Page 14 - 1911 February - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 85

AN A L P H A OMICRON PI IN SICILY

PALERMO, SICILY

Last night we went to one of the native Cicilian marionette shows,

for with us at luncheon sat a young German who was going with

some Italian friends and we were asked to come along too. The

only others at our small pension table are a Mr. Moore and his wife,

charming people from Cleveland. He is a lawyer and is traveling

for his health (nerves, I think). Herr B is really delightful

but unfortunately speaks no English and so, as you would imagine,

general conversation does not exactly flourish and yet we hate to

talk English all the time and completely ignore him. It is really

amusing. M, — P. G. and Mrs. Moore smile to appear friendly

if not intelligent, D — and I fairly creak along, our German is so

rusty, but good-natured Mr. Moore talks continually, a kind of

elementary German quite his own, of the " I seen a cat. Was the cat

saw me?" variety.

We started out after dinner, past the line of cabbies, who unlike

those harpies in Naples, seemed only mildly grieved that we pre-

ferred to walk; and then on down the Via Macqueda; P. G. and I

flanking Herr B in his long flapping cape, and trying sadly

to manufacture a conversation in German. By the Teatro Massimo

we met his Italian barons, a wiry person with eye-glasses and a

black mustache, and his cousin, a fine-looking lad without either

but in a brown suit and lavendar cravat which his countrymen seem

to dote upon. We bowed our prettiest when we were introduced

but were relieved when they strode ahead leaving the rest of us to

troop along behind.

Opposite Caflisch's shop we went down some steps nearly tripping

over a blind beggar who had chosen that spot for his peaceful

slumbers, and came into the Piazza Nuova where the stalls of the

old fish-market though empty at this time of night, still gave forth

the most ancient and fishiest of smells imaginable. We stopped in

front of a curtained door where a series of crude but gaudy posters

blazoned forth the glories within, while from behind came the jingle

of a street piano and the clash of armor. We could hardly wait to

get our tickets (of dirty brown cardboard with the corner worn off

by repeated usage) and finally ducked under the heavy curtain and

entered the cramped, wedge-shaped little hall, causing no small

excitement among the fifty odd Sicilians, men and boys, who formed

the audience. They sat on benches on the floor, most of them wear-

ing hats, chewing vigorously on pumpkin seeds (considered quite a