Tales of Madness (15 page)

And when he looked at his little Dreetta, who was already pregnant, his eyes glazed over with tears, tears of tenderness and gratitude.

During the past few months his wife, along with her brother and mother, busied herself in setting up the little house. At that time Fabio Feroni's trepidation became more painful than ever. He broke out in a cold sweat whenever he heard expressions of jubilation from his wife, who was satisfied with the purchase of this or that piece of furniture.

"Come and see... come and see... " Dreetta would say to him.

He would have liked to shut her mouth with both his hands. His joy was excessive; no, it was rather happiness, true happiness that he had attained. It was not possible that some misfortune would not strike from one moment to the next. And Fabio Feroni began to look around, ahead and behind, with quick side-glances, in order to discover and avert chance's trap, the trap that could be lurking even in a tiny speck of dust. And he would throw himself on the ground and crouch on all fours, blocking his wife's passage when he would spot some fruit peel
on the floor that might cause her delicate foot to slip. Yes, it was
very possible that the trap was there, in that peel! Or perhaps... why yes, in that canary cage over there... Already once Dreetta had climbed onto a stool, risking a fall in order to replace the hemp in the small vase. Get rid of that canary! And hearing Dreetta protest and cry, he, all bristled and hispid like a beaten cat, began to shout:

"Fabio, what are you doing?"

And he replied, placing his finger over his mouth:

"Shhh... quiet! I'll find it! I swear this time I'll find it... It won't
do me in!"

All of a sudden, whether it was because of a mouse, or a small
current of air, or a cockroach on his bare feet, the fact is that
Fabio Feroni let out a cry, jumped up, and bucked, and then took
hold of his belly with both hands, shouting that the grasshopper was there; it was there, there inside his stomach! He began dashing about, dashing about throughout the house, dressed only in his nightshirt. Then he ran down the stairs and outside through the deserted street into the night, screaming and laughing, while a disheveled Dreetta shouted for help from the window.

His friends, anxious and dismayed, gathered around him.

"Has he really gone mad?"

"No, only as a joke."

Traldi, buried in the sofa with all the weight of his huge pachyderm body, made several attempts, using his hands for leverage, to lift himself up and sit a bit straighter, and in the effort opened wide his bovine, bloodshot eyes, that popped out of their sockets. He asked:

"Pardon me, but are you saying that... (ooh, ooh...) are you saying that because he gave you that look, too?"

"Me, too? That look? What do you mean?" asked a stunned Nicolino Respfi, turning to his friends. "I arrived just this morning from Milan, and found this fine bit of news waiting for me here. I don't know anything about it, and I still can't understand how it is that Romeo Daddi, my God!—the most relaxed, carefree, and sensible one of us all..."

"Did they lock him up?"

"Why, yes, of course! That's what I've been trying to tell you! Today at three o'clock. In the asylum at Monte Mario."

"Oh, poor Daddi!"

"And Donna Bicetta? Is it possible... Could it have been Donna Bicetta, who...?

"No! Not her! On the contrary, she was completely against the idea! Her father hurried down from Florence the day before yesterday."

"Oh, so that's why..."

"Exactly. And he forced her to come to that decision for Daddi's sake as well... But tell me how it all happened! Now Traldi, why did you ask me whether Daddi gave me that look
too?"

"What do you mean, on
account of that?"

"Gad! How frightening!" exclaimed Traldi at this point, pulling himself up again to sit straighter.

"But why?" asked Respi, nervously.

"Would you believe it? He wants to know why!" uttered Traldi, again raising his voice. "Aha, you mean why it was so frightening? My dear friend, I would have liked to have seen you at grips with that look of his! You change your shirt every day, I suppose. You're certain your feet are clean and your socks don't have holes in them. But are you equally certain that you don't have any filth inside, that is, in your conscience?"

"Oh, my God, I should say..."

"Come on, now, you can't be sincere!"

"And you are?"

And Carlo Traldi rose laboriously to his feet. He then placed his hands on Nicolino Respi's shoulders and shouted at him:

"There... see?... see?"

"Get out of here!" burst out Respi, unable to stand it any longer, and shaking himself all over.

"You get out of here, now that we've understood one another!"
shouted Traldi. "You're a worse swine than I am!"

And he burst out laughing. The others laughed too, feeling unexpected relief. And Traldi continued:

"Now that was just a joke. Only as a joke can one of us set himself to looking at another like that. Because both you and I have that little machine known as civilization within us, and it's still in good working order, so we let the dregs of all our
actions, of all our thought s, and of all our feelings, settle ever so
quietly and secretly to the bottom of our consciences. Now suppose that someone whose little machine has broken down starts looking at you as I did, but in earnest, not as a joke, and without your expecting it, stirs up from the bottom of your conscience all those dregs that have settled within you, and
then you tell me whether you, too, wouldn't become frightened!"

"What an abyss... What an abyss..."

"Like that?"

"Yes... 'What an abyss... What an abyss...'"

After Traldi had gone, the group broke up and Nicolino Respi was left feeling disconcerted, in the company of only two friends who continued talking for quite a while about the misfortune that had befallen poor Daddi.

About two months before, Respi had gone to visit Daddi at his villa near Perugia, and had found him as calm and serene as ever. He was there with his wife and a friend of hers, Gabriella Vanzi, an old school chum recently married to a naval officer who at that time was away on a cruise. Respi had spent three days at the villa and, no, not even once during those three days had Romeo Daddi looked at him in the manner described by Traldi.

But if he would have looked at him...

Nicolino Respi was overtaken by a feeling of confusion akin to dizziness, and so, for support, smiling though quite pale, he placed his arm under that of one of those two friends, making it seem like a simple gesture of friendship.

What had happened? What were they saying? Torture? What sort of torture? Oh, the sort Daddi had subjected his wife to...

"Afterwards, huh?" he blurted out.

And those two friends turned around to look at him.

"Oh... no, what I meant was... afterwards, when his... his little machine broke down."

"I should say so! Certainly not before!"

"My God, they were a paragon of conjugal harmony, of domestic tranquility. Certainly something must have happened to him while they were on vacation."

"Why, yes! At least some suspicion must have been aroused in him."