Chapter 78

In the rear of the church are some splendid specimens of the umbrella-like Italian pine. Here we found, also, a pretty little ruin,--it might be Greek and--it might be Druid for anything that appeared, ivy-clad, and suggesting a religion older than that of the convent. To the east we look into a fertile, terraced ravine; and beyond to a precipitous brown mountain, which shows a sharp outline against the sky; halfway up are nests of towns, white houses, churches, and above, creeping along the slope, the thread of an ancient road, with stone arches at intervals, as old as Caesar.

We descend, skirting for some distance the monastery walls, over which patches of ivy hang like green shawls. There are flowers in profusion, scented violets, daisies, dandelions, and crocuses, large and of the richest variety, with orange pistils, and stamens purple and violet, the back of every alternate leaf exquisitely penciled.

We descend into a continuous settlement, past shrines, past brown, sturdy men and handsome girls working in the vineyards; we descend --but words express nothing--into a wonderful ravine, a sort of refined Swiss scene,--high, bare steps of rock butting over a chasm, ruins, old walls, vines, flowers. The very spirit of peace is here, and it is not disturbed by the sweet sound of bells echoed in the passes. On narrow ledges of precipices, aloft in the air where it would seem that a bird could scarcely light, we distinguish the forms of men and women; and their voices come down to us. They are peasants cutting grass, every spire of which is too precious to waste.

We descend, and pass by a house on a knoll, and a terrace of olives extending along the road in front. Half a dozen children come to the road to look at us as we approach, and then scamper back to the house in fear, tumbling over each other and shouting, the eldest girl making good her escape with the baby. My companion swings his hat, and cries, "Hullo, baby!" And when we have passed the gate, and are under the wall, the whole ragged, brown-skinned troop scurry out upon the terrace, and run along, calling after us, in perfect English, as long as we keep in sight, "Hullo, baby!" "Hullo, baby!" The next traveler who goes that way will no doubt be hailed by the quick-witted natives with this salutation; and, if he is of a philological turn, he will probably benefit his mind by running the phrase back to its ultimate Greek roots.

A DRY TIME

For three years, once upon a time, it did not rain in Sorrento. Not a drop out of the clouds for three years, an Italian lady here, born in Ireland, assures me. If there was an occasional shower on the Piano during all that drought, I have the confidence in her to think that she would not spoil the story by noticing it.

The conformation of the hills encircling the plain would be likely to lead any shower astray, and discharge it into the sea, with whatever good intentions it may have started down the promontory for Sorrento. I can see how these sharp hills would tear the clouds asunder, and let out all their water, while the people in the plain below watched them with longing eyes. But it can rain in Sorrento. Occasionally the northeast wind comes down with whirling, howling fury, as if it would scoop villages and orchards out of the little nook; and the rain, riding on the whirlwind, pours in drenching floods. At such times I hear the beat of the waves at the foot of the rock, and feel like a prisoner on an island. Eden would not be Eden in a rainstorm.

The drought occurred just after the expulsion of the Bourbons from Naples, and many think on account of it. There is this to be said in favor of the Bourbons: that a dry time never had occurred while they reigned,--a statement in which all good Catholics in Sorrento will concur. As the drought went on, almost all the wells in the place dried up, except that of the Tramontano and the one in the suppressed convent of the Sacred Heart,--I think that is its name.

It is a rambling pile of old buildings, in the center of the town, with a courtyard in the middle, and in it a deep well, boring down I know not how far into the rock, and always full of cold sweet water. The nuns have all gone now; and I look in vain up at the narrow slits in the masonry, which served them for windows, for the glance of a worldly or a pious eye. The poor people of Sorrento, when the public wells and fountains had gone dry, used to come and draw at the Tramontano; but they were not allowed to go to the well of the convent, the gates were closed. Why the government shut them I cannot see: perhaps it knew nothing of it, and some stupid official took the pompous responsibility. The people grumbled, and cursed the government; and, in their simplicity, probably never took any steps to revoke the prohibitory law. No doubt, as the government had caused the drought, it was all of a piece, the good rustics thought.

For the government did indirectly occasion the dry spell. I have the information from the Italian lady of whom I have spoken. Among the first steps of the new government of Italy was the suppression of the useless convents and nunneries. This one at Sorrento early came under the ban. It always seemed to me almost a pity to rout out this asylum of praying and charitable women, whose occupation was the encouragement of beggary and idleness in others, but whose prayers were constant, and whose charities to the sick of the little city were many. If they never were of much good to the community, it was a pleasure to have such a sweet little hive in the center of it; and I doubt not that the simple people felt a genuine satisfaction, as they walked around the high walls, in believing that pure prayers within were put up for them night and day; and especially when they waked at night, and heard the bell of the convent, and knew that at that moment some faithful soul kept her vigils, and chanted prayers for them and all the world besides; and they slept the sounder for it thereafter. I confess that, if one is helped by vicarious prayer, I would rather trust a convent of devoted women (though many of them are ignorant, and some of them are worldly, and none are fair to see) to pray for me, than some of the houses of coarse monks which I have seen.

