Litti (continuing to tug on each side of that mustache and then stretch his neck as if he could never get his head arranged well enough on his body) watched those people, listened to their fickle chatter, and soon felt his large fleshy ears burning. He was thinking that they all lived in Rome just as they would in any other modern city, and that Rome’s new population was composed of false, fatuous, vain people like them. What did they know about Rome? Three or four rhetorical commonplaces. What vision did they have of it? The Corso, the Pincio, cafes, salons, theaters, editorial offices … They were like the new streets and houses that had broadened the city only materially, disfiguring it. When the circle of walls was smaller, Rome’s greatness roamed across the frontiers of the world. Now that the circle had widened … there it was, the new Rome. And Filiberto Litti stretched his neck.
In the meanwhile several others had arrived: nuisances who began to get in the way of the waiters carrying in the food to two or three couples, outsiders eating in the glassed-in dining room.
Among these young people (more or less with full heads of hair, aspirants to glory, unpaid collaborators of the innumerable literary periodicals of the peninsula) were three young women, evidently students of literature: two with glasses, sickly looking and taciturn; the third, on the other hand, was very vivacious, with red hair cut in a masculine style, a lively little freckled face, with variegated gray eyes that seemed to sparkle with malice. She laughed boisterously, bobbing around with laughter that provoked a grimace halfway between disdain and pity in a serious elderly man wandering amid such careless youth. He was Mario Puglia, who in former times had sung with a certain forced enthusiasm and vulgar passion. Now he felt he was already history. He sang no more. However, he had kept his long hair, which rained dandruff on the lapels of his military overcoat, and he sported a stately paunch.
Casimiro Luna, who had been watching him for a while, frowning, sighed at a certain point and said quietly: “Gentlemen, look at Puglia. Who knows where he left his guitar …”
“Cariolin! Cariolin!” several people shouted at that moment, making way for a perfumed, elegant little man who seemed to have been made and set on his feet as a joke, with twenty long hairs combed over his bald head, two violets in his buttonhole, and a monocle.
Smiling and bowing, Momo Cariolin saluted everyone with both bejeweled hands and ran to kiss the hand of Donna Francesca Lampugnani. He knew everyone. He could not resist bowing low, kissing the women’s hands, and telling jokes in Venetian dialect. He went everywhere, to all the important salons, to all the editorial offices, and was given a hearty welcome everywhere–no one knew why. He represented nothing, but his presence nevertheless managed to give a certain class to gatherings, banquets, meetings–perhaps because of his impeccable, ingratiating manners, perhaps because of that certain diplomatic air of his.
The old poetess Donna Maria Rosa Bornè-Laturzi was accompanied by the Honorable Silvestro Carpi and the Lombard novelist Carlino Sanna, who was passing through Rome. As a poet, Bornè-Laturzi (according to Casimiro Luna) was an excellent mother. She adamantly believed that poetry, and art in general, was no excuse for loose morals. For this reason she did not speak to Signora Barmis or Signora Morlacchi–she spoke only to Marchesa Lampugnani because she was a marchesa and club president, Filiberto Litti because he was an archaeologist, and she let her hand be kissed by Cariolin, because Cariolin kissed only the hands of real nobility.
In the meantime several groups had formed, but the conversation languished because each person was concerned only about himself, and this concern impeded thought. Each one repeated what someone else, making a great effort, had managed to say about the weather or the landscape. Tito Lampini, for instance, hopped from one group to another, smilingly repeating, with one hand over his mouth, some turn of phrase that seemed pleasing to him, gleaned here and there, but that he passed off as his own.
Each one made silent, more or less bitter, criticisms of the other. Each one would have liked to talk about himself, about his latest publication, but no one dared give the other this satisfaction. Two even spoke in a low voice about what a third one there, close by, had written, and they spoke ill of it. When the latter came closer, they immediately changed the subject and smiled at him.
There were the miserably bored and the rowdy, like Luna. And the former envied the latter. Not out of respect, but because they knew that in the end such brashness triumphed. They would have happily imitated them, but being timid and in order not to admit this timidity to themselves, they preferred to believe that the seriousness of their intentions kept them from doing otherwise.
