The Woman of Rome (Italia)

by Alberto Moravia

“What do you care about the house?” she said with childish disappointment. “You said yourself you didn’t want a place like this.”

  “That’s not what I said,” I replied calmly. “It’s a lovely house — I wish I had one like it.”

  She said nothing. She was gazing downward with a sulky expression. “So,” I went on weakly after a moment, “you don’t want to show me around?”

  She raised her eyes and I saw to my amazement that they were full of tears. “You aren’t the friend I thought you were!” she exclaimed. “You’re — you’re bursting with envy and so you’re trying to run the place down just to upset me.” She was speaking to the air, her face bathed with tears. They were tears of rage and she was the one who was envious this time, a pointless envy that was sharpened unconsciously by my hopeless love for Giacomo and the bitter sense of separation it gave me. But although I understood her so well, indeed, just because of this, I was sorry for her. I got up, went over to her, put my hand on her shoulder.

  “Why say that?”-I said. “I’m not envious. I’d like other things — that’s all. But I’m glad you’re happy. So, come on, show me the other rooms,” I said, hugging her.

  She blew her nose and yielding to my persuasion said, “There are four rooms, in all — and they’re practically empty.”

  “Come on, show me.”

  She got up, led the way into the hall, and opening one door after another showed me a bedroom with only a bed and an armchair at the foot of it, an empty room where she intended to put another bed for “guests,” a little cubbyhole for the maid, with hardly room to swing a cat in. She showed me these rooms with a kind of annoyance, opening the doors and explaining what they were to be used for without any pleasure in them. But her bad mood gave way to vanity when she showed me the bathroom and the kitchen, both tiled in majolica, with their new electric machines and shining faucets. She explained how the machines worked, how much better they were than gas, how clean they were and how little they consumed, and although I was really not at all interested, I pretended this time to be enthusiastic and exclaimed in admiration and surprise. She was so delighted with my attitude that when we had seen the whole apartment she said, “Let’s go and have another liqueur.”

  “No, no,” I said, “I’ve got to go.”

  “What’s the hurry? Stay a while.”

  “I can’t.”

  We were in the hallway. She hesitated a moment, then said, “But you must come again … do you know what we could do? He often goes out of Rome — I’ll let you know and you bring along two friends of yours and we’ll have some fun.”

  “Suppose he finds out?”

  “Why should he?”

  “All right, then,” I said. I hesitated in turn, then took courage. “By the way,” I said, “has he ever mentioned that friend of his who was with him that evening?”

  “The student? Why? Did you like him?”

  “No, I only wondered.”

  “We saw him yesterday evening.”

  I could not conceal my agitation. “Listen,” I said uncertainly, “if you see him tell him to come see me. But you know — casually, without insisting.”

  “All right, I’ll tell him,” she answered. But she was looking at me suspiciously and her glance embarrassed me, because I felt that my love for Giacomo was written in large letters on my face. I understood from the tone of her voice that she would not pass on the message. In despair, I opened the door, said good-bye to her, and hurried downstairs without turning back. On the second landing I stopped and leaned against the wall, looking up. Why did I tell her? I thought. What came over me? I went on down the stairs with bowed head.

  I had made the appointment with Astarita at my own place; when I got there, I was worn out. I was no longer accustomed to going out in the morning and the sun and exercise had tired me. I did not even feel unhappy, I had already paid for my visit to Gisella when I had cried in the taxi on my way to her new apartment. Mother came and opened the door and told me someone had been waiting for me in my room for an hour. I went straight in and sat down on the bed, taking no notice of Astarita who was standing before the window, apparently staring down into the courtyard. I kept still for a moment, pressing my hand to my heart and panting because I had come upstairs so quickly. My back was turned to Astarita, I was gazing absently at the door. He had greeted me, but I had not answered. Then he came and sat down beside me and put his arm around my waist, looking earnestly at me.

  In all my worries I had forgotten his crazy desire that was always kindled and alert. An acute revulsion came over me. “Tell me, do you always want it?” I said, in a slow, disagreeable voice as I drew back from him.

  He said nothing but took my hand and raised it to his lips, looking upward at me. I thought I would go crazy and pulled my hand away. “You’re always ready, aren’t you?” I went on. “Even in the morning? After you’ve been working all morning? Before you’ve had your lunch? On an empty stomach? You know, you’re really amazing!”

  I saw his lips tremble and his eyes go wide. “But I love you!”

  “But there’s a time for making love and a time for other things. I made an appointment with you for one o’clock just so you’d know it wasn’t to make love and you — really you’re amazing! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

  He stared at me in silence. Suddenly I felt I understood him all too well. He was in love with me and had been waiting for this appointment for days. While I had been struggling with so many difficulties, he had been thinking of nothing else but my legs, my breasts, my hips, my mouth. “So,” I said, a little less angrily, “if I were to get undressed now —”

  He nodded in agreement. I burst out laughing, not unkindly but bitterly. “It wouldn’t occur to you that I might be unhappy or just not feel like it — that I might be hungry or tired or have some other worries — that wouldn’t ever cross your mind, would it?”

