The Woman of Rome (Italia) Read online

  “You told me that before,” I interrupted him peevishly.

  But he was so carried away he did not notice my irritation. “The mistress never goes down into the basement — she gives her orders by phone. Everything in the kitchen is electric — our kitchen’s cleaner than most people’s bedrooms. But not only the kitchen! Even the mistress’s dogs are cleaner and better off than many people.” He spoke with admiration of his employers and with scorn of poor people; and, partly because of the comparison I kept on making between that house and my own, and partly because of his words, I felt very poor.

  We went up the staircase to the next floor. Gino put his arm round my waist and hugged me tight. And then, I don’t know why, I almost felt as if I were the mistress of the house just going upstairs with my husband, after some reception or dinner, on my way to spend the night with him in the same bed, on the next floor. As if he had guessed what I was thinking (Gino was always having these intuitions) he said, “And now let’s go to bed together — tomorrow they’ll bring us our coffee in bed.” I began to laugh, but almost hoped it would come true.

  I had put on my best dress that day to go out with Gino, and my best shoes, blouse, and silk stockings. I remember the dress was a two-piece, a black jacket and a black-and-white-check skirt. The material wasn’t too bad, but the dressmaker in our neighborhood who had cut it was not much more experienced than Mother. She had made a very short skirt, shorter at the back than in front, so that although my knees were covered, my thighs could be seen from behind. She had made the jacket extremely close-fitting, with wide lapels and such tight sleeves that they hurt my armpits. I felt as if I were bursting out of the jacket; and my breasts stuck out as if a piece of the jacket were missing. My blouse was a very plain one, made of some cheap pink stuff, without any embroidery, and my best white cotton petticoat showed through it. My shoes were black and shiny, the leather was good but the shape old-fashioned. I had not got a hat and my wavy chestnut-brown hair hung loose over my shoulders. It was the first time I had worn the dress and I was very proud of it. I thought myself very smart and could not help imagining everyone turned round in the street to look at me. But as soon as I entered the bedroom of Gino’s mistress and saw the enormous downy bed with its embroidered silk coverlet, embroidered linen sheets and all those gossamer draperies flowing down over the head of the bed, and saw myself reflected three times over in the triple mirror standing on the dressing table at the end of the room, I realized I was dressed like a scarecrow, my pride in my rags was ridiculous and pitiful, and I thought I would never again be able to call myself happy unless I could dress well and live in a house like this. I almost felt like crying; I sat down on the bed in bewilderment, without saying a word.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Gino, sitting down beside me and taking my hand.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I was looking at a peasant I happen to know.”

  “Who?” he asked in amazement.

  “There,” pointing to the mirror in which I could see myself seated on the bed beside Gino; and really, we both looked like a couple of hairy savages who had wandered into a civilized house by mistake, but I looked worse than he did.

  This time he understood the feeling of depression, envy, and jealousy that was tormenting me.

  “Don’t look at yourself in that mirror,” he said as he put his arms round me. He feared for the outcome of his plans and did not realize that nothing could have been more favorable to them than my present feeling of humiliation. We kissed one another and the kiss revived my courage, because I felt that after all I loved and was loved.

  But a little later when he showed me the bathroom, which was as big as an ordinary room, with its white, shining tiles and the built-in bath with nickel-plated faucets; and when he opened one of the closets and showed me his mistress’s dresses, packed tight together, the sensation of envy and of my own poverty returned and made me feel quite desperate. I was suddenly overcome by a desire to think no more about these things; and for the first time I wanted, consciously, to become Gino’s mistress, partly so as to forget my own condition and partly in order to persuade myself that I, too, was free and capable of doing what I liked, despite the sense of slavery that was weighing me down. I could not wear beautiful clothes or have a house like that, but at least I could make love as the rich did, and perhaps better than they.

  “Why show me all these clothes?” I asked Gino. “What do they matter to me?”

  “I thought you’d be curious to see what they’re like,” he replied, rather disconcerted.

  “I’m not at all interested in them,” I said. “They’re lovely, but I didn’t come here to look at clothes.”

  I saw his eyes light up as I spoke.

  “I’d rather see your room,” I added carelessly.

  “It’s in the basement,” he replied eagerly, “Shall we go down?”

  I looked at him in silence for a moment and then asked him with a newly found forthright kind of manner I disliked in myself, “Why are you playing the fool with me?”

  “But I —” he began uneasily, in surprise.

  “You know better than I do that we didn’t come here to look over the house or admire your mistress’s dresses, but to go to your room and make love — well, then, let’s just go do it then, right now, and stop talking about it.”

