“As they would not accept the money when I was at your house, I
deposited it at the bank. But we can draw it out again as soon as we
like; early to-morrow morning, if necessary.”
He reproached me for having changed my mind. And only the day before
I had declared that everything could be put in order at once, and
that there was no need to wait for the second settlement! Here he was
overtaken by a violent fit of rage and finally sank helpless on to the
sofa. He would chuck Nilini out of the office, and all those other
brokers who had encouraged him to speculate. Oh! when he had begun
speculating he had foreseen, of course, that he might be ruined, but
not that he would come under the thumb of women who understood nothing,
less than nothing about it!
I went up and shook him by the hand. If he had let me, I would have
embraced him. All that I had ever wanted was that he should make
up his mind, as he had done now, to give up gambling and settle
down to regular work. Then our future would be secure, and he would
regain his independence. He would have a short, difficult time to go
through first, but after that everything would be quite simple and
straightforward.
He left me soon afterwards still depressed, but calmer. Weak though he
was, he seemed to have come to a definite decision.
“I am going back to Ada,” he murmured, with a bitter but confident
smile.
I accompanied him to the door, and would have gone all the way home
with him, but his carriage was waiting for him outside.
Nemesis seemed to pursue Guido. Half an hour after he had left me I
thought it would be wise if I were to go to his house and see if there
was anything I could do for him. Not that I thought he was in any
particular danger, but I was now entirely on his side, and might have
helped to persuade Ada and Signora Malfenti to help him. A bankruptcy
on the Bourse was not at all to my taste, and all things considered,
though his losses were by no means insignificant even if divided
between four of us, they were not enough to ruin any of us.
Then I reflected that my chief duty at the moment was not so much to
assist Guido by my presence as to have ready the sum I had promised him
for the following day. I at once went in search of Olivi, and prepared
myself for a fresh struggle. I had thought out a system of paying back
the large sum to my firm, over a period of several years, though I
should be obliged during the next few months to spend whatever remained
over of the money I had inherited from my mother. I hoped Olivi would
not make any difficulties, for up to that time I had never asked for
anything but my share of the profits and the interest due to me, and I
could undertake not to worry him again with similar requests. It was
clear that I might hope to recover from Guido at least a part of the
sum.
I was unable to find Olivi that evening. He had only just left the
office when I got there. They thought he had probably gone to the
Bourse. But I could not find him there, so went on to his house, where
I heard that he was at a meeting of the Economic Association, in which
he occupied an honorary post. I might have gone on to look for him
there, but by now it was getting late, and the rain was falling heavily
and uninterruptedly, turning the roads into streams of water.
The deluge continued all night, and was remembered for many years
as a record. The rain went on falling steadily, without a moment’s
cessation; pouring, pouring down in sheets. The mud was washed down
from the hills which surround the city on all sides, and combined with
the refuse of the streets to block up the few canals. I decided at last
to go home, after waiting vainly under shelter for the rain to stop,
and finally making up my mind that it was useless to hope for a change
in the weather; but even where the pavement was highest I had to wade
through water. I hurried home as fast as I could, soaked to the skin
and cursing the weather. I was cursing partly at having spent all that
long time in hunting for Olivi. I can well believe that my time is not
so very precious, but I know I suffer horribly when I have to waste it
in some useless occupation. As I hurried along, I thought to myself:
“I will leave everything till to-morrow, when it will have cleared
and be fine and dry again. To-morrow I will go to Olivi, to-morrow I
will go and see Guido. I will get up as early as you please, if only
the weather is dry and fine.” I was so convinced of the reasonableness
of this view that I told Augusta we had all agreed to wait till the
next day before making any decision. I changed into dry clothes and
nice, warm, comfortable slippers, and after supper went early to bed
and slept soundly and dreamlessly till morning, while the heavy rain
whipped the window panes without ceasing.
So that it was getting late before I heard what had happened during the
night. First we were told that the rain had caused floods in various
parts of the town, and then that Guido was dead.
It was not till much later in the day that I heard what had really
happened. At about eleven o’clock, when Signora Malfenti had left
them, Guido told his wife that he had swallowed an enormous quantity
of veronal. He tried to convince her that all was over with him. He
kissed her again and again, and implored her to forgive him for having
made her suffer. Then, before his speech became incoherent and almost
inaudible, he assured her that she had been the only love of his life.
She did not believe this assurance, any more than she believed he had
really taken enough veronal to kill him. Nor did she believe he had
really become unconscious; she imagined he was only pretending, so as
to get more money out of her.
