“But when are you going to begin to make money?” We had not begun
thinking about that yet. We knew that the first thing we had to do was
to lie low and observe; to take stock of the goods, the market and all
the background of business. You couldn’t improvise a business house
on the spur of the moment. Even Augusta’s mind was set at rest by my
explanations.
Soon a very noisy inmate was introduced into the office, a sporting-dog
only a few months old, a lively and absorbing companion. Guido was
devoted to him and ordered a daily supply of milk and meat. When I had
nothing else to do or think about I used to love watching him too,
dashing about the office with those four or five doggish gestures which
are so endearing because we know just what they mean. But I could not
help feeling that a dog who made so much noise and brought in so much
dirt was out of place in the office. It was the presence of the dog
which first made me feel that Guido was not really worthy to conduct a
house of business. It proved conclusively that he was entirely lacking
in seriousness. I tried to explain to him that the dog could not in any
way promote our business, but I had not the courage to insist on his
being sent away, and Guido always had some answer ready which silenced
me for the moment.
So then I thought it was my duty to devote myself to training our new
colleague, and I took great pleasure in giving him a kick or two when
Guido was not there. The dog howled, and at first came back to me,
thinking I must have kicked him by mistake. But a second kick explained
matters, and then he would go and lie down in the corner, and till
Guido arrived we had peace in the office. I was sorry afterwards to
think I had wreaked my vengeance on an innocent dog, but it was too
late. I loaded him with attentions, but he no longer trusted me and
showed clear signs of his dislike in Guido’s presence. Guido said:
“It’s very odd! It is lucky I know you, or I should feel rather
suspicious of you. Dogs don’t often make a mistake in the people they
dislike.”
To dispel Guido’s doubts I was on the point of telling him how I had
succeeded in making myself disliked by the dog.
It was not long before I fell out with Guido about something which
really ought not to have upset me so very much. The result of his
passionate interest in book-keeping was that he took it into his head
to put down his private expenses with those of the office. After
talking it over with Olivi I made a fuss about it, and tried to look
after the interests of the old señor. It was really unheard of to put
down to his account everything that Guido and Ada spent, not to mention
the twins. Those were all expenses which ought to have been borne by
Guido personally, not by the firm. As a compromise I suggested writing
to Buenos Aires to ask Guido’s father to pay him a salary. The father
however refused, saying that Guido was already receiving seventy-five
per cent. of the profits, while he only got the remaining twenty-five.
It seemed to me a reasonable enough reply, but Guido at once began
writing long letters to his father, discussing the matter from a
loftier point of view, as he said. Buenos Aires was a very long way
off, so that the correspondence went on all the time our firm was in
existence. But I won my point. Our general expenses account remained
intact, and was not encroached on by Guido’s private expenses, so that
when our business collapsed, the whole undiminished capital went with
it.
The fifth person to be introduced into our office (including Argo)
was Carmen. I was present when she took up her duties with us. I had
come to the office after having been to see Carla, and I was in a
very serene state of mind, the sort of eight-o’clock-in-the-morning
serenity which Talleyrand speaks of. I saw a young woman standing in
the dark passage, and Luciano told me she wanted to speak to Guido. I
had something I wanted to do so I asked her to wait outside. Guido came
in soon afterwards, evidently without having seen the young woman, and
Luciano gave him the letter of introduction which she had brought with
her. Guido read it. Then he said sharply:
“No!” at the same time taking off his waistcoat, because of the heat.
After a moment’s hesitation he added:
“I suppose I had better just find out who sent her.”
He had her in, and I saw her for the first time just as Guido had
snatched up his waistcoat and was putting it on, with his handsome dark
face and shining eyes turned towards the girl.
I am quite certain I have seen other girls just as pretty as Carmen,
but none whose beauty made so startling an appeal at the first glance.
It is generally desire which makes women beautiful, but this girl
stood in no need of an initial phase of that sort. I could not help
smiling--even laughing--as I looked at her. She seemed to me like a
shopkeeper travelling about the world to proclaim the excellence of his
wares. She was applying for a post, but I felt inclined to interpose
with the question: “What sort of a post? In the bedchamber?”
