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By Root 348 0

the screen-play completed, will equally surely never be finished. So now I, with the experience of the professional script-writer, recognized immediately, even while Battista was speaking, that this Odyssey film was, precisely, one of those which are much discussed but, in the end, never made. Why should this be so? I could not have said; perhaps it was because of the inordinate ambitiousness of the work, perhaps it was Rheingold’s physical appearance, so majestic when he was seated, so meager when he stood up. I felt that, like Rheingold, the film would have an imposing beginning and a paltry conclusion, thus justifying the well-known remark about the Siren: desinit in piscem, she ends up in a fish. And then, why did Battista want to make such a film? I knew that he was fundamentally very prudent, and determined to make money without taking risks. Probably, I thought, beneath his desire there lay the hope of obtaining solid financial support, perhaps even American support, by playing upon the great name of Homer—the Bible, as Rheingold had remarked, of the Mediterranean peoples. But on the other hand I knew that Battista, no different from other producers in this respect, would find some pretext, supposing the film were never made, for refusing to give me any remuneration for my hard work. It always happened like that: if the film failed to come off, payments also failed to come off, and the producer, generally, suggested transferring the emolument for the already completed script to other work to be done in the future; and the poor script-writer, forced by necessity, did not dare to refuse. I said to myself, therefore, that I must in any case forearm myself by asking for a contract and, above all, an advance; and that to achieve this goal there was only one method: to place difficulties in the way, to set a high price upon my collaboration. So I answered, tartly: “I think it’s a very good idea.”

“You don’t seem, however, to be very enthusiastic.”

I replied, with a sufficient show of sincerity: “I am afraid it may not be my kind of film...it may be beyond my powers.”

“Why?” Battista seemed irritated now. “You’ve always said you wanted to work at a film of quality...and now that I give you the chance, you draw back.”

I tried to explain what I meant. “You see, Battista, I feel myself to be cut out chiefly for psychological films...whereas this one, as far as I understand, is to be a purely spectacular film...of the type, in fact, of the American films taken from Biblical subjects.”

This time Battista had no time to answer me, for Rheingold, in a wholly unexpected manner, broke in. “Signor Molteni,” he said, summoning back his usual half-moon smile on to his face, rather like an actor suddenly sticking on a pair of false mustaches; and leaning forward slightly, with an obsequious, almost fawning expression. “Signor Battista has expressed himself very well and has given a perfect picture of the film I intend to realize with his help. Signor Battista, however, was speaking as a producer, and was taking into account, more especially, the spectacular elements. But if you feel yourself cut out for psychological subjects, you ought, without any possible doubt, to do this film...because this film is neither more nor less than a film on the psychological relationship between Ulysses and Penelope...I intend to make a film about a man who loves his wife and is not loved in return.”

I was disconcerted by this, all the more so because Rheingold’s face, illuminated by his usual artificial smile, was very close to me and seemed to cut me off from any possible loophole of escape: I had to reply, and at once. And then, just as I was about to protest: “But it’s not true that Penelope does not love Ulysses,” the director’s phrase “a man who loves his wife and is not loved in return” brought me suddenly back to the problem of my relations with Emilia—the relations, precisely, of a man who loved his wife and was not loved in return; and, at the same time, through some mysterious association of ideas, it brought to the surface of my memory