Zeno's Conscience Part 10

We knocked on the door at the left, the study, where mother and daughter, advised of our visit, were waiting for us. Copier made the introductions. The mother, a very shy person in a poor black dress, her head distinguished by her snowy white hair, made me a little speech that she must have prepared in advance: they were honored by my visit, and they thanked me for the considerable present I had given them. After that she didn't open her mouth again.

Copier observed everything like a professor at a state examination, hearing the repeated lesson that he had taught with great effort. He corrected the speaker, telling her that I had not only provided the money for the piano, but had also contributed to the a.s.sistance he had collected for them. Devoted to precision, Copier was.

Signorina Carla rose from the chair by the piano where she had been sitting, extended her hand to me, and said simply: "Thank you."

This, at least, was sufficiently brief. My philanthropic burden was beginning to weigh on me. I, too, concerned myself with other people's business, like any truly sick man! What would that pretty young woman see in me? A person eminently respectable, but not a man! And she was really pretty! I believe she wanted to seem younger than she was, wearing a skirt too short for the current fashion, unless around the house she wore a skirt dating from the time when she hadn't attained her full growth. But her head was a woman's, and displayed the somewhat elaborate coiffure of a woman who wishes to please. The rich brown braids were arranged to cover her ears and also, in part, her neck. I was so concerned with my dignity, and so afraid of Copier's inquisitorial eye, that at first I didn't even take a good look at the girl; but now I know her completely. There was a musical quality in her voice when she spoke, and with an affectation by now a part of her nature, she deliberately elongated her syllables as if she wanted to caress the sound she put into them. For this reason, and also because of certain vowels, excessively broad even for Trieste, her speech had something foreign about it. I learned later that certain coaches, to teach voice production, alter the value of vowels. Her p.r.o.nunciation was something quite different from Ada's. Her every sound seemed to be one of love.

During that visit, Signorina Carla smiled all the time, perhaps imagining that she had the expression of grat.i.tude imprinted on her face. It was a slightly forced smile: the true look of grat.i.tude. Then, a few hours later, when I began to dream of Carla, I imagined that in her face there had been a struggle between happiness and sorrow. Subsequently I found none of this in her, and once again I learned that female beauty simulates feelings that are totally unrelated to it, just as the canvas on which a battle is portrayed has no heroic feeling.

Copier seemed pleased by the introduction, as if the two women had been his creation. He described them to me: they remained happy with their lot and they were working. He spoke some words that seemed quoted from a scholastic text and, nodding mechanically, I seemed bent on confirming that I had done my homework and therefore knew how poor, virtuous women without money ought to be.

Then he asked Carla to sing something for us. She was reluctant, insisting she had a cold. She suggested postponing it to another day. I felt, sympathetically, that she feared our judgment, but I wished to prolong the meeting, so I joined my pleas to Copier's. I added that I didn't know if she would ever see me again, as I was very busy. Copier, though he knew I had absolutely no obligations in the world, confirmed with great seriousness everything I said. It was then easy for me to deduce that he didn't want me to see Carla again.

Again she tried to beg off, but Copier insisted, with a word that sounded like a command, and she obeyed. How easy it was to force her!

She sang ha mia bandiera. From my soft sofa I followed her singing. I desired ardently to be able to admire it. How beautiful it would have been to behold her clad in genius! But on the contrary I was surprised to hear that her voice, when she sang, lost all musicality. Effort distorted it. Nor was Carla able to play, and her inept accompaniment made that poor music even poorer. I reminded myself that I was hearing a student, and I a.n.a.lyzed the volume of the voice to see if it sufficed. I decided, in order to be able to continue encouraging her, that only her training had been bad.

When she stopped, I seconded Copier's abundant and talkative applause. He said, "Imagine the effect of this voice if it were accompanied by a good orchestra."

This was certainly true. An entire, powerful orchestra was needed over that voice. I said with great sincerity that I would wait to hear the young lady in a few months' time, when I could give my opinion about the value of her training. Less sincerely, I added that the voice surely deserved schooling of the first rank. Then, to attenuate anything disagreeable that there may have been in my first words, I philosophized about how it was necessary for a superb voice to find a superb school. This superlative covered everything. But later, when I remained alone, I was amazed at having felt the necessity to be sincere with Carla. Did I love her already? Why, I hadn't even taken a good look at her!

