Contempt Read Free

the comic-sentimental type for which, serious-minded as I was, I did not imagine myself to be cut out, but which in fact showed me, as I worked on it, that I had an unsuspected vocation. That same day I had a first meeting with the director and also with my fellow script-writer.
    While it is possible for me to indicate exactly the starting-point of my career as a script-writer, which was that evening at Battista’s, it is very difficult for me to say with the same precision when my relations with my wife began to deteriorate. I could of course point to that same evening as the beginning of this deterioration; but that would be what is called being wise after the event; and all the more so because Emilia gave no sign, for some time afterwards, of any change in her demeanor towards me. The change certainly took place during the month which followed that evening, but I really could not say at what moment, in Emilia’s mind, the decisive turn of the scale occurred, nor what caused this to happen. At that time we were seeing Battista almost every day, and I could relate, with an abundance of detail, many other episodes similar to that of the first evening in his house; episodes, that is, which were then in no way to be distinguished—to my eyes, anyhow—from the general color of my life, but which later acquired some special prominence or meaning. There is just one fact I wish to note: every time Battista invited us, which now happened very often, Emilia always showed, at first, a certain reluctance to go with me, not a strong nor a very decided reluctance, it is true, but curiously persistent in its expression and in its justifications. She always adduced some pretext or other that had nothing to do with Battista in order not to come with us; always, in the same way, I proved to her without any difficulty that the pretext did not hold good, and insisted on trying to find out whether she disliked Battista, or what her reason was; always, in the end, her answer to my question, given with a slight touch of perplexity, was that she did not in the least dislike Battista, that she had no fault to find with him, and that she did not want to go out with us simply because these evenings tired her and, really and truly, bored her. I was not content with these vague explanations and returned to my point, hinting that something must have happened between her and Battista, even though Battista himself was not conscious of it, or had not intended it. But, the more I tried to prove to her that she did not like Battista, the more she seemed to persevere in her denial: her perplexity, in the end, disappeared altogether, and its place was taken by a willful obstinacy and determination. Then, completely reassured with regard to her feelings towards Battista and Battista’s demeanor towards her, I went on to point out to her the reasons that told so strongly in favor of her giving us her company on these occasions: how hitherto I had never gone out without her, and Battista knew it; how her presence gave pleasure to Battista, as was shown by his urging, every time he invited us: “Of course, bring your wife”; how her absence, unexpected and difficult to justify as it was, might appear ill-natured, or, even worse, insulting to Battista, upon whom our living now depended; how, when all was said and done, since she was unable to show any valid reason for her absence whereas I was in a position to give many excellent reasons for her presence, it was preferable that she should put up with the fatigue and boredom required of her. Emilia usually listened to these arguments of mine with a dreamy and contemplative attention: it might have been thought that it was not so much the reasons themselves as my face and my gestures while expounding them that interested her; then, in the end, she would invariably give in and start silently dressing to go out. At the last moment, when she was ready to go, I would ask her, once more and for the last time, if she