Zeno's Conscience Part 15

Blushing, I asked him: "Why two?

He replied: "The other one's yours."

I felt such grat.i.tude that I could have hugged him.

When we had left the shop, Guido, a bit awkwardly, explained that he couldn't as yet offer me a position in his firm. He was leaving that s.p.a.ce for me in his office, only to induce me to come and keep him company whenever I liked. He didn't want to commit me to anything and he too would remain free. If his business went well, he would give me a position in the management of the firm.

As Guido talked about his business, his dark, handsome face turned serious. It seemed he had already thought of all the procedures he wanted to adopt. He stared into the distance, above my head, and I had such faith in the seriousness of his meditations that I also turned to look at what he was seeing, namely those procedures that were to make his fortune. He didn't want to take the path our father-in-law had already followed so successfully, or the less adventurous and more secure route trod by Olivi. For him they were all old-fashioned merchants. He would strike out in a new direction and he was glad to have me with him because he considered me not yet ruined by the old men.

All this rang true to me. I was being offered my first commercial success, and I blushed with pleasure a second time. So it happened that, out of grat.i.tude for the esteem he had shown me, I worked with him and for him, at times intensely, at other times less so, for a good two years, with no compensation beyond the glory of that position in the director's office. At that point it was surely the longest time I had ever devoted to one occupation. But I can't boast about it, because that work bore no fruit for me or for Guido, and in business-as everyone knows-you judge only by results.

I remained confident that I was on my way to a great business success for about three months, the time necessary to establish that firm. I knew it would be up to me not only to handle certain details such as correspondence and accounts, but also to keep an eye on our transactions. Guido still exerted such a great influence over me that he could also have ruined me, and only my good luck prevented him. At a sign from him I would come running. This provokes my amazement even now as I write, after I have had time to think about it for such a long part of my life.

And I write of those two years also because my attachment to him seems to me a clear manifestation of my sickness. Why should I attach myself to him to learn about big business, then immediately afterwards remain attached to him to teach him about small business? Why should I feel good in that position simply because I believed my great friendship for Guido signified a great indifference toward Ada? Who was demanding all this of me? Wasn't our reciprocal indifference sufficiently proved by all those tykes we kept bringing into the world? I had nothing against Guido, but he was surely not the friend I would have chosen freely. I saw his faults constantly and so clearly that his thinking often irked me, when some weakness of his didn't seem touching to me. For a long time I offered him the sacrifice of my freedom, and I allowed him to drag me into the most hateful situations only to a.s.sist him! A genuine, outright evidence of sickness or of great goodness, two qualities that are very closely related.

This remains true even though in the course of time a great affection grew up between us, as is always the case among decent people who see each other every day. And my affection was really great! After he left us, for a long time I felt how much I missed him, and indeed my whole life seemed empty, since such a large part of it had been taken over by him and his business.

I have to laugh, recalling how, immediately, in our very first venture, the purchase of the furniture, we mistook one of the conditions in a certain way. We had acquired the furniture and couldn't yet make up our minds to set up the office. On the choice of office, between me and Guido there was a difference of opinion which delayed us. From my father-in-law and from Olivi I had always observed that in order to keep your eye on the warehouse, your office should adjoin it.

Guido protested with a grimace of disgust: "Those Trieste offices that stink of salt cod or tanned hides!" He guaranteed that he could arrange surveillance also from a distance, but still he hesitated. One fine day the furniture dealer ordered us to collect our purchases, otherwise he would throw them into the street, whereupon Guido rushed to decide on an office, the last one offered us, without any storage s.p.a.ce in the vicinity, but right in the center of the city. And so we never thereafter had a storeroom.

The office consisted of two vast rooms full of light, and one little room without windows. To the door of this room was fastened a board with the word accounts in clear lettering. One of the other two doors also had a sign: cash, while the third was adorned with the very English designation: private. Guido had also studied business in England, and had come home with some useful ideas. The cash room was equipped, properly, with a magnificent iron safe and the traditional cage. Our private room became a luxurious chamber, splendidly papered in a dark, velvety color and furnished with the two desks, a sofa, and several very comfortable easy chairs.

Then came the purchase of the books and the various utensils. Here my director's role was beyond debate. I ordered the things and they arrived. Actually I would have preferred not to be obeyed with such alacrity, but it was my responsibility to list all the things required in an office. Then I thought I had discovered the great difference between me and Guido. Whatever I knew enabled me to speak and him to act. When he came to know what I knew, and no more than that, he did the buying. It's true that in business sometimes he was quite determined to do nothing, neither buy nor sell, but this also seemed to me the resolve of a man who believes he knows a great deal. I would have been less decisive, even in my inertia.

