must not be taken too seriously. The speaker seemed to wish it to be
treated as an everyday story. Carla had a different conception of it
but she arrived at the same conclusion:
“My sympathy is with Rosina, for otherwise the song would not be worth
singing,” she said.
It sometimes happened that Carla would quite unconsciously rekindle my
love for Augusta and my remorse on her account. In fact it happened
whenever she did anything which seemed to aim at undermining the
unassailable position held by my wife. She was still as anxious as ever
to have me to herself for one whole night; she confided to me that it
seemed to her something was wanting in our intimacy because we had
never slept together.
As I wished to get into the habit of treating her more gently I did
not absolutely refuse to do what she wanted, but it almost always
seemed to me that it would be impossible to do so unless I could make
up my mind to find Augusta looking out of the window, after having sat
up for me all night. Besides, would it not be a fresh infidelity to
my wife? Sometimes, especially when desire had driven me to Carla, I
felt inclined to satisfy her, but almost immediately afterwards the
difficulty and impossibility of the situation was borne in on me. So
that for a long time the idea remained in abeyance, neither realised
nor actually dismissed. It was understood that we had agreed sooner or
later to spend a whole night together; and there was every facility
now for doing so, for I had persuaded the Gercos to give notice to the
tenants who lived in the middle part of their flat, cutting it in two;
so that Carla at last had a bedroom to herself.
Soon after Guido’s wedding my father-in-law had the attack which
finally killed him, and I was foolish enough to tell Carla that my wife
was obliged to spend the night at her father’s bedside, so as to allow
my mother-in-law to get a little rest. Having done so there was no way
of getting out of it; Carla insisted on my spending that night with
her--the very night that was to be so painful for my wife. I had not
the courage to refuse, and agreed with a heavy heart.
I prepared for the sacrifice by not going to see Carla in the morning,
so that I rushed round to her in the evening full of unsatisfied
desire, saying to myself that it was childish to think I was being more
unfaithful to Augusta just because at that moment she was obliged to
suffer owing to quite a different cause. I even felt impatient with
poor Augusta for delaying me while she explained to me where to find
everything I might need for supper, for the night and for breakfast the
next morning.
Carla received me in her studio. Soon after, the old woman who was at
once her mother and maid-of-all-work, served us a delicious little meal
which I supplemented with what I had brought for dessert. Then she came
in and cleared away, and I should have been only too glad to go to bed
at once; but it was really too early, and Carla persuaded me to let her
sing first. She went through the whole of her repertory, and that was
the part of the evening I enjoyed most, for the excitement with which
I waited for the moment when I might enjoy my mistress added to the
pleasure I always took in listening to her recitations.
“The audience would load you with flowers and applause,” I said,
forgetting that it would be impossible for a whole audience to share my
present state of mind.
We went to bed at last in a small, bare room, meanly furnished. It
looked like part of a passage, divided in two by a wall. I was not at
all sleepy, but even if I had been, I reflected with horror that it
would have been impossible to sleep in such a stuffy place.
Carla’s mother called to her in a timid voice. She went to the door to
answer, and half closed it again behind her. I heard her asking the old
woman crossly what she wanted. The other said something I could not
hear, and then Carla cried out angrily, as she slammed the door in her
mother’s face:
“Leave me alone, I’ve told you that I am going to sleep here to-night!”
Then I discovered that Carla, who was afraid of the dark, always slept
in her old bedroom with her mother, where there was another bed, and
that the bed we were sleeping on was generally empty. It was of course
fear which had made her try to get me to desert Augusta. She admitted
with a malicious satisfaction, which I did not share, that she felt
safer with me than with her mother. That bed, all alone there in the
little room next door to the studio, gave me food for reflection. I had
never seen it before. I felt jealous! And I did not at all like the
way Carla had spoken to her mother. How different from Augusta, who
had denied herself my company in order to wait on her parents. I am
particularly sensitive to any lack of consideration in children towards
their parents. How patiently I put up with my own dear father’s whims!
Carla was quite unconscious both of my jealousy and my unfavourable
criticism of her. I suppressed any inclination to show that I was
jealous, for I felt I hardly had the right to be so, seeing that I
had spent a good part of my time in wishing that someone would take
my mistress off my hands. And there was no point in showing the poor
girl that I despised her just when I was again toying with the idea of
giving her up finally; though I despised her all the more for the very
reasons which a short time ago would have made me still more jealous.
The important thing was to get away as quickly as possible from that
horrible little room containing barely three cubic feet of air, and
overheated into the bargain.
