Much can happen in a couple of minutes, men achieve many things in such a short space of time—even if it is hot and the foul-smelling air from the rotting rice fields wafts over the town, poisoning their existence. The girl tried to shriek. But all she produced was a soundless breath, a sort of whistle. In the moment of panic she seized upon the child and threw it down into the water. For a moment, its head disappeared below the surface.
There was a horrible shriek from the side of the fountain, like the roar of an animal. “She’s killing my child, she’s killing my child! Help! Help!”
Naturally, the heat was suddenly forgotten. This was a heaven-sent opportunity. There was no longer anything to stop them pouring out their very souls, from ridding themselves of that whole load of filth and evil that piles up inside one for years and that no one really notices is there. A wave of frenzy swept through the women: “Murderess! Murderess! Murderess!” they shouted senselessly.
Some dozen yards away, with that insistent pain still in his side, Antonio was still panting. He could only partly see what was happening and failed to understand the full significance of it. But now he did notice that the people were not speaking as they had previously: they’d been speaking the ordinary dialect of the town, which he could easily understand. But now, inexplicably, their mouths seemed to swell and splutter, and produce different-sounding words, rough and shapeless; it was like some hideous black echo from the distant city wells. Was this the evil voice of the old forgotten underworld, heavy with crime, breaking the long silence? He was among foreigners, in a remote, unpredictable land; he was an enemy.
The shouts became louder than ever. People were jumping over the edge of the fountain and into the water. There was a struggle. Then they all climbed out again, led by Anna held roughly between two women who were hitting her. She looked crumpled and mud-bespattered and her face was ashy pale, with an expression of utter anguish. Was she crying? Sobbing? Shouting? Antonio couldn’t tell, her voice was drowned by the shrieks of the crowd. Every now and then she stumbled under their blows, but they continued toward some unspecified destination, pinning her arms behind her back.
Antonio looked on in terror. All around him he saw harsh, glaring, staring faces. His heart pounding, he ran to find a policeman. Then he heard a new burst of shouting: “To the cage with her!” they seemed to be saying. Was that it? What could it mean?
He had gone only about two hundred yards when he saw two policemen, walking in the direction of the crowd attracted by the uproar, although they did not seem to be in any particular hurry. “Please hurry, they’re murdering a girl. They’ve got her, they’re taking her away!” he stammered out.
The two policemen looked at him in amazement, as though they hadn’t understood; nor did they walk a fraction faster, though the crowd of people dragging Anna was coming toward them. Anna’s defenses were completely broken down. “Oh, God, oh, God,” she repeated endlessly. They drove her along like an animal.
But right behind her came another group, mostly women, triumphantly carrying a child, the one that Anna had thrown into the water. Its mother was stroking its legs. “Tonino, my love,” she was shouting. “My own treasure! That cnn che lev mmmmmmm!” After the first word the phrase disintegrated into a meaningless lowing sound. The other women all nodded violent approval and clapped their hands; then one suddenly ran forward, as though she had not a moment to lose, and pounded Anna viciously with her fists.
What exactly were the policemen waiting for? Moving uncertainly, they had come up alongside the procession and were gesticulating oddly. A small hunchback went up to them. “We’ve got her,” he reported, panting. “She was trying to mmeg n bemb ghh mmmm mmmm!” The policemen turned pale.
One of them glanced at Antonio, apologetically. But the boy’s expression of dismay reminded him of his duty. He signaled to his companion that it was time for action, then seized one of the women by the arm. “Just a moment, now,” he said uncertainly.
The woman didn’t even turn around. Some vast power of darkness dragged her along with the rest. There was a buzz of incomprehensible comment. The policeman relaxed his grip. The tramping of numerous feet was sending up clouds of dust which mingled with warm breaths of foul-smelling air.
They were pushing Anna toward the old castle, which stood at the edge of the gardens. There, hanging above the drawbridge and suspended by means of a sort of winch was a small iron cage, originally used for pillorying criminals. Hanging against the yellow wall, it looked like a huge bat. The crowd, with Anna in its midst, gathered beneath it, then the cage began to sway, and moved jerkily down into the crowd. The shouts became triumphant. A few minutes later the ropes tautened and the cage swung upward, this time holding a human being: a human being in blue, kneeling shaken with sobs, hands gripping the bars. A hundred arms were raised toward it, unrecognizable objects flew upward to strike it.
However, just as it was about a yard above the heads of the crowd,
