THE
VILLA


THE VILLA.
When I arrived today I noticed that the house was cleaner
than I knew it last year. This is due to the new manservant
called Renato whom I saw serving at table---it surprised me--
when I came into the room from the garden. He was dressed in
a white and blue striped jacket, like the silent manservant of
a palazzo that has survived the war. He was the first person
I saw when: I got to the top of the steps. There is never much
light over the dining table, and he was standing just at its edge
small, wi th a rather prim mouth and crusading eyes.
A great cry went up fram the table, from Luciana, from
Arturo, Vittoria, Angelina, Maddalena, Silvia, Nina and Michele,
and I forgot the manserva nt at once. The little boy Dino is now
eight, and he hid his head in his mother's lap When I came in,
then ran halfway up the stairs in the dim light, and crouched there,
watching me while I answered all their questions at table. I
remember him last year as being mor e cruel than shy, but now the
with it
shyness seems to have gr own, and gixeuxhkmx a sort of graciousness.
them
That is like all of them. 'Oriental barbarians', I heard someone
Arture
calll taen once, but somewhere each of them, even the marchese
himself, whom most people find stupid and slow, has this gift of
grace: there is nothing benevolent about it, but it seems civilised--
for a moment, like a sudden acknowledgement of civilisation bef ore
war breaks out. I've often looked at their hands. They are thick
and extraordinarily heavy, very wide at the base, like butchers'
hands --- or Roman aristocrats'.
Only Luciana, the marchese's wife, is different, and she's
the power of the family. Everything starts from her; she can bring
light or darkness to them as she Wishes. When she goes away the


family relapses into its real ugliness. They mope about the
house uneasily, there is a sense of waiting for something, the
servants are hostile and rebellious, there are quarrels all the
time, and I think only the certainty of Luciana's return keeps
them together at all. Under her cool eye, as she sits at the end
of the table, they look like violent children Who are allowed
their say but no more. Luciana has lovely hands, and strangers
are always asking kow she could have married the marchese
and,
more than that, how she could have borne living With him all this
time. Usually she says quite frankly that he disgusts her, and
that sle eeping with him, Which happens rarely, is a necessary
penance for her. The spirit goes out of him when she leaves.
And he seems frightened when she suggests a holiday for herself---
just two days, three days. In this he is like his two daughters,
Angelina and Maddalena, wh LO share his great hands and nervous,
strained watchfulness, and like him never seem to have a moment's real
nan peace,
E*XX) and have no sense of art at all, like people rejected
by God, wondering at all the mystery outside them and why they
aren't part of it, and often hating it. All three turn to
Luciana for their peac e. They only find it in her, and this is
why, when she goes away, even for a day, they se em panic-stricken,
as if their feelings Will run auay with them and they have no
form, nothing to fall back on but hard, brittle thoughts, about
the dirty state of the kitchen, or the time of the next train in
from Rome, or the fact that the beds haven't been made. They
look malesolent, broken, rejected; and you can't address a word
to them. They 're broodingntoo deeplyo
Luciana Works harder than any of them and bears all the
wogries of the household, and applies her mind nearly every hour
of the waking day to keeping them all out of debt. She would


so clearly benefit from a holiday. But it seems they can't
treat her wi th the mercy th ey would give to other people, they
need her so badly. Especially Maddalena sulks when she goes
I remember last year,
away. TXOXEEX*HTEEXRAYEEXREYEXBED when Luciana went enarg to Naples
for a couple joxrercse days, she wouldn't say good-morning to any
daughter's
of us; and Luciana had hery mute, resentful eyes waiting for her
when she got back.
Maddalena is called the Inglese by the family, because she
is tall and thin and has never had a man. This is why, they all
say, she is never gay; after a certain age virgins are never gay.
Her sister Angelina is much prettier, with blond hair and a neat
Young men often
little face. SMEXIEXXEE*X*#) fall pt in love wi th her, so her
complay is less solemn and pessimistic than Maddalena's, and she
understands her mother better and is less jealous of her enjoyment.
Maddalena is twenty-nine, and Angelina one or two years younger,
yet neither of them goes out wi th young men alone. Maddalena has
a long, melancholy face, not at all pretty, yet her body has cool,
gen tle lines, and there's an elegance about her which she could
turn to beauty if the spirit hadn't been beaten out of her. There
is an unfathomable dark apathy about her like the silence of the
sky. I think the family made fun of her looks when she was a
child and nothing could convince her that she isn't ugly and
unwanted; she seems to try to cancel herself out, saying nothing
and slipping up to bed early, and she is bitterly aware of
Angelina's prettiness, a light which dims her even more, sending
her deeper still into herself, though she doesn't really resent
it. Apart perhaps from Luciana she is the only pers on of quality
among them. She holds her own counsel. She feels hate like the
others, and the same need to be cruel, but at the same time there
is this brooding quietbin her, a resignation, that gives her a


certain delicacy, a sour Wisdom.
The hatred in the house is bitter, sneering and murderbus,
SO strong and sure and deep a necessity in them that nothing human
could abate it. I've seen Signora Flavia, the grandmother, a
small, fat woman in black, dusty, threadbare clothes down to her
feet, sitting in the kitchen screaming wi th rage, her mouth in a
kind of grin, with tears pouring down her face, stamping her feet
up and down on the stone floor as she shouted, 'I'm a cbuntess,
a countess!' A lot of the hate and petty persecuation in the
house comes from her, and she tries to influence her son against
other people, especially those whom Luciana likes and offers
hospitality to. This is Signora Flavia's revenge on her daughter-
in-lawf, whom she feels has been a bad wife. The marchese only
listens to half what she says, but he has been hurt enough by his
wife in the last twenty years not to hear that voice as a balm.
Some people say he 's too dense to have suffered, but this isn't
true. It makes him more vulnerable, if anything.
Last year I remember that Sigora Flavia often attacked
Michele, the fourteen-year-old son Who shares Luciana's grace
and ease, and even her peace. He is slim, quite tall for his
age, handsome in a rough way, and his hands aren't those of a
butcher, or a Roman aristocrat's for that matter. I noticed
very soon after I saw him for the first time how little of his
father he seemed to have in him, how rebellious he was, how
qui ick to un derstand, unlike the others; and also there was a
tenderness in him which was quite absent in the others. He's
deliberately rude to them, espec ially to his father, and he is
always shouting, trying to cadge money or cigareetes, eating great
chunks of bread and marmalade or tomatoes covered with oil,
and when he walks it is with a comic roguish slouch, usually
with his shirt hanging out of his trousers. Signora Flavia


