Contempt (8 page)

But man is always ready to hope, even when convinced that there is no hope. I had had a clear proof that Emilia no longer loved me, and yet there was still a doubt in my mind—or rather, a hope—that I might have placed a rash interpretation upon an incident which, fundamentally, was devoid of importance. All at once I said to myself that I must not be precipitate; that I must make her tell me herself that she no longer loved me; that only she could provide me with the proofs that I still lacked...These thoughts pursued each other swiftly through my mind as I sat on the divan staring into vacancy. Then the door opened and Emilia came in again.

She came over to the sofa and lay down again, behind me, and took up the magazine. Then, without turning, I said: “In a few moments Battista is going to telephone and make a proposal for me to do another script...a very important script.”

“Well, you must be pleased, aren’t you?” she said in her calm voice.

“With this script,” I went on, “I shall be able to earn a lot of money...anyhow, enough to pay two installments on the lease.”

This time she said nothing. I continued: “This script, moreover, is important for me because, if I do it, I shall have others to do afterwards...this is to be a big film.”

At last, in the detached voice of a person who is reading and who speaks without looking up from the page, she asked: “What film is it?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. I was silent for a moment, and then, in a rather emphatic tone, I added: “But I’ve decided to refuse this job.”

“And why?” Her voice was still quiet, indifferent.

I rose, walked round the sofa, and came and sat down in front of Emilia. She was holding the magazine in her hand, but when she saw me sit down opposite her, she lowered it and looked at me. “Because,” I said with full sincerity, “I, as you know, hate this work and do it only for love of you...in order to pay the installments on this flat, which means so much to you or seems to mean so much to you. But now I know for certain that you no longer love me...and so all this is useless.”

She was looking at me with her eyes wide open, but she said nothing. “You don’t love me any longer,” I went on, “and I shall not go on doing these jobs. As for the flat...well, I shall mortgage it or sell the lease. The fact is, I can’t go on like this any longer and I feel that the moment has come to tell you so. So now you know. In a short time Battista will telephone and I shall tell him to go to the devil.”

Now I had said it, and the moment had therefore arrived for the explanation I had so long both feared and desired. At this thought I felt almost relieved, and I looked at Emilia with a new frankness as I awaited her reply. She was silent for a little time before she answered me. Obviously my forthright declaration had surprised her. In the end, indeed, rather cautiously and precisely as if she wanted to gain time, she asked: “What makes you think I don’t love you any more?”

“Everything,” I answered with passionate vehemence.

“For instance?”

“Tell me first of all whether it’s true or not.”

She insisted, obstinately: “No, you tell me what makes you think that.”

“Everything,” I repeated; “your way of talking to me, of looking at me, the way you behave to me. Everything. A month ago you even insisted on our sleeping apart. You wouldn’t have wanted that, once upon a time!”

She looked at me, irresolute; and then, suddenly, I saw her eyes light up with rapid decision. She had, in that precise moment, I thought, determined upon the attitude to be taken with me, and now would not deviate from her decision, whatever I might say or do. At last she replied, quite gently: “But I assure you, I swear to you. I cannot sleep with the shutters open. I need darkness and silence. I swear it.”

“But I offered to sleep with the shutters closed.”

“Well,” she hesitated, “must I also tell you, then, that when you’re asleep you’re not silent?”

“What do you mean?”

“You snore.” She smiled faintly and then went on: “You used to wake me up every night...That’s why I decided to sleep by myself.”

I was somewhat disconcerted at this detail of my snoring, of which I was ignorant and which, furthermore, I found it difficult to believe: I had slept with other women and none of them had ever told me that I snored. “And then,” I said, “I know you don’t love me because a wife who loves”—I hesitated, slightly shamefaced—“does not make love in the way you’ve been doing, for some time past, with me.”

She immediately protested, irritably and roughly: “Really I don’t know what it is you want. We make love every time you wish to. And have I ever refused you?”

