Her Husband (8 page)

“What should I do?” Giustino Boggiolo asked, bewildered, upset, in a pitiful state clutched by that frail and yet so strong and nervous hand.

Dora Barmis fell into a fit of laughter.

“No, I’m serious!” Giustino said with conviction, trying to recover his balance. “If I can do anything for you, just ask me, Signora! You want a friend? I am here, I mean it.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Dora replied, drawing herself up. “Excuse me for laughing. I believe you. You are too … Oh, God … Do you know that the muscles for laughing don’t obey the will but certain unconscious emotions? I’m not used to goodness like yours. I’ve taken some hard knocks; and in my dealings with unscrupulous men, I too … unfortunately … I don’t want to hurt you! Your goodness might be destroyed. Others would be malicious in any case. And yes, I, too, talking about it with others, you know? I’m capable of laughing about being so honest with you today. . . . That’s enough! Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Do you know who asked me about your wife? The Marchesa Lampugnani. You’ve been invited and you haven’t gone yet.”

“Yes, Signora. Tomorrow evening, without fail,” said Giustino Boggiolo. “Silvia hasn’t been able. In fact, that’s why I came here. Will you be there at the Marchesa’s tomorrow evening?”

“Yes, yes,” answered Dora. “Marchesa Lampugnani is so kind and so interested in your wife. She really wants to see her. You keep her too secluded.”

“I?” exclaimed Giustino. “Not I, Signora. In fact, I would like … But Silvia is still a little … I don’t know how to put it.”

“Don’t ruin her!” shouted Dora. “Leave her like she is, for heaven’s sake! Don’t force her.”

“No, that’s just it,” said Giustino. “Just so we’ll know what to do. Just imagine. . . . Do many go to the Marchesa’s?”

“Oh, the usual people,” Signora Barmis replied. “Maybe Gueli will also be there tomorrow evening, Signora Frezzi permitting, of course.”

“Signora Frezzi? Who is she?” asked Giustino.

“A terrible woman, darling,” responded Signora Barmis. “She keeps Maurizio Gueli totally under her control.”

“Oh, Gueli doesn’t have a wife?”

“He has Signora Frezzi, which is the same thing, or rather, worse. Poor Gueli! There is quite a story behind it all. But never mind. Does your wife like music?”

“I think so,” answered Giustino, uneasily. “I really don’t know. She’s heard so little . . . there, at Taranto. Why, do they play much music at the Marchesa’s?”

“Yes, sometimes. The cellist Begler comes and improvises a quartet with Milani, Cordova, and Furlini.”

“Ah, yes,” sighed Giustino. “A little knowledge of music . . . the difficult kind … is really necessary today. . . . Wagner . . .”

“There are no Wagner quartets!” exclaimed Dora. “Tchaikovsky, Dvo
ák . . . and then, you know, Glazunov, Mahler, Raff.”

“Ah, yes,” Giustino sighed again. “So many things one should know.”

“Not really! It’s quite enough to know how to pronounce their names, dear Boggiolo!” said Dora, laughing. “Don’t worry about it. If I didn’t have to protect my professional reputation, I would write a book called
The Fair
or
The Bazaar of Knowledge
. Suggest it to your wife, Boggiolo. I’m serious! I could give her all the dates and descriptions and documents. A list of those difficult names . . . then a little art history. Any little digest will do . . . some Hellenism, or rather, pre-Hellenism, Mycenaean art, and so forth. A little Nietzsche, a little Bergson, a few lectures, and get accustomed to taking tea, dear Boggiolo. You don’t take it and that is a mistake. Taking tea for the first
time makes one begin to understand many things! Do you want to try?”

“But I’ve already taken tea,” said Giustino.

“And you still didn’t understand?”

“I prefer coffee.”

“Darling! Anyway, don’t say that! Tea, tea, you must get used to tea, Boggiolo! You will come in white tie and tails tomorrow evening to the Marchesa’s. Men in tails, women … no, some even come without
décolleté
. ”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you,” said Giustino. “Because Silvia …”

“Naturally!” interrupted Dora, laughing loudly. “She needn’t come
décolleté
in her condition; that goes without saying. Is that clear?”