On the stairs, with their dubious odor, Copier spoke again: "Her voice is too strong. It's a voice for the theater."

He didn't know that by now I had learned something different: that voice belonged in a very small s.p.a.ce, where the listener could enjoy the impression of naivete in that singing and could dream of adding art to it, through life and suffering.

Leaving me, Copier said he would let me know when Carla's teacher organized a public concert. This maestro was not yet much known in the city, but he would surely become a great celebrity in the future. Copier was sure of it, even though the maestro was fairly old. It seemed that celebrity would be awarded him now after Copier had come to know him. Two illusions characteristic of the moribund, the maestro's and Copier's.

The curious thing is that I felt it necessary to tell Augusta about this visit. One could think I did so out of prudence, since Copier knew about it and I didn't feel like asking him to keep it quiet. But actually I was only too eager to talk about it. It was a great relief. So far I had had nothing to reproach myself with except my having remained silent with Augusta. Now I was completely innocent.

She asked me a few questions about the girl, and whether she was beautiful. It was hard for me to answer: I said that the poor girl had seemed very anemic to me. Then I had a good idea: "What if you took her in hand a bit?"

Augusta had so much to do in her new house and in her old family, where they called on her to help out in the care of her sick father, that she thought no more about it. My idea had therefore been truly good.

Copier, however, learned from Augusta that I had told her about our visit, and he also therefore forgot the qualities he had attributed to the imaginary sick man. He said to me, in Augusta's presence, that in a short time we would pay another visit to Carla. He trusted me completely.

In my idleness I was promptly seized by a desire to see Carla again. I didn't dare rush to her, fearing Copier would find out. But I was never at a loss for pretexts. I could go to offer her further a.s.sistance, unknown to Copier, but I would first have to be sure that, in her own interest, she would agree to remain silent. And what if that genuine sick man were already the girl's lover? I knew absolutely nothing about the truly sick, and it could easily be their habit to have their mistresses paid for by others. If so, a single visit to Carla would be enough to compromise me. I wouldn't endanger the peace of my family; or, rather, it was in no danger unless my desire for Carla increased.

But it did increase, constantly. I already knew that girl much better than when I had shaken her hand to take my leave of her. I remembered especially that black braid that covered her snowy neck, and how it would have to be pushed aside with the nose if one wanted to succeed in kissing the skin it concealed. To stimulate my desire, I had only to remember that on a certain landing, in my own little city, a beautiful girl was available, and a short walk would be enough for me to go and take her! The battle with sin in some circ.u.mstances becomes very difficult because you have to renew it every day and every hour: as long as the girl remains on that landing, in other words. Carla's long vowels summoned me, and perhaps it was their very sound that had instilled the conviction in my soul that when my resistance had disappeared, there would be no other resistances. However, it was clear to me that I could deceive myself, and perhaps Copier saw things with greater precision. This suspicion also helped reduce my resistance, since poor Augusta could be saved from my possible betrayal by Carla herself, whose mission as a woman was to offer resistance.

Why should my desire have caused me any remorse, when it seemed actually to have arrived just in time to save me from the menacing tedium of those days? In no way did it harm my relations with Augusta: quite the contrary, in fact. I spoke to her now not only with the affectionate words I had always had for her, but also with those that, in my thoughts, were being formed for the other. There had never been such a wealth of tenderness in my house, and Augusta seemed enchanted by it. I was always strict regarding what I called the family schedule. My conscience is so delicate that, with my present behavior, I was already preparing to attenuate my future remorse.

That my resistance was not totally lacking is proved by the fact that I reached Carla not in one outburst, but by degrees. First, for several days I arrived only as far as the Public Garden, and with the sincere intention of delighting in that greenery that seems so pure in the midst of the grayness of the streets and houses that surround it. Then, not having had the good luck to run into her casually, as I had hoped, I left the Garden and walked until I was directly under her windows. I did this with great emotion, which recalled that delightful excitement of a youth approaching love for the first time. For a long while I had been deprived not of love, but of the thrill of rushing to it.

