{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_55840/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_55840","id":"gutenberg_55840","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55840","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Travel Writing","Sicily (Italy) -- Description and travel"],"text":"Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustrations.\n      See 55840-h.htm or 55840-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/55840/pg55840-images.html)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55840/55840-h.zip)\n\n\n      Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/seekersinsicily00wetmiala\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note:\n\n      Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores\n      (_italics_).\n\n      Text that was in bold face is enclosed by equal signs\n      (=bold=).\n\n\n\n\n\nSEEKERS IN SICILY\n\n\n[Illustration: \u201cDemeter\u2019s Well-Beloved Children\u201d]\n\n\nSEEKERS IN SICILY\n\nBeing a Quest for Persephone by Jane and Peripatetica\n\nDone into the Vernacular\n\nby\n\nELIZABETH BISLAND AND ANNE HOYT\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York: John Lane Company. MCMIX\nLondon: John Lane, The Bodley Head\n\nCopyright, 1909\nBy John Lane Company\n\n\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n                                   To\n\n                          ANDERS AND FRAU ZORN\n\n                       FROM THE NORTH, IN MEMORY\n                       OF THE SUN AND THE SOUTH,\n                         THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED\n\n                                   BY\n\n                       A PAIR OF \u201cWORD BRAIDERS\u201d\n\n\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n                                 =NOTE=\n\n\n_THE designs upon the cover of this book, and at the heads of the\nchapters, are the tribe signs or totems of the original inhabitants of\nthe island of Sicily, which have survived all conquests and races and\nare still considered as tokens of good luck and defenders from the\nEvil-eye._\n\n\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n                                PREFACE\n\nWHEN this book was written\u2014in the spring of the year\u2014the Land of the\nOlder Gods was unmarred by the terrible seismic convulsions which\nwrought such ruin in the last days of 1908.\n\nVery sad to each of us it is when time and the sorrows of \u201cthis\nunintelligible world\u201d carve furrows upon our own countenances, but when\nthe visage of the globe shrivels and wrinkles with the lapse of ages\nthen the greatness of the disaster touches the whole race. Sicily, whose\nhistory is so full of blood and tears, has been the victim of the\ngreatest natural tragedy that man\u2019s chronicles record because of this\nline drawn by Time upon our planet\u2019s face\u2014yet it leaves her still so\nfair, so poignantly lovely, that pilgrims of beauty will\u2014forgetting this\nslight blemish\u2014still journey to see the sweetest remnant of the world\u2019s\nyouth. Happily Messina, the one city injured, was the one city where\ntravellers rarely paused. All the others remain unmarred and are still\nexactly as they were when this chronicle of their ancient beauty and\ncharm was set down.\n\n          E. B. AND A. H.\n\n\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n                                                            PAGE\n                  PREFACE                                      9\n          CHAPTER\n                I ON THE ROAD TO THE LAND OF THE GODS         15\n               II A NEST OF EAGLES                            45\n              III ONE DEAD IN THE FIELDS                     126\n               IV THE RETURN OF PERSEPHONE                   178\n                V A CITY OF TEMPLES                          192\n               VI THE GOLDEN SHELL                           229\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n        \u201cDemeter\u2019s Well-Beloved Children\u201d         _Frontispiece_\n\n                                                            PAGE\n\n        \u201cA Place Where the Past Reveals Itself\u201d               68\n\n        \u201cPan\u2019s Goatherd\u201d                                     132\n\n        \u201c\u00c6tna, The Salient Fact of Sicily\u201d                   186\n\n        \u201cThe Saffron Mass of Concordia\u201d                      198\n\n        \u201cLifting Themselves Airily From a Sea of             218\n        Flowers\u201d\n\n        \u201cSicily\u2019s Picture-book, The Painted                  234\n        Cart\u201d\n\n        \u201cThe Last Resting Place of Queen                     248\n        Constance\u201d\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n\n                           SEEKERS IN SICILY\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n\n                  ON THE ROAD TO THE LAND OF THE GODS\n\n             \u201cHe ne\u2019er is crown\u2019d with immortality\n              Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.\u201d\n\n\u201cOH, Persephone, Persephone!... Surely Kor\u00e9 is in Hell.\u201d\n\nThis is a discouraged voice from the window.\n\n\u201cPeripatetica, that _sounds_ both insane and improper. Would it fatigue\nyou too much to explain in the vernacular what you are trying, in your\nroundabout way, to suggest?\u201d\n\nThus Jane, a mere diaphanous mauve cloud, from which the glimmering fire\npicked out glittering points here and there. When Jane takes to teagowns\nshe is really very dressy.\n\nPeripatetica strolled up and down the dusky drawing-room two or three\ntimes, without answering. Outside a raging wind drove furiously before\nit in the darkness the snow that flew upward in long spirals, like\ndesperate hunted ghosts. Finally she took up a book from the table, and\nkneeling, to get the light from the logs on the page, began to read\naloud.\n\nThese two were on such kindly terms that either one could read aloud\nwithout arousing the other to open violence.\n\n\u201cPersephone, sometimes called Kor\u00e9\u2014\u201d read Peripatetica, \u201chaving been\nseized by Pluto, as she gathered narcissus, and wild thyme, and mint,\nand the violet into her green kirtle\u2014was carried, weeping very bitterly,\ninto his dark hell. And Demeter, her mother, missing her fair and\nsweet-curled daughter, sought her through all the world with tears and\nravings; the bitter sound and moisture of her grief making a noise as of\nwinter wind and rain. And her warm heart being so cold with pain the\nblossoms died on her bosom, and her vernal hair was shredded abroad into\nthe air, and all growing things drooped and perished, and her brown\nbenignant face became white as the face of the dead are white\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\nPeripatetica closed the book, put it back on the table, and drew a\nhassock under her for a seat.\n\n\u201cI see,\u201d said Jane. \u201cDemeter is certainly passing this way to-night,\npoor dear! It\u2019s a pity she can\u2019t realize Persephone, that sweet soul of\nSpring, will come back. She always does come back.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes; but Demeter, the mother-earth, always fears that this time she may\nnot; that Pluto will keep her in hell always. And every time she makes\nthe same outcry about it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI suppose she always finds her first in Enna,\u201d Jane hazarded. \u201cIsn\u2019t\nEnna in Sicily?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I think so; but I don\u2019t know much about Sicily, though everybody\ngoes there nowadays. Let\u2019s go there, Jane, and help Demeter find\nPersephone.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s!\u201d agreed Jane, with sympathetic enthusiasm, and they went.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, being Americans, and therefore accustomed to the most obliging\nbehaviour on the part of the male sex, it never occurred to them that\nPluto might be ungallant enough to object to their taking a hand in. But\nhe did\u2014as they might have foreseen would be likely in a person so\nunmannerly as to snatch lovely daughters from devoted mothers.\n\nIt began on the ocean. On quite a calm evening a wave, passing from\nunder the side of the ship, threw its crest back\u2014perhaps to look at the\nstars\u2014and fell head over heels into their open port. Certainly as much\nas two tons of green and icy Atlantic entered impulsively, and by the\ntime they were dried out and comforted by the tight-corseted, rosy,\nsympathetic Lemon every object they possessed was a mere bunch of\ndepressed rumples. Throughout the rest of the voyage they presented the\nunfortunate appearance of having slept in their clothes, including their\nhats. These last, which they had believed refreshingly picturesque, or\ncoquettish, at starting, had that defiantly wretched aspect displayed by\nthe broody hen after she has been dipped in the rain-barrel to check her\ntoo exuberant aversion to race-suicide.\n\nThat was how Pluto began, and it swiftly went from bad to worse.\n\nThree large tourist ships discharged bursting cargoes of humanity upon\nNaples on one and the same day, and the hotel-keepers rose to their\nopportunity and dealt guilefully with the horde clamouring as with one\nvoice for food and shelter. That one\u2019s hard-won shelter was numbered 12\n_bis_ (an artful concealment of the unlucky number 13) was apparently an\nunimportant detail. It was shelter, though even a sea-sodden mind should\nhave seen something suspicious in those egregious frescoes of fat ladies\nsitting on the knife edge of crescent moons with which Room 13\nendeavoured to conceal its real banefulness. Even such a mind should\nhave distrusted that flamingly splendid fire-screen in front of a\nwalled-up fireplace; should have scented danger in that flamboyant black\nand gold and blue satin furniture of the vintage of 1870. There was\nplainly, to an observant eye, something sinister and meretricious in so\nmuch dressiness, but Jane and Peripatetica yielded themselves up to that\nserpent lodging without the smallest precaution, and lived to rue their\nimpulsive confidence.\n\nTo begin with, Naples, instead of showing herself all flowers and\nsunshine, tinkling mandolins, and moonlight and jasper seas, was as\nmerry and pleasing as an iced sponge. Loud winds howled through the\nstreets, driving before them cold deluges of rain, and in these chilling\ndownpours the street troubadours stood one foot in the puddles snuffling\nsongs of \u201cBella Napoli\u201d to untuned guitars, with water dripping from the\nends of their noses. Peripatetica\u2014whose eyes even under her low-spirited\nhat had been all through the voyage full of dreamful memories of\nNeapolitan tea-roses and blue blandness\u2014curled up like a disappointed\nworm and retired to a fit of neuralgia and a hot-water bottle. There was\nsomething almost uncanny in the scornful irony of her expression as she\nhugged her steaming comforter to her cheek, and paced the floor in time\nto those melancholy damp wails from the street. Instead of tea-roses she\nwas prating all day of American comforts, as she clasped the three tepid\ncoils of the chilly steam-heater to her homesick bosom, while Jane\npaddled about under an umbrella in search of the traditional ideal\nItalian maid, who would be willing to contribute to the party all the\nvirtues and a cheerful disposition, for sixty francs a month.\n\nMinna, when she did appear, proved to be Swiss instead of Italian, but\nshe carried an atmosphere of happy comfort about her, could spin the\nthreads of three languages with her gifted tongue, while sixty francs\nseemed to satisfy her wildest dreams of avarice. So the two depressed\npilgrims, soothed by Minna\u2019s promise to assume their burdens the next\nday, fell asleep dreaming that the weather might moderate or even clear.\n\nEight o\u2019clock of the following morning came, but Minna didn\u2019t. Jane\ninterviewed the concierge, who had recommended her. The concierge\ninterviewed the heavens and the earth, and the circumambient air, but\nspite of outflung fingers and polyglot cries, the elements had nothing\nto say about the matter, and for twenty-four hours they declined to let\nthe secret leak out that other Americans in the same hotel had ravished\ntheir Minna from them with the glittering lure of twenty francs more.\n\nFinally it dawned upon two damp and depressed minds that some unknown\nenemy had put a _comether_ on them\u2014though at that time they had no\ninkling of his identity. Large-eyed horror ensued. First aid to the\nhoodooed must be sought. Peripatetica tied a strip of red flannel around\nher left ankle.\n\n\u201cIn all these very old countries,\u201d she said oracularly, \u201csecret malign\ninfluences from the multitudes of wicked dead rise up like vapours from\nthe soil where they have been buried.\u201d\n\nJane listened and, pale but resolute, went forth and purchased a coral\n_jettatura_.\n\n\u201cLet us pass on at once from this moist Sodom,\u201d she said.\n\nVisions of sun and Sicily dawned upon their mildewed imaginations.\n\nNow there is really but one way to approach Sicily satisfactorily. Of\ncourse a boat leaves Naples every evening for Palermo, but the\nMediterranean is a treacherous element in February. It had broken night\nafter night in thunderous shocks upon the sea wall, making the heavy\nstone-built hotel quiver beneath their beds, and in the darkness of each\nnight they had seen the water squadron charge again and again, the\nforemost spinning up tall and white to fling itself in frenzied futile\nspray across the black street. So that the thought of trusting insides\njaded by two weeks of the Atlantic to such a foe as this was far from\ntheir most reckless dreams. The none too solid earth was none too good\nfor such as they, and a motor eats up dull miles by magic. Motors are to\nbe had in Naples even when fair skies lack, and with a big Berliet\npacked with luggage, and with the concierge\u2019s tender, rueful smile\nshedding blessings, at last they slid southward.\n\n\u2014Pale clouds of almond blossoms were spread against grey terraces....\nLess pale smells rose in gusty whiffs.... Narrow yellow streets crooked\nbefore them, where they picked a cautious hooting way amid Italy\u2019s\nrising population complicated with goats and asses.... Then flat, muddy\nroads, and Berliet bumping, splashing between fields of green\nartichokes.... The clouds held up; thinned, and parted, showing rifts of\nblue.... Vesuvius pushed the mists from her brow, and purple shadows\ndappled her shining, dripping flanks.... Orange groves rose along the\nway. Flocks of brown goats tinkled past. More almond boughs leaned over\nwalls washed a faded rose. Church bells clanked sweetly through the\nmoist air from far-away hills. Runnels chattered out from secret\nchannels fringed with fern. Grey olive orchards hung like clouds along\nthe steep.... The sun was fairly out, and Italy assuming her old\ntraditional air of professional beauty among the nations of the\nearth....\n\nThe Berliet climbed as nimbly as a goat toward Sorrento. The light\ndeepened; the sea began to peacock. More and more the landscape assumed\nthe appearance of the impossibly chromatic back drop of an opera, and as\nthe turn was made under the orange avenue of the hotel at Sorrento\neverything was ready for the chorus of merry villagers, and for the\nprima donna to begin plucking song out of her bosom with stereotyped\ngestures.\n\nIt was there they began to offer the light wines of the country, as\nsweetly perfumed and innocent as spring violets; no more like to the\nastringent red inks masquerading in straw bottles in America under the\nsame names, than they to Hercules. The seekers of Persephone drank\ndeeply\u2014as much as a wine-glass full\u2014and warmed by this sweet ichor of\nBacchus they bid defiance to hoodoos and pushed on to Amalfi.\n\nBerliet swam along the Calabrian shore, lifting them lightly up the\nsteeps, swooping purringly down the slopes,\u2014swinging about the bold\ncurves of the coast; rounding the tall spurs, where the sea shone, green\nand purple as a dove\u2019s neck, five hundred feet below, and where orange,\nlemon, and olive groves climbed the narrow terraces five hundred feet\nabove. They were following the old, old way, where the Greeks had gone,\nwhere the Romans went, where Normans rode, where Spaniards and Saracens\nmarched; the line of the drums and tramplings of not three, but of three\nhundred conquests! They were following\u2014in a motor car\u2014the passageway of\nthree thousand years of European history that was to lead them back\nbeyond history itself to the old, old gods.\n\nThe way was broad and smooth, looping itself like a white ribbon along\nthe declivity, and even Peripatetica admitted it was lovely, though she\nhas an ineradicable tendency to swagger about the unapproachable\nsuperiority of Venezuelan scenery; probably because so few are in a\nposition to contradict her, or because she enjoys showing off her\nknowledge of out-of-the-way places which most of us don\u2019t go to. She had\nalways sniffed at the Mediterranean as overrated in the matter of\ncolour, and declared it pale and dull beside the green and blue fire of\nBiscayne Bay in Florida, but it was a nice day, and a nice sight, and\nPeripatetica handsomely acknowledged that _after_ Venezuela this was the\nvery best scenery she knew.\n\nAt Amalfi\n\n                     \u201cWhere amid her mulberry trees\n                     Sits Amalfi in the heat,\n                     Bathing ever her white feet\n                     In the tideless summer seas,\u201d\n\nthey climbed 175 steps to the Cappucini convent which hangs like a\nswallow\u2019s nest in a niche of the cliffs, flanked by that famous terrace\nthe artists paint again and again, from every angle, at every season of\nthe year, at every hour of the day. There they imbibed a very superior\ntea, while sea and sky did their handsomest, listening meanwhile to a\nfellow tourist brag of having climbed to Ravello in his motor car.\n\nIf one cranes one\u2019s neck from the Cappucini terrace, on a small peak\nwill be seen what purports to be a town, but the conclusion will be\nirresistible that the only way to reach such a dizzy eminence is by\ngoat\u2019s feet, or hawk\u2019s wings, and the natural inference is that the\nfellow tourist is fibbing. Nevertheless one hates to be outdone, and one\nabandons all desire to sleep in one of those coldly clean little\nmonk-cells of the convent, and climbs resolutely down the 175 steps\nagain and interviews Berliet. Berliet thinks his chassis is too long for\nthe sharp turns. Thinks that the road is bad; that it is also unsafe;\nthat the hotel in Ravello is not possible; that he suspects his off fore\ntire; that there\u2019s not time to do it before dark; that his owner forbids\nhis going to Ravello at all; that he has an appointment that evening\nwith a good-looking lady in Amalfi; that he is tired with his long run,\nand doesn\u2019t want to any way. All of which eleven reasons appeared so\nirrefutable, collectively and individually, that Jane and Peripatetica\nclimbed into their seats and announced that they would go to Ravello,\nand go immediately.\n\nBerliet muttered unpleasant things in his native tongue as to signori\nbeing reckless, obstinate, and inconsiderate; wound them up sulkily and\ntook them.\n\nPeripatetica admitted in a whisper that up to that very day she had\nnever even heard of Ravello, which proved to be a really degrading piece\nof ignorance, for every human being they met for the next three months\nknew all about the place\u2014or said they did. Further experience taught\nthem to know that Italy is crowded with little crumbling towns one has\nnever heard of before, which when examined prove to be the very\nparticular spots in which took place about a half of all the history\nthat ever happened. History being a thing one must be pretty skilful if\none means to evade it in Italy, for the truth is that whenever history\ntook a notion to _be_, it promptly went on a trip to Italy and _was_.\n\nThey hooted slowly again through narrow streets, pushed more goats and\nchildren out their way, and then Berliet swung round on one wheel and\nbegan to mount. Began to climb like the foreseen goat, to soar like the\nimagined hawk, up sharp zigzags that lifted them by almost exact\nparallels. Everything that puts on power and speed, and makes noises\nlike bomb explosions in a saw-factory, was pushed forward or pulled\nback. They rushed noisily round and round the peak at locomotive speed,\nand finally half way up into the very top of the sky they pulled up\nsharply in a cobble-paved square. Berliet leaped nimbly out, unscrewed a\nhot lid\u2014with the tail of his linen duster\u2014from which lid liquids and\nsteam and smells boiled as from an angry geyser, and they found\nthemselves in the wild eyrie of Ravello. That ubiquituosity\u2014(with the\nname of a hotel on his cap)\u2014who springs out from every stone in Italy\nlike a spider upon the foolish swarming tourist fly, was waiting for\nthem in the square as if by appointment, and before they could draw the\nfirst gasp of relief he had their possessions loaded upon the backs of\nthe floating population, and they were climbing in the dusk a stone\nstairway that called itself a street\u2014meekly and weakly unwitting of\ntheir possible destination. The destination proved to be a vaulted\ncourtyard, opening behind a doorway which was built of a choice\nassortment of loot from four periods of architecture and sculpture;\nproved to be a reckless jumble of winding steps, of crooked passages, of\nterraces, balconies, and loggias, and the whole of this destination went\nby the name of the Hotel Bellevue. And once there, then suddenly, after\nall the noise and odours, the confusion and human clatter of the last\nthree weeks, they stepped quietly out upon a revetment of Paradise.\n\nBelow\u2014a thousand feet below\u2014in the blue darkness little sparks of light\nwere Amalfi. In the blue darkness above, hardly farther away it seemed,\nwere the larger sparks of the rolling planets. The cool, lonely darkness\nbathed their spirits as with a blessed chrism. The place was, for the\nnight, theirs alone, and for one holy moment the swarming tourist failed\nto swarm.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n              \u201cIn the Highlands! In the country places!\u201d\u2014\n\nmurmured Jane, gratefully declining upon a broad balustrade, and\nPeripatetica echoed softly\u2014declining in her turn\u2014\n\n            ... \u201cOh, to dream; oh, to awake and wander\n                 There, and with delight to take and render\n                 Through the trance of silence\n                 Quiet breath.\u201d...\n\nAnd Jane took it up again\u2014\n\n             ... \u201cWhere essential silence cheers and blesses,\n                  And forever in the hill recesses\n                  Her more lovely music broods and dies.\u201d\n\nJust then essential silence was broken by the last protesting squawk of\na virtuous hen, who seemed to be about to die that they might live.\nPeripatetica recognized that plaintive cry. Hens were kept handy in\nfattening-coops on the Plantation, against the sudden inroads of\nunexpected guests.\n\n\u201cWhen the big-gate slams chickens begin to squawk,\u201d was a\nwell-remembered Plantation proverb.\n\n\u201cHow tough she will be, though,\u201d Jane gently moaned, \u201cand we shan\u2019t be\nable to eat her, and she will have died in vain.\u201d\n\nLittle did she reck of Signor Pantaleone Caruso\u2019s beautiful art, for\nwhen they had dressed by the dim, soothing flicker of candles in big\nclean bed-rooms that were warmed by smouldering olive-wood fires, they\nwere sweetly fed on a dozen lovely dishes; dishes foamy and yellow, with\nhot brown crusts, made seemingly of varied combinings of meal and\ncheese, and called by strange Italian cognomens. And the late\u2014so very\nlate\u2014pullet appeared in her due course amid maiden strewments of crisp\nsalads; proving, by some Pantaleonic magic, to be all that a hen could\nor should be. And they drank gratefully to her manes in Signor Caruso\u2019s\nown wine, as mellow and as golden as his famous cousin\u2019s voice. After\nwhich they ate small, scented yellow apples which might well have grown\nin Hesperidian gardens, and drowsed contentedly by the musky olive-wood\nblaze, among bowls of freesias and violets, until the almost weird hour\nof half past eight, when inward blessedness and a day of mountain air\nwould no longer be denied their toll.\n\nYet all through the hours of sleep \u201cold forgotten, far-off things, and\nbattles long ago\u201d stirred like an undertone of dreams within dreams. The\nclank of armed feet moved in the street. Ghostly bells rang whispered\ntocsins of alarm, and shadowy life swept back and forth in the broken,\ndeserted town. The \u201cBrass Hats\u201d glimmered in the darkness. Goths set\nalight long extinguished fires. Curved Saracen swords glittered faintly,\nand Normans grasped the heights with mailed hands. The Rufolis, the\nd\u2019Affliti, the Confalones, and della Maras married, feasted, and warred\nagain in dumb show, and up and down the stairs of this very house\nrustled the silk robes and soft shod feet of sleek prelates.\n\nEven the sea below\u2014where the new moon floated at the western rim like a\ngolden canoe\u2014was astir with the myriad sails of _revenants_. First the\nwhite wings of that\u2014\n\n                             \u201cGrave Syrian trader ...\n           Who snatched his rudder and shook out his sail ...\n           Between the Syrtes and soft Sicily.\u201d\n\nAfter him followed hard the small ghostly sails of the Greeks.\n\n\u201cThey were very perfect men, and could do all and bear all that could be\ndone and borne by human flesh and blood. Taking them all together they\nwere the most faultlessly constructed human beings that ever lived, and\nthey knew it, for they worshipped bodily health and strength, and spent\nthe lives of generations in the cultivation of both. They were fighting\nmen, trained to use every weapon they knew, they were boxers and\nwrestlers, athletes, runners and jumpers, and drivers of chariots; but\nabove all they were seamen, skilled at the helm, quick at handling the\nsails, masters of the oar, and fearless navigators when half of all\nnavigation led sooner or later to certain death. For though they loved\nlife, as only the strong and the beautiful can love it, and though they\nlooked forward to no condition of perpetual bliss beyond, but only to\nthe shadowy place where regretful phantoms flitted in the gloom as in\nthe twilight of the Hebrew Sheol, yet they faced dying as fighters\nalways have and always will, with desperate hands and a quiet heart.\u201d\n\nThe golden canoe of the young moon filled and sank behind the sea\u2019s rim,\nbut through the darkness came the many-oared beat of ponderous Roman\ngalleys carrying the dominion of the earth within their great sides, and\nas they vanished like a fog-wreath along the horizon, followed fast the\nhawk-winged craft of the keen-bladed, keen-faced Saracen, whose\nsickle-like crescent would never here on this coast round to the full.\nFor, far away on the grey French coast of Coutance was a Norman\ngentleman named Tancred, very strong of heart, and very stout of his\nhands. There was no rumour of him here, as he rode to the hunt and\nspitted the wild boar upon his terrible length of steel. What should the\nMoslems know of a simple Norman gentleman, or care?\u2014and yet in those\nlion loins lay the seeds of a dozen mighty whelps who were to rend their\nChristian prey from the Moslem and rule this warm coloured South as\nkings and dukes and counts, and whose blood was to be claimed by every\ncrown in Europe for a thousand years. Very few among the shadowy sails\nwere those of the de Hautevilles, but quality, not quantity, counts most\namong men, and those ships carried a strange, potent race. Anna Comnena\nthus describes one of them:\n\n\u201cThis Robert de Hauteville was of Norman origin\u2014he united a marvellous\nastuteness with immense ambition, and his bodily strength was\nprodigious. His whole desire was to attain to the wealth and power of\nthe greatest living men; he was extremely tenacious of his designs and\nmost wise in finding means to attain his ends. In stature he was taller\nthan the tallest; of a ruddy hue and fair-haired, he was\nbroad-shouldered, and his eyes sparkled with fire; the perfect\nproportion of all his limbs made him a model of beauty from head to\nheel, as I have often heard people tell. Homer says of Achilles that\nthose who heard his voice seemed to hear the thundering shout of a great\nmultitude, but it used to be said of the de Hautevilles that their\nbattle cry would turn back tens of thousands. Such a man, one in such a\nposition, of such a nature, and of such spirit, naturally hated the idea\nof service, and would not be subject to any man; for such are those\nnatures which are born too great for their surrounding.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen morning dawned all spirits of the past had vanished, and only the\nnoisy play of the young hopes of the Caruso family disturbed the peace\nof the echoing court. Jane insisted upon calling these innocent infants\nKnickerbockers, because, she said, they were only short\nPantaleones\u2014which is the sort of mild pleasantry Jane affects.\nPeripatetica doesn\u2019t lend herself to these gentler forms of jest. It was\nshe who put in all that history and poetry. (See above.)\n\nRavello used to be famous for her dye stuffs, and for the complete\nthorough-goingness of her attacks of plague, but her principal\nindustries to-day are pulpits, and fondness for the Prophet Jonah. Her\npopulation in the day of dyes and plague was 36,000, and is now, by\ngenerous computation, about thirty-six\u2014which does not include the\nKnickers. Just opposite the Hotel Bellevue is one of these pulpits, in\nthe church of St. John of the Bull; a church which about a thousand\nyears ago was a very superior place indeed; but worse than Goths or\nVandals, or Saracens, or plague, was the pernicious activity of the\nEighteenth Century. Hardly a church in Italy has escaped unscathed from\nits busy rage. No sanctuary was too reverend or too beautiful to be\nravaged in the name of Palladio, or of \u201cthe classic style.\u201d Marbles were\nbroken, mosaics torn out, dim aisles despoiled, brass and bronze melted,\ncarvings chopped and burned, rich glass shattered, old tapestries flung\non the dust heap. All the treasures of centuries\u2014sweet with incense,\nsoftened and tinted by time, sanctified by a thousand prayers, and\nbeautified by the tenderest emotions\u2014were bundled out of the way of\nthose benighted savages, and tons of lime were had into the poor gaunt\nand ruined fanes to transform them into whited sepulchres of beauty.\nBlank plaster walls hid the sweetest of frescoes; clustered grey columns\nwere limed into ghastly imitations of the Doric; soaring arches\u2014flowered\nlike forest boughs\u2014vanished in stodgy vaultings; Corinthian pilasters\nshoved lacelike rood-screens out of the way, and fat sprawling cherubs\nshouldered bleeding, shadowy Christs from the altars.\n\nThe spirit which inspired this stupid ruthlessness was perfectly\nexpressed by Addison, who, commenting upon the great Cathedral of Siena,\nsaid pragmatically:\n\n\u201cWhen a man sees the prodigious pains that our forefathers have been at\nin these barbarous buildings, one cannot but fancy what miracles of\narchitecture they would have left us had they only been instructed in\nthe right way; for when the devotion of those ages was much warmer than\nit is at present, and the riches of the people much more at the disposal\nof the priests, there was so much money consumed on these Gothic\nchurches as would have finished a greater variety of noble buildings\nthan have been raised before or since that time. Than these Gothic\nchurches nothing can make a prettier show to those who prefer false\nbeauties and affected ornaments to a noble and majestic simplicity\u201d\u2014of\ndull plaster!\n\nMuch has been said of the irreverence of the Nineteenth Century. The\nEighteenth respected nothing their forefathers had wrought; not even in\nthis little far-away mountain town, and St. John of the Bull is now\u2014poor\nSaint!\u2014housed drearily in a dull, dusty, echoing white cavern, with not\none point of beauty to hold the protesting eye save the splendid marble\npulpit\u2014escaped by some miracle of ruth to stand out in that dull waste\nupon delicate twisted alabaster columns, which stand in their turn upon\ncrawling marble lions. Its four sides, and its baldachino, show\nbeautiful patterns of precious mosaics, wrought with lapis lazuli, with\nverd antique, and with sanguine Egyptian marbles. The carefullest and\nrichest of these mosaics, of course\u2014along the side of the pulpit\u2019s\nstair\u2014is devoted to picturing that extremely qualmish archaic whale who\nin all Ravello\u2019s churches _unswallows_ the Prophet Jonah with every\nevidence of emotion and relief.\n\nRecently, in the process of removing some of the acres of Eighteenth\nCentury plaster, there was brought to light in a little chapel in the\ncrypt a life-sized relief of St. Catherine and her wheel.\n\nSuch a lovely lady!\u2014so fair, so pure, so saint-like; with faint memories\nof old tinting on her small lips, on her close-folded hair, and her\ndowncast eyes\u2014that even the most frivolous of tourists might be moved to\ntears by the thought that she alone is the one sweet ghost escaped from\nall that brutal destruction of medi\u00e6val beauty; resurrected by the\nmerest chance from her plaster tomb.\n\nJane at the thought of it became quite dangerously violent. She insisted\nupon digging up the Eighteenth Century and beating it to death again\nwith its own dusty old wig, and was soothed and calmed only by being\ntaken outside to look once more by daylight at the delicious marble\nmince of fragments which the Hotel Bellevue has built into its\nportals\u2014Greek and Roman capitals upside down; marble lambs and crosses,\ngargoyles, and corbels adorning the sides and lintels in a charming\nconfusion of styles, periods, and purposes.\n\nRavello, as are all these arid ancient towns from which the tides of\nlife have drained away, is as dry and empty as an old last year\u2019s nut; a\nmere hollow shell, ridged and parched, out of which the kernel of\nexistence has vanished.\n\nA tattered, rosy-cheeked child runs up the uncertain footway\u2014the\nstair-streets\u2014with feet as light and sure as a goat\u2019s. An old, old man,\nwith head and jaws bound in a dirty red kerchief, and with the keen\nhawk-like profile of some far-off Saracen ancestry, crouches in a\ndoorway with an outstretched hand. He makes no appeal, but his apparent\nconfidence that his age and helplessness will touch them, does touch\nthem, and they search their pockets hastily for coppers, with a faint\nanguished sense of the thin shadow of a dial-finger which for them too\ncreeps round and round, as for this old derelict man, for this old\nskeleton city....\n\nA donkey heaped with brushwood patters up the steep narrow way; so\nnarrow that they must flatten themselves against the wall to admit of\nhis stolidly sorrowful passage. They may come and go, as all the others\nhave come and gone, but our brother, the ass, is always there, recking\nnot of Greek or Roman, of American or Tedeschi; for all of them he bears\nburdens with the same sorrowful stolidity, and from none does he receive\nany gratitude....\n\nThese are the only inhabitants of Ravello they see until they reach the\nPiazza and the Cathedral of Saint Pantaleone. They know beforehand that\nthe Cathedral too has been spoiled and desecrated, but there still\nremain the fine bronze doors by the same Barisanus who made the famous\nones in the church at Monreale in Sicily, and here they find the most\nbeautiful of the pulpits, and the very biggest Jonah and the very\nbiggest whale in all Ravello.\n\nBefore that accursed Bishop Tafuri turned it into a white-washed cavern\nthe old chroniclers exhausted their adjectives in describing the glories\nof Saint Pantaleone\u2019s Cathedral. The richness of its sixteen enormous\ncolumns of verd antique; its raised choir with fifty-two stalls of\nwalnut-wood, carved with incredible richness; its high altar of\nalabaster under a marble baldachino glowing with mosaics and supported\nupon huge red Egyptian Syenite columns\u2014its purple and gold Episcopal\nthrone; its frescoed walls, its silver lamps and rich tombs, its\npictures and shrines and hangings\u2014all pitched into the scrap heap by\nthat abominable prelate, save only this fine pulpit, and the Ambo. The\nAmbo gives itself wholly to the chronicles of the prophet Jonah. On one\nstairside he leaps nimbly and eagerly down the wide throat which looks\nso reluctant to receive him, as if suspecting already the discomfort to\nbe caused by the uneasy guest. But Jonah\u2019s aspect is all of a careless\ngaiety; he is not taking this lodging for more than a day or two, and is\naware that after his brief occultation his reappearance will be dramatic\nand a portent. On the opposite stair it happens as he had prophetically\nforeseen, the mosaic monster disgorging him with an air of mingled\nviolence and exhausted relief.\n\nNo one can tell us why Jonah is so favourite a topic in Ravello. \u201c_Chi\nlo sara_\u201d everyone says, with that air of weary patience Italy so\npersistently assumes before the eccentric curiosity of Forestieri.\n\nRosina Vokes once travelled about with a funny little playlet called\n\u201cThe Pantomime Rehearsal,\u201d which concerned itself with the sufferings of\nthe author and stage manager of an English house-party\u2019s efforts at\namateur theatricals. The enthusiastic conductor used to say\ndramatically:\n\n\u201cNow, Lord Arthur, you enter as the Chief of the fairies!\u201d\n\nTo which the blond guardsman replies with puzzled heaviness: \u201cYes; but\n_why_ fairies?\u201d\n\nProducing in the wretched author a sort of paralysis of bafflement. The\nsame look comes so often into these big Italian eyes. The thing just\n_is_. Why clamour for reasons? It is as if these curious wandering folk,\nalways staring and chattering and rushing about, and paying good money\nthat would buy bread and wine, merely to look at old stones, should ask\n_why_ the sun, or why the moon, or why anything at all?...\n\nSo they abandon Jonah and take on the pulpit instead, the most famous of\nall the mosaic pulpits in a region celebrated for mosaic pulpits. It is\ndone after the same pattern as that of St. John of the Bull, but the\npattern raised to the _n_th power. More and bigger lions; more and\ntaller columns; richer scrolls of mosaics; the bits of stone more deeply\ncoloured; the marble warmed by time to a sweeter and creamier blond. The\nwhole being crowned, moreover, by an adorable bust of Sigelgaita Rufolo,\nwife of the founder of the Cathedral and giver of the pulpit. A pompous\nLatin inscription under the bust records the virtues of this magnificent\npatron of religion. The inscription including the names of all the long\nstring of stalwart sons Sigelgaita brought forth, and it calls in\ndignified Latinity the attention of the heavenly powers to the eminent\ndeserts of this generous Rufolo, this medi\u00e6val Carnegie.\n\nSigelgaita\u2019s bust is an almost unique example of the marble portraiture\nof the Thirteenth Century\u2014if indeed it truly be a work of that time, for\nso noble, so lifelike is this head with its rolled hair, its princely\ncoronet and long earrings, so like is it to the head of the Capuan Juno,\nthat one half suspects it of being from a Roman hand\u2014those masters of\nmarmoral records of character\u2014and that it was seized upon by Sigelgaita\nto serve as a memorial of herself.\n\nBernardo Battinelli, a notary of Ravello, writing in 1540 relates an\nanecdote which shows what esteem was inspired by this marble portrait\nlong after its original was dust:\n\n\u201cI remember in the aforesaid month and year, the Spanish Viceroy Don\nPietro di Toledo sent for the marble bust, which is placed in the\nCathedral and much honest resistance was made, so that the first time he\nthat came returned empty-handed, but shortly after he came back, and it\nwas necessary to send it to Naples in his keeping, and having sent the\nmagnifico Giovanni Frezza, who was in Naples, and Ambrose Flomano from\nthis place to his Excellency, after much ado, by the favour of the\nglorious Virgin Mary, and by virtue of these messengers from thence\nafter a few days the head was returned.\u201d\n\nIn the year 1851 the palace of these splendid Rufoli, which in the time\nof Roger of Sicily had housed ninety knights with their men at arms, had\nfallen to tragical decay. A great landslide in the Fifteenth Century\ndestroyed the harbour of Amalfi; hid its great quays and warehouses, its\nbroad streets and roaring markets beneath the sea, and reduced it from a\npowerful Republic, the rival of Venice and Genoa, to a mere fishing\nvillage. A little later the plague followed, and decimated the now\npoverty-stricken inhabitants of Ravello, and then the great nobles began\nto drift away to Naples, came more and more rarely to visit their\nCalabrian seats, and these gradually sank in the course of time into\nruin and decay. Fortunately in the year before mentioned a rich English\ntraveller, making the still fashionable \u201cgrand tour,\u201d happened into\nRavello, saw the possibilities of this crumbling castle set upon one of\nthe most beautiful sites in the world, and promptly purchased it from\nits indifferent Neapolitan owner. He, much absorbed in the opera dancers\nand the small intrigues of the city, was secretly and scornfully amused\nthat a mad Englishman should be willing to part with so much good hard\nmoney in exchange for ivied towers and gaping arches in a remote country\ntown.\n\nThe Englishman mended the arches, strengthened the towers, gathered up\nfrom among the weeds the delicate sculptures and twisted columns,\ndestroyed nothing, preserved and restored with a reverent hand, and made\nfor himself one of the loveliest homes in all Italy. It was in that\ncharming garden, swung high upon a spur of the glorious coast, that Jane\nand Peripatetica contracted that passion for Ravello which haunted them\nwith a homesickness for it all through Sicily. For never again did they\nfind anywhere such views, such shadowed green ways of ilex and cypress,\nsuch ivy-mantled towers, such roses, such sheets of daffodils and blue\nhyacinths. They dreamed there through the long day, regretting that\ntheir luggage had been sent on to Sicily by water, and\u2014forgetting quite\ntheir quest of Persephone\u2014that they were therefore unable to linger in\nthe sweet precincts of the Pantaleone wines and cooking, devoting weeks\nto exploring the neighbouring hills, and to unearthing more pulpits and\nmore Jonahs in the nearby churches.\n\nIn the dusk they lingered by the Fountain of Strange Beasts, in the dusk\nthey wandered afoot down the cork-screwed paths up which they had so\nfuriously and smellily mounted. Berliet hooted contemptuously behind\nthem as he crawled after, jeering as at \u201cscare-cats,\u201d who dared mount,\nbut shrank from descending these abrupt curves and tiptilted inclines\nexcept in the safety of their own low-heeled shoes.\n\nAt Amalfi they plunged once again into the noisy tourist belt\u2014the _va et\nvient_, the chatter, the screaming flutter of the passenger pigeons of\nthe Italian spring. And yet there was peace in the tiny white cells in\nwhich they hung over the sheer steep, while the light died nacreously\nalong the West. There was quiet in certain tiny hidden courts and\nterraces under the icy moonlight, and Jane said in one of these\u2014her\nutterance somewhat interrupted by the chattering of her teeth, for\nItalian spring nights are as cold as Italian spring days are warm\u2014Jane\nsaid:\n\n\u201cWhat idiotic assertions are made in our time about ancient Europe\nhaving no love for, no eye for, Nature\u2019s beauty! Did you ever come\nacross a medi\u00e6val monastery, a Greek or Roman temple that was not placed\nwith an unerring perception of just the one point at which it would look\nbest, just at the one point at which everything would look best from\nit?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course I never did,\u201d Peripatetica admitted with sympathetic\nconviction. \u201cWe get that absurd impression of their indifference from\nthe fact that our forebears were not nearly so fond of talking about\ntheir emotions as we. They had a trust in their fellow man\u2019s\ncomprehension that we have lost. We always imagine that no one can know\nthings unless we tell them, and tell them with all our t\u2019s carefully\ncrossed and our i\u2019s elaborately dotted. The old literatures are always\nillustrating that same confidence in other people\u2019s imaginations,\nstating facts with what to our modern diffuseness appears the baldest\nsimplicity, and yet somehow conveying all their subtlest meanings. Our\nancestors happily were not \u2018inebriated with the exuberance of their own\nverbosity.\u2019... And now, Jane, bring that congealed nose of yours in out\nof the open air. The moon isn\u2019t going on a vacation. She will be doing\nher old romance and beauty business at the same old stand long after we\nare dead and buried, not to mention to-morrow night.\u201d\n\nBerliet was all his old self the next day, and they swooped and soared,\nslid and climbed toward P\u00e6stum, every turn around every spur showing\nsome new beauty, some new effect. Gradually the coast sank and sank\ntoward the sea; the snow-caps moved further back into the horizon; grew\nmore and more mere white clouds above, more and more mere vapoury\namethyst below, and at last they shot at a right angle into a wide level\nplain, and commenced to experience thrills. For the guide-books were\nfull, one and all, of weird tales of P\u00e6stum which lay, so they said, far\nback in a country as cursed and horrible as the dreadful land of the\nDark Tower. About it, they declared, stretched leprous marshes of\nstagnant ooze choked with fat reeds, where fierce buffalo wallowed in\nthe slime. The contadini passed through its deadly miasma in shuddering\nhaste, gazing large-eyed upon a dare-devil Englishman who had once had\nthe courage to pass a night there in order to gratify a bold, fantastic\ndesire to see the temples by moonlight. It was such a strange,\ntremendous story, that of the Greek Poseidonia, later the Roman P\u00e6stum.\n\nLong ago those adventuring mariners from Greece had seized the fertile\nplain which at that time was covered with forests of great oak and\nwatered by two clear and shining rivers. They drove the Italian natives\nback into the distant hills, for the white man\u2019s burden even then\nincluded the taking of all the desirable things that were being wasted\nby incompetent natives, and they brought over colonists\u2014whom the\nphilosophers and moralists at home maligned, no doubt, in the same\npleasant fashion of our own day. And the colonists cut down the oaks,\nand ploughed the land, and built cities, and made harbours, and finally\ndusted their busy hands and busy souls of the grime of labour and\nwrought splendid temples in honour of the benign gods who had given them\nthe possessions of the Italians and filled them with power and fatness.\nEvery once in so often the natives looked lustfully down from the hills\nupon this fatness, made an armed snatch at it, were driven back with\nbloody contumely, and the heaping of riches upon riches went on. And\nmore and more the oaks were cut down\u2014mark that! for the stories of\nnations are so inextricably bound up with the stories of trees\u2014until all\nthe plain was cleared and tilled; and then the foothills were denuded,\nand the wave of destruction crept up the mountain sides and they too\nwere left naked to the sun and the rains.\n\nAt first these rains, sweeping down torrentially, unhindered by the lost\nforests, only enriched the plain with the long hoarded sweetness of the\ntrees, but by and by the living rivers grew heavy and thick, vomiting\nmud into the ever-shallowing harbours, and the lands soured with the\nundrained stagnant water. Commerce turned more and more to deeper ports,\nand mosquitoes began to breed in the brackish soil that was making fast\nbetween the city and the sea. Who of all those powerful land-owners and\nrich merchants could ever have dreamed that little buzzing insects could\nsting a great city to death? But they did. Fevers grew more and more\nprevalent. The malaria-haunted population went more and more languidly\nabout their business. The natives, hardy and vigorous in the hills, were\nbut feebly repulsed. Carthage demanded tribute, and Rome took it, and\nchanged the city\u2019s name from Poseidonia to P\u00e6stum. After Rome grew weak\nSaracen corsairs came in by sea and grasped the slackly defended riches,\nand the little winged poisoners of the night struck again and again,\nuntil grass grew in the streets, and the wharves crumbled where they\nstood. Finally the wretched remnant of a great people wandered away into\nthe more wholesome hills, the marshes rotted in the heat and grew up in\ncoarse reeds where corn and vine had flourished, and the city melted\nback into the wasted earth. So wicked a name had the miasmatic,\nfever-haunted plain that age after age rolled away and only birds and\nserpents and wild beasts dared dwell there, or some outlaw chose to face\nits sickly terrors rather than the revenge of the law.\n\n\u201cThink,\u201d said Jane, \u201cof the sensations of the man who came first upon\nthose huge temples standing lonely in the naked plain! So lonely that\ntheir very existence had been long forgotten. Imagine the awe and\nsurprise of such a discovery\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\nThey were spinning\u2014had been spinning for half an hour\u2014along a rather bad\nhighway, and Peripatetica found it hard to call up the proper emotions\nin answer to Jane\u2019s suggestion, so occupied was she in looking for the\nrelishing grimness insisted upon by the guide-books. There were reeds;\nthere were a very few innocuous-looking buffalo, but for the most part\nthere were nice cultivated fields of grain and vines on either hand, and\noccasionally half a mile or so of neglected shrubby heath.\n\n\u201cWhy, half of Long Island is wilder than this!\u201d grumbled Peripatetica.\n\u201cWhere\u2019s the Dark Tower country? Childe Roland would think this a formal\ngarden. I _insist_ upon Berliet taking us somewhere that will thick our\nblood with horror.\u201d\n\nAs it turned out, a wise government had drained the accursed land,\nplanted eucalyptus trees, and was slowly reclaiming the plain to its old\nfertility, but the guide-books feel that the story is too good to be\nspoiled by modern facts, and cling to the old version of 1860.\n\nJust then\u2014by way of compensation, Berliet having fortunately slowed down\nover a bad bit\u2014an old altar-piece of a Holy Family stepped down out its\nframe and came wandering toward them in the broad light of day. On the\nlarge mild gray ass\u2014a real altar-piece ass\u2014sat St. Anna wrapped in a\nfaded blue mantle, carrying on her arm a sleeping child. At her right\nwalked the child\u2019s mother, whose thin olive cheek and wide, timid eyes\nseemed half ghostly under the white linen held together with one hand\nunder her chin. Young St. John led the ass. A wreath of golden-brown\ncurls blew about his golden-red cheeks, and he wore goat-hide shoes, and\nhad cross-gartered legs.\n\nJane now says they never saw them at all. That it was just a mirage, or\na bit of glamourie, and that there is nothing remaining in new Italy\nwhich could look so like the typical old Italy\u2014but if Jane is right then\nhow did the two happen to have exactly the same glamour at exactly the\nsame moment? How could they both imagine the benign smile of that\nstrayed altar picture? Is it likely that a motor car would lend itself\nto sacred visions? I ask you that!\n\nThere was certainly some illusion\u2014not sacred\u2014about the dare-devilishness\nof that Englishman who once spent a moonlit night at the temples, for a\nlittle farming village lies close to the enclosure that shuts off the\ntemples from the highway, the inhabitants of which village seemed as\nmeek as sheep and anything but foolhardy, and there was reason to\nbelieve that they spend every night there, whether the moon shines or\nnot.\n\nBut the Temples were no illusion, standing in stately splendour in the\nmidst of that wide shining green plain, by a sea of milky chalcedony,\nand in a semicircle behind them a garland of purple mountains crowned\nwith snow. Great-pillared Neptune was all of dull, burned gold, its\nserried columns marching before the blue background with a curious\neffect of perfect vigour in repose, of power pausing in solid ease. No\npicture or replica gives the sense of this energy and power. Doric\ntemples tend to look lumpish and heavy in reproductions, but the real\nthing at its very best (and this shrine of Neptune is the perfectest of\nGreek temples outside of Athens) has a mighty grace, a prodigious\nsuggestion of latent force, of contained, available strength that wakes\nan awed delight, as by the visible, material expression of an ineffable,\nglorious, all-powerful god.\n\n\u201cWell, certainly those Greeks\u2014\u2014!\u201d gasped Jane when the full meaning of\nit all began to dawn upon her, and Peripatetica, who usually suffers\nfrom chronic palpitation of the tongue, simply sat still staring with\nshining eyes. Greeks to her are as was King Charles\u2019 head to Mr. Dick.\nShe is convinced the Greeks knew everything worth knowing, and did\neverything worth doing, and any further proof of their ability only\nfills her with a gratified sense of \u201cI-told-you-so-ness.\u201d So she lent a\nbenign ear to a young American architect there, who pointed out many\nconstructive details, which, under an appearance of great simplicity,\nproved consummate grasp of the art, and of the subtlest secrets of\narchitectural harmonics.\n\nBefore the land made out into the harbour Poseidon\u2019s temple stood almost\non the sea\u2019s edge. The old pavement of the street before its portals\nbeing disinterred shows the ruts made by the chariot wheels still\ndeep-scored upon it, and it was here\n\n          \u201cThe merry Grecian coaster came\n          Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,\n          Green bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine\u2014\u201d\n\nanchoring almost under the shadow of the great fane of the Lord of the\nWaters; and here, when his cargo was discharged, he went up to offer\nsacrifices and thanks to the Sea-god of Poseidonia, and\n\n             \u201cHung his sea-drenched garments on the wall,\u201d\n\nand prayed for skill to outwit his fellows in trade; for fair winds to\nblow him once more to Greece.\n\nBesides the temple of Neptune there was, of course, the enormous\nBasilica, and a so-called temple of Ceres, and some Roman fragments, but\nthese were so much less interesting than the golden-pillared shrine of\nthe Trident God, that the rest of the time was spent in looking vainly\nand wistfully for P\u00e6stum\u2019s famous rose gardens, of which not even the\nsmallest bud remained, and then Berliet gathered them up, and went in\nsearch of the Station of La Cava.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n\n                            A NEST OF EAGLES\n\n               \u201cSo underneath the surface of To-day\n                Lies yesterday and what we call the Past,\n                The only thing which never can decay.\u201d\n\nTRUSTFULLY and sleepily Jane and Peripatetica, in the icy starlight of\nLa Cava, boarded the express of European _de Luxe_. Drowsy with the long\nday\u2019s rush through the wind, they believed that the train\u2019s clatter\nwould be a mere lullaby to dreams of golden temples and iris seas and\n\u201cthe glory that was Greece.\u201d No robbers or barbarians nearer than\ndefunct corsairs crossed their imaginings; the hoodoo had faded from\nmind, shaken off by the glorious swoop of Berliet, and they supposed it\nleft behind at Naples, clinging bat-like under the gaudy frescoes of\nRoom 13 to descend on other unwary travellers.\n\nHalf of their substance had been paid to the Compagnie Internationale\ndes Wagon Lits for this night\u2019s rolling lodging, and they begrudged it\nnot, remembering that it entitled their fatigue to the comforts of a\nroom to themselves in all the vaunted superior civilization and\ndecencies of a European compartment car. Presenting their tickets in\ntrusting calm they prepared to follow the porter to a small but cosy\nroom where two waiting white beds lay ready for their weary heads. But\nthe Hoodoo had come on from Naples in that very train. Compartments and\nbeds there were, but not for them. The porter led on, and in a toy\nimitation of an American Pullman, showed them to a Lilliputian blue\nplush seat and a ridiculous wooden shelf two feet above that pretended\nit could unfold itself into an upper berth. This baby section in the\nmidst of a shrieking babble of tongues, a suffocation of unaired Latin\nand Teutonic humanity, was their compartment room, \u201c\u00e0 vous seules,\nMesdames!\u201d telegraphed for to Rome and made over to them with such\nflourish by the polite agent at Naples!\n\nIf the car was Lilliputian its passengers were not. Mammoth French\ndowagers and barrel-like Germans overflowed all its tiny blue seats, and\nthe few slim Americans more than made good by their generous excess of\nluggage. It was a very sardine box.\n\nIn a fury too deep for words or tears Peripatetica and Jane sank into\nthe few narrow inches the porter managed to clear for them, and resigned\nthemselves to leaving their own dear bags in the corridor.\n\n\u201cThey will, of course, be stolen, but then we may never need them again.\nWe can\u2019t undress, and shall probably be suffocated long before morning,\u201d\nremarked Peripatetica bitterly, with a hopeless glare at the imitation\nventilators not made to open. Their fury deepened at the slow struggles\nof the porter to adjust the inadequate little partitions, at the grimy\nblankets and pillows on the little shelves, at the curtains which didn\u2019t\nconceal them, the wash-room without water or towels and the\ncattle-train-like burden of grunts and groans and smells floating on the\nunbreathable atmosphere.\n\nMorning dawned golden on the flying hills at last, and then deepest fury\nof all was Peripatetica\u2019s, that passionate lover of fresh air, to find\nthat in spite of everything she _had_ slept, and was still breathing!\n\nCalabria, lovely as ever, melted down to her glowing seas; one last\nswooping turn of the rails, and another line of faint hills rose\nopposite\u2014and that was Sicily!