" I'd be ashamed if I were you, you filthy little brute!" " I saw it!" " You've got dirty smelly bloomers!" " You've no right to say such things!" " They're smelly!" " Come back here, you little bastard!" "I saw it !" "It's black and hairy!" "It's black and hairy like Garibaldi's beard!" " What did it look like?" " A big square hole!" "THE SENSUOUS SICILIAN" " Oh, look at those horrible frogs!" " Ah, disgusting!" " I wonder what they do if we peed on them!" " Let's see!" "Me too!" "Me too!" "I don't suppose I could fill up Tilde's great big hole with my tool." "I bet I could." "Dick's bigger than all of your put together." "Mine gets a lot bigger when I pull it." "I think we ought to have a contest to see who's got the longest." " Look at mine!" " Have a look at mine!" "It doesn't matter how long it is, if you can't make it shoot." "I'll show you how to shoot!" "You disgusting creatures!" " Salvatore, don't shoot!" " Go inside!" " A bit of luck he missed her!" " He's jealous of her." " You'll kill them." " I told you to go inside!" " He shot at us." " No, he's no reason!" "I forbid you to look." "Shut your eyes!" " Let me have another shoot at them!" " No, Salvatore!" "Don't shoot!" "Come on, he's aiming in our dicks!" "Run!" "Run !" "I've recognized you, little devils!" "Don't run away!" "My wife saw them, my sister too and my niece Anna." "They saw everything." "Surely that would be impossible." "Be reasonable..." "It's something I've never done, not even when I was a youth." "It's natural that if someone is doing something he wants to cover, he turns his back to the home." "Then how do you think I saw everything so clearly?" "Maybe, some may have turned in your direction." "The little devils stood deliberately in a line facing my country house, in my orange grove, and I've seen them in every single detail." " You mean you were watching through binoculars?" " Certainly not." "Nothing was I spared, every vile movement was plainly visible." " I saw everything they did." " What exactly did they do?" "Play with themselves, Baron, masturbate!" "Please, control yourself." "I'd never have made such a revelation if I'd know your reaction." "Where is the bathroom?" "Try to control yourself, please." "It's true, my uncle has seen your little dicks and I was near him." " Paolo, yours is so little!" " Take that!" "That's like my cousin Ernesto's not like yours!" "This is not the sort of company I want you to keep dearest, retire." "As you like, uncle." "If you have the courage, face the music, get in there and you!" "Those awful wicked sinful things you've been doing are also extremely harmful to your health." "If you continue your hands and feet will turn yellow, so will your face." " Excuse me, Doctor." " You made your uncle cry for shame." "And now your grandfather must come to the shop to ask for forgiveness." "Poor little Paolo!" "It could be that he did it without being conscious..." "The fact that Paolo has come to ask for forgiveness is extremely right." "And it is for me sacrosanct that he comes with your son Edmondo." "What are you trying to suggest with that obscene gesture?" " I don't understand what you're talking about." " I'm sure you do." " Exactly what do you understand?" " That you're no gentleman!" "How's that?" "That you are unable to understand." "One more word and I'll beat you in front of your wife!" "Filthy old bastard!" "Drop dead!" "Help me up and I'll Kill him!" "You fucking idiot!" "You will be sent directly to jail." "How dare you, wait till I get my hands on you!" "Just because you're an overstuffed Baron." "I kill him!" "For God, I kill him!" "How can I avenge myself?" "How?" "Just because I slapped a policeman 20 years ago..." "It's not fair, my God!" "It's not fair!" "It's not fair, must I die of shame?" "Our father who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name..." "Damn, damn, taking advantage of a man who can't defend himself!" "My honor!" "Where is my honor?" "In the shit!" " He won't to eat?" " Not a bite for three day, just water." "He'll die." "But surely there's something we can do." " If there's something, I wish I knew." " You don't, but I do." " We can't allow him to die like this." " Tell us your idea." "I know my idea." " Good morning." " Good morning." "I haven't finished yet!" "Good morning... old bastard!" "Help, help!" "Help!" "Lapadula!" "Our Pharmacy!" "Hey, Lapadula, wake up!" "You're missing the spectacle." " A drop of ammonia should do the trick." " Salvatore!" "You'll have plenty more to see!" "Come on, Lapadula, pull yourself together." "Shit..." "Make yourself more comfortable, Lapadula, let me get on with the job." " Not the cash-register!" " And why not?" "Wake up, Lapadula, you can start clearing up the mess now!" "Giovanna!" "Bring the food in at once, the Baron is famished!" " What is it?" " I've destroyed the shop, it's been torn apart." " Didn't you do anything to him?" " He's still sleeping." "Go on eat, you've been avenged." "Holy Mother of God, what a son!" "The pride of the family." "You are the only true Castorini!" "Blood tells!" "The only who can avenge an offense." "And I love ya!" "That's enough now, go and take what I promised you out of my wallet." "Ah, at least, I suppose you haven't any appetite as usual." "I'm as hungry as a wolf." "If I don't put something in my stomach, I die." "Eat, Mister Constipation!" " Baron, am I permitted to remove this tie?" " Take off that red thing." " Why do you choose to wear a red tie?" " That's not red, it's wine." " I thought you'd become a socialist!" " Are you mad?" "I'd put them up against a wall and shoot 'em down." "The Cavaliere's right." "You should shoot all of them, they're thieves." " Why are they thieves?" " What do you mean why?" "They wants to come in here and take all my property away." "My father's property, my grandfather's." "What do you call a man who wants to do that if not a thief?" "Because he sends a band of sissies around, waving a red flag under the name of equality." "When they pass by my window, you know how I salute then?" "Like this!" "I don't call that equality, I call it injustice." " No bigger injustice than yours." " What's my injustice?" "You're rich, while Lucia lives in poverty." "You have houses, land, money in the bank." "She's never had a pair of news shoes or a pretty dress." "What's that got to do with me?" "My father, my grandfather, all worked for those things!" "What makes you think the relatives of Lucia didn't work for them as well?" "They worked but they didn't make money." "My ancestors worked and they knew hoe to make money too." "It's