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and relations. Marianna used to join in the laughter, though she could not hear what Aunt Manina was saying. It was enough to watch her, small and nimble, manipulating her conjuror's hands, assuming the contrite expression of one person, the foolish expression of another, the foppish look of a third, to be completely overcome.
    She was known for her waspish tongue and everyone tried to be on good terms with her for fear of what she might say behind their backs. But just as she did not let herself be hypnotised by adulation, she would not hesitate to make fun of people when she saw them behaving foolishly. It was not gossip itself that attracted her but the excesses indulged in by various characters such as the miserly, the vain, the weak, the thoughtless. Sometimes her thrusts hit it off so well that they became proverbial, as for instance when she said of the Prince of Rau that "he despised money, but treasured coins like sisters", or when she had said of the Prince Des Puches, who was waiting for his wife to give birth (the Prince was known for his small stature), "he will be in a state of agitation, walking up and down nervously under the bed", or when she described the little Marquis of Palagonia as a "stake without a stake in life". And so on and so on, to everyone's amusement.
    About Mariano she mumbled that he was a "small mouse disguised as a lion disguised as a small mouse" and she looked round her with her eyes sparkling, anticipating the laughter. By then she was like an actress on stage: she would not have given up her audience for anything in the world.
    "When I die I shall go to hell," she once said. And then she added, "But what's hell? Palermo without any cake shops. And, anyway, I don't like cakes all that much." And then a moment later: "Come to that, it will be better than that ballroom where the saints spend all their time doing tapestry--that's paradise for you!"
    She died without troubling a soul, all alone. And no one wept for her. But her witticisms continued to circulate, as salty and piquant as anchovies in brine.
     
    It
     
    Duke Pietro Ucr@ia has never discussed one iota of what his wife has been gradually planning for the villa. He only digs his toes in when a small "coffee house", as he calls it, springs up in the garden, built of wrought iron, with a domed ceiling, white and blue tiles on the floor, and a view over the sea.
    Nevertheless, it was built, or rather it will be built, because although the wrought iron is all ready, the skilled workmen who will erect it are missing. At this time in Bagheria dozens of villas are being built, and craftsmen and bricklayers are hard to come by. Uncle husband often says that the lodge was more convenient, particularly for hunting. But it's a mystery why he keeps saying this, considering that he never hunts. He hates game and he hates guns, although he has a collection of them. What he really likes most are books on heraldry, and playing whist, when he isn't walking in the countryside among the lemon trees, whose grafting he attends to himself.
    He knows everything about his ancestors and the origins of the Ucr@ia family of
    Fontanasalsa and Campo Spagnolo, their orders of precedence, their rank, their decorations. In his study he has a big copper engraving of the martyrdom of Saint Signoretto. Beneath, incised in copper plate: "Blessed
    Signoretto Ucr@ia of Fontanasalsa and
    Campo Spagnolo, born in Pisa in
    1269." In smaller writing is the life of the blessed saint, telling how he arrived in Palermo and dedicated himself to pious works, "frequenting hospitals and succouring the many poor people who infested the city". At the age of thirty he retreated to a "most barren desert by the edge of the sea". But where was this "most barren desert"? Did he end up on the North African coast? In the "desert bordering on the sea" Signoretto was "martyred by the Saracens" but it is not known why he was martyred, the engraving does not give us any clue. Why was he