Read Online That Awful Mess on the via Merulana by Carlo Emilio Gadda - Free Book Online
Authors: Carlo Emilio Gadda
Ads: Link
place, there's always another one outside to keep watch . . . The two of them . . . now you take it from me, doctor . . . the two were in cahoots . . ."
"Don't you ever see delivery boys in this building?" Ingravallo asked, in a tone of conscious authority and, also, annoyance. He drew back his eyelids, breaking his habitual tedium and heaviness: his eyes then received a light, a penetrating certainty. "Of course," la Pettacchioni then said, "why this building is like the Central Station ... The highest type of people live here, people in trade, sir." The others all smiled: "the kind who don't like to eat just any old greens." "Then who did they deliver to? Don't you remember? .. . Who brought the fresh mozzarella to their doors?" "Oh well, sir, they came more or less for everybody . . ." she bowed her head and put her left index finger to the corner of her mouth: "just let me have a think." Now all of them were mentally groping for boys bringing mozzarella: a sudden fervor of hypotheses, arguments, memories: wicker baskets and white aprons. "Yes . . . Signor Filippo here," she sought him, with a glance: and as if she were introducing him: "Commendatore Angeloni, of the Ministry of National Economy," and she pointed him out, in the group. The others then moved aside and the designated man bowed slightly: "Commendatore Angeloni," he then ventured, on his own. "Ingravallo," Ingravallo said, who so far hadn't even been made a cavaliere, touching the brim of his hat with two fingers. The homage due the National Economy.
Signor Filippo, tall, dark of overcoat, with his belly somewhat pear-shaped, and his shoulders hunched and sloping slightly, his face between frightened and ... and melancholy, and in its midst a big, rudder-like priest's or fish's nose, which could sound the great trump of the Last Judgment, if you blew on it—that was how it looked—though commendatorial and ministerial, yes; but in particular there was a something ... a sadness, an insecurity, and with it also a kind of reticence in his eyes, as he looked at the officer, Officer Ingravallo, almost as if afraid of losing his berth . . . the next time the Ministry fell: which was not to fall, on the other hand, until Forty-three, the 25th of July. A strange old crow, my God, all bundled up, inside those lapels and that elegiac scarf: a Ministering cleric from that group of very black ones that nest, by preference, between San Luigi de' Francesi and the Minerva. Unnoticed by the absent-minded or hurrying passer-by, one foot after the other in the easy hour of the day they are used to stroll over their beloved little side streets, from the arch of Sant'Agostino and Via della Scrofa, along Via delle Coppelle or the Pozzo delle Cornacchie, up to Santa Maria in Aquiro. On rare occasions they venture, very slowly, along Via Colonna and enter, agoraphobes all, the cobbled Piazza di Pietra, disdaining the half-liter and the snobbish pizzeria of the Neapolitan : and then from that alleyway of Via di Pietra they may even reach the Corso, but it has to be Holy Saturday, at the very least, opposite the Enciclopedia Treccani, to the most inviting clocks and watches of Catellani, the jeweler. In Lent or low Sundays, mourning and flabby, they are content to flank Santa Chiara, under the globes of the two hotels, up to the elephant and his graceful obelisk, past the shopwindows of rosaries and Madonnas: very slowly, or else: equally slowly, they go back: a bicycle grazing them, they turn into the Palombella and hug the back of the Pantheon, by now, however, retracing their steps as if a bit disappointed by the dusk.
Commendatore Angeloni had moved to Via Merulana some years ago, after the demolitions in Via del Parlamento and Campo Marzio, where he had lived since time immemorial. He must have been a gourmet, judging at least by the little packages, the truffles . . . Packages which, as a rule, he delivered to himself, with great concern and all due respect, holding them
"Don't you ever see delivery boys in this building?" Ingravallo asked, in a tone of conscious authority and, also, annoyance. He drew back his eyelids, breaking his habitual tedium and heaviness: his eyes then received a light, a penetrating certainty. "Of course," la Pettacchioni then said, "why this building is like the Central Station ... The highest type of people live here, people in trade, sir." The others all smiled: "the kind who don't like to eat just any old greens." "Then who did they deliver to? Don't you remember? .. . Who brought the fresh mozzarella to their doors?" "Oh well, sir, they came more or less for everybody . . ." she bowed her head and put her left index finger to the corner of her mouth: "just let me have a think." Now all of them were mentally groping for boys bringing mozzarella: a sudden fervor of hypotheses, arguments, memories: wicker baskets and white aprons. "Yes . . . Signor Filippo here," she sought him, with a glance: and as if she were introducing him: "Commendatore Angeloni, of the Ministry of National Economy," and she pointed him out, in the group. The others then moved aside and the designated man bowed slightly: "Commendatore Angeloni," he then ventured, on his own. "Ingravallo," Ingravallo said, who so far hadn't even been made a cavaliere, touching the brim of his hat with two fingers. The homage due the National Economy.
Signor Filippo, tall, dark of overcoat, with his belly somewhat pear-shaped, and his shoulders hunched and sloping slightly, his face between frightened and ... and melancholy, and in its midst a big, rudder-like priest's or fish's nose, which could sound the great trump of the Last Judgment, if you blew on it—that was how it looked—though commendatorial and ministerial, yes; but in particular there was a something ... a sadness, an insecurity, and with it also a kind of reticence in his eyes, as he looked at the officer, Officer Ingravallo, almost as if afraid of losing his berth . . . the next time the Ministry fell: which was not to fall, on the other hand, until Forty-three, the 25th of July. A strange old crow, my God, all bundled up, inside those lapels and that elegiac scarf: a Ministering cleric from that group of very black ones that nest, by preference, between San Luigi de' Francesi and the Minerva. Unnoticed by the absent-minded or hurrying passer-by, one foot after the other in the easy hour of the day they are used to stroll over their beloved little side streets, from the arch of Sant'Agostino and Via della Scrofa, along Via delle Coppelle or the Pozzo delle Cornacchie, up to Santa Maria in Aquiro. On rare occasions they venture, very slowly, along Via Colonna and enter, agoraphobes all, the cobbled Piazza di Pietra, disdaining the half-liter and the snobbish pizzeria of the Neapolitan : and then from that alleyway of Via di Pietra they may even reach the Corso, but it has to be Holy Saturday, at the very least, opposite the Enciclopedia Treccani, to the most inviting clocks and watches of Catellani, the jeweler. In Lent or low Sundays, mourning and flabby, they are content to flank Santa Chiara, under the globes of the two hotels, up to the elephant and his graceful obelisk, past the shopwindows of rosaries and Madonnas: very slowly, or else: equally slowly, they go back: a bicycle grazing them, they turn into the Palombella and hug the back of the Pantheon, by now, however, retracing their steps as if a bit disappointed by the dusk.
Commendatore Angeloni had moved to Via Merulana some years ago, after the demolitions in Via del Parlamento and Campo Marzio, where he had lived since time immemorial. He must have been a gourmet, judging at least by the little packages, the truffles . . . Packages which, as a rule, he delivered to himself, with great concern and all due respect, holding them
Similar Books
