Nina (insisting): I’m fourteen. Do I look it?
Myself: I can compliment you on looking a little older. Since last year you have grown out of being a child, but you have hardly yet grown into being a young lady like your sisters, though you are quite as charming.
Aless (taking the opportunity to begin): First you must know that Carlo Magno is now dead and the Pope is shut up in Paris and is being—
Caro: Signor Enrico, Signor Enrico, do you drink marsala in London?
Myself: Marsala is known in London, but we do not drink it every day as you do in Palermo.
Gildo: In England people drink tea; everything is so different in England.
Myself: That is quite true, Gildo. In England what is like that (holding my hand out with the palm up) in Sicily is like this (holding it with the palm down: Peppino Pampalone taught me this gesture).
Gildo: And that is why in London the people walk on their feet, whereas in Palermo they walk on their hands, as you have no doubt observed.
Aless: Si; e ecco perchè in Londra si mangia colla bocca, ma quì, in Palermo, si mangia nella maniera che ti
farò vedere da un diavolo nel teatrino. But I was telling you about the Pope. He is shut up in Paris, where he is guarding the Christians against the—