The Conformist (38 page)

By now he realized with perfect clarity that he had, as they say, bet on the losing horse; but why he had bet that way and why the horse hadn’t won was not, apart from observation of the most obvious facts, really clear to him. But he would have liked to be sure that everything that happened had
had
to happen — that is, that he could not have bet any differently or with any different result — and he needed this certainty more than he needed to be freed from a remorse he did not feel. In fact, the only possible source of remorse, for him, was to have been mistaken, that is, to have done what he had done without an absolute and destined necessity. To have, in other words, deliberately or involuntarily ignored the possibility that he could have done things completely differently. But if he could be certain that this was not true, it seemed to him that
he could live in peace with himself, even if it were only in his usual listless and depressed way. In other words, he thought, he needed to be sure that he had recognized his own destiny and accepted it as it was, useful to himself and others — perhaps only in a negative way, but useful nonetheless.

Meanwhile, he was consoled in his doubt by the idea that even if there had been a mistake — and he couldn’t exclude this — he had bet more on it than anyone else, more than all the others who now found themselves in the same circumstances. It was a consolation to his pride, the only one that remained. By tomorrow other people could have changed ideas, parties, lives, even characters; but for him this was impossible, not only in relationship to others but also to himself. He had done what he had done for reasons that were his alone, that had nothing to do with comunion with others; to change, even if it were allowed him, would have meant annihilating himself. And now, in the midst of so much destruction, this was exactly what he wished to avoid.

At this point he thought that, if there had been an error, the first and greatest one had been his desire to escape his own abnormality, to find whatever sort of normality he could through which to communicate with other people. This error had sprung from a powerful instinct; but unfortunately, the normality this instinct had collided with was nothing but an empty form, within which all was abnormal and gratuitous. At the first jolt of contact, the form had shattered into pieces; and the instinct, so justified and so human, had turned him, from the victim he had been, into an executioner. His mistake, in other words, was not so much that he had killed Quadri, but that he had tried to obliterate the original sin of his own life with inadequate means. But, he went back to wondering, would it have been at all possible for things to have gone otherwise than they had?

No, it would not have been possible, he thought, answering himself. Lino had had to compromise his innocence and he, to defend himself, had been compelled to kill him; and then, to free himself from the sense of abnormality that had sprung from this, he had no choice but to seek normality in the way he had sought it;
and to obtain this normality he had had to pay a price that corresponded to the burden of abnormality he had meant to free himself from; and this price had been Quadri’s death. So all had been destined, though freely accepted, as all was at once just and unjust.

He seemed to be feeling rather than thinking these things, with the sharp and painful perception of an anguish he rejected and rebelled against. He would have liked to feel calm and detached, faced with the disastrous ruin of his life, as if observing a dismal but distant event. But his anguish made him suspect himself of panicking at the turn of events, in spite of the clarity with which he was forcing himself to examine them. Besides, it wasn’t easy just then to distinguish clarity from fear; and perhaps the best he could do was to maintain, as always, a decorous and impassive mode of behavior. After all, he thought a little ironically, as if summing up his modest ambitions, he had nothing to lose; at least, if his “loss” was understood as the renunciation of his mediocre position as a civil servant, this house he had to pay for in installments for the next twenty-five years, the car he must pay for in the next two, and the few other sundry expenses of a comfortable life that he had felt he must concede to Giulia. It was true, he had nothing to lose; and if they had come to arrest him right that minute, the meagerness of the material benefits he had acquired by virtue of his position would have amazed even his enemies.

He stepped away from the window and turned to look at the room. It was a married couple’s bedroom, as Giulia had wanted, of dark, shining mahogany and handles and ornaments of bronze in an approximation of Empire style. It came to him that this room had been bought on installment, too, and that they had just finished paying for it the year before.

“Our whole life,” he thought with sarcasm, picking his jacket up from the chair and putting it on, “is in installments, but these last are the biggest and we’ll never manage to pay them.” He smoothed out the rumpled rug by the bed with his foot and walked out of the room.

