Lidia : I feel like dying because I no
longer love you. That’s why I’m desperate. I wish I were old, my life’s devoted
to you all. I wish I no longer existed, because I can’t love you. That’s the
thought which came to me in the night club, when you were so bored.
Giovanni : But if this is
true, if you feel like dying…, it means you still love me.
Lidia : No. it’s only pity.
Giovanni : I never gave you
anything, I was completely unaware. I go on wasting my life,l ike a fool…,
taking without giving or giving too little. If you mean I haven’t much to
give,you may be right.
Lidia : I used to spend
afternoons reading in bed. Tommaso would call and find me there. He could have
taken me, I wouldn’t have resisted, out of boredom. But he was satisfied to
watch me as I read. All those purposeless books. Two hundred pages a day, I
read so quickly.
Giovanni : I’ve been selfish.
Now I realize that what we give others comes back to us.
Lidia : Do they think their
music will improve the day?
Giovanni : Lidia, let’s settle
this. Let’s try to hang on to something we are sure of. I love you. I’m sure
I’m still in love with you. What more can I say? Let’s go home.
---For a whike of silenent
time----
Lidia : When I awake this
morning, you were still asleep. As I awake I heard your gentle breathing. I saw
your closed eyes, beneath wisps of stray hair…, and I was deeply moved. I
wanted to cry out to wake you, but you slept so deeply, so soundly. In the half
light your skin glowed with life…so warm and sweet I wanted to kiss it, but I
was afraid to wake you, I was afraid of you awake in my arms again. Instead,I wanted
something no one could take from me, mine alone…this eternal image of you.
Beyond your face I saw a pure, beautiful vision…, showing us in the perspective
of my whole life…, all the years to come, even all the years past. This was the
most miraculous thing to feel for the first time that you had always been mine.
This night would go on for ever…united with your warmth, your thought, your
will. At that moment I realized how much I loved you,Lidia.
I wept with the intensity of
the emotion. For I felt this must never end…, we would remain like this all our
lives…, not only close but belonging to each other…, in a way that nothing
could ever destroy, except the apathy of habit, the only threat. Then you
wakened and smiling, put your arms around me, kissed me, and I felt there was
nothing to fear. We could always be as we were at the moment…bound by strange
ties than time and bit.
Giovanni : Who wrote that?
Lidia : You did.