"Yeah, like all the others."
Valdarena didn't seem to notice this. "The great dream of her life was. . was to join herself to a man," he looked at the glowering Don Ciccio, "to a man, or maybe even to a snake, who could give her the child she had dreamed of: 'her' child, the baby. . she had waited and waited for, in vain, in tears. She wept and prayed. When she began to realize that time was passing and nobody could stop it, then. . poor Liliana! In her emotional state she wouldn't recognize her own incapacity: no, she didn't admit it. And yet, without saying it outright, without putting it into words, she used to imagine, to dream that with another man, perhaps. . Believe me, Doctor, there's a kind of physical pride, a vanity of the person, of the viscera. We men, of course, some more, some less, by nature, we're all a pack of… preening turkey-cocks. We like to stroll up and down the Corso.
"But women have their pride, too: a physical one, like I say. You probably know this better than me." Ingravallo was biting back his fury, black as a thunderstorm. "She.. Liliana. . when I talked with her sometimes, all alone, the way cousins do. . you know, I could see. . she lived on that dream of hers, you might say: that with another man. . Another man! A tall order! with all that religion of hers! So… in that fantasy, she… in her guts. . she thought… it seemed to her that. . the other, that other man, could have been me. ."
"Ah," said Don Ciccio, "my warmest congratulations!" A horrible grimace, his face like tar.
"Don't laugh, Doctor," the suspect cried, pompously, his youthful pallor all gleaming in the "special" hundred-watt light. "No, don't laugh. Time and again Liliana talked to me about it! She told me always that she had loved Remo. . sincerely; I mean, she was kind of a goose about it, I'd say, poor thing." Ingravallo, in his heart, couldn't help conceding this: "an only daughter! without a mother! with no experience. ." She had loved him "from the first day she saw him," naturally. "She loved him still, she respected him, poor Lilianuccia!": the voice hesitated, then got going again: "For nothing in the world, religion aside, would she have thought of betraying him. But when she saw the years passing in that way, the best years of her life, without even the hope for. . for the fruit of that love… it was, for her, it was like a tormenting disappointment. She felt humiliated, the way they all feel when the baby doesn't come off: more than sadness, it's a kind of spite, to think that other women are triumphant, and they aren't. The most bitter of all of life's disappointments. So, for her, the world was nothing but weariness: nothing but tears. Tears that gave her no comfort. Weeping and weariness. A swamp. Enough to drive her mad."
"Let's skip the weariness, Doctor Valdarena. . What about the chain, and the diamond? Let's get down to facts. It looks to me like we're wasting time here. We can do without these flights. . these flights of fancy": he made a gesture as if dismissing some winged creature, urging the falcon up into the blue. "Let's talk a little about this anchor chain": and, taking it by one end, he swung it under his nose, looking him steadily in the eyes, blackly, "about this little gadget," and he weighed it in his other hand, "this tiny little thing." He seemed, at most, curious, wanting to observe minutely: like an ape into whose hand someone has dropped a toy whistle. Curly and black, that pitchy head, bent thus over the fingers and the metal that makes every mouth water, seemed to emanate tenebrous preconceived notions; and the procedural brightness of the room, as soon as the notions appeared, apparently forced them to curl up in that way, to become permanent, like a shiny, carbon fleece, on the skulclass="underline" "We have read the will of the Signora Liliana, rest her soul, poor woman, and she left these to you," and he set down the chain, picking up the ring from the table and beginning to weigh it in the palm of his hand, "because old grandfather Romilio, Signor Balducci says— was that his name? Romilio? Have I got it right? Ah, Rutilio? Grandfather Rutilio wanted it to go to his grandchildren, to his own flesh and blood… all in the family, I understand, I understand, and therefore to you, their pride and joy. But how come we found the stuff in your room? And how did the opal turn into an onyx? a what?.. Yes, I meant to say… a jasper?"
Giuliano raised his right hand, which appeared white, vivid, faintly traced with blue, the flexible veins of adolescence: he showed, on his ring finger, the magnificent jasper which prison hadn't taken from him: the one Ingravallo remembered seeing on his finger at the Balduccis', after dinner on the 20th of February, as they were taking their coffee. "She wanted it to match this," he answered, "she wanted me to get married, to have a kid. You're sure to have one, she said to me every time: and then she would cry. When I told her I was getting married (at first she wouldn't believe it), that I was going to live in Genoa, as soon as I showed her the snaps of Renata, well, no, I can't say she was jealous, not the way another woman would have been. . No. Isn't she beautiful? she said, but kind of with her teeth clenched. A brunette, isn't she? A pretty girclass="underline" just right for you, since you're as blond as an angel. And she started crying. As soon as she was convinced about the wedding, that it wasn't just a story. . Doctor, you won't believe it. . sometimes I think I'm going crazy myself. . she made me swear, right away, that I'd have a kid, as soon as I could: a little Valdarena. A Valdarenuccio, she said, through her tears. Now swear! A darling little innocent. She was out of her mind, our poor Liliana. She would adopt that first one: because Renata and I, she said, would promptly make another, and a third, a fourth: and those would be for us. But she had a right to the first one, she said. Providence would give us, Renata and me, all the babies we wanted. Because that's how the good Lord is, she said: everything to one person, and nothing to another." And it is in this guise, indeed, that He displays His mysterious perfection. "You're young, she said, you're healthy. . (like a bull, Doctor, I can tell you) like all the Valdarenas. The minute you're married, you'll make a baby: I can almost see him, almost hear him… If you don't have one on the way already. She laughed, and went on crying, too. And you've got to swear that you'll give him to me. I was to let her adopt it, in other words: like it was her child.
"What'll you give me, if I give you my baby? I said to her once. Christmas was already past, and New Year's… it was after the Epiphany. Why, it was past the middle of January. I was only joking. She bowed her head. Like she was thinking. . tired, sad: like a poor thing who didn't have anything to trade me: as if she had to ask for charity. Love? No, no, I didn't want that: I didn't mean love — I said, joking. She went pale, and flung herself down in a chair, like she was desperate." Ingravallo paled, too. "She looked at me with those eyes of hers, imploring. They were clouded with tears. She took my fingers, my right hand. She looked at my mother's ring, this one here: and she began to slip it off my finger. You've got to leave this with me for a few days, she said. Why? Because I say so. Because I want to match something, the present I'm going to give you. So I left it with her. And the next time I went to see her — Remo was off on a trip, he was in Padua, and without knowing it, I went to the house to see her — the next time… as soon as she saw me, she gave me my ring back, then, without saying anything, she made like a sign to me… a smile, the way you smile at a kid. Here, she said, and she looked at me: here! She took my hand, and slipped that ring on my finger, her grandfather's ring; this other one, my mother's, I wear on my middle finger, as you can see. Here, Giuliano, now take care of it, it's grandfather's ring. My grandfather. Your great-grandfather: what a good and handsome and strong man he was! He was a real man, like you! like you!" (That like you, like you, made the bulldog grit his teeth.) "And this is grandfather's watch chain. . And she showed me that, too (it's this one that they took from me in Via Nicotera) and she turned her eyes to the portrait, you know? the oval one, in the gold frame with the ivy leaves, you know?" "Ivy leaves?"