Zeno's Conscience Part 8

But Augusta, her mind made up, with a dignified gesture I will never forget, stiffened her back and abandoned the support of the wall. In the narrow pa.s.sage she moved still closer to me, who stood facing her. She said: "You, Zeno, need a woman who wants to live for you and help you. I want to be that woman."

She held out her plump hand, which I kissed, as if by instinct. Obviously it was impossible to do anything else. I must then confess that at that moment I was filled with a contentment that made my breast swell. I no longer had to resolve anything, because everything had been resolved. This was true clarity.

Thus it was that I became engaged. We were immediately, immensely feted. My success resembled somewhat the huge success of Guido's violin, so great was the general applause. Giovanni kissed me and promptly started calling me tu. With an excessive display of affection, he said to me: "For a long time I have felt like a father to you, ever since I began giving you advice about your business."

My future mother-in-law also turned her cheek, which I grazed with the kiss I couldn't have eluded even if I had married Ada.

"You see? I had guessed everything," she said to me with incredible nonchalance, which went unpunished because I was unable and unwilling to protest.

She then embraced Augusta, and her immense fondness was revealed in a sob that escaped her, interrupting her display of joy. I couldn't endure Signora Malfenti, but I must say that her sob, at least for the duration of that evening, cast a pleasant and important light on my engagement.

Alberta, radiant, pressed my hand. "I mean to be a good sister to you."

And Ada said: "Bravo, Zeno!" Then, in a whisper: "Believe me: never did a man who thought he was acting hastily behave more wisely than you."

Guido gave me a great surprise. "Already this morning I realized you wanted one or the other of the Malfenti young ladies, but I couldn't figure out which."

They can't have been very intimate if Ada hadn't told him about my courting! Had I really acted hastily?

But a little later Ada also said to me: "I want you to love me as a sister. The rest must be forgotten; I will never say anything to Guido."

For the rest, it was wonderful to have provoked so much joy in a family. I couldn't enjoy it much myself, but only because I was very tired. I was also sleepy. That proved I had acted with great wisdom. I would have a good night.

At supper, Augusta and I witnessed silently the festivities in our honor. She felt it necessary to apologize for being unable to take part in the general conversation: "I can't say a thing. You must all remember that, half an hour ago, I had no idea of what was about to happen to me."

She always spoke the exact truth. She was between tears and laughter and she looked at me. I, too, wanted to caress her with my eyes; I don't know if I succeeded.

That same evening at that table, I suffered another wound. It was inflicted by Guido himself.

It seems that shortly before I arrived to partic.i.p.ate in the seance, Guido had told the others how, that morning, I had declared I wasn't absentminded. They immediately gave him so many proofs of my falsehood that, in revenge (or perhaps to show he knew how to draw), he made two caricatures of me. In the first I was portrayed with my nose in the air while I leaned on an umbrella stuck in the ground. In the second the umbrella had broken and the handle had stabbed me in the back. The two caricatures achieved their purpose and provoked laughter through the simple device of making the individual meant to represent me-actually he bore no resemblance, and was distinguished only by great baldness-identical in both the first and second sketch; thus he could be considered so absentminded that he didn't change his expression even when he had been skewered by an umbrella.

They all laughed very much, indeed too much. I was deeply grieved by the highly successful attempt to ridicule me. And it was then that, for the first time, I was seized by my sharp pain. That evening it was my right forearm and hip that hurt. An intense burning pain, a numbness of the nerves as if they were threatening to snap. Dumbfounded, I put my right hand to my hip and with my left hand I gripped the affected forearm.

"What's wrong?" Augusta asked.

I replied that I felt a pain in my wrist, bruised by that fall in the cafe, which had been discussed earlier that evening.

I promptly made an energetic attempt to rid myself of that pain. I thought I would be cured of it if I avenged the offense to which I had been subjected. I asked for a piece of paper and a pencil, and I tried to draw a character being crushed by an overturned little table. Beside him I put a walking stick that he had dropped as a result of the catastrophe. n.o.body recognized the stick, and therefore the insult didn't succeed as I would have liked. In order to clarify that individual's ident.i.ty and explain how he happened to be in that position, I wrote beneath it: "Guido Speier turning the table." For that matter, all that could be seen of the wretch under the table was his legs, which might have resembled Guido's if I hadn't deliberately distorted them and if the demon of vengeance hadn't intervened to worsen my already childish drawing.