I saw that her face was not made up, but her colouring was so perfect,
so like the bloom of a ripe fruit, that nature in her seemed to have
rivalled art. Her great brown eyes refracted so much light that every
movement she made with them seemed significant.
Guido made her sit down, and she kept her eyes fixed modestly on
the point of her sunshade or more probably on the toes of her
patent-leather shoes. When he spoke to her she raised her eyes quickly
and gave him such a brilliant glance that my poor chief was quite
overwhelmed. She was modestly dressed, but her modesty served no
purpose, for it was completely contradicted by her body. Her shoes were
the only luxurious thing about her and reminded one of the snow-white
paper which Velasquez used to place under the feet of his models. In
order to make Carmen stand out from her surroundings, Velasquez would
probably have given her a black lacquer background.
I listened curiously to their conversation in an impersonal, calm
frame of mind. Guido asked her if she knew shorthand. She admitted
she did not, but said she had had a great deal of practice in writing
to dictation. It was odd that such a tall graceful creature, whose
movements were so harmonious, should have such a hoarse voice. I could
not conceal my surprise.
“Have you a cold?” I asked.
“No!” she replied. “Why do you ask?”
She was so astonished at my question that the look she gave me was more
than usually searching. She had no idea that her voice did not ring
true, and I was obliged to conclude that her ear was not so perfect as
it looked.
Guido asked if she knew English, French and German. He gave her a
choice of languages, as we did not yet know ourselves which one we
should have most need of. Carmen replied that she knew a little German,
but only very little.
Guido never made any decision without reasoning it out. He remarked:
“We don’t need German, for I know it so well myself.”
The young woman still sat waiting for the final word (which I thought
had been said already), and to hasten it remarked that she was taking
a new situation partly because she was anxious to get experience, and
that therefore she would be satisfied with quite a small salary.
One of the first effects of feminine beauty on a man is that it
removes his avarice. Guido shrugged his shoulders as much as to say
that he took no interest in such insignificant details, offered her a
salary which she gratefully accepted, and gravely advised her to study
shorthand. He gave her this advice entirely for my benefit, as he had
rather committed himself by saying beforehand that the first member of
the staff he engaged would be someone who had a perfect knowledge of
shorthand.
That evening I told my wife about our new colleague. She was very much
annoyed. Without my saying anything to suggest it she at once assumed
that Guido had taken the girl into his employ in order to make her
his mistress. I talked it over with her, and though I was obliged to
admit that Guido did behave a little as if he were in love with her,
I maintained that he would probably get over his infatuation without
its having any serious consequences. The girl, I said, seemed quite
respectable.
A few days later--I don’t know whether it was a mere chance--Ada paid
us a call at the office. Guido had not yet arrived and she stayed
with me a minute, asking me at what time I expected him. Then, with a
hesitating step she went into the next room, where there were at the
moment only Carmen and Luciano. Carmen was busy at the typewriter,
picking out the letters one by one with great deliberation. She lifted
her beautiful eyes to look at Ada who was gazing at her fixedly. How
different the two women were! Carmen was, in a way, not unlike Ada,
but a caricature of her. I could not help feeling that though she was
more expensively dressed Ada was cut out for the part of wife and
mother, while Carmen, though she was wearing an apron at the moment,
so as not to dirty her dress with the typewriter, was obviously meant
to be someone’s mistress. I don’t know whether there is anyone in the
world clever enough to explain to me why Ada’s beautiful eye seemed
to absorb less light than Carmen’s, which made it appear a real organ
of observation, whereas the chief function of Carmen’s was to dazzle.
She bore Ada’s disdainful but curious glance with perfect equanimity; I
fancied there was a touch of envy in it, but I may have put that there
myself.