Going down to the end of the hall, he reached a door that had been left ajar, through which a little light was shining. It was his
daughter’s bedroom; and as he entered, he delayed a moment on the threshold, almost unable to believe the ordinary, familial scene unfolding before his eyes. The room was small and furnished in the pretty, colorful style appropriate to rooms where young children sleep and live. The furniture was painted pink, the curtains were light blue, the walls were papered with a design of little baskets of flowers. Dolls of various sizes and other toys were scattered haphazardly here and there on the pink carpet. His wife was sitting on the side of the bed and Lucilla, his daughter, was already in it. Giulia, who was conversing with the child, turned around as soon as he entered and gave him a long look without saying a word. Marcello took one of the little pink chairs and sat down next to the bed, too.

The little girl said, “Hello, papà.”

“Hello, Lucilla,” said Marcello, looking at her.

She was a dark, delicate child, with a round face, huge expressive eyes, and features so fine that they seemed almost affected in their excessive delicacy. He himself was not sure why, but in that moment she actually seemed
too
lovely and, above all, too conscious of her loveliness in a way, he thought, that suggested the beginnings of an innocent flirtatiousness and that reminded him in an unpleasant manner of his mother, whom she resembled closely. This flirtatiousness could be seen in the way she rolled her large, velvety eyes when she was talking to him or her mother, which produced a strange effect in a child of six; above all, it showed in the almost incredible self-confidence with which she spoke. Dressed in a light blue nightgown, all puffs and lace, she was sitting up in bed with her hands joined for the evening prayer, which the arrival of her father had interrupted.

“Come on, Lucilla, don’t daydream,” said her mother good-naturedly. “Come on, now, say the prayer with me.”

“I’m not daydreaming,” said the child, raising her eyes to the ceiling with an expression of impatient condescension. “You’re the one who stopped when papà came in … so I stopped, too.”

“You’re right,” said Giulia with composure, “but you know the prayer. You could have gone on by yourself. When you’re bigger, I won’t always be here to prompt you, but you’ll still have to say it.”

“Look how you’re wasting my time … I’m tired,” said Lucilla, shrugging her shoulders slightly with her hands still joined. “You’re sitting around talking and we could have finished the prayer by now.”

“All right,” said Giulia, smiling this time despite herself, “let’s start over:
Hail Mary, full of grace
.”

The little girl repeated in a drawling voice, “
Hail Mary, full of grace
.”

“
The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women
.”

“
The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women
.”

“
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
.”

“
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
.”

“Can I rest for a minute?” asked the child at this point.

“Why?” asked Giulia. “Are you already tired?”

“You’ve kept me here an hour like this, with my hands together,” said Lucilla, separating her hands and looking at her father. “When papà came in, we’d already said half of the prayer.” She rubbed her arms with her hands, spitefully, flirtatiously, making a show of how tired she was. Then she raised and joined her hands again and said, “I’m ready.”

“
Holy Mary, mother of God
,” Giulia continued calmly.

“
Holy Mary, mother of God
,” repeated the child.

“
Pray for us sinners
.”

“
Pray for us sinners
.”

“
Now and in the hour of our death
.”

“
Now and in the hour of our death
.”

“
Amen
.”

“
Amen
.”

“Papà, don’t you ever say your prayers?” asked Lucilla without pausing.

“We say them at night before we go to bed,” answered Giulia quickly. The child, however, was looking at Marcello with an interrogative and, as it seemed to him, incredulous air. He rushed to confirm it: “Of course, every night before we go to bed.”

“Now lie down and go to sleep,” said Giulia, getting up and trying to make Lucilla lie down. She managed, but not without effort,
as the child did not seem at all disposed to sleep, and then she pulled the sheet, her only cover, up to her daughter’s chin.

“I’m hot,” said Lucilla, kicking at the sheet, “I’m so hot.”

“Tomorrow we’re going to grandma’s and you won’t be hot anymore,” answered Giulia.

