The Woman of Rome (Italia)

by Alberto Moravia

  “Tell him he’s got to let me alone,” I said to Sonzogno calmly as soon as he came up. “I don’t want him anymore. He won’t believe me; maybe he’ll believe you since you’re a friend of his.”

  “Did you hear what the young lady said?” asked Sonzogno.

  “But I —” began Gino.

  I supposed that they would continue arguing for some time, as usually happens; and that at last Gino would become resigned and go away. But instead I suddenly saw Sonzogno make a gesture I did not understand; Gino stared at him for a moment in amazement, then collapsed wordlessly on the ground, rolling off the pavement into the gutter. Or perhaps all I saw was Gino falling and guessed from that what Sonzogno’s gesture had been. The movement was so swift and silent that I thought I had imagined it. I shook my head and took another look. Sonzogno stood in front of me, his legs wide apart, and was looking at his clenched fist; Gino, who was lying on the ground with his back to us, had come to again and had slowly lifted his head as he leaned on one elbow in the gutter. But he did not look as though he wanted to get to his feet; rather, it seemed as if he preferred to keep on staring at a small scrap of white paper that could be clearly seen glimmering against the mud in the ditch.

  “Let’s go,” said Sonzogno at last, and I went as in a dream toward my own place with him.

  He walked in silence, holding me by the arm. He was shorter than I, and his hand gripping my arm was exactly like an iron press.

  “You shouldn’t have hit Gino like that,” I said after a while. “He’d have gone away all the same without being hit.”

  “He won’t bother you anymore this way,” he replied.

  “But how did you do it?” I asked. “I didn’t even see what you did — I just saw Gino fall.”

  “It’s a matter of practice,” he said.

  I longed now to squeeze his arm and feel his hard, taut muscles again beneath my fingers. He aroused more curiosity than attraction in me, but chiefly fear. Still fear can be a pleasant and exciting feeling in a way, until the cause of it is known.

  “What have you got here inside your arm?” I asked. “I still can’t believe it!”

  “But I let you touch it,” he said with such earnest vanity that it sounded sinister.

  “Not properly — Gino was there — let me feel it again.”

  He stood still and flexed his arm, looking sideways at me with a serious and, in a certain way, ingenuous air. But there was nothing childlike about his ingenuousness. I stretched out my hand and slowly felt his muscles, running my hand all the way down his arm from the shoulder. The sensation of feeling them, so alive and as hard as iron, was extraordinary. “You’re really very strong,” I said in a ghost of a voice.

  “Yes, I’m strong,” he affirmed grimly. And we began walking again.

  I was sorry I had called him, now. I did not like him. Besides, his seriousness and his behavior frightened me. We reached my house without speaking. I took out my key. “Thanks for seeing me home,” I said and held out my hand.

  “I’m coming up,” he said and drew near.

  I wanted to say no. But his way of staring into my eyes fixedly and with incredible insistence, overwhelmed and troubled me. “If you like,” I said. And I did not realize until after I had spoken to him that I had used the intimate form of speech with him.

  “Don’t be scared,” he said, interpreting my distress in his own way. “I’ve got some money. I’ll give you twice what the others give you.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” I said. “It’s not because of the money —” But I saw a strange gleam flit across his face, as if a threatening suspicion had struck him. Meanwhile I had opened the door. “I was only feeling a little tired,” I added.

  Once in my room, he undressed with the precise movements of an orderly man. He wore a scarf around his neck, and he carefully unrolled it, then folded it up and put it into the pocket of his raincoat. He hung his jacket over the back of a chair and arranged his trousers so as not to spoil the creases. He put both his shoes under the chair with his socks tucked into them. I noticed that all his clothes were new, from head to foot, not deluxe but good, solid quality. He did all this in silence, neither slowly nor hurriedly, with systematic, thoughtful regularity, and he took no notice of me. I had undressed meantime and was lying naked on the bed. If he desired me he certainly did not show it, unless the ceaseless twitching of his jaw muscles just under the skin meant he was in a state of excitement; but that could not be so, because he had had it before, when he did not seem even to be thinking about me.

