had been to Trecastagne and seen what I have seen, you would
believe. I saw in the church there a dumb man. He tried to shout 'Viva
S. Alfio,' but could only make inarticulate noises. The people
encouraged him, and he went on trying till at last he said the words
distinctly. I heard him say them. You are making a mistake in not going
to Trecastagne. You might also behold a miracle and then you would
believe as I do."

I thought of Geronte when his daughter recovers her speech in _Le Medecin
Malgre Lui_ and wanted to ask how long this dumb man retained his
miraculous power and whether his relations and friends were pleased about
it and whether, after the novelty had worn off, they continued shouting
"Viva S. Alfio." But I said nothing; I was afraid of confirming them in
the notion that I was scoffing, whereas I was very much impressed; the
influence of the stream of lava was still upon me and all that Joe had
said about living on the slopes of volcanoes. And I was wondering
whether I could manage to be back in Catania for the 10th of May and see
the people running naked to Trecastagne. I was not anxious to go there
myself, not because I should have had to run naked all the thirteen
kilometres, they would have let me wear my clothes and drive in a painted
cart, but because there is no albergo there and it would have meant being
up all night. If S. Alfio had earned his reputation by restoring those
who spend sleepless nights in the street, I might have given him a chance
of exercising his power on me.

There is generally some way of doing anything one really wants to do, and
by the time we were separating in Catania, at one o'clock in the morning
I was promising to try to return in time for the Festa di S. Alfio.

CHAPTER XIX
S. ALFIO

I was back in Catania before the 9th of May and began talking about S.
Alfio in the Teatro Machiavelli. One of the actors whose name is Volpes,
the one who did the listening father in the play about Rosina and the
good young man, is employed by day in the cathedral, his department being
the brass-work; he is therefore something of a hagiologist. He was going
on business to Lentini, which is situated to the south of Catania on the
way to Siracusa, it is the place where the three saintly brothers were
martyred, and there he bought for me a book--_Storia dei Martiri e della
Chiesa di Lentini_, by Sebastiano Pisano Baudo (Lentini: Giuseppe Saluta,
1898)--from which I have c