Zeno's Conscience Part 19

I know only the things he repeated every day. I could divine that he was an Italian of suspect coloration because it seemed to him Trieste would be better off remaining Austrian.

He adored Germany and especially German railway cars, which arrived with such precision. He was a socialist in his own way, and would have liked any individual person to be forbidden to possess more than one hundred thousand crowns. I didn't laugh when, one day, conversing with Guido, he admitted that he possessed exactly one hundred thousand crowns and not a penny more. I didn't laugh, nor did I ask him whether, if he were to earn another penny, he would revise his theory. Ours was a truly strange a.s.sociation. I couldn't laugh with him or at him.

When he had rattled off some a.s.sertion of his, he would pull himself up in his chair so that his eyes would be directed at the ceiling, whereas I was left facing what I called the mandibular gap. And he could see through that gap! Sometimes I wished to take advantage of that position of his and think of something else, but he would recall my attention, abruptly asking: "Are you listening to me?"

After that friendly outburst of his, for a long time Guido didn't talk to me about his affairs. At first Nilini told me a little of them, but then he also became a bit more reserved. From Ada herself I learned that Guido was continuing to make money.

When she returned, I found her quite ugly again. She was not just fatter: she was bloated. Her cheeks, restored, were once again misplaced and gave her an almost square countenance. Her eyes had continued to distend their sockets. My surprise was great, because from Guido and others who had gone to visit her, I had heard that with every pa.s.sing day she gained new strength and health. But a woman's health is, first of all, her beauty.

Ada also brought me other surprises. She greeted me affectionately, but no differently from the way she had greeted Augusta. There was no longer between us any secret, and certainly she no longer remembered having wept on recalling how she had made me suffer. So much the better! She was forgetting even her rights over me! I was her good brother-in-law, and she loved me only because she found unchanged my affectionate relations with my wife, which always remained the admiration of the Malfenti family.

One day I made a discovery that greatly surprised me. Ada believed she was still beautiful! Far away from home, at the lake, she had been courted, and obviously she had enjoyed her successes. Probably she exaggerated them, because it seemed to me excessive to claim she had had to leave that resort to escape a suitor's persecution. I admit there may have been an element of truth there, because she would no doubt seem less ugly to those who hadn't known her before. But still, not that much less, with those eyes and that complexion and that deformed face! To us she seemed uglier because, remembering what she had been, we saw more clearly the devastation wrought by the illness.

One evening we invited her and Guido to our house. It was a pleasant gathering, just family. It seemed the continuation of that four-way betrothal of ours. But Ada's hair was not illuminated by the glow of any light.

When we were separating, as I was helping her on with her cloak, I remained alone with her for a moment. I immediately had a slightly different feeling about our relations. We were left alone, and perhaps we could say to each other what we were unwilling to say in the presence of the others. As I was helping her, I reflected and finally I found what I had to say to her.

"You know he's gambling now," I said to her in a serious voice. I sometimes suspect that with those words I wanted to recall our last meeting, which I could not believe was so forgotten.

"Yes," she said, smiling, "and very successfully. He's become quite clever, from what they tell me."

I laughed with her, a loud laugh. I felt relieved of all responsibility. As she went off, she murmured: "Is that Carmen still in your office?"

Before I could answer, she had run off. Between us there was no longer our past. There was, however, her jealousy. That was alive, as at our last meeting.

Now, thinking back, I find that I should have realized, long before I was precisely informed, that Guido had begun losing on the market. His face was no longer illuminated by that air of triumph and it showed again his great anxiety over that balance sheet, left in that state.

"Why are you worrying about it?" I asked him, in my innocence, "when you already have in your pocket enough to make those false entries completely real? When you have all that money, you don't go to jail." At that time, I later learned, he no longer had a cent in his pocket.

I was so firmly convinced he had fortune bound to his chariot that I paid no heed to the many clues that might have persuaded me otherwise.

One evening in August, he dragged me off fis.h.i.+ng again. In the dazzling light of an almost full moon there was scant likelihood of catching anything on our hooks. But he insisted, saying that out on the water we would find some relief from the heat. In fact, that was all we found. After a single attempt, we didn't even bait the hooks, and we allowed the lines to trail from the little boat as Luciano rowed out to sea. The moon's rays must surely have reached the seabed, sharpening the sight of the big animals, making them aware of the trap, and even of the little animals capable of nibbling the bait, but not of taking the hook in their tiny mouths. Our bait was simply a gift to the minnows.

