Being in Catania for Holy Week I went to the cathedral on Palm Sunday. The archbishop in his yellow mitre, red inside because he is also a cardinal, accompanied by nine canons in white mitres and many priests and others, passed out of the church by a side exit and proceeded to the western entrance, which was closed against him. I heard him knock and listened to the chanted dialogue which he carried on with those inside. I saw the great doors thrown open and watched the procession enter and pass up the nave among crowds of people who waved palm-branches.

After this I called at the Teatro Sicilia, the marionette theatre of Gregorio Grasso, and discovered that he was devoting all the week to the Story of the Passion and would begin that evening with the event which I had seen commemorated by the procession in the cathedral. Here was an opportunity to see something which I had often wished to see and about which I had talked with Achille Greco and his sons in their theatre at Palermo, where they also do the Passion in Holy Week, using a play in verse written by Filippo Orioles of which they have a MS. copy; but they have not performed it recently because it takes too much preparation. Orioles wrote his play for living actors, and it is laid out to get all the events into one performance instead of being a series of seven performances extending over a whole week as in Catania.

Gregorio Grasso took me behind, where one of his assistants, Carmelo, showed me the preparations and told me about the performance. The first scene was to be the meeting of the Sanhedrin and the beginning of the conspiracy of Annas and Caiaphas to destroy the Nazarene; this makes a firm foundation on which the rest of the drama is built. The second scene would be the departure of Christ with Mary; after that would come the Entry with Palms into Jerusalem, and the evening was to conclude with a cinematograph show.

As a rule in this theatre the back scene is only about a third of the way down the stage, the figures appear in front of it and are manipulated by men who stand on a platform behind, leaning over a strong bar which runs along the top of the scene, their heads, shoulders and arms being concealed by a piece of scenery which falls just low enough. The entry into Jerusalem had been prepared behind this back scene; it was a set group representing Christ on the ass, surrounded by apostles carrying palms, and was to be disclosed by the removal of the back scene, the bar and the platform in front of which the meeting of the Sanhedrin would be shown.

But I was not to witness the performance because Turiddu Balistrieri wanted me to go to the Teatro Giacinta Pezzana and see a special performance of La Signora dalle Camelie in which he and some of his family, who are all artists, were to take part. I could not go to both and chose Dumas because, in the first place, being Turiddu’s compare it was my duty to support the family. In the second place I had seen the Entry with Palms at the duomo in the morning and had all the rest of the week free to see the marionettes do the rest of the story. So I went to the Teatro Pezzana in the evening. It is a small place, small enough to have been formerly used for marionettes, and was now being used by a Society of Lovers of the Drama. Turiddu was presiding over the box-office and had considered my requirements. He sent me in with his young brother Gennaro, who found me a place, and I saw a play which cannot be considered seriously except as an opportunity for the actress who undertakes the part of Margherita Gautier. On this occasion it was undertaken by Desdemona Balistrieri, Turiddu’s sister, a girl of fifteen years and ten months, two years older than himself; I had never expected to see so young a Margherita Gautier. She gave a remarkable performance with nothing childish about it and nothing—but it would be unbecoming in me to praise the sister of my compare. Her grandmother, the old lady referred to in Chapter XVII (ante) who slept in the piazza after the earthquake, was Prudenza, and her mother, Signora Balistrieri, was Olimpia and appeared between the old generation and the young, joining and yet separating them. Turiddu’s part was small; he was merely a page bringing a letter or a message.

MONDAY

In the afternoon I went to the Teatro Sicilia and found everything prepared for the evening. Christ and the apostles were sitting at the supper-table as in Leonardo’s fresco in Milan; not that they were imitating Leonardo, the early mosaics and the miracle plays, influencing and counter-influencing one another, must have determined the composition of the representations of the Last Supper before Leonardo’s time; he was not inventing, he was giving the people something they were accustomed to see and the marionettes were similarly following their own traditions. I do not think the apostles were all in their usual places, S. John was next to Christ, but Judas was at one end of the table—a terrible fellow with shaggy black hair falling over his face—and he had not spilt the salt. There was no salt for him to spill. Signor Greco told me that when they perform the Orioles play at Palermo, they use a horse-shoe table, Judas sits near one end and not only spills the salt, but behaves like a naughty child, putting his elbows on the table and throwing the plates on the floor so that they break. On the supper-table at Catania there was a wooden model of a roasted lamb, with jointed neck and legs, lying on a dish. There were plates with lettuces cut up, bread and wine, oil and vinegar and oranges, all real. Each apostle had a glass and there was a metal chalice for Christ. I forget all the things that are on the table in the chapel of the Last Supper at Varallo-Sesia, but I remember they have ripe figs, which is a mistake, because figs do not become ripe till later in the year. Oranges are at their best in Sicily in the spring and lettuces are in season. The audience understand this and know that lettuces are appropriate for supper because they contain some narcotic, so that a raw lettuce is often eaten after dinner. The supper had been prepared in front of the back scene, and behind it, ready to be disclosed at the proper moment, was the garden wherein the capture of Christ was to take place.

