He answered indifferently: “I broke my leg fighting
238*
with the partigiani … jumping off a boulder in the mountains.”
There was another silence. I stared at him and finally gave voice to a thought that had been bouncing around in my head for a while: “You know, you’ve changed.”
He looked at me with some curiosity: “In what way?”
“You used to be more sure of yourself … and more arrogant, at least with me … Now you seem more prudent.”
Almost with humility he confessed: “Yes, it’s true.”
“Why is that?”
He reflected for a moment: “I imagine it’s because of everything that happened … We suffered quite a blow.”
“You suffered quite a blow.”
“Fine, I did.”
He seemed strangely docile, even a bit sad. I asked, sympathetically: “What do you mean to do now?”
“Me? Nothing … I came back to Rome, I set up this movie business with Moroni … We’re trying to make a movie … Hopefully, we’ll succeed. That’s all.”
Finally approaching the topic I had come to discuss, I said: “Nella tells me that you agree with my ideas.”
He looked at me and asked, “What ideas?” though it was clear that he knew what I meant.
“My political ideas.”
“Well, yes,” he muttered, hesitantly, “all in all, I think that you Communists are on the right track.”
“So?”
“So, what?”
237*
“What are you waiting for? Why don’t you take the leap, as they say?”
“You mean become a Communist?” he asked, gravely.
“Yes.”
“I’m not waiting for anything,” he said, with sudden conviction. “I just don’t want to, that’s all.”
“Why not? After all, we’re on the right track, as you yourself have said.”
Instead of answering directly, he asked: “Why do you care? Last night, when you were drunk, you said the same thing.”
“I care because, despite everything, I feel close to you,” I said, slightly embarrassed.
He laughed. “You’re being insincere.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, taken aback. At that moment, I felt that we were truly friends. My friendship with him seemed like a solid, immutable, poignant fact.
“Because it’s not true … As they say, ‘in vino veritas’ … Last night you said that we were enemies, or at least rivals … and that you had always felt yourself to be my enemy … God knows why.” And as he said this he chuckled, pouring himself another glass of whiskey.
I felt embarrassed. It was true, he was right; how could I have forgotten? “Well,” I tried to explain, “I feel that I am both your friend and your enemy … I’m your enemy because in a way you are mine.”
“Am I?” he said, staring at me. “Not at all … I don’t understand you … Why would I be your enemy?”
“Come on, now,” I said, with some effort, “you don’t claim to be my friend, do you?”
I awaited his response with a deep, painful sense of uncertainty. For some reason that I did not understand I hoped that he would respond affectionately:
236*
“Of course I’m your friend.” I knew that if he said that I would throw my arms around his neck and embrace him. Instead, he said, with insulting detachment: “I’m neither your friend nor your enemy … We’re mere acquaintances.”
I felt profoundly mortified, and at the same time angry at myself for feeling this way. I cared about his friendship and was hurt to hear him deny it. But his excessive indifference also confirmed my belief that he was not sincere, at least not completely, and made me think that his indifference was simply a new side of the obstinate hostility I had always attributed to him. “You say that,” I could not help exclaiming, “because you know that it is the answer that hurts me the most … It is the answer of an enemy.”
“I assure you,” he said, looking at his glass with his head bowed, “that you are quite mistaken.” He was silent for a moment, then continued: “You did not answer me sincerely … Why is it so important to you that I become a Communist?”
“I already told you,” I began. Then I changed tactics: “Let’s say it’s because of my enthusiasm for Communism … When you believe in something, you want others to believe in it too.”
“Fine. But why don’t you try to convince Moroni, for example, or someone else?”
“Because I don’t care about Moroni.”
“Why do you care about me but not about Moroni?”
I did not answer. Nothing I could say would serve my argument. No matter what I said, I felt obscurely, it would lead me away from the subject and facilitate Maurizio’s arguments. “Don’t you have anything to say?” he insisted after a short pause.
“I’ve said everything there is to say,” I answered, spitefully. “Do whatever you like … If you want to stay in your swamp, stay there … But I’m warning
234*
you: time passes … and soon it will be too late.” As I said this I got up excitedly.
He remained sitting and said calmly, “I want to be clear with you … Even if I had no other reason, it is enough to see how much you want me to do this to convince me not to.”
“But why?”
“Because your motives are not disinterested … that’s all. No one believes the words of a man who speaks out of self-interest.”
APPENDIX
1) Version A, typescript p. 188
[In this version, when Sergio reads his article for the newspaper, he feels disappointed. This is quite different from his feelings in the revised version.]
When Sergio went out the following day he realized that though the heat had intensified, the sky was now completely clear and the air was clean and crisp, with a touch of sea breeze. Sergio went directly to the newsstand across the street and bought a copy of the newspaper containing his article. He saw that it had been placed on the second page, with the local news, in small type. He felt disappointed; he had hoped that the editors would print it on the first page, as they had promised. He took the newspaper and crossed the street once again, to wait for the bus that would take him to Maurizio’s. He had called his friend the previous evening as planned, from the newspaper offices. Maurizio had said that he would expect him early the following morning, because he was leaving at noon. It was nine o’clock, so there were still three hours left.
As Sergio waited for the bus, he read the first page of the newspaper. It contained news from the front, all catastrophic despite the euphemisms used in the military communiqués, as well as several articles denouncing the war and the dangerous dualism of the incongruous alliance between the anti-Fascist government and the Germans. Everything seemed to be in order and the sun was shining; people calmly walked to and fro and a few cars circulated in both directions, brass and nickel plating gleaming in the sun. Even the faces of the other people waiting for the bus
2) Version B, typescript p. 117
[In this version, when Sergio asks Lalla to gratify Maurizio, she accepts, unlike in subsequent versions.]
She said these words in a plangent tone, then got up and tottered to the door, opened it, and disappeared. Sergio lay on the bed, still furious, wallet in hand.
He did not wait long. Less than five minutes later, Lalla returned, closing the door behind her, and went to the mirror. Her words broke the silence: “All right, I’ll do it … I will decide what day, and in what manner … but you can tell Maurizio that I accept.”
She spoke calmly and seemed less drunk than before. Sergio got up and said, “I’m going to bed, I’m tired.”