The Woman of Rome (27 page)

The noise of the door being opened awoke me from my kind of daydream. Mother was lighting the lamp. “What are you doing in the dark?” she asked me, and I leaped to my feet, dazzled, and looked at her. She had put on brand-new clothes: I took that in at first glance. She had not put on a hat, because she never wore one, but was wearing an elaborately cut black dress. On her arm she
was carrying a large, black leather bag with a yellow metal clasp, and had a short cat fur around her neck. She had damped her gray hair and combed it carefully, pulling it tightly piled on top of her head into a little knot stuck through with hairpins. She had even dabbed some pink powder on her once dry and withered but now too florid cheeks. I could hardly help smiling when I saw her so dressed up and serious; and, in my usual affectionate way, I said, “We’d better be going.”

I knew Mother enjoyed ambling slowly along, when the traffic was at its height, through the main streets where the best shops in town are to be found. So we took a streetcar and got off at the top of Via Nazionale. When I was a little girl, Mother used to take me for walks along this street. She used to begin from Piazza dell’Esedra, on the right-hand sidewalk, and proceed slowly, looking attentively into every shop window until we reached Piazza Venezia. Then she would cross over and return to Piazza dell’Esedra, still looking at every single thing in the windows and dragging me along by the hand. Then, without having bought even a pin or having dared to enter one of the numerous cafés, she used to take me home, tired and sleepy. I remember I did not enjoy these walks myself because, unlike Mother, who seemed content to feed her appetite on detailed and delighted window shopping, I had wanted to enter the shops, to buy and take home some of the many lovely new things offered for sale in so much light behind the gleaming windows. But I realized very young that we were poor and I never expressed my feelings in any way. Only once I made a scene, I cannot remember why. We rushed along the crowded street, Mother dragging me by one arm while I tugged against her with all my might, shouting and crying. Until at last Mother lost her patience and boxed my ears instead of giving me the object I craved; and, at each successive blow, I forgot the pain of not being allowed to have what I wanted.

Here I was, then, once more at the far end of the sidewalk opposite the Piazza dell’Esedra, on Mother’s arm, as if all the years had made no difference. Here the pavements were swarming
with feet wearing shoes, boots, high boots, shoes with heels and shoes without, and some in sandals, which, to look at them, made one’s head go round; here the people were strolling up and down in couples, or in groups of men, women and children, or alone: some slow, some in a hurry, all alike, perhaps just because they all wanted to be different, with the same clothes, the same hair, the same faces, eyes, and mouths. Here were the furriers, bootmakers, stationers, jewelers, watchmakers, booksellers, florists, drapers, toyshops, hardware stores, milliners, hosiers, glove shops, cafés, theaters, banks; here were the lighted windows of the buildings with people walking up and down or working at desks; the electric signs, always the same; on the street corners stood the newspaper kiosks, the chestnut sellers, the unemployed selling
ruban de Bruges
and rubber rings for umbrellas. Here were the beggars, a blind man with black spectacles, cap in hand at the top of the street, his head thrown back against the wall, lower down an elderly woman suckling a child at her shrunken breast, and lower still an idiot with a shiny yellow stump like a knee-joint where his hand should have been. As I found myself once more in that street, among such familiar things, I had a funereal impression of immobility, which made me shudder profoundly and feel momentarily naked, as if the icy breath of fear had passed between my body and my clothes. The clamorous, impassioned voice of a woman singing came from the radio of a nearby café. She was singing
Faccetta nera
— it was the year of the Abyssinian war.

Mother naturally had no inkling of what I was feeling; and, of course, I did not show it. As I have already said, I look good-natured, docile, even-tempered, and other people cannot easily guess what is going on inside my head. But at one moment I felt moved despite myself — the woman’s voice had now started on a sentimental song — my lips trembled and I spoke to Mother. “Do you remember when you used to take me up and down this street to look in the shop windows?”

“Yes,” she replied, “but everything cost less in those days — that bag, for instance — you’d have got it for thirty lira then.”

We passed on from the leather shop to the jeweler’s. Mother stopped to look at the jewelry. “Look!” she exclaimed ecstatically, “just look at that ring! Heaven knows what it would cost — and that heavy gold bracelet! I’m not keen on rings and bracelets myself — but I do like a nice necklace. I had a coral necklace once — but then I had to sell it.”

“When?”

“Oh, years ago now.”

I do not know why, but I was reminded that so far, with all my professional earnings, I had never yet been able to buy myself even the simplest ring. “You know,” I said to Mother, “I’ve made up my mind not to bring men home anymore. It’s over.”

This was the first time I had mentioned my profession to Mother in so many words. She had a look on her face that I failed to understand at the time. “I’ve told you time and again,” she said, “do what you like. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

But she did not seem happy. “We’ll have to take up the life we were living before.… You’ll have to start cutting out and sewing shirts again,” I continued.

“I did it for years,” she said.

“We won’t have so much money as we have now,” I insisted rather cruelly. “We’ve been spoiled lately.… I don’t know what I’ll do myself.”

“What do you think you’ll do?” Mother asked hopefully.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Be a model, perhaps — or help you with your work.”

“What help will you be to me!” she said discouragingly.

“Or else,” I went on, “I can be a maid — what is there to do?”

Mother’s face now looked sad and bitter, as if she had in a moment shed the accumulated fat of recent times, as trees shed their dead leaves at the first chill of autumn. “You must do what you want,” she repeated, but this time with conviction. “As long as you’re happy, that’s all I say.”

I realized that two opposing passions were struggling within her: her love for me and her attachment to an easy way of life. I was sorry for her and I would have preferred her to have had the
courage to give up one or the other of these two emotions for good and all, and either be all love or all calculation. But this happens very rarely and we spend our lives canceling the effects of our virtues with those of our vices. “I wasn’t happy before,” I said, “and I won’t be happy now — only I can’t go on anymore that way.”

After this we said nothing more. Mother’s face was all gray and collapsed, and her old drawn look of thinness seemed to become visible once more beneath her current florid appearance. She looked at the shop windows just as zealously and with as much concentration as before; but mechanically now, with no delight or curiosity, as if her mind were engrossed with something else. Perhaps her eyes were unseeing even while she gazed; or rather, she saw not the goods exposed in the windows, but her sewing machine with its tireless treadle, the needle thrusting madly up and down, the heaps of unfinished shirts lying on the table, and the black cloth she used to wrap around the completed work before taking it across town to her clients. But there were no such visions between my eyes and the shop windows. I saw them perfectly and my thoughts were crystal clear. I could make out all the objects behind the glass windows, with their price tags, one by one. I told myself I might not want to continue in my profession, did not want to, in fact, but there was actually nothing else I could do. I might now, within certain limits, have purchased most of the objects I was contemplating, but the very day I returned to being a model or any similar employment, I would have to give those things up forever, and the usual mean, comfortless life of repressed desires, useless sacrifice, and profitless saving would begin all over again for Mother and me. I might even aspire to owning some jewelry now, if I could find someone to give it to me. But if I returned to my old way of life, jewels would be as far out of my reach as the stars in heaven.

A rush of disgust for the old life, so stupidly harsh and hopeless, overwhelmed me and at the same time I had a vivid sense of the absurdity of my reasons for wishing to change my profession. Just because a student over whom I had lost my head had refused to have anything to do with me! Because I had persuaded myself
that he despised me! Because I would have liked to be something different from what I was. I told myself it was only pride and that I could not, out of mere pride, plunge myself, and Mother in particular, back into the old, wretched conditions. I suddenly envisioned Giacomo’s life, which for a brief moment had drawn near to mine and mingled with it, running off in another direction while my own continued along the path I was already treading. If I found someone who loved me and wanted to marry me, I’d change, even if he were poor, I thought, but it wouldn’t be worthwhile for a whim. At this thought, my heart was filled with the sweet calm of liberation. I have often had the same feeling since, not only every time I have not refused what fate seemed to offer me in life, but when I have even gone out to meet it. I was what I was, and I had to be that and nothing else. I might be either a good wife, although this may seem odd, or a woman who sells herself for money, but I could not be a poor woman struggling and scrimping all her life long, with no other aim than the satisfaction of her own pride. Having made peace with myself, I smiled.

We were standing in front of a women’s clothing shop that displayed silks and woolens. “Look what a lovely scarf!” Mother said. “That’s just what I want.”

Feeling composed and serene once more, I raised my eyes and looked at the scarf she meant. It really was lovely, in black and white, with a pattern of birds and branches. The shop door was open, with the counter in full view, and on the counter stood a case divided into little sections all filled with similar scarves, heaped untidily together. “Do you like it?” I asked Mother.

“Yes, why?”

“You shall have it. But first give me your purse and you take mine.”

She did not understand and gaped at me. I said nothing but took her large black leather bag and put my smaller one into her hands. I undid the clasp of her bag and keeping it open with my fingers I slowly entered the shop, like someone intending to make a purchase. Mother, who still did not understand but dared not question me, followed me in.

“We want to see some scarves,” I said to the clerk, as I walked up to the showcase.

“These are silk, these cashmere, these wool, these cotton —” she said, tumbling the scarves out before me.

I walked right up to the counter, and holding the purse level with my stomach, I began to examine the scarves with one hand, opening them and holding them up to the light to see the patterns and colors better. There were at least a dozen black-and-white ones, exactly alike. I let one slip onto the edge of the case, with an end hanging over the counter.

“I really wanted something brighter,” I said to the girl.

“There’s a better-quality article,” said the clerk, “but it’s more expensive.”

“Let me see it.”

She turned to lift down a case from the shelves. I was ready and drawing away from the counter a little, I opened the bag. It only took a moment to pull the scarf down by one end and then press myself up against the counter again.

Meanwhile the clerk had lifted the case down from the shelf. She put it on the counter and showed me some larger and finer scarves. I examined them at my leisure, commenting on the colors and patterns, and even showing them to Mother with little exclamations of approval that she, having seen everything and looking more dead than alive, answered by nods.

“How much are they?” I asked at last.

The clerk told me the price. “You were right,” I said regretfully. “They’re too expensive, for us, anyway — but thanks all the same.”

We left the shop, and I walked quickly toward a nearby church, since I was afraid the clerk might notice the theft and run after us through the crowd. Mother, hanging on to my arm, looked about her with a suspicious and bewildered air, like someone who has been drinking and is none too certain that the things he sees wavering and shifting before his eyes are not drunk, instead. I could not help laughing at her bewilderment. I did not know why I had stolen the scarf; it was not important in itself because I had already stolen the compact from the house of Gino’s employer, and in
such matters what counts most is the first step. But the sensual pleasure of the first time came back to me; and I felt I understood now why so many people steal. A few steps brought us to the church on a side street.

“Shall we go in for a moment?” I asked Mother.

“If you like,” she answered submissively.

We entered the little white church, circular in shape, which resembled a dance hall, with its double ring of columns encircling the floor. A dull light poured down from the windows in the dome onto the two rows of pews, polished by use. I raised my eyes and saw that the dome was frescoed all over with figures of angels with outspread wings, and I felt certain that those splendid, handsome angels would protect me, and that the clerk would not notice the theft before evening. The silence, the smell of incense, the shadow and sense of absorbed prayer in the church, all helped to reassure me after the confusion and excessively strong light in the street. I had entered the church hastily, almost knocking into Mother, but I grew calmer at once and my fear subsided. Mother made as if to fumble inside my bag, which she was still holding. I held her own out to her. “Put your scarf on,” I whispered to her.

She opened the bag and arranged the stolen scarf on her head. We dipped our fingers in the holy-water stoup and went to sit down in the first row of pews facing the high altar. I knelt down and Mother remained seated, her hands in her lap, her face shadowed by the scarf, which was too large for her. I realized she was distressed; and I could not help comparing my own calm with her agitation. I felt in a sweet and conciliatory frame of mind, and although I knew I had done something forbidden by religion, I felt no remorse and was far nearer a religious state than I was when I had done nothing wrong and had worked my fingers to the bone to eke out a living. I remembered the shudder of bewilderment I had experienced a moment earlier while looking at the crowded street, and I was comforted by the idea that there was a God who could see clearly into me and saw there was nothing bad, and that the mere fact of being alive rendered me innocent, as, in fact, all men are. I knew this God was not there to judge
and condemn me, but to justify my existence, which could only be good since it descended directly from Him. While I mechanically repeated the words of the prayer, I was looking at the altar, where the dark image in a picture dimly visible behind the candle flames appeared to be the Madonna, and I realized that between the Madonna and myself the question was not whether I should behave in a particular way, but more essentially whether I should feel encouraged to continue living at all. The encouragement I was seeking suddenly seemed to me to be pouring out toward me from the dark figure behind the altar candles, in the form of a sudden sensation of heat that flooded my whole being. Yes, I was encouraged to go on living, although I knew nothing about life or why I was alive.