ROME LETTER
311
greatest sin is to behave like hired workers, since that means that they
are not grateful for having been adopted as it were. Hence, there is
no limit to the exertions their mistressess can impose on them, except
mercy. On the other
ha~d,
if they become attached to the family in
which they live (as is often the case, since the "inferiors," in Italy,
dream passionately of establishing a sentimental relation with the "su–
periors"), that's part of their duty, and simply means that they are aware
of their inferiority. They may even get some signs of affection in return,
but in no case a true recognition of their personality. They remain for–
ever, in the eyes of their masters, poor ignorant women whose instincts
are too uneducated to be fully trusted. In well-to-do families things are
not so bad, since they care only for efficient service and little or nothing
for the personality of their maids. But few situations resemble hell so
closely as the life of a maid who has to be a part of the narrow and
mean existence of the family of a miserably paid civil servant.
To go back to Desdemona Palombi. She was a twenty-five year old
girl from Frosinone in the service of a small Roman businessman. One
day, her mistress discovered that a diamond ring worth about two hun–
dred dollars was missing from her drawer. She promptly called the police.
As a matter of the simplest routine, the
carabinieri
arrested Desdemona.
Three days later, the papers announced that, having been accused of
stealing, a maid had committed suicide in her cell by setting fire to her
clothes. The case looked mysterious. When newspapermen went to the
hospital where the dying girl had been taken, they found that the page
where Desdemona's admission was recorded had been torn from the
hospital's register. The doctors had said that the girl's burns were serious,
but didn't look mortal. The
carabinieri
asserted that before killing her–
self in that gruesome way, Desdemona had made a full confession. There
was no signed document, however. As for the girl's mistress, she was
quick to announce that she had only reported the loss of the ring and
had said nothing to accuse Desdemona, who in her opinion was a good
girl. Why then she had let the girl
be
arrested she didn't explain.
Roman newspapers played up the story with big headlines. The
outcry was fierce. In the eyes of the simple people of Rome the case
was crystal clear: Desdemona was a heroic martyr of her condition,
her death a supreme gesture of protest against the implacable course of
social determinism. Automatically accused, and automatically condemned,
Desdemona could have gotten away after a few months in jail. But her
ancient Roman sense of honor made her prefer a horrible death to
shame. Desdemona Palombi's funeral cortege was followed by a mass
of poor people. In passing the police station that had been the theater