just that my ancestors won, her's lost!" " We call that the law of the strong." " And what other law should be there?" " There's always equality." " What's that mean?" "That your ancestor and Lucia's, both did their work, and therefore had equal rights to make money out of their sweat." "Therefore you mean my servant's grandfather's as good as mine?" " Yes." " Defeatist!" "You're nothing but a natural born defeatist." "You don't love your country, you don't love your family." "Masochist!" "You don't put your feet on your face because you can't." " You're only trying to pull the wool over your eyes!" " No, no!" "He's the most endearing little man you could meet." "Just my big baby, the little among our own children." "Papa, you couldn't be angry with him now." "I don't get angry when I talk to him, I get mad." "He knows that I love him and so he tells me these nonsensical things." "What an example you set my grandson." "Marchese Carandola, I love Michele more than Edmondo, maybe because he's stronger." " Excuse-me." " Where are you going?" "I have some documents that have to be completed before two o'clock." " You've eaten anything." " I've had quite enough." "I'll leave you." "Michele..." "You'd let me give you an enema." " What's the meaning of this parade?" " I've got a stomachache." " Yes..." "If you keep it up you'll crap your souls out my boys." "Bitch!" "A fine brotherhood, licking out of the same dish like two dogs." "This way one of you gets married, the other one knows to do with his wife!" "Don't confuse bed with marriage." "Giovanna's not married to anyone." "You, bitch." "You sucked 17.000 lire out of me in three years." "I like a jackass, though I had you to myself." "Tomorrow, you sleep upstairs in the attic with the door locked." "Whore!" "If you don't go straight I'll send you to a nunnery." "I learn you the education!" " Here we are." " Bravo, well done, that should keep the wolves away." "Sounds empty!" "Mr. Barone, it sounds empty." " It's been lovesed from inside!" " That's enough!" "Enough!" "What are you doing?" "Where are you going?" "Are you looking for someone?" " Have you seen your grandson's face lately?" " I did it." "Do you enjoy seeing him in such a state?" "What do you want our home to become a house of pleasure?" "You mean you'd rather he went out and got gonorrhea from some whore?" "That isn't what." "I still maintain that boys, should behave like boys." "Tell me where you've sent her!" "I should tell you so you should go after her instead of Paolo." " I'm not a man who like servants." " He doesn't like servants." "Who was with Giovanna in the living room when I took a purge and had to go downstairs to crap." "I. That's something you do once in your life." "It's like to spit." "If you mean shooting something of ours into her, all of us made it." "She's become a family cuspidor." "Me, you, Paolo, Luigi, we should be more ashamed of ourselves." "Was it shame made you sack Giovanna?" "Or jealousy?" "Jealousy, jealousy!" "When a man reaches a certain age, he should die, because we all become sniveling, slimy creatures like snails!" "Paolo!" "Paolo, come here!" "A man should not only lose the strength to do certain thing, he should get rid of the desire to do those things." "And he should rid himself of the memory of how those things are done." "I love Paolo more than I do myself." "Just look at what I've done to him." "You're like a skinny little lizard." "The eyes!" "Look at those eyes." "Grandson and grandfather." "Paolo!" "You got a fever!" "Did you measure it?" "Go to bed and get thermometer." "He's got a fever, he's at least 103!" "There's only one thing, that's going to cure that, and you know what." "Giovanna..." "Giovanna is at..." "Go, she'll be there." "You're burning hot..." "Exactly as if you have a fever." "What's wrong with you?" "It could hardly be my presence is it the nearness of me that does it?" "Make your choice." "I haven't chosen between you and Vincenzo yet." "Why don't you take your clothes off and then I will decide." "While we're young clothes off it's a pleasure." "They say I look like an angel on the stage, but I'm a cynic." "I don't believe in anything." "I think that we're try everything." "Get undressed now." "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today." "That's just what I intend to do, you may never get a chance again." "You can afford to make mistakes with the soul, but not with the body." "A woman can use her body as much as she like, unless she gets in love." "To enjoy itself one should take what it comes." "Don't waste the time." "Don't you say that in Sicily?" "We do!" "Make your mind up, now, Rodriga!" "If I couldn't, If I'd like you both?" "Of the kind of endless love that you both wish." "Now let's have a look at you, not bad looking, cold sensual eyes." "How come you have such blue eyes?" "Did your mother like Germans?" "You have to choose only one of us." "You have to choose." "In that case I'll be happy to..." "I choose your friend Vincenzo." "Get your clothes on and scram!" " Fuck off." " Paolo, don't get mad!" " He wants that I make a choice." "Maybe I'd liked you together but now you're leaving." "Are you happy now?" "Yes, a lot, very happy." "I don't wish anything else than get out of here." "Two men together?" "Nude men make me sick!" "Though are my friends." "Nude women, yes, three, four, as you wish." "If you like I can make sex with you, your mother and all your aunts." " Paolo, why do you speak like this?" " Let him talk, he's jealous." "Jealous of him?" "Bitch!" "I wouldn't screw you now if you were the last wench in the whole world." "Oh, hold me that's it!" "Vincenzo, oh..." "Yes like that, Vincenzo..." " You like me..." "Yes, harder!" " Yes, Rodriga." "Do you like this?" " Yes, yes, harder, Vincenzo." " Yes..." "All alone this evening?" "Isn't your uncle here?" "No, he's not here." "I'm here, what is it, won't I do?" "Well, actually no, you won't." "I know this pharmacy as well as he does." "So, tell me what you require." "Condoms..." "You'll find them over here, in the top drawer on the left hand side." "Without reservoir tip, please." "It costs eighty cents." "Have you been attended, Mr. Baron?" "I'm sorry that I wasn't behind the counter to serve you personally." "The visit of a Castorini to our pharmacy is an important event for us." " What was it the Baron required?" " Painkiller, one of my toothache." " Which tooth?" " A wisdom tooth." "My gum is all swollen." "It's so swollen and hard that it bothers me." "Good night, doctor." "Mr. Baron..." "Mr. Baron, that "gum", in Catania, it's