This was the last time I saw Ada looking beautiful, as I had known her
when I proposed to her and was refused. Soon after came her disastrous
pregnancy, and the surgeon had to be called in to assist at the birth
of the twins. This was followed almost immediately by the illness
which robbed her of every vestige of beauty. That is probably why I
remember this visit so well. But I also remember it because at the
moment my whole sympathy was enlisted on the side of the woman whose
gentle, unobtrusive beauty made so little show beside the brilliance
of the other. I was not the least in love with Carmen; I only knew
her magnificent eyes and splendid colouring, her hoarse voice and the
circumstances under which she had become part of our staff, for which
she could not be held responsible. On the other hand I really loved Ada
at that moment; and it is a strange feeling to love a woman whom one
has desired passionately but never possessed, and who now means nothing
to one. On the whole the situation is the same as it would have been if
the woman had yielded, and it is interesting as proving once more how
little importance we ought to attach to certain things which for the
time being fill our whole horizon.
I wanted to cut short the painful moment, and led her into the other
room. Guido, who came in shortly afterwards, grew very red when he saw
his wife. Ada gave some very plausible reason for her coming, but just
as she was going she said:
“Have you got a new employee in the office now?”
“Yes!” replied Guido, and to hide his confusion he asked whether anyone
had called on him while he was out. On hearing there had been no one
he gave a snort of disgust as if he had been expecting an important
visitor, though I knew we expected absolutely no one. It was only then
that he said to Ada, with an air of assumed indifference:
“We needed a stenographer.”
I was extremely amused to hear him use the masculine form of the word,
thus making a blunder even as to the sex of the person he needed.
Carmen’s coming gave great animation to the office. I don’t mean the
animation of her eyes, her charming figure and lovely complexion; I am
thinking only of business. Her mere presence gave Guido an impulse to
work. In the first place he was anxious to show me and everyone else
that the new member of the staff was essential to him, and every day he
would invent something fresh to be done, in which he also took a share.
For a long time he employed all his energy in coaching Carmen, and in
this he reached an incredible degree of efficiency. He had to teach her
exactly how to take down the letters he dictated, and to correct the
spelling of innumerable words. He was always very patient with her;
nothing the girl could do in return would have been too much.
Very little of the business invented by him when he was in love bore
any fruit. On one occasion he spent a lot of time arranging for the
sale of an article which proved after all impossible for us to trade
in. At a certain point in our undertaking we had to face a man who
was overcome with fury because we were unwittingly trespassing on
his preserves. He wanted to know by what right we were interfering
with that article at all, and jumped to the conclusion that we were
representatives of powerful competitors abroad. The first time we saw
him he was beside himself, fearing the worst. When he discovered how
inexperienced we were, he laughed in our face and assured us that
we should never have done any good at it. He proved to be right,
but it was a long time before we could bring ourselves to accept
the unfavourable verdict, and not till a great many letters had
been written by Carmen. We found that the article in question was
quite inaccessible, owing to the number of tariffs by which it was
surrounded. I did not mention the affair to Augusta, but she spoke
to me about it because Guido had told Ada, to prove to her what a
lot there was for a stenographer to do. But the business we did not
do was none the less important to Guido. He talked about it daily;
he was convinced that such a thing could not have happened in any
other town in the world. Our whole commercial life was wrecked, and
any enterprising business man was strangled by it, as we now knew by
experience.
In the mad, chaotic sequence of affairs which passed through our hands
at that time, there was one which really did burn our fingers. It
was not of our seeking either; it simply threw itself at us. We got
involved in it through a certain Dalmatian called Tacich, whose father
had worked in the Argentine under Guido’s. He came to see us first in
order to get some business tips, with which we were able to supply him.
Tacich was a handsome youth, almost too handsome in fact. He was
tall and powerfully built, with an olive complexion which blended
marvellously with the exquisite dark blue of his eyes, his long
eyelashes and short thick moustache with gold lights in it. He was such
a perfect study in colour that he seemed to me born to be Carmen’s
lover. He evidently thought so too, and came to see us every day.
There were hours of conversation daily in the office, but it was
never boring. The two men were both striving to win Carmen and, like
all animals when they are in love, displayed their best qualities.
