Zeno's Conscience Part 4

In the mind of a young man from a middle-cla.s.s family, the concept of human life is a.s.sociated with that of a career, and in early youth the career is that of Napoleon I. This is not to say that the young man dreams of becoming emperor, for you can remain at a much lower level and still resemble Napoleon. The most intense life is narrated, in synthesis, by the most rudimentary sound, that of the sea-wave, which, once formed, changes at every instant until it dies! I expected therefore also to a.s.sume form and to dissolve, like Napoleon and like a wave.

My life could provide only a single note with no variation, fairly high and envied by some, but horribly tedious. Throughout my life my friends maintained the same opinion of me, and I believe that I, too, since arriving at the age of reason, have not much changed the notion I formed of myself.

The idea of marrying may therefore have come to me from the weariness of emitting and hearing always that one note. Those who have not yet experienced marriage believe it is more important than it is. The chosen companion will renew, improving or worsening, our breed by bearing children: Mother Nature wants this but cannot direct us openly, because at that time of life we haven't the slightest thought of children, so she induces us to believe that our wife will also bring about a renewal of ourselves: a curious illusion not confirmed by any text. In fact, we live then, one beside the other, unchanged, except for an acquired dislike of one so dissimilar to oneself or an envy of one who is our superior.

The strange thing is that my matrimonial adventure began with my meeting my future father-in-law and with the friends.h.i.+p and admiration I felt for him, before I learned he was the father of some nubile girls. Obviously, therefore, it was not a resolution on my part that caused me to advance toward the goal of which I was ignorant. I neglected one young girl who for a moment I might have thought suited for me, and I remained attached to my future father-in-law. It's almost enough to make you believe in destiny.

My deeply felt desire for novelty was satisfied by Giovanni Malfenti, so different from me and from all the people whose company and friends.h.i.+p I had sought in the past. Having gone though two university departments, I was fairly cultivated, thanks also to my long inertia, which I consider highly educational. He, on the contrary, was a great businessman, ignorant and active. But from his ignorance he drew strength and peace of mind, and I, spellbound, would observe him and envy him.

Malfenti at that time was about fifty, a man of iron const.i.tution, huge body, tall and heavy, weighing perhaps two hundred pounds or more. The few ideas that stirred in his immense head would then be expounded with such clarity, examined so thoroughly, and applied to so many new situations every day, that they became part of him, of his limbs, his character. I was quite lacking in such ideas, and I hung on to him, to enrich myself.

I had come to the Tergesteo building on the advice of Olivi, who told me that I would get my commercial activity off to a good start by spending some time at the Bourse, and that I might also garner there some useful information for him. I sat down at that table where my future father-in-law reigned, and I never left it afterwards, since it seemed to me I had really come upon a cla.s.sroom of commerce, such as I had long been seeking.

He soon became aware of my admiration and repaid it with a friends.h.i.+p that immediately struck me as paternal. Can he have known at once how things were to end? One evening when, thrilled by the example of his great activity, I declared that I wanted to rid myself of Olivi and manage my own affairs, he advised against it and even seemed alarmed by my intention. I could devote myself to business, but I should always maintain my firm tie with Olivi, whom he knew.

He was more than willing to instruct me, and in my notebook he actually wrote in his own hand the three commandments he considered sufficient to make any firm prosper: 1. There's no need for a man to know how to work, but if he doesn't know how to make others work, he is doomed.

2. There is only one great regret: not having acted in one's own best interest. 3. In business, theory is useful, but it can be utilized only after the deal has been made.

I know these and many other axioms by heart, but they were of no help to me.

When I admire someone, I try at once to resemble him. So I also imitated Malfenti. I wanted to be very clever, and I felt that I was. Indeed, I once dreamed I was smarter than he. I thought I had discovered a flaw in his business organization: I decided to tell him immediately in order to win his esteem. One day at the Tergesteo table I stopped him when, in a business argument, he was calling his interlocutor a jacka.s.s. I told him I thought it a mistake for him to proclaim his cleverness far and wide. In my view the truly clever man in business matters should take care to appear foolish.

Giovanni made fun of me. A reputation for cleverness was very useful. For one thing, many came to seek his counsel, bringing him the latest news, while he gave them the most helpful advice, confirmed by experience acc.u.mulated ever since the Middle Ages. At times he happened to gain, along with the news, the possibility of selling some merchandise. Finally-and here he started shouting because he felt he had at last hit upon the argument that should convince me-to sell or to buy profitably, everyone seeks out the most clever man. From the fool they could hope for nothing, except perhaps to persuade him to sacrifice his own interest, but his goods always cost more than the clever man's, because he has already been swindled at the moment of purchase.

