Perhaps it was because Ada’s soft and husky voice seemed to express
love when she was speaking to me. Poor Ada had grown very ugly,
and I no longer found her desirable; but when I came to look back
over our past relationship I could not help feeling that if she had
really suddenly fallen in love with me I should be almost in the same
unfortunate situation as Guido with regard to the Englishman who had
sold him sixty tons of sulphate of copper. It was a precisely similar
case! Several years ago I had proposed to Ada, and had never revoked my
proposal except in so far as I had married her sister instead. There
was no law to protect her but the laws of chivalry. I felt myself so
deeply pledged to her that if, after the lapse of many, many years she
had come to me with Basedow’s goitre and all complete, I should have
felt obliged to honour my signature.
But the prospect, I remember, made me feel more tenderly towards Ada.
Up to that time, when I was told of the suffering Guido caused Ada,
I had not of course been glad, but at the same time I could not help
thinking with a certain satisfaction of my home which Ada had refused
to share, and where people did not suffer. Now the tables were turned;
the Ada who had rejected me with disdain no longer existed, unless my
medical authorities erred.
Ada was seriously ill. A few days after this Dr. Paoli recommended her
being sent away from her family to a nursing-home at Bologna. I heard
this from Guido, but Augusta also told me that even at such a moment
he had not spared poor Ada’s feelings. He had the impudence to suggest
putting Carmen in charge of the house during her absence. Ada had not
the courage to say openly what she thought of such a proposal, but she
did say that she would not stir from home unless she was allowed to
entrust the management of everything to her Aunt Maria. Guido agreed
at once, but continued to toy with the idea of having Carmen at his
disposal, in Ada’s place. One day he said to Carmen that if she had not
been so busy at the office he would have asked her to look after his
house for him. Luciano and I looked at each other, and could neither of
us hide an expression of malicious mirth. Carmen blushed and murmured
that she could never really have accepted.
“Yes,” said Guido angrily. “It is those idiotic conventions which
prevent one doing what one wants, however convenient it may be.”
He said no more however, and it is surprising that he should have cut
short such an interesting sermon.
The whole family went to the station to see Ada off. Augusta asked me
to bring some flowers for her sister. I arrived a little late with a
lovely bunch of orchids which I handed to Augusta. Ada stood watching
us, and when Augusta gave her the flowers she said:
“I thank you both with all my heart.”
She meant that she looked on the flowers as coming from me too. I
regarded this as an expression of sisterly affection, sweet to receive,
though rather chilly. Basedow certainly had nothing to do with it.
Poor Ada looked like a bride, with her great eyes apparently wide with
happiness. Her disease was able to simulate every emotion.
Guido went with her to settle her in, and was to return in a few days’
time. We stood on the platform waiting for the train to start. Ada
remained at the window and went on waving her handkerchief till we were
out of sight.
Then we went home with Signora Malfenti, who was quite overcome. When
she parted from us she kissed Augusta and then gave me a kiss too.
“Forgive me,” she said, laughing through her tears. “I did it without
thinking, but if you will let me I should like to give you another
kiss.”
Even little Anna, who was now twelve years old, wanted to give me
a kiss. Alberta who was about to give up her project of a national
theatre in order to become engaged, and who was generally rather cold
to me, shook me warmly by the hand on this occasion. They all felt very
kindly towards me because my wife was in blooming health, and at the
same time they were able to manifest their dislike for Guido who had
let his wife get ill.
But it was just about now that I showed signs of being not quite such a
perfect husband. I was the innocent cause of a good deal of pain to my
wife on account of a dream which I told her about, without thinking.
This was my dream: Augusta, Ada and I were all three looking out of a
window together, the smallest window that was to be found in either
of our three houses, Ada’s, mine and my mother-in-law’s. We were at
the kitchen window at my mother-in-law’s house, which in reality opens
on to a little courtyard, though in my dream it opened straight on to
the Corso. The window-frame was so narrow that Ada, who was in the
middle and had hold of both our arms, was actually leaning against
me. I looked at her and found that her eyes had become quite cold and
definite again, and that the outline of her face had recovered its
former purity; I could see her neck covered with the light curls I
had known so well when she used to turn her back on me. In spite of
her appearance of coldness, which I regarded as a sign of recovered
health, she clung to me as closely as I thought she was doing during
the table-turning on the evening of our engagement. I said joyfully to
Augusta, making an effort to interest myself in her too: “Look! She has
completely recovered. But where is Basedow?” I asked a second time; and
then I saw him. It was he whom the crowd was following. He was an old
beggar man, dressed in a stiff brocade cloak that was all in rags: a
mane of untidy white hair, blown about by the wind, covered his massive
head, and his eyes were starting from their sockets with fear, a look I
had seen in wild beasts at bay, a menacing, fearful look. And the crowd
shouted after him: “Kill him, the charlatan!” Then came an interval of
empty darkness. Immediately after this I found myself alone with Ada on
the steepest stairs in any of our three houses, the stairs which lead
up to the roof of my house. She was standing a few steps above me, but
she was facing me, and seemed as if she wanted to come down the stairs
while I was going up. I put my arms round her legs and she bent over
towards me, either from weakness or because she wished to be closer to
me. For a moment I seemed to see her disfigured by her illness, but
looking at her anxiously I succeeded in seeing her again as I had seen
her in the window, in all her health and beauty. She said to me in
her usual hard voice: “Go on in front, I will follow you directly.” I
turned eagerly to go down, but had just time to see the trap-door in
the roof open very gradually and Basedow’s head peer through, with its
white mane and half-fearful, half-threatening face. I saw his feeble
legs too and his poor thin body, which was only half hidden by the
cloak. I managed to run away, but I cannot remember whether I was only
going in front of Ada or trying to escape from her.