I had barely left the Public Garden when I came upon my mother-in-law, face to face. At first I had a curious suspicion: in the morning, so early, in this neighborhood, so far from ours? Perhaps she was also betraying her sick husband. I immediately learned that I was doing her an injustice, because she had called on the doctor, for consolation after having spent a bad night with Giovanni. The doctor had had good words for her, but she was so distressed that she soon left me, forgetting even to be surprised at having come upon me in that place frequented only by old people, children, and nannies.

But just the sight of her was enough to make me feel the grip of my family again. I turned toward home with a firm step, to which I beat time, murmuring: "Never again! Never again!" At that moment Augusta's mother, with her grief, had given me the sense of all my duties. It was a good lesson, and it lasted the whole day.

Augusta wasn't at home because she had hurried to her father and had stayed with him all morning. At table she told me that they had discussed whether, given Giovanni's condition, they shouldn't postpone Ada's wedding, which had been set for the next week. Giovanni was already better. Apparently at supper he had let himself be induced to overeat, and indigestion had a.s.sumed the appearance of a worsening of his sickness.

I told her I had already had the news from her mother, whom I had encountered that morning in the Public Garden. Augusta, too, was not surprised by my walk, but I felt called upon to furnish an explanation. I told her that for a while now I preferred the Public Garden as the destination of my strolls. I could sit on a bench and read my paper.

Then I added: "That Olivi! He's really fixed me! Condemning me to such inactivity."

Augusta, who on this score felt a bit guilty, had an expression of sadness and regret. I then felt fine. But I was truly quite pure because I spent the whole afternoon in my study and could honesdy believe I was definitively cured of any perverse desire. I was now reading the Apocalypse.

And despite the fact that I had thus established my right to go every morning to the Public Garden, my resistance to temptation had become so great that the next day, when I went out, I headed in exactly the opposite direction. I went to look for some music, wanting to try a new violin method that had been recommended to me. Before going out, I learned that my father-in-law had pa.s.sed an excellent night and would come to us in a cab that afternoon. I was pleased both for my father-in-law and for Guido, who would finally be able to marry. All was going well: I was saved, and so was my father-in-law.

It was that very music that led me back to Carla! Among the methods the shopkeeper offered me was one written not for the violin but for the voice. I carefully read the t.i.tle: Complete Manual of the Art of Singing (school of Garcia) by M. Garcia (junior), comprising a paper on the Human Memory and Physiological Observations on the Human Voice, read at the Academy of Sciences in Paris.

I allowed the clerk to serve other customers, and I began reading the little book. I must say that I read it with an agitation that at first resembled that of a depraved youth approaching p.o.r.nography. Yes! This was the way to reach Carla; she needed that book, and it would be a crime on my part not to acquaint her with it. I bought it and returned home.

Garcia's opus consisted of two parts, one theoretical and the other practical. I continued reading it, determined to understand it well enough to be able to give my own advice to Carla when I eventually went to see her with Copier. Meanwhile I would gain some time and sleep in peace, while still diverting myself with the thought of the adventure in store for me.

But Augusta herself brought things to a head. Coming in to greet me, she interrupted my reading, bent down, and brushed my cheek with her lips. She asked me what I was doing, and, hearing something about a new manual, she thought it was for the violin and didn't trouble to take a second look. When she left me, I exaggerated the risk I had run, and I thought it would be best not to keep that book in my study. I should deliver it immediately to its destiny, and so I was forced to head straight for my adventure. I had found something more than a mere pretext for doing what it was my desire to do.

I no longer had the slightest hesitation. Having reached that landing, I turned at once to the door on my left. But I stopped for a moment at that door to listen to the sounds of the song La mia bandiera,that echoed gloriously in the stairwell. It was as if, for all this time, Carla had continued singing the same thing. I smiled, filled with affection and desire by such childishness. I then cautiously opened the door without knocking, and entered the room on tiptoe. I wanted to see her right away, then and there. In the confined s.p.a.ce her voice was really unpleasant. She sang with great enthusiasm and with greater warmth than on the occasion of my first visit. She had actually flung herself against the back of the chair, to be able to expel all her breath from her lungs. I saw only the delicate head bound by the thick braids, and I retreated, overcome with deep emotion at my own daring. She meanwhile had reached the final note, which she was reluctant to cut off, and I was able to go out on the landing again and shut the door behind me without her noticing. That last note had wavered up and down, before being securely anch.o.r.ed. So Carla was able to hear the correct note, and it was now Garcia's job to take over and teach her how to find it more promptly.

