Beautiful Antonio Read Online Free PDF Page A

him as improper conduct towards those who were supposedly going to procure him a position he didn’t deserve.
    In the meanwhile there she was, this splendid girl, seated on a stool and twisting a cambric handkerchief with dainty fingers still bronzed by a summer of sunshine.
    Antonio said nothing.
    The girl, tilting her face sideways, stared at the toe of her shoe as it nervously tap-tapped the floor.
    Antonio still remained silent.
    The telephone shrilled in the other room, and Antonio dashed to answer it, closing the sitting-room door behind him.
    â€œHullo?”
    â€œIt’s me, d’Agata. Is Luisa Dreyer at your place?”
    â€œHow did you know?”
    â€œAh then, it’s true: she’s there!”
    â€œWhat of it?”
    â€œListen here. The day before yesterday there was a reception at the Embassy. The girls all got drunk and pissed in the flowerpots.”
    â€œWhat of it?”
    â€œJust don’t make an ass of yourself.”
    Antonio hung the receiver sharply back on the hook and returned to the sitting-room.
    He found Luisa brushing the corner of her mouth with a fingertip to deviate a tear about to dribble into it.
    â€œWhy are you crying?” enquired Antonio.
    Luisa shot to her feet, hurled her arms around his neck and nestled a cheek against his chest. “I love you,” she sobbed. “I love you!…”
    Antonio patted her head, gazing vaguely the while out of the window at the intense green light which the trees of the Villa Borghese cast up against the sky.
    â€œI ask nothing of you!” Luisa went on between sobs. “I don’t want to get married! But… you happened to leave a letter from your father at my house, and I’ve read it.”
    â€œWhat letter?” asked Antonio, horror-struck.
    â€œA letter from your father telling you to get back at once to Catania to meet the young lady they mean to marry you off to.”
    â€œI don’t believe you managed to decipher my father’s hand-writing!”stammered Antonio. “I can’t even make it out myself…”
    â€œBut that’s not what I’m crying for… I’ve already told you I don’t want to marry you. I’m all right on my own and… and don’t want to marry anyone.”
    â€œSo what are you getting at?” said Antonio, panic-stricken.
    â€œI love you I love you! In heaven’s name can’t you understand? I love you!”
    Antonio’s face took on the pallor of death and he slumped, he practically collapsed, onto a sofa.
    The girl glided to his side, bringing with her the tender fragrance of her angora woollies and powdered neck. Shaken with sobs, she insinuated beneath his chin that fair brow on which, at Embassy receptions, there always glittered a small diamond crucifix. With her little frightened hand she sought for the heart beneath his dressing-gown, as if to see whether such a thing as a heart could ever beat there.
    Far from just beating, Antonio’s heart was at full gallop. Astride this runaway steed he sped towards the blackest anguish.
    Luisa no longer knew what she was doing, she had lost all control of herself, she was aghast, ashamed, to discover her hand wandering frantically beneath Antonio’s robe.
    â€œI won’t make any demands!” she sobbed. “Don’t worry, I promise that! I won’t make any trouble for you… I’m an honest woman, I’m not like the others!”
    â€œOn the contrary,” said he, clutching at the desperate expedient of playing it tough and nasty, grabbing her by the wrists to hold her off a little and looking her straight in the face. “You
are
like the others!”
    Luisa frowned, scattering attractive, kittenish wrinkles around her eyes and nose: “What do you mean? You don’t know what you’re saying!” Then, all in a rush, “What are you thinking of? I’m a virgin, I tell you, I’m a