called... "dick"!" " Angela, stop to water!" " Wait a moment, Carmelo." " Be quiet, he could hear us." " No, there's the music." "Don't worry." " Are you sure you put it on?" " Yes, I put it." "I don't want to have a child that isn't his, you know." "No children." "Don't worry, but now shut up, please." "Angela, the song is finished, turn the record over." "I'm coming..." "Carmelo!" "I'm coming!" "Why do you told me you preferred Vincenzo to me?" "You expected me to fall in love with you at first sight." " If you really wished me..." " In fact..." "You told me that up to thirty, you wanted to go to bed with whoever." "I would have done that." " And than do it." "Bye bye." " I said:" ""I would have done", but now I can't." "Why?" " Because I'm in love." " With who?" "With you, idiot!" "When did you decide to say so?" "When I discovered you'd been having an affair with Mazzaglia's wife." "I said to myself: "Paolo is like me, he likes to make people suffer."" ""Let's take off the mask and tell him the truth"." "Did you feel no jealousy over what went on in the garden?" "No, I was proud." " A woman who isn't jealous, isn't in love." "Goodbye." " No, don't leave me." "Ah, smell that?" "It looks like bread freshly baked." "Instead are pepper trees, incense and magnolia mixed with a horse shit." "I read the story you wrote in the Sicilian Journal." "It looked me as good as Maupassant." "Yes, the girl's description is good." "She is anonymous and sweetened." " Now you've had her too, isn't that Rodriga?" " Yes, she is." " She fell madly in love with you that night we met her." " Maybe." " What time is it ?" " 21:05." " Since half an hour I'm 25!" " Best wishes." " Next birthday, I shall be in Rome." " Rome?" "Doing that?" " Living." " The editor of the Empire's offered me a job." " It is a fascist rag." "I don't care." "I'm going to be a literary critic." " Come with me." "Why don't you?" " I might, but what would I do?" "Who did that?" "Make it over your mother face." "Hooligans!" "Anarchists!" "I have recognized you." "Sons of the bitch!" " Anarchists!" " Salvatore, please, let them go!" "I was looking for you." "Come home, at once." "Excuse me, Vincenzo." "What's happened?" "Blowing a hole in his stomach with both barrels of a shotgun." " He's so small!" " Papa!" " He might as well have used a cannon." "A little bird that's all he is." "I prayed as a son of Mary!" "I prayed on my knees hoping that he would open his eyes for 5 minutes." "We wish now something different since the faith doesn't work." "Listen, if you don't open his eyes, I'm gonna throw you out the street." "I swear it and I'll destroy the whole chapel!" "How is he?" "How he is, the way he wanted to be." "Two bullets at one." "Crazy things." "He never fired a gun." "The only time he did was to end it." " Why, I couldn't he lives?" " Shut up!" "You don't care." "I would kick your ass to make you cry." "It's your father who's hurt!" " Holy Mother o God!" " What's she done." "Help me carry her." "We need a doctor." "She's dying." " Give me a bandage." " My blood isn't good for him." " What's she's saying?" " Nothing." " Why she did it?" "She is grieved because we couldn't give her blood to Michele." "Rubbish!" "Absolute rubbish!" " Finish banding her." " You could content her!" " What's wrong with her?" " Nothing." " Paolo..." "Paolo..." "After that I'm sure he will be right." " After what?" " After that." "I offered my blood to God for him." " Don't say these silly things." " You say silly things." " Have you seen your father yet?" " Not." " Don't you?" " Quickly, go there and tell if he needs me I can reach him." " Quite." " Lie down." " I can get up." "I'm strong." "I feel good." "I want to be next him, let me go." "I want to live!" "What would he do without me?" "He needs me." "He wouldn't let anyone else give him an enema." "He'd pref ere to explode." " I want to live." " Go to your father and calm down all the others." "Saro hopes that if papa}: dies he will get the gun." "Why should he get it?" "It's an hunting gun for hunters like me and Edmondo." "I'd give my both arms if I could save him." "Oh, poor boy's so good!" "Why should this haven't happened to me?" "Why must it be him?" "It's no use now." "I've been trying to get you to keep quiet, especially you father." "I can't talk." " Papa, what is it?" " What is it?" "!" "You're speaking, my son!" "Talk to me, let me hear your voice." "How are you?" "How do you feel..." "Try to calm yourself, you're upsetting your son." "I'm better, papa, much better." "Now, I'd like to talk to Paolo... alone." "Why have you done it?" "That's the way has gone." "We must be patient." "Paolo, what I'm going to tell you, it's something I wouldn't have told you until you get married." "But the events force me to anticipate..." "I don't give a damn what you think, doctor." "I'll get a specialist." "So loud everything he does, always exaggerated." "That is not speaking, it is trying to break the door down." "When he screams like that, I feel the slaps he gave me when I was a child." " Didn't he love you?" " Yes, he loved me." "Forgive me, I shouldn't speak badly about your father rather grandfather." "But we have to talk about him." "What a disgusting thing I have to tell you." "When your mother was pregnant, the doctor wanted to see me in private." ""Your father had syphilis and your wife must be cured, if you don't want this child and the future ones to have the disease too"." "So your mother was cured and you and Luigi were born healthy." "When your wife is ready to have her first child send her to get cured." "Paolo, I've had to tell you, it's very important." "My mother wasn't cured of it, my father didn't want anybody knows." "Later I realized lot of things:" "my depression, my constant sickness, my frigidity and above all the revulsion I've always had for my father." "Even when I was a child the thought of his caresses revolted me." "I preferred him to hit me." " I don't know what you feel about me." " I'm very fond of you." "And yet we're so different." "I'm not hot blooded and sensual like your grandfather, your uncle... but I passed all down to you." "You are all in love with life." "I've never tasted it." "Even love..." "No woman has arisen my desire at least not for more than five minutes." "But for you sex is a fundamental thing as eating, breathing, yelling." "You think you're happy, but real happiness doesn't belong to you." "Although you laugh and smile a lot, my sympathy is with you." "Many things pass right under your noses but I'm the only one who sees." "The servant's children barefoot on our