The Land of Cockayne: A Novel

by Matilde Serao

Nor from that day that the saint's head was picked up and preserved, and the coagulated blood put into a phial, to this, has the saint ever ceased to protect Naples. In the maritime suburb, on the Maddalena Bridge, where the little stream Sebeto has to go under a stone arch, the patron saint's statue in marble looks at Vesuvius close at hand, and stands with two fingers raised in a commanding attitude. By that gesture the saint has prevented lava from coming into Naples during Vesuvius' tremendous eruptions; never will the lava dare to pass that limit. San Gennaro, with uplifted finger, says: 'Thou shalt go no further!' From the most ancient times, twice a year—in soft September, when his name-day occurs, and in flowery May—San Gennaro does the miracle of liquefying his blood before the people. Whilst here at Naples the blood in the phial boils up, making the straw fixed in the cold, dry clot move about, in Pozzuoli the blood on the marble block gets fresh and bright; and whoso standing on the shore has the eyes of faith sees the saint's livid, cut-off head floating in. The miracle is repeated twice every year. When it is later than the usual hour, it is a bad sign; it means a bad year: if he were not to do the miracle ... but the patron saint could not forsake his faithful city. In eruptions, epidemics, earthquakes, his hand is always raised to mitigate and overcome the scourge. All the common people have their own legends about him, besides the great legend of the miracles. The great saint was a Naples man, poor, of the people; there has not been a king, a prince or great lord who has visited San Gennaro's chapel without adding a splendid gift to the patron's wealth. Naples' common folk, to cry up their saint, go about saying proudly and tenderly, 'Even Vittorio! Even Vittorio!' which means that the great King Victor Emmanuel also brought his gift to the patron saint. In former days there were knights of San Gennaro, and his treasury was guarded with hierarchal pomp; the keys were under a solemn trust. There are no longer any knights; indeed, the order is abolished, and the old patrician pomp is rather diminished. But what of that? The saint is stronger than ever, powerful, miracle-working, safe in the people's heart as in an inviolable tabernacle.

That year the people's love for San Gennaro came out stronger than ever, as if a new rush of faith had fortified their souls. At a certain hour the traffic through Forcella and Tribunali was stopped; all who were leaving Naples or arriving had to make a long round to the station by Marina or Foria Road. The cabman told any annoyed fare who asked the reason of the endless journey, 'It was San Gennaro'; and touched his hat with his whip in compliment to the saint. He tried to hurry his horse, not for the sake of being obliging to his fare, but that he himself, after putting up his cab or by taking his stand with it at a street corner, might see San Gennaro's precious blood pass. If all the little streets were crowded with people, all the sumptuous balconies of the patricians' houses and the small, mean balconies alongside were swarming, and in the wide street by the cathedral the crowd was stupendous. That great road that goes down rather too steeply from the hill to the sea from Foria Road to Marina, which was the first surgical cut through old Naples (an energetic cut, but not well carried out; rather ferocious and ridiculous as regards architecture, but certainly sanitary—the Duomo Road, which is the Toledo of old Naples), had then all the majesty of its great days, when the popular flood alarms even those who count over its numbers proudly. People stretched up to Gerolomini and Pendino, above and below, in the two porticos to the right and left of the cathedral; they stood on the broad flight of steps, climbed on the gas-lamps, and even on the scaffolding that has been up so many years for repairs to the west front; there were people there close together, crushed in, choking in the open air, hanging on to iron girders or a beam, and balancing themselves in an extraordinary way on an insecure board. Sometimes a mother in the crowd held up her child to let it get air, and it waved its legs and arms rejoicingly for that throw into the gentle May air. The cathedral police vainly tried to make way for the procession, which was already formed in the church; but when they pushed back the crowd, it surged back again so strongly it went up against the façade of the church.

