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PARTISAN REVIEW
malady that has turned her legs to two barrels and in her strikingly
handsome face a power as of dynasties, and it is said that she does
reign over the section, arranging contracts and marriages and so forth ;
to look at her she may well arrange consent or rebellion in larger
matters too and would not be anything for a tyrant to trifle with ex–
cept in his last panic. She is a whole other government, benevolent it
would seem, but incontrovertible. At closing time, long after mid–
night, she moves slowly out across the cobbles on her inadequate
little feet, on the arm of a son or nephew, her imperial head having
no need of a basket of washing to keep
it
high, turning once at the
top of the square to acknowledge some last remark from the atten–
dants taking in the last tables. At other times she must be capable of
tremendous laughter; just now there is no occasion for it; her regard,
in which there could never be anything so undependable as pity,
rests ,a moment on the scene much as it did a little earlier when the
children were playing there; she murmurs good-night again, not
needing to commit anything of herself in that banality, which however
she would not omit; then with another word to her companion to set
them in motion again, as though a cortege were falling in behind,
goes off down the flickering crooked street that is one of the cor–
ridors of her palace.
Carolina is of different material. She is not even the Prime
Minister but more a scout and buffoon, who operates out in the larger
world, her occupation giving her contacts with most of the dignitaries
who come into the quarter. She is the everyday link between the
rione
or district and the government, also the United States, Brazil,
the movie industry, etc., and there is probably no diplomatic job in
Rome more strenuous. Everyone knows her, she knows everyone; the
better outdoor restaurants are her beat; if she sees glancing at a
certain table that she has gone too far she will immediately pretend
to be drunk, or silly, and begin talking about love. It is convincing
because quite often she is really drunk. Even so she is very skillful in
her improvisations of headlines that are never entirely absurd, al–
though the main effect of them, always funny, is just to make hash
of all public affairs. But there can be something of Pasquin's point in
them too, especially on his original subject, the Vatican, which the
present pious government has brought to the front again; the min–
istries are called monasteries, the Monastery of Foreign Affairs and so
