Then the ram continues its interrupted descent, this time completing its destined trajectory, scooping in all the rubbish which has been deposited there and crushing it into a compact mass, the individual components barely distinguishable one from another.

The blue-overalled workmen climb aboard the platform at the rear of the orange truck and wave to the driver, who immediately accelerates away, ignoring the overflowing skip standing outside the modern apartment block from which the man in the overcoat emerged earlier. The vehicle roars down the gently sloping street and disappears around the corner to the left. For a few moments its engine can be heard faintly in the distance, then all is still again.

If there had been anyone about in Via Greco on the morning in question, this is what they would have seen.

And in fact several people were about: an old man shaving by the light from his window to save electricity, a single mother who had been up all night with her colicky baby, a child of ten taking in washing on a flat roof high above the street, a vagrant who slept in one of the parked cars by arrangement with the owner. But oddly enough none of them ever mentioned the extraordinary events they had just witnessed to the police or the newspapers, or even to their families, with the exception of Signora Pacca, the insomniac mother, who told the whole story in a low voice to her father that night over dinner. He smiled and nodded and muttered 'Really?' and 'Amazing!' from time to time. But Signor Pacca was stone deaf, and there was no one else in the room.

For the rest, no one breathed a word about what they had seen, although the affair soon became a matter of national notoriety. As if by unspoken agreement, they all acted as though they were opera-goers who, arriving fashionably late, had missed the overture.

La causa e amore 'NotGesualdo!'

'Sabatino? Never!'