STRANGE LOVERS

The Italian renaissance- in full bloom- or you might say heat, in the story of Nella, a factory girl, eighteen and prone to passion. Her plans to marry Ottavio are interrupted by her foster-mother and the disclosure that she is not her real child, and by Ottavio's death in a factory fire. Pregnant, Nella leaves for the city where she finds her real mother- Giovanna- a whore whose best days (but not best contacts) are over. Giovanna makes good use of Nella, who is very gifted in this profession although she manages to retain the illusion that she is withholding herself- if not her body. But when Nella falls in love with Roberto- her mother's pimp- whose ""ambiguous smile"" is just one step ahead of a doublecross, her situation becomes untenable. She finds a way out, for herself, for the child she cannot bear in decency, and from the love of the man she can't resist,-only in suicide... For the Woman of Rome market; also an aphrodisiac, and very fruity.