complained that he was dirty at table and that his manners were
nothing compared with those of his little brother Dino, Which
was untrue. If Dino cried Michele was always blamed, and the
whole family wi th the exception of Luciana and Angelina Would
bear down on him, calling him villainand wretch. I noticed that
Maddalena often lectured him in her saurly delicate way, as if
for the pleasure of exereising a bit of power over somebody.
But the leader of the persecution---a quite kindly persecution---
isn't
was Signora Flavia, the reason being that Michele Kasatt the
av all,
marchese's son, but the illegitimate child of one of Luciana's
love affairs---with a peasant living near by. Both Luciana
and Angelina try to protect him, and for this reason he loves them
both with a quiet, fierce passion. People say that the peasant
wanted to have his child but the marchese insisted on keeping him,
after endless argumen ts in which the peasant rudely banged the
table and threatened violence.
The marchese has never been known to lay a finger on Michele,
and
either he's blind to humiliation or he conceals it marvell-
ously. He waits for things to pass over, with a natural pragmatism,
and always tries to keep out of quarrels. Bat When I say to people
that there may be an unusual wisdom in this, they say,'No, it's
just laziness and moral ineptitude.' All I know is that when I
Some
get indignant at table because of gonaoogre rudeness he's the one
A stange man :
I C
to make the first soothing, tactful remark. Although lecherous
th ough ts seem to be in his head most of the
d although he
hoards photographs of brautiful women and pores over them for haurs
alone in his bedroom, sometimes projecting them on to the wall as
slides, he is horrified by dirty stories at table and by any laughing
about the body. He likes to take it with deadly seriousness.
When Vittoria, his sister, gets a little drunk af ter dinner and


takes her breast out of her dress to show us what a young and
tender body she still has, he turns his head away abruptly and
won't join in the laughter.
When a really pretty young woman comes to the house he invites
her to look at his photographs, which people say really are superb
(he won't show them to men---except to the local monks who invite
him over to dinner now and then to see the new ones), and which
include some of the loveliest and most aristocratic woman in the
city. And he may then ask her to pose herself, which after she
has heard the names of kke some of the other women comes as an
honour. If she agrees he takes a long time fixing the focus of
the camera, while he is act tually peering at her bosom. At
table he flirts wi th them, sits them down next to him, pa ts their
arms, touches their hair lightly, puts his hand on their shoulders.
Usually they suffer this in silence, for after all he's the head
of the house; and on their second visit they keep away from his
end of the table, under Luciana's protection, which gratifies her.
He asks them to com for a ride on his motor-scobter and if they
agree he takes them to a long deep-green field a few kilometeres
south and tries to make love to th em, almost always unsuccessfully.
He is bald and has white, staring eyes and a rat ther loose mouth,
and he walks with his back very s traight, as he used to in the
military processions when he was in the king's escort. All over
the house there are photographs of him in officer's NHfirm uniform.
Most women seem frightened of him, although perhaps he's the least
frightening member of the family; Luciana told me that when he
was young he was brutal wit th her in love, and that his first act
disgusted her. I wonder if this is true. Never trust what a
woman says about her husband if she doesn't love him---he taen
bec ome: S the personification of aa her disappointments.
He likes to keep on the right side of church-dogma even


etaen in his decheries, and I've heard him explain to a young
for
woman that it would right and good of her to let him make love to
her since, having been in the king's escort, when there was a king,
he'd been brought close to the Vatican, and to influential monstgn-
for
ori, so that in a way contact with him would bring them nearer to
her
God, or at least get #ea a plenary indulgence. Tke Last year I
heard him tell a pretty girl hardly out of school, running his
fingers lightly down her throat, that she shouldn't be offended
hex
if he kissed, because God, having made her a woman, intended her as
Piim
an object of love for men, which put
obligation on men not to
ernt
as he
behave too formally and stiffly with vopen, especially irtheg
faund her
happened tere beautiful psslyorznygarpasern, and that it
was better to risk offence (seizing the girl's head and planting
a kiss first on her forehead and then on her lips) than fail to
encourage
erhance a W oman's beauty wherever WVORES possihle.
The family laughs at this and never tries to protect the
girl. And Luciana doesn't seem a scrap jealous. Only is she
flirted would the family look up, speechlessly, wa tching their
bel oved leave them again, and the foothold of their world slip
away. When someone asked her once how such ugly, restless
people could ever have issued from her she said, 'It's bec ause
they were conceieved without love.' Only Michele was conceived
in love, however momentary. And he has her same peace, as I say,
the same slight dreaming bey ondness. I noticed him this morning
sitting in an armchair by the hearth doing his schoolwork, and
for a time the house was in utter silence. He was looking out
of the feench wind lows, lost, and the room seemed to rest in its
silence; srea ket gEy, a I thought how none of the others could
aler have achieved that. They walk ab out quickly and awkwardly,
remarks in
voices.
making their guiEk short, quick, ahe arp
ugly
I've seen a look of tenderness in Angelina's face only once,


last year, when there were a number of people in to tea, and one
orthem, a smiling, aunt-like, constantly nodding and surprised
woman, was talking to her closely; and Angelina fetched out a
tiny, shining compact radio she'd bought some Notk months before,
to show her, with its golden aerial and # green leather case no
bigger than a woman's handbag. She plugged it in, pulled out the
aerial and began turning the dials and pressing spring-buttons.
And all the time she played wi th her shining little box and the
other woman clapped her hands together and uttered aunt-like cries,
there was a tender, bemused, shy look on her face as if this was
all her own handiwork, something to do with her personally---wibh
her prettiness and health even. I don't think I've ever seen her
face So shy, like that of a child being praised before too many
relatives; usually her face is strained ab out the eyes, hard,
seeming to dwell on hard subjects, like how much tea there is left
in the cannister after I've been at it, Whether the dogs outside
have bee en fed, whether she has time to go to the local town for
anoth er electric plug, whether the 'servants' have been stealing.
Perhaps this is why th e young men are seldom in love with her for
titaly,
long. I heard one of them say indignanglgy making the rest of
us roar wi th laughter, that she couldn't bring forth a child but
white maggots! : When we had a visitor last year she said he was
dirty in his habits and that he used to piss out of his Window
(which would have be en easy, as the sill aes only a foot or so
above the ground), and that the Siamese cat used to smell whenever
it had been in his room for long (implying he was sexually per-
verted); to which he said that she had a mind as big as his thumb-
nail.
But she has a curiosity ab out people Which I like. She
watches them inquisitively, ra ther like a child, wants to know
about them, is rarely envious. Perhaps that was taught her by


