All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg Page B

people he had visited in Turin during those few days, a small group of three or four who were now all in prison, and would be tried by the Special Tribunal. Danilo, on the other hand, would almost certainly not be brought to trial; they would give him his release earlier. The only trouble was that he would find himself behindhand with his studies, after an interruption of so many months. Danilo was studying book-keeping and accountancy, but he always said he did not like these things and that he would like to do something else, goodness knows what he wanted to do. In prison he had taken to studying German, and he wrote to his mother that he hoped they would not release him before he had learned to write and speak German well ; he wrote dull letters and his mother was angry. When Danilo’s sister came Ippolito stayed working on the terrace, as though he were not in the least interested in hearing news of Danilo, and left Danilo’s sister to be received by Emanuele and Concettina. And then, when Emanuele and Concettina came back to the terrace and gave him the news, he scarcely seemed to listen. And then Emanuele would exclaim that he had gone as cold as a fish, a thing that makes you cold even to look at it. Ippolito would just give a little crooked smile and go on walking up and down with his book in his hand. Emanuele said that Ippolito got seriously on his nerves, but Concettina did not get on his nerves, Concettina was so charming, and he took her hand and kissed it on the palm. And he told her she had grown thinner and also more beautiful, with those eyes with dark circles round them because she too had been sitting up at night working for her exams. Concettina had discarded all her fiancés, and was thinking only of her studies, and perhaps she was thinking of something else too, Emanuele said, perhaps she had taken to thinking of Danilo who was in prison, and had fallen in love with him a little. Then Concettina was angry and snatched away her hand from Emanuele’s hands and ran away from the terrace. Emanuele laughed and said there was no doubt about it, Concettina was sorry now for her rude behaviour towards Danilo and for the long hours she had left him in the cold outside the gate. “We have to go to prison to make women love us,” Emanuele said, “otherwise we get nothing.”
    It was very hot and Mammina went with Franz to bathe in a lake near the town, for she had now recovered from her nervous exhaustion, she was very well and had a great number of flowered dresses and a very large straw hat. She and Franz would get up early in the morning, take the car and go swimming in the lake, and not come home until three in the afternoon. Emanuele was always much worried until they came back, because Franz drove the car like a madman, he always said that unless he drove fast he had no enjoyment in driving. In the meantime the whole town was whispering about Mammina and Franz, but Emanuele did not know this, or did not show that he knew. On the other hand Signora Maria knew of it, and when Emanuele was not there she would start talking about those two who were always together and had no shame, and would look out of the window at the old gentleman sitting in the garden and be sorry for him for being made to wear horns like that, poor old gentleman. But the old gentleman sat in his deck-chair nursing his stomach which was all stuffed up with newspapers even in full summer, because he was always afraid of a possible draught, and he would wave good-bye to Mammina and Franz as they went off together ; it did not look as if his horns worried him very much, perhaps because he had gradually become accustomed to them and was resigned to wearing them, poor old gentleman. But his ulcer did worry him and people in the town said perhaps he was dying, and he did die, and Emanuele rushed off to call Mammina who was swimming in the lake with Franz.
    The old gentleman’s funeral was a big funeral with a very