How odd, I thought, that within the space of a couple of miles I should have seen two cases of people receiving unexpected news, for that was what I took it to be. Mildly intrigued, I scrutinized the countryside, roads, farms and villages with a vague feeling of unease.
Perhaps it was just my particular state of mind, but the more I examined the passersby, peasants, carters and so on, the more I felt that they were all strangely excited. It wasn’t my imagination: how could one explain such bustle in the courtyards, the frightened women, the carts and cattle? It was the same everywhere. The speed at which we were traveling made it impossible to be sure, but I would have sworn that all the activity had one single cause. Some local festival? Were the men getting ready to go to market? But the train was traveling at some speed and the countryside was seething with activity everywhere, judging by the confusion. Suddenly I saw the connection between the young woman at the railroad crossing, the young man on the wall and the frenzied movements of the peasants: something had happened and we on the train knew nothing of it.
I looked at my fellow travelers in the compartment and outside in the corridor. They had noticed nothing. They were quite calm, indeed an elderly woman opposite me was on the verge of sleep. Or did they have an inkling of what was going on? Yes, they too were clearly worried and didn’t dare to speak out. More than once I glanced up quickly enough to catch them looking out of the window. The woman who appeared half-asleep was one of the chief offenders, glancing out through half-closed lids and then examining me to see if I had noticed.
Naples. Trains usually stop here. Not our express. The old houses streaked past us, we could see lighted windows in the dark courtyards and in the rooms—it was a matter of seconds—there seemed to be men and women bending over parcels, closing suitcases. Or was it all my imagination?
They were getting ready to leave. For where? So it wasn’t good news that was electrifying towns and villages. A threat, a danger, scent of disaster. Then I reflected: if it was something really serious, they would have stopped the train; but everything was normal—signals, clear track—for all the world as if it were an inaugural run.
A young man beside me stood up, pretending to stretch his legs. In fact he wanted to see what was going on and leaned across me to be nearer the window. Outside was the countryside, the sun and the white lanes; and on the main roads were crowds of trucks, groups of people on foot, long convoys, slow-moving processions like those to shrines on saints’ days. The farther north the train went, the larger the crowds became; and they were all going in the same direction, fleeing the danger toward which we were hurtling at such speed: war, revolution, plague, fire, the unknown. We would not know the cause for another five hours, when we would reach our destination, and perhaps by that time it would be too late.
No one spoke. No one wanted to be the first to give in. Like myself, the others were uncertain as to whether the alarm was real or whether it was just a crazy idea, a hallucination, one of those absurd thoughts that tend to force themselves upon the tired traveler. The woman opposite me gave a sigh, pretending to wake up, and glancing up automatically as one does on waking, fixed her apparently casual gaze on the chain of the communication cord. Then we all looked at the thing too, with a single thought. But no one spoke, or had the courage to break the silence, or even dared to ask the others whether they had noticed anything disturbing going on outside.
By now the roads were swarming with vehicles and people, all heading southward. Trains coming from the other direction were packed. Bystanders seeing us flying north at such a speed stared in amazement. The stations were crammed. Now and then someone would gesticulate or shout phrases which reached us as mere vowels, like mountain echoes.
The woman opposite began to stare at me. She twisted a handkerchief in her bejeweled hands and looked at me beseechingly: if only I’d speak, lift them out of that silence, voice the question they were all awaiting like a reprieve and that no one dared to be the first to ask.
Another town. As the train slowed down to enter the station, two or three people stood up, unable to resist the hope that the driver might stop. But the train roared along the platforms like a whirlwind, amid nervous crowds piling, panting, into a departing train, with their chaotic piles of luggage. A small boy with a
