Difficult Loves

  However, the return to shore, giving her a hand, drying himself, then each rubbing the other’s back, finally created a kind of intimacy, so that Amedeo felt it would have been impolite now to go off on his own once more. “Well,” he said, “I’ll stretch out and read here; I’ll go get my book and pillow.” And read: he had taken care to warn her. And she said: “Yes, fine. I’ll smoke a cigarette and read Annabella a bit myself.” She had one of those women’s magazines with her, and so both of them could lie and read, each on his own. Her voice struck him like a drop of cold water on the nape of the neck, but she was only saying: “Why do you want to lie there on that hard rock? Come onto the mattress: I’ll make room for you.” The invitation was polite, the mattress was comfortable, and Amedeo gladly accepted. They lay there, he in one direction and she in the other. She didn’t say another word, she leafed through those illustrated pages, and Amedeo managed to sink completely into his reading. The sun was that of a lingering sunset, when the heat and light hardly decline but remain only barely, sweetly attenuated. The novel Amedeo was reading had reached the point where the darkest secrets of characters and plot are revealed, and you move in a familiar world, and you achieve a kind of parity, an ease between author and reader: you proceed together, and you would like to go on forever.

  On the rubber mattress it was possible also to make those slight movements necessary to keep the limbs from going to sleep, and one of his legs, in one direction, came to graze a leg of hers, in the other. He didn’t mind this, and kept his leg there; and obviously she didn’t mind either, because she also refrained from moving. The sweetness of the contact mingled with the reading, and as far as Amedeo was concerned, made it the more complete; but for the lady it must have been different, because she rose, sat up, and said: “Really . . .”

  Amedeo was forced to raise his head from the book. The woman was looking at him, and her eyes were bitter.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of reading?” she asked. “You could hardly be called good company! Don’t you know that, with women, you’re supposed to make conversation?” she added, with a half-smile perhaps meant only to be ironic though to Amedeo, who at that moment would have paid anything rather than give up his novel, it seemed downright threatening. What have I got myself into, moving down here? he thought. Now it was clear that with this woman beside him he wouldn’t read a line.

  I must make her realize she’s made a mistake, he thought, that I’m not at all the type for a beach courtship; that I’m the sort it’s best not to pay too much attention to. “Conversation,” he said, aloud. “What kind of conversation?” and he extended his hand towards her. There, now, if I lay a hand on her, she will surely be insulted by such an unsuitable action, maybe she’ll give me a slap and go away. But, whether it was his own natural reserve, or was a different, sweeter yearning that in reality he was pursuing, the caress, instead of being brutal and provocatory, was shy, melancholy, almost entreating: he grazed her throat with his fingers, lifted a little necklace she was wearing and let it fall. The woman’s reply consisted of a movement, first slow, as if resigned and a bit ironic – she lowered her chin to one side, to trap his hand – then rapid, as if in a calculated, aggressive spring: she bit the back of his hand. “Ow!” Amedeo cried. They moved apart.

  “Is this how you make conversation?” the lady said.

  There, Amedeo quickly reasoned, my way of making conversation doesn’t suit her, so there won’t be any conversing, and now I can read; he had already started a new paragraph. But he was trying to deceive himself: he understood clearly that by now they had gone too far, that between him and the tanned lady a tension had been created that could no longer be broken off; he understood also that he was the first to wish not to break it off, since in any case he wouldn’t be able to return to the single tension of his reading, all intimate and interior. He could, on the contrary, try to make this exterior tension follow, so to speak, a course parallel to the other, so that he would not be obliged to renounce either the lady or the book.

  Since she had sat up, with her back propped against a rock, he sat beside her, put his arm around her shoulders, keeping his book on his knees. He turned towards her and kissed her. They moved apart, then kissed again. Then he lowered his head towards the book and resumed reading.

