Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions

by Henry Festing Jones

“That will not signify. We must leave room for the imagination to play—not too much, but it is a mistake to be too exact. There must be some mystery which the public can take in any way they choose. It is like the nuts on the bicycle, they must not be left loose, but they must not be screwed too tight.”

I gave way, saying: “I suspect you are right. It flatters the spectators to feel that they are helping the performance by using their imagination. And if they don’t understand—well, they can think they do and that flatters them again. And there is another reason why we must not tell the public everything—it would take too long.”

“Ah yes! We must not bore the public or they will not come again to the teatrino, and then where would the money come from to pay for my singing lessons?”

So we let the Cold Dawn follow among the rest. There were half a dozen rollicking blue-jackets off the warship in the port, they had been spending the evening with their girls and were escaping with them. When I objected that Paris was a sea-port town only in a Bohemian sense, he replied that that was enough for him; and when I said that if the sailors really had a ship anywhere near, they would have done better to escape by sea, he complained that I was being fastidious.

There were soldiers arm-in-arm and singing, they had been interrupted while drinking in a wine-shop in a side street off the Via Macqueda and were saving the marsala which they had not finished.

After them came the maresciallo dei carabinieri in the uniform he wears for a festa, with a plume in his three-cornered hat. He was a broad, beefy fellow, taller than the soldiers, being made of a marionette who is usually a giant. He came swinging along, all so big and so burly, followed by a lady, showily dressed, who walked mincingly and was saving a pair of pink satin shoes and a powder-puff. She

kept calling to him to stop, she wanted to speak to him. But he would not listen, he was not going to pay any attention to her—not in his gala uniform, it would not have been proper. Besides, there were people looking.

A blind musician with a broken nose and a falsetto voice was led by his mate who carried a ‘cello. An interrupted wedding party followed, and school-children with their professors, sick people out of the hospital with doctors and nurses to help them, and a rabble of water-sellers, shoe-blacks, pedlars and men pushing carts.

Then followed the paladinessa Ettorina still mad, so mad that they were dragging her along and forcing her to escape while she struggled to get free and did not want to go, because a mad person does not understand danger. And paladins and warriors came—Amantebrava, Lungobello, Ottonetto and many more whose names I do not remember.

Last of all came Pope Gregorio III. He was not one to leave the city till the last of his flock had been saved. He wore his tiara and was in white robes with a red cross front and back; he carried his crosier in his left hand and on his right thumb was a diamond ring which sparkled as he blessed the people. So he passed with his Secretary of State, his cardinals, his bishops, his monsignori, his acolytes, his chamberlains, his Guardia Nobile and his Swiss Guard; some carried lighted candles, some carried banners and others crosses; some were swinging incense and others were intoning the psalm In Exitu Israel. The solemn pomp of the procession disappeared into the opening of the subterranean road and the sound of the singing could no longer be heard. They were all safely gone. The stage was empty. Yet the curtain did not fall.