his
disapproval of these fine old warriors.

They sat interminably, evidently having no idea how otherwise to pass
the evening. In the matter of public amusements Catanzaro is not
progressive; I only once saw an announcement of a theatrical
performance, and it did not smack of modern enterprise. On the
dining-room table one evening lay a little printed bill, which made
known that a dramatic company was then in the town. Their entertainment
consisted of two parts, the first entitled: "The Death of Agolante and
the Madness of Count Orlando"; the second: "A Delightful Comedy, the
Devil's Castle with Pulcinella as the Timorous Soldier." In addition
were promised "new duets and Neapolitan songs." The theatre would
comfortably seat three hundred persons, and the performance would be
given twice, at half-past eighteen and half-past twenty-one o'clock. It
was unpardonable in me that I did not seek out the Teatro delle
Varieta; I might easily have been in my seat (with thirty, more likely
than three hundred, other spectators) by half-past twenty-one. But the
night was forbidding; a cold rain fell heavily. Moreover, just as I had
thought that it was perhaps worth while to run the risk of another
illness--one cannot see the Madness of Count Orlando every day--there
came into the room a peddler laden with some fifty volumes of fiction
and a fine assortment of combs and shirt-studs. The books tempted me; I
looked them through. Most, of course, were translations from the
vulgarest French _feuilletonistes_; the Italian reader of novels,
whether in newspaper or volume, knows, as a rule, nothing but this
imported rubbish. However, a real Italian work was discoverable, and,
together with the unfriendly sky, it kept me at home. I am sorry now,
as for many another omission on my wanderings, when lack of energy or a
passing mood of dullness has caused me to miss what would be so
pleasant in the retrospect.

I spent an hour one evening at the principal cafe, where a pianist of
great pretensions and small achievement made rather painful music.
Watching and listening to the company (all men, of course, though the
Oriental system regarding women is not so strict at Catanzaro as
elsewhere in the south), I could not but fall into a comparison of this
scene with any similar gathering of middle-class English folk. The
contrast was very greatly in favour of the Italians. One has had the
same thought a hundred times in the same circumstances, but i