All about him a solid pack of humanity was streaming onto the track. The race was over! Voices came at him like cross winds, some shouting "Bravo!" and some crying in strange foreign tongues. He was sucked along with the crowd, stumbling, shuffling, pulled into their meshes like a fish into a net. Over and above the shouting came wild, deafening cheers, beating out the syllables:
"Tar-tu-ca!"
"Tar-tu-ca!"
And so he knew that the Contrada of the Turtle had won. And he yelled, too, but he did not know what he yelled. He had to yell to keep from fainting, to keep from crying.
Two of his bodyguards got through the crowd to him, linked their arms in his, supporting him, buoying him along, questioning in his ear.
"How do you feel?"
"You all right?"
His head nodded "yes" but all of him felt numbed, disgraced. And his legs trembled as if at any moment they might splay and split apart. Through the shouting and joyful singing, he could hear remembered voices mocking:
"Hey, you runt of Monticello!"
"You, with the slough of the Maremma all over you!"