1. Elio finally got his wish and fell asleep to oliver
“You okay?” he asked. “Me okay.” There was absolutely nothing to say. With my toes, I reached over to his toes and touched them. Then, without thinking, I slipped my big toe in between his big toe and his second toe. He did not recoil, he did not respond. I wanted to touch each toe with my own. Since I was sitting to his left, these were probably not the toes that had touched me at lunch the other day. It was his right foot that was guilty.
2. flirting scene. A proper demonstration of flirting. High-level flirting. Flirt Play of the Year.
Hated it? Whatever gave you that idea? We argued back and forth. “Just play it, will you?” “The same one?” “The same one.” I stood up and walked into the living room, leaving the large French windows open so that he might hear me play it on the piano. He followed me halfway and, leaning on the windows'wooden frame, listened for a while. “You changed it. It's not the same. What did you do to it? "I just played it the way Liszt would have played it had he jimmied around with it." "Just play it again, please!" I liked the way he feigned exasperation. So I started playing the piece again. After a while: "I can't believe you changed it again." "Well, not by much. This is just how Busoni would have played it if he had altered Liszt's version." "Can't you just play the Bach the way Bach wrote it ?" "But Bach never wrote it for guitar.He may not even have written it for the harpsichord. In fact, we're not even sure it's by Bach at all.” “Forget I asked.” “Okay, okay. No need to get so worked up,” I said. It was my turn to feign grudging acquiescence. "This is the Bach as transcribed by me without Busoni and Liszt. It's a very young Bach and it's dedicated to his brother." I knew exactly what phrase in the piece must have stirred him the first time, and each time I played it, I was sending it to him as a little gift, because it was really dedicated to him, as a token of something very beautiful in me that would take no genius to figure out and that urged me to throw in an extended cadenza. Just for him. We were—and he must have recognized the signs long before I did—flirting."Forget I asked." "Okay, okay. No need to get so worked up," I said. It was my turn to feign grudging acquiescence. "This is the Bach as transcribed by me without Busoni and Liszt. It's a very young Bach and it's dedicated to his brother.” I knew exactly what phrase in the piece must have stirred him the first time, and each time I played it, I was sending it to him as a little gift, because it was really dedicated to him, as a token of something very beautiful in me that would take no genius to figure out and that urged me to throw in an extended cadenza. Just for him. We were—and he must have recognized the signs long before I did—flirting ."Forget I asked." "Okay, okay. No need to get so worked up," I said. It was my turn to feign grudging acquiescence. "This is the Bach as transcribed by me without Busoni and Liszt. It's a very young Bach and it's dedicated to his brother.” I knew exactly what phrase in the piece must have stirred him the first time, and each time I played it, I was sending it to him as a little gift, because it was really dedicated to him, as a token of something very beautiful in me that would take no genius to figure out and that urged me to throw in an extended cadenza. Just for him. We were—and he must have recognized the signs long before I did—flirting .It's a very young Bach and it's dedicated to his brother." I knew exactly what phrase in the piece must have stirred him the first time, and each time I played it, I was sending it to him as a little gift, because it was really dedicated to him, as a token of something very beautiful in me that would take no genius to figure out and that urged me to throw in an extended cadenza. Just for him. We were—and he must have recognized the signs long before I did—flirting.It's a very young Bach and it's dedicated to his brother." I knew exactly what phrase in the piece must have stirred him the first time, and each time I played it, I was sending it to him as a little gift, because it was really dedicated to him, as a token of something very beautiful in me that would take no genius to figure out and that urged me to throw in an extended cadenza. Just for him. We were—and he must have recognized the signs long before I did—flirting.as a token of something very beautiful in me that would take no genius to figure out and that urged me to throw in an extended cadenza. Just for him. We were—and he must have recognized the signs long before I did—flirting.as a token of something very beautiful in me that would take no genius to figure out and that urged me to throw in an extended cadenza. Just for him. We were—and he must have recognized the signs long before I did—flirting.