Guido lay down at the stern, and I at the prow. A little later he murmured: "How sad, all this light!"

Probably he said that because the light prevented him from sleeping, and I agreed, to please him, and also so as not to disturb with foolish argument the solemn peace in which we were proceeding. But Luciano protested, saying he liked that light very much. As Guido didn't answer, I tried to silence the youth, saying the light was certainly sad because we could see all the things of this world. And besides, it spoiled the fis.h.i.+ng. Luciano laughed and kept quiet.

We were silent for a long while. I yawned several times in the moon's face. I regretted having let myself be induced to climb into that boat.

Guido suddenly asked me: "You're a chemist, could you answer me this: which is more effective, pure veronal or sodium veronal?"

To tell the truth, I didn't even know that a sodium veronal existed. You can't expect a chemist to know the whole world by heart. I know enough chemistry to enable me to find any information promptly in my books, and further to be able to discuss-as is obvious in this case-the things I don't know.

Sodium? Why, it's a well-known fact that sodium compounds are those most easily a.s.similated. Also, in connection with sodium, I recalled-and I repeated more or less exactly-an encomium of that element expressed by a professor of mine in the only lecture of his I attended. Sodium is a vehicle on which the elements climb in order to move more rapidly. And the professor had recalled how sodium chloride pa.s.sed from organism to organism, and how it collected simply as a result of gravity in the deepest pit of the earth, the sea. I'm not sure I reproduced my professor's thought precisely, but at that moment, faced by that vast expanse of sodium chloride, I spoke of sodium with infinite respect.

After some hesitation, Guido asked further: "So someone who wants to die should take sodium veronal?"

"Yes," I answered.

Then, remembering that there are cases in which a person may want to simulate a suicide and, not thinking just then that I might be reminding Guido of a painful episode in his life, I added: "And if the person doesn't want to die, he should take the pure veronal."

Guido's study of veronal might have made me stop and think. Instead, I didn't realize anything, concentrating on sodium as I was. Over the next few days I was able to bring Guido new evidence of the qualities I had attributed to sodium: to accelerate amalgams, which are simply intense embraces between two bodies, embraces that subst.i.tute combination or a.s.similation, some sodium was also added to mercury. Sodium was the mediator between gold and mercury. But Guido was no longer interested in veronal, and now I think that his visits to the Bourse had then taken a turn for the better.

In the course of a week, Ada came to the office all of three times. Only after the second visit did it occur to me that she wanted to talk with me.

The first time, she ran into Nilini, who had once again set himself to educating me. She waited a full hour for him to leave, but she made the mistake of chatting with him and he therefore believed he should stay. After having made the introductions, I heaved a sigh of relief, as Nilini's mandibular gap was no longer directed at me. I didn't partic.i.p.ate in their conversation.

Nilini was actually witty and surprised Ada, telling her how there was as much wicked gossip in the Tergesteo as in a lady's sitting room. Only, according to him; at the Bourse, as always, they were better informed than elsewhere. To Ada it seemed he was slandering women. She said she didn't even know the meaning of the word gossip. At this point I spoke up, confirming that in all the long years I had known her, I had never heard from her lips a word that even remotely resembled gossip. I smiled while saying that, because I seemed to be reproaching her. She wasn't a gossip because other people's affairs didn't interest her. Before, in perfect health, she had minded her own business, and when her sickness overcame her, she could maintain only one little s.p.a.ce free, which was reserved for her jealousy. She was a true egoist, but she welcomed my testimony with grat.i.tude.

Nilini pretended not to believe her or me. He said he had known me for many years and he believed I possessed a great ingenuousness. This amused me, and it amused Ada, too. I was very annoyed, on the other hand, when he - for the first time in the presence of a third party-proclaimed that I was one of his best friends and that therefore he knew me profoundly. I didn't dare protest, but that shameless declaration offended my modesty, I was like a young woman publicly accused of fornication.

I was so ingenuous, Nilini said, that Ada, with her familiar female cleverness, could easily have uttered some slander in my presence without my being aware of it. It seemed to me that Ada continued to be amused by these dubious compliments, but I later learned that she was letting him talk in the hope that he would wear himself out and leave. She had quite a wait.

