Sergio rebelled against Maurizio’s insightful comments. But he knew that his friend was right. He objected: “Even if it were true, I would still love Lalla and be hurt by the idea of losing her … I would still lament my loss.”
“Perhaps, but not the way Moroni laments the death of his wife … If one loves a woman, one must love her as he does … One must love her above all else … What do you think? Lalla left you because she knew that you did not love her more than the Party, and because she knows that Moroni will love her more than anything … Women cannot accept becoming secondary, second fiddle.”
Sergio angrily retorted: “Well, at least you’re satisfied … You think you’ve won the match … You forced me to act dishonorably, you made me lose Lalla, and now you’re feeling triumphant, isn’t that right?”
“Not at all … I’m just as defeated as you are, don’t
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you see? The victory consisted not in defeating one another but in being loved by Lalla … She is humanity in its rawest state, the masses, the weak, vulnerable flesh that both of us sought to conquer … But we employed arguments that were interesting only to us … Meanwhile, we completely forgot the one true argument: love, affection, respect, passion … It is Moroni’s only argument, and that’s why he won.”
“What does all of this mean?”
“It means,” Maurizio said, once again displaying his pleasant, dreary logic, “that our arguments are interesting only to us, as Communists or anti-Communists … but women — in other words, the people — want to live in peace and to be loved for who they are, to fuck and to be fucked. It means that we are predestined by history to be the cuckolds of humanity … She betrayed us because we did not love her for who she is, without ulterior motives.”
“How clever you are,” Sergio said, sarcastically.
“I’m not philosophizing … I’m just observing reality … I think that when these wars of religion that currently divide the world finally come to an end, someone else will come along and reap the spoils, as the saying goes … People want to be loved for themselves … When they feel used, they only pretend to believe what we say, and then they run off with the first person who really loves them.”
“Do you think Lalla will be happier with Moroni than she would with me or you?”
“Of course … Moroni has a very precise, very neat little story, and Lalla fits into it perfectly: he did not love his wife as he should have, Lalla resembles her, he will love her as he was not able to love his wife … Meanwhile, you were dreaming about the Party, and I had my own cold-blooded business to think of.”
“Such as?”
“Myself, my own precious self … I had myself, and you had your Party … But for Moroni, there is only Lalla.”
He said these words in a calm, definite tone, as the car went faster and faster. The car […]
Version C
[I]
As soon as the war ended, two important events
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happened in my life. The first was that I joined the Communist Party. I suppose that every man acts for reasons that are both selfish and disinterested. My disinterested reasons for joining the Party — from now on I’ll call it “the Party,” which is how we refer to it — were not very different from those of countless others who took the same step at that moment, whether farmers, factory workers, or people of means. It seems pointless to discuss these reasons, because the story I want to tell is a very personal one, one that will allow me to reveal who I am to the world and to myself. Disinterested reasons, as such, reveal little or nothing about the self. Quite to the contrary, they are the patrimony of all men. Suffice it to say that I joined the Party in good faith, with the requisite sentimental enthusiasm and knowledge of doctrine. As to my selfish reasons, they were many, and now that I examine them, I see that they all lead back to Maurizio and my friendship with him. But let us proceed in an orderly manner; the subject is rich and, in its way, full of surprises. I must proceed carefully, in order of relevance, if I hope to unravel it. So I will go back to the beginning. One of the many things that Maurizio accused me of, in his condescending, sarcastic way, was being an intellectual. He would say: “Intellectuals like you,” or “You’re a typical intellectual,” or even “Oh, you’re nothing but an intellectual.” Maurizio’s attitude was not the only thing that made me hate the word. Like the word “bourgeois” and so many others, its meaning has deteriorated over time, taking on negative connotations that it did not once have. Today it is almost an insult to call someone an intellectual, and there is no one who, hearing himself referred to in this way, does not feel the impulse to protest. But what bothered me the most was to hear Maurizio utter this word. I felt an unjustifiable attraction toward Maurizio and held him, also unjustifiably, in high esteem and wanted to be his friend. I realized that, despite his maliciousness, he was right: I was, without a doubt, what is normally referred to as an intellectual. In other words, I was an educated person
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of limited means, unable to enjoy culture as a mere ornament or pastime, forced to write movie reviews for a third-rate newspaper, to translate mystery novels and write articles for the society pages. I was idle and constantly busy, eternally unemployed and always occupied. Even physically, as he often noted, I resembled the perfect intellectuaclass="underline" slight, with a mop of unruly hair and glasses, dressed in casual pullovers instead of collared shirts, in muddy shoes and frayed trousers, my pockets always overflowing with bits of paper. I was an intellectual from head to toe, inside and out, and I knew it. So why did it offend me to hear Maurizio say it? I have already mentioned that the word “intellectual” has become an insult; in addition, I felt hurt that by describing me in this way, Maurizio revealed that he had no doubts about my nature, that he had pigeonholed me forever and ever. In other words, I no longer held any surprises for him: I was an intellectual, and no matter what I did in life, I would never be anything else. What this denied me was the freedom, the margin of autonomy in human relations, that allows us to escape from the mortifying tracks of habit and routine. This hurt me more than the insulting connotations of the word “intellectual” itself. I suppose that one of my self-interested motives for joining the Communist Party was so that I could retort: “You think I’m an intellectual? Well, you may be surprised to hear that I’ve joined the Party … I’m a Communist now. What do you think about that?”
Some will say that becoming a Communist is not
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the only alternative to being called an intellectual. It’s true, I could have gone to work in an office, or become an explorer, a factory worker, a pilot. But we mustn’t forget that Maurizio’s attitude toward me, his condescending, obstinate contempt, was part of a superiority complex with clear overtones of class: he was rich and I was poor; he came from a powerful, established family and I from an obscure, petit bourgeois background; he was well dressed, elegant, and worldly, while I was unkempt, introverted, and awkward. Perhaps I also joined in order to feel morally superior to Maurizio, so that I could say: “Not only am I not an intellectual, but I can tell you that you are doomed, that you belong to a doomed class, that all your money, your worldliness, your elegance, and your airs will not save you on judgment day, and that day is near. On that day you will be judged and found wanting, and you will be thrown to the curb, like a piece of trash.” I didn’t think this so much as feel it, with great intensity but always combined with the strange and unlikely attraction that Maurizio inspired in me. Be that as it may, this was certainly my second reason for joining the Party, by which I mean my second, more personal and self-interested reason.