The expedient was too absurdly simple to be efficacious.
The attitude of the clergy in regard to popular superstitions is the
same here as elsewhere. They are too wise to believe them, and too
shrewd to discourage the belief in others; these things can be turned to
account for keeping the people at a conveniently low level of
intelligence. For the rest, these priests are mostly good fellows of the
live-and-let-live type, who would rather cultivate their own potatoes
than quarrel about vestments or the Trinity. Violently acquisitive, of
course, like most southerners. I know a parish priest, a son of poor
parents, who, by dint of sheer energy, has amassed a fortune of half a
million francs. He cannot endure idleness in any shape, and a fine
mediaeval scene may be witnessed when he suddenly appears round the
corner and catches his workmen wasting their time and his money -
"Ha, loafers, rogues, villains, vermin and sons of bastardi cornuti!
If God had not given me these garments and thereby closed my lips to all
evil-speaking (seizing his cassock and displaying half a yard of purple
stocking) - wouldn't I just tell you, spawn of adulterous assassins, what
I think of you!"
But under the new regime these priests are becoming mere decorative
survivals, that look well enough in the landscape, but are not taken
seriously save in their match-making and money-lending capacities.
The intense realism of their religion is what still keeps it alive for
the poor in spirit. Their saints and devils are on the same familiar
footing towards mankind as were the old gods of Greece. Children do not
know the meaning of "Inferno"; they call it "casa del diavolo" (the
devil's house); and if they are naughty, the mother says, "La Madonna
strilla" - the Madonna will scold. Here is a legend of Saint Peter,
interesting for its realism and because it has been grafted upon a very
ancient motif: -
The apostle Peter was a dissatisfied sort of man, who was always
grumbling about things in general and suggesting improvements in the
world-scheme. He thought himself cleverer even than "N. S. G. C." One
day they were walking together in an olive orchard, and Peter said:
"Just look at the trouble and time it takes to collect all those
miserable little olives. Let's have them the size of melons."
"Very well. Have your way, friend Peter! But something awkward is bound
to happen. It always does, you know, with those improvements of yours."
And, sure enough, one of these enormous olives fell from the tree
straight on the saint's head, and ruined his new hat.
"I told you so," said N. S. G. C.
I remember a woman explaining to me that the saints in Heaven took their
food exactly as we do, and at the same hours.