  I have already said that I like order and cleanliness very much, since they seem to indicate corresponding spiritual qualities. But Sonzogno’s order and cleanliness aroused very different sensations in me that evening, something between horror and fear. That was the way surgeons got ready in a hospital, I could not help thinking, when they had to perform some bloody operation. Or worse, slaughterers, under the very eyes of the lambs they are about to kill. Lying there on the bed, I felt as helpless and powerless as an unconscious body about to undergo an experiment. His silence and indifference left me in doubt as to what he intended to do to me as soon as he had finished undressing. So when he came up to the head of the bed, stark naked, and, strangely, placed his two hands on my shoulders as if to hold me still, I could not prevent a shudder of fear. He noticed it. “What’s wrong?” he asked me through his clenched teeth.

  “Nothing,” I answered. “Your hands are freezing.”

  “You don’t like me, do you?” he said, still gripping my shoulders as he stood by the head of the bed. “You prefer the people who pay you, don’t you?” As he spoke he stared at me, and the look was unbearable.

  “Why?” I said. “You’re a man like all the rest. Besides, you said yourself you’d pay double.”

  “I know what I’m talking about,” he said. “You and your kind make love to the rich folk, the upper crust. I’m just someone like you, and all you whores only make love to gentlemen.”

  I recognized in his voice the same sinister, inflexible desire to stir up a quarrel that had made him insult Gino on the slightest pretext only a short while before. I had supposed at the time that he had his own reasons for bearing Gino a grudge. But I now realized that his grim, incalculable touchiness was always on the alert, and when he was possessed by such a devil, you would be in the wrong no matter how you dealt with him.

  “Why do you want to insult me?” I asked, rather heatedly. “I’ve already told you all men are the same to me.”

  “If you were telling the truth, you wouldn’t be making that face. You don’t like me, do you?”

  “But I’ve already told you!”

  “You don’t like me,” he continued, “but I regret to tell you, you have to like me.”

  “Oh, leave me alone!” I said in sudden irritation.

  “As long as I was useful in getting rid of your lover,” he went on, “you wanted me. Then afterward you’d rather have sent me away. But I came up instead. You don’t like me, do you?”

  I was really frightened now. His urgent words, his calm, pitiless voice, the fixed stare in his eyes that seemed to have changed from blue to red, everything seemed to be carrying him on toward some fearful goal. I realized too late that any attempt to stop him on his path would be as hopeless a task as keeping a rock from rolling down a steep slope. I merely shrugged my shoulders violently.

  “You don’t like me, eh?” he went on. “You look disgusted when I touch you — but I’ll change your look for you, honey!” He raised his hand as if to slap me. I was expecting something of the sort and tried to protect myself with my arm. But he managed to strike me all the same, shockingly hard, first on one cheek and then, as I tried to turn my face away, on the other. This was the first time in all my life that anything of this kind had happened to me; and despite the sting of the blows I was more surprised than hurt at first. I uncovered my face. “Do you know what you are?” I said. “You’re a bastard.”

 
He seemed struck by this phrase. He sat on the edge of the bed and rocked himself back and forth, gripping the mattress with both hands. “We’re all bastards,” he said, without looking at me.

  “It takes real courage to hit a woman!” I said. But all at once I was unable to continue, for my eyes filled with tears, caused not so much by the blows I had received as by the nervous tension of the whole evening, with all its many unpleasant and disgusting episodes. I remembered Gino lying flat in the mud, remembered how indifferent I had been and how I had gone off cheerfully with Sonzogno, thinking only of testing the exceptional strength of his muscles. I was overcome by remorse, pity for Gino, and disgust at myself, and I realized I had been punished for my insensitivity and stupidity by the same hand that had struck Gino down. I had delighted in violence and now that same violence had been turned against me. I looked at Sonzogno through my tears. He was sitting on the edge of the bed stark naked, white and hairless, his shoulders bowed, his arms that gave no hint of their strength hanging loosely. I felt an unexpected desire to lessen the distance between us.

