Zeno's Conscience Part 6

Then Tullio pretended to be equally eager for my news. I was quite determined not to tell him about my unhappy love, still I needed to unburden myself. I spoke with such exaggeration of my ailments (in this way I made a list of them, and I am sure they were slight) that in the end I had tears in my eyes, while Tullio was feeling better all the time, believing me worse off than himself.

He asked me if I was working. Everyone in the city said I did nothing, and I was afraid he would envy me, whereas at this moment I was in absolute need of commiseration. I lied! I told him I worked in my office, not much, but at least six hours daily, and then the extremely muddled questions inherited from my father and my mother kept me busy for another six hours.

"Twelve hours!" Tullio remarked, and with a contented smile he granted me what I sought: his commiseration. "You certainly aren't to be envied!"

His conclusion was correct, and I was so moved by it that I had to fight to restrain the tears. I felt unhappier than ever, and in that morbid state of self-pity, obviously I was vulnerable to injury.

Tullio had resumed talking about his illness, which was also his chief hobby. He had studied the anatomy of the leg and the foot. Laughing, he told me that when one walks at a rapid pace, the time in which a step is taken does not exceed a half-second, and that in that half-second no fewer that fifty-four muscles are engaged. I reacted with a start, and my thoughts immediately rushed to my legs, to seek this monstrous machinery. I believe I found it. Naturally I didn't identify the fifty-four moving parts, but rather an enormous complication went to pieces the moment I intruded my attention upon it.

I limped, leaving that cafe, and I went on limping for several days. For me, walking had become hard labor, also slightly painful. That jungle of cogs now seemed to lack oil, and in moving, they damaged one another reciprocally. A few days afterwards, I was a.s.sailed by a more serious illness, of which I will speak, that diminished the first. But even today, as I write about it, if someone watches me when I move, the fifty-four muscles become self-conscious and I risk falling.

This injury, too, is something I owe to Ada. Many animals become prey to hunters or to other animals when they are in love. I was then prey to illness, and I am sure that if I had learned of the monstrous machine at some other time, I wouldn't have suffered the slightest harm from it.

A few scribbles on a slip of paper that I preserved remind me of another strange adventure in those days. Besides the annotation of a last cigarette, accompanied by my confidence that I could be cured of the fifty-four-muscle disease, there is an attempted poem... about a fly. If I didn't know otherwise, I would believe that those verses had come from a proper young lady who was addressing in the familiar form the insects she sings about, but since I was the one who wrote them, I must believe, since I once followed that path, that a person can veer off in any direction.

Here is how those verses were born. Late one night I had come home and, rather than go to bed, I had entered my little study and turned on the gas. In the light a fly began to torment me. I managed to give it a tap-a light one, however, to avoid soiling my hand. I forgot about it, but then I saw it in the center of the table as it was coming to. It was motionless, erect, and it seemed taller than before, because one of its little legs was paralyzed and couldn't bend. With its two hind legs it a.s.siduously smoothed its wings. It tried to move, but turned over on its back. It righted itself and stubbornly resumed its a.s.siduous task.

I then wrote those verses, amazed at having discovered that the little organism, filled with such pain, was inspired in its immense effort by two errors: first of all, by the stubborn smoothing of its wings, which were unharmed, the insect revealed that it didn't know which organ was the source of its pain, and in the determination of that effort it revealed that its minuscule mind contained a fundamental belief that good health is the birthright of all and must surely return when it abandons us. These were errors that can easily be excused in an insect, which lives only a single season and hasn't time to acc.u.mulate experience.

Now Sunday arrived. The fifth day since my last visit to the Malfenti household. I, who work so little, retained always a great respect for the holiday, which divides life into brief periods, making it more tolerable. That holiday concluded also a tiring week for me, and I was ent.i.tled to joy. I didn't change my plans in the least, but they did not apply to that day, when I would see Ada again. I wouldn't endanger those plans by uttering the slightest word, but I had to see her because there was also the possibility that the situation had already turned in my favor, and then it would be a great pity to go on suffering for no purpose.

Therefore, at midday, with such haste as my poor legs permitted, I rushed downtown and to the street I knew Signora Malfenti and her daughters would have to take on their way home from Ma.s.s. It was a day of festive sunshine and, walking along, I thought that perhaps in the city a new development awaited me: Ada's love!