3. "swoon"
The next day we were playing doubles, and during a break, as we were drinking Mafalda's lemonades, he put his free arm around me and then gently squeezed his thumb and forefingers into my shoulder in imitation of a friendly hug-massage—the whole thing very chummy-chummy. But I was so spellbound that I wrenched myself free from his touch, because a moment longer and I would have slackened like one of those tiny wooden toys whose gimp-legged body collapses as soon as the mainsprings are touched. Taken aback, he apologized and asked if he had pressed a “nerve or something”—he hadn't meant to hurt me. He must have felt thoroughly mortified if he suspected he had either hurt me or touched me the wrong way. The last thing I wanted was to discourage him. Still, I blurted something like, "It didn't hurt," and would have dropped the matter there.But I sensed that if it wasn't pain that had prompted such a reaction, what other explanation could account for my shrugging him off so brusquely in front of my friends? So I mimicked the face of someone trying very hard, but failing, to smother a grimace of pain. It never occurred to me that what had totally panicked me when he touched me was exactly what startles virgins on being touched for the first time by the person they desire: he stirs nerves in them they never knew existed and that produce far, far more disturbing pleasures than they are used to on their own. He still seemed surprised by my reaction but gave every sign of believing in, as I of concealing, the pain around my shoulder. It was his way of letting me off the hook and of pretending he wasn't in the least bit aware of any nuance in my reaction. Knowing,as I later came to learn, how thoroughly trenchant was his ability to sort contradictory signals, I have no doubt that he must have already suspected something. “Here, let me make it better.” He was testing me and proceeded to massage my shoulder "Relax," he said in front of the others. "But I am relaxing." "You're as stiff as this bench. Feel this," he said to Marzia, one of the girls closest to us. "It's all knots.” I felt her hands on my back. “Here,” he ordered, pressing her flattened palm hard against my back. “Feel it? He should relax more,” he said. “You should relax more,” she repeated. Perhaps, in this, as with everything else, because I didn't know how to speak in code, I didn't know how to speak at all. I felt like a deaf and dumb person who can't even use sign language. I stammered all manner of things so as not to speak my mind.That was the extent of my code. So long as I had breath to put words in my mouth, I could more or less carry it off. Otherwise, the silence between us would probably give me away—which was why anything, even the most spluttered nonsense, was preferable to silence. Silence would expose me. But what was certain to expose me even more was my struggle to overcome it in front of others. The despair aimed at myself must have given my features something bordering on impatience and unspoken rage . That he might have mistaken these as aimed at him never crossed my mind. Maybe it was for similar reasons that I would look away each time he looked at me: to conceal the strain on my timidity. That he might have found my avoidance offensive and retaliated with a hostile glance from time to time never crossed my mind either.What I hoped he hadn't noticed in my overreaction to his grip was something else. Before shirking off his arm, I knew I had yielded to his hand and had almost leaned into it, as if to say—as I'd heard adults so often say when someone happened to massage their shoulders while passing behind them—Don't stop. Had he noticed I was ready not just to yield but to mold into his body? This was the feeling I took to my diary that night as well : I called it the “swoon.” Why had I swooned? And could it happen so easily—just let him touch me somewhere and I'd totally go limp and will-less? Was this what people meant by butter melting? And why wouldn't I show him how like butter I was? Because I was afraid of what might happen then? Or was I afraid he would have laughed at me, told everyone,or ignored the whole thing on the pretext I was too young to know what I was doing? Or was it because if he so much as suspected—and anyone who suspected would of necessity be on the same wavelength—he might be tempted to act on it? Did I want him to act? Or would I prefer a lifetime of longing provided we both kept this little Ping-Pong game going: not knowing, not-not knowing, not-not-not knowing? Just be quiet, say nothing , and if you can't say "yes," don't say "no," say "later." Is this why people say "maybe" when they mean "yes," but hope you'll think it's "no" when all they really mean is, Please, just ask me once more, and once more after that?and once more after that?and once more after that?"Is this why people say "maybe" when they mean "yes," but hope you'll think it's "no" when all they really mean is, Please, just ask me once more, and once more after that?"Is this why people say "maybe" when they mean "yes," but hope you'll think it's "no" when all they really mean is, Please, just ask me once more, and once more after that?
4. “Perhaps I just wanted him to know i liked girls.”
