That Mysterious Nocturnal Incident Peculiar To Rome Has Already
Occurred - Sure Sign That The Nights Are Growing Sultry.
It happens about
six times in the course of every year, during the hot season.
You may
read about it in the next morning's paper which records how some young
man, often of good family and apparently in good health, was seen
behaving in the most inexplicable fashion at the hour of about 2 a.m.;
jumping, that is, in a state of Adamitic nudity, into some public
fountain. It goes on to say that the culprit was pursued by the police,
run to earth, and carried to such-and-such a hospital, where his state
of mind is to be investigated. Will our rising generation, it gravely
adds, never learn the most elementary rules of decency?
If I have not had the curiosity to inquire at one of these
establishments what has been the result of the medical examination, it
is because I will wager my last shirt that the invalid's health leaves
nothing to be desired. The genesis of the affair, I take it, is this. He
is in bed, suffering from the heat. Sleep refuses to come. He has
already passed half the night in agony, tossing on his couch during
those leaden hours when not a breath of air is astir. In any other town
he would submit to the torture, knowing it to be irremediable. But Rome
is the city of fountains. It is they who are responsible for this sad
lapse.
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