But after an hour, when she saw him sink deeper and deeper into sleep,
a kind of terror seized her, and she wrote a note to a doctor who lived
not far from their house. In the note she said that her husband was in
need of immediate help, as he had swallowed a large quantity of veronal.
Up to then there had been nothing to warn the servant that anything was
wrong; she was an old woman who had only been with them a short time,
and she had no idea of the nature of her mission.
The rain was responsible for the rest. The servant was almost up to her
knees in water, and lost the note. She only discovered this when she
was actually shown in to the doctor. But she succeeded in persuading
him that it was urgent, and induced him to go back with her.
Dr. Mali was a man of about fifty-five, not the least clever, but a
practical doctor who had always done his duty as well as he could. His
regular practice was not very large, but he had a great deal of work to
do for a Society which had a very large membership, and for which his
fees were very small indeed. He had not been home long, and had just
succeeded in drying and warming himself by the fire. One can imagine
how reluctant he was to tear himself away from his warm, snug corner.
When I was trying to unravel the causes of my poor friend’s death I
made a point of getting to know Dr. Mali. All I could gather from him
was this: that when he got outside the door and felt the rain soaking
him actually through his umbrella, he repented having studied medicine
instead of agriculture, for the peasant, he said to himself, stops at
home when it rains.
When he reached Guido’s bedside, he found Ada much relieved. Now that
she had the doctor there it was easier for her to remember what a
trick Guido had played on her a few months ago, when he pretended to
commit suicide. She was able now to shift all responsibility on to the
doctor, to whom she gave a full account of what had happened, and of
the reasons which led her to think this might also be a false alarm.
The doctor took it all in with one ear, and listened with the other to
the torrents of rain pouring down the street. As he had not been warned
that it was a case of poisoning, he had brought with him none of the
instruments necessary for treating the case. He stammered a few words
of excuse which Ada could not hear. The worst of it was that he could
not send anyone else to fetch the stomach pump he needed; he would have
had to wade twice through that flood himself. He felt Guido’s pulse and
found it excellent. He asked Ada whether Guido was accustomed always
to sleep very soundly. She said yes, but not as soundly as that. The
doctor then examined Guido’s eyes; they at once re-acted to the light.
He finally left, after having recommended her to give him a spoonful of
very strong coffee from time to time.
I heard also that when he had got down to the street and was setting
off home again, he muttered furiously:
“It ought to be illegal to pretend one has committed suicide in weather
like this!”
When I heard all this from the doctor I did not dare to reproach him
openly for his carelessness; but he guessed what I was thinking, and
began defending himself. He said he was so astonished when he heard
next morning that Guido was dead, that he thought at first he must
have come to, and taken another dose of veronal. It was impossible, he
said, for a layman to realise how used the doctor becomes to protecting
himself against his patients, who are continually making attempts on
his life, in their selfish insistence on saving their own.
After about an hour, Ada got tired of trying to force the spoonful of
coffee between Guido’s teeth, and noticing that he absorbed less and
less of it, and that most of it went on to the pillow, she took fright
again and begged the servant to go for Dr. Paoli. This time the servant
managed not to lose the note. But she took more than an hour getting to
the doctor’s house. When it is raining like that one naturally feels
one must stop from time to time and take shelter under a porch. Rain
like that does not only soak, it positively scourges one.
Dr. Paoli was not at home. He had been called out by a patient a little
while before, and had gone off saying he hoped to be back before
long. But it looked as if he had chosen to wait at the patient’s
house for the rain to stop. His housekeeper, who was a kind elderly
person, insisted on Ada’s servant sitting down by the fire and getting
thoroughly warm. The doctor had not left his patient’s address, so the
two women spent several hours sitting by the fire together. The doctor
did not come back till the rain had stopped, and day was breaking when
he at last got to Ada, armed with the necessary instruments. But only
one task remained for him now; to hide from Ada that Guido was already
dead, and to get Signora Malfenti to come, without Ada realising it, so
that she might help her in her first access of grief.
And so it happened that the news reached us rather late and without
many details.
As I got out of bed, anger surged up in me for the last time against
poor Guido: how he complicated every misfortune by playing the fool
like that! I left the house alone, for Augusta could not leave the
baby to its own devices. When I got outside, I hesitated for a moment.
