That Awful Mess on the via Merulana - Carlo Emilio Gadda [13]
Ingravallo was then seized by a strange idea, as if he had drunk poison, it was Gabbioni's dry wine: he had the idea that this "cousin" was paying court to the Signora Liliana in order to . . . yes, of course! . . to win financial favors from her. The thought infuriated him: with a secret, dissimulated fury, a suspicion, naturally. A treacherous suspicion, however . . . which made his temples ache, a suspicion of the most ingravallian, most donciccian nature.
On the right ring-finger, on the white hand with the long, gentlemanly fingers, which he used to shake his cigarette, the young man had a ring: of old gold, very yellow, magnificent: a bloodstone mounted on it: an oval bloodstone with an initial carved in it. Perhaps the family seal. It seemed, to Don Ciccio, behind the veil of words and politeness, that there was some coldness between him and Balducci . . . "Giuliano is all eyes, all full of attentions towards his lady cousin," Ingravallo thought, "gentleman though he is." After a dutiful handshake, he hadn't even glanced at Gina. He gave the dog only a casual pat: and instead of its angry yip! yip!, the nasty thing, she shifted to some sinking growls, like a little storm, retreating, and finally she was quiet.
Signora Liliana, though with some badly repressed sighs (on certain days) under the shifting clouds of sadness, was . . . was a desirable woman: everyone noticed her looks, as she walked along the street. At dusk, in that first abandon of the Roman night, so crammed with dreams, as she came home . . . there, from the corners of the buildings, from the sidewalks, tributes, individual or collective, blossomed in her direction, glances: flashes and shining youthful looks: at times a whisper grazed her: like a passionate murmur of the evening. Sometimes, in October, from that changing of colors, from the warmth of the walls there emanated an improvised pursuer, a Hermes with brief wings of mystery: or perhaps from strange cemeterial Erebuses, risen again to the living, to the city. One more brassy than the others. And more of a dope . . . Rome is Rome. And she seemed to feel sorry for the ass, so gloriously driven after his fortune by those great sails of ears; with a glance, half-disdainful, half-pitying, between gratitude and scorn, she seemed to ask him: "Well?" A woman who seemed veiled to the desiring, her timbre sweet and profound, her skin stupendous: lost, at times, in some private dream: with a knot of handsome chestnut hair which burst from her brow; she dressed in admirable style . . . She had ardent eyes, helpful, almost, in a light (or with a shade?) of melancholy fraternity ... At Assunta's sing-song, somewhat boorish announcement, "It's Signorino Giuliano," it seemed, to Ingravallo, that she had given a little start, or blushed even: with a "subcutaneous" flush. Imperceptibly.
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When the two policemen said to him: "There's been a shooting in Via Merulana, at number two hundred and nineteen: on the stairs, where the sharks live ..." a jet of curious blood, anguished perhaps, flooded his right ventricle. "Two hundred and nineteen?" he couldn't help asking, though in an absent tone. And he relapsed at once into that kind of remote somnolence which, in him, was also his official's mask. Meanwhile the chief of the investigations squad had come into his room. He carried his Messaggero, still unsavored, and a petal, a single white petal, in his buttonhole. "Almond blossom," Ingravallo thought, questioning his superior with his eyes, "The first of the season. So now he can even afford flowers, eh?" "Will you go over to Via Merulana, Ingravallo? Take a look. It's nothing much, they tell me. And this morning, with