A Life (11 page)

It was obvious from the Signorina’s bearing that she did not intend to stay in the room. She returned Alfonso’s greeting with a nod.

“Please don’t get up.” She did not greet Macario and turning to Annetta said “I’m in my room if you need me.”

She had quite a different bearing from usual, less free, more reserved; she was very pale and dressed more carelessly. Beside Annetta’s her figure lacked shape. Only the warm colour of her hair gave light to her suffering face. She went out at once, and Alfonso saw Macario looking with curiosity towards Annetta,
who, when Francesca left, gave him a meaningful look as if
pointing
out to him how badly the other had behaved.

“Why don’t you publish some of your work as soon as
possible
to make a reputation? Some young men become pedants before their time from love of accuracy—they prefer finish above all—and end by doing nothing. I know that by accounts given to me. Polish needs not only talent but critical sense. One can be an artist when one writes, but when one polishes, one has to be an artist and a scientist.”

Her face, still very serious since Francesca’s departure, cleared at this last idea. It must have given her some satisfaction to say it. Anyway, it was an idea of which Alfonso himself would have been proud. She managed those critical concepts with great ease.

“You are advising me to publish and give me advice but no example.” The phrase was short, very short, but it had been said without hesitation.

“We women have other things to consider. But” she added laughing, “I hope that you won’t be able to reprove me like that in a few months’ time.”

Alfonso congratulated her. Macario gave a cry of surprise and wanted to know something about what writing Annetta was doing, about which she had not said a word to him till then. Knowing Annetta’s literary character only by the facetious description given him by Macario, Alfonso thought that as she had been silent about it till then, her book must be in an even more embryonic state than his own and that she had mentioned it only to soothe her wounded vanity.

Finally the subject changed, due to Annetta herself. They talked about the imminent theatrical season, but more of people in the boxes and stalls than those on the stage; and Alfonso kept silent. Macario and Annetta amused themselves naming and describing young men who frequented the stalls, and from the moment when Annetta began joking about them, and accompanying her jests by long trills of loud laughter which made her twist about and show her plump white neck on which tension drew a few faint lines, Alfonso felt uncomfortable. He felt as if he were watching her sing that peculiar song again and prancing about in front of him as shamelessly as a Roman matron before her own slave.

They would speak of art again another time, as Annetta said smilingly at the moment of farewell. Alfonso who, on his few visits to the theatre, had soon noticed the harm done to the
performance
by the spectators’ chatter, suggested introducing into theatres the German system of imposing silence and lowering lights in the auditorium. He could no longer agree with Annetta for the simple reason that she took the opposite view after he had already given his. In a theatre Annetta cared less about the performance on the stage than about the audience. She said that she preferred
watching
people like herself rather than wretched creatures performing with other wretched creatures.

“One misses the art, I realize that, but is the art of the theatre a real art?”

She made a gesture of contempt which filled Alfonso once again with admiration. He was incapable of embracing other people’s ideas so blindly.

As he went out, Alfonso noticed on the landing above a woman who hurriedly withdrew on seeing Macario. She was Francesca’s height, but Alfonso could not see her face.

He felt drawn closer to Macario by that visit than by the months of their former relationship. At once he was indiscreet: “Odd that Signora Francesca didn’t stay and keep us company. The other time she seemed so expansive and happy. What could have made her so unsociable?”

“A headache probably,” replied Macario briefly, and changed the subject. “So you see my cousin is better than her reputation or than the idea you had of her. You heard her invitation. From now on you belong to what Spalati calls ‘The Wednesday Club’. Try and become a good friend of my cousin’s, because her friendship can be a help to you.”

He was talking seriously. The help to which he alluded was Annetta’s protection in the office. Alfonso found the allusion
tactless
, and flushed; but he did not protest and in fact gave Macario a very friendly handshake when he said goodbye. He might not like to be thought of as someone trying to achieve his own ends by unusual means; but he felt he should be all the more grateful to a man who apparently wanted to help him even though thinking him unscrupulous.

S
IGNORA CAROLINA
wrote to Alfonso with great regularity. Her letters showed what a strain writing was for her and how only her high notion of motherly duty induced her to send her son those regular two pages in her spidery hand. Writing can take the place of talking only for the cultured. Usually these
letters
were filled with advice or greetings on her own and others’ account; and obviously the writer found her labour lightened when there was some big event in the village, a wedding or death involving someone they knew. Then the two pages became three or four.

He received a letter from his mother the day after his visit to Annetta, and, even in his state of agitation at the time, its contents aroused his lively interest. It was a letter of four sides, the first two of which were as usual because obviously written without the writer thinking she would have to add the other two. In the last part Signora Carolina told how Signorina Francesca had written, asking whether there was space enough in the house to rent her a room. Signorina Francesca’s letter must have been very warm; it also contained a sad phrase or two that had surprised Signora Carolina, who was not without acumen, and supposed Signorina Francesca must be feeling very miserable to write so affectionately to someone she scarcely knew. “She seems very sad about
coming
: I’ve given her the room she asks for but feel I’d prefer happier company.”