When Ada came back the second time, she found me with Guido. Then I read on her face an expression of impatience, and I guessed that it was actually me she was seeking. Until she returned, I toyed with my usual dreams. She wasn't asking me for love, actually, but too frequently she wanted to be alone with me. For men it was difficult to understand what women wanted because at times women themselves didn't know.

But her words then inspired no new feeling. As soon as she could talk to me, her voice was choked with emotion, but not because it was me she was addressing. She wanted to know the reason why Carmen had not been discharged. I told her all I knew about it, including our attempt to procure her a position with Olivi.

She was immediately calmer because what I told her corresponded exactly to what she had been told by Guido. Then I learned that her fits of jealousy struck her at intervals. They arrived without apparent cause, and they were dispelled by any convincing word.

She asked me two more questions: if it was really all that difficult to find a position for an employee, and if Carmen's family was in such straits that they depended on the girl's earnings.

I explained to her that, in fact, in Trieste it was hard to find an office job for a woman. And as for the second question, I couldn't answer, because I didn't know any member of Carmen's family.

"But Guido knows everyone in that house," Ada murmured wrathfully, and tears bathed her cheeks again.

Then she pressed my hand to say good-bye, and thanked me. Smiling through her tears, she said she knew she could rely on me. I liked her smile because it was certainly not meant for a brother-in-law, but rather for one bound to her by secret ties. I tried to give her proof that I deserved that smile, and I murmured: "What makes me fear for Guido isn't Carmen, but his gambling on the stock market!"

She shrugged. "That's not important. I've talked about it with Mamma, too. Papa also played the stock market, and he made lots and lots of money!"

I was disconcerted by this answer, and I insisted: "I don't like that Nilini. It's not true that I'm his friend!"

She looked at me, surprised. "He seems a gentleman to me. Guido is also very fond of him. I believe, furthermore, that Guido is now paying great attention to business. "

I was determined not to speak ill of Guido, so I remained silent. When I found myself alone, I didn't think about Guido, but about myself. It was perhaps just as well that Ada finally appeared to me as a sister and nothing more. She didn't promise and didn't threaten love. For several days I ran about the city, restless and unbalanced. I couldn't manage to understand myself. Why was I feeling as if Carla had left me at that very moment? Nothing new had happened to me. I sincerely believe that I have always needed adventure, or some complication resembling it. My relations with Ada no longer involved the least complication.

From his easy chair one day Nilini preached more than usual: on the horizon a storm cloud was advancing, neither more nor less than an increase in the cost of money. The market all of a sudden was saturated and could absorb nothing more!

"Let's give it a dose of sodium!" I suggested.

My interjection didn't please him at all, but rather than become angry, he ignored it. Suddenly money in this world had become scarce and therefore costly. He was surprised that this was happening now, for he had foreseen its coming a month hence.

"Perhaps they sent all the money off to the moon!" I said.

"These are serious matters, not to be laughed at," Nilini declared, still looking at the ceiling. "Now we'll see who has the stuff of the true fighter and who is knocked down by the first blow."

As I didn't understand how money in this world could become scarcer, so I didn't realize Nilini was placing Guido among those fighters who had to prove their worth. I was so accustomed to defending myself against his sermons by paying no attention that this one, though I heard it, also pa.s.sed by me without leaving the slightest mark.

But a few days later Nilini quite changed his tune. Something new had happened. He had discovered that Guido had conducted some transactions through another broker. Nilini began protesting in an agitated tone that he had never failed Guido in anything, not even in maintaining proper discretion. On this question he called me to bear witness. Hadn't he kept Guido's affairs a secret even from me, whom he continued to consider his best friend? But at this point he was released from any reticence, and he could shout in my face that Guido was in debt up to his ears. For those affairs that had been conducted through him, Nilini could guarantee that at the very slightest improvement it would be possible to hold out and await better times. It was, however, outrageous that at the first sign of trouble Guido had wronged him.

Talk about Ada! Nilini's jealousy was intractable. I wanted to dig more news out of him, but he, on the contrary, became increasingly exasperated and went on talking of the wrong that had been done him. Therefore, despite his best intentions, he still remained discreet.

