Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories - Italo Calvino [93]
Fulgenzio! Fulgenzio! Where's Fulgenzio sneaked off to? Typical! I know how that idiot spends his days well enough! Fulgenzio! Caught you in front of the mirror pulling faces! Again!
Frenetically I would improvise guilty, caught-red-handed faces, soldiers' standing-at-attention faces, obedient, good-boy faces, moron-from-birth faces, gangster faces, angel faces, monster faces, one after the other.
Fulgenzio, how many times do we have to tell you not to get so wrapped up in yourself! Look outside the windows! See how nature burgeons sprouts rusdes whirrs blossoms! See how the busy town seethes pulsates throbs churns produces! Every member of my family would raise an arm to point me to something out there in the landscape, something that as they saw it would have the power to attract me excite me give me the energy that — as they saw it of course — I lacked. I would look and look, my eyes would follow their pointing fingers, I would try to get interested in what father mother aunts uncles grandmothers grandfathers older brothers older sisters younger brothers and sisters once twice third removed cousins teachers supervisors supply teachers school-friends and holiday friends were suggesting to me. But I couldn't find absolutely anything extraordinary in things as they were.
But perhaps there were other things hidden behind these things, and those, yes, those might interest me, indeed I was extremely curious about them. Sometimes I would see something, or someone, or some woman appear and disappear, I wasn't quick enough to identify what or whom, and at once I would race off after them. It was the hidden side of everything that intrigued me, the hidden side of houses, the hidden side of gardens, the hidden side of streets, the hidden side of towns, the hidden side of televisions, the hidden side of dishwashers, the hidden side of the sea, the hidden side of the moon. But when I managed to get to that hidden side, I realized that what I was looking for was the hidden side of the hidden side, or rather, the hidden side of the hidden side of the hidden side, no; the hidden side of the hidden side of the hidden side of the hidden side …
Fulgenzio, what are you doing? Fulgenzio, what are you looking for? Are you looking for somebody, Fulgenzio? I didn't know what to answer.
Sometimes, at the back of the mirror, behind my reflection, I thought I saw a presence I wasn't quick enough to identify and which immediately hid. I tried to study not myself in the mirror but the world behind me: nothing caught my attention. I was about to turn away when, there, I would see it peep out from the opposite side of the mirror. I would always catch it with the corner of my eye in the place where I least expected it, but as soon as I tried to get a good look it had gone. Despite the speed of its movements this creature was flowing and soft, as if swimming underwater.
I left the mirror and started to look for the spot where I'd seen the presence disappear. Ottilia! Ottilia!’ I called it, because I liked that name and thought a girl I liked could have no other. Ottilia! Where are you hiding?’ I always had the impression she was near, there in front, no: there behind, no; there round the corner, but I always arrived a second after she'd gone. Ottilia! Ottilia!’ But if they had asked me: who is Ottilia? I wouldn't have known what to say.
Fulgenzio, a person has to know what he wants! Fulgenzio, you can't always be so vague about your plans! Fulgenzio, you must set yourself an end to achieve — an objective — an aim — a target - you must press on to your goal - you must learn your lesson, you must win the competition, you must earn a lot and save a lot!
I aimed at where I planned to get to, I concentrated my strength, I tensed my will, but my point of arrival was departing, my energies were centrifugal, my will tended only to distend. I gave it all I'd got, I worked hard to study Japanese, to get my astronaut's diploma, to win the weight-lifting championship, to collect a billion in hundred-lire pieces.
You keep right on on the path you've chosen,