marble floor." "But you don't ask yourselves why they are soundless." "Aren't you afraid?" "Don't forget that reason is happiness." "Can you hear them?" "They say me goodbye." "Everyone is here." "Paolo, make them don't begin shrieking!" "After I'm dead keep them quiet as serious people." "Say I don't want confession." "The priest is so vulgar and cheat." "He'd leave me with horrible thoughts." "And I have..." "I resp..." "I respect my... church!" "Papé!" "Doctor!" "Doctor!" "Where are you going?" "Don't make noise!" "I beg you!" "Don't make noise!" "Light of my life!" "Shall I come in." "Please." " I want you to say goodbye." "I'm going back to Ferrara." " Sit down." " What will you do now." " Go on studying medicine." "My family never made the jump from job to profession." "They never became middle class." "I hope I'll be luck." "Even doctors, you know, have hard working hands." "Yes, but just a little." "My father library is full of medical books, if you like, you can get them." "Thanks, I noticed them but they're a bit out of date, modern medicine is progressing really very fast." "Might you one day visit Ferrara?" "I hope to travel a bit next summer..." "I shall visit Ferrara." "What's happened?" "How did it happen?" "What's happened?" "How did it happen?" "What's happened?" "How did it happen?" "What's happened?" "How did it happen?" "Now that we're no longer in mourning, I want to get married." " Is it a joke?" "Who is it?" "Speak!" " Anna, the pharmacist's niece." "No, it's not a joke, I'm very fond of that girl." "You're very fond of her?" "Make love to her, kiss her, have fun with her." "When you've had your fill and the plate's cold change it for a hot one." "Uncle, I said that I'm fond of her." "Do you like her?" "That's it not a reason to marry her." "Take my advice, travel around, have a look to Rome." " For what?" " Nothing, just enjoy it." "Freedom means living without doing anything, that's what freedom is." "The rest is nonsense for moralist, fascist, communist and generals." " How old is the pharmacist's niece?" " Twenty three." "You want to marry a girl who's only two years younger than you are?" "If you like that kind of girl, wait 20 years and marry the daughter's." "Maybe you're right, so the daughter will be 20 years younger than I am." "20 years is the right difference in age between a man and a woman." "It's not enough for me, at 46 I find women of 26 much too mature." "I have two mistresses one of eighteen and the other of twenty." "Within 20 years, marry that girl and get a mistress even younger." "Where are you going, to ransack the city?" " At your age you should be in bed by now." " I'm going... with them." "They are too many for you." "I'll come along." "My love!" "My love, Michele..." "My love." " At the end he has came to Rome." " I bet a girl is the reason." " You'll find plenty of consolation." " He doesn't need to be cheered up." "Don't be tricked by his blue eyes, they don't even belong to a Sicilian." "Do you have German blood in you?" "Now don't be offended." "Vincenzo has told me so much about you, I even know about Rodriga." "He can tell you the rest, it's a good occasion to not let them alone." "Go to his flat, just knock and ask." "Eh, Paolo?" "But be careful, women fall in love with him, he's got sex in the brain." "Paolo, I'm leaving you in Lilia's hands." "She'll show you the flat." "I've got to run, the paper's already gone to press." "They need my article." " Thanks, Vincenzo." " I'll call you, I'll introduce you to lots of people." "Rome isn't Catania." "You'll enjoy it." "It's so corrupt it could have been wild for you." " Bye, Lilia, Look after him for me." " Bye, Paolo." " I don't know what you think of me, after all Vincenzo said." " Very good." "Come on." "I found the flat for you, Vincenzo told me not to worry about the cost." "Look, do you like it?" "Come on, there's more yet." "Come on." " Look, isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" " What?" "I said I'm happy." "Look!" " Off you go." "Go on, fast!" " Get in line, you pigs!" "What is it?" "What's going on?" "Shit!" "As long as you're with me, there's no room for anyone else." "And for the rigatoni, signora?" " This is the last supper for Vincenzo and Mariella." " Why?" "Vincenzo wants something from her that she doesn't want to do." " And that you do all the time." " I'm a ridge." "It wasn't a dig at you." "He's the one I was getting at." "Paolo, you insist I'm a jealous lover, but if you were to leave me to marry a girl like Mariella, I would suffer, but I would have to admit that you were right, because a girl like her you met once in a life." " She's not without her defect, you know." " What are they?" "She's quiet, shy, seldom opens up to people." "And she's surprisingly puritanical for this day and age." "Vincenzo, you're cuckolded!" "Mariella, you're a whore." "And you're a bastard." "Excuse me." "Why did she called me that?" "Why?" "Swine!" " I'll kill you if you take a step nearer." " Don't be stupid." "What's the matter, your feet get cold or did her pussy need a scratch?" " You're an idiot." "Stupid!" " You're an idiot, and pig, a filthy pig!" "The pig is you, you admitted and you said you weren't jealous of Mariella." " No!" " Than what the fuck are you yelling about?" "Fuck you!" " Who the hell do you think you are?" " Let go my hair!" "I'll punch!" " I get a punch!" "I get it!" " I kill you!" " I kill you!" "I'll kick you in the balls!" " Let go my hair, bitch!" " I said let go!" " Without balls and hair, I send you to other girls!" " Let me go!" "Let me go!" " Coward!" "Coward!" " A man doesn't beat up on his girl." " Mafioso!" " Who said that?" "Who dare speaking like this?" " It was me." "You are a stupid and they are all idiots." "You didn't understand!" " Do your own business." "Come on!" "Let's go!" " What a lady!" "Paolo!" "Paolo, wait for me, wretch!" "Paolo!" " Paolo, stops." " Please, Lilia, leave me alone." "What do you want?" "You didn't know Vincenzo was my lover, did you?" "Wretch!" "Cuckolded!" "Whore!" " You slept with Vincenzo!" " You and that slut, I kill you!" "It's not jealousy." "When you're tempted you must remember I'm here to rip it and satisfy you." " And if I must take a leak?" " You come home to me, dear." " If am I far away?" " Then you can wait, I can hold it for a day." "If I piss in my pants, it's your fault." "Where are you going?" "There's no more room." "Hang yourself!" " Can you give me a ride to Monteverde?" " Is Monteverde far?" "But if I wait for another bus, I'll lose my job because I'm so late." " What is your job?" " I