Among Women Only Read Online Free PDF Page B

She smiled nicely like a child, but her abrupt manner was annoying. It was clear that she considered Mariella a fool.
    As it happened, I expected what followed. They began to talk about their own affairs, about people I didn't know. There was the story of a painting sold before it was finished, but then the painter decided it was already perfectly finished as it stood and he didn't want to touch it again, but the client wanted it really finished and the painter wouldn't hear of it and wouldn't change his mind. Nene got heated, indignant and excited, chewed her cigarette and took the words out of Mariella's mouth. I understand how people talk shop according to their professions; but there's nobody like painters, all those people you hear arguing in the cheaper restaurants. I could understand if they talked about brushes, colors, turpentine—the things they use—but no, these people make it difficult on purpose, and sometimes no one knows what certain words mean, there's always somebody else who suddenly starts arguing, says no, that it means this other thing, and everything's upside down. The kind of words you see in the newspapers when they write about painting. I expected that Nene would also exaggerate. But no. She talked rapidly and angrily but didn't lose her childlike air: she explained to Mariella that one never stops a painting too soon. Loris sucked on his pipe in silence. Mariella, who cared nothing about painting, suddenly came out with: Why didn't we discuss the play? Loris turned over on the bed, Nene looked unpleasantly at both of us. She was aware of it herself and burst out laughing. It struck me that she laughed in dialect, as counter girls laugh, as I sometimes laugh myself.
    Nene said: "But it's all up in the air now. After what's happened to Rosetta, we can't stage a suicide..."
    "Nonsense," Mariella shouted. "Nobody'd think twice about it."
    Nene looked at us again, provocatively and happy.
    "That's all woman's stuff," Loris said, contemptuous. "It might interest the bourgeois husband, but as for me... Anyhow, we have to deal with the Martelli women, with the people putting up the cash. I don't know what Rosetta may have done... What I like, on the other hand, is this fantasia on reality in which the artistic situation jumps into life. The personal side of it doesn't concern me... But it would be too good if Rosetta had really acted under suggestion... However, the Martellis have backed out."
    "What's all this have to do with it?" Mariella said. "Art is something else..."
    "Are you sure?" Loris argued. "It's another way of looking at the same thing, if you like, but not another thing. As for me, I'd like to dramatize the dramatic suggestion itself. I'm sure it would be fantastic... a collage of theater news ... to treat these clothes you wear, this room, this bed, as the stuff of theater ... an existential theater. Is that how one says it?"
    He looked at me, really at me, from that bed, with those hairy eyes. I can't stand these nasty-clever people and was about to tell him off when Nene jumped up, fresh: "If Rosetta had really died, one could do it. Un hommage à Rosette ..."
    Mariella said: "Who's not in favor?"
    "Momina," the other said. "The Martelli women, the president, Carla and Mizi. They were Momina's friends ..."
    "That fool should have died, it would have been better..." Mariella cried out.
    I'm used to hearing all the scandal and gossip of Rome in our shop, but this bickering between friends because a third one didn't succeed in killing herself impressed me. I was on the point of believing that the acting had already begun and that all that was going on was theatrical make-believe, as Loris wanted. Coming to Turin, I walked out on a stage and was acting now myself. "It's carnival time," I thought to myself. "You'll find that in Turin they play these tricks every year."
    "As for me," Loris said, biting his pipe, "you agree among yourselves."
    I studied Nene's bangs, her heavy lips, her faded