I apparently woke up exhausted in the middle of the night, and in my
state of semi-consciousness told the whole or part of the dream to
Augusta, before falling into a deep, restful sleep. I think in that
semi-conscious state I must have blindly followed my old desire to
confess my sins.
Augusta’s face next morning had the waxen pallor it always wore on
state occasions. I remembered my dream perfectly, but could not
remember quite how much of it I had told her. She said with an air of
tragic resignation:
“You are unhappy because she is ill and has gone away, and now you are
dreaming about her.”
I protested, laughing, and teased her a little. Ada was not the
significant figure in my dream, but Basedow, and I told her about my
studies and their practical application. But I don’t know whether I
succeeded in convincing her. It is difficult to defend yourself when
you are taken unawares in a dream. It is quite a different matter
to return to your wife fresh from having betrayed her, and in full
consciousness of so doing. But such manifestations of jealousy on
Augusta’s part could not really do me any harm, for she loved Ada too
much to let it cast a shadow between them, and she was more tender than
ever towards me, and more grateful for the smallest sign of affection.
Guido returned from Bologna a few days later, with the best possible
news. The head of the nursing-home guaranteed a perfect cure provided
that, when she returned home, Ada lived a very quiet life, and was
spared any kind of worry. Guido naïvely told us the diagnosis, quite
unconscious that it confirmed a good many suspicions which the Malfenti
family had entertained about him. I said to Augusta:
“I am threatened with more kisses from your mother.”
Guido was apparently not very comfortable at home under Aunt Maria’s
management. He would walk up and down the office muttering:
“Two children ... three nurses ... no wife!”
He did not come very often to the office either, for he went out more
and more often fishing and shooting, and worked off his ill humour on
his prey. But when, towards the end of the year, the news reached us
that Ada was supposed to be cured and was about to come home again,
he did not seem wild with joy. Had he got used to Aunt Maria, or did
he see her so seldom that he found her very easy to put up with?
Naturally the only sign he gave me of not being better pleased was
that he expressed a doubt as to whether Ada was not leaving the clinic
rather too soon, and before they could be certain that she might not
have another relapse. And when after a comparatively short time, in
fact in the course of the winter, she was obliged to return to Bologna,
he said to me triumphantly:
“Didn’t I tell you so?”
But I think the only joy he felt was the triumphant sense of having
been able to foresee something. He did not wish any harm to Ada, but he
would gladly have kept her at Bologna for some time yet.
When Ada returned, Augusta had just given birth to Alfio, and was
still in bed. She showed a touching solicitude for Ada. She asked me
to meet her at the station with some flowers, and to tell her that she
wanted to see her that same day if possible. And if Ada could not come
straight from the station she begged me to come back at once so as to
tell her all about her, and whether she had entirely recovered her
beauty, of which the family was so proud.
Guido, Alberta and I were the only ones at the station to meet her,
because Signora Malfenti spent a great part of her time with Augusta.
On the platform Guido tried to convince us how pleased he was to see
Ada again; but Alberta pretended to be very absent-minded, in order,
as she told me afterwards, not to have to reply to his remarks. For my
part I no longer found any difficulty in pretending with Guido. I had
got quite used to pretending not to notice his partiality for Carmen,
and I had never dared to allude to the way he treated his wife. So
I had no trouble in appearing to lend him my best attention when he
dilated on his joy at his dear wife’s return.
When the train came in punctually at twelve o’clock, he hurried forward
to meet his wife who was just getting out. He took her in his arms and
kissed her affectionately. When I saw him stooping down to kiss her, I
said to myself: “What a good actor!” Then he took Ada by the hand and
led her up to us, saying: “She has come back to us at last, beautiful
as ever!” In this he showed himself for what he was, a sham and a
humbug, for if he had really looked the poor woman in the face he
would have seen that she had nothing left of the beauty we had known.
Ada’s face had lost all its shape; though she had got fatter, her
cheeks seemed to have grown in the wrong place, as though the flesh had
forgotten where it belonged and had become attached too far down. So
that they looked more like swellings than cheeks. Her eyes had returned
to their sockets, but it had been impossible to repair the ravages
they had caused during the time they were displaced. The clear and
characteristic lines of her face had become blurred and distorted. When
I took leave of her outside the station, I saw by the brilliant rays of
the winter sun that the whole colouring of her face, which I once loved
so much, had become changed. She had grown paler, and there were little
red patches here and there on her cheeks. It seemed as if health had
departed from her face and only a feeble imitation had taken its place.
I told Augusta that Ada had completely recovered her girlish beauty,
and she was delighted. What surprised me was that, after she had seen
her several times, she entirely confirmed my false report. She said:
“Yes, she is as lovely now as when she was a girl, and my child will be
just like her.”
Evidently a sister’s eye is not very discriminating. It was some time
before I saw Ada again. She had too many children to look after, and so
had we. Ada and Augusta used to arrange to meet several times a week,
but always at times when I was out.
The time for making up our balance-sheet was approaching, and I had a
great deal to do. I have never worked so hard as during this period of
my life. Some days I would remain at my desk till ten o’clock at night.
Guido offered to get me an accountant, but I would not hear of it. I
had accepted the job and I meant to see it through. I wanted to make up
to Guido for the fatal month when I had been away from the office, and
I was glad that Carmen should see how industrious I was, for she would
know it could only have been inspired by my love of Guido.