make trousers." " You go crazy with all those people." " Who?" "They want to force you off the bus before you get on." "I don't suppose things like that bother someone like you." " You said that you make trousers." " Yes." " And you carry all the instruments of your job with you?" " Sure I do." "Needles, thread and scissors." " What are you doing?" " We stop for a while." "I asked for a lift to arrive earlier and you make me look the panorama." " I have to tell you something." " What?" "I'm sewed." " Look." " You are crazy!" "What a swine!" "My bike!" "You're crazy, blind idiot!" "Say it again and I'll split your face in two!" "You're crazy, blind idiot!" "Fuck that you already got in there, just tell it, we are friends!" "Yes, and for that you dare putting your foot between Mariella's legs." "Who's laughing near you?" "Are you turning me around?" "No, it's Mariella, she decided to do those kind of things with me." " She did it?" " Yes, I found out this little angel isn't a virgin." "The truth is they are all the same, all ridges, as Lilia says." "Talking about ridges, do you know who called me last night?" "The princess Banchedi, the artichoke." " What did she want?" " She said that her pussy was itching." "With the phone tapped she speaks like that?" "She was calling from a friend's house." "She'd managed to give her bodyguard the slip and her husband was out." " What a fuck did you tell her." " Nothing, I reached her." "And the artichoke is better naked than dressed." " What are you saying?" " Nothing..." "Paolo, what are you doing?" "It's dawn, are you still awake?" "My God!" "Did you pick a fight with someone?" "Have you been beaten?" " Why don't you answer?" "Are you angry with me?" " Now rip it." "Oh, dear!" "The trousers!" "I just forgot it!" "Sure, I do right away!" " I guess you have a big fancy." " Pull off!" "Oh, my dear, of course, at once." "Your Lilia pull off everything you want: shoes, trousers..." "Like a baby." " Now the underpants." " I just take off the jacket and I'll be with you." "I pull off everything, you have to pee in comfort." "I don't want to pee." "Stay where you are and strip." "Who was the policeman?" " Who?" " The one that has given you a lift." "Achille." "He's been courting me since two months." "He loves me." "Says I suit him and I feel easy with him, relaxed..." "Not as with you." "I'm not jealous, because I trust him completely." "He won't be unfaithful." "He wants to marry me in St. Peter's when he becomes an off icier." "Because he won't be a sergeant forever." "And we'll have a family, maybe small." "We'll live in town were he knows all the right people." "He wants me to stop working, because, he says, I'm a lady." "He's a kind man and I'm sweet to him." "He will provide for everything, because his family is rich." "And his dick, is it big?" " Yes, it is." " Come here to me." " I know you are leaving me." " Unfortunately." "I'm sorry not having understood you in time, I'd given you what you need." "But you're still in time!" "Anyway, come a little more near and do your work." "My trousers were sewed but your underpants were rip." "Bitch!" " That's why I'm mad about you!" " Paolo, you're hurting me!" "They have changed this "boot" into a poor sock." "We have war's debts with Albania, Greece, France and England." "We'll work without pay till the year 2100." "It's a mad thing!" "And to think we fought like lions!" "The destructive policy of the church and the cowardice of the objectors didn't allow us to break their back." "And you, Baron, did you go to war?" " I made love." " Objector, right?" " Objectionable!" "They say the Democrats are corrupted and they pretend to be moral." "Hi, Paolo." "What do they want from us?" "If we turn towards the left just watch their moral!" "The socialists hate us and court us at the same time." "In winter, in Sardinia and Sicily many people go to bed without a meal." "If there is a Sardinian or Sicilian here, look at your watch at 17:00, and remember that your friends there go to bed at that time, and they use the sleep in order to forget the panys of hunger." "Rome is provincial and wants to see her nobility with the eyes of Proust, forgetting that our democracy had a great respect for Mr. Ciano, who was appointed "count" by a blacksmith." " Telling the truth..." " Pardon?" "We have to admit that democracy opened its door to the fascists." "You, prince Banchedi, I guess you've never opened your door to them." "Yes, right, they've never been in our home." "May I introduce you to Baron Paolo Castorini?" "My wife wish to meet you since before the war." " I'm honored." " Now I want to be with him alone for five minutes." "When you want, princess Banchedi." "Call me "artichoke", as your friend Vincenzo, the writer." "When I couldn't sleep I called him telling him the oddest things." " "My pussy is inching."" " Really?" " Really." " I've heard much about you from Vicenzo." " I heard about you too." " Then you know surely the other nickname." " No, what?" " You don't really know it?" "Everybody knows it." " What is it?" " Do you know my theater?" " No, I don't." "Then come and I'll show you." "And when they can't sleep, they try to forget the hunger making love." "It's the only amusement they have." "Right, Prince?" "It's true if you say it, comrade." "I was talking about the love of the poor, not of the rich people." " Rich people are better lovers, they can give." " Or take away everything." " You have too many prejudices." " Let's ask to Vincenzo." "Apart from the sex we are all comrades." "Come with me." "Look at all those idiots speaking about politic." "From the stage they seem what they are: puppets in the stalls." " Tell me your second nickname." " Do you really want to know it?" " The queen." " Why?" "It seems that I was the mistress of the most powerful man in Italy." " The king?" " No, the other one." " Ah, ii Du..." "Yes, really him." "But why "the queen"?" "Look at my skin." "Thinking at that time, I remember all the kisses he gave me on my body with his beautiful, humid, funnel-shaped mouth that so many times have been photographed while he was crying threatening speeches." " Forget about that time, tell me why "the queen"." " Do you want know it?" "After the love I liked me to put my hand and my bare foot on his..." " On his..." " I'm sure you've understood well." " Then?" " I said "You reign over the world, but here who reigns?"." " And he?" " He said: "You." "You reign over my..."." ""Over my..."