A little later I should have liked to begin telling her about my
relations with Augusta, as I had omitted to do it at first. But for
the moment it was not easy. If I had begun talking to Carla about
something else at a moment like that it would have seemed as if I
underrated the importance of her offering. The densest of men realise
that you cannot do a thing like that, although we all know there is no
comparison between the importance of the offering before it is made
and immediately after. It would be a terrible insult to say to a woman
immediately after you had lain with her for the first time: “First of
all I must explain what I said to you yesterday.” What has yesterday
to do with it? Whatever happened yesterday ought to appear unworthy
of mention, and if anyone who calls himself a gentleman does not feel
this, so much the worse for him, and he had better take care that no
one else discovers it.
Clearly I was one of those insensitive gentlemen, for I was guilty of
a mistake which no one could have made who was really whole-hearted. I
said:
“What made you give yourself to me? What had I done to deserve it?”
Was I expressing my gratitude or trying to rebuke her? Probably I was
only trying to lead the way to some explanation on my part.
She was rather surprised and looked up at me to try and read my
thoughts.
“I thought it was you who had taken me,” she said, smiling
affectionately at me to show that she did not mean it as a reproach.
I remembered that women always insist on the fiction that they have
been raped. But she soon saw she had made a mistake, for you may take
things, but people must give themselves. She whispered:
“I was waiting for you. You were the knight who was to come and set
me free. Of course it is a pity you are married, but as you don’t
love your wife I need not feel that my happiness is destroying anyone
else’s.”
The pain in my side came on so violently that I had to let go my
embrace. Then I had not over-estimated the importance of my idle words!
It really was that lie of mine which had induced Carla to give herself
to me! If I were suddenly to begin talking now of my love for Augusta,
Carla would have every right to accuse me of having set a trap for
her. It was out of the question to correct or explain anything at the
moment. Later on I should have the chance of telling her all about it
quietly. Waiting for that moment to come made a fresh link between
Carla and me.
As I lay there beside her, my love for Augusta revived in all its
force. I only had one wish now: to hurry home to my wife, just in order
to see her working like a busy bee, putting all our clothes away in
camphor and naphthaline.
But I remained at my post, and now had to face a new difficulty;
something which worried me a good deal at first, for I detected in it
the menacing prophecy of a sphinx. Carla told me how, directly I had
gone the day before, her singing-master had come and she had quickly
shown him the door.
I could not conceal a movement of annoyance. It was as good as telling
Copler straight away about our affair!
“Whatever will Copler say?” I exclaimed.
She burst out laughing and hid herself in my arms, this time really on
her own initiative.
“But didn’t we say that we were going to show him the door as well?”
She was a darling, but she could not seduce me again. I assumed
the rôle of a pedagogue, which suited me quite well under the
circumstances, for it gave me the opportunity of venting the irritation
I felt in the bottom of my heart against the woman who would not allow
me to say what I wanted about my wife. Everyone must work in this
world I said, for she ought to know by this time that the world is a
bad place, where strength is the only thing that counts. Supposing I
were to die? What would become of her? I had hinted at the possibility
of abandoning her in such a way that she could not take offence; and
she was in fact even touched by it. Then with the obvious intention of
depressing her I told her it was enough for me to express the smallest
wish--my wife at once fulfilled it.
“Very well,” she said, resignedly, “we will send for him to come back.”
Then she tried to explain to me why she disliked him so much. Day after
day she had to put up with that horrible old man, who made her repeat
the same exercises over and over again, though they were absolutely
useless. The only days she ever enjoyed were when the singing-master
was ill. She had hoped he would die, but she never had any luck.
She became quite violent in her despair. She kept on repeating that
she never had any luck; she was hopelessly unlucky, always. When she
thought how she had loved me at first sight because my way of doing
things, my way of speaking, the look in my eyes seemed to promise her
a life less full of hardships, less dreary, less dependent on charity
given grudgingly, she felt as if she must cry.
