That Awful Mess on the via Merulana - Carlo Emilio Gadda [82]
La Pacori, oppressed then by an accumulation of rags, garments, heavy sweaters, and ragged jerseys to dye, which would need the caldron of Beelzebub, her patron, with some suspicion of animal life inside the stuff, at the height of anguish, had sub-contracted the dyeing work, including the green sash to the Ciurlani firm in Marino: which, two days earlier, in the fury of a stupid equinoxial wind with slanting rain, had sent a carriage to collect that rubbish: and the horse had arrived soaked, and so worn out, poor animal, that they had to unhitch him, then dry him off in a broken-down stall, where it rained in, patting his ass and giving him some hot wine to drink. It was there, in Marino, that is, that Pestalozzi had directed himself. There was some stuff already dyed, in a heap, on a table: and other stuff to disinfect or to dye again, in two sacks against the wall, on the ground: but when it came to them, Sora Mara warned the corporal to watch his step, you can't be too careful: "Those little beasts, once they get on to you . . ."
Pestalozzi, a man with guts, sharpened his eyes, but with his legs, he drew back at once: "two steps to the rear," snip, snap, with military vivacity: like at close-order drill. After some pecking around by the titular Ciurlani (that is to say Sora Mara herself) in that pile on the table, which was already cooked almost white, purified in the autoclave of any possible quadruped, from it, in fact, the scarf had emerged, tugged by one end, the sash: unfinished: like a serpent drawn from its hole by the tail, green, yes, once, black-green with dots: now green no longer, but not yet its new color which, ideally, was to be a pale brown, because to perfect the pale brown a second immersion was required. Thus spake la Ciurlani.
But how was it, asked the experts, that Zamira, the trouser-maker of I Due Santi, had dared offer the information?
Pestalozzi led them to believe that the idea of questioning her had occurred to him: and "only later on" to Sergeant Santarella. They were the station's two motorcyclists. And at his disposal, in the course of certain private exchanges of ideas with some stubborn types, he had arguments which were not wholly ineffectual, indeed rather convincing, against the great plague of reticence: (Di Pietrantonio, in his mind's eye, was already examining the leather belt): arguments which, in some cases, could succeed in counterbalancing and even overcoming, in doubting hearts, in hardheaded bumpkins, the opposing fear, the terror of vendetta. But with the good Zamira . . . there had been no need to go so far. Eh! A woman! And a woman of such stuff, of such form! Not even calling her to the barracks ad audiendum verbum, not even that had been considered necessary: a thing which, for that matter, "you might say," would have caused her more pleasure than fear. Oh! Sergeant Santarella, that is, in other words . . . the station, yes, the station had its trump cards, some here, some there: "all through the deck": and Di Pietrantonio, taking the words from his colleague-adversary's mouth, assumed the wisest face in the Cacco office. "In the midst of the theater of operations," Fumi added, serious, turning over a paper, with gentle gravity. A niece ... a girl who worked for la Pacori. A little bunch of primroses for the sergeant. Two knitted stockings for his little girl, the baby, Luciana, and a few words to go with them. Few, but well-chosen.
Fumi then recalled that a girl, that Ines, Ines . . .—and he started to search, with one hand, in the file of fine ladies, which he kept on his desk as a kind of mindful aroma, like lovely flowers in a vase—Ines . . . Ciampini, yes, from Torraccio, or Torracchio, on via Appia, the stop after Le Frattocchie, had