  In this way, all in a moment, through having seen the house, I changed from the shy, ingenuous girl I had been when I entered it. I was amazed at the change and hardly recognized myself. We left the room and began to go downstairs. Gino put his arm around my waist and kissed me on every step — I do not think anyone ever went down a stairway more slowly. When we reached the ground floor Gino opened a doorway concealed in the wall and, still kissing me and holding me by the waist, led me down the back stairs into the basement. It was evening, and the basement was dark. We reached Gino’s room at the end of a long passage, without putting on any lights, our arms still around one another, his mouth on mine. He opened the door, we entered, I heard him close it behind us. We stood there in the dark for some time, kissing one another. It was an endless kiss, every time I wanted to stop he started again; and every time he wanted to stop, it was I who went on. Then Gino pushed me toward the bed and I let myself fall on to it.

  Gino kept on whispering in my ear, most provocatively, words of endearment and persuasion, with the obvious purpose of bewildering me and preventing me from noticing that, meanwhile, he was trying to undress me. But this was quite unnecessary, first of all because I had made up my mind to give myself to him, and then because I hated all those clothes I had liked so much before, and I was dying to be rid of them. Naked, I thought, I would be as beautiful, if not more beautiful, than Gino’s mistress and all the other rich women in the world. In any case, my body had been waiting for this moment for months now, and I felt that despite myself, it was quivering with impatience and repressed desire like a chained and starving animal, which finally, after a long fast, is set free and given food.

  For this reason, the act of love seemed entirely natural to me, and my physical pleasure was not accompanied by any feeling that I was doing something unusual. On the contrary, I seemed to be doing things I had already done, I did not know where or when, maybe in another life, just as sometimes certain landscapes seem familiar whereas you are really seeing them for the first time in your life. This did not prevent me from loving Gino passionately, fiercely, kissing him, biting him, crushing him in my arms almost to the point of suffocation. He, too, seemed to be swept away by the same rage of possession. And so we embraced one another violently in that dark little room, buried beneath two floors of the empty, silent house, goading our bodies in innumerable ways like two enemies struggling for life and trying to hurt each other as much as possible.

  But as soon as our desire was satisfied and we lay beside one another, drowsy and exhausted, I became terribly afraid that now Gino had had me, he would no longer want to marry me. So I began to talk about the house we would live
in after the wedding.

  The villa belonging to Gino’s mistress had made a deep impression upon me, and I was quite convinced now that there could be no happiness except among beautiful, clean things. I realized we would never be able to own a house or even a single room like that house, but the brightness of the villa even more than its luxury had given me a welter of ideas. I tried to convince Gino that cleanliness could make even ugly objects look beautiful; but what I really wanted was to convince myself, since I was in despair at the idea of my own poverty and I knew that marrying Gino would be the only way out of it. “Even two rooms can be beautiful,” I said, “if they’re properly kept, with the floors washed down every day, all the furniture dusted and the brass polished and everything kept tidy, the plates in their proper places, the dusters in their proper places, clothes and shoes all in their proper places — the main thing is to sweep thoroughly and wash the floors and dust everything every day. You don’t have to judge by the house where Mother and I live — Mother’s untidy and anyway, she never has the time, poor thing. But our house’ll shine like a mirror, I can promise you that much.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Gino, “cleanliness comes first. Do you know what the mistress does if she finds a speck of dust in some corner? She calls the chambermaid, makes her go down on her knees and pick it up with her hands — as if she were a dog who’d gone to the bathroom in the house. And she’s quite right.”

  “I’m sure my house’ll be even cleaner and tidier than that,” I said. “You’ll see.”

  “But you’re going to be an artists’ model,” he said to tease me. “And you won’t bother with the house at all.”

  “A model!” I replied sharply. “I’m not going to be a model any more. I’ll stay at home all day and keep it clean and tidy for you and cook for you — Mother says that means I’ll be your servant — but if you love someone, even being a servant can be a pleasure.”

  So we stayed chatting for a long time; and little by little my fear dwindled, giving way to my usual charmed and innocent trustfulness. How could I doubt him? Gino not only agreed to all my plans, but discussed the details, improved on them, added others of his own.

  After we had rambled on for a couple of hours, or thereabouts, I dropped off to sleep and I think Gino also slept. We were wakened by a ray of moonlight that came in through the basement window and lit up the bed and our bodies lying there. Gino said it must be very late; and in fact the alarm clock on the night table showed that it was a few minutes past midnight. “What on Earth will Mother do to me!” I exclaimed, jumping out of bed and beginning to dress in the moonlight.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve never stayed out so late in all my life. I never go out in the evening.”

  “You can tell her we went out for a ride in the car,” said Gino as he got up, “and it broke down right out in the country.”

  “She won’t believe it.”

  We hurried out of the villa and Gino took me home in the car. I was sure Mother would not believe the tale about the car having broken down; but I did not imagine that her intuition would have led her to guess exactly what had happened between Gino and me. I had the keys of the front door and of the apartment. I went in, raced up the two flights of stairs and opened the door. I hoped Mother was already in bed, and my hope was strengthened by finding the house in pitch darkness. Without turning on the light, I started to go on tiptoe toward my own room, when I felt myself seized violently by the hair. In the dark my mother, for it was she, dragged me into the living room, threw me onto the sofa and began to strike me with her fists, in a tempest of fury, without once giving vent to a single word. I tried to defend myself with my arm, but Mother, as if she could see what I was doing, always found a way of delivering some nasty blow from underneath that got me full in the face. At last she grew tired and I felt her sit down beside me on the sofa, panting heavily. Then she got up, went and lit the lamp in the middle of the room, and came to sit beside me, with her hands on her hips, staring at me. I felt full of shame and embarrassment as she watched me, and tried to pull down my dress and tidy myself up.