For Giovanni, I was the most important person at that table. He confided in me his business secrets, which I never betrayed. His trust was well bestowed, and in fact he was able to deceive me twice, even after I had become his son-in-law. The first time his shrewdness cost me money, though, as it was Olivi who was deceived, I didn't complain much. Olivi had sent me to him to collect some information shrewdly, which I relayed to him. The information was such that Olivi never afterwards forgave me, and whenever I opened my mouth to tell him something, he would ask: "Who told you that? Your father-in-law?" To defend myself, I had to defend Giovanni, and in the end I felt more swindler than swindled. Quite a pleasant feeling.

But on the other occasion I myself was the imbecile, yet even then I couldn't bear my father-in-law any grudge. He provoked my envy one moment and my hilarity the next. In my misfortune I saw the precise application of his principles, which he had never ill.u.s.trated to me more clearly. He also found the way to laugh with me, never confessing that he had deceived me and declaring that he had to laugh at the comic aspect of my ill luck. Only once did he admit he had played that trick on me. It was at the wedding of his daughter Ada (not to me), after he had drunk some champagne, which affected that great body whose usual beverage was pure water.

Then he told me the story, shouting to overcome the hilarity that almost robbed him of speech: "So then this decree comes along! Very depressed, I'm figuring out how much it's going to cost me. At that moment, in comes my son-in-law. He declares that he wants to go into business. 'Here's a fine opportunity,' I say to him. He falls on the doc.u.ment and signs it, afraid Olivi might arrive in time to stop him, and so the deal is done." Then he showered praise on me: "He knows the cla.s.sics by heart. He knows who said this and who said that. But he doesn't know how to read the daily paper!"

It was true! If I had seen that decree, printed inconspicuously in the five newspapers I read every day, I wouldn't have fallen into the trap. I should have understood that decree immediately, and seen its consequences. This was no easy matter, because the decree reduced a certain tariff and thus reduced the cost of the merchandise involved.

The following day my father-in-law retracted his confession. On his lips the deal regained the character it had had before that supper. "Wine's a liar," he said seraphically, and it was tacitly understood that the decree in question had been published two days after the conclusion of our affair. He never again uttered the suggestion that, seeing that decree, I could have misunderstood it. I was flattered, but he didn't spare me out of kindness, but rather because he believed that everyone, reading the newspapers, has his own business interests in mind. I, on the contrary, when I read a paper, feel transformed into public opinion, and seeing the reduction of a tariff, I think of Cobden* and free trade. The thought is so important that it leaves no room for me to recall my wares.

Once, however, I happened to win his admiration for myself, for me as I truly am, and, indeed, precisely for my worst qualities. For some time he and I had held some shares in a sugar refinery, which we were expecting to produce miracles. Instead, the stock went down, slightly but steadily, and Giovanni, who was not a man to swim against the stream, sold off his shares and persuaded me I should unload mine. In perfect agreement, I meant to instruct my broker to sell, and meanwhile I jotted a reminder in a notebook that, in those days, I had resumed keeping. But, as everyone knows, during the day you never look into your pocket, and so, for several * Richard Cobden (1804-65), English manufacturer and politician, firm believer in free trade.

evenings, on going to bed, I was surprised to find that memorandum, too late for me to act on it. Once I cried out in dismay, and to avoid giving my wife too many explanations, I told her I had bitten my tongue. Another time, amazed at my own negligence, I really bit my hands. "Watch out for your feet now!" my wife said, laughing. Then there were no further wounds because I became hardened. I looked, dazed, at that notebook, too slim to make its pressure felt during the day, and so I gave it no further thought until the next evening.

One day a sudden downpour forced me to seek shelter in the Tergesteo. There, by chance, I found my broker, who told me that in the past week the value of those shares had almost doubled.

"And now I'll sell!" I exclaimed in triumph.

I rushed to my father-in-law, who already knew about the increased value of that stock. He regretted having sold his shares and, if a bit less so, also regretted persuading me to sell mine.

"Don't take it too hard!" he said, laughing. "This is the first time you've lost anything by taking my advice."

The other matter had been the result not of his advice but of a mere suggestion from him, and in his opinion this was quite different.

I began laughing heartily.

"But I didn't act on that advice!" My luck wasn't enough for me, however: I tried to make it look like merit on my part. I told him the stock would not be sold until the next day, and, a.s.suming a self-important manner, I tried to make him believe I had received some news I had forgotten to pa.s.s on to him, and it had led me to ignore his words.

