Conjugal Love

14

THIS is what I wrote on my new page. First: style. And then, underneath, quickly: polished, correct, decorous, but never original, never personal, never fresh. Full of vague generalizations, discursive where it should be brief, brief where it should be discursive, in effect entirely redundant because entirely the result of application. A style without character, the style of a diligent composition in which there is not the slightest trace of poetical feeling. Second: plasticity. None. States things instead of representing them, writes them instead of portraying them. Lack of evident truth, of volume, of solidity. Third: characters. Negative. One feels they were not created by sympathetic intuition but studiously copied and transcribed from nature through the instrumentality — in any case defective — of a judgement that was indecisive, clouded and elementary. They are mosaics of minute but lifeless observations, not living, free creations. They disintegrate, they contradict themselves, they disappear, at moments, from the page, leaving only their names behind; and these names — whether the characters are called Paolo or Lorenzo or Elisa or Maria — betray their unreality because one feels that they could be changed without doing any harm. They are not characters at all, in fact, but photographs out of focus. Fourth: psychological truth. Poor. Too much casuistry, too many subtleties, too many irrelevant remarks, and too little common sense. 'Psychologism', not psychology. One feels that the author moves from outside to inside, at random, not by the main road of truth but along the by-ways of sophistry. Fifth: feeling. Cold and withered, beneath swellings and outbursts and flights which betray its real emptiness and feebleness. Sentimentality, not feeling. Sixth: plot. Ill-constructed, unbalanced, full of incongruities, of subterfuges and padding and other dishonest tricks beneath its apparent efficiency and smoothness. Plenty of deus ex machina and interventions on the part of the author. Movement is confined to the periphery, and is mechanical, for at the centre there is no motive power. Seventh and last: comprehensive verdict. The book of a dilettante, of a person who, though endowed with intelligence, culture and taste, is completely lacking in creative powers. The book fails to reveal anything fresh, or any fresh turn of sensibility. It is a book founded upon other books, it is second or third rate in quality, it is a hot-house product. Practical conclusion: can it be published? Yes, of course, it can certainly be published — why not in an edition de luxe, with one or two lithographs by some good artist? And, after a suitable propaganda drive in literary circles, it could also have what is commonly called a succes d'estime, that is, a number of reviews that are eulogistic, even enthusiastic, according to whether it is worth the reviewers' while, and according to their degree of friendliness towards the author. But the book itself does not count. I underlined this last sentence which summed up everything that I thought about my story, considered for a moment, and then added the following postscript: the fact remains, however, that the book was written in a state of mind of the most perfect and enthusiastic happiness and that it is certainly the best that can be expected from the author. Indeed the latter, while he was writing it, was convinced that he had created a masterpiece. It follows from this that the author expressed himself in the book as he really is — a man lacking in creative feeling, a mere day-dreamer, well-intentioned, sterile. This book is the faithful mirror of such a man.

That was all for the moment. I put the manuscript back in its folder, took the sheets of paper out of the typewriter and put its cover on. Then I got up, lit a cigarette and started walking up and down the room. It dawned upon me then that the mental clear-sightedness, with which I had before been so pleased, had now transformed itself into the false lucidity of a feverish, desperate delirium. After having made me write that severe judgement upon my own work, this lucidity still persisted in my mind, as moonlight persists on the surface of a stormy sea where float the fragments, great and small, of a shipwreck. My mind circled lucidly, feverishly, round the final wreck of my ambitions, illuminating it in all its aspects and rendering it all the more bitter and complete. In those twenty days during which I had done nothing but write, closing my mind against all other preoccupations, an enormous mass of discouragement seemed to have accumulated in the depth of my consciousness. Now the dykes of my crazy presumption had burst and it came flooding out in every direction; and I, though so lucid, felt myself overwhelmed. I threw away the cigarette I had only just lit and, almost without knowing what I did, raised my hands and pressed them against my temples. I realized that the failure of my book foreshadowed the far wider failure of my whole life, and I felt that my whole being rebelled against this result. It is impossible to describe what I felt — the acute sense of a sudden crumbling to pieces, of a headlong plunge into absurdity and emptiness. Above all, I rebelled against the picture of myself provided by my book. I did not want to be a trifler, an incompetent, a weakling. And yet I knew that, just because I rebelled against it, this picture was a true one.

In this fury of despair I felt as if my body no longer had any weight and as if I were flying about the room, like a dry, dead leaf swept along by a violent wind. Not only was I no longer aware of the movements I made, but even of the thoughts that formed themselves in my brain. No doubt the idea of appealing to my wife in this distress, with the object of finding not so much consolation as a straw to seize hold of in the flood that overwhelmed me, flashed into my mind before I translated it into action. But it is certain that I became conscious of it when, without realizing it, I had already opened the study door, had crossed the landing and found myself in front of her door. I raised my hand and knocked. I noticed at the same moment that the door was not shut but merely ajar, and I was struck — I do not know why — by the precautionary appearance that it had in that position. There was no answer to my two knocks, so I knocked again, louder, and then, after waiting a reasonable time, pushed the door open and went in.

The room was dark, so I turned on the central light, and the first thing I saw, in that pale illumination, was my wife's nightdress laid out, the sleeves outspread, on the untouched bed. I thought she must have been unable to sleep and had gone down into the garden; but at the same time I could not help feeling a certain annoyance: she could have knocked and told me — why should she have gone alone? I glanced at the alarm clock on the bed-table and was astonished to see that about three hours had passed since I had made my wife kiss the title-page of my story. Events had followed so thick and fast upon each other that it had seemed to me to be scarcely half an hour. I left the room and went on down the staircase.

