exquisite courtesy and the kind thoughts you nourish with regard to me.

I beg you to believe that I am now, and for all my life shall be, bound to you by affection, devotion and respect.

PAMPALONE GIUSEPPE.

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