A blondish man with blue eyeglasses disconcerted everyone, so emaciated he seemed barely alive, with long hair, a long neck, scrawny, stiff and tall as a processional statue. Over his frock coat he wore a gray mantelet. He bent his head this way and that and his fingers nervously worked his cuticles. He was obviously a foreigner: Swedish or Norwegian. No one knew him, no one knew who he was, and everyone looked at him with amazement and disgust.
Noticing the attention he was attracting, he smiled and seemed to say ceremoniously to all: “Brothers, we are all dying!”
That walking skeleton was a real indecency among so much vanity. Where in the world had Raceni dug him up? Whatever had given him the idea of inviting him to the banquet?
“I’m leaving!” Luna declared. “I can’t eat opposite that grasshopper.”
But stopped by Signora Barmis, who wanted to know–honestly, please–what he thought of Roncella, he didn’t leave.
“A great deal, my friend! I’ve never read a line.”
“That’s a mistake,” said Donna Francesca Lampugnani, smiling. “I assure you, Luna, that’s a mistake.”
“M .. . me neither,” Litti added. “But… it seems to me that all this su … sudden fame … At least from what I’ve heard …”
“Yes,” said Betti, tugging at his cuffs with a certain courtly nonchalance. “She is a bit lacking in form, that’s the thing.”
“Terribly ignorant!” Raimondo Jacono burst out.
“Well,” Casimiro Luna then said, “perhaps that’s why I love her.”
Carlino Sanna, the Lombard novelist passing through Rome, put a smile on his grim, goatish face, letting the monocle fall from his eye. He passed a hand through his thick grizzly hair and said softly: “But, really, to give her a banquet? Doesn’t it seem to you … doesn’t it seem just a bit too much?”
“A banquet … Dear me, what’s so bad about it?” asked Donna Francesca Lampugnani.
“We are promoting her glory!” Jacono snorted again.
“Ah!” All spoke in unison.
An inspired Jacono went on: “Excuse me, excuse me, it will be in all the newspapers.”
“So?” Dora Barmis said, opening her arms and shrugging.
From that spark of chitchat the conversation caught fire. Everyone began to talk about Signora Roncella, as though they only now remembered why they were there. No one admitted being an unqualified admirer. Here and there someone recognized… yes, some good qualities, such as an unusually clear, strange penetration of life through a too close, perhaps myopic, attention to detail … and some kind of new and distinctive spirit in the poetic descriptions, and an unusual narrative quality. But it seemed to everyone that too much had been made of House of Dwarves. Admittedly a good novel … perhaps. Affirmation of an unusual talent, without a doubt, but not the masterpiece of humor it had been proclaimed. Anyway, it was strange that a young woman could write it who up to now had lived almost totally without worldly experience down there in Taranto. There was imagination and also thought: little literature, but life, life.
“Has she been married long?”
“For one or two years, they say.”
Suddenly all the discussions were interrupted. On the terrace were the Honorable Senator Romualdo Borghi, Minister of Public Instruction, director of Vita Italiana, and Maurizio Gueli, the famous writer, the Maestro. For ten years neither frien
ds’ entreaties nor editors’ lucrative offers had been able to make him break his silence.
Everyone moved aside to let them pass. The two did not go well together: Borghi was short, stocky, long haired, with a gossipy old servant’s flat, leathery face; Gueli was tall, vigorous, with a still youthful air despite his white hair that contrasted strongly with the high color of his austere, masculine face.
With the presence of Gueli and Borghi, the banquet now assumed great importance.
Not a few were surprised that the Maestro had come to personally affirm his esteem of Roncella, which he had already declared to some. He was known to be very affable and friendly to young people, but his presence at the banquet seemed overly generous, and many suffered from envy, realizing that this would almost officially consecrate Silvia Roncella today. Others felt more cheerful. Gueli’s appearance validated their presence also.
But why hadn’t Raceni come yet? It was really shameful! Keeping everyone waiting like that; and Gueli and Borghi mixed with the others, without anyone to receive them… .
“Here they are! Here they are!” Lampini, who had gone down to check, ran in to announce.
“Raceni’s here?”
“Yes, with Signora Roncella and her husband. Here they are!”
Everyone turned with lively curiosity toward the terrace entrance.
