That Awful Mess on the via Merulana - Carlo Emilio Gadda [117]
"Why, what do you know? Why are you asking me, then, if you already know?"
"I told you. Because I want to hear it from you, from you in person, what you think about it and what you have to say. Yes, you, Signora Pacori, Zamira, with your diploma in fortunetelling": and he sought it, on the wall, with his gaze: hanging like an engineering degree in a surveyor's office. But it must have been downstairs, with the Death's Head, in the consulting room, near the padlocked cupboard where the cheese was also stored.
She tried her smile again, her most lascivious one: she recalled her dribble, sucking in from the corners, despite the vault in the midst. She dried her lips, moving her little tongue in a rapid, scything motion, which then rested, for a moment, at the margin of impudence, of sluttidence, as Belli{59} might have said. It was, in general, a slimy and dark red tongue, as if it had also been painted: and at that moment it crouched down among the canines, nice and docile, in a posture of waiting and perhaps of relaunching, since the fence of incisors had rotted away in the wayward years.
"Well, Sergeant dear, what can I tell you? You let me know . . ." and she swayed her head, here and there, looking like a silk moth, very coy: and she was careful, at the same time, to wriggle, with the larger part of her proffer-ings, poorly concealed in this early hour, on the edge of the chair: to which she felt nailed. "You let me know, because I imagine, you know too, he he he, that we women, he he he, since we are women, he he he, have our little troubles . . . every so often ... a punishment of the Lord, he he he, to try our patience, poor us! It isn't our fault if we're not like you men, he he he, who are always able to stand up!"
This time, revolted, it was he, the corporal, who played dumb.
"What troubles? Leave troubles out of it!" She went on, haughtily:
"Well, Sergeant, just think a minute—with that kind heart of yours! You can't deny that it's so. My poor little girls, poor things!" Then, imploring: "You mean you don't have a wife?" shameless! "Or a couple of sisters? Not even one? . . . everybody has a sister, you might say. Where's the man these days, with all the men around, who doesn't have a couple of sisters to marry off? Even that big poet, the patriotic one, had one: the poet who made everybody cry, at Christmas, in Libya, at Ain Zara, with the Sixth Bersaglieri . . . what was his name? he's dead now, poor thing! What was his name? Giovanni... you know ... those places where there's grass," and with her hand she drew the name from her forehead, "Giovanni... Giovanni Prati! No, no . . . not Giovanni Prati, wait a minute," and she continued, with her hand, "How can I have forgotten? It's all the trials I've been through . . . they've ruined my memory. Giovanni Pascoli!{60} There, now I remember: I knew he had a name like the places where they make hay."
"Skip the grass and the hay, and the meadows and the pastures. And forget about the dead. Just answer me."
"But, Sergeant dear, let me get a word in. How can I answer you, otherwise? I was saying, how everybody nowadays has a sister, no? And if you have one, then I'm sure .. . that day comes around for your sister, too, poor lamb; maybe she has a little headache. We women, he he he, have our headaches here." And she touched her belly, almost caressing it. Her eyes flashed satanic, intoxicated. The black oven between the incisors' gap. The tongue drawn back, now, like a parrot's when he gurgles in his throat, in spite. Her hair seemed to be summoned aloft, by electricity, as if it were about to burst into flame and crackle like brambles, when a spark, on the baked earth, kindles them.
"Yes, I understand, you women here get a headache from all the knitting you have to do. But don't start nagging me with headaches now. Cut it short. Enough of this