Conjugal Love

3

THERE is no need for me to say where and how I first met my wife: it must have been in a drawing-room, or at a watering-place, or somewhere like that. She was about my own age, and it seemed to me that in many respects her life resembled mine. This was true, actually, in only a few respects, and superficial ones at that — merely that she, like me, was well-off and leisured and that she moved in the same circles and led the same kind of life; but to me, with my usual ephemeral enthusiasm, this seemed a most important thing, almost as though I had found my twin soul. She had been married very young, at Milan, her native place, to a man she did not love. The marriage had lasted a couple of years and then the pair had separated and later had obtained a divorce in Switzerland. Since then my wife had always lived alone. The thing that at once aroused in my mind the hope that I had at last found the woman I was looking for, was the confession she made to me the very day that I met her for the first time, to the effect that she was weary of the life she had hitherto led and that she wanted to settle down in an alliance of true affection. In this confession, which was made with great simplicity and without any emotion — just as though it were a question of a practical programme rather than the pathetic aspiration of a loveless life — I seemed to recognize the same state of mind that had dominated me for so many years; and immediately, with my usual initial impulsiveness, I decided that she must be my wife.

I don't think that Leda is very intelligent; but with a mediocre intelligence she nevertheless succeeded, thanks to the importance she assumed in my life and to her air of experience and her nicely calculated mingling of indulgence and irony, in acquiring in my eyes a mysterious authority; owing to this her slightest gesture of understanding and encouragement was, to me, both precious and flattering. I was under the illusion at that time that I had persuaded her to marry me; but I can now say that it was she who had determined upon it, and that without that determination on her part the marriage would never have taken place. I was still in the preliminary stages of my courtship, which I imagined would be long and difficult, when she, almost forcing my hand, gave herself to me. But this surrender, which in other women would have seemed to me to be the sign of a facile virtue and would perhaps have made me contemptuous, in her had the same rare and flattering quality as her earlier marks of approbation and encouragement. After I had possessed her, I realized that that mysterious authority of hers remained intact, that it was, in fact, strengthened by the impatience of my senses which had hitherto been unawakened. As, before, she had played upon my need of being understood, so now, with far greater and more instinctive intelligence, she played upon my desire. Thus I discovered that the fleeting, evasive character of her beauty was matched by an analogous character of mind. I was never sure of possessing her completely; and just when I felt I was verging upon satiety, a word, a gesture on her part would, all of a sudden, make me afraid that I was losing her again. These alternations of possession and despair lasted, one may say, right up till the day of our wedding. By now I was furiously in love with her and I understood that I had, at all costs, to prevent this love coming to an end, like the others that had gone before it, in discouragement and emptiness. Urged on by this fear and at the same time reluctant, and thinking, almost, that I was doing a thing that was altogether too easy, I at last asked her to become my wife, with the certainty of being immediately accepted. Instead of that, I found myself met by an almost astonished refusal, as though in making this proposition I had transgressed some mysterious law of good manners. With this refusal I felt I had reached the darkest depths of my ancient despair. I left her, thinking confusedly that there was nothing left for me and that, if I was not a coward, the time had now really come for me to kill myself. A few days went by and then she telephoned me, asking with surprise why I had not been to see her. I went, and she welcomed me with the sweet but impudent reproof that I had deserted her and had not given her time to reflect. She concluded by saying that, after all, she would agree to become my wife. In two weeks' time we were married.

There began, at once, a period of complete happiness such as I had never known. I loved Leda passionately; yet at the same time, I continued to be afraid either that I should stop loving her or that I should stop being loved by her. And so I tried by every possible means to mingle our two lives together, to create bonds between us. As I knew her to be ignorant, I first of all proposed to her a sort of programme of aesthetic education, telling her that she would find just as much pleasure in learning as I should in teaching her. I discovered her, quite unexpectedly, to be extraordinarily docile and sensible. By mutual agreement we arranged a plan and a time-table for our studies, and I undertook to communicate to her, and to make her appreciate, everything that I myself knew and liked. I do not know how far she followed me nor how much she understood: probably very much less than I thought. But, as always, owing to that strange, mysterious authority of hers, I felt I had won a great victory when she said simply: 'I like this piece of music. . this poem is beautiful. . read me that passage again. . let's hear that record over again.' At the same time, in order to occupy our leisure hours, I was teaching her English. In this she made steady progress, for she had a good memory and a natural inclination. But readings, explanations, lessons were all made attractive and precious in my eyes by her constant kindness and loving affection and goodwill. So that, in a sense, although she was the learner and I the teacher, it was I who felt all the trepidations of the pupil as he progresses slowly through the subjects of his study. And this was right, because the real subject of study between us was love, and every day I seemed to myself to gain a fuller mastery of it.

And indeed, in spite of everything, the surest foundation of our happiness still lay in our love life, which was a thing apart from the tastes that we now shared.

I have said already that her beauty, disturbed as it sometimes was by ugly grimaces and contortions, was never unworthy of itself while we were making love. Let me add that the enjoyment of that beauty had now become the central point around which circled the whirlpool of my life, once black and threatening, now luminous, pleasantly slow, regular. How often, as I lay beside her in bed, did I contemplate her naked body and feel almost frightened at seeing it so beautiful, yet at the same time with a beauty which, even under my persevering gaze, defied all definition! How often, as she lay there, flat on her back, her head sunk in the pillow, did I disarrange and rearrange those long, soft, fair tresses of hers, seeking in vain to understand the mysterious feeling of movement- which gave them that fluttering, evasive look! How often did I gaze at those enormous blue eyes of hers and wonder where lay the secret of their sweet, troubled expression! How often, after kissing her long and furiously, did I analyse the sensation that my lips still retained, comparing it with the exact shape of her lips and hoping to penetrate the significance of that faint smile of almost archaic form which, after the kiss, became visible again at the corners of her big, sinuous mouth — precisely the smile that is to be seen in the earliest Greek statues. I had, in fact, found a mystery as great — or so it seemed to me — as the mysteries of religion: a mystery after my own heart, in which my eyes and my mind, well used to the examination of beauty, could lose themselves at last and find peace, as though in an enchanting, unlimited spaciousness. She appeared to understand all the importance that this kind of adoration acquired for me, and allowed herself to be loved with the same untiring docility, the same intelligent complacency with which she allowed herself to be taught.

Perhaps I ought to have been put on my guard, in the midst of a happiness so complete, by one particular aspect of my wife's attitude, which, anyhow, I think I have already mentioned — her goodwill. In her, clearly, love was not so spontaneous as in me; and there was discernible in her manner towards me an undoubted though mysterious desire to please me, to satisfy me, sometimes even to flatter me — exactly, in fact, what is generally, and not without a trace of contempt, called goodwill. Now it is difficult for goodwill not to conceal something which, if it were by chance revealed, would contradict it and endanger its effects; something that may range from the mere presence of different, hidden preoccupations to actual duplicity and treachery. But I accepted this goodwill as a proof of her love for me and did not worry, at the time, to investigate what it might conceal, or what the meaning of it might be. I was, in fact, too happy not to be selfish. I knew that, for the first time in my life I was in love and, with my usual, rather indiscreet enthusiasm, I attributed to her also the feeling that occupied my own mind.