Contempt - Alberto Moravia [53]
“No, I wanted to say,” she announced slowly, “that I’m going back to my mother’s—today. I wanted to tell you before I telephoned. There, now you know.”
I had not at all foreseen this declaration, which, after all, considering what had happened the day before, was perfectly logical and to be expected. The idea that Emilia might leave me had never entered my mind, strange though that may seem; I thought that she had already reached the farthest limit of her hardness and cruelty towards me. And yet, here was that limit being passed at one bound, in a fashion that was totally unexpected. Scarcely understanding what she meant, I stammered: “You mean to leave me?”
“Yes.”
For a moment I was silent; then, all at once, I felt an urgent need for action, driven on by the very sharpness of the pain that pierced me. I jumped from the divan and went, in pajamas as I was, to the window, as though I intended to push up the shutters and let in the light; but then I turned back and shouted in a loud voice: “You can’t go away like that. I don’t want you to go.”
“Don’t talk like a child,” she said in a reasonable manner. “We’ve got to separate; it’s the only thing now for us to do. There’s nothing left between us two—at least as far as I’m concerned. It’ll be better for us both.”
I do not remember at all what I did after she had spoken these words: or rather, I remember only a few sentences, a few movements. As though in the grip of some kind of delirium, I must have said and done things then of which I was not in the least conscious. I believe I went around and around the room with long strides, in my pajamas, my hair all untidy, at one moment beseeching Emilia not to leave me, at another, explaining my own position, and then simply addressing my remarks to the air, as if I had been alone. The Odyssey film-script, the flat, the installments to be paid, my sacrificed theatrical ambitions, my love for Emilia, Battista, Rheingold, all the aspects of my life and all the people in it were jumbled up in my mouth, in a rapid, incoherent rush of words, like the little pieces of colored glass at the bottom of a kaleidoscope when a violent hand shakes it. But at the same time I felt that this kaleidoscope was nothing but a poor, illusory thing—simply, in fact, a few bits of colored glass with no order or design about them; and now the kaleidoscope was broken, and the pieces of glass lay scattered on the floor, under my eyes. I had at the same time a very precise feeling of abandonment and of fear of being abandoned, but beyond this feeling I could not go; it oppressed me and prevented me not merely from thinking, but almost from breathing. My whole self rebelled violently at the thought of the separation and of the loneliness that would follow; but I realized that, in spite of the sincerity of this feeling of rebellion, I was not speaking convincingly; on the contrary. And indeed every now and then there was a rent in the clouds of alarm and terror that enveloped me, and then I would see Emilia sitting on the divan, still in the same place, and calmly answering me: “Riccardo, do be sensible: it’s the only thing for us to do now.”
“But I don’t want you to go,” I repeated for the last time, stopping in front of her; “I don’t want you to.”
“Why don’t you want me to? Be logical.”
I don’t know what I said, and then I went to the far end of the room again and thrust my hands into my hair and pulled it. Then I saw that, in the state I was in, I was quite incapable not merely of convincing Emilia but even of expressing myself. I managed, with an effort, to control myself, and I went and sat down on the divan again and, bending forward and taking my head in my hands, asked: “When do you intend to go?”
“Today.”
After saying this she rose to her feet and, taking no further notice of me as I sat hunched up with my head in my hands, went out of the room. I had not expected her to do this, just as hitherto I had not expected any of the things she had said and done; and for