Boredom - Alberto Moravia [132]
“Wait.”
I rose and ran into the bathroom, where I swiftly did what I had foreseen that I would eventually do: I moved the tiles, uncovered the steel door of the safe, turned the dials according to the secret combination. Meanwhile I was hoping that the money would be there. If there was no money, I thought, I would cover Cecilia with stock certificates, which anyhow were equivalent to money, as my mother had so often pointed out to me.
But the money was there. On top of the usual two or three rolls of bonds was the well-known red envelope, stuffed to bursting point. I seized it, took out the notes which it contained and went back into the bedroom. As I went toward her, Cecilia looked at me with a kind of leer which, I could not help thinking, was positively mythological—much as Danaë must have looked when the first golden coin tumbled into her lap. “Now,” I told her with a smile, “lie down flat.”
As she lay down she looked at me with curiosity and amusement and also, I thought, with a touch of agitation. The bundle of notes that I had taken from the envelope was a thick one; I calculated there must be fifty notes of ten thousand lire each. I started from the bottom, symbolically, by spreading a single, carefully smoothed note over her dark, curly groin. Then, moving upward, I covered the white, childish belly, the slim waist and the beautiful brown bosom, placing one banknote on each breast. I wrapped another note across her neck; four I put on her shoulders and four on her arms. Then I went down again below her belly, and covered her legs with notes right down to her small feet. Cecilia at first followed this operation with childish, attentive curiosity, just as though it were a game; then all of a sudden she began to laugh, with nervous, uncontrollable laughter. I could not help thinking hopefully that this was the laughter of a woman who finally yields to her lover, after repulsing him for a long time. In such a way, I reflected, must Danaë have laughed when she felt the divine shower of gold flooding her with amorous voluptuousness. Still laughing, Cecilia continued to take part in the game, pointing to the places that still remained to be covered: “There’s still room here, put one here, and here.” Finally she lay still, looking like some strange bedizened animal, flat on her back with her face turned toward me and her eyes wide open. I said curtly: “There are twenty-four ten-thousand-lire notes. If you don’t go to Ponza, I’ll give you the lot.”
She started laughing again and exclaimed: “I thought there’d be more than that.”
I thought it might not be enough for her, so I went on: “I’ll give you twice the amount, the number that’s needed to cover you back and front. That’s fair, because after all you have a back and a front.”
Lying now beneath the banknotes, motionless and as though afraid of disarranging them and so spoiling the game, she looked at me with an expression of regretful perplexity. Finally she said: “I’m sorry, Dino, but it’s not possible.” She was silent a moment, still looking at me, then she went on with an unusual gentleness that could not have been feigned: “Let’s make love now. Then, when I come back from Ponza, I promise you we’ll do it more often than in the past and I promise you we’ll see more of each other.”
I saw that the gentleness in her voice was due to the excitement that the game with the banknotes had aroused in her. This excitement, according to my intention, should have allowed me to take possession of her through the medium of money; now, on the contrary, after her refusal, it made her once more elusive and unattainable. “You really won’t do as I ask?” I demanded.
“No, it’s not possible.”
She lay still, taking care not to move beneath her garment of banknotes, as though the game were going on and she were awaiting its final phase. Then suddenly I felt myself assailed by the usual blind male impulse, which urged me to take her because I could not succeed in possessing her, as if by taking her I could in fact possess her. I threw myself upon her and covered her body,