But as I proceeded in making out the accounts, I gradually began to
discover the heavy losses we had incurred during our first year of
business. I was worried by it and said something to Guido about it
privately, but he was just going out shooting and would not wait to
hear what I had to say.
“You will see that it is not as serious as you think, and besides the
year is not over yet.”
There was exactly a week before the New Year. Then I took Augusta into
my confidence. At first she could only think of it as a possible loss
to me. Women are always like that, and Augusta was unusually excited,
even for a woman, at the thought of my personal losses.
Should not I, she said, be held partly responsible for Guido’s losses?
She wanted me at once to consult a solicitor. I must meanwhile break
off all connexion with Guido, and stop going to the office.
It was not easy to make her see that I could not be held responsible
for anything, as I was only one of Guido’s employees. She maintained
that as I had no regular salary I could not be considered as an
employee, but was more like a partner. Even after I had succeeded in
convincing her, she remained of the same opinion still, because she
then discovered that I should lose nothing if I stopped going to the
office, where I should certainly end by ruining my business reputation.
Good Lord! My business reputation! But I agreed with her that it was
important for me to preserve it, and though her arguments were all
wrong it was decided that I should do as she wished. She agreed to my
finishing the balance-sheet as I had begun it, but said I must then
arrange to return to my own little study, where it was true that I made
no money, but where I also could not lose any.
Then I made a curious discovery about myself. However much I wished to
do so I could not give up my work. I was astonished! To explain how
this could be I must here have recourse to an analogy. I remembered
it was the custom in England in the olden days to punish criminals
condemned to hard labour by binding them on a wheel worked by
waterpower; thus compelling the victim to move his legs to a certain
rhythm, as otherwise they would be broken. All work strikes one as
having this compulsory character. The position remains the same whether
one works or not; and I may say that Olivi and I were both equally
bound to the wheel, the only difference being that I did not have to
move my legs. Of course the result was different, but I now know for a
certainty that it deserved neither praise nor blame. The point really
is whether one is bound to a wheel that is moving or standing still.
The difficulty of freeing oneself is the same in either case.
I went on going to the office for several days after I had finished my
balance-sheet, although I had made up my mind not to go again. When
I left the house I was still uncertain; I walked uncertainly in a
direction which was almost always that of the office, and, as I went
on, the direction became more and more definite till I found myself
sitting on my usual chair opposite Guido. Fortunately he begged me at
this moment on no account to desert my post, and I at once agreed to
remain, since I had meanwhile discovered that I was chained to it.
I closed my balance-sheet on the fifteenth of January. It was a
calamitous one! We closed with a loss of half our capital. Guido did
not want to show it to young Olivi, fearing that he might give us away;
but I insisted, hoping that with his great experience he might discover
some error in it which would change the whole position. Some entry, I
thought, might have got shifted from credit to debit by mistake, which
would make a very considerable difference. Olivi smilingly promised
Guido to behave with the utmost discretion, and spent a whole day going
through the accounts with me. Unfortunately he found nothing wrong with
them. I confess I learned a great deal from that revision, and should
feel quite ready now to draw up much more formidable balance-sheets.
“And what do you propose to do now?” inquired the spectacled youth as
he went away. I knew very well what he wanted to suggest. My father,
who had talked to me about business from my childhood up, had already
taught me what ought to be done. Granted that we had lost half our
capital, the laws of sound finance decreed that we ought to liquidate
the business, and possibly start it again on a fresh basis. I allowed
him to repeat the advice. He added:
“It is a mere formality.” Then he said smiling: “If you don’t, it may
cost you dear!”
That evening Guido glanced at the balance-sheet, which he had not yet
had time to take in. He did it without any method, verifying this or
that entry at random. I wanted to put a stop to his futile labour, and
told him what Olivi had said: that we ought to go through the little
formality of liquidating the business.
Up to then Guido’s face had been contorted by the effort to find a
mistake in the accounts which would explain everything. He frowned and
contracted his brow like someone who has a bad taste in his mouth. But
when I told him what Olivi had said his face suddenly cleared, and
he was all attention. He could not understand at first, but when he
did he burst out laughing. I interpreted his expression thus: face to
face with those immutable figures he remained hard and bitter, but he
recovered his gaiety and self-confidence directly the painful problem
was put into the shade by a proposal which demanded a rapid and final
decision.
He refused to understand. The advice seemed to him to have been given
by an enemy. I explained that its chief value was in regard to the
obvious danger of our losing more money and becoming bankrupt. It would
be a criminal offence to go bankrupt after a balance-sheet like the one
we had now registered in our books, unless we had taken some such step
as that advised by Olivi. And I added:
“The punishment ordained by our law for criminal bankruptcy is prison.”
Guido’s face became so crimson that I feared for a moment he was going
to have a stroke. He shouted:
“In that case I don’t need any advice from Olivi! I can deal with it
perfectly well myself if that happens.”
I was impressed by his air of determination, and felt as if I
had to deal with someone who was perfectly conscious of his own
responsibility. I lowered my voice. I quite went over to his side and,
forgetting that I had just put forward Olivi’s advice as worthy of
consideration, I said:
“That is just what I said to Olivi. It is your responsibility, and it
does not concern us, whatever you may choose to decide about a business
which belongs only to you and your father.”
As a matter of fact it was to my wife and not to Olivi I had said this,
but it was true that I had said it to somebody. After listening to
Guido’s manly speech I should have felt quite equal to saying it to
Olivi, for I have always found decision and courage irresistible. I
cannot help loving recklessness too, though it is not always the result
of those two qualities, but often of very inferior ones.