I described her naked body, which I'd seen two years before. I wanted him aroused. It didn't matter what he desired so long as he was aroused. I described him to her too, because I wanted to see if her arousal took the same turns as mine, so that I might trace mine on hers and see which of the two was the genuine article. “Are you trying to make me like her?” “What would the harm be in that?” “No harm . Except I like to go it alone, if you don't mind.” It took me a while to understand what I was really after. Not just to get him aroused in my presence, or to make him need me, but in urging him to speak about her behind her back, I'd turn Chiara into the object of man-to-man gossip. It would allow us to warm up to one another through her, to bridge the gap between us by admitting we were drawn to the same woman.Perhaps I just wanted him to know I liked girls. “Look, it's very nice of you—and I appreciate it. But don't.” His rebuke told me he wasn't going to play my game. It put me in my place. No, he's the noble sort, I thought. Not like me, insidious, sinister, and base. Which pushed my agony and shame up a few notches. Now, over and above the shame of desiring him as Chiara did, I respected and feared him and hated him for making me hate myself.
5. “because i want you to know.”
When we arrived at the piazzetta overlooking the sea, Oliver stopped to buy cigarettes. He had started smoking Gauloises. I had never tried Gauloises and asked if I could. He took out a cerino from the box, cupped his hands very near my face, and lit my cigarette. "Not bad, right?" "Not bad at all." They'd remind me of him, of this day, I thought, realizing that in less than a month he'd be totally gone, without a trace. This was probably the first time I allowed myself to count down his remaining days in B. “Just take a look at this,” he said as we ambled with our bikes in the midmorning sun toward the edge of the piazzetta overlooking the rolling hills below. Farther out and way below was a magnificent view of the sea with scarcely a few stripes of foam streaking the bay like giant dolphins breaking the surf.A tiny bus was working its way uphill, while three uniformed bikers straggled behind it, obviously complaining of the fumes. “You do know who is said to have drowned near here,” he said. “Shelley.” “And do you know what his wife Mary and friends did when they found his body?” “Cor cordium, heart of hearts,” I replied, referring to the moment when a friend had seized Shelley's heart before the flames had totally engulfed his swollen body as it was being cremated on the shore. Why was he quizzing me? “Is there anything you don't know?” I looked at him. This was my moment. I could seize it or I could lose it, but either way I knew I would never live it down. Or I could gloat over his compliment—but live to regret everything else. This was probably the first time in my life that I spoke to an adult without planning some of what I was going to say.I was too nervous to plan anything. “I know nothing, Oliver. Nothing, just nothing.” “You know more than anyone around here.” Why was he returning my near-tragic tone with bland ego-boosting? “If you only knew how little I know about the things that really matter.” I was treading water, trying neither to drown nor to swim to safety, just staying in place, because here was the truth—even if I couldn’t speak the truth, or even hint at it, yet I could swear it lay around us, the way we say of a necklace we've just lost while swimming: I know it's down there somewhere. If he knew, if he only knew that I was giving him every chance to put two and two together and come up with a number bigger than infinity. But if he understood, then he must have suspected, and if he suspected he would have been there himself,watching me from across a parallel lane with his steely, hostile, glass-eyed, trenchant, all-knowing gaze. He must have hit on something, though God knows what. Perhaps he was trying not to seem taken aback. “What things that matter?” Was he being disingenuous? “You know what things. By now you of all people should know.” Silence. “Why are you telling me all this?” “Because I thought you should know.” “Because you thought I should know." He repeated my words slowly, trying to take in their full meaning, all the while sorting them out, playing for time by repeating the words. The iron, I knew, was burning hot. "Because I want you to know ,” I blurted out. “Because there is no one else I can say it to but you.” There, I had said it.Was I making any sense? I was about to interrupt and sidetrack the conversation by saying something about the sea and the weather tomorrow and whether it might be a good idea to sail out to E. as my father kept promising this time every year. But to his credit he didn't let me loose. "Do you know what you're saying?" This time I looked out to the sea and, with a vague and weary tone that was my last diversion, my last cover, my last getaway, said, "Yes, I know what I'm saying and you're not mistaking any of it. I'm just not very good at speaking. But you're welcome never to speak to me again." "Wait. Are you saying what I think you're saying?" "Ye-es." Now that I had spilled the beans I could take on the laid-back, mildly exasperated air with which a felon, who's surrendered to the police,confesses yet once more to yet one more police officer how he robbed the store. “Wait for me here, I have to run upstairs and get some papers. Don't go away.” I looked at him with a confiding smile. “You know very well I'm not going anywhere." If that's not another admission, then what is? I thought.
Oliver seemed so cold in this conversation. Oliver was so cold every time he stepped back.