Soon after seven o’clock in the evening I was sitting in my room at the albergo and saw a great light which I supposed might have something to do with the electric tram. After this I heard a roaring noise which I supposed might be occasioned by an explosive motor bicycle in the street. Then the glass in the window rattled for a considerable time, which I supposed might be due to a slight shock of earthquake. At about half-past eight I went to the Teatro Sicilia. Gregorio and his assistants were all outside, and received me with congratulations on my courage; I was the only one of their patrons bold enough to think of witnessing the performance, all the others had been too much frightened by the earthquake—if it had been an earthquake; and in about ten minutes we shut up the theatre and came away. I went to the Teatro Machiavelli to see what effect had been produced there. There was some anxiety about the phenomenon, but more, it seemed, as to whether enough people would come to make it worth while to have a performance. We were waiting for instructions when someone brought in a bolletino hastily prepared in a newspaper office with an account of the avvenimento celeste. We sat round and listened while one of the actors read about the convulsion of nature, the trembling of the palaces, the flashes of flame at a great height in the sky, the terror of the inhabitants of Catania. Was the phenomenon of telluric origin—Etna or an earthquake? Was it of atmospheric origin—a thunderbolt or a waterspout? Or could it be a miracle in the dictionary sense of something contrary to the course of nature? No one knew. Gradually a sufficient number of the public overcame their fright and took places in the theatre; and thus I saw a play by Peppino Fazio called I Delitti del Caporale of which I have forgotten a great deal, but it contained one incident which I have not forgotten.

There was a scene in the cottage of a brigand who lived with his sister, he was out and she was alone. A corporal of infantry entered and made infamous proposals which she rejected; a struggle followed and was ended by the man shooting the girl through the heart. Overcome by remorse and filled with respect for the dead, he reverently raised the corpse, laid it along the floor by the wall at the back of the cottage and covered it with a sheet. He placed an oil lamp on the floor so that the head, the breast, the hips, the knees and the toes caught the light, while shadows fell in the depressions between. He knelt in prayer and then crept from the solemn scene on which the curtain slowly descended.

We were then transported to a country road outside the caserma of the carabinieri; they were carousing and plotting how to take the brigand. A countryman came and gave information on which they settled a plan of action and the scene ended, but it had occupied a good deal of time and had distracted the mind.

The curtain rose again on the brigand’s cottage. Nothing had been moved. Three carabinieri entered furtively, they noticed what was on the floor, lying by the wall, but did not disturb it, they had other business in hand and concealed themselves behind doors and furniture. There was a pause and the house was very still. The brigand came home, noisily threw down his gun, clanked about the cottage in his great boots, took his knife and his pistols from his belt and banged them down on the table. As he turned he caught sight of the sheet covering something the form of which was emphasised by the oil lamp burning at its head. He did not speak, but surprise and alarm seized him and appeared in his face and in his attitude. He approached it, raised the sheet and with a yell of terror and grief fell on his knees by the corpse as he recognised his sister. The three carabinieri came from their hiding and took him.

It was a typical drama for the Machiavelli. Notwithstanding the want of variety in their plots—and the title of one of their plays signifies as little as the title of a London pantomime—I have seldom passed an evening there without seeing some incident as striking as this return to the house of death. They know how to do these things with a simplicity and an apparent unconsciousness of the effect they are producing which bring with them a strange astonishment.

This was not the corporal’s only crime, but to clear up this one it may be added that the hand of the corpse clutched a button which, in the struggle, the girl had torn off the man’s coat; this led to his identification, and in prison he met the brigand, who shot him and thus avenged the murder. I have seen happy endings that were more artificial.

TUESDAY

Compare Turiddu came early to inquire whether I was much alarmed by the disturbance and to tell me what had happened. A bolide had fallen into the Catanian sea—he took me to the port and showed me precisely where.

“It was near that ship,” he said.

The people had rushed to the cathedral to pray S. Agata to avert further harm. They also went to the Piazza S. Nicola hoping it might be large enough to hold them all in case there was an earthquake, for they were all thinking of Messina. The sailors, believing that what they saw fall into the sea was the moon, drew their boats up into safety. The sea did rise, but only eight centimetres, not so much as it would have risen if the moon had really fallen into it. When the newspapers came out I read more particulars: that a barber in the Via Lincoln had been so much frightened that he cut the throat of the customer he was shaving, fortunately, however, no damage was done as the wound was only skin-deep; that a woman ran naked into the Via Garibaldi, not having time in her fright to put any clothes on; that a waiter handing a dish to a lady in the Birraria Svizzera dropped it on her silk dress, which was ruined; and that a priest in the Quattro Canti was seen moving his arms like an electric fan and was heard to exclaim “God save me!” He did not say “God save us” because he was an egoist.

It should be added that the article was written by Peppino Fazio, who confessed to me that though these things may have happened he did not see them. He found them in his imagination. It should perhaps be added further that he knows his public and is not afraid of being taken seriously.

