She blushed scarlet and at once removed her foot, saying, in an attempt
to be witty:
“But this is practice, not theory. I shall appeal to Augusta.”
I must confess that I also found that pressure anything but
theoretical, but I protested with the most innocent air in the world:
“It is pure theory, and nothing else, and it shows you have a low mind
if you look at it in any other way.”
Fancies which spring from wine are as real as actual events. For a long
time Alberta and I were unable to forget that I had touched a part of
her body with the definite intention of experiencing pleasure from the
contact. The act had become significant by being talked about, and the
words by being put into practice.... So long as she remained unmarried
she always greeted me with a smile and a blush; afterwards, with an
angry blush without the smile. Women are made like that. Each day, as
it comes, provides them with a new interpretation of the one that went
before. Their life can never be at all monotonous. As regards myself,
the interpretation of my action always remained the same: the theft
of a small thing possessing great charm. It was Alberta’s fault that
for a certain length of time I tried to make her remember that act of
mine; whereas later on I would have paid a good deal to have it quite
forgotten.
I remember that before I left the house something much more serious
happened. I remained alone for a moment with Ada. Giovanni had gone
to bed early, and the guests were taking leave of Señor Francesco,
whom Guido was to accompany to his hotel. I stood gazing at Ada. She
was dressed all in white lace, with bare neck and arms. For a long
time I remained silent, though I wanted to say something to her, but
everything that rose to my lips seemed inadequate when I came to
analyse it. I remember I wondered whether it would be permissible for
me to say to her:
“I am so delighted you are going to get married, and that you are
marrying Guido, who is such a great friend of mine. Now at last all
is over between us.” It was a lie of course, for everyone knew that
all had been over between us now for some months, but I thought it
would sound very flattering, and a woman who is dressed as beautifully
as that deserves to have compliments paid her, if she can appreciate
them. But after reflecting on it for some time, I decided to say
nothing. In the sea of wine in which I was floating I found at last a
plank which saved me. I thought it would be wrong of me to jeopardise
Augusta’s affection only in order to please Ada, who did not love me.
But in the agitation of the moment, even after I had made the effort of
suppressing those words, I gave Ada such a look that she rose and left
the room after turning round in alarm to see what I might be doing, and
ready perhaps to run away if necessary.
One remembers a look one has cast at another person, as well as, or
even better than one’s own words. A look is even more important than a
word, because if you hunt the whole dictionary through you will never
be able to undress a woman with a word. I know now that the look I gave
Ada contradicted the words I had pictured myself saying to her, and
thereby simplified them. Through her eyes I had tried to pierce her
clothes and her skin. And it had quite clearly meant: “So will you come
to bed at once?”
Wine is a great danger not because it brings the truth to light; but
on the contrary, because it reveals what is past and forgotten and
plays no part in one’s present conscious will. All the fantastic ideas
one toyed with in the more or less recent past, and has long since
forgotten, come crowding to the surface; it traces afresh what one
had erased, and reads whatever is still perceptible in our hearts. If
one has made a mistake in endorsing a cheque, it is easy enough to
correct it; but in the heart those erasures are impossible. Our whole
life-history is written there, and wine proclaims it abroad, regardless
of the emendations of time.
Augusta and I took a carriage home. I thought it my duty to kiss and
embrace my wife in the dark, because I had often done so on similar
occasions, and was afraid that if I did not she might think things had
changed between us. Nothing whatever had changed between us: that also
was proclaimed by the wine! She had married Zeno Cosini, and he was
sitting by her, just the same as ever. What did it matter if I had had
other women that day? Their number had been augmented by the wine I had
drunk, and included now Ada or Alberta, I could not remember which.
I remember that just as I was falling asleep I saw Copler’s marble face
on his death-bed. He seemed to ask for justice, that is to say for the
tears I had promised him. But he did not get them even then, for sleep
took hold of me and completely annihilated me. I had only time to say
to the phantom: “Wait just a little while, I shall be with you very
soon!” I never was with him again in any form, for I did not even go
to his funeral. We had so much to do at home, and I outside as well,
that there was no time to think of him. We talked about him sometimes,
but only as a joke, remembering how many times my wine had killed him
off and resurrected him again. He became in fact quite a proverb in the
family, and when the papers, as often happens, announced the death of
someone and later corrected the announcement, we still say: “Like poor
Copler!”
Next morning I got up with a slight headache. The pain in my side
worried me rather too, probably because while the effect of the wine
lasted I had not felt it at all, and had already lost the habit of
it. But I was not really depressed. Augusta cheered me by saying that
it would have been dreadful if I had not come to the wedding dinner,
because before I arrived it had seemed like a funeral. So I need not
reproach myself for having behaved badly. But there was one thing I
felt later would never be forgiven me: the look I had given Ada!
When we met in the afternoon Ada gave me her hand with an air of
anxiety which increased my own. Perhaps the fact that she had fled from
me the day before weighed on her conscience. It was certainly very
rude of her, but it was also extremely rude of me to have looked at
her like that. I remembered exactly how I had moved my eyes, and quite
understood it would be a thing one could not forget if one had happened
to experience it. I must make up for it now by the most correct
brotherly behaviour.
They say that if you are suffering from having drunk too much the
best cure is to drink still more. So I went that morning to Carla to
recover my spirits. I went to her with the definite desire to live more
intensely, which is what drives one back to drink, but on the way there
I felt that I should like quite a different kind of intensity from the
day before. I made several resolutions as I went along, all of them
rather vague but very honourable. I knew that I could not abandon her
at once, but I would approach that highly moral act by slow degrees.
Meanwhile I would continue to talk to her about my wife. I had another
envelope of money ready in my waistcoat in case of emergency.
I reached Carla’s house. A quarter of an hour later she made me a
reproach which lingered in my ears for a long while afterwards: “How
roughly you make love.” I don’t remember having been particularly rough
just then. I had begun talking to her about my wife, and the praises I
gave Augusta had sounded to Carla’s ears like reproaches to herself.
Then it was Carla’s turn to wound me. To pass the time I told her how
uncomfortable I had been at the banquet, especially on account of a
toast I had proposed, which was in terribly bad taste. Carla remarked:
“If you loved your wife, you wouldn’t propose toasts in bad taste at
her father’s table.”
And she gave me a kiss, as if to reward me for loving my wife so little.
But the desire for a greater intensity of life, which had already
driven me to Carla, soon made me feel that I wanted to return to
Augusta, the only person to whom I could talk about my love for
herself. I had already had too much of the wine I had taken for a cure,
and now I wanted quite a different kind of wine. But my relations with
Carla were destined to become tenderer that very day, and finally to
be crowned by the sympathy which as I discovered later the poor girl
deserved. She had often suggested singing me a little song on which
she wanted my criticism. But I was tired of her singing; even its
simplicity no longer had any charms for me. I told her that since she
refused to practise it was not worth while her singing any more.
I had insulted her badly and she felt it very keenly. She was sitting
beside me, and kept her eyes fixed on her hands which were clasped on
her knees, so that I should not see that she was crying. She repeated
her reproach:
“How unkind you must be to someone you don’t love if you are so unkind
to me.”
In spite of everything I am really very good-natured. So I allowed
myself to be moved by Carla’s tears, and begged her once more to deafen
me with her great voice in that little room. It was her turn to show
reluctance now, and I was obliged to threaten to go away if she did
not sing. I must confess that I thought for the moment I was going to
recover my freedom, but hearing my threat my humble slave went at once
with downcast eyes to the piano. She sat quite still for a moment to
recover herself, and passed her hand over her brow as if to chase away
a cloud. She succeeded in doing so with a quickness which surprised me;
and when she uncovered her face again it bore no trace of her former
grief.
A great surprise awaited me. Carla recited her song; she did not shout
it, she spoke it. She told me afterwards that it was her master who
made her shout like that; now that he had been dismissed the shouting
had gone too. This is how the little Triestine song began:
Pazzo l’amor xe vero
Cossa ghe sce de mal
Vola che a sedes’ ani
Sto la come un cocal....
It was a kind of spoken confession. Carla’s eyes sparkled with
wickedness, and expressed even more than the words. There was no fear
of the drum of one’s ear being broken, and I went quite close to her,
surprised and delighted at the change. I sat down beside her, and she
recited the canzonetta as if she were addressing it directly to me,
half closing her eyes and telling me in the sweetest, purest tone of
voice that her sixteen years cried out for love and liberty.
I had for the first time an opportunity of studying Carla’s face. It
was a pure oval, only broken by the deep and beautiful curve of her
eyebrows and the faint line of the cheek-bones, and made purer still
by its snowy whiteness, now that her face was turned towards me and
the light, instead of being half in shadow. Her skin seemed almost
transparent, yet scarcely a trace of the delicate veins appeared in it,
and something in its soft lines called up all my instincts of love and
protection.
