But once I got used to his speech, the story he told—about a man who had lived here, on this very island, on this very Square, two hundred years ago, and who had forsaken great riches from his family to follow the person he loved all the way to California, a person who his family was certain would betray him—was so absorbing that I even stopped hearing the drone of the Flies that hovered above us, so absorbing that even the money collectors forgot to circulate, and it wasn’t until an entire hour had passed that the storyteller had sat back and said, “And next week, I’ll tell you what happened
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