'E diavule

Seventy-seven, 'e diavule. In the Smorfia the devils are plural, and that changes everything: it isn’t the Devil with a capital D, the one from sermons, but the little devils — small temptations, spiteful tricks, everyday mischief. It’s a number that makes you smile more than it scares you, and in Naples people mention it often, with the air of someone who knows what they’re talking about. In dreams, seventy-seven arrives when a temptation is involved. Not necessarily a big one: the shortcut that would fix everything, the sharp reply you’re holding back, the thing you want and know isn’t good for you. Sometimes it’s spite you’ve been on the receiving end of — that feeling that someone is rowing against you, maybe without real malice, just for the fun of making things harder. Among the images that lead here there are two that, put together, say it all. The devils, of course. And running, which in everyday life is the most common temptation: not because it’s wrong, but because it puts you to the test. Whoever has fallen behind dreams of it, whoever is already running can’t stop anymore, and in both cases the dream speaks about the same thing — how much you’re willing to lose just to get there first. Seventy-seven is mischievous but not wicked, and that’s how it should be read. If it came up in your dream, the Smorfia is saying there was a temptation or a spiteful trick in it, and that you noticed. It doesn’t tell you what to do — that isn’t our job and it never will be. It just points out that in the dream you told, someone, maybe you, was pushing things too far.