I also saw an account of an interview with Professor RiccÒ of the Observatory, who stated that an aerolite had fallen out of the profundity of space and that it had not been ascertained where it had struck our planet.

As no one had gone to the Teatro Sicilia on Monday the marionettes were thrown a day late and the programme arranged for the Monday was remanded to the Tuesday, like a festa. I half feared I might be prevented again from seeing it because some friends from England arrived in Catania for the night and I did not know whether they would care to go. They were, however, much interested when I made the proposal. We were rather late, and missed the Last Supper, arriving just before the curtain rose on the garden. It was a beautiful scene. Christ was kneeling at a rock in the background, the disciples were sleeping in the foreground and the wings were hidden by branches of real trees. An angel descended with a cup from which the principal figure drank. When the angel had departed there was a pause—the lights changed and through the silence we heard the tramp, tramp of approaching people; soldiers came on preceded by Judas, who betrayed his Master with a kiss, Peter cut off Malchus’s right ear, the Nazarene was taken and the curtain fell.

WEDNESDAY

Turiddu came in the morning and we conducted my friends round the town. We went to the shop where the old Swiss watchmaker sells the amber of which Brancaccia’s necklace is made; we went to the market, where we ate a prickly pear, just to see what it was like, and the man politely refused payment because we were foreigners; in the market also we bought bergamot snuff-boxes; we then showed them the port, where they bought crockery, and the Villa Bellini, where they took photographs; after which we went back to the albergo, where we had luncheon. Then we accompanied them to the station and saw them off for Taormina. Turiddu was as pleased as anyone, he liked making the acquaintance of his compare’s English friends and they thought him a delightful boy. Strictly speaking they were not English; the two ladies were Inglesi Americane, which Turiddu said he understood because his mother had acted in the Argentina and, though South America is not North America, it appeared pedantic to insist on the distinction. The two gentlemen, again, were really Inglesi Irlandesi, and here also we were in trouble because he mistook Irlandesi for Olandesi and thought they were what we should call Boers.

After they had gone I went to the Teatro Sicilia to learn what I had missed by not seeing the Cena. Carmelo told me that when Christ has spoken the words “This is my body” he breaks the bread and gives each of the apostles a piece. Judas does not eat his piece, he steals it and leaves the room. In his absence Christ blesses the wine and gives the others to drink, he washes their feet and they go out to the Mount of Olives. This is followed by a scene of Judas coming to Annas and Caiaphas, showing his piece of bread and telling them that he had heard Christ speak blasphemy. Carmelo explained that the priests were Hebrews—there were Hebrews, he said, in those days, living in that country—and Hebrews believe that bread is the Body of God; therefore for a man—and they thought Christ was merely a man—to declare that the bread was his body amounted to blasphemy. This was evidence against the Nazarene; it carried the story on a step and the plotting priests prepared everything for the betrayal and capture of Christ—the final scene which we saw.

I did not know, or had forgotten, that Hebrews were so particular about bread, but Carmelo assured me that they never throw bread away, and if they find a piece on the floor they pick it up and put it in a hole in the wall and keep it. It may be eaten, but may never be otherwise destroyed. I thought of Ruskin telling his readers in The Elements of Drawing that stale crumb of bread is better than india-rubber to rub out their mistakes, but “it crumbles about the room and makes a mess; and besides, you waste the good bread, which is wrong; and your drawing will not for a long while be worth the crumbs. So use india-rubber very lightly.”

“Are you a Christian?” asked Carmelo suddenly.

I was not embarrassed. A few days before, when one of the priests at Tindaro asked me the same question, I replied that I had been baptised into the Christian faith soon after birth. The priest said that between the two Churches of Rome and England there were unfortunate differences as to the mysteries but I need not concern myself with them. “Nature does not believe in the mysteries,” said my priest, who was a most friendly person, and as I had been baptised, if I lived a good life, and he was politely certain I did, then I was a Christian. So I considered myself justified in answering Carmelo’s question in the affirmative.

In the evening I returned to the Teatro Sicilia; Carmelo put me into a good place and this time I saw the whole performance. The Nazarene was taken before Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod. The priests taxed him with being a magician. Herod proposed that he should perform a miracle if he could, but Christ was silent and did nothing. Herod therefore concluded that the priests were wrong and that Christ must be mad. He directed that he should be clothed in white and taken back to Pilate, and this was done.

We were then in the house of the Madonna, and S. John came and told her and the other Maries all that had happened to her son. Each of the holy women carried a handkerchief and the lamentation became monotonous.

Judas had received the thirty pieces of silver and began his remorse by taking them, in a red purse, back to the priests, who scoffed at him and turned him out. His rage and despair were extreme and gave the audience an opportunity to relieve their feelings by laughing.

Before the last scene Gregorio in his ordinary clothes came on and told the audience the programme for the next day. He also apologised for presenting the Passion with marionettes, he usually performs it with living actors, he himself being the Nazarene. This year, however, he did not feel strong enough to undertake the part or to get all the other actors together; and he appealed to our consideration and begged us to accept marionettes.