As I wanted to repeat everything he said to Augusta, in order to set
her mind at rest, I still insisted:
“You know they say, and probably with truth, that I have no gift
whatever for business. I can carry out what you tell me to do, but I
can’t assume any responsibility for what you do.”
He assented eagerly. The rôle I had sketched out for him gave him
so much satisfaction that he quite forgot his annoyance over the
unfavourable balance-sheet. He said emphatically:
“I alone am responsible. Everything is in my name and I absolutely
refuse to allow anyone else to share the responsibility with me.”
This was all excellent for repeating to Augusta; in fact it was a great
deal more than I had asked for. And you should have seen the air with
which he said it; he looked more like an apostle than someone on the
brink of bankruptcy! Supporting himself comfortably on the unresisting
balance-sheet he played to perfection the part of lord and master.
On this occasion, as so often in the course of our life together,
my sudden impulse of affection was quenched by his expression of
ridiculous and exaggerated self-esteem. Yes, there was no getting out
of it; that great musician played out of tune! I said sharply:
“Do you wish me to make a copy of the balance-sheet to-morrow, to send
to your father?”
I was on the point of saying something more drastic still, namely that
directly I had closed the accounts I intended to leave the office and
not come back again. The only reason I did not do so was that I could
not imagine how I should fill up my spare time. But my question was an
admirable substitute for the statement I had refrained from making. I
had incidentally reminded him that he was not the only master in that
office.
He showed some surprise at my question; it did not seem to him quite
in keeping with what had been said before, to which I had evidently
agreed; and he replied in his former tone:
“I will instruct you how to make the copy.”
I loudly protested. I have never in all my life shouted so much as I
did at Guido; sometimes he really seemed to be deaf. I said that the
law regarded the accountant as responsible for the accounts, and I made
it clear that I was not going to provide him with purely imaginary
columns of figures.
He turned pale and admitted that I was right, but that it was in his
power to forbid me to make extracts from his books. I was obliged to
agree, whereupon he declared that he would write to his father himself.
It seemed as if he were going to sit down at once and do so, but he
changed his mind and proposed that we should go and get a breath of
fresh air. I had nothing against it; I imagined that he had not yet
digested the balance-sheet, and wanted to take a little exercise in
order to do so.
Our walk reminded me of the night I got engaged. We could not see the
moon, because there was a good deal of mist high up; but lower down the
air was quite clear, and we could walk along without thinking. Guido
remembered that evening too, and said:
“This is the first time we have been out together after dark since
that evening. Do you remember? You were explaining to me that kissing
went on in the moon as well as here. But that kiss in the moon is for
eternity; I am sure of it although we can’t see the moon to-night. But
here on earth....”
Was he going to begin talking about Ada again, his poor sick wife? I
interrupted him, but quite gently, almost as if I agreed with him (had
I not come with him in order to help him to forget?).
“Of course one can’t always be kissing here below. Besides, it is
only the image of a kiss they have up there. Kissing is, above all,
movement.”
I tried to avoid anything that bore on his affairs, Ada and the
balance-sheet, but I was only just in time to stop myself saying
something that was on the tip of my tongue, namely that up there in the
moon a kiss did not produce twins. But he could find no better way to
escape that balance-sheet than by complaining of his other misfortunes.
And, as I had foreseen, he began talking against Ada. He thought her
illness made her irritable, jealous and at the same time lacking in
affection. He ended by exclaiming mournfully:
“Life is hard and unjust.”
I felt it was impossible for me to say a single word which implied any
criticism of him or Ada. But I felt I must say something. He had ended
by discussing life and had found two epithets for it which certainly
did not err on the side of originality. If I succeeded in finding
something better it was because I was able to start by criticising what
he had said. One is often led to say things because of some chance
association in the sound of the words; and directly one has spoken one
begins to wonder if what one has said was worth the breath spent on it,
and occasionally discovers that one has started a new idea. I said:
“Life is neither good nor bad; it is original.”
When I thought it over I felt as if I had said something rather
important. Looking at it like that I felt as if I were seeing life for
the first time, with all its gaseous, liquid and solid bodies. If I
had talked about it to someone who was strange to it, and therefore
deprived of an ordinary common sense, he would have remained gasping at
the thought of the huge, purposeless structure. He would have asked:
“But how could you endure it?” And if he had inquired about everything
in detail, from the heavenly bodies hung up in the sky which can be
seen but not touched, to the mystery that surrounds death, he would
certainly have exclaimed: “Very original!”
“So life is original, is it?” said Guido, laughing. “Where did you read
that?”
I did not bother to assure him I had not read it anywhere, for in that
case he would have attached much less importance to my words. But the
more I thought of it the more original life seemed to me. And one
did not need to get outside it in order to realise how fantastically
it was put together. One need only remind oneself of all that we men
expect from life to see how very strange it is, and to arrive at the
conclusion that man has found his way into it by mistake and does not
really belong there.
