I left Castellinaria next day with the card in my pocket ready to be posted on the 7th September, and went to Palermo, where I know a young doctor. I told him all
about it and showed him the post-card. When he saw Mery’s real name he burst out laughing.
“Oh! that woman! Why, I know her quite well. She was here with a friend of mine, who asked me to attend her professionally—I mean in my professional capacity. Oh! nothing serious, but we had to communicate with her people and I know all about her. She is not a normal woman. Of course, that rigmarole about the cardinal is all nonsense. She is the daughter of a fisherman of Siracusa. She did dance here once for a few nights, but only at the Biondo, and no one noticed her, she was in one of the back rows of the ballet. Did they tell you why she returned to Castellinaria?”
They had said nothing about it, and my doctor, not being a friend of Antonio and therefore not bound by any ties of omertà, gave me an account of it.
It happened a few months previously: Mery was living in Palermo in a hotel, and her room had a balcony; the next balcony belonged to a room occupied by a young lady and her family, and the young lady was engaged to an officer. One day Etna strayed on to the neighbouring balcony and behaved in a manner that displeased the young lady whose betrothed complained to the proprietor and Mery was requested to leave. She, of course, saw that all this about her dog was merely a casus belli concealing a conspiracy to insult her, and indignantly refused to go. Next day, while the officer was sitting with his friends outside his usual caffè, Mery happened to pass on her way to buy a stamp and post a letter. She spoke to the officer, saying:
“You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
The officer requested her not to address him, whereupon, taking the law into her own hands, she went up to him and made a hole in her manners by scratching his face. A crowd began to collect. Mery permitted herself the use of an expression. It was a Sicilian word, my doctor told me what it was and also its meaning; it appeared to me
rather silly than offensive, but he assured me that it is never used except by people of the very lowest class. Mery then made more holes in her manners, reducing them to the condition of one of her father’s fishing-nets, and was attempting to do the same with the officer’s face when the crowd interfered; Mery was hissed and handed over to the police, who prepared her papers, took her to the railway station and turned her out of the town.
Incidents such as this, by showing Mery that Sicily is no longer being misgoverned by foreigners, may in time, perhaps, teach her not to distrust professional justice. They also may in time, perhaps, teach travellers not to trust to conclusions based upon insufficient data about distinguished-looking ladies in restaurant-cars.
But I sent her the post-card all the same.