Free Contempt by Alberto Moravia Page B

It’s perfectly clear that this woman doesn’t feel the smallest crumb of affection for me.” Meanwhile Emilia, with her usual indolence, was saying: “Do just go and see who it is...it’s sure to be for you.” I rose and went out.
    The telephone was in the adjoining room, on the beside table. Before picking up the receiver, I looked towards the bed, saw the solitary pillow lying at the head of it, in the middle, and felt my resolution harden: all was finished, I should refuse the script and then leave Emilia. I took off the receiver, but then, instead of Battista’s voice, I heard that of my mother-in-law, who asked: “Riccardo, is Emilia there?”
    Almost without thinking, I answered: “No, she’s not here. She said she was lunching with you. She’s out. I thought you were together.”
    “Why, I telephoned her to say I couldn’t manage it because my maid has her day off today!” she began in astonishment. At that moment I looked up from the telephone and saw, through the door which had been left open, Emilia lying on the divan looking at me; and I noticed that her eyes, which were fixed upon me, were full not so much of wonder as of quiet aversion and cold contempt. I realized that between the two of us, now, it was I who had lied, and that she knew why I had lied. So I mumbled a few words of farewell and then, suddenly, as though correcting myself, I cried: “No...wait...Here’s Emilia just coming in. I’ll send her to you.” At the same time I beckoned to Emilia to come to the telephone.
    She got up from the sofa, crossed the room with her head bent and took the receiver from my hand without thanking or looking at me. I walked away towards the living-room, and she made an impatient gesture as if to tell me to shut the door. I did so; and then, my mind filled with confusion, I sat down on the divan and waited.
    Emilia was a long time at the telephone, and I, in my painful, apprehensive impatience, almost felt that she was doing it on purpose. But of course, I kept saying to myself, her telephone conversations with her mother were always very long: she had remained deeply attached to her mother, who was a widow and all alone, and she had no one but her; and she seemed to have made her her confidante. At last the door opened and Emilia reappeared. I sat silent and still, fully conscious, from her unwontedly hard expression, that she was angry with me.
    And indeed she said at once, as she started collecting the plates and forks on the little table: “Are you crazy? Why on earth did you go and tell Mother I was out?”
    Hurt by her tone, I did not open my mouth. “To see if I had told the truth?” she went on; “to see if it was true that Mother had really told me she couldn’t have me to lunch?”
    I answered at last, with an effort: “That may have been the reason.”
    “Well, please never do such a thing again. I speak the truth, and I’ve nothing to hide from you, and I just can’t endure that kind of thing.”
    She spoke these words in a tone of finality and then took up the tray on which she had put together the plates and glasses and went out of the room.
    Left alone, I had, for a moment, a bitter feeling of victory. It was true, then: Emilia no longer loved me. In the old days she certainly would not have spoken to me like that. She would have said to me, with a mixture of gentleness and amused surprise: “Perhaps you really thought I had told you a lie?” and then she would have laughed, as if at some childish, easily forgivable error, and finally—yes, finally she would have even shown herself flattered: “My goodness, you don’t mean to say you’re really jealous? And don’t you know I love nobody except you?” It would all have ended in an almost motherly kiss, and a caress of her long, large hands on my brow, as though to chase away all thought and anxiety. But it was also true that in the old days I should never have thought of watching her, still less of doubting her word.