A Very Italian Christmas. Джованни Боккаччо

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ better, no, because I find you so attractive. What’s your name?”

      “It can’t matter to you.”

      “Indeed it does. I want to know at least what name I should address my sighs to.”

      “Ah, you poor devil! Now, go away, at once. If my husband sees you …”

      “So you’re waiting for your husband?”

      “Of course. He should have been here half an hour ago.” And she stamped her feet in annoyance—perhaps, too, because of the cold, since her hands, which I had fleetingly touched, were frozen.

      “It’s that husband of yours who has no manners. And were you supposed to be going for a walk, if I might ask?”

      “A walk! You must be joking! I was supposed to be going out to dinner.”

      An idea occurred to me then, which I instantly seized upon, especially as I felt I had already been so gauche. “To dinner? Come and have dinner with me.”

      “Oh, I couldn’t do that! No, no. And what if my husband were to find out?”

      “He won’t. We’ll take a carriage and go to the Cavour Inn, we’ll eat truffles and drink champagne, and have a good time.”

      “But I don’t know you.”

      “After dinner, you’ll see, we’ll be old friends.”

      She smiled the smile that had seduced me and made me shiver, then, with a very determined gesture, she exclaimed, “Let’s go.”

      The room at the Cavour Inn, where I had been staying for several days, was very warm. The flames flickered in the hearth. I ordered two candelabras to be lit, as well as the lamp that hung from the ceiling. The walls, which were golden-yellow patterned with red flowers, looked garish in that bright light.

      The imperious waiter eyed the girl from head to toe with grand disdain, and began to lay the table—a small, oval table standing by the fire, which was very soon covered with all kinds of delicious things. My stomach was impatient: had it been cut open, as lambs’ stomachs are in order to extract the pepsin, a rare abundance of gastric juices would have been found inside me. My appetite, my need to eat, was so great that it seemed to me impossible that I would not be able to digest. And my shopgirl had almost made me forget this treat for my stomach, a treat that I had so long yearned for in vain. She had already removed her hat, and thrown her muff on a seat and her cloak on an armchair, and she was standing in front of the mirror rearranging her hair. Holding her arms in an arc raised to her head clearly revealed the contours of her body, scantily clad in a close-fitting dress that was so light it looked like a summer dress. I sat her down beside me, without even glancing at her, and we began to swallow large oysters, and to drink good amber-colored wine that put new life into me. The old, persistent, and intolerable pains in my intestines had gone. I breathed again, I rejoiced. Oh God! At last I could eat. I had already exhausted all possible remedies many months ago—even, to my shame, those in the classified advertisement sections of the newspapers. I had consulted distinguished doctors from Berlin and Paris. And yet I had to survive on diluted broth, milk, coffee, little bits of undercooked meat. Epicurus! Epicurus! And I thought of Emperor Tiberius, who gave his poet two hundred thousand sesterces for a dialogue in which mushrooms, the warbler, the oyster, and the thrush disputed preeminence.

      For my part, I would have awarded preeminence to the pheasant with truffles that my love and I ate in religious silence, quenching our thirst with sips of a superb claret. The assortment of glasses—on whose facets every candle cast a streak of brightness, like little electric sparks—kept growing in number. Stemmed, mug-shaped, large-bowled, long-necked—there were glasses of every shape and size, as well as the big stately water glass, as yet unfilled. At every shake of the table, they vibrated and tinkled, scattering thousands of white sparks on the tablecloth. The wine was like liquefied precious stones: amethysts, rubies, topazes.

      Having laid out the desserts on the table and uncorked the bottles of champagne, the waiter gave us a most respectful bow that was not without malice, and left the room.

      “Would you not like anything else, my dear?”

      “No, thank you, sir, I’m full.”

      “A glass of champagne?”

      “That, yes. I like it so much and I’ve drunk it only once in my life.”

      “When?”

      “One evening when two gentlemen took me to dinner at the Rebecchino. There was another girl there too.”

      “And your husband?”

      “What husband?”

      “The one you were waiting for in the doorway this evening.”

      “Ah, I’d forgotten about him. Damn him!”

      “Don’t you love him?”

      “Me? I met him ten days ago, and he’s married. I told you I was waiting for my husband so that you, being a gentleman, sir, as I thought, wouldn’t think badly of me.”

      “Let’s drop the formality, shall we?”

      “If you like.”

      “Tell me, have you never been in love?”

      “Let me see now. Once, I think, but only for a few days. He was a man of forty, with a black mustache. He used to beat me and wanted me to get money for him. Of course, men are all the same. Here, let me tell you what happened …”

      I was not listening to her anymore. I was looking at her. She was ugly. Her trim figure was not bad, but she had coarse features, a rough complexion speckled with little yellow spots, green-colored eyes, and fine parallel lines scoring her brow.

      I cut in as she continued to tell me her adventures in a raucous voice, and amused herself by mixing together the various-colored wines and then swilling down the foul concoction.

      “How old are you?”

      “Nineteen.”

      And she resumed her story in a desultory fashion. She got up; she examined with curiosity the heavy gilt frames of the mirrors; she lay back in the armchairs, and on the sofa; she threw herself on the bed; she came up behind me to caress me with her rough hands; then she ate some sugared almonds, filled her pockets with them, drained a glass of champagne, and examined with curiosity, one by one, the objects on the chests of drawers and small tables.

      She seized upon some pictures of Emilia, crying, “Oh, I’ve found her, I’ve found her. She’s your sweetheart!”

      A burning shame and anger went rushing to my head, and I leapt to my feet.

      “Give me those pictures.”

      “Your darling, your darling.”

      “Give me those pictures at once,” I repeated in a fury.

      And she went running around the room, climbing onto the armchairs and holding the portraits up in the air, and stupidly kept on chanting, “Your darling, your darling.”

СКАЧАТЬ