Hadn’t I better wait till the bank opened and Olivi would be in his
office, so as to be able to appear before Guido armed with the money I
had promised? So little did I believe really that things were as bad
with Guido as they were reported to be.
I heard the full truth from Dr. Paoli, whom I met as I went upstairs.
I was so startled that I almost fell down the stairs backwards. Ever
since we had spent so much of our time together Guido had been a very
important person to me. So long as he was alive I saw him in a peculiar
light, and in that light part of my days was passed. When he died the
light was suddenly refracted as though it had passed through a prism.
It was that which dazzled me so much at first. He had had many faults,
but I saw at once that now he was dead nothing remained of them. In my
opinion the wit who, in a cemetery full of laudatory epitaphs, asked
where the sinners were buried, was a fool. The dead never have been
sinners. Guido was pure now. Death had purified him.
The doctor was deeply moved by Ada’s sorrow. He told me something of
the horrible night she had lived through. They had succeeded at last in
making her believe that the amount of poison which Guido had swallowed
must have been fatal; that nothing could have saved him. She must on no
account discover the real truth.
“The truth is,” said the doctor, shaking his dead, “that if I had
arrived a few hours sooner I could have saved him. I found the bottles
still full of poison.”
I examined them. It was certainly a strong dose, but not much stronger
than the first time. He showed me several little bottles, all labelled:
“Veronal.” Not veronal and sodium then. I could appreciate the
significance of this better than anyone. I knew now that Guido had not
intended to kill himself. But I have never said a word to anyone.
Paoli left soon after, warning me not to try and see Ada for the
moment. He had prescribed a strong sleeping-draught and did not doubt
that it would soon take effect.
As I stood in the passage I heard a subdued lamentation coming from the
little room where Ada had twice received me. From time to time I heard
a few unintelligible, grief-stricken words. The word “he” was repeated
several times, and I tried to picture what she might be saying. She
was trying to set up a new relationship between herself and the dead
man. It would have to be very different from the one she had had with
the living. It was clear to me that she had sinned against her husband
while he was alive. He had died for a sin which they had all committed,
for he had gambled on the Bourse with the approval of them all. It was
only when it came to paying up that they had left him alone. And he
had made haste to pay. I had had nothing to do with it, yet I alone of
all his relations had felt it was my duty to help him.
Poor Guido was lying all alone in their bedroom, covered by the sheet.
The _rigor mortis_ was already far advanced. There was no sense of
strength in that rigidity, only an immense surprise at being dead
without having wished to die. His dark, handsome face seemed to wear a
reproachful expression; but the reproach could not be intended for me.
I went back to Augusta, to urge her to go and be with her sister. I was
deeply moved and Augusta burst into tears and embraced me.
“You have been a brother to him,” she murmured. “I quite agree with you
now, and am ready to sacrifice part of our fortune to keep his memory
pure.”
I took pains that every honour should be paid to my poor friend. First
of all I put up a notice on the office door, announcing that the office
was closed on account of the death of the chief. I myself composed the
obituary notice. The arrangements for the funeral were not made till
the following day, and Ada herself took part in them. Then I was told
that she had decided to follow his coffin to the grave. She wanted to
give him every possible proof of her affection. Poor thing! I knew only
too well what terrible pangs of remorse one may suffer beside a grave.
I had suffered enough myself at the death of my father.
I spent the afternoon shut up in the office with Nilini. We were
engaged in drawing up a provisional balance-sheet. The situation was
really terrible! Not only was the entire capital of the firm lost, but
Guido owed as much again, if his debts were to be paid in full.
I ought to have put all my energies into working for my poor dead
friend, but I found I could do nothing but dream. My first thought had
been to give up my whole life to working in that office for the sake of
Ada and her children. But should I really be able to carry it through?
Nilini, as usual, went on chattering, while I was looking far ahead
into the future. He too felt the need now of a fundamental change in
his relations with Guido. He understood it all now! When he treated
him so unfairly poor Guido was already stricken by the disease which
was to lead him to commit suicide. Everything was forgiven and
forgotten!
“I am made like that,” he said. “I can’t bear ill will against anyone.
I was always fond of Guido, and I still am.”
Nilini’s dreams ended by mingling with mine and imposing themselves
upon me. There was no hope of repairing a catastrophe like this by
slow business methods; the only hope was in fresh speculations on the
Bourse. Nilini went on to tell me about a friend of his who had saved
himself at the very last moment by doubling his stakes.