  He looked at me, then suddenly threw himself upon me and, hugging me closely, buried his face in the hollow between my neck and shoulder. He did not kiss me, he only pressed his face against me as if to feel the warmth of my flesh. He was breathing heavily and sighed from time to time. I was no longer irritated by him, his gestures roused my usual anxious pity. I only felt unhappy. When I thought he had had his fill of sighs, I pushed him off.

  “I asked you here on a serious matter,” I said.

  He looked at me, then took my hand and began to stroke it. He was tenacious and for him, really, nothing existed but his desire.

  “You’re in the police, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then — have me arrested, send me to prison.” I said this quite firmly. At the time, I really wanted him to do it.

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “I’m a thief,” I said loudly. “I’ve committed a theft and an innocent woman has been arrested in my place. So — arrest me. I’m quite willing to go to jail. That’s what I want.”

  He did not seem surprised, only annoyed.

  “Slow down!” he said with a grimace. “What happened? Tell me about it.”

  “I’ve told you, I’m a thief.” In a few words I told him about the theft and how the maid had been arrested instead of me. I told him of Gino’s trick, but I did not mention his name. I referred to him only as a servant. But I felt violently tempted to tell him about Sonzogno and his crime and I could hardly keep it back. At last I said, “Now you choose … either you get that woman out of prison or I’ll go and give myself up.”

  “Slow down,” he repeated, raising his hand. “What’s the hurry? For the time being she’s in jail — but she hasn’t been sentenced yet. Let’s wait.”

  “No, I can’t wait! She’s in jail and they say she’s been beaten up.… I can’t wait. You’ve got to make up your mind now.”

  He realized from my voice that I was speaking in earnest. He got up with a disconcerted look on his face and began to walk about the room. Then, as if speaking to himself, he continued. “There’
s the question of the dollars.”

  “But she’s been denying that all along! The dollars were found again. We could say it was revenge on the part of someone who hated her.”

  “Have you got the compact?”

  “It’s here,” I said, taking it from my bag and handing it to him.

  But he refused to touch it. “No, no, you mustn’t give it to me,” he said. “I could have that woman released,” he went on after a moment’s hesitation, “but at the same time the police would have to have the proof that she was innocent — this compact, to be exact.”

  “Take it, then, and give it back to its owner.”

  He laughed disagreeably. “Obviously you know nothing about these matters! If I accept this compact from you, I’m morally bound to have you arrested. Otherwise they’d say, ‘How did Astarita get hold of the stolen object? who gave it to him? how did he get it? and so on.… No, you’ll have to find some way of getting the compact to the police, but without giving yourself away, of course.”

  “I could mail it.”

  “No, you can’t mail it.”

  He paced about the room then came and sat down beside me. “This is what you’ll have to do,” he said. “Do you know any priest?”

  I remembered the French monk I had confessed to when I came back from Viterbo. “Yes, my confessor,” I said.

  “Do you still go to confession?”

  “I used to.”

  “Well — go to your confessor and tell him the whole story. Just as you told me. And beg him to take the compact and give it to the police on your behalf. No confessor could refuse to do this. He’s not obliged to give any information to the police because he is bound by the seal of the confessional. A day or two later I’ll call you … I’ll … Anyway, your maid will be released.”

  I was overcome by joy and could not help flinging my arms around his neck and kissing him. He continued in a voice already trembling with desire. “But you mustn’t do these things, you know.… When you need money, just ask me and I …”

  “Can I go and see the confessor today?”

  “Of course.”

  I stood there motionless for some time, staring fixedly in front of me, with the compact in one hand. I experienced a feeling of profound relief, as if I were that maid, and as I imagined her relief, so much greater than my own, at being released, I really felt as if I were her. I was no longer unhappy, tired, or disgusted. Meanwhile Astarita was stroking my wrist with his fingers and trying to insert them into my sleeve to touch my arm. I turned and spoke caressingly, gazing sweetly at him.

  “Is it really so important to you?” I asked.

  He nodded, incapable of speech.

  “Aren’t you tired?” I continued tenderly and cruelly. “Don’t you think it’s getting late — that it would be better to put it off until another day?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you love me so much?” I asked.

  “You know I love you,” he said in a low voice. He came forward to embrace me, but I avoided him. “Wait,” I said.

  He calmed down at once, because he knew I had assented. I got up, went slowly to the door and locked it. Then I walked over to the window, opened it, drew the shutters together and closed the window again. I could feel his eyes on me the whole time as I walked about the room with slow, lazy, stately movements, and I could well imagine how wonderful my unexpected acquiescence must seem to him. When I had closed the shutters, I began to hum softly in a gay, intimate voice, and still humming I opened the closet, took off my coat, and hung it up. Then, still humming I looked at myself in the mirror. It seemed to me I had never been so beautiful — my eyes were sparkling, deeply and sweetly, my nostrils quivered, my mouth was half open, showing my white, even teeth. I realized I was beautiful because I was pleased with myself, and felt myself to be good. I raised my voice a little as I sang, and at the same time began to unbutton my bodice from the bottom up. I was singing a silly song that was popular at the time. It ran: I’m singing the ditty I like so much that goes du-du, du-du, du-du. The silly refrain seemed to me to be like life itself, obviously absurd, but at moments sweet and fascinating. Suddenly, when I had already bared my breasts, someone knocked at the door.