A very pale Silvia Roncella appeared on Raceni’s arm, her face troubled by inner agitation. Among the guests who moved aside to let them pass, there immediately spread a flurry of whispered comments: “That one?” “Short!” “No, not too …” “Badly dressed.” “Beautiful eyes!” “God, what a hat!” “Poor thing, she’s uncomfortable!” “Skinny!” “She’s not saying a word.” “Why not? She’s pretty when she smiles.” “Very shy.” “But look at her eyes: she’s not bashful!” “Pretty enough, isn’t she?” “It seems impossible!” “If she were well dressed … hair done …” “You can’t really say she’s beautiful.” “She’s so awkward!” “She doesn’t seem …” “What compliments from Borghi!” “Get an umbrella! All that spit.” “What’s Gueli saying to her?” “But her husband, ladies and gentlemen! Look at her husband!” “Where is he? Where is he?” “There, next to Gueli … look at him! Look at him!”
In evening dress. Giustino Boggiolo had come in white tie and tails. Shining, almost like enameled porcelain; gold-rimmed eyeglasses; fan-shaped beard; and a well-trimmed, brown mustache. Close-cropped dark hair.
What was he doing there, between Borghi and Gueli, Lampugnani and Luna? Attilio Raceni drew him away and then called to Signora Barmis.
“Here, I’m turning him over to you, Dora. Giustino Boggiolo, her husband. Dora Barmis. I’m going to see what’s going on in the kitchen. Meanwhile, please take your places.”
And Attilio Raceni, with satisfaction in his beautiful dark and languid troubadour eyes, smoothing his raven hair, made his way through the crowd that wanted to know the reason for the delay.
“She felt a little ill. But it’s nothing, it passed. Be seated, everyone, be seated! Take your places.”
“You’re a Knight of the Republic, aren’t you?” asked Dora Barmis as she offered her arm to Giustino Boggiolo.
“Yes, actually …”
“Officially?”
“No, not yet. I don’t really care about it, you see? It’s useful at the office.”
“You are the luckiest man on earth!” Signora Barmis exclaimed impulsively, squeezing his arm.
Giustino Boggiolo turned red, smiled: “Me?”
“You, you, you! I envy you! I’d like to be a man and be you, understand? To have your wife! How delightful she is! How pretty! Don’t you just gobble her up with kisses? Tell me, don’t you just gobble her up with kisses? And she must be very, very nice, isn’t she?”
“Yes … really …” stammered Giustino Boggiolo again, bewildered, dazed, confused.
“And you must do everything to make her happy. A sacred obligation. You’ll be in hot water with me if you don’t make her happy! Look at me! Why did you come in tails?”
“But … I thought …”
“Hush! It’s out of place. Don’t do it again! Luna! Luna!” Signora Barmis called out.
Casimiro Luna hurried over.
“This is Cavalier Giustino Boggiolo, her husband.”
“Ah, very good,” replied Luna, bowing slightly. “Congratulations.”
“Very glad to meet you, thank you. I’ve wanted so much to meet you,” Boggiolo hastened to say. “Excuse me, you …”
“Give me your arm!” Doris Barmis shouted. “Don’t run away. You’re my responsibility.”
“Yes, Signora, thank you,” replied Boggiolo, smiling; then turning back to Luna he continued: “You write for the Corriere di Milano, don’t you? I know the Corriere pays well….”
“Ah,” said Luna. “So-so … fairly well…”
“Yes, so I’ve heard,” insisted Boggiolo. “I asked you because the Corriere has asked Silvia for a novel. But we may not accept because, really, in Italy … in Italy it’s not profitable, that’s all. But in France … and in Germany, too, you know? The magazine Grundbau gave me two thousand five hundred marks for House of Dwarves.“
“Good for you!” exclaimed Luna.
“Yes, sir, in advance, and you know? Paying her, in addition to the translator,” added Giustino Boggiolo. “I don’t know how much… . Schweizer-Sidler … good, good … she translates well. I’ve heard that in Italy the theater is more profitable. Because, you know? at first I didn’t understand a thing about literature. Now, little by little, a certain amount of experience … You have to keep your eyes open, especially when making contracts. To Silvia, for example …”
“Hurry, hurry, sit down!” Dora Barmis interrupted him hastily. “Everyone is taking his place! Will you sit next to us, Luna?”