We spent several hours in conversation, but Nilini’s proposal to carry
on Guido’s gamble was made shortly before midday, and I at once agreed
to it. My joy in accepting it was almost as great as if I had succeeded
in bringing my friend to life again. I ended by buying, in poor Guido’s
name, a number of new shares with such odd titles as Rio Tinto,
Southern French, etc.
This was the beginning of forty-eight hours of the hardest work I have
ever done in my life. I stayed at the office till evening, pacing up
and down with great strides, waiting to hear if my orders had been
carried out. I was afraid the news of Guido’s suicide might already
have reached the Bourse, and that they might refuse to do any more
business in his name. But, as it turned out, they did not put his death
down to suicide till several days later.
When Nilini finally told me that all my orders had been carried out
there began for me a time of terrible anxiety, increased by the fact
that at the very moment of receiving the purchase papers I was told
that I had already lost quite a lot on what I had bought. When I look
back on it, the very anxiety I felt produces on me the impression of
actual work. I have the curious sensation of having sat for forty-eight
hours on end at the gaming-table trying to exercise a magnetic
influence on the cards. I noted every fluctuation in the prices, I
brooded over it and, if I must tell the truth, willed it up or down
according as it best suited me, or rather my poor friend. I got no
sleep at all.
Fearing lest some member of the family might step in and interfere
with the work of salvation I had taken upon myself, I spoke to no
one about the fortnightly settlement, when it came. I paid it all
myself, for everyone else had forgotten about it, busy as they were
in preparing the corpse for burial. As a matter of fact I had less to
pay than had been supposed in Guido’s lifetime. The tide had suddenly
begun to turn in my favour. My grief at Guido’s death had been so great
that I thought I might mitigate it somewhat by taking every possible
risk both with the money of my firm and my own personal money. I was
sustained by that vision of benevolence which had inspired me long
ago at Guido’s side. But I suffered so intensely from the state of
agitation I lived in at this time, that I have never again gambled on
my own account.
In consequence of poring over the money market, my only occupation
during those few days, I was actually not present at Guido’s funeral.
This was how it happened. The shares we were interested in took an
upward leap that very day. Nilini and I spent all our time in working
out how much of our losses we had won back. Old Speier’s fortune was
now only reduced by half, a magnificent result which filled me with
pride! Exactly what Nilini had predicted had now taken place. It was
true that his original prophecy had been made in a very doubtful tone,
but now this naturally vanished and he repeated it with the utmost
confidence. I remembered that he had foreseen what actually happened,
but also the exact opposite, so that it was impossible for him to be in
the wrong; but I did not say so to him, for it was essential to me that
he should work at the business with the whole energy of his ambition. I
hoped that his will might influence the prices too.
We left the office at three, and set off at a run, for we had just
remembered that the funeral was to take place at a quarter past three.
When we got to the top of the Volti di Chiozza, I saw the procession in
the distance, and even thought I recognised a carriage which a friend
had put at Ada’s disposal for the funeral. Nilini and I leapt into a
cab and told the driver to follow in the procession. We went on talking
about our speculations all the way. Our thoughts were so far from our
dead friend that we even complained because the carriage went so slow.
Who knows what might be happening on the Bourse, now that we were no
longer there to keep an eye on it? Suddenly Nilini looked me straight
in the face, an unusual thing for him, and asked me why I did not
gamble at all on my own account. I blushed, I don’t quite know why.
“For the moment,” I said, “I am only working for my friend.”
Then, after pausing a moment, I added:
“I will think of myself later.” I wanted to encourage him in the hope
that he might be able to induce me to gamble, simply because I was bent
on keeping him friendly for the moment. But meanwhile I was saying to
myself what I did not dare say to him: “I will never put myself in your
hands!” He went on with his sermon:
“Who knows if you will ever have such an opportunity again,” he said.
He forgot that he himself had taught me there were fresh opportunities
on the Bourse every hour.
When we reached the place where the carriages generally stop, Nilini
put his head out of the window and gave a cry of surprise. Our cab was
still following the procession, which seemed to be going on to the
Greek cemetery.
“Was Guido a Greek Catholic?” he asked in surprise. And the procession
was, in fact, passing the Catholic cemetery and proceeding towards one
of the others, Jewish, Greek, Protestant or Serbian.
“Can he have been a Protestant?” I wondered. But I at once remembered
having gone to his marriage in the Catholic church.
“It must be a mistake!” I exclaimed, thinking for a moment that they
were going to bury Guido in the wrong place.
