Contempt Read online

  “You don’t seem, however, to be very enthusiastic.”

  I replied, with a sufficient show of sincerity: “I am afraid it may not be my kind of film...it may be beyond my powers.”

  “Why?” Battista seemed irritated now. “You’ve always said you wanted to work at a film of quality...and now that I give you the chance, you draw back.”

  I tried to explain what I meant. “You see, Battista, I feel myself to be cut out chiefly for psychological films...whereas this one, as far as I understand, is to be a purely spectacular film...of the type, in fact, of the American films taken from Biblical subjects.”

  This time Battista had no time to answer me, for Rheingold, in a wholly unexpected manner, broke in. “Signor Molteni,” he said, summoning back his usual half-moon smile on to his face, rather like an actor suddenly sticking on a pair of false mustaches; and leaning forward slightly, with an obsequious, almost fawning expression. “Signor Battista has expressed himself very well and has given a perfect picture of the film I intend to realize with his help. Signor Battista, however, was speaking as a producer, and was taking into account, more especially, the spectacular elements. But if you feel yourself cut out for psychological subjects, you ought, without any possible doubt, to do this film...because this film is neither more nor less than a film on the psychological relationship between Ulysses and Penelope...I intend to make a film about a man who loves his wife and is not loved in return.”

  I was disconcerted by this, all the more so because Rheingold’s face, illuminated by his usual artificial smile, was very close to me and seemed to cut me off from any possible loophole of escape: I had to reply, and at once. And then, just as I was about to protest: “But it’s not true that Penelope does not love Ulysses,” the director’s phrase “a man who loves his wife and is not loved in return” brought me suddenly back to the problem of my relations with Emilia—the relations, precisely, of a man who loved his wife and was not loved in return; and, at the same time, through some mysterious association of ideas, it brought to the surface of my memory a recollection which—as I immediately became aware—seemed to provide an answer to the question I had put to myself in the anteroom, while I was waiting to see Battista: why did Emilia no longer love me?

  The story I am now going to tell may seem lengthy: in reality, owing to the almost vision-like speed of the recollection, the whole thing lasted only an instant. Well then, as Rheingold bent his smiling face towards me, I saw myself, in a flash, in my study at home, in the act of dictating a script. I had just reached the end of a dictation which had lasted several days, yet I still could not have said whether the typist was pretty or not; and then a minute incident opened my eyes, so to speak. She was typing out some sentence or other when, bending down to look at the sheet of paper over her shoulder, I realized that I had made a mistake. I leaned forward and tried to correct the error myself by tapping out the word with my finger on the keys. But, as I did so, without meaning to I lightly touched her hand which, I noticed, was very large and strong and strangely in contrast with the slightness of her figure. As I touched her hand, I was conscious that she did not withdraw it; I composed a second word, and again, this time perhaps not without intention, touched her fingers. Then I looked into her face and saw that she was looking straight back at me, with an expression of expectation, almost of invitation. I also noticed with surprise, as if for the first time, that she was pretty, with her little full mouth, her capricious nose, her big black eyes and her thick, curly, brushed-back hair. But her pale, delicate face wore a discontented, scornful, angry expression. One last detail: when she spoke, saying with a grimace: “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” I was struck by the dry, precise, decidedly disagreeable tone of her voice. I looked at her then, and saw that she sustained my regard perfectly well—in fact, she returned it in a manner that was positively aggressive. I must then have shown some sign of emotion and indeed have given a mute response, for from that moment, for several days, we never stopped looking at each other. Or rather, it was she who never stopped looking at me, impudently, with deliberate effrontery, at every opportunity, pursuing my eyes when they avoided hers, seeking to hold them when our eyes met, delving into them when they came to a halt. As always happens, these glances, at first, were few and far between; then they became more and more frequent; finally, not knowing how to escape them I was reduced to walking up and down behind her as I dictated. But the tenacious coquette found a means of circumventing this obstacle by staring at me in a big mirror hanging on the wall opposite, so that, each time I raised my eyes, I found hers waiting there to meet them. In the end, the thing that she wanted to happen, happened: one day when, as usual, I was leaning over from behind her to correct a mistake, I looked up at her, our eyes met, and our mouths were joined for one moment in a swift kiss. The first thing she said, after the kiss, was characteristic: “Oh, at last!...I was really beginning to think you’d never make up your mind.” Indeed she now seemed sure that she held me in her clutches, so sure that, immediately after the kiss, she did not trouble to demand any more but went back to her work. I was left with a feeling of confusion and remorse: I found the girl attractive, certainly, otherwise I should not have kissed her; but it was also certain that I was not in love with her and that the truth of the matter was that she had forced the kiss from me by working upon my male vanity with her petulant and, to me, flattering persistence. Now she went on typing without looking at me, her eyes lowered, prettier than ever with her round, pale face and her big mop of black hair. Then she made—on purpose, perhaps—another mistake, and I again leaned over her, seeking to correct it. But she was watching my movements, and, as soon as my face was close to hers, she turned in a flash and threw her arm round my neck, seizing hold of me by one ear and pulling my mouth sideways against hers. At that moment the door opened and Emilia came in.

