Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions

by Henry Festing Jones

First Peppino repeated something he had told me last time I was there, before Ricuzzu was born. It was about the horror of that fatal night when he heard his father crying in the dark; he went to his parents’ room to find out what was the matter, and heard the old man babbling of being lost on Etna, wandering naked in the snow. Peppino struck a light, which woke his father from his dream, but it did not wake his mother. She had been lying for hours dead by her husband’s side.

When the body was laid out and the watchers were praying by it at night, the widower sat in a chair singing. He was not in the room with the body, he had his own room, and his song was unlike anything Peppino had ever heard; it had no words, no rhythm, no beginning and no end, yet it was not moaning, it was a cantilena of real notes. It seemed to be a comfort to him in his grief to pour these lamenting sounds out of his broken heart. All the town

came to the funeral, for the family is held in much respect, and there were innumerable letters of condolence and wreaths of flowers. When it was over, Peppino wrote a paragraph which appeared in the Corriere di Castellinaria:

A tutte le pie cortesi persone che con assistenza, con scritti, con l’intervento ai funebri della cara sventurata estinta, con adornarne di fiori l’ultima manifestazione terrena desiderarono renderne meno acre it dolore, ringraziamenti vivissimi porge la famiglia Pampalone.

He showed me this and waited while I copied it. When I had finished he went on, talking more to himself than to me:

“The life it is not the same when we are wanting someone to be here that is gone away. When we were young and this person was living, things it was so; now we can understand this person who is gone, and things it is other. This is not a good thing. Now is the time this dear person should be living; now would we be taking much care.”

For many weeks they feared lest the father might follow the mother, but he began to take a new interest in life on the day when Peppino brought home his bride, and when Ricuzzu was born he soon became almost his old self.

“Things it is like that,” said Peppino; “the young ones are coming to dry the eyes that have tears in them because the old ones are going away.”

Brancaccia’s attention was occupied by the tea and the baby, and by trying to follow Peppino’s talk. He has been giving her English lessons and, though she has not yet got much beyond saying, “Me no speakare l’Inglese,” she is quick enough to know what he is talking about, especially as she has heard most of it before. She now said a few words in dialect, evidently reminding him of something, and he at once began to tell me about their wedding tour. He had told me some of it last time I was there, and how he had wanted to take his bride to England and show her London, but they had not time enough, and that journey

has been put off for some future occasion. They went to Venice, which was a particularly suitable place, because his cousin Vanni was there with his ship, the Sorella di Ninu, unloading a cargo of wine; they crossed by night to Naples, and Peppino showed Brancaccia Pompeii and all the sights; then they went to Rome for a few days and on, through Florence, to Venice. They stayed there a week, and then Vanni, having unloaded his wine, took them down the Adriatic and brought them safely home again.