Guido was rather handicapped by the fact that the Dalmatian came to
his house too and knew Ada; but it was just that which did him most
harm in Carmen’s eyes, as I, who knew those eyes so well, at once
realised. Tacich however only made the discovery much later, and to
have an excuse for seeing her bought several truck-loads of soap from
us instead of from the manufacturer, for which he had to pay quite a
lot more. Our going into that disastrous affair at all was one of the
consequences of his being in love.
His father had noticed that sulphate of copper rose in price at certain
seasons of the year and fell at others. So he decided as a speculation
to buy about sixty tons of it in England at the most favourable moment.
We discussed the affair at great length, and put the matter in hand by
getting into touch with an English firm. The son had a telegram from
his father telling him that he thought the right moment had come, and
saying at what price he would be prepared to deal. Tacich, who was
madly in love, rushed round to the office and entrusted the affair to
us, receiving for his reward a long, caressing glance from Carmen. The
poor Dalmatian gratefully treasured the glance, not knowing it was a
manifestation of love for Guido.
I remember with what quiet confidence Guido took the business in hand,
and it really did not seem as if it could present any difficulties,
because in England goods could be transmitted for transport direct to
Trieste and made over at once to our buyer, without having ever been
touched. Guido decided exactly what his profit was to be, and fixed
with my assistance the point to which our English friend could safely
go in making the purchase. With the help of a dictionary we managed to
send off a wire in English. Directly it had gone Guido rubbed his hands
and began counting up how many kronen would rain into our funds as the
reward of so short and slight an effort. To propitiate the gods he
allotted me a small bonus; and the same to Carmen, with a slight touch
of malice, perhaps, for having collaborated with her _beaux yeux_.
We both wanted to refuse, but he begged us at least to pretend to
accept. He said he was afraid of our putting the evil eye on him, and
to please him I at once gave in. I knew, as a mathematical certainty,
that nothing but good wishes could come from me, but I recognised that
he might think otherwise. In this world we generally like the people
we don’t actually hate, but reserve our really fervent wishes for an
undertaking in which we have a personal interest.
Every detail of the business was arranged, and I remember Guido even
calculating how many months he would be able to maintain his family and
the office on what he would get from it; his two families he sometimes
called them, or, when he was very bored at home, his two offices. It
was perhaps because we had thought it all out too much beforehand that
the business was a failure. A brief cable came from London with the one
word “Booked” and a note of that day’s price of sulphate, a much higher
one than we had got from our buyer. Farewell to any profit! We told
Tacich about it and he left Trieste soon afterwards.
Just about this time I stayed away from the office for quite a month,
and that was how it happened that a letter sent to the firm failed to
pass through my hands. It looked inoffensive enough but was to have
disastrous consequences for Guido. In it the English house confirmed
their telegram and went on to say they would consider our order to
hold good unless we revoked it. Guido forgot all about revoking it and
when I came back to the office the transaction had quite gone out of
my mind. One evening a few months later Guido brought a telegram to my
house which he could not understand and thought must have been sent
to us by mistake, though it clearly bore the telegraphic address of
which I had notified the authorities directly we were installed in our
office. The telegram consisted of only three words:
Sixty tons settled.
I understood it at once, which was not very difficult as the sulphate
of copper was the only important transaction we had entered on. I said
it was clear from the wire that the price we had fixed for carrying out
our order had been reached, and that now we were the fortunate owners
of sixty tons of sulphate.
Guido protested:
“But how can they imagine I should consent to their carrying out my
order so long afterwards?”
It at once occurred to me that the letter confirming the telegram must
be somewhere at the office, though Guido could not remember anything
about it. In a great state of agitation he suggested hurrying off at
once to the office to see if it were there; which suited me very well,
as I was not at all anxious to continue the discussion before Augusta,
who had no idea that I had not been to the office for a month.
We went to the office together. Guido was so upset at the thought of
being forced into the first important piece of business we had done,
that he would have set off for London on the spot if he could by that
means have backed out of it. We opened the office door, and felt our
way in the darkness till we reached our room and lit the gas. The
letter was found almost immediately, and it was conceived in exactly
the terms I had expected; it informed us that the order which we had
never revoked had been executed.
Guido stood staring at the letter and frowning, either with rage or
because he hoped, by a supreme effort of will, to destroy at a glance
the fact recorded by those few simple words.
“Only to think,” he said, “that two or three words were all that was
needed to save us from such a loss!”
He was not reproaching me, for I had been absent from the office, and
had never even seen the letter up to that moment, though I now knew
exactly where it could be found. But the better to clear myself of all
responsibility in the matter I said to him rather severely:
“You might at least have read all the letters carefully while I was
away!”
Guido’s face cleared. He shrugged his shoulders and muttered:
“It may still turn out to be a stroke of good luck.”
Soon after we parted, and I went back home. But Tacich was right; in
due course sulphate of copper began to go down lower and lower every
day, and we had plenty of opportunity for studying the phenomenon,
since we could not go back on our order and could not get rid of the
sulphate at the price we had to pay for it. Our losses became heavier
and heavier. The first day Guido asked my advice, and I contented
myself with reminding him of Tacich’s conviction that the fall in
sulphate would continue for over five months. Guido laughed and said:
“It will be the last straw if I am to get someone from the provinces to
run my business for me!”
I tried to make him take a different view by telling him that Tacich
had for many years now spent all his time in a little town in Dalmatia
watching the fluctuations in copper. I cannot therefore feel any
responsibility for Guido’s losses over the business. If only he had
listened to me he would have been spared them.
Later on we discussed the affair again with an agent, a short, fat
little man, very much on the spot, who while blaming us for making such
a purchase, said that he could but share Tacich’s opinion. According to
him, sulphate of copper while forming a market of its own, was affected
by the price of metal in general. This interview gave Guido a certain
amount of confidence. He begged the agent to keep him informed of any
fluctuation in the price; he preferred to wait, he said, in order to
sell not only without any loss, but with a small profit. The agent
laughed a little, and in the course of conversation said something
which seemed to me very true, and which I made a note of.
“It is curious how few people in the world can reconcile themselves to
small losses, whereas they have no difficulty whatsoever in reconciling
themselves to big ones.”
Guido was unconvinced. I could not help admiring him, however, because
he never told the agent how he had come to make such a purchase. I said
so to him and he was pleased. He said he would have been afraid of
bringing us and our goods into disrepute if he had told the whole story.
For some time after this we said no more about sulphate, till one day
a letter came from London inviting payment, and asking us to give
instructions about sending the goods. The mere thought of receiving and
storing sixty tons made Guido’s brain whirl. We tried to reckon how
much it would cost to store something like that for several months. The
sum was enormous! I said nothing; but the broker, who would have been
quite glad to see the merchandise arrive in Trieste, because sooner
or later the task of selling it would devolve on him, pointed out to
Guido that what seemed such a huge sum was really not so very much when
expressed in terms of percentage on the value of the goods.
This remark seemed odd to Guido and made him laugh.
“I haven’t only got a hundred kilos of sulphate,” he said, “I’ve sixty
tons, worse luck!”
He might have ended by accepting the agent’s calculation--evidently
quite a just one, seeing that if the price rose only a little the
costs would have been more than covered--had he not at that moment had
a sudden inspiration. Whenever a business idea came to him quite of
itself he became completely obsessed by it, and had no room in his head
for any other consideration. This was his idea: the goods had been sold
to him prepaid to Trieste, so the cost of transport was being borne by
the sender. If therefore he were to sell the goods back to the seller,
he ought to receive a much better price than he had been offered in
Trieste, because the original seller would thereby save the cost of
carriage.
What he said was not strictly accurate, but to humour him no one
questioned it. Once he had settled the business a somewhat bitter smile
spread over his face; he looked quite the philosophic pessimist as he
said:
“Don’t let us talk any more about it. The lesson cost us rather dear,
but let us turn it to account now.”
However we did talk about it again. He had lost his former splendid
assurance in refusing business that offered, and when at the end of
the year I called his attention to the amount of money we had lost, he
muttered:
“It was the cursed sulphate of copper which ruined me! I was
continually feeling that I must make good that loss.”
My absence from the office had been caused by Carla having deserted me.
