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never had as many visitors as this in a single day. Speranza Patti, now the center of attention, had to admit to feeling rather pleased with herself and played up to the crowd in a way she thought was demanded of her. Soon bizarre rumors went round concerning Arcadio Carnabuci: he was in league with the devil; he was planning to overthrow the town council; he was the cause of the recent earthquake; he was a fugitive on the run from justice; a pirate; a vampire; a eunuch; a secret transvestite.
    Back home, oblivious to the wildfire of gossip about him, Arcadio Carnabuci continued to monitor his fruits minute by minute. They rewarded him by developing before his eyes. Fascinated, he watched each minor change: each minuscule swelling in the girth of the three fruits, the trembling variations in hue of the suedey skin. Tenderly he cupped each of them in the palm of his hand to assess their individual weights, taking care so as not to damage them or cause them to drop prematurely from the umbilical stalks that bound them to the parent plants.
    He waited with a mixture of patience and anxiety. Of course he was eager to taste the fruit and unleash the forces of the miraculous change that was destined to take place in his life. But he also realized that he should wait until the magic fruits had reached the perfect pitch of ripeness so they would have maximum potency. Arcadio Carnabuci figured he had waited forty years; a few more days wouldn’t matter. He not only watched, he inhaled the scent of the fruit, noting subtle gradations in depth and tone, fearful of the least whiff of putrefaction and decay.
    The turning of the world had almost stopped for Arcadio Carnabuci. So much now happened between each single tick of the clock. His fruits were everything. There was nothing else.
    Then, finally, on the twenty-seventh of April at twenty-five past ten, he knew the time had come. The fruits were perfectly ripe, they had reached the precise moment of ripeness, which his whole life of farming olives had taught him. And so, not a second too early or too late, he garnered his courage, swallowed hard, and plucked them manfully from the supporting stalks.
    The little dears had a feel almost human. They were warm, soft, and fleshy. Yet Arcadio Carnabuci could not afford to be sentimental now. With a sharp knife he began to pare them, stripping the thinnest sliver of the cream-and-brown peel away, causing it to curl in a snaking spiral onto the table. The cut fruits released an aroma that almost knocked Arcadio Carnabuci off his feet. It was the smell of vanilla, champagne, longing, marzipan, peaches, smiles, cream, strawberries, raspberries, roses, melting chocolate, lilac, figs, laughter, honeysuckles, kisses, lilies, enchantment, ardor itself.
    Then, after so much patience, he could no longer wait, and greedily, lecherously, he crammed the juicy fruits into his mouth, one after the other. His mind could not believe the signals his taste buds were relaying to him through the spaghetti of his senses. It was like a star bursting in his mouth. The taste was fruity, certainly, but unlike any other fruit he had ever tasted. He closed his eyes with the pleasure of it, and rivulets of joy—no, waves, huge breakers of surf—washed over him, saturating him, leaving him weak.
    When he had consumed the fruits and licked up every last drop of juice from the table, licked his fingers and the palms of his hands, and his lips and jowls and chin, he felt full to the brim with creaminess and satiation.
    Finally, he slumped down into his chair with the vestiges of a smile covering his face. Only later did he feel the calm that crept upon him, and he settled down to wait for what would happen next.

CHAPTER THREE
    W hile Arcadio Carnabuci sat back and waited, far to the south Fernanda Ponderosa and her retinue were also waiting, but for what, nobody knew. Then, quite by chance, the appearance of a truck on the quayside, driven by one Ambrogio