Grim and offended, he spoke without looking me in the face. "A man with a mind like yours shouldn't go into business. And when he behaves so wickedly, he doesn't confess it. You still have a lot to learn, young fellow."

I disliked irritating him. It was much more amusing when he was doing me harm. I told him sincerely how matters had gone.

"As you see, a man with a mind like mine should absolutely go into business."

Mollified at once, he laughed with me. "What you earn from such a deal isn't a profit: it's a reward. That mind of yours has already cost you so much that it's only fair for it to reimburse you for a part of your losses!"

I don't know why I dwell here on our quarrels, which were so few. I was truly fond of him, and indeed I sought out his company despite his habit of yelling in order to think more clearly. My eardrums were able to bear his shouts. If he had shouted less loudly, those immoral theories of his would have been more offensive and, if he had been more gently brought up, his strength would have been less significant. And despite the fact that I was so different from him, I believe he reciprocated my affection with equal fondness. I would be more certain of this if he hadn't died so soon. He continued a.s.siduously giving me lessons after my marriage and he often seasoned them with shouts and insults, which I accepted, convinced that I deserved them.

I married his daughter. Mysterious Mother Nature led me and it will be seen with what imperative violence. Now I sometimes study the faces of my children to see if, along with my narrow chin, which I have pa.s.sed on to them, they possess at least some feature of the brute strength of the grandfather I chose for them.

I wept at my father-in-law's grave, even though his last farewell to me hadn't been too affectionate. On his deathbed he told me he admired my shameless luck, which allowed me to move freely while he was crucified on that bed. Amazed, I asked him what I had done to him to make him wish me ill. And he answered me with these very words: "If I could pa.s.s my illness on to you and thus rid myself of it, I would give it to you immediately, even doubled! I have none of those humanitarian fancies of yours!"

There was nothing offensive in this: he would have liked to repeat that other transaction in which he had succeeded in loading off on me some worthless goods. But here, too, there was an affectionate pat on the head, because I wasn't sorry to hear my weakness described as the humanitarian fancies he attributed to me.

At his grave, as at all the others where I have wept, I grieved also for the part of myself that was buried there. What a loss it was for me, to be robbed of that second father, that common, ignorant, fierce fighter who underlined my weakness, my culture, my timidity. It's the truth: I'm timid! I would never have found this out if I hadn't studied Giovanni. G.o.d only knows how much better I would have come to know myself if he had continued living at my side!

Soon I realized that at the Tergesteo table, where he liked to reveal himself as he was and even a bit worse, Giovanni respected a self-imposed reservation: he never spoke of his home, or else he did so only when forced to, decorously and in a voice somewhat softer than usual. He nurtured a great respect for his family, and perhaps not everyone among those seated at that table seemed to him worthy of knowing anything about it. There I learned only that all four of his daughters had names beginning with A, a highly practical course, in his view, because in this way all the things on which that initial was embroidered could pa.s.s from one to the other without having to undergo any alteration. They were called (and I immediately learned those names by heart): Ada, Augusta, Alberta, and Anna. At that table, too, it was said that all four were beautiful. That initial made a much deeper impression on me than it should have. I dreamed of those four girls linked so firmly by their names. It was as if they were a bundle, to be delivered all together. The initial also said something else: my name is Zeno and I therefore had the Sensation I was about to take a wife very far from my own country.

It was perhaps accidental that before presenting myself at the Malfentis', I had severed a fairly long-standing tie with a woman who might perhaps have deserved better treatment. But this accident provokes some thought. My decision to make this break was inspired by quite a frivolous motive. The poor girl had thought that a good way to bind me more tightly to herself was to make me jealous. On the contrary, the mere suspicion was enough to make me abandon her definitively. She couldn't have known at the time how possessed I was by the idea of marriage, and that I believed it impossible to enter that state with her simply because then the novelty would not have seemed great enough to me. The suspicion she deliberately inspired in me demonstrated the superiority of marriage, in which state such suspicions must not arise. When that suspicion, whose lack of substance I soon perceived, then vanished, I recalled that she spent money too freely. Today, after twenty-four years of honest matrimony, I am no longer of that opinion.

For her it proved a genuine stroke of luck because a few months later she married a very well-off man and achieved the desired change before I did. As soon as I was married, I met her in my home because her husband was a friend of my father-in-law. We ran into each other often, but for many years, all the time we were young, the greatest reserve reigned between us, and there was never any allusion to the past. The other day she asked me point-blank, her face crowned with gray hair youthfully hennaed: "Why did you drop me?"

I was sincere because I didn't have time to invent a lie: "I don't know anymore, but there are many, many other things in my life that I also don't know."

