“Calm yourself,” replied Scossi; “I merely mentioned her because I know that your excellent wife is in Sicily, Signor Martinelli.” And good Martinelli became calm, sighed, and shook his head bitterly. Ah, he thought continually of his poor wife, banished to a normal school in Sicily, and he spoke of her always in his own peculiar manner, groping along in his discourse, half helping himself, half covering every pause with a “Yes, I say,” an interjection which they all imitated, without his perceiving it. The poor fellow could not resign himself to the bureaucratic cruelty which, at a blow and without cause, had separated him at sixty-four from his wife, thus destroying his home and family, forcing him to live alone, in a furnished lodging, and to dine there at the boarding-house of Carolinona, whom he alone called Signora Carolina.
King of Romancers was Momo Cariolin, a little dwarf, who seemed like a living joke. To look at him, it seemed impossible that such a tiny frame could conceive such enormous lies, uttered imperturbably, with the air of a diplomat.
“But tell me,” Biagio Speranza once asked him seriously, “have you ever looked in a mirror?” because Momo Cariolin boasted with particular pride of the favor which women showed him. They had been women of his own rank at the very least, or ladies of the nobility; or they were of royal blood or imperial archduchesses (notably Austrian), these victims of Cariolin. And such adventures had befallen him during the various congresses of Orientalists in the capitals of Europe! For Cariolin professed himself, although a dilettante, a profound student of Oriental languages.
“But for Heaven’s sake, look at Martino’s nose!” Biagio Speranza would suddenly cry out, interrupting the marvelous narrations of Cariolin. And good Martinelli, abruptly roused amid the laughter of the others, would begin to smile.
Biagio Speranza’s jokes, Dario Scossi’s sarcasms, Trunfo’s outbursts and sneers did not disturb Martino Martinelli. But another of the boarders frightened him, and this was none other than the poet Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli, who undoubtedly was the most ridiculous type of the house. But the poet had been absent for nearly a month, owing to a serious misfortune which had befallen him. A single one? No. All the misfortunes in the world had befallen the poor poet Cocco Bertolli, who for this reason was given to railings against injustice, both human and divine. What worse misfortune could befall him than this? To defend himself from celestial and terrestrial perfidies he had had only his powerful voice, his tongue of fire, and now he could not even whisper. Everybody knew it; those who had declared they were his friends had even done it purposely; they had teased him, tormented him, that they might utterly ruin him, might actually kill him; he roared, roared, until it seemed as though his enormous bovine eyes would burst out of his congested face. His bile accumulated. “My muse is bile! It was with bile that Shakespeare created Othello, King Lear!”
And he prepared a poem, “Erostratus,” a tremendous poem. Ah, the magnificent temple of Imposture, the temple of so-called Civilization, where infamous Hypocrisy was enthroned and adored, he would kindle it with his verses. But as soon as people knew that he was at work on this poem he was attacked on all sides. Though deprived of his professorship at the ginnasio because of these tragic bestialities, thrown out on the streets, until a short time before, Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli had not been cast down. Sleep? Why, for two cents he could sleep at a resort of beggars and of sublime, ragged, louse-covered fellows. Eat? Good Carolinona had given him credit for more than a year already. “And I, Carolina, I will make you immortal,” he would repeat to her. “You only love me, you who beneath a rough exterior conceal a heart of gold, a most noble soul, Carolina!”
“Yes, sir, do not worry,” Carolina would hasten to reply, for she, like good Martinelli, was afraid of those great eyes which opened so widely whenever he began to speak, while his mouth wore so complacent a sneer that one never knew, even when he paid a compliment, but that he was satirizing in his own way.
Signora Pentoni also feared that her other patrons, those who paid, would stay away because of him, would be annoyed or disgusted by his presence at table; and although, whether from good-heartedness or from fear, she could not show him the door, she lovingly advised him to be calm, prudent, sought with all politeness to tame him, and also took care of him and the garments in which he draped himself, mended them, brushed them, and finally even made him cravats out of the ribbons from her discarded hats.
Not understanding why all this care was taken of him, Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli finally—and why not?—fell in love with Signora Pentoni. He took to composing odes, sonnets, anacreonic songs, and read them while she sewed buttons on his coat or vest, or brushed them. Carolinona did not comprehend that these verses were addressed to her, and why he read them; but since she thought him mad, she did not ask for a reason, and allowed him to read on.
Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli, violent and bestial in everything else, was most timid in love. Not knowing how to confess directly to Pentoni the passion she had inspired, he poured it out in poetry, hoping to arrive by means of the monstrous flowery paths of his limping metaphors. But seeing that Carolinona remained impassive, he became frenzied, violent.