The Neapolitan Novels полностью

“Nonsense,” I said, and to calm down I took the book out of my bag and handed it to Professor Galiani, saying: I wanted to give you this. She looked at it for a moment without seeing it, perhaps following her own thoughts, then she thanked me, and saying that she already had a copy, gave it back:

“What does your husband do?”

“He’s a professor of Latin literature in Florence.”

“Is he a lot older than you?”

“He’s twenty-seven.”

“So young, already a professor?”

“He’s very smart.”

“What’s his name?”

“Pietro Airota.”

Professor Galiani looked at me attentively, like when I was at school and I gave an answer that she considered incomplete.

“Relative of Guido Airota?”

“He’s his son.”

She smiled with explicit malice.

“Good marriage.”

“We love each other.”

“Have you already started another book?”

“I’m trying.”

“I saw that you’re writing for l’Unità.”

“A bit.”

“I don’t write for it anymore, it’s a newspaper of bureaucrats.”

She turned again to Lila, she seemed to want to let her know how much she liked her. She said to her:

“It’s remarkable what you did in the factory.”

Lila grimaced in annoyance.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s not true.”

The professor got up, rummaged through the papers on the desk, and showed her some pages as if they were an incontrovertible truth.

“Nadia left this around the house and I took the liberty of reading it. It’s a courageous, new work, very well written. I wanted to see you so that I could tell you that.”

She was holding in her hand the pages that Lila had written, and from which I had taken my first article for l’Unità.

60.

Oh yes, it was really time to get out. I left the Galiani house embittered, my mouth dry, without the courage to say to the professor that she didn’t have the right to treat me like that. She hadn’t said anything about my book, although she’d had it for some time and surely had read it or at least skimmed it. She hadn’t asked for a dedication in the copy I had brought for that reason and when, before leaving—out of weakness, out of a need to end that relationship affectionately—I had offered anyway, she hadn’t answered, she had smiled, and continued to talk to Lila. Above all, she had said nothing about my articles, rather she had mentioned them only to include them in her negative opinion of l’Unità, and then pulled out Lila’s pages and began to talk to her as if my opinion on the subject didn’t count, as if I were no longer in the room. I would have liked to yell: Yes, it’s true, Lila has a tremendous intelligence, an intelligence that I’ve always recognized, that I love, that’s influenced everything I’ve done; but I’ve worked hard to develop mine and I’ve been successful, I’m valued everywhere, I’m not a pretentious nobody like your daughter. Instead, I listened silently while they talked about work and the factory and the workers demands. They kept talking, even on the landing, until Professor Galiani absently said goodbye to me, while to Lila she said, now using the familiar tu, Stay in touch, and embraced her. I felt humiliated. Moreover, Pasquale and Nadia hadn’t returned, I hadn’t had a chance to refute them and my anger at them was still raging inside me: why was it wrong to help a friend, to do it I had taken a risk, how could they dare to criticize what I’d done. Now, on the stairs, in the lobby, on the sidewalk of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, it was only Lila and me. I was ready to shout at her: Do you really think I’m ashamed of you, what were you thinking, why did you say those two were right, you’re ungrateful, I did all I could to stay close to you, to be useful to you, and you treat me like that, you really have a sick mind. But as soon as we were outside, even before I could open my mouth (and on the other hand what would have changed if I had?), she took me by the arm and began to defend me against Professor Galiani.