Sicilian Carousel by Lawrence Durrell

whole thing overturned and both guilty and innocent were drenched in blood. One would have to believe very deeply in Nature toexpect a meaning to emerge from all this senseless carnage; if one were really truthful one could not help but see her as some frightful demented sow gobbling up her own young at every remove. But Martine, underneath the spoilt playgirl or fashion plate, was hunting after some absolute belief in the Tightness of Process—and only the philosophy of the Indians seemed to offer that.
    Nearby in a mulberry tree, half-dead and desiccated by the sun, there was a great concourse of ravens or rooks—I could not tell which. They were like Methodist parsons holding one of their amusing conventions in some Harrogate hotel. They submitted with modest attention to the theological addresses of two obvious elders of the church. Almost they made notes. We watched them with wonder and curiosity, trying to imagine what could be the subject of their grave colloquy. In vain. After a long moment, and in response to no immediately visible signal, the whole company wheeled suddenly up into the sky and performed several slow and rather irresolute gyrations—as if they were trying to locate a beam of light or sound, an electrical impulse which would orient them. They wheeled several times in a most indecisive manner; then suddenly a breakaway group detached itself and headed northward, and the rest, their minds set at rest, wheeled into line and followed them. Direction assured they broke into several clusters the better to talk; one could hear their grave club chatter as they diminished in thedistance, leaving the field clear for the drone of bees and the sharp stridulations of the cicada. I was dozing. I was nearly asleep in fact. It was a good way to start off, with a siesta in Sicily.
    It had become very hot up there in the dusty foothills, hotter than Provence at this hour in summer. The light wind which had cooled us all morning had subsided and the whole of nature, it seemed, was itself subsiding into the death-like composure of the siesta hour. Sensible men in such places preferred to sleep in a shuttered room until almost sunset when the coolness once more started and when a walk upon the Gorso and a Cinzano at a cafe became imperatives. I lay for a while in the shade with my eyes closed, recalling another anecdote which had emerged from the casual conversation of Martine. Once upon a time, as children in a foreign capital, she and her brother had been sent to play with the children of a fellow diplomat whose little girl and boy were about the same age as they were. They were accordingly decanted by their nurse at the Japanese Embassy where the two Japanese children waited for them with friendly politeness. Introductions once effected, their small hosts led them to their playroom—a large studio with high bright windows. “You must not forget that we, like all English children, had a playroom stuffed with toys, from rocking horses to bicycles and model cars—just about everything. But when we entered the Japanese playroom we were struck dumb, we were thunderstruck. There was nothing in it save for one solitaryobject on the windowsill against the studio window. This was a great white ship, a fully rigged Japanese galleon in full sail. Just that and nothing more in this spotless shining room. We stood still in front of our Japanese hosts feeling suddenly terribly ashamed.”
    Sleep had almost wrapped me up when I felt a restraining hand upon my arm, and Roberto stood smiling before me. “We are off,” he said, and as if to underline the thought the far-off bus gave a little whiffle of sound. Languidly we returned to it to find Mario sitting on the step sorting out his first aid kit with pensive attention. “Yes,” said Roberto catching my eye, “we must take every precaution. You tourists are capable of anything from dysentery to sunstroke, from fever to broken bones. And