sitting round a table on which were dishes of what at first I took to be some kind of frutta di mare, objects about the size and shape of sea-urchins. The brigadier received me with great courtesy and put me to sit next him, and the corporal sat on the other side of me. A dreamy Sunday afternoon feeling pervaded the air, the brigadier said they were slaughtering time (“bisogna ammazzare un po’ di tempo”). Being to a certain extent soldiers, their business was to kill something and they were compassing the destruction of their present enemy by drinking wine and eating not sea-urchins but cold boiled artichokes. He gave me some and begged me to make myself at home. The corporal clinked glasses with me and said that the wine was better than that at the locanda, wherein I agreed with him, but I did not tell him I found the artichokes a little uninteresting. They were so very small and there was so much to do to get what little there was of them that they were more trouble than shrimps or walnuts. Looked at from the brigadier’s point of view, as a means of passing the time on Sunday, they reminded me of the Litany; pulling off each leaf was like listening to each short clause and eating the unimportant little bit
at the end was like intoning the little response; then the larger piece that was left, when all the leaves were off, followed like the coda and finale of the Litany after the more monotonous part has been disposed of. The Litany has, however, the advantage that it comes only one at a time, we do not kneel down to a whole plateful of it; on the other hand, there was wine with the artichokes and they were free from any trace of morbid introspection.
The brigadier and Angelo were in earnest conversation about something, and, as my mind began to wander from the artichokes (here again they resembled the Litany) and was able to attend more to what was going on, I became aware that they were talking about the lottery. Selinunte depends for news upon chance visitors and Angelo had brought the winning numbers which he had got from a cousin of his in one of the lottery offices at Castelvetrano. The brigadier had lost and in giving his instructions for the next week’s drawing seemed to experience great difficulty in making up his mind.
Presently there looked in at one of the windows a hunchback riding on a mule and carrying a guitar. Several of the guards
went to help him in, greeting him with shouts of—
“Addio, Filippo!”
He lifted one of his legs over the saddle, and then I saw that not only was he a hunchback but that his legs were withered. He reached up and hung on to the ledge over the window with both hands and swung himself very cleverly and with no assistance into a sitting position on the window-sill; two of the guards then picked him up, carried him into the room, set him on a chair and gave him some wine and artichokes. Being a jolly fellow, as cripples often are, he soon tired of the artichokes, asked for his guitar and began to sing Neapolitan songs. He had not sung more than two before the brigadier told me I should like to wash my hands and had better come into his bedroom. I glanced at Angelo who nodded back and the brigadier took me off with him. He began by showing me his room which was very clean and tidy. His bed was at one end, his table, with his official papers and books, in the middle and against the wall hung his guns which he showed me particularly, declaring that he was passionately devoted
to the chase. After he had done the honours I washed my hands and so did he; then he led the conversation to what his manner betrayed was the real business of the interview. He asked me my name and age, whether I was married or single and particulars of my family, whether I was an Englishman from London or from New York and how much a metre I had paid for the stuff my clothes were made of. This last was the only question that gave me any real trouble, but I made a hasty calculation, converted the result into francs, deducted five per cent. for cash and hazarded—
“Fourteen lire.”
In return for his polite interest in my affairs I pretended a similar interest in his, and it turned out that we had a friend in common—a maresciallo dei carabinieri whom I had met on Monte San Giuliano and of whom I was able to give the latest information namely, that he had retired, gone home to Cremona and married. Carabinieri are not allowed to marry so long as they are in service, or rather they may marry but only on condition of depositing a sum of money which is fixed at an amount beyond