found the landlord of the house, and he showed them that the
professor's part of the house had not fallen and told them that the
professor and his family had escaped and, he believed, had been taken to
Naples or Catania, or--he did not know where. This was satisfactory, at
least they no longer thought the children were buried in the ruins, but
it did not give much information as to their whereabouts. They went to
the station and got a permission to go to Catania. The train was crowded
with fugitives, some wounded, some unhurt, and during the journey a
passenger gave birth to a baby.

In Catania they asked of Madama Ciccia (i.e. Signora Grasso, Giovanni's
mother), who would certainly have heard if the children had been seen in
the city, but she knew nothing. They sought out the boys' grandmother,
the mother of Signora Balistrieri, but she was not at home, she had
deserted her house for fear of another earthquake and had been sleeping
in the piazza. They inquired at the hospital and at the institutions
where fugitives had been taken. They advertised. They actually found a
professor from Messina with pupils, but it was not the one they wanted.
They went to Siracusa, to Malta, to Palermo, to Trapani; they got no
information and returned to Catania. Then they were struck with remorse
for not having entered the professor's house in Messina--they had only
spoken to the landlord--the boys might be buried there after all, alive
or dead. They returned to Messina and entered the house; it was all in
confusion; they looked through it, but found no trace of the children.

All this took them seven days, during which they scarcely ate and
scarcely slept. They knew that if the boys had really been taken to
Naples they were probably safe, and now they went there considering that
they had done their best with Sicily. In Naples they inquired at the
official places, at the hospitals and at the offices of the newspapers
where they could see the lists of names before they were published. They
found nothing and their thoughts went back to Messina; they wondered
whether the children might perhaps have been crushed by a falling house
in the streets, and whether they ought to return. In the evening they
went to a caffe to read the lists, and by chance took up a Roman paper.
They could hardly believe their eyes when they read the names of Turiddu
and Gennaro among those who had been taken to the Instituto Vittoria
Colonna in Naples.