The persistent pain forced me to work in great haste. Certainly my poor organism had never been so pervaded by the desire to inflict a wound, and if I had had a sabre in my hand instead of that pencil I had no gift for using, perhaps the cure would have succeeded.

Guido laughed sincerely at my drawing, but then he mildly remarked: "I don't think the table did me any harm."

In fact, it hadn't, and it was this injustice that so pained me.

Ada took Guido's two drawings and said she wanted to keep them. I looked at her to convey my reproach, and she had to turn her gaze away from mine. I was ent.i.tled to reproach her because she exacerbated my pain.

I found a defense in Augusta. She asked me to write the date of our engagement on my drawing, for she, too, wanted to keep that scrawl. A hot wave of blood flooded my veins at this sign of affection, whose importance for me I realized for the first time. The pain, however, did not stop and I was forced to think that if that gesture of affection had come from Ada, it would have caused such a rush of blood in my veins that all the flotsam acc.u.mulated in my nerves would have been swept away by it.

That pain was never thereafter to leave me. Now, in old age, I suffer less from it because, when it seizes me, I bear it indulgently: "Ah, here you are again, clear proof that I'm still young?" But in my youth it was another matter. I won't say the pain was great, though it sometimes impeded my free movement or kept me awake for whole nights. But it occupied a good part of my life. I wanted to be healed! Why should I have to bear all my life on my very body the stigma of defeat? Become the living, walking monument to Guido's victory? That pain had to be expelled from my body.

And so the treatments began. But, immediately afterwards, the angry origin of the disease was forgotten and it was now hard for me to retrace it. It couldn't have been otherwise: I had great faith in the doctors who treated me, and I believed them sincerely when they attributed that pain first to my metabolism and then to a circulatory defect, then to tuberculosis or to various infections, some of them shameful. I must also confess that all the cures afforded me some temporary relief, and thus each time the plausible new diagnosis seemed confirmed. Sooner or later it proved to be less exact, but not entirely mistaken, because with me nothing functions perfectly.

Only once were they really wrong: a kind of veterinarian in whose hands I had placed myself insisted for a long time on applying his blister papers to my sciatic nerve, but in the end he was outsmarted by my pain, which suddenly, during an examination, leaped from hip to neck, in any case, far from the sciatic nerve. The sawbones became angry and showed me the door and I went off-as I well remember-not in the least offended, but rather amazed that in its new position the pain hadn't changed at all. It remained angry and beyond reach as when it had tormented my hip. It's strange that all the parts of our body are able to ache in the same way.

The other diagnoses, absolutely exact, all persist in my body and fight among themselves for supremacy. There are days when I suffer from uric diathesis, and others when the diathesis is defeated, or rather healed, by an inflammation of the veins. I have whole drawers full of medicines, and they are the only drawers that I keep tidy. I love my medicines, and I know that when I abandon one of them, sooner or later I will return to it. In any event I don't believe I've wasted my time. Who knows how long ago and of what disease I would already have died if my pain hadn't simulated all my ailments in advance, persuading me to treat them before they overcame me?

But even though I can't explain its profound nature, I know when my pain took shape for the first time. Precisely because of that drawing so superior to mine. A straw that broke the camel's back! I'm sure I had never felt that pain before. I tried to explain its origin to a doctor, but he didn't understand me. Who knows? Perhaps psychoa.n.a.lysis will throw some light on all the upheaval my organism underwent during those days and especially in the few hours following my engagement.

They weren't really so few, those hours!

Later, when the company broke up, Augusta said to me gaily: "Till tomorrow!"

I liked the invitation because it proved I had achieved my purpose and that nothing was over and everything would continue the next day. She looked into my eyes and found them filled with lively a.s.sent, consoling her. I went down those steps, which I no longer counted, asking myself: "I wonder-do I love her?"

This is a doubt that has accompanied me all through my life, and today I can believe that when love is accompanied by such doubt, it is true love.

But even when I had left that house behind, I was not allowed to go home to bed, to collect the fruit of that evening's activity in a long and refreshing sleep. It was hot. Guido felt the need of an ice, and he invited me to come with him to a cafe. He took my arm in a friendly gesture, and I, with equal friendliness, supported his. He was a very important person for me, and I would have been unable to refuse him anything. The great weariness that should have driven me to bed made me more accommodating than usual.

