women.
"You see how silly I am," Clelia said. "When the palazzo was almost in our hands, I couldn't stand it. Now that we're poor and transplanted, I would give anything to see it again."
Before Doro appeared on the balcony, Clelia told me that her mother didn't want her to stay at the shop where Papa was because it wasn't nice for a little girl like her to hear arguments behind the counter and learn so many awful words. But the shop was full of things and had shining showcases—the same that filled the palazzo—and here people came and went; little Clelia was glad to see her father happy. She was always asking him why they did not sell the pictures and lamps at the palazzo so as not to go always deeper into trouble. "I had an anxious childhood," she told me, smiling. "I would wake up at night in a panic at the thought that Papa might become poor."
"Why were you so afraid?"
Clelia said that in those years she was a little bundle of apprehensions. Her first inklings of love had come to her in front of a picture of St. Sebastian, the martyr, a naked youth lurid with blood and peeling paint, arrows stuck in his stomach. The sad, amorous eyes of that saint made her ashamed to look at him. This scene came to represent love.
"Why am I telling you this?" she said.
Doro soon appeared on the balcony, intent on drying his neck with a towel. He nodded to me and went in again. I asked Clelia if she had changed her ideas about love.
"Naturally," she said.
7
When I got back at night, I used to stand at my window smoking. One supposes that smoking promotes meditation, whereas the truth is that it disperses one's thoughts like so much fog; at best, one fantasticates in a manner quite different from thinking. Real discoveries or inspirations, on the other hand, arrive unexpectedly; at the table, swimming, talking of something entirely different. Doro was aware of my habit of dropping off for a moment in the middle of a conversation to chase an unexpected idea with my eyes. He did the same thing himself; in the old days we had taken many walks together, each of us silently ruminating. But now his silences, like mine, seemed distracted, estranged; in a word, unusual. I had been only a short while by the sea and it seemed a hundred years. And nothing had happened even so. But tonight when I went home I had the idea that the whole past day—the banal summer day—required of me goodness knows what effort of mind before I could make sense of it.
The day after Mara's accident, when I saw friend Guido with his cursed automobile, I divined more things in the few seconds it took me to cross the road and shake his hand than during an entire evening of pipe smoking. That is to say, I realized that Clelia's confidences were an unconscious defense against Guido's vulgarity, a man otherwise very courteous and well-bred. Guido was sitting there, bronzed and glowing, holding out his hand and showing his teeth in a smile. Guido was rich and bovine. Clelia was reacting against him but without showing it; therefore, she took him seriously and began to resemble him. Who knows what inspiration would have turned up next if Guido had not started laughing and obliged me to talk. I climbed into the car and he took me to the cafe where everybody would be gathered.
While they were discussing Mara, I went on exploring my thoughts and asked myself if Doro understood Clelia's complaints as I did and why it didn't seem to bother him that Clelia kept no secrets even from me. Meanwhile, the two of them arrived, and after the first greetings Guido told Clelia that when he was crossing Genoa he had been thinking of her. Clelia looked at him archly, in fun, but it was enough to make me suspect that sometime before she had told Guido the same girlhood secrets—and I felt put out.
After dinner Guido arrived at the villa; he was in high spirits and had brought Ginetta with him in the car. While Doro and Guido were talking about their work, I listened to
"You see how silly I am," Clelia said. "When the palazzo was almost in our hands, I couldn't stand it. Now that we're poor and transplanted, I would give anything to see it again."
Before Doro appeared on the balcony, Clelia told me that her mother didn't want her to stay at the shop where Papa was because it wasn't nice for a little girl like her to hear arguments behind the counter and learn so many awful words. But the shop was full of things and had shining showcases—the same that filled the palazzo—and here people came and went; little Clelia was glad to see her father happy. She was always asking him why they did not sell the pictures and lamps at the palazzo so as not to go always deeper into trouble. "I had an anxious childhood," she told me, smiling. "I would wake up at night in a panic at the thought that Papa might become poor."
"Why were you so afraid?"
Clelia said that in those years she was a little bundle of apprehensions. Her first inklings of love had come to her in front of a picture of St. Sebastian, the martyr, a naked youth lurid with blood and peeling paint, arrows stuck in his stomach. The sad, amorous eyes of that saint made her ashamed to look at him. This scene came to represent love.
"Why am I telling you this?" she said.
Doro soon appeared on the balcony, intent on drying his neck with a towel. He nodded to me and went in again. I asked Clelia if she had changed her ideas about love.
"Naturally," she said.
7
When I got back at night, I used to stand at my window smoking. One supposes that smoking promotes meditation, whereas the truth is that it disperses one's thoughts like so much fog; at best, one fantasticates in a manner quite different from thinking. Real discoveries or inspirations, on the other hand, arrive unexpectedly; at the table, swimming, talking of something entirely different. Doro was aware of my habit of dropping off for a moment in the middle of a conversation to chase an unexpected idea with my eyes. He did the same thing himself; in the old days we had taken many walks together, each of us silently ruminating. But now his silences, like mine, seemed distracted, estranged; in a word, unusual. I had been only a short while by the sea and it seemed a hundred years. And nothing had happened even so. But tonight when I went home I had the idea that the whole past day—the banal summer day—required of me goodness knows what effort of mind before I could make sense of it.
The day after Mara's accident, when I saw friend Guido with his cursed automobile, I divined more things in the few seconds it took me to cross the road and shake his hand than during an entire evening of pipe smoking. That is to say, I realized that Clelia's confidences were an unconscious defense against Guido's vulgarity, a man otherwise very courteous and well-bred. Guido was sitting there, bronzed and glowing, holding out his hand and showing his teeth in a smile. Guido was rich and bovine. Clelia was reacting against him but without showing it; therefore, she took him seriously and began to resemble him. Who knows what inspiration would have turned up next if Guido had not started laughing and obliged me to talk. I climbed into the car and he took me to the cafe where everybody would be gathered.
While they were discussing Mara, I went on exploring my thoughts and asked myself if Doro understood Clelia's complaints as I did and why it didn't seem to bother him that Clelia kept no secrets even from me. Meanwhile, the two of them arrived, and after the first greetings Guido told Clelia that when he was crossing Genoa he had been thinking of her. Clelia looked at him archly, in fun, but it was enough to make me suspect that sometime before she had told Guido the same girlhood secrets—and I felt put out.
After dinner Guido arrived at the villa; he was in high spirits and had brought Ginetta with him in the car. While Doro and Guido were talking about their work, I listened to
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