In the days when Giovanni Grasso acted in his own Machiavelli theatre, before he went on tour and acquired his world-wide reputation, they used to do the Passion there also, and he was Judas. Sometimes he doubled his part and did Annas as well, or Pilate or the good centurion, making any necessary alterations in those places where his two characters ought to have appeared together. It would be a great thing to see Giovanni as Judas, but I suppose he will never do it again.

I noticed that all the figures had been newly dressed and painted for the occasion and the pupils of their eyes were freshly varnished to catch the light. About the soldiers there was still some reminiscence of paladins, but the principal characters had been prepared with due regard to the works of the great masters—though here again I suppose they were really following the traditions of the theatre as preserved by the pictures. The figures gained by hiding their legs, but Joseph of ArimathÆa and Nicodemus had not this advantage. They were princes and were like Shakespearean young men of the brilliant water-fly type, such as Osric. Misandro was also a prince. He was a swaggerer and behaved as badly as any paladin, but he was not a buffo. When they do the NativitÀ at Christmas a buffo is permitted, he accompanies the Shepherds as their servant, and I should like to see him. Misandro was all in golden armour, as fine a figure as one could expect a Prince of JudÆa to be. He had a contrast in Claudio Cornelio the good centurion. Claudio was left alone with Christ and confessed his faith, while a bright light from the cinematograph box illuminated the stage as though to signify that if we believe, all will become clear. The most successful of the figures was Pilate. He was in black with a red sash and his robes fell in folds of great dignity.

The words were all declaimed either from memory or extempore, and there were several speakers. The one who had most to do did it with a great deal of energy, especially as Judas and Misandro. Gregorio spoke for Christ and a woman spoke for the women and the angels.

The Christ was of course a failure, in art all Christs are failures, even the Christ in the chapels at Varallo-Sesia, even the Christ in the pictures by the masters. The Child Christ may be a success, at least we can sometimes fancy that that baby might become the Saviour of the World, he reminds us of those babies we have all seen in real life with a look in their eyes as though they had solved the riddle of the universe. But the Man Christ does not convince; we only tolerate him because we have been brought up to acquiesce in the convention. The Christs of pictures and statues are not, however, such failures as the Christ at Ober-Ammergau; by keeping still and not trying to appear so real they leave more to the imagination. If all these fail how can a marionette be expected to succeed? Hiding its legs when it moves is not enough. Gregorio knew he was attempting the impossible and did his best to save the figure from being worse than it might have been, but the result was rather as though it were all the time apologising for having undertaken the part. He made it move very little and very slowly, so slowly that the action of the drama was interrupted. He allowed it no gestures, except an occasional raising of the hand. He spoke for it only the few words given to Christ in the gospels. When it caused a miracle, there came a great light, as when the good centurion confessed his faith, and there was music. When it entered, the drum beat a Saracen rhythm and there was music again. By these means the figure was detached from the others and appeared as though belonging to another world. When the marionettes do the Orioles play at Palermo, Christ speaks much more than the words from the gospels and is treated more like one of the other characters, at least nothing is done to suggest that they are giving the Passion with the part of Christ as nearly omitted as possible.

The music at Catania was faint and scrappy. Gounod’s Meditation on Bach’s First Prelude occurred frequently, but it seldom got beyond the first ten or twelve bars, sometimes not beyond the second or third. And there were similar short references to some of the more sentimental melodies of Bellini and Verdi. It was not intended to distract the attention; it was rather to provide an unobtrusive background for the ear against which the voice spoke, as the scenery was a background for the eye against which the figures moved.

THURSDAY

This was the day for visiting the sepulchres in the churches. Turiddu took me to the cathedral, and we saw a procession moving slowly down the nave. It turned up one of the aisles and entered a sepulchre which had been prepared, passing between a double file of dismal creatures entirely shrouded in white except for two eye-holes, like those ghouls that issued stealthily from charnel-houses in German fairy tales, and used to pursue me in dreams when I was a boy. One by one the lights on the altar were extinguished, Phrygian cadences dropped inconclusively from the choir above, the archbishop came out of the sepulchre and the hooded ghosts crept with him. A Dominican occupied the pulpit and began a sermon, but as we could not get near enough to hear what he said, we came away. Turiddu afterwards took me to visit a few more sepulchres, and it was a gloomy business.

In the evening, at the Teatro Sicilia, the curtain rose on Christ bound to the column, and there were two Turks armed with scourges. They did not actually scourge him, it was enough that they told Misandro they had executed their orders. Peter denied his master and the cock crew thrice. While Judas was continuing his remorse, Peter appeared to him, and, confessing his sin of denying Christ, proposed to expiate it by throwing himself into a well; he tempted Judas to follow his example and preceded him to show the way. But we saw that it was not really Peter, it was a devil. Judas was about to follow the devil when an angel appeared and stopped him. He was to die a different death, and not yet.