We went into the very place where poor Tullio had transmitted his disease to me, and we sat down at a secluded table. As we had walked along the street, my pain, which I didn't yet know was going to be such a faithful companion, had caused me great suffering, but for a few moments, after I was able to sit down, it seemed to abate.

Guido's company was downright terrible. He inquired with great curiosity about the story of my love for Augusta. Did he suspect I was deceiving him? I declared shamelessly that I had fallen in love with Augusta at once, on my first visit to the Malfenti house. My pain made me talkative, as if I wanted to shout it down. But I talked too much, and if Guido had paid more attention he would have realized I wasn't all that much in love with Augusta. I spoke of the most interesting feature of Augusta's body, namely that skewed eye that made one believe, mistakenly, that all the rest was similarly out of place. Then I tried to explain why I hadn't declared myself earlier. Perhaps Guido was surprised, having seen me arrive at that house only at the last minute and then become engaged.

I shouted: "The Malfenti young ladies are accustomed to great luxury, and I couldn't know if I was in a position to take on such a responsibility."

I was sorry that I had thus also included Ada, but there was nothing to be done now: it was so difficult to separate Augusta from Ada! I went on, lowering my voice the better to control myself: "So I had to make some calculations. I found that my money wasn't enough. Then I tried to figure out if there wasn't some way of expanding my business..."

I added that to make those calculations I had required a great deal of time, and so I had refrained from visiting the Malfentis for five days. Finally my tongue, given free rein, had arrived at a bit of sincerity. I was on the brink of tears and, pressing my hip, I murmured: "Five days is a long time!"

Guido said he was glad to discover I was such a prudent person.

I remarked curtly: "A prudent person is no more likable than a scatterbrain!"

Guido laughed. "It's odd that a prudent man should feel called upon to defend scatterbrains!"

Then, without any transition, he informed me briefly that he was about to ask for Ada's hand. Had he dragged me to the cafe to make this confession or, annoyed at having had to sit and listen to me go on about myself for so long, was he getting his revenge?

I am almost sure I managed to display the greatest surprise and the greatest pleasure. But a moment later I found a way of stinging him severely: "Now I understand why Ada liked that Bach piece so much, with all its distortions! It was well played, but Higher Authorities forbid profaning certain works."

It was a nasty blow, and Guido flushed with pain. His answer was subdued because he was now without his enthusiastic little audience. "For heaven's sake!" he began, to gain time. "Every now and then, when you play, you succ.u.mb to a whim. In that room very few were familiar with Bach, and I introduced him in a somewhat modernized form."

He seemed satisfied with his invention, but I was equally satisfied because it seemed to me an apology and a capitulation. This was enough to appease me, and in any case, nothing on earth could have made me quarrel with Ada's future husband. I declared that I had rarely heard an amateur play so well.

This didn't content him: he remarked that he could be considered an amateur only because he hadn't decided to appear as a professional.

Was that all he wanted? I agreed with him. It was obvious he couldn't be considered an amateur.

So we were friends again.

Then, point-blank, he started speaking ill of women. I was speechless! Now that I am better acquainted with him, I know he bursts into abundant discourse on any subject if he thinks he can be sure of pleasing his interlocutor. A little earlier, I had mentioned the luxury of the Malfenti young ladies, and he began there, only to continue talking about all womankind's other bad qualities. My weariness prevented me from interrupting him, and I confined myself to repeated gestures of a.s.sent that were themselves all too tiring for me. Otherwise, to be sure, I would have protested. I knew that I had every right to speak ill of women, who for me were represented by Ada, Augusta, and my future mother-in-law; but he could have no cause to nourish any resentment of the s.e.x represented for him only by Ada, who loved him.

He was quite learned, and despite my fatigue I sat and heard him out with admiration. Long afterwards I discovered that he had borrowed the brilliant theories of the young suicide Weininger.* At that moment I suffered the burden of the Bach all over again. I even suspected he had some therapeutic aim. If not, then why would he want to convince me that a woman cannot possess genius or goodness? It seemed to me this treatment failed because it was administered by Guido. But I retained those theories and I amplified them by reading Weininger. They never heal you, but they come in handy when you are chasing women.

Having finished his ice, Guido felt he needed a breath of fresh air and he persuaded me to take a stroll with him towards the outskirts of the city.

