ts for the
marionettes to the man who was manipulating them, but that man could not
see him either and was improvising the movements of the figures unaided.

The gesticulating Sicilian, however, is not more deeply moved by what he
is describing than the phlegmatic Englishman is when he is quietly
telling something. I have sometimes ventured to laugh at the Sicilian
for his unnecessary vehemence, and he has stopped in the middle of it all
and joined in the laughter. It would be extremely interesting to see
Giovanni Grasso in the part of an English gentleman, a Wyndham or a
Hawtrey part. I believe he would succeed because I believe he would
succeed in anything he set his mind to do, but for him to reproduce an
Englishman's tranquillity would be as much of an effort as it would be
for an English actor to reproduce a Sicilian's mobility.

Their power of acting is not confined to those who are actors by
profession; the love of improvising little scenes in daily life may be
said to be characteristic of them. To suppose that they do this from a
love of lying would be to simplify unduly; they have the artist's power
of seeing a thing in two senses at once, and they assume that they will
not be misunderstood, at all events, they are not going to give it all
away by explaining, and if the stranger is taken in--well, as a rule, it
does not very much signify. Just as omerta makes things difficult for
the Sicilian police, so this love of acting makes things difficult for
the foreign traveller. There is a story in the form of a dialogue
between a foreigner in Palermo inquiring of a native about a tree that
was clipped into a fantastic shape. It can hardly be given in English
because it turns on the double meaning of "naturale," which means
sometimes "natural" and sometimes "naturally," but if it be added that
"scusi" = "excuse me"; "quest' albero" = "this tree"; "e" = "is"; "o" =
"or," any reader will be able to understand it:

FOREIGNER: Scusi, Signore; quest' albero e artificiale o naturale?

PALERMITAN: Artificiale.

FOR: Oh, artificiale?

PAL: Naturale.

FOR: E naturale?

PAL: Artificiale.

FOR: (_getting irritated_): Scusi, Signore; quest' albero e artificiale o
naturale?

PAL: Artificiale, naturale.

And then the foreigner goes home and writes a book about his travels,
saying that the natives are so stupid they do not even know whether their
trees are clipped into odd shapes by nature or art. But the appar