Nilini suddenly burst out laughing, and laughed so unrestrainedly that
he fell back helpless on the back of the seat, with his huge mouth wide
open, seeming to fill the whole of his little face.
“We have made a mistake,” he said. When he at last succeeded in
bridling his mirth, he overwhelmed me with reproaches. I ought to have
noticed where we were going. Surely I must have known what time it was
to be, and might have been expected to recognise the people. It was
someone else’s funeral!
I was in a great state of irritation. I had not shared his mirth, and
found his reproaches hard to bear. Why hadn’t he kept a better look-out
himself? I suppressed my vexation simply because the Bourse was of more
importance to me than the funeral. We got out of the carriage to see
where we were, and made our way towards the entrance into the Catholic
cemetery. Our carriage followed us. I noticed that the survivors of
the other dead person looked at us with surprise, unable to explain to
themselves why, after having accompanied him so far, we abandoned him
at the very last moment.
Nilini went on ahead impatiently. He said to the porter, after a
moment’s hesitation:
“Has Signor Guido Speier’s funeral procession arrived yet?”
The porter did not seem surprised by the question, though I thought it
rather comic. He replied that he could not say. He only knew there had
been two funerals in the cemetery during the last half-hour.
We took counsel together in our perplexity. There was evidently no
means of discovering whether the funeral was already inside the
cemetery or not. Then I made up my mind. It was obviously impossible
for me to burst into the middle of the service which perhaps had
already begun, and interrupt it. So I decided I would not enter the
cemetery at all. On the other hand I could not risk meeting the
procession on my way back. So I gave up all thought of taking part in
the burial and decided to go back to the town, making a long detour
beyond Servola. I left the carriage to Nilini, who wanted at least to
put in an appearance, because he knew Ada.
I walked fast so as to avoid meeting anyone, and joined the country
road leading to the village. I no longer minded having made a mistake
about the funeral, and not having paid the final honours to poor
Guido. I had no time to waste in religious practices. I had another
duty to perform: I must save the honour of my friend and defend his
inheritance for the sake of his widow and children. When I told Ada
that I had succeeded in retrieving three-quarters of his losses (I ran
through the whole account again in my mind: Guido had lost his father’s
fortune twice over and now, after my intervention, that fortune was
only reduced by half; so I really had recovered three-quarters of his
losses), she would certainly forgive me for not being present at his
funeral.
The weather had become glorious again. The air was soft and delicious,
and the country-side, still wet from the recent rain, was bathed in
brilliant sunshine. After being confined to the office for so many
days, my lungs expanded and I found it delightful to exercise my
limbs. I was full of health and strength. Health is all a matter of
comparison. I compared myself with poor Guido, and rose victorious from
the same battle in which he lay vanquished. Everything around me seemed
to breathe out health and energy. Everywhere the young, green grass was
springing; the catastrophic floods of a few days ago had sunk into the
frozen earth, which now drank rapturously the sunrays it had waited for
so long. Yet if that blue sky were to remain long without a cloud, it
too would become hateful. It is only now as I write that I make this
observation drawn from everyday experience; it did not strike me then.
At that moment my soul was filled with joy: joy in my own well-being
and in the perennial well-being of nature.
I quickened my steps. I rejoiced to feel myself so light and free. As
I came down the hill into Servola I almost broke into a run. When I
reached the promenade of Sant’ Andrea I slackened my pace again, but I
still had a marvellous sense of ease. The air seemed to bear me along.
I had completely forgotten that I was coming from the funeral of my
dearest friend. My whole being breathed victory. But my elation was
a homage to my poor friend’s memory; it was for his sake that I had
entered the lists.
I went to the office to look at the closing prices. They were a little
slacker, but not enough to damp my assurance. I was determined to go on
speculating, and did not doubt of attaining my end.
I was compelled at last to go to Ada’s house. Augusta came to open the
door to me. She said at once:
“Whatever can have possessed you not to come to the funeral? and you,
the only man in the family!”
I put down my hat and umbrella, and said, in some perplexity, that I
should like to speak to Ada and her together, so as not to have to
repeat myself. But meanwhile I could assure her that I had a very good
reason for missing the funeral. I no longer felt quite so confident as
before, and suddenly my side began to pain me again, perhaps because I
was tired. It must have been that Augusta’s remark made me doubt the
possibility of explaining my absence, which was naturally regarded as
scandalous; in my mind’s eye I could see before me all who had taken
part in that gloomy function distracted for a moment from their grief
by the speculation as to where I could possibly be.
Ada never came. I heard later that she had not even been told I was
waiting to see her. I was received by Signora Malfenti, who began
speaking to me in a severe tone such as I had never known her to use
before. I muttered some excuses, but I was very far from feeling as
sure of myself as I had been during my rapid flight from the cemetery
to the town. I stammered as I began to tell her a few half truths about
what I had been doing in my attempt to rehabilitate Guido, and said
that quite a short while before the hour of the funeral I had been
obliged to wire some instructions to Paris, and had not felt I could
leave the office till I received an answer. It was true that Nilini
and I had been obliged to telegraph to Paris, but it had been two days
ago, and we had also received the reply two days ago. But I realised
that the truth was not a sufficient excuse, perhaps because it was
impossible for me to tell it all, or to talk about what I regarded
as my most important operation: my attempt to influence the world
Exchanges by will-power. But Signora Malfenti forgave me when she heard
the amount by which I had already reduced Guido’s losses. She thanked
me with tears in her eyes. I again became not only the one man of the
family, but the best one. She asked me to come with Augusta in the
evening to see Ada. She would meanwhile tell her all about it. For the
moment she was not in a condition to receive anyone. I went off only
too gladly with my wife. She did not feel it necessary either, to say
good-bye to Ada before leaving. The poor creature alternated between
desperate floods of tears and such prostration that she was even
unaware who was in the room.
A faint hope remained to me:
“So it was not Ada, then, who noticed my absence?”
Augusta confessed that she would rather have said nothing about it, for
Ada’s anger at my failure to be at the funeral had passed all bounds.
She had insisted on an explanation, and when Augusta was obliged to say
she knew nothing about it, not having seen me herself, she gave way
again to her despair, crying out that of course one must expect Guido
to be treated like that when he was dead, because all the family hated
him.
I did think Augusta might have spoken up for me, and reminded Ada that
I was the only person who had offered to help Guido in the way he
wanted. If they had listened to me he would have had no need to commit
suicide, or even to pretend to.
But Augusta had said nothing. She had been so much moved by Ada’s
despair that she feared it might seem an outrage to her grief to enter
on a discussion. But she was sure that Signora Malfenti’s explanations
would convince Ada how unjust she had been to me. I must say I thought
so too, and looked forward in perfect confidence to witnessing her
surprise and expressions of gratitude. Everything about her was
excessive on account of Basedow’s disease.
I went back to the office, where I learned that there was again a
slight upward movement, very slight as yet, but enough to warrant the
hope that the shares would be up next day as high as they had been that
morning.
After dinner I was obliged to go and see Ada alone; Augusta could not
come with me because the baby was ill. Signora Malfenti received me,
and said she was obliged to attend to something in the kitchen and must
therefore leave me alone with Ada. She added that Ada had begged to be
left alone with me, because she had something to say to me which no one
else must hear. She led me into the little boudoir where I had twice
before seen Ada alone, and before taking leave of me said laughing:
“You know she is not quite ready to forgive you yet for not being at
Guido’s funeral, but--almost!”
My heart always beat faster in that little room. But this time it
was not for fear of finding myself loved by someone I did not love.
During the last few moments, and solely in consequence of what Signora
Malfenti had said, I was conscious of having committed a serious
breach of friendship towards poor Guido. I sat down and began studying
the portraits of Guido’s parents. The old Señor wore a satisfied
air which I felt he owed entirely to my intervention, while Guido’s
mother, a thin woman in a dress with full sleeves, and a huge hat
balanced precariously on mountains of hair, was very severe-looking.
But then everyone puts on an unnatural face in front of the camera,
and I looked away, feeling almost ashamed of myself for trying to read
their character in those faces. The mother could certainly never have
foreseen that I should not have attended her son’s funeral.
But the way in which Ada spoke to me came as an unpleasant surprise.
She must have spent some time in preparing what she wanted to say,
and she paid not the smallest heed to my explanations, protests or
corrections, which she could not have foreseen. She galloped along like
a frightened horse to the bitter end.
