had encountered people on the stairs: not even Valdarena; nobody had seen him, either. He was a Doctor of Economic Science—Ingravallo was well aware of this—and employed by Standard Oil. For some time he had been stationed at Vado Ligure, then in Rome. Now he was preparing to move to Genoa, and also to be married. He was engaged to a Genoa girl, a snappy little brunette, whose photograph he produced: a certain Lantini Renata. Of excellent family, naturally. According to the excellent family, he "was terribly in love," our Doctor Valdarena, Signorino Giuliano. Balducci had spoken about it to Ingravallo, meeting him in Albano at the Cantinone tavern, with some jovial allusion to hot young blood, as well as the chronic lack, which afflicted the young man, of a few sheckels, which ought to stick to his fingers, at least in part; and yet money fluttered through them regularly, like butterflies from the fingers of an Apollo: the Apollos you see in the park, of marble. Balducci had dubbed him a "good-looking boy" (no need for references on this score): "with his degree in economic science," top grades and cum laude, too, but always broke, as is so often the case with those who want to teach others .. . how to handle the economy: a little short of the ready . . . shorter than a Roman cousin—not to mention a Genoese father-in-law—would have wished. "No, no, he isn't living off of short loans; but you know how it is, at his age, with all the temptations there are around: you understand, a boy like that ... if he isn't hard up for money, he can't be very hard up for the other thing." Ingravallo was grim-faced, that evening, in Albano: the rosy-cheeked indulgence and, indeed, the male solidarity of Balducci, the husband, a toothpick between his teeth, to Don Ciccio betrayed too easy a digestion ... of the product of Empedocle e Figlio, maybe. That carefree, after-dinner rosyness of the commercial traveler, the hunter with a pair of new boots ... by God, it had finally exasperated him, he who came from years of poverty and hardship, from the barren Matese mountain, progressing to the procedures and the red tape of the law, a humble and dogged investigator of events, or of souls, in the law's name. He had glanced at Balducci: "the horns are growing on your head right now!" he thought. "An atoll of coral, that's what's growing on you." And instead he had sighed: "Ah, these women!" his face grimmer than ever under his astrakhan mop. And Giuliano, now, sat in the best drawing room. With two cops keeping him company.
A good-looking boy, the Signorino Giuliana, in there: rather lucky with women. Rather. Yes. They pursued him in swarms, buzzing around him; they fell on him, all together, nose-diving like so many flies on a honeycomb. And he was plenty smart too: he had a line, a hypnotizing mirror, a way all his own, so natural and, at the same time, so strange . . . that he charmed you with the greatest of ease. He pretended that he neglected his women, or even that he was bored with them: too many, too easy! and he had something much better in his grasp. He played the smart male, the you-bore-me role, at times, or the haughty; or the young man of high-class family in Via dei Banchi Vecchi, or the clever businessman who didn't have time to waste on chat. Depending. A matter of chance. According to his mood. Matching the suit he happened to have on. Following the inspiration of the moment. Depending on whether he had gold-tipped cigarettes or whether he was out of cigarettes altogether, or whether he had just bought some, but a pack of smelly Nazionali. He played the spoiled child. Sometimes he was as fickle as a weather vane. So he neglected them then, sure, the flirty ones. And that was what made them lose their minds. He granted his favors after much reluctance on his part, after infinite longing and swooning on the part of the victim, drawing out the mad abandon or exhausting any evasive indocility through an erogation of pseudo-symptoms (in reality, suggestions) alternating and contrasting, yesses and nos. He loves me, he loves me not.