I thought of my poor mother who used to say:
“But, my dear, if you never go to church what hold have you over the servants?”
At the time, I remember, I pigeon-holed her problem among others that are still awaiting solution, and she died before I realised how well she had translated into the language of modern Bayswater the “Paris vaut bien une Messe” of Henri Quatre.
“If you want to see faith,” said Peppino Di Gregorio, “why don’t you stay and go to the festa of S. Alfio at Trecastagne? You might even see a miracle there.”
It seems that when anyone is in hospital with a broken leg after an accident or suffering from any illness, especially hernia, he cries in his despair, making use of this form:
“O, S. Alfio! cure me of this illness, restore my broken leg or cure my hernia” (or as may be) “and for the love of my wife, of my children, of my mother” (or as may be) “I will run naked to Trecastagne and light a candle before your shrine.”
After making this vow, the patient recovers and then he must not fail. With any other saint there may be failure, but not with S. Alfio, for he is more powerful than the Madonna or than the Padre Eterno or than the Redeemer. He is the Padrone and performs miracles.
“But how long should I have to stay? When is this festa?”
It would not be till the 10th of May, nearly six weeks ahead, and that made it a matter requiring consideration and, as it was now half-past seven and dark, we had to leave off talking and start for the lava.
Those of our friends who had made the excursion before were delightful as company, but we hardly wanted them as guides, because the way was shown by hundreds of people who were returning, many of them carrying torches, and we only had to walk in the opposite direction. We also carried a light—the acetylene lamp off Ninu’s bicycle, and it functioned as inefficiently as the bull’s-eye lantern which Mr. Pickwick took with him on his nocturnal expedition at Clifton. The road was broad enough, but strewn with big lumps of lava lying half-hidden in lava sand. I stumbled frequently, but I never fell, because one of my friends was always at my elbow and caught me; either it was the brave brigadier or Alessandro or Joe or the other Peppino or that great hulking Ninu with his operatic smile lighted up by his fitful lamp. They took care of me all the way until, after about an hour, we turned into a vineyard, called the Contrada Fra Diavolo, and our progress was stopped by a sloping embankment over twenty feet high.