Tuscan folk-lore and sketches, together with some other papers

So he put on his coat and went with Death.

On the way they met the Devil.

“Ah, good morning, Padre Ulivo” (one can see they knew each other very well), “so you’re coming my way, are you?”

“To be sure I am. But let’s have a game at cards first.”

“By all means! What shall we play for?”

“For souls. A soul for every game.”

“Good! I’m not afraid. Nobody ever beat the Devil yet at cards.”

So they began, and Padre Ulivo won game after game.

The Devil got very angry and spit flames of fire from sheer rage, as he saw the crowd of souls collecting round Padre Ulivo.

“This will never do,” he said at last. “I shall have no fire left to warm myself at if I go on losing my fuel at this rate. Padre Ulivo, take your souls and be off. I have had enough of you.”

They left the Devil boiling over with fury, and went and knocked at the gate of Heaven.

“Who’s there?”

“Padre Ulivo.”

“I’ll go and ask if you may come in.” Then, after a little time: “Dominiddio says you may come in, if you’re alone; but you must not bring anyone else.”

“Go and tell Dominiddio that when he came to me I let him in with all his friends. He ought to do the same by me.”

The porter took the message, and then came and opened the gates.

“Dominiddio says you may all come in together.”

So they threw themselves down in the armchairs of Paradise, and enjoyed themselves for ever.

Surely a tale of this kind is an eloquent commentary on the mind of the people who have preserved it. The shrewd cunning, the frank materialism, the lavish generosity, so long as there is anything to be generous with (“since it’s there,” they will say as they offer or use the last of their store), are all strongly marked features among these peasants.

At the same time, the story itself suggests a curious feeling that we have to do with Jupiter and Mercury transformed in the crucible of Christian history and Catholic dogma. The transformation is an instructive one in many ways, and it would be interesting to know whether it has taken place in any other country besides Italy.

THE SOUND AND SONG OF THE LOVELY SIBYL

It was old ’Drea I was talking to, this time. Andrea was my peasant friend’s father, a small, infirm-looking man, about eighty years of age, of great shrewdness and penetration. We were sitting in the little kitchen garden beside the bean-vines, and as we chatted his eye roamed continually over the valley and the hills beyond, with the expression of one accustomed to render an account to himself of all he saw. He told me of his life as foreman to the great landowner of that part of the country; of his journeyings from one outlying farm to another, to collect the half of the farm-produce which is the due of the owner of the soil; of his experiences as head forester down in Maremma; of the power of the priests in his young days, the days of the Archduke Peter Leopold. “Why in those days,” said he, “two lines from the parish priest would send a man to the galleys for eight years without trial. There were Giovanni and Sandro, lived opposite the post office, in that house with a railing – you know it? – well, they’re old men now; but they have each served their eight years as convicts, nobody ever knew why.”

At last he asked me if I should like a story. ’Drea was a well-known story-teller and improviser, so I said nothing would please me better, and he began[3 - Cf. The Story of The Three Sisters, in the Arabian Nights.]: —

Once upon a time there was a knight who had three beautiful daughters. Now this knight determined to go to the Holy Land to fight for the tomb of our Lord, but he did not know what to do with his three daughters. At length a friend said: – “Build a tower for them,” and the idea was such a good one that he adopted it. He had a tall tower built, with three bedrooms and a sitting-room at the top of it; he locked the door at the foot and provided his daughters with a basket and a long rope with which to draw up their food. Then he gave each girl a diamond ring, and said: —

“So long as you are good, the diamonds will be bright and victorious, but if you do wrong I shall find them dull on my return.”

So he went away to fight the Saracens.

A little while after he had gone, the eldest daughter going to draw up the basket one morning, saw a poor man down below shivering with cold.

“Oh, sisters,” she said, “look at that poor man: shall we draw him up and feed him and warm him?”

“Do as you like,” said they; “we won’t be answerable for the results.”

So the girl bade the man get into the basket, drew him up, made a blazing fire, warmed him thoroughly, and gave him some dinner.

“Now you must go,” she said after a time, “you are warm, you have been fed, you have rested; what more do you want?”

“I must have supper with you.” To that the girl agreed, and then again told him to go away.

“I must sleep with you to-night,” said he.

Well, the girl did not know what to do, so she submitted.

The next morning after breakfast, the second daughter said to the man: —

“Now be off, we’ve had enough of you.”

“No, I am going to stay to dinner”: and after dinner it was: – “No, I am going to stay to supper,” and after supper the same thing as before.

The next day it was the third sister’s turn. Now the younger sisters are always more cunning than the elder ones, and this was no exception to the rule.

As before, the man stopped to breakfast, dinner and supper; but after supper the girl went to her room, saying to him: – “Wait till I call you.”

Now the tower had been built in a hurry and the floors were of plank only, not of brick or stone. Of this the maiden took advantage. She raised three or four planks just inside the door and then called: – “My light’s out, come and light it.”

The man ran to do so, but fell down the hole to the bottom of the tower; and as it was a high one he was killed by the fall.

The next morning the three sisters looked at their rings, but only that of the youngest was bright, the others were dull and clouded.

“What shall we do?” said the girls.

“I’ll tell you,” said the youngest; “we’ll sit all in a row, and pass my ring from one to another so cleverly that nobody shall notice.”

Presently their father came back. They did as their sister advised, and he was quite satisfied. Then they all went home to live in their old house and had a merry time of it.

One day, as the eldest was looking out of the window she saw the king’s baker.

“Ah, what a handsome man,” said she. “If he were to marry me I would make, in one day, enough bread to last the court for a year.”

These words were repeated to the baker; he married her and she managed to keep her promise.

A little while afterwards the second daughter was looking out of window when she spied the king’s pastry-cook.

“How I should like to marry that fine-looking man,” said she. “I would make enough cakes in a day to last a year.”