Boredom - Alberto Moravia [117]
“That you were very conceited.”
“Conceited?”
“Yes, he hated your painting. He said you didn’t know how to paint.”
This conversation left me with the conviction that my attempt to prove to myself that Cecilia was venal had failed: Cecilia was not venal; in other words, her character could not be said to be merely acquisitive. It was clear that Balestrieri had tried to assert his own superiority over Tony by supporting him through the medium of Cecilia, without the saxophone player being aware of it; and that Cecilia, on her side, had lent herself to Balestrieri’s psychological maneuver without sharing in it or understanding it. As in my case, therefore, Cecilia had succeeded instinctively in keeping the two worlds of money and of love separate and apart. Balestrieri and I could have certainly affirmed that we had given her money; but she, on her side, could have always made it clear that she had not been paid. And my behavior toward Cecilia tended increasingly to resemble Balestrieri’s; with this difference, however, that the old painter had gone further than I had. To counterbalance that, my folly was greater than his; for he had had no predecessor to serve him as a mirror, so that it was more or less understandable that he should not have been able to stop. But I had his example to warn me at every step of the risks I was running, yet in spite of this I was repeating the same mistakes that he had made, and in fact almost taking pleasure in doing so.
9
IN THE MEANTIME Cecilia went on seeing Luciani every day, including the days when she came to see me, so that her elusiveness, after being for a long time a mere hypothesis, had become a certainty, something similar to a fixed character with which I had, one way or another, to settle accounts and to which I had to adapt myself. And I felt that my love for her, originating from my inability to possess her, was now, after oscillating violently between boredom and misery, gradually assuming the aspect of a species of vice with four successive phases: the attempt to possess her otherwise than by sexual means; the failure of the attempt; the angry, futile relapse into the sexual relationship; the failure of this also; and then the same thing all over again. But the only thing of which I was not capable was resigning myself to Cecilia’s elusiveness, accepting it, and, in short, calmly sharing her favors with Luciani. I remember that, much as Balestrieri had not been jealous of Tony Proietti because he imagined that Cecilia had been unfaithful to Tony with him, so did I seek to console myself by telling myself that, while I knew that Cecilia went to bed with the actor, the latter did not know that she went to bed with me. In other words, I now found myself, in relation to Luciani, more or less in the position of a lover in relation to an ignorant husband; and no lover was ever jealous of a husband, precisely because knowing, in certain cases, means possessing and not knowing means not possessing. It was a wretched consolation, but it helped me to pass the time with calculations of the following kind: I knew about Luciani and Luciani did not know about me, therefore Cecilia was unfaithful to him with me and not to me with him. On the other hand, he had come after me, consequently Cecilia had been unfaithful to me with him and not to him with me. Finally there was the question of the money, as there had been with Balestrieri: I gave her money and Luciani not merely did not give her any but spent my money with her; therefore she was making me, not him, pay her, and consequently was in a way unfaithful to him with me. However, it was not impossible that she was going with Luciani for love and with me for money, therefore she was being unfaithful to me with Luciani. But Cecilia attributed no importance to money. Money therefore had perhaps a sentimental significance between her and me, and since the actor did not give her any money, perhaps she was being unfaithful to Luciani with me. And so on, ad infinitum.
After these agreeable reflections there remained