A tearful scene between mother and son came next; I did not care for it, but the dream of Claudia, the wife of Pilate, was, as Carmelo said, “una visione tremenda.” In a dress of scarlet satin trimmed with gold and lace, she sat in an arm-chair in a garden and went to sleep. Christ appeared to her. She spoke to him, but he did not reply, and as she woke he vanished. She slept again, and Annas appeared to her in red fire, threatening her if she yielded to the emotions which the vision of the Man of Sorrows had raised in her heart. She woke in dismay as he vanished. She slept again, and saw Pilate in hell surrounded by devils. She woke in fright. She slept again, and a devil appeared and talked to her, justifying Pilate. S. Michele came and killed the devil.

GOOD FRIDAY

The Machiavelli was closed. At the Sicilia the performance began with the trial of Christ. Pilate sat in the middle with Joseph of ArimathÆa and Nicodemus on his right, Caiaphas, Annas, and Misandro on his left. Beyond Nicodemus was the Nazarene in a red cloak holding a reed and crowned with thorns; and beyond Misandro was Barabbas. Pilate made the opening speech. Caiaphas then spoke for the prosecution; the question in debate was whether Christ was the Son of God, and he accused Christ of being a deceiver. Nicodemus followed for the defence. Then Annas for the prosecution. He said: “The voice of God is the voice of the people.” He was followed by Joseph, who maintained that the wonders performed by Christ were not done by magic, they were miracles; that is he was not a magician, he was the Son of God. Misandro spoke last.

Here a messenger arrived from Claudia telling her dream and begging Pilate to go to her. The Court rose and Pilate went home to comfort his wife, while the others talked among themselves just as barristers do in the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand when the sitting is suspended.

Pilate returned and took his seat. He proposed to liberate Christ and to sacrifice Barabbas. He presented Christ to the people, saying:

“Ecce Homo.”

And the crowd shouted: “Not this man, but Barabbas.”

Pilate ironically congratulated them:

“You are right, O ignorant People!” and, telling Barabbas to go and thieve again, he liberated him.

Then the false witnesses came. One was a soldier, the other a Turk. They took the oath to speak the truth and nothing but the truth. They were both of them stupid and comic, confused and contradictory, and made the audience laugh, and when one of them admitted that he had been bribed, Annas in his rage gobbled like a turkey.

Pilate closed the debate and washed his hands in a basin held by a servant. Then he wrote the sentence and made Misandro read it. The trial lasted a whole hour, the intention being, I suppose, to reproduce that tediousness which is so characteristic of real trials.

In the next scene Judas continued his remorse and Peter—it was really Peter this time—came and counselled him to ask pardon of Jesus, but he would not listen.

Then came the journey to Calvary and the meeting with the Daughters of Jerusalem and S. Veronica, Misandro ill-treating the women and Claudio Cornelio protecting them.

The last scene was the Crucifixion. The thieves were in place. At the back was the Cross lying on the ground. The figure of Christ was nailed to it by a Turk with a hammer; the Cross was raised; Misandro approved; the Turk gave the sponge; Misandro reviled Christ, saying: “Thou that destroyest the temple of God and buildest it in three days, save thyself”; Christ and the thieves held their dialogue; the Madonna and S. John stood at the foot of the Cross while Christ spoke the sentences and inclined his head. Then there was the earthquake, and we saw the souls in purgatory surrounding the Cross and heard them welcoming their Lord.

SATURDAY

Compare Turiddu came early and we went to the duomo to see the Gloria. The church was full and he told me to be careful about my watch and my money because—“picketi pocketi”; and then he asked me whether I understood those two words which his mother had brought back from one of her tours.

His Eminence, the Cardinal Archbishop, was conducting a service in a side chapel—blessing the baptismal water, or the font, or both, or perhaps doing something else, for Turiddu is not such an authority on ecclesiastical matters as Carmelo is on matters theatrical. He knows more than I do, however; it was he who made me go to see the Gloria on the Saturday, without him I should have missed it by waiting till the Sunday. The western doors were thrown open and we looked through into the sunshine and up to the arch that stands at the top of the Via Garibaldi. The archbishop finished his service and returned through the congregation to the space within the rails of the principal altar. Behind him as he stood and concealing the altar and the east end of the church hung a curtain from the roof to the floor. There was chanting and movement among the priests; they continually kept going and coming, disappearing into the secret place behind the great curtain and reappearing; they were preparing the mystery. Presently the curtain shook and the congregation understood. The suppressed excitement grew and a murmuring began, caused, I suppose, by everyone telling everyone else, as Turiddu told me, that the curtain was about to fall. Another instant—and its fall revealed the Gloria.

Above the altar was a tomb and above the tomb was the figure of the risen Christ triumphing over death; in his left hand he held a banner and, with his right, he blessed the people. There were lights, and sudden music from the organ and from the choir; the deafening bells clanged and, through the great open doors, we heard the sound of revolvers being shot off into the air and of fireworks being exploded.