6. 'better now?' kiss/ monet's berm kiss
“You're making things very difficult for me.” Was he by any chance referring to our staring? I didn't back down. Neither did he. Yes, he was referring to our staring. “Why am I making things difficult? " My heart was beating too fast for me to speak coherently. I wasn't even ashamed of showing how flushed I was. So let him know, let him. "Because it would be very wrong." "Would?" I asked. Was there a ray of hope, then? He sat down on the grass, then lay down on his back, his arms under his head, as he stared at the sky. "Yes, would. I'm not going to pretend this hasn't 't crossed my mind." "I'd be the last to know." "Well, it has. There! What did you think was going on?" "Going on?" I fumbled by way of a question. "Nothing .” I thought about it some more. “Nothing,” I repeated,as if what I was vaguely beginning to get a hint of was so amorphous that it could just as easily be shoved away by my repeated “nothing” and thereby fill the unbearable gaps of silence. “Nothing.” “I see,” he finally said. “You've got it wrong, my friend”—chiding condescension in his voice. “If it makes you feel any better, I have to hold back. It's time you learned too.” “The best I can do is pretend I don't care." "That much we've known for a while already," he snapped right away. I was crushed. All these times when I thought I was slighting him by showing how easy it was to ignore him in the garden, on the balcony, at the beach, he had been seeing right through me and taken my move for the peevish, textbook gambit it was. His admission, which seemed to open up all the sluiceways between us, was precisely what drowned my budding hopes.Where would we go from here? What was there to add? And what would happen the next time we pretended not to speak but were no longer sure the frost between us was still sham? We spoke awhile longer, then the conversation petered out. Now that we had put our cards on the table, it felt like small talk. "So this is where Monet came to paint." "I'll show you at home. We have a book with wonderful reproductions of the area around here." “Yes, you'll have to show me.” He was playing the role of the patronizing understudy. I hated it. Each leaning on one arm, we both stared out at the view. “You're the luckiest kid in the world ," he said. "You don't know the half of it." I let him ponder my statement. Then, perhaps to fill the silence that was becoming unbearable, I blurted out, "So much of it is wrong, though. "What? Your family?" "That too."Living here all summer long, reading by yourself, meeting all those dinner drudges your father dredges up at every meal?" He was making fun of me again. I smirked. No, that wasn't it either. He paused a moment . "Us, you mean." I did not reply. "Let's see, then—" And before I knew it, he sidled up to me. We were too close, I thought, I'd never been so close to him except in a dream or when he cupped his hand to light my cigarette. If he brought his ear any closer he'd hear my heart. I'd seen it written in novels but never believed it until now. He stared me right in the face , as though he liked my face and wished to study it and to linger on it, then he touched my nether lip with his finger and let it travel left and right and right and left again and again and again as I lay there,watching him smile in a way that made me fear anything might happen now and there'd be no turning back, that this was his way of asking, and here was my chance to say no or to say something and play for time, so that I might still debate the matter with myself, now that it had reached this point—except that I didn't have any time left, because he brought his lips to my mouth, a warm, conciliatory, I'll-meet-you- halfway-but-no-further kiss till he realized how famished mine was. I wished I knew how to calibrate my kiss the way he did. But passion allows us to hide more, and at that moment on Monet's berm, if I wished to hide everything about me in this kiss, I was also desperate to forget the kiss by losing myself in it. “Better now?” he asked afterward. I did not answer but lifted my face to his and kissed him again, almost savagely,not because I was filled with passion or even because his kiss still lacked the zeal I was looking for, but because I was not so sure our kiss had convinced me of anything about myself. I was not even sure I had enjoyed it as much as I'd expected and needed to test it again, so that even in the act itself, I needed to test the test. My mind was drifting to the most mundane things. So much denial? a two-bit disciple of Freud would have observed . I squelched my doubts with a yet more violent kiss. I did not want passion, I did not want pleasure. Perhaps I didn't even want proof. And I did not want words, small talk, big talk, bike talk, book