I remember that for some days in the city we had been yearning for a bit of rain, hoping it would bring some relief from the premature heat. I hadn't even noticed the heat. That evening the sky had begun to be covered with fine, white clouds, the kind that lead simple people to hope for abundant rain, but a huge moon was advancing in the sky, intensely blue * Otto Weininger (1880-1903), Austrian writer and philosopher, author of a book ent.i.tled s.e.x and Character.

where it was still clear, one of those moons with swollen cheeks that the same simple people also believe capable of devouring clouds. It was obvious, in fact, that where the moon pa.s.sed, it dispelled and cleared.

I wanted to interrupt Guido's chatter, which kept me nodding constantly, a torture; and I described to him the moon's kiss, discovered by the poet Zamboni. How sweet that kiss was, in the heart of our nights, compared with the injustice that Guido was committing, at my side! As I spoke, stirring from the sluggishness I had fallen into with all this a.s.senting, my pain seemed to diminish. It was the reward for my rebellion and I persisted in it.

Guido was obliged to leave women alone for a moment and look up. But not for long! Having discovered, thanks to my indications, the pale image of the woman in the moon, he returned to his subject with a joke, at which he-but only he-laughed loudly in the deserted street: "She sees plenty of things, that woman does! Too bad that, being a woman, she can't remember them."

It was part of his (or Weininger's) theory that no woman can be a genius because women are unable to remember.

We reached the foot of the Via Belvedere. Guido said a little climb would do us good. Once again I fell in with his wishes. Up there, in one of those acts best suited to very young boys, he stretched out on the low wall that separated the street from the one below. He thought he was being brave, risking a fall of about ten meters. At first I felt the usual horror, seeing him exposed to such danger, but then I recalled the method I had invented that evening, in a burst of improvisation, to free myself from such suffering, and I began to wish fervently that he would fall.

In that position he continued preaching against women. Now he said that, like children, they required toys, but costly ones. I remembered that Ada said she liked jewels very much. Was he actually talking about her? I had then a frightful idea!

Why didn't I cause Guido to fall those ten meters? Wouldn't it have been fair to exterminate the man who was robbing me of Ada without loving her? At that moment I felt that when I had killed him, I could rush to Ada and receive my recompense at once. In the strange, moon-filled night, it seemed to me she must have heard how Guido was defaming her.

I have to confess that, honestly, at that moment I was ready to kill Guido! I was standing beside him, as he lay full length on the low wall, and I coldly studied in what way I should grip him, to be sure I was doing the thing properly. Then I discovered that I didn't even have to grip him. He was lying with his arms folded beneath his head: a good shove would have sufficed to throw him irreparably off balance.

I had another idea, so important, I thought, that I could compare it to the huge moon that proceeded through the sky, clearing it: I had agreed to the betrothal with Augusta to make sure I could sleep soundly that night. How could I sleep if I were to kill Guido? This idea saved me and him. I chose to abandon at once my position standing over Guido, which was luring me toward that act. I bent my knees, sinking down until my head almost touched the ground.

"Oh, the pain! The pain!" I cried.

Frightened, Guido sprang to his feet, asking for an explanation. I went on groaning, more softly, without answering. I knew why I was groaning: because I had wanted to kill, and perhaps also because I had been incapable of doing so. The pain and the groan excused everything. It seemed to me I was shouting that I hadn't wanted to kill, and it also seemed I was shouting that it wasn't my fault if I hadn't been able to do it. It was all the fault of my illness and my pain. But I remember well how, at that very moment, my pain completely vanished and my groan remained nothing but histrionics, to which I tried in vain to give some content, recalling the pain and reconstructing it so as to feel it and suffer from it. But the effort was futile because it returned only when it chose.

As usual, Guido proceeded by hypothesis. Among other things, he asked me if this were not the same pain caused by that fall at the cafe. This seemed a good idea to me, and I agreed. Fondly he drew me to my feet. Then, with every consideration, still supporting me, he helped me down the little hill. When we reached the bottom, I declared I felt somewhat better and I believed that with his support I could move a bit faster. So it was possible to go to bed at last! Thus I was granted my first great satisfaction that day. Guido was working for me, almost carrying me. Finally it was I who imposed my will on him.

We found a pharmacy still open, and he thought to send me to bed accompanied by a sedative. He fabricated a whole theory about real pain and the exaggerated sense of it: a pain that multiplied through the exacerbation that it had itself produced. With that little bottle my collection of medicines began, and it was only right that Guido had been the one to choose it.

