“Do you really believe Ada is in love with me? What can have put that
into your head?”
But I could not succeed in pacifying Augusta, whose jealousy I found
terribly tiresome. It was true that Guido had stopped enjoying himself
by then, and was no doubt having a horrible time between his wife and
his mother-in-law; but I was having a sufficiently bad time myself, and
I could not help feeling my sufferings were disproportionately great,
seeing that I was entirely innocent.
I tried to calm Augusta by caressing her. But she drew her face away,
so that she could look at me better, and uttered a gentle reproof which
moved me deeply.
“I know you love me too,” she said.
It was clearly not Ada’s state of mind, but mine, that she was troubled
about. I suddenly had an inspiration which I thought must prove my
innocence.
“So Ada is in love with me?” I said laughing. Then, drawing away a
little from Augusta so that she could see me better, I puffed out my
cheeks and opened my eyes very wide so as to make myself look like Ada.
Augusta gazed at me in astonishment for a moment, but soon guessed
what I was doing. She burst out laughing, but at once felt ashamed of
herself.
“No!” she said; “please don’t laugh at her.”
Then she admitted, still laughing, that I had succeeded in imitating
exactly the bulges which gave Ada’s face such an odd appearance. And I
knew that I had, for whilst I was imitating her I had actually felt as
if I were kissing Ada. And when I was by myself I repeated the process
with a mingled feeling of desire and disgust.
In the afternoon I went to the office hoping to find Guido there. I
waited for some time, then decided to go and look for him at his house.
It was necessary that I should know whether or not I was to ask Olivi
for the money. I must fulfil my duty, painful though the prospect was
of seeing Ada’s face still more distorted in her efforts to express her
gratitude. Who knows what surprises that woman still had in store for
me!
On the steps leading up to Guido’s house I ran into Signora Malfenti
who was ponderously ascending. She told me at great length everything
that had been decided about Guido’s affairs up to then. When they
separated the evening before they had almost agreed that it was
essential to do all they could to save that unfortunate man from the
ruin which threatened him. It was not till the next morning that Ada
discovered I was proposing to collaborate in covering Guido’s losses,
and then she absolutely refused to accept. Signora Malfenti tried to
make excuses for her.
“What are you going to do about it? She cannot reconcile it with her
conscience to rob her favourite sister.”
At the top of the first flight of steps the Signora stopped to get
breath, to enable her to go on talking. She said with a smile that
everything would turn out well for everybody concerned. Before lunch
she and Ada and Guido had gone to consult a solicitor, an old friend of
the family who was now little Anna’s guardian. The solicitor had said
there was no need to pay; gambling-debts did not come under the law.
Guido had taken the opposite point of view, and talked about honour and
duty, but she was sure that if everyone, including Ada, decided not to
pay, he could very soon fall into line.
“But will his business be declared bankrupt on the Bourse?” I asked in
bewilderment.
“Probably it will!” replied Signora Malfenti, with a sigh, before
climbing the last flight.
Guido was in the habit of lying down after lunch, so that we were
received by Ada in the little boudoir I knew so well. When she saw me
she betrayed a moment’s uneasiness; only a moment, but enough for me to
notice and remember, for it was as clear as if she had confessed it to
me herself. Then she made an effort to control herself, and offered me
her hand with a decided, almost virile movement, which seemed meant to
contradict the feminine hesitation that had preceded it.
She said:
“Augusta will have told you how grateful I am to you. I feel too
bewildered at the moment to express to you what I really feel. I am ill
too. Yes, I am very ill! I ought really to go into the nursing-home
again at Bologna.”
A sob interrupted her. Then she went on:
“I want to ask you one favour. Please tell Guido that you find you
can’t let him have any money. It will make it much easier for us to
persuade him to do what ought to be done.”
She had sobbed before, thinking of her own illness; she sobbed again
now, before going on to talk about her husband:
“He is only a child, and must be treated as such. If he knows that
you are ready to let him have that money, he will cling all the more
obstinately to his idea of throwing away the rest, quite uselessly,
for now we know for a certainty that a bankruptcy on the Bourse is not
illegal. The solicitor told us so.”
She gave me the opinion of a high financial authority without ever
asking for mine. As an old _habitué_ of the Bourse my opinion might
have had some weight alongside that of the solicitor, but I quite
forgot what my opinion was, even if I had ever had one. It was obvious
to me, however, that I was put in an awkward position. I could not back
out of the promise I had made Guido; it was in return for that promise
that I had thought myself authorised to shout so many insults in his
ear, pocketing thereby a sort of interest on the capital which it was
thus impossible for me to refuse him.
