The Woman of Rome by Alberto Moravia Page A

Gino my fiancé: today I am able to judge them dispassionately, but at the time I was quite blindto their real characters. I have already said that I thought Gino was perfect: perhaps I realized that Gisella had some faults, but to offset them I believed she was warmhearted and very fond of me, and I attributed her anxiety for my future not to her spite at knowing I was innocent and her desire to corrupt me, but to an ill-advised and mistaken goodness. And so I introduced them to one another in some trepidation. In my naïveté, I hoped they would be friends. The meeting took place in a café. Gisella maintained a guarded silence the whole time and was obviously hostile. In the beginning it looked to me as though Gino was putting himself out to charm Gisella, because as usual he began to talk expansively, dwelling on his employers’ wealth, as if he hoped to dazzle her with these descriptions and hide the poverty of his own existence. But Gisella refused to unbend and maintained her hostile attitude. Then she remarked, I don’t quite remember in what connection, “You’re lucky to have found Adriana.”
    “Why?” asked Gino in astonishment.
    “Because chauffeurs usually go out with servant girls.”
    I saw Gino change color, but he was not one to be taken by surprise. “You’re quite right,” he replied slowly, lowering his voice with the air of someone considering an obvious fact he had overlooked until that moment. “In fact, the chauffeur before me married the cook — naturally, why not? I ought to have done the same. Chauffeurs marry maids and maids marry chauffeurs. Why on Earth didn’t it occur to me before? Still,” he added carelessly, “I’d have preferred Adriana to be a maid rather than a model. I don’t mean,” he added, raising his hand as if to ward off any objection Gisella might make, “I don’t mean because of the profession itself — although to tell you the truth, I can’t swallow this matter of getting undressed in front of men — but chiefly because being in that profession she’s obliged to make certain acquaintances, friends who —” he shook his head and made a face. Then, offering her a pack of cigarettes, “Do you smoke?” he asked her.
    Offhand Gisella did not know what answer to make, and contented herself with refusing the cigarette. Then she glanced at her watch. “Adriana, we’ve got to go, it’s late,” she said. It was late, asa matter of fact, and when we had said good-bye to Gino, we left the café.
    When we were in the street Gisella said to me, “You’re about to do something absolutely crazy. I’d never marry a man like that.”
    “Didn’t you like him?” I asked her anxiously.
    “Not at all. Besides, you told me he was tall, but he’s almost shorter than you — then, he doesn’t look you straight in the face — he’s not natural at all, and he speaks in such an affected way that you can tell a mile off that he isn’t saying what he really thinks. Then all the airs and graces he gives himself, when he’s only a chauffeur!”
    “But I love him!” I protested.
    “Yes, but he doesn’t love you — and he’ll ditch you one day,” she replied calmly.
    I was taken aback by this forecast; it was so assured and so exactly like one of Mother’s. I can say today that, leaving aside her ill will, Gisella had seen through Gino better in one hour than I did in many months. On his side, Gino’s opinion of Gisella was also malicious, but I must confess that later on it turned out to be not ill-founded. To tell the truth, my fondness for both of them, together with my inexperience, rendered me blind: it’s only too true that one is nearly always right in thinking badly of someone.
    “That Gisella of yours,” he said, “is what we’d call a pick-up girl where I come from.”
    I looked astonished. He explained. “A streetwalker. She’s got the manners and the character of one. She’s stuck-up because she dresses well — but how does she pay for