Nun (9781609459109) by Simonetta Agnello Hornby Page A

from the Academy, to show their parents what they had learned, as if it were a recital.
    Agata went downstairs to the
piano nobile
in the early afternoon to help out with preparations for the dance; she helped her cousins to dress, put on their makeup, select the right jewelry for their gowns, and make sure that the refreshments had been properly laid out and that everything was in order in the drawing rooms. She was thrilled and there wasn’t a shade of envy in her excitement. She was ashamed of her own clothing and didn’t expect to take part in the festivities; her dark dress clashed with the colorful costumes of the other girls, and she was afraid that she didn’t know how to dance as well as they did. The guests arrived, beaming; she stayed in the background, out of the way, and before the dancing began she found a place in the venerable old musicians’ loggia; the loggia, transformed into an alcove with curtains, was used every Christmas for a magnificent mechanical manger scene with streams and fountains with running water. She admired the guests contentedly. She loved the elegance of Neapolitan youth, so knowing and far more self-assured than the young people of Messina, and she was also happy to see how many foreigners there were: Swiss officers in the Royal Army and civilians of various nationalities. The young people from the Academy danced both the quadrille and modern dances with equal mastery, under the severe gazes of Aunt Clementina and her husband and of other married couples of parents who had little patience for modernity but, eager as they were to marry of their daughters, could ill afford to swim entirely against the current.
    Transported by the music, Agata began to sketch out the steps of each dance while dreaming of her Giacomo. They were dancing a waltz. Agata lifted her arms as if they were wrapped around the shoulders of an invisible gallant escort, she arched her back and raised her head, chin held high, sliding back her left foot to make room for the right foot of her imaginary gentleman in the first movement of the waltz. She executed a pirouette, whirling and spinning, her back increasingly arched, then she stood erect and resumed the slower step, wreathed in smiles.
    And so she was smiling when James Garson saw her. His curiosity aroused by the sound of tapping heels that came from the alcove, he had gone over to take a peep behind the curtain. Agata came to a sudden halt, in embarrassed confusion. He made his way carefully into the alcove and pulled the curtain shut behind him. Then he wrapped his arm around her waist, slipped his other hand between her fingers, and they resumed the dance that had been interrupted. Agata’s foot, hesitantly, struck his longer foot. Just once. Then they danced slowly and in perfect time, managing even to pirouette in that cramped, confined space.
    The music came to an end. “Thank you,” he said to her. They were still standing, still in position for the dance.
    â€œGo,” she replied, without attempting to unravel their fingers. James lifted her hand and grazed her knuckles with a feathery kiss. Then he turned and left. The pianist had begun playing again and Agata went on dancing until the soirée ended. She was dancing with her Giacomo, with renewed transport.
    Â 
    That night, Agata had her first carnal dream, and she abandoned herself to it.

7.
Preparations for the wedding of Anna Carolina Padellani;
Agata instead receives a tray of pastries
from her aunt the abbess
 
    D onna Gesuela had entered a phase of frantic activity. With the help of Tommaso Aviello, she had completed in record time the procedures involved in paying Anna Carolina’s dowry and she had set the date for the wedding on the first day compatible with the liturgical calendar, immediately after Easter, in Naples. It was necessary to make sure that there was no way for the Carnevale family to wriggle out of its commitment, and with a view to nailing