Zeno's Conscience Part 20

I tried to calm Augusta, caressing her. She moved her face away from mine to see me better, and gently expressed a mild reproach that moved me deeply.

"I know that you love me, too," she said.

Obviously, Ada's state of mind held no importance for her, but mine did; and I had an inspiration, to prove my innocence to her. "So Ada is in love with me?" I said, laughing. Then, stepping back from Augusta to be seen better, I puffed out my cheeks a little and widened my eyes unnaturally so that I resembled the ailing Ada. Augusta looked at me, dumbfounded, but soon guessed my intention. She was seized by a fit of laughter, of which she was promptly ashamed.

"No!" she said to me. "Please don't make fun of her." Then she confessed, still laughing, that I had succeeded in imitating those very protuberances that gave Ada's face such a surprising appearance. And I knew it, because in imitating Ada, it was as if I were embracing her. And when I was alone, I repeated that effort several times, with desire and repulsion.

In the afternoon I went to the office, hoping to find Guido there. I waited awhile, then decided to go to his house. I had to know if it was necessary to ask Olivi for some money. I had to do my duty, even though it annoyed me to see Ada, once again distorted by grat.i.tude. Who knows what surprises that woman might still have in store for me!

On the front steps of Guido's house I ran into Signora Malfenti, who was climbing them ponderously. She told me in full detail what had so far been decided about Guido's plight. When they had separated the previous evening, they were more or less agreed in the conviction that that man, who had undergone such a disastrous misfortune, should be rescued. Only in the morning had Ada learned that I would contribute to covering Guido's loss, and she had firmly refused to accept. Signora Malfenti excused her: "What can we do? She doesn't want to bear the burden of remorse at having impoverished her favorite sister."

On the landing, the Signora stopped to catch her breath and also to talk, and she said to me, laughing, that the matter would be concluded with no harm to anyone. Before lunch, she, Ada, and Guido had called on a lawyer for advice, an old family friend who was also little Anna's trustee. The lawyer had said that there was no need to pay because by law they were not obligated. Guido had objected sharply, speaking of honor and duty, but once all of them, including Ada, had decided not to pay, no doubt he, too, would have to resign himself.

"But will his firm be declared bankrupt in the Bourse?" I asked, puzzled.

"Probably!" Signora Malfenti said, with a sigh, before tackling the last flight of steps.

Guido was accustomed to rest after lunch, and so we were received by Ada alone, in that little sitting room I knew so well. Seeing me, she was confused for a moment, but just for one moment, which I, however, grasped and clung to, clear and evident, as if her confusion had been spoken aloud. Then she recovered herself and held out her hand with a firm, virile gesture, meant to erase the feminine hesitation that had preceded it.

She said to me: "Augusta must have told you how grateful I am to you. I couldn't now tell you what I feel, because I'm confused. I'm also ill. Yes, very ill! I should go back to the sanatorium in Bologna!"

A sob interrupted her: "Now I must ask you a favor. I beg you to tell Guido that you, too, are in no position to give him that money. Then it will be easier to persuade him to do what he must do."

First she had sobbed, recalling her illness; then she sobbed again before continuing to talk about her husband: "He's a boy, and he must be treated as such. If he knows that you will give him that money, he'll be all the more obstinate about his idea of sacrificing the rest as well, pointlessly. Point-lessly, because now we know with absolute certainty that bankruptcy in the Bourse is not illegal. The lawyer told us so."

She was communicating to me the opinion of a high authority without asking me for mine. Coming from an old habitue of the Bourse, my opinion, along with the lawyer's, could have carried some weight, but I didn't actually remember my opinion, if, indeed, I had one. I couldn't renege on the commitment I had made to Guido: it was that commitment that had authorized me to shout all those insults into his ear, thus pocketing something like interest on the capital that now I could no longer refuse him.

"Ada," I said, hesitantly. "I don't believe I can contradict myself like this, on a moment's notice. Wouldn't it be better for you to convince Guido to do things the way you wish?"

