Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; Short stories
cruel discontent to be seen only in the busts of some Roman emperors—it
was he, no doubt at all. But that was a type. The Count looked away
hastily. The young officer over there reading a paper was like that, too.
Same type. Two young men farther away playing draughts also resembled—
</p>
<p>
The Count lowered his head with the fear in his heart of being
everlastingly haunted by the vision of that young man. He began to eat his
risotto. Presently he heard the young man on his left call the waiter in a
bad-tempered tone.
</p>
<p>
At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waiters belonging
to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him with obsequious
alacrity, which is not the general characteristic of the waiters in the
Cafe Umberto. The young man muttered something and one of the waiters
walking rapidly to the nearest door called out into the Galleria:
“Pasquale! O! Pasquale!”
</p>
<p>
Everybody knows Pasquale, the shabby old fellow who, shuffling between the
tables, offers for sale cigars, cigarettes, picture postcards, and matches
to the clients of the cafe. He is in many respects an engaging scoundrel.
The Count saw the grey-haired, unshaven ruffian enter the cafe, the glass
case hanging from his neck by a leather strap, and, at a word from the
waiter, make his shuffling way with a sudden spurt to the young man’s
table. The young man was in need of a cigar with which Pasquale served him
fawningly. The old pedlar was going out, when the Count, on a sudden
impulse, beckoned to him.
</p>
<p>
Pasquale approached, the smile of deferential recognition combining oddly
with the cynical searching expression of his eyes. Leaning his case on the
table, he lifted the glass lid without a word. The Count took a box of
cigarettes and urged by a fearful curiosity, asked as casually as he could—
</p>
<p>
“Tell me, Pasquale, who is that young signore sitting over there?”
</p>
<p>
The other bent over his box confidentially.
</p>
<p>
“That, Signor Conde,” he said, beginning to rearrange his wares busily and
without looking up, “that is a young Cavaliere of a very good family from
Bari. He studies in the University here, and is the chief, capo, of an
association of young men—of very nice young men.”
</p>
<p>
He paused, and then, with mingled discretion and pride of knowledge,
murmured the explanatory word “Camorra” and shut down the lid. “A very
powerful Camorra,” he breathed out. “The professors themselves respect it
greatly . . . una lira e cinquanti centesimi, Signor Conde.”
</p>
<p>
Our friend paid with the gold piece.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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