  What happened then, I think it is hardly necessary to relate in detail. Emilia withdrew at once, and I, after saying very hurriedly to the girl, “Signorina, that’s enough for today, you can go home now,” almost ran out of the study and joined Emilia in the living-room. I expected a scene of jealousy, but all Emilia said was: “You might at least wipe the red off your lips.” I did so, and then sat down beside her and tried to justify myself, telling her the truth. She listened to me with an indefinable expression of suspicious, but fundamentally indulgent, mistrust, and at last remarked that, if I was truly in love with the typist, I had only to say so and she would agree to a separation forthwith. But she spoke these words without harshness and with a kind of melancholy gentleness, as though tacitly inviting me to contradict them. Finally, after many explanations and much desperation on my part (I was positively terrified at the thought of Emilia leaving me), she appeared to be convinced and, with some show of resistance and reluctance, consented to forgive me. That same afternoon, in the presence of Emilia, I telephoned to the typist to inform her that I should not need her again. The girl tried to wrest an appointment from me at some outside meeting-place; but I gave her an evasive answer, and have never seen her since.

  This recapitulation, as I said, may seem lengthy, whereas in reality the scene flashed across my memory in the form of a lightning-like image: Emilia opening the door at the moment when I was kissing the typist. And I was at once surprised at not having thought of it before. There could be no doubt, I now felt, that things had taken the following course. Emilia, at the time, had shown that she paid no importance to the incident, whereas in reality, perhaps unconsciously, she had been profoundly disturbed by it. Afterwards she had thought about it again, weaving round that first memory an ever-thicker, ever-tighter cocoon of increasing disillusionment; so that that kiss, which for me had been nothing more than a passing weakness, had produced in her mind a trauma (to use a psychiatrist’s term), that is, a wound which time, instead of healing, had increasingly exacerbated. While I was pondering these things there must no doubt have been a very dreamy expression on my face, for all at once, through the
kind of thick mist that enveloped me, I heard Rheingold’s voice asking in alarm: “But do you hear what I am saying, Signor Molteni?”

  The mist dissolved in an instant, and I shook myself and saw the director’s smiling face stretching out towards me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “My mind was wandering. I was thinking of what Rheingold said: a man who loves his wife and is not loved in return...but...but...” Not knowing what to say, I made the objection that had come into my mind in the first place, “But Ulysses in the poem is loved in return by Penelope...in fact, in a sense, the whole of the Odyssey hinges on this love of Penelope’s for Ulysses.”

  Rheingold, I saw, swept aside my objection with a smile. “Loyalty, Signor Molteni, not love. Penelope is loyal to Ulysses but we do not know how far she loved him...and as you know, people can sometimes be absolutely loyal without loving. In certain cases, in fact, loyalty is a form of vengeance, of blackmail, of recovering one’s self-respect. Loyalty, not love.”