The blue and red glass door of the drawing-room was lit up, and the whole house appeared to be awake. I went into the room, sure that I should find my wife there, but it was deserted. The book that she was reading was on the table, open and upside down, as though she had put it down in the midst of her reading. Beside the book was an ashtray full of long cigarette-ends, all stained with lipstick. My wife had obviously come downstairs again shortly after saying good-night to me and had spent the evening in the drawing-room, smoking and reading. Then she must have gone out for a walk in the garden; but not long before, since the air was still filled with smoke in spite of the french window being wide open. Perhaps she had only just that moment gone out and I could catch her up. So I, in my turn, went out on to the open space in front of the house.

The white gleam of the moonlight on the gravel reminded me of our walk the night before to the farm buildings; and all of a sudden, in my state of combined despair and exaltation, I was overcome with the desire to do, now, that thing which it had not been possible for me to do then. I would make love to Leda on the threshing-floor, by the light of that magnificent full moon, in the silence of the sleeping countryside, with all the passion that came to me from the sense of my own impotence. It was certainly a very natural, very logical, very ordinary impulse that suggested this plan to me; but this time I was content to let myself go, both in feeling and action, like a peasant who seeks, in the docile embrace of his wife, comfort and a sort of compensation for damage done by a hailstorm. After all, nothing remained to me, in the wreck of my ambition, but to accept my status as a human being, similar in all respects to that of other men. After that night I would be content to be just a decent fellow with some knowledge of letters and modestly conscious of his own limitations, but at the same time the lover, and the beloved, of a young and beautiful wife. It would be upon her that I would exercise my unfortunate passion for poetry. I would live this amorous experience of mine poetically, seeing that I could not write about it. Women love these unsuccessful men who have renounced all ambitions except that of making them happy.

Thinking thus, I had started down the drive, deeply absorbed as I walked, and with head bowed. Then I raised my eyes and saw Leda. Or rather, I caught a glimpse of her just for one moment, a long way away, as she rounded the curve of the drive and disappeared. A ray of moonlight lay across the road at that point. For one instant I saw distinctly her white dress, her bare neck and the fair gold of her hair. Then she vanished, and I was convinced that she was going towards the farm buildings. It pleased me to think that she was making her way to the threshing-floor, to the place where I wanted to make love to her, just as though she were going to keep an appointment and yet without knowing that the appointment was with me. I too rounded the curve, and then I saw her again as she turned into a side lane which, as I knew, led into the path that ran between the fields and the park. I almost called out to her but checked myself, thinking that I would catch up with her and throw my arms round her, taking her by surprise.

I was in the lane when she turned into the path; and when I started along the path, she was already walking along the bottom of the knoll on which the farm buildings stood. She was almost running, and for the first time her white face, as it passed quickly through the black shadows of the trees, gave me a feeling of strangeness. When I in turn arrived below the farm buildings I stopped, struck by some presentiment that I could not explain. I could see her now climbing up the steep slope towards the threshing-floor, where stood the round masses of the straw-stacks. Bending forwards, she clutched at the bushes as she slipped and stumbled, and in her strained, eager face with its staring eyes, in the movement of her whole body, I was once more conscious of her resemblance to a goat, climbing a slope in search of food. Soon, when she reached the top, the figure of a man appeared out of the shadow, bent down and, taking her by the arm, pulled her up almost bodily. Twisting round in order to steady her, the man turned and I recognized Antonio.

Now I understood everything. A great coldness came over me, and at the same time an utter astonishment that I had not understood before — not just a short time before, when I had gone into her room and found it empty, but three weeks ago, when she had asked me to dismiss the barber. This wondering astonishment was mingled with a cruel distress which took my breath away and lay heavy on my heart. I wanted not to look, if only out of self-respect; instead of which I stared greedily, with straining eyes. The threshing-floor was like a stage high above me, lit by the moon. When Leda was standing upright again, I saw the man seize her by the arms, seeking to pull her towards him, and she, twisting and pulling herself back was trying to resist. The moonlight fell on her face, and then I saw that it was distorted into that mute, tense grimace that I had noticed on other occasions; her mouth was half open in a grin that displayed both disgust and desire, her eyes were dilated and her chin thrust out. Meanwhile her whole body, with its violent writhings that suggested some kind of dance, seemed a continuation of her facial distortion.

Antonio was trying to draw her to him and she was resisting him and pulling away from him. Then — I do not know how — she turned her back on him, he seized her by the elbows and she started twisting and writhing again with her back against him, throwing herself back into his arms and yet all the time refusing him her mouth. I noticed that, in these spasmodic contortions of hers, she raised herself upon the tips of her toes; and again the idea of a dance came to me. For a short time they continued struggling together in this way, one behind the other, and then, changing position — as though in some new kind of minuet — there they were, side by side. Her arm was thrown across his chest, his arms were round her waist and her head was flung back. Then they slipped back, one against the other, and were face to face again. This time she drew back her head and her breast as he held her in his arms, and at the same moment lifted her dress, uncovering her legs and her belly. For the first time I realized that those legs were the legs of a dancer — white, muscular, slim, with feet extended and supported on the tips of the toes. She threw back the upper part of her body and thrust forward her belly against his, while he stood still and tried to make her stand straight so that he could embrace her. The moonlight shone upon the pair, and it looked now as though they were really performing some kind of dance, he erect and motionless, she circling about him: a dance without music and without rules but none the less obedient to a frantic rhythm of its own. Finally she caused him to lose his balance, or he did so deliberately; and they fell back together, disappearing into the shadow of one of the stacks.