Boredom - Alberto Moravia [101]
“His number isn’t in the book.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“On the other hand, here’s Luciani at No. 36.”
“It’s not possible, he’s not in the telephone book.”
“No, but he’s in the street directory. Look here, there it is!”
She looked with feigned reluctance but said nothing. I commented sarcastically: “What an odd coincidence! Meloni and Luciani live in the same house.”
“Yes, Luciani lives on the ground floor and Meloni on the third.”
“Very well, then, now we’ll go out and drive together to Meloni’s.”
A long silence followed. Cecilia gazed at me with those eyes, so vague and so poetical, that in reality saw nothing, and was silent. “Come on,” I urged her, “get a move on.”
I saw her suddenly blush, with an uneven, patchy redness, from her neck up over her cheeks. “Yes,” she said, “it’s true.”
“It’s true?—what’s true?”
“That Luciani and I see each other.”
Again I had foreseen, for some time past, the words of this confession; but there is a great difference between foreseeing with one’s mind and hearing with one’s ears: once again, as when I saw her coming out of Luciani’s house, I had a sickening sensation of faintness. “What do you mean, that you see each other?” I stammered stupidly; “I know you see each other.”
“I mean we make love.”
“And you say it just like that?”
“How else should I say it?”
I felt she was right: she did not love me, she was unfaithful to me, and her tone, so economical and so colorless, was the correct one. I was still left, however, with an insatiable need to imprison her in her confession as in a cage of shame from which she would never be able to escape. “Why did you do it?” I asked.
She seemed to be reflecting, seriously, scrupulously, before answering. Then she said, quite simply: “Because I liked it.”
“But don’t you realize you ought not to have done it?”
“Why ought I not to have done it?”
“Because a woman doesn’t betray a man she’s fond of, and you’ve told me over and over again that you’re fond of me.”
“Yes, I am fond of you, but I’m fond of Luciani too.”
“So you’re one of those women who give themselves to everybody—yesterday to a painter, today to an actor, tomorrow, I daresay, to the electrician.”
She looked at me and said nothing. I went on again: “You’re a good-for-nothing, worthless woman.”
Still she was silent. Why did I go on insisting like this? Because I wanted to convince myself that, after the confession she had made, Cecilia was discredited and reduced to nothingness in my eyes, and yet I felt that this was not so. Nevertheless, this discrediting process was bound to occur, I could not help thinking. There had been women who had forfeited my estimation and my affection for no more than a phrase, a gesture, an attitude; all the more reason why Cecilia, who had vulgarly betrayed me, should do so. I concluded angrily: “Do you realize that what one does, one is, and that therefore what you have done makes you into something very different from what you were?”
I should have liked her to ask: “What was I, and what am I now?” And then I should have answered: “You were an honest girl and now you’re a whore.” At the same time her question would have indicated a need on her part to be well-considered, esteemed, appreciated by me. But I was disappointed in my hope: Cecilia did not open her mouth; and I saw that silence was the only answer I could expect from her. This silence meant that lying and unfaithfulness were, for her, words devoid of significance, not so much because she did not understand them as because they did not denote anything particular in her life. I felt she was eluding me again, and I seized her by her arms and shook her, crying out in a rage: “Why don’t you speak, say something, why don’t you answer?”
She announced, quite sincerely: “I have nothing to say.”
“I have something to say,” I shouted, beside myself with rage. “And that is, you’re just