The Bewitched Vest

Although I appreciate the sartorial elegance, I do not pay much attention, usually, to the greater or lesser perfection with which the suits of my fellows are cut off. One evening, however, at a reception in a house in Milan, I met a man who seemed to be in his forties and who literally shone because of the linear, pure, absolute beauty of his clothes. I did not know who it was, I met him for the first time and during the presentation, as always happens, it was impossible for me to understand the name.

But at a certain moment of the evening, I found myself near him and we began to chat. He seemed to be a polite and very civil man with a hint of sadness. With a familiarity perhaps exaggerated - if only God had preserved me! I complimented him on his elegance, and I dared even ask him who was his tailor. The man had a curious little smile as if he had expected this question. "Almost nobody knows him," he says, and yet he is a great master. But he does works only when it sings to him. For some customers only. - So that's me ...? - Oh ! you can try, you can always. His name is Corticella, Alfonso Corticella, Ferrara street at 17. - It must be very expensive, I guess. - I think so, yes, but to tell the truth I do not know anything. This costume he did to me three years ago and he has not sent me his note yet. - Corticella? Ferrara street, at 17, you said? "Exactly," replied the stranger. And he planted me there to mingle with another group.

At 17 Ferrara Street, I found a house like so many others, and Alfonso's house Corticella resembled that of others tailors. He came in person to open the door. He was a little old man with black hair were surely dyed. To my surprise, he made no difficulty. On the contrary, he seemed eager to see me become his client. I explained to him asked me to make a suit. We chose a combed gray then he took my measurements and offered to come for fitting at home. I asked him for his price. it did not hurry, he replied, we would always okay. What a nice man! I thought first of all.

And yet later, as I returned home, I realized that the little old man had me produces discomfort (maybe because of his smiles too insistent and too sweet). In short, I did not have any desire to see him again. But now the complete was ordered. And some twenty days later he was ready. When I was delivered, I tried it for a few seconds, in front of my mirror. It was a masterpiece. But I do not know why, maybe because of the remember the unpleasant little old man, I didn't want to want to wear it.

And weeks passed before that I decide. That day, I will always remember it. It was a Tuesday of April and it was raining. When I had passed my complete - pants, vest and jacket - I found with it was a pleasure for him not to tease me and to bother me armholes as clothes always do new. And yet he was falling to perfection. By habit I do not put anything in the right pocket of my jacket, my papers I put them in the pocket left. Which is why it's only two hours later, in the office, slipping by chance my hand in the right pocket, that I realized that there was a paper in it. Maybe the note to the tailor? No. It was a ten thousand lire bill.

I remained forbidden. It certainly was not me who had put. On the other hand, it was absurd to think of a joke of the tailor Corticella. Even less to a gift from my housekeeper, the only person who had had the opportunity to approach the full after the tailor. Would it be a ticket of the Holy Prank call? I looked at it against the light, I compared it to others. More authentic than him it was impossible. The only explanation, a distraction of Corticella. Maybe a client had come to pay him a deposit, at that time he did not have his wallet and, for not to let the note hang around, he had slipped it into my jacket hanging from a hanger. These are things that can happen. I shut the bell to call my secretary. I was going to write a word to Corticella and give him back this money that was not mine.

But, at this moment, and I can not explain the reason, I slipped again my hand in my pocket. "What do you have, sir? You do not feel not good? Asked the secretary who Then I came in. I must have turned pale like death. In the pocket, my fingers had met the edges of a piece of paper that was not there a few moments before. "No, no, it's nothing," I said, a slight fear of heights. It happens to me sometimes since time. No doubt a little tired. You can go, my little one, I had to dictate to your letter but we will do it later. " It is only once the secretary out that I dared to pull the sheet out of my pocket. It was another ten thousand lire bill. So, I made a third attempt. And a third ticket went out.

My heart started pounding. I had the feeling of being trained, for mysterious reasons, in the round of a tale fairy like those we tell children and that no one believes true. Under the pretext that I did not feel well, I left my office and went home. I needed to stay alone. Fortunately, The woman who was doing my cleaning was already gone. I closed the doors, lowered the blinds and began to extract the tickets one after the other as fast as I could, from the pocket which seemed inexhaustible.

I worked with a spasmodic tension of nerves in fear of seeing a stop moment to another the miracle. I would have liked to continue all night, all night until accumulate billions. But to a certain, I was short of strength. In front of me, there was an awesome heap of Bank notes. The important thing now was to hide them, so that no one has knowledge. I emptied an old trunk full of carpets and, in the end, I laid the bundles tickets that I counted as and when. There is it was well worth fifty million. When I woke up the next morning, the cleaning lady was there, stunned me find everything dressed on my bed. I strained to laugh, explaining that the night before I had a drink too much and sleep surprised me unexpectedly...