But the order came down from Naples to pack off all the nuns of the Sacred Heart on a day named, to close up the gates of the nunnery, and hang a flaming sword outside. The nuns were to be pulled up by the roots, so to say, on the day specified, and without postponement, and to be transferred to a house prepared for them at Massa, a few miles down the promontory, and several hundred feet nearer heaven. Sorrento was really in mourning: it went about in grief. It seemed as if something sacrilegious were about to be done. It was the intention of the whole town to show its sense of it in some way.

The day of removal came, and it rained! It poured: the water came down in sheets, in torrents, in deluges; it came down with the wildest tempest of many a year. I think, from accurate reports of those who witnessed it, that the beginning of the great Deluge was only a moisture compared to this. To turn the poor women out of doors such a day as this was unchristian, barbarous, impossible. Everybody who had a shelter was shivering indoors. But the officials were inexorable. In the order for removal, nothing was said about postponement on account of weather; and go the nuns must.

And go they did; the whole town shuddering at the impiety of it, but kept from any demonstration by the tempest. Carriages went round to the convent; and the women were loaded into them, packed into them, carried and put in, if they were too infirm to go themselves. They were driven away, cross and wet and bedraggled. They found their dwelling on the hill not half prepared for them, leaking and cold and cheerless. They experienced very rough treatment, if I can credit my informant, who says she hates the government, and would not even look out of her lattice that day to see the carriages drive past.

And when the Lady Superior was driven away from the gate, she said to the officials, and the few faithful attendants, prophesying in the midst of the rain that poured about her, "The day will come shortly, when you will want rain, and shall not have it; and you will pray for my return."

And it did not rain, from that day for three years.

And the simple people thought of the good Superior, whose departure had been in such a deluge, and who had taken away with her all the moisture of the land; and they did pray for her return, and believed that the gates of heaven would be again opened if only the nunnery were repeopled. But the government could not see the connection between convents and the theory of storms, and the remnant of pious women was permitted to remain in their lodgings at Massa. Perhaps the government thought they could, if they bore no malice, pray as effectually for rain there as anywhere.

I do not know, said my informant, that the curse of the Lady Superior had anything to do with the drought, but many think it had; and those are the facts.

CHILDREN OF THE SUN

The common people of this region are nothing but children; and ragged, dirty, and poor as they are, apparently as happy, to speak idiomatically, as the day is long. It takes very little to please them; and their easily-excited mirth is contagious. It is very rare that one gets a surly return to a salutation; and, if one shows the least good-nature, his greeting is met with the most jolly return. The boatman hauling in his net sings; the brown girl, whom we meet descending a steep path in the hills, with an enormous bag or basket of oranges on her head, or a building-stone under which she stands as erect as a pillar, sings; and, if she asks for something, there is a merry twinkle in her eye, that says she hardly expects money, but only puts in a "beg" at a venture because it is the fashion; the workmen clipping the olive-trees sing; the urchins, who dance about the foreigner in the street, vocalize their petitions for un po' di moneta in a tuneful manner, and beg more in a spirit of deviltry than with any expectation of gain. When I see how hard the peasants labor, what scraps and vegetable odds and ends they eat, and in what wretched, dark, and smoke-dried apartments they live, I wonder they are happy; but I suppose it is the all-nourishing sun and the equable climate that do the business for them. They have few artificial wants, and no uneasy expectation--bred by the reading of books and newspapers--that anything is going to happen in the world, or that any change is possible. Their fruit-trees yield abundantly year after year; their little patches of rich earth, on the built-up terraces and in the crevices of the rocks, produce fourfold. The sun does it all.

Every walk that we take here with open mind and cheerful heart is sure to be an adventure. Only yesterday, we were coming down a branch of the great gorge which splits the plain in two. On one side the path is a high wall, with garden trees overhanging. On the other, a stone parapet; and below, in the bed of the ravine, an orange orchard. Beyond rises a precipice; and, at its foot, men and boys were quarrying stone, which workmen raised a couple of hundred feet to the platform above with a windlass. As we came along, a handsome girl on the height had just taken on her head a large block of stone, which I should not care to lift, to carry to a pile in the rear; and she stopped to look at us. We stopped, and looked at her. This attracted the attention of the men and boys in the quarry below, who stopped work, and set up a cry for a little money. We laughed, and responded in English. The windlass ceased to turn. The workmen on the height joined in the conversation. A grizzly beggar hobbled up, and held out his greasy cap. We nonplussed him by extending our hats, and beseeching him for just a little something. Some passers on the road paused, and looked on, amused at the transaction. A boy appeared on the high wall, and began to beg. I threatened to shoot him with my walkingstick, whereat he ran nimbly along the wall in terror The workmen shouted; and this started up a couple of yellow dogs, which came to the edge of the wall and barked violently. The girl, alone calm in the confusion, stood stock still under her enormous load looking at us. We swung out hats, and hurrahed. The crowd replied from above, below, and around us, shouting, laughing, singing, until the whole little valley was vocal with a gale of merriment, and all about nothing. The beggar whined; the spectators around us laughed; and the whole population was aroused into a jolly mood. Fancy such a merry hullaballoo in America. For ten minutes, while the funny row was going on, the girl never moved, having forgotten to go a few steps and deposit her load; and when we disappeared round a bend of the path, she was still watching us, smiling and statuesque.

