Sometimes in summer (Arturo being away on business) she sat in the soft flower-patterned armchair, in front of the window, and, half naked because of the intense heat, dreamt of being suspended amid the clouds with handsome Arturos around her making a breeze. And she even saw herself in Paris running a grand fashion house: Chez Arthur. Or, in the suffocating heat that came from the neighbourhood, she got lost on a paradise-like market day amid the carts of the gelato-makers; and every gelato-maker had a strange, vague, Arturo-like expression. The lovely outings in a carriage on important occasions, one day on the river, another to the villa of the Four Towers. The bocce players, envious, stopped and watched them pass by. One of them said: ‘How I’d like that pretty kept woman, I’d take her to Milan and show her a good time, she’d have no peace with me.’ And the others laughed, while he was holding her tight around the waist. One year they went to the beach in mid-August. But she didn’t like it and wanted to return immediately, to see the pretty lace-trimmed counterpane on the bed again. He let his moustache grow, a black moustache. One night, as usual, he said goodbye, and told her that he would be away for two days on business. She fell asleep blissful, woke in the morning, and worked for two days without rest, since beautiful, elegant ladies were waiting for their hats. Arturo didn’t return, she never saw him again, she never heard anything about him. The women of the city had to find a new milliner. Elvira’s shop closed.

She drew a long sigh and rose slowly to her feet: large and heavy, in a long, full black-striped grey skirt and a dark embroidered shirt that smelled of a closed cupboard with biscuits left forgotten inside. She hobbled across the room. She managed to reach the work table, her heart beating hard and her throat constricted. She looked, from a distance and fleetingly, in the mirror on the wall: she was so tall, and such dark eyes she had! In the table drawer there was a piece of butcher paper. Something was written on it. Maybe: ‘What nice legs, Signora,’ or ‘Tonight I’ll come to you, kisses.’ She read for a long time. Then slowly she went back to the soft flower-patterned chair. The white lace-trimmed counterpane on the bed was yellowed and, merely looked at, gave off a bad smell. It was suffocating. Signora Elvira couldn’t go back in time.

‘La modista’

First published in the magazine Oggi (1933, no. 11) and later included in Il ricordo della Basca: Dieci racconti e una storia, initially published by Parenti in 1938. The collection was reissued by Einaudi in 1982 and by Garzanti in 1992.