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PARTISAN REVIEW
vicious and hypocritical air. Her eyes, as well as her cheeks and
exceedingly narrow curved lips, were heavily made up. She was
more stylish than her companion, and at first sight perhaps more
beautiful, but in an elaborate and banal urban manner. At second
glance Giacomo decidedly preferred the younger, if for no other
reason simply because there was something less conventional about
her.
The two women sat there motionless, without saying a word,
while Giacomo looked the one with the hat straight in the face and
at the other from a side view. What suddenly convinced him that they
were prostitutes was the excessive and inappropriate air of dignity
assumed by the older of the two, and her almost ugly, dark hands,
with purplish red polish on the nails, which were laid on the table.
The younger woman had polish on her nails too, but her hands were
pale and slender.
"Here's your drink, sir," the barman said all of a sudden, putting
down a glass. Under ordinary circumstances Giacomo would not have
had the courage to question him about the two women, but in the
present atmosphere of unreality he had acquired a bold front which
successfully masked his essential awkwardness and timidity.
"Who are those two?" he asked abruptly.
The barman was running a damp rag over the bar, and without
raising his head or stopping his work he answered:
"I don't know, sir. They were here the other evening, but
before that I'd never seen them."
However, his tone of voice clearly indicated that they were
women of the sort for which Giacomo was looking.
"Please take my glass over to that table," said Giacomo, and
getting down from his stool he went to sit at the table beside that
of the two women.
He was still in the same relative position, that is looking at the
younger one from the side and with the other directly across from
him. The latter, who could not help seeing him, lowered her gaze,
while her companion, who could have ignored his presence, shot
him a bold glance out of the corner of her greenish eye, which had
a vaguely hilarious expression.
It
seemed to Giacomo as if the wo–
man with the hat on saw this glance and disapproved of it. But
perhaps, he thought, he was mistaken.
