The Woman of Rome by Alberto Moravia Page B

her dresses?”
    “Her fiancé gives them to her.”
    “A different fiancé every night, I’ll bet.… Now, listen. It’s either me — or her.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean you can do as you like — but if you want to go on seeing her, you can count me out. Either me or her.”
    I tried to dissuade him, but was unsuccessful. Obviously, he had been hurt by Gisella’s scornful contempt for him; but in hisindignant dislike of her there must have been something of the same faithfulness to the part he was playing as my fiancé that had made him suggest contributing to the costs of our setting up house together. He was as diligent as ever in the expression of sentiments he did not feel. “My fiancée must have nothing to do with bad women,” he repeated inflexibly. At last, being afraid our marriage would go up in smoke, I promised to see nothing more of Gisella, although I knew in my heart that I could not possibly keep my promise, because Gisella and I both worked at the same time, and in the same studio.
    From that day on, I continued to see her unknown to Gino. When we were together, she seized every opportunity of referring to my engagement in the most ironic and deprecating terms. I had been so naive as to tell her all kinds of little things about my relations with Gino; and she used these confidences to wound me and to show me my present life and my future in a derisory light. Her friend, Riccardo, who seemed to make no distinction between Gisella and me, and looked on us both as easy girls unworthy of respect, lent himself willingly to Gisella’s game and doubled the dose of her mockery and cruelty. But he did it good-naturedly and stupidly, because, as I have said, he was neither clever nor really bad. My engagement was only a joking matter for him, a pastime. But Gisella, who found my virtue a constant reproof, attacked me bitter and insistently, trying in every way she could to mortify and humiliate me.
    She touched me chiefly on my weakest point: my clothes. “Really,” she used to say, “I feel really ashamed to be seen with you today.” Or else, “Riccardo would never let me go out in the kind of things you put on — would you, Riccardo? Love shows itself in these things, my dear!” I was ingenuous enough to rise immediately to the bait. I began to lose my temper. I stood up for Gino and, though with less conviction, for my clothes, and always came off the worst, red in the face, with my eyes full of tears.
    One day Riccardo, moved to pity, said, “I’m going to give Adriana a present today. Come along, Adriana. I want to give you a purse.” But Gisella opposed him violently, saying, “No, Riccardo!No presents! She’s got her Gino, let him give her presents.” Riccardo, who had made the suggestion out of good nature, but without imagining the pleasure his gift would have caused me, yielded at once. And that very afternoon, out of pique, I went off to buy myself a handbag with my own money. Next day I met the two of them with my purse under my arm, and told them it was a present from Gino. This was the only victory I had in all the deplorable squabbling. And it cost me very dear, because it was a nice purse and I paid a great deal for it.
    When Gisella imagined that by dint of sarcasm, humiliation, and sermonizing she had worn me down sufficiently, she approached me and told me she had a suggestion to make. “But let me tell you the whole story,” she added. “Don’t be your usual pigheaded self before hearing what I’ve got to say.”
    “Go on,” I said.
    “You know I’m fond of you,” she began. “You’re like a sister to me. With your good looks, you could have everything you want — I hate seeing you go around so shamefully dressed that you look like a beggar. Now, listen.” She stopped and looked at me in all solemnity. “There’s a gentleman, a real gentleman, very distinguished, very decent, who has seen you and takes an interest in you. He’s married but his