Evangelista's Fan & Other Stories [antikvár]

I Salvatore Cavalli, the eldest son of a Piedmontese clock-maker, was celebrating his twenty-seventh birthday in the year 1815 when he learned that the King of Piedmont had decided to remove a large slice of time from the calendar. This was disturbing news. For several hours, Salvatore Cavalli's father, Roberto, had not been able to bring himself to pass it onto his son. He found the courage to do so only after he'd drunk several glasses of wine and eaten seventeen chestnuts soaked in brandy at the birthday dinner. Then, Roberto Cavalli wiped his mouth, put an eighteenth chestnut onto his plate, turned to his son, took a breath and said: 'Salvatore, I heard today that the King has ordered a number of years to be erased permanendy from recorded time. What are we to make of that, do you think?' Salvatore stared at his father. He wondered whether the clockmaker, a man of such precision in all his dealings, was beginning to show some inconsistency in his thinking. 'Papa,' said Salvatore, 'nobody can erase time. It's not possible. I think you must have misunderstood.' But Roberto Cavalli had not misunderstood. With his mouth full with the eighteenth chestnut, he explained to Salvatore and to the assembled birthday guests that the King had been so horrified by the revolution in France and had