The Conformist by Alberto Moravia

sad, at least silent. But the most distinctive trait of the radical change effected in those seventeen years was the disappearance of a kind of excess of vitality caused by the seething of unusual, perhaps even abnormal, instincts; these had now given way, it seemed, to a certain gray and restrained normality. Only chance, he thought again, had kept him from submitting to Lino’s desires; and certainly a clouded,unconscious, sensual inclination, combined with his childish greed, had contributed to his behavior, so full of coquetry and femine despostism, with the chauffeur. But now he was really a man, like so many others. He stopped in front of a store mirror and looked at himself for a long time, observing himself with objective detachment, without pleasure: yes, he was really a man like so many others, with his gray suit, his sober tie, his tall and well-proportioned figure, his dark, round face, his well-combed hair, his dark sunglasses. At the university, he recalled, he had suddenly discovered, with a kind of joy, that there were at least a thousand young men of his own age that dressed, spoke, thought, and behaved as he did. Now that figure could probably be multiplied by a million. He was a normal man, he thought with contemptuous and bitter satisfaction, beyond the shadow of a doubt, even if he couldn’t say how it had happened.
    Suddenly he remembered that he had finished his cigarettes and turned into a tobacconist’s shop in the Piazza Colonna arcade. He went up to the counter and asked for his preferred brand at the same time that three other people asked for the same cigarettes, and the tobacconist slid them rapidly across the marble of the countertop toward the four hands holding out money — four identical packs, which the four hands picked up with identical gestures. Marcello noticed that he took the pack, squeezed it to see if it was fresh enough, and then ripped off the seal the same way the other three did. He even noticed that two of the three tucked the pack back into a small inner pocket in their jackets, as he did. Finally, one of the three stopped just outside the tobacconist’s to light a cigarette with a silver lighter exactly like his own. These observations stirred a satisfied, almost voluptuous pleasure in him. Yes, he was the same as the others, the same as everyone. The same as the men who bought the same brand of cigarettes, with the same gestures, even the men who turned at the passage of a woman dressed in red, himself among them, to eye the quiver of her solid buttocks under the thin material of the dress. Even if, as in this last gesture, the similarity was due more to willed imitation in his case than to any real personal inclination.
    A short, deformed newspaper seller came up to him, a bundle of papers in his arm, waving a copy and declaiming loudly, his face congested by the effort, some incomprehensible phrase in which the words VICTORY and SPAIN were still recognizable. Marcello bought the paper and read the headline that covered the whole top of the page attentively: once again, in the war in Spain, Franco’s followers had won a victory. He was aware of reading this news with true satisfaction — one more demonstration, he thought, of his full and absolute normality. He had seen the birth of the war, from the first hypocritical headline, “What’s Happening in Spain?” The war had spread, grown gigantic, become a dispute not only of arms but also of ideas. And gradually he became aware that he was following it with a singular emotion, completely divorced from any political and moral consideration (although such considerations came frequently to mind), very much like the feeling of a sports fan who roots for one football team against another. From the beginning he had wanted Franco to win, not fervently but with a sentiment both deep and tenacious, almost as if that victory would bring him confirmation of the goodness and rightness of his tastes and ideas, not only in the