“Ada!” I said hesitatingly, “I don’t think I can go back on my word
like this, from one day to another. Wouldn’t it be better if you tried
to persuade Guido to do things as you want them done?”
Signora Malfenti, with the peculiar sympathy she always showed me,
said that she understood perfectly well the situation in which I found
myself, but that she thought when Guido discovered he could only
dispose of a quarter of the money he needed he would be obliged to
submit with a good grace to their will.
But Ada had not yet exhausted her supply of tears. With her face hidden
in her handkerchief, she said between her sobs:
“You did very, very wrong to make him such an extraordinary offer. Now
one sees what a great mistake you made!”
She seemed to me to waver between gratitude and resentment. Then she
said she did not want my offer ever to be mentioned again, and begged
me not to procure the money for him, for if I did she would not let me
give it him, or would forbid Guido to accept it.
I felt so embarrassed that I ended by telling a lie. I told her that
I had already procured the money, and pointed to my breast pocket
where that very light envelope was lying. Ada looked at me now with an
expression of genuine admiration which might have given me pleasure
if I had not known how little I deserved it. In any case it was that
lie, for which I can give no other explanation than my strange tendency
to try and appear to Ada better than I really was, that prevented
my waiting for Guido and made me get out of the house as quickly
as possible. It might easily have happened that, contrary to all
expectation, I should have been asked to hand over the money I said I
actually had with me, and what sort of a figure should I have cut then?
I explained that I had urgent business at the office, and hurried out
of the house.
Ada accompanied me to the door and assured me that she would persuade
Guido to come to me himself and thank me for my kindness, refusing
at the same time to accept it. She made this statement with so much
determination that I was quite startled. I could not help feeling that
so definite a resolution was aimed in part also at me. No! at that
moment she certainly did not love me. My generosity had been too great.
It threatened to overwhelm those whom it was supposed to benefit, and
it was no wonder if they rose up and protested. On my way to the office
I tried to shake off the unpleasant impression which Ada’s behaviour
had made on me, by reminding myself that the sacrifice I proposed to
make concerned Guido and no one else. What had Ada to do with it? I
promised myself to make Ada see this at the earliest opportunity.
I went to the office simply in order to avoid having another lie on my
conscience. A fine rain had been falling since the early morning, which
had made the air very chilly; spring was slow in coming. A few steps
would have taken me home, whereas to reach the office I had to walk
down a much longer street, which in itself was sufficiently annoying.
But I thought I had a duty to fulfil.
Guido joined me shortly afterwards. He sent Luciano away, so as to
remain alone with me. He had on that agonised air which was such a help
to him in his disputes with his wife, and which I knew only too well.
He had evidently been crying, and shouting too.
He asked me what I thought about his wife and mother-in-law’s plan
which he knew I had already been told of. I was not very ready with my
reply. I did not want to tell him my opinion, which was contrary to
that of the two women, and at the same time I knew that if I were to
agree with them I should only provoke fresh scenes with Guido. I hated
to seem to grudge him my assistance, and agreed on the whole with Ada
that the decision ought to come from Guido and not from me. I said that
we must make some calculations and work things out and hear what other
people had to say about it. I was not a good enough business man to be
able to pronounce an opinion on such an important matter. To gain time,
I asked him if he would like me to consult Olivi.
This was enough to make him scream:
“That idiot! I beg you to leave him out of the question!”
I did not feel in the least inclined to work myself up in defence of
Olivi, but my calmness had no effect on Guido. We were in a precisely
similar situation to that of the day before, only now it was his turn
to scream and mine to be silent. It is a matter of temperament; I felt
so very awkward that all my limbs were absolutely paralysed.
But he insisted on my saying exactly what I thought about it. So I
began to speak and, by an almost divine inspiration, spoke very well;
so well that if he had paid the smallest attention to what I said the
subsequent catastrophe would never have happened. I said that I was
inclined for the moment to consider the two questions separately, that
of the fortnightly and that of the monthly settlement. Not such a very
large sum was required for the former and one must induce the two
women to consent to that relatively light loss. Then we should still
have plenty of time before us to make wise provision for the other
settlement.
Guido interrupted me to say:
“Ada told me that you have got the money all ready in your pocket. Have
you got it with you now?”