The Conformist by Alberto Moravia Page A

desperation and force him to keep his promise.
    Sitting still with his bundle of books on his knees, he watched the great plane trees and buildings slide by until they reached the end of the avenue. When the car started up the hill, Lino asked, as if concluding a long reflection, “Who taught you to be such a coquette, Marcello?”
    Marcello, who was not quite sure what the word meant, hesitated before answering. The man seemed to understand his innocent ignorance and added, “I mean, so sly.”
    “Why?” asked Marcello.
    “Just to ask.”
    “You’re the sly one,” said Marcello, “since you promise me the gun and never give it to me.”
    Lino laughed; he slapped Marcello’s bare knee with one hand and said in an exultant voice, “You know, Marcello, how happy I am that you’ve come today … when I think that the other day I begged you to ignore me, not to come, I realize how foolish we can be sometimes … really foolish … but luckily you had more sense than me, Marcello.”
    Marcello said nothing. He didn’t understand what Lino was saying too well and besides, that hand resting on his knee was annoying him. He had tried to move his knee away a few times, but the hand had stayed put. Luckily, at a bend in the road they saw a car coming toward them. Marcello pretended to be frightened and exclaimed: “Watch out, that car’s going to hit us,” and this time Lino withdrew his hand to turn the wheel. Marcello let out his breath.
    Here was the country road, between the garden walls and the hedges; here was the gateway with the gate painted green; here was the driveway, flanked by the sparse little cypresses and, here, at the end, was the twinkle of the veranda windows. Marcello noticed that, just as it had last time, the wind was tormenting the cypress trees under a dark, stormy sky. The car came to a halt, Linoleapt out and helped Marcello to descend, then set off with him toward the portico. This time Lino didn’t precede him but held him by the arm, hard, almost as if he were afraid he would try to escape. Marcello would have liked to tell him to loosen his grip but he didn’t have time. As if flying, holding him almost up off the ground by his arm, Lino made him cross the living room and then pushed him into the hallway. Here he unexpectedly grabbed him hard by the neck, saying, “Stupid boy that you are … stupid … why didn’t you want to come?”
    His voice was no longer playful but harsh and broken, although mechanically tender. Marcello, stunned, started to raise his eyes to look into Lino’s face; but just then he was shoved violently backward. As one might hurl away a cat or a dog after grabbing it up by the collar, Lino had flung him into the bedroom. Then Marcello saw him turn the key in the lock, pocket it, and turn toward him with an expression in which joy was mixed with an angry triumph.
    He shouted loudly, “That’s enough now! You’ll do what I want! That’s enough, Marcello, tyrant, little swine, enough … behave, obey, not another word from you.”
    He uttered these words of command, disdain, and dominion with a savage joy, almost a voluptuous pleasure; and Marcello, as confused as he was, could not help but perceive that they were words without sense, more like the strophes of a triumphal song than the expressions of thought or of conscious will. Frightened, dumbfounded, he watched as Lino paced around the little room, taking long strides, ripping his cap off his head and flinging it onto the windowsill; balling up a shirt hung on one of the chairs and shoving it into a drawer; smoothing the rumpled bedcover; and performing all these practical actions with a fury full of obscure significance. Then he saw him, still yelling his incoherent declarations full of arrogance and power to the air, approach the wall above the bed, wrench free the crucifix, cross over to the wardrobe, and hurl it into the bottom of a drawer with ostentatious brutality; and he understood that