I'm a painter! A painter! And I sell, right? If you spot me laughing, it means I'm selling. Ah, it's going quite well... Hurrah for youth! A bachelor, free, happy..."

"And your bride-to-be?" I unfortunately let slip from my tongue, not noticing that Renzi, in telling about my blunder a little while back, had prudently left out this dangerous detail.

Tito's face suddenly darkened. This time he took hold of both my arms.

"What did you say? How's that? I'm getting married?"

And he looked at his brother-in-law, dumbfounded.

"Of course not!" I immediately say to remedy the situation, at a signal from Renzi. "Of course not, dear Tito! I know well that you're just playing around with that little goose!"

"I'm playing around? Ah, I'm playing around, you say?" Tito retorted, becoming furious, orbiting his eyes, shaking his fists. "Where am I? Where do I live? Where do you see me? Beat me like you would a dog if you see me playing around with a woman! One doesn't play around with women. One always begins like that, my dear Pitagora! And then ... and then ...

He again burst out crying, covering his face with his hands. Renzi and I tried unsuccessfully to quiet him, to console him.

"No, no!" he continued, shouting in reply. "If I get married even here in Rome, I'm ruined! Ruined! Do you see what state I've been reduced to in Forli, my dear Pitagora? Save me, save me, for heaven's sake! You have to prevent me from it at all costs, immediately! Even there I began by playing around."

And he trembled all over, as if shivering with fever.

"But we're just going to be here for a few days," Renzi said to him. "Only enough time to negotiate the sale of your paintings with two or three gentlemen, as we had agreed. We'll be returning to Forli right away."

"It won't do any good!" replied Tito, with a desperate gesture of his arms.

"We'll be returning to Forli, and Pitagora will still continue to see me here in Rome! How can it be otherwise? I've always been living here in Rome, my dear Quirino, even though I live up there. Always in Rome, always in Rome, in the flower of my youth, unmarried, free, happy. Exactly as Pitagora saw me just yesterday, right? Yet we were in Forli yesterday. Can't you see I'm not telling lies?"

Moved, exasperated, Quirino Renzi relentlessly shook his head and squinted to stop the tears. Until then, his brother-in-law's madness had not appeared so terribly serious to him.

"Come on, come on," continued Tito, turning towards me. "Let's go. Bring me immediately to the place where you usually see me. Let's go to my studio in Via Sardegna! At this time of day I should be there. I just hope I won't be at my girlfriend's place!"

"How's that? You're here with us, my dear Tito!" I exclaimed with a smile, hoping to bring him back to his senses. "Are you speaking in earnest? Don't you know that I'm famous for making blunders? I've mistaken a gentleman who resembles you for you."

"He is me! Scoundrel! Traitor!" the poor madman then shouted at me, his eyes flashing as he made a menacing gesture. "Do you see this poor man? I've fooled him. I got married without telling him anything about it. Now are you perhaps trying to fool me, too? Tell the truth, are you in cahoots with him? Are you aiding and abetting him? Are you secretly trying to make me get married? Accompany me to Via Sardegna... No, wait, I know the way, I'll go on my own!"

To prevent him from going alone, we were forced to accompany him. As we walked, I said to him:

"Pardon me, but don't you remember that you no longer live on Via Sardegna?"

He stopped, perplexed at this remark of mine. He looked at me angrily for a while, then said:

"And where do I live? You should know better than I."

"Me? Oh, that's a good one! How do you expect me to know that, if not even you know it?"

My answer seemed quite convincing to me, and such as to keep him motionless and nailed to the spot. I didn't know that even the so-called mad possess that most complicated little thought-producing machine known as logic, which is in perfect running order, perhaps even more so than ours, in that, like ours, it never stops, not even in face of the most inadmissible deductions.

"Me? I don't even know that I'm about to get married! Since I live in Forli, how do you expect me to know what I'm doing here, alone in Rome, free as I once was? You probably know, since you see me every day! Let's go, let's go. Accompany me. I'm putting myself into your hands."

And, as we walked, he would turn towards me from time to time with silent, imploring, inquisitive eyes that pierced my heart, because with those eyes he was telling me that he was going along the streets of Rome in search of himself — in search of that other self, free and happy, of the good old days.