These were his thoughts as he waited impatiently for Lalla to come home. He had expected to find her there, but when he returned, the room was empty. The landlady could tell him only that Lalla had gone out shortly after he had. It was odd; he knew that she did not like to go out alone, and she was lazy. He also knew that she had no money, not even enough for a coffee.
He waited for a long time until finally there was a knock on the door and the landlady told him that Lalla was on the phone. He picked up the receiver.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“What do you mean, what am I doing?” Sergio asked, surprised. “I’m waiting for you.”
Her voice wavered: “I’m here at … I’ve been
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waiting.”
“Where?”
He could hear voices, as if Lalla were asking for the address. She said: “Listen, take a taxi for once in your life … Come to Via Sisto Quinto, number twenty-seven.”
“Where?”
“I can’t explain … I’m drunk … Just come.” She hung up.
Feeling annoyed, Sergio took his overcoat from the coatrack and went out. He found a taxi in the piazza around the corner. From the look on the driver’s face he surmised that the address lay quite far away. The taxi traversed the entire city, went down a few suburban streets, and then up a hill, and finally turned onto a new road lined with a few very modern buildings. On one side of the road lay these new constructions, each set quite far from the next, while on the other, the lights of Rome glimmered in the darkness. The taxi stopped. “Number twenty-seven,” the driver grumbled, pointing at one of the new buildings, six or seven stories tall, looming in the darkness.
Sergio paid and went inside. The foyer smelled of lime and recently waxed wood. It was not a luxurious building, but rather one of the new apartment complexes being built for the middle bourgeoisie, on lots that had until recently been farmland. As soon as he was inside, he realized that in her drunken state, Lalla had forgotten to tell him the apartment number or the name of the person she was visiting. “What now?” he wondered, looking around. He began to climb the stairs.
On the phone, he had heard voices and music. As soon as he encountered noise coming from one of the doors, he stopped. The pale, blond wood door had a plaque with the name Moroni. He hesitated and then knocked.
A young-looking maid came to the door. The shapely, almost elegant girl had blonde hair and wore a lot of makeup; her mouth was wide and red and she had blue eyes. Somewhat taken aback, Sergio asked if a young woman by the name of Lalla was there. There was a clamor of voices and a record player. The foyer, compact and bare except for two or three small objects, was empty. “There are so many people,”
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the maid answered, “I don’t know … Wait here a moment and I’ll bring the master of the house.”
She disappeared, and after a few minutes a man appeared; he looked to Sergio like a prosperous farmer or country merchant. “You must be Mr. Sergio,” he said, as soon as he saw him; “come in, come in, we’ve been waiting for you.”
He looked about forty years old, a short man with a large head and a prominent brow, and extremely regular features, almost like a sculpture. His face had a rustic, serious air. His large nose and wide mouth — which curved upward at the corners — seemed to belong on a larger, more vigorous frame. His tousled, messy hair revealed a pale bald spot, and he had a wide, yellowish, hard, and pensive forehead. He introduced himself—“Moroni”—and led Sergio into the other room, the source of the music and voices.
This room, which was rather small and almost empty of furniture except for a few chairs and a sofa in one corner, contained about twenty people. It was filled with smoke, and a record was playing; a few people danced. Sergio spotted Lalla in the arms of a young man with blond hair; he looked like an office worker, with thick glasses. As soon as she saw Sergio she walked up to him and exclaimed, “Sergio, you’re finally here,” embracing him emphatically. Sergio noticed that her breath smelled of alcohol. He took her in his arms and, pretending to dance, maneuvered her into the foyer. After releasing her arm, he asked: “What on earth are you doing here? Who is this Moroni, and who are the rest of these people?”
She laughed: “Moroni is an angel.”
“And you’re drunk,” Sergio said.
“Yes, I’m drunk,” she said, “and you know why? Because our life is depressing … because we’re a pair of sad cases … When I drink, I can forget about it.”
“Who is this Moroni?”
“He’s one of my students,” Lalla answered, slowly. “I’ve mentioned him to you before … one of my English students.”
It was true. He remembered Lalla’s mentioning a certain Moroni, but had forgotten the name. He looked at her: “You didn’t mention this little gathering.”
“I didn’t know about it. He called at the last minute … You were gone … so I came and then I called you.”
“I’m hungry,” Sergio said, firmly; “I haven’t eaten.”
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“There’s food in the other room,” Lalla said, pointing to a small room off the foyer. As if there was nothing left to say, she turned around and returned to the sitting room.
Sergio went into the little dining room. Lalla was right: there was an abundance of food, and the room was empty. He picked up a plate, served himself some meat and vegetables, and sat down in a corner to eat. He began to feel contempt for Lalla, as if she had somehow become worthless in his eyes. He realized that this feeling was simply part of the preparation for what he was about to do: inform her of Maurizio’s proposition. He felt neither love nor affection for her, only a kind of impatience and incomprehension, as though her thoughts and complexities did not touch him in the least. What bothered him was her vacillating, exalted, inconsistent, irrational, and frivolous attitude toward life. She lived in a state of constant romanticism, based on nothing. In the end, he reflected, he would leave her, even without Maurizio’s intervention. As he sank into these cruel thoughts, Moroni entered the room.
“I see you’ve eaten … Would you like anything else?”
“I would like some wine,” Sergio answered abruptly, without looking up.
Moroni went to the table, poured a glass of wine, and offered it to Sergio. “So, you are Signora Abbiati’s boyfriend.”
Sergio was quietly surprised at the description, but did not comment: “Yes.”
“The young lady,” Moroni continued, with a warm respect in his voice, “tells me that you will be getting married soon.”
Sergio snapped to attention. Not only had he never asked Lalla to marry him, but it had never even occurred to him. And yet Lalla had mentioned marriage to this man who was her student. This proved that marriage was something she hoped for, that their situation made her uncomfortable, and that she would have liked to be his wife. He felt a sudden wave of compassion, mixed with irritation. “Yes, we should,” he answered vaguely.
“Well,” Moroni continued, emphatically, “I must say that it makes me happy to hear it … Miss Lalla is a lovely girl, sweet, genuine, and intelligent. She
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