\n\nThe train itself coiled like a weary serpent into a waiting steamer,\nwhich slipt smoothly by the ancient perils of Scylla and Charybdis; and\nnearer and nearer it rose, that gold and amethyst mountain-home of the\nOld Gods. The white curve of Messina, \u201cthe Sickle,\u201d showed clear at the\nbase of the cloud-flecked hills. Kronos, father of Demeter, enthroned on\nthose very mountain peaks, had dropped his scythe at the sea\u2019s edge,\ncutting space there for the little homes of men, and leaving them the\nname of his shining blade, \u201cZancle,\u201d the sickle, through all Greek days.\nIt was there, really there in actual vision, land of fire and myths; the\nplace of the beginnings of gods and men.\n\nPeripatetica and Jane burst from the car and climbed to the narrow deck\nabove to get clearer view. The sea wind swept the dust from their eyes\nand all fatigue and discomfort from their memories. Their spirits rose\nto meet that Spirit Land where Immortals had battled and labored; had\nbreathed themselves into man,\u2014the divine spirit stirring his little\npassing life with revelation of that which passeth not; that soul of\nbeauty and wisdom, and of poetry which should move through the ages.\nTheir eyes were wide to see the land where man\u2019s imaginings had brought\nthe divine into all surroundings of his life, until every tree and\nspring and rock and mountain grew into semblance of a god. Oh, was it\nall a \u201ccreed outworn\u201d? Here might not one perchance still see\n\n              \u201cProteus rising from the sea,\n               Or hear old Triton blow his wreath\u00e8d horn\u201d?\n\nIn these very mountains before them had man himself been shaped;\nhammered out by Vulcan upon his forge in \u00c6tna. Here, in this land he had\nbeen taught by Demeter to nourish himself from the friendly earth,\ntaught how to shelter himself from the inclement elements by Orion,\nHunter and Architect\u2014a god before he was a star. There Zeus,\nall-conquering wisdom, had prevailed against his opponents and placed\nhis high and fiery seat, this very \u00c6tna, upon the bound body of the last\nrebellious Titan, making even the power of ignorance the pediment of his\nthrone. There the fair maiden goddesses, Artemis and Minerva and\nPersephone, had played in flowery fields. There had Pluto stolen the\nfairest away from among the blossoms, the entrance to his dark\nunderworld gaping suddenly among the sunny meadows. There had the\ndesolate mother Demeter lit at \u00c6tna the torch for her long and desperate\nsearch. There had demi-gods and heroes lived and loved and struggled.\nIts very rivers were transformed nymphs, its islands rocks tossed in\nCyclop\u2019s battles. There Ulysses had wandered and suffered; there\nPythagoras had taught, Theocritus had sung. There\u2014but man nor woman\neither is yet entirely spirit; and though it was in truth the actual\nland of their pilgrimage, of the birthplace of myth, of beauty and\nwonder, Persephone had not yet returned. The icy wind was turning all\nsentiment into shivers and they fled back to the Twentieth Century and\nits Pullman car.\n\nMessina looked still more enticing when close at hand; both prosperous\nand imposing with its lines of stone quays and palaces on the sea front.\nBeyond these there were famous fountains they knew, and colourful\nmarketplaces, and baroque churches with spires like fluted seashells,\nand interiors gleaming like sea caverns with all the rich colour and\nglow of Sicilian mosaics. In one of the churches was the shrine of a\nmiracle-working letter from the Madonna, said to have been written by\nher own hand. There was besides an old Norman Cathedral, built of Greek\nruins and Roman remains; much surviving Spanish quaintness, but to two\nunbreakfasted _Wagon Lit_ passengers all this was but ashes in the\nmouth. They felt that the attractions of Messina could safely remain in\nthe guide-books. They were impelled on to Taormina.... No prophetic\nvision warned them that in their haste they were losing the chance of\never seeing that doomed Sickle-City at all. In that placid, modern port,\nwhere travellers for pleasure rarely paused, there seemed nothing to\nstay them. No ominous shadow lay upon it to tell that it was marked for\ndestruction by \u201cthe Earth-Shaker,\u201d or that before the year had gone it\nwould be echoing the bitter cry of lost Berytus:\n\n\u201cHere am I, that unhappy city\u2014no more a city\u2014lying in ruins, my citizens\ndead men, alas! most ill-fated of all! The Fire-god destroyed me after\nthe shock of the Earth-Shaker. Ah me! From so much loveliness I am\nbecome ashes. Yet do ye who pass me by bewail my fate, and shed a tear\nin my honour who am no more. A tomb of tombless men is the city, under\nwhose ashes we lie.\u201d\n\nTaormina, the little mountain town, crouched under \u00c6tna\u2019s southern side,\nnot far from those meadows of Enna from which Persephone had been\nravished away. There she would surely first return to the upper world,\nand Demeter\u2019s joy burst into flowers and sunshine. So there they decided\nto seek her, and turned their grimy faces straight to the train. The\nonly sight-seeing that appealed to them now was a vision of the San\nDomenico Hotel with quiet white monkish cells like to Amalfi\u2019s to rest\ntheir weariness in, peaceful pergolas, large bathtubs, and a hearty\ntable d\u2019h\u00f4te luncheon.\n\nSo they stayed not for sights, and stopped not for stone\u2014nor breakfast,\nnor washing, nor even for their trunks, which had not materialized, but\nsat in a dusty railway carriage impatient for the train to start.\n\n\u201cIt was beautiful,\u201d remarked Jane, thinking of the harbour approach to\nthe city.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Peripatetica, jumping at her unexpressed meaning as usual.\n\u201cMessina has always been a famous beauty, and always will be. But she\nis, and always has been, an incorrigible cocotte,\u2014submitting without a\nstruggle to every invader of Sicily in turn. And she certainly doesn\u2019t\nin the least look her enormous age in spite of having led a _vie\norageuse_. Whenever the traces of her past become too obvious she goes\nand takes an earthquake shock, they say, and rises fresh and rejuvenated\nfrom the ruins, ready to coquette again with a new master and be\nenticing and treacherous all over again.\u201d[1]\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  Messina suffered a terrific earthquake shock in 1783 and has had in\n  her history serious damage from seismic convulsions no less than nine\n  times.\n\nIt was hard to imagine on her modern boulevards the armies of the\npast\u2014all those many conquerors that Messina had herself called in,\ncausing half the wars and troubles of Sicily by her invitations to new\npowers to come and take possession, and to do the fighting for her that\nshe never would do for herself; betraying in turn every master, good or\nbad, for the excitement of getting a new one....\n\nGreeks, Carthagenians, Mamertines, Romans, Arabs, Normans,\nSpaniards\u2014where were the ways of their tramplings now? On that modern\nlight-house point there was not even a trace of the Golden Temple in\nwhich Neptune sat on a crystal altar \u201cbegirt with smooth-necked shells,\nsea-weeds, and coral, looking out eastward to the morning sun?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf it were near the 15th of August I would stay here in spite of\neverything,\u201d ventured Peripatetica, looking up from her book. \u201cThe\nProcession of the Virgin is the only thing really worth seeing left in\nMessina.\u201d And in answer to Jane\u2019s enquiring eyebrows Peripatetica began\nto read aloud of that extraordinary pageant of the Madonna della Lettera\nand her car, that immense float, dragged through Messina\u2019s streets by\nhundreds of men and women; of its tower fifty feet high, on which are\nranged tiers over tiers of symbolically dressed children standing upon\nall its different stories; poor babies with painted wings made to fly\naround on iron orbits up to the very top of the erection; of the great\nblue globe upon which stands a girl dressed in spangled gauze,\nrepresenting the Saviour, holding upon her right hand\u2014luckily supported\nby iron machinery\u2014another child representing the Soul of the Blessed\nVirgin.\n\n\u201cNot real children\u2014not live babies!\u201d protested Jane.\n\n\u201cYes, indeed, just listen to Hughes\u2019 account of it.\u201d Peripatetica read:\n\u201cAt an appointed signal this well-freighted car begins to move, when it\nis welcomed with reiterated shouts and vivas by the infatuated populace;\ndrums and trumpets play; the Dutch concert in the machine commences, and\nthousands of _pateraroes_ fired off by a train of gunpowder make the\nshores of Calabria re-echo with the sound; then angels, cherubim,\nseraphim, and \u2018animated intelligences,\u2019 all begin to revolve in such\nimplicated orbits as to make even the spectators giddy with the sight;\nbut alas for the unfortunate little actors in the pantomime; they in\nspite of their heavenly characters are soon doomed to experience the\ninfirmities of mortality; angels droop, cherubim are scared out of their\nwits, seraphim set up outrageous cries, \u2018souls of the universe\u2019 faint\naway, and \u2018moving intelligences\u2019 are moved by the most terrible\ninversion of the peristaltic nerves; then thrice happy are those to whom\nan upper station has been allotted. Some of the young brats, in spite of\nthe fracas, seem highly delighted with their ride, and eat their\nginger-bread with the utmost composure as they perform their evolutions;\nbut it not unfrequently happens that one or more of these poor innocents\nfall victims to this revolutionary system and earn the crown of\nmartyrdom.\u201d\n\nJane seized the book to make sure it was actually so written and not\njust one of Peripatetica\u2019s flights of fancy, and plunged into an account\nof another part of the pageant\u2014the giant figures of Saturn and Cybele\nfraternizing amiably with the Madonna; Cybele \u201cseated on a large horse\nclothed like a warrior. Her hair is tied back with a crown of leaves and\nflowers with a star in front, and the three towers of Messina. She wears\na collar and a large blue mantle covered with stars, which lies on the\nback of the horse. A mace of flowers in her right hand and a lance in\nher left. The horse is barded, and covered with rich trappings of red,\nwith arabesques of flowers and ribbons.\u201d...[2]\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  All this, along with every treasure of her past, has now disappeared.\n\n\u201cWhat curious folk the Sicilians are! They accept new creeds and\nceremonies, but the old never quite lose their place. Where else would\nthe Madonna allow a Pagan goddess to figure in her train? And did you\nnotice in this very procession they still carry the identical skin of\nthe camel on which Roger entered the city when he began his conquest of\nSicily? I wish it were near the 15th of August!\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish it were near the time this train starts, if it ever does,\u201d\nreplied Peripatetica crossly.\n\nAnd, as if but waiting the expression of her wish, the train did begin\nto stream swiftly along the deeply indented coast beside whose margin\ncame that wild Norman raid upon Messina of the dauntless young hawks of\nde Hauteville. Roger, the youngest and greatest of the twelve sons,\naccompanied by but sixty knights and their squires, two hundred men in\nall, pouncing daringly upon a kingdom. A half dozen galleys slipped over\nfrom Reggio by night, and the morning sun flashed upon the dew-wet\narmour as they galloped through the dawn to Messina\u2019s walls. The great\nfortified city was in front of them, a hostile country around them, and\na navy on the watch to cut them off from reinforcements or return by\nsea. That they should succeed was visibly impossible. But determined\nfaces were under the steel visors, the spirit of conquering adventure\nshining in their grey eyes. Every man of the host was confessed and\nabsolved for this fight of the Cross against the Crescent and their\nyoung Commander was dedicated to a life pure and exemplary, if to him\nwas entrusted the great task of winning Sicily to Christian dominion.\n\nThey did it because they thought they could do it; as in the old Greek\ngames success was to the man who believed in his success. The Saracens\nfell into a panic at the sight of that intrepid handful at their gates,\nthinking from the very smallness of the band that it must be the advance\npickets of a great army already past their guarding navy and advancing\nupon the city.\n\n\u201cSo the Saracens gave up in panic, and Roger and his two hundred took\nall the town with much gold and many slaves, as was a conquering\nwarrior\u2019s due.\u201d\n\nThe key of Messina was sent to Brother Robert in Calabria with the proud\nmessage that the city was his to come and take possession of. And the\nNormans went on with the same bold confidence; and always their belief\nwas as a magic buckler to them as over all the island they extended\ntheir conquest. Seven hundred Normans routed an army of 15,000 Saracens,\nkilling 10,000. And young Serbo, nephew of Roger, conquered 30,000\nArabs, attacking them with only one hundred knights.\n\nIt was one of Jane\u2019s pet romances, the career of this landless youngest\nson of a small French noble carving out with sword and brain \u201cthe most\nbrilliant of European Kingdoms,\u201d leaving a dominion to his successors\nwith power stretching far beyond Sicily as long as they governed upon\nhis principles. The young conqueror, unspoiled by his dazzling success,\nruled with justice, mercy, and genius, making Sicily united and\nprosperous; the freest country in the world at that time; the only one\nwhere all religions were tolerated, where men of different creeds and\ntongues could live side by side, each in his own way; each governed\njustly and liberally according to his own laws\u2014French statutes for\nNormans, the Koran for Mussulmen, the Lombard laws for Italians, and the\nold Roman Code for the natives.\n\n\u201cPeripatetica,\u201d Jane burst out. \u201cRoger must have been a delightful\nperson\u2014\u2018so good, _so dear_, so great a king!\u2019 Don\u2019t you think there is\nsomething very appealing in a king\u2019s being called \u2018so dear\u2019? It is much\neasier for them to be \u2018great.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cNormans are too modern for me now,\u201d said Peripatetica, whose own\nenthusiasm was commencing to catch fire. \u201cWe are coming to the spot of\nall the Greek beginnings, where their very first settlement began\u2014do you\nrealize that?\u201d\n\nAnd Jane, who had been hard at work with her histories, could see it\nclearly. The little narrow viking-like boats of Theocles, the Greek\nmerchant, driven before the sudden northeast storm they could not beat\nup against nor lie to, straight upon the coast of this dread land. It\nhad always been a land awesome and mysterious to the Greeks. They had\nimagined half the dramas of their mythology as happening there. It was\nsacred ground, too sacred to be explored by profane foot; and was\nbesides the home of fierce cannibals, as they believed the Sikilians to\nbe, and of all manner of monstrous and half divine beings. But,\ndesperately choosing before certain destruction at sea the unknown\nperils of the shore, Theocles had rounded the point and beached his\nboats safely on that strip of yellow sand that still fringes the cove\nbelow Taormina.\n\nHe and his companions, who feared to adventure no perils of the\ntreacherous Mediterranean in their tiny crafts, but feared very much the\nmonsters of their imagination in this haunted country, built to Apollo\nan altar of the sea-worn rocks, and sacrificed on it their last meal and\nwine, praying him for protection and help to save them from the\nL\u00e6strygones, from Polyphemus, and Heph\u00e6stos at his nearby smoking forge.\nAnd Apollo must have found it good, the savour of that his first\nsacrifice on Sicilian land, for straightway succour came. The natives,\ndrawn down from the hillsides in curiosity at that strange fire on the\nshore, were not raging cannibals but peaceful and friendly farmer folk,\nwho looked kindly on the shipwrecked merchants, and gladly bartered food\nand rich dark wine for Greek goods. And through the days of the storm\nthe Greeks lived unmolested on the shore, impressed by all that met\ntheir eyes; the goodness of that \u201cfairest place in the world.\u201d When at\nlast came favourable winds and the Greeks could set sail again, Theocles\nvowed to return to that fertile shore, and if Apollo, protector of\ncolonists and giver of victory, should favour his enterprise, to build\nthere a shrine in his honour.\n\nBut in Athens none would believe his accounts of the rich land and the\nmild natives. They said that even so it would be unwise to disturb\nPolyphemus, or to run the risk of angering Heph\u00e6stos, and that it was no\nproper site for a colony any way! Theocles did not falter at\ndiscouragement; he took his tale to other cities and over in Eub\u0153a the\nChalcydians were won to him. After the oracle of Apollo had promised\nthem his protection and all good fortune, more Ionians and some Dorians\njoined them; and in the spring they set forth, a great fleet of vessels\nladen with all necessary things to found a colony. Theocles piloted them\nto the spot of his first sheltering; and there on the red rock horns of\nthe point above the beach they founded Naxos, and built the great shrine\nof Apollo Archagates, founder and beginner, with that wonderful statue\nwhich is spoken of as still existing in the time of Augustus, 36 B.C.\n\nNaxos itself had no such length of life. It knew prosperous centuries of\ngrowth and importance, of busy commerce and smiling wealth. Then came\nDionysius, Tyrant of Syracuse, subdued the mother city to his jealous\npower and absolutely exterminated it, killing or carrying off into\nslavery all its population. \u201cThe buildings were swept away, and the site\nof Naxos given back to the native Sikilians. They never returned, and\nfor twenty-two centuries no man has dwelt there.\u201d Of all the shrines and\npalaces of Naxos not one stone remains upon another, not one surviving\ntrace to identify now the exact site even of the Mother of all Greek\ncities in Sicily. But from her sprang Taormina.\n\nSuch of her population as managed to escape from Dionysius, climbed up\nto those steep rocks above and there, sheltering with the Sikilians, out\nof tyrants\u2019 reach in that inaccessible mountain nest, Greek and Sikilian\nmingling produced a breed of eagles that with fierce strugglings has\nheld fast its own on those peaks through all the centuries.\n\nBut these shipwrecks and temples and sieges grew dim behind the gritty\ncloud of railroad cinders. Jane felt the past melt away from her and\nfade entirely into the cold discomfort of the present. She subsided into\nlimp weariness in a corner of the carriage, incapable of interest in\nanything, while Peripatetica\u2019s spirits revived, approaching the tracks\nof her adored Greeks, and her imagination took fire and burst into\nwords.\n\n\u201cOh those wonderful days!\u201d she cried. \u201cIf one could only have seen that\ncivilization, that beauty, with actual eyes. Jane, wouldn\u2019t you give\nanything to get back into the Past even for a moment?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I\u2019d rather get somewhere in the now\u2014and to breakfast,\u201d grumbled\nJane with hopeless materialism as she vainly tried to stay her hunger on\nstale chocolate. So Peripatetica saw visions alone, Jane only knowing\ndimly that miles and miles of orange groves, and of a sea a little paled\nand faded from its Calabrian blue, were slipping by.\n\nA box of a station announced itself as Giardini-Taormina. A red-cheeked\nporter bore the legend \u201cHotel San Domenico\u201d on his cap; and much luggage\nand two travellers fell upon him. But, ah, that hoodoo!\n\n\u201cDesolated, but the hotel was full. Yes, their letter had been received,\nbut it had been impossible to reserve rooms,\u201d said the cheerful porter\nheartlessly; \u201cno doubt other hotels could accommodate them.\u201d He didn\u2019t\nseem to feel his cheerfulness in the least diminished by the dismay\npictured in the dusty faces before him.\n\n\u201cOh, well,\u201d said Jane bravely, \u201cpicturesque monasteries are all very\nwell, but modern comfort does count in the end. We will probably like\nthe Castel-a-Mare, and if we don\u2019t, there is the Timeo.\u201d\n\nA small man buzzing \u201cMetropole, Metropole! Come with me,\nLadies\u2014beautiful rooms\u2014my omnibus is just going!\u201d hung upon their\nskirts, but they brushed him sternly aside, and permitted the\nrosy-cheeked porter to pile them and the mountains of their\nmotoring-luggage into a dusty cab, and sing \u201cCastel-a-Mare\u201d cheerily to\nits driver.\n\n\u201cWe will go there first as it\u2019s nearest,\u201d they agreed, \u201cbut if the rooms\naren\u2019t very nice, then the Timeo\u2014the royalties all prefer the Timeo.\u201d\n\nThe road was twisting up and up a bare hillside. They roused themselves\nto think that they were approaching Taormina, the crown of Sicily\u2019s\nbeauty, the climax of all earthly loveliness, the spot apostrophised\nalike with dying breath by German poets and English statesmen, as being\nthe fairest of all that their eyes had beheld on earth, place of\n\u201cglories far worthier seraph\u2019s eyes\u201d than anything sinful man ought to\nexpect in this blighted world according to Cardinal Newman.\n\nBut where was it, that glamour of beauty? Underneath was a leaden\nstretch of sea, overhead a cold, clouded sky, jagged into by forbidding\npeaks. The grey road wound up and folded back upon itself, and slowly\u2014oh\ndear departed Berliet, how slowly!\u2014up they crawled. It was all grey,\nreceding sea and rocky hillside, grey dust thick on parched bushes and\nplants, greyer still on grey olives and cactus, and what\u2014those other\ndingy trees\u2014could they be _almonds_!\u2014those shrivelled and pallid ghosts\nof rosy bloom shivering in the icy wind? Was it all but a chill shadow,\nthat for which they had left home and roaring fires and good steam heat?\n\nA furry grey head surmounted a dust wave, a donkey and a small square\ncart emerged behind him, following a line of others even greyer and\ndustier. Jane looked listlessly at the forlorn procession until her eyes\ndiscerned colour and figures dim beneath the dirt on the cart\u2019s sides,\nand underneath fantastic mud gobs what appeared to be carvings. Could\nthese be the famous Painted Carts, the \u201cwalking picture books\u201d of a\nromance and colour loving people, the pride of a Sicilian peasant,\nfrescoed and wrought, though the owner lived in a cave\u2014the asses hung\nwith velvet and glittering bits of mirrors though he himself walked in\nrags? Was everything hoped for in Sicily to prove a delusion?\n\nUp whirled the San Domenico porter in a cloud of dust, his empty\ncarriage passing their laden one.\n\n\u201cYou might try the \u2018Pension Bellevue,\u2019 ladies\u2014beautiful outlook\u2014opposite\nthe Castel-a-Mare, if you are not suited there,\u201d he called out as he\nrolled by.\n\nThey thanked him coldly, with spines stiffening in spite of fatigue.\n\nA pension? Never! If they could not have ascetic cells at San Domenico\nor the flowery loggias of the Castel-a-Mare, then at least the chambers\nthat had sheltered a German Empress!\n\nGardens and flowers began to appear behind the dust; a wave-fretted\npromontory ran into the sea below, a towering peak crowned with a brown\nrim loomed overhead. In a few more dusty twists of road the\nCastel-a-Mare was reached, and two large rooms with the best view\ncarelessly demanded.\n\nThe Concierge looked troubled and sent for a bland proprietor. Rooms? He\nhad none! wouldn\u2019t have for a month\u2014could give one room just for that\nvery night\u2014that was all!\n\nTo the Timeo then.\n\nMore dusty road, a quaint gateway, a narrow street with all the town\u2019s\npopulation walking in the middle of it, a stop in front of a delightful\nbit of garden. A stern and decided concierge this time\u2014_No rooms!_\n\nIn the mile and a half from the Castel-a-Mare at the end of one\npromontory, to the Internationale at the extreme end of the other, that\ndusty cab stopped at every hotel and, oh lost pride! at every pension in\nthe town and out. The same stern refusal everywhere; no one wanted the\nweary freight. They felt their faces taking on the meek wistfulness of\nlost puppies vainly trying to ingratiate themselves into homes with\nbones.\n\n\u201cDoes no one in the world want us?\u201d wailed Peripatetica. \u201cCan\u2019t any one\nsee how nice we really are and give us a mat and a crust?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Metropole man did want us,\u201d reminded Jane hopefully. \u201cHe even\nbegged for us. Let\u2019s go there!\u201d\n\nThat had been the one and only place passed by, the Domenico porter had\nseemed so scornful of its claim at the station, but now they would\ncondescend to any roof, and thought gratefully of that only welcome\noffered them in all Taormina.\n\nHow pleased the little porter would be to have them coming to his\nbeautiful rooms after all! Their meek faces became proud again. They\nlooked with approving proprietorship on the waving palm in front of the\nMetropole, and the old bell tower rising above it.\n\nPeripatetica\u2019s foot was on the carriage step ready to alight and Jane\nwas gathering up wraps and beloved Kodak when out came a languid\nconcierge and the usual words knelled in their ears\u2014\u201c_No rooms!_\u201d\n\nThey refused to believe. \u201cBut your porter said you had.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, an hour ago, but now they are taken.\u201d\n\nA merciful daze fell upon Peripatetica and Jane....\n\nHow they returned to the \u201cCastel-a-Mare\u201d and got themselves and their\nmountain of luggage into the one room in all Taormina they might call\ntheirs for as much as a night, they never knew; when consciousness came\nback they were sitting in front of food in a bright dining-room, and\nknew by each other\u2019s faces that hot water and soap must have happened in\nthe interval.\n\nSpeech came back to Peripatetica, and she announced that she was never\ngoing to travel more, except to reach some place where she might stay on\nand on forever. Jane might tour through Sicily if she liked, but as for\nher, Syracuse and Girgenti and all could remain mere words on the map,\nand Cook keep her tickets\u2014if she had to move on again on the morrow, she\nwould go straight to Palermo and there stay!\n\nJane admitted to congenial feelings, and resigned all intervening Sicily\nwithout a pang. There would be no place in inhospitable Taormina for\nPersephone to squeeze into any way!\n\nThey went to question the Concierge of trains to Palermo. He took it as\na personal grief that they must leave Taormina so soon. \u201cThe air of\nPalermo is not like ours.\u201d They hoped it was not, as they shivered in a\ncold blast from the open door, and put it to him that they could hardly\nlive on air alone, and that Taormina offered them nothing more. But he\nhad something to suggest\u2014furnished rooms that he had heard that a German\nshop-keeper wished to let. Peripatetica did not take to the suggestion\nkindly, in fact her aristocratic nose quite curled up at it. But she\nassented dejectedly that they might as well walk there as anywhere, and\ngive the place a look.\n\nThrough the dust and shrivelled almond blossoms they trailed back into\ntown. The sun was still behind grey clouds and an icy wind whipped up\nthe dust.\n\n\u201cToo late for the almond bloom, too early for warmth. What _is_ the\nright moment for Sicily?\u201d murmured Peripatetica.\n\nThe mountains with their sweeping curves into the sea were undeniably\nbeautiful; the narrow town street they entered through the battlemented\ngate was full of gay colour, but it left them cold and homesick for\nCalabria. A little old Saracen palace, with some delicate Moorish\nwindows and mouldings still undefaced, held the antiquity shop of the\nFrau Schuler. Brisk and rosy she seemed indeed the \u201ctrustable person\u201d of\nthe Concierge\u2019s description.\n\nYes, indeed, she had rooms and hoped they might please the ladies. Her\nniece would show them. A white-haired loafer was beckoned from the\nSquare, and Peripatetica and Jane turned over to his guidance. Behind\nhis faded blue linen back they threaded their way between the swarming\ntourists, children, panniered donkeys, and painted carts.\n\nSuddenly the old man vanished into a crack between two houses, which\nturned out to be an alley, half stair, half gutter, dropping down to\nlower levels. Everything no longer needed in the kitchen economy of the\nhouses on either side had been cast into the alley\u2014the bones of\nyesterday\u2019s dinners, vegetable parings of to-day\u2019s, the baby\u2019s bath, the\nfather\u2019s old shoes lay in a rich ooze through which chickens clucked and\nsquabbled. At the bottom of the crack a high wall and a pink gateway ...\nthey were in a delicious garden, descending a pergola of roses and\ngrapes. Violets and freesias, geraniums and heliotrope spread in a\ndazzle of colour and sweetness under gnarled olives and almonds and\nblossoming plums; stone benches, bits of old marbles, a violet-fringed\npool and a terrace leading down to a square white house, a smiling young\nGerman girl inviting them in, and then a view\u2014dazzling to even their\nfatigued, dulled eyes.\n\nIn front a terrace, and then nothing but the sea, 700 feet below, the\nsurf-rimmed coast line melting on and off indefinitely to the right in\ngreat soft curves of up-springing mountains, a deep ravine, then the San\nDomenico point with the old convent and church rising out of its\ngardens. On the left the ruins of the Greek theatre hanging over their\nheads; and on the very edge of the terrace an old almond-tree with\nchairs and a table under it, all waiting for tea.\n\nFortunately the villa\u2019s interior showed comfortable rooms, clean, airy,\nand spacious. But the terrace settled it. They would have slept anywhere\nto belong to that. No longer outcast tramps but semi-proprietors of a\nvilla, a terrace, a garden, and a balcony, they returned beaming to the\nfriendly Concierge.\n\nAnd all Taormina looked different now. The brocades and laces waved\nenticingly at the \u201cantichita\u2019s\u201d doors, old jewels and enamels gleamed\ntemptingly; mountains rose more majestic, the sea seemed less\ndisappointingly lacking in Calabrian colour.... And as for the tourists,\nso disgustingly superior in the morning with their clean faces and\nunrumpled clothes, assured beds and table d\u2019h\u00f4tes; now, how the balance\nhad changed! They were mere tourists. What a superior thing to be an\ninhabitant, with a terrace all one\u2019s own!\n\nLife at the Villa Schuler was inaugurated in a pouring rain. But even\nthat did not dim its charm; though to descend the Scesa Morgana\u2014as the\ngutter-alley called itself\u2014was like shooting a polluted Niagara, and the\nstone floors of the villa itself were damply chill, and American bones\nached for once despised steam heat. Yet smiling little Sicilian maids,\nserving with an ardour of willingness that never American maid knew,\nwith radiant smiles staggered through the rain bearing big pieces of\nluggage, carried in huge pitchers of that acqua calda the forestieri had\nsuch a strange passion for, and then, as if it were the merriest play in\nthe world, pulled about heavy pieces of furniture to rearrange the rooms\naccording to American ideas, which demanded that dressing-tables should\nhave light on their mirrors, and sofas not be barriered behind the\nimmemorial German tables.\n\nMaria of the beaming smile, and Carola of the gentle eyes, what genius\nwas yours? Two dumb forestieri, who had never learned your beautiful\ntongue, found that they had no more need of words to express their wants\nthan a baby has to tell his to knowing mother and nurses. Did they have\na wish, all they had to do was to call \u201cMaria!\u201d\u2014smile and stutter, look\ninto her sympathetic face, and somehow from the depths of their eyes she\ndrew out their desire....\n\n\u201cSi, si, Signora!\u201d\n\nShe was off and back again with a smile still more beaming.\n\n\u201cQuesto?\u201d\n\nYes, \u201cquesto\u201d was always the desired article!\n\nAt first they did make efforts at articulate speech, and with many\nturnings over of dictionary and phrase-book attempted to translate their\nmeaning. But that was fatal. Compilers of phrase-books may be able to\nconverse with each other, but theirs is a language apart\u2014of their own,\napparently\u2014known to no other living Italians. They soar in cloudy\nregions of politeness, those phrase-books, all flourishes and\nunnecessary compliments; but when it comes to the solid substantials of\nexistence they are nowhere! Towels are not towels to them, nor butter,\nbutter.\n\nAt first two trusting forestieri loyally believed in them, and book in\nhand read out confidently to Maria their yearnings for a clean table\ncloth, or a spoon. But a dictionary spoon never was a spoon to\nMaria\u2014dazed for once she would look at them blankly until meaning dawned\non her from their eyes; then \u201cah!\u201d and she would exclaim an entirely\ndifferent word from the dictionary\u2019s, and produce the article at last.\n\nBut then according to Maria\u2019s vocabulary \u201c_questo?_\u201d \u201c_qui!_\u201d were the\nonly really vital and necessary words in all the Italian language. It\nmerely depended upon how you inflected these to make them express any\nhuman need or emotion. \u201cQuesto\u201d meant everything from mosquito-bars to\nvegetables; and the combination of the two words with a sprinkling of\n\u201csi\u2019s\u201d and \u201cnon\u2019s\u201d were all one needed to define any shade of\nfeeling\u2014pride, surprise, delight, regret, apology, sadness. From the\ntime Maria brought in the breakfast trays in the mornings to the\nhot-water bottles at night it rang through the villa all day long; for\nthe intricacies of her duties, the demands of the lodgers, scoldings\nfrom the Fraulein, chatter with other maids, \u201cquesto! qui!\u201d sounded near\nand echoed from the distance like a repeated birdnote.\n\nNo nurse ever showed more pride in a precocious infant\u2019s lispings than\ndid Maria when they caught up her phrases and repeated them to her\u2014when\nthe right words to express the arrangement of tub and dinner table were\nremembered and stammered out. She seemed to feel that there might be\nhope of her charges eventually developing into rational articulate\nbeings, and \u201cquesto-ed\u201d every article about to them, with all the\nenthusiasm of a kindergartner.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nNext morning the sun had come out, and so had \u00c6tna. There it suddenly\nwas, towering over the terrace, a great looming presence dominating\neverything; incredibly high and white, its glittering cone clear cut as\nsteel against the blue morning sky, rising far above the clouds which\nstill clung in tatters of drapery about the immense purple flanks.\nEnceladus for once lay quiet upon his fiery bed; no tortured breathings\nof steam floated about the icy clearness of the summit. It was a vision\nall of frozen majestic peace, yet awesomely full of menace, of the times\nwhen the prisoned Titan turned and groaned and shook the earth with his\nstruggles, and poured out tears of blood in floods of burning\ndestruction over all the smiling orchards and vineyards and soft green\nvalleys.\n\nSuddenly, Germans armed with easels and palettes sprang up fully\nequipped at every vantage viewpoint. The terrace produced a fertile crop\nof them, solemnly reducing the wonderful vision to mathematical dabs of\npurple and mauve and grey upon yellow canvas. One felt it comforting to\nknow that even if \u00c6tna never pierced the clouds again all Germany might\nfeast its eyes on the colored snap shots then being made of that\nmorning\u2019s aspect of the Great Presence amid a patronising chorus of\n\u201cKolossals\u201d and \u201cachs reizends.\u201d But once seen, it remained impressed on\nsense and spirit, that vision\u2014whether visible or not. It was always with\none, dominating all imaginings as it did every actual circumstance of\nlife at Taormina, the weather, the temperature, the colour of every\nprospect. Though the sky behind San Domenico might be a blank and empty\ngrey, _one knew it was there_, that mysterious and wonderful presence.\nAnd when it stood out, a Pillar of Heaven indeed, all clear and fair in\nwhite garment of fresh-fallen snow, it was still a menace to the\nblossoming land below, whether from its summit were sent down icy winds\nand grey mists or shrivelling fire and black pall of lava.\n\n[Illustration: \u201cA PLACE WHERE THE PAST REVEALS ITSELF\u201d]\n\nEqual in importance with this vision of \u00c6tna was the appearance of\nDomenica\u2014both events happening in the same day. Domenica too began as a\nbland outline. Small, middle-aged, and primly shawled; a smooth black\nhead, gold earrings, and a bearing and nose of such Roman dignity and\nability that two weary forestieri yearned at once to put themselves and\ntheir undarned stockings into the charge of her capable little hands.\nShe respectfully asserted her willingness to serve them; they could make\nthat out\u2014but how tell her their requirements and the routine of the\nservice they wished? It was seen to be beyond the powers of any\nphrase-book or even of Maria, presiding over the interview with beaming\ninterest, and carefully repeating with louder tone and hopeful smile all\nDomenica\u2019s words. No mutual understanding could be reached. They gave it\nup, and regretfully saw the shining black head bow itself out. But\nDomenica had to be. Their fancy clamoured for her, and all their poor\nclothes, full of the dust of travel and the rents of ruthless\nwasherwoman, demanded her insistently. A more competent interpreter was\nfound, and their needs explained at length. Domenica\u2019s eyes sparkled\nwith willing intelligence; she professed herself capable of doing\nanything and everything they asked of her; and mutual delight gilded the\nscene until the question of terms came up. What would the ladies pay?\nThey mentioned a little more than the Frau Schuler had told them would\nbe expected, and waited for the pleased response to their generosity\u2014but\nwhat was happening? The grey shawl was tossed from shoulders that\nsuddenly shrugged, and arms that flew about wildly; fierce lightnings\nflashed from the black eyes, a torrent of ever faster and shriller words\nrose almost into shrieks.\n\nPeripatetica and Jane shrank aghast, expecting to see a stiletto plunged\ninto the stolid form of their interpreter, bravely breasting the fury.\n\n\u201cWhat _is_ the matter?\u201d they cried.\n\n\u201cOh nothing,\u201d smiled the interpreter, \u201cshe is saying it isn\u2019t enough;\nthat the ladies at the hotels pay their maids more, and her husband\nwouldn\u2019t permit her to take so little.\u201d\n\nDear me, she need not! they certainly would not want such a fury.\n\nThe fury had subsided into tragic melancholy, and subdued\nafter-mutterings of the storm rumbled up from the reshawled bosom.\n\n\u201cShe says she will talk it over with her husband to-night,\u201d said the\ngentle interpreter with a meaning wink. \u201cShe is really good and able;\nthe ladies will find her a brave woman.\u201d\n\nThey didn\u2019t exactly feel that bravery was needed on her side as much as\non theirs after that storm, but they had liked no other applicant, and\nagain the imposing nose and capable appearance asserted their charm, and\nthey remembered their stockings. Their offer still stood, they said, but\nit must be accepted or declined at once; they wanted a maid that very\nevening. Renewed flashes\u2014she dared not accept such a pittance without\nconsulting her husband.... Very well, other maids had applied, expecting\nless. A change of aspect dawned\u2014she would like to serve the ladies,\nwould they not give half of what she asked for? Consultation with the\ninterpreter\u2014ten cents more a day offered only\u2014instant breaking out of\nsmiles and such delighted bobbings and bowings as she departed that it\nseemed impossible to believe that furious transformation had ever really\nhappened.\n\nThey felt a little uneasy. Had they caught a Tartar? Remembering all the\ntales of Sicilian temper it seemed scarcely comfortable to have a maid\nwho might draw a stiletto should one give her an unpleasing order. They\nawaited the beginning of her service a bit doubtfully. But when that\ngrey shawl was hung inside the villa door, the only fierceness its owner\nshowed was in her energy for work. The black eyes never flashed again,\nuntil ... but that comes later. They beamed almost as happy and instant\na comprehension of all needs as Maria\u2019s. And her capacity for work was\nappalling. At first they watched its effects with mutual\ncongratulations; such an accumulation of the dilapidations of travel as\nwas theirs had seemed to them quite hopeless ever to catch up with, but\nnow the great heaps of tattered stockings turned into neat-folded pairs\nin their drawers, under-linen coquetted into ribbons again, and all\ntheir abused belongings straightened into freshness and neatness once\nmore. Domenica\u2019s energy was as fiery as \u00c6tna\u2019s during an eruption, only\nunlike the mountains it never seemed to know a surcease. Dust departed\nfrom skirts instantly at the fierce onslaught of her brushings; things\nflew into their places; sewing seemed to get itself done as if at the\nwave of a magician\u2019s wand. Accustomed to the dilatoriness of Irish\nAbigails at home, Peripatetica and Jane were quite dazzled with delight\nat first\u2014but then incredibly soon came the time when there was nothing\nleft undone; when the little personal waiting on they needed could not\npossibly fill Domenica\u2019s days, and it became a menace, the sight of that\nlittle grey-clad figure asking with empty hands, \u201cwhat next, Signora?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Demon,\u201d they began calling her instead of Domenica, and felt that\nlike Michael Scott and his demon servant, they would be obliged to set\nher to weaving ropes of sand, the keeping her supplied with normal tasks\nseemed so impossible. It became almost a pleasure to find a gown too\nloose or too tight, that she might alter it, or to spot or tear one, and\nas for ripped skirt bindings or torn petticoat ruffles, they looked at\neach other in delight and cried exultantly, \u201ca job for the Demon!\u201d\nTea-basket kettles to scour they gave her, silver to clean, errands to\ndo, fine things to wash, their entire wardrobes to press out; yet still\nthe little figure sat in her corner reproachfully idle, looking at them\nquestioningly, and sighing like a furnace until some new task was\nprocured her. Desperately they took to giving her afternoons off, and\ninvariably dismissed her before the bargained time in the evening. But\nstill to find grist for the mill of her industry kept them racking their\nbrains unsuccessfully through all their Taormina days.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nHome comforts and maid once secured they could turn to Taormina itself\nwith open minds, and plunge into a flood of beauty and queernesses and\nhistory. Of the guide-books some say that Taormina was the acropolis of\nNaxos, an off-shoot of that first Greek town, others that it, like Mola,\nwas a Sikilian stronghold long before the days of the Greeks. Jane\u2019s\nprivate theory was that neither Greeks nor Sikilians had been its\nfounders, that eagles alone would ever first have built on that dizzy\nwindy perch!\n\nOn the very ridge of a mountain spine with higher peaks overhanging,\nTaormina twists its one real street, houses climbing up or slipping down\nhill as best they may, all clinging tight, and holding hands fast along\nthe street to balance themselves there at all. Dark stairway cracks\nbetween lead up or down, and overhead flying arches or linked stories\nkeep the clasp unbroken. Here and there a little street manages to twist\noff and find a few curves for itself on another level, or the street\nwidens into a wee square, or a terrace beside an old church is edged\nwith a stone-benched balustrade where ancient loafers may sun themselves\nand look down at the tiny busy specks of fishing boats in the sea far\nbelow.\n\nEvery hour of the day the Street is a variety show with the mixed life\npassing through it, and acting its dramas there. Flocks of goats\nsqueezing through on their way to pasture; donkeys carrying distorted\nwine skins or gay glazed pottery protruding from their panniers; women\ngoing to the fountain, balancing slender Greekish water jars on their\nheads; the painted carts carrying up the tourists\u2019 luggage; the tourists\nthemselves in veils and goggles bargaining at enticing shop doorways, or\npeering into the windowless room of Taormina\u2019s kindergarten, where a\ndozen or more infants are primly ranged, every mother\u2019s daughter with\nknitting pins in hand and silky brown curls knotted on top of head like\nlittle old women, sitting solemnly in the scant light of the open door,\nacquiring from a gentle old crone the art of creating their own\nstockings. There the barber strums his guitar on a stool outside the\n\u201cSalone\u201d door while he waits for custom; the Polichinello man obstructs\ntraffic with the delighted crowds of boys collected by Punch\u2019s nasal\nchantings and the shrill squeaks of \u201cIl Diavolo.\u201d There come the golden\nloads of oranges and lemons; green glistening lettuces and feathery\nfinochi; bread hot from the bakers in queer twists and rings; live\nchickens borne squawking from market, and poor little kids going to the\nbutchers. The busy tide of every-day life never ebbed its colourful flow\nfrom the beginning of the street at the arch of one old gateway until\nits end at the arch of the other. Buying and selling, learning, working,\nand idling, the Present surged there, but a step aside into any of the\nbackways, and one was instantly in the Past. Old women spinning in\ndoorways with the very same twirling spindles as those of two thousand\nyears ago. The very same old women, one had almost said, their hawk-like\ndried faces were so unimaginably far removed from youth, from all\nmodernness.\n\nThe very names of the streets spell history and drama. History rises up\nand becomes alive.\n\nIn the Street of Timoleon one hears the clank of armour\u2014the Great Leader\nand his Corinthians swing down the road. Only a few days ago they had\nlanded at the beach of ruined Naxos in answer to the call of\nAndromachus, Taormenium\u2019s ruler. They have been warmly entertained at\nhis palace, have there rested, learning from him of the lay of the land\nand state of affairs; now they set out to begin the campaign. The\nstaring people stand watching the march of these strong new friends,\nmurmuring among themselves in awestruck whispers of the portents\nattending the setting forth of these allies. How great Demeter and\nPersephone herself had appeared to the servitors of their temple,\npromising divine assistance and protection to this expedition for the\nsuccour of their island\u2014a rumour too that Apollo had dropped the laurel\nwreath of victory from his statue at Delphi upon Timoleon\u2019s head; a\nmarvel, not a rumour, for it was beheld with very eyes by some amongst\nthemselves. How the ships bringing these deliverers had come in through\nthe night to the harbour below with mysterious unearthly fires hovering\nin front of them and hanging in balls at the masthead, to light them on\nthe way!\n\nIn the midst of the soldiers is a taller figure\u2014or one that seems so\u2014a\nface like Jupiter\u2019s own, of such majesty and sternness and calm. The\ncrowd surges and thrills and shouts with all its heart and soul and\nstout Sicilian lungs.\n\n\u201cWho is that?\u201d ask the children.\n\n\u201cTimoleon! Timoleon, the Freer!\u201d they are answered when the shouting is\nover. \u201cRemember all your life long that you have seen him.\u201d\n\nAnd when years later those boys, grown to manhood in a free prosperous\nSicily, hear of the almost divine honours that grateful Syracuse is\npaying to her adored deliverer, of the impassioned crowds thronging the\ntheatre, mad with excitement at every appearance of the great old blind\nman, they too thrill to know that their eyes too have seen \u201cThe\nLiberator,\u201d greatest and simplest of men.\n\nIt is the Street of the Pro-Consulo Romano. Here comes Verres, cruelest\nof tyrants, most rapacious of robbers. The people shrink out of the way,\nout of sight as fast as may be, at the first gleam of the helmets of the\nPro-Consul\u2019s guard, when \u201ccarried by eight stalwart slaves in a litter,\nlying upon cushions stuffed with rose leaves, clad in transparent gauze\nand Maltese lace, with garlands of roses on his head and round his neck,\nand delicately sniffing at a little net filled with roses lest any other\nodour should offend his nostrils,\u201d the sybarite tyrant is borne along,\npassing the statue of himself he has just had erected in the Forum, on\nhis way to the theatre.\n\nThe Street of Cicero; it is only necessary to close one\u2019s eyes to see\nthat lean, long-nosed Roman lawyer. A fixed, silent sleuth-hound on this\nsame Verres\u2019 track; following, following close, nose fixed to the trail,\nfor all the cunning doublings and roundings of the fox, questing all\nover Sicily, gathering everywhere evidence, building up his case,\nsilently, inexorably; until at last his quarry is cornered, no squirming\ntricks of further avail. Verres is caught by the throat, exposed,\ndenounced; so passionately, that as long as man\u2019s appreciation of logic\nand eloquence endures the great lawyer\u2019s pleading of that case is\nremembered and quoted.\n\nChildren are playing in the Via Sextus Pompeius, but one sees instead a\ngleam of golden armour, of white kilts swinging from polished limbs\u2014the\nproud figure of Pompey; splendid perfumed young dandy who, the fair\nnaughty ladies say, is the \u201csweetest-smelling man in Rome.\u201d\n\nHere, with instinctive climb to the heights, he is desperately watching\nthe surge of that great new power flooding, foaming, submerging all the\nworld; rising up to him even here, the bubbling wave started by that\nother Roman dandy, the young man Julius C\u00e6sar, who knotted his girdle so\nexquisitely....\n\nThe street from which the Villa Schuler\u2019s pink door opened was that of\nthe Bastiones, where the town\u2019s fortified wall had once been.\nCorkscrewing dizzily down the sheer hillside among the cacti and rocks\nran a narrow little trail. Jane had settled it to her own satisfaction\nthat this was the scene of Roger\u2019s adventure when besieging Taormina,\nthen Saracen Muezza\u2014last stronghold on the East coast to hold out\nagainst him; as it had two hundred years ago been one of the last in\nsuccumbing to the Moslems.\n\nRoger had completely surrounded the strong place with works outside its\nwalls, and was slowly reducing it by starvation. Going the rounds one\nday, with his usual reckless courage almost unaccompanied, he is caught\nin a narrow way by a strong party of the enemy. The odds are\noverwhelming, even to Normans, on that steep hillside. Roger must\nretreat or be cut down. For attackers and pursued the only foothold is\nthe one narrow path. Evisand, devoted follower of Roger, is quick to see\nthe advantage of that\u2014one man alone may delay a whole host for a few\nimportant minutes there, and he offers up his life to cover his master\u2019s\nescape. Alone, on the narrow way he makes a stand against all the Moslem\nswarm, with such mighty wielding of sword that it is five minutes before\nthe crooked Moslem blades can clear that impediment from their way.\nRoger, who has had time to reach safety before the brave heart succumbs\nto innumerable wounds, dashes back with reinforcements, wins the day,\nrecovers his loyal servitor\u2019s body, buries it with royal honours, and\nafterwards builds a church in memory of this preservation, and for the\nsoul of his preserver. And Taormina, yielding to Roger and starvation,\nregains her name and the Cross....\n\nPicking their way one morning up through the puddles and hens of their\nown alleyway, Peripatetica, raising her eyes an instant from the slime\nto look at the label on the house corner, said:\n\n\u201cWho could have been the Morgana this scandal of a street ever stole its\nname from? ... you don\u2019t suppose....\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, that it could have been the Fata Morgana? Her island first\nappeared somewhere off the Sicilian coast.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, Peripatetica! how could a fairy, lovely and enchanting, ever have\nbecome associated with this!\u201d\n\nPeripatetica had a fine newborn theory on her tongue\u2019s tip, but ere she\ncould voice it, a nervous hen above them suddenly decided there was no\nroom on that road for two to pass on foot, and took to her wings with\nwild squawk and a lunge straight at Peripatetica\u2019s face in an attempt to\npass overhead. Peripatetica ducked and safely dodged all the succeeding\nhens whom the first dame\u2019s hysteria instantly infected to like\nbehaviour. By the time she caught her breath again in safety at the\nstreet\u2019s level, the theory was lost, but another more interesting one\nwas born to her as they proceeded.\n\n\u201c\u2018Street of Apollo Archagates,\u2019\u2014Jane, do you see meaning in that? The\nGreeks always put their greatest temples _on the heights_\u2014Athens,\nGirgenti, Eryx, wherever there were hills the Great Shrine was on the\nAcropolis. Taormina must have been the Acropolis of those Naxos\npeople\u2014they certainly never stayed on the unprotected shore below\nwithout mounting to these heights. I believe Apollo\u2019s temple stood up\nhere, not below. Here they built it, dominating the city, shining far\nout to sea, a mark for miles to all their ships and to the sailormen\nworshipping Apollo, Protector of Commerce.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo one has ever suggested that,\u201d said Jane.\n\n\u201cWhat if they haven\u2019t? It\u2019s just as apt to be true, though even\ntradition has left no trace of it now but the name of this dirty little\nstreet. I for one am going to believe it, and that was why the statue\nsurvived until the time of the Romans.\u201d\n\nAnd so it was that every step they took stirred up wraiths of myth and\nhistory. Even on the Street in the midst of all its humming bustle,\nrotund German tourists and donkeys, all the modern life would suddenly\nmelt away, and they would resurrect old St. Elio, attired only in chains\nand his drawers, kneeling in front of the Catania gate, exhorting the\nByzantine soldiers to cleanse themselves from their sins before\ndestruction came from the Saracens then raging like mad wolves outside\nthe devoted town\u2019s walls, in a fury that it alone\u2014save Rometta\u2014of all\nChristian Sicily should still hold out against them. Then the air would\nfill with the screaming and strugglings of those old fierce eagle\nfights, and the donkey boys\u2019 cries of \u201cA-ah-ee!\u201d would change to the\nfierce triumphant shouts of \u201cAllah Akbar!\u201d with which Ibrahim\u2019s cruel\nsoldiery finally broke in to massacre garrison and townsfolk.\n\nAlthough Taormina sat apart on her mountain eyrie with no epoch-making\nevents finding room on her perch to happen, the stream of all Sicily\u2019s\nhistory, from first Greek settlement to the revolts of modern days\nagainst King Bomba\u2019s tyranny, have surged around and through her. An\nAmerican living in Taormina did a kindness to her native cook, for which\nin grateful return the cook insisted on presenting her a quantity of old\ncoins, which her husband had turned up through the years in their little\ngarden. Showing them to the Curator of a Museum, \u201cMadame,\u201d he said to\nthe fortunate recipient of the gift, \u201cyou have a complete epitome of all\nSicilian history in these coins.\u201d\n\nAll the different races and dynasties dominating Sicily from her\nbeginning, all the great cities that rose into local power were\nrepresented in these treasure troves from the silt of the centuries, dug\nby a peasant from the soil of one little garden.\n\nIt was the Greek theatre which first revealed the Sicily of their dreams\nto Peripatetica and Jane; consoling for the vague disappointment of\nthose first days of dust and rain by the glamour of its presentment of\nthe loveliness of nature and the majesty of the past.\n\nGreek that wonderful ruin still essentially is, for all its Roman\nremodelling and incrusting of brick. Only the Greeks could have so\nlovingly and instinctively combined with nature and seized so\nharmoniously all nature\u2019s fairest to enhance their own creation. The\nplace, the setting, the spirit of it is Greek; what matter if the actual\nmaterial shape now is Roman, with the Greek form only glimmering through\nlike a body of the old statuesque beauty cramped and hidden under\ndistorting modern dress? Not that the theatre\u2019s Roman clothing is\nugly\u2014the warm red brick, contrasting with the creamy marble fragments,\nhas an undeniable charm, Greek and Roman together. It is an exquisite\nruin of human conceivings, contrived to have blue sea and curving shore\nand \u00c6tna\u2019s snowy cone as the background of the open stage arches, and in\nthe foyer, the arcaded walk back and behind the top tiers of the\nauditorium, all the differing panorama of beauty of the northern coast\nline.\n\nNature from the beginning did more than man for the building, and now\nshe has taken it back to herself again, blending Greek and Roman in\nbinding of vine and flower and moss; twining all the stone-seated tiers\ninto an herb and flower garden, and putting the song of birds into the\nvaulted halls of the Greek Chorus.\n\nAn enchanting place, where the Past seems to reveal itself in all that\nit had most of beauty and splendour. Peripatetica and Jane thought\nthemselves fortunate to live under its wings; actually in its shadow,\nand so be on intimate calling terms at any hour of the day, learning its\nbeauty familiarly through every changing transformation of light, cool\nmorning\u2019s grey and glowing noon\u2019s gold, fiery sunsets, blue twilights,\nand early moonrise\u2014mountains and sea and wide-flung sky dissolving\nmagically and mysteriously into ever different pictures.