To provide a firmer basis for his theory, he postulated that I had suffered my pain for many days. I was sorry not to be able to content him. I declared that at the Malfentis', that evening, I had felt no pain. At the moment when I arrived at the fulfillment of my cherished dream, obviously I couldn't have been suffering.

And to be sincere I wanted actually to be what I claimed I was, and I said several times to myself: "I love Augusta, I do not love Ada. I love Augusta, and this evening I achieved the fulfillment of my cherished dream."

So we advanced in lunar night. I suppose that my weight tired Guido, because he finally fell silent. He offered, however, to see me all the way to my bed. I declined, and when I was allowed to close my door behind me, I heaved a sigh of relief. No doubt Guido heaved the same sigh.

I took the steps of my house four at a time, and ten minutes later I was in bed. I fell asleep quickly, and in the brief period preceding sleep, I remembered neither Ada nor Augusta, but only Guido, so sweet and good and patient. True, I had not forgotten that a little earlier I had wanted to kill him, but that had no importance because things that no one knows, things that leave no trace, do not exist.

The following day I went, a little hesitant, to my bride's house. I was not sure that the commitments made the night before had the value I thought I must attribute to them. I discovered that they did, in everyone's mind. Augusta also considered herself engaged, even more confidently than I.

It was a toilsome betrothal. I have the feeling of having broken it off several times and then reconstructed it with great effort, and I am surprised that n.o.body else was aware of this. Never did I have the cert.i.tude that I was actually heading for marriage, but nevertheless I apparently behaved like a sufficiently loving fiance. In fact, I kissed and clasped to my bosom the sister of Ada whenever I had the opportunity. Augusta submitted to my aggressions as she believed a bride should, and I acted relatively well, simply because Signora Malfenti never left us alone for more than a few brief moments. My bride was much less ugly than I had thought, and I discovered her most beautiful feature only when I began kissing her: it was her blush! Where I kissed her a flame appeared in my honor, and I kissed more with the curiosity of the experimental scientist than with the fervor of the lover.

But desire was not wanting, and it made that burdensome time a bit easier. Thank G.o.d, Augusta and her mother prevented me from burning that flame in one single blaze as I often would have wished. How would we have continued to live afterwards? This way at least my desire continued to give me, on the front steps of that house, the same eagerness I had felt when I used to climb them to win Ada. The odd steps promised me that on this day I would be able to display to Augusta the nature of the betrothal she had wanted. I dreamed of a violent action that would give me back all the feeling of my freedom. I wanted nothing else, and it is quite strange that when Augusta learned what I wanted, she interpreted it as a sign of love-fever.

In my memory that period divides into two phases. In the first, Signora Malfenti often had Alberta keep an eye on us, or else she sent little Anna, with a schoolmistress, into the living room where we sat. Ada was never then a.s.sociated with us in any way, and I told myself I should be pleased at this-whereas, on the contrary, I remember vaguely having once thought it would be a great source of satisfaction for me if I could kiss Augusta in the presence of Ada. Heaven knows what violence I would have subjected my fiancee to.

The second phase began when Guido became officially engaged to Ada, and Signora Malfenti, practical woman that she was, united the two couples in the same living room so that they could keep a reciprocal eye on each other.

In the first phase, I know Augusta declared herself perfectly satisfied with me. When I didn't a.s.sail her, I became extraordinarily loquacious. Loquacity was a necessity of mine. I created the occasion for it by persisting in the thought that since I was to marry Augusta, I should also take her education in hand. I lectured her about being sweet, affectionate, and above all faithful. I don't precisely recall the form I gave these sermons of mine, some of which she has repeated to me, as she has never forgotten them. She would listen to me, intent and docile. Once, in the enthusiasm of my teaching, I declared that if she were to discover an infidelity on my part, she would then be ent.i.tled to repay me in the same coin. Outraged, she protested that not even with my permission would she ever be capable of betraying me, and that after any infidelity of mine, she would have only the freedom to weep.

I believe that these sermons, which I preached for no purpose except to be saying something, had a beneficent influence on my marriage. The sincere thing about them was their effect on Augusta's spirit. Her fidelity was never put to the test because she never knew anything of my infidelities, but her affection and her sweetness remained unchanged over the long years we spent together, just as I had induced her to promise me.

