I found myself near the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Whenever I walked without knowing where I was going—and this was something that was always happening to me—my legs would carry me to the streets in that vicinity. In one of these streets lived a shopgirl that I had noticed on the second day of my brief stay in Milan. Afterward, I had gone back to see her three or four times, virtually every evening in fact, at about five thirty: the time of day when it is already dark and the streetlights come on; when the to-ing and fro-ing of people hurrying home for dinner, and the coming and going of carriages, cast a certain busy impatience even upon the quiet stroller, thrilling his imagination.
I feel a deep shame in confessing it, but this milliner had attracted me because of her resemblance to Emilia. My grief was heightened by a vague sense of remorse. By seeking out and studying—as instinct irresistibly compelled me—certain minute and fleeting similarities between my beloved Emilia’s appearance and that of the women I met, and even the photographs that I saw, I felt I was profaning her sacred memory. And all too often I was then forced to acknowledge that these resemblances existed only in my imagination. The number of times I had stood for half an hour staring in a photographer’s shop window! And yet I had in my wallet four different portraits of Emilia, as well as three of Giorgetta that could have been three pictures of Emilia as a child. Nevertheless, during the five days I was in Florence, I remember having gone twice to the far end of the Corso di Porta Romana, even though it was raining, specially to look at an attractive little head in a picture framer’s shop, in among a great many stiff sergeants of the line and a great many ugly countrywomen all decked in frills; a head that I had seen for the first time when I happened to be making my way on foot to La Certosa, and which I would like to have bought, had not shame restrained me.
The girl was always hurrying about her business, but the first time I encountered her was in front of the window of a big jeweler’s shop, where she had stopped. The lights were coming on, and the gold pieces glinted, and the diamonds shone, and the pearls had a wonderful warm luster. She suddenly turned, with sparkling eyes and lips parted in a joyful smile, revealing her extremely white teeth. Then, noticing me, she shrugged her shoulders and off she went, like a streak of lightning. I had difficulty keeping up with her, but she sidestepped carriages and slipped through the crowd unperturbed, holding the skirt of her cape a little off the ground, and on and on she went, stepping briskly. At one turning I thought I had lost her, but there she was again, in the distance, passing in front of a café—and I went following after. And she turned right, and left, then suddenly disappeared.
The next day, as I waited for her in the street where I had lost sight of her, I saw her enter the doorway of a house. She was quickly swallowed up by the pitch darkness of the entrance, then came the ring of a bell, and she was gone.
This girl’s smile had thrown me into a state of great turmoil. Emilia used to look at me like that when I brought her a fine present on my return from some trip. Or when, on my name-day and on certain anniversaries, she came into my bedroom early in the morning, having knocked lightly on the door and asked in that sweet voice of hers, “May I come in?” Then she rushed up to me and fastened onto my tie a pin with a magnificent pearl (the one I always wear), or put a new chain for my watch around my neck, or slipped into my pocket a leather wallet decorated with a silver pattern that she had designed. Once, no more than two and a half years ago, although I didn’t want her to pull off my boots, with those delicate pink hands of hers, she had insisted, replacing them with a pair of slippers she herself had embroidered—oh, so beautifully, so beautifully. Then I clasped those two hands and kissed her brow, which was radiant with joy. Then we heard a furious knocking at the door, fit to bring the house down: it was Giorgetta, who came in with a shower of kisses, gales of laughter, a whirl of happiness.
I had no hope of seeing my shopgirl that Christmas Eve, as it was long past the usual time, and in any case she, like all other mortals, must have been busy with Christmas dinner festivities. And yet I went past the entrance to her house. It seemed to me that inside the dark doorway was a shadow. I strolled by, looked in, and glimpsed a woman’s hat. The woman hurriedly hid herself. It was her. My heart was thumping. I remained uncertain for a moment whether I should continue on my way or turn back. In the end I retraced my steps, and once more, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the figure, standing there. I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed at the same time of my desire and my timidity. I went past again. I had never been able to address an unknown woman in the street, however little averse she appeared, without the greatest reluctance. And on the very rare occasions when I had done so, it was, above all else, the fear of appearing ridiculous that prompted me. But that evening my soul felt the need to unburden itself. For a month I had locked up inside me my grief, desires, and youth. I urged myself to be bold, and since the figure was standing practically on the doorstep, I greeted her.
“Good evening.”
She did not reply, indeed she took a few steps back, melting into the darkness. I was delighted. I would have been sorry if the girl had been too forward. But a moment later she stuck her head out of the doorway again, giving a quick glance to left and right.
I approached her once more, and said again, “Good evening.”
She responded with a none too polite shrug of her shoulders, and said, “Leave me alone. Get along with you!” And since I made no move to go, she added, “You’ve no manners, and no call to be bothering an honest girl like me.”
Then my pride rebelled, making me turn away, and I resolutely went some hundred yards. Ten minutes later I was back at the doorway.
Striving to make my voice sound meek and ingratiating, I murmured, “Are you waiting for someone? Perhaps I could keep you company! I’m a decent fellow, you know. And besides, you must have seen me on more than one occasion.”
“Certainly I have. You spend your time following me about. Evidently you’ve nothing else to do.”
“Nothing better, no, because I find you so attractive. What’s your name?”
“It can’t matter to you.”
“Indeed it does. I want to know at least what name I should address my sighs to.”
“Ah, you poor devil! Now, go away, at once. If my husband sees you …”
“So you’re waiting for your husband?”
“Of course. He should have been here half an hour ago.” And she stamped her feet in annoyance—perhaps, too, because of the cold, since her hands, which I had fleetingly touched, were frozen.
“It’s that husband of yours who has no manners. And were you supposed to be going for a walk, if I might ask?”
“A walk! You must be joking! I was supposed to be going out to dinner.”
An idea occurred to me then, which I instantly seized upon, especially as I felt I had already been so gauche. “To dinner? Come and have dinner with me.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that! No, no. And what if my husband were to find out?”
“He won’t. We’ll take a carriage and go to the Cavour Inn, we’ll eat truffles and drink champagne, and have a good time.”
“But I don’t know you.”
“After dinner, you’ll see, we’ll be old friends.”
She smiled the smile that had seduced me and made me shiver, then, with a very determined gesture, she exclaimed, “Let’s go.”
The room at the Cavour Inn, where I had been staying for several