Authors: Alberto Moravia
He carefully regulated the position of the curtains
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so that the soft late afternoon light would shine evenly throughout the room. Then he came and sat down across from me. I felt much calmer and more lucid,
as if this chance to observe him had reassured me. He asked: “Would you like something to drink … a whiskey, perhaps?”
“No, thank you!” I said, with alacrity. “I think I drank enough last night to last me all year.”
“As you like,” he said, serving himself half a glass from a bottle on a small table and then mixing it with mineral water. After a brief pause, I spoke: “Last night I drank far too much, and I’m afraid I behaved deplorably.”
He said nothing. It occurred to me that silence was probably one of the tactics he used to embarrass people who, like me, were impatient and overly earnest. So I decided that I too would remain silent. I would say nothing until he spoke, even if this meant that we sat in silence until the end of my visit. I pulled a pack of cigarettes and some matches out of my pocket, slowly lit one, and began to smoke. I reasoned that if Maurizio had no hostile intentions toward me, he would be surprised by my silence, and after a few moments, he would say something, or at least point out my strange behavior. But if, as I believed, he was hostile toward me and was animated by the same rivalry that I felt, he would remain silent, in an attempt to force me to speak first. In that case it would be obvious that he too saw us as rivals and enemies, as two people locked in struggle, however unspoken and unspeakable that struggle might be. A few minutes passed. I smoked in silence. Every so often, Maurizio took a sip of his drink. After a while I glanced at my watch and saw that seven minutes had passed. I waited another three minutes, and still, neither of us spoke. Now I knew that I was right. Maurizio and
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I saw things the same way; he did not consider us to be friends or acquaintances, but rivals, perhaps even enemies. This discovery encouraged me. The previous evening he had maintained a slippery, evasive attitude, hiding his intentions and leading me to wonder whether my interpretation of our rivalry might be simply the result of my own twisted logic and the fruit of my feelings of inferiority. But now I thought to myself: “So it’s true … you too have a desire to conquer me, to put me at a disadvantage, as they say.” This was a heartening thought: better a confessed enemy than a false friend. I decided to wait another five minutes, still hoping to make him talk. But after five minutes I had to confess that in this silent test of wills he was surely, if not necessarily the stronger party, at least the most disinterested. In other words, he emanated a complete indifference, whether sincere or excellently simulated I did not know. If I departed without speaking, I would be left with a nagging curiosity about what he might have said and how I might have responded. I would leave with the suspicion that he had nothing to say to me, and no desire to hear what I had to say. As I thought this, lucidly and objectively and in silence, I was once again forced to recognize that he was the stronger of the two. Suddenly I became annoyed and blurted out, in a cutting voice: “Fine, I’ll speak … I’ll speak first … but only to say that I can see your tactics; I know that by remaining silent you are presenting me with a kind of challenge, and I refuse to rise to the challenge. After all, we’re not children anymore … staring in silence and waiting to see who will crack … That’s a kid’s game.”
“That may be true, but still, you spoke first.”
Evidently he felt strongly about his methods and was congratulating himself on the results: he had forced me to break the silence. I pretended not to understand what he was insinuating and continued: “Why are you limping? I don’t remember you having a limp five years ago.”
He answered indifferently: “I broke my leg fighting
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with the
partigiani …
jumping off a boulder in the mountains.”
There was another silence. I stared at him and finally gave voice to a thought that had been bouncing around in my head for a while: “You know, you’ve changed.”
He looked at me with some curiosity: “In what way?”
“You used to be more sure of yourself … and more arrogant, at least with me … Now you seem more prudent.”
Almost with humility he confessed: “Yes, it’s true.”
“Why is that?”
He reflected for a moment: “I imagine it’s because of everything that happened … We suffered quite a blow.”
“You suffered quite a blow.”
“Fine,
I
did.”
He seemed strangely docile, even a bit sad. I asked, sympathetically: “What do you mean to do now?”
“Me? Nothing … I came back to Rome, I set up this movie business with Moroni … We’re trying to make a movie … Hopefully, we’ll succeed. That’s all.”