Luciana, for it isn't true of the marchese. She isnso content
to watch other people that she curls herself up in a chair some-
ahispered
times and seems to cancel herself out, as if someone had breethd
any mote
in her ear that she'd better give up trying toenterlisemnse'd
Tals) never really have children, take trains alone, pay her own bills.
Yet
gocs
Aad this childishness Sont with a much more practical nature than
Maddalena's.
Kn Luciana and I often talked ab out the family last year,
just as if it wasn't hers: how rude they'd been to the visitor,
talking ab out him in whispers, calling him wretch, filthy beast,
pervert, parasite; and how when he came to meals they made him
feel unwanted and more or less threw food at him. When I asked
her once if they had much sense of other people's feelings she
They only feel it if they're hurt.'
said, 'No, none whatsoever e Tkugxxm2azonigrhEzTeZ2IgXBIEIEXB
And she added that perhaps it was best to be like that, aware
only of oneself, yet relying on other people's mercy. I said,
no, there was nothing lucky ab out that because they must be
unhappy people, bssag incapable of love. I remember she shrugged
and murmured, 'Unhappy no, but neither very hap ppy nor very sad,
just on one level of ordinariness all the time.' Than she added
as she went away into the kitchen, and this surprised me, , 'People
may as well be dead as live like that.'
I've often seen Angelina staring at the floor, bent forward
a little, smoking an American cigarette, her yellow bleached hair
falling down her cheeks (in a fashion that went out years ago),
a te rrible darkness seeming to surround her. There is somethig
unbearably sad ab out the silence of these two sisters. They se
Seeardooge regretting something---s somet thing which perhaps they've
never known but which they feel in their mother, in a few dumb
intimations, not told them in words.
In the marchese there is no sadness, justvas there is little


humour. He has no ideas, even the religious ones he professes.
His God was a habit he picked up over the years, as he picked up
the habit of flirtation. I've never seen anything even momentar-
ily reflective in his face, no dream, Wh: ich is why his company
tends to be suffocating. I notice that a few seconds after he
table
has left XXXXeXRIT to go to bed visitors sit better in their chairs
and smile for the first time.. He lives in a strange, bare, friend-
less world, the lackey of his own dark thoughts. Last year I
remember Luciana leaning over towards me and saying as he openedd
the door into the room, 'When he comes in it's like death passigg
over the table. You can see everyone go stiff and a bit afraid.'
I said nothing and looked away.
Every afternoon when he comes in for lunch he calls his
youngest son over to him and asks what he has been up to; he pats
his head and kisses him, looks theatrically surprised when he is
supposed to, the whites of his eyes showing and his mouth drawn
down; and sometimes he pulls him on to his knee and tells him a
story wi th grand gestures, his chin lifted up, speaking rhetorically,
rolling out his r's, depicting great men, so that the child stares
into hig S eyes and dares not make a movement for fear of breaking
spell.
comes
the bypogr When Mich ele RANE in late the marchese always bubbles
and
OVE er with questi ons, , wanting to know exactly where and what/why,
poring over his ans wers with rapt, dark, tender curiosity. I
remember a feast-day las st year in the village, down by the fountain,
where there are a few houses, a wooden village-hall and a petrol
a crowd collected there after lunch for games and C ompetit-
pump;
ions. Michele was wearing his first suit, borrowed from a rich
friend
young man, a remed of Angelina's, who happened to be abnormally
small. The suit fitted perfectly and made him look debonair,
but his white shirt was frayed at the collar and was too tight
round the neck, So he took off the tie, then, since it was hot,


the jacket. He came back after dark, when the fireworks were
over, and dropped S traight into a chair While the marchese began
asking him the usual quiet questions---shouting at him suddenly,
'Michele!', when he didn't reply. Had he been dancing? at whose
house? what girls were there? did he enjoy it? had he been diink-
ing, for he looked so tired? how many glasses had he taken? And
when they boy told himf, 'Two large glasses f he shrugged and said,
'Well, that's half a litre, enough for a small boy not used to it!'
Then he glanced across at. Luciana, wi th the very si ightest of smiles,
and murmured, 'E sbronzo', he's drunk. Michele didn't deny it,
only put his head in his hands and yawned. Then, sudèenly, he
got up and dashed away to his bedroom, Where he slept at once.
I like the way the marchese screws up his face when he asks
questions, as if piecing together a world he left long ago because
in no longer
of its disappointments, ktes paéty having noble families in charge.
And I noticed that when the grandmother asked him who had Won the
greasy-pole competition at the village he shrugged and murmured,
'Oh, some wretch...', then imi ta ted a peasant-accent in the ugliest
way possible.
I think it must be from him that Dino, the little boy, gets
his wonderful ma ture gestures, as if he already had a place, in the
world. The marchese has taught him pride in himself, and I
remember how one day last year the child rushed in from the
kitchen after Renato the 'servant' had told him to come into lunch,
and cried out with tears in his eyes, 'A servant must never speak
to me like that!' The marchese forbids Luciana to lay a finger
on the children, and they find it easy to confuse and browbeat
him. I've often heard them shout at him, and then he grows very
mild, trying to calm them down, a little afraid, because this is
the defiance he has taught them himself. They have no fear of
him, and when they really get beyond themselves and behave like


devils Luciana takes them into another room and closes the door,
th en gives them a thrashing wi th a cane, and promises them another
one twice as hard if they tell their father about it. They fear
both her and Angelina, because they get beatings from both. The
possibility of a beating gives just that tough edge to life that
the boys seem to need, and I've seen Dino put his bare, dirty feet
on the tablecloth so that Luciana will give him a cuff. Then,
after she has done it, he comes and curls up in her chair, at her
back, wi th his arms round her Heck, and often falls asleep like
that, and stays there until Angelina puts him on her shoulders
and carries him to bed. The marchese is a loving outside-to them
all, and they tell him every sort of lie, sometimes in connivance
wi th Luciana, knowing how credulous he is.
Last night the little boy and I were the only ones at
table for dinner, and all the time he played the padrone, talking
to me with great politeness, asking if I was enjoying the spaghetti,
calling out to the servants in a loud, commanding voice, his little
chin pushed forward, and making them come to my side of the table,
to ask if I wanted a second helping. And they obeyed him.
Towards the end of the dinner he called out to Nella, Renato's
wife, a small, really animal creature with a man's voice, and shen
she came to the table she leaned over him and said quietly, her
teeth gritted together, 'Remember you're nine and a half, nine and
a half', but ne vertheless she gave him exactly the number of
stuffed tomatoes he asked for, with some olive oil and sauce. He
sat so authoritatively in his chair, his back quite straight, his
once
but taking her
eyes clear and black, neverAlooking up at her, PHEXEEEXMIRxmingxtike
obedience for grantedo) giHAgehis Drdars
sixxpenpiexase82Nx0X0X28 4E X a1 pzthetx