I can’t remember exactly what excuse I made for going away almost at
once. I threw on my clothes in frantic haste. I think I said something
about having forgotten to give my wife a key, so that she would not
be able to get in, supposing she needed something from the house. I
showed her the key, which was really the one I always carried about in
my pocket, but which I produced as a tangible proof of the truth of
my statements. Carla did not attempt to keep me; she dressed too, and
came with me to light me down the stairs. In the darkness I thought I
felt her cast searching glances at me now and then, and wondered in
some anxiety whether she was beginning to understand me. It was not
so easy, seeing how good I was at pretending. To show my gratitude to
her for letting me go I touched her cheek with my lips several times
and pretended to be still under the influence of the emotion which
had driven me to her. That I acted well was obvious from the results.
Carla had told me shortly before, in an access of lyrical enthusiasm,
that the ugly name of Zeno which my parents had given me was not worthy
of me. According to her I ought to have been called Dario, and when
she said good-bye to me at the foot of the dark staircase, that was
the name she called me by. But I felt that I could not endure her for
another second, and fled with the key still in my hand. I had almost
come to believe myself that it really was the one I said it was.
The night was intensely dark, but the darkness was broken from time
to time by dazzling flashes of lightning. Thunder rumbled far away in
the distance. The air was very still and as suffocating as in Carla’s
room. Even the few drops which fell at intervals were warm. Evidently a
storm was threatening, and I ran at full speed. By good luck I found a
lighted entrance still open in the Corsa Stadion and took shelter there
just in time. Immediately afterwards the deluge came. The downpour of
rain was lashed by a furious wind which seemed to bring the thunder
along with it until it was almost above one’s head. I shuddered to
think how compromising it would be for me to be found struck dead by
lightning at that hour in the Corsa Stadion. Fortunately my wife knew
that I was a man of strange tastes who might even take it into his head
to walk as far as that at night, so probably an excuse would be found.
I had to stay in that entrance for over an hour. I kept on thinking
that the weather was going to get better, but each time the rain came
on again with greater fury. And now it had turned to hail.
The porter of the house came to keep me company in the entrance, and
I had to give him something for keeping the outer door open a little
longer. Then a gentleman joined us, who was dressed in white and
dripping with water. He was old and thin and withered. I never saw him
again, but I cannot forget the light in his black eyes and the vitality
which emanated from each point of his small person. He swore at the
weather for making him so dirty.
I have always loved talking to people I don’t know. I feel quite safe
and sound with them; it is quite a rest to be with them. If only I take
care not to limp I am all right.
When at last the rain began to give over I went as quickly as I could,
not to my own house but to my father-in-law’s. I felt at that moment
that it was my duty to be on the spot in case I was needed.
My father-in-law was asleep and Augusta, who had her sister to help
her, was able to join me. She said it was so nice of me to have come,
and flung herself weeping into my arms. She had seen her father suffer
horribly.
She noticed that I was quite wet. She made me sit down in an arm-chair
and covered me with some rugs. Then she sat down beside me for a
little while. I was very tired and found it hard work to keep awake,
even during the short time she was with me. I felt very innocent in
not having been unfaithful to the extent of staying away from home
all night. Innocence was so delightful that I tried to increase the
sensation of it. I began putting a few words together which sounded
like a confession. I said I felt weak and guilty but, seeing that she
looked at me inquiringly at this point as if in need of an explanation,
I drew in my horns again and began talking about the sense of sin which
I had in every word I spoke or breath I drew in.
“That is what the monks believe,” said Augusta. “Perhaps it is for the
sins we have unconsciously committed that we are being punished now.”
The words were well suited to her tears which continued to flow. It
seemed to me that she had not quite understood the difference between
my way of thinking and that of the monks, but I did not want to discuss
it, and to the monotonous accompaniment of the wind which had now
risen, I soon fell into a long, refreshing sleep, my mind quite eased
by my attempted confession.
When the question of the singing-master came up again I arranged
everything within a few hours. I had made up my mind some time who it
was to be, and to tell the truth I chose him because his fees were
lower than those of any other teacher in Trieste. I thought it better
not to come into it myself, so I sent Carla to call on him. In fact I
have never seen him, but I know a great deal about him now and he is
one of the people in the world whom I most respect. He is evidently a
very simple-minded, healthy creature, which is strange in an artist who
lives so entirely for art as Vittorio Lali. I must say that I envy him
for being such a genius and at the same time so healthy.
I at once noticed a change in Carla’s voice; it became softer and at
the same time surer and more flexible. We were so afraid that he might
force it, like the teacher whom Copler had chosen. He may have adapted
himself to Carla’s wishes, in any case he always kept to the style of
singing which she preferred. It was only some months afterwards that I
found she had departed from it slightly as her feeling became finer.
She no longer sang Triestine or Neapolitan canzonettas, but old Italian
songs; and from them she passed to Mozart and Schubert.
