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By Root 1365 0

stations: and then the coming and going of the red-painted wagons which came down, in those days, with the barrels of new wine loaded in a mountain-like pile (for those who saw them from the side). And gardeners, early in the morning, and men carrying fresh ricotta on their donkeys with their gay bells: and trucks, from time to time, all spattered with mud and the night's rain, with their gross drivers in the cab like helmsmen, behind the pane, in their black oilskin jackets, their grappa-red faces, in their fox collars: those could clearly see anybody on the run, even if they don't look like they're watching. All of these, by now, had read the papers, with the two crimes in them. Resting, on the other hand, only a moment at the signal-man's, Iginio could then reach Casal Bruciato, cross—or not cross—the Ardeatina, slip off unseen under the sandstone ramparts which create the invisible security of Ardea, and create also, for the goatish lupercal god, a cave and a home: or, a divergent hypothesis, he could reach in any case the Rome-Naples train, at Santa Palomba Station: like a day-laborer looking for work, wait for the train, the poorest of trains, a diretto, the poorer of the only two that stop there. Or else . . . Pestalozzi suspected at last, doubling the horns of the dilemma, if he was out of breath or lacked money for the train, he could take to the country towards Solforata and the great thickets of the prince,{71} in the direction of Pratica di Mare. From there, come out on the shore: and, in easy stages, begging bread from the fishermen's huts, reach Ostia ... or escape to Anzio. And then who could ever find him? Right. But couldn't he have taken the train to Rome? And money, at the ticket window? Who could have given him the money? . . . Lavinia? . . . What about Camilla, why not her? It was more likely that the ugly one had given him the money."

Musing in this way, he was finally aware of the road: they were almost at the Anzio crossing. He concluded then, leaving all his doubts open: it was his sergeant's exam, this; in the barracks the beans would spill forth. But the spirit, or the devil, of the "reconstruction of the events" hammered at his temples. Retalli . . . here's why he had left the stolen property at the signal-man's house. It was a place . . . which no one, perhaps not even Sergeant Santar-ella, would have been capable, of guessing: there was the ugly fiancee, there: ugly and sure. And the countryside all around, deserted. He must have decided to flee on the spot, after having caught some random word, in the discussions of the people, or read a headline in a paper they were reading. The jewelry ... no, he couldn't leave it at his place. (A few hours after he had become "a fugitive from justice" they had searched his house.) They would have found it. It would have been the proof, imprisonment. To take it with him, if they should stop him, was no less dangerous than shutting it in a drawer. And so, there. To escape, to keep a safe distance, took money: and for the train, too! Camilla, perhaps, had some, could give it to him: she could cough up ... a bit of the ready: and he would leave her, as a pledge, all those sapphires and topazes, of course, he would have given them to her.

But Camilla whimpered about being so poor? The corporal's mind became confused. Every hypothesis, every deduction, no matter how well-constructed, turned out to have a weak point, like a net that is unraveling. And the fish then . . . good-bye! The fish of the impeccable "reconstruction." Retalli, in a far shadier level, must work like that blond boy of Ines', like the Ganymede Lanciani, who had been the blond—and invisible—god of the interrogation at Santo Stefano: and in this rather withered collection, the greed of the search was stilled. Ganymede was a more easily filed denomination, in the archive of his memory, than Diomede was.

The girls, in the buggy, seemed to be quarreling again: they went on, in fact, exchanging vituperation in low voices: with cheeks like she-devils, hysterical witches: but the upper hand seemed