Aim. Then he came into my room, Which leads off the dining
room, and told me about the family's visit to Ponza, the island
that is three-hours boat-ride from Anzio, how he had seen a great
ship, the Cristofero Colombo, on its way to America, and how the
of his own froat
pilot had throttled the engine Wareso as they drew near to
the island-shore, and how smoothly theby had swerved towards the
land, bobbing up and down slightly, on a sea utterly blue, the
rocks showing a S trange red under the water, soft and shimmering,
and the island green and brown, huge and humped, before them.
He asked me whether London was also an island in the sea, as he'd
heard, and I said, 'No, but it has a riverytzxziexmantenztex kADN
9 and boats along it.' He wanted to know if these boats had
engines and I said, 'Yes.' He nodded and murmured, staring at
the ceiling, lost in the silent and hot Boom, 'Ah, then they're
motorboats, launches---motoscafi, scialuppe?' And after that he
turned towards the wall and went to sleep; like a child in a
drifting, oarless rowb oa t on the calmest and darkest of rivers,
windless and unpeopled. I leaned back on my pillow, my feet up
and read a little, then
on the bed, *XEXXTEROXEXI***I*
Maddalena came in from Work,
knocked at my door and carried him upstairs.
The rest of the family were out. The marchese was at the
sea with friends from the 'office', and wouldn't be back until
the last train at midnight. Mich ele was at the cinema, where
ia musical was showing, and Luciana had gone with the marchese's
Hense
sister Vittoria Pwno alse Hves the *EE and Angelina to
a house at the back, behind the vineyard, where they W ere invited
to dinner and drinks. While I was,reading, after Dino had been
taken off to bed, I heard laughter an d music C oming from beyond
the vines, and I thought how this sound no longer made me feel
lonky and abandoned as it used to once. There was a mervellous
silence in the house, something very rare. The house is capable


of everything, has known everything from brutality to the
lightest infatuation.
The other day Luciana came into my room at sundown, after
I had opened my shutters to let in the cool air, and leaned out
of the window, looking at the peach trees, with the garden lying
in an uncust omary stillness, and said, 'I love my house, you know...'
It's true, these silent pauses make one love the house.
I remember last night tenderly, how the pillow felt against
my back, how Rxd I and the book in my hand and the silence and
the slight wind that went through the bushes just below my wi ndow,
bringing in gusts of music and laughter, were all one dream.
The marchese's attitude towards me has changed gor-t
since last year, and I'm sure this is due to Luciana's subtle
persuasions. He no longer watches me as he used to, and he
even tells me confidences about other people smetameth especially
ab out young Women, which woulaphave been impos ssible Before. I
think he believed last year that I was making love either to his
wife, who is nearly twenty years older than me, or to Angelina,
which at least was feasible. I remember how he used to follow me
about the house and how he would always call down to Luciana if
she and I stayed up la te takking together. He hated to hear us
talk in whispers, in the silence of the house, and God knows what
went through his head. Now we stay up talking until the earl ly
hours and he never once calls down to her that she must get some
sleep, that she'll be fit for nothing in the morning, that it
isn't right, it isn't right! Somehow she convinced him of the
silliness of his fears, and apart from that he has seen me with
girls in town,
IXXEEXRIXEX
and hears that I'm attracted to this one and not to
that, and so forth.
During the day I am always given Angelina's room to work
in, and this was the same last year. It always pained him then,


that I should be going into the women's quaterts with my young
manhood and using their dressing-table as a desk, and sleeping
on their bed after hunch. I worked hard last year and went out
very little, which gave him more opporunituy to imagine me up to
no good. I remember one evening reading something aloud to
myself, alone in her room, and realising aft ter a time that I could
he heard outside. Angelina was late in from Work that evening,
and I heard him walk along the corridor and pause outside my dopr, 9
listening. He apparently didn't know that she was still out of
the house. I stopped reading aloud, then decided to find out if
he really had been listening. I got up and went across to the
lavatory, which is opposite her door. His bedroom is at the end
of the corridor, and as I passed across I glanced to my right and
saw him standing there, buttoning his shirt in the mirror and at
the same time staring down the corridor. I locked the lavatory
door, then heard him waik down to Angelina's room, enter it,
and
ing
tRen leave again ehad gg back to his bedroom. After a time I
oeud
came out and returned to the room, closing the door, whega
heard him walk down the corridor once again and look this time
in the lavatory, presumably to see if I and his daughter had g one
in there together. By now he was bewildered, and felt himself in
the middle of a plot. He suddenly pushed the door of my room
open, imitated a look of surprise at finding me there and then
began fiddling uselessly with some cases on the floor. I'm sure
he wanted to dook under the bed but lacked the neck.
Last year I thought him a sort of monster, creating a World
in his own image, but now I know this isn't true, and that his
otkas people's
belief inAlechery A
a x muera is a kind of hope.
At lunch last Sunday he was talking to me about a young woman they
know who lives in Rome wi th her mother, and said she was 'very
Roman indeed', that is to say, Intelligent, passionate and


cunning#t" no one knew how many men she'd had, she was always
SO secret in her comings and goings, she. was charming to everyone
and gave the impression of sweetness and good will, but she could
embrace one man on Monday and another on Tuesday, without remember-
ing either; she could make love once out of whim and then look
rather lost and innocent when the man suggested it a second tim.
Last night his sister Vottoria suddenly announced that she
want ted to sleep downstairs, and he whispered inmy hearing that
it was only because she wanted me to seduce her, though she is
over sixty. I repeated this to Luciana this morning incredulously,
and she said with a little smile that the marchese was probably
quite right.
The young woman he spoke ab out, 'intelligent, passionate
and cunning', came last Sunday. She is tall with dark hair in
na tural rings, and though her face is full of moyement, quick
headby
and smiling, her eyes seem strangely trappedguaxntsery e
D -fenmmise
She keeps her own counsel, seems very much
alone. Sometimes she can hardly br ing herself to open her
V. Some
mouth-- -mrseens out of/miseryg Baaarpezser-tregzingcheregzingcherset
outlorl
a I Stn So she provides the family With oppost-
unities to hurt her. She offers no resistance; they seem to
smell suffering in other people; they want to draw a little more
blood, their faces sullen, heavy, pouting, like people in a plot,
their pleasures deathly. phoy Silvia, a fat, pale young woman
who lives in the house behknd the vineyard, and Who has neither
and
a lover nor work, wants va little excitement; Bdily the people who
visit us provide it; having a good brain, clear and shrewd,
she will make the spark for any malice that the others need.


