— Trincha! Subito!
Then he turned to the legion of cyclopean waiters escorting him:
— Presto! he shouted. Avanti!
— Ciro Rossini! I cried, recognizing the dyed hair, nighthawk face, and voice from some sentimental comedy.
Not hiding his discomfiture, the Cyclops looked at us searchingly for a moment with his single eye. But once recognition had dawned, he hastened to greet us with the same festive smile we’d always found at Ciro’s Gazebo.
— Boys! he beamed. A little party in famiglia! Bravo! A tavola!
And he pushed us amicably toward the spiral-shaped table which, as I said earlier, occupied the central area of the cave. Leaving us immediately, he turned to hound the waiters, already on their way back bearing great steaming platters, and growled at them:
— Subito! Trincha! Presto!48
The astrologer Schultz and I had to dodge the rowdy platter-bearing crowd threatening to bowl us over. At the same time, the music (or whatever it was), which I’ve already mentioned with some reluctance, underwent a change in tempo, its former largo accelerating to a prestissimo that makes me laugh now but which at the time filled me with unspeakable dread. Once the last waiter had filed by, I noticed a kiosk in front of me, similar to the ones used by military bands; inside there were Cyclops musicians in nightmarish uniforms, scratching and blowing at instruments unfamiliar to me except for the colossal string bass and two giant trombones. The instruments were variously made out of long gourds, primitive tubas, lengths of pipe, and calabashes; and they produced deep bass tones, burps, and hiccups as they played something like a flatulent Brandenburg Concerto.
— Cute little orchestra! Isn’t that you all over! I cried to Schultz, expressing my displeasure.
— A mere detail, he clarified. Let’s go over to the table and see what’s really important in this part of hell.
I followed the astrologer over to the banquet table, where I could observe at my pleasure the double line of commensals seated there. They were skeletal, scrawny-necked men and women, with green faces, deep bags under their eyes, and bilious hands. The men were stuffed into rumpled rental tuxedos; the women were shrouded in decadent evening gowns. The extraordinary thing was that all of them, despite their sickly appearance, were furiously chewing and swallowing the myriad varieties of food being produced in the infernal kitchen and served up by the white-gloved Cyclopes. But their voracity was mechanicaclass="underline" they ate with no pleasure or distaste whatsoever. It wasn’t long before I became aware of the close relationship between the music and the rhythm of the banquet, for as the orchestra’s crescendos mounted, the waiters became more frantic and the commensals swallowed faster and faster. And when music and banquet had reached a nightmarish tempo, Ciro Rossini, exultant in his livery, reappeared carrying a skeleton with articulated joints, which he then dangled over the banqueters, making it dance in the air over their heads.
— Gobble till you burst! Ciro shouted at them in a fanatical tone. How many lives do we have? Just this one! What are we, after all? This!
He shook the skeleton vehemently, then hurried off at the same trot as when he had come.49 But it was clear the diners were at the end of their rope. Some began to nod off, others fell face-down on their plates. And then the Cyclopes revealed just how nasty they really were: they shook the sleepers, pinched their noses closed, and forced them to keep on swallowing. When the sufferers at last fell under the table, another squad of Cyclopes picked them up like limp rags and carried them off to the back, while a new team of commensals, arranged in two lines, silently occupied the empty seats.
— Let’s go over there, Schultz said, pointing toward the Cyclopes who were making off with their human cargo.
But instead of following them, the astrologer got down on all fours and crawled under the table. Once again I imitated him — Lord knows how grudgingly! Once we got to the other side, we headed toward an area of gloom opening onto a new sector of this hellish place. We hadn’t gone far, when countless lightbulbs switched on above, piercing the darkness and projecting cones of light onto an endless number of operating tables. Alongside these, cyclopean surgeons attired in white aprons, masks, and rubber gloves were sorting and preparing their alarming instruments. Presently, the Cyclopes arrived bearing the surfeited banqueters, flopped them down on the operating tables, and roughly stripped them. Then, with diabolical zeal, the giants in surgical masks set upon those inert anatomies, subjecting them to implacable emetics, enemas, catheters, and needle-jabs. The horror of those bodies thus stripped naked, the fury of the operators, the violent reaction of the patients, along with the stench of viscera clogging the air: all combined to make me double over in an immense nausea.
— I’m not going one step further in this inferno! I shouted at Schultz.
Turning on my heels, I took off running toward the lighted area where the banquet was in progress, accompanied by Schultz, who fled no less urgently than I. But at the strip of semi-darkness, I stopped short. In front of me were one, two, three bizarre characters seated upon as many toilets and no doubt waiting to go back to the table. The personage in the middle was a middle-aged homunculus, scrawny, yellowish, and bald, swaying like a pendulum as he dozed atop his john, and gargling a sort of puerile snore. On his left, with a pensive air, sat a priestly figure who, in the land of the living, must have been very fat; now, however, his black soutane was gathered up around two skinny thighs. The third character, to the right of the homunculus, was neither asleep nor pensive; a dapper old fop, full of himself, he was looking this way and that with an air of offended dignity.
The gravity of those men contrasted so greatly with their indecorous posture that I turned to Schultz, bursting to unleash a choice remark. And I would have let him have it, too, had he not cut me short: the astrologer was quite upset about the toilet-bowl heroes.
— Shhh! he whispered. An unlucky encounter!
With one finger to his lips and the very image of stealth, Schultz was trying to tiptoe away. But he hadn’t taken three steps when the homunculus abruptly stopped snoring:
— Good afternoon, Schultz, young man! he purred, half-raising his right eyelid.
The astrologer stood stock still as if turned to stone.
— Don Celso, sir, he stammered. If at this grave hour it were possible for me…
— Hah! the homunculus barked mirthlessly. The past comes back to haunt you, as they say in novels. It’s a small world, young man! I can still see in my mind’s eye those three orchids on the buffet.
— What about her? asked a stunned Schultz.
— Three nuptial orchids! purred the homunculus. And the sweet little gold ring you put on her dainty finger. “I love you, yes, I love you!” Coo, coo! “Oh, forever and ever!” Of course. Little rich boys who sneak into honourable homes to trouble the sleep of virgins.
— Dearly beloved brethren! the priestly figure exclaimed in a supplicating tone.
— My apologies! stuttered Schultz. I was so young!
But the homunculus was swaying and snoring again. Seeing this, the astrologer turned to me beseechingly:
— What the ogre just said is a bare-faced lie! he revealed. Because I honestly did love her, I swear it.