Chapters (47)
- 1. Cover Page
- 2. Title Page
- 4. Author’s Note
- 5. Dedication
- 7. Prologue
- 8. Part One: Umbertina 1860 - 1940
- 9. Chapter One
- 10. Chapter Two
- 11. Chapter Three
- 12. Chapter Four
- 13. Chapter Five
- 14. Chapter Six
- 15. Chapter Seven
- 16. Chapter Eight
- 17. Chapter Nine
- 18. Chapter Ten
- 19. Part Two: Marguerite 1927 – 1973
- 20. Chapter Eleven
- 21. Chapter Twelve
- 22. Chapter Thirteen
- 23. Chapter Fourteen
- 24. Chapter Fifteen
- 25. Chapter Sixteen
- 26. Chapter Seventeen
- 27. Chapter Eighteen
- 28. Chapter Nineteen
- 29. Chapter Twenty
- 30. Chapter Twenty-One
- 31. Chapter Twenty-Two
- 32. Chapter Twenty-Three
- 33. Part Three: Tina 1950 –
- 34. Chapter Twenty-Four
- 35. Chapter Twenty-Five
- 36. Chapter Twenty-Six
- 37. Chapter Twenty-Seven
- 38. Chapter Twenty-Eight
- 39. Chapter Twenty-Nine
- 40. Chapter Thirty
- 41. Chapter Thirty-One
- 42. Chapter Thirty-Two
- 43. Chapter Thirty-Three
- 44. Chapter Thirty-Four
- 45. Chapter Thirty-Five
- 46. Afterword
- 48. About the Author
- 49. About the Feminist Press
- 50. Also Available from the Feminist Press
Forever. She wanted to preserve in perpetuum this instant of their lives. As if, the photo snapped, that moment could continue to be projected onto the screen of their future like some Andy Warhol movie that showed only one frame over and over. But it couldn’t be. Each succeeding moment altered the one before. Nothing was constant.
“Massimo, do you really think your life would have been better if you and that woman you loved had gone off together?”
“If she had been you—yes.”
Marguerite understood; that would have been the right combination of love and like. She alone wasn’t.
“Let’s not talk about the past,” she said. “What can I do to make you laugh?”
“Tell me about your cousins in Pompeii.”
For her, too, it was useless to think back to the mistakes of the past, to wish them undone, to wish she had made other decisions, been braver, more positive, affronted her life in a different manner. What was done was past; what was now was relevant.
What a pastiche, she thought, are the emotions. You can’t depend on anything. She had thrust herself into his life, wanting him; but she hadn’t planned on loving him.
No matter how it went, he was illuminating part of her way. Maybe she shouldn’t ask more. And of whom could she ask it?
30. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-one
“It sounds poco Zen,” Dr. Verdile said, stomping the tobacco into his pipe with his usual irrefutable air. She might have given up analysis long ago if it hadn’t also served as an alibi for where she spent evenings out. She told Alberto she was going to Dr. Verdile, and whether she did or not, she had those nights free to go to her place to meet Massimo. In the beginning she had stopped in first to see Dr. V. just to keep the thing going, and also because, despite her wanting to feel him extraneous, he was still the maestro, the guide, the wizard, the comforter, the interpreter. Even when he irritated her it was part of the necessary tension that generated the dynamics of their steady, evolving dialogue.
After the first year or so of her being with Massimo she began seeing Dr. Verdile regularly again.
She regarded him steadily, studying him, irritated as he pronounced her affair with Massimo not very Zen-like.
“It seems to lack spontaneity . . . serenity . . . joyousness,” he continued.
“Naturally—the part you hear.”