those parts, are fat, unless they do penance and fast for a couple of months every now and then, to gain their Paradise, since they have one of their own. This Maharajah of Sherpur, on his forehead, right in the midst of his turban, had had sewn two diamonds that sent off sparks and a spiky plume that was the longest of all Asia and Europe put together, but the plume of our Chief of State was even longer: and he, the Indian Maharajah, had expressed for some years, through the normal diplomatic channels of our consuls, whom our Chief had sent even to India, the hope of visiting our General Hospital and our Milk Center. The Center didn't exist yet, at that time, and the typhoid of the Year Fifteen{25} hadn't yet occurred: as for the general hospital, he wanted to build one just like it at Sherpur on the banks, more or less, of his native Brahmaputra: a slightly smaller one, of course, but not for that less beautiful than our own: at Sherpur, the city where he was born twenty years ago, and where the Treasure is located, the State Mammon. The visit was arranged in this fashion: it was scheduled for Monday, March 21st at eleven, by which time it was presumed that the damn funeral of the poor signora would long be over. Whence the justified haste of the Authorities, which about ten o'clock turned into a headlong rush. Don Ciccio, once he reached San Lorenzo, slipped into the crowd—his ears pricked up—as it entered the church, and his bloodhounds did the same. And the same again, half an hour later, at the exit. With small results. Signor Remo had followed the hearse with his hat in hand, his face haggard, in a group with the aunts, who were almost all there, and with the close relatives. When the Mass had been said, and final absolution given the coffin, and then, inside Verano, when the grave had been blessed, where white lilies and carnations fell amid desperate sobs "good-bye, Liliana, good-bye!", the black Ingravallo stuck to the side of Don Lorenzo, like a boxer at the side of a giraffe, suitably dressed, and didn't let go of him till they were in the sacresty. He allowed the priest to undress, then loaded him into his car (if his old tin can could be called that!) and took him off to Santo Stefano.
Where, taking him into the office of Fumi, the latter expressed the opinion . . . that the distinguished man of God could give them some additional light on the condition . . . the spiritual condition of the lamented lady: in order to assist the police authorities in a deeper examination of the case and the final redaction, "of what you might call the psychological report." A comma or two, a dot on an i, the brokenhearted prudence of Don Corpi did add to the report-synthesis. The visits and the implorations of the Signora Balducci to the church of the Santi Quattro, at certain happy seasons in the celestial calendar, or at the less sad ones, were, one might say, daily. Both to the Confessional and to Our Lady's altar: or else to the rectory, along the portico, all around the "fine cloister of the thirteenth century." The square sky was all light, as if through the eternal presence of the confessors, the sainted four: one on each side. The poor soul sought help in her suffering: the sweet word of hope, the compassionate word of charity. Of faith she had more than anyone. Don Lorenzo remarked, without of course losing sight of the seal of the sacrament, basing his words exclusively on extra-sacramental confidences and on the invocations of the person who had chosen him as the confidant of her private anguish, he remarked that he could fully confirm what was written above, that is to say, what had emerged from the amnesic uncertainty of afterwards, encouraged by the police to become certainty, verified, and from the intuition and complementing wisdom of the cousin and, why not?, the husband. Authoritative and massive, after that early and now overcome embarrassment of the first time (trip to Roccafringoli, delay, however voluntary, in "presenting himself to the authorities," and in "producing the will of the deceased"), with his