I could not stay there and see Carmen and Guido making love to each
other. They were always exchanging glances and smiling, in front of me.
I took my resolution whilst shutting up the office, and went haughtily
away without saying a word about it to anyone. I was always expecting
Guido to ask me why I had deserted him in this way, and intended to
tell him what I thought about him. I could be very strict with him
since he knew nothing about my expeditions to the Giardino Pubblico.
It was really a form of jealousy on my part, because I looked on Carmen
as Guido’s Carla, a gentler and more submissive one. He had had better
luck than me with his second woman, as with his first. But perhaps
(and it was this which furnished me with a fresh grudge against him)
he owed his good fortune to certain qualities of his which I envied,
though I continued to think them inferior; his ease in playing the
violin corresponded to the assurance and detachment with which he went
through life. I realised now that I had sacrificed Carla to Augusta.
When I went back over the two happy years Carla had given me I could
not understand how it was that she--constituted as I now knew her to
be--could have put up with me for so long. Hadn’t I insulted her daily
by my love for Augusta? Guido, as I knew very well, would never be
distracted in his love for Carmen by any thought of Ada. His hospitable
mind could easily entertain two women at the same time. Compared to him
I really felt myself to be an angel of innocence. I had married Augusta
without being in love with her, yet it was impossible for me to betray
her without a pang. Perhaps he too had married Ada without loving her;
but though Ada meant nothing to me now, I remembered the love she had
inspired in me, and I could not help feeling that if I had been in his
place I should have behaved with much more consideration.
It was not Guido who came to look for me, but I who returned to the
office on my own account, to try and escape from my terrible feeling of
emptiness. He behaved according to the terms of our agreement, which
put me under no obligation to take a regular part in his affairs; and
when he ran into me casually at home or elsewhere he showed the same
friendliness he had always shown (for which I felt grateful to him),
and seemed to have forgotten that my place at the desk he had bought
specially for me was left empty. When we were together I was the only
one who felt any embarrassment. When I went back to my post he received
me as if I had only been away for a day, expressed his delight at
seeing me again, and exclaimed on hearing that I proposed resuming my
work:
“It’s a good thing, then, that I didn’t let anyone touch your books!”
And indeed I found the register and my newspaper exactly where I had
left them.
Luciano said to me:
“I hope we shall get going again now that you have come back. I think
Signor Guido was discouraged by two things he tried which did not
succeed. Don’t tell him that I said anything to you about it, but see
if you can’t put a little heart into him.”
I very soon realised that next to no work was being done in the office,
and till the moment when our losses on the sulphate of copper became
a terrible reality we led a positively idyllic life there. I soon
perceived that Guido no longer felt the need of supervising Carmen at
her work, and therefore concluded that the period of courtship was over
and she had become his mistress.
Carmen’s reception surprised me, for she at once felt obliged to
remind me of something which I had completely forgotten. It appeared
that before leaving the office, and during the days I ran after
so many women because I could not have the one I wanted, I had
assaulted Carmen too. She spoke of it to me, very severely and with
some embarrassment; she said she was glad to see me again because I
was fond of Guido and because she thought my advice might be useful
to him, and she would like us, if I consented, to be real friends,
brother and sister in fact. While she was saying this or something like
it, she held out her hand with a friendly gesture. There was a severe
expression on her lovely, gentle face, as if to emphasise the innocence
of the relationship she was offering me.
It was only then that I remembered what had happened, and blushed.
Perhaps if I had remembered sooner I should never have gone back to
the office at all. It had been just an affair of a moment, among so
many others of the same sort, and if I had not been reminded of it
now it would have been as if it had never existed. A few days after
Carla had thrown me over I had been going through the books and asked
Carmen to help me; at one point I had put my arm round her waist, so
as to be able to look at the same page, and had drawn her closer and
closer to me. In one bound Carmen had sprung away from me, whereupon I
immediately left the office.
I might have excused myself by smiling and inducing her to smile too,
for women are so prone to smile at misdeeds of that sort. I might have
said to her:
“I have failed in what I tried to do, and I am sorry for it, but I
don’t bear you any ill-will, and will be your friend if you won’t let
me be anything more.”
