"Shall I pose?" I asked solicitously.

"Go on about your business. Write something. Forget I'm here..."

She was obeying the stipulation. I had told her that I was at a critical stage of my life. I either was a writer or wasn't one. I either wrote or didn't write. I had come to Rome to write. I couldn't face myself if I didn't concentrate on that and that alone. So that if she insisted on seeing me during the day, I had stipulated we create together. I thought she would say no. But she had grabbed up the possibility hungrily and suggested an outing to the Villa d'Este.

As she sketched me, slowly, patiently, cocking a knowing eye to be sure she had the proper perspective, she would pause and stare. I couldn't work. I just kept wondering where all this was leading. We had had dinner every night that week. We were seeing each other every blessed moment now. She would be wanting to make love this very evening.

•

We had met a week ago. I was alone in Rome. I took a room in the pensione on the Via Margutta, near enough to American Express to keep in touch with the outside world. My aim was to live a little in Rome. I wanted to breathe the Italian atmosphere, eat all the echt pasta and vitelle I could stuff into myself, listen to as much Italian, frequent as many shops and walk in as many Roman streets as I needed to bathe myself totally in the atmosphere of Rome. Until one fine morning I would wake up, walk to my trusty Olivetti and the keys would runneth over. I would write my heart out. But I would imbibe before I would write . . .

During one of my long exploratory walks I happened into that trattoria near the Via Veneto. I was sitting alone, savoring my exquisite solitude when I heard a familiar voice. It was Alice from Yale days. Her voice caught me like a sting out of the past. She was bright and breezy, talkative and insinuative, one of those clever girls one walks a mile to miss. And with her was Joanna, quiet, circumspect, well-dressed, stout and short, in every way a fine foil to her garrulous friend Alice.

They latched on to me as Americans do when they're abroad. I tagged along with them and we walked together through the elegant sections of Roma di Notte. We stopped for cooling glasses of carpano at Doneys and bitched the passing crowds. The evening was long and languourous and Joanna and I listened to Alice's endless fund of gossip and chatter. They were staying nearby my pensione and Alice excused herself early because she was off to Venezia in the morning. Would I be kind to her friend, Joanna? It was Joanna's first trip to Rome and she didn't know anybody else. I was designated cicisbeo by Alice's choice. Joanna's disarming silence made refusal impossible. Before I knew it I had asked her to breakfast. I felt foolish about it. It was the first date I'd had in years. I laughed at myself as I walked back to my pensione in the deserted streets late at night. Had I come to Rome to change my ways? Was I going to be involved with a girl?

From the very first she had a strange power over me. There was nothing vulgar about her. Vulgarity I detested and put down everywhere. The Alices of the world were my enemy. They castrated a man by instinct. They talked him into insignificance. American female dominance I smelled a kilometre away and sidestepped. But Joanna was different. She was an artist. She had come to Rome to paint. She loved the city as much as I did. She never did or said anything that could make me reject her. We started to see each other every day.

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