In making these purchases I was very prudent. I rushed to Olivi to take the measurements of the correspondence register and the account books. Then young Olivi helped me set up the books and also once explained to me double-entry bookkeeping, none of it difficult, but it was very easily forgotten. When it came time to balance the books, he would explain that to me as well.

We didn't yet know what we would do in that office (I know now that Guido, at that time, didn't know either), and we were debating every aspect of our organization. I remember that for days we discussed where we would put the other employees if we were to need them. Guido suggested fitting as many as possible into the cash room. But young Luciano, our only employee for the time being, declared that if the cash box was kept in a room, n.o.body should be put there except those having actually to handle the cash. It was quite hard, having to accept lessons from our runner! I had a moment of inspiration: "I seem to recall that in England everyone is paid by check."

This was something I had been told in Trieste.

"Fine!" Guido said. "I remember that too, now. Strange, I had forgotten it!"

He started explaining to Luciano at great length how it was no longer the practice to handle so much cash. Checks pa.s.sed from one to another in any amount you wanted. Ours was a splendid victory, and Luciano remained silent.

He benefited greatly from what he learned from Guido. Our runner is now a highly respected Trieste merchant. He greets me still with some humility, tempered by a smile. Guido always spent a part of the day teaching first Luciano, then me, and in due course the secretary. I remember that for a long time he had toyed with the idea of doing business on commission so as not to risk his own money. He explained the essence of this kind of business to me, and, seeing that I obviously understood it too quickly, he began explaining it to Luciano, who stood and listened to him at length with an expression of the liveliest interest, his big eyes shining in his still beardless face. It cannot be said that Guido wasted his time, because Luciano is the only one of us who has succeeded in that branch of commerce. And yet they say that knowledge is what wins!

Meanwhile from Buenos Aires came the pesos. This was serious! At first it seemed an easy matter to me, but on the contrary the Trieste market was not ready for that exotic valuta. Again we had to call on young Olivi, who taught us how to cash those checks. Then, at a certain point, when we seemed to be on our own, as Olivi had steered us safely into port, for several days Guido went around with his pockets stuffed with crowns, until we found our way to the bank, which relieved us of the uncomfortable burden, handing us a checkbook, which we quickly learned how to use.

Guido felt called upon to say to Olivi, who had helped him with what might be called the installation: "I a.s.sure you I will never compete with the firm of my friend!"

But the young man, who had a different concept of business, replied: "If only there were a larger number of contractors handling our articles! It would be better!"

Guido was agape, he had understood all too well, as he always tended to, and he clung to that theory, dishing it out to anyone who would have it.

For all his Higher School education, Guido had a rather hazy notion of credit and debit. He watched me with surprise as I set up the capital account, and also as I posted our expenditures. Then he was such an expert in bookkeeping that when a deal was offered him, he a.n.a.lyzed it first of all from the bookkeeping point of view. It actually seemed to him that a knowledge of accounting gave the world a new appearance. He saw debtors and creditors being born everywhere, even when two people were trading blows or when they kissed.

You could say that he went into business armed with the maximum prudence. He rejected a number of transactions, and indeed for six months he rejected them all, with the serene att.i.tude of a man who knows more than he's letting on.

"No!" he would say, and the monosyllable seemed the result of precise calculation even when it concerned an article he had never seen. But all his reflection had been lavished on picturing how the deal and its eventual gain or loss would look in the accounts. Bookkeeping was the last thing he had learned, and it came to dominate all his ideas.

I am sorry to have to speak so ill of my lamented friend, but I must be truthful, also to understand myself better. I remember how much intelligence he employed to clutter our little office with daydreams that prevented us from pursuing any healthy activity. At a given point, to initiate the commission business, we sent out a thousand circulars in the mail. Guido expressed this thought: "Think of all the stamps we would save if, before mailing out these circulars, we knew how many of them would reach people who would take them into consideration!"

The sentence in itself meant little, but he was too pleased with it and he began to fling the sealed circulars into the air, thinking to mail only the ones that landed with the address facing up. The experiment recalled something similar I had done in the past, but still it seemed to me I had never carried it this far. Naturally I didn't collect or send out the circulars he eliminated, because I couldn't be sure his idea hadn't been a really genuine inspiration, guiding him in that selection, and I shouldn't waste stamps he had to pay for.

My good fortune kept me from being ruined by Guido, but the same good fortune also prevented me from playing too active a role in his affairs. I say this openly because others in Trieste think it was a different story: during the time I spent with him, I never acted on any sudden inspiration, of the sort connected with the dried fruit. Never did I force him into a transaction, nor did I ever talk him out of one. I was the admonisher! I urged him to be active, to be canny. But I would never have dared throw his money on the green table.