It was not long before I made acquaintance with her sobs, and they
bored me. She sobbed violently, passionately, and the whole of her
frail body seemed shaken to its foundations. I felt as if a sudden
assault had been made on my purse and on my life itself. I said:
“Do you imagine my wife has nothing to do but sit still? Why at this
very moment while we are here together her lungs are being choked with
camphor and naphthaline.”
Carla exclaimed between her sobs:
“How lucky she is! All that furniture, all those clothes to look after!”
I thought with irritation that she wanted me to go off at once and
buy her all those things, just so that she might have a sympathetic
occupation. I am glad to say I did not show how angry I felt; instead,
I obeyed the call of duty which told me to caress the poor girl who had
just given herself to me! I did caress her. I stroked her hair gently,
and soon her sobs died down and her tears flowed abundantly and without
restraint, like rain after violent thunder and lightning.
“You are my first lover,” she said again. “I hope you will go on loving
me.”
The statement that I was her first lover, which seemed to prepare the
way for a second, did not move me greatly. It came rather late in any
case, for we had given up discussing the question a good half-hour
ago. It seemed to contain a new threat. A woman thinks she can demand
anything of her first lover. I murmured softly in her ear:
“You are my first mistress too--since I married.”
The softness in my voice was intended to veil the fact that we were
quits.
I left her soon after, for I would not on any account be late for
luncheon. Before going I again took from my pocket what I called
my “envelope of good resolutions” because it had originated in an
excellent resolution. I thought I should feel freer if only I were
allowed to pay. Carla again quietly refused the money, which made
me extremely angry; but the only sign I gave of my wrath was that I
uttered the sweetest nothings at the top of my voice. I shouted to
prevent myself striking her, but I disguised my feelings well. I said
that in possessing her my dearest hopes had been realized, and that
now I wanted to feel her more wholly mine by being allowed to support
her entirely; but that she must take care not to make me angry, for I
should suffer too much. Because I was in a hurry to get away I summed
up my idea in a few words; shouted like that I must say it sounded very
brusque.
“Are you my mistress or not? If you are it is my business to support
you.”
She was so startled that she made no more effort at resistance, but
took the envelope, watching me anxiously all the while, in the hope
of discovering which she ought to take seriously: my angry voice or
the tender words which granted her all she desired. She was a little
reassured when I touched her forehead with my lips before going away.
On the stairs I began to be afraid lest, now that she had the money and
the assurance that I would provide for her in future, she might show
Copler the door too, supposing he should happen to call that afternoon.
I thought for a moment of running upstairs again to beg her not to
compromise me by doing anything of the kind. But I had no time to go
back, I had to hurry away at once.
I am afraid the doctor who reads this manuscript will think at once
that Carla would be an interesting subject for psycho-analysis. He
will think that she offered herself to me a little too soon after
discussing the singing-master. I thought too at first that she expected
a little too much of me in return for her love. It was a great many
months before I got to know the poor girl better. She probably let me
seduce her so as to escape from Copler’s tedious guardianship, and it
must have been a painful surprise for her to discover it was all in
vain, and that she was still expected to do what she least wanted to,
namely sing. Even while she still was lying in my arms she was told
that she had got to go on singing. This aroused in her a degree of
pain and anger such as could not easily find expression in words. For
entirely different reasons we both said the strangest things. When she
got to love me she became quite natural again, though for a while her
calculations had banished her simplicity.
As I was going away I thought: ‘If only she knew how much I love my
wife she would behave quite differently.’ And indeed, when she knew it
she did behave quite differently.
When I got into the open air I took great draughts of freedom and did
not suffer at all from the thought of having compromised her. There was
still time before to-morrow came, and I thought I might find some way
out of the difficulties which hung over me. As I hurried home I was
even bold enough to begin attacking our social system, as if that were
responsible for my shortcomings. I thought it ought to be so arranged
as to allow one to have intercourse occasionally with other women
without having to fear the consequences. Even with women one could
never love. I felt no trace of remorse. Therefore I don’t think that
remorse springs from regret for having done something wrong, but rather
from a recognition of one’s own sinful nature. The higher part of one’s
body bends down to observe and judge the lower, and finds it monstrous.