I knocked when I felt calmer. She came immediately to open the door, and I will never forget her slender form, leaning against the jamb, as she fixed me with her great dark eyes until she could recognize me in the darkness.

But meanwhile I had grown calm and could thus be seized again by all my misgivings. I was on the way to betraying Augusta, but I was thinking that if, on the previous days, I had been content to go no farther than the Public Garden, now, all the more easily, I could stop at this door, deliver the compromising book, and leave, completely satisfied. It was a brief moment, full of the best intentions. I even remembered some strange advice once given me to rid myself of the habit of smoking, and it might work also on this occasion: sometimes, to be satisfied, it was enough to light the match, then throw away both match and cigarette.

It would have been easy enough to do this, because Carla herself, when she recognized me, blushed and seemed about to flee, embarra.s.sed-as I later learned-at being found wearing a cheap, threadbare house dress.

Once recognized, I felt called upon to apologize: "I've brought you this book, which I think will interest you. If you like, I can leave it with you and go away at once."

The tone of the words was-or so it seemed to me-rather curt, but not the sense, because all in all I left it up to her to decide whether I should leave, or remain and betray Augusta.

She decided at once, because she grasped my hand, the better to detain me, and she ushered me inside. Emotion clouded my vision, and I believe the cause was not so much the soft contact of that hand, but rather the familiarity that seemed to decide my fate and Augusta's. Therefore I believe I entered with some reluctance, and when I recall the story of my first infidelity, I have the feeling that I committed it because I was dragged into it.

Carla's face was truly beautiful, flushed as it was. I was delightfully surprised to realize that while she hadn't been expecting me, she had still been hoping for me to visit. She said, with great satisfaction: "So you felt the need to see me again? To see the poor little girl who owes you so much?"

Surely, had I wanted to, I could have taken her into my arms immediately, but the thought never crossed my mind. The thought was so far from me that I didn't even answer her words, which seemed compromising to me, and I began again to talk about Garcia and the necessity of that book for her. I spoke of it with a haste that led me to utter some ill-considered words. Garcia would teach her how to make the notes as firm as metal and as sweet as air. He would explain to her how a note can represent only a straight line-indeed, a plane, a truly polished plane.

My fervor vanished only when she interrupted me to express a painful suspicion: "Then you don't like the way I sing?"

I was dumbfounded by her question. I had uttered a harsh criticism, but I wasn't aware of it, and I protested in all sincerity. I protested so well that I seemed, while speaking only of singing, to return to the love that had so imperiously drawn me into that house.

And my words were so loving that they still allowed a measure of sincerity to shine through: "How can you believe such a thing? Would I be here if that were so? I stood on that landing for a long time, enjoying your singing, delicious and sublime in its innocence. Only I believe that, to reach perfection, something further is needed, and I have come to bring it to you."

Such was the power that the thought of Augusta had over my spirit that it made me go on protesting that I had not been swept here by my desire!

Carla listened to my flattering words, which she was quite incapable of a.n.a.lyzing. She was not very cultivated, but, to my great surprise, I realized she was not lacking in common sense. She told me that she herself had grave doubts about her talent and her voice: she felt she was not making any progress. Often, after a certain number of hours of study, she allowed herself the pleasure and the reward of singing La mia bandiera, hoping to discover some new quality in her voice. But it was always the same: no worse, and perhaps always fairly good, as those who heard her insisted, as I had, too (and here her lovely dark eyes addressed me a humble question, revealing how she needed to be rea.s.sured as to the meaning of my words, which still seemed ambiguous to her), but there was no real progress. The maestro said that in art progress was never slow, but rather came in great leaps that brought you to the goal, and thus one fine day she would wake up, a great artist.

"It's a long business, all the same," she added, looking into s.p.a.ce and perhaps seeing again all her hours of boredom and pain.

