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"You know too much, you liar," shouted Ingravallo again, his nose to hers. Di Pietrantonio was stunned. "Cough it up, that name, you've got here: or the corporal'll make you spill it, in the barracks, at Marino: Corporal Pestalozzi."

"No, sir, no, Doctor: it wasn't me!" the girl implored then, simulating, perhaps, and in part enjoying, a dutiful fear: the fear that whitens the face a little, but still resists all threats. A splendid vitality, in her, beside the moribund author of her days, which should have been splendid: an undaunted faith in the expressions of her flesh, which she seemed to hurl boldly to the offensive, in a prompt frown, with a scowl: "No, it wasn't me!" The incredible cry blocked the haunted man's fury. He didn't understand, then and there, what his spirit was on the point of understanding. That black, vertical fold above the two eyebrows of rage, in the pale white face of the girl, paralyzed him, prompted him to reflect: to repent, almost.

The name Remo (Remus) Gadda imagines as being disliked by the Fascists because of their cult of Romulus, founder of Rome. Eleuterio is the Italian translation of the Greek name which means "free." It's unlikely that many Fascists gave these names any thought.

The title "signorino," now disappearing from Italian usage, was given—usually by the women of the family—to unmarried men, young or old. The word, when used by Ingravallo, has a slightly contemptuous nuance.

The initials PV and BM—which will be encountered later on— are indications of various bus lines in the Rome of 1927.

One of the difficulties of the Countess' surname is that it is perilously close to several Italian obscenities, such as cazzo, caca.

Luigi Facta had been the ineffectual Prime Minister of Italy at the time of the March on Rome. Mussolini made him a Senator in 1924.

Margherita Sarfatti, one-time mistress of Mussolini and author of the fulsome biography, Dux.

Mussolini, in 1927, was also Foreign Minister. His offices were in Palazzo Chigi.

Faiti and Cengio are mountains where the Italian army fought bitterly and suffered severe losses in the First World War, and where Gadda's brother was killed. For a moment, here, Gadda identifies himself openly with Ingravallo and attributes his own bereavement to the fictional character.

Sgurgola is a small village not far from Rome, often used by Romans to indicate a backward locality, a place from which peasants come.

At a later date, Mussolini, with great bombast, was to ask the wives of Italv to sacrifice their gold wedding rings to the Fatherland.

A typical Gaddian private joke. Pope Pius XI was fond of blessing newlyweds, referring to them as sposi novelli ("fresh bridal pairs") ; polli novelli is the characteristic Roman advertisement for fresh chickens. (Among Gadda's less well-known achievements is the construction, as engineer, of the Vatican Power Station for Pius XI. He also wrote the official description of it.)

Cola di Rienzo (1312-54), medieval revolutionary figure who was executed. The words "fat, he was" are a quotation from a contemporary chronicle.

Ferrania is a small city near Savona. Mussolini had planned an oil pipeline there. It was never built.

Reference to an Italian custom: recently married couples send sugared almonds in tulle bags to those who have sent—or should send —wedding presents.

cinobalànico, a word invented by Gadda, a Greco-Italian adjective created from an obscene Roman dialect expression meaning "badly done."

Cesare Beccaria, Italian reformer and humanitarian (1738-94), author of the famous Dei delitti e delle pene. The Pirroficoni case was an actual event (as, for that matter, was the crime which inspired Il pasticciaccio).

Luigi Federzoni was Mussolini's Minister of the Interior.

A Gaddian parody of the Latin inscriptions on buildings all over Italy, a custom initiated by the Popes and continued with gusto by the Fascists, who were fond of translating their names and titles into Latin. Rosa Maltoni was the maiden name of Mussolini's