Conjugal Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

about you and me?'
    'Yes.'
    'With things as they are now, I shall never succeed in writing it.'
    'What d'you mean, things as they are now?'
    I hesitated a moment, and then I said: 'We make love every evening, don't we? Well, I feel that all the force that I need for writing this story is taken away from me when I'm with you. If it goes on like this, I shall never be able to write it.'
    She looked at me with those huge blue eyes of hers, which were dilated, one would have said, by the effort of understanding me. 'But how do other writers manage?' she asked.
    'I don't know how they manage. . . . But I imagine that they lead chaste lives, at any rate while they're working.'
    'But D'Annunzio,' she said, 'I've heard that he had such a number of mistresses. . .how did he manage?'
    'I don't know,' I answered, 'whether he had such a great number of mistresses. What he had was a few celebrated mistresses, about whom everybody talked, he himself most of all. . . but in my opinion, he arranged his life very well. . . . Now Baudelaire's chastity, for instance, is well known.'
    She said nothing. I felt that all my reasoning came painfully close to the ridiculous, but I had begun now and I had to go on. I resumed, in a gentle, caressing tone of voice: 'Look, I'm not really set on writing this story nor, in general, on becoming a writer. I'll give it up with the greatest ease. . . . The important thing, for me, is our love.'
    She answered at once, with a frown: 'But I want you to write it. I want you to become a writer.'
    'Why?'
    'Because you're a writer already,' she said rather confusedly and almost with irritation.' I feel that you've got a great deal to say. . . . Besides, you ought to work, like everyone else. You can't just lead an idle life and be content merely with making love to me. You've got to become somebody.' She stumbled over her words, and it was clear that she did not know how to express that stubborn desire of hers to see me do what she wanted me to do.
    'There's no need for me to become a writer,' I answered, though this time I felt I was telling anyhow a partial lie; 'I can perfectly well not do anything ... or rather, I can go on doing what I've done hitherto - read, appreciate, understand, admire the works of others . . . and love you. Or again, so as not to be idle, as you say, I could perhaps take up some other profession, some other occupation. . . .'
    'No, no, no,' she said hastily, shaking not only her head but her body too, as though she wanted to express this refusal with her whole self, 'you've got to write - you've got to become a writer.'
    After these words we remained silent for a moment. Then she said: 'If what you say is true . . . then we must change everything.'
    'What d'you mean?'
    'We mustn't make love any more until you've finished your story. . . . Then, when you've finished, we'll begin again.'
    I must confess that I was immediately tempted to accept this strange and slightly ridiculous proposal. My obsession was still strong and it made me forget how much selfishness, and therefore falseness, had been at the root of it. But I repressed this first impulse and, embracing her, said: 'You love me and this proposal of yours is the greatest proof of your love that you could give me. . . . But the fact that you've made it is enough for me. Let's go on loving each other and not think about anything else.'
    'No, no,' she said imperiously, pushing me away, 'that's what we must do - now that you've told me.'
    'Are you offended?'
    'Really, Silvio, why should I be offended? I truly want you to write that story, that's all. . . . Don't be silly.' And as she said this, as if to underline the affectionate quality of her insistence, she put her arms round me.
    We went on like this for a little, I defending myself and she insisting, imperious, inflexible. Finally I said: 'All right, I'll try. . . it may be that all this isn't true and that I'm simply a person without any literary talent.'
    'That isn't true, Silvio,