Innocence. Julian Barnes

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СКАЧАТЬ I can imagine that now she’s finished with it she wants to stay in Florence and, I suppose, to meet different kinds of people.’

      ‘That she evidently did,’ said Cesare.

      The Count tried again. ‘We were a little surprised, you know, not to hear from you. We sent you the announcement of the engagement, of course, I’m sure.’

      He could be quite sure, since he could see the card standing all by itself on the light powdering of dust and cornmeal which covered the desk. Cesare followed his glance and said, ‘I don’t let them disturb the things in here.’

      He got up, and his uncle at once understood that they were going to look at something or other on the property. Either Cesare thought this a necessary formality, or he wanted to turn over in his mind what he had just heard. The Count found that he had to check himself from making the kind of gesticulations with which people insult the deaf and the dumb. Meanwhile a section of the darkness in the far corner of the office detached itself and was seen to be a gun-dog of the old-fashioned rough-haired Italian breed. She shook and stretched herself, as a preparation for going out. It was like the action of wringing a dish-mop.

      The idea that his uncle had driven out from Florence to discuss something quite else seemed not to disturb Cesare. Perhaps he gave him credit for being able, if he came to the country, to behave as if he lived there. Outside, the ragged sky burned like a blue and white fire, hard on the eyes. Everything, as though at a given signal, was leaning away from the wind or struggling against it.

      They walked, not to the vineyards but along a cart track to a hillside planted as far as the horizon with olives. The ground beneath the trees had been ploughed up for potatoes, and the two of them had to go along side by side, but at the distance of a furrow apart, one foot in and one foot out; really, it would have been easier for someone with one leg shorter than the other. The tail of the old dog could be seen moving along the furrow at Cesare’s heels. For some reason the Count, who was reflecting that he was too old for such outings, felt more at ease when he was walking at a higher level than Cesare, who at last came to a halt.

      ‘The Consorzio think we ought to get rid of the olives and sell them for timber. There’s all kinds of cheap cooking oil now.’

      ‘What will you do?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      The fattore, who must have been following them, now came up in absolute silence and joined Cesare between two lean old trees. Cesare bent down and picked up a handful of stones or earth or both, sorted them out in his palm and showed them to the fattore, who nodded, apparently satisfied. Then, noticing the Count, he wished everyone in general good-morning, and retreated down the slope. At the bottom he got onto his bicycle, adjusting a sheet of corrugated iron which he had been carrying on the handlebars, and pedalled slowly away. The wind caught the flapping edge of the iron with a metallic note, repeated again and again, fainter and fainter. The dog, crouching, followed the sound with sharp attention, hoping that the sound might become a shot. And yet when I was a boy and lived here I was impatient for every morning, the Count thought. And Chiara was always clamouring to come out here, ever since she could totter about after Cesare.

      When they got back to the house the shutters had been drawn back in the spacious lavatory which had offered its row of green marble basins and urinals to shooting parties in the days of Umberto I. The shutters were drawn, too, in the dining-room. From daily habit Bernadino had grouped the oil, the salt, the pepper and the bread round the master’s place, so that he could help himself at top speed and get back to work, while the Count’s chair was drawn up in front of a barren expanse of table. When they sat down Cesare, without embarrassment, began to redistribute everything, while Bernadino, apparently propelled out of the kitchen, brought in the dish of pasta, its sauce freckled and dappled golden from the oven. The heat and fragrance seemed out of place in the astonishing cold of the room. Cesare began to break off pieces of bread and throw them into his mouth with unerring aim, then drank a little Valsassina. The wine, in the Florentine way, was not poured out for guests, who were expected to help themselves. The Count, whose digestion was not always reliable, pecked and sipped. How large my nephew’s nose is! he thought. How large his hands! From this angle he reminds me of someone quite outside the family, I think perhaps Cesare Pavese, with those brilliant eyes, not grey, not green exactly. The large nose makes him look kindly, and I know that he is kindly, but he doesn’t get any easier to talk to. In the Inferno the only ones condemned to silence are those who have betrayed their masters, Brutus and Judas in particular. Dante must have thought of them, before their punishment, as chatterers, or even as serious conversationalists, always first with the news. But, in Cesare’s case, what if he were condemned to talk!

      He pulled himself up. No one knew better than himself what difficulties Cesare must have, face to face with the bank, the Consorzio, the tenants and the stony and chalky ground, whose blood was a wine which was not permitted to be labelled classico. If his nephew were to be asked, either by divine or human authority — either on Judgement Day or by the redistribution committee of the local Communist party — whether he had made good use of his time, the answer, if Cesare could bring himself to make one, must surely be yes.

      The old woman appeared, and remarking that the fire should have been lit long ago put a shovelful of hot charcoal under the dry lavender and olive roots on the hearth. The warmth of the blaze spread courageously a little way into the room and the Count lost the connection of his thoughts, found himself repeating aloud, for no apparent reason, ‘If we could buy children with silver and gold, without women’s company! But it cannot be.’ At the same time the dog, who had been huddled underneath the table, sensed that the next course was coming and sprang convulsively to its feet. This jerked him back to attention.

      ‘The point is that Chiara wants a country wedding, here at Valsassina. I came here, I’m afraid, principally to talk about money. We could have done that on the telephone, in fact money is the only thing one can talk about successfully on the telephone, but then . . . in any case, the expenses of the whole thing would of course be mine. The details, I suppose, aren’t for you and me, but there are some caterers that Maddalena favours because she says they make pastries for the Vatican, such folly, we know that the Pacelli pope is looked after by German nuns who would never allow him to eat pastry from Florence.’ To his annoyance Bernadino, platter in hand, bent over him at this point.

      ‘Your Excellency could not find a better place to receive your guests than Valsassina. But you will explain to them when they come that I am of better family than I seem. All the land which you have been walking round this morning, if justice were done, would belong to me.’

      Cesare paid no attention whatever to this interruption. He laid down his knife and fork, but this was because he wanted to know something.

      ‘What was it you said just now about women?’

      The Count repeated the line from Euripides.

      ‘I don’t read much,’ said Cesare.

      ‘I expect you don’t have time.’

      ‘I shouldn’t read if I did have time.’

      Cesare used very few gestures, but one, not to be forgotten by anyone who ever knew him, was to spread both hands flat in front of him, as he was doing now. You got the impression that he had never sat at a table without enough room for him to do this. The hands weighed down firmly, as a press is screwed down, wood against wood.

      ‘Tell me, where did she meet this man?’

      ‘Salvatore? At a concert, it seems.’

      ‘And he’s a professional СКАЧАТЬ