12
ALBERTO MORAVIA
On
seeing Luciano, Sergio's first instinct was to avoid
him.
But
his
friend had .already seen him, and came up to
him.
They shook hands and walked off together down the street.
Luciano had been buying cigarettes, and he offered one to
SergiO. The latter would have liked to refuse, but he accepted.
"How are you?" asked Luciano after a moment.
"I'm all right," said Sergio tartly.
"Everyone well at home?"
"Yes, everyone."
"And you're still working in your lawyer's office?"
"Yes, still there."
His friend appeared to be in a bad humor; and Sergio
suspected that he had noticed
his
first instinctive movement to
avoid him. He wanted to be polite and thought of asking, in
tum, for news of someone closely connected with him. But,
since he did not know
his
family, he could think of nothing
better than inquiring after Luciano's mistress--that is to say,
after
his
last mistress, with whom he had seen him about six
months before. She had been, as far as he could remember, a
quite young woman and by no means ugly, though, like all
Luciano's women, extremely common. But, apart from this
confused impression of youth, attractiveness and vulgarity, he
could not manage to remember at all what she was like nor
who she was. Even the name Albina, which he dug up out of
the back of his mind, seemed to
him
uncertain. Nevertheless
a-
he asked: "And how is Albina?"
Luciano stopped to relight
his
cigarette which had gone
out. By the gleam from the little flame of his lighter, Sergio
observed that
his
question had produced an effect which was
obvious but not easy to define. Luciano's coolness was too osten–
tatious to be genuine. "Ah, Albina-you remember her, do
you?" he said in a sarcastic tone. "Perhaps it'll please you to
hear that
this
very day we've parted for good and all."
