28
ALBERTO MORAVIA
for a sweet, she added, she would decide about that later. He
could not refrain from admiring this valiant appetite that not
even jealousy was able to extinguish. "You're hungry?" he
asked, turning towards her.
"Yes, certainly I'm hungry," she answered aggressively.
It was remarkably difficult for the two couples to sit op–
posite and not look at each other. Sergio, after trying in vain
to avoid turning his eyes towards the other two, decided that he
might as well take a frank look at them. Luciano was sitting
sideways, so that he saw him in profile. But the woman sat
directly facing
him.
She was a woman of singular aspect, and for
a moment she aroused Sergio's curiosity. Black-haired, she had a
sharp-featured, long face of a coppery yellow color. Her eyes
were large, black and unmoving, wide open but unseeing, glit–
tering and inexpressive as a couple of stones. Her long nose,
aquiline but broad at the nostrils, her mouth with its scornful
expression and corners turned downwards, gave her face an
air
of
virility.
She seemed to
be
tall, with ample shoulders and a
very well-formed bosom tightly swathed in the black silk of her
low-necked dress. What struck him most in her face was the
reddish color of her complexion and the savage, unmoving
expression. Beside this woman, Luciano looked fragile and wan,
and even Albina appeared femininely slender. He was startled
out of these thoughts by a blow in the ribs from Albina's elbow.
"D'you know who that woman is?" she said in her normal voice,
so that Luciano could hear her. "She's a Mexican who sings at
the Teatro Nuovo ... d'you think she's attractive?"
"No," answered Sergio, lowering his voice.
"She
is
ugly, isn't she? She's a Redskin ... Sitting down
like that she looks tall, but when she gets up--you'll see-she
looks as
if
she'd sunk into the floor . . . as
if
she'd had a piece
taken off her legs."
"Why d'you talk so loud?"