  “But won’t you tell me why you hit me, at least?” I said with an effort.

  “There was a look on your face,” he said reflectively, the nerve in his jaw twitching.

  I realized that if I wanted to get nearer to him, I would have to tell him all I was thinking, hiding nothing from him.

  “You thought I didn’t like you. Well, you were wrong,” I answered.

  “Maybe.”

  “You were wrong. As a matter of fact, you frighten me, I don’t know why. That’s why I had that look on my face.”

  He turned around sharply at these words, looked at me suspiciously. But he calmed down at once and asked, with a hint of vanity, “So I frightened you, did I?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do I still frighten you?”

  “No, you can kill me if you want, now — I don’t care anymore.” This was the truth; I really wanted him to kill me just then, because I had suddenly lost all desire to go on living. But he grew angry.

  “Who said anything about killing you?” he said. “Why were you afraid of me?”

  “How do I know? You frightened me. You can’t explain these things.”

  “Did Gino frighten you?”

  “Why should he frighten me?”

  “But why do I frighten you?” All his vanity had gone by now; there was a hint of fury in his voice once more.

  “Well,” I said to soothe him, “you frighten me because it’s plain to see you’re capable of anything.”

  He said nothing and sat there pensively for a moment. Then he turned around. “Does all this mean you want me to get dressed and get out?” he asked me threateningly.

  I looked at him and realized he was once more in a fit of rage. If I refused him, I would be exposing myself to further, and possibly even worse, violence. I would have to accept him. But I remembered his pale eyes and was filled with disgust at the idea that they would be fixed on mine during the act of love.

  “No, you can stay if you like,” I said feebly, “but turn off the light first.”

  He stood up, small, white, but extremely well proportioned except for his short neck, and went on tiptoe to switch the light off by the door. I realized immediately that getting him to put the light out had not been a good idea; for as soon as the room was plunged into darkness, the fear I thought had left me returned again, uncontrollably. It was as though there were in the room with me, not a man, but a leopard or some other wild beast, which might crouch down in a corner or leap on me and tear me to pieces. Perhaps he was slow finding his way among the chairs and other furniture in the dark; or perhaps fear made his absence seem longer. I certainly had the sensation that ages had passed before he reached the bed, and when I felt his hands on me, I could not repress another convulsive shudder. I hoped he had not noticed it, but his instincts were as delicate as an animal’s and I immediately heard his voice, close beside me. “Are you still afraid?” he asked.

  My guardian angel must have been there in the darkness. Some nuance in his voice told me he had raised his arm and was waiting to strike me according to whether I answered yes or no. I realized he knew he was terrifying, and wanted to be otherwise and to be loved like all other men. But he knew no other means of achieving this end than by rousing a deeper fear. I lifted my hand and, under the pretense of caressing his neck and right shoulder, I discovered that his arm was indeed raised as I had supposed, ready to fall and strike me in the face. I spoke with an effort, trying to give my voice its usual calm and gentle intonation. “No,” I said, “it’s the cold this time, really — let’s get under the covers.”

  “All right, then!” he said. This “all right,” in which remained the echo of a threat, only deepened my fear, if anything. As he embraced and caressed me under the covers, while all around us was darkness, I experienced a moment of acute, anguish, one of the worst in my life. Fear stiffened my limbs, which drew back and shuddered uncontrollably at the contact of his peculiarly smooth, sinuous, writhing body; but at the same time I told myself it was ridiculous to be afraid of him at such a time, and I tried with all the strength of my mind to overcome my fear and give myself to him fearlessly like a cherished lover. My fear lay not so much in my limbs, which still did as I bid them no matter how reluctantly, but more intimately in the depths of my womb, which seemed to close and reject his touch with horror. At last he took me and I felt a pleasure made black and atrocious by fear. I could not restrain a long, wailing cry in the dark, as if the final embrace had been the embrace of death, not of love, and that cry the cry of my life departing from me, leaving behind a tortured, spent body.

