Read Online The Young Bride by Alessandro Baricco, Ann Goldstein - Free Book Online Page B

forget that the third son of the Aliberti family, who suffered from a nervous condition, during a private party asked the Mother, who was very young at the time, to strip for him, in exchange for his entire inheritance. (Pause.) The Mother, as we know, took off her blouse, undid her corset, and let him touch her, refusing the inheritance; the satisfaction of leaving the third son of the Aliberti family lying senseless on the floor while she dressed was enough.
    Do you make repetitive gestures? the Doctor asked me (I ended up going to a doctor, my friends insisted, I did it mostly out of kindness toward them). Not in life, I answered. It happens when I write, I clarified. I like to write lists of things, indexes, catalogues, I added. He found the thing interesting. He claims that if I let him read what I’m writing it might turn out to be very useful.
    Naturally it’s a possibility that I rule out.
    Every so often he’s silent, and I, too, as we sit across from each other. For a long time. I assume he attributes to this a certain therapeutic power. He must imagine that I, in that silence, am making some pathway into myself. Actually I think about my book. I’ve noticed that, more than in the past, I like letting it glide off the main road, roll down unexpected slopes. Naturally I never lose sight of it, but, whereas working on other stories I prohibited any evasion of this type, because my intention was to construct perfect clocks, and the closer I could get them to an absolute purity the more satisfied I was, now I like to let what I write sag in the current, with an apparent effect of drifting that the Doctor, certainly, in his wise ignorance, wouldn’t hesitate to connect to the uncontrolled collapse of my personal life, by means of a deduction whose boundless stupidity would be painful for me to listen to. I could never explain to him that it’s an exquisitely technical matter, or at most aesthetic, very clear to anyone who mindfully practices my trade. It’s a question of mastering a movement similar to that of the tides: if you know them well you can happily let the boat run aground and go barefoot along the beach picking up mollusks or otherwise invisible creatures. You just have to know enough not to be surprised by the return of the tide, to get back on board and simply let the sea gently raise the keel, carrying it out to sea again. With the same ease, I, having lingered to collect all those verses of Baretti’s and other mollusks of that type, feel the return, for example, of an old man and a girl, and I see them become an old man standing stiffly in front of a row of herbs, with a young Bride facing him, while she tries to understand what is so grave about simply knocking on the Mother’s door. I distinctly feel the water raising the keel of my book and I see everything setting sail again in the voice of the old man, who says
    I don’t think, signorina, that you have available all the information necessary to be able to judge the most suitable way of approaching the Mother.
    You don’t?
    I don’t.
    Then I’ll follow your advice. I’ll ask for a meeting, and I’ll ask during breakfast. Would that be right?
    Better, said Modesto. And if you trust me, he added, don’t stint on prudence, since you are to deal with her.
    I’ll be absolutely respectful, I promise you.
    Respect I would take for granted, if you will allow me: what I suggest is a certain prudence.
    In what sense?
    She is a remarkable woman in every aspect.
    I know.
    Modesto lowered his gaze and what he said he said under his breath, with a suddenly melancholy intonation.
    No, you don’t know.
    Then he bent over the row of herbs again.
    Don’t you find that the mint grows very gracefully? he asked with sudden cheer, and that meant that the conversation was over.
    So, the next day, the young Bride approached the Mother during breakfast and asked her discreetly if she would not mind