Old Calabria | Page 3

of course. Furthermore, they have carted hither,
from the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, the chair once occupied by
Ruggiero Bonghi. Dear Bonghi! From a sense of duty he used to visit a
certain dull and pompous house in the capital and forthwith fall asleep
on the nearest sofa; he slept sometimes for two hours at a stretch, while
all the other visitors were solemnly marched to the spot to observe
him--behold the great Bonghi: he slumbers! There is a statue erected to
him here, and a street has likewise been named after another celebrity,
Giovanni Bovio. If I informed the townsmen of my former
acquaintance with these two heroes, they would perhaps put up a
marble tablet commemorating the fact. For the place is infected with
the patriotic disease of monumentomania. The drawback is that with
every change of administration the streets are re-baptized and the
statues shifted to make room for new favourites; so the civic landmarks
come and go, with the swiftness of a cinematograph.
Frederick II also has his street, and so has Pietjo Giannone. This
smacks of anti-clericalism. But to judge by the number of priests and
the daily hordes of devout and dirty pilgrims that pour into the town
from the fanatical fastnesses of the Abruzzi--picturesque, I suppose we
should call them--the country is sufficiently orthodox. Every
self-respecting family, they tell me, has its pet priest, who lives on
them in return for spiritual consolations.
There was a religious festival some nights ago in honour of Saint
Espedito. No one could tell me more about this holy man than that he
was a kind of pilgrim-warrior, and that his cult here is of recent date; it
was imported or manufactured some four years ago by a rich merchant

who, tired of the old local saints, built a church in honour of this new
one, and thereby enrolled him among the city gods.
On this occasion the square was seething with people: few women, and
the men mostly in dark clothes; we are already under Moorish and
Spanish influences. A young boy addressed me with the polite question
whether I could tell him the precise number of the population of
London.
That depended, I said, on what one described as London. There was
what they called greater London--
It depended! That was what he had always been given to understand. . . .
And how did I like Lucera? Rather a dull little place, was it not?
Nothing like Paris, of course. Still, if I could delay my departure for
some days longer, they would have the trial of a man who had
murdered three people: it might be quite good fun. He was informed
that they hanged such persons in England, as they used to do
hereabouts; it seemed rather barbaric, because, naturally, nobody is
ever responsible for his actions; but in England, no doubt--
That is the normal attitude of these folks towards us and our institutions.
We are savages, hopeless savages; but a little savagery, after all, is
quite endurable. Everything is endurable if you have lots of money, like
these English.
As for myself, wandering among that crowd of unshaven creatures, that
rustic population, fiercely gesticulating and dressed in slovenly hats
and garments, I realized once again what the average Anglo-Saxon
would ask himself: Are they all brigands, or only some of them? That
music, too--what is it that makes this stuff so utterly unpalatable to a
civilized northerner? A soulless cult of rhythm, and then, when the
simplest of melodies emerges, they cling to it with the passionate
delight of a child who has discovered the moon. These men are still in
the age of platitudes, so far as music is concerned; an infantile aria is to
them what some foolish rhymed proverb is to the Arabs: a thing of God,
a portent, a joy for ever.

You may visit the cathedral; there is a fine verde antico column on
either side of the sumptuous main portal. I am weary, just now, of these
structures; the spirit of pagan Lucera--"Lucera dei Pagani" it used to be
called--has descended upon me; I feel inclined to echo Carducci's
"Addio, nume semitico!" One sees so many of these sombre churches,
and they are all alike in their stony elaboration of mysticism and
wrong-headedness; besides, they have been described, over and over
again, by enthusiastic connaisseurs who dwell lovingly upon their
artistic quaintnesses but forget the grovelling herd that reared them,
with the lash at their backs, or the odd type of humanity--the gargoyle
type--that has since grown up under their shadow and influence. I
prefer to return to the sun and stars, to my promenade beside the castle
walls.
But for the absence of trees and hedges, one might take this to be some
English