"I'm sorry," she said, and I was already bowing in response to the implied compliment. "In your old age you seem to me a very amusing man." I straightened up, with some effort. There was no need to thank her.

One day I learned that the Malfenti family had returned to the city after a fairly extended pleasure trip followed by their summer stay in the country. Before I could take steps toward being introduced into that household, Giovanni was ahead of me.

He showed me a letter from an intimate friend of his, asking for news of me. This man had been a cla.s.smate of mine and I had been very fond of him as long as I believed him destined to become a great chemist. Now, on the contrary, he mattered absolutely nothing to me because he had become a dealer in fertilizers, and now I hardly knew him. Giovanni invited me to the Malfenti house because I was a friend of that friend of his, and-obviously-I made no objection.

I remember that first visit as if it had taken place yesterday. It was a gloomy, cold autumn afternoon, and I even remember the relief I felt in ridding myself of my overcoat in the warmth of that house. I was actually about to reach my goal. Even now I remain bewildered by such blindness, which at the time seemed to me clairvoyance. I was pursuing health, legitimacy. True, that initial A embraced four girls, but three of them were to be eliminated at once, and as for the fourth, she, too, would be subjected to stern examination. Yes, I would be the sternest of judges. But meanwhile I would have been at a loss to name the qualities I would require of her and the characteristics I would loathe.

The vast and elegant drawing room was furnished in two different styles, some pieces were Louis XIV and others Venetian rich in gold-leaf impressed even on the leather. The furniture divided the room into two areas, as was then the fas.h.i.+on. There I found only Augusta, reading at a window. She gave me her hand, she knew my name, and even informed me that I was expected, as her Papa had announced my visit. Then she ran off to call her mother.

Of the four girls with the same initial, one was eliminated then and there as far as I was concerned. How could anyone have called her beautiful? The first thing you noticed about her was a squint so p.r.o.nounced that if someone tried to recall her after not having seen her for a while, that defect would personify her totally. Her hair, moreover, was not abundant or blond, but a dull color, without l.u.s.ter; and her figure, while not graceless, was still a bit heavy for her age. During the few moments I remained alone I thought: "What if the other three look like this one!..."

A little later, the group of eligible girls was reduced to two. For another of them, entering with her mother, was only eight years old. She was a cute child with long, s.h.i.+ning ringlets falling over her shoulders! Her plump, sweet face made her seem a little angel (as long as she kept silent), pensive in the way that Raphael's angels are pensive.

My mother-in-law... Ah! I feel a certain reluctance in speaking of her too freely. For many years I have been fond of her because she is my mother, but here I am telling an old story in which she does not appear as my friend, and even in this notebook, which she will never see, I have no intention of referring to her in terms less than respectful. For that matter, her intervention was so brief that I could even have forgotten it: a little push just at the right moment, no harder than necessary to make me lose my fragile balance. Perhaps I would have lost it even without her action, and anyway, who knows if she actually desired what then happened? She is so perfectly behaved that, unlike her husband, she will never, ever drink too much and consequently reveal things concerning me. And as nothing of the sort will ever happen to her, I am thus telling a story I don't know properly; that is, I don't know if it was because of her shrewdness or my own stupidity that of her four daughters, I married the one I didn't want.

What I can say is that at the time of my first visit my future mother-in-law was still a beautiful woman. She was also elegant in her way of dressing, with subtle luxury. Everything about her was understated and harmonious.

Thus my in-laws afforded an example of harmony between husband and wife such as I dreamed of. They had been very happy together: he always bellowing and she smiling a smile that signified agreement and sympathy at the same time. She loved her big, heavy man, and he must have won and retained her devotion with his successful transactions. Not self-interest but genuine admiration bound her to him, an admiration I shared and hence could easily understand. All that vivacity, which he infused into such confined s.p.a.ce, a cage that held nothing but a single product and two enemies (the two contracting parties), where new combinations, new relations were constantly being discovered, wondrously animated their life. He told her about all his deals, and she was so well brought up that she never gave him advice because she would have feared misleading him. He felt a need for this mute support, and at times he rushed home to deliver a monologue, convinced he was going there to seek his wife's advice.

It came as no surprise when I learned he was unfaithful to her, and that she knew it and bore him no grudge. I had been married a year when one day Giovanni, very upset, told me he had misplaced a very important letter and he wanted to take another look at some papers he had given me, in the hope of finding it among them. Then, a few days later, in high spirits, he told me he had found it in his wallet. "Was it from a woman?" I asked him, and he nodded affirmatively, boasting of his good luck. Then, to defend myself, one day when they were accusing me of having lost some papers, I said to my wife and my mother-in-law that I didn't have Papa's luck, whose papers always found their way back into his wallet. My mother-in-law fell to laughing so heartily that I hadn't the slightest doubt it had been she who replaced that letter. We all love in our own way, and in my opinion, theirs was by no means the most stupid.

