The Woman of Rome (11 page)

“Come on, Adriana!”

“What difference does it make?” said Gisella. “If he likes it — and it doesn’t do you any harm. He’s kissed you anyway. Let him do as he likes.”

So I yielded once again, and we stayed beside one another, his arm around my waist while I sat there stiffly and unwillingly. The waiter came in with the second course. While we were eating my bad mood passed, although Astarita held me close. The food was very good and, without noticing, I drank all the wine Gisella kept on pouring out for me. After the second course we had fruit and dessert. It was an excellent dessert, I wasn’t used to things like that and therefore, when Astarita offered me his share I could not say no, and ate that too. Gisella, who had also drunk a great deal, began to coax Riccardo in all sorts of ways, putting little quarters of tangerines into his mouth and giving him a kiss with each one. I felt pleasantly tipsy, and Astarita’s arm around my waist no longer troubled me. Gisella got up, more and more restless and excited every moment, and went to sit on Riccardo’s knee. I could not help laughing when I heard Riccardo pretend to cry out in pain as if Gisella’s weight were crushing him. All of a sudden, Astarita, who had not moved until then, content to have one arm around my waist, began to kiss me breathlessly on my neck, breasts, and cheeks. I did not protest this time, first because I was too tipsy to struggle and then because he seemed to be kissing another person, so little did I participate in his outburst, but kept as still and as stiff as a statue. In my state of intoxication I had the impression that I was standing outside myself, in some corner of the room, looking on indifferently, merely as a curious spectator, at Astarita’s wild passion. But the others took my indifference for love and Gisella called out. “Good for you, Adriana — that’s the way!”

I wanted to reply but changed my mind, I don’t know why, and raising my glass full of wine I said clearly and resonantly, “I’m drunk!” and emptied it at one breath.

I believe the others clapped their hands. But Astarita stopped kissing me and, looking fixedly at me, said under his breath, “Let’s go into the other room.”

I followed his eyes and saw he was looking at the half-open door of the next room. I imagined he must be drunk, too, and nodded my refusal, but gently, almost flirtatiously.

“Let’s go into the next room” he repeated, like a man in his sleep.

I noticed Gisella and Riccardo had stopped laughing and chatting and were watching us.

“Come on!” said Gisella. “Move it! What are you waiting for?”

I sobered up immediately. I was really drunk, but not so drunk as to be unaware of the danger threatening me. “I don’t want to,” I said. And I stood up.

Astarita got up, too, and seizing me by one arm tried to drag me toward the door. The other two began to egg him on again. “Go on, Astarita!” they urged.

Astarita half dragged me as far as the door, although I struggled. Then I freed myself with a sudden jerk and ran to the door that led out onto the stairway. But Gisella was quicker than I. “No, you don’t, sweetie!” she cried. She leaped up from Riccardo’s knees and ran over to lock the door, before I could get there, then took the key out.

“I don’t want to,” I repeated, terrified, standing beside the table.

“What harm can it do you?” asked Riccardo.

“Idiot!” said Gisella harshly, pushing me toward Astarita. “Such a fuss — go along, now.”

I realized that despite her cruelty and insistence Gisella did not understand what she was doing. The plot she had laid for me must have seemed to her most delightfully clever and entertaining. I was also amazed at the gay indifference of Riccardo, whom I knew to be kindly and incapable of doing anything he thought malicious.

“I don’t want to,” I repeated again.

“Why not?” asked Riccardo. “What’s wrong with it.”

Gisella went on pushing me eagerly and excitedly.

“I didn’t think you were so silly,” she said. “Go on, Adriana, what are you waiting for?”

Up until now Astarita had not said a word; he stood motionless by the bedroom door, gazing at me. Then I saw him open his mouth as if to speak. “Come on,” he said, speaking slowly and thickly, as though the words had a tricky consistency and he found it difficult to get them out. “Otherwise I’ll tell Gino you came out with us today and let me make love to you.”