As we descend, we come upon a group of little children seated about a doorstep, black-eyed, chubby little urchins, who are cutting oranges into little bits, and playing "party," as children do on the other side of the Atlantic. The instant we stop to speak to them, the skinny hand of an old woman is stretched out of a window just above our heads, the wrinkled palm itching for money. The mother comes forward out of the house, evidently pleased with our notice of the children, and shows us the baby in her arms. At once we are on good terms with the whole family. The woman sees that there is nothing impertinent in our cursory inquiry into her domestic concerns, but, I fancy, knows that we are genial travelers, with human sympathies. So the people universally are not quick to suspect any imposition, and meet frankness with frankness, and good-nature with good-nature, in a simple-hearted, primeval manner. If they stare at us from doorway and balcony, or come and stand near us when we sit reading or writing by the shore, it is only a childlike curiosity, and they are quite unconscious of any breach of good manners. In fact, I think travelers have not much to say in the matter of staring. I only pray that we Americans abroad may remember that we are in the presence of older races, and conduct ourselves with becoming modesty, remembering always that we were not born in Britain.

Very likely I am in error; but it has seemed to me that even the funerals here are not so gloomy as in other places. I have looked in at the churches when they are in progress, now and then, and been struck with the general good feeling of the occasion. The real mourners I could not always distinguish; but the seats would be filled with a motley gathering of the idle and the ragged, who seemed to enjoy the show and the ceremony. On one occasion, it was the obsequies of an officer in the army. Guarding the gilded casket, which stood upon a raised platform before the altar, were four soldiers in uniform. Mass was being said and sung; and a priest was playing the organ. The church was light and cheerful, and pervaded. by a pleasant bustle. Ragged boys and beggars, and dirty children and dogs, went and came wherever they chose--about the unoccupied spaces of the church. The hired mourners, who are numerous in proportion to the rank of the deceased, were clad in white cotton,--a sort of nightgown put on over the ordinary clothes, with a hood of the same drawn tightly over the face, in which slits were cut for the eyes and mouth. Some of them were seated on benches near the front; others were wandering about among the pillars, disappearing in the sacristy, and reappearing with an aimless aspect, altogether conducting themselves as if it were a holiday, and if there was anything they did enjoy, it was mourning at other people's expense. They laughed and talked with each other in excellent spirits; and one varlet near the coffin, who had slipped off his mask, winked at me repeatedly, as if to inform me that it was not his funeral. A masquerade might have been more gloomy and depressing.

SAINT ANTONINO

The most serviceable saint whom I know is St. Antonino. He is the patron saint of the good town of Sorrento; he is the good genius of all sailors and fishermen; and he has a humbler office,--that of protector of the pigs. On his day the pigs are brought into the public square to be blessed; and this is one reason why the pork of Sorrento is reputed so sweet and wholesome. The saint is the friend, and, so to say, companion of the common people. They seem to be all fond of him, and there is little of fear in their confiding relation. His humble origin and plebeian appearance have something to do with his popularity, no doubt. There is nothing awe-inspiring in the brown stone figure, battered and cracked, that stands at one corner of the bridge, over the chasm at the entrance of the city. He holds a crosier in one hand, and raises the other, with fingers uplifted, in act of benediction. If his face is an indication of his character, he had in him a mixture of robust good-nature with a touch of vulgarity, and could rough it in a jolly manner with fishermen and peasants. He may have appeared to better advantage when he stood on top of the massive old city gate, which the present government, with the impulse of a vandal, took down a few years ago. The demolition had to be accomplished in the night, under a guard of soldiers, so indignant were the populace. At that time the homely saint was deposed; and he wears now, I think, a snubbed and cast-aside aspect. Perhaps he is dearer to the people than ever; and I confess that I like him much better than many grander saints, in stone, I have seen in more conspicuous places. If ever I am in rough water and foul weather, I hope he will not take amiss anything I have here written about him.