Signora Malfenti received me with great kindness. She apologized for having to keep little Anna with her, but there was always that quarter-hour when the child couldn't be left with others. The little girl looked at me, studying me with grave eyes. When Augusta came back and sat on a little sofa opposite the one where the Signora and I were seated, the child went and lay in her sister's lap, 'whence she observed me the whole time with a fixed gaze that amused me until I learned what thoughts were circulating in that little head.

The conversation was not immediately entertaining. The Signora, like all well-bred people, was fairly boring on first acquaintance. She asked me too many questions about the friend who we pretended had introduced me into that house and whose first name I couldn't even remember.

Finally Ada and Alberta came in. I breathed again: they were both beautiful, and brought into that drawing room the light that had been wanting till then. Both were dark and tall and slender, but they were quite different from each other. The choice I had to make was not difficult. Alberta was then no more than seventeen. Though dark, she had her mother's rosy, transparent skin, which enhanced the childishness of her appearance. Ada, on the contrary, was already a woman, with serious eyes, a face whose whiteness seemed all the more snowy, thanks to a faint blue cast, and a head of rich, curly hair, gracefully yet severely coiffed.

It is hard to retrace the tender origins of a feeling that was later to become so violent, but I am sure I did not feel the so-called coup de foudre for Ada. Instead of that lightning bolt, I felt a prompt conviction that this woman was the one I needed, the one who would lead me actually to moral and physical health through holy monogamy. When I think back, I am surprised that the lightning bolt was lacking and there was this conviction in its place. It is a known fact that we men do not seek in a wife the characteristics we adore and despise in a mistress. So apparently I didn't see at once all the grace and all the beauty of Ada; instead I stood there, admiring other qualities I attributed to her, seriousness and also energy, the same qualities, somewhat tempered, that I loved in her father. Since I later believed (as I believe still) that I wasn't mistaken and that Ada did possess those qualities as a girl, I can consider myself a good observer but also a blind observer. That first time, I looked at Ada with only one desire: to fall in love with her, for that was necessary if I was to marry her. I prepared to do this with the same energy I always devote to my hygienic practices. I cannot say when I succeeded, perhaps within the relatively brief time of that first visit.

Giovanni must have spoken to his daughters a great deal about me. They knew, among other things, that in the course of my studies I had transferred from law to chemistry, only to return-unfortunately!-to the former. I tried to explain: it was certain that when you confine yourself to one department, the greater area of knowledge remains blanketed by ignorance.

And I said: "If the seriousness of life were not now confronting me"-and I didn't add that I had been feeling this seriousness only a short time, since my resolution to marry-"I would have kept on transferring from one department to another."

Then, to make them laugh, I remarked on a curious thing: I always dropped a subject just at the moment when I had to face examinations.

"A coincidence," I said, with the smile of one who wants to hint he is telling a lie. And, indeed, the truth was that I had changed my courses in all seasons.

So I set out to win Ada and I continued my efforts to make her laugh at me, at my expense, forgetting that I had chosen her because of her seriousness. I am a bit eccentric, but to her I must have seemed downright unbalanced. The fault is not wholly mine, and this is clear from the fact that Augusta and Alberta, whom I had not chosen, judged me differently. But Ada, who at that very time was so serious that she was casting her beautiful eyes around in search of the man she would admit to her nest, was incapable of loving a person who made her laugh. She laughed, and she laughed for a long time, too long, and her laughter clothed in ridiculous garb the man who had provoked it. Hers was a genuine inferiority and in the end it was to harm her, but first it harmed me. If I had been able to keep silent at the right moment, perhaps things would have turned out differently. As least I would have given her time to speak and to reveal herself, and I could have steered clear of her.

The four girls were seated on the little sofa that could barely hold them, even though Anna was sitting on Augusta's lap. They were beautiful, all together like that. I observed this with inner satisfaction, considering that I was magnificently headed toward admiration and love. Really beautiful! Augusta's wan complexion served to heighten the dark color of the other girls' hair.

