Boredom - Alberto Moravia [99]
At the end of five minutes, as I had foreseen, Cecilia and the actor appeared together in the doorway. They were holding hands and it seemed to me that they were both staggering a little, as though dazed. I noticed that Cecilia was clasping the actor’s hand in a special way, with her fingers between his, as if unconsciously repeating he recent interlacing of their bodies. Still holding hands, they went off along the pavement down the hill.
Everything can be foreseen, except the feeling aroused in us by what we foresee. One can certainly foresee, for example, that a snake may come out of a hole under a rock; but it is difficult to foresee the quality and intensity of the fear that the sight of the reptile will inspire in us. Countless times I had imagined Cecilia coming out of the actor’s house, either in company with him or alone, but I had not foreseen the feelings I would experience when I actually saw her come out of that big door with it black marble frame, into the street, hand in hand with Luciani. And so I was astonished when, at the sight of Cecilia and the actor standing for what seemed an eternity in the doorway, I became conscious of an abominable sensation like that of a fainting fit. I suffered horribly and was at the same time amazed that I should be suffering so much and in so novel a way, when I had been prepared for this moment by so precise and anticipation. I felt that the image of those two was impressed indelibly upon my memory; and I felt a scorching pain, as though that image were a red-hot iron and my memory a piece of sensitive flesh that rebelled against it.
I have said that my suffering was comparable to that of a fainting fit. In reality I had fainted in every part of myself except at the one point in which—as if the whole of my vitality had concentrated itself there—I was conscious of myself to an excessive degree. And it was precisely from this that I suffered; from feeling myself to be everywhere lifeless except at this one grievous point. In the meantime I had automatically started the car, brought it slowly out from its parking place and driven off behind Cecilia and Luciani.
They were walking very slowly, still holding hands, silent and happy, no doubt. Then the actor stopped at a barbershop; Cecilia spoke to him for a moment, held out her hand to him and Luciani kissed it. He went into the barbershop and Cecilia went on her way. Driving slowly, my eyes fixed on her as she disappeared and reappeared on the winding pathway, I went on for some distance down the street. I looked at her, and I looked especially at the movement of her hips under her short, tight dress, a movement at the same time clumsy and lazy and powerful, and I realized that I still felt desire for her—just as though I were not yet entirely sure of her unfaithfulness. And I saw that if I really wished to stop desiring her I must compel her to confess the truth, that truth which alone would irreparably establish her in my eyes for what she was, and would make me cease to love her. Cecilia, meanwhile, had gone to the bus stop farther down the street. I looked at my watch; there were still ten minutes to go to the time of her appointment with me. She had calculated her time well: in a quarter of an hour at most, the bus would