black on the wall
and ceiling so that one cannot see the room, but I should say it was like
Orlando's bedroom in the contadino's cottage on Ricuzzu's cart, the only
room in the house, poorly furnished and used for all purposes. The woman
of the hut had a baby in her arms and I said to Ninu:

"I wonder whether I may look at the baby?"

"Of course you may," he replied, "why not?"

So I asked the woman, who smiled proudly and gave me the baby at once.
She called it Turi (Salvatore) and said it was three weeks old. It was
asleep and I nursed it till the table was ready, which was not long, for
everything was cold. I handed Turi back to his mother and sat down, with
Joe on one side of me and Ninu on the other. Presently Ninu inquired why
I had asked whether I might look at the baby. I replied that I had heard
that Sicilian peasants are so superstitious they do not like strangers to
look at their babies for fear of the evil eye; I admitted that I had
never yet met with a peasant so superstitious as to refuse to show me her
baby, but on the Slopes of Etna, during an eruption, I had thought it
wise to be careful.

Ninu, in the Sicilian manner, was about to say that anyone could tell by
my appearance that there was nothing to fear from me, when Joe
interrupted him:

"She is an intelligent woman," said Joe.

I said: "I suppose you mean that she throws her intelligence into the
scale with her maternal pride, and together they overbalance any little
superstition which the proximity of the volcano may have fostered."

"That's the way to put it," he replied.

"Why do people talk so much about the evil eye? Do they think it is
picturesque, or do they really believe in it?"

Joe considered for a moment. Then he said: "Sometimes a peasant may
decline to hand over her baby because she thinks the stranger looks
clumsy and is likely to drop it; it would be rude to let him suspect
this, so she allows him to think she has a superstitious reason. And
some of her neighbours believe--at least--well, what do you mean by
believing? What is faith?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Sometimes one thing, sometimes another. It is a
difficult question."

"Perhaps it is that she believes that her neighbours believe," said Joe,
tentatively.

"That is not the faith of S. Alfio and his brothers, that is not the
faith that wins a martyr's crown or that removes mountains."

"No, but it has its reward if it enables the believer to feel that