Contempt - Alberto Moravia [21]
He exclaimed, in his blundering, vivacious way: “Not at all, not at all; we’ve got to drink to the success of the film. My goodness, of course we have. You’re not going away like that, after finishing the script!”
I answered resignedly: “If it’s a question of a drink, I’m all for it.”
“Come this way, then. I think my wife would be pleased to have a drink with us.”
I followed him out of the study, and along a narrow passage, bare and white and smelling strongly of cooking and baby’s garments. He preceded me into the sitting-room, calling out: “Luisa, Molteni and I have finished the script. Now we’re going to drink to the success of the film.”
Signora Pasetti rose from her armchair and came forward to meet us. She was a small woman with a large head and two bands of smooth black hair framing her long, oval, very pale face. Her eyes were large but light in color and inexpressive, and they became animated only when her husband was present: and then she never took them off his face for one single moment, like an affectionate dog with its master. But when her husband was not there she kept them lowered, with an almost stubbornly modest air. Fragile and minute in figure, she had brought four children into the world in four years of matrimony. With his usual embarrassing cheerfulness, Pasetti now said: “Today we have a drink. I’m going to make a cocktail.”
“Not for me, Gino,” Signora Pasetti warned him; “you know I don’t drink.”
“We’ll drink, then.”
I sat down in an armchair of sand-papered wood with a flowered cover, in front of a red-brick chimney-place; and Signora Pasetti sat down on the other side of the fireplace, on another identical chair. The sitting-room, I noticed, when I looked round, was an accurate copy of its master: furnished with a “suite” in sham rustic style, it was bright and clean and orderly but at the same time rather bleak—like the house of a meticulous accountant or bank clerk. I had nothing to do but look, for Signora Pasetti did not appear to feel any need to speak to me. She sat opposite me with eyes lowered, her hands in her lap, quite motionless. Meanwhile Pasetti went over to the other end of the room, to an extremely ugly composite piece of furniture, a radio containing a bar; then he stooped down twice, on his thin legs, and, with precise, angular movements, took out two bottles, one of vermouth and one of gin, three glasses and a shaker. He placed them all on a tray and carried the tray over to a small table in front of the fireplace. I noticed that the bottles were both of them sealed and intact: it did not look as if Pasetti often allowed himself the drink he was now about to prepare for us. The shaker, too, was bright and shining and appeared quite new. He announced that he was going to fetch some ice and went out.
We sat a long time in silence, and then, in order to say something, I said: “We’ve finished the script, at last!”
Without raising her eyes, Signora Pasetti replied: “Yes, so Gino said.”
“I’m sure it will make a fine film.”
“I’m sure it will too; otherwise Gino would not have agreed to do it.”
“Do you know the story?”
“Yes, Gino told it me.”
“Do you like it?”
“Gino likes it, so I like it too.”
“Do you always agree, you two?”
“Gino and I? Yes, always.”
“Which of the two of you is in command?”
“Gino, of course.”
I noticed that she had contrived to repeat the name of Gino each time she had opened her mouth. I had spoken lightly and almost jokingly; she had answered me all the time with the utmost seriousness. Then Pasetti came in again with the ice-pail and called out to me: “Your wife’s on the telephone, Riccardo.”
For some unaccountable reason I felt my heart sink, with a sudden return of my usual unhappiness. Mechanically I rose and started towards the door. Pasetti added: “The telephone’s in the kitchen—but if you like you can answer it here...I’ve switched it through.”
The telephone was, in fact, on a cabinet beside the fireplace. I took off the receiver and heard Emilia’s voice say to me: “I’m sorry, but today you’ll have to go out to