When Giustino Boggiolo left Dora Barmis’s house shortly after, his head was whirling like a windmill.

For a while now, when around the different literary personalities, he had observed and studied how they managed to make a certain impression: their pose of greatness. But it all seemed totally without substance. The fickleness of fame worried him. It looked to him like one of those suspended silvery plumes on a thistle that the slightest breeze carries off. Fashion could, from one moment to another, send Silvia’s name to the seven heavens or throw it to earth, lost in a dark corner.

He suspected that Dora Barmis had been making fun of him, but that didn’t keep him from admiring the woman’s exuberant spirit. Ah, how much easier his job would be if Silvia had a little of that spirit, those ways, that self-control. He had lacked it himself up to now! He realized that, and he recognized Signora Barmis almost had a right to mock him. That didn’t matter. It had been a lesson, after all. He had to accept instruction and direction, even at the cost of suffering some small humiliations in the beginning. He had his eye on his goal.

And as though gathering the fruit of those first instructions, he returned home that evening with three new books for his wife to read:

1. a brief illustrated compendium of art history;

2. a French book about Nietzsche;

3. an Italian book about Richard Wagner.

3
MISTRESS RONCELLA: TWO ACCOUCHEMENTS

The young maid from Abruzzi, who always laughed when she saw that
bersagliere
hat on Signor Ippolito’s head, entered the study to announce the arrival of a foreign gentleman who wished to speak with Signor Giustino.

“At the office!”

“If the signora could receive him, he says.”

“Horse feathers, you know the signora is ...” He described with his hands how she was, then added: “Let him come in. He can talk to me.”

The maid went out as she had entered, laughing. Signor Ippolito mumbled to himself, rubbing his hands together: “I’ll take care of him myself.”

A moment later there entered a very blond gentleman with a pink face like a plump child and cheerful, expressive blue eyes.

Ippolito Onorio Roncella made an elaborate pretense of removing his hat.

“Please, sit down. Here, here, in the armchair. May I keep my hat on? I might catch cold.”

Ippolito took the card that the gentleman, with a mixture of uncertainty and bewilderment, handed him and read:
C. NATHAN CROWELL
.

“English?”

“No, sir, American,” answered Crowell, almost carving the syllables as he pronounced them. “Correspondent for the American journal
The Nation
, New York. Signor Bòggiolo . . .”

“Excuse me, it’s Boggiolo.”

“Ah! Boggiolo, thank you. Signor–Boggiolo–granted–interview–about – new–great–work–great–Italian–writer–Silvia–Roncella,” Crowell stammered in Italian.

“For this morning?” asked Signor Ippolito, hands outstretched. (Oh, how irritating that foreigner’s telegraphic style and difficult pronunciation were!)

Mr. Crowell stood up and took a small notebook from his pocket, showing him a page with the penciled note:
Mr. Boggiolo, Thursday
, 23
(morning)
.

“Very good. I don’t understand, but go ahead,” Signor Ippolito said. “Have a seat. My
nipote
, as you see, is not here.”

“Ni-pote?”

“Yes, sir. Giustino Boggiolo, my
ni-po-te . . . Nipote
, understand? That would be . . .
nepos
in Latin;
neveu
in French. I don’t know what it is in English … do you understand Italian?”

“
Sì, poco
,“ Mr. Crowell replied, more bewildered and uncertain than ever.

“That’s good,” continued Signor Ippolito. “But in the meantime,
nipote
, eh? Actually I don’t understand him either. Never mind. Look, there’s been a hitch.”

Signor Crowell squirmed a little in his chair, as if hurt by certain words he didn’t think he deserved.

“I’ll explain,” Signor Ippolito said, squirming a bit also. “Giustino has gone to the office …
uffi-uf-fi-cio
, to the
ufficio
, yes, sir, the Notary Public Office. He’s gone to ask permission–again! and he’ll lose his job, I keep telling him!–permission to take leave because we had a fine consolation yesterday.”

At this pronouncement Mr. Crowell was perplexed at first, and then suddenly he had a gleeful reaction as the light finally dawned.

“
Conciolescione?”
he repeated with his eyes full of tears. “Really, a
conciolescione?
”

This time it was Signor Ippolito who was caught off guard.

