Conjugal Love by Alberto Moravia

Author:Alberto Moravia [Moravia, Alberto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

11

I TOLD her that I wanted to climb up to the threshing-floor and look at the immensely wide view that could be obtained from there; she agreed and, still linked together, we scrambled up the steep slope, over the slippery grass. When we reached the threshing-floor we stood quite still for a moment gazing at the landscape. The whole wide plain stretched away as far as the eye could see, in the clear night, and the moonlight, falling upon that vast area of growing things, showed up the rows of fruit-trees, the hedges, the empty spaces of the fields, the vineyards. Here and there its brilliance was concentrated upon the front of some farmhouse, bathing it in silver. At the horizon, a row of black mountains made a clear line between the earth and the tranquil sky. A far-away murmur, as of a train running hidden amongst the cultivated fields, passed across the sleeping countryside and emphasized its vastness and its silence.

My wife gazed at this landscape almost in bewilderment, as though she wished to penetrate the secret of its serenity and its silence; and I, putting my arm round her waist again, began talking to her in a low voice, pointing out now one place, now another, in the plain below us, and exalting in the beauty of the night. Then, as we still conversed together, I made her turn round towards the mountain that rose behind us and pointed out the walls of the town upon its top. We had moved, as we talked, close to one of the straw-stacks: on the ground there was scattered straw where the farmer's children played in the daytime. Suddenly I embraced her, murmuring: 'Leda . . . isn't it better here than in your room?' And, as I spoke, I tried to push her gently to the ground.

She looked at me, her shining blue eyes dilated by a sudden temptation. Then, resisting me, she said: 'No . . . the straw isn't clean. . . . Besides, it's so prickly. . . . I should ruin my frock.'

'What does your frock matter?'

'Your work isn't finished yet,' she said all of a sudden, with a laugh that was unexpected and full of coquettishness;' the day you've really finished it, we'll come back here, at night. ... Is that all right?'

'No, it's not all right, there won't be any moon then. . . . Tonight.'

Softly, and as though she were still hesitating, she said: 'Let me go, Silvio'; and then, all at once, she freed herself and ran off, down the hill, laughing. It was a fresh, childish laugh, full of an affectionate nervousness in which there seemed still to be a tremor of the temptation that I had discerned, a moment before, in her eyes; and this seemed to recompense me for the way in which she repulsed me. Perhaps it was better that it should have happened like this, I thought, as I ran after her: a gentle refusal and a gracious laugh.

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