Signora Malfenti, with the great fondness she always showed me, said she understood my special position perfectly, and, for that matter, when Guido saw at his disposal only a quarter of the amount he needed, he would be obliged in any case to bow to their wishes.

But Ada hadn't wept all her tears. Crying, her face hidden in her handkerchief, she said: "You were wrong, very wrong, to make that truly extraordinary offer! Now it's clear, the wrong you've done!"

She seemed to me to hesitate between a great grat.i.tude and a great bitterness. Then she added that she didn't want that offer of mine to be discussed any further, and she begged me not to provide that money, because she would prevent me from giving it, or would prevent Guido from accepting it.

I was so embarra.s.sed that in the end I told a lie. I told her, in fact, that I had already procured that money, and I pointed to my breast pocket, where that very slim envelope was nestled. Ada looked at me this time with an expression of real admiration, which would have pleased me if I hadn't been aware of not deserving it. In any case, it was that very lie of mine, for which I can offer no explanation except a strange tendency I have to portray myself to Ada as greater than I am, that kept me from waiting for Guido, and drove me from that house. It could also have happened that, at a certain point, contrary to appearances, I might have been asked to hand over the money I had said I had with me, and then what kind of figure would I cut? I pleaded urgent business in the office and I ran off.

Ada saw me to the door and a.s.sured me she would induce Guido to come to me himself, thank me for my kind offer, and refuse it. Her resolve in p.r.o.nouncing this declaration surprised me; it seemed her determination affected also me in part. No! At that moment she didn't love me. My act of kindness had been too great. It crushed the people on whom it fell, and it was no wonder that the beneficiaries protested. Going to the office, I tried to rid myself of the uneasiness that Ada's att.i.tude had caused me, remembering that I was offering this sacrifice to Guido and to no one else. What did Ada have to do with it? I promised myself I would say this to Ada herself at the first opportunity.

I went to the office precisely to escape any remorse for having lied once again. Nothing awaited me there. Since morning a fine rain had been falling, which had considerably cooled the air of that tentative spring. A few steps and I would have been at home, whereas to go to the office I had to cover a much longer route, and this was fairly tiresome. But I felt I had a commitment to maintain.

A little later I was joined there by Guido. He sent Luciano out of the office in order to remain alone with me. He had that overwhelmed expression that a.s.sisted him m his struggles with his wife; I knew it very well. He must have wept and shouted.

He asked me what I thought of the plans of his wife and our mother-in-law, which he knew had been communicated to me. I acted hesitant. I didn't want to express my opinion, which could not agree with that of the two women, but I knew that if I were to adopt theirs, I would provoke further scenes on Guido's part. Yet it would have pained me too much if my help were to seem hesitant, and besides, Ada and I had agreed that the decision should come from Guido and not from me. I told him it was necessary to calculate, observe, listen also to other people. I wasn't such a businessman that I could give advice on an important subject like this. And, to gain time, I asked him if he wanted me to consult Olivi.

This was enough to make him shout. "That imbecile!" he cried. "Please leave him out of this!"

I surely wasn't going to become overheated defending Olivi, but my calm wasn't enough to soothe Guido. We were in the identical situation of the day before, but now it was he who was shouting and I who had to be silent. It's a matter of disposition. I was filled with an embarra.s.sment that paralyzed my limbs.

But he absolutely insisted on hearing my opinion. Thanks to an inspiration I believe divine, I spoke very well, so well that if my words had had any effect whatsoever, the catastrophe that followed would have been avoided. I told him that, to begin with, I would have separated the two questions, that of the payment on the fifteenth from that at the end of the month. After all, on the fifteenth the sum to be paid wasn't so large, and therefore the women should be persuaded to accept that relatively light loss. Then we would gain the time necessary to arrange wisely for the other payment.

Guido interrupted me to ask: "Ada told me that you have the money all ready in your pocket. Do you have it here?"

