ITALO CALVINO
527
There it was cool, peaceful. He was already savoring the con–
tact of those planks, whose wood-he knew-was soft and cozy,
preferable in every respect to the flattened mattress of his bed; he
would look for a moment at the stars, then close his eyes in a sleep
that would compensate him for all the insults of the day.
Cool and peace he found, but not the empty bench. A couple
of lovers were sitting there, looking into each other's eyes. Dis–
creetly, Marcovaldo withdrew. "It's late," he thought, "they sure–
ly won't spend the whole night outdoors! They'll come to an end
of their billing and cooing."
But the two were not billing or cooing: they were quarreling.
And when lovers start to quarrel there's no telling how long it
will go on.
He was saying: "Why don't you admit that when you said
what you said you knew you were going to hurt me and not make
me happy the way you were pretending you thought?"
Marcovaldo realized it was going to last quite a while.
"No, I will not admit it," she answered, as Marcovaldo had
already expected.
"Why won't you admit it?"
''I'll never admit it."
Damn, Marcovaldo thought. His pillow clutched under his
arm, he went for a stroll. He went and looked at the moon, which
was full, big above trees and roofs. He came back towards the
bench, giving it a fairly wide berth out of fear of disturbing them,
but actually hoping to irritate them a little and persuade them to
go away. But they were too caught up in the argument to notice
him.
"You admit it then?"
"No, no, I don't admit it in the least!"
"But what if you did admit it?"
"Even if I did admit something, I wouldn't admit what you
want me to admit!"
Marcovaldo went back to look at the moon, then he went to
look at a traffic light, a bit farther on. The light flashed yellow,
yellow, yellow, constantly blinking on and off. Marcovaldo com–
pared the moon with the traffic light. The moon with her myster–
ious pallor, also yellow, but also green, in its depths, and even
blue; the traffic light with its common little yellow. And the
moon, all calm, casting her light without haste, streaked now and
