back to all the things I used to imagine. Now I had become too idiotic to have any imagination. I absorbed his every word and tried to see if there was any love in it. I took his words and turned them over and over again in my mind. They seemed to have first one meaning and then another, until finally I let the whole thing go and dozed off.
Once Alberto told me that he had never done anything in earnest. He knew how to draw, but he was not a painter; he played the piano without playing it well; he was a lawyer but he did not have to work for a living and it didnât make much difference whether he turned up at his office or not. For this reason he stayed in bed all morning, reading. But often he had a feeling half of shame and half of satiety and thought he was going to stifle in his soft warm bed, with its yellow silk comforter. He said that he was like a cork bobbing on the surface of the sea, pleasantly cradled by the waves but unable to know what there was at the bottom. This was all he ever said about himself, except for the fact that he liked the country around the lakes. I absorbed these words and turned them over and over in my mind, but they amounted to very little beside the great stretches of mystery in his life, where only an old lady intent on her Sanskrit and a yellow silk comforter bobbed vaguely on the waves of my imagination.
While I was sitting there in the park it began to rain. I got up, went back to the café, and sat down at a small table near a window. Peering through the glass, I suddenly began to wonder whether anyone had heard my revolver shot. Our house is at the end of a quiet street, surrounded by a garden with trees. Quite possibly no one had heard it at all. This is the house of the old lady who studied Sanskrit; the bookcases are still full of Sanskrit tomes and the old ladyâs odour lingers on. I never saw the old lady for myself because she died before we were married, but I saw her ivory cigarette holder lying in a box, her bedroom slippers, her crocheted wool shawl, and her powder box, empty except for a wad of cotton. And everywhere there was her odour.
When Albertoâs mother died he was a wreck. He found her one morning dead in her bed. That afternoon he was to take me to an art exhibition. Finally, when he didnât turn up, I phoned him and he told me that his mother was dead. I couldnât find much to say over the telephone, so I sat down and wrote him a letter. Sometimes I can manage such things fairly well, and this one came to me easily. I didnât go to the funeral because the old lady had left the express wish that no one should be invited, at least so Dr. Gaudenzi told me when I phoned him up to inquire.
A few days later I got a note from Alberto saying that he didnât feel like going out and would I come to his house to see him. My heart beat fast at the prospect. I found Alberto unshaven and with rumpled hair, wearing a pyjama jacket over his trousers. He tried to light the stove but only managed to stuff it with newspapers without getting it to burn. I succeeded in lighting it, and we sat down close by. He showed me a picture of his mother when she was young, a large, haughty woman with a big Spanish comb stuck in her hair. He spoke of her at great length, and I could not reconcile his description of her as a kindly and sensitive soul with either the young woman in the picture or the cantankerous old lady in bedroom slippers whom I had always imagined. I looked at the stove and the room and the garden outside with its high trees and the grapevine growing on the wall. Sitting with him there in his house, I felt quieter and more peaceful than I had felt for a long time, as if the feverishness and tension of the past few months had subsided.
I was so happy when I went away that I couldnât bear to stay alone in the boarding-house and I went to see Francesca. But Francesca was in an abominable humour. She no sooner saw me than she complained of a
Once Alberto told me that he had never done anything in earnest. He knew how to draw, but he was not a painter; he played the piano without playing it well; he was a lawyer but he did not have to work for a living and it didnât make much difference whether he turned up at his office or not. For this reason he stayed in bed all morning, reading. But often he had a feeling half of shame and half of satiety and thought he was going to stifle in his soft warm bed, with its yellow silk comforter. He said that he was like a cork bobbing on the surface of the sea, pleasantly cradled by the waves but unable to know what there was at the bottom. This was all he ever said about himself, except for the fact that he liked the country around the lakes. I absorbed these words and turned them over and over in my mind, but they amounted to very little beside the great stretches of mystery in his life, where only an old lady intent on her Sanskrit and a yellow silk comforter bobbed vaguely on the waves of my imagination.
While I was sitting there in the park it began to rain. I got up, went back to the café, and sat down at a small table near a window. Peering through the glass, I suddenly began to wonder whether anyone had heard my revolver shot. Our house is at the end of a quiet street, surrounded by a garden with trees. Quite possibly no one had heard it at all. This is the house of the old lady who studied Sanskrit; the bookcases are still full of Sanskrit tomes and the old ladyâs odour lingers on. I never saw the old lady for myself because she died before we were married, but I saw her ivory cigarette holder lying in a box, her bedroom slippers, her crocheted wool shawl, and her powder box, empty except for a wad of cotton. And everywhere there was her odour.
When Albertoâs mother died he was a wreck. He found her one morning dead in her bed. That afternoon he was to take me to an art exhibition. Finally, when he didnât turn up, I phoned him and he told me that his mother was dead. I couldnât find much to say over the telephone, so I sat down and wrote him a letter. Sometimes I can manage such things fairly well, and this one came to me easily. I didnât go to the funeral because the old lady had left the express wish that no one should be invited, at least so Dr. Gaudenzi told me when I phoned him up to inquire.
A few days later I got a note from Alberto saying that he didnât feel like going out and would I come to his house to see him. My heart beat fast at the prospect. I found Alberto unshaven and with rumpled hair, wearing a pyjama jacket over his trousers. He tried to light the stove but only managed to stuff it with newspapers without getting it to burn. I succeeded in lighting it, and we sat down close by. He showed me a picture of his mother when she was young, a large, haughty woman with a big Spanish comb stuck in her hair. He spoke of her at great length, and I could not reconcile his description of her as a kindly and sensitive soul with either the young woman in the picture or the cantankerous old lady in bedroom slippers whom I had always imagined. I looked at the stove and the room and the garden outside with its high trees and the grapevine growing on the wall. Sitting with him there in his house, I felt quieter and more peaceful than I had felt for a long time, as if the feverishness and tension of the past few months had subsided.
I was so happy when I went away that I couldnât bear to stay alone in the boarding-house and I went to see Francesca. But Francesca was in an abominable humour. She no sooner saw me than she complained of a
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