The sense of horror it experiences at the sight is what we call
remorse. In classical tragedy the victim did not return to life, and
yet all remorse vanished: which meant that the deformity was cured and
that it was idle to lament any longer. How could I have any room for
remorse now that I was hastening with so much joy and tender affection
to rejoin the wife of my bosom? I had not felt so innocent for a long
time.
I was in high spirits during luncheon, and found it quite natural
to behave affectionately to Augusta. There was nothing which jarred
between us all day long. I did not overdo it; I behaved just as I
should towards the woman whom I could honestly and securely call my
own. There were times when I behaved with excessive devotion; but only
when a conflict was going on in my mind between the two women, and the
extravagant signs of affection I gave Augusta made it easier for me to
conceal from her that the shadow of another woman lay darkly between us
for the moment. Therefore I am bound to say that Augusta preferred me
just when I was in fact less wholly hers.
I myself was rather surprised at being so calm, and attributed it to
the fact that I had succeeded in making Carla accept the envelope of
good resolutions. Not that I imagined I had settled my account with her
in full. But I felt as if I had begun to pay an indulgence.
Unfortunately money remained my chief preoccupation during the whole of
my affair with Carla. At every opportunity I would put some aside in a
remote corner of my library, so as to be ready for any demands on the
part of the mistress I so much feared. When at last Carla gave me up as
well as the money, I used it to pay for something quite different.
We were to spend the evening at my father-in-law’s, at a dinner to
which only members of the family were invited, and which was to take
the place of the traditional wedding breakfast. The wedding was to be
two days later; Guido wanted to take advantage of the improvement in
Giovanni’s health in order to get married, for he did not think it
would last.
I went with Augusta early in the afternoon to call on my mother-in-law.
On the way I reminded her that she had, only the day before, suspected
me of still suffering on account of the wedding. She was ashamed of
her suspicion, and I talked a good deal about my innocence. Why, only
to-day I had come home quite forgetting that the ceremonies preparatory
to the wedding were to be this very evening.
Although only the family were invited the Malfentis wanted the dinner
to be a very formal affair. Augusta had been asked to help in getting
the room ready and laying the table. Alberta would have nothing to
do with it. Not long ago she had won a prize in a competition for a
one-act play, and was now busily engaged in reforming the National
Theatre. Augusta and I were given the table to lay, with the help of a
parlour-maid and one of Giovanni’s office boys, who seemed to have as
much talent for arranging things in a private house as in an office.
It was my job to fetch the flowers and help to arrange them on the
table.
“You see,” I said, jokingly, to Augusta, “how I am contributing to
their happiness. If they were to ask me to make ready the marriage-bed
for them I should be just as glad to do it!”
Then we went to look for the bride and bridegroom who had just returned
from a formal call. They were sitting in the most retired corner of the
drawing-room, and had probably been kissing. The bride still had on her
outdoor dress and looked extremely pretty, with a flush on her cheeks
from the warm room.
They seemed to want to hide the fact that they had been kissing by
pretending that they had been talking about science. It was very stupid
of them, in fact rather ill-mannered. Who did they think would care
whether they kissed each other or not, that they must stop doing it
directly we came in? It did not, however, diminish my good humour.
Guido said that Ada would not believe that certain wasps were able to
paralyse other insects, even much bigger than themselves, by injecting
something into them which kept them alive and fresh, though paralysed,
so that their offspring could use them for food. I seemed to remember
too that some such monstrous fact did exist in nature, but I did not
want to have to concede anything to Guido at that moment.
“Do you take me for a wasp, that you ask me about it?” I said laughing.
We left them alone to occupy themselves with more congenial matters. I
was beginning to find the afternoon rather long, and should have liked
to go home and sit in my study till dinnertime.