“No, no!” he said irritably. “What do you think I said? We received a
telegram from Cargiore announcing that Signora Velia Boggiolo, that would be Giustino’s mother, is arriving today. It’s nothing to celebrate because she’s coming to help Silvia, my niece, who finally … we’re almost at the end. In a few days a boy or a girl. And let’s hope it’s a boy because if it’s a girl, she’ll start writing, God help us, my dear sir! Did you understand?”

“I’ll bet he didn’t understand a damn thing!” he grumbled to himself, looking at him.

Mr. Crowell smiled.

Then Signor Ippolito smiled back at Mr. Crowell. And so, both smiling, they looked at each other for a while. What a fine thing, eh? Oh, to be sure . . .

Now the conversation had to start over from the beginning.

“It seems to me that your Italian is sort of . . . sketchy, that’s it,” Signor Ippolito said in a friendly manner. “
Scusi, part … par-to-ri-re ..
.“

“Oh,
sì, partorire, benissimo
,“ Crowell affirmed.

“May God be praised!” exclaimed Roncella. “Now, my niece .. .”

“A great work? A play?”

“No, sir. A child. A flesh and blood child. Ugh, how difficult it is for you to understand certain things! I’m trying to be polite. The play is about to be born. The rehearsals started yesterday at the theater. Maybe the two will be born at the same time, play and child. Two parts . . . that is, parts, plural of part . . . and parts in the sense of . . . of . . . parturitions. Understand?”

Mr. Crowell became very serious, sat up straight, turned pale, and said: “
Molto interessante
.”

And taking another notebook from his pocket, Mr. Crowell hurriedly wrote:
Mrs. Roncella two accouchements
.

“But believe me, this is nothing.” Ippolito Onorio Roncella continued, relieved and happy, “There’s something else! Do you think my niece Silvia deserves so much attention? I don’t say she doesn’t. She might be a great writer. But there’s someone much greater in this house than she, and one who deserves to be taken much more seriously by the international press.”

“Really? Here? In this house?” Mr. Crowell asked, his eyes open wide.

“Yes, sir,” answered Signor Roncella. “Not me, of course! Her husband, Silvia’s husband.”

“Mister Boggiolo?”

“If you want to call him Boggiolo, go ahead, but I’ve told you his name is Boggiolo. Immeasurably greater. Look, Silvia herself, my niece, realizes that she would be nothing, or very little, without him.”

“
Molto interessante
,“ Mr. Crowell repeated with the same air as before, but turning a little paler.

Ippolito Onorio Roncella: “Yes, sir. If you wanted me to, I could talk about him until tomorrow morning. And you would thank me.”

“Well, yes, many thanks, Signore,” Mr. Crowell said, rising and bowing several times.

“No, I was saying,” Signor Ippolito continued, “–sit down, for heaven’s sake! You would thank me, as I was saying, because your … what do you call it? interview, yes, interview … your interview would turn out much more . . . more . . . tasty, shall we say, than if you just write about Silvia’s play. I can’t give you much help because literature is not my business, and I’ve never read a line of my niece’s work. Out of principle, you know? And to keep a certain healthy balance in the family. My nephew reads a good deal! And he reads only her work. … By the way, is it true that writers are paid by the word in America?”

Mr. Crowell hastened to assent, and he added that every word of the best-known writers was usually paid as much as one lira, even two, and as much as two lire and fifty centesimi, in American currency.

“
Gesù! Gesù!”
exclaimed Signor Ippolito. “Suppose I write oh!,’ for example. I get two lire and fifty? Now the Americans must never write
quasi
or
già:
they must always write
quasi quasi
or
già già. . .
. Now I understand why that poor boy . . . Ah, it must be agony for him to count all the words his wife scrawls for him and think how much they would earn in America. That’s why he keeps saying Italy is a country of ragamuffins and illiterates…. My dear sir, words are much cheaper
here in Italy. In fact, you could say that words are the only thing that is cheap. That’s why we don’t do much but talk.”

Who knows where Signor Ippolito might have taken this discussion that morning if Giustino Boggiolo hadn’t suddenly turned up to save the innocent victim from his clutches.

