The Woman of Rome (Italia) Read online

  I have always loved to pace up and down the same street again and again, feeling almost worn out at the end but as fresh and eager in my heart as at a fair, where the surprises are inexhaustible. The street has always been my restaurant, my drawing room, my café, and this is because I was born poor, and the poor are known to get their entertainment cheap by gazing at shop windows where they cannot afford to buy and at the facades of palaces where they cannot afford to live. For the same reason, I have always loved the churches, of which there are so many in Rome, a luxury within everyone’s reach since they are always open, where the ancient, humble stench of poverty is often stronger than the smell of incense among the marble, the gold, and the precious ornaments. But a rich man, of course, does not walk through the streets or go to church; at most he crosses the city in his car, leaning back against the cushions and occasionally reading a newspaper. By preferring the street to any other spot, I immediately cut myself off from all those introductions that, according to Gisella, I should have sought out at the sacrifice of my own most deeply rooted tastes. I was never disposed to make such a sacrifice, and all the time I was Gisella’s partner these tastes were a subject of heated discussion between us. Gisella did not like the street; churches meant nothing to her; and crowds only disgusted her and filled her with scorn. She aimed at the expensive restaurants, where attentive waiters anxiously watch their clients’ slightest gesture; fashionable dance halls, with a band in uniform and dancers in evening dress; the smartest cafés and gambling halls. She became quite a different person in such places, changed her gestures, carriage, and even the tone of her voice. In fact, she affected the behavior of a real lady; and this was the ideal she aimed at, and that later, as we shall see, she attained to some degree. But, in the end, the most curious aspect of her success was that she met the person fated to fulfill her ambitions not in a fashionable haunt, but through me, in the street she loathed so heartily.

  I found Gisella at the pastry shop with a middle-aged man, a commercial traveler, whom she introduced as Giacinti. When seated, he appeared to be of normal height, because his shoulders were very broad, but when he stood up, he turned out to be almost a dwarf, and his broad shoulders made him appear even shorter than he was. His thick white hair, gleaming like silver, was brushed straight up off his forehead, perhaps to make him seem taller, and his face was red and healthy, with the regular and noble features of a statue; he had a handsome smooth forehead, large dark eyes, a straight nose, and well-shaped mouth. But an unpleasing expression of vanity, of conceit and false benevolence, made his face, which at first sight seemed attractive and majestic, absolutely repellent.

  I felt rather shy and sat down without saying a word after the introductions were over. Giacinti, as though my arrival were only an unimportant incident, whereas it was really the whole purpose of the evening, went on with what he had been saying to Gisella. “You can’t complain of me, Gisella,” he said, and placed a hand on her knee, keeping it there all the time he was talking. “How long did our — let’s call it alliance — last? Six months? Well, can you say, with your hand on your heart, that in all those six months I sent you away dissatisfied?” His speech was clear, slow, accented, emphatic, but he obviously spoke in that way not so much to make himself understood as to listen to his own voice and enjoy every word he uttered.

  “No, no,” said Gisella in bored tones, lowering her head.

  “Get Gisella to tell you, Adriana,” Giacinti went on in his clear, emphatic voice. “Not only have I never stinted on money for her — shall we call them professional earnings? — but every time I came back from Milan I always brought her a present. Do you remember the time I brought you a bottle of French perfume, now? And the other time I gave you a silk and lace chemise? Women like to say men don’t understand anything about lingerie — but I’m an exception to the rule!” He laughed, softly, showing perfect teeth but so curiously white that they seemed false.

  “Give me a cigarette, do,” said Gisella shortly.

  “At once!” he replied with ironic courtesy. He offered me one, too, took one himself, and after he had lit it continued. “Do you remember the purse I brought you another time — a big leather one — that was something to write home about! Don’t you use it anymore?”

  “It’s a morning bag,” said Gisella.

  “I like giving presents,” he continued, turning to me, “not for sentimental reasons, you understand —” he shook his head, puffing smoke from his nostrils “— but for three clear reasons. One — I like to be thanked. Two — there’s nothing like a present for getting yourself properly treated. In fact, anyone who has once had a present from you always hopes for another. Three — because women like an illusion and a present makes them feel there’s some sentiment involved, even when there isn’t.”

  “You’re a deep one,” said Gisella indifferently, without even looking at him.

  He shook his head, showing all his teeth in a handsome smile. “No, I’m not deep — I’m simply a man with some experience of life who has been able to learn from his experience.… I know you have to do certain things with women, others with your clients, others with your servants, and so on. My mind’s like an extremely tidy card index. For instance — a woman in the offing!.… I take down my notebook, look through it, find that certain measures obtained the desired effect, others didn’t; I put the notebook back in its place and act accordingly. That’s all there is to it.” He stopped and smiled again.

  Gisella was smoking with a bored look; I said nothing.

