Contempt (15 page)

I dropped into a doze, no doubt, and then suddenly awoke once more and caught a glimpse of Emilia sitting at the foot of the divan, in her dressing-gown. The living-room was still in semi-darkness, the shutters being lowered; but on the table, close to the divan, a small lamp was burning. Emilia had come into the room, turned on the light and sat down near me without my noticing it.

Seeing her sitting there at the end of my bed, in a familiar attitude that reminded me of other, very different awakenings in happier times, I had a moment’s illusion. Sitting up in bed, I stammered: “Emilia, do you love me?”

She waited a little before answering; then she said: “Listen, I’ve got to talk to you.”

I felt suddenly cold; and I was on the point of answering her that I didn’t want to talk about anything, and would she leave me in peace because I wanted to go to sleep. But instead, I asked: “Talk about what?”

“About us two.”

“But there’s nothing to be said,” I replied, trying to overcome a sudden anxiety. “You’ve ceased to love me, in fact you despise me...that’s all there is to it.”

“No, I wanted to say,” she announced slowly, “that I’m going back to my mother’s—today. I wanted to tell you before I telephoned. There, now you know.”

I had not at all foreseen this declaration, which, after all, considering what had happened the day before, was perfectly logical and to be expected. The idea that Emilia might leave me had never entered my mind, strange though that may seem; I thought that she had already reached the farthest limit of her hardness and cruelty towards me. And yet, here was that limit being passed at one bound, in a fashion that was totally unexpected. Scarcely understanding what she meant, I stammered: “You mean to leave me?”

“Yes.”

For a moment I was silent; then, all at once, I felt an urgent need for action, driven on by the very sharpness of the pain that pierced me. I jumped from the divan and went, in pajamas as I was, to the window, as though I intended to push up the shutters and let in the light; but then I turned back and shouted in a loud voice: “You can’t go away like that. I don’t want you to go.”

“Don’t talk like a child,” she said in a reasonable manner. “We’ve got to separate; it’s the only thing now for us to do. There’s nothing left between us two—at least as far as I’m concerned. It’ll be better for us both.”

I do not remember at all what I did after she had spoken these words: or rather, I remember only a few sentences, a few movements. As though in the grip of some kind of delirium, I must have said and done things then of which I was not in the least conscious. I believe I went around and around the room with long strides, in my pajamas, my hair all untidy, at one moment beseeching Emilia not to leave me, at another, explaining my own position, and then simply addressing my remarks to the air, as if I had been alone. The
Odyssey
film-script, the flat, the installments to be paid, my sacrificed theatrical ambitions, my love for Emilia, Battista, Rheingold, all the aspects of my life and all the people in it were jumbled up in my mouth, in a rapid, incoherent rush of words, like the little pieces of colored glass at the bottom of a kaleidoscope when a violent hand shakes it. But at the same time I felt that this kaleidoscope was nothing but a poor, illusory thing—simply, in fact, a few bits of colored glass with no order or design about them; and now the kaleidoscope was broken, and the pieces of glass lay scattered on the floor, under my eyes. I had at the same time a very precise feeling of abandonment and of fear of being abandoned, but beyond this feeling I could not go; it oppressed me and prevented me not merely from thinking, but almost from breathing. My whole self rebelled violently at the thought of the separation and of the loneliness that would follow; but I realized that, in spite of the sincerity of this feeling of rebellion, I was not speaking convincingly; on the contrary. And indeed every now and then there was a rent in the clouds of alarm and terror that enveloped me, and then I would see Emilia sitting on the divan, still in the same place, and calmly answering me: “Riccardo, do be sensible: it’s the only thing for us to do now.”

“But I don’t
want
you to go,” I repeated for the last time, stopping in front of her; “I don’t
want
you to.”

“Why don’t you want me to? Be logical.”

I don’t know what I said, and then I went to the far end of the room again and thrust my hands into my hair and pulled it. Then I saw that, in the state I was in, I was quite incapable not merely of convincing Emilia but even of expressing myself. I managed, with an effort, to control myself, and I went and sat down on the divan again and, bending forward and taking my head in my hands, asked: “When do you intend to go?”

“Today.”