I knew that of the two of us, in this kind of confidential talk, it was always I who was the modest, the shamefaced, the embarrassed one. Emilia, usually so reserved and proper, seemed, in intimacy, to lose all idea of modesty or embarrassment: in fact, in a way that vaguely astonished me every time and that I found attractive for some quality it had of natural innocence, she used to talk, before, during, and after our love-making, of that love-making itself, without the slightest veil of tenderness or reticence and with a disconcerting crudeness and freedom. “No, not refused,” I muttered; “no...but...”

She resumed, in a conclusive tone of voice: “Every single time you’ve wanted to make love, we’ve done so. And you’re not one to be contented with just the simple act...you’re good at making love, you know.”

“Do you think so?” I asked, almost flattered.

“Yes,” she said dryly, without looking at me, “but if I didn’t love you, the very fact of your being good at making love would irritate me, and I should try to avoid it...and a woman can always find excuses for refusing, can’t she?”

“All right,” I said, “you do it, you’ve never refused me... but the way in which you do it is not the way of a person who loves.”

“Why, in what way do I do it?”

I ought to have answered her: “You do it like a prostitute who submits to her client and wants only that the thing shall be quickly over...that’s how you do it!” But, out of respect for her and for myself too, I preferred to remain silent. And in any case, what would have been the use of it? She would have replied that it was not true, and—quite probably—she would have reminded me, with crude technical precision, of certain transports of sensuality on her own side, in which everything was included—skill, pursuit of pleasure, violent excitement, erotic fury—everything except tenderness and the indescribable abandonment of true surrender; and I should not have known what to say to this; and, into the bargain, I should have offended her with that insulting comparison and thus have put myself in the wrong. And so, in despair, realizing that the explanation I had wanted to bring about had now dissolved into thin air, I said: “Well anyhow, whatever the reason, I’m convinced you don’t love me any more—that’s all.”

Again, before either answering or moving, she looked at me as if to calculate, from the expression of my face, what would be the most suitable attitude for her to take towards me. I noticed then a peculiarity which I already knew: her beautiful, dark, serene face, so harmonious, so symmetrical, so compact, underwent, through the irresolution that cleft her mind, a process almost, as it were, of decay: one cheek seemed to have grown thinner (but not the other), her mouth was no longer exactly in the middle of her face, her eyes, bewildered and dim, seemed to be disintegrating within their sockets as though within a circle of dark wax. I said that I already knew this peculiarity of hers: this same thing did in fact happen every time she had to face a decision which she disliked or towards which she did not feel herself naturally drawn. And then, with a sudden impulse of her whole body, she threw her arms round my neck, saying in a voice that sounded to me false: “But Riccardo, why do you say that?...I do love you...just as much as I did in the past.” Her breath was warm in my ear, and I felt her pass her hand over my forehead, my temples, my hair, and pull my head down against her breast, clasping it tightly between her arms.

But the idea came into my mind that she was embracing me like that so as not to show me the expression on her face, which was perhaps merely bored and at the same time diligent, the expression of a person who does something in which his spirit has no share, purely from volition; and as I pressed my face, in a desperate longing for love, against her breast, half-bared and rising and falling with her calm breathing, I could not help thinking: “These are only gestures...but she is bound to give herself away by some remark or some intonation in her voice.” I waited a little, and then she ventured to say, cautiously: “What would you do if I really had ceased to love you?”

So I was right, I thought in bitter triumph; she had betrayed herself. She wished to know what I would do if she had ceased to love me, so as to weigh up and estimate all the risks of complete frankness. Without moving, speaking into her soft, warm breast, I said: “I’ve already told you...the first thing I’d do would be to refuse Battista’s new job.” I should have liked to add: “And I should part from you”; but I had not the courage to say it at that moment, with my cheek against her breast and her hand on my forehead. In reality I still hoped that she might love me, and I was afraid that this separation, even by the admission of its mere possibility, might really come to pass. Finally I heard her say, while she still went on embracing me closely: “But I do love you...and all this is absurd. Now, you know what you’re going to do? As soon as Battista telephones, you must make an appointment with him and then you must go and accept the job.”

“But why should I do that, seeing that you’ve ceased to love me?” I cried in exasperation.

