We had a sixteen-year-old girl called Gemma for a maid, the daughter of the shoemaker at Maona. She was very silly and had an unpleasant way of laughing through her nose. She had a notion that there were mice in the house, although I never saw any myself, and she used to sleep with her head under the covers for fear the mice would jump on her bed and eat her up. Finally she came back from Maona one day with a cat and talked to him while she did the cleaning. The cat used to run into the room where the old lady had died, and Gemma was afraid to go after him because she had a peasant belief that the old lady would pop out of a closet and strike her blind. The cat would sit purring on an armchair and Gemma would stand in the doorway trying to lure him out with scraps of cheese. I used to go into this room frequently myself, because I liked to picture the old lady in my imagination and catch the odour of her that lingered in the empty powder box and the tasselled curtains. Her armchair and footstool still stood beside the window, and her black dress and crocheted shawl were hanging in the closet.
Alberto’s study was locked. Every time he went out of the house he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. When I asked him why, he said because there was a loaded revolver in the drawer of the desk. There was no lock on the drawer, so he locked the door of the room instead. With that he laughed and said he didn’t want to put ideas in my head. For years and years he’d kept that revolver loaded in case he ever wanted to kill somebody, or perhaps commit suicide. Keeping it that way was such a habit that he was almost superstitious about it. He said Augusto kept a loaded revolver in the drawer of his desk too.
While Alberto was away I often stopped in front of that door. It wasn’t on account of the revolver, I told myself, that he kept it locked. Perhaps there were letters and pictures in his desk. I was sorry that I hadn’t anything to hide from him, that he knew everything there was to know about me. Before I met him my life had been colourless and dull. And after our marriage I had let everything go. I had stopped teaching and saw Francesca very infrequently. Ever since she had offered to take me to San Remo and I had let her down she had shown little desire to see me. I felt that she was making an effort not to say anything disagreeable and looked back sentimentally to the time when she used to bully and scold me instead of being distant and polite. The Gaudenzis used to ask Alberto and me to their house in the evening. They were always very nice and said they felt they had a share in our happiness because it was through them that we had met. But Alberto said they were stupid and uninteresting and he was always finding excuses to stay away. What he did like, however, was to have Augusto drop in. They would sit and talk in the study and I went to bed, because Alberto said that it embarrassed Augusto to see me.
A few days after Alberto had gone I met Augusto in the street. He was walking along with his overcoat collar turned up and his hands in his pockets, and he looked at me hard out of his strong stony face. I began to shake so that I couldn’t say a word, and he nodded to me and walked hurriedly on. So now I knew that Alberto had lied when he told me he was going away with Augusto. I went back to the house and sat down by the stove and the cat crept up into my lap. Then it was that I thought for the first time that our marriage was a big mistake. I sat there stroking the cat and staring through the window at the leaves on the trees, which had turned pink in the glow of the sunset. All of a sudden I realized that I felt like a guest in this house. I never thought of it as mine, or the garden either, and I felt guilty whenever Gemma broke a plate, even if Alberto didn’t say anything. Sometimes I half imagined that the old lady actually would pop out of a closet and chase Gemma and the cat and myself away. But where, then, could I feel at home? In my room at Maona my mother had begun to store potatoes and jars of tomato preserve. For a moment I wished I were back in the boardinghouse, with the landlady’s hysterical daughter and the flowered hangings, boiling an egg over an alcohol flame.
Finally I had supper and went to bed. But it was cold and I lay there with my teeth chattering instead of going to sleep. Here in this bed we had made love for the first time when we came back from our fortnight’s honeymoon on the lakes. I was disgusted and ashamed every time Alberto made love to me, but I imagined that all women must feel the same way at the start. I liked best to lie quietly and feel him sleeping beside me. I told him the way I felt about making love and asked him if other women felt the same way. He answered that he didn’t know how the devil it was with women. The main thing for a woman was to have a baby, and for a man too. And I ought to cure myself of the habit of thinking about things so hard.
It had never occurred to me that he could lie. I had helped him pack his bag and made him take a blanket with him because I thought he might be cold in the inns and farmhouses where he said he would stay. He didn’t want to take it, but I insisted. Then he left the house in a great hurry, saying that Augusto was waiting for him at the station.
I thought of our lovemaking and the tender, feverish words he whispered in my ear. Then he would fall asleep and I could hear his steady breathing beside me. I would lie awake in the darkness and try to remember every word he had said. I didn’t care much for the lovemaking, but I enjoyed lying awake in the darkness and saying his words over and over to myself.
He hadn’t gone away with Augusto, then. He had gone with that woman. Doubtless this wasn’t the first time he had lied to me; doubtless they had gone on meeting even after he had decided to marry. When he said he was going to the office, perhaps he was going to see her instead. They were making love together and he said the same feverish words to her as he said to me. Then he probably lay quietly at her side and they sighed over the fact that they must live apart. I could see the woman standing motionless in the darkness before me, wearing a shiny silk dress and quantities of jewels. She yawned and pulled down her stockings with an indolent gesture. Then she disappeared, only to turn up again in a tall and masculine guise, striding along with a Pekinese dog in her arms.
Alberto stayed away ten days. The evening he came back he seemed tired and in a bad humour and he asked for a cup of very hot coffee. Gemma had already gone to bed, so I made the coffee and took it to him in our room. He drank it very slowly, staring at me all the while but making no motion to kiss me.
“You weren’t with Augusto,” I said. “Who were you with?”
He put the cup on the table, got up, and scratched his head. Then he took off his jacket and tie and threw them on the chair.
“I’m sleepy and tired,” he said. “I don’t feel like talking.”
“Augusto was here all the time,” I said. “I saw him on the street. Who were you with?”
“Alone,” he answered. “I was alone.” We got into bed and I put out the light. Suddenly Alberto’s voice rose up out of the darkness.
“It was anything but a pleasant trip,” he said. “I’d have done better to stay at home.” He edged up to me and held me tight. “Don’t ask any questions,” he added. “I feel worn out and terribly sad. Just be silent and very, very still.”
“Is she as bad as all that?” I asked.
“She’s unfortunate,” he said, running his hands over my body. “She can’t help being unkind.”
Hot, silent tears streamed down my cheeks. He touched my face with his hands and held me tighter.
“A perfectly hellish trip,” he said, and I heard him laughing under his breath. “Don’t ask any questions. Don’t ever ask any questions. You’re all I’ve got. Just remember that.”
His hand lay on my shoulder, and I put out my hand to touch his thin, hot face. For the first time I wasn’t disgusted when we made love.
A few months later Alberto went away again. I didn’t ask him any questions. He was packing his bag in the study and I saw him put in a volume of Rilke. He used to read Rilke’s poems out loud to me, too, in the evening. When he went out the door he said: