The Beautiful Summer

by Cesare Pavese

  ‘I don’t know any’, said Ginia, throwing her arms round him. ‘You are the only one I want to know and I don’t want anyone else ever to come here’. ‘We’d get bored’, said Guido.

  That evening Ginia wanted to sweep the room but there was no broom to do it and she had to content herself with remaking the bed behind the curtain, where it was as ill-kept as an animal’s den. ‘Will you be sleeping here?’ she asked. Guido said that he liked to be able to see the windows at night and would sleep on the sofa. ‘I won’t make the bed then’, said Ginia.

  She arrived the following day carrying a parcel in her handbag. It was a tie for Guido. He took it laughingly and held it against his grey-green shirt. ‘It will look nice with your civvies’, said Ginia. Then they went behind the curtain and lay on the unmade bed in each other’s arms, drawing the coverlet over them because it was chilly. Guido told her that it was he who ought to be giving her presents and Ginia made a grimace and asked him for a broom to sweep out the studio.

  The days when they had these brief times together were the best, but they could never have a leisurely chat because Rodrigues might turn up at any moment and Ginia did not want to be discovered with her shoes off. But one of the last of these evenings, Guido said he wanted to pay back his debts, and they arranged to go out after supper. ‘Let’s go to the cinema’, said Guido. ‘Why? let’s have a walk instead, it is so nice just to be together’. ‘But it’s cold’, said Guido. ‘What about going to a café or a dance-hall’. ‘I don’t like dancing’, said Guido.

  So they met and Ginia felt impressed to be walking next to a sergeant, then she thought it was Guido and no one else. Guido held her under the armpit as if she were a child. But he kept having to salute officers and then Ginia transferred herself to the other side and hung on to his arm. As they walked along like this, the street seemed somehow different.

  ‘Supposing we meet Amelia’, thought Ginia and began talking about Signora Bice, trying not to laugh. Guido was in a joking mood too and said, ‘In three days’ time I shan’t have to be saluting these monkeys. Look at their miserable shopkeepers’ faces’. ‘Amelia liked stopping to jeer at passers-by, too’, said Ginia.

  ‘Amelia goes a bit too far sometimes. Have you known her long then?’

  ‘We’re neighbours’, said Ginia, ‘have you?’

  Then Guido told her about the year when he had rented the studio and his student friends came to look him up, and there had been one who had become a monk. Amelia was not a professional model then, but she had been fond of taking her clothes off and they all used to gather morning and night and laughed and drank together while he tried to work. He could not remember precisely when he had been with Amelia for the first time. Then one of their number had joined the army, another had passed his exams, one of them had got married: the happy days were over.

  ‘Are you sorry?’ asked Ginia, staring at him.

  ‘Not as sorry as the monk, who writes to me now and again and asks me if I am working and whether I see anyone’.

  ‘But are they allowed to write?’

  ‘They’re not in prison, dammit’, said Guido. ‘And he was the only one who liked my pictures. You should have seen him; a strong chap like me, tall with eyes like a girl’s. He’d got the hang of it; pity’.

  ‘I hope you won’t become a monk, Guido’.

  ‘No danger of that’.

  ‘Rodrigues doesn’t like your pictures; now he does look like a priest’.

  But Guido defended Rodrigues and told her he was an extraordinary painter – one of those who thinks deeply before he starts to work and never leaves anything to chance – and that colour was his only trouble. ‘There’s too much colour in his country’, he said. ‘He’s had his bellyful of it as a kid and now he prefers to dispense with it. But, by Jove, he’s clever’.

  ‘Will you let me watch when you paint?’ asked Ginia, squeezing his arm.

  ‘If I am still capable of painting when I get rid of this uniform. I used to get some work done before. I used to finish a picture a week. They were exciting, those days, but the good days are over’.

  ‘Don’t I matter to you?’ asked Ginia.

  Then Guido pressed her arm. ‘You’re not the summer. You don’t know what it is to paint a picture. I ought to fall in love with you to teach you all about it. Then I should be wasting time. An artist can only work, you know, if he has friends who understand what he’s up to’.

  ‘Haven’t you ever been in love?’ asked Ginia, avoiding his eyes.

  ‘What, with you folk? I haven’t time’.

  When they were tired of walking, they adjourned to the café to continue their love-making. Guido lit a cigarette and listened as she chatted away to him, watching the people as they came in and out. Then, to please her, he drew her profile on the marble table-top. When they were alone for a minute Ginia said, ‘I’m glad you have never been in love before’.

  ‘I’m glad you’re pleased’, said Guido.

  The evening ended on a rather gloomy note because it turned out that once Guido had said goodbye to the army, he intended going off into the country to see his mother. Ginia consoled herself as well as she could, getting him to talk about his parents and his home, his father’s occupation and his boyhood days. She knew he had a sister called Luisa. But she was disappointed really that Guido was a countryman at heart. ‘As a boy I went about barefooted’, he confessed with a smile, and then Ginia understood the reason for his strong hands and his loud voice and could not believe that a country peasant could paint pictures. The odd thing was that Guido should boast of it and when Ginia said to him, ‘But yet you stay here’, he replied that the country was where real painting was done. ‘Yet you stay here’, repeated Ginia. ‘But I am only really happy on the top of a hill’, was Guido’s reply.

  From that moment Ginia, for some reason or other, thought frequently about Luisa and envied her her position as Guido’s sister and tried to imagine the conversations which Guido might have had with her as a boy. Now she understood why Amelia had never tried to take up with him. ‘If he weren’t a painter, he would just be an ordinary peasant’, and she pictured him as a conscript, one of the lads who go marching by with a handkerchief knotted round their throats, singing, and end up as soldiers. ‘But he is here’, she reflected, ‘he’s done his time as a student, and we both have the same coloured hair’. She wondered if Luisa was blonde too. That evening when Ginia had arrived home, she locked the door and then got undressed in front of the mirror and looked at herself, absorbed, comparing her skin with the colour of Guido’s neck. Then she felt at ease again and it seemed strange to her that there were no marks left on her. She imagined herself posing before Guido, and she sat down on a chair in the way Amelia had done that day in Barbetta’s studio. Heaven knew how many girls Guido had seen. The only one he had not really seen was herself, and Ginia’s heart beat fast at the mere thought. How lovely it would be to become dark, slim, devil-may-care like Amelia all of a sudden. But she could not let herself be seen naked by Guido; they must get married first.

  But Ginia knew he would never marry her, however fond she was of him. She had known this from that evening when she had offered herself to him. Guido was too good to stop his work to come behind the curtain with her. Only if she became his model could she go on seeing him. Otherwise one fine day he would find another.

  Ginia felt chilly there before the mirror and flung her coat over her bare thighs; it gave her goose flesh. ‘Look, that’s how it would be if I posed’, she said, and envied Amelia who had ceased to have any sense of shame.

  TWELVE

  When Ginia had seen Guido the previous time, the evening before he went off to the country, she suddenly felt that making love in the way he wanted it, was a desperate business and she lay there as though benumbed, to such an extent that Guido drew back the curtain to see her face, but Ginia took hold of his hands to try and stop him. Then when Rodrigues arrived and Ginia left them to talk, she understood what it was n
ot to be married and able to spend day and night together. She went downstairs, bewildered, and for the moment she was convinced that she had become somebody different and that they were all ignoring her. ‘That is why love-making is frowned on; that must be the reason’. And she wondered whether Amelia and Rosa had called. Seeing her reflection in the shop-windows, reeling as if she was drunk, she felt she bore no relation to that vague image which was moving past like a shadow. She now realized why all actresses have that haggard look in their eyes. But it wasn’t that that made you pregnant; actresses did not have babies.

  As soon as Severino had gone out, Ginia closed the door and undressed in front of the mirror. She found herself unchanged; she could not believe it. She ran her hand over her skin as if it was something separate from her body which still gave a few final shudders. But she was otherwise no different; she was as white and pale as ever. ‘Guido should see me if he were here’, she thought hastily, ‘I would let him look at me. I would tell him that I really am a woman now’.