I had mentioned the University, and Alberta, who was in her last year of upper school, talked about her studies. She complained of finding Latin very difficult. I said I wasn't surprised, as it was not a language suited to women, and I actually thought that even in ancient Roman times the women spoke Italian. Whereas for me-I declared-Latin had been my favorite subject. A little later, however, I was foolish enough to quote a Latin saying, which Alberta had to correct. A real stroke of bad luck! I attached no importance to it, and informed Alberta that when she had perhaps a dozen semesters of university behind her, she would also have to be on her guard against quoting Latin tags.

Ada, who had recently spent some months in England with her father, observed that many girls there know Latin. Then, in the same serious voice, lacking any musicality, a bit deeper than one would have expected from her delicate figure, she said that English women were quite different from ours. They formed charitable organizations, and religious, even economic groups. Ada was urged to speak by her sisters, eager to hear again those things that seemed wondrous to young ladies of our city at that time. And to satisfy them, Ada told about those women who were club presidents or journalists, secretaries or political speakers, who mounted platforms to address hundreds of people without blushes or confusion when they were interrupted or when their arguments were contested. She spoke simply, with little color, with no intention of arousing wonder or laughter.

I loved her simple speech-I, who, when I opened my mouth, got things wrong or misled people because otherwise speaking would have seemed to me pointless. Without being an orator, I suffered from the disease of words. Words for me had to be an event in themselves and therefore could not be imprisoned in any other event.

But I harbored a special hatred for perfidious Albion, and I displayed it without fear of offending Ada, who, for that matter, had indicated neither hate nor love of England. I had spent some months there, but I hadn't met any English person of good society, since, in traveling, I had misplaced some letters of introduction obtained from business acquaintances of my father's. In London, therefore, I had frequented only a few French and Italian families, and in the end I decided that all the respectable people in that city came from the Continent. My knowledge of English was very limited. Still, with the help of my friends I could understand something of the life of those islanders and, especially, I learned of their dislike of all who are not English.

I described to the girls the fairly unpleasant impression I had derived from my stay amid enemies. I would, however, have stuck it out and put up with England for the six months my father and Olivi wanted to inflict on me so I could study English trade (which I never encountered because it is apparently conducted in recondite places), but then a disagreeable adventure had befallen me. I had gone into a bookseller's to look for a dictionary. In that shop, on the counter, a big, magnificent Angora cat was lying, whose soft fur simply begged to be stroked. Well! Simply because I gently stroked him, he treacherously attacked me and badly scratched my hands. From that moment on, England was intolerable and the following day I was in Paris.

Augusta, Alberta, and also Signora Malfenti laughed heartily. Ada, on the contrary, was dumbfounded and thought she had misunderstood. Hadn't it been the bookseller himself who had offended and scratched me? I had to repeat myself, which is always boring because repet.i.tions never come off.

Alberta, the studious one, chose to come to my a.s.sistance.

The ancients had also allowed their decisions to be guided by the movements of animals.

I rejected her help. The English cat had not been acting as an oracle: it acted as destiny!

Ada, her great eyes wide, wanted further explanations: "And you felt the cat represented the entire English nation?"

I was really unlucky! While it was true, that story seemed to me as instructive and interesting as if it had been invented for some specific purpose. To understand it, wasn't it enough to point out that in Italy, where I know and love so many people, the action of that cat would never have a.s.sumed such importance? But I didn't say this, and I said, on the contrary: "Certainly no Italian cat would be capable of such a thing."

Ada laughed for a long time, very long. My success seemed to me even too great because it diminished me, and I diminished my adventure with further explanations: "The bookseller himself was amazed by the cat's reaction: it behaved well with everyone else. The misadventure fell to my lot because I was who I was, or perhaps because I was Italian. It was really disgusting, as I said in English, and I had to escape."

Here something happened that ought to have warned me and saved me. Little Anna, who till then had remained motionless, observing me, decided to express in a loud voice "what Ada felt. She cried: "Is it true you're crazy? Completely crazy?"

Signora Malfenti threatened her: "Will you be quiet? Aren't you ashamed, interrupting the grownups' talk?"

The threat only worsened things. Anna shouted, "He's crazy! He talks with cats! We should get some ropes, quickly, and tie him up!"

Augusta, flushed with dismay, stood up and carried her out, scolding her and at the same time apologizing to me. But again at the door the little viper was able to stare into my eyes, make a face, and shout: "They'll tie you up! Wait and see!"

I had been a.s.sailed so unexpectedly that, for the moment, I could find no way of defending myself. I felt relieved, however, realizing that Ada was also sorry to hear her private feelings expressed in that way. The little girl's impudence brought us closer.

Laughing heartily, I said that I possessed a certificate, with an official seal, that attested to my complete sanity. Thus they learned of the trick I played on my old father. I suggested bringing that certificate and showing it to little Annuccia.

