this way I came to know that she was an only child, that she lived with her parents in a flat in the Prati district, that her father was a tradesman, that she had been educated by the nuns, that she had a few girl friends, that she was not engaged to be married—and a few other things of the kind. Told in this way, these may seem summary pieces of information such as might be provided about any girl of Cecilia’s age and position; but they were in truth the only facts I succeeded in obtaining, and then only with great difficulty. Cecilia certainly did not appear to wish to conceal anything from me; if anything, she seemed to be ignorant of a great deal of what I asked her, or at any rate to be incapable of describing things or defining them in detail. It might have been thought that she had never stopped to look around, to observe herself and her own world, so that in asking her these questions I was putting her more or less in the situation of someone who is being interrogated about persons and things to which he has never paid any attention. There is a game that consists in showing to someone, for the space of one minute, some illustration or other, and then asking him to name all the objects which are represented in it. In this game, which puts a person’s power of observation to the test, Cecilia would certainly have obtained the lowest possible marks, for she appeared never to have seen or observed anything, although she had lived not for one single minute, but for years, in front of the illustration of her own life. Her information, furthermore, was not merely generalized but also inexact; as though these few things—the only daughter, the parents, the tradesman father, the education by the nuns, the girl friends—were by no means clearly established in her mind, as indeed nothing can be which has never aroused our curiosity even though close to us and easily observable. And even when she gave an exact reply, she left me equally in doubt because of the cold, generic, colorless way in which she expressed herself, apparently the result of an unconquerable inattentiveness.
Since Cecilia’s family and background did not interest me very much, I fell back of necessity upon Balestrieri, whom I felt to be connected in some obscure way with me and with my relations with Cecilia. In point of fact, even when she was speaking of Balestrieri, Cecilia’s laconic manner was never modified, but this did not discourage me; on the contrary, her reserve on the subject of the old painter inspired me with a passionate desire to know more about him, always to know more. Actually, when questioning her about her past and about Balestrieri, I felt, as I very soon realized, that I was questioning her about her future and about myself.
Two months had passed since the day when Cecilia came into my studio for the first time, and I was now beginning to wonder how it was that Balestrieri had been able to entertain so violent a passion for her; how it was, in fact, that Cecilia had come to play the part, for him, of the “fatal woman”—using those two words in the full sense of baleful predestination which they ought to have and normally do not have. I found it difficult to believe because, apart from her noteworthy sexual capabilities—which in any case she had in common with a great many other girls of her age—Cecilia seemed to me insignificant in the highest degree and therefore incapable of arousing a passion as destructive as Balestrieri’s. The clue to this character of hers, so devoid of interest and of pretexts for taking interest in it, was provided, as I have already hinted, by her colorless, summary manner of expressing herself. I have often reflected upon the spiritual quality of which this manner was evidence, and I have come to the conclusion that it revealed a great simplicity. Not, however, the simplicity of common sense, which has always something open-hearted about it; but rather the troubled, enigmatic, incompetent simplicity of that kind of psychological amputation of which reticence, even if unconscious and involuntary, is the result.