Carlo Gadda - That Awful Mess on the via Merulana

Where, taking him into the office of Fumi, the latter expressed the opinion. . that the distinguished man of God could give them some additional light on the condition. . the spiritual condition of the lamented lady: in order to assist the police authorities in a deeper examination of the case and the final redaction, "of what you might call the psychological report." A comma or two, a dot on an i, the brokenhearted prudence of Don Corpi did add to the report-synthesis. The visits and the implorations of the Signora Balducci to the church of the Santi Quattro, at certain happy seasons in the celestial calendar, or at the less sad ones, were, one might say, daily. Both to the Confessional and to Our Lady's altar: or else to the rectory, along the portico, all around the "fine cloister of the thirteenth century." The square sky was all light, as if through the eternal presence of the confessors, the sainted four: one on each side. The poor soul sought help in her suffering: the sweet word of hope, the compassionate word of charity. Of faith she had more than anyone. Don Lorenzo remarked, without of course losing sight of the seal of the sacrament, basing his words exclusively on extra-sacramental confidences and on the invocations of the person who had chosen him as the confidant of her private anguish, he remarked that he could fully confirm what was written above, that is to say, what had emerged from the amnesic uncertainty of afterwards, encouraged by the police to become certainty, verified, and from the intuition and complementing wisdom of the cousin and, why not? the husband. Authoritative and massive, after that early and now overcome embarrassment of the first time (trip to Roccafringoli, delay, however voluntary, in "presenting himself to the authorities," and in "producing the will of the deceased"), with his hair cut short, in a tone of clairvoyant pity that asserted full lucidity in any value judgment, he affirmed, almost swearing to it, that the poor dead woman was the most chaste of souls, of the most pure, intentionally speaking. . "What do you mean by that?" Doctor Fumi said. He went on. The long, black, and super-shined shoes seemed to con-validate his testimony: such an investment in Shinola, such energetic work of the elbow (of whomever) cannot be superimposed upon falsehood and disorder. The idea of divorce or annulment of the marriage, apart from all canonical difficulties, seemed abominable to her: no, Liliana wouldn't think of it. She "loved" too much and respected her husband, the man she had chosen: given to her, at the time, by God. Her desperation and her hope (vain) had coagulated into a melancholy madness (Don Ciccio understood this at once, Doctor Fumi a little later, and only approximately): they seemed to find their salvation in that intention, in that mania (the word escaped him), in that great charity of adoption: the legal adoption of a child. But at the same time she seemed to wait, to wait, as if she hoped, one day, to be able to have something better: from day to day she was waiting for a child, from year to year: and whose, after all? A future child, a future god-child: at this point he, Don Corpi, couldn't figure out from where, or from whom.

"The cousin!" exclaimed Doctor Fumi.

And in the meanwhile, as if to while away her desperation, she did adopt. She adopted "temporarily," adopted after a manner of speaking. She spoke of adopting: although, however, she had already replaced one will with another. Three times she had asked for the yellow envelope back, with its five wax seals. Three times she had torn away the seals, then had re-created the monogram. "Holograph Will of Liliana Balducci." She adopted, by word, though with a true effusion of the spirit, with all the sincerity of a hope resurgent at every new encounter: at every new abandonment, disappointed. She adopted, temporarily, those fine figures of girls: a whole line, by now, a string of pearls. Each better than the last. Four, she had brought into the house, in three years, one after the other, including Gina, poor little thing.

With the full permission of Signor Remo, who used to say to her: "do as you please, do whatever you think best," each time, so long as there was a little peace in the family, for a little while. So long as he knew she was at home with some female company, while he slipped off with Cristoforo after a hare, to try out the dogs on the Cimino. And, in any case, always with the advice of Don Corpi. Though with so many souls around him, with so much to do in church and not knowing those girls at all (he didn't even know who they were or where they came from), he limited himself each time to counseling prudence, prudence — so he stated and it was likely that it was so — to warning her ("mark my words!": but she, to such advice, turned a deaf ear), to urging her not to dissipate in sudden adventures of emotion her gift… the treasure… of an ineffable awareness of woman's great mission: which had been given her, certainly, by God. Four! in three years! "A great heart, poor Signora Liliana."

And she patted the maids and always forgave them if they broke a dish. She comforted them and told them to hope in the Lord. For in their case, vice versa, it was not so much hope as fear, what they felt: fear of having the kid a bit too soon, perhaps. The Lord, she told them, and she was a hundred per cent right, never denies life to those who desire life, and the continual resurrection of life. "It's a desire many women have," Fumi thought.

Don Lorenzo, with all due respect for the living and for the poor "deceased," then mentioned the three young girls that Liliana Balducci had welcomed as daughters, and then dismissed: and the various motives which, in turn, had determined the secession, more or less easy, more or less spontaneous, of the three would-be wards. The fourth, now, this Gina from Zagarolo, who was the niece presently on active service, benefited in the place of them all. The carabinieri of Tivoli had already questioned the mother, and the butcher too; Irene Spinaci wanted to come to Rome: but when she heard that Gina was at the Sacred Heart, she shut up: after all. . what was the use of her coming? Just throwing away money? When she didn't even have enough to get on the train?

Don Lorenzo, once he had overcome a certain hesitation, then opened his bag of. . charitable prudence. First, he turned his hat around on his knees a couple of times, nice and slow: with those hands (and with those feet) that made him look like Saint Christopher. Caught, priest though he was, by the vivid and pathetic eyes of Doctor Fumi (for once, they, rather than his tongue, were on duty), he gave way to the magnetic traction of those bulbs, so gently rolling, each parallel to the other, in their respective sockets, that is to say in the binding of those lids: black irises, as of deep velvet, like two spheres of tourmaline under the velvety shadow, the slightly melancholy shadow of the lashes: heart-rent flames, yet glowing with persuasion and with sliding dialectics, in that white face, paternal, pensive, inviting: welcoming as a trap. Beneath that other snout hanging on the wall, the Predappian {26}fezzer, in his frame, making boogey-man faces at the dried flies on the wall opposite: lips extended in a booby's pout, a three-year-old macaroni, to make all the Marie Barbigie {27}of Italy swoon: with that fez on his head and the Emir's plume. An Emir of mardi gras.

Three girls. The first, Milena, a little freckle-faced thing, after barely a month of that good food at the Balduccis', with that pure wool mattress under her and a warm comforter over her in the bed, had promptly started putting on fat: two round little melons under her blouse, a neat hemisphere, behind. But with this calf-fat she had also developed a taste for stealing, and a proportionate one for telling lies. She stole from the sideboard, and from the purse on the night table: and she lied with her mouth. Her tongue followed her nails, without giving it a thought, like your tail goes behind your ass, if you're a horse.