It was not so, but for another moment I had that illusion. Luck favored me incredibly. I came upon Ada face-to-face, Ada alone. My legs failed me, and so did my breath. What to do? My resolution should have made me step aside and allow her to pa.s.s with a measured greeting. But in my mind there was a bit of confusion because previously there had been other resolutions, among which I recalled one that involved me speaking to her clearly and learning my fate from her lips. I didn't step aside, and when she greeted me as if we had parted only five minutes before, I walked along with her.

What she had said to me was: "Good morning, Signor Cosini! I'm in something of a hurry."

And my reply was: "May I walk part of the way with you?"

She agreed, smiling. Should I have spoken then? She added that she was going straight home, and thus I understood I had only five minutes at my disposal to speak, and I even wasted a bit of that time in calculating if it would suffice for the important things I had to say. But to leave them unsaid was better than not to say all. I was confused further by the fact that in our city, for a young lady, it was in itself fairly compromising to allow a young man to accompany her in the street. She had allowed me to do so. Could I be satisfied with that? Meanwhile I looked at her, trying to feel once again my intact love, recently clouded by anger and doubt. Would I regain my dreams, at least? She seemed to me at once little and big, in the harmony of her lines. The dreams returned, pell-mell, even as I was beside her, in all her reality. This was my way of desiring, and I returned to it with intense joy. All traces of anger or bitterness vanished from my spirit.

But behind us a hesitant call was heard: "Signorina! May I - ?"

I turned, outraged. Who dared interrupt the explanations that I hadn't yet begun? A beardless young gentleman, dark-haired, pale, was looking at her with anxious eyes. In my turn I also looked at Ada, in the mad hope that she would call on me for a.s.sistance. A sign from her would have been enough to make me fall upon this individual and demand an explanation of his audacity. And if only he were to persist! My ailments would have been cured at once had I been allowed to give free rein to a brutal act of force.

But Ada didn't make that sign. With a spontaneous smile that slightly altered the line of her cheeks and mouth and also the light in her eyes, she held out her hand. "Signor Guido!"

That given name hurt me. Only a short time before, she had addressed me by my surname.

I took a closer look at this Signor Guido. He was dressed with an affected elegance, and in his gloved right hand he held a walking stick with a very long ivory handle, which I would never have carried, not even if they were to pay me a sum for every kilometer. I didn't reproach myself for having actually considered such a person a threat to Ada. There are some shady characters who dress elegantly and carry similar canes.

Ada's smile plunged me again into the most ordinary social intercourse. Ada introduced us. And I smiled, too! Ada's smile somehow suggested the wrinkling of clear water ruffled by a slight breeze. Mine also recalled a similar movement, but produced by a stone flung into the water.

His name was Guido Speier. My smile became more spontaneous because I was immediately offered the opportunity of saying something disagreeable to him: "You are German?"

He replied politely, admitting that because of his name, one might believe he was. But family doc.u.ments proved they had been Italian for several centuries. He spoke Tuscan fluently, while Ada and I were condemned to our horrid dialect.

I looked at him to hear better what he was saying. He was a very handsome young man: his naturally parted lips allowed a glimpse of white, perfect teeth. His eyes were lively and expressive, and when he had bared his head, I had glimpsed his dark, slightly waving hair, which covered all the s.p.a.ce Mother Nature had destined it for, while a good deal of my head had been invaded by my brow.

I would have hated him even if Ada hadn't been present, but that hatred made me suffer, and I tried to attenuate it. I thought: He's too young for Ada. And I also thought that the intimacy and courtesy in her att.i.tude toward him were due to orders from her father. Perhaps the youth was important to Malfenti's business, and I had observed that in such cases the whole family was obliged to collaborate.

I asked him: "You are settling in Trieste?"

He answered that he had been there for a month and he was establishing a commercial firm. I breathed easy again! Perhaps I had guessed right.

I limped, but my walk was fairly nonchalant, seeing that no one noticed. I looked at Ada and tried to forget all the rest, including the other man walking beside her. After all, I live in the present and I don't think of the future when it isn't darkening the present with obvious shadows. Ada walked between the two of us, and on her face she had a fixed expression of vague happiness that almost arrived at a smile. That happiness seemed new to me. For whom was that smile? Wasn't it for me, whom she hadn't seen in such a long time?

I listened carefully to what was being said. They were talking about spiritualism, and I promptly learned that Guido had introduced the Malfenti household to the Ouija board.

