• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1392 0

taken by surprise. His whole attitude, his obstinate melancholy reticence, with those turns of phrase which came to nothing, tapering off, vague and dilatory, his timidity more or less feigned, calculated, those sudden flushes of the dripping nose, those imploring and shifting eyes, at first, then those two poor eyelets lost in two caverns of fear, a confusion at times real and at times strangely ambiguous had finally enraged the two officials: Ingravallo and Doctor Fumi, the head of the Investigation Squad. Naturally, they measured all the seriousness, and the slight grounds for their . . . distrust, based on such elusive indications, of that excellent Grade Six of the National Economy. A Grade Six of unquestioned morality, of unbesmirched reputation. "Hmph!" Don Ciccio thought, to console himself, "every mother's son is pure as the driven snow ... till he has his first fling .. . with the police."

And besides, it wasn't a question of suspicion, not at all. He only had to explain himself, say what he thought, to talk, sing out, loud and clear. If he thought something, why didn't he spill it? It was obvious enough: the burglar had rung the Balduccis' bell by mistake: perhaps, in his nervousness, or because he had misunderstood the directions of a third party, insufficient directions. This idea of the mistaken door . . . Ingravallo couldn't get it out of his head: the two doors were exactly alike, a twohundrednineteenish brown color, both of them, the number high up, invisible, in view of the darkness (of the landings). Receiving no answer and recovering himself, he had then rung the door opposite, the correct one. Doctor Fumi took a different view: the character had rung the Balducci bell to make sure nobody was at home: Signora Liliana usually went out at that hour, around ten: Assunta, Assuntina, was away, at home, with her "poor old father" who was about to pass on: the nondiminutive Assunta with those tits and that monument of an ass! Gina was with the sisters, at school: Signor Balducci at the office, or rather, off on a business trip, as he often was, in Vicenza, or in Milan. When Signora Liliana was also questioned—and it was Don Ciccio who questioned her, with great respect, that evening, at her home—nothing emerged. She shuddered at the thought of their being alone, she and little Gina, so she had asked Cristoforo, her husband's clerk, to come to supper and spend the night, and she had settled him in the room of the absent maid. She couldn't stop offering him blankets or comforters: ". . . if you feel cold . . ." He was a huge man who could scare off a thief with a puff of his breath: a good man with dogs, rabbits, shotguns.

Countess Menegazzi had gone one floor heavenward, guest of the Bottafavis, who had a "made in England" lock on their door, which could be turned eight times, good enough for the front door of Buckingham Palace. Signor Bottafavi, indeed, when he had wolfed down certain favorite dishes, dreamed of it at night; he dreamed he had that chain on his stomach. It was on such occasions that he was heard to cry "help! help!" in his sleep. From which he was awakened by his own cries. He had cleaned the revolver: he had greased it with vaseline, taken off the safety: the chamber now spun like a reel: the barrel was ready to fire, at the slightest hint of an excuse.

Ingravallo was surprised not to hear Lulu bark and he asked for news of her. Liliana Balducci's face became gently sad. Vanished! Over two weeks ago now. On a Saturday. How? Who knows? Somebody probably put her in his pocket. In the little gardens in front of San Giovanni where Assuntina took the dog for a walk, that scatterbrained girl: and instead of paying attention to the animal, there were all sorts of idlers who paid attentions to her, to Assunta. "Such a showy sort of girl . . . And the way things are nowadays!" An inquiry among the garbage collectors, two ads in the Messaggero, questions and reproaches to Assuntina, implorations to more or less everybody, but of no avail as far as bringing her back was concerned, alas, poor Lulu!