The scaffold is gone and Carnival floods Rome again. The Count tells Franz and Albert to dress for masks as if the execution were only a bad dream. They ride into the Corso through a storm of confetti, harlequins, and shouting carriages. The Count lends them his coach, his bear-skinned driver, and windows at the Palazzo Rospoli, then vanishes into a blue domino beside the white damask signal Franz already knows.
Albert flirts with a carriage of Roman peasant girls and wins a bunch of violets. At the opera Franz introduces him to Countess G, who still calls the Count a vampire. Pastrini supplies ready-made peasant costumes, and the Count lets the friends keep his carriage for the whole festival. Albert receives a secret letter fixing a Tuesday rendezvous at the church of San Giacomo, with rose-colored ribbons as the sign. Franz agrees to watch from the windows while Albert plays the lover.
On the last day of Carnival the city turns wilder still. Horse races clear the Corso, then thousands of moccoli candles blaze from balcony to balcony while everyone tries to keep a flame and blow out a neighbour's. Franz spends part of the day at the Vatican, but Albert keeps chasing the calash of peasants and their fresh violets.
At seven o'clock Albert jumps down in the Via dei Pontefici with his candle burning. A peasant mask snatches the light, takes his arm, and leads him into the crowd. A moment later the retreat bell sounds. Every flame dies at once. Franz stands in sudden darkness, alone, while his friend has disappeared into the night.
The violets turn a joke into a chase. The girl in the peasant carriage claps when she sees them in Albert's button-hole, and he refuses to give the bunch back. Pastrini brings a tailor with Roman costumes, yards of ribbon for the hats, and sashes for the last day. A letter arrives in handwriting too clean for the story Albert wants to tell. He reads it twice, announces that he is in love, and talks of staying in Rome for six weeks. Franz begins to see the festival as a machine that can separate two friends without raising its voice.
On the last night the horse race clears the Corso, then the sellers of moccoli enter with candles from taper to rushlight. Each mask has two jobs: keep a personal flame alive, and kill the flame in someone else's hand. Carriages pour back into the street like water into a river. Albert jumps down at seven with his candle still burning. The peasant mask takes the light, takes his arm, and keeps him when the retreat bell kills every flame at once. Franz is left holding a window and a dark street.
Coming Up in Chapter 37
Carnival's lights will die all at once, leaving Rome feeling like a tomb. Franz will return alone to the hotel, receive Albert's ransom letter signed by Luigi Vampa, and turn to the only man who can answer a bandit's deadline.
