“My name is Mario,” the young man answered, in a low voice.
“Ah, Mario. Very good. Yes, yes, there is such a name, quite a common name, a classic name too, one of those which preserve the heroic traditions of the Fatherland. Bravo! Salve!” And he flung up his arm slantingly above his crooked shoulder, palm outward, in the Roman salute. He may have been slightly tipsy by now, and no wonder; but he spoke as before, clearly, fluently, and with emphasis. Though about this time there had crept into his voice a gross, autocratic note, and a kind of arrogance was in his sprawl.
“Well, now, Mario mio,” he went on, “it’s a good thing you came this evening, and that’s a pretty scarf you’ve got on; it is becoming to your style of beauty. It must stand you in good stead with the girls, the pretty pretty girls of Torre—”
From the row of youths, close by the place where Mario had been standing, sounded a laugh. It came from the youth with the militant hair. He stood there, his jacket over his shoulder, and laughed outright, rudely and scornfully.
Mario gave a start. I think it was a shrug, but he may have started and then hastened to cover the movement by shrugging his shoulders, as much as to say that the neckerchief and the fair sex were matters of equal indifference to him.
The Cavaliere gave a downward glance.
“We needn’t trouble about him,” he said. “He is jealous, because your scarf is so popular with the girls, maybe partly because you and I are so friendly up here. Perhaps he’d like me to put him in mind of his colic—I could do it free of charge. Tell me, Mario. You’ve come here this evening for a bit of fun—and in the daytime you work in an ironmonger’s shop?”
“In a café,” corrected the youth.
“Oh, in a café. That’s where Cipolla nearly came a cropper! What you are is a cupbearer, a Ganymede—I like that, it is another classical allusion—Salvietta!” Again the Cavaliere saluted, to the huge gratification of his audience.
Mario smiled too. “But before that,” he interpolated, in the interest of accuracy, “I worked for a while in a shop in Portoclemente.” He seemed visited by a natural desire to assist the prophecy by dredging out its essential features.
“There, didn’t I say so? In an ironmonger’s shop?”
“They kept combs and brushes,” Mario got round it.
“Didn’t I say that you were not always a Ganymede? Not always at the sign of the serviette? Even when Cipolla makes a mistake, it is a kind that makes you believe in him. Now tell me: Do you believe in me?”
An indefinite gesture.
“A halfway answer,” commented the Cavaliere. “Probably it is not easy to win your confidence. Even for me, I can see, it is not so easy. I see in your features a reserve, a sadness, un tratto di malinconia … tell me” (he seized Mario’s hand persuasively) “have you troubles?”
“Nossignore,” answered Mario, promptly and decidedly.
“You have troubles,” insisted the Cavaliere, bearing down the denial by the weight of his authority. “Can’t I see? Trying to pull the wool over Cipolla’s eyes, are you? Of course, about the girls—it is a girl, isn’t it? You have love troubles?”
Mario gave a vigorous head-shake. And again the giovanotto’s brutal laugh rang out. The Cavaliere gave heed. His eyes were roving about somewhere in the airs but he cocked an ear to the sound, then swung his whip backwards, as he had once or twice before in his conversation with Mario, that none of his puppets might flag in their zeal. The gesture had nearly cost him his new prey: Mario gave a sudden start in the direction of the steps. But Cipolla had him in his clutch.
“Not so fast,” said he. “That would be fine, wouldn’t it? So you want to skip, do you, Ganymede, right in the middle of the fun, or, rather, when it is just beginning? Stay with me, I’ll show you something nice. I’ll convince you. You have no reason to worry, I promise you. This girl—you know her and others know her too—what’s her name? Wait! I read the name in your eyes, it is on the tip of my tongue and yours too—”
“Silvestra!” shouted the giovanotto from below.
The Cavaliere’s face did not change.
“Aren’t there the forward people?” he asked, not looking down, more as in undisturbed converse with Mario. “Aren’t there the young fighting-cocks that crow in season and out? Takes the word out of your mouth, the conceited fool, and seems to think he has some special right to it. Let him be. But Silvestra, your Silvestra—ah, what a girl that is! What a prize! Brings your heart into your mouth to see her walk or laugh or breathe, she is so lovely. And her round arms when she washes, and tosses her head back to get the hair out of her eyes! An angel from paradise!”
Mario started at him, his head thrust forward. He seemed to have forgotten the audience, forgotten where he was. The red rings round his eyes had got larger, they looked as though they were painted on. His thick lips parted.
“And she makes you suffer, this angel,” went on Cipolla, “or, rather, you make yourself suffer for her—there is a difference, my lad, a most important difference, let me tell you. There are misunderstandings in love, maybe nowhere else in the world are there so many. I know what you are thinking: what does this Cipolla, with his little physical defect,
