642
PARTISAN REVIEW
"The truth is that you don't love me," he said.
"I wouldn't have married you except for love," she said
clearly, and she looked straight at him, with her lower lip trembling.
Her voice filled Giacomo with tenderness and he drew her to him
and kissed her. Simona was visibly affected by the kiss; her nostrils
stiffened and she breathed hard, and although her arms hung down
at her sides, she pressed her body against his.
"My spy," he said, drawing away and stroking her face, "my
little spy."
"Why do you call me spy?" she asked, taking immediate of–
fense.
"I was joking."
They walked on, but as he followed her, Giacomo wondered
whether he had meant the word as a joke after all. And what about
his
anger? Was that a joke too? He didn't know how he could have
given way to such unreasonable anger and have made such even
more unreasonable accusations, and yet he dimly understood that
they were justified by Simona's behavior. Meanwhile they had
come to the other side of the mountain, and from the highest point
of the path they looked down at an immense expanse of air, like a
bottomless well. Five minutes later they had a view of all one side of
the island, a long, green slope covered with scattered grapevines and
prickly pears, and at the bottom, stretching out into the sea, the
chalky promontory on which stood the lighthouse. The sweep of the
view was tremendous, and the pink-and-white checked lighthouse,
hung between sky .and sea, seemed far away and no larger than a
man's hand. Simona clapped her hands in delight.
"How perfectly lovely!" she exclaimed.
"I told you it was beautiful, and you wouldn't believe it."
"Forgive me," she said, patting his cheek. "You always know
best, and I'm very silly."
Before he could control himself, Giacomo said:
"Does that go for politics too?"
"No, not for politics. But don't let's talk about that just now."
He was annoyed with himself for having fallen back into
an
argument, but at the same time he suffered a return of the left-out
and jealous feeling that overcame him every time she made a
dogmatic, almost religious reference to her political ideas.