Though we had not agreed beforehand in which direction we should go, we
found ourselves, like last time, on the ascent to Via Belvedere. When
we reached the parapet on which he had lain last time, Guido climbed up
on it and lay down just as before. He was humming to himself, probably
still oppressed by his thoughts, and no doubt going over and over again
the inexorable figures in his account-book. I was thinking that it was
on that very spot I had wanted to kill him, and when I compared my
feelings then with my feelings to-day I could not help wondering afresh
at the incomparable originality of life. But I suddenly remembered that
a very little while ago I had been angry with poor Guido for having
wounded my vanity, and that on one of the worst days of his life. I
tried to analyse my feelings. The tortures which Guido had suffered
from the balance-sheet I had drawn up had caused me no particular pain,
and I began to entertain a doubt regarding myself, and at the same
time remembered a curious passage of my childhood. The doubt was this:
“Am I good or bad?” The memory was inspired suddenly by this doubt
which I had evidently entertained before, for I saw myself as a tiny
child, still dressed, I am almost certain, in petticoats, and lifting
up my face to ask my mother, who was smiling down at me: “Am I good or
naughty?” The doubt must have been put into the child’s head by having
heard itself called good by so many people and naughty, in fun, by so
many others. It is not surprising that the child became embarrassed by
the dilemma. Was ever anything so original as life? It is extraordinary
that the doubt which it had imposed on the child in so puerile a form
should still remain unsolved by the grown-up person, even after he had
lived half his life.
Once more by night, and on the very spot where I had once been tempted
to commit a murder, I fell a prey to that doubt in a most acute form.
The child whose head had only just emerged from its baby cap could
not have suffered much when that doubt began to stir in its mind, for
children are taught that even if you are naughty you can become good
again. In order to escape from my agony of mind I tried to believe
the same, and I succeeded. Otherwise I should have had to mourn over
myself and Guido and our melancholy lot. But the resolution I took at
that moment renewed the illusion! I resolved to stand by Guido, and
collaborate with him in developing his business, on which depended
his own life and that of his family; and I resolved to do it without
any hope of personal gain. I saw myself travelling, negotiating and
intriguing, all in his interests, and even entertained the possibility
of becoming, in order to help him, a really remarkable and enterprising
business man. Such were the thoughts that went through my mind on one
dark night of this very original life!
But Guido had already stopped thinking about the balance-sheet. He left
his post on the wall and seemed to have recovered his serenity. As if
he had just drawn a conclusion from some line of reasoning of which
I knew nothing, he told me that he had decided to say nothing to his
father, lest the poor old man should undertake the huge journey from
his summer sunshine into our wintry fog. He went on to say that the
losses seemed enormous at first sight, but that they were not really
so bad if one did not have to bear them all alone. He would ask Ada to
make herself responsible for half the sum and in return would give her
part of the next year’s profits. He himself would bear the other half
of the losses.
I said nothing. I felt that it was impossible for me to offer any
advice, as I should be drawn into doing exactly what I did not want
to do, and setting myself up as an arbiter between husband and wife.
Besides, at that moment I was so full of good resolutions that I
thought it would be really quite a good thing for Ada to become a
partner in a business run by us.
I accompanied Guido to the door of his house, and gave him a long
handshake, silently to renew my vow of good will towards him. Then I
tried to find something nice to say to him, and at last invented the
following:
“I hope the twins will have a good night, and allow you to get some
sleep; you must be in need of rest.”
As I went away I bit my lips with vexation at having found nothing
better to say. As if I did not know that now the twins had a nurse
each they slept about a quarter of a mile away from his room and could
not possibly have disturbed his slumber! But in any case he must have
understood that my intentions were good, for he accepted my good wishes
gratefully. When I got home I found that Augusta had gone to her
bedroom with the children. Alfio was at her breast and Antonia was
asleep in her cot, with the back of her curly head turned towards us.
I had to explain why I was late, so I told her of the method Guido had
evolved for getting out of his difficulties. Augusta thought Guido’s
suggestion shameful:
“I would refuse if I were Ada,” she exclaimed vehemently, though in a
low voice so as not to disturb the children.
I began to argue with her, still under the influence of my virtuous
resolution:
“So if I were to get into the same difficulties as Guido you would not
help me?” I said.
“It is an entirely different thing,” she said, laughing. “We should
always want to do what was best for them!” and she pointed to the two
children. Then, after a moment’s reflection, she added: “And if we
advise Ada to put her money into a business which you are just about to
have nothing more to do with, shan’t we feel obliged to pay her back
supposing she loses it?”
It was an absurd idea, but in my new rôle of altruist I exclaimed:
“And why not?”
“But can’t you see that it is our first duty to think of the dear
children?”
Of course I saw! It was only a rhetorical question without any meaning.
“Haven’t they got two children as well?” I asked triumphantly.
She burst out laughing at this and made so much noise that she
frightened Alfio, who stopped feeding and began to cry. She busied
herself about him, still laughing, and I accepted her laughter as a
tribute to my wit, though at the moment I asked the question I had felt
a sudden wave of affection for everyone who had children, and for all
the children of those parents. Her laughter, however, quite drove the
feeling away.
My dismay at finding that I was not really good was becoming less
acute. I felt as if I had solved that distressing problem. One is
neither good nor bad, just as one is not so many other things besides.
Goodness is the light which in brief flashes illuminates the darkness
of the human soul. A burning torch is needed to light the way, (there
had been moments in my life when such a torch shone on my path and it
certainly would again), and the human intelligence must choose by its
light the way it will have to take afterwards in the dark. So that one
could continue to do good always, and that was the important thing.
When the light returned to guide one it would neither surprise nor
dazzle. Perhaps I should even blow it out straight away, as I should
have no need of it; for I should have learnt how to keep my resolution,
how not to lose my way.