Maria R just alorted a child, Luciana Tolol
me, and notrdy mest know.
She usually comes in to tea in the afternoon, and is virtually
one of the family, providing the sting of wit and shrewd observ-
ation. Her voice is akr harsh, and when she speaks against people
it has a special cutting tone; she seems to be taking revenge for
everything lkfe has refused her. I heard her say . the other day
that Maria---the intelligent, passionate and cunning' girl---
wasn't at all beautiful to her ming: she had a loose mouth, too
large and open, and her hips were too wide; she said it as though
Hm killing her, with a swift, hungry sound. And Signora
Flavia says that while Maria is a person of distinction, yet she
is perhaps a little too sweet. And other people say, 'Oh,
Maria is too artificaal in the way she speaks!'
I enjoy being wi th Luciana and Maria alone, just the three
of us; ; we can speak to each other intimately, each of us ha ving
there is
for any us
a painful secret, so that/mezhars nothingnt to lose. Sometimes
hip.
Luciana and I take the bus to Rome and go to Maria's flat, where
she lives with her mother, and we sit behind XIEEEE closed shutters
in the hot half-darkness in the afternoon, with yellow, slight,
gleaming lines showing through the shutter-slats, while Maria's
mother pads softly across the S tone kitchen floor, bringing cool
drinks, going to the refrigerator; and when it's cool and the sun
has gone down behind the curved, smooth block of flats close by,
leaving the space between in shadow, we sit out on the verandah
in canvas chairs, at the foot of the steps leading up to the kitchen,
everything about us of stone or cement, bésys cut off from the rest
of the city, a great static island like a memorial, with occasional
square lawns, excellently cut and small, with here and there young
trees. The moment you enter this stone world of flats thorugh
a gate, along a special road, there is a new coolness and quiet,
and the noises of tha main street close by fall back.
It is So different from this house where the noise starts


soon after dawn with someone rushing down the stairs like a ton
of coals or with Dino's deafening cries or with the radio turned
on suddenly at full strength, as if in vengeful enjoyment. Or
e319 Nella the maid shouts to her own son to 'Come in, you vagabond:;
in that deep, dry beast-voice of hers. If you've slept well it's
with
all right but if your dreams have been heavy enaboeot the past
these noises are like a fresh assault, to keep the wounds open all
day.
Maria told me a few days ago that she could hardly bear talking
to the marchese, hated it when he touched her. And When I said
that he'd called her 'intelligent, passionate and cunning' she
replied that he only spoke like this to give the impression of
intuitive gifts, which he lacked; he Had E heard someone else
himself
a cRance
use those words about her, and decided to use them, when an-opport-
came. She said he created a complicated world for himself--
a world where there were secret assignations all the time and every-
where
thing was plot and subterfuge, and, the reality was the
the
De-ppppsite
appearance, so that having created A mystery_ fer
S he had to
Ham ke
penetrate it; ant C ongratulate/hims elf on his cleverness. He does
fo limoelf
it like a conjuror's trick and at first you don't realise that the
world he has made is C ompletely falseg
ERg
He calls her cunning, she says, because he can't allow himself
though
to believe that, Being a typeeri 'Roman Woman', she ds si imply un-
happygera not L 5 aa
notice that he doesn't search her body with his eyes as he does
the other women: instead, he puts the whole of her life---Which
he thinks he knows about---into the laboratory of his desires;
he turns her into a daydream.
Sometimes he w ill look at a woman with his eyes screwed up
atogel
anxiously, as if on some, pa
eag investigation; he has to
paishahry)
verify every detail. He seems to murer women inwardly--- -even


his own wife, to keep her as an object 'of pleasure; they mustn't
have quite human lives.
His work, which is a few hours every day at the customs house
in Rome, at the 'office' but in fact waving the heavy trucks in
and out of the main gate, and examining the drivers' passes, doesn't
mean a thing to him. He goes to the cinema sometimes, rides his
little scootervinto the village to drink a coffee. I've never
seen him read a newspaper. He only quickens, and becomes really
Rerej
fluent and at his ease, when women are mertiorey; and also when
mentined
the Roman aristocracy is being talkedzabbut-oathere all his grac-
iousness comes out.
Last night he came with us to Maria's flat and I watched hmm
verandah as it grew darker and.
talking to her on the xexandshyxinxthexaarXXEXMATKRESS A
the lights in
the flat-wbndows behind us went up one after another and our voices
warm, twinkling dusk.
became more muffled in the XBXRIFTXXRYUXau*KTy
He told her that
attractid him,
aesreterate d ay everything in her! sa)her voice, the erect way
she sat in a chair, her calm and still eyes, her long, dreamy walk,
hadnt a
but he realised thy he meicne)chance Enak K Cin
Ter being---
compared wit th her---an old man (he is fifty-nine), and perhaps not
her kind 'mentally'. He also talked about the XEXXXXXXXXXXRHE
isxfranenyx boy who threwher over a short time ago, called Franco.
That boy, he said, was never in love; this was what chiefly
are
worried aim about Franco (they XuIRrelated), that he keemed
the marchese,
incapable of love. Maria said to this quietly that
know
he,might
hot
.si mply - BAAnade Franco's real nature, but he shook his head
pleasantly and cried, 'No, I've known Franco froma child, he's
been in my house---why, eve ery day for three years or so at one
time!' He was in a much better position to judge the boy than
most people, certainly more e then/those---with a glittering side-
glance at her---who fell in love with him. The fact was, he
said, that the boy got tired of his girls after he'd slept with


them once or twice (a deliberate thrust at her, to see if A4 this
was true), ror to whi ich Maria said that this meant
nothing,
only that he didn't love most of the girls he went with.
But does Maria know the whole of the story, I wonder?
After the marchese had left the dark terrace I tried to find out.
Perhaps she knows. She knows at least that Franco is in love.
She said, 'The marchese must be even blindercthan I thought!'
But I said, No'---glancing at her---'the cleverest people are
often blind in these things, when it touches themselves---while
the washerwomen and the milkmen know the facts.' She didn't reply
to this, so I have no way of telling whether she understands every-
thing. I kept quiet, and we talked about something else.
Strange how often the name Franco comes up. He has put game
them
a spell on proghe with his gaiety. He is tall and lively, with
rather fair hair and good teeth, not at all handsome but graceful
and kindly; full of the sun. He jokes about, aa then falls into
a quiet mood, unpredictably, and I notice how attentive he is of ta
others peopren never letting them dwindle into sadness if he can
ike
ke's
help it. Franco is twenty-two now, and at tais moment 2s far
away in the north, working on a farm. Luciana, Vittoria (his
mother) and the marchese all talk about him at length, and
especially when Maria is with us : they think they're easing her
pain, and perhaps they're right. I remember the marchese telling
her one afternoon last week, when most of the others were out of
the room, how Franco sanetimés used, Porcappazenttyendreadchy
to go into his room suddenly, throw himself on the bed and burst
into tears. This worried and disturbed the marchese.
Batzdoesnithe sea as
toc ae - caused the car a - par yR
the a rchese
h.p. Arwordd ne
Jos/Hejzetsog]anom
everything; is he trying to.protect his own honour by seeming
not tortpoyn Yet what honour can he think he has, at this