talk, any of it. Just the sun, the grass, the occasional sea breeze, and the smell of his body fresh from his chest, from his neck and his armpits. Just take me and molt me and turn me inside out, till,like a character in Ovid, I become one with your lust, that's what I wanted. Give me a blindfold, hold my hand, and don't ask me to think—will you do that for me? I did not know where all this was leading, but I was surrendering to him, inch by inch, and he must have known it, for I sensed he was still keeping a distance between us. Even with our faces touching, our bodies were angles apart. I knew that anything I did now, any movement I'd make, might disturb the harmony of the moment. So, sensing there was probably not going to be a sequel to our kiss, I began to test the eventual separation of our mouths, only to realize, now that I was making mere motions of ending the kiss, how much I'd wanted it not to stop, wanted his tongue in my mouth and mine in his—because all we had become,after all these weeks and all the strife and all the fits and starts that ushered a chill draft each time, was just two wet tongues flailing away in each other's mouths. Just two tongues, all the rest was nothing. When, finally, I lifted one knee and moved it toward him to face him, I knew I had broken the spell. “I think we should go.” “Not yet.” “We can't do this—I know myself. So far we've behaved . We've been good. Neither of us has done anything to feel ashamed of. Let's keep it that way. I want to be good." "Don't be. I don't care. Who is to know?" In a desperate move which I knew I'd never live down if he did not relent, I reached for him and let my hand rest on his crotch. He did not move. I should have slipped my hand straight into his shorts. He must have read my intention and, with total composition,bordering on a gesture that was very gentle but also quite glacial, brought his hand there and let it rest on mine for a second, then, twining his fingers into mine, lifted my hand. A moment of unbearable silence settled between us. “Did I offend you?" "Just don't." It sounded a bit like Later! when I'd first heard it weeks earlier—biting and blunted, and altogether mirthless, without any inflection of either the joy or the passion we'd just shared. He gave me his hand and helped me stand up again. He suddenly winced. I remembered the scrape on his side. "I should make sure it doesn't get infected," he said. "We'll stop by the pharmacist on the way back.” He didn’t reply. But it was about the most sobering thing we could have said. It let the intrusive real world gust into our lives—Anchise, the mended bike, the bickering over tomatoes,the music score hastily left under a glass of lemonade, how long ago they all seemed. Indeed, as we rode away from my spot we saw two tourist vans heading south to N. It must have been nearing noon. “We'll never speak again," I said as we glided down the never-ending slope, the wind in our hair. "Don't say that." "I just know it. We'll chitchat. Chitchat, chitchat. That's all. And the funny thing is, I can live with that.” “You just rhymed,” he said. I loved the way he'd flip on me. Two hours later, at lunch, I gave myself all the proof I needed that I would never be able to live with that. Before dessert, while Mafalda was clearing away the plates and while everyone's attention was focused on a conversation about Jacopone da Todi, I felt a warm, bare foot casually brush mine. I remembered that, on the berm,I should have seized my chance to feel if the skin of his foot was as smooth as I'd imagined it. Now this was all the chance I'd get.
7. “the shirt and the kiss” kiss
We returned by another equally dark, deserted, glistening side alley, then onto via Santa Maria dell'Anima. Above us was a weak square streetlight mounted to the wall of a tiny old corner building. In the old days, they probably had a gas jet in its place. I stopped and he stopped. "The most beautiful day of my life and I end up vomiting." He wasn't listening. He pressed me against the wall and started to kiss me, his hips pushing into mine, his arms about to lift me off the ground. My eyes were shut, but I knew he had stopped kissing me to look around him; people could be walking by. I didn't want to look. Let him be the one to worry. Then we kissed again. And, with my eyes still shut, I think I did hear two voices, old men's voices, grumbling something about taking a good look at these two,wondering if in the old days you'd ever see such a sight. But I didn't want to think about them. I didn't worry. If he wasn't worried, I wasn't worried. I could spend the rest of my life like this: with him, at night, in Rome, my eyes totally shut, one leg coiled around him. I thought of coming back here in the weeks or months to come—for this was our spot.
