is sincero, it makes to
be speaking the truth; yes, very likely. But the wine it is sometimes
traditore, it can also be telling the--what is bugia? Excuse me, it is
the lie."

"And so Letterio is married?"

"Look here, he was married. Now I shall tell you. Oh! what a bad woman
she was! Impossible to keep her in the albergo. 'Please go away,
Letterio; I am very sorry; you and your wife also.' And went away, to
his home in Messina and his wife also. In the winter was coming the
disaster, the terremoto, the earthquake, and the city was finished to be
consumed and the train was bringing the fugitives all day and all night.
I was down to the station, Brancaccia was making ready the beds, Carmelo
was driving them up and was bringing more and then more--broken people,
also whole people, all without nothing, very undressed, and the albergo
was became a hospital, a refugio, and the doctors were committing
operations upon them in the bedrooms and were curing them and curing them
till they died and went away in the cimitero--Oh! it was very
pitiful--and sometimes they were repairing them and sending them away in
the train. And I was making the journey with the hopeness to un-dig
Letterio. During three days was I searching the mournful ruins of
Messina but I don't be finding Letterio, nor alive nor dead, nor his
wife, and I am unhappy; also Brancaccia is unhappy. This is why she was
now going away with Ricuzzu."

"Oh! I thought probably the baby had--"

"Yes, many times that is the explication, but this time it is other; it
is that she don't like to be hearing the story of Letterio. I shall tell
you that Brancaccia is a gentle person, very tender in the heart."

"Yes," I agreed, "of course she is. But are not you both making too much
of this? You could not have known there would be an earthquake in
Messina. If there was to be one it might have been in some other city,
and they would not have been destroyed."

"Look here; perhaps she was not a so bad woman; perhaps some day she
would be making a little Ricuzzu and would be learning to be a good
woman."

"She might learn very slowly or not at all; and think of her poor husband
all the time!"

"Let us talk of something other. Do you remember Alfio Mascalucia?"

"Perhaps; what did he do?"

"You were always calling him Bellini."

"In the barber's shop opposite? Of course, I remember him, but I had no
idea he had such a magnificent name or I never should h