I was burning with the desire to make sure that the sweet smile playing over Ada's lips was mine, and I plunged into the subject of their talk, making up a story about spirits. No poet could have improvised to set rhymes better. Before I knew where I was heading, I started out by declaring that I now believed in spirits, too, thanks to something that had happened to me the day before on this very street... no!... on the street we could glimpse, parallel to the one along which we were walking. Then I added that Ada, too, had known Professor Bertini, who had died recently in Florence, where he had moved on retiring. We learned of his death through a brief news item in a local paper, which I had forgotten about, and indeed, when I thought of Professor Bertini, I pictured him strolling in the Cascine, enjoying his well-earned rest. Well, just the day before, at a point I indicated in the street parallel to ours, I was approached by a gentleman who knew me and whom I was sure I knew. He had a strange, wriggling walk, like a certain kind of woman trying to smooth her progress...

"Of course! That would be Bertini!" Ada said, laughing.

Her laughter was mine, and, heartened, I continued: "I was sure I knew him, but I couldn't recall who he was. We discussed politics. It was Bertini, because he talked so much nonsense, with that sheeplike voice of his..."

"His voice, too!" again Ada laughed, looking at me, eager, to hear the conclusion.

"Yes! It must have been Bertini," I said, feigning fear, like the great actor the world has lost in me. "He shook my hand, taking his leave, and went off jauntily. I followed him for a few Steps, trying to collect myself. It was only when he was out of sight that I realized I had spoken with Bertini. With Bertini, who had been dead for a year!"

A little later she stopped at the front door of her house. Shaking his hand, she said to Guido that she was expecting him that evening. Then, saying good-bye also to me, she added that if I weren't afraid of being bored I should join them that evening and help make the table dance.

I neither answered nor thanked her. I had to a.n.a.lyze that invitation before accepting. To me it had seemed to have the sound of forced good manners. Yes, perhaps for me the holiday would conclude with this meeting. But I wanted to appear polite, to leave every avenue open, also that of accepting the invitation. I inquired after Giovanni, with whom I had to talk. She replied that I would find him in his office, where he had gone to deal with some urgent matter of business.

Guido and I lingered for a short time, watching the elegant little form vanish into the darkness of the vestibule of her house. I don't know what Guido thought at that moment. For my part, I felt very unhappy: Why hadn't she issued that invitation first to me and then to Guido?

Together we retraced our steps, almost to the spot where we had found Ada. Polite and nonchalant (it was that same nonchalance that I most envied in others), Guido spoke further about that story I had improvised, which he took seriously. Actually, the only truth in the story was that in Trieste, also after Bertini's death, there lived a person who talked nonsense, who walked as if he were on tiptoe, and had a strange voice. I had made his acquaintance around that time, and for a moment he had reminded me of Bertini. I wasn't sorry that Guido should give himself a headache pondering that invention of mine. It was settled that I wouldn't hate him, because, for the Malfentis, he was simply an important merchant; but I disliked him because of his affected elegance and his walking stick. I disliked him so much, in fact, that I couldn't wait to be rid of him.

I heard him concluding: "It's also possible that the person with whom you spoke was much younger than Bertini, strode like a guardsman, with a manly voice, and that the resemblance was limited to his talking nonsense. That would have been enough to focus your thoughts on Bertini. But to accept this, it would be necessary to believe also that you are a very absent-minded person."

"Absentminded? Me? What an idea! I'm a businessman. What would become of me if I were absentminded?"

Then I decided I was wasting my time. I wanted to see Giovanni. Since I had seen the daughter, I could also see the father, who was much less important. I had to hurry if I wanted to find him still in his office.

Guido went on pondering how much of a miracle could be attributed to the absentmindedness of the one who works it or witnesses it. I wanted to take my leave and appear at least as nonchalant as he. Hence I interrupted him, leaving him there, with a haste quite close to rudeness: "For me, miracles either exist or they don't. They mustn't be complicated with a lot of stories. You believe or disbelieve, and in either case it's all very simple."

I didn't want to demonstrate any dislike for him, and indeed I felt that my words were conceding something to him, as I am a convinced positivist and do not believe in miracles. But it was a concession made with great ill humor.

I went off, limping worse than ever, and I hoped Guido didn't feel impelled to turn and watch me go.

I really had to talk with Giovanni. First of all, he would instruct me how to behave that evening. I had been invited by Ada, and from Giovanni's behavior I could understand whether I should go along with that invitation or remember, instead, that it went counter to the expressed wishes of Signora Malfenti. Clarity was essential in my dealings with these people, and if this Sunday weren't enough to give it to me, I would devote Monday to the same purpose. I kept contradicting my own resolutions, unaware. Indeed, it seemed to me I was acting on a decision reached after five days of meditation. That is how I categorized my activity during those days.

