Boredom - Alberto Moravia [56]
Such, then, was the bargain that my mother asked of me, and it mattered little that instead of confronting me with a clearcut dilemma, as she would have done with an insolvent debtor, she presented her proposal in the form of a pathetic appeal. I asked her, in my turn: “What’s that got to do with it?”
“I can’t help noticing that you’ve come to see me simply in order to ask me for money, after I’ve not seen you for two months.”
“I’ve already told you that I’ve been busy.”
“If you came here, you could do just as you like. I wouldn’t interfere in your life in any way at all.”
“Oh well, give me the money and don’t let’s speak of it any more.”
“You could come and go, stay out late at night, invite anyone you wanted, see all the women you wanted.”
“But I’ve no need to see anybody.”
“You ran away that day because you perhaps had the impression that I should have prevented you from having a relationship with Rita. You’re wrong: provided you had observed the decencies, I should not have prevented anything.”
This left me truly astonished. So my mother had noticed that there was something between me and Rita; but she had held her tongue, hoping, evidently, that an intrigue between the girl and myself would have strengthened my ties with the villa and therefore with her as well. And when had she noticed it? During luncheon? Or later? I had a sudden, unpleasant feeling of guilt, a familiar feeling, as though I were a little boy again and my mother had the right to put me in disgrace. I managed to get the better of it by reflecting that, after all, my feeling of attraction toward Rita had its origin in the sense of despair which a visit to my mother never failed to arouse in me. Looking her straight in the face, I answered, in a tone of resentment: “No, it wasn’t because of Rita that I ran away, but because of you.”
“Because of me? Why, I even pretended not to notice how you were laying hands on her during luncheon.”
This remark and, even more, the tone in which it was spoken, made me furious. “Exactly; and it was entirely because of you that I laid hands on her, as you call it.”
“Why, how do I come into it? Now it’s my fault, is it, if you annoy the maids?”
“I laid hands on her because you put your feet on me.”
“Feet—what ever d’you mean?”
“By telling me not to talk about money affairs in front of servants. And also, let me tell you”—I had moved close to her now and was talking right into her face—“let me tell you, once and for all: all the stupid things I’ve ever done in my life, I’ve done because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“I spent whole years of my youth,” I suddenly shouted, overcome by a terrible rage, “dreaming of being a thief, a murderer, a criminal, just so as not to be what you wanted me to be. And you can thank heaven I didn’t become one, for lack of opportunity. And all this because I lived with you, in this house.”
This time my tone of voice seemed really to frighten my mother, who, as long as it was a question of words, generally showed herself adept in the game of give and take. But now, with a bewildered look on her face, she started shaking her head from side to side in a frightened way. “Oh well,” she stammered, “if it’s like that, don’t come and see me any more, don’t come again to this house.”
Suddenly I grew calm again. “No,” I said, “I’ll come to the house again, but don’t ask me to love it.”
“What is it that’s so odious about this house? Isn’t it just like any other house?”
“On the contrary, it’s a more beautiful and more comfortable house than a great many.”
“Well, then?”
I saw that she now appeared a little relieved at my not attacking her more directly. I answered her with a question: “My father didn’t like living in this house, either. Why was that?”
“Your father liked traveling.”
“Wouldn’t it be more correct to say that he traveled because he didn’t like living here?”