Contempt - Alberto Moravia [72]
I realized that I had become over-excited and that my eyes had actually filled with tears. And I was ashamed and in my heart I cursed my excess of feeling which encouraged me to make confidences of this kind to the man who, a few moments earlier, had successfully tried to entice my wife away from me. But Battista was not put out of countenance for so small a matter. “You know, Molteni,” he said, “hearing you talk, I seem to see myself again at the time when I was your age.”
“Oh, really?” I stammered, disconcerted.
“Yes, I was extremely poor,” pursued Battista, helping himself to more wine, “and I also had, as you say, ideals...What those ideals were, I could not now say, and perhaps I did not know even then...but I had them nevertheless...or perhaps I did not have this or that ideal, but Ideals with a capital I... Then I met a man to whom I owe a very great deal, if only for having taught me certain things.” Battista paused a moment, with characteristic, heavy solemnity, and I could not help calling to mind, almost involuntarily, that the man to whom he was alluding was without doubt a certain film producer, forgotten now, but famous in the days of the early Italian cinema, with whom, and under whose orders, Battista had indeed started out upon his prosperous career; a man who, however, as far as I knew, was to be admired for nothing except his capacity for making money. “To that man,” Battista went on, “I made more or less the same speech as you’ve made to me this evening. You know what he answered me? That ideals, until one knows exactly what one wants, are best forgotten and put aside...but, as soon as one has planted one’s foot on solid ground, then one should remember them, and that should become the ideal...the first thousand-lire note one earns—that’s the best ideal! Then, as he said to me, one’s ideal develops and becomes a film studio, a theater, films that have been made and that are going to be made—one’s everyday work, in fact. That’s what he said to me...and I did as he told me and everything turned out well. But you—you have the great advantage of knowing what your ideal is—to write plays. Well, you will write them!”
“I will write them?” I could not help asking, feeling doubtful but, at the same time, already somewhat comforted.
“Yes, you will write them,” Battista affirmed; “you will write them if you really want to, even if you are working for money, even if you are making scripts for Triumph Films. D’you want to know what the secret of success is, Molteni?”
“What is it?”
“Get into the queue, in life, just as you get into the queue at the booking-office, at the station. Our moment always comes, if we have patience and don’t change queues. Our moment always comes, and the booking-office clerk gives each person his ticket...each person according to his merits, of course...anyone who is going a long way, and is capable of doing so, may even be given a ticket for Australia. Others who are not going so far are given tickets for shorter journeys—for Capri, possibly!” He laughed, pleased with this ambiguous allusion to our journey, and then added: “I hope you yourself may receive a ticket for a very far-off destination...how about America?”
I looked at Battista, who was smiling at me in a fatherly manner, and then I looked at Emilia and saw that she too was smiling; it was a very faint smile, it is true, but no less sincere on that account—at least so it seemed to me. And I realized once again that Battista, that day, had somehow managed to change her aversion into a feeling that was almost one of liking for him. At this thought I was overwhelmed anew by the sadness that had assailed me when it seemed to me that I detected Signora Pasetti’s look in the eyes of Emilia. I said sadness, rather than jealousy: in reality I was extremely tired, owing both to the journey and to the various events of the day, and weariness was intermingled with all my feelings, even the most violent, deadening them and changing them into an impotent, despairing