  As long as he could, he wanted to continue reading. His fear was that he wouldn’t be able to finish the novel: the beginning of a summer affair could be considered the end of his calm hours of solitude, a completely different rhythm would dominate his days of vacation; and, obviously, when you are completely lost in reading a book, if you have to interrupt it, then take it up again some time later, most of the pleasure is lost: you forget so many details, you never manage to become immersed in it as before.

  The sun was gradually setting behind the next promontory, and then the next, and the one after that, leaving remnants of color, against the light. From the little inlets of the cape, all the bathers had gone. Now the two of them were alone. Amedeo had his arm around the woman’s shoulders, he was reading, he gave her kisses on the neck and on the ears – which it seemed to him she liked – and every now and then, when she turned, on the mouth; then he resumed reading. Perhaps this time he had found the ideal equilibrium: he could go on like this for a hundred pages or so. But once again it was she who wanted to change the situation. She began to stiffen, almost to reject him, and then said: “It’s late. Let’s go. I’m going to dress.”

  This abrupt decision opened quite different prospects. Amedeo was a bit disoriented, but he didn’t stop to weigh the pros and cons. He had reached a climax of the book, and her words, “I’m going to dress,” dimly heard had, in his mind, immediately been translated into these others: While she dresses, I’ll have time to read a few pages without being disturbed.

  But she said: “Hold up the towel, please,” addressing him as tu perhaps for the first time. “I don’t want anyone to see me.” The precaution was useless because the shore by now was deserted, but Amedeo consented amiably, since he could hold up the towel while remaining seated and continue to read the book on his knees.

  Beyond the towel, the lady had undone her halter, paying no attention to whether he was looking at her or not. Amedeo didn’t know whether to look at her, pretending to read, or to read, pretending to look at her. He was interested in the one thing and the other, but looking at her seemed too indiscreet while going on reading seemed too indifferent. The lady did not follow the usual method used by bathers who dress outdoors, first putting on clothes and then removing the bathing suit underneath them. No, now that her bosom was bared, she also took off the bottom of the suit. This was when, for the first time, she turned her face towards him: and it was a sad face, with a bitter curl of the mouth, and she shook her head, shook her head and looked at him.

  Since it has to happen, it might as well happen immediately! Amedeo thought, diving forward, book in hand, one finger between the pages; but what he read in that gaze – reproach, commiseration, dejection, as if to say: Stupid, all right, we’ll do it if it has to be done like this, but you don’t understand a thing, any more than the others . . . – or rather, what he did not read, as he didn’t know how to read gazes, but only vaguely sensed, roused in him a moment of such transport towards the woman that, embracing her and falling onto the mattress with her, he only slightly turned his head towards the book to make sure it didn’t fall into the sea.

  It had fallen, instead, right beside the mattress, open, but a few pages had flipped over; and Amedeo, even in the ecstasy of his embraces, tried to free one hand, to put the book-mark at the right page. Nothing is more irritating when you’re eager to resume reading than to have to search through the book, unable to find your place.

  Their love-making was a perfect match. It could perhaps have been extended a bit longer: but then hadn’t everything been lightning-fast in their encounter?

  Dusk was falling. Below, the rocks opened out, s
loping, into a little harbor. Now she had gone down there and was halfway into the water. “Come down; we’ll have a last swim . . .” Amedeo, biting his lip, was counting how many pages were left till the end.

  (1958)

  The adventure of a near-sighted man

  AMILCARE CARRUGA was still young, not lacking resources, without exaggerated material or spiritual ambitions: nothing, therefore, prevented him from enjoying life. And yet he came to realize that for a while now this life, for him, had imperceptibly been losing its savor. Trifles: like, for example, looking at women in the street. There had been a time when he would cast his eyes on them, greedily; now perhaps he would start instinctively to look at them, but it would immediately seem to him that they sped past like a wind, stirring no sensation, so then he would lower his eyelids, indifferent. Once new cities had excited him – he traveled often, as he was a businessman – now he felt only irritation, confusion, loss of bearings. Before, in the evening – as he lived alone – he used to go always to the movies: he enjoyed himself, no matter what the picture was; anyone who goes every evening sees, as it were, one huge film, in endless instalments: he knows all the actors, even the character roles, the walk-ons, and this recognition of them every time is amusing in itself. Well: even at the movies, now, all those faces seemed to have become colorless to him, flat, anonymous; he was bored.

