Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay Read Online Free PDF

preferred Lila. But with what result?
She’s made badly even when it comes to sex
, he said. I was wrong to avoid the subject. I should have acted curious, let him continue. If he talks about it again I’ll be more open-minded, I’ll say: what does it mean that a girl is made badly when it comes to sex? I’m asking you, I’ll explain laughing, so that I can correct myself, if it seems necessary. Assuming that one can correct it, who knows. I remembered with disgust what had happened with his father on the beach at the Maronti. I thought of making love with Franco on the little bed in his room in Pisa—had I done something wrong that he had noticed but had tactfully not mentioned to me? And if that very evening, let’s say, I had gone to bed with Nino, would I make more mistakes, so that he would think: she’s made badly, like Lila, and would he speak of it behind my back to his girlfriends at the university, maybe even to Mariarosa?
    I realized the offensiveness of those words; I should have rebuked him. From that mistaken sex, I should have said to him, from an experience of which you now express a negative opinion, came a child, little Gennaro, who is very intelligent: it’s not nice for you to talk like that, you can’t reduce the question to who is made badly and who is made well. Lila ruined herself for you. And I made up my mind: when I get rid of Adele and her friend, when he walks me to the hotel, I’ll return to the subject and tell him.
    I came out of the bathroom. I went back to the dining room and discovered that during my absence the situation had changed. As soon as my mother-in-law saw me, she waved and said happily, her cheeks alight: the surprise finally got here. The surprise was Pietro, he was sitting next to her.

6.
    My fiancé jumped up, he embraced me. I had never told him anything about Nino. I had said a few words about Antonio, and had told him something about my relationship with Franco, which, besides, was well known in the student world of Pisa. Nino, however, I had never mentioned. It was a story that hurt me, it had painful moments that I was ashamed of. To tell it meant to confess that I had loved forever a person as I would never love him. And to give it an order, a sense, involved talking about Lila, about Ischia, maybe even going so far as to admit that the episode of sex with an older man, as it appeared in my book, was inspired by a true experience at the Maronti, by a decision that I had made as a desperate girl and which now, after so much time had passed, seemed to me repugnant. My own business, therefore. I had held on to my secrets. If Pietro had known, he would have easily understood why I was greeting him without pleasure.
    He sat down again at the head of the table, between his mother and Nino. He ate a steak, drank some wine, but he looked at me in alarm, aware of my unhappiness. Certainly he felt at fault because he hadn’t arrived in time and had missed an important event in my life, because his neglect could be interpreted as a sign that he didn’t love me, because he had left me among strangers without the comfort of his affection. It would have been difficult to tell him that my dark face, my muteness, could be explained
precisely
by the fact that he hadn’t remained completely absent, that he had intruded between me and Nino.
    Nino, meanwhile, was making me even more unhappy. He was sitting next to me but didn’t address a word to me. He seemed happy about Pietro’s arrival. He poured wine for him, offered him cigarettes, lighted one, and now they were both smoking, lips compressed, and talking about the difficult journey by car from Pisa to Milan, and the pleasure of driving. It struck me how different they were: Nino thin, lanky, his voice high and cordial; Pietro thick-set, with the comical tangle of hair over his large forehead, his broad cheeks scraped by the razor, his voice always low. They seemed pleased to have met, which was unusual for Pietro, who