Her answer, this time, was given in a tone of reasonable reproof. “I love you, but don’t go on making me repeat it...and it means a lot to me to stay in this flat. If it doesn’t suit you to take this job, I shall not make any objection...but if you don’t want to take it because you think I’ve ceased to love you or because you think the flat doesn’t mean anything to me, let me tell you you’re quite wrong.”

I began almost to hope that she was not lying; and at the same time I realized that, at least for the moment, she had persuaded me. And yet, in desperation, I now wanted to know more, to be utterly sure, to have incontestable proofs. Then, as though she had an intuition of my desire, she loosened her hold of me all of a sudden and whispered: “Kiss me—won’t you?”

I raised myself up and looked at her for a moment before kissing her; I was struck by the air of fatigue, almost of exhaustion, that was visible in her face, now more disintegrated, more irresolute than ever. It was as though she had undergone a superhuman strain while she had been speaking to me and caressing and embracing me; and as though she were preparing to undergo another, even more painful, during the kiss. Nevertheless I took her chin in my hand and was on the point of bringing my lips close to hers. At that moment the telephone rang. “It’s Battista,” she said, disengaging herself with obvious relief and running into the next room. From the sofa, where I remained seated, I saw her, through the open door, take off the receiver and say: “Yes...yes, he’s here, I’ll get him at once...How are you?”

A few words followed, from the other end of the line. Then, with a gesture of understanding towards me from where she stood, she said: “We were just talking about you and your new film...”

A few more mysterious remarks. In a calm voice she said: “Yes, we must meet as soon as possible. Now I’ll get Riccardo for you.”

I got up, went into the other room and took the receiver. Battista told me, as I had foreseen, that he was expecting me next day, in the afternoon, at his office. I said I would come and exchanged a few more words with him, then replaced the receiver. Only then did I become aware that Emilia had left the room while I was speaking. And I could not help thinking that she had gone away because she had succeeded in persuading me to agree to the appointment with Battista; there was now no further need either of her presence or of her caresses.

I WENT TO MY appointment next day, at the time arranged. Battista’s offices occupied the entire first floor of an ancient palace, once the abode of a patrician family and now—as so often happens—the business premises of a number of commercial concerns. The great reception-rooms, with their frescoed, vaulted ceilings and stuccoed walls, had been divided by him, with simple wooden partitions, into a number of little rooms with utilitarian furniture; where once old paintings with mythological or sacred subjects had hung, there were now large, brightly colored posters; pinned up everywhere were photographs of actors and actresses, pages torn out of picture papers, framed certificates of festival awards, and other similar adornments generally to be found in the offices of film companies. In the anteroom, against a background of faded sylvan frescoes, rose, throne-like, an enormous counter of green-painted metal, from behind which three or four female secretaries welcomed visitors. Battista, as a producer, was still young, and he had made good progress in recent years with films inferior in quality but commercially successful. His company, modestly called “Triumph Films,” was, at the moment, regarded as one of the best.

At that hour the anteroom was already thronged, and, with the experience of film types I had now acquired, I could classify all the visitors with certainty at the first glance: two or three script-writers, recognizable by their look of mingled fatigue and industriousness, by the copy-books they held under their arms, and by the style of their clothes, at the same time both smart and careless; one or two elderly cinema organizers or managers, looking exactly like country estate-agents or cattle-brokers; two or three girls, aspiring actresses or rather walkers-on, young and pretty perhaps, but as it were spoiled in advance by their ambitions, with their studied expressions, their excessive make-up, and their way of dressing from which all simplicity was banished; and finally a few nondescript individuals such as are always to be found in producers’ anterooms—out-of-work actors, suggestion-mongers, cadgers of various kinds. All these people were walking up and down on the dirty mosaic floor, or lounging on the high-backed, gilt chairs round the walls, yawning, smoking and chattering in low voices. The secretaries, when they were not speaking on one of the numerous telephones, remained motionless behind the counter, staring into vacancy with eyes that, from sheer boredom and absence of thought, looked glassy and almost squinting. From time to time a bell rang with violent and unpleasant shrillness; and then the secretaries would rouse themselves, call out a name, and one of the visitors would jump up hastily and disappear through a white-and-gold double door.