"I had a rather small place of my own.
A nice bachelor apartment in a place called the Lancaster Arms".

"Uhhu", she said, hardly listening as she studied her left eyelid.

"And then I had another place farther downtown I used as a studio".

"Uhhu".

"I'm not a man who has many close intimate friends, Carla", he said, wanting her to know all about him.
"Oh, I'd drink with newspaper people.
I think I was what you might call a convivial man, and yet it was when I was alone in my studio, doing my work, that I really felt alive.
But I think a man needs at least one intimate friend to communicate with".
Pausing, he waited for her to turn, to ask a question.
She showed no interest at all in the life he had led back home, and it hurt him a little.
"Well, what about you, Carla"?

"Me"?
She asked, turning slowly.
"What about me"?

"Did you make friends easily"?

"Umm, uhhu".

"Somehow I imagine that as you grew up you were alone a lot.
How about it"?

"I guess so", she said taking a Kleenex from her purse.
When she had wiped some of the lipstick from her mouth, she stared solemnly at her image in the mirror.

"Are your people still alive"?
He asked, trying to touch a part of her life Alberto hadn't discussed;
so he could have something of her for himself.
"You talk so well, Carla", he went on.
"You seem to have read so much, you have a natural gift for words", he added, trying to flatter her vanity.
"You must have been good at history at school.
Where did you go to school"?

"What is this"?
She asked, turning suddenly.
"Don't you know all about me by this time?
My name's Carla Caneli.
This is my town.
I sleep with you.
You know something more about me every day, don't you?
Would you be happier if I made up some stories about my life, told you some lies?
Why are you trying to worry me"?

"I'm not trying to worry you".

"Well, all right then".

The cleansing tissues she had been using had been falling on the floor, and he got up and picked up one, then another, hoping she would notice what he was doing.
At home he had been a clean orderly man, and now he had to hide his annoyance.
Was she just naturally sloppy about everything but her physical appearance?
He wondered.
Would he have to clean up after her every day, clean the kitchen, the bathroom, and get down on his knees and scrub the kitchen floor, then hang up her dresses, pick up her stockings, make the bed while she lay around?
He straightened up, ready to vent his exasperation, then grew afraid.
If he dwelt on the indignities he suffered he would lose all respect for her, and without the respect he might lose his view of her, too.

"What's the matter"?
She asked suddenly.

"Nothing.
Nothing at all", he said quietly.
"Let's go out".

"Are those the only shoes you have, Sam"?

"What's the matter with them"?

"The heavy thick soles.
Look at them".

"They're an expensive English shoe for walking around a lot.
I like them".

"Sam, no one around here wears such heavy soles.
Can't you get another pair"?

"Maybe I could", he said, surprised that she could turn from herself and notice anything about him.
"I'll get an elegant pair of thin-soled Italian shoes tomorrow, Carla".

"And I don't know why you want to go on wearing that outfit", she said, making a face.

"What's the matter with it"?
He had put on the gray jacket and the dark-gray slacks and the fawn-colored shirt he had worn that first night in Rome when he had encountered her on the street.

"Oh, Sam.
You look like a tweedy Englishman.
Can't you wear something else and look a little more as though you belonged"?

"I don't mind at all", he said, delighted with her attention.
Changing his clothes, he put on his dark-blue flannel suit, and laid away the gray jacket with the feeling that he might be putting it aside for good.
But it was a hopeful sign, he told himself.
She no longer wanted anything about him to remind her of the circumstances of their meeting that first night in Parioli.

That day they loafed around, just getting the feel of the city.
They looked at the ruins of the old Roman wall on the lower Via Veneto, then they went to the Farnese Gardens.
She had some amusing scandal about the Farneses in the old days.
Then they took a taxi to Trastevere.
"There's a church you should see", she said.
And when they stood by the fountain in the piazza looking at Santa Maria he had to keep a straight face, not letting on he had been there with Alberto.
He let her tell him all about the church.
Then they had dinner.
All evening she was eloquent and pleased with herself.
When they got home at midnight she was tired out.
And in the morning when he woke up at ten the church bells were ringing.

He had never heard so many bells, and as he lay there listening, he thought of her scolding him for his remarks when he had looked up at the obelisk and the church at the top of the Spanish Steps.
It was a good thing that she clung to her religion, he thought.
She might like to take him to St. Peter's.

"Carla, wake up", he said shaking her.
"It's ten o'clock.
Aren't you going out to mass?
You could take me to St. Peter's".

"Uhhu", she muttered.

"Come on, you'll be late".

