And he would ask me if I could see him around anywhere, since he was looking for him with my eyes, eyes that until yesterday had seen him.

An agonizing worry took hold of me. What if by some misfortune, I thought, we should happen to run into that other one! He would no doubt recognize him, since the similarity is so obvious and perfect! And then, with those shoes that squeak at every step, that beast makes everybody turn around! And it seemed to me that from one moment to the next I could hear the dree, dree, dree of those blasted shoes behind me.

Could it perhaps not have happened? Not a chance!

Renzi had entered a shop to buy something or other, while Tito and I waited for him outside. It was almost evening. I impatiently watched the shop that Renzi was to come out of, and every minute we stood there waiting, seemed an hour to me. All of a sudden, I feel someone pulling me by the jacket and see Tito with his mouth open in a silent, blissful smile, poor thing! Two large tears were dripping down his clear, cheerful, expressive eyes. He had spotted him. He was pointing to him there, a couple of feet away from us, standing alone on the same sidewalk.

At least this once: try to put yourself in my shoes without laughing! That gentleman, seeing himself looked at and pointed out in that way, became uneasy; but then, noticing me, he greeted me as usual, so polite was the poor man. With one hand I secretly tried to signal him, while with the other I attempted to drag Tito away. Not a chance!

Fortunately, the man had understood my signal and was smiling. But he had only understood that my companion was mad. He had not recognized himself in Tito's features, while the latter certainly did in his, and he did so immediately. Of course! They were the same ones he had had three years before... It was himself whom he finally met, as he had been not more than three years before. And he drew near to him and ecstatically contemplated him and caressed his arms and chest, slowly, slowly, as he whispered to him:

"How handsome you are... how handsome you are... This is our dear Pitagora, see?"

That gentleman, embarrassed and fearful, looked at me and smiled. To calm him, I smiled at him sadly. I wish I had not done that! Tito noticed that smile of ours and, immediately suspecting some complicity between the two of us, turned menacingly to the man and said:

"Don't get married, imbecile, you'll ruin me! Do you want to end up like me, penniless and desperate? Leave that girl! Don't fool around with her, you stupid scoundrel! Without experience..."

"What gall!" shouted that poor man, turning to me as he saw people running up curious and astonished, and gathering all around us.

I had barely enough time to say: "Have pity on him..." when Tito broke in: "Quiet, traitor."

And he gave me a hard push. Then, turning again to the gentleman, he said in a subdued, persuasive tone of voice:

"No, calm down, for heaven's sake! Listen to me... You're impetuous, I know... But I have to stop you from bringing me to ruin a second time..."

At this point Renzi rushed up, thrusting himself into the crowd and calling out loudly:

"Tito! Tito! What happened?"

"What?" answered poor Bindi. "Look at him, there he is! He wants to get married again! You tell him that a blind baby will be born to him... Tell him that..."

Renzi led him away forcibly. A little later I had to explain the whole thing to the gentleman. I expected him to smile over it, but that didn't happen. He asked me, worried:

"But does he really look a lot like me?"

"Oh, not now!" I replied. "But if you had seen him before, three years ago, a bachelor, here in Rome... You in person!"

"Let's hope then that in three years," he said, "I won't have to end up like him..."

Now tell me, after all this, didn't I have the right to believe that it was all over?

Well, no such luck.

The day before yesterday, about two months after the encounter I described, I received a postcard signed "Ermanno Levera."

It reads as follows:

Dear Sir:

Inform that fellow Bindi that he has been obeyed. I couldn't forget him any more. He has remained before me like a specter of my imminent destiny.