The reason why Signorina Francesca was leaving the Maller home must certainly be the same one which had made her
bearing
change so. There must have been a real quarrel with Annetta, after which the weaker side had to leave the field.

Perhaps when Macario found that Alfonso already knew so much, he would also tell him the rest. That evening Alfonso met him walking with an elderly man who was gesticulating as he described something which must have been most interesting, for Macario was listening attentively. Between the two Alfonso thought he noticed the same relationship as between himself and Macario.

He did not usually stop Macario in the street, for he often saw him with others or striding along absorbed in his own thoughts, but as he had something to tell him which would be of interest, he had no scruples. He went up to him.

“I’d like a word with you!”

Before hearing this Macario was about to pass him by with a polite greeting. When he heard it, he turned to dismiss his
companion
, then asked Alfonso whether the matter would take long.

“Only a second!” replied Alfonso, already regretting he had stopped him.

The other man agreed to wait.

Now he must be concise, exposing himself to the risk of Macario answering with a shrug in reproof for stopping him about a futile matter. This did not happen, quite the opposite in fact. Macario stood listening attentively, making gestures of surprise. To increase the matter’s importance Alfonso also made mention of Signora Carolina’s observations about Signorina Francesca’s sadness. Macario, supposing that this had all been told to get his advice, said Alfonso must ask Signora Carolina to help Signorina Francesca as much as she could. Then he returned to the other man who was still waiting for him, and Alfonso found that he had told all and learnt nothing.

A few days later he was called by Maller. His chief had never been so pleasant; he spoke simply and without his glance moving from one side of his desk to the other as it did when he tried not to look his interlocutor in the face. He requested that since Signorina Francesca could not write herself because she was unwell, would he, Alfonso, please write to Signora Carolina with the Signorina’s excuses and cancel the request she had made a few days before. Alfonso promptly declared that he would write straight away.

Maller smiled, bowed in thanks and, taking him at his word, said that he wanted Signora Carolina to be told at once of Signorina Francesca’s change of arrangements in order to avoid the bother of useless preparations. There must however have been another reason for his wanting things done in such haste, for he even
lowered
himself to repeating his request all over again, as if a single word from him was not enough to give Alfonso wings.

“Can I be sure then that you’ll write today for certain?”

“Of course!” assured Alfonso in surprise.

In fact he wrote off at once to his mother to tell her that Signorina Francesca had given up the idea of retiring to the country. So
concentrated
was he on carrying out Maller’s order as soon as possible that his letter became so curt he had to follow it up immediately afterwards by another, sending her his own news and those
assurances
of unchanging affection which Signora Carolina expected to find in every letter from him.

He had taken his letter to Starringer for immediate posting, and in the passage on his way back to his room he met Maller leaving. In his eagerness to show zeal and eliminate any preoccupation Maller might have about the order being carried out, he said
smiling
: “I’ve already sent that letter.”

“Thanks!” said Maller, who stood there in surprise for a second as if he no longer remembered what it was about. His tone of voice was also colder than the one he had used half-an-hour ago.

This was enough to throw Alfonso into agitation. He had been wrong to stop his chief with such familiarity in front of the ushers and still more wrong to speak to him about a service he had done him as if asking for thanks in return.

In his room he found only Alchieri, ready to leave. Agitation made Alfonso talkative. He could not bear his worry alone; a soothing word from an outsider could calm him. He told Alchieri about the letter from his mother and his interview with Signor Maller. Alchieri listened distractedly because he was worried about his own affairs. He was waiting impatiently for the result of a request of his for a pay-rise which he had sent to the managing director that day; he had threatened to leave his job and hinted that he had another one in view, though actually he would be a ruined man if taken at his word.

“Was I very wrong to stop Signor Maller in the corridor?”

At this question from Alfonso, Alchieri, who had been able to give his attention only to a part of what was told him, replied: “She’s his mistress, I’ll bet!”

This supposition seemed so likely to be correct that Alfonso was surprised at not having thought of it himself before. Alchieri’s own malice had suggested it, but in the light of circumstances known to Alfonso it was probably true. What else
could have happened to change so much the relations between Annetta and Francesca, and the latter’s bearing? However natural it was that Maller had been charged with speaking to him, his way of setting about it seemed unusual, his employees being accustomed only to receiving short and concise orders in official tones. Alfonso had been told that Maller was a womaniser, but Alchieri’s supposition had never come into his head because Maller’s home, even if he had known of his habits, had seemed enveloped in an aura which let no human passions penetrate except vanity and pride. It had been difficult for Alfonso to imagine love in those cold
showrooms
, most of which were unused, still less in Maller’s bedroom where, so Santo had told him, there stood his young wife’s bed in which she had died, still left intact. But the suspicion of Alchieri, a man who had never set foot in that house, was enough to melt that aura, and Alfonso’s imagination populated it with criminal loves all the murkier for the surrounding luxury.

Francesca’s seduction did seem criminal, made easy as it was by her inferior position. He felt something akin to jealousy in
imagining
that fair hair and white flesh thrown into the arms of that cold man Maller, an affair which would ruin her life but which would cost him nothing at all and have no more value to him than a pastime.

