Boredom - Alberto Moravia [57]
It was not the first time that arguments of this kind had taken place between me and my mother. I might shout and I might hurt her, but I always came to a stop in face of the real truth: that the house was repugnant to me because it was the house of a rich person. On the other hand my mother, by provoking and almost defying me, drove me to the revelation of this truth; yet in reality she did not want me to reveal it and there always came a moment when she drew back and changed the course of the conversation. And so it was now. I was on the point of answering her when she went on, rather nervously: “Say rather that you want to live on your own so as to have more freedom. You’re making a mistake, but it doesn’t matter. Here you are, then, here are your hundred thousand lire.”
She held out the money toward me, but only halfway; as I put out my hand, she drew it back again, as though she had realized that I was giving her nothing in exchange; and she added: “By the way, do stay to lunch, anyhow.”
“I can’t.”
“I’ve invited a few people to lunch. There’s the Minister, Triolo, and his wife. A charming, intelligent, energetic man.”
“A Minister? How ghastly! Come on, give me this money.”
This time she gave me the money, but with a gesture that was both angry and hesitant, as if she wished to take it back at the very moment when she was handing it to me. “Then come to lunch tomorrow,” she said. “There’ll be no one but you and me. Then I can give you the rest of the amount. If it’s really true that you’re going to Cortina...”
“Why? Do you doubt it?”
“With you one never knows.”
My mother appeared now to be fairly well satisfied. I saw this from the way in which she walked downstairs in front of me, holding her head high and placing her hand on the brass rail. Perhaps she was satisfied, I thought, because she had succeeded once again in avoiding the great explanation between myself and her, the explanation that no one who is rich wants ever to take place, or else he could never again enjoy his wealth in peace. Her satisfaction was so great that, forgetting my recent refusal, she suggested to me when we were in the hall: “Why don’t you stay until the Minister arrives? You could have a drink with him and then go away. He’s an influential man, he might always be useful.”
“Not to me, unfortunately,” I said with a sigh. “Besides, I really must run along.”
My mother did not insist; she opened the front door and went out onto the doorstep and stood facing the drive, putting her hands under her armpits and shivering in the damp autumn air. “If it goes on raining like this,” she said, looking up at the cloudy sky, “it will be the end of my poor flowers.”
“Good-bye, Mother,” I said, and stooping down I deposited the dry ritual kiss on the no less dry cheek. Then I ran off hastily to my car: I had seen another car appear suddenly at the far end of the drive and turn up toward the villa and I wanted, at all costs, to avoid an encounter with my mother’s guests. I sat down at the wheel at the moment when this other car swung around to the open space in front of the house and stopped. My mother was now standing at the front door in an attitude of readiness for the reception of her important guests. I started my engine and went off—just in time to see a chauffeur in a braided uniform get out and open the door of the car, at the same time taking off his cap and bowing, but not in time to see the owner of the black-shod masculine foot protruding from the doorway and feeling for the ground.
It was nearly one o’clock; I drove fast all the way along the Via Appia and reached the Piazza di Spagna shortly before the shops closed. I knew where to go to buy Cecilia’s farewell present—to a shop in Via dei Condotti where they sold bags and umbrellas. It was full of smart women shoppers, who drew aside with a faint look of surprise at my appearance. Then, while I was hurriedly choosing an alligator bag, I caught sight of myself in a mirror and understood the reason for their glances. I looked like a tramp,