DARINA SILONE
87
what he pleased; he particularly enjoyed croissants, which he ate
while feigning pity for me as he eyed my solitary unsalted biscuit.
The day before , in the garden, he had limped slightly because
his shoes hurt him, and I had insisted on making an appointment for
him with a chiropodist. The chiropodist came punctually at nine and
went to work skillfully while Silone read the
Journal de Geneve,
the
first paper to arrive. The
Corriere della Sera
and
Le Monde
followed a
little later. But Silone grew annoyed with me because the pedicure
was delaying his morning therapeutic program. I had forgotten that
twice weekly a young physiotherapist came to teach him breathing
exercises, and Friday was one of her days. During these exercises he
couldn't even read the papers, and he was exasperated because he
was in a hurry to get to work. He smiled at the physiotherapist , but
he sulked and was furious with me.
The chiropodist and the physiotherapist took so long, it was
now well past the time for the daily intravenous drip that kept his
kidneys disinfected. "Oh, not today, it's too much," he pleaded when
the nurse brought the apparatus, but he had to give in. He managed
to read the newspapers during the hour-long drip, holding them in
whichever hand he was free to move. He smiled at the nurse every
time she came in to control the slow passage of the serum. That day
it was the head nurse, a splendid girl from Berlin, tall, blonde,
slender, efficient . Now and again he joked with her in German, as
he did in Spanish with the Spanish nurses. But because of the ap–
pointment with the chiropodist that had upset his day , I was the
scapegoat, and he refused to talk to me.
As soon as the drip was over, the doctor arrived. I went out into
the corridor. This was an iron rule which I understood and re–
spected: I was not to be present during the doctor's visits , and forbid–
den to repeat to the patient anything the doctor said to me. This time
I should have liked a word with him afterwards, to know how to
react if the question of the operation should arise again. But he was
in a hurry and just made a gesture indicating that there was nothing
new. I went back into the room. A maid was serving lunch . The
sulkiness continued . I cast around for some way to dispel it.
"Did you read the poem in yesterday's
Journal de Geneve?"
I
asked .
"The Pleiade sonnet on the heat of Rome in August? Yes , I
read it. Was it as hot as that now?"
