Contempt - Alberto Moravia [94]
But, instead of this, things had turned out exactly as I had not expected them to turn out: the explanation had taken place—or at least such explanation as was possible between us two—and I knew just as much as I had known before. Worse still, I had discovered that the reason for Emilia’s contempt could quite possibly be established through an examination of our past relations, yet she herself was not disposed to recognize this and wished, in her heart, to go on despising me without a reason, thus depriving me of all possibility of exculpating and justifying myself, and shutting herself off, on her side, from any possible return to esteem and love of me.
I realized, in short, that in Emilia the feeling of contempt had preceded by a long way any justifications for it, either real or imaginary, that I might have provided by my behavior. The contempt had been born out of the daily proximity of our two characters, regardless of any important, recognizable test, in the same way as the purity of a precious metal is established by contact with the touchstone. And indeed, when I had hazarded the theory that her ceasing to love me might have had its origin in a mistaken estimate, on her part, of my demeanor towards Battista, she had neither accepted nor rejected it, but had taken refuge in silence. In reality, I thought suddenly, with a stab of pain, she had considered me, from the start, to be capable of this and of even more; and all she asked was that I, by my theories, should confirm her in her feeling. In other words, in Emilia’s attitude towards me there was an appraisement of my worth, an estimate of my character, quite independent of my actions. The latter, it so happened, had appeared to confirm her appraisement and her estimate; but, even without such a confirmation, she would not, in all probability have judged me differently.
And indeed the proof, if there was any need of one, lay in the mysterious strangeness of her conduct. She could, from the very beginning, have dissipated the cruel misunderstanding upon which our love had been wrecked by talking to me, by telling me of it, by opening her heart to me. But she had not done this, because—as I had cried out to her a short time before—she did not really want to be undeceived, she wanted to go on despising me.
Up till now I had been lying in the deck chair. But, in the uncontrollable agitation which these thoughts caused in me, I rose almost automatically and went and stood by the parapet with my hands resting on it. I wanted, perhaps, to calm myself by contemplating the calmness of the night. But, as I held up my burning face to catch a faint puff of air that seemed to breathe from the surface of the sea, I thought suddenly that I did not deserve such relief. And I realized that a man who is despised neither can nor ought to find peace as long as the contempt endures. He may say, like the sinners at the Last Judgment: “Mountains, fall on us, and hills, cover us”; but contempt follows him even into the remotest hiding-place, for it has entered into his spirit and he bears it about with him wherever he may go.
I went back, then, and lay down again in the deck chair, and with a trembling hand lit a cigarette. It seemed to me, however, that, whether I was despicable or not—and I was convinced that I was not—I still retained my intelligence, a quality which even Emilia recognized in me and which was my whole pride and justification. I was bound to think, whatever the object