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By Root 675 0

and of good quality. And in every darker corner of the rooms light was reflected from waxed floors, from surfaces of well-kept wood, from gleaming brass and silver; extreme cleanliness was another characteristic of the house. I noticed that as usual there were a number of large vases here and there, filled with slightly funereal bunches of flowers which my mother, as I knew, went to pick early every morning in the greenhouses. I realized that I was looking at all these things with an eye that was different from usual, less absent-minded, less detached, as though I were trying to discover the effect they made upon me, now that I had decided to come back and live with my mother. And I found that I had a feeling of mean and disgusted complacency, as if faced by an old temptation, now victorious but still as repugnant as ever. I went over to the antique, heavily framed mirror that hung above a console table at the far end of the drawing room, looked at myself and suddenly felt a need to shout an insult at myself, whether from hatred or joy, I did not know. “Idiot!” I cried. Almost at the same moment I heard a rustling sound behind me.

I turned and saw the maid Rita standing a few paces from me beside a wheeled bar-table and looking at me with a questioning air through her thick black-rimmed glasses. I wondered whether she had seen me while I was hurling insults at myself; I looked at her pale, sly face and could tell nothing. After a moment’s silence she said: “The Signora will be down in a moment. She told me to offer you a drink in the meantime. What would you like?”

Again I wondered whether her voice contained the irony that was not shown in her face. But no, it was a serious, or at the least a hypocritically serious, voice. I said I would like some whisky and with precise movements she took the whisky bottle, poured some into a glass, added a chunk of ice and some water and handed it to me, asking: “Is there anything else you would like?”

I said I wanted nothing more, and watched her go noiselessly away in her felt-soled shoes. Then I sat down with my whisky in one of the vast armchairs; I lit a cigarette and started to ponder. Why had I abused myself like that in front of the mirror? Obviously, I concluded, the danger of this sort of prodigal son comedy was that, when I least expected it and, as it were, in spite of myself, I might be suddenly tempted to utter profanities or create a scandal. In other words, I was a prodigal son of a particular type who, at the very moment when he was clasped in the embrace of his aged parent, felt a temptation to give the latter a good kick in the shins, and who, after devouring the festive banquet, went out and vomited it up in a corner of the garden. I had no time to go deeply into this interesting speculation as my mother came suddenly into the room. “Did Rita give you a drink?” she inquired.

“Yes, thank you. But who is this Rita?”

“She’s new here, she had very good references, she’d been with some Americans who have left. Really she was a sort of nursery governess, but as there aren’t any children here I said to her: ‘My dear girl, I’m forced to demote you into a parlor maid. You’re free to accept or not as you like.’ Naturally she agreed, of course she did, with all the unemployment there is....” My mother went on talking about Rita even after we had gone into the dining room, where Rita herself was standing at the sideboard, with cotton gloves on her hands, a lace cap on her head and a little oval apron at her waist. I wanted to say to my mother: “Be careful, you’re talking about Rita and Rita is here,” then I looked at the girl’s sly, bespectacled face and I was absolutely sure that she had seen me when I leaned forward in front of the mirror and called myself an idiot. I felt that this idea was not altogether displeasing to me, as though from that moment a kind of complicity had been established between myself and Rita. I sat down, and my mother, as she also took her seat, said: “Rita, Signor Dino is my son and tomorrow morning he’s coming to live here. Now don’t forget: if