  We lay there silent in the dark afterward. I was exhausted and fell asleep almost at once. I soon felt the sensation of a terrific weight on my chest, as if Sonzogno were squatting upon me, huddled up naked as he was, gripping his knees between his arms, his face leaning on his knees. He was seated on my chest, his bare, hard buttocks pressed against my neck, his feet were on my stomach; as I continued to sleep his weight increased, and although I was asleep, I tossed restlessly about trying to rid myself of him, or at least shift him. At last I felt as if I was suffocating and I tried to cry out. My voice remained imprisoned in my breast, as I cried out soundlessly for what seemed to me an endless period of time; at last I managed to force it out and woke up, moaning loudly.

  The light was lit on the night table and Sonzogno was leaning his head on one arm and looking at me. “Did I sleep long?” I asked.

  “Half an hour,” he said through his teeth.

  I threw him a glance that must still have been filled with terror of the nightmare I had had, because he asked me with a curious note in his voice, as if he wanted to resume the conversation, “Are you still afraid?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you knew who I was,” he said, “you’d be more afraid than ever.”

  All men feel inclined to talk about themselves and confide in a woman after they have made love. Apparently, Sonzogno was no exception to the rule. His voice was unusually casual, lazy, affectionate even, with a touch of vanity and complacency. But I felt terribly afraid once again and my heart began to pound in my breast as if it were going to burst.

  “Why?” I asked. “Who are you?”

  He looked at me, not so much hesitating as savoring the effect of his words on me. “I’m the man of Via Palestro,” he said slowly at last. “That’s who I am.”

  He did not think it was necessary to explain what had happened at Via Palestro and this time his vanity was right. Quite recently a horrible crime had been committed in a house in that street, all the papers had been filled with it, and all the people who get worked up over this kind of thing had discussed it. Mother, who spent a great part of the day spelling out the crime news in the papers, had been the first to mention it to me. A young jeweler had been murdered in his flat where he lived alone. Apparently the weapon used by Sonzogno — for I was sure now that he was the mur
derer — was a heavy bronze paperweight. The police had found no helpful clues. Apparently the jeweler was also a receiver of stolen goods and the police imagined, rightly, as it turned out, that he had been killed during some illegal transaction.

  I have often noticed that when a piece of news fills us with amazement or horror, our minds become blank and we fix our attention on the first thing our eyes fall upon, but in a particular way, as if we wanted to pass through its surface and reach some undefined secret hidden within. This was what happened to me after Sonzogno had told me who he was. My eyes were wide open, my mind a complete blank, like a receptacle containing liquid or fine powder that suddenly begins to leak — except that my mind, although blank, was ready and waiting to receive some other matter, and the sensation was painful because I longed to fill the void and could not. Meanwhile I was staring at the wrist of Sonzogno, who was stretched out beside me, leaning on one elbow. His arm was white, smooth, hairless, full, giving no hint of his exceptional muscles. His wrist was also round and he wore a leather strap, like a watch strap without a watch, the only object he had kept on in his nakedness. The black, glossy color of this strap seemed to give some significance, not only to his arm, but to the whole of his white, naked body, and I tried to define this significance in my mind but was unable to do so. It had a sinister connotation; it conjured up the idea of a ring in a convict’s chain. But there was something both beautiful and cruel about this leather strap; it was like an ornament that emphasized the unexpected and feline character of Sonzogno’s brutality. My blank state of mind lasted only a moment. Then my head was suddenly filled with a host of tumultuous thoughts beating about like birds in a crowded cage. I remembered I had been afraid of Sonzogno from the very first moment; I remembered I had made love to him; and I realized that by yielding to his embraces in that darkness I had learned everything that he had concealed from me through my horrified body, even before my ignorant mind had been aware of it, and that was why I had cried out as I had.