Alberto Moravia - Two Friends

Nella strutted around the store, watched by the exhausted shopgirl. As a matter of professional obligation, she felt compelled to comment: “ Signorina , that one really suits you.” Finally, Nella said with conviction, “I’ll take it.” The two women returned to the folding screen, leaving Sergio alone.

Once again he felt the impulse to pay for the bathing suit and realized that if he did not do so he would feel shame and regret. When the two women emerged from behind the screen, Sergio pulled his wallet from his pocket almost without thinking and asked: “So how much is it?”

He was surprised to see that Nella did not protest and instead stood there calmly with a self-possession that did not exactly irritate him

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but troubled him more than if she had openly asked him to pay for the suit. As he paid he realized that he had only a few bills left in his wallet, just enough to pay for transportation. Holding the package under her arm, Nella said, “Thank you,” in a simple, uningratiating manner that pleased him. They returned to the cab, which took off at a trot.

A few minutes later they arrived at the address on Via della Vite which Nella had pointed out before. She descended and waited calmly for Sergio to pay for the cab with his last remaining bills. Once again, she seemed ready to take her leave, and once again Sergio reacted by offering to carry her suitcase. Again, she accepted without any hint of embarrassment and preceded him up the staircase.

It was a modest old building, with a gloomy, steep staircase and vaulted ceilings. They climbed up four floors and Nella stopped at a door with the name Ginori written on a plaque and rang the bell. A scantily dressed woman came to the door, holding a baby in one arm; they could hear music from a radio and smell cooking. Nella said: “I saw a room this morning … I’ve come back with my suitcase.”

Without a word or any sign that she had understood, the woman disappeared and then reappeared with a large key. It turned out that the room had its own entrance. The woman unlocked the door and said, “Here you are,” and led them into a long, narrow room with a single window facing a courtyard. Someone called out from the apartment: “Adalgisa … Adalgisa …” She excused herself and ran out, closing the door behind her. Sergio and Nella were left alone.

Sergio realized that he absolutely had to leave. He had already paid for the bathing suit and the taxi, and if Nella decided that she wanted to go down to eat, he would be unable to pay for lunch. And yet the

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thought of leaving made him unhappy. He wasn’t sure whether he was attracted to her or not; he only knew that he did not want to leave. After a moment, he asked awkwardly: “Where should I put the suitcase?”

“Right here on the bed, that way it will be easier to un.” He carried the suitcase over to the bed and s down next to it, almost mechanically. Nella had retreated behind n hiding the sink; he heard running water, and assumed that she was washing up. She reappeared, looking happy. “What do you think of the room?”

Sergio looked around. The place was utterly squalid; long and narrow as a corridor, with a bed at one end and a dresser and chest at the other. The heat was oppressive and the furniture was seedy, of the type found in most boardinghouses. With some effort, he said: “It’s a bit hot.”

“Yes, but it’s in Rome.”

She went to the window and opened it wide, looking out. She seemed so satisfied with her room and happy to be in Rome that Sergio could not help adding: “Well, at least it has its own entrance.”

“Is that a good thing?” she asked, distractedly.

“Well, you can invite whomever you like.”

She went over to the suitcase and said, in a dreamy voice: “I wouldn’t know whom to invite … I don’t know anyone here … You’re the only person I know.”

Almost teasingly, he said, “Well, you can invite me.”

“I already have.”

He held out his hand and said, as he held hers, “I’m sorry that this visit must end so soon, but I have to go.”

“Why? Why don’t you come have lunch with me?”

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It seemed natural, he thought, to join her for lunch; and just as natural that he should pay. But he couldn’t pay. He was about to say that he really had to go, when an idea occurred to him. They would go for lunch, and he would call Maurizio from the restaurant and ask him to join them. He would ask Maurizio to pay the bill, as a favor. He knew that Maurizio would not leave Rome that afternoon, and also that Nella was the reason, but for some reason he felt neither jealousy nor any scruples about asking him for a loan. “All right, then, let’s go … but where?”

“Somewhere not too expensive and close by.”

“We can go around the corner … to La Pergola.”

“All right.”

Nella locked the door with an air of satisfaction, holding up the key to show Sergio. He smiled and began to descend the stairs ahead of her. They sat down at one of the few empty tables at the trattoria. It was crowded, mostly with men, but, as they soon found out, almost nothing on the menu was available. Sergio explained to Nella that it was the same everywhere; between the bombings and the German occupation, food was growing increasingly scarce. They ordered rice and a focaccia with a bit of meat that the owner called steak. Nella eagerly ate this paltry lunch and Sergio, who wasn’t hungry, nibbled on a bit of rice. He was thinking about Maurizio and realized he had begun to feel a kind of anticipatory jealousy at the idea of his friend’s paying for lunch. But someone had to pay, and he had no money. He got up, mumbled an excuse, and went off to find a phone.

But when he dialed Maurizio’s number, he had an unpleasant surprise: Maurizio wasn’t home. Sergio returned gloomily to the table […]

[I]

That winter, Sergio became friendly with a young

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man his age by the name of Maurizio. In many ways, Maurizio was Sergio’s opposite. Sergio was poor; he lived in a furnished room in central Rome and survived on a meager income from tutoring and writing for various newspapers. Maurizio was well off and lived with his parents in their villa on the outskirts of town; he was slowly studying toward a still-distant degree. Physically, Sergio was rather slight and very pale, with a grayish complexion and a long, thin face framed by black hair, small, intense eyes, a sharp nose, and a large mouth with extremely thin lips, curled at the corners. It was the face of a hunchback, long-suffering and always on edge. Maurizio, on the other hand, was tall and well proportioned, with regular, harmonious features, curly brown hair, tranquil, open eyes, and a robust, slender frame. Sergio felt a kind of attraction toward Maurizio and envied these qualities — his serenity, his quiet sense of humor, his pleasant nature or even goodness, his vigorous good health — which seemed to augment his own flaws. Sergio was a Communist and he considered Maurizio bourgeois, even though he also had certain non-bourgeois characteristics. But Sergio also realized that because he was poor and came from a poor family, he envied Maurizio’s comforts and wealth or at least coveted them. He was attracted by the nonchalance with which Maurizio had become his friend, unfazed by the difference in their social status and their contrasting ideologies. Sergio was convinced that this nonchalance was born not of indifference but rather out of a secret yet clear sympathy that Maurizio, despite his wealth and social station, felt toward Sergio’s Communist ideals and toward people who were simple and poor and different from him. Sergio could not help expressing his thoughts to Maurizio. He told him: “You are bourgeois because you were born into a wealthy home, from wealthy parents. But your sympathies lie with us and underneath it all you probably share our ideas.” Maurizio laughed but after further discussion he did not completely contradict Sergio’s claim. A friendly struggle had emerged between them, a struggle which, in Sergio’s case, had a precise goal. He wanted to convert his friend and convince him to join the Party. Maurizio, who still denied having the Communist sympathies