After saying this she rose to her feet and, taking no further notice of me as I sat hunched up with my head in my hands, went out of the room. I had not expected her to do this, just as hitherto I had not expected any of the things she had said and done; and for a moment I was astonished and almost incredulous. Then I looked round the room and felt a strange sensation, chilling in its exactness: the separation had already taken place and my loneliness had already begun. The room was the same as it had been a few minutes earlier, when Emilia was sitting on the divan; and yet, I realized, it was already quite different. It was, I thought, as though it had lost a dimension. The room was no longer the one I had been accustomed to see, knowing that Emilia was there; it was already the one I should be seeing for an unknown length of time, in the knowledge that Emilia was
not
there and never would be there again. There was a deserted look in the air, in the aspect of all the things, everywhere, and, strangely, this look did not go out from me towards the things but seemed to come from the things back towards me. I did not think all this so much as become aware of it in the depths of my dull, aching, dazed sensibility. Then I found I was crying, because I felt a sort of tickling sensation at the corner of my mouth, and, when I put up my finger, found my cheek was wet. I heaved a deep sigh and began to weep openly, violently. In the meantime I had risen and walked out of the room.

In the bedroom, in a light which, after the semi-darkness of the living-room, and being in pajamas with my face bathed in tears, seemed dazzling and intolerable, Emilia was sitting on the untidy bed, listening at the telephone; and from a single word I knew that she was speaking to her mother. I thought I noticed that her face wore a perplexed, disconcerted expression; and then I sat down too, and, taking my face between my hands, went on sobbing. I did not very well know why I was crying like this: perhaps it was not only because my life was ruined, but because of some more ancient sorrow that had nothing to do with Emilia or with her decision to leave me. In the meantime Emilia was still listening at the telephone. Her mother was evidently making a long and complicated speech; and, even through my tears, I saw a disappointed, angry, bitter expression, swift and dark as the shadow of a cloud over a landscape, pass across her face. Finally she said: “All right, all right, I understand, we won’t talk about it any more”; but she was interrupted by another long speech from her mother. This time, however, she had not the patience to listen right to the end and said suddenly: “You’ve told me that already, all right, I understand, good-bye.” Her mother said something more, but Emilia repeated her “good-bye” and hung up the receiver, although her mother’s voice was still audible through it. Then she raised her eyes in my direction, but without looking at me, as though dazed. With an instinctive movement I seized her hand, stammering: “Don’t go away, please don’t...don’t go.”

Children believe that tears have a decisive value as a form of sentimental persuasion; and so, in general, do women and persons of feeble and childish spirit. At that moment—like a child or a woman or other feeble creature—although I was weeping from genuine sorrow, I cherished some kind of hope that my tears would persuade Emilia not to leave me; and this illusion, if it comforted me a little, at the same time aroused in me a feeling almost of hypocrisy. It was just as if I were weeping on purpose, as if I intended to make use of my tears in order to blackmail Emilia. All at once I was ashamed; and, without waiting for Emilia’s reply, I rose and left the room.

After a few minutes Emilia followed me. I had had time to recompose myself as best I could, to wipe my eyes, to put on a dressing-gown over my pajamas. I had sat down in the armchair and was automatically lighting a cigarette which I did not want. She also sat down, and said at once: “Don’t worry...don’t be afraid. I’m not going away.” But she said it in a bitter, despairing, apathetic voice. I looked at her: she kept her eyes lowered and appeared to be reflecting; but I noticed that the corners of her mouth were trembling and that her hands were occupied in turning back the edge of her dressing-gown, a gesture that showed she was disturbed and perplexed. Then, in a suddenly exasperated voice, she added: “My mother doesn’t want me. She says she has rented my room. She had two already; now she has three and the whole house is full. She says she doesn’t believe I’m really in earnest...that I ought to think it over. And so I don’t know where to go. No one wants me...and I shall be compelled to stay with you.”

I was struck by this last phrase, so cruel in its sincerity; and I think I gave a violent start, as if I had been stabbed. I could not help exclaiming, in resentment: “Why do you talk to me like that? ‘Compelled’...What have I done to you? Why do you hate me so?”

Now it was she who was crying, as I perceived, although she was trying not to show it, by hiding part of her face with her hand. Then she shook her head and said: “You didn’t want me to go away. Well, I’m staying. You ought to be pleased, oughtn’t you?”

