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his wife and a litter of children, and a mule is still his only possession.
However, the peasant's abysmal poverty is not nearly so touchinc
as a certain attitude that colors every manifestation of his existence.
Or, to put it another way, what moves the visitor in a confused upsurge
of feelings (ranging from shame to pride) is the glaring contrast
be–
tween the objective conditions of the life of these people and the nobility
of their response. It teaches the visitor that
"la miseria"
is more
than
a set of material conditions, for he soon comes to see it as poverty
turned into a philosophic outlook-an outlook not limited to the
land–
less peasants but equally influential with the artisans, the professional
men and even the landowners.
This nobility of response, this dignity peculiar to
"la miseria"
is
based, no doubt, on a sense of acceptance that reminds us of the pre–
Socratic thinkers who once inhabited these lands. Not only do the
fire
of mighty Etna, the rocks of Calabria, the rushing rivers, the transparent
air represent the same ancient elements of which this world is composed;
but as in the times of Magna Graecia, a sense of primitive speculative
realism, of acceptance of the unavoidable, of recognition of an estab–
lished order-both natural and moral-pervades the people's life.
The delicate sense of the hierarchy of things, natural and human,
is well expressed in the remark of a landless peasant who, in attempting
to describe his daily routine, had started by saying: "We hoe
the
earth"-then had interrupted himself with an apology to me (the
gentleman) -"if you will forgive the expression, like beasts." Someone
who wants to explain a difficult question to a visitor often starts by
saying: "I am only a peasant" or "I am only a carpenter-but this
is
what I think about it." This matter-of-fact recognition of one's proper
place in the general scheme of things has no taint of submissiveness of
the poor to the rich. First of all, the criterion of the social order,
in
the minds of the peasants, is not primarily an economic one as it
is
for
the baron or great proprietor, who for this reason does not participate
in the dignity of the peasant and is not treated with the same kind of
simple human regard that peasants are accustomed to show each other.
It is as if each position, or function, had the same basic value within
the general propriety of things.
From this results a broad understanding of every human phenom–
enon, a tendency to see something plausible in every human weakness.
It also helps to explain a certain restraint in everyday behavior, par–
ticularly remarkable in a region where the passions are naturally fierce:
people speak little and what they say is measured and precise; even
when pointing to the hopelessness of their position, there is little ten-