  He caught on, finally. The fact was that he was near-sighted. The oculist prescribed eyeglasses for him. After that moment his life changed, became a hundred times richer in interest than before.

  Just slipping on the glasses was, every time, an emotion for him. He might be, for instance, at a tram stop, and he would be overcome by sadness because everything, people and objects around him, was so generic, banal, worn from being as it was, and him there groping in the midst of a flabby world of nearly decayed forms and colors. He would put on his glasses to read the number of the arriving tram, and all would change; the most ordinary things, even a lamp-post, were etched with countless tiny details, with sharp lines, and the faces, the faces of strangers, each filled up with little marks, dots of beard, pimples, nuances of expression that there had been no hint of before; and he could understand what material clothes were made of, could guess the weave, could spot the fraying at the hem. Looking became an amusement, a spectacle; not looking at this thing or that: looking. And so Amilcare Carruga forgot to note the tram number, missed one car after another, or else climbed onto the wrong one. He saw such a quantity of things that it was as if he no longer saw anything. Little by little, he had to become accustomed, learn all over again from the beginning what was pointless to look at and what was necessary.

  The women that he then encountered in the street, who before had been reduced for him to impalpable, blurred shadows, he could now see with the precise interplay of voids and solids that their bodies make as they move inside their dresses, and could judge the freshness of the skin and the warmth contained in their gaze, and it seemed to him he was not only seeing them but already actually possessing them. He might be walking along without his glasses (he didn’t wear them all the time so as not to tire his eyes unnecessarily; only if he had to look into the distance) and there, ahead of him on the sidewalk, a bright-colored dress would be outlined. With a now-automatic movement, Amilcare would promptly take his glasses from his pocket and slip them onto his nose. This indiscriminate covetousness of sensations was often punished: maybe the woman proved a hag. Amilcare Carruga became more cautious. And at times, an approaching woman might seem to him, from her colors, her walk, too humble, insignificant, not worth taking into consideration; he wouldn’t put on his glasses; but then when they passed each other close, he realized that, on the contrary, there was something about her that attracted him strongly, God knows what, and at that moment he seemed to catch a look of hers, as if of expectation, perhaps a look that already from his first appearance she had trained on him and he hadn’t been aware of it; but by now it was too late, she had vanished at the intersection, climbed into the bus, was far away beyond the traffic-light, and he wouldn’t be able to recognize her another time. And so, through the necessity of eyeglasses, he was slowly learning how to live.

  But the newest world his glasses opened to him was that of the night. The night city, formerly shrouded in shapeless clouds of darkness and of colored glows, now revealed precise divisions, prominences, perspectives; the lights had specific borders, the neon signs once immersed in a vague halo now could be read letter by letter. The beautiful thing about night was, however, that the margin of haziness his lenses dispelled in daylight, here remained: Amilcare Carruga felt impelled to put his glasses on, then realized he was already wearing them; the sense of fullness never equalled the drive of dissatisfaction; darkness was a bottomless humus in which he never tired of digging. In the streets, above the houses spotted with yellow windows, square at last, he raised his eyes towards the starry sky: and he discovered that the stars were not splattered against the ground of the sky like broken eggs, but were very sharp jabs of light that opened infinite distances around themselves.