In the hall we met Dr. Paoli who had just come from my father-in-law’s
bedroom. He was a young doctor who had already succeeded in building up
a good practice. He was very fair, with the pink and white complexion
of a boy. But he had a powerful physique and his remarkable eyes gave a
rather imposing air of gravity to his whole person. His spectacles made
them seem bigger than they really were, and when he looked at things he
seemed to hold them with his eye as if he were caressing them. Now that
I know both him and Dr. S. (the psycho-analytic man) so well, I feel as
if the latter gazed at things with a conscious purpose, whereas Paoli
gazes at them out of sheer, inexhaustible curiosity. Paoli observes
his patient in every detail, and not only him but also his wife and
the chair he is sitting on. God knows which of the two does more harm
to his patients! During my father-in-law’s illness I used often to go
and see Paoli, to try and induce him not to let the family know how
imminent the catastrophe was which threatened them, and I remember that
one day he gave me a much more searching look than I cared for, and
said, smiling:
“How you adore your wife!”
He was a good observer, for as a matter of fact at the moment I was
adoring my wife, because she suffered so much during her father’s
illness, and because I was betraying her daily.
Paoli told us that Giovanni was even better than the day before. He
said that there was no longer any cause for anxiety, as the time of
year was favourable to his recovery, and he thought the bride and
bridegroom might safely start on their honeymoon.
“Of course,” he added, cautiously, “I mean barring unforeseen
complications.” His qualifying clause was justified; unforeseen
complications actually did take place.
Just as he was saying good-bye he remembered that we knew someone
called Copler, on whom he had been called to give an opinion only that
day. He found him suffering from paralysis of the intestines, which had
started with frightful toothache. He took a very serious view of it,
but qualified it as usual by saying: “If he lives through the night
there is still hope for him.”
Augusta’s eyes at once filled with tears of pity, and she begged me to
go off at once and visit our poor friend. After a moment’s hesitation
I willingly enough agreed to do so, for I was suddenly filled with
the thought of Carla. How hard I had been on the poor girl! Now that
Copler was removed, there she was alone on her landing with no fear of
her compromising me, because she would be cut off from all means of
communication with the world I moved in. It was important that I should
go and see her at once, to cancel the impression she must have received
from my harshness that morning.
But I took the precaution of going first to Copler’s. I must at least
be able to tell Augusta I had seen him.
I already knew the humble, but clean and comfortable apartment where
Copler lived in Corsia Stadion. An old pensioner had let him three of
his five rooms. He opened the door to me himself. He was a heavy man
with red eyes, who snorted as he paced uneasily up and down the short
dark passage. He told me that the doctor who was in charge of the case
had only just gone, and that he had said Copler was dying. The old man
talked in a low voice, as if he were afraid of disturbing the peace of
the dying, and panted heavily as he talked. I lowered my voice too.
People do that in token of respect, but perhaps the dying would rather
be accompanied on their last journey by loud, clear voices which would
remind them of life.
The old man told me that a nurse was looking after the invalid. He made
me stand reverentially outside the door for some time. Copler, with the
death-rattle in his throat, was measuring out his last hours of breath.
His noisy breathing consisted of two sounds; one hesitating, as if
produced by the air he breathed in; one hurried, when he expelled the
air from his lungs. Was he in a hurry to die? A pause always followed
these two sounds, and I thought that when that pause grew longer the
new life would have begun.
The old man wanted me to go in, but I refused. I had been looked at
reproachfully by too many dying people already.
I did not wait for the pause to grow longer, but hurried off to Carla.
I knocked at the door of her studio, which was locked; but there was no
answer. In my impatience I kicked the door, and then someone opened the
front door of the flat, behind me. It was the voice of Carla’s mother
which said:
“But who is it?”