point? He's a marchese at a time when there are no titles.
He has trained people to give him that name by hard persistence day
after day; that is some achievement after two world wars, to be
called marchese without it seeming ridiculous; you have to admire
him for it.
I wonder if he knows everything and suffers, watching the
divining eyes of the people close to him---people like me, who
know the situation? Once or twice last year he gave little
indications that he knew. I wonder?
I remember Franco coming down from the north last year, very
bronzed and clean-looking, and what terrible quarrels this causéd
between the marchese and Luciana. On the evening before he went
back I remember Franco was sitting wi th her on the terrace over-
looking the gravel path, where the trees move softly at night,
and I remember how, as it got later, the marchese came downstairs
again in his pyjamas and snapped at her---she must come to bed, this
kind of life was ridiculous, it was already past midnight! She
looked like a young girl in the half-darkness. She si mply nodded
and
to him,ogchesimes
seartz was quiet/ shermas unoved, bpenye
a & Y gone Baidg and there was about her that ruthlessness and ob-
stinacy of a wife in love with someone else. Franco simply looked
the other way, into the darkness of the garden, while the marchese
talked. They had both hoped he would be asleep by now o
Franco had the bedroom near the kitchen, on the ground floor,
while all the other bedrooms were upstairs, and if the Count had
fallen asleep they would both have gone there and locked the door.
I noticed that whenever Franco was in town with me, drinking
at one of the cagis, biren or in a party of people, he was lighter, less
Cerme fack
agter
thoughtful, as if he'd teenteret the world 2m a too-terrible
one of his
happinessa perhape. The other day Luciana showed me e/letters
ARRgEER in which he said that everywhere he went withbher, the


restauran
smallest café, a B
in Naples where they'd sat and watched
the beach far below, the roads/they drove along, the hotel bedrooms
at night, the stations where they met and said goodbye, became
remarkable farxhintarataaserg for him, under a special light,
primevally brillient, vordless and if he ever saw these places
again, without her, they would still be under that light, as if
she'd baptised them for gim.
wit him,
And she wrote in reply that she never felt shame saasa)
preterc they could do anything to each other without sensing
the forbidden; that she couldn't live an hour Without thinking
about him and dreaming him back. Only When they talked to each
other did they find real rest, and compared with that all the other
talk they did was irks ome. Their first moment of meeting again
was always unbearably ecstatic.
She asked me if he was such a strong, golden presence for ne
as well, for example when we were all at table? And I said, 'Yes,
he has so much light in him, like the sun.' But she pressed the
question harder, leaning forward with strajned eyes like a young
girl, and asked, did this presence cancel out the rest of the
World f or me as it did for.her, did I find the same solace in his
talk, did other people, especially other girls, feel exactly what she
felt, except that she was happy en ough to possess him? This mâde
me smile, and I said, yes, it's true he has light inhim, but these
are your feelings, Maaase you're in love with him.
she
It began by ac cident and, hadn't meant it to continue. She
was joking with him, sitting on his bed after everybody else was
upstairs, and when she ruffled his hair he pulled her towards him
suddenly, still her nephew, and then, swiftly, in a kind of sleep
where the house and its clucking people had slipped away, they
embraced each other; and it was like the first primeval love
of dreams. They left each other ashamed and awed. Next morn-


even
ing she told him he'd been wicked to/think of doing such a thing,
and they mus t both forget DBEAL it as soon as possible. At lunch,
at a table of ten or twelve people, she told everyone how Franco
seemed to prefer older women, and she watched him blush painfulty;
he thought she'd deserted him, deserted her own act. But that
3 as th
night, when everyone wagene to bed, they went to the same bedroom
by the kitchen, and their love was this time wilder, because they
ghame,
were rebelling against their own commandsz and against a world which
hever
coulape/come up to their dreams. From that time on she never
scolded him again, never tried to stop herself. And she began to
th ink of him et very hour of the day. Being away from him was now
a pain; though apparently no one else noticed this.
At that time Franco had ac tually been living in the house,
with Vittoria, his mother; he was a frailer and more sheltered
person then than he is now. He had no work and would sit for
hours in the room overlooking the gravel path, playing with the
radio, reading.
One day he came to her and said he could bear it no longer, he
was so much in bove. He didn't say at first With Whom, and she
was confident as she looked up at him and smiled that it was herself.
But, without moving
TxenxkeximiaXHEr K from his position, he tola her that it was her
daughter Angelina, and esan he must marry her.)
>She wamted to scream S omething, but sat there watching him,
her mouth a little open, hardly daring to breathe; and it was clear
from his eyes that he had no idea of her pain. Instead, he stood
in front of her like a son.
And she hadn't even noticed him and Angelina together. They'd
taken walks together, they'd been to the cinema but never once had
that thought crossed her mind. She suddenly felt her age, the
difference of years betwe en them. For weeks after this she suff-
ered the kind of loneliness---crying alone at night in her room,


awake the whole night, and the next night again, in a
delirium of grief---which we all hope will never com again after
youth.
She spent hours on her bed upstairs listening for a noise,
her door open, knowing that. he and Angelina were below. She lay
smoking cigarette after cigarette, starting whenever she heard the
murmur of a voice or heard her daugh ter cough, thinking it was a
passionate cry, or when the divan creaked, its S prings clanging
quietly together. And she would only rest, closing her eyes for
the first time, when Angelina came into the bedroom and lay down
at her side, and she heard his door close downstairs. For months
now Luciana no longer slept wi th her husband.
She and Angelina said little to each other during those dags.
She thought her daugh ter knew what she was suffering, but couldn't
be sure. She asked her suddenly once, was she really in love with
Franc O (as a mother would ask the question), but Angelina shrugged and
Y ed,
detsRdesA poutpoen and said she didn't khow. At any rate,
Angelina didn't marry Franco. It wasn't mentioned aga in. I
think she felt the will of her mother drawing her back, toRmaras
without knowing quite what was happening; she couldn't face the
separation from her mother that marriage would involve, and perhaps
Luciana worked on this. And she couldn't bear her silent dis-
approval. Nobody in the family was proof against that. So she
slowly gave way, as a bull in the ring, with the sword deepmin
his neck and the picadors drawing closer, in the heat and deafening
cries, turns slowly round, his head lower and lower, and gives in,
slips down on the sand and doens't move again. Luciana had the
sword, and plunged it in quicklym her eyes closed---this was the
daughter she adored and slept with ev ery night.
A few weeks later Angelina came to her and said that she was
no longer interested in Franco, and made a face as if to say that


she was disgusted. This meant for Luciana that he'd tried to
make love to her an d failed; she was deliriously happy. She
took it to be a miracle, and she and Franco made love Hith again
with the same easy wildness as at first. On his s ide, he seemed
to have recovered from Angelina; Whe no longer described her
loveliness at length to Luciana, nor did he say again that he wanted
to marry her.
Angelina clearly wants children, and perhaps a husband; but
R S
she would have the first without the second. She taralways feelsrg
ale He time;
il1A she suffers these peculiar spasms of spite and hatred, which
make her shoulders slope more than usualf, her eyes dim and mean;
looks like
mn a cage
her voice becomes a murmur, she/seens) a fierce beast caughty
Sher 2 io corp a
when her anger is up she can be cruel
with her hands. I've seen her pull Dino's hair with all her
strength, and in a moment of bitterness twist the cat's tail; and
most of her joking takes the form of horseplay. Last night, at
a small party held in Nina's house behind the vineyard, she pulled
a chair back just as I was about to sit down after a dance and I
tn the
wit
landed on the floor; she hit a young man achis
a terrific
backy
blow while he was gazing out of the window, watching the moon come
pinching
up; she was constantly bulling people, erma, burning their bare
arms ever So slightly with the tip of her cigarette while they
talked. When she does this people look away in embarrassment;
Luciana asks her why she has to be 'bad' like this. Angelina 's )
gaxakgXX horseplay was once gaiety, but it isn't now.
Every day she goes to a huge locomotive factory south of Rome
and works in the office just behind the assembly-room. The noise
is continuous and deafening, but whengyer I ask her about it she says


