North Italian Folk: Sketches of Town and Country Life

								

the Mediterranean could still bring colours into boldest relief against
dark backgrounds, could search out gloomy corners, and deck streets and
people in holiday garb, making mad with its glitter and its warmth the
reckless brains of an untutored Southern nation.
Time ago there was Carnival really as it should be, along the highways
and byways, and in the public halls and the private homes of Genoa—not
a Carnival so rich and so splendid as the Carnival of Rome, for Genoa
merchants have always been close-handed, and even her populace has had
a name long past in other Italian districts for shrewd economy; not
a Carnival so studied and so lengthened as the Carnival of Milan, for
Milan is a city privileged of Mother Church, and can keep up her frolic
when other towns have been three days shrouded in ashes and penitence;
still a Carnival no way to be despised as a means of enjoyment, even
of unmeasured madness and merriment for those to whom such things come
easily. And such things used to come very easily to many people in the
days that we, mourners of better Carnivals, can call to mind.
Holy Week, called la settimana grassa, is past. Lent moves forward
apace with gloomy garments, with sack-cloth and ashes, and calls to
prayer and penitence! Come, let us make good use of this last day of
reprieve! For it is Martedì Grasso, and with to-morrow’s sun dawns
Ash-Wednesday!
The picture is in shade as the morning breaks, for there are faint
clouds overhead—after all, it is only February—and the sun has only
half its strength, and only a grey colour for silver glory to shed
over the Mediterranean, and off the Mediterranean, up on to the green
hills and marble terraces of the town. The sea is not blue but white,
beneath these pearl-grey clouds, that let the sun through as through a
veil, but it is calm, the limpid waves of it lapping gently on to the
knotted and slimy rocks of the coast. There is but little to complain
of in the weather, and before the midday meal has been eaten, before
even the most impatient of spectators or the maddest of masqueraders
have begun to line the sides of the streets where the Corso will
pass—our sun has made his way as usual through all obstacles, and makes
the sky and the sea blue, the streets and the people bright with his
gladdening warmth. The highways begin to swarm with people that press
and pour in from the hundred little yards and colonnades and alleys of
which the old city has so many; they are men and women of the peasantry
from without the walls, of the smaller tradesmen, from within—the
people who, in all nations, would rather stand breathless for hours
in a throng than miss the exultation of giving the first shout for
the first rumour of a pageant’s approach. The women of this crowd
are mostly conspicuous for dark red and blue gowns of stout homespun
linen, called in the neighbourhood bordato, or for gowns of brilliant
coloured calicoes gaily-flowered in pattern, for kerchiefs of still