Boredom - Alberto Moravia [14]
In spite of the amazement into which I had been thrown by my own proposal, I could not help admiring once again my mother’s capacity for dissimulation, the capacity that she, in her “society” idiom, called “good form.” I had said the thing she had been waiting to hear for years; the only thing, perhaps, that could give her real pleasure; nevertheless not a sign appeared on her wooden, expressionless face or in her glassy eyes. Slowly she said, in a more than usually disagreeable voice, almost in the tone of someone reciprocating a compliment of no importance whatsoever: “Of course I want you to. In this house you’ll always be more than welcome. When would you come?”
“This evening or tomorrow morning.”
“Better tomorrow morning; then I’ll have time to have your room got ready for you.”
“Tomorrow morning, then.”
After these words we said nothing more for some time. I was wondering what it was that had happened to me, and whether my true vocation now might not be to stay at home with my mother and accept the fact of being bored and administer our property and be rich. My mother, on her side, appeared by this time to have got beyond the phase of surprise and complacency at her unhoped-for victory; and was already devoting herself, as could be concluded from the thoughtful expression on her hard, set face, to the organization of that victory—that is, to plans for my future and her own. Finally she remarked, in a casual tone: “I don’t know if you did it on purpose, but anyhow it’s a good omen. Today is your birthday and today you’ve decided to come back and live here. I told you this morning that I’ve prepared a surprise for you. Now it’ll do to celebrate both occasions.”
I asked without thinking: “What’s the surprise?”
“Come with me and I’ll show you.”
I said, cruelly: “In any case let’s celebrate only one of these two occasions today—my return home. That’s the real cause for rejoicing today.”
Did my mother notice my sarcasm? Or was she unaware of it? Certainly she said nothing. In the meantime she was walking in front of me around the walls of the villa, toward the open space at the front. I saw her walk in a deliberate fashion up to the beautiful sports car standing near mine and then stop, one hand on the hood, more or less in the attitude of a girl being photographed for a car manufacturer’s display poster. “You once told me,” she said, “that you would like to possess a very fast car. At first I thought of buying you a real racing car, but they’re dangerous things and so I decided on this convertible. The dealer told me it was the very latest model, only a few months out of the factory. It’ll do a hundred and twenty miles an hour.”
I approached slowly, wondering how much this car that my mother wanted to give me could have cost: three million lire, four million? It was a foreign car and the coach work was sumptuous: I knew that cars of this kind were extremely expensive. My mother was now talking about the car in the same detached, scientific, curious, almost affectionate tone that she adopted when discussing the flowers in her garden. “I like this particularly,” she said, pointing to the instrument panel which had a black background against which the various switches and polished metal controls sparkled like diamonds on black velvet in a jeweler’s