The Beach by Cesare Pavese Read Free Book Online

It's a republic of women."
    "One might deduce that they had invented society themselves."
    At that moment a swimmer came up below the rocks. He lifted his head from the water, getting a handhold. It was Berti.
    I watched him without saying a word. Perhaps he hadn't noticed me up there—I can't see two yards ahead myself when I first leave the water. He swayed back and forth in the surf, hanging on. On a level with his forehead, a few inches away, Clelia was basking, motionless on her back. Berti's hair kept falling over his eyes; to keep it in place he made those tentacular gestures of the arms that suggest the instabilities of swimming. Then he suddenly broke away and paddled on his back, circling a submerged reef at the point where the sand gave way to rock. He called something to me from out there. I waved at him and went on talking to Doro.
    Later, when Clelia had shaken herself out of her blissful state and the other girls and acquaintances showed up, I scanned the beach and saw Berti standing among the bathhouses reading a newspaper. It wasn't the first time, but that morning he was obviously waiting for something. I signaled him to come up. I insisted.
    Berti moved a bit, folding his paper without looking at us. He stopped below the rocks. I said to Doro: "Here is that enterprising type I was telling you about." Doro looked and smiled, then turned in the direction of the bathhouse. So I felt I had to go down and say something to Berti.
    To introduce a boy in black trunks to girls coming and going in swimsuits, or to men in beach robes, is no great affair,- in other words, no apology was required. But Berti's solemn, bored face irritated me,-1 felt silly. "We all know each other here," I brought out curtly, and coming up to Ginetta as she was about to go in the water, I said: "Wait for me."
    When I got back to the shore—Ginetta stayed in for more than an hour—I caught sight of Berti again sitting on the beach between our umbrella and the next, hugging his knees.
    I left him alone. I wanted to talk a while with Clelia. She had just emerged from her bathhouse, putting on a white bolero over her suit. I went up to her and we gave each other a mock bow. We walked slowly away, talking, and when Berti had disappeared behind the umbrella, I felt better. We made our usual tour of the beach, between the foam and the noisy, sprawling groups of people.
    "I've just been swimming with Ginetta," I said. "You're not going in?"
    From the first day I had hinted at my readiness to swim with her out of politeness, but Clelia had stopped to look at me with an ambiguous smile. "No, no," she had said. I looked at her, surprised. "No, no, I go swimming alone." And that was that. She explained that she did everything in public, but in the sea she had to be alone. "That's peculiar," I said. "Peculiar it may be, but that's how it is." She was a good swimmer, so there was no embarrassment for her there. She had just made up her mind. "The company of the sea is enough. I don't want anybody. I have nothing of my own in life. At least leave me the sea..." She swam away, hardly moving the water, and I was waiting for her on the sand when she came back. I started the conversation again; Clelia just smiled at my protests.
    "Not even with Doro?" I asked.
    "Not even with Doro."
    Next morning we joked about her mysterious swim as we picked our way among the bodies, laughing at fat bellies and criticizing the women. "That red umbrella," said Clelia. "Do you know who's underneath?" One could make out a bony nakedness clad in a two-piece suit of the bikini variety. It was tanned in streaks; the bare stomach showed the mark of an earlier, normal bathing suit. Toes and fingernails were blood red. Over the back of the deck chair hung a luxurious pink towel. "It's Guido's friend," Clelia whispered, laughing. "He keeps her on the string and lets nobody see her, and when he meets her he kisses her hand and pays her all the compliments." Then she took my arm