\n\nThey wandered through chorus halls and dressing-rooms, the obscure\nregions under the stage and the dizzy ones on top of it; strolled in the\noutside arcade on top of the auditorium, where the loveliness of the\nview was a fresh wonder every time it burst on them, sat in the top rows\nand the bottom ones on the flowery sod now covering all the seats,\nlooking from every angle at that most charming of marble stage settings\nand most wonderful of all backgrounds, trying to imagine the times when\nthe surrounding tiers had been filled with 4,000 eager spectators, and\nthe walls had echoed to the tragedies of \u00c6schylus, Sophocles, and\nEuripides.\n\nLooking wonderingly at the curious drains and holes and underground\npassages below the stage, they wondered if \u00c6schylus, that eminent stage\nmanager as well as poet, had not himself perhaps contrived some of them\non his visit to Sicily, to introduce new thrills of stage effects into\nthe performances of his tragedies here. \u00c6schylus, who was inventor of\nstage realism, first to introduce rich costuming, accessories, and stage\nmachinery, the mutter of stage thunder, shrieks, and sounds from behind\nthe scenes suggestive of the deeds considered too shocking to happen in\nthe audience\u2019s sight\u2014inventor of the \u201cDeus ex Machina,\u201d that obliging\ngod popping from out his trap-door to divinely straighten out a\nsituation snarled past natural conclusion.\n\nAs one sat there in the calm splendour of the setting of earth and sky,\nsun, and great winds streaming overhead, it became easier to understand\nthe spirit of the old Greek plays; how the drama had been to them not\nmere amusement but almost a form of religion, and an expounding of their\nbeliefs, an attempt to \u201cjustify the ways of God to man.\u201d If perhaps such\nsettings had not instinctively formed the differing tendencies of their\ngreat play-writers; \u00c6schylus to represent suffering as the punishment of\nsin; Sophocles to justify the law of God against the presumption of man;\nand in these spacious open-air settings if the great rugged elementary\nsimplicity of their plays had not been necessary and inevitable.\n\n\u201cIn the Greek tragedy the general point of view predominates over\nparticular persons. It is human nature that is represented in the broad,\nnot this or that highly specialized variation.... To the realization of\nthis general aim the whole form of the Greek drama was admirably\nadapted. It consisted very largely of conversations between two persons\nrepresenting two opposed points of view, and giving occasion for an\nalmost scientific discussion of every problem of action raised in the\nplay; and between these conversations were inserted lyric odes in which\nthe chorus commented on the situation, bestowed advice or warning,\npraise or blame, and finally summed up the moral of the whole.\u201d\n\nMore akin to an opera than to a play in our modern sense, the Greek\ndrama had as its basis music. The song and stately dance of its mimetic\nchorus being the binding cord of the whole, \u201cbringing home in music to\nthe passion of the heart the idea embodied in lyric verse, the verse\ntransfigured by song, and song and verse reflecting as in a mirror to\nthe eye by the swing and beat of the limbs they stirred to consonance of\nmotion.\u201d\n\nSitting in the thyme-scented breeze Peripatetica and Jane read Euripides\nuntil they seemed to become a part of a breathless audience waiting for\nhis tragedies to be performed before their eyes, waiting for the first\ngleam of the purple and saffron robes of the chorus, sweeping out from\ntheir halls in chanting procession. And it would all seem to take place\nonce more on the stage in front of them, that feast for the eye and ear\nand intelligence at once. It became clear that across such great\nunroofed space the actors could not rely on \u201cacting,\u201d in our sense, for\ntheir results. It must be something bigger and simpler than any exact\nrealism of petty actions; play of facial expression, subtle changes of\nvoice and gesture would be ineffectually lost there. So, though at first\nthe stage conventions of a different age seemed strange to these modern\nspectators, the actors raised above their natural height on stilted\nboots, their faces covered by masks, their voices mechanically\nmagnified; yet in wonderful effects of statuesque posings the meaning\ncame clear to the eye, and the chanting intonation brought out every\nbeautiful measure of the rolling majestic verse which a realistic\nconversational delivery would have obscured. So the representation\nbecame \u201cmoving sculpture to the eye, and to the ear, as it were, a sleep\nof music between the intenser intervals of the chorus,\u201d and the\nspectators found themselves \u201cwithout being drawn away by an imitative\nrealism from the calm of impassioned contemplation into the fever and\nfret of a veritable actor on the scene,\u201d receiving all the beautiful\nlucid thought and sentiment of the text, heightened by the accompanying\nappeal to the senses of perfect groupings of forms and colours, of\nswaying dance, and song and recitative, until it all blended into one\nperfect satisfying whole\u2014perhaps the most wonderful form of art\nproduction that has ever existed.\n\nAnd then some German tourist would scream, \u201cAch Minna, komm mal her! \u2019s\ndoch famos hier oben!\u201d and they would be waked from their day dream of\nold harmonies into the shrill bustling present again.\n\n\u201cIt is like all really great fresco painting,\u201d said Peripatetica on one\nof these comings back, \u201ckept in the flat. Anything huge has to be\ntreated so as to make its meaning tell; it has to be done in flat\noutline to stay in the picture, to make the whole effective. All the\ngreat imposing frescoes are like that; when the seventeenth century\ntried to heighten its effects by moulding out arms and legs in the\nround, its pictures dropped to pieces; any idea it was trying to express\nbecame lost. One is conscious of nothing but the nearest sprawling\nrealistic limb thrusting out at one. Oh, those delicious marvellous\nGreeks! everything that is beautiful and perfect they did first, and\nanything good that has ever been done since is only copying them.\u201d\n\nJane had a deep respect for the Greeks herself, but she sometimes turned\nagainst too much laudation of them.\n\n\u201cDo you suppose the \u00e6sthetic effect of their tragedies was really\ngreater than that of a Wagner opera, well given? That the lament for\nIphigenia could be more deeply thrilling than Siegfried\u2019s funeral\nmarch?\u201d\n\nPeripatetica almost bounded from her seat.\n\n\u201cBut that\u2019s just it!\u201d she cried. \u201cWagner operas are a revival of the\nGreek ideal! the only modern analogy of their drama! He had the same\nidea of painting on a huge canvas great heroic figures in the flat,\nkeeping them in the picture without rounding out into petty realism. And\nhe has attempted exactly what they did, to present his dramatic theme in\na mingling of music, poetry, picture, and dance, every branch of art\ncombined!\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s interesting, and perhaps true, my dear, but if you discourse on\nabout King Charles\u2019 head, we shall get caught by that shower racing down\nthe coast. There is just time to beat it to home and Vesuvius!\u201d\n\nVesuvius was, after Domenica, their greatest acquisition, and the one\nthat most soothingly spread about an atmosphere of home comfort. Until\nhe came life had been a thing of shivers and sneezes, of days spent in\nceaseless trampings to keep their chilled blood in circulation, and of\nevenings sitting swathed in fur coats and steamer rugs, with feet raised\nhigh above the cold drafts of the floor.\n\nFireplaces, or any means of artificial heating were unknown to the\nvilla. They had waited patiently for the Southern sun to come and do his\nduty, but he didn\u2019t; and a day came when Jane took to bed as the only\nhope of warmth, when even Domenica sneezed and said it was \u201c_molto\nfreddo_,\u201d and then Peripatetica sallied forth determined to find some\nwarmth nearer than \u00c6tna. \u201cVesuvius\u201d was the result of her quest. Not\nmuch was he to look at outwardly. Small was his round black form; oh,\npitifully small he seemed at first view to those whose only hope he was.\nA mere rusty tin lantern on three little feet, he looked\u2014but when his\nwarm heart began to glow and to send delicious hot rays percolating\nthrough the holes of his sides and pointed lid, the charms of his fiery\nnature won respect at once. He made his small presence felt incredibly,\nfrom stone floor to high ceiling. Shawls and coats could be shed, feet\nlowered and at once frozen spines relaxed into long-forgotten comfort.\n\nHis breath was not pleasant to be sure, his charcoal fumes troubled at\nfirst, but when a Sicilian oracle had recommended the laying of sliced\nlemons on his head, all fumes were absorbed, he breathed only refreshing\nincense and became altogether a joy. Every day, except on rainy ones,\nwhen his company was called for earlier, he made his appearance at six\nof the evening\u2014and how eagerly the sight of Maria bearing him in used to\nbe waited for! Then with feet toasting and backs relaxing in delightful\nwarmth, Peripatetica and Jane sat over his little glowing holes with\nquite the thrill and comfort of a real hearthstone.\n\nArdent fire worshippers they found themselves becoming in this\nsupposedly Southern land. If Persephone had ever been as cold as they,\nthey doubted if that _enl\u00e8vement_ to Pluto\u2019s warm, furnace-heated realm\ncould have been so distasteful after all!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nPaddling out in the rain to hotels for meals was at first a drawback to\nlife in the Villa Schuler. To sit with damp ankles through the endless\nprocession of table d\u2019h\u00f4te meals, and afterwards have the odoriferous\nbespatterings of the Scesa Morgana as dessert, was not an enjoyable\nfeature of local colour. Frau Schuler was implored to feed her lodgers.\n\n\u201cBut we are simple people; our plain cooking would not satisfy the\nladies,\u201d she protested, distressed. But the ladies felt that a crust and\nan egg in their own sitting-room would be more satisfying than all the\ntriumphs of hotel chefs out in the wet. And to bread and eggs they\nresigned themselves. Instead came a five-course banquet, served by\nbeaming Butler Maria in a dazzling new grass-green bodice\u2014soup and\nmacaroni, meat and vegetables, perfect in seasoning and succulence,\ncrisp salad from the garden, and with it the demanded poached eggs which\nwere to have constituted the whole dinner, almond pudding with a\nwondrous sauce; dates, oranges, sugary figs beaded on slivers of bamboo,\nmellow red wine. It seemed a very elastic two lire which could cover all\nthat, as Frau Schuler said it did! Truly the Fraulein Niece was an\nartist. Peripatetica and Jane thereafter dined at home in tea gowns and\nluxury\u2014and the pudding sauces grew more bland and wonderful every night.\nAlso eggs continued to give originality by the vagaries of their\nappearance. As Peripatetica said, \u201cthey just ran along anyhow, and\njumped on at any course they took a fancy to!\u201d And to see where they\nwere going to land\u2014in the soup, the vegetables, the salad, the stewed\nfruit of dessert\u2014or what still other and stranger companionships they\nmight form, lent a sort of prize-packet excitement to each succeeding\ncourse. Dinner at the Villa Schuler, with little Vesuvius glowing\nwarmingly through all his fiery eyes and steaming out spicy incense of\nlemon and mandarin peel, the soft low lamplight, the gleam of Maria\u2019s\nsmile and green bodice, the blessed remoteness from all tourist gabble,\nwas truly a cosy function. They took to making elaborate toilets in\nhonour of it, adding their Taormina acquisitions of old lace and jewels\nto Maria\u2019s round-eyed amazement. When Jane burst out in an Empire\ndiadem, and Peripatetica not to be outdone donned a ravishing lace cap,\ntheir status as good republicans was forever lost in the villa. Maria\nspread the tale of this splendour abroad, firmly convinced that these\nlodgers were incognito members of the most exalted nobility of distant\n\u201cNuova Yorka.\u201d The tongues which could not pronounce their harsh foreign\nnames insisted on labelling them the \u201cBig and Little Princess\u201d\u2014and no\nprotests could bring their rank down lower than \u201cthe most gentle\nCountesses,\u201d upon their washing-bills.\n\nIt amused them in fine weather to try the various hotels for lunch. In\nmid-town was the Hotel Victoria, the haunt of artists and gourmets,\nfamous for its food and for its garden, which climbed the hillside in\nblooming terraces and loggias, all stairways, springing bridges, and\nqueer little passages leading to buildings and courts on different\nlevels. Peripatetica and Jane wandered into it almost by accident. They\nnoticed the name over a dingy door as they were strolling aimlessly one\nday, and Peripatetica remembered having heard of a picturesque garden\nwithin. Penetrating through empty hall and up various winding stairways\nthey came to a charming garden court. There appeared the proprietor, and\nin Parisian French treated their curiosity as a boon and a pleasure. A\nlittle man, the Padrone, with nothing large about him but the checks of\nhis trousers and the soft black eyes which turned upon the gay colour\nabout him with gentle melancholy. He did the honours of the place with\nall the courtesy and dignity of Louis XIV showing Versailles. When they\nadmired the aviary of Sicilian and tropical birds, the budding roses\nclambering everywhere, the strange feathery-fringed irises like gaudy\nlittle cockatoos, the delicate bits of Moorish carving and arches built\ninto the hotel walls, he accepted all their enthusiasm for the charms of\nhis property with no sign of pride, but rather with the pensive\nmelancholy of one whose soul was above such things, as of one who knew\nthe hollowness of earthly delights. Courteously he exhibited everything,\ntaking them to still higher and more glowing terraces where his laden\norange trees were burnished green and gold, and his violets sheets of\ndeepest, royalest purple underneath.\n\nA pair of monkeys lived in cage up there, and while the Signor deftly\nfed them for the amusement of his visitors he warmed up into caustic\nphilosophic comment upon human and monkey nature, comment not unspiced\nwith wit. Peripatetica, always ready for philosophy, immediately plunged\ninto the depths of her French vocabulary and responded in kind. The\ndiscussion grew warm and fluent, and the little Padrone became a new\nman. With kindling eye and a pathetic eagerness he kept the ball rolling\nin polished Voltairian periods, intoxicated apparently with the joy of\nmental intercourse. He snatched and clung to it, inventing new pretexts\nto detain them, new things to exhibit, while the talk rolled on.\n\nBut Peripatetica, whose next passion to Philosophy is Floriculture,\nbroke off to exclaim at the violets as they passed a bed of purple\nmarvels. Emperors they were among violets. The Padrone immediately\nproffered some, setting two contadini to picking more. Peripatetica\ncontemplating gluttonously the wonderful spread of the deep purple\ncalyx, the long firm stems of those in her hand, and at the profusion of\nothers sweetening the air, cried from her heart, \u201cOh, Monsieur, what\nluxury to have such a garden! You should be one of the happiest\ncreatures in the world to be able to grow such flowers as these!\u201d\n\nThe Padrone, from his knees, picking more violets, glanced up, and gloom\nfell over him again.\n\n\u201cMadame,\u201d he inquired bitterly, \u201cdoes happiness ever consist in what one\npossesses of material things? Contentment, perhaps\u2014but happiness? Not\nthe most beautiful garden in the world can grow that,\u201d and with dark\nByronic mystery, \u201cAh, one can live amid brightness and yet be very\nmiserable.\u201d\n\nThey parted with much friendliness, the Padrone hoping the ladies would\ndo his hotel the honour of visiting it again. Surely, yes, they said;\nthey would give themselves the pleasure of lunching there some day....\nUpon that it seemed as if his gloom grew darker, but he implied\ncourteously that that would do him too much honour, but if they did\nventure as much he would do his best to content them. His was but a\nrough little place, but it had been wont to be the haunt of artists and\n\u201cthey, you know, are always \u2018_un peu gourmet!_\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you suppose is the story of that man?\u201d they asked each other;\nand amused themselves inventing romantic pretexts to explain his air of\nblighted hopes and poetic pain.\n\nBefore long their curiosity impelled them to try the Victoria\u2019s cuisine.\nThey were a half hour before the time. No guests had yet gathered. They\nstood again in front of the aviary, but no polite philosopher made his\nappearance. A little yellow-haired maid in a frock as brightly purple as\nthe violets, carrying decanters into the empty dining-room, was the only\ncreature about. The sitting room offered them shelter from the wind, and\nfor entertainment heaps of German novels and innumerable sketches of\nSicilian scenery and types, which they hoped the Victoria\u2019s artist\npatrons had not given in settlement of their hotel bills. A bell rang,\nand people streamed in until every seat in the clean, bare dining-room\nhad its occupant. Not the artists Peripatetica and Jane were looking\nfor, but types fixed and amusing, such as they had never before\nencountered in such numbers and contrasts. Rosy, bland English curates\nand their meek little wives; flashy fat Austrians, with powdered ladies\nof unappetizing look; limp English spinsters of the primmest propriety;\nseedy old men with dyed moustaches and loud clothes, diffusing an aroma\nof shady gambling-rooms. Scholarly old English professors; and Germans,\nGermans, Germans of all varying degrees of fatness, shininess, and\nloud-voicedness, but all united in double-action feeding power of knife\nand fork.\n\nAn expectant hush held them all for a while before empty plates. Then\nthe little purple-gowned maid, and a sister one in ultramarine blue,\nwith the same brilliant yellow hair knotted on top of her head, appeared\nwith omelettes. Omelettes of such melting perfection as to explain the\nsolemn expectancy of the waiting faces.\n\nFollowed a meal in which every course\u2014fish, vegetables, meat, and salad,\nin a land where the tourist expects to subsist alone on oranges and\nscenery\u2014was of a deliciousness to have made a Parisian epicure\ncompliment the chef of his pet restaurant.\n\nThe Germans were explained; lovers of feeding and of thrift, of course,\nthey had come in their hordes to this modest Inn. And how they made the\nmost of it! Back they called the little maids for two and three helpings\nof each delicious platter. Food was piled upon plates in mountains, but\nbefore Peripatetica and Jane could more than nibble at their own share,\nthe German plates would be polished clean, and the little maids called\nfor another supply. The caraffes of strong new Sicilian claret were\nemptied too, until Tedeschi faces grew very red, and tongues more than\never loud.\n\nPeripatetica and Jane dared not meet each other\u2019s eyes. Next to them sat\nan elderly maiden lady from Hamburg \u201cdoing\u201d Sicily without luggage,\nprepared for any and every occasion in black silk bodice and cloth\nskirt, which could be made short or long by one of the mysterious\narrangements of loops and strings the female German mind adores. With\nmaiden shyness but German persistence she firmly insisted on human\nintercourse with the French commercial traveller across the table. He\nclung manfully to the traditional gallantry of his race, though the\nHamburgian\u2019s accent in his mother tongue threw him into wildest\nconfusion as to the lady\u2019s meaning. When he confided his wife\u2019s\nconfinement to bed with a cold, and his ineffectual struggles to get the\nproper drugs for her in Taormina, the German lady announced the theory\nthat violent exercise followed by a bath was better cure for a cold than\nany drugs, \u201cthe bath the main point,\u201d she said. \u201cThe exercise and the\n_transpiration_ without that being of no use.\u201d\n\n\u201cA _bath_! with a _cold_! Not a complete wash all over?\u201d protested the\nstartled Frenchman.\n\n\u201cYes, indeed, one must wash one\u2019s self entirely\u2014though it might be done\na bit at a time\u2014but completely, all over, with water and soap,\u201d insisted\nthe German, which daring hygienic theory so convinced the Frenchman that\nits propounder\u2019s reason must be unhinged that stammering and trembling\nhe gulped down his wine and fled from the table without waiting for the\nsweets.\n\nAll this time Peripatetica and Jane had caught no glimpse of their\nfriend, the Padrone. They wondered, but decided that his poetic nature\nsoared above the materialities of hotel keeping.\n\nThe meal had reached the sweet course\u2014a pudding of delectableness no\nwords can describe. It inspired even the gorged Germans with emotion.\nThoroughly stuffed as they already were they still demanded more of its\nambrosia and the purple-frocked one flew back to the kitchen, leaving\nthe door open.... Alas! their philosopher of the garden, in cook\u2019s\napron, was pouring sauce on more pudding for the waiting maid!\n\nAh, poor Philosopher! This the secret of his blighted being. The poet\ndriven to cooking-pots, the artistic temperament expending itself in\nomelettes and puddings for hungry tourists. How wonder at the irony with\nwhich he had watched the monkeys feed!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nMaria and Vesuvius were not the only possessors of ardent temperaments\nin the Villa. Another existed in a round soft ball of tan and white\nfuzz.\n\nThe Puppy!\n\nHe of the innocent grey eyes, black nose with pink tongue-trimming, and\nthe most open and trusting heart in the world. On friends and strangers\nalike his smiles and warm licks fell. He bounded into every room all\na-quiver of joy to be with such delightful people in such an altogether\ncharming world. And never could it enter his generous thoughts that\nothers might not equally yearn for his society; that Jane might object\nto having a liberal donation of fleas and mud left on the tail of her\ngown; that at 6 A.M. Peripatetica might not be enchanted to have a\nfriendly call and a boisterous worry of her slippers all over the stone\nfloor; or Fraulein might prefer the front of the stove entirely to\nherself during sacredest rites of cooking. He could not be brought to\nunderstand. He was cheerfully confident that every one loved him as much\nas he loved them, and that nothing could possibly be accomplished in\nthat family without his valuable assistance. Many times a day loud wails\nrose to heaven, announcing that he had come to grief in the course of\nhis labours; had encountered some one\u2019s foot or hand, or had some door\nshut in his face; but in the midst of grief he would see in the distance\nsomething being accomplished without him\u2014charcoal being carried in, the\nhall swept, or the garden watered\u2014and he would rise from his tears and\noffer his enthusiastic assistance once more, all undaunted, and continue\nto give encouraging chews to the worker\u2019s ankles, and stimulating barks\nof advice entirely undeterred by being called \u201can _injurienza_ puppy!\u201d\n\nPeripatetica claimed that his grey eyes showed that he was Norman\ndescent, as Jane insisted they did in all the grey-eyed children of\nTaormina. But Fraulein, appealed to on that question, said he was of the\ncolley race, and she revealed the dark and dreadful destiny laid upon\nhim\u2014that he was to grow up into a fierce and suspicious watch-dog; to\nlive chained on the upper terrace, a menace to all intruders, a terror\nto frighten thieves from the garden plums!\n\nAnd alas for natural bent of temperament when it must yield to contrary\ntraining. The grey-eyed one\u2019s fate soon overtook him. Wild and indignant\nwails and shrieks woke Jane one sunny morning, and continued steadily in\nmounting crescendo all the while she clothed herself in haste to go to\nthe rescue. Following the wails to the top of the garden she found the\nPuppy, a red ribbon around his soft neck, and from that a string\nattaching him to a pole. Nearby stood the Fraulein admonishing him that\nit was time his duties in life should begin, and he must commence to\nlearn the routine of his profession without so much repining. In spite\nof Jane\u2019s protests she insisted on leaving him there; and in vain all\nthat quarter of Taormina rang with the wails of protesting indignation\nthat welled from the confined one\u2019s heart in the bewilderment of being\nleft in loneliness, separated from all his friends and their doings.\nEvery day after that he had to undergo his hour or two of schooling in\nthe stern training of his grim profession. Soft-hearted Jane released\nhim whenever she could, but Fraulein inexorably put him back, and even\nhis playfellow Maria sternly held him to his duties. Between times he\nmixed with the family again on the old footing, but it was pathetic to\nsee how soon nature was affected by the mould into which it was pressed,\nhow soon he acquired the mannerisms and habits of his profession\u2014curbing\nhis exuberance of sociability, imposing on himself a post on the door\nmat, when strangers appeared, confining all welcome to his tail end,\nwhich would still wag friendlily though head did its duty in theatrical\nstaccato growls.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn Taormina everything happens in the street. Houses are merely dark\ndamp holes in which to take shelter at night, but life is lived outside\nthem. Food is prepared in the street, clothes are mended there, hair is\ncombed and arranged, neighbours gossiped with, lace and drawn-work made.\nThe cobbler soles his shoes in the street, the tinsmith does his\nhammering and soldering there. It is the poultry run of hens and\nturkeys, the pasture grounds for goats and kids, the dance hall for\nlight-footed children to tarantelle in, the old men\u2019s club, the general\nliving-room of all Taormina. Peripatetica and Jane found endless\namusement there, though they seldom tarried in town. Like Demeter they\nwandered all day in meadow and mountain seeking Persephone, and found\nher not. Preparation for her beloved coming Mother Demeter seemed to be\nmaking everywhere; grass springing green when once the cold rain ceased,\nand carpets of opening blossoms spreading in orchards and fields for the\nlittle white feet to press. Every night they said, \u201cShe will come\nto-morrow,\u201d\u2014but still Demeter\u2019s loneliness dissolved into cold tears\nhiding the face of the sun, and the chill winds told of nothing but\n\u00c6tna\u2019s snow, and the Lost One did not return.\n\nBut though they searched for her in vain in the setting of sunshine and\nblossom their fancy had pictured, Peripatetica and Jane found much else\non their rambles\u2014idyls of Theocritus still being lived, quaint little\nadventures, bits of local colour, new friends and old acquaintances\namong contadini, animals and flowers, and always and all about, the\nBones of the Past. Everywhere obscured under the work-a-day uses of the\nPresent, or rising out of them in beauty; half hidden among flowers in\nlonely fields or a part of squalid modern huts, they stumbled upon those\nremains of antiquity, debased and crumbled and inexplicable often, but\nbeautiful with a lost strange charm, sad and haunting.\n\nTaormina prides herself more on scenery than antiquities, but they found\nmany of the latter in their scrambles on rough little mountain trails,\nlearning all sorts of charms and secrets undreamed of by luxurious\ntourists rolling dustily in landaus along the one high road. Theirs was\nan unhurried leisure to take each day as it came. Without plans or\nguides they merely wandered wherever interest beckoned, until gradually\nthey learned all the town and its setting of mountain and shore by\nheart.\n\nThey sallied forth untrammelled of fixed destination, ready to take up\nwith the first adventure that offered\u2014and one always did offer to\nadventurers of such receptive natures. They made plans only to break\nthem; for inevitably they were distracted by something of interest more\nvital than the thing they had set out to see.\n\nThey might start, staff in hand, on a pilgrimage to the Madonna of Rocca\nBella, whose brown shrine nestled dizzily on one of the strange peaks\nshooting their distorted summits threateningly above their own Villa,\nthose peaks so vividly described by another Idle Woman in Sicily:\n\u201cBehind, wildly flinging themselves upwards, rise three tall peaks, as\nof mountains altogether gone mad and raving.... The nearest peak of a\nyellow-grey, splintered and cleft like a lump of spar, and so upright\nthat it becomes a question how it supports itself, is divided into two\nheads\u2014one thrusting itself forward headlong over the town and crowned\nwith the battlements of a ruined Saracenic-Norman castle; the other in\nthe rear carrying the outline of a little church, and the vague vestige\nof a house or two; Saracenic-Norman castle and church (Madonna della\nRocca) both so precisely the tint of the rock that it requires time and\npatience to disentangle each, and not to put the whole down as a further\nevidence of mountain insanity.\u201d...\n\nWhen Jane sat herself, muffled in furs and rugs, to read or sew in one\nof the quaint tile-encrusted arbours of the garden, those jagged peaks\nfell out of the sky overhead so menacingly, coming ever nearer and\nnearer to her shrinking head, that for all the sweetness of the flowers\nand birds she never could stay there long, but always, panic-struck,\nfled to the bare sea-terrace, and the prospect of calm and distant \u00c6tna.\n\nBut to go back to Our Lady of Rocca Bella, which Peripatetica and Jane\nnever managed to see, there were so many distractions on that path! Did\nthey start with the firmest of pilgrim intentions, a new garden opened\nunexplored paths of sweetness, or a brown old sea-dog, Phrygian-capped,\nsmiled a \u201cbuon giorno\u201d on his bare-footed way up from the shore, showed\nthem the strange sea creatures gleaming under the seaweed in his basket,\nand enticed them down to the shore. There on the golden beach of\nTheocles\u2019 landing place, they embarked in a heavy boat pulled by their\nfriend, and another old gold-earringed mariner, to the \u201c_grotte molto\ninteressante_\u201d in the Isola Bella. They poked their heads between waves\ninto coral caves where the light filtering through the bright water was\ndyed almost as intense an azure as in the famous Capri Blue Grotto, and\nthe whole coast line of mountains came to them in a new revelation of\nbeauty from the level of wide-stretching sea. And beside the queer bits\nof coral presented by the sea-dogs as souvenirs, they carried away\nsalt-water whetted appetites of wonderful keenness, and pictures,\nbestowed safely behind their eyes, of deliciously moulded mountain sides\nrising straight from clear green seas, of wave-carved fantasies in\nsun-bathed coral rocks, of red nets being stretched on yellow sands by\nbare-legged, graceful fisher folk; memories they would not have\nexchanged for any wide map-like vista the Madonna could have given them\nfrom her high-perched eyrie.\n\nIt was the same story with the Fontana Vecchia. If they had persisted in\nreaching its clear spring they might have heard the nightingales singing\nin the wooded dell, but they would never have known Carmela and her\nsunny mountain meadow.\n\nIt was a day of shifting clouds and cold winds. Peripatetica was\ndepressed. Her energies wilted in the cold, and she had only gone forth\nto walk because the salon was too icily vaultlike for habitation. Jane\ntried to cheer her with prospect of hot tea at the Fontana, but her\nspirit refused to respond to any material comforting. She complained of\nwhat had been troubling her for some time, a sense of feeling a mere\nghost herself in these Past-pervaded spots; a cold and shivering ghost\naimlessly blown about in the wind, pressed upon by all the thronging\ncrowds of other ghosts haunting these places where through the centuries\neach succeeding throng of beings had struggled and laboured, laughed and\nsuffered. Living among ghosts in these days of idleness, her own\nexistence cut off from the real living and doing of the world, from the\nduties and responsibilities of her own place in life, from the warm\nclutching hands of the people dependent on her, she had come to seem to\nherself entirely vague and ineffectual. She felt a mere errant,\ndisembodied spirit, she said, and it was a bleak and dreary feeling.\n\nJane said she thought a disembodied spirit, able to soar over the sharp\ncobbles of that road, an exceedingly enviable thing to be at that\nmoment; but she quite understood, and was herself affected by the same\nsense of chill aloofness from actual, vital human living.\n\nAnd then they saw Carmela\u2014a little old Sibyl twirling her distaff at an\nopen gate that looked out on the quiet road. Sitting in the sun with\ncotton kerchief, bodice, and apron all faded into soft harmonies of\ncolour, she made such a picture through the arch of the gate\u2019s break in\nthe dull stone wall, with the green of the garden behind her, that they\nstopped a moment to look.\n\n\u201cBuon giorno\u201d\u2014the picture smiled, her little round face breaking into\nfriendly wrinkles. She rose to her bare feet, and with graceful gesture\ninvited them in\u2014wouldn\u2019t they like to see the farm? she asked. There was\na _molto bella vista_ beyond. Always welcoming the unexpected they at\nonce accepted, and found themselves passing through olive and orange\ngroves. The property was not hers, their hostess explained; she was\nmerely a servant; it all belonged to a _molto vecchia_ lady, Donna\nTeresa by name. Though owning no part of it, Carmela pointed out the old\nvines, the thriving newly planted young vineyard, the grafts on the\nalmond trees, with proud proprietorship.\n\nDonna Teresa made her appearance; a tiny bent crone, bare-footed like\nher maid and dressed in cottons as faded if not as patched, but showing\ntraces of a refined type of beauty in the delicate features of her old\nface and the soft fine white hair curling still like grape tendrils\nabout her well-shaped head. She accepted her maid\u2019s explanation of the\nstrangers\u2019 presence, and proceeded to outdo her in hospitality. They\nmust do more than see the vista\u2014must pick some flowers too. With cordial\ntoothless chatter, of which the friendly meaning was the only thing they\ncould entirely understand, she led through the farmyard court where blue\nand white doves cooed on the carved stone well-head, and a solemn white\ngoat, his shaggy neck hung about with charms and amulets, attached\nhimself to the party and followed down the stone stairs to a lower\nterrace. There was a view entrancing indeed, also a strange little old\nround building resembling a Roman tomb. Carmela could tell no more than\nthat it was _cosa di molto antichita_ and very useful to store roots in.\nUnder a sheltering wall was a purple bank of violets to which the old\nDonna led them with much pride, inviting them to pick for themselves.\nWhen they did so too modestly to suit her, she fell on her knees and\ngathered great handfuls, thrusting on them besides all the oranges and\nmandarins they could carry, until her lavishments became an\nembarrassment. For all her bare feet and poor rags there was that in the\ngrace of her hospitality they felt they could not offer money to. All\nthey could do was to press francs into the maid\u2019s hand, offer the Donna,\nas curiosities from distant America, the maple sugar drops Jane had\nfilled her pocket with before starting, and try to make smiles fill the\ngaps in thanks of their halting Italian.\n\nCarmela showed redoubled friendliness from the moment America was\nmentioned. She still clung to them after her mistress bade them goodby\nat the gate, and offered to show them another vista still more\nbeautiful. They would rather have continued their interrupted way, but\nthe little round face falling sadly changed their protestations into\nthanks, and she trotted happily beside them, smiling at their\ncompliments on the even thread she spun as she walked, confiding how\nmuch it brought her a hank, what she could spin in a day, and that Donna\nTeresa was a good mistress, but a little weakened in her head by age.\n\nShe pattered along, her bare feet skimming carelessly over the\nsharp-cobbled road, spindle steadily whirling, past the Campo Santo,\nwhere at the top of a sudden ravine the road forked and strings of\npanniered donkeys and straight, graceful girls with piles of linen on\ntheir heads were going down to a hidden stream tinkling below. They\nlonged to follow, but Carmela took them on around a curve, through a\ndoor in a high wall, past a deserted barn, along a grassy path under\nalmond trees, and they found themselves in a spot that made them catch\nbreath with delight.\n\nThe crown of a mountain spur dropped in terraced orchards and gardens to\nthe sea below. Taormina was hidden behind intervening heights. Below, an\nopal sea divided Sicily from wraiths of the Calabrian mountains drifting\nalong the horizon, and curves of yellow sand and white, surf-frothed\nrocks outlined the far indentations of the Island\u2019s mountainous coast\nspreading blue and rosy-purple on their left. Fringed with blossoming\nplum and yellow gorse, the spur on which they stood dropped sheer to the\nriver ravine, and above still towered Mola and Monte Venere.\n\nIt was a world of sun and colour and sweet silence. The cold, moaning\nwind was shut off by the heights behind them, and turned full to the\nglowing South, a real warmth of sun bathed the sheltered spot and had\nspread a carpet of flowers of more brilliant and harmonious arabesques\nthan any of Oriental weaving. Of purple and puce and gold, coral and\nwhite and orange, of blues faint and deep, of rose and sharp crimson, it\nwas woven exquisitely through the warp of young spring green. Even\nwithout the view, nothing so sweet and really springlike as that bit of\nmountain meadow had Peripatetica and Jane yet seen. They cried out in\njoy and sat them down among all the unknown bewitching flowers.\n\nCarmela\u2019s face lit up at their appreciation. She too sat down, let her\nspindle fall, and gazed about as if her eyes loved what they rested\nupon; then looking from one strange face to the other:\n\n\u201cYou are really from America?\u201d she asked, and let her pathetic little\nstory pour out. Nine children she had borne, and all but one dead. She\ntold how that one, a splendid youth, had gone to America three years ago\nto make a fortune for himself and her, and at first had written to her\nthat he was doing well; but for two years she had spent her hard\nearnings to have letters written to him, and had prayed with tears at\nthe Madonna\u2019s shrine, but for two long years now\u2014no answer.\n\nHer round little old, yet childlike, face fell into tragic lines. With\nwork-scarred hands clasping her knees across her patched apron she sat,\na creature of simple and dignified pathos, opening her heart in brief\nand poignant words to the response in Peripatetica\u2019s eyes. Among the\nblossoms and the bees the three women of such different lives and\nexperiences, with the barrier of a strange tongue between them, came\ninto close touch for a moment in the elementary humanity of that pain\nknown to all women\u2014Goddess Demeter and ragged peasant alike\u2014when their\ndearest has gone forth from the longing shelter of their arms and theirs\nis the part of passive loneliness and waiting.\n\n\u201cYes, life was _brutta_,\u201d said Carmela simply, \u201cbut one had always one\u2019s\nwork.\u201d\n\nPicking up the spindle, winding again her even thread, smilingly she\nbade these strange friends \u201c_a rivedercela_,\u201d and departed, a certain\ntragic dignity clinging to the square little figure going sturdily, yet\nwith head drooping, back to her life of hard and lonely labour. Whether\nthat moment of sympathetic intercourse had meant anything to her or not,\nto the two idle ones that trusting touch of the life about them meant\nmuch. It pulled them out of the world of ghosts, from the empty sense of\nbeing outside of any connection with other lives, and by that contact of\nliving, pitiful drama they came back into realities.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor all the tiny extent of Taormina\u2019s boundaries, the discoveries of its\nantiquities seemed never ending; the cella of a Greek temple hidden in\nSan Pancrazio\u2019s church; the tiny Roman theatre, a section of its pit and\nauditorium with seats still in perfect rows sticking out from another\nold church whose greediness had only succeeded in half swallowing it;\nthe enormous Roman baths whose old pools and conduits a thriving lemon\norchard is now enjoying; the Roman pavement next to the Hotel Victoria;\nthat bit of Greek inscription hospitably let into church walls, exciting\nimagination with its record that the \u201cpeople of Tauromenium accord these\nhonours to Olympis, son of Olympis\u201d for having gained the prize in horse\nracing at the Pythian games.\n\nThe wall of the loveliest garden in Taormina is honeycombed with ancient\ntombs. The slender cypresses, like exclamation points emphasizing its\nrhythms of colour, have their roots among the very bones of antiquity.\nIn this garden Protestant worship has succeeded Catholic in the old\nChapel of the delicious little Twelfth Century Convent whose cloisters\nare now an English lady\u2019s villa\u2014and who knows in how many earlier\nshrines man\u2019s groping faith has prayed in this very spot?\n\nAll over Taormina fragments of old marbles and carvings and columns\nappear in the most unlikely places; a marble mask from the theatre over\nthe door of a modest little \u201cSarta\u201d in a back alleyway, bits of porphyry\ncolumns supporting the steps of a peasant\u2019s hovel. The traces of Norman\nand Saracen embellishment are, of course, even more numerous, almost\nevery house on the street breaking out into some odd and delicate bit.\nThe fa\u00e7ade of the palace in which dwelt the Frau Schuler\u2019s antiquity\nshop is freaked with charming old lava inlays and queer forked\n\u201cmerluzzi\u201d battlements. Forcing one\u2019s way through the chickens into its\ncourtyard, one finds a vivid Fourteenth Century relief of the story of\nEve\u2019s creation, temptation, and punishment climbing up the stone\nstairway, and an inscription \u201c_Est mihi i locu refugii_,\u201d which\ntradition says was placed by John of Aragon taking refuge here once in\nthe days when it was a Palace of the Aragonese Kings. Beyond that\ninscription with its legend, and some few Spanish-looking iron\nbalconies, the Spaniard has left no trace of his dominion in Taormina.\nThe Norman printed himself on churches and convents, but it is the\nGreeks and Romans, and above all the Saracens, who have stamped\nthemselves indelibly upon Taormina. Moorish workmen must have been\nemployed by their conquerors for centuries to build them palaces and\nconvents, baths and even churches. And the Arab blood still shows\nstrongly in hawk-like, keen-eyed faces passing through Taormina\u2019s\nstreets as haughtily as in the days when their progenitors ruled there\nwith hand of iron upon the dogs of Christians.\n\nIn those Moslem days much liberty in the practice of religion was\nallowed to such of the Christians as did not show the cross in public,\nread the gospel loud enough to penetrate to Moslem ears, or ring their\nchurch bells \u201cfuriously.\u201d How often in Sicily one wishes that last\nregulation were still in force! They might go on worshipping freely in\nall existing churches and convents, though to build new ones was not\nallowed. In matters of religion the Arab was strangely liberal, but in\ncivil matters he reduced the conquered people to a sort of serfdom.\nChristians were not allowed to carry arms, to ride on horseback, or even\ndonkeyback, to build houses as high as the Mussulman\u2019s, to drink wine in\npublic, to accompany their dead to burial with any pomp or mourning.\nChristian women might not enter the public baths when Moslem women were\nthere, nor remain if they came in. Christians must give way to Moslems\non the street; indoors they must rise whenever a man of the conquering\nrace came in or went out. \u201cAnd that they might never forget their\ninferiority, they had to have a mark on the doors of their houses and\none on their clothes.\u201d They were bid wear turbans of different fashion\nand colour from Moslems, and particular girdles of leather.\n\nYet many good gifts these Eastern conquerors brought\u2014introduction of\nsilkworms and the mulberry, of sugar-cane and new kinds of olives and\nvines; new ways of preserving and salting fish; new processes of\nagriculture and commerce; their wonderful methods of irrigation; the\nclear Arabic numeration; advance in medicine, astronomy, mathematics,\nall sciences; and even \u201cthe slaves in Sicily under the Moslem rule were\nbetter off than the Italian populations of the mainland under the\nLombards and Franks.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nJane and Peripatetica were taking tea in the San Domenico gardens\u2014a\nflowery terrace dizzily flung out to sea, and almost as high as their\nown. There is nothing prettier in Taormina than that garden; tile-paved,\nmossy stone pergolas of dense shade still breathing of quiet monkish\nmeditations; open, yet sheltered, nooks to bask in the sun, and the\nloveliness of the outlook on \u00c6tna and his sweeping foothills, and the\nmilky-streaked green sea; mats of fragrant sweetness, purple and ivory,\nof violets and freesias; royal splash of bougainvilla against the buff\nstucco of old convent walls; coast steamers, white yachts, and tiny\nblack fishing boats far, far below, the only hint of the world\u2019s bustle;\nhere in the garden was only slumberous quiet and fragrant peace.\n\n                 \u201cOn his terrace high in air\n                  Nothing doth the good monk care\n                      For such worldly themes as these.\n                  From the garden just below\n                  Little puffs of perfume blow,\n                    And a sound is in his ears\n                      Of the murmur of the bees\n                    In the shimmering chestnut trees.\n                    Nothing else he heeds or hears.\n                  All the landscape seems to swoon\n                  In the happy afternoon.\u201d\n\nLittle has been changed since the good monk really dozed there. The\ncharm of his peaceful days still lingers in cloister and garden, and the\nconventual atmosphere still asserts itself in spite of the frivolous\nswarm of tourists, who leave innovation trunks in the stone-flagged\ncorridors. But that same tourist sits in the monk\u2019s painted wooden\nstalls, has a beflowered little shrine and altar perhaps opposite his\nown bedroom door; walks under saintly frescoes, hangs his hat on the\nFather\u2019s carved towel-frame outside the Refectory door, and eats his\ndinner under pictures of martyrdoms. The chapel in the midst of the\nmodern caravanserai is still the parish church, the vaulted stone\ncorridors echo to the solemn boom of its organ many times a day\u2014a wrong\nturn on the way to the dining-room and the tourist finds himself not in\ngas-lit, soup-redolent, salle-\u00e0-manger, but among the dim, carved\nstalls, taper-lit altars, and incense-sweet air of the chapel.\n\nIt was the one place which ever caused Peripatetica and Jane to think\nungratefully of their villa. Whenever they wandered through either of\nthe vine-draped old cloisters; looked up the delightfully twisted stone\nstairways, and along mysterious Gothic passages, they wished that they\ntoo might have had a \u201cbelonging\u201d door in one of the arches of that quiet\nincense-perfumed corridor, such sense of unhurried calm reigned there;\nthe frescoed saints over each cell door looked so peacefully benignant.\n\n\u201cJane,\u201d queried Peripatetica, \u201cdo you notice that these Saints are all\nwomen?\u2014a gentle lady saint over every Brother\u2019s door! even where no\nliving woman was allowed to penetrate they still clung to some memory of\nthe Eternal Feminine!\u201d\n\nTea was seeming unusually good that afternoon after hours passed amid\nthe excitements and wonderful finds and bargains of the beguiling\nantiquity shops of Taormina\u2019s main street. Now, the pot drained to the\nlast drop, the last crumb of bread and honey eaten, they sat tranquilly\nwatching the shadows lengthen in the garden.\n\n\u201cThis is the only really peaceful spot in Taormina,\u201d said Jane. \u201cWhat a\nrelief to escape from all that old overwhelming Past for once and just\nbe soothingly lulled in this placid monkish calm. I know nothing ever\nhappened here more exciting than the scandal of some fat Brother\u2019s\nunduly prolonging his siesta in a sheltered nook, and so missing\nVespers.\u201d\n\nA boy appeared at her elbow; one of the little shy fauns of Von\nGlo\u00ebden\u2019s photographs. He pulled a cactus leaf out of one pocket, a\npenknife out of another, and trimming off the cactus prickles tossed the\nleaf out into space in such deft way that in graceful curves and\nbirdlike swoops it whirled slowly down to the far bottom of the cliff.\nJane leaned over the gratefully substantial stone parapet and watched,\nfascinated, as he proceeded to send yet another and another after it in\nmore elaborate curves each time. The boy\u2019s shyness melted under her\nadmiration of his trick and the coppers it was expressed in; he showed\nwhite teeth in much merriment when she too attempted to toss the green\ndiscs only to have them drop persistently without any whirling. He began\nto chatter.\n\n\u201cYes, it was very high that cliff, and of much interest to pitch things\nover and watch them fall. In the old days they had pitched men over\nit\u2014yes indeed, prigionieri; many hundreds of them.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh Peripatetica! black dramas even here! what can he mean?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe insurgent slaves of the Servile War, perhaps. Their whole garrison\nwas hurled alive over some cliff here\u2014native tradition may have it this\none.\u201d\n\nJane remembered. Eight hundred men thus treated by Publius Rupilius,\nRoman Consul in 132 B.C.\n\nThe dark flood of old cruelty surged back to her. Sicily was a country\nof great landowners holding estates of eighty miles round and more;\nworking them by slave labour; owning slaves in thousands. Twenty\nthousand slaves was not an exaggerated number for a great noble to own,\ntwo hundred a fair allowance for an ordinary citizen. Two-thirds of\nSicily\u2019s population were then slaves.\n\nOf course the human live-stock possessed in such indistinguishable\nhordes, like cattle, had to be branded with the owner\u2019s mark. They did\ntheir work in irons, to be safely under their overseer\u2019s power; were\nlodged in holes under ground; their daily rations but one pound of\nbarley or wheat, and a little salt and oil. Against atrocious cruelties\nthey revolt at last. All over Sicily they rise, two hundred thousand men\nsoon finding arms and power to mete to masters the same cruelties that\nhad been shown them. For six years all the might of Rome cannot crush\nthem, but eventually her iron claw closes in upon them\u2014only impregnable\nEnna and Taormina still remain in the hands of the slave army. It is a\nstruggle to test all Rome\u2019s mettle. These slaves too are of the eagle\u2019s\nblood. Men free-born and bred, most of them; Greeks and Franks from the\nmainland, prisoners of war or of debt. Fiercely, indomitably, they cling\nto their rocky eyries. But in Taormina starvation fights direfully\nagainst them. There was not one grain, one blade of grass even, left.\nStill the garrison clings and strikes back at the Romans. They devour\ntheir own children, next the women, then at last eat one another\u2014but\nstill hold out.\n\nCommanus, the slave commander, weakens and tries to escape from the\nhorrors. He creeps alone from the city, but is captured and brought\nbefore the Consul. He knows what methods will be tried to make him give\ninformation of the town\u2019s condition\u2014can his weakness hold out against\ntorture? With apparent acquiescence he appears willing to answer all\nRoman questions, but bends his head and draws his cloak over it as if\nshielding his eyes to better collect his thoughts.... Under the cloak he\ngrips his throat between his fingers and with the last remnant of once\nphenomenal physical strength crushes his own windpipe, and falls safely\nsilent at the Consul\u2019s feet.\n\nBut the horrors of Taormina in that siege are too much for another\nslave\u2014a Syrian. He betrays the town to the Romans ... and Publius\ndisposes of all the remaining garrison over the edge of the cliff.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nShopping is an important part of a stay in Taormina. Surely no other\nstreet of its length anywhere in the world has so many beguilements to\npart the tourist from his coin. The dark little shops spilling their\ngoods out upon the pavement; things so bizarre, so good, so cheap, the\nlire of the forestieri flow away in torrents. Beautiful inlaid\nfurniture; lovely old jewelry of flawed rubies and emeralds set amid the\nfamous antique Sicilian pearl-work and enamelling. Old Spanish paste in\ndelightful designs; red Catanian amber, little Roman intaglios, delicate\nold cameos, enamelled orders; necklaces, rings, pendants; earrings in\nodd and charming settings; delightful old trinkets in richer assortment\nof variety and quality here than any other place in Italy. Old Sicilian\nthread lace, coarse but effective, in shawls and scarfs of many charming\nold designs; old altar lace too in great abundance; better laces, as one\nmay have luck to find them, or to be on the spot when gleanings from\nchurches and convents in the interior are brought in\u2014bundles containing\nvaried treasures, from brocades and embroideries and splendid lace of\npriestly vestments, to drawn-work altar cloths and the lace cottas\nlittle choirboys\u2019 restless arms have worn sad holes in. Churchly silver\ntoo, reliquaries and ornaments and old medals, abound in Taormina for\nscarcely more than the value of the silver\u2019s weight. Old coins dug up in\nits gardens, the old porcelains bought from its impoverished nobles; old\ndrawn-work, on heavy hand-woven linen, still firmly carrying its\nprocessions of marvellous beasts and birds and personages in wide\nlace-like bands. Beasts conceived by the same imagination that evolved\nthe gargoyles of Gothic cathedrals, such wonderful mixtures of animal\nand bird and human as Adam never named in Garden of Eden. These horned\nbirds and winged animals processioning around churchly altar cloths are\nold, old pagan Siculian luck charms\u2014protectors against the evil eye.\nPeripatetica and Jane instantly proceeded to combat their Hoodoo with\nvaliant processions of fat little many-horned stags romping around\nthroat and wrist\u2014and of all the many exorcisms they had tried this truly\nseemed the most effective!\n\nTaormina\u2019s na\u00efve native pottery, too, drapes the outside walls of shops\nand doorways in bright garlands of strange shapes of fishes and fruits\nand beasts, is stacked in shining heaps of colour, jugs and pots and\nplatters of every possible form and design. Some of it reminiscent of\nSevillian pottery in elaborate Renaissance decoration, but for the most\npart rough little shapes of clay, covered with hard bright glaze and no\ntwo ever exactly alike in either shape or tint. The favourite model\nbeing a gay Sicilian Lady Godiva, riding either a stag or a cock,\nattired proudly in a crown and a floating blue ribbon!\n\nDay after day, all through March, the sun moped behind clouds, the wind\nlashed the sea against the rocks, and milky foam bands streaked the\nturbid green. Rain beat on the Villa windows, and even through them, to\nthe great amusement of Maria, who appeared to consider mopping up the\nstreaming floors a merry contest with the elements.\n\nBut when the rare sun burst out and revealed a fresh-washed sky, a land\nshimmering through thinnest gauze of mist, or the moon could escape from\nthe clouds and rise behind the theatre ruins to hang, hugely bright over\nthe gleaming sea floor so far, far below, it seemed a fair world all\nprepared to greet its radiant returning goddess.\n\nOn such days no shop could beguile. Even the old dames weaving towels on\nhand looms by their open doors, always so ready for friendly chat with\nthese forestieri, would be passed with only a smile, for the breath of\nthe fields called loudly to hillside and orchard, \u201cwhere all fair herbs\nbloom, red goat-wort and endive, and fragrant bees-wort\u201d; the only sound\nbreaking the sunny calm being the notes of a shepherd boy on a\nneighbouring hill, piping as if his reed flute held the very spirit of\nyouth, the bubbling notes sparkling like a little fountain of joy\nflinging its spray on the spring breeze. Or on a day like this to wander\nfar afield; or else in the high hillside orchards where the birds sang\n\u201cSicily! Sicily! Sicily!\u201d or called mockingly \u201cWho are you? Who are\nyou?\u201d\n\nOn such a day they adventured to Mola and the heights of Monte Venere\u2019s\npeak in the company of those brave _asinelli_ Giovanino and Francesco,\nand in the charge of Domenico, Sheik of guides, whose particular\nexploitation they had long ago become.\n\nLoafing in the fountain square, watching the women filling jars at the\nfountain, and speculating as usual over the history of its presiding\ndeity (who as St. Taypotem is the local genius and emblem of the town, a\nsaint utterly unknown to churchly calendar)\u2014a lady centaur, and a\ntwo-legged one at that, uprearing her plump person on two neat little\nhoofed heels raised high above the four archaic beasts spouting\nwater\u2014Peripatetica and Jane fell a prey to a genial Arab, a beguiling\nsmile wrinkling his dark hawk-like face. Wouldn\u2019t they like a donkey\nride? The best donkeys in all Sicily were his\u2014Domenico\u2019s\u2014guide No. 5,\nbeloved of all tourists, as they could see by reading his book. A dingy\nlittle worn note-book was fluttered under their noses, an eager brown\nfinger pointed to this and that page of English writing, all singing the\npraises of Domenico and his beasts on many an expedition. More\ninfluenced by the smile than the testimonials they promised that he\nshould conduct them to Mola. From that instant Domenico\u2019s wing was\nspread over them in brooding solicitude. Yes, the weather was too\nthreatening to ride out anywhere that afternoon, but did they know all\nthe sights of the town? he inquired. Had they seen the Bagni Saraceni?