  “I bet you and Gino have been making love,” she said in her usual voice.

  I wanted to say yes, it was true; but I was afraid she would hit me again; and now it was light, I was more afraid of the precision of her blows than of the pain itself. I hated the idea of walking about with a black eye, especially before Gino.

  “No, we haven’t — the car broke down during the trip and made us late,” I replied.

  “And I say you’ve been making love.”

  “We haven’t.”

  “Yes, you have — go and look at yourself in the mirror — you’re green!”

  “I’m tired — but we haven’t been making love.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “We haven’t.”

  What astonished and rather worried me was that she showed no indignation while she kept on insisting like this, but only a strong and by no means idle curiosity. In other words, Mother wanted to know whether I had given myself to Gino, not in order to punish me or reproach me with it, but because, for some hidden motive of her own, she simply had to know. But it was too late; and although I was sure by now that she would not hit me again, I continued obstinately to deny it. All at once Mother stepped forward and made as if to take me by the arm. I raised my hand to protect myself, but she only said, “I won’t touch you — don’t be afraid. Come along with me.”

  I did not understand where she wanted to take me, but, since I was frightened, I obeyed her all the same. Still holding me by the arm, she led me out of the apartment, made me go downstairs, and accompanied me into the street. It was deserted at this time of night, and I realized immediately that Mother was hurrying me along the pavement toward the little red light burning outside the chemist’s shop where the first-aid station was. I made a last effort to resist her when we were on the chemist’s doorstep, and dug my feet in, but she gave me a push and I entered, all of a heap, almost falling on my knees. Only the pharmacist and a young doctor were in the shop.

  “This is my daughter. I want you to examine her,” Mother said to the doctor.

  The doctor made us go into the back room where the first-aid bed was.

  “Tell me what’s the matter — what must I examine her for?” he asked Mother.

  “She’s bee making love with her fiancé, the little bitch, and she says she hasn’t,” shouted Mother. “I want you to examine her and tell me the truth.”

  The doctor began to be amused, his lips twitched as he smiled and said, “But this isn’t a diagnosis — it’s a matter for a specialist.”

  “Call it what you like,” answered Mother, shouting at the top of her voice all the time. “I want you to examine her — aren’t you a doctor? Don’t you have to examine the people who ask you to?”

  “Calm yourself.… What’s your name?” He turned to me.

  “Adriana,” I answered. I was ashamed but not deeply. Mother’s scenes were as well known in the whole neighborhood as my own mildness of temper.

  “And suppose she has? continued the doctor, who seemed aware of my embarrassment and was trying to avoid making the examination. “What’s the harm? They’ll get married later on, and it’ll all end well.”

  “Mind your own business.”

  “Keep calm, keep calm!” repeated the doctor pleasantly. Then turning to me, “You see your mother really wishes it — so take your things off, I won’t be a moment and then you can go.”

  I summoned up all my courage. “All right, then,” I said, “I have made love — let’s go home, Mother.”

  “Not at all, my dear!” she said authoritatively. “You’ve got to be examined.”

  Resignedly I let my skirt fall to the ground and stretched myself on the bed. The doctor examined me.

  “You were right,” he then said to Mother. “She has — now are you satisfied?”

  “How much?” asked Mother, taking out her purse. Meanwhile I slipped off
the bed and put on my clothes again. But the doctor refused to take the money.

  “Do you love your fiancé?” he asked me.

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “When are you getting married?”

  “He’ll never marry her,” shouted Mother. But I replied calmly, “Soon — when we’ve got our papers ready.” There must have been so much ingenuous trust in my eyes that the doctor laughed indulgently, gave me a little pat on the cheek, and then pushed us out.

  I expected Mother to cover me with insults as soon as we reached home and perhaps even hit me again. But instead there she was, silently lighting the gas and beginning to cook me something. She put on a saucepan, then came into the living room and, having removed the usual bits of cloth from the end of the table, she laid a place for me. I was sitting on the sofa onto which she had dragged me by the hair a little while before and was watching her in silence. I was very much surprised, not only because she did not scold me, but because her whole face reflected some strangely unrepressed and bubbling satisfaction. When she had finished laying the table, she went back into the kitchen and after a while returned with a dish.

  “Now eat.”

  As a matter of fact, I was very hungry. I got up and went to sit down, rather awkwardly, on the chair Mother was urging me to take. There were a piece of meat and two eggs in the dish, an unusual dinner.

  “It’s too much,” I said.

  “Eat — it’ll do you good — you need something,” she answered. Her good temper was quite extraordinary, perhaps a little malicious but in no way hostile.