PARTISAN REVIEW
noiseless, nondescript young men on the platform, the single laugh
that had rung out in the Bounder's end of the car when the young
lady had put her question, all bade him beware: this black market
was not for tourists. The man who had hurried away came back
with a dirty roll of bills which he thrust through window.
ulte, missa
est,"
remarked the young lady sardonically, but the man beside her
gave no sign of having heard; he continued to gaze immovably at
the thin young men before him, as though the transaction had not
yet been digested.
At this moment, suddenly, a hubbub of singing, of agitated
voices shouting slogans was heard. A kind of frenzy of noise, which
had an unruly, an unmistakably seditious character, moved toward
the train from somewhere outside the shed. The train gave a loud
puff. "A revolution!" thought the young lady, clasping the young
man's hand with a pang of terror and excitement; he, like everyone
else in the car, had jumped to his feet. A strange procession came into
sight, bright and bedraggled in the rain- an old woman in a white
dress and flowered hat waving a large red flag, two or three fol–
lowers with a homemade-looking bouquet, and finally a grey-bearded
old man dressed in an ancient frock coat, carrying an open old–
fashioned black umbrella and leaping nimbly into the air. Each of
the old man's hops was fully two yards high; his thin legs in the black
trousers were jacknifed neatly under him; the umbrella maintained a
perfect perpendicular; only his beard flew forward and his coat-tails
back; at the summit of each hop, he shouted joyously,
((Togliatti!"
The
demonstration was coming toward the car, where alarm had given
way to amazement; Steel Glasses alone was undisturbed by the ap–
pearance of these relics of political idealism; his eyes rested on them
without expression. Just as they gained the protection of the shed,
the train, unfortunately, began to move. The followers, lacking the
old man's gymnastic precision, were haphazard with the bouquet; it
missed the window, which had been opened for the lira-changing,
and fell back into the silent crowd. The train picked up speed.
In the compartment, the young man was rolling on the seat with
laughter; he was always the victim of his emotions, which--even
the pleasurable ones--seemed to overrun him like the troops of some
marauding army. Thus happiness, with him, had a look of intensest
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