\nNo, they admitted. Oh, that was _molto interessante_ and close at hand;\nhe would show them! Hypnotized by the smile they followed meekly, though\nthe Bagni turned out to be the Norman Moorish ruins of the San Stefano\nPalace with which they were already familiar. But not as it was shown by\nDomenico. The surly old contadina in charge, bullied into offering the\nchoicest of the oranges and flowers growing among the ruins, the smile\ngilding all the dark corners of antiquity and lighting up the vaulted\ncellar in which by graphic pantomime of jumps into its biggest holes\nthey were shown exactly how the Saracens had once bathed, much as more\nmodern folk did, it seemed.\n\nAfter that days came and went of such greyness and cold wind or rain,\nthat Domenico and his donkeys attended in vain at the pink gateway to\ntake Peripatetica and Jane excursioning. But not for that did they lose\nthe sunniness of the smile. Like a benevolent spider, Domenico was to be\nalways lying in wait to pounce around any corner with friendly greeting,\nto give them the news of the town in his patois of mixed Italian,\nEnglish, and pantomime; to suggest carrying home their bundles for them\nif they were on a shopping tour, to point out an antiquity or garden to\ninspect if they seemed planless, or a lift home on the painted cart\nwhose driver he had been enlivening with merry quips, when met on the\nhigh road outside town. And once, oh blessed time, when he encountered\nJane at the Catania gate, her tongue hanging out with thirst and fatigue\nafter a long mountain climb, he haled her straightway into a friend\u2019s\ngarden to refresh herself with juicy oranges from the trees.\n\nFinally the long waited-for day came, when not a cloud threatened and\nthe mountains beckoned through crystalline, sunny air. So Francesco and\nGiovanino laden with Peripatetica and Jane, Domenico and a brown young\nhawkling of the Domenican brood laden with lunch, they climbed upwards.\n\u00c6tna stood out in glistening, freshly renewed snow mantle, icy sharp\nagainst the most perfect of blue skies. Taormina dropped far below, a\ntiny huddled human nest of brown among the green, green hilltops. Mola,\nwhich for so long had loomed far over their heads on its beetling crags,\nnow too sank below. The pink mountain villa where Hichens had written\n\u201cThe Call of the Blood,\u201d the vineyards and the orchards, all dropped\naway. Only \u00c6tna, high and white, soared against the sky, remote and\ninaccessible. The trail grew steeper and steeper, but Francesco and\nGiovanino, noble pair, with unbroken wind and gloomy energy picked their\nway unfalteringly among the rolling stones, and both Domenicos, like\ntwo-legged flies, seemed to take to the perpendicular as easily as the\nhorizontal.\n\nFrancesco, tall and grey and of a loquacious turn of mind, made all the\nmountains echo to his voice whenever a fellow _asinello_ was encountered\non the trail. Giovanino, small and brown, attended strictly to the\nbusiness of finding secure places for his tiny hoofs among the stones,\nbut developed two idiosyncrasies rather dismaying to his rider. Whenever\nthe path led along a precipice\u2019s edge, on the very outside edge of it\nwould his four obstinate little feet go, with Jane\u2019s feet dangling\nhorribly over empty space; whenever it skirted a stone wall his furry\nsides insisted upon rubbing it clingingly, sternly regardless of his\nrider\u2019s toes. The path ceased being a path. It became a stairway\nclimbing up the mountains\u2019 bare marble side in rough stone steps a foot\nor more in height.\n\n\u201cBut we can\u2019t ride up _that_!\u201d cries the appalled Peripatetica in the\nlead. In vain Domenico assures her that she can, that people do it every\nday. She looks at its dizzy turns and insists on taking to her own feet.\nJane, having acquired a reverential confidence in Giovanino\u2019s powers\nafter their mutual tussles, puts more faith in his head and knees than\nin her own, and goes on, clutchingly. Young Domenico, hanging like a\nbalance weight to Giovanino\u2019s tail, keeps up a chorus of \u201cAh-ees\u201d and\nassurances that the Signorina need have no fear, he is there to guide\nher! In reality he knows that his small person could no more interfere\nwith the orbit of Giovanino\u2019s movements than with those of the planets,\nbut also that there is no more need that he should\u2014Giovanino\u2019s grey head\nholds a perfect chart of the way, with the safest hoof-placings plainly\nmarked out on it, and he follows it imperturbably.\n\nTravellers to Monte Venere do not know much of what they are passing the\nlast forty minutes. They are too busy wondering whether each minute will\nnot be their last\u2014on those daunting stairs of living rock and rolling\nstones. Breathless, dizzy, speechless, they at last realize a firm level\nterrace is under foot, and reel against the comforting solid walls of\nthe little _tratoria_. The donkeys are quite unruffled and unheated,\nless dejected than when they started. The young Domenico, who has pulled\nhimself on shuffling small bare feet thrust in his father\u2019s heavy boots\nall up that mountain wall, is as unflushed of face, unshortened of\nbreath, as if he had come on wings! Old Domenico, escorting an exhausted\nPeripatetica, is bubbling faster than ever with vehement chatter. He\ncannot understand why his charges insist on rest, on holding fast to the\nsolid house. It fills him with surprised distress that they will not go\non to the top. \u201cThe view over all Sicily awaits them there, and it is\nsuch a clear day. Corragio! only one-half hour more!\u201d...\n\nBut Peripatetica and Jane plant their feet on that little level platform\nwith more than donkey obstinacy\u2014with reeling heads they look out into\nthe great blue gulfs of air and over the green ripples of mountain tops.\nThis is high enough for them, they pant, feeling like quivering\nearth-worms clinging to the top of a telegraph pole and invited to go\nout along the wires. Shivering in the wind which, in spite of sun, is\nicy keen at this height, they proceed to eat their cold lunch; the\ntratoria offering only tables and crockery, wine, goat\u2019s milk, and\ncoffee to its patrons. Between two infants of the house begging for\ntidbits, three skeleton dogs so long unacquainted with food they\nsnatched greedily even at egg shells, a starved cat, and the two\nDomenicos, who, it seems, also expect to lunch on their leavings,\nPeripatetica and Jane have themselves no heart to eat. Wishing they had\nbrought another _asinello_ laden only with food, that all the\ninhabitants of this hungry height might for once be filled, they divide\ntheir own meal as evenly as possible among all its aspirants and try to\nsustain themselves on the view. Peripatetica looked on the far expanse\nof hills and sea below, sourly asserting her fixed lowlander\u2019s\nconviction that mountains are only beautiful looked up to, and that a\nbird\u2019s-eye-view is no view. But when a comforting concoction of hot\ngoat\u2019s milk and something called coffee had been swallowed, and numbed\nfingers thawed out over the tiny fire of grapevine prunings in the\ntratoria kitchen, they succumbed to Domenico\u2019s insistence about the view\nit is their duty to see, and climbed higher.\n\nThe crest of Monte Venere is a green knoll rising above rock walls.\nAround and below it enough mountains to fill a whole world roll\nconfusedly on every side. They felt more than ever like earth-worms too\nfar removed from friendly earth, and stayed only to listen to the\npipings of a curly-headed goatherd flinging trills out into space; while\nDomenico, pained at their indifference to his vaunted coup d\u2019\u00e9tat of\n\u201cbella vistas,\u201d but benevolent still, clambered about like a goat\nhimself, gathering for them the \u201cmountain violets\u201d as he called the\ndelicate mauve flowers starring the sod.\n\nSo soon they were back at the tratoria that Francesco and Giovanino had\nnot half chewed their little handfuls of hay, and young Domenico\u2019s red\ntongue was still delightedly polishing off the interior of their tin of\npotted chicken, while the lean dogs watched enviously, waiting for their\nchance at this queer bone. Another personage was lunching luxuriously,\nstretched at his ease on the steep hillside, a large sleek white goat,\nmunching solemnly at grass and blossom, wagging his beard and rolling\nwatery pink-rimmed eyes with such evangelical air of pious complacence\nPeripatetica and Jane instantly recognized him as an incarnation of a\nNew England country deacon, and sat down respectfully to pass the time\nof day with him.\n\nGoing down even Jane takes to her own feet. Slipping, sliding, jumping,\nthe worst is somehow past with bones still unbroken. The mountainside is\nyet like the wall of a house, but Domenico, with more cries of\n\u201ccorragio,\u201d and proverbs as to those who \u201cVa piano, va sano,\u201d urges them\nto mount, and Jane, quite confident that four legs have more clinging\npower than two, is glad to lie back along Giovanino\u2019s tail while he\nbalances himself on his nose, with young Domenico serving as a brake on\nhis tail, and so slides and hitches calmly down hill.\n\nMola is a climb again, the narrow path twisting up the one accessible\nledge to its sharp peak. One wonders why human beings ever first climbed\nthere to build, and even more why they still live in its cramped\nbuildings, and with what toil they can find ways to squeeze daily bread\nout of the bleak rocks. Yet before the first Greek colonists landed at\nNaxos, Mola was already a town. It looked down on infant Taormina when\nthe Naxos refugees fled to its heights. It loomed above, still Siculian\nand intact, on its bare unassailable crags, through all the squabbles\nand screamings below of the different eagle broods taking possession of\nTaormina\u2019s nest. The conqueror who tried to take Mola had usually only\nhis trouble for his pains. Even Dionysius, with all Sicily clutched in\nhis cruel hand, failed in his snatch at Mola. His attempt to steal into\nit by surprise one dark winter\u2019s night ended in an ignominious,\nbreakneck, hurling repulse of tyrant and all his victory-wonted\nveterans. And Mola still lives to-day. All its huddled houses seem to be\ninhabited, though only bent old men, palsied crones, black pigs, and\nbabies are to be met with in its steep narrow alleys. Domenico said\nscornfully that there was nothing to be seen in it, but led the way to\nthe tiny town-square terrace beside the church, and had a brown finger\nready to emphasize all points of interest in the spread of country and\nsea stretching below its parapet. Once Mola had a sister town, he told,\non another crag across the valley; but \u00c6tna opened a sudden mouth and\nlava rivers pouring down to the sea flowed over it and swallowed it\ncompletely. Whether this is actual history or Domenican invention\nremains in doubt. No other historian mentions the lost town. But then,\nas Domenico said, there is \u00c6tna, and there the lava mound still black\nand ugly, as proof!\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAgain it rained, and \u00c6tna sulked behind a cloudy mantle. Vesuvius worked\nall day long, yet fur coats were a necessary house dress. The poor Demon\ntook the influenza and coughed, and shivered in spite of her hot\nenergies; turned livid yellow and feverish, and had to be sent to a\ndoctor. Scarcely able to hold her head up, but protesting to the end,\nshe gave in to going home to bed and staying there. But first she\nreappeared, pale but proud, with a fashionably dressed young lady of\nfourteen, her _figlia_ Adalina, to whom she had shown and told\neverything, and who could do all the ladies\u2019 service quite as well as\nherself.\n\nAdalina was very high as to pompadour and equally high as to the French\nheels on the tight boots which finished off the plump legs emerging from\nher smart kilted skirt\u2014but height of intelligence was not in her; none\nof her mother\u2019s quickness and energy seemed to have passed into the head\nunder the high rolling thatch of hair. Feet were Adalina\u2019s strong point,\nand she knew it. There was probably not another such grand pair of real\nFrench boots as hers in all Taormina! So her life consisted in showing\nthem off. She arranged Peripatetica\u2019s and Jane\u2019s belongings, and brushed\ntheir clothes, as Mother had shown her, but with pirouettings and side\nsteps\u2014one, two, three, all the best dancing positions\u2014between every\ntouch of brush or laying out of garment. It absorbed so much time to\nkeep her feet arranged in the most perfect placings to exhibit pointed\ntoes that very little else could be expected of her in the course of the\nday. She opened her mouth wide at Peripatetica\u2019s and Jane\u2019s broken\nbabblings, but no sense from them ever penetrated her intelligence.\nMaria had to be called to interpret everything, and usually to do it\ntoo. A charm seemed to have departed from the villa with no Demon to\nkeep them comfortable and uncomfortable at once.\n\n\u201cWhy should we wait and shiver here any longer?\u201d asked Peripatetica.\n\u201cPersephone is surely coming first on the other side of \u00c6tna.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy should we? Let us start on,\u201d said Jane.\n\nDomenica returned to them, a pale yellow Demon, but bustling as ever,\ntoo late to affect their decision. Trunks were packed, towering\npacking-cases stuffed with their Taormina acquisitions. Fraulein\u2019s last\nwonderful pudding eaten, \u00c6tna seen looming vapory white above the\nterrace for the last time, Old Nina had carried down through the garden\nfrom the well, in a Greek jar on her grey head, the water for their last\ntub, Maria had peeped her last \u201cQuesto,\u201d Frau Schuler and her polite\nson, the Fraulein, Maria, and Carola, had all presented fragrant\nnosegays, Adalina, too, with pompadour more aggressive than ever,\nappeared to offer them violets and hint a receptivity to a parting\ndouceur herself. Every one was bidding them regretful farewells.\nTouched, and themselves regretful to leave so much kindness and charm,\nwith melting heart the last goodby of all was said to Domenica, and her\nwages for the last two weeks pressed into her palm.\n\n\u201cYou have served us so well, we have made no deduction for the days you\nwere first ill, and we had no one; nor for the days when we had your\nlittle girl instead,\u201d said Jane.\n\nOh! had \u00c6tna burst into eruption? The whole smiling morning landscape\nwas darkened by the wild black figure pouring down shrill volleys of\nwrathful Italian on their devoted heads. This Fury threatening with\nflashing eyes and wild gesture was their gentle Domenica\u2014now a demon\nindeed!\n\nThey shrank aghast unable to catch a word in the rapid torrent.\n\n\u201cWhat _is_ the matter?\u201d they cried to Frau Schuler.\n\nWith Teuton phlegm she dropped a word into the flood.\n\n\u201cYou have not paid her for the hour she has been here this morning.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, because we have paid her just the same for the days on which we had\nno one and the ten days on which we had only that stupid child\u2014and have\ngiven the precious Adalina a _mancia_ too. But good gracious, we will\npay her more if she feels that way!\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed, you must not!\u201d said the Frau briskly. \u201cIt is an abominable\nimposition. She has been much overpaid now, that is the trouble, she\nthinks you easy game. Listen, my woman, and shame yourself,\u201d she turned\nto Domenica, \u201cyou disgrace your town to these good Signorine, who have\nacted so generously to you!\u201d\n\nThe raging demon looked into her calm face and at the two astounded\nAmerican ones, and the storm quieted as quickly as it had come ... in an\ninstant\u2019s metamorphosis she was again the amiable little person of all\nthe weeks of service, saying:\n\n\u201cMany, many thanks to the ladies, and a pleasant journey, and might they\ncome back again soon to Taormina!\u201d\n\nShe snatched Peripatetica\u2019s coat away from Maria, and Jane\u2019s kodak from\nout her hand, and bore them off to the carriage with all her usual\nassiduous energy.\n\nOne last pat to the puppy, graduated this very morning to real collar\nand chain attaching him to new huge kennel, the warring friendliness of\nhis heart and the conscientious effort to live up to his\nresponsibilities struggling more pathetically than ever in his grey\neyes, and they passed up the pergola for the last time, and out of the\npink gate to continue their quest.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n\n                         ONE DEAD IN THE FIELDS\n\n\n              \u201cWhere he fell there he lay down and died.\u201d\n\nSIR JOHN LUBBOCK tells a story\u2014and this story teaches an obvious\nlesson\u2014of certain red warrior ants, who capture black fellow pismires,\nand hold them as slaves; an outrage which must certainly shock all true\npismitarian ants. The captors become in time so dependent upon their\nnegro servants that, when deprived of their attendants, they are unable\nto feed or clean themselves, and lie helplessly upon their backs, feebly\nwaving their paws in the air!...\n\nPeripatetica, having but recently suffered the loss of a maiden slave of\na dozen years\u2019 standing, had suffered a like moral disintegration, and\nshe violently lost her taste for travel whenever it became necessary to\nmove from one place to another, attempting to deal with her packing by a\nmere series of helpless paw-wavings, most picturesque to observe, but\nwhich for all practical purposes were highly inefficient. So when she\nand Jane dropped down and down the zigzags to Giardini\u2014each of those\nfamous views self-consciously presenting itself in turn for the last\ntime\u2014the light figure which hurled itself boldly down the steeps by a\nshort cut, springing along the daring descent with the sure-footed\nconfidence of a goat, proved to be not a wing-heeled Mercury conveying\nan affectionate message from the gods, but merely a boy from the villa\nfetching Peripatetica\u2019s left-behind nail brush, hot-water bottle, and\numbrella....\n\nFrom Giardini a spacious plain curves all the way to Syracuse. This\nbroken level is built upon a foundation of inky lava cast out from\nHeph\u00e6stos\u2019 forge in \u00c6tna, in whose wrinkled crevices of black and broken\nstone has been caught and held all the stored richness of the denuded\nmountains so long ago stripped of trees; and in this plain grain and\nflowers and trees innumerable find food and footing. Peripatetica, bred\nin deep-soiled, fertile fields with wide horizons, drew, as they passed\ninto the open vistas, deep breaths of refreshment and joy. The fierce,\nsoaring aridity of Taormina had oppressed her with a restless sense of\nimprisonment. Her elbows were as passionate lovers of liberty as the\nSpartans, and she demanded proper space in which to move them. What she\ncalled a view was a _view_, not merely more mountains climbing, blind\nand obstinate, between the eye and the landscape. Being, too, of a race\nalways worshippers of Demeter\u2014a race which had spent generations in her\nservice, which considered the cultivation of the soil the only possible\noccupation of a gentleman, and all other businesses the mere wretched\nastonishing fate of the unfortunate\u2014she rejoiced loudly and fatiguingly\nover the blessedness of a return to a sweet land of farms.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t call that Taormina window-box-gardening on tiny stone ledges a\nthousand feet up in the air _farming_,\u201d she scoffed.\n\n\u201cIf your tongue was a spade what crops you would raise!\u201d sniffed Jane.\n\n\u201cWell, I raise big harvests of diversion in my own spirit,\u201d retorted the\nunsuppressed chatterer. \u201cBesides, it\u2019s now my turn to talk. You have\ndone a lot of elaborate speechifying about Taormina. I made you a\npresent of the whole jagg\u00e8d, attitudinizing old place, and for the\nmoment I mean to flow unchecked! You needn\u2019t listen if you don\u2019t like. I\nenjoy hearing myself speak, whether anyone pays the smallest attention\nor not.\u201d\n\nWhich was why, while Jane settled down comfortably to a copy of\nTheocritus, Peripatetica continued to entertain her own soul with spoken\nand unspoken comments as to a certain restful letting down of tension\nwhich resulted from sliding away from the dazzling, lofty Olympianism of\nTaormina into a region Cyclopean, perhaps, but with a dawning suggestion\nof coming humanity. For here, in this plain, succeeding those bright\npresences that were the elementary forces of nature\u2014forces of the earth\nand sea and sun, of fire and dew, of thunder, wind, and rain, of the\nshining day, and the night with its changing moon\u2014first came the\nprimitive earth-spirits, rude and rugged, or delicate and vapourous.\nCreatures not gods\u2014no longer immutable and immortal, but stronger,\nolder, greater than man, who was yet to come. Creatures partaking\nsomewhat of the nature of both gods and men, but subject to\ntransformation into stream and fountain, into tree and flower; very near\nto the earth, yet swayed by human passions, by human sorrows and joys.\n\nThis plain was the home of nymph and oread, of dryad and faun. Here had\nthe Cyclops and the Titans wrought\u2014first of the great race of Armourers\nand Smiths\u2014under the tutelage of Vulcan, shaping the beams of the\nheavens, and the ribs of the earth; arming the gods and forging the\nlightning.\n\nUlysses, the earliest of impassioned tourists, had had dealings on this\nvery spot with the last of the Cyclops. A degenerate scion of the great\nold race, as the last of a great race is apt to be, Polyphemus had sunk\nto the mere keeping of sheep, and according to Ulysses\u2019 own story he got\nthe better of Polyphemus, and related, upon returning home, the triumph\nof his superior cunning, with the same na\u00efve relish with which the\nmodern Cookie retails his supposed outwitting of the native curio\ndealer. Very near to the train, as it ran by the sea\u2019s edge, lay the\nhuge fragments of lava which the blinded Cyclop had cast in futile rage\nafter the escaping Greeks. He was a great stone-thrower, was Polyphemus,\nfor further along the coast lay the boulders he had flung at Acis, the\nbeautiful young shepherd. Polyphemus having still an eye in those days,\nhis aim was truer, and the shepherd was killed, but who may baffle true\nlove? The dead boy melted away beneath the stones and was transformed to\nthe bright and racing river Acis (which they crossed just then), and the\nriver, flowing round the stones, runs still across the plain to fling\nitself into the arms of the sea-nymph Galatea. So the two still meet as\nof old, and play laughingly together in and out among the huge rocks,\nwhich certainly might have been flung there by \u00c6tna in one of her\nvolcanic furies, but which, if one may believe the Greek story, were\nreally the gigantic weapons of a cruel jealousy.\n\nJane and Peripatetica could put their heads out of the windows and study\nhistory and legend at their ease, the train ambling amiably and not too\nrapidly through the lovely land, where the near return of Persephone was\nforeshadowed in the delicate rosy clouds of the Judas trees drifting\nacross the black green of dense carobs. It was foretold, too, by the\nbroad yellow mustard fields blooming under the shadow of silver-grey\nolive orchards; Fields-of-the-Cloth-of-Gold they were, about which\nSpring was pitching white tents of plum flowers in which to sign royal\nalliance with Summer. They saw old Sicilian farm-steadings here and\nthere crowning the rising ground on either hand, freaked and lichened\nwith years, and showing among their spiring cypresses the square towers\nto which the inhabitants had fled for safety in the old days of\nLevantine piracy. Many of these houses were very old, six or eight\nhundred years old, it was said. Orange and lemon groves on either side\nthe way still hung heavy with fruit, plainly feeling it a duty laid upon\nthem to look like the trees in Benozzo Gozzoli\u2019s frescoes; like the\ntrees of all the Old Masters\u2019 backgrounds. Invariably being round, close\nclumps of green set thick with golden balls, quite unlike the orange\ntrees in America, which have never had proper decorative and artistic\nmodels set for their copying, and therefore grow carelessly and less\nbeautifully.\n\nAs far as the eye could reach the whole land was furred with the tender\ngreen of sprouting corn. For this was once Europe\u2019s granary, and the\nplace of Rome\u2019s bread; here Demeter first taught man to sow and reap,\nand despite \u00c6tna\u2019s fires, despite the destruction and ravaging of a\nthousand wars, and thousands of years of careless unrestorative use of\nthe soil, corn still grows on this plain, so hard, so perfect, and so\nnourishing of grain that no Sicilian can afford to eat it, selling his\nown crop to macaroni manufacturers, and contenting himself with a poorer\nimported wheat for his dark daily bread.\n\nIn these rich meadows, too, replacing the frigid little\nEvangelical-looking goat of Taormina, browsed fat flocks in snowy silken\nfleeces, and with long wavy horns. Flocks that were tended by shepherds\ndraped in faded blue or brown hooded cloaks, wearing sheep\u2019s wool bound\nabout their cross-gartered legs, their feet shod with hairy goat-skin\nshoes. They leaned in contemplative attitudes on long staves\u2014as every\nright-minded shepherd should\u2014so old a picture, so unchanged from\nfar-off, pastoral days! Just so had they shown themselves to Theocritus,\nwhen that sweet young singer of the early time had wandered here among\nthe herdsmen, the fishers, and the delvers in the good brown earth, in\nthe days when the Greeks still lived and ruled here, so long and long\nago.\n\n\u201cI wish they would pipe,\u201d said Peripatetica. \u201cIt only needs to complete\nthe picture that innocent sweet trilling of the shepherd\u2019s reed that is\nlike the voices of the birds and of the cicalas.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, they daren\u2019t do it here in high noon,\u201d remonstrated Jane. \u201cFor fear\nof Pan, you know.\u201d And she turned back the pages of her little book to\nread aloud the sweetest and perfectest of the Idyls....\n\nTHYRSIS. Sweet, meseems, is the whispering sound of yonder pine tree,\ngoatherd, that murmureth by the wells of water; and sweet are thy\npipings. After Pan the second prize shalt thou bear away, and if he take\nthe horned goat, the she-goat shalt thou win; but if he choose the\nshe-goat for his meed, the kid falls to thee, and dainty is the flesh of\nkids ere the age when thou milkest them.\n\nTHE GOATHERD. Sweeter, O shepherd, is thy song than the music of yonder\nwater that is poured from the high face of the rock! Yea, if the Muses\ntake the young ewe for their gift, a stall-fed lamb shalt thou receive\nfor thy meed; but if it please them to take the lamb, thou shalt lead\naway the ewe for the second prize.\n\nTHYRSIS. Wilt thou, goatherd, in the nymphs\u2019 name, wilt thou sit thee\ndown here, among the tamarisks, on this sloping knoll, and pipe while in\nthis place I watch thy flocks?\n\n[Illustration: \u201cPAN\u2019S GOAT HERD\u201d]\n\nGOATHERD. Nay, shepherd, it may not be; we may not pipe in the noontide.\n\u2019Tis Pan we dread, who truly at this hour rests weary from the chase;\nand bitter of mood is he, the keen wrath sitting ever at his nostrils.\nBut, Thyrsis, for that thou surely wert wont to sing _The Affliction of\nDaphnis_, and hast most deeply meditated the pastoral muse, come hither,\nand beneath yonder elm let us sit down, in face of Priapus and the\nfountain fairies, where is that resting-place of the shepherds, and\nwhere the oak trees are. Ah! if thou wilt but sing as on that day thou\nsangest in thy match with Chromis out of Libya, I will let thee milk,\nay, three times, a goat that is the mother of twins, and even when she\nhas suckled her kids her milk doth fill two pails. A deep bowl of\nivy-wood, too, I will give thee, rubbed with sweet bees\u2019-wax, a\ntwo-eared bowl newly wrought, smacking still of the knife of the graver.\nRound its upper edges goes the ivy winding, ivy besprent with golden\nflowers; and about it is a tendril twisted that joys in its saffron\nfruit. Within is designed a maiden, as fair a thing as the gods could\nfashion, arrayed in a sweeping robe, and a snood on her head. Beside her\ntwo youths with fair love-locks are contending from either side, with\nalternate speech, but her heart thereby is all untouched. And now on one\nshe glances, smiling, and anon she lightly flings the other a thought,\nwhile by reason of the long vigils of love their eyes are heavy, but\ntheir labour is all in vain.\n\nBeyond these an ancient fisherman and a rock are fashioned, a rugged\nrock, whereon with might and main the old man drags a great net for his\ncast, as one that labours stoutly. Thou wouldst say that he is fishing\nwith all the might of his limbs, so big the sinews swell all about his\nneck, grey-haired though he be, but his strength is as the strength of\nyouth. Now divided but a little space from the sea-worn old man is a\nvineyard laden well with fire-red clusters, and on the rough wall a\nlittle lad watches the vineyard, sitting there. Round him two she-foxes\nare skulking, and one goes along the vine-rows to devour the ripe\ngrapes, and the other brings all her cunning to bear against the scrip,\nand vows she will never leave the lad, till she strand him bare and\nbreakfastless. But the boy is plaiting a pretty locust-cage with stalks\nof asphodel, and fitting it with reeds, and less care of his scrip has\nhe, and of the vines, than delight in his plaiting.\n\nAll about the cup is spread the soft acanthus, a miracle of varied work,\na thing for thee to marvel on. For this bowl I paid to a Calydonian\nferryman a goat and a great white cream cheese. Never has its lip\ntouched mine, but it still lies maiden for me. Gladly with this cup\nwould I gain thee to my desire, if thou, my friend, wilt sing me that\ndelightful song. Nay, I grudge it thee not at all. Begin, my friend, for\nbe sure thou canst in no wise carry thy song with thee to Hades, that\nputs all things out of mind!\n\n                         _The Song of Thyrsis._\n\n_Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_ Thyrsis of \u00c6tna am I,\nand this is the voice of Thyrsis. Where, ah! where were ye when Daphnis\nwas languishing; ye Nymphs, where were ye? By Peneus\u2019 beautiful dells,\nor by dells of Pindus? for surely ye dwelt not by the great stream of\nthe river Anapus, nor on the watch-tower of \u00c6tna, nor by the sacred\nwater of Acis.\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\nFor him the jackals, for him the wolves did cry; for him did even the\nlion out of the forest lament. Kine and bulls by his feet right many,\nand heifers plenty, with the young calves bewailed him.\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\nCame Hermes first from the hill, and said, \u201cDaphnis, who is it that\ntorments thee; child, whom dost thou love with so great desire?\u201d The\nneatherds came, and the shepherds; the goatherds came; all they asked\nwhat ailed him. Came also Priapus,\u2014\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\nAnd said: \u201cUnhappy Daphnis, wherefore dost thou languish, while for thee\nthe maiden by all the fountains, through all the glades is fleeting, in\nsearch of thee? Ah! thou art too laggard a lover, and thou nothing\navailest! A neatherd wert thou named, and now thou art like the\ngoatherd.\u201d\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\n\u201cFor the goatherd, when he marks the young goats at their pastime, looks\non with yearning eyes, and fain would be even as they; and thou, when\nthou beholdest the laughter of maidens, dost gaze with yearning eyes,\nfor that thou dost not join their dances.\u201d\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\nYet these the herdsman answered not again, but he bare his bitter love\nto the end, yea, to the fated end he bare it.\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\nAy, but she too came, the sweetly smiling Cypris, craftily smiling she\ncame, yet keeping her heavy anger; and she spake, saying: \u201cDaphnis,\nmethinks thou didst boast that thou wouldst throw Love a fall, nay, is\nit not thyself that hast been thrown by grievous Love?\u201d\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\nBut to her Daphnis answered again: \u201cImplacable Cypris, Cypris terrible,\nCypris of mortals detested, already dost thou deem that my latest sun\nhas set; nay, Daphnis even in Hades shall prove great sorrow to Love.\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\n\u201cGet thee to Ida, get thee to Anchises! There are oak trees\u2014here only\ngalingale blows, here sweetly hum the bees about the hives!\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\n\u201cThine Adonis, too, is in his bloom, for he heards the sheep and slays\nthe hares, and he chases all the wild beasts. Nay, go and confront\nDiomedes again, and say, \u2018The herdsman Daphnis I conquered, do thou join\nbattle with me.\u2019\u201d\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\n\u201cYe wolves, ye jackals, and ye bears in the mountain caves, farewell!\nThe herdsman Daphnis ye never shall see again, no more in the dells, no\nmore in the groves, no more in the woodlands. Farewell Arethusa, ye\nrivers good-night, that pour down Thymbris your beautiful waters.\n\n            _Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the pastoral song!_\n\n\u201cThat Daphnis am I who here do herd the kine, Daphnis who water here the\nbulls and calves.\n\n\u201cO Pan, Pan! whether thou art on the high hills of Lyc\u00e6us, or rangest\nmighty M\u00e6nalus, haste hither to the Sicilian isle! Leave the tomb of\nHelice, leave that high cairn of the son of Lyc\u00e6on, which seems wondrous\nfair, even in the eyes of the blessed.\n\n       _Give o\u2019er, ye Muses, come, give o\u2019er the pastoral song!_\n\n\u201cCome hither, my prince, and take this fair pipe, honey-breathed with\nwax-stopped joints; and well it fits thy lip; for verily I, even I, by\nLove am now haled to Hades.\n\n       _Give o\u2019er, ye Muses, come, give o\u2019er the pastoral song!_\n\n\u201cNow violets bear, ye brambles, ye thorns bear violets and let fair\nnarcissus bloom on the boughs of juniper! Let all things with all be\nconfounded\u2014from pines let men gather pears, for Daphnis is dying! Let\nthe stag drag down the hounds, let owls from the hills contend in song\nwith the nightingales.\u201d\n\n       _Give o\u2019er, ye Muses, come, give o\u2019er the pastoral song!_\n\nSo Daphnis spake, and ended; but fain would Aphrodite have given him\nback to life. Nay, spun was all the thread that the Fates assigned, and\nDaphnis went down the stream. The whirling wave closed over the man the\nMuses loved, the man not hated of the nymphs.\n\n       _Give o\u2019er, ye Muses, come, give o\u2019er the pastoral song!_\n\nAnd thou, give me the bowl, and the she-goat, that I may milk her and\npour forth a libation to the Muses. Farewell, oh, farewells manifold, ye\nMuses, and I, some future day, will sing you yet a sweeter song.\n\n_The Goatherd._ Filled may thy fair mouth be with honey, Thyrsis, and\nfilled with the honeycomb; and the sweet dried fig mayest thou eat of\n\u00c6gilus, for thou vanquishest the cicala in song! Lo, here is thy cup,\nsee, my friend, of how pleasant a savour! Thou wilt think it has been\ndipped in the well-spring of the Hours. Hither, hither, Ciss\u00e6tha: do\nthou milk her, Thyrsis. And you young she-goats, wanton not so wildly\nlest you bring up the he-goat against you.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cWhat a crowded place Sicily is!\u201d cried Jane, heaving an oppressed\nbreath.\n\n\u201cIsn\u2019t it?\u201d sympathized Peripatetica. \u201cHere we are on our way to the\nvery fountain, as it seems, of history\u2014Syracuse, where nearly everything\nhappened that ever did happen, and yet one has to mentally push one\u2019s\nway through a swarming crowd of events to get there, because almost\neverything that didn\u2019t happen in Syracuse occurred in these Sicilian\nplains. When you think of the layer on layer of human life, like\ngeologic strata, that lies all over this place, you realize that it\nwould take half a lifetime to come to some understanding of the\nsignificance of it all, and that it\u2019s foolish to go on until one can get\nsome hold upon the meaning of what lies right here.\u201d\n\nThis \u201csimple but first-class conversation\u201d took place in the\neating-station at Catania which the two had all to themselves, most of\nthe Tedeschi tourists frugally remaining in the train and staying their\npangs from bottles, and with odds and ends out of paper parcels, from\nwhich feasts they emerged later replete but crumby.\n\nPoor Catania! sunk to a mere feeding-trough for passing tourists. She,\nthe great city sitting blandly among her temples and towers, wooed for\nher money bags by all the warlike neighbours. For whenever her\nneighbours squabbled with one another, which was pretty nearly all the\ntime\u2014or whenever an outsider intervened\u2014each strove to engage the aid of\nthis rich landholder, sending embassies and emissaries to bully or\ncajole Catania. As rich folk will, she always tried to protect herself\nby taking neither side completely, speaking fair to each, and, like all\nLaodiceans, she made thereby two enemies instead of one, and was\nconsidered fair prey by both.\n\nThat splendid, dangerous dandy, Alcibiades, was one of these\nambassadors. Almost under the feet of Jane and Peripatetica, as they sat\nwith their mouths full of crisp delectable little tarts, had the wily\nAthenian spoken in the Catanian theatre. The older men enjoyed his\neloquent, graceful Greek, but they were quite determined not to be\npersuaded by it to let his fleet enter their harbour, his army enter\ntheir city, or to be used as a base from which to strike the\nSyracusians. The Catanians didn\u2019t like Syracuse, but they didn\u2019t mean to\nembroil themselves with her. They secretly hoped the Athenians would\nreduce that dangerous neighbour to despair, but if either destroyed the\nother\u2014why, then it would be well to be able to show the victor their\nclean hands.\n\nAlcibiades was quite aware he was not convincing them, but he enjoyed\nturning brilliant periods in public, and was meanwhile pleasantly\nconscious of the young men in the audience admiring the chasing of his\nbuckles, the artful folds of his gold-embroidered chalmyde, the\nexquisite angle at which he knotted his fillet, privately resolving to\nreadjust their own provincial toilets by the model of this famous glass\nof fashion. And when they all poured out of the theatre after his\nbrilliantly preferred request had been politely refused, he could afford\nto smile calmly, for, behold! there was the Athenian fleet in the\nharbour, the Athenian army in the city. He had not been using those\nwell-turned phrases for mere idleness. They had availed to keep the\nauthorities occupied while his subordinates had executed his commands.\n\nAnd their caution was of no avail whatever, for in due time, when\nAlcibiades was in exile and the Athenians rotting in the Latomi\u00e6,\nSyracuse duly turned and \u201ctook it out of\u201d Catania. Took it out good and\nhard too.\n\nThere was no use stopping over a train to see the old theatre and\nrealize for themselves this curious bit of history; it only meant\ncrawling through black passages by the light of a smoky candle, for \u00c6tna\nin 1669\u2014in a fit of ennui with poor Catania\u2014had pitched down thousands\nof tons of lava upon her and hid all the rich city\u2019s ancient glories\nfrom the sun.\n\nIt was from Catania that another interesting Greek had set out upon his\nlast journey. A journey to the crest of that volcano which has been\nconstantly taking a hand in the destinies of Sicily, with what\u2014in its\ncareless malice, its malignant furies\u2014seems almost like the personal\nwickedness of some demon; that incalculable mountain whose soaring\noutlines had been coming out at Jane and Peripatetica all day whenever\nthe train turned a corner, as if to reassure them that they couldn\u2019t\nlose her if they tried. \u00c6tna was from the very beginning the pre-eminent\nfact in this part of Sicily.\n\nFirst Zeus\u2014who always had a cheerful disregard of any rules of chivalry\nin dealing with his enemies\u2014tied down the unlucky Titan Enceladus upon\nthis very spot, and, gathering up enough of Sicily to make a mountain\nthe size of \u00c6tna, heaped it on top of him, probably congratulating\nhimself the while that he had put a complete end to that particular\nannoyance. But quite a number of rulers since Zeus have discovered that\nin a rebellious temperament there reside resources of annoyingness which\neven a god cannot entirely foresee or provide against, and the Titan\nstill heaves restlessly at his load from time to time, rocking the whole\nisland with his struggles, toppling towers, engulfing cities, tearing\nthe earth apart in his furies.\n\nSome of the myths accuse Demeter herself of having set \u00c6tna alight in\nher frenzy, that all Sicily might thus be illumined to aid her in the\nsearch for Persephone, and that never since that reckless day has she\nbeen able to extinguish it, but must fight, with rain and dews and snows\nto save her people\u2019s bread from the flames forever threatening to\ndestroy it. The fire pours forth from time to time, spreading cruel\nruin, but ever, aided by her, man creeps up and up once more. Up to\nRandazzo; up to Bront\u00eb, the \u201cthunder town,\u201d given to Lord Nelson by\nMarie Antoinette\u2019s sister, then Queen of the Two Sicilies, where the\nDukes of Bront\u00eb, Nelson\u2019s descendants, still live part of each year in\ntheir wild eyrie.\n\nThe vine and the olive climb and climb after each catastrophe. They\ncover the old scars of the eruptions, perch in crevices where a goat can\nscarce stand, and wring from the rich crumbs of soil \u201cwine that maketh\nglad the heart of man, and oil that causeth his countenance to shine.\u201d\n\nUp to the top of this \u00c6tna\u2014ten thousand feet up\u2014on the last journey from\nCatania climbed Empedocles, that strange figure who passes with ringing\nbrazen sandals through the history of Sicily. Empedocles, clothed in\npurple, crowned with a wreath of golden leaves, followed by thousands to\nwhom he taught some strange, half Pythagorean worship, the form and\nmeaning of which have vanished with time, save for some hints of a sort\nof mental healing practised upon his followers. Empedocles, composing\nvast poems of thousands of lines, and vaunting himself as a Super-man,\nsaying:\n\n\u201cAn immortal god, and no longer a mortal man, I wander among you;\nhonoured by all, adorned with priestly diadems and blooming wreaths.\nInto whatever illustrious towns I enter men and women pay me reverence,\nand I am accompanied by thousands who thirst for their advantage; some\nbeing desirous to know the future, and others, tormented by long and\nterrible disease, waiting to hear the spells that soothe suffering.\u201d\n\nWhether his following fell away; whether he became the victim of some\nwild melancholy, some corroding _welt-schmerz_\u2014unable to cure the ills\nof his own soul with his own doctrines\u2014no one knows, but the dramatic\nmanner of his exit printed his name indelibly upon the memory of the\nworld from which he fled.\n\nDeserting late at night a feast in Catania, he mounted a mule, climbed\nthe rough steeps, threaded the dusky oak woods, dismissed his last\nfollower, and\u2014after lingering a moment to listen to the boy-harper\nCallicles singing in the dawn at the edge of the forest\u2014he passed on\nupward through the snows, and was seen no more by human eye. Only the\nbrazen sandal was found beside the crater, into whose unutterable\nfurnace\u2014urged by some divine despair\u2014he had flung himself: all that had\nbeen that aspiring, passionate life vanishing in an instant in a hiss of\nsteam, a puff of gas, upon the most stupendous funeral pyre ever chosen\nby man.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere was endless history waiting to be looked into at Catania;\nfrightful passagings and scufflings, massacres and exilings, murders,\nconspiracies and poisonings, and every other uncomfortable exhibition of\n\u201cman\u2019s inhumanity to man\u201d\u2014accompanied, of course, by heroisms, patriotic\nself-sacrifice, and a thousand humble, unremembered kindnesses and\nvirtues, such as forever form warp and woof of the web of life and time.\nBut railway schedules, even in Sicily, are almost heartlessly\nindifferent to tradition, and when the last tartlet was consumed the two\nseekers for Persephone were dragged Syracuse-ward, along with the crumby\nTedeschi, divided during the long afternoon between increasing\ndrowsiness and reproachful Baedekers. At last came sea marshes, where\nsalt-pans evaporated in the sun, and toward sunset the train dumped them\nall promiscuously into station omnibuses at the capital of history; too\ngrubby and fatigued to care whether the first class in historical\nresearch was called or not.\n\nThe Tedeschi, after their frugal fashion, went in search of cheap\npensions in the city, and only Jane and Peripatetica entered the wheeled\ntender of the Villa Politi, along with a young Italian pair, obviously\nengaged upon a honeymoon. A pair who never ceased to look unutterable\nthings at each other out of fine eyes bistred with railway grime, nor\nceased to murmur soft nothings from lips surrounded with the shadows of\nrailway soot, undaunted by the frank interest of the hotel portier\nhanging on to the step, nor by the joltings of the dusty white road that\nled, through the noisy building of many ugly new villas, up to bare,\nwind-swept heights.\n\nStrong in the possession of a note from the proprietor promising\naccommodation, with which, this time, the wayfarers had had the prudence\nto arm themselves, Jane and Peripatetica swept languidly up the steps,\nordering that their luggage be placed in their rooms and tea served\nimmediately upon the terrace.\n\nBut there were no rooms. No rooms of any kind, single or double!\n\nThe note was produced. There it was, down in black and white!\n\nThe young Signor Antonio drew a similar weapon\u2014more black and white\npromises!\n\nThe Padrone raised eyes and hands in a gesture almost consoling in its\nhistrionic effectiveness.\n\nCould he _make_ guests depart at the time they said they would depart?\n\nCould he cast them out neck and crop when they found Syracuse so\nattractive that they changed their minds about going away and vacating\nrooms promised to others?\n\nHe left it to Jane. He left it to Peripatetica. He left it to Signor\nAntonio. He left it to Signor Antonio\u2019s beautiful bride, his \u201cbellissima\nsposa.\u201d _Could_ he? He asked that!...\n\nThe two seekers were sternly sarcastic. Signor Antonio imitated the\nhistrionic attitude. The Bellissima Sposa simply smiled fatuously.\nBeloved Antonio now held her destinies in his strong hand. Was it a\nroyal suite? Well and good. Was it a corner of a stone wall under an\numbrella? It was still well and good, for would she not still be with\nher Antonio?\n\nThe honeyed submissiveness of this was too much for even the wicked\nobduracy of the Padrone.\n\nThere _was_ a billiard room\u2014for the night. To-morrow some one must keep\nhis promise and go. They could choose among themselves.\n\nThe bride was led away to the billiard room, still gazing upon her\nAntonio with intoxicated content, and two cross females, shaking the\ndust of the Villa Politi\u2019s glowing garden and vine-wreathed terraces\nfrom their feet, jolted back again indignantly along the bare, windy\nheights fretted by the clamour of a sirocco-tortured sea. Past the\ngritty precincts of the ugly building villas, to the gaunt precincts of\nan hotel within the shrunken town. There to climb early into beds of the\nsloping pitch and rugged surface of a couple of tiled roofs; to lay\ntheir heads upon pillows undoubtedly stuffed with the obdurate skulls of\nall Syracuse\u2019s myriad dead, and to listen in the wakefulness thereby\ninduced to the dull sickening thuds about the floor which they knew, for\ngood and sufficient reasons, to be the nocturnal hopping of the mighty\nSyracusan flea....\n\n\u201cFancy anyone being tempted to remain over _here_!\u201d sneered\nPeripatetica.\n\nThis was in the morning. They had compared the bleatings of the goats;\nthe raucous early cries of the population; the effects of sirocco; the\ndevices by which, clinging with teeth and nails, they had succeeded in\nmaintaining their perch on the tile roofs; had boasted of their shikarry\namong the hopping, devouring monsters of the dark.\n\n\u201cTalk of history!\u201d mourned Jane. \u201cWho could be the adequate Herodotus of\nlast night?\u201d\n\nThey were on their way to the Temple of Minerva. The route led by a wide\nsea-street, half of whose length gave upon that famous Inner Harbour so\noften filled with hostile fleets, so often barred by great chains, so\noften echoing with clanging battles, with the bubbling shrieks of the\ndrowning. Now the sparkling waters rolled untinged with blood, the clean\nsalt air swept unhindered across their path, for half of the huge\nsea-wall had been recently demolished to let in wind and sun, though\npart still towered grimly, darkening the way, shutting out the light\nfrom the opposite dwellings.\n\nThe path turned at right angles and wound through narrow foot-pathless\ncracks, between houses; cracks that served the older Syracuse in lieu of\nstreets, where swarmed in the dingy narrownesses the everlasting goat,\nthe ever pervasive child. Very different children these from those\ncherub heads, with busy little legs growing out of them, who formed the\nrising population of Taormina. Taormina, who has solved that whole\nquestion of educating children; a question which still so puzzles the\nunintelligent rest of mankind. For weeks they had walked the ancient\nways of that high-perched town, picking careful steps amid its infant\nhordes, and never once had they heard a cry, or seen a discontented\nchild.\n\n\u201cOccupation was the secret of all that cherubic goodness, I think,\u201d said\nPeripatetica reflectively. \u201cDon\u2019t you remember that every single one of\nthem had a job?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course, I remember,\u201d said Jane crossly. \u201cYou needn\u2019t remind _me_. It\nwas only twenty-four hours ago we were there\u2014though it seems ages since\nwe fell out of the tender protecting care of dear \u2018Questo-qui.\u2019 You can\nput it all in the book if you feel you must talk about it.\u201d\n\n\u201cJane, your usually charming temper has been spoiled by a night on a\nroof. It has made a cat of you,\u201d persisted Peripatetica as she calmly\ncircled round a goat. When the fount of her eloquence was unsealed it\nwas not to be choked by the mere casting of a stony snub into it.\n\n\u201cI devoted some of the dark hours on my tiles to profound philosophic\nreflection upon the Taorminian methods with children,\u201d she continued. \u201cI\nhave often thought the ennui suffered by children and pet animals was\nthe cause of much of their restless fretfulness. Even the most\nundeveloped nature feels the difference between a real occupation and an\nimitation one; feels the importance of being an economic factor. Now\nthose Taormina children from the age of two years are made to feel they\nare really important and necessary members of the family. They knit as\nsoon as they can walk; they sew, they do drawn-work, at five. They sit\nin the streets at little tables and help cobble shoes or mend\nteakettles. They shop for busy parents; they fetch and carry. They pull\nout of the gardens and orchards weeds as tall as themselves, and\neverywhere are calm and self-respecting, and receive from their parents\nand their grown-up neighbours that serious courtesy and consideration\ndue to useful and well-behaved citizens. One does not slap or jerk or\nscold valuable and important members of the community, and no youthful\nTaorminian would permit such an unjustifiable liberty from a parent.\u201d\n\nBorne on this flood of words they suddenly flowed out into a big\nirregular square where stood one of the most curious buildings in the\nworld; the great temple of Pallas of the Syracusans. The enormous fluted\nDoric columns were sunk into the walls of a Cathedral, for Zosimus,\nbishop of Syracuse in the Seventh Century, had seized the columned frame\nand had plastered his church upon it\u2014but so great was the diameter of\nthe pillars that their sides and capitals protruded through the walls\ninside and out like the prodigious stone ribs of some huge skeleton. The\nSaracens had come later, and, after slaughtering the priests and women\nwho clung shrieking to the altars, had added battlements to the roof,\nand the Eighteenth Century, being unable, of course, to keep its finger\nout of even the most reverend pie, had gummed upon the portal a flaring\nbaroque fa\u00e7ade of yellow stone. But through all disfigurements and\ndefacements the temple still showed its soaring majesty, and\nPeripatetica, at sight of it, cried:\n\n\u201cOne dead in the fields!\u201d...\n\nFor suddenly was revealed to the two the meaning of what they had been\njourneying to see\u2014it was the dead body of a great civilization.\n\nHere, nearly three thousand years since, had come Archias, the rich\nHeraclid of Corinth. He had gathered sullenly into little ships his\nwealth, his family, and his servants, and had fled far down the horizon,\nan execrated fugitive because of the slaying of beautiful Act\u00e6on. And,\nfinding on the coast of the distant God\u2019s-land a reproduction of the\nbays and straits of the Corinth which had cast him out, he founded there\na city. A city that was to have a life like the life of some gifted,\npowerful man, growing from timid infancy to a lusty youth full of dreams\nand passions and vague towering ambitions; struggling with and\nconquering his fellows; grasping at power and glory, heaping up riches\nunbelievable, decking himself in purple and gold, living long and\ngloriously and tumultuously; and who was to know rise and fall, defeats\nand triumphs, and finally was to die on the battlefield, and be left\nthere by the victor to rot. So that all the flesh would drop from the\nlong frame, the muscles dry and fall apart, the eyes be sightless, and\nthe brain dark; and the little busy insects of the earth would carry\naway the fragments bit by bit, and on the field where he lay would be\nfound at last only the hollow skull once so full of proud purpose; only\nthe slack white bones of the arm that had wielded the strong sword, the\nvast arch of the gaunt ribs that once had sheltered the brave heart of\nSyracuse. And among these dry bones little curious creatures would come\nto peep and peer and build their homes; spiders spinning webs over the\nempty eye sockets, mice weaving their nests among the wide-flung\nknuckles....\n\nOne little spider, about ten minutes old, lay in wait for these two\ntourist flies at the side door of the Cathedral with an offer to guide\nthem, and though they sternly endeavoured to brush the insect aside,\ndoubting his infantile capacity to direct their older intelligences, the\nSpider was not of the to-be-brushed-aside variety and knew better than\nthey what they really needed. While they wandered through the vulgar\nuglinesses of Zosimus\u2019 shrine, trying to recall Cicero\u2019s glowing picture\nof the temple in its glory, he never took his claws off of them. While\nthey talked of the great doors inlaid with gold and ivory, of the brazen\nspears, of the cella walls frescoed with the portraits and the battles\nof the Sikel Kings, of the pedestals between each column bearing images\nof the gods in ivory, silver, and bronze, the Spider was patient and\nmerely murmured \u201cGreco\u201d or \u201cmolto antico\u201d by way of encouraging chorus.\nHe let them babble unchecked of the tall image of armed Pallas standing\nbehind the altar, with plumed helmet and robe of Tyrian purple, grasping\nher great spear in her right hand and resting the left hand upon the\ngolden shield that bore a sculptured Medusa head. Upon her pedestal was\ncarved the cock, the dragon, and the serpent, and the altar before her\nwas heaped with fresh olive boughs about the smouldering spices sending\nup wavering clouds of scented smoke that coiled among the ceiling\u2019s\ngilded plates. Without, upon the roof, stood another great shield of\ngilded bronze, a beacon for sailors who, setting out upon long voyages,\ncarried a cup of burning ashes from her altar to sprinkle on the waves\nas the glittering landmark faded down the sky.\n\nBut when these reminiscences of the \u201cmolto antico\u201d finally exhausted\nthemselves, the Spider rose to his occasion. He was vague about Minerva,\nbut Santa Lucia was his trump card. He was eminently capable of guiding\nany number of travellers to the chapel of that big swarthy idol adorned\nwith wire-and-cotton wreaths, and hung about with votive silver hands\nand hearts, arms and legs, in grateful testimony of the limbs and organs\ncured by her mercy and power. He could pour out in burning Sicilian,\nillustrated by superb spidery gestures, a thrilling description of the\nyearly _villegiatura_ of Syracuse\u2019s patron saint. How twice in a\ntwelvemonth she feels the need of change of air, and all the town\nattends her visit of a few days to the church beyond the bridge, she\nbeing escorted by priests and censors, and blaring bands, and wearing\nher finest jewels and toilet, as befits a lady on ceremonial travels. It\nis a festa for all Syracuse, Spider explains, with much good eating and\n\u201cmolto buono vino.\u201d\n\nJane, always a molten mass of useful information, interjects sotto voce\ninto the flood of his narrative that precisely the same ceremony was\nused for the image of Diana when she was the patron goddess of the\nSyracusans, and the very same molto buono vino so overcame the populace\nat one of Diana\u2019s festas that Marcellus, the Roman, after a siege of\nthree years, captured the long and fiercely defended city that very\nnight.\n\nThe Spider took them later to see the handful of fragments alone\nremaining of Diana\u2019s fane\u2014broken columns sunk in a fosse between two\nhouses\u2014though once a temple as splendid as Minerva\u2019s. A temple served by\nmany priestesses, and surrounded by a great grove sloping down to the\nfountain of Arethusa. Among these trees the Oceanides herded the\nsacrificial deer, and troops of just such silken-coated, wavy-horned\ngoats as feed to-day upon the Catanian plain. And to this grove came\nyoung girls, offering up, to please the great Huntress, their abandoned\nchildish toys of baked clay. For oddly enough the wild, arrowy goddess\nwho loved to shed the blood of beasts, adored children, and was a\nspecial patron of theirs, and would even listen favourably to the\npetitions of barren wives.