Boredom - Alberto Moravia [42]
Thinking over Balestrieri’s first, attempted, suicide, an attempt caused by Cecilia’s decision to leave him, I seemed to see that the old painter, in carrying on his relationship with Cecilia to its final end, had committed with complete lucidity a second and successful suicide. And so, in a way, he had attempted the first suicide because for a moment it had seemed to him that Cecilia, by leaving him, would not allow him to commit the second.
Even while I was thinking these things, I was surprised at thinking them; or rather, at being driven to think them not so much by idle curiosity as by a disconcerting sense of fascinated attraction, as though Balestrieri’s story concerned me directly and the old painter’s destiny were linked with my own. If it had not been thus, I should not have put so many questions to Cecilia. No doubt I should have made love with her, just that once, but I should not have questioned her. Instead, I had not made love but had questioned her at considerable length, with an insatiable curiosity which, in effect, had remained unsatisfied. As I had told her, I had questioned her mainly in order to find out why I was questioning her: it seemed like a play upon words but actually was not so. In this way I had learned many things, but my lack of satisfaction made it clear that the thing which really mattered to me had escaped me.
I was so deeply absorbed in these reflections that I did not notice Cecilia, who had come out of the bathroom and was standing near the divan. I started when I heard her voice saying: “Well then, I’ll say good-bye.”
I rose to my feet with an effort, and shook her hand, stammering automatically: “Good-bye.” “Don’t bother to come with me,” she murmured; and for the last time I had the sensation of her large, dark eyes motionlessly contemplating me. I watched her as she took up her bundle from the table and walked to the door. She moved with a slowness that did not appear calculated; it was as though she felt she was attached to me by a strong, tenacious bond and it was a great effort to her to move her steps in the opposite direction. I was struck particularly by the slight swing of her wide, short skirt and the consequent graceful swaying of the upper part of her body, which rose above her skirt like a rider on his horse. In these two movements, the rotating movement of her skirt and the quivering movement of her body, there was the allurement of a coquetry that was quite unconscious and for that reason all the more potent and irresistible. I followed her with my eyes until she had opened the door and vanished. Then I lit a cigarette and went over to the window.
The courtyard lay deserted in the bleak, subdued twilight of a sultry day. I could see the other big windows opposite; a couple of them were already lit up; also the acanthus bushes, blackish green, all around the flower beds and the dull, chalky whiteness of the pavement. As usual, there were many cats on the pavement, dispersed here and there in a mysterious order that did not seem merely casual: some squatting with their legs folded beneath their bodies, others sitting with their tails wrapped around their feet, others slowly and cautiously prowling, noses to the ground and tails erect; piebald black and white cats, gray cats, cats completely white or completely black, striped cats and tawny cats. I started looking attentively at the cats, as I often did, for it was as good a way as