OLD
A WOMAN IN ROME
Maurice Rowdon..
1000 words.
It isn't easy being a woman in Rome---not a foreign
uoman, anyvay. As a native you know how to deal with the
problem. But even then you can make tactical mistakes.
The problem 18---how to nalk through the streets of Rome
alone, take a coffee alone, look at tho ruins alone, with
your own thoughts as you have them at home. You aron't
molested in Rome.
Italians don't molest. They're too
considerate, for one thing; for another, it's a clumay may
of trying to vin a voman.
They approach you - delio ately. Not always. But
usually. Are you English?
(You don't reply, of oourse).
American? Perhaps you are French? Parlez-vous franoais?
Sprechen-Sie Deutsch? Allora---you must be Italian, then--
Loi parla italianot You assume that after a few more
questions he will lost heart---or face (people are beginning
to notice). But he doesn't lose anything. Your silenoe
was an encouragement to him; without knowing it you committed
a tactical blunder.
Silence equals offering no resistance;
and offering no resistance (for a Roman) is half-way to boing
won.
You oan get up and leave, you can walk faster, but he
mey do the same. He may walk alongside you for half a mile
or more. He may talk the whole time without you giving him
one reply. But oven if he's talking a language you know


nothing about he'il make himself understood.
He has that
knack: this is the knaok of a people who've been invaded
many times and suffered many indignities (from the foreigner)
in silence. He's patient,
Sooner or later he will convey to you that he really
likes you---not you as any woman but you in yourself. You
will begin to understand---in pidgeon German, English or
gesture-Italian---that actually he made a choice when he came
up and spoke to you. Sooner or later you will have to walk
to your hotel or to a restaurant. A restaurant may scare
him off, as there is the question of a bill to be paid; but
Rome is becoming a prosperous oity and the bitter old days
of only having one suit and one white shirt to your name
(lovingly kept for Sundays) aro over.
And for all you know yourself you may have chenged your
feelings wi thout meaning to: you may have started to find
him---interesting---refreshingly confident---imaginative.
You may think---by this time---that he and you don't look
too bad side by side, walking along the street (rhich would
be impossible to think in London if you were just talked to
in that ney---yet---if only people were more forthooming...)
You may be finding his tolerance---his tolerance of your
silence and your presumably) haughty look---you may be
finding that very sympethetic, too. Then perhaps your
haughty look will begin to disappear. And he will notioe
this at once, to the second. His hour will have begun.
.He - asks no price for his company---he doesn't even ask
a the price.of your attention. and this simple lack of


ambition attracts you, You like him---to make things quite
clear---as a person. of course as a man--a male-ma bag of
Italian trioks---you know him too well to take him seriously.
But as a person he's worth_listening to. Then, after all, he
has seen something about you that, perhaps nobody else has
guite penetrated to; so perhaps he's not so simple, after all.
Perhaps not such a bag of tricks after all. And you're on
holiday. You can drop him at the next corner---today---to-
morrow.
Now this is all very vell for a holiday. But al ppose
you live in Rome? You can do what the Roman woman does in
the same situation: you can look straight ahead with a delib-
erate, hard, contemptuous scowl, as if you mouldn't even look
at a dog like that (you've got better thinge in mind---a rather
wounding thought, that). This does discourage. But even
then not always, For one thing you have to be quite mature
to do it, and you really have to feal the contempt.
And then
you are a foreigner, and not used to scowling at men,
So what do you do? rell, you can go to the police.
There was the case of the American girl who plodded all over
the ruins of the Colossoum trying to concentrate on them
while a young Roman followed her six inches away (his face
six inches away) talking in a kind of trembling passionate
undertone all the time: it is quite the thing to tell a
woman you've never clapped eyes on before that she's extra-
ordinerily beautiful, a real poach---as she's passing by;
you mey blook her path---in which case, 1f she's a Roman too,
she will walk round you without even giving you a glance.


But this American girl didn't know any of these things,
and she had come a long way to see the Colosseum. So she
went to the police, who had an office more or less in the
ruins, perhaps just for situations of that kind. And their
answer was, 'Do you wonder men follow a beautiful young woman
like you?' And they gave her a bunch of roses---took them
out of a pot on the teble---vrapped them up nicely and gave
them to her---somothing, they said, to romember them byt
Now you can't be annoyed at that kind of thing. But
it does stop you seeing the Colosseum if that's what you
really want to see. After all, you may be in Rome on
business. You may want to tcke pictures or prepare a
lec ture. How can you explain that to the young man when
you know he'd be only too happy to teke your photographs for
you and give you a (probably accurato) leoture not only on
every stone in the Colosseum you want to know about but evory
other encient building in Rome? Romens are the most wonder-
ful improvisers ih the world, after all. They've had to be.
There is one answer and one ansrer only. You buy a dog.
From that time on no young man will approach you, let alone
talk to you with his faoe six inches avay. At best he will
call out (fron inside a car) to ask whether your dog lays
eggs (a favourite question) or if his neme is Antonios You
don't have to scowl. You can even ansver the question.
And he won't approach you. He's far too afraid of dogs.
And if you are approached it will be by a man (probably very
polite, talking English, and middle-aged) who will enquire


about your dog, having one of his om.
But isn't this rather disappointing?