Sunday, and it happened to be St. Valentine's also, was the great fete-day of St. Antonino. Early in the morning there was a great clanging of bells; and the ceremony of the blessing of the pigs took place,--I heard, but I was not abroad early enough to see it,--a laziness for which I fancy I need not apologize, as the Catholic is known to be an earlier religion than the Protestant. When I did go out, the streets were thronged with people, the countryfolk having come in for miles around. The church of the patron saint was the great center of attraction. The blank walls of the little square in front, and of the narrow streets near, were hung with cheap and highly-colored lithographs of sacred subjects, for sale; tables and booths were set up in every available space for the traffic in pre-Raphaelite gingerbread, molasses candy, strings of dried nuts, pinecone and pumpkin seeds, scarfs, boots and shoes, and all sorts of trumpery. One dealer had preempted a large space on the pavement, where he had spread out an assortment of bits of old iron, nails, pieces of steel traps, and various fragments which might be useful to the peasants. The press was so great, that it was difficult to get through it; but the crowd was a picturesque one, and in the highest good humor. The occasion was a sort of Fourth of July, but without its worry and powder and flowing bars.

The spectacle of the day was the procession bearing the silver image of the saint through the streets. I think there could never be anything finer or more impressive; at least, I like these little fussy provincial displays,--these tag-rags and ends of grandeur, in which all the populace devoutly believe, and at which they are lost in wonder,--better than those imposing ceremonies at the capital, in which nobody believes. There was first a band of musicians, walking in more or less disorder, but blowing away with great zeal, so that they could be heard amid the clangor of bells the peals of which reverberate so deafeningly between the high houses of these narrow streets. Then follow boys in white, and citizens in black and white robes, carrying huge silken banners, triangular like sea-pennants, and splendid silver crucifixes which flash in the sun. Then come ecclesiastics, walking with stately step, and chanting in loud and pleasant unison. These are followed by nobles, among whom I recognize, with a certain satisfaction, two descendants of Tasso, whose glowing and bigoted soul may rejoice in the devotion of his posterity, who help to bear today the gilded platform upon which is the solid silver image of the saint. The good old bishop walks humbly in the rear, in full canonical rig, with crosier and miter, his rich robes upborne by priestly attendants, his splendid footman at a respectful distance, and his roomy carriage not far behind.

The procession is well spread out and long; all its members carry lighted tapers, a good many of which are not lighted, having gone out in the wind. As I squeeze into a shallow doorway to let the cortege pass, I am sorry to say that several of the young fellows in white gowns tip me the wink, and even smile in a knowing fashion, as if it were a mere lark, after all, and that the saint must know it. But not so thinks the paternal bishop, who waves a blessing, which I catch in the flash of the enormous emerald on his right hand. The procession ends, where it started, in the patron's church; and there his image is set up under a gorgeous canopy of crimson and gold, to hear high mass, and some of the choicest solos, choruses, and bravuras from the operas.

In the public square I find a gaping and wondering crowd of rustics collected about one of the mountebanks whose trade is not peculiar to any country. This one might be a clock-peddler from Connecticut. He is mounted in a one-seat vettura, and his horse is quietly eating his dinner out of a bag tied to his nose. There is nothing unusual in the fellow's dress; he wears a shiny silk hat, and has one of those grave faces which would be merry if their owner were not conscious of serious business on hand. On the driver's perch before him are arranged his attractions,--a box of notions, a grinning skull, with full teeth and jaws that work on hinges, some vials of red liquid, and a closed jar containing a most disagreeable anatomical preparation. This latter he holds up and displays, turning it about occasionally in an admiring manner. He is discoursing, all the time, in the most voluble Italian. He has an ointment, wonderfully efficacious for rheumatism and every sort of bruise: he pulls up his sleeve, and anoints his arm with it, binding it up with a strip of paper; for the simplest operation must be explained to these grown children. He also pulls teeth, with an ease and expedition hitherto unknown, and is in no want of patients among this open-mouthed crowd. One sufferer after another climbs up into the wagon, and goes through the operation in the public gaze. A stolid, good-natured hind mounts the seat. The dentist examines his mouth, and finds the offending tooth. He then turns to the crowd and explains the case. He takes a little instrument that is neither forceps nor turnkey, stands upon the seat, seizes the man's nose, and jerks his head round between his knees, pulling his mouth open (there is nothing that opens the mouth quicker than a sharp upward jerk of the nose) with a rude jollity that sets the spectators in a roar. Down he goes into the cavern, and digs away for a quarter of a minute, the man the while as immovable as a stone image, when he holds up the bloody tooth. The patient still persists in sitting with his mouth stretched open to its widest limit, waiting for the operation to begin, and will only close the orifice when he is well shaken and shown the tooth. The dentist gives him some yellow liquid to hold in his mouth, which the man insists on swallowing, wets a handkerchief and washes his face, roughly rubbing his nose the wrong way, and lets him go. Every step of the process is eagerly watched by the delighted spectators.