Boredom - Alberto Moravia [131]
Mechanically, almost in spite of myself, I rose to my feet. And then a ridiculous thing happened: my trousers, the belt of which Cecilia had in the meantime undone, fell down to my feet and I stumbled over them. “No,” I yelled, at the height of fury, “no, I don’t want to. I only want to know why you won’t be my wife.”
She stood looking at me, then warned me ambiguously: “As you like. But if we don’t do it today we won’t be able to do it for some time.”
“Why?”
“I’d decided not to tell you, so as not to make you angry. I would have written you a post card and you’d have learned like that. But after all it’s best that you should know. Tomorrow morning I’m leaving for Ponza with Luciani and we’re staying away for about two weeks.”
I was already in a rage, and this revelation, which at last explained Cecilia’s behavior that day, redoubled my fury. So she had decided to spend a couple of weeks with Luciani at Ponza; it was for this reason, and for this reason only—that is, in order to console me in some degree—that she had suggested that morning that we should spend the day together; for this reason and for this reason only that she had suggested making love with me; and finally, however strange it may seem, it was for this reason and this reason only that she had refused to become my wife. I knew Cecilia pretty well by now and had had experience of her complete lack of imagination and of her indifferent, apathetic disinterestedness. I knew also that she was incapable of thinking of more than one thing at a time—the nearest and most immediate and most attractive. In this case the trip to Ponza with the actor was the nearest and most immediate and most attractive thing; for the sake of this trip she did not hesitate to refuse a marriage which, at another time, she might have accepted.
I was suddenly aware of the pain this caused me, and that, whereas shortly before I had wanted at all costs that she should become my wife, I should now be satisfied if she did not go to Ponza. I said, in a voice of deep distress: “Don’t go!”
She did not answer me; but she went to the bed, got on to it and lay down, slowly, complacently, placidly, her back against the pillows, one leg stretched out on the bed, the other bent, her foot dangling in the air; exactly like Danaë in the picture. Then, starting to unwrap the towel from around her body, she said: “Why do you think about the future? Come here now and lie down beside me.”
“But I don’t want you to go.”
“We’ve already booked the room.”
“Well, tell Luciani you don’t feel well, and don’t go.”
“It’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because I like the idea of going to Ponza and I don’t see why I shouldn’t go.”
“If you don’t go, I’ll give you a present.”
She was naked now, lying in a relaxed attitude with her breasts free and her hips comfortably settled on the bed; and she was looking up in childish curiosity at the hangings. Without lowering her eyes, she asked in an absent-minded way: “What sort of present?”
“Whatever you like.”
“But what, for instance?”
“For instance, a sum of money.”
She lowered her big dark eyes and looked at me in a vague, expressionless, slightly surprised sort of manner. “How much would you give me?” she asked.
I looked back at her and then, struck by the resemblance of her attitude to that of Danaë in the picture on the wall close by, I had a sudden idea. “I’ll give you all the money it takes to cover you.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re to lie still there on the bed and I’ll cover you with banknotes from head to foot. If you give up the idea of going to Ponza, I’ll give you, as I say, all the money it takes to cover you from head to foot.”
She started to laugh, flattered and attracted more, it would seem, by the novelty of the game than by the bargain I had suggested. “What ideas you get into your head!” she said.
“Painter’s ideas,” I said dishonestly.
“Anyhow, where have you got the