Padre Ulivo told him.
“Oh, you stupid man! But go and ask another favour quickly. And mind it’s something great, and something really for yourself. Remember you are speaking to Dominiddio.”
Padre Ulivo ran on again and knelt down.
“What do you want this time? You shall have it.”
“Let anyone who gets up into my fig-tree be unable to come down without my permission.”
“Very well; it shall be so.”
And Padre Ulivo came back leaping for joy.
“Well, and what did you ask for?”
Padre Ulivo told him.
“Oh, you fool! Go again, you will get one more favour; but mind you ask for something really good for yourself.”
He wanted him to ask to go to Paradise.
“Again!” said Dominiddio, when he saw Padre Ulivo in the dust before him. “Well, this is the last time. What do you want?”
“Let me always win at cards, no matter whom I may be playing with.”
“Be it so. And now no more.”
Padre Ulivo came back to his companion singing for joy.
“What have you asked for this time? Something really great?”
“Oh, yes,” said Padre Ulivo, and told him.
“Well, you’ve lost your chance now. Good-bye.”
With that he left him and Padre Ulivo went home.
Now his jolly times began again. His barrel of wine never ran dry, and his cupboard never grew empty. Everybody came to see him. They ate, drank, and led a merry life.
But Padre Ulivo grew old; and one day Death came to him.
“Oh, how do you do?” said Padre Ulivo. “You want me, do you? Well, I was just beginning to fear you had forgotten me, and to wonder where you could be. Sit down and take a rest, and then I’ll come with you.”
So Death sat down on the chair in the chimney-corner, while Padre Ulivo piled on wood and made a splendid blaze.
“Now we must go,” said Death, when he was warm. “Oh, oh! what’s this?” For when he tried to get up the chair stuck to him and he could not move. “Oh, oh!” And he pulled at the chair that seemed glued firmly to him. “Padre Ulivo, let me go! I have to go for the carpenter’s daughter before sundown. Oh, oh! I can’t get up. You’ve bewitched me.”
“Promise not to come back for a hundred years, and you shall go free.”
“A hundred! A hundred and one, if you like! Only take the spell off.”
So Padre Ulivo gave him permission to rise, and Death went away.
Things went on as usual for the hundred years, with feasting and merry-making. But at last, as Padre Ulivo was among his friends, Death appeared again.
“Yes, yes, I’m ready. But let us have a feast of figs first. See what splendid fruit there! I and my friends had as much as we wanted yesterday, it’s your turn to-day. Go up and help yourself; I am too old to climb.”
So Death went up the tree and picked and ate to his heart’s content.
“Now we must go,” said he. “Hullo! I can’t get down. Oh, Padre Ulivo, you’ve bewitched me again!” And he stretched out now an arm, now a leg, and twisted and turned; but it was all of no good, and the others stood below laughing at him.
“Oh, Padre Ulivo! I’ll leave you another hundred years, if you’ll only let me get down.”
“Very well; then you may come.”
So Death climbed down and went away.
When the hundred years were passed, he came and stood outside the cottage.
“Padre Ulivo, Padre Ulivo, come out! I shan’t come near your house this time. I don’t want to be tricked again.”
“Oh, no, I’m coming. Wait till I get my jacket.”
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 began3: