Boredom by Alberto Moravia Read Free Book Online Page B

contained the irony that was not shown in her face. But no, it was a serious, or at the least a hypocritically serious, voice. I said I would like some whisky and with precise movements she took the whisky bottle, poured some into a glass, added a chunk of ice and some water and handed it to me, asking: “Is there anything else you would like?”
    I said I wanted nothing more, and watched her go noiselessly away in her felt-soled shoes. Then I sat down with my whisky in one of the vast armchairs; I lit a cigarette and started to ponder. Why had I abused myself like that in front of the mirror? Obviously, I concluded, the danger of this sort of prodigal son comedy was that, when I least expected it and, as it were, in spite of myself, I might be suddenly tempted to utter profanities or create a scandal. In other words, I was a prodigal son of a particular type who, at the very moment when he was clasped in the embrace of his aged parent, felt a temptation to give the latter a good kick in the shins, and who, after devouring the festive banquet, went out and vomited it up in a corner of the garden. I had no time to go deeply into this interesting speculation as my mother came suddenly into the room. “Did Rita give you a drink?” she inquired.
    “Yes, thank you. But who is this Rita?”
    “She’s new here, she had very good references, she’d been with some Americans who have left. Really she was a sort of nursery governess, but as there aren’t any children here I said to her: ‘My dear girl, I’m forced to demote you into a parlor maid. You’re free to accept or not as you like.’ Naturally she agreed, of course she did, with all the unemployment there is....” My mother went on talking about Rita even after we had gone into the dining room, where Rita herself was standing at the sideboard, with cotton gloves on her hands, a lace cap on her head and a little oval apron at her waist. I wanted to say to my mother: “Be careful, you’re talking about Rita and Rita is here,” then I looked at the girl’s sly, bespectacled face and I was absolutely sure that she had seen me when I leaned forward in front of the mirror and called myself an idiot. I felt that this idea was not altogether displeasing to me, as though from that moment a kind of complicity had been established between myself and Rita. I sat down, and my mother, as she also took her seat, said: “Rita, Signor Dino is my son and tomorrow morning he’s coming to live here. Now don’t forget: if anyone asks on the telephone for a gentleman called Dino, that means my son.”
    We were now sitting facing one another at a small round table in a room which was not large but which had a very high ceiling. On the Florentine lace tablecloth were plates of German porcelain flanked by spoons and forks of English silver and glasses of French crystal. Behind my mother’s chair the golden inlay of a Dutch dresser gleamed in the half-light; behind me, as I knew, stood a Venetian sideboard. The French window giving on to the garden was wide open but the curtains were half drawn because my mother did not wish, in her own words, that some gardener or other should count the mouthfuls as she was eating. My mother herself helped me to wine from a crystal and silver carafe, then told Rita that she could serve the lunch. The girl took from the sideboard a porcelain dish standing on a salver and went across to my mother. The latter said sharply: “Serve Signor Dino first.”
    “Why? You first,” I said.
    “No, I...”
    “Rita, serve the Signora first.”
    “But I eat practically nothing,” said my mother, and she served herself a tiny portion of food with the point of the spoon. Rita came over to me and then I understood the good smell of cooking I had noticed when we were in the garden—a macaroni pie. “I knew you liked it,” said my mother, “I had it made specially for you.”
    “Good, good, good,” I said with masochistic satisfaction, and I deposited an