  “And I find women are grateful to me,” he continued, “because they realize at once that they won’t have any disappointments with me. I know what they expect, their weaknesses, and their whims — just as I, myself, am grateful to a client who understands me at a glance, one who doesn’t waste my time chatting, knows what he wants and what I want — I’ve got an ashtray on my desk in Milan with the words: ‘Lord bless those who don’t waste my time.’ ” He threw his cigarette down and looking at his watch added, “It’s about time to go and have a meal.”

  “What’s the time?”

  “Eight. Excuse me a moment — I’ll be right back.”

  He got up and went out at the end of the room. He really was very short, with his broad shoulders and thick white hair standing up on top of his head. Gisella crushed out her cigarette on the ashtray. “He’s an awful bore and talks of nothing but himself,” she said.

  “I noticed that.”

  “Just let him talk, and say yes all the time,” she went on. “You’ll see, he’ll tell you heaps of things — he thinks he’s God knows what — but he’s very free with his money and really does give you presents.”

  “Yes, but then he keeps on reminding you —”

  She did not reply, but shook her head as if to say, “What can you do about it?” We were silent for a while, then Giacinti came back, paid, and we left the pastry shop.

  “Gisella,” said Giacinti, when we were in the street, “this evening is Adriana’s — but would you like to come to supper with us?”

  “No, no, thanks,” Gisella replied hurriedly, “I’ve got a date.” She said good-bye to Giacinti and went off.

  “What a nice girl she is,” I remarked to Giacinti as soon as she had gone.

  He made a face. “Not bad,” he said. “She’s got a good figure.”

  “Don’t you like her?”

  “I don’t require of anyone that they should be likable,” he said, walking beside me and holding my arm tight, high up, almost under the armpit, “but that they should do well whatever they do — I don’t ask a typist to be likable, for instance, but to be able to type quickly without making mistakes. And I don’t ask a girl like Gisella to be pleasant, but to know how to do her job, that is, to give me a good time for the hour or two I spend with her. Now Gisella doesn’t know how to do her job.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s always thinking about money — and she’s always afraid she won’t be paid or won�
�t get enough. I don’t expect her to love me, but it’s part of her profession to behave as though she really did love me, and give me an illusion — that’s what I pay her for. But Gisella makes it too obvious she’s only doing it for her own interest — she doesn’t even give you time to get your breath before she starts haggling. It’s no good!”

  We had reached the restaurant, a noisy place crowded with men of Giacinti’s sort — commercial travelers, stockbrokers, shopkeepers, businessmen on their way through town. Giacinti entered first.

  “Is my usual table free?” he asked as he gave the boy his hat and overcoat.

  “Yes, Mr. Giacinti.”

  It was a table near the window. Giacinti sat down, rubbing his hands together.

  “Got a good appetite?” he then asked me.

  “I think so,” I answered awkwardly.

  “Good, I’m glad — I like people to eat when they’re at the table. Gisella, for instance, never wanted to eat anything, said she was afraid of getting fat.… That’s silly! There’s a time for everything — when you sit down to the table you eat.” He seemed full of resentment toward Gisella.

  “But you really do get fat if you eat too much.” I said timidly, “and some women don’t want to put on weight.”

  “Are you one of those?”

  “No, I’m not — but, as a matter of fact, they tell me I’m on the heavy side.”

  “Don’t you listen to ’em — it’s all envy. You’re all right, as you are — I say so, and I know what I’m talking about.” He patted my hand in a fatherly way as if to reassure me.

  The waiter came. “First of all,” said Giacinti, “take these flowers away, they’re a nuisance to me. Then bring the usual — you know — double quick!”

  The he turned to me. “He knows me and knows what I like. Leave it to him. You’ll see you won’t have anything to complain of.”

  And indeed I had nothing to complain of. All the courses that were served were delicious and plentiful, even if not the finest. Giacinti had a huge appetite and ate with concentration, his head lowered, his knife and fork firmly gripped; he did not look at me or talk, but acted as if he were by himself. He really was entirely engrossed in the act of eating and in his greed even lost his much-vaunted calm; his gestures were confused, as if he were afraid he would not be done in time and would have to go hungry. He pushed a piece of meat into his mouth; with his left hand hurriedly broke off a morsel of bread, bit it; with his other hand poured himself a glass of wine and began to drink before he had finished chewing. All the time he kept on smacking his lips, rolling his eyes, and shaking his head every now and again like a cat when it has got hold of too big a mouthful. Unlike my usual self, however, I was not at all hungry. For the first time in my life, I was going to make love to a man I didn’t care for and didn’t even know, and I looked him over carefully, noting my own feelings and trying to imagine how I would go through with it. After this first time, I used to pay no attention to the appearance of the men I went with; perhaps because, being driven by necessity, I quickly learned to pick out at first glance the one good or pleasing aspect in each man that would make intimacy bearable. But that evening I had not yet learned this trick of my profession, and I was seeking it instinctively, as you might say, without realizing what I was doing.

