Contempt - Alberto Moravia [38]
The story I am now going to tell may seem lengthy: in reality, owing to the almost vision-like speed of the recollection, the whole thing lasted only an instant. Well then, as Rheingold bent his smiling face towards me, I saw myself, in a flash, in my study at home, in the act of dictating a script. I had just reached the end of a dictation which had lasted several days, yet I still could not have said whether the typist was pretty or not; and then a minute incident opened my eyes, so to speak. She was typing out some sentence or other when, bending down to look at the sheet of paper over her shoulder, I realized that I had made a mistake. I leaned forward and tried to correct the error myself by tapping out the word with my finger on the keys. But, as I did so, without meaning to I lightly touched her hand which, I noticed, was very large and strong and strangely in contrast with the slightness of her figure. As I touched her hand, I was conscious that she did not withdraw it; I composed a second word, and again, this time perhaps not without intention, touched her fingers. Then I looked into her face and saw that she was looking straight back at me, with an expression of expectation, almost of invitation. I also noticed with surprise, as if for the first time, that she was pretty, with her little full mouth, her capricious nose, her big black eyes and her thick, curly, brushed-back hair. But her pale, delicate face wore a discontented, scornful, angry expression. One last detail: when she spoke, saying with a grimace: “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” I was struck by the dry, precise, decidedly disagreeable tone of her voice. I looked at her then, and saw that she sustained my regard perfectly well—in fact, she returned it in a manner that was positively aggressive. I must then have shown some sign of emotion and indeed have given a mute response, for from that moment, for several days, we never stopped looking at each other. Or rather, it was she who never stopped looking at me, impudently, with deliberate effrontery, at every opportunity, pursuing my eyes when they avoided hers, seeking to hold them when our eyes met, delving into them when they came to a halt. As always happens, these glances, at first, were few and far between; then they became more and more frequent; finally, not knowing how to escape them I was reduced to walking up and down behind her as I dictated. But the tenacious coquette found a means of circumventing this obstacle by staring at me in a big mirror hanging on the wall opposite, so that, each time I raised my eyes, I found hers waiting there to meet them. In the end, the thing that she wanted to happen, happened: one day when, as usual, I was leaning over from behind her to correct a mistake, I looked up at her, our eyes met, and our mouths were joined for one moment in a swift kiss. The first thing she said, after the kiss, was characteristic: “Oh, at last!...I was really beginning to think you’d never make up your mind.” Indeed she now seemed sure that she held me in her clutches, so sure that, immediately after the kiss, she did not trouble to demand any more but went back to her work. I was left with a feeling of confusion and remorse: I found the girl attractive, certainly, otherwise I should not have kissed her; but it was also certain that I was not in love with her and that the truth of the matter was that she had forced the kiss from me by working upon my male vanity with her petulant and, to me, flattering persistence. Now she went on typing without looking at me, her eyes lowered, prettier than ever with her round, pale face and her big mop of black hair. Then she made—on purpose, perhaps—another mistake, and I again leaned over her, seeking to correct it. But she was watching my movements, and, as soon as my face was close to hers, she turned in a flash and threw her arm round my neck,