I blushed. But I promptly found another lie at hand, which saved me: "Since they wouldn't accept that money at your house, I deposited it in the bank just now. But we can withdraw it whenever we like, even first thing tomorrow morning."

Then he reproached me for having changed my mind. Just the day before I had declared I didn't want to wait for the second payment before clearing up everything! And here he had an outburst of violent wrath that finally flung him, drained, on the sofa! He was going to throw Nilini out of the window, and all those other brokers who had lured him into gambling. Oh! While he was gambling he had clearly glimpsed the possibility of ruin, but never that of being subjugated to women who didn't understand a thing.

I went to shake his hand, and if he had allowed me, I would have embraced him. I wanted nothing more than to see him arrive at that decision. No more gambling, but day-to-day work!

This would be our future and his independence. Now it was a matter of getting through this brief, hard period, and then everything would be easy and simple.

Downcast but calmer, he left me a little later. He, too, in his weakness was pervaded with strong determination.

"I'm going back to Ada," he murmured, with a bitter but confident smile.

I saw him to the door and I would have accompanied him home if he hadn't had a carriage outside, waiting for him.

Nemesis was persecuting Guido. Half an hour after he left me, I thought it would have been prudent on my part to go to his house and lend him a hand. Not that I suspected there might be any danger threatening him, but by now I was totally on his side and I could help persuade Ada and Signora Malfenti to a.s.sist him. Failure in the Bourse was not something I liked, and while the loss divided among the four of us was not insignificant, it didn't represent ruin for any of us.

Then I remembered that my greatest duty at this moment was not to help Guido, but to make sure that the next day he would find the sum I had promised him. I went at once to look for Olivi, and I prepared myself for another struggle. I had worked out a system to repay to my firm the gross amount over various years, depositing, however, over a few months' time, all that remained of my mother's estate. I was hoping that Olivi would not create difficulties, because until now I had never asked him for more than was my due from profits and interest, and I could also promise never to trouble him again with such demands. Obviously, I could also hope to recover at least a part of that sum from Guido.

That evening I wasn't able to find Olivi. He had just left his office when I reached it. They a.s.sumed he had gone to the Bourse. I didn't find him there, either, and then I went to his house, where I learned he was at a meeting of an economic a.s.sociation in which he occupied some honorary position. I could have gone to him there, but by now it was night, and a heavy rain was falling steadily, transforming the streets into so many little streams.

The downpour lasted all night, and its memory persisted for long years thereafter. The rain fell very calmly, actually perpendicular, always with the same abundance. From the heights surrounding the city, the mud descended and, mingling with the refuse of our city life, soon clogged up our few ca.n.a.ls. After having waited in vain in a shed for the rain to stop, I decided to go home, since I could clearly see that the weather had settled on rain and it was useless to hope for any change. I had to wade through water even when I chose the highest part of the cobbles. I hurried home, cursing and soaked to the skin. I was also cursing because I had wasted so much useful time hunting for Olivi. My time may not be all that valuable, but I surely suffer horribly when I can see I have labored in vain. And as I hurried home, I was thinking: "We'll leave everything till tomorrow when it will be clear and fair and dry. Tomorrow I'll see Olivi and tomorrow I'll go to Guido. Maybe I'll get up early, but it will be clear and dry." I was so convinced of the rightness of my decision that I told Augusta everyone had agreed to postpone all decisions to the next day. I changed, dried myself, and first, with my warm, comfortable slippers on my tortured feet, I had supper, then I went to bed and slept soundly until morning while, at the panes of my window, the rain pounded, in streams as thick as cables.

Thus I was late in learning of the night's events. First we found out that the rain had provoked flooding in various parts of the city, and then that Guido was dead.

