Contempt - Alberto Moravia [56]
I answered joyfully, thinking to give her pleasure: “No, we shan’t go to an hotel...hotels are so tiresome. I’ve something better than an hotel; Battista is lending us his villa...We shall be able to use the villa the whole time I’m working at the script.”
I was immediately aware—as I had feared a few days before, when I had too hastily accepted Battista’s offer—that Emilia, for some reason of her own, did not like this plan. In fact, she at once freed herself from my embrace and, drawing away to one corner of the divan, repeated: “Battista’s villa...and you’ve already accepted?”
“I thought you would be pleased,” said I, trying to justify myself; “a villa is far better than an hotel.”
“You’ve already accepted?”
“Yes, I thought I was doing right.”
“And we shall be there with the director?”
“No, Rheingold is going to live at the hotel.”
“Will Battista come there?”
“Battista?” I replied, vaguely surprised by this question. “I suppose he may come now and then...but only for a short time, a week-end, a day or two...just to see how our work is going.”
This time she said nothing: but she fumbled in the pocket of her dressing-gown, took out her handkerchief and blew her nose. As she did so, she pushed aside her dressing-gown, which fell wide open almost up to her waist, uncovering her belly and her legs. She kept her legs tightly crossed, as if from modesty, but the white, youthful, plump belly flowed over on to the crossed, muscular thighs with a generous innocence that seemed more powerful than any rebuff. Looking at her then, as she seemed to be unconsciously offering herself, I felt a violent desire, of unparalleled spontaneity, which for a moment gave me the illusion that I might approach and possess her.
But I knew that, however great my longing might be, I would not do so; and all I did was to watch her, almost furtively, while she blew her nose—as though I were afraid of being discovered in the act of looking at her, and put to shame. As soon as she had finished, however, she remarked that I had now reached the point of looking secretly at my wife’s nudity, with the excitement with which one looks at forbidden things, like a boy peeping through a crack into a bath house; and with a feeling of violent annoyance I put out my hand and pulled down the edge of her dressing-gown over her legs. She did not appear to be aware of my gesture but, putting her handkerchief back into her pocket, said in a voice that was now perfectly calm: “I’ll come to Capri, then...but on one condition—”
“Don’t talk to me of conditions. I don’t want to hear anything,” I cried, unexpectedly; “all right, we’ll go...but I don’t want to hear anything...and now go away, go away.” There must have been some kind of fury in my voice, for she immediately got up, as though she were frightened, and hurriedly left the room.
12
THE DAY ARRIVED when we were to leave for Capri. Battista had decided to accompany us to the island, to do us the honors of his house, as he himself expressed it; and that morning, when we came down into the street, we found the producer’s high-powered red motor-car standing beside my own unpretentious little machine. It was now the beginning of June, but the weather was still unsettled, cloudy and windy. Battista, wearing a leather wind-jacket and flannel trousers, was standing beside the car talking to Rheingold, who—like a good German, thinking of Italy as the land of sunshine—had dressed very lightly for the occasion, with a peaked cap of white cloth and a striped linen suit of colonial cut. Emilia and I came out of the house followed by the porter and the maid carrying our suitcases; the other two at once left the car and came to meet us.
“Well, how shall we arrange ourselves?” asked Battista, after we had greeted each other. Then, without waiting for an answer: “I suggest that Signora Molteni comes with me, in my car, and Rheingold with you, Molteni. Then you can begin talking about the film during the journey...Because,” he concluded with a smile, but in a serious voice, “the real