Contempt - Alberto Moravia [86]
I fell back in my armchair, damp with sweat. Rheingold was now looking at me with a hard, serious expression and a deep frown. “You do, in fact, agree with Battista,” he said.
“No, I do not agree with Battista. I disagree with him.”
“On the contrary,” said Rheingold suddenly, raising his voice. “You’re not in disagreement with me, and you are in agreement with Battista.”
All at once I felt the blood leave my cheeks and knew that I had gone deathly pale. “What do you mean?” I asked in an uneven voice.
Rheingold leant forward and hissed (that is the only word for it) just like a snake when it sees itself threatened: “I mean what I said. Battista came to lunch with me today, and he did not conceal his ideas from me, nor the fact that you share them. You are not in disagreement with me, Molteni, and you are in agreement with Battista, whatever Battista may desire. To you, art does not matter; all you want is to be paid. That’s the truth of it, Molteni...all you want is to be paid, at any cost!”
“Rheingold!” I cried suddenly in a loud voice.
“Oh, yes, I understand, my dear sir,” he insisted, “and I repeat it to your face: at any cost!”
We were face to face now, breathless, I as white as paper and he scarlet. “Rheingold!” I repeated, still in the same loud, clear voice; but I became aware that it was not so much scorn that was not expressed in my voice as a kind of obscure pain, and that that cry: “Rheingold!” contained a prayer rather than the anger of an offended person who is on the point of passing from verbal to physical violence. Yet at the same time I was conscious of the fact that I was going to hit him. I had no time. Rheingold—strangely, for I thought him an obtuse kind of man—appeared to discern the pain in my voice and, all of a sudden, seemed to check and control himself. He drew back a little and said, in a low, deliberately humble tone: “Excuse me, Molteni. I said things I didn’t mean.”
I made an agitated gesture, as much as to say “I excuse you,” and felt at the same time that my eyes were filling with tears. After a moment’s embarrassment Rheingold resumed: “All right, it’s understood, then. You won’t take part in the script. Have you told Battista yet?”
“No.”
“Are you intending to tell him?”
“Please tell him yourself. I don’t think I shall see Battista again.” I was silent a moment, and then I added: “And tell him also to start looking out for another script-writer. Let it be quite clear, Rheingold.”
“What?” he asked in astonishment.
“That I shall not do any script of the Odyssey either according to your ideas, or according to Battista’s ideas...either with you, or with any other director. Do you understand, Rheingold?”
He understood at last, and a light of comprehension came into his eyes. Nevertheless he asked cautiously: “To put it shortly, is it that you don’t want to do my script, or that you don’t want to do this script in any way at all?”
After a moment’s reflection, I said: “I’ve already told you: I don’t want to do your script. However I quite realize, on the other hand, that if I account for my refusal in that way, I should do you harm in the eyes of Battista. Let’s put it like this, then: for you, it’s your script I don’t want to do...but, for Battista, let it be understood that I don’t want to do the script whatever interpretation may be given to the subject. Tell Battista, then, that I don’t feel like it, that I’m tired, that my nerves are worn out...is that all right?”
Rheingold appeared at once to be much relieved by my suggestion. He insisted, nevertheless: “And will Battista believe it?”
“He’ll believe it, don’t worry...you’ll see, he’ll believe it.”
A long silence ensured. We both felt embarrassed now; our recent quarrel still hung in the air and neither of us could quite manage to forget it. At last Rheingold said: “Yet, I’m very sorry you’re not going to collaborate in this work, Molteni. Perhaps we might have come to an agreement.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Perhaps the