She was dressed very simply in a black boudoir gown. Her hair was in
great disorder, as if she were continually running her fingers through
it, in a kind of desperate need to find something for them to do. She
came up to the table at which I was sitting, and rested her hands on it
so as to see me better. Her face was quite thin again and had shed once
more that uncanny fullness which grew all in the wrong place. She was
no longer beautiful, as she had been when Guido won her for himself,
but no one looking at her would have remembered her illness. There was
no trace of that now, only a great sorrow which entirely transformed
her. I could understand her immense grief so well that I was unable to
speak. All the time I was looking at her I kept wondering what words I
could think of to say to her, which should be equivalent to taking her
in my arms and comforting her as a brother: then perhaps she might weep
and ease her over-burdened heart. When she began to attack me I wanted
to defend myself, but I did it too feebly, and she did not hear.
She went on talking, talking, talking: I cannot remember all she said.
Unless I am mistaken she began by thanking me gravely but quite coldly
for all I had done for her and her children. Then she suddenly began to
reproach me:
“And yet you drove him to his death for something which was not worth
the trouble!”
She lowered her voice as if she wanted to keep secret what she was
saying to me, and there was more warmth in her tone of voice, due no
doubt to her love for Guido, and perhaps also--or did I merely fancy
it?--for me:
“I forgive you for not having come to his funeral. You were unable to
do so, and I forgive you. He would have forgiven you too if he were
alive. What good would you have done beside his grave? You, who never
loved him! Kind as you are, you might have shed tears for me, you might
have wept to see my tears, but you would have shed none for him. You
hated him! Poor Zeno! My poor brother!”
It was monstrous that she should say a thing like that, which was such
a parody of the truth. I protested, but she would not listen to me. I
believe I must have screamed; anyway I had the sensation of doing so,
in my throat:
“But it is all a mistake, a lie, a calumny. How can you possibly
believe such a thing?”
She went on, still in a low voice:
“But I did not really love him either. I was never unfaithful to him,
even in thought, but I felt for him so little that I had not even the
strength to protect him. I watched your relationship with your wife,
and I envied you both. I thought what you gave her was better than what
he offered me. I am grateful to you for not having come to the funeral,
for otherwise I might not even yet have understood anything. But now I
see it all; I understand it all. No, I did not love him either; if I
had, how could I have hated even his violin, which was the most perfect
expression of his great soul?”
When she said this I rested my head on my hands and hid my face. The
charges she brought against me were so unjust that it was impossible
to discuss them; and their unreasonableness was so mitigated by the
gentle, almost affectionate tone of her voice that I had not the
heart to refute them sternly, as I must have done if I was to issue
victorious from this duel. And then Augusta had set me an example of
consideration, by keeping silence in the presence of such bitter grief.
But when I closed my eyes I saw in the darkness that her words had
created a new world, like all words which are not true. I seemed to
see myself as having always hated Guido, as having stood by his side
ever on the watch for an opportunity to strike him down. And then she
had spoken of Guido and his violin together. If I had not known that
she was almost beside herself from grief and remorse, I might have
thought she had set up his violin as a part of Guido, in order to bring
home to me my hatred of him.
Then in the darkness I saw again Guido’s dead body, still wearing that
expression of astonishment on his face at finding himself lying there
lifeless. I raised my head in horror. It was better to face Ada’s
accusations, unjust as they were, than to go on looking into the dark.
But she still continued talking about Guido and me:
“Poor Zeno, you went on living with him without realising that you
hated him. It was impossible! It had to end like this! There was a time
when I was foolish enough to think I might use the love I knew you felt
for me, to build up a defence for him who so much needed it. But he
could only have been protected by someone who loved him and, between
ourselves, he was loved by no one.”
“What more could I have done for him?” I asked. Hot tears fell from my
eyes, to persuade her of my innocence, and to persuade myself. Tears
sometimes take the place of loud argument. I was not even sure if I
ought to speak at all; still less could I cry out and dispute loudly
with her. But I had somehow to crush her assertions--so I wept.
“You might have saved him, dear brother. Between us we ought to have
saved him, you and I. But I, though I was at his side, could not save
him because I did not really love him; and you were never there; you
were absent, always absent till he was actually in his grave. Then you
appeared armed with a great love for him. Till then you gave no thought
to him at all. Yet he was with you up to that last evening. And you
might have guessed, if you had paid any attention to him at all, that
something serious was going to happen.”
Tears prevented me from speaking, but I stammered out something to the
effect that the night before he had spent amusing himself out shooting
in the marshes, so that no one could possibly have foreseen in what
way he would spend the following night.
“He had to have shooting, he had to have it!” She rebuked me in a loud
voice. Then, as if all her strength had been spent in the effort of
that one cry, she suddenly collapsed and fell in a faint on the floor.
