Carlo Gadda - That Awful Mess on the via Merulana

"The wicked mystery of this world," thought Ingravallo, instead. He already hated, in his heart, that character, blond though he was: and the familiar clenching of teeth, the clamping of jaws, accompanied the appearance and the not-immediate disappearance of the image. It was, in his skull of diorite, an abominable image. A filthy, a wretched thing, that braggart, that gigolo! "Ah," he brooded, "Diomede then must have acted as the persuader, the initiator: for the sacred rites of the abracadabra: the beater: the pointer, pointing out the quails and the partridge, on the hill: a young terrier, flushing the hens from the bog." At least that was how everyone there understood it, in the great room where you could see their breath under the pears of light, drawn into a circle around the palpitation of a partridge, between the big cops and their attendants: Doctor Fumi, Ingravallo, Sergeant Di Pietrantonio, Pompeo, and Paolillo, known also as Paolino… Pestalozzi, "the cyclist." Ines did not speak out explicitly, but it seemed to them that they could nevertheless infer from her highly appreciated tale of the descent into the cave (of the enterprising blond with the more-than-Cumaean {48}sibyl), from the many though hesitant and repentant "I don't know's, I couldn't say's," it seemed to them that they could actually write in the report that Diomede Lanciani had bestowed his violent comfort (this, the girl allowed them to deduce always, was the nature of comfort, from him), also on the mature hostess-seamstress and and dyeress, cleaner of garments both military and civilian.

Yes, bestowed his comfort: despite Venus the Snooty and all the swarm of her powdered Cupids. "That old, toothless ex-cow!" thought Pestalozzi, in his sylloge, rather northern in accent, to tell the truth. It was evident by now: the blond had given repeated proof of his wisdom and valor, to the old woman: even though when it came to the obviousness, the enticements and the itineraries, Pestalozzi opined, modifying, forever known and traveled through the ages, this wisdom had proved superfluous, and the valor more necessary than ever. A valor heedless to all repulses by adverse circumstances. He had granted her the best, or the worst, of his own spirit of initiative. Yes, it was clear, now, the spirit of initiative… he had boldly insufflated it, into the sorceress: perhaps, in fact certainly, after suitable remuneration. "Because he didn't have any cash before," Ines blurted, "and then he had some."

Corporal Pestalozzi seemed indeed to remember, without difficulty, the tacit existence of Diomede: whom he had met at the wine counter of I Due Santi. He frowned. It seemed to him, at a certain moment, that he would recognize him. What? Can it be? Yes. But that very day? The silent and unexpected appearance of the youth from the stairs: a young man of singular attractiveness, to be sure, blond as an archangel, but without sword: returning from the incursion into the Abyss. The Abyss, that time, must have received the blow. A blow that deserved praise. He had in his face, a steady and pale face with slightly prominent cheekbones, he had in his clear and steadily blue gaze that sort of insolent, almost hysterical volition with which a painter, in the Marches, had studied (and taken pleasure) in perfecting the natural physiognomic notes of the winged celestial creatures: when he charged them with slightly awkward missions. Such volition, if it had to be described in words, would be graphicized in the well-known terms: "Everything has to go the right way, which before it is 'right' is my way, seeing as how I'm an archangel. And if anybody thinks different about it, I'll settle his hash right away: with this cudgel here."

Then and there, however, he hadn't seemed too convinced, exceptional creature though he was, finding himself face to face with a carabiniere corporal: a figure that didn't suit his taste, so red and black: and which upsets everybody a little, under certain circumstances. But sly, he saw at once that the corporal had downed an orangeade: well, that was all right then.

Having come to Rome to work as an electrician, Ines reported, he had found work in a shop at sixty lire per week:

"but then they fired him." Whereupon, afterwards, he worked here and there: on his own: "he went to people's houses to fix wires when they were worn out, or to wire a room, in a new apartment: or maybe some old bag's place," she insinuated, and became annoyed. "Or to change the fuses or make the bells work, when they broke down and wouldn't ring anymore, because some ladies, and their husbands, too, are afraid to touch electric fuses. Mamma mia! Afraid of getting a shock. And then, if you stop and think about it, who would ever have the nerve to climb up to the top of a ladder, till you touch the ceiling with your head? Except some poor kid who does it to earn his living? standing on that ladder for hours and hours too? Putting all those wires together, that's what I say. . well, if we women do it, you can see everything… I mean, garters and all the rest": she turned two magnificent eyes, two gems. "No, nobody wants to do that kind of job." She seemed to hesitate for a moment. "Well, maybe the Milanese, everybody knows what they're like: they get a kick out of that stuff: they're all engineers." She was repeating, or so it seemed, in these words, an affirmation of the young man.

Ingravallo scratched himself lightly, tick, tick, with the back of his thumb, on the black Angus mop. "So he worked at odd jobs then. Can you tell us where?"

"I don't know where; he never told me. He went to work for people, in their houses. Sometimes he went to work even for a countess, he said: she spoke Venetian"; she assumed her spiteful little mask, adorable. "And I have a feeling that with her, he… or maybe I'm wrong": and she broke off.

"What's this feeling of yours? Out with it," Pompeo said, in a kindly tone.

"I have a feeling that. . that he made a thorough job of it. He's a wide-awake kind of boy. When something's broken, he finds the trouble right away. And then, in Rome, with his living expenses. It couldn't be any other way."

Fumi turned his eyes on Ingravallo; at the very moment that Ingravallo had raised his own, more clouded, to look at him. Then, to the girl:

"This countess then? Where is she? I mean," he clenched his lips, "where does she live?"

"Somewhere near the station, I think: past Piazza Vit-torio though. But I… I don't know that part of town very well." She blushed faintly: her voice seemed to dissolve, to vacillate: to tremble towards weeping. "I. . What is this? Now you want to make a spy out of me? I. ."

"Talk, talk, talk, eh girlie? Make up your mind. In or out. You take your pick. ." menaced Ingravallo, anything but amiable: and he stood up, black.

"It's a long wide street," she said, hesitating between shame and remorse, "a straight one. . that goes all the way to San Giovanni."

"I get it," Doctor Fumi said, "I get the whole thing." He glanced again at his colleague, who looked back at him.

Diomede was in need of money: when he had it, he spent it: and he procured more: he spent that, too: coffee, cigarettes, neckties, ball games, movies, trams: he even played the lottery.

"He even wanted to drink an aperitiff: Carpano, it's called" (she explained, mistaking the accent). "At Pic-carozzi, in the Gallery. Before he went to eat." But she said this with pride, as she might have said: "and a shirt of real silk, yes, sir!"

"And where does he go to eat?" asked Fumi.

"It depends. If he's by himself, he makes do with a sandwich maybe. He might even drink straight from the fountain: a gulp of Aqua Marcia in Via della Scrofa or at the little fountain in Piazza Borghese. But if he's with some of those young ladies, with fancy customers.."

"So he wasn't all yours, then," Pompeo pricked her, with a grin. And touching her shoulder: "Come on, baby, you got to get it off your chest, console yourself!" she moved away, spitefully, as if disgusted by that contact. "Yes, yes," she wept, "I do want to console myself."