Voices In The Evening Read Online Free PDF Page A

through fright and weariness.
    Nebbia sometimes came to supper with them. He would discuss affairs at the works with Old Balotta and was always contradicting him; for Nebbia never took advice from anyone in the world. Soon after, Balotta would go to bed, being accustomed to turning in early; and Nebbia remained with Gemmina and Signora Cecilia while they worked at their knitting. But he too, little by little, fell asleep with his long red face on the back of the arm-chair and his big mouth occasionally smiling in his slumbers.
    He was famous, Nebbia was, for falling asleep after supper.
    â€˜Forgive me if I have been asleep,’ he would say, smoothing his curly hair, and picking up his hat and raincoat.
    Gemmina would go with him to the garden gate, and he jumped on his bicycle and went off in the direction of the Hotel Concordia, where he lodged.
    One evening they were left by themselves, Gemmina and Nebbia, because Balotta had gone to bed and Signora Cecilia and Rafaella were spending the night in the town. Gemmina laid aside her knitting, pushed her hair off her forehead and said,
    â€˜I believe, Nebbia, I am in love with you.’
    Then she hid her face in her hands and began to cry.
    Nebbia was bewildered. His ears were burning, and he swallowed. His big curved mouth was still a bit cracked with the cold.
    â€˜I am sorry,’ he said.
    Then there was a long silence, and Gemmina cried all the time. He got out his handkerchief, a big crumpled thing, rather dirty, and dried her tears.
    He said in a very low voice, hoarsely,
    â€˜I have a great affection for you. But I don’t feel that I love you.’
    They remained sitting there for a while longer without saying anything further Gemmina was biting her thumbnail, and every now and again sobbed. Then suddenly Balotta appeared, in his pyjamas, to look for his newspaper, and Nebbia quickly thrust his handkerchief back in his pocket and Gemmina took up her knitting needles.
    After that Nebbia put his raincoat on, pulled his worn fur cap over his head and went away.
    He became engaged a little while after that to the chemist’s daughter at Castello. A girl they nicknamed Pupazzina, Little Dolly. She was only nineteen, and was a little plump thing with a headful of curls. She always wore rather full dainty blouses with her waist gripped in a broad belt of black patent leather, and tottered about on very high heels. She wanted a motor-car at once, being anxious to play the lady, and a home with ultra-modem furniture and large plants on the window sills. She could not bear the mountains, either in winter or summer, and felt the cold badly. She was no good on a bicycle. What she liked was dancing, and she married Nebbia who could not dance.
    Old Balotta always had a grudge against Nebbia because he had married that goose, and would not have either of his daughters, neither Gemmina nor Raffaella.
    Gemmina decided to go away to Switzerland. She had a woman friend there, and obtained work in a travel agency.
    She only returned after the war, Pupazzina and the two children she had had by Nebbia had gone away to live at Saluzzo.
    Gemmina would never go and see the spot where they had murdered Nebbia on the rocky slope behind Le Pietre.
    Sometimes while she was going alone on her motor-scooter she would sing a song which went like this:
    Linda, Linda, my only true love
,
    You’re cosy indoors, I’ve the heavens above!
    You’re cosy indoors with a beefsteak before you
,
    I'm stamping outside in the frost! I adore you
,
    Linda, Linda, my only true love
,
    You’re cosy indoors, I’ve the heavens above!
    This was one they used to sing in chorus, she and Nebbia and Vincenzino and Purillo in the motor-bus on their return from the mountains.
    Nebbia used to sing out of tune. She seemed to hear him still. When she sang this song she recalled all her youth, the cheerful evenings when they were coming back from the mountains their fatigue, the smell of wool