ITALO CALVINO
529
silly yellow blinking: he screwed his eyes shut and he could see
dozens of traffic lights; he reopened his eyes, it was the same thing
all over again.
He got up. He had to put some screen between himself and
the traffic light. He went as far as the general's monument and
looked around. At the foot of the monument there was a laurel
wreath, nice and thick, but now dry and coming apart, standing
on props, with a broad, faded ribbon:
"The 15th Lancers on the
Anniversary of The Glorious Victory."
Marcovaldo climbed up
on the pedestal, raised the wreath, and hung it on the general's
sabre.
Tornaquinci, the night watchman, making his rounds,
crossed the square on his bicycle; Marcovaldo hid behind the sta–
tue. Tornaquinci saw the shadow of the monument move on the
ground: he stopped, filled with suspicion. He studied that wreath
on the sabre: he realized something was out of place, but didn't
know quite what. He aimed the beam of hIS flashlight up there,
he read:
"The 15th Lancers on the Anniversary of The Glorious
Victory."
He nodded approvingly and went away.
To give him time
to
go off, Marcovaldo made another turn
around the square. In a nearby street, a team of workmen was
repairing a switch of the tram track. At night, in the deserted
streets, those little groups of men huddling in the glow of the
welding torches, their voices ringing, then dying immediately,
have a secret look, as of people preparing things the inhabitants
of the daytime must never know. Marcovaldo approached, stood
looking at the flame, the workmen's movements, with a some–
what embarrassed attention, his eyes growing smaller and smaller
with sleepiness. He hunted for a cigarette in his pocket, to keep
himself awake; but he had no matches. "Who'll give me a light?"
he asked the workmen. "With this?" the man with the torch said,
spraying a flurry of sparks.
Another workman stood up, handed him a lighted cigarette.
"Do you work nights, too?"
"No, I work days," Marcovaldo said.
"Then what are you doing up at this time of night? We're
about to quit."
He went back to the bench. He stretched out. Now the traffic
light was hidden from his eyes; he could fall asleep, at last.
He hadn't noticed the noise, before. Now, that buzz, like a