Turiddu could not see over the heads of the people; I lifted him up, he looked at the Gloria and turning himself round in my arms kissed me as he said:

“Buona Pasqua, Compare.”

Everyone was saying “Buona Pasqua” to everyone else, everyone standing near a friend or a relation was exchanging kisses with him or her as a sign of goodwill; many were weeping for joy, and those who had been quarrelling became reconciled, forgiving one another their offences and entering upon a new life, vowing that, with the help of their Heavenly Father, who had revealed to them the Mystery of the Resurrection, they would from this day avoid all further disputes even though, in order to perform the vow, it should be necessary to avoid one another’s company. This is not imaginative writing, like Peppino Fazio’s account of the effect of the bolide, it is what I saw—the effect of the Gloria.

And the spirit of the Gloria floated down the nave and through the open doors and out into the piazza, where the elephant of lava stands over the fountain. It passed up the Via Garibaldi, down the Corso, along the Stesicoro Etnea, it spread itself through the city and became identified with the morning sunshine.

“Come along,” said Turiddu, “let’s go and buy a paschal lamb for mother.”

We followed the Gloria into the piazza among the fireworks and the revolvers.

I said: “What about the plates, Turiddu? Don’t the people throw the crockery out of window in their joy? We must be careful.”

He replied that they only do that in the poorer parts of the town, and they always look first to make sure that no one is passing. But we had better be careful, all the same, because the revolvers are loaded and the squibs are dangerous.

He took me past the municipio, where the band was playing, and we came to a sweet-shop, where paschal lambs made of almond paste and sugar were flocking together on all the tables and shelves. They were not like the one at the Last Supper, they were in their fleeces and were standing or lying among candied fruits and tufts of dried grass that had been artificially dyed unlikely colours. Turiddu chose one, and I sent him off home with it as an Easter offering of goodwill to his mother.

Peppino Fazio was standing at a kiosk near the Quattro Canti with two young cousins, buying button-holes of violas; he gave me the one he had intended for himself.

“Wear this,” he said, “it is the primavera. Proserpine has risen from the underworld, she has returned to Enna and is scattering flowers again. Stay; let us exchange; I will take another bunch and you shall pay the man for it one soldo. Buona Pasqua.”

So we exchanged bunches. “Wear this,” I said, echoing his words, “it is the primavera; the time for visiting sepulchres is over. Proserpine has sent these flowers down from Castrogiovanni by the morning train. Buona Pasqua.”

In the next piazza, in the shadow of the statue of Bellini, was one of the men from the Teatro Machiavelli; he had brought out his dog and talked of going a-birding, he hoped it was not too early for quail, he had already seen ripe strawberries in the market. Buona Pasqua.

Then I came upon Joe, the Policeman, keeping order in the street.

He said: “Buona Pasqua. You are very good-looking this morning.” He meant I was looking very well, but he will be so English.

I replied: “Buona Pasqua. But, my dear Joe, you ought not to be wearing flowers in uniform, ought you?”

“It is the primavera,” he said. He also told me that the revolvers and the squibs and the plates had not done much damage this year—perhaps ten or a dozen accidents, but none fatal, so far as was yet known.

I went along the Via Stesicoro, not considering my steps because I was looking up the street, wondering how long the Gloria would take to melt the snow on Etna, and I stumbled across Carmelo.

“Buona Pasqua, Carmelo, and have you been to church this morning?”

No, he had been to the port with his friends to see the steamer in which they were to go to Naples; there they would change into another steamer and be taken to the States. They had begged, borrowed, stolen, or, it may be, possibly even earned enough soldi to begin their new life upon another soil and under other skies in a new world. Buona Pasqua.

I returned to the albergo and found that Turiddu had been and had left for me a characteristic Sicilian cake—a ring of bread on one side of which, half embedded in the pasta, were four new-laid eggs. This was accompanied by a note from his mother begging me to accept it as her Easter offering of goodwill. She was telling me more than that the hens had begun to lay again. She was reminding me of how I had seen her at the Teatro Pessana as the link between her mother and her children, joining them and separating them like a passage of modulation. I understood her to mean that for the future I was to see an egg as a transitional something between the hen that laid it and the chicken that will burst from its shell, as a secret place of repose where the one is transmuted into the other, as a sacred temple wherein is prepared a mystery of resurrection. Mothers know some things that cannot be told except in symbolism, and not very clearly then, symbols being as perplexing as unresolved diminished sevenths which may be understood in many different senses. I read the riddle of the eggs in the sense suggested by the context of the Gloria, and I think I read it aright, for in Catania on that Easter morning we were all of one mind, we were all breathing the Gloria, we were all filled with the spirit of the new life, the spirit that animated also our far-away English monk as he sat in his Berkshire cell making music for

Summer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu.

In the evening I went to the Machiavelli. The theatre had been taken by a young amateur who carries on a business of forwarding oranges and other fruit. He gave a performance of one of Giovanni Grasso’s plays, Feudalismo, part of which I was obliged to see because in the second act there is a song sung behind, and Turiddu had been asked to sing it; on such a day the claims of the family were stronger even than on Palm Sunday. His voice has not yet broken, but if it turns out to be as good for a man as it is now for a boy, he ought to do well with it. I must not continue—it would be more unbecoming in me to praise my compare for his singing than to praise his sister for her acting.

