Palermo is alive! When still far off we had felt its life pulse throbbing stronger and stronger; when we were in its midst, we knew this was the heart of Sicily. We arrived at the Hotel des Palmes in good time for dinner. The fine dining-room was filled with gaily dressed Palermitans. After the loneliness of Syracuse and Girgenti it was pleasant to find ourselves again among people full of the business life. Even at the Timeo in Taormina, we had been in the shadow of the disaster; all the Sicilians there were in deepest mourning; the few foreigners were all connected in one way or another with the earthquake. At the next table to ours sat General Mazza, his wife and their charming young son. There was much jesting, and we heard the words _Pesce d’Aprile_ continually. Across the room at another table sat a pair of beauties in blue and rose color, the center of attraction. Young Mazza was called away in the middle of dinner by a message that a lady must speak to him at the telephone. Looking very important, the boy left the room. Then the word was passed (all the guests seemed to know each other well) that this was a _Pesce d’Aprile_. The young fellow returned to find the pretty girls scoffing, the elders on a broad grin. He blushed furiously as he sat down at the table again, where the General, his father, very gorgeous in a handsome uniform, and his vivacious mother received him with jeers. He made an amusing gesture to his tormentors, hammering one thumbnail upon the other. “Hello, it’s the first of April; _Pesce d’Aprile_ is their name for April fool!” said Patsy. How good it was to hear their merry laughter, to see these young people brimming over with the joy of life! After dinner we sat in the long corridor and, while the Palermitans read their papers, flirted, drank coffee, and smoked cigarettes, Patsy and I, like two traveling merchants, took account of our stock of knowledge. “What do we know about Palermo?” First of all we know its agony. A city, like a man, is remembered longest for what it has suffered. Sicily has had three great agonies; they loom large through the mists of history as the three promontories of Trinacria loom out through the sea mists to the sailor feeling his way around the island. First: The Athenian defeat at Syracuse. Second: The Sicilian Vespers at Palermo. Third: The great earthquake at Messina. The Sicilian Vespers is the name given to that terrible uprising of the Sicilians in the year 1282, when the people turned against their French king, Charles of Anjou. The fire of revolt had long smouldered, and it was blown to a flame on Easter Monday when a French officer named Drouet grossly insulted a Sicilian woman. Her husband avenged the outrage by killing the officer. Just as the bells of Santo Spirito, a church of Palermo, rang for the vesper service, the voice of the angry husband roused the holiday crowd: “Now let these Frenchmen die at last!”