“Finally, after two hours spent in this way, shadows with human features came out of their rigid and cold bodies. Seven in all, one for each prefect. You should have seen their faces!" he said, laughing heartily. "They were, yes, alive, but there was in them the awareness of death. They looked at the shadows with wide eyes offering them sweets and delicacies of all kinds. Then they knew, in the grim smiles of the shadows and in their hearts that had stopped beating for a moment, that they were dead. At that point I stood up with a smile, clapping my hands and complimenting them for having been at the joke. As I stood up, the shadows vanished like clouds of smoke blown away by the wind. The tense faces of the prefects relaxed and gave me looks filled with astonishment and disbelief.
“I had