  I was struck once again, by what Rheingold said; and again I could not help thinking of Emilia, wondering whether, in place of loyalty and indifference, I would not perhaps have preferred betrayal and the consequent remorse. Yes, undoubtedly I should: if Emilia had betrayed me and had felt guilty towards me, it would have been possible for me to face her with assurance. But I had now demonstrated to myself that Emilia was not betraying me; that it had been I myself, in fact, who had betrayed her. As my mind was wandering in this new direction I was aroused by the voice of Battista saying: “Well then, Molteni, it’s agreed that you’ll work with Rheingold.”

  “Yes,” I answered with an effort, “yes, it’s agreed.”

  “Excellent,” declared Battista with satisfaction. “Then let us arrange it like this. Rheingold has to go to Paris tomorrow morning and will be there for a week. You, Molteni, during that week, will make me a summary of the Odyssey and bring it to me...and as soon as Rheingold comes back from Paris, you’ll go together to Capri and start on the work at once.”

  After this conclusive remark, Rheingold rose to his feet, and mechanically I rose also. I realized that I ought to speak about the contract and the advance, and that, if I did not do so, Battista would have got the better of me; but the thought of Emilia upset me and, even more, the strange resemblance between Rheingold’s interpretation of Homer and my own personal affairs. I managed nevertheless to murmur, as we went off towards the door: “And how about the contract?”

  “The contract is ready,” said Battista in an entirely unexpected manner and in a casual, magnanimous tone of voice, “and the advance is also ready, together with the contract. All you have to do, Molteni, is to go to my secretary, and to sign the one and take away the other.”

  Surprise almost stunned me. I had expected, as had happened in the case of other film-scripts, that there would be the usual maneuvers on the part of Battista to cut down my remuneration or delay its payment; yet here he was paying me at once, without any discussion. As we all three passed into the adjoining room, which was the manager’s office, I could not help murmuring: “Thank you, Battista. You know I need it.”

  I bit my lip: in the first place it was not altogether true that I needed it—not urgently, anyhow, as my remark implied; and besides, I felt that I ought not to have spoken those words, though I did not quite know why. Battista’s reply confirmed my regret. “So I guessed, my dear boy,” he said, clapping me on the back with a protective, fatherly gesture, “and I saw that you had what you wanted.” Then, to a secretary who was sitting at a desk, he added: “This is Signor Molteni...for that contract and the advance.”

  The secretary rose to his feet and at once opened a portfolio and took from it an already drawn-up contract to which was pinned a check. Battista, after shaking Rheingold by the hand, clapped me on the shoulder again, wishing me good luck with my new job, and then went back into his office. “Signor Molteni,” said Rheingold, coming up to me in his turn and holding out his hand, “we shall meet again on my return from Paris. In the meantime you’ll be making that summary of the Odyssey...and then taking it to Signor Battista and discussing it with him.”

  “Very well,” I said, looking at him in some surprise because I thought I had seen him give me a sort of understanding wink.

  Rheingold noticed my look and, all of a sudden, took me by the arm and put his mouth close to my ear. “Don’t worry,” he whispered to me hurriedly; “don’t be afraid. Let Battista say what he likes. We’ll make a psychological film, a purely psychological film.” I noticed that he pronounced the word “psychological” in the German way—“psüchologhical”; then he smiled at me, shook my hand with a brisk nod of the head and a click of the heels, and walked away. Watching him go, I started when I heard the secretary’s voice saying to me: “Signor Molteni...will you be so good as to sign here?”

  9

  IT WAS ONLY seven o’clock, and when I reached home, I called in vain to Emilia through the deserted flat: but she had gone out and would not be back till dinner-time. I was disappointed and in a way felt positively bitter. I had counted on finding her and talking to her at once about the incident of the typist; I was sure that that kiss had been at the bottom of our differences, and, feeling myself full of a new boldness, was confident that I could dispel the misunderstanding with a few words and then tell her the good news of the afternoon—my contract for the Odyssey, the advance I had received, our departure to Capri. It is true that my explanation was postponed only for a couple of hours, yet, all the same, I had an irritating feeling of disappointment and almost of foreboding. At that moment I felt sure of my own case; but I wondered whether, in two hours’ time, I should have the power to be equally convincing. It will be seen that, although I pretended to myself that I had at last found the key to the difficulty, that is, the true reason why Emilia had ceased to love me, fundamentally I was not at all sure of it. And this unfortunate absence on her part was quite enough to fill me with apprehension and ill-humor.