Much later I found out how such a thing could happen. At about eleven in the evening, when Signora Malfenti had gone off, Guido told his wife that he had swallowed an enormous quant.i.ty of veronal. He wanted to convince his wife that he was doomed. He embraced her, kissed her, asked her forgiveness for having caused her suffering. Then, even before his speech turned into a stammer, he a.s.sured her that she had been the only love of his life. At that moment she believed neither that a.s.surance nor that he had swallowed all that poison in order to die. She didn't even believe he had lost consciousness, but imagined he was shamming in order to get more money out of her.

Then, when almost an hour had gone by, seeing that he was sleeping more and more profoundly, she felt some terror and wrote a note to a doctor who lived not far from her house. In the note she said that her husband needed help at once because he had swallowed a great quant.i.ty of veronal.

Until then, there had been no emotion in that house that might have suggested to the maid, an old woman who had been with them only a short while, the gravity of her mission.

The rain did the rest. The maid found herself up to her calves in water, and she lost the note. She realized this only when she was in the doctor's presence. She did tell him, however, that it was urgent and she persuaded him to come with her.

Dr. Mali was a man of about fifty, far from brilliant, but an experienced physician who had always performed his duty as best he could. He didn't have a great clientele of his own, but he was kept very busy by a partners.h.i.+p with many other doctors, which paid him less than generously. He had just come home, and had finally managed to warm and dry himself at his fire. It's easy to imagine his state of mind, as he now abandoned his warm little nook. When I began investigating more closely the causes of my poor friend's death, I took care also to make the acquaintance of Dr. Mali. From him I learned only this: when he came outdoors and felt the rain soaking him despite his umbrella, he regretted he had studied medicine instead of agriculture, recalling that a peasant, when it rains, stays home.

Reaching Guido's bedside, he found Ada completely calmed. Now that she had the doctor with her, she recalled more clearly how Guido had fooled her months before, simulating suicide. It was no longer she who had to a.s.sume responsibility, but rather the doctor, who should be informed of everything, including the motives that might suggest a simulation of suicide. And these motives the doctor learned, all of them, at the same time that he p.r.i.c.ked up his ear to hear the waves that were sweeping through the street. Not having been warned that he was called to deal with a case of poisoning, he lacked all the necessary implements for the treatment. He deplored this, muttering some words that Ada didn't understand. The worst of it was that, to initiate a gastric cleansing, he couldn't send for the necessary pump, but would have to go and fetch it himself, retracing his steps twice. He touched Guido's pulse and found it magnificent. He asked Ada if Guido by chance had always been a sound sleeper. Ada answered yes, but not to this degree. The doctor examined Guido's eyes: they reacted promptly to the light! He went off, recommending that from time to time she give him a few teaspoons of very strong black coffee.

I learned also that, once in the street again, he muttered angrily: "It ought to be against the law, to fake suicide in weather like this!"

I, when I met him, didn't dare reproach him for his negligence, but he sensed my feeling and defended himself: He told me he was amazed to learn, the next morning, that Guido was dead, and had even thought the patient might have regained consciousness and taken more veronal. Then he added that those ignorant of the medical art couldn't imagine how a doctor, in the course of his practice, became accustomed to defending his life against patients who jeopardized it, thinking only of their own.

After little more than an hour, Ada tired of thrusting a teaspoon between Guido's teeth and seeing him sip less and less of it, letting the rest spill and dampen the pillow; she took fright again and asked the maid to go to Dr. Paoli. This time the maid was careful with the note. But it took her over an hour to reach the physician's house. It's natural, when it's raining that hard, to feel the need now and then to stop under some portico. That sort of rain doesn't just wet you: it lashes you.

Dr. Paoli wasn't at home. He had been summoned a short time before by a patient, and had gone off saying he hoped to be back quickly. But then, apparently, he had preferred to wait at the patient's house for the rain to stop. His housekeeper, a very kind elderly person, invited Ada's maid to sit by the fire and gave her some refreshment. The doctor hadn't left his patient's address, and so the two women spent several hours together by the fire. The doctor returned only when the rain had stopped. Then, when he reached Ada's with all the instruments he had used once before on Guido, dawn was breaking. At that bedside he had only one duty: to conceal from Ada the fact that Guido was already dead and, before Ada could realize it, send for Signora Malfenti, to a.s.sist the widow in her immediate grief.