8. "Why are you always putting yourself down?" (This clip is so cute and I love it, Elio who laughs and provokes that bear hug)
"This is my spot. All mine. I come here to read. I can't tell you the number of books I've read here." "Do you like being alone?" he asked. "No. No one likes being alone. But I've learned how to live with it.” “Are you always so very wise?” he asked. Was he about to adopt a condescending, pre-lecture tone before joining everyone else on my needing to get out more, make more friends, and, having made friends, not to be so selfish with them? Or was this a preamble to his role as shrink/part-time-friend-of-the-family? Or was I yet again misreading him completely? "I'm not wise at all. I told you, I know nothing. I know books, and I know how to string words together—it doesn't mean I know how to speak about the things that matter most to me." "But you're doing it now—in a way." "Yes, in a way—that's how I always say things: in a way.” Staring out at the offing so as not to look at him, I sat down on the grass and noticed he was crouching a few yards away from me on the tips of his toes, as though he would any moment now spring to his feet and go back to where we'd left our bicycles. It never occurred to me that I had brought him here not just to show him my little world, but to ask my little world to let him in, so that the place where I came to be alone on summer afternoons would get to know him, judge him, see if he fitted in, take him in, so that I might come back here and remember. Here I would come to escape the known world and seek another of my own invention ; I was basically introducing him to my launchpad. All I had to do was list the works I'd read here and he'd know all the places I'd traveled to. "I like the way you say things.Why are you always putting yourself down?" I shrugged my shoulders. Was he criticizing me for criticizing myself? "I don't know. So you won't, I suppose." "Are you so scared of what others think?" I shook my head. But I didn't know the answer. Or perhaps the answer was so obvious that I didn't have to answer. It was moments such as these that left me feeling so vulnerable, so naked. Push me, make me nervous, and, unless I push you back, you've already found me out. No, I had nothing to say in reply. But I wasn't moving either. My impulse was to let him ride home by himself. I' d be home in time for lunch. He was waiting for me to say something. He was staring at me. This, I think, is the first time I dared myself to stare back at him. Usually, I'd cast a glance and then look away—look away because I didn't want to swim in the lovely,clear pool of his eyes unless I'd been invited to—and I never waited long enough to know whether I was even wanted there; look away because I was too scared to stare anyone back; look away because I didn't want to give anything away; look away because I couldn't acknowledge how much he mattered. Look away because that steely gaze of his always reminded me of how tall he stood and how far below him I ranked. Now, in the silence of the moment, I stared back, not to defy him, or to show I wasn't shy any longer, but to surrender, to tell him this is who I am, this is who you are, this is what I want, there is nothing but truth between us now, and where there's truth there are no barriers, no shifty glances, and if nothing comes of this, let it never be said that either of us was unaware of what might happen. I hadn't a hope left.And maybe I stared back because there wasn't a thing to lose now. I stared back with the all-knowing, I-dare-you-to-kiss-me gaze of someone who both challenges and flees with one and the same gesture .
9.elio and Oliver confessed their feelings to each other frankly after breaking the ice. The sweetest thing in the world is probably having a crush on each other.
"When did you know about me?" I asked him one day. I was hoping he'd say, When I squeezed your shoulder and you almost wilted in my arms. Or, When you got wet under your bathing suit that one afternoon when we chatted in your room. Something along those lines. "When you blushed,"he said. “Me?” We had been talking about translating poetry; it was early in the morning, during his very first week with us. We had started working earlier than usual that day, probably because we already enjoyed our spontaneous conversations while the breakfast table was being laid out under the linden tree and were eager to spend some time together. He'd asked me if I'd ever translated poetry. I said I had. Why, had he? Yes. He was reading Leopardi and had landed on a few verses that were impossible to translate. We had been speaking back and forth, neither of us realizing how far a conversation started on the fly could go, because all the while delving deeper into Leopardi's world, we were also finding occasional side alleys where our natural sense of humor and our love for clowning were given free play. We translated the passage into English,then from English to ancient Greek, then back to gobbledygenglish to gobbledygitalian. Leopardi's closing lines of “To the Moon” were so warped that it brought bursts of laughter as we kept repeating the nonsense lines in Italian—when suddenly there was a moment of silence , and when I looked up at him he was staring at me point-blank, thaticy, glassy look of hiswhich always disconcerted me. I was struggling to say something, and when he asked how I knew so many things, I had the presence of mind to say something about being a professor's son. I was not always eager to show off my knowledge, especially with someone who could so easily intimidate me. I had nothing to fight back with, nothing to add, nothing to throw in to muddy the waters between us, nowhere to hide or run for cover. I felt as exposed as a stranded lamb on the dry, waterless plains of the Serengeti. The staring was no longer part of the conversation, or even of the fooling around with translation; it had superseded it and become its own subject, except that neither dared nor wanted to bring it up. And yes , there was such a luster in his eyes that I had to look away, and when I looked back at him,his gaze hadn't moved and was still focused on my face, as if to say, So you looked away and you've come back, will you be looking away again soon?