nd ring which sparkled as
he blessed the people. So he passed with his Secretary of State, his
cardinals, his bishops, his monsignori, his acolytes, his chamberlains,
his Guardia Nobile and his Swiss Guard; some carried lighted candles,
some carried banners and others crosses; some were swinging incense and
others were intoning the psalm _In Exitu Israel_. The solemn pomp of the
procession disappeared into the opening of the subterranean road and the
sound of the singing could no longer be heard. They were all safely
gone. The stage was empty. Yet the curtain did not fall.

Then came a poor mad boy, a sordo-muto, who had been overlooked. He was
in a great hurry, making frightful inarticulate noises and running this
way and that, being too much alarmed to go straight. Before he had found
the mouth of the tunnel the curtain fell and we did not see what became
of him. He may have been left behind after all.

CATANIA

CHAPTER VII
THE BUFFO'S HOLIDAY

I do not remember who started the idea that the buffo should come to
Catania with me; it grew up, as inevitable ideas do, without any of us
being sure whether he suggested it, or Papa, or Gildo, or one of the
sisters, or I, and it became the chief subject of conversation in the
Greco family for days.

It would not be true to say that he had never been away from Palermo,
because when he was a boy all the family went to try their fortune in
Brazil and stayed there five years running a marionette theatre; when
they returned to Palermo, they left behind them in South America the
eldest son, Gaetano, who still keeps a teatrino there. But the buffo saw
no more of South America than he has seen of Sicily and, except for this
five years in Brazil and an occasional day in the country round Palermo,
had never been outside his native town. But he knew that Catania was on
the other side of the island and near the sea, and expected it to be
hotter than Palermo because of the propinquity of Etna. He paid no
attention to my assurances that the temperature would be about the same
and said he should bring his great-coat, not on account of the heat, but
because he hoped that if he was seen with it he might be taken for an
English tourist.

We did not start from Palermo together. I had to go to Caltanissetta,
which is on a line that branches off at S. Caterina Xirbi from the main
line between Palermo and Catania. We arranged to meet at the junction
three days after