The Neapolitan Novels полностью

Manuela fanned herself with a more deliberate gesture, she said aloud to Pietro: Michele is a wonderful son. When he was a child, at Christmas, he would climb up on the table and recite poetry beautifully; but his flaw is that he likes to talk and when he talks he has to exaggerate. Marcello interrupted: No, Mamma, what exaggeration, it’s all true. And Michele continued to sing Manuela’s praises, how beautiful she was, how generous, he wouldn’t stop. Until suddenly he turned to me. He said seriously, in fact solemnly: There’s only one other woman who is almost like our mother. Another woman? A woman almost comparable to Manuela Solara? I looked at him in bewilderment. The phrase, in spite of that almost, was out of place, and for a few instants the noisy dinner became soundless. Gigliola stared at her husband with nervous eyes, the pupils dilated by wine and unhappiness. My mother, too, assumed an expression that was unsuitable, watchful: Maybe she hoped that that woman was Elisa, that Michele was about to assign to her daughter a sort of right of succession to the most elevated seat among the Solaras. And Manuela stopped fanning herself for a moment, she dried with her index finger the sweat on her lips, she waited for her son to upend those words in a mocking remark.

But, with the audacity that had always distinguished him, not giving a damn about his wife or Enzo or even his mother, he stared at Lila while his face turned a greenish color and his gestures became more agitated and his words served as a rope, dragging her attention away from Pietro. Tonight, he said, we’re all here, at my brother’s house, first to welcome as they deserve these two esteemed professors and their beautiful children; second to celebrate my mother, the most blessed woman, third to wish Elisa great happiness and, soon, a fine marriage; fourth, if you will allow me, to toast an agreement that I was afraid would never be made. Lina, please, come here.

Lina. Lila.

I sought her gaze and she looked back for a fraction of a second, a look that said: Now do you understand the game, you remember how it works? Then, to my great surprise, while Enzo stared at an indeterminate point on the tablecloth, she rose meekly and came over to Michele.

He didn’t touch her. He didn’t touch a hand, an arm, nothing, as if between them hung a blade that could wound him. Instead he placed his fingers for several seconds on my shoulder and turned to me again: You mustn’t be offended, Lenù, you’re smart, you’ve gone so far, you’ve been in the newspapers, you’re the pride of us all who have known you since you were a child. But—and I’m sure you agree, and you’ll be pleased if I say it now, because you love her—Lina has something alive in her mind that no one else has, something strong, that jumps here and there and nothing can stop it, a thing that not even the doctors can see and that I think not even she knows, even though it’s been there since she was born—she doesn’t know it and doesn’t want to recognize it, look what a mean face she’s making right now—a thing that, if it doesn’t like you can cause you a lot of problems but, if it does, leaves everyone astonished. Well, for a long time I’ve wanted to buy this distinctive aspect of her. Yes, buy, there’s nothing wrong, buy the way you buy pearls, diamonds. But until now, unfortunately, it was impossible. We’ve made just a small step forward, and it’s this small step that I wish to celebrate tonight: I’ve hired Signora Cerullo to work in the data-processing center that I’ve set up in Acerra, a very modern thing that if it interests you, Lenù, if it interests the professor, I’ll take you to visit tomorrow, or anyway before you leave. What do you say, Lina?