Free The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Robert Crichton

never walk into this house again.”
    It would be his first decision as mayor. He didn’t look up at her when he made it, but the decision was made.
    â€œDown,” he ordered. “Take them down.”
    It was the Sicilian cart that did the job. They lifted Bombolini down from the cart and then they ran it back and forth to build up the proper rage, like a bull preparing to make his charge, and all at once they released it. The gate was no match for the cart. The iron was old and the hinges and bolts that held it were rusted. It gave almost a once, and after that the front door gave, and then the entire front of the wineshop. The plate-glass window came all apart and it shattered into the shop and into the piazza. The reign of Italo Bombolini had begun.
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    I T WOULD BE gratifying to be able to write that the people of Santa Vittoria acted in some other way than they did that night. But the people acted like proper Santa Vittorians and like people getting something for nothing. Because the wine was free, everyone drank too much, and drunkenness and greed are never gratifying.
    Someone set fire to a goat and it went blazing down the Corso Mussolini and nearly set fire to a stall. Someone threw a bottle from a roof and cut someone. It was not all bad. Some of the young people had accordions and a shepherd came down from the high pastures with pipes, and although they don’t dance here often the men danced and then the women and finally even the men with the women.
    There was an omen for Santa Vittoria that evening, the one thing that for a time calmed the people. While the first barrel of wine was being drunk, just after the sun had gone down, a strange early evening star was seen glittering to the north and east of the city. It hung up above the mountains there, shining in the gold of the late sun before dipping down into the shadows of the mountains. Everyone agreed it was a good sign.
    â€œThat bastard Bombolini’s in luck,” someone said. “Someone is looking out for him.”
    If the harvest was good this year, for years to come people would look into the sky on this day to see the good omen again and announce that there would be another good harvest. If someone died, his family would look for the star on this day in fear that they would see it and someone else would die that year.
    But the star was forgotten, that night at least, when the second barrel was opened. No one at the end was sure how much wine was drunk. Bombolini says that three hundred gallons were drunk. It is a lot of wine for one thousand people, when many of them are very old and very young and over half of them are women.
    Long before midnight the dancing stopped. No matter how much wine was drunk the people would be down on the terraces in the morning when the sun rose. Only the young men were still up. A team of Turtles was playing a kind of soccer game with a team of Goats in the piazza, but even that was quiet and slow. One of the players found Fabio sleeping on the wet stones by the Fountain of the Pissing Turtle.
    â€œYou’d better get up,” he told him, “or you’ll die in the night air.”
    â€œI have no place to go,” Fabio said. He was more tired than drunk.
    The soccer player pointed him in the direction of the Leaders’ Mansion.
    â€œThere’s room for you in there. Bombolini is living there now. His wife has thrown him out.”
    Fabio crossed the piazza and stood outside the door. There was a light inside the house. He knocked, very lightly, and when no one answered he tried the door and it opened and he went inside. He was surprised to see Bombolini sitting on a box, with a tallow candle by his side, and reading a book. He wanted to say something but could not think of the right thing, and he continued across the room until he was behind the mayor.
    The book was old and grimy. It had been abused by use and time. Lines of the text were underlined, and some of them were