“Where does grandma live?”

“Up in the hills, where it’s cool.”

“But where?”

“I’ve already told you a million times — Tagliacozzo. It’s a cool place and we’ll be staying there all summer.”

“Won’t the airplanes come?”

“The airplanes won’t come anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because the war is over.”

“Why is the war over?”

“Because two doesn’t make three,” said Giulia brusquely, but without losing temper. “Now that’s enough questions … go to sleep, because tomorrow we’re leaving early in the morning. Now I’m going to go get your medicine.”

She went out, leaving her husband alone with his daughter.

“Papà,” the little girl asked right away, sitting back up in the bed, “remember the cat that belongs to the people downstairs?”

“Yes,” answered Marcello, leaving the chair to sit on the edge of the bed.

“She had four kittens.”

“So?”

“Those girls’ governess said that if I want to, I can have one of those kittens … can I take one? That way I can bring him to Tagliacozzo with me.”

“When were these kittens born?” asked Marcello.

“The day before yesterday.”

“Then it’s not possible,” said Marcello, stroking his daughter’s head. “The kittens have to stay with their mother as long as they’re nursing … you can have one when we come back from Taglicozzo.”

“What if we don’t come back from Tagliacozzo?”

“Why wouldn’t we come back? We’ll come back at the end of the summer,” replied Marcello, curling his daughter’s soft, dark hair around his fingers.

“Ow, you’re hurting me,” complained the child immediately, at the first gentle tug.

Marcello let go of her hair and said with a smile, “Why are you saying that? You know it’s not true.”

“Yes it is, you were hurting me,” she answered emphatically. Then, bringing her hands up to her temples in a stubbornly feminine gesture, she added, “Now I’m going to get a big headache.”

“Then I’ll pull your ears instead,” said Marcello playfully. Very very gently, he lifted the hair away from her small, round, rosy ear and gave it the slightest of tugs, ringing it like a little bell.

“Ow, ow, ow,” she yelled in a shrill voice, pretending she was in pain, her whole face suffused with a faint blush, “ow, ow, you’re hurting me!”

“Look what a liar you are,” Marcello reproached her, letting go of her ear. “You know you’re not supposed to tell lies.”

“This time,” she said judiciously, “I swear you really hurt me.”

“Do you want me to give you a doll for the night?” asked Marcello, turning to look at the carpet scattered with toys.

She launched a look of calm disdain at the dolls and replied condescendingly, “If you want to.”

“What do you mean, if I want to?” asked Marcello, smiling. “You talk as if you’re doing me a favor. Don’t you like to sleep with a doll?”

“Yes, I like to,” she conceded. “Give me that one in the pink dress.”

Marcello stood up and looked down at the carpet. “They all have pink dresses.”

“There’s pink and pink,” said the child, conceited and impatient. “That doll’s pink is exactly the same as the pink of the pink roses on the balcony.”

“This one here?” asked Marcello, picking up the biggest and most beautiful of the dolls from the carpet.

“See how you don’t understand anything?” she said severely.
Suddenly she jumped out of bed, ran in her bare feet to the corner of the rug, and gathered up a very ugly cloth doll with a squashed and blackened face. Then she ran back to bed and said, “There!”

This time she settled down on her back under the sheet, her peaceful, rosy face pressed fondly against the dirty, astonished face of the doll. Giulia came back in with a bottle and a spoon in her hand.

“Come on,” she said, coming over to the bed, “take your medicine.”

This time the child didn’t make her plead. She lifted herself halfway up in the bed and obediently offered up her face and opened her mouth, like a baby bird waiting to be fed. Giulia popped the spoon into her mouth and then tipped it up quickly, pouring out the liquid. Lucilla lay back down, saying, “It tastes awful!”

“Good-night, then,” said Giulia, leaning over to kiss her daughter.

“Good-night, mamma, good-night, papà,” trilled the child.

Marcello took his turn and kissed her on the cheek, then followed his wife out of the room. Giulia turned off the light and closed the door.