Giovanni greeted me with a shout, which did me good, and urged me to take a seat in the easy chair placed against the wall opposite his desk.

"Just five minutes, and I'll be right with you!" And a moment later he added: "Why, you're limping!"

I flushed. But I was in an improvisational mood. I told him I had slipped as I was leaving the cafe, and I named the very cafe where the accident had befallen me. I was afraid he might attribute my spill to a mind clouded by alcohol, and, laughing, I added the detail that when I fell, I was in the company of a person suffering from rheumatism, who limped.

A clerk and two porters were standing at Giovanni's desk. Some irregularity in a consignment of goods had to be checked, and Giovanni was interfering ponderously in the operation of his warehouse, with which he rarely concerned himself, preferring to keep his mind free-as he said-to do only what no one else could do in his place. He shouted more than usual, as if he wanted to engrave his instructions in his employees' ears. I believe it was a question of establishing the procedure of operations between office and warehouse.

"This paper!..." Giovanni shouted, pa.s.sing from his right hand to his left a paper he had torn out of a ledger, "will be signed by you, and the clerk who receives it from you will give you one just like it, signed by him. "

He glared straight at his interlocutors, through his eyegla.s.ses and then over them, concluding with another shout: "Understand?"

He decided to repeat his explanation from the beginning, but it seemed to me he was wasting time. I had the curious feeling that if I hurried, I would be able to fight better for Ada, but then I realized to my great surprise that no one was expecting me and I was expecting no one, and nothing could be done for me.

I went toward Giovanni, with outstretched hand. "I'm coming to your house this evening."

He turned to me at once, as the others moved aside. "Why haven't we seen you for such a long time?" he asked simply.

I was overcome by an amazement that left me bewildered. This was the very question Ada had failed to ask me, and to which I would be ent.i.tled. If those other men hadn't been present, I would have spoken sincerely to Giovanni, who had asked me that question and had proved his innocence in what I now felt was a conspiracy against me. He alone was innocent and deserved my trust.

Perhaps I did not then think at once with such clarity, and the proof is the fact that I didn't have the patience to wait till the clerk and the porters had left. Besides, I wanted to see if Ada had perhaps been prevented from asking that question by the untimely arrival of Guido.

But Giovanni also prevented me from speaking, with a great show of haste to return to his work.

"We'll see each other this evening, then. You'll hear a violinist whose like you've never heard before. He claims to be an amateur only because he has so much money that he wouldn't condescend to making the violin his profession. He plans to go into business." He shrugged, with a gesture of contempt. "Much as I love business, in his place I would peddle nothing but notes. I don't know if you've met him. Name of Guido Speier."

"Oh, really? Really?" I said, pretending to be pleased, shaking my head and opening my mouth, in other words moving everything I could command with my will. That handsome youth could also play the violin? "Really and truly? That good, is he?" I was hoping Giovanni had been joking and, with the exaggeration of his praises, had wanted to suggest that Guido was no more than a tormentor of the violin. But he kept shaking his head with great awe.

I shook his hand. "Until later."

Limping, I went off to the door. A suspicion stopped me. Perhaps I would have been better advised not to accept that invitation, in which case I should inform Giovanni. I turned to go back to him, but I saw that he was watching me with great attention, leaning forward to see me more closely. I couldn't bear this, and I left!

A violinist! If it was true that he played so well, I, quite simply, was a man destroyed. If only I didn't play that instrument or at least hadn't allowed myself to be induced to play it at the Malfentis'. I had taken the violin into that house not to win people's hearts with my tone, but as an excuse to prolong my visits. How idiotic of me! I could have invented so many other, less compromising pretexts!

No one can say I succ.u.mb to illusions about myself. I know I have a profound feeling for music, and it is not affectation that makes me select the most complex pieces; however, that same profound musical feeling warns me and has warned me for years that I will never succeed in playing well enough to afford listeners pleasure. If I still go on playing, it's for the same reason that I continue to take care of my health. I could play well if I weren't ill, and I am pursuing health even when I ponder the equilibrium of the four strings. There is a slight paralysis in my organism, and on the violin it reveals its entire self and therefore is more easily treated. Even the lowest creature, when he knows what thirds are, or sixths, knows how to move from one to the other with rhythmic precision, just as his eye knows how to move from one color to the other. With me, on the contrary, when I have played one of those phrases, it sticks to me and I can no longer rid myself of it, and so it intrudes into the next phrase and distorts it. To put the notes in the right place, I have to beat time with my feet and my head, so nonchalance flies out the window, along with serenity, and with the music. The music that comes from a balanced organism is one with the tempo it creates and follows. When I achieve that, I will be cured.