  Listless, demoralized and perplexed, I went into my study and looked mechanically in the bookshelf for the translation of the Odyssey. Then I sat down at the desk, put a sheet of paper into my typewriter and, having lit a cigarette, prepared to write the summary. I thought that the work would soothe my anxiety or at least make me forget it: I had tried this remedy on other occasions. So I opened the book and read, slowly, the whole of the first canto. Then at the top of the page I typed the title: Synopsis of the Odyssey, and, underneath it, began: “The Trojan War has been over for some time. All the Greek heroes who took part in it have now gone home. All except Ulysses, who is still far from his own island and his dear ones.” At this point, however, a doubt as to whether or not it was suitable to introduce into my summary the Council of the Gods in the course of which this same return of Ulysses to Ithaca was discussed, caused me to interrupt my work. The council was important, it seemed to me, because it introduced into the poem the notion of Fate, and of the vanity and, at the same time, the nobility and heroism of human effort. Cutting out the council meant cutting out the whole supramundane aspect of the poem, eliminating all divine intervention, suppressing the figures of the various divinities, so charming and poetical in themselves. But there was no doubt that Battista would not want to have anything to do with the gods, who would seem to him nothing more than incompetent chatterboxes who made a great fuss about deciding things that could perfectly well be decided by the protagonists. As for Rheingold, the ambiguous hint he had given of a “psychological” film presaged no good towards the divinities: psychology obviously excludes Fate and divine intervention; at most, it discovers Fate in the depths of the human spirit, in the dark intricacies of the so-called subconscious. The gods, therefore, would be superfluous, because neither spectacular nor psychological...I thought about these things with ever-growing confusion and weariness; every now and then I looked at the typewriter and said to myself that I must get on with my work, but I could not bring myself to it and sat without moving a finger; and finally I fell into a profo
und but blank meditation, sitting there at the desk, my eyes staring into vacancy. In reality I was not so much meditating as stirring together in my mind the cold, acid flavors of the various feelings, all of them disagreeable, that agitated me; but, in my bewildered, weary, vaguely irritable state, I did not succeed in defining them to myself in any precise manner. Then, like an air-bubble that rises suddenly to the still surface of a pond after remaining for who knows how long under water, this reflection forced its way into my mind: “Now I shall have to submit the Odyssey to the usual massacre, to reduce it to a film, and once the script is finished, this book will go back into its shelf along with all the others that have served me for other screen-plays. And in a few years’ time, when I am looking for another book to cut to pieces for another film, I shall come upon it and say: ‘Ah, yes, of course, that was when I was doing the script of the Odyssey with Rheingold. And then nothing was done about it...nothing was done, after talking for months, morning and evening, day in and day out, about Ulysses and Penelope and the Cyclops and Circe and the Sirens. Nothing was done because...because there wasn’t enough money.’ ” At this thought I was conscious, yet again, of a feeling of profound disgust with the trade I was forced to follow. And again I was conscious, with acute pain, that this disgust was born of the certainty that Emilia no longer loved me. Hitherto I had worked for Emilia, and for Emilia only; since her love had failed me, my work had no further object.

  I do not know how long I remained like that, hunched up motionless in my chair in front of the typewriter, with my eyes turned towards the window. At last I heard the front door bang, at the other end of the flat, and then the sound of footsteps in the living-room, and I knew that Emilia had returned. I did not move, but remained where I was. Finally I heard the door of the study open behind me and Emilia’s voice asking: “Are you in here? What are you doing? Are you working?” Then I turned around.