I remember specially a cradle song attributed to Mozart, and sometimes
when I am most conscious of the sadness of life, and think regretfully
of the fragile girl who was my mistress but whom I never loved, the
cradle song rings reproachfully in my ears. I see again Carla in her
rôle of mother, summoning her sweetest tones to woo her baby to sleep.
But she, who was unforgettable as a lover, was too bad a daughter ever
to become a good mother. She could sing like a mother though, and that
was a gift that covered a multitude of sins.
Carla told me her singing-master’s story. He had studied for several
years at the Vienna Conservatoire and had then come to Trieste, where
he had the good fortune to work for our best composer who was stricken
with blindness. He took down all his compositions to dictation, and was
treated by him with the confidence which all blind people feel the need
of reposing absolutely in anyone on whom they are dependent. So he got
to know his ideas and schemes, which though they were mature remained
always eternally youthful. He soon became familiar with every kind of
music, and knew just what Carla needed. She described his appearance to
me: he was young and fair and rather solidly built, negligently dressed
with a soft shirt that sometimes might have been cleaner, a large
flowing tie that must once have been black, and a shabby broad-brimmed
hat. He was a man of few words, according to Carla; and I think she
was speaking the truth, for a few months later when he became more
confidential she told me at once. He was entirely absorbed in his work.
Fresh complications very soon set in. It was with a feeling of bitter
jealousy, as well as love, that I went to see Carla in the morning,
though it passed off somewhat during the day. I could not believe that
the young man would not take advantage of such an easy prey. Carla
appeared surprised at my thinking of such a thing, but her surprise
made me think it all the more. Had she forgotten already what had
happened between her and me?
I arrived one day wild with jealousy, and frightened her so much that
she offered at once to dismiss the singing-master. I don’t think that
it was only because she was afraid of losing my support, for she showed
me many genuine signs of affection at that time, which sometimes
made me intensely happy, and, when I was in another frame of mind,
irritated me because I felt them to be directed against Augusta; and
yet, however much I wanted to, I could not dissociate myself from them.
I was embarrassed by her suggestion, which I felt I could not accept
whatever mood I might be in at the moment. I felt the need of keeping
the channel open between my two states of being, and I did not want to
curtail in any way my freedom to pass from one to the other at will.
Though I could not accept her suggestion it made me realise that I
must be more careful, and I resolved, however jealous I might feel, not
to show it. My love became more and more a source of irritation to me,
and I ended by feeling Carla to be an inferior being, whether I desired
her or not. At times I did not care whether she was unfaithful to me
or not; she seemed quite unimportant. When I was not hating her I no
longer remembered her existence. I belonged to the sphere of health and
respectability wherein Augusta reigned supreme, and I returned to her
body and soul as soon as I could escape from Carla.
Carla was in reality absolutely sincere, so that I know exactly for how
long I could call her completely mine--and it was a very long time. My
periodical jealousy was no doubt the expression of an obscure sense of
justice. What I deserved actually did happen. The singing-master fell
in love first. The first intimation I had of it was something which
Carla triumphantly repeated to me, as a sign that she had scored her
first artistic success as an artist and earned my congratulations.
He said that he enjoyed teaching her so much that if at any time she
could not afford to pay for more lessons he would go on giving them
to her gratis. I felt inclined to box her ears, but I soon recovered
and pretended to be as glad as she was about her success. She forgot
the grimace I had made on hearing the news (like when one bites into
a lemon), and accepted my tardy praise quite calmly. He had told her
all his private affairs which were nothing very much: music, poverty,
family worries. His sister had been a great trouble to him, and he had
succeeded in making Carla take a great dislike to a woman she had never
seen. I thought her dislike very compromising. They sang together songs
of his own composition, which I thought very poor both when I was in
love with Carla and when I found her a burden. Perhaps they were good
all the same, but I have never heard anyone speak of them since. He
later conducted an orchestra in the United States, and it may be that
they sing those songs over there.
But the day she told me that he had asked her to marry him and that she
had refused I passed two horrible half-hours; the first because I was
so furious with the singing-master that I should have liked to wait
till he came in order to kick him out; the second because I could see
no means of reconciling the continuation of my liaison with Carla’s
marriage, which I yet felt to be a much more satisfactory and moral
solution of our relationship than the career which Carla had pictured
starting in my company.
Why did that God-forsaken teacher want to take fire so soon? During the
year which our liaison had lasted, so much had adjusted itself between
Carla and me; even my frown had vanished when I said good-bye to her.
If I still reproached myself I felt hardly any remorse, and though
Carla would still have been right in saying that I made love roughly
she seemed to have got used to it. This was not so difficult for her,
for I had never again treated her with the brutality of the first days
of our liaison, and having endured that, the rest must have seemed to
her comparatively mild.