Honesty is considered first of all that which is sincere, and it would have been very honest on my part to advise that poor girl to give up studying voice and become my mistress. But I had not yet ventured that far beyond the Public Garden, and moreover, all else aside, I was not very confident of my judgment in the realm of singing. For some moments now I had been worried about only one person, that tiresome Copier, who spent every Sunday at my villa with my wife and me. This would have been the moment to find some pretext for asking the girl not to tell Copier about my visit. But I refrained, not knowing how to disguise my request, and it was just as well, because a few days later my poor friend took a turn for the worse and died almost immediately.

Meanwhile, I told her that in Garcia she would find everything she was looking for, and for a single instant, and only for an instant, she eagerly expected miracles from that book. Soon, however, confronted by all those words, she doubted the effectiveness of its magic. I read the theories of Garcia in Italian, then in Italian I explained them to her, and when that wasn't enough, I translated them into Triestine, but she felt nothing happen in her throat, and she could have found that book's true efficacy only if it had then become manifest. The trouble is that I, too, soon became convinced that the book, in my hands, was of little value. Going over those sentences fully three times and not knowing what to make of them, I avenged my incapacity by criticizing them freely. Here was this Garcia, wasting his time and mine, to prove that inasmuch as the human voice could produce various sounds, it was wrong to consider it a single instrument. Then the violin, too, should be considered a conglomerate of instruments. I was perhaps mistaken to communicate this criticism of mine to Caria, but in the presence of a woman you want to win, it is hard not to exploit an opportunity, when you have one, to exhibit your own superiority. She, in fact, admired me; actually physically, she thrust away from herself the book that had been our Galeotto, though it did not lead us as far as sin. I still couldn't resign myself to renouncing that, so I postponed it until my next visit. When Copier died, there was no longer any need. Any link between that house and mine was broken, and so any further action would be restrained only by my conscience.

But meanwhile we had become rather intimate, in an intimacy greater than might have been expected in that half hour of conversation. I believe that agreement on a critical opinion forges an intimate bond. Poor Carla took advantage of this intimacy to confide her troubles to me. After Copier's intervention they had lived simply in that house, but without great privations. The heaviest burden for the two poor women was the thought of the future, for Copier brought them his a.s.sistance at very specific intervals, but he didn't allow them to rely on it with certainty; he didn't want worries, and he preferred the women to have them. And, further, he didn't give that money for nothing: he was the real master in that house, and he had to be informed of every slightest thing. Woe to them if they allowed themselves some expenditure without his approval in advance! Carla's mother, a short time before, had been indisposed, and Carla, the better to take care of the household tasks, had neglected her singing for a few days. Informed by the maestro, Copier made a scene and went off, declaring it was not worth their while importuning gentlemen to lend them a.s.sistance. For several days they lived in terror, afraid they had been abandoned to their fate. Then, when he returned, he renewed agreements and conditions and established exactly how many hours every day Carla was to sit at the piano and how many she could devote to the house. He also threatened to pay them a surprise visit at any hour of the day.

"To be sure," the girl concluded, "he only wants what is best for us, but he becomes so angry over trivial things that one of these times, in his fury, he'll finally turn us out on the street. But now that you have also taken an interest in us, this danger doesn't exist anymore, does it?"

And again she pressed my hand. As I didn't answer immediately, she was afraid I felt some solidarity with Copier, and she added: "Signor Copier says how good you are, too!"

These words were meant as a compliment to me, but also to Copier.

His personality, so disagreeable in Carla's portrayal, was new to me, and it prompted my appreciation. I would have liked to resemble him, whereas the desire that had drawn me into this house made me so unlike him! It was quite true that the money he brought the two women came from other people, but he contributed all his own efforts, a part of his own life. That anger, which he devoted to them, was truly paternal. But I had a suspicion: What if those efforts had been inspired by desire? Without hesitation, I asked Carla: "Has Copier ever asked you for a kiss?"

"Never!" Carla replied with spirit. "When he is satisfied with my behavior, he expresses his approval gruffly, presses my hand for an instant, then leaves. Other times, when he's angry, he refuses even to shake my hand and doesn't even notice how I'm crying, in my fear. A kiss, at such a moment, would be a liberation for me."

Seeing me laugh, Carla made herself clearer: "I would gladly accept a kiss from a man that old, to whom I owe so much!"

There's an advantage of the truly sick: they look older than they are.