\n\nThere seemed some strange vagueness, some shadowy inexplicableness in\nthe worship of Diana. All the other gods typified some force of nature,\nsome resultant struggle and passion of man caught in nature\u2019s web, but\nof the moon they knew only that it influenced tides and the growing of\nplants. What is one to make then of this fierce ivory-skinned Maid who\nsweeps, crescent-crowned, through the moonlit glades of the deep\nprimitive forests, with bayings of lean questing hounds and echoing call\nof silver horns, hard on the track of crashing boar, of leaping deer?\nThere is something as glimmeringly elusive, as magically haunting in the\npersonality and the worship of Diana as in the moon itself.\n\nThey offered the web of this conundrum to the Spider, but he wisely\nrefused to allow himself to be entangled in it. This, however, is\nanticipating the real course of events.\n\nAlready, before leaving the Cathedral, another conundrum had been asked\nand not answered.\n\nHigh on opposite sides of the walls of the nave Jane and Peripatetica\nhad observed two ornate glass and gilt coffins. The one on the left\ncontained the half-mummy, half-skeleton of a man. A young, beardless\nface it was, the still fair skin drawn tight over the features; the\nstill blond hair clustering about it in curls of dusty gold. The\nfleshless visage was handsome, and though strange and ghostly, not\nrepulsive. The skeleton body was clothed in velvet and gold, and the\nbony, gloved fingers clasped a splendid silver-scabbarded sword; an\nempty dagger case was hanging from an embroidered baldrick across the\ndead man\u2019s breast. He lay on his side in an uneasy attitude, looking\nthrough the transparent pane of his last home toward the opposite\ncrystal sarcophagus. This opposite coffin contained a half-mummied,\nhalf-skeleton woman\u2014a woman also young and fair-haired; artfully\ncoiffed, her tresses wrapped with pearls. Neither was _her_ face\nrepulsive; some strange process had preserved a dry whiteness in the\nskin stretched smooth and unwrinkled upon the bones and integuments,\nthough all the flesh was gone. She too was clothed in gold and silk in a\nfashion centuries old. Through the lace of the sleeves showed the white\npolished bones of what must once have been warm rounded arms. She too\nwas gloved; she too crouched upon her side uneasily, but she did not\nface her companion. Her head was thrown back as if in pain; and plunged\nthrough the pointed silk corselet\u2014just where there must once have beat a\nyoung heart\u2014was the gold-handled dagger from the empty dagger case hung\nto the embroidered baldrick.\n\nWho were they?\n\nWhat tragedy was this? why did they lie here in their crystal\nsepulchres\u2014was it the record of some strange crime, preserved with\nmeticulous care for all the world to see?\n\nThe Spider could not tell. They had always been there. He did not know\ntheir names or their story. He could not refer to anyone who did.\nBaedeker was equally indifferent and uncommunicative; he made no mention\nof them. Hare was silent. Sladen ignored them. No questioning of\nguide-books or guides ever unravelled that mystery.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom the temple of Diana the Spider led Jane and Peripatetica through\nmore narrow, crooked streets thronged with rough, fierce Syracusan\nchildren, to see the Sixteenth Century palace of the Montaltos, now\nfallen on grimy days. The windows with their ogives and delicate twisted\ncolumns were crumbling, and the noble court\u2014through which silken guests\nand mailed retainers had passed to mount the great stairs and throng the\nlong balconies\u2014was now full of squalid, squalling populace, and flocks\nof evil-savoured brown goats being milked for the evening meal.\n\nFor some unexplained reason the mere presence of the Spider was an\noffence to the lowering boys who laired in this court. His grown-up air\nof being capably in charge of two female forestieri stank in their\nresentful nostrils, but Spider was an insect of his hands, landing those\nhands resoundingly upon the cheeks of his buffeters and hustlers until\nan enraged mother took the part of one of her discomfited offspring, and\nunder her fierce cuffings the Spider melted into outraged tears.\n\nPeripatetica had already discovered that angry English had a\ndemoralizing effect upon the natives. Its crisp consonants seemed as\ndaunting as blows to the vowelled Sicilian; armed with which, and a\nparasol, the Spider was rescued and borne half way to the fountain of\nArethusa before he could control his sniffles and his protesting\nfingers, upon which he offered passionate illustration that even\nHercules could not overcome the odds of ten to one, and that tears under\nthe circumstances left no smirch upon nascent manhood.\n\nJane, with her usual large grasp of financial questions, applied a lire\nto the wounded heart with the happiest results, and it was a once more\nunited and cheerful trio which leaned over Arethusa\u2019s inadequate little\nfount with its green scum and its frowzy papyrus plants. Poor Nymph! She\nof the rainbow, and the \u201ccouch of snows\u201d\u2014she whose \u201cfootsteps were paved\nwith green.\u201d Flying from the gross wooing of Alpheus she comes all the\nway from Elis under the sea to take refuge with moon-crowned\nArtemis\u2014Artemis \u201cthe protectress\u201d\u2014and for safety is turned into a\nsparkling pool which feeds all Syracuse with its sweet waters. Now\nArtemis is dead. Her cool groves have given way to acres of arid stone\nconvents; earthquakes have cracked Arethusa\u2019s basin, letting the sea in\nand the sweet water out; modern bad taste has walled her vulgarly about,\nand the poor old nymph can only gurgle reiterantly, \u201cI was once a\nbeauty; long ago, long ago!\u201d with not the smallest hope that any tourist\nwill believe it.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Spider has retired to his web. _Pranzo_ has been discussed, and Jane\nand Peripatetica, refreshed, are taking another nibble at the vast\nmouthful of Syracuse\u2019s past.\n\nIt was a thrilling _pranzo_. Not because of the food, nor of its\npartakers. The food was the same old stereotyped menu. Gnocchi with\ncheese. Vegetables, divorced from the meats\u2014they cannot apparently\noccupy the same course in any part of Italy. More cheese\u2014a _jardini\u00e8re_\nof pomegranates, oranges, dates, and almonds. Wine under a new name, but\nwith the same delicate perfumed savour of all the other wines they have\ndrunk.\n\nNo more did the guests offer any startling variety. The same tall\ncondescending English woman; elderly, manacled with bracelets, clanking\nwith chains; domineering a plain, red cheek-boned, flat-chested daughter\nobviously needing a lot of marrying off on Mamma\u2019s part; dominating also\na nervous, impetuous husband\u2014the travelling Englishman being much given\nto nervous impetuosity. A few fat, greasy Italians with napkin corners\nplanted deeply into their collars, and scintillating the gross joys of\ngluttony. Two dark-faced melancholy-eyed _foreigners_, not easily placed\nas to nationality. All types of feminine Americans. If it were possible\nto see only their eyes they would be recognizable as Americans from\ntheir glance of bold, alert self-confidence and cheerfulness, very\nnoticeable by contrast with the European eye. Also if one could see only\nthat inevitable ready-made silk bodice the wearers would be recognizable\nas fellow countrywomen. The man who manufactures that type of bodice at\nhome must be rich beyond the dreams of avarice.\n\nNo; the thrill of the _pranzo_ was due to invisible causes.\n\nBehind the door from which the hopelessly estranged meat and vegetables\nemerged there arose a clash and murmur as of some domestic storm, and\nthe waiters passed the spinach course with an air so tense and distrait\nthat the crunching horde felt their forks strain with curiosity in their\nhands. Even the fat Italians paused in their gorging to stare. Even the\nforeigners\u2019 melancholy dark eyes grew interested.\n\nAfter the spinach course ensued a long interval; the waiters lingering\nabout with empty platters and furtive pretences of occupation, plainly\nnot daring to enter that door, behind which ever waxed the loud rumour\nof domestic war.\n\nThe interval increased in length. The clamour rose and rose, and someone\nwent in search of the Padrone.\n\nOurs was a splendid Padrone; clothed upon with a _redingote_ and an\nhistoric and romantic dignity. For had not Guy de Maupassant mentioned\nhim with respectful affection in \u201cLa Vie Errante\u201d? The memory of which\nartistic appreciation still surrounded him with an aura. The Padrone\nentered that fateful door with calm, stern purpose, while the guests\ncrumbled their bread in patient hope.\n\nThe domestic storm drew breath for one terrible moment, then suddenly\nrose to the fury of a cyclone, and the Padrone was shot convulsively\nforth into our midst, the romantic aura hanging in tragic tatters about\nhim. Holding to the wall he swallowed hard several times, seeking\ncomposure, then passed, with knees wabbling nervously beneath the\nstately redingote, to the office, where could be witnessed his\npassionately protesting gestures and whispers poured into the\nsympathetic bosom of the concierge.\n\nThe cyclone had expended itself; the courses resumed their course, but\nwhat had taken place behind that closed door was never known. It\nremained another Syracusan mystery.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Museo at Syracuse, though small, is the best in Europe, for here, as\non an open page, is written the whole history of the island of\nSicily\u2014not a gap or a break in the story of more than three thousand\nyears; of perhaps five thousand years, for it antedates all the certain\ndates of history. Here are cases full of the stone and obsidian tools\nand weapons of the autochthonous Sikels; their crude pottery, their\nrough burial urns, their bone ornaments, and feathery wisps of their\nwoven stuffs. These are all curiously like the relics of the\nMound-builders of America, now in the Smithsonian Institution.\nApparently the Stone Age was as deadeningly similar everywhere as is our\nown Age of Steel.\n\nFollows the rude metal working of the Siculians, who, having some\nknowledge of the use of iron, can build boats, and come across the\nnarrow strait at Messina and drive out the Sikels. So long ago as that\nthe old process of \u201cassimilation\u201d begins. The Siculians begin to work in\ncolour, to ornament their pottery, to dye their stuffs, to mark their\nsilver and iron with rough chisel patterns\u2014patterns and colours again\nastonishingly like those of our own Pueblo Indians.\n\nThere are fragments of Ph\u0153nician work here and there\u2014the traders from\nTyre and Sidon are beginning to cruise along the coast and barter their\nsuperior wares with the inhabitants.\n\nAll at once the arts make a great spring upward. The Greeks have\nappeared. Rude, archaic, Dorian, these arts at first, but strong, and\nshowing a new spirit. The potteries have a glaze, the patterns grow more\nintricate, the reliefs show a plastic striving for grace and life, the\nornaments are of gold as well as silver and bronze, and steel has\nappeared. Follows a splendid flowering; an apogee of beauty is reached.\nVases of exquisite contours covered with spirited paintings, pictures of\nlife and death, of war and love. Coins that are unrivaled in numismatic\nbeauty; struck frequently with the quadriga to celebrate the winning of\nthe chariot race at the Olympic games; a triumph valued as greatly by\nthe Greeks of Sicily as is the winning of the Derby by English horsemen.\nTools, jewels, arms, all adorned with infinite taste and skill. Statues\nof such subtle grace and loveliness as this famous \u201cNymph,\u201d the\nlong-buried marble now grown to tints of blond pearl. Figurines of baked\nclay, reproducing the costumes, the ornaments, the physiology of the\npassing generations\u2014faces arch, lovely, full of gay humour. Splendid\nsarcophagi, and burial urns still holding ashes and calcined bones, and\ntiny clay reproductions of the death masks of the departed, full of\ntender human individuality, or else heads of the gods, such as that\nenchanting tinted and crowned Artemis, that still lies in one of the\ngreat sarcophagi amid a handful of burned bones.\n\nPunic and Roman remains begin to show themselves, recording that\ntremendous struggle between Europe and Africa for dominion in the\nmidland sea, under the impact of which the Greek civilization is to be\ncrushed. Byzantine ornament appears. Africa makes another struggle and\nis for a while triumphant, leaving record of the Moorish domination in\ndamascened arms, in deep-tinted tiles.\n\nThe Goths and Normans fuse with the Saracen arts at first, but soon\ndominate the Eastern influence and shake it off, developing an art\ninferior only to the Greek. The Spanish follow, baroque, sumptuous,\npseudo-classical. All the story of all the conquerors is here.\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d sighs Peripatetica. \u201cWhat an illustrated history; I could go on\nturning its pages for days.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, you\u2019ll turn them alone!\u201d snapped Jane, clutching frantically at\nher side, and adding in a dreadful whisper: \u201cThere are _fleas_ hopping\nall over these historical pages. Come away this instant.\u201d\n\nBut they linger a moment on the way out to look again at the famous\nheadless Venus Landolina.\n\n\u201cThere is only one real Venus,\u201d commented Peripatetica contemptuously.\n\u201cThe Melian. All the rest are only plump ladies about to step into their\nbaths. I detest these fat women with insufficient clothing who sprawl\nall over Europe calling themselves the goddesses of love. Goddesses\nindeed! They look more like soft white chestnut worms. That great\ndominating, irresistible lady of the Louvre is a deity, if you like\u2014Our\nLady of Beauty\u2014besides, this little person\u2019s calf is flat on the inner\nside.\u201d\n\n\u201cIss it not righd dat her calve should be vlat on de inside?\u201d queried an\nelderly Swiss, also looking, and showing all her handsome porcelain\nteeth in a smile of anxious uncertainty. \u201cI dink dat must be righd,\nbecause Baedeker marks her wid a ztar.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t allow your opinions to be unsettled by this lady\u2019s,\u201d consoled\nJane sweetly. \u201cShe isn\u2019t really an authority. It would be wiser perhaps\nand more comfortable to be guided by Baedeker.\u201d\n\n\u201cBud she has no head,\u201d grieved the Swiss. \u201cHow can Baedeker mark her wid\na ztar w\u2019en she has no head?\u201d\n\nHow indeed? But then, there is such a lot of body!...\n\nIt is some days later. They have \u201cdone\u201d the river Amapus; have been\nrowed among the towering feathery papyrus plants, the original roots of\nwhich were sent to Heiro I. by Ptolemy, and which still flourish in\nSicily though all the parent plants have vanished out of Egypt.\n\nThey have looked down into the clear depths of La Pisma\u2019s spring. Jane\nsays it is less beautiful than the Silver Spring in Florida out which\nthe Ocklawaha river rises, but that fountain of a tropical\nforest\u2014transparent as air, and held in a great argent bowl\u2014has no\nhistory, while La Pisma was the playmate of fair Persephone, and on\nseeing her ravished away by fiery Pluto melted quite away into a flood\nof bright tears. And it was she who, having caught up Persephone\u2019s\ndropped veil, floated it to the feet of Demeter, and told her where to\nlook for the lost daughter. La Pisma and Anapus her lover were, too, the\nreal guardians of Syracuse, for as one after another of the armies of\ninvading enemies camped on their oozy plain they sapped the invaders\u2019\nstrength, and blighted their courage with fevers from the miasmatic\nbreaths exhaled upon the foes as they slept.\n\nJane and Peripatetica have found another mystery. Syracuse, it appears,\nis full of mysteries. This last is known as the Castle of Euryalus, and\nthey must take horse and drive to it, six miles from the hotel, though\nstill within the walls of the original city, once twenty-two miles\nabout; shrunk in these later days to less than three. This six miles of\npilgrimage gives ample time to search the guide-books for information as\nto this thing they have come out for to see. But the guide-books palter,\nand shuffle and evade, as they are prone to do about anything really\ninteresting. Euryalus, solid enough to their eyes and to their sense of\ntouch, seems as illusive in history as the cloudy towers of the Fata\nMorgana\u2014now you see it, and now you don\u2019t. It seems to come from\nnowhere. No one can tell when or by whom it was built, but it always\nturns up in the history of Syracuse in moments of stress\u2014much like those\nChristian patron-saints who used suddenly to descend in shining armour\nto turn the tide of battle. One hears of Dionysius strengthening it when\nnews comes that the dread Himilcon is on his way from Carthage with two\nhundred triremes accompanied by rafts, galleys, and transports\ninnumerable. Dionysius makes Euryalus the key of a surprise he prepares\nfor the Carthagenians, for when the latter come sailing into the\nharbour\u2014\u201cA forest of black masts and dark sails, with transports filled\nwith elephants trumpeting at the smell of land,\u201d and from the West\n\u201ccomes trampling across the plain by the Helorian road and the banks of\nthe Anapus, the Punic army 300,000 strong, with 3,000 horse led by\nHimilcon in person,\u201d\u2014there stands waiting for them one of the most\namazing works ever wrought by the will of a single man.\n\nDionysius in twenty days has built a wall three miles long barring\nHimilcon\u2019s ingress at the only weak point. Seventy thousand of the\ninhabitants of Syracuse had worked at this building. Forty thousand\nslaves had been in the Latomi\u00e6 cutting the blocks of easily hewn\nsandstone, which six thousand oxen carried to the wall, while other\narmies of men had been upon the slopes of \u00c6tna ravaging the oak woods\nfor huge beams. When Himilcon comes the wall is complete.\n\nThen there are more appearings and disappearings through the years, and\nsuddenly Euryalus fills the foreground again. Archimedes is helping\nHieronymus to fortify it against Marcellus\u2014is designing veiled sally\nports, and oblique apertures from which his \u201cscorpions\u201d and other\ncurious war engines may hurl stones, is placing there the burning\nglasses with which he will set the Roman galleys on fire by means of the\nsun\u2019s heat. But though the Carthagenians were terrible the Roman is more\nterrible still, and in spite of Archimedes they get into Syracuse after\na three years\u2019 siege. While the furies of final capture are raging\nArchimedes sits calmly drawing figures upon the sand. A Roman soldier\nrushing by carelessly smears them with his foot. Archimedes is angry,\nand \u201cuses language.\u201d The soldier, angry in his turn\u2014no doubt \u201clanguage\u201d\nin Greek sounded especially insulting\u2014shortens his sword and stabs \u201cthe\ngreatest man then living in the world.\u201d\n\nMarcellus sheds tears when he hears it, and buries the father of\nmathematics with splendid honours, marking the tombstone\u2014as Archimedes\nhad wished\u2014with no name, with only a sphere and a cylinder. He spared\nSyracuse too; left her temples and splendours intact, and forbid the\nusual plundering and massacres. Marcellus was, it seems, in every way a\nvery decent person, and Peripatetica grieved that those frigid Romans\nwouldn\u2019t let him have a triumph when he went home, and Jane breathed a\nhope that he used more language to that murderous soldier....\n\nLater comes Cicero to Syracuse, hunting evidence against Verres, who\nhad, as pro-consul, robbed the city of all the treasures Marcellus had\nspared, and the great lawyer takes time from his examination of\nwitnesses to look out Archimedes\u2019 resting place. He finds it overgrown\nwith thistles and brambles, but recognizes it by the sphere and\ncylinder, and sets it once more in order.\n\n             \u201cSo Tully paused, amid the wrecks of time,\n             On the rude stone to trace the truth sublime,\n             Where at his feet in honoured dust disclosed\n             The immortal Sage of Syracuse reposed.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou cribbed that from one of the guide-books,\u201d jeered Jane.\n\n\u201cOf course I did,\u201d admitted Peripatetica with calm unblushingness. \u201cDo\nyou imagine I go around with samples of formal Eighteenth Century\nPope-ry concealed about my person?\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey are on their way to the theatre, passing by the ancient site of the\nForum, which site is now a mere dusty, down-at-heels field where goats\nbrowse and donkeys graze, and where squads of awkward recruits are being\ntrained to take cover behind a couple of grass blades, to fire their\nempty rifles with some pretence at unanimity.\n\nThe road winds between walled orange and lemon groves, in which\ncontadini are drying and packing miles of pungent golden peel for\ntransportation to French and English confectioners. The air is redolent\nwith it.\n\nThemistocles\u2014Jane doubts his sponsors in baptism having had any hand in\nthis, but the grubby card he presented with so pleasant a glance, so\nfine a gesture at the time of striking a bargain for the day, bore it\nprinted as plain as plain\u2014Themistocles, then, dismounts before a small\ndrinking shop lying at the foot of an elevation. With one broad sweep of\nhis hand he signifies that he is making them free of history, and yields\nthem to the care of a nobleman in gold and blue; a nobleman possessing a\npleasing manner and one of those plangent, golden-strung voices which\nthe lucky possessors always so enjoy using.\n\nThe two demand the Latomia Paradiso; the name having seduced their\nsentimental imaginations. The peer intimates that the name is\nmisleading, but with gentle firmness they drop down the path which\ndescends into the quarries from which Dionysius hurriedly snatched the\nmaterial for his wall; material (almost as easy to cut as cheese, but\nhardening in the air) which has been dug, scooped, and riven away as\nfantastically as if sculptured by the capricious flow of water, leaving\ncaverns, towers, massy columns, arches, a thousand freaked shapes. Now\nall this is draped with swaying curtains of ivy, with climbing roses\nheavy with unblown buds, with trailing geraniums hanging from crannies,\nwith wild flowers innumerable. Lemon and fig trees grow upon the\nquarries\u2019 floor, mosses and ferns carpet the shady places, black-green\ncaroba trees huddle in neglected corners.\n\nThe nobleman, however, is impatient to show other wonders. He leads the\nway into caverns through whose openings shafts of sunlight steal,\nturning the dusk within to a blond gloom, caverns where rope-makers walk\nto and fro twisting long strands, twirling wheels, with a cheerful\nchatter that booms hollowly back to them from the vaulted darkness over\ntheir heads; where the birds who flit in and out hear their twitterings\nreflected enormously, with a curious effect; where even the sound of\ndripping moisture is magnified into a large solemnity.\n\nHe has saved the best for the last. Here an arch soars a hundred feet,\ngiving entrance to a lofty narrow cave. Where the sides of the arch meet\nis a small channel of chiselled smoothness, ending in an orifice through\nwhich a glimpse of the sky shows like a tiny blue gem. It is the Ear of\nDionysius. In this cave, so the story runs, the Tyrant confined\nsuspected conspirators, for this is a natural whispering gallery, and\nthe lowest of confidential talk within it would mount the walls, each\nlightest word would run along that smooth channel, as through the tube\nof an ear, and reach the listener at the orifice. For the uneasy\nDictator knows that his turbulent Greek subjects, who cannot rule\nthemselves, are equally unable to bear placidly the rule of another, and\nit would have been interesting, and at times exciting, to have been\npermitted to watch that stern, bent face as the rebellious protests\nclimbed in whispers to the greedy ear a hundred feet above.\n\nA wonderful echo lives in this cave. Now it is plain why the guide has\nsuch large and vibrant tones\u2014he was chosen because of that natural gift.\n\n\u201cAddio!\u201d he cries gaily. \u201c_Addio_,\u201d calls the darkness, a little sadly\nand wistfully. The guide sings a stave, and all the dusk is full of\nmelodious chorus. He intones a sonorous verse, and golden words roll\ndown to them through the gloom.\n\n\u201cSpeak! speak!\u201d the nobleman urges, and Jane and Peripatetica meekly\nbreathe a few banalities in level American tones. Not a sound returns;\ntheir syllables are swallowed by the silence.\n\n\u201cStaccato! staccato!\u201d remonstrates the guide, and when they comply,\nlight laughing voices vouchsafe answers.\n\n\u201cI think,\u201d says Peripatetica reflectively, as they leave the Latomia,\n\u201cthat one has to address life like that if one is to get a clear\nreply\u2014to address it crisply, definitely, with quick inflections. Level,\nflat indefiniteness will awake no echoes.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018How true\u2019! as the ladies write on the margins of circulating library\nbooks,\u201d comments Jane with unveiled sarcasm.\n\nThe guide has lots more up his gold-braided sleeve. He opens a gate and\ndisplays to them with a flourish the largest altar in the world. Six\nhundred feet one way, sixty feet the other; cut partly from solid rock,\nmade in part of masonry. Hiero II. thought he knew a trick of governing\nworth any amount of listening at doors. Those who are fed and amused are\nslack conspirators. So this huge altar to Zeus is built, and here every\nyear he sacrifices 450 oxen to the ruler of heaven.\n\n\u201cIt must have rather run into money for him,\u201d says Jane thoughtfully,\n\u201cbut he probably considered it cheaper to sacrifice oxen than be\nsacrificed himself.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d says Peripatetica, who has just been consulting the guide-book.\n\u201cIt must have been rather like the barbecues the American politicians\nused to give to their constituents half a century ago, for only the\nchoicest bits were burnt before the gods, sprinkled with oil and wine\nand sweet-smelling spices, and the populace, I suppose, carried home the\nrest. No doubt Hiero found it a paying investment.\u201d\n\nThe theatre, when reached, is found, of course, to have a beautiful\nsituation. All Greek theatres have. They were a people who liked to open\nall the doors of enjoyment at once, and when they filled this enormous\nsemicircle (24,000 could sit there) cut from the living rock upon the\nhillside, they could not only listen to the rolling, organ-like Greek of\nthe great poets, and have their souls shaken with the \u201cpity and terror\u201d\nof tragedy, or laugh at the gay mockery of comedy, but by merely lifting\ntheir eyes they could look out upon the blue Ionian sea, the smiling\nflowered land, and in the distance the purple hills dappled with flying\nshadows. In their time all the surrounding eminences were crowned with\ngreat temples, and behind them\u2014this was a contrast very Greek\u2014lay the\nStreet of Tombs. For they had not a shuddering horror of death,\nhastening their departed into remote isolation from their own daily\nlife. They liked to pass to their occupations and amusements among the\nbeautiful receptacles made for the ashes of those they had loved.\n\nIn this theatre Syracuse saw not only the great dramas, but the great\ndramatists and poets. \u00c6schylus, sitting beside Hiero I., saw all his\nplays produced here; \u201cThe \u00c6tnaiai\u201d and \u201cThe Persians\u201d were written for\nthis stage. Pindar was often here; so were Bacchylides and Simonides,\nand a host of lesser playwrights. Indeed, no theatre has ever known such\nfamous auditors. Theocritus, Pythagoras, Sappho, Empedocles, Archimedes,\nPlato, Cicero, have all sat here.\n\nPlato was long in Syracuse; called by Dionysius to train his son Dion,\nhe labours with such poor success that Dion is driven from the power\ninherited from his father, by the citizens outraged at the grossness of\nhis vices. Before this fall Plato has left him in disgust, Dion\nremarking with careless insolence:\n\n\u201cI fear you will not speak kindly of me in Athens.\u201d\n\nTo which the philosopher, with still more insolent sarcasm, replies:\n\n\u201cWe are little likely to be so in want of a topic in Athens as to speak\nof you at all.\u201d\n\nYet it would seem as if no good effort was ever wholly lost, for when\nDion, earning his bread in exile as an obscure schoolmaster, is\nsneeringly asked what he ever learned from Plato, his dignified answer\nis, \u201cHe taught me to bear misfortune with resignation.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThemistocles has conducted them, with much cracking of his whip, much\nirrelevant conversation, quite to the other side of what once was\nSyracuse, and has deposited them before a little low gate that pierces a\nhigh wall. Inside this gate is a tiny garden cultivated by two monks who\ndo the work by means of short-handled double-ended hoes; a\nlaborious-looking Sicilian implement. The garden is full of pansies\ngrowing between low hedges of sweet-smelling thyme and rosemary. At the\nsame moment there debarks a carriage load of touring Germans. Typical\ntouring Germans; solid, rosy, set four-square to the winds; all clinging\nto Baedekers encased in covers of red and yellow cross stitch of Berlin\nwool, all breathing a fixed intention of seeing everything worth seeing\nin the thorough-going German fashion. The monks openly squabble as to\nthe division of the parties who have come to see the church and the\ncatacombs, and eventually the big, shaggy, red-haired one, who might be\nsome ancient savage Gaul come to life, sullenly carries off the Teutons.\nIt is somewhat of a shock to Jane and Peripatetica when their slim,\nsupple, handsome Sicilian explains to them that this contest has its\nreason not in their personal charm, but is owing to a reluctance to\nguide the hated Tedeschi.\n\nThere is something inexplicable in this universal unpopularity of the\nTeuton in Italy. Germany has been dotingly sentimental about Italy for\ngenerations.\n\n                          \u201cKennst du das Land\u201d\n\nhas hovered immanent on every lip from beyond the Rhine ever since the\ndays of Goethe. They passionately study her language, her literature,\nher monuments, and her history. They make pilgrimages to worship at all\nher shrines, pouring in reverent Pan-Germanic hordes across the Alps to\ndo it, and despite their extreme and skilful frugality they must\nnecessarily leave in the Peninsula hundreds of thousands of their\nhard-earned, laboriously hoarded marks, which they have not grudged to\nspend in the service of beauty. Yet Italy seems possessed of a sullen\nrepugnance to the entire race.\n\n\u201cTedeschi!\u201d hisses the monk. \u201cTutto \u2018_Ja! Ja! Wundersch\u00f6n!_\u2019\u201d with a\ndeliriously funny imitation of their accent and gestures, as he steers\nswiftly around a corner to prevent the two parties fusing into one.\n\nThe church of San Giovanni is, of course, founded upon a Greek\ntemple\u2014most Sicilian churches are, and\u2014of all places!\u2014this one stands\nupon a ruin of a temple of Bacchus\u2014the fragments of which poke up all\nthrough the tiny garden. The church, equally, of course, has been\nEighteenth Centuried, but happily not wholly; remaining a great wheel\nwindow, and beautiful bits here and there of Twelfth Century Gothic in\nthe outer walls, though the interior is in the usual dusty and neglected\ngaunt desuetude. The whole place is in decay, even the attendant\nmonastery is crumbling, the number of monks shrunk to a mere handful,\ndespite the fact that this is a spot of special sanctity, for when they\ndescend into the massive chapel of the crypt there is pointed out to\nthem the little altar before which Saint Paul preached when he was in\nSyracuse.\n\n\u201cOf course, St. Paul was here,\u201d said Jane. \u201cEverybody who was anybody\ncame to Syracuse sooner or later\u2014including ourselves.\u201d\n\nThe guide is firm as to the altar having stood in this very chapel when\nthat remarkable Hebrew poured out to the Syracusans his strange new\nmessage of democracy, but this is clearly the usual fine monkish\nsuperiority to cramping probabilities, for such rib-vaultings as these\nwere as yet undreamed of by the architects of Paul\u2019s day.\n\nThe altar is Greek, and no doubt was standing in the fane of Bacchus\nwhen the Jew spoke by it. The Greeks were interested and tolerant about\nnew religions, and the life and death which Paul described would hardly\nhave seemed strange to them, spoken in that place. That birth and death,\nthe blood turned to wine, the sacred flesh eaten in hope of\nregeneration, having so many and such curious resemblances to the\nlegends, and to the worship of the Vine God celebrated on that very\nspot. \u201cAt Thebes alone,\u201d had said Sophocles, speaking of the birth of\nBacchus, \u201cmortal women bear immortal gods.\u201d The violent death, the\ndescent into hell, the resurrection, were all familiar to them, and what\na natural echo would be found in their hearts to the saying, \u201cI am the\ntrue Vine.\u201d...\n\nThe monk only smiles bitterly when it is demanded of him to explain why\na spot of so reverent an association should be abandoned to dust and\ndecay, and to the interest of curious tourists, when the mere apocryphal\nvision of an hysterical peasant girl should draw hordes of\nmiracle-seeking pilgrims to Lourdes.\n\nPerhaps there was something typical in that anguished Christ painted\nupon the great flat wooden crucifix that hung over the altar in the\ncrypt; a Christ fading slowly into a mere grey shadow; the dim, hardly\nvisible ghost of a once living agony....\n\nThe monk goes before, the flickering candle which he shades with his\nfingers throwing a fan of yellow rays around his tonsured head. These\nare the Catacombs of Syracuse.\n\n                    \u201cOn every hand the roads begin.\u201d\n\nRoads underground, these, leading away endlessly into darkness. At long\nintervals they widen into lofty domed chapels rudely hewn, as is all\nthis place, directly from the rock. Here and there a narrow shaft is cut\nupward through the earth, letting in faint gleams of sunshine through a\nfringe of grass and ferns, showing sometimes an oxalis drooping its pale\nlittle golden face to peer over the shaft\u2019s edge into the gloom below.\nAnd in all these roads\u2014miles and miles of roads, extending as far as\nCatania it is said; roads under roads three tiers deep\u2014and in all these\nroads and chapels are only open graves. Graves in the floor beneath\none\u2019s feet; graves in every inch of the walls; graves over graves,\ngraves behind graves. Great family graves cut ten feet back into the\nrock, containing narrow niches for half a dozen bodies\u2014graves where four\ngenerations have slept side by side. Graves that are mere shallow\nscoopings hardly more than three spans in length, where newborn babies\nmust have slept alone. Tombs innumerable beyond reckoning, all hewn from\nthe solid rock, and each and all vacant. An incredibly vast city of the\ndead from which all the dead inhabitants have departed.\n\nThis is the crowning mystery of mysterious Syracuse. Who were this vast\narmy of the buried? And where have their dead bodies gone?...\nChristians, everyone says.\n\n\u201cBut why,\u201d clamours Peripatetica, \u201cshould Christians have had these\npeculiar mole-like habits?\u201d\n\nThe monk merely shrugs.\n\n\u201cOh, I know,\u201d she goes on quickly before Jane can get her mouth open.\n\u201cPersecution is the explanation always given, but will you tell me how\nyou can successfully persecute a population of this size? There must be\nhalf a million of graves, at least, in this place, and there would have\nto be a good many living to bury the dead, and Syracuse in its best days\nhadn\u2019t a million inhabitants. Now, you can\u2019t successfully martyrize\nnine-tenths of the population, even if it is as meek and sheep-like as\nthe early Christians pretended to be.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey didn\u2019t all die at once,\u201d suggests Jane helpfully. \u201cThis took\nyears.\u201d\n\n\u201cI should think it did! Years? It took generations, or else the\nChristians died like flies, and proved that piety was dreadfully\nundermining to the health. No wonder the pagans wouldn\u2019t accept anything\nso fatal. But populations as large as this one must have been to furnish\nso many dead, don\u2019t go on burrowing underground for generations. They\ncome out and impose their beliefs upon the rest. And, besides, how can\nthe stories of their worshipping and burying in secret be true when the\nmass of material taken out of these excavations would have to be put\nsomewhere? And how could the presence or the removal of all that refuse\nstone escape attention? The persecuted Christian theory doesn\u2019t explain\nthe mystery.\u201d\n\nEven Peripatetica had to pause sometimes for breath, and then Jane got\nher innings.\n\n\u201cEqually mysterious, in my opinion,\u201d she said, \u201cis the rifling of all\nthese graves. The monk tells me \u2018the Saracens did it,\u2019 but the Saracens\nwere in Syracuse less than two hundred years, and of all these myriad\ngraves only two or three have been found intact, and these two or three\nwere graves beneath graves. Every other one for sixty miles, from the\nlargest to the smallest, has been opened and entirely emptied. The\nSaracen population in Syracuse was never very large. It consisted in\ngreater part of the ruling classes. The bulk of the people were natives\nand Christians, who would regard this grave-rifling as the horridest\nsacrilege, and if the Saracens undertook alone this enormous task they\nwould have had, even in two hundred years, time for nothing else. The\nopening of the graves is as strange a puzzle as the making of them.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps some last trump was blown over Syracuse alone,\u201d hazarded\nPeripatetica, \u201cand all the dead here rose and left their graves behind\nthem empty.\u201d\n\n\u201cCome up into the air and sunlight,\u201d said Jane. \u201cYour mind shows the\nneed of it.\u201d\n\nAt the little gate sat one of the monastery dependents, whose perquisite\nwas a permission to sell post-cards, and such coins and bits of pottery\nas he could retrieve by grubbing in the rubbish of the empty graves. He\nhad a few tiny earthenware lamps, marked with a cross and still\nsmoke-blackened, some so-called tear jugs, and one or two small clay\nmasks which, from the closed eyelids and smooth sunken contours, must\nhave been modelled in miniature from real death masks. Among these they\nfound Arsino\u00eb\u2014or so they named her\u2014whose face was touched with that\nstrange, secret archness, that sweet smiling scorn so often seen on\nfaces one day dead. The broad brow with its drooping hair, the full\ntender lips so instinct with vivid personality, went with them, and\nbecame to them like the record of some one seen long ago and dimly\nremembered, though the lovely benignant original must have been mere\ndust of dust for more than a thousand years.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA nun in a faded blue gown has been showing them the relics of Santa\nLucia. She has also been telling them how the Saint, when a young man\nadmired her eyes, snatched them out of her head with her own hands and\nhanded them to the young man on a plate.\n\n\u201cWhat a very rude and unpleasant thing to do!\u201d comments Jane in English.\n\u201cBut invariably saints seem so lamentably deficient in amiability and\nsocial charm.\u201d\n\nThe nun unlocks the gate of the Cappucini Latomia, and Jane and\nPeripatetica descend the long stair cut in the rocks. They are seeking\nthe place where the remnant of that army Alcibiades so skilfully\nintroduced into Catania, finally perished.\n\nThey have been reading tales of the Athenians\u2019 long siege of Syracuse,\nof their final frightful despairing struggle, so full of anguish,\nterror, and fierce courage\u2014\u201cwhen Greek met Greek\u201d\u2014and they have come to\nlook at the spot where those seven thousand unhappy prisoners finally\nfound an end. When they were driven into this quarry they were all that\nremained of the tremendous expedition which Athens had drained her best\nblood to send. Alcibiades had fled long ago, and was in exile. Nicias\nand Demosthenes, who had surrendered them, were now dead; fallen on\ntheir own swords. The harbour of Syracuse was strewn with the charred\nwrecks of their fleet. The marshes of Anapus were rotting with their\ncomrades, the fountain of Cyane choked with them. They themselves were\nwounded to a man, shuddering with fevers, starving, demoralised with\nlong fighting and the horrible final _d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_ when they were thrust all\ntogether into this Latomia; not as now a glorious garden with thyme and\nmint and rosemary beneath their feet, ivy-hung, full of groves and\norchards, but raw, glaring, shaled with chipped stone, the staring\nyellow sides towering smoothly up for a hundred feet to the burning blue\nof the Sicilian sky. There in that waterless furnace for seventy days\nthey died and died. Died of wounds, of thirst, of starvation; died of\nthe poisonings of those already dead.\n\nAnd the populace of Syracuse came day by day, holding lemons to their\nnoses, to look down at them curiously, until there was not one movement,\nnot one sound from any one of the seven thousand.\n\nThere is but one human gleam in the whole demoniacal story\u2014a touch\ncharacteristically Greek. Some of the prisoners had beguiled the tedium\nof dying by chanting the noble choruses of Euripides\u2019 newest play, which\nSyracuse had not yet heard, and these had been at once drawn up from\namong their fellows and treated with every kindness. They were entreated\nto repeat as much as they could remember of the poet\u2019s lines again and\nagain, and were finally sent back to Athens with presents and much\nhonour.\n\nNot a trace of the tragedy remains. The only record of death now in\nthose lovely wild, deep-sunken gardens is a banal monument to Mazzini,\nand a tomb hollowed out of the wall in one of the caves. A tomb closed\nwith a marble slab, upon which was cut an epitaph telling, in the\npompous formal language of that day, of the young American naval\nlieutenant who died here suddenly on his ship in the first decade of the\nNineteenth Century, and because he was a Protestant, and therefore could\nnot occupy any Catholic graveyard, was laid to rest alone in this place\nof hideous memories.\n\nPoor lad! Sleeping so far from his own people, and thrust away here by\nhimself, since he must, of course, not expect to lie near those who had\nbeen baptised with a different motion of the fingers. Seeing which\nisolation Peripatetica quoted that amused saying of an ironic old Pagan\nworld, \u201cBehold, how these Christians love one another!\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is the terrace of the Villa Politi. They have finally forgiven the\nvilla, and have climbed up here from the Latomia to sit on its lovely\nterrace, to drink tea and eat the honey of Hybla, to look down on one\nside into the blossom-hung depths of the Athenians\u2019 prison, on the other\nout to the mauve and silver of the twilight sea.\n\n\u201cPeripatetica,\u201d says Jane with great firmness, \u201cI am suffering from an\nindigestion of history. I am going away somewhere. All these spirits of\nthe past block up the place so that I\u2019ve no freedom of movement. It\u2019s an\noppression to feel that every time one puts a foot down it\u2019s in the\ntrack of thousands and thousands of dead feet, and that one\u2019s stirring\nup the dust of bones with every step we take. Everything we look at is\ncovered so thick with layer on layer of passion and pain that I\u2019ve got\nan historic heartache. _I_ leave to-morrow.\u201d\n\nPeripatetica didn\u2019t answer at first. She was looking out over the dusky\nsea, from which breathed a soft slow wind.\n\nThe change had come while they were in the Latomia; had come suddenly.\nThat bleak unkindness in the atmosphere\u2014of which they were always\nconscious even in the sun\u2014had all at once disappeared. Even though the\nsun was gone a mild sweetness seemed to exhale from the earth, as from a\nheart at last content.\n\n\u201cJane,\u201d said Peripatetica, turning shining eyes upon her, \u201cPersephone\nhas returned. Let us go to Enna and meet her!\u201d\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n\n                        THE RETURN OF PERSEPHONE\n\n        \u201cGod\u2019s three chief gifts, Man\u2019s bread and oil and wine.\u201d\n\nNo doubt the usual things that happen to travellers happened to Jane and\nPeripatetica at Enna-Castrogiovanni, and on their way to it. Things\nannoying and amusing, tiresome or delightful, but they have no memory of\nthese things, all lesser matters having been swallowed up in the final\nsatisfaction of their quest.\n\nMemory is an artist who works in mosaic, and all the fantastic jumble\nand contrast of the experiences of travel she heaps pell-mell together\nin her bag. Bits of sights but half seen, but half understood; vague\nmemories of other things seen before and seemingly but slightly related\nto these new impressions, mere faint associations but partly realised,\nalong with keen emotions and strong pleasures; all tumbled in together\nand rubbing corners with petty vexations, small inconveniences,\npractical details. Memory gathers them all without discrimination and\ncarries them along with her, a most unsatisfactory-looking mess at first\nsight, out of which it would seem nothing much could be made. But give\nher time. While one\u2019s attention is occupied with other matters she is\nbusy\u2014sorting, arranging, rejecting here, adding there. Recollections\nthat bulked large at first she often files down to a mere point; much\nthat appeared but dull rubbish with no colour she finds valuable when\npushed into the background, because its neutral tones serve to bring out\nmore clearly the outlines of the design. Dark bits are skilfully\nemployed for the sake of the contrast, and to intensify the warm tones\nof richer fragments. The shadowy associations give body and modelling to\nimpressions otherwise flat and ineffective. All at once the picture is\nseen; a complete delineation of an episode, taking form and warmth, and\nvivid life; and over the whole she spreads the magic bloom of distance,\nwhich transforms the crude materials, hides the joinings of the mosaic,\nand makes of it a treasure of the soul.\n\nSomething of this sort she did for Castrogiovanni. \u2019Tis but an\nimpressionist picture. They only see, looking back to it, two great,\ndivine shadows breathing such passion and pain, such essential,\nheart-stirring loveliness that the eye hardly observes the wreathed\nborder about the picture, a border which serves merely as a frame for\nthose two significant figures revived from the dreams of primitive man.\n\nHere is an incident taken from the unimportant frame of the picture....\n\nJane and Peripatetica are in the train. It seems quaint to be finding\none\u2019s way to the \u201cPlutonian Shore\u201d in a little puffing, racketting\nSicilian train. To be properly in the picture they should have been\nincluded in a band of pilgrim shepherds piping in the hills as they\nwander upward to the great shrine of Demeter, to give thanks for the\nincrease of their flocks, to offer her white curds, and goat cheeses,\nand the snowy wool of washed fleeces. Pilgrims who are weeks upon the\nroad; climbing higher and higher each day through the steady sunshine,\nand sleeping at night under the large stars, with the little olive-wood\nfire, that cooked the evening meal, winking and smouldering beside them\nin the dewy darkness. Resting here and there at the Greek farms, where\nnew pilgrims are waiting to add themselves to the pious band.\n\nJane, who consults her Theocritus oftener in Sicily than her\nBaedeker\u2014for she says she finds that Theocritus has on the whole a\nbetter literary style\u2014is the one who suggests this idyllic alternative.\n\n\u201cJust listen to him!\u201d she cries. \u201cThis would be travel really worth\nwhile recording. He is telling of just such a journey, and of the pause\nat one of the hill farms:\n\n\u201c\u2018So I, and Eucritus, and the fair Amyntichus, turned aside into the\nhouse of Phrasidamus, and lay down with delight in beds of sweet\ntamarisk and fresh cuttings from the vines, strewed on the ground. Many\npoplars and elm trees were waving over our heads, and not far off the\nrunning of the sacred water from the cave of the nymphs warbled to us;\nin the shimmering grass the sunburnt grasshoppers were busy with their\ntalk, and from afar the owl cried softly out of the tangled thorns of\nthe blackberry. The larks were singing and the hedge birds, and the\nturtle dove moaned; the bees flew round and round the fountains,\nmurmuring softly. The scent of late summer and the fall of the year was\neverywhere; the pears fell from the trees at our feet, and apples in\nnumber rolled down at our sides, and the young plum trees bent to the\nearth with the weight of their fruit.\n\n\u201c\u2018The wax, four years old, was loosed from the heads of the wine jars.\nO! nymphs of Castalia, who dwell on the steeps of Parnassus, tell me, I\npray you, was it a draught like this that the aged Chiron placed before\nHercules, in the stony cave of Phulus? Was it nectar like this that made\nthat mighty shepherd on Anapus\u2019 shore, Polyphemus, who flung the rocks\nupon Ulysses\u2019 ships, dance among his sheep-folds? A cup like this ye\npoured out now upon the altar of Demeter, who presides over the\nthreshing floor. May it be mine once more to dig my big winnowing-fan\nthrough her heaps of corn; and may I see her smile upon me, holding\npoppies and handfuls of corn in her two hands!\u2019\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nInstead of being accompanied on their arcadian journey by Eucritus and\nthe fair Amyntichus, they have as companions in the little carriage of\nthe Regie Ferrovia the two dark foreigners from Syracuse, upon whose\nnationality they have speculated at idle moments. They prove to be\nPoles. Two gentlemen from Cracow, escaped for a moment from its snows to\nmake a little \u201cgiro\u201d in the Sicilian sunshine.\n\nConversation develops around \u00c6tna\u2014of all places! Peripatetica catches\nsight of it, as the train rounds a curve, sees it suddenly looming\nagainst the sky, a glittering cone of silver swimming upon a base of\nmisty hyacinth-blue. By a gesture she calls everyone\u2019s attention to this\nnew and charming pose of that ever spectacular mountain.\n\nJane glances up from her book and signifies a condescending approval,\nbut the sight has a most startling and electrifying effect upon the\nPoles. They miss, in their enthusiasm, flinging themselves from the\ncarriage window merely by a hair\u2019s breadth, and crying, \u201c\u00c6tna! \u00c6tna!\u201d\nwith passionate satisfaction, not only solemnly clasp hands with one\nanother, but also grasp and shake the limply astonished hands of Jane\nand Peripatetica. Transpires that the foreigners have been three weeks\nin Sicily without once having caught a glimpse of the ever present, ever\ndominant mountain, since, with sulky coquetry, whenever they were within\nsight it promptly hid in veils of mist, and now they are bound for\nCracow, via Palermo, facing uneasily the confession at home of having\nbeen to the play and missed seeing the star.\n\nThey hang from the window in eager endeavour to cram all lost\nopportunities into one, and rend the heavens with lamentations when the\ncarriage comes to rest immediately opposite a tiny station whose solid\nminuteness is sufficient to blot from sight all that distant majesty.\n\n\u201cIt is like life,\u201d the taller foreigner wails, sinking back baffled from\nan attempt to pierce the obdurate masonry with a yearning eye. \u201cOne\nlittle ugly emotion close by can shut out from one\u2019s sight all the\nloftiest beauties of existence!\u201d\n\nThis fine generalization gathers acuity from the fact that a sharp turn\nsoon after leaving the station piles up elevations that quickly rob them\nof their long-sought opportunity, but for the rest of the time that the\npaths of the four lie together the Poles insist upon attributing to the\ndirect intervention of Jane and Peripatetica the wiping of this blot\nfrom their travelling \u2019scutcheon\u2014an attitude which Jane and Peripatetica\nfind both soothing and refreshing, and they affect a large familiarity\nand possessiveness with the Volcano, which the Poles bear with polite\nand grateful respect; the more so, no doubt, as the two seekers\npossess\u2014as Americans\u2014a novelty almost more startling and intense than\n\u00c6tna. The gentlemen from Cracow have never met Americans until now, and\nmake no attempt to disguise the exhilaration of so unwonted a\nspectacle\u2014confessing that in their turn they too have been speculating\nupon the racial identity of \u201cthe foreign ladies,\u201d whose nationality they\nwere unable to guess. They are consumed with an inexhaustible curiosity\nto get the \u201cnatives\u2019\u201d point of view, and exchange secret glances of\nsurprise and pleasure at the exhibition of human intelligence in a\npeople so remote from Cracow. When the necessary change of train\ndetaches them from their eager investigations Peripatetica is still\nfutilely engaged in her persistent endeavour to combat in the European\nmind its strange delusion as to the real relations of the sexes in her\nown land.\n\n... \u201cNo; the American man in no respect resembles the Sicilian donkey\n... no; he does not ordinarily spend his life toiling humbly under the\nintolerable loads laid upon him by his imperious mate.... No; he is not\na dull unintelligent drudge wholly unworthy of the radiant beings who\npermit him to surround them with an incredible luxury.... No; the\nAmerican woman is not his intellectual superior. In everything of real\npractical importance _he_ is immensely the superior.... No; he isn\u2019t\nthis.... No; he isn\u2019t that.... He isn\u2019t any one of the things the\nEuropean thinks he is and\u2014good bye!\u201d\n\nThe mountains all this while have been peaking up; mounting, climbing,\nrolling more wildly, and at last two of them soar splendidly, sweep up\nclose on to three thousand feet into the sky ... Castrogiovanni and\nCalascibetta, and the train drops Jane and Peripatetica at their feet.\n\nMemory has cast out, or has pushed into the background, the long weary\njolting up to the wild little wind-swept town; makes no record of the\nhotel or the fellow tourists; has jotted down a certain straight wild\nbeauty in the inhabitants, who have eagle-like Saracen profiles, but\ngrey Norman eyes. Has left well in the foreground a dark castle, and a\ncluster of half-ruined towers. All else of modern details she has\nrejected, except a great wash of blue, a vast vista of tumbling broken\nlandscape, huge and stern, for she has been busy with a picture of the\npast; building up an imagination of vanished gods moving about their\nmighty affairs, playing out Olympian dramas in this lofty land. Here is\nthe very centre of the God\u2019s-land, the \u201cumbilicus Sicili\u00e6,\u201d the Key of\nSicily, Enna \u201cthe inexpugnable,\u201d the strongest natural fortress in the\nworld, which no one ever took except by treachery; which the Saracens\nbesieged in vain for thirty-one years, and when they finally got it,\nthrough a treason, the Normans in their turn could not dislodge them\nuntil all Sicily had been theirs for a quarter of a century, and then\nonly through another betrayal. In the great slave war Eunus, the serf,\nheld it against the whole power of Rome for two years until he too was\nbetrayed.\n\nBroken and wild as is the land it is still cultivated; the olive still\nclimbs up to where the clouds come down, but where are the magnificent\nforests, the wonder and joy of antiquity? Where the brooks and streams\nand lakes, whose dropping waters sang all through the records of the\nelder world? Where are those fields so blessed by Demeter that they\noffered to the hands of men illimitable floods of golden grain? Where\nare the vines that wreathed the mountains\u2019 brows with green and purple\ngrapes, as if it had been the brow of Dionysius the wine god? Where,\ntoo, are the meadows so thick with flowers that for the richness of the\nperfume the hounds could not hold the scent of the game? Meadows where\nthe bees wantoned in such honeyed delight that the air vibrated with\ntheir murmuring as with the vibrating of multitudinous harp strings?...\n\nListen to the story, which, when it was told was only a prophecy and a\nwarning, but a warning never heeded.\n\nErysicthon cuts down the grove sacred to Demeter. A grove so thick \u201cthat\nan arrow could hardly pass through; its pines and fruit trees and tall\npoplars within, and the water like pale gold running through the\nconduits.\u201d One of the poplars receives the first stroke, and Demeter,\nhearing the ringing of the axe, appears, stern and awful, hooded and\nveiled, and carrying poppies in her hand. To the ravager of her groves\nshe threatens a divine curse of an everlasting thirst, of an insatiable,\nunsatisfied hunger, and the workmen, awed, depart, leaving the axes\nsticking in the trees, but Erysicthon drives them to their task again\nwith blows, and soon the grove is levelled, and the heat of the day\nenters where once all was sweet shade. Erysicthon laughs at the futile\ncurse of the goddess; he has had his will and nothing has happened. The\nwater still runs and he can slake his drought, but the water escapes as\nhe stoops for it, sinking into the earth before his eyes, leaving upon\nhis lips only choking dust. No one can safely ignore the warnings of the\ngods, and he wanders, whipped by intolerable longings, and dies\ndreadfully, raving of his own folly.\n\nNeither Greeks, Romans, Saracens, nor Norman heed this parable, told\nages and ages before the meaning of the loss of forests was understood.