—which was why I had to look away once more, as if immersed in thought, yet all the while scrambling for something to say, the way a fish struggles for water in a muddied pond that's fast drying up in the heat. He must have known exactly what I was feeling. What made me blush in the end was not the natural embarrassment of the moment when I could tell he'd caught me trying to hold his gaze only then to let mine scamper to safety; what made me blush was the thrilling possibility, unbelievable as I wanted it to remain, that he might actually like me, and that he liked me in just the way I liked him. For weeks I had mistaken his stare for barefaced hostility. I was wide of the mark.It was simply a shy man's way of holding someone else's gaze. We were, it finally dawned on me, the two shyest persons in the world. My father was the only one who had seen through him from the very start. “Do you like Leopardi?” I asked, to break the silence, but also to suggest that it was the topic of Leopardi that had caused me to seem somewhat distracted during a pause in our conversation. “Yes, very much.” “I like him very much too.” I’d always known I wasn’t speaking about Leopardi. The question was, did he? “I knew I was making you uncomfortable, but I just had to make sure.” “So you knew all this time?” "Let's say I was pretty sure." In other words, it had started just days after his arrival. Had everything since been pretense,Then? And all these swings between friendship and indifference—what were they? His and my ways of keeping stealthy tabs on each other while disclaiming that we were? Or were they simply as cunning a way as any to stave each other off, hoping that what we felt was indeed genuine indifference? “Why didn't you give me a sign?” I said. “I did. At least I tried.” “When?” “After tennis once. I touched you. Just as a way of showing I liked you. The way you reacted made me feel I'd almost molested you. I decided to keep my distance." (This is the aforementioned volleyball (tennis in the novel) court, Oliver's "The way you reacted is" elio's "swoon" .)
10. Father's words.
A while after supper, I saw my father sitting at his usual place at the breakfast table. His chair was turned out and facing the sea, and on his lap were the proofs of his latest book. He was drinking his usual chamomile tea, enjoying the night. Next to him, three large citronella candles. The mosquitoes were out with a vengeance tonight. I went downstairs to join him. This was our usual time to sit together, and I had neglected him over the past month. “Tell me about Rome,” he said as soon as he saw me ready to sit next to him. This was also the moment when he would allow himself his last smoke of the day. He put away his manuscript with something of a tired toss that suggested an eager now-we-come-to-the-good-part and proceeded to light his cigarette with a roguish gesture, using one of the citronella candles. “So?” There was nothing to tell.I repeated what I'd told my mother: the hotel, the Capitol, Villa Borghese, San Clemente, restaurants. “Eat well too?” I nod. “And drank well too?” Nodded again. “Done things your grandfather would have approved of?” I laughed. No, not this time. I told him about the incident near the Pasquino. “What an idea, to vomit in front of the talking statue! “Movies? Concerts?” It began to creep over me that he might be leading somewhere, perhaps without quite knowing it himself. I became aware of this because, as he kept asking questions remotely approaching the subject, I began to sense that I was already applying evasive maneuvers well before what was awaiting us around the corner was even visible. I spoke about the perennially dirty, run-down conditions of Rome's piazzas. The heat, the weather, traffic, too many nuns.Such-and-such a church closed down. Debris everywhere. Seedy renovations. And I complained about the people, and the tourists, and about the minibuses loading and unloading numberless hordes bearing cameras and baseball hats. “Seen any of the inner, private courtyards I told you about?” I guess we had failed to visit the inner, private courtyards he had told us about. “Paid my respects to Giordano Bruno's statue?” he asked. We certainly did. Almost vomited there too that night. We laughed. Tiny pause. Another drag from his cigarette. Now. “You two had a nice friendship.” This was far bolder than anything I anticipated. “Yes,” I replied, trying to leave my “yes” hanging in midair as though buoyed by the rise of a negative qualifier that was ultimately suppressed. I just hoped he hadn't caught the mildly hostile, evasive,seemingly fatigued Yes, and so? in my voice. I also hoped, though, that he'd seize the opportunity of the unstated Yes, and so? in my answer to chide me, as he so often did, for being harsh or indifferent or way too critical of people who had every reason to consider themselves my friends. He might then add his usual bromide about how rare good friendships were and that, even if people proved difficult to be with after a while, still, most meant well and each had something good to impart. No man is an island, can't shut yourself away from others, people need people, blah, blah. But I had guessed wrong. “You're too smart not to know how rare, how special , what you two had was.” “Oliver was Oliver,” I said, as if that summed things up. “Parce que c'était lui, parce que c'était moi,” my father added,quoting Montaigne's all-encompassing explanation for his friendship with Etienne de la Boétie. I was thinking, instead, of Emily Brontë's words: because “he's more myself than I am.” “Oliver