444
PARTISAN REVIEW
"What do you know about that! Then I do the same thing.
I'm a lady of leisure too...."
Rina looked daggers at her sister, but did not reply. Then she
said warningly to Giacomo:
"If
you encourage her to go on drinking like that, there's no tell–
ing what she'll say."
Lori turned suddenly bitter.
"I
haven't had too much to drink,
I'll
have you know! And
then Giacomo here is different. He doesn' t put on airs the way you
do...."
"Come, come," said Giacomo conciliatingly, patting the girl's
knee. She paid no attention, and he ventured to move his hand up
her legs. She held them close together, and go as far as he would
he found no trace of slip, stockings or underpinnings of any kind.
From her smooth, cool thighs, very different from her sister's, he
reached all the way to her stomach, which perhaps because of the way
she was sitting down and leaning over fell into a fold and gave
the impression of being round and well fed. She was quite naked
under her dress, but with no ulterior motive, simply because it was
uncomfortable to feel clinging underwear in the hot weather. Mean–
while, heedless of his hand, she went on shouting at her sister :
"I make no bones about it. I don't pretend to live with one
man alone and then bring a stranger home with me every evening."
The older woman stared at her unblinkingly, with her tiny hat
tilted over her narrow eyes.
"I make no bones about it, I say," repeated the other less
vehemently, as if she regretted her previous violence. "And you,
be still there!" she added, turning her anger on Giacomo.
"I told you not to encourage her drinking," said the sister.
By now Giacomo felt drunk himself and the girl's unashamed
nakedness excited him. Drunkenness and excitement combined to
make him grow suddenly impatient.
"What would you say if we two got out of here and left her?"
he whispered to Lori, taking advantage of a moment when Rina
was fitting a cigarette into a long holder.
But to his surprise the girl showed a most unexpected loyalty
to her sister.
"Ask her," she said. "When I'm staying with her she decides
everything."