?" "Come on!" "When there is a flooding they try to forget the hunger making love angrily with every woman as poor as them." "So the only thing they have becomes miserable for incest or infidelity." " You're exaggerating!" " Look, here under there is my husband." "If the curtain raises up, he discovers us naked." "Come on, tell me that you like thinking that my husband can see us." "If you want I tell it, but I prefer your husband to look away." "Are you happy, dear?" "Are you fine with me?" "Yes, I'm fine, but with those people out of here..." " I don't know, it's unease!" " Don't you want to make love?" "Yes, I want, but I've never done it in front of the audience." " You're inhibited like all the Sicilians." " Inhibited to me?" "Now I let you see!" "Turn the other side." "Sometimes they look at the falling rain astonished like children." "Then they start again making love to avoid the death!" "Many times... while water is soaking in their miserable houses." "From the broken roofs, on the poor bed, on the feverished bodies." "The women wipe them with their bodies..." "How humid you are!" "You are completely wet." " Their poor..." " What sad!" " Where is my wife?" "I've seen her going with Paolo on that stairs." " When?" " Ten minutes ago." "Tell me: "Who reigns over here?".I" " Come on, ask me who reigns." " The fear, don't you see it?" "Tell me, do you have the number of the comrade?" "No, but you can find her among the homeless near the waterworks." "Paolo, why do you spend your life solely with the women?" "Because it's the only happiness in this world." "Art, politics, work... all rubbish!" "Entering for the first time in a woman... this is the greatest moment." "It's the only one!" " Have you ever tried to write?" " Yes, when Rodriga has chosen you." " What does Rodriga have to do with it?" " She has all to do with it." " I began in that period to hate you every day of my life." " Really?" " Why?" " Because women find in you the intellectual, the writer..." "In one word: the brains." "Lilia too was first yours then mine." "You succeed always with women, you can not complain!" "But I do, because your success depends on your brains, while the one of mine depends on my dick." "Look, I look like these miserable people." "But they make a living by doing sex, while I'm destroying my life." "Honey, do you have it?" " It is up to you." " It depends on the blood they have put into me." "The same of all my family except for my father who's entered by chance." "Because we smell a woman before turning the corner." "The veins pulse in our head and so there is no more place for ideas." " There's a solution." " Cut off my balls." " No, get married." " No!" "There's only one type of woman who could become the Baroness Castorini." "There she is." "I introduce you my friend Vincenzo." "Vincenzo, I'd like you to meet my old whore!" "Fuck you!" "Look who's around!" "I've brought your problems to the committee." "You see that sooner..." "What are you doing here?" "I come here when I need to think about the inequity in our society." " It's good for my spirit." " The law should control people like you." "What do you think I've done?" "You have a big spirit but you are filthy dirty." "You're here like a jackal with a dirty look full of disgusting spirit." "You get exited with a poor girl without any expectation." " Finished?" " If you were poor, you wouldn't have problems like this." "Life will be easier once you've turned us into dogs with one master:" "the party." "Putting people like you at the same level as dogs is impossible." "You're worse than a pig and you don't realize it." "Should I forget that you are a woman, I'd punch you on your teeth." "Come on, break all my teeth, let's amuse these poor people!" "Can you imagine what title would have this on tomorrow's newspaper?" ""Forty year parrot hardly beaten by some jobless people."" " Maybe it's the police." " The way is closed, where is he going?" "You want to change men without knowing their spirit." "What do you pretend to understand?" "Last evening at Banchedis you were talking about misery." "I looked at you and it seems to me you were speaking about sweetness." "The problems of these people are not my problems." "And all the revolutions in this world won't never clear it to me." "Try with your socialism to take care of what's inside a man, not outside." "A man's anguish is far worse than any slum." ""Getting inside", you mean like this?" " Were you waiting for me before?" " Yes." "Why were you looking at the girl?" "Swine!" "Lecher!" "Dirty swine!" "Swine!" "Swine!" "What a dissolute person!" "Getting excited with a girl, waiting for me!" "Here's the car!" "In Giovanni's home!" "No!" "Not this way!" "Let me go, you're hurting me!" "Let's go, he's killing her!" "No!" "Not this way!" "Let me go, you're hurting me!" "As every Sunday the Pope has blessed the people encouraging them to keep away from temptation." ""The devil lies in everybody, always spying us to catch our weakness."" ""We can drive him out only with our faith..."" "Hello, who's speaking?" "I'm so sorry, you don't know me." "I've read the ad on the newspaper." " So you need the tailor." " Yes." " When?" " Now." " What's so urgent?" " I have some buttons..." " The tailor is not me, is my friend." " Is your friend there?" "No, she's out." "But if you need to sew a button you can do it by yourself." " Really I need another thing." " What?" " I need to rip them." "They are so hardly sewed, I don't want my suit to go broken." " I see, but are you alone?" " Yes." " Call the porter." " There isn't any." " Call a neighbour." "Really alone?" " Yes." "Why don't you come here?" " Me?" "!" "But I'm not a tailor." " I should give you a good pay!" " What would you pay to me?" " Five, ten thousand lire." " But..." "Are you joking ?" " I'm not, why?" " Will you really give me ten thousand lire?" " I swear it." "Where do you live ?" "Wait a moment, I write it." "Via dei Gracchi 35." "Did you appoint it?" " How far you live!" "Can you give me your number?" " Yes, sure. 804142." "Now I call you back to see if it's a joke." "Then I'll come." " When will you arrive?" " In an hour." " Why don't you take a taxi?" " Will you pay the taxi for me?" " Yes, I do it." "Good, I'll take a taxi, I'm coming." "Close the line, I call you back." " Hello?" " Are you Baron Castorini?" " Yes, it's me." " Scoundrel!" "Rogue!" " Who's talking?" " You're a scoundrel!" " Bastard!" " Stupid!" " Coward, tell me your name and I'll break your..." "I'm Lorenzo Banchedi, Beatrice's husband." "Now you know it." " Are you really the prince." " Yes, and I repeat it: scoundrel!" "I'm sorry, it must be a mistake!" "Ask the reason to your friend