That afternoon I found Guido in the office. He was lying on our sofa in a curious intermediate state between despair and sleep. I asked him, "Are you in debt up to your ears?"

He didn't reply at once. He raised his arm and covered his haggard face. Then he said: "Have you ever seen a man with worse luck than me?"

He lowered his arm and changed his position, lying supine. He closed his eyes again and seemed already to have forgotten my presence.

I was unable to offer him any comfort. It really offended me that he should believe himself the unluckiest man in the world. This wasn't an exaggeration: it was an outright lie. I would have helped him, had I been able to, but it was impossible for me to comfort him. In my opinion, even someone more innocent and more unlucky than Guido doesn't deserve compa.s.sion, because otherwise in our lives there would be room only for that feeling, which would be very tiresome. Natural law does not ent.i.tle us to happiness, but rather it prescribes wretchedness and sorrow. When something edible is left exposed, from all directions parasites come running, and if there are no parasites, they are quickly generated. Soon the prey is barely sufficient, and immediately afterwards it no longer suffices at all, for nature doesn't do sums, she experiments. When food no longer suffices, then consumers must diminish through death preceded by (tain; thus equilibrium, for a moment, is reestablished. Why complain? And yet everyone does complain. Those who have had none of the prey die, crying out against injustice, and those who had a share feel that they deserved more. Why don't they die, and live, in silence? On the other hand, the joy of those who could seize a good part of the food is pleasant, and it should be displayed in broad daylight, to applause. The only admissible cry is that of the triumphant. The victor.

As for Guido! He lacked any ability to gain or even simply to hold on to riches. He came from the gambling table and wept at having lost. He didn't behave, therefore, like a gentleman, and he nauseated me. For this reason, and only for this one, at the moment when Guido would have had great need of my affection, he didn't find it. Not even my repeated resolutions could carry me that far.

Meanwhile, Guido's respiration was becoming gradually more regular and noisy. He was falling asleep! How unmanly he was in his misfortune! They had taken away his food, and he closed his eyes perhaps to dream that he still possessed it, instead of opening them wide to see if he could somehow s.n.a.t.c.h a little morsel.

I became curious to know if Ada had been informed of the misfortune that had befallen him. I asked him in a loud voice. He started, and needed a moment to adjust to his disaster, which suddenly he saw again, complete.

"No!" he murmured. Then he closed his eyes once more.

To be sure, all those who are severely stricken have a tendency toward sleep. Sleep restores strength. I went on watching him, hesitant. But how could he be helped if he was sleeping? This wasn't the moment to doze off. I grabbed him roughly by one shoulder and shook him.

"Guido!"

He had actually slept. He looked at me, uncertain, his eyes still clouded by sleep, and then he asked me: "What do you want?" A moment later, infuriated, he repeated his question: "Well, what do you want?"

I wanted to help him, otherwise I wouldn't have had any right to wake him. I became angry, too, and I shouted that this wasn't the moment for sleeping because he had quickly to see if some remedy could be found. He had to figure things out and discuss them with all the members of our family and with his family in Buenos Aires.

Guido sat up. He was still rather distraught, having been wakened in that manner. He said to me bitterly: "You would have done better to let me sleep. Who's going to help me now? Don't you remember how far I had to go last time, to be given the little I needed to be saved? Now there are substantial amounts involved! Where do you think I could turn?"

With no affection, but rather with anger at having to contribute and thus deprive myself and my family, I cried: "I'm here, aren't I?" Then avarice prompted me to temper my sacrifice right at the start: "And what about Ada? And our mother-in-law? Can't we all join hands to save you?"

He stood up and came toward me with the obvious intention of embracing me. But this was exactly what I didn't want. Having offered him my help, I now had the right to upbraid him, and I made full use of it. I reproached him for his present weakness and then also for his presumption, which had continued until this moment, and had lured him to his ruin. He had acted on his own, not consulting anyone. Time and again I had tried to communicate with him, to restrain him and save him; but he had rejected me, continuing to trust only Nilini.

Here Guido smiled. He actually smiled, the wretch! He told me that for two weeks he had no longer worked with Nilini, having got it into his head that the man's ugly mug brought him bad luck.