she finds it comforting; in fact, after three years she couldn't
do without it. She comes back to the house silent and tired in
the evenings, proud of having a grown-up job: she sits down with-
out speaking, sighing like an old Woman, not answering Luciana's
solicitous questions, shrugging and yawning, and her face beeones
as ugly as a pretty face can be. If I happen to be talking to
Luciana, quietly and easily as we do, she will cut across the
conversation with 'Did you think to order butter today?' or
'Ehy was Dino dipping about in the pool, you know he comes in with
his feet covered in mud, and then Nella complains---I"
kind log
komage
Her Work at the locomotive factory is daily geraftation
and
to law and order and respectability,jall the things she, 20as2she
misses at home. I suppose this is how people whose work has no
gepsenad meaning can walk the streets Wi th their heads up: we
have a shamed sense of being different from Everyone Else When
We 're young, dirtier perhaps, and when we get a job like Everyone
Else it seems like a proud new status when it's really nothing at
all.
But now and then Angelina talks to me quietly too, reminiscing:
about the island of Ponza---she seems as fascinated as her little
brother; about how your feet show blue when you put them in the
water, how glorious it is to approach the island through a rough
sea, with the boat riding out of the waves and then nosing down
again, and how, if you stand on the tallest rock, you can see the
whole land and the limitless sea all round it, green and blue and
touched wi th foamy white; and how there is one child on the island,
a boy who serves at table, with a proud and angelic face; accwffem
a kim
you have to look/all the time because he moves so slowly and
Little god,
makes
perfectly, like a ehdeonzozecavure, with a smile that careetsot
seem ridiculous,
the lives we lead/ Or she tells me about a journey sh e made
south once, when she saw Ischia and wanted to live there, how she


loves islands, how if she married she would want to take her
husband away and be alone with him, separate from the world,
like kave
on justaiieh islandef.. .
She never talks about people in this
quiet, dreaming way:
beyendthe rtd: 5 she doesn't really trust people, nor can she
believe easily that they're as clean-living and decent as she is.
At the factory she goes to the canteen as little as possible,
gang
while the other office-workers go down in a great paztt every
afternoon.
I noticed at the party the other evening, when she was tired
and perhaps a bit ashamed of her horseplay, she sat at the edge
of the room watching the re st of us, half-smiling, lost in our
movements and expressi ons I eRetrling tetseltott às if she'd
suddenly turned into an old woman wi th golden hair. I noticed
her eyes especially, how dre aming they were, as if to say, 'Ah,
I belonged to life once.. :
This morning I was woken soon aft ter dawn by Nella's terrible
shout ing: you seldom wake up peacefully here, never in silence.
But silence when it does fall over the house is moving and glor-
ious, like the proclamation of something you've forgotten and
thought was impossible again.
The trouble was started by Michele. He came down the S tairs
justre
his feel were
imi tating a ton of coats as usual
Pelion on
and,/pileg
Ossa,/with
and dirg
Cety
feet just as Nella was srubbing the tiled floor.
"barens
She asked him not to tread where she'd already worked. He asked
her wasn't she paid for her work, and this infurgated her, coming
stated
from a fourteen-year-old boy. She bogeh/shouting at. the top of
her voice, and this was where I regained consciousness. She


put her voice right next to my door: even when she is saying
kindly and amusing things they sound like the foulest insults,
and when shé KHISES stouts you feel like a man being punished
heres
for a crime Mestinrerew he'drady committed.
All day' there are quarrels, shouting, the slamming of doors,
rately
the calling ofnnames and screamed curses. So seldam does silence
fall---and at any moment it may be broken with deliberate murder-
ous enjoyment---that every day teaches you a better appreciation
of it. It may be Dino sliding down the bannister of the stairs,
making a precipitous rumbling noise that fills the whole house
ing
as he turns the corner into the straight, or Michele pushes open
a door with his foot, making it sla am against the wall, or the
Iny
tig
marchese arrives suddenly on his motor-scooter and stalkg into
V with Ristig teet,
the bag room/ peering about. Nothing can be predicted. Nella
may be polite and quiet and even amusing now, doing her work
willingly, looking after everyone, and then, not a minute later,
she'll be screaming her head off and taking her own son by his
neck, in a firm grip, and giving him great smacks across the face,
or decrying the house for being dirty and degenerate and a S ink of
vice, and for paying her too dittle.
Luciena
Sometimes the mornings open marvellously, with Aneglinal
bringing a cup of steaming black coffee into my room as the sun
comes through the shutters on to the light tiled floor, and the
house is silent after the children have left for school, and the
daughters and the marchese have left for work; then breakfast
is prepared and laid for me at a corner of the table in the big
she
eot.
room, and An/ Hta sits wi th me smoking and talking while I pata
This morning, after Nella's shouting had stopped, I found
there was no coffee, no tea, no bread. There was filth every-
where, the child Dino was whimpering in a corner, and even
Angelina's room, which is a refuge for me, was full of Nella's


brushing and scrubbing things, with the bedclothes all over the
floor. Luciana had gone to town. I walked about the house
cursing them all, finding suddenly that I'd become part of the
parts
family-- -f? its hatred. Perhaps my face had begun to wear the
same dark, mean and yet strangely ardent look, E
I blamed
Luciana with all the others---for the chaos, the filth, the way
you had to scratch for food. Then I saw the bus from the village
she
ped
stop at the end of the path and Ereimra stepl down. And at once
a cool stream of the gentlest good will,
seemed to flow into the garden, like a sudten mountain breeze
Beyond
from the peaks battrd the misty, sweating vineyards, that look
blue and light-brown and sometimes grey in the distanceo asdeseem
I grew quiet and
watché
vatthst her walking neatly down the gravel path, her hair grey at
the sides, her eyes sharp and black; she was distant like samdone
in a picture. The rooms felt easy again, Dino stopped whining.
I went to the kitchen to meet her and she made me tea, the best
China blend, and gave me hercspecial morning dish of bread and
and garlic, parsley and basil chopped
tomatoes soaked with oil,amexparsisyxmnaxhasitxekuppeat)
over them.
'You must be so hungry,' she said.
quieler
The lunch today was quitter than any I've known here on
a Sunday, when there are ust sually vistors,end cars draw up
outside the front porch and there are incessant hand-shakings
and cries of welcome ett (Simulatedy to hide bitter family
feuds); the dogs bark, people run up and down the steps,
the children are excited, the radio is switched on, the cats---
five of them, including a slim, elegant Siamese---creep under


