ently
grave and courteous Palermitan knew what he was doing all the time and
was enjoying it as a child enjoys committing a harmless piece of
mischief.

If one were to pierce through it and understand them as they may be
supposed to understand themselves, one would not necessarily be in a
position to give an opinion about the mafia, for, besides those who speak
of the growing confidence in the police, there are others who assert that
the improvement, if any, is slight and only on the surface, and that the
spirit of the mafia is not confined to the mala vita, but extends to the
upper classes and influences even the administration of justice and the
elections. When the natives differ on such a point, a mere foreigner can
hardly decide; but I have more frequently heard the opinion expressed in
favour of improvement. Certainly, in the Teatro Machiavelli, when
murderers are taken by the police it is often done now with the approval
of the audience, which they tell me would not have been the case some
years back.

Before writing about the mala vita one ought at least to have seen a man
murdered in the street. I have never seen this, nor have I ever even
seen the body of a murdered man lying in the street. All that I know
about the mala vita in Sicily has been gathered from conversation, books
and plays. Lest it should be thought that in thus disclaiming practical
knowledge of the subject I am inspired by omerta--as a traveller may shut
his eyes to unpleasant incidents out of regard for his hosts--I will here
collect together all the occasions when I have thought myself to be in
the immediate neighbourhood of the mala vita.

At Castellinaria the barber who keeps the shop opposite the Albergo della
Madonna--the shop in which Alfio Mascalucia was assistant--always seemed
to me to be a man one would readily trust with all one's possessions. He
must be now over forty, married and with a family. Peppino told me the
other day that in his youth, meaning between the ages of eighteen and
twenty-six, this barber had been a notorious ricottaro and had often been
in prison for crimes of various kinds. When I heard this, his extremely
courteous manner reminded me of the Robin Hood side of the Cristiani, and
of the oriental hospitality of the mafiosi towards strangers. I asked
Peppino whether I ought to discontinue my custom. He said not unless I
was dissatisfied with him as a barber. Then I realised that I must have
forgotten