Then came a poor mad boy, a sordo-muto, who had been overlooked. He was in a great hurry, making frightful inarticulate noises and running this way and that, being too much alarmed to go straight. Before he had found the mouth of the tunnel the curtain fell and we did not see what became of him. He may have been left behind after all.
CATANIA
CHAPTER VII
THE BUFFO’S HOLIDAY
I do not remember who started the idea that the buffo should come to Catania with me; it grew up, as inevitable ideas do, without any of us being sure whether he suggested it, or Papa, or Gildo, or one of the sisters, or I, and it became the chief subject of conversation in the Greco family for days.
It would not be true to say that he had never been away from Palermo, because when he was a boy all the family went to try their fortune in Brazil and stayed there five years running a marionette theatre; when they returned to Palermo, they left behind them in South America the eldest son, Gaetano, who still keeps a teatrino there. But the buffo saw no more of South America than he has seen of Sicily and, except for this five years in Brazil and an occasional day in the country round Palermo, had never been outside his native town. But he knew that Catania was on the other side of the island and near the sea, and expected it to be hotter than Palermo because of the propinquity of Etna. He paid no attention to my assurances that the temperature would be about the same and said he should bring his great-coat, not on account of the heat, but because he hoped that if he was seen with it he might be taken for an English tourist.
We did not start from Palermo together. I had to go to Caltanissetta, which is on a line that branches off at S. Caterina Xirbi from the main line between Palermo and Catania. We arranged to meet at the junction three days after I left Palermo. I got there from Caltanissetta just before the train from Palermo arrived, and the buffo was
looking out of the window. As soon as he saw me on the platform he got down and came to me saying:
“Oh! I am so glad to see you again; now everything will be all right. I have been wretched ever since you went away. I have not been able to eat by night or to sleep by day for thinking of you. And this has been going on for two whole months; but now I shall recover.”
So we got into the train and pursued our journey.
“I see you have brought your great-coat,” I said.