Vicenzo." "Scoundrel!" "Prince, you are a crippled man, but don't try to take advantage from it." "Who's clipped?" "I've three wooden fingers." "But with the other two, I can hit you on your face with all five fingers." "Ok, when we meet we hit us on our face." " No, I'll hit you on your face." " Ok, you'll hit me." " And don't tell it in such an ironic way." " It's not ironic." " I'll break your face." " Do it." " Don't be so generous." "Now stop it!" " Hello?" " Hello, Paolo, did you read the piece of Vincenzo?" "It's in today's newspaper." "We are all mentioned: you, Beatrice, her husband, Ester... and me." "Obviously with nicknames, but all those who were at the party." "Sorry, but I have an urgent call, tell me what it says about me." "It says you receive every Saturday evening a certain Beatrice Barredi." "Think about it, Barredi, not Banchedi!" "And you're called "the blood giver"." " Why?" " Because after each rendez-vous the lady become jaunty." "Now I stop since you are waiting for an urgent call." "It maybe a client." " Hello." " It's me." "Your line is always busy." "I thought you're joking." " Come!" "It's already late." " Should I bring the nail?" " No, the scissors." " Call a taxi." " You'll pay it?" " Yes, yes." " See you." " Bye." " Who's there?" " Scoundrel!" "Wait hold on!" "Scoundrel!" " What do you want?" " I want to break your face right now!" "It's ok, give me three hours, this evening, when you want..." "No, right now." "I'm coming to you, if you don't run away like a rabbit." "Prince, can I tell you something?" "Fuck you!" " Oh, God!" "Oh, God!" "It's Jacomini!" " Why you're laughing?" "Didn't you read the newspaper?" "Laugh in front of my dick!" " Yes?" " Stay where you are." "Frankly speaking, you jinx!" "First I felt sick, then my car got broken." "But now I come to hit you." "There is a bus every 5 minutes." "From Piazza Flaminio I take the tram." " Why don't you take a taxi?" " You jinx!" "I forgot also my wallet." " I'll pay for you." " I don't want money from you." "Scoundrel!" " Yes?" " Dickhead, why did you tell about us to your friend?" "He speculated on it selling the plot to the newspaper." "So It was me who cut a sorry figure." "Me near Mrs. Banchedi, that whore!" "Ester, you too!" "Sorry, I haven't time now, I'm closing an urgent matter." "I call you later." "Bye." "You scoundrel, I'm in a pub..." "Yes, I'm here." "I'm waiting for..." "He felt sick!" " Hello?" " Yes?" " Are you a relative of the man who was talking?" " No, but I know the bastard." " He feels sick." " What's the problem?" "We've sat him down." "I want to tell you're a scolder." "You take advantage because I'm sick." "But sooner I'll be better..." " It's not worth..." " Why?" "Good morning, did you telephone?" "Yes, I did indeed." "Come in." "Telegram!" "Good morning." "This is the sewing." "Would it upset you to undress?" ""Come home to Catania at once, your mother very sick." "Uncle Edmondo."" "Quite that!" "Stop it, Giovanna." "So I said: "As soon as the period of mourning is over, I will marry"." "And he tells me that relatives have decided to give me a pendulum clock." " They told me to tell it to you." "Did they say anything to you?" " No." ""Gold?" "No, that would cost too much, we can't afford it."" "But if you remain a bachelor, with an effort we could give you a gold clock." "The relatives give me a wedding gift, only if I do not get married!" "They hope that I'll stay bachelor and leave all my good to their children." " But I've a family..." " No, I told you no." " At least try me out." "What do you want to do?" "You don't have moved a finger for all day." "They come around here bothering me, when you said we should work alone." "Please, Baron, I only wanted to work." "Only to work!" "Sorry, Paolo, would you make me a favour?" "Would you give me a gold pendulum clock even if I get married?" "I'd be ever so grateful to you." ""Happiness doesn't belong to anyone in our family, because happiness means reason."" "Get out!" "I'll throw this at that sickening little face of yours!" "Two hours!" "Two hours it took you to go to the drugstore and back." "The truth is you sat on the curb 'cause you got a silly pain or so." "A pain in your chest doesn't stop you walking, for Christ sake!" "I could fly at your age!" "Get out!" "I don't want to hear that awful cough round here." "I should have been given a trained nurse to take care of me, instead I get that little moron who's not capable of even serving properly at table." " Why don't you get a proper nurse?" " Because I have to pay for her." " Don't you pay her?" " I've no money." " What have you done with it?" " You made 380 million out of the land you sold." " It is not true!" "It's true, the lawyer told me." " I've hidden it." " Use a little of it for God's sake if you need it." " I can't." " Why not?" " I buried it deep in the ground." " Buried?" " Yes, don't bother me!" "I won't tolerate any interference." "Yes, buried it." "I sent it forward, then I'll follow." "Baron, come!" "It's my grand-daughter." "I don't know what's happened." "I found her on the floor, she's fainted but I couldn't wake her." " The child needs a doctor, where can I find one?" " At the drugstore." "What have I done to deserve such punishment?" "I'm dogged by misfortune." "I must fine a doctor at once!" "Caterina!" "Caterina, who is it?" " Caterina!" " This gentleman needs a doctor, immediately!" "A doctor?" "Immediately!" "He's upstairs." "Paolo!" "The Baron Castorini!" "What an honor!" "Is anyone sick at your house?" "Yes, the servant girl." "You don't know my great nice, she's helping out, her mother's not well." " Did you noticed her?" "She was at your mother's funeral." " I saw her." "I'll go up and tell the doctor he's needed." " Caterina, long time ago I almost married your mother." " I know." " But nothing ever came of it." " Because you went to Rome." "Someone suggested I should come back." "Because you want to marry with mother's daughter." "Me." "True?" "Shit!" "My head!" "I've got a thick skull." "You can go, here's Doctor Mondella, hurry." "I'm coming too, wait a second, will you?" "The heart's not functioning properly, I don't know she's lived this long." " Is there no hope at all?" " She can live some days or some months." "Let see if it works." "Have I got to be pricked?" "In the shadow of Saint Peter's there are plenty of Madonnas and candles offered in atonement of sins and corruption flourishes." "The censors cut films, and stop plays, sequester magazines..." "And the corruption flourishes." "I'm talking about another kind of corruption: thieving, cheating..." " What