THE MAID'S SHOES
had trouble with her liver. That was why the professor did not mind
her going to the maid's room to lie down before leaving, after she
had finished her work.
Once, after Rosa had gone home, sniffing tobacco smoke in
the corridor near her room, the professor entered it to investigate.
The room was not more than an elongated cubicle with a narrow
bed that lifted sideways against the wall; there was also a small green
cabinet; and a tiny bathroom containing a toilet, and a sitzbath
fed by a cold water tap. She often did the laundry on a washboard
in the sitzbath, but never, so far as he knew, had bathed in it. The
day before her daughter-in-Iaw's name day she had asked permission
to take a hot bath in his tub in the big bathroom, and though he
hesitated a moment, the professor finally said yes. In her room, he
opened a drawer at the bottom of the cabinet and found a hoard
of cigarette butts, butts he had left in ash trays. He noticed, too,
that she collected his old newspapers and magazines from the
waste baskets. She saved cord, paper bags and rubber bands, also
pencil stubs he threw away. Mter he had found that out, he occa–
sionally gave her some meat left over from lunch, and cheese that
had gone dry, to take with her. For this she brought him flowers.
She also brought a dirty egg or two her daughter-in-Iaw's hen had
laid, but he thanked her and said the yolks were too strong for his
taste. He noticed that she needed a pair of shoes, for those she
put on to go home in were split at the soles, and she wore the same
black dress with the tear in it every day,which embarrassed him when
he had to speak to her; however, he thought he would refer these
matters to his wife when she arrived.
As
jobs went, Rosa knew she had a good one. The professor
paid well and on time, and he never ordered her around in the
haughty manner of some of her Italian employers. This one was
nervous and fussy but not a bad sort. His main fault was his silence.
Though he could speak a better than passable Italian, he preferred,
when not at work, to sit in an armchair in the living room, reading.
Only two souls in the whole house, you would think they would want
to talk to each other once in a while. Sometimes when she served
him
a cup of coffee as he read, she tried to get in a word about her
troubles. She wanted to tell him about her long, impoverished widow–
hood, how badly her son had turned out, and what her daughter-in-
