Angela, roaming around to get news and gossip for her piece, came back to report that Campo’s book was considered the safe one to win. “He’s a visual projection of his book—safe, inoffensive, courteous. I asked him what he thought of the critics’ charge about his provincialism, and he said, ‘That’s what they said about Verga, too.’ In any case, it’s a fait accompli—his publisher already had a hundred votes pledged in marked envelopes before the voting began.”

“How is the Campo book?” Marguerite asked, forcing down her feelings of nausea and anxiety.

“Just like it sounds: spiraling mist.”

“Actually, the title’s not bad.” And she thought of Dr. Verdile, who used to say we never close a circle, but, at best, evolve like an upward-tending spiral. To close a circle would mean full stop and then the mindless repetitive tracings of real despair. The spiral unloops slowly and each day makes its own course; nothing repeats, no track is exactly retraced. And so it goes.

Giorgio had gone off to the bar in the garden flanking the courtyard to get drinks. “No champagne for your upset stomach, and no gin and tonic for me,” he told Marguerite in bemusement. “Now I know I’m back in Italy. The tonic people are on strike. All they had was gin and lemonade, which might seem like a great innovation over here but strikes me as being that old-fashioned thing called a Tom Collins in the days I first went to the States to study. Seems no point in remembering those days. . . .”

“None at all,” Marguerite agreed. “It’s like Aïda, isn’t it?”

“What’s like Aïda?”

“This triumphal procession of people all dressed gorgeously and all parading around—in fact it’s better than Aïda, which is always a tacky production because they depend on everyone’s liking the music just the same.” I’m bantering, she thought; talking aimlessly to keep up my spirits.

Geno Pampaloni came by smiling slyly, critic and jury member of all the prizes in Italy, more Cheshire cat than ever; and Goffredo Parise, who had cured himself of a chronic fever by going to China for two months and coming back with a new Chinese cast to his features; and Flaminia Serranova, flouncing around in fuchsia palazzo pajamas with a low cowl back and foot-long plastic earrings. “There are only a few women who can carry off the names of the consular roads—the Appia, the Flaminia, and all those—like our Aurelia or Signora Serranova,” said Giorgio, looking admiringly at Flaminia.

“It’s a fashion show,” Leone quipped. “They could change this from a literary event to a best-dressed one. After all, who reads the books? But everyone does look at the women.” Clotilde, l’Armadio, came by in a beaded top and black skirt, making it clear that the beaded top over the black skirt had been out for years.