When Guido made his proposal, the second phase of my betrothal began, with a resolution I could express in these terms: "Now! I am quite cured of my love for Ada!" Until then I had believed that Augusta's blushing had sufficed to heal me, but obviously no healing is complete! The recollection of those blushes led me to believe that they would now occur also between Guido and Ada. This, far more than any earlier blushing, would dispel any desire of mine.

The desire to violate Augusta belongs to the first phase. In the second I was much less aroused. Signora Malfenti had surely not been mistaken in organizing our surveillance at such slight cost to herself.

I remember that once, in jest, I started kissing Augusta. Instead of joking with me, Guido, in return, began kissing Ada. This seemed to me indelicate on his part, because he was not kissing chastely as I had done, out of respect for the other pair: he was kissing Ada on the mouth, actually sucking her lips. I am sure that, by then, I had already become fairly accustomed to regarding Ada as a sister, but I was not prepared to see her used so. I suspect a real brother would hardly like to see his sister manipulated like that.

Hence, in Guido's presence, I never kissed Augusta again. Guido, on the contrary, in my presence, tried once more to draw Ada to him, but it was she who defended herself, and he didn't repeat the attempt.

Very hazily I recall the many, many evenings we spent together. The scene was repeated to infinity, until it became imprinted on my mind: the four of us seated around the elegant little Venetian table, on which a large kerosene lamp was burning, covered by a green cloth shade that cast everything in shadow, except the embroidery work on which the two girls were engaged, Ada working on a silk handkerchief held loosely in her hand, Augusta at a little circular frame. I can see Guido perorating, and often I must have been the only one to encourage him. I remember also Ada's head, the gently curled black hair emphasized by the strange effect of the greenish yellow light.

We argued about that light, and about the true color of that hair. Guido, who could also paint, explained to us how a color should be a.n.a.lyzed. This lesson of his was something else I never afterwards forgot, and even today, when I want to understand the color of a landscape more clearly, I half-close my eyes until many lines disappear and only the lights can be seen, darkening also into the one true color. When I devote myself to such an a.n.a.lysis, however, on my retina, immediately after the real images, in a kind of personal physical reaction, the yellow-green glow reappears, and the dark hair on which for the first time I trained my eye.

I cannot forget one evening, distinguished from all the other evenings by an expression of jealousy from Augusta and immediately thereafter by a deplorable indiscretion on my part. Playing a joke on us, Guido and Ada had gone to sit far off, at the other end of the living room, by the Louis XIV table. So I quickly developed an ache in my neck, which I had to twist in order to talk with them. Augusta said to me: "Leave them alone! Over there they're really making love."

And I, with great sluggishness of mind, whispered to her that she shouldn't believe this, for Guido didn't like women. In this way, it seemed to me, I was apologizing for having interfered in the talk of the lovers. But, instead, it was a wicked indiscretion, reporting to Augusta the talk about women that Guido indulged in when he was with me, but never in the presence of any other member of our brides' family. The recollection of my words poisoned my mind for several days, while I may say that the recollection of having wanted to kill Guido hadn't troubled me for so much as an hour. But killing, even treacherously, is more virile than harming a friend by betraying a confidence.

By now Augusta was wrong to be jealous of Ada. It wasn't to see Ada that I twisted my neck in that fashion. Guido, with his chatter, helped me pa.s.s those long hours. I was already fond of him, and I spent a part of my days with him. I was bound to him also by the grat.i.tude I felt for his high opinion of me, which he communicated to others. Even Ada listened to me with attention when I spoke.

Every evening, with some impatience, I awaited the sound of the gong that summoned us to supper, and what I remember chiefly of those suppers is my perennial indigestion. I overate in my necessity to keep active. At supper I lavished affectionate words on Augusta, insofar as my full mouth would allow, and her parents must have had the nasty impression that my great affection was diminished by my b.e.s.t.i.a.l voracity. They were surprised, on my return from our wedding journey, that I hadn't brought back the same appet.i.te. It disappeared when I was no longer required to display a pa.s.sion I didn't feel. The bride's parents must not find you cold at the moment when you are preparing to go to bed with the bride! Augusta particularly remembers the fond words I murmured to her at that table. Between mouthfuls I must have invented some magnificent ones, and I am amazed when I am reminded of them, because they do not seem mine.

