The Neapolitan was one of those most preoccupied with esthetics.
Cæsar had a room opposite Signor Carminatti’s, and the first few days he had thought it was a woman’s room. Toilet flasks, sprays, boxes of powder; the room looked like a perfumery shop.
“It is curious,” Cæsar used to think, “how these people from famous historic towns can combine powder and the maffia, opoponax and daggers.”
Almost every night after dinner there was an improvised dance in the salon. Somebody played the languorous waltzes of the Tzigane orchestras on the piano. The Maltese and Carminatti used to sing romantic songs, of the kind whose words and music seem to be always the same, and in which there invariably is question of panting, refulgent, love, and other suggestive words.
One Sunday evening, when it was raining, Cæsar stayed in the hotel.
In the salon Carminatti was doing sleight-of-hand to entertain the ladies. Afterwards the Neapolitan was seen pursuing the Marchesa Sciacca and the two San Martino girls in the corridors. They shrieked shrilly when he grabbed them around the waist. The devil of a Neapolitan was an expert at sleight-of-hand.
VII. THE CONFIDENCES OF THE ABBE PRECIOZI
NATURAL VARIETIES OF NOSES AND EXPRESSIONS
Cæsar admitted before his conscience that he had no plans, or the slightest idea what direction to take. The Cardinal, no doubt, did not feel any desire to know him.