“Ebbene, siamo quà!” (“Well, here we are!”)
This sort of thing formerly used to make me feel nervous; it was as though I had failed to entertain my friends or as though they had given up the hope of entertaining me. After experiencing it several times, however, I came to take a different and more accurate view. There was no occasion to do or say anything. We were enjoying one another’s society.
Vanni told us he was thinking of taking a cargo of Marsala to England and what
would the English people say to it? Now the Marsala was very good and, according to Vanni, could be put upon the market at a very low price, but I foresaw difficulties. Knowing that he had sung in opera in Naples, Palermo, Malta and many other places, I asked if he liked music. He said he adored it. Music, he declared, was the most precious gift of God to man—more precious even than poetry. He had his box at the opera and always occupied it during the season. And he enjoyed music of all kinds, not only the modern operas of Mascagni, Puccini and so on, but also the old music of Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini. I asked if he did not like Le Nozze di Figaro. He had never heard of it, nor of Don Giovanni, nor of Fidelio. He had heard the names of Beethoven and Mozart, but not of Handel, Schubert or Brahms. He had heard also of Wagner, but had never heard any of his music.
I was not surprised he should not have heard of those composers who are not famous for operas, nor by his odd list of so-called old musicians, but I was surprised that he should place music so decidedly above poetry. I said it appeared to me he had practically
expressed the opinion that Donizetti was a more precious gift of God to man than Dante. Put like that, he did not hold to what he had said and confessed he had been speaking without due consideration. But Peppino said that in some respects Donizetti was a better man than Dante; he was smoother and better tempered, “and many things like this.” Peppino had been brought up, like every Italian, to worship Dante, but when he went to London and mastered the English language, when he began to read our literature and to think for himself, then he saw that Dante was “un falso idolo.” Every nation gets the poet she deserves and Italy has her faults; but what, asked Peppino, what has Italy done to deserve her dreary Dante? On the other hand, with all his admiration for England, he could hardly believe that we really do deserve our Shakespeare.
I was beginning to feel giddy, as though the Sorella di Ninu, instead of being quietly in port, was out on the tumbling ocean in a sudden gale, so very unusual is it to hear such opinions in Italy. But Peppino is full of surprises. To recover my balance I turned the conversation back to the wine, taking
my way through the music and telling them that in England we thought very highly of the Austrian and German composers, and asking Vanni if he would recommend any one to introduce their compositions into Sicily. He replied that if it was pleasing music it might be successful, but that if it was very different from Italian music it would hardly pay to bring it over until the people had been educated. I feared it would be the same with the wine. He must first educate us to forsake our old friends, beer, whisky and tea, before he could create a market on which he could put his Marsala.
Driving back, I told Peppino about the lottery at Castelvetrano and how my numbers had lost. He inquired whether my birthday fell during the week I bought the ticket. It did not.
“Then,” said he, “of course you could not be winning and Angelo very stupid to let you play those numbers.”