Two Friends (35 page)

In C2, as we have indicated, the theme of “contempt” is developed for the first time (page 240). It is mentioned
only in passing in C1 (page 160). The importance of the appearance of this theme is clear in Moravia’s process—this is the point at which the author probably decided to abandon the project at hand, which was centered on the ideological rivalry between two friends, and to instead proceed with a different novel, which would eventually be titled
Il disprezzo
(
Contempt
). Thus, the development of
Il disprezzo
can be said to have begun in July 1952, at the moment the current project was abandoned. We should keep in mind that the feelings of contempt described by the narrator Sergio are quite different from the contempt which provides the subject of the subsequent, eponymous novel. In fact, the original title of the latter novel was
Il fantasma di mezzogiorno
(
A Ghost at Noon
). One significant difference: in the earlier novel, the feeling is experienced by the narrator toward the woman whom he is using as a means to an end, while in the later book, published in 1954, the feeling is experienced by the woman toward her husband.

Among the abandoned pages, a few (219*–220*, included in the appendix) suggest a different narrative direction. Instead of bumping into Maurizio and being invited to a party at his house, Sergio and Nella are invited to “a little gathering at the house of a man called Moroni, a friend, or more specifically a student, of Nella’s” (page 219*). As we know, this character and situation already appear in
Version B
, and it would seem that early on, Moravia intended to continue along those lines. Nella refuses to attend Moroni’s “little gathering” because of the poor state of her wardrobe, and Sergio becomes violent. The writer picks up this scene once again in
Version C
, but in reference to Maurizio’s party. One can therefore posit that these three pages were meant to follow the “prologue” (after page 249) and to constitute
the first version of the party. The party will later become a gathering organized by Maurizio, and Moroni will become a guest, a small-time cinema producer.

In order to reconstruct the external history of these typescripts, we must first gather all the information that can illuminate Moravia’s working process in the period between
Il conformista
(
The Conformist
), which he finished in November 1950 and published in April 1951 (see
Opere
, volume 3, pages 2972–82) and
Il disprezzo
(
Contempt
), which was begun, as we shall see, in July 1952 and published in 1954 (see
Opere
, volume 3, pages 2127–36). We will try to reconstruct, as far as the documents allow, the temporal arc spanning the period from the end of 1950 to the summer of 1952. We must consider the rare references in interviews and letters, even though, as we shall see, they are vague and contradictory.

Two interviews are particularly relevant. Moravia was interviewed by Pasquale Festa Campanile on January 8, 1952, for the journal
La Fiera Letteraria
(The book fair) and one year later, on February 8, 1953, for the journal
Il Lavoro Illustrato
(Illustrated work). The first interview allows us some insight into the author’s literary and publishing situation during those years. Moravia says:

It seems that in early 1952 Moravia was mainly thinking about stories. The omnibus volume (
I racconti
) was in fact published in April 1952. Meanwhile, almost every month, Moravia published twenty more Roman tales in the
Corriere
, in addition to the fifty he had already published; they were all collected in a single volume in 1953. The reference to a project for the theater is more mysterious; it was probably abandoned. Even more mysterious and probably more relevant is the mention of a “very short novel,” which he is still “thinking about.” It seems that at this point early in 1952 Moravia had not yet begun work on the novel, and that he was still feeling tired and discouraged in the aftermath of
Il conformista
.

But a year later, in the 1953 interview, a different picture emerges. In the interviewer’s words:

Fantasma di mezzogiorno
was the original title of
Il disprezzo;
in fact, the English edition was published under the title
A Ghost at Noon
. But the reference to a “long novel,” written between 1950 and 1952 and then incinerated, is a mystery. All we know is its subject (“the story of a group of young Communists and the relationship between their romantic lives and their political ideologies”) and the overriding idea (“the degree to which a political party which does not allow space for individuality can influence the relations of the heart”).

