“That’s enough! Take her away,” ordered the Violet Cross lady, determined to subdue Antonella.
“Well, then, you shall die first, damn you!” cried Gilda, struggling more than ever.
“Oh, God,” groaned the white-clad one, and fell lifeless to the ground.
“And now you who are holding my hands, you too,” said the cleaner.
There was a confused mass of bodies, then one of the policemen fell down dead, a second one fell down immediately after, as soon as Gilda had spoken.
They all retreated in nameless terror. The mother found herself alone, surrounded by a crowd who dared not do anything.
She took Antonella by the hand and stepped out confidently.
“Make way, make way—let me pass.”
They made way, not daring to touch her. They followed her, though at a distance of twenty yards as she walked away.
Meanwhile, through the milling crowd, armored cars arrived amid the wailing of ambulance and fire-engine sirens. A vice commissioner of police took command of the operations.
A voice was heard: “Hoses! Tear gas!”
Gilda turned around angrily.
“Use them if you dare.”
Here was a mother offended and humiliated, an unleashed force of nature.
A circle of police surrounded her. “Hands up, you wretch!” A warning shot was heard.
“My little girl—you want to kill her too?” cried Gilda. “Let me pass.”
She walked on fearlessly. They hadn’t even touched her and six policemen collapsed in a heap on the ground.
So she reached home. It was a large block of flats standing in the fields on the outskirts of the town. The police surrounded the building.
The Chief of Police advanced with a loud megaphone, and all the tenants were given five minutes to get out, and the mother was ordered to hand over her child lest she should come to harm.
Gilda leaned out of the window on the top floor and shouted words they couldn’t understand. The group of police at once fell back as if some invisible force were pushing them.
“What are you doing? Close ranks!” thundered the officials. But even they stumbled back.
There only remained Gilda and her child in the building. Probably she was cooking supper, for a thin wisp of smoke issued from the chimney.
As evening fell, detachments of the Seventh Armored Regiment formed a wide circle around the house. Gilda leaned out of the window and shouted something or other. A heavy armored car began to wobble, then tipped over sideways—then a second, a third, a fourth. Some mysterious force tossed them about here and there like tin toys until they remained immobile in the most grotesque positions, completely smashed.
A state of siege was declared and U.N.O. forces intervened. A wide zone around the city was evacuated. At dawn the bombardment began.
Standing on a balcony, Gilda and the child quietly watched the spectacle. No one knew why none of the grenades succeeded in hitting the house. They all exploded in midair three hundred yards short. Then Gilda went in because Antonella, frightened by the noise of the explosions, had begun to cry.
They meant to get her through hunger and thirst. The water supply was cut. But every morning and every evening the chimney gave out its plume of smoke—a sign that Gilda was cooking.
The generals decided to attack at “X” hours. At the “Xth” hour the ground for miles around trembled, the war machines advanced concentrically with the boom of the apocalypse.
Once more Gilda showed herself.
“Stop it!” she cried, “Leave me alone!”
The ranks of armored cars heaved as though moved by an invisible wave, the steel pachyderms loaded with death twisted up with horrible grating noises, changing into little heaps of scrap iron.
The Secretary General of the U.N.O. advanced holding a white flag. Gilda invited him to enter.
The Secretary General of the U.N.O. asked the cleaner for her peace terms: the country was exhausted, the nerves of the people and of the armed forces could stand no more.
Gilda offered him a cup of coffee and then said, “I want an egg for my little girl.”
Ten trucks stopped before the house. They were loaded with eggs of all sizes and of fantastic beauty for the little girl to choose. There was even one of solid gold studded with precious stones, fourteen inches in diameter.
Antonella chose a small one of colored cardboard, just like the one that the Violet Cross lady had taken from her.
The Enchanted Coat
ALTHOUGH I APPRECIATE GOOD CLOTHES I DON’T USUALLY notice the perfection or otherwise of the cut of my fellow creatures’ apparel.
One evening, however, during a reception at a house in Milan I noticed a man, aged about forty, who was literally resplendent in the beauty of the fine, exact cut of his clothes.
I don’t know who he was. I met him for the first time and when introduced, as always happens, couldn’t catch his name. But at some time during the evening I found myself standing beside him and we began to talk. He seemed a civil and well-bred man, but who nevertheless had an aura of sadness about him. Perhaps with exaggerated confidence—would that God had deterred me—I complimented him on his appearance and even ventured to ask the name of his tailor.
The man had a curious little smile, almost as if he had anticipated the request.
“Hardly anyone knows of him,” he said. “Nevertheless he is a great master. He only works when he is in the mood. For a few initiates.”
“So that I . . . ?”
“Oh, you can try, you can try. His name is Corticella—Alfonso Corticella, Via Ferrara 17.”
“He will be expensive, I imagine.”
“Presumably, but to tell the truth I don’t know. He made this suit for me three years ago and has not yet sent me the bill.”
“Corticella, Via Ferrara 17, you said?”
“That’s correct,” the stranger replied and left me to join another group.
At Via Ferrara 17 I found a house like many others, and like that of many other tailors’, the dwelling of Alfonso Corticella. He himself opened the door to me, a little