Even my father-in-law, the sly Giovanni, let himself be deceived, and as long as he lived, whenever he wanted to furnish an example of great amorous pa.s.sion, he would cite mine for his daughter. For Augusta, that is. He smiled blissfully at it, good father that he was, but it increased his contempt for me because, in his view, a man who places his entire destiny in a woman's hands is not a real man at all, especially if he remains unaware that, besides his own, there are also some other women in this world. This demonstrates how I was sometimes unfairly misjudged.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, didn't believe in my love, not even when Augusta herself settled into it, with total trust.

For long years the Signora scrutinized me with a distrusting eye, dubious about the fate of her favorite daughter. Also for this reason, I am convinced she guided me in the days leading up to my betrothal. It was also impossible to deceive her, as she must have known my mind better than I did myself.

Finally came the day of my wedding, and on that very day I felt a last hesitation. I was to be at the bride's house at eight in the morning, but at seven-forty-five I was still in bed, smoking furiously and looking at my window, where, taunting me, the early morning sun shone brightly. I was pondering the idea of abandoning Augusta! The absurdity of my marriage was becoming obvious now that remaining close to Ada no longer mattered to me. Nothing of great moment would happen if I failed to turn up at the appointed hour! And besides: Augusta had been a lovable fiancee, but there was no way of knowing how she would behave after the wedding. What if she were immediately to call me a fool because I had let myself be snared like that?

Fortunately Guido came, and instead of resisting, I apologized for my delay, declaring that I thought a different hour had been set for the wedding. Rather than reproach me, Guido started telling me about himself and the many times that he had failed to keep engagements. Even when it came to absentmindedness he wanted to be superior to me, and I had to stop listening to him in order to get out of the house. So it was that I went to my wedding at a run.

I arrived very late, all the same. n.o.body scolded me, and all except the bride were satisfied with some explanations that Guido offered in my place. Augusta was so pale that even her lips were livid. Though I couldn't say I loved her, certainly I would never want to cause her any pain. I tried to make up for my enormity and I was fool enough to blame my tardiness on three different causes. That was too many, and they revealed so clearly what I had been pondering in my bed while looking at the winter sun that we had to delay our leaving for the church to allow Augusta time to regain her composure.

At the altar I said yes absently, because in my real sympathy for Augusta, I was confecting a fourth explanation for my delay, and it seemed to me the best of all.

But then, as we came out of the church, I realized that Augusta had regained all her color. I was a bit irked, because that yes of mine certainly shouldn't have sufficed to rea.s.sure her of my love. And I was preparing to treat her very roughly if she were to recover enough to call me a fool because I had allowed myself to be ensnared like that. But, on the contrary, at her home, she took advantage of a moment when they had left us alone, to say to me, in tears: "I will never forget that, even without loving me, you married me."

I didn't protest because the matter was so obvious that protest was impossible. But, filled with compa.s.sion, I embraced her.

None of this was ever discussed again between Augusta and me because a marriage is far simpler than an engagement. Once married, you don't talk anymore about love, and when you feel the need to speak of it, animal instincts quickly intervene and restore silence. Now, these animal instincts may become so human that they also become complex and artificial, and it can happen that, bending over a woman's head of hair, you also make the effort to find in it a glow that is not present. You close your eyes and the woman becomes another, only to become herself again when you leave her. You feel only grat.i.tude, all the greater if the effort has been successful. This is why, if I were to be born again (Mother Nature is capable of anything!), I would agree to marry Augusta; but never to be engaged to her.

At the station Ada held up her cheek for my fraternal kiss. I saw her only then, dazed as I was by all the people who had come to say good-bye, and I thought at once: You're the very one who got me into this! I held my lips to her velvety cheek, while taking care not even to graze it. This was my first satisfaction that day, because for an instant I felt the advantage I was deriving from my marriage: I had avenged myself, refusing to exploit the only opportunity offered me to kiss Ada! Then, as the train was speeding along, seated next to Augusta, I suspected I had done the wrong thing. I feared that my friendship with Guido had been jeopardized. But I suffered even more when I thought that Ada perhaps hadn't even noticed that I had not kissed the cheek she offered me.

She had noticed, but I learned this only when, in her turn, many months later, she set off with Guido from that same station. She kissed everyone. But to me she held out her hand, with great cordiality. I clasped it coldly. Her vengeance actually arrived late, because circ.u.mstances had completely changed. Since my return from my wedding journey, our relations had been those of brother and sister, and there could be no explanation for her having denied me the kiss.