Italian Tales

  

 

 

In a chapter entitled "Summer about Norcia" Edward Hutton recorded some delightful stories told by his young Italian companion Ulisse. Although Assisi and Umbria Revisited was written in 1953, this episode with Ulisse must have occurred decades earlier on an earlier journey to Umbria. These stories have now been forgotten but they did provide the subject matter for many a great work of art.

 

The heat was wonderful. It was not heavy, as any great heat in England always is, but vehement and marvelous with all the fierceness and vitality of fire, the pride and the beauty of the sun.  The hushed fields seemed about to burst into flame. The sun delighted and frightened me, it was wonderful and mysterious. Each day was like a hard, bright precious stone, more dazzling and more heartless than a diamond. Everything was still. And the nights were like sapphires. For three days now, everyone seemed to be in the pieve praying for rain….  

 

As I lay that evening just without the forest, not far from a little stream that, in spite of the drought, still ran secretly under the trees among the stones out into the parched valley, I heard a clear voice say softly, “Of what is the signore thinking, it is perhaps of his own country?”

 

Looking round, I saw a pair of eyes staring at me from under a tangle  of black hair, and Ulisse came close to me.

 

I lay back among the broom and answered, “Tell me a story, then, Ulisse—and I shall forget again.”

 

“But the signore has heard all the stories of the Frate Antonio, he has heard all the stories of my mother and my mother’s mother—what is there left to tell?”

 

“Tell me them over again.”

 

“Which of them all will the signore hear? But, indeed, he knows them all by heart! There is that one of the birth of Bambino Gesu—yes? And that of the Madonnina when she was a girl in school, and that of Sampietro who was always hungry, even as myself—which of them all shall I tell, then?”

 

And I said, “Tell me the Fuga in Egitto.”

 

“Signore, why do you always like that best? For my part I prefer those of Sampietro—how he put the devil’s head on the bella ragazza—

Gerard David: Rest on the Flight into Egypt.

“As the signore doubtless knows, Erode had ordered the massacre of the Innocenti, for he wished, ah, indeed how he wished! To kill the Bambino Gesu, who was a greater king than he. So Sangiuseppe and the Madonna had to flee away. Ah, the Madonnina…. She carried always in the nest of her arms, wrapped in her apron, Gesu our Saviour. And as she went, sitting on the ass which Sangiuseppe drove before him, as she went, the Pharisees met her and said, “Beautiful Lady, what do you carry in your apron?”

 

“And she answered, ‘I carry Il Gran’ Signore.’ 

 

“But the Pharisees mistook her, thinking she said, ‘Grano, Signori,’ and they answered, ‘Carry it, then, to the mill.’ So she passed on with Our Lord and Sangiuseppe.”…

 

Ulisse continued with a number of other stories about the Flight into Egypt: the bean field, the field of flax, the olive tree that hid the Holy family from the pursuers, and even the encounter with brigands who would eventually turn out to be the good thief and the bad thief on Calvary….

 

“Ulisse,” said I, after a time, “it is necessary that these tales be written down, since then have the sound of truth, so that they who know them not may hear them.”

 

“It is my opinion also, signore,” said Ulisse. “write them then—you who are always writing.”

 

“That,” said I, “is easier to say than to do; and if I do, be sure that not all who read them will understand them, because for some they are too difficult.”

 

“Indeed, yes,” said Ulisse; “yet I understand them, and they are good tales concerning Our Lord, the Madonna and the saints whom we love.”

 

“Ulisse,” said I, “it occurs to me to write them out tomorrow and to send them to the Inglesi.”

 

“That,” said Ulisse, “would be indeed a Christian act, worthy of the signore, because the Inglesi—scusi, signori—much more often than not are no Christians at all, and it would be well to turn their hearts.”

 

Now Ulisse had for some time been troubled about my countrymen and their probable fate as heretics, and had evidently been consulting Frate Antonio on the matter, for presently he said;

 

“Scusi, signore! It was not altogether the fault of the Inglesi that they became heretics. It was really the fault of their wicked King Enrico, who wanted to get rid of his good and very pious queen and marry another woman…. But Frate Antonio has said that even these Protestanti may by chance not go to hell.”

 

“What?” I said. “How is that?”

 

“Signore, senta! One day Il Gesu Christo was walking with Sampietro in Paridiso, as the padrone may walk with the fattore in the podere, and after a while He said—not as complaining exactly, but as stating a fact:

 

“Sampietro, I think this place has gone down.”

 

“Here Sampietro who is always impetuous and knew very well what He meant, dared to interrupt.

 

“’Il Santissimo can’t blame me,’ he said huffily; ‘Il Santissimo is not to suppose they all came in by the Gate, Che! Che!’

 

“’Not come in by the Gate, Sampietro? What do you mean?’ said Our Lord.

 

“’ If Il Santissimo will but step this way, round these bushes,’ said Sampietro, ‘He will see.’

 

“And sure enough He saw. For there was the Madonna drawing the souls up pell-mell, willy-nilly, anyhow, into Paradiso in a great bucket to their eternal gain and undeserved good.” O Clemens, O Pia, O Dulcis Virgo Maria.

 

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Edward Hutton: Assisi and Umbria Revisited, London, 1953. Pp. 92-98.