I giuochi della vita

At that hour, between eight and nine, Via Nazionale grew almost deserted, between two smoky vistas, under the violet light, now bright now dim, of the electric lamps; many shops were already closed, the sidewalks seemed wider than usual; the trams rushed downhill, groaning, amid a fantastic splendor of violet sparks that appeared and vanished on the wet rails.

The Goulliaus walked quickly to warm themselves; the wife gave her arm to her husband: he clasped in his own her slender hand.

The young man was telling a dream he had had the night before:

— It seemed to me that the publisher had answered: he was accepting La Primavera and offering us a thousand lire, but he wanted absolute ownership, and he wanted to publish the volume under your maiden name alone, because otherwise, he said, the novel would look like a translation.

— Is that a dream, or did you just make it up?

— And what if I did make it up!

— There are such curious dreams!

She fell silent a moment, then went on:

— What discourages me is the cold: when my feet are cold I can't think straight anymore: it discourages me the way thinking about what you are does.

— What am I, then?

— A vile accomplice.

He was a clerk at the Lottery office, and for Carina, who was an enemy of every institution, the Lottery was naturally one continuous act of thievery.

— Very good, thank you, — said the young man, bowing.

— An accomplice too, — she answered, joking.

— You had no need of it; and your father....

— Enough!

They fell silent; and the hour of cruel jokes seemed past, when the young couple came upon, on the sidewalk, before reaching the Bazar Roma, two fur-coated women, one of whom was letting the train of her dress drag along with a ridiculous grand-lady air.

— To settle my nerves I need to put my foot on that train, — Carina said quietly.

The grand lady of “pinchbeck„ swore in Roman dialect, but the Goulliaus were already far off, lost among the onlookers gazing at the bazaar's shop windows; and Carina laughed like a little girl.

— Who told her to let her train drag?

— You're quite wicked, though.

— I'm not an animal, and so I can't have a train, — she answered.

— Your fault is thinking yourself superior to everyone, — said Goulliau, putting on a fatherly air.

— By way of answer his wife only laughed again, mockingly, but Goulliau wasn't offended.

— Another fault of yours, — he went on nonetheless, — is wanting to send the manuscript only to the great publishers: a modest publisher might....

Carina huffed, sighed, shook her husband.

— I can't take it anymore!

— Thank you.

They spoke no more.

Meanwhile they had reached the Teatro Nazionale and stopped a moment before the Mantegazza shop window, looking at the new books.

Both were thinking of the same thing, but no longer dared speak of it.

A harsh light, which turned the passers-by's faces bluish, flooded the vastness of the streets now swarming with carriages and crowds: the slick sidewalks glistened with the reflection of the electric lettering that, on the Nazionale's facade, stamped in letters of fire the title of the play being performed that evening.

— There are people more unhappy than we are, — Carina thought, but she found no comfort in it.

They walked on.

— That would be the last straw, to be run down by a donkey!

— And less dangerous: it would give you something to advertise about.

— Never!

— What's that got to do with it?

— Well, — Carina explained, — I'd rather the paper not print my name at all than say I was run down by a donkey: but tell me, where are we headed?

— Wherever you like.

— Thank you, sir, I'll have nothing!

Every evening that little scene took place: Goulliau would offer to take Carina to the café, she would refuse; it seemed a joke, but that joke turned bitter for them, because both knew that by now they could no longer afford the luxury of going to the café.

Having reached Piazza Venezia they stopped again at the corner of the Corso and saw a colleague of Goulliau's standing in admiration before the windows of Dagnino the delicatessen.

— Calzi!

The other turned: he was a man of uncertain age, wrapped in a dark blue cloak of the kind worn fifteen years before; a fair-haired Jewish type with a small stiff hat set a bit back and a bit askew on reddish hair parted by a wide part.