This was why the news that reached us was delayed, and vague.

Getting out of bed, I felt for the first time an access of rage against poor Guido. He complicated every misfortune with his histrionics! I went off without Augusta, who couldn't leave the baby on such short notice. Outside, I was stopped by a doubt! Couldn't I wait until the banks opened and Olivi was in his office, so as to appear at Guido's supplied with the money I had promised? This is how little I believed in the gravity of Guido's condition, even though it had been announced to me!

I had the truth from Dr. Paoli, whom I encountered on the stairs. I was so overwhelmed that I almost fell down. Guido, since I had been living beside him, had become for me an individual of great importance. As long as he was alive, I saw him in a certain light, which was the light of a part of my days. With his dying, that light was transformed as if it had suddenly pa.s.sed through a prism. And it was this that dazzled me. He had erred, but I immediately saw that, as he was dead, nothing of his error remained. According to me he was an imbecile, that clown who, in a cemetery paved with laudatory epitaphs, asked where they bury the sinners around there. The dead are never sinners. Guido now was pure! Death had purified him.

The doctor was moved, having witnessed Ada's grief. He told me something of the dreadful night she had gone through. Now they had succeeded in making her believe Guido had swallowed such a great quant.i.ty of poison that no succor would have been of help. It would be disastrous if she were to learn otherwise!

"The fact is," the doctor added, disheartened, "if I had arrived a few hours earlier, I would have saved him. I found the empty bottles of poison."

I examined them. A strong dose, but only slightly stronger than the last time. He showed me some bottles on which I read the printed word: Veronal. Not sodium veronal, then. No one else could now be certain, as I was, that Guido had not wanted to die. But I never told anyone.

Paoli left me, saying that for the moment I should not try to see Ada. He had given her a strong sedative, and he had no doubt that it would soon take effect.

In the pa.s.sage, from that little room where Ada had twice received me, I heard her soft weeping. Isolated words I couldn't understand, but steeped in sorrow. The word he was repeated several times, and I could imagine what she was saying. She was reconstructing her relations with the poor dead man. They must in no way have resembled those she had had with the living man. For me it was obvious that with her living husband she had made a mistake. He died for a crime committed by all of them together, because he had played the market with the a.s.sent of them all. When it came time to settle accounts, then they had abandoned him. And, alone, he had hastened to pay up. Only one of his relatives-I, who had nothing to do with any of it-had felt called upon to help him.

In the bedroom on the nuptial double bed, poor Guido lay alone, covered by a sheet. Rigor, already advanced, expressed here not a force, but rather a great stupefaction at being dead without having wanted to be. On his dark and handsome face was imprinted a reproach. Certainly not addressed to me.

I went home to Augusta, to urge her to go to her sister's aid. I was deeply moved, and Augusta wept, embracing me.

"You were a brother to him," she murmured. "Now finally, I agree with you: we must sacrifice a part of our money to redeem his memory."

I took care to render all honor to my poor friend. First, I affixed to the door of the office a bulletin that announced our closing because of the owner's death. I myself composed the death notice. But it was only on the following day, with Ada's consent, that the funeral arrangements were made. I learned then that Ada had decided to follow the bier to the cemetery. She wanted to give him all the evidence of affection that she could. Poor thing! I knew the pain of remorse at a grave. I myself had suffered it so after my father's death.

I spent the afternoon shut up in the office with Nilini for company. Thus we arrived at a little balance sheet of Guido's situation. Frightful! Not only was the firm's capital wiped out, but Guido was also in debt for an equal amount, if the whole debt were to be paid.

