“There has never been a severe terramoto in Taormina,” said Alessandro, the porter of the Timeo. “That is why the forestieri have settled here. The town stands on solid rock and cannot be shaken. There is nothing to fear.”
Every person I met said the same thing. As the day wore on, the strange faintness born of the earth tremors passed away, yet during all the weeks we stayed at Taormina the memory of it lingered. The giant who sleeps below Etna had but turned in his sleep; if he should awake and roar at us as he had roared at those others!
We spent much of our first day in the old theatre; Patsy had been there since dawn.
“The larks were singing when the sun leaped over the Calabrian mountains,” he said; “with their help and the custode’s, I have reconstructed the theatre as it was in the Greek time, before the Romans made it over. The stage is better preserved than any I have seen; the arena is finer at Italica—you remember?”
Italica, Italica by Seville, the song of the bees, the scent of wild thyme—unforgettable!
“Look at that pretty girl perched up there! She is posing for a picture of Sappho. Lucky you can’t see the artist, a fellow with a beard and pipe!”
Yellow blossoming sage, asphodel, mint, lavender, glossy acanthus with its exquisite leaves, its lilac spikes of flowers, grow in the old theatre. I gathered a small acanthus leaf, and smoothed it between the leaves of a book for comfort in the days to come. Do you know why the Greeks plucked out the very heart of Beauty? Because they lived with beauty. Their minds were formed, perhaps their very bodies were affected by the beauty that surrounded the race from its beginning. The lines of their hills and coasts; the colors of their sea and sky are the most beautiful on earth. Their eyes were trained by these things, their imagination roused, their minds exalted. Like Greece, Sicily is noble in its very foundation. Strip it of trees, of flowers, of grass, the beauty of its lines remains indestructible.
“Come up to the little museum; it stands where the small temple over the theatre used to be. There are some good architectural fragments—bits of mosaics and inscriptions from the theatre, a good torso of Bacchus, a head of Apollo.”
Patsy introduced the custode, one of the characters of the place, who welcomed us and showed his few treasures with a fine pride. He spoke Italian with chiseled care.
“To hear him talk, after the dialetto, is like listening to Beethoven after rag-time!” said Patsy. “Do you realize how fortunate we are that the tourist season is spoiled by the earthquake? We have the theatre and the custode all to ourselves? It’s too good to be true!”