Contempt - Alberto Moravia [75]
She had reassumed her tone of contempt, thus confirming my suppositions. And quite suddenly I experienced the same pain that I had felt that first time in Rome, when she had flung her aversion in my face. I could not help exclaiming: “Emilia, why all this?...Why are we so hostile to each other?”
She had opened the wardrobe and was looking at herself at the mirror on the door. She said, in an absent-minded way: “Well, well, it’s life, I suppose!”
Her words took my breath away, leaving me rigid and silent. Emilia had never spoken to me in that way, with such indifference and apathy and in so conventional a phrase. I knew I could have reversed the situation again by telling her I had seen her with Battista, as she herself knew perfectly well; that, in asking her to decide for me about the film-script, I had simply wished to put her to the test—which was true; and that, in short, the question between her and me was still the same as ever. But I had not the courage, or rather, the strength, to say these things: I felt utterly tired, and quite unable to start all over again. So, instead, I said, almost timidly: “And what will you do all the time we’re in Capri, while I’m working on the film?”
“Nothing special. I’ll go for walks...and swim, and sunbathe...the same as everyone does.”
“All alone.”
“Yes, all alone.”
“Won’t you be bored, alone?”
“I’m never bored. I’ve plenty of things to think about!”
“Do you sometimes think about me?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“And what do you think?” I too had risen, and had gone over to her and taken her hand.
“We’ve talked about that so many times already.” She resisted my hold, yet without disengaging her hand.
“Do you still think about me in the same way?”
This time she pulled herself away from me and said brusquely: “Now listen, you’d better go to bed. I know there are certain things you don’t like, and indeed it’s quite natural. On the other hand, I can only repeat what I’ve said before. What’s the point of talking about them again?”
“But I do want to talk about them again.”
“Why? I should only have to say again all the things I’ve already said so many times. I haven’t changed my mind just because I’ve come to Capri: on the contrary.”
“What do you mean by ‘on the contrary’?”
“When I said ‘on the contrary,’ ” she explained rather confusedly, “I meant that I haven’t changed—that’s all.”
“You still have the same...the same feeling about me, in fact? Isn’t that so?”
Unexpectedly, and in an almost tearful voice, she protested. “Why do you torment me like this? Do you think it gives me any pleasure to say these things to you? I dislike them more than you do!”
I was moved by the pain which I seemed to detect in her voice. Taking her hand again, I said: “Anyhow, I think a great deal of you...and I always shall,” I added, as though to make her see that I forgave her for her unfaithfulness, which indeed was true, “whatever happens.”
She said nothing. She looked away, and seemed to be waiting. But at the same time I felt her trying to disengage her hand from mine, with a sly but persistent and obstinately hostile movement. And so I abruptly bade her good night and left the room. It was with a sharp renewal of pain that I heard the key, almost at once, being turned in the lock.
17
NEXT MORNING I rose early, and, without taking steps to find out where Battista and Emilia were, left—or rather, made my escape from—the house. After the night’s rest, the happenings of the previous day and, above all, my own behavior, appeared in an unpleasant light, as a series of absurdities which had been confronted in an equally absurd fashion; now I wanted to think calmly over what I ought to do, without compromising my own freedom of action by some hurried and irreparable decision. So I left the house, went back over the path I had traversed the evening before, and made my way to the hotel where Rheingold was staying. I inquired for him and was told