\nAll over the land the clothing of oaks, chestnuts, and pines was\nstripped from the hills, and slowly but surely the curse of Demeter has\nturned it into a place of thirst. To-day less than five per cent of the\nwhole island contains timber, and these high lands, these \u201cfields which\nin the days of the Greeks returned one hundred times the amount of seed\nsowed, now yield but seven-fold, and only one-ninth of all the land is\nproductive.\u201d This is the story of the ravaging of Enna, once the true\ngarden of Paradise, and now a rocky waste burned to the bone.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: \u201c\u00c6TNA, THE SALIENT FACT OF SICILY\u201d]\n\nAlways from the very earliest records the goddess of the harvest was\nworshipped in this place. Long before the coming of the Greeks the\nSiculians had here a shrine to Gaia, the Earth Mother, from whose brown\nbreast man sucked his life and food. And the Siculians had traditions of\nthe Sikels making pilgrimages to Enna to give thanks to a goddess\nrepresenting some principle of fertility, by whose power the earth was\nmade blessed to its children. Very vague and shadowy are the traditions\nof the worship of this Bread-giver. There are hints of a great cave with\na rude dark figure within, this idol having, curiously, a head roughly\nresembling the head of a horse, where the people timidly laid their\nofferings of the first fruits of their primitive culture. This figure is\nheard of later at Eleusis, to which the Greeks transpose the image and\nthe worship, but the myth, so sympathetic to the Greek nature, becomes\nrefined and spiritualized; takes on many new plays of thought and\ncolour, and when the great temple of Demeter is built here the story has\ncleared and defined itself, and is hung about with the garlands of a\nthousand gracious imaginings.\n\nOur Lady of Bread\u2014daughter herself of Zeus, the overarching sky\u2014has one\nchild, Persephone, the spirit of Spring, that dear vernal impulse which\nrejuvenates all the world and \u201cputs a spirit of life in everything\u201d;\nthat is forever sweetly renewing hope of happiness. Persephone\u2019s\nplaymates are the maiden goddesses, Pallas and Artemis, and also those\nlight spirits of the fields, the water and the air\u2014the nymphs, the\noreads, and the oceanides\u2014but she is not without duties and labours too,\nfor \u201cProserpina, filling the house soothingly with her low song, was\nworking a gift against the return of her mother, with labour all to be\nin vain. In it she marked out with her needle the houses of the gods and\nthe series of the elements, showing by what law nature, the parent of\nall, settled the strife of ancient times.... The lighter elements are\nborne aloft; the air grows bright with heat; the sea flows; the earth\nhangs in its place. And there were divers colours in it; she illuminated\nthe stars with gold, infused a purple shade into the water, and\nheightened the shore with gems of flowers; and under her skilful hand\nthe threads with their inwrought lustre swell up in counterfeit of the\nwaves; you might think the sea wind caused them to creep over the rocks\nand sands. She put in the fire zones, marking with a red ground the\nmidmost zone possessed by burning heat; on either side lay the two zones\nproper for human life, and at the extremes she drew the twin zones of\nnumbing cold, making her work dun and sad with the lines of perpetual\nfrost. She works in, too, the sacred places of Dis and the Manes so\nfatal to her. And an omen of her doom was not wanting, for as she\nworked, as if with foreknowledge of the future, her face became wet with\na sudden burst of tears. And now in the utmost border of the tissue she\nhad begun to wind in the wavy line of the Ocean that goes round about\nall, but the door sounds on its hinges, and she perceives the goddesses\ncoming; the unfinished work drops from her hands and a ruddy blush\nlights her clear and snow-white face.\u201d...\n\nLeaving her needle in the many-coloured web, she wanders down the\nmountain side to Lake Pergusa, then lying like a blue jewel in enamelled\nmeads, but ever since that tragic day dark and sulphurous, as with fumes\nof hell.\n\nThis is the story of the ravishment, as told in the great Homeric Hymn\nthat was sung in honour of the Mother of Corn.\n\n\u201cI begin the song of Demeter. The song of Demeter and her daughter\nPersephone, whom Aidoneus carried away as she played apart from her\nmother with the deep-bosomed daughters of the Ocean, gathering flowers\nin a meadow of soft grass\u2014roses and the crocus and the fair violets and\nflags and hyacinths, and above all the strange flower of the narcissus,\nwhich the Earth, favouring the desire of Aidoneus, brought forth for the\nfirst time to snare the footsteps of the flower-like girl. A hundred\nheads of blossom grew up from the roots of it, and the sky and the earth\nand the salt wave of the sea were glad at the scent thereof. She\nstretched forth her hands to take the flower; thereupon the earth opened\nand the King of the great nation of the Dead sprang out with his\nimmortal horses. He seized the unwilling girl, and bore her away weeping\non his golden chariot. She uttered a shrill cry, calling upon Zeus; but\nneither man nor god heard her voice, nor even the nymphs of the meadow\nwhere she played; except Hecate only, sitting as ever in her cave, half\nveiled with a shining veil, and thinking delicate thoughts, she, and the\nSun also, heard her.\n\n\u201cSo long as Persephone could still see the earth and the sky and the sea\nwith the great waves moving, and the beams of the sun, and still thought\nto see again her mother, and the race of the ever-living gods, so long\nhope soothed her in the midst of her grief. The peaks of the hills and\nthe depths of the sea echoed her cry. And the Mother heard it. A sharp\npain seized her at the heart; she plucked the veil from her hair, and\ncast down the blue hood from her shoulders, and fled forth like a bird,\nseeking her daughter over dry land and sea.\n\n\u201cNine days she wandered up and down upon the earth, having blazing\ntorches in her hands, and in her great sorrow she refused to taste of\nambrosia, or of the cup of the sweet nectar, nor washed her face. But\nwhen the tenth morning came Hecate met her, having a light in her hands.\nBut Hecate had heard the voice only, and had seen no one, and could not\ntell Demeter who had borne the girl away. And Demeter said not a word,\nbut fled away swiftly with Hecate, having the blazing torches in her\nhands, till they came to the Sun, the watchman of Gods and men; and the\ngoddess questioned him, and the Sun told her the whole story.\u201d...\n\nWhat a picture the Greek singer makes of the melancholy earth calling\nfor comfort to the moon! for Hecate was not Artemis, but a vaguer,\nvaster principle of the night; an impersonalized shadow of the Huntress,\nas Hertha was the shadow, formless and tremendous, of Demeter. Hecate\nwas a pale luminous force, \u201chalf veiled with a shining veil, and\nthinking delicate thoughts,\u201d and ten days later, having rounded to the\nfull, the bereaved mother meets her \u201cbearing a light in her hands,\u201d\nthough the night is nearing morning, and moon and earth turn together\ntoward the coming sun.\n\nThe Homeric Hymn tells much of the wandering and grieving mother; of her\ndisguises; of her nursing of the sick child Demophoon, whose own mother\nsnatched him back from the immortality which the goddess was ensuring by\npassing him through the fire\u2014as many a loving and timid mother since has\nheld her son back from the fires that confer immortality. The Hymn tells\nof her teaching of Triptolemus of the winged feet, instructing him in\nEleusinian mysteries\u2014\u201cthose mysteries which no tongue may speak. Only\nblessed is he whose eyes have seen them; his lot after death is not as\nthe lot of other men!\u201d\n\nBut Jane and Peripatetica loved more the story of the ending of her\nvigil, when Hermes descended into Hell in his chariot.\n\n\u201cAnd Persephone ascended into it, and Hermes took the reins in his hands\nand drove out through the infernal halls; and they two passed quickly\nover the ways of that long journey, neither the waters of the sea, nor\nof the rivers, and the deep ravines of the hills, nor the cliffs of the\nshore resisting them; till at last Hermes placed Persephone before the\ndoor of the temple where her mother was, who, seeing her, ran out\nquickly to meet her, like a M\u00e6nad coming down a mountain side dusky with\nwoods.\u201d\n\nSo these two saw Persephone come home; saw the spring return to the\nearth in the high places of the gods. Saw the land, even though no\nlonger a paradise, yet\u2014despite Erysicthon\u2019s foolish waste of the sacred\ntrees\u2014saw it \u201claden with leaves and flowers and the waving corn,\u201d and,\nhaving seen it, they passed on through Sicily satisfied.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n\n                           A CITY OF TEMPLES\n\n               \u201c\u2019Tis right for him\n                     To touch the threshold of the gods.\u201d\n\nTHEY were running swiftly through the dark. On either hand was a dim and\ngloomy land of bare, shrivelled peaks, grey cinder heaps, and sulphurous\nsmells. Intermittently visible by the strange subterranean glowings rose\nblack, glowering mountains in the background, and nearer at hand were\nshadowy shapes of men and asses bringing sulphur from the mines. Within,\nthe garlic-reeking tongue of a flickering gas-lamp vaguely illumined the\ndusk of the railway carriage.\n\n\u201cThis is Pluto\u2019s own realm,\u201d declared Jane, removing her nose from the\nwindow-pane, through which she had been endeavouring to peer into the\nouter gloom. \u201cIf it\u2019s not the very threshold of the infernal regions it\nought to be. Peripatetica, you might spare me a glimmer or two from your\nBaedeker. Were there no temples to Pluto here? These are surely the very\nsurroundings in which he should have been worshipped.\u201d\n\n\u201cA temple to Pluto?\u201d replied Peripatetica sleepily. \u201cWhere?... I never\nheard of one that I can remember; have you?\u201d\n\nJane suddenly realized that her recollections held no account of any\nspot where that dark King of the Under World had been honoured under the\nsun; it was another mystery of the past, to which there was no answer,\nthough Peripatetica gave up her nap in the effort to solve it\u2014why had\nPluto, supreme in the Under World as Zeus in the Upper one, beneath\nwhose sway all men born must come, remained so unhonoured among living\nmen?\n\nThe Greeks did believe in a future life; the spirit expiating or\nrewarded for deeds done in the flesh. Those were facts which men thought\nthey knew, which were an integral axis of their faith\u2014how so believing,\ndid they treat it thus unconcernedly, seeing things in such different\nproportions from ourselves? So much concern for the fulness of life in\nthe present, so little for the shadowy hereafter\u2014shrines and temples and\nsacrifices on every hillside to the Deities of Life, of Birth, and\nFertility; nothing for the God of Death.\n\nDeath and Life\u2014they touched as closely in ancient days as now, perhaps\nmore closely. The Greeks did not push away their dead to a dim, silent\noblivion. Near to the warm heart of life they were held in bright,\noft-invoked memory. In the busiest centres of life were placed the tombs\nof their dead; close to the theatre\u2014to the Forum\u2014wherever the living\nmost thronged the Road of Tombs was; one where all the busiest tide of\nlife flowed. Invocations and offerings and sweet ceremonies of\nremembrance were given to their dead more often than tears. And\nconstantly the living turned to the dear and honoured dead\u2014\u201cmuch\nfrequented\u201d was the Greek adjective which went oftenest with the tomb.\nBut the grim God of Death was apparently not for living man to make his\nspirit \u201csick and sorry\u201d by worshipping. It was Life\u2014glorious, glowing\nfulness of life to the uttermost\u2014that was important to the Greek; Life\nthat governed Death and made it either honoured and reposeful, or a\nstate of shadowy wanderings and endless regret.\n\nTo the modern mind, still tinged with medi\u00e6val morbidity, groping back\ninto the clear serenity of those golden days, it seemed to be life,\nlife, only life that preoccupied the Greeks, and yet, they too had\nhearts to feel Death\u2019s sting even as we\u2014to be aware of the underlying\nsadness of all the joy upon this rolling world. They too could deeply\nfeel the inexorable mingling of delight and pain, of life and loss....\n\nTheir great Earth Mother, blond and sunny as her golden grain, the deity\nof all fruitfulness and beneficent increase, is also _Ceres Deserta_\u2014the\nMater Dolorosa\u2014shrouded in the dark blue robe of all earth\u2019s shadows,\nhaggard with tears of wasting desolation\u2014\u201cthe type of divine sorrow,\u201d as\nwell as of joyous fruition ... her emblem the blood-red poppy, symbol in\nits drowsy juices, of sleep and death, as in its multitudinous seeds the\nsymbol of life and resurrection.\n\nAnd her daughter, like herself the most specially and intimately beloved\nby the Greeks among all their deities, had even more the dual\nquality\u2014Goddess of Spring, of resurrection, and rejuvenescence, and yet\ntoo, Queen of the dark Under World. She was the impulse of all spring\u2019s\nteeming life, and yet herself \u201ccompact of sleep and death and narcotic\nflowers bearing always in the swallowed pomegranate seeds the secret of\nultimate decay, of return to the grave.\u201d\n\nKor\u00e8, the maiden, the incarnation of all fresh and sweet and innocent\njoyousness, was also symbol of its evanescence\u2014\u201ca helpless plucked\nflower in the arms of Aidoneus,\u201d so that upon the sarcophagi of women\nwho had died in early youth the Greeks were wont to carve Pluto\u2019s\nstealing of Persephone, picturing the Divine Maiden with the likeness of\nthe dear dead one\u2019s face.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nDark, blurred shapes in Greek-like drapery of many-folded cape and\nshawl, appeared now and then in shifting crowds upon station platforms,\nlike the uneasy shades of Pluto\u2019s kingdom seeking escape.\n\nTo Peripatetica and Jane it began to seem as if their quest for the Lost\nSpring had taken them into the Under World of her imprisonment to behold\nwith thrills of half pity, half awe, in \u201cthat dim land where all things\nare forgotten\u201d her transformation into the mate of gloomy Dis, no longer\nbright, golden-haired girl-flower, but veiled _Proserpina Desp\u0153na_, the\nQueen of the Dead, where now:\n\n                \u201cPale, beyond porch and portal,\n                   Crowned with calm leaves, she stands,\n                 Who gathers all things mortal\n                   With cold immortal hands;\n\n                 She waits for each and other,\n                   She waits for all men born,\n                 Forgets the Earth, her mother,\n                   The life of fruits and corn.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nEscaping at last from the sulphur fumes, the strange glares and the\nHades visions, they found themselves standing under a clear star-strewn\nsky with a gentle air blowing in their faces. In an open carriage they\nwere whirled off, they knew not where, into the night, stars bright\noverhead and lights like fallen stars on a high hill to the right, the\nsoft wind of the darkness breathing of spring and green growing things.\n\nSuddenly there was the welcoming door of the Hotel des Temples, and then\nlittle white bedrooms and quick oblivion.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a pounding on Jane\u2019s door.\n\n\u201cHurry, you sluggard!\u201d says Peripatetica\u2019s voice. \u201cCome out and see what\na delicious place this is!\u201d and she enters radiant. \u201cThere\u2019s no mistake\nabout spring this time; everything is riotous with it\u2014and it\u2019s real\ncountry. Not mere theatrical scenery like Taormina, nor mere bones and\nstones like Syracuse, but real dear Arcadian country, with trees,\nactually _trees_! and there are great golden temples rising out of the\ntrees, with the sea and the hills behind, and nothing but sweet peaceful\nmeadows and orchards all around us\u2014I want to stay here forever.\u201d\n\nWhen Jane too stood upon the hotel terrace drinking in all the fairness\nof the outlook which Peripatetica silently but proudly displayed, in the\nproprietorship of earlier rising, she was quite ready to echo the wish.\nBillowy orchards of almonds in tenderest leafage, hoary groves of\nolives, the silver and white of wind-stirred bean-fields in blossom,\nvivid emerald of young wheat, crimson meadows of lupine rolling down to\na peacock sea glittering to a wide horizon.\n\nSoft mountains, not too high; old stone pines black against the azure\nsky; brown walls of convents, and bell towers emerging from the dark\ngreen of oranges and pines; and rising out of all this Arcadian\nsweetness of meadow and grove the tawny columns of the Temples.\n\n\u201cOh, let\u2019s get to them at once!\u201d cried Jane, and guideless and impatient\nthey went, as the bird flies, straight across the intervening country,\ntowards those beckoning golden pillars. Plunging down the hillside in\nfront, garden-orchard, ploughed field, dusty highroad\u2014all were merely a\nroad between them and those temples of Lost Gods still rising\nunsubmerged above the tree tops. Little boys digging in the fields shyly\noffered them fossil shells and the bits of pottery their shovels had\nturned up, old women at garden gates called invitations to come in and\npick oranges or inspect the ruins of \u201cCasa Greco\u2019s,\u201d but they held\nstraight on through olive groves seemingly old as the temples\nthemselves, through velvety young wheat and flowery meadows. The\ndistance was greater than had appeared from above. Sometimes the gleam\nof columns through the green beckoned illusively to impossible short\ncuts, as when a tempting grass path seemed to run straight to the feet\nof the nearest temple and instead led into a farmyard inhabited by\nfiercely barking dogs. A noise that called out the farm people to\nexplain as politely as if these were the first strangers who had ever\nmade the intrusive mistake, that an impassable wall made it impossible\nto reach the Temples through their property, and to detail a wee,\nstarry-eyed bronze faun in tattered blue rags to put them upon the\ncorrect but roundabout road.\n\nIn the glowing sun of the spring morning\u2014the old world renewing itself\nin blooming freshness all about\u2014songs of birds and petals of\nfruit-blossoms in the air, against the shimmering blue of sky and sea\nand the new green of the earth\u2019s breast, was upreared the saffron mass\nof Concordia\u2014shrine of a Peace twenty centuries old.\n\nIt looked its name, did Concord, standing with all its amber columns\nworn but perfect, in unbroken accord, still upholding architrave and\ntympanum.\n\nIntact in all but roof, on its platform of steep, worn steps it\nstands\u2014in the midst of fields and groves that were once a clanging stone\ncity, close beside the dusty highroad along which come the landau loads\nof hurried tourists\u2014with its calm still unbroken. It embodies the\npermanence of peace through all the evanescent life of the flowing\nyears. Unaltered through all the changes of time, its Doric columns\nrise, tranquil and fair, and hospitably it offers welcome to all who\ncome.\n\n[Illustration: \u201cTHE SAFFRON MASS OF CONCORDIA\u201d]\n\nAs of old one may climb its steps to worship and admire. The road winds\nto its very base, and it stands as free to all comers as to the sun and\nwind. It alone of all the glories of once magnificent Akragas remains in\nits original shape. Other shrines were greater, larger, more splendid in\ntheir day. The high house of Zeus, with its mammoth columns, was nearly\nthree times the height of Concord; it had an enclosure of three hundred\nand seventy-two feet to Concord\u2019s one hundred and thirty-eight, and must\nonce have looked scornfully on its little neighbour. Hercules, with his\nmarvels of sculpture and painting; Juno, with her statue-enriched\n\u201cthymele\u201d terrace extending her precincts around its out-door altar and\nher renowned picture by Zeuxis, for whose composite beauty the five\nloveliest girls of the city had been models, probably outranked simple\nConcord. No record of its holding venerated treasures of beauty has come\ndown from the days of its prime. Yet it alone has survived whole;\nemerging intact from the storms of war and nature, as if its own\ndistilled atmosphere of serenity has acted as a preservative against\nTime. Even the Middle Ages treated it gently. St. Gregory of the Turnips\ntook it for a shrine, and a gentle, serene saint he must have been; one\nable to dwell in the abode of Peace without feeling any desire to alter\nand rebuild, glad to look out of its open peristyle and watch his\nturnips in the sunny fields, wisely refraining from choking the pillars\ninto walls and plaster like poor Minerva\u2019s at Syracuse. Concordia\u2019s\ncella seemed to have been just a cosy fit for St. Gregory and he a\ncareful tenant, leaving only the two arched openings in its walls to\nmark his occupancy. And so the Temple is to-day the best preserved in\nexistence\u2014shorn of all its statues, stucco, and decoration, a little\nblurred and worn in outline, as if Time\u2019s maw, while refraining from\ncrushing, has yet mumbled it over gently.\n\nIt was apparently this completeness of preservation which had so\nenamoured Goethe that he dared to speak lightly of the stern majesty of\nthe temple of P\u00e6stum by comparison. Poseidon\u2019s great fane he thought as\ninferior to Concord\u2019s as a hero is inferior to a god.\n\n\u201cA god to a hero,\u201d quoted Jane with a resentful sniff. \u201cIt was just like\nthat pompous, stodgy old German to be carried away by mere preservation,\nand to prefer this sugary-slightly-melted-vanilla-caramel temple to that\nsolemn splendour of P\u00e6stum.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat an abominable simile you\u2019ve used for this lovely thing,\u201d scolded\nPeripatetica. \u201cYou\u2019re even worse than Goethe\u2014if possible.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t an abominable simile,\u201d protested Jane flippantly. \u201cIt _is_\nexactly the colour of a good vanilla caramel, and moreover it looks like\none licked all over by some giant tongue.\u201d\n\nHaving said an outrageous thing she pretended to defend it and believe\nit, but her heart smote her for irreverence as she and Peripatetica\nstrolled about the peristyle, gazing through the columns at the pictures\ntheir tawny flutings framed, and she grudgingly admitted that the\nsituation at least was divine.\n\nPerched on the crest of a sheer-dropping rocky cliff, Concordia faces\nthe west. To the south dark blue sea, and to the north billowy woods and\nfields in all the gamut of spring greens surge up to the apricot-tinted\ntown, which is the last shrunken remnant of old Akragas. Beneath the\ncliff green meadows stretch smooth to the African Sea. Eastwards, on a\nneighbouring knoll, Juno lifts her exquisite columns against the blue,\nand softly moulded hills melt into the distant ruggedness of\nCastrogiovanni\u2019s mountains. To the north lie fields and groves and\norchards, with dottings of farmhouse and church, up to the top of the\nRupe Athena, where, with her usual passion for conspicuousness, high\nAthena had once kept watch in her Temple, that now, according to the so\nfrequent fate of the mighty, is fallen into nothingness.\n\nHow worshipful his blithe gods of Sun and Abundance must have here\nappeared to the Greek; how good the world spread out for him in all its\nfairness; the citadel-crowned hill protecting his rich city, the shining\nsea carrying his commerce; the mountains of the bounteous Earth Mother\u2019s\nhome encircling the rolling groves and meadowland she blessed so\nfruitfully, and the triumphs of his own handiwork in the marvellous\ntemples and buildings of this splendid Akragas, \u201cfairest of mortal\ncities,\u201d as even the poets of Greece admitted.\n\nThe Plutonian shore of the previous night seemed very far away, now that\nPersephone was back in her own \u201cbelonging\u201d country again; the dark\nterrors of Hades had grown dim. Naturally the gods of Light and Day were\nthe only ones worshipped; they were supreme for life\u2014and after\u2014ah well!\n\u201cthe dark Fate which lay behind gods and men could not be propitiated by\nany rites, and must be encountered manfully as one meets the\ninevitable.\u201d...\n\n\u201cOf course there were no temples to Pluto, they wouldn\u2019t have known how\nto build one,\u201d said Peripatetica, looking from the enclosed cella to the\nsunlit peristyle outside. \u201cI never quite realized before the cheerful,\nself-possessed publicity of Greek worship; their temples standing always\nin these open elevated sites; open themselves to the light and\nair\u2014majestically simple. There is just the little enclosure to shelter\nthe statue of the god, and all the rest is clear openness, where the\nworshippers stood under glowing sun and sky, or looking out into it.\nIt\u2019s essentially an out-of-door building, the Greek Temple, spreading\nits beauty to light and air like a flower. Pluto would have had to\nevolve a type of his own, he never could have fitted into this calm\ncheerfulness.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d pondered Jane, \u201cthere is no room for superstitious terrors in the\nsunshine. I wonder does superstition turn naturally to caves and gloom,\nor do dark holes in the ground breed it? There is all the space of light\nand darkness between the sermon preached on the Mount, all beatitudes\nand tenderness, and the theology of the monks in the Middle Ages after\nthe Christians had made their churches in such catacombs as those of\nSyracuse.\u201d...\n\nAll Girgenti\u2019s temples are wrought from this native chrome-yellow tufa;\na sort of solidified sea-beach\u2014compacted sand, pebbles, and fossil\nshells. The original snow-white stucco, made of marble dust, has flaked\naway, save here and there in some protected niche. The dry sirocco gnaws\ninto the soft sandstone, and on the seaside of the columns show the long\ndeep scorings of its viewless teeth, sunk in places nearly half through\nthe huge diameter of the pillars.\n\nPeripatetica was in two minds as to whether the temples had not been\neven more lovely in their original virgin whiteness. \u201cAfter all,\u201d she\nmourned, \u201cthey are but a frame without the pictures; for the Greek\ntemple existed primarily to be a setting for its sculpture. Sculpture\nwas an essential part of its planning, not a mere decoration, and\nwithout it pediment, metopes, frieze, and pedestals are meaningless\nforms. That sculpture that stood and walked on the pediments and gave\nlife to the frieze; that animated the exterior, or sat calm and strong\nin the central shrine. To a Greek even this wonderfully preserved\nConcordia, bare of sculpture, would seem but a melancholy skeleton of a\nonce fair shrine.\u201d\n\nBut Jane was obstinately sure that nothing could be better than the\nnatural harmonies of the naked stone.\n\n\u201cNothing,\u201d she insisted with bland firmness, \u201cnot even your blind\nconviction that everything the Greeks did was exactly right\u2014just because\nthey did it\u2014will persuade me that they improved these temples by any\nmarble plaster. Come over here and look at the warm red gold of those\nsoaring fluted stems against the vivid blue! It is as if the splendour\nof sunset glowed upon them all day long. As if they had soaked in so\nmuch sun through all the bright centuries that now even the very stones\ngave it out again.\u201d\n\nPeripatetica had been half inclined to believe this herself at first,\nbut of course Jane\u2019s opposition clinched her wavering suffrages for the\nstucco.\n\n\u201cYou lack in imagination,\u201d she announced loftily. \u201cYou see only what you\nsee. Try to realize what the marble background meant to the\nsaffron-robed, flower-garlanded priests, and to the worshippers massed\non the steps and in the peristyles in delicate-tinted chiton and\nchamyle\u2014crocus, daffodil, violet-rose, ivory\u2014like a living flower wreath\nfrom out the spring meadows encircling the white temple\u2019s base\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, do stop trying to be Pater-esque!\u201d scoffed Jane, \u201cand let\u2019s go to\nluncheon. That sounds too much like sublimated guide-book, and the hotel\nlooks miles away to my unimaginative eye.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cWe won\u2019t, will we?\u201d said Jane half an hour later, with her irreverent\nmouth full.\n\nPeripatetica knew what she meant.\n\n\u201cGo on to-morrow? No, indeed. We\u2019ll telegraph Cook to send our mail here\nuntil further notice\u2014the idea of being told there was nothing to linger\nfor at Girgenti! It\u2019s the nicest place we\u2019ve yet found in Sicily.\u201d\n\nThe room was full of the munching of tourists. From the talk in German,\nEnglish, and French, could be gathered they had one and all \u201cdone\u201d the\nfive temples, the tombs, and San Niccola that morning\u2014would \u201ctake in\u201d\nthe town sights that afternoon and pass on that evening or the next\nmorning. The two Seekers, to whom the morning had not been long enough\nin which to dream and dispute over one temple, felt their heads growing\ndizzy at the rush with which the tourist stream flowed along its\nCook-dug channels, and they gladly resolved to leave the current and\nclimb up high and dry on the bank of this inviting little backwater.\n\nThe announcement of their intention to stay on seemed to give the polite\nyoung proprietor of the hotel a strange shock. He offered better rooms\nlooking on the terrace, and _pension_ rates if they stayed more than\nthree days, instead of the usual week for which that reduction is\ncommonly made. A flutter of excitement at their behaviour passed at once\nthrough all the personnel of the hotel.\n\nFirst came the concierge. \u201cYou are really not leaving to-morrow morning,\nladies? For what day do you wish me to get your tickets stamped?\u201d He was\nstartledly incredulous when told that the day was still too far in the\nfuture for a date to be fixed. The porter came to ask at what time he\nwas to carry out their luggage in the morning\u2014the head waiter to know\nfor which train they wished to be called. The stolid chambermaid\u2019s mouth\nfell open in surprise when asked to move their things to other rooms.\nThe two-foot-high Buttons shifted about chairs four times his own size\nin the lobby to get a chance to gaze satisfactorily at such peculiar\nladies, and by tea-time the German waiters were staring as they carried\nabout tea-trays, and pointing out to one another the strangely behaving\ntwo who were not leaving the next day!\n\nThe pretty little hotel was like a railway restaurant. Successive sets\nof hurried tourists appeared, made a one-meal or a one-night stop, and\nrushed on, leaving their places to others. In a week\u2019s time so many sets\nhad come and gone that Peripatetica and Jane began to take on the air of\npre-historic aborigines; as if they had been sitting on their sunny bank\nwatching all the invading hordes of nations since the Carthagenians made\ntheir first raid.\n\nBy way of emphasizing the superior intelligence of their own methods\nthey savoured slowly and lingeringly Girgenti\u2019s endless charms. Loafing\nplacidly on the flowery terrace for an hour after breakfast to enjoy the\ndistant view of the golden temples, or to watch the patient labours of\nancient brown Orlando and his ancient grey ass Carlo, who spent all\ntheir waking hours in climbing down, down the precipitous road to the\nFonte dei Greci with empty water-barrels, and toilsomely bringing them\nup full and dripping to be emptied into the terrace well with its lovely\ncarved well head. Or they retired to the niche below the terrace stairs\nunder the feathery pepper tree, and sat amid a blaze of poppies and\nmauve to write letters, punctuated by frequent pauses to look across the\nolive orchards and young wheat fields to the wide blue fields of the\nsea. And every day they strolled away through the orchard footpaths\ntowards the temples, which were ever their goal, though they might be\nhours in reaching that goal because of being led away by adventures on\nthe road.\n\nIt was by way of this footpath that they first fell into the hands of\nFortunato. They were forever falling into some one\u2019s hands and finding\nthe results agreeable, for they kept their minds open to suggestion and\nabjured all hard and fast lines of intention, being wise enough to\nrealize that what is known as \u201ca good traveller\u201d usually misses all the\ngood of travel by the cut-and-driedness of his aims.\n\nFortunato was sure that he could \u201cspika da Englishy,\u201d though what led\nhim to suppose so, other than a large command of illuminative gesture,\nnever became clear. Some half-dozen words\u2014adorned with superfluous\nvowels to a point of unrecognizability\u2014he did possess; the rest was\nSicilian, sympathy, and vivid intelligence, which sufficed to make him\nthe perfectly delightful guide he explained himself to be. His age he\ndeclared to be fourteen, he looked all of ten, but his knowledge of the\nworld, of life, of history, and of the graces of conversation could\nhardly have been acquired by any one less than forty. Within twenty\nminutes he had made them free of such short and simple annals of his\ncareer as he judged to be suited to their limited forestieri minds,\nhaving first firmly assumed the burden of all their small\nimpedimenta\u2014jackets, kodaks, and parasols. He was one of fifteen, he\nexplained, and also the main staff of his parents\u2019 declining years; the\nsix staffs younger than himself being somewhat too short for that filial\noffice. The other eight had been removed from this service by the\ncombined ravages of marriage, the army, and emigration. When time and\nthe growth of his juniors enabled him to lay down his absorbing duties\nhe had the intention of joining in Nuova Yorka a distinguished barber,\nwho enjoyed the privilege of being his elder brother. Nuova Yorka, he\nhad been given to understand by this brother, boasted no such mountains\nas these of Girgenti, but its streets were filled for months with hills\nof ice and snow, and this information Peripatetica and Jane were\nregretfully obliged to confirm.\n\nNo matter! even such rigours could not check his ambition to \u201cbarb,\u201d and\nas his brother had explained how necessary it was that he should be\ncomplete master of Englishy before landing in Nuova Yorka if he hoped to\nescape being \u201cplucked\u201d (great business of illuminating gestures of\nrapacity) he employed in guiding Americans such brief hours as he could\nsnatch from school.\n\nThey discovered later that Fortunato snatched from school just seven\nentire days every week.\n\nIt had been the intention of the two to spend the morning among the\ngigantic ruins of the temple of Zeus, and yet when Fortunato put\npressure upon their ever flexible impulses at the gate of the strange\nold Panitteri garden, they found themselves instead under the walls of\nthe church of San Niccola, where the gillyflowers and wild mignonette\nrioted from every crevice. Meekly they climbed a great stone terrace\nadorned with crumbling statues and Corinthian entablatures. Meekly they\nexamined the great baths, and delighted in the shining panorama of sea\nand plain and hill, with golden Concordia seen in its most lovely aspect\nbetween two gigantic stone pines.\n\nStill sternly shepherded by the small guide they climbed down again to\nmake a closer acquaintance with the Oratory of Phalaris. Phalaris of the\ninfamous legend of the brazen bull, into whose heated body were cast the\nenemies of the ancient Tyrant of Akragas, because that humorous\ngentleman\u2019s fancy was highly diverted by the similarity of their\nmoanings, as they slowly roasted, to the lowing of kine. It is said that\nhe fretted a good deal because nobody else appeared to think the thing\nas good a joke as it seemed to him, but then taste in jests _will_\ndiffer, unfortunately. The Carthagenians when they came over and\nconquered Sicily were quite delighted with the ingenious toy, and\ncarried it off triumphantly to Africa. They were finished artists in\ntorture themselves, and appreciated a valuable new idea. Scipio found\nthe bull in Carthage, when he made a final end of that city, and he\nreturned it to Akragas, but appetite for really poignant fun appears to\nhave died out by that time, and Fortunato, whom they consulted, seemed\nto think it was probably eventually broken up for the purpose of\nmanufacturing braziers, or possibly warming-pans.\n\nMemory of the Bull almost obscured the fact that the Oratory was a\nbeautiful Greek chapel, such as was used to hold some statue of a god,\nand the memorials of ancestors, and served for private daily devotions\nwithout need of a priest. The Normans had the same habit of private\nfamily chapels, so the Oratory had served them in turn, being pierced by\na Norman window and the square-headed entrance door fitted with an arch.\n\nHalf a dozen races and centuries had each had a hand in the Church and\nConvent of San Niccola too, apparently. It was built from stones filched\nfrom that vast ruin of the Temple of Zeus they were on their roundabout\nway to see, and which has always been an exhaustless quarry for\nGirgenti. So late as in the last century the huge stones that formed the\nPorto Empedocle, a long mole from which the sulphur is shipped, were\nstolen from poor Zeus. Doors, windows, roofs, arches, had been added or\nchanged in San Niccola, just as each generation needed, and each in the\ntaste of the period. The holy-water stoup at the entrance, for example,\nwas an enormous marble hand, taken from one of the temples. For the\nGreeks too had fonts of holy water, consecrated by plunging into it a\nburning torch from the altar, and as the worshippers entered they were\nasperged with a branch of laurel.\n\nThe poor Saint was not in flourishing circumstances in these later days,\nit would seem, judging by the bareness of his sanctuary, and the torn\ncotton lace upon the altars, and yet he was an industrious healer, if\none might reason from the votives that hung about his picture. A few\nwere wrought in silver, but more in wax, or carved and painted wood,\nreproducing with hideous fidelity the swollen limbs, the cancerous\nbreasts, the goitered throats, the injured eyes, the carbuncles and\nabcesses he had healed through his miraculous intervention. Indeed, he\nwas a general jobber in miracles, for the na\u00efve, rude little paintings\non the wall showed a spirited donkey running away with a painted cart,\nthe terrified occupant frantically making signals of distress to San\nNiccola in heaven, who was preparing promptly to check the raging ass.\nOr he was drawing a chrome-yellow petitioner from a cobalt sea, or\nturning a Mafia dagger aside, or finding a lost child in the mountains.\nHe certainly \u201cstudied to please,\u201d and it did seem a pity he should be\nhoused in so bare and poverty-stricken a shrine. Many less active saints\nlived amid welters of gilding and luxury.\n\nIn spite of Fortunato dragging them aside later to see a little \u201cCasa\nGreco,\u201d where they could trace delicate tesselated pavements and the\nbases of the columns of the atrium amid the grass, they still succeeded\nin arriving that same afternoon at their original goal.\n\nOnly the temple of Diana at Ephesus was larger than this great shrine to\nthe spirit of the overarching sky, and even yet, though moles and\nchurches and villas have been wrought from its remains, the gigantic\nruin daunts the imagination with its colossal fragments, its huge tumble\nof stone, its fallen mountains of masonry. Each triglyph alone weighed\ntwelve tons, and the enormous columns around the whole length of its\nthree hundred and seventy-two feet were more than sixty feet high.\nTheron, the benevolent despot of Akragas, built it with the labours of\nhis Carthagenian captives, and no doubt a memory of their frightful\ntoilings in the Sicilian noons inspired the Carthagenians, when they\ncaptured the city, to their fury of destruction against the fane they\nthemselves had wrought. It would seem as if only some convulsion of\nnature could have brought down that prodigious construction, but still\nvisible upon the bases of the fallen pillars are the cuts made by the\nPunic conquerors, sufficient to disturb the equilibrium of even these\nmonster columns. When their rage had at last expended itself nothing of\nall that incredible mass of masonry remained standing save three of the\nenormous Telamone\u2014the male caryatids\u2014that had supported the entablature.\nAnd so firmly were these built that they stood there for fifteen\ncenturies more before time and a quaking of the earth at last brought\nthem down.\n\nNow the last of these lies in the centre of the ruin, perhaps the most\nimpressive figure wrought by man\u2019s hands, so like does it seem\u2014blurred,\nvague, tremendous\u2014to some effort to symbolize in stone the whole human\nrace\u2014the very frame of the world itself. Shoulder and breast an upheaved\nmountain range, down which the mighty muscles pour like leaping rivers\nto the plain of the enormous loins and thighs. Rough-hewn locks cluster\nabout the frowning brows, as a gnarled forest grips a cliff\u2019s edge, from\nbeneath which stare darkly the caverned eyes. Primeval, prehistoric in\nform, overrun by gnawing lichens, smeared by lapse of time to a mere\nvast adumbration of the human form.\n\nThis temple had been the supreme effort of Akragas, the richest and most\nbeautiful city the Greeks ever built. The stories of its wealth, of its\nluxury, of its gardens, palaces, theatres, baths, its gaieties, and its\npomps, sound like a description of Rome under the Empire, and would be\nincredible if such ruins as this did not exist to attest to the facts.\n\nFar more characteristic of the Greek were those twin temples of Castor\nand Pollux\n\n                   \u2014\u201cThese be the great Twin Brethren\n                     To whom the Dorians pray\u201d\u2014\n\nto which Fortunato turned their steps as a refreshing counteraction of\nthe stern immensities of Zeus. Light, delicate, gracious fragments they\nwere, lifting themselves airily from a sea of flowers on the edge of the\nravine-like Piscina, once the reservoir for the city\u2019s water, but now\nfull of lemon orchards, and fringed by immense dark carouba trees....\n\nAnother day, conducted by Fortunato always, they pilgrimed to the temple\nof Hercules, oldest and most archaic of them all, containing still in\nthe cella remains of the pedestal on which stood that famous bronze\nstatue of the muscular hero and demigod. The statue which that\nunscrupulous collector, Verres, tried to remove and thereby provoked a\nriot in the city. In this temple too had hung Zeuxis\u2019 renowned painting\nof Hercules\u2019 mother, Alcmena.\n\nIt was on still another day that Fortunato led through olive groves and\nbowery lanes to the temple of Juno Lacina, beguiling the way with light\nsongs\u2014some of them distinctly light\u2014and scintillating conversation upon\nall matters in the heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters\nunder the earth. He mimicked deliciously the characteristics of English,\nFrench, German, and American tourists, differentiating their national\npeculiarities with delicate acuity. He made no effort to disguise that\nhe had pondered much upon the sexes, and opined, with a shrug, that\nthere was a hopeless and lifelong irreconcilability in their two points\nof view. Marriage, he frankly conceded to be a necessity, but considered\nit a lamentable one. Of course one must come to it soon or late, but,\nfor a man, how sad a fate! Then he broke off to sing of undying passion,\nand interrupted himself to ask if the donkeys in Nuova Yorka were as\nquick and strong as those of Sicily; he supposed the streets must be\ncrowded with them, where the needs of commerce were so great.\n\nEventually he brought them out upon the lovely eminence of the temple of\nthe Mother of Heaven\u2014Juno Lacina, special deity of mothers, which crowns\nthe edge of a sheer cliff of orange-yellow tufa four hundred feet above\nthe sea. The sea had washed close under the cliff when the temple was\nfirst built, but now at its foot the alluvial plains stretch level and\nrich, bearing orchards and meadows and vineyards more fertile than any\nold Akragas knew, though this very shrine was built from the proceeds of\nexportation of oil to Carthage.\n\nEarthquakes had shaken down more than half the tall, slim columns.\nSirocco has bitten deep into those still standing, and into the fallen\nfragments which strew the landward slope; fragments lying among gnarled\nolives, seemingly as wind-eaten and ancient as themselves. Among these\nfluted fragments grew wild pansies and crimson lupins, from which little\nFortunato gathered nosegays, as he shrilled, in his boyish falsetto,\nsongs of love and sorrow\u2014or sat and kicked his heels upon the margin of\nan old bottle-shaped cistern. Tourists whirled up dustily for a cursory\ninspection\u2014Baedeker in hand\u2014and whirled as quickly away, bent on getting\nthrough the sights and passing on; but still Peripatetica and Jane\nlingered and dreamed among the ruins until Fortunato, visibly bored,\nsuggested a short cut back to the hotel. It led them by fields of lupin,\nspread like crimson velvet mantles on the hillside, where the contadini\ncut the glowing crop, heaping it upon asses until they seemed but a\nmoving mass of blossom trotting home on brown legs. Goats, Fortunato\nvolunteered, detested\u2014for some curious goatish reason he could not\nexplain\u2014this picturesque food, but donkeys! ah, to donkeys it was\u2014in a\nburst of superlative explanation\u2014\u201cthe donkey macaroni.\u201d\n\nThis short cut led, too\u2014apparently to Fortunato\u2019s surprise and\ndismay\u2014directly through a walled farmyard surrounding a frowning,\nhalf-ruined casa, nail-studded of door and barred of window, and with an\nair of ancient and secretive menace. It was the sort of place travellers\nin such books as \u201cThe Mysteries of Udolpho\u201d used to come upon at\nnightfall, far from any other habitation, with a thunderstorm about to\nbreak among the mountains, and the leader of their four-horsed\ntravelling carriage hopelessly lame, so that the delicate and shrinking\nheroine must, willy nilly, beg for a night\u2019s accommodation and the surly\ninhabitant\u2019s sinister hospitality. Curiously enough the dwellers in this\ncasa were, it seemed, of the exact Udolpho variety. Ringing the\ncorrectly rusty bell, and battering upon the massive gate with their\nparasol handles aroused a storm of deep-mouthed baying of dogs within,\nand a fierce brown face finally appeared at a small wooden shutter to\ndemand the cause of the intrusion. Fortunato\u2019s heart and legs plainly\nturned to water at the sight of this person, but realizing that he had\ngot Jane and Peripatetica into a hole and must get them out, he wheedled\nin such honeyed and persuasive Sicilian, that at last, and reluctantly,\nthe heavy portal\n\n                  \u201cGround its teeth to let them pass,\u201d\n\nthe furious dogs having first been chained. Very arid and ruined and\npoor this jealously guarded dwelling seemed. Nothing was visible the\nprotection of which required those four big wolf-like dogs that shrieked\nand bounded and tore at their chains as the intruders passed; nor that\nthe lean fierce man and his leaner and fiercer wife and children should\naccompany them like a jailer\u2019s guard to the exit. Fortunately this\nnether door was unbarred before the lean man demanded money for having\npermitted them to cross his land, and having a sense of Fortunato\u2019s\nimploring eyes upon them they made the gift a lire instead of a copper,\nand pushing through the door fled as for their lives.\n\n\u201cSo there really was an Italy like the Italy of the romantic Georgian\nnovel!\u201d said Jane wonderingly, as soon as she could catch breath.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s only another proof,\u201d gasped Peripatetica, \u201cthat travellers really\ndo tell the truth. It\u2019s the ignorant stay-at-homes who can\u2019t believe\nanything they haven\u2019t seen themselves. Fortunato,\u201d she demanded sternly,\n\u201cwho are those people, and why do they behave so absurdly? What are they\nconcealing?\u201d\n\nBut no explanation was to be had from that erstwhile fluent and\nexpansive _homme du monde_. He was frightened, he was vague, and simply\ndarkened counsel.\n\n\u201cI strongly suspect there is some Mafia business behind all this\u2014you\nnaughty boy!\u201d said Jane reprovingly, but Fortunato only pulled his cap\nover his eyes and slunk away without claiming his day\u2019s wage.\n\nBecause of this episode Fortunato found his offered services frigidly\ndispensed with the next day when he presented himself, Jane and\nPeripatetica setting out alone to explore the town of Girgenti. They\nwere quite sure they could themselves discover a short cut to the small\ncity which would be much more amusing than the dusty highway. It seemed\nbut a stone\u2019s throw distant, and surely by striking down this footpath,\nand rounding that rise....\n\nAn hour later, panting, dripping, and disgusted, they climbed into the\nrear of the town, having stumbled through the boulders of dry\nwater-courses, struggled over the huge old rugged pavements of ancient\nAkragas\u2014washed out of their concealment by winter torrents\u2014skirted\noutlying villas, and laboured up steps. The short cut had proved the\nlongest way round they could possibly have taken to the inadequate,\nshabby little museum they had set out to see in this modern successor of\nthe great Greek city. Girgenti, though one of the most thriving of\nSicilian towns, thanks to its sulphur mines, only manages to fill one\nsmall corner of the hill acropolis of that ancient city, which once\ncovered all the miles stretching between this and the temple-crowned\nridge of the southern boundary of cliffs. Akragas found space for nearly\na million of inhabitants where Girgenti nourishes but twenty thousand or\nso.\n\nIt was not till 580 B.C. that this Rhodian colony was founded, so\nAkragas was a century and a half younger than her great rival,\nSyracuse\u2014the offspring of Corinth. But that site on the steep river-girt\nhill, rising from such fertile country, proved so favourable to life and\ncommerce; trade with the opposite coast of Africa developed so richly,\nthat Akragas\u2019 rise to wealth and power was rapid, and she was soon\npressing Syracuse hard for the place of first city. Her temples were the\ngreatest of all Sicily, almost of all Greece. The city\u2019s magnificence\nbecame a bye-word, and accounts of the wealth and prodigality of its\nprivate citizens read like Arabian Nights imaginings. In the public\ngymnasium the people used golden strigils and gold vessels for oil. One\nrich Akragantine kept slaves in waiting all day at the door of his great\nmansion to invite every passing stranger in to feast and repose in his\nspacious courts, where there were baths and fresh garments always\nwaiting and slaves to entertain with dance and music; flower garlands\nand food and wine unlimited at his call. There was wine in the cellars\nby the reservoir full\u2014three hundred reservoirs of nine hundred gallons\neach\u2014hewn in the solid rock! This same genial Gelleas, when five hundred\nriders came at once from Gela, took them all in, and, it being the dead\nof winter, presented each man with new warm garments.\n\nThey delighted in pageants and splendid public festivals, these\nsplendour-loving Akragantines, of whom their philosopher Empedocles said\nthat they \u201cbuilt as if they were to live forever and feasted as if they\nwere to die on the morrow!\u201d We know they went out to welcome young\nExainetos, victor at the Olympian Games, with three hundred glittering\nchariots drawn all by milk-white horses; we know of the wonderful\nilluminations that lit all the city, from the monuments of the high\nAcropolis to the temple-crowned sea-rampart, when a noble bride passed\nat night to her new home, with flutings and chorus, and an escort of\neight hundred carriages and riders innumerable.\n\nNow the town seemed to be mostly a winding tangle of steep stairs\u2014with\nhouses for walls\u2014and these stairs were bestrewn with ancient remnants of\nvegetables that had outlived their usefulness, and a swarming population\nof children. Fazelli mentions an Agrigentian woman of his time who\nbrought forth seventy-three children at thirty-three births, and judging\nfrom the appearance of the streets that rabbit-like practice still\nmaintains. Way could hardly be made through the swarm of juvenile pests,\nclamouring for pennies and offering themselves as guides, until a boy in\nslightly cleaner rags was chosen to show the way to the Cathedral. Once\ngiven an official position he furiously put his competitors to flight,\nand with goat-footed lightness flitted before up the ladder-like alleys,\nwhile the two panted after until it seemed as if they should be able\neasily to step off into the sky.\n\nA queer old Fourteenth Century campanile, with Norman ogives and Moorish\nbalconies, still gives character to the exterior of this\nthousand-foot-long Cathedral of San Gerlando perched aloft in the windy\nblue, but inside the Eighteenth Century had done its worst. Baroque\nrampant; colossal stucco mermaids and cupids, interspersed with gilded\nwhorls and scrolls as thick as shells upon the \u201cshell-work\u201d boxes of the\nseaside booths. A giant finger could flick out a dozen cupids anywhere\nwithout their ever being missed. Yet it stands upon the ruins of a\ntemple to Jove, and here for more than two thousand years have prayers\nand praise and incense gone up to the gods of the overarching blue that\nlooks so near, so that even stucco and gilding cannot render it\nirreverent or lessen its power to brood the children of earth beneath\nits wings.\n\n[Illustration: TEMPLES OF CASTOR AND POLLUX, GIRGENTI \u201cLIFTING\nTHEMSELVES AIRILY FROM A SEA OF FLOWERS\u201d] Even so it seemed to-day, for\nmerrily and thickly as the throngs of naked little stucco cupids chased\neach other on the walls, infants of flesh and blood in gay rags and\nheavy hob-nailed shoes swarmed over the marble floor. As if it were a\nkindergarten small boys played games of tag around the columns, small\ngirls trotted about more demurely, or flocked like rows of perching\nsparrows around the numerous altars. The church resounded with the hum\nof their voices and the patter of their feet; yet the old women at\nprayer continued their devotions, quite undisturbed, and no passing\npriest or sacristan did more than shake a gentle finger at some\nespecially boisterous youngster.\n\nThe sacristy holds the jewel of the Cathedral, a ravished jewel which\ndoes not belong at all in this ecclesiastical setting\u2014the lovely Greek\nsarcophagus portraying the passionate story of Hippolytus and Ph\u00e6dra.\nThis is the one remnant now left to Akragas out of all her treasures of\nGreek art. Found in the temple of Concord, where the gentle St. Gregory\nhad probably cherished it, the Girgentians offered it to their\nCathedral, and in that most tolerant of churches it served for long as\nthe High Altar until influx of the outer world made some sense of its\nincongruity felt even here. At one end of the tomb Ph\u00e6dra swoons\namourously among her maidens, their delicate little round child-like\nfaces and soft-draped forms melting into the background in exquisite low\nrelief. Two of a more stately beauty hold up the Queen\u2019s limp arms and\nsupport her as she confesses to her old nurse the secret passion\nconsuming her for that god-like boy, son of her own husband, whom with\nall her fiery blood she had once hated as illegitimate rival to her own\nchildren, but now had come to find so dear that she \u201cloved the very\ntouch of his fleecy coat\u201d\u2014that simple grey-and-white homespun his Amazon\nmother\u2019s loving fingers had woven. In high bold relief of interlacing\ntrees Hippolytus on the other side hunts as joyously as his patroness\nArtemis herself. Opposite, arrested among his dogs and companions, he\nstands in the clear purity of his young beauty, like \u201cthe water from the\nbrook or the wild flowers of the morning, or the beams of the morning\nstar turned to human flesh,\u201d turning away his head from the bent\nshrunken form of the old nurse pleading her shameful embassy. And on the\nother end is carved the tragedy of his death, the revenge of Aphrodite\nin anger at his obduracy against herself and her votary Ph\u00e6dra. \u201cThrough\nall the perils of darkness he had guided the chariot safely along the\ncurved shore; the dawn was come, and a little breeze astir as the grey\nlevel spaces parted delicately into white and blue, when angry Aphrodite\nawoke from the deep betimes, rent the tranquil surface; a great wave\nleapt suddenly into the placid distance of the little shore, and was\nsurging here to the very necks of the plunging horses, a moment since\nenjoying so pleasantly with him the caress of the morning air, but now,\nwholly forgetful of their old affectionate habit of obedience, dragging\ntheir leader headlong over the rough pavements.\u201d\n\nLife seemed to breathe from the ivory-coloured marble. So vividly had\nits creator\u2019s hand carried out the conception of his brain that all the\nelapsed centuries since the vision of beauty had come to him were but as\ndrifting mists. Races, dynasties, powers, the very form of the earth\nitself, had altered, in the changing ages, but the grace of this little\ndream was still a living force.\n\n            \u201cOh Attic shape! Fair Attitude! with brede\n            Of marble men and maidens, over wrought\n            With forest branches and the trodden weed;\n            Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought\n            As doth eternity; Cold Pastoral!\n            When old age shall this generation waile\n            Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe\n            Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say\u2019st,\n            \u2018Beauty is truth, truth beauty,\u2019\u2014that is all\n            Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the steps of the Cathedral they witnessed a pretty sight.\n\n\u201cPeripatetica,\u201d announced Jane, \u201cI will not walk back to the hotel! It\nmay be only one mile from town, by the high road, but it was certainly\nfour by that short cut, and all this hill-climbing on slippery cobbles\nhas turned my knees to tissue paper. The boy must get us a cab\u2014how does\none say it? You tell him.