“Mamma, mamma fò la preghiera
Tu non lo sai con quale ardore
Prego Iddio mattina e sera
Che dell’ amante mi serbi il core!”
We looked into the Giardino Mazzini, where the Calabresi family took refuge after the earthquake. The sign at the entrance was still intact: “The public is prayed not to touch the plants or to walk upon the grass.”
In the middle of the garden the calm face of Mazzini looks down upon a strange scene. Barracks and shanties have been knocked together anywhere, everywhere; one family is established in a gay little summer house. A clothes-line has been made fast to the pedestal that supports the patriot’s bust, a scarlet petticoat flaps behind his head; two women are washing at a tub; a man tends a fire in an open grate, built of stray bricks; in a gypsy kettle, hung on three sticks, something savory boils and bubbles. A swing has been put up across the broken iron railing; a tall girl is seated in the swing, her hair neatly tied with a green ribbon; with a bold foot she pushes the ground, and swings high, higher, under the palm trees where the dates are turning yellow. Three girls in an arbor are at work, making up a funeral wreath of laurel and pansies; one offers us flowers.
“Here,” said Patsy, giving the elder ten francs, “make a cross; take it to Caterina at the campo santo, ask her to put it on the grave where they buried Domenica an hour ago.”
“That’s the most encouraging sight that we have seen in Messina outside the Mosella,” he said, “people are beginning to buy flowers for their dead.”
Punctual to the minute, Caterina tapped on my door.
“Come in, cara mia, and choose your dress.”
Spread out on the sea-moss bed were several frocks; I hoped Caterina would like the blue dress, or the scarlet jacket and green skirt; she didn’t even look at them, but pointed to a black skirt and bodice, made by Sora Clara, seamstress late of Bagnara.
“Might it be this?” Then grown bold she asked for a dress for her mother’s sister.
“She has been more unfortunate than another, because she had more to lose! When Zia Maddalena went back to her house to get the money hidden in her mattress, it was gone. Poveretta!”