652
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Simona, you really should have told us you were getting
married, you know. There are some things it's not fair to hide!"
There was a note of tenderness toward Giacomo in Simona's
reply.
"We decided from one day to the next. . . . Only the legal
witnesses were present. Even our own parents weren't in on
it."
"You mean you didn't want them?"
"We didn't want them, and anyhow they might not have
come.... Giacomo's father and mother didn't want him to marry
me."
"Because you're too far to the left, is that it?"
"No," Giacomo interposed. "My people don't go in for politics
at all. But my mother had her eye on a certain girl ..."
"They may not go in for politics, as you say," Livio said, after
another mouthful, "but there are always political implications. How
could it be otherwise? Politics gets into everything these days."
True enough, Giacomo thought to himself. Even into honey–
moons and a newly married couple's first embrace. Then, annoyed
at his own train of thought, he held out the hard-boiled eggs to
his
companIOns.
"You two eat them," he said; "I'm not hungry."
"Be honest now," Livia said, with a look of surprise on his face.
"Why aren't you hungry?" Simona asked him.
"That damned
scirocco,
I imagine."
Livia looked up at the cloudy sky.
"There'll be a storm before night; I can promise you that,"
he said.
Livio's conversation was made up of commonplaces and cliches,
Giacomo reflected. But Simona seemed to like them. They conveyed
more to her than his own attempts to express emotions that were
difficult if not impossible to put into words. Meanwhile Simona,
having finished her lunch, said:
"Let's lie down for a sun bath now."
"Will you be my pillow, Simona?" Livio asked, sliding toward
her with the plain intention of putting his head on her lap.
For the first time Simona took her husband's presence into
account.
"It's too hot for that, and you're too heavy."