When I made a move to leave, they wouldn't permit it. First they wanted me to forget the scratches inflicted on me by that other cat. They kept me there with them, offering me a cup of tea.

No doubt I felt immediately, in some obscure way, that if I wanted to appeal to Ada I would have to be a bit different from what I was; I thought it would be easy for me to become what she wanted. We went on talking about the death of my father, and it seemed to me that if I revealed the great sorrow that still oppressed me, the serious Ada might feel it with me. But at once, in my effort to resemble her, I lost my naturalness and therefore-as was quickly evident-I distanced myself from her. I said that the grief for such a loss was so great that if I were to have children I would try to make them love me less, so as to spare them great suffering later, at my pa.s.sing. I was a bit embarra.s.sed when the women asked me how I would act to achieve that aim. Maltreat them? Strike them?

Laughing, Alberta said, "The surest method would be to kill them."

I saw that Ada was animated by a desire not to displease me. So she hesitated: but all her best efforts could not lead her beyond hesitation. At last she conceded that it was clearly my goodness that led me to think of organizing my children's life in that way, but to her it seemed wrong to Uve only in preparation for death. I held my ground and a.s.serted that death was the true organizer of life. I thought always of death, and therefore I had only one sorrow: the certainty of having to die. Everything else became of such scant importance that I accepted it all simply with a happy smile or with equally happy laughter. I let myself be carried away, saying things that were now less true, particularly because I was with her, already such an important part of my life. To tell the truth, I believe I said those things to her, meaning to let her know what a happy man I was. Often happiness had lent me a hand with women.

Thoughtful and hesitant, she confessed that she was not fond of such a state of mind. Diminis.h.i.+ng the value of life, we also jeopardized life more than Mother Nature intended. What Ada had really told me was that I was not the man for her, but I had managed, all the same, to make her thoughtful and hesitant, and that seemed to me a success.

Alberta quoted an ancient philosopher who supposedly resembled me in his interpretation of life, and Augusta said that laughter was a wonderful thing. Her father, too, had a great store of laughter.

"Because he likes good business," Signora Malfenti said, laughing.

I finally broke off that unforgettable visit.

There is nothing more difficult in this world than to achieve a marriage exactly the way you want it. So much is clear from my case, where the decision to marry long antedated the choice of a betrothed. Why didn't I go out and see countless girls before settling on one? No! It actually seemed I would dislike seeing too many women, and I was reluctant to tire myself. But even after choosing the girl, I might have examined her a bit more closely and made sure at least that she would be willing to meet me halfway, as they never fail to do in romantic novels with happy endings. On the contrary, I selected the girl with the deep voice and the slightly unruly but severely coiffed hair, and I thought, serious as she was, she wouldn't refuse an intelligent man like me, well-to-do, not ugly, and of good family. From the very first words we exchanged, I sensed something discordant, but discord is the road to unison. I should confess what I thought: She must remain as she is, because I like her this way and I will be the one who changes, if she wishes. All things considered, I was quite unenterprising because it's surely easier to change oneself than to reshape others.

In a very short time the Malfenti family became the center of my life. I spent every evening with Giovanni, who, after introducing me into his home, had become also more cordial and intimate with me. It was this cordiality that made me aggressive. At first I visited his ladies once a week, then more than once, until finally I was going to his house every day, spending several afternoon hours there. I had numerous excuses to become a fixture in that household, and I believe I am right in declaring that they were also offered to me. Sometimes I took my violin with me and spent a few hours making music with Augusta, the only one in the house who played the piano. It was a pity Ada didn't play, and it was a pity I played the violin so badly, and to make matters still worse, Augusta wasn't much of a musician, either. I had to eliminate some bars of every piece because they were too difficult, on the false pretext that I hadn't touched the violin for a long time. The pianist is almost always superior to the amateur violinist, and Augusta had a fair technique, but I, who played so much worse than she, couldn't say I was pleased with her and I thought: If I could play as well as Augusta, how much better I would play! While I was judging her, the others were judging me and, as I learned later, not favorably. Then Augusta would gladly have repeated our performance, but I realized that Ada had been bored and so I pretended several times to have forgotten my violin at home. Afterwards Augusta never mentioned it again.

Unfortunately I didn't spend with Ada only the hours I pa.s.sed in that house. She soon accompanied me throughout the day. She was the woman I had chosen, she was therefore already mine, and I adorned her with all my dreams, so that the prize of my life would appear more beautiful to me. I adorned her, I bestowed on her all the many qualities I lacked and whose need I felt, because she was to become not only my companion but also my second mother, who would adopt me for a whole lifetime of manly struggle and victory.

