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The hapless Pirroficoni was almost killed by the blows of an Italian of the same stripe: because they wanted to wring from him, in any way, in the "interrogation chamber," the truthful admission that he had raped certain little girls. He was stunned and pleaded no, there wasn't a word of truth in it: but he was beaten to a faretheewell. O generous Manes of Beccaria!{16}

The Urbs, in the very period of his fits of public decency and of police-enforced Federzonism,{17} was to know (1926— 27) several periodical stranglings of little girls: and on the meadows there lay traces of the remains and the torment, and the poor, slaughtered innocence: there, there extra muros, after the shrines of suburbicarian devotion, and the epigraphs of the ancient marbles and sacella. Consule Federsonio, Rosamaltonio enixa: Damnato Shittonio dictatore syphlitico{18}. Pirroficoni, the wretch! was master at that time of a mistress, rather plump not to say overripe, but somewhat difficult of access: fifth floor, a modern building: concierge in her lodge: husband, present and in working order ... in his carpet slippers: clusters of neighbors ad libitum, natural glossators superior even to Irnerius.{19} Whence, that is, because of these factual premises, a pathetic up-and-down of autographs of various import thanks to a gentle maiden (thirteen years old) who bore them with some circumspection and with equal palpitation of the heart to their destination. And conversations in sign language and various finger play from window to street: and vice versa. The expert and fingersome swain was arrested on the sidewalk, just when he was transmitting some of his signals with six or seven fingers (the hours of love) towards that window on the fifth floor (this, in the opinion of headquarters, was a "strategic feint"): and as he was entrusting a note for Madame, second stratagem, to her little messenger, a little maid, thrilled and frightened by her mission, her face all flushed. Pirroficoni had also given the child, as usual with him, a caress or two: this action, and his own blushing, were his perdition. On this splendid array of evidence the plumed Death's Head belched that "the Roman police in less than forty-eight hours etc. etc." And the cop, comforted by the lofty words of the Deuce, fell to with a will. The doubting intervention of some honest official saved Pirroficoni's bones, but not before they were sorely beaten.

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Then it was Balducci's turn to be questioned: the afternoon of that same day, March 18th, at Santo Stefano del Cacco: for several hours: by the Chief himself: the coroner also took part, pro forma, "the police were still taking the initiative in the investigations." Ingravallo, this time, didn't really feel up to questioning him. A friend, after all! He didn't even want to watch. And besides, it was clear, they would touch on difficult matters: the delicate questioning was bound to end in the hairsplitting of a particular kind of interrogation, or else it would break out in disgusting crudities, an interrogation of the crudest kind. The relations between . . . Balducci and his wife: moods, her frame of mind. There came to the surface again that incredible story of the nieces: the strange "mania" of the victim, wanting a daughter at any cost. She would have bought one, secondhand, at the Campo de' Fiori market, all else failing. As to the dough, Doctor Fumi was quick to convince himself that the married couple, him and her both, were in an enviable economic position. With that ballast down in the hold . . . there was no rough sea that could rock the boat, no inflation scare.

The widower sketched out a list of their bonds, as best he could, from memory: his own as well as Liliana's: to facilitate the proof, he said, that when it came to him, they ought to consider him beyond all suspicion, even a momentary cloud. "Me? My own little Liliana? What? You're kidding?" His lips began to tremble, he burst into