Antonio had arrived, had failed to find me; somehow or other they had met, on the stairs or in the study; perhaps he had made violent advances to her, or perhaps she had taken the initiative. Anyhow, there had been an understanding, a sudden, complete, final understanding. From that moment onwards Leda's behaviour had been characterized by the inflexibility, the velocity, the weight, of a stone that plunges through space to the bottom of a deep ravine. With a cruelty that was perhaps not unconscious, she had made an appointment with Antonio at that same place at which, the night before, I had tried to make love to her. After Antonio had gone, she had acted with cold and brutal determination, without scruples either of delicacy, of caution, or even of ordinary good taste, just as an enemy might act, not a wife who still loves her husband. She had made sure that I should be working that night when she went to her appointment, and she had played with me like a cat with a mouse in telling me that tale of her adventure with the Alpini officer, obviously suggested by her meeting with Antonio that morning. When evening came she had taken care, in dressing, not to put on the American elastic belt, so as to be more expeditious, more naked, more tempting. While I was eating she had made no attempt to conceal her own harsh impatience, disdaining even to have recourse to the hypocrisy which, in such cases, implies a homage, if not to virtue, at least to good manners. It had needed all my blindness not to see that her lack of appetite was due to that other appetite, so far more masterful. But, fearing that I should take her pretended indisposition too seriously and might even wish to keep her company in her room, she had explained it, cynically, by letting me suppose it was her monthly disorder. While I shut myself up to write in my study, she had been sitting downstairs for three hours, smoking one cigarette after another, counting the minutes and the seconds. When the time came, she had run to her appointment; and that kind of dance, at which I had been a spectator, had been simply the final explosion of the powerful too-long-repressed mechanism of her lust.
I must state, at this point, that I recognized in the whole of Leda's behaviour the deceitful yet transitory resoluteness of actions that break suddenly out from the buried places of the consciousness and are then reabsorbed, like rivers in the desert. I recognized, in other words, in these actions the furious but short-lived impetus of the involuntary infraction of an acknowledged rule. All that had happened between her and Antonio had not affected in the slightest degree her relations with me. Her intrigue with the barber — which, in all probability, would not survive that night — and her ties with me, of a year's duration, were two different things, on two entirely different planes. I was sure that, if I said nothing, Leda would go on loving me as in the past, and perhaps more; and that she herself would take steps to get rid of Antonio next day, even if she had not already done so. But this thought, far from comforting me as it should have done, depressed me even more. It was one more proof of my incapacity, of my feebleness, my impotence. To me, both creative art and my wife were granted only through pity, through affection, benevolence, reasoned goodwill; the fruits of this concession would never be either love or poetry, but merely a process of forced, decorous composition, a tepid, chaste felicity. Not for me the true masterpiece, not for me the dance on the threshing-floor. I was relegated, for ever, to mediocrity.
Meanwhile, still carried along by my grief as though by a wind, I had crossed the park, I had entered the house, I had mounted the stairs, I had returned to my task. There I sat, pen in hand, in front of a sheet of paper at the top of which I had written: 'Dearest Leda.' It was the letter of final and absolute farewell to my wife. Then I realized that I was weeping.
I do not know how much I wept; I only know that I wept and wrote at the same time, and that, as I wrote, the tears fell upon the words and blotted them out. I wanted to tell her that all was over between us two and that it was better for us to part, but as I thought and wrote down these things, I felt a violent pain and, as it were, a refusal on the part of my whole body, which seemed to express itself in this uninterrupted flood of tears. I realized that I was closely tied to her, that it did not in the least matter to me that she had betrayed me, and that, in the long run, it did not matter to me even if she gave herself to others for love and reserved, for me, nothing but simple affection. I tried to imagine, at moments, what life would be like without her, and I knew that, after having for so many years thought of suicide, I should really kill myself this time. Nevertheless I went on writing and weeping. And so I finished the letter and signed it. But, when I started reading it over, I saw that it was all blotted out by tears and I knew I should never have the courage to send it.
At that moment I had an exact perception of the weakness of my own character, made up, as it was, of impotence and morbidity and selfishness; and I accepted it completely, all at once. I knew that, after that night, I should be a much more modest man, and that perhaps, if I so wished, I should be able, if not exactly to change, at least to correct, myself, since in that one single night I had learned more about myself than in all the other years of my life. This thought calmed me. I rose from the desk, went into my bedroom and bathed my red, swollen eyes. Then I went back into the study and stood at the window that looked out to the front of the house.
I stood there for about ten minutes, thinking of nothing and allowing the silence and serenity of the night to calm the tumult of my spirit. I was not thinking about Leda, and was surprised when I saw her suddenly appear at one corner of the open space and run towards the door. In order to move more speedily, she was holding up, with both hands, her long dress; and, seen like that from above, as she darted across the moonlit gravel, she made me think of some little wild animal, a fox or a weasel, which, furtive, innocent, its coat still stained with blood, scurries back to its lair after a raid on a chicken-run. This sensation was so strong that I almost seemed to see her transformed into an animal, and I was conscious, for one moment, of that look of innocence as of a physical quality — almost like some wild odour. And, in spite of myself, I could not help smiling affectionately. Then, still running, she raised her eyes towards me as I stood at the window. Her eyes met mine, and I thought I detected in hers a presentiment of an unpleasant scene. She lowered her head immediately and went into the house. Slowly I drew back from the window, and went and sat down on the sofa.
16
A MOMENT later the door opened and she swept in. I recognized, in this aggressiveness of hers, a defensive move, and I could not help smiling again. Still holding the door-handle, she asked: 'What are you doing — aren't you working?'
Without raising my head, I answered: 'No.'
'I went for a stroll in the park, as I couldn't sleep,' she said, providing me with an explanation which I had not asked for; 'but what's the matter with you?'
In the meantime she had walked towards the desk. But clearly she did not dare to come any nearer to me. Standing upright beside the desk, she looked at the scattered papers. I went on, with an effort: 'This evening I made a discovery — a decisive discovery. . which is going to have an important effect on my life.'
I looked at her. Still standing beside the desk, she was staring at the typewriter, frowning, and with a fixed, angry look. In a loud voice she asked: 'What discovery?'
So she was preparing to answer me back, I found myself thinking. Her attitude reminded me of that of certain insects, which, in danger, rise threateningly on their hind feet — an attitude which is called by naturalists the 'spectral' attitude. I seemed to hear her voice shouting: 'Yes, I gave myself to the barber, I like the barber. . Well, now you know; do what you like.' I sighed and went on: 'I discovered, when I read over my story, that it's quite worthless and that I shall never be a writer.'