For the first time I thought of abandoning the field, leaving Trieste, to go elsewhere in search of distraction. There was nothing more to hope for. Ada was lost to me. I was sure of that! Didn't I know she would marry a man only after having tested and judged him as if it were a matter of awarding him an academic honor? It seemed ridiculous to me because, honestly, among human beings the violin should not count in the choice of a husband, but that thought didn't save me. I felt the importance of that sound. It was decisive, as it is among songbirds.

I shut myself up in my study, though, for others, the holiday was not yet over! I took the violin from its case, undecided whether to smash it to smithereens or to play it. Then I tried it as if I wanted to bid it a last farewell, and finally I started practicing the eternal Kreutzer. In that same room I had made my bow travel so many kilometers that, in my bewilderment, mechanically, I began traveling some more.

All who have dedicated themselves to those accursed four strings know that as long as you live in isolation, you believe that each tiny effort produces a corresponding progress. If this weren't so, who would voluntarily subject himself to that regime of endless hard labor, as if he had had the misfortune to murder someone? After a little while it seemed to me that my battle with Guido was not definitively lost. Who knows? Perhaps I would be allowed to come between Guido and Ada through a victorious violin?

This was not presumption, but my usual optimism, of which I was never able to rid myself. Every threat of disaster at first terrifies me, but then is immediately forgotten in the greater cert.i.tude of being able to elude it. Now I had only to adopt a more benevolent opinion of my own talents as a violinist. In the arts generally, as everyone knows, confident evaluation comes from confrontation, which here was lacking.

And yet one's own violin, resounding so close to the ear, finds the shortest path to the heart. When I grew tired and stopped playing, I said to myself: "Good for you, Zeno. You've earned your keep."

Without the slightest hesitation, I went to the Malfentis'. I had accepted the invitation and now I couldn't fail to appear. I thought it a good omen when the maid welcomed me with a cordial smile, asking me if I had been ill; as I hadn't been there for so long, I gave her a tip. Through her mouth the whole family, whose representative she was, was asking me that question.

She led me into the living room, which was plunged into the deepest darkness. Arriving there from the bright light of the vestibule, I saw nothing for a moment and didn't dare move. Then I could discern several figures seated around a little table at the end of the room, at some distance from me.

I was greeted by Ada's voice, which, in the darkness, seemed sensual to me. Smiling, caressing. "Have a seat over there and don't disturb the spirits!" At this rate, I would surely not disturb them.

From another point at the table's rim, another voice resounded, Alberta's or perhaps Augusta's: "If you want to take part in the summoning, there's still a free place."

I was firmly determined not to let myself be ostracized, and I strode resolutely toward the point from which Ada's greeting had come. I banged my knee against a corner of that little Venetian table, which was all corners. The pain was intense, but I didn't allow it to stop me, so I went and sank onto a chair offered me by someone or other, between two young ladies, of whom I thought one, the one on my right, was Ada, and the other Augusta. Immediately, to avoid any contact with the latter, I shifted toward the other. I suspected, however, that I might be mistaken and, to hear the voice of my neighbor to the right, I asked her: "Have you already received some communication from the spirits?"

Guido, who seemed to be sitting opposite, interrupted me, shouting imperiously: "Quiet!"

Then, more mildly: "Collect your thoughts and concentrate intensely on the dead person you wish to summon."

I have nothing against any sort of attempt to peer into the world beyond. Indeed, I was annoyed that I hadn't been the one to introduce the little table into Giovanni's house, since it was obviously enjoying such a success. But I didn't feel like obeying Guido's orders, and therefore I didn't concentrate at all. Besides, I had already reproached myself so much for having let things reach this pa.s.s without ever speaking clearly to Ada that, as I now had the young lady at my side, in this favoring darkness, I intended to clarify everything. I was curbed only by the sweetness of having her so close after fearing I had lost her forever. I sensed the softness of the warm fabrics that brushed against my clothes, and I thought, too, as we were pressed so close to each other, my foot was touching her little foot, which, as I knew, in the evening was shod in a tiny patent leather boot. It was even too much after such long torture.

Guido spoke again: "Please concentrate, everybody. Now beg the spirit you are summoning to make his presence known by moving the table."

I was glad that he would go on dealing with the table. By now it was obvious that Ada was resigned to bearing almost all my weight! If she hadn't loved me, she wouldn't have borne me. The moment of clarification had come. I took my right hand from the table and, very slowly, I put my arm around her waist: "I love you, Ada!" I said in a low voice, moving my face close to hers to make myself more audible.

