Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘Such a shame! And you, Princess? Did you also have a grandmother, or were you spared? You never speak about your past, and this leads me to suppose…’

‘No, no, it’s just that my past doesn’t interest me. It’s only the present that counts.’

‘A pity! Because if you had had a terrible grandmother too, we could have formed a league. And from a league, a party, and then on to the Chamber with a motion for the abolition of abominable grandmothers. I can’t manage to make you smile. Don’t be worried. As I told you, this fever is nothing critical, nor is Beatrice’s delicacy serious. Don’t you believe me? Don’t you respect me as a doctor? Of course, when you care for someone the way you care about Beatrice, no doctor’s or friend’s word can reassure you,…

‘Princess, listen to me, I love you, I love you. I know this is not the time to tell you this, but unfortunately I’ve tried to stifle this love for you, because your friendship and that of Beatrice mean so much to me. If you only knew how lonely we men are, constantly confined solely to the limbo of male friendships. It’s so difficult to find educated, free-spirited women! It’s a huge problem for me. Others, I don’t know how, are content to … but I want to speak to you! No, no, I won’t speak to you because I see that I have not been able to stifle this love for you. All night I watched you and I realized that all my effort has been in vain. With your permission, as soon as Beatrice recovers, I will not come anymore. Besides, it might be good for me to go back to Turin, to the struggle…’

‘No, Carlo, stay.’

‘Oh God! Princess, what did you say?’

‘Stay, Carlo. Hold me.’

‘Me? With you? Oh, yes, yes … but now I must go to Catania. Not because of the house call — it wasn’t important but — I’m confused, Modesta.’

‘Yes, of course, but stay here with me. Come.’

‘I love you, Modesta, oh, how I love you! I feel, you know, that you love me too, you seem so tender, so tremulous … No response? You’re right: silence is so sublime.’

He lifted me up and laid me on the bed, but he did not undress me. I expected it; that’s how it had been once before. And like that other time, he entered me with a fervour that did not hurt me. When his head slumped heavily on my breast, I knew that he had come, like that other time, and that soon he would say: ‘Sorry for the rush, figghia , it’s just that…’ Instead, I heard my voice saying:

‘Don’t your mothers teach you anything?’

‘What did you say? How did my mother occur to you? What were you thinking of?’

‘I was thinking of us, all of us, and at the moment us two, and how we don’t know anything about making love.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?… Can I turn on the light or will it embarrass you?’

‘Embarrass me? Why?’

‘Well, generally people are bashful. I’m a little bashful … Go ahead and straighten your clothes. I’ll turn around.’

‘Why won’t you look at me?’

‘Well, your skirt is raised and…’

‘And I don’t have my panties on? Excuse me, Carlo, but you’re the one who took them off.’

‘Of course, but…’

‘But what? I swear I don’t understand you. Are you embarrassed, or don’t you find me appealing? It can happen, Carlo; it doesn’t offend me.’

‘I love you very much, Modesta. You’re strange, but I love you so much!.. How beautiful you are naked! I’ll turn off the light.’

‘If I’m beautiful, why did you turn off the light?’

‘I don’t know … You’re strange, strange. You don’t love me, Modesta.’

‘Why do you say I don’t love you, Carlo? Explain it to me.’

‘I have to go now. You don’t love me. Why won’t you tell me you love me, Modesta? Tell me, I beg you!’

‘I love you, Carlo.’

In the dark a shower of kisses rained down on my hair, my forehead; kisses filled with eagerness, delicate kisses from those lips that were tender and soft, like Eriprando’s. With my palms, I tried to still that face, and sought his tongue with mine. But there was no tenderness from that mouth, its teeth furiously pressing against mine.

‘I love you, Carlo, but go now.’

As he went away contentedly, waving a hand that now seemed small and fragile, a tremor of anxiety for Prando held me riveted on the bed: ‘ Your mothers don’t teach you anything .’ As a matter of fact, Carmine, they don’t teach anything to either us women or to you men. But just as you were patient with me, I will be patient with Carlo.

* * *

The first week of Beatrice’s illness

‘You don’t love me, Modesta.’

‘Why do you say that, Carlo? I haven’t rejected you, have I?’

‘No, no! But you never tell me you love me when we embrace each other.’

‘When we make love, you mean?’

‘There: you see how crude you are, how blunt? Plus, I sense you lying there afterwards frigid, distant.’

‘Like those whores, is that what you mean?’

‘What are you saying? Are you crazy? The only women I’ve had have been free-spirited, but respectable. Besides, what do you know about whores?’

‘With these respectable women, did you ever “embrace”, as you put it?’

‘Of course, why not?’

‘And afterwards, how did they feel? Weren’t they frigid and distant like me? How did they seem?’

‘Modesta, what kind of a question is that? How would I know? I wasn’t in their shoes!’

‘So you’ve made love to many women and you can’t even tell me how they felt?’

‘It’s pointless to pretend with you. I see. You always know everything. The only women I’ve had before you are the ones our Turati elegantly calls the “wage earners of love”. 42Satisfied?’

‘Ah, is that what he calls them?’

‘Only once was I really in love, or at least so I thought before I met you.’

‘So you’ve had a woman who was not a “wage earner of love”?’

‘Are you out of your mind? She was a very respectable girl and—’

‘You must have at least exchanged some kisses, or…’

‘Kissed? Most certainly not! I was deeply in love and I respected her.’

‘So how did it end?’

‘The way these things always do: she liked my best friend better.’

‘Probably this friend of yours kissed her, while you respected her.’

‘You always relate everything to…’

‘To what, Carlo? Why don’t you say it? To sex? Is it such a dirty word? Do I seem so awful to you now that I see those adorable lips of yours pouting, and instead of getting angry, I only want to kiss them?’

‘Oh Modesta, what full, sweet lips you have! I want to bite them.’

‘Bite them then! But gently, Carlo, gently please!’

Under the sheet I ran my hand down along his chest and slim hips. His skin was almost as delicate as Beatrice’s, but between his thighs the pubic hair and his penis were strong, virile. So what was the urgency that seized him and then, I could tell, wouldn’t let him come effusively? Carmine’s penis became small after sex, gentle. And I would play with it then.

‘It’s not that I don’t love you, Carlo; it’s that I’m left unsatisfied. Help me. You have to be less tense. Don’t turn away as if you wanted to undo what you did. No, don’t go! It’s not a reproach; I too had to learn at one time.’

‘From whom? Don’t tell me you learned from the Prince?’

‘No, Carlo, from…’

‘So then it’s true what they say in Catania.’

‘Of course! How could I have had a child with that poor “thing”?’

‘Beatrice told me you had sacrificed yourself. And I believed what she believes, the poor deluded soul!’

‘Beatrice is fragile and has to be protected. But as a man, you should have realized.’