Giustino couldn’t breathe: face burning and stinging with perspiration, he turned a ferocious eye on the uncle and then, in broken English, asked Mr. Crowell to excuse his tardiness and begged him please to postpone the interview until that evening, because now he was in a great hurry. He had to go to the station to get his mother, then go to the Valle Theater for the play rehearsal, then . . .

“But I was just helping out!” Signor Ippolito said to him.

“You could at least do me the kindness of not interfering in this business,” Giustino couldn’t keep from saying. “Pardon me, but it seems you do it on purpose.”

He turned again to the American and asked him to wait a moment. He wanted to see how his wife was and then they could leave together.

“He’ll lose his job, he’ll lose his job, as true as God’s word,” Signor Ippolito repeated, happily rubbing his hands together as soon as Giustino left the room. “He lost his head and now he’ll lose his job.”

Mr. Crowell smiled at him.

At the office Giustino really had quarreled with his boss, who hadn’t wanted to excuse his absence that morning, since he had received permission not to return to the office in the afternoon several days in a row so he could attend rehearsals.

“Too much,” his boss had told him, “too much, my dear Roncello!”

“
Roncello?”
Giustino had exclaimed.

He was unaware that all his colleagues called him that almost automatically now.

“Boggiolo, of course … excuse me, Boggiolo,” the head of the office had immediately corrected himself. “I addressed you by the name of your distinguished wife. Anyway, it seems natural.”

“Why?”

“Don’t take it badly, but let me talk to you like a father. It seems you
do everything, Boggiolo, for … yes, you put your wife’s interests first. You could be a good employee, diligent, intelligent . . . but must I say it? You do too . . . too much for your wife.”

“My wife is Silvia Roncella,” Giustino murmured.

And the boss: “So? My wife is Donna Rosolina Caruso! That’s not a good reason for my not doing my duty here. This morning you can go. But think over what I’ve told you.”

Leaving Mr. Crowell at the foot of the stairs, Giustino Boggiolo, very annoyed by all the small and vulgar vexations on the eve of the great battle, almost ran to the station. But even so he held a book open before his eyes–his English grammar.

Once he had climbed up the hill past the church of Santa Susanna, he put the book under his arm, looked at his watch, took a lira from his vest pocket and put it in a wallet he kept in the back pocket of his trousers. Then he took out a notebook and wrote in pencil:
Carriage to station
. . .
L
.
1,00
.

He had earned it. In five minutes he would reach the station in time for the train from Turin. True, he was a little overheated and out of breath, but . . . a lira is a lira.

If anyone were silly enough to accuse him of stinginess, he would let him leaf through his notebook, where there was clear proof not only of his splendid intentions, but also of his generosity of feeling and nobility of thought, of the breadth of his vision, as well as his (deplorable) inclination to spend.

In fact, he jotted down in that notebook all the money he would have spent if he were not so judicious. Those figures represented daily inner struggles with himself, painful cavils, endless indecisions, and the most astute calculations of opportunities: public subscriptions, benefits for local and national calamities in which, with the most ingenious subterfuges and without casting a bad light on himself, he had
not
participated. Elegant little hats for his wife for thirty-five, forty lire each that he had not bought. Theater tickets for twenty lire for extraordinary performances that he had
not
attended. And then … how many daily expenses were written there as proof of his good intentions!
Hadn’t he seen, for example, on his way to and from the office a poor blind man who truly inspired his pity? He, before anyone else passing by, would be moved to pity. He would stop at a distance to consider the unfortunate man’s poverty and say to himself: “Who wouldn’t give him two
soldini?
”

Often he would actually take them out of the wallet in his waistcoat and be just about to go over and give them to him when first one thought and then another, and then so many distressing thoughts all together, made him raise his eyebrows, take a deep breath, lower his hand, and slowly put the coins in the wallet in his trouser pocket. Then, with a sigh, he would write in his notebook:
Alms, o lire
,
10 centesimi
. Because a kind heart is one thing, money another. A kind heart is tyrannical, money more so. Then, too, it is more painful not to give than to give when one cannot afford it.

Yes, yes, his family was beginning to grow, alas, and who bore the burden of it? Well, then, rather than having satisfaction on that day, he had had a kindly desire, a generous intention. As an honorable gentleman he could not allow himself to give in to the impulse to aid human misery.