Carlo Gadda - That Awful Mess on the via Merulana

It turned out that the young man, as soon as Signora Teresina resolved to take off the chain and open up, had said he was sent by the management of the building to check the radiators, which he was to inspect one by one. In fact, some days before, there had been an argument over the radiators because, at centrally heated winter's official end, they were more tepid (towards the cold) than the tenants' desire to spend money.

The flame of all heating equipment, in Rome, was extinguished on the Ides of March, at times it was the Nones instead, or indeed, even the Kalends. During double winters with prolonged epilogues, as was the winter of Twenty-seven, the flame was fed for the whole month, then it was allowed to waste away in a prolonged languor not without discussion and diatribe among the opinionated tenants, vociferous in proportion to the event: among pros and cons, the penniless and the wealthy, the stingy careful ones and the carefree, urinators in hope and glory. As to the rooms on the upper floors of two hundred and nineteen, they could be numbered, beyond any doubt, among the most Romanly sunny of all Rome: for which reason, since in that early spring it was snowy-raining, the inhabitants quaked with cold.

The mechanic had with him neither bag nor sack: the implements of his position for the moment were not required. It was merely an inspection. The Signora Teresina added — but this Don Ciccio did not write down — that she was sure that young man. . yes, the murderer, the mechanic. . she was sure, and could have sworn it in court, was sure that the boy had hypnotized her (Don Ciccio stood there and listened, his mouth agape, with a sleepy manner) because at a certain point, while they were still in the vestibule, he had stared at her. "Stared!" she repeated, almost declaiming, enthusiastic at the stern fixity of that gaze: "his eyes were merciless, steady and hard," from beneath his cap, "like a snake's." And she had, then, felt her strength fail her. She told how, indeed, at that moment, whatever the young man had asked or commanded, at that point she would have done it, would have unquestionably obeyed him: "like a robot" (her very words).

"Maria Vergine! Hypnotized! That's what I was. ." Don Ciccio, in his thoughts, couldn't help editorializing: "These women!"

And so it happened that he, the mechanic, was able to go all over the apartment. In the bedroom, glimpsing some gold objects on the dresser, on its marble top, he had scooped them up with one movement of his hand, opened with his other hand beneath it, like a bucket, the large pocket at his disposal, over his hip, in the overall.

"What are you up to?" la Menegazzi had screeched at him, not totally helpless despite her hypnotic condition. He, turning, had aimed a pistol at her face: "Shut up, you old witch, or I'll fry you to a crisp." Having taken the measure of her terror, he opened the drawer, the top one, where the key is. . And he had guessed right. There was all her gold, her jewels: in a little leather coffer. There was the money. "How much?" Ingravallo asked. "I couldn't be absolutely sure. Four thousand six hundred, I think." The money in a man's wallet, dry and old: a memento of her poor husband. (Her eyes became damp.) And that boy, without a moment's hesitation, had already wrapped the coffer in a kind of dirty handkerchief, or maybe it was a rag, yes, it was, with a fever in his fingers: the wallet he had simply slipped into his pocket, so quickly! Maria Verginel "In the pocket here. ." and the signora slapped her hip with her hand.

"Devils. I don't know how they do it. The devils! Devils."

"Aw shut up," the young man had said to her in a grim, menacing voice, keeping his eye on her, his face almost touching hers. They looked like a tiger's, now, those eyes: the evil soul had seized its prey: he would have defended it at whatever cost. He sneaked away without any difficulty, like a shadow. "Keep quiet!": the terrible injunction. But instead, as soon as she had seen him go out, she had flung herself at the window, yes, that one, that very one, which looked down on the courtyard, and opening it, had shouted, shouted, the tenants said rather that she had screamed wildly: "Thief! Thief! Help! Stop him!" Then… She wanted to follow him at once, but she was taken ill, worse even than before. She had fallen, or thrown herself, on "her" bed: there. And she pointed it out.

Two hundred and nineteen, five floors plus the roof and the two stairways, A and B, with some offices on B, on the mezzanine: it was like a railroad station. The stairs, both of them easily climbable, and one darker than the other. Stairway A was a bit quieter than its counterpart: all real respectable on that side, du cote de chez madame.

From the combined and overlapping reports of the concierge and the other lady tenants more prompt in myth-making, whom Ingravallo questioned outside without writing anything down, and again later in the entrance hall below, behind the building's main door and at the little door, guarded first by the corporal, then by a policeman, one could finally reconstruct the event. And verify another circumstance, a fairly curious one, indeed. The delinquent had been boldly pursued. "Ah!" Ingravallo said. "Yes," too boldly perhaps. It seemed that in pursuing him, or pretending to pursue him, down the steps and into the hall, even before Signor Bottafavi of the fourth floor who had also chased him with a revolver, there had been first of all a young man, "yes, a young man." "No, not a young man, a kid. ." What do you mean, a kid? He was this tall: he looked like a grocer's helper, with an apron all twisted around his waist, but he had sporty pants on, with heavy, long green stockings. "What! Green?" He had darted out, through the entrance, a little after they heard the two shots, two pistol shots on the stairs. And nobody had seen him afterwards. "Yes, I did! On the sidewalk! I was coming from Santa Maria Maggiore! He ran off. ." The testimonial passion, striking fire in every soul, kindled an epos. All the women talked at once: a confusion of voices and sights: maids, mistresses, broccoli: enormous broccoli leaves came out of a crammed, swollen shopping bag. Shrill or infantile voices added denials or confirmations. All around, a little white poodle wagged its tail excitedly, and from time to time he barked too: as authoritatively as possible.

Ingravallo felt stifled, crushed by the tales and by their tellers.

After the shouts of the Signora Menegazzi, the two Bot-tafavis above, husband and wife, had come out on the landing in their slippers, also shouting, a lovely connubial soprano-baritone duet: "Thief! Thief!" Now they demanded suitable recognition of their courage, of their presence of mind. Bottafavi, indeed, with a big revolver, which he chose to display to Doctor Ingravallo, then to the others present: the women stepped back a pace: "Well, now don't start shooting at us!": the children craned their necks, lost in admiration. They had, from that moment on, a very high opinion of Signor Butt and Fiver, as they called him. He went on narrating, revolver in hand, but unloaded: barrel in the air. He re-created the events with great precision. At that moment, try as he might, he hadn't managed to fire it. Because the safety was on, a little pin in the seventh hole of the drum. And after so many years of that machine's absolute inactivity, he had forgotten that real revolvers— like his, precisely — had that damn safety! which, when it is down, prevents them from going off. So, at the height of things, the thief had slipped away, full tilt. "But didn't you fire two shots?" Ingravallo asked. "Why, officer, you think I'm some crazy kid?. . Shooting for the fun of it like that?" "But you tried." "Tried. Tried is one thing. My revolver isn't the same as the kind crooks have. . The ones that really shoot. This revolver here, officer, is a gentleman's weapon. I… I was a bonded guard when I was a youngster: and I think I know how to handle a gun better than the next fellow. I. . I'm in full control of my nerves. ." The thief had got away. By a hairsbreadth: "But next time he won't make it."