There was a long pause. Maurizio smoked, seemingly lost in thought. Then he said, “How long do you think the war will last at this point?”
Sergio answered, “I don’t know, probably a long time.”
“I’m convinced,” Maurizio said, “that it will end very soon … I think the Allies will be in Rome in a week at the most, and then everything will return to normal. That’s why I’m going to Capri; it’s not worth giving up our vacation and even risking injury for something that is about to end.”
He continued to smoke with an air of conviction, adding, after a short pause: “Considering everything, Italy will come out all right … We haven’t been in the war for too long … As soon as it really got started, it’s all over, at least for us …”
Once again, Sergio was tempted to contradict his friend’s reasoning, which to him seemed so full of cynicism and skepticism. To Maurizio it was simply good sense. Once again, he held his tongue. Then he asked: “And then what?”
“Then, nothing,” Maurizio said offhandedly. “The Allies will arrive and set up whatever government they please. Of course, they’ll take away our colonies and our empire. After all, it’s what we deserve. If we hadn’t gone to war, we would have kept everything,
196
and Italy would have become the richest, most influential country in Europe. Mussolini was stupid.”
“Only stupid?”
“I can’t wait for it all to end,” Maurizio continued, without noting Sergio’s interruption. “I’ve wasted the past few years … I’d like to get a degree, even though it’s late now.”
“What kind of degree?”
“Maybe law,” Maurizio answered, in an uncertain tone which reflected the uncertainty of his decision. “I must tell you that from time to time I think that you may be right … It’s not good to hang around doing nothing … even people like me who have enough to live on. You were right when you told Emilia that I was wasting my life, do you remember? It made me angry at the time, of course, because no one likes to hear certain things; and the way she said it was so irritating … But I have to admit it: you were right.”
Sergio said nothing and instead peered at his friend. He saw that Maurizio had changed, like his house and everything it contained. His face was still youthful and attractive, but it had a grim and tired quality that was new. His blue eyes, which had once been clear, limpid, and pure, seemed to have a dark halo around them, with a turbid, bored quality around the irises, a sickly glow. A line, as fine as a razor’s edge, framed one corner of his mouth, making that side of his face look ten years older. And he was losing his hair, unevenly and in a manner that suggested dissoluteness and fatigue: a few blond hairs still stuck out of the middle of his balding pate, combed back, fine and trembling like bushes in the middle of a hillside full of mud, stones, and boulders. It was the face of a man who had enjoyed life to the fullest, and who still knew how. But when he spoke of wasted time and admitted to Sergio that he was right, his tone was unusually sincere and almost anguished. Sergio was moved by the idea that Maurizio
197
was opening up to him, and realized once again that despite everything, his friend still occupied a place in his heart. As if guessing at his thoughts, Maurizio said: “I haven’t been well for some time … I think I smoke too much.” He threw away the cigarette he had just lit. “Or maybe I drink too much … And you know”—he hesitated for a moment and lowered his eyes almost shamefully—“the years go by and I realize I’m not young anymore.”
Gently, almost as if fearing that he would interrupt the flow of Maurizio’s confidences, Sergio said: “You’re only twenty-seven.”
“I know,” answered Maurizio, “but, I don’t know if it’s the same for you … probably not, because your life is so different from mine … but even though I’m twenty-seven, I feel as if I were forty. I notice it especially in my relations with women.” He stopped and was suddenly quiet, and seemed almost to regret having spoken.
“What do you mean, in your relations with women?”
“Well, you see,” Maurizio said, uncomfortably, “I have a lot of dealings with women … Let’s just say, I don’t have many distractions … And for some time it has felt like it’s always the same thing, and I’m bored.” After a moment he continued, in an exasperated tone: “It’s always the same — the meeting, the amusing repartee to show my interest, the invitation to go for a drive, dinner, or a day at the beach, the first kiss, then the second, then the third, and finally, the surrender. Every woman gives herself with the same gestures, the same words, the same objections, and the same impulses as the one who came before and the next one … You can see how all this could become a bore,” he said, raising his voice slightly as if Sergio had contradicted him.
“I agree, of course,” Sergio said, with a smile that he knew to be slightly false. The smile of a man who has never been in love with a woman.
“It’s a bore,” Maurizio went on. “It almost sickens me … When I put my hand on a girl’s breast for the first time, it feels like the same breast as the last time, with another girl … And that goes for everything else, as well … Do you know what happened to me recently? After overcoming a woman’s final resistance I sent her away. I told her that I had a serious
198
venereal disease and did not want to infect her. She was horrified, but I knew that if I insisted, illness or no illness, she would still be willing … They’re all the same, and I too keep repeating myself … All of this leads me to think that my youth is finished. What more is there to say?”
He seemed unhappy, but his uncomprehending, innocent sadness was like that of an animal that suddenly feels something amiss — a lessening or a change in its vitality — and cannot understand the cause. Maurizio did not understand the war or what was happening in his own house, just as he did not understand the illness of his cat and dog; in fact, he did not seem to understand even himself. After a pause, he said, “This is why I want to go to Capri. It’s relatively quiet there because of the war. I want to spend a summer alone, without anyone around, so I can reflect a bit. Meanwhile, the war will end and then I will return to Rome and make a decision.”
“What decision?”
“I don’t know … maybe I’ll find a job … or maybe I’ll get married … I’ll have lots of children and become a paterfamilias.” He said this with a certain sour note in his voice, unsentimentally, with a kind of coarseness that Sergio envied, if only momentarily. “Why are you smiling?” Maurizio asked. “Don’t you think I would be a good father?”
“I’m sure you would,” Sergio answered, now smiling sincerely.
“After all,” Maurizio said, more calmly, “this is more or less how things have always been. A young man would have a good time and then, later, he would get married. Why should I be different? I’ll get married, I’ll be faithful to my wife, I’ll work … A wife, children, and a job — it’s probably what I need.”
“What do your parents think of your plans?” Sergio asked, not knowing what to say.
“Oh, nothing. They don’t know … I am, as my father likes to say, his greatest worry in life. My mother
199
behaves as if I were still seven years old … but they know nothing about my life.” By now Maurizio was speaking with complete openness, in a voice filled with fervor. He got up from the couch, went to a cabinet in a corner of the room, and opened it, revealing a bar, bottles, and mirrors gleaming. He poured himself a generous portion of whiskey. “Would you like some?” he asked.