"Vaffan — ?!"
"Ahi! la pula!"
"The questurini!"
"It's a bust!"
"La madama!"
"And they've brought in the civil guards!"
"Those fist-fuckers!"
"And not only — !"
"Look over there!"
"The public security police! The carabinieri!"
"The highway cops!"
"And who's that greasy little dog's cock under the toyshop awning, the one with the whipsaw directing everything — ?"
"L'Omino!"
"We're fucked — !"
"I hear motor boats!"
"The maritime patrol!"
"Look! Even the sanitation cops! The border guards!"
"Lido always gives us a warning! Where is he today?"
"The ecclesiastical police!"
"The vaporetto inspectors!"
"They've pulled out every prick in the province!"
"And they're all armed!"
In they paraded, hundreds and hundreds of them, long winding ribbons of vivid color, banded and braided, caped and cockaded, some in lance caps, others in shakos, tricornes, berets and busbies, their weapons gleaming, their shiny boots — notched, bossed, spurred, tufted, waxed, or gaitered — cracking snappily like ricocheting gunshots against the paving stones of the narrow passageways leading into the crowded campo. The Dottore-designate was still thumping away dutifully at the keyboard, grinning out half blindly on this resplendent spectacle, when Arlecchino grabbed his wrist.
"The show's over, my friend! We're hitting the road!"
"What — ?! But I — !"
"It's too late!" Pantalone cried. "They've encircled the campo!"
"They've blocked all the exits!"
"What'll we do — ?!"
"The pompieri! They're building fires!"
"Listen! Helicopters!"
"Tear gas!"
"Come on!" Arlecchino rasped, and suddenly, like the metaphorical shoveled shit, he was out of his seat and flying into the turbulent crowds.
"Help!!"
"Run!"
"ASSASSINI!"
And now he has lost Arlecchino, he's alone in a mad crush of terrorized rock fans and puppets, trampling each other in their desperate search for an exit, it's worse than registration day back at the university. Helpless and confused and crippled with illness, the old professor is getting dragged along by the throngs, swept back and forth in waves as they flee from one police charge or another. There are bludgeonings, screams, the grind of buzz saws, howled insults, the exploding of tear gas canisters. Fires have been built, manned by the fire brigade, and, horribly, in one of them, he sees the pretty face of Flaminia melting. One moment he is jammed up against a flaking wall by a teeming mass, the next he finds himself sprawling, alone, as though he were suddenly the center from which all have fled, by the battered marble base of an ancient wellhead. Towering above him are two tall carabinieri, thin as nails, with cocked hats, drawn rifles, and flowing black capes, lined with blood red velvet.
"Is this one?"
"Hard to tell. Old bum, looks like."
"Let's throw him on, see if he burns."
"Oh, please!" he blubbers with what life he has left. "I'm not one of them! Can't you see? Sob! It's all a terrible mistake! I don't even know how to play a piano!"
"A likely story."
"A bad tool in any case. I say, throw him on the fire."
"No! Please! Have mercy on an old man!" he bawls as they reach down for him. "I'm afraid of fire — !"
"Si, signori Cavalieri! Have pity!" someone cries nearby.
"Cavalieri — ?! There are no cavalieri here, fool!"
"Signori Commendatori, then!" Through his tears the professor can see that it is Pulcinella in his loose white shift and sugarloaf hat. He seems to have popped out from under the iron lid of the well. "Have mercy on the old gentleman, Commendatori!"
"Commendatori — ! Are you making fun of us, you turd?"
"Your Excellencies!" Pulcinella bows deeply, his rear in the air, his beaked nose at his toes. From this exaggeratedly abject position he winks soberly at the downed scholar and, while clucking like a chicken to mask his whisper, urges sotto voce: "Run, Pinocchio! Run!"
"Aha! I recognize you!" cries one of the carabinieri, grabbing the puppet by the scruff and hauling him to his feet. "You're one of those terrorist musicians!"
"Off to the fire with you, pricknose!"
"Wait — !" gasps the professor, rising, with difficulty, to his knees.
"Yes, wait!" echoes Pulcinella from under his raised beak. "My shoes!"
"What — ?"
"The laces! I'll never burn with loose laces, gentlemen, I'll piss right through them and put the fire out!" he exclaims and, freeing his arms, stoops as though to tie them. The carabinieri reach down to collar him again, and he grabs an ankle of each to throw them down and run away: an old lazzo from the Commedia days. Only this time it doesn't work. Pulcinella grunts and strains, but he cannot raise either foot so much as a hair's breadth off the paving stones. "Made a frittata out of that one, I guess," he shrugs, as they lift him by his hump, his long arms dangling limply at his sides, "but that's how it goes in show business, Your Excellencies, no point in crying over spent milk, as they say, what's done has a head, so farewell, dear public! Your faithful servant Pulcinella is off to get his heart coddled and his buns toasted!"
"Stop! You can't do that — !" the old professor protests, but before he can even unlock his old knees and clamber to his feet, another policeman, dressed like a Cuirassier of the Guard in a steel helmet with brass ornaments and a black horsehair plume, a double-breasted blue tunic with silver buttons and red piping, the red cuffs and standing collar embroidered in silver wire, a sky blue sash with sky blue tassels hanging from the hip, silver epaulettes with silver bullion fringes, white breeches, and black jackboots, and carrying a rifle with a fixed bayonet, arrives and claims jurisdiction over the prisoner, asserting the divine right of kings.
"Kings? What kings? We have no kings, you fool!"
"The divine right of fools, then!" rejoins the Cuirassier and lays hold of Pulcinella to drag him away. "He who takes, has!" he laughs, a dry roguish laugh that can belong only to the band's lead guitar Brighella. "Possession, as the belly said to the nose, masters, is nine tenths of the law!"
"That still leaves one tenth!" the carabinieri reply, snatching at the slippered feet just disappearing into the roiling mob, whereupon a terrible tug-of-war begins with Pulcinella's body, Brighella at the head end, the carabinieri at the feet, Pulcinella whooping and yelping pathetically, sounding more like a chicken now than ever. Suddenly, the legs snap off at the groin, there's a frightful howl, the carabinieri tumble backwards into the crowd, tangled up in their capes, and the puppets vanish.
The professor knows he should do the same, but he is rooted to the spot. The crowds have shrunk back, he is suddenly all alone at the wellhead, center stage, the carabinieri, in a crimson rage, scrambling to their feet again, their sharp teeth bared, Pulcinella's sundered legs gripped in their fists like clubs — !