At his side I turned quite inert. I tried to set him on the straight and narrow path, and perhaps I failed out of excess inertia. For the rest, when two people are together, it is not up to them to decide which must be Don Quixote and which Sancho Panza. He conducted the transaction and I, like a good Sancho, followed him very slowly in my ledgers, after having examined and criticized it, as I saw my duty.

The commission business was a complete fiasco, but it did us no harm. The only person who sent us some merchandise was a paper manufacturer in Vienna, and a part of those items of stationery were sold by Luciano, who gradually came to learn how much commission was due us and then made Guido turn almost all of it over to him. Guido finally agreed because those sums were trifling, and because the first venture, thus concluded, should bring us luck. This first venture left us with a quant.i.ty of stationery in the little storeroom, which we had to pay for and keep. There would have been enough to fill, for many years, the office needs of a firm much more thriving than ours.

For a couple of months this sunny office in the center of the city was a pleasant refuge for us. Very little work was done there (I believe we concluded two deals in all, involving empty packing cases for which the supply and the demand coincided on the same day, bringing us a slight profit) and we chattered a lot, amiably, also with that innocent Luciano, who, when we spoke of business, grew agitated, as do other boys his age when the talk is of women.

At that time it was easy for me to amuse myself innocently with the innocents, because I hadn't yet lost Carla. And from that period I remember entire days with pleasure. In the evening, at home, I had many things to tell Augusta, and I could tell her all the events of the office, without exception, and without having to add anything to falsify them.

I wasn't the least worried when Augusta occasionally cried out with concern: "But when are the two of you going to start earning some money?"

Money? We hadn't even thought of that yet. We knew that first you had to take time, look around, study the merchandise, the market, and also our hinterland. A business firm wasn't something you could just improvise. And even Augusta was rea.s.sured by my explanations.

Then a very noisy guest was introduced into our office: a hunting dog, a few months old, frisky and curious. Guido loved him very much and organized a regular provision of milk and meat for him. When I had nothing to do or to think about, I also was pleased to see him bounding about the office in those four or five canine att.i.tudes that we can interpret and which endear a dog to us. But I didn't feel he was in the right place, with us, noisy and dirty as he was! For me that dog's presence in our office was the first sign Guido gave of being unfit to run a business. It proved a complete lack of seriousness. I tried to explain to him that the dog couldn't benefit our business, but I didn't have the courage to insist, and with some sort of answer he silenced me.

Therefore it seemed to me that I had to devote myself to the training of this colleague, and I took great pleasure in giving him an occasional kick when Guido wasn't in. The dog whimpered and at first would come back to me, believing I had struck him by mistake. But a second kick always made things clearer than the first, and then he would hide in a corner, and until Guido arrived in the office there was peace. I later repented having raged against an innocent creature, but it was too late. I showered kindness on the dog, but he no longer trusted me, and in Guido's presence he clearly indicated his dislike.

"How strange!" Guido said. "A good thing I know you, because otherwise I wouldn't trust you. Dogs as a rule never get their dislikes wrong."

To dissipate Guido's suspicions, I was almost prepared to tell him how I had managed to win the dog's dislike.

I soon had a skirmish with Guido over a question that really shouldn't have mattered that much to me. Having grown so pa.s.sionately concerned with accounting, he took it into his bead to enter his household expenses under our general expenses. After consulting Olivi, I opposed this plan and defended the interests of old Cada Vez. It was, in fact, impossible to enter under that heading everything that Guido spent, and also Ada, and later the expenses of the twins, when they were born. These were expenses chargeable to Guido personally and not to the firm. To compensate for this, I then suggested writing to Buenos Aires, to fix a salary for Guido. His father refused to grant one, pointing out that Guido already enjoyed seventy-five percent of the profits, whereas his father received only what was left. This reply seemed fair to me, but Guido started writing long letters to his father to argue the question from a higher point of view, as he put it. Buenos Aires was very far away, and so the correspondence lasted as long as our firm lasted. But I won my point! The general expenses account remained pure and was not infected by Guido's personal expenditures, and so the entire capital was polluted by the failure of the firm, all of it, without deductions.

The fifth person admitted to our office (counting Argo as a person) was Carmen. I witnessed her hiring. I came to the office after having been at Carla's and I was feeling very serene, that 8:00 a.m. serenity of Prince Taillerand.* In the dim corridor I saw a young lady, and Luciano told me she wanted to speak with Guido in person. I had something to do and I asked her to wait outside there. Guido came into our room a little later, obviously not having seen the young lady, and Luciano entered and gave me the calling card she had supplied.