  This new concern with the reality of the external world was connected with his worries about what he himself was, also inspired by the use of eyeglasses. Amilcare Carruga didn’t attach much importance to himself; however, as sometimes happens with the most unassuming of people, he was greatly attached to his way of being. Now to pass from the category of men without glasses to that of men with glasses seems nothing, but it is a very big leap. Just imagine: when someone who doesn’t know you is trying to describe you, the first thing he says is: “he wears glasses”; so that accessory detail, which two weeks ago was completely unknown to you, becomes your prime attribute, is identified with your very existence. To Amilcare – foolishly, if you like – becoming, all at once, someone who “wears glasses” was a bit irritating. But that wasn’t the real trouble: it was that once you begin to suspect that everything concerning you is purely casual, subject to transformation, and that you could be completely different and it wouldn’t matter at all, then, following this line of reasoning, you come to think it’s all the same whether you exist or don’t exist, and from this notion to despair is only a brief step. Therefore Amilcare, having to select a kind of frame, instinctively chose some fine, very understated earpieces, just a pair of thin silver hooks that hold the naked lenses and, with a little bridge, connect them over the nose. And so it went for a while; then he realized he wasn’t happy: if he inadvertently caught sight of himself in the mirror with his glasses on he felt a keen dislike for his face, as if it were the typical face of a category of persons alien to him. It was precisely those glasses, so discreet, light, almost feminine that made him look more than ever like “a man who wears glasses”, one who had never done anything in his whole life but wear glasses, so that you now no longer even notice he wears them. They were becoming, those glasses, part of his physiognomy, blending with his features, and so they were diminishing every natural contrast between what his face was – an ordinary face, but still a face – and what was an extraneous object, an industrial product.

  He didn’t love them, and so it wasn’t long before they fell and broke. He bought another pair. This time his choice took the opposite direction: he selected a pair of black plastic frames, an inch thick, with hinged corners that stuck out from the cheekbones like a horse’s blinkers, side-pieces heavy enough to bend the ear. They were a kind of mask that hid half his face; but behind them he felt himself: there was no doubt that he was one thing and the glasses another, completely separate; it was clear he was wearing glasses only incidentally and, without glasses, he was an entirely different man. Once again – insofar as his nature allowed it – he was happy.

  In that period he happened, on a business matter, to go to V. The town of V. was Amilcare Carruga’s birthplace, and there he had spent all his youth. He had left it, however, ten years ago, and his trips back to V. had become more and more brief and sporadic, and now several years had gone by since he l
ast set foot there. You know how it is when you move away from a place where you’ve lived a long time: returning at long intervals you feel disoriented, it seems that those sidewalks, those friends, those conversations in the café, must either be everything or can no longer be anything; either you follow them day by day or else you are no longer able to participate in them, and the thought of reappearing after too long a time inspires a kind of remorse, and you dismiss it. And so, gradually, Amilcare had stopped seeking occasions for going back to V., then if occasions did arise, he let them pass, and in the end he actually avoided them. But in recent times, in this negative attitude towards his native town, there was, beyond the motive just defined, also that sense of general disaffection that had come over him, which he had subsequently identified with the worsening of his near-sightedness. So now, finding himself in a new frame of mind, thanks to the glasses, the first time a chance of going to V. presented itself, he seized it promptly, and went.

  V. appeared to him in a totally different light from the last few times he had been there. But not because of its changes: true, the town had changed a great deal, new buildings everywhere, shops and cafés and movie-theaters all different from before, the younger generation all strangers, and the traffic twice what it had been. All this newness, however, only underlined and made more recognizable what was old; in short Amilcare Carruga, for the first time, managed to see the place again with the eyes of his boyhood, as if he had left it the day before. Thanks to his glasses he saw a host of insignificant details, a certain window, for example, a certain railing; or rather he was conscious of seeing them, of distinguishing them from all the rest, whereas in the past he had merely seen them. To say nothing of the faces: a news-vendor, a lawyer, some having aged, others still the same. In V. Amilcare Carruga no longer had any real relatives; and his group of close friends had also dispersed long since; however, he had endless acquaintances, inevitably; the town was small, as it had been in the days when he lived there, and, practically speaking, everybody knew everybody else, at least by sight. Now the population had grown a lot, here too – as everywhere in the well-to-do cities of the North – there had been a certain influx of southerners, the majority of the faces Amilcare encountered belonged to strangers; but for this very reason he enjoyed the satisfaction of recognizing at first glance the old inhabitants, and he recalled episodes, connections, nicknames.