That Awful Mess on the via Merulana by Carlo Emilio Gadda Page B
Authors: Carlo Emilio Gadda
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cleaning for him, lending a hand to Rosa, the titular handmaiden of the rectory.
Ingravallo had listened to all this with his mouth open. "Well? What about this ticket then? This ticket? Who can have left it here? Tell me. The murderer? . . ." La Menegazzi seemed to repel the diligence and the pertinacity of the questioning, unwilling to assume the burden of reflecting: all timid, all dewy with belated hope, in the dream and in the charism of the, alas, barely grazed, not experienced torturings. A polychromatic giddiness wafted from her lilac-colored foulards, her azure mustache, the kimono which was a warbling of little birds (they weren't petals after all, but strange winged creatures somewhere between birds and butterflies), from her hair which was yellowish with a tendency towards a disheveled Titian, from the violet ribbon that gathered it into a kind of bouquet of glory: above the vagotonic sagging of the epigastrium and of the faded face, and the sighs of the alas, avoided, brutalization of her body but not avoided robberization of her gold. She didn't want to reflect, she didn't want to remember: or rather she would have preferred to remember what had carefully not taken place. Her fear, her "disaster" had unhinged her brain, that modicum of her person that could be called brain. She was forty-nine years old, though she looked fifty. The misfortune had come in double form: for her gold, that exceptional appraisal . . . unequivocal in its judgment; for her, that title of old witch, and the barrel ... of the pistol. "There was a time when you weren't such a scoundrel," she was inclined to think: of her guardian angel. No, she didn't know, she didn't want to: she was beside herself; she couldn't concentrate. But the one who still obliged her to speak was Ingravallo, as you might take some good tongs to pick up an ember which sizzles and pops and smokes and makes you cry. Until she ended, exhausted, by confirming that the boy, yes, that criminal, had taken the pistol from his pocket or wherever he had it, yes, right there, in front of the dresser, then that dirty handkerchief, or a mechanic's rag, perhaps, to wrap up the leather case . . . the jewel box, when he had taken it out of the drawer. With the pistol something else had come out, like a handkerchief, something crumpled, paper, probably. Oh no, she couldn't remember; the fright had been too much for her, Maria Verginel; remember? . .. Papers? That boy, yes, it was likely enough, had bent over to pick them up. She could see the scene again confusedly: to pick up what? The handkerchief? ... if it was a handkerchief. How can a person remember ... so many details . . . when a person is so frightened?
Doctor Ingravallo settled the ticket in a wallet, went downstairs again, after barely fifteen minutes had elapsed. The stairs were dark. From below, the hall was light: even with the main door closed as it was, the hall received light from a window on the courtyard. Gaudenzio and Pompeo followed him. He looked for the concierge again; she was there, squabbling with somebody.
Since ninety per cent of the tenants, male and female, had withdrawn at his invitation, but only a few steps away, and with their ears pricked up, it wasn't difficult for him to extend his inquiry with a supplementary investigation concerning the mysterious grocer's boy, tacitly reassembling there in the hall the previously dismissed group or clump of humans and vegetables from which he was to press information about the events and, possibly, clarification of the person involved. It turned out that no tenant of the building, whether from stairway A or B, had received anything or was to receive anything, that morning, from any grocer of the capital. Nobody had opened a door to a boy with a white apron, at that hour. "It was all staged," a lady, friend of Signora Bottafavi, then suggested, though she was no friend of la Menegazzi and lived on the fifth floor. "You know, when one of them goes to rob a
Ingravallo had listened to all this with his mouth open. "Well? What about this ticket then? This ticket? Who can have left it here? Tell me. The murderer? . . ." La Menegazzi seemed to repel the diligence and the pertinacity of the questioning, unwilling to assume the burden of reflecting: all timid, all dewy with belated hope, in the dream and in the charism of the, alas, barely grazed, not experienced torturings. A polychromatic giddiness wafted from her lilac-colored foulards, her azure mustache, the kimono which was a warbling of little birds (they weren't petals after all, but strange winged creatures somewhere between birds and butterflies), from her hair which was yellowish with a tendency towards a disheveled Titian, from the violet ribbon that gathered it into a kind of bouquet of glory: above the vagotonic sagging of the epigastrium and of the faded face, and the sighs of the alas, avoided, brutalization of her body but not avoided robberization of her gold. She didn't want to reflect, she didn't want to remember: or rather she would have preferred to remember what had carefully not taken place. Her fear, her "disaster" had unhinged her brain, that modicum of her person that could be called brain. She was forty-nine years old, though she looked fifty. The misfortune had come in double form: for her gold, that exceptional appraisal . . . unequivocal in its judgment; for her, that title of old witch, and the barrel ... of the pistol. "There was a time when you weren't such a scoundrel," she was inclined to think: of her guardian angel. No, she didn't know, she didn't want to: she was beside herself; she couldn't concentrate. But the one who still obliged her to speak was Ingravallo, as you might take some good tongs to pick up an ember which sizzles and pops and smokes and makes you cry. Until she ended, exhausted, by confirming that the boy, yes, that criminal, had taken the pistol from his pocket or wherever he had it, yes, right there, in front of the dresser, then that dirty handkerchief, or a mechanic's rag, perhaps, to wrap up the leather case . . . the jewel box, when he had taken it out of the drawer. With the pistol something else had come out, like a handkerchief, something crumpled, paper, probably. Oh no, she couldn't remember; the fright had been too much for her, Maria Verginel; remember? . .. Papers? That boy, yes, it was likely enough, had bent over to pick them up. She could see the scene again confusedly: to pick up what? The handkerchief? ... if it was a handkerchief. How can a person remember ... so many details . . . when a person is so frightened?
Doctor Ingravallo settled the ticket in a wallet, went downstairs again, after barely fifteen minutes had elapsed. The stairs were dark. From below, the hall was light: even with the main door closed as it was, the hall received light from a window on the courtyard. Gaudenzio and Pompeo followed him. He looked for the concierge again; she was there, squabbling with somebody.
Since ninety per cent of the tenants, male and female, had withdrawn at his invitation, but only a few steps away, and with their ears pricked up, it wasn't difficult for him to extend his inquiry with a supplementary investigation concerning the mysterious grocer's boy, tacitly reassembling there in the hall the previously dismissed group or clump of humans and vegetables from which he was to press information about the events and, possibly, clarification of the person involved. It turned out that no tenant of the building, whether from stairway A or B, had received anything or was to receive anything, that morning, from any grocer of the capital. Nobody had opened a door to a boy with a white apron, at that hour. "It was all staged," a lady, friend of Signora Bottafavi, then suggested, though she was no friend of la Menegazzi and lived on the fifth floor. "You know, when one of them goes to rob a
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