Suddenly from under the black arch of the great wide-open door, where some torches were burning in the background, solemn psalmody was heard, and the head of the procession appeared amidst silence and stillness in the crowd. Very, very slowly, with an almost imperceptible motion, the Naples religious orders came forward in advance. White and black monks, brown, shoeless, or in sandals, with cape or shaven head, singing holy San Gennaro's lauds, with wandering eyes, and holding bent torches, whose slender flame was hardly visible, being swallowed up by the sunlight. A little boy followed to pick up the great wax drops that fell from the torches. Dominicans, Benedictines, Franciscans, Verginisti, missionaries, Jesuits, monks, and priests in double file were flowing along, carried by the crowd, not looking at it, gazing at a far-off point on the horizon or on the ground. All mouths were open to sing the Latin psalms—severe, stem mouths, like the psalms that came from them, which rose in waves over the crowd's head; and involuntarily, as the religious orders moved along imperceptibly down towards Foria, the devout who knew the Divo Gennaro's Latin prayers joined in the solemn song, while many of the crowd, excited by the air and light and others singing, intoned a wordless psalmody, seized by a mystical fervour. From the bottom of the Duomo Road the crowd, advancing with the procession, went with open mouths; thousands of voices were solemnly singing, the wide sky swallowing up the sound. But those that went on towards Forcella did not leave the Duomo Road open: others took their place, and pushed them on; then, a string of parish priests and the canons of San Giovanni Maggiore having passed, there was a lively tumult among the people, showing evident interest and pleasure. It was caused by the slow filing-out of saints that go with Saint Gennaro, to do him honour in his chapel—there are forty-six of them, either whole statues or busts, in silver. These saints stand on litters, carried on four men's shoulders. These porters disappear among the crowd, so that the saint seems to go along miraculously by himself, all sparkling, over the people's heads. Very, very slowly, as I said, for the crowd was so dense, so congested, the statues sometimes stood motionless, while the people gazed on them with suffused eyes lingeringly, for Naples' devotion loves to feed at length on the sight of their special protectors, who are shut up in the treasury all the year, and only come out that day to bless the poor folk.

As every saint appeared under the dark vane of the great door and went through the people on the way to Santa Chiara by Forcella, there were shouts of joy. The first was Naples' other patron, one who comes next to San Gennaro as a protector, Sant' Antonio. He carries a staff with a tinkling bell on the top, and at his side is the head of the animal he loved. The bell swayed as the saint moved, and rang out cheerfully above the crowd, making them gay, so that they cried out: 'Sant' Antonio! Sant' Antonio!'

Excited, almost sobbing, Carmela, the cigar-girl, asked the saint's protection. He, too, loved an ugly beast, as she loved that ungrateful, hard-hearted Raffaele, called Farfariello. She had been pushed right into the telegraph-office in Duomo Road, and her strained face following his figure showed her hard life and privations plainer than ever. She gazed on the saint's shining face, he who had resisted so many temptations, imploring him to take that love out of her heart, and free her from love's temptations, for it made her gnawing poverty twice as hard.

'Sant' Antonio, Sant' Antonio!' the crowd shouted to the saint as he went off.

'Sant' Antonio, deliver me!' Carmela sobbed out, not knowing she had cried out, and that her neighbours were listening.

But one prays aloud in Naples, whether in the church or the street. Now the Archangel Michael, the triumphant warrior, appeared, tall and agile, in a splendid victorious pose, his dazzling corslet close to his young figure, a helmet on the fair, triumphant head, lance in hand to kill the dragon his foot presses down; Michael, mystic and war-like, saint and hero. Seeing him appear so handsome and breathing out triumph, with the devil wriggling vainly under his feet, the devout had an artistic feeling in their enthusiasm: San Michele was called on by thousands of voices.

Leaning against a column of the portico, to the right of the cathedral, was the Marquis di Formosa. He took off his hat in humble greeting of the brilliant Archangel, for whom he had great devotion; that combination of cherubim and warrior pleased his violent disposition and love of fighting so much. As the splendid, handsome saint came forward, for ever victorious, trampling on the dragon, the old Marquis prayed passionately and fervently that he might be enabled to overcome the dragon of poverty, shame and death that came against him every day; he implored great Michael, overthrower of the devil, to lend him his holy lance to kill the monster that threatened to devour him. San Michele went down the road to the sea also; he was so handsome, flaming with glory in the noon-day light, that the three syllables of his name were repeated over and over again, up and down, as fire runs along a powder-train: 'Michele! Michele! Michele!'

But San Rocco made a diversion, the saviour of the plague-stricken, the people's protector in all epidemics; he is dressed as a pilgrim, with mantle, hood, and staff; he raises the tunic to show the bare knee, with a sore carved on it, a sign of the plague. A faithful little dog follows him—so faithful that people say: 'San Rocco and his dog,' referring to inseparables. This strong friendship, the saint's rather queer figure, in a short cloak, and the dog following—this well-known story, excites affectionate hilarity among the crowd. They look on San Rocco as a dear, indulgent friend they can joke with, as he never gets in a rage.