  “I can’t,” I said composedly. “Later —”

  “It’s urgent,” said Mother’s voice.

  A suspicion crossed my mind. I went to the door and unlocked it, then peered out.

  Mother beckoned to me to come out and shut the door.

  “There’s a man who wants to speak to you urgently,” she whispered in the dark outer room.

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. A dark young man.”

  I opened the door of the living room very quietly and peeped in. Then I saw a man leaning against the table with his back to me. I recognized Giacomo immediately and shut the door again quickly.

  “Tell him I’m just coming,” I said to Mother. “And don’t let him leave that room.”

  She told me she would and I returned to my room. Astarita was still sitting on the bed, as I had left him.

  “Quick,” I said. “Quick … I’m sorry — but you have to go.”

  He became distressed and began to stammer some protest. But I cut him short. “My aunt’s been taken ill in the street,” I said. “I’ve got to go to the hospital with my mother as quickly as possible.” It was a fairly transparent lie, but I could not think of anything else at the moment. He looked at me stupidly, as if he could not believe his own bad luck. I saw that he had removed his shoes, and his feet in their striped socks were resting on the floor.

  “Come on! What are you staring at me for? You’ve got to go!” I said in exasperation.

  “All right — I’ll go,” he replied, and bent down to put his shoes on again. I stood in front of him to hand him his coat. But I knew I would have to promise him something if I wanted him to intervene in the maid’s favor. “Listen,” I said, as I helped him on with his coat, “I’m awfully sorry about this — but come back tomorrow evening after supper. We won’t be interrupted then. I’d have had to send you away again almost immediately today, anyway. It’s actually better this way.”

  He said nothing and I accompanied him to the door, leading him by the hand as if it were his first visit to the house. I was so afraid he might go into the living room and see Giacomo.

  “Remember — I’m going right to that confessor today,” I said at the door. He replied with a nod, as if to imply that he understood. His face looked disgusted and frozen. I was so impatient I could not wait for his farewell and almost slammed the door in his face.

  5

  W HEN MY FINGERS WERE on the handle of the living room door, it struck me with sudden force that short of a miracle I was bound to establish between Giacomo and myself the same unhappy relations I had with Astarita. I now saw that the mixture of subjection, fear, and blind desire that Astarita felt for me was exactly what I felt for Giacomo; and although I knew that I ought to behave differently if I wanted to be loved, nevertheless I felt irresistibly drawn to place myself on a lower, dependent plane of anxious uncertainty with him. I could not have explained the reasons for my state of inferiority — if I could have done so, it would no longer exist. I only knew instinctively that we were made of different stuff. I was harder than Astarita but more fragile than Giacomo; and just as there was something that prevented me from loving Astarita, so something prevented Giacomo from loving me. My love for Giacomo, like Astarita’s for me, had started badly and would end worse. My heart was pounding and I felt breathless even before seeing him and speaking to him; I was terribly afraid I would make some false step, show him my eagerness and desire to please him, and so lose him again once and for all. This is surely the worst curse of love — that it is never requited, and when you love you are not loved in return, and when you are loved you do not love. Two lovers never meet on the same level of emotion and desire, although this is the ideal for which each human being strives. I knew, without any shadow of do
ubt, that just because I had fallen in love with Giacomo, he had not fallen in love with me. And I also knew, although I did not want to acknowledge it to myself, that no matter what effort I might make, I would never succeed in forcing him to fall in love with me. All this flashed through my mind while I stood hesitating outside the door, in a state of ghastly agitation. I felt dizzy, on the point of doing the most ridiculous things, and this irritated me extremely. At last I took courage and entered the room.

  He was still standing as he had been when I had peered at him through the crack of the door, that is leaning against the table, with his back to me. But when he heard me come in, he turned around. “I was just passing by,” he said, looking at me with critical, calculating attention. “So I thought I’d drop in — perhaps I shouldn’t have.” I noticed he was speaking slowly, as if he wanted to have a good look at me before committing himself to speech; and I could not help feeling anxious, wondering what I seemed like to him, perhaps different and less attractive than his memory of me that had led him to visit me after such a lapse of time. But I felt reassured as I remembered how beautiful I had looked when I had gazed at myself in the mirror a little earlier.

  “Not at all,” I said, a little breathlessly. “You were right to come — I was just going out to lunch. We could eat together.”

  “Do you mean you recognize me?” he asked, perhaps ironically. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Of course, I know you!” I said foolishly. And before my self-control could influence my actions, I had taken his hand and raised it to my lips, with a glance full of love. His confusion delighted me.

  “Why didn’t you call, you naughty boy?” I asked, in an anxious and tender voice.

  He shook his head. “I’ve been very busy,” he said.

  I had quite lost my head. After kissing his hand, I placed it on my heart below my breast. “Feel how my heart is beating!” I said. But at the same time I told myself I was a fool because I knew I ought not to have done and said that. He made a certain embarrassed face, so I added, quickly, “I’m just going to put my coat on. I’ll be right back. Wait for me.”