you consider corrupt, I don't." " You don't?" "To judge someone for their sexual behavior, is not right." " That's a theory of yours?" " Yes, it is!" "Young people go to bed together easily, nowadays." "They think sexual relationships are not important." "And it's ok." " All?" " All." " So stop." " What?" " Stop." "What do you want to do?" " Good evening." " What does she want?" " I'm young too, so my place is here." " It's not a place for you." "It's an hard life." "That's how they all begin." "Paolo, what are you doing?" "Paolo!" "Are you crazy?" "Here, in the street?" "Let go." "Stop!" "What are you doing?" "Stop it!" "I told you leave me alone!" "It's ten days today since we were married and it's always like this." " Why?" " I don't know." "Don't listen to her." "Come to me tomorrow, by yourself." "What's happen?" "What's happen?" "Nothing, everything is fine." "I like talking with you, stay with you." " It's just this thing that's wrong." " Just because you want believe it." "I'm not saying that it's my fault, maybe you should have..." "I'm like this, I've not been experienced when I was younger." "Lucky you!" "Otherwise I would have broken your backbone." "Sorry." "Sorry, but I need you, Caterina." "You're the only one that can save me." "You're all the good things that I could have done, that I didn't." "In these days I realized..." "I realized that to save myself, I mustn't be as my grandfather Paolo, to my uncle, to my brother Luigi and to everyone of this damned family, made of egoism and sensuality." "I want to be like my father." "Yes, I want to be like him." "I want reason make order in my life, definitely." "I don't want to make the same end as the others." "Help me!" " Did you marry me for this reason?" " Yes, yes, but..." "If that thing doesn't work, I don't care a damn." "I love you." " Do you want me to let you alone?" " Yes, yes." " Caterina, I..." " I'm sleepy, Paolo." "Please." "Do you want to come with me?" "You've been smart to choose me, they are ugly and filthy, aren't them?" "My scarf!" "My scarf!" "Let go my scarf!" "Fairy!" "Are you going to Trastevere?" "Can you give me a lift?" "What a scoundrel!" "It's the second time that it happens." "I have to learn, I mustn't believe to the ones who looks like gentleman." "They had a friend in Fregene who didn't go with a woman since 15 days, a banker, a very important person." "They picked me up..." "I don't work around here, I'm in San Pietro." "Drove me to Fregene and the banker told me he was too tired." "At least they should have brought me back where I was." "They left me waiting for the bus." ""The bus 139 doesn't run now", I say." ""You can play the number to the wheel of fortune", they say." ""I'll give you the numbers to play..." "three, ninety and fuck you off."" "Luckily there are still good people." " What's happen." "Are you annoying?" " No, I'm not." " Would you like to go away?" " Why?" "If you have time, we could stay longer." " Here?" " Sure!" "There's no one." "No, I'm in hurry!" "We could do everything in five minutes." "You feel bad because you want to make sex, don't you?" "I'm not faulty, If you had wanted..." " But If you want, we have still time." " Tomorrow is better, goodbye." "When I given in to temptation, I felt better, physically not mentally." "Your complex is out of date." "It's incredible that in Rome someone still has the Jesus Christ's complex." " When did sex damage the mind?" " It's not just sex." " What is it?" " I don't know." "It's a deterioration of something greater." "It has no base in the senses, it's a refusal of something that comes from up here." "It's the reason that suddenly pull me up with the word "No"." "That "No" causes an emptiness that immediately fills with dirty desire." "Go on, Paolo." "You're taking it much too seriously." "We Sicilians are all made like that." "This longing to do wrong things, is the marvelous life-force." "When we do those things, we fill proud as it we'd won a game." " For me it's not that simple." " No, yours it's a form of neurosis." "The sex for you is becoming a sin, refuse." " You hope marriage would redeem you, from what?" " From myself." " Did you tell your wife about that whore of last night?" " No." "What are you waiting for?" "Go home to her." "Tell her that for the first time in your life, you won your instincts, that you're changing, because you've found the right woman for you." "Caterina!" "Caterina!" "Caterina..." " What are you doing?" " I'm going to Catania for a while." " When would you leave?" " This evening." " So soon." " The sooner I leave, the sooner I'll come back." " Do you want me to come with you?" " I need to be alone." "Sorry, you understand everything, I couldn't talk this way to any other." " I need to be alone, and breathe." " So I made you very tired." "Please, don't think that." "It's my fault, I had a wrong image of you, I thought to know you." " I disappointed you!" " No!" " I came back to tell you that..." " What?" "Nothing, it's not important." "You won't come back, is it true?" "Take it, read it in the train." "It's nothing important, I don't mind if you throw it away." ""The hope of a decent honest way of life has left with you."" ""The happiness of love, the promise of escaping of my own lust through your innocence."" ""I find again myself, with my physical needs."" ""My selfishness, my narcissism, my hardness and my pride, so different I could have been with you."" ""Now the devil rides again in me, deep down inside, and no matter how hard I try to shake him off me, he clings tight."" ""The few days of our marriage were built on the affection, sacrifice, sweetness and purity and on reason."" ""The things which I chased in vain all my life."" ""In exchange I blindly tried to impose my stupid sensuality on you, the only thing I was capable of."" ""For a moment I believed that with you my life could change, if you'd had the strength to stick by me, it might have."" ""That's what I came home to tell you, today, but it was too late."" ""Now this body whose joys and pleasures has been denied for so long is once more swamped in its own gratification, widening its scope hourly to encompass the ridiculous, obscene, invading my mind and hurling me into desperation."" ""I've never been happy, my love, never truly happy for one moment."" ""I know you've to sell out to the devil for the pleasures of the world, but you pay a bitter price!"" "Our Father who arts in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it in heaven..." "Hello!" "You are back." "For a while I had a feeling you wouldn't." "Why are you crying?"