Contempt (24 page)

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 differences were not so great, after all.”

Feeling perfectly calm now, I said firmly: “No, Rheingold, they were very great indeed. It may be that you’re right to see the
Odyssey
in that way, but I’m convinced that, even today, the
Odyssey
could be made as Homer wrote it.”

“That’s an aspiration on your part, Molteni. You aspire after a world like that of Homer...you would like it to be so...but unfortunately it isn’t!”

I said conciliatingly: “Let’s leave it at that, then: I aspire after that sort of world. You, on the other hand, do not!”

“Oh yes, I do, Molteni...who doesn’t? But when it’s a question of making a film, aspirations are not enough.”

There was a further silence. I looked at Rheingold and realized that, even though he understood my reasons, he was still not altogether convinced. Suddenly I asked him: “No doubt you know the Ulysses canto in Dante, Rheingold?”

“Yes,” he answered, a little surprised at my question, “I know it, but I don’t remember it exactly.”

“Do you mind if I recite it to you? I know it by heart.”

“Please do, if you care to.”

I did not know precisely why I wanted to recite this passage from Dante—perhaps, I thought afterwards, because it seemed to me the best way of repeating certain things to Rheingold without running the risk of offending him afresh. While the director was settling himself in his armchair, and his face assuming a submissive expression, I added: “In this canto Dante makes Ulysses relate his own end and that of his companions.”

“Yes, I know, Molteni, I know; recite it then.”

I concentrated my thoughts for a moment, looking down on the floor, and then began: “
The greater horn of the ancient flame began to shake itself, murmuring, just like a flame that struggles with the wind
”—continuing steadily in a normal voice and, as far as I could, without emphasis. Rheingold, after considering me for a moment, with a frown, from beneath the peak of his cloth cap, turned his eyes in the direction of the sea and sat without moving. I went on with my recitation, speaking slowly and clearly. But at the lines: “‘
O brothers!’ I said, ‘who through a hundred thousand dangers have reached the West, deny not, to this brief vigil of your sense that remains, experience of the unpeopled world behind the Sun
’”—I felt that my voice, in spite of myself, was trembling with sudden emotion. I considered how there was contained, in those few lines, not merely the idea I had formed of the figure of Ulysses, but also of myself and of my life as it ought to have been and, alas, was not; and I realized that my emotion arose from the clarity and beauty of this idea in comparison with my own actual powerlessness. However I more or less succeeded in controlling the tremor in my voice and went on, without stumbling, to the very last lines: “
Three times it made her whirl round with all the waters; at the fourth, made the poop rise up and prow go down, as pleased Another, till the sea was closed above us
.” The moment I had finished I jumped to my feet. Rheingold also rose from his armchair.

“Allow me, Molteni,” he said at once, hastily, “allow me to ask you...Why did you recite this fragment of Dante to me? ...For what purpose? It’s very beautiful, of course—but why?”

“This, Rheingold,” I said, “this is the Ulysses I should have liked to create...this is how I see Ulysses...Before leaving you I wanted to confirm it unmistakably...I felt I could do this better by reciting the passage from Dante than in my own words.”

“Better, of course...but Dante is Dante: a man of the Middle Ages...You, Molteni, are a modern man.”

I did not answer this time, but put out my hand. He understood, and added: “All the same, Molteni, I shall be very sorry to do without your collaboration...I was already getting accustomed to you.”

“Some other time, perhaps,” I answered. “I should have liked to work with you, too, Rheingold.”

“But why, then? Why, Molteni...?”

“Fate,” I said with a smile, shaking his hand. And I walked away. He remained standing beside the counter, in the bar, his arms outstretched as if to repeat: “Why?”

I hurried out of the hotel.

I RETURNED HOME as hurriedly as I had come; and with a feeling of impatience and of pugnacious elation which prevented me from reflecting calmly over what had happened. In fact, as I ran along the narrow ribbon of cement under the burning sun, I did not think of anything. The deadlock in an unbearable situation had already lasted too long, and now I knew I had broken it; I was aware, too, that in a short time I should at last know why it was that Emilia had ceased to love me; but beyond the establishment of these facts I could not go. Reflection belongs either to the moment after, or to the moment before, the taking of action. During the time of action we are guided by reflections already past and forgotten, which have been transformed in our minds into passions. I was acting; therefore I was not thinking. I knew that I should think later, when action was over.

