“It’s my turn,” I heard Patsy say. “You paid last night.”
“You are Americans?” the Torinese asked.
“Yes.”
“Let me do so little for the people who are doing so much for Sicily. If you come to my city, do me the favor to call—I have not a card, alas! May I write my name on yours?” Patsy had no card. I produced one of J.’s, and the Torinese wrote his name and address on the back.
Those days at Taormina slipped by as a chaplet of odd and even pearls slips between the fingers. Now and then it poured, and we would come home drenched to the skin, glad for once of the steam-heater to dry our wet garments. Those rainy days were the uneven pearls; the others were each rounded from dawn to dark to a sphere of perfect beauty. Whether Etna was all visible, or all hidden, or half revealed, we always felt the great presence, were never for one moment out of its influence.
“Hullo! this must be Mr. Wood’s studio,” said Patsy, pointing to a picturesque sign, “why not go in?”
Mr. Wood lives in a dignified old palazzo. We were made welcome, and spent a delightful afternoon, poring over a portfolio of water-colors; pictures of Etna in its countless moods, at every hour of the day, from a hundred points of view.
“No work since the earthquake,” sighed the painter.
“That’s not what they say at camp.”