“Just so. But I think I am like Orlando and your other paladins, and that I am as I am because it was the will of heaven.”
“That is only another way of saying the same thing,” observed the buffo; which rather surprised me because I did not know he took such a just view of the significance of evolution.
On arriving at Catania we went to the albergo and, instead of following the usual course and giving his Christian name and surname, Alessandro Greco, he preferred to specify his profession and describe himself as “Tenore Greco.” They posted this up in the hall under my name, with the unexpected result that the other guests ignored him, thinking the words applied to me and that I was a tenor singer from Greece.
The first thing to be done was to go out and get something to eat, and as we went along the buffo expressed his delight with the appearance of Catania. He had no idea that such a town could exist outside Palermo or Brazil.
“It is beautiful,” he exclaimed, “yes, and I shall always declare that it is beautiful. But, my dear Enrico, will you be kind enough to tell me why it is so black?”
“That, my dear Buffo,” I replied, “is on account of the lava.”
“But how do you mean—the lava? What is this lava that you speak of, and how does it darken the houses and the streets?”
To which I replied as follows: “The lava is that mass of fire which issues from Etna and then dissolves itself and
becomes formed into black rock, and, as it is excessively hard, the people of Catania use it for building their houses and for paving their streets.”
I do not remember expressing myself precisely in these words, but the buffo wrote me an account of his holiday and this is what he says I said. It seems that I continued thus: