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By Root 709 0

just because I could not succeed in possessing her through the sexual act, I felt myself urged to repeat that same act over and over again. In reality, both the money and the sexual act gave me for a moment the illusion of possession, and I could now no longer do without that moment, although I knew that it was regularly followed by a feeling of profound disillusionment. I looked at my mother lying there flat on her back with her arm over her face, then I thought of Cecilia who, at the same moment that she closed her hand on my money, opened her mouth to my kiss, and I felt that I would be capable of committing a crime in order to have the money I needed. My attention was drawn especially to the hand which my mother held over her eyes; on each of its thin fingers were massive rings with precious stones in them; all I need do was to slip off one of these rings and I should be able to give Cecilia all the money I wanted, at any rate for some months. Then, for some reason, I remembered the favorable, if self-interested, behavior of my mother when I had made advances to the maid Rita; and I changed my plan. I got up and sat on the bed, and said with calculated gentleness: “Mother, I want to be honest with you. I don’t need this money for doing up the studio. I need it for another reason.”

“And what reason is that?”

“It would be better if you gave me the money without asking so many questions. There are things that it’s not easy to say.”

“A mother has the right to know in what way her son spends her money.”

“A son of sixteen, I daresay; but not a son of thirty-five.”

“A mother is a mother, whatever age her son is.”

“Well, I want this money for a woman.” After I had said this, I looked at my mother again. She was still motionless, and appeared once more to have fallen asleep. Then her voice came to me: “Some bad woman, no doubt.”

“But, Mother, if she was a bad woman, do you think I should be asking you for three hundred thousand lire?”

“A respectable woman doesn’t expect to be paid.”

“But supposing this woman is in real need?”

“Be careful, Dino, there are women who are capable of inventing all kinds of wonderful romances in order to get money.”

“It’s not a case of romance, it’s a case of absolute necessities—food, rent, clothes.”

“In fact, you have to keep her in every possible way?”

“Not exactly; just to help her a little, for a certain time.”

“A piece of riff-raff, I suppose,” said my mother. “How much better it would have been, Dino, if you had had a liaison with a married lady, someone of your own world, who would not have asked you for anything and would not have been a burden upon you in any way.”

I replied, without irony: “My world is not the world in which ladies of that kind are to be found.”

“Your world is my world,” said my mother. “Above all, Dino, do be careful; you can catch all sorts of diseases with these adventuresses who are going about nowadays.”

“I haven’t caught anything yet, and I won’t catch anything in the future.”

“How do you know who this woman goes with when you’re not there? I repeat, Dino, be careful. Of course you know that in some cases there are precautions that can and ought to be taken.”

“You’ll be telling me next how I ought to conduct myself when I make love.”

“No, but I want to put you on your guard. After all you are my son and your health is important to me.”

“Well, Mother, to come to the point: are you going to give me this money?”

My mother removed her hand from her eyes and looked at me. “And who is this woman?” she asked.

I answered with a phrase worthy of Cecilia. “This woman is—a woman.”

“You see—you want money, and then you don’t trust me.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, but what does it matter to you whether she’s called Maria, or Clara, or Paola?”

“I didn’t ask you her name, I asked you who she is—whether she’s unmarried or married, whether she works or does nothing or is a student, how old she is, what she looks like.”

“What a lot you want for a miserable little three hundred thousand lire!”

“You forget that, if we were to settle accounts and include