That Awful Mess on the via Merulana - Carlo Emilio Gadda [14]
"All right, I'll go," Ingravallo said, then muttered, "I'll go," and he took his hat down from the peg. The badly fitted peg came loose and fell to the floor, as it did every time, then rolled for a bit. He picked it up, stuck its withered root into the hole, and with the sleeve of his forearm, as if it were a brush, briefly smoothed his black hat, along the band. The two policemen went after him, as if by tacit command of the chief commissioner; they were Gaudenzio, known to the underworld as "Blondie," and Pompeo, alias "Grabber."
They took the PV bus{3} and got off at the Viminal, then changed to the tram for San Giovanni. So in twenty minutes or so they were at number two hundred and nineteen.
The palace of gold, or of the sharks, if you prefer, was there: five floors plus mezzanine. Worm-eaten and gray. To judge by that grim dwelling and its cohort of windows, the sharks must have been a myriad: little sharks with yawning stomachs, that's for sure, but easily satisfied esthetically. Living underwater on appetites and phagic sensations in general, the grayness, the lofty opalescence of the day was light, for them: that little bit of light which was all they needed. As to the gold, well, yes, maybe it did have gold and silver. One of those big buildings constructed at the beginning of the century which fill you at first sight with a sense of boredom and canarified contrition: you know, the precise opposite of the color of Rome, of the sky and the gleaming sun of Rome. Ingravallo, you might say, knew it by heart: and in fact, a slight palpitation seized him, as with the two policemen he approached the familiar structure, in his official, investigative role.
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In front of the big, louse-colored building: a crowd: circumfused by a protective net of bicycles. Women, shopping bags, and celery stalks: a shopkeeper or two from across the street, in his white apron: an "odd job" man, also in an apron, striped, his nose the shape and color of a wondrous pepper: concierges, maids, the little daughters of the concierges shouting "Peppiiino!" to boys with hoops, a batman saturated with oranges, trapped in his great net bag, and crowned by the ferns of two big fennels, and packages: two or three important officials, who in that hour ripe for the higher ranks seemed to have unfurled their sails: bound, each of them, for his personal Ministry: and a dozen or even fifteen idlers, headed in no direction at all. A letter carrier in a state of advanced pregnancy, more curious than all, with his brimming bag which smacked everyone in the ass: some muttered goddamnit, and then goddamn, goddamn, one after the other, as the bag struck them, in turn, on the behind. A gamin, with Tiberine seriousness, said: "This building here, inside it, there's more gold than there is garbage." All around, the stripe of the bicycle wheels, like a sui generis skin, seemed to render impenetrable that collective pulp.
Assisted and virtually preceded by his two men, Ingravallo cleared a path for himself. "The cops," somebody said. "Hey, kid, make way for old Grabber . . . Hi, Pompeo! Did you catch the thief? . . . Now here comes Blondie . . ." The door to the building was ajar, guarded by a corporal from the San Giovanni Station. The concierge had seen him pass and had called on him for help: shortly after the event and just before the arrival of the two men of the squad, that is to say Gaudenzio and Pompeo. She had known the corporal for ages, because of the reports she had to turn in on the tenants' moves. The deed had been done an hour before, a little after ten: an incredible