COURTLINESSProfessor Favagalli’s conference passed through the club’s ballroom like a Corpus Domini procession in a cathedral: all expressions employed were in costume, whether historical or traditional. The Professor had been invited by the women’s committee to celebrate the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Alessandro Manzoni’s birth.
‘When we talk of words, we are talking merely of style,’ Colonel Verri said.
‘There’s only one way out of all this, except silence of course,’ Captain Sorrentino impatiently insisted, ‘and that is through irony.’
The hall was crowded. At a glance, it looked as though the entire city had squeezed its way in, like a civic assembly. Why had General Occhipinti offered to play the role of King Desiderius? Professor Favagalli had announced, in the letter in
