“But beware of that moment following when you are suffused with the glow of my weakness from which, in a triumphant spasm, I have liberated myself. You will remember. I shall have forgotten.
“My regard scarcely recognising you will be fixed anew in the eternal urge to know. This is the wound in woman which never heals, even in subsequent ecstasies. This is the knowledge the last mother to dwell on earth will not dare to impart to the ultimately sophisticated maiden when preparing her for the last honeymoon.”
“How beautifully you talk.”
“You haven’t understood anything?”
“There are things a woman understands without accepting,” replied Pazzarella, settling down in my arms with a smile of relief.
“You certainly have an indomitable courage.”
“I feel so cozy with you.”
“Now that I have taken the road to Death,” she continued.
“Which leads through felicity.”
“Do you mean it?” clapping her hands.
“Indeed, this is to be the happiest time of your life.”
“Yes, I feel sure there is some elemental truth concealed in woman’s love that men do not suspect, but which will some day make amends for our monotony. It is my ambition to reveal it to you, and so be more to you than what you expect of me.”
“My dear, I ask nothing better than to vary that monotony. I give you carte blanche. I am here for a whole evening— Let us sample a little of this brimming secret reservoir in woman of which we men disdain to take advantage. See, I, in my turn, am passive. Profit by it!”
Pazzarella broke into a laugh of joyous discomfiture. “I can’t.”
“Ha?”
“Forgive me if I fail you at this crucial moment — it has just occurred to me — Womanhood cannot be consummated without a collaborator.”
“Pazzarella,” I asked her, “do you feel like making a little love this evening?”
“Actually, when one talks so much about love as we do, one hardly thinks of it.”
“Ah — if one comes to think of it, it is such a comical business.”
“So it seems to me,” she made friendly assent.
“Then for once we agree.”
“Miraculous!”
“And yet,” I pursued, “every now and then we shall find ourselves invaded by this indefinable yearning.”
“Fortunately,” she sighed, closing her eyes then opening them again. “Geronimo, you are delightful — you look like a little boy hiding in the corner with a lump of sugar.”
When at last we let go of each other Pazzarella fell into meditation. “How mysteriously designed is love— Here are we, the fundamental enemies whose dearest desire is to be rid of each other — yet when the flesh unites, how exquisite— It really tempts one to believe in a power above us.”
Only some minutes later, a complete change had come over her, so that eventually I was led to demand, “Why the depression?”
“After all, it’s idiotic loving you — there’s no reason for it — I didn’t want to—I don’t know where passion comes from — I object.”
I wondered how she would make defensive love — for day by day I found my enemy paler, her eyelids darker, but steadily fortifying herself in a new dignity.
“Be on your guard,” she greeted me at last with a smile of great reserve. “I begin to feel the need of saving you.”
“From yourself?” I inquired, “That is hardly your concern. I am perfectly capable of taking my own precautions.”
“Don’t interrupt me,” she went on with majestic severity. “I have got to talk to you. I am more serious than you think. I am a superior woman — you, also, are a superior man. That being the case, do you suppose that this, our love, is worthy of us? Do you think it is moral that I, knowing very well that you do not understand me, should say to myself, ‘I don’t care, his embraces content me,’ and let it go at that? No! You, being so supremely sophisticated, think there is enough to satisfy a woman in physical super-refinements and in your virility — above all your virility.” Then, as it were, in parentheses, “I am worn out. For the last two days I have lain on this sofa.”
“Forgive me,” I begged her with much solicitude, “is it possible I have failed you, that I have not rightly divined your tastes? Tell me, my dearest, how many ways of making love have I taught you?”
“There is,” murmured Pazzarella, counting on her fingers, “the one of the first time — that of the sacred Tuesday then yours, then mine and then the other ones.”
“And which do you prefer?”
“All of them,” she replied without hesitation. “That is to say,” her eyes catching mine fixed on her hypnotically, “All, up to a certain point. But there is a spiritual aspect of love; woman was not created uniquely to serve as man’s
“Woman,” I said, “Can you possibly suffer under the delusion that having followed the profession of literature for so many years, I had run into no female saviours? At least until now you had not exhibited the doubtful taste of echoing too often my other lady-loves.”
“You must have patience. We have also, we others, our traditions — classical traditions. There are the women you pay and the women who save you. Every decent woman tries to save at least a couple. Up to now, none of the men I met seemed worth the trouble — they needed saving — so I was not interested. Men who require help, you will agree with me, had better be left alone. Whereas you who do not require any, are just my affair.”
“Exactly. You want to ‘save’ me to save you.”
“Oh,” she reproved me, “Why won’t you follow the rules of the game — leave things to me.”
“Little one,” I condoned with her, “You are pale, you are under the influence of a physical reaction. Evidently it is for the first time I observe with a certain amount of pride or you would not take it so hard — you’re tired. If it relieves your body to weigh upon my spirit, I am only too willing.”
“No,” she insisted, “You may laugh at me, spit upon me — nothing will make any difference — I am determined to save you. Answer me. Do you not feel by any chance that your soul is become clouded, smirched with the pettiness of daily life? Have you arrived perhaps at the turning point where it is difficult to distinguish clearly which path to follow? Do you not long to feel a confident little hand in yours, to guide you?”
“Why such theatrical gestures when you’re turning your back on me?”
“I am invoking the ideal.”
“Oh, I thought this harangue was addressed to me.”
“There’s nothing to prevent you listening if you feel like it — but how satisfied actresses must feel before a whole audience. You, who have read all there is to read, wasn’t there anything you could not discover in that universe of volumes? Even in your own colossal intellect, is there not lacking perhaps some other trifle?
“Trust in me — I am your redemptress. In all humility—”
“Murderess!”
“When one has exhausted everything else, one must turn to the simpletons of this world. When the great man soils his soul, even a prostitute may serve to cleanse it — and this simpleton,” her voice trembling with emotion, “this prostitute, is perhaps myself! I feel really moved,” then, her eyes imploring me, “Self-abnegation softens the hardest heart.”
I flicked the ash off my cigarette.