Guido read it, then said "No!" sharply, taking off his jacket because of the heat. But a moment later he had second thoughts. "I must speak with her, out of respect for the person who has recommended her."

He had her shown in, and I looked at her only when I saw that Guido, with one leap, had flung himself at his jacket, put it on, and was addressing the girl with the beautiful, dark, blushing face and the sparkling eyes.

Now, I am sure I have seen girls just as beautiful as Carmen, but not with a beauty so aggressive-so apparent at first glance, I mean. As a rule women create themselves first according to their own desire, whereas this girl had no need of a similar preliminary phase. Looking at her, I smiled and I also laughed. She was like an industrialist running about the world a.s.serting the excellence of his products. She had come to apply for a job, but I would have liked to interrupt the interview, to ask, "What sort of job? In a boudoir?"

I saw that her face was not made up, but its colors were so precise, so cerulean was its purity and so like that of ripe fruit its ruddiness, that artifice was simulated to perfection. Her great dark eyes refracted such a quant.i.ty of light that their every movement a.s.sumed great importance.

Guido had asked her to take a seat, and she was modesdy looking at the tip of her umbrella or, more probably, at her little patent-leather boots. When he spoke to her, she quickly raised her eyes and turned them on his face; they were so radiant that my poor employer was absolutely bowled over. She was dressed modestly, but that was of no help to her because all modesty, on her body, was annihilated. Only the little boots were a luxury, and recalled a bit the very white paper that Velazquez set under the feet of his models. Velazquez, too, to set Carmen apart from her surroundings, would have placed her on black enamel.

In my serenity I began listening with curiosity. Guido asked her if she knew shorthand. She confessed she hadn't the slightest knowledge of it, adding, however, that she had considerable experience in taking dictation. Strange! That tall, slender, and so harmonious figure emitted a hoa.r.s.e voice. I couldn't conceal my surprise.

"Do you have a cold?" I asked her.

"No!" she answered. "Why do you ask?" And she was so surprised that the glance with which she enveloped me was all the more intense. She was unaware that she had such a jarring voice, and I had to suppose that her little ear, too, was less perfect than it looked.

Guido asked her if she knew English, French, or German. He left the choice to her, as we didn't yet know which language we would need. Carmen replied that she knew a little German, very little, however.

Guido never came to a decision without reasoning. "We don't need German, because I speak it very well myself."

The young lady was awaiting the deciding word, which, it seemed to me, had already been spoken; but to hasten it, she said that in seeking a new job she also sought a chance to learn, and therefore she would be satisfied with very modest wages.

One of the first effects of female beauty on a man is to strip him of avarice. Guido shrugged, to signify that he didn't concern himself with such trifles; he named a salary, which she gratefully accepted, and he urged her very seriously to study shorthand. He made this recommendation only for my benefit, as he had previously compromised himself with me, declaring that the first employee he hired would be a perfect stenographer.

That same evening I told my wife about my new colleague. She was terribly upset. Though I said nothing, she immediately imagined Guido had hired this girl intending to make her his mistress. While admitting that Guido had behaved rather like a suitor, I argued with her and insisted he would recover from this infatuation, which would have no consequences. The girl, all in all, seemed respectable.

A few days later-whether by chance or not, I don't know-we received a visit at the office from Ada. Guido hadn't come in yet, so she tarried with me for a moment, to ask me when he would arrive. Then, hesitantly, she stepped into the next room, where, at that moment, Carmen and Luciano were alone. Carmen was practicing at the typewriter, completely absorbed in picking out the individual letters. She raised her lovely eyes to look at Ada, who was staring at her. How different the two women were! They resembled each other slightly, but Carmen seemed an intensified Ada. I thought that truly the latter, though dressed more richly, was made to be a wife or mother, while the other, though at that moment she wore a modest smock to avoid soiling her dress at the machine, was cast as mistress. I don't know if, in this world, there are learned men who could tell why Ada's beautiful eye collected less light than Carmen's and so was genuinely an organ for looking at things and people and not for dazzling them. Therefore Carmen easily tolerated its scornful but curious glance: did it contain also a touch of envy, or am I adding that myself?