The resolution to be good is a peaceable and practical one, and I had
now become calm and cool. It was curious that this access of virtue had
enormously increased my self-esteem and belief in my own powers. What
could I do for Guido? In his office, it is true, I was as superior to
all the others as old Olivi was to me in my own. But that did not prove
much. To get to business: What advice should I give to Guido the next
day? Should I rely on my inspiration? But even at the gaming-table one
cannot always rely on one’s inspiration when one is playing with other
people’s money. To keep a house of business going one must find some
work for it every day, and that can only be done by devoting hours on
end to organising it. I was not the person for a job like that, nor
did I see why, just for the sake of being good to Guido, I must be
condemned to a life of continual boredom.
All the same I could not help regarding my sudden virtuous impulse as
a responsibility that I had assumed towards Guido, and I could not get
to sleep. I sighed deeply several times and even groaned once, no doubt
at the moment when I was feeling that I ought to bind myself to Guido’s
office as Olivi was bound to mine.
Augusta murmured, only half awake:
“What is the matter? Have you quarrelled with Olivi again?”
That gave me a brilliant idea! I would advise Guido to take young Olivi
as his business manager. He was such a serious, hard-working young
man; yet it was distasteful to me to have him in my own business for
I always felt he was only waiting to succeed his father as director
and oust me altogether. It was obviously to everyone’s advantage that
he should be in Guido’s office instead. If he were to give him a good
position in his business, Guido would be saved and young Olivi would
be much more useful in that office than in mine.
I was so excited by the idea that I woke Augusta to tell her about
it. She was so enthusiastic that she became quite wide awake. She
thought it would be the easiest way for me to get free from the
dangerous muddle of Guido’s business. I fell asleep again with a quiet
conscience; I had found a way of saving Guido without condemning myself
to perpetual bondage; in fact I was now completely free.
Nothing is more disagreeable than to have one’s advice rejected when
one has even sacrificed several hours of sleep to thinking it out. I
was obliged to sacrifice an illusion too; the idea that I might be of
some use in arranging Guido’s affairs for him. I had really made a
superhuman effort. First I had fought my way through to real goodness,
then to absolute objectivity, and all they did was to send me to hell!
Guido treated my advice with utter contempt. He did not believe that
young Olivi was capable of doing it; he disliked his prematurely old
appearance and particularly loathed his spectacles, which shone so
horribly on that pale face. The reasons he gave were such as to make me
feel that the only thing he really wanted was to annoy me. He finally
said that he would be quite glad to appoint old Olivi instead, at the
head of his office. But I did not see any way of inducing the old man
to go in with him; besides, I did not feel equal to undertaking the
management of my own affairs at a moment’s notice. I was foolish enough
to discuss it with him, and to say that old Olivi was not good for
much. I told him how much money he had made me lose, all because of his
obstinacy in refusing to buy dried raisins at the right moment.
“Well!” exclaimed Guido. “If the old man is as bad as that, what chance
is there of his son being any better? He is simply his pupil.”
This was the first good argument he had produced, and it was all the
more irritating to me because my foolish gossip had supplied him with
it.
A few days later Augusta told me Guido had suggested to Ada that she
should indemnify him for half his losses. She refused, and said to
Augusta:
“First he is unfaithful to me and then asks for my money!”
Augusta had lacked courage to advise her to give him any money, but
assured me she had done her best to make Ada reconsider her verdict on
her husband’s infidelity. Ada’s reply suggested that she knew a good
deal more about it than we realised. And Augusta argued with me as
follows:
“I know one ought to be prepared to sacrifice everything for one’s
husband, but do you really think that it applies to Guido too?”
During the next few days Guido’s behaviour was really extraordinary. He
would come to the office from time to time, but never stay there for
more than a quarter of an hour; he dashed out again as if he had left
his handkerchief at home. I heard later that he always went to Ada with
fresh arguments--always decisive--to induce her to do what he wanted.
He looked like someone who has been crying or shouting too much, or has
just been in a fight, and even when he was with us he could not repress
his emotion; it choked him and brought tears to his eyes. I asked him
what was the matter. He replied with a sad but friendly smile, as much
as to say that he had no quarrel with me. Then he tried to control
himself enough to be able to talk to me without getting too excited. At
last he brought out these few words: Ada was making him suffer by her
jealousy.
He then went on to tell me that they spent their time in discussing
their personal affairs, whereas I knew that there was also that
question of “debit and credit” between them.
But it appeared that the latter was of no importance; so he said, and
so Ada said to Augusta, to whom she never talked of anything but her
jealousy. And the violent nature of those discussions, which left such
deep traces on Guido’s face, made it possible that they were speaking
the truth.
But afterwards it appeared that nothing was talked of by the two
but this money question. Ada was entirely absorbed in her emotional
grievances, but she was too proud ever to mention them to Guido, and
he, perhaps partly because he was conscious of his guilt, and also
because he was afraid of encountering Ada’s jealous anger, went on
discussing business as if nothing else existed in the world. He ran
after her money with untiring perseverance, while she, who was not
in the least interested in business, countered his proposal with one
unvarying argument: she must keep her money for her children. And
when he tried other arguments, his peace of mind, the advantages the
children themselves would derive from his work, the sense of security
he would have if he could only put himself right with the law, she
always dismissed him with a hard “No,” which exasperated him, and made
him, like a child, only the more determined to get what he wanted. Yet
both of them, when talking about it to anyone else, thought they were
perfectly accurate in saying that the only difference between them was
jealousy and wounded love.
A sort of misunderstanding prevented me from interfering at the right
moment to put an end to this dreadful money question. I could easily
have proved to Guido that it really had very little bearing on his
affairs. I am rather slow at figures and can only understand things
when I have them all set out in black and white in a book, but I think
I arrived fairly soon at the conclusion that the sum Guido demanded
from Ada would not have made very much difference. What was the point,
really, in her making over her money to him? It could not diminish
his losses unless she consented to throw her money directly into the
balance-sheet, a thing which Guido had never asked of her. The criminal
court would not have been much impressed to discover that after such
heavy losses he was prepared to risk a little more by attracting more
money into the business.
