OUR FRIEND JUDITH
471
Because what he really likes is to join the evening promenade
with Judith on his arm around and around the square of the
upper town. Showing her off. Can you
see
Judith? But she does
it. Being tolerant. But she smiles and enjoys the attention she
gets, there's no doubt of it.
"She has a cat in her room. It's a kitten really, but it's
pregnant. Judith says she can't leave until the kittens are born.
The cat is too young to have kittens. Imagine Judith. She sits
on her bed in that great stone room, with her bare feet on the
stone floor and watches the cat, and tries to work out why
a healthy uninhibited Italian cat always fed on the best from
the Rosticcheria should be neurotic. Because it is. When it sees
Judith watching it gets nervous and starts licking at the roots
of its tail. But Judith goes on watching, and says about Italy
that the reason why the English love the Italians is because
the Italians make the English feel superior. They have no dis–
cipline. And that's a despicable reason for one nation to love
another. Then she talks about Luigi and says he has no sense
of guilt, but a sense of sin; whereas she has no sense of sin
but she has guilt. I haven't asked her if this has been an insuper–
able barrier, because judging from how she looks, it hasn't. She
says she would rather have a sense of sin, because sin can be
atoned for, and if she understood sin, perhaps she would be
more at home with the Renaissance. Luigi is very healthy, she
says, and not neurotic. He is a Catholic of course. He doesn't
mind that she's an atheist. His mother has explained to him
that the English are all pagans, but good people at heart. I
suppose he thinks a few smart sessions with the local priest
would set Judith on the right path for good and all. Meanwhile
the cat walks nervously around the room, stopping to lick, and
when it can't stand Judith watching it another second, it rolls
over on the floor, with its paws tucked up, and rolls up its
eyes,
and Judith scratches its lumpy pregnant stomach and tells
it
to relax.
It
makes
me
nervous to see her, it's not like her, I
don't know why. Then Luigi shouts up from the barber's shop,
