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.I asked Rosetta: "Do you really like music?""I don't like it, but it's.something.Maybe only suffering.""It must be like painting," Momina said."Oh, no," Rosetta said."Painting is an ambition.But listening to music, you let yourself go."I smiled to myself.With so many things in the world, with so many things that both of them knew and possessed, they discussed music as if it were cocaine or the first cigarette."I don't think that artists suffer at all," Momina said."They make whoever listens feel worse, if he takes them seriously.""It's others who suffer and enjoy," Rosetta said."Always others."I said: "You mean, the winemaker never gets drunk?""Whores never enjoy it," Momina said."Do you know anyone who's more a whore than Nene? She's intelligent, she has her craft at her fingertips, and all the temperament a sculptress could have.Why doesn't she stick to that? But no.She has to dress like a child, fall in love, get drunk.One of these days there'll be a baby.She has the face for it.She thinks that others fall for her babyishness.""You're nasty," Rosetta said."Momina's right," I grumbled."It's the work you do that counts, not how you do it.""I don't know what counts," Momina said.She looked at us almost surprised, innocent."I'm afraid nothing counts.We're all whores."We took Rosetta home in the car and at the gateway she asked me again, embarrassed, to come to tea the next day.She asked Momina, too.When I arrived, Momina was already there.Rosetta's mother, in turquoise velvet, was talking to a dry woman who shook hands, looking me over from stockings to hair, and complained about wide-pleated skirts, insisting that someone or other would soon narrow them.In these cases I always say that whoever doesn't accept a style when it's in fashion will wear it the next year when it's passed.Then Momina began to argue and joke with her, and Rosetta took me to the window and told me to be patient; that woman was a pest.The mother's hand was certainly invisible in that light and airy living room.It was cut in two by an arch.On our side were the chairs and occasional tables; on the other, a large, triple-casemented window and a long gleaming table under a chandelier.I asked Rosetta if they had lived there very long.She said no, her earliest memories were of the house at Montalto.She was born in the suburb of San Paolo, near the factory, but the apartment was probably either destroyed or damaged."You will want to see the garden," the mother said.Rosetta said: "Another time.It hasn't bloomed yet.""Show her the pictures," her mother said.The pest had stopped talking about fashion and said that even in Turin beautiful things were made."You people don't really have to come up from Rome," she said."Isn't that so, Rosetta? We know how to cut cloth and paint."She left after tea, to make another call.Rosetta's mother sighed, looking at us good-humoredly."She means well," she said."It's bad to be left a widow."We went to Rosetta's room, which I barely glanced at, white and blue, with a window at the far end.In the corridor she opened a wardrobe to show me a dress that Momina said was wrong for her.I caught a glimpse of the blue tulle dress.Altogether I liked the house.The mother, poor creature, must have enjoyed it as much as she enjoyed her daughter.The maid was a little peasant girl but wore black with a little white apron,- the mother wouldn't let her do anything, but served us herself.Momina had taken off a shoe and was smoking distractedly in a chair.After a while the father arrived, coming in cautiously with his glasses in his hand, his eyelids red.He was iron-gray, his mustache the same color; and he was stocky and a little stooped.But his expression was very like Rosetta's, impatient and stubborn.Momina gave him her impudent smile and held out a hand from the depths of her chair.He bowed and muttered something to me, glancing at his wife.He was a man of antique cut, not like Morelli.Passing Rosetta, he touched her cheek caressingly; she shook her head.He said he didn't mean to disturb us but that he was glad to meet me.Wasn't I the person who had come up from Rome to direct the new firm? At one time it had been Turin that opened branches in Rome."Times change," he said."You'll find it's not easy to stay on your feet in Turin.The war hit us hard."He spoke in bursts, tired but positive.His wife brought him a cup of tea.He said: "At least in Rome you work?"I said yes
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