“Of course!” he said.
“Please, may I,” pleaded Giustino Boggiolo. “There’s Signor Lifjeld over there, who’s translating House of Dwarves into Swedish. Please … I need to have a word with him.”
And so, leaving Signora Barmis’s arm, he went over to the blondish, gaunt, scrawny statue whose macabre appearance disconcerted everyone.
“Hurry!” Signora Barmis hissed after him.
Silvia Roncella had already taken her place between Maurizio Gueli and Senator Romualdo Borghi. Attilio Raceni had given a lot of thought to the seating arrangement, so that when he saw Casimiro Luna sitting in a corner by Signora Barmis, who had left the seat next to herself empty for Boggiolo, he ran over to advise him that that was not his seat, confound it! Come on, come on, next to Marchesa Lampugnani.
“No, thank you, Raceni,” Luna said to him. “Please let me sit here. We have her husband with us.”
As if she had understood, Silvia Roncella turned to look for Giustino. That long searching look around the table and then around the hall itself seemed a painful effort, interrupted at a certain point by the sight of someone dear to her to whom she gave a sad, sweet smile. It was an elderly woman who had come in the carriage with her, to whom no one paid any attention, hidden away in a corner, since Raceni had forgotten about introducing her, at least to those near her at the table, as he had promised. The elderly woman, who wore a blond wig low on her forehead and whose face was heavily powdered, made a short energetic gesture with her hand to Signora Roncella, as if to say: “Chin up!” Silvia Roncella smiled sadly, barely nodding her head. Then she turned to Gueli, who had said something to her.
Giustino Boggiolo, coming back into the glassed-in hall with the Swede, went up to Raceni, who had taken Luna’s place next to Lampugnani, and quietly told him that the very learned Lifjeld, professor of psychology at the University of Upsala, had nowhere to sit. Raceni gave him his place at once, introducing him to Lampugnani on one side and Donna Maria Bornè-Laturzi on the other. This was the result of the loss of the first guest list: the table was set for thirty, and there were thirty-five guests! Never mind. He, Raceni, would make the best of it and sit i
n some corner.
“Listen,” Giustino Boggiolo added very softly, pulling Raceni by the sleeve and furtively handing him a small scrap of rolled-up paper. “Here is the title of Silvia’s play. It would be nice if Senator Borghi would mention it when he makes the toast. What do you say? You can take care of it.”
The waiters came in at a fast clip with the first course. It was very late and the prospect of food provoked a religious silence in everyone.
Maurizio Gueli noticed it, turned to look at the Palatine ruins, and smiled. Then he bent toward Silvia Roncella and said quietly: “Look, Signora Silvia. You’ll see that at a certain point the ancient Romans will come out to watch us, with satisfaction.”
5
Do they really come out?
Certainly none of the guests would notice. The reality of the banquet, a not very well cooked reality, to tell the truth, and not abundant or varied, the reality of the present with its secret rivalries that flower on the lips of the various guests in false smiles and poisonous compliments, with badly concealed jealousies that pull here and there in subdued backbiting, with the unsatisfied ambitions and fatuous illusions and aspirations that find no way to reveal themselves, this reality held all those restless souls captive by the effort that the pretense and defense cost each one. Like snails that, unable or unwilling to withdraw into their shells, wrap themselves in their slime and from that unproductive iridescent foam stretch out their prudent tentacles, they fried the others in their gossip, maliciously raising hints of cuckoldry from time to time.
Who among all these people could think about the ruins of the Palatine and imagine the souls of the ancient Romans gazing with satisfaction upon that modern symposium? Only Maurizio Gueli. In one of his better-known books, Favole di Roma, Gueli had collected and fused (discovering the most hidden analogies) the lives and most representative figures of the three Romes. His profound and characteristic philosophical humor was more accessible in this book than in some of his others. In Favole di Roma the harsh and pitiless criticism–desperately skeptical and yet clear and flowering with all the grace of his style–was most successfully joined to his bizarre creative fantasy. Had he not in this book called Cicero to defend before the Senate (a Senate no longer only Roman) the prefect of a Sicilian province, a prevaricator, a very amusing clerical prefect of our times?
Her Husband Page 3