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Antonio and I jumped to our feet and exclaimed, "Aha bull!" and started to clap our hands, "Ole! Ole!" 

Aspasi looked around then, perhaps reassured by the fact that, except for the waiters and a couple kissing in a corner, there was no one in the room anymore, she too had started clapping her hands, first timidly then louder, and a little later she was standing and shouting, "Ole! Ole!" 

Hemingway, moving in short steps, swept the veil back and forth. Then I let my arm drop, and the muleta became a banal tablecloth again. He went to one of the tables, took a flower from the jar and said, "Thank you bull," handing it to Mary.

When it was time to part, Aspasia decided that we absolutely had to see each other again the next day so I invited us all to Giudecca for breakfast. Euphoric for the wine and the happy evening, Toto and I had returned home satisfied with the invitation. But the next morning Antonio had a dark face. "We can't show up empty-handed: noblesse oblige."

"You're right. But at the moment I only have 200 lire, I can ask my mother for more but she has gone out." 

"If I take off the vaporino, train and tram tickets in Milan, I have a maximum of 300 left."

"Total: 500 lire. How about a box of chocolates?" 

"I say that, for 500 lire, it would be the size of a mousetrap."

"A nice bouquet of flowers?" 

"You don't know how much flowers cost, you just receive them." sighed Toto. 

"Besides, we would also need the letterhead of a good florist."

"I have an idea, but don't open your mouth: it'll be trouble if he finds out that you are a stranger. "