The girl did not answer immediately. Then, a wisp of a voice-Augusta's voice, however-said: "Why did you stay away so long?"

My surprise and dismay almost made me fall off my seat. Immediately I felt that, while I had finally to eliminate that irritating young lady from my destiny, I was still obliged to show her the consideration that a proper gentleman like myself must show the woman who loves him even if she is the ugliest female ever created. How she loved me! In my sorrow I felt her love. It could be only love that had led her not to tell me she wasn't Ada, and to ask me the question I had awaited in vain from Ada, while her sister certainly had been ready to ask me it the moment she saw me again.

I followed my instinct and did not answer her question, but, after a brief hesitation, said to her: "Actually, I'm glad I've confided in you, Augusta, because I believe you are so good!"

I immediately regained my balance on my stool. I couldn't have the clarification with Ada, but meanwhile there was now total clarity between me and Augusta. Here there would be no further misunderstandings.

Guido repeated his warning: "If you're not willing to be quiet, there's no point in spending our time here in the dark!"

He didn't know it, but I still needed a bit of darkness to isolate myself and collect my wits. I had discovered my mistake, and the only balance I had recovered was that of my seat.

I would talk with Ada, but in the clear light. I suspected it was not she on my left, but Alberta. How to verify this? The doubt almost made me fall to the left, and to recover my balance, I leaned on the table. The others all started to shout: "It moved! It moved!" My involuntary action could lead me to clarity. Where did Ada's voice come from? But Guido's voice now covered all the others, as he imposed the silence that I, quite willingly, would have imposed on him. Then, in a changed voice, pleading (the fool!), he spoke to the spirit, whom he believed present.

"I beg you! Tell us your name, spell it out in our alphabet!"

He thought of everything: He was afraid the spirit would use the Greek alphabet.

I kept up the farce, still peering into the darkness in search of Ada. After a slight hesitation I made the table move seven times so that the letter G was reached. It seemed a good idea to me, and though the U that followed required endless movements, I dictated quite distinctly the name of Guido. I have no doubt that, in dictating his name, I was led by a desire to relegate him to the spirit world.

When the name of Guido was complete, Ada finally spoke. "Some ancestor of yours?" she suggested. She was seatedjust at his side. I would have liked to move the table and shove it between the two of them, separating them.

"It could be!" Guido said. He thought he had ancestors, but that didn't frighten me. His voice was affected by a genuine emotion that afforded me the joy a fencer feels when he realizes his adversary is less fearsome that he had believed. He wasn't making these experiments in cold blood. He was a genuine fool! All weaknesses, except his, easily arouse my sympathy.

Then he addressed the spirit: "If your name is Speier, make one movement. Otherwise move the table twice." Since he wanted to have ancestors, I satisfied him, rocking the table two times.

"My grandfather!" Guido murmured.

After this, the conversation with the spirit proceeded more quickly. The spirit was asked if he had some news to communicate. He answered yes. Business or otherwise? Business! This answer was preferable because answering it required only a single movement of the table. Guido then asked if it was good news or bad. Bad was to be indicated by two movements, and I-without the slightest hesitation this time - chose to move the table twice. But the second movement encountered opposition, so there must have been someone in the group who wanted the news to be good. Ada, perhaps? To produce the second movement, I actually flung myself on the table and easily had my way! Bad news!

Because of the struggle, the second movement proved excessive and actually jolted the entire company.

"That's odd!" Guido murmured. Then, firmly, he cried: "That's enough! Somebody here is making fun of us!"

It was a command, which many obeyed at the same time, and the living room was suddenly flooded with light, as lamps were turned on in several places. Guido seemed pale to me! Ada was mistaken about that individual, and I would open her eyes.

In the room, besides the three girls, were Signora Malfenti and another lady the sight of whom made me feel embarra.s.sed and uneasy because I believed it was Aunt Rosina. For different reasons the two ladies received from me a cool greeting.

The best of it was that I had remained at the table, alone at Augusta's side. It was again compromising, but I couldn't resign myself to joining all the others, cl.u.s.tered around Guido, who, with some vehemence, was explaining how he had realized the table was being moved not by a spirit but by a flesh-and-blood devil. It was he himself, not Ada, who had tried to arrest the table, as it had become too garrulous.

"I was restraining the table with all my might," he said, "to prevent its moving a second time. Someone must actually have leaned hard on it, to overcome my resistance."