Voices In The Evening by Natalia Ginzburg Page A

properly?’ he asked. 
    â€˜Properly, oh yes. You were ridiculous.’
    â€˜I was ridiculous? Weren't you pleased?' 
    â€˜Why did you come?’ I asked. 
    He said, ‘To bring the brewers' yeast. 
    â€˜I came,’ he said, ‘to try it out.’
    â€˜To try it out?’
    â€˜Yes, to try it out.’
    â€˜To try out seeing me in my picture frame?. 
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And what impression did I make on you, in my picture frame?’
    â€˜I, too. What impression did I make on you in your picture frame?’
    My mother on the steps was asking whether or not we should invite Gigi Sartorio to supper along with Tommasino.
    â€˜Perhaps no,’ she said, because of that arm. What impression would a guest make at table with an arm stretched out on a board?
    â€˜But how is it that you told me you had forgotten it, the yeast? You had not forgotten it; you had bought it and given it to Tommasino.’
    â€˜What a handsome young man,’ said Aunt Ottavia.
    â€˜Handsome, yes. Of all Balotta’s children he has always been the best-looking,’said my mother.
    She said ‘But what put it into your head to take him back to the " Selecta”? '
    She said, ‘But what put it into his head to come here so late, just for a bit of yeast? The result is I had to invite him to supper. I shall make him a spinach soufflé. And a
zabaione
. I can make a
zabaione
as well if I do not invite Gigi Sartorio, because they had it yesterday evening.’
    â€˜Too many eggs,’ said Aunt Ottavia; eggs in the soufflé, eggs in the
zabaione
. Better to finish with a fruit tart.’
    â€˜A fruit tart? And aren’t there eggs in that?”
    â€˜Tommasino,’ said my mother ‘have a little more soufflé. It is very light.’
    She said, ‘I wanted to ask Gigi Sartorio as well. But I did not know if you would have liked that. And then he is handicapped at the moment with that arm. One fears all the time that he might knock up against something.’
    She said, ‘Gigi Sartorio is rather odd They say he is a morphine addict. I wonder if it is true.
    â€˜Do you Tommasino believe it?
    â€˜They say he has some odd tastes,’ said my mother again. ‘He goes abroad a lot and will have picked up queer habits perhaps. I wonder. His father the General is a very distinguished person.
    â€˜They say he has strange tastes. I don’t know. You know him well Tommasino?’
    â€˜General Sartorio?’
    â€˜No, no, the son. The General surely has not got strange tastes. He is such a methodical man.’
    â€˜They say in the village’ said Aunt Ottavia ‘that Gigi Sartorio is engaged to Giuliana Bottiglia.’
    â€˜Just imagine it!' said my mother. ‘They are merely good friends, good companions. For example the other morning he came to fetch her and they went to the tennis club to watch. Do you play tennis Tommasino?’
    â€˜No,’ said Tommasino ‘I don’t go in for any sport.’
    â€˜That’s bad,’said my mother, ‘because you are tail, and have an athlete’s figure. Our Elsa here formerly used to go to the tennis club. She played well; they said she had a long reach, a fine reach. But she has given up going. I wonder why.
    â€˜And my Giampiero,’ she said, ‘when he was here was passionately fond of sport. Nowadays in Venezuela he has grown lazy; it must be the climate. Indeed, when he came on leave I saw that he had lost his good colour.
    â€˜You, too, Tommasino,’ she said, ‘haven’t at all a good colour. You are always a bit pale. Perhaps it is the sedentary life you lead.’
    â€˜I am all right for colour,’ said Tommasino.
    â€˜No, you are not all right. As a child you were white and red, an apple.’
    â€˜One of the little Bottiglia girls is engaged then?’ said Tommasino.
    â€˜Ah, you call them the little Bottiglia girls,