\u201d\n\nThe boy hesitated at first at Peripatetica\u2019s request, but went off in\nobedience to the firm command of her tone.\n\nAccustomed to the ubiquitous, ever present and ever-pestering cab of\nTaormina and Syracuse, they expected his instant return. But the minutes\npassed and passed, and sitting on the parapet of the Cathedral steps\nthey had long opportunity to watch the world wag on. Apparently it was\n\u201cChildren\u2019s Day\u201d at the Cathedral, to which they were being mustered for\ncatechism. The swarms inside were now explained. Though it had seemed as\nif every child in town must already be there, they were still flocking\nin.\n\nMites of every size and sort between the ages of two and ten, small\nthings with no accompanying elders, came toiling up the steep streets\nCathedralwards, climbing the long flights of steps and boldly shoving\ninto the great doorway.\n\nBut the different manner of their coming! The unfaltering steady advance\nof the devout\u2014heads brushed, shirts and frocks clean, faces set and\nsolemn, no words or smiles for their companions, minds fixed on duty.\nLittle girls came in bands, tongues going like mill-hoppers even as they\nplunged within the sacred portal. Little boys enlivened their pilgrimage\nwith chasings and scuffles. Wee tots, timidly attached to the hand of\nsome patriarch of eight or nine; receiving therefrom protecting\nencouragement, or being ruthlessly dragged along at the top speed of\nchubby legs, regardless of their streaming tears. Loiterers arriving\nwith panting pink tongues, stockings half off and dragging, clothes all\nin disarray from some too delightful game on the way, plodding\nbreathless up the steps with worried rubbings on clothes of dirty little\npaws; still casting reluctant looks at the sunshine before they made the\nplunge behind the dark leather curtain. Reprobates, at the very last\nrefusing to enter at all; refusing to exchange the outer darkness of\nplay and sunshine for the inner light of wax tapers and the Catechism;\ngiving themselves boldly over to sin on the very Cathedral steps in\nmerry games of tag and loud jeerings and floutings of the old beggar men\nwho had given up their sunny posts at the doors in attempts to drive\nthese backsliders in. And the Reluctant, coming with slow and dragging\nfeet; heads turned back to all the mundane charms of the streets,\nlingering as long as possible before final hesitating entrance. For\nthese last it was very hard that, straight in their way, just in front\nof the Cathedral, a brother Girgentian, whose very tender age still\nrendered him immune from religious duties, was thrillingly disporting\nhimself with an iron barrel-hoop tied to a string, the leg of a chicken,\nand two most delightful mud-puddles. The care-free sportings and\ndelicious condition of dirt of this Blessed Being made their own soaped\nand brushed virtue most cruelly unsatisfying to many of the Pilgrims.\nBut there was the Infant Example, who, with crisp short skirts rustling\ncomplacency, and Mother\u2019s large Prayer-book clasped firmly to her bosom,\nclimbed the steps with eyes rolled raptly heavenwards and little black\npig-tails vibrating piety. And some little boys with both stockings\nfirmly gartered, jackets irreproachably buttoned, and a consciousness of\nall the answers to the Catechism safely bestowed in their sleek little\nheads, made their way in eagerly, wrapped in the \u201cshowing off\u201d\nexcitement. These little Lambs passed coldly and disapprovingly through\nthose who had chosen to be goats in the outer sunshine. But many small\newes sent glances of fearful admiration from soft dark eyes at those\nbold flouters of authority, and many proper youths looked sidewise at\nthem so longingly it was plain that only the fear of evil report taken\nhome by sisters in tow, kept them from joining the Abandoned Ones.\n\nPeripatetica, amused and interested, forgot the flight of time. Jane,\nsuddenly realizing it, cried:\n\n\u201cThat boy has been gone a half hour\u2014do you suppose you really told him\nto get a cab? I believe you must have said something wild and strange\nwhich the poor thing will spend the rest of his life questing while we\nturn into lichens on this parapet.\u201d\n\nPeripatetica, indignantly denying this slur on her Italian, insisted she\nhad clearly and correctly demanded a cab, and a cab only.\n\n\u201cI remember,\u201d she reflected, \u201cthe boy looked very troubled as he went\noff\u2014and now that I come to think of it, we haven\u2019t met a horse in this\ntown to-day. The Romans must have looted all the conveyances in their\nlast sack of the city; the only one left is now kept in the Museum in a\nglass case, and allowed out for no less a person than the German\nEmperor\u2014but I _won\u2019t_ walk back. I should suppose the boy had deserted\nus, except that he hasn\u2019t been paid.\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor little wretch! That was why he looked so troubled,\u201d exclaimed\nJane. \u201cHe knew the long and difficult search he was being sent upon, and\nperhaps thought it was a mere Barbarian ruse to shake him off, so that\nwe could get away without paying him.\u201d\n\nAs she spoke the sound of thudding hoofs echoed from the walls of the\nCathedral, and the white anxious face of their guide appeared on flying\nlegs. The reassurance that changed his expression into a beaming smile\nat sight of the two still there, made it clear that Jane\u2019s supposition\nhad been correct. He had evidently feared to find both his clients and\nthe silver rewards of his labours vanished. The relief with which he\ngasped out his explanation of having had to go all the way down into the\nvalley to the railway station to get a carriage which was now on its way\nwhile he had dashed ahead on foot up a short cut, was so pathetic they\ngave him double pay to console him for his worry.\n\nAnd then with a noise between the rumble of a thunderstorm and the\nclatter of a tinman\u2019s wagon came their \u201ccarrozza.\u201d Its cushions were in\nrags, the harness almost all rope, one door was off a hinge and swung\nmerrily useless\u2014but two lean steeds drew this noble barouche and two men\nin rags sat solemnly on its ricketty box with such an air of importance\nits passengers felt as if they were being conducted homeward in a\nchariot of state.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nFortunato, restored to favour, was leading them up the Rupe Athena, that\nrose steeply immediately behind their hotel; he was leading them not\nstraight up, but by a series of long \u201cbiases\u201d\u2014as Jane expressed it. The\nend of the first bias reached the little lonely church of San Biago,\ndreary and uninteresting enough in its solitary perch, save for the fact\nthat it stood upon the site of a temple to Demeter and Persephone:\n\n                   \u201cOur Lady of the Sheaves,\n                    And the Lily of Hades, the Sweet\n                    Of Enna\u201d\n\nplaced here no doubt because this high spur was the only point in\nGirgenti from which one could catch a glimpse of the lofty steeps of\nEnna-Castrogiovanni.\n\nTurning at a sharp angle again they went slanting up across the bare\nhillside, the wild thyme sending up a keen sweet incense beneath their\nclimbing feet, until they came to the verge of the great yellow broken\ncliff that shot up more than a thousand feet from the valley below. Some\ncrumpling of the earth\u2019s crust, ages ago, had forced up this sheer mass\nof sandstone, hung now with cactus, thyme, and vines, which served as\none of the natural defences of Akragas, behind whose unscalable heights\nthe unwarlike city had been enabled peacefully to pursue its gathering\nof wealth and luxury.\n\nFortunato, leaning over the marge, clapped his hands suddenly, and a\ncloud of rock pigeons flew forth from the crevices, to wheel and flutter\nand settle again among the vines. Probably descendants of those pigeons\nwho lived in these same crevices in the days of the monster Phalaris,\nand helped to compass his death.\n\nPythagoras\u2014that strange wanderer and mystic, whose outlines loom so\nbeautiful and so incomprehensible through the vagueness of legend, was\nfirst flattered and then threatened by the Tyrant, who feared the\nphilosopher\u2019s teachings of freedom and justice. At one of those public\ndiscussions, so impossible in any other country ruled despotically, and\nyet so characteristically Greek\u2014Pythagoras rounded a burst of eloquence\nby pointing to a flock of these pigeons fleeing before a hawk.\n\n\u201cSee what a vile fear is capable of,\u201d he cried. \u201cIf but one of these\npigeons dared to resist he would save his companions, who would have\ntime to flee.\u201d\n\nFired by the suggestion the old Telemachus threw a stone at the Tyrant\nand despite the efforts of his guards, Phalaris was ground to a bloody\npaste by the stones and fury of the suddenly enfranchised Akragantines.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cIt is our last day,\u201d Jane had said; \u201cwe will go and bid the temples\ngood-bye.\u201d\n\nWhich was why she and Peripatetica were scaling in the sunset the golden\ncliffs which Concordia crowned, having come to it by a d\u00e9tour to\nTheron\u2019s tomb.\n\nThey drew themselves laboriously up to the crest, and sank breathlessly\nupon the verge among the crumbled grave pits, where the Greeks buried\ntheir dead along the great Temple road. Not only their beloved human\ncompanions they interred here, but the horses who had been Olympian\nvictors, their faithful dogs, and their pet birds. It was in rifling\nthese graves, in search of jewels and treasure, that the greedy\nCarthagenians had reaped a hideous pestilence as a price of their\nimpiety. Now the graves were but empty grass-grown troughs, and one\nmight sit among them safely to watch the skyey glories flush across the\nsapphire sea, and redden the hill where the little shrunken Girgenti\nsent down the soft pealing of Cathedral chimes from her airy distance.\nBeside them Concordia\u2019s columns deepened to tints of beaten gold in the\nlast rays, and across the level plain far below\u2014already dusk\u2014the people\nstreamed home from their long day\u2019s labour. Flocks of silky, antlered\ngoats strayed and cropped as they moved byre-wards, urged by brown\ngoatherds who piped the old country tunes as they went. The same tunes\nTheocritus listened to in the dusk thousands of summers since, or that\nEmpedocles, purple-clad, and golden-crowned, might have heard vaguely\nfluting through his dreams of life and destiny as he meditated beneath\nthese temple shadows as night came down.\n\nAsses pattered and tinkled towards the farms, laden with crimson burdens\nof sweet-smelling lupin. Painted carts rattled by with oil or wine; and\ncries and laughter and song came faintly up to them as the evening grew\ngrey.\n\n\u201cHow little it changes,\u201d said Peripatetica wistfully. \u201cWe will pass and\nvanish as all these did on whose tombs we rest, and hundreds of years\nfrom now there will be the same colours and the same songs to widen the\nnew eyes with delight.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet us be grateful for the joys of Theocritus, and for our joys and for\nthe same joy in the same old beauties of those to come,\u201d said Jane,\nsententiously. \u201cAnd let us go home, for the moon is rising.\u201d\n\nLarge and golden it came out of the rosy east, the west still\nsmouldering with the dying fires of the ended day.\n\nTheir way led through the olive orchards, grown argent in the faint\nlight, and taking on fresh fantasies of gnarling, and of ghostly\nresemblances to twisted, convoluted human forms. Among the misty olives\nthe blooming pear-trees showed like delicate silvery-veiled brides in\nthe paling dark, and with the falling dew arose the poignant incense of\nripening lemons, of blossoming weeds, and of earth freshly tilled.\n\nWandering a little from the faintly traced path, grown invisible in the\nvagueness of the diffused moon-radiance, they called for help to a young\nshepherd going lightly homeward, with his cloak draped in long classic\nfolds from one shoulder, and singing under his breath. A shepherd who\nmay have been merely a commonplace, handsome young Sicilian by day, but\nwho in this magic shining dusk was the shepherd of all pastoral verse,\nstrayed for a moment from Arcady. Following his swift light feet they\nwere set at last into the broad road among the herds and the asses and\nthe homing labourers\u2014Demeter\u2019s well-beloved children.\n\n            \u201cE\u2019en now the distant farms send up their smoke,\n             And shadows lengthen from the lofty hills.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n             \u2014Now the gloaming star\n              Bids fold the flock and duly tell their tale,\n              And moves unwelcome up the wistful sky.\n              . . . . . .   Go home, my full-fed goats,\n             Cometh the Evening Star, my goats, go home.\u201d\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                       [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER VI\n\n                            THE GOLDEN SHELL\n\n\n            \u201c_Kennst du das Land, wo die Citronen bl\u00fch\u2019n?_\u201d\n\nWHEN Ulysses Grant had ended the Civil War in America and was made\nPresident, he turned from uttering his solemn oath of office before the\ncheering multitudes and said under his breath to his wife who stood\nbeside him, in that tone of half-resentful, half-weary patience the\nAmerican husband usually adopts in speaking to his mate, \u201cWell, now,\nJulia, I hope you\u2019re satisfied!\u201d\n\nThere was the same exasperated patience in Jane\u2019s voice as she climbed\ninto the railway carriage for Palermo and, throwing herself back upon\nthe cushions, exclaimed:\n\n\u201cWell, now, Peripatetica, I hope you\u2019ve had enough of the Greeks! For my\npart I go on to the next course; something a little more modern. Tombs\nand goddesses and columns and myths cloy as a steady diet for months,\nand even the ridiculous pompous old Eighteenth Century would seem rather\nhome-like and comfy as a change. I could find it in my heart to relish a\nbit of the odious decadence of _l\u2019art nouveau_ simply by way of\ncontrast.\u201d\n\nPeripatetica treated this shameful outburst with all the stern contempt\nit so truly merited, as she was engaged in making the acquaintance of a\ndescendant of that great race of Northmen who had made history all over\nSicily and the rest of Europe. He too was a conqueror, though his weapon\nwas a paint-brush and a modelling tool instead of a sword, and kings\nreceived him with all the honours due an acknowledged ruler of a realm.\nHe dwelt by a great lake far to the north in that \u201cnursery of kings\u201d in\na home built five hundred years ago of huge fir-trees; logs so sound and\nclean-fibred that the centuries had left the wood still as firm as\nstone. Making his play of resurrection of the old wild melodies of the\nNorth, of the old costumes and industries of the people from whose loins\nhad sprung half the rulers of the continent. The Sea Rover\u2019s blood was\nstrong in him too, driving him to wander in a boat no bigger than those\nof his Viking ancestors along the stormy fjords and fierce coasts to the\nstill more distant north.\n\nFor the adornment of the log-built home Sicily had yielded to his wise\nsearching various relics of antiquity, Greek, Norman, Saracen, and\nSpanish, and in the ensuing days in which Jane and Peripatetica were\npermitted to tread the same path with the Northman and his beautiful\nwife, these treasures came out of pockets to be fitted with dates and\nhistory, and even, in the delightful instance of one small ghostly\ngrotesque, to change owners.\n\nWhile the two seekers of Persephone were gathering and savouring this\nrefreshing tang of the cold salt of the northern seas, this large vista\nof the gay, poised strength of a mighty race\u2014their train was looping and\ncoiling through summer hills to the seat of summer\u2014cherry and apple,\npeach and pear trees tossed wreaths of rose and white from amid the grey\nof olives and the green of citron, for this was the land of Mignon\u2019s\nhomesick dream\u2014\u201cdas Land, wo die Citronen bl\u00fch\u2019n.\u201d\n\nMiles and miles and miles of orange and lemon groves ran beside their\npath; climbing the hills and creeping down to the edge of the tideless\nsea. Trees that were nurtured like babies; each orchard gathered about\nold grey or rose-washed tanks holding the precious water which is the\nlife-blood of all this golden culture during the rainless summer. Tanks\nmoist and dripping and fringed with ferns, mirroring the overhanging\nyellow fruit, or the pink geraniums that peeped over the shoulders of\nthe broad-bladed cacti to blush happily at their own reflections in the\nwater.\n\nAn exquisite form of orcharding, this, as delicate and perfect as a\nhot-house, with every inch of the soil utilized for the vegetables set\nabout the trees\u2019 roots, and the trees themselves growing in unbelievable\nnumbers to the acre. For not one superfluous leaf or branch was\nthere\u2014just the requisite number to carry and nourish the greatest\npossible quantity of fruit. In consequence of which the whole land was\nas if touched by some vegetable Midas and turned all to gold. Millions\nand millions of the yellow globes hung still unpicked, though already\nthe trees were swelling the buds which within ten days were to break\nforth into a far-flung bridal wreath, and intoxicate all the land with\nhoneyed perfumes.\n\nAnd, mark you, how nations are influenced by their trees! In the bad old\ndays of constant war and turmoil the isolated family was never secure,\nand the people clung to the towns, but modern careful culture of the\norange has forced orchardists to live close by their charges, and the\npopulation is being slowly pushed back into rural life, with the result\nof better health, better morals, and a great decrease of homicides. One\nhas really no convenient time for sticking knives into one\u2019s friends\nwhen one is showing lemon-trees how to earn $400 an acre and\norange-trees half as much....\n\n\u201cIt is the most beautiful town in the whole world,\u201d said Peripatetica in\nthat tiresomely dogmatic way she has of expressing the most obvious\nfact.\n\nThey had wandered out of their hotel, and through a pair of stately iron\ngates crowned with armorial beasts. Beyond the gates lay a garden. But a\ngarden! Acres of garden, laced by sweeping avenues, shadowed by cypress\nand stone pines, by ilex and laurel. From the avenues dipped paths which\nwound through _boscoes_, looped under bridges veiled with curtains of\nwisteria and yellow banksias, climbed again to pass through pleached\nwalks; paths that tied themselves about shadowy pools where swans\nfloated in the gloom of palm groves, or debouched across emerald lawns\nwhere clumps of forget-me-nots and cinerarias made splashes of bold\ncolour in the grass.\n\n\u201cThey do these things so well in Europe,\u201d remarked Peripatetica\napprovingly, as a splendid functionary, in a long blue coat and carrying\na silver-headed staff, lifted his cockaded hat to them as they entered\nthe gates. \u201cNow where at home would one find one of our park guardians\nwith such a manner, and looking so like a nobleman\u2019s servant? This,\u201d she\nwent on, in an instructive tone, being newly arisen from a guide-book,\n\u201cis the Giardino Inglese; one of the public parks, and it has exactly\nthe air of loved and carefully tended private possession.\u201d\n\nThey lounged over the parapets of the carved bridges, with their elbows\nset among roses, to look down into the little ravines where small\nrunnels flowed among the soft pink-purple clouds of Judas-trees. They\nwere tempted into all\u00e9es bordered their whole length with the white\nfountains of blossoming spireas, or hedged on both sides by pink\nhermosas. They strolled past clumps of feathery bamboos to gaze along\nthe shadowy vistas of four broad avenues meeting at a bright circle\nwhere a sculptured fountain tossed its waters in the sun. They lingered\nin paths where tea-roses were garlanded from tree to tree, or by walls\ncurtained by Mar\u00e9chale Niels. They inspected the nurseries and admired\nthe greenhouse. They came with delight upon a double ring of giant\ncypresses lifting dark spires into the dazzling blue of the sky, and sat\nto rest happily upon a great curved marble seat whose back had lettered\nupon it a reminder to the \u201cShadowed Soul\u201d that wisdom comes only in\nshade and peace.\n\n                        \u201cE La Sagezza Vieni Solo\n                         Nel\u2019 Ombra E Pace.\u201d\n\nAnd finally they mounted the little tiled and columned belvedere hanging\nat the corner of the garden\u2019s lofty wall to gaze upon a view unrivalled\nof this most beautifully placed city.\n\nPalermo lay stretched before them in its plain of the Conca d\u2019Oro\u2014the\ngolden shell. Round it as a garland rose a semicircle of vapoury\nmountains like rosy-purple clouds, bending on beyond the plain on either\nside to clasp a bay of dazzling violet whose waters glowed at the city\u2019s\nfeet; the city itself warmly cream-tinted and roofed with dull red\ntiles. A city towered, columned, arched; with here the ruddy bubbles of\nSan Giovanni degli Eremiti\u2019s domes, there the tall spires and fretted\ncrest of the Cathedral; and flowing through it all, or resting here and\nthere in pools, the green of orange groves, the flushing mist of\nJudas-trees, the long stream of verdant parks and gardens.\n\n\u201cNot only is this the loveliest city in the whole world,\u201d said Jane,\n\u201cbut this is also the sweetest of all gardens, and a curious thing is\nthat we seem to have it quite to ourselves. You\u2019d suppose all Palermo\nwould want to come here for at least half of every day, but not a soul\nhave we met except those two dear, queer old gardeners sitting on the\ntank\u2019s edge playing a game with orange seeds.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, if the Palermians haven\u2019t intelligence enough to use such a\ngarden, we have,\u201d announced Peripatetica. \u201cAnd we will come here every\nday.\u201d\n\nWhich they did for a while; bringing their fountain pens to write\nletters in the bosco, or resting after sight-seeing in the cool shade of\nthe cypress ring. And it might have served them to the end as their\nintimate joy had it not been for Peripatetica\u2019s insane passion for\ngardening.\n\n[Illustration: \u201cSICILY\u2019S PICTURE-BOOK, THE PAINTED CART\u201d]\n\nAll about the edge of the long _tapis vert_ which lay before the\nhandsome building at the end of the garden\u2014a building which they\nsupposed housed some lucky park official\u2014stood at intervals fine\nstandard roses. Now one unlucky day Peripatetica descried aphides upon\nthe delicate shoots and young buds of these standards. That was\nsufficient. An aphis, to her rose-growing mind, is a noxious wild beast,\nand promptly stripping off her gloves she ravened among them.\n\n\u201cPerhaps you\u2019d better leave them alone,\u201d warned Jane in a whisper. \u201cThe\ngardeners look so surprised.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy no means!\u201d objected Peripatetica in lofty obstinacy, with a backward\nglance of contempt at the visibly astonished attendants. \u201cThe city no\ndoubt pays them well to grow roses, and I mean to shame them for this\nindecent neglect of their duties. Besides, I am enjoying it immensely;\nI\u2019ve been hungering and thirsting for a little gardening.\u201d\n\nThat very day it was conveyed to their intelligence\u2014or their lack of\nit\u2014that they had not been enjoying the Giardino Inglese, a dull park\nwhich lay almost opposite, but had been calmly annexing the private\ngrounds of Prince Travia. He, however, being a model of princely\ncourtesy, was glad to have the foreign ladies amuse themselves there as\nmuch as they liked. Only once more did they see it; on the day of\ndeparture, when they blushingly left a tip in the hands of the handsome\nold silver-staffed portiere, who had truly looked like a nobleman\u2019s\nservant, and behaved like one as he saluted them with unprotesting\ndignity each time they had passed in and out of that beauteous spot in\nwhich they had no right to be.\n\nThere were many other gardens in Palermo, but none so fair. The green\nworld was so enchanting in this glowing spring that a day of\n_villegiatura_ was necessary between every two days of sight-seeing, and\nhaving been banished from the Travia garden by their own innate sense of\ndecency, they took lunch in their pockets and set out for the famous\nVilla Giulia which had aroused such enthusiasm in Goethe.\n\nThe Villa Giulia, as they might have foreseen, was just the sort of\nthing Goethe would have liked\u2014and they had been violently disagreeing\nwith Goethe all over Sicily. An untouched example of the most tiresome\nform of Eighteenth Century gardening\u2014a cross between a wedding cake and\na German Noah\u2019s Ark. All rigid, glaring, gravelly little all\u00e9es, with\ntrees as denuded of natural luxuriance as a picked chicken; sugar-icing\ngrottoes; baroque fountains; gaudy music kiosks; cages of frowzy birds\nand mangy monkeys; and pos\u00e9 busts in self-conscious bowers. Not here\ncould these Eden-exiled Eves lunch, nor yet in the untidy, uninteresting\nBotanic Gardens next door\u2014a wilderness of potted specimens and obtrusive\nlabels\u2014but wandering melancholily around a vast egregious gas tank, they\ncame upon a long, neglected avenue of great trees; all that was left of\nsome once lovely villa swept out of existence by the gas works. And here\nupon a stone bench in the glimmering shade they fed at the feet of a\nfeeble little knock-kneed marble King. One of the Spanish monarchs of\nSicily it was, thus commemorated in marble Roman armour and a curled\nmarble wig, and his rickety, an\u00e6mic majesty moved them to smiling pity,\nso feeble and miserable he looked, forgotten and overshadowed by modern\ngas tanks, his boneless legs ready to give under him, and his peevish\nface smeared with creeping lichens. The green tunnel of the trees framed\na blazing sapphire at the other end\u2014a glimpse of the bay\u2014and ragged pink\nroses, and neglected purple iris bloomed together along the path. Ere\nanother year the blight of the gas works will have swept away the airy\navenue, the wilding flowers, the poor spineless little King, and the two\nbid it all a wistfully smiling farewell, knowing they should never again\neat an April day\u2019s bread and cheese under those sweet auspices.\n\n... Will travellers from the roaring cities of Central Africa come a\ncouple of centuries hence and mark with regret the last bit of some now\nflourishing boscage being eaten away by Twenty-Second Century progress,\nand smile indulgently at one of our foolishly feeble statues, in granite\nfrock coats, tottering to lichened oblivion? No doubt. Palermo has seen\nso many changes since the Ph\u0153nicians used to trade and build along this\ncoast. For this was the Carthagenian \u201csphere of influence\u201d from the\nfirst, and the Greeks were here but little, and have left no traces in\nPalermo, though in the long wars between Carthagenian and Greek it was\ncaptured by the latter from time to time, and held for a space. The\nGreeks called it Panormous\u2014meaning all harbour, for in their day deep\nwater curved well up into the town, where are now streets and palaces\nand hotels. Of course Rome held it for a while, as she held pretty\nnearly everything. Held it for close upon a thousand years\u2014with the\nGoths for its masters at one interval\u2014but there are few traces of Rome\neither, and then the Arabs took it and set their seal so deep, in less\nthan two centuries, that after the lapse of nearly another thousand\nyears their occupation is still visible at every turn. For under the\nSaracens it was a capital, and after their destruction of Syracuse,\nwhich ended Greek domination in the Island, it gained a pre-eminence\namong Sicilian cities never afterwards lost.\n\nThat garrulous old traveller from Bagdad, Ibn Haukal, writing in 943,\nsays that Palermo then had a most formidable nine-gated wall, a\npopulation of close upon half a million, and many mosques. He also says\nthat near where the Cathedral now stands was a great swamp full of\npapyrus plants, serving not only for paper but for the manufacture of\nrope.\n\nAlready Sicily was beginning to suffer from the scarcity of water, and\nthe merchant from Bagdad, accustomed to the abundant pools and conduits\nof his own city, makes severe comments upon the lack of these in\nPalermo. It could only have been by contrast, however, that the\nPalermians could have seemed to Haukal dirty, because Jane and\nPeripatetica, going to see a part of the old Moorish quarter, in process\nof demolition, found multitudinous water-pipes in the houses, entering\nalmost every chamber. Haukal says that the Greek philosopher Aristotle\nwas buried in one of the mosques of Palermo, and he opines that the most\nserious defect of the citizens was their universal consumption of\nonions. Peripatetica\u2014to whom that repulsive vegetable is a hissing and\nan astonishment\u2014read aloud in clamant sympathy this outburst of\nHaukal\u2019s:\n\n\u201cThere is not a person among them, high or low, who does not eat them in\nhis house daily, both in the morning and at evening. This is what has\nruined their intelligence and affected their brains and degraded their\nsenses and distracted their faculties and crushed their spirits and\nspoiled their complexions, and so altogether changed their temperaments\nthat everything, or almost everything, appears to them quite different\nfrom what it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat gentleman from Bagdad is a man after my own heart,\u201d she declared\ntriumphantly. \u201cI have always been sure that people who eat onions must\nbe those to whom \u2018almost everything appears quite different from what it\nis,\u2019 for if they had the slightest idea of \u2018what it is\u2019 for other people\nto be near them after they have indulged that meretricious appetite they\nwould certainly never do it!\u201d\n\nThis Arab impress, though visible everywhere, is more a general\natmosphere than definite remains; for with but few exceptions their\ncreations are so overlaid and modified by subsequent Occidental work\nthat it glows through this overlay rather than defines itself. It was\nwhile searching for Moorish fragments that Jane and Peripatetica came\nupon La Ziza. The guide-books unanimously asserted that Al Aziz\u2014La\nZiza\u2014was the work of the Norman King, William I., but the guide-books,\nthey had long since discerned, were as prone to jump to unwarranted\nconclusions, and, having jumped, to be as aggravatingly cocksure in\nsticking to their mistakes as was Peripatetica herself. So they took\nleave to doubt this assertion, and concluded that William probably\nseized the lovely country-house of some Moorish magnate, adding to it\nsufficiently to make of it a \u201clordly pleasure dome\u201d for himself in the\nwide orange gardens, but the core of the place was wholly Moorish in\ncharacter; well worth the annexing, well worth its name Al Aziz\u2014The\nBeloved.\n\nThey came through the hot, white sunshine up wide, low steps, through a\nhuge grille in an enormous archway, to find a windowless room where the\nglaring day paled to glaucous shadow against the green tiles of a lofty\nchamber, as cool and glistening as a sea cave. And the sound of rippling\nwater echoed from the lucent sides and honeycomb vaultings, for a\nshining fountain gushed from the wall into a tiled channel of irregular\nlevels, artfully planned to chafe the sliding water into music before it\nslept for awhile in a pool, and then slipped again through another\nchannel to another pool, and so passed from the chamber\u2014having glinted\nover its shining path of gold and green and blue, and having filled the\nplace with cool moisture and clear song.\n\n                      \u201cWith fierce noons beaming,\n                       Moons of glory gleaming,\n                       Full conduits streaming\n                       Where fair bathers lie\u2014\u201d\n\nQuoted Peripatetica\u2014who might be safely counted on to have a tag of\nverse concealed about her person for every possible occasion.\n\n\u201cDid you ever see anything that so adequately embodied the Arab\nconception of pleasure? Coolness, moisture, the singing of water, noble\nproportions, and clean colour wrought into grave and continent devices?\nWas there ever anything,\u201d she went on, \u201cso curious as the contradictions\nof racial instincts? Who could suppose that this would be the home-ideal\nof those wild desert dwellers who always loved and fought like demons;\nwho were the most voluptuous, the most cruel, the most poetic and the\n\u2018so fightingest\u2019 race the world has probably ever seen!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, contradictions!\u201d laughed Jane. \u201cHere\u2019s a flat contradiction, if you\nlike. Please contemplate the delicious, the exquisite absurdities of\nthese frescoes.\u201d\n\nFor, needless to say, the Eighteenth Century had not allowed to escape\nso exquisite an opportunity to make an ass of itself, and had spread\nover the clean, composed patterns of the tiled walls a layer of\nlime-wash on which it had proceeded to paint in coarse, bright colours\nindecently unclad goddesses, all flushed blowzy and beribboned; all\nlolloping amourously about on clouds or in chariots, or falling into the\narms of be-wigged deities of war or of love. Fortunately the greater\npart of these gross conceptions had been diligently scrubbed away, but\nenough remained to make Peripatetica splutter indignantly:\n\n\u201cWell, of all the hideous barbarians! The Eighteenth Century was really\nthe darkest of dark ages.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear,\u201d Jane explained contemptuously, \u201cthe Eighteenth Century wasn\u2019t\na period of time. It was merely a deplorable state of mind. And the mind\nseems to have been slightly tipsy, it was so fantastic and ridiculous,\nand yet so gravely self-satisfied.\u201d\n\nLa Cuba, another Saracenic relic, was so obliterated into the mere\nmilitary barrack to which it had been transformed that there was nothing\nfor it but to pass on to the Normans, and to great Roger de Hauteville,\na fit companion of the Paladins, so heavy a \u201cHammer of the Moors\u201d was\nhe\u2014so knightly, so romantic, so beautiful.\n\nNot until twelve years after that bold attempt at Messina to conquer a\nkingdom with only sixty companions was Roger able to enter Palermo, and\nhe and his nephews chose for themselves \u201cdelectable gardens abounding\nwith fruit and water, and the knights were royally lodged in an earthly\nparadise.\u201d\n\nNo hideous massacre or sack followed the taking of Palermo, for though\nRoger had conquered the island for himself he was a true mirror of\nchivalry, and was never cruel. He was chivalrous not only to the\ndefeated, but to those other helpless creatures, women, who in his day\nwere mere pawns in the great military and political games played by the\nmen; married whether they would or no, and unmarried without heed of any\nprotest from them; thrust into convents against their wishes, and haled\nout of convents if they were needed. And swept ruthlessly from the board\nwhen they had served their purpose, or when they got in the way of those\nfierce pieces passaging back and forth across the chequered squares of\nthe field of life. Roger loved the Norman maid Eremberga from his early\nboyhood, it appears, and as soon as his hazardous fortunes would permit\nshe was had out from Normandy, and the history of the great soldier is\nfull of his devotion, and of her fidelity and courage. As at the siege\nof Troina, when the two were reduced by hunger and cold to the greatest\nextremities, sharing one cloak between them, so that finally Roger,\nrendered desperate by his wife\u2019s sufferings, burst through the ring of\nSaracens, leaving her to defend the fortress with unshaken valour until\nhe returned with a force adequate to save her, and raise the siege.\n\nThere is an amusing story of Roger and his eldest brother, that ruthless\nold fox, Robert Guiscard. They were fighting one another at the time,\nand Roger\u2019s soldiers captured Robert, who was disguised and spying. He\nwith difficulty rescued Robert from the angry captors, took him to a\nprivate room, kissed him, helped him to escape, and promptly next day\nfell upon his forces with such fury that Robert was glad to make peace\nand fulfil the broken promises which had caused the dispute....\n\nIt was not Roger, the great Count\u2014he had little time in his busy life\nfor building\u2014but his son Roger the King, who raised the great pile at\nMonreale which Jane and Peripatetica were on their way to see. Not by\nway of the winding rocky road which for centuries the pious pilgrims had\nclimbed, but whisked up the heights by an electric tram which pretended\nit was a moving-picture machine, displaying from its windows an ever\nwidening panorama of burning blue sea, of pink and purple mountains, of\nvalleys down which flowed rivers of orange groves, of a domed and spired\ncity in the plain, and a foreground freaked with an astonishing carpet\nof flowers.\n\n\u201cIf you were to see that in a picture you wouldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d quoted\nJane from the famous Book of Bromides, writhing her neck like an uneasy\nserpent in an endeavour to see it all at once.\n\n\u201cNo, of course, you wouldn\u2019t,\u201d said Peripatetica resentfully. \u201cAnd when\nwe try to tell it to people at home they\u2019ll simply say our style is\n\u2018plushy.\u2019 There\u2019s nothing so resented as an attempt to carry back in\nwords to a pale-coloured country the incredible splendours of the south.\nThe critics always call it \u2018orchid and cockatoo writing,\u2019 and sulkily\ndeclare, whenever they do have a fairly nice colourful day, that they\nare sure the tropics have nothing finer, whereas, if they only knew, it\nis but an echo of an echo of the real thing, and\u2014\u201d but words failed even\nPeripatetica.\n\nOn the breezy height, dominating all the deep-toned landscape, stood the\nAbbey church of Monreale\u2014truly a royal mount, crowned by one of the\nfinest shrines in Europe. The famous bronze doors of the main entrance\nhad been oxidised by time and weather with a patine of greens and blues\nthat lent subtle values to the bold delicate modelling of the metal,\nframed in a toothed doorway of warm, cream-tinted stone, whose magic\nharmony of colour was a fitting preliminary to the lofty glories of the\ninterior. An unbelievable interior! faced throughout its three hundred\nand thirty-three feet of length with millions upon millions of tiny\nstones, gold and red and blue\u2014stones of every colour. For all the\ninterior they found, up to the very roof, was of this dim, glowing,\ngold-mosaic set with pictures of the Christian faith\u2014the creation of\nAdam and Eve, the temptation by the Serpent, the casting out from Eden,\nthe wrestling of Jacob, the whole Bible history, culminating above the\naltar in a gigantic Christ. More than 700,000 square feet of pictures\nmade of bits of stone; and around and about pulpit, ambo, and altar,\nacross steps and pavement, and enclosing every window and door, lovely\nmosaic patterns and devices, no two alike....\n\nBrown-faced old peasants pushed aside the leathern curtain at the\nentrance and knelt, crossing themselves, in the shadow of enormous\npillars, as their forebears had knelt and crossed themselves there for a\nthousand years. A mass droned from a side altar. Groups of young\npriests-in-the-making sauntered gossipping in whispers, or coming and\ngoing on ecclesiastic errands. Knots of tourists stared and wandered\nabout the great spaces, and from behind the high altar rose boys\u2019 voices\nat choir practice, echoing thin and pure from the painted roof.\n\nOf all the Norman print upon Sicily nothing gave like this great church\na sense of the potency of Tancred de Hauteville and his mighty brood.\nFor no defacing hand has been laid upon this monument to their piety and\npower. It stands as they wrought, tremendous, glorious; commemorating\nthe winning of the kingship of the Land of the Gods. A story as strange\nas any of the myths of the mythic world. And perhaps thousands of years\nhence the historians will relegate the Norman story, too, to the\ncatalogue of the incredible\u2014to the list of the sun-myths; and Tancred\nwill be thought of as a principle of life and fecundity\u2014his twelve\nstrong sons be held to be merely signs of months and seasons.\n\nOf the great Benedictine Abbey founded by William in connection with the\nCathedral almost nothing remains unaltered except the delicious\ncloistered court with its fountain, and its two hundred and sixteen\ndelicate, paired columns, no two alike, and with endless variations of\nfreakish capitals.\n\nAll this freshness and richness of invention resulted from the mingling\nof the Saracen with the Norman, all this early work being wrought by\nMoslem hands under Norman direction, since King Roger and King William\nwere no bigots, and, giving respect and security to their Saracen\nsubjects, could command in return their skilled service and fine taste.\nSo that this bold, springing, early Norman architecture, Gothic in\noutward form, is adorned by the chaste, delicate minuteness of the grave\nArab ornament.\n\n... It is Palm Sunday, and Jane and Peripatetica are at a\nreception\u2014otherwise a Sicilian high mass. They have come, still on the\ntrail of their beloved Normans, who have almost ousted the Greeks in\ntheir affections, to the Cappella Palatina in the Royal Palace. The\nchapel is less than a third as large as Monreale but is even more\ngolden, more dimly splendid, more richly beautiful than the Abbey\nChurch. It is crowded to the doors. Everywhere candles wink and drip in\nthe blue clouds of incense. The voices of boys soar in a poignant\ntreble, and the organ tones of men answer antiphonally. The priests\nmutter and drone, and occasionally take snuff. Mass goes on at a dozen\nside altars, oblivious of the more stately ceremonies conducted in the\nchancel. The congregation comes and goes. A family with all the\nchildren, including baby and _nounou_, enter and pray and later go out.\nAristocrats and their servants kneel side by side. The crowd thickens\nand melts again, and companions separate to choose different altars and\ndifferent masses, according to taste. All are familiar, friendly, at\nease. The divine powers are holding a reception, and worshippers, having\npaid their respects, feel free to leave when they like. Long palm\nbranches are carried to the altar from time to time by arriving\nvisitors, each branch more splendid than the last. Palms braided and\nknotted, fluttering with ribbons, tied with rosettes of scarlet and\nblue, wrought with elaborate intricacies\u2014hundreds of branches, which are\nsolemnly sanctified, asperged, censed, with many genuflections. Priests\nin gold, in white, in scarlet, accompanied by candles, swinging censors\nand chanting, take up the palms and make a circuit of all the altars\namong the kneeling worshippers, and finally distribute the branches to\ntheir owners who bear their treasures away proudly.\n\nWith them go Jane and Peripatetica, joining a group, who, having paid\ntheir respects to heaven, are now ambitious to inspect the state\nchambers in the palace of their earthly sovereign. These prove to be the\nusual dull, uninviting apartments\u2014flaring with gilt, and with the satins\nof _criard_ colours which modern royalty always affect. There are the\nusual waxed floors, the usual uncomfortable _fauteuils_ ranged stiffly\nagainst walls hung with inferior pictures, that are so tediously\ncharacteristic of palaces, and it is with relief and delight that Jane\nand Peripatetica find sandwiched amid these vulgar rooms two small\nchambers that by some miracle have escaped the ravages of the\nupholsterer. Two chambers, left intact from Norman days, that are like\njewel caskets. Walls panelled with long smooth slabs of marble, grown\nstraw-coloured with age, the delicate graining of the stone being\nmatched like the graining of fine wood; panels set about with rich\nmosaics of fantastic birds and imaginary beasts framed in graceful\narabesques. These are the Stanza Ruggiero; the rooms occupied by King\nRoger, the furnishings, such scant bits as there are, being also of his\ntime.\n\n\u201cIn Roger\u2019s day,\u201d commented Jane, \u201ckings were not content with housings\nand plenishings of the \u2018Early Pullman, or Late Hamburg-American School\u2019;\nthey knew how to be kingly in their surroundings.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a curious fact,\u201d agreed Peripatetica, \u201cthat there isn\u2019t a modern\npalace in Europe that a self-respecting American millionaire wouldn\u2019t\nblush to live in. No one ever hears of great artists being called upon\nto design or beautify a modern royal residence. Bad taste in furnishing\nseems universal among latter-day kings, who appear to form their ideas\nof domestic decoration from second-rate German hotels. Fancy any one\nseeing the high purity and beauty of Roger\u2019s chambers and then ordering\nsuch ruthless splashings of gilt and cotton satin! Why, even \u2018the best\nfamilies\u2019 of Podunk or Kalamazoo would gibe at the contrast, and as for\nthe Wheat and Pork Kings of Denver or Chicago\u2014they would have the whole\nplace made _\u00e9poque_ in a week, if they had to corner the lard market, or\nform a breakfast-food trust to be able to afford it!\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cGod made the day to be followed by the night. The moon and stars are at\nHis command. Has He not created all things? Is He not Lord of all?\nBlessed be the Everlasting God!\u201d\n\nJane was reading aloud from her guide-book.\n\nThey had been to Cefalu, looking for Count Roger in the great Cathedral\nbuilt by his son, but found that he had vanished long ago, and his\nsarcophagus was in Naples. They had found instead traces of Sikel,\nGreek, and Roman; had lingered long before the splendid church, so noble\neven in decay, and now they were back again in Palermo, still on the\ntrack of their Normans. What Jane read from her book was also inscribed\nover the portal of Palermo\u2019s Cathedral before which they stood, but\nbeing carved in Cufic script, and Jane\u2019s Cufic being\u2014to put it\npolitely\u2014not fluent enough to be idiomatic, she preferred to use the\nguide-book\u2019s translation rather than deal with the original.\n\n[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AT PALERMO\u2014\u201cTHE LAST RESTING PLACE OF QUEEN\nCONSTANCE\u201d] They had been skirting about the Duomo for days, for it\ndominated all Palermo with its bigness. Seated in a wide Piazza that was\ndotted about with mussy-looking marble saints and bishops, and a great\nstatue of Santa Rosalia, the city\u2019s patron, the Cathedral was flanked by\nthe huge Archepiscopal Palace, by enormous convents and public\nbuildings, so that one couldn\u2019t hope to ignore or escape it. Yet they\nhad deferred the Duomo from day to day because they knew their pet\nabomination, the Eighteenth Century, had been there before them, and\nthat they would find it but an extremely mitigated joy in consequence.\n\nThey knew that the swamp full of pxapyrus plants of Haukal\u2019s time had\ngiven way to the \u201cFriday Mosque\u201d which the two Rogers and William the\nBad had left undisturbed, but which had been pulled down by William the\nGood\u2014being somewhat ruinous, and also seeing that William was \u201cthe Good\u201d\nin the eyes of his ecclesiastic historians because he reversed the old\nNorman liberality to his Moslem subjects. Then Walter of the Mill, an\nEnglishman, built the Cathedral, making it glorious within and without,\nand time and additions only made it more lovely until the modern\ntinkering began. A foolish, unsuitable dome was thrust among its\ndelicate towers, and the whole interior ravaged and vulgarised.\n\nStill, if one were hunting Normans, the Cathedral must be seen, and most\nof all they wished to find the last resting-place of Constance, around\nwhose memory hung a drama and a mystery, and drama and mystery were as\nthe very breath of their nostrils to Jane and Peripatetica.\n\nThe interior was impressive for size despite all the scrolled and\nwrithed and gilded mud pies with which Ferdinand Fuga, the Neapolitan,\nhad plastered it by way of decoration, and here and there still lingered\nthings worth seeing. Such as the delicious bas reliefs of Gagini,\nSicily\u2019s greatest native sculptor; his statues of the Apostles and the\nfine old choir stalls, only making clearer by their ancient beauty how\nmuch that was beautiful had been swept away. Also there was the splendid\nsilver sarcophagus of Santa Rosalia, weighing more than a thousand\npounds, and other such matters, but the real attraction of the Cathedral\nwas the great porphyry tombs of the Kings\u2014huge coffers of ensanguined\nstone, as massive and tremendous as the mummy cases of the Pharaohs.\nHere lay Roger the King in the sternest and plainest of them, under a\nfretted Gothic canopy. In one more ornate, his daughter Constance, and\nnear at hand her husband Henry VI. of Germany, and their son, the\nEmperor Frederick the Second.\n\nJane and Peripatetica longed that Constance, like Hamlet\u2019s Father might\n\n                 \u201cope those ponderous and marble jaws\u201d\n\nand come forth to tell them the real story of her strange life. For she\ntoo had been one of those hapless feminine pawns used so recklessly in\nthe game of kingdoms played by the men about her; yet a whisper still\nlingered that this pawn had not been always passive, but had reached out\nher white hand and lifted the king from the board, and thus altered the\nwhole course of the game!\n\nConstance, King Roger\u2019s daughter, had early made her choice for peace\nand safety by retiring into the veiled seclusion of the convent. But\neven the coif of the religieuse was no sure guard if the woman who wore\nit was an heiress, or of royal blood, and, the German alliance being\nneeded after her father\u2019s death, she was plucked forth by her brother,\nand in spite of her vows wedded to Henry of Hohenstaufen, son of\nFrederick Barbarossa, a man of such nature she must have hated him from\nthe first. She bore him one son, and when her brother and her\nnephew\u2014William the Bad and William the Good\u2014were both dead without\nheirs, Henry Hohenstaufen immediately laid claim to the Sicilian crown\nin the name of his son. The Sicilians, however, had no mind to be ruled\nby the Germans, and chose instead Tancred, son of the House of de\nHauteville, though with a bar sinister upon his shield. Tancred\u2014a good\nand able sovereign\u2014fought off Henry for five years, but then he too was\ndead, and only his widow and infant son stood between Henry, now Emperor\nof Germany, and the much-lusted-after throne of Sicily. Against the wish\nof Constance, who would have gladly abjured her rights, the German\ninvaded the island and after incredible cruelties and ravagings reduced\nthe widow and baby King to such straits that they negotiated an\nhonourable surrender. But no sooner were they in Henry\u2019s hands than the\nchild was murdered, and there ensued a reign of abominable oppressions\nand furious revolts, stamped out each time with blood and fire, and\nfollowed by still bitterer injustice and plunderings. When matters had\nreached a stage of desperation Henry died suddenly while besieging a\nrebellious town.\n\nNow in the Middle Ages no charge was so frequently and lightly made as\nthat of poisoning. Nearly all sudden deaths not wrought by cold steel\nwere attributed to some secret malfeasance by drugs. The fear of it\nfairly obsessed the medi\u00e6val mind, and gave rise to legends of poisoned\ngloves and rings, deadly smelling-balls and pounce boxes, and fatal\nchalices. A whole series of myths grew around it. Modern bacteriological\ndiscoveries, and a knowledge of ptomaines, incline the modern mind to\nbelieve that many a poor wretch brutally done to death for the crime of\npoisoning really died an innocent martyr to medical ignorance. Yet\nHenry\u2019s taking off was so welcome and so opportune, and that Constance\nhad struggled to protect her fellow countrymen and kinspeople from his\ncruelties was so well known, it began to be breathed about that she was\na second Judith who had reached out in agony to protect her people, even\nthough the blow fell upon the father of her child. At all events,\nwhatever the truth may have been, she, when she buried Henry with\nimperial pomp, cut off her magnificent hair and laid it in his tomb.\nThen, sending away the Germans, she ruled \u201cin peace with great honour\u201d\nuntil the son she had trained to mercy and virtue was ready to take her\nplace.\n\nNow they all lie here together under their pompous canopies, and\nwhatever may be the real dramas of those fierce and turbulent lives, the\ngreat porphyry sarcophagi combine to turn a face of cynical and haughty\nsilence to the importunate questioning of peeping tourists.\n\nIn 1781 the tombs were opened by the Spanish King Ferdinand I., who\nfound Constance\u2019s son Frederick robed and crowned, with sword and orb\nbeside his pillow, and almost lifelike in preservation. Henry too was\nalmost unchanged by the six hundred years that had passed in such change\nand turmoil beyond the walls of his silent tomb, and he lay wrapped from\nhead to heel in yellow silk with the heavy blond tresses of his wife\nlaid upon his breast, still golden despite the lapse of long centuries,\nbut \u201cnulle ne peut dire si c\u2019est le dernier sacrifice d\u2019une femme\nd\u00e9vou\u00e9e, ou l\u2019homage ironique d\u2019une reine contrainte \u00e0 choisir entre\ndeux devoirs; plac\u00e9e entre son \u00e9poux et son peuple, entre sa famille et\nsa patrie.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nGaspero was a gift\u2014a priceless parting gift from the Northman, who had\ngone farther south to the Punic shores from whence had come the first\nsettlers of the Palermian Coast. And to console Jane and Peripatetica\nfor the loss of his charming boyish gaiety he had made over to them that\ntreasure. For Gaspero not only drove the smartest and most comfortable\nof all the victorias on hire to the public, but he was an artist in the\nmatter of sight-seeing. A true gastronome, mingling flavours with\ndelicate wisdom; keeping delicious surprises up his sleeve lest one\u2019s\nspirit might pall, and mingling tombs and sunshine, crypts and \u201cmolto\nbella vistas,\u201d history and the colourful daily life of the people, with\na masterhand. And all so fused in the warm atmosphere of his own\nsympathetic and indulgent spirit that \u201ctouristing\u201d became a feast of the\nsoul unknown to those not guided by his discreet and skilful judgment.\nHe knew where one might purchase honey which bees had brewed from orange\nflowers into a sublimated perfume; and he introduced them to certain\npatisseries at Cafleisch\u2019s that gave afternoon tea a new meaning.\n\nIt was Gaspero who took them to the lofty shrine of Santa Rosalia on\nMonte Pellegrino; that grotto where lived the royal maiden hermit, and\nwhere lie her bones within the tomb on which Gregorio Tedeschi has made\nan image of her in marble with a golden robe, glowing dimly in the light\nof a hundred lamps. On that rosy height, dominating the beautiful\nlandscape, Gaspero told them the story of the niece of William the Good,\nwhose asceticism and devotion set so deep a seal of reverence upon the\npeople of Palermo that they enshrined her as the city\u2019s patron saint,\nand still celebrate her memory every year with a great festival. All the\npopulation climb the hill in July to say a prayer in her windy eyrie,\nand the enormous car bearing her image is dragged through the city\u2019s\nstreets, so towering in its gilded glories that one of the city gates\nhas been unroofed to permit of its entrance. At that time the Marina\u2014the\nwide sea-front street\u2014instead of being merely a solemn Corso for the\nstaid afternoon drive of the upper classes, becomes the scene of a sort\nof Pagan Saturnalia. The Galoppo takes place then\u2014races of unmounted\nfree horses\u2014delicious races, Gaspero says, in which there can be no\njockeying, and in which the generous-blooded animals strive madly to\ndistance each other from sheer love of the sport and the rivalry. A gay\npeople\u2019s revel, this, of flying hoofs and tossing manes; of dancing\nfeet; of cries and songs; mandolins, pipes, and guitars fluting and\ntwittering. The water-sellers with their glittering carts and delicate\nbubble-like bottles crying _acqua fredda_, offering golden orange juice,\nand the beloved pink anisette. The Polichinello booths, the open-air\npuppet shows, the toy-sellers with their tall poles hung with sparkling\ntrifles, the tables spread with dainties of rosy sugar, with melting\npastries, with straw-covered flasks of wine. All perspiring, talking,\nlaughing, guzzling, gormandising in honour of the an\u00e6mic, ascetic girl\nwho passed long, lonely, silent days and nights in passionate ecstasies\nand visions in those high, voiceless solitudes. Gaspero made it all very\nvivid, with hands, lips, eyes. He was possessed with the drama and\nstrange irony of it.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cHave the Signorine ever seen a Sicilian puppet show?\u201d Gaspero demanded,\n\u00e0 propos of nothing in particular, turning from a brown study on the box\nto inquire.\n\nHe plainly intended that this should be a memorable day.\n\nNo; the Signorine had not seen a puppet show. If they properly should\nsee one then they would see one. It was for Gaspero to judge. Very well,\nthen. He would come for them at half past eight that evening\u2014at least,\nhe added with proud modesty, if the Signorine would not object to his\nwearing his best clothes. His festa garments, and not the uniform of his\ncalling.\n\nObject! On the contrary, they would be flattered. Gaspero settled back\nto his duties with the triumphant expression of the artist who by sudden\ninspiration has added the crowning touch to his picture. He composed the\ndays for them on his mental palette, and this one he plainly considered\none of his masterpieces.\n\nYesterday had been a failure. Jane and Peripatetica had waked full of\nplans, but before the breakfast trays had departed they were aware of a\nheavy sense of languor and ennui which made the pleasantest plans a\nprospect of weariness and disgust.\n\n\u201cIf you sit around in a dressing-gown all day we\u2019ll never get anything\ndone,\u201d suggested Peripatetica crossly, as Jane lounged in unsympathetic\nsilence at the window.\n\n\u201cConsidering that you\u2019ve been half an hour dawdling over your hair and\nhave got it up crooked at last, I wouldn\u2019t talk about others,\u201d snapped\nJane over her shoulder without changing her attitude.\n\nA strained silence ensued. Peripatetica slammed down a hand mirror and\nspilled a whole paper of hairpins, which she contemplated stonily, with\nno movement to recover them.\n\nA hot wind whirled up a spiral of dust in the street.\n\n\u201cMy arms are so tired I can\u2019t make a coiffure,\u201d wailed Peripatetica.\n\nJane merely laid her head on the window sill and rolled a feeble,\nmelancholy eye at the disregarded hairpins.\n\nThe wind sent up another curtain of hot dust.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s the matter,\u201d complained Jane, \u201cbut I don\u2019t feel as\nif I wanted to see another sight\u2014ever\u2014as long as I live.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps this is the sirocco one hears of,\u201d piped Peripatetica weakly.\n\u201cThe guide-book says \u2018the effect of it is to occasion a difficulty in\nbreathing, and a lassitude which unfits one for work, especially of a\nmental nature.\u2019\u201d\n\nBy this time there could be no doubt of the sirocco. A hot, dry tempest\nraged, whipping the rattling palms, driving clouds of dust before it, so\nthat Jane could only dimly discern an occasional scurrying cab, or an\novertaken pedestrian pursuing an invisible hat through the roaring fog\nof flying sand. The day had turned to a brown and tempestuous dusk, and\nthe voice of a hoarse Saharan wind shouted around the corners.\n\nBut that was yesterday. To-day was golden and gracious. Rain in the\nnight had cooled and effaced all memory of the sirocco, and Gaspero was\noutdoing himself in astonishing and piquant contrasts.\n\nHe drove them to the Cappucini Convent by the devious route of the\nStreet of the Washerwomen. This roundabout way of reaching the Convent\nwas one of Gaspero\u2019s artful devices.\n\nDown each side of the broad tree-shadowed way, bordered on either hand\nby the little stone-built cubicles washed pink or white or blue, in\nwhich lived the multitudinous laundresses, ran a clear rushing brook.\nThese brooks flowed through a sort of shallow tunnel with a wide orifice\nbefore each dwelling, and in every one of these openings was standing a\nbare-legged blanchisseuse, dealing strenuously with Palermian linen,\nwith skirts tucked up above sturdy knees that were pink and fresh from\nthe rush of the bright water. Vigorous girls trotted back and forth with\nlarge baskets heaped with wet garments, and bent, but still energetic,\ngranddams spread the garments to dry. Hung them from the tree branches,\nswung them from the low eaves of the little dwellings, threaded them on\nlines that laced and crossed like spiderwebs, so that the whole vista\nwas a flutter of fabrics\u2014rose and white and green\u2014dancing in the breeze.\nA human and homely scene, with play of brown arms and bright eyes amid\nthe flying linen and laces; with sounds of rippling leaves, of calls and\nlaughter, and the gurgling of quick water\u2014drudgery that was half a\nfrolic in the cheerful sunshine.\n\nNow behold Gaspero\u2019s sense of dramatic contrast!\n\nA plain, frigid fa\u00e7ade, guarded by a bearded and rather grubby monk in a\nbrown robe. The eye does not linger upon the grubby monk, being led away\ninstantly by the vista through the arched doorway behind him of a\ncloistered court; a court solemn with the dark spires of towering\ncypresses, and brilliant with roses\u2014roses wine-coloured, golden, pink.\nBehind this screen of flowers and trees lies the bit of ground\npossessing the peculiar property of quickly desiccating and mummifying\nthe human bodies buried in it. Many hundreds have been laid in this\nearth for awhile, and then removed to the convent crypts to make room\nfor others. It is to these crypts another monk leads the way. A\nsaturnine person this, handing his charges over to another, still more\ngloomy, who sits at the foot of the stairs and watches at the crypt\u2019s\nentrance. A perfectly comprehensible depression, his, when one reflects\nthat all the sunshiny hours of these golden Sicilian days he sits at the\nshadowed door of a great tomb, mounting guard over surely the most\ngrisly charge the mind can conceive; over Death\u2019s bitterest jest at\nLife.\n\nThe walls of the high, clean corridors are lined with glass cases like a\nlibrary, but instead of printed books the shelves are crammed with\nghastly phantoms of humanity, all grinning in horrible, silent amusement\nas at a mordant, unutterable joke.\n\nJane and Peripatetica gasp and clutch one another\u2019s hand at the grey\ndisorder of this soundless merriment\u2014breathless, fixed, perpetual.\n\nHere and there a monk, crowded for lack of space from the shelves, hangs\nfrom a hook in limp, dishevelled leanness, his head drooped mockingly\nsidewise, his shrunken lips twisted in a dusty fatuous leer, a lid\ndrooped over a withered eye in a hideous wink. Others huddle in\nfantastic postures within their contracted receptacles, as if convulsed\nby some obscenely wicked jest which forces them to throw back their\nheads, to fling out their hands, to writhe their limbs into unseemly\nattitudes of amusement. One lies flat, with rigid patience in every line\nof the meagre body, a rictus of speechless agony pinching back the\nmouldy cheeks.\n\nCoffins are heaped about the floor everywhere. Through the glass tops\nthe occupants grin in weary scorn from amid the brown and crumbling\nflowers that have dried around their faces.\n\nThe ghastliest section of this ghastly place is that where the women\ncrouch in their cases, clad in the fripperies of old fashions. Earrings\nswing from dusty ears; necklaces clasp lean grey throats; faded hair is\ntortured into elaborate coiffures; laces, silks, and ribbons swathe the\ntragic ruins of beauty. And these women, too, all simper horribly,\nvoicelessly, remembering perhaps how dear these faded gauds once were\nbefore they passed beyond thought of \u201ctires and crisping pins.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy do they do it?\u201d demanded Peripatetica in whispered disgust. \u201cWhat\nstrange passion for publicity prompts them thus to flout and outrage the\ndecent privacies of death\u201d\u2014for they noted that each case bore a name and\nthe date of decease, and that some of these dates were but of a few\nyears back. \u201cDidn\u2019t they _know_, from having seen others, how they\nthemselves would look in their turn? Why would any woman be willing to\ncome here in laces and jewels to be a disgusting nightmare of femininity\nfor other women to stare at?\u201d\n\n\u201cVanity of vanities\u2014all is vanity!\u201d murmured Jane. \u201cNow they all lie\nhere laughing at the strange vanity that brought them to this place\u2014at\nthe vanity that will bring others in their turn to this incredible\nhypogeum.\u201d\n\nThen they turned a corner and came suddenly upon the little horribly\nsmiling babies, and instantly fled in simultaneous nausea and\ndisgust\u2014flinging themselves at Gaspero, who with a tenderly sympathetic\nmanner suggested an expedition to La Favorita as a corrective of\ngruesome impressions. Carrying them swiftly to it by way of the long\ndouble boulevards of the newer Palermo, between the smiling villas of\ncreamy stone that were wreathed with yellow banksias and purple\nwisteria, their feet set among gay beds of blossoms and facing the\ncheerful street life of the town.\n\n\u201cHow odd these Sicilians are!\u201d reflected Jane, as they drove. \u201cAn\nincomprehensible mixture to an Anglo-Saxon. For example one finds almost\nuniversal open-hearted gentleness and courtesy, and yet the Mafia holds\nthe whole land in a grip of iron\u2014a dangerous, murderous, secret society\nas widespread as the population, yet never betrayed, and uncontrollable\nby any power, even so popular and so democratic a one as the present\ngovernment.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes; their attitude to life is as puzzling as the face they turn toward\ndeath,\u201d agreed Peripatetica, remembering that almost every other\nbuilding in Taormina and many in Palermo wore nailed to the door a broad\nstrip of mourning\u2014often old and tattered\u2014on which was printed \u201cPer mio\nFrate,\u201d or \u201cPer mia Madre\u201d\u2014that even a newspaper kiosk had worn\nweeds\u2014\u201cPer mio Padre.\u201d\n\nAt that very moment there passed a cheerful hearse, all glass and\ngilding, wreathed with fresh flowers into a gay dancing nosegay, and\nhung with fluttering mauve streamers which announced in golden letters\nthat the white coffin within enclosed all that was mortal of some one\u2019s\nbeloved sister Giuseppina. It might have been a catafalque of some\nSpirit of Spring, so many, so sweet, so daintily gracious were the\nblooming boughs that accompanied Giuseppina to her last\nresting-place.... And yet they had but just come from the grim horrors\nof that crypt of the Cappuccini!...\n\nLa Favorita, curiously, is one of the few monuments of beauty or charm\nleft by that long reign of the Spanish monarchs of Sicily, which, with\nsome mutations, lasted for about six hundred years. They loaded the land\nwith a weight of many churches and convents, yet what one goes to see is\nwhat was done by the Greeks, the Moslems, and the Normans. La Favorita\nis not old, as one counts age in that immemorial land of the High Gods.\nA slight century or so of age it has, being built for the villegiatura\nof Ferdinando IV. at the period when the Eighteenth Century affected a\ntaste in Chinoiseries, bought blue hawthorn jars, ate from old Pekin\nplates, set up lacquered cabinets, and built Pagoda-esque pleasure\nhouses. The Ch\u00e2teau is but a flimsy and rather vulgar example of the\ntaste of the day, but the Eighteenth Century often planted delicious\ngardens, and the pleached all\u00e9es, the ilex avenues, the fountains and\nplaisances of La Favorita, make an adorable park for modern Palermo,\nhaving by time and the years grown into a majestic richness of\ntriumphant verdure.\n\nBut Gaspero is not content with La Favorita. He has things even better\nin store for Jane and Peripatetica\u2014explaining that by giving the most\nminute gratuity to the guardian of the park\u2019s nether portal they may be\nallowed to slip through into a private path that leads to the sea. They\ndo give the gratuity, and do slip through, winding along a rough country\nroad leading under the beetling red cliffs of Pellegrino; by way of\nolive orchards, mistily grey as smoke, through which burn the rosy\nspring fires of the Judas-trees, whose drifting pink clouds are so much\nmore beautiful than the over-praised almond blossoms. They skirt flowery\nmeadows all broad washes of gold and mauve, past a landscape as fair as\na dream of Paradise, and Gaspero draws up at last upon a beach of\nshining silver upon which a sea of heaving sapphire lips softly and\nwithout speech. A sea that strews those argent sands with shells like\nrose petals, like flakes of gold, like little, curled, green leaves. And\ndismounting they rest there in the sunset, forgetting \u201cdusty death,\u201d and\nglad to be alive; glad of Gaspero\u2019s tender indulgent joy in their\npleasure as he gathers for them the strewn sea-flowers, tells them\nlittle Sicilian stories of the people, and makes them entirely forget\nthey haven\u2019t had their tea.\n\nIt was in returning from this place of peace that he had that crowning\ninspiration about the puppet show, which is why in the darkness of that\nvery evening they are threading a black and greasy alleyway which smells\nof garlic and raw fish. But they go cheerfully and confidently in the\ndimly seen wake of Gaspero\u2019s festa richness of attire.\n\nAn oil torch flares and reeks before a calico curtain. This curtain,\nbrushed aside, shows a pigeon-hole room, nine feet high, very narrow,\nand not long. On either wall hangs a frail balcony, into one of which\nthe three wriggle carefully and deposit themselves on a board hardly a\npalm\u2019s breadth wide. From the vantage point of these choice and\nexpensive seats\u2014for which they have magnificently squandered six cents\napiece\u2014they are enabled to look down about four inches on the heads of\nthe commonality standing closely packed into the narrow alley leading to\nthe stage. A strictly masculine commonality, for Gaspero explains in a\nwhisper that the gentler sex of Palermo are not expected to frequent\npuppet shows, lest their delicate sensibilities may suffer shock from\nthe broad behaviour of the wooden dolls. Of course, he hurries to add,\nhandsomely, all things are permitted to forestieri, whose bold\nfantasticalities are taken for granted.\n\nThe groundlings appear to be such folk as fishpeddlers, longshoremen,\nragpickers\u2014what you will\u2014who smoke persistent tiny cigarettes, and\nrefresh themselves frequently with orange juice, or anisette and water.\nThese have plunged to the extent of two cents for their evening\u2019s\namusement, and have an air of really not considering expense. The\ngallery folk are of a higher class. On Peripatetica\u2019s right hand sits\none who has the air of an unsuccessful author or artist; immediately\nupon the entrance of the forestieri he carefully assumes an attitude of\nsarcastic detachment, as of one who lends himself to the pleasures of\nthe people merely in search of material. Opposite is an unmistakable\nvalet who also, after a quick glance at the newcomers, buttons his\nwaistcoat and takes on an appearance of indulgent condescension to the\nsituation.\n\nA gay drop curtain, the size of a dinner napkin, rolls up after a\npreliminary twitter from concealed mandolins. The little scene is set in\na wood. From the left enters a splendid miniature figure glittering in\narmour, crowned, plumed, and robed, stepping with a high melodramatic\nstride. It is King Charlemagne, the inevitable _deus ex machina_ of\nevery Sicilian puppet play. Taking the centre of the stage and the\nspotlight, he strikes his tin-clad bosom a resounding blow with his good\nright wooden hand, and bursts into passionate recitative.\n\n\u201cThe curs\u00e8d Moslem dogs have seized his subjects upon the high seas, and\ncast them into cruellest slavery. Baptised Christians bend their backs\nabove the galley oars of Saracen pirate ships, and worse\u2014oh, worst of\nall!\u201d\u2014both hands here play an enraged tattoo upon his resounding\nbosom-pan\u2014\u201cthey have seized noble Christian maidens and haled them to\ntheir infernal harems.\n\n\u201cS\u2019death! shall such things be? No! by his halidome, _no_! Rinaldo shall\nwipe this stain from his \u2018scutcheon. What ho\u2014without there!\u201d\n\nEnter hastily from right Orlando.\n\n\u201cHis Majesty called?\u201d\n\n\u201cCalled? well rather! Go find me that good Knight Rinaldo, the great\nPaladin, and get the very swiftest of moves on, or something will happen\nwhich is likely to be distinctly unpleasant.\u201d\n\nOrlando vanishes, and in a twinkling appears Rinaldo, more shining, more\nresplendent, more befeathered even than the King; with an appalling\nstride (varied by a robin-like hop), calculated to daunt the boldest\nworm of a Moslem.\n\nHe awaits his sovereign\u2019s commands with ligneous dignity, but as the\nKing pours out the tale his legs rattle with strained attention, and\nwhen the Christian maids come into the story his falchion flashes\nuncontrollably from its sheath.\n\n\u201c_Will_ he go? Will a bird fly? Will a fish swim?\u201d\n\nCharlemagne retires, leaving Rinaldo to plan the campaign with Orlando.\n\nEnter now another person in armour, but wearing half an inch more of\nlength of blue petticoat, and with luxuriant locks streaming from\nbeneath the plumed helmet. \u2019Tis Bramante, the warrior maiden, who in\nshrill soprano declines to be left out of any chivalric ruction. Three\nsix-inch swords flash in the candlelight; three vows to conquer or die\nbring down the dinner napkin to tumultuous applause.\n\nThe pit has been absorbed to the point of letting its cigarettes go out,\nand the author and the valet hastily resume their forgotten\ncondescension.\n\nEvery one cracks and eats melon seeds until the second act reveals the\ncourt of a Saracen palace.\n\nThe thumps of the three adventurers\u2019 striding feet bring out hasty\nswarms of black slaves, who fall like grain before the Christian swords.\nBetter metal than this must meet a Paladin!\n\nTurbaned warriors fling themselves into the fray, and the clash of steel\non steel rings through the palace. Orlando is down, Rinaldo and Bramante\nfight side by side, though Rinaldo staggers with wounds. The crescented\nturbans one by one roll in the dust, and as the two panting conquerors\nlean exhausted upon their bloody swords\u2014enter the Soldan himself!\n\nNow Turk meets Paladin, and comes the tug of war.\n\nBramante squeaks like a mouse; hops like a sparrow.\n\n_Ding, dong!_ Rinaldo is beaten to his knee and the Soldan shortens his\nblade for a final thrust, but\u2014Bramante rushes in, and with one terrific\nsweep of her sword shears his head so clean from his shoulders that it\nrolls to the footlights and puts out one of the candles.\n\n_Ha! ha!_ He trusted in his false god, Mahound!\n\nBramante hops violently.\n\nEnter suddenly, rescued Christian Maid. Also in armour; also possessing\npiercing falsetto.\n\nSaved! saved! She falls clattering upon Rinaldo\u2019s breast, and Bramante,\nafter an instant\u2019s hesitation, falls there on top of her, with\npeculiarly vicious intensity.\n\nMore dinner napkin. More frenzied applause. Gaspero draws a long breath.\nHis eyes are full of tears of feeling.\n\nScene in the wood again. Charlemagne has thanked Rinaldo. Has thanked\nBramante. Has blessed the Christian Maid, and has retired exhausted to\nhis afternoon nap!\n\nChristian Maid insists upon expressing _her_ gratitude to the Paladin\nwith her arms round his neck.\n\nBramante drags her off by her back hair, a dialogue ensuing which bears\nstriking likeness to the interview of cats on a back fence.\n\nChristian Maid opines that Bramante is _no lady_, and swords are out\ninstantly.\n\n_One, two, three!\u2014clash, slash, bang!_\n\nRinaldo hops passionately and futilely around the two contestants.\n\nLadies! Ladies! he protests in agony, but blood is beginning to flow,\nwhen, suddenly, a clap of thunder\u2014a glitter of lightning!\n\nThe cover of an ancient tomb in the wood rolls away, and from the black\npit rises a grisly skeleton. Six legs clatter and rattle like pie-pans;\nswords fall. It is the ghost of Rinaldo\u2019s father. Christian Maid is\nreally Rinaldo\u2019s sister, he explains, carried off by Saracens in her\nchildhood.\n\nSkeleton pulls down the cover of the tomb and retires to innocuous\ndesuetude.\n\nOpportune entry of Orlando miraculously cured of his wounds. Rinaldo has\nan inspiration, and bestows upon Orlando the hand of the Christian Maid.\n\nAll the tins of the kitchen tumble at once\u2014everybody has fallen on every\none else\u2019s mail-clad bosom!...\n\nDear Gaspero! It has been a _wonderful_ day.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nA slow, fine rain falls. Vapours roll among the vapoury hills.\n\nIt is just the day for the museum, and such a museum! Not one of those\ncold and formal mausoleums built by the modern world for the beauties of\nthe dead past, but a fine old monastery of the Philippines with two\ncloistered cortile; with a long, closed gallery for the hanging of the\npictures; with big refectories, ambulatories, and chapels for housing\nthe sculpture, and with its little cells crammed with gold and silver\nwork, with enamels, with embroideries, with jewels. A gracious casket\nfor the treasures of old time.\n\nThe rain is dripping softly into the open cloister, where the wet\ngarlands of wisteria and heavy-clustered gold of the banksias are\ndistilling their mingled fragrance in the damp air. The rain makes sweet\ntinklings in the old fountains and in the sculptured wellheads gathered\nin the court; on the cloister walls are grouped bas-reliefs\u2014tinted\nMadonnas by Gagini; Greek fragments, stone vases standing on the floor,\ntwisted columns, broken but lovely torsos.\n\nIndeed, it is not like a museum at all. No ticketed rigidity, no\nhistorical sequence\u2014just treasures set about where the setting will best\naccord with and display their beauties. There is not even a catalogue to\nbe had, which gives a delightful sense of freedom at first, but this has\nits drawbacks when Jane and Peripatetica come to the tomb of Aprilis in\na side chamber, and wish to know something more of this sad little maid\nsculptured into the marble of the tomb\u2019s sunken lid\u2014wrapped in a\nstraitly folded wimple, with slim crossed feet, and small head turned\nhalf aside; smiling innocently in the sleep which has lasted so long.\nAprilis, whose April had never blossomed into May, and whose epitaph has\nfor five hundred years called Sicily to witness the grief of those who\nlost her:\n\n             \u201cSicilia, Hic Jacet Aprilis. Miseranda Puella\n              Unicce Qu\u00e6lugens Occultipa Diem 18 Otobre\n                             XIII 1495.\u201d\n\nOf course, the guide-books ignore her. Trust the guide-books to preserve\na stony silence about anything of real human interest!...\n\nAnother court; a great basin where papyrus grows, where bananas wave\nsilken banners amid the delicate plumes of tall bamboo, where are more\npurple wreaths of wistaria and snow-drifts of roses, and where the\ntreasures are mostly Greek. Very notable among these a marble tripod\ndraped with the supple folds of a python; the lax power of the great\nsnake subtly contrasted with, and emphasized by, the rigid lines of the\nseat of the soothsayer. More notable still, in the Sala del Fauna, is an\narchaic statue of Athene from Selinunto\u2014like some splendid sharded\ninsect in her helmet and lion skin\u2014rescued from that vast wreck of a\ncity. They had travelled from Palermo a few days before to see that\ncity, drawn by Crawford\u2019s fine passages of description, and there they,\ntoo, had wondered at the astonishing remains of those astonishing\nGreeks.\n\n... \u201cThere is nothing in Europe like the ruins of Selinunto. Side by\nside, not one stone upon another, as they fell at the earthquake shock,\nthe remains of four temples lie in the dust within the city, and still\nmore gigantic fragments of three others lie without the ruined walls. At\nfirst sight the confusion looks so terrific that the whole seems as if\nit might have fallen from the sky, from a destruction of the home of the\ngods\u2014as if Zeus might have hurled a city at mankind, to fall upon Sicily\nin a wild wreck of senseless stone. Blocks that are Cyclopean lie like\njackstraws one upon another; sections of columns twenty-eight feet round\nare tossed together upon the ground like leaves from a basket, and\nfragments of cornice fifteen feet long lie across them, or stand half\nupright, or lean against the enormous steps. No words can explain to the\nmind the involuntary shock which the senses feel at first sight of it\nall. One touches the stones in wonder, comparing one\u2019s small human\nstature with their mass, and the intellect strains hopelessly to recall\ntheir original position; one climbs in and out among them, sometimes\nmounting, sometimes descending, as one might pick one\u2019s way through an\nenormous quarry, scarcely understanding that the blocks one touches have\nall been hewn into shape by human hands, and that the hills from which\nmen brought them are but an outline in the distance.\u201d...\n\nAll that quiet falling day Jane and Peripatetica wandered in the\ntransformed monastery, staring at the great metopes; lingering among the\nSaracenic carvings and jewelled windows, poring over Ph\u0153nician seals;\nover the amazing ecclesiastic needlework, the gold monstrances, the\ncarved gems, and last and best of all some delicious reliefs at sight of\nwhich they forgave at once and forever their old enemy, the Eighteenth\nCentury, for all its disgusting crimes against beauty. They sought madly\nthrough the books for some mention of these tall, adorable nymphs in\nadorably impossible attitudes, these curled and winged and dimpled\nbabies, fluttering like fat little wrens sweetly ignorant of the laws of\ngravitation; but as always on any subject of interest Baedeker and the\nrest frigidly refused to tell the name of the man out of whose head and\nhands had grown these enchanting figures.\n\n\u201cOh, dear Unknown!\u201d cries Jane regretfully, \u201cwhy is your noble name\nburied in silence! I wish to make a pilgrimage to your tomb, to cover it\nwith Sicilian roses, and breathe a prayer for the repose of your sweet\nand gracious soul.\u201d\n\n\u201cMe too!\u201d echoes Peripatetica, in tender scorn of the stodgy rules of\nEnglish grammar.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Paschal season is near.\n\nAlways, in all lands of all faiths, the coming of Spring, the yearly\nresurrection of life and nature, has been welcomed with gladness. The\noccultation of Osiris, of Baldur, of Persephone, of the Christ, is\nmourned; their coming again hailed with flowers and feasting.\n\nPalermo is filling with visitors; with a glory of flowers and verdure in\nwhich the loveliest city in the world grows daily lovelier. The Conca\nd\u2019Oro\u2014the Shell of Gold\u2014swims in a golden sea of sunshine.\n\nOn the Wednesday before Easter the whole population exchanges cakes.\nCakes apotheosized by surprising splendours of icing; icing, gilded,\nsilvered, snowily sculptured into Loves and angels and figures of\nnational heroes. Icing wrought into elaborate garlands tinted rose,\npurple, and green; built into towers and ornate architectural devices.\nStructures of confectionery three feet high are borne on big platters\nbetween two men. Every child carries gay little cakes to be presented to\ngrandparents and godparents, to cousins and playmates.\n\nAll Maundy Thursday the population moves from church to church. Masses\nmoan incessant in every chapel. Before the Virgins on every\nstreet-shrine, draped in black, candles blaze and drip. Priests and\nmonks hurry to and fro, bent upon preparations for the great spectacle\nof the morrow.\n\nFriday morning early all Palermo is in the streets in its best attire.\nSmall children dressed as little cardinals, as nuns, as priests,\nbishops, angels with gilded wings, as Virgins, as John the Baptist, are\non their way to the churches from which the processions are to flow.\nMonks and friars gather from outlying country convents.\n\nAt ten o\u2019clock a throbbing dirge begins. The first of the processions is\nunder way. A band plays a funeral march, and is followed by acolytes\nswinging censers. Pious elderly citizens, perspiring in frock coats,\ncarry tall, flaming candles that drop wax upon their clothes. A few\npriests, in black and purple, follow, bearing holy vessels. Behind these\na row of men in medi\u00e6val armour and carrying halberds, surround a heavy,\nhand-borne bier hung with black velvet, on which rests a glass and gilt\ncase containing an image of the Crucified\u2014a life-sized image, brown with\nage. Presumably it has been taken from some ancient and revered Spanish\ncrucifix, for it is crowned with thorns, is emaciated, is writhed with\npain, painted with the dark, faded red of streaming wounds\u2014one of those\nagonised figures conceived by the pious realism of the older Spanish\nsculptors.\n\nImmediately follows another hand-borne litter upon which is standing a\ntall Virgin clothed in black hood and mantle\u2014a pallid, narrow-faced\nVirgin\u2014also Spanish and realistic. The delicate clasped hands hold a\nlace handkerchief, her breast is hung with votive silver hearts. The\nfeatures are distorted with grief, the lids, reddened with tears, are\ndrooped over sunken, deep-shadowed eyes, and her countenance seamed and\nwithered\u2014a poignant figure of unutterable maternal woe! Burning candles\nalternate with mounds of roses about the edge of the platform on which\nshe stands.\n\nAs the dead Son and the mourning Mother pass, hats come off and heads\nare bowed, signs of the cross are made. A few of the older peasant women\nfall to their knees upon the sidewalk and mutter an Agnus Dei, a Hail\nMary, with streaming tears. A priest walks last of all, rattling a\ncontribution box at the end of a long stick, looking anxiously at the\nbalconies and windows from which the well-to-do spectators lean. For his\nis but a poor church; the velvet palls and cloaks are cotton, and frayed\nand faded, the bier and platform old, and so massive that the stalwart\nbearers must set them down often to wipe away the sweat, which is why it\ntakes advantage of the unpre-empted morning hours and is early in the\nfield.\n\nLater in the day, in Gaspero\u2019s cab and under his guidance, Jane and\nPeripatetica take up a coign of vantage in a square debouching upon the\nCorso Vittorio Emanuele, along which the Jesuits are to parade at four\no\u2019clock. Here the crowd is solidly packed, the balconies and windows\ncrowded with the aristocracy of Palermo. The Guarda Mobili in their\nsplendid uniforms keep open the way for the marching fraternities and\nsodalities with their crucifixes and Virgin-embroidered banners, open a\nlane for the monks, for the crowds of tiny angels and cardinals who must\npatter for hours in the slow-moving procession. Priests and acolytes\nswarm; censers steam, hundreds of candles of all weights and heights\nflare and flame, and then slowly, slowly, to the wailing music, moves\nforward a splendid catafalque of crystal in which lies stretched upon a\nbed of white velvet, richly wrought with gold, a fair youth. A youth\nwith white, naked limbs, relaxed and pure; not soiled by the grimy,\nbloody agonies of martyrdom, but poetised to a picture of Love too early\ndead\u2014a charming image. And the beautiful tall Virgin is not the simple\nMother of the Carpenter convulsed with despair. She is a stately,\nsorrowful Queen, crowned, hung with jewels, robed in superb royal weeds;\nproudly refusing to show the full depth of her bereavement, as she\nfollows her dead Son amid the wax torches shining palely in the sunshine\nthrough the white and green of the sheaves of lilies that grow about her\nknees.\n\nThe emotional effect upon the crowd is intense; one can hear like an\nundertone the sound of indrawn, gulping breath. Gaspero passes his\nsleeve across the tears in his dark eyes.\n\nThis version of the tragedy is lifted above the realism of pain into a\npenetrating and lovely symbolism that swells the heart with poignant and\ntender emotions as the divine funeral train winds slowly away, with\nperfume, with lights, and with the slow sobbing of the muffled drums.\n\nSo had Sicilians two thousand years ago crowded every spring to see a\nsimilar spectacle of a weeping Queen of Love following an image of a\nlovely dead youth....\n\n\u201cAh! and himself\u2014Adonis\u2014how beautiful to behold he lies on his silver\ncouch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice beloved\nAdonis\u2014Adonis beloved even among the dead.... O Queen, O Aphrodite, that\nplayest with gold, lo, from the stream eternal of Acheron they have\nbrought back to thee Adonis\u2014even in the twelfth month they have brought\nhim, the dainty-footed Hours.... Before him lie all that the tall\ntree-branches bear, and the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of\nsilver; and the golden vessels are full of the incense of Syria. And all\nthe dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading-tray, mingling\nblossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of\nhoney sweet, and in soft olive-oil, all cakes fashioned in semblance of\nthings that fly, and of things that creep, lo, here they are set before\nhim.\n\n\u201cHere are built for him shadowy bowers of green, all laden with tender\nanise, and children flit overhead\u2014the little Loves\u2014as the young\nnightingales perched upon the trees fly forth and try their wings from\nbough to bough....\n\n\u201cBut lo, in the morning we will all of us gather with the dew, and carry\nhim forth among the waves that break upon the beach, and with locks\nunloosed, and ungirt raiment falling to the ankles, and bosoms bare we\nwill begin our shrill sweet song.\n\n\u201cThou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, thou only of the demigods, dost\nvisit both this world and the stream of Acheron.... Dear has thine\nadvent been, Adonis, and dear shall it be when thou comest again.\u201d\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nGaspero never permitted Jane and Peripatetica to lose anything. Doubling\nthrough narrow, black streets where lofty buildings nearly met above\ntheir heads and where they snatched hurried, delighted glimpses of\nintricate old grilles, of arched and wheeled windows, of splendid\nhatchments and fine carved portals\u2014he brought them out at admirable view\npoints for all the many similar parades in widely separated parts of the\ncity.\n\nAs the purple dusk came down they found themselves in the Marina,\nwatching the last of the processions moving slowly down the broad avenue\nto the sea-street. The crowd had thinned. The small angels and John the\nBaptists went wearily upon dusty little feet, their crowns of now wilted\nroses canted at dissipated angles over their flushed and tearful faces,\nthe heavy, half-burned wax torches wabbling dangerously near the\ndraggled veils and drooping gilt wings.\n\nThe bearers of the images paused often to set down their heavy burdens.\nThe balconies began to blossom with tinted lights. Here and there the\nVirgin with her twinkling candles was turned toward a balcony filled\nwith some specially faithful children of the church, and stood facing\nthem a moment, tall, ghostly, tragical, in the gathering darkness,\nbefore passing onward in her long pilgrimage of mourning that was to end\nwithin the church doors as night came down.\n\n\u201cIt is enough, Gaspero,\u201d they cried, as the flickering train passed away\ndown the water avenue into the blue blackness of the shadowy evening,\nand then they went homewards full of that strange mingled sense of\nlanguor and refreshment\u2014that \u201ccleansing of the soul with pity and\nterror\u201d which is the gift of the heroic tragedies....\n\nEvery hour of that night the bells rang and masses sang throughout the\ncity. All day Saturday the churches swarmed, and the purple veils, hung\nbefore the altar pictures throughout Lent, were rent from top to bottom\nto the sound of the wailing De Profundis. Sunday the religious world\nseemed to exhale itself in music and flowers and triumphant masses.\nEaster Monday morning the populace hurried through the necessary\ndomestic duties at the earliest possible moment, for the Pasqua Flora is\nthe day of villegiatura for all Palermo. Every one wears new clothes.\nEven the humble asinelli are, for once in the year at least, brushed and\ncombed, and decorated with fresh red tassels if the master is too poor\nto afford more elaboration of the always elaborate harness. Those asses\nwho have the luck to be the property of rich contadini appear\nresplendent in new caparison; with towering brass collars heavy with\nscarlet chenille, flashing with mirrors and inlays of mother-of-pearl,\nglittering from head to tail with brass buckles, with bells and red tags\ninnumerable, drawing new carts carved and painted with all the myths and\nlegends and history of Sicily in crude chromatic vivacity.\n\nWhole families stream countrywards in these carts to-day; babies clean\nand starched for once, grandmothers in purple kerchiefs tied under the\nchin and yellow kerchiefs crossed upon the breast, with gold hoops in\ntheir ears; daughters in flowered cottons, their uncovered heads wrought\nwith fearful and wonderful pompadours, sleek and jet black.\n\nAlong the seashore, up the sides of Pellegrino, in all the open country\nabout Palermo, they spread and sun themselves, eat, sleep, make love,\ngossip, dance, and sing in the golden air.\n\nGaspero drives slowly through the wide-spread picnic, pausing wherever a\ncharacteristic group attracts.\n\nHere lies a whole family asleep; gorged with endless coils of macaroni,\nsaturated with sun\u2014a mere heap of crude-coloured clothes, of brown\nopen-mouthed faces, of lax limbs that to-morrow must be gathered up\nagain for a hand-to-hand struggle for bread for another twelve-month.\n\nUnder this tree a long table is spread with loaves, with meats, with\niced cakes, and straw-covered flasks. A rich confr\u00e8re of Gaspero\ncelebrates the betrothal of his only daughter, a plump and solid\nheiress, who beneath an inky and mighty pompadour simpers at the broad\njokes of her pursey, elderly fianc\u00e9. A solid fianc\u00e9, financially and\nphysically. Altogether a solid match, says Gaspero. A dashing guest\nthrums his guitar and sings throatily of the joys of love and of money\nin the stocking.\n\nHere a group of very old men watch about a boiling pot hung above a\nlittle fire, and twitter reminiscences of youth, catching one last pale\ngleam of the fast sinking sun of their meagre, toilsome lives.\n\nEverywhere music and laughter and the smell of flowers and food and\nwine.\n\nA big piano-organ is playing a rouladed waltz to a ring of young\nspectators, crowding to watch the elaborate steps of dancers swinging\nabout singly with grace-steps, with high prancings, with tarantella\nflourishes. Male dancers, all. Gaspero explains that no respectable girl\nwould be allowed to join them, the Sicilian girl\u2019s diversions being\ndistressingly limited.\n\nOne of the boyish dancers, with the keen, bold face and square head of a\nmedi\u00e6val Condottiere, flourishes his light cane in fencing passes as he\nswings, which challenge inspires a spectator to leap into the ring with\nhis own cane drawn. The newcomer, an obvious dandy in pointed\npatent-leather shoes, blue-ribboned hat, and light suit of cheap\nsmartness, crosses canes dashingly with the would-be fencer, and the\nrest of the dancers drop back to see the fun.\n\nThe Condottiere finds in a few passes that he has met his master and\ncraftily begins a waiting game. Lithe and quick as a cat, he circles and\ngives way, his opponent driving him round and round the ring, lunging\ndaringly and playing to the gallery. He flourishes unnecessarily,\npursues recklessly, assumes a contemptuous carelessness of the boy,\nalways circling, always on guard, always coolly thrifty of breath and\nstrength.\n\nThe dandy grows tired and angry, rushes furiously to make an end of his\nnimble evasive antagonist, who at last turns with cold courage and by a\ntwist of his weapon sends the dandy\u2019s cane flying clean over the ring of\nspectators, who scream with delight. But the Condottiere is a generous\nas well as a wily foe. He offers an embrace. The dandy reluctantly\nallows himself to be kissed on both cheeks, but the victor catches him\nabout the waist and waltzes him around madly amid the laughter and\nbravas of the crowd.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is Jane\u2019s and Peripatetica\u2019s last day in Sicily. Gaspero has taken\nthem to Santa Maria di Gesu, the Minorite Monastery, but has paused by\nthe way for a look at San Giovanni degli Eremiti, whose little red domes\nfloat clear against the burning azure sky like coral-tinted bubbles, so\nairily do they rise from the green of the high hill-garden with its tiny\ncloisters of miniature columns and miniscule grey arches heavy with\nyellow roses. And yet from this rosy, arch little fane rang the Sicilian\nVespers which gave the signal for one of the bloodiest butcheries in\nhistory. It was Pasqua Flora, and all Palermo, as it did yesterday, was\nfeasting and dancing out of doors. One of the French soldiers\u2014then in\noccupation, upholding the hated House of Anjou\u2014insulted a Sicilian girl\nand was stabbed. Just then the Vesper bells rang from San Giovanni degli\nEremiti, and at the signal the conspiracy, long festering, broke into\nopen flame, and Palermo rose and massacred the French till the streets\nran with blood.\n\nThe Gesu Monastery has no such sanguinary associations. The plain little\nbuilding, high on the hillside, stands buried among enormous cypresses\nand clouds of roses, and surrounded by the massive marble tombs and\nmortuary chapels of Palermo\u2019s nobility and Sicily\u2019s magnates. It is a\nplace of great peace and silence. A place of unutterable beauty of\noutlook upon gorges feathered with pines, upon stern violet mountains\nmelting into more distant heights of amethyst, into outlines of\nhyacinth, into silhouettes of mauve, into high ghostly shadows that\nvanish into floods of aerial blue. A place which looks on sea and shore\nand city, and where the chemistry of sun and air transmutes the\nmultitudinous tones of the landscape to an incredible witchery of tint,\nto living hues like those of the colours of jewels, of flowers, of the\nlittle burning feathers of the butterflies\u2019 wings.\n\n\u201cDoubtless God might have made a more beautiful view than this from the\nGesu, but doubtless God never did,\u201d sighed Jane.\n\nBut still Gaspero is not satisfied. He can never rest content with\nanything less than perfection. Yes; he admits the Gesu is admirable, but\nhe knows a still more \u201cmolto bella vista.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is nothing better than the best,\u201d says Jane sententiously. \u201cI am\ndrenched and satiated with all the loveliness that I can bear. Any other\n\u2018vista\u2019 would be an anticlimax.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear Jane,\u201d remonstrated Peripatetica, \u201chaven\u2019t you yet guessed that\nGaspero is a wizard? I suspected it the very first day. Of course, you\ncan see that he\u2019s no ordinary guide and cab-driver, and, as a matter of\nfact, I don\u2019t believe there _are_ any such sights as the ones we think\nhe has showed us. You\u2019ve been on Broadway? Well, can you lay your hand\non your heart, and honestly affirm that when you are there again you\nwon\u2019t at once realize that there never were such beauties as these we\u2019ve\nbeen seeing? Won\u2019t you know then that this is all a glamour\u2014a hypnotic\nsuggestion of Gaspero\u2019s mind upon ours?\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t be ridiculous!\u201d snapped Jane. \u201cWhat is all this rhodomontade\nleading to?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo a desire to follow the wizard,\u201d answered Peripatetica recklessly.\n\u201cWhither Gaspero goeth I go! I am fully prepared to wallow in glamours,\nand besides we\u2019ve luncheon in our basket, so don\u2019t be tiresome, Jane.\nLet\u2019s abandon the commonplace and \u2018follow the Gleam.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well,\u201d laughed Jane, climbing into the carriage. \u201cGaspero and\n\u2018gleam\u2019 if you like.\u201d\n\nWhether the molto bella vista ever existed remains still a subject of\ndispute. Peripatetica insists that it was only a pretext for leading\nthem to a place where Gaspero intended they should lunch, but Jane, who\nalways kicks against the philosophic pricks of the determinists,\ncontends that she exercised a certain measure of free will in the\nmatter. However that may be, they wound among mountain roads, by caves\nGaspero said were once the dwellings of giants, by little outlying\nvillages where old women span and wove in the doorways and young women\nmade lace; where copper-workers sat in the street and with musical clang\nof little hammers beat out glittering vessels of rosy metal. They\nscattered flocks of goats from their path, the shaggy white bucks\nleaping nimbly upon the wall and staring at them with curious ironic,\nsatyr-like glances; and far, very far up, they came upon a mountain\nmeadow mistily shadowed by enormous gnarled olive trees\u2014a meadow\nknee-deep in flowers. A meadow that was a sea of flowers, orange, golden\nand lemon, rippling and dimpling in the light and shade, breathed upon\nby the faint flying airs of those high spaces:\n\n                   \u201cIn Arcady, in Arcady!\n                    Where all the leaves are merry\u2014\u201d\n\ncried Peripatetica joyously.\n\n\u201cOf course it\u2019s Arcady,\u201d said Jane, with conviction. \u201cAnd we have come\nupon it in the Age\u2014or perhaps the moment\u2014of Gold. Gaspero,\u201d she\nannounced firmly, \u201cwe will lunch right here.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut Signorina\u2014the Vista!\u201d protested the Wizard with a quizzical smile.\n\nIt was really (Peripatetica is convinced) Gaspero\u2019s subtle understanding\nof Jane\u2019s character which led him to offer just sufficient opposition to\nfix her determination to stay at the very spot where he could best work\nhis magic, for a flowing world of shadowy purple swam about them in a\nthousand suave folds down to a shining sea, and he could not have showed\nthem any vista more beautiful. But why attempt to shake Jane\u2019s pleased\nconviction it was really owing to her that for a few hours she and\nPeripatetica could truly say, \u201cI too have lived in Arcadia.\u201d That it was\nowing to her they cheerfully fed there, and lay cradled for long warm\nhours in that perfumed flood of flowers in happy thoughtless silence,\nwrapped in a fold of the Earth Mother\u2019s\u2014the great Demeter\u2019s\u2014mantle; a\nfold embroidered by the fine fingers of her daughter Persephone, the\nOpener of Flowers.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat night, when the full moon rose over the silky sea, far down the\nhorizon behind them slowly faded into the distance the ghostly silver\npeaks of the enchanted Land of the Older Gods.\n\n\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                           THE COMPLETE WORKS\n\n                                   OF\n\n                            WILLIAM J. LOCKE\n\n               \u201cLIFE IS A GLORIOUS THING.\u201d\u2014_W. J. Locke_\n\n    \u201cIf you wish to be lifted out of the petty cares of to-day, read one\n    of Locke\u2019s novels. You may select any from the following titles and\n    be certain of meeting some new and delightful friends. His\n    characters are worth knowing.\u201d\u2014_Baltimore Sun._\n\n The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne\n At the Gate of Samaria\n A Study in Shadows\n Where Love Is\n Derelicts\n The Demagogue and Lady Phayre\n The Beloved Vagabond\n The White Dove\n The Usurper\n Septimus\n Idols\n\n                _12mo._      _Cloth._      _$1.50 each._\n\n    Eleven volumes bound in green cloth. Uniform edition in box. $16.50\n    per set. Half morocco $45.00 net. Express prepaid.\n\n=The Belov\u00e9d Vagabond=\n\n    \u201c\u2018The Belov\u00e9d Vagabond\u2019 is a gently-written, fascinating tale. Make\n    his acquaintance some dreary, rain-soaked evening and find the\n    vagabond nerve-thrilling in your own heart.\u201d \u2014_Chicago\n    Record-Herald._\n\n=Septimus=\n\n    \u201cSeptimus is the joy of the year.\u201d\u2014_American Magazine._\n\n=The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne=\n\n    \u201cA literary event of the first importance.\u201d\u2014_Boston Herald._\n\n    \u201cOne of those rare and much-to-be-desired stories which keep one\n    divided between an interested impatience to get on, and an\n    irresistible temptation to linger for full enjoyment by the\n    way.\u201d\u2014_Life._\n\n=Where Love Is=\n\n    \u201cA capital story told with skill.\u201d\u2014_New York Evening Sun._\n\n    \u201cOne of those unusual novels of which the end is as good as the\n    beginning.\u201d\u2014_New York Globe._\n\n=The Usurper=\n\n    \u201cContains the hall-mark of genius itself. The plot is masterly in\n    conception, the descriptions are all vivid flashes from a brilliant\n    pen. It is impossible to read and not marvel at the skilled\n    workmanship and the constant dramatic intensity of the incident,\n    situations and climax.\u201d\u2014_The Boston Herald._\n\n=Derelicts=\n\n    \u201cMr. Locke tells his story in a very true, a very moving, and a very\n    noble book. If any one can read the last chapter with dry eyes we\n    shall be surprised. \u2018Derelicts\u2019 is an impressive, an important book.\n    Yvonne is a creation that any artist might be proud of.\u201d\u2014_The Daily\n    Chronicle._\n\n=Idols=\n\n    \u201cOne of the very few distinguished novels of this present book\n    season.\u201d\u2014_The Daily Mail._\n\n    \u201cA brilliantly written and eminently readable book.\u201d \u2014_The London\n    Daily Telegraph._\n\n=A Study in Shadows=\n\n    \u201cMr. Locke has achieved a distinct success in this novel. He has\n    struck many emotional chords, and struck them all with a firm, sure\n    hand. In the relations between Katherine and Raine he had a delicate\n    problem to handle, and he has handled it delicately.\u201d \u2014_The Daily\n    Chronicle._\n\n=The White Dove=\n\n    \u201cIt is an interesting story. The characters are strongly conceived\n    and vividly presented, and the dramatic moments are powerfully\n    realized.\u201d\u2014_The Morning Post._\n\n=The Demagogue and Lady Phayre=\n\n    \u201cThink of Locke\u2019s clever books. Then think of a book as different\n    from any of these as one can well imagine\u2014that will be Mr. Locke\u2019s\n    new book.\u201d\u2014_New York World._\n\n=At the Gate of Samaria=\n\n    \u201cWilliam J. Locke\u2019s novels are nothing if not unusual. They are\n    marked by a quaint originality. The habitual novel reader inevitably\n    is grateful for a refreshing sense of escaping the commonplace path\n    of conclusion.\u201d\u2014_Chicago Record-Herald._\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                           POEMS WORTH HAVING\n\n=Stephen Phillips=\n\n    NEW POEMS, including IOLE: A Tragedy in One Act; LAUNCELOT AND\n    GUINEVERE, ENDYMION, and many other hitherto unpublished poems.\n\n      _Cloth, 12mo_ _$1.25 net_ _Half morocco, $4.00 net_ _Postage 10\n                                   cents_\n\n    \u201cI have read the \u2018New Poems\u2019 of Stephen Phillips with the greatest\n    interest. In my judgment it is the best volume that he has ever\n    published.\u201d\u2014Wm. Lyon Phelps of Yale University.\n\n    _Uniform Sets._ 4 volumes, including NEW POEMS, POEMS, PAOLO AND\n    FRANCESCA, HEROD.\n\n    _Cloth, $5.00 net_ _Half morocco, $15.00 net_ _Express 50 cents_\n\n=Laurence Hope=\n\n    =COMPLETE WORKS.= Uniform Edition 3 volumes, 12mo. Bound in red\n    cloth, in box.\n\n    =India\u2019s Love Lyrics=, including \u201cThe Garden of Kama.\u201d\n\n    =Stars of the Desert=\n\n    =Last Poems.= Translations from the Book of Indian Love.\n\n    _Cloth, $4.50 net_ _Postage 35 cents_ _Half morocco, $12.00_\n    _Postage 50 cents_\n\n    \u201cThe comparison of Laurence Hope to Sappho readily suggested itself\n    to the admiring reviewers of her first book of poems.... The\n    compliment was fully deserved.... As a singer of the melancholy of\n    love and passion, Laurence Hope surpasses Swinburne in intensity of\n    feeling and beauty of thought.\u201d \u2014_New York Evening Mail._\n\n=The Poems of Arthur Symons=\n\n    A Collected Edition of the Poet\u2019s works issued in two volumes with a\n    Photogravure Portrait as Frontispiece.\n\n    _8vo_ _$3.00 net_ _Half morocco, $10.00_ _Postage 24 cents_\n\n=The Fool of the World, and Other Poems=\n\n                            By ARTHUR SYMONS\n\n    _12mo_ _$1.50 net_ _Half morocco, $5.00_ _Postage 15 cents_\n\n    \u201cStands at the head of all British poets of his generation.\u201d\u2014_New\n    York Evening Post._\n\n=The Poems of William Watson=\n\n    Edited and arranged with an introduction by J. A. SPENDER.\n\n    _In 2 volumes_ _12mo_ _cloth, $2.50 net_ _Half morocco, $7.50 net_\n    _Photogravure Portrait_ _Postage 20 cents_\n\n    \u201cThe lover of poetry cannot fail to rejoice in this handsome\n    edition.\u201d\u2014_Philadelphia Press._\n\n    \u201cWork which will live, one may venture to say, as long as the\n    language.\u201d\u2014_Philadelphia Public Ledger._\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                              =VERNON LEE=\n\n    Uniform sets boxed. _8 vols. Cloth. $12.00 net. Express extra. $1.50\n    net each. Postage 10 cents._\n\n                Limbo and Other Essays: \u201cAriadne in Mantua\u201d\n                  Pope Jacynth, and Other Fantastic Tales\n                    Hortus Vit\u00e6, or the Hanging Gardens\n                         The Sentimental Traveller\n                            The Enchanted Woods\n                             The Spirit of Rome\n                                Genius Loci\n                                 Hauntings\n\n    \u2e2a \u201cIf we were asked to name the three authors writing in English\n    to-day to whom the highest rank of cleverness and brilliancy might\n    be accorded, we would not hesitate to place among them VERNON\n    LEE.\u201d\u2014_Baltimore Sun._\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                          =ELIZABETH BISLAND=\n\n=The Secret Life. Being the Book of a Heretic.=\n\n    _12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 10 cents._\n\n    \u201cA book of untrammelled thought on living topics ... extraordinarily\n    interesting.\u201d\u2014_Philadelphia Press._\n\n    \u201cExcellent style, quaint humor, and shrewd philosophy.\u201d\u2014_Review of\n    Reviews._\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                             =W. COMPTON LEITH=\n\n=Apologia Diffidentis=. An intimate personal book.\n\n               _Cloth. 8vo. $2.50 net. Postage 15 cents._\n\n    \u2e2a \u201cMr. LEITH formulates the anatomy of diffidence as Burton did of\n    melancholy; and it might almost be said that he has done it with\n    equal charm. The book surpasses in beauty and distinction of style\n    any other prose work of the past few years. Its charm is akin to\n    that of Mr. A. C. Benson\u2019s earlier books, yet Mr. Benson at his best\n    has never equalled this.... A human document as striking as it is\n    unusual.... The impress of truth and wisdom lies deep upon every\n    page.\u201d\u2014_The Dial._\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                        =GILBERT K. CHESTERTON=\n\n=Heretics=. Essays. _12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents._\n\n    \u201cAlways entertaining.\u201d\u2014_New York Evening Sun._\n\n    \u201cAlways original.\u201d\u2014_Chicago Tribune._\n\n=Orthodoxy=. Uniform with \u201cHeretics.\u201d\n\n    _12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents._\n\n        \u201cHere is a man with something to say.\u201d\u2014_Brooklyn Life._\n\n=All Things Considered=. Essays on various subjects, such as:\n\n  Conceit and Caricature; Spiritualism; Science and Religion; Woman,\n  etc.\n\n                   _12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents._\n\n=The Napoleon of Notting Hill=. _12mo. $1.50._\n\n    \u201cA brilliant piece of satire, gemmed with ingenious\n    paradox.\u201d\u2014_Boston Herald._\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                           =CHARLES H. SHERRILL=\n\n=Stained Glass Tours in France=. How to reach the examples of XIIIth,\n    XIVth, XVth and XVIth Century Stained Glass in France (with maps and\n    itineraries) and what they are. _Ornamental cloth. 12mo. Profusely\n    illustrated. $1.50 net. Postage 14 cents._\n\n    \u2e2a \u201cThe author wastes no time on technicalities, and it will be hard\n    for the reader not to share the author\u2019s enthusiasm.\u201d\u2014_New York\n    Sun._\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                             =FRANK RUTTER=\n\n=The Path to Paris=. The Record of a Riverside Journey from Le Havre to\n    Paris. 62 Illustrations. _Cloth. 8vo. $5.00 net. Postage 20 cents._\n\n    \u2e2a A delightful account of a journey along the banks of the Seine.\n    Impressions and adventures. Descriptions of historic and artistic\n    associations. Of special value are the remarkable illustrations by\n    Hanslip Fletcher.\n\n       ---------------------------------------------------------\n\n                            =ANATOLE FRANCE=\n\n    \u201cAnatole France is a writer whose personality is very strongly\n    reflected in his works.... To reproduce his evanescent grace and\n    charm is not to be lightly achieved, but the translators have done\n    their work with care, distinction, and a very happy sense of the\n    value of words.\u201d\u2014_Daily Graphic._\n\n    \u201cWe must now all read all of Anatole France. The offer is too good\n    to be shirked. He is just Anatole France, the greatest living writer\n    of French.\u2014_Daily Chronicle._\u201d\n\n                   _Complete Limited Edition in English_\n\n    Under the general editorship of Frederic Chapman. 8vo., special\n    light-weight paper, wide margins, Caslon type, bound in red and\n    gold, gilt top, and papers from designs by Beardsley, initials by\n    Ospovat. _$2.00 per volume_ (except Joan of Arc), _postpaid_.\n\n=The Red Lily=. Translated by WINIFRED STEPHENS.\n\n=The Well of Saint Clare=. Translated by ALFRED ALLINSON.\n\n=Mother of Pearl=. Translated by FREDERIC CHAPMAN,\n\n    Containing:\n\n    The Procurator of Judea\n    Our Lady\u2019s Juggler\n    Amycus and Celestine\n    Madam de Luzy, etc.\n\n    =The Garden of Epicurus=. Translated by ALFRED R. ALLINSON,\n    Containing:\n\n    In the Elysian Fields\n    Card Houses\n    Careers for Women\n    The Priory, etc.\n\n    =The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard=. Translated by LAFCADIO HEARN.\n\n    This novel was \u201ccrowned\u201d by the French Academy in 1881, the author\n    being received into membership in 1896.\n\n    \u201cThe highest presentation of France\u2019s many qualities and gifts is to\n    be found in this exquisite book.\u201d\n\n=Joan of Arc=. Translated by WINIFRED STEPHENS. 2 volumes. _$8.00 net\nper set. Postage extra._\n\n    \u201cTHIS IS AN EPOCH-MAKING BOOK.... BENEATH THE SIMPLICITY OF THE\n    MEDI\u00c6VAL NARRATIVE THERE MAY STILL BE DISCERNED THE DELICIOUS IRONY\n    AND THE DELICATE SUBTLE HUMOR OF THE NOVELS.\u201d STEPHENS in \u201c_French\n    Novelists of Today_.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note:\n\n    \u25cb Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.\n\n    \u25cb Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.\n\n    \u25cb Typographical errors were silently corrected.\n\n    \u25cb Inconsistent spelling was made consistent when a predominant form\n      was found in this book; otherwise it was not changed.","title":"Seekers in Sicily: Being a Quest for Persephone by Jane and Peripatetica","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":76037}