I made a weak attempt to look like Copler. Smiling so as not to frighten the poor young woman too much, I told her that I, too, when I took an interest in someone, ended up by becoming very imperious. Generally speaking, I too believed that when you study an art you must study it seriously. Then I became so caught up in my role that I even stopped smiling.

Copier was right to be stern with a young person who couldn't understand the value of time: she should also remember how many people were making sacrifices to help her. I was truly serious and stern.

And so the time came for me to go to lunch and, especially on that day, I didn't want to keep Augusta waiting. I held out my hand to Carla and then I noticed how pale she was. I wanted to console her: "You can rest a.s.sured that I will always do my best to plead your cause with Copier and with everyone else."

She thanked me, but she still seemed downcast. Later I learned that, seeing me arrive, she had immediately guessed something close to the truth and had thought I was in love with her and she was therefore saved. But then -just as I was preparing to leave-she thought I was in love only with art and singing, and so, if she didn't sing well and didn't improve, I would abandon her.

She seemed very downcast indeed. I was overcome with compa.s.sion, and since there was no time to waste, I rea.s.sured her in the way she herself had described as the most effective. I was already at the door when I drew her to me, carefully shifted with my nose the thick braid from her neck, which I then reached with my lips and even grazed with my teeth. It looked like a joke, and in the end she laughed, too; but only when I left her. Until that moment she had remained inert and dazed in my arms.

She followed me onto the landing, and as I started down the stairs, she asked me, laughing: "When will you come back?"

"Tomorrow, or perhaps later!" I replied, already unsure. Then, with greater decision, I said: "Definitely, I'll come tomorrow." But, not desiring to compromise myself too far, I added: "We'll continue our reading of Garcia."

She didn't change expression in that brief moment: she nodded a.s.sent to the first, hesitant promise, a.s.sented gratefully to the second, and a.s.sented also to my third proposal, smiling the whole time. Women always know what they want. There was no hesitation on the part of Ada, who rejected me, or of Augusta, who accepted me, or of Carla, who let me have my way.

On the street, I found myself immediately closer to Augusta than to Carla. I breathed the fresh, open air and I was filled with the sensation of my freedom. I had done nothing that went beyond a joke, and so it would remain, because it had ended on that neck and beneath that braid. Finally Carla had accepted that kiss as a promise of affection and, especially, of a.s.sistance.

That day at table, however, I began really to suffer. Between me and Augusta lay my adventure, like a great, grim shadow, which to me seemed impossible for her not to see. I felt small, guilty, and sick, and I felt the pain in my side as a sympathetic pain reverberating from the great wound in my conscience. As I absently pretended to eat, I sought solace in an iron resolution: "I will never see her again," I thought, "and if, out of concern, I have to see her, it will be the last time." After all, not much was demanded of me: just one effort, not to see Carla ever again.

Augusta, laughing, asked me: "You look so worried. Have you been to see Olivi?"

I laughed, too. It was a great relief, being able to talk. The words were not such as to confer total peace, for to say such words I would have had to confess and then promise; but since I could not do that, it was a great relief even to say something else. I spoke copiously, full of goodness and cheer. Then I found something even better: I talked about the little laundry that she so desired and that I had refused her until then, and I promptly gave her permission to build it. She was so moved by my unsolicited permission that she got up and came to give me a kiss. It was a kiss that obviously erased that other one; and I promptly felt better.

So it was that we acquired the laundry, and even today, when I pa.s.s the little building, I remember how Augusta wanted it and Carla made it possible.

An enchanting afternoon ensued, filled with our affection. In solitude, my conscience was far more irritating. Augusta's words and affection came and soothed it. We went out together. Then I accompanied her to her mother's and I also spent the whole evening with her.

Before going to sleep, as often happened with me, I looked for a long while at my wife, already sleeping, concentrated in her light respiration. Even asleep, she was in perfect order, the covers drawn to her chin, and her less-than-abundant hair collected in a short braid knotted at her nape. I thought: I don't want to cause her pain. Never! I fell asleep serenely. The next day I would clarify my relations with Carla and I would find the way to rea.s.sure the poor girl about her future, without being obliged to give her kisses in consequence.