people's legs or jump on Aip the table and steal the salami or
lick the butter. But TEXKErtRYX*HE today the only visitors were
Rosa and Flora, who are reallymembers of of the family, ed being France's
VItorIeLS hildren- Franos. sistersjgumtegntidendasy
none
and as they live in Rome they have morumartjof the hard village en
them; tey seem gentle sn eary comparck unth the esy.
Neither the marchese nor Angelina were there---that is, the
two most nerve-wracking elements were missing. It has occurred
to me lately that he's really shy of people and makes a special
harsh effort to get across to them; he is always the first up
to bed in the afternoon, leaving everyone else at table, perhaps
knowing in his mysterious nd blind-seeming way that they can
talk and smile better without him. As for Angelina, she takes
command of all the practical things at table, smacking Dino's
knees when he won't sit properly in his chair, shouting across at
augh,
Michele in her reguh, housewife's voice to eat decently and not
to snatch the bread, calling out to Nella to bring in the next
course, remarking on the taste of this and that, With sudden
glances under her brow. With her at table there
surrpetitious
is more discipline byt less peace.
Foday Luciana was in charge, governing our spirits. Only
in Dino did there remain a trace of the ugly, cruel will, but
Vittoria's daughters were so gentle with him that he started to
find himself amusing, a grown-up wit, and after he'd got us all
laughing he even ate decently, to keep his position of equalityo
with
The table felt quite adrift from the village.
Then everyone went away quietly to sleep. The house fell into
an afternoon silence, with the sun at its hottest glowing hour,
the curtains over the french windows stirring and billowing out
with the slow, cool breeze from the sea. When everybody had
gone Maddalena put the radio on quietly, and after the first notes


I came out to listen. It was Cavaradossi's aria on the
battlements of Sant Angelo, from Tosca, and Maddalena made it
louder as I sat down, realising I'd come to listen. There
was a snatch of music, like something from another world--
where I might never be again---and then Nella's shouting S tarted
with a double vengeful force, like a reminder. The dishes
clattered together in the kitchen, the loose valves of the radio
made the voice and orchestra a blur whenever there was a crescendo
or the pitch rose.
And later that day, as if it had been arranged to coincide
wit th the absnece of the marchese and Angelina---or perhaps they'd
left the house in a huff, after they'd heard he was C oming
Franco appeared from the north for ten days' holiday. The first
two or three days were sweltering and sullen, but with a strange
ecstatic excitement in the air. The furniture and the garden
outside looked mysterious, and Luciana went round the house with
glowing eyes. The marchese and Angelina came back, glum and
mute, and Angelina hardly greeted Franco. The marchese was
watching
gentle and pleasant wi th him, etehcing him from under his eye-
brows, with a trace of admiration. Slowly the glbom entered
Luciana, too, as the time for him to go back drew nearer. Her
eyes glowed no longer. She seemed to know something. Suddenly,
two or three days before hy was due to leave, he was gone.
Luciana came to me in the afternoon, drooping and weak, with a
cold she'd caught from Franco, and asked me, couldn't I find her
a job in Rome somewhere, anything to stop her thinking about
him? That day was sad and nervous, full of rain and low, thick
clouds. In the evening she and Vittoria and I were sitting by
kave
the radio, at a little table where we sometimes, coffee in the
afternoon, with a candle alight in the middle because the elect-
ricity was failing, due to the storms outside. The house was


extraordinarily silent, the windows were tight shut against the
dead, sultry air. Vittoria had be en weeping all day because her
son had 'neglected' her all the time he was home---never once asked
her to come to the city, never stayed in the house with her: all
because Luciana claimed h im every minute. She sat in her chair
sewing coloured designs on to canvas squares as always, her head
bent/forward, a cigarette in the corner of her moth, a HIx glass of
wine at her side, sighing every now and then, 'Oh, Dio, Dio!', a
tear rolling down her cheek which she never brushed away so that
Luc iana would see it. And all the while Luciana and I were talk-
ing in English, Which she couldn't undfestand. Luciana asked
me if it seemed to me that Franco still loved her, if I thought
that such love could ever die, if it looked to me as if it was
dying now... Her eyes had a dark, condemned look as she followed
my HaKis an swers, XDXXXERTIHg bending forward to listen, not wanting
to miss my verdict, though I said hardly anything; her face was
paler than I'd ever seen it before, thinner, her jaw very pointad,
the slimness of her cheeks making her eyes look more pained and
wide-open. But whenever I said, 'You're unhappy', she shook her
head and said, 'NO!' The fact is that this was Franco's last
visit. Vittoria is to move away, to a place of her own, perhaps
with her daughters, and in future Franco will go to them on his
holidays. But Luciana couldn't bring herself to tell me yet.
swelled
For some reason the index finger of her right hand haszsroiden
ie ed
blood-poisoning.
said
Das
up and looks like hispixgmisuning
She says that when she ks
war
rested and happy she is never ill, that if her body went wrong it
was because of the way she felt inside.
Angelina seems to resent her mother's last burst of passion
with Franco more than her own loss of him. The marchese is st ill
mute. The passion rang through the house in the few days that
Franco was here: the whole house was ecstatic, under its weight.


Nothing else seemed to go on. And everyone seemed powerless
against it. They gazed into each other's eyes for hours on end,
it seemed. At table they never addressed a aord to other pe ople.
Its shere force seemed to bow other people, and remove their power
of complaint and criticism. It even seemed to fascinate them.
Nobody really wanted to stop it, even Vittoria who sat and in her
chair and cried all the time. The marchese was gentle and wan as
I've never known him before.
Gradually Dino makes his claims on Luciana again. Kichele
has a fight in the village, over a girl: the marchese has to go
down and settlet it. Maria calls and there seems to be a slight
glow of triumph in her eyes as she looks at Luciana.
There is
another little dinner-party, with drinks, at the house behind the
vineyard, with Luciana and Angelina as guests. The marchese
continues to sleep alone. And Angelina an à her mother sleep
together as before. It is decided to get rid of Renato and his
wife, to economise. Soon the grapes will be gathered, and the
wine made in the courtyard at the back. Signora Flavel has been
away all this time, staying in Rome with Vittoria's two daughtess:
she had to be kept out of it, While the passion was loose. She
comes back looking dry and remote: she is so old that the passion
is one part of the story she can no. longer grasp. Maddalena looks
a shade more sourly wise. But then the evenings draw in. A fire
is lit in the hearth. We all ga ther round it, drinking the first
young wine, that goes straight to your head. And slowly we're
cap tive again in our little dramas, and the house waits for another
ye'ar, and other victims, to undold.