One morning Guido did not put in an appearance at the office, which
surprised us as we knew that he had not gone out shooting the evening
before. At luncheon Augusta told me, in a state of great agitation,
that he had made an attempt on his life the evening before. He was out
of danger now. I must confess that this news, which Augusta took so
tragically, only made me angry.
He had adopted that drastic method to break down his wife’s resistance.
I soon discovered that he had omitted no precaution, for before taking
morphia he had been careful to be seen with the uncorked bottle in
his hands. So directly he fell into a coma Ada sent for a doctor
and he was very soon out of danger. Ada had passed an awful night,
because the doctor had thought it his duty to make certain reservations
about the effects of the poison, and her agitation was increased by
Guido himself, who, when he came to, and even before he recovered
consciousness completely, overwhelmed her with reproaches, calling her
his enemy, his persecutor, the one person who prevented him from doing
the good work he wanted to do.
Ada immediately gave him the loan he asked for, but at last, in an
endeavour to defend herself, she spoke openly to him, and poured out
all the grievances she had smothered for so long. They finally came to
an understanding, for Augusta thought he had succeeded in dissipating
all Ada’s suspicions as to his fidelity. He had emphatically protested
his innocence, and when she mentioned Carmen he had exclaimed:
“Are you jealous of her? Well, if you like, I will send her away this
very day.”
Ada had made no reply, meaning that she accepted his proposal, and
assuming that he would feel bound by it.
I was astonished that Guido was able to behave thus while still under
the effect of morphia, and was tempted to believe he had not even
swallowed the small dose he said he had. I thought that one of the
effects of the clouding of one’s brain by sleep was to soften the hard
kernel of the mind and induce the most naïve confessions. Had not that
very thing happened to me recently? This only tended to increase my
distaste and contempt for Guido.
Augusta wept as she told me of the state in which she had found Ada.
Her eyes were wide with terror, she had lost every trace of her former
beauty.
My wife and I had a long discussion as to whether it would be better
for me to call on Guido and Ada at once, or to pretend to know nothing
about it and wait till Guido came to the office. The thought of that
visit filled me with horror. How could I see him without telling him
what I thought of him? I said to myself: “It is a cowardly thing to
have done! I have no desire to commit suicide, but if I decided to do
so I should certainly do it thoroughly!”
That was how I looked at it, and I wanted to say so to Augusta. But
I thought I should be doing Guido too much honour by comparing him to
myself, so I said:
“One doesn’t need to be a chemist to destroy the very delicate organism
of the body. Not a week passes in our town but some little sempstress
swallows a solution of phosphorus which she has prepared all by herself
in her attic; there is no antidote to this primitive poison. She is
carried off to die, her young face distorted by moral and physical
pain. What agonising moments her innocent little soul has had to
endure!”
Augusta refused to admit that the soul of the sempstress was so very
innocent, but after a brief protest she renewed her attempt to make
me call on Guido and Ada. She said I need not be afraid of feeling
embarrassed. She had talked to Guido, who had treated the matter very
calmly and as if he had only behaved in the most ordinary way.
I left the house without giving Augusta the satisfaction of seeing that
I was convinced of her arguments. After hesitating a moment I decided
to do what she wanted. During the short walk between our houses the
mere rhythm of walking made me take a milder view of Guido’s action.
I remembered the direction in which the light had pointed, that a few
days ago had illumined my mind. Guido was a mere child, a child to
whom I had promised to be indulgent. If he did not succeed in killing
himself first, even he would arrive at maturity.
The servant showed me into a room which I took to be Ada’s boudoir. It
was a gloomy day, and it was dark inside that little room, with its
single window covered by a dark curtain. On the walls hung portraits
of Ada’s and Guido’s parents. I was only there a few minutes before
the servant came to call me and took me into the bedroom. It was large
and bright even on a day like that; for it was lit by two high windows
and had a light wallpaper and furniture. Guido was lying in bed with a
bandage round his head, and Ada was sitting beside him.
Guido received me without any embarrassment; on the contrary, he was
most grateful to me for coming. He seemed half asleep, but he woke up
to greet me and was soon wide enough awake to give me his orders for
the office. Then he sank back again on the pillow and closed his eyes.
I wondered if he had remembered that he ought to give the impression
of being still under the effects of morphia. In any case it was
impossible to be angry with him; all my fondness for him returned and
I felt very sympathetic. It was a moment or two before I could trust
myself to look at Ada; but when I did look I was agreeably surprised,
for I expected something much worse. Her eyes were larger than usual,
it is true, in fact disproportionately so, but her cheeks had lost
their swollen appearance, and she seemed to me to look more like
herself. She had on a full red dress which buttoned up to the neck,
and her slender body seemed quite lost in it. There was something very
virginal about her appearance, and her large eyes gave her an air of
great severity. I could not have explained exactly what I thought about
her, but I had the impression of standing before a woman who resembled
the Ada I had known.
Suddenly Guido opened his eyes wide, took from under his pillow a
cheque on which I saw Ada’s signature, and gave it to me, asking me to
pay it in and credit it to an account which I was to open in Ada’s name.
“In the name of Ada Malfenti or Ada Speier?” I asked Ada playfully.
She shrugged her shoulders and said:
“You two will know which will be best.”