I understood at once that he really would carry out his threat. You may well doubt words themselves, but there is often no mistaking the tone of voice in which they are uttered. He would certainly have told Gino, and that would have meant the end for me before I had really begun. Thinking it over today, I suppose I could have withstood him. If I had shouted, if I had struggled violently, I would have persuaded him that his blackmailing was as ineffective as his revenge. But perhaps it would have been no good, because his desire for me was stronger than my disgust. At the time, of course, I felt entirely overcome, and thought more of avoiding a scandal than of opposing him. I found myself plunged into this situation quite unprepared for it, with my mind full of plans for the future, which I desired to carry out at all costs. What happened to me at this time, in such a crude way, must, I think, happen to all those who have as simple, legitimate, innocent ambitions as I had. The world gets hold of us through our ambitions and sooner or later forces us to pay a high and painful price, and only outcasts and people who have renounced everything can ever hope to escape this payment

But at the very moment that I accepted my fate, I experienced a sharp and lucid sensation of pain. A flash of intuition seemed to light up the whole future path of my life, as a rule so dark and tortuous, and reveal it straight and clear before my eyes, showing me in that single moment what I would lose in exchange for Astarita’s silence. My eyes filled with tears and I began to cry, putting my arm over my face. I realized I was weeping from utter resignation
and not in rebellion, and that, in fact, my legs were carrying me toward Astarita in the midst of my tears. Gisella pushed me by the arm, repeating, “What are you crying for? Anyone would think it was the first time!” I heard Riccardo laugh; and I felt, without seeing him, that Astarita’s eyes were upon me as I came slowly toward him in tears. Then I felt him put an arm around my waist and the door of the room closed behind me.

I did not want to see anything, even feeling seemed too much. And so I kept my arm obstinately across my eyes, although Astarita tried to draw it away. I suppose he wanted to behave like all lovers on such occasions, that is, to win me over gradually and almost unconsciously to his desires. But my obstinate refusal to take my arm away from my face obliged him to be more brutal and hurried than he wished. So, after he had made me sit on the edge of the bed and had tried in vain to coax me with caresses, he pushed me back against the cushions and threw himself on me. My whole body from the waist down was as heavy and inert as lead, and no embrace was ever accepted with greater submission and with less participation. But I stopped crying almost immediately, and as soon as he lay breathless on my breast, I removed my arm from my face and stared into the darkness.

I am convinced that at that moment Astarita loved me as much as a man can love a woman, and far more than Gino did. I remember that he could not stop running his hand again and again over my forehead and cheeks with a convulsive, passionate movement, trembling all over and murmuring words of love. But my eyes were dry and wide open, and my head, cleared now of the wine fumes, was filled with an icy, eddying clarity. I let Astarita caress me and talk to me while I followed my own thoughts. Once more I saw my own bedroom, as I had arranged it, with the new furniture I had not quite finished paying for, and felt a kind of bitter consolation. I told myself that now nothing could prevent my marrying and living the kind of life I wanted. But at the same time I felt my spirit was entirely changed and that a new certainty and decision had replaced my once fresh and ingenuous hopes. I suddenly felt much stronger, although it was a tragic strength, and shorn of love.

“It’s time to go back into the other room,” I said at last, speaking for the first time since we had entered the bedroom.

“Are you mad at me?” he immediately asked in a low voice.

“No.”

“Do you hate me?”

“No.”

“I love you so much,” he murmured. And began once more tempestuously to cover my face and neck with rapid, passionate kisses. I let him have his way and then said, “Yes, but we must go.”

“You’re right,” he answered. He broke away from me and began, as far as I could tell, to get dressed in the dark. I tidied myself as best I could, got up, and turned on the light over the bed. In that yellow light the room looked just as I had imagined from its stuffy, lavender-scented smell: the ceiling was low, the beams were whitewashed, the walls covered with French wallpaper, the furniture old and heavy. A marble-topped washstand stood in one corner and on it two jugs and basins with a green-and-pink flower pattern, and a large mirror in a gold frame. I walked over to the washstand, poured a little water into the basin and, dipping the end of the towel in it, I sponged my lips, which Astarita had bruised with his kisses, and my eyes, still red from crying. The mirror threw back from its scratched and coruscated surface a painful image of myself, and for a moment I looked at it spellbound, my heart filled with pity and wonder. Then I pulled myself together, tidied my hair with my hands to the best of my ability and turned toward Astarita. He was waiting for me by the door and as soon as he saw that I was ready, he opened it, avoiding my eyes and keeping his back turned to me. I switched off the light and followed him.

We were greeted cheerfully by Gisella and Riccardo, who had been carrying on in the same gay, careless manner as when we had left them. They had failed to understand how upset I had been before, and now were just as incapable of understanding my present serenity.

