The Silent Duchess

XXXVIII

and encloses it between the girl's fingers. She tries to hide it and, feeling in vain for pockets in the asylum uniform, ends up clutching the little purse in her hand, looking round her in terror. Marianna then takes the scarf of green silk from her neck and puts it round Fila's shoulders. Fila strokes it with fingers trembling like those of a drunkard. She has stopped crying and is smiling seraphically. Then she suddenly lowers her head as if to avoid a blpw, and her face darkens. A guard with powerful arms catches her round the waist and lifts her up as if she were a child. Marianna is about to intervene but recognises the tenderness in the man's action. While he holds up the girl he talks to her gently, cradling her in his arms. Marianna tries to catch the sense of what he is saying by reading his lips, but she does not succeed. It is a language only they understand, that they have refined over months of enforced cohabitation. And she watches Fila, who contentedly stretches up her shaking hands and encircles the neck of the giant as if she were drunk, resting her head affectionately against his chest. The two vanish behind the door before Marianna can say goodbye to Fila. It is better like this; the guard has achieved, if not affection, at least an intimacy with the poor girl, Marianna tells herself. Even though the way the man looked at the little purse of money makes her wonder whether this intimacy is entirely disinterested. XXXVIII It is two days now since Saro started to eat again. His eyes seem to have grown larger inside the hollow sockets. His white cheeks become flushed with red whenever Marianna approaches his bed. He is still bandaged like a mummy, but the bandages tend to slip and unwind. His body tosses about, his muscles are returning to life and he cannot rest his head quietly on the pillow. His black quiff of hair has been washed and slides like the wing of a crow over his thin boy's face. 204 This morning Marianna has paid another visit to Fila and is bathing herself in bergamot water to take away the nauseous smells of the asylum. Inside the copper bath-tub that comes from France and that, seen from outside, looks like an ankle boot, she is as comfortable as if she were in bed, with the water coming right up to her shoulders and staying hot for longer than it would in an open bath-tub. It is quite the fashion for well-to-do ladies to hold conversations, receive their women friends or give orders to the servants, seated in the new French baths that are sometimes shielded by a transparent screen out of modesty. Even though Marianna enjoys wallowing in the heat while Innocenza pours saucepans of steaming water over her, she does not stay long in it because she cannot write or read there without getting the pages wet. Winter has arrived suddenly, almost without being preceded by autumn. Yesterday she was going round with bare arms, now the stove has to be lit, and she has to wrap herself in shawls and cloaks. There is an icy wind whipping up the waves on the sea and tearing the leaves off the trees. Manina has just given birth to another baby, and has called her Marianna. Giuseppa came to see her only yesterday. She is the only one who confides in her. Talking about her husband she says that sometimes he loves her and at others hates her, and that her cousin Olivo is continually pressing her to run away with him to France. On Sundays Felice comes to lunch. She is struck by the downto -earth account her mother gives her of Fila and the asylum at the Leprosi. She too has sought permission to go and see her and has returned determined to found a network of 'helpers' for derelict women. The fact is, she has changed a great deal lately, having discovered that she has a gift for healing, and has dedicated herself to exploring ways of combining herbs, roots and minerals. After some early cures people have begun to ask for her in difficult cases of illness, especially for skin diseases. And she, faced with responsibility towards the wounded bodies that are entrusted to her, has taken to studying and experimenting. On her forehead has grown...