By Enrico Maso, translated into English by Ruth Stephens
Chapter 6
As soon as he arrives, Giacomo is met by his boss.
“There’s someone waiting in the office. He wants to speak to you.”
Inspector Donato looks up as Giacomo enters the office. “Well, if it isn’t the famous Giacomo,” he says, “I think you and I need to talk, don’t we?”
“Yes, “ says Giacomo “but you see, I….”
“Calm down, calm down. This is just a chat between you and me: you talk and I listen, OK?”
Donato knows that Giacomo is the ‘saboteur’ but he wants to know why.
Giacomo is very scared and owns up straight away. He knows he was wrong but he did it all for his son. Donato doesn’t understand, and so Giacomo begins to tell him about the stars.
“Just a minute, you mean you did all this because your son likes astronomy?” asks Donato.
“Yes, I know it was stupid, but…”
“Stupid? I would say it’s brilliant!” says Donato “You know, I myself have a great interest in astronomy: the planets, the stars, the galaxies….but with all this light in the town we can’t see them.”
Donato has a dilemma: what Giacomo has done is wrong but his intentions were good. After a long pause he says “”This is what we’ll do: this evening you must put everything back as it was, is that clear?”
“Yes, of course,” says Giacomo “I’ll start straightaway.”
“Wait, I haven’t finished. You’re right – the lighting in this town is excessive, so now we’ll prepare together a list of official proposals and take them to the mayor, OK?”
The list drawn up, the two of them leave the office together and walk the short distance to the Town Hall.
“Why, Inspector!” the mayor exclaims as they enter his office “Is anything wrong?”
More?
Oppure scopri il testo in inglese con traduzione a fronte (.pdf) 