His character was evident in all, in that sleep and in that smile: he was ruining everyone around him, and still he smiled. I played the stern judge because, to be saved, Guido had first to be educated. I insisted he tell me how much he had lost, and I was angry when he said he didn't know exactly. I became still angrier when he mentioned a fairly small sum, which then proved to be the amount he had to pay at the settlement on the fifteenth of the month, which was only two days off. But Guido insisted that things could be put off until the month's end, and the situation might still change. The scarcity of money on the market wouldn't last forever.

I shouted: "If money is scarce in this world, do you expect to get it from the moon?" I added that he was not to gamble again, not even for one day. He wasn't to risk increasing the already enormous loss. I also said that the loss would be divided into four parts, which would be covered by me, him (or rather his father), Signora Malfenti, and Ada, that we had to return to our normal commerce, which involved no risks, and I never wanted to see Nilini in our office again, or any other broker.

Very meekly, he begged me not to shout so, because the neighbors might hear us.

I made a great effort to calm myself, and I succeeded, also because, keeping my voice down, I could go on insulting him. His loss was in effect a crime. You had to be an idiot to get yourself into such a situation. I really felt it was necessary to subject him to the entire lesson.

Here, Guido mildly protested. Who didn't play the market? Our father-in-law, who had been such a sound businessman, hadn't spent a day of his life without some trading. And besides-as Guido knew-I myself had gambled.

I protested that there were different kinds of gambling. He had risked his entire patrimony on the market; I had risked a month's income.

It made me sad to see Guido childishly trying to slough off his responsibility. He insisted Nilini had induced him to risk more than he wanted, convincing him that he was on his way to a great fortune.

I laughed and mocked him. Nilini wasn't to blame, he was attending to his own business. And-for that matter-after leaving Nilini, hadn't Guido rushed to another broker and raised his stakes? He could have boasted of this new a.s.sociation if he had begun selling short without Nilini's knowledge. To remedy the situation, it surely wasn't enough to change brokers while continuing the same ill-starred course. Guido wanted only to persuade me finally to leave him alone, and with a sob in his throat, he admitted that he had been wrong.

I stopped upbraiding him. Now he really aroused my compa.s.sion, and I would even have embraced him if he had wanted me to. I told him I would immediately set about procuring the money I was to provide, and I would also take it upon myself to speak with our mother-in-law. He, on the other hand, would deal with Ada.

My compa.s.sion increased when he confided that he would gladly have spoken with our mother-in-law in my place, but he was tormented at the thought of speaking with Ada.

"You know how women are! They don't understand business, not unless it has a happy outcome!" He wouldn't talk with her at all, and would ask Signora Malfenti to inform her of the whole situation.

This decision relieved him greatly, and we left together. I saw him walking beside me with his head down and I felt remorse for treating him so roughly. But how could I do otherwise, when I loved him? He had to mend his ways if he didn't want to continue heading for ruin! What could his relations with his wife be like, if he was so afraid of speaking with her!

But meanwhile he discovered a way of vexing me again. Walking along, he had mentally perfected the plan that had so appealed to him. Not only would he not have to talk with his wife, but he would find a way not to see her that evening, because he would go off hunting. After that decision, he was free of every cloud. Apparently the prospect of going out into the open air, far from every concern, sufficed to make him look as if he were already there and enjoying himself fully. I was infuriated! With the same look, surely, he could go back to the Bourse and resume his gambling, with which he risked the family fortune and also mine.

He said to me: "I want to allow myself this last pleasure, and I invite you to come with me, on condition that you swear not to remind me of today's events, not even with a single word."

Thus far he had been smiling as he spoke. Confronted by my serious face, he also turned serious. He added: "You, too, must see that I need some relief after such a blow. Then it will be easier for me to resume my place in the struggle."

His voice had an edge of emotion whose sincerity I couldn't doubt. So I was able to curb my irritation, indicating it only by my refusal of his invitation, informing him that I had to stay in the city to raise the required money. My reply was in itself a reproach! I, the innocent one, would remain at my post, while he, the guilty, could go off and enjoy himself.

We had reached the front door of the Malfenti house. He hadn't managed to recover his expression of joy at the prospect of a few hours of pleasure, and while he stayed there with me, he retained, imprinted on his face, the suffering expression I had caused. But before leaving me, he found release in a display of independence and as it seemed to me resentment. He told me he was truly amazed to discover such a friend in me. He hesitated to accept the sacrifice I meant to make for him, and he wanted (really wanted) me to know that he didn't consider me committed in any way and I was therefore free to give or not to give.

