The day after our arrival was the feast of the Assumption of the Madonna, and the next day was the feast of S. Rocco, the patron saint of Fusio, so the bells were ringing continually. There are only three bells, but they are good ones; they were brought up from Peccia some forty years ago, long before Signor Dazio had the present road made; he was then a boy and assisted at the very arduous task of bringing them up. Like bells generally in North Italy they hang half-way out of the windows of the campanile, instead of being wholly within the belfry as our English bells are. This is why an Italian campanile is such a much more slender object than an English belfry; it has less to cover. When the bells are rung by being raised and swung in and out of the window, there is one ringer to each bell, and the following is all that is attempted:—
This, however, is varied with another and very different effect to which I have alluded in Chapter XXIII, but of which I can now speak at greater length inasmuch as we went up among the bells and saw how it was done.
The ringer has a light cord for each bell; he fastens one end of the cord by an iron hook to a hole in the clapper and the other to a beam of the belfry. The cords are just long enough to hold the clapper an inch or so off the side of the bell, the weight of the clapper keeping the cord tight. The ringer has thus three tight cords before him, on which he plays by hitting the middle of whichever one he wants with his hand; this depresses it and brings the clapper suddenly against the bell. He sits so that he can easily reach all the strings, and sets to work playing on the cords as though on a clumsy three-stringed harp. He plays out of his head without any music, and it is wonderful what variety he makes this rude instrument produce and how responsive it is to moods requiring different shades of expression. Of course, when the player’s resources are enlarged by the addition of two more bells, as at Castelletto and Vogogna, he can produce an infinitely more varied effect.
The notes, according to the pitch of Signor Dazio’s piano, were G, A, and B, and when we watched the ringer we saw that he frequently played the B with the G; sometimes he struck the B with the A, no doubt intending it as an appoggiatura, and, at a distance, this was the effect produced. But when he struck the two notes together and made the B louder than the A it had the effect of varying the tune. He never played his tunes in precisely the same way twice running, and this makes it difficult to say with certainty what they were, but, omitting variations, the two favourite tunes went like this:
This last he treated almost like a patter song, making it go as fast as ever he could. Give the Italian three bells, a belfry, and some bits of string and he will play with them and with you by the hour together with infinite variety. Give the German five bells and he will know a single figure, which he will probably have got an Italian to make for him, and will repeat it till you have to close the windows to keep the sound out, and the bottom bell will make a noise like the smell of a crushed cockroach. This is what happened to us in the valley of Gressoney at Issime, where German influences and the German language prevail.
It was at Issime, by the by, that we saw the most beautiful woman that either of us ever saw. She was gathering French beans in the little garden in front of the hotel and had her apron full of leeks and celery. No words can give an idea of the dignity and grace with which she moved, and as for her head, it was what Leonardo da Vinci, Gaudenzio Ferrari, and Bernardino Luini all tried to get without ever getting it. As long as she was in sight it was impossible to look at anything else, and at the same time there was a something about her which forbade staring.
S. Rocco is the saint who is always pointing to the dreadful wound in his poor leg; accordingly he is invoked by people who are out of health and thanked by those who have recovered. Near the first stalle in one of the neighbouring valleys there is a chapel where we saw three women praying. It had been prettily decorated with edelweiss, mountain-elder berries, thistle flowers, and everything gay that could be got. There was nothing of interest inside it, except a votive picture of a little man in a tailed coat who had got a bad leg like S. Rocco and was expostulating about it to the Virgin Mary. I have seldom seen any even tolerably serious frescoes in any of these small wayside oratories; they are usually done by some local man who has cultivated the Madonna touch, as it may be called, much as some English amateurs cultivate the tree touch, and with about as happy a result. The three women had crossed by the Sassello Grande from Nante, starting with earliest daybreak. It seems that one of them had for a time been deprived of her reason, but her sister had prayed at this chapel that it might be restored and her prayer had been granted; so the two sisters and another woman come over every year as near the feast of S. Rocco as they can, and repeat their thanks at this spot.