The Road To The City by Natalia Ginzburg

needed her help washing my hair. She heated the water and gave me a kiss when she brought it in. She said that she didn’t know what she would do without me when I was gone and I must promise to write to her. The sun was out and I went to sit in the garden with a towel over my shoulders to dry my hair. All of a sudden the gate opened and in walked Nini.
    â€˜How goes it?’ he said. He was just the same as usual, with his old raincoat, his hat jammed down over his head, and a scarf thrown around his neck, but he had an absent and somewhat disagreeable look about him and I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t bear to have him see me in this condition. He told me to come and walk with him outside the garden because he didn’t want to have to talk to my aunt. I took the towel off my shoulders and followed him outside, and we walked among the stripped grapevines on the frozen snow.
    â€˜How are things with you?’ I asked. 
    â€˜Not so good,’ he said. ‘Are you getting married in February?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Does Giulio come here often?’ 
    â€˜No, he’s never been here at all.’ 
    â€˜Are you sorry that he doesn’t come?’ I made no answer, and he stopped in front of me and looked into my eyes.
    â€˜No, you’re not sorry. You don’t really care for him either. Well, I ought to be glad. But instead it hurts me all the more. It’s all such a silly business. It’s really not worth bothering one’s head about.’
    He stopped again, waiting for me to say something. Then he added:
    â€˜Do you know that I’m living alone?’
    â€˜Yes, I do.’
    â€˜To tell the truth, I like it. Whole days go by without my speaking to a soul. As soon as I get out of the factory I go back to my room and read without anyone to disturb me.’
    â€˜Have you a nice room?’ I asked.
    â€˜No, not nice at all.’
    I stumbled and he held me up with his arm.
    â€˜Perhaps you’d like to know whether I’m still in love with you. I think I’m not.’
    â€˜I’m glad,’ I said, but it wasn’t true and I felt very much like crying.
    â€˜When I came to see you the last time because they told me you were ill I meant to ask you to marry me. I don’t know how such an idea ever came into my head. You’d have laughed or been angry at me, but one way or the other you’d have turned me down. Still I shouldn’t have minded as much that way. What made me suffer was to know that you, you with your hair and voice, were going to have a baby, that your love for him might change your life and make you forget me entirely. My life will be just the same: I’ll go on working at the factory and reading my books and bathing in the river when it’s hot. Once upon a time I was almost happy. I liked to walk along the street and look at the women and buy books, and I thought about so many things that I imagined I really had some brains. I wish we two could have had a baby together. But I never told you I loved you because I was afraid. How silly it all was…. Don’t cry,’ he added, seeing tears in my eyes. ‘It makes me angry to see you cry. I know you don’t really care. You cry like that, but what does it really matter?’
    â€˜So I don’t matter to you either?’ I said.
    â€˜No,’ he answered. It was beginning to get dark, and he took me back to the garden gate.
    â€˜Good-bye,’ he said. ‘Why did you send word for me to come?’
    â€˜Because I wanted to see you.’
    â€˜Did you want to see how I’d gone to the dogs? Well, I have, I can promise you that. All I do is drink.’
    â€˜You did that before.’
    â€˜Not the way I do now. Good-bye. I didn’t tell you the truth just now when I said I didn’t love you. That’s not so. I still do.’
    â€˜Even ugly as I am?’ I asked