Here the Count reproduced the gesture corresponding to that declaration by clapping one hand upon the other, and pressing both thus against his chest. It was touching in its patient resolution. ‘That you shall not have,’ he repeated firmly and closed his eyes, fully expecting—I don’t know whether I am doing right by recording that such an unpleasant word had passed his lips—fully expecting to feel himself being—I really hesitate to say—being disembowelled by the push of the long sharp blade resting murderously against the pit of his stomach—the very seat, in all human beings, of anguishing sensations.

Great waves of harmony went on flowing from the band.

Suddenly the Count felt the nightmarish pressure removed from the sensitive spot. He opened his eyes. He was alone. He had heard nothing. It is probable that ‘the young man’ had departed, with light steps, some time before, but the sense of the horrid pressure had lingered even after the knife had gone. A feeling of weakness came over him. He had just time to stagger to the garden seat. He felt as though he had held his breath for a long time. He sat all in a heap panting with the shock of the reaction.

The band was executing the complicated finale with immense bravura. It ended with a tremendous crash. He heard it unreal and remote, as if his ears were stopped, and then the hard clapping of two thousand more or less pairs of hands like a sudden hail-shower passing away. The profound silence which succeeded recalled him to himself.

A tramcar resembling a long glass box wherein people sat with their faces strongly lighted, ran along swiftly within ninety yards of the spot where he had been robbed. Then another rustled by, and yet another going the other way. The audience about the band had broken up, and dark figures were entering the alley in small conversing groups. The Count sat up straight, and tried to think calmly of what had happened to him. The vileness of it took his breath away again. As far as I can make it out he was disgusted with himself. I do not mean to say with his behaviour. Indeed, if his pantomimic rendering of it for my information was to be trusted, it was the perfection of dignified composure. No, it was not that. He was not ashamed. He was shocked at being the selected victim, not of robbery so much as of contempt. It was something like this. His tranquillity had been wantonly desecrated. His lifelong, kindly, placid nicety of outlook had been defaced.

Nevertheless, at that stage, before the iron had time to sink deep, he was able to argue himself into comparative equanimity. As his agitation calmed down somewhat, he became aware that he was frightfully hungry. Yes, hungry. The sheer emotion had made him simply ravenous, he told me. He got up from the seat and, after walking for some time, found himself outside the gardens and before an arrested tramcar, without knowing very well how he got there. He got in, as if in a dream, by a sort of instinct. Fortunately, he found in his trouser-pocket a copper to satisfy the conductor. Then the car stopped, and as everybody got out he got out, too. He recognised the Piazza San Ferdinando, but apparently it did not occur to him to take a cab and drive to the hotel. He wandered aimlessly on the Piazza like a lost dog, thinking vaguely of the best way of getting something to eat at once.

Suddenly in a flash, he remembered his twenty-franc piece. He explained to me that he had that piece of French gold for something like three years, and that he used to carry it about with him as a sort of reserve in case of accident. Anybody may have his pocket picked—a quite different thing from a brazen and insulting robbery.

The monumental archway entrance of the Galleria Umberto faced him at the top of a vast flight of stairs. He climbed these without loss of time, and directed his steps towards the Café Umberto. All the tables outside were occupied by a lot of people who were drinking. But as he wanted something to eat, he went inside into the café, which is divided into aisles by square pillars set all round with long looking- glasses. The Count sat down on a red velvet settee against one of these pillars waiting for his risotto. And his mind reverted to his abominable adventure.