When I reached the villa, I ran up the stairs leading to the terrace and went into the living-room. It was empty, but a magazine lying open in an armchair, some red-stained cigarette-stumps in the ash-tray, and the sound of subdued dance-music coming from the radio indicated to me that Emilia had been there until a few moments before. And then, owing perhaps to the softened, pleasing brilliance of the afternoon light, perhaps to the discreet music, I felt my anger subsiding, though the causes which had inspired it remained firm and clear. I was struck, particularly, by the comfortable, serene, familiar, inhabited look of the room. It looked as if we had been living in the villa for months, and as if Emilia had become accustomed by now to regarding it as her settled abode. The radio, the magazine, the cigarette-stumps, all reminded me, for some reason, of her old love of home, of the pathetic yearning, wholly instinctive and feminine, that she had had for a hearth, a stable resting-place of her own. I saw that, notwithstanding all that had happened, she was preparing for a long stay, and that she was, in reality, pleased to be at Capri, in Battista’s house. And now, instead, I was coming to tell her that we had to go away again.

Thoughtfully I went to the door of Emilia’s room and opened it. She was not there; but here too I noticed signs of her domestic instincts—the dressing-gown carefully laid out on the armchair, at the foot of the bed, the slippers placed neatly beside it; the numerous small bottles and pots and other accessories of beauty tidily arranged on the dressing-table, in front of the mirror; on the bedside table a single book, an English grammar, the study of which she had embarked upon some time before, and with it an exercise-book, a pencil, and a small bottle; and no trace at all of the many suitcases she had brought from Rome. Almost by instinct I opened the wardrobe: Emilia’s dresses—not very many of them—were hanging in a row on coat-hangers; on a shelf were arranged handkerchiefs large and small, belts, ribbons, a few pairs of shoes. Yes, I thought, it did not really matter to Emilia whether she loved me or loved Battista: what mattered more than anything was to have a house of her own, to be able to count upon a long, quiet stay, without worries of any kind.

I left the room and went along a short passage towards the kitchen, which was in a little annex at the back of the house. When I reached the threshold, I heard the voice of Emilia in conversation with the cook. I stopped, automatically, behind the open door and listened for a moment.

Emilia was giving the cook instructions for our dinner that evening, “Signor Molteni,” she was saying, “likes plain cooking, without a lot of gravies and sauces—just boiled or roast, in fact. It’ll be better for you, you’ll have less to do, Agnesina.”

“Well, Signora, there’s always plenty to do. Even plain cooking isn’t as plain as all that. What shall we have this evening, then?”

There was a short pause. Evidently Emilia was reflecting. Then she asked: “Would there still be any fish at this time of day?”

“Yes, if I go to the fishmonger who serves the hotels.”

“Well then, buy a nice big fish—two or three pounds, or even more...But it must be a good quality fish, without too many bones...
a dentice
or, better still, a
spigola
...in fact, the best you can get. And I think you’d better bake it...or boil it. You know how to make
mayonnaise
sauce, Agnesina?”

“Yes, I do.”

“All right...then if you boil it, make some
mayonnaise
... and then a salad, or some kind of cooked vegetables—carrots or
aubergines
or french beans...whatever you can find. And fruit, plenty of fruit. Put the fruit on the ice as soon as you get back from your shopping, so that it will be very cool when it’s served.”

“And what shall we do about a first course?”

“Oh yes, there’s the first course too! Let’s have something quite simple for this evening. Buy some ham—but be sure you get the best quality...and let’s have some figs with it. There
are
figs to be got?”

“Yes, you can get figs.”

I don’t know why, but while I was listening to this domestic conversation, so quiet, so easily foreseeable, I suddenly remembered the last words I had exchanged with Rheingold. He had said that I aspired after a world like that of the
Odyssey
; and I had agreed with him; and then he had retorted that this aspiration of mine could never be satisfied, that the modern world was not the world of the
Odyssey
. And now I thought: “Yet here is a situation that might have occurred just as well thousands of years ago, in the days of Homer...the mistress talking to her servingmaid, giving her instructions for the evening meal.” This idea recalled to my mind the lovely afternoon light, radiant but soft, which filled the living-room, and, as though by enchantment, it seemed to me that Battista’s villa was the house in Ithaca, and that Emilia was Penelope, in the act of speaking to her servant. Yes, I was right; everything was, or might have been, as it was then; and yet everything was so bitterly different. With an effort, I put my head in at the door and said: “Emilia.”