I was ready to offer it all to her now unconditionally, even at the
very moment when I most wanted to go back to Augusta; for Carla seemed
only to ask for a fatherly love which I could give her without any
infidelity. What a satisfaction for me! I could stay there with Carla,
giving all that the oval of her face demanded, and at the same time I
could feel myself near Augusta!
My love for Carla became more tender, more refined. Henceforward I need
not run away if I felt aspirations towards honesty and purity: I had
only to turn the conversation into another channel.
Was it my discovery of her oval face which gave me this new sensation
of happiness, or her musical talent? Her talent was undeniable.
The strange dialect folk-song ends with a verse in which the woman
declares that she is old and abandoned, and seeks no other liberty now
than to die. Carla put an extraordinary amount of temperament into
her rendering of the poor verses. In her it was youth disguised as
age which continued to proclaim its rights from a new point of view.
When at the end she found me full of admiration she too for the first
time seemed to feel a genuine liking as well as love for me. She knew
that her little song had pleased me more than the style which her
singing-master had taught her.
“It is a pity,” she added sadly, “that unless one sings in _cafés
chantants_ it is impossible to make enough to live.”
It was easy for me to convince her that this was not true. There were
plenty of great artists in the world who recited instead of singing.
She made me tell her their names. She was enraptured when she
discovered how important her art might become.
“I know,” she naïvely said, “that this way of singing is much more
difficult than the other in which you only have to shout at the top of
your voice.”
I smiled and did not discuss the matter further. Her art was certainly
difficult too, and she realised it because it was the only art she had
any knowledge of. That little song had cost her a great deal of study.
She had said it over and over again, correcting the intonation of each
word and each note. Now she was studying another, but would not know it
for several weeks yet, and till then she did not want me to hear it.
There followed enchanting moments in that room, which up to then had
only been the scene of violent love-making. A new career was opening
before Carla, a career which would perhaps take her off my hands. It
was very much what Copler had dreamt of for her! I suggested finding a
master for her. At first the word frightened her, but she consented at
once when I told her that she would be perfectly free to dismiss him if
she did not like him and found him of no use.
I got on very well with Augusta too that day. My mind was as easy as
if I had just returned from a walk instead of from Carla’s house;
I felt, no doubt, just as poor Copler did on the days when he left
the house without having had any reason for being angry. I had the
delicious sensation of having reached an oasis. It would have been
terribly bad for my health if my long affair with Carla had been one
perpetual excitement. From that day things went on more quietly, as
if as a result of the æsthetic beauty we enjoyed together; with only
an occasional interruption which sufficed to arouse afresh my love
for Carla and also for Augusta. Every visit I paid to Carla meant of
course that I was unfaithful to Augusta, but all was soon forgotten in
a health-giving bath of good resolutions. And there was nothing brutal
or sadistic now in my good resolutions, as when I had felt a passionate
need to tell Carla I would never see her again. I had become gentle
and protective; my thoughts turned again to her career. Giving up a
woman each day in order to run after her the next would have been an
altogether too exhausting process for my poor heart to bear. As it was,
Carla remained in my power, and I was able to influence her now in one
direction, now in another.
It was some time before my good resolutions were strong enough to
induce me to scour the city in search of a teacher who would do for
Carla. I toyed with the good resolution while continuing to do nothing
about it. Then one fine day Augusta told me she was going to become a
mother; whereupon my resolution grew to gigantic proportions and Carla
had her teacher.
One reason why I had waited so long was that it was clear that Carla,
even without a master, would be capable of working seriously at her new
art. Each week she had a new song to recite to me, carefully thought
out both as to expression and articulation of the words. Perhaps
certain tones ought to have been lighter, but no doubt she would find
the right balance in time. One decisive proof that Carla was an artist
was the way she went on perfecting her songs without letting go of what
was best in her first conception. I often used to make her recite her
earliest songs again, and there was always some new touch which was
very much to the point.
Seeing how ignorant she was, it was remarkable that in spite of her
efforts to give the utmost expression to the song she never introduced
a false or exaggerated note. Like a true artist she added a small stone
to the building daily, without destroying what was there already. The
song was not stereotyped, only the sentiment which inspired it. Before
she began singing Carla used always to pass her hand over her face,
and that moment’s quiet sufficed to plunge her in the drama she had to
create. Nor was the drama always puerile. The ironic mentor of