I'm sure I blushed. To spare myself embarra.s.sment, I said to him: "Why do you think I would want to back out, when just a few minutes ago, without your having asked anything of me, I volunteered to help you?"

He looked at me, somewhat uncertain, and then said: "Since it's your wish, I'll accept it, of course, and I thank you. But we will make a contract, a brand-new partners.h.i.+p, so that each will receive what is his due. In fact, if we have a business, and you want to continue handling; it, you must have a salary. We'll set up the new firm on quite a different basis. That way, we'll no longer have to fear further harm from having concealed the loss in our first year of activity."

I replied: "That loss no longer has any importance, and you mustn't think any more about it. Try to win our mother-in-law over to your side. That, and only that, is what matters now."

So we parted. I believe I smiled at the naivete with which Guido revealed his most intimate feelings. He had made me that long speech only so that he could accept my gift without showing me any grat.i.tude. But I demanded nothing. It was enough for me to know that he really owed me such grat.i.tude.

For that matter, on leaving him, I also felt a relief as if, only then, had I stepped into the open air. I truly felt again the freedom that had been taken from me by my resolution to educate him and put him back on the right path. Basically, the pedagogue is enchained worse than the pupil. I was fully determined to procure that money for him. Naturally I can't say whether I was doing this out of affection for him or for Ada, or perhaps to rid myself of that small share of responsibility I might bear for having worked in his office. In short, I had decided to sacrifice a part of my inheritance, and even today I look back on that day in my life with great satisfaction. That money saved Guido, and a.s.sured me a great serenity of conscience.

I walked until evening in the greatest serenity, and so I missed the right moment to go to the Bourse and find Olivi, to whom I had to turn to raise such a large sum. Then I decided the matter wasn't all that urgent. I had a considerable amount of money at my disposal, and that was enough for the present, to contribute to the payment we had to make on the fifteenth of the month. For the end of the month I would provide later.

That evening I thought no more of Guido. Later, when the children had been put to bed, I began several times to tell Augusta of Guido's financial disaster and the harmful consequences for me, but I didn't want to be bored with discussion, and I thought it would be better to hold off and convince Augusta at the moment when the settling of those affairs would be decided by the whole family. And besides, while Guido was off enjoying himself, it would be odd for me to be irritated.

I slept very well, and in the morning, with my pocket not heavily loaded with money (I had the envelope rejected by Carla, which till now I had religiously kept for her or for some successor of hers, plus a bit more money I'd been able to withdraw from a bank), I went to the office. I spent the morning reading newspapers, between Carmen, who was sewing, and Luciano, who was practicing addition and subtraction.

When I returned home at lunchtime, I found Augusta dejected and puzzled. Her face was covered by that great pallor produced only by sorrows caused by me. Mildly, she said: "I'm told you've decided to sacrifice a part of your inheritance to save Guido! I know I had no right to be informed-"

She was so doubtful of her right that she hesitated. Then she went on reproaching me for my silence: "But it's also true that I'm not like Ada, because I have never opposed your wishes."

It took me some time to learn what had happened. Augusta had dropped in on Ada, just as she was discussing Guido's situation with her mother. Seeing her sister, Ada burst into floods of tears and told Augusta of my generosity, which she absolutely didn't want to accept. She even begged Augusta to urge me to desist from my offer.

I realized at once that Augusta was suffering from her old sickness: jealousy of her sister; but I paid no attention. I was surprised by the att.i.tude Ada had a.s.sumed: "Did she seem offended?" I asked, my eyes widening in surprise.

"No, no, not that!" the sincere Augusta cried. "She kissed me and hugged me... perhaps so I would hug you."

This seemed to me quite a comical way of expressing herself. She was looking at me, studying me, distrustful.

I protested: "Do you believe Ada is in love with me? What's got into your head?"

But I was unable to calm Augusta, whose jealousy was annoying me dreadfully. True, Guido by this time was no longer off enjoying himself, but was no doubt undergoing a nasty quarter-hour between his wife and his mother-in-law, but I was highly annoyed, too, and it seemed to me I was being made to suffer too much, as I was completely innocent.