So that even if Carla no longer meant very much to me I could easily
foresee that I should be by no means content to come to see my mistress
and not find her. Of course it would be wonderful to be able to go
back to Augusta without having enjoyed the usual interlude with Carla,
and at that moment I felt quite equal to doing so. But I should have
liked to have given it a trial first. The resolution I made was more or
less as follows: To-morrow I will beg her to accept his proposal but I
will prevent her doing so to-day. And by a great effort I continued to
behave as a lover. Now that I am able to look back on every phase of
my adventure, I see that it looks as if I wanted to make another man
marry my mistress and yet keep her for myself, as somebody much more
experienced and of a much colder temperament than myself might have
done. But I was far from being as immoral as that, and such a design
never entered my head. I wanted her to marry the singing-master, but
to postpone her decision till to-morrow. It was only now that what
I persist in calling my state of innocence came to an end. I could
no longer adore Carla for a short time every day and then hate her
for twenty-four hours on end; or wake every morning as innocent as a
new-born babe, and pass the day in wonderment at the adventures it
brought, though it was just like all the other days, and I ought to
have known those adventures by heart.
This was no longer possible. I saw before me the probability of losing
my mistress for ever unless I could overcome my desire to get rid of
her. I instantly overcame it.
And so it came about that just the very day when she had ceased to
matter anything at all to me, I made Carla a scene which in its falsity
and jealous rage resembled the scene I had made Augusta that night in
the carriage. But on this occasion I was not drunk with wine; I was
only genuinely moved by the sound of my own words. I told her I loved
her, that I could not live without her, but that I did not see how I
could ask her to sacrifice her whole life to me, when I had nothing to
offer in comparison with what she offered me.
It struck an altogether new note in our relationship, already rich in
passionate experiences. She listened enraptured to my words, and it
was a long time before she made up her mind to tell me that I need not
worry about Lali being in love with her, because she did not care for
him in the least.
I thanked her with the same ardour as before, though I was no longer
moved by it myself. I felt a certain weight on my chest; evidently I
was more deeply involved than ever. Instead of diminishing, my feigned
ardour increased in order to give me the opportunity to say a word of
eulogy for poor Lali. I did not want to let him go; I wanted to reserve
him--but for the following day.
When we had to consider the question of keeping him on or of dismissing
him as a singing-master, we were in complete agreement; I had no wish
to rob her of her career as well as of a husband. She admitted that she
thought a great deal of him as a teacher; at every lesson she realised
more how much she needed his help. She begged me not to worry, and to
have complete confidence in her; assuring me that she loved me and me
only.
Evidently my adultery was growing in scope and importance. I had
now become bound more closely than ever to my mistress. New links
had become forged in our relationship, which threatened to invade a
territory reserved hitherto to my married love. But directly I got home
my new affection for Carla was diverted into an increasing tenderness
for my wife. For Carla I felt nothing but profound mistrust. Who knows
what truth there was in that proposal of marriage? I should not have
been surprised if one fine day Carla had presented me with a son who
had a great gift for music. I again made iron resolutions, which I took
with me to Carla, forgot while I was with her and remembered again
almost before I left her. The resolutions existed for their own sake,
and had no practical results whatever.
And for the time being everything remained as before. The summer passed
away, and carried off my father-in-law. I found plenty to occupy me in
Guido’s new house of business, where I did more work than I had ever
done before, not excepting my varied studies at the University. I will
say more later about this new activity of mine. The winter went by,
and the first green leaves that opened in my garden found me more sure
of myself than those of the year before. My daughter Antonia was born.
Carla’s master was still at our disposition, but Carla would not hear
of marrying him at present, and I still wanted to put it off too.
But events which seemed at the time to be of no importance produced
very serious results in my relations with Carla. They passed almost
unobserved at the time, and it was only their consequences which drew
my attention to them.
It was just at the beginning of spring that I consented to go for a
walk with Carla in the Giardino Pubblico. I felt it to be terribly
compromising for me, but Carla was so anxious to walk in the sunshine
leaning on my arm that I at last consented. We were not to be allowed
to spend even a few moments together as husband and wife, for even this
attempt ended badly.
We sat down on a seat, the better to enjoy the sudden warmth; the
sun for the first time seemed to be entering again into his kingdom.
On weekday mornings the garden was deserted, and I thought if we
sat still we should run still less danger of being seen. But we had
not been sitting long when I saw Tullio approaching, with slow but
mighty strides, leaning on his crutch. (He was the individual of the
fifty-four muscles.) He sat down beside us without looking at us. Then
he raised his head, his eyes met mine and he said:
“Well, how are you after all this long time? Are you less busy than you
were?”
He had sat down quite close to me, and after I had recovered from my
surprise my first instinct was to prevent him catching sight of Carla.
But directly he had shaken hands with me he asked:
“Is that your wife?”
He waited for me to introduce him.