the band.

Suddenly the Count felt the nightmarish pressure removed from the
sensitive spot. He opened his eyes. He was alone. He had heard nothing.
It is probable that "the young man" had departed, with light steps,
some time before, but the sense of the horrid pressure had lingered even
after the knife had gone. A feeling of weakness came over him. He had
just time to stagger to the garden seat. He felt as though he had held
his breath for a long time. He sat all in a heap, panting with the shock
of the reaction.

The band was executing, with immense bravura, the complicated finale. It
ended with a tremendous crash. He heard it unreal and remote, as if his
ears had been stopped, and then the hard clapping of a thousand, more
or less, pairs of hands, like a sudden hail-shower passing away. The
profound silence which succeeded recalled him to himself.

A tramcar resembling a long glass box wherein people sat with their
heads strongly lighted, ran along swiftly within sixty yards of the spot
where he had been robbed. Then another rustled by, and yet another
going the other way. The audience about the band had broken up, and were
entering the alley in small conversing groups. The Count sat up straight
and tried to think calmly of what had happened to him. The vileness
of it took his breath away again. As far as I can make it out he was
disgusted with himself. I do not mean to say with his behaviour. Indeed,
if his pantomimic rendering of it for my information was to be trusted,
it was simply perfect. No, it was not that. He was not ashamed. He
was shocked at being the selected victim, not of robbery so much as of
contempt. His tranquillity had been wantonly desecrated. His lifelong,
kindly nicety of outlook had been defaced.

Nevertheless, at that stage, before the iron had time to sink deep, he
was able to argue himself into comparative equanimity. As his agitation
calmed down somewhat, he became aware that he was frightfully hungry.
Yes, hungry. The sheer emotion had made him simply ravenous. He left the
seat and, after walking for some time, found himself outside the gardens
and before an arrested tramcar, without knowing very well how he came
there. He got in as if in a dream, by a sort of instinct. Fortunately he
found in his trouser pocket a copper to satisfy the conductor. Then
the car stopped, and as everybody was getting out he got out, too. He
recognized the Piazza San Ferdinando, but apparently it did not oc