  I have already said that Giacinti was not ugly; as long as he kept his mouth shut and did not reveal the consuming passion of his soul, he might even have been called handsome. This was saying a great deal, because, after all, love is very much a matter of physical contact; but it was not enough for me, because I have never been able to stand a man, let alone love him, only for his physical qualities. Now when supper was over and Giacinti, after a belch or two, had begun to talk again, once his ill-mannered greed was satisfied, I realized there was nothing in him, at least nothing I could discover, which would make him even tolerable. Not only did he talk about himself the whole time, as Gisella had said, but he did it in a most unpleasant, boring, and conceited way, telling me mostly things that did him no credit at all and only strengthened my first instinctive feeling of repulsion. There was absolutely nothing in him that I could like; and all the things he boasted of and enlarged upon as desirable qualities seemed dreadful faults to me.

  Later I met other men, though not many, who were just as worthless, with nothing good in them at all to cling to that might make them likable; and I have always marveled at their existence and asked myself whether it was not perhaps my own fault if I was unable to discover at first sight the qualities they must undoubtedly possess. In time, however, I have become accustomed to such unpleasant companions, and I pretend to laugh, joke, and be what they believe I am and want me to be. But that first evening my discovery filled me with gloomy reflections. While Giacinti went on talking, fiddling at his teeth with a toothpick, I was telling myself I had taken up a very hard profession — the simulation of passionate love for men who actually roused the most contrary feelings in me — as in Giacinti’s case. I told myself no money could repay such favors — that it was impossible, under such circumstances, not to behave like Gisella, who thought only of the money and showed it. It also occurred to me that that evening I would be taking this hateful Giacinti back to my poor little room, which I had intended to use so differently. And I thought how unfortunate I was and how fate had meant me to be under no illusions from the very beginning, by leading me to meet Giacinti and not some artless youth in search of adventure, or some ordinary, decent, unpretentious fellow, and that Giacinti’s presence among my furniture would put the seal on my reunuciation of all the old dreams of a respectable, ordinary life.

  He talked all the time, but still he was not so dull as not to notice that I was hardly listening to him and was not cheerful.

  “Feeling glum, little girl?” he suddenly asked me.

  “No, no,” I replied, hurriedly pulling myself together, but half tempted by his deceptively affectionate tones to confide in him and talk a little about myself, since I had allowed him to talk of himself for so long.

  “That’s better!” he went on. “Because I don’t like sadness.… And I didn’t invite you here to be sad — you may have your reasons, I don’t doubt it, but as long as you’re with me leave your sorrow at home. I don’t want to know anything about your affairs; I don’t want to know who you are, what’s happening to you, or anything else — I’m not interested. We’ve got a deal, you and I, even if it’s not in writing. I guarantee to give you a certain sum of money and you in return guarantee to make me pass the evening pleasantly. Nothing else matters.” He said these words seriously, perhaps a little irritated by the fact that I had not appeared to be listening to him attentively enough.

  “But I’m not sad at all! Only it’s so smoky in here — and noisy — I feel a little dizzy,” I answered, without showing anything of the feelings that had stirred me.

  “Shall we go?” he asked anxiously. I said yes. He called the waiter immediately, paid the bill, and we left.

  “Shall we go to a hotel?” he asked me when we were out in the street.

  “No, no,” I answered quickly. I was frightened at the idea of having to show my papers; and anyway, I had already made up my mind in another direction. “Come to my place.”

  We got into a taxi and I gave my home address. As soon as the taxi started, he threw himself onto me, pawing me all over and kissing my neck. I could tell from his breath that he had had a lot to drink, and that he was drunk. He kept on calling me “baby,” a term usually only used with little girls, and on his lips it irritated me, sounded ridiculous and slightly profane. I let him have his way for a while, then, pointing to the chauffeur’s back, said, “Shouldn’t we wait until we get there?”

  He did not reply but fell heavily back against the cushions, red and congested in the face, as though suddenly attacked by an apoplectic fit. Angrily he muttered, “I pay him to take me where I want to go and not to busy himself with what’s going on in his taxi.” He was obsessed by the idea that
money — and more especially his money — could shut anyone’s mouth. I did not answer, and for the rest of the journey we sat stiffly beside one another without touching. The city lights flashed through the taxi windows, lit up our faces and hands for a moment, then were swallowed up again. It seemed strange to me to be beside that man whose very existence I had been unaware of a little time before and to be hurrying with such a man toward my own flat, to give myself to him as I would to my beloved. These reflections shortened the journey. I pulled myself together, amazed to see the taxi stop in the usual street before my door.

  “Don’t make a noise going in, because I live with my mother,” I said to Giacinti in the dark on the way upstairs.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” he answered.

  When we reached the landing I unlocked the door. Giacinti followed me, I took his hand and, without switching on the light, led him across the hallway to the door of my room, which was the first on the left. I made him enter first, turned on the bedside lamp, and standing in the doorway gave a kind of farewell look around at my furniture. Giacinti, delighted at finding a new, clean room when he had probably been afraid he would find himself surrounded by filthy, ramshackle furniture, sighed with satisfaction and threw his overcoat down on a chair. I told him to wait for me and went out of the room.