The Neapolitan Novels

23.

Pietro stayed for three days. My father and brothers quickly became attached to him. My brothers were pleased that he didn’t give himself airs and was interested in them even though school had judged them incompetent. My mother on the other hand continued to treat him in an unfriendly manner and not until the day before he left did she soften. It was a Sunday, and my father said he wanted to show his son-in-law how beautiful Naples was. His son-in-law agreed, and proposed that we should eat out.

“In a restaurant?” my mother asked, scowling.

“Yes, ma’am, we ought to celebrate.”

“Better if I cook, we said we’d make you another gattò.”

“No, thank you, you’ve already done too much.”

While we were getting ready my mother drew me aside and asked: “Will he pay?”

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

“Sure, Ma, he’s the one who invited us.”

We went into the city center early in the morning, dressed in our best clothes. And something happened that first of all amazed me. My father had taken on the task of tour guide. He showed our guest the Maschio Angioino, the royal palace, the statues of the kings, Castel dell’Ovo, Via Caracciolo, and the sea. Pietro listened attentively. But at a certain point he, who was coming to our city for the first time, began modestly to tell us about it, to make us discover our city. It was wonderful. I had never had a particular interest in the background of my childhood and adolescence, I marveled that Pietro could talk about it with such learned admiration. He showed that he knew the history of Naples, the literature, fables, legends, anecdotes, the visible monuments and those hidden by neglect. I imagined that he knew about the city in part because he was a man who knew everything, and in part because he had studied it thoroughly, with his usual rigor, because it was mine, because my voice, my gestures, my whole body had been subjected to its influence. Naturally my father soon felt deposed, my brothers were annoyed. I realized it, I hinted to Pietro to stop. He blushed, and immediately fell silent. But my mother, with one of her unpredictable twists, hung on his arm and said:

“Go on, I like it, no one ever told me those things.”

We went to eat in a restaurant in Santa Lucia that according to my father (he had never been there but had heard about it) was very good.

“Can I order what I want?” Elisa whispered in my ear.

“Yes.”

The time flew by pleasantly. My mother drank too much and made some crude remarks, my father and my brothers started joking again with each other and with Pietro. I didn’t take my eyes off my future husband; I was sure that I loved him, he was a person who knew his value and yet, if necessary, he could forget himself with naturalness. I noticed for the first time his propensity to listen and his sympathetic tone of voice, like that of a lay confessor, and they pleased me. Maybe I should persuade him to stay another day and take him to see Lila, tell her: I’m marrying this man, I’m about to leave Naples with him, what do you say, am I doing well? And I was considering that possibility when at a nearby table five or six students began to look at us insistently and laugh. I immediately realized that they found Pietro funny-looking because of his thick eyebrows, the bushy hair over his forehead. After a few minutes my brothers, both at the same time, stood up, went over to the students’ table, and started a quarrel in their usual violent manner. An uproar arose, shouting, some punches. My mother shrieked insults in support of her sons, my father and Pietro rushed to pull them away. Pietro was almost amused; he seemed not to have understood the reason for the fight. Once in the street he said ironically: Is this a local custom, you suddenly get up and start hitting the people at the next table? He and my brothers became livelier and friendlier than before. But as soon as possible my father drew Peppe and Gianni aside and rebuked them for the bad impression they had made in front of the professor. I heard Peppe justifying himself almost in a whisper: They were making fun of Pietro, Papa, what the hell were we supposed to do? I liked that he said Pietro and not the professor: it meant that Pietro was part of the family, at home, a friend with the best qualities, and that, even if he was rather odd-looking, no one could make fun of him in his presence. But the incident convinced me that it was better not to take Pietro to see Lila: I knew her, she was mean, she would find him ridiculous and would make fun of him like the young men in the restaurant.

In the evening, exhausted by the day outside, we ate at home and then we all went out again, taking my future husband to the hotel. As we parted, my mother, in high spirits, unexpectedly kissed him noisily on each cheek. But when we returned to the neighborhood, saying a lot of nice things about Pietro, she kept to herself, without saying a word. Before she went to her room she said to me bitterly:

“You are too fortunate—you don’t deserve that poor boy.”