She had already run to a chair at the end of corridor and returned with the tea tray.

"She was taken sick, poor girl," she said, coming into my room. But her eyes were shining and she couldn't contain herself. She told me everything. The girl had come to the hotel in the morning —from a party, a dance. She had locked herself in her room; she hadn't gone out all day. Someone had telephoned; people were looking for her; a policeman had forced the door. The girl was on the bed, dying.

The maid went on: "Poisoning herself at carnival time, what a shame. And her family is so rich... They have a beautiful house in Piazza d'Armi. It'll be a miracle if she lives..."

I told her I wanted more water for my tea. And not to dawdle on the stairs this time.

But that night I didn't sleep as I had hoped to. Squirming in bed, I could have kicked myself for having stuck my nose into the corridor.

 

2

 

The next day they brought me a bunch of flowers, the first narcissi. I smiled, thinking that I had never received flowers in Turin. The order had come from that owl Maurizio, who had thought of surprising me on my arrival. Instead, the thing had gone wrong. It happens in Rome too, I thought. I imagined Maurizio, unhappy, wandering aimlessly down the Via Veneto after our goodbyes and between the last coffee and first aperitif filling out the order form.

I wondered if the girl of yesterday had had flowers in her room. Are there people who surround themselves with flowers before dying? Perhaps it's a way of keeping up one's courage. The maid went to find me a vase, and while she helped me to arrange the narcissi, she told me that the papers hadn't mentioned the attempted suicide. "Who knows how much they are spending to keep it quiet? They took her to a private clinic... Last night they investigated. There must be a man mixed up in it... There ought to be a law for getting a girl..."

I said that a girl who spends evenings at parties and instead of going home goes to a hotel is considered able to take care of herself.

"Oh, yes," she said, indignant. "It's the mothers' fault. Why don't they stay with their daughters?"

"Mothers?" I said. "These girls have always been with their mothers, they grew up on velvet, they've seen the world behind glass. Then, when they have to get out of a mess, they don't know how and fall in deeper."

After which Mariuccia laughed, as if to say that she knew how to get out of a mess. I sent her out and got dressed. In the street it was cold and clear; during the night it had rained on the sludge and now the sun shone under the arcades. It looked like a new city, Turin, a city just finished, and the people were running about, giving it the last casual touches.