"If you ask me," Troy said, "it needs only another outrage like this and she'll break down completely. She was literally shaking all over as if she had a rigor. She can't go on like that. Don't you agree?"
"Not really. Not necessarily. Have you ever watched two Italians having a discussion on the street? Furious gestures, shrieks, glaring eyes, faces close together. Any moment, you think, it'll be a free-for-all, and then without warning they burst out laughing and hit each other's shoulders in comradely accord. I'd say she was of the purest Italian - perhaps Sicilian - peasant stock and utterly uninhibited. Add to that the propensity of all public performers to cut up rough and throw temperaments left and right when they think they've been slighted, and you've got la Sommita. You'll see."
(from Photo Finish, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)
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