on with quick steps toward his home. The fruit-sellers and the blacksmiths along the road gazed and could not understand the strange behaviour of these two men, breathless and dripping with perspiration under the noonday sun.
Having arrived at his door, Don Giovanni, scarcely stopping to knock, turned like a serpent, yellow and green with rage, and cried:
“Don Domè, oh Don Domè, I will hit you!” With this threat, he entered his house and closed the door violently behind him.
Don Domenico, dumbfounded, stood for a time speechless. Then he retraced his steps, wondering what could account for this behaviour, when Matteo Verdura, one of the fig-eaters, called:
“Come here! Come here! I have a great bit of news to tell you.”
“What news?” asked the man of the long spine, as he approached.
“Don’t you know about it?”
“About what?”
“Ah! Ah! Then you haven’t heard yet?”
“Heard what?”
Verdura fell to laughing and the other cobblers imitated him. Spontaneously all of them shook with the same rasping and inharmonious mirth, differing only with the personality of each man.
“Buy three cents’ worth of figs and I will tell you.”
Don Domenico, who was niggardly, hesitated slightly, but curiosity conquered him.
“Very well, here it is.”
Verdura called a woman and had her heap up the fruit on a plate. Then he said:
“That signora who lived up there, Donna Violetta, do you remember … ? That one of the theatre, do you remember … ?”
“Well?”
“She has made off this morning. Crash!”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed, Don Domè.”
“Ah, now I understand!” exclaimed Don Domenico, who was a subtle man and cruelly malicious.
Then, as he wished to revenge himself for the offence given him by Don Giovanni and also to make up for the three cents expended for the news, he went immediately to the casino in order to divulge the secret and to enlarge upon it.
The “casino,” a kind of café, stood immersed in shadow, and up from its tables sprinkled with water, arose a singular odour of dust and musk. There snored Doctor Punzoni, relaxed upon a chair, with his arms dangling. The Baron Cappa, an old soul, full of affection for lame dogs and tender girls, nodded discreetly over a newspaper. Don Ferdinando Giordano moved little flags over a card representing the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian war. Don Settimio de Marinis appraised with Doctor Fiocca the works of Pietro Mettastasio, not without many vocal explosions and a certain flowery eloquency in the use of poetical expressions. The notary Gaiulli, not knowing with whom to play, shuffled the cards of his game alone, and laid them out in a row on the table. Don Paolo Seccia sauntered around the billiard table with steps calculated to assist the digestion.
Don Domenico Oliva entered with so much vehemence, that all turned toward him except Doctor Panzoni, who still remained in the embrace of slumber.
“Have you heard? Have you heard?”
Don Domenico was so anxious to tell the news, and so breathless, that at first he stuttered without making himself understood. All of these gentlemen around him hung upon his words, anticipating with delight any unusual occurrence that might enliven their noonday chatter.
Don Paolo Seccia, who was slightly deaf in one ear, said impatiently, “But have they tied your tongue, Don Domè?”
Don Domenico recommenced his story at the beginning, with more calmness and clearness. He told everything; enlarged on the rage of Don Giovanni Ussorio; added fantastic details; grew intoxicated with his own words as he went on.
“Now do you see? Now do you see?”
Doctor Panzoni, at the noise, opened his eyelids, rolling his huge pupils still dull with sleep and still blowing through the monstrous hairs of his nose, said or rather snorted nasally:
“What has happened? What has happened?”
And with much effort, bearing down on his walking stick, he raised himself very slowly, and joined the gathering in order to hear.
The Baron Cappa now narrated, with much saliva in his mouth, a well-nourished story apropos of Violetta Kutufa. From the pupils of the eyes of his intent listeners gleams flashed in turn. The greenish eyes of Don Palo Seccia scintillated as if bathed in some exhilarating moisture. At last the laughter burst out.
But Doctor Panzoni, though standing, had taken refuge again in slumber; since for him sleep, irresistible as a disease, always had its seat within his own nostrils.
He remained with his snores, alone in the centre of the room, his head upon his breast, while the others scattered over the entire district to carry the news from family to family.
And the news, thus divulged, caused an uproar in Pescara. Toward evening, with a fresh breeze from the sea and a crescent moon, everybody frequented the streets and squares. The hum of voices was infinite. The name of Violetta Kutufa was at every tongue’s end. Don Giovanni Ussorio was not to be seen.
II
Violetta Kutufa had come to Pescara in the month of January, at the time of the Carnival, with a company of singers. She spoke of being a Greek from the Archipelago, of having sung in a theatre at Corfu in the presence of the Greek king, and of having made mad with love an English admiral. She was a woman of plump figure and very white skin. Her arms were unusually round and full of small dimples that became pink with every change of motion; and these little dimples, together with her rings and all of those other graces suitable for a youthful person, helped to make her fleshiness singularly pleasing, fresh and tantalising. The features of her face were slightly vulgar, the eyes tan colour, full of slothfulness; her lips large and flat as if crushed. Her nose did not suggest Greek origin; it was short, rather straight, and with large inflated nostrils; her black hair was luxuriant. She spoke with a soft accent, hesitating at each word, smiling almost constantly. Her voice often became unexpectedly harsh.
When her company arrived, the Pescaresi were frantic with expectation. The foreign singers were lauded everywhere, for their gestures, their gravity of movement, their costumes, and for every other accomplishment. But the person upon whom all attention centred was Violetta Kutufa.
She wore a kind of dark bolero bordered with fur and held together in front with gilt aiglettes; on her head was a species of toque, all fur, and worn a little to one side. She walked about alone, stepping briskly, entered the shops, treated the shop-keepers with a certain disdain, complained of the mediocrity of their wares, left without making a purchase, hummed with indifference.
Everywhere, in the squares, on all of the walls large hand-bills announced the