The old woman leaned out timidly, and when she had recognised me by
the dim light which came from her kitchen, I saw that her face, in
its frame of snow-white hair, became red all over. Carla was not in,
and her mother offered to go and fetch the key of the studio, so that
she could receive me in the only room, she said, which was worthy of
me. But I told her not to trouble, and went into the kitchen and sat
down on a wooden chair. A meagre coal fire was burning on the hearth,
under a saucepan. I told her not to interrupt cooking the supper on my
account. She reassured me. She said she was cooking beans and that one
could never cook them too much. To see such poor food, in a house of
which I was the sole support, moved me and calmed the irritation I felt
at not finding my mistress waiting for me.
The old woman remained standing, though I kept asking her to sit down.
I told her at once that I had come to bring her daughter some bad news:
Copler was dying.
The old woman let her arms drop to her side, and she immediately sank
into a chair.
“My God!” she murmured. “What will become of us?” Then she remembered
that it was worse for Copler than for her, and added compassionately:
“Poor gentleman! He was so good too!”
The tears were already streaming down her cheeks. She was clearly
unconscious of the fact that unless the poor man had died he would have
been turned out of her house that very day. This tended to reassure me.
How discreet everyone was!
I tried to calm her by saying that I would go on doing for them exactly
what Copler had done up to then. She pretended that she was not so much
crying for herself as at the thought of their benefactor’s death; she
knew there were so many kind friends willing to help them.
She wanted to know what he was dying of. I told her how his last
illness had begun, and recalled the discussion I had had with him a
little time before about the utility of pain. Here were the nerves
of his teeth becoming uneasy and calling for help, because about
three feet away from them his bowels had ceased to function. I was so
indifferent to the fate of the friend whose death-rattle I had heard
only a short while before, that I went on playing with his ideas. If
he had been there to hear I should have said that it was very easy to
understand by analogy how the nerves of a _malade imaginaire_ might
suffer from an illness which had broken out a few kilometres away.
The old woman and I did not find much to say to each other, and I
finally agreed to go and wait for Carla in her studio. I took up Garcia
and tried to read a few pages. But I was not very interested in singing.
The mother soon joined me. She could not understand why Carla had not
come back. She told me that she had gone out to buy some plates which
they badly needed.
My patience was almost exhausted. I said crossly:
“Why did you break the plates? Couldn’t you have been more careful?”
Anyway I succeeded in getting rid of the old woman, who went off
muttering:
“Only two.... I broke them myself.”
This amused me for a moment, because I knew they had all been broken,
and not by the old woman at all, but by Carla. Afterwards I discovered
that Carla was not very nice to her mother, and that the poor old
woman was terrified of saying anything about her to her protectors.
Apparently she had once, in all innocence, told Copler how Carla hated
her singing lessons. Copler scolded Carla, who was furious with her
mother about it.
When at last my exquisite mistress came I surprised her by the violence
of my passion. She murmured with delight:
“Fancy my having doubted your love. I have been haunted all day by the
idea of committing suicide, because I had given myself to someone who
was so unkind to me directly afterwards.”
I explained that I often got terrible pains in the head quite suddenly;
and on subsequent occasions when, if I had not made a great effort, I
should have hurried away to Augusta on the spot, I had only to talk
of those pains in the head and I succeeded in controlling myself. I
was making progress! Meanwhile Carla and I mourned Copler together; we
actually mingled our tears over him!
But Carla was by no means indifferent to the sad end of her benefactor.
She became quite pale when she talked about him.
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I am made like that. It will be ever so
long before I shall dare to be left alone. I was frightened enough of
him when he was alive.”
And for the first time she timidly proposed my spending the whole night
with her. It was the last thing I wanted to do; I could not bear the
thought of spending another half-hour in that room. But I was anxious
not to let the poor girl read my thoughts, of which I was thoroughly
ashamed, and began making objections on the ground of her mother being
there. She curled her lip disdainfully and said:
“We could bring the bed in here; mother would never spy on me.”
I told her about the wedding banquet to which I had to go, but I also
felt I must tell her that I should never be able to spend the night
with her. Thanks to the resolution I had just made always to be kind
to Carla, I managed to keep out of my voice any touch of harshness,
but I felt that any other concession, either actual or promised, would
have seemed like a fresh betrayal of Augusta, which I could not bring
myself to commit.
