Carlo Emilio Gadda’s novel Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana only seems to belong to the genre of the thriller at first glance, in spite of the fact that in quick succession an armed robbery and a murder take place in the same building. The reason for this special status is not so much due to the absence of an unequivocally identified perpetrator as to the fact that two different discourses, the historico-political and the mythological, determine the narration. Liliana Balducci and Zamira Pacori cannot be compared as the first, even when dead, plays a central part in the historico-political allegory of the novel, and the second is a mythical figure reminiscent of Circe; as opposed to the historico-political sphere, in Zamira’s realm cyclical time reigns. Between Zamira’s machinations and the rhetoric of fascism founded on seduction there are, however, analogies to be found, which this essay seeks to highlight.