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By Root 353 0

embarrassing. This dependence, moreover, had not weakened in the least, with the weakening of her feeling for me; she had not sought, even in the most innocent way, to find a substitute for me nor in the slightest degree to prepare for such an eventuality: in the same way as before—except that the love had gone out of it—she would sit at home waiting for my return from work, and she still depended on me for her few amusements. There was, in fact, something pathetic and unhappy about this loveless dependence of hers; it was as if somebody, by nature faithful, went on being faithful even when the reasons for faithfulness had disappeared. In a word, although she no longer loved me, it was almost certain that she had no one but me in her life.

Furthermore, another observation I had made caused me to exclude the possibility that Emilia might be in love with some other man. I knew her, or thought I knew her, very well. And I knew that she was incapable of telling lies, in the first place because of a certain rough and intolerant frankness in her, owing to which all falsehood appeared to her, not so much repugnant, as tedious and laborious; and secondly because of her almost complete lack of imagination, which did not permit of her grasping anything that had not really happened or that did not exist in concrete form. In view of this characteristic I was sure that, in the event of her having fallen in love with another man, she would have found it best to tell me at once; and, into the bargain, with all the brutality and unconscious cruelty of the more or less uneducated class to which she belonged. Of reticence and silence she was perhaps capable, as indeed she was now proving herself to be with regard to her change of feeling towards me; but it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for her to invent a double life in order to conceal adultery—I mean, the appointments with dressmakers and milliners, the visits to relations or friends, the delays at entertainments or the traffic hold-ups to which women usually have recourse in similar circumstances. No, her coldness towards me did not mean warmth towards another. And if there was a reason, as indeed there must be, it was to be sought, not in her life, but in mine.

I was so deeply absorbed in these reflections that I did not notice that one of the secretaries was standing in front of me, smiling and repeating: “Signor Molteni...Dr. Battista is waiting for you.” Finally I pulled myself together, and, interrupting my investigations for the time being, hurried off to the producer’s office.

He was sitting at the far end of a spacious room with a frescoed ceiling and walls adorned with gilt plasterwork, behind a desk of green-painted metal, exactly like the secretaries’ counter that encumbered the anteroom. I realize at this point that, though I have often spoken of him, I have not yet described him, and I think it may be expedient to do so. Battista, then, was the kind of man to whom his collaborators and dependents, as soon as his back was turned, referred to with charming names such as “the brute,” “the big ape,” “the great beast,” “the gorilla.” I cannot say that these epithets were undeserved, at least as regards Battista’s physical appearance; however, partly owing to my dislike of calling anyone by a nickname, I had never succeeded in adopting them. This was also because these nicknames erred, in my opinion, in not taking into account one of Battista’s highly important qualities, I mean his most unusual artfulness, not to stay subtlety, which was always present, though concealed under an apparent brutishness. Certainly he was a coarse, animal-like man, endowed with a tenacious, exuberant vitality; but this vitality expressed itself not only in his many and various appetites but also in an acuteness that was sometimes extremely delicate and calculating, especially in relation to the satisfaction of those appetites.

Battista was of medium height, but with very broad shoulders, a long body and short legs; whence the similarity to a large ape which had earned him the