This was the last time I saw Ada still beautiful, just as she had been when she rejected me. Her disastrous pregnancy followed, with the twins, who required a surgeon's intervention to come into the world. Immediately afterwards she was stricken by the disease that robbed her of all her beauty. This is why I remember that visit so well. I remember it also because at that moment all my compa.s.sion went out to her and to her meek and modest beauty, defeated by the very different beauty of the other woman. I certainly didn't love Carmen and I knew nothing of her beyond the magnificent eyes, the splendid coloring, the hoa.r.s.e voice, and finally the circ.u.mstances-of which she was innocent-surrounding her employment here. I was truly fond of Ada at that moment, and it is a very strange thing to feel fondness for a woman one once ardently desired, did not possess, and who now matters not at all. All things considered, in this fashion you arrive at the same state you would be in if she had succ.u.mbed to your desires, and it is surprising to realize once again how certain things for which we live have really scant importance.

I wanted to curtail her pain, and I led her into the other room. Guido, entering a moment later, turned deep red at the sight of his wife. Ada gave him a highly plausible reason for her being there, but immediately afterwards, as she was leaving, she asked: "You've hired a new secretary for the office?"

"Yes!" Guido said, and to conceal his confusion he could lind nothing better than to change the subject, asking if anybody had come looking for him. Then, after my negative answer, he made another grimace of displeasure, as if he had hoped for an important visit, whereas I knew that we were expecting no one at all, and only then did he say to Ada, with an indifferent expression, which he finally managed to a.s.sume: "We needed a stenographer!"

I was highly amused to hear that in his confusion, he used the masculine noun.

The arrival of Carmen brought much life into our office. I'm not speaking of the vivacity that came from her eyes, from her charming form, and from the color in her face; I am actually speaking of business. In the presence of that young woman, Guido felt impelled to work. First of all, he wanted to prove to me and to everyone else that the new employee was necessary, and every day he invented new tasks in which he also took part. Further, for a long time, his activity was a means of courting the girl more efficiently. He achieved an unheard-of efficiency. He had to teach her the form of the business letter, which he would dictate, and he would correct the spelling of very many words. He always did this delicately. No reward on the girl's part would have been excessive.

Few of the transactions he fondly thought up bore any fruit. Once he worked at length on a transaction involving an article that proved to be illegal. At a certain point we found ourselves facing a man, his face distorted with pain, on whose toes we had unwittingly trod. This man wanted to know what our interest was in that article, and he presumed we had been engaged by powerful foreign compet.i.tors. At our first encounter he was beside himself, and I feared the worst. When he realized our naivete, he laughed in our faces and a.s.sured us we'd never achieve anything. It turned out he was right, but before we could accept this verdict, much time had to pa.s.s, and many a letter had to be written by Carmen. We found that the article in question was beyond our reach because it was surrounded by entrenched forces. I said nothing about this transaction to Augusta, but she spoke of it to me because Guido had spoken of it to Ada, to show her how busy our stenographer was. But the deal that didn't come off still remained important for Guido. He talked about it every day. He was convinced that in no other city of the world would such a thing have happened. Our commercial ambiance was deplorable, and any enterprising businessman was stifled here. And such was his fate also.

In the mad, disordered sequence of transactions that pa.s.sed through our hands in that period, there was one that really scorched them. We didn't seek it out; it was the deal that took us by storm. We were pushed into it by a certain Tacich, a Dalmatian who had worked in Argentina with Guido's father. He first came to see us only to ask for some commercial information that we were able to provide for him.

Tacich was a very handsome young man, indeed too handsome. He was tall and strong, his face was olive-skinned, and the dark blue of his eyes harmonized charmingly with his long eyelashes and the short, thick, dark mustache with golden glints. In short, there was in him such a harmonious study of color that to me he seemed the man born to match Carmen. He was of the same opinion, and he dropped in on us daily. The conversation in our office then lasted for hours every day, but it was never boring. The two men fought to win the woman, and like all animals in love, they showed off their finest qualities. Guido was a bit cramped by the fact that the Dalmatian also called on him at home and hence knew Ada, but by now nothing could harm him in Carmen's eyes; I, who knew those eyes so well, realized this at once, whereas Tacich learned it only much later, and in order to have a pretext to see her frequently, he bought from us-or rather from the manufacturer - various carloads of soap for which he paid a slightly higher percentage. Then, again because of his love, he plunged us into that disastrous affair.

His father had noticed that, regularly, at certain seasons, copper sulfate went up and at other times its price went down. He decided therefore to speculate, buying some sixty tons in England at the most favorable moment. We discussed this venture at length, and indeed we prepared for it, getting in touch with an English firm. Then his father cabled Tacich that the right moment seemed to have arrived, and he cited also the price at which he would be willing to close the transaction. Tacich, enamored as he was, rushed to us and delivered the deal, receiving as reward a beautiful, long, caressing look from Carmen. The poor Dalmatian accepted the look gratefully, unaware that it was a sign of her love for Guido.

