The Land of Cockayne: A Novel

by Matilde Serao

At the high altar, his face turned to heaven, breathing intense faith, his voice trembling with overpowering emotion, the Cardinal Archbishop was saying the Latin prayers in honour of Naples' high protector. The whole crowd responded with a long thundering 'Amen!' 'Amen!' came from Santa Chiara's patrician nuns, hidden behind the choir grating.

After the Oremus, a moment's silence followed; the fore-running breath of great things seemed to pass over the praying people. San Gennaro's relations at the high altar intoned the Credo in Italian impetuously, and the whole church took it up; that ended, there were two minutes of uneasy waiting, to see if the miracle was beginning. But a second, a third Credo was soon taken up with vigour, as if the whole people declared its belief, swore it on their conscience, gave themselves over to faith in spirit and truth, impetuously. The Cardinal Archbishop, kneeling, his hands covering his face, prayed on in silence. The Credo went on behind him, intoned at short intervals by San Gennaro's relations, and carried on by the whole people. A solemn note stood out here and there amid the general rumble from a desolate heart, a sharp note struck off tortured nerves.... 'I believe!' shouted the people, with a break in the voice which seemed to denote a thousand prayers, vows, and hopes.

Ah! Luisella Fragalà, too, seated in a corner beside the melancholy Signora Parascandolo, was a profound believer. Tears, caused by her excited religious feelings, ran down her cheeks silently. She had a dark presentiment of coming misfortune; she felt it, without seeing or making out what it was, but sure that it was on its way inexorably. She asked San Gennaro for strength, such as he had in his frightful martyrdom, to bear the mysterious catastrophe that was coming on her. Signora Parascandolo was saying the Creed too with the people in a feeble voice; but in the almost frightened pauses, while waiting for the imminent miracle, she, bereaved of her children, begged San Gennaro to grant her a grace, to take her from this land of exile, whence all her children were gone, leaving her alone, groping in the cold and darkness. Rosy Agnesina's happy mother, just like the unhappy mother who was wounded in the past, as she was to be in the future, asked for strength to conquer or to die.

But at the fifteenth Credo uneasiness began among the multitude; the words of faith sounded shrilly, like a challenge flung to unbelievers, but they had a quiver of secret dread; the pauses between each Credo got longer as the depression of waiting wore out their nerves, then it was taken up again enthusiastically, as if the renewed rush of feeling was terrible, as is the way with crowds.

The wildest in mystic enthusiasm were the old people at the high altar; from behind them a flame ran from one heart to another, carrying the devouring fire into soft indolent temperaments, even to the hearts of sceptics, who trembled as if a rude revolution had struck them and was clearing their eyes. At the twenty-first Credo there was anguish in the expectation. All eyes went from the saint's head on the gold dish to the clear crystal phial with its clot of dark blood. The head, in its gemmed mitre and yellow gold mask, sparkled with metallic, rather livid reflections; the blood was still congealed, a stone that prayers could not break. At the twenty-second Credo, intoned with a burst of rage, some shouts were heard, calling out desperately:

'San Gennaro! San Gennaro! San Gennaro!'

The feverish prayers recited by the multitude in Santa Chiara, which humbly, forcibly, tremblingly implored a miracle from Naples' holy patron, were fervently said by two women kneeling in the crowd, their elbows on straw seats, and faces hidden, absorbed soul and body in the grace they implored. Donna Caterina, the clandestine lottery keeper, and Donna Concetta, the money-lender, had taken a vow together to San Gennaro for a bishop's heavy gold ring with a large topaz, if he would do them the grace to end their sufferings: either change their lovers, Ciccillo and Alfonso Jannacone's, hearts, make them tolerant of the sisters' enterprises, or change their own hearts, and free them from love of money. A ring, a magnificent ring, to the miracle-working saint if he did that miracle for them; so they both prayed in a whisper, saying their offer over again, monotonously raising their imploring, tearful eyes to the high altar, where the great mystery was imminent. But the people were in a panic already from that delay; they felt a great terror that just that year, after two centuries and a half, the saint, angry, perhaps, with the sins of the people, should refuse to do the miracle that is the proof of his benevolence. The Creed, taken up again after a longer, deeper, and therefore more emotional pause of silence, had an alarmed, almost angry, tone, and burst out with a despairing rush; above all, the old women's voices at the high altar got angry and frightened, trembling with sorrow and terror. In a silent pause, suddenly one of them said, in a voice shaken by devout familiarity, meek jocularity, and uncontrollable impatience:

'Old cross-patch, you want to keep us waiting, eh?'

'San Gennaro! San Gennaro! San Gennaro!' yelled the populace, curiously excited.

Down there, at the bottom of the church, near the wall, where that sweet, faded Madonna, said to be Giotti's, calms the eye with its subdued colouring, Don Pasqualino stood in an attitude that was all prayer; he was standing, but his head and shoulders were bent forward obsequiously, and now and then, when he raised his head from tiredness or inspiration to look at the gilded, painted sky in the church, the whites of his eyes looked enormous, out of proportion, and all colour had left his cheeks; his livid pallor went on increasing. By a magnetic attraction, all those who believed in him and his visions had gathered round him, all disturbed-looking, full of repressed despair, that showed itself in some faces as if they were deep down in sorrow's abyss, for that Saturday, too, had brought them a great disappointment, two hours before, when the lottery figures came out; all were bent by a gnawing remorse, for they felt guilty towards others and themselves. The Marquis di Formosa was bowed, his fine figure looked almost decrepit, for he felt the shame of his disreputable life; he was losing everything, even his daughter, in a slow agony of bad health and wretchedness. Cesare Fragalà's commercial standing was always getting more compromised; he felt his trading correspondents' coldness, his wife's evident low spirits and secret dread, hoping always, but in vain, to set it all right with a big haul. Ninetto Costa was pallid, but smiling, his eyes hollow from sitting up at night and anxiety; he often thought of the catastrophe, choosing in his mind between dishonourable flight and the revolver shot that does not clear scores, but softens people. Baron Lamarra was there, big, fat and flabby, cursing his ambitious beggar-on-horseback dreams, shuddering at the idea of that promissory note signed by himself and his wife. Marzano's gentle smile had got rather idiotic, for he increased his frugality every week so as to be able to gamble; he had given up snuff, smoking and wine, had pawned his pension papers, and was now getting compromised in queer affairs. Colaneri and Trifari were getting no more pupils; the first especially felt himself suspected, discredited, fearing every morning, as he entered the school, to be turned out by order of a superior, or knocked down by the students. All, all, were attacked by that Saturday-evening desolation, the black, terrible hour when conscience alone speaks, loudly, sternly, inflexibly. Still, they were in church, and the most indifferent and unbelieving murmured some words of prayer; they still surrounded the medium, eagerly looking at him as he prayed. One could see from that fascination that he still had power over them, and judge from their eager glances that once the momentary discouragement was past the passion would grow again. Ah! but that hour in the midst of the crowd, breathing out all its unhappiness in prayer, was as frightful for them, who were guilty, as the fatal night of Gethsemane was for the great sinless One.