Spring: -I- -II- -III-
The Stamp Album: -IV- -V- -VI- -VII- -VIII- -IX- -X- -XI- -XII-
In the Municipal Park: -XIII- -XIV- -XV- -XVI-
Springtime Twilight: -XVII-
The Villa: -XVIII- -XIX- -XX- -XXI- -XXII- -XXIII- -XXIV- -XXV- -XXVI- -XXVII-
Bianka’s Lineage: -XXVIII- -XXIX- -XXX- -XXXI- -XXXII- -XXXIII-
Hiatus: (XXXIV) -XXXV- -XXXVI- -XXXVII-
Finale: -XXXVIII- -XXXIX- -XL-
XXXIV
AFTER many sunny weeks, a series of hot and cloudy days came. The sky grew dark like those of old frescoes, and the gathering clouds billowed in the sultry silence like tragic battlefields on paintings of the Neapolitan school. Against the background of those leaden and brownish swirls the houses shone brightly with a hot, chalky whiteness, highlighted by the even sharper shadows of their cornices and pilasters. People went about with their heads bowed, full of the inner darkness that had amassed inside them, as if before a storm, amid quiet electrical discharges.
Bianka no longer appears in the park. Apparenly, they are guarding her — they do not let her out. They have sensed the danger.
Today in the town I saw a group of men in black tailcoats and top hats, slinking through the market square with the deliberate strides of diplomats. Their white shirtfronts shone brightly in the leaden air. They inspected the houses in silence as if pricing them up. They walked with coordinated, unhurried and rhythmical steps. On their clean-shaven faces they had moustaches as black as coal, and their gleaming eyes rolled smoothly in their orbits, full of suggestiveness, as if they were lubricated. Occasionally they raised their top hats and wiped the sweat from their brows. They were tall, slim and middle-aged, and they all had the swarthy faces of gangsters.
> -XXXV- >