I remember Guido's calm and confidence as he set about the business, which, in fact, seemed very easy because from England we could arrange direct shipment to our purchaser, without handling the goods ourselves. Guido calculated exactly the sum he wanted to earn and, with my help, established the maximum price that our English friend should pay. With the dictionary's help, together we worked out the cable in English. Once it was sent, Guido rubbed his hands and started calculating how many crowns would pour into the cash box as a reward for that brief and easy effort. To maintain the favor of the G.o.ds, he found it proper to promise a little bonus for me and then, somewhat slyly, also for Carmen, who had contributed to the venture with her eyes. We both wanted to refuse, but he begged us at least to pretend to accept. Otherwise he was afraid we would all suffer bad luck, and I obeyed him at once to rea.s.sure him. I knew, with mathematical certainty, that he would be the recipient of only my warmest wishes, but I understood that he could be dubious about that. In this world, when we don't wish one another ill, we all love one another, but our most vital desires accompany only the affairs to which we are personally committed.

The affair was scrutinized in every respect and, in fact, I remember Guido calculated even the number of months during which, with his profits, he could maintain his wife and the office, his two families, in other words, or his two offices, as he sometimes called them when at home he was particularly vexed. It was overscrutinized, that affair, and this is perhaps why it didn't work out. From London came a brief dispatch: Bought, then the indication of that day's price for sulfate, much higher than what our buyer had stipulated. Good-bye, profit. Tacich was informed, and a short time later he left Trieste.

At that time, for about a month I stopped going to the office, and therefore a certain letter that arrived there didn't pa.s.s through my hands; apparently inoffensive, it was nevertheless to have serious consequences for Guido. In it, that English firm confirmed its dispatch to us and informed us finally that it considered our order valid, unless it was revoked. It didn't occur to Guido to revoke that order, and when I came back to the office, I had forgotten about the 'whole transaction. And so several months later, one evening Guido came to see me with a dispatch he couldn't understand and he thought had been sent to us by mistake, despite the fact that it clearly bore our cable address, which I had naturally made public as soon as we were settled in our office. The dispatch contained only three English words: 60 tons confirmed. I understood it immediately, which was not hard inasmuch as the copper sulfate affair was the only big transaction we had initiated. I said to him: From that dispatch it was clear that the price, which we had stipulated for executing our order, had been reached and therefore we were the proud owners of sixty tons of copper sulfate.

Guido protested: "How can they think I'd accept such a belated filling of my order?"

I immediately thought that the letter confirming the first dispatch must be in our office, whereas Guido had no recollection of having received it. Uneasy, he suggested rushing to the office at once to see if it was there, and this suited me very well because I was annoyed at our having this argument in front of Augusta, who didn't know that for the past month I had never shown up at the office.

We hurried to the office. Guido was so displeased to see himself forced into that first big deal that, to be rid of it, he would have run all the way to London. We opened the office; then, groping in the darkness, we found our way to our room and reached the gas and lighted it. Then the letter was quickly found and it was as I had supposed, a confirmation that our order, valid until revoked, had been executed.

Guido looked at the letter, his brow furrowed, either with displeasure or with an effort to make his gaze annihilate what was announced as real, in such verbal simplicity.

"Just think!" he said. "It would have been enough to write two words, and this damage would have been avoided!"

It was certainly not a reproach aimed at me because I had been absent from the office and - though I had been able to find the letter immediately, knowing where it should have been-had never seen it before. But to absolve myself more completely of any reproach of his, I addressed him firmly.

"During my absence you should have read all the letters carefully!"

Guido's frown vanished. He shrugged and murmured: "This deal could prove a stroke of luck in the end."

A little later he left me, and I returned home.

But Tacich was right: at certain seasons copper sulfate went down, way down, farther every day, and in the filling of our order and in our immediate impossibility of selling the goods at that price to others, we had occasion to study the phenomenon thoroughly. Our loss increased. The first day Guido asked my advice. He could have sold at a loss small compared to what he had to bear later. I was unwilling to give advice, but I didn't fail to remind him of Tacich's conviction that the fall in value would continue for over five months.

Guido laughed. "Now all I need is that provincial telling me how to run my business!"

I remembered that I tried also to correct him, saying that this provincial had for many years spent his time in his little Dalmatian city following copper sulfate. I can have no remorse for the loss Guido suffered in that venture. If he had listened to me, it would have been spared him.