Finally approaching the topic I had come to discuss, I said: “Nella tells me that you agree with my ideas.”
He looked at me and asked, “What ideas?” though it was clear that he knew what I meant.
“My political ideas.”
“Well, yes,” he muttered, hesitantly, “all in all, I think that you Communists are on the right track.”
“So?”
“So, what?”
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“What are you waiting for? Why don’t you take the leap, as they say?”
“You mean become a Communist?” he asked, gravely.
“Yes.”
“I’m not waiting for anything,” he said, with sudden conviction. “I just don’t want to, that’s all.”
“Why not? After all, we’re on the right track, as you yourself have said.”
Instead of answering directly, he asked: “Why do you care? Last night, when you were drunk, you said the same thing.”
“I care because, despite everything, I feel close to you,” I said, slightly embarrassed.
He laughed. “You’re being insincere.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, taken aback. At that moment, I felt that we were truly friends. My friendship with him seemed like a solid, immutable, poignant fact.
“Because it’s not true … As they say, ‘in vino veritas’ … Last night you said that we were enemies, or at least rivals … and that you had always felt yourself to be my enemy … God knows why.” And as he said this he chuckled, pouring himself another glass of whiskey.
I felt embarrassed. It was true, he was right; how could I have forgotten? “Well,” I tried to explain, “I feel that I am both your friend and your enemy … I’m your enemy because in a way you are mine.”
“Am I?” he said, staring at me. “Not at all … I don’t understand you … Why would I be your enemy?”
“Come on, now,” I said, with some effort, “you don’t claim to be my friend, do you?”
I awaited his response with a deep, painful sense of uncertainty. For some reason that I did not understand I hoped that he would respond affectionately:
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“Of course I’m your friend.” I knew that if he said that I would throw my arms around his neck and embrace him. Instead, he said, with insulting detachment: “I’m neither your friend nor your enemy … We’re mere acquaintances.”
I felt profoundly mortified, and at the same time angry at myself for feeling this way. I cared about his friendship and was hurt to hear him deny it. But his excessive indifference also confirmed my belief that he was not sincere, at least not completely, and made me think that his indifference was simply a new side of the obstinate hostility I had always attributed to him. “You say that,” I could not help exclaiming, “because you know that it is the answer that hurts me the most … It is the answer of an enemy.”
“I assure you,” he said, looking at his glass with his head bowed, “that you are quite mistaken.” He was silent for a moment, then continued: “You did not answer me sincerely … Why is it so important to you that I become a Communist?”
“I already told you,” I began. Then I changed tactics: “Let’s say it’s because of my enthusiasm for
Communism … When you believe in something, you want others to believe in it too.”
“Fine. But why don’t you try to convince Moroni, for example, or someone else?”
“Because I don’t care about Moroni.”
“Why do you care about me but not about Moroni?”
I did not answer. Nothing I could say would serve my argument. No matter what I said, I felt obscurely, it would lead me away from the subject and facilitate Maurizio’s arguments. “Don’t you have anything to say?” he insisted after a short pause.
“I’ve said everything there is to say,” I answered, spitefully. “Do whatever you like … If you want to stay in your swamp, stay there … But I’m warning
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you: time passes … and soon it will be too late.” As I said this I got up excitedly.
He remained sitting and said calmly, “I want to be clear with you … Even if I had no other reason, it is enough to see how much you want me to do this to convince me not to.”
“But why?”
“Because your motives are not disinterested … that’s all. No one believes the words of a man who speaks out of self-interest.”
1)
Version A
, typescript p. 188
[
In this version, when Sergio reads his article for the newspaper, he feels disappointed. This is quite different from his feelings in the revised version
.]
When Sergio went out the following day he realized that though the heat had intensified, the sky was now completely clear and the air was clean and crisp, with a touch of sea breeze. Sergio went directly to the newsstand across the street and bought a copy of the newspaper containing his article. He saw that it had been placed on the second page, with the local news, in small type. He felt disappointed; he had hoped that the editors would print it on the first page, as they had promised. He took the newspaper and crossed the street once again, to wait for the bus that would take him to Maurizio’s. He had called his friend the previous evening as planned, from the newspaper offices. Maurizio had said that he would expect him early the following morning, because he was leaving
at noon. It was nine o’clock, so there were still three hours left.