  Sunday came along, and it was hard having to spend it without Guido there. Amelia came to look her out, and Ginia was pleased because she was no longer in awe of her, and having Guido to occupy her mind, she no longer needed to take her too seriously. She let her chatter away while she herself thought of her secret. Amelia, poor creature, was more alone than she was.

  Not even Amelia knew where to suggest going. It was a short, chilly afternoon, damp with fog, which discouraged them from going to the sports ground to see the match. Amelia asked for a drink of coffee; her idea was to lie back on the sofa, talking. But Ginia put her hat on and said, ‘Let’s go out; I want to go up to the hills’.

  Amelia, strangely enough, was quite submissive; she was feeling lazy that day. They took the tram to get there more quickly, though there was no particular hurry. Ginia discoursed, set the pace, chose the route as if she had a definite purpose. It started to drizzle as they began the ascent, and when Amelia grumbled, Ginia refused to show any concern. ‘It’s only a mountain mist’, she said, ‘it’s nothing’. They were now on the wide, empty road, passing under the trees of the park-enclosures; it was as though they were outside the world altogether, hearing only the gurgling of the roadside stream and the rattle of the trams in the remote distance. They began to inhale the freshly-washed air and became aware of the smell of rotting leaves, more pervasive than the cold. Amelia gradually came to life and they hurried along the asphalt arm in arm, laughing and saying they must be crazy and that not even lovers went to the hills in weather like that.

  A luxurious-looking car came along, and, after passing them, slowed down. ‘We could have that!’ remarked Amelia. A grey clad arm shot out of the car and beckoned to them. ‘May I offer you a lift?’ said the driver when they were within range. He was sucking a caramel. ‘Shall we accept, Amelia?’ whispered Ginia, smiling. ‘Rather’, said Amelia, ‘he can take us as far as the Devil’s House and then leave us to go on foot’. As they walked on, he followed them at the same rate, making inane remarks and blowing his horn. ‘I am going to get in’, said Amelia, ‘if you don’t mind; it’s better than wearing your shoes out’. ‘Isn’t your blonde friend coming?’ the man remarked, getting out. He was in his forties and very thin.

  They then got in, Amelia in the middle and Ginia crushed against the door. The lean man wormed his way under the steering-wheel and began by putting one arm round Amelia’s shoulder. Seeing the dark, bony hand near her ear, Ginia thought, ‘If he lays a finger on me, I’ll murder him’. But they suddenly started off, and she had a side-view of a face, that bore an ugly scar on the temple, concentrated on the road. Ginia, her cheek pressed against the window, thought how pleasant it would be to spend her time travelling like this all the week Guido was away.

  However, her dream came to an abrupt end. The car slowed down at an open space and stopped. The handsome trees had given way to this wilderness filled with mist and telegraph-wires. The hillside looked like a bare mountain. ‘Do you want to get out here?’ said the man, still sucking his caramel, and turning to them.

  Ginia said, ‘You go on to the café then, I’ll walk back on foot’. Amelia scowled at her. ‘She’s crazy!’ the man exclaimed. ‘I’ll walk back’, Ginia repeated. ‘There are two of you and two’s company’. ‘Stupid!’ hissed Amelia as they were getting out of the car, ‘don’t you see, it’s not just talk with this chap; he’ll pay’. But Ginia turned her head and called out, ‘Thanks for everything. See you bring my friend home safely!’

  When she got to the road, she listened a moment in the silence of the fog to hear if the engine had started up again. Then she laughed to herself and began the descent. ‘Oh, Guido, they’re ruining me’, she thought, and looked at the hillsides, sniffing the cold air and the country. Guido too was on the naked earth among his own hills. Perhaps he was at home near the fire, smoking a cigarette as he did in the studio to warm himself up. Then Ginia stopped as the picture rose before her of the warm, dark corner behind the curtain. ‘Oh Guido, come back!’ she murmured, clenching her fists in her pockets.

  She soon got back, but her soaked hair, splashed stockings and her weariness remained to keep her company. She threw off her shoes, stretched herself full length on the warm bed and communed in thought with the absent Guido. She thought of the smart car, sharing Amelia’s thrill, and concluding that she must have met the gentleman before.

