450
PARTISAN
REVIEW
"What did I say?"
"Everyone on the tram knows me.... What are they going
to think? Did you see that gentleman sitting next to me? He's Mr.
Picchio, a lawyer, who lives in my house, on the same floor. He'll
say my sister is a little slut who brings men home with her. . .."
"But what does it matter?"
"It matters a lot. I don't want people to talk about me behind
my back."
"Look here," said the younger sister, planting herself in the
middle of the open space with her hands on her hips. "Look here,
what's the use of all this fuss? What your neighbors will say is no
more than the truth. Go along with you!" And she came back to
Giacomo's side.
"Very well," said the other, "but this is the last time I'm
inviting you for a visit."
They walked a little way in silence. Then Rina went up to the
entrance of one of the large apartment houses.
"For heaven's sake be quiet," she whispered to Giacomo as
she turned the key in the lock.
They camc into a lobby with a black marble ledge running all
the way around the floor. A star-shaped hanging glass lamp cast
myriads of sparkling facets on the walls. Thence they passed into
a room enclosing the stairs. Rina walked around the cage of the
self-running elevator and went to a door at the end of a hall.
"Quietly," she said again, as they went in.
After they had shut the door behind them she lit a lamp en–
closed in a square white glass box. The apartment seemed to be
furnished in extremely modern style. Everywhere there were cubical
or box-shaped pieces of furniture, chromium lamps, glass tables
and tubular chairs. Rina led Giacomo down a narrow corridor to
a closed door.
"We might as well go straight into the bedroom," she said.
The room was a small one and most of it was taken up by a
low, wide double bed. The design on the bedcover was composed of
squares fitted one inside another, in various shades of all different
colors, from pale blue to violet, red and brown, and the same material
was used in the upholstery of the chairs. A wardrobe made up of a
series of sections joined together, with a revolving mirror in the