I got up from the armchair, sat down beside her on the divan and took her in my arms, although I was conscious, at the first contact, that she withdrew and resisted me. “Certainly I want you to stay,” I said, “but not in that way, not ‘compelled.’ What have I done to you, Emilia, that you speak to me like that?”

“If you like, I’ll go away,” she answered; “I’ll take a room somewhere...and you won’t have to help me except just for a short time. I’ll get a job as a typist again. And as soon as I find work, I shan’t ask anything more from you.”

“No, no,” I cried. “I want you to stay. But, Emilia, not ‘compelled’ to stay, not ‘compelled.’ ”

“It’s not you who compel me,” she replied, still weeping, “it’s life.”

Once again, as I clasped her in my arms, I felt a temptation to ask her why it was that she had ceased to love me, why, in fact, she despised me, and what had happened, what I had done to her. But now, perhaps as a counterpoise to her tears and bewilderment, I had regained, partly, my composure. I said to myself that this was not the moment to ask certain questions; that probably, by such questions, I should gain no ground at all; and that perhaps, in order to get at the truth, I ought to have recourse to different, and less brusque, stratagems. I waited a little, while she went on weeping in silence, her face turned away from me. “Look,” I proposed, “let’s not have any more discussions or explanations...they serve no purpose except to make us hurt each other. There’s nothing more I want to know from you, at any rate for the present. But just listen to me for a moment: I have agreed, after all, to do the
Odyssey
script. But Battista wants us to do it somewhere in the Bay of Naples, where most of the exteriors will be taken...so we’ve decided to go to Capri. I’ll leave you to yourself, there, I swear; in any case I won’t be able to help doing so, as I shall be working all day with the director, and I may or may not see you at meal-times...Capri is an extremely beautiful place, and soon it will be possible to go swimming. You can rest, and bathe, and go for walks; it’ll be good for your nerves, and you can think it all over and decide at your leisure what you want to do. Your mother is really right, after all: you ought to think it over. Then, in four or five months’ time, you can tell me what you’ve decided, and then—and not till then—we’ll talk about it again.”

She kept her head turned sideways all the time, as if to avoid seeing me. Then she asked, in a somewhat comforted tone of voice: “And when should we be going?”

“At once...that is, in about ten days...as soon as the director comes back from Paris.”

I was wondering now, as I held her against me and felt the roundness and softness of her breast against mine, whether I dared take the risk of kissing her. Actually, she was taking no sort of share in our embrace, but merely submitting to it. All the same, I deceived myself into thinking that this passivity was not entirely the result of indifference, and that it contained some element of interest. Then I heard her ask, still in the same comforted yet reluctant tone: “Where shall we stay, in Capri? In an hotel?”

I answered joyfully, thinking to give her pleasure: “No, we shan’t go to an hotel...hotels are so tiresome. I’ve something better than an hotel; Battista is lending us his villa...We shall be able to use the villa the whole time I’m working at the script.”

I was immediately aware—as I had feared a few days before, when I had too hastily accepted Battista’s offer—that Emilia, for some reason of her own, did not like this plan. In fact, she at once freed herself from my embrace and, drawing away to one corner of the divan, repeated: “Battista’s villa...and you’ve already accepted?”

“I thought you would be pleased,” said I, trying to justify myself; “a villa is far better than an hotel.”

“You’ve already accepted?”

“Yes, I thought I was doing right.”

“And we shall be there with the director?”

“No, Rheingold is going to live at the hotel.”

“Will Battista come there?”

“Battista?” I replied, vaguely surprised by this question. “I suppose he may come now and then...but only for a short time, a week-end, a day or two...just to see how our work is going.”

This time she said nothing: but she fumbled in the pocket of her dressing-gown, took out her handkerchief and blew her nose. As she did so, she pushed aside her dressing-gown, which fell wide open almost up to her waist, uncovering her belly and her legs. She kept her legs tightly crossed, as if from modesty, but the white, youthful, plump belly flowed over on to the crossed, muscular thighs with a generous innocence that seemed more powerful than any rebuff. Looking at her then, as she seemed to be unconsciously offering herself, I felt a violent desire, of unparalleled spontaneity, which for a moment gave me the illusion that I might approach and possess her.