may be very intelligent—,” I began. Once again , the disingenuous rise in intonation announced a damning but hanging invisibly between us. Anything not to let my father lead me any further down this road. “Intelligent? He was more than intelligent. What you two had had everything and nothing to do with intelligence. . He was good, and you were both lucky to have found each other, because you too are good.” My father had never spoken of goodness this way before. It disarmed me. “I think he was better than me, Papa.” "I am sure he'd say the same about you, which flatters the two of you." He was about to tap his cigarette and, in leaning toward the ashtray,he reached out and touched my hand. “What lies ahead is going to be very difficult,” he started to say, altering his voice. His tone said: We don't have to speak about it, but let's not pretend we don' t know what I'm saying. Speaking abstractly was the only way to speak the truth to him. "Fear not. It will come. At least I hope it does. And when you least expect it.Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot. Just remember: I am here. Right now you may not want to feel anything. Perhaps you never wished to feel anything. And perhaps it's not with me that you'll want to speak about these things. But feel something you did.” I looked at him. This was the moment when I should lie and tell him he was totally off course. I was about to. “Look,” he interrupted. “You had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, or pray that their sons land on their feet soon enough. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don't snuff it out, don't be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we'd want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything—what a waste!"I couldn't begin to take all this in. I was dumbstruck. "Have I spoken out of turn?" he asked. I shook my head. "Then let me say one more thing. It will clear the air. I may have come close, but I never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can't help but live as though we've got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there's only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there's sorrow. I don't envy the pain. But I envy you the pain .” He took a breath. “We may never speak about this again.But I hope you'll never hold it against me that we did. I will have been a terrible father if, one day, you'd want to speak to me and felt that the door was shut or not sufficiently open." I wanted to ask him how he knew. But then how could he not have known? How could anyone not have known? “Does Mother know?” I asked. I was going to say suspect but corrected myself. “I don't think she does .”His voice meant, But even if she did, I am sure her attitude would be no different than mine. We said good night. On my way upstairs I vowed to ask him about his life. We'd all heard about his women when he was young, but I'd never even had an inkling of anything else. Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?you'd want to speak to me and felt that the door was shut or not sufficiently open.” I wanted to ask him how he knew. But then how could he not have known? How could anyone not have known? “Does Mother know ?" I asked. I was going to say suspect but corrected myself. "I don't think she does." His voice meant, But even if she did, I am sure her attitude would be no different than mine. We said good night. On my way upstairs I vowed to ask him about his life. We'd all heard about his women when he was young, but I'd never even had an inkling of anything else. Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?you'd want to speak to me and felt that the door was shut or not sufficiently open.” I wanted to ask him how he knew. But then how could he not have known? How could anyone not have known? “Does Mother know ?" I asked. I was going to say suspect but corrected myself. "I don't think she does." His voice meant, But even if she did, I am sure her attitude would be no different than mine. We said good night. On my way upstairs I vowed to ask him about his life. We'd all heard about his women when he was young, but I'd never even had an inkling of anything else. Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?I was going to say suspect but corrected myself. “I don't think she does.” His voice meant, But even if she did, I am sure her attitude would be no different than mine. We said good night. On my way upstairs I vowed to ask him about his life. We'd all heard about his women when he was young, but I'd never even had an inkling of anything else. Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?I was going to say suspect but corrected myself. “I don't think she does.” His voice meant, But even if she did, I am sure her attitude would be no different than mine. We said good night. On my way upstairs I vowed to ask him about his life. We'd all heard about his women when he was young, but I'd never even had an inkling of anything else. Was my father someone else? And if he was someone else, who was I?
From the screenwriter to the director to the actors, they all contributed to the first-class performance. From the scene where oliver presses elio to recite the scene at the beginning, you can see that the movie is not only faithful to the original, but also the content filled in during the process of converting text to image is also smooth and natural. When I read the book, I only thought that elio was both gentle and devilish at the same time. When I saw the elio of Sweet Tea, I remembered that he is also a happy 18-year-old boy.
A good film adaptation is like talking all night with a fanciful novelist who has touched you all night, all the details that have touched you and all your unspeakable love, crossing all language and time and space barriers, crossing the cold screen, holding the director's hand, Yes, it is my sea.
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