Contempt - Alberto Moravia [57]
I glanced, automatically, at Emilia, and noticed on her face that curious look of disintegration of the features that I had observed on other occasions—the sign, in her, of perplexity and aversion. But I attached no importance to it; nor did I in any way connect this expression with Battista’s proposal, which was in any case quite reasonable. “Very good idea,” I said, forcing myself to appear cheerful, as the happy circumstance of this trip to the seaside seemed to demand. “Very good idea...Emilia will go with you and Rheingold with me...But I don’t promise to talk about the script.”
“I’m frightened of going fast,” began Emilia, “and you, in that car of yours—you always drive too fast...” But Battista, impulsively, took her by the arm, crying: “No need to be frightened with me. Besides, what are you frightened of? I’ve got my own skin to think about, too”; and as he spoke he almost dragged her off towards his own car. I saw Emilia look at me with a bewildered, questioning air, and wondered whether I ought not to insist on taking her with me. But I thought Battista might take offense; motoring was a passion with him and, to tell the truth, he drove extremely well; and so I again said nothing. Emilia made one more feeble objection: “But I should rather have gone in my husband’s car”; and Battista protested, facetiously: “Husband indeed! Why, you spend the whole day with your husband. Come on, or I shall be offended.” In the meantime they had reached the car. Battista opened the door, Emilia got in and sat down, Battista was walking round the car to get in, himself, on the other side...Watching them in a rather dreamy way, I gave a start as Rheingold’s voice said to me: “Are we ready, then?” I roused myself, got into my own car, and started the engine.
Behind me I heard the roar of Battista’s car as it started; then it passed us and went off swiftly down the hill. I had scarcely time to catch a glimpse, through the rear window, of the head and shoulders of Emilia and Battista side by side; then the car turned a corner and vanished.
Battista had suggested that we should talk about the script during our journey. The suggestion was superfluous: when we had traversed the whole length of the city and I had turned into the Formia road at the moderate speed allowed by my small car, Rheingold, who so far had been silent, began: “Now tell me honestly, Molteni, you were afraid, that day in Battista’s office, weren’t you, that you were going to be forced into making a kolossal film?” He stressed the German word with a smile.
“I’m still afraid of it,” I answered absent-mindedly, “partly because that’s the way things are going at present in the Italian studios.”
“Well, you’re not to be afraid. We,” he said, assuming all at once a hard, authoritative tone, “we are going to make a film that is psychological and only psychological...as indeed I said to you that day. I, my dear Molteni, am not accustomed to doing what the producers want, but what I want. On the set, it is I who am the master, and no one else. Otherwise I don’t make the film. Quite simple, isn’t it?”
I answered that it was, indeed, quite simple; and I spoke in a tone of sincere pleasure, because this assertion of autonomy made me hope that I would easily come to such terms with Rheingold as would result in the work being less tedious than usual. After a moment’s silence, Rheingold resumed: “And now I should like to explain some of my ideas to you. I presume you can drive and listen at the same time?”
“Of course,” I said; but at that same moment, as I turned very slightly towards him, a cart drawn by two oxen appeared out of a side road and I had to swerve suddenly. The car heeled over, zig-zagged violently, and I had considerable difficulty in righting it, just in time to avoid a tree, by a narrow margin. Rheingold started to laugh. “One would say not,” he remarked.
“Don’t bother about that,” I said, rather annoyed. “It was quite impossible for me to have seen those oxen. Go on: I’m