It suddenly became clear to me what it was that bound me most closely
to Carla; my resolution always to be kind to her and the lies I told
about my relations with Augusta, which in course of time I must
gradually modify till I had done away with them altogether. I began
that very evening, but as cautiously as possible, for what I had
obtained in consequence of my lie was still too fresh in my mind. I
told her that I had a strong sense of duty to my wife, who was a most
admirable woman and certainly deserved to be loved better. I could not
bear her to know that I had been unfaithful to her.
Carla kissed me and said:
“That is how I like you best; I knew you were good and kind the first
moment I saw you. I will never try to do anything which would hurt the
poor thing.”
I didn’t at all like Augusta being called a “poor thing”--but I was
grateful to poor Carla for demanding so little. It was a good thing
that she did not hate my wife. I wanted to show my gratitude to her,
and cast round in my mind for some token of affection. At last I hit on
it. I made her a present of a “private laundry” in that I allowed her
not to send for the singing-master again.
This was the signal for an outburst of tenderness on Carla’s part which
I found rather trying but bore with fortitude. Then she told me that
she had never wanted to give up singing. She sang all day long, but
in her own way. She wanted me to hear her sing something on the spot.
But I would not hear of it, and took my leave rather unceremoniously.
Probably it made her contemplate suicide that night too, but I never
gave her time to tell me about it.
I went back to Copler first, for I had to take Augusta the latest news
of the invalid, to make her believe that I had been spending all those
hours by his bedside. Copler had been dead about two hours; he died
almost immediately after I left. I went into his room accompanied by
the old pensioner who had spent the whole time pacing up and down the
little passage. The corpse, already dressed, was lying on the bare
mattress of the bed. A crucifix was placed between his hands. The
pensioner told me in a low voice that all the proper formalities had
been performed and that a nephew of the dead man was coming to watch by
the corpse.
I was now free to leave him, knowing that all my poor friend needed
had been done for him, but I stayed watching him for a few minutes. I
should have liked to screw one genuine tear of compassion from my eyes
for the poor man who had waged so valiant a fight against disease,
before he would consent to make peace. “It is very sad!” I said. He had
been brutally killed by an illness for which so many drugs exist. It
seemed such a mockery. But I could not shed a tear. Copler’s emaciated
face had never seemed so strong as it did now in the rigidity of death.
It looked as if it had been hewn out of coloured marble, and no one
could have guessed that it was on the brink of decay. That face seemed
still to have an expression of life; perhaps it disapproved of me,
the _malade imaginaire_, or of Carla who would not learn singing. I
shuddered for a moment, thinking I heard again the death-rattle of the
dead man. But I resumed the dispassionate study of his face when I
realised that what I took to be a death-rattle was only the pensioner’s
heavy breathing, which emotion made more laboured.
The pensioner accompanied me to the door, and begged me to say a good
word for him if I knew of anyone wanting apartments:
“You see I have done all I could even in a situation like this; I have
done my duty and a great deal more too.”
He raised his voice for the first time, and there was a note of
resentment in it, no doubt against poor Copler for having left his room
without giving due notice. I went off as fast as I could, promising to
do all that he asked.
When I reached my father-in-law’s house I found that they had sat down
to dinner. They asked for news at once, and so as not to damp the
spirits of the company I said that Copler was still alive and that
there was therefore room for hope.
I thought the party seemed very dull. Perhaps I got this impression
from seeing my father-in-law condemned to a plate of soup and a glass
of milk, while all around were feeding on the choicest dainties. He had
plenty of time at his disposal and employed it in watching the others
eat. When he saw Señor Francesco eating hors-d’œuvres he muttered:
“To think that he is two years older than me!”
And when Señor Francesco reached his third glass of white wine he
growled:
“That is the third! May it turn to gall in his stomach!”