I should have started working, really working, for the sake of my poor deceased friend, but I was unable to do anything save dream. My first idea would have been to sacrifice my whole life in that office and to work for Ada and her children. But was I, then, sure of being able to do good?

Nilini, as usual, chattered away as I stared into the far, far distance. He also felt called upon to revise radically his relations with Guido. Now he understood everything! Poor Guido, when he had wronged Nilini, had already been affected by the sickness that was to lead him to suicide. So all was now forgotten. And he preached on, declaring this was his nature. He was incapable of bearing anyone a grudge. He had always loved Guido, and he loved him still.

In the end, Nilini's fantasies merged with mine and overlapped. It was not in time-consuming commerce that we would find the remedy for such a catastrophe, but on the Bourse itself. And Nilini told me about a person, a friend of his, who at the last moment had been able to save himself by doubling his stakes.

We talked together for many hours, but Nilini's proposal to continue the gambling begun by Guido came at the end, shortly before noon, and I accepted it at once. I accepted it with joy, as if I were bringing my friend back to life. In the end I bought, in the name of poor Guido, a number of other stocks with exotic names: Rio Tinto, South French, and so on.

Thus for me began fifty hours of the hardest work I have done in my whole life. First, and until evening, I remained striding up and down the office, waiting to hear if my instructions had indeed been followed. I was afraid that in the Bourse they had heard of Guido's suicide and his name would no longer be considered valid for further commitments. Instead, for several days that death was not attributed to suicide.

Then, when Nilini finally could inform me that all my orders had been executed, for me a real agitation began, aggravated by the fact that at the moment I received the doc.u.ments, I was informed that on all of them I was already losing some fairly large fraction. I remember that agitation as true toil. In my memory I have the curious sensation that uninterruptedly, for fifty hours, I remained seated at the gambling table, nursing the cards. I don't know anyone who has ever been able to tolerate similar exertion for fifty hours. Every s.h.i.+ft in price I recorded, brooded over, and then (why not say it?) mentally urged shares forward, or held them back, as best suited me, or rather my poor friend. Even my nights were sleepless.

Fearing that some member of the family might intervene and prevent the salvage operation I had undertaken, i mentioned to no one the midmonth payment. When it came due, I paid everything myself, because none of the others remembered their commitment, as all were gathered around the corpse, awaiting the interment. For that matter, in that settlement there was less to be paid than had been originally established, because luck had favored me quickly. Such was my sorrow at Guido's death, that I seemed to alleviate it by compromising myself in every possible way, both with my signature and with the risk of my money. I had been accompanied to this point by the dream of goodness I had had a long time ago, at his side. I suffered so from this agitation that I never again played the stock market on my own account.

But because of all my absorption with the market (this was my chief occupation) in the end I missed Guido's funeral. Here is what happened. That very day, the shares in which we were involved made an upward leap. Nilini and I spent our time calculating how much of the loss we had recovered. Old Speier's original investment now turned out to be only halved! A magnificent result, which filled me with pride. What happened was just what Nilini had predicted, in a very tentative tone, though now, of course, when he repeated his former words, that tone vanished and he portrayed himself as a confident prophet. According to me, he had predicted this and also its opposite. There was no way he could have erred, but I didn't say so because it suited me for him to remain in the transaction, with his ambition. His urging could also influence prices.

We left the office at three and began to run because we remembered that the funeral was to take place at two-forty-five.

Reaching the Chiozza arcades, I saw the procession in the distance and I even seemed to recognize a friend's carriage, sent to the funeral for Ada. With Nilini, I jumped into a hack, ordering the driver to follow the funeral. And in that vehicle Nilini and I continued our mental exertions to influence the market. So far were we from thinking of the late lamented that we complained of the coach's slow pace. Who could say what was happening meanwhile on the Bourse, without us to keep watch over it? Nilini, at a certain moment, looked me straight in the eye and asked me why I didn't do something with the Bourse on my own.

"For the moment," I said, and I blushed, I don't know why, "I am working only for my poor friend."