After the song in Feudalismo there was time also for the second representation at the Teatro Sicilia. The performance began with the wounding of Christ. Then Annas and Caiaphas discussed the question of whether, after all, they might not have made a mistake in treating Christ as a magician. They had been alarmed by the earthquake, the atmospheric disturbances and the rising of the dead from their graves. Could these phenomena signify that he was the Son of God? And something else troubled them; on consideration they did not like the wording of Pilate’s sentence. They went to his palace, but Pilate was not disposed to listen to their objections.

“What I have written I have written,” said Pilate.

They had brought the sentence with them and pointed out to him that he had condemned “il Re dei Giudei” the King of the Jews and, inasmuch as condemning a king is a serious step and might get him into trouble, suggested that for his own safety he should add the letter “o” to the word “Re.” This would make it that he had condemned “Il Reo dei Giudei,” the Criminal of the Jews. Pilate was persuaded and agreed to add the letter. He went away and fetched his pen, which looked like a feather from the tail of a hawk, and Annas held the paper; but Pilate’s pen refused to write, it was wafted from his hand by a power stronger than his, it hung in the air before their eyes and fluttered away to heaven.

This miracle was accompanied by music; and, if I had been consulted, I should not have advised the Marcia Reale Italiana, because that composition, on account of its inherent frivolity, has always seemed to me unfit for the accompaniment of any manifestation of power. To despise Bellini because he is not Schubert would be to adopt the attitude of the buffo’s critic who escaped from Paris in the teatrino at Palermo; nevertheless the countrymen of Schubert have known how to appear before the world clothed in the solemn splendour of Haydn’s majestic Hymn to the Emperor, while the Italians come mountebanking along in an ill-fitting, machine-made suit of second-hand flourishes, as though that were the best they could lay their hands on. They have not done themselves justice. But this is not the place for a digression; before returning to Pilate and his visitors, however, let me say distinctly that the music was the Italian Marcia Reale played, not as the other scraps were played, but with a loud and jaunty heartlessness as though the miraculous pen were jeering at the priests:

“There! you didn’t expect that; now, did you?”

Joseph and Nicodemus also came to Pilate begging the body of Jesus. The priests objected, for they had not forgotten the prophecy about building the Temple of God in three days, and they feared trickery. Pilate compromised, granting the request but setting a guard.

Next we saw the Descent from the Cross, effected by Joseph and Nicodemus; and while the body lay on a couch, a melancholy Miserere was sung behind. The Entombment followed, the Madonna in black lamenting and weeping.

The last scene was in a wood, where Judas came to finish his remorse. He refused all comfort and all the benevolent suggestions of the angels who visited him. They told him that God is ever willing to pardon the sinner who sincerely repents and freely confesses his sin. It is with God always as it is with men at the season of the Gloria. But the wretched Judas could not think of repentance and confession; his cowardly soul was not torn by sorrow for past sin, it was paralysed by fear of future punishment; or we may have been intended to understand that the road to perdition lies through madness. He spoke three sentences, and the last word of each was echoed by a diabolical voice and then appeared written in letters of blood and fire:—Giuda:—Dio:—Stesso. These words made a sentence by themselves and signified: “Judas is against God and against Himself.” Faith, Hope, and Charity appeared to him separately; he would have nothing to do with any of them and they all deserted him. A devil approached and Judas trembled, knowing his time had come. He went and fetched a rope, and with the devil’s help accomplished his fatal destiny by hanging himself to one of the trees of the wood, and as his wicked soul came out of his mouth the devil greedily snatched it away and carried it down to be eternally tormented in hell. It was like an untidy black hen.

EASTER DAY

I had to go into the country for the night, and so was obliged to miss the Resurrection as presented by the marionettes. I did not, however, much mind, because I had seen the Gloria in the cathedral, where the Christ over the altar was modelled much better than any figure in the theatre. Besides, I called on Gregorio in the course of the day and had a talk with him and his son, Angiolino, who told me what is done on the last evening of the drama, and showed me the preparations. The first scene, representing the tomb, was nearly ready. After the curtain rises there is an earthquake, and Misandro comes to see whether the watching soldiers are doing their duty; he finds them asleep and wakes them. This is repeated, and the third time Misandro sees the tomb open with a loud noise and a bright light—“like the bolide,” said Angiolino. Christ rises, and Misandro, seeing the actual Resurrection, is convinced that Christ is the Son of God and not a magician; he goes to spend the rest of his life preaching the gospel among the heathen. I did not ask what music accompanies the miracle of the Resurrection; I confess I was afraid to do so after what I had heard accompanying the flight of the pen. If I had been consulted here I should have advised silence to suggest that no music could be found suitable for the tremendous mystery that was being accomplished. But I do not think such advice would have been accepted.