He did not understand what part Annetta played in this affair. Probably she had tried to get Francesca away and not succeeded.

For the first time he dreamt of becoming Annetta’s lover. It seemed less impossible now that he saw her amid love-intrigues which no one bothered to hide from her. The dream became easier. He did not go so far as to dream of being loved though, because he could not imagine an expression of affection or desire on her calm marmoreal face. His was the dream of a vicious boy, in which she abandoned herself to him coldly, for pleasure, to revenge herself on a third person, or even from her ambition. His dreams always began by embroidering on reality and then detached themselves from it completely—he easily imagined himself being of such value in Annetta’s eyes that her ambition made her love him.

He could not think of any way of visiting Annetta alone. The invitation she had given him had not seemed definite enough,
and, having all week sought Macario in vain to accompany him, he did not go on the first Wednesday. Those dreams of his about Annetta probably made him even more timid in case he let
something
of them slip out.

But he wanted to see Annetta again, more intensely now than the first time, when it had been just a matter of getting himself liked by his boss’s daughter. Now he loved her! For this must be love, this desire for one person and for no one else. He drew
conclusions
from his agitated senses, being unable to do so from
feelings
he lacked. In the few days when he had tried unsuccessfully to smother his desires and give them another direction, he had felt himself become a man, an adult.

He desired a woman, that particular woman, and for him, for his senses, no other women existed. He remembered some
observations
he had made on Annetta’s appearance and was now amazed he had not realized at once that the originality and beauty of her face were made up precisely of what he had qualified as defects. Her eyes not dark enough! Her hair not curly enough! Annetta had a face of Venus, and that head of hers with its calm blue eyes and almost modestly smooth hair was a head full of intelligence. A kiss would have been all the more delicious on lips which seemed incapable of responding!

When on the following Wednesday he ran into Macario, who reproved him strongly on Annetta’s behalf for having failed to come the week before, Alfonso quivered with joy. He was sought after, called.

Then Annetta too reproved him, gently. She said that Macario had told her not to alarm him.

“Or I’d shout at you! Why should you be timid with me? Do I frighten you?”

These blandishments, however, touched him less than the ones she had sent by her messenger. With her before his eyes he forgot his dreams. She was all intent on forming her
literary
group, and her natural coldness, which would take on in memory the air of some minor quality, was now very apparent and coloured everything else. When she spoke of literature she was not female. She was a male struggling for life, morally a being of muscle.

That afternoon her drawing-room seemed very snug, as outside the
bora
wind had broken out violently and swept away every
vestige
of summer in a few hours.

Alfonso and Macario found Spalati there, having arrived a short time before; Fumigi and Doctor Prarchi came immediately afterwards.

Doctor Prarchi turned the conversation away from literature by describing the suicide of a cashier whom they had known. This was someone who had lived very modestly and done nothing worse than frequent people richer than himself. That had been enough to ruin him in spite of his moderation. Prarchi ended his
description
with some word of genuine compassion. He had also seen the suicide’s body.

Annetta shrugged her shoulders with contempt. “Serves him right!” She had not liked the fellow much: perhaps she was afraid her father would come across someone similar.

Alfonso found himself too involved in a discussion with Fumigi to be able to turn his attention to the general conversation. The
little
man had plumped down beside him and was questioning him on his studies. These must have been much talked about because the mathematician was admiring and flattering him. He wanted to know how Alfonso had arranged his timetable to dedicate one or more hours daily to those studies. He said he had never been able to achieve such regularity himself and was worried because only systematic study brought profit, not study in fits and starts.

All Alfonso’s attention was on Annetta. But he felt no desire in her presence, which worried him. He tried to provoke them, studied her face to see if he could find there any sign of the passion which was lacking in himself. The moment was badly chosen, just after that crude remark of hers about that cashier’s suicide.

He felt a need, or thought he did, to define the respect which prevented him noticing the affectation of her behaviour. When Macario had described her for the first time, he had felt like
laughing
at this little woman who had suddenly felt a vocation, even though this vocation was an advantage to himself. All this show, these pretensions to forming a literary society around her, were ridiculous too, and if he did not laugh at them, it was not because of any change in his feelings about them. He easily noticed the
false or absurd side of others’ actions, but often found he could not laugh at them because the shyness which he was apt to feel with people in other ways inferior made him doubt himself, his own feelings or judgements. And this time it was no different. He was impressed by Annetta’s lack of doubts, her self-confidence, her carelessness about the impression she made on others, the air she had, in fact, of a superior creature who feels she cannot be diminished by any inferiority even in the very thing in which she wishes to excel and where inferiority is usually most bitter.

Prarchi spoke of a realist novel he was writing.

“I’ll remain a doctor,” he said, “even as a novelist. In my novel I intend to make a thorough study of progressive paralysis. Doctors begin studying it when it’s at its last stages; but I’ll be just leaving it then, as I’ll begin at its formation. The character of a paralytic, the organism of a paralytic, the ideas of a paralytic, what causes distress to people around them and … the novel’s done!”