VIRGINIA GOES TO CONFIRMATION.
Virginia wakes with the greyest of the dawn. It is a fine day for her—one that will never come again till the day she is married and then—are there not graver responsibilities therewith? The ‘remnant’ has been enough to make a gown as quaint as any little maiden could desire, but this little maiden has a fear lest it should be too quaint, lest the girls of the walnut-grove should eclipse her! New shoes, a new kerchief, and the lace veil go far, however, to restore her complacency.
The family get under way, and set off towards the church, Virginia walking two paces in front of the rest, as befits so great a personage. Upon the piazza she must fall into the ranks of children of her own parish, for many other parishes have sent candidates to this Cresima. So they enter. The organ-loft is thronged with parents and relations, and other spectators have climbed to the gallery which encircles the roof; the nave is exclusively reserved for the priests and their prey. Behind and around a barricade covered with crimson damask, the candidates are ranged in methodically-moving ranks, while the bishop and his priests stand in the midst, ready to perform upon each advancing boy or girl. The organ sounds, it plays merry waltzes and pathetic love-songs, with now and then a warlike march. ‘Il nostro Arcivescovo’ stands and mutters low, whilst he dabs each newly-presented cheek with oil from his sacred phial, and anoints each separate ear. Then the chaplain wipes the oil off again, and for each the deed has been done. ‘What a mercy it didn’t drop upon my dress,’ thinks Virginia, and fans herself with her first fan, and feels her new earrings. How nice it is to be a figlia di prima communione, but alas, how many more there are still to have the oil, and how long it will be before we can eat plums again and climb for apricots!
At last the great day is drawing to its close. Everybody has amused themselves well. There was so much fine music, you might almost fancy you were at the opera—from what we’ve heard tell of it! And so much beautiful damask and false flowers and incense! Paradise could not much excel such a place, especially as everyone had their best things on!
‘Did you see Marrina? Not pure wool, that! And Tomasina—well, hers was a real silk stripe in the material. But Tomasina is proud! I wouldn’t be proud like that—I’d as soon have a bordato gown!’ says one. ‘And the holy man’s sermon! That did make one laugh! He doesn’t know much about us, that’s evident! Would have made the prevosto out to be a saint!’ continues another.
‘The Prevosto knows better than to come over us with such nonsense! As if he were the Madonna’s own friend! Patience, they’ve got to be so in church! And of course it’s only right a priest should talk fine when he gets into the pulpit or the confessional! Where would our poor souls be otherwise?’ objects a third.
Everybody has had their dinner. The Archbishop and the priests ate Catterina’s mushrooms and risotto and polpette, while Virginia had real holiday ravioli, with plenty of honour and glory for condiment. To-morrow mother Maddalena will have enough to do thinking of her family as a whole, but to-day Virginia is the child par excellence.
After dinner there is more congregating, more admiring of garments; then more church, when the great man sings vespers in a splendid cope, and Virginia still keeps on her frock, if not her veil, and rests content that she looks as well as little Bianca of the village on the hill. But now it is all over. The fine trappings are put away—the church’s damasks stored in the press of the Sacristy, and Virginia’s frock in an old oaken chest at home. The Arcivescovo is gone, and the walnuts will soon be ripe, with the chestnut harvest coming quickly on. Virginia has her rags on again and is up the trees, but she has not forgotten her vestito di lana, nor how la Cresima has made a woman of her.
In Villeggiatura. Town Folk in the Country.
La Signora Pareto lives in town—Via degl’Uffiziali, No. 4. She lives at the top of 149 steps, on the sixth floor of a very new and very pink house in the most recent suburbs of the city. It takes such a long time and, when one has only one maid-servant, and is blessed with six children, time is a precious thing—it takes such a long time and, for a lady of la Signora Pareto’s goodly proportions, it takes so many more long breaths than she can, in wisdom, spare to get up those said hundred and forty-nine steps, that, it may safely be stated, neither mamma nor children go out for a walk more than once a month. What would you have? Children would wear their very souls to rags if the good Lord weren’t wiser than to leave souls in people’s own keeping, and you couldn’t let folk see them in plain things any more than you can let them wear out their best ones: that is only natural!