New anxiety: the woman propose herself to help me take off my jacket so he gives at least one brush stroke.

I replied that I had to go out immediately and that I did not have time to change me. And then I hastened to a clothing store to buy an article of clothing similar to mine in every respect; I will leave the new to my wife's hands household; mine, the one that would make me a few days one of the most powerful men in the world I will hide in a safe place. I did not understand if I was living a dream, if I was happy or if on the contrary, I suffocated under the weight of too great a fatality.

On the way, through my waterproof, I was continually palpating the place of the magic pocket. Every time I sighed relief. Under the stuff, the comforting crumpling of paper money was answering me. But a singular coincidence cools my delirium happy. On the morning newspapers headlines; the announcement of a robbery occurred the day before occupied almost the entire first page. The armored van of a bank which, having made the tour of branches, was going to transport to headquarters payments for the day, had been stopped and robbed Palmanova street by four bandits.

Like the people came running, one of the gangsters, to protect his flight, began to fire. One of the passers-by had been killed. But it's mostly the amount of loot that struck me: exactly fifty million (like mine). Could there be a relationship between my wealth sudden and the holdup of these bandits occurred almost at the same time? It seemed ridiculous to think so. And I'm not superstitious. However, the event left me very perplexed. The more we have and the more we want. I was already rich, considering my modest habits. But the mirage of the existence of frantic luxury spurred me. And that very evening I went back to work. Now I proceeded with more calm and the nerves less tense. Another hundred and thirty-five million were added to the treasure previous.

That night I can not sleep. Was it the presentiment of a danger? Or the conscience tormented man who gets without having deserved a fabulous fortune? Or a kind of remorse confused? In the early hours of dawn, I jumped from reading, dressed and ran outside in search of a newspaper. As I was reading, my breath failed me. A terrible fire caused by an oil depot that had inflamed had almost completely destroyed a building in the street of San Cloro, in full center. Among others, the chests of a large agency real estate which contained more than one hundred and thirty in cash had been destroyed. Two firefighters had found death by fighting the sinister. Should I now list one by one all my packages?

Yes, because now I knew that

the money the jacket was giving me came from crime, blood, despair, death, came from hell. But insidiously my reason jokingly refused to admit any responsibility on my part. So what temptation came back, and then my hand - it was so easy - slipped into my pocket and my fingers, with a sudden voluptuousness, hugging the corners of a ticket always new. Money, divine money! Without leaving my old apartment (so not attracting attention) I had bought myself in little of time a large villa I owned a precious collection of paintings, I circulated in luxury automobile and, after leaving my job "for health reasons" I was traveling and traveled the world with women wonderful.

I knew that every time I racked money from my jacket he was performing in the world something abject and painful. But it was still a vague concordance, was not supported by logical evidence. In waiting, at each of my receipts, my consciousness was deteriorating, becoming more and viler. And the tailor? I phoned him to ask for a note but no one answered. Via Ferrara I am told that he had emigrated, he was abroad, we did not know where. Everything was conspiring to show me that, without knowing it, I had made a pact with the demon.

This lasted until the day when in the building that I lived for many years, we discovered one morning a retired sexagenarian asphyxiated by the gas; she had killed herself because that we had lost the thirty thousand lire of his pension she had received the day before (and who had ended in my hands). Enough, enough! so as not to sink into the abyss, I had to get rid of my vest, but not by giving it to someone else, because the reproach would have continued (who could have to resist such an attraction?). He became indispensable to destroy it.

I arrived by car in a lost valley of the Alps. I left my car on a grassy ground and I headed straight on the wood. There was no soul alive. After passing the village, I reached the gravel of the moraine. There, between two gigantic rocks, I fired from the Tyrolean bag the infamous jacket, the imbibing of gasoline and set it on fire. In a few minutes, there were only ashes. But at the last glow of the flames, behind me - at two or three meters would have been said - a human voice Sounds: "Too late, too late! »

Terrorized I snapped back as if a snake had stung me. But there was nobody in sight. I explored all around jumping from one rock to another, to flush out the cursed who was playing this trick. Nothing. There were only stones. Despite the horror I felt, I went back down the valley, with a feeling of relief. Free finally. And rich, fortunately. But on the embankment, my car was no longer there. And when I was back in town, my sumptuous villa had faded away; in its place an uneducated pre with the sign "Communal land for sale.

And my accounts in the bank, I could not explain how were completely exhausted. Missing from my many safes the big packets of shares. And some dust, nothing but dust, in the old trunk. Now I have painfully taken up my job, I am pulling with great difficulty, and what is strange, no one seems surprised by my sudden ruin. And I know it's not over yet. I know that day the doorbell will sound, I'll go open and I will find before me this tailor of misfortune, with his abject smile, for the ultimate settling of accounts.