Her Husband Read Free

Signora Roncella! You don’t like duckling? Little monkey, then.”
    “You’re wrong,” retorted Raceni. “She’s pretty enough, I assure you. Not striking, perhaps; but her eyes are exceptional!”
    “Dark?”
    “No, blue, intense, very gentle. And a sad smile, intelligent. She must be very very nice, that’s all.”
    Dora Barmis attacked: “Nice you said? Nice? Go on! The person who wrote House of Dwarves can’t be nice, I assure you.”
    “And yet . . .” Raceni said.
    “I assure you!” Dora repeated. “That woman goes well armed, you can be certain!”
    Raceni smiled.
    “She must have a character sharp as a knife,” continued Signora Barmis. “And tell me, is it true she has a hairy wart here, on her lip?”
    “A wart?”
    “Hairy, here.”
    “I never noticed one. But no, who told you that?”
    “I imagined it. As far as I’m concerned, Roncella must have a hairy wart on her lip. I always seem to see it when I read her things. And tell me: her husband? What’s her husband like?”
    “Just drop it!” Raceni replied impatiently. “He’s not for you.”
    “Thank you very much!” Dora said. “I want to know what he’s like. I imagine him rotund. . . . Rotund, isn’t he? For heaven’s sake, tell me he’s rotund, blond, ruddy, and . . . not mean.”
    “All right: that’s the way he’ll be, if it makes you happy. Now, please, can’t we be serious?”
    “About the banquet?” Signora Barmis asked again. “Listen, darling: Silvia Roncella is no longer for us. Your little dove has flown too toohigh. She has crossed the Alps and the sea and will go to make herself a nest far far away, with many golden straws, in the great literary journals of France, Germany, and England…. How can you expect her to lay any more little blue eggs, even if very tiny ones, like this … on the altar of our poor Muses? ”
    “What eggs! What eggs!” Raceni said, shaking himself. “Not dove eggs, not an ostrich egg. Signora Roncella wont write for any magazine again. She’s devoting herself entirely to the theater.”
    “To the theater? Really?” exclaimed Signora Barmis, her curiosity aroused.
    “Not to act!” Raceni said. “That would be the last straw! To write.”
    “For the theater?”
    “Yes. Because her husband . . .”
    “Right! Her husband . . . what’s his name?”
    “Boggiolo.”
    “Yes, yes. I remember. Boggiolo. And he writes, too.”
    “Hardly! He’s at the Notary Public Office.”
    “A notary? Oh, dear! A notary?”
    “In a record office. A fine young man. Stop it, please. I want to finish with this business of the banquet as quickly as possible. I had a guest list, and those dogs … But let’s see if we can reconstruct it. You write. By the way, did you know that Gueli has accepted? It’s the clearest proof he really admires Signora Roncella, as they say.”
    Dora Barmis was absorbed in thought; then she said: “I don’t understand. . . . Gueli… he seems so different. . . .”
    “Let’s not argue,” Raceni cut her off. “Write: Maurizio Gueli.”
    “I’ll add in parenthesis, if you don’t mind, Signora Frezzi permitting . Next?”
    “Senator Borghi.”
    “Has he accepted?”
    “Good heavens. He’ll be presiding! He published House of Dwarves in his literary review. Write: Donna Francesca Lampugnani.”
    “My lovely president, yes, yes,” Signora Barmis said as she wrote. “Dear, dear, dear . ..”
    “Donna Maria Rosa Bornè-Laturzi,” Raceni continued to dictate.
    “Oh, God!” snorted Dora Barmis. “That virtuous little guinea hen?”
    “And decorative,” Raceni said. “Write: Filiberto Litti.”
    “Very good! It gets better and better!” Signora Barmis approved. “Archaeology next to antiquity! Tell me, Raceni: we’re having this banquet in the ruins of the Forum?”
    “By the way!” exclaimed Raceni. “We still have to decide where to have it. Where would you suggest?”
    “But with these guests . . .”
    “Oh, God, no, I say again,