Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions

by Henry Festing Jones

has perhaps been fishing for sponges off Sfax and may have returned with stories of the wonders of Tunis, and so she may have heard of a boulevard, but she is not affected by it. She makes her Nascita as the medieval painters made their pictures, and is not seeking to attract attention or to astonish or to advertise herself or to make money. Sicilians are all artists, and the Nascita is the girl’s pretext for making as close a representation as she can of the life to which she and her friends are accustomed. It is for her what the Shield of Achilles was for Homer, what the Falstaff scenes in King Henry IV were for Shakespeare, or what the Escape from Paris was for my buffo in Palermo.

MOUNT ERYX

CHAPTER IX
THE COMPARE

Michele Lombardo, a goldsmith of Trapani, came to me one day and said he wished me to be his compare. I at once had a vision of myself as a black man riding round a circus on a bare-backed horse and jumping through hoops. That was because, at the time, all my knowledge about a compare was derived from a conversation I had had in the house of the Greco family at Palermo. Among the photographs grouped on the wall was one of a pleasant-looking nigger in European costume. I asked who he was, and Carolina said he was an African, a compare. I asked what she meant and she said that her father had held the African’s niece at its cresima. The African’s name was Emanuele, but she had never known his family name. I asked whether he had a profession and she replied:

“Faceva cavallerizza.”

I knew no more about cavallerizza than about a compare or a cresima. She explained the first by saying that the horse goes round and Emanuele on the horse’s back performs gymnastics. That is, he used to do so, but he went to Paris, where a duchess saw him performing and, on account of his agility and his attractive physiognomy, fell in love with him. She was an Egyptian duchess and wore diamonds because she was rich. She was so rich she could do as she liked in other respects besides diamonds, and, liking to marry Emanuele, she did so and made him padrone of a grand hotel in Madrid or Vienna, I forget which, but it was a hotel of the first class, frequented by Russian princesses and American millionaires.

I told Michele about this and he assured me that his

proposal concealed no equestrian circus and no Egyptian duchess; to become his compare I should only have to hold his eldest son Pietro, aged seven, at his cresima. Here was an opportunity of solving the mysteries of the cresima and the compare, which Michele, who took my consent for granted, assured me would solve themselves as we proceeded. We went to the bishop’s palace and were shown into his private chapel, where the sagrestano entertained us with conversation while we waited. Only once before had he ever approached an Englishman, and that was at Messina. He was a very rich Englishman and a devout son of the Church; his card with his name and address was still preserved as a ricordo in the sagrestano’s house. This gentleman afterwards died in Naples under dramatic circumstances. He had stepped out one evening to take a mouthful of air, and on returning went upstairs to his room; as he put his latch-key into the door he fell down dead. By his will, which was found in the drawer of his writing-table, he bequeathed all his great wealth to the church of S. Antonio. I wanted to know whether this church is in Messina, or Naples, or England; or, it might be in America or Australia, for they sometimes speak of an Inglese Americano and of an Inglese Australiano. Once I took some of my superfluous luggage to a forwarding agent in Palermo to have it sent to England by piccola velocità. It included a figure of Buddha which I had bought in a curiosity-shop in Malta. The clerk declined to forward the image because it was a product of art, and such things may not be sent out of Italy. I said it was a product of religion; he accepted my correction and proposed to describe it in the form he was filling up as a Madonna. Again I objected, pointing out that anyone could see it was not a lady; it was Buddha. He was as puzzled as I had been over the compare. I attempted a short sketch from memory of Buddha’s life and works, and was so far successful that the figure travelled to London as a Cristo Indiano.

The arrival of the bishop cut short the sagrestano’s

reminiscences. There also came a woman with a baby in arms who was to receive its cresima at once, in case it might not live to reach Pietro’s discreet age of seven. The bishop in magnificent vestments of brocade and gold stood with his back to the altar; the woman with the baby knelt before him to his right and the sagrestano put his hand on the baby’s shoulder; Pietro knelt to the bishop’s left and I put my hand on his shoulder. The ceremony, it seems, is a partial repetition of the baptism, or a performance of a part omitted from the baptism, or it is an addition to the baptism—for I did not understand so fully as Michele said I should. Unless accelerated, as in the case of the baby, it takes place when the child is old enough to have mastered the more elementary teaching of the Church but does not yet understand enough to be confirmed; and it consists in the bishop’s using a great many words and gestures and making the sign of the Cross in oil on the child’s forehead. Almost before the oil was on, the sagrestano wiped it off with cotton-wool and the bishop, after cleaning his thumb with half a lemon which the sagrestano had thoughtfully placed on the altar, held out his ring to be kissed by the woman and by Pietro.