“Well you’re quite the little innocent! You didn’t want to, didn’t want to, but as far as I can see you settled down to it very soon and
very well,” Gisella cried out. “Anyway, if you enjoyed it, good for you.… But it wasn’t worth while making such a fuss about it.”

I looked at her; it seemed to me extraordinarily unfair that she, who had urged me to yield and had even held my arms so that Astarita could kiss me more easily, should now be the one to reproach me for my complacency.

“You aren’t very logical, Gisella,” remarked Riccardo with his rough common sense. “First you persuade her and now you seem to be telling her she shouldn’t have done it.”

“Of course,” replied Gisella harshly, “if she didn’t want to, she’s been very wrong. If I didn’t want to myself, nothing, not even force, could make me. But she wanted to,” she added, looking at me in a disgusted and dissatisfied way. “She wanted to. And how! I saw them in the car while we were coming to Viterbo. So she shouldn’t have made such a fuss, that’s all I’m saying.”

I did not utter a word, being lost in admiration at the refinement of her pitiless and unwitting cruelty. Astarita came near and clumsily tried to take my hand, but I pushed him away and went to sit down at the end of the table. “Look at Astarita!” exclaimed Riccardo. “He looks as if he’s just come away from a funeral!”

As a matter of fact, Astarita, with all his gloom and solemnity, seemed to understand me better than the others did. “You make a joke of everything,” he said.

“Well, do you think we ought to burst into tears?” cried Gisella. “Now you two just sit and wait and be patient, like we did. It’s our turn now. Come on, Riccardo!”

“Be careful,” said Riccardo, getting up to follow her. He was obviously drunk and did not know himself what we had to be careful about.

“Come on, let’s go!”

So they left the room, and Astarita and I were alone. I sat at one end of the table and he at the other. A ray of sunshine came in through the window and shone brightly on the untidy crockery, the fruit parings, half-empty glasses and dirty knives and forks. But Astarita’s expression remained distressed and overcast, although the sun was shining full on his face. His desire had been appeased,
but all the same the look of anguished intensity he had displayed at the beginning of our relationship was still present in his eyes. I felt sorry for him then, despite the harm he had done me. I realized he had been wretched before having me, and now, when it was over, he was no less wretched. He had suffered before because he had wanted me; he suffered now because I did not return his love. But pity is love’s worst enemy; if I had hated him, he might have hoped that one day I would come to love him. But I did not hate him and since, as I have said, I felt sorry for him, I was sure I would never feel anything more toward him than an unwelcoming and frigid disgust.

We sat there a long time in the sunny room, waiting for Gisella and Riccardo to return. Astarita chain-smoked and he looked at me all the time through the clouds of smoke that enveloped him, with the eloquent gaze of a man who wants to say something but does not dare. I was sitting sideways at the table, with my legs crossed; the only desire in my heart was to get away. I did not feel tired, or ashamed of myself; if I wanted anything at all, it was to be alone and think over what had happened, at my leisure. This longing I had to be alone was side-tracked every now and again by silly things I noticed — the pearl in Astarita’s tiepin, the pattern on the wallpaper, a fly walking around the edge of a glass, a little drop of tomato sauce that had splashed onto my blouse while I was eating, and I was annoyed with myself at being unable to think of anything more important. But this vacuity was of some use when Astarita, after a long silence, overcame his shyness and asked me, in a choking voice, “What are you thinking about?” I thought for a moment and then said simply, “One of my nails is broken and I can’t think when or how I did it.” It was true. But he looked at me bitterly and incredulously and from that moment definitely gave up any further attempt to talk to me.

At last, in God’s good time, Gisella and Riccardo came back, looking a little worn out, but as cheerful and easygoing as before. They were surprised to find us so silent and solemn, but it was late now and lovemaking had made them calmer; it had quite a different effect upon them from what it had on Astarita. Gisella
had even become affectionate to me, and no longer showed the cruelty and excitement she had before and after Astarita’s blackmailing coup. I found myself almost believing his blackmail had contributed a new kind of sensual thrill to her relationship with Riccardo. She put her arm around my waist as we went downstairs. “Why are you making that face?” she murmured. “If you’re worried about Gino, don’t be — neither Riccardo nor I will talk to anyone about it.”