For an instant I remember that I hesitated to summon Signora Malfenti.
I thought her fainting might reveal the meaning of what she had been
saying to me. The next moment I called for help.
Signora Malfenti and Alberta came hurrying in. Her mother bent over
her, and said to me as she lifted her up:
“Has she been talking to you about those hateful speculations?” Then:
“This is the second time she has fainted to-day.”
She asked me to go away for a moment, and I went out into the passage
and waited there till I heard whether I was to go in again or go away.
I prepared myself for further explanations with Ada. She was forgetting
that if only they had done what I had suggested, the catastrophe would
never have happened. It ought to be enough to remind her of this, in
order to convince her of the wrong she was doing me.
Soon after Signora Malfenti joined me, and said that Ada had recovered
and would like to say good-bye to me. She was lying on the sofa, where
I had been sitting up to a few minutes ago. When she saw me she began
to cry, and those were the first tears I saw her shed. She held out her
hand to me, damp with perspiration, and said:
“Good-bye, Zeno dear! Please remember! I want you always to remember!
Don’t ever forget!”
Signora Malfenti broke in to ask what it was I was always to remember,
and I told her that Ada was anxious for an immediate settlement of
Guido’s affairs on the Bourse. I blushed as I uttered this lie, and was
afraid lest Ada might contradict me. But instead of that she burst out:
“Yes! yes! everything must be settled at once! I don’t ever want to
hear that horrible place spoken of again!”
She had become very pale again, and to quiet her Signora Malfenti said
that everything should be done at once as she wanted.
Then Signora Malfenti accompanied me to the door and begged me not
to be over-hasty. I was to do whatever I thought best in Guido’s
interests. But I answered that I had lost confidence in myself. The
risks were enormous, and I could no longer venture to play with other
people’s money in that way. I didn’t really believe in gambling on the
Bourse, and I no longer believed in my power to influence the rise
or fall of stocks. So I should make an immediate settlement, and be
thankful that things had gone as well as they had.
I did not repeat to Augusta what Ada had said. Why should I distress
her? But just because I told them to no one, those words continued to
beat on my ears like a drum, and went on echoing for many years. Even
to-day I often find myself brooding over them. I can hardly say that I
loved Guido, but only because he was such a strange man. And I stood by
him as if he had been my brother, and helped him in every way I could.
No, I don’t deserve Ada’s reproof.
I was never alone with her again. She did not feel the need to say
anything more to me, and I never demanded an explanation, perhaps
because I did not want to intensify her grief.
On the Bourse things turned out as I had foreseen, and Guido’s father,
after hearing in one cable that he had lost the whole of his fortune,
was naturally pleased to find that half of it still remained intact.
Unfortunately I did not get the pleasure I expected from my handiwork.
Ada behaved affectionately to me up to the time when she set off to
Buenos Aires with her children to join her husband’s family. She always
liked to see Augusta and me. I sometimes tried to believe that her
speech had been due to a sudden mad outburst of grief and that she did
not even remember it. But once when she talked of Guido before us she
repeated and confirmed in two words everything she had said that day:
“No one loved him, poor darling!”
Just as she went on board the boat, she kissed me. (She was carrying
one of the children who was not very well.) Then, at a moment when no
one was by, she said to me:
“Good-bye, Zeno, my brother. I shall always remember that I did not
love him enough. I want you to know this. I leave my country gladly,
for I feel as if I were leaving my pangs of conscience behind.”
I reproached her for tormenting herself like that, saying she had been
a good wife, and that I knew all about it and could bear witness to it.
I don’t know if I succeeded in convincing her. She said no more, her
sobs overcame her. But long afterwards it seemed to me that in taking
leave of me like that she had wanted to renew her attack on me. But I
know that she judged me unfairly. I certainly have no need to reproach
myself with not having loved Guido.
It was a gloomy, miserable day. One innocent-looking cloud seemed to
be spreading over and darkening the whole sky. A great cargo boat,
with its sails hanging inert from the masts, was being rowed out of
the harbour. Only two men were at the oars, and row as they might they
scarcely succeeded in stirring the great ship. Perhaps out at sea they
would find a slight breeze to help them.
From the deck of her steamer Ada waved good-bye to us with her
handkerchief. Then she turned away. Her last look must be for Saint
Anna where Guido was buried. Her slender little figure took on a fresh
grace as she was carried away from us. The tears blinded my eyes. She
was leaving us for ever. Never again should I be able to prove to her
that I was innocent.