Boredom - Alberto Moravia [47]
How, then, had Balestrieri managed to fall so desperately in love with her? Or rather, what had occurred between them to turn Cecilia’s very insignificant character—precisely because of its insignificance, perhaps—into a cause of passion? I knew it was never possible to make judgments about other people’s love affairs, but after all I had taken Balestrieri’s place in Cecilia’s life; I myself had taken the drug of which Balestrieri spoke in reference to Cecilia, and I could not help wondering continually, with a feeling of lingering mistrust, as with a danger foretold but belated in appearance, why the drug itself should not be having any effect upon me.
So I questioned Cecilia at length, and gropingly, without myself knowing exactly what it was that I wished to learn from her. This is an example of one of these conversations.
“Tell me, did Balestrieri never say why he loved you?”
“Ugh, the usual question. Always Balestrieri...”
“I’m sorry, but I simply must know...”
“What?”
“I don’t know what. Something to do with Balestrieri and you. Tell me: did he never say why he loved you?”
“No, he loved me and that was that.”
“I haven’t explained myself rightly. Love has no reason, it’s true, one loves and that’s that; but the quality of love, that has a reason. One loves without reason; but if one loves with sadness or with joy, with calm or with anxiety, with jealousy or with confidence, there’s always some reason behind it. As for Balestrieri, he loved you with—how shall I describe it?—with a kind of mania. You yourself have shown me that. For him you were a vice, a drug, something he couldn’t do without—those are his own words. But why this mania?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not a woman who could inspire a passion of that kind, at least so it seems to me.”
“So it seems to me too.” This was said without a shadow of scorn or irony, but with humility and sincerity.
“If I may say exactly what I think, now that I know you better, I simply cannot understand Balestrieri and his passion. If not precisely disappointed, I am surprised. After what you told me of your relations with Balestrieri, I imagined you to be a terrible woman, of the type that can ruin a man. Instead of that, you seem to me a very normal girl. I’m sure you would make an extremely good wife.”
“D’you think so?”
“Yes, you give that impression.”
“I think so too, on the whole.”
“Then how d’you account for the passion, or rather the kind of passion, that Balestrieri had for you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try and think for a moment.”
“Really I don’t know. Obviously he was made like that.”
“How do you mean?”
“That he couldn’t love except in that way.”
“That isn’t true. For years I saw Balestrieri continually changing women. What happened, happened only with you.”
There was a long silence, and then, in a tone of sincerity and good will, she said: “Ask me a precise question, and I’ll answer you.”
“What do you mean by a precise question?”
“A question about a physical thing, a material thing. You always ask me questions about feelings, about what people think or don’t think, and I don’t know what to answer.”
“A material thing? Well then, tell me: in your opinion, did Balestrieri know that his relations with you were injuring his health?”
“Yes, he did know.”
“What did he say?”
“He said: ‘Some day or other this is going to kill me.’ Then I told him that he ought to be careful, but he answered that it didn’t matter.”
“That it didn’t matter?”
“Yes.” Then, with an air of vagueness and as if she