Contempt Read Free Page A

really disliked coming with me—not so much because by now I was doubtful of her answer, as in order to leave her no doubts about her freedom of decision. She would answer, in a categorical manner, that she did not dislike going, and then, out we would go.
    All this, however, I reconstructed later, as I have already mentioned, patiently retracing in memory a number of occurrences which—at least at the time—had seemed insignificant, and which had passed almost unobserved by me at the moment when they took place. At that time I had been aware merely of a change for the worse in Emilia’s demeanor towards me, but without explaining or defining it to myself in any way; in the same way one becomes conscious, through a change and a heaviness in the air, of the approach of a thunderstorm though the sky is still serene. I began to think she loved me less than in the past, because I noticed that she was no longer so anxious to be near me as in the first times after our marriage. In those days I would say: “Look, I’ve got to go out; I’ll be out for a couple of hours but I’ll come back as soon as I can”; and she would not protest, but she showed, by her expression of mingled sadness and resignation, that she did not like my being away. So much so, indeed, that often I either gave up going out, excusing myself somehow from my engagement; or, if possible, took her with me. Her attachment to me then was so strong that one day, when she had gone with me to the station from which I was to leave for a very brief trip to North Italy, I saw her, as we were saying good-bye, turn her face to hide the tears that filled her eyes. That time I pretended not to notice her grief; but during the whole journey I was haunted by remorse for that shamefaced but uncontrollable weeping; and from then onwards I ceased completely to travel without her. But now, instead of assuming the usual, beloved expression with its slight suggestion of mortification and sadness, all she would do, if I announced that I was going out, was to answer calmly, often without even looking up from the book she was reading: “All right, I understand; then we’ll see each other at dinner. Don’t be late.” Sometimes she seemed actually to want my absence to last longer than I myself intended. I would say to her, for instance: “I’ve got to go out. I’ll be back at five”; and she would answer: “Stay out as long as you like...I’ve got things to do.” One day I remarked in a light tone of voice that she seemed almost to prefer that I shouldn’t be there; but she made no direct answer, merely saying that, since I was busy, one way and another, almost all day, it was just as well that we shouldn’t meet except at mealtimes, and so she would be able to get through her own jobs in peace. This was only partly true: my work as a script-writer obliged me to be out of the house only in the afternoons; and hitherto I had always arranged matters so that I could spend the rest of the day with her. From that day onwards, however, I took to going out in the morning as well.
    In the days when Emilia gave me to understand that my absences were displeasing to her, I used to leave the house with a light heart, well content, in reality, at her displeasure, as being yet another proof of the great love she felt for me. But as soon as I became aware that not merely did she show no disappointment, but even seemed to prefer to be left alone, I began to experience an obscure feeling of distress, as if I had felt the ground give way beneath my feet. I went out now not only in the afternoons to go and work at the film-script, but in the mornings too, as I said, and often without any other purpose than to test Emilia’s indifference, so utterly new and, to me, so bitter; and yet she did not show the slightest displeasure, in fact she accepted my absences with placidity if not actually—so it seemed to me—with ill-disguised relief. At first I tried to console myself for this