I had an eerie dream. Not only was I kissing Carla's neck: I was also eating it. But the neck was made in such a way that the wounds I inflicted on it with angry l.u.s.t did not bleed, and with its slightly curved shape, the neck still remained covered by white, intact skin. Carla, sinking in my arms, seemed not to suffer from my bites. The one who suffered, on the contrary, was Augusta, who suddenly arrived running. To rea.s.sure her, I said: "I won't eat it all; I'll leave a piece for you, too."

The dream seemed a nightmare only later, when I woke up and my befuddled mind could remember it-but not before then, because while it lasted, not even Augusta's presence had taken away the sense of satisfaction it brought me.

Once awake, I was fully aware of the force of my desire and of the danger it represented for Augusta and also for me. Perhaps in the womb of the woman sleeping at my side, another life, for which I would be responsible, was beginning. Who knows what Carla would want if she 'were my mistress? To me she seemed desirous of that pleasure that so far had been denied her, and how would I be able to provide for two families? Augusta wanted the useful laundry, the other woman would want something different but no less costly. I saw Carla again as she waved to me from the landing, laughing, after having been kissed. She already knew I would be her prey. I was frightened and now, alone and in the darkness, I couldn't suppress a moan.

My wife, immediately awake, asked me what was wrong and I answered with brief words, saying the first thing that came into my mind when I could recover from my fright, finding myself questioned at a moment when I felt I had shouted a confession.

"I'm thinking of my approaching old age!"

She laughed and tried to console me without, at the same time, truncating the sleep to which she was clinging. She addressed me with the same words she always repeated when she saw me frightened by the pa.s.sage of time: "Don't think about it, not now, while we are young... Sleep is so good!"

The exhortation helped: I gave it no more thought, and I fell asleep again. A word in the night is like a shaft of sunshine. It illuminates a stretch of reality and, confronted by it, the constructions of the imagination fade. Why did I have so much to fear from poor Carla, when I was not yet her lover? It was obvious I had done everything to frighten myself with my own situation. Finally, the bebe that I had evoked in Augusta's womb had so far given no sign of life beyond the construction of the laundry.

I got up, still accompanied by the best intentions. I rushed to my study and prepared an envelope containing a bit of money I wanted to give Carla at the very moment when I announced I was abandoning her. However, I would declare myself ready to send her more money by mail at any time she asked for it, writing to me at an address I would give her. Just as I was about to go out, Augusta, with a sweet smile, invited me to accompany her to her father's house. Guido's father had arrived from Buenos Aires to be present at the wedding, and we should go and make his acquaintance. She surely was less concerned about Guido's father than about me. She wanted to renew the sweetness of the previous day. But it was no longer the same thing: to me it seemed wrong to allow time to pa.s.s between my good resolve and its execution. Meanwhile, as we were walking along the street side by side and, to all appearances, secure in our affection, the other woman considered herself already the object of my love. That was wrong. I felt this walk as an actual constraint.

We found Giovanni really better. Only he couldn't put on his boots because of a certain swelling of the feet; he attached no importance to it, so neither did I. He was in the living room with Guido's father, to whom he introduced me. Augusta promptly left us to go to her mother and sister.

Signor Francesco Speier seemed to me a much less educated man than his son. He was small, crude, about sixty, with few ideas and little vitality, perhaps also because, as a consequence of an illness, his hearing was severely impaired. He dropped an occasional Spanish word into his speech.

"Cada vez I come to Trieste ..."

The two old men were talking about business, and Giovanni listened carefully because this business was very important to Ada's future. I listened absently. I heard that old Speier had decided to wind up his business in Argentina and to give Guido all his duros, to use in setting up a firm in Trieste; then Francesco would return to Buenos Aires, to live with his wife and daughter on a little farm he had inherited. I didn't understand why, in my presence, he was telling Giovanni all this, and I don't know why even today.

At a certain point it seemed to me both men stopped talking, looking at me as if they expected some advice; and, to be polite, I remarked, "The farm can't be all that small, if it brings in a living."

Giovanni immediately shouted: "What are you talking about?"

The explosion of his voice recalled his better days, but surely if he hadn't shouted so, Signor Francesco wouldn't have noticed my remark. But instead he paled and said: "I hope Guido will not fail to pay me the interest on my capital."

