Contempt by Alberto Moravia

Author:Alberto Moravia
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 978-1-59017-484-5
Publisher: New York Review Books

12

THE DAY ARRIVED when we were to leave for Capri. Battista had decided to accompany us to the island, to do us the honors of his house, as he himself expressed it; and that morning, when we came down into the street, we found the producer’s high-powered red motor-car standing beside my own unpretentious little machine. It was now the beginning of June, but the weather was still unsettled, cloudy and windy. Battista, wearing a leather wind-jacket and flannel trousers, was standing beside the car talking to Rheingold, who—like a good German, thinking of Italy as the land of sunshine—had dressed very lightly for the occasion, with a peaked cap of white cloth and a striped linen suit of colonial cut. Emilia and I came out of the house followed by the porter and the maid carrying our suitcases; the other two at once left the car and came to meet us.

“Well, how shall we arrange ourselves?” asked Battista, after we had greeted each other. Then, without waiting for an answer: “I suggest that Signora Molteni comes with me, in my car, and Rheingold with you, Molteni. Then you can begin talking about the film during the journey...Because,” he concluded with a smile, but in a serious voice, “the real work begins today...and I want to have the script in my hands in two months’ time.”

I glanced, automatically, at Emilia, and noticed on her face that curious look of disintegration of the features that I had observed on other occasions—the sign, in her, of perplexity and aversion. But I attached no importance to it; nor did I in any way connect this expression with Battista’s proposal, which was in any case quite reasonable. “Very good idea,” I said, forcing myself to appear cheerful, as the happy circumstance of this trip to the seaside seemed to demand. “Very good idea...Emilia will go with you and Rheingold with me...But I don’t promise to talk about the script.”

“I’m frightened of going fast,” began Emilia, “and you, in that car of yours—you always drive too fast...” But Battista, impulsively, took her by the arm, crying: “No need to be frightened with me. Besides, what are you frightened of? I’ve got my own skin to think about, too”; and as he spoke he almost dragged her off towards his own car. I saw Emilia look at me with a bewildered, questioning air, and wondered whether I ought not to insist on taking her with me. But I thought Battista might take offense; motoring was a passion with him and, to tell the truth, he drove extremely well; and so I again said nothing. Emilia made one more feeble objection: “But I should rather have gone in my husband’s car”; and Battista protested, facetiously: “Husband indeed! Why, you spend the whole day with your husband. Come on, or I shall be offended.” In the meantime they had reached the car. Battista opened the door, Emilia got in and sat down, Battista was walking round the car to get in, himself, on the other side.

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