Then, after a slight hesitation, I added: "Afterwards I'll think of myself." I wanted to leave him the hope of being able to induce me to gamble, part of my effort to keep him wholly friendly to me. But, silently, I formulated the very words I didn't dare say to him: "I will never place myself in your hands."

He started preaching. "Who knows if there will be another opportunity like this!" He was forgetting: he had taught me that on the Bourse there are opportunities every hour.

When we arrived at the place where, as a rule, the vehicles stop, Nilini stuck his head out of the window and emitted a cry of surprise. The carriage was proceeding, following a funeral cortege toward the Greek Orthodox cemetery.

"Was Signor Guido Greek?" he asked, surprised.

In fact, the funeral was pa.s.sing beyond the Catholic cemetery and advancing toward some other cemetery, Jewish, Greek, Protestant, or Serbian.

"He might have been Protestant!" I said at first, but immediately recalled having attended his wedding in the Catholic church.

"It must be a mistake!" I exclaimed, thinking first that they wanted to bury him in some remote spot.

Nilini suddenly burst out laughing, uncontrollable laughter that flung him, his strength exhausted, against the back of the carriage, his ugly mouth wide open in his little face.

"We've made a mistake!" he cried. When he managed to restrain the explosion of his hilarity, he showered reproaches on me. I should have seen where we were going, because I should have known the time and the people and the rest. It was somebody else's funeral!

Irritated, I hadn't laughed with him, and now it was difficult for me to put up with his reproaches. Why didn't he also pay more attention? I controlled my ill temper only because the Bourse mattered more to me than the funeral. We got out of the carriage to get our bearings, and headed for the gate of the Catholic cemetery. The carriage followed us. I realized that the survivors of the other deceased looked at us with surprise, unable to figure out why, having honored the poor man to this extreme place, we were now abandoning him just at the supreme moment.

Nilini, impatient, walked ahead of me. He asked the gatekeeper, after a brief hesitation: "Has Dr. Guido Speier's funeral already arrived?"

The gatekeeper didn't seem surprised by the question, which to me seemed comical. He answered that he didn't know. He knew only that in the last half hour two funerals had pa.s.sed the gates.

Puzzled, we held council. Obviously there was no knowing whether the funeral was already inside or not. Then I decided for myself. It was not admissible for me to arrive when the service had already begun, disturbing it. So I wouldn't enter the cemetery. But, on the other hand, I couldn't risk encountering the funeral on its way out. Therefore I gave up the idea of attending the interment, and I would return to the city taking a long way around, by Serrala. I left the carriage to Nilini, who wanted at least to put in an appearance, out of deference to Ada, whom he knew.

With a rapid step, to avoid any encounter, I climbed the country road leading to the village. At this point I wasn't the least displeased to have mistaken funerals, not paying my last respects to poor Guido. I couldn't linger over those religious practices. Another duty weighed on me: I had to save my friend's honor and defend his patrimony, for the sake of his widow and children. When I could tell Ada that I had managed to recover three-quarters of the loss (and in my mind I returned to the whole calculation redone so many times: Guido had lost double the amount of his father's capital, and after my intervention the loss was reduced to half of that. So it was exact. I had actually recovered three-quarters of the loss), she would surely forgive me for not having attended his funeral.

That day the weather had turned fine again. A splendid spring sun was s.h.i.+ning, and, in the still-soaked countryside, the air was clear and healthy. My lungs, taking the exercise I hadn't allowed myself for several days, swelled. I was all health and strength. Health is evident only through comparison. I compared myself to poor Guido and I climbed, higher and higher, with my victory in the very struggle where he had fallen. All was health and strength around me. The country, too, with its young gra.s.s. The long and abundant watering, the other day's catastrophe, now produced only beneficent effects, and the luminous sun was the warmth desired by the still-frozen earth. Surely, the more we moved away from the catastrophe, the more disagreeable that blue sky would be, unless it could darken in time. But this was the forecast of experience and I didn't remember it; it grips me only now as I write. At that moment there was in my spirit only a hymn to my health and all of nature's: undying health.