Giovanni, shouting again, tried to ressure him: "I should say so! Double the interest if you need it. Isn't he your son?"

Signor Francesco still didn't seem quite rea.s.sured, and he was expecting from me some word of rea.s.surance. I provided it at once, and more, because now the old man could hear less.

Then the discussion between the two businessmen continued, but I was careful to take no further part in it. Giovanni looked at me from time to time over his eyegla.s.ses, to observe me, and his heavy respiration seemed a threat. He spoke at last, and asked me at a certain point: "Don't you agree?"

I nodded eagerly.

My agreement must have seemed all the more eager, for my every action was now made more expressive by the anger mounting within me. What was I doing in this place, allowing the pa.s.sage of time that was needed for carrying out my good resolution? I was obliged to neglect a task so valuable for me and for Augusta! I was preparing an excuse to leave, but at that moment the living room was invaded by the women, and by Guido accompanying them. Shortly after his father's arrival, he had given his bride a magnificent ring. n.o.body looked at me or greeted me, not even little Anna. Ada already wore the splendid jewel on her finger, and resting her arm on her fiance's shoulder, she showed the ring to her father. The women also looked at it, ecstatic.

Rings also held no interest for me. Why, I didn't even wear my own wedding band, because it impeded the circulation of the blood! Without saying good-bye, I left the living room, went to the front door, and was about to go off. But Augusta noticed my flight and overtook me in time. I was amazed by her distraught look. Her lips were as pale as they had been on the day of our wedding, just before we entered the church.

I told her I had some pressing business. Then, recalling in time that a few days before, on a whim, I had bought some very weak gla.s.ses, for the nearsighted, and I had not yet tried them out, having slipped them into my vest pocket, where I could now feel them, I told her I had an appointment with an oculist to have my eyes examined, since for some while my sight had seemed weaker to me. She answered that I could go at once, but she begged me first to bid a proper good-bye to Guide's father. I shrugged with impatience, but still I did as she wished.

I went back into the living room and everyone politely said good-bye to me. As for myself, sure that now they would send me off, I even had a moment of good humor. Guido's father, somewhat bewildered by all this family, asked me: "Will we meet again before I leave for Buenos Aires?"

"Oh!" I said, "cada vez that you come to this house, you will probably find me here!"

They all laughed and I went off triumphantly, with a fairly happy good-bye also from Augusta. I left in such good order, after having performed all the required formalities, that I could proceed with confidence. But there was another reason why I was freed of the doubts that until then had held me back: I was running away from my father-in-law's house to be somewhere as far from it as possible, namely Carla's house. In the Malfenti household, and not for the first time, they suspected me of ign.o.bly conspiring against Guido's interests. Innocently, quite absently, I had spoken of that farm in Argentina, and Giovanni had immediately interpreted my words as if they had been deliberately intended to cause Guido trouble with his father. It would have been easy for me to explain myself to Guido if necessary; for Giovanni and the others, who believed me capable of such machinations, vengeance was sufficient explanation. Not that I had decided to hurry to be unfaithful to Augusta. But, in full daylight, I was doing what I desired. A visit to Carla still implied nothing wrong. On the contrary. If I were once again to encounter my mother-in-law in that neighborhood, and if she were to ask me what I was doing there, I would immediately reply: "Why, naturally, I'm going to Carla's." So that was the only time I went to Carla without a thought of Augusta. My father-in-law's att.i.tude had so offended me!

On the landing I didn't hear the sound of Carla's voice. I had a moment of terror: What if she had gone out? I knocked and entered immediately, before anyone had invited me. Carla was there, but so was her mother. They were sewing together, in a pairing that could have been habitual, though I had never seen it before. Each quite separate from the other, they were working on the same large sheet, hemming it. Thus I had rushed to find Carla, and had found her with her mother. That was quite a different thing. Neither good resolutions nor bad could be carried out. Everything remained suspended.

Flushing deeply, Carla stood up as the old woman slowly removed her eyegla.s.ses and put them in a case. I then thought I was ent.i.tled to be indignant for a reason other than that of seeing myself prevented from clarifying my feelings promptly. Weren't these the hours that Copier had a.s.signed to study? I greeted the old woman politely, but even this act of politeness was hard for me to bear. I greeted Carla, too, almost without looking at her.