Or I might have assumed the rôle of a serious person, and apologised to
her and Guido somewhat as follows:
“You must forgive me, and not judge me till you know the circumstances
which have led me to behave like this.”
But words failed me. Resentment seemed to have dried up my throat, and
I could not speak. All these women who persisted in refusing me threw a
sort of tragic hue over my life. I felt I had never been so unfortunate
before. Instead of replying I felt more inclined to grind my teeth, a
rather uncomfortable process if you are obliged to hide it. Perhaps it
was disappointment at seeing a hope I had unconsciously cherished taken
from me for ever, which deprived me of speech. I may as well confess
that I could imagine no one who would better fill than Carmen the
place of the mistress I had lost; my unexacting Carla, who only asked
to be allowed to live quietly at my side, till the day when she asked
never to see me again. A mistress shared is the least compromising one
can have. At that time I had not thought things out so clearly as I
have since, but I had certain intuitions which I now know to be true.
If I were to become Carmen’s lover I should be doing a good turn to
Ada, without doing much harm to Augusta. The infidelity in either case
would have been much less great than if Guido and I had each had a
mistress to ourselves.
I gave Carmen my answer several days later, and to this moment I still
blush to think of it. The anguish of mind into which Carla’s desertion
had thrown me must still have subsisted for me to arrive at such a
point. I feel more remorse about it than about any other action of my
life. The foolish words which escape us sometimes react more violently
than the most discreditable deeds due to a passionate impulse. Of
course I mean by words only those which are not really deeds; I know
very well that Iago’s words, for example, belong to the latter kind.
But deeds, including the words spoken by Iago, are committed for the
sake of some hoped-for profit or pleasure, and then our whole being,
even that part of us which ought to rise in judgment, joins in and
bears witness in our favour. But a foolish tongue acts independently,
in the interests of a small part of our being which otherwise would
feel itself to be defeated, and continues to simulate fight when the
fight is already over. Words are spoken with intention to wound or
caress, and often they turn against the mouth which utters them and
burn it.
I noticed she had lost the lovely complexion which had won her such
speedy admission to our office. I would not admit that it could be
bodily suffering which had caused the change in her appearance, and I
attributed it to her love for Guido. We men are commonly much inclined
to pity women who give themselves to other men. We never can see what
advantage they hope to get from it. We may perhaps even love the
man in question--as in my own case--but we never even then succeed
in forgetting what is the usual end to such love-adventures. I felt
genuine compassion for Carmen. I said to her:
“Since you have been so kind as to invite me to be your friend, would
you allow me to give you some good advice?”
She would not, because like all women in a similar situation she was
inclined to look on all advice as an act of aggression. She blushed and
stammered:
“I don’t understand! What do you mean?” and in order to impose silence
on me added immediately afterwards:
“If I should need any advice I will certainly come to you, Signor
Cosini.”
So I was not allowed to give her moral advice, which was a misfortune
for me. Had I done so, I should certainly have been able to be more
honest with myself, even though I might have tried to embrace her
again. And I should not now be blaming myself for having assumed the
lying rôle of mentor.
For several days each week Guido failed to put in an appearance at the
office, because of his passion for shooting and fishing. I, on the
contrary, was very regular for some time after my return, and found
plenty to do putting the books in order. I spent a good deal of time
alone with Carmen and Luciano, who looked on me as their chief. Carmen
did not seem to mind Guido being absent, and I supposed her love for
him to be so great that she was glad to think of him enjoying himself.
He must have told her beforehand the days he was not coming, for she
showed no sign of waiting anxiously for his arrival. I knew from
Augusta that it was quite a different matter with Ada, who complained
bitterly of her husband’s frequent absences. Nor was this her only
grievance. Like all women who feel themselves to be unloved she put
the same energy into her complaints about big or small grievances. Not
only was Guido unfaithful to her, but when he was at home he was always
playing the violin. That violin, which had caused me so much suffering,
was a kind of Achilles’ spear in the variety of its adaptations. I
discovered that it had appeared in our office, where it had assisted at
the courting of Carmen with exquisite variations on the “Barbiere.” And
when it was no longer needed at the office it returned home, where it
saved Guido from the tiresome necessity of talking to his wife.