  When Severino returned, she told him she was bored with working at the dressmaker’s. ‘Have a change then’, he said, unmoved, ‘but don’t make me have to skip any more meals. Find some post with more reasonable hours’.

  ‘There’s so many things to do’.

  ‘Mamma used to say you’d enough at home to keep you busy. Considering what you earn outside!’

  Ginia leapt up from the sofa. ‘We’ve not paid a visit to the cemetery this year’.

  ‘I have been’, stated Severino. ‘Don’t lie. You know you haven’t’.

  But Ginia was merely saying something for the sake of talking. Except for her small earnings, she would have nothing to put on her back and would never be able to afford gloves to put on for washing-up and so save her hands. And the scent, the hat, the face-cream, the presents for Guido would be for ever beyond her reach; she would be no better off than a factory-girl like Rosa. What she lacked was time. She needed work that could be disposed of in the mornings.

  Moreover a job had its compensations. What would she have done during these days of Guido’s absence if she had had to stay at home all day or vaguely wander round, worrying her head off? As it was, she went back to the shop next day, which she got through somehow. She hurried home and prepared a nice supper for Severino and decided to compensate during these next days for the meals that she had failed more than once to cook for him.

  Amelia did not appear. Several evenings Ginia was on the point of going out when she remembered her private vow to stay in, and she hoped Amelia would call. Rosa came once. She wanted to make herself a coat and show her the pattern. But Ginia found it hard to make conversation. They discussed Pino, but Rosa did not confess that she had changed him for someone else. She complained instead that she was bored to death and said, ‘What do you expect? If you get married, you’re landed’.

  Ginia realized that continually thinking about Guido was interfering with her sleep, and sometimes she got angry because he failed to understand that he ought to come back. ‘I wonder if he will be here by Monday’, she thought, ‘I am sure he’s not coming’. She particularly hated Luisa, who was only his sister, and yet had the pleasure of seeing him all day long. She was overcome by such nostalgia that she considered going along to his studio and finding out from Rodrigues if Guido was keeping his word.

  But she went to the café instead and saw Amelia. ‘How did it go on Sunday?’ she asked. Amelia, who was smoking a cigarette, did not even smile, and said quietly, ‘It went fine’. ‘Did he take you home?’ ‘Yes indeed’, said Amelia.

  Then she asked, ‘Why did you ru
n off?’

  ‘Wasn’t he offended?’

  ‘What rot’, said Amelia, staring at her. ‘All he said was: “Spirited little piece”. Why did you run off?’

  Ginia felt herself blush. ‘I thought he looked ridiculous with that caramel’.

  ‘You’re a fool’, said Amelia.

  ‘What news of Rodrigues?’

  ‘He is away at present’.

  They walked back home together and Amelia said to her, ‘Tonight I’ll come and see you’.

  There was no talk of going out that evening. Ginia, having got the washing-up out of the way, sat down on the edge of the sofa, where Amelia was lying at full length. They remained thus for a while in silence, and then Amelia whispered in her husky voice, ‘Spirited little piece!’ Ginia shook her head and looked away. Amelia stretched her arm out and stroked her hair. ‘Leave me alone’, said Ginia.

  With a great sigh, Amelia raised herself up on her elbow. ‘I dote on you’, she said huskily. Ginia darted a look at her. ‘But I can’t kiss you. I’ve got syphilis’.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘Do you know what it is?’

  Ginia’s eyes expressed silent assent.

  ‘But I didn’t myself’.

  ‘Who told you, then?’

  ‘Haven’t you noticed how I talk?’ said Amelia, in a choky voice.

  ‘That’s from smoking’.

  ‘That’s what I thought’, said Amelia, ‘But our fine friend of last Sunday was a doctor. Look!’ She opened her blouse and showed one of her breasts. Ginia said, ‘I don’t believe you’.

  Amelia raised her eyes, holding it between her fingers, and looked at her. ‘All right, kiss me here then!’ she said quietly, ‘where it is inflamed’. They stared at each other for a moment; then Ginia closed her eyes and bent forward over her breast.