Later we discussed the copper sulfate affair with an agent, a short, tubby little man, brisk and bright, who scolded us for having made that purchase, though he seemed not to share Tacich's opinion. According to him, copper sulfate, though it was a market unto itself, still was affected by the fluctuation of the general price of metal. From that interview Guido gained a certain confidence. He asked the agent to keep him informed of every shift in price, he would wait, as he wanted to sell not only without loss, but with a small profit. The agent laughed discreetly, then, in the course of the conversation, said something I remarked because it seemed to me very true.

"Strange, how few people in this world can resign themselves to small losses; it's the great losses that immediately produce great resignation."

Guido paid no attention. But I admired him, too, because he didn't tell the agent how we had happened to make that purchase. I told Guido this, and he was proud. The agent, he said, would have tried to discredit us and also our goods, spreading the story of that purchase.

Afterwards, for a long time, we didn't mention sulfate again - that is, until a letter arrived from London asking us to make payment and wire instructions for the shipment. Sixty tons! To receive and then to store! Guido's head began to spin. We calculated how much it would cost us to warehouse that merchandise for several months. A huge amount! I didn't say anything, but the broker, who would have been glad to see the goods arrive in Trieste, because sooner or later he would then have been given the job of selling them, pointed out to Guido that this sum, which seemed huge to him, was not so great if expressed in percentage on the value of the goods.

Guido started laughing, because the observation seemed strange to him: "I don't have a mere hundred pounds of sulfate; I have sixty tons, unfortunately!"

In the end he would have allowed the agent's calculation, obviously correct, to convince him that with a slight upward shift in the price, the expenses would have been more than covered; but at that moment he was struck by one of what he called his inspirations. When he happened to conceive a commercial idea all on his own, it became an absolute obsession, and there was no room in his mind for other considerations. This was his idea: The merchandise would be sent him FOB Trieste, so the English shippers would pay for transport. If he were now to sell the goods back to his English purchasers, they would thus save the expenses of the shipment, and he would benefit by setting a more advantageous price than the one being offered him in Trieste. This was not entirely true, but, to please him, n.o.body debated it. Once the affair was concluded, he had a slightly bitter smile on his face, like that of a pessimist philosopher, and he said: "We'll say no more about it. It was a pretty costly lesson; now we have to learn how to profit by it."

But we did say more about it. He never recovered his fine confidence in rejecting offers, and at the end of the year, when I showed him how much we had lost, he murmured: "That d.a.m.ned copper sulfate was my downfall! I kept feeling I had to make up for that loss!"

My absence from the office had been provoked by Carla's leaving me. I could no longer witness the dalliance of Carmen and Guido. They looked at each other, smiled at each other, in my presence. I went off indignantly with a resolution I formed that evening at the moment of closing the office, and I said nothing about it to anyone. I would wait until Guido asked me the reason for this desertion, and then I would let him have it. I could be very severe with him, since he knew absolutely nothing of my excursions to the Public Garden.

It was a form of jealousy on my part, because Carmen appeared to me as Guido's Carla, but a milder, more submissive Carla. With his second woman, as with his first, he had been luckier than I. But perhaps-and this motivated another of my reproaches to him-he owed his luck also to those qualities of his that I envied, yet continued to consider inferior: parallel to his ease with the violin there ran also his nonchalance toward life. I now knew for certain that I had given up Carla for Augusta. When my thoughts returned to those two years of happiness Carla had granted me, it was hard for me to understand how she-being the sort of person I now knew she was-could have tolerated me so long. Hadn't I offended her daily, out of love for Augusta? Guido, I knew for a fact, would on the contrary enjoy Carmen without giving Ada a thought. In his carefree spirit, two women were no more than enough. Comparing myself to him., I seemed downright innocent. I had married Augusta without love, and yet I had been unable to betray her without suffering. Perhaps he had also married Ada without loving her, but-though by now Ada meant nothing to me-I remembered the love she had inspired in me, and it seemed to me that since I had loved her so much, in his situation I would have been even more delicate than I was now in my own.

It wasn't Guido who came looking for me. It was I who, on my own, returned to that office, to seek relief from a great boredom. He behaved according to the terms of our contract, whereby I had no obligation to take any part regularly in his affairs, and when he ran into me at home or elsewhere, he acted toward me with the usual great friendship and didn't seem to recall that I had left vacant my place at that desk he had bought for me. Between the two of us there was only one embarra.s.sment: mine. When I returned to my desk, he received me as if I had been absent just a single day, warmly expressed his pleasure at having regained my company and, hearing my intention to resume my work, he cried: "Then I was right not to allow anyone to touch your books!"

In fact, I found the ledger and the daybook exactly where I had left them.

