Voices In The Evening by Natalia Ginzburg Read Free Book Online Page A

things with Pinuccia, the servant whom her mother-in-law Signora Cecilia had made over to her. She used to tell Pinuccia about her home, and the wild moments of laughter they had there she and her sisters. Pinuccia listened as she peeled the potatoes and occasionally rubbed her nose with her chapped hand.
    Late in the evening Vincenzino returned and by then she had fallen asleep in her arm-chair waiting for him.
    Vincenzino also had married without love. He had thought she was healthy, honest and a good girl.
    He had also thought in some tortuous way that a marriage like that would please his father. For it could in some measure resemble Balotta’s own marriage. He had chosen Cecilia from some neighbouring hamlet, choosing her because she was blonde, poor and healthy.
    After he had married her Vincenzino realized that he had nothing to say to her They passed the evenings in silence, the one opposite the other in arm-chairs in the sitting-room.
    He read a book, picking his nose. Now and again he watched her knitting, her fair head leaning back in the rosy light of the lampshade. He thought her very beautiful, but did not consider that she was his type. He liked brunettes; blondes meant nothing to him.
    In the afternoons, shut up in her room, she cried hard, by the window from which the cabbages could be seen. On coming home he found her with swoUen face and reddened eyes Then he gently asked her to go and see her mother the next day at Borgo Martino.
    Little by little she got in the way of going there often, on her bicycle. She went almost every day. She also went sometimes on Sunday afternoon. On Sundays Vincenzino at any rate spent the afternoon sleeping, reading or studying plans for the factory and would not notice her going out.
    Left alone in the house, Vincenzino went from room to room in his pyjamas All the rooms were cool, dimly lit, and a restful silence reigned in them. Pinuccia had gone out, too. He poured himself out a large glass of whisky with ice and mineral water. He had learned to drink whisky in America. He settled into his arm-chair in the sitting-room with a book and the glass at his side.
    He liked being alone in this way. He felt a profound relief and solace.
    Then they had children. A boy was born and then a baby girl and then a boy again. In the meadow opposite the house nappies hung up to dry on a line fastened between two pear trees, and on the grass were toys and little pails to be seen. A country woman came from Soprano to look after the children, and she was provided with blue aprons. Catè was busy and had stopped crying. She did not go so often to Borgo Martino.
    But she did not like anyone in the village. She found Signora Cecilia tiresome, an old
bergiana
, a word they used in her home at Borgo Martino. It meant something like a chatterbox. There was a coolness between her and Gemmina; there always had been, from the time when she had married Vincenzino. Possibly Gemmina was jealous of her for her good looks; or perhaps she thought she had married Vincenzino for his money, without love.
    She did not take to Purillo. Xenia just seemed to her mad. She liked Nebbia well enough, especially because he came from Borgo Martino. But Pupazzina, Nebbia's wife, no, she did not care for her one little bit. She found her a bore, and thought she looked after her children badly. They were always rather dirty and never went out.
    She used to go occasionally with Raffaella, Vincenzino’s younger sister, to bathe in the stream. But she got bored with Raffaella, too. At eighteen Raffaella was more like a boisterous hobbledehoy. She let herself go playing with the children and she made them join in games that were too noisy and dangerous. She got them to dive into the whirlpools of the stream or climb up the highest rocks.
    Catè embarked on spending money, seeing that there was so much of it. She ordered clothes for herself in the town and also a cape of dark musquash She did not wear it often,