Contempt - Alberto Moravia [10]
At last we moved in, and the very next day, by a coincidence that seemed to me providential, I met Battista, and, as I have already related, was at once invited by him to work on the script of one of his films. For some time I felt relieved and more cheerful than I had been for many weeks: I thought I would do four or five film-scripts to pay off the lease of the flat, and then devote myself again to journalism and my beloved theater. Meanwhile my love for Emilia had come back to me stronger than ever, and sometimes I went so far as to reproach myself, with the bitterest remorse, for having been capable of thinking ill of her and judging her to be selfish and insensitive. This brief bright interval, however, lasted only a very short time. Almost immediately the sky of my life clouded over again. But at first it was only an exceedingly small cloud, though of a decidedly gloomy color.
4
MY MEETING WITH Battista took place on the first Monday in October. The day before, we had moved into the flat, which was now completely furnished. This flat, the cause, to me, of so many anxieties, was in truth neither large nor luxurious. It had only two rooms—a big living-room, of greater length than width, and a bedroom, also of good proportions. The bathroom, the kitchen and the maid’s room were all three very small—reduced, as always in modern buildings, to the smallest possible size. Besides this there was a little windowless box which Emilia intended to make into a dressing-room. The flat was on the top floor of a newly built block, as smooth and white as if it had been all made of plaster, in a narrow, slightly sloping street. The whole of one side of the street was occupied by a row of buildings similar to ours, while along the other side ran the boundary wall of the garden of a private villa, with branches of great leafy trees hanging over it. It was a beautiful view, as I pointed out to Emilia, and we could almost delude ourselves into thinking that this garden, in which we could catch glimpses of winding paths and fountains and open spaces, was not cut off from us by a street and a wall, and that we could go down and walk about in it as often as we liked.
We moved in during the afternoon. I was busy the whole day, and I do not remember where we dined, nor with whom; I only remember that, towards midnight, I was standing in the middle of the bedroom in front of the triple looking-glass, looking at myself and slowly undoing my tie. All at once, in the mirror, I saw Emilia take a pillow from the double bed and go off towards the door of the living-room. Surprised, I asked: “What are you doing?”
I had spoken without moving. Still in the mirror, I saw her stop in the doorway and turn, as she said in a casual tone: “You won’t mind, will you, if I sleep on the divan bed, in the other room?”
“Just for tonight, you mean?” I inquired, puzzled and still uncomprehending.
“No, for always,” she replied hurriedly. “To tell you the truth, that was one of the reasons why I wanted a new home. I really can’t go on sleeping with the shutters open, as you like to do. I wake up every morning at the crack of dawn and then I can’t go to sleep again, and I go about all day long with a sleepy feeling in my head. You don’t mind, do you? I do think it’s really better for us to sleep separate.”
I still failed to understand, and at first I felt no more than vaguely irritated at an innovation so completely unexpected. Walking across to her, I said: “But this can’t go on. We’ve only two rooms; in one there’s the bed, and in the other, the armchairs and divans. Why...? Besides, sleeping on a divan, even if it can be turned into a bed, is not very comfortable!”
“I never dared tell