This pious hope would not have troubled me if I myself had not been
eating and drinking at the same table, and had not realised that every
mouthful of wine I drank would have a like blessing bestowed on it.
So I began eating and drinking secretly. I took advantage of a moment
when my father-in-law’s great nose was hidden in his glass of milk,
or when he was answering some remark which had been addressed to him,
to swallow huge mouthfuls of food and gulp down whole glasses of
wine. Alberta, simply in order to be funny, warned Augusta that I was
drinking too much. My wife threatened me laughingly with her finger.
She meant no harm, but it had the unfortunate result of making my
efforts to eat secretly useless too. Giovanni, who had almost forgotten
my existence, flung me, over his glasses, a veritable look of hate. He
said:
“I have never abused food or drink. Anyone who eats or drinks to excess
is no man but a ...” And he went on repeating the last word which was
not exactly complimentary.
The wine I had drunk made that offensive word, at which everybody
laughed heartily, rankle in my breast, and I felt a quite unreasoning
desire to avenge myself. I attacked my father-in-law at his weakest
point--his illness. I shouted that the contemptible person was not
one who ate or drank to excess, but one who submitted tamely to the
doctor’s orders. If I had been in his place I should have acted very
differently. At my own daughter’s marriage, my affection for her, if
nothing else, would have made me refuse to have my eating and drinking
interfered with.
Giovanni wrathfully observed:
“I should like to see you in my shoes!”
“Isn’t it enough to see me in my own? Do I give up smoking by any
chance?”
It was the first time I had succeeded in boasting of this weakness
of mine, and I at once lit a cigarette in illustration of my words.
They all laughed, and told Señor Francesco how my life was full of
last cigarettes. This one was not going to be the last, and I felt
strong and combative. But the others soon withdrew their support when I
proceeded to pour some wine into Giovanni’s big drinking-water glass.
They were afraid he would drink it, and shouted at him to stop him,
till at last Signora Malfenti managed to get hold of the glass and take
it away.
“So you want to kill me, do you?” asked Giovanni mildly, looking
curiously at me. “The wine has not done _you_ much good.” He had made
not the slightest effort to drink what I had poured out for him.
I felt thoroughly depressed and in the wrong. I could almost have flung
myself at my father-in-law’s feet to implore his forgiveness, but I
knew that would probably also have been inspired by wine, and crushed
the impulse. It was a pity, for in asking for forgiveness I could have
confessed my fault, and the dinner would have lasted long enough to
give me a chance of repairing that first unfortunate joke. There is a
time for everything in this world. Not all drunkards fall immediately
under the influence of wine. When I have drunk too much I go on
analysing my fellow-creatures just as I do when sober, and probably
with the same result. I now continued my self-analysis in order to
discover how I could have hit on the horrible thought of doing harm
to my father-in-law. I discovered that I was tired, absolutely dead
tired. If they had known what a day I had been through they would have
made some excuse for me. I had twice seduced and violently abandoned
one woman, and twice returned to my wife only to deny her twice. It
was fortunate for me that some train of thought suddenly brought to my
mind the corpse over which I had vainly tried to shed tears. If this
had not banished my thoughts about the two women I should have ended by
speaking of Carla. Have I not always had a great desire for confession,
even when wine has not made me more expansive still?
So I spoke about Copler instead, for I wanted them all to know that I
had lost a great friend that day. They would be more ready to excuse my
behaviour.
I cried out that Copler was dead, stone dead, and that I had not told
them before so as not to cast a gloom over the party. And now at last,
strange to say, I felt the tears rising and had to turn my eyes away so
as to hide them.
They all laughed, because they did not believe me; so with an obstinacy
which too much wine tends to produce I proceeded to describe his death:
“He looked like a figure of Michelangelo, as if he had been hewn out of
a block of marble.”
There was a general silence, interrupted by Guido, who exclaimed:
“So you no longer care whether you depress us or not?” His reproof was
deserved. I had again failed to keep a resolution. Perhaps I might
still save the situation!