The Conformist by Alberto Moravia Read Free Book Online Page B

a kind of car he didn’t know, maybe foreign, long and black with an antiquated body. Strangely, it came to him that that motionless car, right there, only a few feet away from them, suggested a premeditation in the man’s casual approaches. He hesitated before responding; the man insisted: “Come on, before bringing you home I’ll take you for a nice ride … would you like that?”
    Marcello would have liked to refuse, or rather, felt that he should. But he didn’t have time: the man had already taken the bundle of books from his hand, saying, “I’ll carry them for you,” andwas moving toward the automobile. He followed him, somewhat surprised by his own docility, but not unhappy. The man opened the car door, had Marcello climb into the seat next to his own, and threw the books onto the back seat. Then he got in behind the wheel, closed the door, drew on his gloves, and started up the car.
    The automobile began to roll forward slowly, majestically, with a low rumble, along the tree-lined avenue. It really was an antique car, thought Marcello, but kept in perfect working order, lovingly polished, all its brasses and nickel platings gleaming. Now the man, keeping one hand on the steering wheel, had reached out with the other for a visored cap, which he adjusted on his head. The cap emphasized his severity of aspect and added to it an almost military air. Marcello asked, embarrassed, “Is this your car?”
    “Call me tu,” said the man, without turning, using his right hand to squeeze the bulb of a serious sounding horn as antiquated as the car. “It’s not mine … it belongs to the person that pays me … I’m the chauffeur.”
    Marcello said nothing. The man, keeping his profile to him and continuing to drive the car with a detached and elegant precision, asked, “Does it bother you that it isn’t mine? Are you ashamed?”
    Marcello protested quickly, “No, why?”
    The man smiled slightly with satisfaction and accelerated their pace. He said, “Now we’ll be going up a hill for a while, up Monte Mario … all right?”
    “I’ve never been there,” replied Marcello.
    The man said, “It’s beautiful, you can see the whole city.” He was quiet for a moment and then added, gently, “What’s your name?”
    “Marcello.”
    “Oh, right,” said the man, as if speaking to himself, “They were calling you Marcellina, those friends of yours.… My name is Pasquale.”
    Marcello scarcely had time to think that Pasquale was a ridiculous name before the man, almost as if he had intuited his thought, added, “But it’s a ridiculous name … you can call me Lino.”
    Now the car was rolling down the broad and dirty streets of a run-down neighborhood, between squalid apartment buildings. Groups of breathless urchins playing in the middle of the street parted for them; disheveled women and ragged men watched their passage, so out of the ordinary, from the sidewalks. Marcello lowered his eyes, ashamed before their curiosity.
    “It’s the Trionfale,” said the man, “but here’s Monte Mario.”
    The car left the poor neighborhood and followed a tram up a broad, spiraling street between two rows of ascending houses.
    “What time do you have to be home?”
    “There’s time,” said Marcello, “we never eat before two.”
    “Who’s waiting for you at home? Your papà and mamma?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you have brothers and sisters, too?”
    “No.”
    “And what does your papà do?”
    “He doesn’t do anything,” replied Marcello a little uncertainly.
    At a bend in the road the car overtook the tram and the man, in order to take the turn as tightly as possible, leaned his arms on the steering wheel without moving his upper body, with an elegant dexterity. Then the car, still ascending, began to pass long, high, vine-covered walls, gates of villas, wooden fences. Every now and then an entranceway decorated with Venetian lanterns or an arch with a sign the color of ox blood revealed the