My steps quickened. I was overjoyed to feel them so light. Coming down the Servola hill, my pace picked up until I was almost running. Having reached the flat Sant'Andrea promenade, it slowed again, but I retained the sensation of great ease. The air was carrying me along.

I had perfectly forgotten that I was coming from the funeral of my closest friend. I had the stride, the respiration of a victor. But my joy in victory was a tribute to my poor friend in whose interest I had entered the fray.

I went to the office to see the closing prices. They were a bit weak, but not enough to undermine my confidence. I would go back to my mental focus, and I had no doubt that I would arrive at my goal.

I finally had to go to Ada's house. Augusta came to the door. She asked me immediately: "How could you miss the funeral? You? The only man in our family."

I put down my umbrella and hat and, a bit puzzled, I told her I would like to speak at once with Ada as well, so I wouldn't have to repeat myself. Meanwhile I could a.s.sure her that, as for missing the funeral, I had had my own good reasons. I was no longer all that sure of them, and suddenly my side started hurting, perhaps from fatigue. It must have been that remark of Augusta's that made me doubt the possibility of justifying my absence, which must have caused a scandal; I could see before me all the partic.i.p.ants at the sad function, distracted from their grief by wondering where I was.

Ada didn't come. I learned later that she hadn't even been informed that I was waiting for her. I was received by Signora Malfenti, who began speaking to me with a frown more stern than any I had ever seen; I began apologizing, but I was quite far from the self-confidence with which I had flown from the cemetery into the city. I stammered. I told her also something less than true, in support of the truth, which was my courageous initiative on the Bourse for Guido's benefit. What I said was that shortly before the time of the funeral I had had to send a dispatch to Paris to place an order, and I had felt compelled to remain in the office until I had received the reply. It was true that Nilini and I had had to cable Paris, but that was two days ago, and two days ago we had also received the reply. In other words, I understood that the truth wouldn't suffice to excuse me, perhaps because I couldn't tell all of it, relating the important operation that I had been carrying on for days, namely regulating, with my mental willpower, the international stock exchanges. But Signora Malfenti forgave me when she heard the sum to which Guido's loss had now been reduced. She thanked me with tears in her eyes. I was again not simply the sole man in the family, but the best.

She asked me to come that evening with Augusta to see Ada, to whom in the meanwhile she would tell everything. For the moment, Ada was in no condition to receive anyone. And I gladly went off with my wife. Even she, before leaving that house, didn't feel it necessary to say good-bye to Ada, who alternated between weeping and a dejection that didn't allow her even to notice the presence of anyone who spoke to her.

I had a hope: "Then it wasn't Ada who realized I was absent?"

Augusta confessed that she would have liked to remain silent, since Ada's display of indignation at my absence had seemed excessive to her. Ada demanded explanations from her, and when Augusta had to say she knew nothing, not having yet seen me, Ada again gave way to despair, crying that Guido had been driven to that end, for the whole family hated him.

It seemed to me Augusta should have defended me, reminding Ada how I alone had been prepared really to help Guido. If they had listened to me, Guido would have had no motive for committing or simulating suicide.

But Augusta, on the contrary, had remained silent. She was so moved by Ada's desperation that she feared enraging her, if she tried to argue. For that matter, she was confident that Signora Malfenti's explanations would now convince Ada of her own injustice toward me. I must say that I felt that same confidence myself, and indeed I must confess that from that moment on, I antic.i.p.ated the certain satisfaction of witnessing Ada's surprise and her manifestations of grat.i.tude. For with her, thanks to Basedow, everything was excessive.

I returned to the office, where I learned that on the market there was another slight indication of a rise, very slight, but already sufficient to allow me to hope I would find, at tomorrow's opening, the high level of that morning.