“I will tell you later how to make the other entries,” said Guido, with
a sharpness in his tone which I found offensive.
I felt inclined to interrupt the somnolence into which he had once more
sunk back, by telling him that if he wanted entries made he had better
make them himself.
Meanwhile a large cup of black coffee was brought in, which Ada handed
to him. He brought out his arms from under the sheets and raised the
cup to his lips with both hands. He looked exactly like a child, with
his nose buried in the cup.
When I said good-bye he promised to come to the office the next day. I
had already said good-bye to Ada, so I was rather surprised when she
joined me again at the front door. She brought out with difficulty:
“Zeno! Please come here a moment. There is something I want to say to
you.”
I followed her into the little room I had waited in before; from it I
could hear the crying of one of the twins.
We remained standing, facing one another. She was still breathing
heavily, and this made me think for a moment that she had called me
into that dark little room to beg me for the love I had once offered
her in vain.
Her great eyes were terrible in the darkness. I felt quite frightened,
and wondered what I ought to do. Wasn’t it my duty to take her in my
arms, and spare her the shame of having to ask anything of me? A host
of resolutions sprang up in my mind at the same moment! One of the
great difficulties of life is guessing what a woman wants. Listening
to what she says is no help, for a whole speech may be wiped out by a
single look, and even that is no guide if one is alone with her, by her
own invitation, in a cosy, dark little room.
As I could not guess what it was she wanted I tried instead to
understand myself. What did I want? Did I want to kiss those eyes and
that skeleton body? I could not give a decisive answer because only
a short time ago I had seen her looking so severely virginal, and as
desirable as when I had loved her as a girl.
Her agitation had now given way to tears, and I was still in the dark
as to what she wanted, and what my feelings were towards her. At last
in a broken voice she told me again how much she loved Guido; so I had
no right to her, then, no duties towards her. She stammered out:
“Augusta told me that you wanted to leave Guido, and not take part in
his affairs any more. I must beg you to go on helping him. I don’t
think he is capable of carrying them on alone.”
She asked me if I would go on doing what I had been doing before. It
was really very little and I thought I might offer to do a little more.
I said:
“Since you wish it, I will go on helping Guido. I will do my best to
help him more effectually than I have done hitherto.”
There I was exaggerating again! I realised it the very moment I had
committed myself, but it was too late then to turn back. I wanted to
tell Ada, falsely perhaps, that she meant a great deal to me. She did
not want my love, only my support, but I spoke in such a way that she
might think I was ready to grant her both.
She suddenly seized me by the hand. A thrill went through me. A woman
who offers you her hand offers you a great deal. I have always felt
this; and when I take a woman’s hand I feel as if I were taking her
altogether. I was conscious of Ada’s body close to mine and as we stood
thus locked together I felt as if we were embracing each other. It was
certainly an act of intimacy.
She added:
“I must return to Bologna at once to the sanatorium, and it will be a
great comfort to me to know that you are with him.”
“I will stay with him,” I said resignedly. Ada must have thought my air
of resignation referred to the sacrifice I was making for her. But I
was really resigning myself to returning to my very ordinary everyday
life, since she had no thought of joining me in the very exceptional
life I had dreamed of.
I made an effort to come down to earth again, and immediately found
myself confronted with a problem of book-keeping which was not easy to
solve. I had got to credit Ada’s newly opened account with the amount
which was written on the cheque. That was clear; but it was not at all
clear what bearing this could possibly have on Guido’s debit and credit
account. I said nothing about it to Ada, for perhaps she was ignorant
that such a thing existed in the world as a day-book in which such very
diverse accounts were entered.
But I did not want to leave that room without saying something more.
Instead of talking about book-keeping I carelessly threw out a remark,
just for the sake of saying something, which I soon felt to be very
significant for Ada, Guido and me, but above all for me, because I was
compromising myself again. The remark seemed to me to be so important
that I remembered for years afterwards how lightly I had opened my
lips to utter it in that dark room, with the four portraits of their
ancestors, wedded there on the wall, looking down at us. I said:
“You ended by marrying a queerer man even than me, Ada!”
It is strange how a word can bridge time! It is itself an event which
is linked to other events. And those words of mine became a tragic
event because they were addressed to Ada. I should never have been able
by thinking about it to evoke so vividly the hour in which Ada had
chosen between Guido and me in that sunny street where, after days of
waiting, I had at last succeeded in meeting her; and how I had walked
beside her trying to force a smile from her which I then hailed as a
promise! And I remembered too, how the difficulty I experienced in
controlling the muscles of my legs made me feel inferior to Guido, who
moved with even more ease than Ada herself, and whose only mark of
inferiority was the extraordinary stick which he insisted on carrying.
She said in a low voice:
“Yes, that is true!”
Then, smiling fondly at me she said:
“But I am so happy for Augusta’s sake that you have proved yourself a
much better man than I ever imagined.”
She sighed and went on:
“So glad, that it comforts me a little for finding Guido quite
different from what I expected.”
I said nothing; I still did not know what to make of it. I felt as if
she had said that I was now what she had hoped Guido would become. Was
she in love with me then? She went on:
“You are the best man of our family, all our hope and trust is in you.”
She seized me by the hand again, and perhaps I pressed hers too hard,
for she withdrew it so quickly as to leave me no further doubts. It
again became quite clear how I was expected to behave in that little
boudoir. Perhaps it was to mitigate the sudden withdrawal of her hand
that she threw me another caress. “Now that I know what you are really
like, I hate to think of having made you suffer. Did you really suffer
so much?”