As Sergio waited for the bus, he read the first page of the newspaper. It contained news from the front, all catastrophic despite the euphemisms used in the military communiqués, as well as several articles denouncing the war and the dangerous dualism of the incongruous alliance between the anti-Fascist government and the Germans. Everything seemed to be in order and the sun was shining; people calmly walked to and fro and a few cars circulated in both directions, brass and nickel plating gleaming in the sun. Even the faces of the other people waiting for the bus
2)
Version B
, typescript p. 117
[
In this version, when Sergio asks Lalla to gratify Maurizio, she accepts, unlike in subsequent versions
.]
She said these words in a plangent tone, then got up and tottered to the door, opened it, and disappeared. Sergio lay on the bed, still furious, wallet in hand.
He did not wait long. Less than five minutes later, Lalla returned, closing the door behind her, and went to the mirror. Her words broke the silence: “All right, I’ll do it … I will decide what day, and in what manner … but you can tell Maurizio that I accept.”
She spoke calmly and seemed less drunk than before. Sergio got up and said, “I’m going to bed, I’m tired.”
3)
Version C1
, typescript pages 229, 158–160, 242
[
In this variant, the meeting takes place in the offices of the Allied radio services. The female character appears quite different from the one who will later go by the name of “Nella.
”]
I’ve spoken enough about the first important event
229
that took place in my life during the period following the end of the war. It’s time for me to touch upon the second. Until that point, I had not experienced a great love; instead I had had brief, casual relations with several young women whom I did not love. But as soon as I returned to Rome, when half the country was still occupied by the Germans and the front line still lay near Florence, during that terrible, dark, anxious time, I met a woman whom I thought I loved and who surely loved me. Her name was Nella, and she was more or less my age; I was twenty-seven years old and she was twenty-five. She was tall, taller than I, with a thin, ardent, lean face and two flaming black eyes, a pointy nose, and fleshy lips. In profile, there was something almost animal-like and thirsty about her expression. Her body was also thin and equally ardent, lean, and highly strung. This ardor
158
and muscular slenderness were her principal characteristics; she reminded me of a gamecock with long, muscular legs, alive with nervous energy, veins filled with dense blood flowing at a temperature much higher than that of most people. She had a small head atop a muscular, stiff neck, an almost flat chest, and large, coarse hands and feet. Her legs were also coarsely shaped, not fat but strong and muscular and inelegant, with thick ankles
and knees. Everything about her denoted rough origins, though she did not seem to be of peasant stock, for country folk often have a sweetness and grace about them. Her roughness was more typical of the petite bourgeoisie, or shop class, and in fact she came from a family of merchants in a small town in Lazio, Anagni I think, where they sold pots and pans.
I met Lalla in the offices of the Allied radio services, where I had gone seeking work. I had been involved in radio before the war, and now that I had no work, I had been told I might be able to find something there. She was a secretary in one of the offices. After I introduced myself, she said: “Please take a seat … I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a while.” I was struck by the frank, direct, almost aggressive tone of her voice and the look that accompanied her words, which I can only describe as provocative. It was Lalla’s normal expression, which she used with all men, but I did not yet know this; I assumed that it was meant for me and only for me. After I took a seat, as she suggested, I began to talk to her. She was very relaxed and forthright and had no problem telling me her name and age, and she soon began to tell me about the town where she was born and about her parents. We were alone in the office, a small room facing a courtyard. She sat at her desk, and every so often she would return to her work and type a few lines very quickly, after which she would again pause to answer my questions. She spoke sarcastically about her superiors who were American and British officers. Finally, as if resigning herself to the fact that she would get no more work done while I was there, she turned toward me on her chair and crossed her legs. I remember that I noticed for the first time how heavy and strong her legs were, like the
rest of her body. With her large, coarse, and somewhat impure hands she opened a pitiful, threadbare purse, pulled out an American cigarette, and lit it. When she