Then Herod is ill and commands Pilate to send Jesus to cure him. Pilate commands the priests to produce Jesus, reminding them that he had washed his hands; but each of the priests accuses the other of being responsible, and so they enter upon their eternal punishment of mutual recrimination.

Christ appears to the Magdalene, to Luke, to Matthew and to a contadino. He takes two of them to a tavern, where he breaks bread and vanishes. So they recognise him and go to tell the good news to the Madonna and the other holy women. Doubting Thomas is convinced. Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon them and they receive the gift of tongues. The last scene is the Ascension, and Christ as he is received into heaven speaks words of comfort to his mother, telling her it will not be long before she joins him.

The marionettes were behindhand with their Gloria, because the bolide having transferred Monday’s programme to Tuesday had syncopated the succeeding performances into counterpoint of the fourth order, and everything that happened after that was one beat late. Had they moved concurrently with the Church, and reached the Resurrection on the Saturday, they would have repeated it on the Sunday to fill up the time till Easter Monday, when they were to return to Erminio della Stella d’Oro, a story of romance and chivalry invented by Angelo Grasso, the father of Gregorio and of Giovanni.

I asked Gregorio where he had found the particulars for Misandro and the remorse of Judas and for the dream of Pilate’s wife and the pen that flew away. He replied that he did not know where they came from, they are traditional in the theatre and had probably come out of the libraries. As to Judas and the angel preventing him from drowning himself in the well, I asked whether they have in Sicily the saying about a man being born to be hanged and whether any allusion was intended. Angiolino said they have such a saying, or something like it, but it had never occurred to him to suppose that any allusion was intended, it might be so, but he thought not.

The Christ that had been prepared for the Resurrection in the Teatro Sicilia was not the marionette that had been on the Cross; the stigmata were there, the spear wound was wanted in the scene with Thomas, and the people were free to take it as being the same figure with all the other marks of suffering removed, or they might think it was a different one, or they might come behind the scenes and find out for themselves as I did. Dwellers in another planet, if they watch the recurrence of the mystery of our spring, may think the flowers they saw sinking into the earth last autumn return again with the marks of decay removed, they cannot come behind our scenes and make sure; but we know that a new generation is born. The marionettes are not didactic; if the people choose to see in the Resurrection of Christ any one of Nature’s ageless mysteries they may do so; they may see the birth of the younger generation, the blossoming of fresh flowers after winter, the awakening to a new day after sleep; or, if they prefer it, they may see the resurrection of their own dead bodies at the sound of the Last Trump—one of those mysteries in which, as my priest at Tindaro told me, Nature does not believe, and with which I need not concern myself.

I do not think they saw in it any of these meanings. At Ober-Ammergau the play is presented so that Mendelssohn need not have hesitated to advise the late Prince Consort to honour a performance with his presence. In the Teatro Sicilia other tastes have to be consulted. I think the audience looked on at the Passion of Christ as they are accustomed to look on at I Delitti del Caporale or Feudalismo or at the Story of the Paladins or Erminio della Stella d’Oro; if they suspected any symbolism or mystery, the melodrama with which they were saturated provided a context that determined the direction of the resolution. They saw wicked priests conspiring with a cowardly traitor and an overbearing bully to bring about the destruction of an innocent man. They saw the innocent man passing through misfortune and in the end triumphing over his enemies by means of a happy ending, which reminded them of the happy ending of a Machiavelli play, when the hero returns from prison and the bad people are punished. They saw a mother weeping for her son, but they saw no allusion to Ceres weeping for loss of Proserpine, although their Castrogiovanni was her Enna—just as Angiolino saw no reference to Judas having been born to be hanged, although they have the saying in Sicily, and he is the son of the house. I do not think they saw any significance in the fact that this mystery of the Death and Resurrection of the God is repeated every spring. I imagine that the point made by Joseph of ArimathÆa in his speech for the defence, that the wonders done by Christ on earth were miracles and were not occasioned by magic, was lost upon them. It would take a long time to make one of them understand that la Durlindana, the sword of Orlando, was a magical sword and not a miraculous one. And yet this distinction between miracle and magic was the pivot of the plot as it was presented to them. If they had felt themselves lifted out of their ordinary routine I do not think they would have done what they did after the curtain had fallen on the section of the story presented each evening.

At the Machiavelli they are accustomed to remain for the farce and the Canzonettisti Napoletani which close the performance; so at the Sicilia they remain for the cinematograph. Every evening during Holy Week the programme posted up at the door concluded with these words “Indi Cinematografo,” and there were always three parts to the show. First there was cruelty—victorious tyrants forcing conquered queens to drink their lovers’ blood, or some horror of the Inquisition, or the barrel of Regulus bumping down-hill and coming to smash at the bottom. The second part was a modern comedy carried on in Parisian drawing-rooms or on board an electric launch on an American river. The third part was always a wild farce and usually contained an impossible chase. Not till after the cinematograph had concluded its show did the audience go away contented.