“It was a protection as well,” said the custode. “See, the stone is friable; if it had not been for so many centuries covered with this stucco, it would have been worn away by the sirocco.”
We walked through olive and almond groves to the Temple of Juno, standing lonely and grand on the edge of a precipice. Lavender morning-glories, blue iris, yellow daisies, grow about the broad steps. After the desolate ruins we had seen, this looked, in comparison, almost a complete building. We climbed the stair to the roof; against the gray-green of the olives, the emerald of the almond trees, the flower-gemmed grass, the rich amber color of the colonnade glowed dull in the sunlight.
“It’s more like Pæstum than anything else,” said Patsy, “only I do not find the roses of Pæstum that bloom twice in the year. Will a bit of myrtle do as well?”
The Temple of Concord, even better preserved than the Juno, is the most admired. The site of the Juno is more picturesque; the staircase to the roof gives an extraordinary sense of nearness to the time when this was a living place of worship, not a dead ruin.
At the Cathedral of Girgenti instead of being made much of, we were made to feel that we were in the way—they were preparing for the services of Passion Week—no time for forestieri, a resolute monk gave us to understand;—we managed to steal a look at a lovely marble sarcophagus, with scenes from the tragic story of Hippolytus carved in high relief. We went to the Museum, a neglected dreamy place with a few real treasures: an archaic marble statue of Apollo, very lovely, with the fixed Æginetan smile; a gold belt, three thousand years old, with a buckle exactly like one I wore.
“The Signori are Americans?” A handsome old man, poring over a big book, looked up at us, as he asked the question of the attendant. The man whispered something in his ear; then the old gentleman closed the book and came to greet us with his faraway smile.
“That grand and majestic country, America, is not egotistical,” he explained when he had welcomed us to Girgenti. “What vibrant sympathy it has shown our country! We are egotists, it is the curse of our people; but I revere America most, for the wondrous new science that has come from there.” He beckoned us to look at his big book; an Italian translation of a vulgar work on spiritualism, illustrated with cheap spirit photographs.
“The last thing I should have expected to find in Agrigentum!” sighed Patsy.
“You have some knowledge of spiritismo?” said the stranger.
“Oh yes, we know all about it!” Patsy assured him.