• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1323 0

tablecloth. "Assunta!" the signora cried. Assuntina looked at her. In that moment, both maid and mistress seemed extremely beautiful to Don Ciccio; the maid, harsher, had a severe, self-confident expression, a pair of steady, luminous eyes, two gems, a nose that made a straight line with the forehead: a Roman "virgin" of the age of Clelia; and the mistress, such a cordial manner, such a lofty tone, so nobly passionate, so melancholy! Her skin was enchanting. Looking at her guest, those deep eyes with a light of ancient nobility seemed to see, beyond the poor person of the "officer," all the poor dignity of a life! And she was rich, very rich, they said: her husband was well-off, traveled thirteen months the year, always tied up with those people up there in Vicenza. But she was even richer in her own right. To begin with, only real gents could afford to live in that huge building at number two hundred and nineteen: a few super high-class families, but above all people who were new to business, those who a few years ago had been called profiteers or "sharks."

And in the neighborhood the building itself was called by the poor people the palace of gold. Because it was as if the whole place right up to the roof were crammed with that precious metal. Inside, then, there were two staircases, A and B, with six floors and twelve tenants each, two per floor. But the triumph of it all was the third floor of stairway A, where on the one side lived the Balduccis, real class, and opposite the Balduccis there was a great lady, a Countess, also with a pile of money, a widow with a hard name to pronounce, Signora Menecacci, many cash, you might say, wherever you touched her there was a cache of gold, pearls, diamonds, all the most valuable stuff there is. And thousand-lire notes like butterflies: because money isn't safe in banks, you never know, and when you least expect it, they can catch on fire. So she had a dresser with a false bottom.

This, more or less, was the myth. The ears of Officer Ingravallo, which, under his crisp, black mop, rejoiced in a spring-like vitality, had seized it like that, in the air, like the ravings of ravens, or of Merulanian merli, after every whirring, from bough to bough of the spring. It was on every mouth, for that matter, and in every brain, one of those notions that become, thanks to a collective imagina-ion, compulsory, fixed ideas.

During the dinner Balducci had assumed, towards Gina, a paternal manner: "Ginetta, please, another drop of wine..." "Gina, fill the guest's glass . .." "Gina, an ashtray ..." like a good Papa; and she would answer promptly, "Yes, Uncle Remo." Signora Liliana then looked at her, content, almost with tenderness: as if she saw a flower, still closed, a little chilled by the dawn, now opening and shining before her eyes in the wonder of the daylight. The daylight was the male, baritonal voice of Balducci, the voice of the "father," and she, wife and bride of Papa, was therefore the Mamma. With great solicitude and a certain anxiety she followed the pretty hand of her still slightly hesitant ward in the act of pouring: glug, glug, golden Frascati, judging by the sound: the crystal decanter was heavy; the frail little arm seemed almost unable to hold it. Officer Ingravallo ate and drank soberly, as usual: but with a good appetite and a healthy thirst.

He didn't think, he didn't believe it opportune to think of asking anything, either about the new niece or the new maid. He tried to repress the admiration that Assunta aroused in him: a little like the strange fascination of the dazzling niece of the previous visit: a fascination, an authority wholly Latin and Sabellian, which made her well-suited to the ancient names, of ancient Latin warrior virgins or of not-reluctant wives once stolen by force at the Luper-cal, with the suggestion of hills and vineyards and harsh palaces, and with rites and the Pope in his coach, with the fine torches of Sant'Agnese in Agone and Santa Maria Portae Paradisi on Candlemas Day, and the blessing of the candles: a sense of the air of serene and