In my dreams I also beautified her physically before handing her over to others. In reality, I pursued many women in my life, and many of them also allowed themselves to be overtaken. In my dreams I captured them all. Naturally I don't beautify them by changing their features, but I act like a friend of mine, a very refined painter who, when he portrays beautiful women, thinks intensely also of some other beautiful thing, for example of a piece of lovely porcelain. A dangerous dream, because it can endow the dreamed-of women with new power and, when seen again in the light of reality, they retain something of the fruits and flowers and porcelain with which they were clad.

It is hard for me to tell about my courts.h.i.+p of Ada. There came a long period in my life when I made an effort to forget that stupid adventure, which actually shamed me, with the shame that makes you shout and protest: No! I wasn't such a jacka.s.s! Well, then, who was it? But protest also affords some relief, and I persisted. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had acted like that ten years earlier, when I was twenty! But to be punished for such asininity simply because I had decided to marry seems to me downright unjust. I, who had already undergone every kind of adventure, always conducted with an enterprising spirit bordering on insolence, now had become again the timid youth who strives to graze his beloved's hand, perhaps without her noticing, then adores the part of his own body honored by such contact. This adventure, which was the purest of my life, I remember even today, when I am an old man, as the most despicable. It was out of place, out of time, the whole business, as if a boy of ten were to grope the breast of his wet-nurse. Disgusting!

How to explain, then, my long hesitation in speaking clearly and saying to the girl: Make up your mind!? Do you want me or don't you? When I went to that house I was arriving there from my dreams; I counted the steps that led me to that upper floor, telling myself that if their number was odd it would prove she loved me, and it was always odd because there were forty-three of them. I arrived at her side buoyed by this confidence, but I ended up speaking of something quite different. Ada had not yet found the opportunity to convey her disdain to me, and I remained silent! I, too, in Ada's place, would have received that youth of thirty with a swift kick in the behind!

I must say that in some respects I didn't resemble exactly the lovesick twenty-year-old, waiting in silence for his beloved to throw her arms around his neck. I awaited nothing of the sort. I was going to speak, but not yet. If I didn't go ahead, it was because of some doubts about myself. I was waiting to become n.o.bler, stronger, worthier of my divine maiden. That could happen any day. Why not wait?

I am ashamed also of not having realized in time that I was heading for such a disaster. I was dealing 'with the simplest of girls, but thanks to my dreams of her, she appeared to me as the most consummate flirt. My enormous bitterness was unjust, when she finally made me see that she wanted nothing to do with me. But I had intermingled dreams and reality so closely that I was unable to convince myself she had never kissed me.

Misunderstanding women is a clear sign of scant virility. Before, I had never been mistaken, and I have to think that I was wrong about Ada, because from the very beginning I had established a false rapport with her. I had set out not to win her but to marry her, an unusual path for love to take, a very broad path, a very comfortable path, but one that doesn't lead to the goal, close though it may be. Love achieved in this way lacks the princ.i.p.al ingredient: the subjugation of the female. Thus the male prepares for his role in a great inertia that can affect all his senses, including sight and hearing.

I took flowers daily to all three girls, and on all three I lavished my fatuities and, above all, with incredible thoughtlessness, I daily regaled them with my autobiography.

Everyone tends to remember the past with greater fervor as the present gains greater importance. It is said, indeed, that the dying, in their final fever, review their whole lives. My past now gripped me with the violence of a last farewell because I had the feeling I was moving far away from it. And I talked always about this past to the three girls, encouraged by the close attention of Augusta and Alberta, an attention that perhaps disguised Ada's lack of interest, of which I am unsure. Augusta, with her sweet nature, was easily moved, and Alberta listened to my descriptions of student j.a.pes, her cheeks flushed with the desire to experience similar adventures in the future.

A long time afterwards I learned from Augusta that none of the three girls had believed my stories were true. To Augusta they seemed all the more precious because, as I had invented them, they were more mine than if fate had visited them upon me. To Alberta the part she didn't believe was still enjoyable because she received some excellent hints. The only one outraged by my lies was the serious Ada. For all my efforts I achieved the result of that marksman who hit the bullseye, but of the target next to his.

And yet to a great extent those stories were true. I can't at this point say to what extent because, as I had told them to many other women before the Malfenti daughters, through no wish of mine, they had changed and become more expressive. They were true inasmuch as I could not have told them in any other version. Today it's of no importance to me to prove their veracity. I wouldn't want to undeceive Augusta, who loves to consider them my invention. As for Ada, I believe that by now she has changed her mind and considers them true.