There was never anything between Carmen and me. I very soon felt
completely indifferent to her, as though she had changed her sex;
rather the same as I felt for Ada. Yes, it is quite true, I felt
nothing but warm sympathy for them both.
Guido overwhelmed me with attentions. I fancy that during the month
I left him alone he had learnt to appreciate my company. A girl like
Carmen may be a charming diversion from time to time, but one cannot
stand her for days on end. He invited me to go shooting and fishing
with him. I detest shooting, and resolutely refused to accompany him.
But one evening, when I was feeling particularly bored, I finally
agreed to go out fishing with him. Fish have no means of communicating
with us and cannot arouse our sympathy. They pant even when they
are safe and sound in the water! In fact death hardly alters their
appearance. Their pain, if it exists, is perfectly concealed under
their scales.
One day when he invited me to go out fishing the same night, I said
I must wait and see whether Augusta could spare me that evening, and
whether she would mind me staying out so late. He told me he was going
to start off at nine o’clock from the Sartorio quay, so I said I would
be there by then if I could manage to get away. I thought he would
probably not expect to see me again that evening, as I had so often
before made a similar appointment and failed to keep it.
But as it happened I was driven from the house that night by baby
Antonia’s screams. The more her mother kissed and caressed her the more
she howled. Then I tried my plan of shouting insults into her ear. The
only result however was to change the rhythm of her screams, for the
little monkey began to howl with terror instead. I was about to try a
more energetic method of restraint, but Augusta reminded me just in
time of Guido’s invitation, and accompanied me to the door, promising
to go to bed without me if it was very late before I got back. In her
anxiety to get me out of the house she even promised to take her coffee
alone next morning, supposing I were to stay out all night. There is
only one small difference of opinion between Augusta and me: what is
the proper way of treating troublesome children. I always feel that a
baby’s sufferings are less important than ours, and that it is worth
while making it suffer if by that means a grown-up person can be saved
a great deal of annoyance; she however takes the view that having
brought children into the world we have got to put up with them.
I had plenty of time to reach our rendezvous and strolled in a
leisurely way through the town, looking at the women and at the same
time trying to think of a new plaything which should eliminate all
difference of opinion between Augusta and me. But humanity was not
sufficiently evolved to accept my new plaything! It belonged to the
distant future and was only useful to me now as showing me on what a
detail my disputes with Augusta depended: the lack of a simple toy.
It could have been very simple; an indoor tramline and a little seat
provided with wheels to run on the line. On this little seat the child
would spend its day; by pressing an electric button it would be sent
screaming to the farthest end of the house, whence its voice, weakened
by distance, would float back quite pleasantly. And Augusta and I could
have remained together in peace and perfect amity.
It was a starry night without a moon, one of those transparent nights
which calm and tranquillise the spirit. I gazed at the stars, seeking
the constellation on which my father’s dying look had rested. The awful
time would soon be over when children dirty themselves and scream. Then
they would become like me, and I should be able to like them without
constraint, as it was my duty to do. The vast and tranquil beauty of
the night brought me peace; I did not even feel the need of making
resolutions.
At the end of the Sartorio mole the lights of the town were cut off by
a ruined building, set on the last rocks of the promontory which jut
out into the sea. The darkness here was complete, and the high tide
lapped its silent endless waters dimly against the mole.
I had stopped looking at the sea or the sky. A few steps away from me
was a woman who aroused my curiosity by the patent leather shoe which
I saw gleaming for a moment in the darkness. During that brief moment
in the dark, I felt as if I were shut into a room alone with that tall
and doubtless elegant woman. The most pleasant adventures sometimes
happen when one least expects them, and seeing her come deliberately
towards me I had for a moment a delightful sensation which disappeared
directly I heard Carmen’s hoarse voice. She pretended to be pleased
when she heard I was to be of the party. But with a voice like hers,
and in the dark, pretence was impossible.