Yes, truly this is the great event to which we look forward, and we have been thinking of it ever since the San Giovanni, when it was given out in church. No wonder that the mother has been saving her soldi very zealously, for after the Cresima Virginia must make her prima communione, and Pietro’s wife would suffer a good deal of privation rather than not make a fitting show with each of her girls on such an event. Even the child herself grumbles at no loss of bird-nesting or fruit-stealing when it comes to such a grave matter as making a better figure than anyone else! She is only nine years old, and knows no more of the mighty problems that she will have to believe ere the week is out, than does any other little girl of the same age who has run wild all her life among the brambles. But the Archbishop does not come round very often, and many of the children must needs be confirmed as young.
So Marrina, the sempstress, sets to work upon the little lithe figure, and, though she has plenty to do with all the other confirmation children, she will make a grown-up little gown, that shall fit to the childish form as the mother’s fits to full and ripe proportions—a little gown that will set in at the waist and fall down to the ankles, with beautiful trimming on the sleeves, and buttons up the front: henceforth Virginia will be a woman. Then to vie with the new frock Virginia has a pair of new shoes, a little black apron, and a transparent veil arranged over the tightly-plaited hair and falling over the proud little childish face. What finer costume could any town-child boast?
The great day is here. It is August—an August so hot and so dry that even the sturdy contadini have been murmuring at such heat for harvesting. The wheat has been gathered in, and the vines upon their trellises stand out brighter than ever against the shorn hillsides. Those damsels who have care of the church were at work all yesterday; they swept, and washed, and garnished, and then they adorned the sanctuary with those choicest of adornments that only come out on the best of all the feste. Above the great picture of Rachel at the Well there are draperies of amber damask, and the high altar is profusely laden with every description of artificial flower, with tinsel stars and hearts and gaudy streamers. ‘Truly it will look well when the wax candles are alight,’ says Nettina, whose work are the paper flowers! Upon the side altars hang gorgeous embroideries, and around the pictures and the organ-loft more of the orthodox crimson damask.
It is evening: six o’clock. He will soon be here. For he is to arrive to-night, and to address the flock briefly from the church steps, before he retires to rest his portly form under the Parroco’s humble roof. The Cresima will be given to-morrow morning at seven.
Caterina, the Parroco’s servant, is in a fever of flurry and nervousness, for he is the Archbishop, and he brings two Cappellani with him! Besides which there will be all the neighbouring clergy to dinner to-morrow, at mid-day! Bontà di Dio! The bells are at work merrily—so merrily that no one can hear the first of the popguns that shall announce the approach of his Holiness. Six of the handsomest village swains have gone up the mountain to meet him. Swains of the village whence he comes, will bear him in sedan chair to the confines of the parish, but on San Matteo’s frontier it will be San Matteo’s duty to provide for the progress of the guest. So six of our best grown lads have gone up the road as far as the turn where, if you went up with them, you would have a view of valleys and mountains that stretch as far away as to the sea. The Signor Prevosto is nervous. He stands upon the church porch in canonicals and snaps at Frà Giuseppe, who, also in canonicals, offers curious suggestions as to means and manners.
‘Here are baskets and enough of plucked flowers,’ says he, ‘but no one is ready to shower them before his Holiness! Pick me out two clean girls from among you to do this work!’
There are many ‘clean’—even pretty—girls among the village damsels, much prettier girls than those daughters of townfolk in villeggiatura, but the contadine are all too bashful, even whilst longing for so prominent a post, and it is only just as the pop-guns go off again, and the bells cease jangling because the great man is close by, that two maidens are found, who, being children of Maso, the baker, feel themselves worthy of so mighty an office. ‘Eccolo, eccolo!’ The piazza is full of people, and with one voice they raise the shout. His shoes with the bright steel buckles rest against the foot-board of a lowly sedan chair! His purple stockings have not been too grand to be donned for ‘us lowly peasants!’ His broad, red face beams on the company, and his sacerdotal hat crowns all, as the baker’s girls strew their gorse and daisies! Truly, the village swains have been honoured in bearing so goodly a burden! They rest, and mop their hot brows as l’Arcivescovo descends to greet the people, and, ascending the church steps, prepares to give them his friendly address.
Dio! how short it is! One has barely time to note the folds of his garments, the shape of his cuffs, or the turn of his hat! But he is tired and hungry, povero sant’ uomo! And does not the whole village know that Caterina has a supper prepared that would tempt the Lord himself to forget his duty? All the priests, big and little, file off through the piazza and through the gateway; they go past the oratory and under the campanile, and up into the Prevosto’s garden. The Archbishop is very fat; he has to be helped up the broken stone steps that lead to the piazzetta, where vines hang and climb on the pergola, where gourds ripen in the sun, and the fountain trickles and the cherries lie drying in flat baskets. The Prevosto makes many excuses for his lowly fare and lowlier habitation; but is it not the will of the Holy Church that he should have no better? The great man and his chaplains eat their supper bravely, nevertheless, whilst the villagers gather in knots to talk them over; then they all go to bed until the daybreak of the morrow.