There are no other explicit references to this project in other interviews, unless we include a mention in the first autobiographical interview given by the author to Enzo Siciliano, published in 1971. The author recalls a sketch for an abandoned novel with a similar plot but dates it to the period after the publication of
Il disprezzo
and before
La ciociara
(
Two Women
)
;
in other words, between 1954 and 1956:

The plot sounds similar to the one regarding “a group of young Communists and the relationship between their romantic lives and their political ideologies,” or at least it seems to emerge from the same thematic intention. This sketch for a novel, which could be dated to the period 1954–1956, seems to be linked, like the one from the period 1950–1952, to the idea of the romantic life of a young Communist. Among the pages from the suitcase that appear to date from the period of
La ciociara
and
La noia
(
Boredom
), there are none that contain a similar plot featuring a Communist character (see
Opere
, volume 4), nor has a story with a similar subject been identified. This discrepancy could be explained simply by a lack of chronological precision on Moravia’s part during the interview, which took place twenty years after the fact. It is possible that in this interview Moravia was in fact referring to the project which he undertook in the period 1951–1952.

But we have no further details with which to support this hypothesis.

Leaving behind the contradictory references in his public declarations, we turn our attention to possible clues in Moravia’s private correspondence, especially the correspondence with his editor (see
Opere
, volume 3, pages 2063–2087 and 2126–2149). In this case too there are possible distortions, which may result from the fact that Moravia was attempting to obtain more advantageous conditions and financial assistance, especially during the years after the enormous success of
La romana
(
The Woman of Rome
), when he was seeking financial autonomy.

The failure of
Il conformista
, which the author attributed, not incorrectly, to the hostility of the critics, caused a kind of depression in him, thereby rendering the second half of 1951 unproductive. He writes, in a letter dated July 20: “A great listlessness has come over me after the Italian critics’ unjust and stupid reception of my last novel. I have almost no desire to work” (Archivio Bompiani). The first interview with Festa Campanile confirms this state of mind (“I think it will take me some time to recover from this book”) as well as his diffidence toward the critics: “Most of the critics are against me; they would be happy if I were to slip on the banana peel of a misguided book.”

He seems to have gone back to work around December 1951, after two weeks in Paris, whence he wrote a Christmas letter to his editor: “I feel well again after the exhaustion of the past months, and I’ve begun to work” (Archivio Bompiani). As we can decipher from
fragmentary references over the following months, between January and March 1952 Moravia worked on and off on the “very brief novel” which he later refers to in the January 8, 1952, interview and completed a first version of the book.

But work on the novel was rendered more difficult and later interrupted by financial difficulties, the leitmotif of his correspondence with Valentino Bompiani during these months. It makes sense to take these difficulties into consideration, because they have a real effect, as well as a thematic influence, on the novel. After a first alarm bell sounded in a letter dated January 30 (“I would be very grateful, given that I find myself in a tight spot, if you could speed up the payment of those five hundred dollars”), the author blames the editor for his fiscal problems on February 27:

The complaints return again and again, and Moravia threatens to suspend his literary efforts in order to dedicate himself to screenplays, as in a letter dated March 18: “What will suffer will be my literary output. The taxman must be paid. So for the past two months or so I’ve been working on a screenplay and have set aside all my beloved manuscripts.” The message to the editor is clear: if you want me to write novels, you must offer more support. It is important to note how Moravia distinguishes between the literary work of the novelist and the commercial work of the screenwriter, which will later become an important structural element of
Il disprezzo
, set in the early years of the postwar period.

But despite his work on a screenplay, Moravia did not completely abandon his “beloved manuscripts” (by which he means both the handwritten and the typed scripts). In fact, he completed the first version of a novel, as he writes in a letter dated March 20, 1952, to Bompiani: “I have finished a short
romanzetto
[novella]. But who knows when I will be able to revise it and clean it up. Woe is me, I work to pay the taxman.”

Note the wording: “short novella.” This does not seem to match the “long novel” that, according to the second interview with Festa Campanile, Moravia completed in 1952, but rather the “very brief novel” mentioned in the first interview. In other words, he is referring not to one of his lengthy novels, such as
La romana
and
Il conformista
, but rather to one of his so-called novellas, such as
La mascherata
(
The Fancy Dress Party
)
, Agostino
(
Two Adolescents
)
, La disubbidienza
(
Disobedience
), and
L’amore coniugale
(
Conjugal Love
), none of which exceeded 150 typewritten pages and which Moravia would collect in 1953 in a volume titled
Romanzi brevi
(Short novels). (In the same letter, he refers to the English
editions of
Agostino
and
La disubbidienza
as
romanzetti
, “novellas.”) Note also two other terms—“revise” and “clean up”—which further illuminate Moravia’s working methods. A revision refers to a complete rewriting, resulting in a text substantially different from the previous version; cleaning up, on the other hand, refers to small adjustments to the narrative and to the expressive coherence of a definitive text.