children.
Enzo at last turned over, and she sat down beside him. Dipping her hands into the saucepan of warm oil, she began to work at the boy’s glistening body with a persistent rhythm that made him think of lying out on the beach at Viareggio, while the waves broke and receded over him, one after another, causing him to glow and tingle from his head to his feet.… Now, glancing at her as he lay with his head turned sideways, he saw that she was working with her eyes closed, as if in sleep, and that her arms, so strangely white against his brown body, were much thinner and frailer than he had ever imagined them to be. And yet she was so strong. As she bent close above him the crucifix which she wore slipped out of her nightdress and rested for a moment icily against his spine. Now her fingers seemed to be gently erasing his anger and bitterness as if they were things written in pencil, there, on his back; and it was her own spirit, not oil, that she seemed to be rubbing into him, rubbing with a rhythmic, unwearying persistence as her love persisted unwearingly, in spite of the disappointments and fatigues of the day. Enzo was at last utterly relaxed.
‘‘I wonder when Giorgio will return,’’ she murmured.
As she said the words an epileptic scream flashed like a dividing sword through the night’s reposing darkness.
Doors opened, feet thudded down stairs; voices were raised, one of the girls began crying, ‘‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy,’’ over and over again, and then Giorgio could be heard explaining coolly: ‘‘ I heard the sound just as I was passing the door on my way in. I tried all my keys and this one fitted.… A bit of luck, a real bit of luck.’’
Chapter Four
‘‘Y OU ’ RE later than usual,’’ Karen said to her mother who had only just arrived at the breakfast-table.
‘‘No, not later. Earlier. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up at half-past six and went for a walk. Now I’m hungry.’’ She turned round to click her fingers for the waiter. ‘‘ He’s half asleep—always is in the morning.’’
‘‘What was it like out?’’ Max asked, without any interest, since the mail had brought him a heap of business letters to keep him absorbed.
‘‘Oh, cool.’’
‘‘He’s not really listening,’’ Karen put in.
‘‘I know. That’s why I answered in only two syllables.’’
Beside the Arno Mrs. Bennett had found the once-dusty vegetation glistening with a heavy dew that wet her bare ankles and made her plimsolls squelch. She had walked into the sun which had at first appeared as no more than the tip of an opaque pink finger-nail through the mist on the hills; but as it rose higher and drank up the mist, her eyes began to ache from having to look at it and her skin to prick and itch with its slowly increasing warmth. All at once she felt tired and decided to sit down. The ground was still damp, but recently she had ceased to worry about such things, and finding a small, humped mound, she lowered herself on to it and stared at the water. How dirty it was, she thought: where it slapped the wrinkled mud there was a fringe of scum in which bobbed cigarette-ends, paper, and the other human filth of the city. Yet those two boys who had helped to make this filth—who daily bathed in it and sunbathed beside it—had been clean, so miraculously clean. And at the thought, she once more gave herself up—as she was always now giving herself up—to the recollection of their sleeping beauty on the dim, high bed.
She stirred from this reverie to notice some sunflowers growing behind her; and since they were larger than any she had seen in England, the vast orange petals curling outward to the warmth of the morning, she tottered up to pick one, not realizing, because there was no fence, that they were grown there for their seed. While her hand struggled with the stiff, prickly stem, twisting it from side to side without its once yielding, someone sneezed from the undergrowth at her feet
Enzo at last turned over, and she sat down beside him. Dipping her hands into the saucepan of warm oil, she began to work at the boy’s glistening body with a persistent rhythm that made him think of lying out on the beach at Viareggio, while the waves broke and receded over him, one after another, causing him to glow and tingle from his head to his feet.… Now, glancing at her as he lay with his head turned sideways, he saw that she was working with her eyes closed, as if in sleep, and that her arms, so strangely white against his brown body, were much thinner and frailer than he had ever imagined them to be. And yet she was so strong. As she bent close above him the crucifix which she wore slipped out of her nightdress and rested for a moment icily against his spine. Now her fingers seemed to be gently erasing his anger and bitterness as if they were things written in pencil, there, on his back; and it was her own spirit, not oil, that she seemed to be rubbing into him, rubbing with a rhythmic, unwearying persistence as her love persisted unwearingly, in spite of the disappointments and fatigues of the day. Enzo was at last utterly relaxed.
‘‘I wonder when Giorgio will return,’’ she murmured.
As she said the words an epileptic scream flashed like a dividing sword through the night’s reposing darkness.
Doors opened, feet thudded down stairs; voices were raised, one of the girls began crying, ‘‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy,’’ over and over again, and then Giorgio could be heard explaining coolly: ‘‘ I heard the sound just as I was passing the door on my way in. I tried all my keys and this one fitted.… A bit of luck, a real bit of luck.’’
Chapter Four
‘‘Y OU ’ RE later than usual,’’ Karen said to her mother who had only just arrived at the breakfast-table.
‘‘No, not later. Earlier. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up at half-past six and went for a walk. Now I’m hungry.’’ She turned round to click her fingers for the waiter. ‘‘ He’s half asleep—always is in the morning.’’
‘‘What was it like out?’’ Max asked, without any interest, since the mail had brought him a heap of business letters to keep him absorbed.
‘‘Oh, cool.’’
‘‘He’s not really listening,’’ Karen put in.
‘‘I know. That’s why I answered in only two syllables.’’
Beside the Arno Mrs. Bennett had found the once-dusty vegetation glistening with a heavy dew that wet her bare ankles and made her plimsolls squelch. She had walked into the sun which had at first appeared as no more than the tip of an opaque pink finger-nail through the mist on the hills; but as it rose higher and drank up the mist, her eyes began to ache from having to look at it and her skin to prick and itch with its slowly increasing warmth. All at once she felt tired and decided to sit down. The ground was still damp, but recently she had ceased to worry about such things, and finding a small, humped mound, she lowered herself on to it and stared at the water. How dirty it was, she thought: where it slapped the wrinkled mud there was a fringe of scum in which bobbed cigarette-ends, paper, and the other human filth of the city. Yet those two boys who had helped to make this filth—who daily bathed in it and sunbathed beside it—had been clean, so miraculously clean. And at the thought, she once more gave herself up—as she was always now giving herself up—to the recollection of their sleeping beauty on the dim, high bed.
She stirred from this reverie to notice some sunflowers growing behind her; and since they were larger than any she had seen in England, the vast orange petals curling outward to the warmth of the morning, she tottered up to pick one, not realizing, because there was no fence, that they were grown there for their seed. While her hand struggled with the stiff, prickly stem, twisting it from side to side without its once yielding, someone sneezed from the undergrowth at her feet
Similar Books
