That Awful Mess on the via Merulana - Carlo Emilio Gadda [41]
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"Sonovabitch . . ." grumbled Don Ciccio, clenching his teeth: they were the teeth of a bulldog, and a cuisine in which garlic was prominent kept them a gleaming white. His smartest men were being taken from him, one by one, sent to swell the ranks of that other squad, the political. And meanwhile he sat there snorting through papers.
Now it was time to think of Mister Good-Looking, seriously, too. Good-looking. Yes, he was that, all right. And hard up for cash.
He seemed to remember a sentence of Balducci's, another evening at the Cantinone in Albano; it had issued forth with benign indulgence from that great ruddy face, while he was talking about a female cousin. "Women, of course, when they're in love . . ." He had pulled out his cigarette case. "... don't bother about petty details; they're generous-minded then." He had lighted Ingravallo's cigarette, then his own. "They're open-handed, not counting the change." Then and there Ingravallo hadn't paid much attention: a typically noble, after-dinner opinion. With him, Ingravallo, Doctor Francesco, to tell the truth, no woman had ever been open-handed, except perhaps, yes the poor signora herself: generous with her kindness, her goodness, a charming ... inspiration. In her honor, once (he blushed) he had ventured to write ... a sonnet. But he couldn't make all the rhymes come out right. The verses, however, even Professor Cammaruta had found perfect. "They're open-handed, oh yes, open-handed." Now, he felt he should convalidate that rather generic insinuation: perhaps, sure, women. "Don Ciccio! What if she had a private fund?" His thoughts were pursuing some anger, some vindictive bitterness. "Do they give money, along with all the rest?" No, no. He wanted to dispel this hypothesis. There were too many indications, no, Liliana Balducci ... no, no, she wasn't in love with her cousin. In love? What're you talking about? Yes, to be sure, she had looked at him, openly pleased, that time, smiling at him, but. . . considering him a fine specimen of the family stock, the way you might smile at a brother. A young man, now he could understand, a young man who was a credit to them all; descended from the same grandfather, or rather, for him, great-grandfather. She, poor Liliana, was a cousin of his father. She had lost father and mother. Her husband was all she had left in the world. Hah! And Giuliano ... a fine chip, struck smartly, from the same old block. Perhaps . . . yes, of course, they had played together as children, as cousins. The genealogy (Don Ciccio consulted a scrap of paper) had been compiled by Pompeo. "Her aunt, Aunt Marietta, wife of Uncle Cesare, was the grandmother of Giuliano. They grew up together, you might say. So with Giuliano, she always spoke like a sister. An older sister."
"How come she was a Valdarena, too, before she got married?"
"How? It's because her father and Giuliano's grandfather, Uncle Cesare, were brothers."
"Well, why drag this Marietta on me then? If they're related, it's through the men of the family, the two fathers . . ."
"Right!"
"Right, my ass! You've got to get this Aunt Marietta off my back now."
"She's the one that brought the signora up, when her mother died."
Ingravallo remembered, in fact, that Balducci had told him this: Liliana, when still a child, had lost her mother. Complications following childbirth, her second. And the baby, too! And so, and so . . . Then, that evening . . . that evening she had spoken to her cousin with that admiring indulgence, that touch of envy women always betray when they look at handsome young men ... too sought-after by their rivals. And that was all there was to it. "Ah! these women!"
It was one o'clock. He collected statements and reports, stacked the dossiers. In despair, he got up and went out.
"And yet," he was thinking, "Valdarena, the cousin . . . he was the one who gave the alarm. Is this a sign ... an unmistakable sign ... of innocence?