When I Was Mortal Read Online Free Page B

them is interested in other people’s lives and it seems impolite to entrust to other ears things which, in principle, were intended only for mine. Now, however, I have my doubts, because this summer, I visited Giulia in Paris and her situation has taken a rather worrying turn: ever since, three months ago, she and the false student or psychologist decided to live in the same apartment, he has turned out to be a very nasty piece of work indeed: he hates books now and has forced Giulia to get rid of her library; he beats her, he’s violent; and recently, while she was pretending to be asleep, she has twice seen him standing at the foot of the bed stroking a razor (once, she says, he was sharpening it on a strap like an old-fashioned barber). Giulia trusts that it will be a passing phase, a consequence of the enigmatic illness contracted in Thailand or some upset caused by the unbearable heat of this never-ending summer. I hope so, but given that Silvia and her canner are thinking of moving in together, perhaps I should speak to her now, even if only so that she can save her library and try to persuade her man to change to an electric razor.

THE HONEYMOON
    M Y WIFE HAD suddenly felt ill and we had rushed back to our hotel room, where she had lain down, shivering and feeling slightly nauseous and feverish. We didn’t want to call a doctor immediately in case it passed off of its own accord and because we were on our honeymoon, and on honeymoon you really don’t want the interference of a stranger, even if it’s for a medical examination. It was probably a minor stomach upset, colic or something. We were in Seville, in a hotel sheltered from the traffic by an esplanade that separated it from the street. While my wife was sleeping (she seemed to fall asleep as soon as I had undressed her and covered her up), I decided to keep quiet, and the best way to do that and not be tempted to make any noise or to talk to her out of sheer boredom was to go over to the balcony and watch the people passing by, the people of Seville, how they walked and how they dressed, how they talked, even though, given the relative distance of the street and the traffic, you could hear only a murmur. I looked without seeing, like someone who arrives at a party from which he knows the only person who really interests him will be absent, having stayed at home with her husband. That one person was with me,behind me, watched over by her husband. I was looking outside, but thinking about what was happening inside, however, I did suddenly pick out one person, and I picked her out because unlike the other people, who walked by and then disappeared, that person remained motionless in one place. It was a woman who, from a distance, looked about thirty, and was wearing an almost sleeveless blue blouse, a white skirt and white high heels. She was waiting for someone, her attitude unmistakably that of someone waiting, because every now and then she would take two or three steps to the right or the left, and on the last step she would drag the stiletto heel of one foot or the other, a gesture of suppressed impatience. On her arm she carried a large handbag, like the bags that mothers, my mother, carried when I was a child, a large black handbag carried on the arm, not slung over the shoulder the way women wear them now. She had strong legs that dug solidly into the pavement each time she returned to the spot where she had chosen to wait after that minimal movement to either side of two or three steps, dragging her heel on the final step. Her legs were so strong that they cancelled out or assimilated her high heels, it was her legs that dug into the pavement, like a knife into wet wood. Sometimes she would bend one leg in order to look behind and smooth her skirt, as if she feared that some crease might be spoiling the line of her skirt at the rear or perhaps she was simply adjusting the elastic of a recalcitrant pair of knickers through the fabric covering them.
    It