sometimes claim that much of what has been stated in the
foregoing chapter is now out of date, and that, with the advance of
civilisation, the power of the mafia and the respect for omerta are
giving way to confidence in the police. And they go on to regret that
Giovanni Grasso should have so much success with his plays in foreign
countries, because they contain a great deal of mafia and mala vita which
he presents with so much realism that foreigners are encouraged in the
idea that all Sicilians are for ever sleeplessly going about with knives
in their belts seeking to execute vendettas. But most theatre-goers know
by this time that melodramas are not made up of the events of ordinary
life. A man does not discover every day that he has been deceived by his
wife or that his sister has been betrayed by his compare; when he does
make such a discovery he may be pardoned if he loses his self-control.
Anyhow, the sleepless vendetta notion is so ludicrously contrary to the
fact that Sicily can afford to take the risk. One might as well treat
seriously the complaint against the marionettes, that the swaggering talk
of Orlando and Rinaldo encourages the boys to behave in real life as
though every fancied insult must be wiped out with blood. The boys
certainly do fight--they can be seen fighting in the fish-market, one
armed with a basket for his shield and another with a stick for his
sword, his Durlindana. But boys fight, even in England, with no
marionettes to inflame their imaginations, and sometimes they cut one
another; still, no one would take too seriously the exclamation of that
schoolmaster who, on being called to deal with some such incident,
hurried from his study muttering:

"Knives, knives--dangerous weapons; would to heaven they had never been
invented!"

What was he going to do at dinner-time? And if the marionettes are to be
abolished, what is the Sicilian boy to do when it is time for him to sit
down to his evening meal of romance? It is even possible that if he were
starved of his marionettes he would more frequently substitute the
dangerous weapon for the stick.

We see Sicilian life only in bits at a time and any bit we see may turn
out on investigation to be only a bit of acting; and, whether real life
or acting, we see it through the veil of romance which is held in front
of it by their language and by their gestures, which cause their acting
to appear more real--that is, which help it to be mor