"I think I'll sleep in this morning", she said drowsily, and as she snuggled against him, he wondered if she ever went to church.
Why did he want her to go to church?
He wondered Probably because it was a place where she might get a feeling of certainty and security.
It would be good for her.
It was too bad he had no feeling himself for church.
Not his poor mother's fault.
She would have been better off if she had stuck to her Bible.
As for himself, he just didn't have the temperament for it.
From the time he had been at college he had achieved a certain tranquility and composure by accepting the fact that there were certain things he could never know.
Then he thought of those Old Testament figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Just figures out of a tribal folklore.
Could he honestly believe it would be good for Carla to have those old prophets gripping her imagination now?
Being a woman though, she would take only what she needed from church.
It was too bad he wasn't a Catholic himself.
Or a Protestant, or one of those amusing dogmatic atheists, or a strict orthodox Communist.
What was the matter with him that they all wearied him?
It was the times, he was sure.
All the ideologies changing from day to day, right under his eyes, so how could a man look to any one of them for an enlargement of his freedom?
It was all too wearying.
Look somewhere else.
But where?
Just the same, he thought, pondering over it, it would be a good thing for a girl like Carla if she got up and went to church.

A half hour later he got her up to go out for breakfast so the Ferraros, hearing them hurrying down the stairs, would think they were going to a late mass.
It seemed to him that if the Ferraros felt sure of them, could place them, it would help him to feel more sure of himself with Carla.

"Since we're having coffee with them this afternoon", he said, "I think I'll ask the daughter if we can pay her to come in every day to clean for us".
And he waited for her to say, "Oh, no, I can do it, Sam.
There's so little to do".

"Why not"?
She said.
"I'm not good at that kind of thing".

"This afternoon let's take an air with them.
Let's be fine superior people of great dignity", he said as if he were joking.

"If you find it necessary, Sam, go ahead", she said, turning on the stair.
"I am what I am.
I can't help it".
Her words remained with him, worrying him for hours.
He didn't know how she would behave with other people.

When they walked into the Ferraro apartment, the old lady, bowing and smiling, said softly.
"Ciao," and put out her hand.
Her little brown face wrinkled up, her brown eyes gleamed, and with her little gestures she said all the courteous things.
Agnese, smiling too, said, "'ello", and then more slowly, "I am happy".
And they sat down and began their little coffee party.
The Ferraros offered them biscuits with the coffee.
Acting only as interpreter Carla, her hands folded on her lap, was utterly impersonal.
She would turn to them, then turn to him, then turn again.
Watching her, he felt like a spectator at a tennis game, with the ball being bounced back and forth.
Signora Ferraro, bobbing her head encouragingly, asked Sam about Canada, having a special interest.
Carla translated.
The old woman had a nephew from North Italy, a poor boy from a lumber mill who had got tired of the seasonal unemployment, and who had migrated to Canada to work on the railway.
For a year the boy had lived in the bush in a boxcar.
Did many of Sam's countrymen live in boxcars in the bush?
Had Sam ever lived in a boxcar?
She wanted to know.
Regretfully Sam explained that he had no experience with boxcars.
Just the same, the old woman said, she would write to her nephew in his boxcar and tell him she had met a nice man from his adopted country.
And Sam thanked her, and hoped he might meet her nephew back home, and asked her if she had any further news of the Pope.

A very great Pope, this one, the old woman explained, her black eyes sparkling.
An intellectual.
But very mystical too.
It was said that he had had a vision.
Just as thousands that day in Portugal had seen the sun dancing in the sky, he had seen the same thing later in his own garden, and she turned to Agnese for confirmation.
Agnese had been sitting quietly, listening with the serenity of the unaware.
Now a little flush came on her pale homely face and enchantment in her eyes.
The Holy Father would die soon, she said to Carla, so she could translate for Sam, although he had a brilliant doctor, a man who did not need the assistance of those doctors offered by the great rulers of the world.
Yes, the Pope could die and quickly be made a saint.
No, he was indeed a saint now.
Nodding approvingly and swelling with importance, the old lady whispered confidentially.
There was a certain discontent among the cardinals.
The Pope, in the splendor of his great intellect, had neglected them a little.
There would be changes made, and Signor Raymond should understand that when the Pope died it was like the end of a regime in Rome.
Jobs would be lost and new faces would become prominent.

Did Signor Raymond understand?
Indeed he did, Sam said solemnly, trying to get Carla's eye.
Surely she could see that these women were her Italians, too, he thought.
Devout, orthodox and plain like a family she might meet in Brooklyn or Malta or Ireland.
But Carla's eyes were on Agnese whose glowing face and softening eyes gave her a look of warmth and happiness.
And Carla, watching in wonder, turned to Sam.
"It means so much to her.
It's like a flame, I guess", she said in a dreamy tone.