Luciano said to me: "Let's hope that now that you're here, we'll start moving again. I believe Signor Guido is discouraged because of a couple of deals he tackled, which then went sour. Don't say anything to him about me talking to you like this, but see if you can give him some encouragement."

I realized, in fact, that little work was being done in that office, and until the loss on the copper sulfate agitated us, we led a truly idyllic life there. I immediately concluded that Guido no longer felt such an urgent need to make Carmen work under his direction, and that the period of courtship between them was over and she had by now become his mistress.

Carmen's welcome brought me a surprise because she promptly felt the need to remind me of something I had completely forgotten. Apparently, before leaving that office, in those days when I had run after so many women because it was no longer possible for me to go and see my own, I had also pestered Carmen. She spoke to me with great seriousness and some embarra.s.sment: She was glad to see me back because she believed I was fond of Guido and my advice could be useful to him, and she wanted to maintain with me-if I would permit it-a warm, fraternal friendship. She said something to this effect, extending her hand in a broad gesture. On her face, beautiful as it was, a very grave expression underlined the fraternal purity of the relationship now being offered me.

I remembered then, and I blushed. Perhaps if I had remembered earlier, I would never have gone back to that office again. It had been such a brief thing, crammed in among so many other actions of the same import, that if I had not now been reminded of it, I could have believed it had never happened. A few days after Carla's abandonment, I had set myself to examine the books, enlisting Carmen's help and, little by little, the better to see the same page, I had put my arm around her waist, which I then continued to squeeze harder and harder. With a leap, Carmen had escaped me and I had then left the office.

I could have defended myself with a smile, inducing her to smile with me, because women are so inclined to smile at such crimes! I could have said to her: "I attempted something that didn't succeed, and I'm sorry for it, but I bear you no grudge and I want to be your friend until you prefer it to be otherwise."

Or I could have replied as a serious person, apologizing to her and also to Guido: "Forgive me and don't judge me until you know the condition in which I found myself at that time."

Instead, words failed me. My throat-I believe-was blocked by a lump of bitterness and I was unable to speak. All these women who firmly rejected me gave my life a downright tragic cast. I had never endured such a miserable period. Instead of uttering a reply, I would have been prepared only to grind my teeth, hardly comfortable, as I had to maintain silence. Perhaps speech failed me also because of the pain at seeing firmly denied a hope I still cherished. I can't help confessing it: for me, no one better than Carmen could have replaced the mistress I had lost, that girl who, so far from being compromising, had asked for nothing save the permission to live at my side until she asked never to see me again. A mistress shared is the least compromising mistress. To be sure, I hadn't yet entirely clarified my ideas, but I sensed them, and now I know them. Becoming Carmen's lover, I would have contributed to Ada's well-being and I wouldn't have harmed Augusta too much. Both would have been betrayed far less than if Guido and I had had a whole woman each.

I gave Carmen my reply several days later, but even now it embarra.s.ses me. The turmoil into which Carla's abandonment had thrown me must have still survived, impelling me to such a juncture. I feel a remorse for it worse than for any other action in my whole life. The b.e.s.t.i.a.l words we allow to escape us p.r.i.c.k the conscience more than the most unspeakable actions our pa.s.sion inspires. Naturally, by words I mean only those that are not actions, because I know very well that the words of Iago, for example, are out-and-out actions. But actions, including Iago's words, are performed to produce some pleasure or some benefit and then the whole organism, including that part which should set itself up as judge, partic.i.p.ates and becomes consequently a very benevolent judge. But the stupid tongue acts on its own and for the satisfaction of some little part of the organism that, without words, feels defeated and proceeds to simulate a struggle after the struggle is over and lost. The tongue wants to wound or it wants to caress. It moves always amid mastodonic metaphors. And when words are red-hot, they scorch their speaker.

I had observed that she no longer had the coloring that had won her such prompt admittance to our office. I imagined she had lost it through some suffering that I refused to admit might have been physical, and I attributed it, instead, to her love for Guido. For that matter, we men are quite inclined to commiserate with those women who surrender to others. We never see what advantage they can expect. We may perhaps love the man in question-as was my case-but even then we can't forget how the vicissitudes of love on this earth usually end up. I felt a sincere compa.s.sion for Carmen, as I had never felt for Augusta or for Carla. I said to her: "And as you have been so kind as to invite me to be your friend, will you allow me to give you some advice?"

She wouldn't allow it, because, like all women in such situations, she also believed that advice is always an aggression. She blushed and stammered: "I don't understand. Why are you saying that?" And, immediately afterwards, to silence me: "If I really needed advice, I would certainly turn to you, Signor Cosini."